The Killing Light

by Myke Cole

  The wind blew harder and the snow closed around them, until Heloise could barely make out the figures of Onas and Xilyka, shivering in their saddles, so close that their horses’ necks brushed against the machine’s metal arms. At last, a blob of red pierced the storm, trudging to Heloise’s side. One of the Red Lords’ heralds, shivering in his metal armor, his plain red surcoat soaked with snow. “Heloise Factor! Sir Steven summons you to the commander’s tent.”

  Barnard loomed over the man. “Heretics do not presume to summon Palantines.”

  Heloise raised an arm, the machine groaning and shedding ice as it matched her movements. “It’s all right, Barnard.”

  The twist of the herald’s mouth was petulant. “A request, then.Will you come?”

  “Yes, but my guard will come with me.”

  The herald nodded. “The First Sword requested representatives be sent from among the Kipti. They will suffice.”

  “They are the Traveling People. ‘Kipti’ means ‘homeless.’”

  The herald ignored her. “It is the custom of the Free Peoples to take petitions when our leaders meet. May I cry this through your camp?”

  “Yes,” Heloise raised her voice to be heard over the strengthening gale, “but I can’t find your tent in this storm.”

  “It’s there.” The herald pointed into the unbroken white behind him. “Walk that way no more than one hundred paces. You cannot fail to find it.”

  He was right. In less than fifty paces, Heloise could see the tall red canvas of the commander’s tent, a scarlet wound on the white expanse of the landscape. The drifts had grown deep enough to drag at the machine’s metal legs, and with each step she could feel the cracking of the thin crust of ice beneath the powder. The entry flaps faced away from the wind, large enough to admit a man on horseback. Heloise still had to duck the machine’s metal head to step inside.

  A tiny fire burned under an iron grill in the center, utterly failing to warm the huge tent. Sir Steven sat in a simple camp chair, red cloth stretched over painted rods, surrounded by his captains. All wore their armor even though dismounted and with no fight threatening. A simple table, painted red like everything else in Sir Steven’s army, sat to one side. It was piled with plain fare—hard bread and cheese, nuts and dried fruit, all untouched.

  “Heloise Factor.” Sir Steven inclined his head, not rising. “We speak twice in one day. Such a pleasure. My man tells me you have sent your riders out, my thanks for that.”

  “Father says good people always pay their debts.”

  Sir Steven’s mouth twitched. “I hear that you sent him.”

  “So?”

  “It struck me as an unusual choice.”

  “I can’t give someone special treatment just because he is my father.”

  Sir Steven nodded. “Spoken like one of the Free Peoples. It is our custom to hold council at the end of each day’s march. I would ask that you attend each evening, to speak for your people.”

  “I can only speak for the villagers.” Heloise nodded to Onas and Xilyka. “The Traveling People keep their own counsel. How are our graybeards and children?”

  “They were taken in the carts, as you asked. The baggage master will be seeing them back to their families now, I expect. How are your people faring?”

  “Suffering.”

  Sir Steven spread his hands. “Suffering marches with an army.”

  “We’re the leaders. Isn’t it our job to take care of our troops?”

  “I have been a fighting man since my naming day, Heloise. It is interesting to be instructed on the nature of war by a girl in a machine.”

  “I took Lyse. I have fought in battles. I have an army. I have just as much right to talk about war as you do.”

  Sir Steven stiffened, leaned forward on his stool. “More battles, more sieges, and more time at the head of an army will teach you how little you know, girl.”

  Heloise swallowed the part of her that wanted to agree with him. “Is that what you want to talk about? How little I know about war?”

  “There is no need to discuss your warcraft, Heloise. You march beside a veteran army, and we have warcraft enough for all. We will hear petitions first. I do not doubt that some in your number will have them.”

  He looked beside Heloise, and she turned to see the herald bowing slightly from his waist. “There is one, First Sword. A woman, from the village of Seal’s Rock.”

  “Just one?” Steven asked. “I am surprised. Show her in.”

  The herald pushed back the flap to admit a tiny old woman, so swaddled in seal skins that Heloise could barely see her face. Her eyes were plain enough, widening in shock as she found herself face to face with the sainted Palantine. She bowed, averting her eyes. “Savior,” she said. “Your eminence.”

  “Stop that.” Heloise reached out to straighten her, remembered she was in the machine, and stopped herself before she accidentally crushed the old woman. “Come in out of the cold.”

  “Your eminence,” the woman said again, bowing her way through the flaps. She held her bow, eyes darting around the room, quickly settling on the table of food.

  “Please.” Sir Steven gestured to the table. “Help yourself.”

  The old woman gave him a nod of thanks and raced to the table, stuffing bread into her mouth as quickly as she could. Her eyes continued to rove as if she expected one of the Red Lords to take it from her.

  Heloise winced. “So hungry…?”

  “Begging your eminence’s pardon,” the woman said through a mouthful, “but we up and came as quick as we could. Most didn’t think to bring vittles more’n a night’s worth.”

  “Why not?” Heloise asked.

  “You’re the Emperor’s chosen, ain’t ya? Folks’ figurin’ you’d tend to us.”

  Heloise swallowed her shock. She would have to discuss feeding them with Sir Steven, and it was probably best spoken of after the woman had left.

  “How are you called?” Sir Steven asked.

  “My husband is—”

  “How are you called?” Heloise cut her off. She knew that the women of Seal’s Rock took their husband’s names, but if she could lead an army with just sixteen winters behind her, then this woman could petition under her own name.

  The woman blushed, bowed again. “I am called Helga, if it pleases your eminence.”

  “Thank you, Helga.” The bowing and honorifics grated, but Heloise knew if she spent her time correcting everyone who called her “your eminence,” she would do nothing else. Still, knowing the woman’s name helped Heloise feel less like a lord, and more like a person. “I will find food for you.” Somehow. “Is that what you wanted to ask?”

  “The Kipti, your eminence,” the woman said, glancing up at Onas and Xilyka. “They need talkin’ to.”

  Heloise’s bodyguards stiffened.

  “They are the Traveling People, Helga. ‘Kipti’ is an insult.” Heloise swallowed her frustration.

  Helga didn’t look like she’d heard. “As you say, your eminence. Only it’s that one of their menfolk’s taken a shine to my daughter. Took her on his wagon, given her food, promised her a new dress.”

  “What,” Onas’s voice was ice, “is wrong with that?”

  Helga responded to Heloise. “She’s seen but seventeen winters, your eminence.”

  “She’s a woman grown,” Xilyka said. “Is she promised to another? If not, she may do as she wishes.”

  Heloise looked down at her guard, the frustration rising in her throat again. It would take time to make Xilyka, to make all the Traveling People, understand villager ways, to know that at seventeen winters a woman was still considered the ward of her parents, and that giving herself to a man before she was married would bring shame upon her. “Please, Xilyka,” she said, “it’s not our way.”

  “It’s not,” Helga agreed, “an’ even if it were, I’d not promise her to a heretic.”

  Onas opened his mouth to reply and Heloise silenced him with a wave. “The Traveling Peo
ple have different ways from ours. This man didn’t know … how we do things.”

  “As you say, you eminence,” Helga said, “but they’re here followin’ you, ain’t they? We all is. And you’re a villager. You hold to our ways, and you’re the saint, so we think that it’s our ways, villager ways, that should hold for all.”

  “Not while the Free Peoples lead this army,” Sir Steven said. “We have our own ways as well.”

  Helga ignored him, still speaking to Heloise. “Nobody leads nothin’ but you, your eminence.

  “You’re the saint that shines brighter’n all.”

  Sir Steven finally stood. “Your petition has been heard, Helga of Seal’s Rock. You have leave to go.”

  Helga didn’t move. “You need to speak with the Kipti, your eminence. Folks from the village are whisperin’ ’bout those two.” She pointed at Onas and Xilyka. “Say you love the Kipti more’n your own, since you have them with you like shadows.”

  “They are my bodyguards,” Heloise said, the frustration boiling over into anger. “They protect me.”

  “A Kipti bodyguard,” Helga said. “Plenty of your own folk be glad to have that duty.”

  “Stop,” Heloise growled, and immediately regretted it as Helga cowered, bowing so deeply that she nearly pitched forward on her face. “I will talk to the Mothers … but these are my friends. You can tell your people that from me.”

  “Seal’s Rock’s villagers, your eminence,” Helga said, “they’re your people too.”

  “Get out!” Heloise barked.

  Helga bowed her way back to the tent’s entrance, muttering apologies as she went. She paused at the flaps, shivering, and Heloise felt a stab of guilt as the old woman finally went back out into the cold and driving snow.

  “I’m sorry,” Heloise said to Xilyka. “We … we tell stories about the Traveling People—”

  “That we are child thieves,” Xilyka interrupted her. “That we steal children and raise them on the road. That we can turn into birds. That we dabble in wizardry. That we cannot control our lusts and lie with whomever we will, whenever we will. The Traveling People trade in stories. We have heard every one told about us, and more besides.”

  “We’re fighting the Order,” Heloise said. “We can’t fight each other.”

  Xilyka swallowed. Anger still burned behind her eyes, somehow making her even more beautiful. “And to that end, I would present my petition.”

  Sir Steven arched an eyebrow. “To Heloise?”

  “And to you, First Sword,” Xilyka said, reaching beneath her cloak and removing a bolt of red cloth. She shook out it out before her, the scarlet fabric unrolling to reveal a forked pennant, edged with gold. In its center was a winged wheel, the wingtips unfurling almost to the banner’s edge. Beneath it, embroidered in gold thread, were the words THE PEOPLE.

  “My mother stitched it as we marched. We’ve need of unity,” Xilyka said. “We are Free Peoples and Traveling Peoples and villager peoples. All people, one way or another. The red is for the Red Lords, the wheel for us, and the wings are those of a Palantine.”

  Heloise felt her throat close and tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She reached out with the machine’s metal fist and gently raised the banner on the back edge of her knife. “I’m not a Palantine.”

  “Maybe not,” Xilyka said, “but the villagers say you are, and the wings are for what they believe.”

  The envy was plain in Onas’s voice: “I do not think all will agree to march beneath that.”

  “They will if she accepts it.” Xilyka kept her eyes on Heloise. “And that is my petition, and that of Mother Florea and all the Hapti band. Fly this banner as your own.”

  The heat of Xilyka’s eyes set a warmth blazing in Heloise’s chest that felt so good she was loath to look away. The title of Palantine was a weight on her, heavy with demands. Looking at the banner in Xilyka’s hands, Heloise felt the strength of the symbol—the others, the Traveling People and the Red Lords, lifting that weight from her a little. Thank you.

  “I accept it,” she said, failing to keep the heat from her voice.

  “The Free Peoples march under no banner but our own,” Sir Steven said. “We do not adorn ourselves with geegaws. We are a plain folk, and we will not fly that.”

  “I don’t see why you need to give a sop to malcontents,” Onas said. “You are the great Heloise, liberator of Lyse, bane of the Order. What does it matter what anyone thinks of you? The villagers follow you. My people follow you. You don’t need to unite them, only command them.”

  “You have much to learn of why soldiers follow commanders,” Sir Steven said, “and of how to lead.”

  But Heloise ignored them both, her eyes moving from the banner to Xilyka and back again. “It’s beautiful,” she said. You’re beautiful.

  She hadn’t spoken the words aloud, but feeling Onas’s eyes burning into her, she wondered if, somehow, he’d heard them anyway.

  “We shall see what—” Sir Steven began, stopping as shouts rose from outside the tent. The herald ducked outside, reentered a moment later.

  “It’s the villager outriders, sir. The ones who rode to scout the weird light.”

  “What?” Heloise and Sir Steven asked at the same time. Heloise ran out of the tent so quickly that she forget to duck the machine, and nearly tangled herself in the huge canvas flap before ripping free. Guntar was on his knees, panting. His shirt was stained with blood, though Heloise couldn’t see its source.

  He was alone.

  “Where is my father?” Panic strained her voice. She knew she should take a moment to calm herself, but the urgency of her father’s absence was like a storm, driving her helpless before it. “Where is he?”

  Guntar shook his head, sobbed. “They were waiting for us, your eminence. They fell on us as soon as we were out of sight of the column.”

  Sir Steven turned, bellowing at his captains, “Whoever is responsible for the rearguard pickets will answer for this!”

  “Who did this?” Heloise asked.

  Guntar spat, sucked down a whooping breath. “They took our horses. Would have taken me as well, but the Kipti … bested two of them, cut their traces, and rode off on their beast. I doubled up with him. He rode the animal until it dropped, then he … fell. He had taken a wound. I tried to revive him, but he was gone. I ran the rest of the way.”

  “Who?” Heloise bellowed.

  “Brigands, I’ll wager,” Sir Steven said. “They follow an army as surely as flies follow a herd.”

  But Guntar was already shaking his head. “Black-and-Grays. The Emperor’s Eyes. They were making sure of the length of your column, I’ll wager. They’re riding back to their army now.”

  “Remnants of the army at Lyse,” Sir Steven said. “There’s no way fresh troops could have arrived from the capital by now.” But he did not sound certain.

  But Heloise scarcely heard him, her eyes fixed on Guntar as if they could bore answers out of him. “Guntar, where is my father?”

  “Gone,” Guntar sobbed.

  “Gone?!” Heloise’s stomach shrank, her throat closed. I told him to go. I sent him away. “Dead?”

  “They took him,” Guntar said, stumbling to his feet. “They took them and rode north. He’s gone, Heloise.”

  3

  THE PEOPLE

  The wound Mahesh had made was great, and the Emperor’s strength began to fade. But His eye was ever fixed upon the veil, and he reached out and plucked a nightingale from a branch and set her on the right arm of His throne. And behold! The nightingale did make a joyous music, and the veil was entranced, and held fast. Then the great music wore upon the singer, and the nightingale’s voice did falter, until the Emperor set a congregation of the faithful upon the left arm of His throne. The congregation lent their voice to the great music that the nightingale might rest her head beneath her wing, and the veil was shut for all time.

  —Book of Mysteries, III. 5.

  Even Heloise was not so foolish as to
try hunting for her father in the dark, but neither did she sleep, her eyes locked on the opening between her tent flaps, scanning the black horizon for the first shreds of dawn.

  She emerged as soon as she saw the dimmest glow, even before the serjeants had roused their soldiers. She found her inner circle wrapped in their cloaks, huddled around the smoldering remains of a feeble fire. Clearly none of them had slept, either. Wolfun had drowsed in the saddle, lying across his horse’s neck. He lifted his head and blinked at her.

  “Thought you might do this.” Guntar sat on a frozen rock with his mother, Chunsia, bent over him. One of the Black-and-Grays had managed a lucky shot on his arm as he’d ridden off, but the wound wasn’t deep. Still, Heloise did not blame her for fussing over it. She had lost one son to the Order already. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”

  “I know what you’re planning, and I don’t see the use of it, your eminence,” Wolfun said. “If the boy speaks true, then they’ve ridden back to their main force. You want to find your father, that’s where he’ll be.”

  “I speak true,” Guntar said. “They rode off north. Capital’s too far for them to have ranged all the way to our rear.”

  “What do you know of how far a man can range?” Wolfun said. “Brave lad’s still a lad. You’ve never even mustered to a levy, I’ll be bound.”

  “And you’ve never faced down the Black-and-Grays on a scout, and lived to report back,” Barnard growled at him. “We could try to track them, now that it’s light.”

  “In this snow?” The Lysian gestured at the white drifts. “It’s coming thick enough to fill a man’s tracks faster’n you can blink.”

  Heloise felt sick, her mind playing and replaying her father’s face as she volunteered him for the scout. My place is with you. She turned to Xilyka, trying to keep the desperation from her face, failing utterly. “Can your people track in snow?”

  Xilyka shook her head, but Onas laughed. “Now there is a story of the Traveling People I’ve yet to hear. We’ve been called child-thieves, pot-menders, wizards, but never storm-trackers.”