by K. Eason
“You should try again. You were not a noidghe before.”
“I’m not noidghe now, yeah? Noidghe have”—she waved her hands—“drums. Noidghe have ghost-ancestors who find them and teach them things.”
“You also have ancestors.”
“I don’t have noidghe ancestors, Veiko. Listen. I’ve been through just about every scroll in the toadfucking Archives. Nothing about noidghe in there, yeah? We’ve got godsworn. We’ve got theurgists and thaumaturgists. But Dvergiri don’t have anything like noidghe. Not before Illharek’s founding, damn sure not after.”
The Dvergiri did not recognize the ancestry of the father. He knew that, oh ancestors, he knew it. But that did not eliminate the connection. “You might.”
“What did I just say? There’s no—” Then she understood. Stopped midsyllable. Her jaw shot sideways, tightened until he heard her teeth grind. “You mean Kaj.”
A wise man would stop now. But he was not, for all Taru’s efforts, a wise man. Deep breath, then: “All of us have noidghe, Jaihnu or Pohja, it will not matter. Somewhere, in your father’s line, there will be a noidghe. Snow.” Veiko leaned toward her. Tried to catch and hold her eyes. “I made the drum for you, as much as me. Let me help you walk the ghost roads.”
The storm built in her eyes, turning the dark blue to black. Lips stretched flat, her face pulled tight across jagged bones. Then the storm broke. Her gaze skated away. She found somewhere else to look, into the trees and shadow.
“I can’t.”
He had never heard can’t out of her before, not in that tone. It was as if the sky had turned green. “Why not?”
“I died, Veiko. I know what’s over there.”
He remembered a barren glacier. Remembered the black river and the mindless dead bobbing below its surface. Remembered the one that had nearly claimed him, and the river’s kiss on his skin. “As did I.”
“No.” Her mouth twisted. “You didn’t. Don’t tell me my business, yeah? I sat there, I held your hand, and you came godsrotted close, but you never died. I did. Dek says so, and fuck and damn, Dek should know a corpse when she sees one. And Kenjak pulled me out of the fucking river. You said Helgi didn’t let you fall in.”
“Some noidghe die more completely than others, but we all touch that water.”
“More of your ancestor’s wisdom?”
Delivered more gently than Taru could, but, “Yes.”
“Well. I’m in no hurry to come close to it again, yeah? Not for the God. Not for Tsabrak. I want nothing to do with that place.”
“Yet you ask me to walk there, on your errands.”
He had not meant it as challenge. A statement of fact only, so that she understood that he could do this thing and thus, so could she.
And so he did not expect the look he got from her, and a voice like the winter wind. Coldly, so coldly: “You’re not willing, say so. You think I owe you for asking, say that, too.”
Midwinter dark was warmer and more welcoming than her anger. He felt its echoes, through Briel, like an icicle pushed through his chest. Felt Briel’s distress, too, tightening from throat to belly. His guts dropped as the svartjagr banked. A flicker of trees-dark-sky, and a sense of returning. A spear tip behind his eyes. Briel coming fast, frantic. And beneath that, his own anger, welling up.
Effort to keep his voice steady. “You do not owe me.”
Years of svartjagr sendings had worn grooves in Snow’s face like water through stone. Those grooves deepened now. Cracked her anger like glass. She clipped out a sorry that barely cleared her teeth. Turned a shoulder and rummaged through her pack. Came back with a stick of jenja pinched between her fingers. She lit it in the fire. Took a deep lungful. Blew out a spicy-smoke cloud that hung like fog over the fire. He studied her. Leather jerkin laced tight over an Illhari linen shirt, and probably a shift under that, and he could still see the curve of ribs and spine through the layers. A spare woman, always, but she seemed even thinner. Gaunt. He might blame her woundfever for that. But she did not look like a sick woman. Looked like a moose hunted ragged, chased by dogs and men, and oh ancestors, he would not tell her that.
Said instead, “I thought you had stopped smoking jenja.”
“I ran out. That’s different. Sinnike keeps it in stock. Just say what you mean. I look like toadshit.”
“I have never seen toadshit.”
Tattered ghost of a smile, which never got off her lips. She pinched her nose between two fingers. Winced and squeezed. “Fuck and damn, Briel, leave off.”
A man might hear Veiko, leave off just as clearly. And a man might keep his mouth closed this time and let the quiet spread and deepen. Listen to Logi’s happy crunching, the insects, an owl somewhere close. Listen to the night breeze off the river, sifting through the trees.
And hear a svartjagr’s wingbeats, the peculiar hiss of air across bone and membrane. Briel dropped out of the sky, wings churning. Bounced to an ungraceful landing beside Logi, who snorted and shied sideways without letting go of his rabbit.
And there, clear evidence of Briel’s distress: she did not even look at Logi’s prize. Scrabbled on wing-knuckles and clawed back feet around the fire, damn near dragging her tail through the embers, and put herself between Veiko and Snow. Looked at one, then the other, and hissed.
“Oh, shut up,” Snow said. But she put out her hand, and Briel snaked underneath it and put her head on Snow’s thigh.
The spear behind Veiko’s eyes dissolved into tingles and twinges. He closed his eyes and breathed until the knot in his throat loosened. There. He rocked onto his toes. Stood up slowly. Tossed the remaining rabbit bones to Logi. He peered into the pot. Added a little water, a double pinch of salt from his pouch. A fistful of the things that smelled like onions. Ancestors only knew what the Illhari called them. He considered asking Snow. Reconsidered. The quiet between them was not comfortable, but it was safe. Only a fool would stir it up.
“Veiko.”
And of the pair of them, he had never thought her the fool. His chest tightened, as if heart and lungs had curled together into a fist. He glanced at her. Tipped his head, silent what?
The sun had sunk into twilight. Long, feathered shadows came off the trees, met the limits of firelight and turned solid. They crept up over Snow, covering her haunch and hip and boot. Her moon-colored hair had gone pinkish in the firelight. The tip of her jenja glowed like Briel’s eyes. Her own were opaque, reflecting fire and nothing else. “You’re Jaihnu, yeah?”
“Yes. But my ancestor, Taru, is Pohja.”
She blew a cloud of smoke. Flicked ashes into the fire. “What’s the difference?”
“The Pohja follow the takin herds. They are hunters. Wanderers. Jaihnu also herd takin, but our herds are smaller, and we keep them close, instead of following them. We have settlements. Fields, sometimes. Forges.”
“Permanence.”
Your people have grown rooted, Veiko. You look to the earth instead of the sky.
“The Pohja find it unnatural.”
“And the Jaihnu probably find the Pohja barbaric.” Odd little smile on her lips, bitter and amused at once.
“Yes.”
“So which of your parents comes from barbarian stock?”
“My father’s mother. Taru is her grandmother.”
“But you’re Jaihnu, yeah? Because the line runs through your father and his father.”
“Because I was born in a Jaihnu village.” He saw the trap too late. Wished the words unsaid.
She pretended great interest in the tip of her jenja. “We’ve got that in common, yeah? My father’s mother comes from outlander stock, too. But I’m Illhari.”
“And what does that mean?” He meant the question sincerely. Jaihnu meant one set of customs, Pohja another, but the language was the same. But Illhari meant nothing he could see in common, no, not with Dekklis and Istel and Snow all claiming it, and Aneki and Kaj. “What is Illhari? Tell me.”
She hooked her shirt and tugged side
ways. Bared her neck just past the too-prominent bones, where the Illhari sigil coiled crimson against the black skin.
“That is a tattoo,” he said. “Not an answer.”
“My mother had one. My sisters do. Even my fucking father has one. Listen. You want to know what being Illhari means? I’ll tell you. You know about the wars, yeah? Between Illharek and the tribes?”
“Yes.” Everyone did. The grandfathers told tales from their childhood, of fires that burned like sunset across the horizon, and ash that fell like snow from the skies. Great shuddering quakes of backlash that made canyons where there had been meadows and twisted rivers into new patterns.
“You know why it happened? The Alviri tribes thought the Dvergiri were demons. That’s what their gods told them. Or their chieftains. Fact is, we scared them. We conjure, and they can’t. We live underground, where they bury their dead. They say we’re the same black as a rotting Alvir corpse, that we were the walking dead. Toadshit superstition, yeah? We built Illharek and called ourselves a republic while they were still chasing goats on the hillsides. We set up trade routes. We built things. We forged metal, good metal, and they needed it, and they bought it and used it to kill us.”
She paused. Stared at him, as though waiting for something. Veiko shrugged. “The Illhari won those wars long before your birth. You cannot still want revenge.”
“Me? No. But there are grudges. The Alviri tribes did things to us that make Taliri raids look like children kicking anthills. You know that one of their tribes executed every Dvergir in its borders? You know how many that was? Thousands, Veiko. They had a lot of territory. And it was the summer caravan season, so the Dvergiri were Above and traveling.”
Veiko understood blood feud. Whole families could die, farmsteads burned to the last stalk of wheat. But the chieftains usually intervened before that. Forced peace, reparations, and reconciliation. Marriages sometimes. But he could not wrap his mind around thousands. That would be all the population of Cardik. That would be a whole valley of Jaihnu villages, gone.
But the Illhari had ended the wars. And they had used Tal’Shik to do it. And then they had cast her out, too. So perhaps that first blood feud hadn’t ended at all. Perhaps the battlefield had changed.
Carefully, feeling his way over the words: “Your people had reason to seek Tal’Shik’s help, then.”
“Sure. But she cost us. Bad fucking bargain, yeah? Two hundred years ago, Istel wouldn’t be in the legion. He’d’ve been sold, gelded, or exposed at birth. Maybe gone to feed Tal’Shik on some pole somewhere. And Kaj would’ve spent his whole life in a collar. Now he’s as much Illhari as any highborn Dvergir, according to the law.”
“The law. Yes. Your law has two faces. You say it was worse under Tal’Shik, and perhaps that is true. But regardless, the highborn will still call Kaj toadbelly and skraeling, no? Whether or not he can hear them. And they will still call you a half-blood. So I do not understand why you care if Tal’Shik returns or not, when they will deny you honor in either case.”
“Honor?” She laughed. “You been talking to Dek?”
“No. Aneki. Back in Cardik.”
“Didn’t know Aneki knew the word.” Snow’s jaw squared stubborn. “Dek throws it around enough. You do, too. So explain to me, Veiko Nyrikki. Should I just walk away? Let Tal’Shik win? Is that what you mean by honor?”
“This is not your fight. It never was. It was the God’s and Tsabrak’s. Maybe the legion’s. Not yours.”
“That sounds like Aneki, too.”
“I do not need Aneki to tell me what I see with my own eyes.”
“And I can say for myself which fights are mine, yeah?”
As soon argue the sun out of the sky as persuade Snow to anything like reason. “You fear the black river so much, but this path you are on will put you back in it.”
“And what, you won’t be able to get me out this time?”
“Even noidghe can die.”
“I’m not a fucking noidghe.”
“No. Of course you are not. You are Illhari, and the Illhari do not have noidghe, although the Illhari can count Dvergir and Alvir and Talir and Jaihnu among their ranks, and some of them have noidghe. But there can be no Illhari noidghe, ever. Fire is hot, water is wet, ice is cold.”
“Let me tell you what Illhari have. A Senate playing politics. Missing highborn men used as hostages, who’re probably spiked somewhere and dead. And there hasn’t been a single toadfucked caravan out of the north yet this season, yeah? That never happens. We’ve sent ours out. Bet me what happens to them?”
“I do not need to bet. But I still do not understand what you hope to gain from this pursuit except your own ruin.”
So rare to see her at a loss for words. Eyes closed, quiet for so long that he wondered if she would answer. Then, “Why did you kill the chieftain’s son?”
“We have talked about this.”
“Tell me again.”
“Because he was a thief. But because of his father, I could not be sure of justice, so—” He stopped. Frowned. “It is not the same thing.”
“Finish what you meant to say, yeah?”
“If I had not killed him, he would have continued his harm unchecked.”
“And who would he have harmed?”
“My people. It is not the same.”
“Toadshit. If I leave this now, Tal’Shik harms my people. It’s exactly the same.”
A man could argue until his tongue rotted out that a village full of people he’d known all his life did not compare at all to Illharek’s whole Republic. He had known the people he had saved. Had known the ones he damned, too. His family had undoubtedly paid for his crime, in wealth or blood or flesh. He had sisters, and the Illhari were not the only ones who kept thralls.
Briel chrripped. Scrabbled partway across the distance between them, wings half-spread and awkward. The svartjagr’s distress rippled through him, mixed with his own grief, and sent it washing back.
“I would not make the same choice again. I would be wiser.”
“Too late for wisdom. For either of us. I need the God. Need him, Veiko.”
They had no habit of modesty between them. Had seen each other in every stage between naked and clothed, in situations better left to privacy. But the surge coming back through Briel made Veiko feel like he was inside
me
Snow’s skin with her. A fear so deep that
I
he wanted to retch. An anger that ran even deeper, colder, like a river under ice. A need that burned in
my
his throat, in
my
his chest, in
my
his belly.
And then gone, blank, with a force that made him blink. Briel squawked and flared her wings. Made an awkward run and leap at the nearest tree and scrabbled up while Snow slowly pushed her knife back into its sheath and stood up. He expected her to arch her back, stretch, maybe go after Briel. So he was unprepared when she scooped up her pack and angled behind him. That was a woman going someplace, and the only thing in that direction was Illharek.
“Snow.” He made a grab for her. Missed and rolled up onto his feet, hunter-quick, and stepped in front of her. He had his hand out, still. She stared at it. At him. Peeled him an odd little smile.
Heat prickled under his skin. Veiko let his arm fall, but he did not step aside. “Where are you going?”
Her brows rose. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. You are. Now I’ve got business, yeah? I found Ari. He’s waiting for me, back Below.”
“What, now?”
“Tal’Shik’s not waiting, is she? Listen. Maybe you’re right. If you can’t find the God, then maybe I try and summon him. Ari and me and what’s left of the godsworn.”
“I will come with you.” He did not like the way his voice clung to the inside of his throat.
“No.” She shook her head. Hitched the pack’s strap higher on her shoulder. “That lot’s dangerous. They do
n’t know you. And besides, Veiko, it isn’t your fight. You just said so. Fuck and damn. You don’t even think it’s mine.”
“We are partners.”
She gave him a long look, steady and blank. Briel was no help. The svartjagr was a silent knot in the branches, two glowing eyes, that was all. Only his own thoughts for company, his own fear, black and deep as the shadows in Illharek. She could end their partnership here with a simple not anymore. He had no defense against that.
And then what would he do? The land between Illharek and the northern border crawled with Taliri: all the places he knew, that he had traded, turned hostile. He might head farther south, where the forest spilled into naked plains. Might head west, into the jagged mountains that were more rock than trees. Wurms
dragons, Veiko, that’s the Dvergir word
lived in those peaks. A
fool
hunter might kill one and make a fortune on its parts.
Suicide’s faster, yeah?
Or he might follow those mountains north again and find a settlement that needed a noidghe, where no one knew or cared who Veiko Nyrikki was or what he had done. Make a life, after everything.
No. He would argue with her if she cast him off. He would not slink away like a feral dog. He would stay here, because that was where she was.
She stretched her arm out. Laid her right hand on his chest, fingers splayed over the drum-thump heartbeat, the fluttering panic.
“I know,” Snow said. “Partners. That doesn’t change, yeah?”
She took her hand away and then herself. Walked past him, around him, going back toward Illharek, to Ari, to the Laughing God.
He made no move to stop her this time. Left his hands at his side, stiff as his spine. Listened to the whisper of boots, felt the air move as she passed. Imagined her dissolving into shadow, pulling the dark around her like a cloak.
It was not until he smelled the stew beginning to scorch, and turned around to tend to it, that he saw she’d left Briel with him after all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dekklis rested in a wrinkle of rock, her feet braced against one side of the stone crease, her back against the other. She flexed the fingers of each hand in turn. Breathed around the ache in her ribs. Ignored the burn and throb in her shoulders. She could march for days and leagues on Illhari roads, run the forests like a twice-cursed deer—hell and damn, she’d gone overland from Cardik to Illharek, dodging Taliri the whole way, in just over a week.