The Dread Hammer

by Linda Nagata

  Smoke didn’t bother to knock. He slipped into the world-beneath and a moment later he was inside a large room stacked full of bolts of cloth, bags of grain, leather goods, and iron works. A counter bisected the store, separating front from back. A woman stood at the counter, working by the light of a three-candle chandelier as she measured the yardage of some lovely blue silk.

  It was the sound of rainwater dripping from Smoke’s coat that made her look up.

  Still half-asleep, his eyes squeezed shut against the candlelight, Seök listened to his sister’s voice softly counting aloud as she measured and cut an order of silk fabric. Rain still hammered down, and he sent another prayer of thanks to Koráy and the Dread Hammer.

  Then a new sound came to him, of water dripping. Not a distant pattering drip of rain falling from the eaves, but something much closer that made a sharp tick-tick.

  He opened his eyes.

  From where he lay, he could just see past the end of the counter. He could see Yelena’s shadow at the counter’s other end, and halfway between the counter and the door there stood the figure of a man, with rainwater dripping from the hem and hood of his long leather coat.

  It was no surprise that a man should come in dripping on a morning like this one, but how this man had come in at all was a mystery Seök could not explain, given that he had locked and barred the door himself last night.

  Two years on the road had enforced the caution Seök had learned as a soldier. So he stirred not at all, feigning sleep as he eyed the phantom visitor.

  The stranger was tall, but lightly built. His hood was pulled low over his face so Seök could see nothing of his features except for the glitter of his eyes. Within the lightless shadow of his hood, the stranger’s eyes sparkled faintly green with their own light . . . as no man’s should.

  Seök bit hard on his lip to keep from crying out, but surely this stranger could hear the hammering of his heart?

  “Oh, hello, sir!” his sister Yelena exclaimed. “I didn’t hear you come in. Welcome, welcome—though it’s early, no?” She caught her breath. “Ah, sir! You’re one of the Hauntén. You honor me! What service do you seek on this dark morning?”

  The stranger laughed—a warm laugh, full of humor—yet it chilled Seök’s heart. Fear flooded him, made worse when words followed. “I’ve come to buy pretty silks and soft flannels, and warm woolen cloth and a sack of flour.”

  Seök did not need to see this stranger’s face. He knew Smoke’s laugh, his voice. How could he forget? He’d encountered the Bidden youth only once, but the memory would haunt him for as long as he walked in the world.

  It had been two years ago, just before he’d left the army. All that summer war raged throughout the borderlands. It was Seök’s task to lead a small and stealthy company of archers in ambush against the southerner’s supply wagons. Late on a broiling midsummer morning, with the weather so hot and dry Seök had feared the woods would spontaneously catch fire and burn, his company heard from afar the screams of women and children. They rode after the sound, thinking to come in stealth on a company of the enemy, but it was Smoke they discovered. His sword was bloody and though he was on foot, he moved with uncanny speed. Every inhabitant of the village was cut down by his onslaught. Not just the small company of Lutawan soldiers garrisoned there, but every woman and every child, hacked into bloody ruin. Seök’s troops had cried out in bitter protest, but another Koráyos company was there, under the command of a chieftain who forbade Seök’s men to interfere.

  Smoke had been but sixteen that summer, his first season on the battlefield.

  When the slaughter was done, the village livestock was taken for the use of the army, and the bodies were burned along with the houses. Afterward, Seök had watched Smoke as he crouched beside a stream to wash the blood off his face and hands. Smoke was one of the Bidden, the Trenchant’s own son, and his demon eyes had burned bright green with rage. He had noticed Seök watching him, and he said to him in a low growl, “Don’t think I enjoyed this day.” But later that afternoon Smoke laughed and chatted with the men as if the slaughter had never happened.

  Seök had never seen Smoke again, but he knew that sometime later Smoke had vanished from the Puzzle Lands. It was rumored he’d fled his father’s harsh command. It was well known that the Trenchant wanted him back. Dehan had commanded the Koráyos people to report at once any word of Smoke’s whereabouts. But if Smoke did not want such a report to be made?

  Seök didn’t doubt Smoke would slaughter everyone in this house if he suspected he’d been recognized. So Seök held himself in utter stillness, hoping he would not be noticed at all.

  Smoke went to the counter and emptied a coin sack onto it. Yelena leaned forward, counting the treasure with her eyes. When she looked up again, she smiled brightly, and for the next several minutes she helped Smoke choose several styles of fabric. Yelena did not fear the monster. Why should she? She believed him to be Hauntén, and in Nefión the forest spirits were said to bring blessings to those who honored them. “Have you a satchel for your purchases, sir?” she asked him. “Or shall I find you one?”

  Smoke agreed that he needed a bag, so she packed all his purchases into a rather fine, waterproof satchel, and then she counted out a selection of coins, returning the rest to the coin sack before handing it back to its owner. Her smile was radiant. “Will you speak a blessing over my store before you go, good sir?”

  Smoke answered with a laugh that chilled Seök to the bone. “It’s my role to deliver curses, not blessings, ma’am. Ask no favors of me.”

  With the satchel over his shoulder he turned to go, though he was forced to stop and unbolt the door before he could open it. He stepped outside, disappearing into the rain.

  The Midwife

  Smoke laughed aloud as the rain pounded down on him. Ah, but this venture was going well indeed! But then, his plan was exquisite. The torrential rain had turned the street into a bog of slick mud and driven everyone to shelter. No one was about, so no one would see his face, and even if they did, no one here would know him.

  Given how much he’d feared venturing into Nefión, it was funny to discover the risk was slight after all—and fully worth it to make Ketty happy.

  Ketty.

  His laughter died as he considered her condition. She would have a child. . . .

  He didn’t like to think about it. Yet he couldn’t stop thinking about it, and every time he did a nasty cold fear stirred in his belly. He feared the birth. He dreaded it. His own mother had died giving birth to him.

  Ketty would not die. He was resolved to it—which was the other reason he’d come to Nefión. Again he listened to the threads, and before long he overheard a woman’s whispered prayer of thanks as she held a newly born infant against her breast. The threads wound together then parted again as the midwife drew on her cloak and hood, slipped quietly out of the house, and set off through the rain.

  She walked alone.

  Smoke tracked her through the threads, until he saw her cloaked figure in the street ahead. She walked with her head bowed against the deluge, but she walked steadily, rarely slipping despite the mud.

  He followed at a distance.

  Before long she came to the edge of town, following a path into the forest that set off northeast between the trees. Some sympathetic spirit must have whispered a warning to her because after a few steps she turned about. Her hood fell back from her face, revealing a woman old enough to be a mother of more than one, and young enough to become the mother of many more. She was lovely without being beautiful, in the way of strong, stern things. “Stop, creature!” she commanded him.

  Smoke felt himself stopped in his tracks. Literally. Stopped. As if his limbs were frozen. “Not again,” he muttered. It was so annoying to be bidden by a woman’s prayers when he had other things in mind.

  “Speak! What do you mean by stalking me on this dreary morning?”

  Smoke laughed aloud at the irony of his situation: a bloody-handed warri
or of Koráyos, undone by the stern command of a wise woman. She had no fear of him, he decided. That was the reason her will was so strong. “I will speak. I’ve come to learn your skills.”

  “The skills of a healer? You?”

  “No. Only the skills of a midwife.”

  This statement brought a look of astonishment to her face, though he wasn’t sure why. The doings of people so often confused him.

  “This is not a man’s knowledge,” she said testily. Her eyes narrowed. “But you’re not a man, are you?”

  Smoke laughed again. Must everyone misconstrue it?

  “You want to deny it,” she said, “but your eyes glitter like the eyes of a forest spirit. I can see them though your face is hidden by the shadow of your hood.”

  Smoke scowled. Why was he cursed with such eyes? The Trenchant’s eyes didn’t glitter. Neither did the eyes of his sisters.

  “Come with me,” the midwife commanded. She pulled her hood back up and set off again along the footpath.

  Smoke felt free to move again; he trotted eagerly after her. “Will you teach me then?” he asked as he caught up.

  She raised her head to look at him. “A woman needs no help to give birth. Did you know that? Unless something goes awry . . . and if something goes awry, then sometimes there’s nothing the midwife may do.”

  “Nothing must go awry,” he warned her.

  “You’re one of the Bidden, aren’t you?”

  Smoke stopped. Stepping back, he pulled his sword, raising it to strike.

  “Stop,” she said softly.

  His arm froze. He grimaced in frustration. “I will kill you.” His fury was so hot it heated his sword so that it steamed in the rain.

  “You are the Trenchant’s son, who was named Smoke by his sisters.”

  “You will not live to speak that knowledge to another.” Still, his arm would not obey his will.

  “Have you fathered a child, Smoke?”

  He didn’t mean to answer, but to his frustration he discovered himself nodding.

  “Come with me then, cruel spirit.”

  Once again she set off, and Smoke followed, helpless to do otherwise.

  She took him to a small cottage in a wide clearing where a garden grew. A few steps from the front door a river ran fat and muddy with the rain. Its torrent lapped at the plank floor of a slender rope bridge that crossed into the deeps of the Wild Wood.

  Within the cottage was a single room with a hearth, a small bed, many cabinets, and a large table where three leather-bound books resided, all of them looking well used. Bouquets of drying herbs hung from the rafters, and small clay pots sat on high shelves. Smoke smelled ashes, herbs, flowers, and substances he could not name, but it was a pleasant confusion of scent.

  “Take off your muddy boots and hang up your coat,” the midwife commanded as he followed her in through the door. Smoke’s anger had cooled, and with its fading he felt an easing in the tension of the threads that bound him to her will. The threat of his presence was slowly eroding her courage and he felt certain she would not be able to hold him much longer, so for now he was content to do as she requested. He kept his sword in his hand though.

  As the midwife knelt to prepare the fire, he invited himself to sit down in the chair that kept company with the table. He laid his sword on the table beside him and then he opened the first book. It was an herb lore. He turned the pages, admiring the finely detailed drawings of leaves and flowers, and reading quickly through the inscriptions.

  The midwife asked him, “Do you know what the Koráyos people say about you?”

  Smoke snorted his amusement. He knew what they should say. Looking up from the herb lore he said, “That I am the deadliest of warriors. That no company—and certainly no man!—can stand against me.”

  She smiled as she struck a flint. The spark leaped to a tuft of dry grass, and then to a handful of twigs. “They say you deserted your duty, that you abandoned the war, that you ran away from the obligation you owe to your people and to your father.”

  The fire bustled, tasting the kindling. Smoke shivered. He always knew when a person lied to him; this woman spoke the truth.

  “Did you do these things?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She warmed her hands beside the flames. Then she arose. “Turn your eyes again to the book while I change into dry things.”

  Smoke did as he was told, turning the pages slowly while cloth rustled behind him. After a few minutes, she spoke again. “Do you know why the Bidden exist?”

  Smoke had reached the last page of the book, so he set it aside and took up the next one. “Everyone knows that. We were bidden to protect the people of the Puzzle Lands.” This second book was an instruction on treating wounds, infections, and fevers.

  “So it was. Long ago, the prayers of our ancestors summoned Koráy from the forest. She taught us to be warriors. She led us as we drove the Lutawans from the Puzzle Lands.”

  The medical text too was filled with fine and detailed illustrations, and Smoke guessed they were done by the same hand. But unlike the herb lore, there was nothing of beauty about them. They showed only gruesome wounds, amputations, infected tissues, rashes, and bodies starved by fevers. He closed the book. “The Lutawans will wound a man and leave him to die slowly, but that is not my practice.”

  “Perhaps it’s your nature to be merciful?”

  With an impish grin, Smoke risked a glance around. The midwife had put on a simple brown gown. He watched her as she shrugged into a cream-colored house jacket. “Are you Koráyos, then?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “And why are you living here?”

  “I came to learn from the wise woman of Nefión, whose cottage this was, but she passed from the world. Now I serve these people in her place.”

  “I serve no one. Only my wife has my allegiance—and my mercy.”

  The midwife eyed him cautiously. “Your eyes are all aglitter again. You’re thinking you’ll need to kill me when I’ve taught you what you’ve come to learn.”

  “I have already said that, but know that I won’t relish it.”

  “I am comforted.”

  Smoke nodded, pleased to bestow a kindness. “Tell me now, what is it a midwife does?”

  “She does all she can to see that mother and child both survive the labor in good health. Where is your wife?”

  “Far away from here and far from any wise woman. That’s why I’ve come to learn from you.”

  “You’ve hidden her away in the Wild Wood?”

  Smoke didn’t bother to answer. Instead he reached for the third book.

  “Not even you, Smoke, may have all that you desire.”

  “You’re wrong. I desire nothing but what I already have.”

  He opened the book. It was a treatise on midwifery.

  “You desire knowledge you cannot possess. Not in a day, nor even in a moon. The skills of a midwife take years to learn.”

  Smoke heard her, but he didn’t heed her as he turned the pages of the treatise, rather shocked at the fine drawings of babies curled inside their mothers’ bellies, and at the other illustrations, of a woman’s sacred gate and the child struggling forth from it, head first, and then hand first, and then foot.

  “Smoke!”

  He looked up at her. Something had changed. She was nervous now. He smelled her fear; heard the swift beating of her heart. “These are your drawings, aren’t they?” He wondered how she had contrived to see inside a woman’s belly.

  “Smoke, you cannot learn all the skills of a midwife in a morning, or a day, or even in a moon. Hear my prayer and take your wife to Samerhen. Don’t risk her life in the Wild Wood.”

  Smoke looked again at the book, turning a few more pages while new thoughts turned over in his head.

  The midwife stepped closer. She set her hand on his shoulder. “Consider this: What will happen to the Puzzle Lands when the Bidden are gone? When Dehan the Trenchant has passed from this life, and your
sisters have become old and feeble?”

  Smoke closed the book, a half-smile on his face. “I have no foresight. Fate is what it is.”

  She shivered, but she was not defeated yet. “The Koráyos people are fierce and strong! Our men and women both—”

  “And we are not given to mercy.”

  She pressed her trembling lips together, gathering herself before she spoke again. “We are fierce and strong, but when measured against the Lutawan Kingdom we are few in number. Without the Bidden to tangle the threads of our enemies and make smooth our own we will be overrun. You cannot doubt it. And yet the Bidden have always suffered a poor fertility. It’s said your father can’t bear the touch of any other woman since your mother’s passing, so he will sire no more children, while your sisters have bedded hundreds of young warriors between them without conceiving any child. They are barren, like so many of the Bidden before them.”

  Smoke shrugged. “Fate is what it is.”

  “Only if we submit to it! Your child belongs to the Koráyos people. You must take your wife to Samerhen where she will be cared for properly. This feud with your father must end. Show me your mercy. Show our people your mercy. For if your wife dies with this child, the Puzzle Lands will die with her. Please. Hear my prayer.”

  Smoke looked again at the leather-bound treatise on midwifery. “I hear your prayer, but I cannot heed it.” His sword still lay on the table. He reached for it, and she stumbled back.

  “No, please. Don’t! I command you.” She tried again to bind him to her words and her wishes. He felt the threads of her will tighten around him, but there was nothing more she could offer him, and she was afraid.

  She fled toward the door. He stepped after her and caught her on the threshold, one hand on her shoulder as he thrust his sword into her back, through her lung, her heart. The point of the blade emerged from her breast and then he pulled it out again. He held her against him for the quick moments she required to die. A swift death was the only mercy he had to offer.