“I love you.”
“I know. And I… I love you, in my own way.”
“I believe we will see each other again.”
“We Segchyhah do like to make our rounds.”
“I’m counting the days.”
“Forgive me if I don’t.”
“I’ve always forgiven you.”
“Falhill, I am… You’re a better man than you were a year ago.”
“And look at you — a Representative of the Segchyhah Collective!”
She let out a genuine chuckle. “You a congresser, me a Representative — if we haven’t secured our place in the annals, I don’t know what else to do.”
He laughed in turn, then his face darkened. “I will always remain faithful to my marriage vows.”
“Even with Dalnommeth still sleeping under the same roof?”
“I’m serious. I take my vows seriously.”
Falhadn grabbed Falhill’s hands. “I must say goodbye.” A low-pitched Segchyhah horn blared from the deck of Beautiful Yaangdhadn. “I must embark.”
“I love you, Falhadn.”
“Goodbye, Falhill.”
Falhill had stood on the sandy shores until the Segchyhah had receded from view — some by ship, most by foot. He did not shed a tear in front of his wife — of that, he was proud.
“Your nose is a more normal color.”
“It has been almost three months since it broke. I’d hope that was long enough to heal.”
Balgray nodded and brushed her light brown hair from in front of her eyes. “Have you spoken with Basialy today?”
“No, not yet.” Falhill tried to smile. “Would you like to come with me this afternoon?”
“It’s too hard. I know there’s a good chance he didn’t kill my boy, but it’s simply too much for a mother to take. Both my children in one year. My husband the year before that. All I have is Baljiridhall.” She sniffled. “Please, let us discuss another matter.”
His mind raced. “Well, one of my many concerns is that we no longer have a scribe,” Falhill pointed out. “Henhadn of Irinaal went off with Falhadn and the Segchyhah, and Denhadn has lost her mind. I can train an apprentice, but how quickly depends on the pupil.”
“You were among the best.”
“Perhaps Nudntryhall could study to be a scribe,” Falhill suggested.
“Which one?”
“Well, the older one is fourteen, apprentice to his father the laborer. He’s a strong kid, almost a grown man.” Falhill raised his eyebrows. “But his cousin is twelve, apprentice to Sharanhall, who just left with the Segchyhah. Nudntryhill didn’t want him to travel across the world. A masterless apprentice? I’ll ask about the younger one, teach him what I can as quick as possible.”
“You had better ask his uncle, as well as Traamis. He won’t want you to take away one of his burgeoning clerics.”
“Necessity, Traamis will see it. All clerics are taught to read, so Nudntryhall the younger will have a head start over other candidates.” He and Balgray had ambled almost all the way to the southern shore, where their manses stood. “How is Baljiridhall?”
“Oh, he is alright. News of Jiridhill hit him just as hard. An uncle shouldn’t outlive a nephew, just as much as…”
“Yes, I understand.” Falhill knew Balgray had found comfort in her late husband’s brother. Falhill wished he could have met her husband, though.
Balgray had told Falhill the tale. Under the Harvest Moon, High Prophet Shelyrbm had led the False Priests and half a thousand of the Unholy King’s soldiers through the Heirul and Hangrilath Tribes, sacking every village they came across, searching for the captured prince, Yaangdhill the Twisted. On the Hangrilath Coast, where the Duimwater met the Sea of Crusade, sat the affluent port town Meireer, in which Balgray and Jirid resided.
Their son Jiridhill and his wife Jiridhadn both served as commanding officers in Shelyrbm’s foot. Jiridhill had dreaded coming upon the town he knew held his beloved parents, knowing the intent of Shelyrbm and the False Priests. So he volunteered to scout ahead, but instead, Jiridhill warned his parents of the incoming onslaught.
Balgray and Jirid did not heed their son’s advice to flee, though. They sounded the alarm, organizing a third of the city’s forty thousand residents into a makeshift militia, including women and boys. When the kingsmen arrived, the foot was smashed against the unexpectedly organized militia.
But Shelyrbm led the second wave of attack; the False Priests used their black steel swords to set men aflame and spray venom into women’s eyes. Rain clouds emerged from a bright blue sky and emptied acid onto towers and hideouts, forcing the militia into the streets, where the sorcerers could make quick work of them.
Jirid, a humble lumberer, had been the one to challenge Shelyrbm in single combat. The High Prophet possessed no unholy facilities, and Jirid bested him. After only a minute of steelsong, Jirid landed a deep cut from neck to wrist. Shelyrbm fell to the ground whimpering, but was spared when Theul Jadeflame, the leader of the False Priests, hexed the lumberer. Jirid froze in place, dropping his blade before Shelyrbm could be executed. Balgray had watched from afar as her husband’s skin turned into dust. Jirid did not scream until his sinew began to evaporate and his intestines spilled onto the street. Even then, it wasn’t long before his tongue turned to ash and his bone dissolved into the cool noon air.
This cemented the False Priests’ victory. Jiridhill could not find his mother, so he remained amongst the kingsmen until The Battle of Enesma. Balgray led the exodus of survivors all the way to Enesma.
The False Priests razed Meireer, searching for the cleric who secretly fled north, to Enesma. Yaangd and Shelybrm and Theul pushed nearly two thousand Meireer subjects into Traamis’s camp — people who only wished to live out their days in peace.
Balgray and her wedbrother Baljiridhall reunited in Enesma shortly before the Great Flight, and they had spent much time with each other up to the present. Thank Hrash we protestants can find love.
Falhill walked Balgray to the outer steps of her manse. “We’ve been through a lot,” he said with a gloomy chuckle.
“Too much.” She looked down the shore, where Drea and his grandson entered Denhall’s old manse. “I suppose they’re preparing to move in a new congresser.”
“Hrash forbid Dreahall joins the congress. Drea’s grandson, and soon to be Sarahedeen’s husband. I believe the word is nepotism.”
“Drea would never put his own heir on the congress. I pray it is someone to please the ‘Kraekites’ — someone like Soldier Kraekhill.”
Falhill scoffed. “I don’t think I could handle another Kraek.”
“You know, I had a nightmare last night. It reminded me that we never caught Traamis’s attacker.”
Falhill’s skin crawled. “Or Drea’s poisoner, if that’s what happened.”
“I’m having nightmares almost every night nowadays.”
“Sorry to hear that. I wish I could help. But I can’t sleep most nights because of my nightmares.” He held his chin high. “I still can’t believe Kraek and Theral and even Drea pushed away the Segchyhah. If the Unholy King finds us…”
“If they hadn’t left, who knows? Perhaps the Segchyhah aren’t as forgiving as we’d like to think. Kraek and his ‘Kraekites’ would have provoked them into subjugating the colony.”
“Maybe,” he uttered perfunctorily. “I should let you go.”
“Sweet dreams, Falhill.”
They kissed each other’s cheeks. As Balgray closed the door, Falhill looked to the west. Where once the horizon was dotted with tents, now it was bare. Bereft.
The squat prison structure only contained two cells. But only one prisoner occupied the claustrophobic building. “Still at it?” Baljesshall said as Falhill entered. “He’s not going to suddenly learn our language.”
“There are universal languages,” Falhill replied. He struggled to speak to young Baljesshall as an equal; the colony’s new sheriff and justice was only fifteen yea
rs old. His parents had died in Enesma, and his master and father figure Denhall had disappeared.
The foreigner Basialy stirred from a shallow slumber. He uttered gibberish. When Falhill pointed both of his hands at his own chest, Basialy answered, “You Falhill.”
Falhill pointed at him. “You Basialy.” Falhill gestured to Baljesshall, and the teenager handed him the parchment with the pictures. Through crude maps, he had learned yesterday that Basialy hailed from the far north. Beyond the Northwood, Basialy had drawn some sort of swamp, then his home. Basialy seemed to live on the banks of the Azure Artery, only a two-month walk north of here.
Trying to stave off embarrassment, Falhill acted out how Basialy found the picture message. He lay against the wall, pretending to choke. After several infuriating minutes, Basialy understood what Falhill was trying. Basialy gave him a negative gesture, a hand signal Falhill had taught him three days ago to mean “no”. Falhill took Baljesshall’s shortsword and pretended to fight the air. Basialy signaled, “No.” The foreigner gestured for Falhill to go back. Falhill returned the boy’s sword and lay back on the cold ground. He didn’t cough, didn’t move. When Falhill looked up, Basialy smiled, gesturing, “Yes.”
By the time Falhill explained that this colony was named Hrashhill, and Basialy revealed his home was named Hiitrol, the sun had set. It had been two hours, and Falhill thanked Basialy with a slight bow of the head. The foreigner returned the gesture, unsure what it meant. Falhill thanked Baljesshall with words and took his leave.
“It’s called raltzak and I love it.” Dalnommeth held a bowl of peppered crab for Falhill to take.
He had barely walked through the door. “Sounds appetizing,” he lied and took the bowl. Underneath the pulled crab meat, a bed of yellow rice and sliced bananas hid. “Thank you.”
Dalnommeth touched her neck. She wore a thin periwinkle nightgown over her cream underclothes, which Falhill could see at just the right angle. Her hand stroked at her windpipe. “So?”
“I need a spoon.”
She fetched a spoon, and Falhill swallowed the small meal. “It’s good,” he lied. It’s not horrible. “I do like the taste of bananas.” By itself. “How many more bananas do we have from what the Segchyhah gifted us?”
Dalnommeth shrugged. Her Hillite tongue was not perfect. “More?”
“Oh, that’s plenty. I’m not hungry.”
“More bananas?”
“No, thank you.”
“Your houseguest is a good houseguest, am I not?”
“You cook more than my wife ever did.”
“Your wife? She is gone now?”
“Yes, my wife Falhadn left with the Segchyhah.”
“Alone?”
“Me? Lonely? No, I am—”
“I can be your wife.”
“Stop,” he said, cheeks pink. “Dalnommeth, you are not my wife.”
“But I can be your wife.”
“I don’t want you to be my wife.”
“It’s all good. In Panthing, where I come from, noble families have houseguests when their husbands or wives go away. It is custom. Then, when husbands and wives return, houseguests go back to just houseguests.”
“Here, we take vows.”
“Vows?”
“Vows — promises, pledges, oaths. When a husband and wife marry each other, they make a promise to be faithful.”
Dalnommeth shrugged. Hrash above, she’s beautiful. “You do not want me to be your wife?”
Falhill had to laugh. “No!” She’s right. I am lonely. “I like you as my honored houseguest.”
“I like you too.” She approached him. Falhill still held the empty clay bowl and spoon. Dalnommeth gathered his stringy black hair and collected it into a bun. She pulled two bits of wood from her bosom and secured Falhill’s hair. “I like your hairs better this way.”
Falhill could not reply. What harm would there be in allowing this girl to act out her home country’s customs? No one gets hurt. Everybody wins. Falhill retreated a few steps. “My wife Falhadn is my only wife.”
Dalnommeth smiled politely. “I will sleep early tonight.” Her saunter to the guest bedroom held Falhill’s gaze, up until she shut the door behind her. Falhill felt lightheaded. Hrash forgive me. And he scurried to his own bedroom, where Falhadn’s scent lingered.
Chapter twenty-eight
Onto the Rocky Shore
“Dalnommeth?” he called. “Did you leave the door open?” Falhill tried to speak in Segchyhah or Panthir, but the words would not form. He sat up in his bed. He had started to sprawl in the middle of the night. Four years sleeping next to Falhadn, and suddenly her warmth had vanished.
“Dalnommeth? I’m not mad. But it’s very cold.” He heard the clank of wood against wood, the squeak of uneven hinges. When he rose and exited his bedchamber, he looked down to the first floor entrance. His suspicions were confirmed. The autumn wind thrust the open door against the outer wall, in an asymmetrical rhythm. The sound of wood on wood, iron on iron. The whistle of a morning breeze. The smell of blood. King Kraek painted the portico again. Where do his minions get all that blood?
Two weeks and a day had passed since the Segchyhah departed. But Kraek would not stop his assault on the congress and on the dozen Segchyhah who remained. Yrnhill’s houseguest, the priest Rhoaal’erim, turned up at Yrnhill’s manse one night — his left eye black, his nostrils bloodied. When Drea and Baljesshall confronted Kraek, his wife Fal threw wine carafes at them. Nothing could be done anyway; half the soldiers in the colony guarded Kraek day and night.
Since Denhall had disappeared, his houseguest Mihivanda had occupied the manse alone — until the congress would name a new congresser, which Falhill feared would be Dreahall. One morning, Mihivanda awoke to find her front door off its hinges and a mangled deer barely alive on her portico. It took half the day to stop her crying. Falhill recalled the dashed hope of a marriage between Mihivanda and Denhall, uniting the Hillites and Segchyhah.
Then, three days past, some men in hoods pelted stones at Herbalist Balhenhadn, north of town square. They shouted, “Witch!” and “False Priest!” at her. Dreahall and Primhill heard the cries for help and rescued Balhenhadn, but the hooded men escaped.
And only yesterday, Hunter Fenhall had to wash his hovel’s outer walls clean of curses, like ATHEIST and HEATHEN and BASTARDS — painted in gore in the middle of the night.
This morning, Falhill smelled blood, like he had the day FALHILL QUEEN OF HRASHHILL stretched across his mansion’s façade. He put on his white fur robe and prepared himself mentally to clean and scrub for the next hour. His mind raced with solutions to the Kraek problem — none of which would work, he knew.
The military was Kraek’s, save perhaps Rudfynhill and Primhill. Rudfynhill felt loyalty to the congress, and Primhill couldn’t move against his own wedbrother in any major way. But, otherwise, the congress could no longer enforce the law. Kraek had set himself up to become a military dictator. Perhaps he hoped Drea and the congress would cede the power to him, so it didn’t look like a coup. Whatever his reasons, Kraek seemed content for now to simply torture those he disapproved of — instead of establishing himself as the official leader.
Of course, Kraek had invited the congress to a grand dinner next week. He claimed he wanted to mend the relationship between himself and the congress. Falhill harbored his own concerns about the upcoming banquet, but he refocused on the smell of blood on the cool morning breeze.
Falhill descended the grand staircase. “Dalnommeth? Are you outside? Where are you?” Past the kitchen and great room, he made it to the front door. A gust scraped against his cheeks. His stringy black hair fell behind his shoulders. The tide proved thunderous, deafening.
Outside the door, there sat a bucket. Overturned. Soapy water soaking into the oak of the portico. A gray sponge a few feet away, off the portico in the rocky sand. Falhill turned and found no blemish on his house’s façade. A hunch. He checked the front of his door. SISTER KILLER in re
d. His heart skipped a beat. Kraek has lost his creativity. Now he steals from Hrabhill.
Dalnommeth had obviously tried to clean it off before he woke up. But where had she gone? Falhill took seven steps off the portico before he spotted a spot. A deep crimson pool absorbed into the sand before him. The tide gently reached for the stain upon its shore.
Out on the water, a figure floated on its back. Barefoot, Falhill approached the shoreline. His eyes adjusted to the morning sun’s luster. A body floated in the shallows, clothed in whitecaps. A closer look. The body wore Dalnommeth’s garb. But it was not Dalnommeth’s face. In fact, no head sat on those shoulders.
Screams, from the east. He flew. Feet crunched against sand. Down the shore, another body. Further from land. Headless. Falhill could see two people at the foot of the courthouse. Halfway there, Falhill realized he had no sword. And he wore a white fur robe, secured only by a cord of black silk. No time to dress for the occasion. Horror loomed, waited for no one to dress.
At the steps of the courthouse, Balgray knelt on the ground — crying into her palms. No other living soul. Only heads.
Balgray’s houseguest was the Thuvaeir nobleman, Urawil Graslan. Cousin to the Thuvaeir Representative. His eyes had rolled into the back of his head, and sinew dripped from his dangling spine down the pike.
Rhoaal’erim had served his whole life as a priest of the Shrih religion. In his mouth, a holy relic pierced through his tongue, and steam wafted above the excrement matted into the priest’s black locks.
Mihivanda’s dark brown hair fell far below where someone had sloppily sawed through her neck.
All ten of the Segchyhah soldiers the Representatives had left behind — each one now only a head on a spear.
And Dalnommeth. Her jaw had broken, and thick blood streaks marked an “X” across her putrefying face.
An arc of slaughter blocked the front entrance to the courthouse. Crimson had pooled at the bottom of all fourteen pikes. The sun had risen on the final day of the Hawk’s Moon.
The Heirs of History: A Nation From Nothing Page 29