“It’s what we’re fighting for,” Joff agreed. “These battles are small parts of a long war we’re fighting, but at the end of it, we’ll all be free to see the sky again.”
“That’s the truth,” Leah agreed. “And I’m fighting for it as much as anyone.”
“We saw a Mid-priest escorting a wagon bound for the armoury yesterday when we were scouting.” Richa began working a whetstone along the blade of his short sword. “Looks like he’s got himself a cushy new job.”
“You had to tell her, Richa?” Joff scowled at him. “You know—”
“Who, Richa?” Leah interrupted.
“It was him. Tall, skinny, with snaggleteeth.” Richa shrugged, glancing Joff’s way. “She’d have found out soon enough, Joff.”
“Mid-priest Wenst. Bastard!” Leah scowled. The blood-priest had hurt her bad her first night in Elucame, more than once, and he’d promised to do it again. He’d gone by the time Alan and her cousin, Watt, had found her and led her to the Freed. As soon as Kharad broke her slave collar with his Wealdan-magik, she’d made an oath to find and hurt Mid-priest Wenst. When she was done, she’d kill him.
“There were Mid-priests here.” Joff leaned back, her eyes closed, weariness dragging her narrow face down to her chest. “Fair bit of blood-magik was thrown around down at the lower tunnel entrance. It’s still burning.”
“Weren’t you listenin’? Half of that magik was Wealdan. Watt and his team were throwing as much at the Murecken as they were at us, if not more.” Richa slapped his hand against his chest in a salute. “Fuckin’ awesome, those Wealdan-warriors. Spirits! If only I’d more than a drop of Wealdan in my blood.”
Leah squashed the flare of jealousy she felt, wishing for the umpteenth time she’d her cousin’s skills. She could Wealdan-heal a bit, and had the Wealdan-sight, too—a useful skill down in the pitch-dark bowels of Elucame. For fighting, though, she relied on her knives. She’d practiced hard with them since the day she became one of the Freed.
She pulled out a knife and twirled it into the air, then wove it through her fingers. It thrilled her every time she cut a Murecken’s throat. His gurgling breaths, his spurting blood, the thud as he collapsed to the ground, the sight of death stealing into his eyes. And all of it up close and personal. Leah didn’t think she’d get the same thrill from throwing Wealdan-fire at a blood-priest, with his death a distant thing.
“I’ll go when the magik has dissipated. I’ve no urgent need to get burned,” Leah lied. She’d a burning desire to hunt the stinking, rat-bollocked bastard Wenst right now, but she wanted to do it alone.
“This lure and ambush trick won’t work many more times,” Joff said, yawning. “They’ll get wise to it soon enough.”
“Yeah, even the Murecken can’t stay that stupid,” Richa added.
“What we’ve got to do is trap the bastards in their lairs, then kill them all in one go.” Leah flicked the knife into the air again, snatched it by the blade, flipped it, and slipped it back into its sheath. “It’s the only way.”
“The only time you get lots of them together is when they’ve their arses in the air, prayin’ to their soddin’ god, Murak.” Richa laughed. “We could spear every one of them `tween the cheeks then.”
“I’m sure Alan and Kharad are planning for it,” Joff said.
The whistle sounded, three short bursts.
Leah shook Lance’s shoulder. “It’s finished for now. Up you get.”
Lance looked around, dazed.
“You’ll get used to it soon,” Joff said.
“You will,” Leah agreed. She had. Fighting the stinking bastards was better than shaking in fear at what they might do should they ever take her again. She’d stick herself with a blade before she ever let that happen.
“Especially if you keep following Leah,” Joff said. “Her paths are littered with the dead, and always will be until she finds the one she’s really after.”
“Even that won’t stop our Leah,” Richa added. “She’s got a taste for killin’ nothin’ else will ever satisfy.”
“Shut up, you two,” Leah grumbled. It was true enough, though. Her mother would shiver at what she’d become, but her mother was long dead. “You’re being idiots, scaring the boy like that.”
“I’m not a boy. Not no more.” Lance blinked and struggled to his feet, then his face turned red, and he reached behind to feel his trousers. He looked at his hand, then at Leah, his face all misery.
“It’s no disgrace,” Leah said, understanding. She’d pissed herself the first time she’d faced a writhen with nothing but knives to keep its claws and teeth from tearing into her flesh. “A lot people fill their pants their first battle. Know the tunnel my Uncle Kharad was hiding in? There’s a pool you can wash in not far down it.”
Leah stood and watched the boy move off, his steps awkward. She turned toward the fading magik-made fires. “I’m going to find a way to the Mid-priest sector. I’ve waited long enough. Like you said, Joff, I’ll not stop until I’ve killed that bastard. Mid-priest Wenst is going to be fed his own bollocks.”
“Are you mad?” Richa sat up, looking to Joff for backup. “Kharad said there was no way up to the Temple Quarter that the Murecken don’t already know about. The whole place is heavily guarded.”
“It’s suicide, Leah,” Joff added. “Alan has a plan for the big push into the Temple Quarter. He and Kharad have worked on it for a while now. You don’t want to spoil their plans by doing something to alert the Murecken, do you?”
“Alan and his plans are taking too blasted long. And Kharad can’t have covered every inch of the place. Even he hasn’t been Freed long enough for that.” Leah scowled and opened her Wealdan. The patterns of Wefan sprang up all around her. It was bright in the flesh of her friends, in the fungi, in the rock, though faded in the dead scattered across the cavern. “I’m a scout, aren’t I? Best one the Freed have got. For Alan and Kharad’s plan to work, we’ll need a secret way up to the Temple Quarter, and who better to find it?”
“We’ll come with you.” Richa began to lever himself up.
“I’ll be faster on my own. You’ve not got the Wealdan-sight, you’ll just flounder about behind me,” Leah said, already turning away. Alan and Kharad, the leaders of the Freed, were good men but too slow and careful. “I’ll make a new map for Alan. He’s always wanting more maps.”
Leah picked her way past bodies of men, tadige, and writhen. There was even a dead lacert—no, two.
Good.
The blood-magik had burned away the fungus, and apart from the odd red flame guttering on clothing, the tunnel was dark. It didn’t matter to her, though, not with her Wealdan-sight showing her the way.
Leah pressed back into the crack in the tunnel wall, shallowed her breathing, and prayed the guards had no lacerts with them. The spirits were with her. Four, five, six Murecken guards marched past. No lacerts, not even any writhen, though that was no surprise. Fewer patrols took writhen along with them now so many ambushes seemed to be the work of the twisted creatures. She grinned, touching the bone handles of the knives she’d liberated from Elucame’s armoury a while back.
As the soldiers passed her hiding place, Leah felt the need to knife them all but knew she couldn’t take on so many. Not by herself. She worked in the dark, sneaked up from behind, cut a throat, holed a lung, skewered a brain. Freed scouts like her preferred knife work, it was their way of fighting. It wasn’t noble or heroic like the swordsmen with their face-to-face battles, but it was effective. Anyway, they didn’t have the time nor the luxury for heroics. Not down here in the tunnels and caves of Elucame, weighed down by the Ruel Mountains, surrounded by the enemy. The thump of boots faded into the darkness as did the flickering torches.
Leah knew Joff and Richa understood her need to kill Wenst. The blood-priest had been more powerful than her once, but she’d learned a lot since then. When she found the blood-sucking bastard, she’d show him just how much she’d learned.
She con
tinued through the pitch-dark of Elucame’s bowels, with the patterns of Wefan in the rock guiding her. When she came to a vertical crevice, or chimney as Alan called them, she began climbing. It stank of piss, so she knew it’d lead to a more populated area of Elucame.
Spirits! Hope no one thinks to use it for a while longer.
With her hands pressed against one side, and her feet jammed against the other, she inched her way up. Alan had taught her and Watt how to climb a chimney when the three of them had first arrived in Elucame. They’d hidden up one when the blood-priests came to their Holding Cave to cull the slaves.
The stink got worse the higher she got, but she lucked out. No one pissed on her and the chimney opened onto a wide, bright tunnel. Burning torches set in fancy iron brackets, fixed into the walls every ten yards or so, lit the tunnel and the doors lining it. Leah waited, her eyes at ground level, listening. On the door opposite, above the painted number fifty-six, a burning mountain was carved into the dark wood. The sign of their god, Murak. Her heart lurched when she realised she’d reached the Temple District. A distant bell rang with hard, deep clangs.
Leah froze. Someone was climbing up behind her, panting like a dog on a hot day. She looked between her legs into the vague darkness and saw a face appear.
“What in Murak’s hells are you doing here?”
Lance looked up at her, his smile faltering. “I followed you.”
“Obviously,” Leah said with a hiss. “Why’s the question I want an answer to.”
“I want to help you,” he whispered, his face screwed up, but he set his jaw. Stubborn boy. “I want to learn.”
“You’d have helped me by staying with the others, blast it!” Leah shook her head. How was she going to look after the boy and do what she meant to do? “Stay here, don’t move, and I’ll be back soon as I can.”
“But—”
“No blasted ‘buts,’ boy. You’re not even wearing your collar. What if a Murecken sees you?”
Heart pounding, hands shaking, her knuckles white from their grip on the ledge, she ignored Lance’s whimpers and pulled herself out of the piss-hole. She stepped into the tunnel too fast, without that last look around every scout should take. She barely had time to lean against the wall and pretend she was waiting before a priest spotted her.
“What are you doing here, slave?” The Low-priest came to a stop in front of her, tapping the handle of his blood-magik whip against his thigh.
“I’m waiting for Mid-priest Wenst,” Leah answered. Arms folded across her chest, she bowed low, though her body screamed to launch itself at the blood-priest. “I have a message for him from the armoury.”
The knives she’d stolen from said armoury were the message, one this priest would get a word or two from if he didn’t let her pass.
“Can’t you read? You’re waiting by the wrong door. His is thirty-two, back toward the Temple. This end of the tunnel is for the Low-priests,” the young man said. His face twisted as he glanced over his shoulder. “He wasn’t far behind me. He could be back in his rooms by now.”
She frowned, watching the priest hurry down the tunnel. Soon as he’d gone, Leah ran to door thirty-two, checked no one was coming, and tried the handle.
“Damn!” It was locked. The stamp of boots announced someone approaching. Leah adjusted her clothing and her hair and stood in a way she knew would appeal to him—frightened, small, young.
Then Leah saw him. Tall, skinny, snaggletoothed. Nothing to fear. Not the man of her nightmares—not anymore.
“Mid-priest Wenst?” she said, keeping her voice high, child-like. She bowed low, arms folded, though her feet were set ready for a leap. For attack or escape, she didn’t know yet. “I’ve a message for you from the armoury.”
“A message, slave?” Wenst looked her up and down. He liked what he saw. Leah’s skin crawled.
She nodded, thanking the spirits he didn’t recognise her. He opened his door and indicated Leah go in ahead of him. “Tell me in here.”
She squeezed past him, his scent reminding her of her first night in Elucame. She’d woken to find Wenst in the doorway to her cell, a ghoulish figure painted green by glowing fungi. Deep in the marrow of her bones, Leah had known the look in his eyes meant no good.
Leah shuffled through the doorway, hunching her shoulders, taking in everything.
The room was a surprise. Ornate, with tapestries hiding the walls and plush carpets scattered with enormous silk cushions. Through an arch, Leah saw a large, velvet-curtained, four-poster bed.
They both turned at a yell. A boy leaped onto Wenst’s back, a small knife reaching for the blood-priest’s throat.
“No!” Leah ran forward, her hands reaching to grab Lance, anger filling her at the thought of someone else killing Wenst.
Before she could get there, the blood-priest snatched hold of Lance’s wrist, twisting and pulling so bones snapped, and the boy fell screaming to the floor. Leah shot forward and pulled Lance away from Wenst, sheltering him with her body.
“You bloody idiot, Lance!” The words were out of Leah’s mouth before she could think.
“How interesting. A slave-boy without his iron collar,” Wenst drawled. He stepped closer, his blood-magik whip live with growing tentacles of oily, red-tinted smoke. “Are you slaves becoming…organised?”
Leah stiffened, fear filling her. She had to finish this fast. Keeping her back to Wenst, Leah whispered into Lance’s ear. “I know it hurts, but stop crying and listen. Soon as I move, you’ve got to run like Murak’s demons are after you and get back down that piss-hole. Got it?”
Lance snuffled down his tears and nodded. Leah prayed to the spirits he’d do as he’d been told.
“I should thank your leaders for sending children,” Mid-priest Wenst said, smiling. “It gives me the opportunity for an enjoyable hour or two. Always a pleasure after a hard day’s work.”
Leah moved. Giving Lance a push, she rolled towards Wenst’s legs, her knives out. She heard the crackle of blood-magik and Lance scream, but then the door slammed, so she guessed he must’ve escaped. Curling an arm, she sliced a blade across the back of Wenst’s knee, her blood thrilling at the blood-priest’s shriek. Twisting, she leaped toward him, punched one blade up between his jaw bones, the other between his ribs. She then tore through his trousers and cut, and cut again, into the meat that dangled there.
His voice stolen by welling blood, Wenst gurgled and folded to the floor. Tentacles of blood-magik spilled from his Blodstan, writhing towards his wounds. She ripped the red gem from his neck and threw it into a corner of the room.
“Recognise me, rat-face? Now you get to die slow and hurt as much as you made me hurt.”
Leah stared at Wenst’s confused eyes as his life bled out. Why didn’t she feel jubilant? Or satisfaction at fulfilling her oath? She just felt empty and dull.
A whimper had Leah turning for the door. Lance lay in a crumpled heap, the blood-magik whip in his blackened hand. Its magik might be gone now, but burns smoked all over the boy’s body where its lashes had cut into his flesh. Unlike most of the others, the burn circling his throat hadn’t cauterised. Blood pumped onto the floor.
“I got it off him, Leah,” Lance croaked. “Told you I could help.”
Leah, there in an instant, pressed her hand against his throat. She summoned her Wealdan, tried to heal the wound, but it was too deep. He’d already lost too much blood. She wasn’t strong enough.
“Spirits, Lance! Why couldn’t you just do what I’d told you?” She cradled him against her chest, where he’d hear the beat of her heart.
Leah held Lance long after death came in to steal the light from his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. For the first time since she’d been captured by the Murecken all those months ago, Leah cried.
The Revolution Changed Everyone
D. Thourson Palmer
Even as the water runs clear over her hands, rushing downstream cold and once again unsullied, Camule’
s stomach turns over at the lingering scent. Kneeling, she clenches her fists and breathes with the mud on the bank seeping cool and sticky through her skirt. Her eyes squeeze as hard as her hands. Sometimes a fever kills, she reminds herself. For mercy. To save many at the cost of one. She’d gone upwind, so she wonders if it’s just her imagination making the bile in her guts swirl and churn and not the wafting stench of blood and early rot riding high on an undercurrent of powder and smoke.
After several breaths—two or twenty, she’s not sure—the pounding in her ears and the growl in her bones gives way to the soft burble of water, the buzz of mosquitoes circling. Echoing from downriver, outside the city, comes the sound of steel and the pop of muskets. Here, though, there’s humid breeze stirring the palms and the boughs of the kapok trees. There’s wet earth and the clean scent of leaves and the nipping spice of bark. The blood-smell is gone.
She opens her eyes, takes up her cleaned tools: knife and razors, clamps and thin spoons and long needles of different sizes. She packs them into her satchel and levers herself upright. Her back tightens, weak from leaning over and squatting and crouching for long hours, day after day, and she moves slow in anticipation of the crack she knows is coming from her spine. There’s resistance, then the little pop, and she straightens fully.
Halfway back, the sight of a shadow making its way toward her through the sunlit gold-green of the undergrowth stops her. She waits, recognizing the broad-shouldered silhouette. Esube bends his wiry frame nearly double to pass beneath a bough, then comes up with a grin on his scarred lips.
“There you are.” He blows out a sigh, then pats his chest and glances around as if he were just taking the air.
Camule masks the deep breath she must take before she trusts her voice. “Got worried about me? I was only gone a moment.”
“You were gone longer than that. He’s awake.”
“What? How long?”
“The time it took me to find you. I came right away.” Esube motions for her to precede him back along the path.
“Did he say anything?” Camule forces her voice to steadiness.
Art of War Page 14