by Jaime Castle
Being alone wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. It was the way he’d felt since Liam grew too ill to give sensible orders and the way he was damned to continue onward. Everyone he’d ever trusted seemed to be losing their minds; from Liam to Oleander, and now good Sir Uriah Davies—one of the finest King’s Shieldsman he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing. The man who’d taught him the art of swordsmanship might as well be dead. He let Torsten leave with enough food to reach the Webbed Woods, but every time he bit into the stale bread he felt a deep chasm growing in his belly.
He couldn’t remember how many times he’d knelt beside the man under the gilded Eye of Iam in Yarrington Cathedral, how many battles he’d marched to at his side in the name of the Glass Kingdom. Now Uriah was worshipping fairy tales in the cult-dens of fallen gods.
“Iam,” Torsten whispered toward the moon one night, “if this is a test, I do not understand.”
He sat at the edge of a small bear cave, arms wrapped around his torso to stay warm. He didn’t want to risk a fire again and had forgotten to ask for a blanket when he’d left the cultist’s compound. The night air bit at his cheeks, growing colder every hour. Soon the bears would be returning to their hollows for slumber, but until then, he had cover from the wind.
He reached beneath his undershirt and grabbed his necklace—an eye of Iam made of blown glass. He could still remember the day Liam had given it to him. It rained the day Torsten was sworn into the King’s Shield. Liam told him Iam was weeping with joy.
Torsten closed his eyes and squeezed. “Since the day I felt your light upon me, never have you led me astray. You saw fit to take Liam from this plane and I did not question your wisdom. But these last few years… what have I missed, my Lord? What sins have I committed to earn this heartbreak? Send me a sign, oh, Vigilant Eye, that I still number among your champions.”
Torsten released the amulet and opened his eyes. Silence reigned but for the rattling of bare branches silhouetted against the night sky. Almost the last of the leaves had fallen, and Torsten noted Pantego’s moons. Clora was full and orange like an orb of flame, but Loutis, the gray, lifeless, rock was crested on its side as if, together, they were the eyes of a winking giant.
Their proximity to Iam’s Star—always pointing north, the brightest in the sky—meant it was winter’s first day. A rough time to be stuck in the wilderness. That helped explain the quiet. Tinkers and traders who might normally travel the roads were hunkered down until spring. Farming villages, like Oxgate, were stagnant, their peoples cuddled for warmth, hoping theirs wouldn’t be the next target of Black Sands, or worse.
Torsten couldn’t help but feel like the sight was fitting for his straining kingdom. The branches, like the hands of a bony army, wagged their fingers, taunting him.
He shook the thought away.
“Give me a sign,” he whispered. A gust of wind tore through the cavern and sent a shiver. He tucked his arms tighter around his torso. “Let me feel your light.”
Just then he heard an outlandish snort—wet, almost like a sneeze. He raised his hand to the handle of his claymore, then crawled forward to poke his head out of the cavern. If it was a bear returning home, his night’s rest would come to a swift end. It wouldn’t chase him far from its winter home and he hadn’t the stomach to fight any more hulking beasts.
He brushed aside a bit of shrubbery, and that was when he saw it: unnatural, soft, green light glowed like a beacon drawing nearer. He’d fought in enough skirmishes against the Black Sands to know what it was.
A long pole rose up. On its end, a lantern made of glass and bone housed sloshing water and a luminescent creature. The nigh’jels dotted the surface of the Boiling Waters, the sea south of Latiapur, the Shesaitju capital city. They were like any other jellyfish by day, but at night their tentacles glowed as green as emerald, oscillating along their wiry tentacles.
Torsten drew his head back into the shadows of the cave just as a set of hooves pounded by and a wet spray of mucus arched from the gargantuan snout of a zhulong, narrowly avoiding contact with him.
The zhulong wasn’t alone. Upon its back sat a man with ash-gray skin, clothed in boiled leather armor and wrapped in layers of ratty cloth for warmth. Neither the zhulong nor the Shesaitju warrior had spotted him. The green light from the nigh’jel lantern cast a sickly shadow that Torsten thought fitting.
Black Sands, here?
By now, he was on the western fork of Southern Pantego—a wild place with little but sparsely occupied villages, and further south: the Webbed Woods. Across the bay, the Shesaitju made their home on Pantego’s eastern fork. There was nothing over here for them. Attacking Oxgate and Troborough and other towns nearer to Yarrington made strategic sense, but the capital wouldn’t even likely hear of a raid in the inhospitable region in the shadow of the Webbed Woods.
He crept out further, staying low.
The zhulong stopped at the crest of a nearby hill, and Torsten froze. He loosened his claymore from the scabbard strapped to his back. Then, a second mounted beast arrived from the other side of the hill. The glow of two nigh’jels coalesced and danced against the darkness as the men exchanged words in old Saitjuese.
He could only hear every few words between the wind and other night sounds and understood even less. With every conquest, Liam made sure to impose the language of Iam. “Understanding your potential enemies,” he would say, “is the key to any victory.”
What would he think of me now?
Torsten didn’t have time to dwell on the thought. The two men clasped arms, then took off in opposite directions, one toward him and one away. Torsten stayed quiet until both nigh’jels were at a safe distance, then hurried up the hill.
The grass was wet with slobber. Claw tracks ran down the slope, vanishing into darkness and muck. One rider’s nigh’jel faded like the stars at dawn just at the edge of the vast, wetness of Fellwater Swamp which bordered the Webbed Woods. It was a foul place, so Torsten had heard. He’d never been there himself, never had any reason to go so far south, so far from real civilization. But so many of his men—good men—would have had to pass through the muck as they followed his orders to ravage the Webbed Woods.
The rank stench of stagnant water assailed his nostrils. In the daytime, insects would be nipping at his neck, refusing to surrender to winter’s chill. There was nothing else in this fetid place, no reason at all for the Shesaitju to be there.
Torsten was exhausted but rest could wait. His bag of food secured, he set off after the zhulong and its Shesaitju master. At the base of the hill, its tracks disappeared in mud and mire. He didn’t need them. The still-visible, gentle, green glow of the nigh’jel lantern was enough.
He started to jog. Eventually, the zhulong would outpace him, but swamps slowed beasts and men without favor. He kept his steps choppy so his boots wouldn’t sink in too deep, and made sure to breathe through his mouth.
With all that had befallen the Kingdom, Torsten knew he had to find out what this Black Sand’s scout was doing so far from home. The Shesaitju were once a militant people. They worshipped battle, ascending through victory, and respecting those who claimed it. Their battles with King Liam had been fiercer than any other, but when he brought them to their knees they respected him for it.
Respected him, not his Queen.
Liam’s body wasn’t even cold before the bastard Caleef Sidar Rakun set his forces out to raze more than half a dozen defenseless villages to the ground. Villages filled with men, women, and children. Torsten was exiled before he had a chance to learn how many had died, or how many others were displaced, forced to find refuge in places already too populated and underfed.
The glory of the Glass was at stake.
A cold fog swept through as the moons reached their peak, moistening his skin, even beneath his armor. The nigh’jel he’d been following was lost, so all he could do was hope he remained headed in the proper direction.
Eventually, he grew accustomed to the stench, same as his young
er self had with the smell of waste buckets when he lived among the shanties at the Yarrington docks. The cold air made his throat sore and his ears feel like they could be snapped in two like a fresh carrot.
He found himself wondering where Whitney had run off to. He hated himself for it but wondered nonetheless. He imagined the thief was sitting by a warm hearth, enjoying a nice meal, bragging about all the impossible feats he’d likely never accomplished. That’s what cowards do when the world crumbles around them. He probably wasn’t even a real thief. Just talked his way out of a cell while Torsten was desperate.
Torsten was busy cursing himself for being so foolish when one of his feet sunk knee-deep into mud.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he grumbled, the thick sludge working its way into the crevasse in his armor where the greaves met the kneecap. He looked up, but the fog was so thick now, even the moons hid behind it.
He grabbed hold of his leg and tugged. Nothing. He repositioned himself, bent at the waist, and pulled with all his strength. The ground gave out under his limb. A mound of mud collapsed and sent him sliding into a pool of stagnant water as thick as molasses.
“What was that?” someone said in Saitjuese—words Torsten was barely able to translate.
He slowly lifted his head from the mud. Two nigh’jel lanterns hovered nearby, the only things visible in the smog. Their wielders sloshed toward him.
Torsten remained still, feeling wet mud rippling around him as they neared, so covered in muck he may as well have been a log. He waited until he could see the shadow of a leg. He grabbed it and swept the man off his feet. A quick elbow to the head knocked the man unconscious. Torsten let out a roar as he rolled over the body and tackled the other one.
A long fauchard thrust at him from the second Shesaitju warrior. He sidestepped, catching it between his arm and hip before twisting to wrench it free. Torsten grabbed the man by the throat as he fumbled for balance, forcing him to his knees. He snagged the lantern and held it between them.
“What are you doing here?” Torsten asked through gritted teeth.
The ash-skinned warrior gargled for air. Torsten loosened his grip as the man grated something in Saitjuese.
“Speak common, knave,” Torsten said. “You’re far from home. Scouting out more villages to slaughter?”
The Shesaitju warrior regarded him, eyes as gray as his flesh. His thin, painted lips creased into a grin. “Afhem Muskigo has surprise for you, Glassman.”
“That wasn’t an answer,” Torsten barked, tightening his grip again. “Tell me why you are here, or I will squash you like an ant.”
“The time of Glass is over. Like tides from Boiling Waters, this will not stop.”
The man drew a curved dagger from his boot and sliced at Torsten. He pulled back just in time, the blade drawing a thin line of blood on the side of his neck. Not deep enough to be fatal. Torsten got his two massive hands around the man’s head. The Black Sandsman thrashed and flailed, slopping mud everywhere. Torsten wrenched his hands to the side. A sickening snapping sound brought silence as the body crumpled into a heap at his feet.
He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to killing, but he knew better than most how stubborn the Shesaitju were. Warriors until the bitter end. They bowed to Liam in their defeat out of respect, but many of their afhems didn’t support the decisions. They left their lands with their loyalist followers to become swords for hire.
Are these mercenaries working for Redstar?
He couldn’t imagine another reason they’d be out here but for gold.
Or did the Queen… he didn’t finish the thought. He wouldn’t put it past her, seeing an opportunity for more men to feed her obsession, hiring the very people who’d just caused so much unrest.
Torsten knelt beside the other warrior, still unconscious. It might be morning by the time he woke. Torsten seized their weapons, tossing them across the swamp, then picked up a lantern again.
He trudged forward, staying as low as possible. The one benefit of being in the muddy waters was there were no fallen leaves for his boots to crunch. Although the fog was thinning with every step, it was still difficult to make out his surroundings. He was moving downhill and the sound of water lapping at the coast greeted his ears.
It wasn’t long before another set of sounds came. Voices and splashing, the sounds of a forge—hammers on anvils. He slowed his pace and ditched the lantern. Then, finally, his altitude lowered enough for the fog to break completely. He’d expected to see a small encampment fit for a mercenary crew, but what he found stole the breath from his lungs.
Boiling Waters met the coast, and in the soggy delta was an army in waiting. Nigh’jels illuminated their camp as if it were morning but in that sickly, shimmering green. Black Sands ships were moored throughout the delta, sails sweeping over their bows like the tail feathers of the great gallers. Zhulong filled a series of stables, snorting and rolling gleefully in the muck. Tents numbered in the hundreds, and lanterns hung from warrior’s hips weaved between them—fireflies at dusk. Thousands of them.
“By Iam,” Torsten whispered.
Another sight drew his attention: men of the Glass Kingdom draped in rags, weary and carrying supplies from the ships. They carried lumber and iron to forge siege weapons, spears and bows. Black Sandsman snapped whips at their backs while they worked. It appeared not all those caught in the Shesaitju raids were sent to rest at Iam’s bosom.
Suddenly, it made sense how the Shesaitju could have attacked so quickly after Liam’s passing without anybody spotting them on the move. They’d come from this dank, awful place where no sane soul would ever search.
How had Caleef Rakun amassed such a force without anyone finding out? But Torsten knew. He was distracted by Liam’s last days and the Queen possessed by the thought of Redstar, her troubled son and the doll. Meanwhile, Rakun sent his forces to pillage and raid, burn and raze. Not just small parties like biting insects meant to annoy and stir unrest, but from the ranks of an army meant to bring the Glass Kingdom to its knees.
For it was the largest Torsten had seen in a decade. An army meant for war.
XXVII
The Thief
“WHAT DO I DO? What do I do?” Whitney said to an unconscious Sora once he got her back into the priest’s cottage.
He thought back to every experience he’d had with sickness or disease but nothing helped. Throughout his life, those things usually led to the death of those affected. Healings were rare and, even with Wetzel’s medicine, people rarely made miraculous recoveries.
There was no Wetzel to go to here. And even if there were, no one could find out what she’d done. As far as everyone in Bridleton was concerned, the new father performed his first miracle. The only thing worse than a knife-ear around these parts was a knife-ear practitioner of cursed and forbidden arts.
He paced the room, occasionally glancing out the window. All the sick and injured in Bridleton were gathering for a visit with their new ‘miracle father’. The newly-whole rancher and his son stood out front making sure no one got too close.
“Step aside!” one man shouted at him. “You got your healing; my daughter needs hers!”
“Don’t be so selfish!” cried another.
Finally, Whitney had enough. He threw open the door, narrowly avoiding hitting the rancher’s son with it.
“Enough!” Whitney bellowed. “The work of Iam is taxing and I need to rest. Go home!”
Murmurs erupted throughout the crowd.
“Please, Father,” said an old lady as she stepped forward. She hunched over, using a cane to steady herself. Her skin seemed like it was made of century-old parchment found in the trash. “We need a blessing from Iam.”
Whitney slammed the door and sunk back against it all the way to the floor.
“You heard the father,” the rancher said through the door. “Time to go home.”
The murmurs turned sour, and Whitney feared the rancher would be in further need of Sora’s healing if th
ings escalated. A glance at Sora lying on the bed told him he’d be out of luck. She was breathing, but still unconscious.
He sighed in frustration. They didn’t have much time before Bridleton’s real new father would arrive. Whitney hoped Sora would be recovered by then, but it was impossible to know.
So much for working with a partner. It’ll be the end of me.
Two townsfolk exchanged heated words outside, a fistfight inevitable. Bridleton seemed happy, but like any small, meaningless place toiling under the boot of a despot like Constable Darkings, they were a powder-keg waiting to blow.
Whitney picked himself up off the floor, then moved to Sora’s side. The bed’s dressings were soaked with sweat. She’d stopped convulsing and it looked like a bit of color was returning to her cheeks.
“Come on Sora,” he whispered. “Hurry up.”
He fixed her pillow, then strode back to the front door. Sunlight beat against his face and the crowd hushed as the door opened again. The rancher and another man had their hands on each other’s collars and were ready to exchange blows, but stopped at the sight of him.
Whitney knew he needed to stall them while Sora was recovering. If the town burned itself to the ground, she’d be caught in it.
“Your name again?” Whitney asked the rancher.
“Pherry.”
“Bring them next door to the chapel, Pherry, and I’ll convene with them momentarily.”
The door shut again. Whitney made sure Sora was properly tucked in and comfortable, then made sure he looked pious enough before exiting the cottage through the back door, which led directly into the chapel’s altar.
By Glass Kingdom standards, the church was quaint. But compared to any other building in the town, save for the constable’s mansion, it was a palace. The vaulted ceiling was framed with a thick wood structure and cross beams and painted with scenes from scripture. Iam’s gift of sunlight to humanity which thrust them out of darkness, his molding of the first human, and, of course, the God Feud—that terrible war of legend where Iam had to watch as his brethren slaughtered each other out of selfishness, and was left alone with Pantego after banishing the One Who Remained.