Crimson Fury

by Mirren Hogan

  “What’s your name? I’m Darai.”

  The boy stared and before he could respond, the wagon slowed and jerked to a stop. The boy turned away from him, his eyes going to the rear of the wagon. Darai found himself moving back, away from the gate, watching as it slowly lowered.

  In the last rays of the sun, Ezeji stood, his dark skin bathed in pink light. As he stepped onto the ramp, he seemed to glow, his teeth sparkling in the twilight as he smiled. “Are you hungry?” he asked, the words accompanied by a gesture to encompass them all.

  The old man responded by nodding and spitting his tobacco out the back of the wagon, into the dust. Under other circumstances, his aim would have impressed Darai. Now, he was perversely disappointed that the tobacco hadn’t hit the sorcerer. He forced his eyes away from Ezeji, turning instead to the child, who was gaping at the magic-user with equal mixtures of fear and awe.

  “Are you hungry?” Ezeji asked again; this time his words were for the boy alone.

  The boy nodded and accepted Ezeji’s outstretched hand, his eyes not even blinking as a tendril of magic left Ezeji to wind around his wrist, binding them.

  So much for needing reassurance, Darai thought.

  In the few moments everyone’s attention was on Ezeji and the child, the young woman took her chance. She must have snuck around the sides of the wagon, for Darai only saw her fleeing back darting down the ramp and into the evening.

  The magic around the child’s wrist lengthened, snaking to bind Darai and the old man and pulling them from the wagon. Ezeji marched them down the ramp and halted them as they stepped into the dry ground. Darai could see an artery in the sorcerer’s forehead pulsing rapidly as Ezeji’s eyes scanned the desert for the girl.

  What alerted the other sorcerers, Darai didn’t know; they seemed to melt out of nowhere, their faces all turned away from the wagons. It only took moments for them to spot the girl—there was only one place for her to run.

  Behind them was nothing but desert and the same was true of north and west. South held Dassane, but if she could make it there alone, she could lose herself in the crowds, or find a wagon from Dassane to another part of Isskasala.

  Just enough daylight remained for Darai to see the cliff, looming beside the pass into Dassane. The pass looked well-travelled—by the sign of the road into and leading from it. Other travellers might try to stop the girl, possibly even sorcerers returning from their own collection. That left the cliff, and from the way the girl was running, she’d reached the same conclusion. She pelted toward the base and started up, moving quickly, never hesitating, even though both her hands and feet lost their holds several times in those first moments.

  Darai found himself gritting his teeth, his hands curled into fists of hope for her success and shame that he hadn’t tried to escape as well. He felt the warmth of the magic around his wrist and forced himself to ignore it and watch.

  Middle and Wutango stood side by side, their hands on each other’s shoulders, staffs firmly pressed into the earth. The glow began in unison, staffs, hands, dark faces as bright a red as a drop of blood seen through light. Their black robes seemed to absorb the magic; not even a fraction of it shone from the cotton cloth.

  The magic was born as a strand the width of two hairs, then a fingertip. By the time it wound through the air a foot from the two sorcerers, it was as thick as a man’s wrist. Dazzling the eyes, the magic danced toward the girl, reminding Darai of a snake. It reached her and wound about her waist like a lover’s arm, stopping her cold between handholds. She screamed and began to struggle, her arms waving wildly, grabbing for a tree growing in a nook on the cliff.

  “She’s too far,” Darai heard Ezeji mutter beside him. Darai saw the strain on the faces of the two sorcerers and in that moment, he realised their fallibility. He’d assumed if they caught the girl, she’d return to the back of the wagon with the rest of them. He’d never dreamed that magic might not be omnipotent. Surely its wielders were more than merely men? But in the glow of the magic, Darai saw hairs faded to grey, lines deeply etched by years of care, Wutango’s skin dragged down by the weight of time and the abundance of silver beard. Men chosen by whatever god looked over them to use magic, but only men.

  Men who tried, struggling as the girl fought with them, to bring her down from the cliff to safety.

  “Don’t fight us!” Wutango called out. His voice carried across the dessert as the shadows deepened, accented by the last of the twilight shining brighter, preparing to yield to the night.

  The girl’s response was to scream and wriggle harder still, her efforts causing the magic to writhe around her form like a living serpent. It pressed and squeezed, winding around her twice, three times, binding her legs and trying to secure her arms and draw her away from the cliff. The girl never gave up her fight.

  And then, the magic was gone.

  Darai saw it blink out of existence, the evening falling into darkness before he heard Wutango’s cry of despair. The girl’s brief scream filled the night, followed by a thud and then a terrible silence. A long moment passed and Darai could mark the location of the girl’s body in the darkness as the desert sand lit red; the absorbed magic leaking from her like blood and swiftly soaking into the dirt.

  And that, Darai concluded as he looked away, was the reason for Wutango’s despair. Perhaps it wasn’t fair, but they’d brought the girl this far, only to lose her precious magic virtually on the guild’s doorstep. To their credit, Middle and Ezeji went into the desert to retrieve the girl’s body while Wutango bound the three remaining from that wagon and lit the fire the wagon driver built.

  Eventually fed on flavoured rice and a whole, fried cangi lizard, the old man tore his food apart and stuffed into a mouth sparse with teeth. He spoke to no one and looked up only occasionally, if someone near him rose or sat. Then he’d move his legs sideways, cup his arms around his plate and glare as if someone might steal his food.

  The child, like Darai, ate little. He was obvious enamoured with the sorcerers seated near him around the small fire. The flames shone in his huge eyes, staring at one black-robed man, then another, never settling on any for long. His mouth gaped, looking like a snake lazing on a rock in the sun. Had he flicked out a forked tongue from between his lips, Darai wouldn’t have been too surprised.

  Darai picked at his food, tearing the legs from the cangi and absently sucking out the meat from within. Normally, cangi was one of his favourites, a delicacy rare and expensive in Nageso. Tonight, he didn’t even taste it. In spite of the testiness of the girl and her abrasive nature born—

  Darai presumed—from fear, he missed her. In her, he’d had a partner in uncertainty and dread. In time, he could have won over some kind of response from her, even if her trust was harder to achieve. And he never even knew her name.

  The old man and the child, he couldn’t fathom. The sorcerers inspired awe, but the boy looked on them as one might see a god. And the old man seemed more interested in being well fed than in their fate. Neither even appeared ruffled at having seen a girl die.

  Ezeji, seated on the other side of Darai, looked terrible. His face was tight, his eyes kept lowered through the meal were surrounded by creases deepened in a frown. He ate, but slowly, tearing his cangi into tiny pieces before picking each one by one and pressing them into his mouth. He said nothing, responding to a question from Middle with only a grunt and vague shrug with one shoulder.

  No doubt, Darai thought, he blamed himself for his moment’s inattention allowing the girl to flee. Although, he wondered if maybe she was better off now. She’d never have to endure the Harvesting. No one would be sucking her dry. There was perverse satisfaction in the girl having thwarted the sorcerers. There’d be that much less magic for them to wield. A bit less power for them to flaunt. Darai smiled to himself and tore the cangi’s tail from its body with his teeth. The best meat was in the tail.

  CHAPTER 5

  The wagons rolled into the pass as day broke. To one side, the wal
ls were sheer, stretching up a hundred feet. The mountainside declined gradually and continued for hundreds of miles; a small part of the Difalo Ranges that separated Dassane from the rest of Isskasala.

  To the other side of the pass, the mountains continued at a steep but potentially climbable angle. It was there that the girl had tried to escape. From where Darai sat in the back of the wagon, he saw that scaling the outside face of the mountain would have been only the first difficulty. In spite of its angle, the surface looked jagged and unforgiving. Had she succeeded, the girl would have earned the freedom she gained.

  Before dawn, he’d watched two of the sorcerers using magic to move the earth aside and lower the girl’s body into the grave. Though Darai couldn’t make out which of the sorcerers attended to the work, there was a sense of reverence to the task that did nothing to redeem them to him. They’d brought her here and caused her death.

  Let out for a quick breakfast, Darai’s eyes wandered in the direction of the shallow grave and he said a quick prayer to the Mother of all Gods to take care of the girl’s spirit. He’d have left an offering, but he had nothing to give and the binding around his wrist kept him close to Wutango.

  He stretched his legs out in front of him and pressed the tips of his fingers between two of the slats to balance while he looked out. The pass was little more than a brown and green blur, the monotony broken twice by travelers going the other way and once by a man running in the same direction, past the slow-moving wagons.

  Halfway through, the wagon stopped and though Darai exchanged glances with the old man and the boy, none were any the wiser as to why. The stop lasted perhaps ten minutes, during which time the sun rose high enough to cast its light right through the pass. The wagon became hotter and the flies arrived in droves to buzz around the moisture in Darai’s eyes and mouth. He waved them away, spitting out one he almost swallowed.

  He grimaced just as the wagon jolted and resumed its steady roll. Only then did he see the great gates built across the pass, from mountainside to mountainside. Made of five-inch thick iron, their hinges were massive and bolted onto sheer rock. Clearly, they’d been fastened there with the use of magic and Darai wondered if that was how the sorcerers opened and closed the massive things

  On either side of the gates stood soldiers dressed in long, well-pressed pants of white cotton, contrasting with their dark brown faces. Likewise, their shirts were a startling white, short-sleeved with gold epaulettes and they sported a curved sheath at their hip, the hilts of their scimitars shining. They stood back as the wagons rolled through the gates, bodies held respectfully, eyes raking the wagons, taking in the faces within and missing nothing.

  The king’s men, Darai guessed. They treated the sorcerers with respect, but not familiarity. Darai saw flashes of caution and distrust in the eyes of more than one of the soldiers. He told himself they directed the look at the sorcerers, but suspected that in truth it was for the harvested ones. They then, would be of no help if Darai were to find a way to escape.

  Then the wagon was past the gates and its pace increased until at last the mountains receded, leaving them at the top edge of a vast valley. In the centre, the sun glinted off water and for the first time, Darai heard the old man speak.

  “Dassane.”

  ***

  The wagons slowed at the base of the valley, about an hour before sunset. Darai’s eyes hadn’t left the view of the city except to climb out of the wagon at noon to take lunch on the plateau. He recalled his mother’s descriptions of Dassane and how he’d believed each to be a greater exaggeration than the last. Now he saw her words didn’t begin to do the city justice.

  Dassane floated on the top of Lake Cabase. Or so it seemed at first. As the wagons closed the distance, Darai made out an island in the centre of the lake. Roads crisscrossed it and a large thoroughfare ran across the middle from bank to bank and over bridges to structures built on pylons that disappeared under the water, supporting the buildings off the lakebed. Between the structures on the water, enough space remained for the multitude of small craft that drifted and sailed amid them.

  To one side of the city, Darai could just make out what appeared to be a floating market. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of platforms bobbed on the water, lashed together tightly enough to make passage across them safe.

  In the centre of the city, dominating the view, were a pair of mismatched structures reaching into the sky. Both must have occupied places on the island, their size and weight would have surely sent them to the bottom of Lake Cabase had they been floating on the water.

  One looked like a great set of steps, but as they moved closer Darai could see each of the building’s levels were tiered and surrounded by balconies. The boys in Nageso would have thought it great fun to stand on a balcony and spit on the one below. Darai smiled wryly at the thought.

  The other grand structure was lower, but spread across twice the area of the other. Looking down from the height of the valley, Darai saw hidden courtyards making themselves known as they drew closer. What he’d suspected was black stone was in fact black marble, cut in huge slabs, exposed veins running their length. The whole building glittered with sunshine, and magic danced across its surface. It must have cost a king’s expenses to build, but Darai had no doubt he was looking at the sorcerers’ guild.

  The tiered building then must be the King’s Bastion. It didn’t concur with Darai’s image of what a bastion should look like; it looked more like a cake, albeit a grand one. Only when he stepped from the wagon and looked across the lake did he comprehend how high the walls surrounding each balcony were. If an army made it past the mountain pass and down into the valley, then won their way across the bridge crossing Lake Cabase to the island, they’d be hard pressed to breech one wall. Darai guessed that if they achieved that, it’d be a small victory, for the bastion was built for defence and not just to look pretty.

  For all its glimmer, the guild hall was considerably less impressive and its defences more subtle. Without their magic, Darai couldn’t see how the sorcerers would keep out an army. Possibly their reputation was enough to keep aggressors at bay.

  The gate of the wagon lowered once again. Wutango herded Darai and his two companions out and away from it. Behind them, other wagons rolled down the valley to stop and unload dozens and dozens of dazed-looking harvested ones. Several were men, women, and children wearing Azlimer turbans, a few were Chaqian women, their breasts bare, one holding a tiny baby. One wagon was packed with Mindossans; many—too many—were children. Darai saw a few stoic faces, like the old man in his own wagon, and a few more looked in awe. Many were weeping openly, comforted by their wagon-mates. A couple of young men actually looked excited.

  None were bound; they didn’t need to be, as greeting the wagons were at least forty sorcerers. They circled the wagons and formed a guard all the way to the lakeshore and across the bridge. Between them, their white clothing contrasting sharply with the sorcerer’s black, was a large contingent of the king’s guards.

  Darai considered trying to run, but he had nowhere to go. The pass was too far and besides, it was blocked. The valley was ringed on three sides by mountains and on the forth by the sea. He had less chance of escape than the girl had had.

  And so, he found himself walking over the bridge behind the little boy and the old man.

  CHAPTER 6

  Tabia rubbed her temples as she watched the latest contingent of harvested ones enter the city. From this distance, she couldn’t make out their expressions, but their body language spoke loudly. The children were walking the quickest, looking all around them and darting excitedly through the throng. Several of the adults marched with their backs rigid with anger or defiance. The older folk looked more resigned. She doubted even the oldest had been alive during the last Outpouring, but it might be a part of their parents’ or grandparents’ memories and stories.

  The younger generation had probably all but forgotten about it. Fortunately, the sorcerers’ guild had not. In
the intervening years, they’d trained collectors in preparation for the phenomenon. True, their numbers had dwindled in the last decade, and the position was occasionally scoffed at by those who suggested the Outpouring wouldn’t occur again. Those would be silent now.

  The moment the guild had learnt of it, they’d dispatched all of their collectors across Isskasala, even sending extra sorcerers to be trained along the way. The ability to bind the harvested and the diplomacy to deal with bereaved families weren’t skills innate to every sorcerer, especially the latter. The guild’s magic-users tended to be imbued with a sense of entitlement, which had caused Tabia considerable frustration in the eight years since her arrival.

  She had been trained elsewhere, in the hall of the incanti in distant Vanmala. Even the son of the Prime Incanti—the head of the incanti council—hadn’t been given special treatment. Ojas had trained alongside other students and slaves alike.

  Of course there were, Tabia recalled with a shudder, men like Tarang, who felt entitled to take power and hold it over others. Although the man was long dead, his abuse of Tabia still gave her nightmares.

  “Tabia?” Isobel’s soft voice filtered through her thoughts, a welcome respite from the dark thoughts. She put soft hands over Tabia’s, moved them gently and began to rub her temples for her. “You are troubled?”

  Tabia closed her eyes and let the golden-haired woman work her own special magic. Although she’d been a gift from the king of Kalil after Tabia helped him to win his throne, she’d freed the former slave and, to her joy, Isobel had chosen to stay with her. The extent of their relationship was the subject of speculation throughout the guild, although Tabia knew most people presumed they were lovers. Fortunately in Dassane, few cared whom people shared their bed with, but she’d chosen not to make it anyone else’s business.