144: Wrath

by Dallas E. Caldwell

  It had only been a few months since Matthew’s last trip to Leindul’s Sanctuary. He liked to visit as often as he was able, for he found his days spent in the hallowed halls to be uplifting and invigorating. He felt a sense of warming and of closeness here even though the floor was cold, white marble, and each step he took echoed throughout the vast chamber. He made his way past row after row of Faldred men and was saddened that he only recognized a few faces and none that he knew well enough to remember their names. His friends must have been on journeys of their own, no doubt working on their next dissertations.

  A priest stood at the front of the grand cathedral, wearing opulent robes of white garnished in golden inlays. Large rings adorned his finger, and he wore a jeweled circlet on his brow.

  "Greetings, Matthew the Blue," said the Faldred. "I am Elder Deris. Welcome to Leindul’s Sanctuary and to the Hollow Mountains. I trust you are here to pray with us for the journey ahead of General Kas Dorian, Flint the White-Handed, and the Daughter of Hope."

  "Actually, no," Matthew said as he made his way up the steps to the altar. "I’m here to speak to you and your congregation."

  The priest was taken aback, and whispers spread throughout those gathered.

  "You are an esteemed scholar, historian, and a well-respected friend of the Faldred people," Deris said. "Your words of wisdom and inspiration are always welcome amongst our people."

  Matthew bowed. "Thank you."

  The priest motioned for one of the altar boys to bring a stool for Matthew’s use.

  Matthew climbed up where he and still had to strain to see over the podium. "Wise Faldred of the Hollow Mountains, your strength and fervor is needed. In a matter of weeks, I, that is to say myself and others, will lead an army to the shores of Waysmale. We will strike at the city of Firevers. We will put an end to the reign of Exandercrast! Polas Kas Dorian has returned, and he takes his sword to the very heart of the God of Fear! Join us and help put an end to the Dark One’s tyranny!"

  Matthew’s voice returned to him from the back of the chamber, and he heard a single cough. He blinked twice, not sure if he was dreaming. Certainly he had experienced this in a nightmare before.

  "Matthew," Deris said as he patted the Cairtol on top of the head. "You are very brave to attempt such a thing, but that is not the will of destiny."

  "Not the will of destiny?" Matthew asked with a puzzled look on his face. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes, searching the congregation for anything other than apathy.

  "We cannot simply rise up and go to war," said the priest. "It is our duty to stay here and pray for the ones whom destiny has set apart."

  All around the auditorium, heads nodded, and several Faldred shouted an eager, "Amen."

  Matthew was dumbstruck. He had been certain that the Faldred would be completely behind him in this endeavor. In fact, he had thought this to be the easiest of the tasks before him.

  "Come. Sit," Deris said. He motioned toward a seat on the front row. "I will send for a scrying scale so that we can check on destiny’s progress."

  Matthew obeyed wordlessly. As he sat, he almost wondered if he had made a mistake and teleported to the wrong Temple of Leindul deep in the Hollow Mountains. Surely, this had to be some clever illusion. But the cold of the marble bench on his legs was too real to blame on deceptive magic.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Kiff shuffled along behind Polas down the dusty road as they made their way through Cheapside. A dark swirl of smoke rose like a bleak pillar, and a dull orange and red light flickered over the rooftops a few blocks away. Rats scurried past them and hid beneath boxes, behind barrels, and between splits in the wood paneling that formed the row of shanties and shacks that passed for homes in the forgotten edge of Odes'Kan. The Iron Butcher walked a few feet ahead, his quickened speed hindered by his limp. The general's ankle did not bend well, and, Kiff noted, likely caused him to favor his left side in a fight.

  "Come on." Polas turned the corner at the end of the street and picked up his pace despite his limitations.

  Kiff stopped for a moment as they entered the open square in front of the old Sigil House. Denizens of Cheapside swarmed over the building, dumping buckets of water on the hungry flames. The poor dregs would have to contain the fire without the aid of the city fire handlers. The city watch would not call on them unless the flames threatened the city wall or any of the valuable sections of the city.

  People dashed back and forth, some forming a line, some getting in each other's way. Children cried and grasped at their mothers, a man with a wheelbarrow switched out with a friend after each run to and from an old well, and the flames hissed and spat with each dousing. Kiff took a moment to peer deeper. The rooftops looked clear, and no lurking figures loomed in the dark alleyways. It made him uneasy.

  Polas had stepped into the chain line and was passed buckets along with the rest of the rabble. He beckoned to Kiff. "Grab a bucket, boy."

  Kiff did as Polas asked but kept his eyes on the shadows. "The building's lost, Polas. We might as well let the fire have it."

  "The building is lost, but not these homes." Polas waved a hand toward the hovels that crowded the edges of the square. "I will not have our passing wake destroy so many lives. These people live on nothing, and our carelessness threatens to take away the very roof over their heads."

  A bucket reached Kiff, and he moved it along. "I never figured you for such a thinblood. The Iron Butcher isn't supposed to care about anything, especially not poor people. Unless it's to take their children, right?"

  "You've got a sharp mouth on you. It's a wonder it hasn't gotten you cut." Polas took another bucket and passed it down the line. "We're not so different, Kiff. Was a time I was a hired blade and a hard man, but I had help from a thinblooded woman who taught me to see past myself. You could use a bit of that yourself. Otherwise it will have to be me that does your thinning, and that won't end well."

  "Wait; are you about to give me a 'the hells gates are open' speech? Cause I've heard it before."

  "Boy, I can see that you're drowning. You need to take the line that's in front of you or you may never get out." Polas passed Kiff a bucket, sloshing a few drops of water on his boots. "You've got nothing going that's worth anything. Blood is cheap, and there's always a better blade."

  Kiff froze, stopping the line's momentum. The Iron Butcher was a craven old man, delusional, and addled by ages of weathering.

  The next man in line pulled the bucket from Kiff's grip and got the line moving again. The fire had been contained to a small section of freestanding wall. The rest of the building was lost to ashes and rubble. As Kiff watched, the last wall crumbled and a tuft of cinder and smoke choked the air.

  Kiff began to walk away, to lose himself to the crowd and the clean-up efforts, but Polas stayed close beside him.

  "Kiff," Polas said.

  "What?" Kiff picked up a split section of charred beam and hurtled it into a pile. "The hells do you know about me, Butcher? Don't try to act like some great, holy judge. You're not the Hand of Hope that all these maroves with their prophecies think you are. You're a dead man who wants vengeance for your dead wife and your dead family and all those thousands of other idiots you led to their deaths so you can sleep peacefully. And that's it."

  Polas was silent for a moment, and Kiff could tell he had played the power card-disk, but for some reason he regretted it.

  "You're not wrong," Polas said. "But you're also missing my point. You can betray a thousand people in a thousand ways while you search for whatever you're searching for, but you'll have found it when you find the one person you can't betray. You don't have to be here. You don't have to be part of this. But if you insist on tagging along, just make sure you ask yourself if you're willing to betray her."

  "Her?"

  Polas limped out of the rubble, and Kiff lost sight of him in the commotion of the crowd. Kiff shook his head and turned his mind back to the clean-up efforts. He helped move bricks and stone i
nto sorted piles for reuse or rubbish and tried to make small talk with the people of Cheapside. By the time most of the denizens had cleared off, Kiff's body ached for a bed, but he knew that sleep would not find him. He had too much war in his soul, and he knew the night was far from over.

  A short distance away, Polas stood in the middle of the ruined building. Ash and embers swirled around him in the cold night air. On the ground before him, his statue lay in pieces. He kicked aside fragmented bits of stone and burnt planks of lumber. A few feet away, a trampled flowerbed held the crushed remains of once-bright flowers. Polas knelt down and ran his fingers through the soil. He brushed soot and debris from the petals of a single, white blossom whose stem had broken in the chaos and plucked it from the ground. The flower gave no sweet scent that could be detected over the smell of ash and cinder, but he held it to his nose just the same. He closed his eyes, whispered a silent prayer to ask for another chance, and spun the stem between his fingers. The flower whirled into the air and floated away on the breeze, and Polas turned his mind toward finding a new blade.

  Underneath the rubble, he found a few swords and daggers, some of which were still attached to lifeless hands. He picked up a discarded longsword and slipped it through his belt. A few daggers he found to be serviceable. He slipped one into each boot and cast the others into a pile of weaponry a local gentleman had agreed to turn over to authorities.

  Polas turned around to see Vor and Xandra approaching with Flint trailing behind them.

  Wind swept over the ruins of the Sigil House as Cheapside tenants scavenged through the mess, salvaging what wood, metal, and stone they could. The destruction was just another night in their hard lives, and few of them took noticed of its significance.

  Standing on the remains of what was once the guildhall’s entryway, the group of heroes might as well have been raiders or bloodied soldiers or lost souls that had strayed into Cheapside for the night.

  "What’s the plan from here, Polas?" Vor asked.

  Kiff stood across the wreckage to the side of the debris helping some of the citizens organize reusable debris into piles. He did not seem to notice that the others had arrived.

  "Calec, come over here," Polas yelled to the Undlander.

  Xandra and Flint exchanged pained glances, but Vor only looked confused.

  Polas had not noticed his slip-up and grew impatient with Kiff. He tried to whistle but had to default to Flint. The Faldred placed two fingers in his mouth and got the attention of everyone in the square.

  Kiff dropped the bricks he was holding and walked over to join the group.

  "What’s the plan, boss?" he asked.

  "We will continue to the port at Tovarsh," Polas started.

  Flint held up his hand. "The Port of New Thalry."

  "Whatever they’re calling it now," Polas said. "Reyce secured passage for two on a ship leaving tomorrow evening. We’ll have to see what we can do about more tickets."

  "Right," Kiff said with a laugh. "Because that boat won’t sink as soon as we’re too far from shore to swim back."

  "He’s already destroyed, Kiff." Xandra sighed. "You don’t need to attempt to discredit Reyce any further."

  "Nobody’s trying to discredit that shift-faced, unholy abomination of un-life. I’m simply telling you that if he arranged a ship for you, it’s going to sink, or explode, or be teleported out from under us while we’re left to the sea drakes."

  Flint offered Polas a piece of jerky, and Polas removed his mask to tear a bite from the tough strip of meat. "You seem pretty certain of this."

  "Look, I don’t really care if you trust me. So long as you don’t trust that drake-spit either," Kiff said. "I’m telling you, if he set it up, then he set you up in the process."

  Flint pulled out a small pouch from his bag and counted its contents. "How much coin do we have between us? Perhaps we could buy passage on a different vessel."

  "Or," Kiff said, "we could walk to Waysmale."

  "What are you talking about?" Xandra asked.

  "When I left earlier, I was checking on a lead I pulled from those assassins on the road. Turns out Exandercrast has been sending emissaries back and forth to the House of Suns through some portal in their main building."

  Vor snorted. "Ridiculous. And this arcane path to Waysmale happens to be set up right in the middle of the drakken’s den? You’ve dangled weak bait, assassin."

  "You know," Kiff said, "I hear they were gonna set the portal up on Merchants’ Row, but apparently the taxes were too high."

  Vor growled, and Xandra turned away to hide her smile.

  "Even if such a portal did exist," Flint said, "Master Kas Dorian would not be able to travel through it. And neither could you, from what I can tell."

  Kiff looked down at his pants. He pulled a piece of black leather out of his bag along with a needle and thread and began sewing the scrap over a burned patch on his knee. "See, there’s the beauty. The emissary is some marove with the same magic resistance as Polas. The portal had to be strong enough to get him through, so Exandercrast made it himself."

  Polas winced and began to pace to and from the group, scratching his bandaged chin and weighing the possibilities in his mind.

  "It’s a trap, Polas," Vor said. "And not even a clever one. Surely you’re not foolish enough to walk directly into so obvious a net."

  Xandra took a small step forward. "If the portal did work, it would save us months of travel," she said.

  Kiff nodded to her in thanks of her support. She looked away from him.

  "Or we could be killed here in this hope-forsaken town," Vor said.

  Kiff finished working on his pant leg and stood up. "Surely a big Dorokti King like yourself isn’t afraid of some House of Suns’ cronies," he said.

  Vor snarled at the Undlander, but said nothing.

  "It’s worth an arrow, at least," Polas said as he returned to the group.

  Vor threw up his hands and snorted angrily. "I’ll go sharpen my axe." He walked away and sat on a nearby bench.

  "It’s suspicious, yes," Polas continued. "And I imagine they are planning a trap for us, but the amount of time it would save us is more than worth the risk. But we need to move tonight."

  "Wait, what?" Flint asked, his eyes wide with objection. "Shouldn’t we wait and recover. I was only able to get a few hours of sleep before we were attacked. I should think we would be better off to rest and prepare for an assault. We need time to plan and ready ourselves."

  Polas shook his head. "Every second we waste gives them more time to rebuild," he said. "They sent a lot of assassins after us tonight, and we are the ones still standing. It will take them time to prepare more of their minions for battle."

  Kiff pulled his board out of his pack and stepped up. "I’m not so sure about that, but at least we might be able to catch them off guard a bit."

  "This is your territory, Kiff," Polas said with a nod. "Lead the way."

  Flint’s shoulders slumped. After a moment of sulking, he reached into his pack and retrieved a few sprigs of tekri leaves from a small case. He popped one in his mouth and handed another to Xandra who followed suit. He offered the remaining leaves to Kiff and Polas, but they both declined.

  Kiff waved over to Vor, who sat muttering to himself. "We’re ready when you are."

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Lacien of the Shining Feather had flown without rest for the last two days. The expanse of ocean from Nittengret to the Mela Islands provided no safe land to offer respite from his travels. His shoulders ached, and the great tendons that ran along the top of his wings felt like they were on fire. He had kept himself hydrated by drinking from a carried skin of water and had been able to eat a quick meal before being granted an audience with the Melaci High Council, but it took every ounce of determination within him to present an air of power and poise as he made his way through the city.

  The Mela Islands towered two kallows into the open sky. The island group was a mere three, and only two
of the landmasses held life, the majority of which lived within the earth or perched along the rocky walls. From this lofty berth, the Melaci kept themselves estranged from the rest of the world, and in their eyes, above it. Very few wingless ones had ever been granted a view of the capital city of Soare, and those who came uninvited were often thrown back down.

  Soare clung to the western cliff and looked out of the waters toward Cratia. The homes of those with the most wealth or influence were immediately recognizable because they towered highest into the sky and were closest to the coast. This created a stair-step effect that led from fields worked by serfs, to shops and homes of the middle class, to university halls filled with those privileged enough to seek an education beyond primary school, to homes of those with the purest birthright, and all the way up to the highest point in the city, the council chambers.

  The Melaci High Council members sat on cushioned thrones or lounged across pillowy sofas. The meeting area was an open-topped amphitheatre built in such a way that the voices of the members, who sat in a circle around the central pulpit, were empowered to add to their sense of influence. Meanwhile, the being on the stand – where Lacien found himself – was forced to talk just below a shout in order to be heard by all.

  Each of the councilmen, for they were all men, had pure black wings. This distinction was what separated the upper crust of Melaci society from the plebeians and slaves. Lacien was lucky enough to be born with dark wings, but his still held glints of white from which he drew his namesake. Had he been born with only white feathers, he would have been fortunate to join the Melaci army. More likely, though, he would have been serf to one of the Melaci lords or generals.