by Kirby Crow
Three jagged, charred heaps of ash he passed, until he stood in front of what was left of his own house. The ashes were cooling. Only the large oak beams that had supported the dome were still smoking. Perhaps he wept, though he did not remember doing so later. He must have, for his life was under those ashes, lost.
He started forward, his hands outstretched, but there was nothing to save. The central brick pillar was still standing, blackened with fire and soot. Scaja’s paved walkway, laid so lovingly with flat stones he gathered from the river himself, was still there, and the hearth and chimney made from rock. Somehow, he made it to the hearth. The little mirror he had combed his hair in so many times was shattered. As he approached, his fragmented reflection flowed over the sharp edges in a hundred shattered pieces.
His mouth moved in the broken mirror. “You told me true, Dad. There was an end to it.”
“Scarlet.”
Someone was calling his name. He was on his knees in the ash. He lifted his head, only then realizing that he was surrounded by Kasiri.
“You,” he snarled. His hands found the curved hafts of the Morturii long-knives at his belt. “Scavengers! You and your vermin couldn’t wait until the ashes were cold before they began picking our bones? Get out!”
Liall stood with several of his men, among them Peysho and the tawny-eyed Morturii man with the brown hair and girlish face who shadowed Peysho’s steps like a faithful dog: Kio. The Wolf’s face was dirty with grime and he wore a faded leather jacket that made him look not at all like an atya. Kio had a wide, bloodied bandage around his upper arm and streaks of crimson ran down his wrist. They were all filthy with ash and soot.
From sacking my village as it burned, Scarlet thought, and his vision went hazy in anger.
“We are not looting,” Liall said. “We were–”
“You’re a filthy Kasiri thief!” Scarlet accused, far past caring. “Why else would you be here?”
Liall closed his mouth and would not answer, only stared at Scarlet with his cold and disapproving eyes. With a snarl, Scarlet slid the long-knives from their sheaths and in one swift movement flowed to his feet. He raised the weapon to slash at Liall’s face.
He found his stroke parried by Kio, who had leapt in the way with his own knife drawn. Liall had not moved.
Scarlet batted Kio’s weapon aside. “Stand away!”
The other Kasiri were moving back to give them room to fight. Scarlet lunged forward, eager to drive past Kio’s defense, and Kio again deflected his attack. They exchanged a rapid series of feints and countermoves. On the final clash, the tip of Scarlet’s knife slid past Kio’s defense and narrowly sliced his cheek.
Kio snapped the hilt of his knife up, impacting with Scarlet’s wrist, making the bone sing briefly in pain. Scarlet swore and retreated.
Kio backed away as well, shaking his head as Scarlet stood trembling with fury. Kio swiped blood away from his cheek and stared at his reddened fingers, and then at Scarlet, with considerable respect.
“If we continue,” he said to Liall. “I may have to kill him.”
“Oh, that won’t do,” Peysho said easily. He drew a knife from his belt and motioned for the other
Kasiri to do the same. “Drop it, lad. Ye can’t fight us all.”
Scarlet spat at him. Peysho took it well, calmly wiping spittle from his jaw. Liall pushed Kio aside and stepped forward, well within range of Scarlet’s knives.
“Enough,” he commanded. “We are not stealing. We’re looking for survivors.”
“Liar!”
“Why would I bother lying to you?” Liall asked frigidly. “What need do I have? If we were bent on sacking this place, do you think you could stop us? We could murder you just as easy as the Aralyrin murdered your people.” He motioned and Peysho obediently lowered his knife. The rest of the Kasiri followed.
A great, hot mantle of misery blazed up around Scarlet. He was burning in it, like Scaja and Linhona in the house, ashes and red cinders. He was not even aware that his hands were lowered and he was defenseless.
“Your sister lives.”
“Annaya?” he muttered from the fires consuming his mind. It seemed a miracle that he could still speak. “She's...”
“She's alive. She'd been hiding until the Aralyrin left, but some of them found her after their riders had gone. We came upon them and killed them all.” He pointed to a charred area behind the ruins, and only then did Scarlet see the body of a tall Byzan there, much too tall to be Hilurin. His face was frozen into a furious death-mask, lips drawn away from his teeth in a snarl.
“Where is she?”
“In our camp, what’s left of it. They attacked us as well, though not with as much enthusiasm as Lysia.”
“If you've harmed her...”
Liall looked down on him with scorn and pity. “I told you. We saved her. I'll take you to her now.”
Liall held out his hand to Scarlet, but he thrust it away. “Is she all right?”
“She's in shock, but not hurt.” He looked at the blood on Scarlet’s face. “I cannot speak for her mind.”
Scarlet glanced back at the ruins of Scaja's house, the little domed dwelling his father had built with his own hands for Scarlet’s first mother. “My parents... they were inside, weren’t they?”
Liall's mouth tightened. “They were. Your sister saw everything. She told me.”
His heart clutched. Little Annaya. Oh Deva, please... “Take me to her.” He took a step and staggered. Peysho caught him.
“Ye’ve hurt yerself, lad,” he said.
“It’s nothing,” Scarlet mumbled. “Take me to my sister.”
THE PITYING LOOKS FROM the Kasiri as they entered the camp seemed to burn him as hot as the fire that consumed Lysia.
“Who else?” Scarlet asked as he trudged beside Liall on the path. Who else is left? he wondered in the deepest sorrow he had ever known. Who survived? Is anyone I grew up with still alive?
“None,” Liall said.
Scarlet was thankful that Liall kept his face averted. He did not want the atya’s pity.
They arrived at a green yurt on the far edge of the camp. Annaya sat by a small brazier in the interior, a flowered blanket draped around her shoulders. With Liall watching in the entrance, Scarlet knelt beside her, painfully aware of how vacant her eyes were. She stared unseeing into the little licks of flame. Her fingers were knotted so hard in the blanket’s ragged ends that her nails had turned blue.
“Annaya?” He kept his voice low and moved very slowly, the way he had seen Scaja do with mistreated horses. “Annaya love. It’s me, Scarlet.”
Her lips twitched and her hands unfurled from the blanket. “Scarlet?”
“Yes, love.”
“I saw them burn the house.” Her black eyes were wide. “They burned it with Mum and Dad inside.”
“I know. Hush, I know.”
Her voice was so wobbly that it reminded him of a new-born colt trying out its legs. “This is like Mum and the Raiders... isn’t it?”
It took him a moment to answer. “Yes.”
She sounded like a child. “Only I’m not left alone with no one.” She reached for his hand. He did not flinch, not even when she dug her nails into his skin. “I still have you.” Her eyes brimmed over and Scarlet nearly wept with relief. She would not sink into the tearless grief that had nearly driven Linhona to madness when she lost her first family. She was Linhona’s daughter, surely, but she was also Scaja’s.
Annaya swayed forward and pitched into her brother’s arms. Liall quietly left them alone to mourn.
SCARLET CLOSED THE flap of the yurt and tied it tight to keep out the mountain chill. The wind was kicking up again after the long silence it had kept all day. An old woman had come earlier bearing a pot of che for Annaya. Scarlet recognized the woman’s office as being the same as old Hipola’s in Lysia, and the che smelled of healing herbs. Annaya drank and fell asleep and the woman waved him out of the interior, assuring him with signs that sh
e would watch over his sister.
Standing on the platform, he could see the columns of smoke and drifting ash to the north, and he deliberately turned away from them and crossed his arms over his shivering body. He stood there for half an hour or more, staring blindly out over stone and scrub, and jumped when a hearth-warmed blanket was dropped over his shoulders. Liall pushed a pottery cup into his hands.
“Drink.”
“I don’t—”
“Drink, boy.”
Scarlet was exhausted and shaky, and Liall’s command was the one certain voice he had heard in a day of nightmares. Tipping the cup to his lips, he drank. The liquid was clear and fiery, but he was numb and barely tasted it.
“How is she?”
“She’ll heal,” he heard himself say.
“I have no doubt of it.” Liall shook his head. “You Byzans. What an amazement you are.”
He glared at Liall for a moment, unsure of his meaning.
“I only meant that Byzan strength is vastly underestimated.”
Scarlet was feeling anything but strong. All he understood was that Liall was not making less of his parent’s murder and the massacre of his home. “Why do they do these things to us?” he demanded weakly. “Don’t they know we’re helpless, that we’re no threat to them? We’re not their enemies, the Hilurin nobles in Rusa are!”
Liall shrugged. “Why does any predator prey on the weak?”
“But they didn’t have to kill everyone,” Scarlet said plaintively. “What are they trying to do, wipe us all out?”
“That is a possibility.”
The whole world felt unreal. Even the colors of the mountain he had seen a thousand times before looked too bright and vivid. “Why do they hate us so much?” he whispered.
“I cannot say,” Liall said kindly. “Perhaps it is more than simple hatred. I have seen massacres like this before, and the answer is always the same: Fear.” He gazed steadfastly at Scarlet. “As weak in numbers as you are, what cause would the Aralyrin have to fear you? There is your answer.”
Scarlet bit his lip and looked away. The Aralyrin had once been Hilurin. Surely some of their elders must remember the Gift, and that Hilurin alone were able to speak to Deva and be heard. That was cause enough for fear.
Seeing Scarlet’s distress, Liall put his arm around the pedlar in a friendly fashion, but Scarlet remembered the last time this man had tried to lay hands on him and pulled quickly away.
Liall looked gravely offended. “I would not offer you such an insult in your grief.”
Scarlet was suddenly ashamed. This was the man who had saved his sister’s life. “I crave your pardon,” he mumbled without grace. “Please forgive me.”
Liall sighed. “There’s nothing to forgive, but let us get out of this wind before you freeze.”
It was not very cold, and Scarlet had an idle thought that perhaps Liall was not very good at judging what a comfortable temperature for Byzans was. Liall motioned for him to follow. He obeyed, not really seeing where they were headed. Shortly, they arrived at a large blue yurt perched atop a wooden platform. On the platform was a tall pole adorned with a plain red banner without an emblem.
“This is Peysho’s yurt,” Liall said, holding aside the flap for him. Kio was there with a fresh bandage on his face, his golden eyes hooded and secret. Kio greeted them courteously before putting a fine silver cup into Liall’s hand. Apparently, one could not go anywhere in a Kasiri camp without being offered food or drink of some kind.
“This is Scarlet,” Liall said, pointing as he introduced him roughly. “Scarlet: Kio Sr’thanu.”
Scarlet nodded at Kio. It was strange to be formally introduced to someone after you’d just had a knife fight with him. Liall motioned to a pile of soft furs near the small brazier and gave him a gentle push. Scarlet huddled gratefully into the furs without protest. Now that he had seen Annaya was safe, his own shock took over. He began to shiver violently.
Liall was talking in soft tones to Kio, but he did not understand what they were saying. The cup sagged in his hand and his eyelids drooped, and he jumped when he felt someone near him. Liall was bending close, taking the cup from him and pushing his shoulder.
“Go to sleep,” Liall ordered. “You are safe. I will be here when you awaken.”
Scarlet opened his mouth to object, to claim he was not tired, but in the space of one breath to the next the world went dark and he fell into dreams where he saw Scaja heaping ashes onto his head, mourning his children’s fate, orphaned in the world and leaderless without him.
SCARLET HAD ALWAYS been slow to awaken in the morning. Sleepyhead, Linhona had often named him. On the first morning after the attack, he woke in Peysho’s yurt to discover that Liall had not left him. The atya was stretched out some feet away from the brazier, the whole giant length of him. Scarlet sat up and stared dully at the crack of light near the door flap while the events of yesterday settled in on him like rain clouds gathering over a valley. His head ached. He reached up to feel his temple and was surprised to find that his cut had been tended to while he slept. There was some kind of aromatic ointment spread over the wound, and someone had cleaned the blood off his face and neck.
Scarlet’s eyes smarted fiercely. He rubbed them with the back of his hand and took a deep breath. You cannot cry, he scolded silently. Annaya needs you.
Liall stirred in his sleep and murmured, and then his pale blue eyes snapped open. He looked at Scarlet for a long, quiet moment before he sat up and began to lace his scuffed leather jacket closed and feel around for his boots. Not a sleepyhead at all. Liall seemed to flow from sleep to consciousness with the same effortless ease that he accomplished everything else. For once, the Kasiri’s adroitness did not annoy Scarlet, and he began to see how he could learn from such a man, if Liall were willing to teach him. Scarlet, you ninny, what are you thinking?
His mouth twitched into a little smile. It was Linhona’s voice in his head, not his own, and he was oddly comforted by it. He knew they would always be with him.
“Feeling better?”
He did not, really. Liall had risen and was scrounging in Peysho’s supplies. There was no sign of Peysho or Kio.
“Yes, thank you,” Scarlet replied automatically.
Liall stopped his rummaging long enough to throw him a curious glance. “Are you always so polite?”
Scarlet thought for a moment. “No.”
Liall resumed his search. “Good. We stand on short ceremony here and we like to be quick about things. Manners take the long way around everything.”
“That explains why Kasiri don’t have any.” Scarlet could have bitten his tongue, but the look Liall gave him was one of amusement.
“Now that is the red-coat I know. Ah, here we go. Che.” Liall held up a small linen bag and pulled its drawstrings open, then stuck his nose inside and sniffed. “Real southern blend, too. Peysho always has the best.” He began to sprinkle some of the curled green leaves into the kettle.
“Won’t he mind if—”
“Who, Peysho? Anything I have is his, and anything he has is mine, save for Kio.”
“Is that the Kasiri creed?”
Liall gave a huff of laughter. “No, but it is the creed between comrades, and we are that.”
Something else Liall said nagged Scarlet. “You said Kio... does he own Kio?” He was apprehensive, remembering the boys in the slave market.
“Not at all, though there is a proprietary line there that only a very unwise man would cross.” Liall poured the che and handed him a delicate enameled cup that had a chasing of green leaves around its white rim.
Scarlet sipped experimentally, and the taste of the che drove all further questions from his mind. It was green che, the same kind in Scaja’s house, yet this had a subtle flavor and a mellowness he had never tasted before, without any of the bitterness that Byzantur che usually carried. There was also a hint of scent about it, like a delicate dusting of roses.
Liall took in Scarlet�
��s widened eyes and startled expression. He smiled. “Good?”
“It’s the best I’ve ever had,” Scarlet said honestly, the incredible scent and fragile flavor lingering on his tongue and in his nose. “I didn’t even know they could make something so wonderful.” Then he felt awful. How could he be enjoying che when Scaja and Linhona were dead?
Liall sipped his che noisily, as Scarlet had seen other Kasiri do. “The world is bigger than any man can know in a dozen lifetimes, red-coat, and you have seen only a small part of it, no more than a thimble of sand on a broad beach.”
The yurt flap opened and Peysho stood looking in. He nodded at Liall deferentially and then fixed his fearsome gaze on Scarlet. His gravelly voice was gentle. “Yer sister wants ye, lad. Better come.”
TO AVOID GOING THROUGH the center of the camp and endure again the curious stares of the Kasiri, Scarlet took the longer route that skirted the outside of the wagons. The wagons were nearest the edges of the promontory where the land fell away steeply on all sides into the mountain. In his haste, Scarlet nearly tripped on a jutting rock and Liall caught him and steadied him on his feet.
“Byzan fool!” Liall’s hands gripped his arms tightly, and Scarlet got the distinct impression the atya wanted to shake him for his carelessness. “Be more careful!”
“Annaya—”
“Is safe. Peysho would have said so if she were not. We have plenty of time. Slow down and keep your wits about you. There are cliffs all around here.”
“I’ve been walking for a goodly time now,” Scarlet retorted. Still, he slowed down.
They came to the yurt and Scarlet found he was strangely frozen, unable to mount the steps to go inside. Liall pushed on his shoulder to urge him, and Scarlet went forward in a rush, only to freeze again when he pulled the flap open.
Annaya was huddled into a young man’s arms, sobbing loudly. It took Scarlet a few moments to recognize him.
“Shansi?” he breathed. His feet carried him into the smoky interior, where he sank to his knees. “Oh, Deva, we thought you were done for.”
“So did I,” Shansi croaked, looking up at Scarlet from the dark tangle of Annaya’s hair. His voice was coarse as winter winds, aged as an old man’s, and his torn clothes were filthy with mud and ash. “I was down in Jerivet’s new cellar near the village gate, fixing his side door against robbers... you remember how he was feared of robbers, Scarlet? I never heard the Aralyrin come riding in, and only when they came for the stores did I spy ‘em. I realized what was happening, because they could have never gotten by old Jerivet without him raising the alarm. I tried to get past them, wanting to get to my uncle, but one of the bastards hit me with his club.”