You’re confused! You’re bringing war, not stopping it.
I’m confused? You’re helping a bunch of savages. The Karvaks are closer to Qiangguo’s civilization than these butchers.
This land chose me. I will fight for it.
The land? In her mind’s eye she saw him kick dirt onto the dark metal of the chain. Upon that link she saw a rune resembling a flag on a pole, or an axe. What chose you is an artifact of humankind, drawing on the power of dragons. Same as what chose me. It’s no different, really, from some lord investing you with authority. You can be grateful, certainly. But the authority is yours, Joy. Take the power, and make it your own. You didn’t ask for it. You have the right.
Something in what he said stirred her. But she thought of Malin’s determination and Inga’s rage. She could never dismiss her friends as “savages.” Come tell me all that to my face, Innocence. Then I’ll think about it.
She willed him gone.
It was only after her vision ended that she realized the rune he’d stood before was wunjo, which could mean “joy.”
Soon the invaders covered the nearer plains, and Joy could believe there were ten thousand. The front ranks were near enough that the wails of the captives reached the heights. They were being prodded toward the walls.
Her companions joined her. Flint gripped the turret stones. “I’ve heard of this. The captives provide cover. But also, they can be used to breach defenses.”
“What?” Inga said. “How?”
Flint’s voice was cold and steady. “They will be crushed against the walls to form a hill of flesh.”
“No,” Inga said.
“It won’t be allowed to happen,” Snow Pine said.
When the captives reached the abandoned wooden district outside the walls, explosions burst up in scores of places within the buildings. Soon everything was ablaze, including many captives. Thanks to their expedient of using human shields, no Karvaks were lost.
“Walking Stick’s work,” said Flint, shutting his eyes. “He has many more surprises. Most of them grisly.”
“Are you all right?” Snow Pine asked.
“There is such suffering down there, and more to come. I wonder how I’ve spent my life. I don’t believe in the Painter of Clouds, but I’m a man of the Brush yet. I’ve sought treasure instead of performing deeds of kindness, craved adventure instead of restoring light to the world.”
“Surely that’s not all on your shoulders.”
“Some of it is. If we survive this I will use my rationality to help end human suffering.” He stroked his chin. “Meanwhile, I may have an idea how to help matters here.” He turned and looked out at the fjord, to where the vessel Anansi lay at anchor, watching, waiting.
As the stench of human burning reached Joy’s nose and made her shudder, Flint said, “I think I know a way to tip the balance.”
CHAPTER 29
SISTERHOOD
As she watched the captive Kantenings driven forward on Jewelwolf’s order, Lady Steelfox could not help recalling her younger sister as a child.
It was even before Steelfox had bonded with the falcon Qurca. Steelfox had been eight years old and Jewelwolf seven, and one afternoon their father, the Grand Khan, had summoned them forth to ride. Of course they had no difficulty doing so, having spent much of their toddlerhood in the saddle.
The Grand Khan’s personal forces had been encamped in a green region just north of the Qiangguo’s Blue Heavenwall. The local tribes hated Qiangguo and its demands of tribute, so the Karvaks had taken the country without a fight. The garrison at the wall fired arrows and catapult stones at Father’s riders now and then, and Karvak wheelships sometimes lobbed spiked wooden balls back at them. It was like boys at play, Mother would say. Father had no intention of attacking the Wall, but he wanted Qiangguo to seethe at his presence, even as his sons struck far away in Qushkent.
“If they feel threatened in their home territory,” he told his daughters that day, “they’ll worry less that we are testing the Braid of Spice like a musician plucks a tobshuur.”
“Don’t you want to claim Qiangguo?” Jewelwolf said, shaking a fist. “They are cowards, hiding behind their walls.”
Father laughed. “You believe their own stories. The Heavenwalls are not the same as the walls of a town. I do not comprehend their magics, nor do I wish to. But I understand enough: through them, herds cannot pass. They are lines drawn against the Karvaks and against all those who move at will upon the land. They mark the end of the free world and the beginning of tyranny.”
Steelfox frowned. “Then you think the Walls are an attack, not a defense.”
“You begin to see! Much in the world makes more sense when you glimpse it topsy-turvy. Come! I have more to say about this.”
Yet at first the Grand Khan seemed to forget everything concerning war and nations. Out of sight of the Walls and the encampment, they trampled over whispering green grass until they came to a stream winding its way through a stand of poplar trees.
There they began looking at clouds.
Their grave, imperious father, who had brought his clan back from the brink of destruction until it ruled the great Karvak nation, who had crushed the steppe under Karvak hooves and wheels, and who now set his sights on the whole vast world, this khan among khans now talked about wispy tigers and mastodons and steppe mice like a boy. For the moment Steelfox and Jewelwolf were no longer Karvak princesses, students of conquest, but little girls admiring billowing ponies and flying ships.
After they compared clouds in this manner for a time, the Grand Khan did something peculiar. He rose and climbed the tree. “Stay there,” he told them.
Once situated in the branches he said, “Daughters, I want you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that up is down.”
They’d giggled, for surely this was their father in a whimsical mood, such as they’d not seen him for many years.
“Daughters, I know this seems silly, but it is serious. Imagine that the world exerts an upward-pulling force upon you, and that you are looking down at the branches below you, down at the swirling clouds. Now, do you see your father? Look down upon him.”
The Great Khan waved, and his daughters, despite his earlier words, laughed again. Then it was as if they’d offended him, for he shifted into more distant branches, out of sight.
But he had not been angry. “Daughters, you cannot see me, but you are still looking down at your father. You are looking down at endless Father Sky.”
Moved by the words, they’d stared into that vast blue.
“We are taught,” said the Grand Khan, “that Father Sky looks down upon Mother Earth, and has lordship over her. I tell you that is a trick of the mind, and it is just as valid to say Mother Earth looms over Father Sky, and envelops him. This is what I learned when I fell near to death at the battle of Mudwater Lake, staring up at the endless void. Earth and Sky are co-equal. This is something you must remember. I have, so far, two daughters and four sons. Tradition would say that it’s a son who should follow me as khan. Yet I tell you in secret, each of you is worth any two of them. I do not know which of you will prove better suited to rule, but it is in my heart that one of you will succeed me.”
Steelfox did not know what Jewelwolf was thinking, but she felt the blood pulse in her body. Were these forbidden words? They could not be, for they came from the Great Khan. Yet she felt as though it was a secret to be kept from everyone but Mother Earth and Father Sky.
Father said, “Mother Earth taught me to value the strength of women for a reason. But it will take all my will to make our people understand. Even your mother, the beloved khatun, has an older view and will make trouble. But this is as it must be. If this new empire is to flourish, it will need the best guidance—one of my daughters, with the other daughter as counselor. I have faith in you. For women are better than men at putting pride aside and working with shared purpose.”
Steelfox could say nothing. But bold younger sister spoke
sure and swift, as if she’d been waiting for such words her whole life. “We are grateful for your trust, Father. Whichever of us rules, we will always be loyal to each other. We will show each other love and our enemies despair. Our strength will drown the world in blood.”
Even bursting with her father’s pride, it had unnerved Steelfox how eagerly Jewelwolf dreamed of destruction.
It was almost a relief to see the Kantening trap go off, igniting the abandoned wooden perimeter of the city and burning the captive villagers in droves. Jewelwolf would have to pull the captives back.
Yet the signal flags waved, and the villagers continued to be fed to the fire. Steelfox frowned and rode to the hilltop position of Jewelwolf and General Ironhorn.
The general knelt, and Jewelwolf nodded to Steelfox, a faint smile playing on her lips. “Yes, sister?”
“You will not recall the captives? It seems wasteful to let them burn.”
“You have a decent mind for tactics, sister, I will give you that. But you miss certain dimensions. The city-dwellers dared set a trap for us. Now they must watch as their countrymen are consumed by it. Now they must listen as men, women, and children scream in searing agony. The whole city will hear the sound. The whole city will smell the burning flesh. Terror will grow.”
“Father would not—”
Jewelwolf frowned now. “Father is not here. And you have idolized him into something he was not. He invented the tactics of the living shield and the corpse-rampart. He would approve.”
Steelfox was not so sure. Father would at least have offered Svanstad a chance to surrender, something Jewelwolf had declined to do. General Ironhorn, a careful subordinate, said nothing. “At least,” Steelfox said, “consider sending trolls to breach the walls. They’ve so far been good for little.”
At the mention of trolls, Jewelwolf’s bond-horse Aughatai snorted. Did Steelfox note a dim green gleam in the horse’s eyes? No, she must have imagined it. Jewelwolf stroked Aughatai’s mane and looked to the gray skies. “I think the light is still too great for the trolls’ comfort. Though I see a storm rolling in from the east, against the prevailing wind.”
“Kantening magic, perhaps,” Steelfox said. “My balloonists report high winds.”
“Mine as well. It’s clear they mean to give us a fight. General, we may be here some time. Send to our Spydbanen subjects that today is a good day to send their longships against the harbor. As long as Svanstad can feed its belly by sea, our task remains difficult.”
“Of course,” the general said. “I must remind you, however, there is a craft of Kpalamaa in the fjord, a ship big as a hill.”
“I know little of this Kpalamaa. But what I do know says they are timid as steppe mice. Tell the foamreavers to ignore that ship, as long as it ignores them. Meanwhile, the army’s engineers are free to cut down any tree, dismantle any building, to construct the siege engines. We desire the ability to rain death upon city and harbor.”
“As you command—” the general said, tugging on his horse’s reins.
A booming commenced from the city walls, and the three leaders turned their heads.
Fiery streaks flashed out from the walls, passing over the captives, terminating in explosions among the Karvak lines. Men and horses screamed.
“Fire-powder rockets,” Steelfox said.
“That bastard from Qiangguo,” Jewelwolf said. “Somehow this is his doing. I will kill him myself. General, pull us back. The captives too. There is no sense wasting human life.”
“You mean Karvak life,” Steelfox murmured, as the general rode to his task.
“Indeed. Sister, there is a thing I request of you, since the general is busy. Take charge of the Splintermen.”
Steelfox gazed into the Karvak back ranks, where shambled green-eyed men who should have been fed to the birds days ago. She shivered.
“I can pass the task to another,” Jewelwolf said, “if you are squeamish.”
“Nonsense. What shall these fine young men do?”
Jewelwolf smiled. “I am giving them catapult duty.”
The falcon Qurca searched the windows of the Fortress, seeking Haytham ibn Zakwan but finding him not. Steelfox, seeing through Qurca’s eyes, wanted him to know she thought of him; seeing Qurca, he would guess the rest, how his betrayal stung, how it was unbelievable to her, how there might still be room for speech.
But not if the man was not here. Had he left the city?
She then sent Qurca to find familiar faces. The bird encountered the young woman Inga, she of the one arm. Qurca landed discreetly near where Inga stood on a balcony facing the north and the Karvak fires, and heard Inga say, “Soon, we will make an end, I think. It is not what I might have wanted. Still, it is on the Swan’s wing, what will come. Good luck to you, Malin, my friend, wherever you fare!”
Elsewhere Qurca listened by an open window to the talk of voices Steelfox recognized as belonging to Snow Pine and Liron Flint.
“So you’re set on doing this thing?” the bandit-woman of Qiangguo asked.
“I am,” said the explorer. “I’ve ransacked Corinna’s library, and I’ve a good idea where the swords fell when Wiglaf Sword-Slave and Eilifur Ice-Gaze slew each other, centuries ago. They met aboard ships, in a fjord whose description matches Svanstad’s. The argument was nominally over a woman, but I think the weapons always hungered to destroy each other.”
“Don’t magical weapons always?”
“Not like this. Crypttongue was the work of the legendary King Younus, who was just possibly an ancestor of mine. It was a blade made to bind demons, jinn, efrits, that sort of thing. Wayland was envious of the long-ago king’s prowess and sought to make a matching sword, something potent against uldra and trolls. But Wayland’s envy corrupted the blade. While evil can be done with Crypttongue, Schismglass quite actively seeks to devour souls . . . and it’s every bit as happy to consume a human as anything else.”
“You’re trying to convince me to help you? I’m not completely sure it’s working.”
“Listen now! The battle, as such things so often do, consumed the men but left the weapons intact. The swords fell into the fjord. Crypttongue washed up on the continent, but sailors have seen a bright object down in the fjord for years. Anansi has a contraption by which a diver can suck air through a flexible tube connected to the ship. I will seek the cursed thing, and you too, and together we may find the Schismglass of Baelscaer, hungry for souls other than those of fish.”
“Good! I approve.”
“You surprise me, Snow Pine. May I ask why? These are not your people. We may have sympathy for them, but why are you risking your life . . . and more . . . for them? I think I know why I’m doing it. But I need to know your mind, before we brave the waters.”
“It’s for her. You know, Liron, when I was her age I seemed to have no options but to claw and kick until the world bled me a path to follow. In those days I hated my homeland, and the whole world. Yet in time, as I found my way, I came to respect my homeland and be amazed by the world. And what might I have become, Liron, if I’d had someone, anyone, to reach out to me at Joy’s age? To tell me, You are important, you matter. What might I have become? I, a woman with nothing but a bloodthirsty streak and a good sword arm?”
“Far from nothing,” Liron Flint murmured.
“Who am I to take this from Joy—that a whole country reached out to her and said, Help? Do you see what it’s doing to her? I fear it. Oh, gods, I fear it. But I also see how tall she stands. I’m just the vagabond Snow Pine, who used to be the bandit Next-One-A-Boy. But she’s the Runethane. Somebody I respect.”
He chuckled. “Well. I know how it is to respect someone. But know that this weapon is not a trivial thing. It hungers, as even Crypttongue does not.”
“Oh, it worries me, Liron. But you’ve seen what the Karvaks are capable of.”
“Yes. I have seen. . . . One way or another, this may be our last day together.”
She gave a snort. “You’re appe
aling to my sense of danger? We’ve had a barrel full of may-be-our-last-day-togethers.”
“And they didn’t sufficiently move you. So I arranged a nomad army at our doorstep and a mad quest for the morning. If that doesn’t work, there are always earthquakes and meteors.”
“Ha! Come here, you. Show me your earthquakes and meteors.”
Steelfox sent Qurca on his way, not wishing to eavesdrop further. The notion of sex had stirred her a trifle. She’d enjoyed her late husband’s embraces and had a time or two since taken lovers to bed and risked the burden of pregnancy. But desire didn’t seem to weigh upon her as it did others. She wondered if that made her strange. So be it. It made her free, too.
She eavesdropped in many places in the city, learning fascinating things, though none so much as the plans of Snow Pine and Flint. At last she bade Qurca return, passing over the ditch and the engineers’ ongoing work upon the catapults. She noted the hundreds of Splintermen, silently watching, patiently waiting for the nervous workers to finish. Patient as the dead.
“Ah, there you are,” Northwing said as Steelfox entered the ger. The one-handed shaman sat cross-legged, with eyes shut. “I am struggling with the wind, but this is a trickier business than steering one balloon. These Runewalkers aren’t as good as Karvak shamans . . . or me. But they are more familiar with the local spirits.”
“Leave that for now. I want your council.”
“Really! Someone check to see the moon hasn’t plunged into Mount Mastodon.”
“I am serious.”
“So am I. Bah. Very well, give me a moment. All right. The spirits are dismissed. Talk.”
“Northwing . . . I have misgivings about what my sister is doing. Not conquest. That is our way. But mad conquest, far from our heartland. Employing diseased allies and evil magic . . .”
“You have misgivings because you are sane. Well, basically sane. There are times—”
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