She said, her voice pitched in the low register that she assumed at these times, “Yes, of course some of you will die.”
“Who? What path leads to the fewest deaths?” Sarge said.
But it was already too late. Janna’s head hung forward in front of herself, heavy as an over-laden vine. Sarge caught her as she fell, and laid her beside the whimpering recruit.
* * *
She didn’t want to tell them what the captain had said about this path, but it seemed unfair not to.
When she repeated the words, silence met the declaration. Then Karas said, “You mean, the captain said that it was the very most dangerous place of all on the continent?”
Sarge nodded.
“Well, ain’t that something,” Penny said, slapping away a fly. “The sort of thing you get to tell your grandkids.” She flicked a look back at Jolanda. The two of them frequently vied over the cuteness of the progeny appearing as a third generation in their families.
“Tough going, I suppose,” Jolanda said.
Sarge nodded again. “First thornland,” she said. “Worse than any you’ve ever seen.”
“Better than sitting here waiting for them to come get us,” Karas said.
They packed up the camp, and figured out who would carry Janna and who would help the recruit along.
They struck east, along a side road, then over fields to what the captain had indeed described as “the very most dangerous place on all the continent.” Where the great barrier surrounding most of this kingdom had originated, through rituals and experiments. The heart of the Hedge. No one knew exactly what lay inside.
* * *
“I thought the Hedge surrounded the border here. Didn’t we come in through a split in it?”
“We did.” The mountain’s rocky foot had given the great vines, as wide around as a centaur’s barrel chest, no foothold, and so they’d slipped in despite the infamous living wall. “This is unconnected to that heritage. It’s the plant they took the magic from.”
“Ain’t no understanding magic,” Penny said.
“Naw,” Jolanda said. “You can sometimes, and it gets at what she’s saying. Magic leaks, it seeps back and forth, and so the original’s got a little more magic pumped into it, by virtue of the Hedge holding so much.”
“It will be a forest, but bad forest,” Sarge said. “Remember that time we went overland to get that bandit camp on that cliff they’d halfway carved into a skull?”
Alyssum’s face darkened. That had been terrible going: coarse, saw-edged grass that bit through cloth and leather, midges that clustered on any moist membrane, tufted, hillocky ground that tilted one way, then another, span by span. “That bad?”
“And dangerous.”
Alyssum grinned at her. “Don’t get much more exotic than this, do it, Sarge?”
They’d enlisted together. Standing in line waiting to talk to a recruiter, Sarge had confided her reasons for joining up—travel someplace exotic, she’d said, meaning but not saying anything was better than idle days. It had taken too long to find out the other’s circumstances—a war orphan, raised by the state, and full of little habits inculcated by years of living in institutions. No wonder Alyssum had mocked her words.
The tone could have been a jibe, but it was friendly, if not particularly respectful. “Aye,” she said, and left it at that.
She glanced around. They were ready.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
The journey through the mountains had been bad. It featured broken bones and frostbite, short rations and shorter tempers. Half a dozen lost their lives on the trails carved into the mountain’s side, usually traversed only in the summer months.
This journey was worse. Thorns and grasses lashed at them, and the stinging insects became great hornets, the size of one’s palm, cranky and capable of stinging five or six times in rapid succession, stings like fire that left blood-red sores around the stings. The flies bit now, taking thumbnail-sized nips of flesh.
At first, their destination was a green smudge on the horizon, then a wall, stretching up, forty or fifty feet of thorny trees. Brambles snarled the open space between their trunks. Everything was silent except for occasional muted bird noise from outside the trees.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Alyssum said.
Sarge looked at the trees. She hadn’t expected them to look quite so grim. “We don’t have another choice.” They followed as she made her way to the clearly delineated edge. You could see bare earth around each tree’s foot, except for the wiry black brambles. Outside those margins, grass grew. Within them, it or any other small, weedy plants were unknown.
Everyone’s wide-eyed glances showed an edge of panic. Sarge straightened her back and made her tone matter of fact. “Stay close,” she said.
* * *
Within moments, the outside world had vanished. Spindly trees towered all around them, even their trunks covered with wicked thorns. The brambles grew at just the right height for tearing at fetlocks, and flies swarmed whenever the thorns raked a bloody path across flesh. Sarge had hoped things would be cooler here along the trees, but somehow it wasn’t.
They stumbled on. The recruit had recovered enough to walk on her own, although Penny stayed near her, keeping a careful eye out in case she stumbled.
The sunlight filtered through layer after layer of leaves, made the world gray twilight. Now that she was unable to see the sky, Sarge wasn’t sure how much light they had left. They needed shelter, and soon. She called Janna up to her.
The woman came with weary eyes. Restless scraping shook the baskets as though the snakes knew where they were, and did not approve.
“We need to know the way to go,” Sarge said, almost apologetically.
Jade only nodded. She didn’t ask the obvious question: How will you stay on track once I point the way? She knew as well as Sarge did that this would not be the first time she was asked.
“I don’t need to know the route to the coast yet,” Sarge said. “Find something that will help us.” She laughed, and the sound of it surprised her. “Bonus if it includes food.”
Bitter merriment dried in her throat as the Jade unpacked the snake. It flowed restlessly up and down her arm before sinking its teeth deep into the scar-dimpled flesh. She didn’t speak, only pointed.
* * *
Within a half mile, the ground sloped down abruptly, leading to a thin rivulet, a few yards across, dark-watered and edged with more brambles.
They argued beside the bank whether or not it was safe to drink. Was this the thing that would help them, Sarge wondered.
With a thrash and roar, something exploded from the rivulet, seeming too large to have been contained by the scant water, tearing away the arm Karas had been reaching toward the surface. She screamed, falling backward.
Sarge drew the only weapon she had left, the captain’s sword. She charged forward even as the others scattered. She slashed at the thing’s dripping black scales. The blade bounced off ineffectually, the thwarted blow staggering her. It smashed at her, driving her back. She felt ribs crack under the assault.
The thing reared above her for the deathblow, then paused. She stared up at it in a blaze of pain.
It slumped to the ground, almost crushing her. A spear quivered in its back.
Looking across the stream, Sarge saw a knot of humans in strange spiky armor. She rounded on Janna. “What have we done, that you led us to this treacherous pass, you bitch?” she snapped.
Janna stood her ground. “This is our help,” she said, as the others began to wade toward them across the stream.
Sarge tried to take another breath, but pain and blackness overtook her.
* * *
When she roused, she was in quiet almost-darkness, inside some structure. One of the humans squatted next to her. She was on the ground, but her ribs had been bandaged and the sharp pain had faded to a soft, woolly awareness of its presence.
Despair managed to
insert its fingers around that cloud, pulling it to pieces.
“So we’re captured, then,” she said, more to herself than to the figure. Capture meant being killed, or worse, taken to be interrogated.
The human cocked its head to the side. This close, she could see that the thorny armor was actually its skin, as though thorns grew out from its very bones.
“Captured?” it said, its voice soft, sinuous, and sexless. “No, you have come to succor. This is the village of thorns, where many find refuge.”
Hope surged in her. “Refuge?”
“If they choose to give away their memories of what they were once, they can stay here. Most do not come until they are ready for that decision.”
She shook her head. “Not that. But will you set us on our way? We are making for the coast.”
“In the morning. When all of you have made the decision.” He rose to his feet. “Rest now.”
* * *
Lying in the darkness, she ran through the list in her head. She didn’t think Karas would have survived. And the others? Who might take such an offer?
Clytemnestra. A chance to escape the life she had chosen, not realizing what choice she had made. Surely the recruit would leap at the chance. And Janna.
And what would the sergeant say to that?
What would the captain have said?
* * *
In the morning, when they gathered their things, surrounded by the quiet, thorny beings who watched them but said nothing, Sarge didn’t see the recruit.
“Stay and find her?” Alyssum questioned.
“No,” Sarge said, and left it at that. She turned to look at Janna with a raised eyebrow. The green woman shook her head. “We have stories yet together, you and I,” she said.
Sarge wasn’t sure whether or not that reassured her.
* * *
But the girl was waiting a little outside the village.
Sarge paused when she saw her. Why had the recruit pressed the issue this way, rather than letting Sarge simply allow her to slip away? But she waited as the girl fell into line, next to Jolanda.
Sarge looked at her hard.
“It’s my duty,” the recruit said, shortly. “I thought about it, Sarge. And I thought, what would you do? And I chose.”
What could she say to that?
She gestured at them to fall in. Perhaps they’d make it to the coast. Perhaps they wouldn’t. But they’d try.
And as she led the way, she stroked the braid of hair around her wrist, the gray-strewn black braid that was the only thing she’d taken, beside the sword, from the captain’s body.
Hoofsore and weary, my love. But I continue on.
Vengeance
ROBIN WAYNE BAILEY
SAMIDAR SWUNG UP INTO THE SADDLE AND SETTLED HER BOW AND quiver upon the saddle horn. She turned for one more look at the rubble of the village, the ruined and smoking homes, and the desperate faces of people whose names she barely knew.
Serafia, a young priestess of the temple, stood close by, trembling and wide-eyed. “No one has ever been able to ride this beast,” she said nervously. “Yet, it takes to you.”
“You see things, don’t you” Samidar said. “All you priestesses see things.”
Serafia cast her gaze downward. “Some see more truly than others,” she admitted in a soft voice. “Jannica foresaw your coming.”
“Now Jannica is dead.” Samidar nudged her horse forward.
“Ride westward,” Serafia called after her. “The sun will guide you.”
Toward the sun, Samidar thought glumly as she rode beyond the village and into the woods. In the spongy earth, she easily picked up the trail of the soldiers who had attacked Shaloneh.
By late mid-afternoon, she left the forest behind and paused on the edge of a grassy, sun-scorched plain. Ahead, a range of low sloping hills rippled against the horizon. They reminded her of far-off Esgaria, her homeland, which was no more, and she felt a rare moment of homesickness. She brushed a hand over the moonstone circlet she wore, the Esgarian diadem, a last artifact of her people.
She despaired to find herself once again in armor with a sword in her scabbard and a demonic dagger at her side. She had hoped for a brief time to find peace with Jannica, but now that hope was lost.
Twilight crept across the sky, and the first stars of evening dotted the heavens as she reached the hills. An easy breeze began to stir her hair, and she tied it back with a leather thong. The breeze turned cool as the shadows deepened, and Samidar shivered. The soldiers’ tracks still led westward toward what remained of the sun. On an impulse, she spurred her stallion to a full run, sure of her direction, and as she rose to the crest of the next hill, she spied the band of soldiers and, just beyond them, the ruins of an old fortress toward which they rode.
Samidar braced one end of her bow against her stirrup and strung it. Then, she selected an arrow from her quiver. The breeze ceased, and the air became still. Fitting the arrow to the bowstring, she drew back with a steady hand, judging the distance and the elevation. It was an impossible shot, but she let her breath out slowly and let the arrow fly.
The string made a soft hum. The arrow arced upward, becoming invisible against the dusky sky. Samidar fitted a second arrow to the string and with the same deliberate care, sent another slender shaft after the first.
Halfway up the next hill, a straggling soldier flung up his arms and tumbled from his horse. An instant later, his nearest companion did the same. They hit the ground together, and two riderless horses reared in panic. Samidar fired a third shaft as the rest of the soldiers spun about. A third man fell from his saddle, and chaos spread through the ranks.
Samidar smiled with grim satisfaction. By riding in a close group, the soldiers had made easy targets, but a fourth shot stood less chance of success, for now the soldiers spread out. Some raced for the fortress at the crest of the next hill while a few lingered near their fallen comrades.
She made no effort to conceal herself. When at last they spotted her, a single soldier broke away from the rest and turned his mount toward her. She could feel his angry gaze upon her as he drew his sword.
Either he’s very brave or very foolish, Samidar thought. With men, it could be so hard to tell. She might have brought him down with another arrow, but she decided against it. Instead, she dismounted, hung her bow and quiver over the saddle horn, and waited.
The soldier spurred his horse suddenly, charging up the hill. A fool then, she decided, and an amateur. She noted how he held his weapon in his right hand, how he leaned forward in his saddle, and she stood her ground until the last possible minute. The soldier raised his blade, and still she waited. Then, just as the huge mount bore down upon her, she drew her own blade, stepped to the left, knelt, and slashed the horse’s front legs.
The horse screamed and stumbled. Its rider flew over its head and smashed into the hard ground. Samidar moved swiftly. The man was nearly twice her size. She kicked him in the head, picked up his sword and flung it as far as she could. Then, straddling his chest, she pounded him in the face twice with the pommel of her sword and pressed the razor edge against his throat with both hands. His eyes widened with shock and terror as a thin line of blood formed below his chin.
“If you twitch,” Samidar warned, “I’ll cut your throat. Do you understand?”
The soldier exhaled. Samidar raised an eyebrow and applied a little more pressure to the threatening blade. He made a weak indication of agreement. “Why did you attack Shaloneh?” she demanded.
He answered with a bare whisper. “The bow,” he answered. “The Death-God’s bow in the temple.”
Samidar ground her teeth as she leaned forward, her face close enough to the soldier that she could smell his leek-tainted breath. She remembered the immense idol in the temple at Shaloneh. The temple of Hel—the temple of Death.
The soldier squirmed beneath her, but only out of fear of the blade still cutting him. “The witch wants it,” he volunteered. “The witch P
ersea. She believes the bow has the power to resurrect the sorcerer Christomerces.”
Neither name meant anything to Samidar, and she shrugged. Too often, she had become caught up in the petty schemes of witches and sorcerers. She glanced up long enough to observe the few remaining soldiers dotting the opposite hill and the crumbling fortress beyond. She could feel its age.
She returned her attention to her captive. “One last question,” she said, as an image of Jannica took shape in her mind. “Shaloneh was a village of farmers, not a warrior in the lot of them. Who led the attack?”
The soldier trembled, and his eyes widened. “The witch gave the order,” he said with pleading in his voice. “I had to obey!”
Samidar regarded him with disdain. With only five priestesses in the temple, twenty men could have seized the bow without all the butchery. She thought again of Jannica as her anger grew.
Somewhere inside himself, the soldier found a drop of courage. His hands came up suddenly to grasp her wrists, and he arched his back in an effort to throw her off. Samidar uttered a short curse and smashed her head down against his. The moonstone circlet shattered his front teeth. He gasped and spit blood. “Who are you?” he demanded, his heels kicking the ground. “What are you?”
In control again, Samidar remembered her words to the old temple priestess. “I have a hundred names,” she answered, “but now my name is Vengeance.” She leaned ever so slightly on the sword again, and the raider grew pale, sensing his end. Yet suddenly, Samidar threw her sword aside. The soldier looked relieved, but Samidar drew the strange, jeweled dagger from the silver sheath at her belt.
“This is Demonfang,” she whispered, “and Persea is not the only witch you should fear.”
The sound of shrieking filled the air. It came from nowhere and everywhere, as if a gateway to hell had opened. The sound echoed up and down the hills. It shook the nerves of the soldiers on the opposite hill as they fought to control their frightened mounts.
Demonfang shivered in Samidar’s grip as she plunged it into the soldier’s heart. For a moment, the shrieking stopped and silence fell over everything. Then, the soldier’s mouth opened, and those same tormented shrieks and screams issued from him until death took his last breath.
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