by Colin McComb
Catya marched up to Jasi, her friends arrayed behind her back, and stood at parade rest, like she’d seen her father and grandfather do. She said, “I have some words to speak.”
“Is that so,” drawled Jasi. “And here I thought that you were just going to rush in and try to pummel me.”
“No. I don’t want to threaten you. I just want you to stop. Stop being mean. Stop turning us against each other.”
“I see. What if I don’t? What will you do then?”
“Then I will threaten you. All of us are sick of being treated like this. You don’t control our lives.”
“I just don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want to know you exist,” Jasi replied. She stood and brushed dust from her skirt. “And, unlike you, I have friends. Real friends. Friends who are here right now.”
From the shadowy alcoves behind her, many of the town’s other children stepped into formation. They carried sticks and stones. Faces appeared over balconies. One of them held a sling. And Sten, the boy they feared for his size and his complete loyalty to Jasi, had brought an actual war club. He stood to Jasi’s left, his eyes under his heavy brows picking out the children he had victimized, and they quailed under his gaze.
Catya felt the courage leaving them, felt the energy of the room shift against her, and she said, “Are you going to beat us all? What do you think our parents will say if we all show up with bruises? One or two of us, maybe, but all of us?”
Jasi considered. “Not all of you.” She paused. “No, just you, Catya. Get her, Sten!”
Sten moved more quickly than a boy his size should have been able to, and Catya was caught off-guard. He struck her in the face with his fist, pushed her down, and raised a boot to stomp on her fragile ribs. Her eyes, bleary from his savage blows, registered the danger, and her countless hours of training snapped into place.
She rolled to the left as his foot came down and rolled back as he hit the ground. She grabbed his leg just above the knee and at the ankle. As she did, she rocked back on her shoulders and shot her right leg between his thighs, catching it around his legs. With that grip she slammed her hips forward. Caught off-balance, Sten crashed to the floor, his war club flying from his fingers.
Catya kept her hold on his leg as she rode the momentum upright, and as she stood she twisted savagely to her left and felt his tendons popping beneath her hand. Had she not been filled with adrenaline, fear, and shock, she might have stopped there.
But she didn’t.
She dropped his leg to the ground and leapt onto his chest. With the heel of her palm, she struck Sten at the base of his nose, snapping the cartilage. Blood sprayed. She stood, dropping back into a guard position...and it was only then that she realized he hadn’t moved to defend himself.
The blood that poured from his nose was overmatched by a more copious flow from beneath his head, and it took Catya a moment to realize what it meant. He had struck the base of his head on a crumbled marble bench as he fell. He wasn’t even twitching.
It had all happened so fast that only one boy—Eskillion, Mannion’s older brother—had begun to come to Catya’s aid, but he had slowed and then stopped as she came to her feet.
The room was quiet around her.
Jasi looked at the body of her enforcer, her ally, and blood drained from her face. “By the gods.... what have you done?” She recoiled from the blood, horror painting her expression. And then she took possession of herself. She pointed an accusing finger at Catya. “He’s dead! Kill her!”
But Catya held up her bloody hand and cried, “Do you want to be next?”
The shouts that had begun to rise from Jasi’s allies died half spoken.
Catya, still trembling, not allowing herself to consider the enormity of what had just happened, saw her opportunity. “Do you all really want to do this? Do you really want to be like that? You want to fight and maybe die because she tells you to do something? Most of you don’t even like her, but you’re going to follow her just because you’re afraid of her!” She snapped her finger toward Sten’s body. “And this is what happens! He’s dying because he couldn’t think for himself!” She stepped toward Jasi and hissed, “He’s dying, and it’s your fault.” Jasi recoiled and tripped over her own feet as she backpedaled, stricken.
Catya snapped orders: “Eskillion: check on Sten. Jasi: tend to your friend. Use that dress to make some pads. I don’t care if you rip it—this is your gods-damned mess, and by all the hells you’ll help clean it up! Who’s apprenticed to the doctor? Get down here! The rest of you, stay where you are!” For the first time she commanded a room, and she discovered how easily people obey someone who wants to take charge.
As the children she had named tended to the fallen bully, Catya looked around the chamber. Although she had come to her moment of victory, the young girl felt no triumph. She watched her enemy and felt only pity and sorrow.
“This is stupid,” she announced to the room at large. “It’s not just Jasi’s fault. This belongs to all of us. We chose sides in a dumb fight, and now Sten might be dying. Now we have to explain what happened.”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Jasi said, starting to stand. “You tried to kill him!”
Eskillion, from his place at Sten’s head, snapped, “Shut up, Jasi. You’ve done enough. No one wants to hear from you anymore. Now get down here and tend to your friend.” The other children murmured in hostile assent, and Jasi bowed her head and sat again, tearing strips from her dress to make a bandage.
“Here’s what I think,” said Catya. “Sten and Jasi came down here. He wanted to show her something—it doesn’t matter what. Maybe he started showing off on one of these benches, and he slipped and fell. That’s what happened to his leg. That’s what happened to his head. And that’s what happened to Jasi’s dress. She ran for help, and that’s how Eskillion, Mannion, and me got here. We came to help him get home. And it’s because of our help that Jasi’s going to stop trying to make trouble with me. With all of us.”
A young boy from the back of Jasi’s side spoke up. “But we all know the truth.”
Mannion replied, “Like Jasi’s lies, we can make the truth be what we say it is. And this story’s better for all of us. We might not get to explore for a month or two, but at least it won’t be closed off forever.”
A girl named Sara said, “What if someone tells it like it actually happened?”
Everyone looked at Catya. She had been staring at Sten, praying that he still breathed, and she realized that she had been clenching her bloody fist and watching the unconscious boy. She looked up, meeting gazes, and she recognized that they all thought she was threatening them. She opened her mouth to say otherwise…and then closed it again. Whatever they thought, it was all right with her. Maybe if they feared her, they’d think twice before threatening her.
After an uncomfortable silence, Mannion spoke. “We just won’t, all right?” There was a low murmur of assent.
Eskillion shouted, “He opened his eyes!” The fear building in Catya’s chest eased—not completely, but enough that she could breathe again. Her hands unclenched, and she shot Jasi a look. Jasi looked older in that moment, her face filled with relief and worry. But she felt Catya’s gaze, and as their eyes met, venom filled Jasi’s glare. Catya knew that her foe would try to find a way to ruin her life. But for now, this story would hold.
The other children dispersed. Catya, Jasi, Eskillion, and Mannion carried Sten to the doctor’s house, and there they told the tale. The doctor sent for Sten’s parents, and the children told it again. Jasi kept to the story that night, but just to be sure, Catya went back to the Stonemill to check that the story made sense, and that she hadn’t left any evidence behind. She cleaned herself as best as she could, and then at last headed home.
It was only as she walked the final steps to the door of her farmhouse that she realized that she and Jasi were bound more tightly than ever now. It was just a few steps more that she realized sh
e was thinking of murder.
She opened the door and found Arul sitting at the kitchen table, reading by candlelight. His quick eyes took in her dusty clothes, the hole in the knee of her pants, the bruise beginning to swell on her cheek, and she saw the dark knot of fear that was etched on his face let go. At his gaze, the tears began to stream from her eyes, and she ran to him. He gathered her to his chest and embraced her for a long, wordless while.
The Kidnapper’s Tale
“Tell us your story. Tell it all,” says the chieftain. His scarred face is impassive. The reavers’ flickering firelight dances on the woman’s face. She is bound hand and foot, but her mouth is uncovered. Her companions are not so lucky. They have given up straining at the leather thongs that wrap tight around their extremities, and their eyes plead with her. The young girl in the torn nightclothes who huddles in their midst has fallen asleep at last, her muted cries of terror silenced by the grasp of sleep.
Eyes gleam from the darkness, light reflected from the fire. The woman looks around nervously.
“Speak!” commands the chieftain.
She clears her throat and begins. The reavers listen with ferocious attention.
I used to be a farmer before I got into this line of work. We took a big loan from the bank to buy our land and livestock. We picked out the land ourselves, a pastureland in a small valley right near the river, just south of West Beldin. We had water rights and all, and the grass was good and sweet. You’d hardly know that just a few days west lay the Sickened Lands, because the Eschback Mountains kept them out of sight.
We raised cattle, mostly, but we sometimes took on swine and sheep, too, when the money was right. Me and my husband worked hard on that farm. We put a lot into it. Broke our backs, some years, but we were proud to do it. We felt like we were contributing something. Like we were helping our village and the villages around, like we were part of one big community. That’s how I remember it some days.
Other days, I remember how it really was. Up at the crack of dawn for another day of sweating, getting mired in cow dung, earning bruises from kicks and bites and whatnot, cursing the cows who gave no milk or too little, helping birth the calves, and repairing corrals and so forth. It was hard, tedious, stinking labor, and most evenings we were too exhausted for more than a hurried meal. Sometimes we hired an extra hand or two to help out, but I can only remember a bare handful of years we could afford that. We were too busy to attend services at the chapel, but even if we could have, it’s not like we were attentive children of the Book. Some of our neighbors were, but us? We were too busy surviving.
Scratching by like that, it’s hard to take setbacks in stride. The winter of 587 was bad, but we managed. The year after was worse, but we survived. And then came 589, the year of the hard snows, when the wolves came to help themselves to our stock. Then there was the drought, a year after that, and the price of feed doubling because of it. We sold half the herd, but we somehow pushed through and even were on our way to making some money back—well, making some money for the bank, because we had to take a loan to keep afloat, and they got first shot at profits. But even that small time in the sun ended, because ‘91 is when the wars started, when the Empire’s neighbors decided that the squabbles in Terona meant that our borders were weak. That’s when the press gangs came and took every fifth able-bodied man. That’s when they took my Johnny away. That was ‘92.
That did it. Even with the money he sent home every month, I didn’t have enough to keep the farm going. The neighbors tried to help as best as they could afford, but they all had their own work to look after, and I didn’t blame them much when they started telling me that. I tried to keep on, but where the work with two was hard, it was impossible with one, and it wasn’t more’n a year that I realized I’d have to sell the stock and the farm to pay off what we owed to the bank. I was headed for charity, and I’d sooner die than wind up in the almshouse.
If we’d picked our land in the next town up, in Lower Pippen—they had a magus living there, they missed the worst of the winter and the wolves, and they never had to worry about raiders and reavers. The magus healed their sick, kept them safe, helped their crops and their livestock…but he didn’t help us, and we couldn’t compete with the Pippens. Baron Mulvrain wasn’t any help either—all his men were patrolling the Imperial Road, or they were off fighting. Everyone was stretched too thin.
Looking back, I guess it wasn’t all that surprising that I fell in with a bad crowd. It’s not like I went looking for them. They found me.
Maybe Laz told them that I’d fallen on hard times. He’d always been a little bit on the wrong side of the law, hiding his face from town guards and whatever enforcers and bounty hunters happened to pass through, but he worked hard when we hired him on, and we never caught him taking something that wasn’t his. We always suspected, but it wasn’t until he showed up on my doorstep with two masked and hooded men that I knew he was a brigand.
“Evenin’, Doreen,” he said.
“Evenin’, Laz. Who’re your friends?” I was half hidden behind the door, and my right hand held my crossbow, cocked and loaded. Trust him or no, masked men don’t exactly inspire confidence, you know?
“We’d like to talk to you, Doreen, and it’d be better if we could do it inside instead of out.”
“Is that a request or a demand?”
“Request. If it was a demand, we’d just come in, and your ol’ crossbow wouldn’t be much use.”
I looked around the yard, but being out on the fringes of town has its benefits. No one else there, far as I could tell. “All right, come in.”
They came in quietly, single file, and the two men wearing masks moved to close the shutters. When the house was shut tight from prying eyes, they pulled back their hoods and masks, and I saw who they were, but I’m not saying who here. We sat at the kitchen table, and Laz said, “Look, I know you’re about to lose the farm—”
“I’m still paying on it,” I said quickly. “It’s still mine.”
“If you don’t make the payment on it this next month, that Deng bastard banker is going to send the sheriff over to evict you. I don’t think you’re going to make the payment. Even the rich farmers are having a hard time this year, and they can always sack some of their workers to make payments.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” My temper, already frayed from the constant worry, snapped. “Give up? Let go of everything me and Johnny worked for? Just piss it all into the wind and start begging before the sheriff shows up on my doorstep? I ain’t a quitter, Laz, and I don’t mean to start now.”
“I know that, Dor, but you’ve got to face reality. You’re tending the farm by yourself, no one can afford to help you, and you’re not even treading water. You’re going under, and you’re just too damned stubborn to stop kicking.”
“I don’t mean to stop until I can’t draw breath, unless you’ve got a better idea for what I should do next.”
“Sell the farm,” he said plainly. “Sell it, sell all the livestock, and sell anything you can bear to part with.”
“Oh, what a fantastic idea,” I snapped. “Give up my home and turn into a roving beggar! That’s the clearest path to bright tomorrows!”
“Hear me out,” he said, his hands up. “You’re going to be turned out and all your heirlooms sold. You’re going to wind up on the road one way or another, unless you can convince one of your fine neighbors to hire you on and maybe give you a spot in their bunkhouse. Or,” he held a finger up to stop my interruption, “you can take control yourself, beat the sheriff and the bank to the punch, and join our little group.”
“Your little group,” I repeated. “And what exactly is your little group going to do?”
“We’ve got a camp in the woods,” he said, “and we’ve got hidey-holes scattered through the county. We know when the caravans are coming, we know who’s wealthy and who’s not, and we can help everyone like you who’s being crushed under the weight of the Imperial Bank.”
“Steal from the rich and give to the poor, eh? Very kind. Very generous of you.”
“We’ve tried working for our living,” said one of the others. “We’ve tried as hard as you, Dor. Some of us’ve tried harder. But the merchants in the marketplaces, the rich farmers buying our land and working with the bank to get us thrown off—”
“They’ve got nothing to do with the bank!” I said.
“You ever wonder why you have to pay so much back, Doreen? The wealthy control the rates at the bank, and they get better rates than you. Squire Lohan, he’s got money and the bank knows it, so they can afford to charge him less on his loans. Bring one of the Deng or Bhumar by, and they’ll get their money for free. Hell, they might charge the banks for the privilege! No, let me finish. On the other hand, you’re paying more on your loans because you might not be able to pay the bank back. You’re a risk to ‘em. You and all your neighbors in this valley have got two pennies between you, so you’ve got the land up as collateral. When you can’t pay—which you won’t, not by the time the month is over—the bank comes in and takes your land and sells it to their best customers on the cheap. Mark my words, Lohan or maybe Timson will have this valley within the year, and you and all your neighbors will be working his land or dying of starvation under a hedge somewhere.”
“How do you know this?” I demanded.
“We’ve seen the books at the bank,” Laz said. “We know who owes what, what their rates are, and how close they are to failing. This is good land, but it’ll take more than you and your neighbors have to get the most out of it. The bank knows it. Their best customers know it. They’ve already been down to the bank to talk about it already.”