by Kaleb Schad
Anaz had seen the town last summer, during Market Days and the throngs of hustling people. It and the river had looked friendlier in the daylight.
The guard’s station at the edge of the village was empty as Anaz walked past it. Crickets screeched on either side of the road and shadows lunged long across it. He found himself hiding in them, stepping quickly from one to the next, and had to force himself to stay in the open.
As he walked, he studied the shops’ painted signs. Henley’s Meats. Aron and Son Smithy. Seamstress. He could hear music coming from the seamstress’s home above her shop, a stringed instrument of some kind, a shaky old woman’s voice. He wanted to like the sound, but couldn’t bury the dread that came with it.
It started to rain, a tiny percussion keeping rhythm with the seamstress’s song.
In the town square, a wooden structure cut lean lines against the blue moonlight, something long dangling from it. Even as experienced with death as he was, it took him a long time to recognize the swinging form. A man or woman—he couldn’t tell from its shape—swung from a noose.
He squinted to see its face. His heart stopped.
It was impossible.
He’d buried her in Anathest.
But there she was, Reyn’s face grinning down on him. Her neck unnaturally long. Icy eyes focused on his. The sounds of the Pit roared in his ears and the sandfury’s debris tore at him.
He squeezed his eyes closed. Breathe. Breathe.
When he opened them, it was a man. Anaz’s age, with a beard and a sign around his neck that read “goat thief.”
He tried to slow the stampede in his chest. Behind him, on the other side of this town square, stood a gate with two heavy wooden doors. A sign read The Sunflower Stop Inn. Anaz could hear people hooting from inside. He walked toward it.
5
Isabell Blackhand, daughter to the Baron of Knowles and Fisher Pass, went high with her sword, then, when she knew it would be parried, twisted it low. That would also likely have been parried, so she let the swing take her in a full circle, skimming her heel out inches above the floor in a sweeping kick. It felt perfect. Abek-cio Seven, the most complicated and deadly sword form her master had taught her—maybe even known. Without an actual opponent, she would never know, but she had practiced the sword forms her father’s man-at-arms had taught her so many times her muscles moved with a precision and memory all their own.
Once she’d finished the form six more times, she flipped the sword into the air and caught it with her left hand. Thirty times on that side. Always work your weakness twice as hard as your strength, her master-at-arms had drilled into her. A one-handed soldier should never be half as deadly as a two-handed one.
A delicate tapping came from her chamber door.
“Come,” she called.
Her handmaiden, Lelana, poked her head into the chambers. “My Lady,” she said, “the Lord awaits.” Then, taking in Isabell in all her glistening sweat, Lelana rolled her eyes and sighed and pushed the door fully open. She snatched up a cream linen cloth piled in the corner.
“My Lady,” Lelana said, “he’ll be sour.”
When she reached to wipe at Isabell’s face, her sleeve slid up, revealing the stag tattoo of Isabell’s house. Her father’s mark. It was an archaic tradition of marking one’s property, servants included, not unheard of in Humay, still recognized as law by the king, but long since abandoned by most. Isabell had never liked it, but knew the danger of challenging her father on it. Besides, she had other things to challenge him on.
“When isn’t he?” Isabell took the towel from Lelana, then pulled down her sleeve to cover the tattoo.
“Adding vinegar to lemon doesn’t make the lemon taste any better, but a little honey might.” Lelana smiled and tugged her sleeve back up to reveal the tattoo again. Even now, years later, Isabell knew Lelana was still proud of what her post had meant for her family.
“My father isn’t lemon. He’s…I don’t know…rotted onion. Anyway, when I tell him I’m going to the Airim’s Lances, he’ll have more to worry about than my odor. ” Isabell tossed the towel back in the corner.
“You’re asking him tonight?” Lelana’s face had drawn tight.
“Telling him, Lela.”
“Isa, what if…” Lelana said, dropping into their familiar nicknames. She had joined the Blackhand household only four years ago, taking the mark when she’d turned thirteen, but in that time, Isabell and her had lashed to each other like sisters.
“I can’t put it off any longer,” Isabell said.
Lelana searched Isabell’s eyes. “Just once, you could try a little honey,” she said.
When Isabell and Lelana entered the hall, she saw it was empty tonight except for her father. That was rare. Isabell took it as a hopeful sign. They could speak in private. He wouldn’t have to protect his pride as much.
A gnome minstrel sitting on a stool near the hearth played a flute. A tune easy to ignore, but loud enough to cover the sounds of chewing. Her father hated listening to people chew. Enormous scarlet and gold tapestries with a red stag’s head circled the hall.
Their keep at Fisher Pass was barely half the size of the one they had at Knowles, but Isabell always liked it. Maybe because they rarely spent time here or maybe because whenever they were here her brother and most of their family’s entourage remained behind at Knowles. It was nice to be away from all the noise and nonsense of the peerage once in a while. Her father didn’t think so, she knew, but that was the least of their differences.
“For the love of Airim,” he said as she crossed the hall. “If I wanted to fight the stink of sweat while eating, I’d take my meal with the pigs.”
“Who’s to say they’d want to fight the stink of your perfumes?” She regretted saying it as soon as it was out. Not a good way to start the conversation.
Adon, a young human servant with pale skin and yellow eyebrows, gasped as he pushed in Isabell’s chair. She winked at him.
Her father stared at her as she tore off a crusty chunk of bread.
“Sir Nattic or the others aren’t joining us tonight?” Isabell asked.
“I thought we should be alone. I have something to talk about.”
Isabell scanned her father’s face, but it was as unknowable as it had ever been. “As do I,” she said.
“I will go first,” he said. “I’m expecting a messenger.”
“A messenger,” Isabell said.
“I’ve been told everything is in place.”
Something cold slid around Isabell’s belly.
“Not this again,” she said.
“It’s finally happening.”
“Marriage.”
“By year’s end,” the baron said, “you will have given up the Blackhand name and in so doing, will have returned the Blackhand name to its rightful place.”
“Father, we’ve talked about this.”
“You’ve talked about it. I’m not in the habit of listening to whiny girls who put their own wants above the needs of the family.”
“I’m not old enough.” She was grasping. She’d have to do better, but it was the first thing she could think of.
“Not old enough? Seventeen summers and not betrothed? Even now I have to promise there isn’t some hidden reason you haven’t been wedded.”
Isabell stared at the bread in her hand, could feel the sludge in her mouth, gluey on her tongue. For four years her father had been trying to match her, but, through a combination of his iron insistence at securing the highest marriage he could and her mother as ally in deferring him, she had, to date, avoided all betrothals. Then, her mother died of the Rot.
Adon reached across Isabell and poured a deep purple wine into her cup. She watched ridged bones work under the stag tattoo on the back of his hand.
“Who is it this time?” Keep talking long enough to find a way through. Just like a fight. Parry and pivot. Find an opening.
“Earl Uther Olisal.”
“My cousin!”
/>
“Third cousin, twice removed. You’re barely more related to him than to the gnome.” He gestured at the minstrel.
“Labagareth,” Isabell said.
“What?”
“The gnome. He has a name.”
“As do you. And a duty to it.”
“Father, he’s older than most of the trees in Fisher Pass.” She could feel laughter gurgling up and she wasn’t sure she could contain it, didn’t know what it would turn to.
“He’s seventy summers.”
“I’m seventeen!”
“No small part of his eagerness.”
“You’ve gone mad.”
Her father looked at her over his mug, then slowly lowered it. Wine stained his white mustache, a ring of blood on his lips. Her father was not a small man. Even in his fifty-second summer, he bore the width of two average men. Long, black hair with streaks of steel was pulled back into a tail. But it was his eyes that undid most people. The iron in swords couldn’t cut nearly as deep as the iron in those eyes.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t.”
“Well, anyway, I can’t get married.”
“Don’t test my patience, Isabell.”
“I’m already committed.”
“Committed.”
“To Airim and the king,” Isabell said. She shouldn’t have mentioned the king, but she couldn’t hold herself back. Sometimes the blade needed a little twist in the wound. “I’m going to test for the Airim’s Lances.”
He watched her. The unnatural twist of his lips into a smile.
She’d never seen him laugh before, was unnerved at how close he came to doing it now. “Don’t,” she said.
“Now who’s gone mad?”
She knew he’d react this way, but it still frustrated her. Why couldn’t he just accept that she wasn’t made for marriage and politics? He’d done his work too well, having her trained like he did. Politics in Humay, as a woman, boiled down to a game of charades and lies. For some, that was exciting and dangerous all on its own, but for her, it was like chewing on slugs—slimy and disgusting.
“I’ve thought a lot about it,” she said. “It’s…I’m being called to it, Father.” Gods I sound like a fool.
“Called to it.” His voice took on an edge. “You’re just a woman. No. Just a girl. What could the Lances possibly want with you?”
“Just a girl?”
“They need men who can swing a sword and carry their fellows from the lines, not some frail lady who thinks she can play at swords.”
“Apparently you’ve never heard of Ella Stonehome.”
“Don’t give me that.”
Isabell thought she actually saw him roll his eyes at her.
“They say she destroyed an entire pack of Red Tails by herself,” she said. “Burned them dead. Something like seventeen.”
“Tell me she killed seventeen Fletchers and I’ll listen.”
“They say at Logger’s Lane she went three days without sleeping or resting, just killing the Wretched nonstop, that she is fueled by Airim’s hatred for the undead. And, get this, Father,” Isabell leaned forward, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “She’s a girl.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” her father growled.
“I could do good for Humay. I can feel it.”
“Olisal of Nove,” her father said, his voice stepping upwards as he spoke. “The earl. The second most powerful man in Humay, behind only the pissant king.”
“And old enough to be my grandfather!” She knew she was starting to yell, but gods, how could she not? He was being so unfair! And wasn’t this how it always went? Wasn’t this why he almost never took dinner with her alone?
“Nove,” her father growled, “the port city my father and my father’s father and his father before that ruled. Taken from us. And now my daughter has a chance to bring it back. And you want to go fight Wretched?”
“You’re the one who had me trained,” Isabell laughed.
“I trained you to kill when and whom I tell you to kill!” he screamed. “I can find a thousand fucking men to fight the undead.”
His roaring echoed off the stones. He stood from his chair, both fists planted on the table. Isabell lowered her eyes, partly to stop from agitating him further, but mostly to keep him from seeing her tears. Her father despised tears.
“I’m not some monchong piece to be moved on a board,” she whispered.
“That is exactly what you are! And stop fucking crying!”
His anger was like a winged drakinner. Once unleashed, it couldn’t be contained again until it had killed. She had known this—cursed herself for once again rousing it.
He flung his wine mug at her. Her hand moved of its own accord, whipping up from her plate and batting it midair. It spiraled over her shoulder.
Into Adon.
The servant shouted and there was a crashing sound above Isabell, then a small steel kettle smashing onto the table in front of her, soup streaming down Isabell’s scalp.
It took a full two seconds for the burn to reach from her skin to her mind, then another second before she could find the breath to scream.
Even through the pain, she could hear Lelana shout something about water, could hear her running, but Adon was already scooping up the pitcher. In a flowing motion, he poured the blessed water over Isabell. Coolness cascaded down her neck and back.
The minstrel stopped playing.
Isabell closed her eyes and forced her breathing to slow. She gritted her teeth into a smile. Pain, her master-at-arms would say, is the fire that hardens your steel.
“My Lady,” Adon stammered. He dropped to both knees and pressed his forehead to the floor. “Please forgive me.”
“It’s fine,” Isabell said.
“Is it?” Her father pushed his chair back. The wooden legs screeched across the stones.
“Father—”
“Did you burn my daughter?” her father whispered.
“My Lord.” Adon was crying, his voice quavering. “It was an accident. I beg your forgiveness.”
“Did you scar her face?” His voice terrifyingly gentle.
Lelana stepped away from Isabell. Dropped her gaze.
“Father,” Isabell said again. She could taste her heart. Her mind scrambled for anything, anything to say, to slow him. “I’m fine. It was my fault.”
The Baron stood and not for the first time, Isabell realized why so many of her household, of her own brothers, feared him. He had never been a small man, but it seemed as he aged, he only became stronger. He stood over Adon.
“Did you not hear us speaking of her betrothal, boy?” he said, his voice dusty. “Do you not realize what you have risked with your recklessness?”
Isabell started to stand, but her father’s eyes made her pause, her hands on the chair’s arms.
The baron squatted and lifted Adon’s face by the chin. “To think, when I am so close, that it could be so nearly undone by one of my own marked men.”
And then he punched him.
A fist made full with fury and ferocity crashed into Adon’s mouth. Blood instant and bountiful. Adon cried out. Or was that Isabell?
Another punch, this one to the boy’s nose. Another, to his left cheek. Then the baron stood and began kicking. Once. Twice. Isabell lost count when she had to turn her head and close her eyes. She couldn’t stop the sounds, though. The deceptively soft slaps of her father’s boots colliding with the boy’s frail frame, like those of scouring a rug. A violent cleansing.
She didn’t think it would ever stop and then it did. She could hear her father panting. She peeked at Adon. At first she thought he was dead, but then he groaned and spit a frothy, pink glob of blood.
Her father took her napkin and wiped at his hands. Blood stained the white cloth.
He tossed the cloth onto her plate. “You needed a bath anyway,” he said.
6
“I think my horse took a piss over at chamber three tonight. You taste
any of that on the duck?” Zander Fastow slapped the bar and laughed like a donkey. Aaron Merthis, sitting next to him, chuckled while Malic stood in the kitchen’s doorway wiping out a serving bowl, grinning.
Daveon took a swig of ale to keep from screaming at Zander. The night couldn’t crawl any slower. Add on the fact that it was Market eve, guests crammed in next to each other, the constant press of their noise, and Daveon was certain the entire town had turned out to witness his humiliation. The Therentell name had been losing some life for a while now, ever since Daveon started running things and his horses dropped by the dozen, but he was pretty certain tonight it would flat out die.
“Probably better than the pig shit you bake and call bread,” Sunell said.
Daveon almost spit out his ale. Sunell was the Lady Isabell’s page girl, barely twelve summers old, a cute little thing with sandy hair and wicked sharp eyes. And apparently she could cuss better than most soldiers. She’d come to the Stop like everyone else that night, to celebrate the end of summer and Market Days.
“Sunell,” Daveon said.
“A girl like you,” Fastow said, “I may need to clean that mouth out. I can think of a thing or two to shove in there to shut you up.”
“Enough,” Daveon said. He slammed his mug onto the bar and scooped up a table knife, pointing it at Fastow’s face. “It’s one thing to make fun of me, Zander. It’s another to talk to a young lady like that.”
“Better be careful, Zander. That’s Daveon Therentell,” Sunell said. “He fought at Lindisfarne with his brother.”
Daveon winced. He’d thought, all these years later, the lie would have lost its burn. If you call running fighting. If you call leaving Rayen to die fighting.
“I know it,” Fastow said. “I ain’t starting nothing with you, Therentell, just giving an honest ribbing.” Fastow’s eyes crossed as he looked at the blade’s tip. “She started it,” he muttered, then looked into his mug.
Daveon set down the knife and refilled Fastow’s ale. “Fun’s ended,” he said gently.
