by K. Eason
“Then do not think them so loudly.” She pointed at his leg. “It hurts because you are tired. Go back. Rest.”
“It aches because I am thinking of the one who gave it to me.”
“Then think of something else. Show your wits for once.”
He squinted across the ice. The sun was a plain silver disk, only a little brighter than the rest of the sky. No shadow. No glare. The green-brown tundra to one side, the herd of takin spread out across it. He wondered why there was no village, why there were only animals here. Thought that at Taru.
She snorted. “Now you are asking worthwhile questions. The village is not your spirit’s home. This place is.”
“How do I destroy a spirit?”
“And you disappoint me again. A noidghe bargains with spirits. He does not destroy them.”
“Does not, or cannot?”
Taru folded her arms.
“That is what I thought.” Veiko gave Helgi a last pat. The dog set off across the ice, tail high, nose lifted. Hunting.
Taru appeared in the corner of his right eye. Veiko turned his head slightly. Met the icy wall of her anger.
“I have other things to teach you. Far more useful things.”
“I will learn them. Later. After I have hunted down a certain spirit and killed her.”
“This wastes your time. And mine.”
He stretched his stride. “Then do not come with me.”
For a moment he thought she wouldn’t. Then she drew even with him again, jogging loosely, easily. A ghost needed no breath. And so her voice was steady when she said, “You are a child of my lineage. You have asked a foolish question, but nevertheless, here is your answer: a noidghe can destroy a spirit if that noidghe is powerful and skilled enough. It is difficult, and it is dangerous, and it comes with a price. —Do not look at me that way, Nyrikki’s son. I know you are no coward, and your luck is better than it should be. But it is not something a noidghe should do, even if he can.”
The wind sighed and sifted through his braids and hers. Veiko let out a breath. “Thank you for the answer.”
“Fool,” she said, but more gently. The silence settled around them. Helgi drew a few paces ahead. The wind grew stronger, gusting first from one direction, then another. In the flesh-world, it would have been storm weather. Veiko cocked a glance at the slate-colored sky.
And so he did not see Helgi’s sudden wheeling stop. But he heard the dog’s warning growl, and the sudden scrabble of claws. And he heard, very clearly and from far too close:
“Veiko Nyrikki.”
Veiko turned around fast, with his hand on his axe. There was no shadow on the tundra: dull silver sky, no sun, no trees. And still this man cast one, which spilled around him like liquid dark. Veiko had never met him in life, no, but he knew the face from Briel’s sendings.
He forced the name. “Tsabrak.”
And looked closer, to be certain. The God had worn other faces before. But this man’s eyes were garnet dark, common Dvergir. No fires burned in the sockets.
“A ghost,” confirmed Taru, grim-voiced. Then she frowned. “No. Not entirely.”
“No.” Tsabrak said amiably. He did not look at her. “Not quite, any more than you are, skraeling foremother. —I’ve been looking for you, Veiko.”
“I cannot say the same.”
Tsabrak stretched his lips. “No. You’re looking for him, yeah? You’ve been looking. And you can’t find him.”
Veiko shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Toadshit, perhaps. I know where he is. I can take you.”
Oh ancestors, let his face show nothing. “And why would you do that?”
“Because I want you to help me kill him.”
Veiko felt the surprise escape onto his face. “What?”
“I kill him, I take his power.”
Taru made a rude noise. Spat, audibly, onto the ghost tundra. “That rule is for spirits. You are only a ghost. A little thief. You would do better to say, ‘Help me kill this God before he comes looking for me to reclaim what is his.’”
Fuck you on Tsabrak’s face, plain as fire. But he only shrugged. Cool-voiced, with only a little shake, “Tell me, skraeling. Do you let a woman speak for you now?”
“I have learned Illhari ways.”
Tsabrak took a step back. It was not a retreat so much as a settling. The garnet eyes gleamed. “Your foremother’s wrong. I didn’t steal anything from the God. I was his godsworn, yeah? I have some of his power. Some of him. That’s what godsworn means.”
“And you gave part of yourself to him. Yes. I can see that.” Taru shook her head. “A bad bargain, little dead man, to yield up part of your soul.”
“You’re not a Dvergir man, yeah? I got what I wanted. So did the God. It worked well for a long time. Then he did what he did to Snow.” Tsabrak closed his eyes. Grimaced. “He betrayed us both with that toadshit. And then he let me die. So yeah, I kept a piece of him.”
“So the God has broken the rules, and now you have. So much for Illhari bargains. But that does not say why I would help you.”
“Because Snow’s with him now. The God. She called him, and he came, and now they’re making deals.” Tsabrak folded his arms, as if the ice-flavored wind could chill him, and squinted at some distant nothing. His shadow spread a little bit, investigating the cracks in the glacier, pooling black in the ice. “And because Tal’Shik knows where you are. Her godsworn know. They’re coming for you.”
“Perhaps I will find her first.”
Sudden comprehension bloomed on Tsabrak’s face like a bruise. “You’re hunting her. You think you’ll get her first. Is that it?”
Taru snorted. Veiko said nothing. Stood and stared while the cold seeped up through his boot soles.
Tsabrak began to laugh. “Least I learn from my mistakes, yeah? You can’t beat her. You tried once, and you failed.”
Taru folded her arms and grunted. It was not quite I told you as much.
“I tried twice,” Veiko said mildly. “Both times, she retreated before the fight was finished.”
“You got lucky, yeah? Listen. I can help you find Tal’Shik. I can help you kill her. But first, you help me kill the God. When I’ve taken his power, I’ll be strong enough to help you.”
Veiko tried the Dvergiri words, first time off his lips. “Fuck you.”
Tsabrak blinked. Grinned. “Listen to me, toadbelly. The God’s crippled. Broken. You fucked him good, yeah?”
In this place, language was no barrier to understanding. But his difficulty with Dvergiri had never been the vocabulary. Ancestors, that image.
Tsabrak grinned wider. “You know how a god gets unfucked?”
The Illhari prayed to their spirits. Sacrificed. Poured power into them without bargains to govern the exchange. It was not a healthy relationship. Snow had said as much herself, yes, but if she wanted the God to help her, she would offer him what he wanted. Because, oh ancestors, he had refused to help her.
Veiko closed his eyes. Opened them again. “Yes.”
“Then you know the God won’t tell Snow how bad he’s hurt. He’ll say whatever he has to, to get what he wants. And you know she’ll agree to it. And he’ll use that to destroy her.”
“She is not a fool.”
“Of course she’s not. She’s desperate. She’s pissed at the God, yeah? I know that. But he’s a better choice than Tal’Shik, and she’s winning. You think Snow’s going to let that happen? You think she won’t do anything to make sure that doesn’t happen?”
When he had killed the chieftain’s son, he had done so for justice, and he had not balked at the price. Snow would be no different. This was a matter of blood feud for her, just as it had been for him.
Veiko looked at Taru. Met that pale, grim stare. Weighed the wisdom of asking advice, here, in front of Tsabrak. The other man might read it as weakness. And while he did not care what a ghost thought, a soon-to-be-god was another matter. A noidghe should grant no advantage to spirits.
Veiko set his teeth. Drew cold air between them. Said, hardly louder than Helgi’s constant growl, “Wise ancestor, I have need of counsel.”
Taru gazed up at the sky. “If a noidghe is intent on destroying a spirit,” she told the clouds, “then he should find allies to help him. He does not need to like those allies. However.” She looked at him. “I must also tell you that what you intend is foolish.”
“Snow is my—”
“I know what she is to you.” A tiny smile, grim and wise and knowing. “So I will tell you this, too: she has neither your talent nor your luck with spirits. If you choose this alliance, you must move quickly.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I seen the troops on the ’Walk,” said a voice like tarnished brass, “setting up lines. No one’s getting out that way.”
The voice’s owner had gathered a crowd around her: two fishcarts and a wool merchant with her bondies, a scattered handful of citizens with bundles, a pair of well-dressed bondies. Every one of them, Dekklis thought sourly, was taller. She stretched onto her toes. Surely a voice that big would belong to an equally large body.
Nothing. Shoulders. The backs of people’s heads.
It might just be toadshit. Rumors in crowds were as reliable as a northern spring. But the Abattoir streets were crowded, citizens clotted like the blood in the gutters, little chunks and knots on the pavement, buzzing like a cloud of flies. Bondies in Tier-quality clothing. People with midtowner accents. Farmers with empty handcarts, too, who should have been gone by sunset, out Illharek’s gates. It had to be well after the Senate’s recess.
But if it were true, hell and damn, that was bad. Barricades were worse than just troopers. And they were probably her fault, if a certain highborn consort’s absence had been noticed. Stratka would want him back.
“And.” Tarnished Brass paused for dramatic effect. “And I saw troopers coming up the road just after noon. Ragged lot.”
“From where?” someone asked, and another voice added, “Were they ours?”
“No one else’s they could be,” said another bystander, with the sneering confidence of a woman who has never been out of Illharek. “You think the toadbellies got armies now?”
“You shut up, Risstael, you motherless—”
“I hear,” said another woman, loudly, “that the raiders are bad this year.”
“Taliri don’t march on the roads, idiot.”
“That’s not what I said—”
“What colors? Which road?” Dek tried to call, and found herself drowned by more speculation. What she wouldn’t give now for Barkett and Teslin to bull a path for her. What she wouldn’t give for Rurik’s tile-cracking shout, which would cut across a barracks full of drunk troopers at midwinter.
She had her elbows. She used them, on the rearmost. By the time she’d gotten close enough to put a face to Tarnished Brass, she’d gotten new bruises on her ribs, and muttering malice behind her, and a new admiration for the quality of her boots.
She threw her voice over the last heads in front of her. “Which road?” and shoved her way through.
A scrawny woman stood there, wearing a drover’s coat and shit-crusted boots. Five slat-ribbed goats milled around her. A spotted dog circled the goats, nipping at them. It turned its teeth at Dekklis. Lunged and snapped.
And yelped when she put one of her hard-soled northern boots into its ribs. Veiko would’ve put an axe through her for kicking his dog. But Tarnished Brass only looked at her, head-cocked curious.
“North road.”
“What colors?”
“Couldn’t see colors. Ragged-assed lot. Looked like—”
“No flag?” The shape of the walls funneled Dekklis’s voice back, made it bigger. Hell and damn, she did sound like Rurik. Polished brass, not tarnished.
The drover frowned. “No flag. They looked like they’d been running hard, yeah? Like something was after them.”
Dekklis closed her eyes. Opened them again. “They the ones on the Riverwalk?”
“No. Riverwalk’s all Illhari troopers. Those colors I can see fine.” Narrow-eyed squint. A rake from crown to boots. “You from Cardik?”
“No. Davni. Taliri burned it flat last winter.”
The drover woman was watching her. All of them were. Hell and damn. Snow had warned her. Snow had said, Don’t come down here, highborn. Square shoulders, snapping out questions, bet her accent had slipped, too.
The drover smiled at her with the intimacy of a total stranger. “Davni’s a toadbelly village, and you’re no toadbelly. I reckon, with that accent—”
Dekklis wheeled on the crowd. “The legion did this in Cardik, right before the Taliri attacked. They tried to pen people up in the city. Blocked the bridges. They shot people, yeah? We can’t stay down here!”
There was a new swell of muttering now, a new pitch and timbre. The crowd had grown, too. The bondies, the merchants, the farmers. Butchers with their bloody aprons, who had to be local. Who were, she noted, carrying hooks and long knives.
Incitement to riot. That’s a new one for you, Szanys.
Add it to the list of her treasons.
“Not staying down here,” a woman was saying. She carried a seax on her hip, and a duffel slung over her shoulder. “They can’t keep us.”
And another said, “Not a bunch of sheep for the slaughter.”
Voices rose in agreement. Dekklis smothered a smile. Here the greatest difference between the Republic’s heart and its border cities. A native Illhari had a sense of entitlement, be she Dvergir, Alvir, half-blood, or bondie.
It was easy to fall into the crowd as it surged up the Abattoir’s main thoroughfare. Easy, with those bodies already moving, to snake and slip between them. A little frightening, too, how fast their numbers grew. From crowd to mob, in a half-dozen streets.
Which made it a little more difficult, once Dekklis reached the Riverwalk, to approach the legion line standing there. About a third of them were facing into the Abattoir, more turning as the crowd’s noise reached them. The rest were looking up at the bridges and ramps leading into the Tiers. A handful were stationed up near the mouth of the cave, looking up the road.
So the trouble wasn’t outside, then, Taliri burning their way up the river. The trouble was up in the Tiers. The absence of K’Hess Soren seemed less and less likely the cause. This was a lot of upset for one man, whatever his birth. This action had a different root. Someone had ordered the legion out. The praefecta wouldn’t do it without authorization. As to who had that kind of power, well. Consul. Senate. Maybe both. So the Senate was still in session, even this late. Maybe her mother had gotten them to listen. Or maybe a certain half-blood heretic had gone off and killed someone important.
Dekklis had been on the leading edge of the crowd when they’d come up onto the ’Walk. She dropped back now, stepped to the side. Let the first wave of anger sweep past her.
“Stop where you are!” slammed into “You got no right!”
“—can’t keep us out—”
“—disperse, by order of the consul—”
Briel, Dekklis thought, looking up. Briel, if you’re up there.
A finger of pain poked her left eye socket. She had a dizzy flash of the open night sky. Veiko, lying beside a fire. Logi, sitting watch. Istel, of all people, poking sticks into the flames. And then firelight on cave walls, and the smell of smoke and blood. A stranger’s face, with fire where his eyes should be, and a smile peeled off his teeth.
Fear and anger, two flavors, hot and cold and so tangled together that Dekklis gagged. No help from Briel, then. And no time to sift through what she had seen. Svartjagr sendings depended too much on a svartjagr brain. Dek had her own trouble. Snow and Veiko and Istel would have to handle theirs.
And then she was back looking out her own eyes, with the headache prickling white behind them, at two lines of Illhari, legion and citizen. Someh
ow the conflict hadn’t yet spilled into blows. Shouts only, and threats, traded across a gap just wider than an outthrust arm with a sword in it.
Her first task would be to get across that legion line. Dekklis angled through the crowd toward the edge of the ’Walk, where the cave walls sloped down and met with the floor. It wasn’t a neat joining, an uneven hip-high convergence that said water had made it, and not conjuring. But that sloped ceiling meant that most of the not-yet-riot’s weight was concentrated toward the middle of the lines, where everyone’s head would fit.
Most of the troopers’ attention was pointed that way, too. Dekklis got within an armspan of the wall before she was noticed. Then it was only the last soldier in line who saw her. Young woman, tall and spare. Dek didn’t recognize her, but look at those bones. Highborn, yeah, she could bet on that. The trooper had no insignia on her, and that vibrating energy of mixed fear and excitement that said green. K’Hess Kenjak had had that look, Dek remembered. Kenjak would’ve laid hands on his sword just like that, with no thought how he’d clear it from the sheath with the stone walls so close. Kenjak would’ve snapped stop there, citizen! in that same unconvincing treble.
Dekklis stopped. Showed empty hands. “First Scout Szanys Dekklis. Second Legion, Sixth Cohort.” She pulled the collar of her shirt aside. Bared the House sigil on her shoulder. “Let me pass, Mila.”
“My orders are no one gets through the line.”
“I’m not no one,” Dekklis said patiently. “I outrank you. And I’m on Senate business.”
She’d got the soldier’s partners’ attention, too, by now. Three young faces staring back at her. Hell and damn. There should’ve been a senior trooper among them at least. It might be that Istel was right about Illhari troops.
“First Scout Szanys Dekklis,” she repeated. “With the Sixth. I have a report for the Senate.”
That got a flicker of recognition, and a look traded among them. “About Taliri,” Dekklis said, with the exaggerated patience of a woman about to lose hers. “You understand this is urgent, Milae. And above your rank.”
“First Scout,” the tall woman repeated. It sounded partway between an address and a question. “How did you end up in the Suburba?”