by K. Eason
As if that were the important question. Not what about the Taliri?, not let me get my commander. Either this soldier was criminally green, or whoever’d given her orders was more formidable than a highborn scout out of uniform.
Dekklis thought about the knife at her belt, and the pair in her boots, and began to plan how she could get past this woman and her partners. Blood would start the riot in earnest.
But the Sixth also had a reputation for take-no-toadshit. A man’s command. Northern. Border. Dekklis put on her best cold-eyed stare. Tried to look like someone who’d walked with ghosts and seen a dead woman sit up and talk. “Trooper. Move aside. Do it now.”
The three shared another look. The tall one swallowed. “Yes, First Scout.”
They made room for her to squirt between them and the stone wall. Dekklis nodded a terse thanks and stalked through the gap they left her. Now all she had to do was get through the rest of the lines. Well, she could do that. Here highborn and straight-backed was the camouflage.
Only a few heads turned as she passed, and one of them was Optio Nezari—the left side of whose face was still lumpy, whose nose would never recover from Istel’s fists. Nezari left off whatever conversation she was having with the centurion. Dekklis pretended not to see her. Kept on marching
please, foremothers
and hoped she’d get to the Tiers before Nezari caught her.
“First Scout!” flung at her back like a javelin. “First Scout!” And then, even louder, too close to pretend to ignore: “Szanys Dekklis!”
Hell and damn. Dekklis spun on her heel. Nezari came panting up to her. Someone
a rabbit, Dek
was not used to running in armor. Sweat rivered down Nezari’s temples.
Dekklis saluted. “Optio.”
“First Scout.” Nezari returned the salute. “I have a message for you.”
Dekklis raised eyebrows. Her heart battered the inside of her chest. “For me.”
“Yes, First Scout. From Senator Szanys. She wants you in the Senate immediately.”
Tsabrak led them into the badlands, backtrailing the thread of the black river until it disappeared into the ghost-roads version of Illharek. The cave looked exactly as it had all the other times. Just an empty opening, a pattern of jagged stone and shadow.
Tsabrak stopped at the threshold.
“In there,” he said.
Veiko stopped beside the smaller man. Ghost. Whatever. The Dvergir’s head stopped at Veiko’s shoulder. It would be easy, he thought, to underestimate such a small people. The Alviri tribes had once. And this man, in particular—dead or not, ghost or not—made Veiko’s skin itch.
“I will follow you,” he told Tsabrak. “I will help you. But the fight is yours to begin.”
Tsabrak turned to look at him then. Bared his teeth. “No, skraeling. He started it. I’ll finish it.”
Then he stalked into the cave, dragging the shadows behind him like a cloak. Light followed him, a shaft of cold grey the same color as the sky. But it was bright enough that a man might see where he stepped. Enough that a man might see the black river, gleaming in its banks, winding deeper in the cave.
Taru cocked her head like a raven listening for the screams of the dying. “There is a large spirit down there,” she said. “And there is blood already drawn and exchanged. If you mean to do this, go now.”
Veiko loosened the axe. Loosened his shoulders, too. He rubbed the heel of his left hand across his chest. Felt the thump come up through bone. The last time he’d felt this pounding, he’d been fevered and dying. Having visions. Caught on the border of living and dead. But he had his dog with him this time, one step ahead. Had Taru beside him.
The black river ended in a lake, or began there, at the bottom of the cave. That was the same as true-Illharek. But where that cave was lit by witchfire and torch, all sharp shadows and contrast, and massive, this one was small enough a man might see across it. Tsabrak had drawn the darkness aside. Left the stone banks smooth and empty, the whole cavern rendered twilight. Of Tsabrak himself, there was no sign.
The God, however, was easy to see. He crouched beside the lake like a firedog, one hand down for balance, the other curled against his chest. Veiko saw blood on the stone. Dark smears, still gleaming slick.
The God looked up, his eyes glowing like Briel’s from this distance. Then he rose, a slow unfolding of shadow. His grin split his face like an axe blade, wide and sharp.
“Veiko Nyrikki,” he said. His voice rolled across the cave like a fog, filling the cracks and the whole space before rising up, swelling. “I wondered when you’d come.”
Taru grunted. “Does every spirit know your name?”
Veiko matched her murmur. “Only the Illhari gods.” Then he raised his voice, and both hands. “It seemed I must. You would not come to me.”
The God’s attention seized on the upraised axe. “Are you here to kill me, skraeling? In my home?”
Veiko shrugged. He spotted Tsabrak creeping around the lake’s perimeter. The light avoided him. Found rock and water to settle on, patches of pallid illumination.
The God did not appear to notice. He stood straight now, hands outstretched in an insincere welcome. The right one still wept, dripping at intervals. Steam curled where the blood struck the rock.
Veiko took another step. Behind him, Taru muttered something that sounded like fool.
“I did not come to kill you,” said Veiko. “I do not want your power.”
The Laughing God’s head cocked. His eyes flared and flickered. “You do not. Then who does?”
“I do.” Tsabrak rose from the shadows, casting them off like a cloak. A heartbeat’s pause as he faced his God for the first time and saw himself recognized in the God’s faint recoil.
Then that heartbeat ended. Tsabrak lunged forward. Swiped at the God, and missed, and swung again, bare-handed. The God spilled out of the way. Like a thick liquid, Veiko thought, ink or blood. He jabbed his hand at Tsabrak, hooked his fingers and pulled. Blood sprayed onto the stone.
It was as if his fingers had become knives. Or claws. A sobering thought. Veiko had not known the God could do that. But he did know that blood here wasn’t truly blood. He had the scars on his
soul
leg to prove it. And Tsabrak had much less soul to lose than the God.
Tsabrak tried to retreat, but the God was much quicker. He caught Tsabrak midstep. Struck him in the shoulder and threw him sideways. Tsabrak staggered for balance, and before he got it back, the God was on him. He plunged one fist into Tsabrak’s belly, as if the ghost were no more solid than water.
Tsabrak screamed. The God laughed, and the whole world shivered. His hands moved in Tsabrak’s gut. A second scream.
Veiko started forward. Small steps to test his footing on the stone, to test his leg. He shifted into a run.
Taru’s voice followed him. “Do not let him touch you. Hurry.”
Tsabrak saw him. His hands reached, like a drowning man’s.
The God’s head snapped around. His laughter shivered and died.
“Veiko Nyrikki!” he roared, and pulled his hand clear. Tsabrak dropped like a wet sack.
Veiko did not think about mortal wounds or what those clawed hands could do to him, or how fast the God came at him. Bears were that quick. Rock leopards. Svartjagr, too, when they wanted a flatcake.
He folded sideways as the God struck. Felt the fist whip past him, the heat of it. Saw the jagged fingertips, dark with Tsabrak’s blood. Then, as the God realized he’d missed, as he began to recoil, Veiko brought his axe down.
It was exactly like cutting a man. The same hitch as the metal met bone, the same spray of
not
blood. Same hot, wet, and salty where it touched his lips.
“Skraeling.”
The God sounded surprised. He raised his stump between them. The blood had already thickened. Only a trickle now, running down the God’s arm. Impossible to tell exactly where those bonfire
eyes were looking, yes, but a man could not mistake the sudden flare in their sockets.
Helgi barked. Taru shouted. Veiko threw himself sideways and back. The blast of heat and flame missed him, only just, singeing hair and beard.
He had not known that the God could do that, either.
Veiko landed hard on hip and thigh and skidded. Put an arm out for balance and left some skin behind. But he did not drop the axe. Got himself stopped, got his knees back under him. Veiko had a single heartbeat to consider how much this would hurt. To wonder what Snow would do when she found out what happened. What would happen to Logi, to Briel. And then he pushed all that aside and stood up.
Then Helgi was there, his grey bulk between Veiko and the God. Veiko hefted the axe, still dripping with the God’s blood.
“You took my axe again, Laughing God. What will you give in return?”
“I will eat your heart.” The God’s eyes flared, bright enough Veiko had to squint. “I will unmake you, skraeling.”
Veiko chopped, sudden and savage. Helgi lunged, snapping, from the other side. The God swiped at the dog, swinging the stump of his arm like a club. Veiko heard the hollow thump, the startled yip, as the blow brushed Helgi aside like a puppy, sent him rolling toward the lake. The God spun back, impossibly fast, his hand jabbing low beneath Veiko’s swing, intending to open his guts.
Faster than a bear. Faster than Briel’s greed. Veiko threw himself backward, sideways. Landed badly this time, in a sprawl on the edge of the lake. He felt the first bite of black water tug at his sleeve.
The God laughed. White fire raged in his sockets. The shadows fled, scattering in his wake, washing over the place where Tsabrak had fallen. A place that was suddenly empty.
Veiko grinned.
Tsabrak lunged at the God, sudden and graceless. He looked horrible—skin gone grey, all the color washed out of eyes and hair. A man made of fog, wisping away on the edges. But that was hate in his eyes, and rage, and a fire that was no less hot than the God’s. He stagger-lunged at the God’s back and thrust his arm elbow-deep.
The God threw his head back. Shrieked. Flailed and twisted trying to reach Tsabrak with his remaining hand. He overbalanced, staggered left and right and twisted, falling onto his knees. Fire ran down his face like tears. Tsabrak stood behind him, with both hands buried in his back. Veiko heard a crack that sounded like ice breaking. A wet, tearing noise. Black seeped on the sand, which might have been shadows and was not, no, not here. The God sprawled flat on his belly now, his ribs cracked and spread away from his spine like wings. Tsabrak knelt on either side of his hips, rummaging through the God like a man looking for a small item in the bottom of a pack.
The God was looking at Veiko. Eyes down to coals now. Cracked smile, crumbling at the edges. “Snowdenaelikk,” leaked through his lips, spilled like glass on the stone. “Breaker of bargains. There will be payment for this, skraeling. Tell her that.”
“Shut it,” Tsabrak said. Then he pulled the God’s lungs out and laid them on his shoulders. Plunged his hands back into the God. Held up a thick reddish-black thing. It twitched and pumped.
Incredibly, impossibly, the God began to laugh. The lungs quivered on his shoulder blades.
And he kept laughing, even when Tsabrak tore off a chunk of the heart and put it in his mouth. Madness in that laughter. Malice.
The ground shivered and bucked. Veiko had felt that before, when Snow had tried conjuring too deep in the Wild and backlash had rearranged the terrain. He joined Helgi back on the ground, as he had then. Rode out the tremors on hands and knees.
The storm-feeling was back, crawling across his skin until every hair stood up. That was witchery. Godmagic. Spirit magic, yes, which was the same thing—but more magic than any spirit should have. The accumulation of hundreds of souls, offered up, taken, devoured by the God, and eaten by Tsabrak in turn.
There was very little left of the old Laughing God now. A little ash, a wet smear on the rock. Tsabrak seemed larger. The shadows flickered and pooled around him, moving like fine silk in an absent breeze. He was more beautiful now than he had been. Beautiful like winter or wildfire.
A sudden pain in Veiko’s arm made him catch his breath. Felt like sharp things driven deep into flesh. Like a bite, or claws. He thought, for a heartbeat, that the God’s hand had leapt off the stone and attacked him. Foolish. The hand was still lying where it had fallen, and the God was far past attacking anyone. But the discomfort was not his imagining. Veiko shifted the axe to his left hand. Folded his arm against his chest. He threw a quick glance down at it, found his sleeve unmarked and untouched. But there was blood soaking through the weave, spreading spots that looked exactly like the pattern a dog’s jaws might make. But not Helgi, who was sitting beside him, whose jaws were much wider.
His living dog.
That realization brought another jagged pain, in his skull this time. And this one came with a wash of sensation: a svartjagr’s dizzy vantage, smudged red impressions of darkness and terror and temper.
He shoved Briel out.
Not now.
Taru touched his arm. Tasted the wetness that came away on her fingers and frowned.
“I smell blood.” And oh, that was the old God’s tone, sheathed in Tsabrak’s voice. At least it was Tsabrak’s red-dark eyes staring back at him, and not the God’s flames. “We remember how you smell, Veiko Nyrikki.”
Godmagic and soul-theft hummed under Veiko’s skin, crackled in his braids. His flesh pulled at him, pinpricks along his right arm. “It is no matter.”
“No. No, I think it matters very much.” Tsabrak flowed upright, liquid shadow growing solid. “Your body is in danger. Her godsworn have found you. I warned you, yeah? You have to go back.”
That was sense. But that might also, by a powerful, proud spirit, be taken as acquiescence. A noidghe did not do a spirit’s bidding. Veiko would not obey Tsabrak, in this or anything. Istel was back there, with Logi and Briel. His body was not undefended. He opened his mouth to refuse, even as Briel battered against him, even as his
soul
blood dripped down his arm.
Taru squeezed his wrist hard enough to make his fingers tingle. Go away in that grip.
“I will deal with this,” she said, and set herself between him and the new Laughing God. She seemed very small suddenly. Very grey and dim, against Tsabrak’s vivid dark. She was an old spirit, an older noidghe. She could handle Tsabrak.
Or he could eat her.
“I won’t eat anyone. I’m your ally, Veiko Nyrikki.” That was entirely Tsabrak’s grin, razor-thin. “And you’re going to need me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nezari sent Dekklis into the Tiers with an escort of three more young and green troopers. They were very serious. Very much like stones, they talked so much. It had to be orders. Had to be Nezari’s edict that they answer no questions, even those perfectly reasonable ones like why are there troops on the ’Walk? or was it the Sixth who came back? or what are your damn names, you three?
There was black irony. With a partner like Istel, she’d gotten used to quiet. But these three made Istel—hell, made Veiko—seem like chattering children. Made her feel the idiot, too, getting flat silence for answers. At least the anger burned a hole in the worry coiled all through her gut.
Until they got to the Senate plaza. Then her anger froze solid. The whole place was empty. Blood reek, blood smears. And bodies, oh foremothers. Three. And she knew them, a trio from the Sixth’s First Squad, the ones who stayed closest to Rurik. Veterans, all of them. Rurik’s personal guard, dead on the plaza. The big doors to the curia sat open a handsbreadth, spilling a narrow band of light across the pavement. Dekklis guessed that there were still senators inside if Nezari’s three had brought her here on Senator Szanys’s orders. Her mother in there, and Rurik’s troops dead out here. So where was Rurik?
Pointless to ask her escort anything, like the hell happened here? Battle, clearly. Legion troops cut down in front of
the Senate. And from the stiff unconcern of her escorts, they’d known about it.
“You can go,” she told them. “I can find the senator from here.”
The trio exchanged glances. The oldest, perhaps twenty, cleared her throat. “Our orders—”
Dekklis didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t turn her head. Didn’t look at them, foremothers, she dared not, or she’d gut all three.
“Fuck your orders,” she said. “Tell Nezari I’m delivered.”
Dekklis walked away from them at a brisk legion march. The plaza seemed larger when it was empty. Svartjagr perched on the buildings like snake-necked, silent crows. She felt those eyes on her as she crossed the stones. Felt the brush and kiss of strange svartjagr minds, like a cutpurse testing purse strings. Curious. Hungry. Patient.
She cocked a glance at them. Pretended the row of ember-hot eyes didn’t bother her, staring back. One of them flared its wings and hissed. It was bigger than Briel.
Svartjagr don’t attack people, Szanys.
No. People attacked people. Svartjagr cleaned up the mess.
Dekklis took the curia steps two at a time. She got to the top without losing her breath. Marched to the doors. Laid her hand against the wood, and pushed, and slipped inside.
Chaos. Hell and damn. Somebody, maybe several bodies, had bled in here, too. The scented oil in the lamps couldn’t mask the smell. The flames in those lamps showed the source of it clearly, streaked red on the floor.
People had died in the Senate before. But there’d been an actual fight in here. Long strips of cloth on the floor that had once belonged to someone’s robes. Smaller patches from the bench cushions, and tufts of stuffing. Score marks and scrapes on the polished floor. The consul’s chair—alone of all the seats in here, made of wood—had been split like kindling.
There were no corpses in here at all. Only a clump of living bodies in the corner farthest from the door, near the top of the rows of stone seats. Maybe twenty women in here, of the eligible hundred. And not, she noted, a soldier among them. Which didn’t make sense, given the blood, unless a bunch of unarmed senators weren’t afraid of another attack. Unless the attackers were dead. Unless.