by Kate Elliott
The big gates ground open. The prisoner ceased speaking as feet tramped in, marching in unison, and ceased their march with the clap of a command.
“Bring out the condemned,” said a woman.
Warning nipped at Marit’s sleeve. She, too, knew that voice: it was the cloak of Night.
Bolts clicked; bars scraped; doors bumped open. Gibbering and weeping and begging rose to a tumult as folk were dragged into the courtyard. Then, as the last door was shut, a fearful silence fell. Through a gap under the eaves behind her, she heard the huffing and puffing of that cursed man and woman having at the Devourer in the adjoining garden, in mocking counter-rhythm to the ragged breathing of the prisoners.
“You are brought before me, who are condemned,” said Night. More fool Marit for venturing into the center of the pit. “The punishment for your crime is cleansing.”
A wail rose among the prisoners: “Please just kill me quickly I beg you!” “I’m innocent! I never did it!” “She murdered my brother for his coin and laid the blame on me!”
“Enough! All is known to me already.”
“Then you know I didn’t do it!” shouted a man. “Your gods-rotted cronies laid claim to our clan’s land and sent me here to die because I wouldn’t shut up and lie down and take it. And you let it happen. You’re a lilu, a cursed—” He grunted. His voice ceased.
She continued speaking without any change of tone. “Without order, there can be no justice. Those who foment trouble disturb what is orderly. They cannot be allowed to damage the peace the rest have so laboriously constructed. Yet I am inclined to mercy, when mercy has been earned. Bring forward these to the stone of judgment.”
She spoke five names, none of which meant anything to Marit, but one at a time Marit heard sobbing, the crunch of footsteps on gravel, and after the cessation of movement a sudden burning cut shivered the air as if the wind had been sliced with a fearsome blade. Spirit shaved from body. The Spirit Gate unfolds, and the departing spirit passes beneath to the other side.
Night had wielded her staff and killed them.
“The rest must be cleansed as an example. Transfer them to Malinna for execution.”
“You’re as corrupt as those who serve you!” shouted the man who had cursed her before. “The orphaned girl would weep, seeing what had become of the Guardians she begged the gods to raise!”
“Kill him,” said Night in a deadly quiet voice. “Let him be bathed in his own blood in exchange for his crude words.”
The killing was swift: the salt of the man’s blood released into the air by a blade’s cut. In the adjoining cell, the outlander slammed foot or shoulder into the wall, as in anger, and it seemed the entire building shuddered. Warning bobbed her head. A feather glimmered in the air, and Marit caught it before it touched the ground; she tucked its length inside her jacket.
Eihi! How then the others begged for such a merciful, swift release. How they debased themselves with frantic words and desperate pleas. Marit burned with humiliation, because she could do nothing as they were hauled away to whatever transport wagons awaited them. How useless the power the gods had conferred on her. All for nothing! Cloak of Night could not execute her without five staffs, but what if she ordered her servants to stab Marit and remove her cloak? She had almost certainly destroyed other cloaks in exactly that way. The cloak of Night was old beyond measure and so corrupt that she appeared sweet to the eye and kind to the ear. It seemed unlikely to Marit that she knew anything about cloaks that Night had not already considered.
“What of those accused of being gods-cursed, Holy One? We’ve brought in eleven since you were here last—” Running footsteps interrupted the officer. “The hells! You know better than to burst in—”
“Let the messenger approach, Captain Tomash. What is your name?”
“Peri, Holy One,” he said in a voice choked with fear. “Sent from Stragglewood with all urgency. The guards let me through when I explained—”
“Look at me.”
Feet shifted on gravel. A man coughed uneasily. The lad sobbed once, then was silent.
Night spoke. “We must march to Stragglewood at once. Captain Tomash, make ready your company. The impostor wearing the cloak of Death has walked into their town and demanded to preside over their assizes. Can the news I received at dawn be a coincidence?”
“What news is that, Holy One?”
“Ah. I had not yet told you that I may send you and an entire cohort to High Haldia?”
“High Haldia is a cursed long way, Holy One.”
“So it is, but I need someone sensible and competent to lead an extended hunt. At dawn, Lord Bevard informed me he has seen and spoken to two cloaks in Heaven’s Reach. One of them is Sky! Long thought lost, and yet now in company with the renegade outlander demon who has stolen the cloak of Mist. Crags is perhaps months’ journey on earth, and they’ll already be running, yet does it not seem to you, Captain, that suddenly the whole lies within our grasp? Lord Radas also communicated with me at dawn. The traitors in Nessumara will be dealt with as soon as agents infiltrate the city. Meanwhile, his cohorts are bringing lower Haldia and Istria under our complete control as we take direct action against the reeves. Steward Kallonin, when will the other cohorts requested by Lord Radas be ready to march south?”
“The Thirteenth Cohort has already marched, lady. On the usual route.”
“Send a messenger after them. Have them march instead through the Haya Gap. They can take what supplies they need as they march.”
“Yes, lady. The Fourteenth is in the field enduring their final initiation run. They will be ready to depart in one month. The Fifteenth will follow perhaps three months from now.”
“So long?”
“We learned with the disastrous expedition to Olo’osson that poorly trained troops are no better than untrained rabble. After the Fifteenth marches out, we must wait to see who among the new recruits survives the first phase. It would be useful if we could recruit from among those in Haldia and Istria who may be persuaded to join us. We continue to hear reports of a foreign captain training a significant militia in Olo’osson.”
“He is being dealt with. Are there any other reports I need hear before I depart for Stragglewood?”
“More depredations in the orchards, lady. We’ve flogged and caged suspects—”
“None I interrogated knew anything of the matter.”
“So it seems. No one knows who is stealing fruit, and in truth, lady, it seems a paltry crime.”
“Such small crimes, let go, turn into large ones. Find the culprits and cleanse them on Wedrewe’s posts. Anything else?”
The steward cleared his throat uncomfortably. “We’ve received an unsubstantiated report from the port of Lower Amatya that a reeve and eagle have been sighted over the Elia Sea. What is your command?”
“This is unwonted news,” she said in the tone of a woman who is not pleased to hear unwonted news, and the poor messenger—who had nothing to do with this distressing news—sobbed as if he’d been struck. “There should be no more reeves in the far north. I must consider before I take action on the other fronts, but in this case, detach a cadre—no, a full company—of experienced men to investigate. Sail all the way to the Eagle’s Claws, if necessary.”
“That is a month’s hard journey or more, lady. Dangerous, and on treacherous seas. As I know from having taken the journey before.”
“You promised me there were no survivors. Go back and finish what you’ve left undone, Kallonin. Leave at once.”
“It is understood, lady,” he said in a flat tone that could not disguise his horror at the assignment.
Captain Tomash laughed. “Suddenly High Haldia and Heaven’s Reach don’t seem so cursed far away, eh, Kal?”
“Bastard,” muttered the steward, but he, too, laughed, in the way of friendly rivals jesting with each other. “Lady, I’ll leave at once and travel night and day to Dast Elia, where I’ll hire a ship. It’s my mistake. I’ll rectify i
t. Have you other orders?”
“None, for now.”
“When can Steward Hefar expect your return, lady? It’s four days’ journey each way over the Liya Pass to Stragglewood, I believe—”
“He can expect me when I arrive. Captain Tomash, I’ll meet up with your company at dusk. Expect to march all night.”
The sigh and flutter of wings fell heavily as Night departed.
“The hells,” said the steward. “We’re in for it, eh? Eagle’s Claws! Heaven’s Reach!”
“Shut your complaining,” said the captain with another laugh. “We’ve got the soldiers and the coin, never forget that.”
“I never do. Heya! Men! Get moving!”
The guards dispersed with heavy steps. Quiet settled. An insect buzzed.
A hand scratched at the wall, and the outlander whispered. “You’re that cursed cloak, aren’t you? If you’ve come to preside over the assizes, you’re too cursed late.”
“Why weren’t you taken out to be judged?”
“I’m a hostage.”
“An outlander hostage! For whose good behavior?”
“My brother’s,” he said bitterly.
She cracked the door and peered through. The courtyard was empty but for six corpses. Five sprawled on the gravel, seemingly untouched; they’d been killed by Night’s staff. The sixth, collapsed atop the rock, was splashed by blood. Could a Guardian execute a man with her Guardian’s staff on a whim, just because she wanted to, or only if that man was actually guilty of the crime he was accused of? Had the cloak of Night spared these five from the agony of the cleansing to be merciful? Or had the others been sent to be cleansed because they were not guilty of a crime she could execute them for?
The double gate was pushed open by a man dressed in humble laborer’s garb. A cart creaked in, pulled by a second man walking between the shafts. Both men had the debt mark tattooed by their left eye: slaves, not hirelings. They slung the bodies into the cart like so much firewood.
“She was merciful, eh? Six spared from the cleansing. You have to rake, Erdi?”
“Neh, I’m not assigned that duty today, nor washing off the rock. I’m hells glad about that, eh, for that one sure bled. Look, we’ve got blood all over. I don’t want it drying on my kilt. It’s the only clothes I got.”
“Let’s take a wash now. Corpses’ll wait, eh?”
They grabbed up buckets from the end of the porch and trotted out the gates. Marit was out the door as soon as they were gone. The cell doors weren’t locked, only barred. She shifted the heavy bar and shoved the door open. He emerged at once, holding a vest and a blanket in one hand. He pulled the door shut, set the bar in place, glanced at the winged horse nosing out of the storeroom, then turned to confront Marit.
“The hells!” she said, retreating a step in shock. “You look a cursed lot like an outlander named Hari. Could he be your brother?”
His body was lean and strong and, since he wore only a kilt, there was a lot of body to admire. But it was his stare—so intense she might have thought him half crazed—that disturbed her most, until she realized he was gods-touched. Veiled to her sight.
“Death’s cloak,” he said. “You’re the one called Marit, aren’t you? It’s because of you the others don’t trust Hari. What did he do? Seduce you?”
She grinned. “Neh, nothing like that. I seduced him.” He almost grinned, but his was a serious face to go with that gods-rotted powerful body. “Aui! Listen. There’s no Sorrowing Tower in this town, which means they must take the dead beyond the walls. Hide under those corpses. The slaves will haul you out the gates. It’s the best I can do.”
He reached for her arm, but before touching her he fisted his hand and tapped his chest. He wore two rings, with matching sigils. “If you gave Hari even a moment’s breath of happiness, then I thank you for it. Beware of Night. She’ll kill you, if she catches you. How she’ll do it I don’t know, but she has a way.”
Hari’s brother! Who knew where his loyalties lay?
“My thanks for the warning,” she said. “Now, go.”
Except for the blood, it wasn’t so bad getting him hidden in the wagon. Wings unfurled, Warning waited. Marit grimaced at the blood on her hands. It had gotten over everything. Aui! Never mind it. She dashed back into the storeroom and grabbed three knives and two batons. One baton and two knives she shoved under, into his hands. The other knife and baton she kept, to remind her that a reeve and eagle had been sighted over the Elia Sea.
The cloak wanted her steward to go all the way to the Eagle’s Claws to find and kill that reeve. So be it. Marit would get there first.
SHE MOVED OUT cautiously, flying low, but saw no sign of the other Guardian. The lovers were, amazingly, still at it: such stamina! Neh, it was a different man at work on the same woman. Anyhow, both were oblivious of what had transpired so close beside them. Eihi!
Wedrewe’s people worked on, all oblivious, or perhaps all too aware of how quickly death could strike.
In an outer courtyard, the chain of prisoners was being shoved into tiny cages on wagons and locked in. Knowing herself a fool, she circled low until she saw the wagon with its corpses clear the perimeter fence and head into the woods. After that, she flew to the Vessi Road and followed it downstream until she spotted the prison wagons. Herelia was well-settled country but nevertheless there were stretches of road with no habitation in sight. She bided her time for several mey. In the late afternoon she clattered to earth on an isolated stretch of road with broken woodland and meadows on one side and denser growth blocking her view of the river. The prison wagons rolled into sight, and their sergeant called his men to a halt as she rode toward him and caught his surprised gaze with her own.
He is a killer. He has killed men.
“What is your name?” she asked. His cadre hid their faces behind open hands.
“Bolen,” he said, the word squeezed from him by the strength of her gaze.
He spoke truth, which brightens you. His name, given to him by his mother, linked him to the Four Mothers, and deep within his essence which is body and spirit together, she saw, felt, heard, tasted, the thread that binds spirit and body into one creature. Easy enough, for her, to sever them, now that she saw their misty substance. She drew her sword. The soldiers cowered. The prisoners moaned. It was so easy, after all! She could cut away his life, send his spirit through the Spirit Gate. He was a killer. He had killed. She did not even have to touch him with her sword, only cut the threads that spun his shame and his wrongdoing into the pure air.
He hid his face.
“Release the prisoners,” she said.
“Better you execute me with a clean death, lady,” he said hoarsely, “than I face punishment by cleansing for disobeying my orders.”
“Then it would be better for you not to serve unjust masters. These prisoners who face cleansing are assuredly not guilty or else they, too, would have been granted the mercy of a clean death at the hands of a Guardian.”
“They serve as examples because of their stubbornness, lady.”
“Release them.”
He stammered out the order, and his cadre fell over themselves to pull the pins on the cages.
The prisoners hesitated. Then one man pushed free of his confines, scrambling off the wagon, and tugged out two comrades. These three dragged out the others, all but one older man who refused to bolt.
“Run,” she said.
They ran, some into the brush toward the river and others into the woodland.
“You’ve done them and their clans no favors,” whispered the sergeant, “nor me and my cadre, neither. Those who follow orders don’t get hurt.”
She was a fool, showing herself like this. Even if the prisoners survived, how were they to make their way through a Herelia that was in a way a vast prison? How was Hari’s brother to do so? But she could not live with herself if she did nothing, even if what little she did was not enough.
• • •
SLAVES DRIV
ING A wagonload of corpses weren’t deemed suspicious in Wedrewe. At each gate, after an exchange of words, they rolled on. Shai breathed through the blanket that pressed over his mouth and nose. He kept his eyes shut and listened. Eventually, the roadbed changed from rumbling pavement to squeaky dirt, and despite the stiffening weight of the bodies, Shai felt the softening presence of trees. As the slaves chattered away about a tournament of hooks-and-ropes played last month and still in dispute, Shai wriggled backward out from under the dead ones and rolled off the back of the wagon onto a woodland path. The wagon trundled on. They didn’t even look back as he scrambled into the nearest brush and lay still, leaves flashing above him. The noise of the wagon’s passage faded.
Hu! That had been the easy part.
He pulled on the vest, cut off a strip of the wool blanket to belt his knives and the reeve baton, and tied the blanket like a cloak at his shoulders. Then he considered the sun. When he’d been marched from Toskala’s hinterlands to Wedrewe, a journey of nineteen days, he’d kept track of their general direction. Ignoring the drying stains and unpleasant smells on his skin and clothing, he began walking southwest, roughly parallel to the track. Twice he crossed streams, drinking before moving on, and he found late season berries he’d seen mixed in with his porridge in the prison, easy to gather and tie up in a corner of his blanket. Were those triangular green leaves edible? Yes, he’d seen the children eating them.
At dusk he reached the end of the woodland and stood looking over tidy farmland where lanterns bobbed as folk hurried home. He sank to a crouch. As he scooped mashed berries, he considered the fields and the likelihood of barking dogs. Could he cross safely at night? Steal food, or even just a leather bottle to carry water?
A cough.
Before he even realized he’d been careless, they dropped down on either side of him with teeth bared in something that might have been meant to resemble a welcoming grin or a fierce menacing scowl. He grabbed a knife, and the female knocked him flat so fast, pinning him, that he began to laugh because he was exhausted and hungry and his feet were scraped and bleeding and he stank of corpse and he was stuck out in the middle of enemy territory with scant chance of reaching anyone he might call an ally.