Blood Requiem

by Christopher Husberg

  But things were not the same between them. They might never be. She hated it but at the same time, she was grateful. At least now, from here on out, she could live the truth.

  “That’s why you don’t remember anything,” Knot said. “And now your memories are gone? You’ll never get them back?”

  Astrid shivered. “The Black Matron placed them in a voidstone.” She pulled the stone out of her pocket, holding it up for Knot to see. The stone was a shining black, polished and smooth, with a blood-red rune carved into the surface.

  Knot reached out, almost touching the thing, and for a moment Astrid wanted him to, wanted him to take it from her and never give it back. Instead, he stopped just before he made contact with the stone.

  She put the voidstone back into her pocket. “On occasion… twice, actually… the Black Matron has used my memories against me, as another form of torture. At one time I just wanted to be done with the Denomination. They talked about redemption for decades, but I never saw anything from it, and then, after one assignment, I just… I just stopped going back. Eventually I found my way to Turandel—that’s where Cabral made me a slave, for a time. After I escaped Cabral, the Denomination somehow caught up with me, torturing me with my own memories. I didn’t leave their service again, not for another twenty years or so. Not until…”

  “Not until you met me.”

  Astrid nodded. “Not until I met you.”

  “You said they tortured you with your own memories twice. Once after Turandel, and the second time…”

  “It was three days ago.”

  Silence, then. A silence that could fill an ocean, that could expand beyond the Sfaera and the Void and Oblivion itself, a silence of infinite parts that was both deafening and toneless all at once.

  “Are you all right?”

  Astrid wanted to laugh at that question, but she wanted to cry as well, so instead she said nothing at all. Not for a while. She was grateful for Knot’s patience, as they stood out in the night air together.

  “No,” she said, after some time. “I don’t think I am. Is that all right?”

  “Yes,” Knot said, then coughed, clearing his throat, and Astrid wasn’t sure but she thought she heard his voice break, just for a moment, in the growing dark. “Yes,” he said again. “That’s fine.”

  They continued walking, once again in silence, but the silence this time was not of infinite parts. It could not fill an ocean, or the Void, or anything of the sort. Instead, it was just enough to fill the space between them, comfortably, warmly, and easily.

  “Astrid?” Knot asked, when they got to their tent.

  “Yes?”

  “I am a psimancer. My powers are all but gone, but I can still summon, on occasion, very small tendra. Enough to use a voidstone.”

  “What else is new, nomad?”

  “Would you let me see your memories? The ones stored on that stone?”

  Astrid recoiled. “Why in Oblivion would you want to do that?”

  “Things are different between us, now. I wonder if it would help me understand you better.”

  “Understand me better? I’m not the girl I’ve been in the past, Knot. I’m not who I once was.”

  “We’re always who we are,” Knot said.

  “These memories aren’t pleasant, nomad. You don’t want to see them, trust me.” She leapt onto her cot. This conversation was clearly ridiculous. Knot didn’t know what he was asking.

  “I do want to see them,” Knot said quietly. “But if you don’t want me to, I understand. Sometimes it helps to share my experiences with others. Even when they’re horrific, and I want them to go away, to never think of them again. Shedding light on a thing helps kill the shame. The guilt.”

  Astrid snorted. She wanted to argue the point, but what Knot said made a certain kind of sense to her. Perhaps sharing some of what had happened to her might help.

  Finally, she sighed. “All right. If you really want to, that’s fine. But don’t expect me to go through them with you. I’m back to not remembering anything, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “You said that was worse.”

  Astrid frowned. “It is, but… it’s complicated.”

  “All right then.”

  “All right.”

  “I’d best get some rest.”

  “Best you should.”

  Astrid closed her eyes, hearing Knot slip into his cot. Soon, his breathing evened out, and she was alone with her thoughts.

  13

  Cineste

  ALMOST A THOUSAND TIELLANS gathered in the streets of the tiellan quarter of Cineste as the Druids prepared to leave—nowhere near the majority of tiellans in the city. Winter did not like leaving so many behind, but she hoped this exodus would set a precedent. She hoped soon many others would follow.

  Some of the elders and matriarchs had already begun leading tiellans out of the city, while Winter, Ghian, and Matriarch Esra remained to lead the main group. Gord, Darrin, and Eranda waited nearby with the children, but Winter had yet to speak to them. She was not sure what to say to Gord and Eranda. They hadn’t told Darrin the details of how the men at the Druid meeting had died, and that somehow made it worse. They clearly weren’t interested in discussing what had happened, let alone hearing what Winter had gone through to bring her to that point.

  Winter stood in the middle of a crossroads near the Wolfanger Inn with Galce and Urstadt. Urstadt wore full armor, including her wicked-looking barbut, rose gold to match her armor but fashioned in the shape of a gaping horned skull. She carried her glaive as well, and a short sword at her waist. Urstadt was dressed for battle, on the chance that the humans might resist the tiellan exodus. Other tiellans, mostly those who had been training as Rangers, were armed as well, although they were doing their best not to appear as a military force. They were trying to leave the city, not threaten it.

  Winter carried her pack, as well as the pouch attached to her belt, both full of faltira. If something happened, she would be prepared this time.

  Throughout the morning, the Cinestean City Watch had hovered over the tiellan quarter. Winter could see a brace of them now, spears in hand, at the end of one street.

  Winter walked up to Ghian. “How many of those you’ve trained are with us?”

  “About a hundred and fifty,” he said. “But… but they are not soldiers, Winter.”

  They might need to be, soon enough.

  Ghian gave a brief, inspiring speech, about how the tiellans had been friends of nature before, and would become so again, and how this was their opportunity to make that happen. He could still work a crowd, even when he internally opposed the decision to leave. The Druids, packed together in the streets around the crossroads, received it well; Winter observed hope on most of their faces, although caution and fear were equally prevalent.

  Winter’s hand crept toward the pouch at her belt, and she willed it to stop. She did not want to take frost now, only for the high to expire when she actually needed it. She could wait. She could do that much, at least.

  When Ghian finished his speech, he took his place at the front of the tiellan crowd. Winter stood to his left, Matriarch Esra on his right. Urstadt remained directly behind Winter, with the other Pranna tiellans a few paces back in the crowd. Winter couldn’t help but wonder what the tiellans thought of her—a young tiellan woman most of them had never heard of, without a siara, suddenly walking next to their Druid leader. She could hazard a guess that, in short enough time, they would all know exactly who she was.

  Winter could not say why, but she expected more than what happened next. Ghian simply started walking, Winter and Esra followed, and the rest of the tiellan crowd began to move behind them.

  They marched quietly at first. Winter caught a few whispers, and the cries and shouts of children along the way. Winter felt, for the briefest moment, that the silence suspended her and all the tiellans around her. She felt a connection with her people, a singularity of purpose, as they moved together thr
ough the city. Perhaps she was not so different from them after all.

  The more they walked, the more people began to talk behind her, and soon the tiellan crowd was abuzz with conversation, and the sacredness of the silent moment departed. The Cinesteans they passed along the way stopped to stare at the strange exodus. News traveled faster than the tiellan crowd, and soon both humans and tiellans lined the streets, cautiously hanging back, interspersed with groups of City Watchmen. She could not help but notice the rarity with which she saw members of the City Watch. She would have thought there would be more of them, monitoring the tiellan march.

  Looking up, Winter saw other people leaning out of windows, staring with open curiosity at the anomaly before them. She wondered what the tiellans who remained thought of the Druids leaving the city. The Druids had attempted to get word out, convincing others to leave with them, but the response had been reluctant at best.

  The elders had chosen the Tiellan Gate as their departure point. It stood perhaps twice the height of a man and consisted of a single large wooden door. The door itself led to a tunnel through the outer wall, inside of which multiple iron portcullises could be lowered. The tunnel opened into a large field of gradual rolling hills on the southeastern side of Cineste. Winter and Ghian were the first in the procession to walk through. Funneling a thousand tiellans through the Tiellan Gate would be a logistical nightmare, and Winter wished she’d argued more strongly against it.

  The sun greeted them as they emerged from the tunnel onto a grassy incline. Almost immediately, Winter noticed a large group in the distance at the crest of another low hill.

  Urstadt stepped up beside Winter. “Who are those people ahead of us?”

  Winter hesitated. “I think they’re the previous groups that left the city,” she said. “They should be waiting for us.”

  “I am not sure that is accurate,” Urstadt said slowly.

  “No,” Winter said, squinting at the group. A hard knot of fear was forming in her chest. “I’m not sure it is, either.”

  The group was farther away than she’d thought, and packed together tightly. As Winter led the march up the incline, she got a better view of the hills around them. Scattered across the rolling hills between herself and the group ahead were hundreds of dark forms, barely smudges against the yellowish-green of the fields. Some alone, others clumped together, all of them still and unmoving.

  Bodies.

  Winter swore. She could make out many riders on horseback in the group ahead of them. Tiellans who owned horses in Cineste were few and far between.

  “That’s the City Watch,” Winter said. The hard knot in her chest grew as it sank and filled her gut.

  “And those are the tiellans the elders and matriarchs led out before us,” Ghian said softly, looking out at the corpses on the rolling fields. Then he swore sharply, turning on Winter. “I told you we should not have left yet. We were not ready.” He pointed his finger in Winter’s face. “Their blood is on your hands.”

  What Ghian said was true. She should have known something was wrong when she saw so few of the City Watch actually monitoring their march through the streets of Cineste. She should not have allowed the others to lead groups ahead of the main Druid body. There were many things she should have done, and had not.

  She packed the guilt, fear, and anger away for a later time. Instead, she reached into her pouch, but stopped herself. She needed to save her powers for the imminent battle.

  “We need to break through their force,” she said, her mind racing. “The future of our group, of this movement—Goddess, of our entire bloody race—rests on what we do next. If we don’t make it through, or if we take heavy casualties, the Druid movement will be crushed beyond repair. But if we can break them, we keep hope alive.” And ourselves as well.

  Ghian, his eyes wide with fear, nodded. He looked back at the tiellan mass behind him, still pouring out of the Tiellan Gate. “Rangers!” he shouted. “Into formation at the head of the crowd, immediately!” Armed tiellans began pushing their way forward.

  Then, he turned to Winter. “I am a spiritual leader,” he said. His voice trembled, but he met her eyes unwaveringly. “I am not a general. You’ve gotten us into this, and I need you to get us out of it.”

  “Yes.” The moment she said it, the lead ball in her stomach vaporized. This time, she did not need to consult Chaos. She knew exactly what she needed to do.

  Be a weapon.

  And with that thought, Winter was surprised at the swelling purpose she felt within herself. That moment of belonging, of suspended purpose she had felt in the city as they walked in silence, returned. Even as a little girl she had never felt she belonged among her people. She had never felt she belonged anywhere, to be fair, but least of all with other tiellans. Even when her father was alive, even when she was growing up, she’d always felt out of place. Without purpose.

  But now… now she felt something different.

  She had value. She could not remember the last time she had felt as though she had something to contribute.

  “Should we treat with them?” Ghian asked.

  “Look around, Ghian. They did not treat with those we sent before us. They will not treat with us. Our only option is to fight our way out of this.” Winter observed the armed tiellans, lining up directly behind them.

  “Are any of your Rangers at the end of the column?” Winter asked. When Ghian didn’t respond, she grabbed him by the arm.

  “Ghian. Have you set up a rearguard?”

  “I… no. No, I haven’t.”

  “Do it.”

  “It will split our forces,” Ghian said. He stared at the City Watch, eyes wide.

  Winter looked to Urstadt, who nodded at her. “We need a rearguard,” she said. “We cannot risk an unprotected attack.”

  Ghian’s voice was monotone. “But we’ll need all the Rangers in our front ranks to deal with the Watch.”

  Winter grabbed Ghian by the shoulders, forcing him to look at her.

  “You asked me to lead, Ghian. Let me lead.”

  Ghian’s face was pale, but he nodded. “Yes, you’re right.”

  Winter released him. “Take a fifth of the Rangers to the back of the crowd,” she said. “Lead the rearguard. We need someone there to take charge. Leave Urstadt and myself to lead the vanguard.”

  “All right,” Ghian said. He began to walk away, but turned to look at her.

  “What if the Rangers in the vanguard aren’t enough?” he asked.

  “Then you have me,” Winter said.

  This, surprisingly, seemed to calm Ghian down somewhat. “Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

  As he walked away, Winter called after him. “Tell the Rangers who you’re leaving in command. Make sure they know who to follow.”

  Ghian took a deep breath, then addressed the Rangers.

  “My friends,” he said, his voice steady. His nervousness and doubt all but disappeared as he addressed the crowd. “Many of you recognize Winter Cordier. I have appointed her as your commander. She, and her guard captain Urstadt— that’s the tall one in the armor—will lead you in the coming battle. You are better off in their hands than mine, for the time being. I will take some of you behind our friends and family to act as a rearguard.

  “We do not know what awaits us, but we need to protect our people. That is what matters. You will follow every order Winter and Urstadt give as if it were my own. They will lead us to victory. First Ranger company, with me.” Ghian signaled, and a group of Rangers peeled away, following Ghian to the back of the column.

  The tiellan crowd, having now seen the force awaiting them and the bodies scattering the hills, was beginning to panic. Another problem that needed solving.

  Winter looked back to the City Watch, still stationary at the crest of the hill. They hadn’t charged, which Winter counted as a blessing. The tiellans were so disorganized coming out of the city, the Watch could have slaughtered most of them before they knew what was happening. This way
, her people at least stood a chance.

  And Winter had faltira. She could use that to help, but the force ahead was large. A few hundred at least. She could not take them all.

  She noticed, out of the corner of her eye, the elders and matriarchs grouped in conversation.

  Winter turned to Urstadt. “Keep the Rangers in line,” she said. “I need to see what this is about.”

  Before Urstadt could respond, Winter walked quickly over to the cluster of old tiellans speaking with one another.

  “We need to keep the elders and matriarchs safe above all else,” Pendir was saying. “Otherwise we are all lost. We should slip away.”

  Winter grabbed Pendir by the collar, and threw him to the ground with as much force as she could muster. “Like Oblivion you will.”

  Pendir fell into the dust with a squeal. Winter turned to the others.

  “I need each of you to walk through the crowd behind us. Calm these people. Say soothing words. Keep them together.”

  Esra regarded Winter with pursed lips. A few of the elders scoffed, but Winter didn’t care. If they didn’t want to do it, she would make them. She met Esra’s eyes.

  “Will you do this?”

  “Esra, who is this girl to order us around?”

  “We’ll do as she says,” Esra said, turning to her peers. “Come. We’ll keep our people together. We can be the strength they need.”

  Winter nodded to Esra in appreciation, and the group began to move back into the tiellan crowd. Hopefully, they would do something to calm the people. As Esra passed, she whispered to Winter, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Winter found herself hoping the same thing.

  When she returned to Urstadt, the woman had organized the Rangers into three ranks of about forty tiellans each. Winter looked over them, and was not encouraged by what she saw. Tiellan men and women of all ages formed lines, brandishing whatever weapons they apparently could scrape together: daggers, staffs, clubs, even a few pitchforks here and there. They looked strong enough as a collective, but as Winter looked into their wide eyes, saw white knuckles gripping their weapons, she knew they were afraid.