by Matt Wallace
Evie keeps her breath steady and even, attempting to steel herself and maintain a composure that matches Lariat’s angry resolve. Staring at those heads, however, is forcing her to confront the end result of her choices. Evie knows she can’t afford to question those choices now. They have all come too far and are risking too much. There is no going back. That doesn’t stop her from feeling a twisting in her guts as she witnesses what her decisions have wrought.
She thinks of Brio in that moment. She remembers questioning her own motivations in leaving her life behind a second time because of him. Looking back from where she now stands, Evie considers the possibility she chose her mission to rescue Brio precisely because it was hers to choose. She wasn’t given a choice when Gen Stalbraid turned her away as a girl. Evie wonders if that lingering part of her came here to show Brio she was stronger than that now, to exercise some power she felt she’d lost. Perhaps it was her way of trying to take back control of her life all these years later, as absurd as that seemed to her.
Whatever brought her to this point, Evie knows she has to take control of this situation, if she can. There is only one way she can see to do that without getting them all killed.
Evie slips beside Sirach, whispering in the woman’s ear. “There’s one head they didn’t think to take, and it may be a head that can help us.”
Sirach looks at her with the same curious expression she wore as they stared at each other from the ground after Evie unseated Sirach from her horse.
“Whatever’s churning in those eyes of yours frightens and thrills me,” she says.
“Wait until you hear my plan,” Evie warns.
“Is that what you have? A plan?”
“I have an idea that may sprout a plan.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“It is, but don’t worry, I’m the only one it’ll kill. Unless it succeeds, of course.”
Evie’s expression in that moment is unreadable, and though she can see Sirach has several questions already springing to mind, Evie can only hope Sirach believes her.
SEEK NOT THE EAVES AT MIDNIGHT
DYEAWAN AND SLEEP HAVE BECOME distant relations over the past several weeks. She still loves her small room, and Dyeawan could never bring herself to resent the first soft bed she’s ever called her own. She simply cannot find that place where one’s eyes separate from their mind and truly rest. Instead she lies awake, staring at the darkness beyond her window and listening to the island sounds of midnight surf and nocturnal birds. Dyeawan recalls sleeping inside empty barrels and behind garbage bins in alleys for so many years. She marvels at how well she slept then, day or night, despite the cold and the constant fear and the harshness of her surroundings.
Eventually she declares defeat for the evening, pulling herself from the bed and onto the litter of her rebuilt tender. Dyeawan decides to row through the keep until her body tires enough to overcome her mind.
The corridors of the Planning Cadre become a tomb in the dead of night. There are no armed guards stalking about, and there’s no enforced curfew keeping the many residents in their quarters. In fact, Dyeawan knows people on every level of the Cadre who work through the night often, finding they do their best work then. However, everyone seems confined to his or her little corner of the keep at this time. It’s rare to find anyone traipsing through the corridors.
Dyeawan finds herself paddling toward Edger’s quarters before she is truly aware of the action being undertaken by her arms. She’s begun to feel she may have treated Edger too harshly. If Dyeawan is going to be a planner and coexist with the others she must learn to set aside her suspicions and distrust.
A seam of warm amber light slices across the corridor. Its source is the door to Edger’s private rooms, opened just the scantest inch. Dyeawan can hear voices rising inside, the timbre of the words growing fast and heated. She rolls as quietly as possible up to the door’s edge, careful not to place herself in the path of that light where her shadow will be noticeably cast. Dyeawan leans forward from the litter of her tender and creeps a single eye past the edge of the door’s frame.
Edger is reclining in a salon chair. His vacant eyes stare at the ceiling as Quan deftly stripes Edger’s cheek with a razor, expertly shaving his face.
“I understand it is a requisite of your trade to overreact to virtually everything,” Edger says to someone unseen. “However, in this particular instance I do wish you would tamp the weed, as it were.”
“I am hardly overreacting.”
That voice Dyeawan has come to know well, especially its reprimanding tone. It belongs to Oisin, the Protectorate Ministry agent who seems to act as both roving sentry within the Planning Cadre and liaison between Edger and the Ministry itself. Straining the edge of her viewpoint, Dyeawan is able to glimpse the flourish of a black cape, confirming her suspicion.
“We have consistently advanced the Sicclunan front for more years than I’ve counted wearing this eagle’s eye on my chest,” Oisin continues. “In the past few months we have lost more ground than at any time on record since the Sicclunan campaign began.”
“Considering all that time during which we consistently advanced the front, if we’d lost an inch it would’ve been a shattering record loss, would it not?”
“We’ve lost far more than an inch,” Oisin counters impatiently.
“Perspective, my friend.”
“If I can’t make you take this revolt seriously, at least consider the practical implications. If we do not regain that ground within a fortnight it will begin to affect both production and sustainability within the eastern cities. Lumber, steel, fruit, fertile soil, everything will begin to reach dangerously low reserves. If it continues we will have no choice but to reroute supplies from the northern and southern cities. Soon after that we’ll have the Gens and the citizenry questioning the source of the shortage.”
“If Mister Quan accidentally nicks me with his razor I can extrapolate that tiny wound until it becomes the end of the world as we know it if I take it far enough.”
“This is happening now, Edger!”
“And it will cease happening when the rabble reaches the border. This is an aberration, nothing more, and the system we have built will correct it as a body corrects a minor illness. You must calm down.”
“I am perfectly calm.”
“Yes, I’m watching it drip from your body as we speak.”
“At least recall the Savage Legion,” Oisin pleads. “Bring them back from the front until this thing is put down.”
“Would you take the swords out of the Skrains’ hands, as well? You want to deprive our forces of their greatest weapon before the first serious opposition they’ve faced, as you say, since before you pinned that eagle eye to your chest?”
“The Savages have proven themselves unreliable on several occasions—”
“They’re Savages! They’re meant to be unreliable. Their strength lies in that unpredictability. What has occurred is a matter of discipline and readiness, that’s all. These are easily solved in the field. I’ve seen to it with the taskers.”
“You will forgive me, but I must question your perspective on the Savage Legion as of late, particularly when we consider that conscripting a dissident Gen member is no doubt what spawned this rebellion in the first place!”
There is a brief silence. Dyeawan shifts her focus through the thin crack from Oisin’s cape to Edger reclining in his chair. He’s not bothering with any of his painted facemasks.
“I fail to see the correlation,” he says a moment later.
“Conscripting mindless dregs is one thing. Conscripting those with intelligence and leadership ability and scorn for the Crachian government is quite another.”
“They are all the same when they are stripped bare. You are reaching, Oisin.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Really? Were you thinking when you took it upon yourself to send Savages into the Gen Circus? Explain to me how your perspective is beyond scrutiny in the
face of actions such as that.”
Oisin grits his teeth. “They were disposable and less recognizable to the average Crachian eye than Ministry agents or Aegins in the event they failed. And I maintain they would’ve been remembered as no more than two tattooed dregs if the woman hadn’t survived to press the matter.”
“Hypotheticals serve no purpose to us.”
“I recognized my error and saw to the disposal of those bodies before anyone could confirm their identities. I took responsibility and learned from my error.”
“And yet the Xia woman does persist, does she not? Is that not why we needed to eliminate her in the first place? Her inability to simply accept the loss of her husband and her Gen and go quietly into obscurity. She would not let the matter rest. And she still won’t. If anything, she has become emboldened and even more vocal in public about the situation. Her persistence, and our problem, has only been exacerbated.”
“She is being allowed to persist at this point because she is too visible to make disappear. If a woman who is raving that her husband was abducted is suddenly abducted herself, they no longer sound like ravings.”
“That is my very point, Oisin. Any situation is all in how you frame it.”
A massive shape abruptly eclipses the world beyond the crack. Dyeawan’s breath catches in her throat and she throws her head back as the door is pulled open.
Mister Quan looms above her, staring down at Dyeawan quizzically. She’s completely obscured from view by his oversize frame.
She shakes her head, mouth opening to offer some apology or excuse.
Quan quickly brings a long, slender digit to his lips, silently instructing her to remain quiet.
Dyeawan closes her mouth and nods.
“Is there a problem, Quan?” Edger asks.
“I have forgotten what I was stepping out to do.”
“It must not have been so terribly important, then.”
Quan points down the corridor, his face wearing a sincere and urgent expression.
Again, Dyeawan nods. She quickly and gratefully reverses her tender and wheels herself away from the door.
By the time she hears it close and a steel lock snap home, she’s halfway down the corridor.
Dyeawan finds she is suddenly exhausted, and sleep cannot come fast enough.
REUNION
EVIE HAD JUST BEGUN TO enjoy feeling clean. While it’s true her last real bath was perhaps months ago at this point, aligning herself with Sirach and her Sicclunans had granted Evie release from her Savage rags and the filth of everyday life that came with them. She’d gratefully taken a damp cloth to her face and body and meticulously removed every smudge of dirt and every sheen of her own collected and unsavory juices. Evie had reveled in the feel of unsoiled clothes against her skin, as well. She’d even brushed out her hair, which has gained an inch since she was conscripted.
She’s traded those fresh pieces of clothing for the tattered and tainted garments of half a dozen rogue Savages who were more than happy to swap with her. That’s torture enough, but Sirach insisted she still appeared far too clean and kempt. Evie’s face and hands are once again covered in muck, and she’s not even certain all of it is mud. Her hair has also been tangled and snared and splattered with filth.
Convincing Sirach of the potential and necessity of her plan was easy enough, no doubt because Sirach has learned to live with the specter of death haunting her every waking action. Convincing the Elder Company to let her make the attempt was another beast to tame entirely. Mother Manai was ready to weep like the grandmother she is over one of her own squandering their life, while Lariat flatly forbade Evie from the course she purposed.
Bam, on the other hand, only insisted on accompanying her, but Evie knew if she was to have any hope of penetrating the Skrain garrison she had to be on her own. He actually pushed back his hood to plead his case, and Evie found she was touched beyond reason, but she stood her ground on the matter. She did ask Bam to look after Sirach and Brio should she fail to return, emphasizing the sanctity of the task to her and his importance in fulfilling its duties. It seemed to placate him as much as anything could.
Evie dons the black head and body veil of a Sicclunan night warrior over her rags, and two of Sirach’s best stealth fighters guide her over the border and through the Skrain patrols without incident. It’s Evie’s first up-close experience with watching the shadow warriors operate, and if she didn’t fully appreciate the Sicclunan’s discipline and training before, she’s now in awe of both. The black-masked warriors move without a single sound, their hands and feet seeming to touch the ground without disturbing it. They can both see perfectly in the almost total darkness, and for a mile ahead. They become every shadow they enter, and surveying the landscape ahead, seem to possess the ability to instantly discern a route, however circuitous, that will conceal them from even the most direct gaze.
They instructed her to stay close and do what they do, and those are orders Evie follows to the letter, doing her best to match them step-for-step, crawl-for-crawl, always keeping pace on their heels. It becomes more arduous with each passing hour, but Evie is determined. She compels her mind to remain sharp and attentive and her limbs to never slacken.
The night warriors lead her through a grove of dying trees, and at the edge of the grove, concealed in the brush, they silently bid her to join them shoulder to shoulder to peer out across the valley beyond.
The garrison is an ominous keep of black stone guarding the main road through the western border of Crache. The towers on either side are filled with the Skrain’s best archers and artillery weapons. The keep walls extend around an expansive ward of rice paddies and fish hatcheries that feed the tall bamboo barracks rising from its center. Anyone traveling the main road attempting to enter or leave Crache has no choice but to pass through the keep. On any normal day the garrison would hold five hundred soldiers, but across the border the days have become anything but normal.
Circumventing the keep walls is no easy task, but it pales beside the larger challenge; the garrison is completely overrun by Skrain and Savage Legionnaires. The barracks and ward have overflowed beyond the walls, and a huge encampment has been erected along the main road leading to and from the keep gates. It adds several further layers to her approach, and Evie knows she’ll have to go on alone; the Sicclunan stealth fighters will only increase her risk of discovery beyond this point.
She feels a sudden rush of hesitation as they leave her to the meat of her mission, a few moments in which Evie actually considers abandoning her plan entirely and returning to the fleeting safety of her cold rebel base camp. She actually feels herself shaking, from her toes all the way through the ends of her ratted hair. It’s enough to convince her that not only shouldn’t she do this, she’s obviously incapable of it.
Fortunately, that sudden bout of panic is only the feverish precursor to a moment of clarity. Staring at the lights of the roadside camp, Evie realizes the situation isn’t more difficult, it’s actually providing her with the perfect cover and concealment. She’s dressed as a Savage Legionnaire and wears the blue runes. If the garrison was locked down, she’d have to scale the walls and risk being found outside and alone with no explanation.
As it stands, there’s an overwhelming mass of people who look just like her wandering freely and fervently inside and outside the keep without suspicion from the Skrain.
Evie waits until the perimeter patrols have passed. She sheds her night colors and creeps swiftly across the valley to the nearest uninhabited edge of the camp she can navigate. The familiar clamor of many voices colliding over the crackling of a hundred firelights fills her ears and moments later she’s stepped into the flow of the camp itself, seemingly unnoticed. She pilfers a horn of rice wine from an inattentive Legionnaire and adds a drunken sway to her walk. It carries her all the way through the outlying encampment and through the open gates of the keep.
The Legion fills the ward inside the walls; the Skrain not sleeping in
tents must be enjoying the seclusion and shelter of the barracks. Evie has never seen so many Savages gathered in one place. There must be hundreds if not thousands of them, conscripts from every city in the Crachian nation. It’s easy enough to move among their numbers, particularly the ones drawn from the back alleys and wharfs and disused nooks of places like the Bottoms, the simple out-of-doors folk who’ve never held a weapon and don’t belong on a battlefield. They huddle together in silent, dead-eyed groups, keeping close to the nearest fire or gnawing on some tasteless strip of meat that was dried for a sliver of a moment before it turned rancid.
The truly deserving of this fate, the condemned, murderers and rapists and thieves who prey on the weak and defenseless, they move in raucous packs howling in anticipation of battle, and are also easy to avoid. This many Savage Legionnaires also means there are four times as many taskers as Evie is accustomed to seeing in camp. They stalk between the tents and around the fires, clubs and whips in hand, their hard leathery faces unstained by blue runes surveying every coin-tainted Savage with suspicion and perpetual disdain. Their presence seems enough to enforce the Legion’s rules against brawling and raping. It helps that they disarm the Legion between battles; the only weapons in camp are flagons of rice wine, carried by most of the criminal rabble.
Evie can only assume they’ve discontinued the Revel until the rebellion is put down, although whether it’s intended as a punishment or mandated out of necessity she can’t know.
Evie notices many of the battle-ready Legionnaires are enthusiastically slathering their faces with a deep blue grease. They then smooth it out until precisely half their face is completely covered with a thick sheen of the foul-smelling muck, as if their flesh runes have spread to overtake the flesh there completely. Evie reasons that this must be how they intend to distinguish conscripted Legionnaires from rogue Savages on the battlefield tomorrow.
She enters a clearing free of tents, necessitated by crops roped off in the middle of the ward. The smell of rice paddies is unappetizing, but the scent of these crops is beyond foul. In fact, they smell like death. Evie quickly realizes it’s not the paddies assaulting her nostrils, however. It’s a new decoration that’s been added to the ward recently, after the arrival of the Savage Legion. Evie’s gaze is drawn high into the air above the paddies, and what it beholds curdles every drop of blood in her veins.