The Lost Daughters

by Leigh Grossman

  We could have walked two abreast on the wide spiral stairway, but unconsciously we stayed single file in the center, as far as possible from the long drop to the woods below.

  Lights flickered again.

  As if in answer the stars flickered above.

  My father threw himself down and huddled close against a stair.

  Something swooped toward me. Metal slammed my arm. I yelled in pain. No blood: My armor had turned the blade. It swooped again. I thumped hard onto the stair. Scrabbling wildly, I slid toward the edge.

  A hand closed on my wrist.

  “I’m not letting you go that easily,” Guthre said. The scout smiled at me, then turned back to the fight.

  Sperrin held his blade two-handed. Two silverwings climbed rapidly, gaining altitude for another attack pass. “Are you hurt?” he called out to me.

  “Nothing serious,” I said. “Just bruised. I wish these stairs weren’t so slippery.” I gripped the Talisman tightly, glad I hadn’t lost it over the edge.

  “Stay low. Guthre and I will keep them off you.” Sperrin flashed a hand signal at Guthre, who shifted her stance slightly: legs bowed, knife outstretched.

  He was being charitable. Guthre had only a slim knife to fight with. The silverwings had curved throatcatchers in each hand, their hilts taped in place with strips of cloth so they wouldn’t drop on a bad pass. In the moonlight I could see red stripes tattooed on the silverwings’ necks and shoulders.

  They climbed together, hovered, then dove. The silverwings picked up speed, banked, and came straight at Sperrin, blades out. Sperrin dropped to his knees, blade overhead. The blade flashed twice as the creatures rocketed overhead.

  One of them changed trajectory abrubtly, spraying blood and clutching its bowels as yellow coils oozed out against its bladed hand. With an eerie cry the silverwing lost altitude and plunged toward the wood below.

  The second silverwing pitched against the stairs, one of its wing tendons severed. It leaped to its feet quickly to face Sperrin and his blade. Sperrin gave ground slowly before the creature’s twin blades. The silverwing hissed and raised its good wing.

  Suddenly Sperrin pushed forward. The creature sank to its knees before he reached it.

  Guthre withdrew her knife from where she had thrust deep in the silverwing’s armpit from behind, in the space exposed by its raised wing. Swinging two handed, Sperrin beheaded it.

  “Get the blades,” he said. Guthre had already gone to work cutting the bindings holding the throatcatchers in place. Once she had them Guthre pushed off firmly with one foot, sending the creature sliding off the slick stair to plummet to the ground far below.

  “Nicely done,” said a familiar voice from a few stairs down. This time Eury took the form of a beautiful boy with golden curls. He wore a white tunic trimmed and belted with gold, matching his luminous eyes. A stillsword glittered like diamond dust from his belt, but the demi-god made no move for his blade.

  “You again?” Sperrin said. “How many times do I need to kill you?”

  “Best get used to it, little soldier,” said Eury. “If you want to find my brother Kedessen, you need to come through me first.”

  “I’m fine with that,” said Sperrin, hefting his blade.

  “You really think you can beat a god with a blade?”

  “Yeah, sort of. I’m willing to give it a try if you’re up to it.”

  Eury laughed. “You will have your chance, little soldier. But not just yet, I think. You have to earn that challenge. I’ll see you below, if you live that long.” With that, the golden-eyed demi-god leaped easily from the stair.

  I looked, but saw no sign of him falling in the moonlight.

  From the stairs above us, I heard howling, like the baying of wolves.

  “Ketya,” Guthre said to me, “take this.” She handed me Sperrin’s second knife and took hold of the throatcatchers. “Can you tie the straps please? Quickly.”

  The baying increased in volume. I slid the knife into my boot. Reaching out, I took the ends of the tape from where they clung to the slender needle-points that protruded vertically from the top of the broad slashing blades that enveloped Guthre’s fists. As quickly as I could, I wrapped the tape around Guthre’s wrists and forearms, securing the blades.

  “You can fight with these?” I asked.

  “Better than bare hands. I’ve played with practice blades a little, but this isn’t exactly a scout’s weapon.”

  “This is a pretty strange place for a scout,” I said, trying to make it sound playful. I gave Guthre’s forearm a slight squeeze, then stepped back from the completed bindings. “Fight well.”

  “Oh, I will. I’m tired of running. I just want to kill them.”

  She is her father’s daughter, I thought, but all I said, again, was “Fight well.”

  We ended up running anyway. As the baying filled the night, I saw the first wolves loping down the stairs at us. A huge pack of them, black wolves with two heads and bright alabaster teeth the color of the stairs.

  Sperrin

  Land of the Gods: Eight weeks after the Loss

  “You go to the back,” I said, pointing to the chancellor with my sword. “I think we’ll see if you’re telling the truth about them not touching you.”

  Without protest the chancellor let us pass him and begin hurrying down the stairs, away from the oncoming wolves.

  “He knew those creatures were coming, didn’t he?” Guthre asked.

  “The silverwings? Definitely. He hit the ground when the lights flashed, before we heard them. He saw the signal and didn’t warn us.”

  “Did he know Eury was coming, too?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll have to face Eury again at the bottom of these stairs. Wolves first, though.”

  “Where do we fight them?”

  “Not here. They can push us over the side just from the weight of them. For wolves we need flat ground.”

  “Do you have a plan to kill Eury?”

  “I’m working on it. He keeps saying he can’t be killed, but he’s avoiding a fight at the same time. He has some weakness. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

  “Maybe the chancellor knows?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “That sort of information is currency to him. He would have bartered it to us if he had it. Or used it to get Eury to release him from the cell before we got there.”

  “Ketya,” I called out, “when we get to the bottom, be ready to stand and fight. Sooner, if I signal. Whatever you do, don’t run. Wolves are built to take down running opponents. They don’t fight well against someone who holds their ground.”

  “Aren’t we running now?” she asked, a little out of breath.

  “We’re looking for a good spot to fight them, something better than the stairs. If they push it we’ll fight here, though.”

  “I understand,” she said. None of us slowed down.

  The wolves surged after us, a black mass covering the stairs behind us. Less than a full turn of the spiral staircase separated them from us now.

  Quickly, the wolves closed in. Their fur shimmered in the moonlight, highlighted with silver or gray.

  “Ketya, keep going,” I called out. “Guthre, turn and defend left. Keep moving, though. We need to get down these stairs.”

  Guthre smiled an acknowledgment and turned to fight.

  The wolves surged forward, trying to go around the chancellor. I stabbed randomly to keep them from getting past on the right, not caring how much damage I did as long as they stayed behind the chancellor. On the left, Guthre did the same, poking at fierce snouts to keep the creatures from enveloping us.

  “Keep moving,” I shouted when the chancellor would have stopped. Guthre and I backed up slowly, matching the chancellor’s speed. “Ketya, yell if anything comes at us the other way. And tell us when we get close to the bottom.”

  “Another four turns,” she shouted back, just barely audible over the baying of the wolves.

  A
wolf got too close. I stunned it with the flat of my blade. A kick to the shoulder sent it sliding off the stairway to fall yelping to the woods below.

  Grimly, we kept at it, stair by stair. I hoped Guthre would hold up, injured as she was, but she kept throwing herself at the attacking wolves.

  “Save some energy for the fight,” I called out. “We still need to kill them when we get to level ground.”

  “I have plenty of energy,” Guthre called back. “Going to be hungry when it’s all done, though. What do gods eat?”

  “No idea,” I said, fending off another wolf. “I hope it’s not wolves. Whatever it is, I’ll make sure you get the best cut of it.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” said Guthre.

  “Almost there,” Ketya shouted up at us, after what seemed like forever. “There’s some sort of clearing down here, and a bunch of cages. There are paths in the woods, but they keep opening and closing. It’s like a maze, but the trees are moving.”

  The trees felt like the least of our problems. “What kind of cages?” I called back, without turning from the wolves. “Is something in them going to attack us from behind?”

  “I don’t think so,” shouted Ketya. “They’re pretty small. I see a cat in one of them. Most of them look empty.”

  “Looks don’t mean much here,” I called back at her. “Keep an eye out. And get your back to a tree or something. We’ll be fighting these things as soon as we hit bottom.”

  Another few steps and I could see ground. I jumped off the stairs to the springy ground. Pivoting, I swung my blade and took the legs out from two startled wolves.

  The wolves snapped and surged as they hit the base of the stairs. The chancellor fell backward and the wolves leaped over him in their hurry to get to us.

  “Just keep them off my back,” I said. “I’ve got the long blade.” Guthre and I worked our way slowly toward Ketya, who had her back to a double row of carved wooden cages. She had both knives out and had bloodied a pair of wolves that harried her. One snapped at her arm. The Snake Slayer armor barely held back the wolf’s fangs.

  Most of the creatures went for me, though. My blade cut through a mass of fur and flesh. A dozen of the creatures lay dead before the wolves started to give ground.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked Ketya, once we found themselves alone in the clearing. Guthre walked over to check on the chancellor, who seemed uninjured except for a few scratches from when the wolves had surged over him.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Ketya. She had cuts and scratches on her legs and hands, but none seemed deep. I wondered if wolfbites in the land of the gods were likely to fester. I supposed it didn’t matter: Long before any infection could take hold we would likely either be dead or have access to magical healing again.

  Ketya

  By the time Sperrin had finished checking my wounds, my hands had stopped shaking. “Sorry,” I said. “I was fine during the fight, I think.”

  “You lived and the wolves are gone. Sounds fine to me,” replied Sperrin.

  Now that we were free from the immediate threat of wolves, I glanced over at the cages. “It’s some sort of crossroads prison,” I said. “There’s an old folk tradition that magic is stronger at a crossroads. Maybe there’s something to it.”

  “A prison?” Sperrin looked dubious. “A prison for pets, maybe. Why would you build a prison with cages this small?”

  He had a point. The cages looked more like elaborately carved rabbit hutches than like cells. None of them had any metal parts, just carved wood with no apparent seams. I supposed they wouldn’t use iron in the land of the gods.

  Aside from the cat I had seen before, none of the cages looked occupied.

  “What’s Guthre doing?” I asked Sperrin. The scout walked slowly toward my father, who had regained his feet and dusted himself off.

  “I don’t know.”

  Guthre turned her head to look at them as she walked toward the chancellor, stopping to kill an injured wolf. “So your father lied to us again. Tell me again why he’s still alive?”

  No one answered her. Guthre turned and walked past the chancellor, toward the stairs.

  My father snorted. “Ketya, I think you had best keep your pet under control, before—”

  His eyes went glassy. Guthre slid the thin needle of the throatcatcher’s upper blade out from behind my father’s jaw, where it had entered his brain. She wiped it clean on the back of his tunic, just before my father’s knees buckled and he toppled to the ground.

  “What?” she said, seeing the expressions on Sperrin’s and my faces. “Neither of you had an answer for me. I realize both of you have some kind of weird hero fixation on him, and I understand he’s your dad, Ket, but to me he’s just the evil guy who got the Empress killed. He needed to die.”

  “Who will speak to the gods? He has the experience, and the armor.” Sperrin looked stunned, but not exactly unhappy.

  “You mean, besides Ketya? You can. Or I will. The armor comes off, right?” Guthre squatted down, released the tape from the throatcatchers and placed them on the ground carefully, and began expertly stripping the corpse.

  “But he—” My face had gone totally white.

  “Yeah, I know. Kinda ruins things between us, I’m sure. But he would have dragged you all over the Alliance to rescue your mother, then ditched you once he found her—if he hadn’t gotten you killed first. I know he was your father, but he was not a good person.”

  I didn’t reply. I found myself transfixed by the sight of my dead father, now being stripped of his outer clothing and armor.

  “So who’s taking this?” Guthre asked, holding up the Mouse King suit. “I’ll be happy to wear it, but I may not be the most diplomatic person here.”

  Chapter 27

  Ketya

  For a moment, all of us stood around stunned. No one knew what to say. My father had been the only one who had any idea of what to expect here in the land of the gods, despite the many times he had lied to us.

  Now what? I wondered. How do we even go on? As angry and frustrated as I had been at my father, his death left an empty place that ached in my stomach.

  Now what?

  An unfamiliar voice from behind me finally broke the silence.

  “It really pains me to ask this,” said the cat in a low, sultry voice, “but would one of you consider letting me out of this cage?”

  I pivoted, and looked at the large, sad-eyed tabby in the cage. “You can talk.”

  “Apparently.”

  I took a step back, and found Sperrin standing at my shoulder. “Do you think it’s safe to let the cat out?”

  “You’re our expert on this place,” he said, gently.

  Our living expert, you mean. For a moment anger seethed through me. From the edge of my vision, I saw my father’s stripped body at the edge of the stairs. But Sperrin was right. I could be angry later. Just like in the Drowned City when he told me I could mourn later. I wondered when later would come. If it would ever come.

  First I had to do what I could to restore the magic.

  Most of the treaty concerned the human lands where the war had been fought. The sections dealing with the land of the gods mostly focused on dress, decorum, and who had standing to discuss violations or modifications with the gods.

  Nothing in the treaty said I couldn’t release prisoners in the land of the gods. I supposed it hadn’t come up in the negotiations. If it had been a serious problem, the gods would probably have used cages with locks, not something any passerby could open. Were there passersby in the lands of the gods? My father had been here at least twice before without harm coming to him, so it probably wasn’t always as lethal as today’s experience had been.

  Impulsively, I stepped forward and lifted the latch of the cage.

  The wood flashed as if a magical ward had released. The cat butted the door open and bounded from the cage.

  Already as the creature touched the ground it began to change. I reached for my knives, but
the woman in front of me held out her hands, palms out.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” said the woman. Worn fighting leathers covered her torso. Ancient-style leathers, like the ones soldiers had used in the Holy War. I had seen them in museums and Memorial Day processions, dry and brittle. But these leathers were oiled and supple. The woman looked weathered, especially on her face and around her sad eyes. Red-brown hair hung in a long braid halfway down her back.

  “You’re a god,” I said. I didn’t know how I knew it, but suddenly I felt utterly certain of it.

  “And your point is?” the woman asked.

  “What were you doing in a cage if you are a god? And why are you dressed like that?”

  Spoken by a woman wearing a Snake Slayer costume that somehow transformed into real armor, I realized, and I felt myself blushing.

  The woman squinted at me, then scanned the clearing. “I don’t know any of you. And you don’t seem to know me.”

  “Where should we know you from?” Sperrin asked. I suddenly realized that he had put on the Mouse King armor. It made sense, since he did most of the fighting, but it still hurt to realize.

  “Why would you have been sent to rescue me if you don’t know me? I didn’t think there was a human alive who could make it here safely whom I didn’t know. What captain do you serve?”

  “My name is Sperrin, and I am an overcaptain in the Army of Ananya, late in the service of the last Empress. And who are you?”

  “An empress in Ananya? And overcaptains in her army whom I have never met? How long have I been here?”

  I said, “If you tell us your name, maybe we can answer you.”

  “My name is Juila, sorceress in the central council of Ananya. And I assure you we have no empress. A week ago my sons fell in battle, and I was taken. But we held the field, I think. And you tell me that Ananya still stands.”

  “Juila...” said Sperrin.

  The name came back to me suddenly. “You were married to Captain-general Keir. But you’re a god? How can that be?”

  The woman looked stricken. “Were married? Has Keir fallen, too?”

  “Milady,” Sperrin said, sounding oddly formal, as if quoting from a favorite book. “Your husband has been dead for eight hundred years. But all the rest of his days since the day you were taken, he never stopped hoping you would return.”