by Sam Sykes
“Yeah, but my orders weren’t to kill a lot of Karnies, were they?” She spit on the floor. “They told me to make this city safe. They told me to make these people safe.” She chuckled darkly. “Months later, and what? The whole fuckin’ thing’s on fire. People leavin’ in droves. I failed you, boys. I failed everyone.”
“You’re not going to solve that by getting drunk here,” Asper said.
“The time for solving that is over, priestess,” Blacksbarrow grunted. “Today’s not for solving, today’s for settling.”
“Settling?” Asper quirked a brow. “Settling what?”
“The Carrach-an-Cral,” one of the soldiers muttered.
“The what?”
“Means ‘Iron-for-Words’ in old Sainic,” Blacksbarrow replied. “Old clan law from before the Sovereign united us. It was made into military law once the armies formed, to keep the traditions alive.”
“Uh … okay,” Asper said. “I trust it explains why you’re drunk and half-naked?”
“It sure as shit does.” Blacksbarrow took another long swig. “If the campaign’s going badly, if the commander doesn’t know her shit, if the losses keep stacking up, the next rank of officer has the right to challenge for leadership. It’s supposed to make sure the best of us are in charge.”
“I still don’t—”
“What’d I just say? I fucked it all up. I lost too many soldiers. I lost our garrison. I lost the city. Then our supply convoy got into a skirmish with a bunch of fucking savages in the desert and we didn’t get enough men and scraws to take it back.”
She upended the bottle into her mouth, leaning so far back to drain it that the muscles of her body creaked. She finished with a gasp.
“One of the field commanders, big fucker named Vraefen, has issued a challenge against me.”
“And you have to accept?”
“I don’t. Not in the middle of a campaign. But because I didn’t, his boys are calling me a coward.” She gestured to the door. “And they’re out there, fighting my boys, until I do. So …”
She hurled the bottle against the floor.
“Right.” Asper grimaced. “Should you really be drinking, then?”
“I said he was big, didn’t I?” She shook her head. “It’s too late, priestess. I’m not going to win this one. I haven’t given my kingdom the victory they needed, I haven’t given my boys the W.S. they should have had.” She ran a hand over her face. “This is how it has to be.”
She might have grown up in a temple, but Asper had lived a life not too dissimilar from many other children. She had heard the same tales of brave warriors and their codes.
Honor, valor, noble sacrifices, and unyielding vengeances: They had been her very favorites to hear. Trapped as she was among the priests, she yearned to have such adventures and uphold such traditions as the ones she had read about. She had always dreamed of one day meeting one of these great warriors and seeing one of these great codes.
Honestly, until this day, she had never realized how stupid they really were.
“This is insane.” She strove to keep the anger out of her voice—anger would be unseemly in a prophet—and so settled for mere ire. “The city is in flames, the world is falling apart around you and you choose now to take up a fight with one of your own men?”
“Insane, aye,” Blacksbarrow said. “Like all good traditions.”
“A tradition you can’t afford!” Asper took a step closer, as if to shake sense into her, but was stopped by two soldiers moving to intercede. “Blacksbarrow, listen to me, there is a force marching on Cier’Djaal that will dwarf the fights you’ve seen so far. Thousands of tulwar are—”
“Not my concern.” Blacksbarrow sighed and stalked back to the center of the room. “Sainites solve Sainite problems first. Whatever pack those monkeys have formed up, they won’t threaten Cier’Djaal.”
“You’re not listening!” Asper all but shrieked. “They already took Jalaang and—”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Blacksbarrow replied. “Come and talk to me after I win this or talk to my grave after I lose this. Either way, I’ll have plenty of time for you, then.”
Asper was tempted to say more—or at least, to yell a lot louder—but held her tongue. She had known warriors before, she had seen their pride—in Kataria, in Lenk, in Gariath. And she fully intended to beat the shit out of at least one of those people.
Besides, she told herself, sighing inwardly. You know how this is going to end.
Blacksbarrow held out her hand. One of her soldiers obliged, bringing her a bowl of some kind of bluish-black paste. She daubed her fingers into it and began to smear a messy pattern across her face until she looked much more like the walking wolf Asper had always imagined her to be. She must have worn her shock plainly, for Blacksbarrow looked to her and grunted.
“Wolad,” she said. “In the old ways, we wore this so that the scraws would know us the same as the skies.”
When the bowl was empty, she offered it to one of her soldiers. Another came forward, brandishing a long blade in an ancient sheath. She pulled it free and laid its naked steel in her hands: old, but strong, like an oak branch.
“The family blade,” Blacksbarrow muttered. “My father settled a hundred arguments with this one, as his mother did before him.”
She held the sword high above her head, stretching both arms up. Another soldier came forward and began to wrap a thick white cloth around her chest, binding her breasts down.
“And is this another tradition?” Asper asked with a sneer. “Do the ancestors demand some weak modesty in battle?”
“Yeah. This is the tradition of not whacking myself in the face with one of my own tits when I fight.” Blacksbarrow snorted, spit on the ground, and hefted her blade over her shoulder. She glanced to one of her men. “Head outside. Tell them we’re ready.”
He nodded in return, pulled a bugle from his belt, and pushed past Asper to head outside. His trumpeting tore a warbling note across the sky, and the sounds of chaos died down, replaced by a funerary silence. She could hear the rush of bodies as the soldiers hurried to assemble.
Blacksbarrow, her sword draped over her shoulder, her men in tow, stalked past Asper and pushed out the door. The priestess hurried to keep up, ignoring the aches and pains in her body as she did so. Aturach and Dransun fell in line behind her, their eyes on her, their mouths shut.
Outside, the chaos had stopped—or at least lulled. The fires burned unchecked and the place reeked of smoke and urine, but at least the soldiers had stopped fighting. They clustered down the road, forming orderly lines along the edges of Harbor Road. They remained silent and at attention as Blacksbarrow came walking through, many of them offering crisp salutes as she did.
“Blacksbarrow!” Asper cried out as she hurried up to the woman’s side. No one tried to stop her. “Blacksbarrow, listen to me. We can work this out. Let me talk to this other fellow.”
“Talking’s done,” Blacksbarrow growled. “Vraefen wasn’t much for talk to begin with, either.” She smiled, patting Asper on the shoulder. “I like you, priestess, really. I respect what you do and what you’ve done. But this isn’t something you can solve.”
Oh! The black voice inside Asper’s skull let out a shrieking cackle. The shock of it sent agony coursing through her body. Oh, if only she knew. If only you’d let me show her …
She clenched her teeth, shut her eyes, forced herself to ignore the pain.
And failed.
It was harder now. Harder with every passing day. The old aches never went away, and new ones seemed to come with every hour. Sometimes she hurt with every breath. Whatever Gariath had knocked loose inside her, it pulled everything else with it.
Still, she could almost deal with that, were it not for Amoch-Tethr. He goaded her pain and the pain responded, laughing and screaming and shrieking until her body was noisy with agony.
She couldn’t think through the pain to make words. All she could do was force herself to p
ut one foot in front of the other, to keep walking at Blacksbarrow’s side.
Until she realized that Blacksbarrow had stopped walking.
She opened her eyes. The lines of Sainites had turned into a ring, a crude arena of uniforms and tricornered hats, with a vast expanse of space for the two combatants. At one end, beside her, was Blacksbarrow and her loyal soldiers. And at the other end …
Vraefen, she assumed the giant was called.
Damn near seven feet tall, bristling with muscle left bare by the open coat straining against his arms. The hair of his massive body grew so thick it was almost indistinguishable from the heavy hair of his great beard. And behind the dense thicket of facial hair, a craggy face with eyes as cold and dense as stone looked out over her.
“You ready?” He barely raised his voice, but it boomed so that it carried across the square.
“If you’ve made peace with your ancestors, you hairy shit,” Blacksbarrow called back.
“Don’t embarrass yourself,” Vraefen replied. “It’ll be over quick enough.”
He held out his huge arms. Two Sainites, doubtless loyal to him, rushed forward and helped him shrug free of his coat. Beneath, his body was a mess of hair and scars layered over muscle dense as rock. Asper cringed; he must have weighed three times as much as Blacksbarrow. Her prospects looked slim.
And that was before she even saw the sword.
To call it a greatsword wouldn’t have been enough. There hadn’t been a prefix invented yet to describe the massive blade leaning against his thigh. In his other hand, he had another bowl of that thick blue-black paste.
The wolad.
Asper’s eyes remained on that bowl, staring at it intently as Vraefen took one massive handful out and smeared it across his face. He spread it on so thick and dense that he didn’t even look like a man anymore once it had all been applied—and he had only barely looked like a man to begin with.
He stepped forward, picking up his sword. Blacksbarrow stalked forward to meet him, her snarl bright enough to shine through the paint on her face. They held their blades up as they rushed toward each other.
“WAIT!”
But not fast enough.
Asper rushed between them, holding her hand up high. A chorus of hushed gasps ran through the crowd of Sainites, amid a few cries of indignation and general cursing. And though the latter certainly was louder than the former, it wasn’t enough to keep Asper from catching one word, repeated from mouth to mouth, over and over.
“…Prophet …”
“What’s this?” Vraefen rumbled. “Not enough that you’ve led us to disgrace against the Karnies, but now you’ve got a crippled woman to fight for you?”
“Heaven is watching!”
Asper roared to be heard over his rock slide of a voice. And at it, both he and the Sainites fell into an attentive, if leery, silence. She took a moment to let the echo of her voice sink into their skulls, to draw all eyes upon her. And, after it was clear no one was going to throw anything at her, she continued.
“I hear in your voices that some of you know me,” she continued, loudly. “And I see on your faces that some of you do not. Whatever titles you call me are irrelevant, for none of you know what a mistake you are about to make here.
“The enemies of mankind unite behind the walls of this city, as you yourselves fail to unite even here. And as you wage your petty battles and squabble over the scraps of a dying city, the great maw of your enemies stretches so wide as to swallow you whole, scraps, bones, and flesh. The gods watch you battle among yourselves and sigh to see their creations squandered.
“Let it be known that heaven calls for unity!” she roared. “The gods demand an army to answer the great threat! The heathen! The savage! The monster at your doors! Those who indulge in vendettas …”
She cast a meaningful glare at Vraefen. The giant looked impassive, flinching only as a mosquito flew down and settled on his face.
“… shall stand in judgment. And those who do not recognize judgment shall suffer the verdict.” She looked back out to the crowd. “I do not grant you a chance to atone. I beg you, I plead with you, to set aside your arms and—”
“Aw, stuff it, shithead!”
Something struck her cheek. A thick, wet glop of a sound cut her off. She said nothing else—it was rather difficult to keep track of a speech with the smell of shit filling her nostrils. She looked down at the pile of scraw dung that settled at her feet before looking back at Vraefen’s side of the ring.
His loyalists jeered at her, making rude gestures and barking nonsensical slurs. The giant himself seemed caught between a smirk and a sneer, his contempt even thicker than the paint on his face.
Paint so thick, Asper noted, that he didn’t even seem to notice the small band of flies that crawled across it.
“So be it,” she said, just loud enough for those who mattered to hear it.
She stepped back.
She held her breath.
She counted the steps.
One. Two. Three.
Vraefen took huge, lumbering strides forward. He hefted his sword up in both hands. His grin split his painted face in two. Six more flies buzzed down and landed on his face.
Four. Five.
Vraefen pulled a hand free to swat at the flies, now dozens of them, that buzzed around him. He snorted, tugging them out of his hair. Eight mosquitoes appeared on his face, as if from nowhere. Someone in the crowd cracked a joke about bug salve.
Six. Seven. Eight.
His eyes were locked on Blacksbarrow as she advanced on him, but he squinted as insects—now well over thirty of them—crawled all across his face. The drone of large wings filled the air. Something large and bulbous landed on his neck. A few Sainites called out to him.
Nine.
A hecatine thrust its proboscis into his throat and latched onto his skin. His roar was heard over the gasps from the crowd as he pulled it free, drawing blood. He pulled the second one free, too. But not the third.
Ten.
And he took not another step forward.
His sword fell from his hands and clattered to the ground. The crowd of Sainites was screaming, suddenly. He roared and snarled and spit angry, vicious curses.
And none of it could be heard above the violent droning sound of a hundred insect wings beating in horrific, relentless harmony.
Long-limbed mosquitoes. Flies as big as pebbles. Roaches of brown and black. And at least six fist-sized hecatines. Asper couldn’t bear to count them as they swarmed over Vraefen’s face, but she forced herself to watch. Cold, impassive, as though she knew this would happen.
She owed him that much.
Vraefen fell to his knees. His screams went unheard as he clawed at his face, pulling off insects in great fistfuls of writhing, red and black masses. But for each one he removed, more swarmed upon him. More biting bugs, more droning wings, more hecatines thrusting their long, needle proboscises into his flesh.
A few rushed forward to help him but were quickly chased away by the ever-increasing horde of vermin. His loyalists shrieked out impotently to him. All others simply stared and tried to get away.
He kept clawing. He kept shrieking. He kept tearing. But his hands came away with fewer and fewer insects and more and more red-stained fingers each time. Maddened with pain that none could hear, he finally took to swinging his great fists at his own head in an attempt to crush them.
He threw punch after punch, hammering his own skull. But each time, the blows came weaker and weaker, slower and slower, until finally, his massive arms hung limp at his sides.
And the rest of him followed.
It would be some time before the swarm dispersed, flying away in slow, aimless circles, bloated with flesh and drunk with blood. It would be some time later before anyone had the courage to approach Vraefen’s carcass and gaze upon the glistening ruin of red and black that was his face. It would be some time before, as wild panic turned to cold-blooded terror, all eyes slowly went to he
r.
And Asper said nothing.
Not until the entire Sainite army gazed upon her. Not until Blacksbarrow stared at her, all drunkenness fled from her face and replaced by wild, naked awe. Not until the insect wings had silenced and no one dared utter a word.
Only then did she speak.
And all of creation listened.
“The verdict,” she said softly, “has been served.”
“That went well.”
Asper didn’t bother confirming or denying that. It was late afternoon when she left the Sainite garrison. Her departure had been marked by awed stares, crowds parting before her, and hushed whispers. And even now, as she left with her companions behind her, they were chased by gaping mouths and unblinking eyes as the Sainites crowded around the wall to watch them go.
Even the scraws overhead followed them, the riders unable to turn away, yet fearful to get too low.
“Only one person dead,” Aturach continued as they headed down the road toward the gates to the Souk. “It could have been much worse.”
“I would have preferred it if no one died,” Asper said. “That man was a beast. I would have liked to have him on our side. He could have killed a hundred tulwar with just one hand.”
“But you must have known that this would happen. Otherwise, why bother sabotaging the—”
Asper held up a finger. He obediently fell silent. They continued walking until the shadows of the scraws no longer fell over them and the sounds of the garrison were far behind him.
And even then, she would have preferred not to talk about it.
At least, that way, she could pretend she hadn’t had a part in it.
Scarecrow and Sandal had been thorough in their research. They not only knew about the internal strife in the Sainites—and likely did their fair share of antagonizing it—they knew how Sainites resolved it. From there, it hadn’t been hard to put a powerful attractant—made of chemicals and other, fouler substances only the couthi knew the names to—in Vraefen’s wolad.
It probably hadn’t taken much effort at all. Maybe just a few drops, if that.
And just like that, a man had died in agony so deep she couldn’t even begin to think of it. All so that she could send even more men, and women, to their deaths.