by Sam Sykes
I glanced back to the forest horizon, and the Compass Beast’s great crested back that poked over it. “You might want to make your way back there before long.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “It’s… not there anymore. Burned or sacked or something. I don’t know. I was too little to remember much of it. Any of it.” She ran a finger down the long scar of her face. “Except this.”
I grimaced. I knew this story as deep as I knew my own. The Scar was littered with them—farms and villages growing in the shadow of bigger towns, prosperous one night and in ruins the next morning. There was no shortage of people trying to make a life in the Scar, and no shortage of people eager to take it from them. For every life carved out of the Scar, another grave is dug.
I wanted to tell her I was sorry, to reach out and squeeze her shoulder, like normal people. But the distance in her eyes, fixed on a horizon that wasn’t there anymore, told me that she’d heard that enough times to know she wasn’t normal anymore.
“They told you, right? The names?” Virian asked. “Two Trees? Rook’s First Thought? They say it every time they kill someone. Those were towns here, too. Closer to Paarl’s Hollow than Lowhill. They’re…” She shook her head. “Well, if they told you, you know.”
“You seem to know more about them than most,” I said. “I hadn’t even heard of them until two days ago.”
“I’ve been watching them, spying on them at night,” she said. “I know it’s dangerous, but no one else will do anything. The peacekeepers all said they were just bandits and would disappear once they saw the walls.” She cringed. “Well, they used to say that.”
“Is that it, then?” I muttered, rubbing at my wound. “They’re pissed that Paarl’s Hollow didn’t help them out?”
“Wouldn’t you be?” she asked. “If you lived within spitting distance of a small army that couldn’t be fucked to send even one sword to help you?”
My lips pursed. My eyes stopped blinking. And all the wounds in the world couldn’t chase the chill that settled into me.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would be.
That was the whole reason I was here. The list. The names. The people who held swords against me. The people who stood by and did nothing as something was taken from me.
My hand absently reached for the scar across my chest, the one that wended its way in a jagged line from my collarbone to my belly. The same one that ached whenever I touched the list, whenever I heard their names in my head.
Rint the Banner, Grisho the Spring…
Rogo the Dervish.
Yeah. I would be pissed.
“So, why are you up here, then?” I asked. “Sounds like you know them enough that you’d stand with them.” I plucked the string of her crossbow. “I guess the steel here is nicer, though.”
“Stop that,” she hissed, snatching her weapon up like it was an infant and I had a burlap sack. “And no. It’s not because of that. It’s because…” She sighed. “You’ve been around the Scar, right? You’ve seen bandit clans before.”
I did not respond for a long time. “I have.”
“Then it’s not going to stop with Paarl’s Hollow, is it?”
And then, a longer time. “It hasn’t so far.”
“Yeah. I didn’t think so.” Virian stared out toward the forest. “Maybe Paarl’s Hollow does deserve to burn for what it’s done. But whoever comes next might not.”
The earth trembled with the shake of a distant footstep. Ten ancient trees collapsed beneath a wave of dust. The great mountain of flesh in the distance grew closer.
“Well, good news for everyone,” I replied. “It’s not going to matter for much longer.”
“No, I guess not,” Virian sighed. “But then why is she waiting? There’s not going to be a town left for her to take revenge on. You talked to her, right? Did she say anything?”
“Oh, yes. Many things.”
“We can use that! Like what?”
“How the fuck should I know? I had a bolt in my leg for most of it.” I waved down her simmering frustration, stalked trouserless to the watchtower’s edge and pointed out to the forest. “But she knows what she’s doing, obviously.”
Virian glanced at my bandaged leg, snorted. “Obviously.”
“Yes, obviously,” I snapped back. “Maybe she’s got military experience, I don’t know. But knowing what I do know about her—namely, that she’s a pain in the ass…” I scratched my scar, idly. “She wasn’t counting on me showing up. That’s a complication. I’d bet metal that she’s waiting for the Beast to come a little closer so that she can take full advantage of the panic.”
Virian stood there for a long time—silent, still, staring out over the horizon. If she was smart, she’d be looking for an escape route, some path through the trees she could take her father with and run. If she was stupid, she’d be looking for the home she lost and thinking she’d never get another one. And if she was really stupid…
“Right.” She let out a long breath, turned toward me. “What’s the plan?”
I blinked. “Huh?”
“If they are waiting for the Beast, then we have to stop them before they strike.” Virian pointed, urgent. “There’s no way we’ll be getting the people to safety with bandits and the Beast bearing down on us.”
“There’s no way we’re getting anyone out of anywhere,” I replied, leaning back on the railing. “I didn’t fucking come here to fight bandits. I came here to kill Ro—”
“You can’t just let them die!” Virian interrupted sharply. “You said it yourself, it won’t stop after Paarl’s Hollow!”
“I did and it won’t.”
“And?”
“And neither will the approximate other ten Imperial fuck-loads of bandits prowling the Scar,” I replied. “They’re a fact of life out here.”
“And they’re right here. Right now. Right in front of you. You can kill them, can’t you? The stories say Sal the Cacophony can kill anything! You’ve only seen them once and you probably already know how to stop them!”
She was trying to appeal to my ego. How pathetic.
Not quite as pathetic as the fact that it kind of worked, but still.
“I…” I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know. They’re not fighters, obviously. Niri is holding them together.”
“So take her out and the rest fall.”
“So young and yet your mastery of the obvious is already so advanced.” I rolled my eyes. “And if it’s fucking clear to you, then you can be sure Niri’s smart enough to know that, too, which is why she’s hiding. I don’t know… you could lure her out or something. She seems emotional.”
“Okay. So that’s our best bet.”
“Your best bet. Your theoretical best bet.” I limped my way over to my pants draped over the railing. “I appreciate what you did for me. But fighting over a town that’s about to be pulped isn’t a good use of either of our time.”
“But… what about all the stories?” Virian pressed, voice shrill and desperate as she hurried after me. “The ones that said Sal the Cacophony could kill anyone? The ones that said Sal the Cacophony routed ten bandit clans in one night? The ones that—”
I whirled on her. Loomed over her. Stared at her through one, scar-kissed eye.
“Tell me,” I whispered, “how many stories have you heard where Sal the Cacophony left a town standing at the end?”
I’d seen this a hundred times, too. The look in her eyes.
That sputtering candlelight in someone’s gaze, flickering and growing dimmer, as they realize an ugly world got uglier. It’s the dropped smile and the cold fear on their face when they realize that killers aren’t heroes, steel isn’t freedom, and no story is ever as good the second time you hear it. I’d seen it on a hundred faces before I saw it on hers.
Funny. Normally it didn’t bother me that much.
But that was another problem I couldn’t afford to deal with. I already had wasted too much time on bandits, blood, and bickering. The
Compass Beast was getting closer and my chances of finding Rogo were looking dimmer. I would have asked Virian for her help, but she had that “total collapse of faith in humanity” look going on, so I decided against it.
A sound caught my ear. I glanced to the streets below and saw a flood of people. In wagons, on birdback, on foot—children, bakers, merchants, everyone flooded in a hurried, desperate tide toward the other end of the town.
“Maybe you can follow your friends down there,” I noted. “Seems like they’ve got a better plan.”
She damn near hurled both of us off the watchtower she ran to the railing so fast. Her brow furrowed as she watched the townspeople fleeing.
“What the fuck are they doing?” she muttered. “Why are they all heading for the East Gate? Do they—”
Her eyes drifted to the East and the sprawling forest that yawned out in all directions from it, bisected only by a tiny spit of road that wended its way through the trees.
“That’s stupid. There’s nothing east, but…” Her eyes rose higher, to the tall gray flag—just a scrap of cloth flapping in a breeze—rising out of the trees. “What’s that?”
“A gray flag?” I grunted. “Bandits use that sometimes to ask for a truce.” I glanced back toward the battle where I’d gotten my ass kicked. “Not sure why she would ask for one, since she’s winning, but there’s an old saying about not asking where the good fortune comes from.”
Not that Virian heard it. Or any of what I had just said, actually. Instead, she snatched up her crossbow and went tearing down the watchtower’s stairs. I tried to stop her…
Okay, I thought about trying to stop her.
But of all the nuisances I encountered out here, idealists were the worst. Immune to logic, practicality, or good sense, there was no help for idealists short of shattering their tender worldview—and I always ended up feeling like an asshole after that.
No, I told myself as I limped to the railing and peered down at the tide of humanity fleeing east, better to just let that problem solve itself. Sal the Cacophony wasn’t a savior. Sal the Cacophony hadn’t come here to save anyone. She’d come to find a man who needed to die.
… even though that man might be down in that tide even now, escaping.
… and if there was trouble, there would be way more dead than just him.
… and Virian looked like she thought there was going to be trouble, and she did save my life, and I liked her temper, and…
“Fuck,” I sighed as I limped toward the stairs. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
This. This shit right here? This is the problem with idealists. If you don’t take the time to disabuse them of their naïve and gullible worldviews, you end up with a whole mess of scruples and no one has fucking time for that.
Except Sal the Dumbshit Cacophony, I guess.
And so it was Sal the Dumbshit that went down the stairs. Sal the Time-Wasting Idiot who let out a sharp whistle over the side of the tower. Sal the Come-All-This-Way-to-Kill-a-Guy-and-End-Up-Following-a-Girl-Around-Again who reached for her gun…
… and shortly after Sal the Pantsless came back up the stairs, collected her trousers, and went back down, things started to get hairy.
FIVE
The East Gate
“Virian!”
I wasn’t there when Rogo the Dervish—betrayer, Vagrant, killer—burst out of the East Gate and waded into the tide of people.
“Virian!”
I don’t know what he said in the moments before everything got bad.
“VIRIAN!”
But I like to think that’s what he shouted. Her name. I like to think that’s who he looked for. I like to think…
That what happened that day was an accident.
But whatever he said, I know Rogo came out of the East Gate in the press of bodies, one more unassuming shape in the crowd. I know he pushed his way out of the panic and chaos. I know he didn’t notice the way his neighbors now looked at him with greater fear than the bandits.
“Rathaxes!” He spotted a familiar face in the crowd, glanced his way for but a few seconds before averting his eyes. “Rathaxes! What’s going on!” He ran to his neighbor, lay a hand on his shoulder. “Where’s Virian? What’s—”
“DON’T TOUCH ME!”
Rathaxes pulled away, regarded his old friend with wary fear.
“Rathaxes?” Rogo asked. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Rathaxes let out a laugh breathless with hysteria. “You’re a fucking Vagrant, Rodaya? All these years, I was living next to a fucking mage?”
“I… it’s complicated, Rathaxes,” Rogo replied. “And here is not the place for it to get simpler. Where is Virian?”
Rathaxes kept his stare wide and his lips sealed.
“RATHAXES!” The last of Rogo’s patience died and was buried under his roar. “Where is Virian?”
“How can I tell you, Rodaya?” Rathaxes snapped. “I don’t even know who you are. You’re a…” He leaned forward, whispered sharply. “Do you know how many of us have lost homes to Vagrants? Families? Loved ones? My own fucking son was burned alive like a fucking spit hog by your vile breed.”
“Rathaxes, I am your neighbor,” Rogo replied, forcing his anger down. “I came to you as your neighbor. I lived with you as your neighbor. And if you never wish to see me again, I will part with you as your enemy, but I am not like the other Vagrants.”
“I saw what you did to Grylla. He was… he was a fool, but he was one of us and you just…” Rathaxes swallowed hard. “Can you tell me you never did that to anyone else, Rodaya?”
“It was necessary.”
“And has it been necessary every time you’ve done it, Rodaya? Can you even remember? Do you even know? Does Virian?”
Without realizing it, Rogo’s hand drifted to the hilt of his sword. And once he put hand to grip, a cold shudder shot through him. He remembered that dark night in that dark place when he’d held this blade, when he’d wielded it against someone he once called a comrade. And he realized two things.
He could never tell Rathaxes that he hadn’t hurt people who hadn’t deserved it.
And his sword was not going to solve this. Just like it hadn’t solved anything that night.
Or so I liked to think.
“Listen, Rodaya,” Rathaxes whispered. “The Children of the Dead have given us an offer to escape if we leave behind tribute. And we’re taking it.”
Rogo’s eyes drifted to Rathaxes’s wagon, still laden with goods and metal, and wondered what tribute had actually been left behind.
“You’ll find no succor from us,” he continued, “but if you’re smart, you’ll take Virian…” He paused. “You’ll see if Virian wants you to take her anywhere and you’ll get the fuck out of here.”
The earth shook under their feet. People were knocked to the ground. Birds squawked, trying to flee with the burdens put upon them. The screaming of the people was drowned beneath a deep, resonant bellow.
The Beast was closer.
“Goodbye, Rodaya,” Rathaxes said, seizing his bird’s reins and turning. “Or whoever the fuck you were.”
Rathaxes, his bird, his possessions, they all became indistinct as he faded into the crowd. Rogo’s hand clenched, the old muscles in his hands telling him of better times—times when a peon like Rathaxes wouldn’t dare turn his back, wouldn’t dare speak to a mage of the Imperium like that.
Wouldn’t it be nice, those old muscles seemed to say, in all the old comforting ways that people who know how to destroy you do, to just… make him tell you?
It would, he agreed.
He set off after Rathaxes—neighbors or no, Virian’s well-being was at stake. It wouldn’t take much—a few broken fingers, maybe a femur. Effortless. And if Rathaxes didn’t know, or wouldn’t say, someone else would. They were all smaller, slower, dumber, weaker—and Virian was still missing.
If that was how it had to be, then that was how it had to be.
Or at leas
t… I like to think he thought that.
It’s hard not to, carrying steel like ours.
Rogo pushed through the crowd after Rathaxes. But he couldn’t recognize his neighbor as the tide became a stream of desperate people and their belongings fleeing down the road. He couldn’t recognize any of the horrified, disgusted, or furious faces that dared to meet his eyes.
There was Tanil, and Marle Clever and her children, and young Benthis—he knew them by shape and distant memory. But had they always been this small? This frail? This ruled by emotions? Next to Virian, they had always seemed quaint, but now that they were keeping her from him, he couldn’t see neighbors anymore. He couldn’t see humans.
All he could see was a sea of nuls standing between him and…
“Virian!”
Brown hair. Slight frame. There she was, hurrying along with the rest of them. He pushed through the crowd to get to her.
“Virian!” he shouted. She did not stop.
He shoved aside Rhel, who held up his rake like that was going to do anything.
“Virian!” he screamed. She did not stop.
He pushed past Andilia, whose children cowered behind her skirts as he passed.
“VIRIAN!” he roared. And she still did not stop.
He went through them, their horrified faces and their cringing eyes, until he came up to her. She tried to bolt. She couldn’t run. He had to explain to her. He had to make this right. His hand shot out, caught her by the shoulder.
“Virian,” he said, “why are—”
He seized her, whirled her around.
It wasn’t her.
“Oh,” he said, “I’m…”
She struck him. As hard, as desperate, as terrified as she could, she struck him across the face, pushed away from him, backed away with her tiny fists up. He pressed a hand to his cheek, to the three red lines her nails had carved across his face. He looked back at her: tiny, pathetic, weak, terrified.
And yet, she’d fight him. As desperately as though he were a monster.
“There’s been a mistake,” he said.
“Stay away from me!” she screamed.
“Please, I’m just trying to find Virian.”
