by Matthew Ward
“I’m glad. He only wanted to help.”
Ashana arched an eyebrow. “Did he? Still, I suppose this was inevitable. Some lessons are learned only by thrusting your hand into the fire. Have you learned yours?”
Melanna longed to answer in the affirmative. Instinct warned her against. “I don’t know.”
Ashana nodded. “Better. So why am I disappointed?”
“Because I accepted your steward’s help.”
“I shouldn’t say this, but that actually impressed me. Convictions are nothing without courage to back them up. I wish I’d had your spark so young.”
Melanna blinked at the unexpected compliment. “Then . . . No, I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not enough to be sorry. You have to understand.”
“Then tell me!” Melanna caught her tongue, aghast at her tone.
To her surprise, Ashana grinned. “Better. How long have we been having these little conversations, Melanna?”
“All my life.”
“And in that time, you’ve wanted only one thing. To rise above the position tradition demanded and be treated the equal of a son.”
“Yes, godd . . . Ashana.”
“So what did you do just now, faced with a challenge not easily overcome? You did what tradition expected and made yourself a commodity. You sought a trade that would have been accepted only by a man unworthy of the offering. Would a son do that? Would an empress?”
Like so many truths once revealed, this one blazed fit to blind. Melanna closed her eyes. “What else was I to do? My capture brought defeat. My father should not pay the price.”
Ashana sighed. “You’re not a fool, so don’t behave like one. The battle was long since lost when they took you. And your father set this war in motion, not you.”
Melanna gritted her teeth. “You’d have me abandon him?”
“I’d have you be smarter. We are none of us the folk we seem in the light. Not me, not you and not your father. It is in the darkness, when all seems hopeless – that’s when your true self stands revealed. That’s when your decisions matter most.”
She hung her head, more lost than ever. “Then perhaps I’m no empress after all.”
Ashana rose to her feet and gazed down in a not unkindly manner. “Or perhaps you merely need to think like one. You are not one woman alone. You speak for a people. That’s no small coin of trade, and can buy a great many things. You might find it already has.”
She turned in a whirl of effervescent skirts and walked away towards the tree line.
Melanna shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Ashana halted. One palm pressed to the trunk of a silver birch, she shot a small smile back at Melanna. “Then you should work on that. But I do wish you hadn’t lost my sword. I was fond of that sword.”
Then she was gone, lost to the trees.
The mists rose, and the dream fell away.
Viktor rode until his limbs were weary and his skin chafed. Until he no longer felt jolts of pain from jostled wounds. But unfamiliar desperation grew with every tussock and crag that passed away beneath his horse’s hooves. Unfamiliar, and unwelcome.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d lectured Josiri for acting as a man, and not as a leader. But it was all hypocrisy. For all that Viktor told himself he sought Calenne out of a leader’s responsibility – after all, he’d encouraged her to take the field of battle – he was forced to admit that the concern driving him was entirely other. He sought Calenne not out of duty, but from fear for her safety. From the knowledge that her loss diminished the vibrancy of his world.
Why? A hard question to answer. Viktor’s best guess was that though she’d better reason than any to fear him, Calenne did not. He admired her for that – no less for the courage and forthrightness she’d shown in other matters.
Respect had grown between them, and Viktor couldn’t now judge for certain if he’d have made half of his recent efforts without her by his side. He hoped so, but unpicking motivation in hindsight was ever an uncertain chore. In a few short days, Calenne had inveigled her way into his life, though only the prospect of her loss had made that truth apparent.
So easy to see how Kasamor had been ensnared. Viktor only hoped that he too had not perceived affection where none existed. And that the span of years between them would not prove an obstacle all its own. Arranged marriage often bridged decades, but seldom with warmth. But those troubles, at least, could wait. The man remained enough the leader to recognise that Calenne’s life, and not the burden of her heart, mattered most.
And so Viktor rode far and wide. He walked among the dead. His heart quavered with every glimpse of a phoenix tabard, only to settle before the cold face of a stranger. He spoke with wayfarers, sentries and the fitful stream of wounded making moonlit return to camp on stretcher or wagon. Though many recalled the Phoenix, none had seen her.
The first pre-dawn light found Viktor weary, heartsick and saddle-sore. It also drew his attention to commotion some way south, at the forest’s eaves. The south wind bore angry voices, though it stripped them of words. Ignoring the creak in his bones, Viktor turned his horse about.
Three men and a woman stood around a crude pyre assembled from wind-fallen timber. Two men had the third restrained. The former wore wayfarer’s tabards. The latter, blackened chainmail and scorched leathers. His face was raw and burnt, his beard and hair singed.
As Viktor slowed his horse to a standstill beside a trio of restless steeds, the woman – also garbed as a wayfarer – clambered uncertainly onto the pyre. Boughs and branches clattered away from her boots. The entire construction teetered alarmingly.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“She deserves burial,” said a wayfarer. “Not a burning. This one has other ideas.”
“Let her alone!” bellowed the captive. “She must go to the forge before dawn!”
He struggled vainly. Boots slipped on the uneven ground. Arms still pinioned, he fell to his knees with a keening wail.
But the guttural voice had told Viktor all that the man’s dishevelled appearance had not. “Armund? Armund af Garna?”
“Lord Akadra?” Armund turned his ravaged face. Sightless eyes stared up. “Call this pack of rakkyg off me! They won’t let me tend to my sister.”
Viktor took in the huddled bundle atop the ramshackle pyre. More questions answered. Another slain ally, if one he’d but briefly known. It didn’t escape his memory that the twins had served as Calenne’s guard.
“Let him go,” he said.
“He means to burn her,” the wayfarer protested. “It’s a sin.”
“Do I strike you as one who needs a lecture on the nature of sin, lad?”
The wayfarers shared a worried glance and let Armund fall.
“Go,” growled Viktor. “Be about your business.”
The men withdrew to their horses. After a moment’s hesitation, the woman clambered down from her perch and followed. Hoof-beats rang out.
“I heard you were dead,” said Viktor.
“Damn near was,” growled Armund. “The witch took my eyes. Her handmaidens nearly had the rest. Lucky, if you want to call it that.”
Viktor leaned forward in his saddle. “And Calenne?”
“I don’t know. Astor strike me for a cinder, but I don’t.” He hung his head. The scorched remnant of his beard brushed against blackened chain. “I hope she found a good death. Skinny thing, but she’d fire.”
“She lives.” Viktor heard more hope than certainty in his own voice. He turned his horse about to ride away. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Then help me.” A most un-Thrakkian note of pleading crept into Armund’s voice. “I don’t need eyes to know that dawn’s coming. If I don’t set Anliss free before then, the Raven’ll have her. My sister died well. She deserves the forge, not the wandering of the mists.”
Viktor stifled a scowl. Never a dedicated adherent to the Lumestran creed, he still found . . . someth
ing . . . intolerable at the prospect of burning the dead. Let Thrakkians believe what they wished about freeing the soul to feast in Skanandra – fire was the very bleakest fate. At least where Tressian law reigned.
Between the wayfarer’s attempts to climb and the flaws born of Armund’s sightless construction, Anliss’ pyre stood on the verge of collapse. Once the flame took it, the body would as likely tumble away as burn. A strong, sighted man could have fixed it in a span of minutes. Armund remained the former, but the latter? Viktor was astounded he’d accomplished as much as he had.
The urge to keep searching for Calenne had a tinge of madness to it now. It was almost desperation. But even through the weariness, Viktor knew it a false spur. He’d promised Josiri to return at dawn. That time was all but spent. And for all he knew, Calenne had already reached camp, delayed by happenstance. Or she was dead. Had been for hours. Were that true, what right did he have to solace if he denied Armund the same? The leader had a duty, and so did the man.
He swung from his saddle. “Very well. Tell me what you need.”
The fires caught as the first pre-dawn light touched the distant mountains. It gripped the bone-dry timber as tight as a miser’s fist about coin and roared at the brightening skies. Hollow booms rippled across the skies. Distant thunder grew near. Or perhaps, Viktor mused, it wasn’t thunder at all, but the strike of hammer on anvil, chiming to guide the dead to their reward.
Thus passed Anliss af Garna to the Halls of Skanandra – her axe upon her breast, and her eyes as open to the journey as her brother’s were not.
Viktor watched from what he deemed a respectful distance. It wasn’t how he’d hoped the night to end, but a life of soldiering had taught him that you took what victories you found. Calenne’s fate remained hidden, but he’d spared a comrade’s spirit the listless roaming of Otherworld’s mists. That counted for something.
And tomorrow the search could begin again. The battle for the Southshires was done. It was over. He was free to do as he wished, and Lumestra help anyone who stood in his way.
Armund rose heavily from his knees as the fires slackened. “I need your eyes again, my lord.”
Viktor drew nearer. His flesh prickled in the heat of the flames. “What can I do?”
The Thrakkian turned a tear-stained face to the pyre. “Her axe. Her spirit’s gone. She doesn’t need it any longer, and I’d carry a piece of her with me while I can.”
Viktor eyed the flames without enthusiasm. “You’d have me burn alongside?”
“So the Lord Akadra does know fear?”
“The Lord Akadra fears more this night than he has for many years. Moreover, he is not fireproof.”
Armund chuckled. “Hush your whimper. I only need your eyes – my hand will do the work. Show me where I need to stand.”
Viktor set his hands on Armund’s shoulders and guided him until he stood level with Anliss’ withering corpse. “Here. The flames are still fierce.”
“A Thrakkian doesn’t fear flame. He masters it.”
So saying, Armund thrust a gloved hand into the fire. The leather steamed and smouldered. Flames flared about chain as the padded undershirt charred anew.
Armund grunted. His fingers groped for the axe’s haft, closed about it and heaved it clear. He let it fall on the trampled ground and patted urgently to smother the small fires flickering across his arm.
Viktor stared down at the axe. At the fading ember-glow in the runes of the blackened haft. His shadow twitched, uncertain. It hadn’t done so before – not in Armund’s presence. Then again, his shadow had felt different ever since the battle’s ending – or at least his perception of it had shifted. The bounty of acceptance? Or maybe there was more to the ritual than Armund had admitted?
He was about to ask when a new sound joined the distant thunder and the crackle of flames. Hoof-beats. A great many of them.
He shifted his gaze eastward, towards the rising sound. Towards the ravaged field and the remnant of the Hadari camp. Dark shadows against the dawn – riders leaning low over their steeds and drawing closer with every breath.
“What is it?” asked Armund.
“I don’t know,” Viktor replied. “But they’re headed this way. You should hide.”
Armund spat on the ground. “Clink-rot take that.”
“You can’t see, and I can’t protect you. Not against a dozen riders.”
He squatted, his hand patting the ground until it found the scorched axe. “I’m not feared of fire, and I’m certainly not feared of a few Hadari horsemen.”
Viktor let the matter drop and drew his sword. Death was one thing. To die while bickering was unseemly.
The riders were yet two-score paces distant when Viktor recognised the uniforms as Tressian. At a dozen paces, he recognised the leader’s face.
“Governor Yanda? You pick a strange hour to ride. The battle is done. It’s over.”
She blinked away her surprise. Then she sawed on her reins and wheeled the horse to a standstill. The other riders – a mix of wayfarers and knights in Prydonis colours, shuddered to a halt around her.
“Lord Akadra? I expected to find you at camp.”
“And I expected aid from Kreska,” he said as evenly as could be managed. “As for the victory, that belongs to Josiri and Calenne Trelan, not I.”
She scowled. “I’d soldiers ready to march. I was ordered to hold my ground.”
“Ordered? The Southshires are mine to govern. Its armies mine to command.”
“Not any longer. The Council has revoked your authority.”
Viktor’s blood ran cold, even in the heat of the fire.
He’d been wrong. The battle for the Southshires wasn’t over. It had merely changed form. “In whose favour? Yours?”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Who else? The archimandrite. He’s coming back. And I doubt any of us will much enjoy his arrival.”
Lunandas, 7th day of Radiance
Savour your time in the light, for darkness is jealousy unbound.
And like jealousy, it always returns.
from the sermons of Konor Belenzo
Forty-Four
“Revekah.”
The breathy whisper echoed about her. The Dark knew her name. Revekah froze, her thoughts trapped in nightmare, but unable to awaken. The ground beneath her feet was hidden in rushing, swirling blackness. Yet she knew the precipice was there, just out of sight. Maybe one step. Maybe two. Maybe she was already falling.
“Revekah.”
Heart thundering, she spun around. “Who are you?”
Her foot pressed down on emptiness.
She fell. Fingers scrabbled vainly on a slick surface. Her second foot joined the first in emptiness. Unseen hands clutched at her calves and thighs – a hundred insistent fingers drawing her into the abyss.
She wanted to scream. She couldn’t. Her throat was parched as the dust of a Midsommer field. Instead, she redoubled her efforts, searching for a handhold in the world without substance.
“Lay down your burdens. Come home.”
Her hips slid across the precipice. With a silent scream, she fell.
Revekah jerked awake into the rising dawn with a scream ringing in her ears. Her scream.
She clambered to her feet. She made it as far as her knees before her stomach spasmed. She doubled over. Hot, sour bile rushed over her tongue and spattered against rock.
“Nice,” said Kurkas. “And here I was just getting used to the place.”
He sat propped against the cave mouth, his wan features dappled by grey dawn and tangled briar. His right leg lay bent beneath him; his bloodied left bar-straight in front. His words were scarcely more substantial than the voice from Revekah’s dream.
“Don’t make me regret saving your life,” she growled. “Bad dreams, that’s all.”
“Had a few myself. Most of ’em about a demoness sawing off my other arm, if you must know. Drives a man to drink.” His head fell back and his eyes closed.
Re
vekah wiped her mouth on a filthy sleeve. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She couldn’t. Whatever had startled her awake had vanished from memory. Only the shadow of helpless terror remained. That, and limbs that quivered like jelly.
“You shouldn’t be moving about,” she said instead.
“Someone had to keep watch. You needed a bit of shut-eye.”
“Much good it did me.” She rubbed at her eyes and peered out through the brambles masking the cave mouth. Trampled crops were just about visible through windblown branches and seething rain. “How’s the world looking?”
“I think we won. Leastways, there’s more of our lot riding about than theirs. Hooray for us.”
Our lot. Strange how that now encompassed the very people she’d been fighting half her life. “Then it’s over.”
He snorted. “It’s never over. There’s always another battle. We can’t help ourselves. The shadowthorns aren’t fighting nobody, are they? Ain’t no lasting peace this side of Otherworld.”
“That why you became a soldier?”
He shrugged. “Better a wolf than a sheep. You?”
Revekah stared down at her palms and strove to recall a day before callouses and wrinkles. “These hands of mine have never been much good for anything else.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” He sniffed. “Reckon my left leg’s hanging by a thread. I’ll be walking with a stoop for the rest of my life.”
“Keep talking, and that won’t be a problem for long.”
Kurkas grinned wearily. “Charmer.”
There was little force behind the jibe. Despite her best efforts, Kurkas was already halfway into the mists. He’d lost too much blood. He needed warmth, food and a better class of care than she could provide. But he couldn’t walk, and she couldn’t carry him. Getting him to the cover of the cavern had been touch and go. Yes, someone would happen by sooner or later, but that wouldn’t be soon enough for Kurkas.
“You planning on staying this side of the mists if I fetch help?” she asked.