by Sam Sykes
“Eternal.”
“That’s, uh, not exactly helpful.”
“‘Helpful’ is not a word known to Him.” He never looked at her, even as he spoke to her. His eyes never once wavered from the temple to the south. “‘Necessary’ is. To watch our foes, to be ever ready for their incursion, to extend His will across a world that craves His guidance even should it be through the flames of our foes’ cities and the blood of their children, this is necessary.”
She blinked.
“Uh, all right.” She cleared her throat. “Could you maybe just… tell me where it is?”
“You won’t get shit out of him, darling.” Another voice, this one with plenty to prove, spoke up. “You can’t sway even the lowliest Karnie slave with pity or mercy, much less old Careus. Any victim of their wars would tell you that.”
She glanced over to the woman on the other side of the line. Or at least, what she thought was a woman. Her hair was tucked up beneath a Sainite’s typical tricornered hat, her face masked by the buttoned high-collar of a Sainite bluecoat, and any sign of feminine curves was smothered beneath the soldier’s kit she wore. But her features and eyes were both keen as the saber she wore at her hip: sharp, flashing, and eager to see blood.
“So, can you tell me where the temple is?” Asper asked. “Miss…”
“Watch-Sergeant Blacksbarrow,” the woman said, standing crisply at attention. “Seventh year of a tenner in this sand trap. I could draw you a map of a harbor tramp’s asshole.”
The priestess frowned. “Is… is that good?”
“My shift’s over in another turn,” Blacksbarrow said. “Temple’s on the north side, so if you’ll come over here, we’ll double back out the Souk, jaunt through the Sumps, and come in through the northern gate.”
“That sounds needlessly complicated. Why not just come over here?”
“Faithful and heathen alike are bound to Cier’Djaal’s laws,” Careus interjected. “Our military presence here relies on an adherence to their request that we delay the impending vengeance upon the followers of false Gods for a time.”
“Cier’Djaal won’t let you fight?” Asper asked. “I’ve not seen more than a handful of guards. I’d wager both of you have over twice that number in your forples.”
“Our… what?” Blacksbarrow shook her head. “Obviously, if we wanted to mess up the Karnies, we could. And no Gods-damned Djaalics could stop us. They’ve got less than four hundred Jhouche, including their dragonman mercs. We’ve got over seven hundred pikemen, archers, and scraws ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
“Daeon’s faithful possess eight hundred legionnaires and the revered Faithbreaker,” Careus replied.
“Point being,” the Sainite continued, “Saine needs silk. Cier’Djaal has it. We fight here, they stop selling to us.”
“You can’t just take it?”
“The heathen Djaalics alone possess the knowledge of how to weave the spider’s offal into cloth,” Careus spoke curtly. “What stores we could seize—and we could, if we felt inclined—would be minuscule compared to what we can purchase. Hence, we are obliged to honor the Death Line.”
Asper looked down to the long red smear beneath her feet. And for the first time, the Karnerian looked away from his vigil, as did the Sainite. All three gazes focused on the painted line intently.
“First one to cross is first one to break the law,” the Sainite muttered. “Trading penalties, heavy fines…”
“And swift retribution,” the Karnerian added.
“Nothing for you to worry about, civ,” the Sainite said, voice piping back up. “Just come on over to this side and we’ll fix your shit.”
Before Asper could even begin to formulate an answer, the sound of steel on stone rang out. The Karnerian struck the cobblestones with the tip of his blade, hefting it.
“The Empire’s duty is to guide the weak,” he said. “The temple of Talanas is on our side of the Line. It will be Karneria who guides the priestess to her destination.” He extended a gauntlet that looked like it might hurt to touch. “Come, pilgrim.”
“The hell she will, scalp!” Blacksbarrow snarled. “The Talanites are a peaceful people averse to violence. That means they belong to the Sovereignty of Saine.”
“Now wait—” Asper had begun to speak when Careus boomed over her.
“Typical Sainite greed,” he said, sneering. “You claim the faithful and the faithless as your own subjects and think yourselves superior for doing it in the name of a nation instead of a God. Your faith means nothing, your sovereign even less.”
“Just hold on—”
“The Sovereign is the nation, scalp,” Blacksbarrow spat. “She leads us in war and peace alike. Your priests throw you scraps and you feast on them like the blind zealot dogs you are. You’re a nation of slaves trying to find slaves of your own.”
For the first time, a flicker of emotion flashed across Careus’s stern features. He wore his anger comfortably, as if it had been there all along.
“The Empire honors its oaths,” he spoke, hard and swift. “And it is through that oath that your head remains on your shoulders. Run back to your birds and platitudes. Daeon’s own shall handle this.”
“The fuck it will.” Blacksbarrow’s hand shot out and seized Asper by the bicep. “She’s going to come with—”
“Do not touch me!”
Asper jerked away suddenly, far more so than Blacksbarrow seemed to have anticipated. The Sainite staggered forward, thrown off balance by the weighty kit on her back. For the briefest of moments, the barest hairbreadth of the toe of her boot set upon the red smear.
And once again, all eyes were on the Death Line.
In the next instant, Careus and Blacksbarrow were staring at each other with wide eyes across the line, accusation burning behind their scowls. For a short moment, Asper was granted the cold feeling that something was about to go terribly, terribly wrong.
And in the next moment, it did.
Karnerian and Sainite both retreated, reaching to their waists. In the Karnerian’s gauntlets, a war horn was produced. In the Sainite’s hands, a silver bugle. Dissonant songs of warbling wail and shrieking rally went into the air as both blew furiously upon their own instruments of alarm.
The noise rang throughout the Row, flowing over the walls of their respective temples to the ears of their stone Gods.
An instant later, their calls were met with shrieking squawks, banging gongs, and the slow groan of fortress gates opening.
From the south, the bluecoats of the Sainites came fluttering, bows and blades in hand as winged scraws, beaks open in shrill calls, came flying from the aerie towers.
Out of the north, the phalanx of Karnerian soldiers came rumbling, every step locked in order, every shield pressed together, every spearhead glistening with the crests of their helmets as they came marching out as a singular iron fist.
War cries flooded the skies. The thunder of boots shook the stones. And the wind trembled with the anticipation that it soon would be filled with the sounds of men and women dying.
Asper, for her part, tried her best to ignore that.
Because Asper, for her part, was walking away quite swiftly in the vague direction she suspected the temple of Talanas to be, if Blacksbarrow’s information could be trusted. She resisted the urge to break into a run, however. That would look suspicious.
And a certain level of nonchalance was required of the woman who may or may not have just inadvertently started a war.
Well, this wasn’t too hard to find, Asper thought as she looked up, and up, at the vast temple sprawling before—and over—her.
Long marble steps rose up into a ziggurat, marching heavenward to a tremendous house wrought of smooth, white marble. Pillars depicting people entwined together to become columns unto themselves marched the length of it, their stone hands reaching up to the sky. And at the very top, the crown upon the throne of marble, a fountain bubbled among a ring of stone children holding hands,
its waters descending the steps to pool at a tiny moat at the base of the temple.
It wasn’t the most ostentatious tribute to Talanas she had ever seen. The Healer, after all, was popular for a reason; everyone got sick at some point in their lives. Still, the sheer wealth with which the God—her God—was displayed made her slightly uncomfortable.
Really, she wondered, why couldn’t they just have told her to look for the giant ziggurat made of water and marble?
She approached, following the tide of people marching toward the steps. As they reached the foot, however, they dropped to their bellies and began to crawl up instead of walk.
She knew the rituals of the faithful differed from region to region, but this was new to her. She regarded at the only man standing, an elegant-looking fellow in teal robes painted to resemble a river perpetually flowing from his shoulders. He welcomed her, as he did everyone else, with a broad, welcoming smile.
Right up until he saw the silver pendant around her throat, anyway.
“We beg your terrible pardon,” the man said, holding up a hand and halting her where she stood. “While we welcome all worshippers to the house of Ancaa—and wish you great peace for having sought blessing of the Endless River—we must ask you to discard all other garb of… alternative Gods.”
“Alternative…” She glanced down at her pendant and clutched it protectively. “I thought this was the temple of Talanas.”
“Ah. No. Unfortunately, the people who turned to the Healer found him somewhat… deaf when the footwar began. Ancaa was made known to us, then, and She revealed that we had been suffering long before the thieves began to make sport of us.” He gestured to the vast temple. “And as evidence that wealthy and poor stand alongside the Lady of Equality, the great fasha Teneir had this temple commissioned for the faithful.”
“Oh, well… isn’t that nice.” She coughed. “So, where is the temple of Talanas?”
Exactly half an hour, three wrong turns, one moment of being chased by angry dogs, and a toothless man propositioning her for the princely sum of three copper pieces and a dead rat later, Asper opened a dingy wooden door and was immediately greeted by the stench of stale bandages, overripe wounds, and the shrieks of people in agony.
Ah, she thought, this is more familiar.
At the very far end of the temple was a very small wooden statue of Talanas, a tall man with a stately beard in shoddy robes with His hands held out to His side. The old fellow looked as though no one had really thought to ask what He might think of this, His temple, but the slow warp of the wood had twisted His features into a modest, disapproving frown.
And between the statue and her lay over a dozen pews that had been hastily hacked, sawed, and repurposed as sickbeds, each one of them occupied. Elderly mothers sobbed and lay hands upon young men missing limbs, muttering prayers over their bandaged stumps. Weary-looking fathers cradled tiny daughters and sang soft lullabies into ears stuffed with gauze and eyes wrapped in bandages. Some had no one, lying in their hard, uncomfortable beds and looking long to the bearded man at the end of the hall.
The scent of congealed blood mingled with expired salves and poultices. The dull, constant groan of ache was punctuated with the occasional sob of agony. Suffering hung in the air like a shroud.
And Asper suspected most of it came from the three frazzled-looking people in blue robes wildly rushing from bed to bed, offering peace to the wounded and abuse to each other.
“Yes, mother Halfa, we are doing everything we can for your son,” a stocky young man with dark circles under his eyes said to one woman before looking over his shoulder and shrieking. “Where the hell are my hecatines? He’ll be bled out by the end of the day at this rate!”
“Six freshly wounded arrived today and I’ve barely stitched up two of them! Get them yourself, you son of a bitch!” came the harried response from a harassed-looking young Djaalic woman, who instantly turned on a weary smile to a small girl fussing with a spoon. “I know it tastes bad, little lamb, but it will help with your fever. Could you try once more for me?”
“Will both of you ignorant dopes keep your voices down? This is a place of harmony and peace, for fuck’s sake!” That one came from a slender youth whose shoulders looked too broad for his dingy blue robes. His eyes were wide and wild as they turned upon Asper. “You! What the hell are you doing?”
“I, uh,” she began.
“Speak up,” the young woman shouted. “No one can hear you over these idiots!”
“MY NAME IS ASPER I’M FROM THE NORTH AND I CAME HERE TO ASK SOME QUESTIONS BUT IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO HELP OH GOD.”
“Yes, for the Healer’s sake!” the stocky man shrieked. “In the back! Get me my hecatines!”
“What is a, uh, heca—”
“The bugs, shkainai, the bugs!” He jerked his chin over his shoulder toward a door at the back. “Go grab one!”
She was off, her feet weaving between the beds even as her eyes weaved between the injured. Upon their bodies she could see the salves that had remained on too long, the bandages that had been faded by covert washing and irresponsibly redressed, the stitches that had gone crooked due to haste or weariness or both. She looked at their wounds, she looked at the shoddiness of their healers’ work.
But never once did she look at their eyes.
She knew what she would see there: desperation, anxiousness, a fervent wish that she would look into their eyes and tell them everything was going to be fine. And she knew what they would see in hers: a solemn, solid uncertainty crushing a slim fragment of hope.
Perhaps if she were younger, more inexperienced, she would think that brief hope to be a worthy trade for the despair to follow when she couldn’t tell them she didn’t know. But she had seen too much blood, too many corpses. Her skills, she knew, were best used noting what she could fix.
Later.
After she had retrieved the hecatines.
Whatever those were.
And even when she laid eyes on them, she still wasn’t sure. The stench of year-burning incense assaulted her as she walked into a small wooden room laden with smoke. From the shelves, dozens of compound eyes stared back at her, seated upon thin, trembling legs and attached to bulbous, throbbing abdomens.
Bugs. Just like the sleepless man had said.
But… what did he expect her to do with them?
“Something just ruptured! He’s bleeding out!” came a cry from the main hall. “Now, shkainai, NOW!”
To hell with it. She reached out and seized one without looking. Surely, you can’t screw up too much when it comes to handling giant bugs, right?
Said giant bug—this fat, six-limbed thing sitting complacently in her hands—didn’t disagree.
She returned to the main hall to be greeted by a frenzy of movement among a spatter of red. A young man missing a leg was screaming, flailing his stump, and heedless of the blood spurting even as he grew paler with each moment. The young woman was busy attempting to readjust a slipped tourniquet as the stocky man tried to hold him down. The slender man with the wide eyes was struggling to comfort an old woman through the headlock he had put her in to keep her frenzied, pleading flails from interfering.
“Mother Halfa, please, let us do the Healer’s work.” He looked over to Asper, eyes wider than ever. “Shkainai, what are you waiting for?” He gestured to the flailing man. “The hecatine! Use the hecatine!”
“HOW?” Asper screamed back.
“It’s a giant bug filled with blood; how much more obvious do you need it to be?” the stocky one spat.
She stormed forward, elbowing past him and thrusting the bulbous little vermin upon the man’s shoulder. To her immense surprise, it immediately twitched to life. Its barbed legs hooked into the man’s flesh. Its compound eyes glittered as it loosed an excited chirruping noise. Beneath its eyes, a long, needlelike proboscis extended.
She was so fascinated by the bizarre display that she scarcely felt the long, slender arms encircling her middle
. Or rather, as she realized a moment later, reaching past her. A pair of wide eyes appeared at her shoulder as the slender youth looked past her.
“It takes a moment to wake up.” His voice was warm and soft in her ears as he whispered. “They instinctively react to the presence of blood.” He took the bug gently by its thick little head, guiding the proboscis to the writhing man’s throat. “But the incense leaves them a little sluggish, so we must guide them to an artery and…”
The proboscis plunged in. Asper let out a cry and instinctively reached out to pry it off, only to find his hands gently taking hers.
“Just wait,” he said softly.
The bug’s bulbous abdomen trembled. The thick red liquid sloshing about inside began to empty, deflating like a bladder as it slid out of the insect and into the man’s neck. The patient groaned softly as color began to return to him, his thrashing easing as the tourniquet was reapplied to his missing leg and the two remaining priests began to dress the wound.
Hands released from hers and she felt him step back. Asper turned and saw him just as he began to shrink. A long, weary sigh left his lips and seemed to take the rest of him with it. The broad shoulders stooped, heavy lids drooped over the wide eyes, and a sleepy sort of smile creased a face too young for the wrinkles it was inviting.
He looked, at that moment, like a very tired young man in only slightly bloodied blue robes.
“The hecatines drain blood to feed to their young,” he said. “Something inside their bodies makes it a handy mixture. If we can catch them early, we can put them to sleep and save them for when we need it. Like now.” He canted his head at her. “I take it you don’t have these in the north, shkainai?”
“No, most of our medicine is relatively magic-bug-free,” she replied, brows knitting slightly. “But then again, in the north, we also call each other by our names instead of… whatever that word I keep hearing is.”
“There is nothing magic about the hecatines. ‘Shkainai’ is Djaalic for ‘stranger.’ And you are completely correct. I tend to forget my manners after about the fourth day of no sleep. I am Aturach.” He pointed to his two companions. “These are Savine and Malauch.” An imploring look followed. “And I hope they can handle things briefly while I speak to our guest?”