“What do you mean, the trolls caused the earthquake?” Ranadar asked, confused.
“Now, Seb,” the woman scolded. “We don’t know that. That’s just rumor, it is.”
“So why were the trolls grabbing people?” Seb demanded. “They hungry?”
“Way I heard it, Prince Karsten sent ’em out,” said the older man. “Those strange men we’ve been seeing around town, they’re real strong, right? We’ve seen ’em haul stones and throw men.”
“My cousin’s neighbor said she saw one throw a man over the wall of the Gold Keep,” said the blond man.
“So Prince Karsten got the trolls to take the … strong men?” Ranadar’s heart was beating hard again. “Why?”
“Only the trolls are strong enough,” said the older man. “And the trolls know what these men smell like, see, so they can tell who to arrest. The human guards have a harder time of it. I used to have a dog that could—”
“No,” Ranadar almost snapped. “I mean, why is the prince doing this?”
“Oh! You ain’t heard?”
“Heard what?” Ranadar nearly screamed.
“Prince ordered their heads off. Only sure way to kill ’em.”
“That can’t be right,” said the woman. “I heard the strong men are carrying plague and the prince is killing them in order to stop the—”
But Ranadar was already running for the Gold Keep.
Chapter Fifteen
Aisa had been in the Garden for only a few minutes when the monster attacked. The earth beneath her feet felt as soft and rank as mushrooms left in the sun for too long, and everywhere around her, the plants and trees were drooping. Above her, Ashkame seemed heavy and tired, carrying the thick weight of air, and cracks ran up the great wall of bark.
So many of the plants were rotting, their roots only loosely in the soil. Several were so far gone they were poisoning the ones around them. Flies buzzed, drawn to the rank smell. In the mortal world, this meant people were more prone to fighting and arguing, to mistrust and depression, to discord and strife. Husbands cheated on their wives. Wives abandoned their husbands. Parents beat their children. Lovers argued. Neighbors started vicious rumors, stole, and vandalized. Small slights escalated into family explosions or even clan warfare.
Aisa took Kalessa’s sword from her belt and flicked it into a sickle, and with it she cut out some of the worst plants, the ones that were corrupting the plants around them. Outraged flies buzzed around her head. When she regretfully cut the offending plants, the poisoned ones perked up, but only a little. And in many places, the corrupted plants were so numerous it would take cutting wide swaths to accomplish anything, and that would cause more problems than it solved.
“We are moving toward war,” she muttered to herself, waving away a fly. “A bad one. Beneath a rotting world tree. Gwylph must be stopped.”
Aisa glanced about, looking for Gwylph’s plant. Death and the other Gardeners had said they could not uproot her, however hard they tried, but perhaps Aisa could—
An angry buzzing behind her made Aisa turn. Warm, humid air and the sweet smell of rotten meat burst over her. The blood drained from Aisa’s face and her fingers went numb. Behind her hovered a fly the size of a cottage. Purple ichor dripped from the proboscis that dangled obscenely between its eyes, and Aisa could see the stiff black hairs that covered its body. But they were not hairs, were they? They were themselves flies. The creature’s outer skeleton crawled with flies. The entire creature was made up of flies, thousands and millions and billions of them all clinging together. Fear, pure and black, speared Aisa and her feet rooted themselves to the ground. The fly spat greasy ichor on its forelegs and rubbed them together with the sound of a thousand rubbing files. Then it slapped Aisa aside. Aisa flew sideways and plowed into a patch of wintergreen. Terrified, she rolled aside just in time to avoid a belch of ichor that splattered the plants where she had been. An eye-watering stench of vomit choked her, and the wintergreen dissolved with a hiss. The faint sound of screams reached her as a hundred people on Erda died.
Aisa cast about, looking for something, anything to fight with. Nothing was nearby, not even a branch, and Kalessa’s blade—now a knife—had fallen several yards away. She gathered her power, intending to change shape. A walrus, or even an elephant, could smash this thing.
The fly’s proboscis snapped at her like a tentacle and snatched her by the waist. Thousands of flies vibrated filth against her skin. Aisa’s concentration evaporated. The fly dragged her forward. Aisa screamed and grasped at her power, desperately trying to pull together enough to change into something, anything that could slip free—a cat, a raven, a goat—but the terror would not let her focus. Where were Nu and Tan? Where was Death? She could not imagine they were unaware of this thing. The fly stood over her now. Hundreds of flies crawled over Aisa’s body. The creature’s wings, filmy clouds of flies, fluttered, and its mandibles opened to crush her. Flies slid up her nose and into her ears. Aisa desperately tried to force the fear away, but it would not—
And then Hamzu was there. With a troll’s roar, he bowled into the creature. It released Aisa, who rolled away in a cloud of flies. The creature tumbled away, tangled with Hamzu and trailing yet more flies. Still roaring, Hamzu punched and pounded at the thing and dragged out great handfuls of insects, but the flies simply flowed back into place, leaving the creature largely unaffected. It struggled against him, managed to shove him away, and got airborne, leaving Hamzu flat on his back on the ground. The creature spun, formed a stinger that pointed straight at Hamzu’s heart, and dove toward him.
Aisa snatched up Kalessa’s blade. It automatically flicked into the sickle shape. She threw it. The sickle whirled through the air, metal gleaming, and sliced straight through the creature.
For a moment, it appeared that nothing happened. The creature dove forward another foot or two while Hamzu tried to scramble out of the way. Then its front half divided neatly from its back half. The two halves tumbled end over end, crashed into the ground, and collapsed into two clouds of flies that themselves dissolved into smoke and vanished.
Aisa dropped to the mushy ground. Hamzu lumbered over and caught her up in his big arms. “Are you all right?” he rumbled. “The Nine! That thing was—”
“I am fine,” she said. “It barely touched me. You can put me down.”
He did, and they both sat down again. The Garden twilight settled over them, and the soft shade of Ashkame spread in all directions.
“My heart almost stopped when I saw that thing attack you,” Hamzu said. “What was it?”
“I think it was a symptom of the Garden’s corruption,” Aisa said. “Everything is becoming worse.”
“You’re still coming here at night to work, I see,” he rumbled.
“Of course. I am never quite sure if I am in some way dreaming this or if I am fully here. It is confusing.” She paused. “What are you doing here?”
He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes with thick fingers. “I’m not sure. It’s happened more than once now. I’m just … here. Maybe I’m just following you, like Talfi follows Ranadar.” Hamzu stretched and Aisa heard his shoulders pop.
“Hmm.” She took his hand. “Whatever the reason, I am glad you were here. That creature—”
“Would have been your death,” said Nu, hobbling out of some bushes.
“Your doom,” added Tan, following her.
“My end?” Aisa finished. “Can anyone truly die here?”
“Of course they can.” Nu’s face was shockingly pinched and pale, and she was leaning on Tan, who was, in turn, leaning on her. Nu’s seed sack was slack and empty. Tan’s hoe was rusted and cracked. It turned Aisa’s stomach to see them. “We are all dying now. We offer an apology. We tried to help against the creature, but we were so far away and we move with such slowness.”
“Such difficulty,” whispered Tan.
Aisa started to speak, to add the third phrase, but Hamzu interjected first.
“Such a long way,” he put in with a kind nod. “But everything worked out. It’s all right.”
Aisa gave Hamzu an odd look, but he didn’t seem to notice. The responsibility of finishing the Gardeners’ three-way conversations had fallen to Aisa, and she had woven herself into the pattern only reluctantly. Hamzu had just done it without realizing it. What was going on here?
“I … would like to ask you something, Great Ones,” Hamzu continued, breaking Aisa’s train of thought. She knew what he was going to ask, and her heart quickened. She begged him with her eyes not to do it, but he avoided her gaze.
“Ask if you wish,” Nu whispered. “But these days our vision is often clouded.”
“Blocked,” Tan croaked.
“It is hard for them to see,” Aisa warned, before he could say anything. “There is no need to bother them.”
Still Hamzu avoided her gaze, though she could see the tension in his jaw. He intended to ask. She could see it in his face. Her own body tensed and she wanted to clap her hands over her ears like a child. Oh, that man could be stubborn! She braced herself, and the question came, falling from his mouth like a jagged stone.
“Is it possible,” he said, “for a mortal and an immortal to … marry and stay together?”
Just hearing the question was painful. It lay there between them, a trap ready to spring shut. Aisa wished he could take it back. She knew what the answer was, what it had to be: no. The immortal would outpace the mortal. The mortal would grow old and die. Such a relationship was impossible. But not asking the question meant there was some hope, some possibility that one day they could find a solution. Asking the Gardeners meant getting an answer from the most powerful entities in the Nine Worlds. If they said it was impossible, hope died. Aisa could not bring herself to face the death of hope.
“Ah,” Nu said with a small nod. “This question does not require vision. Only knowledge.”
Aisa found she was holding both her breath and Hamzu’s hand. Might as well get it over with. Her voice was tiny. “What is the answer, then?”
“It is no,” said Nu firmly.
“Impossible,” said Tan.
“Never?” said Hamzu.
The two Gardeners remained silent and Hamzu’s hand tightened. He made a small sound. The weight of it all crashed over Aisa. The day she released Pendra with the Bone Sword would have to be the day she would bid Hamzu good-bye. Aisa looked at Hamzu, at his warm brown eyes and strong face and big hands and tousled hair. He looked back at her, and she could see a sorrow in him that crushed worlds. This wonderful and powerful man, who had been through so much with her, for her, was lost to her forever. And that was the way it was. She firmed her jaw. Very well, then. She had been making sacrifices her entire life. This was just one more. To save the world, she would—
“No!”
Hamzu gave her a startled look, and Aisa realized that she herself had been the one to speak. More words came out of her in a rush. “I will not! I am tired of hurting myself and sacrificing that and destroying my own life for the good of all. I will not give up my Hamzu. I will not give up my love. I will become a Gardener, and I will find a way.”
“It has never been done,” said Nu.
“Not been—” said Tan.
“Oh, shut up!” Aisa snapped. “You are filled with power, but you whine like puppies. What is the point of being a Fate if you cannot change the rules to suit yourself? Come along, Hamzu. We are leaving.”
She snatched at his elbow and found herself lying on her back beside a dying campfire. Slynd and Kalessa were still curled in a great wall all the way around them, dozing softly, nose to tail. Hamzu sat up and scratched his head.
“Was that … did I just dream … ?” he said.
“You did not,” she said. “I was there, too.”
“Did you just tell the Fates to shut up?”
A bubble of laughter escaped Aisa’s throat. “I believe I did. Oh my!” A snort burst from her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth so as not to disturb the slumbering wyrms. “I! An escaped slave girl from Irbsa telling the Fates themselves to halt their tongues!”
Hamzu gathered her into his arms while she shook, both with laughter and with the aftereffects of the fight and her confrontation with the Fates. She felt safe there, safer than in the Garden, safer than anywhere else in the universe. His heart beat against her ear. For just a moment, she leaned into him, let his strength shelter her, let herself be the weak one. She looked up him and reached up to touch his face.
“I want to have a child with you,” she whispered.
“What, right now?” he said, not sure if she was joking.
She pulled him down for a long kiss. “Right now.”
*
Two days later, they crossed the border into Xaron. They had gone north of Balsia and skirted Lake Nu, the northernmost of the Three Fate Lakes. The grasslands up there were hot and arid, and no one wanted to live there, so the area was largely ignored by both Fae and Kin. The dark forests of Alfhame ran straight south, side by side with the Xaron grasslands all the way to the South Sea, so they decided the safest course would be to stay a league or two east of the forests to avoid elven mischief. Once they reached the ocean, they would have to either risk sneaking along the southern coast of Alfhame or, more easily, hire a ship, to get to the Sand River. But they still had no idea how they would get the Bone Sword away from Queen Gwylph or use it to free Pendra.
“We found the Iron Axe,” Danr said stoutly. “We can find the Bone Sword.”
But when they crossed from the northern grasslands into Xaron, they found devastation. The grasslands ahead of them were blackened and burned as far as they could see, and the dry smell of smoke hung heavy on the air. To their right, the distant green line of the Alfhame forest marched into the distance, a sharp contrast against the black prairie.
Kalessa trembled in agitation beneath Danr’s body. “What happened? How far does this go?”
“Stay here,” Aisa ordered. “I will look.”
Before Danr could respond, she changed into a hawk and, leaving her clothes behind, swooped into the distance. Danr dismounted. Kalessa coiled and uncoiled her body, her tongue lashing the air, while Slynd slithered in a circle around them, his great body leaving a trail in the ashes. Danr remained silent. There was nothing for either of them to say. Danr gnawed his upper lip, trying not to let the guilt overwhelm him. But he couldn’t help worrying about Kalessa’s family. Her father, Hess, had been a great help to Danr when he and the others were looking for the Iron Axe, and now Danr felt so guilty about leaving the box with them that his stomach became a stone in his middle. He paced about, unable to stop. Kalessa and Slynd ignored him. Some feelings were too raw to share.
After what felt like a week, Aisa dropped from the sky, landed, and took back her own shape. Her face was tight as she snatched up her cloak and wrapped it around herself.
“Well?” Kalessa demanded.
“It is bad,” Aisa said. “The burning goes on for miles and miles. I saw no orcs in any direction, but I did see several encampments of Fae.”
“Fae?” Kalessa reared back in shock. “In the orc lands? They never venture outside their forests.”
“They appear to have expanded their boundaries,” Aisa said grimly. “We will have to swing east to avoid them.”
Kalessa was trembling with the effort of keeping herself calm. “My family’s lands are near the fork in the Great Wyrm Rivers to the south and east,” she said. “Near the breeding grounds. It is on our way to the South Sea. We must hurry.”
Danr wordlessly climbed onto Kalessa’s back. The moment he was settled, she vaulted forward, and he barely kept his seat. Slynd rushed to catch up, and Aisa fled into the sky as a falcon again. They rode grimly onward without speaking past mile after mile of dead and scorched grassland. More than once, Aisa dove at them and shot to the east, telling them to swerve aside and avoid a Fae encampment. Danr saw plenty of little fairy tracks.
�
��How did they do this?” Danr asked at one point. “The orcs have iron weapons.”
“I am unsure,” Kalessa hissed without checking her pace. “The Fae have powerful magic and are better archers than we, but orcs are warriors, and the Fae have not ventured outside their forests for a thousand years.”
In order to remain unseen, they decided to travel at night and hide during the day. Danr could see perfectly well at night, and Aisa could fly ahead as a scout in the form of an owl. Wyrms, it turned out, depended on smell from their tongues and vibrations in the ground to navigate as much as they used their eyes, so darkness gave them no trouble. They slid forward as fast as they dared under eerie summer skies, speaking only when they had to, and then in low murmurs. Twice they encountered Fae on patrol—sprites and fairies and once a company of elves—but they ignored Aisa, who appeared to be a simple owl, and Kalessa merely curled around Danr to hide him while Slynd hissed at the passing Fae, as if he and Kalessa were a mated pair of wild wyrms. The Fae paid no attention to them.
Their food gave out. Aisa was forced to widen her range and hunt small game. She brought rabbits back to Danr, who ate them raw. Kalessa and Slynd could go a week or more without eating, though it wouldn’t be comfortable for either of them, and Kalessa said she wanted no food.
The ride was difficult and exhausting. Danr slept restlessly during the day, his hat pulled low over his face against the relentless prairie sun. When not in animal form, Aisa almost never wore clothes and instead preferred to go naked beneath a simple cloak. “Easier by far to get into and out of,” she explained as she pulled the cloak around herself one morning. Her face was pinched and tired.
“Is it harder to come back to human shape?” he asked. “You spend the entire night as an animal, and I’m afraid you might lose yourself.”
“This does not happen.” She yawned and curled herself under the cloak as Kalessa and Slynd wove their usual ring around them. “I am myself, no matter what shape I take. The same happens to you.”
Bone War Page 23