by K. Eason
“Szanys?” Soren blinked. Questions piled up behind his eyes, so many she’d need a whole candle of marks to answer them. Snow would approve of this one, she thought, and, I don’t have time for this toadshit.
If he was a bit like Rurik, he wouldn’t respond well to force. Reason, then. “Listen to me. Taliri have Cardik surrounded right now. I came to get help, but the consul won’t listen to my mother. Your mother could help, and she won’t say anything. You savvy why not?”
A second blink. Comprehension pushed the questions aside. Drew his face into new planes and angles. Not a stupid man, no. But he was civilian enough to flinch when she poked the knife at him.
“We have to go.” Another poke. “Turn around. Out the passage.”
This time he did what she told him. Turned his back and ducked into the forest of cloaks and tunics. She followed him, closer than she liked. The man had elbows. It wouldn’t take much to bring one around. Her knife could get tangled in cloaks and tunics and turn useless. It could turn weapon in Soren’s hands if he got it.
He isn’t Istel. He isn’t Veiko. He won’t do that.
But she didn’t let her breath out until the latch clicked and they were back in the servants’ passage. She pulled the secret door shut behind her. Candle glow spilled across the shadows on the floor. She heard Soren breathing, shallow bites of near panic that turned loud in the stone passage.
She talked to him like a green recruit, simple and steady. “Down. Take the candle. Stairs are dark.”
He went, the candle clenched in both fists. He didn’t seem to notice the wax collecting on his skin.
“You can put the knife away, Domina.”
Foremothers, you could hear the titled inflection. Dekklis tried to imagine Rurik sounding this frightened, or this polite, and couldn’t manage it. Then she wondered at the ache in her chest when she tried.
“First Scout,” she said. “No titles. I’ve got a mother and three sisters before me.”
“Accidents happen.” Now he did look at her. “Like my brother. Ivar.”
The missing one. “I heard about that.”
“Not just Ivar.” His mouth creased. “My senior-sister died last winter.”
That left one K’Hess daughter, barely past her majority, badly inexperienced. No wonder K’Hess wouldn’t take a step out her doors. She was afraid she’d die.
“How’d it happen?” Regret the moment she asked it. This man wouldn’t know. He’d’ve been living here when it happened. He’d’ve got whatever truth Stratka shared with him. But there must’ve been gossip, and no one had bothered to tell her. Not her mother. Not her sister.
Soren’s face said no one had told him, either. “It was sudden. No illness.”
Never know when you need someone’s death to look like bad fish, yeah?
Assassination, hell and damn. Had to be.
“Sorry. I didn’t know.” It sounded stupid. Small.
Soren nodded, a curiously gracious gesture. “How are my other brothers?” he said calmly as he navigated the shallow steps.
“Kenjak’s dead. I don’t know about Rurik.” And more gently: “Keep moving. Your impatient friend up there comes looking, he’ll find Birkir. And he’ll reckon where we’ve gone. —And be careful, yeah? There’s a body.”
“Ah.” Soren stepped over the corpse. Minced past the blood on the steps. “How?”
“Bondie surprised me. I had to—”
“I mean Kenjak. How did he die?”
She weighed the answer, brutal truth against the civilian version. “Taliri,” she said finally. “Godsworn Taliri. They put him on a pole.”
Soren said nothing for long enough Dekklis wondered if he’d even heard her. And then: “Tal’Shik,” so quietly she wasn’t sure she’d heard him.
“What?”
He turned to face her and did what Illhari men simply didn’t: made unblinking eyelock. “Tal’Shik. The poles. Sacrifice. That’s what her godsworn did before the Purge, to us,” with the certainty of a man who remembers his histories. “What they’re doing to us now.”
Soren was still staring at her. Dangerous light in his eyes that made her remember Rurik again, that made her wish Kenjak had managed to get older. That made her wonder what kind of soldier Soren might make, and wish she could see that, too.
“You said,” said Soren, “my mother wasn’t speaking out in the Senate. You think you know why. But there’s more to that story, Szanys Dekklis, and I can tell you.”
Veiko was not happy when Istel came out of the trees, in almost the same place Snow had disappeared not so long before. He had some warning: Logi’s head came up, and he sniffed. Then oofed softly and went back to his rabbit bones. So Veiko thought it was Snow coming back, until Istel walked out of the woods.
From Briel, nothing at all. Some guardian.
“Chrrip,” Briel scolded, which was Briel’s way of saying Istel didn’t warrant a warning. He was no stranger. She sent a cascade of images, Istel at their fireside, Istel in the forest, Istel in conversation with Snow and Dek and Veiko. Unusually vivid for Briel, and very deliberate: a svartjagr’s version of slow speech and clear enunciation.
See here, Veiko. This is our friend.
As if he could not see that with both of the eyes in his head.
But what he could not see was, “Why are you here?” He flushed in the next heartbeat: there were rules about hospitality, and he had just broken several.
Istel’s mouth twitched. “And Snow said you’d be glad of the company.” But he did not break stride. Came and squatted beside the fire and let Logi come and greet him.
“Snow sent you,” Veiko said dubiously, because Istel had no pack with him. No preparations. Poor planning for a man like Istel.
“Sent might be too strong a word. I met her just outside the gate. Reckoned she was coming out to you, thought I’d make sure. Didn’t reckon to meet her coming back so soon.”
A not-quite-question. Veiko folded his arms. “That was her choice.”
“She says you’re a stubborn toadshit.”
“Did she say that I learned it from her?”
Istel chuckled. “You should know better than to argue with a Dvergir woman by now, Veiko. Whatever the topic.”
“You do not follow that advice with Dekklis.”
“You’re smarter than I am.” Istel straightened. Came around the fire and made a mirror of Veiko: folded arms, chin up. “And because you’re so smart, I reckon you might know what to do about this. There were people in the tunnel, coming from Illharek. Snow said it was godsworn. Seemed to recognize them. That’s when she told me to go.”
“The God’s people,” softly, because his lungs felt too small. “She thought they were dead.”
“Well, they weren’t that.”
“Why did you leave her there?” He knew how foolish that sounded as soon as he’d said it. Saw confirmation in Istel’s crooked grin.
“Because she told me to go. She isn’t my partner. You think she’d’ve let me keep my hands if I’d grabbed her arm and insisted I go with her?”
Veiko recalled the look she’d given him when he’d tried that. “You could have followed her.”
“Sure. Or I could do what she asked, which was come out here and find you.”
“I am in no danger.”
“Don’t know that she is, either. She said they were her people.” Istel’s smile faded. “Of course, it was her people in Cardik who tried to kill her.”
“It was the God, wearing Tsabrak’s skin, back in Cardik. And he succeeded.”
Dekklis would’ve flinched hearing that. Istel only gazed thoughtfully back toward the tunnel. “Way I reckon, Veiko, she told me to come find you. I have. Nothing says we can’t both go looking for her right now.”
And oh, it was tempting, to snatch up axe and pack and abandon fire and campsite and go after her. But:
“She is a conjuror, and this is Illharek. She can.” He strained the words through his teeth. “She can care
for herself.”
Istel looked at him as if he’d grown another head. “Not what I thought you’d say.”
“Briel is calm. She would not be were Snow in danger.”
“So what, we stay here and . . . wait? Watch Briel?”
“Waiting and watching is what scouts do,” Veiko said. “I, however, am noidghe. I will help her another way.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tsabrak had set himself up in the Suburba the moment he’d cleared territory: a couple alleys and streets by the docks, that was all, but they were his. He’d been young then, not much older than Veiko was now. But he’d never abandoned the Tomb and the God’s sanctuary, scraped out of living rock, stuffed so far off the road that no one could find it by chance. There was no sneaking and following in passages this narrow. Two abreast, and that was tight. Shoulder to shoulder, she and Ari. She was acutely aware of Hraf behind her, and the rest of them. Soft footsteps, softer muttering. Cheap oil lamps burned at long intervals, smearing smoke on the walls, guttering and flickering and casting long shadows.
Ari took a final turn into a cave that was at least partly natural. Smooth on one side, egg shaped, with long drips of upthrust stone, and the whisper-trickle of unseen water. The air was fresher here, fingers of cool on her cheek. A domed main room with half rooms spoking off it, two layers stacked. It might’ve been barracks once. The architecture had that utilitarian look about it. There was a battered table in the center, lined with benches that looked as if they’d been dragged all the way from the Suburba. Probably had.
When Tsabrak had gone north ten years ago, he had left almost thirty godsworn and allies in the Suburba. Left Stig in charge, but Stig had still answered to Tsabrak. Took his orders, clear from Cardik. They’d been running rasi mostly, with the odd crate of spice or bolt of silk or some Illhari luxury hard to find on the frontier.
There was maybe a third of that cartel left now, by Snow’s count, and most of them were new faces. Young, male, scared mixed with angry. Sullen and suspicious when they saw who Ari had brought back with him.
She heard “half-blood” and “woman” and less flattering terms whispered among them. Either they didn’t know who she was or they were angry enough not to care.
Ari pretended not to hear the muttering. “Need to talk to Snowdenaelikk,” he said to the men at the table. They got up, wordless. Skulked to the margins of the room, where the rest of their brethren collected.
Ari jerked his chin at the table. “Sit, yeah?”
Yeah, sit, in the middle of the fucking room, angry godsworn on all sides. Fuck and damn. Reminded her of that meeting with Rata, ten days and forever ago. She missed Veiko suddenly, sharply, like a knife shoved up under her ribs. Which was all too likely in here. She should walk the fuck out, yeah, drag up some shadows and just leave.
And she wouldn’t, because Veiko couldn’t get her the God. Ari, now. Maybe he could.
There was a firedog in one corner, leaking a greasy smoke that clung to hair and skin and burned the inside of her throat. Mad patterns danced on the walls. Tsabrak lurked in those shapes, forming and reforming: his face, his profile, his hipshot silhouette.
You are my right hand, Snow. Remember that.
You’re dead, yeah? But she drew herself straight, every fingerlength of her half-blood, unnatural height. Swept a slow glance around the room, stopping on every face, on every pair of eyes. Measuring attitudes, marking features. Letting everyone see the rings and the topknot.
Then she sat slowly and splayed both hands on the table. “Is this everyone?”
Ari dropped hard onto the bench across from her. “Yeah.”
“This a good idea? Everyone in one place?”
“We tried scattering. They picked us off. This was the only place we reckoned they wouldn’t come.”
“They. Who, they? Not highborn. They wouldn’t get through the toadfucking Suburba.”
“No. Not highborn. Rata’s people. All of a sudden, she wants more territory. All of a sudden, we start dying. Godsworn first, and then the regulars.”
“That’s good strategy.”
“Feh. Rata had help. Shouldn’t have been that easy. She took Stig first, and he was the best.”
“Hate to tell you this, Ari, but godsworn die like everyone else. Plain steel through the gut will do it.”
Ari grunted. “That how Tsabrak died?”
Through my back, not my guts. Tell him that.
“Yeah. Took a trooper’s blade in the riots.”
“Huh. Then he went better than Stig. We found him in the Tano. Fish had been at him, but we could see what they’d done.” Ari made a noise in his throat. “They cut him open, nape to hips, from the back. Cracked his ribs. Took his fucking guts out, yeah? Both lungs. His heart. They must’ve peeled him open like a fucking snail.”
Snow trusted that the murky firelight would hide her flinch. Fuck and damn: remember a windowless room in Cardik’s Warren. Remember sigils cut into the plaster, blood running up the walls. Remember the whole room turning a throbbing violet, and the godmagic pushing against her skin. Ehkla between her knees, and Ehkla’s breathless Let me tell you how it’s done, half-blood. First you must cut me along the spine. Then crack the ribs and spread them . . .
“It’s one of Tal’Shik’s ritual killings,” Snow said. Coolly, yeah, ice wouldn’t melt on her tongue. “Spread the ribs out, put the lungs on them. It’s supposed to be wings. Like a dragon.”
“The fuck you know that?”
She tapped the rings in the curve of her ear. “Learn a lot more in the Academy than conjuring, yeah?”
“Fuck.” Ari sat back. His hands flexed and stretched. The God’s sigil gleamed like ink on the black of his palm. And then, almost soundless, “What kind of ritual?”
“Archives say it’s the way to sacrifice godsworn. Usually, it’s them sacrificing their own to make an avatar. I don’t know why they’d bother with rival godsworn. Maybe to make a statement. Maybe they don’t know what they’re doing.” Maybe Ehkla didn’t. “Everyone else who’s died, they go like that?”
“No,” Ari said bleakly. “They died on poles. We found a whole garden of them in the tunnels up past the Abattoir.”
“That happened up north, too.”
“But not the dragon-wing shit.”
She shrugged. “Don’t see any avatars around, do you?”
“Not yet.” The bare gleam of teeth, snarl more than smile. “This makes more sense if Rata’s got Tal’Shik’s godsworn working with her. Taliri, you think?”
“You see her keeping company with any toadbellies? I didn’t. I think she’s got highborn help.” Snow paused, let that soak into the room. Utter silence for a handful of heartbeats.
“Godsworn highborn?” Ari’s composure cracked like cheap pottery. “That’s pre-Purge toadshit.”
“Yes, it is.”
“The fuck do we fight that?”
Snow opened her palm. Let the witchfire coil and drip through her fingers. “You’ve got me. Let’s start with that.”
“I’m glad to see you, Snow. No lie. But.” Ari hunched forward. He twined his scarred fingers together, twisting and pulling until Snow winced for his joints. “We can’t reach the God. None of us. We’ve tried every fucking thing we know. He’s just not answering. And I don’t know why.” He blew air through his teeth. “Fuck and damn. I don’t know.”
Snow pressed her lips against her teeth. Veiko’s axe through the God’s shoulder, yeah, that might be the problem. “The God’s lost a lot of people, yeah? That hurts him. Especially the strong ones, like Stig and Tsabrak. He’s weak, and Tal’Shik’s strong.”
Ari stared at her, stone-faced. “You’re saying he’s hiding?”
Oh fuck and damn. Hiding implied that the God was afraid of Tal’Shik, which he was, damn sure. But Ari couldn’t know that. Ari had faith, without sufficient wit to balance it. He should never have been a leader in the cartel. Would not have been in Stig’s era. Or Tsabrak’s. And he was a
ll she had.
Use his faith, Snow. It’s a tool.
Tsabrak’s dead man’s advice whispering in her skull. His silhouette across the table, where Ari’s own shadow should be. She wanted to blink him away. Didn’t dare, with Ari staring at her. With all the rest of them listening to her near blasphemy.
“Tal’Shik’s hunting the God, yeah? You know that. And he’s no fool. He’s hiding from her like you’re hiding from Rata. It’s what you do when you don’t have numbers to fight.”
“So we’re fucked.”
“No.” She took a breath. “Listen. I learned things up north. That skraeling I brought with me—he knows things, Ari, about talking to the gods, things that Tsabrak didn’t know. Things that Tsabrak asked me to learn, so I did. And Tsabrak told me, if anything went wrong, if something happened up north, I should come back, use it, make sure Tal’Shik doesn’t win. Point is, I can make the God answer.” Cold, clear syllables, ringing off the stone like metal. “I promise you this, Ari. Get me into that shrine, I’ll get the God back.”
“Fuck that.” Hraf’s voice knifed through the quiet. Murmuring welled up in its wake like blood. “You don’t belong in the shrine. You’re not even godsworn. You’re just Tsabrak’s half-blood bitch, yeah?” He used the Alviri word, the one that had no match in Dvergiri.
Ari’s gaze cut sideways. “Hraf. Shut it.”
“Fuck that, Ari. I want to know—”
“I said shut it.” Ari slammed his fist down on the table. Came halfway around on the bench, halfway uncoiled. “Snow wears the God’s mark, yeah? That means she’s been to the shrine once, and the God accepted her. And she’s Academy. You know what that fucking means?”
Hraf had his back to the wall, his own hand halfway to a knife hilt. A little space had opened around him, Ari’s men bleeding aside as if Hraf might infect them. “Don’t fucking care, Ari. The God’s not answering us! The fuck would he answer her?”
Ari shrank a little. Doubt shivered across his features. Snow strangled a sigh. Tsabrak would’ve gutted Hraf in front of everyone. Dared them to come at him.
You are my right hand.