He ducked and it smashed against the opposite wall—two big pieces and a mountain of smaller shards. He stared longingly at the mess. When he turned back to her, however, his face was contorted and fiery. Fists clenched as he roared offensive slurs. Her father reared back, taut muscles toned by years of labor and years at the bow flexed before her eyes. She could not run, rooted to the spot by terror.
When the blow came, it snapped her head back, straining her neck and stabbing daggers down her spine. She pitched to the right and toppled onto the floorboards, skin split on the barbs of a dozen splinters.
His shade morphed. The fist led into the shape of Roswitte, and the bear woman crouched, pounding at Viveld. Gorjes blood. Gorjes screams. So much anger. So much rage. The body pitched, contorted, flailed—broken. A doll with no one to pluck the strings. She could still feel his hands on her. The taste of alcohol and musk. Who was she, that all should wish for more? The fists fell. Again and again, and she wondered if this was how it all would end.
Nothing lives long but the mountains and the earth. All the rest is air.
At the crossroads, a voice howled praise to the Bastard. It gave them away. But Alviss’s hands were holding her up. She was of his body, and they were alone. The others raced on.
Marvelle was with the sellswords. He reached a hand for Alviss’s shoulder, and Essa thought she heard a voice tell her it would be alright. “Such a thing, such a little thing,” the man whispered through gapped teeth, and she clutched the dagger tighter. The man leaned in toward them and she hacked it across his fat cheek. The howls ran as rain, and the thunder of blades answered.
When the Zuti crashed into them, all was monstrous sound. The world tilted and the sky—the Blue Wolf, as Alviss named it—seemed to reach toward them.
I wonder, its whispers seemed to say, what it takes?
Everything, she sought to tell it, but she was still nailed to the earth.
It seemed an impossibly long time before the Zuti stood over her, nestled as she was in Alviss’s lap, and pressed a hand to her head. “It hit, bad pretty.” He turned to Alviss, sighing through pale lips. “The rest—they no let dis go.”
So tired. Her eyes drew heavy on him, and for once, she saw him beyond the blood. Beyond the blades. His touch was almost human. Lessons, he always quipped. Without the pain, learning is beyond. She reached a hand toward his cheek and watched him nearly recoil in shock.
Almost as a mouse, she heard her voice creep out: “Why don’t we learn?”
But the bald man only touched her hair, and for a moment she thought him a ghost, and he wiped at the numbness burning there. “Is okay,” he said. “Breathe. Remember: you are woman. They see not this, and so…”
The world tilted again before she could figure what that meant.
* *
It was not the path they had taken in the depths of winter, but in the pale light of spring one would never know it. With the snow smoothed away, the plains of Neunhagen lay wide and wet before them, splayed like some camp follower’s all too eager thighs. All was bare, a vast stretch of grass and mud whose only sign of end were the hills at their backs and the looming ranges of Surin’s white-capped northern wall, far to their left.
Around camp, some men spoke of their procession as if a great wave, steadily receding into the ocean that had birthed them. It did not do it justice. Huddled against the bleached greenery, Rurik saw the truth of them: a lumbering stampede, gryphons or bulls or even calves, picking the blighted earth dry on a blind descent into frenzied nothing.
Somewhere, a cliff undoubtedly awaited them, which their hunters would hound them down. Be it of blades or honest earth remained to be seen.
For the first three days of their march, Rurik had to be carried in a litter. His bowels quivered without the least provocation. Time and again his stomach forced a stop to his advance, until he reeked of sick. So ill took he, in fact, that there was some small whisper of poison at those traitor hands’. But he knew it for what it was, and many shared his condition—a flu, only worsened by their dwindling rations.
In those days Tessel came to him only once, for he was scarce in shape for riding either, but he managed, if only to keep faith with the men. Nevertheless, he was nigh pale as a ghost when he entered Rurik’s tent. They talked a while of nothing—each, it seemed, but grateful of the moment’s respite—and parted with a single promise. When he left, Tessel assured Rurik he would not be set with the other sick, and he was grateful for it.
That train was as dead men, and they unnerved him more than he could give to voice.
Thus, left alone, Rurik turned inwards, and to the coin at his breast. At first it was the case that Usuri did not wish to speak to him. He talked anyways—not intrusive or demanding, but with the subdued gentility of the ill. The ill and the wronged. For once, he did not so much speak of himself, but of days gone by between them, and of Verdan, and of the Ulneberg, and never once did he mention his other great sin.
When we were children…do you recall? How you marched inside when my father was not receiving? They yelled. Oh how they yelled, but you yelled the louder. Do you remember? Prophecy, you said, waits on no man, and certainly none so stuffed up as him. And all those soldiers, they just stared and stared until—well, until he laughed. I had never seen someone speak to him so.
Kasimir had always held an unusual affection for the girl. When Rurik had first thought her odd, his father had cuffed him about the ear and demanded he make nice. When she repeated the gesture, and asked what took so long besides, he thought that he should never like that stubborn girl. Perhaps he liked abuse—Essa certainly another bit of evidence to that theory—or perhaps he was simply a child with a child’s sense of anger; it had not taken long before they called one another friends, though they saw but little of one another.
It struck him a crime that he had let those moments lapse. No—worse—that he had taken them for granted. It seemed his wont in life.
Bit by bit, she yet proved capable of mercy. “You always prattle,” her voice beckoned from the long silence one afternoon. “A curiosity in the ill; mere annoyance in the sane.” Insult was at least half of the relation, but it was an inroad. Gradually, he became accustomed to her sound again, and at times, swore he could feel a touch of her. There was ever a hesitancy to it, a numbed and beaten distance to the thunder of her tenor, but he took it all the same.
Then, on the eve of the third day, as a renewed strength began to writhe in his addled limbs, something changed in her tone. “Sometimes…I wonder why I let them make dead men of my dreams,” she said without preamble.
Already half-asleep, it stirred him groggily to wakefulness. Who? He croaked out the thought without even grasping the weight of it himself. Yet he had to know. Who? he said again, with a better sense of himself and the notion he had so long pondered. Where are you? She had hidden herself. This much he knew. Hid from the world, to injure herself or to fade away entire. For the death of one’s world, he could not blame her.
It took her a moment to answer. “Where the sun rises red, and foolery is the only prophecy.” The sound shuddered out, and for a moment he was left in silence. Then, hesitantly, she wisped, “I am his ashes, Rurik. He would not know me where I stand.”
Your father? he guessed. Your father loved you, Usuri. Who makes you think this?
“Some run the cliffs, and set upon an eagle’s wings. Others mire in the den, and once within, can never leave again.”
Riddles. His mind grasped for the meaning and drew up short. Philosophy. He hated the debate of either, and so he kept his silence, hoping this bout of madness should pass.
“Your own father—he pitied me before he died. Do you…could you forgive me? I saw him but I could not—he would not…” There was a shudder to the words that set his own body quivering, as it rattled out a haunting note. His father. “Kasimir?” He gasped it, uncertain of what else to say. It made no sense, unless—had she been in Verdan? If she were there, he might have seized her by her arms.
Usuri? Did you see my father?
With that, the tender string was severed. It was nothing so dramatic as a thunderclap, but it as if, all at once, someone had pressed their hands over his ears and the world drew muffled for it. He sputtered into the dark. He called out, but she was no longer there to hear him.
Once again, he accustomed himself to the silence, and filled it with a terrible wonder.
If he thought to escape it in his duties to the army, he was mistaken.
For now, their one small comfort was that they would not starve.
Their own stores had run their course, but the plains were equal parts breadbasket and range to Idasia and Effise alike. Though the mass had been reformed for the march, Rurik found that in the days of his illness the army had been sundered, again and again and again, until it was a writhing mass of parties and gangs, like a thousand writhing serpents. The need for pillage and plunder was paramount, and their loose confederation allowed for greater ranging. It left them more vulnerable to attack, but it eased the burden of attrition.
Yet it would come. Days governed any would-be crossing of the plains. Octaves, for an army so large and weary as their own.
In the fall, the plains would bloom in vibrant golds and ripe greens, birthing countless rows of farm-raised crops. Year-round, travelers found themselves sharing road and field alike with wild herds of white-coated sheep and milk-laden cows, of succulent pigs and the hard, fleet-footed horses that were Idasia’s staple. They wandered largely free-range between the myriad of villages, farms, and wood-walled towns that made their home here.
Whether any of these places would welcome them was another issue entirely. If they did not, however, there remained little doubt they would—or could—be forced to acquiesce. The soldiers still called themselves the army of Idasia, but Rurik laughed and took it mockingly, for they were little better than thieves skulking through the night. Daily, Farren priests grew bolder, re-anointing those who yet clung to the Orthodox rings, and bringing a holy sort of fervor to their mission. Rurik begged Tessel to crack down on them, but in this, the general was stone. Men, after all, fought better when they thought the divine stood beside them in the thick.
Truthfully, as the world spread out before him, Rurik felt only dismay. For the people, certainly, but also for the land itself. He despised the openness of it, the broad nothing. He longed again for the trees, for the shifting trails and the whistle of wind in the boughs—not endless sun. From the glances he caught other men casting south, he doubted his opinion was alone.
Less anxious was he, however, to confront the specter of his brother. It tainted those trees now, as his father’s tainted the walls of the home he had left behind. Ivon was not one to simply slink away. Not like Rurik wished he could. Whether it was on the plains or in the trees, it paralyzed him to realize that soon, all too soon, they would likely cross swords.
There was a very good possibility Ivon would not survive that day.
I lose family at an obscene rate. With a frown, he hitched his horse against the whispers of the wind, and nosed it out along the edge of the column.
At this rate, it would be another three days before they passed fully out of Effisian territory, he figured. Or rather, Essa figured, and Rowan gossiped. It had been his declaration the morning Rurik roused from his illness. Buoyed by his talks with Usuri, he had sought the Company out anew. He told himself it would be different. In his head, he repeated all the things he wanted to say as he stepped into their ranks.
Then he had seen what was left of his brother’s camp. Once proud men moved downtrodden and beaten, no longer at the head of the companies from Jaritz. The Gorjes now seemed to hold that honor. The Gorjes! Nothing but cutthroats and thieves. No one helped him. Most would not even speak to him, but still he heard things—from Berric, mostly.
Stories of the dead.
Eventually, he came upon the Company among the northern reaches of the great migration. He, alone but for Berric, rode into their camp astride one of the few remaining horses expecting—what, exactly? Whatever it was, he did not find it. Instead, he found Essa laid up in her bed with the baker pressing a sponge to her head. There had been an incident, he was told, but Voren gave him no more than that. Even this, the boy seemed to think, was more than he deserved. From his scowl, it was also plain whom he blamed.
The others were more helpful. “Gorjes,” Rowan told him. “Traitorous piss ants tried to kill her on a ride, and fix it with Effisians.”
“They hurt her?” he asked, feeling the familiar tingling of rage. “They attacked her openly?”
Rowan shook his head. “Alviss was with her. And not open, no—they picked their moments right enough.”
He turned to Alviss, groping for the right words. “Thank you,” he eventually murmured, though for his oldest friend, he knew they could not suffice.
“No,” the northerner grunted. “Thank Chigenda.” Rurik turned to the Zuti, but the man remained a statue. “Half a dozen, and only one a Gorjes. He killed them. All of them.” At that, the Zuti actually grinned.
Sincerely, Rurik did his best to thank Chigenda. He reached out his hand, but the Zuti only stared. He uttered the words, but the man only stared. When he offered reward, Chigenda at last broke, and only then to scowl. “He ask once,” he said, referring to Alviss, “if rumor true. If I kill women. Children.” When first they had met, such rumor had been all their company had to go on. They had tried to attack him, and only later, surviving Rurik’s hotheadedness, did they learn the flexible nature of truth.
“No, I say you then. But these?” He drummed a finger on the point of his spear. “Is so. Is wrong. So they go.” A shrug was the end of it, and the warrior—he was warrior, through and through, from the fierce scowl to the fervent violence that seemed to wrap about his fingertips—was proven every bit the man. Rurik, nodding to him, let it go, sufficing to thank him in thought.
To the lot, though, he pledged his aid. Unlike before, none of them claimed they did not need it. Indeed, when Rurik met the man to whom they now pledged allegiance—one of Narve’s fool-priests—he all but set it as decree. He promised to come to them. He pledged a watch of men about them, and harsh punishment for any Gorjes man that stepped out of line. Better still, he sent them Tessel’s own doctor, though the man complained ere long.
In truth, the only man he had to offer them was Berric, but Berric took the post readily enough. In turn, Rowan shared their news, and promised to send word of Essa when she healed.
The sooner they were out of Effisian territory, the better. It would be one less enemy to contend with. If the Gorjes proved anything, it was that control was slipping, and the enemies within were far more insidious than those without. Already they had lost serious time having to bypass the conquered city of Lieven—a ruined husk whose guardians their scouts nevertheless reported favorably answering to Othmann’s banners. And he did have banners. Word was he had slipped Tessel’s loyalists and was now rallying men of his own.
Two armies chasing one another back to the home from whence both had come. It would have been a comedy if they weren’t stuck in the middle of the tragedy.
Already they were losing scouts to shadows, though be they crag deaths or Effisian hunters they hadn’t the time to say. Several raiding parties had already probed their ranks, no doubt hoping to find some breach in the lines.
So they drew the baggage train deeper into their ranks, and hoped.
It was a funny thing, in truth—hoping to live, that was. For it was not the hope for living, but the hope for killing. To be granted life, that they might take it in turn. It was war, true, but it still left a pang in his stomach no amount of tack or wheat would fill.
About all he had left to look forward to anymore was sleep. At least there his only enemy was his own mind.
Already he knew where they would set their latest night camp. There was a certain place, the scouts reported, partially shielded by crags to the south and low hills to the west. It would provi
de some small cover, at least, and the hills would give them watch points for any motions that way, while the crags would hinder any probes from the rumors made manifest of Othmann’s forces to the south.
It was a little after dusk, and the clouds grew swollen and grey above their heads. He hoped rain was all the night would bring, for the water would be well earned and well used.
There were a dozen different companies that would have spit fire at him for sending them uphill on a late night slog for the vexing details of guard duty. Instead, he sped back along the fore of the staggered column and gathered men to him that would welcome the chance for a change of scenery. He had no intention of sending others to do something he would not; Alviss had taught him that much at least, and as he saw it, it was past time he started to observe it.
Every man he took was a holdover from Verdan—thirty in all. At Berric’s recommendation, Rurik dropped from the saddle and walked alongside them, taking his steed by the bridle. “When everyone’s got to make the same slog, you begrudge only the man that eases the burden on himself,” Berric observed with a none too gentle pinch of Rurik’s leg. Then Berric let him off with true encouragement: “I’ve other babes to tend today. Don’t stay up too late, little lord.”
It took them nigh on half an hour simply to free themselves from the last of the lines, but from there, it was an easy march, as such things went. The land was pounded smooth—pasture, all—and they made good time despite the fading light. By the time they had reached midstroke up the hills, their eyes were adjusting to the deepening twilight, and only a few men stumbled over their feet.
One of his father’s former house guards was the first up the ridge, breathing deep of the heady air. A few farmers gathered dead brush to fuel a fire, while another man produced flint to get it started. Truth be told, the hills were not terribly large by any standard, so Rurik did not suppose defending them would be any great trouble. Nevertheless, he intended to have five men cycling through the watch at all hours of the night. Every man had a long gun, and even without cannon, it was enough to hold all but the most determined bands of raiders from overrunning them.
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