by J. F. Lewis
When they embraced, she recognized the scent of him. Solid and real. Hard to believe he was a god. Hard to believe she could decide to visit her father . . . who had died . . . and find him working at a forge as if it were any other day . . . as if they had not just defeated Uled’s plans, defeated his army, defeated the Eldrennai, forged an alliance with the Zaur, Sri’Zaur, and Aiannai, and regained the Lost Command.
“How is the First of One Hundred today?” Kholster asked.
“We’re still finding corpses that don’t seem to know how to stay down.” Rae’en looked around for a place to sit, since her leg pained her and she wanted to conceal her limp. She spotted a rough-hewn wooden stool and perched on it. “I have to send a group over the mountains into the human territories to help wipe them out. We want to repair the damage to the human settlements, restore trampled fields, gather more livestock. The Zaur think there may still be stragglers in their mountain tunnels, too.”
“Sounds like a few long-term projects, then.” He went back to his work, pausing to heat the metal more, to hammer it into the curved shape of a . . .
“Vambrace?” Rae’en asked.
Kholster nodded to an armor stand. Pieces of breast plate forged of an unusual blue-black bone-steel hung all but finished, waiting only for her father to begin any desired pattern work.
“A new warsuit?” Rae’en pursed her lips. “But the Life Forge . . .”
“That has a needle of the Life Forge in it.” Kholster slapped the anvil.
“That works?”
“It does if you’re a god.” Vander’s voice sounded in the air before he appeared, then Rae’en was up and hugging him, rubbing his bald pate with her palm as they both laughed.
“You look much better than you did the last time I saw you.” Rae’en returned to her stool, feeling self-conscious about the grin she could not banish.
“Where’s Bloodmane?” Kholster asked, as if he could not have Vander tell him.
“He’ll be along,” Rae’en said. “I wanted a little time for just us first.”
“I could always go . . .” Vander teased.
“You don’t count.” Rae’en rolled her eyes.
Kholster had done a good job hiding his concern at her limp, but she caught him looking.
“It got partially melted,” Rae’en said. “Dragon fire.”
“I could take a look at it.” Kholster tapped the anvil. “Straighten it back out for you if you don’t want to lop it off and save the bone-steel.”
“Well.” Rae’en eyed the stack of unfamiliar bone-steel. Ingots of it made a tidy pile a few feet away from the anvil. “You look a little busy.”
“Never too busy for the First of One Hundred,” Kholster said.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” Rae’en limped to the anvil, wincing as Kholster cut through her jeans, stripping away the denim, flesh, and muscle with practiced cuts, exposing a few handspans of bone.
“Never too busy for my daughter, then,” Kholster amended.
“You ought to amputate and grow it back.” Vander frowned, leaning in over the wound. “Too twisted, and it looks like the femur needs work as well.”
You can stay in armor until they grow back, Bloodmane thought. I think your right leg has a structural twist as well and—
“Fine,” she spoke and thought together.
*
Later she sat legless, clad in Bloodmane, his helm sitting next to her on a small table Vander had summoned. They ate meat from an animal she did not recognize, and she suspected her father of giving the thing two livers to help speed her regeneration.
“Half a year,” Vander was saying.
“That long?” Kholster folding his arms in front of his chest. “It never took me that long for just a leg.”
“You were First of All of us,” Vander said, smiling. “It is not a fair comparison. You always healed faster than the rest of us, then acted confused that it took us longer.”
“Did I?” Kholster asked in mock dismay.
“Shall I cite a few memorable examples?” Bloodmane asked.
“No. No.” Kholster gestured with a haunch of the meat. “I believe it. I—” His gaze shifted to that inward look he got when a conversation started up inside his mind. Subtle, still aware of the outside world, but Rae’en never missed it, awkwardly aware of any time she felt he was not wholly there.
“Vax—” Kholster looked to her. “—would like to know if it would be an intrusion if he were to join us.”
Rae’en swallowed hard, tried to cover her emotion by covering her mouth, realizing belatedly that it only made her discomfort stand out more.
“You can say ‘no.’”
“No.” Rae’en coughed, clearing her throat. “No, it’s fine. I want to meet him. Really.”
The most beautiful being she had ever beheld stepped into the edge of the forgelight. Strawberry-blond hair fell past his shoulders, shaved close to the scalp on the right side of his face. His eyes, a blue as startling for their shade as for their unique nature, found Rae’en’s and met them with mirth and welcome. He smiled, revealing the doubled canines she expected, but blunter than most, less pronounced. His ears were in the right spot, high up, like a wolf’s, but they too were less pointed and a little shorter than normal. He wore a pair of dark-gray denim jeans with bone metal buttons and leather lacing up the sides and no shoes, his bare feet silent on the ground.
“Hello, Rae’en, First of One Hundred.” Vax’s voice was soft, but it cut the air in way that needed no increase in volume, as if the world around him muted itself so as not to be heard over him. “I am Vax by Kholster out of Wylant, Deity of Conflict.”
“And you are my brother . . .” Not sure of what to do, Rae’en hugged him, and knew instantly that had been the correct course of action.
They chatted for hours, Rae’en not realizing how long until the first of the suns was coming up and Vax was telling her about killing Dienox and his approach to his deific role. Wylant had come in at some point, and the sight of her next to Kholster turned Rae’en’s stomach, bringing thoughts of Helg to mind, stirring up dreams of might-have-beens, were her mother still alive and still Kholster’s wife.
Kholster and Wylant discreetly vanished during part of Vax’s tale, returning later looking a bit happier than they had before. Her father turned his attention back to the forging of his armor, and Wylant set about grilling herself a healthy portion of the remaining meat.
Being the only mortal among them, Rae’en slept after a bit, letting the sound of the waves, and the chatter of the gods—Vander, Kholster, Wylant, and Vax—lull her as much as the ringing of Kholster’s hammer on the bone-steel.
*
Tyree and Cadence are leaving, Kazan thought to Rae’en. She woke with a start, expecting everyone to be off godding or whatever the appropriate verb (deificating, maybe?) was for doing whatever it was the gods did. And they were all gone except for Kholster and, of course, Bloodmane.
Where are they going? Rae’en asked Kazan.
Back to the Guild Cities to look for her son.
Did you offer them an escort or . . . ?
We offered to let them ride with the contingent Tsan wants to send to Castleguard, to make sure they understand the new arrangements with regard to traffic to and from Scarsguard and our allies, but they opted to go it alone.
Tell them I wish them luck.
I will. Kazan hesitated.
Yarp it up, whatever it is, Rae’en prodded.
Captain Tyree has requested that “Sugar Bosom” be given his regrets. He says he must delay their marriage until Cadence is reunited with her son . . .
He probably thought he was being irascible, Rae’en thought.
I suppose, Kazan thought, but I have no idea who Sugar Bosom is—
Rae’en laughed long and hard at that one, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Without being called, Bloodmane walked over to engulf her. Vander and Kholster had both been knowledgeable about exactly how much st
ump one required to feel comfortable in a warsuit, and both were proven correct when she was inside Bloodmane and walking about as if she still had two whole legs.
Her father stood exactly where she had left him. Hammer on the ground now, Kholster moved to sit on the edge of a stool and began fiddling with the small work of fitting a gauntlet together. On the armor stand, a near-complete suit of plate armor hung, and the pile of ingots that lay next to the anvil was noticeably smaller.
“That’s not normal bone-steel.” Rae’en studied it, ran her fingers along its smooth surface.
“No,” Kholster agreed. “I buried the remaining meat over that way to keep it cold enough, in case you wanted any. Regenerating legs . . . and all.”
“Not yet,” she said. “What kind of material is it?”
“Bone-steel.” Kholster set the finished gauntlet down on the anvil, standing back to study it from a distance. “From Uled’s first draft of an Aern. He inhabited it after Caz slew his animated corpse, Wylant and Vax prevented him from possessing Sargus, and Rivvek destroyed the Root Trees Uled had infected.
“Uled fled here and sought to use the body to wrest leadership of the Aern from you. He failed.”
“What is Torgrimm going to do with him?” Rae’en eyed the gauntlet as if it might bite her. “One of the Horned Queen’s hells?”
“I’ve asked him to let the Aern handle this,” Kholster said. “Unless you object.”
“Me?” Rae’en started to laugh, assuming it was a joke. He could do whatever he wanted, he was . . . but he wasn’t First of One Hundred anymore. She was.
“You are First of One Hundred,” Kholster said, “ruler of the Scarsguardian Empire. Sooner or later, we all have to move in a world our parents shaped and make our own decisions, leave our own impressions. I would like to give a gift to the Last World, remove a single threat. My will is that Uled be added to the souls of all Aern, one voice drowned out by millions, trapped in connection to a people who work no magic, but only if you agree.”
“If I don’t?”
“When Worldshaker is completed, I will hand the armor over to Minapsis, the Horned Queen, and ask that she place him in the deepest of her hells where he can never escape.”
“If I do . . .” Rae’en eyed the armor stand, the plate armor upon it taking on a more-sinister gleam colored with the knowledge of who was trapped inside. “How would it work?”
“When I finish Worldshaker, I would bond with him in the way any Armored does. A piece of me would reside within, forcing Uled’s spirit out of the bone-steel and into the clutches of Harvester, who is prepared to do as I have suggested.”
“Worldshaker?”
“I have named my warsuit in honor of my father.” Kholster picked up the gauntlet, carrying it over to the armor stand. “Uled was many things, committed great evils, but without him, there would be no Sri’Zaur, no Aern, and no Vael. He was evil, mad, and terrible, but he created me. After a fashion, any good we have done, therefore bears his mark as well.”
Thoughts? Rae’en asked.
His soul versus the souls of every Aern who ever died and every Aern who lives? Amber asked. We can take him, kholster. No question.
Bloodmane? Rae’en asked. You’ve been quiet.
It is a mercy Uled does not deserve, the warsuit thought, but mercy is always a gift that bestows more upon the giver than the receiver.
We may have to start calling you a peacesuit, Rae’en teased.
I would give him to the Bone Queen, Glayne thought.
Me, too, M’jynn thought, the other Overwatches except for Kazan and Joose joining in.
Whatever you want to do, though, Joose thought. You’re the First.
Just so long as there are no more armies of the dead, Kazan thought.
“Bloodmane votes for mercy,” Rae’en told her father, “and since he hardly ever asks for anything . . .”
CHAPTER 42
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER: THE SCARSGUARDIAN EMPIRE
Nothing grew where Hashan and Warrune had once stood. A wild chitterer sniffed tentatively at the edge of desolation, fuzzy ears flat, wet nose snuffling, before it darted away to less-objectionable climes. Queen Yavi despised the empty, arid atmosphere of the char-scented place. She had ordered it burned in hopes the cycle of most forests could be restarted, but the ash had stayed ash with no wind to blow it away or rain to soak it in.
Rain did not fall on their graves.
Even a side-shoot donated by her brother, Kholburran, had withered and died when planted there, leaving him unable to attempt to repair the damage from afar. When asked, Arri explained that, as best she could tell—because though Kholburran was the most communicative of the Root Trees, his complete attention was hard to get or retain—he had lost touch with it when it entered the “deadened spot.”
Standing in the center of the cracked and barren earth, soot and ash clinging to the ground rather than her feet, Yavi understood what Kholburran meant. Rivvek had killed a piece of the land, irrecoverably, to stop the seed Uled had planted in Warrune. Her head petals itched, drying rapidly in this zone that drained all life within it.
Dolvek, little more than a cloak with the rough impression of a face here, scowled and paced, bumping against her incessantly in attempts to nudge her toward the blossoming forest that lay without the ring of death.
I love you. His thoughts were tinged with urgent anxiety.
“Hush now,” Yavi told him. “I won’t be long.”
Root Guard rimmed the border, their anxiousness as palpable as her husband’s. No one wanted her to be here. They wanted to forget what had happened and let it be a name in the Litany. She touched the soil where she had found the foci that had fallen from Rivvek’s back. She’d found them when recovering her mother’s remains, what there had been of them.
Most of the foci had since been sent to Scarsguard’s Capitol, Fort Sunder, except for a trio of them, two of which pierced the bark of her own back and a third the wood of her new Heartbow, made from Kholburran’s living wood. Even now, she understood why Rivvek had done so, but she still wished there had been some other way to victory over Uled. Seeing all of the elemental dimensions exhilarated her but depressed her as well, when she saw the way elven elemancers shaped and controlled the spiritual inhabitants without any concept of the harm they often did.
She sometimes wondered why Dolvek, through Rivvek’s abandoned foci, had seen fit to gift her with earth, wind, and water, but not fire. Maybe he knew it was not for the Vael. Too tempestuous to be wielded by beings made of wood.
“Queen Yavi.” Droggan, the living image of Drokkust and the first of the male-type persons she’d allowed to join the Root Guard, spotted the artist she had summoned first. Irka arrived by air, escorted by a pair of attractive female Cavair, two dangerous-looking manitou, and an elven Aeromancer with one of the old-style elemental foci that had engulfed her right arm in a layer of metal painted like a mural.
After seven years of waiting, Yavi had given in to suggestions and commissioned a memorial. There had been, of course, only one candidate, since no living work of Vael could survive there.
Irka landed barefoot, leaning back to kiss both Cavair on their bat-like muzzles, his long, red hair falling to cover one side of his face, highlighting the multicolored patterns he’d inked onto the other. He wore loose-fitting tan trousers (which billowed when he moved) and nothing else, though his hair was bedecked with beads of many metals, but predominantly bone-steel.
“Queen Yavi,” he boomed, moving to touch the back of her hands with his own. At the contact, a spark arced between the two of them, and she saw the child they could have made, the same Incarna she had envisioned when Kholster had kissed her years before.
“Irka,” Yavi said, “by Kholster out of—”
“Just Irka,” he interrupted. “And, regarding that spark, I have no real interest in having children. With the staggered waking of the unawakened Aern Kholster carried into exile after the Sundering, there are an ast
onishing number of Ones through Thirteens running about between South Number Nine and Scarsguard already without any contributions on my part.”
“I was not going to suggest—” Yavi flushed.
“Don’t worry about it.” Irka touched the ground, bent down to touch his cheek to it. “Or my apologies; whichever would be appropriate. I am forward and presumptuous. There is simply no accounting for me.”
She quirked a smile at him. Seeing a person with Kholster’s body, so different, and yet as he studied the terrain, taking it all in, the set of his jaw, the concentration so exactly like Kholster’s, cheered her in a way she had not thought possible.
“Wait beyond the perimeter, would you?” Irka asked. “This may take several candlemarks.”
He walked every foot, taking in the angles and the light. As he moved, his companions broke camp, setting up easels and tents. One of the Cavair took a large bag of finely powdered bone-steel, spreading it first around the perimeter of the area, then working her way inward until she had emptied three more similar-sized bags.
Area examined, Irka spread his arms and retraced his steps, the layer of bone-steel dust following him like myriad minute soldiers, an army of sand, until the whole of the dead area bore an even coating.
“Now,” he said with a tone of weary satisfaction, “I know what I have to work with. This place is problematic, you know?”
“We know things won’t grow here.” Yavi stepped back into the dead area and hesitated, staying put rather than disturb the bone-steel.
“Oh.” Irka did another circuit of the area. This time, the bone-steel powder collected behind him, first as an amorphous mass, then a square, a ball, and finally, as roughly half of it had been gathered, it split into two balls, then three and, as he gathered the last of it, four.
He directed three of the balls into bags awaiting them at his camp, then the fourth rolled after him to Yavi.
“How do you do that?” Yavi asked.
“I’m sorry.” Irka sat cross-legged in the grass, the ball of powdered bone-steel swinging around directly before him. “Did you say you wanted to take a look at some ideas I had about what to build here?”