Hall of Smoke

by H. M. Long

  The mist seemed to find what it was looking for – a honeyed glow beneath the smolder of Eang’s Fire. At once it disentangled from my lungs and mouth and swirled away, broader and broader. I might have sworn I saw a figure there, bowing in concession as the mist faded.

  I blinked hard and dragged even breaths until my heartbeat steadied. Then I unslung my pack, shook the tension out of my shoulders, and went to work.

  Half an hour later, I darted back into the Waking World. There had been a version of the Algatt village in the High Halls, empty and desolate, but my pack bulged with pine needles and mushrooms, berries and wildflowers. My belly and flask were full of the stolen water, and as I reentered the sunny warmth of the Waking World again, I felt stronger than ever.

  Resolute, I wove back through the mountain to the Waking World’s Algatt village. There, in the musty shadows of the house I’d explored earlier, I took up the lynx shield. I looked it over and tested its strength, and when I was satisfied, slung it over my back.

  Then I turned my feet north.

  THIRTY-TWO

  My journey to the Algatt village Eang had mentioned was solitary and uneventful, and by the time I saw signs of a settlement, my bleeding was nearly through. Nonetheless, I took a moment to prepare before I went on, stashing my pack in a tree and slipping my hand through the grip of my shield. Then I took Estavius’s knife in my right hand and crept towards the settlement.

  Ten minutes later I stood in the overgrown center of the village, stomach sick and eyes round with horror. Albor and Iskir had been awful sights, sights that would stay with me forever. But this Algatt village was something else entirely.

  Bodies hung from beams like dolls, strung up by nooses, clothing and even their own looping braids. Some had been alive when they were displayed; the veins in their faces were ruptured, their nails torn away and their throats raw from struggling. Their toes – some bare, others booted – brushed the tops of weeds, sprouted up in once well-worn pathways; a tuft of grass here, a winking wildflower there.

  I walked past a row of corpses, gawking and gagging all at once. The Algatt were killers, yes, but like the Eangen they struck to kill. Quickly. They did not torture or toy with their opponents.

  The Arpa who did this had taken their time. There were men, women and children, old and young, strong and weak. Most of them had been brutalized in some way, yet even that was not the most disconcerting part.

  Not one of them had eyes. Every Algatt here had been blinded, forming a sea of blinded bodies that I had seen in my vision, back in Souldern.

  And then there were the souls. The weight of them crept into my new senses, seeping up from the earth on which they’d died – where they lay trapped, screaming and begging for a priest to release them. I felt them in my bones, from my toes to my twitching fingertips.

  I vomited, stumbled back to my pack, and ran.

  I did not stop running until I found a temple. It was not hard to recognize, built deep into a cliff face above the trees. Its triangular mouth had been carved in the same manner as the archway in the Algatt house, depictions of Gadr entwined with the complex Gatti runes for sacredness, shelter and worship.

  I steeled myself and ducked inside. It was cool and damp and dominated by a tall, slim standing stone carved with more Algatt runes, but there was plenty of light and, most importantly, it was free of blinded bodies.

  I tried to sit but could not. How could I rest on ground sacred to Gadr? How could I be still when I had just seen something so horrific?

  I stepped up to the temple mouth and angled my face to the sun. My mind quieted momentarily, but the images raced back in. A blinded man hung by his feet. A blinded little girl, her stiff fingers tangled in a noose of her own braids.

  How could the Arpa have been so cruel? I recalled the faces of the legionaries I knew. They were not necessarily good men, but they were ordered, regimented. Strict. I could not see Polinus permitting something like this, nor Commander Athiliu, nor even Castor, who despised we “barbarians” so much.

  But Quentis… Quentis I could imagine doing such a thing. He would do it in the sight of his twisted gods and cherish every cry.

  Following this line of thought, it struck me that the bodies had to be at least two months old, presuming they’d died just before the Algatt’s push into Eangen – timing which the overgrown village paths affirmed. Yet they were barely decayed and there were no signs of scavengers. There hadn’t even been flies.

  I shuddered and retreated into the cool of the cave, arms clasped over my chest. Perhaps human Arpa had slaughtered that village, as Eang had told me. But I suspected something more than men had been involved. Was this the will of one of their gods?

  I paced the temple until my nerves settled. But with composure came the reality that Eang had sent me to the village to arm and supply myself, a charge which I had abandoned. Again.

  I glanced out the cave mouth at the angle of the sun. I had two more hours of daylight, give or take. That was enough to get to the village and back.

  Half-heartedly, I took up my shield and knife and returned to the settlement. This time I avoided the corpses, though it was hard not to see their fluttering clothes in the corner of my eye or feel the gut-watering distress of their souls beneath my feet.

  I ducked into the first house. Chairs had been overturned but moldering bread, meat and shriveled vegetables still sat on the tabletop. Knowing Algatt homes now, I headed for the cave at the back. There in sealed jars, I found the last of the winter’s seeds and nuts, and wrapped bundles of dry meat and hard cheese tucked into a dry shelf in the rock.

  Weapons and clothing were just as easy to find. I armed myself with a bearded axe, a brace of hatchets and a broad, practical hunting knife. I found a long mail vest to supplement my padded armor and belted it around my waist. I also found a bow with a draw I could manage and packed it with a quiver of arrows and three extra bowstrings.

  I took all the food I could carry and headed back to the temple as the sun began to set – the sustenance I’d taken from the High Halls, after all, were intended to feed my magic, not nourish my travelling body.

  I didn’t intend to look back, but as I reached the village boundary the weight of the souls slowed me, soundlessly begging and pleading and clawing at my thoughts. I stopped and shut my eyes, unable to stop thinking of Albor.

  Was this what I would feel if I returned home, now? Would the souls of Eidr and Yske and Sixnit’s husband Vist keen beneath the earth and tear at me, because I’d failed to release them?

  All at once my solitude and guilt crashed down upon me, as heavy and as crushing as it had been after Shanich’s attack. Distantly, I recalled the warmth of Eidr’s arms and Yske’s laugh, the songs of the Eangi on a winter night and a thousand small moments, small memories, all poisoned by my failure.

  My eyes dragged to the ground. The souls here were Algatt, my enemies; they were none of my concern. But that division did not seem so great just then, with Albor before my eyes and misery beneath my feet.

  I wasn’t sure I could do anything for them, but I crouched. There in the earth, I sketched the runes for release and peace, but when it came time to infuse them with Eang’s Fire, I reached beneath it instead. I pulled at a wisp of stolen amber magic. Eang’s Fire immediately arose, burning and forcing me away, but I tried again. Finally, I found a thread of power that Eang could not smother, and I pushed it into the runes.

  Under my feet, the souls eased. Their silent cries faded and the sensations of the wider world slid back in: the song of a single, brave bird; the brush of the wind down the crags; and the cool of the coming night.

  A strange feeling overtook me as I stood up, guilt merging with resolve and a hollow, aching grief. Unable to bear the sight of the village’s empty homes and abandoned corpses any longer, I turned my feet away.

  * * *

  Now armed, recovered and well-supplied, I returned my focus to finding Omaskat. I sipped tea made from High Halls’ pine nee
dles each night, and though the supplies I’d brought back from that other world did eventually dwindle, their sleeping power grew in my blood and bones. This boon and its mystery helped take my mind from my loneliness, but only just. My dreams each night were full of Eidr and Yske and Sixnit, memories of Eangi songs and the security of a dozen round shields locked with mine. I even thought of Nisien, of the consolation I’d found when he rolled his bedroll out next to me, or the kindness in the enigmatic Estavius’s eyes as the wind and rain howled around him.

  Still, my sense of purpose increased. I might never see Nisien and Estavius again, but every day I grew closer to Omaskat and my redemption. Every day, I grew closer to a reunion with Eidr in the High Halls. Then my questions, my doubts and fears would cease to matter – or so I told myself.

  I had no maps to guide me, so I determined that the swiftest way to find the white lake would be to locate the peak it sat below. But the peaks here were gradual, low and largely tree-covered, while the one above the lake in my vision had been jagged and towering.

  I had to go deeper into the mountains.

  I travelled with the sunrise to my right and the sunset to my left. Villages were not infrequent, nor were herder’s huts and temples, so I’d no need to sleep without shelter. But the settlements unnerved me. Over the next four days, I found two more that had been abandoned and slept in their temples – caves, again, as the first one had been. In the third town I came across the remains of a huge pyre. I found fragments of skulls among the ashes and no souls in the earth, and left at a run.

  That was the only night I spent out in the open. The mountains were stark and barren here, lending no shelter save one bent pine. I had to climb ten minutes off the path to reach it and when I did, I almost climbed back down. I was incredibly exposed. But light retreated over the western peaks and clouds closed in from the east. I would soon be out of daylight.

  I had to make the best of it. The tree smelled of sap and the wind was clean, whisking the heat of the day away up the long, curving valley. I pulled off my boots to air and sat on my bedroll while I ate and watched the light flee from the western sky.

  Deep in the night, I awoke to the clatter of hooves. My heart lunged into my throat and, before my eyes were half-open, I’d seized my bow.

  It was the Arpa. They passed through the valley in a trail of silver and horseflesh, their armor glinting under a thinly veiled moon.

  I dropped onto my belly and searched for Nisien and his bay mount. But every man looked the same from this distance – except for a handful who wore no armor or helmets and rode no horses. They trailed behind, bound to one another by the neck.

  The prisoners wore fitted trousers and angular tunics, and one of them – maybe female, by her dress and proportions – had a wild knot of pale red hair. Algatt?

  I watched until the last swish of a horse’s tail vanished over the next ridge, then sat back into my heels to think. Why would Polinus drag captive Algatt around the mountains?

  Unless these were not the legionaries I knew. I cast a long look back up the valley, wondering. There had been around the right number of men for Polinus’s group and they had all been mounted. I thought it unlikely that the legionaries responsible for the Algatt slaughter would all be riders, let alone still be so ordered after a year in the north.

  No, these Arpa were almost certainly Polinus’s. Perhaps he was using the captive Algatt as guides?

  I came up into a crouch, watching the spot where the party had vanished with new intensity. If the Arpa could use Algatt to find their goal, so could I.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The Arpa were easy to follow, even on a rocky stretch of mountain. All I had to do was pick my way along a predictable trail of manure. The horses also required grazing, which meant that as soon as they passed through a green valley, the legionaries stopped to make camp.

  I diverted off the road. Evergreen forests folded in around me, murky in the night and pungent with sap. I stashed my pack up into the boughs of one and proceeded with only my weapons.

  By now I had spent enough time with the Arpa to know their scouting routines. I crept as close as I dared, avoided two scouts, then proceeded in an awkward belly-crawl.

  I scraped spider-silk from my face and peered ahead. The trees thinned here, allowing patches of grass and stalwart alpine flowers, pale in the moonlight. The horses were already at their ease, watched by half of the men. The remainder of the legionaries erected tents or gathered around a quick-flowing creek, and a second pair of scouts circled the valley further west.

  The prisoners were with the horses. One by one, the legionaries permitted them to relieve themselves a dozen paces away from me.

  I slithered forward, keeping to the heaviest shadows.

  They let the red-haired woman go last. As I had hoped, their Arpa sensibilities meant that they gave her privacy behind a thick fir.

  I cupped a hand over my mouth and made a low, mournful warble. It was a fair impression of a sunbelly finch, but the song of a sunbelly was out of place at night. Any northerner knew that.

  The woman, in the midst of gathering her skirts around her waist, glanced towards me.

  I warbled again. The other Algatt looked up too, but surreptitiously. Their guards just scanned their surroundings absently and continued their conversation.

  The woman edged deeper into the firs.

  I slipped closer. Closer. Then I hooked the cold head of my axe around her throat.

  “Algatt,” I whispered.

  She instantly recognized my accent. “Eangen,” she grunted back.

  “Eangi,” I corrected.

  She stiffened. She was perhaps thirty, with deepening lines about the eyes and so much weariness in her that I almost felt compassion.

  “If you answer my questions, I’ll give you a knife and distract the Arpa so you can escape.”

  She did not answer for an instant, then gave a tight, “Why?”

  “I swear it upon Eang herself.”

  The woman’s breath escaped in a hiss. “Why?”

  It was a fair question. I was still asking myself the same thing. Her people had slaughtered Albor. Iskir. Hot Eangi anger smoldered in my gut at the thought. But then I remembered Quentis, the village without eyes and its trapped souls.

  “I saw what they did to your villages,” I said finally.

  She took another two heartbeats to think. “Fine.”

  “Where is the white lake?”

  “The white lake? There are three. All east in high valleys, where the mountains end in the Headwaters.”

  My heart swelled. “Do you swear it?”

  “I swear it on Gadr. Where’s the knife?”

  I pressed its hilt into her back. “It’s here. Why are you still in the mountains?”

  “We were sent back to see if it was safe.” Her voice faltered. “It’s not.”

  “Are you leading them to the other Arpa?”

  I saw her throat contract.

  “Woman!” one of the guards called.

  “Almost,” she replied to him. Lowering her voice, she said to me, “Yes, we’re taking them to the last place the Arpa were seen.”

  “Where?”

  “East.”

  “All right.” I had a dozen more questions, but I needed to get away while I could. I eased myself backwards and set the hunting knife on the ground beneath her. “A distraction. Within an hour.”

  I vanished into the spider-silk and shadows.

  * * *

  I began to climb. I moved across the southern side of the valley, sheltered by the trees and a solid wall of shadow. I had hidden anything that might glint in my pack and carried only my bow, low to my side.

  When I reached a safe distance, I slit the ends of my fingers. My hands were not as steady as they might have been, but they quietened as I streaked blood across my eyelids and bottom lip to begin the ritual. No amber glistened in the starlight – Eang’s Fire remained dominant.

  What I intended to d
o I had seen just once before.

  That day, I had crouched beside Eidr in tall grasses. The sky beyond was pink with dawn and a cool mist pooled in the rocky ravines of northern Eangen. Nearby, Ardam slit the ends of his fingers and touched the blood to his eyelids and lips, murmuring while the laden heads of the grasses rustled over him in an ever-changing pattern of swirls and bends and collisions.

  One stalk of grass bowed as a bleary sparrow landed, sending it down in a graceful arc.

  Two dozen Eangi and Eangen warriors spun on the bird. It exploded in a flurry of wings and shrieked into the dawn.

  Ardam went still. We all did, ears straining for any sign that the Algatt had been alerted.

  The blood on Ardam’s face was nearly dry by the time he signaled for us to relax. Together, we bellied up to the top of the rise and peered down like a row of well-armed, shield-backed salamanders.

  Twenty tents of various shapes hid among a young, autumn forest. There were no herds here, though two dozen horses grazed further south in a haze of mist. Algatt moved between the tents, crouching over pitted fires and beginning the morning’s routine.

  “Eang, Eang. The Brave, the Vengeful, the Swift and the Watchful.” I watched Ardam as he spoke, his eyes focused on the distant horses. “The Wrath and the Fire in our bones.”

  I saw a disturbance run through the animals. They lifted their heads and shifted on their feet, their muffled whickers carrying through the mist to us, high on our hill.

  “Slayer of the Old Gods, Conqueror of the New. The Setting Sun and the Rising Moon.”

  A horse reared in sudden panic. As soon as it dropped back down, the mass of equine flesh split in a thunder of hooves.

  Ardam let out a long breath.

  “What did you do?” someone asked.

  “Put the Fire in their blood,” Ardam replied, settling his shoulders back. His skin had paled against the black streaks of kohl around his eyes, but that didn’t stop him from peeling his lips back in a bare-toothed grin. He jerked his chin up to one side. “Now go take care of their masters, my hellions.”