One's Own Shadow (The Siúil Book 2)

by Randall P. Fitzgerald

  Worse than the effort was the pain in her stomach muscles. Not just where the muscled elf had struck her, but every single inch. Her legs hurt more than her stomach, at least she had thought as much until a sharp breath of cold air made her cough. She dropped to her knees at the pain and let out half a ragged yelp before catching the sound in her throat. No doubt, someone had heard.

  She stood again as quickly as she could manage and moved herself toward the rocks that she had meant to rest behind during the day. They would provide some small shelter from the wind. She made it to the pile and huddled down as tightly as her muscles would allow. She scanned the edges of the yard that she could see from her place. There were a few dim lights but nothing bright enough to tell her what sorts of people stood near them. Most seemed to be asleep. The moonlight made the bulk of the forms into nothing more than dark lumps along the far wall. Only a single form moved in the night, but there was not nearly enough light to see how it moved or what sort of person the form might belong to.

  The wind couldn’t quite get her and the still of the air slowly warmed with her presence. It was not so much heat that she was comfortable, but it would make the night pass well enough. She wanted nothing more than to remain awake, to watch the figures and make sure they did not come close. The strain on her body did not allow it and it was only a half hour before she fell asleep again.

  The pain struck before she woke entirely, and she felt her back impact the ground and slide across the sand. The sun was not yet up, though the sky had begun to shift a deep purple. The full pain ran through her arm as her mind caught up to what exactly was happening. She opened her eyes on the ground, not able to move herself quickly enough to move away from the source of the pain. The elf that had taken her sleeves was standing over her in the dim light.

  “The sleeves weren’t enough, girl. We come for the rest.”

  Óraithe scrambled back. There was some room between them now and she pulled herself to her feet. The pain was still in every part of her being, but she pushed it aside. She was breathing heavily just from the effort of the move she had pulled. She could feel her joints screaming against the strain. There had been no warning and her body wasn’t nearly ready to move at any sort of speed.

  The large man stopped, his cohorts behind him well enough that they would not be able to reach her. He stared at her as though he was waiting for something to happen. It was clear he’d not expected anything out of her aside from quiet compliance.

  “You want these rags? Kill me. Musclebound oaf. You are a sad excuse for an elf. You are why we have become what we are.”

  “Got no idea what you’re talkin’, girl. But if it’s death you’re after, I can oblige.”

  He lunged at Óraithe as quickly as he could manage, but the muscles made him anything but agile. Óraithe ducked and slid around his side as he passed. She managed to grab onto his ankle and dug her nails in with all of her strength. The muscled elf fell, landing with a deep, meaty thud. A small cloud of dirt puffed up around him as Óraithe climbed onto his back and dug her nails into the side of his neck. She screamed, half in rage, half from the pain of her ruined body. She screamed and raked her fingers through the flesh. A gush of blood spilled out and warmed her hands.

  Before she could do more damage, her arms were arrested by four pairs of hands and her tiny body was ripped off of her bleeding adversary. They held her aloft. It was the cohorts. She gritted her teeth and kicked against them but it was no use. There wasn’t nearly enough strength in her to break free of them. The bulky elf stood and turned, face bright red and blood pouring from his neck.

  “BITCH!”

  He roared and spat. She saw his leg come up and braced as best she could, but it was no help. His linen-wrapped foot slammed into her chest and pushed the air from her lungs. The cohorts lost their grip on her and she was in the dirt again. Her mind screamed to move but all her body would do was gasp for air. She felt his foot again, this time at her shoulder. The impact was awkward, he was kicking in a rage. She could hear screaming but none of the words made it into her mind.

  She braced for the third kick, knowing it had to come. She rolled as best she could with the last one to buy time. She pulled a breath and planted her hands on the ground. She was braced for the kick and would put as much room as she could between them. The timing was off, and the screaming had quieted. In fact, it had become quiet enough that she heard murmurs from the far side. She heard a voice from behind, raspy and stilted and old.

  “You woke me, elf. I am displeased.”

  She turned slowly to look at the source of the voice. It was an old satyr, grey tufts of hair growing from his chin and half of one of his ears missing.

  “I… we didn’t mean to…”

  The elves stopped there and ran for the far wall. The satyr knelt down over her.

  “Do you not care for your life, tiny elf?”

  “What would my life here have been without so much as clothes?”

  The satyr let out a choppy, honking laugh and stood. “Can you walk?”

  Óraithe tried to push herself up, but her arm gave. The knobby hand of the satyr grabbed her before she hit the dirt and pulled her up. She looked up at him, nervous. He was an immense creature but thin. There was a calm in his expression that was inviting. He wore the same roughspun clothes as the rest of the prisoners in the yard, and somehow it seemed odd. She had not thought of satyrs as the sort that wore clothes. She’d never seen one but now she could see why the war had been so long.

  “Follow. I have questions. And if the guards see you near the rocks you will be made to work.”

  She looked behind at the trail of blood that had followed her attacker away and felt a sense of pride rise above the pain for only a second. The satyr stayed at her side, though she moved slowly.

  “In all my time here, I have not seen a girlchild sent to the pits. There must be no love for you in your land.”

  She pulled in a breath to answer him and held it a moment, giving the pain time to wane. “It does not seem likely.”

  “What was your crime?”

  She laughed. “I thought to unseat our Treorai.”

  The honking laugh filled the air again. “Tyrants, is it? I know of them myself. They are difficult to deal with.”

  “I was naive. I know now.”

  “So you no longer wish to unseat her?”

  Walking was becoming easier as her muscles came to understand that they would be used whether they complained or not.

  “I do. Or, it is something simpler. I wish to see her dead.” She coughed.

  The satyr considered that. “I think… nothing is so simple as you see it in your mind.”

  They were nearing the wall and the satyr moved ahead of her. He grabbed a blanket from a small pile and handed it to her.

  “Warm yourself. There are things that you should know.”

  Óraithe happily wrapped herself in the blanket. It was nicer than most blankets she’d had even back in the Bastion City.

  “Where did you get blankets?”

  “This prison was not always such a cruel place. I expect it was long before you were born into this world.”

  He slid his hand into a canvas bag and pulled free a crust of bread. “This is yesterday’s. You are welcome to it. They feed us better here than in the cells, I am sure.”

  She took the bread and tore a chunk free with her teeth. Her full mouth did not stop her talking. “Have you been to the cells?”

  “No. They don’t dare try.” He laughed. “More than a few have been sent to the pits. None survive.”

  “You helped them?”

  “No.”

  He answered so casually that Óraithe hardly believed she’d heard him correctly.

  “Then why help me?”

  “You fought as I have never seen. Such a small thing and you tore at an enemy
many times your size so that you would not die. Or at least not as easily as they may have liked. A thing that thirsts to live ought to live, I think. They have not broken you as they broke the others.”

  Óraithe placed a hand low on her stomach. “They nearly did.”

  “So it goes with all who are put through great cruelty. You are bent across the hard edge of your will to live. If it is too narrow a thing, you will snap and be lost in your own mind. Whether you would break is not a thing that is found out. It was set long before by the shape of your life.”

  She listened as intently as she could as she ate. When the bread was gone, the satyr gently grabbed her hand and examined her arm.

  “There is one meal. At night. Food is left by the doors they sent you from. I will secure what I can for you now, until you are fit to fend for yourself.”

  The satyr grabbed a blanket from his pile. Óraithe looked at the lump of cloth and wondered what was there besides blankets. She dreamed of a pillow. Anything to rest her head upon. While her eyes fixed on the pile, a knot formed in her stomach. She had eaten something solid for the first time in too long, and eaten it too quickly at that. Óraithe winced and the satyr glanced at her.

  “Ate too quickly did you?” He gave a quiet laugh. “It will be a few days before your stomach will allow the food they leave for us. For now, the best thing is sleep.”

  “Sleep? In the day?”

  “Yes. The guards watch in the day. They do not allow for fights and only care that the rocks be broken to quota. At night they go. You know what the night brings.”

  The throbbing in her chest and shoulder seemed to rise as he said the words. She knew it all too well.

  “I will sleep,” the satyr said, pulling the blanket around his shoulders. He sat rather than laying. “We will talk more when the night is come.”

  Óraithe was not convinced she would be able to sleep so long, though there was a feeling of security she had not known in a long time. If the satyr meant ill for her, he had no need to hide it. She had been in the open for much of the night before and unconscious besides. At the very least, if he meant to kill her, she would have been warm for a time before she went.

  The satyr was quick to sleep. She heard his breathing become rhythmic within the passing of only a few minutes. The warmth was quickly coaxing her toward sleep as well, but she was not so quick to welcome it.

  The yard had started to come to life now that the sky was blue. The shapes of the dark night became men and women. Some moved to work at the rocks, though most stayed in their places by the wall, perhaps waiting for the sun to move above the high wall. There was maybe even a shift system in place. Óraithe wondered what her place in it was. What the protection of the satyr meant. They were not questions she would necessarily be able to ask. Neither could she ask how long he would protect her.

  The world became a series of snapshots as exhaustion tried to move into her brain. She shook her head to buy another moment and pushed toward the edge of the wall, where light was just starting to creep over. She laid herself down with the rock at her back. The pain was slowly spreading across her body and dulling. It moved out toward the tips of her fingers and Óraithe stretched her hands to let the pain escape. She could feel the dried blood give some resistance. It was a satisfying feeling. It reminded her of the warmth of his blood in the cold air. It reminded her that the Treorai had wanted her dead but that she was still alive. Their sadism was failing them and now she had, for the time being, an ally. Perhaps ally was the wrong word, but whatever the satyr was to her, it would serve.

  R

  Rianaire

  It was a cold morning in the meeting hall, the open colonnade at her back allowing the wind in freely. The room had only occasionally been used since she had retaken it and found Spárálaí’s corpse being attended by a Drow. She still remembered the smell and often she imagined she could see marks on the floor where the chair had been though no one else ever seemed to.

  The hall was now filled with the heads of the colleges and each of the four seemed deeply confused as to what she could possibly need of them. The colleges had, since remembered history, been free of the influence of the outside world to practice their religion and their study in peace. The pure study of the Sisters and their gifts were of paramount priority to the colleges and had been a point of pride to all of Rianaire’s ancestors so far as she knew.

  There was no lack of pageantry from the college heads, each of them dressed in their most regal, ridiculous garb to either show her some form of respect or to make clear how highly they thought of themselves. Her interactions with the heads had always been terse and somewhat frustrating. Their independence from the control of the Treorai, which had always been a courtesy extended to them, seemed to be viewed as some right that the Sisters had divinely granted them. It seemed to not bear considering that the colleges had not existed until the Sisters had been gone for nearly a thousand years. Well, they were here now. Each of them in curiously wide hats except for the representative of Tine’s school. She was covered from head to toe in black, as was their way, but where the standard garb was linen, hers was velvet and set with shimmering onyx along the arms. The other schools had stones in their clothes as well, though larger. Aquamarine with a pattern of unpolished benitoite just below for Abhainn’s school, a tiger’s eye encircled by dravite for Fásach’s, and a beautifully clear diamond set against a milky quartz for Spéir.

  Rianaire sat quietly watching them as they all stared back, waiting to hear why they had been called away from whatever important thing it was that they had been doing. The carriages would not be prepared for another hour at least and there was little sense in rushing things. This was apt to turn into a long, spirited conversation. Rianaire closed her eyes a moment and let the chill of the room move around her. She took a breath and opened her eyes.

  “As you well know, I am currently without a Binse due to a shortage of appropriate local candidates. If the province is to be run to a quality standard, especially under threat of attack from the hippocamps, I will need proper assistance. As such I intend to leave the city for a time in the interests of forming a Binse that is capable of meeting the needs of our people.”

  A girlish voice came from the representative of Abhainn’s school. “With all due respect, we—”

  “You are not invited to speak until I have finished.” Rianaire’s voice was cold and plainly annoyed. “I have left orders with the city guard and they will see to maintaining order. You four will be responsible for receiving the Binse and seeing to anything that they may need.”

  A gravelly voice, deep and throaty. The Fásach school. “Treorai, we do not—”

  She cut her eyes at him and scowled. “If you speak over me again, I will have your tongue. Any of you. I have called you here to tell, not to ask. When I have said my part, you may voice whatever you wish.” She continued. “In addition to your duties acclimating the newly arrived Binse to their positions, I will require that you all send recruiters to every corner of the province and into Abhainnbaile so much as you can. Diplomatic papers have been issued in my name should they be needed. You are to bolster the numbers in your schools with an eye toward those adept in the Gifts especially.”

  She paused, almost daring the heads to make a sound. None dared.

  “Further, you are to immediately cease any required worship of the Sisters as a matter of course and piety will no longer be allowed as a measure of the value of a student, only their ability with the Gifts and their ingenuity. Pursuant to that, the writ of each college will be to develop a deeper understanding of the Gifts of the Sisters and to advance any practical applications to improving the lives and warfaring capabilities of our great people.”

  There was not a voice raised in disagreement but the shuffling in the chairs was unending. She had succeeded in upsetting them, but she was not yet finished.

  “Any among you w
ho takes umbrage at this, I will be glad to discuss it with you but my decisions are firm and you are welcome to leave the employ of the college so long as you take nothing and no one with you. Should you attempt to take valuable texts or elven resources, you will be executed as a traitor.”

  She took in a deep breath. “Now,” she said, crossing her legs, “I would be happy to hear what any of you have to say.”

  All four of the heads predictably erupted with complaints, loudly and with faces that certainly were not the sort one would expect to see on the most learned and thoughtful that the elven world had to offer. It was piety and righteousness that had filled them with this attitude and Rianaire took a deep pleasure in watching their reddening faces.

  “STOP!” called the booming, aged voice of the Spéir school. “She is willing to hear us, but it is for naught if we speak like children.”

  There was the holy attitude, though only a second before he had been shouting with the others. She had known the old man when she was working to be named Údar of the Spéir school. He was easily provoked then, and violent. He had not mellowed in his age, but he knew that he must at least play at respect in front of her. He began again now that the others had quieted.

  “Treorai, the colleges have long enjoyed an existence unencumbered by the burden of the outside world. It is that crucial separation that has been key in allowing our studies to continue so fruitfully.”

  Rianaire looked him in the eye, her face stony and void of emotion. “Enjoyed is a word that seems to be most telling. You were given a gift many thousands of years ago on the promise of bettering the way of life for all elves. What have you given us in your own lifetime? Or the lifetime of ten of your predecessors?”

  “The study of the Sisters and their Gifts—”

  “Or is it only the study of the Sisters? The forms taught to me that I might be named Údar at each of your colleges are the same that were taught to my mother and to hers. You study nothing. You gain no knowledge, you simply pass generation after generation learning to recite the same stories and chants.”