by S. L. Viehl
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
War
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
NOW
ONE
Two forms drifted. Had frost taken shape and life to cross the windward ridge, it would look much like this pair. They were not ghosts, but moved as spirits might, their pace fluid and indifferent. The two made for the best vantage point above the vacant plain, but they also stopped every ten paces. The man turned his head from side to side. The feline watched the man. When they moved again, scythelike claws and spiked serrats pierced the brittle crust of solidified snow, but neither made a sound.
Death, the Iisleg said, no longer walked alone.
Raktar Teulon stopped at the peak of the ridge and performed a complete thermal scan of the surrounding area before removing his face shield. He squinted, making his ghostly eyes shrink to pale slivers between dark lids, and took in the view from north to south. At minus thirty degrees centigrade, the surface air attacked his white and blue outfurs, eager to freeze the body beneath and render it into a statue to tower over the tallest of Iisleg men. It had to be satisfied with leaving scrolls of frost on his weapons, an Iisleg dagger fastened to his right forearm and an offworlder sword with seven curved, congruent blades strapped to the back of his left shoulder.
Do not go, my heart, a memory whispered. I fear for you.
Another answered for him. You no longer have the privilege of choice, slave.
Once Teulon saw the outlying fields were empty and no ships edged beneath the kvinka overhead, his vision shifted within himself. Like the whispers, he always carried the images inside him. They had come with him to this world, as silent and disconnected as he. Frozen in time they were, and would have made little sense to anyone but him. The soft, pallid hand of a Terran. Green blood on that same hand, tightened to a knotted fist. The noiseless flare of pulse fire. Glittering blades. Darkness. A whip in midarc. Another hand, harder, insistent.
Red blood on blue claws.
Do not go. Her voice, as sweet as summer rain, always faded away before Teulon heard the obscenity of his. You no longer have the privilege of choice.
My heart. Slave. My heart. Slave. The whispers rode his breath now. Swelling in. Rushing out. Never ceasing. Heart-slave-heart-slave-heart-slave-heart—
And beyond them, there were others. Others he could not hear. Voices that would never speak again. Voices from the void that was as dark as this place was white. Voices forever trapped there, between path and embrace, the voices of the blood, his blood, not of this world but his own, their own, all of them gone now, obliterated, beyond bodies, beyond dust, as if they had never been, and those lost voices shrieked at him, demanding their blood debt be satisfied, their honor known, their path returned to them—
I fear for you.
Teulon glanced down at the big cat, which stood motionless and alert. A familiar yearning glittered in those remote, silvery eyes. “Soon, my friend.”
The jlorra bore a thin, diagonal slash of scar tissue that neatly divided the dark fur of his face and wound around to disappear in the full ruff beneath his mouth. The white streak became jagged whenever the cat bared double rows of dagger-shaped blue teeth in a silent snarl. Long ago this particular jlorra had proved too feral to serve the Iisleg who had snared him and then tried to kill him for his furs. The attempt had scarred the cat and stolen his voice, but it had cost the Iisleg two beast masters and five warriors.
The wounded cat had escaped. Roaming the ice fields alone, the jlorra healed, becoming even more dangerous, killing so efficiently and indiscriminately that the Iisleg named him Bsak, after the insatiable, soul-eating god from their oldest legends.
So it was until the day Bsak returned to the Iisleg, walking like a pampered pet at the side of their Raktar, from whom he had not been parted since.
After performing a second scan, Teulon covered his face with the triangular insulated shield plate that protected his skin from the cold and masked any shine from his eyes and teeth. The jlorra paced him as they left the ridge and slowly descended to the snow plain. There waited five figures: Hasal, his second-in-command, and four Iisleg hunters from the Iiskar Elsil, the first of the surface-dwelling tribes to join the rebellion.
Only Hasal dared look directly at him.
Teulon touched his glove to the top of Bsak’s head, and the cat sat down on his haunches. “Send them.”
Hasal raised one arm and brought it down with a slashing motion. Snow erupted in countless geysers as one hundred surface skimmers discarded their frost sheets and shot up into the sky. The skimmers’ engine-heated shrouds shed meltwater, which fell in a frozen rain and made tiny pits in the ground crust.
In the wake of the launch of the scouts, ground troops in rebel-bleached outfurs swarmed over the plateau to begin setting up camp. Only four figures cast color on the snow, and did not join in the work, but instead came to stand a short distance from Teulon and his lieutenants.
Teulon watched the cluster of skimmers separate and form a reconnaissance line before sweeping up and over the ridge. All the pilots carried beacon finders that had been adapted to locate and mark the position of subsurface bunkers. They would perform a single pass of the designated area before returning. Because the skimmers were of Iisleg design, their presence would not trigger the drone monitors guarding the bunkers.
Teulon knew that the fully automated storage units contained enormous stores of ordnance: surplus and emergency weapons caches from thousands of different worlds, closely guarded, held in reserve until needed.
“No patrol ships,” one of the Elsil muttered, scanning the empty horizon.
“The Tos’ don’t patrol the trenches,” Hasal told him.
The Toskald had always had good reason to feel confident about their surface armory. Drone monitors, programmed to fire on anything that attempted to access the trenches without a code, guarded each cache. Codes were changed at random intervals by means unknown to the Iisleg. Even if the monitors could be disabled, there were the internal sensors and inventory scans. If one cache was discovered disturbed, the provisions of food and medicine sent down from the skim cities would stop for a month. If two were disturbed, nothing was sent for a season.
Teulon knew no tribe had ever tried to access more than two caches. Imagining what would happen if they dared had kept the Iisleg obedient for more than five centuries.
One of the first things Teulon had shown the Iisleg had been how to build food synthesizers that rendered most organic materials into edible nourishment. That ended the tribes’ dependence on their Toskald masters’ supplies. Eradicating the threat of starvation had been the first stage of the rebellion, after the Iisleg had elevated Teulon to Raktar over the rebel forces.
This was the last of the northern territory to be inspected and mapped. When the skimmers returned, they would add their data to that which Teulon’s cartographers had already gathered. This would result in a complete, highly detailed map of every armory trench in use on the planet.
Teulon intended to take them all.
A soldier approached and made a polite sound, drawing Bsak’s attention. He eyed the big cat with the wariness of one who had seen what a jlorra could do to a strong, armed man.
“What is it?” Hasal demanded.
The soldier nodded toward the waiting hunters. “The emissaries from the eastern iiskars wish to bid the Raktar permit them join us.”
Teulon studied the four unfamiliar, waiting men. Theirs was not an unexpected request. The eastern tribes were considered outlanders, small fringe clans too poor to buy a place for themselves in the crude coalition that had constituted the Iisleg’s only form of government. Before Teulon became Raktar, the only security they could afford was through obtaining the uncertain favors of the Toskald princes. Now that the flow of tit
hes to the skim cities had been disrupted, the outlanders needed to court his protection.
They did not yet understand that Raktar Teulon could never be placated or appeased.
“Bring them,” Teulon told the soldier. The easterners would have to be evaluated, trained, and watched, but the Iisleg learned quickly. He could use the additional men to fill in for those who would soon leave to join the others waiting in the northern territory.
The soldier made a quick gesture and the four approached them. One inhalation told Teulon that they had not yet been through any sort of useful field training; they hadn’t even bothered to mask their bodies’ odors with smoke. Two wore shabby outfurs that sported innumerable mended patches, the mark of low rank. One wore the thermal garments and footgear of an offworlder—likely salvaged from a wreck. The fourth had pristine furs and turned-skin boots unscarred by the ice.
Bsak shifted, and Teulon touched a gloved hand to the back of the cat’s neck. The jlorra padded over to the emissary with the offworlder garb and sniffed before doing the same to the one sporting the newer garments. Both men were wise enough to remain still and silent. The big cat moved on to inspect the two shabbier figures before returning to Teulon’s side.
Teulon rested his hand on the jlorra’s head as he watched all four faces, noting the tiny changes in skin color, sweat odor, and eye lines.
Feeling safer now, New Furs took a bold step forward and bobbed his head. “From Iiskar Bjola I am sent. Many more victories in your name, Raktar.”
The other three glanced at each other, as if trying to decide who should go next, and how to at least match the Bjola’s honorific perfection. Addressing the Raktar was already a delicate business; this made it only more complicated.
“All have seen the blood of the Tos’ on the ice, marking your new kingdom,” the Bjola said, his words not as rushed now. He appeared confident, as well, a man who had enjoyed a fortuitous beginning. “Our tribe eagerly welcomes the coming freedom.”
Hasal made an indistinct sound. Some heard it as a hiss of impatience, others as the whistle of Iisleg contempt.
Teulon waited. The scent of body odor thickened and changed. Bsak stirred.
None of the outlanders could interpret the Raktar’s silence. The Bjola decided to seize the awkward moment as a new opportunity and turned to Hasal. “We would not hide like fearful women in our shelters, of course. Our rasakt would know—would beg know—how many of our men may be sent to serve the Raktar?”
Hasal answered the question with, “All who can carry a bow.”
The only Iisleg males who did not carry bows were the rasakt of each iiskar, boys who could not count fifteen seasons, and the dead. The rasakt would have to send every man they had.
The requirement stole what was left of the color in the Bjola emissary’s face, but he recovered and made his obeisance by moving a hand diagonally over his chest. The step back he took did not appear as confident as the one he had taken forward, but the outlanders had known nothing of the rebel forces or how to serve them.
Now that they did, the worst part seemed over. The other emissaries relaxed. One attempted to smile.
Teulon lifted his hand. Bsak dropped his head low and fixed his silvery eyes on the four men. His paws flexed, digging retractable claws into the ice, while his body flowed into the posture of an animal ready to spring.
“It would appear,” Hasal said in a flat, bored tone, “that one here does not seek to serve.”
The four men displayed the stunned expression of innocents. Their stammered-out protests of loyalty died as the jlorra’s angular jaw dropped into a silent snarl, displaying blue fangs as long as battle daggers.
Teulon waited.
It was then that one of the pair in the shabby furs decided to act. A pulse pistol appeared in his hand, and he leveled it at Teulon’s head.
“Die, offworlder demon of—” The rest became a choked, liquid gasp as Teulon’s dagger sank into his neck.
Startled eyes moved from the hilt of the dagger to Teulon’s face. No one had seen the Raktar move.
A moment later the pistol hanging limp in the hand of the assassin went flying as Bsak landed on the traitorous emissary and dragged him down into the snow. Jlorra did not waste time toying with their food, and as Bsak fed, the remaining three outlanders looked away.
The snow around their feet turned to pink, then red slush.
Teulon walked past them and nudged the cat aside long enough to retrieve his dagger. He flipped the blood from the blade before it could freeze on the alloy, wiped it clean on the dead man’s outfurs, and slid it back into his forearm sheath.
“Hasal.” Teulon walked toward the temporary shelter that had been erected for his use.
Inside the Iisleg hunting tent, the heatarc’s coils glowed amber through their distribution mesh. Hasal removed his gloves to warm his thin hands. “Ice eaters. They become bolder by the day.”
Teulon used a piece of cloth to clean the faint traces of blood still clinging to his blade. Iisleg blood was very thick and tenacious. “Desperation.”
“The most dangerous of men are. And these easterners—I know their kind.” Hasal crouched to scoop clean ice into a melt pot and placed it on the cookmesh. “Even the ones who believe in the rebellion would rather kiss Kangal ass than fight. The Tos’ bounty on your head has gone from extravagant to extreme.”
Teulon watched his second prepare a strong, dark infusion of tea plant and idleberry grown in skim-city greenhouses. The Iisleg were addicted to the drink, which was also their only source of certain vitamins, without which they suffered a form of scurvy. The ingredients were among the many foodstuffs he had taught them to grow over the last year in the abandoned amory trenches, now transformed into hydroponics labs, to supplement what could be produced from the synthesizers. “Deprivation consumes honor.”
“As you say, Raktar.” Hasal filled a transparent server carved from clear airstone so as to resemble a chunk of ice, and took a sip to check for poison before bringing it to him.
“Are they ready?”
Hasal nodded. “You have but to give the word.” He tugged back his hood and fingered a tuft of pale hair over his right ear. There was a tiny, brittle snap, and he plucked a crushed insect from one strand and showed it to Teulon. “This is the soul of an eastern tribe, Raktar.” He flicked the dead insect into the heatarc, where it was instantly vaporized. “Lice, all of them.”
Teulon drank some of the tea. Idleberry gave the infusion a fruit scent and a faint sweet taste, but not enough had been added to mask the intense bitterness of the tea plant. The Iisleg deliberately brewed it that way, Hasal had told him once, not to save the idleberry, but to remind themselves of the nature of life.
The tea, like the outlander tribes, was an unpleasant necessity. He watched the light from the heatarc refract through the convoluted airstone, where it created the distorted image of a face trapped in glass. The mouth of the face yawned as if trying to gulp down the dark steaming liquid of the tea. “We need them.”
“We shall be blessed if they do not first barter us off to the Kangal.” Hasal started to say something else before he dragged in more air and thought about it. “It is said that they make half their women skela in order to collect more worgald.”
Teulon had heard little but bad jokes and expressions of disgust toward the dead handlers. Iisleg collectively regarded them as little more than excrement with limbs. He personally had no use for them. “I do not want their women.”
“What if these men betray us?” Hasal asked.
Teulon’s fist contracted, and the airstone server shattered.
One hundred miles to the east, Rasakt Deves Navn, headman of Iiskar Navn, listened as his most experienced tracker relayed the details of his latest excursion.
“I saw no caravans for ten kim,” the scout said. He had shed his outfurs, and was still using thermopacks to warm his red, snowbitten hands. “No sled trails in the air. We know Skjonn has not descended for week
s.”
The two men were the only occupants of the rasakt’s shelter. Amber light from the heatarc made their faces ruddy and kept the cold pinned to the layers of stretched skins and salvaged alloy panels that formed the thick, flexible walls. Above their heads, trickles of icy air that had slipped in through tiny cracks in the wall seams and around the top of the rolled hide of the smoke flue danced with the rising heat.
“What of his forces?” Like other Iisleg, Navn did not speak the name of the Raktar out loud. To do so was considered equal to shouting for the gods to visit death upon the camp.
“The army is but four suns’ journey from us, moving east,” the scout said. He was a man of middle years, a veteran of crossing the ice, and bore the scars of countless skirmishes with man and beast on his skin. No emotion showed in his flat eyes. “Perhaps as many as ten thousand men surround him. Reserve battalions flanking them on all sides, ready to supply replacements.”
“Twenty thousand he has, then.” Sizable, but not enough to challenge the Toskald forces. Cold made Navn’s own fingers ache, but to warm them over the heatarc in front of a subordinate was a show of weakness, something he especially guarded against. Instead he tucked his hands into the ends of his sleeves, assuming a pose of wisdom and patience. He long suspected the pose had been invented by one of his own ancestors, perhaps another rasakt with appendages equally vulnerable to chill.
“More than twenty, Rasakt,” the scout cautioned. “I counted the reserves at four to one, and more arrive with each passing sun.”
Fifty thousand men. Rasakt Navn forgot about his personal discomfort and regarded the map of the eastern territories. On it were red marks indicating the reported sightings of the central rebel army, but there were so many now, the map skin appeared riddled by pox. “Where do they go?”
“I cannot tell you.” The scout’s eyes changed, and his voice went low with shame. “They vanish from their camps before dawn, and they leave no track. It is as if they conjure a path from one place to the next.” He made a protective sign over himself.