Heaven's Needle

by Liane Merciel

  “Do you expect it to be such a disaster?” Bitharn tried to keep her tone light, and failed miserably.

  “I expect nothing where my mistress is concerned.” He touched the back of her hand. His fingertips were fever hot. Then he began walking down to Carden Vale, and Bitharn had no choice but to follow.

  The darkness did not seem to trouble Malentir, but Bitharn tripped over unseen stones and tree roots all the way down. The more she hurried, the more she stumbled. The descent took so long she began to worry that the Spider would think she’d broken her word and leave without waiting for them to arrive. The new worry tangled up with the old ones, and by the time they reached the bottom she was shaking with fear.

  Malentir caught her wrist. His touch had grown even hotter; it felt like he was burning. “Do not be afraid. She has not deceived you.”

  “How do you know?” she asked. He let go of her wrist, and did not answer.

  A spark of magic, pale as bleached bone, burned between the branches of the dule tree. Two figures stood in its wavering radiance: a thin, dark-haired woman enveloped in a fur-trimmed robe, and a plainly dressed man, shorter and stockier than Kelland, with a soldier’s physique. The spell-cast light blanched the man’s hair to near white, and his skin was the same color as her own. A sword hilt poked over his shoulder. By his foot, a pile of bags held clothing, food, a shield.

  There was no one else. Kelland wasn’t there.

  Bitharn stopped by the scorched edge of the pauper’s pyre, willing her eyes to find a third man. He had to be there. He had to. The Thorns could not lie, everyone knew it, the Spider had promised—but there were only two people standing beneath the hangman’s tree, and neither of them was the Burnt Knight.

  She pressed her hands to her mouth, unsure if she wanted to vomit or cry. Versiel’s betrayal, Malentir’s escape, Parnas’ murder … the lies and the deceptions and the griefs. Had it all been for nothing? She’d trampled her honor through mud and blood and filth, believing it would help him. How great a fool had she been?

  “Bitharn?” The voice was rough, unfamiliar. She lifted her head and saw the strange man take a step toward her, his hands raised halfway as if he feared to reach for what he saw. “Bitharn, I … is it really you?”

  She wanted to believe. She wanted so desperately to believe. Bitharn hugged her arms around her shoulders, not trusting herself to speak. “Who asks?” she managed at last.

  “It’s me. Kelland. I—the Spider gave me this face as a disguise. But it’s me.”

  Her hands were shaking. Her voice was too. “Prove it.”

  A tremulous smile softened the stranger’s hard features. “Bitharn, it’s me. When I was eight years old I tried to play at swordfighting and stole Sir Maugorin’s shield and dropped it on my foot. You saw how hard I was trying not to cry, so you made fun of me until I was so mad I forgot. I broke two of my toes that day. They still don’t line up straight.”

  “I believe you,” she said, and then she was crying, unable to stop it, and somehow he’d come and wrapped her in his arms. The feel of them was different and the scent of him was wrong, but the strength was what she remembered and she buried her face in his chest and she cried.

  He held her close, nestling his cheek against her hair. Softly, almost inaudibly, he whispered into her ear: “Bitharn. What have you done?”

  She couldn’t answer. But she was suddenly aware, again, that they were not alone. Bitharn looked past his shoulder to the Thorns. The Spider was watching them, a little smile curling one corner of her mouth, and Malentir …

  Malentir was watching her, and there were so many things on his face that Bitharn could not read them all. Longing and terror, hatred and adoration. He watched the Spider with the look of an apostate priest confronted with his goddess: fearful and resentful and yet strangely vindicated, and above all else there was a twisted, tormented kind of love. The emotions were so nakedly unguarded that Bitharn shivered and turned away, looking back to the Spider …

  Who stirred, as if belatedly aware of her student’s stare, and took out a pair of silvery bracelets as she went to him. No, not bracelets. Hoops of thorned wire, twisted around and around so that the barbs bit in all directions.

  “These are yours,” she said, dangling the barbed bracelets from a crooked finger.

  “They are,” he agreed, and pushed back the sleeves from his wrists so that the white scars that ringed each one were visible. Now Bitharn understood how he had gotten all those layered cuts, and she shuddered at the understanding. “Will you replace them?”

  “You should never have lost them,” the Spider said. She pushed the bracelets over his hands, scratching his hands and hers so that thin lines of blood welled up from both. Once they encircled his wrists, she drew the wires tight.

  “I failed.”

  “Yes. Your task remains unfinished.”

  “Will you—will you let me try again?”

  “Of course,” she said, and rested her fingertips along his jaw as she drew him in for a kiss. It was a long kiss, and though Malentir’s striped hair fell forward to hide it, Bitharn saw that the Spider bit him before breaking away. Blood glistened dark and wet on the inside of his lips when she pulled back. The Thornlord stayed silent, breathing hard.

  “I would, however, prefer that you not fail again,” the Spider murmured, stepping back across the pyre pit. Bits of charred bone cracked under her feet. “Please don’t disappoint me. I had such high hopes for you.”

  “For all of you,” she said to Bitharn, turning to the two Celestians with the same blood-reddened smile, before the darkness folded around her and she was gone.

  8

  “You’ll want to have plenty of water,” Colison told them. Behind him, two workmen wrestled another barrel onto a wagon. Their breath plumed white in the frosty morning; sweat stained their tunics despite the chill. “Food too. Fodder for your animals. Things might get a bit dicey up there in the passes.”

  “Snow?” Asharre asked.

  “That too.”

  “What else is there?”

  Colison stuffed his hands into their opposite sleeves and chafed his forearms. Embarrassment creased his windburnt face. “Call it … superstition. Not sure I could explain it any other way. Look, you trust me, don’t you?”

  Asharre nodded slowly. Colison was one of Bassinos’ merchant-captains, tasked with guiding caravans of his merchandise from Pelos to the Irontooths in exchange for a stake in the cargo and a share of the profits. He’d been traveling the roads of Ithelas for longer than she’d been alive. There wasn’t a pennyweight of fat on him, and he had more scars than most mercenaries she’d known.

  Bald, browned by years under the sun, and hard as old hickory, Colison was not one to be discomfited easily. But he was plainly uncomfortable now.

  Colison blew out a breath that misted and hung in the air. “Take my word for it, then. You’ll want to have water. A few barrels, at least. We won’t be crossing the Black Sands, but now and again it’s hard to find good water in those mountains.”

  “I’ll tell the others.”

  The Celestians were at dawn prayers, but when they emerged from the chapel behind Bassinos’ house and began loading their own supplies, Asharre repeated Colison’s advice. She did not include his mention of superstition.

  “I don’t see why we can’t drink snowmelt,” Heradion grumbled. “Not as if there’s any shortage of it where we’re headed.”

  That was true. The Irontooths were still swathed in winter white. Their slopes shone alabaster halfway down before hardening into flinty gray and vanishing into a mantle of deep green pines. Beautiful, but ominous. This early in the season, the passes were uncertain. A storm could mire them; an avalanche could bury them. They might die, if that happened, but it wouldn’t be for lack of water.

  She shrugged. “He said there were places where it was hard to find good water. Maybe the mines fouled it.”

  “The coal mines are on the other side of Carden Vale,�
� Heradion pointed out, “and, anyway, I’ve never heard of a mine fouling snowfall. I don’t want to be difficult, but water’s heavy and we can carry only so much.”

  “If Colison advises it, we should do it,” Evenna said. Her braid was down this morning. It swayed to the small of her back, blue-black and glossy over a red wool coat. “Bassinos says he knows these mountains better than anyone alive. We’re not traveling with the man so we can ignore him.”

  “Fine.” Heradion threw up his hands. “I can see you’re determined to ride out like proper hayseeds, grass in your hair and all. I’ll do what I can to oblige.”

  It took a second wagon to hold the barrels of water and bundles of fodder that Colison recommended, and hay was dearer at the end of winter than Asharre liked, but after highsun prayers they were ready to depart. Evenna drove one of the wagons, Heradion the other. They set out after Colison’s men, their bullocks and wagons stretched in a rolling line.

  The iron road ran alongside the Windhurst, weaving in and out of blue-tipped spruce and speckled birches. Crusts of half-melted snow sparkled between the trees, dwindling day by day. They passed isolated farmhouses and charcoal burners’ cottages, but saw few people abroad. A rider in the blue and gold of Knight’s Lake galloped by on a lathered mare, and they crossed paths with a group of pilgrims traveling south to the Dome of the Sun, but otherwise they were alone.

  To fill the time, Falcien took to singing trail songs in a surprisingly clear tenor. Once Heradion tried to join him in an unsurprisingly terrible one, until Evenna shut him up by throwing an apple core at his head. After that he contented himself with teaching Asharre to drive their wagon.

  “It isn’t hard,” he told her. “Calmest animals alive, these oxen. Just pretend they’re big gray boulders and hold the reins relaxed, like so. It’s a straight road here, you can hardly foul it up.”

  “We do not have animals like this in my clan,” Asharre said through gritted teeth, holding the reins as if they were live snakes. The oxen plodded on, mercifully oblivious. Despite their fearsome horns, they did appear to be calm. Calmer than she was, anyway. “Goats, yes. Dogs. Sometimes a wolf. Nothing like this. Nothing so … big.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were afraid of them. Come now. You’ve been living in Calantyr for years. Surely you must be used to oxen.”

  “Seeing them. Not driving them.”

  “Well, then, you’ll learn something new.”

  “We’ll end up in the river,” Asharre warned him, but to her everlasting amazement they did not.

  In thanks, or perhaps revenge, she took to training with him by the campfires after the caravan stopped each night. Heradion was not as strong as she was, and he lacked her reach, but the Knights of the Sun had taught him well and he was a worthy opponent. Colison’s guards lent them a pair of blunted practice blades. Though their balance and weight were nothing like Asharre’s caractan, she could fight well enough with longswords to repay Heradion’s driving lessons with bouquets of bruises.

  After watching curiously the first night, Colison’s men began to join them. Colison himself fought a few bouts. The merchant-captain used a quarterstaff rather than a sword, but he was no less deadly for lack of a blade. He was the only one, besides Heradion, who ever held his own against her.

  “Are you sure you won’t reconsider doing a Swordsday melee?” Heradion asked her one evening while they watched two caravan guards trade blows on a patch of muddy slush by the road. The slippery ground did nothing to help their footwork, and Asharre was not surprised when one of them lost his balance while backing away from the other. He splashed messily on his rump. The fallen man slapped the mud to signal his concession, and the victor raised his hands to cheers and catcalls.

  Stupid to surrender there, she thought. The winner had hurried forward, careless in victory, even before his foe gave up. Easy to kick his feet out from under him and subdue him in the mud. Asharre shook her head disapprovingly, then glanced at Heradion. “What?”

  “Melee. Swordsday. Remember? You could make a fortune in the contests. More to the point, I could make a fortune betting on you. They might not give away princesses anymore, but I’m a simple man. I’ll settle for coin.”

  “Sigrir do not fight for sport. It would dishonor my training.”

  “Not even for me? What if I bat my eyelashes?”

  Asharre snorted and watched the next fight. He’d have better luck convincing the Blessed to open a brothel. All she had left of her clan were her oaths and her scars, and she could no more part with one than the other.

  The second fight was as pitiful as the first. Neither of the men fell into the mud, but that was the best she could say of them. Heradion chuckled at her expression. “You won’t enter a Swordsday melee, but you’re willing to match swords against the likes of these?”

  “This is practice.”

  “Why wouldn’t that be? You’d learn more than you do from these poor fellows.”

  Asharre thought about that as the last match ended and she retired to her bedroll. It was tempting. But she had never fought for glory or for money, and she was not inclined to make excuses to start. A sigrir fought for duty. There might be glory in it, and she could claim her share of plunder from the dead, but a sigrir drew her weapon only for the honor and protection of her clan.

  Who was left to remember that, though? Oralia was dead, and these summerlanders knew nothing of a sigrir’s rules or rites. The Skarlar would not care what she did; to them she was an exile and a traitor, unworthy of her clan name. If she tried to go back to Frosthold, her sisters would shun her and the rest of the Skarlar would kill her. She’d earned that for Surag’s death, if not for her own betrayal.

  No one knew the full weight of her oaths save herself. If Asharre wanted to be free of them, wanted to fight for glory or for profit, she could … but when she faced that thought, and considered the cost of her liberty, she wanted to cling to her oaths even more tightly. There was a kind of terror in the idea of giving up a name she had worn for so long.

  Except she had no clan. When Oralia died, so did the heart of Asharre’s oath. There were no other Frosthold Skarlar for her to protect, and without them, she could not be true sigrir. Yet she still had her skills and her scars, and she could no more change those than she could bring her sister back across the Last Bridge.

  So what was she? Who was she? If she was still to have some place in the world—and, as Asharre lay under the stars amid the cracking shell of her grief, she realized that she did still want that, somehow—she would have to weld some new identity from the pieces of the old. But what?

  Sleep stole over her before she found an answer.

  The next morning Colison’s guards rose groaning and joking over the bruises they’d given each other. One man had a broken finger, and another complained of sore ribs. Those two went to Evenna to have their hurts prayed over, while the others ladled bowls of oat porridge from the communal kettle to break their fast.

  “Nobody ever comes to me for healing,” Falcien grumbled.

  “You’re not as pretty.” Heradion sniffed ostentatiously. “And your perfume leaves a great deal to be desired. What is that smell, anyway? Did you rub a wet dog all over yourself this morning?”

  Asharre took her bowl and left them to their insults. She found Colison walking along the wagons and checking their cargoes. He stopped by a wagon loaded with covered wicker cages and lifted the oilcloth draped over one. Inside was a long, lithe beast, shaped like a stoat but larger. Colison dropped a dead mouse into its musky-smelling cage.

  “What is that?” Asharre asked.

  “Hmm? Oh.” Colison dropped the oilcloth and moved to the next cage. It contained a similar creature, slightly darker. He fed it another mouse. “Ferrets. We’re carrying five of them.”

  “For trade?”

  “For safety.”

  “Safety?”

  Colison rubbed a gloved hand over his bald head. “Friend of mine suggested them.
Suppose I’ll find out soon enough if he was just playing a bad joke. We’ll reach the mountains today.”

  The day seemed to grow colder after that. Hour by hour, the road grew steeper under a sunless sky. Heradion took back the reins as the trees dwindled and rock walls closed in on either side. Silvery scales of ice clung to the road where the stones left it in shadow. They cracked under the oxen’s hooves, and the rumbling wheels crushed them into tracks of melting powder. The wind shrilled constantly through the ravine, whipping at their clothes and hurling flurries of stinging snow from the mountainsides.

  The next two days brought more of the same. “We’ll go up another day, day and a half, before we come to Spearbridge,” Colison told them on the third afternoon. His cheeks were red with windburn, and he’d pulled a snug wool hat over his ears. “Once we cross the bridge, we’ll come back down the other side, and then we’ll be in Carden Vale. Call it four, five days. Almost there.”

  Asharre nodded, shivering under the yellow sheepskin she’d bundled atop her cloak. Somehow the Irontooths seemed to carry a fiercer chill than the winters of her homeland. Perhaps it was only the empty fortress that made it seem so. One of Duradh Mal’s towers stood on a crag ahead, its windows black and hollow. A shattered iron lance, its pennon long gone, crowned the tower.

  The bulk of the fortress was not in view. Colison said it stood on the other side of the mountain, overlooking Carden Vale, and that what they saw was merely one of several sentinel towers that guarded the approaches to Ang’duradh. Tunnels bored through the mountain connected Spearbridge Tower to the main fortress, allowing its soldiers to come and go without exposing themselves to freezing wind or spying eyes. Those same tunnels, he said, had carried Ang’duradh’s doom to its towers.