Unclean

by A. M. Manay

“Indeed. Hatch had your father dispatch men to fill wagons with as much as they could carry and stashed the loads behind the waterfall. I had him send for some of it and store it here once he told me the tale of the horse.”

  “Some of it? You mean there’s more?”

  “Tons of it, Shiloh. Tons! If there is anything the Free know how to do efficiently, it’s loot.”

  “What would you have me do with it?” she asked.

  “Anything you can imagine.”

  As it turned out, there was no screaming, not at first. Henrik was ready to bare his soul.

  “How long?” Keegan asked. His eyes were cold as ice.

  “Since I joined you. It was supposed to just be during the war, but when it was over, Fenroh wanted to keep an eye on your people. He had seen how vital you were to Alissa’s cause, lost though it was.”

  “You were mostly dead when we found you in those early days of the fighting,” Keegan observed. “You even burned off your tattoo yourself. That is some commitment to the deception.”

  Henrik snorted a laugh. “What can I say? My family were all killed during the first battle of the war. I blamed Alissa, and my religious convictions were strong then. I thought I was doing the Gods’ work. I was a true believer.”

  “Was?” Silas asked.

  “You can’t live with people for this long without . . .” Henrik shook his head. “Look, I didn’t know about Olin. Not any of it. I wouldn’t have let him hurt that child. There are limits to my villainy. I’m willing to help you. If you want me to mislead Fenroh or—”

  “How much harm have you done, Henrik? Does Fenroh know the location of Freehold?” Keegan demanded.

  “He thinks he does. I lied, I swear,” Henrik insisted.

  “Did your woman know what you are?” Keegan asked.

  Henrik shook his head. “No. Of course not. She must be . . . Gods, what she must think of me. We have only been together a short time. You know this. I knew you would not hurt her, so I left her behind. I told her I was going hunting and would return in a few weeks. I wanted her to think I died in an avalanche or some other accident, so she wouldn’t have to know.”

  “How do you communicate with Fenroh?” Silas asked.

  “Letters. He has trained pigeons,” Henrik replied.

  “What happened at the Citadel?” Keegan asked.

  “When you asked for volunteers, I stepped forward because I didn’t want one of the others to get killed. When I arrived, he wanted me to help him break your girl, so we put on a show.” He swallowed heavily. “She looked so horrified. So innocent. He told me he intended for me to escape, in time, and return to my work reporting on your activity. In the meantime, he stuck me in a cell among the priests of the order. I saw old friends I hadn’t laid eyes upon in so many years. They welcomed me as though I had come back from the dead. Called me a hero. I should have been happy to be home, but . . . it was so strange. The way they talked about this so-called ‘Purification’ . . . they seemed like monsters to me.”

  “We’ll get to old crimes later, but what have you been doing for him since you left the Citadel?” Keegan demanded.

  “I told him who came with us, Mosspeak and Rischar’s last wife and the baby. I told him Shiloh was very sick, in the hopes he would leave her be.”

  “Did you tell him that Olin got caught?” Silas asked.

  Henrik shook his head.

  “Are there other agents here? Fenroh’s or the crown’s?” Silas pressed.

  “Not that I know about,” Henrik insisted.

  Keegan and Silas exchanged a long look. Silas drew his wand and heaved a heavy sigh before speaking.

  “We have to be sure.”

  “What are you working on?” Silas asked.

  Shiloh had been sitting at her little desk for the better part of an hour, scribbling notes.

  She looked up. “I'm just working through some ideas about what to do with the special steel.”

  “Like what?” he inquired.

  “Well, the problem with the horse was that it was so heavy, arrogant as I was about the weight at the time. It was tiring to keep it in the air after a while. So, I'm trying to figure out how much of it has to be made of steel in order for it to respond to me. Or maybe I can just make a skeleton of sorts? I'm still thinking it through. I was also thinking of a ship that glides on air instead of in the water, or a flying wagon. Think how handy that would be in the winter when the roads are bad and the passes blocked.”

  “Perhaps you should make some spare wands for yourself while you're at it,” Silas suggested.

  “That's a good idea,” Shiloh replied, jotting down the suggestion. “They wouldn't be as pretty as this one, but any port in a storm, after all. You wouldn’t believe some of the ideas Elton came up with: flying machines, boats that go underwater, a self-propelled plow.” She looked up again. “Why did you have Keegan bring so much steel?”

  “I had a feeling that it could be valuable. And after I saw that horse you made, I wondered what else you might be able to do with it, given more time.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you are leaving something out?”

  Silas swallowed heavily. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

  She studied him for a long moment, then returned her eyes to her work.

  “How did it go with Henrik?” she asked.

  “Well enough. He was remorseful. Sang like a bird. He agreed to continue to send letters to Fenroh, to provide misinformation. I had to . . . make sure he wasn’t holding anything back. He wasn’t.”

  She looked up again. “Are you all right?”

  A laugh escaped through his nose. “You are the only one who has ever asked me that, after I’ve tortured someone.”

  “I’m also the only one who has ever been your wife,” she pointed out.

  “To my great good fortune. I always fear you’ll be disgusted with me. Before you, there was no one whose judgment could wound me.”

  “I’ve killed a lot of people, Silas. It pains me to know you do such things, and that I have done such things, but I’m hardly in a position to judge your gift for violence.” Her face clouded. “I’m afraid, Silas.”

  He took her hand. “Afraid of what, little bird?”

  “Afraid that, at some point, it won’t hurt anymore.”

  Barr laughed from where he lay prone in the slush. “Better, sister. Better.”

  “Better, nothing. I knocked you clean off your horse!” Shiloh countered, shouting from a few dozen yards away.

  “I was sitting still!” he protested.

  “But I wasn’t!” she argued. “I still get five points.”

  “Fine, fine,” he acquiesced, holding up his hands in surrender. He stood and remounted his horse, then trotted over to Shiloh, dripping.

  “I still want to know what I get when I reach a hundred points,” she said. “There had better be a prize.”

  “You get to be a decent horsewoman again,” Barr teased back.

  “It’s not my fault I’m so out of practice,” she complained.

  “Yes, prison and sickness will do that,” Barr allowed.

  “Between working with the steel in the mornings and you in the afternoons, I feel almost like I’m back at school,” she confessed. “It’s rather comforting, actually, even if Silas did put you up to it.”

  He smiled. “Is it that obvious?”

  “He wants me ready for a fight. He wanted the same when I first arrived at Greenhill Palace. To make me a weapon.” She looked toward the great cliff. “The view here is much better, though.”

  “He knows the fight is coming. He wants you to have the best chance of surviving it,” Barr asserted.

  “He also wants me to have the best chance of winning it,” Shiloh shot back. “He never stops scheming. I don’t think he can.”

  “Father is the same way. It’s how they know they’re still alive. When I get frustrated with him, Gret says that we have to love him for who he is, not for who we
wish he was.”

  “Hmph,” Shiloh replied.

  “Let’s head back. I smell snow,” Barr declared. “I want to see you cross the meadow at a gallop. Last one there curries the horses!”

  “What in the Gods’ names is that?” Silas breathed. He examined the miniature beast of steel, with its wings and pointed tail. “I thought you were going to make another horse.”

  “A dragon,” Shiloh answered, eyes full of mischief. “Like from those old legends from Vreeland—you remember, St. Kira and all the rest.”

  “Does it do anything?” he asked.

  Shiloh lifted her hand. “I don’t even need a wand to make it move, as long as I don’t try to send it too far away from me,” she shared. “Look!”

  In moments, the dragon was airborne, flying around the workshop. It hovered next to a candle and belched a flame, setting the wick alight, then landed back where it had started atop Shiloh’s desk.

  “That's amazing,” Silas declared. “Marvelous.”

  “It's just a toy,” Shiloh protested, but she could not hide her pleasure at the compliment.

  “Not if you can make a bigger one,” Silas countered.

  “Whatever for?” she asked. Realization dawned. “Can’t it just be pretty? Can’t it just be a curiosity? Why is it always about weapons with you?”

  “Not always,” he retorted. “But there will come a time when we need an advantage, and we mustn’t be picky about what form it takes. People like us only survive by being prepared for battle, Shiloh.”

  “You made Keegan gather that steel because you thought I could use it to kill people,” she accused.

  “I thought you could use it to save people, Shiloh,” he protested.

  “Really? Then why didn’t you tell me about it? Why did you manipulate me into using it? You even enlisted Master Bentin in your scheming.” She shook her head. “I should think you would trust me by now. You should be able to talk to me directly.”

  “I do trust you. I just . . .” Silas began. “I had only just gotten you back. I feared to push you away again. And I wasn’t accustomed to treating you as a partner. But I’m telling you now. Yes, I think you should make weapons with it. Because war is coming, whether we will it or no. And if you can end it quickly, innocent lives will be saved.”

  She sighed heavily. “I suppose I should tell you, then, that I can do spells with it. It acts like a wand, like how I used the Citadel to amplify my countercurse and heal the Deadlands.”

  “You don't have to be touching it?”

  “No, if it’s close, but I’ve only tried simple magic so far, since I also have to exert some effort to keep it in the air. I imagine with some practice, I could do more difficult things, maybe even use more than one at a time . . .”

  Silas grinned a savage grin. “Then you’d best practice.”

  The celebration of the Vernal Equinox was not generally as raucous an affair as Winter Solstice, the traditions a bit gentler. Flowers were exchanged between friends and lovers. If one met another beneath the shade of a tree, one was obliged to exchange an embrace. Offerings were made to the Maiden and the Youth, and tokens of affection exchanged between married couples. Shiloh had made Silas a set of twelve wands. He gave her a bottle of honeysuckle perfume and a granite statue of the Mother.

  The feast at sunset was preceded by group dancing, led by the young girls who had become women since the last spring equinox. They pulled folks in from the crowd until long lines of dancers wove in and out in patterns more intricate than any Shiloh had seen at court or back in her village. She sat on a log at the edge of the clearing, smiling as she watched. Keegan had taken a seat on one side of her, Silas on the other.

  “The dances are lovely,” she commented.

  “Indeed,” Keegan agreed. “Let us hope there will be less excitement than at the last holiday.”

  “Look, Queen Penn is dancing next to Barr,” Silas pointed out.

  “It's good to see her smiling a bit,” Shiloh answered.

  Keegan shook his head. “I don't like it,” he declared. “He should marry one of our own.”

  “What, like you did?” Shiloh scoffed. “She is a lovely person.”

  “I can't deny that,” Keegan agreed. “But she will want to leave us, go back to the life of a noblewoman. Barr does not belong in that world any more than she belongs in ours.”

  “And if Alissa had won her war, what would you have done?” Shiloh asked. “Would you have gone back to the Teeth without her, or would you have adapted to a life at her side, at least part of the time?”

  Silas laughed freely, relaxed by drink. “She's got you there, Keegan.”

  “Maybe there will come a time when our worlds are not so separate,” Keegan grudgingly allowed. “But I'm not holding my breath.”

  The spring sun felt warm on Silas’s back. He looked at the creature Shiloh had assembled from the parts she had crafted over the last months of winter.

  “It's beautiful,” Silas breathed.

  “I know,” Shiloh replied with a grin.

  It was like a pencil sketch come to life, a smooth metal skeleton with no skin or muscle to blur the lines. The bones of its wings stretched like slender fingers reaching for the strings of a harp. Its skull was stylized, curving smoothly with none of the bumps and bulges of the truly alive. Its spine of interlocking gears ended with a spiked tail, its back the perfect width for Shiloh to ride comfortably astride. She strapped on a padded leather seat, then climbed aboard. She wore a harness over her clothes, which she clipped to a ring she had incorporated into the dragon’s neck, lest she fall. There was a handle as well, which she gripped with her hand.

  “Here goes,” she muttered.

  She closed her eyes. They leapt into the air. Shiloh laughed as she swooped in large, slow circles around Silas, who grinned like a fool.

  “Try the thing!” he yelled.

  In response, an enormous tongue of flame erupted from the steel monster’s mouth. Silas threw back his head, laughing with delight. He could feel the heat on his face, freshly shaven and now free of his winter beard.

  Shiloh circled lower and lower until she landed in the grass, the dragon’s legs running a few paces to bleed off the last of the speed. Silas helped her down from the metal beast.

  “Tomorrow, we should put out some targets for practice,” he suggested.

  Shiloh nodded her agreement, but her face was troubled. Silas took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

  “This creature will save legions, little bird. No one has ever seen anything like it. The crown’s troops will surrender or run in retreat as soon as they see what it can do. That’s before we even get to everything else you've made. The best war is a short war. With this, you can chase Westan back to Gerne and save countless Brynish lives besides,” he pledged.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, eyes pleading for absolution.

  He kissed her on the forehead, gazing at the dragon over her head. Shiloh couldn't see the flash of guilt in his eyes.

  “Yes, I'm sure,” Silas promised.

  I hope.

  Shiloh had just fallen asleep when the news came. She awoke to pounding on the door. Her hand flew to her wand on the bedside table. Silas was already on his feet, weapon in hand.

  They approached the door cautiously, Silas keeping Shiloh behind him with one arm while the other hand trained his wand upon the door. They relaxed slightly when Keegan’s voice called out.

  “I have news! Open the door!”

  Shiloh obliged to find Keegan looking rather more disheveled than usual, a cape flung over his nightshirt.

  “The queen is dead,” he panted, leaning on the doorframe.

  “Are you sure?” Silas demanded.

  Keegan nodded. “Barr just got back from the closest village of Citizens. Official notices are posted. The people are in an uproar.”

  Silas raised an eyebrow and looked toward Shiloh. Slowly, he sank to one knee.

  “Long live the queen
,” he proclaimed.

  “For heaven’s sake, get up off the floor,” Shiloh told Silas, exasperated. She kicked him in the leg with her bare foot.

  “He's right, Shiloh. I'd be kneeling, too, except that we don't do that sort of thing,” Keegan said. “Esta has died without issue. Rischar’s line is ended. You are the only legitimate descendant of Jerroh remaining. Hell, I don’t think there are even any royal bastards left except old Markas. It’s down to you, daughter. You are the only thing left to stop a Gernish takeover or another lengthy civil war. Not that I particularly care what happens to Bryn.”

  Shiloh looked from one to the other and back again, then turned and sank onto one of the cushions in their front room.

  “So what happens now?” she asked quietly, struggling to still the tremor in her voice.

  “I will be able to contact Lord Redwood by mirror tomorrow night,” Silas began. “He should be able to confirm the information, perhaps give us some insight into Westan’s plans.”

  “Westan will surely move to consolidate power,” Keegan continued. “You are a loose end. Resistance could coalesce around you, and he can't have that. Besides, he may think Loor is still here, alive and well. He’d want her alive.”

  “You think he will send troops into the Teeth?” Shiloh asked.

  “Or he could have an agent of his own here, like Esta did,” Silas pointed out.

  Keegan shook his head. “If he did, the agent would have already made an attempt on Shiloh’s life.”

  Silas shrugged. “Maybe so. Even still, let's keep this quiet as long as we can. I'll see what I can get out of Daved tomorrow night. They won't be able to send anyone until the thaw finishes and the roads dry out, anyway . . . And as for you, Your Grace . . .”

  “Please don't call me that.” Shiloh scowled. “At least not in private, for heaven’s sake.”

  He smiled sadly. “You had better finish all your projects, little bird. We’re going to need them.”

  “I mustn’t sleep here anymore, Shiloh.” Silas forced himself to look at her, sitting alone on the edge of the bed, but she kept her eyes trained on the floor.