by Devin Madson
“Are they… upstairs already? Shit.” Thumps sounded overhead as the captain lumbered off along the passage away from the tree. We followed, only to all but run into his back when he turned. “They’re on that side too,” he hissed, the crashing of timbers growing loud ahead. “Let’s try out the back.”
But halfway to the garden door, the cracking of wood echoed through the house and we spun back, hunting impossible sanctuary as thudding footsteps joined the smash of broken wood and shouting.
“Quick, in here,” the captain said, dashing toward the workroom. “The door looks stronger than the others.”
I hadn’t noticed but he was right. Whether it had always been so or the Witchdoctor had changed it, the door to his main workroom was not the traditional thin wood-and-paper affair of most Kisian houses, but a sturdy swinging door made of thick, dark wood.
Something smashed nearby. More shouts and running steps thundered toward us, and using desperation to pull together enough energy, I hurried after the captain. He closed the door behind us, locking it. Not that it would keep them out for long.
“It should keep them busy for a while,” Captain Aeneas said, “but we should barricade it and… and decide what to do next.”
“What we should do next?” I said, leaning a moment against a workbench while the room spun. “What choice is there at this point?”
But the captain wasn’t listening. Still with Septum slung over his shoulder, he carried a chair to the door and set its back beneath the handle. A workbench followed, its legs squealing on the floor. Whatever his reason for not putting the young man down, Septum spoke no more and made no attempt to move, though I could only guess where his eyes were looking beneath the sacking hood. Or rather try not to think about it at all.
I straightened up, caught by a horrible idea. Could this one read our minds too? And if he could, was the Leo out there hearing everything I was thinking?
Time to stop thinking then, the empress said. What a great idea.
“It’s his eyes,” I muttered. “So dead and yet…”
The sack-covered head turned toward me as I spoke.
“Fuck this.” I grabbed the nearest chair and half carried, half pushed it across the floor to join the rest of the furniture.
Is there anything we can use as a weapon? On ourselves, if need be.
I looked around, the empress’s words only adding to my thumping fear. Getting caught might mean getting to see Kaysa, but it also might not. Having something we could conceal, could be sure of just in case, would make whatever came easier to bear.
“Some of these potions must surely be poisonous.”
One wall was covered in shelves, holding books and jars and bottles and little labelled samples of god only knew what. One looked like a dried heart.
If not, broken glass in the right place can do a lot of damage.
“To him or us?”
Either. Both.
I dragged myself to the shelves. Most of the bottles had labels, but that didn’t help me understand their contents or purpose.
Just grab something.
A pair of longish glass rods stood in a jar, and preferring something I could at least pretend to hold like a dagger, I grabbed them both.
The thundering footsteps echoed all around us now, rising like a storm. It sounded like a hundred soldiers or more, all converging on us at once.
Something collided with the door, shaking the mountainous barricade. Captain Aeneas was scribbling something on a piece of paper against one of the walls—there being no bench left that wasn’t a part of the barricade—and paid no heed.
“What are you doing?”
He threw a significant look over his free shoulder and jerked his head at Septum before returning to his task. The empress had suggested we leave a note for the Witchdoctor, but there hadn’t been time to consider who to forward information to. Who would even understand it? Or care? To most Chiltaens, Leo Villius was a god-like figure, and no communication from a Witchdoctor would convince them otherwise.
Another thump against the door shook the whole room.
Dropping the quill, Captain Aeneas folded the paper three times and shoved it into one of the books on the shelf, a corner sticking out, before putting the book back upside down, in the wrong place, and poking out.
“The man is a perfectionist,” he said. “That’ll drive him mad until he fixes it.”
Subtle enough to keep it safe from Leo, but obvious enough for the Witchdoctor. “Smart.”
“How surprised you sound, Miss Marius.”
I was oddly pleased he knew I was the one who’d spoken.
Another fierce impact shook the door. They were getting faster and harder, rattling the hinges. A stool atop the barricade tumbled off, snapping a leg as it hit the floor. A side table followed, spilling papers and quills and ink from a drawer.
Gripping the glass rods, I stood before the door, a soldier awaiting the end. Except I wasn’t a soldier. I was an assassin. A survivor.
I looked at Septum.
Cassandra.
“What? They’ll have him once they kill us. Better they don’t.”
Leaving her no time to object, I snapped one of the rods and lunged at Septum, only to be brought up short like a rope had hitched around my wrist. My hand yanked back, rod dropping to the floor with a clatter.
What just—?
“I have a better idea,” the empress said, speaking as much to me as to the captain, who was looking at us like we’d gone mad. She nodded at Septum. “I think it’s time to find out what happens when you put me in there.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise.” The captain backed away. A piece of the door splintered off, flying past him like a loosed arrow.
“I’m not sure standing here and waiting for them to come to us is wise either.”
Captain Aeneas hefted his sword. “Small doorway,” he said.
“That won’t be enough. There are dozens of them. You’ll have to be very lucky. Are you… very lucky, Captain?”
He met the empress’s gaze and it was the empress he stared at, receiving the full force of her imperiousness. Or rather the full force she could manage while we felt faint enough that standing was an effort almost beyond us.
The man sighed. “If you… if you think it worth trying, Your Majesty, I will not stop you. I can only… caution against what seems like the very worst idea you’ve ever had.”
“Oh no, nothing can be that bad.”
Captain Aeneas stood in the centre of the room, facing the barricade with his sword slack in his grip, and grimaced at our shuffling approach.
Are you sure about this? I said, wondering if she wasn’t giving back control of her body because she thought I’d stop her. What if you get stuck and can’t come back?
“Is that better or worse than dying here without trying?”
I don’t think Leo wants us dead.
“My body doesn’t care what Leo Villius wants. It will die soon either way.”
I grimaced. And we did grimace. Switching control was getting faster and easier, and I thought about what Captain Aeneas had said about us getting more alike. He was struggling to keep track of who he was talking to, and I was seeing more of her thoughts and her memories. If her body lasted, would we eventually become one mind? One person? Why hadn’t it ever been like that with Kaysa?
I’m ready, Miss Marius.
The hooded figure was before me, seemingly lifeless but for the slow rise and fall of his chest against Captain Aeneas’s back. “We don’t have to do this.”
A heavy series of thumps sent more pieces of wood flying. A crack appeared near the hinges. Yes, we do. Don’t dither, Cassandra. And don’t get sentimental on me now.
I reached out and pressed two fingers to the only bit of skin visible at the man’s neck, between the sacking hood and his tunic. I had expected it to be different, or perhaps not to work at all, but exactly as if he had been a corpse, she slid out like a descending chill.
> The thumping stopped. For a moment I didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stood frozen with my arm half raised, the silence stretching. Captain Aeneas turned to look at me, careful not to upset the now far more important burden over his shoulder. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Empress?”
No reply. No movement.
“Perhaps… that’s what he was afraid we would do all along,” the captain said.
But something wasn’t right. “Hana?”
I pulled the sack off Septum’s head. The young man didn’t move, didn’t flinch, but his eyes were staring from his head as though he had seen a terrible sight, as though someone was burning his toes but he wasn’t allowed to move or scream or pull away. “Hana? Are you—?”
His mouth stretched open at an angle, producing a shape like a malformed oval melted in the middle. And he screamed. It wasn’t a human sound, rather something monstrous, grating and shrill and wrong like a whole flock of birds in pain, and I pressed my hands over my ears in a vain attempt to stop it ripping through my skull.
Banging added to the din as the soldiers out in the hall began hammering furiously on the door, more cracks spreading across its surface. Another stool fell. Followed by a small cabinet with glass doors that shattered. A hinge squeaked and strained. And still Septum went on screaming and screaming, barely seeming to draw breath.
“Get her out! Get her out!” It took a few moments to realise Captain Aeneas was shouting at me, the rhythm of his low voice lost in the din. Upon his shoulder, Septum writhed like a weak kitten and he needed both arms to hold him, weathering the young man’s rage as he beat his fists upon the captain’s back. “Get her out!”
I gripped a flailing hand.
Nothing happened.
“Hurry up! Get her out before they’re through!”
The cold fingers slipped through my grip and I snatched for them again. Never had it taken effort to withdraw either Kaysa or Hana, but trying to pull the empress free now felt like trying to wrench a nail from a board, all continuous strain and a tight, squeaking pressure. I had to control the urge to yank physically back and concentrate on it with my mind, with my intent, with my soul.
A board broke off the door, dropping onto the workbench still pressed up against it. “What’s the problem? Hurry up, Cassandra!”
I couldn’t explain, could only grip the sweaty hand in both of mine and hope it wouldn’t slip free, forcing me to start again. She was almost with me. Almost.
My chest swelled. My mind swelled. Everything grew tight and sore and wrong like a doll with too much stuffing, and as the screaming stopped coming from Septum’s lips it went on inside my mind and I dropped, spraying bile on the floor.
“Do you have her?”
I stared at the shifting floorboards. Captain Aeneas seemed to have six legs.
“Do you have her?”
I tried to speak, to nod, something that might answer his question, but whether or not he saw he must have understood for he did not ask again.
“Can you stand?” he said instead. I wanted to laugh, but it was more bile that dribbled from my lips. Empress Hana had stopped screaming, but her thoughts were a mess of noise and I could not find space to think as they flickered through my head. God. Pain. Emptiness. Our stomachs hollowed with a hunger we couldn’t sate.
Wood splintered. Faces shifted in the dim passage beyond, an army of ghosts more than men.
“Can you stand?” The captain gripped our arm, dragging us to our feet. Trembling. Aching. More bile just sitting there in my throat. I began to sink down, but he grabbed my arm again. “Just one more minute.”
The top hinge squealed loose, and gingerly Captain Aeneas loosened his grip on my arm. “Just one minute,” he repeated, a man trying to convince himself as well as me. I forced myself to remain standing though my knees ached and my legs trembled, though the room spun and my stomach churned and the empress’s thoughts swirled on, snatching at horrors. “Just one more minute.”
It was like a trance, standing there immersed in pain and watching the door break apart, the furniture splintering and shattering and tumbling off the hastily made barricade. As a bit of the main workbench smashed, I thought dreamily that the Witchdoctor was not going to be happy, and only the pain in my gut stopped me laughing.
“This is unacceptable,” I muttered as Captain Aeneas positioned himself between me and the door. “How can one be expected to work in such a mess. I must insist—”
The door burst open. The workbench squealed back across the floor. Soldiers jostled in the jagged opening, and only then did I realise Captain Aeneas had sheathed his sword.
While the first soldiers pushed through the remnant furniture, the captain took Septum off his shoulder. And with an inhuman grunt of effort, threw him right at them. They flinched, one trying to catch him while another tried to duck, a third making no move at all, and all of them getting a hundred and thirty pounds of lifeless young man to the face.
In the same moment, Captain Aeneas turned, ramming his shoulder into my gut and lifting me off the floor. Four long, jolting strides and he leapt. Glass and wood shattered around us, but there was air and sunlight and the whip of reaching branches as the captain sped on, my chin against the sweaty fabric clinging to his back. The world spun. The vibration of his running steps made everything hurt, made me yearn for death, and yet I was flying.
11. MIKO
Rain sheeted diagonally across the deck, turning everything beyond the railing to a dull grey. The wind howled and the ship rocked, and as I sat huddled in a dead sailor’s storm cloak, I thought of another time I had been battered by this coast. That time Shishi had curled up at my side and Rah… Rah had kept lunging to vomit over the edge of the little boat. Now I had an army. Part of an army. What was left of part of an army.
The thud of a rowboat returning trembled through the deck, and I stared, detached and numb, as a handful of soldiers threw down ropes and shouted and did other nautical things.
After a few minutes of watching men shout at each other through the storm, water running in rivers down their cloaks, General Moto approached and I knew my moments of peace were over. “Majesty,” he said as he strode in beneath the awning, spraying rain from his clothing with every movement. “No sign of Grace Bahain. Nor does it appear they have strengthened their defences. Your army is known to be marching on Kogahaera.”
At least that meant Minister Oyamada had not run into trouble. I let out a long breath. “You are a very good bearer of news, General,” I said. “You do not hold one in suspense, you just… blurt.”
He put back his hood. It seemed to have done little to protect his face, droplets of rain sparkling in his eyebrows and on the emerging bristle of his unshaven cheeks. “I don’t believe in giving someone time to brace themselves. They inevitably imagine quite the wrong thing. You can thank many years of living with my wife for that; I have only to take a breath for her to assume the worst possible words are about to come out of my mouth.”
It was difficult imagining him as anything but a bluff soldier, and the knowledge he had a wife, probably children too, made my stomach tighten. If we failed tonight, they would lose their father.
The general made a gruff little harrumph as he sat down on one of the crates and seemed to chew on air as he thought, perhaps annoyed with himself for having been so open, or worried I would not take the rest of what he had to say so well.
“We can’t wait for more definite news,” he said at last, with the same rushed directness. Behind him a fierce squall made the returned scout clasp the railing. A pail scraped across the pitching deck. “We have to strike now or—”
“I agree.”
Moto pushed out his thick lips, his eyes narrowing a moment as he made mental readjustments for the rest of the conversation. In a detached way it was amusing to unbalance him so. “We have only two ships, however, and the men are shaken and undersupplied.”
“All the more reason not to delay
.”
“There is only one problem, Your Majesty,” he said, his gaze skittering away over my shoulder. “We don’t have enough soldiers to take Syan, even from the port. Not even if we assume Kiyoshio Castle only has a minimal garrison at present. It would take double the number we have. Probably more.” When I said nothing, he waved his hands, the gesture vaguely apologetic. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but unless you have another clever plan…”
“I am so glad you asked,” I said. “I may not be very experienced with troop movements and field battles, but I did not grow up in the shadow of Emperor Kin for nothing. We are not going to attack the port. We don’t even have enough men to take the city, let alone breach the walls of Kiyoshio. So we are going to take Kiyoshio first.”
I enjoyed his long moment of open-mouthed confusion too much to explain further until he snapped his jaw shut and demanded to know how.
“Using the castle’s own harbour.”
“It’s little more than a cave, too small to bring either of our ships in.”
“Yes, I know. We’ll row out.”
His lips did their thinking wiggle again. “That harbour is the most protected in the empire. They’ll sink any approaching boat the moment it’s within range.”
“Not if they think we’re part of their fleet.”
“Even their fleet puts in at the main port. The harbour at Kiyoshio is only for members of the family and their closest allies. Even if they have received no warning from Bahain, they won’t believe we are close enough allies to dock under the castle.”
I pulled at the singed threads of my crimson sash, the fire damage seeming to have come from the mouth of the Ts’ai dragon itself. “Do you know the basic naval code?”
“Yes, it’s mostly the same as the military code, but for a few variations. I don’t know the variant for docking at Kiyoshio, however, so unless you do, we—”
He narrowed his eyes as I smiled. “Ready the lanterns, General. We have a castle to take.”