Coldmarch

by Daniel A. Cohen

  ‘Do what you have to,’ I said.

  Dunes snapped the next finger.

  It wasn’t long before we were standing outside the Beauty Room.

  ‘You’re sure this is the place?’ Dunes asked the girl, who was still suspended in his arms. She was like a lifeless puppet. ‘You’re sure?’

  The Domestic nodded to the heavy door at the end of the hallway, clutching her shattered hand to her chest. There were no paintings on the walls down here. No shrines. No stained-glass representations of the suppression of my people. There were only hallways painted black with a single Sinai for light in the centre. It would be the perfect place for the guards to ambush us. Dunes would be thinking something along the same lines.

  Dunes grabbed hold of the girl’s middle finger next, right below a jewelled ring. ‘Because if you are lying!’

  ‘She’s not,’ Cam said, his hands trembling at his sides.

  Split gave Cam a told-you-so sort of look, flipping up his palms.

  ‘I’m not,’ the girl whimpered without any further squirming. ‘Please.’

  She used the same desperate tone as I had when asking her about Shilah. I pitied what agony she must be feeling. Filtering through the catacombs of the Sanctuary had given me time to second-guess myself. I felt a bit of remorse, which stirred the acid in my stomach, but I also knew remorse wouldn’t change what needed to be done.

  Dunes lowered the girl to her feet and then pressed his fingers on her collarbone and neck, pinching like a scorpion. Her eyes bulged for a moment, she swayed, and then collapsed into his arms.

  Dunes let Hamman’s face slide away as he set the girl gently on the stone floor.

  ‘I will get used to it,’ he said, mostly to himself.

  ‘What’d you do to her?’ Cam asked. ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘I am not without mercy,’ Dunes said. ‘She will sleep through pain.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Split asked, full of spite. ‘And how do you know how to do something like that if you’ve never tortured anyone before? Did you guess?’

  Dunes looked away.

  Then a shout from the other side of the heavy door.

  It wasn’t a scream of pain, or one of surprise, but more of a battle cry.

  It was Shilah. I was sure.

  ‘Crossbows,’ I said, making sure my Abb was still in the altered shaft. The rest of the group did the same.

  I nodded to Dunes, my weapon at the ready.

  We would deal the Khatdom a significant blow if we got Shilah out of here unscathed, leaving behind a burning wake of Ice.

  ‘Break it down,’ I said.

  Dunes smiled, giving a sigh of relief. ‘By your command.’

  He rushed at the door and knocked the whole thing off its hinges with a single slam of his shoulder. The heavy wood went sliding across the polished floor, which was slick with blood and grease and piss and other fluids I couldn’t place. The slab came to rest against a row of cages.

  And in that instant I changed.

  Perhaps changed wasn’t correct, but rather I was revealed.

  There hadn’t been many times in my life where a single event knocked my view into an entirely new perspective. Where everything I thought I understood about life had been diminished, my past experiences only to be proven a thin veneer cast over truth. Even the discovery of the Coldmaker didn’t jolt me as deeply and profoundly as did this moment. I’d seen many horrors over my lifetime, had experienced a lot of them first-hand. I thought I knew my limits.

  How wrong I was.

  I could finally understand the dark things that had always gripped my soul. The forces I chose to ignore, distracted by my curiosities.

  I was rage.

  I was fury.

  I was vengeance.

  I was destruction.

  I was bloodshed.

  Shilah was strapped down to a metal table, her shirt torn open and crumpled to the side, her face stretched wide with pain. She wasn’t crying, however, instead her teeth were bared and she stared up at her assailant as if she was going to bite out his throat if he came close enough. Already a whole portion of her left breast was sizzling with fresh burns, and the Opened Eye tattoo on her arm had been inked Closed and then branded to a blur.

  Spout walked out of the room.

  Meshua took his place.

  I was the Crier’s weapon.

  I was his justice.

  Shilah’s torturer wore a velvet strip on his face like the other men encircling the courtyard, but this one was over his mouth and nose, presumably so he wouldn’t have to breathe in the smell of roasting skin. His eyes still lingered with a sick pleasure, although now more struck with curiosity. He didn’t look particularly fearful, which only made me boil with anger.

  Hanging on the walls behind him were diagrams of split limbs painted on scrolls, as well as depictions of wounds in various stages of bleeding and healing. There were body parts on the tables, arms, fingers, legs, clamped in vices, and it took me a moment to realize that they were only clay models. This was unsettling in its own right. Vials of powders and potions waited in cabinets around the room. The whole place was an apothecary gone wrong.

  The cages off to the side had figures huddled together in the shadows, arms wrapped around each other in both fear and comfort. I could only make out vague, shivering forms.

  The masked Noble lording over Shilah had some kind of branding tool in his hand, dangling above a solitary flame.

  I knew in my heart that this Noble was going to die.

  I just needed to decide how.

  Shilah’s face fell to the side, her eyes glazed over with pain but she spotted me instantly. She saw the crossbow and then nodded, her face flushed with an emotion I couldn’t read.

  ‘You’re interrupting my work,’ the Noble sneered from behind the velvet mask, dropping the branding tool in a bucket of water. It made a violent sizzle. His voice was pompous and proud, his body angled towards Cam. He wiped some blood off his plump wrists with a clean strip of boilweed, staring at the fallen door. ‘She escaped twice and caused all sorts of mischief. Any problems you have with the beautification of these creatures should be taken up with Ka’in through the proper channels. This specimen was particularly nasty and in need of more extreme—’

  It didn’t take long to decide.

  ‘Cut his hands off,’ I said to Dunes, my voice shaking.

  Dunes stormed through the room like a dark wind. ‘By your command, Meshua.’

  ‘Halt yourself, slave!’ the man said, stumbling back against one of the walls, knocking a whole table of the clay models to the ground as he scrambled away. ‘Wait. Aren’t you Hamm—’

  Dunes pinned the man’s hands above his head and then swung the blade with a single chop, powering through the skin, meat, and bones of the wrists. He drove the curved metal straight into the wall. The Noble didn’t even have time to take off his mask.

  The man screamed horrors into the velvet strip, looking at the stumps at the ends of his arms, blood spurting out, some of it landing on Dunes. The sight of white bone left me drunk with vengeance. Dunes dropped the hands to the ground, the wrists leaking gristle and blood.

  ‘Shivers and Frosts,’ Cam exhaled, stumbling backwards.

  Split’s fingers flexed at his sides, hungry to get in on the action himself. He was the only one of us staring into the cages.

  Dunes cupped the velvet mask harder over the Noble’s mouth, wrapping his body up from behind, muffling the shouting as the severed arms continued to spurt. I wished I could turn this leaking Noble into a sick diagram of his own. Propped on the wall to witness the consequences of his treachery forever.

  Or at least until I burned this Sun-damned Sanctuary to rubble.

  ‘What shall you have me do, Meshua?’ Dunes asked calmly.

  I was already rushing up to Shilah, my shirt in my hands, gently placing the layer on top of her, making sure not to scrape any of her burns.

  ‘Spout,’ she said with a weak smile, walking
her fingers through the air, as far as her bound wrists would allow.

  ‘I know. Always slow.’ I put down the crossbow and took her hand in mine. ‘So you escaped twice, huh?’

  She gave a single nod. ‘I was trying to save you. But I couldn’t find a way out.’

  I nearly choked out a laugh. ‘Save me from what?’

  She squeezed my fingers, a tender look reaching her eyes. Then she studied the crossbow for the briefest of moments. ‘You tinkered it so it would fire Abbs?’

  ‘I did,’ I said, going at her bindings.

  ‘Does it work?’ she asked.

  I ripped off the camel-leather straps holding her down. ‘I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised.’

  The handless Noble continued to scream into his velvet mask.

  Shilah sat up, holding my shirt over her chest. Her face was alight with pain, but she didn’t cry out. Her eyes found Cam, who had his hand over his mouth and had begun to weep. I looked to the vials in the nearest cabinet, looking for groan salve, but found none. The containers were mostly filled with irritants, like sand, gravel, and glass shards, and all of a sudden a fresh wave of hate surged through my chest.

  ‘And your hand?’ Shilah asked carefully.

  I held up my wrapped fingers. ‘A sign.’

  She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Later,’ I said, swallowing hard. ‘And your— and you?’

  Shilah shrugged. ‘We’re going to give them worse.’

  More murmurs escaped from the cages behind me, but I was still too focused on Shilah to let anything else have my attention. She must have been in extraordinary pain from the burns, but my heart swelled because she was alive. Relief overtook the force of rage, and once again life made sense.

  Through the corner of my eye I saw Split and Cam move up to one of the cages, examining the strength of the bars.

  ‘Meshua,’ Dunes interrupted, still holding the Noble tightly. The man was whimpering now, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy me. ‘Shall I put this monster to sleep too?’

  ‘He gets off on the screams,’ Shilah whispered, looking over at the masked Noble, her face distorting with fury. ‘But I wouldn’t give him any. Keep him awake. Let him hear his own.’

  I used to be afraid of the fire she kept inside. I thought I might get swallowed or burned if I got too close. Now I found the intensity comforting. I understood her urges.

  I touched a hand to Shilah’s lower back, feeling a sheen of sweat.

  ‘I have no doubt,’ I said. ‘You are Meshua, after all.’

  ‘Damn right I am.’ She smiled wildly as she rolled her unlocked wrists and looked at the Noble’s severed hands on the floor. ‘And damn right you are too.’

  More murmuring from the cages. I thought I heard one of them whisper: ‘He came back for us.’

  ‘It’s a trick,’ another voice said from within the shadows, one I thought I might have recognized. ‘Always a trick.’

  ‘We’re going to get you out,’ Cam said. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not with Ka’in.’

  ‘You said the bastard likes screams?’ I asked Shilah.

  She nodded, pointing to the scrolls on the wall. ‘Said they inspire him.’

  ‘Dunes,’ I called, flattening my hand against Shilah’s back, feeling her wet heat.

  ‘Yes, Meshua?’ Dunes asked. The big man was starting to look ill again, but I knew he could handle a little more duty.

  ‘Cut off his ears next,’ I said.

  ‘By your command.’

  Two more small body parts slapped against the floor.

  More muffled screams.

  I helped Shilah off the table and looked away as she discarded the tattered rags that were once her shirt. She pulled mine over her injured chest. I took that time to search the room for any smaller Cold I might steal for the cave, but there didn’t seem to be any, only the sickening diagrams and scrolls and clay body parts. Shilah’s hand curled around the back of my neck, and she pulled our foreheads together.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

  It was the most vulnerable I’d heard her, and I wished I could have Dunes chop the Noble’s hands off all over again.

  ‘Spout,’ Cam called. ‘We need to get them out.’

  Shilah nodded, letting her fingers slide off my numbers. ‘We do.’

  I ran up to the cage. To my astonishment I recognized the Jadans inside. The caravan cart was back together again. At least most of it. On the wrong side of the bars were the two sisters, Ellia and Ellcia, each with a puffy eye. Leah was pressed between them, her luscious hair slashed and cut at odd angles and burned along many of the tips. She was nursing her right hand. All the fingernails had been removed. The layers of grime and blood did absolutely nothing to diminish her beauty.

  ‘Yes,’ Cam said, his voice almost squeaking with nerves. He couldn’t take his eyes off Leah. ‘We’re going to get you out.’

  Leah reached through the bars with her good hand and placed it on Cam’s stomach, just above his belt line. ‘We will be forever appreciative, master Noble.’

  Cam froze up, his whole body tense.

  ‘Get yah hand away, priss!’ Ellcia hissed at Leah. ‘Thum’s part of a trick. Always a trick with Ka’in.’

  ‘It’s nuh trick,’ Ellia said in sheepish tones. ‘Yah saw whut boyfriend did in the cart. He brung Cold from the air and brought little sis to life.’

  Cam looked at me and mouthed: boyfriend?

  I shook my head.

  ‘It’s a good trick,’ Ellcia said, pushing her sister. ‘And number four gone died anyway. Ka’in is always in dem trick.’

  ‘Ice no trick, sis,’ Ellia said.

  That answered one of my questions.

  A part of me had known that the unconscious girl from the cart might not make it, but hearing of her death carved another slice from my heart.

  ‘Are yuh blind, sis?’ Ellcia shouted. ‘That’s dah Hookman standing right there!’

  ‘I am not a Hookman,’ Dunes said.

  ‘Yuh the Hookman who got us in the first place!’ Ellcia shouted. ‘Hummun.’

  ‘He’s pledged himself to me now,’ I said. ‘He’s changed. Hamman is gone.’

  ‘Trick!’ Ellcia said. ‘That’s a Hookman!’

  Leah’s hand slipped under Cam’s shirt, her fingers caressing his stomach. She gave him a sincere look through the bars, pleading almost. ‘Are you real? Is this real?’

  Cam nodded slowly. ‘Um. Yes.’

  ‘Will you get us away, Noble sir,’ Leah asked, digging her fingers in. ‘Take me away with you.’

  ‘Keys,’ Cam choked out, looking my way.

  I’d already spotted a whole ring of keys sitting on a nail just out of arm’s reach of the cages.

  They always had to twist the blade.

  I went to grab the keys, but Ellia protested. ‘Thums keys a trick!’

  Ellcia reached over and tugged her sister’s hair. ‘Stop it. You gunn make things worse when Ka’in shows up. He always shows up.’

  I grabbed the keys, a hundred different sizes and types jangling on the ring.

  Leah pulled Cam closer, her voice soft. ‘Those keys actually are a trick, sir. Those are not real. He uses them as decoys.’

  ‘Where’s the real one?’ I asked.

  Ellia pressed herself against the bars, gesturing wildly towards the cabinet. ‘Keeps it in a different vial every night, won’t let us see. Puts nasty stuff inside thum so if anyone tries tah dig they gunna get cuts and the likes.’

  I would have had Dunes interrogate our masked Noble to find out, but since the man was no longer conscious – and no longer had any ears – I figured we had to do things the hard way.

  ‘Split,’ I said. ‘Close the door, please. This is going to be loud.’

  Split shut us in, and I gave the vial cabinet a satisfying push. The glass jars shattered against the floor, splitting out in a mess of tiny grit. I moved to start sifting through the wreckage, but Dunes was already in front of me, hol
ding me back, the Noble’s velvet mask in his hand.

  ‘Absolutely not, Meshua,’ Dunes said, strapping the mask over his mouth and nose. ‘This is my task.’

  And with that he was sifting through all the glass and splinters and powders, ignoring the spray and pain he had to endure. Shilah came over and took my hand in hers. I could tell she was trying to grip hard, but there wasn’t much strength left in her fingers. I needed to get her back to the cave as soon as possible. I’d find her food and medicine, and we could heal together.

  Split was at the cage, his forehead pressed against the bars. ‘I’m so sorry this happened to you, girls. You will never be treated like this again, I swear on the memory of my wife and daughter.’

  Ellcia groaned, retreating back to the shadows. ‘Lies.’

  ‘I’m so sorry this happened,’ I said softly to Shilah.

  She let her fingers entwine with mine and looked down. ‘Just so you know. I wasn’t manipulating you.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘When I kissed you.’ She looked up and stared straight ahead. She kept trying to straighten her back into the way she usually stood, but winced after each attempt, having to settle for a hunch. ‘I was kissing you. I wasn’t manipulating you.’

  I nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘And if I was manipulating you … I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I won’t do it again.’

  I smiled. ‘I won’t either.’

  ‘And … look, this is what I wanted to show you before.’ Shilah pulled down her bottom lip, revealing a stain of black, deep under her gums. It looked much older than her other wounds. ‘I tried smuggling half a Wisp when I was younger. You’re not the only one who got hurt by Cold, partner.’

  I took her hand in mine, squeezing tightly. Cam looked at us, his eyes tender.

  Dunes eventually came back with a silver key, held triumphantly over his head. His forearms were prickled with splinters and glass, burned with caustic powders, but he didn’t seem to care. ‘For you, Meshua. I will get you anything you need.’