Autumngale

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  “Tam, can you hear me?”

  He looked up at her – still asleep, but awake at the same time, meeting her in his dream. She almost melted at the pleased look in his blue eyes. Was she crazy? Hadn’t she been certain she should avoid him at any cost? And yet, after seeing everything – after learning him so well, she couldn’t hold herself back.

  She needed to get a grip. She’d come to warn him, nothing else.

  “Beware of the Legends, Tamerlan. All is not as it seems.”

  “Marielle? Is that really you?” he tried to sit up, but his body didn’t respond – couldn’t since he was still asleep.

  She lay down on the ship deck beside him so he could look into her eyes. It felt so intimate – as if they were sharing a secret.

  “Tamerlan, you have to watch out for the Legends.”

  “I’m going to get you out of the clock, Marielle. I promise.” The tortured expression on his face nearly broke her.

  He was trying to reach for her. She saw his hand twitch wildly as his sleeping mind tried to force his body to work.

  “That’s not important,” Marielle said gently. “What’s important is that you listen. You have to stay away from the Legends, Tamerlan. Whatever the cost. They want to destroy you.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Marielle. I should have saved you. I shouldn’t have chosen to bring down the dragon.”

  He wasn’t hearing her. He was too obsessed with taking care of other people. And wasn’t that how he’d been his whole life? She shoved gentleness aside, making her voice firmer.

  “You did the right thing. The just thing. But this isn’t over, Tamerlan, and if you aren’t careful, they’ll use you. They’ve been using people all along.”

  “I shouldn’t have left you in the clock.”

  Couldn’t he hear her? It was almost as if he was speaking to her without hearing her words. Frustration filled her as she tried harder. Could he at least see her?

  “Please, Tamerlan!”

  “Shouldn’t have left you, sweet Marielle.”

  His eyelids were drifting closed.

  She clenched her jaw in frustration.

  “Please, please listen! Stay away from the Legends!”

  His eyes closed. She reached out to touch him and was shoved roughly away by a woman with swirling, ghostly red hair.

  “He’s ours, little Watch Officer. Go play law someplace else!”

  She lunged for the other woman, but something caught her from behind pulling her back just before the woman with the red hair planted a fist right in her mouth. Her mind swirled, her vision darkened, until all she felt were blows.

  They had him in their grasp. He was their tool, their plaything. And they had to be stopped.

  She leapt to a different time.

  23: Orange War

  Tamerlan

  HE WOKE WITH A START, his hands grasping for someone who wasn’t there.

  Marielle.

  Had she really been in his dreams? He’d felt her there – felt her as if she had really been present. He must be going mad.

  In the back of his mind, someone was laughing. He didn’t even know who.

  “Are you awake, Tamerlan?” a quiet voice asked.

  Tell him yes.

  “Yes,” Tamerlan muttered.

  “Stay low,” Etienne said.

  Ask him if you are close to the next avatar yet.

  “Are we close to the next avatar?”

  Why was he doing what they told him?

  “No,” Etienne said. “Look up – but look up carefully.”

  They were sailing into Choan, their deck loaded with oranges. Etienne must have met a barge along the way and filled the boat with their cargo. Why hadn’t Tamerlan woken up for that? He must have been more tired than he realized. He wished he could remember what Marielle had been trying to tell him. She’d been so beautiful – so pure – like a fresh wind blowing through a muggy city.

  They weren’t alone.

  Mist rose off the canals and the river as they slid into the first lock of the Chaon canals. It wisped up in ghostly flickers around dozens of other orange-laden boats. In the greyness before dawn, something flickered on one of the barge decks like bright metal catching the light inside the heap of oranges. Maybe someone was hitching a ride like they were with this cargo. Maybe other sailors had stowed away among the round fruit.

  People gathered solemnly along the canals, receiving oranges from the barges and loading them silently into barrows or carts. It was as if the citizenry were haunting their own city. One woman’s eyes were dead as she took her wheelbarrow and started off. Another man’s face was drawn as he went through the motions of checking a manifest list against the contents of the barge.

  Why participate in the celebration at all if they felt so grim?

  Tamerlan had never been fond of the Orange Wars reenactment on Autumgale. Despite the toothsome scents that wafted from the open windows of people’s homes – ciders and baked gourds with cinnamon, stewed fish and cakes of crab – despite that, there was violence to come. It would be mock violence. Not many people died from being hit by an orange – but still violence. He usually tried to find a quiet corner and stay hidden with a book until the Wars were over and the sticky streets calmed. Something under Tamerlan’s skin crawled at the thought of that violence today.

  Their boat shoved through the canals toward the Alchemist District of Choan.

  “A strange thing, this celebration of yours,” Anglarok said from his perch beside Tamerlan. His eyes were on the orange barges, studying them. “Your Lord Mythos says that every year, the people here reenact the Orange Wars and every year it becomes more and more about the fun of throwing oranges and winning territory from your neighbors to brag about and less and less about remembering the thousands of people who died long ago in the real civil wars.”

  “It’s true,” Tamerlan said, staying low like Etienne had asked, but easing himself into a ready crouch, checking his weapons and kit as he got ready to leap from the ship. He put the chain of Abelmeyer’s Eye back over his head, tucking it into his shirt. The ruby had given up none of its secrets. All he could hope for now was a miracle. That or outright incapacitating Grandfather Timeless.

  “He says that in one of them – the last one if the stories are true – enemies hid on a boat of oranges and infiltrated the cities. That brave act was the catalyst for this celebration – the reason that so many oranges flood into the Dragonblood Cities every year and the reason that you throw oranges in your mock fights.”

  “Yes,” Tamerlan said. His sword and knife were ready. He was ready. When they got to the catacombs, he wouldn’t let the Grandfather slip away this time.

  “He says the mock fighting will begin at dawn.”

  “Any moment now,” Tamerlan agreed.

  “Strange that they don’t check the barges for more than oranges.”

  It was strange. Tamerlan’s brow began to furrow at the thought. IT reminded him of something. Something hidden. Hadn’t Marielle been saying something about that?

  She was never here. That was only a dream.

  But even still ...

  “And will these people be ready to fight real enemies, or is it all a game?” Anglarok asked. There was a knowing spark in his eye. Tamerlan tried to pull his mind back to the conversation. Did Anglarok know something that Tamerlan didn’t?

  “It’s a game. A violent game, but only a game,” he tried to be reassuring. “We’ll be doing the real fighting in the catacombs.”

  “Etienne says those are under the Alchemist District. He says they can only be accessed through the Embalmer’s Guild.”

  “It’s news to me,” Tamerlan said. “I had no idea there were catacombs here. You’d think they would flood.”

  “You would think so. They must use effective pumps,” Anglarok said, his eyes still on the barge. “Is that it?”

  He pointed to a large white building along the canal with a black tile roof that seemed too larg
e for it. Round windows speckled the building like a black and white goat on a ridge. A large sign over the main doors read, Embalmers’ Guild of Choan City.

  “Seems to be,” Tamerlan said, his eyes on a patrol of the City Watch as they marched along the canal between their boat and the guild. They were so precise. So certain of themselves. Marielle would be like that if Summernight had never happened. Or she’d be with these Harbingers if she hadn’t ended up in the clock.

  He should be looking for Jhinn, too. He was here somewhere, waiting for them. And he had the rest of the Spice. If Tamerlan kept smoking the rolls he had in his sleeve, he would need that soon. He was down to ten rolls. That wouldn’t get him far if he needed to keep calling the Legends.

  He felt nervous just thinking that. As if he’d already decided to call them. But that Bridge hadn’t been crossed.

  Yet.

  There was a strange movement in the barge beside them. The oranges were tumbling from the deck into the canal and bobbing on top of the water. What -?

  Anglarok sprang to his feet before Tamerlan could clamber up to his. Liandari rushed to the front of the boat, leaning on the railing and peering up the canal.

  The first golden ray of dawn lit the edges of the buildings, washing over tile roofs like a blessing from the heavens. Something glinted in the dawn light on the nearest orange barge. Hadn’t he noticed a gleam there before?

  A roar of voices filled the streets of Choan as dawn broke and people poured from their houses, unleashing waves of thrown oranges at each other. Like the tide let loose it all happened at once. Yells of triumph and cries of pain filled the air.

  An orange sailed through the air toward their boat and Anglarok speared it casually with his harpoon, pulling the fruit off the end of the blade and peeling it enough to take a juicy bite.

  “A waste of good fruit.”

  Their boat bumped up against the edge of the canal and Tamerlan wavered a little.

  In the boats. They’re in the boats. One of the voices of the Legends broke out from the mass of them talking over each other. The boats!

  He glanced at the nearby barge. Oranges were falling off the side still, dropping in the canal to bob in the water there. But that was no surprise in this chaos. The street above was crowded as Etienne leapt from their sailboat to the canal edge and began to pull the boat in by its rope.

  “We have to hurry!” he called over the chaos. “This is only going to get worse!”

  Moments ago, Tamerlan would have never guessed that so many people were waiting to break out of their houses, but now the canal rim was packed. One man tried to dodge a flung orange and lost his footing, falling with a curse into the canal water and bobbing below the dark surface with bright oranges all around him. There was a laugh from his opponent above – barely audible over the cacophony of voices above. Someone shouted a cheerful cry, but it wasn’t all goodwill above them. More than one eye sparkled with malice as an orange was flung to hit a man from behind.

  Juice – sticky and fragrant – was already spilling from the edge of the street into the canal as Liandari and Anglarok disembarked, joining Etienne on the shore.

  “We have to get to the catacombs!” Etienne yelled over the roar of voices. An orange hit the wall beside him, splattering against the rocks and sending a mist of juice over him.

  He scowled and Tamerlan barely bit back a laugh. Etienne could use being hit by a few oranges. The man had such a high opinion of himself.

  Maybe you should give it a try.

  He almost scooped up an orange before he stopped himself. Wait. Had those thoughts been his, or Lila’s? He’d never had a problem with Etienne’s pride ...

  Shaking his head to clear it, Tamerlan leapt from the boat to join the others on the ledge and scrambled to follow Etienne as he hurried towards the nearest steps up to the streets.

  The Harbingers were distracted, looking constantly at the orange boats as if they expected them to produce dragons out of the oranges like hatching eggs. Liandari tripped, catching herself on the rock. She needed to watch where she was going!

  Tamerlan’s mouth formed a firm line, but they were almost to the steps now. Etienne seemed distracted, too, as he drew his sword and Tamerlan pushed past the Harbingers to join him in the front, drawing his own sword to use as a threat as they forced their way up the steps, pushing the orange-throwing citizens up in front of them.

  “Make way!” Etienne bellowed. “Make way!”

  “What’s troubling you?” Tamerlan said as they crested the last step, holding their place until Liandari and Anglarok slid up behind them.

  “Today, we were supposed to take Yan,” Etienne said calmly. “If Allegra hadn’t withdrawn her support. It could have brought hope for my people. A second chance. I’m missing it.”

  “A civil war?” He didn’t know why he sounded shocked. With the fall of Jingen and the burning of H’yi, this should seem like a normal thing. Nothing was shocking anymore.

  “Sometimes we must do what we must.”

  Interesting. His father thought he had all the power in Yan right now, and yet there were ways he could be toppled. It would be as easy as ...

  His thoughts were interrupted by a growl of approval from Anglarok and he followed the man’s gaze to where a new burst of voices roared together in a single war cry.

  “Retribution!”

  Oranges flew in every direction as they poured from the barges floating in the canals. Not one or two or three people, but hundreds of men and women in loose trousers and long vests, their arms and necks and torsos tattooed with coastlines and maps. They waved harpoons in the air, pouring onto the canal ledges and shoving up the stairs violently.

  “Did you know?” Etienne asked, whirling to confront Liandari and Anglarok. “Did you know about this?”

  He sounded hysterical. There wasn’t time for this.

  “No time!” Tamerlan yelled, grabbing Etienne by the upper arm and dragging him toward the buildings on the other side of the street.

  Wars would have to be dealt with later.

  One thing at a time.

  Exactly! Abelmeyer was right about that.

  Screams erupted around them as people fled, slipping on smashed oranges and falling under each other’s feet. Doors slammed along the street, barring access to any but their own. Behind them, shrieks of horror filled the air with the clash of steel and the cries of injured and dying.

  Oranges were no match for real weapons.

  And the Retribution would be on them in a heartbeat if they didn’t move.

  Tamerlan plunged toward an alley as Etienne continued to question the Harbingers.

  “Are you with us or them now that the attack has begun? I must know if you’ll stay the course!”

  “We swore on blood and water,” Liandari growled. “We will help you trap the Legend.”

  But Anglarok was watching his compatriots with longing, stealing looks over his back as they flooded over the streets.

  Tamlerlan clenched his jaw and ran down the alley, leaping over people scrambling from building to building, trying to return to their homes.

  “Find shelter!” he roared at them. “Find weapons. You’re under attack, you fools!”

  A seven-year-old boy ran toward him in the alley and Tamerlan scooped him up, practically throwing him up the steps of a nearby home.

  “Inside,” he yelled. “Get inside!”

  The child darted inside the door. Whether it was his home or another, he would be safer there than the chaos of the streets. Tamerlan paused for a heartbeat, torn over whether to say with the child but with the Grandfather loose in Choan, worse things than invasion might happen and he was the only one capable of stopping the Legend.

  Had he just thought that or had that been the voices in his head?

  The light at the end of the alley bobbed in front of him and a sense of pulling drove him toward the white building at the end of the long, dark alley. The Embalmers.

  He pushed every ounc
e of power into his legs and ran. Bursting out into the street into a hell of flying fruit, stampeding people and screams. Tattooed invaders rushed down the street, flinging people in every direction so that ruined bodies and smashed oranges mingled in a stew of blood and acid.

  Crouching low, Tamerlan held his sword at the ready, Etienne moving to cover his right side.

  “Those are my people,” Liandari shouted over the chaos. “You can’t stick a blade in them!”

  “Then tell them not to kill us!” Etienne roared back as a harpoon smashed into his sword.

  “Retribution! By the salt, I’ll have your hides!” Liandari roared. “Back, you mob of crabs! Back!”

  Her shout didn’t stop the charging man right in front of Tamerlan. The man lowered his harpoon and rushed toward Tamerlan. If only he’d smoked! If only he had someone else controlling these amateur arms of his!

  He brought his sword into place just in time to deflect the attack, pushing with his blade to push the harpoon to the side. His enemy pulled back only to lunge again as Tamerlan leapt to the side, grabbed the haft of the harpoon and pulled, flinging his blade tip in front of the other man’s chest just in time to pull him into the blade.

  His gut twisted within him as the man’s face crumpled in pain.

  “No time for that,” Etienne yelled, tugging at his arm as Tamerlan fought to free his blade from his enemy’s ribs.

  Somehow, Liandari had broken through the assault, carving a way to the doors of the Embalming Guild.

  Tamerlan yanked his sword free, sliding and slipping after Etienne, not daring to look at his feet, not wanting to see that it may be people and not oranges he was stumbling over.

  “Hurry,” Anglarok said. “I smell worse to come!”

  They reached the doors and Etienne wrenched them open, stumbling inside. But Tamerlan wasn’t sure if he should be more worried about what was within or what was without. Outside was invasion, violence, and death. Inside, was the Grandfather – probably. Or, at the very least, Maid Chaos’ avatar. And either one of those made his bowels feel like water.