With a supreme effort, and because her arms were slightly longer than the girl’s, she got her hands on the Underprior’s face and dug her thumbs at her eyes. To her horror even that didn’t slacken the grip at her throat. She saw the dagger flash in the firelight as it drew back.
Then the pressure was gone and Celestaine slid down the Redecina’s engraved side until she dislodged some of the scaffolding. The gold pillar lurched sideways and collapsed back into pieces on the floor.
All the rest of the fighting had stopped, mostly from a lack of combat-worthy priests. All that was left was the Underprior and Heno.
He had her lifted in the air, limned with a spiky white fire Celestaine knew all too well. It hurt through every nerve, that fire. She had once screamed just like the Underprior was screaming. Past her, Heno’s expression was dreadfully intent—not hating, not angry, but concentrating absolutely on what he was doing.
“Heno,” she gasped, but her voice was just a croak in her throat. He couldn’t possibly have heard her.
The dagger fell from the Underprior’s grasp and clattered across the stone. She was flailing, striking out at the air around her as Heno cocked his head thoughtfully.
“Heno!” A gasp, now, Celestaine’s strength returning to her. Nedlam was just watching, because she’d seen a lot of this sort of thing and it didn’t bother her much. The surviving priests were watching too, and Celestaine felt their terror. Not just a Yorughan but a Heart Taker, the worst of the worst, the nightmare that robbed the free folk of sleep and turned battlefields into butcher’s yards.
Celestaine saw Heno’s eyes begin to glow as the power rose in him. The white blaze seemed to dampen the braziers, to swallow all light not its own. She had seen his fellow magi in a score of fights. She had seen Heno himself give vent to this power, both before his conversion and after—turned against his own people to get her and the others into the Kinslayer’s presence. It was terrifying. It was impressive, in the way that power wielded skilfully always is. The weapons of evil could still lend a strange beauty to their wielders.
“Heno, no,” she got out, properly audible now. “Please.”
She waited to see what he would do.
His eyes flicked to her, the fire searing about his irises and dancing from his lashes. He took a deep breath and grinned, that infinitely maddening expression of his that meant he would do whatever he pleased and whatever amused him.
He blew out again and the white fire was gone, the braziers seeming to leap up like angry dogs. The Underprior collapsed to the ground, weeping with pain and anger, still scrabbling for her dagger. With a deft step, Doctor Catt removed it from her reach and tucked it neatly into his robe, no doubt to find pride of place in his collection.
“Any more?” Heno’s voice growled around the chamber, sabotaged only slightly because there were no heroes to defy him. Nedlam had broken enough legs to make sure of that, though Celestaine cautiously reckoned that she had left people mostly alive, or at least only slightly dead. As for the arrows, though… There were three bodies that plainly wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, each with a shaft somewhere particularly fatal: the eye, the throat, the back of the neck.
“You can come down now, Kul,” she called up into the echoing, stone-edged void.
There was barely a scuffle as he swung down, agile as a spider, bow holstered once more. He glanced about at the bodies with his huge, round eyes.
“Is it all going to be like this, travelling with you?”
“No,” she said quickly. And then, because she was honest, “I hope not.”
The Underprior had recovered enough to prop herself up and glower at Celestaine and all of them. “You have doomed us.” Her eyes lit on the fractured Redecina and she let out a little cry. “Why did you come to our town? Did the Kinslayer put us in your mind before you killed him?”
“It’s not always about you,” Celestaine said shortly. “Besides, you were going to open up my… my comrade. Who helped, with the killing of the Kinslayer. So you should be thanking him.”
“He’s a thing of the enemy!” the Underprior insisted.
“Not any more. And the Kinslayer’s barely cold and already you’re looking for more enemies? Is peace that terrible?”
“Being cut off from the gods is,” the Underprior said, and she believed it, Celestaine could tell. She herself had never been the most pious of people. She had approached the gods with a nodding respect, and Their servants in the world with sheer pragmatism, judging them as she found them. Wanderer she’d liked, most of the others she’d had little time for; and a handful like the Undefeated were nuisances through and through. “The Gracious One, She was all for healing, wasn’t She? That’s why She had a hospice and not a temple. I mean, what do you think She’d even say, if he came back sprayed with the blood of your victims? Would She thank you?”
“She would hate me,” the Underprior said with utter conviction. “She would cast me out, damn me forever, leave me in silence and spurn my ghost. But at least She would be back and it wouldn’t matter about me. I’d pay that price, to have Her voice speak to the faithful.”
“None of the gods has a voice in the world any more,” Celestaine said quietly. “The Guardians that are still with us are as cut off as we are. I would have just tried to live my life as your god might have wanted, and hope She’d creep back some day. Not try to force the issue at the end of a knife. But what do I know? I’m not a priest or anything.” She looked at Catt and Fisher. “So what now?”
Doctor Catt played with his finger-ends as he looked around the cave. “It has all rather fallen into confusion, has it not?” he said dolefully.
“Militia,” grunted Fisher.
“Oh, well I suppose we may have to involve the appropriate authorities,” Catt admitted.
“No,” Fisher said. “Militia, here.”
Then they all heard the tramp of feet, even over the groans of the wounded. A score of blue-uniformed Cheriveni soldiers bottlenecked the passageway they’d come in by and stared at the wreckage. At their head was the little housegrave whom Celestaine had promised no trouble to.
Chapter Seven
THE MAGISTRATE OF Cinquetann Riverport was short and plump, grey-haired and with a grandmotherly demeanour, but she had a hawkish stare on her that would have given the Kinslayer himself pause. She was also Doctor Catt’s cousin or aunt or sister or some sort of relative, but as Catt and Fisher had not been politely asked to accompany the militia, Celestaine didn’t pin many hopes to that.
She and the others had been kept in an unlocked room, but with just enough uniforms in sight to suggest that sauntering out and going about their business would be considered a major breach of etiquette. They had been fed, that sort of uniquely Cheriveni stew that looked meagre but turned out to be so filling you could barely finish the bowl, and somehow tasted richly of bacon despite being almost entirely beans. It was poor man’s food, like all the best cuisine, and Celestaine was willing to bet the locals were glad their ancestors had endured a spell of privation so they could dine well now whilst having almost nothing to eat.
Nedlam was happy. A fed Ned was always a good thing to have, and no doubt their hosts would be thinking of the stories where the Kinslayer sent his occupation forces out without rations, telling them to take prisoners instead. True stories, as it happened. Heno had spoken of how every Yorughan warrior had been brought up believing their race was destined and superior, and everything else—friend and enemy—was just meat.
“And look,” he’d pointed out, the night after the Kinslayer died, as they looked into the fire and tried to imagine the future. “We’re stronger, we’re just as fast or faster, we’re better wizards a lot of the time. See in the dark better, smell you out better, you can see how we’d lap it up. Especially when we found that the gods never got round to us, in their haste to make sure you humans were comfy.” He’d made a joke of it, but she hadn’t known just how much he’d believed it, too. Just because he was smart
enough to come down to the human level and plot didn’t mean he didn’t have that Yorughan pride.
“Maybe the gods knew we needed more help,” she’d said, making him laugh. He had terrified her, back then, despite his turning coat and saving the world with them. His Heart Taker uniform, his unbounded willingness to use the power that came with it, his sheer physical strength—nothing like Nedlam’s, but enough to snap Celestaine in half. And it wasn’t some sudden revelation about the value of other races that had brought him over to the side of right. He was just sharp enough to realise that the Kinslayer didn’t believe his own lessons, that the Yorughan were every bit as much his victims as the humans and Aethani and the rest, and would suffer in their turn. And because he was Heno, and didn’t like anyone telling him what to do, not even a demigod.
In the magistrate’s waiting room, he regarded her with a sardonic smile. “They won’t let us live, Celest. Or not free. Not us as Yoggs, not you as a Forinthi. We made trouble. They like their foreigners quiet or absent.”
“Don’t say that word.” She held up a hand. “And yes, I know I said it, I’m sorry.”
Heno made an amused sound. “Maybe you should tell the magistrate: ‘I understand you’re going to execute us, but please don’t call my friends Yoggs because it might hurt their feelings.’”
“Comrades,” Nedlam mumbled about a mouthful of stew. “Companions. She doesn’t like the ‘friend’ word.”
“That’s not true,” Celestaine protested, knowing that it was. “It’s just… they wouldn’t understand.” Which wasn’t the reason. It was almost the opposite of the reason. With Heno especially, she didn’t quite understand what he was.
“So we’re friends, but you don’t want the Cheriveni to know about it?” Heno was struck by a thought and laughed explosively. “They already call your lot Goat-wives behind your back, don’t they? You just don’t want to be a Yogg-wife?”
“Will you just—!” Celestaine started, and then they got hauled off to the magistrate, with Heno still grinning his damnable grin.
She spared a glance for Amkulyah, trailing along behind her with an accusing look. He, at least, would probably get out of this unscathed, being a prince and all.
Then they were before the cool regard of the magistrate, the papers before her no doubt setting out a lurid and entirely accurate account of what had happened.
“Celestaine of the Fiddlehead Clan of Fernreame, Forinth,” the woman began, “this is an unexpected pleasure.” She did not sound pleased. “Your recent exploits, and those of your companions, have not, of course, escaped us. The more shame, then, that you have brought that storied sword of yours to our town and used it in such a fashion.”
That her sword hadn’t shed a drop of blood was probably too pedantic to mention, and besides, Celestaine didn’t want to shift the blame onto the Yorughan. She ignored the bait and instead just said, “I was defending my com—” She scowled at Heno. “My friend was kidnapped by your priests. There wasn’t time to file for a writ in triplicate and attend a godsdamned tribunal to get him back.” The Forinthi contempt for their bureaucratic neighbours jumped her so suddenly she couldn’t stop the words.
“I’ll wager you didn’t see our Cinquetann before the war,” the magistrate said icily. “The Hospice was our pride, its priests our joy.”
“Look, I know, but—!” Celestaine tried, but an irritated twitch of the woman’s lips stopped her.
“So yes, they are not what they were,” the magistrate went on. “I know what happened. You’ll be glad to hear that certain concerned citizens have confirmed just who did what to whom, and where it would have led.”
Gods bless Doctor Catt, Celestaine thought, but was wise enough to say nothing.
“So, well done,” the woman told her acidly. “Well done, the great Slayer and her Yogg friends have rid us of our delinquent priesthood, or at least the orphans and strays they left behind.”
“But—!”
Again she was silenced, but this time the magistrate’s tone was softer—not kind, but sad. “And, of course, we would have had to do something about them. We were hoping we could bring them round, make them part of the solution, not the problem. They had lost everything to creatures like these. We understood that. And perhaps it would have been our militia in that fight one day, instead of you heroes. Perhaps it would have been just more Cheriveni blood spilled, one more little corner where the war didn’t end.” Celestaine, who had been hating the woman’s venom with a passion, abruptly saw through the act. Bitter, yes, but in mourning more than vengeance.
“So you’ve done a thing that needed to be done,” the magistrate finished tiredly. “But they were our children. Don’t expect us to thank you for killing and maiming them.”
Celestaine glanced around: still no sign of enough uniforms to manhandle Nedlam off to the gallows. “So what happens now, er, Your Worship?”
“Puissance,” Heno corrected her. At her baffled stare, he added, “A Cheriveni magistrate is ‘Your Puissance.’”
“How…?” But now was not the time. Celestaine glanced at the magistrate, who was looking at Heno with loathing.
“I wasn’t with the occupation, if that’s what you were wondering,” he told the woman easily. “I just listen.”
“I am well aware of the Heart Takers’ reputation for listening,” she replied, in a near-whisper. “It matches their reputation for encouraging people to talk to them.”
“So what now?” Celestaine broke in, because Heno was obviously in one of his kick-the-dragon moods and that never went well.
“Is your business in our town concluded, Slayer?” the magistrate asked flatly.
“It is, Your Puissance,” Celestaine confirmed, stumbling over the word.
“Then I would be greatly obliged if you would get yourself outside the town limits before nightfall and be on your way, or I will find some pretext to have you whipped.”
The Forinthi in Celestaine bridled. Whipping was what masters did to servants, and it was what Cheriveni did to Forinthi they wanted to punish, precisely because of the implied humiliation. The cosmopolitan in her narrowly wrestled down her clan pride and she nodded equably. “Of course.” She wanted to say she was sorry, some meaningless verbal bandage over all the wounds they were leaving behind, but everyone there knew how empty the words would have been. Instead, she squared her shoulders and said, “We’re heading west. What’s the best way?”
The magistrate bristled. “Are you asking me directions?”
Celestaine shrugged. “You want us gone, we want to go. And this Forinthi girl doesn’t have the book-learning to figure out Cheriveni maps.”
For a moment, she thought she’d undone everything, but then the woman nodded slightly, recognising the détente. “The river runs due west, and the Shelliac are taking their barges most of the way to the Iron Wall and the Unredeemed Lands. Your friends will find a better welcome there than you will.”
Celestaine received that news glumly. And, of course, she’s right. Land eight years under the Kinslayer’s boot won’t turn bright and cheery overnight.
THE SHELLIAC HAD once been on every watercourse worth the name, pottering from town to town on their longboats, carrying passengers and cargo that didn’t need to get anywhere too quickly and calling out to each other in their whistling, fluting language. Most large cities had a little Shelliac enclave, though the individual residents changed from month to month.
They were a strange people, far stranger to human eyes than even the winged Aethani. Their skin looked flexible, but was hard to the touch like a carapace, translucent pinkish-white so that in the right light the organs showed as shadows beneath. Their eyes were like faceted buttons beneath a ridged, hairless scalp, and within their lipless mouths were no teeth, but a flurry of little filaments like tiny frantic arms.
When the Kinslayer came, of course, many Shelliac had died. Many more had lost their otter-drawn boats and their way of life. Celestaine had travelled with them i
n her youth; it now seemed a century ago. Every panel of their narrowboats had been decorated with intricate art, histories and abstracts and scenes from nature. Each one the Kinslayer had burned or sunk had been a whole culture extinguished. The survivors had ended up in camps with the other refugees, or else as slaves of the enemy, and many had died simply from not being able to be what they were meant to be.
Finding a Shelliac clan already travelling the river west of Cinquetann was a ray of hope Celestaine had not thought to find. Keeping the others safely back at first, she had engaged in the familiar old haggling with their trade-patriarch, communicating by whistle and finger-sign their desire to take some berths. It all came back to her, the familial compliments, the little excursions into freeform narrative, the formal well-wishing, all conveyed by the hands and the lips. It almost made up for the boat itself.
This was no long-established Shelliac clan that had escaped the Kinslayer’s wrath, that much she saw. The boat was new, although made from old things: some pieces and panels had belonged to older and less fortunate narrowboats, but the rest was salvage from a dozen different types of vessel, fit together like puzzle pieces and secured by many pairs of hands, each with a different idea of how to do it. The decks were sheltered by pavaises pierced by arrowslits, and the wooden sides were armoured to the waterline. Even the giant otters that frisked about the bows wore leather barding to protect them. Shelliac did not fight, they just moved on; that was the wisdom Celestaine knew. These Shelliac had crossbows and boathooks they’d turned into spears. When at last the two Yorughan did make an appearance, the boatmen just squared their narrow shoulders and stared with their black button eyes. The price they were asking went up, but only a little.
Celestaine had half-expected Catt and Fisher to come and see them off, but the two lawyer-physician-hoarders stayed away. They had done a lot of favours for her, and she hadn’t even paid them for their information, but perhaps they didn’t want to be publicly involved with such troublemakers. She felt a little sad that she’d never set eyes on either of them again.
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