Yadovír smiled again, and Llun realized he had said “collaborators” out loud. Focus, you idiot!
“Then there are the rumors of diseases among the Gumiren. Some sort of pox, some say. Others are less…compassionate in their guesses.”
“Yes, you could say that,” said Aspidían, snickering. “Why are you so afraid to say it out loud, Llun? Your tongue won’t be polluted. Say it. ‘Venereal diseases.’” He mouthed it, slowly, as if he could taste the syllables.
Llun scowled.
“To answer your question, Brother Llun,” said Yadovír, “yes, the Gumiren are growing complacent. And soon, soon the time will come when we will take back Vasyllia for the Vasylli. I ask you now. Will you help us? Will you help your people?”
This was not collaboration with the enemy at all. This was…well, this was exactly what Llun wanted. But not with Yadovír. He was there during the battle for Vasyllia. He remembered what Yadovír had done. Yadovír had orchestrated a pogrom of clerics of the cult of Adonais to cover up his own crimes, his own treachery. The thought propped up his cold hatred, and the words tumbled out of his mouth even as he thought them.
“And what about the Darina? Where is she in all your plans?”
The silence hissed, so complete that Llun heard the squelching sound of Yadovír’s feral smile stretching across his gums.
“She is…instrumental.”
“She is alive, then?”
“Oh, yes. Very much so.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Aspidían got up, slowly, his muscles so taut that it looked like an invisible hand lifted him up, like a marionette. “You don’t seem to understand, Brother Llun. Here we are, extending you a hand of friendship when you know very well that we could be extending a corkscrew to separate your nails from your hands. And you spit on this hand of friendship? Is that wise? Do you not understand who it is that sits before you?”
Llun’s breath quickened. His head buzzed. He had had too much of the mead. Or was there something in the mead? Something to make him more…malleable?
“I…forgive me, Brother Aspidían,” said Llun, nearly whimpering, and hating himself for it. “I…why me? Why choose me to be your exclusive smith? You have seen my work. It is good, yes. But I do not work fast. And if you need a swordsmith for an uprising against the Gumiren…well, you would not have many swords…”
Aspidían relaxed back into Yadovír’s side. “He has a point, you know,” he said, conversationally.
“You forget one thing.” Yadovír looked at Aspidían. “Who he is.”
“Ah yes!” Aspidían’s eyes sparkled with mischief as he crossed his arms across his chest. “You are related to key members of the Sons of the Swan.”
And there it was. The trap snapped shut. Llun almost imagined the sound, like a big bear trap chomping down on his ankle. He nearly panicked then and there.
“Dashun is dead,” Llun managed to say, barely containing his fear within. “His infection has been cut out of Vasyllia. I am not of their mind. I do not seek what they seek.”
“No, but Mirodara does,” said Yadovír.
“She is a child!”
“Children will grow to be men and women, a new generation of rot at the heart of Vasyllia. Until every Son of the Swan is killed, no peace will ever last here or anywhere else in the world.”
“Unless…” Aspidían cut in, his voice reasonable and kind. “We are prepared to overlook her involvement with the Sons as … a youthful indiscretion. But only if you take up our offer.”
Llun sighed. “Am I expected to give an answer immediately?”
“No, no!” Aspidían waved his hands placatingly. “Take your time. Just … not too much of it.”
The dawn of hope rises. From the dirt of the tree’s roots will arise a sleeper of ages. She will be braver than many men, stronger than myriad warriors. Her age is not counted in years, but in the bitter days of pain and loss. Her death will bring forth life. Her sleep will make Living Water flow again in the wasteland…
—From “The Prophecy of Llun” (The Sayings, Book XXIII, 5:8-10)
CHAPTER THREE
Mirodara
Llun hardly remembered the way he took back to his smithy. It didn’t help that most of Vasyllia was hidden in fog, dropping the early summer temperatures down to what they had been in late spring. The kind of weather that obscured one’s thoughts and deadened one’s limbs.
Bacon. The smell shocked him back to awareness. He was nearly home, and the bacon-smell, to his amazement, was not coming from the mead-house, but from his own smithy. He laughed with pleasure. It had been a long time since he had eaten bacon.
Mirodara.
Idiot girl. Is this your idea of being unobtrusive?
He rushed into the smithy, and the smoke attacked his eyes and mouth. He choked as the pleasing smell of fried pig transformed into the sickly-sweet smell of burnt pig.
“If you’re going to let the whole neighborhood know you’re here, at least don’t burn the bacon!” He smiled as he saw Mirodara blowing on a thin, black piece of something that could have once been edible. She breathed out in exasperation and offered him a bite. He shook his head and laughed.
“I wanted to make you something nice,” she said, never more like his sister than at that moment.
“If you really want to do something nice for me, you’ll sit down and listen.”
She straightened at the change in Llun’s voice. Nodding slowly, she threw the charred bit of meat back into the pan on the hearth. It sizzled, as though hurtling a final insult at her.
“So …” she began, “what sort of false promises did they make, the vipers?”
“Stop.” He raised his voice just enough for her to curl in on herself a little. “I said listen. Open mind, yes?”
“Fine.” He saw that she was working very hard not to sulk.
“They know about you. Not about the Sons in general. About you, Mirodara.”
“Then why am I still here?”
Llun sighed and looked away from her. He suddenly, ridiculously, really wanted to eat that bacon.
“Oh, I see,” she said, her voice husky. “They’re using me to force you to do something. What, exactly?”
“I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. They say they need a swordsmith. But I can’t imagine why they’d want me for that. Unless Yadovír wants a family heirloom he can hang over his door.”
“Yes, you do take rather a bit more time than necessary on … well, everything. Even nails!” She chuckled.
“I think there’s much that they’re not telling me. But one thing I know for sure. If you do not stop your silly association with the Sons of the Swan, it’ll be the end of both of us.”
Mirodara took Llun’s paw of a hand between her own. They were so uncalloused and small. Like a mouse holding on to a lion. Llun’s heart felt stretched to a breaking point.
“Llun, let’s be honest. They’re going to get us, sooner or later. Whether or not you help them. Whether or not I ever so much as speak to a Son of the Swan again. At some point, in the middle of the night, you’ll be taken in your sleep. Me too.”
“Don’t speak like that. I’ll—”
“What matters,” she said, not listening to him, “is what we manage to do before they stop us. What have either of us done in our lives that is worth remembering? Hm? But now, when our world has already ended, now … well, every decision of every person can have huge consequences. Don’t you understand that? Every person who capitulates to the Gumiren and their collaborators is guilty of treachery before our whole people. But every single child who refuses to bow down…How can I make you understand? Every sacrifice…it matters. Even if it seems pointless. It matters.”
“When did you grow up, my little cub?” He tried to smile through the tears that now fell. He wiped them off. “But what if I were to tell you…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “There are rumblings … that the collaborators are preparing to throw off the Gumiren. To r
estore Vasyllia to the Vasylli. Even to restore the Darina to her place.”
“You believe them? They’ll say anything, Llun. Have you forgotten what they did?”
“I haven’t, no. You were too small to remember, I would have thought.”
“I was nothing of the sort. I saw the warriors … our warriors turn into beasts. I saw them attack defenseless women who tried to reason with them, to prevent them from hacking down every priest in sight. You don’t forget such a sight. Not ever. And these are the people you entrust the safety of our city to?”
“You’re right. I just can’t fathom losing you.”
“You’ll have to fathom a lot more than that. Don’t you understand? This isn’t the battle for Vasyllia. It’s the battle for the soul of Vasyllia.”
She breathed deeply, as though considering whether or not to divulge something.
“There’s something else,” she said. “It’s Voran, the son of Otchigen.”
“What about him?” Llun couldn’t help the bitterness coming through. Voran, Darina Sabíana’s intended and the supposed hope of Vasyllia’s reclamation, had been exiled years ago. But rumors had trickled into Vasyllia that he had found Living Water and that he was using it to heal those who had fallen to the Gumiren onslaught. Others suggested that he was gathering an army to reclaim Vasyllia. Probably all of it was rubbish.
“The Sons have it on excellent authority that he is finally coming back to Vasyllia. And he has Living Water.”
Llun couldn’t muster the enthusiasm necessary to believe her. He found he had run out of things to say. She hugged him.
“I want to go out in a blaze of glory. I want to do something so mad that the Heights will have no choice but to bow down again before my act of courage. You’ll see. It’ll happen soon. Everything is going to change very soon.”
How horribly have you grown up, my little one, Llun thought. Can I expect anything else, when all you’ve ever known is fear and death?
The Day of Blood will be dread and awful. But it is not the end of the tribulation. Hear my voice, O faithful of Vasyllia! There will come a time when brother will slaughter father, for he will not recognize his face. Brown-faced Gumir will attack white-faced Vasylli, but he will be stabbed in his back. No one will know the face of his enemy in the darkness and the chaos. Nor will he know the face of his friend.
—From “The Prophecy of Llun” (The Sayings, Book XXIII, 2:4-7)
CHAPTER FOUR
The Sons of the Swan
After Mirodara left, Llun could not face his thoughts. He opened the smithy and threw himself into his work with the kind of abandon he had only really felt in the early days, when his body hardly noticed the strain of smithing. It was a surprise to him when he looked at the window to see that it had gone completely dark.
He allowed his forge to sputter and die. The shadows at first faintly resisted their inevitable end, then they lay down to a quiet death. He went to his rest in the back room, bare as always but for the bench lining the back wall. The barrenness was a comfort, clearing the mind, especially in its contrast to the clutter in the smithy itself. Llun lay down on the bench, not bothering to undress. In spite of the buzzing of his mind, he could not keep his eyelids open, and only a few moments later, he was asleep.
When his door tore from its hinges, he woke with a start. There were five men in his room, dressed in black, a shriveled dog’s head hanging from the belt of each. In the absurd confusion of the just-awoken, all Llun could think of was how disappointing it was that the promise of bacon had not lived up to the reality. The intruders gave him no time to reflect. They all fell on top of him like the dogs that they were.
He struggled, but it was soon obvious that any sign of resistance meant an excuse for them to inflict unnecessary pain. But pain was an old friend of Llun’s. He fought them back as furiously as a cornered rat. They were in his smithy. He knew better than they where the most painful weapons were, if only he could get to them.
Two held Llun’s arms pinned to his back, while two more demonstratively took off their gloves. Underneath, Llun saw black metal between their fingers. This was not a mere arrest, then. He was to be made an example of.
Not in my smithy.
He made a feint of losing consciousness, forcing the two holding him to lean down to keep him pinned. As he leaned hard against the shin of the man holding his right hand, he twisted into him, catching his foot under him and pushing his knee back. Llun felt it crack, and the man howled. Before the others could restrain him, Llun lifted both his attackers up with his huge body and threw them at the rest of their fellows.
Under his sleeping bench, Llun kept a half-done war hammer. It was too heavy for most men to lift, but in the heat of the struggle he lifted it like a dry twig and swung with all his force at his assailants. Something gave way behind the blow. More wailing. For the briefest of moments, Llun saw a way through the five attackers as they tried to avoid his blows. Dealers of pain were always the worst at bearing it themselves, he knew. Llun rushed past them, through the broken doorway, into the smithy proper. It was still dark, except for the gaping hole where the butchers had broken in. Llun ran through it, but stopped dead in his tracks.
Unaccountably, it had snowed last night. The moon being full, the thin layer of pristine white seemed to give off its own eerie light. In the dark, there were smears of black all over the snow. Blood. A lamentation of swans lay like an unholy sacrifice before Llun’s smithy. All their heads were cut off. He understood. Yadovír and Aspidían were not waiting for his answer. He turned around and ran back into the smithy, a red haze before his eyes.
The dog-men must have felt it, because they hung back for the blink of an eye. It was enough. Llun crashed onto them like a wave onto a cliff, and they scattered before him. One swing of the war hammer, and two came down with crushed heads. One tried to lunge under Llun’s attack, but Llun had a knife in his left hand, and he plunged it into the man’s arm before he could reach his body. With the back hand of his hammer-arm, he crushed the man’s shoulder into his backbone. The man screamed.
Only one left.
The last one turned and ran away. Llun put his hammer on the ground and took the knife in his right hand. Balancing it on his fingers, he felt for the center of heaviness, remembering his occasional training from the old days, when he had forged for the warrior seminary. Then he flipped it forward. It landed in the man’s neck. He fell, spluttering.
Llun picked up his hammer and rushed toward the nearest of the new roads.
Once in his life, Llun had seen a beehive overturned by a bear. It had been in an outlying village near Vasyllia, where his favorite great-aunt lived with her woodsman husband. The bees, normally sleepy and gentle, had frenzied into a mass of death-dealers that could no longer distinguish their caretaker from a marauding bear. After the bear was done, his aunt had come out—wearing chainmail for good measure. For the first five minutes, they had swarmed her as though she were the bear’s consort. Only her stillness and her crooning song had eventually calmed them and allowed his uncle to begin the work of rebuilding the hives.
But she was not here in Vasyllia now to calm the masses that roiled in the streets of the first reach.
Madness seemed to have taken over. It was too dark to make out much except that everyone seemed to be attacking everyone. In brief snatches of focus, Llun saw what looked like Gumiren warriors, judging by their kaftans and silk-sashed caps, attacking and hacking and burning everywhere they went. But there was something wrong about them. Then he heard it. They were speaking Vasylli to each other.
Without another thought, Llun plunged into the swarm, brandishing his war hammer over his head and screaming at the top of his lungs. To his own surprise, he remembered how to use it. It had only been a few lessons with Elder Pahomy of the warrior seminary, years ago now. But he had taken to the weapon like a babe to its mother’s teat.
The false Gumiren had not expected any serious resistance. That was clear enough by
how they fled from Llun’s wrath. But he was fast, in spite of his size. And some kind of war-madness was on him. He had heard a name for it: the war-wind. It was said to make dark gods of men. Well, perhaps Mirodara was right. It was far better to die like this than to continue merely existing in the Vasyllia of the Raven.
The false Gumiren were like sheaves of wheat, and he was the scythe. At fourteen, he lost count of the ones who fell under his war hammer. Before he knew it, the swarming had stopped. Everything was silent, save for the lingering ringing in his ears. Then the sounds of the after-battle began. The crying and the wailing. The wounded. The beloved of the wounded. The war-wind still blew within him. He could not stay here, could not bear to listen to the groans of the weak and fallen.
He ran on, toward the second reach. The Nebesti refugee camps were on fire. Mounted figures rode back and forth, black and demonic against the dancing flames, screaming and whooping. These were not Gumiren. The flopping sacks on their belts—no, they were dogs’ heads—revealed them to be warriors of the Consistory. What was going on? Who was attacking whom? Why?
Suddenly, a wave of armed people—they were not warriors, for there were women and children among them—encircled the mounted Consistory men. Banners fluttered among this rag-tag army. In the smoke, it was difficult to make out much, but then the firelight exploded as a tent collapsed, and Llun saw Sirin and other High Beings embroidered on the banners. These were the Sons of the Swan.
His war-wind fled at their sight. So many of them were children! What were they hoping to achieve? Was all this madness of their doing? Is this what Mirodara meant when she said that everything was going to change?
Llun was frozen in place, torn between a desire to run and save Mirodara and a gut-deep need to see what was happening in the third reach. Something was going on. Something vital. His hammer could prove important here. But he needed to be near the palace. At the center of everything. He needed to know.
The Curse of the Raven (Raven Son Book 2) Page 3
