Scribes

by James Wolanyk

  “What’s wrong, Anna?” Shem asked as they descended the steps.

  “Nothing,” Anna wheezed, even as the heat of the flames wicked up the narrow stairwell. “Shem, stay by me. Can you promise that?”

  “Anything for you,” Shem whispered.

  Anna staggered out onto the courtyard, nearly at Bora’s heels. The flames were relentless, whirling into waves and shedding black smoke, their heat glassing the sand near their base and warming her skin despite the distance. She made out the bulky silhouettes of several dozen Dogwood men against the fire, all struggling to aim their ruji and edge through the burning wall. Some of the braver men—marked captains, no doubt—leapt through the inferno, only to scream and retreat when the agony became too great. Anna watched their blackened, smoking, peeling forms crash to the dirt as she followed Bora to a row of untouched tanning huts.

  “Tem!” one of the Dogwood shouted, just before Anna reached the safety of the tanner’s row.

  It was a command she’d heard in years past, when hunters leveled their bows and slings on fleeing stags.

  It sounded like a dozen candles being extinguished. Then came the dull whump of leather walls being raked, shredded, battered, punctured in the darkness, the screaming of sand as it quenched the iron shrapnel. She ducked lower, plunging into the shade and coolness of the tent wall, listening to the metal whistle past her ears and face.

  Something grazed her legs. Pain bolted up her shins and down her ankles, and she pitched forward, slamming into the packed earth with both arms outstretched. Again she was breathless, trembling, clawing her fingers over clay and sand and pulling herself toward Bora’s fleeting white fabric.

  “Come,” Shem said, his boots scraping up behind her. He seized tufts of her dress in his hands and lifted her under the shoulder, pulling her upright despite the deadened nerves along her feet. “We go together. We go slowly.”

  And Anna pushed herself closer to the Huuri, leaning on his weight and dragging her feet. One more step, she thought incessantly. Soon the volleys of ruji fire became constant, and she could feel Shem shifting beside her, angling his body to protect her from the iron. Muffled cracks and the popping of heated flesh were still audible through Shem’s cloak.

  He never cried out.

  The volleys fell still as Anna limped toward the end of the alley, her feet catching on the ground and slowing them. Each time she stumbled, Shem was quick to hoist her back up.

  “They’ll be coming,” she managed with a deep breath, wincing. “Behind us, Shem. They’ll be following this way.”

  “We go,” he replied, his pace unfailing. His words were soft ripples in the darkness, soothing her. “We go.”

  Anna pushed her head up, vaguely discerning Bora’s cloak at the mouth of the alley. Other white shapes moved around her like phantoms. “Almost there, Shem.”

  River-tongue echoed down the alley at her back. Flatspeak leapt at her from ahead. The hurried thumping of boots on soil and the rustle of blades being drawn and readied suddenly flooded the air, and the ground shook with charging.

  “I have her.” Bora’s voice broke through the clamor, and her shadow stalked out of darkness.

  Lean, hard arms supported Anna on her left side, and as her own weight fell away, so did the pulsing beneath her knees. Through the pain she considered that they should leave her where she stood. There was nothing dishonorable in girls who went to the Grove at the hands of the enemy, regardless of whether they’d died in a shadowed storeroom or the edges of their keep’s field with a dagger in hand. There was only torment in pushing ahead. Bodies had been burned for her; thousands of sigils had been snuffed out in her name; homes and markets had been reduced to ash with her guidance.

  Release me, she wanted to say. Set me down and walk onward.

  But the agony tethered her to the present. Each fleck of skin that burned and bled reminded her that she lived. She held a gift that had been denied to those around her, behind her, in morning bogs and forgotten corners of the city.

  And so she walked on.

  As she limped from the tanner’s row and felt the press of flames at her back once more, the pain swelled and rushed over her. Blackness curled at the fringes of her vision, numbing her lower body and tingling up her spine. Then the darkness rushed in once more, blurring her stretched shadow and the countless Alakeph swarming round.

  * * * *

  “Look here,” Bora commanded. The voice was crisp, pulling her from sleep, and Anna opened her eyes to the northerner’s hard stare. The woman knelt to Anna’s left. “Focus on me, child.”

  Despite her efforts, Anna couldn’t hold the gaze. Too much had changed; the space was dark, lit by flickering candles, and her legs were pointed out before her like disembodied stumps. Stone cushioned the back of her head, and to her left stood the doorway leading into the courtyard, its frame washed in a hot orange glow. Alakeph men hurried in and out in quick succession, some carrying satchels of ammunition and others bearing wounded men across their backs. Whimpering bled from the deeper recesses of the hall, only to be met by shushing and proverbs in flatspeak.

  Still mouths bleed no water.

  “Shem,” Anna breathed. She tried to turn, but even that induced a feeling of torn guts. She lay back, unbidden tears of pain flowing. “Where is Shem?”

  “Be still,” Bora said. “He’s fetching root pulp for the wound.”

  The wound.

  Anna stole a glance at her shins, now exposed by the hasty removal of her gown’s lower pleat. Tattered, bloodied fabric sat to her side in a tangle. All along her legs were patches of charred muscle and dead skin, although their cauterized surface relieved some of her fear. There was no oozing from the burnt gouging, which had cut directly across the legs and grazed bones. A wave of terror came over her as she thought of the armless and legless men of Bylka, forced to walk on crutches after the war.

  “I need them,” Anna whispered. “I need my legs.”

  Bora nodded. “They’ll remain. The root is for your pain, child.” She looked toward the main chamber of the hall. “This is no time to separate flesh.”

  Anna shuddered. “I can’t lose them later, Bora.”

  “The decision has not arrived,” Bora said, “so it does not exist.” A series of screams filled the air, followed by another wave of Alakeph dashing outside. “Nothing is worth consideration if we die on this night, child.”

  Anna kept envisioning the broken men. “Did you see what they did to him?”

  Bora squinted.

  “Jalwar,” Anna said, closing her eyes to the sounds of ruji hissing across the courtyard. “I just watched it happen, you know. They did this.”

  “They did,” Bora said.

  A ring of Alakeph congregated near the door to the courtyard, some pressing their backs to the frame and loading ruji. Others milled about with blades against their shoulders or scraping the earth, reserving precious energy. None of them spoke, but they shared a collective patience, and the same dour stare at the melee. The frontline was edging toward them, growing bolder and more fraught with explosions, but they remained.

  “Anna,” a low and northern voice said. An Alakeph warrior wandered out from behind a column and gave a short bow, wasting no time after his introduction. His robes were a pure white shade, unsullied by the dust and blood. “We stand ready.”

  Bora eyed the man.

  “Ready?” Anna asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Jalwar, most esteemed and martyred among the hall, gave his last words with clarity.” The warrior’s eyes were resolute, free of the stain of dusk petals or nerkoya. “Follow the words of the prophesied one.”

  Prophesied. “How did he tell you?”

  “Standing before me,” the Alakeph replied. “Before he departed to negotiate for you.”

  Anna’s throat tightened. “What?”

 
; “Your commands are our haste,” the Alakeph said.

  Looking to Bora, Anna found that she was suddenly alone. The Alakeph looked only to her. “Stay with the foundlings,” Anna said. “For now, just keep them protected.”

  The Alakeph inclined his head. “Uzgun.” He returned to the shadows with as much expediency as he’d arrived.

  Anna pinched her eyes shut. Memories of her morning and the prior night bled together in waves, as vivid in her imagination as they’d been in reality. “He negotiated for me.”

  Bora hummed. “He did.”

  “You said you’d be with him. With Jalwar, Bora. You told me that.”

  “And what did you tell me of the boy?”

  “You wanted to bleed him like an animal,” Anna said, wrenching her eyes open. “I trusted my mind.”

  “Suffering is the same for all that breathe,” Bora said.

  “But I saved him,” Anna shot back, unable to push herself up or return an arch to her back. “He isn’t suffering anymore. He’s alive.”

  “Eternity holds more suffering than your mind fathoms.”

  Anna choked back her reply, holding onto the same bitter words she’d once spoken in the markets and the privacy of a ship’s quarters. Death truly was an escape; Shem’s suffering would extend until stars burnt out and oceans ran dry. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Regret fixes nothing.” Bora glanced up as Shem hurried out from the main chamber and offered her a bowl. She took it, frowned, and scooped up a lump of pulp with two fingers. “This is all they could offer?”

  “More,” Shem said. “They use almost all for warriors, but know Anna is here. They give all they have.” He smiled, but his brow warped every time he looked helplessly upon Anna’s legs. “We fix.”

  “I know,” Anna said softly. She locked her jaws and tensed her forearms as Bora spread pulp over the gashes. Nerve clusters flared, but she kept her legs still, waiting till Bora had applied the bowl’s contents before releasing her breath. The numbness was swift and all-consuming; her feet and knees felt linked only by air.

  “Shem, we need to raise her,” Bora said. She lifted her head toward the doorway as another explosion went off, this one peppering the frame and front stoop with a rain of sparks. “It will not resist the pain for long, child.”

  Anna bit back a groan as Shem wormed his arm behind her back, gently lifting her to her feet with the wall as support. All feeling had evaporated from her legs, even as she leaned over to test her weight on the damaged ligaments. She looked past Shem and into the darkness of the main chamber, where soft voices formed a chanting chorus. “How many are there?”

  Shem blinked at her. “Many foundlings.”

  “They shouldn’t be here,” Anna turned to Bora, her hand still braced on the wall. There was no refuge in the northerner’s eyes. “They were supposed to leave. Jal—”

  “Yes, Jalwar,” Bora finished. “They knew everything, child. There are no trails for doomed men.”

  “They’re children,” Anna said through clenched teeth.

  Bora studied the courtyard beyond the atrium, curiously meditative in the midst of rushing and screaming and wheezing around her. “Gates are sealed. The kators are locked. Their men fill every street. What would you wish of me?”

  “To try,” Anna whispered.

  “Do you know how many breaths were lost to bring you to this moment, child?”

  Anna bowed her head as the wall rattled, struck by another explosion along its foundation. “Try, or leave without me.”

  “Without Anna?” Shem tightened his grip beneath her arm. “Not possible.”

  Bora let the silence hang. “Think, child.”

  “You don’t need me,” Anna said.

  “I need your light,” Bora’s glare softened in the flash of an explosion beyond the doors. “Preserve your light. Make your breaths worthwhile.”

  Anna glanced at Shem, at the collection of wounded Alakeph scattered along the far wall. Bloodstains and smears of soil covered their white robes, but the longer she stared at them and their exposed eyes, the more she saw the reverence in them. “We could mark them.”

  “They won’t accept it,” Bora said. “They would shed their breaths before beliefs.”

  “The foundlings, then.”

  “You can’t solve everything with your cuts, child.” It was more of a rebuke than Anna expected. “When the Alakeph fail, they’ll be taken. Think. Direct my course.”

  It was strange to hear from Bora’s lips, but Anna wasted no time in parsing the situation and working Bora into her plan. In the proper position, she would be worth ten men. “How did you plan to get me out?”

  “I didn’t,” Bora said.

  Anna narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “This course is yours, child.”

  “You led me here,” Anna said, her voice rising. “Which way were we going to take?”

  The northerner was intent on the three men limping into the darkness. “Tell me your plan.”

  With the violent pulse of another explosion, Anna centered herself in the chaos. She saw Malijad’s streets as a web arcing away from the kales, envisioning each junction and towering structure and walkway she’d observed on her walk with Konrad. She recalled the veins of the mule paths, the arteries where worshipers marched in ragged lines, the covered hoods of the water canals, where—

  Water.

  “Bora,” Anna said. “Where are the canals?”

  “Near.” Her gaze was questioning, thick with doubt. “Speak, child.”

  “I need a blade.” Anna searched the shadows around her legs, thinking. “Shem, could I ask something of you?”

  The Huuri nodded excitedly, far removed from the blasts that rained chips of plaster and smoking earth across the floor. “Anything.”

  “I’d like to give you another mark,” she said, trying her hardest to visualize the symbol that she’d once seen in meditation. Its curves and delicate twists were just out of reach, but the mere remembrance of its form was enough to conjure the details. Water blossomed in her mind, fracturing the haze of pain and fatigue. “I need something to mark you, Shem.”

  “Child,” Bora said gravely.

  That lone word was enough to rekindle every nightmare of the blinded man. Of light pouring from white eyes, of agonizing screams confined in stone walls, of unending torture and the black mask that hid her crime. “I won’t force you.”

  “You give honor,” Shem said. “I find a blade.”

  The boy moved to turn away, but Anna grabbed hold of his collar and fixed him. “You should know what I’ll do, Shem.”

  He gave her a hopeful glance.

  “It’s water,” Anna explained, doing her best to fight for the boy’s attention and gravity despite the joy in his stare. “I don’t know what it might do. I don’t know if you’ll be able to control it.” Her resolve fell away with every word. “You can’t trust me, Shem.”

  “I trust.” He leveled both hands on her arms, drawing her into his grin and the bleeding glow of his rune. His sigils swept beneath the skin in peaceful waves. “This is enough, Anna. Trust.”

  Bora’s wary stance bit into Anna’s peripheral vision, but she resisted the urge to meet the woman’s eyes. “Find a blade. Be quick, if you can.”

  “Ask High-Mother Sharel for my pack, Shem,” Bora added.

  With a reassuring squeeze against Anna’s upper arms and a nod to Bora, Shem whirled away and sprinted into the shadows.

  Anna gazed into the darkness. “Say it.”

  “What words should I speak, child?” Bora’s voice was soft, but no more compassionate than ever before. “Your reality is not mine. Our truths are not the same.”

  “So go,” Anna whispered. She lowered her eyes to the floor, then glanced up cautiously, edging toward the hard lines of
Bora’s face.

  “I’ll remain until the end,” Bora said. “Our paths are stitched together by thorns, child.”

  Somewhere within her voice was trust, or loyalty, or any number of heart-rending things that Bora could never express with sweet and empty words. Things that broke Anna because she believed them but didn’t deserve them.

  “I’m glad,” Anna said.

  Two Alakeph made their way into the hall, a third man hoisted between them with his innards spilling from his belly. They walked in eerie silence, as though oblivious to the wet, slippery coils dragging along the floor.

  “They are brave,” Bora said, “but they can’t win, child. What’s your course?”

  “The canals.” Anna worked out their path in a slow trickle of analysis. “If we can lead them to the canals near the gardens, we’ll be able to make it out of the district.” She took a deep breath to repel the throbbing across her skin. “I can see the marking, Bora, but I don’t know if it’s enough.” Rather, she didn’t know if it was too much. If it could maim him.

  “If we move with haste, we can reach them,” Bora said.

  “Was that your plan, too?”

  “No.”

  Anna glared. “You told me you knew a way out, Bora.”

  “A cornered hound will do anything to run free.”

  A gust of anger built in Anna, but it was quick to dissipate against the pop of explosions and barks of flatspeak. For once she understood the cold detachment in Bora’s eyes, the measured cruelty that she used to twist minds and hearts alike. Piece by piece, the shadowed edges of water sharpened in Anna’s mind, leaving behind a perfect memory where there had only been glimmers of recollection.

  What Anna knew as the fear of death fractured.

  When she locked eyes with Bora she saw an equal in her impassionate stare. There was nothing to fear about wicked men, or the tracker, or the shrapnel from lobbed bombs in the darkness. There was only fear of failing those around her.

  She heard Bora’s words like the singsong call of birds in spring, echoing.

  Life escapes us all. In time, it will outrun the fastest among us.