by Watson Davis
Sifa pressed forward, tensing herself, unable to stop. The priestess collapsed backwards. Sifa struck the woman’s side and spun her lifeless body around, knocking her aside. Sifa tripped, falling to her hands and knees.
The priestess’s magic unraveled, the consciousness binding it all together now gone, the strands around Che-su dissolving and melting onto the ground, the spell keeping them silent floating away on unseen breezes and unseen tides.
Shiyk’yath jabbed his pike forward, an awkward movement, the tip of the pike’s blade dipping downward into the dirt from the weight. Bak-tun slipped in and stabbed Shiyk’yath in the stomach. Shiyk’yath grabbed his abdomen, his eyes wide but not looking at anything around him, his legs giving way beneath him. Bak-tun lined up his next blow, preparing to sever Shiyk’yath’s neck, even as Ku-lek raised his pike with its tip pointing at the center of Alizadeh’s chest as the orc growled and clenched his fists.
Sifa screamed from her knees but only a whisper escaped her lips, the priestess’s magic having not completely dissipated. From her knees, she reached her hand out to her friends, impotent, unable to stop anything, her fury building inside her like magma beneath the earth.
The sky rumbled, the earth trembled, and two bolts of lightning lashed up from the earth and down from the sky, one enveloping Bak Tun, the other Ku-lek, lifting them into the sky screaming.
Sifa held them there, her anger taking pleasure in their cries until Che-su touched her arm.
“They’re done,” Che-su whispered.
Sifa relaxed, her body devoid of energy, of emotion, and she collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath.
The two guards crashed to the ground, smoke rising from their still quivering bodies.
SIFA PULLED AT THE last remaining strands of webbing clinging to Che-su’s arms and legs.
“I prefer that spell when I’m the one casting it,” Che-su said, grimacing and rolling to her knees. She rose, one hand on her knees, with Sifa helping as she could. Che-su shook her head. “I was too old for this forty years ago.”
“We need to hurry,” Alizadeh grunted, limping to Shiyk’yath’s side, cradling his arm against his wound.
“Help me to the wagon,” Che-su said to Sifa.
Sifa took Che-su’s arm and supported her as she scrabbled up into the bed of the wagon. The older woman sprawled into the back.
Alizadeh touched Shiyk’yath’s torso. The man gasped with each breath, a sheen of sweat on his brow, and he had tears in his eyes. Alizadeh said, “Press down here. Maybe we can stop the bleeding.”
Shiyk’yath pressed down on his stomach, grimacing.
“Can I help?” Sifa asked, darting over to Alizadeh’s side, stepping around Ku-lek’s charred and still burning body. The smoke stung her eyes, and she breathed through her mouth, trying to ignore the stench.
“No.” Alizadeh looked past her to Wu Cheen and motioned to Shiyk’yath. “Help me load him into the cart.”
Wu Cheen sighed and ambled past Sifa, catching her eye and shaking his head, his brow furrowed.
“Come on,” Alizadeh said, leaning over and sliding his hands under Shiyk’yath’s shoulders. “We don’t have all day.”
“Don’t I know it,” Wu Cheen said, grabbing Shiyk’yath’s ankles.
“Ow!” Shiyk’yath said, yanking his right foot out of Wu Cheen’s grip. “Watch out, I’ve got wounds on that leg.”
“Fine,” Wu Cheen said, moving forward and sliding his hands under Shiyk’yath’s knees. “How’s that, sweetheart?”
“Ah, yeah, better,” Shiyk’yath gasped.
Wu Cheen nodded to Alizadeh and they hefted Shiyk’yath off the ground and crab-walked to the back of the wagon, setting him gently in.
Che-su shifted to the side and helped drag him in. She said, “All three of us need a healer. Soon.”
“I’ll be fine,” Alizadeh said, pulling his shaking hand away from his side and glaring down at the blood.
Wu Cheen touched Sifa’s shoulder and whispered in her ear, “We need to leave now. We don’t have time for them.”
Sifa glared at him. “We don’t leave anyone behind.”
“Do you even have a sense of loyalty?” Alizadeh asked, growling.
Wu Cheen shrugged. “I thought our main purpose was keeping the little one out of the grasp of the Empress. Was I wrong about that?”
“No,” Che-su said. “You have the right of it.”
“But we don’t leave anyone behind,” Sifa said.
“At least, not while they’re alive.” Alizadeh climbed into the driver’s seat.
Wu Cheen glanced back down the alley, away from the cart, away from the injured, and pursed his lips. “Fine.” With that he whirled around and sprinted off into the shadows.
Sifa raised her hand to try to order him back, her mouth dropping open, but no words came out of her mouth.
“Let him run,” Alizadeh said. “It’s what he does best.”
Sifa climbed into the driver’s seat beside him. Alizadeh flicked his wrists and the mule plodded forward, through the gate, across a rickety bridge and onto a muddy path not kept up enough to be called a road. Ramshackle buildings pressed in around it, a couple of inns, a stable.
Perspiration beaded up on Alizadeh’s forehead and his breathing seemed labored. Sifa placed the back of her hand against his forehead; he jerked back.
She frowned at him. “Are you up to driving?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “But maybe you can take over once we get out to the country.”
Behind them, a horse neighed.
Sifa whirled, preparing to face a new threat, but Wu Cheen emerged jogging from the shadows, leading a sturdy horse.
“Glad to see you all left without me after that big speech about leaving people behind,” Wu Cheen said.
“You’re just in time,” Sifa said, smiling.
“Great,” he said, handing the horse’s reins to Sifa. “Let’s switch this baby out with the mule. We’re going to need the better speed.”
Sifa gulped, looking at the horse’s bright eyes, the healthy dappling of its coat, the power in its musculature. She whispered, “You stole this horse?”
“Stole?” he said, raising his head, a wounded look on his face. He looped Alizadeh’s arm over his shoulders. “No, acquired from the priestess. Not like she’s got any more use for it.”
“Oh, well then,” Sifa said, satisfied, perfectly happy to use the priestess’s horse.
“I’ve been thinking,” Alizadeh said, his breathing ragged. “I might know someone who would heal us. Maybe.”
Mendenen
THE SUN PEEKED UP OVER the hazy mountains in the distance. The dark skies shifted from black to a deep blue while the horizon glowed red and gold. The horse’s hooves beat a hypnotic rhythm on the road. The wagon tilted one way, and then the other, the wheels rising and falling in muddy ruts cut over the centuries, filled and re-cut.
The cool dawn air brushed up against Sifa’s face and arms, sweeping her hair into her eyes. The air carried with it the stink of urine, of the tanning of hides. They passed over a bridge, the water stinking of blood and urine and thick with sewage and sludge.
Sifa whispered, “Wu Cheen?”
“Yep,” he said, inhaling and sitting straighter. “Was I snoring?”
“Where are we?”
“We’re coming up on Mendenen,” Wu Cheen said, prodding the horse to pick up its pace. “Alizadeh? You said you knew a healer here, right?”
His words slurring, his voice soft and exhausted, Alizadeh spoke. “Yeah, yeah. An inn. The Rampant Sage. Um. There’s a little road that forks off to the right, first real road off this main one. The inn is there on the left. Drive past and into the stable beyond it.”
Mendenen sprawled on the side of a steep hill, and the road led up into it, switching back time and again. The horse struggled, her steady rhythm slowing down, her head dipping with each step.
“Everybody out that can get out,” Wu Cheen said, sli
pping from the driver’s seat and jogging up to take the horse’s bridle in his hand.
Sifa crawled to the back of the bed and hopped out. She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs, the exhaustion, and looked out over the fields of the plain reaching all the way down to the sea to the north. A flock of large birds flew across the sky in the far distance. She couldn’t make out their details.
“A hand?” Che-su said.
“Shouldn’t you stay in the cart?” Sifa sprinted up the steep road to catch up.
“No, I can walk,” Che-su grumbled, holding her arm out.
Sifa took Che’su’s arm and eased her down to the road. They walked side by side beside the wagon, up the hill and through an archway into the village.
“Is this the road?” Wu Cheen asked, slowing the horse and pointing to a narrow road that led off to the right.
Sifa looked over the side of the bed and shook her head. “They’re both asleep.”
“This should be it,” Che-su said. “He said it was the first road off the main one.”
“Well, we’ll take it then,” Wu Cheen said, his eyes half closed. He jerked on the bridle.
A man stood on the corner puffing on his pipe, tugging at his suspenders and staring at them. Sifa bowed to him and asked, “Is this the road to the Rampant Sage, kind sir?”
He nodded, and chewed on the end of his pipe.
From the other side of the cart, Wu Cheen smiled and waved, but the man scowled at him.
The road gave way to hard-packed dirt, the wagon bouncing over the uneven surface, tossing Alizadeh and Shiyk’yath up and dropping them down, both men moaning and groaning but not waking up.
Che-su hopped up, placing her foot on the side of the cart, and sat down on the floorboard while Wu Cheen pulled the horse along, his eyes up watching for the sign. The street wound around, the buildings all two and three stories with the upper levels leaning over the street, seeming to reach out to each other.
“I think this is the place,” Wu Cheen said, pointing at a sign of a man in a robe with a book in one hand and a pen in the other in a comical impression of a heraldic gryphon. Sifa snickered at the sight of it.
Wu Cheen directed the cart through an open door into an empty stable that stank of unmucked stalls.
“Ewww.” Sifa wrinkled her nose, pinching her nostrils together with her fingers. She reached in and touched Shiyk’yath’s forehead, and found his skin hot. “We need to get them inside.”
Che-su raised her hands. “Is there a problem?”
Wu Cheen looked at Che-su and then whirled around.
Behind Wu Cheen in the doorway, two frowning men stood with shortswords in their hands. Those shortswords pointed toward Wu Cheen. A woman stood behind them with her fists on her hips.
Sifa gasped.
Wu Cheen raised his hands and said, “Alizadeh told us to come here. Said there was a healer. Said you were friends.”
The woman scowled. “That devil-spawn scum was mistaken.”
SIFA HELD UP HER HANDS, looking from the two men and the woman in the door leading to the inn to the two men who had appeared at the door to the street.
Che-su said, “Excuse me, but can’t some poor travelers in need of a day of rest and recuperation stop at an inn and take their leisure? I thought that was what inns are for.”
“There are priests and guards on their way out from Basaliyasta right now,” the leader said. “If Rector Kathe were younger and more spry, she’d probably be here slinging spells around and taking you all back to the temple by your ears already.”
Sifa shivered. “But—”
“Kathe?” Che-su whispered.
The leader raised his dagger, pointing it toward Alizadeh. “As it stands now, this Lost Eye scum would lead them right into our laps, blowing our operations. Probably already told the priests about us when he was in jail.”
Wu Cheen pursed his lips. “If he’d told them about you when he was in jail, I doubt he would have told us to come here.”
Sifa looked from Wu Cheen to the angry woman. “Alizadeh would never—”
“Shh,” Che-su said, grabbing Sifa’s arm. “Be still.”
One of the men strode forward and slapped Wu Cheen. “Shut up.”
Wu Cheen leaned over and spat on the floor. “Well, this is easy enough to fix. How about you let us go and we’ll lead them as far away from you as we can?”
“How about you shut your yapper?” The man grabbed Wu Cheen’s wrist. He pulled Wu Cheen’s arm behind his back and Wu Cheen did not struggle.
Wu Cheen sighed. “How about we make a deal?”
“A deal?” the leader said. He stepped forward and grabbed Wu Cheen’s neck. “Why should I make a deal with a fugitive like you?”
“You let us go,” Wu Cheen said, a grin creeping onto his face, “and we won’t tell them about these ‘operations’ of yours when they’re questioning us about our nefarious deeds. How about that?”
The leader punched Wu Cheen in the face and he collapsed. The man holding his arm let him drop to the floor.
“Hey!” Sifa yelled. “You stop!”
Che-su grabbed her and pulled her back. “Calm down.”
“How about I kill all of you and collect the bounty?” the leader said, punctuating each word with a kick to Wu Cheen’s stomach or head. “How about that, smart ass?”
The woman by his side touched the leader’s arm and whispered, “Thought the bounty said to take them alive.”
The leader scowled at Wu Cheen, but he stopped kicking him.
“We came here looking for help,” Sifa said, backing toward Che-su, glaring at the men approaching her with ropes and daggers from the door to the street. Outside, the sun disappeared behind stormy clouds. A brisk wind howled down the narrow street, bringing a sheet of rain and the tap-tap of pea-sized hail.
“By the Empress’s ear,” one of the men said, stepping back out, peering up at the sky. A chunk of ice the size of a man’s fist struck him square in the face, crushing his nose. He collapsed to the ground.
The leader said, “Well, by the seventh hell, looks like we got casters. Careful, now.”
Sifa trembled inside, her rage mounting, a fierce desire for battle welling up in her chest, but Che-su pulled her back and wrapped her arms around the girl, hugging her.
“Control yourself,” Che-su whispered.
“I didn’t do anything,” Sifa growled. “Yet.”
“We’re too close together in here, and you don’t have enough skill to separate friend from enemy. You could kill all of us, so calm yourself.”
Sifa gulped and she opened her fists, trying to think of some way to calm down and stop doing whatever it was she was doing.
“Breathe like Ka-bes taught you,” Che-su said, raising her hands. She raised her voice. “We will come along peacefully. No need for violence or harm. Most of us are badly injured anyway.”
Two of them rushed toward Che-su while three more circled around the front of the wagon for Sifa. The man struck by the hail stood, staggering to his feet, holding his bleeding nose with his hand as he leaned up against the door of the stable.
One man grabbed Sifa’s wrist, twisting her arm around her and pulling it up between her shoulder blades. She gasped in pain, and a bolt of lightning struck outside the door, shaking the ground. The roof of the stables creaked, spitting puffs of dust into the air, threatening to collapse. The man holding his nose flew through the air, the crown of his head colliding with the back of the cart, and he collapsed to the dirty ground.
“Crap!” the other man before Sifa said, stuffing a dirty rag into her mouth, twisting her other arm around. “Quick, get her hands bound.”
Sifa gagged, struggling to breathe, her throat filled with a rag that tasted of ten years of manure and armpits.
“Gentlemmmm—!” Che-su screamed, her voice silenced by the gag stuffed into her mouth. They threw the two of them against the side of the cart.
One man knelt by Wu Cheen, grabbing
his forearm; the leader kicked Wu Cheen in the face. Wu Cheen sprawled on the floor, his body limp.
“Should we break the witches’s fingers to keep them from casting?” the one holding Sifa’s wrists said, grabbing one of her hands.
A blinding light flashed from the door behind the leader, the door leading to the inn. The leader whirled around toward that door, crouching. He crab-walked forward, peered through the door, and then turned back around to the man applying more and more pressure to Sifa’s fingers.
The leader said, “Let’s get these assholes the hell out of here while we’ve still got a god-damned inn.”
The men pushed Sifa out the door first, shoving her so she fell to her knees on the cobblestones. She twisted herself so she rolled onto her shoulder and back. Two men half-carried Che-su out, while the leader and another man tossed Wu Cheen, his hands now bound, into the bed of the wagon across Alizadeh and Shiyk’yath.
The men led the horse backward, pushing the wagon out toward Sifa, who rolled and scrabbled to her feet to keep from being run over.
The clouds parted, withdrawing like a receding flood. Sunlight broke through in bars of golden yellow.
“Glory to the Empress for that,” the leader said from the driver’s seat of the wagon, snapping at the reins and driving the horse down the winding street.
Sifa jogged to keep pace, a man behind her prodding her with the point of his dagger. Two men hooked their arms under Che’su’s and strode along, dragging Che-su behind them. Che-su kicked at the cobblestones as she struggled get back to her feet.
Sifa wanted to say something, but only choked on the gag.
A few people along the street stopped to watch, sad-faced with exhausted eyes, their cheeks sunken. They joined in the procession.
The belltower of an ancient temple appeared over the tile roofs, the body of the basilica coming into view as they rounded a bend. Two statues of the Empress crouching and listening occupied the rectangular plaza before the doors of the temple. A fountain gurgled between the two of them, and a statue of Emperor Byi Ying, thin and emaciated, knelt at the center with the water of the fountain emerging from his eyes and flowing down his cheeks, his shoulders, and down from his hands.