by Kirby Crow
But he desperately wanted Liall to live as well.
A small redbird drifted in the sky behind Cadan, journeying across the great disk of the sun in the span of an instant, and Scarlet thought: That is my life there, all the time that I have left. In a very little while, I'll be dead, and no one but Annaya or Liall will ever mourn me.
Scarlet thought of Liall's face—handsome, strong, and inscrutable—and wondered if the atya would make it to his homeland, and if not, would they meet again in the Otherworld? Would Deva keep them apart, or would she understand? I love him, Scarlet thought in wonder, amazed that he was the one person who had not seen that.
Then, in that stilled moment, Scarlet finally faced the truth of the fate of his people in Byzantur. They were all going to die, just as surely as he was going to die, and very soon. The Hilurin were few and they were feared and they were unwanted, and they had dared to rule. The coming war would be swift and decisive, its inevitable outcome already determined. Their fate was as plain to him as if it were written across the sky.
He was suddenly profoundly sorry that he had never truly lived his life as he wanted to, that he had never reached out to another's body for pleasure or comfort or warmth, and that he had been too afraid of his nature to learn what it might have been like to be loved by a man like Liall.
Why didn't Liall ask me to go with him? he thought mournfully. I would do it all differently now. I never had the wilding. I was only running away from myself, and now ... I can't be the one to betray him, even if I die. Oh, Deva, help me, I can't, I can't...
A shadow dipped across the sun, and the lazy-looking redbird darted aside, missing the razor claws of the hawk by so narrow a margin that it seemed, in that moment, a miracle that the prey had escaped. The hawk flew harmlessly past, and Scarlet stared transfixed at the disappearing outline of the predator, not even realizing that his body had gone limp in the soldier's grasp. The soldiers, perhaps not wanting to exert further effort into struggling that would soon be put to more enjoyable use, had loosened their holds on Scarlet's limbs. They held him lightly, just enough to keep him on his feet.
A thin thread of sound, silent as a falling cord of spider-silk, but so glorious that it seemed the sun had come alive to speak to him, reached his mind: On danaee Deva shani.
The soundless words seared through his limbs like liquid fire. Scarlet stared up at the sun, his eyes blind, his muscles like water, as Cadan's demanding voice faded into the sighing of the wind. Cadan's expression was languid with the pleasurable prospect of torment to come, his eyes heavy as if very weary, and his expression did not change in the slightest as Scarlet's unseeing gaze met his. Scarlet could hear the sound of Cadan's heart slowing down to a lazy, measured thump. A twig fell from the juniper and took an age to strike the ground.
The soldiers were barely holding him at all. He waited with the flames roaring in his blood as time crawled slowly around him, waited as Deva's holy voice whispered to his brain what he should do, what he must do if he wanted to live.
Cadan hit him again, a straight blow that landed on his chin and snapped his head back violently. Swift as a breath, Scarlet pretended to collapse. His eyes rolled up in his head and he let his knees buckle. The soldiers were taken by surprise and let him drop, but Scarlet only went to one knee. His fingertips grazed the haft of the dagger Liall had given him, safely hidden in the top of his boot.
The inferno in his veins threatened to burst out of his skin, to leave him ripped apart, bleeding and broken. It cried for him to let it free, to let it go before it tore him from within, and he did.
He let it free.
Scarlet rose as lightning-fast as the shadow of the hawk, and his left arm moved, the arm with the fragile, too-small hand that carried Deva's blessing. It moved seemingly independent of his brain, so quick that he could not have stopped it even if he wanted to. It was the hand of the goddess, not his own: her swiftness, not his, her power that slowed time itself around the core of their communion. Sudden warmth striped his face and neck. Cadan's expression did not change.
The soldiers cried out their shock in one voice and leapt away as if a dragon had dropped from the sky. The secret terror that all Aralyrin harbored against Hilurin, the fear of magic, had come to life among them, for the pedlar had moved faster than sight, so quick that it could only be sorcery, and now Cadan's neck was sprouting a dagger that seemed conjured from the very air. A small, bright dagger with a red-enameled hilt.
The Aralyrin soldiers fell back from the gout of Cadan's blood and from the enchanter come to life among them. Scarlet moved without thinking, without feeling, without emotion. His expression was almost sleepy as he whirled and vaulted past the two stunned men.
They could not catch him. No man could have.
He seized his packs and knives as he raced past, not even looking behind him as his feet found the road to Patra. Time resumed its natural pace. As he ran, the earth falling away beneath his boots, he gave thanks to Deva, blessing the creatures she had sent to show him the way, and in his mind the thought kept running over and over: I'm alive, I'm still alive, thank Deva I'm alive and I can save Liall...
12.
Volkovoi
The days that followed were a blur. Liall walked hard, aware that the weather was against him and he had lingered almost too long in Byzantur. In Rusa, he went to the harbormaster, seeking to find a vessel bound across the Channel for Khet and the port of Volkovoi. He was directed to a cargo vessel that he did not like the look of. The crew was a filthy lot. They looked to be either drugged with centaury or idiots or both, but their ship was the only vessel bound for Khet and there might not be another for days. Truly, the harbormaster advised him, the place was better avoided and was he sure he knew what he was doing?
The captain of the cargo ship was no better groomed than his crew, but Liall dickered for a small cabin below the main deck with a bunk that smelled of old wine and worse. He worried it might be infested with fleas. He had concealed his large coin pouch inside his shirt and kept only a few in his pockets to pay his passage, but the captain examined him with a narrow eye, as if trying to assess what else of value he might have.
They lifted anchor shortly after dawn the next day. Liall kept both his long-knives at hand once they were underway. When it grew dark, he locked himself in the stinking cabin, almost choking on the putrid smell of bilge. It would take two days to cross the wide Channel if the wind stayed fair, four if not. He had a good skin of water in his pack and the supplies Peysho had packed for him, so he would have few reasons to venture onto the deck. Many travelers from Byzantur who set out for Khet were never heard from again.
He was certain that one of the crew would try to come in at some point, and he was dozing on the second night when the hatch to his cabin was tried. Waking fully between one breath and another, Liall clasped a long-knife in one hand and rose soundlessly, waiting with his back to the wall. There was a scraping sound in the iron lock and the hatch creaked open. He waited until a head appeared, a shadow darker than the night, and then brought the iron hilt of his knife down.
The crewman sprawled dead-still in the hatchway. Mindful of tricks, Liall stayed where he was until a second figure appeared. Liall lunged forward and seized the man by the arm, jerking him forward so fast that the man's legs failed him and he was dragged into the cabin. Liall held the point of his blade just under the crewman's jaw.
The crewman was small but wiry. He froze when he felt steel against his skin.
"Get out,” Liall said, ever so softly. “I want no trouble, but I'll kill you if you push me to it."
The man gulped and nodded nervously.
"Take this bastard with you."
Liall released him with a shove and stepped back and to the side in case the crewman changed his mind. He did not, but bent to drag his shipmate out of the hatchway.
"Close it."
When they were gone, Liall jammed a chair against the hatch. He sank down again onto the rough pallet he
had made on the deck. Tomorrow, he would be off this stinking bucket and in Khet. Out of boiling water and into the flames, for the natives there were far more perilous than a half-starved merchant crew. With luck, he would not be there long. The night crawled on: anxious hours spent listening to the creak of timber and the lashing of waves against the hull. He tried to conjure images of his home and family, wondering what they looked like now and if they had changed very much, trying to rekindle his eagerness to see them again. Yet, the only image that filled his mind was Scarlet. All he could feel was a deep sense of regret and loss, as if he had held a precious jewel for only a short time before losing it through some gross lack of judgment on his part.
* * * *
Volkovoi was what pirates called a cutthroat port. From a distance, it looked like a stack of sagging wooden boxes left out in the rain, though the landscape stayed roughly the same when one got nearer. The spring rains had come to Khet with a vengeance and everything was wet or had recently been wet or had stayed wet so long it was rotten. All the buildings were the color of mildewed straw and reeked of damp plaster, a fitting dwelling for its citizens: a mish-mash of whores, cutpurses, merchant sailors, deserters, professional thieves, and slavers. The town was dirty and cluttered, and a constant pelting of rain fell from the heavy gray layer of clouds perched over the Channel.
The Rshani brigantine was five days late so far. What little Volkovoi had to offer in the way of comfort had grated on Liall after one day, and he longed to be off. Yet, he must wait for the ship. There was no other way to get home, and it had to be an Rshani vessel. A foreign ship caught within sight of the capital port of Rshan would be fired on with cannon.
In Volkovoi, men with white hair and amber skin were uncommon but not unknown, and even though the residents called them Norls or just Northmen, they knew little about where they came from, save that it was very far away and hostile. Liall saw none of his countrymen on the streets of the harbor the few times he ventured out, but his appearance caused little comment and no one gave him more than a second glance.
No one, that is, except the whore.
The boy looked scarcely old enough to be out by himself at night, much less being about the kind of business he so obviously was seeking. The only reason he caught Liall's eye was because he was slender and black-haired and he had a red cloak wrapped about him. The whore saw Liall's interest and cast a friendly smile at him, one without much hope. Liall was not walking with any purpose, just striding through the rain because he was tired of being penned up in his stinking chicken coop of a room. At least the wind blowing in from the Channel smelled fresh and had the clean tang of salt to it, and he enjoyed the sound of the loud swells booming against the wooden quay; a low, bass report that he could feel in the center of his chest.
Liall was standing under the flickering glow of a streetlamp filled with noxious, stinking whale oil. The boy strolled over to him and the lamp belched black smoke and threw greenish light down on them. The whore had an oiled woolen cloak wrapped around him to keep off the rain, and his hard eyes scanned Liall up and down as he drew nearer, uninvited.
"Zadi," he said, giving Liall a Minh honorific as he stared at the strange coloring of the foreigner.
A whore received all kinds of trade in a port, but Rshani mariners rarely left the safety of their ships when visiting the Southern Continent. The old taboos and hatreds were still too great. Liall chanced a guess that this young one had never seen anyone quite like him before.
The whore had perused him, so it was only fair that he got to do the same. What he saw made him sad; slender beauty marred by dirt and weariness. Upon closer inspection, Liall saw that the brilliant red cloak was mildewed in places and that the boy's nails needed a good cleaning. His black hair was lank and dirty. Still, his smile was winsome if jaded, and he plucked at Liall's sleeve entreatingly.
"Looking for company?” the whore smiled, but his eyes—gray, not black—slid sideways to watch a pair of fair-haired Khet bravos in leather armor stroll by, tapping their clubs and giving Liall the eye in case he meant trouble for them later.
Liall knew the bravos’ type; dumb muscle with no brain behind it to complicate matters. Good for keeping order in a place like Volkovoi, but bad news anywhere else. He ignored them and focused on the boy.
The rain began to come down harder and a peal of thunder spoke from the sky. The boy shivered a little in his shabby cloak and Liall felt a surge of pity for him. Desire, too, if he was being honest. In candlelight, after a meal and a good bath, he might have taken him for Scarlet.
He was on the verge of reaching for his coin pouch when the whore coughed. It was a wet, choking sound, and he saw that the boy was ill. Any blush in his cheeks would be from fever, not emotion, and the whore did not desire him, only his money. Liall saw it in the hard flash of greed in his eyes when his fingers moved toward his purse. It saddened him, and he drew out two silver bits—a week's pay for a groom in a noble house—and passed it into the boy's hand without a word.
The boy stared at the silver in his palm, and then pushed it with a finger as if testing it for solidity. Perhaps he thought it was the supernatural Fey gold that would vanish as soon as mortal hands touched it. He looked at Liall again, and this time there was fear in his eyes.
"What,” he licked his lips, “what would you expect for this? I am not strong for the most part, and I do not enjoy pain."
Liall was further depressed. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “Just get off the street for one night. You will catch your death out here with that cough."
The whore's smile was tired and ages older than his flesh. “Would that be so bad?"
"What is your name, boy?"
"Laith,” he answered. It meant laughter in Qaha, and was an odd dialect for a Byzan to speak.
"Go home, Laith,” Liall ordered. “Buy yourself a meal. Get warm."
The slut bowed as elegantly as any courtier, but before he left, he took Liall's hand in his own and kissed it.
"Kind lord,” he breathed over his skin, causing Liall to shiver with pity. How could he have fancied a resemblance to Scarlet? They were both pretty and dark-haired. That was all.
Liall watched the boy leave with his back to the mortared wall of an alley, his desire as shriveled as the wrinkled skin of his fingertips. He was chilled and soaked clean through and angry with himself. Little use he would be to anyone if he came down with lung-fever. Cursing, he pushed away from the wall to head back to the damned chicken coop, and ran straight into the bravos.
They blocked his way. Liall was tall, but they were only a little less so. They were both blue-eyed and had blond streaks in their coarse brown hair. Half-bloods, he thought. Some Rshani mariner stranded here a generation ago or more. They looked so alike they could have been brothers.
"Where are you going?” the first one inquired gruffly. He had a grizzled white scar streaking his brown beard and a swollen red pustule on his eyelid. He was a few years older than his companion, a barrel-chested brute with a jaw like a lantern. In the fashion of Khet mercenaries, they were both clad in leather armor capped with studs of metal, and they held hard clubs of oak meant for bludgeoning brawling soldiers and drunks.
Suddenly, the street seemed very empty. Liall did not fear them, but he knew he had been foolish.
"Only back to my inn,” he replied, volunteering the simplest information he could. These men were born bullies and he knew firsthand that violence had a nasty habit of gaining momentum. “I'm waiting to take ship. I was only out for a stroll."
"In this?” The younger bravo indicated the sky. “You must be lying. Where are your papers?"
"Papers?” Liall laughed, abandoning good sense. “Who would need papers to come to this pigsty?"
The scarred bravo tapped Liall's chest with the butt of his club. “Here now, watch your ruttin’ mouth."
Liall pushed the club away with the flat of his palm. “There is no need for this,” he said. “I will return to the
taberna and not trouble you further.” He made to push past them, his chin high and proud, and thereby made his second mistake of the evening.
A club crashed into the back of his neck, dropping him to his knees. It was the last thing he expected from the bravos. To be fleeced of money, yes: questioned, intimidated, even roughed-up until he produced a few more sellivar for them. All of that was within what one could reasonably expect from harbor patrols, but this felt personal.
A hard kick to his ribs dropped Liall the rest of the way to the watery pavement before the heavy club landed again on his back. Beyond the pain, all he could feel was dismay and amazement and a vast sense of contempt for his own stupidity. Had he really thought he would be allowed to return to Rshan without incident? These men were not after money, but murder.
Blows rained down on him as his shaking hand fumbled at his waist, trying to draw one of his long-knives. He succeeded in getting his fingers around the handle and unsheathing the blade, but he was far too dazed and slow. A well-aimed kick numbed his wrist and sent his knife skittering across the cobblestones with a shining sound, far out of his reach, and he knew he was lost. He wanted to laugh. This was how he was to end? Beaten to a pulp in a stinking alley, his brains bashed in by a pair of hairy, mouth-breathing imbeciles. He had a lunatic moment where he wondered how much they had been paid to murder him, hoping they got a good price, but the next kick sent that out of his head altogether.
The bravos dragged him further into a dank, narrow alleyway flanked by two crumbling walls and began to beat him in earnest. He was on his belly in the gutter, filthy water rushing past his face. It bothered him that he should die like that, so he rolled over in time to see the younger bravo raise his club to bring down the final blow that would open his skull. He only hoped the rats would not find him until after he was dead.