Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron

by Steven Harper

  “She is blunt as a boulder,” Aisa complained, dropping to the bed.

  “It’s why we love her,” Danr agreed. “Uh … should I leave anyway?”

  Aisa sighed. “No, my love. Stay. Kalessa has pointed out that I have been unfair to you and she is right.”

  Looking both relieved and apprehensive, Danr sat tailor-fashion on the floor next to the bed. This brought his head on a level with hers. His feet were bare, as was his habit. He would probably never grow accustomed to shoes. She liked that about him.

  “What is it, Aisa?” he asked in his husky voice. “You say you love me, but sometimes I think Ranadar and Talfi are closer than we are. What are we doing?”

  “I do love you,” she said quickly. “Forever. It is just … complicated.”

  “I’m not as stupid as everyone thinks, you know. I can follow what you talk about.”

  “Only a fool would think you are stupid.” Aisa smoothed his coarse hair. “I am not sure you want to hear this, but I will say it.” She paused for a long moment, gathering herself as if to jump off a cliff. “Our relationship has been difficult. The fame you bring to it has created an obstacle.”

  “You’re backing away because of everyone else?” Danr said incredulously. “That’s not—”

  “If you want me to speak, you may not interrupt,” she admonished. “And you may not jump to conclusions or get angry until I have finished.”

  “I’ll try.” A dubious note entered his voice.

  She sighed. “It is unnerving the way everyone treats you, yes. It will make many things difficult. People want … pieces of you. Of your story, of your time, even of your clothes. You refuse to let Kalessa and Ranadar guard you—”

  “It feels wrong,” he interrupted, ignoring her earlier admonition. “I’m a farmer. Guards and servants are wrong for someone like me.”

  “And that is one reason why they love you so much,” she said. “You are one of them. But you are also not. They look at you and see a half-blood.”

  “Yeah, Danr the Stane.” He spread his hands and looked down at them. “Half the crowd today wanted to hear a story. The other half was ready to throw shit. Did throw shit. I’m always caught between.” Something seemed to occur to him. “You’re not unhappy because I’m part Stane, are you?”

  “Certainly not!” she said. “That is who you are. Everyone else has the problem with half-bloods.”

  “Everyone else,” he repeated softly. “Yeah.”

  “At any rate, I am trying to say that you attract attention wherever you go, and it has caused us problems. Delays, mostly, and for that I am …” She took a breath. “I am angry. I love you, but I am angry.”

  This caught him by surprise. “Angry? What for?”

  “Why have we come to Balsia?” she countered. “The city, not the country.”

  “Lots of reasons,” he replied, puzzled. “We wanted to see if we could blend in here, and wanted to see if it was a good place to live, and …” He trailed off as he caught sight of the temper rising in her face. “Oh.”

  “Yes.” The word was clipped. “Oh.”

  “The merfolk,” he was forced to finish. “Like we said in the cave. Maybe I am stupid.”

  Despite his admission, her temper was getting away from her like a galloping horse, and she fought to keep it under control. “Ever since the merfolk boarded my ship when I was first sold as a slave, I have wanted—yearned—to swim with them, or just touch one. I cannot explain why or what it is. They call to me, so free and so fine. The desire was muted when I became addicted to the Fae. But after I killed the elven king, the merfolk came back to me. In thoughts. In dreams.”

  “Is it another addiction?” Danr asked, looking more than a little alarmed.

  “Nothing like!” she almost snapped. “I … long for them the way a sky yearns for a rainbow, or the way a willow tree leans toward a river. But when I ran away from my owner in Balsia, I did not go to the ocean. I followed you under the mountain, and outwitted giants with you, and helped you find the Iron Axe, and more. Afterward, you said we would look for merfolk. Those words thrilled me like a new butterfly realizing it has wings! Except it has been more than a year, and we have only just now arrived in a place on the ocean. Not only that, we arrived just when the threat of storms prevents us from venturing out. For this, I am … angry.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Danr protested. “How was I supposed to know word would spread about us? Everywhere we went, people stopped us.”

  “They stopped you,” Aisa corrected pointedly. “They do not know who I am.”

  “Do you want them to?”

  “That is not what we are discussing.”

  “And then Death had those other quests for us,” Danr said. “Were we supposed to say no?”

  “I am angry, Danr,” Aisa said evenly. “Ever since we went under the mountain, I have lived my life for you. I have done what you wished, gone where you needed, fulfilled your quests.”

  “They were your quests, too.” Danr was growing heated now. “You killed the elven king and cured your hunger for him. Now everyone knows how to cure elven hunger, and the elves don’t take humans for slaves anymore. Should we have turned back? Do you want to be hungry again?”

  “So I did not spend a year following you around,” Aisa snapped. “I did not find the haft for the Iron Axe for you, or save Talfi’s life when he lost his leg.”

  “He didn’t need saving, it turned out,” Danr shot back.

  “This is why I did not wish to talk to you.” Aisa folded her arms hard. “I knew it would hurt your feelings and you would become angry.”

  The scream echoed in her head again. Liar, whispered a small inner voice. Aisa tried to ignore it.

  Danr made a visible effort to calm down, though his hands were still tense. “So that’s why you’ve been pulling away from me. I’m famous, and we haven’t been able to look for the merfolk fast enough.”

  “It is how I feel,” she said.

  Liar. Tell him the rest. But Aisa folded her lips. There were times when she wanted to talk about it, when the words swirled around inside her in a bloody storm of emotion that demanded release. But years of slavery had locked up Aisa’s ability to share. Danr couldn’t help but tell the truth. Aisa couldn’t help but hide it. They made the perfect pair.

  “And me being half troll isn’t part of the problem?” he asked.

  The exasperation started again. “I have already said—I love you whether you are half troll, half dwarf, or half tree. But I would be a liar if I said your birth never made things difficult. A lot of people think you a monster, no matter what you have done. When we marry, they will think me a monster, too, I suppose.”

  “A monster,” he repeated sadly, and Aisa was instantly sorry for her choice of words. Danr had been called a monster all his life, and Aisa had only barely managed to convince him that he was not one in time to stop him from cracking the world in two during the Battle of the Twist.

  “You are not a monster,” she said. “I have never thought so.”

  “I know.” He touched her small, callused hand with his large, hairy one. “But you’re right—other people will think differently, and that will make life hard for … well, for both of us. When we’re married.”

  She seized on the change of subject. “Married. Hmm. Is that a proposal, then?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and coming from him, that had to be the truth. “I didn’t think of it as one.”

  Her face grew warm. “It is the first time you have used the word marriage with me.”

  “Is it?” His own face had the most peculiar look. “I … I guess I didn’t think. I mean … I always just assumed you and I would …”

  “A woman needs to be asked, you know,” she said tartly. “In the right way.”

  “Oh. Sure. Er …” He shifted again and started to get to one knee. “Aisa, will you—”

  “Not now!” she interrupted. “We are fighting!”

  He sat
back down, confused. “I thought the fight was over. You told me why you were angry, and I agreed with you. Are you still angry?”

  She looked away. “I don’t know. It’s all so complicated.”

  The scream returned. Liar, said her inner voice again.

  It is not a lie. It is true.

  You are not telling the whole truth. That makes it a lie.

  “All right.” Danr got to his feet. “Aisa, I’m really sorry we delayed after everything you did for me—for us. We couldn’t have done any of it without you. All I can do is promise you that the day storm season ends, we’ll go look for merfolk, and when I promise, you know it’s the truth.” He tapped his left eye. “I love you forever, yeah?”

  A great deal of the tension went out of the room. “And I love you,” she said. “But now I should gather my things and head down to the Docks.”

  “The Docks?” Danr cocked his head. “What for?”

  “The slaves.”

  “Oh. Right.” He was still standing at the door. “Can you put it off? We were supposed to visit Death after we killed the squid. This is sort of important.”

  “How can you think this is unimportant?” Aisa’s temper flared all of a sudden. “Death is not going anywhere. Those people are in pain!”

  “All right, sure.” He held up his hands. “I don’t want to fight again.”

  She closed her eyes. What was wrong with her? But the screams in her head answered that question. “I don’t, either. I’m just tired.”

  “Then don’t go. Let’s do something together. Just you and me. It’s been … I don’t know how long.”

  “I would love to, but after I get back.” She rose, caught up a pack, and rummaged through it. “Tell Mrs. Farley not to wait supper on me. And … I await your proposal.”

  “Just need the right moment,” he said at the door, then paused. “Just to be clear, you’re going to say yes, right?”

  “What woman can refuse a man who brings her a handful of squid ink?”

  He grinned and left, but Aisa noted the expression had an air of sadness to it.

  • • •

  After a considerable walk from Mrs. Farley’s rooming house, Aisa arrived with her pack at the Docks. Because Balsia was a port city—perhaps the port city—the Docks had a life of their own. Countless quays, dock, slips, berths, and piers jutted like the warrior’s toes into the green water of Bosha’s Bay, and hundreds of vessels of all sizes, from tiny rowboats to massive ships that moved under sails as big as clouds moored themselves here. The bay was protected from the South Sea by a spit of land that lay across the mouth, keeping the bay calm in even the strongest autumn storms. The spit was called the Sword of Bal, and legend said the great hero had fought a great fire-breathing wyrm on this spot countless centuries ago. They had killed each other. The wyrm’s blood created the bay, and Bal’s dropped weapon created the spit of land that sheltered it. At one time in her life, Aisa wouldn’t have given the story a shred of credence, but after watching Danr wield the Iron Axe, she half wondered.

  Sailors, merchants, dockworkers, rope weavers, prostitutes, innkeepers, coopers, sail makers, and others created a city all its own down at the Docks. Like the city of Balsia itself, the Docks were split in half by the river Bal—Aisa noted the lack of originality in names for this place—which emptied into Bosha’s Bay. As she always did when she arrived at the Docks, Aisa paused to shade her eyes and look out over the water in case one of the merfolk might be swimming there. There never was, but she always looked.

  At least the sky was clear for the moment. When they had first arrived in the city of Balsia, Aisa was hoping to board a ship right away and go looking for merfolk, but they had arrived in early autumn, the beginning of storm season. Dreadful typhoons blew up out of nothing in the Iron Sea and rushed across the coast. Only the most desperate or foolhardy captains put to sea at this time of year. Instead they cozied up to Balsia’s forgiving port for a month, made repairs, and let their sailors get into fights on land, where it was the busy season for innkeepers and whorehouses. Aisa tried to tell herself it was only one more month, but the time dragged, and the ever-present ocean tempted her daily.

  Some days, the ocean called to her, almost sang to her, like a mother humming a lullaby, and she wanted to … what? It was hard to say. She had no real desire to sail, could barely swim, but the ocean was mysterious and powerful and gentle all at once. It held secrets, and she wanted to know every one. She had no real idea why she felt this way. It was simply a fact that she did. Most likely it had something to do with the conversation she had had with the mermaid all those years ago when she was first sold into slavery. She would have liked to ask the merfolk in person about it. But merfolk never swam the filthy waters of Bosha’s Bay, and the ocean hid its secrets beneath the greasy little waves of the harbor.

  On the west bank where the river met the bay stood the gleaming azure jewel that was Bosha’s temple. Since Bosha was the goddess of the ocean, her priests were in charge of the Docks, and her temple showed their wealth. A high wall studded with shards of blue glass surrounded the temple complex, and within rose a number of intricate buildings designed to appear that they flowed and crested like waves. More glass, and even real jewels, were inlaid on the pale stone so the place sparkled and shone like a bit of ocean dragged up on land.

  It made a stark contrast to the cages and pens of the slave market directly across the river. Most of the pens were long, low buildings with cages or shackling areas inside. If the city was a seedy warrior, this place was a festering sore on his buttocks. Here, the smell of fear and feces made the wind heavy with hopelessness. Today, every pen was filled to capacity, and more slaves of all ages, including babies, were chained outside them. Slave dealers in black moved among the pens, mingling with customers—wealthy estates intending to buy in bulk, whorehouses looking to fill beds, homeowners seeking a cheap maid or houseboy.

  Aisa’s teeth ground until her jaw ached. She hated this place, but she couldn’t stay away. The pens were packed because of what she and the others had done to the Fae. Before the Battle of the Twist, the main market for human slaves had been the elves in Alfhame, just up the coast to the east. The Fae used slaves the way a pampered lady devoured sweetmeats, and many humans had been sent to Alfhame as tribute, but just as many were exchanged for elven silver.

  Almost no humans ran away from slavery among the Fae. A lingering touch by an elf put on a glamour that made the human love the elf, worship him, yearn for him. Aisa remembered very well how badly she wanted her elven master, the king, to touch her, or simply say her name aloud. And then Aisa had displeased her master and he leveled on her the worst possible sentence: exile. For two years she had lived in Farek’s cold house, hungering for the elven king’s touch, until the Nine had given her the chance to lay the elf king low. The moment he died at her feet, her hunger had ended. It was a revelation—killing the elf ended the hunger among the human slaves. Once that knowledge got out, the Fae no longer wanted human slaves. With the main buyer no longer interested, a glut appeared on the market. Prices fell sharply. And with lowered value came an increase in abuse of the merchandise. The combination of guilt and outrage brought Aisa here.

  Aisa filled two buckets of water at the common pump and made herself stride toward the first pen. The guard stationed there recognized her and let her pass inside with a simple nod. The smell of the pen hit her with a ghostly fist. The streets had nothing on the pens, where sanitation was a bucket or bowl, where few people were able to wash, and where people often vomited or soiled themselves from fear. The stench of misery, pain, and waste lay thick and pungent on Aisa’s skin. Slaves were chained or tied to a series of low walls that ran the length of the pen. Voices bounced off the walls and ceiling in a mix of conversation, moans, cries, and soft sobs. There was no laughter in this place.

  “Here you are.” A plump human woman in a red robe bustled up to Aisa. She had a wrinkled face, twisted hands, and thinning white hair. He
r name was Kuri, and she was a priestess for Grick. The temple of Grick officially disliked slavery, but did not have the political clout to make its displeasure known. It did send its priests and acolytes to the slave pens to practice their healing. Aisa was no acolyte, but the temple never turned away volunteers, partly in the hope that they might become converts. Aisa wondered what the priests would think if they knew Aisa and Kalessa had once kept house for Grick for several months while the Old Aunt herself called up Aisa’s personal demons in single combat. As a reward for defeating her inner monsters, Grick had given to Kalessa a sword that changed into any blade Kalessa desired and to Aisa an old fireplace poker that unexpectedly turned out to be the handle of the Iron Axe.

  “A new lot came in early this morning, and they need seeing to,” Kuri said to her. “Over in the corner. Do you have what you need?”

  “I do, and good morning to you.”

  Kuri waved a hand and hurried off to a knot of children who were chained together. Aisa watched her go, a little glad Kuri had not requested that she deal with them. The adults were heartbreaking enough.

  Aisa was carrying her buckets to the corner when a hand lifted one of them from her. Surprised, she turned. The helper was a dark-haired woman in her fourth decade, old enough to be Aisa’s mother. She wore a patched blue cloak with the hood cast back, and she carried a broom in her other hand. Her name was Sharlee, and Aisa had come across her and her broom in the slave pens a number of times.

  “Let me carry this one, honey,” Sharlee said. “Do you need a hand today?”

  Out of habit, Aisa almost refused, then changed her mind. It was silly to turn down help. “Thank you,” she said instead.

  In the corner, three women were chained to the wall by ankle shackles that gave them spare movement. The first had a festering cut, and the second was coughing uncontrollably. The third seemed healthy, but Aisa would have to examine her anyway. The first two women flinched when Aisa set the buckets down.

  “My name is Aisa,” she recited in a quiet voice. “I’m not a buyer, and I do not work for the slavers. My friend Sharlee and I wish to help with your sickness and injuries.”