She bent over, gasping, clutching her left eye. Just beyond her sight, between people who were nothing more than shadows and haze among the shrubs and stunted trees, the darkness was coming. A faint flicker of recognition surged up inside of her and the Whisperers roared.
A drop of sweat rolled from her forehead onto the parched ground that sucked it up. Little brown toes stood next to it. Nora looked up, one hand still covering her eye that saw through her flesh and bone, deep into the red desert. The child jumped back.
“Hey,” Nora panted, trying to focus on the blurry image before her. “Hey, don’t be scared. What’s your name?”
“Hama,” the child said warily, still leaning away from Nora.
“Is that a boy’s name or a girl’s name?” Nora asked.
“Girl. You alright, lady?” the child asked back. “You should sit in the shade, maybe.”
“You’re right.” Nora toiled to her feet, still covering her eye. She swayed a little. “Where is shade?”
The girl pointed and babbled something, but Nora heard nothing but the rush of her own breath.
Where is Shade?
She stood in the ruins of a white tower at the heart of a hidden valley, the walls ablaze with the setting sun, the trees dappling the floor with shadows. Her gaze switched from surly Garreth, the scar down the side of his face giving him a perpetual scowl, to a young man, still a child, with blonde hair and gray eyes. He stared at her curiously, without subterfuge, without defiance. His was the look of a child who had seen many powerful men pass by, many buyers of his flesh, and she was just one more. She touched a hand to the child’s chin and tutted as she made him move his head to and fro.
“I don’t see it,” she said. But it wasn’t her voice. “The queen could have given you any of her little ones.”
“I swear, Lord, were you standing where I am, you could see that this is your blood. This is the one.”
She felt disappointed. Let down, somehow. There should have been a clap of thunder from the sky, perhaps, the first time she set eyes on a creation of her own. A choir singing hymns in the background. A single shaft of sunlight pouring out to illuminate the royal blood in this, her son. Not that she had been expecting any of those things, but well, all she saw was a scruffy blond teenager. That would make sacrificing him easier, of course.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Our Mother called me Brisin,” the child answered, straightening his shoulders. Chin raised a little with pride.
“Ugh. Then I shall have to call you something else,” she said, and waved Garreth and the boy away. “And Garreth? Send up Diaz, will you?”
“Lady? Are you alright? Lady?” The brown child tugged at Nora’s arm, bringing her back to the empty space in front of the fort’s gates.
She swallowed down a lump of emotions, and stood on trembling knees.
“I’ll be fine,” she managed. “Just need to rest up a bit.”
The child brightened.
“You can come with me. There’s a place near the well that’s shaded from the midday’s sun. I’ll show you! Come!”
The child took her hand, and Nora let herself be led. Past the mess hall, past the officers’ house, along the small alley between the outer wall and another house, until they had nearly reached the well.
Here some black-clad women were doing laundry, while others came to get water. Kids were playing in the mud at their feet. Older children had built a tiny shelter of discarded wooden planks and torn pieces of fabric. Most of them didn’t seem to mind Nora stooping in after her little child.
One girl did mind, though. She stopped them as Nora made to take a seat on a singed and threadbare carpet. Her little leader, Hama, had curled up on an ancient, deflated leather pouf, bits of wool seeping out of the tears. The little girl still held Nora’s hand and stroked it as her eyes kept falling shut. Napping was a really good idea, Nora thought.
The older girl was maybe thirteen at the most, but she seemed to be the leader, her hands stemmed on her hips, ginger hair falling in her face, and her nose turned up at the tip. When Hama wouldn’t answer her questions, she turned to Nora.
“This is the orphan’s home, desert lady. You got to be an orphan to stay here.”
“I am,” Nora said wearily.
“You an orphan from Shinar?” Ginger wanted to know.
“No, from the Ridge.”
“Well, good, because those who are from Shinar aren’t really orphans because they all got their grans, and aunts, and sisters and people with them, so we don’t want them here.”
“Also ’cause they’re thieves,” a boy piped in.
“Shut up, Ben,” Ginger ordered.
“Seems I’ve come to the right place then,” Nora smiled. “I’m not a thief. I’m a charcoaler. And the women of Shinar didn’t want me in their tents, so one of the grans kicked me out this morning.”
Ginger considered this with a pout. “You can stay here until one of the soldiers picks you for a bride, and then you can sleep in the barracks like the other girls.”
“I think not,” Nora said darkly.
Ginger tossed up her hands in a gesture she must have seen her mother do a number of times.
“That’s just how the world works, dear,” she said. “Better you get used to it. Ben! Stop picking your nose! That’s disgusting.”
Ginger stormed over, and berated the boy. Nora’s head sank down onto the cool leather pouf, one hand still in Hama’s sweaty grasp. She closed her eyes and tried to close out the world at the same time. She felt so … empty.
She was here because the baker’s wife couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She was here because her home was lost. She was here because there was no escape.
But mostly, she thought, as she was lulled to sleep by the soft breathing of Hama next to her, she was here because the Blade needed her alive, and she needed to find Owen to make sense of it all.
Chapter 10
Nora’s dreams were wild, broken things, fragments and snatches of memories and feelings, and it felt a lot like when she had inadvertently shared some of her past with Calla at the Temple of the Wind, only more potent. She dreamed she was being followed and she was running, but the darkness-forged, many limbed thing following her always caught up with her. She dreamed of faces she didn’t know, but losing them to the shadows was terrifying all the same. She dreamed she heard Owen cry out her name, but when she turned to look, the land all about her was empty and in ruins, and an enormous wave came cresting over her, taking on the form of the two-faced Nora, drowning out the light of day. The lower, human face opened its mouth impossibly wide, and Nora knew when the wave broke, it will have finally caught up with her, and come tumbling down, swallowing her. She started running, knowing she wouldn’t make it out of the deepening shadow, and tripped. But the earth gave way beneath her and she rolled towards a gaping black hole. And try as she might, there was no escape. She’d either be swept away with the wave or lost forever in the pit.
She woke in confusion, still feeling as though the ground beneath her had shifted to slope away to the south. Noise, raised voices, and wailing in the background. Clash of steel nearby. Doors being slammed. A warm body huddled next to her. She opened her eyes, and found that Hama was clutching her, eyes wide in fear.
“The Pazu is coming,” Hama whispered.
“The Pazu?” Nora rubbed her eyes.
“Mama said he’s the king of the demons of the wind, and brings storm and drought.” Something crashed and clattered nearby. In the half light of the orphan shelter, Nora could make out about a dozen children of various ages cowering behind Ginger and herself. “He’s coming to snatch us away.”
“Why?” Nora sat up and Hama crawled onto her lap, burrowing her sweaty little head into Nora’s nape, unwilling to speak more.
“He takes the naughty children,” Ginger said in a low voice. “Those who fall in with evil spirits.”
“That’s bullshit,” Nora said. “You’re not naughty
children. But yes, there are evil spirits out there, and we all need to escape from them. Follow me.”
“No, we must stay in here and hide.” Ginger turned and Nora saw her numb face. “They’ll kill us all. They don’t care. No one cares.”
“I care,” Nora said. “You’re coming with me, and I shall protect you.”
“You can’t,” Ginger insisted.
Nora tossed her head back and laughed.
“Watch me,” she said, and passing Hama over to Ginger, she strode out of the little shack.
“What are you doing, desert lady?” Ginger hissed. “Get back here! They’ll see you. They’ll find us.”
The well was deserted. Wet wrung clothing lay abandoned in the washing trough. Nora stepped through the littered space, and stopped at the far wall of the barracks. Like most of the buildings it had been made of burned clay bricks, and Nora scaled up the wall and reached the flat roof in a matter of minutes. She remained in a crouch, and cast about to see what was happening.
The gates were burning, the orange bright against the eastern dusk sky. In the light from the flames, Nora could make out a number of silhouettes locked in fights, and it was impossible to tell who was who. But the fort was being attacked from the inside out. The desert outside was empty and devoid of life. The road was dark before the gates. No attackers out there.
Other shadows flitted from building to building in teams of two or four, as though they were looking for something—or someone—within, and when they entered the tents, Nora heard the women within screeching angrily at first, then wailing.
Were they looking for her? Had Empress Vashti sent troops out looking for the Living Blade after it had demolished her capital city? But that didn’t make sense. Nora was already in a fort of the Kandarin imperial troops, the three dragons flag still flapping in the evening breeze, and smoldering at its gold-embossed fringes. If they had suspected the desert wench to be the Living Blade, she would have been called in front of the commanding officer, wouldn’t she? They wouldn’t have allowed her to walk around freely, helping in the mess hall, if they had even a suspicion of who she was.
Why search the tents? They must know that these were the women fled from Shinar. No, Nora thought grimly, remembering the words of the old woman and her little shrine. They hadn’t fled. They had been sent out. Envoys of Suranna.
A shout of surprise distracted her from the fighting in the square in front of the gates, the scuffles in the narrow alleys between the buildings, clogged by the bulbous tents. She turned around in time to see an arrow whistle through the air and thwack hit the rooftop just where she had been crouching.
She had been spotted, it seemed, by the soldiers still manning the battlements. Pointless to try and tell them she wasn’t their enemy.
She rose as another volley from the battlements arced towards her, the sleek black shapes outlined against the setting sun in the west. She raised her hand, and the arrows thudded to a halt at the invisible barrier the Blade had pulled up around her. A sudden pain lanced through her head, crippling her. With a ripple, the protection burst and the arrows clattered down useless and spent, into the tiny place where a group of children were staring up at her from their den.
The children.
She had to help them.
Half blinded by the strobing white pain behind her eyes, she let herself fall down into the alley below, rolled and came up with stumbling steps. She leaned against the wall and half covered her eyes, seeing nothing but a blinding light. For a brief moment, she felt her shoulder against the warm stone wall, but at the same time she was running into a darkened tent, her hand clutching a curved blade that had blood on its tip. The black-clad women in front of her shrieked, and a few of them drew daggers at the intruders.
“Which one of you is Atarah?” she commanded. “Quick! Or you shall all die!”
Nora staggered away from the wall and groaned. More Blade madness. She stretched out a hand towards the children, but they fled from her, hiding in their makeshift home. At the entrance, Nora spotted Hama crying as Ginger carried her on her hip.
“Hey, wait! It’ll be all right,” Nora managed, although she felt nauseous. “I’ll protect you.”
“Protect us.” Ginger spat at Nora’s feet as she retreated. “From whom? You’re her, aren’t you? The witch who destroyed Arrun. The Living Blade. It’s because of you my father’s dead. Murderer. Wished they’d left you in the desert to die.”
“Haha, funny thing, that.” Nora panted, clutching her hurting head, watching a violent fight unfurl in the tent. “But I wasn’t quite myself in Arrun. Not really.”
Hama started to cry more urgently. Heavy footsteps came down the alleyway.
“Leave us alone!” Ginger hissed from within the den, one hand over Hama’s mouth.
Another flood of images washed through Nora, beheadings of the women fighters in the tent, inundating her with red heat, as though she were in the forge, several rods of metal, some hard, some brittle, all waiting for the next hammerfall to seal them together. She staggered under the onslaught.
“We don’t want your help, Pazu.”
Hama. Ginger. The children. Someone was coming this way. Coming to get them. She had to draw their attention away from the children’s den.
Dragging her feet across the muddy floor in front of the well, Nora fell against the low wall around it, and held on with both hands. Her reflection below was fragmented into a thousand pieces. She squeezed her eyes shut, and made the Blade reach out and pull up a stone wall to block the alleyway. A thump and startled cries of pain and alarm let her know it had worked. No one would be coming down that way. Now, to stop anyone peering down from the battlements, and mistaking any of the children for attackers …
She pressed her cheek against the cool stone and poured all the heat she could muster into it, drawing ever deeper, until she finally heard the water below come to a boil. It began to steam, and a fog came up, its tendrils reaching around the washing trough, spilling forth from the well until the children’s den was cloaked and hidden.
Nora rose from her knees and turned her back on the children, walking down the long path between the barracks and the wall that Hama had led her through at midday. She gathered the mist with her, stretching it like a thread on a spindle. One hand against the wall to steady herself, still half blind with the swell of fragmented images, she could sense the commotion going on in the rooms beyond. Beds were being turned over, cupboards and trunks opened. If the occupants had tried to fight back, she heard the soft groans and wheezes of those hurt and felt the lingering warmth of those who had tread the silent road already.
Everything was wrong. Her skin itched, and her face felt numb when she touched it. Like a mask. Too many perceptions drifted in, unfiltered, assaulting her senses. Her skin was taut, over-sensitive, as though her whole body were sunburned. The wrongness soaked into her bones, pressed against her skull, pounding to be let out. Tapping into the Blade’s power to create the mist had opened a thin channel, a vent, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She focused on holding the charcoaling spade tightly, ignoring the scream of voices screeching against her skull. “I am still me,” she muttered to shut the Whisperers out. “I am still me he’s here we found you how is he outside of us a piece of us take him take him eat him
Nora couldn’t contain the Blade much longer. She walked blindly, groping her way out of the fort, through the burning gates, and into the empty desert. There she could lose it. But not in here. Let whoever was attacking the fort, attacking the women of Shinar, run their course and find whatever it was they were looking for.
Keep the children safe.
Leave.
A man staggered into her path, one hand on the barracks wall to steady himself. He threw up noisily.
She stopped. The fogbank stopped with her, coiling around her wrists and ankles, half shrouding her.
The man—he didn’t look like one of the soldiers. He wore dark clothing, a fine black leather h
arness. A silver ring on a finger splayed against the wall. His face had been hidden under the blue-painted demonic leer of a mask, but he had shoved it to the top of his head as he retched. A two-faced man.
He straightened with a groan, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, and …
“Bashan!”
As their eyes met, Nora felt the Blade’s excitement rising in a rush, thundering against her from all sides, pulling her in all directions, a swirling mess, jostling to take control. One hand on the wall, just like Bashan’s. Mirror image. Focus on that. Focus on the bricks under her hand, still radiating warmth from the sun. This was real.
“You!” he snorted.
“What are you doing here?” they both asked at the same time.
Bashan answered first. “I’m picking a fight with Suranna. She’s been sending out her proselytes all over the country. They say she’s raised her god Shinar, but we both know that’s not true. She needs the Blade’s power to do that, and well …” He pointed at her with a sneer. “What about you, charcoal girl?”
“I’m still me,” she whispered through her clenched teeth.
Bashan smiled without humor.
There’s a piece of you in here with me, Nora wanted to tell him. A jagged, broken part of you that’s been the Blade that’s now a part of me. I know all your secret fears, I know your fiercest desires, and I know what the Blade whispered to you, my lord.
But she didn’t need to say it out loud, because he knew. He saw it. Straight through the human sheath she was wearing, and into the beating heart of chaos that was the Blade.
Mother of Slag Page 8