by J. C. Staudt
“Your quill is dry, Lethari. May I see what you have written?”
Lethari took a step forward. “When it is finished. Now, what have you interrupted me for?”
“Apologies, my lord,” Sig said, bowing. “This place you are looking for… the cave. The trackers have found it less than half a day’s ride north of here.”
Lethari was astonished. “North? Did we ride past without seeing it?”
“As best I can tell, we passed it half a horizon to the east. The traps we found must belong to the people of that place. Had we passed closer, surely we would have noticed it.”
“The man who found this cave… did he enter? Were the people hostile?”
“He did not go inside. He says the smell near the cave is unbearable.”
“Have Jadoda readied. I ride at once. Prepare the feiach to leave by nightfall. We head south upon my return.”
“Yes, my Lord Lethari.” Sigrede bowed low, but stayed where he was.
“You are dismissed.”
“With your favor.” Sig turned and left the tent, though Lethari detected a hint of reluctance in it. Perhaps Sig had hoped Lethari would hurry outside first and leave him there alone. Lethari would not make that mistake; he tucked the goatskin into his bag before leaving the tent himself.
Lethari had sensed Sig’s suspicions ever since that first ambush on the Suruth weeks ago. Persistent as Sig might be to learn the truth, Lethari would confide in neither him nor any of his other captains. They would never permit him to go unpunished for keeping the record a secret.
There was no doubt the damage to the pale-skin trading company could’ve been greater had the routes been shared out amongst the warleaders. In a small way, Lethari felt guilty for that, but he did not feel beholden to Sig or any other man to tell the truth about it. The record was his, and he had done with it what he thought best. What Frayla thought best. And Amhaziel, at the time. And my father, too, he reminded himself. Lethari had never been one to let the counsel of others sway him so easily, but it seemed the habit was growing on him.
Lethari and a small retainer of scouts, warriors, and medicine men set off north at a gallop, weaving their way through the dead forest in a mixed herd of horses and corsils. The tracker who first found the cave was Luchlais Haredin, a young man with unflawed skin who wore his hair down his back in three long black braids. Luchlais had been too afraid to enter the cave alone, he said; the air had been heavy with the stench of death, and his belief in the spirits who haunted the Skeletonwood had sent him racing back to camp immediately.
Lethari was afraid of many things, but spirits were not one of them. Neither could he have become the great warleader he was by showing fear in times such as this. So when Luchlais brought him to the cave entrance, Lethari hopped off his corsil and strode down the narrow, muddy path without waiting for the others.
The stench was just as the young tracker had described it; Lethari had recognized the unmistakable mark of death from a distance. Inside, the smell was strong enough to mask the humid fetor of sour mud and putrid water. He covered his mouth and nose with his hood-scarf and pressed on.
The cave was cool, a welcome reprieve from the afternoon. Clouds of black flies pestered the shapeless corpses heaped along the shores of a deep muddy pool that stretched into the depths of the cave. There were rings along the shoreline where the water had receded, leaving behind the half-buried hulls of rusted cans, broken glass jars, plastic bottles, and the tracks of wild scavengers who had come below to make a meal of what remained. Floating debris bobbed in the recesses; thick clumps of knotted hair, the pale silver gleam of dead fish, battered beverage cartons, and even a few red plastic shotgun tubes.
Some of the corpses, but not all, were humans. Lethari knew the deep green-brown scales and pale underbellies of the calgaithi at once. Sanddragons, the great venomous lizards he’d had his sword’s pommel fashioned to resemble. Even his blade’s name, Tosgaith, meant Dragon’s Fang in the Aion-speech.
Lethari had slain these beasts before. He’d seen them cooked and eaten over a feiach’s fire. He had even seen them swarm to a bite, drawn from horizons around by the scent of venom in their victim’s blood. But he had never seen a massacre like this before.
There were corpses torn to shreds, raw rotting flesh festering with maggots. Other bodies lined the high rocky shelves along the back of the cave, whole but emaciated, as if they had starved to death there for fear of leaving the safety of their hideaways. Jutting from a pile of bodies in the mud was the worn leather hilt and burnished brass crossguard of an old cutlass.
When Lethari drew it from the sanddragon’s body, the blade gave a thin grating sound as it scraped between two rib bones. Flecks of dried blood-spatter had crusted brown on the lower half of the blade, while its point and forward edge came out black and wet, ripe with the smell of decay. Even with his hood-scarf in place to stifle the scent, it was all Lethari could do to keep from vomiting. Death was familiar to him; the stink of long-decayed flesh in the bowels of a damp cave, however, was not.
After examining the cave as best he could without going near the water, Lethari forced himself to endure the stench a little longer to harvest the venom glands from two of the sanddragon corpses. He was relieved and sickened by the time he returned to the surface. Leaning against the low wall of the rocky bulge, he drank deeply and doused his head with a few cool splashes from his skins.
“What did you find, master?” asked Luchlais, his own face covered against the stench.
“No living thing but the flies,” said Lethari. “All who once lived there are dead, or else they have moved on.” Whoever Daxin Glaive wished me to save, I have come too late for them.
“Do you desire the dead brought above and buried, my lord?”
“Seal the entrance with mud and stone. That place is tomb enough already.”
The work lasted well into the afternoon. When they were done, they fled south through the Bones, leaving the hidden village and all the secrets of its history behind them. When they returned to the camp, Sigrede Balbaressi had prepared the feiach to move, as instructed. Lethari and his retainers took a brief rest before riding to the head of the column to get them under way.
They did not stop until late that night, when they reached the edge of the dead forest and crossed into the region of open scrubland surrounding the town of Bradsleigh. The pale-skins found these scrublands harsh and pitiless, Lethari knew. But for his people, they were a place of richness and plenty compared to the desolation of the wasteland.
Some of Bradsleigh’s residents would recognize Lethari as a friend from his previous visits, but he did not want the sight of a large group of calgoarethi to send the town into a panic. He left the bulk of his feiach to camp on the next horizon while he and a six-man procession bore Daxin Glaive’s casket hence. Save for the carefully concealed cutlass Lethari had found in the cave, they brought with them neither horse nor blade, a gesture of peace toward those Lethari Prokin would sooner have spat on than traded with.
Covering the distance on foot was hard, sweaty work, the casket awkward and heavy with the weight of Daxin’s possessions. Lethari and his men endured it all the same. No sooner had they come within eyeshot of the Glaive Estate than Lethari saw the distant shape of Savannah Glaive ascending the hill and stumbling toward them at a run. He could hear her sobs, tormented sounds that came between ragged breaths, thick with the sultry air.
She collapsed before she arrived, fainting sideways into a heap, the fabric of her ankle-length skirt spreading flowers over the ground. With one hand in the dirt and the other clutching her chest, she took it in turns to sob and inhale, wheezing. She had her mother’s dark eyes and sharp cheekbones, hair the color of rich honey like her father’s, and a rosy complexion that was all her own.
Lethari realized she didn’t yet know whether it was Daxin’s body or Toler’s they were carrying. She might assume it was her father’s, since Lethari was the one carrying it. The Glaives were more
friend to the calgoarethi than perhaps any other pale-skins had ever been. That was why, as soon as she’d seen them coming, she’d known it meant the death of someone in her family.
“Bring the casket to the graveyard,” Lethari commanded them, speaking in Calgoàric. Then, rushing over to kneel beside Savannah Glaive, he said in the Aion-speech, “Do not try to rise. Breathe.”
Savannah spent a moment catching her breath. “How did he…?”
“Let us speak of that another time,” Lethari said. “He has traveled these long horizons to return to the place of his birth and life. You were the truest part of that life. He had a great love for you. This I saw within him each time he spoke of you. Even when he was far away, you were the thing he cared for most. I am sorry for you. Your father was a fine man and a true friend. We will return him to the dust so his spirit may rest with the fates.”
“Thank you,” she managed between sobs and wheezing breaths.
Saying the words made Lethari feel strange and uncomfortable. They hadn’t come out right, or sounded the way he had imagined them. Thinking he should say something more, he opened his mouth to speak again. But when he saw the wistful look on Savannah’s face, he knew there was nothing more to be said.
He helped the girl to her feet, and together they followed the pallbearers along the pasture fence, down the gentle slope of Bradsleigh’s eastern hill, past the Glaive Estate, and to the small graveyard at the southern edge of town. Sheltered by a pair of massive juniper trees, the graveyard stood beside a small dilapidated structure of wooden board that had once been painted white. Lethari’s men used shovels brought by the townsfolk and took turns digging until the grave was deep and wide enough to cover the casket from head to toe.
There was little ceremony or fanfare, aside from the spirit binding performed by one of Lethari’s shamans, meant to imitate the traditional rites the calgoarethi performed during sky burials. As word spread, more came to pay their respects and offer their condolences, visiting in a steady stream until evening. Savannah invited Lethari and his men into her home for supper, but the others refused, so he sent them back to the feiach and supped with her alone.
“The master of this household no longer lives here,” Lethari said, when he had cleaned his plate of the beef and soft buttered potatoes. Savannah had made a small plate for herself, but had spent the time pushing its contents around with her fork.
“Uncle Toler? No, he won’t come back here to live. He hates this place. He won’t admit it, but he does. Does he know about Dad?”
“I do not think so,” said Lethari.
“I haven’t seen him in a while. He doesn’t come back so often since they had their falling-out last year. He’s marrying Reylenn Vantanible, you know.”
Lethari nodded, then looked away. His eyes fell upon the dusty old bookshelves in the adjoining library, packed from floor to ceiling with thousands of tomes, binders, folders, and notebooks. He knew all about Toler’s engagement to Reylenn Vantanible. The last time he had visited this household, Daxin Glaive had given him Vantanible’s caravan routes, as they had existed back then. In return, Daxin had asked him to have Reylenn murdered.
Lethari had been sitting in the very same kitchen that day, in the very same chair. Even now, he remembered the look of spite in Daxin’s eyes as he’d made his request. It’s a dirty, rotten thing to have to do, Daxin had said. I know that. But you’ve got to do it for me, Lethari. You’ve got to. Toler’s made up his mind, and there’s no changing it. He’s as stubborn as I am, curse him. There’s no other way. She’ll poison our family if he marries her. There will be little Vantanibles running around this house someday unless we put a stop to this right now. Vantanibles!
Lethari had laughed at that, but Daxin had only stared, fierce and intent, until Lethari had agreed to his request. It had been a stroke of good fortune that Lethari’s Clay-brothers had owed him a favor. When he’d sent word to them that Reylenn Vantanible was to be killed, they had acted without delay. Had they only succeeded…
“Toler might take part of the herd for himself,” Savannah was saying as she stood to begin cleaning the kitchen. “Or he might sell it off. I know he’ll sell all the crates to Mr. Vantanible. He’s been planning to do that for a long time now, but Dad wouldn’t let him.”
“Crates,” said Lethari, his interest piqued. “The crates in the old paddock? Your uncle means to give them to the pale-skin trading company?”
Savannah nodded. When she took his plate away, Lethari noticed thin red furrows around her fingernails. He studied them as she scraped her own plate into the scrap bucket, though it was still full of uneaten food.
“You must not let him do this,” Lethari said. “Those crates must not go to the lathcu merchants.”
“I can’t stop him,” she said. “The estate is his, not mine. Even if he doesn’t live here.”
“By what law? You pale-skins have no king to dictate to you what is just and fair. You take from one another like animals, and yet you call us savages.” He laughed. “That is a funny thing.”
“We still follow the old laws, wherever people are civilized enough to respect them.”
“Those places are few… and the people who respect them, fewer still.”
“Yes. But you know us Glaives—we’re set in our ways.”
Half a smile was all Lethari could manage, concerned as he was with the possibility that the trading company might have their supplies replenished. He had gone to too great an effort in decimating their flatbeds to see replacements brought in. Something must be done to prevent this, he decided. What, he did not yet know, so he set the thought aside for the moment.
“You are stubborn people,” he agreed. “But who among us is compliant when his beliefs are threatened?”
“Some people hold stronger to their beliefs than others,” she said.
“And that is no flaw. Your father was a private person with a will like iron. His pride was brittle, but it made him strong as well.”
“How did he die, Lethari? I want to know.”
Lethari would sooner forego the grisly details of Daxin’s death, so he said, “I returned from the steel city to find him in my household. He was close to death, even then. He could hardly speak. He had only time enough to tell me his final wishes.”
Savannah grimaced as if in pain. “And what were those?”
“When last he left home, he came upon a group of exiles living in a hidden cave.”
“Exiles from where?”
“The Black City. Your father desired these exiles to be protected. But when I found the cave, all inside had perished. The only item of note I came across was this.” Lethari drew the cutlass from his pack and set it on the table, tossing aside the folds of cloth which had concealed it.
Savannah studied the sword for a moment, but she gave no hint of recognition. “Some people came through town on their way to New Kettering recently. They looked thin. Scared. They had no money, and they wouldn’t speak to anyone except to beg for food and water. We let them fill their skins and drink from our spring, but they didn’t stay long enough for us to find out who they were.”
“These must have been the people your father spoke of. Their home was called Dryhollow Split. They are bound for New Kettering, you say. How many were there? How long ago did they pass this way?”
“Only a handful. It was weeks ago now.”
Weeks, thought Lethari, despairing. If these had been the survivors from Dryhollow Split, they were likely making a new life for themselves in New Kettering by now, or they were in some condition beyond his aid. They could be anywhere. Wandering the Horned Cape, or dead, or lost in New Kettering.
He had missed his chance; there was little he could do to help them, aside from dragging his entire feiach south to sweep through the cape toward the port city. That would take him weeks out of his way. He would have to leave that part of Daxin’s dying wish in the hands of the fates. I have delivered his soul home. Another destiny awaits me, he decid
ed, laying a hand on the pack in the chair beside him. “It is my hope that they have been welcomed by the Emperor of New Kettering and have found peace from their troubles there.”
“Mine too,” Savannah agreed with a sad smile.
“And now I will take my leave of you. I thank you for your kindness. It is many long years since my father and your grandfather rode the sands together, but to the Glaives of Bradsleigh, I will always be a friend.”
Savannah started to speak, but her lips pursed shut and tears welled in her eyes. It felt wrong, somehow, to leave her alone so early in her grief. Perhaps she wanted to be alone, but that did not mean it was best for her.
“Is there anyone in this village you wish to be with? I will summon them before I go.”
Savannah broke down then, collapsing to her chair in sobs. “I just don’t know what to do, Lethari. I’m all alone now. I don’t know how to run things—how to do everything Dad used to do. Toler won’t come back to help me with anything. Someone could take it all away, and I wouldn’t be able to stop them.” She pressed her palms into her eyes and wailed, her shoulders heaving, her lips wet with tears.
Lethari’s heart broke for the girl. He circled the table and raised a hand to comfort her, but left it hovering above her shoulder. Her tears subsided after a time, and he sat in the chair beside her. “I have known you since you were small. My visits have been few, and I have seen you grow into the woman you are through a few blinks in time. I would not speak of your mother in a moment like this, except to tell you how proud I know she would be to see you now. Victaria was brave. The bravest I have ever known. I see that same bravery in you. You are fierce, like she was. You have her fire inside you.”
“If she was so brave, then why did she run away?”
Lethari did not know how to answer that. “Your mother would never go away from you without good reason. I know your father said this to you, and he was right.”
“She never told us she was going. She never told us why, or where.” New tears fell from Savannah’s eyes; bitter tears, free of the sobs that had shook her before.
