The priests made no forward movement as she approached, only shuffled into place to block the street. No weapons that she could see, though every man and woman among them would be trained to binding, the better part of them skilled with Life to heal and sharpen their senses, though some would have Body, Death, or Shelter. She closed to within fifty paces, then twenty, before she reined Jiri to a halt.
“Move aside,” she called to the priests. “Or be fired upon.”
She saw a mix of zeal and nerves in their faces, and her words triggered sidelong glances up and down their line, until one woman stepped forward, and spoke.
“High Commander d’Arrent,” the priestess said. “We condemn the violence you would bring into our city. We stand against law by force, the Exarch’s basest truth, and implore you to consider the wisdom of the Veil.”
They’d chosen an acolyte to deliver the message, or at least a priestess young enough to be smooth-faced, her voice rich and full as it echoed down the street. The woman had spoken it loud enough to be heard along the front ranks of the 81st, and doubtless delivered it for precisely that effect. There would be four more like her, if the priesthood had scouts enough to know the shape of her strategy, one for each column moving through the city. A barrier of faith, and youthful innocence, as calculated as any plan of battle.
An order to fire would damn her army’s morale, and spread like fire through the colonies. Wood presses of this priestess’s face would adorn every pamphlet and paper they could print. No seizures or destruction of presses could stop it. She saw the shape of that future as sure as she could see the lines of a flanking maneuver, an envelopment or artillery fusillade. But neither could she order the army to stand down. Disobedience would spread faster than any pox, and prove just as deadly to any hope of authority, once the city was hers.
She wheeled Jiri back toward the line.
“Forward,” she called, loud enough to be sure the priests could hear. “Forward, through their line.” Leave it up to the priests whether to move or be trampled.
For a moment her soldiers wavered. She took a place beside the 81st’s regimental flag, and nudged Jiri forward at a walk as officers repeated her order. They would look to her, and Gods damn her if they wouldn’t find her composed and calm, unafraid to be the first to carry out the command.
The 81st advanced, and the quiet on the street turned icy cold.
She kept her eyes level with the horizon, fixed on the silhouettes of Southgate’s factories in the distance.
“High Commander, you must turn back,” the young priestess called. “Don’t do this. The Gods are watching.”
She stayed still, and trusted Jiri to be made of the same cold iron. In the last ten paces, the priests’ features became clear in spite of her level gaze. Young men and women in brown robes. Always the youth; so it was, in every battle, and every war. But she’d seen enough dead youths not to flinch from what would come, if they held their line.
They broke.
A pace before Jiri’s front hooves would have taken a young man square in the chest, the priests dropped arms and fell aside, shoved away as Jiri pushed through their line.
She gave no outward sign, maintaining her stare at the horizon while her heart thrummed in pure relief.
Commotion sounded behind her as the front rank of the 81st followed in her wake, but the first priest served as an example to the rest, sure as she had done for her soldiers. She went twenty paces past them, then turned to survey the regiment’s passage, as stoic as she’d have done for fording a river, or traversing any narrow stretch of ground. Let them see her, cool and collected while the priesthood faltered in their zeal.
The priests had dropped their arms, releasing their links and being pushed between the 81st’s ranks. Thank the Gods her soldiers followed her example, keeping their gazes to the horizon as they sidestepped the men and women in brown. A jostling push or two saw them past the line, but—
A disturbance drew her eyes in the far rank, on the opposite side of the street, and before she could make sense of it, a cloud of smoke appeared, accompanied by the thundering discharge of pistol shot.
“No!” she shouted, then made it an order. “Hold fire!”
Screams rose from the ranks, and what had been an orderly procession dissolved into chaos.
The priests broke, colliding with her soldiers, and she spurred Jiri into the press.
Two more gunshots sounded, and a hundred more screams and howls. Orders went up from sergeants and captains around her as Jiri cut through soldiers and priests alike. She resisted the urge to draw her saber, instead finding strands of Shelter to cordon off the mêlée as she slid from Jiri’s back toward the center of the smoke.
“Hold fire!” she shouted again, but even her sharpest bellow was suited to giving orders in an open field; in close quarters, the Nameless reigned, for all the 81st’s soldiers tried to pull away.
Another round of shots went off farther up the line before she reached the first shots’ source. Body amplified her movements, quick enough to reach a young officer, a woman with a lieutenant’s stripe on her collar and a shaking pistol still smoking in her hand. She disarmed the woman with a strike to the forearm, sending her pistol clattering to the street, where two men in brown lay, both clutching at their stomachs. A rush of soldiers backed away, both advancing up the street and retreating back the way they’d come.
“Stand down!” she shouted, and the lieutenant she’d disarmed looked at her with ghost-white eyes while others took up the cry.
“They …” the lieutenant said. “They tried to take my sidearm, sir. I had no choice. I had to—”
“Form ranks!” came the shout from other voices, other officers finally cutting through the chaos with orders their soldiers obeyed.
“See to your company, Lieutenant,” she said, trying to keep her voice from seething rage. Jiri trotted into place beside her as the 81st’s soldiers formed up, pulling back to reveal the dead and wounded lying in blood-streaked pools on the street. Six men and women in brown, with the rest of the priests scattered or standing back in horror as the soldiers recovered their composure.
It was over as quickly as it had begun, and binders from among her soldiers rushed in to see to the fallen. The priests’ line had dissolved, leaving the way clear into the heart of the city, but Erris tasted bile as she swung back into Jiri’s saddle. A military tribunal would see to the damned fool of a lieutenant, and any other man or woman who’d discharged a weapon. This wasn’t the place for justice, only for advancing toward their objective. But she couldn’t help seeing her hopes for a peaceful retaking of the city bleed out with the wounded priests left in her wake. The vision of wood presses and newspapers returned in force. The people would hear of this, and put the blood on her hands, for all it had been the priests’ defiance and treachery that earned them their fate.
“High Commander, sir.” The Colonel of the 81st saluted, approaching her with his flag and retinue in tow. “What should we do, sir? I never expected my soldiers would … I didn’t think …”
“Keep discipline, Colonel,” she said. “We march forward, to the council hall. Once it’s secured, we can—”
More shots thundered, this time in the distance. But not the thrum of a full volley, or of artillery. Scattered pistols, all too like the ones she’d just intervened to stop.
“The Nameless will spit on you,” the priestess said, the same who’d delivered her their ultimatum, before the chaos. “We are not afraid to die for the Veil’s wisdom. We are not afraid to be martyrs for truth and right.”
“Arrest her,” Erris said. “And anyone else who presents themselves as our enemy. Kill anyone under arms and keep the rest of the regiment marching for Southgate. Am I understood, Colonel?”
“Yes, sir,” the regiment-colonel said, saluting again as he turned to give the order. Erris reached for Need, preparing to shift her senses to the other prongs of her and Royens’s advance. The shots in the distance had conti
nued, all but confirming the priests had made their barricade of arms-in-arms along other streets, and at least one had gone as poorly as hers. It tasted of ash in her mouth, but she would count it a stroke of luck, if barricades of priests were the only resistance to her taking the city. She had greater worries than a few dead men and women in brown robes. They’d chosen to die when they stood in her way. The rest would sort itself when she was firmly in control.
60
ARAK’JUR
Approaching the Alliance Village
North of New Sarresant
Doren squealed and slapped his hands against Arak’Jur’s jaw. Corenna had helped him bind their son with strips of cloth to rest against his chest and keep him warm as they walked. He’d expected Doren to sleep—spirits knew the boy had done little enough of that in the night—but instead looked down to find tiny brown eyes staring up at him in wonder.
The sight put fire in his heart; a precious thing, when all else was cold.
“He wonders why your skin doesn’t make milk,” Corenna said.
“Do you think he needs to eat?” he said.
Corenna shook her head. “Not until midday.”
They went back to silence, traversing snow-covered grassland as they’d done each day since their reunion. Watching Doren’s first squeals had given them shared purpose in spite of the slow pace, hobbled by the child and by Corenna’s recovery from the birth. He’d hoped for laughter between him and Corenna, too, and found only distance. She hadn’t killed him yet, or made an attempt. But from the pain behind her eyes, that was too great a feat for him to feel any comfort by her side.
“It might be the Alliance village,” Corenna said after another hundred paces. Smoke rose on the horizon, fixed there over a hillside they’d seen the night before.
“If we’re far enough north,” he said.
Doren had taken to scratching Arak’Jur’s jaw, grasping at his skin as though his fingers made a miniature claw. It took his attention away from the silence following his and Corenna’s exchange.
“We are,” she said abruptly a few paces later. “There. A welcoming party.”
He pulled his jaw free of Doren’s grasp, and looked where Corenna pointed. She was right: Three figures approached, cutting a trail down the hillside toward them, no mistaking. Too far off to be certain they were there to welcome his and Corenna’s return, or even that they were tribesmen at all, but he dared himself a spark of emotion, hoping it was true.
“Arak’Jur,” Corenna said. “I … I haven’t said it in weeks, but … I …”
“You intend to leave the village,” he finished for her. “As soon as Doren and I are safely home.”
“What?” Corenna said. “No.” Her voice turned suddenly hot. “How could you think I would leave my son?”
“Our son,” he said, keeping his voice cool in spite of the building heat. He’d known this was coming. She’d been cold, distant, watching him as though she meant to put a knife between his ribs while he slept. He knew it was the spirits’ promptings. It changed nothing.
“No,” Corenna said again softly. “I don’t mean to leave. I mean to stay. It’s been all I could do, ignoring the spirits’ urgings as we traveled. But I need you to know I love you. I mean to make this work, and if I’ve faltered and made you hate me, so be it, but you should know how I feel, before you decide this can’t be fixed.”
He came to a halt. Even Doren seemed to sense the thickness in the air, dropping his hands and pressing them against Arak’Jur’s chest.
“Can it be fixed?” he said.
Tears appeared on Corenna’s cheeks.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve tried to ignore the spirits’ promptings. I want to trust myself. But I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
“I thought you meant to leave,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me, since we crossed the river.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. I mean to fight. For us.”
He went to her, covering the ground before he knew he’d started to walk.
Doren pressed between them as he took her in his arms, saying with a firm grip everything he’d wanted to say with words. Their son squealed with delight, renewing his clawing at their jaws and necks as they kissed, a distraction that served to finally bring the laughter they’d missed between them.
“I’m sorry, Arak’Jur,” Corenna said, still leaning close when they separated. “For bringing all of this on us.”
“I know,” he said. He wanted to say more, and found the words dry on his tongue. Doren’s squeals served instead, and he felt the sun’s heat on his skin for the first time in weeks.
The figures descending the hillside were tribesmen; he saw it before they reached level ground. But it took closing the distance to realize who had come to welcome them home.
“Arak’Jur,” Ka’Inari said, at the same time he said, “Ka’Inari,” and they came together, wrapping arms to thump each other’s backs.
Two hunters accompanied the shaman, a Ganherat and a Vhurasi, and he exchanged formal greetings with them as Corenna took a turn embracing Ka’Inari, cradling their son to her side.
“What of the Uktani?” Ka’Inari asked.
“Slain and scattered, by my hand,” he said. “They won’t threaten us again.”
Ka’Inari nodded, solemn and grim. “You return to us, then. And with a son.”
“A son,” Arak’Jur said, feeling the rush of pride he heard in his own voice. “His name is Doren.”
Ka’Inari’s solemnity softened. “A strong, Ranasi name,” the shaman said. “As fine a namesake as Arak’Doren could have wished for.”
Arak’Jur and Corenna shared a weary smile. He felt the weight of the weeks they’d spent together, and the renewed hope that had bloomed between them. Ka’Inari paused for a moment, surveying them both before he spoke again.
“All is well between you?” Ka’Inari said. “At Ka’Ana’Tyat, the spirits set you both arduous tasks. It warms my heart to see you here, together.”
“We are well,” Arak’Jur said, putting surety in his voice. “The spirits are cruel, but we are strong. We mean to face our trials together.”
Corenna stood beside him, standing taller than he’d seen from her in weeks. She unwrapped Doren from around her shoulder, holding him toward Ka’Inari.
“Will you bless our son?” she asked. “We would have him accepted into the tribe and given the rest of his name, if the spirits see fit to grant it.”
“Of course,” Ka’Inari said. “Strip him naked, and present him to me.”
Corenna did as she’d been asked, peeling back the rest of the cloths she’d used as a sling, then removing the tiny furs Arak’Jur had cut and stitched for coverings. Doren flailed his arms and legs at the shock of the cold, with a moment of stunned silence before he began to wail.
Ka’Inari moved closer to Corenna, hovering over the child.
“He is strong,” Ka’Inari said. “A boy whose mother is known to the spirits. A boy whose father carries their blessings.” The shaman reached into a pouch on his belt, one he must have prepared in advance, and smeared blue paste on his fingers, tracing a line down Doren’s chest and belly. The crying ceased at the shaman’s touch, and instead the boy fell into a curious, reverent silence as Ka’Inari drew a second line, this time on the left arm, then a third on the right.
When the markings were done, Ka’Inari reached for Doren and Corenna handed him into the shaman’s arms. Ka’Inari’s eyes glazed over the moment he took the child, a sign he’d been granted a vision of the boy’s future, a premonition of things-to-come. Arak’Jur understood the shaman’s gift better now than he had when Ka’Vos had given a blessing to Kar’Elek, his firstborn son. But there was no less fear in it for his understanding.
“This child is half-Sinari, and half-Ranasi,” Ka’Inari said. His voice had changed, grown harder, more distant. “Is it your wish he be adopted into one, or the other?”
“No,” Arak’Ju
r said. “He is both, and carries both tribes’ strength.”
Corenna nodded firmly beside him, and Ka’Inari returned his attention to their son.
“Very well,” Ka’Inari said. “The child is accepted. He will wear many names in his lifetime. But first he will be called Kar’Doren, of the two tribes. He is healthy, and strong, and watched over by the spirits of things-to-come, the spirits of the wind, the spirit of kirighra, and the spirits of the Mountain. He will face great pain, but if he has the strength to bear it, the world will know him, before his end.”
With that Ka’Inari blinked, and his eyes returned to brown. Corenna retrieved their son, swiftly wrapping him in his furs and kissing his forehead with tears running from her eyes. Arak’Jur found himself in awe. Kar’Elek had received no such pronunciations from the shaman at his blessing. He moved to Corenna’s side, stroking Kar’Doren’s left shoulder, tracing the line of blue Ka’Inari had put there.
Finally Ka’Inari’s sober tones melted into warmth. “More will want to welcome you, and your return,” Ka’Inari said. “Let us go into the village, and speak of things past, and things to come.”
Word ran ahead of their coming, and a throng of faces greeted them at the village’s edge. Uncertainty lingered in their eyes, until Ka’Inari came to a halt near the outermost tents and buildings.
“Our guardians have returned,” Ka’Inari said. “The Uktani are broken, and the spirits have given their blessing. The danger is passed, and Arak’Jur and Corenna are to be welcome among us once more.”
The words cut through the crowd, turning questioning doubt to warmth. Hunters came forward to embrace him, and spread word among their fellows, until more than a few tears had escaped his eyes. He had been away too long not to feel emotion at the sight of Sinari patterns sewn in skirts and tunics, at hearing their tongue spoken aloud, at seeing Sinari tents alongside the strange new constructions of brick and stone. Corenna and Kar’Doren were swallowed among the women, too, and it took some time before word spread among the men that he had brought home a son. That spawned a second wave of welcome, shouts and congratulatory slaps across his back and shoulders. He met them all with good cheer, Sinari and Olessi, Vhurasi, Ganherat, and Nanerat alike. He was home. Corenna was home. Kar’Doren was home. It was a time for joy, and his spirit had grown bright by the time he and Corenna came together again on the snow-covered green at the village center.
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