Red Sister

by Mark Lawrence

  “Who?” Nona asked. The name seemed familiar.

  “Safira—the one who trained her.” Ara turned to stare past Nona and Alata at Zole, who returned the stare, her face a mask. “She was expelled from the convent for stabbing another novice when she turned her back on her after defeating her in Blade class.”

  “A lie.” Zole’s lips gave only the slightest twitch to release the words.

  “How do you know stuff like this?” Clera asked.

  “Who got stabbed?” Nona asked.

  “I know because my father keeps me informed of matters that affect me.” Ara kept her eyes on Zole, her food untouched. “Sherzal has been hunting all across the empire for possible two-bloods, chasing down any thread her Academics can find. She picked up this one,” she nodded towards Zole, “after my uncle outwitted her troops and got me safely to the convent. Sherzal will be trying to get her in with us as a spy, perhaps as an assassin too.”

  “You think too much of yourself.” Zole bit into her bread and swallowed in two chews. “Highness Sherzal lost interest in you long ago.”

  “Because she has you?” Ara snorted.

  Zole didn’t reply, just kept on eating. The others, tired from the previous day’s labour, from rising early, and from a long wait in the cold, followed her example. While she ate, Nona stole glances at the new girl. She had the flat features of the ice-tribes: broad cheekbones, eyes like black stones. Without any other clues she could as easily be a boy as a girl.

  Bray sounded far too soon and Nona limped from the table still chewing, bringing up the rear with Darla, hunched against the wind as the Grey Class novices headed for Blade Hall. Ten yards from the doors, now closed behind the rest of the class, Darla slipped on sheet ice. She fell heavily, unable to break the fall with her injured hand. Nona braced herself and offered her arm for the larger girl to lever herself back up.

  “Don’t need your help, squirt.” Darla snarled, slipping again as she tried to rise.

  Nona stayed where she was. “When the convent’s full of strangers we don’t need to fight each other.” She reached for Darla’s elbow. “We’ll be sisters one day.”

  Darla grunted, but she let Nona take some of her weight as she got up. They came through the doors together, ears stinging from the ice-wind, faces red.

  Sister Tallow waited for them on the sands, Zole beside her in scarlet and silver, the rest of the class already vanished into the changing room. Up on the benches Sherzal, the high priest, and Abbess Glass sat surrounded by attendants. Sherzal’s soldiers lined the walls, having pushed the stuffed leather combat dummies out into the hall to make room.

  Darla and Nona hurried across to the tunnel, heads down to avoid Sister Tallow’s disapproval. Nona entered the familiar warmth of the changing room to find Clera just getting up, dressed and ready to return. The heat of the pipes always reminded Nona’s body to expect a fight—that and the smell of the place, young bodies and old sweat, something a day’s cleaning couldn’t erase.

  “Fist-habits today.” Clera grinned as she passed them. “We get to pound on the new girl!”

  Nona was second-last out of the changing room, leaving Darla still fumbling with her ties. The broken finger would save her hair—Sister Tallow would rarely shave a novice for lateness if they had a genuine excuse. Nona bit down on her pain and jogged out onto the sand as easily as she could, with every ache and injury from the past two days screaming at her. Grey Class watched her arrival.

  “Good.” Sister Tallow didn’t seem minded to wait for Darla. “Novice Clera, a demonstration for the class of the blade-fist kata.”

  Clera stepped forward, her smile vanishing as she focused on the complex set of moves required, a long dance of violence demonstrating all the main forms of the art, stressing every muscle and joint a body owns. Zole stood beside Sister Tallow, her face without expression, dark eyes glinting.

  Nona glanced across at Ara and found a similar lack of expression on her friend’s face. The echoes of unspoken words trembled across her lips, her eyes fixed on some point beyond Tallow and Zole. Perhaps on the tall windows, each offering a deep blue infinity of sky.

  Clera moved into the kata, her speed dazzling, snapping out kicks above her head with so swift a tempo that to most of her audience it would be nothing but a blur of motion. She leapt forward, skidding into a crouch with her head almost touching the floor, before jumping up, feet pulled in, leaving almost room for Nona to walk beneath. A series of blocks and punches followed in the prescribed order, intermixed with spins and reversals. Sand sprayed beneath the balls of her feet, a suspicious amount of it in Zole’s direction.

  A minute later and the performance ended with a jump-kick high enough to break the jaw of a gerant prime. Ninety separate moves woven together and executed at breathtaking speed. Clera returned to the front row, flushed and making an effort to hide how winded the exercise had left her.

  Sister Tallow turned to Zole. “Perhaps you could demonstrate your training for us now?”

  Zole inclined her head a fraction. “I know blade-fist, Noi-tal, the Scithrowl kill-game, and elements of the Torca. Which would you prefer to see, Mistress Blade?”

  Sister Tallow frowned. “The Torca is rarely seen . . .”

  “She’s trained with the Noi-Guin,” Clera hissed. “Must have. They kill anyone else who teaches Noi-tal!”

  “If I may?” Sherzal raised her voice from the stands. “Perhaps a more practical demonstration? Zole could spar with one of your novices. Nevis was telling me that you have a girl who passed the ordeal of the Shield within weeks of entering the convent?”

  Abbess Glass glanced down at Sister Tallow, who gave the smallest shake of her head. Nona felt the tension leave her and unclenched her teeth. Tallow knew that Darla could hand out quite a beating.

  “A different novice, perhaps?” The abbess turned back with a smile. “Nona has had a difficult week. Perhaps Novice Arabella?”

  Sherzal echoed the abbess’s smile. “I would like to see this Nona of yours against my girl.”

  Beside the emperor’s sister High Priest Nevis lifted a hand. “The Shield still has to guard the Argatha, bad week or not. This should be good training for that duty.” He waved proceedings on.

  Abbess Glass started to rise from her seat then fell back, returning the hard line of her mouth to the smile she had momentarily misplaced. “Of course.”

  “Nona.” Sister Tallow beckoned her forward. “Show our guest how we fight at Sweet Mercy.”

  Nona stepped forward, meeting Zole’s stare. She felt a heat rise, somewhere deep, just beneath her ribs. The girl’s eyes held a challenge—the sort she’d not sensed since she first saw Raymel Tacsis. A killer’s confidence. And something inside her burned in answer. Nona had yet to fight within Blade Hall. For two years she had learned and learned, practised until her muscles tore and her bones creaked. Sister Tallow had pitted the novices against each other constantly, and yet to Nona those were not fights. They were contests. Contests between friends, or at least classmates. Even when Darla came against her on the previous morning Nona hadn’t, in the marrow of her bones, considered it a fight.

  “Mark the corners.” Sister Tallow pointed to the practice dummies and the novices hastened to drag four of them to mark out a square, two girls struggling with each dummy—rough man-shapes of leather stuffed with horsehair, set on wooden posts that bedded in heavy and rounded bases so they would rock rather than fall.

  Nona let the others do the work and stayed beside Ara, stretching, trying to squeeze the weary ache from her muscles.

  “The princess doesn’t want to work up an honest sweat with royalty looking on?” Clera stared in Ara’s direction, grunting with effort as she and Ketti heaved a dummy to the nearest corner.

  Ara said nothing, just kept staring at the tall windows opposite, the ghost of some rhyme on her lips.

 
Within a minute the novices stood once more in their lines before Mistress Blade and the four dummies stood at the corners of a square ten yards on a side. At Sister Tallow’s nod Nona stepped into the combat area. She rolled her head to one side then the other, stretching her neck, then ran her hands up through the close-cropped thickness of her hair.

  Zole entered the square from the other side. She stood a head taller than Nona. “I will make you bleed,” she said, her accent clipped. “Regardless of how swiftly you submit.”

  Nona turned side on, one leg forward, crouching in the blade-fist stance, hands raised. “I’m ready.”

  “Fight.” Sister Tallow stepped back.

  Zole came forward, unhurried but without hesitation. Nona stood her ground and retreated into the space between moments, freezing the dust motes in place within the shafting sunlight. It took an age for Zole to enter arm’s reach, and as she did she snapped a punch at Nona’s throat. The girl’s fist came so fast that only instinct saved Nona, her arm deflecting the punch into her collarbone. The force of the blow threatened to snap the bone and sent Nona reeling backwards.

  Balance lost, Nona let herself fall, narrowly evading a second punch. She kicked as she dropped, aiming for Zole’s jaw. The tribe-girl stopped Nona’s rising foot on her triceps and came on, lifting into a flying kick aimed at Nona’s chest. Nona lacked the balance and time to block. Accepting the impact on her bruised ribs she drove her forearm in hard, just below the girl’s knee, using her other arm to break her fall. She hit the ground with a thump, the impact sending up a lazy spray of sand.

  Zole continued her advance at exactly the same pace she had maintained from the start, stamping at Nona’s hands and head as she rolled away. Nona rolled, contorting to avoid Zole’s feet. One heel, aimed at her head, came down on her shoulder, the shock of the blow pulsing into the bone, rippling away through the muscle. Nona hooked an elbow behind the foot and let her rotation drag it along. Rather than fight the motion Zole accelerated into it, then out of it, lifting into a backflip. As Nona’s arms came beneath her torso she shoved with all her strength, providing enough momentum to spin back to a standing position in an awkward swirl just as Zole’s flip came full cycle. The girl landed on the balls of her feet, crouched and ready.

  Most of the audience would have seen a quick flurry of blows, Nona hitting the ground, Zole unbalanced, and both girls gaining their feet with acrobatics—all over in a moment. Nona and Zole however had both learned a considerable amount in that thin slice of time. They stood for a heartbeat, each watching the other.

  Nona attacked, seeking the initiative, a red anger welling up through her, hot enough to burn away both weariness and pain. She came forward, arms raised in defence, in short, high steps that kept a leg ready to block or kick. Zole let her come close, let her punch, punch, and punch again, deflecting each strike with forms Clera had shown in the blade-fist kata. Zole’s counter-punch came lightning-fast but Nona caught it in her hand, moving her other hand in to help stress the girl’s wrist. Somehow, in moves unknown to Nona, the girl was climbing her, using the trapped fist as an anchor and setting her feet to Nona’s knee and hip. The leverage exploited gravity to launch Nona skyward. She had to release Zole’s hand to deflect kicks coming up as the girl fell towards the sand.

  This time when Nona landed it was all she could do to pull her limbs in to brace for the impact. She rolled to the side to see Zole already coming towards her with the same unhurried pace. Nona reached to slow the world’s progress but her grip on time’s current was failing, her exhaustion ran bone-deep, and every part of her hurt. Anger flared again. Nona pushed herself up, rising as Zole arrived. She flung herself forward, accepting an agonizing punch to the gut and slipping Zole’s blow towards her head, the girl’s knuckles sliding across her lips. The move brought them together, Nona’s hand on Zole’s chest, her fingers tented above the small swell of her breast.

  For some fragment of a second they held like that, both looking down at Nona’s hand—Nona snarling with the effort it took to hold back the invisible blades that had opened Raymel Tacsis’s throat. She could slice through flesh and ribs, cut out the bitch’s heart and hold it dripping above her. She could stand panting above the ruin of her foe and howl her victory. The pain in her gut, the blood in her mouth, the rage pulsing through every vein—all these things demanded it.

  “What?” Zole’s surprise turned to contempt, the moment’s hesitation gone. She drove her forehead into Nona’s face and threw her to the ground.

  Nona lay where she fell. Zole’s kicks and stamps rained around her. She blocked the worst of them, but even the ones that got through had more violence behind them than Darla’s. It was a combination of power and accuracy that couldn’t help but break things.

  “No!”

  The voice wasn’t Nona’s or Zole’s. It wasn’t Sister Tallow’s. It hardly sounded human. It made the stone floor buzz and the sand dance in a golden haze shot through with strange patterns. It made the air brittle. It made Zole stop attacking and Nona stop defending.

  Nona let her head flop to the side. One eye wouldn’t open but through the slit of the other she saw that a space had cleared around Ara. Something was wrong with her. She looked the same but different, as if she were fashioned from something not of the world, a piece of stained glass cut and coloured to resemble Arabella Jotsis but lit from within, bleeding light in hues that the Ancestor had never intended men to see.

  Ara stood staring at Nona on the sand and Zole above her. A trickle of blood ran from her nose, reaching her lip. She shuddered, or the world did, showing her in three poses, each out of line with the others. She stepped forward, or rather one Ara stepped forward, another stayed, a third caught between them, each overlapping, one vibrating through the next.

  The Aras, or images of Ara, came together with a snap like the sky breaking and Ara stood there, singular, facing them, eyes blazing as if her head were full of light. She took two more paces towards Zole then with a snarl veered towards the closest practice dummy. Her punch happened too fast to see but it put her fist through the leather and deep into the padding. She ripped it out sideways, shredding the thick leather polished by ten thousand blows, and scattering the horsehair in clumps. Exposed in the gaping wound left behind, the wooden centre-post lay splintered where Ara’s fist had found it.

  Ara stared at Zole, eyes still burning. “Let Nona go.” Her voice shuddering with harmonics.

  “Or?” To her credit Zole kept any fear from the word—or perhaps she just lacked the imagination for it.

  Ara reached into the fight dummy and grasped the heavy post. The noise started as a moan, building rapidly, bursting past Ara’s teeth, becoming a yell, and in one moment the dummy became pieces, fragments of leather expanding outward, a cloud of horsehair shaken from its clumps, and in the middle . . . splinters . . . thousands of splinters.

  A noise like the end of the world shoved Nona, rolling her over and over. She closed her eyes, pulling her limbs in tight, and all around sand and debris began to rain down about her.

  • • •

  “NONA?”

  A cold wet something returned Nona to the hall and the sharp angles of her pain. She had been sinking into the endless comfort of deep dark cushions and the transition was not a welcome one.

  “What?” She tried to push the wetness away.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Nona opened them and found herself staring up at Clera, dripping rag in hand. Hessa stood at Clera’s shoulder, frowning her concern.

  “Are you all right? Anything broken?”

  Nona groaned a wordless reply and moved a hand to her ribs.

  “Ara’s in so much trouble!” Clera sounded awed. Her half-grin echoed conflicting emotions.

  “W-what happened?”

  “Didn’t you see? She went into the serenity trance and walked the Path!” Clera leaned over to brush b
its of the practice dummy from Nona’s hair. Behind her a wall of backs—novices facing the stands at the end of the hall. “Ara must have taken three steps at least, maybe more! Did you see what she did?”

  Nona struggled to rise, clutching her side. Clera held her down for a moment then decided to help. Ducking under Nona’s arm she levered her into a standing position. Hessa tried to help but mostly got in the way.

  “Your head?” Nona saw that the left side of Hessa’s face lay grazed and bleeding.

  “I felt her beating you.” Hessa shrugged, acknowledging the link between them. “And I fell over.”

  • • •

  TOGETHER THEY EDGED to the end of the line of Grey Class novices. Nona spotted Zole two places down, her tunic torn, small splinter wounds peppering her face.

  Ara stood before the seating stand, Sister Tallow beside her, hand on her shoulder. Sister Wheel had arrived from somewhere and stood at the base of the steps to the seating. The high priest, flanked by Sherzal and Abbess Glass, had come to the front and was staring down at the novice in judgement.

  Sherzal wore a broad smile as she leaned out over the rail. “An impressive display, young Jotsis,” she called down. “It appears to have broken all manner of convent rules, though.”

  Ara stared up at the emperor’s sister, making no reply.

  The high priest made a curt gesture. “Novice Arabella, you have used the Path without sanction, without full training, and endangered one of my personal guests. It is my judgement that you be given twenty strokes of the cane, sentence to be carried out immediately.” The high priest nodded to Sister Tallow. “Mistress Blade to deliver punishment.”

  Sister Tallow steered Ara back into the hall, pushing her ahead, and Ara made no protest, still dazed perhaps.

  “Maybe . . .” Sherzal drew the word out, her voice somehow stopping everyone, despite appearing conversational. “Maybe, as young Arabella is rumoured to be the Argatha, it would be fitting for her Shield to take the beating for her? After all, it was her Shield’s failure that prompted the poor girl’s indiscretion.”