The Woven Ring (Sol's Harvest Book 1)

by Presley, M. D.

  The glassman stopped just out of range though. Ignoring Marta, something approaching awe spread across her face as she beheld Caddie. “What treasure is this?” Her eyes turned to Marta’s, no hint of humanity there. “You can live so long as you tell me what she is.”

  The glassman was still too far to reach, too fast for Marta to lunge for. She needed to draw her closer, and so Marta feigned fear again.

  “Don’t hurt my daughter!”

  Even with the clarity her rage afforded her, Marta did not know why she chose those words, but they had the desired effect as the glassman strode forward to claim her victim. Marta’s Breath instantly appeared into her hand, her phantom blade thrusting into her attacker. Her aim proved true, Marta’s blade burying itself into the glassman’s gut until her fist slapped to a stop as it impacted on the monster’s stomach.

  To Marta’s dismay the glassman was not felled as she leapt back again. She was wounded, but not mortally, and now the glassman knew all their tricks. The only chance now was to overwhelm her entirely and put an end to her evil.

  Luca and Isabelle rejoined the fray, fanning out to encircle the woman. Marta joined their number this time, her blade in her right hand and gauntlet covering her left. So long as they held formation and struck together, Marta believed they would be victorious.

  But then Isabelle launched herself at the glassman with an inarticulate cry more terrifying than her hatchet before Marta was ready. The woman turned to meet the assault, Luca slipping in even as she dodged Isabelle’s swings. Her attention now on his flashing lockblade, the glassman did not see the hatchet descend as it buried itself in her back. Lashing out, she sent Isabelle sprawling, wrenching the weapon free and letting it fall even as Luca attacked again.

  The glassman never saw Marta coming, the gauntlet slamming into the back of her head with the force that could kill a cow.

  The glassman collapsed on the ground to roll onto her back. Her hands flailing through the air, her eyes were awry and unfocused. She had been blinded by the blow, and ready to finish the job, Marta raised her blade.

  “It’s a trick! She’s trying to lure you in!”

  At Luca’s words the glassman dropped the act, looking up to see the circling Luca and Marta, Isabelle hurrying to rejoin their rank with her crude knife. She could still surely kill these three, but the tide of battle had turned; the initiative now theirs. Bernice Mauch was many things, a murderer and monster among them, but she was no fool. So she ran.

  Not a one of her enemies were ready for her retreat, the glassman reaching the woods before Isabelle could even set one of the steel balls into her sling. She slipped between the trees silent as a shadow, quickly out of sight and range. They had fared well, Marta and Isabelle only absorbing cuts and scrapes, whereas the glassman had been wounded gravely. Victory had eluded them though, and they knew it. The only true victory over glassmen was killing them outright. Anything less was to court misery.

  The whines of the dying horse brought them back to the moment, the animal piteously trying to stand on its destroyed legs. Luca shot Marta a harsh look as he slid his blade across its neck and silenced it. It was a small mercy, one the glassman would not afford them.

  Their horses were not fit to ride, but Marta set Caddie on the back of theirs, forgoing the collection of any new supplies in favor of haste as she led the animal away on foot. Luca and Isabelle walked alongside theirs as well, their weapons at the ready. They were not ten minutes into the woods when Isabelle’s hands fluttered with another message to her partner and Luca shattered the silence.

  “She’s still following us. Hunting us.”

  “You expected otherwise?” Marta seethed through clenched teeth. “To wound a glassman is to spit in the eyes of death.”

  “You don’t have to tell us what meeting a glassman means,” Luca hissed back. “They’re able to Whisper as well as Listen, stronger and faster than the humans they were before they sold their Souls to Waer. You’d have a better chance killing a bear with your bare hands than one of them. But more than that, they heal in a day what a human would in a year. She’ll be hale and hearty by dusk.”

  “I doubt we’ll have to wait more than an hour before she comes to claim her vengeance.” Pulling her horse to a halt, Marta scanned the woods for the ley they had followed earlier.

  “You intend on just waiting for her?”

  “No, I intend on using what she is against her.”

  Luca came to a stop as well, Isabelle questioning them both with her hazel eyes. Some part of Marta wanted to let them stew further, but the wounded glassman did not allow her the luxury of time.

  “Despite all their strengths—or, more accurately, because of them—glassmen have their weaknesses too. They earn their eternal lives by feeding off their victims, absorbing the Breath of the dead. They hold it inside them, sure as a glass luz jar, for years at a time.”

  “You said we don’t even have until dusk, let alone years.”

  “No, but she’s fed today. We saw two bodies, and I’m betting we’d find a third if we searched much longer. That means she has at least six or, more likely, nine Breaths inside her now. That makes her more Blessed than any of the naturally Blessed, which means the ley headache will hurt her all the more. If she follows us on the ley, she won’t even be able to see straight.”

  If her rough laughter was any indication, Isabelle understood first. Despite herself, Marta was heartened as Luca’s grin returned. “You’re a good woman to know, May Oles.”

  ***

  They found the ley soon enough, following it for several hours without catching sight of the glassman. When the ley headache came, Marta welcomed it, aware their pursuer would be suffering all the more. She noticed a slight strain to Luca’s grin around the time her own pain set in and was not surprised. He might play the part of the boisterous fool, but his fighting skills and imbued lockblade meant there was something more to the man.

  Only Isabelle and Caddie showed no signs of the headache as the hours rolled on towards dusk. The line of ley grew stronger as they followed it, now tracing the edge of a rocky ridge, and Marta suspected a nodus nearby. Even this far from the more civilized states, a nodus would mean a town of some size, enough people there willing to finish the abhorrent glassman off.

  Soon the ley was shining quite brightly, another shimmer leaking over the nearby ridge beside them. Marta was certain it would intersect the line they followed and deliver them there. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Marta reminded herself she only needed to endure, to make it around the bend where safety was awaiting them. She could already hear movement ahead, the town brimming with life.

  But when they rounded the bend, no township awaited, the ley instead disappearing into an imposing crag. Staring in shock, Marta realized the noise she heard was not from civilization, but from the cascade of water spilling out of the crag to form a dark pool at its base. There was absolutely no life, no ley, no salvation here.

  Too late Marta recognized that the nodus she had expected must be within the rocky ridge, no one willing to settle here due to its inaccessibility. They were alone in the dark, the cliff blocking the glow of the ley and boxing them in even as it relieved them of their headaches. The three could only gape at their mistake, struck dumb by their misfortune.

  Turning their backs upon the crag, they spied the glassman slipping out of the darkness. Her time in the ley had its desired effect, the inhuman woman’s face quivering with pain, but it gave her an even more malicious appearance as she approached. Gazing into the eyes of their enemy, Marta saw only a wounded animal, one more desperate and therefore more dangerous. The three had no chance of escape and would only be able to earn their lives through bloodshed. No quarter would be offered, and Marta hoped at least one of them would survive.

  But Marta knew if she was the last living defender and the glassman sure of victory, her dying act would be to kill Caddie cleanly. Killing a child would be a terrible act, sure to stain her Breath bef
ore it was released by death to feed the glassman. Yet it would be a mercy to spare the girl the horribly short life she would surely endure at the hands of a willing devourer of children.

  Isabelle’s sling whistled through the air, the blade of her hatchet tucked under her left arm and exposing the handle to claim quickly. Luca held his lockblade in his right hand, his straight blade in his left as he shifted his weight back and forth. Marta dropped her haversack, her anger and clarity calling forth her mental plans for her Cildra weapons. Pushing Caddie behind her, she stood between the girl and glassman.

  No one expected the savage battle to last long, the horrid glassman crouching and ready to pounce when the pool of water behind them exploded outward and the emet made its presence known.

  Chapter 17

  Jenvier 17, 563 (Four Years Ago)

  Marta did not know enough anatomy and feared this ignorance would cost her her life.

  For the last month the Western army had trained her and the other former Eastern prisoners for their spots on the newly formed 1st Shaper Company, and Marta was sure she would not make the cut. Not two days since her branding, her wound still raw and weeping, they were forced aboard a train. Strung out on ekesh, they were shipped south until they arrived at the island of Mitkof, which would serve as their training ground. Although it was an island and not a hole, it was a prison nonetheless, with no chance of swimming the Arrowhead Lake that surrounded them. The land had been cleared of trees, Marta realizing the Western strategy as soon as she saw the hundreds of huge steel shields, each nearly ten feet tall, a half foot thick, and sloped slightly inwards.

  They were at least fed again, their sustenance nothing more than boiled barely for breakfast, potatoes, and perhaps some dubious meat for dinner. Marta wolfed it down without a care as to the taste, needing all her strength for her training.

  Stood in formation, they were introduced to their new commander, one Colonel Absalom Bumgarden. Marta never met the man in Vrendenburg, but she knew he earned his rank through the daring deployment of a single Render to win the battle of Brandywine. He was said to be a master tactician, reworking outdated strategies for modern warfare.

  The idea of a force consisting entirely of Shapers was nothing new, the ancient lords of the Auld Lands assembling units of Shapers to fight beside their knights. A trained knight was a match for any Shaper, his sword slipping through the swaths of the open space within their Armor with deadly results. But knights were expensive to train and maintain, whereas Shapers could be conscripted from their fields. Given pikes three times the length of a man, Shapers were a deadly force so long as they were protected by men carrying shields ahead of them. A squad of Shapers on the march was a sound strategy: as unstoppable as rolling a boulder down a hill, the ancient Shapers serving as shock troops for their feudal lords.

  Then muskets were developed, their projectiles picking the Shapers off from a distance sure as any sword thrust. Muskets changed the face of warfare, rendering the slogging Shapers and knights equally obsolete. New armies were then built around speed, charging the musketeers with nimble sabermen to cut them to ribbons while they reloaded their slow contraptions. Shapers were still useful to the armies though, again relegated to the role of heavy laborers. Traditionally, they stayed close to the supply trains, but now Bumgarden intended to change the game entirely by making the Shapers the shield bearers.

  Staring at him from across the formation, Marta did not think he looked like much, only a thin man with dark skin. His green eyes surveyed them passionlessly, reminding her of a coiled snake watching its surroundings as it waited for its next meal to approach. There was no emotion in his stare, neither affection nor aggression there. He looked like the foreman at an abattoir examining the ignorant sheep being led to slaughter. To a certain extent Bumgarden’s gaze reminded her of her brother’s stare, making Marta hate the man all the more.

  Kearney seemed blissfully unaware of how Bumgarden regarded them, constantly at his superior’s side and groveling at the colonel’s every word. He had tobacco for his pipe now, smoking it with relish before the other Eastern Shapers as if it made him better than they despite his forehead bearing the same scar as theirs. It was only a matter of time before Bumgarden discarded the sycophant, Marta was sure. She was also sure Kearney would not live out the night, many of the Shapers blaming him for convincing them to accept the Newfield deal and to be branded like cattle. Marta would have considered killing Kearney herself, but had more pressing matters on her mind, like anatomy.

  Abner had been assigned to another platoon, his team’s tent on the far side of the field from Marta’s, the Shapers not allowed to fraternize with anyone outside their tents after dark. Marta was sure he must hate her now as the other Shapers hated Kearney. She had only seen Abner once in passing, wincing in expectation of his fury. Though he went stiff when he spied her, he held his tongue, moving away quickly like she was something sickening.

  Gonzalo shared her platoon’s tent and still deigned to speak to her despite what she had convinced him to do. He was kind enough not to point out that his final prediction had proven correct, that Marta’s plan had been worse than their time in the Pit. Reid still called out to her whenever they passed too. Despite their doleful situation he still found his amusements. In days Reid had mastered the scornful salute, his homage to his superiors mocking and full of derision, though it appeared to be within regulation. His last riddle had been: “Poor people have it while the rich need it not. If you eat it, you die.” Had anatomy not been taking up all of Marta’s mental efforts, she might have sought the answer to Reid’s riddle.

  She had seen Ida and Rupert as well, the always resourceful forager having somehow scrounged a shard of a mirror. The fragment was constantly passed around the camp, each Shaper examining the scars that marred their faces.

  When it came to Marta, she passed it on without a glance. She already knew the two sets of three vertical lines with a star between them well—the symbol of Newfield. She saw the same scar everywhere on foreheads of her fellow soldiers, so there was no reason to gaze upon her ruined beauty with her own eyes. She was sure she must appear a shadow of her former self, all her splendor scraped away by her time in the Pit and her scar. She was sure she must look monstrous.

  Making matters worse, Marta was also the least adept of the Eastern recruits, the position of bottom pull an entirely new experience for her. Most Shapers spent years designing their full Armors, perfecting their mental plans before clearing their teens. Marta was capable of many unique Cildra techniques these simple Shapers would have no chance of mastering, but the Western army wanted only one thing from her, the one thing she could not give: a full Armor.

  Gonzalo tried to coach her in the Armor’s basic plans at night, but his instructions were less than useless. The full Armor form was a native language to him, all the joints and moving components a foreign tongue to Marta. A full Armor had nearly a hundred moving parts in a dozen different locations, all the joints following the same basic layout as the human body. Marta could not keep track of them all and constantly mixed up the joints as she tried to form the Armor Gonzalo described. It was simple, he said, just following the human form, but the only lesson Marta took away was that she did not know nearly enough about human anatomy.

  The other Shapers looked down on her for her lack of knowledge, Marta recognizing the disdain in their eyes as they must have recognized it in hers in the Pit. She in turn had newfound respect for these Shapers and their sluggish constructs. And she would have to learn their plans if she was to fulfill her father’s mission, Marta reminded herself as she finally fell asleep after another day of failing at her training.

  The next morning, Kearney again ran them through their drills, each Shaper easily hefting one of the colossal shields. Instead of carrying each shield individually, they were meant to move as a group, the convex shields matching up one to another so they formed the shape of a boat turned upside down when held together. This hull wholly
encased the Shapers while providing enough space in the center for more troops to be ferried through the deadly hail of musket fire. These mobile bunkers made the Shapers like the shield bearers of old, forming a phalanx to protect their comrades. And like the phalanxes of old, the loss of a single shield would open their flanks and expose the entire rank to attack.

  Kearney watched them from the sidelines, puffing away on his pipe in between curses aimed at Marta when she failed to lift her shield. He approached, falling short by a good ten feet when she turned her gaze upon him. He sounded brave enough when he called out though.

  “You’re no good. Useless.”

  “More useful than ten of you, you damned bug. You’re no more than the bottom pull, a poxy sack of flux.”

  Marta’s mother would have slapped her had she heard her daughter’s words, but the months spent with the Shapers in the Pit had left its mark on Marta sure as the brand she bore, but had never seen. Her outburst garnered a few guffaws from the ranks, but Kearney’s face went a livid red.

  “Off my field, Childress. Back to the Pit with you.”

  He was serious about returning her to the prison, Marta could tell. With that realization her rage roared, Kearney taking a step back as she made one towards him. But as he retreated he summoned his Armor to surround him.

  “Another step and I’ll make you bleed, girl.”

  His Armor was meant to intimidate Marta, to make her reconsider her threat. Instead she grinned as her own Breath begged to be released. She was still contemplating between her phantom blade to drive into his belly or her gauntlets to rip out his tongue when the shot sounded.

  All eyes turned upon the composed Bumgarden, the pistol spent and smoking in his hand. “You Shapers forget yourselves. You are not people, you are the property of Newfield. And anyone caught defacing property of the state will be hanged immediately.”