The Killing Light

by Myke Cole

  “I am going,” Heloise said, swallowing the ball of terror and grief in her throat. “Guntar, if you can guide me to where they found you, maybe I can pick up some…”

  “Your eminence,” Barnard said. “I grieve for your father the same as all of us, but we cannot lose you, too. Whatever you feel, your people need you here.”

  “I cannot just do nothing!” Heloise could not keep her voice from rising to a shout. “I lost my mother, I cannot…”

  Wolfun kicked his horse to Heloise’s side, gripped the machine’s metal leg. “You can. You can and you will, your eminence. We have all of us lost someone. Most of us more’n one. Running off in the storm like a fool won’t bring him back to you. It’s not what he would want, and you know it. He’d want you to be smart. He’d want you to be careful.”

  Wolfun’s words were a punch to her gut. You cannot find him. You cannot track him. There is nothing you can do. Suddenly, the world felt much as it did when she contemplated leaving the machine—the sky was too close, the sounds too loud. She felt her skin itch, a desperate need to run in any direction. Heloise swallowed hard, looked over at Barnard. He had lost two children in less than a turning of the moon. If he could keep his head, then so could she. “What do I do?” she pleaded.

  “Might be Wolfun’s right, your eminence,” Barnard said. “They took Sigir before, and we got him back.”

  “And then he turned traitor.” Heloise could feel herself sweating despite the cold. I will never get him back. I will never see him again.

  “Not because they made him a captive,” Barnard said. “I was shocked as you to find how rotten that bastard’s heart was, but it wasn’t the Order what made Sigir that way. If they’ve got your father, they’ll want to trade him.”

  “Trade him for what?”

  “For a truce,” Wolfun said. “Or for gold. Or for prisoners of their own. Or some other advantage. Happens all the time in parleys, your eminence. We may yet restore your father to you.”

  “If they figure out who he is,” Barnard said, “they may come to us with an offer. For now, the best thing to do is wait.”

  “What if they figure out who he is and kill him? I shouldn’t have sent him.” Heloise cursed. I only wanted him to let me be. “So stupid.”

  Xilyka set a hand on Heloise’s leg through the machine’s frame. “You did what you thought you must, which is all any of us can do. We cannot know which way the Wheel will turn. I know it is hard, Heloise, but for now it seems the best thing to do is wait and see if Sir Steven’s outriders can find the Imperial army, or at least pick up the trail of these men who stole your father.”

  “Sending out another small scouting party might just mean we get the worst of another skirmish, your eminence,” Wolfun added. “Won’t do us, or your father, any good. Do not forget that we must march quickly. It’s the dawn of the second day. We must reach the capital by the fourth or the enemy will take us in the field and destroy us.”

  Heloise’s stomach clenched, the sob rising up her throat, so strong that nothing she did could choke it back down. It bubbled out of her mouth, almost a howl. “You’re right.”

  Because in her heart, she knew that they were. Your father is one man. You are responsible for an entire army. Even if it were safe to hunt for her father, it was true that she would never be able to find him.

  The thought sent the panic surging, and Heloise was powerless before it. She needed away from these people, from this camp. She had to do something. “Might I be alone? Just for a moment.”

  Wolfun ignored the question, touched the machine’s elbow. “Do not cry, your eminence. It will be all right. You’ll see.”

  She barely heard him. Her mother was dead, and now she would lose her father, too. “Please. I just need to be by myself.”

  It was Onas who answered. “No, Heloise. It isn’t safe.”

  “It’s all right.” Xilyka appeared, tugging on Onas’s arm. “I will go with her.”

  “You can’t…” Onas began.

  “Give us one quarter-candle. Let me … She needs to be alone. We won’t go far. Just a little ways into the woods.”

  Onas flushed. “You are not the sole guard of—”

  “Onas!” Mother Leahlabel’s voice rang out loud enough to make even Heloise stop. The Sindi woman was barely bigger than a child. Her gray-red hair was piled atop her head in a bun, wrapped tightly around a short iron dirk. Heloise had seen the tiny woman kill with that slim weapon, and knew Leahlabel was not to be underestimated. Of far more importance than her skill at arms was her wizardry. Leahlabel could heal wounds at a touch, and had saved Heloise’s life more than once. “Stand aside before she flattens you.”

  Onas blinked up at his mother. “Mother … I cannot just—”

  “You can do as you’re told by your band Mother. She is in a war-machine, and with a guard besides,” Leahlabel said. She turned to Xilyka. “A quarter-candle. Swear it.”

  “I swear it,” Xilyka said. “No harm will come to her.”

  Leahlabel nodded as Onas, still stammering, moved just far enough to let Heloise pass. She didn’t hesitate, the fear gripping her, the tears coming now, her father’s face in her mind as she walked the machine forward, moving into the woods, the sound of Xilyka’s feet padding on the snow behind her.

  * * *

  Heloise remembered when she had last gone into the woods, fleeing from her mistake with Basina, her friend breaking their embrace, pushing Heloise away, her hands coming up.

  But as with Basina, the woods could not save her from her mistakes for long. No sooner had she cleared the tree line, branches shaking off snow as she pushed through them, than the thoughts came crowding in. You cannot find him. He is gone.

  And as with Basina, tears came with the thoughts, breaking like the onset of the snow, when it cracked the gray clouds and poured out on the shivering army. Heloise managed not to scream, at least, for fear that her people would hear. She slipped her good hand free of the control strap and held it over her mouth while she sobbed.

  Heloise slowly mastered herself as she heard Xilyka’s footsteps crunching in the snow. The knife-caster looked up at her, eyes huge with concern. “Will you be all right?”

  No, I will never be all right again. “Yes.” Heloise swallowed, painfully conscious of how stupid she must look. “I’m sorry. I know it’s useless. I just … I couldn’t stand there anymore.”

  “I know, Heloise. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  Heloise took a deep breath, felt her heart steadying. “Thank you. We can go back now.”

  Xilyka smiled, shook her head. “Didn’t you hear Mother Leahlabel? I have a quarter-candle to bring you back, and I intend to use it.”

  She turned, moved deeper into the woods.

  “We can’t,” Heloise began, “the army has to march. We have to…”

  “I am no great commander”—Xilyka beckoned—“but I can’t think of a war that turned on the space of a quarter-candle. You can’t lead if you are driven mad by that pack of brooding beards. Come, we won’t go far. I promise.”

  Xilyka’s smile made Heloise’s heart race again, and as with Basina, her body betrayed her, feet moving almost of their own accord, following her bodyguard.

  The canopy was thick deeper in, the interlocking branches tangled so tightly that they kept much of the snow off the ground. Heloise hadn’t realized how much the relentless blinding white of the road had drained her until she found her eyes drinking up simple sights—the tips of pine needles pushing up through the snow, a cluster of blueberries clinging to an exposed shoulder of rock.

  It was just a handful, but Heloise looked at the plump fruit and thought of the hungry look in Helga’s eyes as she devoured the bread from Sir Steven’s table. “Can you take those?” she asked Xilyka. “I can’t, with the machine.”

  Xilyka gently pulled up the bush, tucking it into a pocket in her cloak. “You may as well eat them, Heloise. It’s just a handful.”

 
“I can’t eat the first fresh growing food in leagues when everyone else is hungry. What if someone saw?”

  Xilyka made a great show of looking around, turned back with what Heloise was learning was her smile, one corner of her mouth higher than the other, eyes narrowed as if she were sharing a joke with Heloise and Heloise alone. “Looks like I am the only one to see.”

  Heloise snorted a laugh in spite of her worry over her father. The sudden mirth felt so good, and was followed by a surge of gratitude so profound that she had to resist sweeping Xilyka up into the machine’s metal arms. “Thank you,” she managed.

  “For what?” Xilyka cocked her head to one side.

  “It feels good to laugh.”

  “It does. You villagers need to laugh more.”

  “Seems wrong … laughing now.”

  “Not wrong. It is just the Great Wheel turning. It turns as it will, whether we would have it or no. So, why not laugh?”

  Why not? Heloise silently agreed, and the laughter threatened to come bubbling back.

  Xilyka turned suddenly, looking back the way they had come. Heloise froze, listening, but all she could hear was the snow whispering against the frozen leaves above them, the gentle stirring of the wind across the undergrowth. Xilyka looked back, the smile rising until it made her eyes crinkle at the corners. Heloise had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life.

  “It’s your menfolk,” she sighed. “I knew they would follow.”

  “You can hear them? Are you sure it isn’t—”

  Xilyka raised a finger to her lips. “I can, and it isn’t. The Order clanks so loud with their chains and their armor I can tell them from a league off. Villagers are quieter, at least. Come on! I said a quarter-candle, and we are getting a quarter-candle!”

  She moved past, gesturing for Heloise to follow.

  And she did follow, though she knew it would worry Wolfun or Barnard or whomever else was following her. She moved after Xilyka, watching the Hapti girl’s curls bounce, the snow reflecting the light from the brass rings about them, and she forgot for a moment that she was in a war-machine. She forgot that her father was gone. She forgot her eye, and her hand, and the lurid scars across her face. She felt like she had on the day she’d chased the kite with the tinker-engine, Basina running at her side. Lutet had stretched out before her, as it was before wizardry or the Order had come to it, pristine and safe and bounded only by the shadows of the gloaming coming on.

  They walked and the woods rose around them, the trunks coming closer together as they forged deeper. Heloise knew she should be afraid, but somehow, in the company of the Hapti knife-caster, she wasn’t.

  At last, Xilyka stopped and Heloise brought the machine to a clanking shudder at her side. Xilyka listened for a moment before nodding. “We’ve lost them. For now, at least. Tiresome. Everything with men is a great care.”

  “Xilyka, my father is taken. We are marching to attack the capital. That’s … that’s all … serious.”

  “It is serious, Heloise. But that doesn’t mean you have to wear it so heavily. We have this quarter-candle. Setting your burdens down now and then doesn’t mean you won’t take them up again when it is time.”

  And now that she knew they were alone, Heloise was suddenly shy. She was surprised to see that Xilyka seemed the same, looking at her feet, the trees, the dusting of snow around them, anywhere but at Heloise. Heloise looked down at herself to avoid staring at Xilyka. She immediately regretted it; her body was filthy where it peeked out from beneath the heavy shift, and she could just glimpse the pink puckered edges of the scars on her face where the shining metal of the machine’s frame reflected them back at her. She felt so unspeakably ugly. “So … so what do we do now?”

  Xilyka looked up at her and smiled. “We glean.”

  “Glean?”

  “You know Xilyka the knife-caster. But you’ve never met Xilyka the forager. The girl who could feed the whole band for a fortnight with only her nose and enough baskets to carry her find.”

  Heloise looked around. “In this? There’s snow on the ground!”

  Xilyka put her hands on her hips. “How easily the great war leader admits defeat! Did we not just find a handful of berries?”

  Heloise felt her scars stretching with her smile. “That’s just a handful.”

  “Where there’s a handful, there’s a bushel,” Xilyka said, “lots to eat under snow. Roots, nuts, onions of all sorts. Horseheads…”

  “You can’t eat horseheads!” Heloise said, “they’re for when you’re sick. They make you … you know.”

  “The leaves make you … you know,” Xilyka imitated Heloise’s voice, “but you can eat the hearts and the branches both, if you boil them first. They’re delicious.”

  “You … you can’t. You’re mad!” Heloise laughed.

  “Maybe, but be mad with me for a time. We won’t go any farther in. Your menfolk are nearby. If there’s trouble, we’ll raise a cry. The column could hear us from here.”

  The words made Heloise feel so free, as if Barnard and Wolfun were not coming to find her, as if there were no army waiting for her return, no column of villagers, expectant eyes waiting to fix on her back. Xilyka’s eyes were sweeping the ground, hands brushing the tree trunks she passed.

  At last Xilyka stopped, clapped her hands together. “There.” She knelt, dusting the snow off what looked to Heloise like a patch of withered brown stalks.

  “Don’t be silly,” Heloise said, “that’s just a bunch of frozen grass…”

  The words died on her lips as Xilyka produced one of her knives, thrust it into the ground, and popped up a plump white bulb at the far end of one of the withered-looking stalks. She held it up triumphantly, still trickling clods of frozen earth. “Nikolae’s onion,” she said. “They grow on the lee side of rocks, where there’s enough shade. You pick them in winter. Don’t eat ’em raw unless you want your backside to sing, but if you cook them in a stew, they’re delicious!”

  “How did you know where to find them?”

  “My mother taught me. Well, at first, anyway, but I took to it, I suppose, and when you do a thing enough, you master it. Was the same for me with casting. I threw a blade at the side of a tree a thousand times a day for a season.”

  “That must have driven you mad.”

  “It did … but it also felt good, once I started getting better, anyway.”

  “I was the same with my letters. Father made me practice them every night, and at first I hated it, but then…”

  “… but then you mastered it. And it feels good, being good at something.”

  “It does!” Heloise said.

  “Of course”—Xilyka looked at her feet—“you’re good at everything.”

  Heloise was so shocked that it took her a moment to answer. “How can you say that? You can take a bird on the wing with your knives. I couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”

  “Of course you could. I told you I spent a season throwing the blasted things. Anyone can do that. You do a thing enough, it becomes a piece of you. That doesn’t take anything more than mule-headedness. Mother always said once I got the bit in my teeth, there’s no stopping me.”

  “I suppose. But look at you. You’re so free, and you don’t even worry about being promised.”

  Xilyka cocked an eyebrow. “Why would I worry about that?”

  “It’s just … it’s what girls do. You live with your father and then you move into the house you make with your husband.”

  “It’s what villager girls do. Traveling girls take what lovers they will, and one day, if they find one they like they promise one to the other.”

  “They don’t have to?”

  “No … but most do.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “Why haven’t you?” Xilyka shot back, color rising in her cheeks.

  Heloise’s stomach tightened. You’ve ruined this. “I just … even in villages, the girl gets some say in how she’s promised. I just … I was n
ever ready.” Because there’s no boy in the world I’d want.

  Xilyka looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Heloise. It’s just that … I didn’t want to promise, either. There’s plenty of boys who asked my mother, or tried to make time with me.”

  Heloise felt as if the conversation were skirting something important, a bigger question that both of them wanted to ask. It made Heloise excited and afraid at the same time, as if she balanced on the edge of a knife, and could either slide to safety or cut herself badly, depending on her next words. “Oh, well … I guess we’re … I guess…” Are we the same, Xilyka?

  “Anyway,” Xilyka said, “you missed my point,” and suddenly the moment was gone, leaving a tiny feeling of relief, swamped in a sense of loss. Something important had passed them by, and Heloise didn’t know how to get it back.

  “My point is that you’re amazing, Heloise. Any woman can learn to cast, or to glean. I’m riding a horse now!”

  “Riding a horse is—”

  “Not for Traveling People, Heloise. My point is that anyone can do these things, but only you can do what you do. I’ve seen seventeen winters come and go. I’ve plied the road from the Argint almost to the Gold Coast. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  Heloise felt her cheeks burn, and she dropped her eyes, unable to hold the heat of Xilyka’s gaze. “I don’t…” She couldn’t finish the thought, stared at the tops of the machine’s metal knees, waiting for Xilyka to rescue her.

  Fortunately, Xilyka did. “Can’t you see, Heloise? The world is changing around you. Your village is marching to war. My people are beside you. Beside a villager, Heloise. We, who have sworn ourselves to the road. We, who only trade and look to our own. We are with you, Heloise. And the Red Lords, too.”

  “The Red Lords don’t care about me,” Heloise said.

  “Don’t they?” Xilyka asked. “Then why aren’t they marching on their own?”

  Heloise searched for an answer, found none, felt her cheeks burn hotter. “My people follow me,” she said at last, “because they think I am a Palantine.”