Kingdomturn

by Matthew Williams

  “Do you really think they will have mobilized so quickly?” Laersi asked.

  “I do.”

  “That seems rash.”

  “The High Conduit’s hatred towards your people is profound and unpredictable, but I am certain he will push for swift destruction as soon as he knows Cynmere’s location.”

  “Then we do need to move faster,” the Stormsister nodded before she leaned in to continue more quietly. “See? Despite what he may think, your presence here is useful.” Laersi’s eyes rolled towards Gasric as she spoke, which succeeded in bringing a brief but grateful smile to Aemetta’s face.

  “Do you think the Penitent Faithful will strike at Cynmere directly?” Wyand asked a moment later.

  “I’m not sure,” Aemetta answered. “The High Conduit’s plans are never revealed in detail. He’s clever, though, so whatever tactics he uses will be deceptive and relentless. He’ll use every opportunity he’s given to impair the Cynmeren.”

  Carnan shifted suddenly from his position on the wall. “Time to go,” he declared, and Wyand almost flinched from the unexpected sound of the Stonebrother’s booming voice. The storm had subsided for the moment, though, so Carnan’s observation was correct. Without any further discussion, everyone returned to their scrid and followed Gasric out of the cave.

  As expected, the face of the cliff was slick with the recent rain, which forced the scrid to move carefully from one grip point to the next. More than once, Wyand felt his animal slide backwards for an instant before it was able to find purchase on the rocks. The other three scrid were having similar issues; Wyand heard the beginnings of several muffled shouts from everyone but Gasric. At last, they all crested the steep cliff and were free to move north towards the next camp.

  The landscape shifted abruptly as they continued northwest from dense forests surrounding high mountains to broken plateaus separated by wide valleys—this terrain was similar to what Wyand remembered from his journey through the Deadlands. Aemetta was right. We’re close to the edge of the Plateau Desert, he realized, and unconsciously he began scanning each cluster of rocks or brush more carefully for any signs of hidden Smokedwellers. Clouds were gathering along the eastern horizon yet again, so he hoped Gasric’s estimation of time to the next camp was accurate.

  As the group sped through the shadow of a plateau, Wyand heard Aemetta whisper something from the transport cage. He leaned against the ropes so he could be closer to her. “What?” Wyand asked quietly.

  “Stop!” Aemetta repeated hoarsely. Without waiting for an explanation, Wyand clicked once loudly and brought the scrid to a halt. Carnan and Laersi slowed behind him, but Gasric continued on from his position at the front of the group as though he hadn’t heard the command. Wyand clicked again, and this time the Watch Leader spun his scrid and rushed back angrily.

  “What is it?” Gasric hissed through the Watch helmet.

  “Smoke,” Aemetta said softly. No one spoke; Wyand, Carnan, and Laersi carefully lifted their helmets while Gasric just shook his head. Wyand smelled the air, and he instantly agreed with Aemetta. “The wind is blowing from the north, around the edge of that plateau,” Aemetta said, pointing to the formation on their right. “The source of the smoke will be on the other side.” Gasric scoffed under his breath before leading his scrid up the side of the steep plateau. Wyand reluctantly followed with the others; the stones here were slick too, but Gasric was right to want to gain the advantage of height.

  To Wyand’s relief, this plateau was much shorter than the earlier cliff. When they had all reached the top, Gasric was already peering over the far edge, cautiously surveying the land below. “There,” he said a moment later, pointing to a wisp of smoke emanating from a cluster of underbrush and boulders at the base of the next hill. Together they watched for any sign of whoever had started the fire, but nothing moved. “I’ll go take a look,” Gasric declared suddenly, and before anyone could try to dissuade him, the old Watch Leader was already down the cliff face and in the clump of brush.

  “We should let him investigate alone,” Laersi whispered just loud enough for the others to hear. “At least then, if it is a trap, we’ll be able to escape easily.” Wyand was stunned by her bluntness but offered no argument. After a few seconds, Gasric emerged atop his scrid and motioned for the others to join him. Wyand looked to Laersi and Carnan, then with a sigh he plunged over the edge of the cliff.

  “What did you find?” Carnan asked when they reached Gasric.

  “Come see for yourselves,” Gasric replied as he once again stooped low to enter the brush. Wyand wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d heard a note of excitement in the Watch Leader’s distorted voice; that possibility frightened Wyand almost as much as the threat of an ambush by the Smokedwellers. It was eerily quiet within the cramped confines of the narrow path that led deeper into the tangle of trees and vines—nothing stirred and no one from Wyand’s group dared to make a sound. The low ceiling of branches expanded upwards sharply after a few strides, offering a domed canopy that was much more spacious than the path. Before Wyand had time to stretch his arms, he breathed in sharply when he noticed the gruesome scene that lay within the small clearing.

  The charred remnants of a wooden cart lay beside a creature that Wyand assumed was what the Cynmeren referred to as a “nysk.” Its enormous black eyes were open, but they stared lifeless into the distance; the creature’s gray back plate was cracked and burnt and its flesh bore many deep wounds. The nysk was not alone in death, though—the bodies of six Smokedwellers were scattered across the ground nearby, all of them clad in the same grey robes that Silax had worn when he was brought to Cynmere. Above the bodies and blood-stained sand, a thin layer of smoke filled the air as it spilled out of a strange sort of torch stand that had been placed in the center of the clearing.

  Gasric dismounted, approached one of the Smokedwellers, and used his foot to roll the man’s body onto his back. Wyand winced and looked away when the front of the man’s head came into view; pale and contorted though his face may have been, the Smokedweller appeared to have been no older than Wyand. “This is promising,” Gasric said with a pleased nod.

  “This is horrifying,” Wyand replied quietly. “What happened here?”

  “Clearly, a Distant Watch fought back, and rightly so,” Gasric said with pride. “All of you who have spent your days enjoying Cynmere’s comforts wouldn’t understand, but for those of us who have suffered attacks from the Smokedwellers turning after turning…something had to change. Now we are finally doing what we must to survive.”

  “May I have a look?” Aemetta asked from the transport cage.

  “Take as long as you like,” Gasric said with mock sweetness. “Make sure you look very closely at what happened here. Be thorough.” Though it was never put into words, the threat was easy to hear in Gasric’s tone. Wyand ignored the Watch Leader and flipped the cage onto the ground for Aemetta to exit, then he, Laersi, and Carnan stepped down from their scrid to watch with curiosity. Aemetta crouched over each body, her expression never changing, her eyes searching the Penitent Faithful as she lifted an arm or turned a head belonging to one of the dead. At last, she stood and faced the group.

  “Have a look here,” she said, kneeling beside the man Gasric had flipped and tilting his head to one side. A sickening gash in the Smokedweller’s neck opened farther whenever she moved his head; Wyand felt his stomach heave at the sight and the sound. “This was the strike that killed him. See how the wound is deepest here on the side, but shallow on the front of his throat and against his spine?”

  “Yes,” Laersi answered for the group, though from the sound of her voice it was clear that the Stormsister was straining to keep from being sick as well. “What does that mean?”

  “That sort of cut can only be made by a curved weapon,” Aemetta explained. “This man was killed by an isen. Everyone in this group was, actually.”

  “A Watch Member stole one of their weapons and killed them all with it!” Gasric la
ughed darkly. “That’s fitting.”

  “Not likely,” Aemetta replied with a dismissive shake of her head. “I agree that the nysk cart suffered an attack by your people; that’s probably what forced the group into this clearing in the first place. But other than this man, the five Legionnaires were killed as they slept—their throats slit cleanly and quietly. There’s only one way into this clearing and a guard would have been posted to monitor it, so I doubt one of your people could have crept in here, especially with the area covered in smoke as it was. No, these were all members of the Shroud Legion, so the only person who could have killed them is another Legionnaire.” Though her face was calm, there was a note of disbelief and pain in Aemetta’s voice as she delivered her conclusion.

  “Infighting! But why?” Laersi asked.

  “Who cares?” Gasric interjected. “The more of them that die, the better. If they want to save me the trouble, I’m fine with them ripping each other to shreds. Either way, that means my fight is that much closer to being finished.”

  “Our fight is finished when all people are free of the Cultivators’ influence,” Wyand reminded him, with Laersi, Carnan, and Aemetta nodding in support. Though this war was certain to have casualties on both sides, the goal remained to save as many people as possible for the fight with the true enemy in Aldhagen.

  Watch Leader Gasric shook with silent anger before climbing back atop his scrid. “We’ve wasted enough time here,” he declared, unwilling to admit that his harsh words were unjustified.

  “There’s still the matter of the killer,” Aemetta continued as though Gasric had never spoken, and the others turned their attention back to her. “To answer your question, Laersi, I believe the cofa is to blame for the loss of life witnessed here. This was a group like the one I belonged to, sent from Dism Slyde to find Cynmere. Each person would have been given a vial of cofa before they left, yet I found none on any of their bodies.”

  “Did they die without it?” Wyand asked, confused by Aemetta’s explanation.

  “Not directly,” Aemetta went on as she searched the bloody ground for something. “It was either stolen or destroyed. Whichever was the case, a group of Legionnaires without food from Dism Slyde or access to pure cofa is destined for failure. There would have been confusion—some probably remembered events that others believed were only dreams. Divisions formed, suspicion filled every thought, until things finally deteriorated to what you see here.”

  “How are you so sure of all this?” Stormsister Laersi asked, more stunned than skeptical.

  “Because I nearly suffered the same fate with my group,” Aemetta said softly, then she stopped suddenly near the edge of the clearing. “Judging by this trail of blood, the attacker went east; judging by the volume lost, she didn’t make it far.”

  “She?” Wyand asked as he followed Aemetta and stepped carefully between patches of dark-stained sand.

  Aemetta nodded. “The swing that killed the first man we inspected came from below. I didn’t meet any short male Legionnaires, but there were several women.” Whether it was a conscious decision or not, Aemetta spoke louder as she went on. “Besides, everyone knows the most feared members of the Shroud Legion are women.” Wyand glanced across the clearing at Gasric, but the Watch Leader remained motionless on his scrid.

  Vines and branches barred the way forward, but Aemetta pushed through them undeterred as she followed the blood-soaked sand. The trail ended several strides later at a group of three tall boulders that were surrounded by a group of gnarled old spineleaf. Propped against the base of one of these boulders was the body of the missing attacker—a shorter woman, exactly as Aemetta had described, with a gash on the left side of her stomach. Aemetta stepped forward and gently lifted the Legionnaire’s hooded head upright. After lowering the grey veil, Aemetta sighed. “I was afraid it would be her.”

  “You knew her,” Stormsister Laersi said with a sympathetic frown.

  “Her name was Fionra,” Aemetta replied sadly. “She was one of my trainers during the first few days with the Shroud Legion. Of the dead, she’s the only one I knew; I’ve seen all their faces before, but I don’t know the names of the others.” Aemetta lifted Fionra’s left hand and revealed a small vial made of wist reed that the woman had clung to in her final moments. After a quick search of Fionra’s pockets, Aemetta found the other six vials, all of which were empty. “Stolen, then,” Aemetta said with a nod. “So, it was an act of desperation. She must’ve longed to feel connected to the Venerates as an escape from the confusion and terror that had seized the entire group. In her madness, Fionra was willing to do anything to get more cofa, so I suspect she volunteered to keep watch. She slit five of their throats as they slept, but the sixth man woke up too soon and fought back.”

  Laersi placed her hand on Aemetta’s shoulder. “I wish we had found them sooner; perhaps we could have saved them. There’s nothing left for us to do here, though.”

  “There is one thing,” Carnan said suddenly, his voice once again catching Wyand by surprise. “We can’t leave her like this, or the others as they are. Help me lift her, Wyand.” Without protest, Wyand hoisted the upper half of Fionra’s body into his arms and walked solemnly behind Carnan towards the middle of the clearing. As soon as Gasric saw them coming and realized what they were carrying, he guided his scrid back through the entry tunnel to wait in the valley beyond.

  One after another they moved the Penitent Faithful beneath the still-smoking torch stand. When all seven bodies were in place, Aemetta lit a bundle of brush from the embers in the torch stand and spread its fire to each of the grey robes. “Such a waste,” Stormsister Laersi said sadly as the blaze grew larger, then they all returned to the waiting scrid in respectful silence before continuing the journey north.

  38

  Ryna wiped the sweat from her brow with her free hand; it was the coolest morning of the past three days, but her sweat stemmed from concentration and effort more than heat. On the small wooden pallet in front of her, a wounded Axebrother writhed in pain as he fought to stay alive. “More pressure there!” the Handsister called loudly, and Ryna gripped the man’s knee just beneath the arrow wound that was quickly draining the blood from his body. This brought forth another agonizing scream, but Ryna had learned quickly that sounds of pain were actually signs of hope—it meant the injured could still feel something. The Handsister worked furiously with various creams, powders, and bandages, but the bleeding continued. “It’s not working. Thirna!” the Handsister shouted in desperation, and the older woman hurried over from her own patient.

  Handsister Thirna’s eyes grew cold for an instant when she saw that Ryna was present, but she quickly refocused on the injured Axebrother. “I need a long bandage, now,” Thirna commanded, and the Handsister darted to another part of the sick tent. When she returned, Handsister Thirna wrapped the cloth above the arrow wound and tied both ends around a short stick, then she began to twist.

  “He’ll lose the leg!” the Handsister cried in dismay.

  “No other option,” Thirna grunted, then she paused in her efforts and looked at Ryna as another injured fighter was brought into the tent. “You do this. Keep twisting until the blood stops flowing, then twist three more times and tie the stick to his leg. I’m needed elsewhere.” With that, she moved on to the next crisis and left Ryna to the twisted bandage. The other Handsister, shaken by all that she had seen, watched helplessly as Ryna worked amid the steady flow of blood.

  “Can you apply pressure above the bandage?” Ryna asked through gritted teeth. The Handsister stepped forward in a daze, but at least she complied with Ryna’s request. There was no shout from the Axebrother this time—Ryna glanced at him and found that he was unconscious from pain, blood loss, or both. Still the wound bled, and still she kept twisting.

  “You can stop,” the Handsister said in a hollow voice a moment later. Ryna looked at the wound and saw dark blood still oozing from it, then she looked at the Handsister in confusion. “You can stop,�
�� the Handsister repeated as she lifted her hand off of the young man’s leg and backed away. Ryna opened her mouth to yell at the woman, but then she understood. The Axebrother’s face was grey, his eyes stared blankly at the canvas overhead, and his breathing had stopped completely. Ryna abandoned the bandage and rushed to place her ear on the man’s chest. As she had feared, there was no heartbeat within.

  “Cast me twice!” Ryna shouted, slamming her fist painfully onto the wooden pallet with tears in her eyes.

  “No time for that,” Thirna called from the other side of the tent. “Move on to the next one and try again.”

  Ryna breathed in through her nose in frustration and flexed her hand as it throbbed with pain. At least I can still feel something, she reminded herself as she glanced at the Axebrother a final time. Forgive me. She wiped away her sweat and tears, then moved swiftly to the nearest pallet and began assisting with the next fallen warrior from Cynmere.

  So it had been for the past day and a half. The first two days since Wyand left had consisted of nothing but painfully slow travel west, but that had all changed when the Plateau Desert came into view. For as far as anyone could see to both the north and the south, a solid wall of rolling grey smoke clung to the desert as though the sand itself had caught fire. Scouts had been sent in, but they never came back. Two rescue teams were sent in next, but they didn’t return either. After that, the Voice of War ordered that no one else enter the smoke, and so the Cynmeren had been forced to stare at the ominous grey wall ever since. To Ryna’s relief, they had chosen to set up camp several thousand strides away on the eastern slope of a tall hill, but it was still impossible to ignore glimpses of the smoke throughout the day’s tasks.

  During the first night in this camp, fighters from other Cynmeren outposts had begun to arrive with injuries that were too severe for their Handbrothers and Handsisters to heal. Since then, the number of injured had only increased, and they all told the same horrifying story: in one instant, all was calm with the smoke looming in the distance; in the next, a force of Smokedwellers more than a thousand strong would materialize at the edge of the Cynmeren camp and annihilate all who were within. Then, just as quickly as they appeared, the Smokedwellers would vanish once again into the billowing wall of grey.