As Iron Falls

by Bryce O'Connor

  More prevalent that either of these things, though, was the skull that sat, lopsided and leering, several feet from the rest of the body.

  In death the ursalus had lost none of its ferocity, and Raz felt his blood curdle as he looked into the empty sockets where once dark, viciously intelligent eyes had stared him down. He remembered facing off against the beast, remembered the sheerness of the terror he’d had to wrench himself from, a fear unlike anything he had ever—and hopefully would ever—experience. He remembered the certainty with which he’d entered their fight, the same certainty with which he had crossed blades with Gûlraht Baoill.

  It was an iron absoluteness, an inflexible understanding that only one combatant would have the chance to walk away with their life.

  I hope the Sun burns hot in whatever hell you’re in, Raz thought, glaring at the skull and wishing, for a moment, that he could cut the bear’s head off all over again.

  He could have guessed Syrah was thinking something similar, even before she leaned forward and, with deliberate malice, spat into the water of the lake. After this her eye lifted again, seeking out the form of her fallen mentor, and for a minute she stood quiet, whatever prayer she was reciting meant only for herself, Talo, and the Lifegiver they’d both sacrificed so much for.

  When she turned away from the island, it was with an almost pleading look in her eye.

  “Let’s go,” she said sadly. “I can’t be here anymore.”

  Raz nodded, shifting to allow her to step past him, back into the shadow of the trees. As she did, he himself glanced back one last time, seeking and finding the gleam of the staff through the shifting branches.

  “May you find yourself among the highest of Her Stars,” he told the wind.

  Then Raz turned away from that place of sorrow, following Syrah into the Woods.

  CHAPTER 4

  With no more distractions to sway their course, it took Raz and Syrah only a little more than a week to make their way through the boundaries of the Arocklen, the Priestess’ uneasiness fading with every passing day. It was clear, though, that she never managed to appreciate the Woods as Raz did, her head so often set firmly forward on a stiff neck save when they were talking, or when some sound would make her jump and whirl in her saddle. Her nightmares, too, had returned in force, and each night as they stopped to rest Raz made sure to keep the blaze of the campfire high until Syrah fell asleep, usually curled up against his chest in an effort to keep the terrors at bay. Neither the flames nor his presence ever did much to help, though, and Syrah awoke so often crying out that some nights were spent altogether sleepless for Raz. By the time the trees started to thin around them again, he found himself praying to the Twins that her dreams would be kinder when they were beyond the borders of the Woods.

  Fortunately, he was assured of this the moment they stepped back into true daylight once again.

  “Oh!” Syrah exclaimed in delight, standing in her stirrups to peer out over the lands before them, demonstrating something other than a stoic face for the first time in days. Raz almost laughed with relief to see it, but found himself sharing in her excitement too much to tease her.

  Before them, the land rolled like calm waves in a solid pasture of swaying grass. The last he’d seen the Dehn Plains, they had been a canvas of white under the winter snows, an unbroken blanket of purity reflecting the rolling grey of the storm clouds above. It had been beautiful in its own way, but—like the Arocklen whose tree line was some dozen yards behind them now—that beauty paled in comparison to the life that had overrun the land as summer fell. The Plains still held themselves in uniform color, but instead of white the crests of the hills now shimmered with shifting shades of green as the wind caught the rising fields and played with them in patterns and waves. Far in the distance, the unbroken horizon bent and twisted across the end of the earth, shearing the somber blue of the sky accented with wispy clouds moving along lazily overhead.

  Raz had to lift a hand over his eyes as they adjusted to the direct gaze of the Sun once again, smiling into the warmth of a true summer day. He watched the grasses in the distance bend, bowing in their direction, and a few seconds later the gusting breeze reached them with a whooshing song of wind across the hills.

  “I never get tired of this view.”

  Raz looked around at Syrah’s words. The woman was beaming, still standing above her saddle, pulling her hood down off her head. He couldn’t see her good eye from where he sat on her right, but her smile was earnest and hearty, and he warmed at the sight of it.

  “I wouldn’t imagine it would ever be possible to,” he agreed. “It’s a different world to the one I saw on my way up, mind you.”

  Syrah looked at him suddenly. “I hadn't thought of that! You passed through the Dehn in the middle of winter!” She looked suddenly excited, sitting down again and leaning toward him, the interest bright in her eye. “What was it like? Was it beautiful? It must have been magnificent.”

  Raz nodded, looking to the horizon again. In his mind’s eye he recalled the wash of untouched snow, dipping and rising across the world.

  “It was,” he answered, putting his heels into Gale’s sides, nudging the horse into a steady walk along the path that still extended before them, winding across the Plains. “It reminded me of home, in fact.”

  Pressing Nymara into a brief trot to catch up to him, Syrah pulled the horse up when they were side-by-side, looking out over the land before them with a perplexed expression. “Home?” she mumbled, obviously not making the connection.

  Raz nodded. “Have you ever seen the Cienbal? Did you get a chance when you took your pilgrimage?”

  “No,” Syrah said with a shake of her head, and she sounded genuinely disappointed as she ducked her head under a rocky outcropping that jutted over the path from one of the hills to her left. “I never had the opportunity…”

  “I imagine sightseeing was low on the list, after we met,” Raz said with a dark chuckle.

  “To put it mildly,” Syrah grumbled. Then she brightened, looking around at him in full. “What is it like? Can you tell me about it?”

  “Depends on how much you enjoy the heat and the Sun.”

  Syrah scowled. “Ugh,” she huffed, grimacing. “What kind of realm exists without winter?”

  Raz grinned. “Seems only fair, given that your own lands seem to be nothing but winter.”

  Syrah laughed at that, and they spent the rest of the day in pleasant conversation, Raz telling her about the sands he’d grown up in and the cities he and his family had traveled between during the South’s predominantly cooler seasons. There was nothing new to share with the woman about the Arros themselves, of course. In the seven months they’d spent cooped up within the warmth of Cyurgi ‘Di as the freeze battered away at the outer walls, Syrah had learned almost all there was to know about Raz’s old life. He’d spared her no details as they’d gotten to know each other, and they’d grown closer for it. In the end they’d made an odd pair, their days spent almost entirely in each other’s company.

  It had earned them the disapproving glares of not a few among the Laorin.

  By the time evening fell and they guided the horses off the road to make camp among the hills, Syrah had asked Raz a hundred different questions about the geography and history of the South, taking to the subject with surprising interest. As a Priestess of Laor she was as familiar as anyone with every valley town of the North, but of the Southern cities she’d seen only one, and Raz took great pleasure in assuring her that Karth in particular was a nest of rats, filthy and ragged as compared to the other municipalities that surrounded the Cienbal. They passed a calm evening under the stars, Raz describing in detail the towering marble spires of the wealthier districts of Miropa, and the small oasis the city had been built around. He told her of the ports of Acrosia, where a hundred ships from around the world were docked on any given day, their sails and flags a shifting rainbow of colors as they came and went. He told her of the Crags, the mountain r
anges which dipped into the eastern edge of the desert, and of the lower fringe cities like Karavyl and Dynec, whose economies relied much on the trade they did with the lands of Perce and the Seven Cities, even further south.

  “Have you been there?” Syrah asked him excitedly, propped up on one elbow on her bedroll, which she’d laid out parallel to his. “To the kingdoms beyond the South?”

  For the first time all day, Raz frowned, his eyes on Her Stars far above as he lay on his back, their glimmer dimmed slightly by the white glow of the campfire at their feet.

  “No,” he said after a moment. “And I don’t intend to.”

  “Why not?” Syrah asked curiously. “You came this far north. Why not further south?”

  Here, Raz hesitated, pondering his words. Then he lifted both hands overhead, palms facing down.

  He’d taken off his gauntlets when they’d stopped for the evening, and the pale rings of colorless flesh were distinct against the otherwise-black scales of his wrists and the night sky beyond.

  “Do you know how I got these?” Raz asked Syrah quietly.

  The woman nodded, looking up at his wrists. “You’ve told me,” she responded gently. “And Talo before you. Apparently it wasn’t hard to figure out your story, even as we fled Karth.”

  “Not too many atherian living free in civilized society,” Raz said with a nod. He had meant it as a joke, but he heard the hard edge in his voice. “Only one, in fact.”

  Syrah said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

  Eventually, he did.

  “I don’t remember the chains, exactly. I was too young, I think. But I remember the pain of them. And the weight. And I remember the men. Not the details of them or their faces, of course, but more what their presence made me feel. Terror. Hate. Hopelessness. Rage.”

  He rolled his hand over, looking at the back of the scars now. “I don’t know what happened to make them leave me behind. When I was old enough my father told me he and my uncle found me with two other bodies, men who’d obviously been among the slavers. He thought it was I who had killed the pair, and when the others tried to stop me they knocked me out cold. Whether they thought I was dead or just intended to leave me regardless, I don’t know. Either way, abandoning me to the sands was the kindest thing they could have done.”

  Raz’s frown deepened. “If they hadn't, Perce or the Seven Cities is where I would have ended up, just another body on the auction block, sold like chattel to the highest bidder.”

  Syrah gave a small inhalation of outrage, her eyes widening in realization. “They keep your kind as slaves?” she demanded, her tone disbelieving.

  Raz nodded, letting his arms fall to his chest and looking to the sky again. “Your faith did well to ban the practice,” he told her. “Even in the fringe cities, the slavers only work as an open secret, and most of their ‘goods’—” he said the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth “—are shipped south, generally to Perce. It’s a civilization of wealth and plenty, I’m told. They pay the most for the best among the stock.” He grit his teeth. “Apparently, that includes the atherian.”

  Beside him, Syrah’s mouth hung slightly agape. For a time it seemed she was lost for words. After a minute or so she eased herself down on her back, lying beside him as she, too, took in the heavens.

  “Life isn’t kind, is it?” she asked finally.

  Raz rolled his head around to look at her. Her pink eye was clear, reflecting the Moon above them, and the loose ends of the black wraps that shielded the scarred right side of her face lay about her head. Her white hair shifted over her shoulders as a warm breeze tumbled down off the hill behind them. She looked sad, like she was navigating some unhappy contemplating.

  “What do you mean?”

  In response, Syrah reached out with her left hand to take Raz’s right, curling her fingers between his before pulling them up, lifting both above their heads. Outlined against Her Stars, their matching scars seemed to loop through each other, his a pale circle between black scales, hers a pink ring around her slim wrist.

  It hurt him, seeing that blemish, the disfigurement of her otherwise smooth skin. It hurt every time he caught sight of it or its counterpart on her other arm, like some deity or another was intent on making him suffer at least a fraction of the torment she’d been through to earn them.

  “I mean that the Laorin go out of their way to teach the children of our faith one thing,” Syrah finally answered. “We teach them that life is a gift—the greatest gift, in fact—to be cherished above all other things. We teach them that life is a beautiful, perfect thing, filled with wonder and adventure and excitement, and must therefore be protected at all cost.”

  She sighed, letting their arms drop between them again, though she didn’t let go of his hand. “But it’s not perfect, is it? It’s not even beautiful. It’s filled with hardship and misery, challenges and pain. I don’t think I ever understood that before… before…”

  She trailed off for a moment, and Raz felt her fingers tighten around his. He knew all too well where her mind had gone, and he returned the pressure comfortingly, intent on keeping the nightmares far at bay for this one night at least.

  After a moment, Syrah found her voice again.

  “It’s not kind,” she said again. “And just when you start to come to terms with the hardships of your own life, you discover that someone, somewhere in some far-off place, exists in a world that makes the difficulties of yours pale in comparison.”

  The sadness in her eye deepened, and she smiled in a rigid, sorrowful fashion. “Do those people even know what hope is, Raz?” she asked. “What it means? Do slaves still hold on to purpose? I had hope, when Kareth Grahst had me. I always had hope. Even if I died there, in the cold and misery, I knew I would be reborn in warmth and comfort, born into the arms of loving parents as Laor returned me to the cycle of life. But what do people who have nothing live for? How do they carry on?”

  For a long time, Raz didn’t answer her, pondering her words. He looked back to the sky, his eyes trailing across the infinite blackness, seeking the place of solace he knew he would always find there. It took several seconds, but eventually he found them, two bright points of light crowning a smaller, calmer one.

  “There was a time I thought I had nothing.”

  Syrah tensed slightly at his words, as though she’d been unsure he would answer. As Raz continued, he felt her relax again.

  “For a long time, in fact, I thought I had nothing. No family. No home. No hope. For years I merely existed, like some empty shell of a man, trying to find meaning in all the wrong places. I was the Monster, in truth then. I lived with no purpose but to devour, to take vengeance on a world that had left me alone and without reason to be.”

  He smiled, then, still watching the trio of Her Stars glimmer against the night.

  “But I wasn’t that person forever. I found my reason, eventually, in the work I did, or at least I found some semblance of it. As misguided as I was, allowing myself to take up arms for the Mahsadën, I found a glimmer of something in my labors, my efforts to eradicate the vermin from the city I came to call my home. It was twisted, I admit, and it took me a long time to fully understand that, but when I did, that glimmer bloomed into purpose.”

  Finally, he pulled his gaze away from the heavens, looking back to Syrah.

  “Life is never perfect, no,” he agreed. “And life is ugly. But consider the fact that maybe, just maybe, it’s from all that ugliness that many of the best things come. If there was nothing to pull us down, to bring us to our knees, then there would never be any reason for us to stand up taller than before, to better ourselves and rise above. Life may not be innately beautiful, but it can be made beautiful. In one way or another, it can be made to have purpose. Slaves are not things, are not creatures. They feel, and they hurt, and they die. But that means they also love, and fight, and live.”

  He squeezed her hand again. “Don’t belittle the trials you went through, Syrah. Don’
t attempt to minimize that crucible simply because you learn that someone else has it harder. You said it yourself: you kept your faith. You kept your hope. Through everything you suffered, your spirit found a way to persevere. So don’t discount the will of the broken. Even if you think they have nothing—even if they think they have nothing—there is always something to live for. There is always something to fight for and hold on to.”