Stonewiser

by Dora Machado

  Sariah barely stepped back in time to avoid a hammer to the head. With blades on one side, a hammer head on the other and topped by a wicked spike, the hatchet was a fearful weapon. Sariah tried to reach for her pocket but the assailant anticipated her move. The ax slashed through Sariah's weave, ripping her pocket open, spilling the stones on the floor. She tried to make the stones burst, but without her palm's recent contact, the stones didn't work. The hatchet's blade bounced off her banishment bracelet, shocking her with a painful jolt. The pain propelled Sariah forward. She managed a fist to her opponent's face. She drew blood in the process.

  “So you fight with more than stones, kitten,” her opponent rumbled. “Not bad for a Goodlander weakling.”

  A woman. Sariah now knew she faced a woman. Not that it made any difference, because the woman was obviously a deadly warrior. She launched a fulminating attack—a series of kicks that left Sariah weaponless and pinned under her knee.

  Sariah fumbled for a weapon. She singed her fingertips against something hot. It was her little desk lamp, which had tipped over onto the floor. The flammable mud in it still burned brightly. In one swift motion, she snatched the scorching lamp and smashed it against the woman's back.

  Flames flickered over her opponent's weave. Sariah dove for her dirk, but even with her weave on fire, the other woman beat her to it. She kicked Sariah to the corner and then crashed back-first against the door shutters, smothering the flames.

  The back of Sariah's head cracked against the corner post. The world swayed with the deck. The moonlight streaming through the broken window dimmed and blurred in painful sequence. The woman loomed over her, smoldering like a demon crawling out of Meliahs’ rot pit. Sariah knew she should be dead by now. The woman was simply too good a fighter. Why then was she still alive?

  “You fight good, kitten, but not good enough for Delis,” her assailant said in a low raspy voice and a thick accent that lengthened her vowels when she spoke. “It's a pity I have to kill you. I would so like to keep you.”

  Blue and violet eyes stared at Sariah, feverish with death. The lethal hatchet rose in the air and began its final descent. A whistle broke the silence, and then a solid thump. The woman froze. The hatchet slipped from her hand and clattered on the floor. She toppled over Sariah, trapping her under an avalanche of muscular weight. Sariah struggled to get out from under the woman, trying to understand what had just happened.

  Blood. It stained Sariah's hand, but it wasn't her blood. An arrow protruded from her attacker's back. The deck shook with the steps of many feet. Faces peered through the smashed window. A crash shattered what remained of the door's shutter. Four or five people broke into the shelter. With a cursory look at them, Sariah understood. She had gone from bad to worse—the mob had found her.

  The bearded man snorted like a rutting pig. “What do we have here? If it isn't the hawk and the snake sharing the nest?”

  The woman stirred. Despite her wound, she pushed herself off Sariah and slumped against the wall, eyeing the newcomers with open hatred. Her hands fumbled for her hatchet. The man took a knee in front of her.

  “Delis, darling, is it you?” He peeked under the weave that covered her face. “Thank you for disarming the wiser witch for us. They sent the best after this one, I see. We've paid our fees. We've found our prize. Why is it you insist on stealing our reward?”

  Delis snarled. “Up your arse, you peddler's bitch. You'd sell your mother for dung—”

  The man cuffed her in the face. “I cannot kill you with my own hands, not for lack of want, mind you, but on account of the law. I won't be blamed for your loss.” He called on the other men. “Throw her out into the dead water.”

  Wounded as she was, Delis kicked and punched and crashed against Sariah before no less than six men were finally able to drag her out of the shelter.

  “She's wounded,” Sariah said. “She'll die.”

  “That's the point, you slow-witted slut,” the man said. “We'll let the Domain do some of the murdering this night, but don't worry, we won't let it do all of the killing. Fire the deck,” he said to his minions. “Let none of her foul witchery survive the night.”

  Sariah recognized the man's broad nose and the stubbly beard. The mob's leader was the same man who had tried to kill her at the nets and who had defied Kael afterwards. Josfan. That was his name. Coin aside, he was set on eliminating her and all traces of her passing. Two men dragged Sariah to her feet. A shovelful of flammable mud later, the deck ignited with a muted swoosh.

  She eyed the flames. “Why are you doing this?”

  “It's our right, isn't it? We paid for it and we'll get paid for it too.”

  “But you, Josfan, you really want me dead. You paid a lot at the nets to shoot at me. Did someone send you after me?”

  “Wouldn't you like to know?” Josfan flashed his hideous smile. “Justice it is, wench, that you who broke the wall and tried to destroy the New Blood will end up as a sprinkle of ashes fizzling in the dead water.”

  “If you burn me, you won't have a body to collect on.”

  “But I don't need your body to collect my reward. I just need your bracelet.”

  Of course. The bracelet would offer more than sufficient proof of her death. Sariah struggled with the thugs who tried to stretch out her arm. Her shoulder and elbow ached from the strain. Her forearm ended up splayed on her desk anyway. A serrated saw appeared in Josfan's hand, a big rusting brute of a blade which could have easily belonged to an enduring wood cutter or to one of the Shield's quartering blocks. Josfan wetted his lips and tested the saw's teeth against her forearm.

  “I wouldn't do that, if I were you.” Sariah unclenched her fist. A black stone gleamed on the palm of her hand. “Step away from me. All of you. Or do you wish to join me in a quick trip to Meliahs’ rot pits?”

  Josfan froze. The men let go of her and scurried out the door, cursing and making the sign against evil. The stone had been Delis's surprising parting gift. The woman must have lifted it from the floor while resisting Josfan's cronies. She had also used the ruckus to sneak the stone into Sariah's hands. Sariah owed the woman a most unlikely and unexpected debt.

  “You witch,” Josfan spat. “You wouldn't blow yourself up just to spite us.”

  “Stay and find out.”

  The saw wilted in Josfan's hands. He took one step back, and then another, before diving for the door and abandoning the deck. Sariah tracked his retreat as closely as she was tracking the fire. She had only a few moments to act.

  “We won't let you out of here alive,” Josfan shouted from a safe distance. “We just have to wait until the fire burns you. I'll have your bracelet even if I have to sift through your ashes. You've made a huge mistake. We've got you surrounded. You've worked yourself into a death trap.”

  Meliahs help her. Perhaps she had.

  Seven

  THE FLAMES WERE mesmerizing and beautiful, a flowing mane of color and heat that dazzled the eye. The smoke stung her lungs and eyes. She fought the panic and ignored the heat pressing from all directions. She grabbed the stones she had been wising from the floor and stuffed them in her sack, cramming as many of the engrossments and annotations that were not already on fire in the bag as well. Burned deck. No supplies. Long journey ahead. She had to save as much as she could.

  She stuffed the sack with whatever garments she could find. She grabbed her own bag, the one she had packed before the executioners came, and reached for Kael's favorite belongings, his winter cloak, his medicine pouch, the jar of wised marbles for his sling. No chance of taking the rest. Shame.

  The smoke was too thick. Despite the enduring wood construction and the protective coating, the base of the deck was beginning to burn. She couldn't breathe. She had to get out. They would be waiting for her with slings loaded and bows drawn.

  She groped through her bag and found more stones. She hurled a first stone towards the back of the shelter and willed it to explode when it hit the wall. It burst into a
mess of fiery weave and shattered wood. She took cover against the arrows aimed at her behind the cargo stacked on the back deck, but the fire was hot and lapping at her weave. She used her sling to launch the second stone. It burst amidst the group shooting at her, unleashing a second explosion of cries and curses. It was her cue to break through.

  She was glad she always kept her weave on when they traveled. She leapt over the cargo and landed in knee-high water. She counted five, maybe six decks of followers surrounding her. She chose at random. She hurled her stone at one of the empty decks, crouched as it exploded, and ran through the fallout into the open flats.

  Nafa. She aimed towards the settlement's lights. She didn't have any other option. She ran the water as fast as she could, but the men assembled a cohesive chase right away, and an arrow skimmed the water's surface too close to her legs. No alternative then. She loaded her sling at a run, then stopped, turned, shot her last stone and commanded it to burst.

  She didn't wait to see the effects of her defense. She didn't enjoy the thought, either. Meliahs forgive her. She loathed having to misuse stones for violence. She ran as fast as she could, knowing what would happen if the mob caught her.

  In the dark, her senses were keen and her heart pumped hard in support of her legs. Raised in the Goodlands, she wasn't the strongest of water runners, but she pushed herself to exceed her body's limits, despite the load she carried. She must have been halfway between her burning deck and Nafa when she saw the hunched shadow stumbling ahead of her. She recognized the shaft protruding from her back. Delis. She fell twice in the dead water before Sariah reached her. The second time, she didn't get up.

  “Come.” Sariah grabbed the woman's arm, all too aware of the torches gaining ground behind her. “Make haste, we have to run.”

  She pulled Delis to her feet. The woman was too large and heavy to carry. Her weave was torn and the dead water must have been seeping in and burning her, but Delis threw an arm over Sariah's shoulder and stumbled a few paces forward.

  “Damn.” The torches were nearing them. “Can they see in the dark?”

  “Your bracelet,” Delis rasped. “It's the fifth night.”

  Sariah stared at her wrist in disbelief. The nine stones in the bracelet shone with a crimson radiance, a lucent glow that would be visible in the dark to anyone, even as it was, covered under her weaved glove. She stopped, ripped her other glove and tied it around the bracelet. The glow was less but still visible, a red beacon in the black expanse.

  “Take this.” Delis tugged at her face scarf. Sariah wrapped it around her arm, concealing the glow under the fabric's multiple layers.

  A wild mane of dark hair bloomed around Delis's head like a smoky haze. “The light will burn through the fabric soon.”

  “Great.” Sariah forged ahead, but Delis couldn't keep up. She came to a stop and nearly crumbled.

  “Get up,” Sariah said. “We have to go.”

  The woman just stood there, panting like an old cow waiting to die.

  “And you called me a Goodlander weakling? The great Delis can't match a kitten's pace?”

  Blue and violet eyes flickered with righteous pride. Delis rose, stumbled a few more steps, and then waded with more assurance. Their pursuers were falling behind, fanning out in all directions, unable to locate them in the darkness without the red glow. After a few more moments, the mob halted as if stopped by an invisible line.

  “Nafa's boundaries,” Delis panted. “Can't follow us.”

  At last, a break in their favor. She spied the shapes of people from Nafa watching her burning deck. So much for keeping the deck dark. She crouched low over the water, as low as she could go considering that she was loaded, had an entire arm exposed to the dead water without her glove and was trying to support Delis as well. Sariah forded the settlement until she could no longer see her deck. She helped Delis climb an abandoned deck in a quiet part of town. As soon as they were out of the dead water, Delis tumbled over like a broken boulder. Sariah could hardly breathe. Now what?

  She needed to get Delis help and then she needed to find Kael and get out of Nafa. The deck was gone. How would they continue their journey without it? Panic. One problem at a time. Delis. Surely Nafa's people would render her assistance.

  The old deck had no shelter, but Sariah untied the assortment of sacks and bags she carried and piled them beneath a cover of rotting ropes. She looked around. Light flickered nearby, but for the most part, the area seemed dark and sparsely populated. The air smelled of neglect. It wasn't the most prosperous part of Nafa.

  She made up her mind and dragged the senseless Delis over a broken bridge to a more populated lane. The woman weighed more than a bull. The traffic was light, but she waited until no one was around to dump Delis's body on a lit deck. She rapped on the shutters before darting out of sight behind a nearby stack of broken crates. She wondered if this was how babies were gifted to the Guild, abandoned in the darkness at the massive threshold of the keep's gates.

  She had done what she could for Delis. Now she had to find Kael. She took a last look to make sure Delis got the help she needed. A man came to the door.

  “What do we have here?” He sounded half-drunk.

  A woman appeared from inside. “It's a body, that's what it is. Is it your drunk of a brother again?”

  “It's a woman. She's stuck with an arrow.”

  “Why, poor thing. Bring her inside, fetch the healer.”

  The man's tone had never been kind, but now it was down-right cold. “We ain't gonna spend no coin for a healer on this one. Look.” He pointed to Delis's forehead.

  From her hiding place, Sariah strained to see. A mark was stamped on the right side of Delis's forehead near her temple, a mark that had been concealed by her wrap before, three diagonal lines crossed by another trio of equal but opposing lines.

  “Lightning strike me, it's a net-stamped rot spawn,” the man said. “She's one of the executioners' mongrels.”

  “Don't let the neighbors see it.” The woman kicked Delis's inert body. “Bloody bitch, off my deck.”

  “I'll put her out to the flats. She'll be gone by morn.”

  The man dragged Delis over the bridge and back the way Sariah had come. Delis's body grated against the wood. Her weave caught an edge and ripped further. The man cursed. Soon thereafter, a splash broke the dead water's calm.

  By Meliahs. Delis was of the executioners, sent to kill her so that the mob wouldn't get their due and the executioners could wreck Sariah's search, claim Kael's assurances and Ars. No wonder the mob despised her. She was taking their profit from them. What Sariah had never known was that Domainers, or at least these Domainers, abhorred executioners to the point of refusing aid to a wounded woman. Perhaps they were right to resent someone who performed duties as foul as Delis's, but as much as Sariah despised her assailant, could she walk away knowing the woman was dissolving slowly in the agony of the dead waters?

  Sariah waited for the man to return to his deck before retracing her footsteps. She found Delis half-sunk and struggling, holding her head out of the water but too weak to climb out by herself. Sariah grabbed her arms and pulled her back onto the deck with some difficulty. She thanked Meliahs for the night's darkness, the only real protection they had.

  Delis was shaking from shock. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  Why indeed? “Wait here.”

  The woman clutched Sariah's wrist with unnatural strength. “They'll tear me apart in the morning.”

  “I'm going to find help. Let go. I promise I'll be back before daylight.”

  By the woman's expression, Sariah could tell she didn't believe a word she said.

  Sariah had barely gone a few lanes when she spotted a group of people coming up behind her, engaged in animated conversation. She tucked herself against the wall of a darkened shelter and waited for them to pass.

  “A banished criminal?” a woman was saying. “Here
?”

  “That's why they've called a search,” a man said. “Didn't you hear the explosions?”

  “And the flames,” someone else said. “Didn't you see the fire? Hurry up!”

  Perfect. The survivors of the men who attacked her must have told their story to Nafa's marcher. Now the entire settlement was out searching for her. What else could go wrong this night?

  “Look!” One of the men in the group pointed. “Do you see something there?”

  The rest of the group turned to look in Sariah's direction.

  A brutal push shoved her face-first against the deck shelter. “Don't move.”

  As if she could.

  “I don't see anything,” someone said. “Come on. We're missing all the fun.”

  The group walked on. Sariah dared to breathe.

  “Are you all right?” Kael whispered. “You've got rents and burns all over you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Stay as you are.” She heard him rustling through his shoulder bag, looking for something. “I saw the fire and figured your night was busier than mine. So I thought, if Sariah had to abandon the deck in haste, where would she go? That's how I ended up on this side of Nafa, wondering how by Meliahs’ dung heaps I was going to find you. But then, you made it easy for me.”

  “Easy?”

  “You're glowing.”

  Sariah looked down to see her bracelet's red radiance seeping through the scorched fabric. “By the rot, the light burned through again.”

  Kael wrapped his summer mantle around her arm, folding it many times over to a good thickness, until her arm felt like an enormous sausage packaged for sale.

  “That should hold for a while,” he said. “What happened?”