Last First Snow

by Max Gladstone

  “Back into Chakal Square?”

  “Out,” Chimalli said. “South and east, into the Skittersill. At first we thought they might loop around, hit our bases from behind, but they kept going and lost us in the alleys.” He spoke bluntly, not trying to hide his failure. “It’s hard to track locals through the Skittersill. Couatl search could help, but there are covered alleys and markets in that region, and anyway we’re saving our air support for the Square.”

  “An escape.”

  “That’s not the opinion of my commanders on the ground. To hear them tell it, these were good fighters.”

  “People fight hard to get away from fighting.”

  “With respect, ma’am, I know that. But they weren’t panicked. This was a planned movement, and you don’t pull people who can fight like that from the line unless you think they might turn the tide. This looks like a run for supplies, or weapons. We’ve locked down weapons caches in the Skittersill, and we’re keeping tabs—as well as we can with reduced patrols—on local criminal groups and the Stonewood refugee camps, in case they’re hunting allies. If they find reinforcements, this action could get bloody. Bloodier,” he amended.

  “Fortunately,” Kopil said, and motioned to Chimalli to continue. The man frowned.

  “Fortunately, we have ways to track them.”

  “Release the hounds!”

  She ignored the King in Red. “I thought you were short on manpower. Do you have enough people to run a dog search through the Skittersill?”

  “Well,” Chimalli said. “Not dogs as such.”

  “As such?”

  “I mean, anymore.”

  “Totenhunds reporting,” the dreamer said. “Pursuing ten possibles.”

  “Oh,” said Elayne.

  “I know,” the King in Red replied. “Cool, right?”

  44

  Temoc was doing pull-ups in the courtyard when he heard the howls. Two voices chased each other through high terrifying arcs like a human being might make when breaking. “Caleb,” he said. “Get inside.”

  The boy sat at the table, hands on cards. “What is that?”

  “I don’t know. Go inside until it passes. Please,” he remembered to say.

  Caleb gathered his cards and left. The screen door swung shut.

  Temoc finished his set, concentrating on the pull in his lats rather than the nightmare noises. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, a pleasant burn. The howls neared. Desert wolves sounded like that at moonrise—but they sang of hunger and feast, pack and loneliness. You could hear the images in their songs, if you listened. In these cries Temoc heard only the naked hunt.

  He dried his face with a towel, and went to see.

  The street outside was empty in both directions. A bicycle propped against a palm tree on the sidewalk opposite. Cobblestones swept clean two days ago remained clean still. How much must this lockdown be costing the King in Red? Though perhaps that was the reason for this morning’s attack. The price mounted higher than the skeleton would pay, and so Chakal Square suffered.

  The howls rose again, and beneath them Temoc heard footsteps. Human footsteps, running.

  He turned just in time to see Chel round the corner onto his street.

  No one looks composed while running for their life, and Chel was no exception. Her arms pumped like pistons. She did not so much run as fall constantly forward. She listed badly to one side. Her shirt was torn, and gray and red from ash and blood. One sleeve ended at her elbow. Her teeth flashed in the sunlight.

  She stumbled, caught herself off the ground, kept running, limping worse now. Gods.

  He ran toward her. She saw him, shook her head, shouted “No!” with the last of her breath.

  Then the not-wolves came.

  He had no other words for them. Their flesh melted seamlessly to metal and back. Dirty diamond eyes burned above wide mouths where metal teeth dripped poison. Long claws tore furrows in the cobblestones. Metal bolts protruded from their necks, and scar-stitching crisscrossed their flanks. The lead not-wolf galloped down the alley, gathered itself, and sprang toward Chel, all steel and flesh and teeth.

  Temoc got there first.

  His scars opened. He had little power so far from the Square—only what was left inside him, only what sleeping gods could lend. Ixaqualtil, he prayed as he ran. Seven Eagle, guide my hand.

  Strength filled him, and righteous anger, and the hells’ own thirst for blood.

  He thrust Chel out of the way. The not-wolf could not change course in midair. Temoc laced his fingers together, and hammered his fists into the creature’s spine. It fell and rolled, clacking sparks off cobblestones.

  The second beast leapt toward him. He spun, thrust out his shadowclad arm, and struck the creature across the face. The not-wolf’s claws glanced off his scars. He twisted his hips and pushed to throw it off. One claw tore a hot line across his chest. He’d feel the pain later, if there was a later.

  “Behind—” Chel shouted just before the first not-wolf landed on Temoc’s back. Foreclaws tightened on his shoulders, rear claws scrabbled for his kidneys. Teeth snapped at his neck, bounced off the scars there. Lucky old man.

  No. There was no such thing as luck. There was strength. When that ran out, the gods remained.

  The second beast twitched to its feet again. His backhand had bent that one’s neck sideways; it swiveled on unnatural joints to face him, and growled deeper than any wolf he’d ever heard.

  Not-wolves in so many ways: least among them that wolves were alive, and these long past dead.

  Very well. He could not kill a dead thing, but he could break one.

  He reached back past claws and teeth. The not-wolf’s neck was thick as a normal man’s thigh. Metal cylinders jutted from skin over the beast’s spinal column. Power thrummed within: too shielded by silver for him to seize and steal. No matter. He was strong enough.

  He squeezed. The second not-wolf jumped.

  Blood and victory, he prayed, and moved.

  In one smooth motion he tore the creature from his back and spun, swinging it down and around and up like a golf club. It struck the other not-wolf in midflight, metal on flesh, flesh on metal, claws into belly. Temoc released the creature’s neck and the two fell entangled to the ground. Before either could recover, he knelt, raised his hand, and brought it down, twice, three times. Ichor dripped from his knuckles. The not-wolves lay still.

  He lifted one, draped it across his shoulder. Sandbag workout, that was all.

  Chel was staring at him. The fear in her eyes made him nervous. “Temoc,” she said.

  He didn’t want to hear what she had to say, not yet. “I’ll carry these a few blocks over. We want their corpses as far away as possible. And on fire.”

  She nodded. Had she looked at him that way before, and he just failed to notice?

  Turn her away, warned the Temoc who lived in a small house in the Skittersill and tended his flock and did not raise his hand against the kings of this earth. You do not want to hear the message she bears. She’s the war, come home.

  “Get inside,” he said. “I’ll be back.

  Bearing the not-wolves, he walked away, and felt her watching as he went.

  * * *

  When Temoc returned, Chel lay slumped against the wall, hand clasped over the wound in her side, breathing through gritted teeth. “Can you hear me?” He crouched beside her. Her eyelids fluttered. Her pupils shrank and dilated and shrank again before she focused on his face. “I will lift you.”

  “I can walk.”

  “I know.” He slid his arm under hers, and pulled her upright. She hissed. His hand stuck to the blood soaked through her shirt. His wounds were already closing, and shallower anyway than hers. She had no protective scars. She did not scream. Most would have.

  Chel limped, leaning against him, through the gate into their courtyard. Four walls and ivy and cacti and blank windows mocked them with suggestions of safety.

  Caleb stood on the threshold
of their house, just inside the open screen door. Obeying, as usual, the letter of command. He stared at Chel and Temoc. “Dad?”

  Mina blew through the screen door like a wind. “Gods, what happened?”

  “She’s hurt.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Mina grabbed Chel’s other arm. “Let’s get her to the chair.” Chel moaned as they lowered her. “Where does it hurt?”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Caleb. You remember where we put the first-aid kit?”

  “Under the sink.”

  “Then why are you still here?”

  He wasn’t, anymore. She turned back to Chel. “You are sweating blood and bleeding sweat. Did you run all the way here?”

  “Tried to walk. Blend in. But the dogs.”

  “They sent dogs after you?”

  “Two,” Temoc said. “Not quite dogs, either. Undead beasts in dog form. I stopped them.”

  “Great, because I’m sure they only sent two.”

  “Couldn’t count the howls,” Chel said. “Maybe a dozen, maybe more. Fifteen of us.”

  “All of them coming here?”

  “No,” she said. “I gave two others the address. Took the long way. If they’re not here already, they didn’t make it.”

  Ten hounds, Temoc thought. Within him Ixaqualtil writhed for joy and bared his teeth. We can kill ten—twenty, even, with ease and pleasure. Temoc doubted this was true, but the god was not awake enough to reason. Distant, dreaming, drunk on spilled blood. “Hold still,” Temoc said. “Do not speak.” He called upon the god’s power. His joy. Make her whole, he prayed. Heal her, so she may fight.

  “If the Wardens are chasing her, we all need to leave.”

  “Not. No.” Chel shook her head. Temoc laid a hand on her ribs, and she bit her lip. Her eyes went wide with pain or visions or both.

  “Don’t bite your lip, sweetie. Come on. I’m not angry with you. Chel.” Mina gripped Chel’s jaw between her fingers and squeezed the woman’s mouth open. With her thumb, she worked Chel’s lip out from between her teeth. “It’s okay.” Caleb ran from the house, carrying the first-aid kit. “I just want to know what’s happening, that’s all.”

  “Here,” Temoc said. “I have power enough to help. This will hurt.”

  “There you go, bite down on the gauze. I hate it when he does this.”

  “Mom? What’s going on?”

  “Cover your ears, Caleb. And look away.”

  Temoc laid his hand over Chel’s broken ribs. His touch was light but he felt the bones shift anyway. She groaned through gauze. “Seven Eagle, bind her.”

  “You’re using Seven Eagle?”

  Chel’s eyes snapped wide, and he saw fear in them.

  “He has fed recently. And battle wounds are His domain.”

  “Caleb. Cover your ears tight now.”

  “Seven Eagle, bind her. Seven Eagle, heal her. Seven Eagle, make her strong, for the battle that we now fight, for the battle that does not end, for the ending that comes when none are ready.” He repeated the prayer in Low Quechal and High. The god heard his thoughts, but ritual still mattered, even so basic a ritual as prayer. He offered blood, hers and his mixed on his hands. Heat built in his bones, and he let it flow into her. Her bones wriggled, danced, snapped back together. Frayed muscles rewove, heart beat stronger. Blood flowed, and Mina sopped it with a towel.

  Chel screamed through her clenched jaw: a sound torn from the pit of her belly. Her teeth gnashed the wad of gauze.

  When the worst was over the god released her. She collapsed. Mina, too, sagged. The towel she held had been white, before.

  Temoc withdrew his hand. The god slept, hungry again. Hungry, always.

  The worst of Chel’s injuries had closed, her internal damage healed. But Seven Eagle cared little for blood loss, and Chel was still bleeding.

  “Caleb,” Mina said. “Bring me needle, and thread, and a lighter. Temoc, can you stand?”

  His head was not his to move. He nodded by divine leave alone.

  “Fetch some water. I’ll be here a while.”

  45

  An hour later, Chel sat at the dining room table, wearing one of Mina’s old linen shirts. Her bandages showed dark through the fabric. She dipped a finger into her water glass, and watched the drop form at her fingertip and fall to splash against the table. “Water in the desert.”

  “A glorious gift,” Temoc said.

  She lifted the cup two-handed as a Camlaander knight might lift his grail, and drank, eyes closed. When she set the cup down, it was empty. Temoc refilled it.

  “Thank you,” she said after the third glass.

  “We do what we are called to do,” Temoc said.

  “You’re welcome,” said Mina.

  “I’ve put you all in danger.”

  “Well.” Mina shifted in her chair. “We couldn’t leave you out on the street.”

  “You might have.”

  She shook her head, though she left it for Temoc to say “No.” When Chel didn’t reply, he continued: “Why are you here? Has Chakal Square fallen?”

  She bowed her head. “No.”

  He was not sure how to feel about that.

  “You escaped, then,” Mina said. “That’s good. We can hide you.”

  He poured her another glass. She drank. Caleb watched from the corner of the room. Temoc considered sending him away, and decided against it. The boy deserved to know what shaped his city.

  “We’ll scrub down the street outside,” Mina said. “I can take your old clothes, plant them on a taxi or something, give the dogs a good chase. You can sleep in Caleb’s room.”

  “No.”

  “Or out here if you like.”

  “No,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, Ms. Almotil. That’s not what I meant. I don’t plan to stay.”

  “I won’t let you die in the street.”

  “I’m strong enough to walk.”

  “Where?”

  “Back,” she said, and there was no question where she meant.

  “Back into a war, to face gods know what. No.”

  Chel held the glass in her lap, and stared down at the water—at her own reflection, or the ceiling’s, or at her own hands. Mina’d washed them clean.

  She had run all this way knowing she might die. She faced the Wardens and their beasts with only conviction to bear her forward. And yet she sat here unable to deliver the message she carried from Chakal Square. Because Mina showed her hospitality? Because she saw why he left?

  He spared her the pain. “She wants me to go back with her.”

  “What?”

  A bird sang in the garden: four high whistles and the last sank low.

  “Why the hells would she ask that? She almost died leaving that place. No way she’d—”

  “It’s true,” Chel said.

  Mina fell silent.

  “Have you seen the newspapers?”

  “Yes,” Temoc said.

  “What do you think? Be honest.”

  “You’re in trouble.” “You’re,” he said, not “we’re.” “The Wardens arrest those they can. The fires turned the city against you, even if you didn’t set them. And the hostages were a mistake.” He caught Mina’s warning glance—go easy on the woman. But Chel did not flinch, though she did not look up from her water, either.

  “That’s what I told them,” she said. “I kept us from issuing a ransom demand, at least. Couldn’t get them free. The camp’s torn. The Kemals scrounge supplies. The Major fights. Bel’s calling on citizen groups throughout the Skittersill to join us. Everyone’s afraid.”

  “Bad,” Temoc said when she stopped to drink. He could not bear to keep quiet, not with that bird crying in the courtyard. Not with his son watching.

  “The Wardens attacked before dawn. We’re building our own barricades to keep them out, but we can’t stop them from taking our people. The Major thinks this is his moment, his grand struggle.”

  “Craftsmen do
not fight wars of attrition,” Temoc said. “They prefer disruptive victories, surgical strikes. If they press you on all sides, they do so only to focus your attention on the periphery so they can strike the center. Beware your skies. Protect vulnerable targets.”

  “We need a leader,” she said.

  “You have many.”

  “The Major will not listen to Kapania Kemal. Bel acknowledges either of them grudgingly at best. I’m one more rip in a torn sheet. We need thread. Like this, we can’t fight. We can’t even surrender. If you went back, you could save us.”

  “And doom you. If I go back, the King in Red stops fighting a new rebellion, and starts fighting an old war. People will die.”

  “They’re dying anyway, and worse. They’re losing. Your generation got its last stand. This is ours, and we’re falling apart. Ten years from now, we’ll look around and say, remember when we couldn’t fight back?”

  “But you will be there to say it.”

  “Dying by inches is still dying.”

  “Spoken like a woman who has never died before.”

  “I thought you would understand.” Those words hurt worse than the not-wolves’ teeth.

  “I would love to put the King in Red to flight,” he said. “To wake the gods from slumber and strike against the powers of the Craft. But the world has changed. I thought Chakal Square was a way forward.” Her eyes were bright and wet. “This isn’t your fault. It isn’t the Major’s. It is barely the King in Red’s. The peace is broken.”

  “While you wait,” she said. “With your family.”

  “Should I give them up? Should I burn my house to the ground, because others suffer?”

  “You preach sacrifice. I liked those sermons. I hoped you might live up to them.”

  He would not look away.

  Chel set the glass on the table, and pushed herself to her feet. Her arms trembled, but she stood.

  “You can’t go,” Mina said. “You’re in no shape to fight.”

  “Then I won’t fight. But I’ll be where I belong.” She nodded. “Thank you for the bandages. The shirt—”

  “Keep it,” Mina said.

  “Thank you.”

  She limped out into the blinding light where the lone bird cried.