Witchsign

by Den Patrick

  ‘I was always told dragons were wily and could speak.’ Steiner looked at the chained and dying reptiles before him and felt sickened. ‘Kjellrunn always said dragons were the cleverest of creatures.’

  ‘It takes a dragon fifty years to reach maturity,’ said Tief. ‘These are just children really.’

  ‘Like the children in the academy,’ added Steiner.

  Tief nodded. ‘There is no callous act the Emperor will not stoop to in order to keep control of Nordvlast.’

  ‘Do you breed them here?’

  Tief shook his head, grimacing in disgust. ‘No, they ship them in from Frøya knows where, and they get maybe twenty-five to thirty years shackled to a rock before they pass on. Difficult to believe these were the terrible predators during the Age of Wings.’

  Kimi emerged from the gloom. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘we need to return. Shirinov will come calling. We’ll need to be at work when he does or there’ll be no rest.’

  They spent the next few hours going about their tasks. The abject misery of the chamber below haunted Steiner’s every thought. No one had much to say. Steiner and Tief gave in to despondence while Kimi vented her frustration on the anvil, hammer strikes ringing loud over the din of the cinderwraiths’ labour.

  ‘Where is he?’ grunted Steiner when they’d stopped for a mug of tea and a crust of bread. The wait for Shirinov was maddening and Steiner found his eyes drawn to where he’d struck the granite-skinned novice.

  ‘He’ll be worrying over his next move,’ said Taiga. ‘He’d hoped to snatch you when we weren’t watching.’

  ‘We are always watching,’ said Sundra, turning a slender bone over and over in her fingers, her eyes distant and terrible.

  ‘What did you do …’ Steiner swallowed in a dry throat. He hadn’t meant to kill someone. It had been an accident. ‘What did you do with the body?’ None missed the catch in his voice. Kimi shrugged her shoulders and looked away.

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Steiner. ‘We took the body down to the …’ His eyes widened. ‘Kimi. What did you do with the corpse?’

  But Kimi didn’t answer and took a step back, refusing to meet his eye.

  ‘She fed the body to the dragons,’ said Sundra. She slunk up behind Steiner, close enough to touch. Steiner glanced down at the priestess of Frejna and didn’t care too much for the look in her eye.

  ‘It was always our intention to feed the dragons.’

  Steiner shivered as she said the word again. People rarely spoke of them, and when they did it was of something long dead, creatures from a terrible past. Creatures from the Age of Wings and the Age of Tears.

  ‘We hoped that if they regained their strength we might free them and escape,’ continued Sundra.

  ‘But the scraps from the kitchen are so few,’ added Taiga.

  ‘So they dine best when some foolish Northman comes here looking for trouble,’ said Sundra, and the smile she gave Steiner made his blood run cold.

  ‘This is isn’t the first time, is it?’ Steiner stared from Tief to Taiga and then to Kimi but none refuted the truth of it. ‘I need to go,’ was all he said. The walk to his cave at the side of the cavern was stifling and breathless in a way that had nothing to do with the forge. Steiner hunched into a corner and drew up the sack cloth, desperate for any comfort it might offer.

  ‘What have I done?’ he whispered, holding a hand to his aching brow.

  Sleep would not come to him. Steiner turned this way and that on the stony floor, the sackcloth scratching his skin. He tried to forget smiting the rocky head from the granite-skinned novice, tried to ignore the idea of Kimi feeding the headless body to the dragons held captive below.

  ‘Some folktale this turned out to be, Kjell.’ He slunk from his bed, pausing to pull on his boots and wash the ever-present coal dust from his face. The cinderwraiths ignored him, going about their tasks, seemingly mindless. Kimi was not at her workstation, no doubt asleep or eating in her cave. The Spriggani were absent too, their voices a low murmur as Steiner crept past the entrances to their caves.

  Down he went, descending the sloping corridor, casting furtive glances back over his shoulder. He’d stolen a torch along the way, the gutter and hiss of flame and pitch the only sound.

  ‘Dragons,’ he said, when he reached the chamber again. They were no less wretched or mean than before, scales dull, eyes closed or cloudy and unfocused. He wandered between them, wide-eyed with wonder and disbelief. Here were the very creatures the Empire declared exterminated. Here was the very darkest of the Solmindre Empire’s lies.

  One of the creatures appeared less diminished than the rest, a silvery sheen to the soot-slicked scales. Steiner reached out and held a hand to the dragon’s chest, felt the steady industry of the heart beneath the ribs.

  ‘She’s one of the younger ones,’ said Kimi, slipping out of the darkness with barely a sound. Steiner flinched so hard he almost dropped the torch.

  ‘You move quietly.’

  ‘Normally I have a herald to announce my arrival, but I gave him the night off.’ Kimi approached and looked him over. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’

  Steiner nodded, his throat thick with emotion, not trusting himself to speak. He noticed the lines of tiredness etched into Kimi’s face.

  ‘Never killed anyone before?’ she asked.

  Steiner shook his head and looked away, eyes settling on the dragon before him.

  ‘I was the same as you when I first came here.’ She pressed the pad of one thumb to her lips thoughtfully, as if she might hold back the words. ‘Three novices came down to have some fun. Heard a Yamal princess was down here and wanted to sate their curiosity about a few things. You know how men are.’

  Steiner looked her in the eye and nodded slowly. ‘Never had any trouble like that in Cinderfell, but I take your meaning.’

  ‘Everyone assumes the Yamal are big and stupid, which is half true.’ A slow smile crept across her face. ‘Sometimes it’s all true, depending on the Yamal you speak to.’

  Steiner grinned in spite of himself. ‘Nothing stupid about you.’

  ‘And I have good hearing too,’ said Kimi, ‘which is how I came to hear you sneaking around tonight. You’re not much of a sneak, Hammersmith.’

  Steiner shrugged. ‘Not much of anything, truth be told.’ He swallowed in a dry throat and dared himself to ask the question. ‘What happened to the three novices?’

  ‘They weren’t so good at sneaking either. I can’t be sure how far they intended to take things but I do know I broke all three of them with a hammer and spear I’d just finished that day.’ She lifted her tunic to show a deep crimson scar in her side. ‘The thing you have to remember, Hammersmith,’ she looked at the palms of her hands before making fists, ‘is that it’s them or it’s you. This time it was them. Don’t feel bad for defending yourself. They made their choice, and when they did they took your choice away. You simply did what you had to in order to survive, just as I did.’

  The dragon beside Steiner made a clicking noise and opened one eye. Steiner was startled to see a huge amber orb, green at the edges, with a slash of black bisecting it.

  ‘Like a cat’s eye.’

  ‘Don’t go mistaking them for kittens,’ said Kimi with a slow and weary smile.

  Steiner held out a hand to the dragon once more, resting his palm against the cool scales, feeling a series of beats emanating from within.

  ‘More than one heart,’ explained Kimi. ‘A creature that big needs all the help it can get to keep moving.’

  ‘How old is this one?’

  ‘Five, maybe six?’ replied Kimi.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m stood here discussing dragons with a Yamal princess.’

  ‘Do you like my gown?’ said Kimi.

  Steiner made a show of looking at the leather apron and the calluses on her hands. ‘I’ve never seen such royalty,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘Come on,’ said Kimi. ‘You may want to stay up all night grieving for some idiot you did
n’t know, but I prefer my sleep.’

  Steiner was just waking when the nimbus of candlelight entered his cave. The golden glow dappled Tief’s olive skin and made his eyes twinkle in the gloom.

  ‘Morning, Hammersmith. Did you sleep at all?’

  ‘Some,’ he grunted. Kimi’s words had done much to soothe him. She’d escorted him back to his cave and he’d slunk to his sackcloth bed, sinking into exhaustion, mind quiet and numb.

  ‘Kimi said she spoke to you. That’s good. I don’t want you moping around like some damn fool child today.’

  ‘I feel like a damn fool child.’

  ‘Well, you’re eighteen.’ Tief scowled. ‘And you’re on the island of Vladibogdan. Childhood is over the moment the ship drops anchor.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it, Tief.’ Steiner couldn’t bring himself to say it. To kill him. ‘I knocked his head clean off his shoulders. He could be a cinderwraith for all I know.’

  ‘He most certainly is,’ agreed Tief.

  Steiner struggled to breathe and shook his head, but no matter how he fidgeted or where he looked the simple truth remained. He was a killer now.

  Tief tugged at one ear. ‘And if you hadn’t fought back, where would you be? Up there in one of the academies, in the clutches of Shirinov and Corpsecandle. And he’d make you talk, it’s what Shirinov does.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Steiner, weakly.

  ‘Not at first, not willingly,’ said Tief. ‘But he’d use all the ways and means at his disposal. In the end you’d give your sister up just to make the pain stop.’

  ‘And when he tired,’ said Steiner as an awful dread crept over him. ‘He’d hand me over to Corpsecandle to continue the interrogation.’

  ‘Shirinov will go back,’ said Tief. ‘Back to Cinderfell. Even a man in a mask has to save face. He can’t let his reputation be soured by capturing you, a boy without witchsign.’

  ‘I can’t let him go back. All of this …’ Steiner gestured to the cavern outside the cave. ‘Me being here will be for nothing if Shirinov goes back for Kjell.’

  ‘You’d best find a way to escape then. And soon,’ replied Tief.

  ‘But how? Even if we wander free of the cavern we still don’t have a ship. You said yourself that we can’t smuggle ourselves out of here in crates. And there’s no wood of good quality to build a raft.’

  Tief looked away and released a sigh. ‘I’ve been trying to leave this island for longer than I care to remember.’

  ‘Romola is our best hope to return to the mainland,’ said Steiner.

  ‘You think she’d risk her life for a handful of Spriggani, a princess and a boy from Cinderfell?’

  ‘She has to, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Smuggling letters to the mainland is one thing,’ said Tief. ‘Helping people escape is another realm of trouble. You think I haven’t asked her before?’

  ‘Tief.’ The word was a harsh whisper. Taiga’s slender face appeared through the fissure in the rock. ‘Shirinov is here and he’s not alone.’

  Steiner’s eyes widened and the usual growl of hunger in his gut was replaced by one of fear. ‘Shirinov? Here?’

  ‘Come on. We knew this would happen.’ Tief turned and stomped to the gap in the rock before glaring over his shoulder. ‘And do me one favour, Hammersmith.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Shut your mouth. Let an old Spriggani do the talking.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kjellrunn

  It is a key doctrine of the Imperial Synod that we stoke the fires of fear and suspicion in the Solmindre Empire and the Scorched Republics. By convincing the peasantry that the arcane is both dangerous and sinfully aberrant the Synod reduces the chances of an uprising led by those with devastating powers. It is for this reason the self-same organisation cannot be seen to use arcane powers in public, and those seeing such displays must be silenced. Permanently.

  – From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.

  ‘Have the Spriggani got your tongue?’ said Marek, as they ate their morning porridge. ‘You’ve barely said a word for the last week.’

  Kjellrunn opened her mouth to speak, then settled for a shrug and continued eating. Her mind drifted from the horseman in black to Mistress Kamalov slicing up berries so her hands appeared to be covered in blood.

  ‘And you’ve not been out to the woods lately.’ Marek tapped his spoon against the bowl. ‘Did you and your new friend have a disagreement?’

  ‘We’re not really friends,’ said Kjellrunn, as she stirred her porridge and sighed. ‘I barely know her.’

  ‘A girl?’ Kjellrunn thought she detected a note of quiet relief in her father’s voice. ‘One from the town?’

  Kjellrunn shook her head. ‘No. She’s not from Cinderfell. She’s not from Nordvlast either.’

  ‘Is she …’ Marek set down his spoon. ‘Is she a Spriggani?’

  ‘No!’ Kjellrunn frowned and couldn’t decide if her father was mocking her or not.

  ‘Well, you go on about them enough.’

  ‘You sound like Steiner.’ For a second they stared at each other, but it was too painful and Kjellrunn fixed her eyes on the cold porridge.

  ‘You should warm that up and finish it,’ said Marek. ‘It’s not like we can waste food. I can’t risk you becoming ill. I’ve not got the money for medicine and I need all the help I can get.’

  Now that Steiner’s gone, she wanted to add, but the words didn’t need the luxury of being spoken. They both knew them by heart. Now that Steiner’s gone. And never to return if Mistress Kamalov knew Vladibogdan as well as she pretended to.

  ‘You should have never sent him,’ said Kjellrunn.

  ‘You don’t know what you speak of, Kjell. You don’t know what the arcane does to a person.’

  ‘And I’m not likely to find out now, am I?’

  ‘Used a little, there’s barely a problem.’ Marek frowned. ‘But used a lot, and the way the Empire would have you use it …’

  ‘And how is it you come to know so much about it?’ Kjellrunn flicked her fringe from her face and glowered. ‘Something so dangerous and forbidden? I thought you crafted pots and pans, not spells.’

  ‘Mind your tone. I’m still your father. I put a roof over your head and money on the table.’

  ‘When you’re not drinking it.’

  ‘I’ve stopped that now.’ He stood, the chair jerking out behind him, falling over. ‘I need to buy some things in town. I suggest you go for a walk, take yourself along the bay and find yourself some manners. Frøya knows I taught you better ones than these.’

  Kjellrunn watched him leave, noted the way he gripped the door as if to slam it, then decided against it after he’d fixed her with a hard stare. Rare were the times Marek raised his voice, but his anger was not a stranger. His words had always taken a harsh sound when his mood darkened, but it was a harshness of accent as well as tone, much like Mistress Kamalov’s.

  ‘Losing Steiner was bad enough,’ she muttered, clearing the bowls away. ‘But to discover my own father is a stranger …’

  Kjellrunn attended her chores, hands carrying out the same dull tasks, her mind drifting from one desolate thought to another. Before long she’d climbed into the loft. Long moments were lost kneeling in the darkness. Hands pawed through the nest of curios she guarded. A sliver of driftwood worn smooth, a dozen black feathers, and the sledgehammer brooch. She’d not intended to find it, and here it was, cradled in the rough skin of her palm, an ugly lump of metal amid the calluses.

  ‘None of us would be in this situation if you’d just remained pinned to my shawl.’ She sucked down a breath and closed her fingers around the metal. ‘And Steiner would still be alive.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ Kjellrunn sat on an old crate lined with sea salt and watched the gulls hop about in the sand. They flapped their wings and crowed around as Verner gutted fish.

  ‘You shouldn’t give up hope,’ said the fisherman. Difficult to tell if
it were tiredness or just the weather that lined his face, he forced a smile. ‘Steiner has a way about him, an honest way, and people like that. Even the people on Vladibogdan may like that.’

  ‘But Mistress Kamalov said he was dead.’

  Verner nodded. ‘And who is Mistress Kamalov?’ Strangers were a rarity in Cinderfell, newcomers more rare still.

  ‘A scary old peasant woman who’s taken up staying in the old woodcutter’s chalet.’

  Verner gave a grunt. ‘And how would she know? Is she on Vladibogdan this very moment? Did she receive a letter telling her Steiner is dead? I think not.’ Verner hacked the head off a plaice and threw it at the gulls, scattering them. ‘Getting letters into or out of that place is no mean feat,’ he muttered.

  ‘So you think he could be alive?’ Kjellrunn pulled her shawl tighter. ‘You think there’s some way Steiner could be alive, even without the arcane?’

  ‘A good chance, if he wore those boots I sent for him.’ Verner frowned at the gulls, who were fighting over the fish head. ‘You know it’s not just children with witchsign that they send there. There was a time a lot Spriggani fetched up on Vladibogdan too.’

  ‘Why would the Empire send Spriggani?’

  ‘It’s a nice quiet place to keep people out of sight, and it’s also a good place to get rid of them. There may be some Spriggani who live there now, but most of them fled south, or to Yamal. The Empire forced them out of their homes in the forest.’

  ‘Why are you telling me about Spriggani?’

  ‘What I’m trying to say,’ Verner sighed, ‘is the Spriggani have never given up hope, and if you give up hope then there’s really very little to keep going for.’

  ‘Steiner’s alive. He has to be.’

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t know. But this Mistress Kamalov doesn’t know he’s dead either.’

  ‘Neither living nor dead then,’ complained Kjellrunn.

  ‘That’s the way of things. Life is all uncertainty, you may as well learn that now.’

  Kjellrunn nodded. She knew in her bones that nothing had changed, but Verner’s words had kindled something Mistress Kamalov had extinguished.