There was an old man named Onas in Luca’s tribe growing up, a dried-up relic who barely spoke to anyone. Though no one knew how, Onas was wealthy with two horses and a wagon utterly to himself. Luca’s sister, Esme, had yet to be born, so it was still just the four of them crammed into the same space Onas enjoyed alone. Onas ensured his solitude with his brute, a nameless mutt that was as mean as it was ugly. Luca would have sworn the animal was ancient when he was yet a toddler, but the dog still terrified the children of the camp even when he had reached the age of nine. The mutt seemed immortal, many of the adults telling the children that the dog would not die until Waer called her servant home. It never slowed as the years passed and only seemed to grow cleverer in its eternal war against the children.
So the children of the camp turned it into a game, seeing who could sneak up and touch the old man’s wagon. It was a rite of passage that separated the brave from the boastful. Almost all tried, first reconnoitering the area to make sure Onas’ dog was nowhere nearby. But if by magic or Waer’s guidance, the mutt would always appear as if from the empty air in a froth of teeth and jowls to drive the child away. Some of the crueler boys chose not to wait until Waer called her servant home by slipping nails into scraps of meat and tossing them by Onas’ wagon, but it never worked. Some suspected that the dog was simply too smart to eat the deadly meat, whereas others believed that it devoured all the scraps, but was just too mean to die.
Luca was not the first to touch Onas’ wagon, but his feat was still talked about. This was not because he was braver than the other boys or even cleverer. It was because Luca was the only one to bother Listening to the dog, even though there were many other Listeners in the camp. He was the only one to spend the time to learn that, despite its gnashing jaws and rabid snarls, the animal was afraid. Luca could not see the cause in the mutt’s muddy mind, but it feared everything in the camp, its master, Onas, most of all. So it aimed its wrath at everything around it, the mutt making itself seem terrible because it was terrified.
Armed with this knowledge, Luca invited all the boys and girls in the camp. His audience in place, Luca made his way to the wagon. But while others slunk to it on bare feet so as not to alert the dog with their footfalls, Luca instead marched on as if he owned the wagon.
The dog did not strike until Luca was only a few feet away. Luca had been watching for it, but did not spot the beast until its jaws tore through the air inches from his belly, its slaver splattering his shirt. It must have weighed more than he did, its barks so deep that Luca could feel them reverberating the earth beneath his feet.
Luca forced himself to stand his ground, to match the brute’s eyes. The dog seemed to swell under his gaze, its maw moving up until it was snapping just shy of his neck. Others may have run before the aural onslaught of the beast, but Luca took a step forward.
The act was a gamble, a roll of the dice that paid off when the dog took a step backwards even as it redoubled its racket. So Luca took another step, the dog retreating at his advance until it was pressed up against Onas’ home. Only when the beast’s back hit the wooden wagon did it silence, its head sinking in submission.
Luca claimed his victory by lingering a long moment before touching the wagon at his leisure. Gazing back at his audience, he could see they were impressed, but he wanted to forge a legend that day. So Luca patted the dog’s head. It could have crippled his hand, claiming a finger at least, but the terrified dog ultimately submitted to his touch because Luca was unafraid.
Actually, he had been nearly as terrified as Onas’ dog. But in Luca’s heart he knew he was capable of this task, and that knowledge was enough to tamp down his fear enough to face the beast. It was the first time Luca took part in this balancing act, to feel the exquisite torture of teetering between success and failure. In time he would find this feeling the most intoxicating emotion in existence, drinking deep through greater and greater tests of his ability.
Facing Marta was like his experience with the dog, the difference being he was quite sure Marta was not afraid to do more than bark; one misstep and he would lose much more than a finger. Getting close to her was therefore a much greater accomplishment. It was a shame they would not see Marta again, the two of them absconding with Caddie and leaving the woman to whatever hole she had dug for herself. But that eventuality still hinged on what Simza had to say.
Luca had decided to whittle away until his headache began. When it did, he intended to retire with Isabelle out of range of the ley and pick up Simza’a message in the morning from the Cousin Listener in Point Place. He need not have worried about the pain though, as his answer arrived in moments.
But it was not from Simza.
It was a general broadcast, sent through the entire line and addressed to Millie Knowles. The fact it was dispatched to his false name caused Luca concern, but it paled in comparison to the fear he felt at the fact it was a general missive. It would have had to come from one of the largest nodi in Newfield to have flooded the network so quickly: either Brimstone, Ceilminster, Polis, or, most worrisome, the home of the Public Safety Department in Vrendenburg.
But most frightening was the message itself, to be delivered “To the Traitor.” The demand of the message was implicit, as was the threat of death if he refused.
Luca considered himself a cat, a sleek hunter making his meals of the mice that were the people of Newfield. The clueless citizens had no idea that a predator stalked among them, Luca’s invisibility allowing him easy access to his prey. But now a dangerous new set of eyes had caught sight of him from on high. The originator of the message was a hawk circling far above, and to its indifferent gaze he would prove indistinguishable from the mice scurrying around him. Luca suddenly felt exposed on open ground. His first instinct was to disappear, to flee until he found a safe hole to hide in. But he also had the impression that he would neither be able to run fast enough so this new set of eyes would lose sight of him nor be able to find a hole deep enough where its talons could not reach.
His face must not have been able to hide his horror as Isabelle appeared beside him, her hatchet in hand as she peered about the darkness. Luca knew her preparedness would prove futile, and that the two of them and their pair of sharp eyes would never be able to spot this new threat until it descended upon them and silenced them for good.
Closing his eyes, Luca mentally thumbed through the message, but could find no meaning in it except for whom it was meant to be delivered to. The message itself was as good as garbage and made his head hurt worse than any ley headache as he sought to decipher it. All he knew was that he had to deliver it that night.
Luca’s smile bloomed as he opened his eyes, bestowing both upon the skittish Isabelle. He only hoped his companion would believe his lie.
“Simza has spoken, and it seems we’re not through with Marta Childress quite yet.”
Chapter 27
Marz 21, 565 (Two Years Ago)
Bumgarden proved good to his word by soundly defeating Ruhl in the presidential election. He never seemed charismatic, had never raised his voice in Marta’s presence, but the papers declared him a fiery speaker that drew crowds by the thousands. He beat Ruhl by a landslide, the vote count halted in a matter of hours. As soon as Bumgarden took office, his first act was to thankfully dismiss Underhill and take control of the Western armies himself.
He remembered the Traitors Brigade as well. No, they were now the Furies, Marta reminded herself. Not only securing them access to supplies, Bumgarden swelled their ranks with Western Shapers and renamed the company yet again. He had removed the moniker Traitor from their name and much of the stigma that came with it, but even with his newfound power, Bumgarden could not remove their physical scars. Marta oversaw the training of these new recruits in her Cildra techniques the same as she had with the Traitors Brigade, but only those that bore the brand did she consider her brothers and sisters in arms.
The Furies became victims of their own success, now at the forefront of every
battle. But between Bumgarden’s brilliant deployments and their perfected techniques, they were winning the war by pressing deep into Eastern territory with minimal casualties. The Furies leading the charge, the end of the Grand War was finally in sight.
But then the daemons appeared.
The monsters were one last desperate strategy by the Covenant government, now in exile in Ceilminster. Terrified of their impending defeat, their fear was the only possible impetus to create such abhorrent creatures under the tutelage of their resident emet Greybone at the Weaver university. Marta had heard rumors of the beasts skittering amongst the soldiers over the last few days, but dismissed them as simply battlefield gossip until she saw the daemon at the battle of Sherman Pass.
The encounter had been going well up until that point, the Western army pushing the Eastern forces through the pass in what would be yet another quick victory. Then the daemon arrived and ruined it all.
The monster was unlike anything Marta had seen before, made entirely of Breath like an emet, but nearly four stories tall and formed from the Weaving of at least two dozen Breaths. It was a glimmering colossus striding among men like a child among dolls. It tore through the Newfield ranks in moments, immune to their weapons and dealing out death in droves as it smashed men to nothing but vague smudges on the ground. It smashed through their phalanx as well, sending several one-ton shields sailing with an offhand swing of its massive arm. Many of her Shapers, born in the East and West both, died instantly as they were crushed beneath the shields designed to protect them. And still the daemon advanced, its assault hardly paused by their decimation.
Although formidable in size and strength, the daemon should have proven no more effective than the manifestations had at the beginning of the war when facing Renders with their glass blades, and so the contingent of Renders soon arrived to do battle with the beast. But their Blessed drawing proved futile against the daemon, their glass sabers shattered along with their bones by the titan. The Weavers had finally discovered an answer to the Render’s drawing, the scholars in Ceilminster demonstrating their new superiority on the battlefield to their enemies who shared their fourth Breath in the Soul.
The solitary daemon collapsed the Western ranks, singlehandedly shattering their lines and sending the army into a full retreat. Though snatching victory from their hands, the daemon did not follow them on their flight. The dismantling of their fighting force had been too swift, their destruction too abrupt for the Weavers controlling the beast at a distance to catch up. But aided by their abomination, the Eastern forces secured the Sherman Pass and sent the Western armies reeling.
It was nearly twenty miles before the Newfield forces regrouped. Hurrying through the bivouac, Hugo Propst, Bumgarden’s replacement for commanding the Furies, took Marta to meet with their new general, Erla Grubb. Bumgarden never bothered to bring Marta with him to meet his superiors, viewing her as a subordinate at best and, more likely, nothing more than a clever pet. Although he was more than happy to consider her innovations in private, the two of them arguing in his tent as if they were equals, she was never treated as such in front of anyone else.
Propst proved much kinder, giving Marta free rein in the administration of her troops and attesting to the fact he was just a rubber stamp to give her commands the illusion of authenticity. He never had any illusions as to who ran the outfit, often deferring to Marta when in the presence of his superiors. Although she had never cared for Bumgarden, Marta at least respected the man. Propst treated her better, like a fellow human being, and for that she detested him.
Though General Grubb was a woman, Marta received no sisterly kindness from her since Grubb despised all things Eastern and Marta in particular. Another of Bumgarden’s recent appointments, Grubb was incredibly effective, and for that reason Marta endured her disdain without complaint. In Grubb’s tent they learned that not one, but four daemons had been deployed that fateful day along several battle lines, all the Renders and Western forces suffering heavy casualties. The Newfield army was on the run, and Grubb demanded that they halt the rapid Eastern advance.
That night Abner asked Marta about Grubb’s decision to face the daemons. When she told him, he fell silent a long time, finally taking her hand and saying, “I have a wife—Della in Meome, Aiou. If I fall, will you write them and say I died bravely?”
Marta nodded, not willing to break the pall smothering the Western encampment. It was Abner who finally did.
“And if you die, where should I address my letter?”
She pulled her hand away, walking off without a word. There would be no need to tell the Childress family if their middle daughter had died. Marta was sure they would already know.
***
The next engagement two days later proved just as deadly for the West, another squad of Renders massacred when they tried to face a daemon on its own terms. The Furies had transported them, Marta watching their swift slaughter from the slit in the shield Gonzalo carried. The Furies did not have a chance to retreat before the daemon turned its wrath upon them, scattering their phalanx as easily as the last one had.
It was Gonzalo who saved both her life and the Western war effort as he snatched up one of the fallen Renders’ glass blades, racing at the daemon as it turned toward the dazed Marta.
She thought his sacrifice would prove as pointless as the dead Render’s whose saber he carried, but when Gonzalo swung his blade, it miraculously bit deep into the creature’s leg. To their amazement, the creature stumbled as its wounded Breath retracted into its body, Gonzalo’s second blow severing the leg entirely. The daemon made no sound as it fell, but the realization that hit Marta was thunderous.
“The sabers,” she cried, her voice carrying above the din. “Cut it down with glass!”
Marta did not look back to see if her troops obeyed as she leapt with her rabbit legs to claim one of the discarded glass blades. With the fragile yet strangely heavy weapon in hand, she rushed to Gonzalo’s side, slashing the toppled daemon with all her might.
Leon joined them an instant later, the three swarming over the downed daemon like ants picking apart a dying bird. Those were the only three weapons her platoon could claim, the one Leon swung already shattered and nothing but a short stalk of glass wound round the steel core, but with them they hacked the daemon until it finally was no more. With each slice the creature’s Breath retreated, retracting back into its body until they found the daemon’s heart.
The device was no natural thing, rather a ticking engine of Tinker design with a glass center containing the daemon’s writhing Breath. Leon unceremoniously smashed the meticulous machine with his boot, releasing the last of its abominable Breath and distinguishing him as the first to destroy one of the monsters.
Silence descended upon the field with the destruction of the daemon. Like the tale in the scriptures of Ezria and Giant, they felled the monster by cutting out its legs so they could dispatch the giant as it lay helplessly on the ground. Marta could already imagine Reid’s quip alluding to this when the bark of musket fire began anew, the three carrying their glass blades with them as they retreated back behind the cover of their steel shields.
***
The Western forces were not victorious that day though, the oncoming Eastern troops still pushing them from the field, but they had earned a moral victory, at least, one that came at a high cost with the loss of five of Marta’s men as well as the entire squad of Renders.
Yet it was the uncompromising Renders that nearly lost the survivors their lives back in the Newfield camp. There, the Renders’ commander demanded the deaths of Marta, Gonzalo, and Leon for having dared touch a glass blade. Only Renders were allowed this distinction, any who defied their edict executed on the spot. The Render commander was ready to put them down then and there, his wrath compounded further when Marta turned her back upon him. Departing the meeting without being given leave, she hurled her final insult over her shoulder.
“You can go ahead and carry out your
Sol-forsaken sentence once you’ve won this war. Until then, let us work.”
Propst had to plead with Grubb then to President Bumgarden himself to intercede on their behalf after that. Grubb’s rank of general was able to at least keep the Renders from executing them until Bumgarden gave his answer.
Their former commander and current president responded by sending a shipment of glass blades addressed to the Furies on the first supply train in the morning. As always he looked after his tools, making sure they were able to carry out their task in the most efficient means possible.
Armed with their glass weapons, the Furies proved to be the only force capable of dealing with the daemons by darting around them on their rabbit legs and cutting them to ribbons. But it was not true victories they earned, their numbers too low to do more than slow the advance of the Eastern armies. The Furies did not fight to win though, but rather to leave a mark upon their unstoppable enemies, to ensure they did not escape the conflict entirely unscarred. The Furies lost valuable men and women in each encounter, their deaths doing no more than providing cover for the Newfield army’s retreat, first across the Mueller Line and out of the East, then deep into Western territory.
With at least a dozen confirmed daemons at his disposal, the Eastern general, Loree, made a mad push for the heart of Newfield with the intention of taking Vrendenburg. If he could capture the capital and Bumgarden within, Loree could end the war in one fatal stroke.
After another encounter with a daemon—the creature destroyed, but Marta losing Austin McMillen, Noys McCarty, and Delia Sumny in the fray—she decided their sacrifice was ultimately in vain. By chance and one horrible choice, the Traitors Brigade had ended up on the wrong side of this war, but she was too ground down now to care about their plight anymore. She and her troops would keep fighting, not because they were fighters, but because they were killers. The Grand War had made this of them and they could not deny their true natures any longer. They would fight and they would die, but she hoped they would take more lives than they lost.
The Woven Ring (Sol's Harvest Book 1) Page 27