Kala tasted smoke on the air, this time more real than a memory. She breathed in its acrid smell. By gradation of scent and clues from the direction of the winds, she followed it to its source. Emerging from the trees into open fields, not unlike those that surrounded her village, Kala beheld a smoldering settlement and rough-looking men prodding through its still-smoking ruins. Finally, I will have retribution, she thought. She unslung her bow and quiver and lay them on the ground. She pulled off her pack and lay it beside them. She drew her short swords from the scabbards at her back and waved them in lazy circles to reacquaint her hands with them. Satisfied, she slid them back in their scabbards and advanced purposefully toward the men.
One of them spotted her and signaled the others. They moved to the edge of the village nearest her until they stood twenty-strong between her and the village.
The leader called to her, “Come to meet the same fate, young one?”
Kala’s smile twitched upward. Yes, I’ve come to mete the same fate. She pulled her daggers from the sheaths on her thighs and centered herself. She quickened her pace toward their ranks until it was a run. They stood their ground, unsure what to make of her. She bellowed and hurled the daggers in her hands, then the pair from her belt. She pulled two from behind her and slashed the throats of the men she passed between, spun, and hurled them.
She turned, pulling her swords from their scabbards. She raced at a man, dodging his blade and wrapping her arm in his cloak. She launched herself in the air, using him for leverage. She spun him around, cutting open his neck in the process as she slashed at a second man, and flew into a third from an angle he’d not thought possible.
She rolled and rose between three men. She stabbed one cruelly in the knee, then vaulted him as he collapsed, stabbing downward and outward at the other two. She landed on a roll, cutting crimson lines in the thighs of the men she passed. She rose to plant a sword in the chest of each of the two men in front of her. Fifteen men lay dead or dying behind her. Two of the three remaining men turned and ran. She spun around to gain momentum and threw her swords, impaling them in the back.
She strolled up to the final man, the one who had challenged her initially, hands empty of weapons. He stood transfixed. She sidled up to him, close enough for a lover’s embrace, drawing her final pair of daggers from her thighs, and drove them between his ribs. His eyes rolled back, and she drank in his death.
It was over too quickly. Kala tensed in frustration. She moved like a wraith from body to body, collecting her weapons, and dispatching those slow to expire. Forest’s ghost watched her from a nearby, overturned wagon.
“It doesn’t satiate you, does it?” Forest asked her.
“It’s not enough,” Kala agreed.
“It never will be,” Forest said, shook her head, and wandered off.
Kala scanned her surroundings for anyone she might have missed. She caught sight of the wolves watching her from the trees.
“Be my guest,” she called to them, gesturing to the field of battle, and followed Forest into the remains of the village.
The wolves emerged from the trees and unhurriedly advanced toward the bodies of the freshly fallen men. Kala heard the sound of gnashing teeth behind her, and it pleased her.
She studied the ruins. The townsfolk’s bodies had been piled into what was to be a pyre had Kala not interrupted the men’s work. Forest bent to stare into the unseeing eyes of a boy about her age. Kala picked up apples that had spilled from a basket dropped in someone’s haste. She sat down at the table of a house that had burned down around it, the table somehow spared. She ate her lunch while the wolves ate theirs.
As Forest continued her inventory of the dead, Kala pulled out her journal and laid it in front of her. She examined her maps and tried to piece together the direction of the closest settlement. Kala guessed that continuing southeast gave her the best odds of coming across another village, and, gods willing, the men who preyed on them. She rose from the table and went to collect the possessions she’d left by the treeline.
Kala, Forest’s ghost, and her entourage of wolves continued southeast on her quest for blood. She encountered the ruins of more villages and occasionally the marauders that had laid waste to them, whom she dispatched with calm fury.
Kala emerged from the trees to a sight she hadn’t beheld in several moons – a village still standing. There was a sizable force of armed men before it – forty or fifty – and a frightened collection of townsfolk hunkering behind overturned tables and brandishing farm tools as weapons. They stood no chance, and the men were toying with them, relishing their hopelessness and fear.
A middle-aged woman stepped from among the huddled villagers and raised her hands toward the marauders to show that she only wanted to talk. The men leaned on their weapons, in no hurry to commence their dark business.
They’ll neither negotiate nor show mercy, Kala thought dispassionately.
The men let the woman approach and say her peace. Then, the leader lifted his sword, considered it, and ran it through her stomach. The others laughed – a wound like that was an excruciatingly painful way to die.
Kala finished depositing the possessions that she didn’t need to deal death and advanced toward the jovial murderers. She bade Forest’s judgmental ghost to piss off.
The men noticed her approach and looked as though they were growing bored. “There’ll be no parlay,” one of them called to her.
“Suits me fine,” Kala replied and halted her advance, facing the men.
One of them looked to the cowering villagers and back to her. “Seems you’re all alone,” he snickered.
“I’m never alone,” she replied, glancing at Forest’s ghost as it walked up beside her.
The men struggled to see what she was looking at, but one of them caught sight of the dire wolves in the trees and paled.
Kala noted his discomfort and looked over her shoulder at the advancing pack. “My friends,” she said sardonically as they emerged from the trees licking their chops.
The men stood their ground, trying to assess what to make of this young woman and her pack of wolves, and what threat they posed.
“Shall we?” Kala asked them, drawing her swords, and snarling. She charged, cueing the wolves to surge forward. She gave herself over to the bloodlust and crashed into their ranks in a whirlwind of steel, dispatching men in any manner that brought them down. Kala was merciless in her onslaught – she didn’t care how they died, as long as they did. Their blood spattered her, and perhaps some of her own, although she couldn’t tell and wouldn’t have cared even if she could.
Kala ran through the man in front of her and searched for another foe, but found that she and her pack had won the field. The remaining men fled for the treeline, chased by the wolves. Kala was left alone on the field with the dead. Screams echoed through the trees as Kala wiped the blood off her swords and resheathed them.
The townsfolk cowered terrified behind their makeshift embattlements, now more afraid of her than they had been of the marauders. Better a death you understand, than one you don’t, she mused.
She spotted the woman who had tried to negotiate with the marauders. She lay on the ground in unbearable pain. Kala pulled out a dagger and approached her to see if she wished to be released from the pain. A small child ran to intercept her. “Don’t hurt her!” she cried.
She was too young to know that no greater harm could be done to the woman and that Kala only meant to ease her suffering. She sheathed her dagger.
The woman on the ground gestured weakly to the young girl, who ran to her side and flung her arms around her, not realizing the additional pain she caused.
“Mommy – you’ll be okay, right?” the girl asked her desperately.
The woman shook her head gently.
The girl turned to Kala and pleaded, “Help her!”
“I can’t hold back death, child, only hasten it,” she replied.
The girl’s eyes opened wide in horror, and she c
lutched her mother tighter to protect her from Kala.
“It’s okay,” the woman whispered to her daughter and used the last of her strength to stroke her hair. “Thank you…” she said to Kala. “For her,” she continued, inclining her head toward her daughter. “And for them,” she added, glancing at the still-terrified villagers.
“They’re not safe here,” Kala replied.
“I think they know that now,” she replied, her voice drifting off. Her hand stopped stroking the girl’s hair, and Kala looked into her eyes to see that they no longer contained sight. The girl picked up her mother’s hand and guided it back to her hair. It fell back to the earth. She picked it up and stroked her own hair with it, releasing a pitiful wail that Kala could not bear to hear. She turned her back on the girl.
Forest’s ghost stared at her accusingly. “Do something for her,” she demanded.
“There’s nothing I can do for her,” Kala replied.
Movement on the field caught Kala’s eye, and she noted that one of the marauders was not yet dead, but judging by the way blood spurted through his fingers, he soon would be. Kala walked up to him, toying with the idea of making his last few moments a little more unpleasant.
He looked up at her as she approached and spat blood at her feet. “I hope you’re proud of yourself,” he said. “We’re nothing – just an offshoot of an offshoot of the main host, cleaning up the countryside while they advance south. There’s nothing you and your pack of dogs can do to stop them.” He choked and spat more blood. Kala had no more time for him and strode away to collect her belongings.
She pulled out her journal as she walked and tried to find her most likely position on the map, then traced a finger south of it. It intersected a city circled on her map. She moved her finger out of the way to see how she’d labeled it. She’d written below it in a hasty scrawl – Amber.
13
Kala
Kala looked down at her journal for the hundredth time. No matter how many times she wished it were otherwise, nothing changed the fact that Soren’s forces were bearing down on Amber’s town. She hadn’t been there to protect her friends and family when her village was overrun, so she vowed that she’d at least be there for Amber. Kala examined her journal a final time to find the nearest beacon from which she could hail an airship. She looked up and confirmed that she was heading in the right direction – due east. She cinched her pack and began walking. Her wolves trailed her, flitting in and out of view as the day wore on.
Two days later, she arrived at the forest’s edge as it gave way to rolling plains. She paused at the treeline and whistled shrilly. A dark shape emerged from the depths of the woods. She placed her arms around the black wolf’s neck and scratched behind its ears. “Goodbye, my friend,” she said. It dipped its head in recognition of their parting. Kala turned and walked out of the woods and into the bright light of day. The wolf howled plaintively behind her, and the pack joined in. Their howls tugged on her already-heavy heart as she strode away.
The plains were vast, and the horizon an impossible distance away. Despite her steady pace, it never drew closer. The only clue that she was advancing at all was that the plains grew subtly more rocky over time. Strange and forbidding formations began to jut from the ground. This feels about right, she mused. Now, where can a girl find a dead spider? She sheltered beneath a twisted rock formation as lightning lit the sky on the horizon. Great, rain, she grumbled and rolled over. She was awakened by a barrage of droplets that were blown sideways by the howling winds into her shelter. She’d get no rest tonight. Might as well get going, she decided and rose wearily to her feet. Lightning flashed steadily enough that it provided enough light for her to see by. She pulled her collar tight against her neck and trudged into the driving rain.
She crested rise after rise hunting for signs of the beacon. She was beginning to despair when a flash of lightning illumined a formation of rocks that made her shudder. The structure resembled a dead spider on its back. So inviting, she thought sarcastically and trudged slowly forward. It was much overgrown, but she could make out the faint outline of a central dais. She hunted about but couldn’t find any signal boulders. She sat down on a mound to think and was struck by an inspiration. She got up and began to dig at the wet earth she’d been sitting on. It yielded easily beneath her hands, and she dug until her fingers grazed something hard beneath the soil. She cleared away the dirt to reveal the top of a roundish rock, long covered by the passage of time. She struggled to free it and had to dig around it before she was able to pry it out of the ground. She leaned her shoulder into it and, pushing hard against her heels, and despite slipping, she rolled it toward one of the pillars that jutted skyward around the dais. She struggled until it would move no farther and looked up to see that it was resting against the pillar.
She rolled onto her back and lay on the soft ground. Despite the rain pelting her face, she closed her eyes for a moment’s rest. She awoke with a start sometime later and looked around. The rain had stopped, but she had slept through it. An airship sat waiting on the dais. She rose and reached inside her tunic to feel for her amulet. Her fingers grasped it, and she pulled it out, relieved. She got up and walked toward the ship, stretching her stiff legs as she went. She opened the door and sat down on the floor inside. She dialed the amulet to the coordinates she’d written down for Amber’s city, but nothing happened. The signal stone, she thought and pushed herself to stand. She returned to the signal rock and pushed it away from the pillar. She heard it release the airship. She hopped back in, closed the door, then lay on the floor as the ship rose skyward.
Soren’s forces crossed the river under cover of darkness and regrouped on the opposite shore. The siege equipment was moved across the river on barges in pieces and reassembled once across. As the sun rose, the drums of war began to beat, and Soren’s army advanced on the town. The sound of horns went up from within the town and archers assembled on its walls. Trax halted the advance just out of their range and waited for Seline’s siege towers to roll to the front lines, pushed by a large number of captives. The two towers flanked the battering ram, which was shielded from above by timber planking. Trax gave the signal, and the towers rolled forward with the ram between them.
The town’s archers fired on the towers, but the occupants were well shielded within them, and the men pushing it were largely blocked from view. Occasionally an angled arrow would fell one of the men pushing the towers, but he would be quickly replaced, and the advance did not slow. Flaming arrows began to fly toward the towers, but Seline had wetted the wood with river water, so they did not catch fire, despite the barrage. The towers advanced right to the town walls, their arrival signaled by a loud thud as they contacted stone. Hatches burst open on their tops, and armored warriors streamed forth toward the parapets atop the town walls. The town’s archers kept up a withering fire, but their arrows were largely deflected by the shields the warriors carried. Any of Trax’s warriors that fell was replaced by two more that rushed forward. Very quickly, hand-to-hand combat ensued.
Under cover of the battle on the walls above, Seline’s white powder was thrown on the massive wooden gates and ignited in a brilliant flash. Blinded men stumbled about and fell to the archers above, but the damage had been done. The fire burned the thick wood of the gate with unnatural intensity. Water was brought up from inside the gate to douse the fire, but it proved useless against the chemical.
The signal was given for the battering ram to advance, which it did under cover of its timber shield. Soon a rhythmic knocking rang through the town as the ram began its assault on the weakened gates. The archers gave up, and rocks were hauled up and thrown down on the ram’s shield. This only slowed its hammering on the gates until Trax’s men who had streamed onto the walls from the towers beat the rock-throwers back. The gate began to splinter. The bulk of Trax’s forces amassed behind the towers and readied themselves for the gate to be breached.
No one paid any attention to the airship d
rifting overhead, except Soren, who watched it and tightened his grip on the reins of his horse. The ship landed on a rise near the city just as the gates were sundered. Warriors poured into the city and were met with resistance that had been readied in anticipation of the breach. Kala stepped out of the ship and moved quickly to the tunnels that Baron had once exploited to move undetected between the airship landing pad and the city. She found the entrance and hurried inside, emerging within the city walls to chaos. People were screaming and running in all directions in their terror. She fought through the crowds. A familiar voice called out to her and stopped her dead in her tracks
“Raven? What are you doing here?” it asked.
Kala wheeled to see Hawke staring at her from across the busy street, Emilie under his arm. Kala pushed her way angrily through the tide of people to get to him. “I’m here for Amber,” she said.
“It’s too late – the city’s fallen,” he replied.
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving without her.”
Hawke looked from Kala to Emilie and back, and hesitated. “Gods damn it, Raven,” he protested, but she stared at him resolutely. “Tell me you have a way out of here.”
“I’ll get us out, but not without Amber.”
He paused as he weighed their chances. “Okay, I’ll help you,” he decided, “but then we get the hell out of here.”
“All right. The city can burn to the ground for all I care, just not with Amber in it,” she declared and turned to face the direction from which everyone was running.
“Stay close behind me,” Hawke told Emilie. “Don’t lose sight of me. If you do, or if anything happens to me, you go where I told you to – understood?”
“Yes,” she nodded, terrified.
“Let’s do this,” Hawke declared and pulled his short swords from his belt.
Kala drew hers from her back. “Just like old times,” she said, and they surged forward.
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