Beneath Ceaseless Skies #140

by Brian McClellan

  Taniel waited, barely able to breath, and tried not to imagine the mud slowly sucking him under.

  The two left, their boots splashing in the water, and Taniel listened to other soldiers shouting in Kez. The search carried on for at least an hour, and he remained still, only years of practice standing at attention allowing him the discipline to do so.

  His side ached fiercely, and he knew he was losing blood. How much, he couldn’t be sure. The pain grew as his powder trance wore off. He shivered in the chill of the swamp water.

  The sounds of searching soldiers were not long gone when Taniel felt something move past one foot. It was a soft feeling, like satin sliding across his skin, and he immediately thought of everything that they’d told him lurked in these swamps: snakes, snappers, and swamp dragons.

  No more waiting. He had to get back to solid ground, find his rifle and kit if he could, and then work his way further into the swamp before morning. He moved slowly, pulling his leg toward him. With his whole head finally above the water, Taniel scrapped the mud from his eyes. The world was dark, his powder trance gone. His clothes were soaked and his muscles stiff, and something touched his leg again.

  Even half-blinded by mud and cloaked in darkness, Taniel could see the figure of the savage girl standing on the bank, not three feet away.

  Fear shot through him. Several moments passed, and Taniel forced himself to look her in the eye as he reached out with one hand, searching for firm ground. Then something snagged him by the leg and pulled. The scream didn’t have time to leave his mouth before he went under.

  * * *

  “Where are you leading me, girl?”

  It was early in the morning, and the swamp teemed with life. Taniel limped along ten paces back from the savage girl, scanning their surroundings. He spotted a pair of swamp dragon nostrils poking up from the water and shuddered, remembering the teeth that had seized his leg last night.

  The savage girl had already adjusted their path in order to go well around the creature.

  She’d been silent all night, watching him carefully whenever he spoke but never replying. He wondered if she understood Adran, or if she could speak at all. Had she made any sort of war cry when she’d dove into the mud and killed the young swamp dragon with two strokes of her machete?

  Taniel couldn’t remember. He’d been too busy struggling to get away.

  He was lucky the beast had only snagged his pantleg. Otherwise the gash in his side would be second concern over a missing foot.

  Taniel’s powder trance was wearing off. He’d maintained a trance all night, sniffing from his last bit of dry powder every half hour or so, but he knew that if he took any more he risked not having enough to fight Kez if they ran into any patrols.

  He still clung to the hope of finding survivors from the militia, despite not having seen any sign of them all morning. His questions about them to this girl had all gone ignored.

  He stopped to catch his breath, sitting on the bowed old roots of a cypress tree. His clothes were dirty and soaking, his rifle lost in the swamp; only his kit, wet knapsack, and a single pistol to help him survive.

  And this savage girl.

  “Wait,” Taniel said.

  The girl turned and shook her head sharply, gesturing ahead. It was the first indication that she’d understood anything he said. She pointed between herself and him then made a walking motion with her fingers.

  “I need to treat this wound,” Taniel said. “It’s going to be a problem if I don’t.” It was already a problem. He risked disease, infection, and bloodloss with every step he took; he only pushed on because he knew he had to get as far from the Kez as possible.

  The girl splashed toward him, and he pulled his shirt up to show her the wound.

  It wasn’t pretty. Mud-caked and angry red, it crossed his left side just below his arm, almost six inches long. The mud might have saved his life, preventing him from bleeding out over the last seven or eight hours, but infection was his greatest worry now.

  The girl motioned for him to follow and led him to a hardwood hummock—a rise in the land about three feet above the water and fifty paces long. She began gathering dry sticks immediately, pulling down dead tree branches and plucking them from the highest point of the hummock.

  “No fire,” Taniel said, dropping his kit. He felt his eyelids droop. He needed to rest, or take more powder. “Can’t risk them seeing the smoke.” He got to his feet, only for the girl to push him to the ground with one strong shove of her palm. “Ow.” Pit, the girl was strong.

  Twenty minutes later she had a fire going and was feeding it dry twigs. She rummaged around in his kit without asking and came away with his small cookpot.

  Taniel was too weak to raise a word of protest.

  She put a pot of water over the fire and headed off into the swamp, giving him a hand-signal to stay. He chuckled at that. “I’m not going anywhere, girl.”

  She was back sometime later, sporting a cut piece of vine about as thick as her wrist. She lay it on the ground and sliced it open lengthwise with her machete, expertly plying the white, soft pulp from the center.

  Taniel watched her work. This vine was some kind of local medicine, perhaps?

  Natives always know the land better, his father’s voice came to him. They can find fresh water in the desert, and they know which animals are poisonous. They have herbal remedies you’ve never heard of.

  Careful, though. They can also kill you while making it look like they were trying to help.

  Well, this girl had already had her chance to let him die, and he wouldn’t get out of this Kresimir-damned swamp without her.

  Taniel cleaned the wound with the boiled water, then cut away charred and torn flesh with his knife, taking a hit of powder to help with the pain. The girl packed his wound with the innards of the vine, then used the skin of it like a bandage, wrapping it around his chest and tying it on the other side.

  He sat back, watching her as she went to throw rocks at a swamp dragon creeping up their piece of dry land. A numbness spread through his side, and Taniel clutched his pistol to his chest. He needed to stay awake.

  No telling how many Kez were patrolling this swamp, or if the Kez Privileged was out here, scouring the basin for him herself.

  * * *

  Taniel woke some hours later. By the sun shining through the cypress overhead, he guessed it was past four o’clock.

  The pain in his side was gone, the numbness having spread to leave his left arm only passably useful. The narcotic the girl had packed into his wound was a strong one.

  The girl herself was nowhere to be seen, and the swamp was uncharacteristically quiet. He pushed himself to his feet, finding his pistol already in his hand. He checked to be sure it was loaded, the barrel clear and the charge dry.

  A small hit of powder set his mind ablaze and his blood pumping, but he could still feel sluggishness in his limbs.

  A strong narcotic indeed.

  He knew he should preserve his powder, but the trance would give him strength and help him think, and the allure of the heightened senses that came along with it was too strong to ignore.

  A noise brought Taniel’s head around. Up in one of the trees, above where he’d been sleeping, the savage girl perched on a branch like an owl, with her machete sheathed. She held a reed in one hand about as thick as the charcoal Taniel used to draw in his sketchbook and was slowly tapping it against the tree trunk, head cocked as if listening to something.

  She pointed at him, then gestured at the ashes of the fire.

  Taniel snatched his pot and stowed it with his kit, then kicked the ashes into the water.

  The girl shimmied down the weathered grey trunk of the cypress, landing lightly on bare feet. She held up four fingers and pointed toward the south, then scurried off the high ground. Taniel didn’t have a chance to respond before she disappeared beneath the water. Nothing remained but a few ripples and the long, trembling hollow reed that hadn’t been there a momen
t ago.

  The distant splashing of someone approaching through the swamp caught Taniel’s ear. He moved to the far side of the cypress once he’d pinpointed their location, then crouched and waited.

  They were coming right toward him. He tapped out a line of black powder on the back of his hand, snorting it to bring his powder trance to a vibrant hum, then leaned back around the tree.

  There were four of them. Three Kez soldiers, spread in a triangular formation with one of them on point picking his way carefully through the water. A fourth man trailed along behind the trio, his hands bound and linked by a rope to one of the soldier’s belts.

  The prisoner was a savage. Taller than the girl by far, with a wiry build and thin bony shoulders, Taniel guessed him to be about twenty-five years old. He had short, pale-red hair cut above his ears and the same ashen, freckled skin as the savage girl.

  The trio of soldiers traveled in silence, their concentration focused on watching for swamp dragons and snakes. Their bayoneted muskets were held at the ready.

  Taniel waited for them to come, from his hiding place behind the big cypress. He had his pistol and nothing else. Should he let them pass, staying hidden like the girl? Or should he try to capture them, and save the savage? He could ignite the powder in their muskets with a thought, killing or wounding all three at once, but he wasn’t particularly skilled at directing blasts, and that risked hurting their prisoner.

  If it came to a fight, the three were better-armed. They might be able to best him.

  Taniel pressed his back to the cypress and slowly moved around the trunk, keeping it between himself and the three soldiers.

  The splashing suddenly stopped.

  “Someone has been here.” one of them said in Kez. “Are those ashes?”

  The splashing drew close to the hummock. “There was a fire. See this bootprint? Someone’s been here recently. One of those damn rebels.” He switched to Adran. “You, savage. Who else would be coming through here today?” A pause, then, “You hear me, boy? I know you understand.”

  There was the dull smack of a musket butt striking flesh, and someone grunted but did not cry out.

  “Are they warm?” one of the soldiers asked in Kez.

  Taniel heard one of the soldiers climb onto the hummock, mud squelching beneath his boots. Taniel’s breath came fast and short, and the man suddenly stepped into view. Slowly, so as not to attract attention, Taniel leveled his pistol.

  The soldier bent over the remains of Taniel’s fire; stuck his finger in them. “A little warm. They were here just a few hours ago. I....”

  His head twisted and his eyes grew wide at the sight of Taniel.

  “Set it down,” Taniel said in Kez.

  The soldier dropped his musket.

  “Who’s there?” one of the others demanded.

  “A rebel,” the Kez said. “He has a pistol on me.”

  “Put down your muskets!” Taniel shouted.

  The soldier licked his lips and met Taniel’s eyes. “There’s just one!” he yelled as he dove to the side. Taniel tracked his movement, watched him snatch up his musket and turn to aim.

  Taniel squeezed his trigger, felling the soldier with a shot to the heart.

  He spun toward the other two, flipping his pistol around to take it by the barrel, feeling the heat burn his palm. He had half a second to decide whether to ignite their powder, killing them both and risking their prisoner, or to cross the space and attack. He’d have to duck past their bayonets and use his only weapon—the butt of the spent pistol.

  The water beneath the soldiers erupted. The savage girl came up swinging, her hair whipping about as she hamstrung one soldier with her machete, slit the other’s belly, then returned to the first to cut his throat.

  The action had taken half a heart-beat, faster than Taniel could follow, and both men were down.

  He and the girl dragged the bodies onto the hummock.

  The savage prisoner hadn’t flinched during the short, brutal fight, even leaping on the soldier Taniel had shot to finish him off with his bare hands. His eyes flicked over the three bodies with disdain, and Taniel guessed he was used to killing.

  “I am Milgi, of the Stillwater tribe,” the male savage said, his voice deep, his Adran barely intelligible.

  “I’m Taniel. Captain with the Fatrastan militia. And powder mage.” He added the last bit to give his words more weight, but wondered as he clasped hands with the savage whether they even knew what a powder mage was. He clasped hands with the savage.

  The girl had already set about stripping the bodies of anything useful. Milgi stayed off the hummock, knee-deep in the water, and Taniel thought he saw a bit of fear in his eyes when he looked at the girl.

  “Were you the one who was supposed to meet us in Gladeside?” Taniel asked.

  “Yes. Your company arrived early, and the Kez—” Milgi paused to spit on one of the bodies— “caught up to you before we did.”

  “Did anyone else make it out?” Taniel asked.

  “Most of the company. My brothers are leading them to our village as we speak.”

  Taniel let out a sigh of relief.

  Milgi went on. “I was looking for you when these three caught me unawares. It was....”

  “Embarrassing?”

  “Yes.”

  The girl found one of the soldier’s powder horns. She popped it open, checking the powder, then resealed it and tossed it to Taniel.

  Taniel caught it with one hand. “Can you take me to them?”

  “I can,” Milgi said.

  “Excellent. Let’s get going before we run into another patrol.”

  Taniel took the best of the three muskets and fixed the bayonet. He preferred rifles—they were more accurate at the range that made powder mages so deadly, and the straighter he shot, the less work he had to do to float the bullet. The musket would have to do, though.

  They left the bodies to be discovered by the Kez, if the swamp dragons didn’t get them first. “Fear,” Milgi had said, when Taniel wanted to hide them. “Doubt. The swamp frightens them already. This will make it worse.”

  The girl ranged ahead of them as they picked their way through the swamp, wriggling her hand at them to indicate a snake or swamp dragon to avoid.

  “What’s her name?” Taniel asked Milgi, pointing toward the girl. Milgi had been watching her for some time, and there was a hint of wariness in his eyes.

  “Ka-poel.”

  “Strange name. Strange girl.”

  “Truthfully, I did not expect to find you with—” Milgi lowered his voice. “Her.”

  “I thought she was one of you?”

  Milgi’s next words were slow, hesitant. “She is. And isn’t. She has no place in our tribe. A foreigner, from across the narrow sea far to the west. But she is a Bone-eye, and we cannot shun her.”

  “A Dynize?” Taniel asked.

  “Yes.”

  No one knew much about the Dynize, save that they were a great empire west of Fatrasta, and that their borders had been closed to foreigners for decades. The savages of Fatrasta were their distant cousins—their looks and their languages similar but as different as Kez and Adro.

  Taniel noted that the girl had half-turned her head toward them while she moved quietly through the swamp. She’d been listening.

  “Can she speak?”

  “No.”

  Taniel felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Milgi had stopped. “She’s not to be trusted,” he said.

  “She saved my life. More than once already, and the day’s still young.” Taniel’s wit faded when he noticed Milgi didn’t catch the humor in his words.

  “Not to be trusted,” Milgi said again, before heading on.

  Taniel hurried to catch up with him. “Do you know anything about the Kez companies that attacked us?”

  “Only what your major told us this morning, when we found your men. Five companies. Over a thousand muskets, and one Privileged.”

  “Major Bert
reau survived? I’m glad to hear that. Is your village deep enough in the swamp to hide us, if they decide to come looking?”

  Milgi scowled. “From the men? Yes. Further in the basin, the water is deep and the hummocks are few. It would take a thousand men years of searching to find us.” He paused. “But when I was captured, I pretended I did not know their tongue and listened to the soldiers speak to each other. They said that their Privileged was going to burn her way through the basin.”

  Taniel felt a coldness in his gut.

  “I’m sure they won’t find us,” Milgi said, waving his hand as if to dispel the fear.

  Taniel knew Privileged sorcery. He knew what they were capable of. His father had told stories about some of the strongest cabal heads from the Nine—men who could slaughter thousands with a casual gesture.

  He’d felt that Privileged’s power last night when she attacked the company. Not as strong as a cabal head, but no pretender, either. She could lift the earth, burn the trees, and part the water, giving her men safe conduct through the swamp and finding the militia and savages no matter where they were hiding.

  “We have to go back,” Taniel said.

  Milgi stopped and stared at him.

  “Are the Kez camped in Gladeside?” Taniel asked.

  “Yes,” Milgi said, “but we can’t go back. They won’t find us deep in the swamp. Nothing to do against a Privileged but hide.”

  “I’m a powder mage.” Taniel didn’t feel so well. His side ached, his head was light from little food, and his feet hurt. He hadn’t been dry since last night, and the idea of being anywhere near that Privileged scared the piss out of him.

  But if he didn’t go back, his militia company and their savage allies would die.

  “Privileged.” Milgi wagged his finger under Taniel’s nose as if Taniel were a slow child. “You don’t have a Privileged, and you can’t fight them.”

  “Powder mages,” Taniel said, repeating what his father had reiterated over the years, “were made for one thing: killing Privileged.” He forced the words out, wondering if he still believed them. Sitting in a barracks, listening to his father’s stories, it had been easy enough to think he could kill a Privileged. But with nothing between him and their sorcery but a mile of space and single bullet, he wasn’t feeling so confident.