“Wondering what she’s doing?” came a voice from behind that caused me to jump. I turned and saw Gargath standing there, his feather-lined robe tied tight around his body to fight the evening chill. “So was I, the first time I caught her doing that.”
“Daevas, Gargath! You terrified me. What are you doing out here?”
He nodded up the cliff and patted a dagger at his belt. “Protecting Hratoe.”
I nodded. “What is she doing?” I asked once my heart stopped racing.
“There are some among my people who have a special talent. We call them corpsespeakers.”
My eyes widened as they passed from him to her. “She can speak to the dead?” I saw him nod from the corner of my eye. “I thought she was deaf and mute?”
“The dead don’t speak or listen as we do. When she speaks to them, it’s through her mind.” He sighed. “It drives most of them crazy before they’re her age, hearing voices of the dead. The lucky ones exhibit the ability early and are trained by masters at the Thanatarium. She was never formally trained, but she’s the best I’ve ever seen. I think being deaf to the living spared her the madness from the whispers of the dead.”
“That’s what she’s doing now? I don’t see any corpses.”
“She doesn’t need a whole body, only part.”
I nodded, understanding. “The bones around her neck.”
“They were her mother’s. On some nights, when she’s alone, they talk for hours.”
It seemed like a very useful skill, especially among the Volteri. “What’s she doing on Forlorn?”
Gargath stepped passed me, bringing his toes right up to the edge of the cliff. He watched her as he told her tale, “Her father was a wealthy man. When he died, his wife inherited his fortune. It is that way in Volter, it doesn’t go to the oldest male if there is a surviving spouse. She remarried some time later, to a cruel man who cared only about her fortune. She died near Hratoe’s twelfth birthday, quite mysteriously, but no crime was suspected. Since the mother’s body was unsuitable for re-animation, pieces of it were extracted and given to family members as memorials, as is our custom.”
I tried to hide my disgust. They were a morbid people, the Volteri. I stood in judgment of no other culture, but there were some things that I think I’d have been better off not knowing.
Gargath continued, “Two years later, Hratoe’s step-father remarried and shared the wealth of her father with his new wife and children. She wore the necklace with her mother’s finger bones around her neck always, but it wasn’t until after her fourteenth birthday that she learned she could talk to spirits.
“That was when her mother’s spirit came to her. She told her that her step-father had murdered her, and that if she tried to seek justice for her, he would murder her as well. It was only a matter of time before her ability to corpsespeak was revealed, and when it was her step-father would kill her to protect himself and to secure his claim to the fortune.”
“But why here?” I asked. “Surely there were places closer and safer? Mierdean, Bronta, even Umberton.”
Gargath smiled. “You know how our people are viewed by the rest of Morment. You see us as morbid freaks. And you’re not entirely wrong: to those who don’t live in the shadow of the Frozen Marsh, our ways are bizarre and unclean. When outside the walls of Volter, the ‘vulture people’ as you call us are tolerated, barely; so long as we don’t practice our heretical arts anywhere else. Can you imagine the fear and lack of understanding that would befall this girl if it was revealed she could speak to the dead?”
I took a deep breath. We stood in silence for a few moments, watching Hratoe have her silent conversation with her long dead mother before asking, “Did you come here with her?”
He grinned. “No. I didn’t even know her until we met on the Songwillow. Even then we didn’t have much to talk about, as it were.”
“But you can communicate with her?” I imitated their hand language as best I could. My efforts made Gargath chuckle: a hoarse, throaty sound that rather resembled the vocalization of a vulture.
“She taught me.”
My eyes widened. “When? On the Songwillow?”
“She teaches me still. I’m a fast learner.”
I turned to him. “So what about you; are you here by choice?”
He grinned. “More or less. I’m like many here: this was the farthest I could get from home to make the bounty on my head not worth the trouble. Even if someone wanted to collect, it’s widely known the Sand King takes a dim view of bounty hunters.”
I took careful steps around the next question. “Do you mind if I ask what you did?”
“Only if you don’t mind telling me the same,” he replied.
“Me? I’m a deserter.”
He smiled at me. “You’re going to have to give me more than that.”
“Well, it wasn’t cowardice. I’m not saying I’m not a coward, but that wasn’t why. How much military history do you know?”
“Very little, outside of the Volteri campaigns against the undead.”
I looked out at the ocean, far out past where the waves broke against the rocks and crashed against the cliff, where it was placid and reflected moonlight like a pane of glass. A soft breeze came in off the sea. It made Gargath’s newly grown, blond hair dance around his head and my freshly shaved cheeks and chin tingle.
“I don’t suppose you know the story of the Siege of Docerous?” I asked. He shook his head. “It was a neutral city, on one of the islands in a lake fed by the Sjolo River between Morment and Illyr. All other cities on the border had fallen to one side or the other, but Docerous remained unclaimed because the walls of the city ran right up to the edges of the island, making it impossible for any ships to come aground or troops to maneuver. And because it was fed by the river, they were surrounded by boats that would deter any attempt at invasion. Also, it was a city of minor importance, as the island held no strategic value for either side.
“An Illyrian legate, Fraximun, swore on a bet he could take the city whole, without landing a single ship or heavy casualties to his forces. The other legates laughed at him, but he was confident. So, he marched his army, a full legion of Illyrian footmen supported by heavy cavalry and archers, to the edges of the lake and sent an envoy to the Doceri to offer them terms of capitulation. They refused, mockingly. So, Fraximun set his engineers to work building a dam.
“They blocked off the waters, diverting them back into the Sjolo river, drying up the lake. By then, the ships the Doceri depended on for defense found themselves aground. Since sailors tend to disfavor heavy armor, for obvious reasons, when Fraximun marched his armored legion in, they crushed them. They slaughtered them all.
“Well, the Doceri weren’t about to give up without a fight. So they opened their gates and sent their own heavy troops out to meet them in honorable combat; a thousand men, the full force of the city’s garrison. They didn’t realize until it was too late that Fraximun had withdrawn his forces to a safe distance. Once the army of Docerous was committed to the lake bed, he unleashed the damn. Down came the waters of the Sjolo, refilling the lake and sending them all to a watery death.
“The Doceri surrendered the next day, and the legate won his bet.”
“Brilliant. Were you there?”
“No, this happened over twenty years ago. Docerous has been part of the Republic of Illyr for as long as I’ve been alive.”
“Then what does it have to do with you? What’s the point of the story?”
I looked at him for a moment and smiled. “That’s just it. What was the point? The Doceri weren’t hurting anybody. They weren’t even important. There was no tactical gain to be had by taking the city, and yet this legate spilled blood to win it. All for a bet.
“I came to realize that was all this war was: generals on our side, legates on theirs, trying to prove their own worth. What is gained by the continued struggle? Can you imagine a world in which one side controls the whole continent? Even on
their respective sides, neither the King of Morment nor the Illyrian Senate have complete domination over the people in their lands. How could one side ever hope to control the whole of Eios?”
I looked back out at the sea and shook my head. “I just couldn’t be a part of it anymore. It was ridiculous. Ludicrous. Foolish. I can’t even think of a term vociferous enough to describe the folly of it all. So I left. I abandoned my post and left.”
“Where did you go?”
“I tried to go home. I hoped my father would understand. I was a fool. Even if I’d made it home, my own father would have turned me in, just to preserve the honor of our family name. I knew about this place before I left; heard stories of a new colony of exiles living on the distant shores of Forlorn. It occurred to me then that I might come here, even before I was captured and my exile made official. I suppose I knew the minute I deserted that I would end up here.”
It occurred to me that I’d just shared an enormous amount of highly personal details with a man I barely knew. I hadn’t even opened up to Antioc as much. The strange thing was, it felt good. Even still, it was disarming. Time for a diversion, lest I start sharing more intimate details of my life with the vulture man.
“Your turn.”
“I defiled a corpse.”
I crooked an eyebrow. “Defiled how?”
“I was a corpse tender. I prepared them for reanimation. I was trained to be impartial in the administration of my duties, to not show any sentiment toward the bodies of the dead. They were, after all, just vessels. The soul had already departed. Then one day, the corpse of my brother came into the reliquary for preparation.”
He stared off into the sea for a moment before continuing, “He was the ideal candidate for reanimation. He’d died of a brain hemorrhage, a hereditary misfortune, so his body was in perfect shape. He’d have made a perfect guardian. My duty was simple: prepare him for the priests.
“But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t stand the idea of the corpse of my brother being brought back that way, sent out to die and rot in the Frozen Marsh. I know it’s hypocritical. I’d prepared hundreds of bodies for reanimation. If I’d stayed, I’d have prepared thousands more over the course of my life. Never had I given it a second thought, until it was someone I cared about.
“So I removed his hands and feet, rendering him useless. I tried to pass it off as an accident, but the priests knew better. The priests rule the city, and I knew they’d send the revenants, their personal guards, to arrest me. So I fled. And I kept fleeing, dodging bounty hunters until I was able to book passage on the Songwillow and come to Forlorn.”
He looked up the cliff at Hratoe. She upended a skin of water over her fire, extinguishing it with a hiss of white smoke. “It was just a happy coincidence there was another Volteri on board. We naturally gravitated to one another.”
I looked from him to her, then back to him again. “Are you two . . . ?”
He smiled. “Oh, no. We’ve become very close, but she’s more like a little sister.”
I had three sisters. I saw no reason why anyone who hadn’t been so saddled might wish to have one. As I mulled it over in my head, Hratoe made her way down the narrow path to join us. She gave a surprised look upon seeing me, signing quickly to Gargath. He signed back at a more relaxed pace, which seemed to put her at ease.
I bid the Volteri farewell and returned to my yurt. Antioc was already asleep when I arrived, snoring like a bear. I crawled into my bunk and pulled the ratty blanket over my body. Normally it took me at least an hour to fall asleep. That night, I was out minutes after my head hit the straw-stuffed pillow.
16.
The wall came together much easier after I had a cache of nails and a fresh supply of workers. My new tools helped, too. After the latest resupply, the blacksmiths had enough raw iron to make the high quality metal components I needed, as well as a dozen passable hammers with iron heads instead of the wooden mallets they’d been using. A couple of the new exiles even had some experience as builders. It was a matter of days, not weeks as I feared, before I was able to show off my completed masterpiece.
“It’s magnificent,” said Arn as he ran his fingers across the tightly pressed logs that made up the first layer of the wall.
“Thank you, sir.” I nodded and looked back at the others. Melvon and Ferun were here as well. The former looked far more impressed than the latter, with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Ferun just looked bored and a little annoyed. That might have had something to do with the excitement Reiwyn was showing, standing next to him with a great big smile on her face and her blue eyes wide enough to catch the morning sun. The entire chore was worth it just for that.
Arn’s fingers passed over the sealing mortar between the logs. “Remarkable.”
“Oh, Uller concocted that,” I said, gesturing over my shoulder to him with my thumb.
Not one to be left out, Uller stepped up and joined the presentation, “It was a simple matter, really. I just took some of the clay so prevalent around here and added . . .”
“You say it’s wide and strong enough to stand upon?” Arn asked, looking at me. Uller fumed and stepped back.
“I should hope so. Sharkhart and Antioc are standing upon it right now.” Arn followed my finger to the two of them, several strides down leaning on the spiked tips, still white from being freshly carved, that ran along the top edges of the wall. They waved when they saw they’d been noticed. “Any number of movable ladders will bring you to the top. The wall is wide enough for two men to walk astride, and there are arrow shields built into the outer wall for the protection of archers firing down on would be invaders.”
“Outstanding.” Arn shook his head.
I beamed and looked back at Reiwyn. She gave me her biggest smile, and the heat in me threatened to burn a hole in my chest. That wasn’t all that was burning, though: Ferun’s glare was enough to ignite a rock. The happier she was with me, the more displeased he became, and conversely the more satisfied I grew. Who knew something as simple as building a wall would be the key to a river woman’s heart?
“It seems sturdy enough,” said Melvon, pounding one of the fixed logs. “But I don’t like that there’s only one entryway.”
I shook my head. “No defensible structure should have more than one means of egress. That the old wall had no less than four was one of the main security issues. That, and it wasn’t properly anchored to the ground, making tunneling a simple deed.” I stepped up to my wall and kicked the rock and dirt base. “This one is embedded a full stride into the ground. It would take a full night to burrow under it, and by then they’d be intercepted by one of Ferun’s expertly trained guards.” I glanced over at him and smiled as insincerely as possible. He gave me another one of those rock-bursting looks.
“He makes a wise point, Melvon.” Arn stepped passed the rotund quartermaster and put his hands on his hips. “Let’s see this gate of yours.”
I was overjoyed he’d asked about that. The gate was the crown of my construction. I led him to it and the group followed. It was then I noticed my wall had attracted quite a crowd. Work had all but ceased in the colony as exiles gathered around to marvel at my wall. Antioc and Sharkhart climbed down the ladders and joined us.
I put my hand on the iron-shod, wooden locking bar when we arrived at the gate. “This is an ancient design but one still in use in most modern fortifications.” I demonstrated the horizontal bar that slid back and forth between grooved sockets carved into oversized supporting pillars on either side of the gateway. These pillars are embedded even deeper than the wall: three strides each and fixed to the gate with nails and generous amounts of Uller’s mortar. I slid the beam along its path and fixed it with a transverse latch, the end of which fit neatly into another socket on the gate itself. Once secure, I slid a metal rod with a distinctly carved recession at the upper end into a hole in the latch that corresponded with another hole in the beam, sliding down into it. I then used a key to twist the end of the rod so that it fell
into the hole, locking the whole mechanism in place.
I handed the key to Arn. “The Balorah called this a balanagra, but it’s really just a primitive key. This one is yours, I have the other. Once this gate is locked, you or your authorized agent will be the only ones able to open it.”
Arn stepped to the gate and grabbed the handles. He tried pulling it as hard as he could, but it wouldn’t budge. He took the key and fitted it into the hole, turning it until it slid free and came up the top. Once he’d removed it, the transverse latch was easily slid back and lifted, and the locking beam pushed along its route until it was clear of the gate. He then pulled the gate open. We all backed away as it swung in.
Arn was ebullient. “Never did I imagine we would have such a wall.” He turned to look at me. “You have done this colony a great service, Lew Standwell.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, eliciting cheers from many of those in attendance, including Reiwyn. She was the only one who mattered.
After a lot of back slapping and arm shaking, we adjourned for the mid-day meal. We took to our regular table in the mess, which included my normal retinue plus Gargath and Hratoe; and our most recent addition, Zin: who insisted upon sitting as close to Uller as possible. Something I strongly encouraged her to do, as I found the look of tedium on his face quite enjoyable when she spoke. She was everything Uller was not: sunny, optimistic, humble, and pleasant to be around. As a side motive, I hoped the longer I spent with her, the more likely she would be to accidentally reveal more details about Arn’s shadowy identity, the ignorance of which had never stopped plaguing me.
Reiwyn was the last to join us, as she usually was. That was assuming she even deigned to show up. Usually she took her meal with her paramour in his personal yurt. But today was my day, and so she graced us with her presence.
“It really is a nice wall,” said Blackfoot through a mouthful of noodles. “Very big. Though, I think I could still climb it.”
Exiles of Forlorn Page 15