by Matt Wallace
Evie grits her teeth and turns from the ridge, summoning every ounce of will to banish the sight and thought of the idle Rok Islanders. She grips the sword she’s holding with both hands.
“Square up!” she barks at those standing around her, listless and defeated and confused in the face of their almost salvation. “Form on me, dammit! Now!”
“You heard your General!” Sirach growls beside her, fixing Evie with eyes trying desperately to mask the fear behind them. “Form up!”
Bam is quick to close ranks beside them, and in the next moment, dozens of others follow, a line forming with Evie and her comrades at its center. It’s a broken line, filled with holes that should be plugged by rebels who can no longer stand and fight, but what’s left of it rallies with weapons in hand, crying out like the Savages who were once dashed upon shields without a thought given to their lives.
Bloody and outnumbered, they turn to face what comes.
CRASHED UPON THE ROK
“WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?” Taru demands, the anxiety and eagerness and frustration filling their throat like bile.
“The battle to end,” Staz casually informs the retainer.
Taru could scarcely believe it when they began offloading the chariots from their ships once the armada reached the Crachian coast. Horses are not native to Rok Island, and thus Rok Islanders do not ride. But Taru can’t help thinking the war chariots are a match for any army’s mounted cavalry, if not better than most assembled on horseback.
Now the retainer finds themself installed directly behind the driver of one such contraption, Staz seated to their right.
The Black Turtle’s captain reclines luxuriously as if the trio is simply out for a holiday stroll through the countryside. She has traded her puffy sailor’s jacket for the light armor worn by the Rok Island forces that is apparently made from some type of large predatory fish’s skin, as well as the hardened shells from smaller creatures found on the island. Despite the costume change, the armor swallows the small elderly woman only slightly less than her signature jacket does.
Taru is aghast at their friend’s words. “What are you talking about? Look at what’s happening! What’s left of the rebels are about to be slaughtered!”
“They’re fierce fighters, from what we’ve seen,” Staz comments, again sounding as if she’s speaking about a squabble between gulls on a beach. “They should cut the rest of the ants down by a third at least before they’re done. We should roll over them easy after that.”
Taru can feel their heart pounding between their ears. The retainer’s breath comes in quick, ragged, panicked gasps as they say, “You said you’d chosen this fight!”
Staz looks up at them for the first time, genuine confusion straining the many wrinkles of the captain’s tiny, withered face.
“I have. I’ve chosen to fight Crache. All of that down there is Crache. Why would we stop the ants from eating themselves? This is how we are going to win.”
Taru grips the shoulder plate of the little captain’s shell armor. “The Savages and their allies are fighting against Crache!” the retainer practically pleads. “We are on the same side!”
Staz casts her eyes down at Taru’s hand, then up into the retainer’s face. “You can join them if you like,” she says, a stony undercurrent in her tone. “If you’re still alive when we charge, you’re still welcome to fight on our side. It is your choice.”
Taru feels as though all the blood is draining from their limbs. They release their hold on Staz and fall back against the side of the chariot basket. “You lied to me.”
Staz doesn’t get angry. She looks up at Taru with the sentimentality of a grandparent watching a very young child learning hard truths about the world.
“You convinced yourself that your way is our way,” she says to Taru. “You lied to yourself.”
The retainer turns helplessly from the Rok captain, staring across the valley at the massacre moments from igniting.
The Skrain bear down on the pathetic remnants of the rebel line, ready to engulf the emancipated Savages and their allies in steel.
Taru can no longer hear the violent symphony of the clashing armies filling the valley. The only sound in Taru’s world at that moment is the tearing of their own heart.
MARTYR’S LAMENT
THERE IS NOT A SINGLE doubt in Lexi’s mind that Burr plans to have her killed tonight.
She arrives at that conclusion as she stares out across the conglomeration of faces surrounding her. Lexi has never seen such a gathering in the Bottoms, not even when she has brought a wagon to heel full of food and fresh water for them. Burr worked her dark magic well. The Ignoble rallied them all to this place, as she promised.
She also watches the Aegins. They are the key to everything that happens at this level of the Crachian machine, she has fully come to realize. They are the instruments of power in these lowly, broken streets. Most of them sell their allegiances so easily, it seems, and whether it is the Spectrum, or the Protectorate Ministry, or the Ignobles pulling their strings, the Aegins dance their corrupt dance of oppression and brutality and pacify or agitate the people of the Bottoms at the will of their true masters and mistresses.
Lexi sees Aegins who are confused and concerned, some angry, some terrified. These are mostly the younger baldric-wearers, more than likely new recruits who’ve barely donned their green tunics. Perhaps some of them will prove to be honest, forthright, and fair. But Lexi suspects it is only that someone has not approached them willing to buy them.
The older Aegins are the ones allowing the congregation to flourish and keep growing as more residents of the Bottoms are drawn to the event. They merely make certain the crowd is contained and corralled appropriately for Burr’s purposes.
Lexi wants to believe that purpose is simply for them all to hear her speak and be inspired to support the Ignobles’ cause. However, there are no soldiers, Lexi notices. There is not a single Skrain in sight. Perhaps that is because they are all in the east, fighting the Blood Sparrow, who is either a devil or a mythic liberator, depending on the graffiti one is viewing.
Lexi’s suspicion is that Burr does not want soldiers there. Soldiers might quell any unrest that crops up too quickly and efficiently. And as Lexi has observed, in the Bottoms it begins and ends with the Aegins. They are the targets of these people’s immediate ire. The Aegins represent their oppressors in a way no faceless, nameless bureaucrat who has never stepped foot in the Bottoms can, though they ultimately decide to keep these people mired in their strife.
Turning the people of Crache against the Skrain will come later, probably much later.
Right now, Burr simply wants the Bottoms to erupt and lash out at the Capitol’s Aegin population. That is how you begin to destabilize a city. To accomplish that, an inciting event will be necessary. Having her secret knights in Aegin’s tunics simply begin bashing the people wouldn’t be enough. Those in attendance tonight have been beset by Aegins their entire lives. It is part of their every day.
The only thing that has changed for them is Lexi. She has become a previously unknown hand reaching down from the rest of the city that shuns them, offering to elevate every soul.
What if their newfound savior was sacrificed before their eyes? Lexi asks herself. What would they do? How much blood would they spill in their grief and rage?
The answer to those questions is how Lexi knows they are all here to watch her die. That’s what Burr wants. Lexi’s use to the Ignoble has run its course, particularly with the Protectorate Ministry pulling at her. This is the last, the only way in which her life can benefit Burr’s cause.
Dozens of paper lamps adorn the wooden skeleton of the building-to-be around her. Lexi hung them from the beams of the eating-house’s frame and lit them all herself. The pale pink have always been her favorite, and they dominate the jade greens and crimson reds mixed among them. The glow their collective light casts is warm and inviting, and it fills the open sawdust-covered space around her,
the curtain of illumination ending just beyond so that the rest of the muck and decay and neglect of the Bottoms remains in darkness.
It is quite beautiful in its way, she thinks, but that notion only leads to more sorrow for her now.
She spent the rest of the afternoon building a platform for herself out of the timber that is meant to construct the floor of the building.
Lexi has discovered she has something of a talent for building. Though she hated the exhaustive labor at first, she has found respite and escape in it these past days. With every nail she drives and board she cuts, Lexi imagines herself to be part of a crew working for one of the many Gens responsible for city construction. She has no responsibilities beyond the raw materials she fashions into something useful. She has no cares beyond keeping her belly fed and her taskmasters happy.
Most luxuriantly, Lexi the Builder has never seen a young girl butchered and strung up at her door. That Lexi does not have to live with her last image of that girl haunting the space behind her eyelids when she closes them at night.
Kamen Lim supervises the finishing touches Lexi is putting on her stage for the night. She hears him draw in a deep, cleansing breath, apparently enjoying the night air despite the constant stink in this part of the city.
“Are you ready, Te-Gen?” he asks her, cheerfully adding, “Because they are certainly ready for you, I should say!”
Lexi stares up at him in abject horror, so stricken is she by witnessing his good humor after knowing what he did to Shaheen.
“What manner of creature are you?” she asks, beyond fear and silence at this point.
Lim appears charmingly befuddled by the question, taking no umbrage at its implications. In answer, he says, conversationally, “If you deviate from Burr’s instructions when addressing these fine people, I’ll have to kill you. Good luck!”
He offers the well wishes with a radiant smile and a gentle pat against her upper arm.
But you’re going to kill me either way, aren’t you, Sir Kamen?
Lexi can scarcely conceive of such a man. Daian, at the very least, made sense to her. He was a duplicitous killer who reveled in murder and mayhem, thriving on the pain of others. She sees no duplicity in Lim, despite the fact he keeps his allegiances to the Ignobles secret. His warmth and manners seem utterly genuine, and completely contrary to the cold acts of violence she has witnessed him perform.
She wonders what has become of the meat and bone that used to fill her knees, because at that moment they feel empty and useless. Lexi forces them to carry her up onto the makeshift stage regardless, trying to control breath that is threatening to mutiny within her throat.
They are all awaiting her, a thousand ragged and dirty faces turned up to gaze reverently at Lexi.
She has given little thought to what she is about to say to them, only deciding the best course is to start with the truth.
“Every day,” she begins, “I feel your gratitude and appreciation. I have met many of you face-to-face, and I make it my duty to truly look into the eyes of every one of you who comes to nourish yourselves, to know you as well as I can.”
Her introduction is met with murmurs of appreciation and agreement from the crowd.
Lexi takes a deep breath. “But your gratitude and appreciation also pains me deeply. You should not feel grateful for a scrap of cheese, or a sip of clean water. You have a right to all of these things, and so much more. Every belly in this city should be fed, and can be fed. Every child should feel warmth and safety at night. That you are denied these things to allow the rest of the city to enjoy its lavish wonders is abominable. It is the worst betrayal possible by those who are entrusted to rule.”
Those first murmurs of the people now turn to raucous cheers of approval and savage cries of rage.
Every word thus far is the truth, at least to Lexi, and it feels good to speak it. It makes her feel almost free.
“I want that to change for you, for all of Crache. But it will not as long as this great engine built by our founders continues to spin its wheels unabated, with so many of its people caught between them.”
It seems as if every voice in attendance is now joining together to shout their assent.
“I have told many of you there is another way,” she says, forced to speak above the rising ire of the crowd, “harkening back to before that great, sacrificial engine was built. I have told you stories of those who once ruled over the people and the lands of Crache, descended from higher blood. I have told you of the nobles.”
The rage of her audience takes on a new fervor of hope and want. They grow even louder and more restless. Lexi sees the formerly static bodies crowded around the skeleton of the house begin to shift and writhe.
She sees the Aegins begin to move among them too. The way they are dispersing is odd, to say the least, but clearly deliberate. Many of them are slipping in through the crowd, mixing themselves among the audience where it is gathered the thickest. The Aegins are not moving in teams, or even in pairs, but as individuals. If the crowd turns on them, these Aegins will be utterly exposed and quickly consumed.
Perhaps that is the point, though. Perhaps they are Burr’s sacrificial lambs, offerings to the mob she is trying to raise.
Lexi is also aware of Kamen Lim closing in behind her, lingering just at the edge of the platform. Her blood feels ready to pound through her veins, her very flesh. She knows she has to make a decision. The rest of this address may be her final words, but more than that, they will represent the final action she chose to take in her life.
Telling the people of the Bottoms the truth did indeed feel good.
Lexi decides to end her speech as she began it.
“I have told you the return of the nobles is the only thing that might save us all!” she shouts above the cacophony, raising her voice to its highest pitch as she all but screams, “And I have lied to you!”
Those seemingly simple words are enough to quiet the near riotous crowd. The murmuring returns, and now those murmurs are confused.
“Crache brands their ants on everything because that is what you are to them, what they want you to be. The would-be nobles do not see you as ants… they see you as cattle.”
Lexi spares a backward glance to see perhaps the first frown she has witnessed gracing Kamen Lim’s face. His hand goes to the hilt of his sheathed dagger.
She turns back to the crowd, quickening the pace and raising the urgency of her words.
“They, the nobles, have herded you together to stampede at their behest! And even if you crush those they see as enemies or obstacles in their path to rising again, the nobles will slaughter and consume you all, just like cattle!”
The crowd’s confusion begins turning to anger like hot water becoming steam. Behind her, she can almost hear Lim’s blade clearing the leather of its sheath.
“Look at the Aegins around you! They want you to attack them! They want you to rise up and throw the Capitol into chaos so their secret masters, the nobles, can claim whatever remains! They don’t care how many of you die to give them back their glory and power! Do not take their bait! Do not sacrifice yourselves! Your blood will only replace cruelty with more cruelty in the Crachian engine!”
The crowd’s protests are almost afraid now. The confusion and revelation has overtaken their rage.
“The nobles will kill you all to feed themselves,” Lexi concludes as Kamen Lim closes in behind her. “And this is their knife!” she cries out just before he rams five inches of razor-sharp steel through her back.
It does not hurt as much as she expected, not at first. There is pain, yes, but greater is the surprise. Despite provoking Lim to strike, Lexi was still unprepared for the force and intrusion of the blade entering her body.
Then she truly registers the feeling of the sharp edges turning within her, and the pain is beyond anything she imagined.
The people of the Bottoms are rapt by the same shock as Lexi, if not her pain. They crowd desperately around the stage, appall
ed by the attack and terrified for the life of their matron. The freshly nailed wood planks beneath her feet begin to violently quake as the owners of those confused and concerned voices rush in, surrounding her makeshift pulpit. The jostling only helps Lim’s blade find a hundred new angles of agony in her back.
“That was very disappointing, Te-Gen,” he whispers in her ear, hidden malice welling up from within. Hearing that is almost gratifying.
Finally, gratefully, the blade is pulled from within her. The relief Lexi feels is fleeting, replaced by entirely new and even more severe pain.
Lim gives her body to the crowd, thrusting her forward from the edge of the stage.
Dozens of ragged hands reach up to embrace her. Those she has fed cradle Lexi. She hears their disturbed and distressed and pleading voices in her ears as they pass her along over their heads. Numbness begins to spread through her body from the point where the Aegin dagger struck her.
Lexi peers over the crowd from the corners of her eyes, finding it impossible to move her head. The people of the Bottoms are not attacking the Aegins in retaliation. They are not raging and pulling down the beams of her eating-house in their grief. They are not descending into a hungry mob devouring everything around them to salve their pain and need.
Instead, she sees glassy eyes and tear-stained cheeks watching her and reaching out to comfort and aid and protect her, or merely to reverently touch her.
Lexi cannot see Kamen Lim, but she hopes his continued disappointment is gnawing at his guts.
Letting her eyelids fall closed, she thinks of Brio, and she thinks of Taru, and she thinks of her mother, who taught Lexi to be as strong as she needed to be without turning her heart hard to the world.
We are not flowers. We do not wilt.
No, but we do die like flowers, Lexi thinks. We die and we return to the earth, just like flowers.
And then she thinks no more.
