Blood Requiem

by Christopher Husberg

  “Where’s your faith, Commander?” Rorie asked, her smile illuminated by the flame. She stood on a ledge two or three rods below the edge of the cliff.

  “Dead,” Winter said.

  “Canta’s bloody bones, you sure know how to kill a mood. Are you coming down, or not?”

  Winter hesitated. She did not love the idea of leaping down onto that ledge; one misstep and she’d plunge into a seemingly limitless darkness.

  But Rorie thought of her as a leader, now. She wanted the Cracked Spear to see her that way, too. She could not show fear.

  So Winter jumped.

  She landed with a small stumble, and Rorie stabilized her, gripping Winter’s upper arm.

  “There we are. Now, for the stairs.”

  It took a moment for Winter to see them, plunging diagonally downward from the ledge on which she stood, cut into the side of the cliff face itself. Rorie began to walk down, torch in hand, and Winter followed. There was no handrail or safety hold of any kind, and one stumble in the wrong direction would send Winter plummeting.

  “Are we going all the way to the bottom?” Winter asked, her hand trailing along the rough rock to her left.

  “No,” Rorie said, “not the bottom. Only a few among us have ever descended that low.”

  “Have you?”

  Rorie shook her head. “No. A few members of the Cracked Spear are all I know who have done it.”

  “The Cracked Spear. Tell me more about them.”

  “They lead the clans, as much as the clans have ever been led,” Rorie said. “A council of chieftains—Keepers, we call them.”

  “And who leads the Cracked Spear? Who leads the Keepers?”

  Rorie was silent for a moment. The only sounds Winter heard were their own footsteps echoing in the chasm, and the soft crackle of Rorie’s torch.

  “No one ever has,” Rorie said. “They counsel, and they often disagree, sometimes so greatly that they war amongst themselves. But they do not have a leader.”

  Winter considered that. It made her wonder once again what she was doing here, and what she expected to accomplish by meeting with these people.

  “Any advice for when I meet them?” Winter asked.

  Rorie shrugged. “State your case. Nothing more, nothing less. If they think you worthy, they’ll grant you whatever you request of them. If they don’t…”

  “They’ll kill me?” Winter guessed.

  Rorie turned to look at Winter, eyes wide. “No, Commander.” The playful lilt of her speech that Winter had grown used to was gone. “That ain’t how the Cracked Spear operates. They’ll not kill one of their own, not in an official meeting.”

  “But I’m not one of their own.”

  “You’re tiellan. And you’re a chieftain now, or a commander, at least. That’s good enough.” Rorie turned and continued walking down the steps.

  Winter followed. She couldn’t help but think that Rorie sounded uncertain. And, as they walked again in relative silence, Winter began to hear other sounds. Voices. Shouting, talking, even singing.

  “Is that…?”

  Again Rorie stopped in front of her, but as Winter looked ahead, she saw the steps ended. Rorie flashed a smile, her playful demeanor returning as she ducked into a tunnel in the rock that Winter had not even noticed in the darkness.

  Winter followed Rorie through the tunnel. The woman’s torch illuminated the rock around them, brown and gray bathed in an orange glow. The tunnel was barely wide enough for them to walk side by side, the ceiling perhaps a rod above Winter’s head. At the other end of the tunnel towards which Winter walked, she saw a faint light. It looked to Winter for all the world like light pouring through a keyhole from a well-lit room into a completely dark one.

  The sounds grew in volume as she walked through the tunnel towards the light. She could almost make out conversations, now, people shouting good-naturedly, and one song that stood out to her, the words unintelligible in the cacophony of sounds, but the melody familiar.

  The keyhole light grew larger and larger until Winter and Rorie approached it, and then passed through.

  Winter blinked as bright lights greeted her and her eyes adjusted enough to take in the massive cavern before her.

  A space at least the size of Ocrestia’s cathedral in Cineste greeted her; she could barely see the top of the cavern in some places, despite the bright lighting. Pillars of rock where the ceiling had grown to meet the floor spaced the cavern, most with strings of what looked like lanterns hanging from them, illuminating their surroundings in perpetual twilight.

  Streets and buildings lined the huge cave, as if a section of any city Winter had known had been lifted and crammed inside; merchants lined the streets, shops opened to customers, and more besides. In the middle of it all, Winter saw a gargantuan column, much larger than the other pillars in the cavern, rising upward. As she looked more closely, she realized it was more than a column of rock.

  This was a rihnemin.

  Runes covered the face of the huge monolith. Winter half-expected them to glow like the Underway beneath the Undritch Mountains, but these remained dull scratchings.

  “This is Adimora,” Winter whispered.

  “Aye,” Rorie said, “this is Adimora.”

  “An entire city underground.”

  “This is just the main cavern. Other homes and structures have been built into the surrounding rock. More tunnels, smaller caverns.”

  “How many people live here?” Winter asked.

  Rorie laughed. “That number changes all the time. Difficult to be sure at any given point; most of the clans still roam the plains, after all. But most of us come home for a spell every now and then, too. At any given time, there are at least five thousand tiellans living underground here. Sometimes, that number can as much as double. And once every few years, when we hold a festival, that number increases much more. This is our home, after all.”

  Our home. “Are there any humans here?”

  “Your friend Urstadt is the first to set foot above Adimora in years. If she were to be allowed underground, she would be the first human down here in centuries.”

  Thousands of tiellans, all in one place. No humans. Winter could hardly fathom the thought, but the slightest hint of warmth blossomed in her chest. It was not much, but it was perhaps the most significant sense of belonging she had felt in a long, long time.

  “Do humans even know about this place?” Winter asked as she followed Rorie through the streets of the underground settlement. Tiellans moved back and forth around them, and Winter caught wisps of conversation that sounded surprisingly mundane. Haggling over the price of onions. Asking after a friend’s child who had been sick. An argument about something called a… tree-box?

  “Did you know about it?” Rorie asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “No,” Winter said. “Not like this, anyway. I knew there was a tiellan settlement out here, but…”

  “We like to keep it that way,” Rorie said. “Even our own kind don’t know the extent of our settlement here, as you can see.”

  “But if humans were to find out? Wouldn’t they feel threatened?”

  “Maybe. But that ain’t our business, until they come knocking. That’s assuming they realize there is more to the place than what you saw above ground.”

  “And what if they did?” While the underground city fascinated Winter, she could not imagine it was easy to defend. “The path you led me down was treacherous, but an army could force their way through it.”

  “Don’t know what you don’t see,” Rorie said. “Arrow slits and other defenses lined the stairway we walked down. Murder holes in the ceiling of the tunnel. And that stairway ain’t the only entrance into Adimora; it ain’t even the main entrance. Others exist, all of ’em secret, all of ’em defendable, some of ’em capable of allowing many through at once. Adimora ain’t an easy city to get into, or to leave. It’s designed that way on purpose.”

  Winter nodded, Rorie’s phrase ringing in her
ears.

  Adimora ain’t an easy city to get into, or to leave.

  * * *

  Rorie led Winter through the main cavern, down bustling underground streets, between homes and businesses, until they reached the rihnemin at the center. The stone had to be at least ten rods in diameter; six Winters could have fit head to toe along the base.

  Winter stared at the runes engraved on the huge stone. Tentatively, she reached out one palm and placed it on the rihnemin’s smooth, cold surface. As she did so, a memory caught in her mind: Lian, while they had traveled together, had approached each rihnemin they’d crossed, had reverently placed his hand on each one.

  She wondered what Lian would think of her now. There was no way in Oblivion he’d have approved of what she’d done in Roden, but she liked to think he might cautiously encourage her actions now. He’d already been connected with the Druids, after all, and now here she was, fighting alongside them.

  A sudden emptiness overtook her, an ache that echoed throughout the walls of her heart. She still missed him.

  “You coming?” Rorie asked.

  “More stairs?” Winter asked, eyeing the steps that spiraled downward around the rihnemin, atop which Rorie stood.

  “To speak with the Cracked Spear, we must go down.” Rorie disappeared down the staircase. Winter quickly followed.

  As she walked, she allowed her fingers to trail along the rihnemin’s surface, feeling the carved texture of the stone.

  “This is the largest rihnemin I’ve ever seen.” Rihnemin were always a single piece of stone. The smallest Winter had seen was slightly smaller than a person, oblong and not quite two rods in length. Others had been much larger, some the size of houses.

  This one was incredible.

  As Winter thought about it, she began to realize the large cavern would be roughly beneath the abandoned village on the surface near the gorge, and at the center of that village was a rihnemin, protruding from the ground and jutting high into the air. If that rihnemin started there, and sank deep down into the earth…

  “This is the same rihnemin from the surface?” Winter asked.

  “It is,” Rorie said, “and ain’t no surprise this one’s the largest you’ve ever seen. It’s the largest in existence.”

  “How do you know?” The largest rihnemin in existence. It had to be at least five hundred rods tall, if not more.

  Rorie shrugged. “How do we know the sun’ll rise in the morning? How do we know all will one day die? Some things we just know, Commander. Some rumors say one of the most powerful tiellans from the Age of Marvels carved this from an entire mountain, and moved it here, to Adimora.”

  “And moved it down the Underway?” Winter asked. She did not think even a stone shaft of this size could fill the Underway, however.

  Rorie shrugged. “No one knows for certain.”

  It made Winter think. If she used every tendra she could, concentrating all her power, she might be able to lift a stone of this size. But to rip it out of the ground, or carve it from a mountain, and carry it that distance… she could not fathom that kind of power.

  She had not used telesis to the full extent of her powers since that night under the imperial dome in Izet, when Azael had appeared and she, Knot, and Astrid had been attacked by Outsiders. In truth, it was becoming more and more difficult to determine what her limits actually were. That night under the dome, she’d taken more faltira than any person had a right to take at one time. According to Kali, she should have died by taking so many, or at least burned herself out. Instead, shortly after she woke in the aftermath of that battle, she’d been able to access not only telesis, but acumency as well. Winter could not be sure whether her access to acumency had somehow been caused by her faltira overdose, but it seemed likely.

  “Who was this tiellan?” Winter asked. “The one who was said to have moved the rihnemin?”

  “Same person the city’s named after, of course. Adimora.”

  Adimora. The name, quite suddenly, sounded familiar. Something she had heard before…

  “We’re here,” Rorie said, after a moment. They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, which ended anticlimactically by colliding with a plain dirt floor and what Winter had to assume was the actual base of the massive rihnemin.

  “This is where the Cracked Spear meets?” Winter asked. She could not imagine the most powerful elders of the tiellan clans meeting in such a place. It seemed absurd.

  Rorie laughed. “No, Commander. Come, follow me.”

  “Anything else I should know about the Cracked Spear before I meet them?” Winter asked. Rorie had given her a brief rundown earlier.

  “The Keepers can be fickle,” Rorie said. “Best approach is to be flexible, willing to bend in whatever direction they tend to be leaning.”

  That was not Winter’s style, but she did not want to ruin this meeting. Then again, she did not want to waste time, either.

  Rorie led her to an unadorned door, and the rugged wood, cracked and split and aged, echoed hollowly throughout the lower chamber as Rorie knocked. Five times. The door opened, and Winter and Rorie entered.

  The austere nature of the chamber did not impress Winter. The most arresting aspect was a strange table that stood at its center. The table, like the door, was made of simple, aging wood, but it was shaped like a triangle, each side equal. Along two sides of the table sat a group of tiellan men, long ears protruding from beneath wide-brimmed araifs, their wrinkled, scarred faces glaring at Winter with hooded eyelids. The third side of the table, empty of either people or chairs, faced the doorway through which Winter and Rorie had entered.

  Rorie had neglected to mention they would all be men. Winter had assumed, because the tiellan clans allowed women to fight with them—and Rorie, at least, had led forces in battle—that this Cracked Spear would have women in it, too. Apparently she had been wrong.

  “Rorie, was it?” one of the old men said.

  “Yes, Keeper,” Rorie said, bowing.

  “Very well. Thank you for bringing this… woman down to meet us. You may leave.”

  Winter’s eyes widened slightly as she glanced back at Rorie. You brought me down here just to leave me alone with these men?

  Rorie clearly caught the meaning behind Winter’s glance. She bowed again to the men of the Cracked Spear. “By your wisdom, Keepers, Winter ain’t aware of our cultures and customs. If it please you, I’d stay with her to help.”

  “It doesn’t please us,” the same Keeper said, voice firm. “Leave us, Rorie.”

  Rorie shrugged apologetically. “I’ll be just outside,” she whispered to Winter.

  Then, Winter was alone with the Cracked Spear.

  Winter frowned. She did not like what she saw of them so far. What made these men think they could treat Rorie that way? Winter walked to the side of the table without chairs, and stood at the edge’s center. She kept her shoulders square, her neck long. She had dealt with Nazaniin assassins. She had confronted lords and emperors. She would not be intimidated by these men.

  “May we all be blessed,” one of the Keepers said.

  Winter opened her mouth, but one of the other Keepers beat her to it. “Under the sun and moon,” he said.

  Winter frowned. So much for using one of the only pieces of clan culture she’d learned.

  “Who is this that has been brought before us?” another Keeper asked. It was the same who had bid Rorie leave. He wore his araif at an angle, shadowing one eye in darkness. The other that peeked out from beneath the brim was bright green and alert, contrasting with his other weary, worn features. His face was rough and creased. He wore simple, dust-covered clothing, all leather in varying shades of brown. He wore no weapon. In fact, as Winter scanned the room, she saw no weapons at all.

  Winter opened her mouth, about to answer the man’s question, but again she was cut off before she began. Another Keeper spoke in response to the first, though neither met Winter’s eyes.

  “This is Danica Winter Cordier, da
ughter of Bahc Cordier and Effara Daggerkind.” This Keeper was younger than the first who had spoken, and sat at the other corner of the table, nearest the side where Winter stood. He was younger, but not young; probably a few years her father’s senior when he had died. His face was smoother, tanned, and his araif worn high on his head, revealing both eyes—jet black, just like Winter’s.

  Winter blinked. How did they already know who she was?

  “She recently journeyed to Roden, though what she did there is unclear. Rumors say she allied herself with some of the nobility in Izet, and was involved in the deaths of both late emperors, but we cannot be certain.”

  “Wait, how do you—”

  “And what is she doing here? What does she want with us?”

  “She led a tiellan force out of Cineste, defeating a contingent of the City Watch outside the gates. Some say she has come with her tiellans—they call themselves Druids, after the old ones—seeking shelter. Others say she has come to recruit us to her cause.”

  “I can answer all of these questions if you’d only let me—”

  “Do you think she has anything to do with the prophecy?” the first Keeper asked.

  This question, for whatever reason, brought silence to the room.

  Winter looked at each of the Keepers. None of them met her eyes. She had had enough of this, and she had certainly had enough of prophecies.

  “Why have you brought me here if you do not intend to speak with me?” she asked.

  “I do not know whether she has anything to do with the prophecy,” one of the other Keepers said. “But perhaps the Spearholder knows.”

  Slowly, all eyes around the table turned to the third point of the triangle, the one directly opposite the edge where Winter stood. A man, neither the oldest nor the youngest, sat there, very much like the others—a wide-brimmed araif, dusty leather clothing. Long hair fell freely down to his shoulders.

  Winter suppressed an urge to take a frost crystal from the pouch at her belt, or to use acumency to discern the thoughts of these men. These were her people, after all. She did not want her first impression on them to be one of violence.

  You’ve already made that impression, a voice echoed in her mind, when you killed the chiefs that stood by Rorie. All these people will understand is violence. It is their language. Speak it to them.