by Evie Manieri
“I’m the daimon, whether you or anyone else likes it or not,” said Daryan, raising his voice, “and it’s my responsibility to protect the Shadar. You say that what your father and grandfather believed is good enough for you: maybe you’ve forgotten that what they believed was of no help at all when the Dead Ones came. What they believed led to the pointless suicide of every asha in the Shadar. We have to take back the knowledge and the power we’ve lost if we don’t want to be slaves again.”
“Well, you won’t silence us,” said Binit, his eyes bulging in his reddening face.
“You know, I think I understand you now. You’re afraid. You’re so afraid of looking stupid that you’re trying to make ignorance a virtue. Don’t do it, Binit. You can be better than that.”
Isa heard the sound of rapid footsteps stomping through the alleys and Omir appeared, followed by a dozen red-robed guards, each armed with one of the first black-bladed swords they’d produced after taking control of the mines themselves. Omir was the tallest and most imposing Shadari she had ever seen. His black eyes were set in a face that could have been carved out of stone.
“Of course, here come the Reds,” Binit shouted for the benefit of the crowd, recovering his sense of outrage. “Using the weapons we made with our own hands to oppress us, just like the Dead Ones. How come you’re not at the palace, counting the tax-money you’ve bled from these people?”
Omir growled something in response in his deep, slow voice, but Isa did not hear what he said; she had heard something else. Wings. She stood up in the stirrups and searched the night sky until she saw the triffons’ silhouettes blotting out the stars. The other Norlanders were coming.
“Daryan!” she called down to him.
She saw him blanch as he followed the lift of her chin.
“They can’t be here now,” he whispered up to her. “You have to stop them.”
With a heaviness in her chest she collected the reins and whistled for Aeda to take off. Omir and the others dashed out of the way as the triffon stretched out her wings; Isa saw Daryan turn to her just before Aeda bunched her legs and thrust her bulky body up into the air. As soon as she was aloft she saw all six triffons—the only ones left who would still tolerate being saddled—turning toward the temple. Every triffon carried two or three riders. Falkar, Frea’s erstwhile lieutenant and their leader in Eofar’s absence, led the formation.
Falkar brought his mount alongside her and both triffons instinctively fell into formation, beating their wings in unison.
Falkar gave the order to return to the ashadom and though Isa could feel the others griping, they had just enough discipline left to obey him. He brought his triffon around and flew away back to the cave, following his men.
Isa took in a great breath of the night air as soon as he was gone and tried to focus. Daryan needed her. She wouldn’t think about anything else. She wouldn’t think about the pain shooting down from her shoulder into her missing arm, or what she would do when the Nomas’ pain pills were gone. Above all, she wouldn’t think about the fact that she would eventually have to go back to the ashadom, to live among people who considered her an abomination, because she had nowhere else to go.
Flying up over the ashadom with the moon setting over the water behind her, Isa caught sight of her shadow on the cliff-face, elongated by the moonlight into a silent, string-limbed specter atop a gigantic winged beast. The leaning cross of Blood’s Pride poked out from her saddle, stark and menacing. Where her face should have been was a blank oval, incapable of seeing anyone’s suffering or offering any pity, and yet she knew it was looking right back at her.
Chapter 3
Rho Arregador awoke to the feeling of hot blood scalding his hands and his tabard soaked and dripping with gore. He closed his eyes again as the hammock swung beneath him, hooking his fingers through the netting and listening to the scrape of the iron rings just over his head. Just a nightmare, he told his racing heart. His stomach churned with acid and he felt like he was going to be sick, but he couldn’t blame that on the dreams: every morning on the Argent began with the contents of his stomach trying to abandon ship by way of his throat.
He rolled gracelessly out of the hammock and dropped to the floor, letting his forehead rest against the strut for a moment before checking Dramash’s hammock below. Except for a rumpled blanked and a vacant-eyed poppet made by one of the Nomas sailors, it was empty. The pouches of Shadari sand they had brought so Dramash could learn to control his formidable asha powers were underneath, furred with the dust of another wasted day. Rho knew he couldn’t keep letting Dramash wriggle out of practicing. He had watched the boy’s ability to command the ore within the Shadari rocks and soil; he’d seen him destroy a stone monument the size of a small mountain and suck people down under the sands—but those deeds had been the acts of a terrified child. Dramash needed real control over his powers if he was ever going to live in the Shadar again, or even be around swords forged from Shadari ore.
At least this morning Rho didn’t have to jam his arm against his side and wait for the pain to stop. He ran his fingers over the right side of his abdomen and felt only smooth skin. Mala, the ship’s healer, had said that the pain could be coming from scar tissue deeper under the surface, invisible but enduring, like the memory of Dramash’s father dragging his rusty blade through Rho’s flesh.
He grabbed his boots and took the single step over to the nearest stool, which skidded over the floor as it took his weight until he pushed his back up against the table bolted to the floor.
said Eofar.
Rho’s stomach rocked along with it and he had to look down at the table, fixing his eyes on the model of Ravindal he had put together after a rummage through the galley junk-box: a slanted stone chopping block with a crack in it for the Front; a weather-bleached clothespin with a bit of red fabric stuck on top for the beacon; lidless spice jars and biscuit boxes for the crowding castles of the twelve clans, except for Eotan Castle, which was represented by a long box that his nose told him had once housed a cheese. The model had not helped them come up with any better course of action than walking into Ravindal and stupidly suggesting to the emperor that he proclaim the Shadar’s independence, and then disingenuously presenting Dramash as one of any number of temple-destroying maniacs ready to do battle for his people.
Rho asked his commanding officer.
Rho didn’t mind Eofar lashing out at him, even if throwing his insane relationship with Frea in his face represented a new low. It was still better than picking up shattered crockery or wrestling knives away from him.
As Eofar slumped over his cup, Rho wondered if anyone in the Shadar would recognize their new governor now. He’d lost weight, his white hair was lank, and Rho didn’t even want to think about the last time his clothes had been laundered.
Rho tapped the block; it rocked, but it didn’t fall over. He really didn’t want to talk about Frea.
The ship swayed and creaked around them as it swept forward into something they couldn’t see. Rho listened to the hammock rings grinding behind him and wondered what it would feel like to get some real sleep.
He hoped it came out as glibly as he’d tried to make it. He didn’t even know why he was admitting to it after all this time … except that it felt perversely satisfying to dredge it up, like poking an old bruise to see if it still hurt.
He needed some air. He retrieved his ancient family sword, Fortune’s Blight, from its dubious place of honor in a dark corner, where it leaned above whatever trash had rolled there: a monolith surrounded by cut-rate acolytes. The massive emerald in the crosspiece glimmered faintly in the glow from his hand as he looped the buckled belt over his head, just as his long-dead father had done, and a dozen ancestors before him. Any one of his older half-brothers could have claimed it, but no one nowadays wanted to be seen lugging around an old-fashioned steel blade.
* * *
Rho stepped out into the shadow of the forecastle and took a moment to adjust his senses to the onslaught. The glare of the morning sun was the worst of it, but the thump of the wind against the sails, the voices of the women and the rush of the salty air all hit him at once. At least the freshness of the wind and the cool northern air purged the stale cabin funk from his lungs.
An unusual number of sailors were gathered over by the starboard rail, watching the sea below. Their loose garb rippled in the steady breeze, and a few wind-tossed locks trailed down beneath their bright scarves and over the backs of their sun-darkened necks. Some of the girls were up in the shrouds—the younger crew-members did most of the climbing—while others busied themselves at tasks he still didn’t understand. He had learned virtually nothing about sailing since he’d come aboard: the women had made it very clear that they preferred him lying in his hammock to stumbling around the decks and getting in their way, although a few had pointed out—some jestingly, some not—that he did possess one asset a ship crewed exclusively by women could well put to use. He shouldn’t have been surprised, not given the fancifully pornographic cartoons he had found carved all over the ship, particularly that one with the octopus.
Rho searched the crowded deck for Dramash, but didn’t see him—he was probably down in one of the holds playing with his little friend Yara, the cabin girl, or scrounging something to eat in the galley. There was no place else for him to go except overboard. Eofar followed him out of the cabin, walking steadily across the deck despite the fact that he was still straddling the space between badly hungo
ver and newly drunk.
“Rho! Come and see.” A young woman with a round face and a little upturned nose shoved one of her comrades out of the way and beckoned him to the rail.
“That’s cheating, Hela,” the other girl protested.
Rho went over to her, resisting the urge to hold on to things as he passed so he wouldn’t have to listen to the girls giggling at his expense. He leaned over the gleaming brass rail and looked down at the white-flecked blues and greens as Eofar came up alongside him.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Hela.
“Yes,” said Rho, as Eofar turned his back to the rail and crumpled weakly on the nearest locker. “It’s a dead triffon.”
The Nomas had snagged the atrocity bouncing along on the waves in their net. One of the wings had been partially torn off and flopped sickeningly over its side. The creature’s snout hung open and its huge eyes, shiny and black in life, had clouded over to a milky white.
“I was just about to fetch you,” called out Captain Nisha as she crossed the deck. Strands of hair, brown and sun-streaked gold and silver, played around her face and the silver moon medallion she always wore flashed in the sun. She leaned close to Rho and whispered, “Don’t you let those girls bother you, especially Hela. That girl would cheat at solitaire. Don’t you worry about their bet. You do just as you like.”
“Bet?”
“You mean you don’t know?” asked Nisha. “I would never have given them credit for being so subtle. Things must have changed since I was young. Or maybe you spend a little too much time watching Dramash, and not enough looking at the … scenery.”
As Grentha, the Argent’s first mate, emerged from the wheelhouse and came to join them, the girls at the rail immediately straightened up and left off their chattering. Nisha was both their captain and their queen, but it was Grentha who kept the discipline.