The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus

by Kameron Hurley

  “Kai Ahkio is alive!” Tasia said. “We are saved now, Mother Lilia! Kai Ahkio has come to save us!”

  “Emlee?” Lilia asked.

  Emlee placed her hands on Tasia’s head, to settle her so she didn’t push Lilia over in her excitement. “There is indeed someone at the thorn fence,” Emlee said, expression grave. “Someone who shares Kai Ahkio’s face.”

  6

  After a skirmish with the Dorinah, Natanial generally spent the evening drinking with Otolyn and his fighters. But he was less eager to do so this time. The weary lack of progress the last two months had taken its toll on him.

  He spent the late afternoon counting up the dead and ensuring their belongings were wrapped to send back home. He visited those who had been wounded, and tended to the morale of the company. By the time he was done, it was dark, and he was thirsty and had a powerful desire to be left alone.

  Natanial rode his dog into the little captive Dorinah village, Asaolina, that the Tai Mora had turned into their supply base. The tavern there was lit up like a festival square. Tai Mora crowded the street, laughing and drinking and playing games of chance. Many of the games he didn’t recognize. While most Tai Mora had the tawny skin and slight features of Dhai, it had clearly not been a homogeneous country like that of the Dhai. The gathered soldiers spoke a dozen different languages, though all shared Tai Mora in common. The hair colors and textures, heights and body types and features, gave him the impression that the Tai Mora had conquered countries with a wide geographic scope on their own world. The more Tai Mora someone looked, the more likely they were to be someone in charge; that bit of petty blood rule was unchanged from places like Dorinah and Saiduan. Natanial had encountered it himself when he traveled from Aaldia to Tordin. Tordinians had always looked at him with unease and mistrust, a foreign man in a foreign land, no matter how exceptional his Tordinian or how many years he spent in their backward little country.

  He found a seat at the bar in the raucous tavern, a smooth granite counter that put him in mind of better days. He ordered a beer from the barkeep, a Dorinah woman who looked like she would rather punch him than serve him. He could not blame her.

  A Tai Mora group emerged from the back of the tavern, exiting from one of the private meeting rooms that had once been reserved for local magistrates and officials. Natanial recognized the Tai Mora generals, including Monshara. She was dressed down, no armor, just a long gray tunic and sturdy trousers. One of the few Tai Mora who retained a bit of plumpness in her face, she had the gray eyes and pale complexion of a Dorinah. Her broad nose and narrow jaw made it look like she was always staring down her nose at something that upset her. She had scrubbed away the filth and stink of the battlefield. Her hair was a mop of tangled black curls.

  Natanial didn’t acknowledge her, but she noticed him. She bid the other generals goodnight and came over to the bar, smelling of soap and leather. He stiffened, uncertain. Tai Mora had been known to praise with one hand and strangle with the other. The pay was good, yes, and he enjoyed being on the winning side, but the unpredictability of the Tai Mora was far worse than what he’d endured under King Saradyn back in Tordin.

  “Put this man’s drinks on my tab,” Monshara said, in Dorinah, placing a hand on his shoulder. She was shorter and heavier than him by a good fifty pounds. Maybe she was getting all of her calories from beer. “You didn’t have to step in today to cut off that force of Dorinah. I didn’t order you.”

  He sipped his beer, studying her. Warm and flat, the beer made him grimace. He said, also in Dorinah, “You could dismiss the company for not obeying an order, if that’s what you’d like.”

  “Certainly.” Her breath smelled of beer, and her eyes were bright; he was uncertain how much she’d had to drink. “That’s because there are very few smart soldiers. Smart soldiers become officers, in Tai Mora, and Aaldia, Tordin, certainly. Which begs the question… why are you just a boot-licking mercenary?”

  “You have your own assassins,” Natanial said. “They are better than I am. This was the next logical career path for me.”

  Monshara laughed. She climbed into the seat next to him and ordered herself a drink. “You speak very good Dorinah for a foreigner.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time here.”

  “Working for Tordin?”

  “Now and then.”

  “You knew King Saradyn?”

  “In passing.”

  “Saradyn ever use jistas?”

  “There aren’t a good many in Tordin.”

  “Omajistas?”

  “You recruiting?”

  “Always.” The barkeep brought her drink, and she took a long swallow. “You saw the mess out there. With an omajista we’d have won this campaign eight months ago.”

  “You do seem a bit… understaffed.”

  “We aren’t a priority. The Empress has other projects. I’ve asked often for an omajista, but… well. She’s preoccupied with her temples, and rooting out little Dhai spies. With an omajista you could open up a gate directly into Daorian.”

  “Surely you’ve tried that?”

  “We did, a few months back, before you arrived. They had wards up. We think we’ve successfully removed the wards, but it means convincing my Empress that I won’t waste an omajista this time around.”

  Natanial considered that. He took a long swallow from the beer. A few Tai Mora women began a rousing chorus of some bawdy song. They were not so different from Dorinah, some nights. “I wish you luck with that,” Natanial said, “though I do enjoy taking your money until then.”

  Monshara laughed and thumped the table. “You Aaldians will outlast us all. You are Aaldian, aren’t you? That’s what your second says. You don’t look it. Tordinian, certainly.”

  “I’m surprised the Tai Mora haven’t turned their armies on Aaldia yet,” Natanial said, moving the conversation away from his own parentage. He had no interest in commiserating with her about his past.

  “No need,” Monshara said. “There are no living temples there, like in Saiduan and Dhai, and there’s no people on our side that mirror the Aaldians. You’re unique to this world. Eliminating you would serve no purpose. The Empress is ever the pragmatist when it comes to genocide. Besides, the war for the world has been won. If she gives us a fucking omajista, I could be sitting on a fucking country estate right now. But she’s gotten paranoid. She’s walling herself in.”

  Natanial had spent much of his life fighting the Dorinah and the cruelties they had unleashed here and elsewhere in Tordin. Or perhaps he sensed that once this campaign was done, his usefulness to the Tai Mora would end. How to better position himself for the future? He chugged the rest of the beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Was he trying to be useful, or was he just selfish, and lonely?

  “I know where to find an omajista,” Natanial said, the words spilling out before he had time to consider it further. “He could be… persuaded to assist you, I think.”

  Monshara raised a brow. “And what do you want in return, mercenary?”

  “It’s been a long time since anyone asked me that. Anyone with the ability to deliver something other than money.”

  “Other than money? What kind of mercenary are you?”

  “I like to work for the winners,” Natanial said. “I bring you an omajista, and you keep my crew in work. I want to be close, to be useful. I want a future in the world that’s coming into being. That’s all.”

  “I can’t guarantee she won’t stab you in the back. She’s done it to all of us often enough. That’s me speaking frankly after a lot of fucking beer.”

  “It’s all right,” Natanial said, “I’m used to working with intemperate tyrants.” He asked for another beer to wash away the guilt roiling away in his gut.

  He was already a little sorry. But not sorry enough.

  7

  Anavha laid out the metal letters of type, carefully following the simple styling set out on the proof pages of the pamphlets he was printing. He foun
d Aaldian to be an intuitive language, but even so he was not fluent in it after a year in the country. Some of that may have been that he lived so far from the cities. He didn’t get a lot of practice with language; he knew how to write it and read it better than he could speak it. The pamphlets were purely educational, covering local Aaldian politics. He enjoyed reading them as much as making them.

  The slanting light of the double helix of the suns poured through the afternoon clouds and illuminated his work area beneath the great open windows. Aaldia was further south than Dorinah, and a little warmer this time of year. He enjoyed cool weather; the summer here had been too hot for him.

  “Finished, love?” said Nusi as they ducked through the pale wooden doorway.

  Anavha paused in his work to watch them; they were tall and lean, with a great hooked nose and long sloping forehead. Nusi had wrapped their hair up in a brilliant purple scarf. They flashed a smile at him, more a showing of teeth, a grimace, than a smile, really, but he had come to understand that it had the same meaning, among Aaldians.

  Nusi ran their hand over his shoulder as they passed and kissed the top of his head. Their touch still made him shiver pleasantly with the memory of how they spent their nights. He tried to focus on the letters, but his mind was off again, warm and yearning in the dark.

  Anavha had come here expecting fear. Dorinah was not fond of outsiders, and he assumed Aaldians wouldn’t be either. But he knew the language, more or less, and more importantly, he knew how to play the game of spheres.

  His last game still hung in the air in the sitting room, a tangle of threaded spheres he had generated himself using Oma, after much practice. He had lost his last game by putting one sphere into another in the incorrect order. The math involved still sometimes puzzled him. But he was good enough to earn respect during the local tournaments.

  Distracted by thoughts of the game, Anavha dropped two of the heavy metal character symbols – one for air, the other for smile – and bent to retrieve them. As he did, a motion in the window caught his attention. He straightened.

  There was a man outside, watching him.

  He caught his breath. The man was tall and angular, with a prominent nose, strong square jaw and powerful forearms. He was bronze-skinned, and had shaved his thick auburn-brown hair; Anavha missed that hair.

  Anavha knew him immediately, but blinked several times in shock, because the man was not supposed to be here.

  “Was hoping to buy a pamphlet,” Natanial said, walking to the open window and leaning on the frame. He had an easy confidence about him, the confidence of a man who understood his body’s strengths and knew exactly how to deploy them. “Heard you’re out here preaching about the ills of Dorinah in these rags.”

  “How did you find me?” Anavha said.

  “I admit, I thought you’d stay in the cities,” Natanial said, “but I didn’t count on you meeting someone like Nusi. I should have. I know their taste.”

  “You know Nusi?”

  “You forget that I was trained as an assassin,” Natanial said. “Finding people is something I excel at. Aaldia is also a fairly small country. There aren’t many Aaldians who can speak Dorinah. Finding a moon-faced Dorinah boy out here was comparatively easy.”

  “I thought you agreed to leave me alone.”

  “I agreed to no such thing,” Natanial said, but his eyelid twitched. “Anavha, I wanted to let it lie. I have for all this time. But we have… a cause that needs you.”

  “I can’t imagine anything in Tordin–”

  “I’m in Dorinah now,” Natanial said, “working with the Tai Mora. They have nearly overcome the Empress of Dorinah in all but one city. Daorian is the last holdout.”

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “We need an omajista to get us inside the walls. The Tai Mora can’t spare one. There’s some scheme in the temples that requires a good many of them. When they asked if I knew an omajista, well. There’s only you, Anavha.”

  “I know people in Daorian,” Anavha said. “Good people. Daolyn, and Zezili’s sisters, her mother–”

  “Fine upstanding people who cull and bind and abuse half their people,” Natanial said, “and turn Dhai into slaves.”

  “The Tai Mora have slaves,” Anavha said. “They aren’t any better.”

  “They are stronger,” Natanial said. “They are going to win this. And we can be on the side of the winners.”

  “I guess I’m not surprised that you’re so… mercenary,” Anavha said.

  “I’m practical,” Natanial said. “It’s how people like us survive.”

  “Us? We’re not alike.”

  “We’re more alike than you know,” Natanial said. “The Empress of Dorinah is a creature, not fit for this world. If you had seen what I did… She has monsters inside those walls, monsters from some other world–”

  “The Tai Mora are–”

  “Not like this,” Natanial said.

  Anavha firmed his mouth. He wasn’t seeing the difference, but Natanial had encountered the Empress of Dorinah’s people, and he hadn’t. Still, he didn’t like it when people treated him like a child.

  “I’m staying out of the war,” Anavha said.

  “You can come right back,” Natanial said. “Oma is risen. You can pop back here any time you want by opening a gate – a wink, the Tai Mora call it. I am asking you for a single favor.”

  “Why do I owe you a favor?”

  Natanial raised his brows.

  “You were the one who told me that Zezili used me,” Anavha said, “that she cut me off from other people so she’d be all I knew. So I would depend on her. But you did the same thing. You kept me prisoner, too. You aren’t better.”

  “I…” Natanial began, and then seemed to think better of it. “We need an omajista. It’s the only power they can’t counter. They have no defense against you.”

  “You should go,” Anavha said. “I don’t want you here.”

  “Anavha?” Nusi came in from the kitchen, wiping their hands on their apron. “Who are you – oh.”

  Nusi’s gaze met Natanial’s, and Anavha saw a look pass between them that he knew only too well. Everyone loved Natanial, foolish though that may be. Had they been lovers?

  “Natanial Thorne,” Nusi said, and the breathless tone made Anavha’s heart ache.

  “It’s lovely to see you, Nusi,” Natanial said. “I admit, though, that I’m here for Anavha. If he will indulge me.”

  “He enjoys indulging others far too much.”

  “I know that,” Natanial said.

  “I’m right here!” Anavha said. “I can speak for myself.”

  “Can you now?” Natanial smirked. “That is indeed a new development.”

  “Come inside,” Nusi urged. “I have never been known to turn away a weary traveler.”

  Anavha said, “He should go.”

  “Nonsense,” Nusi insisted. “It’s polite. I’ll have one of the siblings make up a meal.”

  They went around to the door and opened it for Natanial. Anavha stood just behind Nusi, as if to shield himself from Natanial’s presence. But it was a futile effort. As the door opened, Anavha had the same reaction to Natanial as he always had. Anavha wanted to curl up in his arms and ask for comfort and safety. It made him hate himself because it was a part of him he knew he could never release. He had a sudden, terrible urge to cut himself, an urge he had not had in months. Natanial was an uncontrollable force, and Anavha needed something he could control.

  Nusi invited Natanial into the kitchen. Most of Nusi’s siblings – the others living with them on the sprawling farm – were out working, but they called in their sibling Giska to help with a meal, and sent Anavha out to the cellar for some yams. He came back to the kitchen to find Nusi sitting at the big battered wood table, laughing uproariously with Natanial. Anavha stopped in the doorway, torn. Was it jealousy he felt? Or something worse?

  He stepped beside Giska to help with the meal. Natanial sugge
sted a card game with Nusi, but they demurred and asked instead to get an update on the Tai Mora assault in Dorinah.

  “They will come here next, certainly,” Nusi said. “Is that what they tell you?”

  “They insist Aaldia is inconsequential,” Natanial said. “If they want to expand, they will expand north into Saiduan. If they do work with Aaldia, it will be in making them a vassal state, but that’s far down the line. They are suffering with their crops this year. They continue to need Aaldia’s help to feed themselves. Aaldia has extensive rice and wheat fields. They need that. It’s all very well and good to fight a war, but they are losing the peace, and they know it.”

  Anavha listened closely, but their conversation soon turned to old business. They talked of Nusi’s childhood here, and one long glorious summer where Nusi sailed around the world after having their first child. Which brought the conversation back to why the Tai Mora hadn’t chosen some other continent besides this one.

  “They couldn’t have settled in Hrollief?” Nusi said. “Or some eastern country? There are enough wild things there that they could have had the run of the place.”

  “There’s something here they wanted,” Natanial said, “something in those Dhai and Saiduan temples. I don’t pretend to know what it is. But I know when to hedge my bets. For now, our paths align. I want the Dorinah gone. I want the Tai Mora to see my value. That’s the only way to continue on.”

  “You hate the Dorinah so much,” Nusi said, “that you would ask this of Anavha?”

  “I hate tyranny of all sorts,” Natanial insisted. “I honestly believed in what Saradyn was doing in Tordin, even if I did not approve of his methods. But the Dorinah… well.”

  Nusi put their long, strong fingers over his, but he pulled his hand away, and smiled thinly. “It was so long ago,” Nusi said.

  “They continue to do terrible things.” He looked at Anavha. Anavha felt heat move up his face, and quickly turned his attention back to cutting up the yams. Had the Dorinah once done something terrible to Natanial?