The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus

by Kameron Hurley

  Windows lined much of the wall that faced the plateau. Luna set down the towels on a table. Ze went to the windows and worked at the latch of one of them. It popped open, about as wide as hir arm from wrist to elbow. Luna did not have time to hesitate. Ze pulled hirself up onto the windowsill and sucked in what remained of hir stomach and pressed through the gap.

  Luna had always been a small person, but the body that housed hir before imprisonment would not have fit. As Luna huffed and puffed out the window, ze realized a year of starving and wasting away in the cell below was all that had made this possible.

  Halfway through, Luna got stuck, and considered breaking the glass. The voices from the kitchen grew louder. Luna let out hir breath in a rush and gave one final push.

  Luna landed in the garden and crawled quickly through the gardens to the stone bridge that crossed the gaping chasm between the temple and the plateau. Ze stayed away from the lighted path, stepping softly among the flowers and shrubs instead.

  The bridge, too, had guards. Two on this side and two on the other; there was a wall around this front garden that had not been there the year before. Luna’s heart sank. Ze knew this was the only way off the plateau, as ze had noted all the ways in and out when ze had first arrived.

  Luna took the stone from hir pocket and threw it into the bushes on the other side, hoping to call the guards’ attention, but neither was bothered. The ones on this side were engaged in conversation, too low for Luna to make out. Maybe they would be relieved soon? Maybe they would go to have a meal and ze could get out when they changed the guard?

  To have come all this way and get stuck and captured again when they discovered Luna among the other Dhai slaves was too much to bear.

  Luna got up and stepped boldly onto the path. The stones poked at Luna’s feet, but on ze went, striding confidently up to the guards. All Luna had left was the confidence of knowing that ze had survived a year in this place, and hir whole life in Saiduan, while these people tried to murder hir. That confidence was enough to make the walk.

  The guards saw Luna and ceased their chatter. Fear tangled in Luna’s guts, but this was the only chance Luna had, to face them directly. Luna could not spend another night in this cursed temple, waiting on Kirana’s whim. Luna approached them holding the set of keys in hir hands, like a totem.

  One of the soldiers peered at Luna. The other stepped closer to see what Luna proffered.

  “Where did you find these?” the soldier asked, in Tai Mora.

  Luna waited until the guard’s hands were on the keys. Then Luna ducked between the two guards, kicking up gravel as ze went.

  “Hey, now!” the soldier yelled, alerting the two on the other side.

  Luna was terribly weak, but not as weak as ze had been a few hours before. The two other soldiers moved into Luna’s path, blocking hir from the other side.

  With a great burst of energy, Luna jumped onto the railing and propelled hirself forward, balancing dangerously on the supports. The Fire River churned below, a great black snake of death. Luna pitched forward onto the plateau on the other side, narrowly missing the grasping fingers of one of the soldiers.

  Luna ran blindly, not knowing at all where ze was going. Following the path would mean following the light, so ze abruptly turned away from heading down into the little settlement on the plateau and instead headed out to the east. The soldiers were in pursuit. They were faster than Luna. They would make up the time in mere moments.

  Ze changed direction abruptly and ran up the edge of the plateau, following its long curve as hir body broke out in a cold sweat.

  Luna bolted across the plateau, as quickly as hir exhausted, wasted legs would take hir. Ahead, Luna saw the breadth of everpines and verdant bamboo carpeting the hills on the other side of the ravine that split the plateau. How far were those hills… an age, an impossible distance, maybe fifty yards? Maybe more. Luna wanted a miracle. Luna wanted to be free, one way or another, wanted to be able to fly across the ravine and land in those beautiful, lush bamboo.

  Ze wanted freedom more than anything else. The guards were coming. They would end hir. Luna’s feet tangled in the long grass. Ze had a moment at the very edge of the plateau, two steps, in which ze could turn back.

  Instead, Luna jumped, hurling hirself into the great black abyss where the Fire River yawned below to embrace hir.

  Finally, Luna thought.

  Finally, free.

  12

  Lilia found Caisa already washed and refreshed, drinking weak tea in one of the small guest quarters in the eastern quadrant of the warren.

  “I’d like you to get word to Elaiko,” Lilia said, “in Tira’s Temple.”

  “Of course,” Caisa said. “It’s only a few days’ ride from here. What do you want to tell her?”

  “Can you send a bird? It needs to be faster.”

  “I can… That’s trickier, but yes. What’s going on?”

  “I need Elaiko to help myself and two others get inside Tira’s Temple. To the basements, those rooms the Tai Mora have uncovered.”

  Caisa’s face lost a little color. “You can’t be serious Li That’s… they are well guarded. The passwords change daily. The–”

  “I want to see it for myself.”

  “It’s safer for me to find someone who can go down there,” Caisa said. “My contact in Oma’s temple has unprecedented access. They can easily–”

  “I need to see it,” Lilia said. “I know that sounds mad, but…” Taigan had been so sure Lilia was a worldbreaker, that she had some gift that would help them all. Was she getting caught back up in that story? Or did she simply hate the idea of leaving the potential power of the temples in the hands of the Tai Mora? “Meyna wants to leave Dhai. If we abandon the temples to the–”

  “Leave Dhai?” Caisa said. “That’s… No! Not after all we’ve fought for.”

  Lilia leaned forward. “I don’t want that, Caisa, but to convince Meyna there’s a future here, I need more than diagrams and vague stories from the Tai Mora. I want to see how this works. I want to know if we can somehow wrest this power back from the Tai Mora.”

  “I… I don’t know, Li.”

  “Caisa? If we leave, then your year of sacrifice and intelligence is all for naught.”

  Caisa twisted her hands in her lap. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “Three of you?”

  “Just three,” Lilia said. “In and out.”

  “I’ll try,” Caisa said. “I can get word there and something worked out with Elaiko in a few days, perhaps.”

  “Could we do it any faster?”

  “How fast?”

  “Two days. The sooner the better.”

  “Why the urgency?”

  Lilia hesitated. Caisa would learn soon enough, she supposed. “A man has come into camp. He says he is Ahkio.”

  Caisa clapped her hand over her mouth. “Impossible! He was dead!”

  “He may still be. We don’t know it’s truly him.”

  “I could… I was close to him for some time, I could–”

  “Meyna has taken him aside. Whatever happens with him is up to her and Yisaoh. You understand?”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “Thank you, Caisa.”

  “Do you think I could see him? The Kai?”

  “You could try,” Lilia said. “I assume Meyna will be keeping him close.”

  Caisa stood and wiped her hands on her trousers. “Does this mean your plan to attack the Tai Mora camp during Tira’s Festival is… on hold?”

  “It depends,” Lilia said.

  “On what?”

  “On what I find out when I visit the temple of Tira.”

  Ahkio sat across from Meyna in an underground room lit with flame fly lanterns, hands tucked under his arms. Liaro sat to his left, and that was a comfort. It was not so long ago that Ahkio could not keep his own thoughts straight. Simple words still eluded him, sometimes. Liaro had taught him to put on a tunic and heat water for tea. There was a time,
after he had fled the temple and begun wandering the foothills around Mount Ahya, that he had forgotten his own name. What a blessing that had been. Truly a gift from Oma.

  Meyna looked much the same as he remembered her; the heart-shaped face, the full lips, the only-slightly-less-generous proportions. Even knowing what he did, with all the history between them, he had a strong desire to press himself into her arms and seek comfort. Old habits were difficult to shake.

  Her family sat in the next room; Rhin and Hadaoh, Mey-mey, and the new child, Hasao, the one she insisted was his, and he had no reason to doubt it. She looked startlingly like him, much more so than Mey-mey ever had.

  “You could have pretended to like me more,” Meyna said, sipping at her tea and wincing at the heat. “I’m doing both of you a great favor.”

  “And we appreciate it,” Liaro said quickly. “It went well, don’t you think?”

  “It did,” Meyna said, but her gaze remained on Ahkio, intense and calculating. “How do you feel, Ahkio? Rumors are moving through the camp that you are here. We’ll announce it formally, but I wanted to have a private discussion first, since it’s mostly been Liaro and myself speaking about this alliance. I need your backing now, the way I’ve given you mine.”

  “I’m real,” Ahkio said, resenting her assumptions, as if he did not deserve to be here with his own people. “Don’t think you’re doing a deal with some other version of me. I haven’t spoken a dishonest word to you, or Liaro, or any of them.”

  “I assume nothing,” Meyna said. “But our purposes are aligned. If I’m to convince all of these people to board these ships I have acquired and head south, to a new home, I need someone they have faith in.”

  “I didn’t realize the scullery girl, Lilia, had so much power here,” Ahkio said.

  “Not power,” Meyna said, “but… influence. She has been throwing herself and her cult into this mad dance with the Tai Mora for months now. I’ve heard she plans on a major offensive, during Tira’s Festival. No doubt she’ll end up getting herself and her followers killed if she follows through with that. After, there will be a place in their hearts here that needs filling. That is where I see you.”

  Ahkio glanced over at Liaro, who patted his knee, a comforting gesture. Yes, Ahkio needed it, though it pained him to admit it. He wanted to leap out of his seat and run. Why had he come back? He could have wandered the woods indefinitely, after learning what had happened. Murdered by Nasaka’s hand, the temple fallen, his people scattered. It was too much.

  Ahkio squeezed Liaro’s hand. “I just want peace,” Ahkio said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “So do I,” Meyna said. “Moving our people to a new homeland will achieve that. Will you support that?”

  “What other options are there?”

  Meyna curled a lip and tried her tea again, sipping carefully. “Lilia wants revenge. She wants to fight. And she doesn’t care how many of us her crusade takes down with her.”

  “The Tai Mora will follow you,” Ahkio said softly. “They can find us anywhere.”

  “They are too busy with their temples and stargazers.”

  “They will follow you,” Ahkio said. “They won’t rest until we’re destroyed.”

  “It isn’t about that,” Meyna said. “Once their world died, they stopped murdering us. Mostly they enslave us.”

  “Then why are they hunting you here?” Liaro asked. “We ran into several patrols.”

  “Because Lilia is striking back at them,” Meyna said. “She has her people go on little raids sometimes, breaking up supply trains, that sort of thing. We are a nuisance.”

  Ahkio was uncertain if Meyna truly believed that, or if she knew the more likely reason that the Tai Mora kept coming after the Dhai refugees. Ahkio knew all too well what Kirana wanted, because he had refused to give it to her: Yisaoh Alais Garika. And his refusal had led them here.

  Liaro must have seen something in his face, because he said, quickly, “We’ll certainly be less of a target when we’re gone, then. Ahkio?”

  “Yes,” Ahkio said.

  “Good.” Meyna stood. “You’ve already seen your rooms, but would you like an escort back? We’ll come for you when the meeting begins.”

  “We’re fine,” Liaro said. He took Ahkio’s arm.

  Ahkio followed him, head bent, knowing he was a bit like a cowed dog and not caring about the optics of it.

  When they left Meyna’s rooms, Liaro said, “Let’s walk. Get some air. Fewer people above ground. And all this dirt makes me claustrophobic.”

  They went through the narrow halls of the underground refuge and up the ladders to the misty woodland above. A few people passed them, but none Ahkio recognized, for which he was grateful. So many had died, and so many of these were younger people. Few from the temples had escaped, he gathered. Most had either been killed or put into service for the Tai Mora.

  Above ground, a few children played near a great bonsa tree. They ducked away when they saw Ahkio and Liaro; clearly they were not supposed to be up here alone. The scent of a few cook fires teased the air.

  When it was clear they would not be overheard, Ahkio said, “They will follow us. Kirana won’t stop until she has Yisaoh.”

  “That wasn’t a part of this,” Liaro said. “We never discussed that. I told you, leave this to us. You’re still… fragile.”

  Ahkio rubbed his eyes. He wanted to deny that, but Liaro was right. Liaro had seen him at his worst, but still believed in him, more than any of the others. Certainly, Meyna thought Ahkio was some shadow. And maybe… maybe he was? Ahkio was so confused most days it would not have surprised him to discover it.

  A soft rumble made the ground tremble, shaking moisture from the trees and spattering them in cold droplets.

  Liaro wiped the damp from Ahkio’s face. “I love you, you know,” Liaro said.

  “I know,” Ahkio said. “Is that enough, though?”

  “You were given a gift from the temple. You got another chance to live. Let’s not waste it. Meyna has all of this in hand. I know you two have a contentious history, but they love her here. She knows the Woodland, and though you may not remember it, you did choose her child to be Li Kai. This will set things right. We just need to keep our heads down.”

  The soil rumbled again.

  “What is that?” Ahkio asked.

  A clanging bell sounded, high and urgent.

  “Walking trees?” Liaro said. “We should get below ground.”

  As they turned, a great roar filled the woodlands around them. Ahkio froze. Great, lashing vines appeared through the tree cover, their creepers wrapping around tree trunks and tensing – pulling – something forward that moaned and crashed through the woods.

  Liaro took him by the arm and yanked him toward the entrance to the tunnels. But Ahkio turned back to where the children had ducked off.

  “They aren’t safe!” Ahkio said, yanking his arm away. He ran across the muddy ground. Liaro yelled after him, but Ahkio could already see the five children breaking cover, running for them.

  “This way!” Ahkio said.

  The ground heaved again, and one of the children fell. Ahkio scooped him up and took up the rear of the group.

  A seething mass of tangled, fleshy vegetation rumbled toward them, yanking itself along with its tendrils. A half-dozen more, smaller but still as wide as Ahkio was tall, rolled behind it, lashing at the understory of the trees, snapping small branches and tattering the great plate-sized leaves of the bonsa trees.

  Liaro made it to the entrance of the settlement and helped the first three children down. He ducked into the hole just as one of the fleshy mounds rolled over it, blocking the others.

  “This way!” Ahkio yelled to the remaining children. He set down the one he carried and pulled his weapon. Whatever kind of sentient monster this was, they could bleed. They could be killed. He had fought enough of them to know.

  The clanging bell sounded again, a different rhythm this time.

&nb
sp; Ahkio slashed at the groping tendrils as the massive sphere of vegetation roiled toward him, seeking purchase on his body to propel itself forward.

  “Stay out of its way!” a cry from above, a lean young woman with a mop of hair, sliding down from a tree roost with several others. “Grab the children!” she said to her companions, and drew her bonsa sword as she raced toward Ahkio.

  Ahkio knew her face; the freckled cheeks and prominent forehead she was still trying to cover with a fringe of hair. He felt some relief, on seeing her. Caisa Arianao Raona, his former assistant, once a Tai Mora – how many knew that? But he felt such joy on seeing her: a familiar figure, one he had fought beside before. The tension in his belly eased, even as the creepers snapped at his legs.

  Caisa stopped just short of him, alarmed at the sight of his face, but recovered quickly and put her back to his, weapon raised. “Move around them!” she called, and began heading out of the plants’ paths.

  They slipped into the narrow strip between the paths of two of the large sphere, slashing and hacking at the tendrils if they came close.

  Her companions snatched up the two remaining children and took cover behind a massive bonsa tree.

  The roiling forms of the seething beasts rumbled away, lashing and snapping. Ahkio sliced one more heavy tendril before the things cleared the camp.

  Ahkio huffed out a breath.

  “Tumbleterrors,” Caisa said, wiping sticky sap from her weapon and sheathing it. She came around and peered at him. “It’s you?”

  He nodded. “I thought you were dead,” he said.

  “Same,” she said. “Meyna saw you die.”

  “It’s a very long story.”

  As the trembling ceased beneath their feet, a few heads popped out from the various underground entrances to the settlement. Along the edges of the paths the tumbleterrors had cleared, a few more fighters stood, weapons out. Many were already making their way toward him.

  “The rumors are true!” Caisa called to them. “The Kai is alive!”