Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey

by Rusch, Kristine Kathryn

  “Are you a Cap, or someone I should worry about?” Caseo’s deep voice rumbled from deep within the warehouse.

  Scavenger stood, heart pounding. Caseo was the most powerful of the Warders, and the most willing to use that power. “Number Fifteen,” Scavenger said, his own voice rising on the last syllable.

  “Well, then, come forward, boy. The day has only begun.”

  Boy. Scavenger’s mouth set in a hard line. He had not been a boy in over thirty years. Just because he had no magick and because his body had never grown willowy and straight didn’t mean he was a boy. He was as much Fey—adult Fey—as the rest of them.

  He took a deep breath, unwilling to face a Warder while angry. He had done that once and found himself working with the five-day-old corpses in the battlefields outside Uehe. He had been almost twenty then, and had never seen—or smelled—that kind of putrefaction before. He hadn’t allowed himself to see it since.

  “I am coming, sir,” Scavenger said. He followed the trail of lights. They illuminated bare walls, made of unpainted wood. From hooks hung a handful of torn nets. Most of the hooks were empty.

  He rounded a corner and found himself in a room that held more light than a meadow in the noonday sun. Fey Lamps hung from the walls and the ceilings as well as stood on the floor. Most of the furniture had been pushed against the walls except for an oversize table and ten stools for the older Warders. All twenty of the Warders were inside, bent over small pieces of paper, their robes pulled tight. Solanda, the Shape-Shifter, was with them and was pacing like a trapped animal.

  Scavenger stared at her for a moment, her tawny hair, golden skin, and unconscious grace marking her as the most perfect of all the Fey. Even the dark-brown birthmark on her chin—the mark all Shape-Shifters were born with—added to her beauty.

  Caseo was leaning forward, his hands spread on the table’s surface. He was studying some paper as well, a map perhaps, although Scavenger couldn’t get close enough to look. Caseo’s hood was back, revealing his gaunt features. He turned toward Scavenger, eyes dark holes in his narrow face.

  “Well, boy,” Caseo said. “Bring it here. I’m sure there is much more waiting for you.”

  Scavenger swallowed the insult and came forward. The Warders at the foot of the table stepped aside. Solanda reached around Caseo and picked up the paper, tucking it under her arm and turning her back on Scavenger as if his ugliness offended her.

  He stopped at the table’s edge. The edge brushed against his chest. The table was long and made of a thick wood. Ancient bloodstains marred the wood’s surface, and he knew that the Islanders had used it for cleaning fish. The fishy smell was particularly strong in this room.

  Scavenger pulled his pouches off his belt and reached up to set them on the table. No one helped him, although the movement was clearly difficult for him. The pouches slid into large, wobbly, bladder-shaped things, disgusting packets of disgusting material. Now he understood why Solanda had turned away.

  Caseo grabbed one, hefted it in his right hand, and grinned at Scavenger. “Where’d you get it?”

  “The palace,” he said. “They’re inside already.”

  Caseo’s grin grew. “Maybe this won’t take as long as we thought. The waterfront is taken, as are most of the shops. We need to keep some of these pitiful creatures alive to help us tend the land.”

  Caseo bent over the pouch and, holding it carefully with his left hand, untied it with his right. He put the leather thong on the table, then reached inside the bladder and pulled out a long, slim strip of skin, curling with length and black with blood. He held it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Are they all cut so fine?” Caseo asked.

  Scavenger nodded. “The Infantry pushed in quickly, left a lot of them alive, and the Foot Soldiers didn’t have to do much work.”

  “Completely untouched,” Caseo said, addressing the other Warders. “Look at this. Curling, thin, pristine. Rugar was right. This will be a haven for us.”

  Scavenger bit the skin off his lower lip. He had heard the dissension, of course. The worry that Rugar’s Vision was going. But Caseo’s words had a calming effect. Pristine. Generations of Islander lives untouched by any harmful magick. No wonder the souls in the Fey Lamps burned so brightly. All the Islanders on Galinas had met the Fey before. It made the fighting that much harder, for the nourishment the Blood Users took was thinner in those places.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Scavenger said, knowing he was not needed anymore. “Can I go?”

  “In a minute, boy,” Caseo said. He set the skin back in the pouch and handed it to another Warder to seal. Then he took a tiny rag offered from yet another Warder and cleaned off his fingers. He turned toward Scavenger, leaned his hip against the table, and crossed his arms. “You say you found these pickings at the palace.”

  Scavenger nodded. “I’m sure there’ll be more.”

  “I’m sure,” Caseo said. “That’s why I want you to round up the Caps working the harbor area and bring them to the palace with you. We’ve done all we’re going to do down here, and the Foot Soldiers are long gone. Knowing the Caps, they’re probably skipping stones across the water rather than searching for more work.”

  Scavenger pursed his lips and straightened his back. Now he knew that Caseo was baiting him on purpose. The Warders—everyone, for that matter—knew how much a good Cap hated his work. The Cap who liked the work was slipping into madness and was therefore unreliable.

  “May I go?” Scavenger repeated, this time not making the necessary bow to Caseo’s power.

  “And see how he doesn’t deny it? Were you skipping stones before you found us, boy?”

  Scavenger pulled more pouches from the inside of his shirt and threaded them through his belt. When he was done, he said again in a level tone, “May I go, sir?”

  Caseo waved his hand. “You have already wasted enough time. Go now.”

  Scavenger spun and stalked out. Red and green colors flashed in front of his eyes from the brightness of the Warders’ room. As the darkness swallowed him up, he heard Solanda’s voice, as warm and rich and musical as he had imagined. He had to strain to hear what she said.

  “If you keep baiting the little troll, he will come after you.”

  Scavenger felt his face heat. “Little troll” was worse than boy. He bowed his head and scuffled out. It was his fate to be hated, something he deserved for being ugly and short and having no magick. But sometimes he wished a day could go by without anyone reminding him of his hideousness. That would be a day to remember.

  He pushed open the double doors and stepped into the sunlight. Screams, clangs, and the sounds of battle echoed from all sides. The noise was louder than it had been before, probably because he was near the water, where the battles all along the riverfront carried on the waves. He hurried down the ramp, not even glancing at the bodies, looking for other small, blood-drenched Fey like himself.

  It took a moment before he realized something odd was happening across the river.

  Instead of the wild joy of a successful Fey battle cry, he heard sobs of pain. He shielded his eyes and hurried down the dock, staring at the huge building on the other side of the water.

  The building was constructed like a fortress, with four towers flanking one central tower. The towers all had windows, and each was painted with a giant white sword pointing downward. The building did not have walls like a fortress, only passageways connecting one tower to the other. Its stonework looked uneven, as if parts of the building had been built at different times.

  As Scavenger squinted, he could see people being pushed out of the windows. Tall, lanky people, dressed in brown leathers, wearing no armor, only the casual battle dress of the Fey. Most of them were not screaming. Islanders in black robes were leaning out the upper portions of the towers, pouring liquid from tiny bottles onto the fighters below. A huge cloud rose over the battle area, and as its tendrils reached across the river toward Scavenger, he backed away. Still, he
caught its scent—putrid and rotting, like the bodies he had had to tend when he’d been but a boy.

  Over there, in the fortress, the place he remembered from the attack plans as the seat of the Islanders’ religion, Fey were dying. They had some kind of magick there—that’s why the building had no walls. They didn’t need the protection. They could kill as the Fey could.

  He bit his lower lip and squinted. Black-clad figures were mingling among the Fey. Sunlight glinted off heavy bottles, and more liquid fell. Each time it touched a Fey, a bit of steam arose. He glanced at the warehouse. If he warned Caseo, they might be able to get word to Rugar, and he could bring the ships out of Shadowlands and they could leave.

  But Scavenger could find Rugar on his own. Then Caseo would have to fend for himself.

  Scavenger ran down the dock, the half-formed plan sounding good in his mind, until he realized he had no idea where Rugar was. Besides, the Fey needed the Warders. They came up with new spells, new fighting methods. If something different was happening, the Warders had to know first so that they could save everyone.

  He damned the Mysteries that had led him to this place, that didn’t allow him the personal revenge he wanted. Then he ran up the ramp, slammed his hands on the double doors, and hoped that Caseo would believe him.

  FOURTEEN

  Alexander had been in the War Room once; his grandfather had proudly shown it to him when he’d been a boy. He had learned how the room had been used to stop the Peasant Uprising, and how it was designed to keep the lessers in check.

  Alexander was inside now, a boy no longer, but a King suddenly thrust into war. He had changed into a peasant shirt and long pants—an irony not lost on him—but one his son had insisted on, and one that made sense. He needed the freedom of movement that robes did not give him. He had his sleeves rolled up, and he, his advisers, and Stephen, his son’s swordmaster, were poring over plans of the castle: twelve men in a room the size of his bedroom suite.

  It felt as if they were hiding.

  The room smelled damp and musty. Ancient maps, tattered and chewed by mice, covered one wall. Lord Stowe had ripped one down and used it as a cloth to dust off the long, filthy table that stood in the middle of the room. The advisers had insisted on coming there—the uppermost tower, protected by one long flight of stairs and a secret exit behind the throne. It had been designed by someone wilier than Alexander. The design made it impossible to trap anyone inside—unless, of course, the attackers knew the building’s plans.

  And no one knew the plans of this room. Each King learned it from his predecessors. Nothing was written down. Not even the advisers knew of the escape route that wound its way through a false wall all the way to the dungeons below.

  Alexander had first come into the room alone to see if his memory was as clear as he had hoped. He tested the secret door and, except for a spiderweb the size of his head, the hidden passageway looked like a viable way of saving his own skin.

  If only he could find Nicholas. He wanted to be able to save them both.

  Nicholas had vanished after the meeting with the Danites, ostensibly to find Stephen. But Stephen had found Alexander, and neither of them had seen Nicholas.

  They had said nothing after that. They knew where Nicholas was. Somewhere in the midst of the fighting, loving the moment, not thinking of the future.

  Or dead. Or dying. All alone below.

  Alexander had dispatched four guards to search for Nicholas but had given up when one of the guards had come crawling back, his right arm hanging from his side, the blood stanched with a piece of tapestry from one of the lower windows, with news of what they had all feared.

  The Fey had broken through the gate and were now inside, attacking the castle.

  Lords Oast and Stowe had climbed to the roof and watched from above. When they came back in, their faces were ashen and their hands shook. They repeated what the guard had implied.

  It would take a miracle for anyone to survive the slaughter going on below.

  So Alexander was trying to put it out of his mind. No one would let him go, and he knew little about sword fighting. At least Nicholas had practiced at it. Alexander stayed in the War Room and tried to plan a defense they had never thought they would need.

  “When the peasants stormed the palace,” Monte, the head of the guards, was saying, “they were turned back with swords and flaming torches. All it took was a concentrated effort.” He was a large man, all muscle and no fat, with arms the size of Alexander’s thighs. His face was lean, and his hair more brown than blond. He kept it short against fashion.

  “But they were an angry, uncoordinated force.” Stephen stood, one foot on a shaky stool, the other on the ground. Even though he had twenty years on all of them, he stood straight, his body unbent by age. He had a power that none of the others seemed to have. “The Fey are fighting machines. They originated in the Eccrasian Mountains and brought all the magick of that place with them. They managed to overrun two continents before Galinas. When they took Nye, we should have prepared for this. They will not stop until they control the entire world.”

  Alexander ran his hand through his long blond hair. He had to think of something besides his son. “Are you saying we have no hope against them?”

  “Those Danites had no idea how many ships they’d brought,” Lord Powell said. His hair was falling around his puffy face, his ponytail almost totally undone. He looked as if he had been in the thick of the fighting, even though he hadn’t left Alexander’s side. “Enough to fill the Cardidas at port. Even if they had sailed over here on a whim, they had a month to make plans.”

  Alexander glanced around the room at the men, their eyes wide with fear, their faces pale, their hands shaking. They had already decided the fate of this battle. They were ready to roll over and let the Fey take Blue Isle from him. Him, Alexander, whose family descended from the Roca. Nicholas was fighting below and would die at the age of eighteen if Alexander allowed the situation to continue.

  And he would not. If the Isle was lost to the Fey, it would be lost in a fair fight.

  “Are you suggesting,” he said as calmly as he could, “that we allow this superior force to take the Isle?”

  “N-n-no, of course not,” Powell said. He backed away a little. “But I—honestly, Sire—I don’t see how we can prevent it.”

  “You don’t, do you?” Alexander felt a rage surge through him. He stalked Powell, backing his adviser toward the table. “I have never led a battle, but I know this. We will not roll over and play dead because we are frightened of some magicians who have crossed the Infrin Sea. We will not give up Blue Isle because we believe the Fey to be unbeatable. We will fight them with every breath in our bodies, and if it looks as if our land will not survive, we will destroy it ourselves before they steal Blue Isle’s riches. We will make it worthless to them. We will find a solution, or every man, woman, and child in this country will die trying. Do I make myself clear?”

  No one answered. If anything, their eyes had grown wider, their faces paler.

  “Do I?” His voice echoed in the room. In the silence he could hear faint screams and cries coming from below.

  “Very.” Stephen left his stool and stood beside Alexander. “I have made it my life’s work to study the history of warfare, the methods of the fight, and that includes the Fey. I welcome the opportunity to put my knowledge to use.”

  “Good,” Alexander said. “And the rest of you?”

  The silence continued. No one met his gaze. Finally Powell shrugged. “Sire, we have never been in this situation before. We—”

  “As if I have.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. What was the point of advisers if they didn’t advise? Still, he couldn’t spend all day discussing. He had to make decisions now. People were dying below.

  “Sire—” Powell started again, but Alexander cut him off with the wave of a hand.

  “We are under attack and our people are fighting as best they can below, with no pla
nning, no guidance, and no help from us. The Fey have broken through our walls, and they never should have done that. Your people should have stopped them.” He pointed at Monte. “But they’re inside now, and we have to get them back out. They had the element of surprise, but we have strength. We have this fortress that my family built during the Peasant Uprising. We have to solidify it. Monte, put your men together. I want a coordinated attack near the gates, and I want those gates blocked. No more Fey can come into this area. Do you have that?”

  Monte nodded—then waited, hands behind his back.

  “Well, get to it, man,” Alexander said. “I am your King, your commander, and you will do what I say. You will all do what I say.”