Among the Fallen

by NS Dolkart

  Phaedra was able to be more truthful. She told them of her grandfather, the master weaver, and of her mother who had taught her the craft. Her father really had been a merchant and financier, so she claimed that her mother had been his second wife, and that Hunter was her half-brother. Bennan nodded and told her she would be mending clothes. Hunter, like the other men, would have to work in the fields.

  The separation was nerve-wracking. Setting foot in the farmhouse, Phaedra felt the same pervasive danger she had felt in the Atunaean sailors’ hostel. She was inside – trapped! How could she protect herself in a place like this, surrounded by these young men with their hungry stares, without even Hunter’s protection?

  One of Bennan’s companions led her to a room with a pile of clothes and a sewing kit, and told her to get to work. “My name is Terrin,” he said, standing at the door. “I’m the cook here. If you want to eat, you’ll be good to me.”

  Phaedra nodded, and he left. She stared at the door, momentarily paralyzed by fear and dread. She didn’t have any plan, and she badly needed one. She knew she could find the strength to tolerate any ordeal – the ants of Hession’s cavern had proved as much – but not without a plan. Without some way forward, all she could do was despair.

  She picked up needle and thread, and began patching a tunic. It was simple work, work that didn’t require any real skill and left an unpleasant amount of room for thought. It didn’t take a weaver to sew on a few patches here and there – all it took was basic competence.

  If only she had the same level of competence when it came to magic. She didn’t need Psander’s ability to ward a castle against the Gods, she just wanted to protect herself and Hunter. God Most High may have had plans for them, but He wasn’t likely to do much more than keep them alive – would He even notice if they were harmed more subtly? Gods were not well known for Their subtlety.

  What if there were some way to alert Him? If God Most High could be coaxed into taking a more personal interest in them, she wouldn’t even need her own magic. Normally, this kind of coaxing was accomplished through sacrifice and prayer, but there was nothing here for her to sacrifice. Would He listen to prayer alone?

  “O God Most High,” she mumbled, so as not to be heard by anyone nearby, “God of Dragons, Builder of the Mesh, Constructor of Heavens: help me. Protect me among my enemies – among Your enemies. Turn their evil intentions from me and Hunter. Save us from their gazes.”

  Her hands began to tremble, and she put down the needle. Could God Most High hear her, or was His attention elsewhere? Was there something she could do to amplify her message?

  She thought of Auntie Gava, burying her oysters under the rocks; of Psander, who had called magic theory a framework for reusing the Gods’ magic for one’s own purposes; of Narky, who had justified his suggestions by saying that they seemed like “the kind of weird thing Psander would do.” She thought of Mura, whose magic seemed to rely on Karassa’s favor. She had all the tools she needed, she was sure of it. She just needed to figure out how they went together.

  “The Gods are all magic,” Gava had said, “and They made this place. You take a look at what They made, you try to get some of the pieces so they fit together better than before, and that’s it. You’ve got magic.”

  You’ve got magic.

  What she really had was her prayers, a needle, and a pile of clothes that needed mending. It would have to do.

  Phaedra took up her needle again, and began sewing her prayers into her seams. Nobody who had even the most basic domestic skills would have let the pile get this big, and that meant that nobody would be checking her work before they wore it. She made an extended prayer out of multiple garments, picking up the thread wherever she had left off on the previous one. She whispered the prayer as she sewed it, giving it the power of her voice as well.

  God Most High, protect me from the men who wear these clothes. Turn their thoughts away from me and my friend, Hunter of House Tavener, and shelter us from their gazes. Let them feed us and forget us, never knowing that they have forgotten. Make them memory boxes like Bandu’s, and put all thought of harming us inside, locked tight with a thousand locks and a thousand missing keys. God of Dragons, Slayer of the Yarek, who made the seas calm for Your servants, nothing is impossible for You. Say the word, and it will be so.

  It took hours to complete the prayer, and when she was done only a third or so of the garments had been mended. Her fingertips were bleeding from having been poked with the needle, and her eyes throbbed from staring so intently at such short distances. But she was on the right track, she was sure of it. Whether or not her prayers would be answered, she did not doubt that God Most High would hear them.

  A noise made her look up. Terrin stood in the doorway, grinning at her. He pulled off his tunic.

  Phaedra threw him a mended one. He caught it, surprised, and looked down at the garment. Phaedra held her breath. Terrin seemed confused for a moment, like he wasn’t sure what the mended tunic was for. Then he put it on.

  “You’ve made progress,” he said, looking around and noticing the shrunken pile of torn clothes. “Keep it up.”

  And just like that, he left.

  Magic, Phaedra thought. It works!

  21

  Bandu

  At first, Criton’s war went well for him. After a few days the Ardisian army regrouped and tried to fight them again in the open field, but they were too afraid of Criton and his God. Their ranks broke before the Dragon Touched even reached them, and they lost more men in the stampede than in the fighting.

  But the victories didn’t last. When they regrouped a second time, the Ardismen stopped trying to confront the Dragon Touched and split their army, sending one half to burn the plainspeople’s villages while the other stayed behind to keep Criton’s army from catching up. They killed any stragglers who fell behind the camp, so the Dragon Touched couldn’t hurry to save the northern villages without leaving their slowest and weakest to die. Criton refused to let that happen, so they moved at a crawl instead.

  In the meantime, a sickness spread through the Dragon Touched camp, slowing them down further and making everyone miserable. Criton had the worst of it, coughing and wheezing and blowing sparks everywhere. The sparks were all he produced, though – his fire was gone. He wasn’t the only one, either. Most of the Dragon Touched had lost their fire. They were lucky the Ardismen hadn’t found that out yet.

  Bandu feared for Goodweather’s life when she saw all the breathing troubles Criton and his kind were having, but luckily she and the children were spared the sickness. “Your God is angry about the pigs,” she told Criton. “You are sorry you don’t listen to me.”

  “But we won the battle!” he objected, right before another coughing fit left him gasping for breath. “God Most High favored us!” he croaked.

  “He doesn’t now,” Bandu pointed out. “You should say sorry, like Narky does. If Ardismen know your God is angry, they kill us all soon.”

  “Our God isn’t angry,” Criton insisted. “It’s just a cold with a bad cough.”

  “You burn pigs,” Bandu said. “Where your fire is now?”

  Criton sighed, which turned into more coughing. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll make a sacrifice and ask for forgiveness.”

  “Good,” Bandu said. “Ask me too. You don’t listen to me when I tell you before.”

  He made an aggravated sound, but then he said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll listen to your advice from now on.”

  Bandu decided that that would do.

  She was glad he was listening to her now, at least. She was also glad about the sickness, as long as Goodweather had been spared. If Criton’s God was punishing him for what he’d done, then maybe He wasn’t so bad after all.

  Criton made his sacrifice the following day, giving his God three of Biva’s ewes. Hessina gave another, as did several elders among the plainsmen. It bothered Bandu that they should repent of needlessly killing animals by killing mo
re animals, but it must have been what God Most High wanted, because Criton and his people all recovered from their illness within a day or two.

  What did Gods do with all those animals people gave Them? Did the fires that burned the animals’ bodies act like a frog’s tongue, catching an animal’s essence and sucking it into the heavens for Them to eat? Bandu might be able to forgive the Gods for all that death if They were only eating.

  Anyway, she was still angry at Criton, whether God Most High forgave him or not. It wasn’t just about the pigs. Criton was more concerned with killing Ardismen than he was with making her happy, and he spent more time with Delika than with his own daughter. Some of that wasn’t his fault: Delika clung to him whenever she could, and Goodweather preferred Bandu because Criton couldn’t nurse her. But it was also more than that. Criton actually avoided the baby. Bandu thought he was afraid of Goodweather, not because of the girl herself but because of his own instincts. He didn’t trust himself with her.

  Sometimes Bandu didn’t trust him either. When Goodweather’s clothes were wet and she awoke with a long, continuous wail, Criton would jerk up angrily and change her with hatred in his eyes. He always calmed down a little while after the baby did, and then came the shame and fear. What if he had hurt her this time? He hadn’t, yet, but he had been close. He was always close.

  Bandu, on the other hand, was growing to love their daughter more and more. Goodweather smiled now, sweet thing, real smiles that expressed such joy it pained her. The girl was happier to see her mother’s face than Bandu had ever been about anything, as far back as she could remember.

  But Criton hardly noticed his daughter when she wasn’t screaming, because he was too busy parenting Delika. He was more comfortable with the older girl, and why shouldn’t he be? He didn’t have to guess what she wanted, because she could tell him. She also didn’t wet herself, didn’t wake him up at night, and didn’t respond to inattention by screaming. But for all that Bandu understood this preference for the older girl, she still hated it. A man shouldn’t love someone else’s little girl more than his own.

  At least Bandu did have help with the baby, even if it wasn’t usually from Criton. His cousin’s wife Iona was full of helpful advice for how best to calm Goodweather or bind her safely to Bandu’s chest while traveling, and her daughter Dessa was always asking if she could hold her baby cousin. Dessa also came now and then with her friend Vella, whose younger brother was supposed to have married Dessa later this year. Vella was about Bandu’s age, and was herself married to some man Bandu never saw, a soldier in Criton’s army. She wasn’t as helpful as Iona or as friendly as Dessa – she mostly seemed afraid of Bandu. But she came, and she was usually willing to carry Goodweather, and Bandu would take all the help she could get.

  Certainly if the rest of the pack had been more welcoming, Bandu would not always dream of taking Goodweather away and leaving Criton with his not-daughter and his war. She wouldn’t wish that she still had Four-foot instead of him. But the pack was not welcoming. Almost everyone looked at her with suspicion, and even Belkos’ family wasn’t always nice – Iona’s mother was worse than anyone else in the pack. She hated Bandu, and never bothered to hide it.

  “I know why you’re here,” she would hiss. “My daughter will not be widowed.”

  That was a new word, but nobody would explain it to her. Iona would only apologize for her mother and tell Bandu to ignore her, which was her one piece of advice that was not at all helpful.

  Criton didn’t want to tell her either. She asked him, after Delika and Goodweather had both fallen asleep, and all he said was, “It’s not important.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not,” he insisted. “Whoever told you you’d be widowed is a liar and a fool. You shouldn’t listen to people like that.”

  “She doesn’t say that.”

  Criton snorted. “Of course she doesn’t say that she’s a liar, Bandu.”

  “No, not she is a liar. Not that I am.”

  Even in the dark, she could tell he was frowning. “You’re not making any sense. You’re not going to be widowed, Bandu! Don’t worry about it.”

  She wanted to hit him, but she didn’t. “She doesn’t say that! She doesn’t say I am widowed.”

  “Then what are you worried about? I’m going to be fine, Bandu. We’re all going to be fine.”

  “You don’t answer me.”

  “Don’t be angry.”

  “I am angry.”

  He sighed. “To be widowed is to lose your husband.”

  “Lose where?”

  “Nowhere. It’s to have him die, Bandu. If I die, you’ll be a widow.”

  Bandu groaned. “Stupid,” she said. “Stupid words. All your words for me are stupid. First Phaedra says I am virgin, then we mate and I’m a wife, and if you die I am widow? Why do all your words for me care so much about you?”

  “I don’t know,” Criton said. “I’m not sure why it annoys you so much. Anyhow, you wanted to know what it means to be a widow, and I told you. But you don’t need to worry about it.”

  “You don’t tell me when to worry.”

  She turned away from him. Criton only thought about himself sometimes. Too many times. Maybe she should have mated with someone like Hunter, who only thought about other people. But then, Hunter hadn’t interested her.

  Anyway, now she had her answer. But why did Iona’s mother think that Bandu and Criton were going to kill Belkos? As far as Bandu could tell, Criton’s cousin was his closest friend now. They talked about their war all the time together, and there was more to it than that. For Belkos, Criton was a leader to be proud of: his cousin was head of the pack. For Criton, Belkos was his closest connection to the family he had always wanted: his cousin was a part of the pack.

  Belkos was also the cause of Bandu’s connection to Iona and Dessa, her only real friends among the Dragon Touched. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t find a reason for the old woman to think that she and Criton meant to kill him. It made no sense.

  But she couldn’t just ignore it the way Iona and Criton wanted her to. Iona’s mother may have lost much of her sense, but that didn’t make her harmless, and it might not even make her wrong. Her magic was so strong Bandu could smell it. Maybe the old woman saw something in them that was really there, something they didn’t even know about. Bandu couldn’t ignore that possibility. It worried her.

  Criton was under a lot of strain these days. His plan to catch up with the northern army of Ardis wasn’t working, but nobody could agree on what they wanted him to do instead. The plainsmen wanted him to hurry to protect their villages, even if it meant losing a few stragglers to the Ardismen’s southern army. Belkos wanted him to deal with the southern army first and then move straight on to Ardis while the northern force was still distracted. And of course, Bandu wanted help with Goodweather, and Delika wanted Criton to take her along no matter where he went.

  The short days and rainy weather weren’t helping anyone’s mood either. Everyone in the camp was miserable; many took it out on Criton.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he asked her one evening as they were making camp. He was holding Goodweather while Delika played with rocks and Bandu tightened the canvas on their tent. Criton was no good with tents.

  “This isn’t sustainable,” he went on. “We can’t do anything with that army on our tails. We’re going to have to attack them, try to drive them off. Then we can deal with the other half.”

  “Yes,” Bandu agreed. “You can’t help other people if we go so slow.”

  “The trouble,” Criton said, “is that there are still more of them than there are of us, and they’ll be ready for us if we try to attack them. Their scouts will tell them when we get close. Hessina thinks they’ll avoid our full army if they can – their old general Xytos is known for his patience. He’ll wait for the plainsmen to desert us if he can, and only face us in an open battle if he has to. So we should try to catch him, I guess, but i
f we do fight a battle and lose, we’re all doomed.

  “Maybe if we could surprise them somehow, we could drive them off for good. But even if we attacked at night, they’d be ready for us – their scouts are everywhere. We’re lucky their General Xytos is so cautious, or they’d have ambushed us by now.”

  Bandu nodded thoughtfully. “Night is good, I think.”

  “We don’t have any scouts at all,” Criton confessed. “I figured we couldn’t afford to lose any. I’ve just been flying straight upwards in the evenings to see where they’ve lit their fires, and that’s how we know where they are.”

  “That is good enough!” Bandu said. “If you know where they are, that is good. You can fight them.”

  “They’ll know we’re coming though!” He was repeating himself, and his voice was becoming a whine. She loved him, but this was very annoying.

  “Maybe they know you are coming,” she said, “but they don’t see good at night. You can go with only Dragon Touched, and send plains people after.”

  Criton looked at her as if that was the dumbest thing he had ever heard. “We can’t lead a raid with just the Dragon Touched, there aren’t even sixty of us who can fight anymore! It’s not a number that can attack a force of twelve hundred!”

  “It is,” Bandu insisted. “Their eyes are no good at night. We do just like when Narky kills Bestillos: you are Hunter, and plains people are Narky. You say that Ardis people know you are coming, and everyone is ready? Good! So everyone goes together first, and Ardis people see you and they are ready. But then, after, you go a different way with Dragon Touched only. You breathe fire and make noise and they all go that way. Then plains people go from other side and surprise them, and they run away.”

  Criton considered that. “So you want to use the Dragon Touched as a decoy?” he said. “That… well, it could work. And it’s better than waiting for our allies to abandon us. I’ll bring it up with the others.”