Stormtide

by Den Patrick

  ‘We thought you’d been captured!’ said Marozvolk, breathless with shock.

  ‘Can’t say I care for it,’ said Tief. ‘Not again. Gave them the slip.’

  ‘What happens now?’ said Kimi as she struggled to her feet. Despite everything she flashed her friends a smile. The largest of the Grave Wolves followed, its hollow eye sockets seemingly fixed on the flames. Black lips pulled back in a dire snarl.

  ‘We back out of the forest slowly,’ said Taiga. ‘Stay near the fire and do not run, no matter how bad things get.’ Kimi and Marozvolk did as they were told and the largest of the Grave Wolves let out an unearthly howl.

  ‘There’s one behind us,’ whispered Taiga. She turned to face the new threat, thrusting the flaming torch towards its face. The largest of them continued to follow, one rotting paw following the other. Others followed, more Grave Wolves joining their number from the depths of the forest. Kimi counted five and her sword arm shook in terror.

  ‘Steady now,’ said Tief, sensing her panic. ‘Hold up your sword and show them you aren’t going down easy. You can bet your boots they can taste fear, so don’t give them any.’ Marozvolk broke ranks and surged past Taiga towards the edge of the forest. She impaled the wolf behind them through the head, the tip of her sword sinking deep just below the creature’s eye socket. She punched down with her free hand, once, twice, three times until the creature’s skull came apart. The other wolves growled and the leader howled once more.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ said Taiga. ‘The edge of the forest is close by. Almost there.’

  The trees around them thinned as they stepped into the midday light – and out of the forest. The largest Grave Wolf snarled at his pack and slunk back into the woods. A few, more persistent wolves followed for a time, but all turned away as Taiga and Marozvolk stumbled out from beneath the trees, back onto the grasslands of Izhoria.

  ‘Why didn’t you wait for us earlier!’ breathed Tief, rounding on the Yamali women. ‘I ran to you – I was trying to warn you.’

  ‘Earlier?’ replied Kimi. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We were coming to meet you. Chulu-Agakh’s brother brought us across the river in his boat but we couldn’t find you.’

  ‘We didn’t know you were coming,’ said Marozvolk, understanding dawning on her face. ‘We did see you, but we couldn’t see who you were.’

  ‘So you took off into a forest full of Grave Wolves?’

  ‘Go easy on them, Tief,’ said Taiga, collapsing on the ground. ‘It’s been a long couple of days for everyone. Go easy.’

  ‘Why on earth did you go into the forest?’ he said, stamping out the flaming torch.

  ‘My brother is telling everyone that I’m an impostor,’ shouted Kimi, returning his anger in kind. ‘We thought you were his men, we thought you were assassins.’ Tief and Taiga looked at one another. The shock of battle and Tief’s anger ebbed away until finally Taiga spoke.

  ‘Your own brother?’

  ‘He pretended not to recognise me,’ said Kimi with tears in her eyes. ‘But I could see he knew me. And the moment he turned his back I knew, I just knew, that my life as a Yamali princess was over.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ said Tief.

  ‘We go to Shanisrond and meet up with Mistress Kamalov and Kjellrunn,’ said Marozvolk.

  ‘No,’ said Kimi. ‘I’m heading north. I can’t depend on Steiner to create this uprising alone. I’m going to Khlystburg to kill the Emperor before he can hurt my people.’

  ‘You’re a little late for that,’ said Marozvolk. ‘Your brother seems to be doing a fine job.’

  ‘Tsen won’t wipe out our entire people with armies from the north. The Emperor wouldn’t think twice about it.’

  ‘I’m not going back to Khlystburg,’ said Marozvolk. Her anger wavered and fear shone brightly in her eyes.

  ‘Then I won’t ask you,’ said Kimi. ‘But I have to do this thing, though I’ve no idea how I’ll do it.’

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ said Tief.

  ‘Anywhere he goes I go,’ added Taiga.

  Marozvolk looked at each of them and shook her head. ‘We’ll all die long before we cross this infernal country,’ she muttered before setting off at a march, putting distance between herself and the others.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kjellrunn

  The high priestess had insisted that Kjellrunn and Maxim join her on the temple steps the dawn after the slavers’ attack. In the early morning, Sundra had read a short passage from a tiny, battered black book concerned chiefly with the tenets of Frejna.

  ‘Just as Frøya prepares and nurtures us for life, so Frejna prepares and nurtures us for death. Just as Frøya gives us spring, summer, and new life, so Frejna ushers in autumn, winter, and an end to days.’

  Maxim fidgeted on the step and Kjellrunn slipped an arm around his shoulders.

  ‘Is it always so …’ Kjellrunn struggled to find the words.

  ‘Yes?’ said Sundra with a patient expression, not quite a smile.

  ‘Is it always so full of death?’ she said. Maxim sighed as if relieved she’d asked the very question he’d not been able to form.

  ‘These are catechisms,’ explained Sundra, seating herself on the temple steps. ‘The priestess calls out the first part of the sentence, and the congregation replies with the latter part.’ Sundra poured tea from a kettle that was as black and battered as the tiny book she had read from. ‘But it has been a long time since people gathered in such numbers to revere Frejna.’ Kjellrunn caught the note of sadness in the old woman’s words. ‘The Spriggani, specifically those who revere Frejna, live each day knowing they will die, and use it as a focus—’

  ‘That sounds depressing,’ mumbled Maxim, staring into his tea bowl with a forlorn look.

  ‘The Spriggani use it as a focus, to consider what consequences may occur, to be grateful for the present moment, to not linger in the past regretting events that cannot be changed.’

  ‘I’d have to agree with Maxim,’ said Kjellrunn. ‘It does sound bleak.’

  ‘It is merely a different way of thinking,’ said Sundra, laying one hand on top of Kjellrunn’s own. ‘It is this difference that makes the Emperor nervous. He, more than anyone else in history, takes great pains not to think about death unless it is someone else’s.’

  They chatted quietly for a time of small things, before seeking out breakfast while Sundra delegated tasks around the temple. This became the routine in the two weeks that followed. Kjellrunn had loathed the early mornings at first, but now she was glad when Maxim knocked softly on her door and enjoyed the simple pleasure of greeting Sundra each daybreak. Maxim often sat beside her on the steps, so closely that it was churlish not to put an arm around his shoulders. There was a deep peace on the temple steps before the other novices woke and Mistress Kamalov started shouting orders.

  ‘It is better to die on your feet than to die on your knees,’ said Sundra, reading an aphorism from the black book. It was early morning, long before the midday heat of Shanisrond stifled the sprawling town of Dos Khor.

  ‘I’m not sure dying on your feet is so great either,’ said Maxim. ‘I’d rather keep out of harm’s way altogether.’ The boy said this so earnestly that Kjellrunn laughed and Sundra allowed herself a smile. The high priestess smiled a little more every day now that they were ashore and colour had returned to her cheeks.

  ‘And what happens when harm comes looking for you?’ asked Sundra. Maxim shrugged and sipped his tea.

  ‘Mistress Kamalov came to speak to me yesterday,’ he said. Kjellrunn had the feeling this wasn’t so much a change of subject as a continuation of a theme.

  ‘And what did she have to say for herself?’ replied Sundra, holding her tea bowl in front of her face with both hands. She looked over the bowl’s rim with a guarded expression. The two women had rarely come into contact with each other over the last two weeks, other than when it seemed absolutely necessary. Kjellrunn had noted the subtle game they
played, making excuses to be elsewhere where the other appeared, or busying themselves with a task so as not to have to give the other attention.

  Mistress Kamalov had taken up the role of organising the children with a vast rota of cooking, sweeping, laundry, and now paying jobs in the town itself.

  ‘Some of the older children have found work in the town. They’re bringing money back for food and so on.’ Maxim looked from Sundra to Kjellrunn, sensing something occurring beyond the possibility of his employment. ‘And she asked me when I might also work.’

  ‘Did she now.’ Sundra drank her tea and sighed. ‘You’d think with sixteen novices at her beck and call she could spare me one pair of hands.’

  ‘I told her I was only eleven and I promised Tief that I would look after you.’ Maxim looked to Sundra, clearly hoping for confirmation this had been the right thing to say.

  ‘Vigilants,’ sighed Sundra, after a pause, and clucked her tongue. ‘That said, she raises a fair point. You can’t play nursemaid to me day in, day out.’

  ‘I’m not a nurse,’ grumbled Maxim.

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ asked Kjellrunn. It had been nice to settle into their new home over the last two weeks, but she feared the day Sundra would insist on teaching her to use the arcane.

  ‘I have a job to keep both of you busy.’ Sundra set her tea bowl down. ‘Two jobs in fact. You may not be an initiate of Frejna, Maxim, but I will need your help all the same.’ She gestured and Maxim stood and collected the high priestess’s bowl.

  ‘I don’t really like Vigilants,’ he said. ‘I’d much rather work for you.’

  ‘A temple of Frejna should be a place people can come to bid farewell to the dead,’ said Sundra. ‘It can be a place of grieving and a place of healing for those left behind. Now that we have settled here, we will need to think about the more practical considerations: burial rites and ways of preparing the dead.’

  ‘People will bring dead bodies here?’ said Maxim, pulling a face.

  Sundra nodded.

  ‘You want us to go out into town and tell the people we’re here for them,’ said Kjellrunn.

  ‘I do,’ replied Sundra. ‘It’s time for the people of Dos Khor to know that the old ways are still alive.’

  Kjellrunn looked at the largely abandoned buildings around the temple. Any number of people lived in the other districts of Dos Khor, people who looked at Kjellrunn strangely as she passed them in the street – much like her days in Cinderfell.

  ‘Something troubles you?’ said Sundra, responding to the unconscious grimace that had formed on the girl’s face.

  ‘I don’t like people,’ said Kjellrunn, surprised she’d said the words aloud. ‘Not really. I don’t think I ever have.’

  ‘It’s understandable. Growing up in Nordvlast with witchsign can have been no easy thing. This task I have set you will be part of your learning. Part of your healing. People can be fragile, angry, relieved or even happy when they lose a loved one, and we must be ready to meet them all, no matter their mood.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ said Maxim.

  ‘Not just yet you aren’t,’ replied Sundra with a slow smile. ‘Wash up the tea things first. Then you can take the word of Frejna to the masses.’

  Kjellrunn looked upon Dos Khor with anxiety fluttering in her stomach.

  ‘But I can’t speak the language,’ she said, once Maxim had gone inside.

  ‘Then you have even more to learn.’ Sundra frowned. ‘And there is another matter that needs attention.’

  Dos Khor became more alive the further one travelled from the temple of Frejna. The houses had bright awnings or shutters painted in vibrant blue. Wide doorways led to courtyards with tiled mosaic floors, while lush green ferns and succulents grew in the shade. Kjellrunn felt the weight of an enquiring gaze and looked up to a balcony, where an old man chewed on a dark root and squinted at them.

  ‘What about him?’ said Kjellrunn. ‘He might like to hear about the old ways.’ Maxim called up to the balcony in the flowing language of his mother tongue. The man replied with a frown, his voice strident. Maxim replied in turn before the old man threw up his hands and disappeared into his home.

  ‘That didn’t look promising,’ said Kjellrunn.

  ‘He said the temple is in a bad part of town. Lots of slavers there.’

  ‘Shame he couldn’t have told us two weeks ago,’ said Kjellrunn, running her fingertips over the scar on her shoulder. The wound had healed quickly, but served as a painful reminder of their unwelcome arrival.

  ‘And he said people don’t go to temple any more since the Empire came. He wouldn’t say any more than that.’

  They walked further into Dos Khor in silence, feeling the heaviness of the old man’s words. The morning was spent strolling the streets, learning the locations of shops that might be helpful. Maxim taught her the odd word of his mother tongue as best he could and eventually they came to a place where Kjellrunn could fulfil her second task.

  ‘Why do you need a fabric shop?’ asked Maxim as they entered the cool darkness. The main interior was separated from the street and the ever-present dust was held at bay by a small vestibule and a white gauze curtain. Once inside the shop they were surrounded by rolls of fine cotton, canvas, linen and even silk, displayed on wide tables beside exquisite shears with turquoise enamelled handles.

  ‘Sundra said I couldn’t be an initiate without having the correct attire,’ explained Kjellrunn. The owner of the shop was a wizened, dark-skinned woman with bright green eyes. She wore a gold necklace and earrings and a multitude of other jewellery made from glossy black beads. The owner frowned as Kjellrunn ran her fingers over the fabric, but her expression softened once Maxim explained the nature of their errand. Maxim smiled as the owner slipped out through a door behind the counter.

  ‘She’s very impressed you’re an initiate of Frejna,’ he whispered. The owner returned a short time later with a roll of black fabric. She set about cutting off a length of the black cotton, talking all the while to Maxim as she did so. Soon Kjellrunn and he were heading back to the temple.

  ‘So are you going to tell me what that was all about?’ said Kjellrunn. She’d had her fill of not understanding a word of anything.

  ‘She said she heard a rumour about people moving in at the temple and that a thug had received a nasty surprise.’

  ‘That’s a good description of Trine,’ said Kjellrunn.

  ‘Do you mean she’s a thug or a nasty surprise?’

  ‘A little of both, I think,’ replied Kjellrun with a small smile.

  ‘Why do you think Trine dislikes you so much?’

  Kjellrunn shrugged. ‘I’m not sure she likes anyone.’ Maxim gave her a worried look but Kjellrunn ignored it. ‘Tell me more about the shop keeper.’

  ‘Well, she hopes to come to the temple soon. She wants to pay her respects to her ancestors.’ Maxim fell silent and gave Kjellrunn a wary look.

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘Uh, she hopes you sort your hair out if you become the local priestess.’

  ‘She said what?’

  ‘It just needs a comb is all,’ said Maxim, wincing. They walked in silence and the sun climbed to its apex, the heat hammering the street until it was almost too hot to think. People retired indoors and Kjellrunn wiped the sweat from her brow, her skin hot to the touch. She patted her yellow matted head.

  ‘So we live in a bad part of town, surrounded by thugs, the Empire killed the last priestess and I have bad hair.’ Kjellrunn sighed. ‘It’s not exactly the quiet life I was hoping for.’

  ‘A quiet life?’ Maxim rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not sure such a thing exists.’ He reached out and took Kjellrunn’s hand in his smaller one. ‘Don’t worry though. I’ll look after you.’

  ‘I know you will.’ Kjellrunn smiled. ‘I know.’

  Sundra’s morning gathering was not the only routine Kjellrunn had adopted in their first two weeks in Dos Khor. The blind beggar, who had earned himself a place at th
eir table each night, took himself away from the temple after the evening meal.

  ‘Keep an eye on him, will you,’ said Sundra on the second night, and so Kjellrunn had followed. The old man walked through the deserted part of Dos Khor and headed east, bent and stooped and blind as he was. He bore a white staff just a fraction taller than himself, tapping the sides of buildings and doorways as he went. Kjellrunn wondered how many times he had made this lonely pilgrimage. Every night it was the same journey; the beggar left the temple with the same destination in mind. The great white stone sculpture of the flat hand rose from the beach, a calm yet forbidding gesture. The sand was not so easy to navigate for the blind man, and many were the nights where Kjellrunn had gently taken him by the elbow and guided him to the tall stone.

  ‘Here you are,’ she’d said, fully aware he’d not be able to understand her. The blind man rested his stick against the sculpture and pointed to his free hand. The shape he made with his hand was identical to the sculpture.

  ‘Kolas,’ he said, then pointed to the sculpture. ‘Kolas.’

  ‘Hand!’ said Kjellrunn.

  ‘Kolas.’ The old man smiled. ‘Hand.’

  Kjellrunn took his hand in hers and tapped his finger on her chest. ‘Kjellrunn.’ He nodded and became very still. ‘Do you have a name?’ The man didn’t answer but turned his head as if staring out to sea. ‘Frøya save me, why didn’t I bring Maxim?’ The old man seemed to sense her frustration and pointed to himself.

  ‘Kolas,’ he said.

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ muttered Kjellrunn. ‘You can’t be called “hand”.’ The old man walked towards the water and sat down. Kjellrunn joined him and he held a finger to his lips then tapped his ear twice.

  ‘You want me to listen?’

  ‘Lis-sen,’ he replied.

  Kjellrunn did as she was told, hearing every roll and ripple of water as it met the beach. The old man had a blissful look of contentment on his lined face, his breathing deep and even. He turned to her again and gestured to his eyes with two fingers.

  ‘Haerthi,’ he whispered. Kjellrunn closed her eyes and now the sound of the waves was her everything. Only the soft beat of her heart provided distraction from the gentle song of the Shimmer Sea. Kjellrunn left a little of her worries on the shore with every hushed and sibilant incoming wave. Her clashes with Trine, her frustrations with the language, her avoidance of Mistress Kamalov, all receded with each wave. In the end all she had left was her deep and abiding sadness for her father, Steiner, and Kristofine.