We Lie with Death

by Devin Madson

  The general once more shrugged his unencumbered shoulder and, catching sight of my wry smile, allowed himself one of his own. “Something like that, Your Majesty.”

  “All right, south a bit farther, but then we need to stop fearing to cross the road and just do it.”

  A sharp nod, a far more humourless smile, and General Kitado continued his long-legged stride south. The tunnel from Mei’lian had taken us farther north than I had expected. We’d rested in its darkness, only to emerge squinting into the light of a new day—no, a new world. I kept thinking it could all be a dream, that if we walked back to Mei’lian we would find a city just going about its day, no conquering Chiltaens in sight. But my hands were covered in cuts from digging clear the tunnel mouth, and whenever I closed my eyes the people of Mei’lian crowded around me in the darkness, offering prayers. We had fought and we had lost, but I would not give in even if I had to fight alone.

  That possibility weighed on my mind more than I had let General Kitado guess. Prince Jie, with his three battalions and his true Ts’ai parentage, would easily garner support in the south. He could already be mounting an attack upon our conquerors and succeeding where I had failed. Without allies I could do nothing, would be nothing, and may as well have died gloriously protecting my city than suffer the ignoble fate of merely fading away, powerless and alone.

  General Kitado halted, breaking me from my morose thoughts. We had come to the edge of a track, dual ruts suggesting the regular passage of carts. The ruts were little better than muddy gouges filled with water, but the fresh hoof prints were not.

  Crouching, the general held up a warning hand as he examined the prints. “Two horses,” he said. “Travelling west not so long since.”

  “Two? Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “Some of the hooves are shod and the others are not.”

  “Not shod? In this weather?”

  “A Levanti horse, perhaps, but it seems unlikely they’d venture into the fen. Might just be a Kisian unprepared for the season.”

  I peered into the rain-soaked trees, but there were only leaves and trunks and rain, its incessant fall having long since made a mockery of my clothing. It clung to my skin, choking and cold, and for a single, harrowing moment I wished it all undone. What I wouldn’t give to be somewhere warm and dry, and perhaps if I hadn’t been so determined, so ambitious, so completely me, I could have been in Chiltae by now married to Leo Villius. Comfortable. Safe. Kisia still whole.

  “They may also be the tracks of Chiltaen scouts,” General Kitado said, crouching to trace the hoof prints with a finger. “On the other hand, they could belong to Kisian scouts. If Grace Bahain knows you weren’t captured in Mei’lian, he could be looking for us too.”

  “It may be nothing, but we should check,” I said, the lure of potential allies outweighing my fears. “There are two of them and two of us and we have the element of surprise on our side.”

  He agreed with his one-shouldered shrug and I started along the track. Not far along, a house emerged from the storm haze like an animal hunkered against the rain. Half a dozen outbuildings surrounded it like cubs, and as we approached along the track a horse came into view, owning no rider. “A fur trader, perhaps,” Kitado said. “Or a woodcutter.”

  A burst of shouting halted us in our tracks, and General Kitado thrust out his arm as though shielding me from a rush of unseen enemies. “Trouble,” he said, not taking his eyes off the house. “We ought to leave.”

  “What sort of trouble?” I pushed his arm aside and took a few steps forward, squinting at shadows through rain. A few more steps and grey, misty figures were born from the mire, along with the restless form of a second, larger horse carrying something bulky.

  The shouts were indistinct, panic all I could distinguish as I sped my pace.

  “Majesty!” Kitado hissed, dashing alongside. “It could be enemies. It could be—”

  “It could be Kisians in need of help,” I said, thinking of that crowd of people who had looked to me as their saviour, all of whom I had failed. “If I cannot help my own people then what use am I?”

  “Majesty, this is not wise.”

  “What’s not wise is you continuing to call me ‘Majesty.’”

  The grey outlines grew steadily clearer as we approached at a jog. Two figures became three, one outstretched hand became a sword, another an axe, and words that had been just babble became Chiltaen pleas. “I am not here to steal your gold, my friend—”

  “Back, you monster!”

  “I beg your help, I—”

  “Help so you can attack me when my back is turned?”

  I unwrapped the wool cloak from about Hacho and rushed forward, Kitado contenting himself with a grunt of annoyance as he kept pace. Splashing through the puddles, I abandoned stealth and nocked an arrow to Hacho’s string.

  “Halt!” I shouted. The group stilled to a tableau as I took in the scene. A Kisian man and woman, armed with an axe and a stick, stood before the door. Despite his voice, their assailant was no Chiltaen, rather a young man who looked Levanti but for the length of black hair stuck to his back. A few paces behind him a pair of horses fretted and shook their manes. One was small, its Kisian saddle marked with the Ts’ai dragon, while the other, an enormous animal, carried a second man thrown like meat over its saddle.

  The three conscious members of the scene lifted their arms as I levelled an arrow at each in turn, eventually lingering upon the long-haired Levanti. “What is going on here?”

  “This barbarian came to rob us of—”

  “I did not! I—”

  “You threatened us with your sword!”

  “Only when you tried to remove my head with your axe! Please.” The young man turned to me, his hands pressed together in supplication. “I know I am your enemy, but I don’t wish to be. I only wish help for my friend. He is injured. He has lost blood and I fear he will not live much longer.”

  Without taking my eyes from the Levanti, I nodded to Kitado. “Check he is telling the truth.”

  “I swear! I seek only shelter and help. I will seek it elsewhere if you will let me go.”

  “Your friend might die if you do,” Kitado said as he examined the unconscious man. “It might be too late already.”

  The young man sank to his knees despite the axe still threateningly close. I licked my lips. Kitado had been right, not only dangerous to come but a waste of time, playing saviour to a pair of peasants in no danger from an all-but-dead Levanti and his distraught comrade.

  I lowered Hacho, annoyed I had exposed her to the rain for nothing. We could have been half a mile closer to the river by now instead of half a mile out of the way.

  “You had best say goodbye to your friend and catch up with the rest of your people,” I said. “We saw them not long since, heading north to the border.”

  The young man looked up, grief frozen upon his face. “The border?”

  “Yes, isn’t that how one leaves Kisia?”

  His brows dropped, darkening his eyes. “Leaving? They aren’t leaving.” His brows sank lower still. “Who are you?”

  “I could ask the same question of a barbarian mercenary who can speak the Chiltaen tongue.”

  My question failed to turn him from his purpose, and he looked me up and down with an intensity even the boldest courtier had never dared employ.

  “You say they are not leaving,” General Kitado said, stepping away from the injured man. “If they are not leaving, where are they going? Have the Chiltaens given them—given you—new orders?”

  The young man stared from Kitado to me and back again, his jaw slack.

  “Well?” I said when he didn’t answer. “You were asked a question. It would be wise to answer it. You are outnumbered.”

  “No.”

  “No?” I lifted Hacho again, re-nocking the arrow. “Would you like to try that answer again?”

  The long-haired Levanti drew himself up and stared straight at the arrow, daring it to pierce hi
s flesh. “No,” he said. “If you want answers then you must help me. Help my friend.”

  Arrow unwavering, I glanced at Kitado. He scowled. “How do we know your information is worth our time?”

  “My information is well worth your time. And so is his.” He pointed at the prone Levanti. Rain was dripping from his dangling fingers and the toes of his boots. “This man is Rah e’Torin, herd brother of Gideon e’Torin, the new emperor of Kisia.”

  The arrow fell from my hand, bowstring slackening as my jaw dropped. I could not have heard him right. Beside me Kitado said, “What?”

  “Will you help him?”

  “Help you bury him?”

  The young man’s chin set mulishly, while huddled in the doorway the peasant and his wife were whispering fast. I could feel Kitado’s gaze on me but couldn’t turn, could only stare at the young Levanti and hunt every line of his face for proof he was lying.

  “Maj—” Kitado cleared his throat. “What do you wish me to do? I could make him talk if—”

  The young man turned. “You can do no worse than has already been done to me,” he spat. “The only way you get answers is by saving my friend.”

  I glanced at the unconscious Levanti. Brother of the emperor? So drastic a change in the situation made information vital, but to stay and help meant time—time I could ill afford to lose.

  Lowering Hacho, I beckoned the general and he came, bending his head close to mine. “We must find out all we can. I fear there is more at stake here than we realise.”

  “I agree, Majesty,” he rumbled in my ear. “But I am not sure we can trust them. They are Levanti.”

  I looked again at the young man, biting his lip and hugging his arms across his chest. His sword lay forgotten in the mud. Even so, the woodcutter and his wife watched him warily. And me, their eyes equally upon Hacho as the barbarian. Behind them light flickered merrily inside their hut, promising comfort. Dry. There would be food and a sleeping mat that did not squelch.

  “We have to,” I said. “But I don’t think they will accept us lightly. You may have to tell these people you are a lord and I am your daughter. I fear to speak the truth even to my own people.”

  “As you wish, Majesty.”

  “Make the arrangements. I will look at the injured one and see what’s amiss.”

  He would have bowed but stopped himself in time, turning it into a nod before approaching the woodcutter with his hands spread wide in welcome. Disliking the man’s continuing stare, I picked up my arrow and draped my woollen cloak over Hacho.

  The great Levanti horse sidestepped as I approached, but it neither reared nor bolted when I stroked its neck. “Good boy,” I said. “I am going to look at your burden now, so don’t move, will you?”

  The man draped over the saddle looked more like a Levanti than his pleading companion, with all his hair shaved off and a pale raised scar on the back of his head, shaped like a horse and moon. Unlike the other, however, he was dressed in Kisian clothing, a mixture of standard military attire and the finer uniform expected of an imperial guard. None of it seemed to fit him very well, and all of it was soaked through.

  “The wound is in his leg.”

  I touched my dagger, but though I did not draw, the young Levanti took a step back, hands raised in defence. “I did not mean to frighten you. Can you help him?”

  “That depends on what he needs,” I said, unable to speak the blunt answer that was probably true. “First we must make him comfortable and see what is wrong.”

  “He was stabbed. In the thigh. I think he has lost a lot of blood, but he wasn’t well to begin with.”

  Fortunately, Kitado joined us before reply became necessary. “They have agreed to let us have the barn and the old house, but they say it’s a bit leaky. There’s wood in the shed and dry meat in the cellar. That’s about all though; it’s been a rough summer, they say. I have given them all the coin I can.”

  “It will have to do,” I said. “Ask them to show us the way.”

  “Yes, Ma—” Once again General Kitado hid his words with a cough and strode away to accept the offered hospitality.

  The woodcutter’s land bore a collection of low buildings and sheds, and a yard littered in woodchips. Beneath a clump of trees a pair of oxen lay huddled, while two pigs and a scraggly chicken were penned close to the house, enjoying the rain cutting in beneath its angled roof. Across the yard a barn and a second cottage were all but lost to the storm.

  “This way,” the woodcutter said, drawing up his hood as he bustled past. He nodded respectfully to me, yet looked askance at the Levanti leading both horses in our wake. Quick steps took us across the yard to the farthest cottage. “That there’s the barn.” He pointed to the nearby building. “We lost our horse in the winter but yours will be dry in there. And here”—he pushed open a thin wooden door that creaked in protest—“is the old cottage. It hasn’t been used since my mother died, but you’re welcome to it.”

  I went in first, ducking under the woodcutter’s arm. The cottage was dark and small, just a pair of rooms, the smaller curtained from the larger with moth-eaten cloth. Yet barring a couple of drips falling from the roof it was dry, and the fireplace looked sturdy and functional—no surprise in a woodcutter’s cottage.

  “I’ll send my wife with what food we can spare and some blankets, my lord,” the woodcutter said as Kitado joined me. “And you can help yourself to the wood in the shed and anything else around the yard that you need. Some of Mother’s old pots are still in the cupboard. And I’ve got… shovels and… well, you know, just in case he…” He trailed off as the young Levanti mounted the stairs.

  “Thank you,” General Kitado said. “Your generosity is deeply appreciated.”

  The woodcutter turned pink beneath his hood. “Just good old-fashioned hospitality, my lord,” he said, and with a mumble of unintelligible words he turned and walked out, leaving us to the old cottage’s questionable comforts.

  “All right,” I said once the man had gone. “Carry the injured Levanti in and lay him on the floor so I can look at his wounds, then Kitado, you go for wood, and you”—I looked at the long-haired Levanti—“can take your horses to the barn and see them tended.”

  The young man hovered, unsure whether to argue, but Kitado brushed past him, saying, “Come on, boy,” and he followed the old soldier out.

  A rummage about the cottage proved it poorly provisioned. The curtained-off room had nothing but a single rolled-up sleeping mat and a gnawed-on old lap table. A small nest of hay in the corner confirmed my suspicion of animals, but there was no time to do more than suppress a shudder. Grunts and thuds from the main room heralded the return of Kitado and the young Levanti carrying his injured friend. As strong as Kitado was, the Levanti man was tall and well built, leaving the pair no choice but to give up at the top of the stairs and drag him the rest of the way. Once he had been laid upon the floor, they both showed signs of lingering. “Wood, horses, go,” I said. “I will see to him.”

  The young man shot me a quizzical look before heading back out into the storm. Despite the assurance I had forced into my words, I could not immediately bring myself to look at the Levanti’s wound. Instead I ransacked the cupboards and the single storage chest, pulling out anything that might prove useful. And as I set a pot beneath each of the drips and threw a dusty blanket over the floor, I couldn’t escape the hope that when I finally did turn, the Levanti would be dead. It would look like we had tried, the young man could tell us his information, and we could be on our way.

  Before either General Kitado or the young Levanti returned, the woodcutter’s wife arrived with blankets and supplies all wrapped in a dripping storm cloak, which she hung on a hook by the open door.

  “Thank you,” I said, but though she bowed once, twice, even a third time as she backed into the rain, she said not a word.

  Blankets, old robes, a small sewing kit, herbs, tea, food, and even a few blessedly dry sticks of incense and a worn scroll inked
with the prayers of Qi. It seemed she too was not hopeful.

  The Levanti groaned. I went to him then, this mess of a man lying soaked and bloody upon the floor, his surprisingly delicate brows drawn into a pained frown. Not dead, but how much easier for us all if he had been. If he had given up and allowed himself the freedom of whatever afterlife the Levanti believed existed. But no, he fought on, and that at least I could respect.

  The rain had washed the man’s wound clean, leaving only the surrounding fabric stained with blood. A crimson sash had been tied tightly above it, stemming blood loss, and from its silk a Ts’ai dragon roared. Rah e’Torin, herd brother of Gideon e’Torin, the new Emperor of Kisia.

  I tore the hole in the cloth to better see his wound. Someone had stuck something thin and sharp into his thigh, like a cooking spike, and despite its clean entry a long, shallow gash led from it. He must have lost a lot of blood, but on its own the wound didn’t seem enough to account for his weak, near-death state.

  I heaved a long sigh as Kitado returned with a load of wood. “Once you have that fire going, see if you can find any wine for this,” I said.

  “Wine?” The young Levanti stood in the doorway. “You need warm salt water. And cloths. Get the fire going and heat some water over it. Do we have any needles or gut?”

  “Gut?”

  “To sew the wound,” he said, striding impatiently over to look at the little pile of items the woodcutter’s wife had brought in. He took the sewing kit from the bundle. “Huh, at least there’s a needle, and this thread will do. Can either of you sew? I…” He looked away. “I hadn’t learned yet.”

  Kitado made a rumble that could have been a muttered excuse, and I snatched the sewing kit from the young Levanti’s hand. “Give it here. I’ll do it.” I heaved an irritated sigh. “Whoever thought I’d one day wish I had paid more attention to Lady Yi’s stitchery lessons.”

  5. RAH

  Gideon handed me a bowl, its contents all shadows. There was something wrong about him, something I couldn’t quite see, his face and his body and his clothes no longer fitting right anymore.