The False Martyr

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  The prince had not taken a grain of salt to any of it. He seemed to accept that the battle for the Fells was won, that they could set any terms they desired, that it was the Morgs who would come begging rather than the reverse. Cary just had to return to Torswauk with the news, and everything would happen exactly as it should. He’d have days to spend with Noé while they finalized terms. Then he’d carry the news to the King, would be the first one His Majesty saw when he heard of the astounding success that would save his country. The adulation and rewards would be immediate: promotions, special duties, fame, fortune, and good favor. Soon, he’d be commanding the royal couriers. He might even be knighted. Every star in the sky was aligned to see him rise. Then the prince had said those terrible words, and that magnificent dream had turned to ash.

  It’s not about us. It’s all Morg politics. He heard the words again and rose involuntarily from his knee. “I must return to Torswauk,” he said in a daze, remembering too late to add, “Your Majesty.” The prince looked at him with distaste. His advisors might have killed him with their eyes. Not only had Cary risen without the permission of his sovereign, he had spoken out of turn, and his words had been a statement rather than a request. For better or worse, Cary was too overwhelmed to care. Instead, he dug the hole deeper. “I cannot explain, but I must leave immediately. I will take the horses we brought. Please continue to Torswauk as quickly as you can.”

  Rumbles of discontent followed Cary as he ran from the nobles without having been dismissed. He had just broken every possible protocol for dealing with the nobility – and a prince, for the Order’s sake. The only thing that saved him from immediate punishment was the completeness of the act. None of those men had ever seen anything like it and had no idea how to deal with it. They were stunned, but even more, doing something about it was so far below them that they did not know where to start – wasn’t that what officers were for? The confusion would provide a reprieve, but only until they arrived at Torswauk. By then, Cary wasn’t sure it would matter.

  He ran from the grumbling nobles toward where Yerl and Pence stood holding the reins of their horses. Not a part of the procession, they were well off to the side, wondering how far in front of or behind they would be expected to ride. Cary was about to make that decision even more difficult. “I need the horses,” he called as he approached.

  “What in the Order’s name are you doing?” Pence asked, his eyes on the disgruntled nobles. “I’ve never seen the conical hats give someone such look that weren’t shovelin’ shit the rest of their lives. You must have . . . .”

  “Shut up and give me the horses!” Cary yelled. He had reached the rangers. Ignoring them, he ripped the reins and leads for all five from Yerl’s hand, leapt into the saddle of Pence’s, and dug his spurs hard into its side. It burst forward. Cary nearly lost his grip on the other animals as he jerked them forward. Recovering, he looped the long reins through the flank girth ring, and tied them into a single overhand knot. The rangers yelled behind him at the theft. Cary didn’t care. He had just realized that everything they believed was wrong, that the negotiations were very much in danger, that even now everything could be unraveling. There was still a chance to save it, but it would take everything these horses could give and all his skill as a rider to get there in time.

  #

  As he rode, Cary thought back through his epiphany. He’d had time now to regret the way he’d departed the prince’s camp. Given the distance before him, the few minutes that proper decorum would have required were insignificant, but the revelation had come so fast, had so filled him with dread that he had not been able to control his actions. Even now, any punishment he would receive seemed insignificant in comparison to what might be happening in Torswauk.

  If I’m wrong, a part of him said. A cold wave ran over him. What if I am overreacting? What if I’m being paranoid? I’ll never ride again. The prince will see to it. I’ll be finished. He shook his head. He wasn’t wrong. He knew it. Not this time. Everything fit far too cleanly, everything made far too much sense.

  Cary realized now that he had been thinking about everything the wrong way. He had been fixated on how Ithar and Zhurn would use Noé to keep the Thull from supporting Liandria. He knew that the fire had given Eselhelt the ability to defy Nyel. The fire ran through the women’s quarters, Noé had said. Fewer than a hundred survived. It left Eselhelt with thousands of men who no longer had wives. It meant that they not only had no need for the thuluck raln shatar, but that they could provide men to any lodge that needed them. The tragedy had given them the unique ability to neutralize Nyel’s most powerful weapon. It gave them a window, but at best, it would divided the Thull, would delay – not decide – the outcome.

  So then why hold up the Callik? Their best hope would be to do exactly what Juhn had suggested: move quickly in the Callik to reject Liandria, collect their pay from the Empire, and begin the fighting while the Thull was divided. Eventually, they could broker a favorable deal in the Thull and get paid by the other side as well. But every day of delay was a day that they got nothing, so why wait? It made no sense and had kept Cary’s mind running in circles for days.

  It was only when the prince had said it wasn’t about them, that Cary had realized his mistake. With that one phrase, his mind had opened and all the nonsensical machinations had made perfect sense. The competition between Liandria and the Empire, even the invasion, was just a distraction, and even Nyel had been caught in it. Ithar and Zhurn had their eyes on a far larger prize than gold. They wanted to topple Nyel, wanted to change the entire hierarchy of the Fells. They were letting Nyel think that she had won. The stalemate in the Callik only proved it. It made her overconfident and bought them time. The Mothers almost never meet, Juhn had said. And they would never talk to a Father from a different lodge, so they would need time to bring the pieces together and someone to coordinating it all. Juhn. Juhn was the only one who could bridge the gap between the men and women. And he had Nyel’s ear. He could tell her anything and she would believe it.

  Then they would spring the trap. Thinking her support was secure, Nyel would call for the vote, and everything she believed to be true would turn into lies. The lodges would turn on her. Cary could almost see it happening. Cowed into thinking it her duty, terrified of what would happen if she failed, Noé would open the door by opposing Nyel and offering the men who had lost their wives in the fire to cover the change in the thuluck raln shatar. That would embolden the eastern lodges, but it wasn’t enough. The real blow would come from Mehret.

  That was the other piece that Cary had not been able to see. The opposition to Nyel could not hope to win as long as Torswauk and Mehret were unified. And Mehret would profit far more from Liandria than the Empire. So why was the Mother from Mehret meeting with Juhn? Why did she visit Noé? Because she didn’t want gold, she wanted power. Far from being Torswauk’s sister, Mehret would be their usurper. When the Thull was in disarray, when Nyel tried to reassert her authority, Velle ut Mehret would pull the chair out from under her. They would join the opposition and propose a new thuluck raln shatar that excluded Torswauk. And that would be the end. Hvartin and Ostoff would jump. Nyel would be left with only the two small western lodges who had neither enough men nor women to satisfy Torswauk. Her men would be without wives, her sisters would have no husbands. She would be removed as Mother, and it would fall on Ithar to select her replacement. He would have exactly what he wanted. And Mehret would suddenly be the Fells most powerful and important lodge.

  It all fit. It answered every question. It was obvious. And it would work. Because of the fire it would work. How long had Zhurn and Ithar been planning this? How long had Juhn been part of it. Had Zhurn (or Juhn?) set the fire intentionally or was it just opportunistic? Cary supposed it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had to warn Nyel, and he had to do it now. The only hope that Nyel and Liandria had was for Cary to get back in before it happened. And every time he thought of that, he drove his spurs into the si
de of his horse, pushing it on past exhaustion.

  He rode until the sun was low in the sky, switching from horse to horse as each tired, never stopping, pretending that he carried a pouch so red it burned. Finally, when even the stocky mountain ponies were laboring and stumbling, he guided them to a small pond. Unable to relax, he paced between the trees that surrounded the water as the horses ate the last of the oats and drank from the pond. He forced himself to eat as well – hard biscuit and dried meat – but he could barely swallow for his apprehension. Over and over he reminded himself that he had to be patient. There were no relay stations here. If he killed his horses, he would fail. With that thought, he forced himself to wait until the horses had recovered. The sun was nearly down, the evening was beginning to cool when he rode out again, maintaining an aggressive but not torturous pace.

  Night riding was nothing new to Cary, but usually he’d have had the day before to sleep, he’d be riding under a moon, he’d be on a road. Tonight, he was asking for disaster. The moon was almost new, would not be up until just before the sun. The stars were bright, but the plains were like ink beneath him. A single ridge, an unexpected hole, a dark ravine would end it all. Still, it was only when he nearly followed his drooping head to the ground that he conceded. Pulling to a stop near a copse of trees, he took only long enough to secure the horses before he sagged to the ground and fell asleep.

  A dream jarred him from that slumber before the sun had risen. The sliver of a moon hung on the eastern horizon. The sun could not be far behind. This far to the north, it could have only been a couple of hours that he was asleep. It had been enough, his mind was already back to the task at hand. He woke the horses. Untied them and rode on.

  #

  The first horse to trip was luckily not the one Cary was riding. Even luckier, its lead snapped as it went down so that it did not take Cary or any of the other horses with it. “Stupid!” Cary cursed himself as he pulled to a stop and marveled that he was still in the saddle. The horse was down. Its leg was broken. Its eyes were wide and begging. Cary could not deny them.

  Cursing himself, the Order, the horse, the plains, the Fells, and anything else he could think to curse, he used his knife to put the animal out of its misery. Though he’d tried to be careful, blood sprayed across him as the beast fought its death, splattering him with red, making him look like he’d just killed a dozen men. He wiped it away and rode on.

  #

  The sun was rising toward noon, and Cary was jittery and exhausted all at once. The horses were wet and heaving. They didn’t have much left, but they had to be close. Cresting a hill, he looked out at the line of the forest defining the south as far as he could see. Slowly the plain gave way to it ahead as the ridges of the Green Mountains jutted north into the Fells. To the other side, the Ice Mountains were distantly visible as a ragged blue line, but what drew Cary’s attention were the smattering of steep hills – little more than thimbles on the horizon from this distance – directly in front of him and the streamers of smoke that marred the sky between them. He knew those hills from two weeks before when he’d emerged from the forest and looked for the first time upon Torswauk Lodge. He was nearly there.

  Chapter 53

  The 42nd Day of Summer

  Cary abandoned the horse with his saddle. It nearly killed him, but he could not stop now to change saddles and the animal underneath was just about to fall. He slid from the warm comfort of his custom saddle into the cold, hard clutches of one of the ranger’s seats and let go of the previous horse’s reins. It staggered to a stop as he spurred the last remaining horse. Over the course of the last four hours he had abandoned every horse but this one, and it was exhausted. Though it had been unencumbered, it had still been running with the others. It dripped sweat. Its breaths were labored. Its stride already showed signs of falling out of sync. But it only had to carry him for a few more miles. Torswauk loomed, taking up a majority of the horizon before them. Evening was approaching. The Thull was probably finishing for the day. Cary prayed that he wasn’t too late.

  The horse stumbled the final strides to the lodge and finally collapsed before the door. It would never run again, but it had done its job and Cary was grateful. He promised that he would take care of it as soon as he had spoken to Nyel. Nearly stumbling as his exhausted legs transitioned to running, he pushed open the door to the lodge and entered the empty cloakroom. He discarded his satchel, gloves, and chaps as quickly as he could. Pulled off his boots to save the time of cleaning them and dashed into the room with the baths. Running through them, he remembered the sensitivity of Nyel’s nose and dashed himself with scented oil to cover his overpowering stink.

  A few minutes later, he was sprinting through the darkened order passages without even the order keepers’ robes to protect him from a chance encounter. As he ran, he tried to prepare what he would say to the Morg Mother, how he would tell her that her whole way of life was at risk, that the entire world was shifting beneath her feet. Again and again, he tried to find the words, but they were never right, were never enough. You have to try, he told himself. You have to make her see.

  Lost in those thoughts, he allowed his body to take him deep into the lodge, to the very place where he’d first met Nyel that first morning. He had not previously considered how he would find her. By rights, she should be leaving the Thull – was it happening now, was the world crashing down as he ran, was he too late? Somehow, he knew that wasn’t right, that there was still time, that his body knew where to find her, that he need only trust it. That intuition led him to the foot of the ladder that he had taken that first day. He prepared to climb it and heard a voice that could only belong to Nyel. Reacting without thought, not even thinking to look, he unlatched a false section of wall and stepped into the room on the other side.

  It was a bedroom. Slightly larger and far more densely and finely furnished, it was otherwise the same as the one where Cary had spoken to Noé, except this room was occupied by the most powerful woman in the Fells. As soon as Cary entered, Nyel turned and caught him with a scowl that should have made him leave without a word. She was standing at the far end of the room. Juhn was with her. They were otherwise alone.

  Nyel cursed in her language then switched to Cary’s when she’d had enough time to realize who had just burst through her door. “What is this?” She crumpled her nose then brought a hand to it – Cary had not thought his smell was that bad – she looked at him as if he’d just brought a platter of dung to a dinner party.

  “I need to speak with you, Nyel ut Torswauk,” Cary said as formally as he could manage between pants. “Alone.”

  Nyel gasped. Juhn moved between her and the intruder. “You go too far,” he growled, showing the first true spirit Cary had seen from him.

  “I . . . I mean no offense or harm,” Cary stammered. “My lady, you are in great danger. Please I must speak to you without Juhn. You can have one of your daughters join us or your sister. Anyone . . . just . . . .”

  “Shickza,” Nyel cut him off. “Anything you must say to me, you can say to Juhn. He is order master here.”

  “He’s going to betray you,” Cary blurted. It was clear that Nyel was not going to give him what he wanted so he simply blurted his message in a jumble of barely connected statements. “The fire left Eselhelt with thousands of unjoined men. Noé ut Eselhelt is going to use them to draw the other Mothers from you in the Thull. She will offer them to any lodge that opposes you. Mehret will join them, and you’ll be alone. They don’t care about Liandria or the Empire. They want to topple you. Juhn is part of it. He . . . .” Cary watched Nyel as he spoke, waiting for the words to resonate, wondering when she would see it, wondering how much more he would have to say. For a second, she was stunned. Then she looked at Juhn. Then she started to laugh.

  Never would Cary have thought that the esteemed Nyel ut Torswauk could laugh like that. She laughed until tears came to her eyes, until Cary thought she might fall to the floor, until she was gasping for air
. Juhn joined her, but his joviality was tempered by watchfulness. Cary had expected Nyel to strike him, to cast him out, to fly into a flurry of commands that would keep the unspeakable from happening. Instead, she just laughed.

  “Oh, poor guth,” she said through fading chuckles. “Do you think I am some girl who has never seen a challenge to her authority? Do you think I became Mother of Torswauk without knowing how to remain in this position?”

  “I . . . I don’t understand,” Cary stammered. His head was spinning. He was sure he was correct. How could Nyel not see it?

  “You should have listened,” Juhn said when Nyel turned away. “I told you everything was in hand. I told you that Nyel would win the Thull. You would have saved yourself so much if you had just listened.”

  “So . . . so . . . but I am sure that they are planning to . . . .”

  “Planned,” Nyel interrupted. “You are too late and far too foolish. Only a few hours ago, that poor girl tried exactly what you suggested. But it was no surprise. My dear sister, Velle ut Mehret, told me a week ago what my husband and Zhurn were planning. Juhn confirmed it, so we turned it to our advantage. How do you think Mothers would respond to men trying to overthrow one of their number, of trying to place themselves above us? Every Mother came immediately to my defense the moment that fool yuté girl made her suggestion. She was crushed, shamed, and cast from the Thull. The very attempt was enough to unify the Mothers. It was all I needed to ensure that they would do anything I asked.”

  “By the Order, what will happen to Noé?” Cary asked though he had no idea how he had managed the act of speech. He was beyond overwhelmed, was trying to understand where he’d gone wrong, where he’d miscalculated.