As Iron Falls

by Bryce O'Connor

  And yet now, though he stared at nothing in the relative darkness of the cramped room, his every word rang clear:

  “Sand and snow, they come as one,

  fire and ice made whole.

  The Dragon’s blade, the Witch’s might,

  each will play its role.

  On wings of war, freedom soars,

  though death will claim its fill.

  Stand and fight, all you chained,

  as iron falls to will.”

  To a one, every soul in the room was silent. Even Brahen—who’d been growing more and more irritated in recent weeks at being woken up in the middle of the night—didn’t speak up. For her part, Karan could do little more than stare at the old Percian, her hands still clasped around his shoulders. She gaped even as Abir shuddered, blinking rapidly and seeming to come to.

  Shaking his head, he looked around in clear confusion for a moment before meeting Karan’s eyes.

  “What…?” he started uncertainly. “Where…? What happened?

  “Abir…?” Karan whispered, though her voice carried over the quiet of the quarters. “Those words…? What… What was that?”

  The old man didn’t say anything for a moment, obviously fighting to remember.

  Then he shook his head.

  “I… I don’t know,” he told her, looking down at his hands like they’d once held something important that was now slipping through them. “I can’t recall. I remember… I remember the words, but—”

  “What do they mean?” someone hissed from the darkness behind Karan.

  “I don’t know,” Abir said miserably, clenching and unclenching his thin, wizened fingers. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

  Karan had never bought into the man’s masquerade of prescience. He’d always been kind to her, had taken her in when she’d been sold into the city’s labor forces and protected her until she was old enough to mostly look after herself, but she’d always thought of his tales as little more than stories he used to keep himself and the slave children entertained.

  Now, though… Now she wasn’t so sure.

  Karan felt as though some realization was just at the edge of her mind, some understanding for which she already had all the pieces.

  The Dragon…

  She didn’t allow herself to dwell on that hope. The legends and whispers they’d been hearing more and more of about the city were nothing grander than that to veteran slaves like her: legends and whispers. Karan had long since learned to toss away empty dreams, long since learned that the pain of shattered hopes was far worse than any lashing. She’d come to terms, years ago, with her life and fate. The manacles around her feet were as much a part of her now as her own limbs, an absolute from which there was no escape.

  The Dragon, she thought again, wistfully this time.

  After a moment, Karan managed to quell her moment of weakness. Her temporary consideration that maybe, just maybe, there was more to Abir’s words than the ravings of a worn soul passed into limbo.

  “Go back to sleep, old man,” she said kindly, easing him back down onto his small section of the floor. “Get some rest. Maybe it will make more sense in the morning.”

  She didn’t believe a word of the suggestion, but Abir seemed to take comfort in the idea, nodding numbly as he accepted her assistance, huddling back up against the wall. When she was sure he was settled again, his dark eyes closing slowly, Karan shifted herself around and crawled back to her own little corner of the room.

  Lying back down, her tail curling about herself as she balled her body as tightly as she could in an attempt to stave off the coolness of the summer night, Karan’s mind couldn’t help but wander back to the words Abir had recited, turning them over one after the other in an endless loop.

  The Dragon, the name came again, and she could do nothing to stop her thoughts from drifting through the stories that had been spreading from slave to slave, fables of bloody victories and deposed tyrants.

  Finally, as dreams pulled her off into a world where iron was as soft as butter and food was a plentiful thing, Karan faded away from the cruel teasings of her own mind. Had she not drifted off again so soon, though, she might have noticed that Abir slept more soundly than he’d ever managed for as long as she'd known him. Had she stayed awake, Karan might have wondered at the faint glow cutting through the little window as the clouds shifted outside.

  Had she not closed her eyes, Karan might have seen the Moon, bright and promising in the night sky, bathing the gently breathing form of the old man in a shaft of pale, dancing light.

  CHAPTER 42

  "Despite the perverse practices and acts of the cities, one cannot deny the fiscal and political titans the ancient seats of the Percian Tash once were. In their prime, Karesh Syl and Karesh Nan were nothing less than walled nations, colossal gears in the machine that was ancient trade and economy.

  It is sad, in some ways, to look back and witness the abrupt dismantling of such tremendous power…”

  —The Fall of Ancient Perce, author unknown

  “Raz, you can’t be serious.”

  “I don’t like it either, but we’re running out of options.”

  “But here? Here? We’re going to get caught. I’m telling you, we’re going to get caught.”

  “Not if we don’t stay long. A few nights, maybe. We just need to lie low until we can find a better alternative.”

  Even in the shadowed darkness of the alley, Raz could tell Syrah’s face was twisted into a doubtful scowl. He couldn’t really blame her, given their predicament, but they had little choice.

  A gamble was all they had left.

  Finding shelter before morning was far more difficult than Raz could have possibly anticipated. Once inside the city, he’d honestly expected it would be a relatively simple matter to find some semblance of the slums he was accustomed to, some derelict quarter with ample hovels and abandoned huts they would be able to lose themselves—and any potential pursuers—in. Such places had been an absolute reality of every other municipality Raz had ever had the misfortune of exploring. The fringe cities of the South were half-dead, the greatest portion of their residents surviving on the streets or in the abysmal squalor of the shantytowns that barely offered them refuge enough to stay out of the Sun’s blaze. In the North, Azbar and Ystréd’s conditions had been less deplorable, but he’d experienced the depths of the freeze for himself and understood all too well why hundreds died every winter in the valley towns, victims of hunger and the cruelties of the storms. Indeed, Raz had been so sure they would find refuge in the poor districts of Karesh Syl that he hadn't even bothered considering other options.

  And so, when he realized with no small amount of disbelief that no such slums existed, Raz, Syrah, and their little army had found themselves at a horrible loss.

  The streets of the outer ring—which were very obviously what passed for the “poor districts” of the city—were not as clean-cut and well cared for as the shining towers and obelisks that rose up toward the night sky as one approached the Tash’s palace. The stone slabs beneath their feet were worn and cracking, and many of the oil lanterns hanging overhead from plain iron or timber posts were dim or unlit, so that the darkness was heavy over the cobbled road and the cumbersome buildings rising up in staggered measures on either side of the street. Still, no emaciated forms blinked at them from the shadows, no beggars sat bent and lonely on the corners, pleading for food and coin all while keeping an eye out for the guard that would beat them senseless if they were caught. They had roamed the city for nearly two hours, Raz and Syrah ducking into the nooks and side-streets on the rare occasions they crossed strangers in the night, and for the first half of that time Raz couldn’t wrap his head around it, couldn’t come to terms with the utter strangeness of his surroundings.

  Eventually, though, he realized that a city like Karesh Syl had better uses for the likes of vagrants and vagabonds.

  In the end, with every passing minute a moment closer to the stowe
d soldiers of the east gate being discovered, Raz had realized they would have to turn to the most absurd solution possible. They needed shelter, a place to lie low, even for just a day or two, until the commotion that would inevitably arrive with the rising Sun settled down a little.

  And so it was—Raz, Syrah, Akelo, and Marsus Byrn tucked into one alley with Gale and Nymara while the rest of the men lingered in the streets or hid themselves in other nooks nearby—that they had ended up in front of the Red Shield Lodge.

  The outer ring might not have been the traditional bastion of famine and misery Raz would have expected in a city the size of Karesh Syl, but in their time circling it—dodging the occasional patrols and giving the gates as wide a berth as they could—they passed any number of unsavory inns and taverns. The beggars might have been dragged off in chains, but thieves and louts and ruffians were an undeniable reality of every municipality of any respectable breadth, as were the largely distasteful institutions that served them their drinks and meals. The sort of unsavory establishments that wouldn’t blink twice at a near-score of rough-looking men with hollow eyes and mismatched armor lumbering into their common room, much less the coin they brought with them.

  Once he’d realized they had no other option, Raz made his choice quickly, backtracking them a quarter-hour until he found the building again. He’d picked the Red Shield out of the dozen others for several reasons, the least of which was that it seemed the cleanest and most respectable, and might therefore be lower on the list of places to inspect if the army chose to take things that far. More importantly, the premises were surprisingly large, encompassing three floors of what looked to have been two buildings joined by several rickety walkways into a single structure. Better still, even this late at night the open door to the common area was filled with light and laughter, the sounds of shouted entertainment, thudding chairs, and clinking tankards and plates loud and boisterous.

  If they were ever going to lose themselves in the crowd, the Red Shield would be the place. Raz doubted anyone would so much as look twice at his motley crew of former slaves, much less the kuja still bedecked in soldiers' uniforms.

  Fortunately, Syrah had managed to magically cleanse most of the bloodstains from the dyed leather armor.

  Still ignoring the Priestess’ sour expression, Raz turned to Akelo in the dark. “Five rooms,” he told the old Percian. “Four men to a room. You and Cyper make sure to claim one with a street-facing window. When you’ve settled in, send someone out for the horses.”

  If Akelo had reservations about the plan, he didn’t voice them. Nodding once, he told Marsus to gather the others, and together the pair stepped around Raz and Syrah back out into the street, the Southerner splitting off to assemble the men. Raz watched Akelo enter the tavern first, his broad form vanishing into the light and smoke and crowd. After him, the other Percian followed, then the rest in pairs and groups. Hur, Erom, and Marsus were the last to file into the Red Shield, the Southerner turning briefly to give the alley Raz and Syrah were still lingering in a confident nod.

  For the next several minutes, the two of them waited tensely, she slinking back into the dark to stand with Nymara, her staff tucked into her crossed arms, he crouched as close to the mouth of the street as he dared, Ahna resting across both shoulders. He couldn’t help his steel claws from drumming nervously at the dviassegai’s white wood haft, nor keep his eyes from flicking up to the front-facing windows he could see. Syrah obviously sensed his doubts, and took the opportunity to try to make her point again.

  “It’s a bad idea…” she warned from behind him. “If any of them get caught…”

  “They won’t,” Raz told her firmly, more to assure himself than out of any real conviction. “Akelo knows what’s at stake.”

  “We’re too exposed, Raz,” Syrah insisted. “If the army searches the inns—”

  “Then we’ll think of something,” Raz growled in irritation, turning to look over his shoulder at her and the horses. “What would you have me do, Syrah? What other options do we have? The Sun will be up in a few hours, and there’s no way there won’t be a changing of the watch before then.”

  Syrah was leaning against the wall of the alley, the staff still looped into her elbow. She glowered at him, but the look in her eye was one less of annoyance and more of frustration.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “I don’t. But this…” She glanced up at the façade of the Red Shield doubtfully. “I just don’t know, Raz…”

  Raz sighed, turning back to the tavern too. “It’s a risk,” he conceded. “And it’s my fault. We should have prepared better. We should have sent someone into the city first, to see what they could find.”

  “It would have been too dangerous,” Syrah said, her voice gentler now that he was giving her some credit. “It was already a gamble for Akelo and the kuja to scout the outer wall, much less pass through the gates.”

  Raz shrugged, eyes still shifting over the windows. “I shouldn’t have assumed,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t even think to consider we would have trouble finding somewhere to hide. This city…” He grit his teeth. “It hides its cruelties so well. It feeds on itself, like Azbar did, but it’s so much better at it. It’s the epitome of the argument my cousin used to make, when I found out he was working for the Mahsadën…”

  “Mychal?” Syrah asked tentatively.

  Raz hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I think Mychal vanished into the flames with the rest of the Arros. ‘Adrion’ took his place a lot longer ago than I’ve been willing to admit.”

  He looked over his shoulder again, but this time his eyes lifted to the glowing outline of the Tash’s palace, visible over the buildings at the opposite end of the side-street. “The filth he started to believe in… He would always tell me of the ‘value’ of the enslaved, how those who didn’t work were nothing but a burden on modern society. He used to argue that a life of servitude was better than a life of nothingness. Ergoin Sass taught him that, I think. Even if it took a few years, Adrion subscribed wholly to this notion the Percian follow, of excising the ugliness of the world and replacing it with ‘productivity.’”

  “Crushing free will in the process,” Syrah said with a grim nod. “Still, I understand the theory.”

  Raz’s gaze dropped to her, anger boiling up so quickly inside him he started to stand and turn to face her. Before he could get so much as a word out, though, the Priestess cut him off.

  “I said I understand it, Raz, not that I appreciate or condone it. It’s despicable, a deplorable act. Even the concept is little more than an excuse fabricated by those in power to advance their own agendas at little to no cost to themselves. ‘Productivity.’” She snorted in disgust. “Life is the greatest gift the Lifegiver has granted us. I may be straying from the traditional beliefs and respect we give that law, but I stand by the essential truth of it. I see now, the greater good. I understand that death might be a sacrifice so that others may live. But to deny a person the freedom to live as they choose, to take away their life and bind them until they are nothing but a building block in a place like this…” It was her turn to glance back at the grand outline of the palace. “You would never be able to convince me it serves any greater purpose than those laid out by cruel men for their own gain.”

  “But you understand it…?” Raz asked tentatively, his anger not completely quelled.

  Syrah huffed irritably, though clearly more at the idea than at Raz himself. “I do. Talo taught to put one’s self in other’s shoes, Raz. The Lifetaker would never have become High Priest of Cyurgi ‘Di had he not allowed himself to witness the world through the eyes of the Laorin. I would never have convinced Emreht Grahst to sign the treaties with the valley towns if I did not allow myself to learn and appreciate the needs of the mountain clans.”

  At that, Raz felt his fury spike again, his neck crest twitching up as his fingers spasmed to clench at Ahna’s haft.

  Again, though, Syrah continued before he could s
peak.

  “Maybe those are bad examples,” she said in a hurry, frowning. “Yes. I’m sorry. They are bad examples. I don’t mean to say that I sympathize with this place, Raz. I don’t. If I did, I think I would rot from the inside out until I was nothing but a worm-eaten corpse.”

  “Then what do you mean, Syrah?” Raz asked, unable to keep his voice from sounding dangerous.

  “I mean that it’s important to have a grasp of what it is we are facing. That it’s essential to understand this fight we are throwing ourselves into. If we have that, if we know our enemy as well as they know themselves, then what advantage could they possibly hold over us?”

  Raz was quiet at that, watching Syrah in the dark. Slowly he felt his wrath cool, felt the crest along his neck settle and still.

  “‘Know your enemy,’” he quoted, turning once more back to the Red Shield. His eyes, though, rose to the heavens, where the Moon and Her Stars glowed from between a shifting pattern of clouds. The Arros weren’t in sight, the threesome of glimmering points hidden by the building and wall to the north of him, but all the same Raz managed to crack a smile, finding himself carried momentarily back to fond memories.