He spoke calmly, as if discussing the weather, but Kearney dropped his Armor soon as Bumgarden’s green eyes alighted upon him. The tone of Bumgarden’s voice did not alter, but Marta could feel the smack of reproach there. “You required your Armor to deal with a girl who cannot even summon her own? Perhaps I have chosen the wrong commander for this detail.”
Marta puffed up at Kearney’s dressing down until Bumgarden turned his gaze to her. “He is a simpleton, but he is not wrong. You are defective equipment that will be sent back to the Calderon Quarry on the morrow.”
“That’s not fair! If I bear the mark, I at least deserve the same chance to fight!”
Bumgarden’s head tilted at Marta’s outburst as if considering laughter, though his voice maintained the same lethargic tone. “There is no fairness, not anymore. This is the start of a new age, the old rules thrown out at the start of this war. Many may believe this war will decide the answer to the Render and Weaver conflict, but that is ultimately nothing. What this campaign will be remembered for is a new form of warfare. Make no mistake, Childress, you are only a cog in this machine, one that must play its proper role if it is to be of use.”
Bumgarden paused as the full weight of his words crashed down on Marta.
“But I am not devoid of mercy. You will be given one more chance in the morning. If you fail, I will personally offer you my pistol if you choose not to return to the Pit.”
Marta could not miss the implications of his offered pistol, she expected to swallow the shot rather than face her fate in the Pit. But if it came to that, Marta intended to make sure Bumgarden feasted on the bullet before she was hanged for defacing Newfield property.
***
Abner came to her that night, Marta with no idea how he slipped out of his tent and made it across the field unseen. Though she was ecstatic to see him, Abner remained stiff as he refused her embrace. Looking her over now, he reminded Marta of her former tutor Mitchell.
“You’ve been going about this all wrong. You may be an adult, but you’re still a child when it comes to understanding Armor. So I’m going to teach you a child’s Armor, one I mastered before I even had hair on my chin. But know this, Marta, there is only one way to top this mountain.”
Marta could not hide her gratitude, either at his appearance or his instruction. Yet one question still nagged her as she beheld his brand up close:
“Why? Why look after me when I dragged you into this?”
Despite his previous deflection of her affection, Abner forced a smile. “Because the past is a mirror, and I will not gaze at it overlong. And I still intend on escaping with you at my side when we’re deployed. By grace or grave, we will be quit of this army. But to do that you must earn your spot in the 1st Shaper Company. Are you ready to learn?”
Marta was, though she proved to be a terrible student, only able to summon the childish Armor Abner taught her one time in three by the end of the night. Her failures ringing about her head, Abner gave her a grim grin.
“Just make sure you fail twice before you make your attempt today.”
Setting his hand to her shoulder, he then slipped out the tent and left Marta alone among her sleeping comrades. Though his last words were meant to be rousing, Marta thought just two failures seemed far too few for her current state.
***
Marta took the field alone the next morning, the entire 1st Shaper Company watching along with implacable Bumgarden flanked by Kearney puffing away at his pipe. Before her ordeal began, Marta tried to summon Abner’s childish Armor a dozen times, only halting when she hit upon two failures in a row. She was due a success now, she assured herself as she trudged to the heavy shield. But as she took her place behind it, Marta realized all of Abner’s training was for naught. She was going to fail him as she had failed her father. She had done nothing but fail for the last year, and the idea of only two failures earning her a success was entirely laughable. Defeat was still sinking its fangs into her, its slow poison of doubt swimming in Marta’s mind when she looked up at the shield’s handle to behold Abner’s final gift.
Rupert’s shard of a mirror awaited her on the handle, tilted up so Marta received a full look at her ruined visage. For the first time she saw her new face and the scar she would forever be forced to bear. Her former beauty was broken, shattered and scattered to the winds. Seeing her loss in its entirety, Marta’s anger bloomed, her clarity there as she considered Abner’s Armor. It was suddenly such a simple thing, something made for a child, not the woman she was.
Her Breath came effortlessly, forming the Armor as she claimed the shield, the shard knocked away as she grasped the handle to strain against its weight. The shields were said to weigh one ton, lifting it a simple task for the rest of the Shapers. But Marta struggled under its burden, barely able to hoist it up. It was rage alone that allowed her to take the first step.
Willpower carried her through the following three, Marta unaware how she made the next dozen. She finally set the tottering shield down before it crushed her. Her entire body was spent, promising aches to last weeks as she released her Breath, but there was exhilaration there as well as she heard Abner cheer for her. The rest of the Shapers joined in, their voices in defiance to Bumgarden. Better yet, Kearney looked like he could spit nails as Marta basked in her victory.
Bumgarden waited until their cheers died down before he spoke. “It’s not enough. The formation will break down if you cannot even make ten strides on command.”
In spite of her weariness, Marta’s rage returned, she suddenly aware she could clear the distance on her rabbit legs to rip out his and Kearney’s throats before Bumgarden could even level his pistol, but Bumgarden’s next announcement saved his life before she had the chance.
“Yet you can still be of use as a flag-bearer.”
He said it as if it was a boon, but Marta knew it to be a death sentence. Standard bearers were tempting targets for enemy sharpshooters, their shots seeking out the leaders of charges. But more than the dread of death, she was afraid that she would fall still clutching the symbol of Newfield, the nation that had scarred her. She would be felled by her former allies, all of them unaware of the price she had paid for them and none the wiser of why she bore her mark.
Marta had no plans to ever be a flag-bearer or see battle in the first place though. Soon as they were able, she and Abner would slip away to join their Eastern brethren and continue the struggle against the West. She would ultimately escape her current state.
After she killed Bumgarden and Kearney, that was.
Chapter 18
Winterfylled 22, 567
The emet was entirely unlike the mindless ghuls they encountered within the tolmen, but far more terrifying. Its body was that of a massive bear, but its front two legs ended in human hands with wraithlike claws far too long to occur in nature. Its head was ursine too, its glowing eyes those of an animal. Yet strange pins protruded from its neck and back, reminding Marta somewhat of a creature called a porcupine she had seen in one of Mitchell’s books years ago.
Marta had little time to ponder its form as the beast barreled past them to lift its head and give a silent roar in the face of their pursuer. The glassman stepped back at the emet’s emergence, considering the creature as she stalked back and forth like an animal herself. She seemed hesitant, perhaps afraid, until her face split into a wicked smile.
“I’ve never feasted on one of your kind so old before.”
The final syllable had scarcely left her mouth before the glassman sped at the emet. Though her hands were flesh, and therefore should pass through the emet as if air, each of the glassman’s blows connected, the inflated Breath that made up the beast compacting under each onslaught. The woman was noticeably faster, each attack so rapid the eye could scarcely track, but the emet absorbed her blows as if only water lapping lazily at the hull of a boat. Its maw snapped silently in the night, huge human hands tipped with claws swinging through the air. The glassman was faster, but the
emet had three weapons to her two while her crushing blows had no effect on the creature.
Isabelle took a step towards the fray, Luca’s hand snaking out to hold her back. This fight was no place for humans, the two titans crashing against each other with the force of wayward continents.
The emet finally connected with its massive paw, rending the glassman’s flesh and sending her skittering across the ground like a ragdoll. The creature charged after her, covering the ground before she could get to her feet. It had the chance to finish her off, to end her evil once and for all, but it stopped not two feet from the woman.
The emet had reached the end of its invisible leash, unable to escape the confines of the nodus that had borne it. The glassman seemed to understand this as she slowly regained her feet, turning her attention from the emet to the three of them.
“You still have to leave eventually.”
With that she disappeared into the dark outside the confines of their temporary asylum.
But Marta’s mind was not on the glassman as the emet turned upon them. She again wished she had not shattered the arrogant Render’s glass blade. Even a glass shard might be useful as the emet swayed back and forth, its pupil-less eyes aimed right at them.
It was a roll of the dice each time an emet came into existence: either benevolent, malevolent, or indifferent to the presence of people. This emet might have saved them out of kindness, but there were equal odds that it had just been attacking another predator wandering heedlessly into its territory. Now that the invader had been dispatched, it might be again regarding at them as prey.
Aware how trapped they were within the confines of the rocky ridge, Marta reached behind her until her hand connected with Caddie, taking a step back and readying herself. Luca and Isabelle between her and the beast, she might be able to pull the girl to safety while it took them to pieces. She mentally marked the spot the glassman had fallen, estimating the invisible line the emet was unable to cross and hoping she could close the distance in time with the girl in tow. If not, she could still perhaps throw the girl that distance, though the waiting glassman made this strategy untenable.
The emet dropped to all fours, rolling its head several times like the animal it mimicked might. Isabelle’s black stone knife appeared in her hand as it approached, though Luca pointed the tip of his blade towards the ground.
“You don’t mean us any harm,” he said with his usual amount of charm. “No more than we meant you. We thank you for saving us and will be on our way if you’ll allow us.”
Only Renders and Weavers could communicate with emets, and Marta knew Luca was neither of those. Yet he kept speaking to the creature, his voice calm and confident. The emet paid him no mind though, heading straight for Marta even as she took another backwards step towards the pool.
It was only when the beast stopped a few feet away, now shifting its path perpendicular and circling them, that Marta realized it was Caddie, not her, the creature aimed at. She held her ground, her plans for her blade ready in case it attacked.
Instead the emet kneeled, finally flopping to its side and rolling to reveal its ethereal belly. It was exposing its softest parts to them, an act Marta had seen before in the hounds in her father’s kennels. There, the beasts had sensed her inherent human superiority bestowed by her Soul Breath, showing their submission the only way their limited minds knew how. Marta had never heard of such behavior among emets though, suddenly wishing they had a Weaver or Render with them to make it make sense.
Finally, the emet rolled back to its rump and scooted the remaining distance between them. Even seated, its head towered high above theirs, its cranium the size of the child’s torso. Its arm came slowly up, the ursine appendage with a strangely human hand. Marta noticed its claws had disappeared as it reached for the girl. Her Breath flared at this, a useless gesture to the creature that had easily defeated the glassman that had put them on their heels, but she was still willing to stand her ground, still willing to go down fighting rather than submit like a dog.
“For Sol’s sake!” Luca shouted, his voice cutting through Marta’s mind. “It’s an engel, it doesn’t mean any harm. Just step aside and let it give its blessing!”
Luca might be right. The emet had saved their lives, had submitted to them, its gestures benign and without threat. Marta still kept her Armor plans well in mind as she cautiously stepped aside to expose Caddie to the creature.
The emet leaned slowly towards the girl, its paw alighting gently on her skull and its human fingertips wreathing her forehead like points of a strange crown. The emet’s eyes seemed to close, though Marta suspected it did not need eyes to see. It was an unnatural act, something about seeing the eerie emet connecting with the human girl kindling revulsion in Marta. It was all she could do to keep from attacking and let its uncanny hand continue to touch the child.
Its hand remained a long while, Caddie staring at the creature or, more likely, through it with her blank gaze. Finally, the emet rose to its full height, its hand remaining on the girl. It then took a step forward as Caddie took a step back, the two of them moving together towards the pool of water.
Marta’s intangible blade extended in her hand. She would have surely swung, but she did not get the chance, as she spied something she had never seen before.
Caddie blinked.
The motion was not unusual in any other human, but from the girl it felt momentous, the mental plans for Marta’s weapon suddenly forgotten at the sight.
The emet released the girl, Caddie turning on her own to face the pool. Then, untouched and unbidden by another, she took a halting step. Then another followed by more still, each step more certain as she approached the pool.
She reached the edge of the water before Marta caught her, grabbing the girl’s wrist and yanking her to a stop. Though Caddie halted her progress, Marta could still feel her straining as if urged on by invisible forces, like those that directed Breath along the lines of ley.
Marta chanced a glance back to see that the emet had not stirred from its spot and was still silently watching the two of them. Luca and Isabelle were rooted where they stood too, having only pivoted to face the pool. They shared a look, Luca finally nodding and closing his lockblade.
“Let her go. She can’t possibly lead us anywhere worse.”
He strode towards the water, Isabelle collecting Marta’s forgotten haversack and the saddlebags before joining him. With a look back towards the emet, Isabelle again tapped her chest three times with her fist and then touched the knuckles to her forehead.
Marta did not believe they were right for a moment, the suddenly mobile Caddie sure to lead them nowhere except another dead end. But she also wanted to be quit of the eerie emet, to keep it between them and the vengeful glassman. So she let the girl go.
Caddie’s feet splashed as she entered the pool, which soon came to her knees, the hem of her dress floating around her. Marta kept step with the girl, ready to snatch her up if the pool proved too deep, but the water barely kissed Marta’s waist by the time they reached the falls.
The girl continued on at the same insistent pace, never hesitating as she passed through the cascading falls. Marta had to catch her slouch hat as she passed through, amazed when she found a gaping cave, not a rocky wall, on the other side. She could only see a few feet into it in the dark, but Caddie’s path led them ceaselessly towards it.
Marta summoned her cold torch by focusing all her fourth Breath into one hand, its flickering light providing them enough illumination to continue deeper into the cave. Outcroppings of stones worn smooth by centuries of water flow awaited them, their slickness proving treacherous as they attempted to scale them. Marta’s headache soon returned, and she looked back to see Luca wincing as well. They were close to the nodus that had birthed the emet, and even hidden underground, they could still feel the effects of the ley. Caddie never paused though, steering them through the branching caverns. When they reached the first fork, she took a turn without
any indecision. She did not hesitate at the second either, drawing them deeper into the dark.
It was slow going, the water at times reaching Caddie’s neck, other times the path dwindling down to a narrow passage they were forced to crawl through on hands and knees. Now far beyond the nodus and the reach of the ley, Marta’s headache faded as the hours wore on. A thought kept nagging her though, Marta poking at it like a loose tooth. If the emet had shown Caddie this path, was it not bound by the leash of its nodus? It was impossible for the beast to have traveled this far from the ley, meaning Caddie’s sudden knowledge came not from the emet, but from somewhere else.
Marta fixated on this thought with her whole mind as she looked back at Luca. The man’s grin still gleamed in the flicker of her cold torch, Luca reaching back to Isabelle to help her over a rock hidden under the flow of water. Isabelle refused his aid, her crooked tooth exposed in a snarl. And in that moment Luca’s grin faltered. It could have been that Luca was overexerted, but Marta suspected his slipped grin meant something more.
Silently they followed the girl nearly an hour more, Marta sure they could have made better time by scaling the ridge instead. But the catatonic Caddie would have been a liability in the climb while making her way on her own through the tunnels. Her new mobility was a gift, one Marta did want to become a wastrel by wasting.
Suddenly the path widened, rising above the waterline to reveal a vast cavern. Their footfalls echoed in the expanding dark as they breached the water, crystals covering the walls in huge formations that refracted the light of Marta’s cold torch. Their heavy breaths filled the cavern, but Marta focused on the gems rather than the noise. Next to the crystals Marta spotted marks, catching hold of Caddie and halting their progress to examine them.
The Woven Ring (Sol's Harvest Book 1) Page 19