by K. Johansen
“You think I’ll surrender Lakkariss to your hand while you hold him bound? We were kin, once. Allies. One fellowship.”
“You never trusted me.”
“No,” she agreed, because that was true. “I did not. But you never swore any oaths to follow me, either.”
“You never asked it.”
“Would you have so sworn?”
“No. Not to you, Vartu.”
“So. You would not have sworn falsely? And so I never asked. I didn’t seek an oath you couldn’t keep. But this—this does not run against your nature. I ask nothing you cannot give. Not submission, not loyalty. Only that we deal faithfully with one another in this one thing, from which we both gain, and give up nothing of ourselves. In that, I would trust you, as I hope you would trust me.”
“Let me see the sword.”
“It’s dangerous. It’s hungry. It’s long since it’s fed.”
“Let me see it, Vartu.”
Moth, holding the scabbard in her left hand, drew the blade halfway. The moon had cleared the cloud. Silver edged the blade. Frost. Moonlight caught the silver tracery.
Sien-Shava almost held his breath. She felt how he tightened his hold on the demon’s life. Felt how Lakkariss reached, hungered…
She rammed the blade home again.
“You don’t think I could forge a substitute.”
“No,” he said. “I do not.”
“Were I you, I would not draw it except in direst need. It is a hungry thing, as I said, and not overly particular whom it takes. To wield it is not to escape its attention.”
“So you say.”
“To tell the truth, it would be a burden gone, not to have it ever whispering at my back.”
“I remember Vartu. I remember how you led us to this place, and why. What happened to your resolve?”
She only shook her head.
“Ulfhild,” he said, and each syllable spat disdain. “Human. Mortal. Woman. No wizard, no warrior—only a whelper of children, after all. She has unmade you, Vartu.”
Moth stood in silence, head bowed. “Maybe,” she said at last.
He laughed.
“You have your bargain—Ulfhild. Give into my hand that blade you have made from the stuff of the cold hells for the murdering of our kin, and you may take your beast and go free, unharmed, over the river and out of my lands.”
Deep breath. She held it out, slowly, reluctant, at the end, across her hands. Fingers still closed around the scabbard and the grip. Jochiz crossed to her. Not a tall man, half a head shorter than she. His curling near-black hair was worn long, dressed in ringlets, now, beneath a cap of gold brocade, and his beard was similarly dressed. Not the Westron look of the men about him, bare-headed, short-haired, clean-shaven. He assumed the air, the authority of an ancient Tiypurian prince or magistrate, a statue such as their lords had treasured in their impoverished halls in the days when the kings of the north first began to trade with them. His eyes were golden brown; the fires within roiled close to the surface. She let the physical world fade. Fire met fire. They were light and fluid light, and the sword between them, like lightning frozen in the world. He closed his hands over it, hand touching hand. She could feel his mortal warmth. A shiver up the spine that was purely animal.
“Let Mikki go,” she said. “You have my word. I have yours. But Jochiz, as we once were kin, be very wary of drawing that sword. There is no mercy in it.”
The chains binding Mikki were wrapped into Sien-Shava’s own heart. Iron. Fire. Death.
One of them had first to trust. She would trust Jochiz no further than his own advantage led him, and Sien-Shava not at all.
A breath from disaster. He might kill now, wrest the sword from her, or try to. And they would die, and every living thing about, because she would unleash all that she had in her to destroy him—
Chains shattered. Threads of light, of fiery soul, unravelled. Contempt, maybe, he as prepared as she to unloose a wrath to destroy this land they stood on. But his grip on the scabbard tightened, bone clothed in fire, and Mikki’s howl of agony wrenched her unthinking away, releasing the sword, heedless.
“Take him,” Jochiz said. “And get out of here.”
She was already gone, spun away to the wagon, and the red-armoured warrior-priest who flung himself in her way was already dead, falling, fool, when she had been called a devil before them all. Struck aside with the back of her hand. She had not drawn Kepra. She did, now, and it burned in the air with her fury as she struck the bars of the cage. Iron shattered as icicles from the eaves when a child hurls snowballs against them. Mikki was twisting, crying out, an animal sound high and senseless, claws tearing at the floorboards. His eyes were white, jaws snapping. The iron collar crackled, sparking like a cat’s fur in winter, but the chains were broken.
“Leave her!” Jochiz roared. “I have disarmed her. She does my bidding now, and goes in fear of the messenger of the Old Great Gods. Leave her to do as she will with the demon. It was the price of her surrender. Pity even such a monster, to be a devil’s slave.”
Mikki!
She went through the gaps she had torn, dropping her sword. Down behind him on her knees, where his flailing could not strike, arms around the massive neck. Not so massive as it should be. All bone and loose skin. Fur came away in her hands. He stank.
Mikki! she called, but he was blind and deaf and his mind a roiling sea of pain.
“Mikki…” Whispered, leaning over him. Holding tight, holding fast, never to let go.
And he was still, and human in her arms, lying head and shoulders on her lap, encircled, arms and body, sheltered, gripped tight. Still a giant, seven feet, or near it. Naked, filthy, scabbed and brutally scarred— those were the bites of wolves or dogs, the lashes, too, of a whip, and he tried to coil himself up, but he was not struggling against her. She let go one hand’s grip on his arm, seized the collar. The last remnant of the spells in it seared. Devilry and wizard’s working fused into one foulness. There was ice in her grip. The iron shattered. She picked it off him, threw it away, shard by shard. And he caught her arm and clutched it to him.
He shivered, but he was fever-hot.
Night, she had wanted, because she had not known in what condition she might find him, and human, at least, she might support him away, if he were wounded. She had not expected this, even from Sien-Shava. Why, she did not know, but that his cruelty had always been a subtle thing, in the past. This was just…humanly vile, as only the mad, and the godless mad at that, might dare to be. Gaunt as a bear after its winter fast, worse, and no fur to hide it.
His ragged nails dug into her arm.
“We need to get out of here, cub,” she said softly. “Think you can stand?”
No answer at all, but tightening of his grip again. Then a shifting of weight. He rolled over onto his knees, still curled up, head in her lap still, but turned the other way. Moth ran a hand over his back, spine a chain of knobs, ribs harsh. Old Great Gods stand witness, she would kill Jochiz and take pleasure in doing so.
Later.
“Up, cub. Before he changes his mind.”
Sien-Shava had gone, he and his disciples, or whatever he might call them, and his soldiers too. Had he given orders, or did he hold some leash on their souls, to tug them after him? Not her worry, just now. Best to be gone before any returned. Maybe she merely hadn’t heard when he spoke.
“Come now. Hold on to me.”
Moth got to one knee, pulling Mikki up that far, leaning on her, head bowed on her shoulder. Held him there a moment and his hand came wandering, faltering, to touch her face.
“Up now, all right?”
She stood, and he—almost climbed her, groping his way. Swaying, leaning his weight, which was still not inconsiderable, the great bones of him, hands braced on her shoulders. Found her eyes at last. His were black, and they slid away almost at once, as from a stranger’s gaze.
“Shh,” she said, though he had made no sound at all, and did not s
peak in the mind’s silence, either. Noise one might make to comfort a nightmare-woken child. “I’m here. Safe now. We’re going to walk out of here.”
Almost he fell, when she stooped to catch up Keeper and sheathed it. She wanted both hands free. Got an arm around his waist, and on his own he fumbled an arm over her shoulders. Not witless, though his silence began to frighten her.
“Come,” she said. “Step, and again.”
He was unsteady, walking upright. Weak. Shivering, still. No warmth in her feather cloak.
“Careful. The edges are sharp.”
Ducking, twisting through the shattered bars of the cage. “And down, let me go first to steady you.”
He fell more than jumped, and she was braced to catch him or they would both have gone over.
Straightest line through the camp, the main street north. Eyes watched from whatever safety they thought a tent would give. Mikki began to fall, weight sliding, dragging on her. She let him down.
Just wait a moment. I’ll be right back. No answer but he didn’t clutch after her. She wished for Storm, faithful dead horse. He might have carried Mikki’s weight without complaint, wasted as he was. She could, if she must, carry him outright. Awkward burden, bigger than she. Into the nearest tent, humans fleeing out under the back edge. She took a blanket, and if it was someone’s only bed against the winter, well, she did not much care. No clothing that would fit him. The Westrons were not a tall folk. A hemp shirt, laundered thin. She went back to find him down on his knees and crawling.
“Mikki, here, wait for me.” With her knife she ripped a slit in the blanket’s centre, worked it over his head. Tore the shirt to a few strips, knotted them, and wrapped that for a belt, with her woollen cloak she wore beneath the one of feathers and silk over that. “Keep you warmer,” she said. “All right?”
He had never had much concern for notions of modesty. Teased her with his not caring. A glorious nudity, cream-skinned, gold-curled. She did not think he should endure all those staring enemies naked, who had watched his degradation. He leaned on her. Said nothing. They walked.
His shivering was perhaps lessened. His balance a little better. Maybe?
Leaving the camp they were not challenged, but she snuffed the torches with a thought and flung the gates wide, bars breaking, so perhaps the watch found common sense, or perhaps some of those scurrying shadows flitting tent to tent had carried word from their supposed god. They had, after all, a bargain, she and he. She and Mikki passed through, unchallenged, and Moth drew the dark around them, wrapped them in night.
There was the river to cross. Of a certainty, he could not swim it. She would not have tried to swim it herself, if Kinsai were there, though the goddess would likely have given Mikki what aid she could, demons and gods being kin in the nature of the world.
Boat? When she flew over, she had seen them upturned, rank upon rank of them, along the shore. They must have collected every small rowboat and scow from every lesser water they crossed and given up wagon-space to dragging them along.
A watch there, of course, and the gang of a dozen men stood shaking, on the edge of turning to flee. Armed with spears and clubs, not against attack from over the water, but against escape from the camp. She made no effort to cloak her menace. Cold fire edged every gesture, a frost-ghost of light.
“Your All-Holy bids me be gone,” she said, her Westron more that of Tiyosti than Tiypur, and that some centuries old. “Bring me a boat.”
Mikki leaned on her. Flung up his head at some sound, a scent—only a fox yipping, far away.
Hush, cub, hush. We’ll be gone from here soon. Safe and gone.
They brought her a boat, Westrons in terror. But the armed woman was there; she must have passed by during their slow staggering progress. She stood back where she thought she was unseen in darkness. A witness.
So now Ulfhild Vartu crept away shamed, defeated, broken by the All-Holy, the Old Great God’s messenger, an Old Great God incarnate— ran without a fight. No threat left. Begging transport. A great victory; let it warm them through the winter. They did not understand the cold, the folk of Tiypur. Though she doubted that their god would care.
It was a flat-bottomed scow the Westrons brought, one that was already in the river, with a little more water washing about in it than she liked to see, but it was only a river to cross, and they were well above the cataract. She could hear its roar, though.
You want to row, Mikki?
No answer, no. He waded out, rolled in while she held the square prow. She pushed off, leaping in at the last, while he with shaking hands actually did try to get an oar between its pins.
“Leave it. I’ll scull.”
It was a slow crossing over the unhallowed river, the current trying to draw them downstream. Mikki ended up curled in the bilge-water, an arm over his head, undoing all the good of the blanket’s warmth.
Mikki, it’s all right. We’re away. Sit up out of the wet, cub.
He was in there. He did hear. Didn’t respond, though, save maybe to coil a little tighter. And Moth had the oar to work and all her attention held over them, shield and darkness thicker than night. Did Jochiz reach after her? No. Not so mad and child-curious that he would play with the weapon he had won, either. He would give it long, careful thought, test it with many spells, expecting some deceit, before he unsheathed it fully in this world. Study it, taste the shape of its song in the air.
Get Mikki safe away. Steal it back? Maybe.
Leave it to fate, a coin cast to the sky. Would he, would he not…and what might follow, either way.
There was only stillness from the camp, a waiting. Or he dismissed her, truly, as no longer a threat, no longer even of interest.
The scow grated on rocks, stilled and swung, grounded in the shallows.
Cast her mind out, a shout, a summons.
Blackdog! Get down here! I need you!
CHAPTER XXI
Flames rise above the broken roofs. Smoke, thick, black, rolls in heavy clouds, obscuring, revealing. The wind pushes it down the valley. The city is empty. The island in the river, the great temple of the goddess, the tombs that spread about it, beneath the dark cypresses, all still. No priests and priestesses, no folk seeking refuge. No boats on the river.
Bodies, yes. Abandoned where they have fallen. No ghosts to linger in fear. All safe, all drawn to their long home, taken into the embrace of the Old Great Gods.
Whether they will or no.
Who thinks to ask?
Night falls, but the smoke hides the sunset. A shimmering light lies over the low western hills nonetheless. Not the flaming glory of the sun’s going down. Pale, elusive. It is not the eye that sees it; the eye he borrows sees only smoke, and darkness, and death. To call it light is a word of this servant who bears him here, this acolyte of light. Light grows. They come.
He rises to meet them.
Holla-Sayan fell out of a troubled, sweating dream, in which someone, a voice he knew, was calling, calling, but he could not understand—it was his name they called and yet he could not answer because he did not know it—
Fell. Crashed, more like.
Blackdog!
Moth, such desperation, urgency, and he did not stop to think, to wonder, to remember, not even the woman lying close against him, did not reach for his sabre or boots, just launched himself and went, answering like an arrow in flight, nothing to turn him aside. The dog, running.
What? he demanded, when he could think, when mind woke and caught up with body, or when man woke enough to master the dog, who had no cause to run when Vartu called, save that they were kin, and allies, and Sien-Shava camped across the river.
Mikki, she said, as if her attention were elsewhere, and he could hear beneath what she maybe would not have had him know, hear, smell—she was afraid. Not of any active threat. No fear of that in her, ever, that he could imagine. A deep human fear, and Old Great Gods forgive him, damned Old Great Gods, he had left Jolanan sleeping alone by a dying fire.<
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Long loping strides. Outrun a horse, the dog could. He could see the fires of the Westron camp now, and the tents, and a darkness on the water.
Unease pressed on Jolanan. In her dreaming, it was horns, alarm, the stir, the rise and arming…That was dream, but her back was cold. She turned over, half-waking. Then entirely so. Cold, yes. Silence. The moon was high, enough to see Holla wasn’t sitting by the dim remains of the fire. She felt for her boots. Stirred up the fire, put a last few sticks on. Called softly, “Holla?” because if he had gone off for a moment, he should have been back. Boots. She stared at his boots, his sabre, lying by their sleeping-place. He would have woken her at any disturbance. He wouldn’t have gone to investigate anything at all without his boots, unarmed.
Both horses were there. Awake. Restless.
“Holla?” More loudly.
Only the night.
No. He hadn’t gone off again. Not without his boots. Not—that was madness.
Monster from the river, dragging him from beneath the blanket. Without disturbing her.
No.
She fastened her brigandine, shrugged on her sheepskin vest again. They had been using it as a pillow against the cold earth. Belted on her sabre, and using a burning branch as a torch, circled the camp. Frost, he had been right. Not down by the river, where the mist pooled, but on this higher ground above the road, every blade of grass was edged white. There was a track, dark in the moonlight, like a spattering of blood. The trail of—
—something.
It had gone from the camp in great bounds.
Grass brittle with the frost, black and bruised, crushed and broken, holding a print like snow.
She spread a hand by one. Dog, she would have thought. Bigger than her splayed fingers.
Lion? This far from the desert? Cheetah, wandered east, disturbed by the Westron army crossing the grass?
Dog. Wolf. Bear-wolf, Tibor said. Jolanan stayed so, crouched, hand spread by the paw-mark, till the icy chill made her fingers ache. The burning brand smouldered and went out.
She went back and made up the fire with the last wood. Packed up by that little light, methodical, forgetting nothing. Saddled the tractable black stallion first, tying on Holla’s boots, his sabre, the blankets and kettle. Lark, fidgeting and trying to avoid her, last.