by S. C. Monson
Finally, the time came for the boy’s gift to reveal itself. The parents waited to see what the fruits of their training would bear, to see if their son would inherit the badger as his second skin or change forms with that of the borlan.
His heart chose badger. The gift brought freedom and strength, danger and pain…
Kor stopped reciting, too exhausted to stay awake, too afraid to sleep. The guilt and fear surrounding the nightmare woman’s death had not eased. The dagger-like pangs in his skin had grown stronger, more persistent.
Rise. The faint admonition pricked his conscience and Peter’s counsel came to his mind.
Perhaps the key lies in facing the dreams… Not running…
The words resonated with him. For just a breath, Kor hesitated, then he ground his teeth as he finally opened himself to the fear and the guilt. Waxen fingers hovered in his vision, holding up the bloodstained pendant. The image sharpened a little, but still he could not make out the woman’s features behind the hand. The pangs in his skin fluctuated in intensity, stabbing at his pores. At first he resisted. Then, he opened himself to that too, and allowed himself to feel. The pain throbbed stronger. He rose on his hands and knees, bowing his back and head, trying to endure, to accept, to see the woman in his nightmare more clearly. But her features remained blurred and his past remained blank.
A deep, angry voice penetrated his efforts. You are the reason she is gone. You did this. The accusation rang in his mind. He gave a wrenching cry, pushed back against it all, and crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
That evening he awoke from his nightmare again, exhausted and trembling. Moments later, the guards collected him for cavern duty. His arms felt like lead weights hanging from his shoulders as they clapped him in irons. They led him down under the fortress and through a maze of tunnels to the cavern. It was part of his punishment, not to see the sky. And that made seeing the snippet of blue through his cell window that much more of a torment.
The cavern mouth finally gaped wide before Kor, ready to swallow him whole. He dragged his feet, reluctant to go any farther, unable to avoid it. Rumor had it there were more caverns, but this was the only one Kor had seen. A moldy yellow-green glow oozed from the small round lanterns lining the walls, like some sun-deprived slug, trying to escape to fresh air. The thought twisted Kor’s heart. He too, longed for freedom. The air reeked of sweat and blood. Salt and rock dust clouded the cavern, making it difficult to breathe, claustrophobic even. Men and a few women groaned under the strain of their work; the cavern seemed to groan along with them, empathizing with their plight. Chopping pickaxes and pounding mallets echoed around Kor, threatening to drown him with their sound. He shuddered.
The guards marched Kor past four long, low separator tables that had been hewn from the stony cavern floor. The tables squatted in rows of two with space enough to roll four wheelbarrows between them. Their worn, jagged edges put Kor in mind of monstrous fangs guarding the workers. Prisoners hunched along one side of each table, breaking up rock chunks with chisels and mallets. For the most part, they kept to themselves, arms pulled close to their sides as they worked, as though afraid one false move might bring the tables to life and their own lives to an end. They separated salt from the rock as best they could, and brushed the salt grains into piles at the front of the table for collection.
This shift, the mercenaries kept Kor manacled. Usually bindings were removed upon entering the cavern or a cell. Prisoners under punishment, however, were left bound. Kor was shoved toward a pile of rusty pickaxes to select his choice. Then the guards prodded him to a rickety wooden ladder leading up to the first of the cavern’s six staggered, narrow terraces.
“This one’s going all the way to the top,” one called up to the next set of guards.
Kor hooked the pick head around his neck to free his hands and started up the ladder. The splintering pick handle knocked uncomfortably against his chest as he went. The next set of soldiers prodded him to another ladder leading up to the next terrace, and made him climb again. Each ledge Kor passed was dotted with more prisoners than the last, chipping rock chunks from the walls with their pickaxes and hauling the chunks to the pulleys in wheelbarrows.
Two to three pulley systems set in triangular support posts were bolted to each terrace, like sentinels looming over the workers. The starved, skinny prisoners manning them strained at the ropes to raise and lower materials between terraces. As the pickaxe weighed Kor down and he climbed higher, he found himself wishing he could have ridden the pulleys up, just this once.
By the time Kor reached the sixth terrace, he was sweating and shaking. He made his way down the working prisoners lining the wall until a mercenary told him to stop. Then he slipped into the gap between two men and began swinging at the wall. Salt and rock sprayed his sandaled feet, sticking to the sweat and rubbing his skin raw under the straps.
Eliker was hacking away on the same terrace, several prisoners down. They didn’t dare speak to each other so far apart—not with the mercenaries patrolling the ledges, snapping their whips whenever it suited them—but the miller risked a wink at Kor. The friendly exchange and sight of his friend kept Kor going. Serah was far below, toting the waterskin from prisoner to prisoner for the water breaks. Rimak followed, catching at the sleeves of her gray prison dress and flipping her curls. Kor squeezed the handle of his pickaxe at the sight and swung more viciously, imagining the bumps in the rocky wall were Rimak’s head.
After several swings, he realized his hands did not hurt as much as they had the day before. Surprised, he paused to glance at them. The blisters, raw from working three shifts in a row, had already started scabbing over. A whip lashed his back, diverting his attention. He staggered forward, stifling a cry with a grunt and swinging his pick at the wall.
In a six-hour shift, prisoners stopped work only for one meal, and two water breaks, though the latter was less consistent. Water came with the meal, too. The salty cavern air dehydrated workers so quickly that three water respites a shift never felt like enough. Kor was parched no matter how much he drank.
By the time he sank to the ground for the meal, his hands were bleeding more readily again. A mercenary dropped a paltry few strips of finwhale jerky and a crust of bread in the dirt beside him. Kor rubbed the grit-covered bread on his ragged, cotton pants and chewed carefully. He’d nearly broken his teeth on a pebble the first day in the cavern. At least it’s food, he thought, sighing to himself.
As he gnawed through the rock-hard bread, Kor gradually grew aware of a steady gaze on him. He glanced sideways. Watching was a bald, middle-aged prisoner with black eyes and a wide, pale scar down the front of his neck. His food was already gone. Through his unbuttoned vest, Kor saw ribs poking out under the man’s skin. There was muscle, too. The man’s biceps looked hard and toned.
Kor finished his bread and picked up a strip of jerky. The man’s gaze didn’t falter. Feeling guilty, Kor tore a bite from the tough meat and wrinkled his nose. A strong, unpleasant aftertaste hung in his mouth as he chewed and swallowed. He didn’t like finwhale. The leviathans of the deep had a strong fishy flavor that unsettled his stomach. He eyed the remaining strips. Every once in a while, he could get away with trading finwhale for another prisoner’s bread without the mercenaries noticing. And the closest mercenary was several prisoners away with his back turned to Kor.
Again, Kor eyed the jerky. Then he glanced at the watching prisoner whose meal was already gone. I can go without a proper trade this time, Kor thought, and he offered the rest of his meat to the man while the mercenary’s back was still turned.
The prisoner nodded his thanks and scarfed it down, eyes riveted on Kor. A soldier walked by, cracking a whip overhead. The bald, dark-eyed prisoner barely flinched. As the soldier passed out of earshot, he leaned toward Kor.
“Been here all of six years. Lived through four riots. Most people turn inward the longer they stay.” His voice rasped like autumn leaves and his breath had a strong fishy smell. �
�But you…” He shook his head admiringly. “You’re different. That was a brave thing you did the other day, standing up for that girl against Rimak.” He nodded at Kor’s shackled, bleeding wrists. “Pull your vest over your head. Tuck it under the metal. That will keep your wrists from chafing so much. Keep your head down and keep swinging your pick. The guards will leave you alone eventually, once they believe you’re no longer a threat.”
“Thanks.” Kor did as he said.
“Name’s Cadogan.”
“My friends call me Kor.”
The two rose as a water carrier approached. They took turns drinking from the stale pouch, then turned back to their work. Neither spoke the rest of the shift, but a bond of friendship was forged in the shared silence.
Just after midnight, Kor was returned to his isolation cell in the prison fortress, exhausted and bleeding. The routine began again six hours later. While in his cell, Kor tried to sleep. Whenever the fight dreams and nightmare awoke him, he recited the tale. When the pricking in his skin returned, he forced himself to face it, and passed out when he could bear it no longer. But with each new attempt, he felt himself grow a little stronger, a little more resilient.
31
Peter scratched his chin, expecting beard and touching smooth skin instead. He was still adjusting to the shave. His fingers worked their way up his jawline to the straw-bleached hair on his head. It was combed and tied back in a short, folded bun, no longer the unruly thatch of black hair it had once been.
Heat rippled up from the Isle’s ebony sand, baking his feet in his boots. The rest of him shivered. The Isle’s black sand retained heat, even in cold weather. And though it usually didn’t snow, a humid, biting wind often graced the Isle in winter.
Peter rubbed his arms and ran his fingers around the tight collar of his jacket. It was strange being back in uniform, even stranger to be taking orders instead of giving them.
“Next.” A soldier waved Peter forward.
“Vance Stratton,” Peter said, giving his false name and handing the man a paper.
The man read through it and looked up. “So you’re the replacement.” He had a light lilt in his accent. There was a braided kotash-fur and cockerel-feather charm hanging from his belt. He eyed Peter’s bleached hair bun distastefully. “Another Salky.”
“Straight from the Brayberry Tipples, sir,” Peter replied, trying to ignore the insulting nickname. He applied the Salkarans’ clipped, short-vowel accent to his speech. His Is, As, and Es leaned into short U, E, and I sounds, respectively. And his Rs had a hint of a flutter.
The man’s demeanor changed with Peter’s statement. He glanced about and leaned in confidentially as he handed back the paper. “I hear the best apple wine in Caderia comes from there. Better even than our Tilldoran swig.”
Peter nodded. “Brayberry wine. Quite so.”
“All we can sneak in here is watered-down plonk,” the man said, grumbling. “But if I could get my hands on Brayberry…” He wet his lips, looking wistful.
Peter eyed him approvingly and nodded. “It’s a wise man, knows his good wine from plonk.”
At the compliment, the Tilldoran puffed up his chest.
Peter flicked his chin and curled a finger to gesture him closer. “Listen here—I used to run a trade as a vintner in Salkar. Got a stock of bottles,” he said, in a whisper. “Enough to water an army, in fact. Right robust wine, too.” He lowered his voice even further. “I might consider smuggling in a crate or two for my cullies—my pals. If you ask politely, of course.” Winking, he rubbed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand together.
The mercenary’s mouth twitched in a smile. “I get your drift.”
Peter grinned. “Good. Pass the word to your cullies and I’ll guarantee you each a bottle.”
The man grinned, showing a row of craggy, stained teeth. “It’s a deal.” He straightened and called over a younger mercenary. “Show this fine soldier around the Isle before his shift starts in the isolation cell.”
The young man saluted with his right fist over his heart and started off. Peter limped after him, boots crunching in the coarse, shiny black sand. His leg was still healing a little from his injury, but he barely noticed the ache. After three agonizing months of waiting, he was finally on the Isle.
After the port market, it had taken weeks for Martt to gain an audience with the Nalkaran ruler and travel north. There, the commander discussed Kor and his predicament, and Leon’s treacherous rise to power. His petition for help in a rescue was successful.
To set the plans in motion, Martt had returned to Perabon and finished the necessary paperwork for Peter’s application to the army. Peter had reworked his look, and his accent, and been assigned to the Isle in the guise of a Salkaran mercenary.
Peter climbed a steep switchback on the north edge of the Isle. At the Isle's base, the ocean side of the path was a four-foot drop into deep water. The path twisted back and forth, rising up the side of the island, with a sandy, shrub-covered incline between the switchbacks. The plants’ shriveled leaves and thorny twigs reached desperately upward, as though begging for rain.
Despite the winter chill, Peter was sweating by the time he reached the top of the path. He dragged his jacket sleeve across his damp brow and glanced right over the descending switchback. The ocean stretched north for leagues, blending with the frigid blue horizon. Sunlight glittered on the waves.
He started forward again after the young soldier. Before him loomed the prison fortress. Beyond that was the underground salt mine. The prison’s north wall hugged the side of the Isle—unbreachable black stone rising from boulders in the ocean.
The young mercenary showed Peter around the fortress, then passed him on to another man. This mercenary was tall and sinewy and wore the curved hakuma of a Vahindan. He led Peter to the isolation cell. As they walked, Peter struck up a conversation, making sure to keep his distance to avoid the stench of the man’s rotten, fear-inducing breath. “Vahindan, eh?”
The man grunted an affirmative. “Vi.”
“I’ve been to the Isles—drunk korku, climbed the Peak of Tehlike,” Peter said reflectively. “Beautiful, dangerous mountain, that.”
The man glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “Not many outsiders have the kuvvet to climb it, or drink of the korku flower.”
Peter shrugged. “Not many of us have the kuvvet to do anything, much less make our home in the shadow of a three-cratered volcano,” he said, glancing pointedly at the Vahindan.
The mercenary chuckled and stopped to eye Peter’s blonde hair bun. “You are Salkaran?”
“From Brayberry Tipples,” Peter said, nodding. “No volcanoes or fear-inducing flowers there, but we know our dyes. And our wine.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “Brayberry wine? It comes from the Tipples, vi?”
“It does.”
The man tilted his head and stared off. “I tasted my first Brayberry at my rite of manhood,” he said, sounding nostalgic. “I have not drunk it since.”
“Word is the only drink you can sneak in here is watered-down plonk,” Peter said. “And korku, of course. Brayberry may not be as high-ranking as korku, perhaps, but then korku is not quite the same as a robust wine or a good stiff drink. Awful shame, depriving hard-working soldiers like that on this barren rock.”
The mercenary growled in agreement. “Vi.”
They walked a little farther before Peter broke the silence. “I might be able to do something about that,” he said. The mercenary stopped again and glanced at him, but Peter continued looking straight ahead and rubbed his chin. “For a copper or two, I may be able to smuggle in a few bottles of Brayberry for my cullies.”
At the last word, the mercenary wrinkled his brow.
“Friends—arkadash,” Peter explained, using Vahindan vernacular and finally meeting the man’s gaze. Understanding flickered in the man’s eyes. “Spread the word to yours,” Peter said, “and I’ll guarantee you each a bottle.”
Th
e mercenary grinned broadly and they clasped forearms in agreement. They continued walking and the man spoke again. “So you like the korku?”
Peter sucked in his cheeks and tilted his head thoughtfully. “Let’s just say I respect it. I couldn’t sleep for days after tasting it the first time, until the smell and the—uh—effect finally dissipated.”
The Vahindan laughed heartily. “It is years to build resistance to the korku fears, but the end marks the reach of manhood. When you can look in the enemy’s face, see fear crippling him, and resist it yourself, you know you have completed one pillar of kuvvet. We begin at age ten.”
“I know,” Peter said. “The girls drink it too.”
“Vi,” the Vahindan said proudly. “Our women are strong.”
“That’s certain,” Peter muttered. “I once lost an arm wrestle to a fourteen-year-old lass. I was nineteen at the time.” The Vahindan burst out laughing. Peter raised his voice to talk over him. “It was a close match, mind you,” he said, smiling. “And she had already reached shieldmaiden status. One of the youngest to do so, I believe. So you must give me a little credit.”
The Vahindan clapped him on the back. “Ah, vi, Salkaran,” he said through his laughter, “A little.”
He opened a door and they descended a long, creaking stairway to the isolation cell below. A man sat at a desk in the guard room, taking a swig from a metal flask. He hastily corked the flat container and stuffed it in his jacket as they approached. The Vahindan practically sneered down at the guard as he gestured to him. “You rotate cell duty with that.”
“The name is Roe,” the guard said, bulbous, red nostrils flaring angrily. He barely reached Peter’s chest when standing, but he was broader and thick with muscle. His biceps tensed under his jacket sleeves as the Vahindan ignored him.
“His kuvvet is chimak, perhaps, but…” The mercenary half shrugged to Peter. “Not all outsiders are you.”
Peter sucked his cheeks to hide a smile. Chimak was the Vahindan equivalent of Perabon’s pathetic.