Steadfast

by Michelle Hauck

  Santabe sat upright. Her legs stuck out straight before her. Her limbs were useless and kept her tied to one spot. For some unknown reason, the woman had removed the splints the healer had placed on her legs. Teresa supposed it didn’t matter. The bones had been so badly crushed that they’d fractured into pieces. The healer said the bones would never knit together and the legs should be amputated otherwise the Northerner would die. Santabe had gone berserk at the idea, and Ramiro had decided to let her have her way as he had enough on his hands at the time. Teresa had felt guilt over that, but let it be.

  Santabe had to be in considerable pain, but all Teresa felt was vindication. Their misfortunes were tied to this woman. That Santabe suffered as well was a small compensation.

  “I don’t think—” Teresa started to say in warning, but Ramiro was already up and crossing the room, holding the red Diviner aloft.

  “This? You’ll tell us what we want to know if I bring this closer? Like this? So speak. Where will your people keep the red Diviners?” There was a darkness in Ramiro’s eye that Teresa didn’t like.

  “As you guessed: My people carry them with them. But you are right about what we are planning. The weak must die and leave this life so the strong can live. The unbelievers will perish. You cannot stop it. Give me the einhorn and I’ll answer your questions.”

  “The what?”

  “The Diviner.”

  Ramiro stood over the woman, holding the Diviner above his head. “Someone sounds desperate. Answer my questions and I’ll think about placing this closer to you.”

  An uneasiness stirred along Teresa’s spine. “Don’t,” she began to say.

  In a flash, Santabe seized one of the abandoned splints. Instead of using it as a weapon to bludgeon Ramiro, she employed it as a crutch, springing to her feet in a scream as she put weight upon her broken limbs. She didn’t attack Ramiro, but reached for the Diviner with single-minded intent. Her hand closed around the staff.

  Ramiro’s scream joined Santabe’s. His face twisted in an expression of agony. The air smelt suddenly of burning, as if lightning had struck nearby. They fell, strangely stiff like fireplace pokers, the Diviner clasped between them. Both their hands locked upon an end. The frightening blood-red color of the Diviner drained away between one blink and the next, leaving the Diviner bone white.

  Before Teresa could react, Santabe scrambled to her feet. The Northerner lurched for the exit, knees buckling and swaying like one drunken—but legs holding her upright and moving with surprising speed. Her bones quite obviously now unbroken. Ramiro lay unmoving, his eyes closed as one dead.

  Teresa tore herself from her stupor, heading to intercept Santabe, only for the woman to throw her shoulder into her and knock Teresa onto her butt. Stone bruised her hand as she landed. Pain burst through her broken arm.

  She had no time to feel the pain, though, heaving her bulk up in pursuit. Santabe had used the opportunity to stumble through another room to reach the outer chamber where daylight shone. The Northerner appeared to be gaining speed, though retching as she ran. She dodged around Sancha and through the outer exit into the abandoned cemetery above.

  Teresa pursued, but was forced to jerk to a halt as Sancha backed into her path. The mare threw her a glance across her back, blocking the path to the doorway and Santabe. Teresa lost precious time jostling around the horse.

  By the time she reached the doorway and the late-afternoon sun, Santabe had gone. The tiny cemetery lay empty. The gate to the surrounding city open. Headstones leaned at angles, some cracked or broken—a testament to their neglect. No one had occasion to visit the graveyard walled away and forgotten inside Aveston. Santabe could be hiding behind any of the hundreds of gravestones or even have gone into the city. How would Teresa find her? Where should she even start?

  “Oh saints.”

  Ramiro.

  She didn’t know if he were dead or alive. Teresa’s hesitancy fled. She turned and found Sancha had left the sunlight of the outer room and navigated down the few steep steps to the next, going to her master. Teresa hurried after the mare, but had to wait as Sancha squeezed through the next doorway.

  Ramiro was pushing himself up from the floor with the palms of his hands, shaking his head as one dazed. Her heart slowed in its galloping at seeing him alive.

  “Mierda,” he said. “That hurt. What happened?” His short hair stood up from his scalp.

  “She used the red one to heal.” Teresa kicked the now white Diviner to a corner. “Magic.” She reached out to touch Ramiro and static electricity jumped to her hand and left her arm stinging with its intensity. Of course any magic done by the Northerners would involve more pain. They thrived on causing suffering, sweet as mother’s milk to them. “She must have been waiting for her chance. Saving her strength. That would explain why she was so quiet. Now she’s gone. Are you all right?”

  “It’s fading.” Ramiro got his feet under him and lurched upright, taking a few stumbling steps to lean on Sancha. The mare gave a whicker and stamped impatiently. Ramiro rubbed at his head, eyes not quite focused. “Huh. Doesn’t seem to be any lasting harm. She got away? Saints save us. Then we’ll need to move.”

  “We could have helped Father Telo this whole time,” Teresa said, hardly hearing. “We had the means under our noses. I’m so stupid.”

  “My fault. I got too confident.” Ramiro pulled away from Sancha with a final pat, to stand on his own. “I should have known better.”

  “I couldn’t stop her,” Teresa said. She’d let Santabe get away. A stupid scholar with no physical abilities. “You couldn’t have known. I let her knock me on my butt so she could run past me. It’s my fault.”

  Ramiro ran a hand over his beard. “Neither of us should go down that path. We did our best. Start packing up. We’ve got to get out of here before she brings back trouble. Maybe this was the kick in the pants we needed.”

  “You’re right. If only the people of Aveston would find her and take care of her for us.” A Northerner alone in the streets, unsteady on her feet. The people wouldn’t hesitate to take some of their own back. Teresa scolded herself. That was wishful thinking. As if they’d get that lucky. She went to Father Telo and checked the man’s cheek for fever. He was cool for the moment. She turned and began shoving items into a saddlebag, determination growing with each second. They’d take Father Telo to some priests. He’d be tended there until they could go back for him, and without their prisoner, they had more freedom. No longer needing to guard her.

  She touched Father Telo’s whiskered face again. “Hold on. Help is coming.”

  She turned back to Ramiro. He walked to the armor with hardly a waver in his steps and slung the breastplate over his head, settling it into place. He saw her looking and touched his sword. “It’s time to try this out.”

  “Not necessarily. We have a weapon that doesn’t shed blood,” Teresa said. His eyes fastened onto hers and she knew they were in perfect agreement. “We have a better way to fight. Together. Fight fire with fire, right?”

  She left Telo and went to the corner, pushing back against the twist in her gut and a sudden coldness in her feet, and picked up the white Diviner. More than looking like an old bone, it felt like one in her palm—lifeless and chilly. If they hadn’t the tray to block the power of the Diviners anymore, then she’d take one for herself.

  Ramiro rolled their other Diviner to himself with his foot. “Fire with fire. And that gives me an idea.” He took down one of their lanterns, brimming with oil she’d just refilled. “Now we’re ready.”

  Chapter 31

  Claire endured hours of conversation about aching backs, grinding hip bones, and sore shoulders with hardly a murmur. She let her mind dwell on other things when the Elders discussed herbal remedies, poultices, and steam baths. She nodded along in a bored fashion, concentrating on staying atop Valentía—bareback riding was harder than using a saddle, especially for people of lighter weight—as the Elders enumerated varicose veins, boils, and
weight gain. But she drew the line at listening to stories of irregular bladders.

  Suero had wisely maneuvered his horse back almost out of sight behind them at the first mention of swollen joints and tender breasts—good riddance to him. However, she had no such option. The Elders kept too close an eye upon her, believing she’d trip over her own feet if allowed on her own. That left her one option:

  “Which desert cities have you visited?” Claire’s voice came out rather breathless in her hurry to turn the subject. “A little knowledge of the geography could come in handy.” When they stared at her in surprise, she added, “I’ve seen the area around Colina Hermosa. But as it’s burned to the ground, that’s hardly useful now. Have any of you been to Aveston? Crueses?”

  “Cities? Who said anything about visiting cities?” Muriel asked.

  “Why, my grandmother did. My mother told me stories of how she went to a city. That’s where my mother was conceived. I thought all of you would have. Being Elders and all.”

  Heads turned to look at Jorga. She flushed, turning red and wobbling on her horse. “Those stories might have been embellishments. I never said Rosemund resulted from a city man. I said I’d been to a city . . . once. On a dare.”

  Claire blinked at her feeling like an owl. “What? That’s not what I heard.”

  “It was a dare,” Jorga continued. “I was young and foolish. And this person was an annoying, stick-up-her-butt, bossy know-it-all.”

  This time heads swiveled toward Eulalie, who also turned red. “Who’s the fool who actually went to a city, huh? That was your choice.” The others chortled.

  Muriel saw the blank look on Claire’s face and took pity. “It’s too dangerous to visit a city. Too many people. Much too hostile. Too ignorant about us. We go to the villages when we need to have daughters. We trade with them. They are much more tolerant of us. Most of them know who we are despite our disguises and pretend they don’t. We have an unofficial welcome there as long as we bring something to trade and some of us continue visiting the fathers of our children until they pass on. It can get lonely living alone.”

  Claire nodded. She’d always known her father came from a village—just not which one. She’d witnessed her mother go off to trade at several different ones. Was her mother secretly visiting with her father? Giving this unknown man updates on Claire’s growth and development? Claire hadn’t thought her mother lonely. Nor had she ever really pined over her unknown father.

  She saw only her mother and that was just the way things were for the Women of the Song. It was nothing to feel disgruntled about. But now she wondered. With her mother gone, there was no one to tell her the truth about her father’s identity. No one female, anyway.

  Claire shivered and made a face. What if her father was a cringing little suck-up like Suero? In that case, she’d rather not know the truth.

  “Disguises?” Claire asked instead. Of course, most Women of the Song didn’t look anything like the desert people, with their light hair and fair eyes, though Muriel might fit in at a village with her dark skin. “I thought you’d use illusion.”

  “As if someone could Sing for days—months. And during . . . well you know”—Eulalie’s face puckered and she dropped her voice to a whisper—“sex.”

  “Walnut oil dyes the hair and skin,” Violet said too quickly. “Lasts for quite a long time.”

  “Exactly how long did you stay in the city, Jorga?” Rachael asked overtop the others.

  “Yes, tell us,” one of the others prompted.

  “Hardly long enough to count,” Eulalie taunted.

  “Five minutes,” Jorga said. “You know very well that was the number mentioned in the bet. I Sang an illusion as if my life depended on it. Walked two streets in and turned around and hustled out like the boogeyman was on my tail. Almost soiled myself. I think I was all of fifteen. I won that bet, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Let that be a lesson to you not to try it.” She fixed Claire with a steely stare.

  “You barely won it,” Eulalie allowed.

  Claire sat a little taller on Valentía. She was the only one here who had spent any time among the cities—even if that city had been a smoking heap of ashes at the time, it still counted. She had sat with the desert people for tea and been part of their gossip in sewing tents. She’d been noticed by the city leaders: Ramiro’s parents. Slept near their tent. The Elders, for all their experience, couldn’t outmatch the things Claire had done at just seventeen.

  “So none of you has really been to a city? Or spoken to a desert person from a city?”

  “My shoulder is sure throbbing,” Rachael said. “Got any more of that ointment, Eulalie?”

  Claire huffed. They wanted to dodge her questions; two could play games. “None of you’ve had sex with a city man?”

  Squawks like a bunch of chickens greeted her question. “We could talk about sex,” Claire said again just to see them blanch. Her mother had been quite open about the subject—happy to discuss anything that didn’t have to do with magic—making sure Claire wasn’t afraid to talk about it in turn. She might not be able to think about such intimacy when Ramiro was around without wanting to die of embarrassment, but she wasn’t hindered from speaking about it when with old women. Though that wasn’t really the topic she wanted to pursue at the moment. “Or you could answer my questions.”

  “We don’t know anything about city people,” Eulalie snapped. “There, happy? Chit of a girl. Thinking she knows everything,” she hissed under her breath but loudly enough to be heard.

  Claire ignored her. “And who has encountered the Northerners and Da—their god—the most often?”

  “You,” Rachael said, sourly. “What are you getting at?”

  “That I should be the one in charge—as you promised before. Remember. The one making the decisions, with your help,” she added. She glanced at the scenery, seeing how often barrel, prickly pear, and pincushion cacti replaced bushes with leaves, how most of the trees had vanished. The temperature had risen and the water in the air dissipated, making it easier to breathe, though drying the throat, nose, and eyes uncomfortably. They neared their destination. “I think you’re forgetting who is running this mission.”

  They gave her dead-eyed stares, even Jorga, but she’d gotten her point across. They wouldn’t forget again in a hurry. Good, as they’d made quick progress with the horses. They might even arrive tomorrow. Claire turned her mind from the unexpected way providence, or the Great Goddess, had put the horses in their path. That was a luck to be accepted and not questioned.

  “And what do you intend to do at the cities?”

  Suero’s oily voice made Claire jump. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one. He’d held on to his bits of armor to keep them from clanking and giving him away. A rusting sword was thrust through his rope belt, bumping against his horse’s flank. His gelding danced under him, apparently just as put off by the man as they were. When had the village man rejoined them? Had he heard her mention sex? Claire’s skin crawled.

  “What I must,” Claire said with a firm voice. “What I must.”

  The brave words felt like the right thing to say to Suero, but each time she killed, the doubts swept back upon her. One moment it felt right to let her anger carry her along to avenge Bromisto and Errol. The next she worried and fretted about the means she chose making her as evil as her enemies. She might not want to think about her actions, but if she didn’t contemplate the change in herself, soon there would be no more opportunities.

  She’d demolished every Northern soldier encountered, but they weren’t responsible for the boys’ deaths. Or only indirectly. The Northerners had done many terrible acts, but not that one. They might be here against their wishes, coerced, or only following orders. Perhaps they had children and families back in their country and only left their homes from a sense of duty.

  She was the one who’d Sung and brought Dal to this world. Her revenge should rightly be directed at herself.

  Or was that righ
t?

  The rhythmic motions of Valentía couldn’t soothe away the unrest building inside.

  The Northerners had come here in the first place with aggressive intentions. They were the killers, the burners of cities. The slayers of children and the innocent. Not content to restrict their fight among other soldiers, they attacked anyone not Northern. Taking their need for blood to the populace at large. She could stop them.

  Destroyer.

  Errol’s last prediction. Sometimes the word drove her onward, gave her strength and courage; and sometimes it made her want to hide, cringe away full of guilt.

  She tried telling herself as she had Suero and the Elders that she did what had to be done. The truth, however, lay somewhere in between. Not black-and-white, but gray.

  Why couldn’t her fate be somewhere in the middle? Not kill or be killed. Not murderer or victim, but savior.

  Valentía nickered as if the stallion could read her restless and conflicted thoughts. He maneuvered around the spear-sharp thorns of a barrel cactus. Ramiro had shown her how butcher birds impaled their prey upon the spikes—squirrels, packrats, even other birds—leaving the carcass hanging until the butcher bird or its offspring were hungry. Dozens of little dead bodies left hanging in the sun. A tiny open cemetery of animals. A macabre sight that had turned her stomach.

  She was like those spines. Deadly.

  Like that butcher bird. Piercing her prey, not on spines, but on the magic of her Song.

  She revolted from such imagery. Dal was to blame. Not her. Sadly, her magic could do nothing against him, so she’d reveled in taking her rage out on his emissaries.

  She captured her braid between tightly laced hands, pressing them against her mouth. Pulling on her hair. Sickened.

  Did it have to be that way?

  They would reach a city soon. Encounter many more Northerners at any instant. Could she handle those meetings differently?