The Winds of Khalakovo

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  She resumed her walk, but stopped at the growing sound of ponies clomping along the cobbled street. A handful of military men dressed in black cherkesskas were riding toward the mansion. At their head were two men: an imposing but graying polkovnik...

  And Ranos.

  His thin mustache and beard were still in place, but stubble was growing in around his cheeks and neck, making him look haggard and wild.

  The nearby sotnik clapped his heels together and saluted the incoming men who had no doubt come from surveying the preparations for Andreya’s attack.

  Ranos saluted in turn, but then noticed Rehada. His face frowned as recognition dawned on him, and then he looked up and found Victania standing just inside the gates. He spoke quickly to the polkovnik with the hanging white beard, and immediately all of the cavalry rode in through the gates, leaving Ranos alone with Rehada.

  Victania strode forward as Ranos heeled his pony closer.“Why have you come?” he asked plainly.

  “I need to speak with your father.”

  He laughed. “The Duke, if you haven’t noticed, is occupied.”

  “All the more reason he should speak with me.”

  Victania stepped past Rehada to reach Ranos’s side. “Don’t listen to her. She’s already lied to get this close to you.”

  “Tell me what you’re after,” Ranos said to Rehada, “or I’ll ask you to leave.”

  She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was weary, that he would simply leave if her rationale wasn’t convincing enough, so she poured all of the emotion bottled up inside her into one simple statement: “If you wish for your precious Duchy to see another day, son of Iaros, then you’ll listen to what I have to say.”

  “Ridiculous,” Victania snapped.

  Ranos looked down at his sister and then to Rehada, perhaps weighing her words.

  “Go on,” he said.

  The mask over Rehada’s eyes and the rope binding her hands were the least of her worries. The boat in which she sat was tumbling over the tall waves in merciless cycles, and without her sight, she was completely unable to anticipate any of it. She had already heaved up the contents of her stomach four times, and as another tall wave struck, she found herself dry heaving between her legs.

  “Please,” she said to the sotnik sitting on the next thwart forward, “I only need a small amount of time to recover.”

  “You heard my orders,” the strelet said.

  Six oars struck the water in synchronized time as the spray pelted her face. The wind was high, and the weather had turned bitterly cold toward the end of the day, and despite the fact that Rehada wore a heavily oiled canvas coat, she was soaked from head to foot and almost completely numb.

  Though Victania had tried diligently to get him to cast her out, Ranos had agreed to Rehada’s demands. There was a significant problem, however—communication with the Matra had been sporadic at best. They hadn’t been able to speak with her in several days. Of the three rooks that were kept permanently at the mansion, two had apparently been killed by the third, which had flown out of its cage when their keeper had come to investigate the swath of blood and black feathers that lay inside their cage. Three days prior, another rook had flown down from the palotza, but the moment it had landed it began rolling on the ground, cawing, and then it flew back into the air and was never seen again. Clearly the other Matri were in league, working to prevent effective communication between Radiskoye and Volgorod, which presented Ranos with a difficult task: he agreed that his father needed to hear what Rehada had to say, but he saw no easy way to make that happen.

  In the end, he had arranged for her to be ferried away by a hand-selected crew of oarsmen. Their mission was to take her to the cliffs below Radiskoye and to guide her into the cavern that held a passage leading up to the palotza. The only issue was that Rehada could not be allowed to see the route. She argued that it would be night, that she would be able to see very little in any case, but Ranos would not budge.

  And so she found herself fighting to keep herself from sliding along the thwart, fighting to stay warm, fighting to prevent herself from heaving again, an action that brought only pain.

  “How much longer?” she asked between waves of nausea.

  “You know I cannot tell.”

  “Please.”

  “Knowing won’t make it any shorter or longer. Just sit and breathe deeply.”

  As he spoke, something thudded against the boat. She thought at first they had struck bottom, but it happened again a moment later, and the boat began to slip sideways.

  She heard the thump and clatter of wood, and the sotnik sitting ahead of her stood. “Pull, men, pull!”

  “What is it?” she asked as a cold spike of fear slid deep inside her chest. The boat slid further and was tugged downward momentarily. “What is it?”

  “Be quiet!”

  A moment later the crack of a musket went off just above her head, making her cringe with fear.

  The boat was pulled sharply to port, and something splashed into the water just over the starboard gunwale.

  “Kozyol!” the sotnik swore. “Pull harder!”

  Then something heavy and wet fell across Rehada’s lap.

  CHAPTER 59

  Sharp pain shot through Rehada’s thighs. She placed her hands over the cold, slimy tentacle, knowing immediately what sort of creature had attacked the boat. There were several types of squid that wandered the oceans, but only one of them, the goedrun, was large enough and aggressive enough to attack ships. A smaller ship such as theirs was particularly attractive, as it could be tipped over, instantly turning its inhabitants into prey. Given the diameter of the tentacle, she guessed the goedrun was still young, but it was more than a match for the ship if it could get enough tentacles around to capsize it.

  “Cut them!” the sotnik shouted, and she heard two of the men moments later sawing at the tentacle as the ship tilted sharply to port.

  “Let me free,” Rehada shouted, putting as much command into her voice as she could muster.

  She was ignored as another tentacle slipped over the crown of her head and into the laps of the streltsi behind her. The two men screamed and she could hear them sawing at this tentacle as well.

  “My circlet!” Rehada screamed.

  “Give it to her, Goran!” one of the soldiers behind her shouted.

  After a moment’s pause, she could feel the sotnik’s kindjal against the rope at her wrist. An instant later, her hands were free. She pulled the mask off of her face and by the dim light of the quarter moon found the grim-faced sotnik rummaging through a burlap sack at his feet. He pulled her circlet out, but it dropped as the boat tilted sharply upward and he grabbed the gunwales for balance.

  Rehada snatched up her circlet, but had already noticed that the stone was dark. Even before she placed it upon her head she knew the truth of it: the suurahezhan she had bonded with had abandoned her, leaving her utterly defenseless. It may have been because of the trip over the water, it may have simply been its time, but something told her it was yet another manifestation of the rift, the rift that Soroush was ready to rip wide open if given the chance.

  The streltsi shifted aft, ready to hack at the massive tentacle that had grabbed the boat. As they searched the water, shashkas raised, an arm of the goedrun whipped up out of the water and wrapped around two of them before they had a chance to duck out of its path.

  One was able to pull away, but the other was wrapped up tight and was pulled off the boat in a blink, splashing into the dark waves before the shock could even register upon his face.

  “Give me your gunpowder,” Rehada said to the sotnik.

  He complied without question, unfastening and handing her one of the wooden cartridges hanging from leather cords along the front of his bandolier.

  “All of them,” she said while pouring the contents into her lap.

  He handed the cartridges as quickly as he could, and Rehada added their contents—ten cartridges’ worth—to th
e one in her lap, hoping it would be enough.

  “A spark,” Rehada said.

  From a small leather bag on his bandolier he pulled out a piece of flint and held out his kindjal. “Run the knife—”

  “I know,” she snapped, snatching both of them away as the boat tipped upward. There were no tentacles above the water, but by the silver light of the moon she could see many—two dozen or more—floating alongside the boat.

  “Behind me, quickly.”

  The sotnik complied as Rehada closed her eyes and focused her mind upon the stone set within her circlet. Through it she could feel, barely, Adhiya, though she could not yet feel a hezhan waiting for her. She began to chant, forcing away the danger of the moment, the closeness of the streltsi, utter strangers to this ritual. She forced away the cold, the wind, the spray of the water against her face and instead focused on herself and the stone. She willed herself into it, asking a spirit to hear her plea, asking it to bond with her.

  She promised it life, a view of the world it had left, the world it would one day return to. She promised it a bond that would last as long as it wished. She would feed it as she could, and it in turn would feed her.

  The rocking of the boat, the screaming of the men, invaded her senses for a moment, but she blocked them out once more.

  Take me, she called. Take me, and you will be rewarded.

  And she felt it. The barest touch of a suurahezhan, the only form of spirit—ever since she was young—she had ever been able to bond with.

  She called it closer, allowing it to see her more clearly, to hear, to touch.

  And when it did, she ran the knife, hard and quick, down the length of the flint.

  Her world went white.

  She heard a sound like a hurricane blowing through a forest. She smelled burnt wool. She felt heat, though it was not, she knew, the heat from the gunpowder; it was the heat of the suurahezhan filling her. It suffused every pore, every bit of bone and muscle, every drop of blood. She was aflame. She was fire itself.

  It felt good and true, and when she opened her eyes there was a strange moment of reorientation—along with the realization that she was in the material world and not, sadly, the land beyond.

  The circlet upon her brow was lit with a pale orange flame. She willed fire to course from her hand to the tentacles wrapped around the ship and two of the soldiers. One whipped up and arced back into the water, splashing loudly. The other had been wrapped around the thigh of a strelet, and when it pulled back, the man came with him, falling hard against the bottom of the boat and then pulled sharply out and away. A heavy thud was accompanied by a sharp crack as the man’s head snapped backward as it struck the gunwale. He did not shout as he flew limply through the air. Then the tentacle shot under the surface of the dark water, and he was gone.

  Over a dozen dark cords flew into the night sky, and Rehada could see in the water a bare silhouette of the white creature lying only a few paces beneath the surface of the water. She could see its body shaped like the head of a spear; she could see the darkened and moving orb that must be its eye.

  As the tentacles descended she focused all of her energy tightly, and like the gunpowder she had used to attract the suurahezhan, released it upward and outward in a spray of bright white fire that burned emerald green at the edges. Many of the tentacles were burned outright, their withered ends falling into the ship, twitching and curling, the pincers underneath still biting the streltsi.

  The tentacles slapped below the water. In a great heave the beast drew them inward while shooting downward. In moments it was lost from sight.

  The sotnik ordered the boat cleared as he moved toward the fore of the boat and pulled off his bandolier and then his cherkesska. As the men began removing tentacles and flicking them overboard with booted feet or the tips of their knives, the sotnik offered Rehada his coat, turning his eyes away as he did so. Only then did she realize that her clothes had been burned away. Only some scraps at her wrists remained, and some cloth—her skirt—that had pooled around her feet. She took the coat and pulled it on quickly, suddenly feeling very exposed out on the sea among these men. Soon the boat was clear, and all of them were breathing heavily as the wind howled over the waves.

  The sotnik returned to his previous position, looking up at Rehada with a look of relief and gratitude. He motioned to the thwart in front of him and waited patiently as Rehada sat.

  “My thanks go to you—all of our thanks—but I must have your circlet if we’re to continue.”

  Rehada stared at him levelly. “You will not have it.” She was still full with the feeling of the suurahezhan running through her; she would not give up the spirit so shortly after summoning it.

  “I have my orders.”

  “I saved your lives.”

  He bowed his head. “And I am grateful, but there was no question as to how you’d be entering the palotza.”

  “You will take me as I am...”

  He looked at her, then to the men behind her, who had taken up the oars once more—now four strong instead of six—and were waiting for orders. “Turn ’round, men. Turn ’round.”

  The streltsi did as they were ordered, dipping the starboard oars into the water and pulling hard.

  “Stop,” Rehada said, but they did not listen. “Stop!” Only when she had pulled off the circlet did the sotnik nod and the streltsi pull their oars from the water. It felt like betrayal—another in a long list of them—but she could not abandon her cause. Not now. She handed the circlet to the sotnik and waited as he tied the blindfold around her head.

  The boat turned and began moving steadily. The rocking had never ceased, but it was more marked now, and Rehada once again found herself fighting off nausea as they continued through the night.

  They reached a cave of some kind. She could tell because the wind dropped, as did the waves, and the sound of the oars slapping in the water—as well as the grunting of the men—began to echo. The effect deepened the further they went, and eventually they ran aground.

  Rehada was led out of the boat and along a short, sandy stretch. The sand turned to stone, and then Rehada was pulled to a stop. Footsteps receded, a low conversation was held somewhere up ahead, too soft to hear and too difficult to understand with the echoing.

  Rehada was transferred to another man, who gripped her elbow forcefully.

  Rehada felt someone’s hand reaching inside the large pocket of the cherkesska she still wore. “Your circlet will remain here,” the sotnik said. She guessed it was as much for the other man’s benefit as it was hers. “May the fates guide your way,” he said, offering her an ancient Aramahn saying at their parting. He kissed her forehead, quickly, tenderly, and then his footsteps receded and she was led deeper into the cave.

  They came upon an incline and eventually stairs. She was terribly cold now, though she didn’t know why it had taken so long to register. The wind upon the open sea had been much colder, but the memories of the goedrun and the threat of dry heaving were the foremost in her mind. Now there was time to think. And feel.

  She tripped several times, for the man said little while guiding her upward.

  “It would go faster if I could see.”

  “The blindfold remains,” he said gruffly.

  The climb upward was interminably long. Sweat tickled her scalp. It ran down her forehead and the small of her back. Her legs burned terribly, to the point where she had to ask to rest several times on the ascent, until finally they came to a place that felt warmer.

  “Wait here,” the gruff man told her. His heavy footsteps receded and another hushed conversation was held. Then a door opened and closed with a heavy and echoing thud.

  She waited, standing, not knowing where the man had gone, not knowing where she was, though she assumed she now stood in the bowels of Radiskoye.

  Now that she was still she realized it was not warm at all. It had merely been the exertion and the relative increase in temperature that had given her that impression. The
sweat on her body was drying and the cool air of the room was beginning to sink deep beneath her skin, so she found herself shivering horribly, an impression she did not want to give.

  She began to wonder why she was being left alone for so long. Though her hands were tied she could easily have taken the rope off, but she did not want to be found with it off after she had been told to keep it on, despite how foolish it seemed now that they had come so far. She had felt like this many times before—being placed in a position of subservience to the Landed. They seemed to revel in it—keeping the Aramahn beneath them—and she found some of her old hatred returning. She wondered if she had made a mistake by coming here, whether she should fabricate a story and let Soroush do what he would. Let fate take its natural course.

  But she could not. This was not about her, or Soroush, or the guard who took enjoyment from stepping on her pride. This was about the world, Erahm, and her sister, Adhiya, and the course that the two of them would take from this point forward. If there was anything more important, she didn’t know what it might be.

  The door ahead of her opened, and she heard only one set of footsteps enter the room. She thought at first it was the man who had led her up, but she smelled on the air the scent of myrrh, which the aristocracy of the Grand Duchy had seemed to favor in recent years, so she knew it must be someone of import, and since the footsteps had sounded heavy, like a man’s, she could only assume it would be one in particular.

  “I hope you are well, Iaros son of Aleksi.”

  There came a soft chuckle. Footsteps approached and finally the blindfold was pulled away.

  She squinted momentarily, even though the only light was from a small copper lamp sitting on a nearby bench. There was a wooden rack with pegs that held several woolen sweaters and oiled canvas coats. Thick leather boots sat jumbled in one corner.

  Iaros, strangely enough, wore a wool cherkesska, and not of the sort a duke would wear. It was simple and weatherworn, the kind of no-nonsense garb a traveling merchant might use. He looked the same as he had several years before, the only time she had seen him up close. He had a gray beard with a sprinkling of brown still remaining, trimmed so that it hung partway down his chest. He was balding, but there were tufts of hair on the very top of his head.