“…Sulema?”
Rehaza Entanye’s voice floated through the thick night air, recalling her to her senses. Sulema frowned at the twitching pieces of offal at her feet. She bent to wipe the worst of the gore from her blade and then turned, weary beyond all words, and made her slow way back to her companions.
* * *
“That is the last of them,” Rehaza Entanye said, wiping her hands on her begrimed tunic and grimacing as she stepped into the ring of firelight. “I hope. I count nearly a score of them; this was a largish swarm, too large to be independent, though I found no sign of any Arachnists. I think this was a feint of some sort, a test of our defenses, and not some random attack.” She glanced sideways at Sulema. “It was stupid of you to take off after them like that. Brave, but stupid.”
They dragged any foul corpses they could see away from their camp and into the night. The thought of predators feasting in the dark sent them hurrying back to build the fire higher, higher, heedless of their dwindling supply of firewood. As Rehaza Entanye took first watch Sulema closed her eyes, wishing that she could as easily close her ears to the sounds of crunching and snarling.
Lying on the unforgiving ground, she was struck with a longing for the land and the people she had left behind. She missed the small sounds of a warriors’ camp—the squabbling, gaming, even snoring and farting of her sword-sisters. The soft singing of the dunes as winds born of poetry and hardship caressed the face of the Zeera. The sounds and smells of horses and churrim, the roars and grumbles and grunts of the vash’ai. She even missed the moons and stars; the night sky looked the same here—was the same, surely— but somehow left her feeling cold and bereft.
I even miss lionsnake jerky, she thought. I must be sick.
* * *
Hannei shook her from troubled dreams at the stirring of dawn. Sulema leapt to her feet, staggered, and nearly fell as waves of weakness and pain radiated from her bad shoulder. She peered around her, but not so much as a scrap of cloth or bone could be seen in the mean, thin light that presaged Akari’s wrath.
Keoki was already awake and beginning in his musical trance, raw fingers dancing across his lute as he played for the shadows, played for the darkness, played for the chance to live one more day in a world that wanted to suck their bones dry. The shadows rose to his bidding, spitting imprecations and promises of treachery even as they rose to protect the travelers from the killing sun.
Sulema reached for her waterskins and found, to her deep dismay, that they had been pierced some time during the battle. There was a scant mouthful left in either of them. Without hesitation, Hannei detached one of the remaining two skins from the belt at her waist and handed it over.
Rehaza Entanye stared at them for a moment, opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again and shook her head.
That woman has never known the embrace of a sword-sister, Sulema thought, and she spared a momentary pang of pity for a life lived in such isolation. Then it was time for a handful of salted meat, time to rub ochre-tinted fat on their exposed skin, and time to run.
TWENTY - NINE
Sssssulemaaaaaa, the bones mourned. Hhhhhhhannnnneiiiii…
Ani’s body sat straight-backed in the middle of Askander’s tent, but she was not there. Even as her physical form breathed and twitched, her shade crawled among the bones and dead things of the mountain passes, watching over the daughters of her heart.
More than that she was listening. Rumors spread in ripples across the burned and tormented earth. A jikjik had been killed for meat, his bones left to desiccate in the sun. A lionsnake had been routed from her den and slain. A skull had been kicked from its long resting place and now mourned the loss of three teeth. And the reavers…
Not even the bones long dead liked the reavers. These were foul things sucked dry of self, cobbled together of defiled corpses, nameless and songless and dreaded. No predators would come near the thrice-slain and they lay bloated beneath the naked eye of Akari, rotting with a foul stench.
My girls did this, she thought. They have killed prey, predators, and reavers. They have crossed the Jehannim and fly for their lives. That had become all the more important, because the scent and savor of human flesh had drawn the attention of those greater predators who lived by feasting upon those who would dare the Bone Road.
This was what the dead called it—the Bone Road—a trail not marked by cobbled stones or cairns, but by the husks of those who fell on this perilous path, never to rise again in this world. Bones long dead and fresh, of humans and beasts of burden, horses and churrim and vash’ai. Most of the bones were content to remain as they were, or where the wind chose to blow them. Some were unquiet, fretting about that which had disturbed them.
There were bones here which had once been sorcerers, dreamshifters, kahanna—or the beloved of such powerful priests of the world—and whose stories had been magically graven into the very core of their being. Ani’s bones, she knew, glowed with the faint silvery-blue light of her own power, and could be used by a bonesinger to do great things. Great and terrible things, such as the spell Ani began to work.
If I do not help them, they are dead, she thought as a bintshi cried out, and a wyvern turned its eyes toward the fleeing shapes.
She sang to the bones of the dreaming dead, calling them all by name. Mutaani the youth, Kishahani the vengeful, Kulaishkum—all of you—she called, and they answered. Long bones and short, fingers and claws and ribs, skulls and vertebrae rose from the blasted earth at the bonesinger’s bidding and dragged deep furrows in their haste. These she gathered up in her spirit-hands as a child might scoop up handfuls of mud, and she merged them, she molded them, making the bits and detritus of life into a plaything for her folly.
Bonesinger, Inna’hael warned her from far away. Bonesinger, do not do this. It is abomination.
You leave the bones of your prey to your cubs for them to play with, she responded, her mind’s voice strained and tart. You let them break their teeth upon the shoulder-blades of tarbok. How is this any different?
Inna’hael growled.
My cubs cut their teeth upon the thick and empty skulls of your kind, he replied. Such is the dance between predator and prey, of moons and stars and dragons. This is outside the dance, outside the song, and well you know it.
She did, and well she knew the cost.
Sulema is my girl, Ani told the vash’ai, the daughter of my heart. I could not love her more had I birthed her myself. Would you not have broken the old laws, given the chance, if it would have saved your Azra’hael?
There was a long silence, dark as distant thunder.
I had that chance, Bonesinger. I made my choice, as you have made yours.
Then he was gone.
Ani turned her focus to regard the thing she had cobbled together out of forgotten sorcerers and a bonesinger’s whimsy. It had a great skull, formed of many lesser skulls, and the shell of a giant turtle. A knobbed and spiky spine, a long tail, thick limbs. There were ribs and tusks where teeth would be, and even great wings spread wide, with shadows stretched between them like membranes. All it needed was a little…
Far from the construct the bonesinger lifted a child’s skull to her mouth, puckered her lips, and blew. Such a small thing, the birth of a wind. A small thing, a tune both forbidden and terrible. It whistled between the missing teeth of a little girl who had kissed her mother one night and never woke in the morning. It sang of sorrow and fear and pain. This wind sang of mutaani, and in its wake swam a dark and silent beast that was death.
High it soared, speeding across sunlight and water and sand till it found Ani’s plaything and settled upon the bones, filling the void between death and undeath with the silence of Eth.
It was forbidden.
It was done. Far away the bintshi wailed a hunting song, its beautiful voice thick with the anticipation of blooded meat.
In a hidden place at the edge of the Edge of the Seared Lands, a dragon lifted her head. She was a foul
thing made of bones and broken promises, of lives and honor lost, of hunger. Crimson flame appeared deep in the shadowed pits that served as eyes. Wings that seemed insufficient knacked and rattled as they beat against the ground once, twice, three times, and then she rose into the sky, hunting and hungering, knowing only that she had to devour everything that might wish Sulema harm. Opening her mouth she shrieked, belching great gouts of pyre flame and ash—
* * *
Pain blossomed on Ani’s face. A second blow and she cried out, lifting her hands to protect her eyes. A third and she was on her feet, swaying drunkenly, a knife in one hand and the skull in the other, blinking ash and fat from her stinging eyes and snarling at her opponent. Had Inna’hael come to put a stop to her magic and to her? Or perhaps—
“Askander?” she asked as the figure came into focus. He had drawn back his hand for a fourth blow, and now with his arm raised, was staring at her with a look she did not want to understand. “Askander? What—”
“I should be asking you ‘what’ for a change,” he answered, eyes and voice hard, lowering his hand halfway. “What in the name of guts and goatfuckery do you think you are doing, girl?”
Ani’s mouth dropped open at the sound of her own words falling from Askander’s mouth. Never, in all the years she had known him, had she ever heard Askander curse. As she tried to gather her wits, another thought occurred to her, and she frowned.
“How did you know it was me?” In truth, she hardly recognized herself anymore. Bonesinging changed the wielder’s face and body with each use, and she had been overly free with her magic of late.
He lowered his arm and now stood with both hands on his hips and snorted a humorless laugh.
“How many girls do you know who would be sitting in this tent, working bonesinger’s magic. Ah-ah,” he held both hands up as she opened her mouth to respond. “Do not tell me what you were doing. Best that I remain ignorant. Better still if you would set aside this folly, but Atu himself could not change your path, once you have decided upon it.”
“You did not answer my question.” Ani wanted to raise both hands to her head, which ached abominably. She wanted to weep, to put down her knife and skull, and to drink a bottle or three of usca. She did none of these things, but swayed on her feet.
“How did I know it was you?” Askander Ja’Sajani closed the distance between them so quickly that Ani sucked in a breath and would have stepped back, but his hands gripped her shoulders and held her fast. “How do I know the sun? The sky? How do I know my own song? Foolish girl.” With those words, he pulled her closer and kissed her.
Ani sighed and relaxed into her lover’s heat. After a while, he lifted his face from hers and smiled a small, triumphant smile.
“You dropped your knife.”
“Mmmmmmmhuh,” she answered, dazed. “Have you come to sweep me away then, like a hero in the old stories? Are we to run off toward a new tomorrow and leave the cares of the world behind us?” She wished. Oh, how she wished.
“That is, indeed, the fitting end to a hero’s story,” he told Ani, stroking her cheekbone with one finger. “Alas, we have not come to the end yet.”
“Oh?” She reached up and held his hand, stopping him before his touch could distract her further. “What part are we in, then?”
“The shit part,” he replied, almost cheerfully. “I have come to take you back to the Zeera, because a new terror is upon us, and someone of your—talents—might be able to stop it.”
“A new threat.” She sighed all the way to the marrow of her bones, impossibly tired. “What new threat is this?”
“The Lich King has risen,” he said. “And he has raised his armies of the dead. They are taking over the world.”
“Guts and goatfuckery indeed,” she groaned. “I am too old for this shit.”
THIRTY
They came for him in the small hours of night, when hatchling birds nestled safe beneath the soft wings of their parents, and not even snakes dared the hunt. Jian did not fight, for his tiny son lay between him and the warm body of Tsali’gei, whose eyes were wide with terror as a blade pressed against her throat. From the next room came the sounds of soft voices, the harsh sound of flesh striking flesh, and an old woman’s angry cry of pain.
“Come with me,” Mardoni growled close to Jian’s ear, “or watch them die.” Jian nodded silently.
A sack of coarse cloth was thrust over his head and snugged close about his throat, blocking all light and muffling all sound besides his own harsh breathing. It smelled strongly of some sweetish spice and made his eyes water. Jian sneezed, and someone grabbed him roughly by the shoulder.
“Quiet,” an unfamiliar voice growled. “Do nothing to draw attention, or things will not go well for you.” Inside the cloth hood, Jian bared his teeth. Had he been alone, he would have taken the form of a sea-bear and ripped that one’s throat out. Had he been alone—
His son wailed, a pitiful and helpless sound that was quickly muffled. Jian threw his head back, desperate to see, and jerked half out of his captor’s hands. The grip on his shoulder tightened till it dug into his flesh. Jian welcomed the pain.
“If you come quietly,” the voice said again, “your family will not be harmed. If you fight…”
“Jian,” Tsali’gei whispered, her voice strained with terror. “Jian, please.”
He let himself be led, tears of frustration dripping into the hood and fighting with every step not to break free and kill them all. There was no doubt he could do it, but not before one or more of those he loved had been harmed. Which of them might his captors take first? Tsali’gei? His mother? His little son?
Which of them would he be forced to sacrifice?
* * *
Though he tried at first to track the route they took, Jian was soon lost in the twists and turns, ascents and descents. Twice he thought they might be in tunnels, for the echo of their footsteps indicated stone underfoot and all around them. Then for a while it seemed as if they were outdoors. The air was cooler on his naked arms, tile and stone and wood gave way to soft earth. Then a heavy door closed behind them, audible through the cloth, and his captors led him down, and down…
And down.
And down.
They were taking him to a dungeon, Jian thought. That had to be true. He had spent years leading his own captives to cells beneath his father’s holdings.
I never led any of them out again, though.
It was best not to think on that.
Abruptly they came to a stop. Hands on his shoulders forced Jian down so that his knees barked painfully on an uneven floor. He was bound with thick ropes, trussed as tightly as any beast fresh-caught for a menagerie, and cool air eddied around him. The sounds of footsteps receded, slapping against cold stone. A door clanged shut like the pealing of bells.
Jian knelt, counted his breaths, wriggled his fingers to keep the blood moving through his hands, and wondered when the man who had stayed behind with him would speak. Even through the sweet-spice smell of the cloth Jian could scent him, sweating and nervous. It was an oddly ungulate smell that brought the sea-bear in Jian’s heart too close to the surface.
“Well, my young friend, a fine mess we find ourselves in.”
“Mardoni,” he said, keeping his voice even and calm, though he swallowed hard at the thought of Mardoni’s hot blood in his mouth. He was the son of the Sea King, after all, newly come from the Twilight Lands, and the company to which he had grown accustomed was somewhat—open-minded—in their culinary traditions.
“No use hiding from you.” Jian heard the other man’s approach and tensed, but Mardoni simply yanked the hood from his head and then retreated a few steps as if unsure what his captive might do. Jian squinted against the mage-lanterns and sat back on his haunches, flaring his nostrils again at the other man’s fear scent.
He smells like prey.
“Perhaps I should have said ‘my not-so-young friend,’” Mardoni said, also sitting back on his heels and stu
dying Jian’s face. He wore splendid white robes embroidered with the images of leaping stags and bulls, and a golden flower sigil at his breast. “How is it that you have been away from us for only a few moons’ time, Sen-Baradam, yet seem to have aged years since just this spring? You were barely able to win a training fight with that young bull Naruteo, yet you have managed to become a formidable opponent. How? I would very much like to know.”
Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “There are rumors that you somehow managed to slip through the veil and escape to the Twilight Lands, to live among the Dae. Tell me, Tsun-ju Jian de Allyr, what is it like to walk beneath the gray skies, in the lands of our fathers?” His eyes were bright.
Too bright.
“Our fathers?” Jian mused, pursing his lips as if deep in thought. “Our… oh! Do you speak of the lands of Allyr, my father, the sho’en? Or do you speak of the lands of your father?”
Mardoni rocked back on his heels.
“My father?” he whispered.
“Of course. He is a master archer—I studied under him, for a while—and a watcher in the woods. A fine man, and prideful… no doubt he would feel obligated to seek an early death, were word of your dishonor to make it across the veil. Imagine—a son of Yrnos, licking the emperor’s boots.”
Mardoni’s face went as white as his robes. Jian did not move or let the pounding of his heart show in his expression or manner. He had, after all, spoken truth.
When the blood had returned to Mardoni’s cheeks, he shook his head dismissively and stood, though he no longer met Jian’s eyes.
“It does not matter,” he said. “It has been decided. It is done. It does not matter. You, Tsun-ju Jian de Allyr, Daechen Jian Sen-Baradam, have been sentenced to death.”
“For what crimes?”
“For crimes against his Illumination and the peoples of Sindan. Fomenting unrest. Raiding. Murdering his Illumination’s troops and property. For daring to think that you, a lowly yellow Daechen, are fit to stand in his shadow. Need I go on?”
“What of my family?” Jian asked softly. “My mother, my wife Tsali’gei? My son?”
The Seared Lands Page 25