Not every memory of the Scar had been bad, though. A name and face flared in his mind: Alemdra. But the memory of her bright face quickly changed. Old grief became new at the thought of a ridge where they’d run to watch the sunrise, and watched a friend end her days. Devin. Some wounds, he realized, simply couldn’t be healed. No atonement was complete enough.
The Velle yanked at the fetters, gathering the small ones close on each side. The children did not yelp or complain, though grimaces of pain rose in some few faces. Mostly, they fought to keep their balance and avoid going down hard on the rocky plain.
Then the Velle reached down and wrapped their fingers around the wrists of the young ones.
The Far king’s legion hadn’t emerged from the city wall. The siege on Naltus hadn’t yet begun. But Tahn knew the stroke these Velle were preparing, fueled by the lives of these six children, would be catastrophic. Naltus might be destroyed before a single sword was raised.
Beside him, the Far captain cursed again and crept down to the dolmen to consult with his fellows. What do I do? His grip tightened on his bow. The tales of lone heroes standing against armies were author fancies. Fun to read, but wrong. All wrong. He could get off a few shots at the renderers before any of the Bar’dyn could react. But that wouldn’t be enough to stop them, or save the children.
Each Velle raised a hand toward Naltus. Tahn had to do something. Now.
Without thinking further, he climbed onto the shale plain and stood, setting his feet. He pulled his bow up in a smooth, swift motion as he drew an arrow.
Softly he began, “I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will—”
He stopped, not finishing the words he’d spoken all his life when drawing his bow, words taught him by his father, to seek the rightness of his draw. The rightness of a kill. His father and Vendanj had meant for him to remain blameless of wrongfully killing anything, or anyone, because they’d thought one day they might need him to go to Tillinghast, where his chances of surviving were better if he went untainted by a wrong or selfish draw.
For as long as could remember, he’d uttered the phrase and been able to sense the quiet confirmation that what he aimed at should die. Or if he felt otherwise, he shifted his aim. Usually it was only an elk to stock a meat cellar. But not always. In his mind he saw the Bar’dyn that had stood over his sister Wendra, holding the child she’d just given birth to. He saw himself drawing his bow at it, feeling his words tell him not to shoot the creature. He’d followed that intimation, and it had cankered his relationship with her ever since.
He was done with the old words. The Velle should die. He wanted to kill them. But he also knew he’d never take them all down. He’d never be able to stop their rendering of the little ones.
More images. Faces he’d forgotten. Faces of older children—thirteen, fourteen—reposed in stillness. Forever still. Still by their own hands. The despair of the Scar had taken all their hope.… Like Devin, and his failure to save her.
And what of the young ones in these Velle’s hands? The ravages of their childhood? Long nights spent hoping their parents would come and rescue them. The bone-deep despair reserved for those who learn to stop hoping. He also sensed the ends that awaited each of them. The blinding pain that would tear their spirit from their flesh and remake it into a weapon of destruction.
Sufferings from his past.
This moment of suffering.
A terrible weight of sorrow and discouragement.
Then a voice in his mind whispered the unthinkable. An awful thing. An irredeemable thing. He fought it. Silently cried out against it. But the dark logic would not relent. And the Velle were nearly ready.
He took a deep breath, adjusted his aim only slightly. And let fly his awful mercy.
The arrow sailed against the shadows of morning and the charcoal hues of this valley of shale. And the first child dropped to the ground.
Through hot, silent tears, Tahn drew fast again, and again. It took the Quiet a few moments to understand what was happening. And when they finally saw Tahn standing beside the dolmen in the grey light of predawn, they appeared momentarily confused. Bar’dyn jumped in front of the Velle like shields. They still don’t understand.
Like scarecrows—light and yielding—each child fell. Tahn did not miss. Not once.
When it was done, he let out a great, loud cry, the scream ascending the morning air—the only vocal sound on the plain.
Bar’dyn began rushing toward him. Tahn dropped to his knees, unhanded his bow, and waited for them. He watched them come closer as he thought about the wretched thing he’d just done.
It didn’t matter that he knew he’d offered the children a greater mercy. Nor that he had decided this for himself. In those moments, it didn’t even matter if what he’d done had saved Naltus.
These small ones, surprise on their faces—Or was it hope when they saw me? They thought I was going to save them—before his arrows struck home.
The shale trembled with the advance of the Bar’dyn rushing toward him with their calm, reasoning expressions. Tahn found himself already wondering what he’d do if he could go back and undo it. The bitterness overwhelmed him, and he suddenly yearned for the relief the Bar’dyn would offer him in a swift death. Then strong hands were dragging him backward by the feet, another set of hands retrieving his bow. Down into the depression, into the safety of the dolmen Tahn was cast. He flipped over and watched the Far captain and his squad defend the entrance to the barrow as Bar’dyn rushed in on them.
Jarron fell almost immediately, leaving Daen and Aelos fighting back three Quiet.
Tahn couldn’t stop trembling. It had nothing to do with the battle about to darken the Soliel with blood. It was about the way the Quiet would wage their war. About what men would have to do to fight back. Choices like he’d just made.
Abruptly, the Bar’dyn stepped aside. The two Far shared a confused look, their swords still held defensively before them. Then one of the Velle came slowly into view. It stopped and peered past the Far, into the dolmen.
“You are too consumed by your own fear, Quillescent. Rough and untested, despite surviving Tillinghast.” Its words floated on the air like a soft, baneful prayer. “Have you learned what you are? What you should do?”
Its mouth pressed into a grim line.
Tahn shook his head in defiance and confusion. Whatever Tillinghast had proven to Vendanj about Tahn being able to stand against the Quiet, the thought of his own future seemed an affliction. He’d rather not know.
“You are a puppet, Quillescent. Or were. But you’ve cut your strings, haven’t you? Killing those children. And for us, you—”
A stream of black bile shot from the creature’s mouth, coating its ravaged lips and running down its chin. A blade ripped through its belly. As it fell, it raised a thin hand toward him, and a burst of energy threw Tahn back against one of the tall dolmen stones. Blood burst from his nose and mouth. Shards of pain shot behind his eyes. In his back, the bruising of muscle and bone was deep and immediate.
He dropped to the ground, darkness swimming in his eyes. But he saw Daen and Aelos and the Bar’dyn all look fast to the left, toward the whispering sound of countless feet racing across the shale to meet the Quiet army—the Far legion come to war.
Read on for an exclusive bonus story set in the world of The Vault of Heaven,
STORIES AND MUSIC
Kett Valan waded knee-deep in the muddy water of the dredge farm. He bent over a row of mud-onion, methodically rooting up the ripe ones and dropping them in his canvas satchel. All across the broad and shallow waters of the farm, other Inveterae did the same. Beneath a cloudy sky, only the sound of hands and feet slowly stirring the water … until a gasp and splash far to Kett’s right.
He turned to see his mother fallen near the bank. She clutched at the lower side of her belly. The baby.
To Kett’s left, rushing steps churned through the mud. His father. But the Quiet overseer of the far
m was already there—a Bar’dyn named Rall. The lash of his whip rained down on Kett’s mother, goading her back to work. She turned away from the beating, taking the brunt of it across her back. She fought to give an explanation, but it came out incompressible, choked by the pain.
“Stop!” Kett’s father cried, falling in his haste. “She’s with child.”
The overseer didn’t seem to hear him, and laid on with his whip again. More earnest now.
Kett was closer, and mad, besides. He raced toward his mother, his hands waving wildly. “Stop it! Stop!”
All the Inveterae stood up from their onion stoop and watched. They’d seen this scene before. Kett’s family was Gotun. Of the Inveterae races, the Gotun were among the largest. Broad shoulders, broad waists, broad faces. Two and a half strides tall, and heavily muscled. They were a thick-bellied people. Impossible to know when a female was pregnant. But whippings weren’t reserved for Kett’s kind alone—the overseer was liberal with his encouragements.
Kett dodged those who stood and gawked, as he pushed through rows of onion root.
Rall’s arm rose again, as Kett splashed closer. “She’s got a baby inside,” he cried out. “Hit her again and I’ll kill you!”
Rall paused, his whip poised. He looked down at Kett for the boy he was. Fourteen. Not even full in his chest or loins yet. The Bar’dyn smiled at the impertinence, the look of it twisting with a bit of impatience.
“Another water hound, is it?” The overseer looked back at Kett’s mother and thrashed her once more for good measure. “Get it out and get back to work.” He then ambled in the other direction, coiling his whip, as if beating Kett’s mother had been as normally inconvenient as taking a piss.
Kett’s father, Elam, raced past him and dropped beside his wife. Her back bled freely, the muddy bank coated red.
“Sala, I’m so sorry,” Elam apologized. “I should have taken the bank today.” Bank rows held a higher risk of whippings. Easy to do without Rall having to get wet and muddy.
She shook her head. “My choice. Closer to home if I needed to get there.” She clutched again at her lower stomach.
“Let’s go,” Elam said, making as if to pick her up.
Again she shook her head. “No time. The baby’s coming.”
“Here?” Elam’s surprise seemed hollow. Maybe defeated.
Kett crept up beside his mother, whose eyes shifted to him with regret, as though sorry he’d had to see it. “It’ll be all right,” she tried to reassure him. “Hold my hand.”
He took her hand as his father helped her prepare. The other Inveterae returned to their onion rows before they received a whipping of their own.
Elam removed his shirt and made a makeshift bandage for Sala’s wounds. It was a poor thing, and did more to keep the mud out of her opened back than blood inside her body.
For three hours she worked at getting the baby out. Kett watched her bite back her pain, as she tried not to alarm him or invite any more of the overseer’s attention. It was the most heroic thing he’d ever seen.
And as the hours passed, she grew weak. Really weak. Worry rose in his father’s face. If she lost strength to birth the child, it would die inside her. Or his father would have to cut the child free.
That’s when Kett stopped hearing the music. That’s what the older ones called it. He’d felt it coming for some time. A slow ebb. Like when irrigation slowly tapered in the autumn, eventually leaving the dredge farm dry and cracked.
Harvesting mud-onion and other root crops had been until now more like play, or sport. Sploshing through the water, digging in mud. Even the beatings he’d witnessed over the years hadn’t left permanent impressions on him.
Young ears hear the music.
The kind that suggests one’s choices are his own.
But eventually, he’d learned, all Inveterae stop hearing the music. They awaken to who and where they are. Trapped inside the Bourne. Slaves to the Quietgiven. Harvesting crops to feed them. Shepherding camps of prisoners. Sometimes forced to fight, sent as the first line of attack. Expendable.
His mother squeezed his hand. “I love you, Kett. You’re mindful of others and kindhearted. Those are good things. Don’t let anything or anyone take them from you.” And then, as if knowing his mind, added, “Don’t stop listening for the music.”
She smiled at him, then looked at his father and nodded. Elam leaned down and kissed her forehead, lingering a long time before drawing back. It had a good-bye feeling.
Then she tensed, and seemed to bear down with everything she had left to give. A few long moments later, Elam received the child. A little girl. He brought her around for Sala to see. A look of rare satisfaction spread on her face. They huddled together on the bank of the dredge farm. And sometime later, his mother closed her eyes. For good.
The ache that bloomed inside Kett threatened to stop his heart. Beneath it, far away, was anger. He sensed there’d be time for that later. He put his face against his mother’s side. And wept. He wanted her back. He wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to hear the music.
But it remained quiet on their dredge bank. Quiet in his heart.
* * *
The night sky shone bright with stars against a deep black. No moon. Clear skies were uncommon in the Bourne. At least what Kett knew of it. He took it as a good omen for the request they were on their way to make. He followed his father, their boots grinding the dirt loudly in the stillness.
Rall’s house rose before them, yellow light seeping out around a few shuttered windows. Elam didn’t hesitate. He knocked, not hard but not soft.
Heavy steps came, and their overseer opened the door. The Bar’dyn’s face, usually unexpressive, held a hint of surprise. Inveterae didn’t come here. Certainly didn’t knock at his door. Then, Rall looked down at the child in Elam’s arms.
“Your woman died.” It was said matter-of-factly. “You want to avenge her.”
Elam shook his head. “I want a new obligation. Move me and my family to a camp to watch over prisoners.”
“You don’t want to avenge your mate?” Rall asked, sounding eager for an excuse to test himself.
“Without milk, I only have a day or two before the child dies,” Elam replied, and waited.
Rall heaved a long breath. “Have one of the other dredge-hands suckle it. Many have young.”
“I’ve asked,” Kett’s father explained. “They would help. But their teats scarcely produce enough for their own.”
“Hmmmphf. I tire of Inveterae weakness.” The Bar’dyn looked down again at the child in Elam’s arms, his face as indifferent as if he stared upon a rock. “If the child dies, it dies.”
Elam held a long, tense silence. Kett had seen this look in his father’s eyes before. He fought not to take a step back.
“And if Inveterae children keep dying, who will dredge your roots?” Elam finally asked. “I think your farm is harder on its harvesters than most.”
“Sedgel leaders like that I produce twice as much with the same size ponds,” Rall countered. “And besides … who would complain.” It was a clear challenge. The Bar’dyn still wanted his fight.
“Just until the child can take hard food,” Elam pleaded. “Then we’ll return.”
Several long moments passed, Rall unmoved, before Kett’s father added, “… please.”
There was a pain in the plea. A pain of asking the favor of the man who’d killed his wife. A favor to keep a child alive so they could all return to the wet fields and harvest mud-onions for the bastard.
Silent gods, one day … Kett left that thought unfinished.
“A year.” Rall pointed to the northeast. “Take the Ailanthus road. Day’s walk to a camp.” He held up a hand for them to wait. A few moments later he returned with a brand. He motioned for Elam to hold out his arm.
His father shifted the babe to one side and put out his hand. Rall placed the hot brand on Elam’s skin, burning a symbol beside the brand all his workers already bore. The new
mark was a line with a horseshoe shape at each end. A sign for temporary property. The two marks together would make it clear who owned them, and that they were expected to return.
Rall held out his hand to Kett, who didn’t hesitate, and gave the overseer his arm, staring defiantly into his eyes as the Bar’dyn put the hot iron on his skin. It burned like all hells. And the stench of burning flesh made his stomach churn. But Kett didn’t let the pain touch his eyes or face. He showed Rall the same godsforsaken indifference he’d shown when killing Kett’s mother.
Without asking, Rall took the little girl’s arm and burned the same brand there. As the skin sizzled, the child began to scream in pain. The Bar’dyn ignored it, ducked back into his home, and returned with his personal brand, and burned the child again, marking it as he did all his dredge hands.
Rall didn’t bother to give them each a last look before going back into his house and closing the door.
* * *
They walked all night under the same clear skies. Getting away from the mud-onions, Kett thought he could almost hear the music again. Not sound music. More like an inner motion. Or resonance.
As they went, Elam’s gait soothed the babe to sleep eventually. And just before dawn, they crested a hill and looked down on an encampment that stretched far up a river valley. From the hilltop, Kett could see them. Pens. More than he could count. Filled with humans.
He’d seen a human once. Rall had tried to use one as a dredge hand long ago. But the southern race simply didn’t produce fast enough. They hadn’t the strength or stamina of the Inveterae Houses that Rall used in his ponds. The human man had been sent back after a single day’s work.
But here. Dying gods, there must be thousands of them.
They showed their brands at a small stone gatehouse before entering the encampment proper. The Bar’dyn guard gave them each a worn leather coat. A uniform of sorts. He pointed them to a command house, and by evening they had a new obligation, watching a pen of humans on the eastern side of the valley. A pen of female humans, at Elam’s request.
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