Steelflower in Snow

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “And he stinks of the sorcerous urine used, no doubt.” Redfist addressed himself to Korbrin. “Still think me a kinslayer and a liar, Steward?”

  The dark Skaialan’s jaw hardened. “I think ye a selfish brat, Rainak Redfist. That has not changed.”

  “Ye may duel over such words later,” Emrath broke in. “Tell us, Lady Gemerh.” The Skaialan approximation of G’mai she addressed to Janaire, and quite respectfully, too. “What may be done to break this witched gem?”

  “Break it?” Korbrin did not let Janaire speak.

  Emrath regarded him steadily. “Aye. Without it, he is simply another clan leader, one who has not made many friends. And his Black Brothers, too—breaking the gem means he may not make more.” An impatient movement of her shoulders—she was used to the men around her being slow to the point, and for a moment I felt for her. “Or it may rob the ones he has of their cursed life. So, tell us, Lady Gemerh. How may we fight or destroy that thing?”

  All eyes rested upon the Gavridar now. Janaire colored slightly, glancing at me. Her tradetongue might not be equal to the task.

  “Speak in whatever tongue you wish.” I hoped I wore an encouraging expression, and nodded. “Anything you may tell them would be a great help, Yada’Adais. I will translate, should you have difficulty.”

  “I do not know much,” she began in G’mai, her inflection soft and troubled. “It is a blasphemous thing, to steal the will from another; it is a blasphemous thing to create such an artifact. It sought to control the whole room, but your silence—Kaia, it is like a s’tarei’s—choked it. So I was able to turn the force back on itself. Otherwise…I would not have been troubled overmuch by it, because of s’tarei’mi.” Behind her chair, Atyarik straightened perceptibly. Her hand crept upward; his found her shoulder, and they drew both visibly drew comfort from the touch. “But the others? Yes, they would have fallen victim, and even your silence or your sword might not have held them. So. The means of making such an artifact—”

  “What does she say?” The blond blesagathk drummed his meaty fingers upon the tabletop as the fire—a mighty mound of blackrock, putting out what heat it could—made a whispering sound. The priest’s nose was the same shape as the other blond’s, and I thought them perhaps related.

  “When she is finished, I will tell you,” I snapped, then shifted to G’mai again. “Forgive the barbarian’s rudeness, Yada’Adais. You were saying?”

  Janaire’s eyes glistened. Was she about to weep? “Oh, now you are so polite.” Her hand tensed upon Atyarik’s, and the Tyaanismir glared at me. “To make such a thing, much Power must be wedded to a physical thing. A sticking-post.” The word was for a spike driven deep to hobble a restive horse, but her inflection stripped it of any double meaning. “Break the physical thing, and the Power will drain away from its shards over time. Yet it may resist fracture, since Power strengthens, and if it is broken, it may take a long while to lose its potency.”

  I translated as well as I could, Skaialan and tradetongue, sometimes repeating myself in both to make certain of precision. Emrath steepled her fingers before her face, and her grey eyes half-lidded as she settled in her chair. This aspect of her—calm, thoughtful, and distant—was new.

  “Oh, what I’d give for Kroth’s other hammer,” Jorath Blacknose finally said, when I made it clear I was finished. Every Skaialan present smiled; it was part of one of their proverbs.

  “So I fight him tomorrow at noon.” Redfist dropped his fist on the table, but gently, thoughtfully, punctuation instead of pounding. “The Gemerh keep his blasted gem from aiding him, and when we are done, we take the hideous thing and pound it to pieces with the hammer at the Stones.”

  “It may not be that simple.” I dispelled the urge to swing my feet, since they barely touched the floor, and my thoughtfulness matched Emrath’s. The change in this particular battlefield was not a good one. “He did not expect the gem to be countered, and now he is wary and warned.”

  “Aye.” Emrath pressed her fingers together harder, knuckle and fingertip whitening together. Her stillness was almost an assassin’s. “If he sends his Black Brothers, we may all be dead in our beds come morn. Or if they second him tomorrow—”

  “I shall have the Gemerh men second me.” Redfist said it as if it were already decided. “They are canny fighters, are they not? And proof to such things?”

  “If they agree,” I pointed out, mildly. “Janaire may not wish to risk her s’tarei in such a fashion, Redfist, and I am not certain I wish to risk mine.” Especially against those…things. “If need be, I shall second you. But are you so certain he will tamely walk to the dancing-ground?” For I was not, and the more I considered the situation, the more I thought knifing the man before he could cause more mischief was the less honorable but more effective path.

  And once I elicited any information about where he was likely to rest this eve, I could begin the work immediately.

  “Kaia—” Darik subsided when I tensed, but his quiet promised trouble as soon as we were alone.

  Korbrin’s laughter, rich and deep, took us all by surprise. “She speaks as a wal’kir indeed, this one.” The edge to the words was not polite, nor helpful, and the steward regarded me balefully.

  “Picked my pocket in a city full of little men, and I’ve not been free of her since.” Redfist glowered, but not at him. “Lass, in the Highlands, women are not seconds. Dunkast will—”

  “I care little what he thinks, or your barbarian countrymen.” My temper, firmly reined since I awoke that morning, was sadly frayed. “You were my second not so long ago, Rainak Redfist, and I shall thank you to let me return the favor. If you like, it will make us quits and you will be free of me.” I could not push the massive chair back quickly enough; my heels would not reach the floor. I felt D’ri’s hurried move aside. “Or before you fight Dunkast, I will call you to the dueling circle myself, to teach you not to treat me as one of your trammeled sows.”

  “Kaia—” Janaire began, faintly.

  “And you,” I interrupted, rounding upon her. It felt better to be on my feet instead of lost in a too-big chair, a doll or child forgotten after a feast. “I left you safe in Antai, with enough gold to get you all through the winter. What possessed you to bring your s’tarei and a child, and that blasted lutebanger, into this manner of danger?”

  “This blasted lutebanger would have come anyway,” Gavrin retorted hotly, clipping the end from my question. “You are not my mother, Kaia Steelflower, and I was manumit before I met you. We are not your children or your slaves.”

  I paused, my hand resting upon the high, peaked chair-back. Silence crawled through the room, underscored only by the snap and pop of burning in the fireplace. Weak light gilded each edge, already dying in the corners.

  The nights are hungry in the winter Highlands, and they eat half the day. “Very well,” I began, and the Moon Herself witness me, I was on the verge of saying something irredeemable.

  Perhaps it was a blessing I did not have the chance. There was a series of splintering knocks upon the door, and one of Emrath’s tain—a weedy young man just past his axe-gifting—burst in. Had he not been instantly recognizable, I do not doubt one or more of those present might have sent steel into his guts, one way or another; a general movement of hand to hilt or haft and chairs pushed back almost swallowed his first words.

  “Fire!” he gasped. “Ferulaine. The walls. Fire!”

  Dunkast Ferulaine did not intend to meet Rainak Redfist in single combat. Instead, he had brought not only his clan, but the other “bastard” ones from the fringes of Highlands, eking out a living on the wastelands none of the others wanted. They flocked to his banner, expecting a greater place at the councils of the Highlands, full votes instead of half. They believed he would grant it, for those who hewed to him before he was King in truth.

  And if they had to break Kalburn’s city and keep to rid their chieftain of the one man—not to mention the wife— who looked likely halt Dunkast’s
plans, they would do their best.

  His Great Lumpen Self

  When they sing of siege and battle, many are the things left out of quatrain and melody. Like the screams of those trapped in burning houses, the cries of those who run from the inferno only to be cut down by the blood-minded or battle-mad, or the sweetish roasting scent of burned people-flesh and the brass note of death upon a great scale settling over a battlefield like folded, feathered wings.

  The trade-arms and slums of Kalburn outside the Old City’s walls were aflame. When the wind veered, it carried a breath of burning upon its icy back as well as that brass-note, and the faint skirling echoes of death dealt to those who carry no blades as well. Horns sounded at each Old City gate—the tain in charge of the walls had reacted swiftly, for the Lady of Kalburn had given orders that the Old City was to be sealed as soon as her erstwhile husband left that morn. Massive gates, creaking and groaning, had shut almost in the face of the first band of screaming Skaialan, their faces smeared with chalky paint, who attempted to take the guard-house at the northernmost one.

  Unfortunately, the East Gate, facing the road to the Standing Stones, was not quick enough. We did not know exactly what had happened there, since the tain responsible for its guarding did not survive.

  Often afterwards I thought upon it, and decided Dunkast had given his orders early too. A fighting withdrawal through an old Skaialan city with narrow, winding cobbled ways was underway. When it approached the Keep itself, then I could do some good. The Old City roiled like a poked anthill inside its stone skirting.

  I stood next to Redfist on the battlements of Kalburn Keep, both of us wrapped against the wind. His blue gaze fixed north and his beard catching small flakes of blowing snow, he was a welcome windbreak, but his wrinkled brow spelled worry in characters as plain-spiked as Skaialan scratch-writing. “She suspected this,” he said, finally. “Canny girl.”

  So far, Emrath Needleslay was a length ahead of any pursuer. It remained to see whether she could win the race, or if she were a hare doomed to the stew-pot. “Tis no great trick to plan for the worst.” I sank my chin into the fur collar of a quilted, lined jacket. My ear-tips were miserably cold again. “Did you think he would face you honorably, then?”

  “The challenge was issued in front of the tain.” Redfist shook his red-furred head. It seemed he could not, even after this, compass his once-brother’s treachery. “Is he mad? The clans will—”

  I thought he simply wished someone else to say the obvious, so he could hear the terrain as well as see its hollows and peaks. Often a general needs an adjii to do so, and this was, after all, his land. So I obliged, as I had more than once for Ammerdahl Rikyat or a ship-captain who had earned my aid. “If he kills you, do you think any from the others will take your place? He cannot kill Emrath directly, but at this point, pouring her a poisoned cup might suit his purposes even better.” It was relatively easy to place myself in Dunkast’s position and simply think, what would I do, were I aiming only to win?

  Relatively, and disturbingly, easy.

  Redfist said nothing. He simply glared at the battle, leaned forward, a racing-dog denied the chance to run.

  I decided to turn to more productive matters. There was nothing to be done for anyone outside the Old City. “How long will it take other clans to travel here?” Even if they did so, how many of them would come to Emrath’s aid? Or Redfist’s? I did not know enough of this strange country’s politics yet, and exhaled hard against mounting frustration.

  “In winter? Hard to say. Travel is slow, and the treecrack is nigh.” He sucked his cheeks in, biting gently. His axe-butt rested upon the stone walkway, and he folded his hands atop the well-seasoned eye. Metal glinted, etched with frost. “What do you think, K’ai?”

  Finally, he was not speaking to me as if I were one of his fat white countrywomen. “I think I will wait until he is at the Keep.”

  “At the Keep?” Now he glanced at me, bloodshot blue eyes narrowed afresh. He was not sleeping well, or he was finding solace in an ale-tankard each night. From the smell, I judged it to be the latter.

  “There, there, and there.” I pointed each time to likely avenues of approach, my half-gloves already caked with ice. The wind intensified, and even the warming breath only kept the worst of the chill at bay. “It is only a matter of time, and they will grow desperate if they fire all their shelter. Dunkast must keep control of them. Or regain control, soon.” I folded my arms, awkward in their bundling. “The walls are breached, the East Gate is forced, but his men have not drawn close enough yet for me to make a difference. So, I wait.”

  “K’ai…” It was clearly not what he had expected me to say.

  I cared little. “Tonight I shall take to the rooftops, and make his forces fear for their lives.” Much as the Danhai would. “But that is only a prelude. He will have to enter the city proper, in order to keep control of his forces and their pillage.”

  Redfist now watched me sidelong. The very end of his axe-hilt touched the ground and made a slight noise, grinding in dirt and slush. “And then?”

  Why, in the name of the Moon, was he asking? Did he merely wish to hear me say it? I longed for Darik’s silence instead of Redfist’s clumsy company. “Then I will find where he is laying his curséd head, slip inside the building, and slide a knife between his ribs.” I have done such things before. “And take his head as well, for one cannot be too certain, with witchery like this. There are stories of the Pensari—”

  “Assassinate him?”

  I refrained from pointing out, again, that Dunkast did not seem inclined to duel honorably, and my plan at least had some chance of success. “Do you have a better proposal, Rainak Redfist? One which may see us all through this alive?”

  “I wish to meet him in the open—”

  “Oh, yes, because that plan worked so well before.” I indicated the burning with a thrust of my chin. “Do you think he has any intention of facing you honorably, or did when he came into Kalburn Keep? If you do, you are the fool I never thought you.”

  “Ye did not think I was a fool?”

  I may have to revise my belief. “Not a great one, no.”

  “Ye have a sharp tongue, K’ai.” As if he was taken aback. He lifted his axe a little, thocked the butt-end against stone to punctuate the sentence.

  Well, my tongue had not been blunt since well before he happened along in Hain; he could not expect that to change. “Necessary, to pierce a collection of stubborn skulls.” I exhaled sharply, and was surprised when my breath did not immediately turn to ice and fall tinkling to the ground. “I shall ask your Needleslay to draw me a map or two of her city. Then I shall go hunting.”

  “K’ai—”

  “What, Redfist?” I half-turned, faced him squarely. “You do not wish my aid? You will call me dishonorable? I am far better than that thing outside the walls, and you would do well to remember, and treat me, as such. I will do as I must to gain us all passage through this swamp.” Harsher words trembled upon my tongue, halted only by the cold and the fact that I was heartily sick of this entire country as well as every half-baked idiot who had attached themselves to me.

  Consequently, I was almost certain I would say something that would force him to attempt to throw me from the battlements.

  “Ye are not meant for the Highlands, K’ai.” He shook his great bushy head. “In the South, they may knife each other in bed, or send assassins, but we are Kroth’s children here.”

  “Dunkast has already sent assassins, Redfist!” The force of my cry almost pushed me back upon my heels and fell away into the grasp of the wind. Did he truly not understand? What went on inside his skull if not a constant whirling of stones attempting to make a grind so fine the resultant meal would feed, clothe, and protect our troupe? “What do you think those two Ferulaine in Karnagh were? Or the Black Brother here in Kalburn, do you think that latter gift sent for you?” The dart went home. His eyes widened, and I could have struck him, did I wish to tak
e my hands from their slightly warmer homes under my elbows. “You did not think of that? Of why Dunkast would send such a thing, before word could have reached him you were sitting at sup in Emrath’s Great Hall, witchery or no?” I shook my head, wonderingly. “You are a fool. And you will not only achieve your own death but Emrath Needleslay’s, too.”

  I turned upon my heel and strode away, and for a few moments I was warm despite the wind. Mother’s tits, had he not thought any of this through? Did he have only their congealed milk marag in his skull? I decided, only a few paces away, that not only was Rainak Redfist a fool, but it was also my duty to save him from his great lumpen self.

  It was, after all, the only way to save us all.

  I meant to find Emrath Needleslay and make some manner of cause with her, but instead, as I plunged back into the Keep’s relative warmth, I was found instead.

  By Gavridar Janaire.

  Aid, No Aid

  The wind fell off; I stamped upon the slippery stone stairs to clear my boots. Of course she could find me with little trouble, such things are easy for a trained adai. Looking up, her hip against a wooden casement covering an arrow-slit, her lengthening braids wrapped winter-wise around her head and her soft, pretty face solemn, she was a garden-statue. The casement rattled as sky’s-breath clawed at its bolts, and Janaire studied me for a long moment before speaking.

  “Anjalismir.” My clan-name, formally accented, almost palpable ice along its edges. Her needle had been at work among the folds of her great fur-lined cloak, refining the shape. It had probably been plied upon Atyarik’s clothes, too.

  To add to my faults, I was no seamstress—I may, of course, repair a jerkin or trews if I must. But a sellsword prefers to hire such work done, all the better to leave time for dicing and knifeplay, not to mention sword practice, and sleeping. Or drinking, if I could find enough mead in the storerooms to blunt my head. The idea was marvelously attractive, though the danger of being sotted while an entire army invades will make even a seasoned sellsword blanch.