The Winds of Khalakovo

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Borund noticed and nodded to the door. “I would speak with my sister alone, Griga.”

  Grigory stared at Borund as if he’d been betrayed, but then he nodded and left, his boots echoing sharply against the cold stone floors.

  “I can no longer arrange for you to be shipped home,” Borund said when the sounds had faded.

  “Good. I don’t wish to go home.”

  “But you will remain here until the hostilities have ended.”

  “Hostilities?”

  Borund paused, shifting his weight to the other leg. “We will attack today. There is no choice left to us.”

  “It seems that things are well in hand.”

  “Nyet, Atiana, they are not in hand. All of our rooks have been driven mad or have flown off.”

  “All of them?”

  “All. Clearly the other Matri are crippling us so that we are blind. Now promise me that you won’t cause any more trouble.”

  She was about to chide him, but this was the most serious she had seen Borund in a very long time. “Dear brother, I do believe you care for me.”

  “I care little, Tiana. There are two more should some unforeseen fate befall you. It’s only that it would be difficult afterward to explain things to Mother.” He took one step back, glancing toward the door. “And poor Grigory will be heartbroken. You wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would you?”

  “Never,” she said, though in truth part of her was terrified to be left alone with Grigory now that he knew what she’d done. Still, she was willing to risk it; it was the only way she could find her way back to Nikandr—back to Volgorod—so she could help.

  “Keep well,” Borund said as he strode away.

  Grigory was gone for some time, escorting Borund back to his windship, perhaps requesting that he—as the sole remaining voice of Bolgravya—be allowed to join the battle. Part of her wished that he would leave, but he returned shortly after midday.

  An unseasonable snowfall had begun outside, a terrible omen for the day ahead. Grigory had a dusting of it on his hair and long gray cherkesska when he came into the sitting room. He ordered the skinny old peasant woman who was cleaning the mantel around the fireplace from the room. When she was gone, he rounded on Atiana, who sat in a chair holding a book of poems, more to give him the illusion that she was at ease than for any form of entertainment. She hadn’t read a single word since she’d picked up the book an hour before.

  From around his neck Grigory pulled the chain that had once held Nikandr’s soulstone. He held it out for her to see, waiting for her to respond.

  “Whatever is that?” she asked, holding the book upright as if she were ready to return to it the moment Grigory proved himself dull.

  Grigory stepped forward and stood over her. “Why would you give him his stone?”

  She knew it was unwise, she knew Grigory’s penchant for lashing out, but she couldn’t help but allow a broad smile to spread across her face. “What stone?”

  He snatched the book from her grip and backhanded her before she had a chance to react. The sound—wood striking stone—played loudly in her ears as pain blossomed across the left side of her face. Grigory, shaking his hand as if it had been unexpectedly painful, looked for a moment as if he regretted what he had done, but then his eyes hardened. “Why would you betray all of us for him, a man who’s done nothing but work to undermine your father since the moment he landed?”

  She could not speak. He was still standing over her, his breath coming rapidly, his face red and the pulse of his neck beating strongly. The look in his eye made it clear that he would simply strike her again no matter what she said.

  When he did raise his hand, she cowered. “I owed him, Grigory. I owed him. That is why I gave him the stone.”

  “What could you owe him?”

  “I owed him his life, as his father had granted me mine.”

  “Iaros nearly slew you in cold blood!”

  “Dozens of his men had died, Grigory. That is hardly cold blood.”

  “But the daughter of a duke...”

  “Is just as legitimate a target as a son. Had the same thing happened in Galostina, I would not have thought twice about putting a gun to Victania’s pretty little head—and I tell you this, I would have pulled the trigger.”

  Grigory’s face was still red, his forehead still pinched with emotion, but he was watching her with a calculating eye now. “You would have me believe that you gave Nikandr his stone in repayment for Iaros choosing to spare your life.”

  “I don’t care what you believe—”

  He slapped her again before she could say more. She held her cheek, unable to see the room clearly now through the tears forming in her eyes. When she had once again summoned the courage to look up, his face was not filled with rage, as she had thought it would be. Rather, he appeared proud, perhaps vindicated.

  “Bolgravya is too good for a woman like you.” He turned and walked to the door. He opened it and nodded to someone outside her field of vision. A moment later a tapping came against the polished wooden floor. An old rook limped into the room. She recognized it immediately as Brunhald, the oldest of Bolgravya’s rooks and the one that Alesya preferred above all others—ancestors only knew why. One of its legs ended in a stump instead of a clawed foot, and it was this leg that tapped as it walked.

  Borund had said that all of the rooks had been chased away. She wondered if he had known then about Brunhald. Most likely not. Most likely Alesya had told Grigory to keep this secret to himself. All the better to keep her precious child safe, to enact her plans as she saw fit—regardless of whatever agreement the men had made amongst themselves. It was with this realization that Atiana understood, for the first time, the position in which Alesya had found herself when her husband the Grand Duke had been killed. She was a thousand leagues from her son, the only voice of her family now that Stasa was gone. She would feel rudderless, adrift on the winds that had so quickly risen with the death of her husband. It was no surprise, then, that she would take steps to protect not only her son—the rightful heir of their Duchy—but also to position their interests for maximum gain, or, more accurately, minimum loss, with the mantle of Grand Duke sure to pass to one of the other duchies.

  Brunhald opened her crooked beak and released a long, ragged caw. “Do not fret, child. My son has spoken with rashness. With haste. There may yet be room for a union.”

  “I fear,” Atiana said, still holding her cheek tenderly against the pain of speaking, “that when my father discovers what your son has done, it will be difficult for him to keep his head.”

  The old rook arched her neck far back and then pecked the floor three times. “We shall see, Atiana Radieva. We shall see.”

  She pecked twice more, and Atiana felt herself go dizzy. She could feel, as she had in the aether from time to time, Alesya’s presence, but unlike the aether, where the Matri felt distant, it now felt as if Alesya were staring down upon Atiana with a hand upon her throat, refusing to allow her to move.

  “What are you doing?”

  This is what comes of betrayal such as yours, girl.

  The intensity of the feelings grew, as did the sensation that she was being choked. She began to sense Alesya’s emotions—a seething anger at Atiana’s allegiance to Khalakovo and pure satisfaction that she would now be forced to pay for it.

  Then the pain quickly became too much, and Atiana’s world went dark.

  CHAPTER 58

  When Rehada neared the cliffs that housed Volgorod’s massive eyrie, she heard the boom of cannon fire. It blasted the air as she spurred her pony onward along the plateau that would lead her past the eyrie and on toward Volgorod. A dozen windships crisscrossed the island in an attempt to intimidate and to search for signs of organized resistance. She knew she had been seen along her journey from the northwestern part of the island—it was impossible not to be—but she had stopped in a house she kept in Izhny to retrieve a set of peasant clothes for her ride east. She hoped that
the men in the windships would consider one lone woman riding on a sickly pony beneath their notice, and so far that had held true.

  From Izhny she had made a calculated choice: take the slower northern route and avoid any potential conflict or take the more navigable southern one and put herself within reach of the forces of the traitor dukes that held the eyrie. She knew that the eyrie had been taken, knew that their men would be stationed there in force to protect the jewel they had seized, and yet she still did not consider it an unwise decision until she was surprised by the sound of hoof beats coming fast behind her. She was on a slow decline, the wind driving the tall grasses around her like waves upon the sea, and she could see from this vantage neither the eyrie ahead nor the decline toward Izhny behind. It was the blindest part of the journey, and her assailants must have known this as well.

  There were five of them—mounted men bearing muskets and black cherkesskas and brown kolpak hats cut in the shorter style of the southern Duchies. They had tall, strong ponies, which were probably fresh. One of the streltsi raised his weapon and waved it back and forth above his head, a signal for her to stop.

  Stopping was not something she could afford. They would undoubtedly take her to the eyrie for questioning.

  She spurred her pony to a full gallop. Her loosely tied babushka was pulled from her head by the wind, revealing the circlet upon her brow. The men shouted as she summoned the spirit bonded to her through the tourmaline gem. She felt the warmth upon her brow first, then through her cheeks and scalp and neck. It quickly suffused her frame as her pony—already breathing heavily—galloped on.

  The thrill of her bond ran through her from the pit of her stomach to the knot in her throat. She turned in her saddle and cast her hand over the landscape. In a tight line over the grass that lay between her and her pursuers, fire blazed.

  The men were well trained. The flames had jumped over the well-traveled trail, allowing the streltsi a path through the fire. They continued on with little drop in pace and leveled their muskets once they were beyond the wall of flame. The first of them fired a moment later. A musket ball struck the earth ahead of her. Another shot whizzed by. The next struck her pony in the chest.

  It fell to the ground, throwing Rehada from its back.

  She had been prepared for this, and had slowed the pony’s gait. She rolled away and came to her feet, standing her ground as the ponies charged and another musket shot struck the earth to her right.

  She drew from the suurahezhan again, giving some part of herself to the spirit as she did so. It was no small amount, and she had not drawn such energy from Adhiya in a very long time. She felt her knees buckle as a ball of fire formed between her arms. The heat of it was painful and beautiful and exhilarating in the same breath, and when she released it, it was with a sense of longing and loss.

  The ball of bright orange flame shot forth, striking the lead pony and its rider. Both fell to the ground, the pony screaming, the rider diving away and rolling on the grasses in an attempt at snuffing the flames.

  The fire had sprayed against another strelet. Rehada fed this from the suurahezhan, pulling as much as she could manage. It was more than she had ever drawn from a single spirit, and she was already weakening to the point that her heart began to skip beats, her world began to close in around her, her vision was invaded by bright sparks of light.

  Despite this she reveled in the feeling of touching Adhiya, of communing with the spirit. She nearly allowed the hezhan to take her, and she realized—almost too late—that this must be yet another result of the rift that ran through Volgorod. She bore down, cutting herself off from the suurahezhan. It fought her, but she was not so young in the craft to be taken in this manner, and the spirit was not so old that it was overly powerful.

  Still, as she released the connection, her vision blackened and the world was lost from view.

  When she opened her eyes, she was staring up at the sky. The sound of licking flames could be heard, so it could not have been long. She propped herself up on her elbows and took in the scene as the sickening smell of roasted flesh swept over her.

  All five of the ponymen were dead. Four of the ponies were as well, and her own was dying, its blood still leaking from just below its ribs as it took breath in a rapid and shallow manner.

  One of the ponies was still alive, and she remembered—now that she had achieved some distance—preventing the fire from striking it, though at the time the notion had been nearly drowned by her thirst for more contact with the suurahezhan.

  She walked to the pony, knowing the streltsi at the eyrie and the ships in the sky—even the host of Matri who patrolled the island—would soon come to investigate.

  “Come,” she said to the pony as she ran her hand down its neck. “We have a ways to go, you and I.”

  With her circlet hidden away in the pouch at her belt, Rehada walked alone, her arms in clear sight, on the cobbled road leading up to the Boyar’s mansion. A guard of a dozen streltsi stood along a low stone wall ahead. Beyond them stood the walls of the mansion itself. The stout walls held an imposing iron gate at its two entry points, and there were now several hastily constructed barricades of stone along the road leading up to the gates, forcing anyone who wanted to enter to veer back and forth before reaching the gates themselves.

  A sotnik raised his hand as she approached.

  “I wish to see the Boyar,” Rehada said.

  He stood taller. “And what would he want with you?”

  “I bring news of Atiana Vostroma, who escaped Radiskoye only days ago.”

  His expression turned grim, and he glanced back at the mansion before speaking again. “You can give the message to me.”

  She was already shaking her head. “I have just come from Iramanshah,” she lied. “I bear a message from Fahroz Bashar al Lilliah herself, meant for the Boyar’s ears only.”

  “That is impossible,” he said flatly.

  “It concerns a threat posed by the Maharraht.” This much, at least, was true.

  “Then tell me and it will be relayed through proper channels.”

  “I will not.”

  He looked uncomfortable, glancing back toward the mansion several more times. In the end he frowned and said, “Wait here.”

  And wait she did. She had known that the eyrie had been taken. She had known that the blockade had been circling the island and Radiskoye ceaselessly since the duke of Vostroma had staged his revolt. What she hadn’t known was that ground troops had moved in around the palotza. She had discovered this upon reaching Volgorod.

  The traitor Dukes had landed Polkovnik Andreya Antonov, the head of Vostroma’s military, as well as two thousand streltsi. They had positioned themselves on the shallow plain that lay between Volgorod and Palotza Radiskoye, securing footholds close to each of the prized locations.

  Ranos Khalakovo, as Boyar of the Island of Uyadensk and sitting Posadnik of the City, had responded in kind, organizing his not-inconsiderable number of troops to the edges of the city, ready to respond should Andreya issue the order to attack.

  Rehada had no idea how she was going to reach Radiskoye. Attempting to take a windship, even a skiff, would be foolish to say the least. Her passage would be sensed and a ship would cut off her approach well before she reached the palotza. Travel by water would not work either, as the palotza—even though it was near the water’s edge—rested atop tall, unscalable cliffs. Travel by land, given the position of Andreya’s forces, had also been taken from her.

  And so she found herself making a decision that at first seemed foolish, but felt wiser in increments in light of the fact that her eventual goal was to reach the Duke of Khalakovo.

  The noon hour passed, and she grew worried that this was taking too long. Soroush had said that they would move tomorrow, meaning she had little enough time in which to find Iaros, to convince him of her earnestness, and to give them time to prevent what was about to happen. What could be done at this point she wasn’t sure—Zhabyn Vostroma
had a stranglehold on the island—but she was certain she didn’t stand a chance by herself. Only Iaros had the wherewithal to negotiate a cessation of hostilities or organize an outright attack to buy them time to deal with Soroush.

  When the sotnik stepped out of the mansion and began walking over the expanse of stone leading to the gates, he was accompanied by Nikandr’s sister, Victania. She wore a blue dress, extravagant for a peasant woman but clearly plain for the Princess. Two braids wrapped around her head and tied her long brown hair back like an Aramahn circlet. Her face was grim as she came closer and finally stopped several paces away.

  “I was told you wish to speak to my brother.”

  “I do.”

  “That you have some knowledge of the Maharraht? A threat?”

  Rehada nodded.

  Victania’s serious eyes thinned. “You are Nikandr’s lover, are you not?”

  Rehada nearly shook her head, ready to deny it in order to reach Ranos, but Victania knew too much. Rehada had been with Nikandr for years, and she had attended several high-profile dinners hosted by various Landed families in Volgorod, and even one in Radiskoye when the Duke had been away. It was too likely that Victania knew a lot more about Rehada than she would have originally guessed, and so she nodded.

  “Do you have news of him?” Victania asked. Her voice had softened. Rehada knew how close the two of them were.

  “I’m sorry, but I haven’t.”

  At this, Victania’s face hardened. “My brother is away. I’m afraid he is not able to see you.”

  “But I have come from Iramanshah, from—”

  “Da, from Fahroz herself, but let me tell you, Rehada, if Fahroz has something she wishes to tell us, she can come herself so we can weigh her words properly.”Victania turned and began striding back toward the mansion, but she stopped momentarily and turned her head halfway around. “Run back, won’t you? And tell her not to send a woman of the sheets to do her talking for her.”