The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “West along the tithe road?” Mika asked.

  “No. We must get down the valley and out to sea before they reach us in numbers. Those that can make the walk might survive, the rest will die.”

  The doorman and the girls had stayed clear of the melee after taking credit for inspiring the charge—leader now of our mob of an army. The city and the valley heard the battle and the resulting absence of the dark touch. The city emptied toward us and thousands more started down out of the hills. Many dragged their belongings along in carts or upon their back. One man carried a dead baby and a chair. The most foolish of them though, was a uniformed officer from one of the great Yudyith families who thought that he should start giving orders. The redhead struck him on the neck with a wicket chop of her pike and stripped the medals off his chest for the leader of our band to wear.

  We numbered 135,000 when we got them moving north. The man with the chair and baby sat down upon it and was left behind. Others fell from their wounds or tired of their possessions and we began to leave a trail of bodies and garbage.

  “Burn those that fall behind,” I said.

  “We don’t have time for the dead,” the redhead said.

  “The dead and the living. The darkness wants their bodies and their souls. Leave nothing alive or dead behind us, animal or otherwise.”

  This news fell hard upon them, and it took only a bit more daylight before the hawks began to shriek and dive at us. Drawn by the bird, caribou began to rush us in ones and two. The casualties were many, but nothing compared to the numbers that poured down from the villages and towns of that long and lush valley. The center of my mob was the only place I kept entirely free of the shadow, and like water into a rag, the Yud were drawn toward me.

  When we stopped the next morning along the river’s edge, we numbered 400,000. They were hungry, but were able to water themselves from a clean tributary. It was enough to get them up and moving as they suffered the march down to Soulenti.

  A hundred caribou tore up our back side as we approached Soulenti the next day, but it was better for the Yud that it happened, despite the 80,000 that died fighting them. There was no debate left in them when it was done. Every soul in the city joined us and we were a half million when we I got them moving down to the city’s harbor. It looked like a prince’s bathtub, so full of ships you could not see the water. The crafts had belonged to the poorer sailors of Havish, Dahar, and Aneth, and the people of Yudyith owed their salvation that day to the greed of their corsairs more than to me.

  They needed no encouragement and the many thousands of idle ships filled with people. Mika and rest of the leaders joined me aboard the largest ship in the harbor, and I became the admiral of that strange armada. Every able ship followed us north despite the approaching twilight, the poor tide, and lack of provisions. Many thousand were undoubtedly left behind, but I’d done enough already.

  I expected merriment as we sailed. They had escaped their blighted land, feckless leaders, and beast Hessier. They wept instead, and I was forced to suffer the sound of it. The peaches and purples of a magnificent sunset went unobserved while they looked south and wailed with sorrow. I did not understand it, and I was glad when the growing darkness got them all busy lighting lanterns to try to keep the man ships from sailing into each other.

  When we moved out over deeper water I felt the Spirit of the Vastness once again. It was welcoming this time, and I could not abide it.

  I would not be its champion.

  Still a feeling of satisfaction and wellness overcame me. Numbed flesh tingled and then woke. My stomach felt full and my pulse quickened. I stretched my back and everything popped. My eyesight sharpened and the clattering of voices and noises aboard became clear.

  As though I was a young man, I stood up straight and grinned stupidly at the moonlight. I tugged at remade teeth, laughed, and danced to the sound of it.

  “My,” Mika said and took my arm. “What happened to you?”

  The degree of the change was not clear to me until she took hold of my backside and pulled me close. I was muscled and firm, and when she kissed me I tasted her salty lips and the tang of wine upon her tongue. Perhaps there was someone aboard capable of celebration.

  “Are you the Shadow’s man again?” she asked.

  “Another has taken hold of me.”

  “Someone stronger?”

  “I don’t know yet. This seems a reward for getting everyone away.”

  “Sounds better than the business of Hessier.”

  “They are the same, I think.”

  “Are you like Soma now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She is something different, too. We’ve felt her magic.”

  “No. She was made by the Earth to kill the Hessier and their servants.”

  “I like the sound of that. Can we make more like her?”

  “I would not want more like her around.”

  She shrugged and kissed me again. Her hands moved inside my clothes. “You’ll keep it in mind, though. Imagine a girl like me with power like hers.”

  I did like the sound of that. I tried to kiss her again, but she took my hand instead. She led me down through the mournful press of people to a narrow space between the hull and a wall of barrels. She leaned me back onto the steep slope of the hull planks, pulled away our clothes, pressing her long body upon me. I lost myself amidst in the tumble of her—warm and welcome. We made love while the Vastness rushed by beneath us.

  “I am not a hero,” I said to the Spirit.

  “Good,” she replied, “It’s a killer I’m in the mood for.”

  Her soft lips and eager hands pressed upon me again. We nested into that space, and I was quickly lost to all the sensations and drifted up into nothingness.

  Something shifted. All at once I had the view from far above Zoviya that the Vastness enjoyed. I could see every flickering soul upon the earth, and their every quality and sadness, every friendship and enmity.

  I spotted Dia first in Pashwarmuth with two Vesteal children instead of the one. She’d gotten away from Geart somehow, but had been taken prisoner by Blemish slavers and was moving north toward the Halberdon. A tidal wave of caribou flowed toward her they could never hope to outrun. Barok was nearing the Kaaryon, too, his brothers each in command of their own forces in Bessradi, Alsonelm, and Courfel. They angers were aimed at each other and none of them were looking at the darkness that tumbled out of the Berm.

  Geart’s black host would soon outnumber them all. He was harvesting every man and animal in his path and would carry over Dia and then all of Zoviya’s petty soldiers.

  ‘Hey, stupid,’ I said across the vastness and flicked Geart soul. ‘Zoviya is mine. The mercury is mine. If you want it, you will have to kill me first.’

  I thought I heard a scream as all of Geart’s beasts turned toward me.

  Someone kissed my eyelids. “Where did you go?”

  “A quick nap,” I said.

  “You deserved one,” she said hugged me close.

  I left my eyes closed and slept the sleep of heroes.

  60

  Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  The 60th of Spring, 1197

  Sesmundi’s Keep was noisy, drafty, and dirty. Crickets and a fresh layer of ash found their way in each night and when the daily rain bathed its stone walls, they would tick louder than my knees.

  I dangled my feet over the edge of the bed, trying to get my knee to click in time with effects of the sunrise.

  “No sleep again?” Pikailia asked.

  I looked up at her through the tangles of my hair. The air of the mountain valley made her hair curl, too. She had corralled it with a wide headband. I was ready to cut mine off. She brushed the hair from my eyes and handed me an immense cup of mate with a heavy note of cinnamon. I took it and let the steam bath my face.

  “Has the rider arrived, yet?” I asked.

  “He is approaching the city now. It doesn’t look good.”

 
“Kiel was a fool for going. We’ll have a hard time keeping everyone in the city.”

  “Don’t be so sure. They stay for you, not for whomever they pick to succeed Kiel.”

  “I’m going to open the gate, regardless. The city can’t become a prison, and we’ve outstayed our welcome. We’ll sail for Enhedu when the wind starts shift.”

  “You’re confusing Aneth for Bessradi. You are not as hated as you think. Now get up, you old bag of bones.”

  The look I sent her was crueler than it should have been, but it didn’t move her. She put her hand upon my cheek instead. “You can be old tomorrow, mother. Today you are my admiral. I’ll fix your hair. Come, the sunshine will warm away your aches.”

  She was abusing an old mother’s love for her only surviving daughter. I could not stay mad at her. I gulped the brew while she coaxed my hair into shape. Her brightest smile always appeared when she was helping me into uniform and it cheered me, despite myself.

  We joined the city’s officers and loyal nobles above the keep’s gate while the city gathered to hear the rider’s news. He was young, wounded and upon a borrowed horse. He limped his way up, described the fate of Kiel’s army, and fell to his knees.

  I ordered the city’s pennant lowered and the city fell silent.

  “Who will take up Oenry Kiel’s crown?” I asked the gathered nobles. “Oenry had no sons. Will his uncle take claim it?”

  The old man knew I would ask. He stepped to the battlement and tapped his cane on the rocks to hush the crowd. “No. My time has passed.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment to prepare for the bickering that would follow. There were no great choices amongst the rest. The Yentif had beaten the spine out of Sesmundi years ago.

  “Which family has the consent of the rest to take up his crown?”

  None of them spoke. They looked at each other. Some pointed. Those pointed at shook their heads.

  “Very well,” one of them said. “I’ll do it.”

  “You’re a thief,” said another. “You should have been hung with your hoarding brother.”

  The squabble that followed was a blistering idiocy as predictable as the afternoon rain. The rapping of a cane carried over the battlement and the argument slowly came to a tentative pause.

  “Uncle Kiel,” I said. “You would suggest a claimant?”

  “I would,” he said, and the chattering nobility leaned in while he cleared his throat, all hoping like school boys to be picked. The air stilled as if everyone held their breath. Uncle Kiel stepped forward, his cane making one last tap on the stone. “I choose Soma O’Nropeel.”

  “What?” the men and I said in unison.

  I wanted nothing to do with it and opened my mouth to say no.

  “A woman isn’t capable,” one man said.

  “Excuse me?” I said and took three steps toward him. “Was it a man or a woman who bested your horses?”

  He wouldn’t answer.

  “Was it a man or woman that saved you from the corsairs? Was it a man or woman that has held this city together these 100 days?”

  “A woman,” he said toward his shoes.

  They all had their heads down. I’d taken center stage, and it was with an ugly flash that I started too late to look for a way out.

  “So, you would accept the crown?” uncle Kiel asked me. His mischievous smile was gone. He had his cane in both hands and looked me straight in the eyes.

  Pikailia stood wide-eyed and nodded her head angrily at me. Tayler and Graves were smiling.

  What had I done to desire it?

  I punished myself through memories of piloting my first barge, ease-dropping on my father as he out-negotiated greedy men, and learning to read when no one thought I should. I’d been making mistakes from the start, I supposed, if leaderships was not what I had intended.

  “I ... Yes,” I said, and before any upon the wall could voice opinion or decent, the city erupted with cheers and applause.

  “I’m glad I did your hair,” Pikailia said.

  “Shut up. You’re a princess now.”

  She gasped while the nobles slowly joined in the applause. Some looked for an exit.

  “Colonel Graves,” I said, “Get them all into line. Tayler, take each to their concern in writing, and read everything they say to the crowd.”

  My officers fell upon those men like a steel trap and it was with renewed cheers that each noble stepped to the battlements and declared to the expectant crowd that they had no objections.

  “With no objections raise,” Uncle Kiel said, “Will you take a knee, Madam O’Nropeel?”

  I looked down at the hard stone and grimaced. Pikailia untied her yellow jacket and bundled it into a makeshift pillow for me to kneel upon.

  I knelt before uncle Kiel and he held up a circle of silver for the crowd to see. It looked to be my size. The old man had a speech ready, too. My knees were screaming by the time he was done, and when I rose, the people of Sesmundi were waiting for my first command as their queen.

  “Rise,” I said and the city leapt up, screaming and dancing.

  I said some words, I think. Kindness, steadfastness, love of sea, love of our children.

  Climbing down off the battlement I lamented the extra work to be done. Tayler and Pikailia looked at me sideways, and I did not understand this until two days had passed with nothing much different about my day—save my headdress. I received visitors, kept the city organized, and got the farmers and villagers ready to return to their fields.

  On my third day as Queen of Aneth, and Pikailia arrived with my cup of mate and a bounce in her step.

  “What is it?”

  “The winds have picked up.”

  “Direction?”

  “North, ma’am. A strong gust. It’s pushed the ash column back out to sea.”

  I’d slept so well that night I had not noticed the added chill. It was the Bergion and that wind would blow the rest of the season.

  “I’ll have the crews to ship at once.”

  “So we are leaving?”

  “No. Patrols. If we can sail, so can the Yud. I want our fastest ship to run down to Hida and back, and have the rest prepared for engagement. We are no use to Dia here, but I’ll see the Yud bloodied enough that they never trouble these shores again. I’ll see to my uniform. Go.”

  She went and the same superstition that had kept the Anetheon from their boats had them crediting me for the new wind and leaping to their boats with vigor. Catches of fish began to come ashore and the masts of our patrols marked intervals upon the distant horizon.

  “What do we do, ma’am,” Graves asked, “if the Yud march on us instead?”

  “I’ll raid their supplies behind them and see them starve. They’d be a season marching pikemen this far. I’d welcome them to try.”

  The nervous nobles gathered behind him withdrew with tepid smiles. The concerns of farmers and fishermen were too much like the trouble of bargemen. They had needs, some of which only gods or great magic could solve. The rest were often simple problems of supply or transport. I borrowed heavily from the way Selt and Barok delegated but diverged when it came to the punishments for selfish acts. I had no tolerance for it.

  I was stuck in a debate regarding where to find enough bricks to shore up the river embankments around Sesmundi crumbling bridges when Pikailia interrupted. “Two of the patrol ships have broken line.”

  We’d expected it, and I ordered Pikailia to ready the Kingfisher and a squadron of our able craft. Before she set sail though, three more of the patrol ships broke back and the last followed before I’d made it up to the battlements of the keep.

  Each of returning ships had red pennants aloft, and I called every able man to the harbor.

  “You’ll stay here, ma’am,” Colonel Graves said. It was not a request, and I’d anticipated that the Chaukai meant to enforce my protection.

  “Yes, Colonel. I’ll command the day from here. Check the signalmen at the harbor mouth and let’s practice a r
elay of orders down and back to be sure of it.”

  It was midday on the 79th of Spring when we sighted the armada. The captain of the first returning patrol ship reported its number as beyond counting.

  I ordered our fastest ship out to get a closer look at them and the rest into deep water where they could find the best wind for the fight. I’d hoped to fight the Yud in series of smaller, more manageable engagements. All of them at once suited me fine. Numbers would not help their thin craft in the steep swells, and my great ships would ride them down like a galley did a longboat.

  Panicked people from the countryside began to stream into the city while the first of the local nobles arrived to clamor for an escort west or passage north. All the noisy people were ushered to a quiet hall where they would not get underfoot.

  I got a look at the Yud for myself then, and I thought at first the horizon was occupied by a single monstrous flotilla. On the armada came, its ships indeed beyond counting.

  But they did not move to engage Pikailia’s squadron, nor did they move to block the harbor. They eased into the shallows along the coast south of the city, weighed anchor, and bobbed in the waves. Twenty thousand ships or more piled up there with no ability to reach our harbor mouth, facing a wave battered beach that would kill as many got ashore if they tried a landing.

  Pikailia swung close to them and then darted back into the harbor while the Yud held position. I waved Pikailia in as she ran up with her report.

  “Not a single soldier aboard that we could see.”

  “Civilians?”

  “Refugees, ma’am, stacked thick on every deck. And, ma’am, I believe I saw Sikhek aboard the lead ship.”

  “What?”