Savage Bounty

by Matt Wallace

  Erazo clearly sees the menace in the retainer’s eyes, but rather than being alarmed or frightened, he is deeply amused. He crouches down to meet Taru’s violent gaze despite the fact he does not have to travel very far.

  “I explained the rules to you,” he says. “Do you want to die here or in battle?”

  “I don’t want to die at all,” Taru replies coldly.

  Erazo laughs in the retainer’s face. His breath is surprisingly fresh, scented with the slightest hint of spearmint.

  “There you go, then,” he concludes, rising and walking away from them.

  Taru allows him to go unscathed, fists white-knuckled at their sides.

  In truth, the retainer is not afraid to die, but in that moment they decide they do want to outlive Erazo.

  SLAB

  “YOU ARE ALL PROBABLY WONDERING about the table,” Dyeawan begins her first address to the rest of the planners.

  They are gathered around a long, thick rectangle of darkly grained wood. The table has been freshly carved from a single great, ancient tree felled in the island’s forest at Dyeawan’s command. The oaken surface sits in place of the planners’ previous meeting table, which was chiseled from stone and wound in concentric circles like a maze, matching the emblem they all wear on the breasts of their tunics.

  Not surprisingly, Nia is the one who answers Dyeawan. “Among other things we are all probably wondering, I expect.”

  Dyeawan nods. “I took the liberty of… updating our accommodations.”

  No one else speaks right away. She can feel the frustration and boiling anger of the old guard without even looking to see it written clearly on their faces.

  Finally, a planner with a shaved head that is mottled from age, and who Dyeawan remembers as Trowel, bursts forth, “That table was crafted by the masons who helped found the Planning Cadre on this island!”

  “It shows,” she calmly responds. “That table was a monument to form over function, and that is the opposite of our purpose.”

  “Is there no function in honoring the past and what it has given the present?” Trowel demands.

  “We honor the past by using its lessons to shape the future.”

  “I agree—”

  “As well as its mistakes.”

  Dyeawan lets the implications of that statement settle over them all like the ash from a blazing wildfire.

  “Mistakes—” Trowel begins to protest.

  “She’s right,” Nia proclaims.

  That statement takes the older planners aback, while the younger members of their group seem excited by her show of support.

  “That table was a contradiction,” Nia adds. “And I was tired of craning my neck every time someone spoke. It is also the absolute last item on our current agenda requiring the attention of this assemblage. Let us move on.”

  That seems to soundly defeat any further objection from Trowel, or the others.

  Riko flashes a secret grin at Dyeawan, who does not share her friend’s apparent appreciation of Nia’s actions.

  Dyeawan is more interested in the display of authority by Edger’s former protégé. Nia obviously has the respect of both factions within the planners.

  Dyeawan wonders then why Edger never told her about Nia. Perhaps he simply didn’t have the chance.

  She refocuses on the task at hand, gathering her voice and her thoughts to address her fellow planners in earnest.

  “I could barely read when I first came to the Planning Cadre,” she begins. “I had never even held a book before. I’d only seen them through shop windows. Now I’ve read hundreds. I’ve learned many, many new words from all of that reading. One of them is ‘politics.’ It seems a necessary idea, the process of governing a people, until you delve into what the word really means. Politics has less to do with governance and more with seeking to gain and hold power. Those are two different pursuits, and the latter demands all sorts of… unsavory tactics, like scheming and lying and betraying people to whom you’re supposed to be loyal.

  “I have concluded I do not like politics,” Dyeawan assures them. “I do not like the illusions and falsehoods and machinations that come with politics. I wish to speak plainly, honestly, and directly. I didn’t replace the table as a symbolic gesture, much less a warning to those of you who hold the past dear. I did it because it was an inefficient monstrosity that was an obstacle to our progress rather than an implement of that progress.”

  She pauses to give them all time to absorb those words. Dyeawan makes sure to look around the table and hold each of their gazes unflinchingly for at least a brief moment.

  “Half of you do not want me to lead. The other half does not know me, and I suspect you are just happy to see a change in leadership, and hopefully, direction. Does anyone wish to correct my view of things?”

  No one does, or at least no one chooses to make their voice heard on the matter.

  Dyeawan nods, breathing a small sigh of relief. “Good. It’s important to know where we’re beginning, I think. I’m not sure I want to lead you either, to be honest. I only know Edger entrusted me with this task, and that there are things I would see done to help the people of Crache, because, ultimately, that is our purpose, to improve the lives of Crache’s people. If we can agree on that premise, then we can argue and debate the how or why of doing it as much as we need to.”

  Dyeawan watches their faces, studying as many of their immediate reactions to her words as she can take in before each of them has time to raise their guard. She isn’t as concerned about the younger planners as she is the old guard, but to her surprise many of them seem begrudgingly satisfied with the address Dyeawan has just delivered. Several of the older planners even look placated. They all quickly remember they don’t or aren’t supposed to trust her, however, and a suspicious pall laced with contempt settles over their features.

  That’s all right, Dyeawan decides. The important thing is her words did placate them on impact.

  Most of them were placated, anyway. Trowel, she notes, held that contempt in his expression the entire time.

  She suspects he’ll be her biggest problem among the old guard.

  Finally, Dyeawan turns her gaze to Nia, who smiles subtly back at her.

  This surprises Dyeawan once again. It is difficult for her to read. She can’t decide if Nia is in agreement, or simply sees what Dyeawan is attempting to do and appreciates it as a strategy.

  Being uncertain of Nia is truly beginning to frustrate her.

  Dyeawan steels herself to press on with her next gambit, but she is interrupted as Quan glides inside the light of the torches surrounding the perimeter of the meeting table.

  Dyeawan looks past the other planners to her stalwart attendant. “Yes, Mister Quan?”

  The towering stoic bows deeply and motions toward the shadows of the room with a sweep of his draped sleeve.

  Heavy boots trudge through that darkness. A moment later Oisin emerges, leading a small squadron of Protectorate Ministry agents, all of them clad head to toe in their night-black uniforms. The only pieces of them to catch the torchlight are their emotionless eyes and the golden eagle pendants stamped on their chests.

  Four of the agents marching in Oisin’s wake are carrying a heavy burden. These men bear the corner of a thick stone slab being ferried between them. The rough-cut edges of the slab are jagged and uneven, as if it were hastily carved or bashed from the middle of a larger piece of granite.

  Spying that cargo, Riko whispers to Dyeawan, “You think it’s a welcome present for you?”

  Dyeawan deftly covers her own mouth to stifle the laughter threatening to break through her lips.

  She shakes her head at her friend, both in the negative and as a reprimand.

  Oisin appears to be in even less of a joking mood than usual. He snaps his gloved fingers, and the other Protectorate Ministry agents unceremoniously lift the slab and drop it down atop the meeting table.

  Thankfully, the strong oak holds.

  Dyeawan
frowns at their callousness, but her thoughts toward them are interrupted as she glances at the top of the stone slab.

  Its smooth surface is stained red. The crude image of a sparrow in flight has been painted on it.

  “This is how it begins!” Oisin thunders ominously, and with genuine fervor.

  “Begins what?” Riko asks with wide, innocent eyes. “Are you taking art lessons?”

  Oisin’s gaze falls on her. There is fire in the circles of his eyes.

  “This is a section of wall from the Spectrum,” he explains. “It was vandalized some time in the night. The mark is that of the so-named ‘Sparrow General’ who is leading the Savages in revolt.”

  “Did you consider washing the wall before you dismantled it?” Trowel asks.

  “The stain runs too deeply to be cleansed from the stone,” Oisin says through a mouthful of grinding teeth. “A fitting metaphor for the situation developing in the west.”

  Trowel dismissively waves a hand. “A temporary nuisance, nothing more. The Skrain march to eradicate it even as we speak.”

  “And in the meantime,” Oisin fires back, “we will be lucky to intercede before these rogue Savages and their forces lay siege to the Tenth City!”

  Trowel is unmoved. “The city has been sealed. The citizens have been told they are being protected from an oncoming calamity of the weather. The general public will never even know what masses outside the walls.”

  Oisin points at the sparrow. “And yet word of it has already reached the heart of the Capitol!”

  “And you have very neatly excised that word,” Trowel mockingly compliments him. “Thank you as always for your service.”

  Oisin draws in a deep, frustrated breath. Rather than bandy words with the old man further, he looks to Dyeawan. “Removing a piece of rock is hardly dealing with the issue. We must stop the seed of this from spreading.”

  “Seeds can be uprooted and destroyed,” Dyeawan says. “Ideas are different.”

  “Semantics!” Oisin sweeps his arm over the slab. “We must find whoever created this insidious abomination and liquidate them! Immediately!”

  “Every time you try to kill a secret, you create two more,” Dyeawan chastises him, adding pointedly, “I would think you in particular would have learned that by now.”

  It’s clear by his reaction that Oisin takes her meaning, and no one else at the table does. Only Edger was privy to how Oisin and the Protectorate Ministry ordered and then botched the assassination of Lexi Xia.

  “Then what does the head of the Planning Cadre suggest?” Oisin asks tightly.

  Dyeawan meets his hard stare with one equally as firm. “I do not have any suggestions, but I will tell you what you are going to do.”

  The color drains from Oisin’s face, an impressive feat for one as pale as he is normally.

  He does not, however, protest.

  Dyeawan looks down at the crimson graffiti marring the age-old stone. She lets the rest of the room and everyone in it fade from her awareness as she concentrates solely on the problem presented before her.

  “We aren’t battling people, at least not in the Capitol,” she muses. “We are battling ideas. Steel and poison aren’t the weapons to use against ideas.”

  Oisin begins impatiently shifting from one booted foot to the other.

  The rest of the planners are watching Dyeawan, some with that same impatience written on their faces, but most with an air of genuine curiosity.

  Dyeawan recalls Edger’s lessons in the archives, as she sat among relics of ages the Planning Cadre swept from the memory of Crache.

  “We need to seed our own ideas,” she concludes.

  “How?” Oisin demands.

  Dyeawan considers that, too. She drops her head, hiding a grin from the rest of them as a solution occurs to her.

  “I know just the man for the job.”

  She ignores Oisin’s continued impatience and frantically questioning eyes.

  “Get me Yilik, the drafter,” she bids Riko. “I’ve been meaning to catch up with him.”

  BLOOD GARDEN

  ONE SUFFERS MANY INDIGNITIES IN captivity, such as being drugged and psychologically tormented and indoctrinated by a murderous maniac. Even held against that, however, Lexi has decided being drooled upon by a giant meat-eating plant as it attempts to devour you whole ranks highly in the indignity realm.

  It’s not really spit, she realizes. In fact, it’s more like juice, and it even smells rather sweet and appetizing.

  At first, she’d been puzzled by Burr, her captor, proclaiming Lexi had the run of the estate while she was their “guest.” They even ceased locking the door to her quarters. Lexi resisted venturing out, first from fear and then simply due to stubbornness. She quickly grew bored with the rooms in which they’d installed her, however.

  She discovered the cavernous halls of a castle outside her rooms. It felt like being underground, surrounded by huge and ancient stone block walls. There was nothing like it in the Capitol. The same was true for the decorations, consisting mostly of massive ceramic vases set on pedestals. They were all like the gown Burr wore when receiving Lexi after she awoke in this place; unbelievably ornate and intricate in design. The artisans of the Capitol were among the best in Crache, but embellishment and ornamentation are not valued in their trades. The crafts of Crache were functional and elegant in their plain simplicity.

  She also viewed woodblock paintings and tapestries the like of which one would never find on a Capitol wall. They all depicted either scenes of history or literature, neither of which Lexi found familiar. There were battles featuring soldiers clad in unrecognizable armor, although the backgrounds of several scenes resembled the features of Crachian cities. She could only guess how many hundreds of years ago the works of art spread throughout the castle were created.

  Lexi found the gardens to be expansive, lush, and immensely beautiful, but neither did they appear to be surrounded by high walls, barred gates, or any type of barrier that would impede her simply fleeing the estate and taking her chances on foot across the outlying terrain. In the distance, she could see the peaks of mountains rising high, and Lexi wondered how difficult a crossing they would make on foot.

  The main body of the grounds consisted of lantern plant gardens. The large bulbs hung from tall green stems bent at their tops by the weight of each colorful pod. There were bulbs of purple and crimson and bright yellow. Their folds protected the sweet fruit within and resembled a paper lantern.

  Lexi wandered the skinny, sandy paths between the flowering patches. The paths themselves had been carefully and meticulously raked. Lexi almost felt guilty disrupting the perfect lines drawn in the sand.

  We are not flowers. We do not wilt.

  After several moments of marveling, she’d encountered a gardener tending to the lanterns. He was a short, ancient-looking man, clad in a simple smock that was slightly frayed and obviously well worn, but clean and kept with pride. She noticed several spots that had been stitched with a shaky hand. The man’s head was covered in a straw hat whose brim cast a shadow over most of his thin, frail body.

  “Your lanterns are beautiful,” Lexi ventured.

  He neither answered nor acknowledged her presence. She might’ve been a ghost.

  “When I was a girl, my mother told me the word for ‘gardener’ was ‘teacher’ in one of the old tongues, spoken before the Renewal. She told me a garden teaches one much about life, and that learning to tend properly to a garden could make you the master of your life.”

  If he had any thoughts on the implications of that statement, he chose not to share them with her.

  “I imagine tending to a garden as grand as this one, you’ve learned a lot.”

  Once again, he seemed to feel less than compelled to share any of that perceived wisdom with her.

  Lexi took a deep, cleansing breath to snuff out her frustration.

  “I am sorry to have bothered you while you’re working,” she offered, genuinely. “
I will leave you now.”

  She walked past him.

  “I know only my garden.”

  His voice was like a blade scraping its whetstone. It was a voice that is rarely used.

  Lexi turned back, unsure she’d heard him clearly. “What did you say?”

  “I know only my garden,” he repeated, mechanically, without emotion. “That is how I am still alive.”

  He never looked at her or stopped tending to the delicate hanging bulbs. He might have been speaking only to himself.

  A deep sympathy swelled inside Lexi.

  She wondered how long the man had tended to these lanterns; perhaps the length of his whole life? Had he ever left this estate? Burr lived her secret life here as the Ignobles did long ago, when Nobles still reigned over these lands. Did Burr keep people as her ancestors did, as slaves in all but name, subject to every whim of the privileged? Did she steal infants from the Bottoms, or did the Ignobles go so far as to preserve the bloodlines of their servants, as they had preserved and continued their own bloodlines through the ages?

  If so, then the gardener’s parents, and their parents, and their parents had all suffered his fate. For generation upon generation, they’d lived as if the Renewal had never happened.

  Lexi’s mind swam in the horror of it all.

  “Well,” she began, speaking softly, “you have taught me something today. Thank you.”

  She thought she detected the slightest of nods from the ancient gardener.

  Repelled, Lexi had turned and strode up the path with a renewed urgency and determination. She would not be trapped in this place as everything, including time itself, seemed to have been trapped.

  Past the lanterns she soon found a large gap in the lush wreathed walls of the garden. Beyond, she spied open fields leading to the mountains. Lexi had already determined they must be located south of the Capitol based on the position of those mountains, though she couldn’t possibly know how far.

  There was no gate protecting the gap, but there was an iron frame supporting a long beam running across the top. Several plant pods hung low from that beam, their vines winding around the whole of the iron frame after what appeared to be years of growth.