House of Blades

by Wight, Will

  Her blue eyes should have been enough to set her apart, but Leah had the same natural charm as Alin; people welcomed her, accepted her, and treated her as warmly as if she had always been one of their own.

  The other villagers often treated her better than they treated Simon, actually, though that didn’t bother him much. He rarely minded being left alone.

  “Oh, how’s your mother, Simon?” Alin asked. “I haven’t seen her in a while.” Alin’s tone was polite and open, but Simon flinched. At the moment, his mother was likely lying on the floor of their home, soaked in wine and huddled in filthy blankets, probably murmuring nonsense to herself.

  “She’s fine. Some days are better than others.”

  Leah made a sympathetic noise and turned to look at Simon. “That must be hard, taking care of her by yourself,” she said. “I don’t know if I could do it.”

  Pride warred with embarrassment inside Simon, and his tongue got caught in the crossfire. He mumbled something about it not being that hard, but he wasn’t sure it emerged as anything coherent. Alin opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted by a huge noise: a sudden crash and the screams of a crowd of men, accompanied by the pounding of several dozen sets of hooves.

  It was coming from the direction of the village gate. Simon pushed past Alin and Leah, rushing to get free of the houses so that he could have a clear view of the gate. After a startled second, he heard Alin and Leah running after him.

  Simon cleared the last house in the row just in time to see an arrow land inches from his head, cracking the baked clay bricks of a nearby wall. He tore his eyes from the arrow that had almost killed him.

  As he had feared, the gate had been broken down, slammed flat into the ground. Riders on horses poured in through the broken wall, trampling the gate and two wet mounds that had to have been whoever was on watch duty. Some of the soldiers held torches, some swords, and some short composite bows meant to be fired from horseback.

  Raiders. And, judging from the brown-and-purple cloths tied around the horses’ necks, not Enoshian heretics, but official soldiers of Overlord Malachi.

  Simon stumbled backwards, knocking into Alin and Leah and pushing them back into the shadow of the houses. Why had this happened? What had Myria or its people done to anger their Overlord?

  Leah stuck her head out from the corner of a house and stared at the soldiers. For a few seconds, she went completely still, like a deer about to bolt. Then she turned and grabbed Alin and Simon by their arms, pulling them deeper into the circle of homes.

  “We’ve got to get as many people as we can out the back gate,” she said. “Tell everyone you can to run, not fight. They’ll butcher us if we resist.” Oddly, she didn’t look frightened. Her face had gone harder than Simon had ever seen it, and she burned with anger, as though these soldiers had somehow offended her personally. Well, he supposed that invading your hometown should be enough insult for anyone.

  “Let’s raise a cry,” Alin responded. He was breathing heavily and his eyes moved everywhere at once, but his mouth was set in a firm line. “You two start running from house to house, and I’ll warn everyone still at the fires.”

  “No one uses the north gate. Maybe we can go out there, circle around, and head for Kortan,” Leah said. Kortan was the closest village, though Simon had only been there three times. It was most of a day’s walk away, and he couldn’t abandon his mother.

  “Simon, you—“

  “My mother!” Simon blurted, and he started to run.

  Dogs had begun to bark, and in several of the houses, people were emerging to find out what was going on. Behind Simon, Alin and Leah started yelling as loud as they could, trying to attract attention.

  Simon rushed through the tangled knot of homes in a pattern he had memorized when he could barely walk. It would take anyone on a horse some time to penetrate this deeply into the village, and hopefully by then he could take his mother and be gone.

  In a matter of minutes he reached his house, which was easily the worst-looking in the village. He had made the door himself when he was twelve, and it barely held together; the roof leaked, and many of the pale bricks in the wall were cracked and could use replacing. He tore open the door and stumbled inside, for once not feeling a surge of shame at the house’s appearance. He didn’t have time.

  He passed the bundle of rags curled up near the door, stepping over them to reach the cabinet. Throwing the doors open, he rummaged around for his sword. He had hidden it here, he knew he had, but where? He finally found the sword wrapped up inside a dusty rug, where he had hidden it from his mother. She would have hurt herself on it by now, or else sold it.

  The wooden scabbard was chipped and stained, and it didn’t quite fit; the blade rattled slightly when he picked it up. The sword itself wasn’t in any better condition, but he worked with what he had.

  Eight years ago, he had sworn to protect his family. And now the time had come for him to keep that promise.

  He buckled the sword around his waist, then moved over to the rags beside the door. He reached down and shook them vigorously. “Mother,” he said. “Mother, you have to get up!”

  The rags stirred feebly, and a puddle of sharp-smelling wine rolled out.

  Simon shook harder. “On your feet, Mother, now! We have to get out—” A wooden stick cracked into his skull and white pain blossomed behind his eyes. He fell backwards as his mother crawled out from her blankets.

  She clutched a short walking stick in her hand, though she dropped it immediately to shield her eyes from the light coming in from the door. Her black hair stood up at every angle, and she was covered in grime.

  “What’s all the noise?” she asked. Her voice whispered through a raspy throat.

  “Raiders at the front gate, Mother,” Simon said. “We have to go out.”

  She didn’t say anything, but groped around with her walking stick and, once she had found the floor, pushed up to her feet and began hobbling toward the door. She was barely five feet tall even when she was capable of standing upright, and when she leaned on her stick she looked fifty years older than she was.

  Sorrow and frustration welled up in Simon’s chest, as usual, but today they couldn’t compete with urgency. He all but pushed his mother out of the door.

  Outside, the air was thick with smoke, screams, and the sounds of combat and furiously barking dogs.

  Simon grabbed his mother by the shoulders and guided her between houses. The smoke burned his eyes, and he began to cough. His mother still didn’t seem to know where she was; she giggled to herself and swayed on her feet. Obviously this wasn’t just the alcohol, then; her disease had returned. Now, of all times.

  Through a veil of smoke, Simon saw someone’s dark outline running toward them, clutching something in its hand. He thought it was a sword. Simon spun his mother behind him and stood between her and the stranger, determined to keep her out of harm.

  The figure pushed through the smoke. It was Leah, holding a bloodstained sword in one hand and coughing into the other. Her crystal bracelet gleamed in the firelight.

  “Simon,” she said hoarsely, “there are too many of them. We have to go now.” She gestured with the sword for him to follow and headed back into the smoke. Simon tried to chase after her, pulling his mother behind him, but she dragged her feet and refused to budge. After a few seconds, she began to scream, a harsh, ear-piercing wail.

  Simon clapped a hand over her mouth. No one could likely make out one scream among all the others, but who knew? He wasn’t going to take any chances with soldiers. They might want slaves, and a woman’s cries from down a dark alley would draw slavers the way screams of pain would draw jackals.

  His mother bit down on his hand, hard. Her teeth sank into the flesh of his hand, drawing blood, and he set his jaw against the pain. He had no time for this. Besides, this was hardly the first scar his mother had given him, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  Letting her c
hew on his left hand, Simon scooped her up under his right arm and hauled her along after Leah’s quickly-vanishing silhouette.

  It didn’t take long for Simon’s arms to begin burning, even under his mother’s slight weight. Terror kept him moving forward, and the fact that, during the times when she stopped and turned to check on them, Leah didn’t seem tired at all.

  Their run was quick and brutal. Every second Simon had to choke down another mouthful of smoke, and he couldn’t help but imagine a huge soldier with a bloody sword in every shifting shadow. His legs began to ache, his arm burned, and the pain in his hand throbbed. He was so focused on forcing one leg in front of the other, over and over, that he almost stumbled over Leah. She had suddenly halted, and was crouched behind the smoldering half of a ruined horse-cart.

  Simon’s mother had finally—thankfully—gone limp in his arms, and he dumped her on the ground beside Leah as he crouched to join her. Silently, Leah pointed over the cart to Myria’s north gate. A huge soldier in dark, gleaming armor trotted his horse in a circle. He kept his own helmeted head constantly twisting, as if he were searching for someone through the smoke.

  Leah’s whisper was so quiet that Simon barely heard it over the crackling of the burning cart. “We should wait and see if he withdraws.”

  Simon nodded his agreement, but at that moment, the ground thundered under the pounding of hooves. Simon and Leah spun around together, Simon’s breath coming even faster. Three raiders on horseback trotted out of the houses behind them, escorting another walking soldier. The one on foot was pulling one end of a long rope, which was attached to a series of collars. Each of which was wrapped around a child’s neck.

  Four girls and two boys, the oldest not quite Simon’s age, and the youngest almost ten. Simon had grown up with all of them. Their clothes were torn, and most of them were visibly injured or covered in blood. What would a group of Damascan soldiers want with children?

  While Simon’s thoughts were still paralyzed, Leah grabbed his arm and pulled him under the cart. His mother began to thrash and to try and crawl away, but he pulled her along. Only the top half of the cart burned, so embers dropped through the cracks, stinging his face, but they weren’t in any immediate danger. Simon turned to face Leah and had to flinch back to avoid cutting his face on her sword. He looked past it, looking into her bright blue eyes. They still blazed with that strange anger.

  She glanced down at the sword on his hip, which dug painfully into his side. “Do you know how to use that?” she asked quietly.

  “I’ve done what training I could,” he said. In truth, his training consisted almost entirely of swinging the sword around alone, in the dark, behind the town woodshed. But she didn’t need to know that.

  “In other words, no,” Leah said. Her voice sounded businesslike, not cruel, but he still flinched at the brutal truth. He spoke out of wounded pride.

  “That’s more than you’ve ever had,” he said.

  Leah arched one eyebrow, and for a moment she looked just like her aunt Nurita faced with a child spouting nonsense. Then she sighed. “I meant no offense, Simon. Forgive me. But you can’t do enough to protect us from a squad of professional soldiers.”

  “So what do we do?” he asked. Leah had a way of taking charge that sometimes irritated him, but now he was grateful.

  Leah focused on a point behind his head, flicking her eyes from side to side as though she read from a page. “Give me a moment,” she whispered. Behind her, beyond the cart, the soldiers had grouped up and were gesturing wildly at the bound prisoners. One of the girls dropped to her knees and wept; a raider hit her on the back of the head with the flat of his sword, and she fell onto her face.

  “All right Simon, listen. If they stay there, none of us are going to be able to leave,” Leah said. “Do you understand? If nothing draws them off, we’re going to die under here.”

  “You don’t know that” Simon said. Why had she even said anything? The situation looked hopeless enough without her stating the obvious.

  Leah’s face softened a bit, though she still sounded like she was passing sentence. “Stay with your mother,” she said. “When you get a chance, run for the gate. Tell my aunt...” Her voice trailed off, and one side of her mouth quirked up into a smile. “Never mind.”

  Leah shifted enough to reach over her sword and patted Simon on the cheek. “Be good, Simon,” she said, and rolled out from under the wagon.

  Stunned, Simon just watched as she jumped to her feet and ran straight for the captive children. One of the raiders noticed her and shouted, but before anyone else could react she was at the rope, hacking and sawing with her sword. The soldier holding the rope reached out to grab her, but one of the boys from Myria knocked him to the ground. The other raiders spun their horses around and headed for Leah, but before they reached her the rope was cut. Its severed ends slid through loops in half a dozen collars, and the children bolted.

  At first, Simon expected them to run straight for the gate, but they didn’t; they scattered in every other direction. After a second, he realized that most of the nearby raiders were clustered between the captives and the gate itself. The children were just running anywhere they could see that wasn’t towards a raider.

  Including, unfortunately, directly towards Simon.

  A girl of about eleven or twelve dashed past Simon’s cart, her bare feet kicking up bursts of sand. A few seconds later, a steel-shod horse followed her.

  Simon rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. This was the time. If he was ever going to make a difference, if his time practicing was going to mean anything, he should go out now and make a stand. Maybe he would die fighting, like his father, but at least he could make a difference.

  Simon’s mother started to squirm in his arms. “Where’s my blanket?” she said. Her voice, thankfully, came out as a weak croak.

  “Hush, Mother. I’ll go back and get your blanket in just a minute. You need to be quiet right now.”

  “I don’t want to be quiet, I want my blanket.” She was trying to make her voice louder, but it just came out scratchier.

  Simon leaned close to her ear and pleaded, “Mother, please, we need to be quiet. We don’t want them to find us. After we get away, I’ll come back for your blanket, I promise.”

  His mother mumbled something in response, but he only understood the word “promise.”

  No, he couldn’t help the other villagers. His mother needed him.

  After another minute, the dust cleared enough that he could see the way to the gate. It was clear, except for a few bundles lying on the sandy ground. He started to wonder who those bundles had been, but his mind shied away from the thought and focused on more immediate matters. The raiders were gone, but they could return at any time. And there were surely more of them.

  He had to move now.

  Simon slid out on his belly, sticking his head warily up to check for danger. Nothing moved. Moving with the quick, jerky motions of fear, he reached back and pulled his mother up and out from under the cart.

  Picking her up again, and stumbling under the sudden weight, Simon began to jog towards the gate. He kept his ears sharp and tuned to any close sound. As he hurried past the bodies, he couldn’t help but glance down to see if either one had belonged to Leah.

  He almost breathed a sigh of relief when he passed them. Almost, except that he had known the two children in the dust for their entire lives. One of them was a nine-year-old boy.

  A new feeling rose up through his fear: determination. Since he was a boy, Simon had cared for his mother. He had worked for anyone who would take him, for as long as they would let him, barely earning enough supplies to scrape by. He was driven by a resolution, a stone-solid certainty: he would do whatever it took to keep his mother alive. If he had to crawl through the flames in the blackest pits of Naraka to do it, by the Maker, Simon and his mother were going to make it out alive. He owed his father no less.

  Simon kept his
resolve clutched close to his chest, like a blanket in the dead of winter. It warmed him, gave him the strength to keep running when all he wanted was to collapse and let the wind blow him away like so much sand.

  ***

  Leah had never run so hard in her life.

  She dashed over dirt and hard-packed sand, slipping through the broken remnants of the village gate, which had been shattered when Malachi’s soldiers attacked. Two of those soldiers followed her, shouting threats and curses at her back, and part of her wanted to turn and look behind her even though she knew that could only end in disaster. The soldiers were mounted on horses, and she knew that over open ground they would run her down in seconds. The only reason they hadn’t so far was because they were inside the village walls, and right now the village was a chaotic field of debris sown with bodies and wreckage. Urging their horses faster than a walk would be risking a broken leg for the mount and a nasty spill for the rider.

  But she was headed outside the village. And there, on the flat and sandy plains outside Myria, the picture would be much different.

  Leah, daughter of Kelia, felt a tiny spark of terror at the thought of being caught. A poor city girl who had been forced to move, alone, to her mother’s village to live with strange relatives, the daughter of Kelia would have no idea how to react to this attack. She would have looked for somewhere to run, or someone to hide her, though if the worst did happen she could face it with strength and honor, on her feet.

  Leah sometimes thought she had played that character too long. If she kept reacting as the village girl, she would just get herself killed. Well, if the village girl wouldn’t do any longer, she’d have to try something better.

  Only a few paces outside the village gates, she strangled her fear and stopped running.

  One of Malachi’s sergeants, an honest-looking, blocky man perhaps in his fifties, stood, barking orders, maybe a hundred paces away from the village walls. He was surrounded by a hive of soldiers running or riding this way and that, coordinating the chaos of his raid on Myria. Beside him stood a bald man in the leather uniform of an Endross, idly making blue-white sparks appear and disappear at the ends of his fingertips. He might pose some difficulty, but nothing she hadn’t dealt with before.