Hymn

by Ken Scholes

  “The pathogen,” Orius said as he used his boot to turn the body of an Y’Zirite captain, “took out all of their officers and Blood Guard along with some of their infantry. They were truly a headless snake.”

  Rudolfo released his held breath, remembering the banquet not so many days past. “Gods,” he said. “What a weapon.”

  Orius nodded. “I wish we had more tricks in our arsenal, but I think it will suffice.”

  More. Rudolfo’s eyes narrowed at this. “I can’t imagine needing more.”

  Orius met his eyes briefly and said nothing. But the moment was enough to bring Isaak’s warning about the man to mind. Still, it was difficult for Rudolfo to be overly concerned. He’d come here fresh from the first screams of his captive. He’d had little sympathy for the Y’Zirites before the kin-raven arrived. Since its dark message, he had none at all and relished the blades that would cut Y’Zir from his world. And when he was finished here, if the old man still lived, Rudolfo would find Vlad Li Tam and do what he should’ve done that day beside the bonfire of his family’s secret histories.

  “A stronger arsenal is usually more prudent than less,” the Androfrancine general said. “But I think this war is nearly won.” His eyes took on a softer tone. “Though I am sorry for what it has cost you.”

  Yes. Rudolfo tasted the bitterness in his reply. “It’s cost us all far too much, General.”

  They moved through the house, finally settling into a parlor off the kitchen that had been cleared of bodies. Hot chai awaited on a small table nestled between the chairs. Renard waited in one of them and stood as they approached.

  At a nod from Orius they all sat.

  “I’ve word from Lysias and Philemus,” Rudolfo said. “They are rendezvousing near Windwir.”

  “Have you given thought to strategy?”

  Rudolfo took a mug and sipped from it. “If we’ve truly severed the snake’s head, it’s only a matter of cleanup.”

  “Yes,” Orius said. “We’ve contacted resistance leaders in Turam and on the Emerald Coasts. We’re also coordinating with Esarov on the Delta. Between those scattered resources, my Gray Guard remnant, and your Wandering Army, we should be able to put down the remaining stray Y’Zirite dogs.” He unrolled a map and moved the kettle and mugs around on the table until it fit. Then he pointed. “Pylos is our biggest problem.”

  Rudolfo nodded. The entire nation had been slaughtered when the Y’Zirites unleashed plague spiders upon them, fulfilling yet more of their dark prophecies. Open land with cities and towns and farms completely depopulated and ready for new occupants. It had become the logical foothold for the invasion and was a wide-open space where Y’Zirites could hide. “I concur. The Divided Isle will also be difficult.”

  Renard spoke up now. “I’ve been in contact with Countess Merrique, and she is confident that they’ll be successful with minimal assistance from the mainland forces.” He tapped the city of Merrique on the map and inclined his head toward Rudolfo. “And she says you gave them quite a leg up before you left.”

  It felt like forever ago. But Rudolfo, for the third time in his life, was faced with a moment against which he measured the flow of time. It had been the day his parents died. And then the day Windwir fell. And for a brief time, the day his son was born. But now, he marked the time by the day he heard his wife’s voice first slipping from the kin-raven’s open beak.

  Rudolfo, my love.

  He closed his eyes and forced his attention back to the men he sat with. Orius had just finished speaking and was looking at him expectantly.

  “I’m sorry,” Rudolfo said. Then he sipped his chai. “I was preoccupied.”

  Orius offered a smile that looked too fierce to be reassuring. “Dark times, General. But I was inquiring about your plans for the Wandering Army once they rendezvous with Lysias? Would the Foresters be up for cleaning out Pylos?”

  Rudolfo had pondered the same question over the last few nights when he wasn’t thinking about his prisoner. Or his son. “I believe we would be up to the task, General.”

  Orius gave him a hard look. “No prisoners. And no retreat to Y’Zir.”

  The steel in that single eye resonated with Rudolfo. Isaak was right to keep the spell from his hands. That weapon did not have the precision of a blade held in skilled hands. “No prisoners,” he agreed, “and no retreat.”

  Orius dug into his tunic and pulled out a flask. He opened it and poured a healthy amount into his chai. He held it out to Rudolfo, and for the first time in a while, the Gypsy King had absolutely no interest in it. He did not need it to cut the edge of his pain, knew from that abandoned path that it couldn’t ever do more than dull it. And with it, dull the edge that made him sharp.

  Instead, Rudolfo rested his hand upon the pommel of his knife and meditated upon the new path and new cutting ahead.

  Vlad Li Tam

  The small enclave at the base of the Y’Zirite crèche’s impenetrable southern mountain range looked deserted from the air as the kin-dragon approached. They’d flown less than an hour, covering the leagues quickly while Vlad Li Tam watched the landscape roll by with wonder and nausea.

  The Y’Zirite lands were not nearly as verdant as the Named Lands, and with the dragon’s nose, Vlad had taken in the aroma of unfamiliar flora and fauna for league upon league. Y’Zir’s larger population put more strain upon the resources available, giving them much larger cities and towns and a highly industrialized agricultural system to keep people fed.

  Of course, he’d also taken in the plague fires and the smell of burning flesh on the outskirts of those cities. And inwardly, he’d smiled at each of the smoking pyres they’d passed.

  Now, as Amylé held them in place, hovering above the convent, Vlad studied the buildings below.

  The convent was nestled against the side of the mountain and walled off with a single approach, much like the Papal Summer Palace, though this place had none of the pomp and splendor of the Androfrancines’ colors of kin-clave.

  It appears abandoned, Amylé’s voice spoke into his head.

  Yes, he agreed. There hadn’t been enough time for a kin-raven, and to his knowledge, their casting in the aether—even using a chain of casters to cover the range—would take time to go this far. If they had been warned, it was recently. Can we land?

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she blinked, and a silver sheen fell over Vlad’s vision as she swept the area again with the kin-dragon’s eyes. She’s looking for Blood Guard, Vlad realized. She sniffed the air again, and Vlad felt the dragon’s lungs filling. I would pick up the scent if they were hiding in the buildings, she said. Then the dragon’s head tipped as she listened. Nothing.

  She slowed their wings and let them drop slowly, all the while turning the beast’s head and snout this way and that to scan the ground below. They settled onto the ground, and Vlad felt a moment of vertigo as everything went white. Then he found himself standing in the courtyard next to Amylé D’Anjite. He could feel the wind of the kin-dragon’s wings behind him as it lifted off to hover overhead.

  Vlad tapped the staff once upon the ground to amplify his voice. “You know why I am here. Do not make me come find you,” he called out. His words echoed out across the small square and between the scattered buildings. They were simple structures made of stone and undecorated with the courtyard and its single well in common between them. He could pick out the blood shrine and the kitchen and armory and had to assume the other buildings were administrative space, barracks and living quarters. The stable, near the gate, appeared empty.

  Vlad looked to Amylé. It was the first time he’d seen her face since she’d killed Xhum’s escort. He could see the lines of worry and exhaustion in her face and eyes. He’d sent his children in to kill or be killed many times, but they’d spent a lifetime being shaped and sharpened for their roles. He’d only had days with this girl, and she’d had no training. Her sharpening had been rushed. “How are you? After…” He searched for the right word. “After even
ts at the palace?”

  Her eyes met his. “I do not like how I feel, Lord Tam. But I’m the daughter of a captain. I grew up with the military, following him from post to post, before he hid me away near the end of the war.” Those blue eyes narrowed, and the silver robes she wore started to constrict and shine brighter. “I know how my father felt about Y’Zir and what he did to my people on the moon when he took the Firsthome Temple.… What he did to my father. What his children and children’s children have wrought here.” She stretched out a hand and ran a finger along one of Vlad’s thousand scars. “What they’ve done to you and your family and to themselves with their knives and their faith.” She dropped her hand and looked away. “I do not like how I feel, but I do not need to. I need to honor my House and finish this war once and for all.”

  Good. A river bent. And if that somehow changed, he had the other one tucked away. But he knew bringing her forward would likely be the end of him. And everyone else. He offered her a weak smile. “Agreed. We will honor our Houses together then.”

  “But,” she said, “I don’t know anything about this spellbook you seek. When I met Nebios he went on about Moon Wizards and ladders and towers. I told him there was no such thing.”

  “I suspect you’ll know it when you see it,” Vlad said. He held up the staff. “Just like you knew this was the administrator’s rod for the Firsthome Temple and not the staff of a Moon Wizard.”

  “Yes. But first we must find it.”

  The kin-dragon hovered above them, its wings gusting the courtyard. Vlad walked to the well and checked its bucket. It was wet. “They’ve not been gone long.”

  But where? They’d kept an eye out as they approached and had seen no sign of anyone on foot or mounted for hundreds of leagues. And if they’d been warned, it couldn’t have been too long ago. Which meant they were hiding nearby.

  Someplace the dragon cannot smell them. Unless the Y’Zirites had some magick for masking scent. Certainly if word had reached them, then it had also warned them about the beast that carried them. Vlad looked to Amylé. “Could they be underground?”

  She nodded. “They could be in the Beneath Places,” she said. “The hatches are airtight.”

  “Then we search the buildings for a hatch.”

  They split up and took a building at a time. Vlad started with what appeared to be an administrative center while Amylé approached the armory. He went through the building office by office, the staff giving him a light that pulsed in time to the headache that grew behind his eyes.

  Even the slightest use hurts me now.

  Vlad wasted no time, peering into each office and mentally measuring the space to identify any rooms that might be closed off or tucked behind hidden doors. He turned carpets but didn’t expect he would find anything there. He couldn’t imagine anyone staying behind to cover a hatch back up.

  He exited the building through another door and found himself next within a barracks attached to a small armory. He started with the armory, the lock breaking off at a touch from the staff that made him wince.

  The weapons and armor racks were empty, as was the smaller case he suspected held their blood magick phials. He gave the rest of the room a cursory glance and then entered the barracks. The beds were scattered with various bits of clothing and gear that had been left behind in a hasty packing process, giving him more of the puzzle. They had prioritized weapons and armor over their clothing and field gear. A low whistle from outside turned him back to the door.

  Amylé waited across the courtyard. “The food in the galley is still warm, and there were pipes in the blood shrine that led to a basement. I think our hatch is there.”

  Yes. It made sense if they were mixing human blood with the blood of the earth. The same way they had concocted the cure for his grandson and Petronus’s resurrection from the dead. And brewed their deadly scout magicks, the blood making them far more powerful than the powders taken from the earth. Blood distilleries meant access to a bargaining pool.

  Vlad moved across the courtyard to join her. “They’ve not been gone long. And they’re well-armed.”

  The thin sheath of silver that covered her brightened, and Vlad felt the heat of it. “So are we,” Amylé D’Anjite said.

  He followed her into the blood shrine and stopped abruptly as a sudden wave of terror and despair struck him.

  It is the first time I’ve seen a cutting table since Ria.

  The last time he’d seen one, he’d been on it. And he’d watched his family die one by one, hearing the last words that they cried out to him from beneath their blades, each of them dying while honoring him. He stifled a sob and felt a wave of nausea strike him.

  Amylé reached out to steady him. “Are you okay?”

  He could not take his eyes off the table. But he also could not answer. His voice would not obey him. Instead, he shook off her hand and pushed his way into the shrine. He forced his eyes away and to the door just past it. Amylé overtook him and went through first. “The stairs are here.”

  The pipes were there, too, running down along the staircase she approached. He stretched out a tentative hand and touched one, expecting it to be warm.

  It was cold.

  Vlad sighed. I will turn my pain into an army.

  The basement contained cells and more cutting tables, along with all of the equipment necessary. The door she’d found was set into a wall that accessed an area beyond the shrine above. It was locked by key, but at a nod from Vlad, Amylé kicked it in with ease.

  The dark tunnel stretched back into the mountain, and they followed it lit by the dim shine of Amylé’s silver suit. At the end of the corridor, Vlad saw the hatch. The cipher on it was similar to a Rufello lock but older and much larger.

  “How do we open it?” Amylé asked.

  Vlad closed his eyes and gripped the staff. It hummed in his hand, and as it built in pitch, he touched the tip of it to the lock. Open.

  He opened his eyes.

  Nothing. Vlad drew in a deep breath and held it. “Open,” he shouted.

  Then he brought the staff down hard upon it. The metal flashed bright enough to blind him, and a roar filled the tunnel as the hatch collapsed upon itself and fell in smoldering, white-hot pieces. Farther below, he heard screams and smiled.

  “It seems they were waiting for us,” he said.

  “Let’s not disappoint them,” Amylé said.

  The smile on her face and the heat rising from her body in waves made Vlad shudder. Either he’d not buried the raging old woman deep enough, or he had brought this out in her. Neither option pleased him. Still, Vlad Li Tam stood back and let her descend the ladder first. And he did not hurry when he heard the sounds of battle below. He needed her strong and confident, and he knew the blood would give her that.

  Because she is part of my army now.

  Still, as he climbed down after her clutching at his staff, Vlad Li Tam wondered what he was awakening within this girl and whether or not even that tool of the parents would be enough to contain her once she came fully into her own.

  Chapter

  14

  Marta

  The field was white with seed beneath a summer sun, and Marta stood with her father and mother and brother, laughing together as if they’d not been together in a long while. Isaak was there, too. And others she did not recognize but knew she should.

  She opened her mouth to ask her mother how the market at Windwir was and then closed it when she felt the world shake. She waited and noted something was different.

  We’ve stopped moving.

  Marta sat up, the sound of laughter still ringing in her ears. She blinked into the dim red light of her cabin and climbed to her feet. They were unsteady now that Behemoth was no longer moving after so long traveling at top speed. She’d kept her pack ready and slept with her boots on since they’d entered the canal. And her training with Ire paid off now as she moved faster than a rabbit out into the corridor, still buckling on her knife belt and its pouch of
bullets for her sling.

  It could already be too late. She knew Isaak intended to prevent her from following him, though she had no idea what form that might take. She only knew that she had to be quicker.

  The hatch at the end of the hallway stood open, and Ire Li Tam waited there. She raced to her. “Where’s Isaak?”

  Ire nodded beyond the hatch. “He’s out there. He’s waiting to talk with you.”

  Marta slowed at the news as her fear of being abandoned was suddenly replaced by butterflies. She looked through the hatch. “What does he want to talk to me about?”

  Ire’s green eyes met hers. “I suspect he’s going to ask you to stay here. It’s what he asked me.”

  “And you’re staying?”

  Ire looked away. “I will not be accompanying him. He says he needs to go alone.”

  “But you swore your blades to—”

  Ire Li Tam cut her off quickly. “Regardless.” The tone was sharp enough the Marta closed her open mouth. “Now go talk with him.”

  Marta swallowed and forced her feet to carry her through the hatch and into Behemoth’s open mouth. Beyond the jagged teeth, she saw the dim light of morning. Isaak stood in his robe, his red eyes sharp and clear.

  “Hello, little hu—” Isaak interrupted himself. “Hello, Marta.”

  She inclined her head and approached, wading into the water. “Isaak. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to take the staff from Vlad Li Tam and return it to the tower.” Something whispered beneath his metal skin, and his eyes dimmed briefly. “I know you wish to come with me, and I told you I would prevent you.”

  Marta waited. When he didn’t continue, she released an exasperated breath. “And will you?”

  He shook his head. “I won’t. But I will tell you this: I do not want you to come with me. I want you to stay with Ire Li Tam.” He took a tentative step toward her. “The second gift given is difficult at times. For you, it creates the need to be near me and to not let me face Lord Tam alone. For me, it creates the need to protect you from the very real danger that I know he is.” The metal man sighed. Whenever he did, it touched something in her, and this time it made her want to suddenly cry. Again, Isaak paused.