As Iron Falls

by Bryce O'Connor

  Ehmed nodded once, then was gone, little more than a shift among the rays of dust cast as the Sun filtered through the broken and rotted planks of the walls. Na’zeem, after the man had taken his leave, tilted his head back to rest it against the flaking and splintered wood, watching the patterns whirl about in the light.

  Silently, he thanked the Twins for his good fortune.

  He’s here.

  CHAPTER 9

  “There is much in life one should value. Much one should take care to gather and cherish. Your mother might say otherwise, but I do not think it unwise to appreciate the material things that give life much of its meaning. Wealth has its place in the pursuit of happiness, after all. That being said… Do not ever lose sight of that which truly matters. Never stray so far from the path that leads you back to family…”

  —Agais Arro to his eldest child, Raz i’Syul

  Raz and Syrah spent the better part of the next four days generally avoiding the topic of where it was they would be heading off to next, as well as when they would be leaving. They both agreed—despite the assurance of Tana Atler—that they could not tarry about Ystréd for too long, as delaying their departure would eventually result in their being largely trapped in the city by the winter snows. On the other hand, there was something to be said for enjoying the hospitality and presence of others, particularly after nearly a month of no other company but their own.

  Atler hadn't quite shaken the cold shoulder she tended to give Raz, but he didn’t mind. He’d failed her, in a way, when Talo had died, and he understood her unwillingness to welcome him back with open arms. Syrah had asked him repeatedly as to the reason the High Priestess seemed consistently distant with him, but he’d done his best to dodge the question every time.

  He just hadn't found the courage to tell her that, before he and Talo and Carro had last departed the temple, Atler had pulled him aside and practically begged him to protect the High Priest with his life.

  Even if he hadn't intended to, he had failed her.

  Syrah eventually gave up on getting her answer, and life settled into a pleasant routine for a time. Raz would always wake before the rest of the temple, even those with early morning chores. He’d never needed much sleep—the Grandmother had theorized it was a character of his race, when he’d been younger—and he enjoyed the quiet of the dawn, enjoyed the opportunity to be up and about before the thrum of the city set his head to aching again. He would wake up, briefly ensure Syrah wasn’t trapped in the throes of any nightmare, then make for the downstairs kitchens where he’d help himself to a plate of raw beef or chicken or whatever other meats the Laorin had stowed away in the cabinets they kept magically cooled. After this, he would go outside to tend to Gale and Nymara—it had only been in the last week that the mare finally stopped shying away at his approach—brushing the horses down and speaking to them calmly while feeding them handfuls of grain and sugar from a chest at the back of the small stable.

  Once the animals were groomed, it was time to practice.

  It was a habit Raz had fallen into in the weeks of travel with Carro and Talo, and it was one he’d worked to maintain ever since. In the past years Raz had had to do little in the way of training, his work as a sellsword providing all the opportunity he ever needed to keep his skills sharp and his body fit. Now, though, in a happier time when bloodshed wasn’t quite as frequent an occurrence, he’d returned to a daily rigor he hadn't committed to so thoroughly since his earliest days learning to wield Ahna and his other weapons.

  Raz danced for almost an hour each morning, taking advantage of a small, well-trodden paddock the horses would spend the day in if the weather allowed. He practiced unarmed, then with the gladius, and finally with Ahna, pushing his body until his legs burned and his arms ached. He found a place apart from himself in those fights with invisible opponents, found a spot in his mind from where he could safely peek into the abyss down which he knew the animal lay dormant, waiting to be called on. It was a calm space, one devoid of any of the noise and lights and vigor of the world around him. It was a space into which he could escape, pressing his physical and mental limits again and again and again.

  Raz only ever stopped when he heard the temple start to wake behind him.

  When the thump of feet and the splash of washing basins rang clear from the windows, he knew it was time to put his weapons away and move inside to take a seat among the faithful as they broke their fast. Syrah was generally up and about by then, and saved Raz a wide chair beside her every morning. Atler was not unreasonable in her disapproval of him, always making sure there was something for him to eat among the fruits and grains the others partook in. On the first day, Raz was treated to salted bacon and spiced sausages. On the second, a slab of ham so large Syrah had ended up helping him finish it, to her great amusement. On the third, roast duck marinated in a plum jam.

  After the morning meal, the temple started its day in truth, the acolytes, Priests, and Priestesses setting about their chores or greeting congregants who came as groups or pairs or individuals to seek the blessings of the Lifegiver. During this time, Syrah would always drag Raz out into the city, forcing him to tail her about Ystréd as she delighted in the shops and markets. Ordinarily it would all have been a painful ordeal for him, his sensitive ears and snout rebelling against the tumultuous sounds and smells of the town. Unsurprisingly, though, Raz always found himself hard-pressed not to enjoy himself at least the smallest bit around Syrah’s infectious excitement.

  He eventually decided the woman’s energy could only have come from a childhood spent mostly locked away within the walls of the Citadel. Whatever the reason, Syrah made it seem like she could have spent her life wandering the bustle of the city and never gotten bored. She pulled him along, day after day, each time to a new quarter of Ystréd, so taken by the buildings and bustle of the place that at times she seemed almost to forget the darker cloud that loomed above her head. Only on occasion did Raz have to step between her and a man who strayed too close, or stiff-arm the crowd as it pressed in around them, making her blanch. Fortunately, the aversion of the people of Ystréd generally worked in their favor, most none-too-keen on being within reach his at any given time.

  Even better, it was easy for Raz to ignore the annoyed flutter this ignorance evoked when Syrah smiled and dragged him by the hand to the next shop along the bazaars.

  It was always well-past noon by the time they returned to the temple, and Syrah and Raz typically had a late lunch alone in Syrah’s room. This was the time, every day, that they pretended they would spend planning their next move, working out where they were off to next, but it never worked out that way. They always found a reason to stray from the topic, to speak of everything and anything that wasn’t what the future held for them. They tended, in fact, to speak of Talo, and Syrah’s childhood with him, talking of the trouble she’d caused and what kind of father he had been. It felt right, remembering him together in that space where they could almost feel the old Priest’s presence.

  When their lunch was done, Raz and Syrah sought to earn their keep. Syrah would assist the other Priests and Priestesses in instructing the acolytes in the art of spellwork, teaching the children and converts of the temple how to fight and defend themselves, or else showing them how to weave the magics together into spells and runes of protection or warmth or light. While she did this, Raz set about putting his strength to use, joining in with the other men as they split timber to pile behind the stables in preparation for the coming freeze, or made repairs about the building. It was arduous work, to the point where even Raz—despite his body’s general preference for warmth—usually had his shirt off by the time he and the others called an end to the day, allowing his scaled skin to cool in the shadows. Afterward, the men would all briefly retire to their chambers to bathe and clean up, and then it was time for one last meal together.

  After supper, as people split off one after the other for bed, Raz and Syrah would take their leave. Raz would retri
eve his gladius from his room, then quickly make his way to Syrah’s, wondering every night what the Priests and Priestesses would think when it was discovered that his own bed had never been slept in.

  Finally, Raz would settle into his habitual place, seated on the floor facing the room door, his back against Syrah’s bed, the sword resting against his shoulder.

  “I’m going to miss this,” Syrah said slowly, surprising him.

  It was their fourth evening spent in the hospitality of the faith. Syrah’s window was open, letting in the cool breeze of the late evening, the Moon illuminating the stone wall of the alleyway opposite. The candles she had lit about the chamber flickered in the shifting air, making warm shadows dance about. She lay on her back on the bed, her head hanging off the edge to rest on Raz’s shoulder, looking up at the angled slope of the ceiling as her hair fell over his neck and chest. They hadn't been talking for several minutes, and Raz was just beginning to think she’d fallen asleep there, propped up against him, when she spoke.

  It took him a moment to catch on.

  “It’s hard, walking away from everything you know,” he said with a slow nod, reaching across himself to run his claws carefully through her hair. “This is your world. I admit I’m hesitant to take you away from it…”

  “If you’re about to ask me if I’m sure I don’t want to stay behind, don’t waste your time.” Syrah closed her eyes in appreciation as Raz’s fingers ran gently over her head. “That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m more afraid you’re going to take off in the middle of the night without me than I am of anything I might be leaving behind.”

  “I’m not going to leave you,” Raz promised her, his eyes on the shapes passing under the jamb of the door as residents of the temple bid each other goodnight on the walkway outside.

  Syrah gave a small shrug. “I wouldn’t put it past you, casting me off here because of some misguided understanding that I’m not meant for the world beyond walls like this.” She lifted a hand to wave about the room.

  Raz snorted. “You were doing just fine before I came along,” he told her. “The people of the North knew your name a long time before they learned of ‘the Monster,’ or ‘the Scourge.’”

  “Or ‘the Dragon?’” she kept on, half-teasing.

  It was Raz’s turn to shrug. “The point is that I know you can handle yourself. If I didn’t, then I would never have agreed to leave the Citadel with you in the first place.”

  That seemed to cheer the woman up a little, because he felt her smile. Still, when she spoke, she didn't sound altogether convinced. “If I can handle myself, then how did I end up with this?” She waved a hand at the bandage still wrapped about her right eye. She said it casually, as though she were merely keeping up the conversation, but Raz knew better.

  Just as he knew well how she’d come to receive that scar.

  “It was you and a few against hundreds,” he told her, leaning his head back so that it rested on her own shoulder, staring up at the dance of candlelight against the ceiling. “If you think I could have done any better, with odds like that, then you’re delusional, and I should leave you behind.”

  That got a laugh out of her. “Maybe.” She reached up, running the fingers of her hand between his eyes and over the crown of his head. “In that case, though, maybe we both need to get stronger.”

  “If we stay together, we’re plenty strong,” Raz mumbled as he, too, closed his eyes in enjoyment. “Wherever we end up.”

  “And where is that going to be, exactly?”

  Raz tensed, then smirked grimly. He’d been wondering which of them would bring it up first, would be willing to break the brief spell of peace they had found there in the temple.

  Seems we know which of us is the braver one, now.

  “West,” he told her. “We can find passage across the Emperor’s Ocean, and make for the Isles, or the Imperium. Apart from some sea trade, I don’t imagine either empire has much love for the South or the Mahsadën, and I doubt they’ve ever even heard of Gûlraht Baoill. With any luck, not too many people would bother either of us if we can make it.”

  “‘If we can make it…’” Syrah repeated slowly, and Raz caught the concern in her voice.

  He didn’t bother telling her that it was shared.

  It was far from a perfect plan. For one thing, he was fairly sure easy passage across the Emperor’s Ocean could only be found in Acrosia, the South’s western port. He hadn't been there in almost ten years, having last visited when he and the Arros still traveled the Cienbal’s routes as one of the nomadic trading caravans. He knew well, though, despite this, that Acrosia was as firmly under the thumb of the Mahsadën as any of the other fringe cities. Even if they waited out the summer in Ystréd, making South once the cooler season had returned, it would prove difficult to get into the city. Beyond that, Raz didn’t even bother contemplating how they would find a captain who might agree to take he and Syrah on rather than turn them over for the prices on their heads, much less sneak himself onto a ship.

  No, it wasn’t a perfect plan, but with the South removed as an option and the North still a hunting ground for him—and now Syrah—it was the best he had been able to come up with.

  There was a flicker of a shadow outside the window, and Raz glanced around. It must have been some slum runner, darting across the alley below, because it disappeared at once, and Raz found himself looking out at the light of the Moon illuminating the mortared granite of the building opposite the temple. He got the feeling, abruptly, that if they decided on this path, decided on making for the West Isles or the Imperium, that he would be praying to Her and Her Stars all too often in the coming months.

  Beside him, Syrah sighed. “Maybe we should both stay here,” she said glumly, rolling over and off him as she made for the head of the bed. “We could lock ourselves in this room where no one can get us.”

  Raz chuckled, turning to watch the Priestess slide under the covers. “I’m sure Atler wouldn’t mind. We can commandeer an acolyte or two to bring us our meals and empty our chamber pots a few times a day.”

  Syrah grunted in distaste, fluffing her feather pillow before laying down, her good eye meeting his. “Pleasant,” she said sarcastically.

  Raz grinned. “It’s that, or the Sun of the South and a boat west.”

  Syrah groaned. “Chamber pots don’t sound so bad when you put it that way. You’re sure there’s no better options?”

  “None that I can come up with,” he told her with a shake of his head. “We’ve done a good job of making ourselves poor company in most of the known world, it seems.”

  Syrah didn’t reply immediately, toying with a loose piece of straw sticking out of the stitching in her mattress.

  “Why do so many bad souls exist?” she asked after a time, pulling the straw loose and rolling onto her back as she turned it absently between her fingers. “I believe in a god who is supposed to purge the world of the wicked, and yet as I get older I see only more darkness all around. Your Mahsadën. These factions within the clans who still want my head. Cutthroats like that woman Thera and her band. Why couldn’t Laor have given us the power to simply wipe them from the world, and be done with it? If they’d never existed, we wouldn’t have to run.”

  “It would certainly be easier,” Raz mused, contemplating the question. “Then again, if they didn’t exist, neither would we.”

  Syrah paused in her fidgeting, considering his words. “I suppose,” she said eventually, resuming her toying with the straw. “It’s a balance, in the end. Where there is light, there is shadow.”

  “I think it’s more the opposite,” Raz said, though he nodded. “Where there is shadow, there must be light.”

  Syrah smiled, but it was a cool, disheartened smile. “‘You can’t have one without the other,’” she quoted what he had told her on the road. Then she frowned and looked his way with sad eyes.

  “I’m happy to be with you,” she said. “But… I wish we didn’t have to leave�
��”

  No more running, a snarling voice chimed in from the back of Raz’s mind, but he pressed it back.

  “Not for long,” he told her gently. “I promise.”

  In response, Syrah just nodded. Then, after a minute, she threw the strand of straw to the floor, rolled onto her side, and started to undo the eye-wraps with one hand as she raised the other above her head.

  “Tomorrow we can tell Atler we’re leaving,” she said. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” Raz told her, settling down himself. “Wake me if you need me.”

  And with that, Syrah extinguished the candles with a flick of her wrist, leaving Raz with nothing but the night wind and Moon’s light for company.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Plan. Plot. Prepare. These are the essentials of your trade, the essentials of your survival. I can teach you to mold your body into a weapon, can teach you to become as lethal as the blade you hold in your hand. It won’t mean anything, though, if you are not ready, if you are not poised to strike when and where the moment arrives…”