Bitter Moon Saga

by Amy Lane

  Oh, boyo—the only way you could fail us now is to take this journey, ye ken? Me and Eljean here, we’ve got to go. There’s a boat on that river of stars, and it’s going to take us home, but you need to stay. Can you do that for us? Her voice dropped, concerned, sadder than stars. Please, my joy, could you please stay for us?

  In a breath, Torrant was no longer the beautiful, if scarred, young man he had been by the end of the summer. Suddenly he was the battered, exhausted, practically eviscerated victim who had been shoved on the back of a horse and told to live for the sake of those who needed him. His body fell into the sun-heated sand, the blood from his stomach wound staining the gold with crimson.

  I’m so tired, Auntie Beth….

  She settled down in the sand with Torrant’s head in her lap and stroked his suddenly shorn hair, and Eljean was dimly aware that somewhere else, his body was frozen icy with something horrible and irrevocable that had been done to it. Distantly, he looked at the river flowing by their little sandbank and saw it was the color of a black-velvet sky, and in spite of the bright sunshine of their day and the way the light illuminated the dust on the leaves of the blackberry bushes, the three moons and a myriad of crystal-sharded stars were reflected on the rippled surface of the water.

  Eljean suddenly hungered to go sit in the little wooden boat on the shore. It would be peaceful there, he thought… so peaceful. The idea of drifting down that river on a day like this was dreadfully magnetic….

  Torrant moaned, just once, and Eljean plopped down next to him, enjoying the feel of the sand beneath his hands.

  You need to stay, Eljean said, more certain of this than he was of anything—even the fact that he would love Torrant to the end of that river and beyond.

  You want to stay, Bethen corrected gently. Twins, my darling boy. Twins, like Tal and Qir, a daughter for your beloved… twins for Tal and Qir, my boy, a daughter for Yarrow Moon….

  But what about Ellyot…. The words were so pained. Oh, Torrant, Eljean wondered, does your body feel like mine does?

  Your survival is Ellyot’s survival, my boy. You are his gift to the world, and like any gift, you don’t have to pay the world a blessed thing. Now live. Live to comfort Lane. Live to be this family’s joy. Live to be Aylan’s balance and Yarri’s beloved. There are so many reasons for you to stay, sweet boy. You’ll wake up one day, and you won’t be tired anymore, and if being tired is your only reason to go, then that’s just not good enough.

  Torrant groaned, a ripping, wrenching sound between three moons, and Eljean was surprised and saddened to see that even in this holy place, his eyes could still flash blue….

  And then Torrant roared, the snowcat’s breath in the human’s body, and the sound echoed off the water and the hills, off the trees and the dust of what had once been Moon Hold, and then the echoes died down, and in their wake…

  …there was a totally still moment.

  When Lane bent down and kissed his beloved’s still, cooling brow….

  When Yarri collapsed, sobbing, on Torrant’s still, unmoving chest….

  When Trieste’s scream of his name echoed in Eljean’s still, soundless ears….

  When Aldam stood in front of his brother’s old home, clutching a giant slushball in his large, grim hands and offered the still, amazed bunch of soldiers one last chance to live….

  And then Aldam released the last ball of winter’s snow. It spattered into the air, each snowflake bespelled with terrible death…

  …and the Moon family fell into each other’s arms, sobbing farewell to their beloved mother…

  …and Torrant hauled in one last glass-shrapnel breath and changed into the snowcat on the exhale, leaving Yarri clinging to his furry neck as he licked her face weakly in reassurance…

  …and Eljean stood on the beach with Bethen, offering his arm to her as they walked to the waiting boat.

  YARRI SOBBED her relief on her beloved’s now whole and perfect snowcat’s body, as a patter of snow whirled through the open shutter and landed harmlessly on her cheek.

  Going Back

  ALDAM STOOD, surprised, and watched as one half of the small company of soldiers who had made it to Moon Hold disintegrated body part by body part.

  It had been Fredy’s idea—as someone with a gift himself, he knew how these things worked. He assured Aldam that all he had to do was think the same thing with the snow in his hand as he had with the hammer, and whomever the snow touched would be doomed.

  Aldam had been appalled at the suggestion. Not all of them wanted to be there, he protested. What if some of them were like Fredy himself?

  So they had worked on the spell a little, and as the slushball glowed in Aldam’s hands, it was meant to target only those whose hearts would not heal from wishing the Goddess folk harm.

  Hence Aldam’s surprise. There were a great many more soldiers left on their horses than he expected, although they didn’t stay there long.

  Most of them ended up sliding off their horses to retch in the sloppy mud.

  Aldam wobbled slightly and turned to Fredy. “Can I go check on Torrant now?” he asked anxiously. “I heard something in there a moment ago….”

  Fredy was staring, eyes wide, at the devastation he had not only predicted but orchestrated. “Certainly, Aldam,” he said, the awe in his voice lost on his friend. “By all means go in and make sure Triane’s Son will live.”

  Aldam turned around happily, and Fredy looked out at the green and appalled faces of the men who had just surrendered to their own reluctance to slaughter.

  “All right, maggots,” he snarled with relish, “if you think we’re going to clean up this shite, you’re mad. We’ll let you all live, but you made a right mess out of our home.”

  He swung over the porch railing of the little house Aldam had spent all winter perfecting and went to the bunch of shovels and wheelbarrows he’d had the members of the hold who were still in hiding gather when they’d first heard that soldiers would be on the way.

  “So before you’re free to go,” he said with an evil little smile, “you’re going to make it bright and shiny again, you hear me?”

  Some of the men, hearing his command, looked up at the bodies of the truly evil among them who had fallen to bloody pieces like dismembered chickens and vomited again.

  Fredy grinned. “You all know, the more of that you do, the more you’ll have to shovel.”

  ALDAM SLEPT on a cot next to the bed, and Yarri spent the night with her arms wrapped around the snowcat’s thick fur, sleeping for the first time in five days.

  Considering how exhausted they were, it was easy for Torrant to awake the next day and slip out of the room unnoticed. He changed form once he got to the privy and tested the strength of his shaky, human, still feverish limbs by washing himself down in the tub with icy water from the pump.

  When he could still stand without spots dancing in front of his eyes, he wrapped a towel around his waist and went hunting for Fredy, who was in one of the other rooms with his sons.

  Fredy was just waking up and was both surprised to see Torrant and grateful for his apparent health.

  “You had us all worried, my friend,” he said with a hearty smile and a clap across Torrant’s bare shoulder that made him stumble. Fredy’s eyes narrowed. “And after all of that, you’re not completely well, are you?”

  Torrant grimaced and looked away. “May I borrow some clothes?” he asked politely. “My others are—” Bloodstained, ripped, destroyed. “—not really ready to be worn.”

  “Yes, of course, my friend—but why would you not borrow them from Aldam?”

  Even after the last year, Torrant was still bad at the casual lie. “I thought you and I might be more of a size,” he said lamely and had to look away again.

  The truth was that if he had to see them again, Yarri and his brave, amazing, wonderful brother of compassion, unconscious and innocent in their exhaustion from keeping him alive… if he had to see them again as a man and not the snowcat
, he might not have the strength to leave.

  It didn’t matter—they caught up to him at Alec’s base camp anyway.

  He heard Yarri’s voice, shrill and angry, as he steadied Courtland to go underground and into the city. He’d been happy to see the old boy in the small, makeshift stable that had been built at the hold, but now he patted Courtland’s neck and said, “You must be getting slow, old boy. I would have thought you’d outstrip their horses easily.” It had been hard to convince Courtland that he wanted to come this way—there were numerous fires inside of Dueance, and the smoke had been visible about two hours outside of Moon Hold.

  Courtland snorted and looked at Torrant reproachfully—the idea that he was slower than any horse but Heartland was completely offensive to his horsy senses.

  But Yarri and Aldam had him in their sights. He found that the weariness that had dogged him for the entire ride from the hold sat on his shoulders like a weight, and he couldn’t fight both it and the ones he loved.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as soon as Yarri got close enough to hear him speak quietly. “I’m so sorry. Leaving you two hurt more than you’ll ever imagine… but I had to.”

  Yarri stopped short and looked away, trying to make the emotional jump from righteous anger to strained understanding in one long heartbeat. “Why? Why would you leave us without even waking us to say good-bye?”

  Torrant’s self-flagellating smile was painful for even the camp watchmen to see, and suddenly, the guarded entrance to the city was empty but for the three of them.

  “Because I’m not that strong, Yarrow Root,” he said softly. “I’m not that strong. I woke up this morning and….” Oh, he couldn’t gather all those emotions in a simple bushel basket of words. “And I couldn’t leave you. I just couldn’t. But Trieste’s here, and the regents, and”—this was truth, and he knew it—“and Eljean’s dead.” Please don’t let his voice break, please… please. Too late. “I need to get them, beloved. I just do. I couldn’t leave them. Not even to spend another precious moment telling you why.”

  Yarri sniffed, a fair amount of disgust in the sound. “Torrant Moon-Shadow, do you think I wouldn’t understand? Do you think you and Aylan are the only ones in this family with a gods-benighted sense of honor?” Another sniff, this one suspiciously wet. “I just wanted to go with you, that’s all.”

  “And you, Aldam?” Torrant asked, thrilled to see his brother now that he was conscious and able to speak.

  “You can’t leave me behind again!” Aldam insisted, a fair amount of hurt coming through his unshuttered voice.

  Torrant smiled, worried for them both and relieved they were there.

  “You’d better stay out of trouble, both of you!” he told them, but his stern tone was fooling nobody. “Remember, I’m Triane’s bloody Son in that city—it’s my job to keep you safe.”

  “Listen to him,” Aldam said with obvious pride. “I didn’t realize he’d become the leader that’s ridden his shoulders. You should have told me!”

  “I’ve always known it was there,” Yarri said, sniffling again. “He doesn’t look any different to me than he did a year ago.”

  Torrant shook his head. “I’m so glad you never learned to lie,” he said with admiration. “Now shall we go?”

  Together, with one of Alec’s lieutenants to take Trieste to safety, they ventured under the walls of the burning city.

  The smoke almost choked the tunnel. They had to dismount in order to breathe well enough to continue. Torrant had been channeling enough Goddess to make his eyes blue, but he found himself relying on Her more and more as they traveled through the tunnels. He just hoped She stayed with him long enough to see this day through.

  None of them—not even Aldam, who had never seen the inside of Dueance—were prepared for the devastation wrought upon the Goddess ghettoes.

  Aylan’s flat had been a pile of rubble when the riots started, which is why it had escaped torching.

  The rest of the odd assortment of buildings was now a pile of blackened cinders, poorly made bricks, and the occasional body underneath.

  Torrant looked out at the wreckage, his eyes unconsciously seeking the places he knew—the Amber Goose, the Gander’s Sauce, Zhane’s flat, the small bakery, the tiny corner outlet where the women would sell their lace on days they weren’t allowed at market—all of it leveled, detritus, rubble.

  Yarri made a sound, muffled by her hand, and they met eyes. “I have to keep remembering…”

  “…that all of the people we knew were already gone,” he finished, and she nodded with him. “Yes. Yes. This place was nothing long before this happened.”

  He struggled for and found his bearings in the now-visible wall behind the guards’ barracks. The barracks themselves appeared to be empty, and judging from the sounds coming from the marketplace, he surmised that Alec’s men were out there fighting a two-front battle—one against the guards and the other against the riot they had entered the city to quell.

  “All right—let’s get over that wall, and I’ll tell you what we need to do.”

  They left the horses and Lieutenant Corniel at the mouth of the tunnel, then stacked debris over it as cover but left enough spaces for air to get through. None of them envied the lieutenant, but he took his duty underground with some good humor.

  “It’s at least a little more action than the other side of the tunnel,” he said cheerfully, and they were all grateful for his kindness as they ventured into the desecrated no-man’s-land that had become the Goddess ghettoes of Dueance.

  Some of the smoke was already beginning to dissipate, and Torrant surmised that the fires had occurred the same day Merrick and Dimitri were killed.

  “Of all the wastes of flesh and bone to provoke a slaughter….” He sighed, shaking his head. “If Aylan was going to kill someone, I’d rather it had been Rath himself.”

  “I think he’d rather they had lived and you’d not been harmed,” Yarri said dryly, looking at the wall with a sigh. She was, on the best of days, short and plump, with wide hips. Today, three and a half months pregnant with two babies, was not the best of days. “You really think you’re going to get me up there?”

  It turned out that Aldam was both tall and strong, and even if Torrant was still shaking with fever, he had spent the last year pushing his body until it could sustain anything. Picking her up from Aldam’s boost and dropping her lightly on the other side turned out to be no problem whatsoever.

  The problem turned out to be explaining to Aldam what Torrant needed him to do.

  “You’re not leaving me behind!” Aldam protested vehemently, and Torrant fought the temptation to bury his face in his hands. Instead, he took Aldam’s broad, hardworking hands in his own and stood on tiptoe to bring his foster brother’s forehead to his own.

  “No, Aldam,” he said with some humor, “I’m sending you ahead. You know the men I’m trying to protect—they’re the ones who helped to evacuate the ghettoes. I’ve left them alone here. They’ve been fighting on that floor for days to get Eljean and Trieste freed. They need to know I’m alive. They need to know I haven’t forgotten them. Alec should be with them—because I begged him to be. I need to get Trieste to safety, and I need to see justice done. Your job is to tell them to hang on a little longer. I’ll be there soon.”

  “You’re still sick—do you think I can’t feel that? Your skin is like the sun!”

  “Well, the quicker we stop arguing, the quicker you two can drag me back to Moon Hold and cosset me, right?” Torrant shot back with some exasperation.

  “What do I tell them?” Aldam asked finally. “What do I say to get me in the door?” Yarri had convinced him to color his hair with dye before they left, and Fredy had helped, but that didn’t mean hiding or lying was something he did easily.

  Torrant smiled broadly because this would be exactly the job Aldam would do best. “Tell them you’re Aldam Moon,” he said wickedly, “and then just tell the truth.”

  “But your name…
. Won’t Rath learn your real name?” Yarri asked, shocked.

  Torrant grimaced. “Beloved, do you think when this is over, I’d planned to come back and be regent?” He planted a sudden quick, hard kiss on her mouth that both surprised her and dazzled her in spite of the direness of the situation. “I’ll never again be someone who can’t kiss my lover in public, Yar. If I’ve fought for nothing this last year, I’ve fought for that.”

  And with that, he pointed Aldam on his way.

  “Where are we going?” Yarri asked as they turned and trotted around the other side of the flats. “I thought you didn’t know where they were?” Those mutilated bodies—for a month, the men had been trying to find out where Rath’s secret prison was, and they’d had no luck at all.

  “I know now,” Torrant said grimly, taking the left that would bring them behind the Regents’ Hall and then, with another left, behind the consort’s palace. “Eljean told me.”

  Yarri had heard him, crying out Eljean’s and Bethen’s name before his own heart had stopped. She didn’t need to ask another thing.

  The entrance under the palace was small and low, taking a series of sudden stairs to the hallway that led to the prison cells. Torrant listened from the shadows of that hallway for a moment and then motioned for Yarri to shrink into them and join their number. She listened breathlessly to the clatter as he killed the guards without mercy, and then, when she heard his sharp, anguished cry of grief, she ran down the stairs and over discarded, lifeless bodies to comfort him.

  It was so hard to see.

  Eljean’s body had been ripped apart, a little at a time. He lay on the cold, filthy floor, naked, bleeding from his mouth and rectum, his stomach splayed out like some sort of hideous butterfly, every inch of his skin desecrated, abraded, destroyed.

  His manhood had been ripped off and lay unheeded next to his body as he had fallen.

  The expression on his face was so intimately peaceful, so benignly lovely, that it was perhaps the hardest thing of all to bear witness to—the final, fatal wound to their hearts as they recovered the body of their friend.