The Braided Path: Ascendancy Veil Bk. 3

by Chris Wooding

  ‘Foolish,’ Mishani said with a sigh. ‘An army would be cut to pieces in those mountains.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Yugi replied.

  She glanced at him. He was unshaven and gaunt. ‘You are overfond of the root, Yugi,’ she said. ‘Once you controlled it; now it controls you. You are the leader of many men and women. Their lives are your responsibility. Stop this idiocy before you lose your judgement.’

  Yugi seemed a little surprised, apparently deciding whether to take umbrage or not. Then he sagged, and merely looked weary. ‘You’re far from the first to tell me that. It’s not so simple.’

  ‘Cailin could help you overcome the addiction, perhaps,’ Mishani suggested, brushing her hair over her shoulder.

  Yugi snorted a laugh. ‘I’m not addicted, Mishani. I smoked amaxa root for years and it never got a hold on me. The root is only a symptom of the cause.’

  ‘What, then, is the cause?’ she asked.

  He did not answer for a while, debating whether to tell her or not. Mishani was no confidante of his. But she waited patiently, and finally he shrugged and sighed.

  ‘I was a bandit, once,’ he said. ‘I imagine you know that.’

  ‘I had surmised as much from things Zaelis said,’ she admitted.

  ‘Did you also know that I had a woman back then?’

  ‘A wife?’

  ‘As near as can be. We had little use for marriage, and no priests.’

  ‘That I did not know.’

  Yugi was tentative, ready to abandon this conversation at the slightest hint of sarcasm or mockery from Mishani. She gave him none. This was important to him, and that made it important to her, for he was the leader of the Libera Dramach and any knowledge about his state of mind could be advantageous.

  ‘Her name was Keila,’ he said. He opened his mouth to say more, perhaps to describe her to Mishani, perhaps to talk of what he felt for her; but he changed his mind. Mishani understood that. Words seemed mawkish that were most deeply felt.

  ‘What happened to her?’ Mishani asked.

  ‘She died,’ Yugi said. He looked down at the ground.

  ‘Because of you,’ Mishani said, reading his reaction.

  He nodded. ‘There were perhaps a hundred of us at our height. And we had a reputation. We were the most feared bandit gang from Barask to Tchamaska.’

  ‘And you led them, back then?’ Mishani guessed.

  Yugi nodded. ‘Gods, I’m not proud of some of the things I did. We were bandits, Mishani. That made us killers, thieves, and worse. Every man had his morals, every man had . . . things he wouldn’t do. But there was always someone who would.’

  He gave Mishani a wary glance. She watched him steadily, showing nothing. He was searching for condemnation from her, but she would not condemn him. Her own past was hardly unstained.

  ‘A man can . . . detach himself,’ Yugi murmured. ‘He can learn to see people as obstacles, or objects. He can learn to shut out the crying of women and the look in his enemy’s eyes as he dies. They are just animal reactions, like the thrashing of a wounded rabbit or the twisting of a fish on a hook. A man can persuade himself to the necessity of anything, if he has the will to.’ The lake was grey and still in the dawn light. He gazed into it. ‘The world of bandits was a ruthless one. We had to be more ruthless still.’ He smiled faintly, but it was bitter and there was no joy there.

  ‘Does it disturb you?’ he asked. ‘To know that the leader of the Libera Dramach is a thief and a murderer?’

  ‘No,’ said Mishani. ‘I ceased to believe in innocence long ago. A bandit may kill a hundred men, but those we choose to govern us kill many times that number with their schemes and policies. I learned of such things at court. At least your way of murder is honest.’ She watched a bird winging its way across the lake, south to north. ‘I cannot speak for others, but I do not care about your past. I did not know those you harmed, and to be outraged at you would be false sentiment. We are all of us guilty of things that make us ashamed. Good men do evil deeds, and evil men can become good. I care only what you do now, Yugi, for you hold the reins of many lives.’ The bird disappeared at last, vanishing in the distance, and she shifted herself where she sat and turned her eyes to him again. ‘Go on with your tale.’

  ‘We made enemies, of course,’ Yugi said after a time. ‘Other bandit gangs wanted to topple us, but none of them had a chance against our strength. I became overconfident.’ He began to pick at the cloth between his knees. ‘There was word of a gathering of our rivals. I led my men out to ambush them. But it was a trick. One I should have seen coming.’

  ‘They ambushed you?’

  ‘Not us. They raided our camp, where we had left our women and children. There were only a dozen fighting men there. I didn’t think they knew where we hid, didn’t think they’d dare to attack us even if they did know. Wrong on both counts.’ His eyes tightened. ‘Gods, when we got back . . .’

  Mishani was silent. She pulled her shawl a little tighter around her to fend off the cold.

  ‘She wasn’t quite dead when I found her. I’ll never know how she held on that long. But she waited for me, and . . . we . . .’ His voice failed him. He swallowed. ‘She died in my arms.’

  He stared furiously out across the lake, taut with a festering anger. ‘And do you know what my first thought was after she had died? My very first? I’ll tell you. I deserved it. I deserved for her to die. Because I realised then that every person who died on my blade had a mother or a brother or a child who felt the grief that I was feeling. And I tore a strip from the hem of her dress and I wrapped it around my head, and I swore I’d wear it always to remind me of what I’d done, and who I’d lost because of it.’ He touched the dirty rag around his forehead. ‘This.’

  ‘And what happened afterward?’ Mishani asked. She did not offer sympathy. She did not think he wanted any from her, nor would she have given it if he had.

  ‘The others were already screaming for revenge,’ he said. ‘But I knew how it would be. Our retribution would spark other retributions, as it always had and always would. Running around in circles, getting nowhere, an endless back and forth of blades and bleeding bodies. And so I walked away from there. They thought to give me space, to let me grieve for my woman. They thought I would be back.’ His eyes were flat. ‘But I never came back.’

  Mishani knew the rest from Zaelis: how Yugi had drifted into the Libera Dramach; how his natural leadership skills and experience had made him more and more invaluable until he had become Zaelis’s right-hand man; how, after Zaelis had died at the Fold, he had become the head of the Libera Dramach. And she understood him now.

  ‘You do not want to lead these people, do you?’ she asked.

  Yugi looked at her for a long moment, then tilted his head in affirmation. ‘I’m no general like Zahn. I don’t have the vision and ambition that Zaelis had. I led a hundred men and I led them well, but in the end I failed and it cost me the only thing I ever . . .’ He looked away. ‘Ah, what use is talking?’

  ‘You could step down,’ said Mishani.

  ‘No, I couldn’t. Because I’m still the best gods-damned leader they’ve got. Zaelis may have picked his men well, but he couldn’t get generals, he couldn’t get war-makers. They belong to the noble houses, and the moment one of them get near the Libera Dramach, the moment politics becomes involved, then it’s over for us. They all want Lucia.’

  Mishani nodded. ‘There is sense in what you say. Even Zahn would be a danger. But can you lead thousands to war, Yugi? Your skills were of great use in the Fold, but then you were fighting as bandits fight. It may come to a moment when you must be a general, and your choices on the battlefield will cost many lives. Will you be able to make those choices? Or will you hide in your drugged dreams?’

  Yugi looked grim. ‘If it’s my punishment that I must suffer to lead these men and women, then I’ll bear it because I have to. The gods certainly have a sick sense of humour, to make revenge on me for my past misdeeds by giving m
e more lives to ruin.’

  ‘They do indeed,’ said Mishani.

  Yugi got to his feet then. Nuki’s eye had risen a little more by now. The lake was blue, and the air was warming. ‘Thank you for hearing me out, Mishani. I don’t know why I chose to talk to you of all people, but I’m glad I did.’ He looked up the slope, to where the white temples of Araka Jo stood crumbling. ‘How is it that our past dictates our future?’ he wondered aloud. ‘Where’s the sense in that?’

  And then he was gone, walking away from her, and she was alone again.

  She sat for a long time and thought on what he had said. Then she returned to her house and began to pack what things she needed.

  She was going to see her mother.

  EIGHTEEN

  Few slept in the forest that night, but for Kaiku it was not out of fear of dreams.

  She wandered the emyrynn village alone after Tsata had left her, traipsing listlessly between the iridescent columns and swirls and spikes that clung to the trees and sprawled along the ground. Fretfully replaying the moment in her mind when they had kissed, picking it apart to find what meaning she could therein. What had been in his eyes when she had halted him? Would it have been better to have let him kiss her again before giving him news of his ailing kinswoman? Did he interpret it as an excuse for rejection? And indeed, in Kaiku’s intention, had it been that? Did she shy from him on purpose, using Peithre as an excuse to get herself out of it? Gods, she did not even know herself what she had wanted then; but retrospect was a hard eye to cast upon her actions, and she was full of regrets and uncertainties.

  She had achieved no resolution by the time dawn came, and she heard Phaeca’s scream.

  Her meanderings had almost brought her back to the camp when the sound reached her. It took longer to process than it otherwise would, for the sleeplessness was beginning to tell. She wasted a second on incomprehension before breaking into a run, sprinting around the tent cluster where others were getting to their feet. She reached the alien dwelling where Phaeca had been resting, pushed aside the soldiers who crowded around the entranceway and went inside.

  Phaeca was still screaming. She was hunkered against the tree bole that formed one wall of the room, her possessions and bedding scattered across the floor. Blood ran from the walls and lay in pools on the floor, smeared at the edges where her heels had slipped in them. Chunks of smoking flesh and blackened bone were strewn about. Some of them were whole enough to still have the fur on. White fur, soaked in red.

  Kaiku stared at the scene, aghast. ‘Phaeca, what have you done?’ she breathed. Her voice rose in anger and disbelief. ‘You killed one of them? You killed an emyrynn?’ She crossed the room and grabbed hold of Phaeca’s shoulders, shaking her roughly. ‘Why? Why?’

  ‘It was trying to kill me!’ Phaeca shrieked. ‘It was in my room! I woke up and it was in my room!’

  Kaiku squeezed her eyes shut. The scene as it might have happened played across the darkness: Phaeca, awakening from a nightmare to find an unfamiliar creature before her, lashing out with her kana. She was already in a state of questionable sanity, driven to raving and feverish mutterings by the malevolence of the forest. The sight of the emyrynn must have been too much for her. Or maybe it had attacked her. Maybe she was telling the truth. It didn’t matter, in the end. She had killed one of them.

  ‘This is not your room,’ she said, her voice quieter now. ‘You were sleeping in its home.’

  A cry of alarm went up in the camp, and those soldiers at the doorway turned back to look. ‘There’s something moving out in the trees!’ came the shout.

  ‘Do you know what you have done, Phaeca?’ Kaiku said, her tone heavy with despondency. ‘Your actions will be the death of us all.’

  At that, Phaeca’s face twisted into a snarl, and she launched herself at Kaiku.

  Kaiku did not expect it in the least. Perhaps, had she thought on it, she would have been more careful in her words. She knew how fragile her friend was in this place. But though she had worried about Phaeca’s state of mind over the past few days, she had never once thought that she might become violent. Even in the wake of what she had just discovered, she assumed the killing of the emyrynn was an accident, a reaction rather than a premeditated act. The sight of the Sister’s face twisting into a contortion of such utter hatred made her quail; and then she was being carried out of the doorway of the dwelling by the weight of the attack, scattering the soldiers there, and she fell onto the blue-green grass outside with Phaeca atop her.

  The savagery of Phaeca’s assault stunned her; she only resisted at all because instinct drove her to. Phaeca raked her face with her nails, slapped and punched at her head, shrieking and screaming oaths and curses in a coarse Axekami dialect that was entirely unlike her usual mode of speech. Two of the soldiers, unable to credit what they were seeing, reached down to pull the crazed Sister from her victim; they were flung back and away by an invisible force that flattened the grass and cracked the sap wall of the emyrynn dwelling.

  It was the outrush of Phaeca’s kana that brought Kaiku to her senses. The wrenching of the Weave sparked an answer in her own body, a surge of energy that she fought to curtail before it broke out of her, fearful of hurting her friend.

  She should not have done so. It took her too long to realise that Phaeca’s kana was not only directed at the soldiers, it was also directed at her. Phaeca was attacking her in the Weave, and that made her intent lethal.

  She surrendered herself to the will of her kana. Time decelerated to a crawl in the world of the five senses, while beneath its skin the Sisters clashed at blinding speed. Kaiku’s fractional hesitation had afforded Phaeca an advantage. Only when she had cast aside all doubts and had realised that her friend really meant to kill her, that this was a fight for her very life, did she lend her will to the conflict and begin resisting in earnest.

  But by then it was too late. Phaeca had undermined her, laid traps that foiled her attempts at constructing defences. Kaiku constructed labyrinthine tangles only to have them come apart at a single tug. She built snares to delay her opponent and watched them fall to pieces when they were sprung. By the time she had got her barriers up, Phaeca was already behind them, and Kaiku was forced to abandon them and back away further. The assault was relentless, furious; she crumbled under it. Phaeca was not as good as Cailin, but she was still better than most Weavers, sliding and shuttling like a needle. And Kaiku had been taken totally by surprise, had still refused to believe it even when she had realised what was happening.

  Phaeca burst through the holes in Kaiku’s stitchwork and reached into her body, grasping, encircling her heart, sewing into muscle and bone. Kaiku screamed in horror, a wordless mental anguish at the violation, the knowledge that she had no way to fight back now and that this cry would be her last.

  Then the pain hit her. Phaeca was tearing her apart. She had done it to others before, and always wondered what it must have felt like, the kind of agony they would suffer in the instant before they died. Now she knew. It was as if her every vein and nerve were being pulled forcibly from her flesh, sucked out like tendrils through her skin to be cast away. The torture was incredible, overwhelming . . .

  . . . and suddenly gone.

  She was alone in the Weave. Phaeca had disappeared, with only an aching pulse of sadness left in her wake.

  Her mind settled again, reorientating her senses. She left the Weave, her kana turning inwards and scouring her for damage. Her red eyes refocused and the light of dawn in the forest filtered back.

  There was a weight atop her. A booted foot braced against it and shoved it off. Asara. She reached down and helped Kaiku up.

  ‘I had no choice,’ Asara said. ‘It was her or you.’

  She forced herself to look at Phaeca. The Sister lay face-down, her hair bloody. Shot through the neck.

  ‘It was her or you,’ Asara said again.

  Asara’s voice was dim and tinny in Kaiku’s ears, cushioned by a numb blanket that had
settled on her. Her vision had narrowed, the periphery hazed. She felt fractured from her surroundings, barely aware. Around her, gunshots and cries, denting the whine of the blood in her ears. She could not reconcile the figure lying before her with the woman she had known. The fact that this husk of flesh was here did not equate with the certainty that she would never see nor speak with Phaeca again.

  ‘Kaiku, we have to go,’ Asara was saying to her. Then, turning her so that she was looking into her eyes. ‘Do you hear? We have to go now!’

  She could see over Asara’s shoulder, into the trees that surrounded the village. Of course, of course. The retaliation. From the foliage, white shapes were slinking, muzzles wrinkled and teeth bared. The emyrynn were coming. Their hospitality had been abused.

  ‘Where is Lucia?’ someone cried. ‘Where is Lucia?’

  It was that name that brought Kaiku out of her daze. With a whimper, she moved to flee into the camp and search, thinking only of the need to protect her. Asara grabbed her arm.

  ‘She is there,’ Asara said, pointing. And indeed she was, with Doja and a half-dozen soldiers clustered around her. Tsata and Heth were approaching, Peithre carried in Heth’s arms. Kaiku saw him and motioned towards Lucia, then ran that way herself, with Asara following.

  Phaeca . . .

  Kaiku shoved the grief away. She could not allow herself to think on it now. There were others whose lives would depend on her. Lucia was all that mattered.

  The emyrynn were coming from all around the village, but they appeared in greatest number at the point where the camp lay against the outermost edge. They sprang through the leaves, sleek and graceful, their white fur pristine. Such beautiful creatures, but their faces were sharp now, grinning in animal rictus, and there was deadly purpose in their steps. The soldiers were firing into the undergrowth, rifle balls clipping purple stems and ricocheting off tree trunks with a splintering of wood. They hit nothing. The emyrynn appeared in glimpses, and each glimpse showed them to be ever closer to their prey.