The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  She covered her nose and sat on the seat. Once again, sitting helped to ease the pain in her lower back, but she wasn’t able to relieve the pressure from her intestines. She tried pushing gently, remembering Dr. Ephraim’s warning about pushing too hard and hurting herself. Nothing worked; she didn’t need to do anything except urinate. What’s all the pressure down there, then?

  She pulled her pants up and fiddled with the elastic closure that The Keep’s seamstress put onto her larger maternity clothes. Then she closed the lid with her foot and pressed the lever to flush away the contents of the bowl. She politely refilled the water tank from the bucket of melted snow under the sink for the next user.

  The men stood near the center of the store when she emerged from the foul-smelling restroom. Frederick held a small box containing a rattle of some kind from the old world.

  “Ah, all better, Princess?” her guardian asked.

  “Yes, much better,” she lied. The pressure had eased somewhat, but she didn’t feel normal.

  “I was just telling your, um…” The shopkeeper paused uncomfortably for a moment until he settled on the correct term. “I was telling the baby’s father that my suppliers were active this winter. They brought in a lot of new toys from across the wastes.”

  “Are you sure there’s no radiation on the toys?” Tanya asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. The warehouses that my suppliers target are outside of the fallout zones. Regardless, each package has been thoroughly examined for radiation particles.”

  Tanya hunched her back slightly to relieve some of the pressure on her abdomen. “I didn’t know that you could see radiation particles, Mr. Burrell.”

  “You, ah…no, ma’am, you can’t see them. They are taken from places that were never exposed to the drifting ash—which, as you know, is the most dangerous of the long-term radiation—and the supplier guarantees that there’s no harmful radiation remaining on the packaging. He has the most wonderful device that detects the pollution.”

  She’d heard of such devices from the old world. Although there was the rare exception—like the music machine that the magicians used at the festival—most of the things from that time no longer worked. A machine that could tell where the areas affected by radiation were would benefit everyone, not just a merchant. Children were taught to avoid areas where radiation is obvious, such as sickly vegetation in an otherwise healthy environment or the total lack of vegetation. However, everyone also knew that radiation particles could drift for hundreds of miles from where the detonations occurred and the signs weren’t obvious.

  Tanya wanted to think about the radiation-finding device more; maybe she’d mention it to her father when he returned from his trade negotiations. “Alright,” Tanya replied. “I see Frederick found a rattle, what else do you—” She sucked in a painful breath.

  Frederick tried to touch her elbow, but she pulled it away from him. “I need a moment,” she told him.

  “Are you okay, Princess?”

  “I need a minute,” she repeated. Her back throbbed in pain and the pressure in her backside increased. She felt like she’d eaten an entire meal of only meat and everything had settled down low in her stomach. She also felt like she was going to have an accident in the toy store. The broadsides would love that. She could picture the headline now, “Princess Poops Her Pants in Public.”

  That wasn’t going to happen. “Frederick, we need to return to The Keep.”

  “At once, ma’am,” he stated and put the rattle down, then rushed toward the door to ensure that the taxi was still present.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Burrell. I felt fine this morning, but now I’m feeling ill. I need to go home.”

  “Of course, Your Highness.” He picked up the rattle once more and pressed it into her hand. “Please, take this. You can settle up the account when you return.”

  “Thank you. I just need to lie down.”

  She trailed after Frederick. The shopkeeper said something that she didn’t understand. Something about taking care of the baby. Of course I’ll take care of the baby, she thought, annoyed but not sure why she was so irritated at him. He was only trying to be nice.

  The carriage ride back to The Keep was a blur. The driver seemed to hit every pothole along the way, regardless of his earlier statement that he tried to avoid them to keep her comfortable. Frederick assured her that they made it back much faster than the trip out had been, but she didn’t believe him. The ride took forever and she was about to defecate in the taxi.

  Several of the Traxx Guard helped her down from the carriage. Her feet never touched the ground as they carried her down the walkway and through the gates of The Keep. Behind her, she heard the taxi driver apologizing profusely about the length of trip and all the bumps in the road. Frederick ran ahead, shouting for people to move out of the way and to bring Dr. Ephraim to the princess’ chambers.

  Tanya struggled against the men carrying her. Regardless of how much she acted like a tomboy, she was still the princess and it simply wasn’t dignified to be carried like a child. “Put me down!” she ordered.

  The two Guards reluctantly set her down and she walked haltingly between them, allowing one to keep a hand on her elbow. She lifted her chin and pulled away, walking faster—which lasted for only a hundred feet before the pain in her lower back flared once more, causing her to gasp and double over in pain.

  Her sluggish mind finally began to wonder if she was going into labor. The thought terrified her. She was only seven months pregnant; it was far too early for the baby to come. What if he does? Could the doctor save a baby born prematurely?

  All doubts that she was going into labor ceased when something leaked out of her. It wasn’t enough to be noticeable, but the warm, sticky fluid in her crotch meant that her bag of waters had burst. She muttered an unladylike curse word that she’d learned from the soldiers on the parade field and did her best to continue walking.

  By the time she made it to the front doors, Dr. Ephraim was there with his assistants. They took charge of her from the Guards and helped her to the old elevator shaft inside The Keep. The doctor pulled hard on the rope dangling from a hole drilled in the ceiling. Far above, a bell chimed one time to tell the porter to lower the platform to the first floor.

  As the platform lowered from above, a member of the household staff used a crank to open the elevator’s sliding doors. Once the heavy wooden platform settled even with the floor, he pulled a flimsy mesh contraption out of the way to allow the princess, her lover and the doctor into the elevator. All of the others rushed for the stairwell.

  Dr. Ephraim helped Tanya onto the platform and told the bellman outside, “Sixth floor, please.”

  “Damn you, Tony, you know which floor we’re going to,” Frederick admonished the bellman. “Just get us there.”

  “Frederick, stop it!” Tanya ordered. She was stressed enough, and didn’t need him yelling at everyone for trying to do their job. He glanced at her and nodded silently, properly rebuked.

  The sound of the bell ringing six times above them was much louder inside the elevator shaft than it had been in the lobby. Tanya normally took the stairs. She hated the elevator and rarely took it because the strange upward motion followed by a pause as the porter readjusted his grip on the rope to pull more of it through the pulley was nauseating. She was in so much pain now, though, that she didn’t protest the doctor’s decision to take the elevator to her quarters on the sixth floor.

  They arrived after a few minutes and the doctor’s assistants met them outside of the elevator. He thanked the burly porter who’d pulled the platform up the elevator shaft and guided Tanya gently toward her suite. She muttered something that might have been a thank you to the porter, but she wasn’t entirely sure that her mouth formed the words correctly.

  Her back throbbed in pain and the pressure down low was incredible. If she didn’t have the baby soon, she felt as if she’d burst. It was a strange mixture of emotions for her because she didn’t want to have
the baby so early, but she wanted the pain to end—which meant she had to go through an even greater pain of giving birth.

  Tanya’s mother, Queen Peyton, met them at the entrance to her rooms. “Are you alright, Tanya? What happened?”

  “I think… I think my bag of waters broke,” she replied.

  “She’s going into labor, Your Highness,” Dr. Ephraim stated grimly.

  “Labor!” the queen gasped. “She’s only seven months along.”

  “It can’t be helped. The baby is coming,” he replied.

  Tanya accepted a hug from her mother. “We’ll be fine. The little one is strong,” she whispered into the queen’s dark hair before disappearing into her quarters.

  *****

  Peyton Traxx sat in a plush chair in the hallway outside of her daughter’s suite. She’d been inside the room for hours with Tanya, but the doctor finally demanded that either she or Frederick leave the room. Between the two of them, they were causing undue stress on the princess and her baby. The queen took the high road and allowed the father to remain for the birth of his child.

  Peyton had the chair and an ancient book that she’d been reading brought to her so she’d have something to do while she waited. Now that winter was almost over, Garrett was off negotiating terms with the mayor of some town or other, trying to gain some cattle for the kingdom, so she was alone in her vigil.

  Heavy breathing, interspersed with brief screams of pain, was her constant companion as she sat by herself, the book resting unread beside her. She’d briefly considered going into the room once again, but decided against it. The doctor knew what he was doing and having the queen peering over his shoulder wouldn’t help him.

  Peyton worried about Tanya and the baby. She should have had several more months of pregnancy. Given how large the girl was, though, maybe her estimation of her last menstrual cycle wasn’t correct and she was further along than they thought. She prayed to the gods that her daughter was really eight or even nine months pregnant.

  The noises from inside Tanya’s suite stopped and one prolonged shriek of pain carried into the hallway. Even though she’d grown accustomed to the sounds, Peyton jumped in response to the sudden scream from her daughter. Then, the cries of a baby permeated The Keep and she smiled. She had a grandson or granddaughter.

  A man shouted inside the room. She stood up rapidly, feeling lightheaded at the sudden movement after sitting so long in her chair. The baby’s wail was answered by Tanya’s brief cries of pain before she fell silent once again.

  Then, the wails of the baby became frantic and almost nonstop without pausing for a breath. Peyton rushed to the door, the sound wasn’t the normal sound of a baby crying. Is there something wrong with the baby? Did Tanya survive the birth? A lot of women don’t make it—had that hack of a doctor cut the baby from the princess’s lifeless body?

  Peyton’s mind raced as she thought of all the things that could go wrong with the birthing of a baby. She’d come close to dying when she gave birth to Tanya. The midwife had been unable to stop the bleeding for several hours. By the time she was stable enough for Tanya to suckle at her breast, she was addicted to the powdered mother’s milk fed through the plastic bottles and rubber nipples that Garrett had scavenged. The girl never fed from her and their relationship hadn’t been as strong as it should have been between a mother and daughter.

  The minutes passed quickly, each moment adding to her unease. Finally, Dr. Ephraim burst from the room, hands and arms covered in blood. He smiled, and then shouted, “The princess has given birth to twins, Your Highness!”

  Beyond the doorway, between several of the women who’d gone into the birthing room with her daughter, Peyton glimpsed Tanya holding two babies against her bare chest. Twins!

  SIX

  Varan and Caleb stood together behind crosshatched iron bars, staring out at the sands of the arena. Brothers, both by blood and by experience, they’d prepared themselves for what was to come next. For months, they’d planned for the fight that the Commerce Guild forced upon them.

  Winter storms blowing off the coast delayed Lucas’ timeline for the fight from December into late February. During that time, the brothers discussed their options for the upcoming fight. The first idea was to walk to the center of the arena and have Varan simply kill Caleb outright, providing no satisfaction for the crowd—or the Guild. Both agreed immediately that it wasn’t a true option; the gods would not look upon Caleb favorably for giving away his life so cheaply.

  The next idea was to script the fight from their initial entry into the arena until the final, climactic ending with Caleb’s death. They tried for several days to choreograph the fight properly, but the other gladiators agreed with them that it didn’t look natural. While they fought and hit each other’s shields with the passion of trained swordsmen, it still looked scripted.

  In the end, they’d given up and decided that they would fight as true warriors. No preplanned moves, no rehearsals, and no quarter given—that is what their god Týr demanded of his faithful. Access to Fólkvangr was not granted to those who pretended to fight, like actors at a festival. They would fight against each other as men, to the death.

  The gate keeping them locked under the viewing stands rose slowly and they walked out together, hand-in-hand. The announcer called out their names and the crowd roared for the fight to begin. The cheers and cries of excitement slowly faded and Varan smiled. He could feel the savagery of the crowd shrivel away like a grape left too long in the sun. This wasn’t the way a fight to the death was supposed to happen. Opponents entered the arena from opposite sides, not through the same gate, as equals.

  The first shouts of displeasure and the boos from the crowd spread and by the time they’d made their way to the center of the arena the entire stadium shouted for their deaths. The mob wanted to see blood and hatred, not civility and companionship. They marched past the halfway point, the sand already covered in blood from earlier matches, and made directly for the Guild’s reviewing booth.

  Varan placed a restraining hand across Caleb’s chest when they were only twenty paces from the wall underneath the booth. “We are here to fight for the honor of champion,” Varan called out, his voice echoing across the stadium.

  A fat man wearing nicely made old world clothing shrugged a woman off each arm and struggled to his feet. “You are the brothers, Chaos and Vengeance, are you not?”

  “Yes. Co-champions of the arena for the last four years,” Varan agreed.

  “Do you agree to the Commerce Guild’s decision that there will be only one champion? That you two will fight one another to the death?” The man’s chins quivered and shook as he talked. Clearly, the members of the Commerce Guild weren’t hurting for food.

  “We agree,” Caleb replied, allowing his voice to carry as well. “The warrior gods demand a fair battle. We will give them their due.”

  The fat merchant clapped his hands, first in front of him, then raising them above his head for all to see. It worked. Soon, the entire stadium was clapping and calling out the name of their chosen warrior while the bookmakers scrambled from row to row, taking bets on the fight. Varan was the odds-on favorite to win.

  “You may begin,” the Guild member shouted above the clamor.

  Caleb and Varan placed their hands to their hearts and bowed to the reviewing booth, then turned to face one another. “Farewell, Brother,” Varan stated.

  “If you send me to Fólkvangr this afternoon, I will save a spot for you beside our lovely goddess Freyja,” Caleb replied.

  “And I will do the same for you if you are the victor.”

  They each placed a hand on the other’s shoulder, keeping the one holding their weapon loose at their side. Varan rested his forehead against his brother’s, it was something that they’d always done and it would be their last gesture of brotherly love. He hated the system that required him to fight against his only remaining family member.

  For a moment, Varan had doubts that he’d be able
to fight. He didn’t want to do this, no matter what the Guild required.

  “Promise me that you will escape,” Caleb said suddenly.

  Escape? “What do you mean?” Varan gasped.

  The capricious crowd began to jeer and call out; their display of affection was boring. They wanted blood. Caleb looked to the stands and then back to Varan. “Promise me that you will find a way to escape and become a free man.”

  “Caleb, I—”

  “I need to know this,” his older brother interrupted.

  “We are locked in like dogs every night. What do you want me to do?”

  “I had a dream last night,” Caleb answered. “You must go north, with Freya. You’ll find a forest and the true path will be revealed to you.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Promise it, Brother!”

  Varan thought for a moment of how he could escape. The gladiators were under constant scrutiny, barely able to piss without a guard standing over them. As the Primus, he did enjoy more liberties than the others, but it wasn’t enough to allow him an opportunity to escape.

  “I promise,” he replied flatly. By gods, I’ll find a way.

  “Remember, go north. You have a destiny to fulfill. All will be revealed to you then, Vengeance,” Caleb promised, shoving him roughly away. He brought the sword up from low to high and Varan thought that Caleb was going to salute him, but his brother stabbed outward rapidly, toward his midsection.

  The move was a dirty trick, used to score a quick wound when a fighter knew that their opponent was much better than they were. Vengeance only had a moment to sidestep and deflect the sword thrust with the head of his adze. The war axe, once the former champion Balroth’s weapon, was now his. He allowed the weight of the blade to carry the adze past the block and then reversed its course, hacking toward Chaos’s leg.