by Sam Sykes
Kwar stirred beside her, shuddered. She closed her eyes, let her hand slide away from the khoshict’s waist.
“I won’t ask you to help,” she said. “I won’t even ask you to come with me. But I … I have to, or else she’ll—”
Kwar let out a long groan. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, do you have to be so dramatic about it?” She drew herself closer, wrapped her arms around Kataria, and pulled her tight. “You’re talking about killing the greatest warrior the desert has ever seen, averting a war that would kill us all. You’re going to need someone terribly clever to help you.”
She laughed. Weak, breathless, Kataria laughed. “Well, great. For a moment, I was worried it was going to be hard.”
“Impossible, even,” Kwar said.
“It could be.” She had no breath to sigh. No energy to frown. She stared up at the roof of the cavern and the shadows dancing across it as the fire crackled nearby. “It could all go to shit.”
“It could,” Kwar said. “But it won’t.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Kwar’s hand was at her cheek, pulling her face toward her. Her eyes, dark and wild and still so alive, glimmered in the dark.
“I trust you,” she said.
FOURTEEN
BACK ALLEY GODS
Back in the north, there was a saying.
The gods can’t tell you how to make money, how to win a woman’s heart, or how Saine is still a nation.
Roughly after a century of struggle—all the wars of conquests, the uprisings, the trade disputes—diplomatic policy as to how northern nations dealt with the Kingdom of Saine hadn’t amounted to much more than that particular saying.
And having been this close to them for months, Asper could see why.
Karnerians might have been a lot of things—intolerant, expansionist, closed-minded, and belligerent—but at least they were ordered, at least they were predictable.
Sainites, by contrast, were rowdy, aggressive, loud, and, above all else, fiercely independent.
Originally, they had been formed out of several smaller kingdoms, their perpetual wars ended only when scraw-riders brought them to heel. But even then, the only way the kingdom functioned was by adhering to the old clan laws that allowed them far more self-rule than most armies would allow.
This had, in fact, been what had brought them into conflict with the Karnerians. With a strong desire to be free of the fate that the Karnerians had inflicted on other nations, the Sainites repulsed the Imperial Legions, liberated the conquered territories, and then quickly reconquered them so that they might also experience the joys of Sainite freedom.
Asper agreed with a lot of Sainite philosophy. But even the parts she didn’t agree with, she could understand the reasoning behind.
“Listen, if you didn’t hear me, you little shit, you need to pull your head out of your fuckin’ god’s feathered arse. The wing-sergeant ain’t seein’ anyone.”
And, truth be told, she perfectly understood why this particular Sainite—a young woman in a dirty blue coat with a tricornered hat pulled low over her eyes—was being a particularly sharp pain in the ass.
“I heard you just fine,” she replied. “And you’ll notice I’m not going anywhere, despite your vulgarities. I have urgent business with Blacksbarrow. You can either let me in or explain it to her yourself when she breaks your jaw for not letting me.” She sniffed. “You shithead.”
Just as she understood why that particular word at the end there was necessary.
Sainites, she had learned, responded only to three things: strong beer, strong language, and strong fists. Most of the time, they could be persuaded by at least one of those things.
Most of the time.
But today was different.
She could almost smell it on the smoke that carried through the air. Today, there was an air of nervousness that didn’t befit the Sainites.
Today, words weren’t going to be enough.
The fall of their garrison had only barely inconvenienced the Sainites, mobile as they were with their avian scraws. They had set up a makeshift base on Harbor Road. With the sea as their wall to the west, and a row of taverns and bathhouses to the east, they had formed walls to the north and south with whatever else they could find.
The young woman that blocked Asper’s way stood in front of a small gap in a barrier of debris—shattered chairs, pieces of ship’s hulls, crates and carriage wheels and nails and anything else they could salvage from the harbor—a greatsword draped across her shoulders. Atop the wall, six other Sainites stood with crossbows drawn and loaded.
And in their itching hands, Asper could see the same rigid tension that the woman before her carried.
“It’s not worth the fight,” a weary voice sighed from behind her. Dransun cleared his throat. “Just let us through, madam.”
“Or what?” the woman guffawed. “Planning on forcin’ your way in?”
She pointed a finger upward. Asper didn’t need to look to see what she was looking at. In another moment, a deep shadow fell over her and an avian screech reached her ears.
The scraws, the great monsters of the sky, flew in lazy circles overhead. At least two dozen of them, letting out disgruntled squawks as they wheeled about. Whatever they were looking for, they would certainly take the six breaths needed to eviscerate her if this woman called them down.
“If she was expectin’ you, I’d have heard something,” the woman snapped back. “Seein’ as I haven’t heard shit, I can only assume that you haven’t got shit to say.” She spit on the ground, gestured with her chin. “You can either fuck off or get fucked up if you’re so—”
“That is enough.”
Aturach was not what she’d call a brave man. Not on his own, anyway. And, judging from the sneer the soldier shot him as he swept forward, no one else would call him a brave man, either. And yet he stood, boldly as a man as exhausted as he was shouldn’t be able to.
“I don’t care who you think is talking to you right now,” the priest growled, thrusting his finger at the soldier. “But we’re not beggars, we’re not thieves, we’re not the people who would come here if we had any choice in the matter. You speak to Asper—”
“You get that finger out of my face,” the soldier snarled, “or I’ll break it off and—”
“The Prophet.”
They weren’t necessarily impressive words. Nor did soft and gentle Aturach say them in a particularly stunning way. And yet everything froze. The soldier’s twitching movement, the crossbowmen on the wall, even the stale smoke in the air seemed to dissipate at those two words.
“The …” The soldier mouthed the last word. The anger melted off her face. She stared past Aturach, looked at this woman with one arm in a sling and dirty robes and grime on her face, with eyes that wanted to disbelieve but couldn’t quite convince themselves. “Her?”
Asper merely stared back at the soldier, silent.
The soldier glanced up to the crossbowmen atop the wall. Their weapons lowered, they exchanged nervous glances between each other before looking down at the woman standing before Asper. She doffed her hat, scratched her head, and let out a heavy breath.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice suddenly heavy. “All right, yeah. Go on in. The W.S. is in her quarters in the Mysterious Stranger, last bar on the right.” She stepped aside. “Don’t … you know, don’t try anything.”
Asper said nothing. She spared a respectful incline of her head for the soldier and nothing more. Head held high, the sound of her companions’ footsteps behind her, she walked into the Sainite garrison and ignored the awed stares that followed her.
“Reckless,” Dransun shuffled closer to her to mutter. “That was fucking reckless what we did.” He shook his head. “We should have done like I said, sent a messenger beforehand. You could have been killed.”
“I wasn’t,” Asper replied.
“Yeah, I guess you’re the real patron saint of dumb fucking luck, aren’t you?” he growled. �
��Or am I supposed to believe heaven’s looking out for you?”
Asper didn’t reply to that. Prophets were beyond such things.
And, as far as anyone in Cier’Djaal was concerned, she was the Prophet.
At least, that was what they said on the streets.
Word of her actions in the Karnerian fortress had spread quickly—Scarecrow and a team of well-paid street gossips had seen to that. Legends of the crippled woman who had healed the blaspheming commander with a touch had run far and wide. And the past few days had been enough to make sure that the tale had time to reach the Sainite garrison a hundred times over.
And that was more than enough time to let the rumor spread that the Prophet was coming to visit them, as well.
“I don’t like it,” Dransun muttered. “This whole plan, any of it. I don’t like it. Shouldn’t be running around with the likes of those fucking thieves, shouldn’t be making plans like this fucking—”
“Language,” Aturach interrupted.
“Don’t fucking try that shit on me,” Dransun growled. “I know what she really is.”
“And yet you don’t know where we really are. People are listening.”
Dransun opened his mouth to argue but quickly shut it once Harbor Road sprawled out before them, every hairbreadth of it brimming with blue coats.
Makeshift barricades had been erected at ordered intervals in the road, made of the same debris as their wall, but the Sainites were not manning them. Makeshift archer towers had been built on the roofs of the taverns, but the Sainites were not in them. There were well-worn treads where soldiers had stood in formation, but none were standing there now.
But the Sainites weren’t gone.
The Sainites were everywhere.
In loose cadres, in huddled circles, in rowdy mobs. Trading flasks of whiskey, trading harsh words, trading fists in some cases. Brawls broke out like fires—except in those spots where fires had broken out—and circles of cheering, screaming soldiers formed around them.
Asper knew she should find this lucky. Among the thrown punches, swilled whiskey, and copious amounts of public urination going on, few Sainites bothered to notice one northern woman and two Djaalic men walking through their garrison. And yet she found her thoughts drifting back to the Karnerians.
They had looked dejected, demoralized, almost defeated with the silent, rueful way they had carried on around their fortress. The Sainites had taken beatings just as hard in this war, yet they looked like they had fight to spare.
Of course, she thought as she spotted a Sainite soldier with his trousers down around his ankles, at least the Karnerians still bothered to use a toilet when they urinated.
She hadn’t known what to expect. Order, probably, like any military. Maybe even reverence. A thousand men and women watching in awe as the Prophet walked among them?
Careful, careful. A voice chuckled inside her skull; she couldn’t say whose. You’re starting to sound like you actually believe this.
She tried not to respond to that thought. To respond to it would be to debate it. To debate it would be to concede she didn’t know how she was going to pull this one off. The Karnerians were fanatics—they believed what their god told them. The Sainites were a coalition, functional at the best of times, and she hadn’t expected …
“You fuckin’ cunt!”
… whatever this was.
A screaming brawl tore its way across her path, forcing her to stop to let it and the ensuing crowd of cheering onlookers pass before she continued.
The Sainites were like wild dogs now. This garrison was their pen. Once they got out, they’d spread all over the city and rip it apart and leave no one to fight the tulwar and—
You can solve it, that voice purred. You can solve all of it. Let me help you.
She forced her mind still. She forced her ears shut. She forced her eyes to the ground.
It wasn’t going to be like the Karnerians. Dransun was right; this time, she had pushed her luck too far. This time, she had chosen the wrong people. This time, the plan was going to—
A noise disrupted her train of thought. The clicking of bootheels on cobblestones filled her ears. She couldn’t say why she noticed it, or why she looked up at it.
What had Dransun called it? Dumb fucking luck?
A Sainite, a woman soldier, just one more out of several hundred, came walking her way. Asper glanced toward her. She glanced back. And from between the high collar of a blue coat and the low-slung tip of a tricornered hat, a face peered out at Asper.
A familiar face.
And not a Sainite one.
She opened her mouth as if to say something, then forced it shut. The soldier merely tipped her hat, pulled her collar up a little higher around her face, and disappeared into the crowd.
And, as an iron despair settled upon her shoulders, Asper knew everything was going to work.
She pushed her way through the rest of the chaos until she spotted a sign dangling from rusted hinges depicting a thin man in a cloak, bent over. Attached to it was a building that looked like it had seen better days—such as the days before the Sainites had moved in. Asper shoved her way to a door bearing numerous gouges and scratch marks. She glanced over her shoulder at her companions.
“Stay here,” she said. “I need to speak to her alone.”
“Stupid,” Dransun muttered, glancing around. “Fucking stupid.”
“Use the time to try to think of something new to complain about.”
“He may be right this time,” Aturach said. “Something’s wrong here.”
“No more wrong than we expected,” she replied.
“Right, we knew it was bad, but …” He cringed as a bottle flew over his head and shattered against the building. “It’d just be more sensible to have us in there with you.”
“I agree.” She pushed the door open. “But no one’s going to believe that the gods are looking out for me if I go acting sensible, are they?”
If they had other objections, she didn’t hear them over the sound of the door closing behind her. The stink immediately assailed her—the stale reek of emptied bottles and half-eaten food. The tables and chairs were all gone from the tavern, likely requisitioned to serve as material for the wall. Just as well.
That all left room for the Sainites who all suddenly whirled on her, swords drawn.
About a dozen of them, all clad in blue coats, murder in their eyes. One of them, an older-looking man, stormed forward, blade held high.
“Who the fuck let you in here?” he snarled.
“The door was open,” she replied, pointedly not looking at his blade. “If you invested in a lock, you wouldn’t need so many swords.”
“Oh, aye? Did they know you were a clever little shit when they let you in or were you just—”
“Back off her and let her by, mate.” A familiar voice spoke from the center of the room. “I know her damn voice.”
The man went stiff for a moment but sheathed his sword. He snorted at Asper, then grudgingly stalked away to rejoin the crowd. Slowly, they parted to reveal the woman she had come to see.
Funny, she thought, but every time she had seen Wing-Sergeant Blacksbarrow, she always remembered the woman looking bigger than she actually was. Her wild blond hair, the wild anger in her stare, the scars on her face, and the heavy saber she carried always seemed to conspire to make her seem less a woman and more a wolf in Asper’s memory.
A wolf that had learned to walk and strolled right into the nearest tavern and got hammered on whiskey, but still.
The woman who sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged and stripped to the waist, looked nothing like the woman in her memory.
Except for the bottle she cradled in her lap like an infant. That part was pretty on point.
“Well, well.” Blacksbarrow looked up with a weary smile that pulled at the scar on her face. Instead of fury, something soft and dark lurked in her eyes. “Didn’t I tell you boys I’d get absolution before I wen
t?” She held the bottle of amber liquid high. “And here we are, the Prophet herself come to deliver it. One of my ancestors must have given a god a great ass-tonguing.”
An excited murmur went through the crowd of Sainites.
“That’s her?” one of them asked. “That’s the Prophet? But her arm is …”
“Aye, that’s what makes her a miracle worker. Wouldn’t be nothin’ special about her if she had both arms, would she?” Blacksbarrow downed a swig of the liquid, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Well, Your Holiness, what the fuck brings you to my door?”
“I came to seek the aid of the Sainite army on a matter of importance. I had heard there was strife within the ranks and—” Asper paused as a loud scream erupted from outside, followed by the sound of something exploding. “And I came to help.”
“Strife? No, no.” Blacksbarrow shook her head. “What you’re seeing here is good ol’ Sainite military order, madam.”
Asper blinked. “Harbor Road is half-destroyed, you’re drunk, and I walked past a man urinating on a fire as I came here.”
“Aye. Like I said.”
“What about that is supposed to be—”
“For fuck’s sake, you don’t get it, do you?”
Blacksbarrow made an attempt to leap to her feet, then settled for staggering to them instead.
Standing up, Asper could see that the Sainite stood a bit shorter than herself. But with her torso exposed as it was, she could see the lean muscle from years of soldiering, the scars carved across her flesh from bad luck and good victories. Even as drunk as she was, Blacksbarrow’s entire body was bristling, begging for a fight.
But what spread across her face was not the same kind of energy or even the same fury Asper had seen from the woman before. Hers was a sloppy anger, the anger of the drunk and the ready to die.
“I fucked it up,” Blacksbarrow growled. “I fucked everything up.” She took another swig. “When the last W.S. died, they put me in charge because they were convinced I’d sack the Karnies.”
“And you did,” one of the soldiers grunted.
“Hundreds of ’em,” another agreed.