The Last Road

by K. Johansen

  Put out the fire, covered the hot ashes. Mounted and headed down to the road again, leading the black horse. The tracks had aimed south. Nothing to see on the road, not by moonlight. The marks of paws, of nails digging in to hurl the beast forward, might be visible by daylight, maybe.

  She turned the horses, faced the north, the high moon throwing a stubby shadow under them. The river quiet, muttering. Its goddess dead. A devil led the armies of the west and killed the gods.

  The Blackdog of Lissavakail, demon of the mountains, was a dog that might be the size of a bear. It possessed men, and killed devils, and had died at Marakand. The songs all said so.

  She turned Lark’s head. He pranced, objecting. She was implacable. He gave in. Jolanan rode south.

  Holla-Sayan smelt them before anything else, human, animal, disease, filth. Turned and plunged through densely growing willow scrub and dogwood.

  “What took you so long?”

  But Holla-Sayan was human and down on his knees. “Old Great Gods, Mikki…” Gaunt as if he had been starved, and filthy, wrapped in a torn blanket and Moth’s old grey cloak. He was hunched as if cradling some injury; he had cringed and whimpered and tried to crawl away at Holla-Sayan’s crashing appearance.

  “Don’t touch him, he’s—Mikki love, Mikki, it’s all right. Look, it’s the Blackdog. Holla-Sayan. You remember.”

  “Sayan bless.”

  There was a battered old scow nose-in to the bank, twisting in the current, trying to pull away. It slipped, even as he looked, and slid out.

  “Great Gods damn—”

  “You want it?” Something he could do, of use.

  “Let it go. It’s sinking, anyway. I didn’t want to risk it, going down to the castle. He can’t swim, the state he’s in. And I don’t like having him out on the water. Too exposed. There’s something watching, still.”

  Mikki was crouched now, not crawling. He tried to push himself away when Holla again reached a hand to him.

  He sat back on his heels with an indrawn breath at the demon’s flinching. “What in the cold hells—?”

  “Sien-Shava’s had him prisoner. Over a year,” Moth said wearily. “He’s been in chains, chained hostage to the devil’s heart, and bound in his daylight form. And the Old Great Gods know what other abuse. For which I will call them to account.” Vicious, that.

  “Jochiz is dead, then?” Hope, irrational, waking. All over, it was all over—but such a battle, so near, he would have known, that great fire torn from the world—

  “No.”

  “Moth—”

  “No.”

  Holla put a hand on Moth’s shoulder. Turned her. She let him, all bone and lean muscle and taller than he. Sat back on her heels, meeting his eyes in the night. Fire in her own, flicker of red, of silver.

  “Lakkariss,” he said. Hissed, as if it were a curse. Maybe it was.

  “Ya.”

  “Old Great Gods damn—”

  “All of us. Yes. It bought Mikki free.”

  “Vartu!”

  “I had to choose,” she said. “I chose him. Will they help, at the Upper Castle? If you speak for me?”

  “Yes,” he said, because Kinsai’s folk would not turn a demon of the earth away, even a demon who had given himself to love a devil, and besides…they knew the Blackdog for what it was, there in the castle. Kinsai had known. Maybe even before he and the dog between them understood it themselves.

  “Good. I don’t know how to—he won’t speak. Or he can’t. I don’t know what best to do.” Almost whispered. Unnervingly human despair.

  “He needs food and fire, to start with. We’re not all that far. Mikki, can you walk, if you put your arms over us? Friends of mine, close by. Trout and his family. I told you about Trout, do you remember? That winter after Gaguush died and the two of us went up to Baisirbska, looking for Moth?”

  They hadn’t found her. Hadn’t spoken of her, just roaming, with that between them. Memory of cold, frost that cracked trees, froze your breath…the taste of flowers in the black nights. They’d drunk too much, too often. Northron meadu that the settlers of Swansby and such places offered, honouring Mikki, the demon carpenter of their grandparents’ tales. And the crisp, spruce-flavoured beers that the hunter-folk of the forests brewed.

  A night. Out in the forest, far from human roof-trees. Some word-wandering discussion filling the darkness. The nature of demons, and gods, and devils in the world. Mikki, who was shapeshifter by his birth, called Holla-Sayan unnatural, a thing that made and remade itself, and so carried clothing and weapons and what he bore with him through the change that was his own will and his own transformation of his self, whether he or the dog within him understood what they did or not. Proof he was a monster, a magic, and no thing of the world as Mikki was.

  Envy, Holla-Sayan had said, grinning.

  “Naked envy,” he had added, and Mikki, who had not a rag to his name then but a long sheepskin coat they’d—acquired—somewhere, and Holla’s horse—it was a dun Malagru hill-pony he’d had in those days—to carry it during the daylight, had swept him from his seat on a saddlebag and headfirst into the snow with an arm like a lashing paw. Held his head in the snow, too, till he’d come up with a leg hooking around and brought Mikki down.

  The first time he’d seen the demon laugh since Marakand, lying there on his back in the snow. Laughing far harder than the joke was worth. A jar of mead at their winter fire and in their brief wrestling then they nearly spilt the one and buried the other. They had gotten very drunk, after that, as he recalled, and Mikki had talked not about Moth— he never talked about her, in that time, for all that their wanderings were a searching—but about sailing with his Northron cousins along the western edge of the world in some vague time after the seven devils were sealed in their graves.

  He was not left with the impression that those human cousins had been honest cargo-carriers.

  Holla-Sayan didn’t remember the headache, but probably there had been one. Hard to wake Mikki the next morning, but then, in winter, he had discovered, it always was.

  That was the winter of the endless snows.

  No reaction at all.

  “Come on, cub. Give Holla-Sayan your arm. Good. Now me…”

  Sound, out on the river. Creak of rowlocks. They froze. But it was upriver. Not good, no, definitely someone crossing from the west.

  They went quietly, stumbling like a party of drunks who’d lost their way between tavern and caravanserai. Mikki was a giant and a weight sagging between them. Kept his head down, though not looking where he put his feet. Holla-Sayan discovered he was bootless himself, wearing coarse wool stockings, and unlike Mikki he did not customarily go barefoot. Like a bad dream, not quite desperate enough for nightmare, but something that would not end. He was about to tell Moth that he would run ahead, rouse someone in the castle to come up with a horse or a boat, when a human cry shattered the night.

  “Holla!”

  “Jo!” he said, and Mikki tore himself free of them, flung away into the darkness. Moth went after him.

  Holla-Sayan was already racing back up the road. She had woken and followed him, of course she had, and that boat had landed…

  They came rushing out of the darkness between road and river, shapes in sudden motion, not bushes. Lark reared, striking out with a hoof and bringing down the first to close with her. No time to tug the knot to free Fury; sabre drawn and Jolanan was fighting for life, too many to count, swarming in the dark, short-swords and axes and the helmets of Westron warrior-priests. She shrieked his name, a warning, because he had been wrong, the Westrons were over the river and she had run blind into them. Fury was trampling at her side, an angry killing shield to her left, but one had him by the bridle, knife slashing, not to kill but to free his reins—made the mistake of trying to mount him and went down, screaming, under his hooves. Lark unencumbered but now she had them on both sides and another had scrambled into the black’s saddle, yelling, swinging. She saw from the corner of he
r eye, ducked down alongside Lark’s neck, striking, too, blade grating on armour, weight on her, heaving, leg twisting, pulled down and she kicked her foot free before her ankle gave, landed half on her own feet, staggering, recovered and sliced up a man’s thigh, left him to die bleeding and swung desperate, two-handed, at a woman with an axe, Lark bolting away after the black, out of the mob—bodies on the ground but six still standing, reaching to seize as if they’d take her alive and Westron shouting, “Not the one!”

  She was fighting two of them, men with short-swords, the woman with the long-hafted axe standing back, looking away, looking for someone, something else—Jolanan had nothing to set her back to—she was struck from behind, falling to her knees, right down flat with a boot in her back, trying to twist up, to stab with a blade not best meant for it. Something howled—howl broke jagged into snarling, a human voice shrieked, a horse whinnied—she kicked and rolled and got to a knee, still keeping her grip on her hilt. Swung from her knees at whatever was near, legs, hands, and a man screamed, the woman turning, the axe sweeping—the Westron turning yet, someone behind kicking and Jolanan fell even as the axe came slashing round and bit, and the night burst into red and pain and nothingness.

  Jo! Ride! But she did not hear, mortal human, and the dog had no voice. Human cries, many voices shouting. The first men before him, shouting, a pair with axes, and human cries turned to animal shrieks as he leapt and ripped and threw them aside, felt in his jaw the crack of bones parting. Snarled and flung himself at the seething knot in the roadway, the horses bolting at the scent of him, but neither had a rider and she was a hare being ripped by a pack of hounds. Woman with a long axe, stooping to see what she had done, half-lifting something by—scarf, hair—he roared rage and as she let the limp body drop bit through wrist and haft and dropped hand after the thudding axe, blood spraying, even as Moth came down on them like lightning, vast shadow wings and silver veins of fire, crimson, dark as blood and burning in her eyes. Not eagle, not owl. Swirling in the midst of them, long blade of demon-forged Northron steel singing as it cut the air, cut bronze scale and flesh and bone beneath, devil’s strength and devil’s will and the hand of the king’s sword of the Hravningas.

  He was human, trying to gather Jolanan into his arms.

  “Don’t. Don’t! Leave her lie till we see—”

  Moth skewered the last man to the earth where he struggled, broken, trying to push himself up. Waited till he was still, stepped around, shaking gore from Kepra’s blade. Holla-Sayan snarled, halfway to the dog again, as she dropped down to her knees beside him. Light flared within her, anger too close to the surface. Her hand closed on his arm, grip hard as a beast’s claw and he saw naked bone a moment—

  She was listening, head flung up like a horse, ears straining, or sniffing the wind.

  Mikki. She had left Mikki unguarded to come to him.

  Let her breath go.

  “That’s all of them,” she said. “Dead or dying. And that one, the woman—one of Jochiz’s lieutenants. She was watching when I crossed the river. But there’s no touch of him, here. Didn’t believe him when he called me a devil? Thought she’d win praise and finish me, maybe.” Her hands were moving as she spoke, touching, assessing. “The girl’s still breathing. Make me a light.”

  Holla-Sayan did, without thinking, something he rarely tried. Not quite a wizard’s working, just a sourceless moonlight glow, which maybe she needed to see flesh and bone as they were, not swamped by the colours and flow of the soul within.

  “You know her.”

  Her hands kept busy, using the silk lining of her feather-cloak to clean away the blood, to find a face, to find what horror the axe had left. He held Jolanan on his lap. So small, suddenly, and light.

  “Jolanan of the Jayala’arad,” he said, hoarsely. “She’s—Sayan forgive me, I left her sleeping, when you called.”

  Moth glanced up then. “Ah.”

  Jolanan still breathed. A body might, even when the brain, the mind’s seat, the self, was wounded. He’d seen it, he’d, they’d, known it. Women, priestesses, injured in battle past saving, but not yet dying, and the goddess’s only mercy left to give them was the Blackdog’s knife or the physician’s cup.

  No devil to hand, in those days. Moth was muttering to herself, Northron, the old form, words Holla-Sayan barely recalled if ever he’d known them, and other speech twisting through that set his teeth on edge, almost understood, but slithering aside.

  “Her skull is mostly whole,” Moth said. “I think the blow was weak. She was moving away, maybe.”

  “Mostly whole.” Dry-mouthed. Words a whisper. But that was good. Not what he’d feared.

  “Chipped,” she said. “Like the rim of a pot. Here beside her eye.” Her hands were slick and red with blood, bathed in it. “But there’s no fracture any further. Not of the skull. The bridge of her nose is broken. A hard head, your young woman.” She was tracing runes on Jolanan’s face as she spoke, on her brow, her cheeks. Jo’s blood, not her own. He didn’t know their meanings. Trusted.

  Bone white, the flesh gaping, swelling, but the blood had ceased to flow. Her eye was a dark pool, red and shadows, not the fire of a devil. A mangled mess.

  Moth began to unwrap the scarf from about his neck. Jo might have had something cleaner in a saddlebag; he didn’t know, didn’t want to waste time searching. Better even this than the dust of the road, he supposed. He had washed it out in a brook a few days’ ago, at least. Moth wrapped it loosely over Jolanan’s face, knotting it, leaving mouth and the tip of her nose free. Not that she was breathing through her nose.

  “Now we have two to carry down to the castle. I’ll get the horses for you, then I go. I’m not leaving Mikki alone any longer.” Moth stood and shook out her cloak. Blood stained it. She didn’t go in search of the horses. Reached, touched, forced them to her will. A rough handling, and they came sweating, afraid, eyes rolling.

  “I’ll hand her up. Let me take her.”

  He gave Jolanan into her arms carefully, as if she might break. Soothed the horses. Black Fury’s reins were slashed and dangling short, but he wasn’t taking Jo up on Lark in this state. Cut a length from the rope Jo had carried in her gear to lengthen the reins, looped more through Lark’s bridle, just tucked through a strap, so he could be turned free in a moment. A relief when he was on the horse with Jo cradled against his chest, right arm wrapped around her.

  The horses shied, released, as Moth flew, owl-silent. He whistled and chirped and settled them, and got the black to give him a nice, smooth amble, Lark following, sulky, maybe, but not wanting to be left alone. Jolanan stirred and moaned.

  “It’s all right,” he told her. “You’re safe. You’re hurt. I’ve covered your eyes, that’s all. Just rest. You’re going to be all right.” Lies, maybe, some of it, but he was guessing that in the lake of pain which must be drowning her, it was the sound of his voice that would matter, not the words.

  Clouds were creeping over the stars, out of the south, off the mountains, rags hazing the bright moon. The first spits of angry rain began, a wind tasting of autumn.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Mikki was not a rider, but she got him up on the big brown and white horse when Holla-Sayan overtook their halting march and was able to stride out at a decent pace, keeping at the horse’s shoulder, prepared to steady Mikki if he started to fall. Holla didn’t wait. There were wizards among the ferry-folk, and physicians more skilled than she. The woman should live, now. Strength and healing set on her. Moth owed her that.

  The highest tower of the castle was alight, not candles behind windows or torches on what she had always assumed was a star-viewing platform—the folk of Kinsai being philosophers of nature, in their own strange way, not warriors—but a cold white wizard-light, throwing the crenellations into stark contrast, pale and black. That the castle was built like the defensive towers of Marakand seemed, it suddenly struck her, strange. Or something out of foreknowledge. When she turned down the lane to the bridg
e over the moat, the gates beyond were already opening. Just as well. The bridge raised would not have stopped her, nor the bronze-riveted gates. Two women came out, carrying more wizard’s lights. Older and younger, mother and daughter, maybe, and with the streaky hair and mismatched eyes so common among Kinsai’s folk. These women had light brown faces and the elder, with grey in the blonde and brown of the braid that fell from beneath her scarf to her waist, a blue fish tattooed on her cheek. The younger woman wore a red gem in the side of her nose, as a caravaneer might pierce her earlobes. Both were dressed in a random mixture of clothes, loose trousers, one a long Northron tunic and a silk headscarf, one a scrap of a shirt nearly transparent, with a Marakander caftan throw over, unbelted. Blue and red beads knotted into her uncovered hair.

  Something of Holla-Sayan, a bit, in the nose, the jaw, of both.

  “My father dreamed,” the elder woman said. “A devil, a demon, the river rising…He bade me welcome you, Ulfhild of Hravnsfjell, and Mikki Sammison of the Hardenwald.” She spoke good Northron and didn’t say, in Kinsai’s name, which would have been correct courtesy, but the goddess was dead and not so likely to have welcomed Vartu as was her…granddaughter, Moth guessed. Daughter of the current warden, who was the son of Holla-Sayan and the goddess. The woman was older than she looked.

  “Thank you,” she said. No blessing of the gods to offer in return. “Mikki is—”

  “The Blackdog said.” It was the younger woman spoke now. “I’m Iarka, this is my mother Deysanal. Come within. Will he let us help him down? Holla-Sayan said he didn’t want to be touched.”

  Iarka was taking the horse’s bridle, leading him through the gatehouse. Into an inner bailey that looked more like a farmyard than any-thing—empty pens, a dung-pile, trampled feed, a few camels. Strange absence of any other animals. She didn’t sense that there were any elsewhere, either, not the goats and asses, swine, cats and dogs, one would have expected even in a fortress at war. Poultry, somewhere, still roosted with heads tucked under wings.