Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One

by L. James Rice

  The fate of the defiled children after entering the Tower of Sol was a mystery, but a good many spoke of it, anyway. The priests preached of cleansing these children of their taint, but no one could say for certain they had ever met one of these saved souls.

  One woman in the kitchens claimed that Lord Priest Ulrikt cleansed her with his touch, but Eliles could sense her lie: She was a nobody seeking to stand out, to be special in any way she could, and Eliles couldn’t fault her. Most agreed that those children whose souls were too darkened by the feral magic to be cleansed were killed, but the horrifying stories of this road to death varied from one person claiming knowledge to another.

  They spoke of tortures, whips and fire, flesh-eating beetles and barbed iron, tongues and eyes scorched and mutilated, castration, the list flashed through her memories as her breath shuddered. Most stories agreed upon only one thing: Inquisitors cast them into a deep oubliette, their falls broken by the remains of those who’d gone before. The fortunate died without making a noise, the rest suffered. Wailing, screaming, praying until their bodies became the next layer of bones.

  Eliles had heard their screams in more dreams than she could count. She ran, trying to find them, save them, but every nightmare ended the same: A long fall broken by bones and rotting flesh, surrounded by centuries of their collective screams. She could hear the haunting cacophony now, and she closed her eyes, inhaling deep to silence the phantoms.

  “I’m not sure why you still do this. How many times, how many children?”

  She returned to reality and shrugged at Jinbin’s questions, but she knew the latter answers: Thirty-four and forty-two. But the why eluded her. The first time had only been a month after arriving to Istinjoln. After testing her feral magic on Dareun and getting caught he had dragged her out here to watch a hooded and bound child herded across the courtyard, to disappear into dark rumors from which no one returned, a stark reminder of her tenuous position among the devout.

  Those first years every feral child who marched through Istinjoln was a reminder to be thankful for being alive, but in later years they became sources of sorrow, excuses to weep in the dark and lament the curse of the Vanquished Gods she suffered.

  Now, they were just another burr in her boot to prove why she hated this place and these priests. She didn’t need reminding of the evil and dark that hid in this house of the gods, she lived it every day, but here she stood again watching as an inquisitor garbed in black sauntered through the gates, his silver bracelets flashing in the sun as he led a rope tied around the hooded throat of an innocent youngster.

  The child the monster led was no more than six, judging by height, and worse, wasn’t alone. A second, and then a third, leather cowl followed, each with their hands bound and if tales were true, their tongues removed beneath those hoods. It was a banner day for this inquisitor. Eliles had never seen more than two children marching before and she forced her eyes closed, her fingers fidgeting, and her lips quivering.

  Jinbin’s hand squeezed her shoulder, and her eyes opened to stare at his boots, sorrow and anger choking the words from her throat. “Let’s go.”

  He took her hand, and she followed without an argument.

  Jinbin said, “I guess even revenge has its limits.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so.” But there would never be revenge, there was only survival.

  13

  THE BAROQUE PEARL

  Dozing numb steps on the Tundra,

  The merciless tyrant howls without lungs

  And blows without mouth.

  The wind? Why do I speak of the wind, you wonder?

  A fine question, if only it were the wind of which I speak.

  The tyrant long dead stands in vapors, blowing smoke

  From long dead fires, seeing a future false,

  Of rising again to conquer not one world, but a world caught

  In a dizzying multifaceted gem.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Twelve Days to the Eve of Snows

  It attacked without warning, alighting upon Solineus’ chest to interrupt his snore, its feet like rocks as it snuffled his fur-wrapped head. He eased blankets from his face, blinking into a morning sun that peeped through a gap in gray clouds while a small black goat pranced on his belly. The horned beast stared at him, then put teeth to the fur of his blanket to graze.

  “Bad goat, bad.” Kinesee grabbed the critter’s horns and eased the animal to the ground. “This is my goat, Tengkur. She’s a bit friendly. And hungry.”

  He glanced around, noted several men with nets slung over their shoulders in preparation for the day’s fishing, while others hefted their dories over their heads to shamble toward the bay. Falling asleep while wrestling his lost past had been torture, but once sleep took him, it carried him to dawn. Solineus sat with a yawn and stretched with a groan, salty air filling his nose.

  Kinesee patted him on the shoulder with a touch more gentle than she stroked her goat. “Gran’ma will let you sleep inside soon. Two days. A week at most.”

  “I reckon I should appreciate your optimism.”

  The youngster smiled. “I brought food, been waiting for you to wake up.” She reached into a pouch at her hip and pulled out a bundle of boiled leaves. She unwrapped the contents with painstaking care, no matter that it’d been crushed.

  He couldn’t help but smile as he accepted the crumbling biscuit sandwiching fried eggs and took a bite. His eyes wandered as he chewed, watching as members of the family, men and women alike, carried fishing boats and gear to the sea.

  The sun disappeared behind heavy clouds as he ate, and Kinesee prattled on about goats and chickens, but he paid little attention except to nod or smile now and again. His gaze shifted to the goat, and her slitted pupils captured his stare.

  Tranquil moments passed without a thought until he caught himself muttering, “So who do you think I am, wee Tengkur? Holy man or trickster?”

  “Sometimes we bring back clams and find pearls.” The girl hadn’t heard a word he said, and he was grateful. “We don’t get to keep them, except the most baroque. That means oddly shaped. Papa lets me keep some of those! I’ve a secret stash.”

  Solineus smiled. “Pearls? Beautiful, no doubt.”

  She leaned in, glancing around to make sure no one listened. “I’ve got a special one. Don’t tell Papa.”

  “I won’t.”

  She whispered, taking pride in their clandestine conversation. “It glowed. When I rubbed it. Wanna see?”

  He returned the favor of a whisper. “A magic pearl? Of course.”

  “Solineus! Help me with my boat?” One of the last to head for the Bay, Iku stood beside his dory, beckoning.

  “We’ll look at the pearl later.” He leaped to his feet and rubbed the girl on the head, to the consternation of the goat, and trotted to help. It took five of them to carry the hand-hewn dory to the rocky shore and the weight of its planks made his shoulders ache and his thighs burn.

  They flipped the craft into the water and Iku laughed as Solineus settled to the pebbled shore for a seat. “You’re certainly no fisherman, but you’d grow used to the load in time.”

  Solineus rubbed his shoulders, grinning. “You should keep the boats closer to the water.”

  Iku shrugged. “Better to carry a dory than build a new one. Storms, thieves… and Migu Tortoise are thick in these parts. The males seem to think our boats are competitors for their breeding territory.”

  Solineus nodded rather than question the turtle story, but the look on his face must’ve betrayed his ignorance as Iku chuckled. Was he the victim of a joke, or not remembering a simple truth?

  The men chucked their spears and nets into the hull. “We’ll be out much of the day, unless the fishing is good.”

  “I’ll sit here a moment, enjoy the sun.”

  The fishermen laughed, and Iku said, “If you know where the sun’s at in those clouds, your eyes are better than your memory. Now help us shove off.”

 
; Solineus waded back to shore moments later to watch the dory bob into the bay. A tingle darted up his spine, and his heart raced. He surveyed the region. Peaceful. A dull knife struck his gut. He buckled and grabbed his belly, but there wasn’t blood or blade.

  Something’s wrong.

  He turned to the family home, his walk shifting to a dead sprint. “Kinesee, where is she?”

  No one knew, and the dagger of premonition probed deeper into his intestines until he found Alu.

  “I haven’t seen her.” The girl shrugged. “She wouldn’t be far.”

  Solineus stared, panting in agony, and it unnerved the girl, her eyes growing wide as she backed from him.

  “Her treasure. Where’re the pearls?” The girl stared, and he realized he must appear a mad man. “Something is wrong. Run to the surf and yell for your father, but tell me where she hides the pearls.”

  “In a small cave in the roots of an oak by a stream, thousand strides or more northwest. There’s a deer trail, follow it.”

  “Thank you.” The pain faded. “Go get your father.”

  Solineus ran, scrambling over a steep outcropping to wade through waist-high grasses and brush. Bushes and small trees gave way to woods a hundred strides downhill, and he spotted a path. He hit the deer trail at a sprint, swiping branches from his face instead of slowing to duck and weave.

  His senses heightened with the rush of blood through his veins, the fear of what he might find. Reality became a dazzling onslaught of waving branches and falling leaves, bird songs and fluttering wings, the scents of cedar sap and something days dead over a rise to the north. He caught every detail, a small footprint in the dust, a broken branch, and his ears zeroed on a gasp over the thundering beat of his heart. He stopped. She was close. He snagged a long branch from the ground and broke off a four-foot section over his knee.

  The crack resounded, and a cry rang out in response. “Help!”

  “Kinesee!” Stress and fatigue faded as he ran, the universe a vision of peculiar and impossible clarity. Her footfalls were drums in his ears, running his way as she screamed his name. She was not alone. The odor of sweat assailed his nose, and his ears caught the rushing breaths of runners in pursuit of his girl.

  A headlong blond blur in wool came into view with dark shapes in pursuit. Blood streaked her face, but only scratches, and her hood hung from her cloak by a scant few threads. Solineus slid to a stop, and the girl hid behind his legs.

  Four pursuers slowed and fanned out. Armed with a couple battered daggers, a sling, and a cudgel, they wreaked of whiskey-sweat and campfire. The bandit who stank least stepped forward.

  “Lookee here, gents, someone else caught our bird.”

  Solineus’ heart slowed. It was as if he hadn’t been running, that he wasn’t facing four armed men. The rhythm of his pulse told him he may as well be sleeping, but the world was life and death.

  “See now, you can have fifths with our bird there, but we saw her first. Ol’ Jolly here, he likes the jakes and the jennies, he don’t care much. But you, you seem a man with girlish tastes.”

  The whir of the stone spinning in the air caught his ear, and he could’ve counted the silver speckles in its spinning face. Solineus slapped the sling-stone with a swing of his stick, sending it clattering through distant branches over the heads of the bandits.

  “You should leave before the girl’s father gets here.”

  The leader nodded. “The girl’s father, yes. I suppose, a very dangerous man, yes?”

  The bandits rushed him, except the slinger who kept his range.

  Ten flickers of pure instinct.

  He waited for the first to close, with his branch pointed low to the ground, until the timing was perfect. He came up and stepped into the blow, a heavy punch of jagged wood straight to the man’s nose and face that left jagged slivers. Blood sprayed as the thug flew from his feet to land square on his shoulders.

  Solineus took a half-step back and swung. The second man’s dagger sailed from broken fingers as Solineus stepped into his path, locking his arm with his own as the branch deflected a timid cudgel strike. He wrenched the one man’s arm breaking the elbow backwards, drove him to the ground, and struck a vicious stomp to his throat. The bandit with the cudgel struggled for footing in the undergrowth and Solineus’ branch cracked his head, tumbling him to the turf.

  He turned to the slinger with the branch held above his head in what a trickle of memory called the Sun Guard.

  The ruffian blinked once and bolted.

  Solineus looked to Kinesee. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head with glazed eyes, stunned by the last few moments, and he didn’t blame her. He wasn’t sure what had happened himself, but whatever it was, dirty work remained.

  One man lay unconscious, which became two with a solid rap to his head, but the leader…

  “You”—he pointed his bloodied branch—“you should’ve listened.”

  The thug lay in the dirt, wiping blood from his eyes and fingers groping a shard of branch lodged in his cheek. He spit blood, frantic glances plying the woods. “Don’t kill me, Lord of the Forge, please.”

  Solineus drove the branch into his chest, crushing the air from his lungs, then grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him to a log.

  “Don’t seem right to kill you, a raper of small girls. Rob a father of the chance to look you dogs in the eye? No. Look away, Kinesee.”

  When she averted her eyes, he lay the man’s leg sideways over the log and drove the thug’s calf into the dirt with his foot. The knee-joint crunched, and the leg didn’t straighten again.

  The man quivered and gasped, his eyes rolling into his head before falling unconscious.

  Solineus collected the weapons and stood beside Kinesee, who sat with her back to the men, knees hugged to her chest. He sat cross-legged beside her without a clue in the world of what to say. Comfort? Reassurance? Concern? He found it discouraging that he understood how to hit people with sticks better than how to talk to a young girl.

  “I’m sure your father will be here soon.” She stayed silent. “Then you can go home, pet your goat, sit by the fire.” She nodded, but it was her only reaction. He stared at his feet and rubbed his chin, stymied for words. “They didn’t get your treasure, did they?”

  “No, I got my pearls.”

  He clapped his hands, jubilant. “That’s great! May I see them?”

  She opened her clasped hands and revealed a leather bag, dumped pearls into her palm. “Papa gives them to us, the odd ones.” A dozen misshapen pearls. She rolled them around with her fingers, showing them off.

  “Those are beautiful! You have a great papa, Kinesee. Let’s see if I can pick out the magic one.” She grinned for the first time, and he leaned in close, squinting. Not a one looked so different to make it stand out, but he pointed. “This one.”

  Kinesee gasped and punched him in the shoulder. “How’d you guess?”

  He lied. “I didn’t guess, it’s magic.” He picked it up, tossed it in the air, caught it and rubbed before opening his cupped hands. His heart skipped a beat: The oblong pearl glowed. So much for lying.

  “See! I told you! What kind of magic is it? Do you know?”

  He stared at the dim pearlescent glow highlighting the cracks and creases in his hands. How his mind lost every damned moment of his life, and yet he understood this pearl vexed him to the core. It held no particular power, this glow nature had bequeathed, but it was a power he would mold.

  He closed his hands around the pearl, concentrating, feeling the light of the pearl grow into warmth. A vision of him and Kinesee holding hands grew crystal clear in his mind and he sensed the impression sealed within the pearl’s essence. The energy tugged on him, linking their souls.

  “It is a very special pearl, Kinesee. If ever you’re in danger, rub this pearl, and think of me, I will know to come. If I’m able, I will.”

  “Kinesee!” Iku and several men with spears in hand barreled into the cleari
ng. The girl ran to her father and leaped into his arms.

  “These men tried to take me. Solineus beat ’em with a stick!”

  Solineus stood, the wonder of the pearl having made him forget that three men lay splayed across the clearing.

  Iku glanced from the bloodied men, to Solineus, the bloodied branch by his side, and back again. “You took three men with a branch?”

  “There were four! But he ran!” She giggled.

  Solineus walked to Iku, and slipped the pearl into the girl’s hand. “It’s a fine stick.”

  Iku grinned, but his face turned sour when a bandit groaned. “They’re alive? What should I do with them?”

  Solineus took Kinesee from her father and held her tight. “I’ll get her home safe, you do what your heart tells you right, to men who’d rape your daughter.” He sensed the man’s heart clutching and heat rising.

  Iku nodded, and Solineus pushed the girl’s head into his shoulder as he carried her home.

  14

  THE BLOODY SCHOLAR

  Dragons recognized Light the moment their eyes opened.

  Its sight, its bite, its temper in the stoneless glow

  Forged without hammer or tong

  In the Foundations of Creation, speaking to the mighty to come, to see,

  But Man? The mortal bones with sighted eye

  Must live in Darkness abject before recognizing Light.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Ten Days to the Eve of Snows

  Morning in Ervinhin saw the first day the wardens donned their full armor. Ivin slipped on his wool gambeson and mail, and while most wore simple iron skullcaps with dangling nasal guards, Ivin settled a steel helm with solid nose and cheek guards over his head and a gorget around his neck. He secured his grandfather’s targe with steel rim and brass boss to his back, tightened his sword belt, and stuck a long-hafted axe Pikarn gave him through its loop. The axe was similar to the pair the Wolverine and many of the wardens carried, with a bearded head and a steel spike at the end of the haft, which could serve as a weapon or a walking stick in ice and snow. The quality of his panoply was only rivaled by the Wolverine’s, but when it came to keeping him alive, he didn’t mind standing out.