Hall of Smoke

by H. M. Long

  “Eang, hear me.”

  Drip, drip, drip.

  “Goddess, please.”

  Drip, drip.

  “Eang!” I screamed. The name echoed over the river and up into the sky, but there was no response. No hoot of an owl. No vision.

  I sank down upon the bank. My palms met the cool stone first, bleeding fingers twitching, the exhausted sinews of my wrists straining. My legs gave out next, jittering into one another as they collapsed. Round river stones clattered against my hip and knee, hard enough to bruise, but I was beyond feelings as irrelevant as that.

  My vision narrowed and, in its place, grief swelled. It brimmed and overflowed, as broad and yawning as the sky above, and as deep and drowning as the river below.

  Eidr came into that vastness first, simple, sweet and unadorned. Then the memories followed, screeching and cavorting into my thoughts like a flock of vengeful crows. Eidr on our wedding day, laughing in the firelight. Eidr brushing hair from my eyes in the warmth of our bed, on a cool autumn night. Eidr lying butchered in the ruins of our home.

  I tried to stand back up, clawing at the rocks as if I could physically distance myself from the memories. But all I did was smear the stones with blood and earn myself a dozen more bruises. I gagged, trying to steady my breathing, trying to stop my chest from heaving and my heart from racing, but there was no end to it. Not this time.

  I cried. I screamed for Eidr, for Yske and my family. I cried for the Eangi. But most of all, I wept for myself, because I was alone and afraid, and I did not want to inhabit a world without them; a world where the goddess I’d served and worshiped all my life would not hear me.

  Dawn found me listlessly trying to rebind the wounds on my legs with shreds of my undertunic. The rough weave of my outer tunic grated against my skin, but I hadn’t the will to care.

  “Woman!”

  I raised my head.

  “We mean no harm. Woman? Can…”

  I blinked as the man dismounted and pulled a fringed helmet from his head. He held out a warding hand and halted ten paces away, his brown eyes wide with shock.

  “Hessa, put down the hatchet.”

  I stared into Nisien’s face for a long, stupefied minute, then disintegrated into hitching, hysterical laughter.

  * * *

  Nisien hovered as I sat under the care of an Arpa healer. Together with eighty other Arpa, the healer was part of the expedition into the Algatt Mountains that Ogam had initiated and General Athiliu had sent from Ilia. And Nisien, it seemed, had joined them.

  The rest of the legionaries, led by Commander Polinus, were currently breaking up camp beyond a stand of birches. The leaves of the trees shimmered gold in the dawn, indifferent to the road-worn men that moved around the peeling white trunks.

  “I came after you,” Nisien began.

  I flinched as the healer applied paste to another wound on my thigh. The thin man was not pleased to be tending a barbarian, but Commander Polinus, as unruffled by me as he had been back at the Ilia Gates, had ordered him to do it.

  “My mother had no right to do what she did.”

  While I appreciated this, I offered the Soulderni no reply. After what I had endured the night before, I was having trouble remembering how to speak.

  “I worried you wouldn’t make it through the border, so I went straight to Athiliu at the Ilia Gates. Apparently, I missed you by half a day.” Nisien brushed at one of his cheeks. He was clean-shaven now, and it was strange to see familiar eyes in such a naked face. I couldn’t help but think, when I glanced across the line of his jaw, that Euweth’s fears for her son had been all too valid. Despite his darker skin, he looked… Arpa.

  “I didn’t know what to make of your traveling with that that god, Ogam, either.” Nisien watched the healer wind another bandage. “I wanted to help you. But the only way General Athiliu would let me cross into Eangen was if I joined the party heading north. So, I agreed and… well, we rode out two days after you and Ogam.”

  I studied the horseman. The thought of him coming north for me, crossing the border and putting himself at risk, warmed my heart. But I’d seen the nostalgia in his eyes when he spoke to Castor; I doubted Athiliu and I were the only reasons he’d rejoined the Arpa.

  When he didn’t speak again, I cleared my throat. “You only joined because Athiliu made you?”

  Nisien scrubbed at his cheek now, discomfited by my scrutiny. “No. I wanted to. I owe you, after what my mother did. She broke Hearth Law. Perhaps Fate will be merciful to her if I help you.”

  “Then Oulden must have brought you to me,” I decided. However clouded Nisien’s motives might be, there was no need to speak of them now, in front of the healer. “And for that, I’m grateful. You weren’t punished for lying to Castor?”

  Nisien shrugged. “Athiliu is First in the north and Castor’s only a captain. I’ll be fine. Where’s Cadic?”

  My heart turned at the thought of his horse. “Ogam took her. I’m sorry. If I’d known I would see you again—”

  He waved a dismissive hand and looked away, but I could see the lines around his mouth tighten. It left me with the hope that, beneath this Arpa garb, Nisien was still a Soulderni of the Ridings.

  “Did you run into anyone along the way?” I asked, though I feared the answer. “Algatt or Eangen?”

  Nisien hesitated. “Yes.”

  I waited for him to go on, watching the way the sunlight settled in his black eyelashes.

  “We encountered Algatt twice. One group were villagers, so there was a small stand-off, but everyone left alive. The second was a raiding party. That ended more violently, but we didn’t lose anyone. If there were Eangen anywhere, they’re well in hiding. We saw footprints here and there, a figure in the distance. Nothing more.”

  I took this soberly. “The Algatt are settling in.”

  Nisien’s nod of agreement turned into a wince as the healer moved on to the bite on my neck. Both men leant closer, examining the tooth marks with a perturbed kind of interest. “Ah… Harvest is only a couple months away and there’s no reason for them to starve when the fields are ripe.”

  The healer tsked, muttered in his own language, and poked at the holes in my flesh. I strove not to flinch and held my leather-wrapped braid out of the way.

  “Then they’ve conquered Eangen,” I concluded grimly.

  “Well.” Nisien still watched the man work. “If more beings like Shanich and her… creatures… are roaming about, the Algatt might not be able to stay either.”

  I shivered compulsively. I tried to hide the tremor in a scowl, but my façade was thin. “Eangen may become too dangerous for anyone. I found a broken binding tree, and other signs of unrest.”

  “Is that why you’re this far north?” The way Nisien spoke made me realize he’d been holding this question back. “I hoped to find word of you in the south, but I gave up days ago. Did Eang send you here? Does this have anything to do with the god you bound in Souldern?”

  It dawned upon me that I had never told Nisien about Omaskat or the real circumstances that had brought me to his land. I glanced from him to the healer. I wasn’t sure I wanted to divulge the whole truth yet – especially with Nisien clad in smooth cheeks and Arpa plate armor – but I trusted the healer even less.

  “Your mother was a goat,” I suggested casually to the older man.

  The healer rolled his eyes and told Nisien something in his own language.

  “He doesn’t understand you,” Nisien clarified with the hint of a smile.

  “I am going north for Eang,” I said. The next part was harder to divulge: “And yes, it may have something to do with Ashaklon and the trouble in the High Halls. All I’ll say is that I’m looking for someone.”

  Nisien took this in stride, and if he was hurt by my lack of candor, he didn’t show it. “I see.”

  “I…” I looked beyond the stand of birches, where the rest of the Arpa were almost finished breaking camp and the gold of dawn settled into a clean, sum
mer brightness. They loaded the horses now, calling to one another and tossing saddlebags between them. A flutter of panic passed through me.

  “I’ve lost my gear,” I fumbled. “Can you leave me with—”

  “Come with us,” Nisien said before the last word had left my lips. “This is no land to be traveling alone, Eangi or not.”

  “Would Polinus agree?” I hesitated. “They offered to take me with them at the border, but I… I never expected to meet something like Shanich.”

  “Polinus is a good man. He wouldn’t abandon you here.” Nisien stood up. “I’ll speak with him now if you like.”

  I paused for the span of two breaths. But the thought of being left alone on this riverbank, without Eang or Ogam or my own strength, was too much.

  “Please.”

  * * *

  And so, I came to travel north through Algatt-overrun Eangen in a company of legionaries.

  I rode with Nisien, pouring all my focus into staying astride the horse. I paid the Arpa little attention and bore their interest passively, holding onto Nisien’s belt as we plodded up a well-traveled road.

  “There’s a town, Lada, nearby,” I said at one point and gestured to a carved stone up ahead. “That marks a three-mile distance from a temple.”

  Nisien nudged our horse into a trot and wove up to the fore of the group, where Polinus rode in deep discussion with another man. As we drew up, I realized the second man was no legionary at all, but the priest, Quentis. He was robed and carried a knife but was otherwise unarmed and unarmored.

  Quentis forgot whatever he had been about to say and, for a second, we stared at one another.

  “Servant of Eang,” he acknowledged in an indecipherable tone.

  “Servant of…” I glanced him over, but if there were clues to his patron god in his grey robe and its crisscrossed leather straps, I couldn’t recognize them.

  “Lathian,” the man finished for me.

  I levelled my shoulders and considered him with a new, cautious respect. He served the Arpa’s chief god directly, just as I served Eang. Yes, I had caught him off guard with my Fire back at the Ilia Gates, but this man was my equal. Who knew what kind of power his god had gifted him with?

  Slowly, I inclined my head. He did the same.

  Polinus and Nisien, meanwhile, had begun to speak.

  “…supplies.” Polinus tilted his helmet back and squinted up at the sun. “You, take a man and scout ahead. Go.”

  Two soldiers dropped from their saddles, passed off reins, and jogged away up the road.

  As they vanished, Polinus looked at me. “I’d like you to tell me all you can about this region.”

  I considered lying, but I needed these foreigners now. And as far as Arpa went, I didn’t mind Polinus.

  “This village is one of three on the road to the mountains,” I explained. “They’re farmers, like the rest of us, except for Iskir. That’s the town furthest north. There is… was a large group of Eangi there. It was probably the hardest hit by the Algatt. If there is anyone left, they will be hostile. Iskiri are the wildest of the Eangen.”

  “Human threats we can manage,” Polinus said, his tone impassive and practical. “But what of this Shanich? Is the area known for beings like her?”

  I shook my head. “She’d been forgotten. The only name I know in this area is Ried, an old god. His bones are buried beneath the Hall of Vision in Iskir, but he’s been dead a thousand years.”

  “Ah. Did this trouble in your ‘High Hall’ disturb Shanich?”

  I wasn’t about to admit Eang’s power was waning, and along with it, her ancient bindings. “Maybe.”

  “Then how can we defend against her?” Polinus turned his gaze between Quentis and me.

  “Pray,” we replied in unison, though my response had a doubtful undercurrent. No one else noticed it.

  “I gave Shanich what should have been a mortal wound,” I added. “It only irritated her.”

  “I can cast a ward over the camp tonight,” Quentis offered. “It will do little against the Algatt, but perhaps the creatures will be deterred.”

  When Nisien glanced over his shoulder at me quizzically, I shook my head. “Eangi don’t do witchcraft.”

  “Witchcraft?” The priest shot me a half-disgusted, half-pitying glare. I saw the insult poised on his tongue – barbarian? Heathen? Savage? “Then what are your runes and your Eangi Fire?”

  I scowled.

  “Place your ward then.” Polinus eyed us like a disapproving parent. “We’ll stop within the hour, depending on what word the scouts bring back. Then the two of you can discuss what we should do if Shanich or her ilk attack.”

  * * *

  The scouts returned with word that the village of Lada was abandoned, so we made our way there.

  My heart clenched as we rode past gaping doors, overgrown gardens and empty pathways. There were no burned buildings or bodies, and that lent me hope that the population had fled in time. But there were still signs of violence – shattered shutters, a door torn off its hinges. The Algatt had swept through on their way south, and little of value remained behind the houses’ gaping windows.

  When I caught sight of the temple through the narrow paths between the houses, I tapped Nisien on the shoulder.

  “Slow down. I’ll be back.”

  Before he could protest, I slipped from the saddle, pushed aside a cascade of hanging grasses and made for the temple, hatchet in hand.

  The simple building resided on the edge of the village. It looked much like the shrine I had visited on Mount Thyr, but this one was larger and walled with weathered grey cedar boards. Winters were harsher in the north and its people practical about the burden of cold and snow in their worship.

  I took a second to compose myself. The emptiness of the village oppressed me, lingering at my back like an unspoken threat. Despite this, insects hummed in the grasses around my shoes and the sun on my scalp was warm, almost pleasant.

  I stepped into the shrine. Inside, the scent of wood, smoked and weathered, sunk deep into my lungs. My eyes closed and my lips parted in a prayer so instinctual that I hardly noticed it.

  “Eang, Eang. The Brave, the Vengeful, the Swift and the Watchful. I come to pay respect and beg your eye fall upon me.”

  I crossed the worn earthen floor. Offerings lay scattered across the ground: idols of owls and female forms; bowls that had once held honey wine or blood; animal’s teeth; owl feathers; wooden beads; and intricately carved bones. Anything more valuable was long gone, carried off by the Algatt.

  Rage burned in my chest at the desecration. But at least they had not burned this holy place, as they had the Hall of Smoke.

  Carefully, I gathered up all the offerings and set them back on the altar. Then, as I glanced down into the basin of ashes and dead coals, I saw an irregular shape.

  It was a collar. An Eangi collar, slightly warped by the heat of the flames and so old that its runes had vanished. It had been modified into the shape of a torc, turning its severed ends into smooth swirls of bronze.

  Gently, I lifted it from the ash and brushed my fingers along its curve. This was a far northern style of collar. Normally, an Eangi collar was made to be permanent and irremovable – only to be cut off when an Eangi had done something so heinous it merited casting out. But in villages like this, which would only have one priest or priestess for the entirety of that person’s life, collars could be passed down, like a chieftain’s brooch or a mother’s beads.

  For a short time, I knelt in the temple and cradled the collar in my ashy fingers, lost in bittersweet memories of Albor and Eidr and the Hall of Smoke. I longed to slip this collar around my neck; to rise redeemed and burn my path through the world. To be a true Eangi again, fearless with hope of the High Halls and reunion with my lost people before me.

  But I was still unforgiven. What right did I have to wear such a thing, even one as warped and tarnished as this?

  I wanted that right back. Fire lit in my chest, mo
re of a throbbing than a blaze. One day soon, I would wear this collar proudly. And I would see Eidr and Yske again.

  With determined, grim movements, I cleaned the bronze circlet and tucked it through my belt.

  TWENTY-TWO

  It wasn’t until I sat down to eat my midday ration that I realized Castor and pale-eyed Estavius were among the company. In truth, I hadn’t bothered to study any of the soldiers. They were all untrustworthy under their helmets – that was all I cared to know.

  But when I settled myself in the shade of a tree, I saw Castor, the captain, watching me. His light brown curls were stiff with sweat, dragged in furrows from his flushed forehead. Estavius, the inquisitive one, sat next to him on a bench, his attention directed toward his food.

  My eyes darted around for Nisien, but he was out of sight. Why hadn’t he mentioned that Castor and Estavius had joined the mission?

  Riding the grim determination I’d found in the temple, I met Castor’s gaze and nodded in acknowledgement. Estavius noticed too and returned my nod, relief and interest passing through his pale eyes.

  Castor, however, did something quite different. He drew back his upper lip and curled his tongue around his teeth in a lewd sneer. Estavius, who had already looked back to his food, didn’t notice.

  A fracture laced up my calm exterior. My heart thudded against my ribs, once in unease, twice in anger, then I calmed. I delivered Castor the snarl I usually reserved for Algatt.

  He choked on a laugh. That caught Estavius’s attention again and his gaze flicked between the two of us. Seeing the end of my snarl, he demanded something of his companion.

  Castor chortled out the last of his amusement and flapped a hand dismissively, but Estavius’s gaze was cautious from then on – though I couldn’t be sure if it was directed toward Castor or me.

  When Nisien sat down at my side, I pointed to the pair. “What are they doing here?”

  The Soulderni followed my gaze. “Ah. They volunteered.”

  “After a month of marching, they still volunteered to cross Eangen?” I couldn’t decide whether to be impressed or disdainful, particularly given the burns Estavius had taken during Esach’s lightning storm. Though, now that I noted his hands, I saw they had healed remarkably well.