Remnants

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  I flopped to my back, nearly delirious with the joy of being still. Flat. Free of my pack. Even if it was in this horrible building.

  My mind whirled with all that we’d seen and experienced since we left home. I felt as if I were in one of those eddies in the river; running upstream, circling around with the current, then riding up again.

  “Here,” Ronan said, tossing me a canteen.

  I saw it in time to catch it and unscrewed the lid, wondering where he’d spied a clean well. I drank deeply and then lay back down. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired, Ronan.”

  “Me neither. And we’ve just begun to follow the Call.”

  We both closed our eyes. I might’ve slept, must’ve slept, since Niero seemed to arrive seconds after he left, carrying two loaves in his hands.

  “Bread,” Ronan said, incredulous. “I think it’s been years since I had bread.”

  Niero smiled as he handed one to Ronan and the other to me. “That’s the good part of traveling to wealthy cities, even if we risk our lives to do it. They have access to Pacifica’s wheat traders,” he said, lifting a bite in the air and tossing it into his mouth.

  I had no idea how far the wheat in this bread had traveled to reach my tongue, or where Pacifica was, really, or how old the bread might be. But it mattered not. The flakey dough melted in my mouth and eased down my throat.

  “There’s more,” he said, handing a brown-wrapped item to Ronan. “Meat. Fresh. Or at least freshly cooked.”

  Ronan unwrapped a large slab and took a slow, tentative bite. He smiled even as he chewed. “What is it? Horse?” The only meat we’d ever had was dried horse and occasionally, mutton.

  “Bison.”

  “Never heard of it, but it’s good.” He rose and handed the red, barely browned slab to me. I tore off a chunk with my teeth and chewed and chewed, experimenting with the taste of the beast’s juices sliding through my mouth. I wasn’t sure if I liked it as well as Ronan did, but my hunger forced me to take another big bite before passing it to Niero.

  Bellona and Vidar walked in and sat down against the wall, already chewing.

  “So … do we go after the healer tonight?” Vidar asked, mouth full.

  “At least for an hour. Stop at a few taverns. See what we can find. Andriana, you and Bellona will need to stay here. We will — ”

  “What? No!” Bellona said, lowering her half-eaten loaf of bread. “If he goes, I go.” She hooked a thumb in Vidar’s direction.

  “And I don’t go without Andriana,” Ronan said.

  “You’ll all do what I tell you,” Niero said, as unperterbed as if we were discussing sunset. His black eyes flicked to each of us. “Whatever I tell you.”

  Ronan opened his mouth to speak and then shut it. I frowned. Did I yet trust Bellona as much as him to watch my back? We Remnants were as thoroughly trained as our knights. But we’d trained with our knights. For years. We instinctively knew one another’s tactics, pacing.

  “We are one now,” Niero said. “Yes, Knights still pledge to give their lives for their Remnant. But we must learn to move as a body. Giving and taking. Flexing to accomplish the most. And in this moment, that means using different tactics to accomplish our goal here. If Bellona and Andriana are discovered as women here … Please. Trust me in this.”

  We all stared at him. Then Vidar filled his quick mouth with a bite and the rest of us followed. Concentrating on chewing rather than arguing.

  Bellona reclined on Ronan’s bedroll, which irritated me for some reason. So I closed my eyes or looked up at the ceiling, examining the paint peeling away from ancient timbers while trying to think of anything but her on Ronan’s bed. I wished he were still here with me. Without him I felt even more antsy than before. Vulnerable.

  “Where’d you grow up, Andriana?” Bellona asked.

  I looked over, and in the light of an oil lamp saw she was on her back, ankle across the other knee, playing with the end of her braid. She was big and tough. But she was beautiful, in a way. A long, straight nose. Strong chin. High cheekbones. She reminded me of a Greek or Roman statue I’d seen once in an ancient book.

  “Let’s sleep, Bellona. Aren’t you tired?”

  “Beyond tired, yeah.” She took a deep, long breath and was quiet for such a long time, I thought she’d taken my suggestion and dropped off. But then, “Though aren’t you curious? All four of us, out there in the Valley. All these years. Never knowing one another, just now coming together. Did you ever know about the Citadel?”

  I shook my head.

  “Me neither. Aren’t you wondering if we all had the same kind of … I don’t know … start?”

  I considered her words. Sensed she wouldn’t let me rest until I gave her a little something. “I had a mom and dad who protected, taught, prepared me. Did you?”

  “Two different sets. The first I loved, but when I was five they were killed, and I was moved to the Valley. The second set weren’t … the best.” Her eyes shifted to me, clearly wondering if mine had died too.

  I frowned. Her parents had died? I knew they promised to protect us to the death. For the first time, I wondered if I too had others. I could remember way back. But who was to say that as a baby, a toddler. “My mom and dad raised me,” I said at last. “From birth.” I was pretty certain.

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  My eyes widened, stunned by what her words could mean. “No. You?”

  “Five.”

  “I thought our parents were discouraged from … from …”

  “Procreating?” she said with a scoff. “Uh, yeah. They risked a lot to do it. My parents risked my brothers and sisters, had a Sheolite come hunting, like what happened for my real parents.”

  In our villages, most men and women married on or shortly after their second decade, and before their second-and-five. Any babies had to be born by their third decade; after that they simply didn’t seem to come. But I had long been told none of that was for me: No falling in love. No betrothal ceremony the Harvest before my second decade. No wedding on the first full moon of Hoarfrost. No settling in as husband and wife. No babe in my arms.

  None of that was the Ailith’s path. But it had been for Bellona’s mother.

  “Were you there?” I whispered. “When he came for you?”

  She rose to her feet, an easy roll and jump, and went to hang on the sill of the high window, looking up to it, even though she couldn’t see through it. “The Sheolite scout was female. And yes, I saw her. My mother was fighting her, and losing, my dad already dead. An elder in our village intervened. Had she not heard my mother’s cry, I would’ve died with my parents. She gathered me up and rode all night to the Valley. And then I was with my family — the only one I ever truly knew. I don’t remember much more of my first. Only that … never mind.”

  I felt the pang of loss within her, despite her gruff never mind. I considered her second family, then, and growing up with such a number of children. In the village, there was one family with two children. Another with three. All the rest had one, the most that the majority of families felt they could support. I’d never seen a family as large as she described — with six children, counting her. “How’d they feed you all?”

  “My dad was a good hunter. There’s still a good number of squirrel where we lived. He was wicked-good with an arrow.”

  I digested that. I hadn’t seen many squirrels in my part of the Valley. “Did he teach you?”

  “Yeah. The elders didn’t want me to carry a bow,” she said, reaching for an arrow from her quiver and fingering the pointed tip. “Said it’d draw more attention than a sword, and not be as effective in close combat.” She smiled softly. “I’m a decent swordswoman, but as an archer? I’d say I would’ve made my father proud.”

  We were silent for a time. “Do you miss them, Bellona? Your family?” When she didn’t answer, I rushed on. “Because I’m missing mine. There’s so much … So much I didn’t say.”

  She didn’t answe
r for several breaths. Wariness filled the air between us, then a decision to risk, then pain. “Yeah. My littlest brother, mostly. He called me Nona. I really miss him.”

  I said nothing, only tried to forget the ache in her voice, so different than I expected. So different from everything I’d decided about her, and an ache that awakened my own longing for home. For my parents. For the Valley. For home. For the familiar.

  The men returned in time, unsuccessful, having gathered no information on our mysterious healer, and we all gave in to slumber until sunup.

  Come morning, Bellona and I insisted on going with the men, given that more women were reportedly on the streets.

  “Perhaps if they are willing to feign belonging,” Niero said, looking at me and Bellona.

  “Bellie’s a little tall for me, but I’ll take her,” Vidar joked, giving his guardian a sly look.

  Bellona hit him, hard, on the arm. “Because I’ll keep your neck from a sling.”

  “Only after I save yours,” he said, wincing as he rubbed his arm.

  Bellona shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  “Can you do it? Play the part?” Niero asked them, no trace of humor in his eyes. “The belonging? Convincingly?”

  Bellona stared hard at him. “Fine,” she said at last, throwing up her hands.

  Niero looked to me.

  “Done,” I said, never daring to look Ronan’s way. I only knew I didn’t want to be left behind. Whatever it took. And there was something within me that said if we were together, we might have a greater chance of finding our healer.

  “All right. Let’s go,” Niero said. “Place every knife you have on your person. Vidar, your pistols in your waistband, but as last resort only, got it? Go to the halbert or sword first. The guns will draw more attention.”

  “Got it.”

  “Bellona and Andriana, you will walk behind your companion as the women of the city do. Behind the man, hand on their right hip, matching their stride.”

  “The old ball and chain,” Vidar said. “Isn’t that what they called it back — ”

  “Quiet, or I’ll make you quiet,” Bellona bit out.

  “Fine, fine,” Vidar said, raising his hands. “You really ought to give me a chance, though,” he said, following her out, back to their room. “My people make fine mates. Passionate, spirited, good cooks”

  “Vidar, you’ve never made me a decent meal in your whole miserable decade-and-seven,” Bellona said, her voice fading into the next room.

  Ronan smiled at me and lifted a dark brow, laughing silently. I couldn’t help but smile with him. It won’t be hard for me to pretend

  “Let’s go,” Niero said, sliding his slicker around his shoulders — and over the crescent-shaped blades at his back.

  I put on my oilskin cape and waited, but both men turned to me and then glanced at each other.

  “Uh, Andriana,” Ronan said. “You need your hair down. They wear it that way here.”

  I paused. Back home, the only time I untied my hair was for bathing. “Very well,” I said, pulling out the tie at the end of my braid and loosing it into waves.

  Ronan stared at me a second. “Good,” he muttered, biting the corner of his lip. “But more like this.” He reached forward and lifted my hair, letting some fall over my left shoulder, some over my right. His fingers against my scalp sent shivers down my neck and shoulders, and I swallowed hard, staring up into his eyes. He drew a little back, as if he sensed our connection too, and then his eyes searched my face so intently, I forgot to breathe. Belatedly, he seemed to recover himself. “Right?” he asked Niero, looking over his shoulder. “She looks the part?”

  “I changed my mind,” Niero said grimly, reaching forward to take my hand. “Your knight will trail you, making sure you’re well guarded. But it will be my hip you hold.” He looked back at Ronan, daring him to complain. But to complain might be to admit that he’d seen something between us.

  Had he?

  “Come,” he said, pulling me out the door. We walked past the others, and I did a double take when I saw Bellona, looking so … feminine with her hair falling across her shoulders in shining waves from her braid. Again, I thought her beautiful. In a classic sense. Did I look the same? So very different than before? Was that what had surprised Ronan when he saw me? Made him pause?

  “What’s this?” Vidar asked. “Lover’s quarrel?”

  “Shut up, Vidar,” Ronan said.

  “Oh, right. The jealous lover, then.”

  “Shut up, Vidar,” Ronan and Bellona said together.

  “All right! Apparently your parents didn’t read you the classics. Of Latin love? Shakespeare? Danielle Steele? Hey, did you people not sleep as well as I did last night?”

  We ignored his questions, hurrying down the stairs, through the empty pub below, and out into the crowded city streets.

  Niero put my hand on his hip and began walking, assuming I’d catch on. After an awkward start, I caught the length of his stride, matching it. It was an odd custom, this. But they were right — only women literally attached to their mates were on the street.

  Since we didn’t have any direct clues as to where the healer might be, we decided we’d canvas the city, waiting until we sensed her as we sensed one another. We had no idea if it would work. Maybe it was only an anomaly we shared from growing up together in the Valley, but it was all we had. Vidar led, because we hoped he’d sense her even before the rest of us did. Ronan trailed behind Niero and me, as instructed. I dared to look back at him, and he gave me a worried shake of his head. Because Niero might see? Or because it was not allowed here?

  I bowed my head and tried to catch glimpses of other women as they passed. Most were in long dresses, not in pants as Bellona and I were. But there were just enough dressed as we were to make us passable. Ronan had been right though. If I hadn’t had my hair down, we might’ve been stopped right away.

  We moved methodically through the city, circling using the widest street first — the broad Market Street — with its shops and noblemen’s homes on one side, the city wall on the other. Patrols of six men in blue capes and broad-brimmed hats, and armed with rifles, passed us every fifteen minutes. Finding and sensing nothing of our Ailith sister, we moved to the next one in, Second Street.

  By noon we’d made it as far inward as Sixth Street, which was lined by crumbling hovels that housed men that made me feel sick to my stomach with their lustful intentions.

  “What’s your pleasure, brother?” one called to Niero from a doorway. “Fine womanflesh at your side. Do you wish for another? Or a trade?”

  “Inhale once,” said another dark merchant, sitting down on the front steps and blowing out a mouth full of smoke with a sick grin on his face. “Just once, and all your troubles melt away.”

  I looked nervously back at Ronan, trying to get a read on his emotions. But all I gathered was his grim nod that seemed to say, It’s all right. Even while it felt like anything but.

  Vidar abruptly stopped and bowed his head, hands splayed out at his side.

  “Brother?” Niero asked him after a moment, seeing two men leave the last house selling women and enter the street behind us.

  The emotions around me were becoming steadily unbearable for me too. Pain. Fear. Desperation. Sorrow.

  Niero studied us both, then turned to the men, speaking to them over my shoulder. “Where does Zanzibar take your sick? Those with the Cancer?”

  The men paused, their faces contorting in confusion. “We have no Cancer. By decree, the ill are tossed out the gates.”

  I sucked in my breath. They did not even bother to see them through their illness? Into the afterlife? And what of those with lesser illnesses than the Cancer?

  The men stared at us. “If you have no business on this street, you should leave,” called one, opening a knife and flicking it closed, over and over.

  “Agreed,” Niero said cheerfully, striking out again. In the wrong direction. I knew it as soon as we passed the
sewer grate and my armband began to almost hum in odd fashion, waves of vibration that moved up my shoulder.

  “Niero, wait,” I whispered, gesturing casually to my armband. “Why would a healer stay in a city without illness? She wouldn’t. She must be in hiding. Or imprisoned …”

  His dark eyes searched around and spied the grate as well. He shook his head a little and stared into my eyes. “You don’t think …”

  “Let’s pass another and see what we sense. Deeper. On Seventh.”

  He clearly didn’t like my suggestion. If we’d seen what we’d seen on Sixth, what would we discover in the very heart of the city?

  CHAPTER

  5

  Ronan drew closer as we entered the next street, Seventh. Here no one walked alone, and we — in our relatively fine clothes compared to their rags — stood out even more starkly. But our cuffs vibrated with such loud urgency, I feared they might actually begin to be audible to others.

  She was close. She had to be. The metal at my bicep was practically hot as a stone by an open fire.

  We examined every face we passed, paused at each doorway.

  But it was at each grate that we had the strongest sense of her presence.

  Niero looked back at us for confirmation and we all nodded. He bent and grabbed hold of the metal crossbars, shook it loose, lifted it, and set it aside. After peering downward and looking both ways, he pulled a small black tube from his pocket that emitted a beam of light once he pressed a button and leaned deep into the chasm.

  What was this? I wondered in awe, drawing back in surprise. Never had I seen such a thing.

  “What’s down there?” I whispered to Ronan.

  “It’s a sewage tunnel. It takes the foulest of the foul and washes it from the city.” I wasn’t sure what foul meant, but from the smell, I could guess.

  Apparently satisfied, Niero flicked off his light tube. “I’ll go first. Then Vidar and Bellona. Andriana and Ronan last.” He bit down on the light tube, grabbed hold of the far side of the hole, and swung downward, hanging for a moment to steady himself before dropping with a soft splash. I grimaced at the thought of what we’d be trudging through. But at least the constant rain would keep it all moving … Although there’d not been any rain today. It surprised me. No rain? I didn’t think I’d ever spent a day without at least some rain upon my head. This, if anything, was good reason to miss it. Sewage.