We Lie with Death

by Devin Madson

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I clung to her as I clung to life and she hit the curved roof first. The impact jolted through me, but lying atop her we slid together down the tiles, stopping at the eave where water gurgled in the gutter. The smell of the long-dead body was strong, but I didn’t lift my head from its shoulder.

  A crackle of gargled words broke by my ear, cutting over the myriad of distant voices. It came again when I didn’t move, more insistent. Prising my fingers from the hieromonk’s robe, I touched the cold, dead skin at his twisted neck, and like a rush of warmth and chaos the empress’s soul reinflated our shell, panic giving way to peace for a single, glorious moment.

  We were alive.

  Hana turned our eyes up at the towering castle above. Smoke still poured from the meeting-room window, and from all around panicked shouts rent the night. The foundations might be stone, but from the main halls up, Koi Castle was built of wood and paper and it would all burn.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice rasping like sand on skin.

  The empress didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. Her grief, raw and bitter and all the more painful for being impotent, filled my eyes with tears.

  We have to go was all she eventually said. Leo Villius might think we’re dead, but if he wants to be sure he’ll have people out searching. We need to go before they shut the gates.

  The thought of moving another step that night made me wish we had died. Not the worst beating from the hospice boys had ever left me in such misery and pain.

  “I’ll take over,” the empress said, and like warm water washing over me I let myself sink beneath her, my gratitude owning no words as she forced our body to its feet, arms and legs trembling.

  Can we not make a habit of this? I said as she hobbled toward the adjoining parapet. This escaping from Koi every few weeks thing.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t think either of us will ever come back.”

  25. RAH

  Flames licked the edge of the grand doors. Smoke billowed from windows and balconies and crept in thin tendrils from gaps in the ancient woodwork. I had nothing but bad memories of the imperial palace, yet my heart ached. Burning the Motepheset Shrine would have brought a tear to every Levanti eye and weight to every Levanti soul.

  “You’re really going to burn it all?” I said, standing in uncomfortable truce with Sett in the palace garden.

  “A broken and divided Kisia is easier to hold.”

  Sett turned from the inner palace, and together we walked out through the deserted outer palace, most of its furniture and art broken into piles of kindling to set the place alight. Istet smashed an oil lantern upon just such a pile as we passed, before moving to another, stuffing scrolls and papers into every hole.

  “The other sites are ready,” she called to Sett, her gaze fixing on him so hard she might have been trying to wipe me from existence. “Is…” Her stare intensified. “Is everyone out?”

  “Light them,” he said, without answering.

  She saluted. “Yes, Captain.”

  Leaving me to trail him like an unwanted shadow, Sett strode toward the outer palace’s once great doors. Smashed by the Chiltaens. Burned by the Levanti. We were securing ourselves a place in history that would not be kindly remembered.

  Sett’s stiff silence rebuffed all thought of argument. It was too late anyway. Plumes of smoke already filled the skyline, rising from the burning city to form a sooty, black cloud. Beneath it the palace square sat silent. No voices or footsteps, no murmur of life, not now nor ever again. The stone would not burn, but the buildings watching from all sides were built of wood and terracotta tiles, decorative shutters and reed matting and watercolour screens.

  A familiar saddleboy stood in the centre of the square, holding Sett’s horse. “Captain,” Oshar said, his eyes widening at the sight of me.

  Sett took the reins without thanks, without slowing his walk, without even looking at the translator. “General Bo?”

  “He said to inform you that his men have finished with the… silk district? And were moving on to… I cannot recall its name, Captain, but the southwest quarter of the city. Captain Lashak has taken the southeast. General Korin the northeast and the northwest, either side of the main avenue, but he and the Second Swords are being held up by the number of people still trying to get out.”

  Sett sped his pace and his horse, not the ilonga he had been exiled with, had to break into a trot to keep up. Oshar’s gaze slid my way as he jogged after Sett’s long stride. Unsure I was the same man perhaps, with my hair growing and my branding difficult to discern. I had been itching to shave for days, weeks, fear always niggling that if I died now the gods would not see what I had sacrificed for the herd.

  “Tell General Korin and Yitti to get a move on,” Sett said as we reached the far side of the square. “Just keep working in. The fire will hurry people out better than we can.”

  A slight pause, then: “Yes, Captain, but if they have to make sure no one sees them then—”

  “Just tell them to hurry.”

  “Yes, Captain.” And with one last look at me, the saddleboy hurried away.

  “You have Kisian soldiers with you?” I said as we left the square for the main street, its stones striped with shadows. “Burning their own city?”

  “They are loyal to Gideon now. Or at least to the Kisian lords who are loyal to Gideon.”

  “So loyal they would burn their own homes? Their own history?”

  He didn’t answer, but whether because some of his fury had dissipated or because he realised his horse was struggling, he slowed his pace to a walk. Like the square, the top of the main street was deserted, its buildings owning only dark, staring windows and shutters that banged in the breeze.

  “We needed the Kisians here with us for this,” Sett said at last. “The people wouldn’t understand us if we told them to hurry and get out. And they needed to see us all working together against the cowardly southerners burning their city.”

  “Cowardly southerners?”

  He lifted his brows as though challenging me to call him a liar, but it would have been like calling the night dark. Burn the city and blame your enemy, sowing hatred for them as surely as gratitude for yourself. The plan was clever and brutal and I tried to tell myself Gideon could never have thought of it, but the order not to take the heads of the dead had been his, as had the order to massacre children, a fact I had allowed myself to forget during these weeks of trying to get back to him and save his life. Recalling it now made my insides twist.

  It was eerie walking through the quiet city, but I was equally oppressed by Sett’s silent stiffness as Mei’lian’s empty buildings. This man had always been there, a tall, hulking figure in the corners of my life, yet without Gideon, Sett would have been no more to me than any other Torin, just one in a sea of faces, his horse’s hooves part of the great rumble as the Torin made their way across the plains. Now its hooves walked alone.

  “I miss the thunder,” I said. “Our thunder. Not this…” I gestured at the sky. “But the thunder in the earth. The sort of thunder you feel in your bones, made of hooves and feet and cart wheels all working as one. The barrel wagons creaking and the children running with the foals. The constellation of fires at night, the smell of roasting nuts in the summer, and Masud breaking into song to praise the Goddess.” A lump formed in my throat at the thought of the Goddess. Of all the things to cry over, I had never thought it would be a moon.

  While I worked to swallow the lump, Sett continued on in silence. Then, like the words were being drawn from him, he said, “I always liked coming back last from the hunt so I could watch the herd cross the plain like an army of ants. And when the herd master called it a day the procession would bunch then break apart, spreading as people trickled off about their tasks. Horses. Water. Food. Wood. Fires. Tents. Each group its own little army talking and laughing as they worked.”

  The city had stank of mud and damp wool and fur, but now the acrid bite of the
smoke outweighed it all as the wind flurried ash to our noses. We went a few more steps in silence, more and more smoke buffeting into our faces as the wind whipped around.

  “But those days are gone, Rah,” Sett said, returning to the present with a growl. “Be grateful the city states cannot take our memories as they can our land and our horses. Be grateful you don’t have to be there to see it end.”

  “I still believe it can be saved. That we can fight for it as we have always done. Together.”

  He looked at me, a sardonic lilt to his smile. “That would require centralising the leadership. And what herd would ever accept a leader from another in peacetime? Gideon gets away with it because no one knows what to do, but at least he’s doing something. He gives them purpose and hope and they forget he’s Torin.”

  I had said something much the same to Tor when he had told me what I needed to do, where I needed to be, but I shrugged now. “They would unite to save themselves from complete destruction.”

  “Perhaps, but you would only prolong the inevitable. There is only one way to stop the city states and that is to destroy them, but then where would we get our grain and our metalwork, and where would we sell our horses? Your heart may lie upon the plains, but the world needs its cities now, needs its centres of learning. They say there’s a room in the palace in Shimai where every wall is covered with scrolls, of wisdom and poetry and philosophy. Cities are like that—places where such ideas congregate like animals to waterholes.”

  “Then why burn one?”

  “Because to feed the ground sometimes the trees must die.”

  It was an old Levanti saying, for those times when we cut down old groves to give their nutrients back to the soil, allowing future generations to grow olives and almonds and the wild rock pumpkins whose tangled vines covered the ground. Yet to think of people that way turned my stomach sick. And once again we walked in silence through the city, flames rising in our wake.

  From the main road it was hard to tell how much of the city was on fire, but by the sheer amount of smoke it had to be a lot. To send soldiers in. To burn it section by section, house by house… Gideon didn’t just want it uninhabitable for a short time; he wanted it gone. No symbolic place of power south of the river. And Kisian soldiers were helping him do it instead of joining the army gathered to the south.

  A babble of panicked voices grew from the haze ahead, yet we saw no one until the thud of hoofbeats heralded the arrival of Himi and Istet. Both lifted their reins to salute as they emerged from the grey smoke. “It is done, Captain,” Istet said. “We did a last check of the barracks and the stables to make sure everyone was out.”

  “And Manshin?”

  “No sign, Captain.”

  Sett grunted and a grim smile twitched his lips, or perhaps I just hoped it did. “All right,” he said. “Ride on. Tell Yitti to gather the Second Swords outside the city when they finish. Rah has challenged and it cannot go unanswered.”

  The twins had kept their nervous horses moving, walking in circles around us as Sett spoke his orders, but at this they both rode away, only Istet renewing her salute and saying, “Yes, Captain,” before both disappeared into the smoke and babble.

  Sett’s words made my heart beat hard. In all the strangeness of being back with my people, of walking through a burning city and reminiscing about the plains, I had almost forgotten why I had come, why I had challenged him at all. Foolish not to have considered that Yitti would be captain of my Swords, but in truth it didn’t matter who I challenged for the right so long as I won, because I couldn’t fix this alone.

  Fear solidified like a lump of iron in my stomach. I had not eaten properly for weeks. I had not slept. I had not trained. I had done nothing but walk and hope my injury was healing itself even as it ached. But worse still, I had not shaved my head. I could die unseen by the gods, or I could take Yitti’s life. Two terrible endings to a war we should never have been part of in a place we should never have come to. Perhaps it would not come to that. Yitti was no fool, and surely he would want what I wanted, however much Sett might seek to stop me.

  Despite the clouds of smoke, Sett ambled at his ease through the dying city, his horse at his side. Now and then Oshar joined him, giving a breathless report before running off again, leaving us to our silent procession through Mei’lian’s last day.

  When next running steps approached it was not the saddleboy, rather a pair of Kisian soldiers accompanied by a young woman. Her robe and sash were askew and dark hair tumbled from a once neat knot as she stopped outside a house, pointing at it and speaking so fast that every sound ran together. The soldiers seemed to understand her though, for both nodded and, one after the other, pushed their way into the building. Thuds and bangs reverberated through the small house, then the soldiers emerged carrying an old man between them. The woman darted forward full of scolding, and followed like a screeching tail as they hurried back toward the gates.

  “Some of them are being very stubborn,” Sett said. “They prefer to die than leave.”

  I sympathised but didn’t say so.

  “Gideon doesn’t want them to die,” he added in answer to my silence. “These are his people now.”

  “Except for Minister Manshin?”

  It was Sett’s turn to press his lips together and say nothing.

  “You didn’t know I was there,” I said. “You came to let him go, didn’t you?”

  Still nothing.

  “Even though Gideon gave you an order.”

  “You would have preferred I saw it through?” Sett snapped, only to look away, perhaps wishing the words unsaid.

  Figures began to appear from the smoke. The square before the gates was still crammed edge to edge, while Levanti Swords and Kisian soldiers hurried the evacuation along. The fires had not yet spread this far, but fear spilled from the people as they fought to escape into a world where they had no homes, no food, and no future.

  And there, shepherding people toward the gates, was Yitti. On foot rather than on horseback, speaking softly rather than shouting, helping Levanti and Kisian alike. This the man I had to challenge.

  As though feeling the weight of my gaze upon him, Yitti looked up and our eyes met over the heads of the panicking citizens. A wry smile twisted his lips, expressing something of the sorrow in my heart. “Hello again, Rah,” he called over the noise. “Such a surprise to see you.”

  Because of course he had known, as I had, it would come to this one day.

  “Rah wishes to challenge you for the leadership of the Second Swords of Torin,” Sett said before I could press through the crowd to speak to Yitti alone. “What say you, Yitti?”

  Thinking to shout out my truths to him, to talk rather than fight, I looked around at the gathered crowd. None of the fleeing Kisians understood our words, but every single Levanti—Torin and Namalaka—stilled to watch like stones in the fast-flowing river of refugees. And even as I opened my mouth to explain and beg his help, I closed it again, unsure who I could trust.

  “Why don’t we take this outside the city,” I said. “Somewhere more private and safe from getting burned alive.”

  The Kisians kept pushing toward the gates, crying and holding one another in a panic that had been lacking earlier in the day. Unlike us they did not know the city was being lit in an orderly fashion to give them the most amount of time to escape.

  “No,” Sett said. “You challenged here. Yitti must answer here.”

  “The city is on fire, Sett, it—”

  “I accept the challenge,” Yitti said, ignoring my complaint. He reached both hands to the swords at his hip but, nodding at the single blade on mine, drew only one. Gasps and whispers whipped through the Levanti as, refugees forgotten, they hurried to form a hissing circle. Citizens of Mei’lian were bustled aside and Sett’s Kisian allies shouted, only to be ignored.

  I licked dry lips as the circle swelled around us. Namalaka I had never seen before jostled amongst the First and Second Swords of Torin, ever
y second face in the crowd one I recognised. Lok and Himi and Istet, Totoun and Bah and Tefnut, even Tep, Gideon’s long-suffering healer, knelt in front of the other onlookers. Once it had been Yitti’s job to hover ready to heal the injured, but now he faced me across the shadowy road, his expression showing none of the turmoil I felt. It ought not to have come to this.

  Eyes turned toward me, granting me the challenger’s right to speak first. “Gods stand on my side,” I said, drawing my sword and trying to think of a way to make Yitti understand my reason. “I have failed a lot of people and now I…” Everyone was watching and I could not say any of what I wished to say, leaving me stumbling on. “I… am here to ensure that does not happen again. That we… that all Levanti… are kept safe.”

  Murmurs met this, surely murmurs of confusion rather than agreement, a flash of bewilderment crossing Yitti’s face before he stepped in to speak. “Gods stand on my side,” he called over the buzz of noise. “Too many times wrong, Rah. Too many souls lost. Eska, Kishava, Orun, Juta, Amun, Gam, Fessel, Hamatet, Ubaid, Ren, Asim, Dhamara, Hehet, Maat… Every mistake has a name, the name of someone you failed.”

  He listed them calmly, but every one was like a punch, dragging from me a reply I was not meant to make. “That’s why I need to fight now!”

  The circle hissed and shifted. Sett joined us, leaving the remaining crowd of Kisians to drain slowly through the gates of their doomed city.

  Yitti stepped through shadows into a lonely patch of evening sunlight. I joined him in its bright arena and he shrugged, challenging me to strike first. Another step forward. Another lick of dry lips. Another jab of fear that I was going to die with my head unshorn like a saddleboy, that Yitti was angry enough to want me dead on the stones.