by Matt Wallace
“It would be my pleasure, Te-Gen,” Lim seconds.
“Oh, and for the remainder of the week before your address, food donations will be double. We want your admirers well fed and feeling indebted. Obviously distributing the bounty will be harder with no help, but I know you will manage. You’re quite resourceful.”
Burr sets aside her now empty teacup and smoothes the legs of the trousers matching her tunic.
“Do not bother yourself with the disarray at your door,” Burr instructs her, rising from the chair. “My people will see to it, clandestinely. I swear, but this little tower of yours collects its share of dead bodies, doesn’t it? You should be very careful not to become one of them yourself.”
She folds her hands within the sleeves of her tunic and turns from Lexi, puttering out of the parlor.
Kamen Lim gathers Char sweetly up in his arms before rising from the chaise to follow Burr.
“Please,” Lexi quietly begs. “Please, leave her with me. Let me take care of her.”
“Oh, you needn’t worry, Te-Gen,” Lim kindly assures her. “I have seven of my own. I’m an old hand with them, I promise.”
Burr pauses in the archway, turning back to favor Lexi with a radiant smile. “We will take good care of her, I promise you. I am always in need of good, strong stock to keep my castle and lands. In fact, I recently had to discharge my gardener, and after a lifetime of service. Such a waste, wouldn’t you agree?”
Burr again turns away, leaving her with that macabre implication.
Kamen Lim cradles Char’s head against the crook of his neck and bows respectfully to Lexi. “Good evening, Te-Gen,” he bids her before following his mistress out of the parlor.
Lexi is left to stare into the light of the roaring fire, her insides twisted into strands of barbed wire, haunted by the new ghosts that have been added to the inside of her head.
LOSS OF LIMB
THE BODIES ARE GONE FROM the floor, and not a trace of blood remains.
Dyeawan watched Mister Quan clean up the latter with his own hands. Though he said nothing, it was clear he’d have it no other way. Dyeawan wasn’t sure why. It may have been out of respect for Tinker, who was clearly close to Edger, Quan’s former and longtime benefactor. He must have known Tinker well. It may have been out of respect for the meeting space of the planners as a loyal and devoted servant of the Cadre. It may simply have been to spare Dyeawan the horrific sight as quickly as possible.
In any case, as she watched his towering frame crumpled upon the floor, bucket beside him and a rag in his large hand, Dyeawan was struck by how sullen the stoic man seemed. It was perhaps the saddest she had ever seen him, even at Edger’s funeral, even immediately after learning of Edger’s sudden death.
It was impossible to keep the murder of Tinker and Oisin’s death a secret, even if Dyeawan had wanted to make it so. The events have shocked and devastated the whole of the Planning Cadre. There has never been violence within the keep, at least none that was recorded in their histories or spoken of publicly.
They have yet to notify the Protectorate Ministry, formally. Oisin was the only uniformed agent on the island. Dyeawan considered the possibility the Ministry has clandestine agents among the Cadre members themselves, and she has determined it is far more than a possibility. Yet if such operatives wish to inform the Ministry, there is little any of them can do about it.
Dyeawan is more concerned about any hidden provocateurs retaliating on Oisin’s behalf, or trying to finish what he began. Somehow she finds that possibility negligible. Informants are one thing, Dyeawan reckons, and assassins another. If Oisin had the latter available and at his command, surely they would’ve dispatched her themselves, or at least been involved in the agent’s attempt.
The most important question, at least at this early stage, is whether or not Oisin acted alone. Neither Dyeawan nor Nia have been able to arrive at any conclusion on that aspect of what happened.
If Oisin was under Protectorate Ministry orders, or even if he simply had Ministry approval, the entire hidden world of the Planning Cadre may now be at stake. To willfully sanction the murder of a former planner as well as a current planner is an act of war.
If that truly is what has happened, it changes everything.
Dyeawan and Nia share the head of the table as the rest of the planners file into the meeting room. Riko sits to Dyeawan’s right. Every time she glances at Dyeawan, Riko looks as though she’s about to throw her arms around her friend’s neck and squeeze her gratefully, relieved that Dyeawan is still alive.
Riko has sworn she will never forgive herself for not being there when Dyeawan was in the direst need, despite her friend’s insistence that she might’ve very well been the one who was killed if she had been present. Besides which, Riko was forbidden from attending the contests of the challenge.
The rest of the planners convene in somber silence. The elders among them look stoic, while their younger counterparts are more open with their obvious concern.
Dyeawan feels for them all, in a way. None of them have any experience with their entire world changing overnight, whereas she is quite versed in how such events can upend your mind and put you at a terrible loss as to how to proceed.
“Before we begin,” Trowel addresses them both, “and recognizing the gravity of the other matters before us, I feel we must establish who is leading this meeting, and this sacred body.”
Dyeawan and Nia exchange looks. They both expected this, but their eyes seem to agree that the man is so damned wearying.
“Well?” Trowel demands. “What is the result of the challenge?”
“It was a draw,” Nia informs him.
Trowel sighs in frustration. “Then how will it be decided? When is the next contest?”
“There won’t be one,” Dyeawan says. “We’re done competing against each other.”
The old man can’t seem to comprehend that statement. “Then who will lead?” he asks.
“Neither of us,” Nia says. “Both of us. All of us. It is past time for this collective to truly become a collective.”
“We wish to move forward with equal say in all matters,” Dyeawan adds. “Everyone seated at this table will have their vote on any course of action we take, and only with a majority will we proceed.”
“You cannot do that!” Trowel practically shouts at the pair of them.
Dyeawan remains perfectly calm. After what she has endured over the past weeks, and in the past few days alone, Trowel’s anger is nothing to her but an ill breeze.
“I was under the impression we ruled Crache,” she says. “We can do anything we want.”
“This body as a whole guides Crache’s path, yes,” he explains patiently and with obvious and intense irritation. “But its own internal structure has long been set forth so that rules govern its function.”
“Then we are changing the rules,” Nia proclaims.
Dyeawan is closely studying the reaction of every planner seated around the table. The next generation of their contingent seems energized by Nia’s and her apparent union. More than that, they seem reassured.
And except for Trowel, she believes the old guard has been shaken deeply enough to consider this paradigm shift with open minds.
But they need Trowel. She knows that, too. He is the most dominant personality among the planners’ elders, and obviously their loudest voice.
“We vote on many matters,” Nia says, attempting to reason with the old man amicably. “We vote on new candidates to join our ranks. Dyeawan and I are simply proposing to extend that practice to all resolutions offered up at this table.”
It is so very strange for Dyeawan to hear Nia speak of them in tandem, as collaborators.
Sisters, she called them.
Dyeawan isn’t certain how deeply Nia has taken that sentiment to heart, even if she has agreed to combine their efforts. She still has clear suspicions about Dyeawan’s involvement in Edger’s alleged accidental death. But Nia is nothing else
if not practical. Dyeawan has learned that about the woman. And she knows the problems of the planners loom larger than their personal struggle for authority.
“What if I do not vote in favor of your proposal?” Trowel sarcastically asks, and then casts a glance at the other planners his age.
Nia sighs, hanging her head and rubbing her forehead with the flat of her palm.
“Edger wanted your submission or your resignation,” Dyeawan very plainly tells him. “He used me to force your hand in choosing one or the other. You still have that choice. You are wise enough to know you will never lead this body, Trowel. That much is clear. You must therefore be wise enough to understand when I say we have neither the time for your dissent nor will it be further tolerated. If you wish to leave this table, then leave it.”
“Tinker’s cabin is unoccupied,” Nia reminds him, her tone grave. “You could take up residence there.”
Trowel is struck by her words. The old man seems for the first time to fully comprehend Nia’s and Dyeawan’s union, and what the ramifications of his opposition to it might mean for him.
He looks to the others of his ilk. Few of them choose to gaze back at him. That more than anything else seems to take the steam out of the elder planner’s protests. He sits back in his chair, falling silent.
Satisfied, Dyeawan gestures to Nia to move on.
“Our first task is to reexamine the Protectorate Ministry,” Nia informs them. “Dyeawan and I have determined that they have become a much larger problem than they solve.”
“The Protectorate Ministry… is the arm of the Planning Cadre,” Trowel says, being more careful and reserved and respectful than he had been only moments ago.
“People lose limbs all the time,” Dyeawan responds, pointedly.
“We can’t know the extent of their involvement in what occurred here, if they were involved at all.”
“That is true. And we must know for sure whether or not they were aware of Oisin’s plans before we decide how to proceed. But in either case, it is clear the Protectorate Ministry has grown beyond their original mandate. They have a taste for ruling, and they grow weary of us telling them what to do.”
“We can ill afford division at this moment in time, with the rebellion in the east,” Trowel reminds the two of them.
“You dismissed that same rebellion, did you not?” Dyeawan asks.
“I spoke… prematurely,” Trowel admits.
“We have not forgotten the rebellion, I assure you,” Nia says.
“But it is the Ministry that keeps the bureaucracy in line.” Trowel sounds worried now. “The bureaucracy keeps in line the Gens and the Skrain, and the Gens and the Skrain keep the rest of the people pacified and productive. That is how Crache operates. That is why we are the most prosperous and elevated society that has ever existed.”
“Our mission is to safeguard that prosperity for people,” Dyeawan insists, “not the idea of a society. A Protectorate Ministry agent spilled blood in this house. If we are not safe, no one is safe. If no one is safe, that elevation you speak of becomes a descent into chaos.”
“The Planning Cadre is not a military body,” Trowel says helplessly, sounding absolutely lost now. “We are not warriors. We cannot defend our own house. We cannot win a war with the Ministry.”
“We do not need to be warriors,” Dyeawan firmly replies. “If I learned anything from Edger, it is the power of viewing the world around you as composed of resources. That is all Crache is, as it exists now. It is a collection of resources being shuffled around and reallocated and repurposed. We create and command those resources, whether those we’ve placed in charge of them know us or not. And we can marshal whatever resources we need to accomplish whatever task to which we set ourselves.”
She looks directly at Trowel, who offers up no further protest, either because her point has been made or he has simply run out of fuel.
“We are not suggesting we go to war with the Ministry,” Nia says. “What we must do is what we have always done in the face of a dire problem, and that is learn. We must gain more knowledge of their intentions and plans. We must learn.”
“And prepare,” Dyeawan adds heavily.
Nia nods in agreement.
“Do we all agree the Protectorate Ministry has become a problem to be solved?” Dyeawan asks the table. “Show of hands.”
Riko volunteers hers first, smiling brightly at Dyeawan.
Every gray tunic seated around the table, their hands rising in a wave that ends with Trowel, follows her.
Dyeawan bores her gaze into the old man, who looks back at her with the last dying ember of his defiance before dropping his chin. Slowly, inevitably, his hand goes up.
“Settled,” Nia proclaims.
She does not sound triumphant, but Dyeawan has come to know her new comrade well enough to recognize the subtlest of victories in Nia’s voice.
She grins sidelong at her half-sister, hoping there is more of that to come.
“Now,” Dyeawan says to the rest of them, lacing her fingers in front of her, “let’s return to the subject of the rebellion in the east.”
SUNDOWNED
EVIE GALLOPS PAST THE FIRST bloody, rune-covered body a hundred and fifty yards from where the Skrain have reestablished their line.
Her ex-Savages managed to catch the enemy off-guard and push them back. She can scarcely believe the gambit worked. She can, however, believe the cost of that very small victory evidenced around her.
In between the army Evie led out of the Tenth City gates before first light and the Skrain defenses is the abandoned killing ground of her advance force’s pre-dawn assault. It is small comfort to her that for every rebel body laid low there are also five Skrain bodies littering the battlefield, but it does bring a spark of hope to the rebellion’s main force.
Evie is not leading them into a meat grinder, not yet, anyway. She is leading them to bolster her rebels, who have the enemy retreating, if only by yards.
What remains of the former Savage Legionnaires continues to stab and slash and smash their bodies into the Skrain shields that have fallen back to re-form a line less than half a mile from their camp.
The tent city of the Skrain host sprawls impossibly in the near distance behind their line. A third of those tents appear to be on fire.
She saw the smoke rising in dozens of separate, distinct white columns as Evie’s force crested the top of the valley in which the Skrain have erected their massive war machine. A mile later, she could see the wreaths of flame crowning hundreds of tents on the edge of the encampment.
Chimot and her stealthy Sicclunan band succeeded. Evie can’t know if they survived the effort, or what other disruption or menace they managed to engineer for the Skrain host to cope with, but they succeeded in lighting the enemy’s home ablaze.
That is another boon for the rebellion’s fleeting chances in this fight.
The chaos of the camp can be heard by the Sparrow General even over the pounding of her own horse’s hooves and the gory sounds of the battle raging ahead of her. Her deepest hope is that panic, and perhaps even fear, is spreading through every armored body and helmed mind in that sea of burning tents.
Behind Evie’s mount, her army’s double-time march has become a full-out charge. The hypnotic, choral battle chants of the Sicclunans are underscored by the intense rattling of their shields and spears and swords as they bolt over the open terrain of the valley.
The Tenth City volunteers, as well as the refugees who joined the rebellion at the Crachian border, sprint at the rear, screaming their own form of incoherent combat chorus with bloody fervor.
The warriors of the B’ors dash ahead of the rest of their forces. Many of them are somehow outpacing Evie’s mount. She looks down to watch their arms and legs pumping in steady, blinding rhythm. They look as though they could run like that all day without tiring. None of them whoop or yell. They keep their eyes forward, silently, a stony menace galvanizing their sun-kissed features.
With every dead ex-Savage Evie rides past, she spares a glance downward, looking for Lariat, Diggs, and Bam. It may be absurd to think she can spot them in all this madness, but the fact she hasn’t seen any one of their faces brings her a shallow comfort all the same.
A wave of black splinters is launched from somewhere beyond the fray ahead. The Skrain archers must be firing from behind their line, attempting to weaken the secondary force advancing on them like banshees.
She looks up, slitting her eyes against the bright light of the morning sun to see a storm of arrows reaching the apex of their arc. They seem to hold their own in the midst of that blue sky, hovering thoughtfully as if they might somehow deny falling and take off in flight of their own. Perhaps that is just Evie’s mind trying to find poetry and meaning in the midst of violent madness.
“Shields!” she cries over her shoulder, hearing both the warning and the order repeated throughout the ranks.
The Sicclunans raise their shields on the run, as do those among the Shade volunteers who carry such implements and have enough sense to hear and respond to the call.
The arrows fall like needles spilled from a weaver’s basket. Evie jerks her mount from one side to the other to avoid clusters whose descent she anticipates, ducking and feinting individual arrows that surprise her field of vision. Somehow both her horse and she avoid absorbing a single pinprick. She looks over to see that Sirach has also come through the volley unscathed.
The tribal warriors keeping pace with her steed’s gallop only continue to charge headlong, their course never deviating. Their collective gaze remains focused solely on the line of enemy soldiers ahead of them. They might not even be aware of the hail of arrowheads threatening from above.
Evie casts a glance back at her forces to see bodies falling off the charge, mostly belonging to people from the Shade who either had no shields or lacked the training, experience, and wherewithal to protect themselves with one.
Beside her mount, Evie catches sight of an arrow sticking out of the bloodied shoulder of a warrior of the B’ors who doesn’t appear to notice they’ve been struck. The warrior continues charging at full speed, the same grim determination on their face as when the charge began.
