The Book of Wind:

by E. E. Blackwood

  A stagnant wretchedness awaited; death and what little remained of sandalwood incense. The smell reminded Regina of her mama for some reason, the sweetness of its woodsy scent. She felt for her papa’s ruined map hidden within her poncho.

  Her eyes settled upon the shadows of dead mammals, young and old, all clad in scarlet robes – temple-keepers, who devoted their lives to the worship of Mother Azna. Regina felt pity for them. The guilt of Altus Village tried to shame her as she passed between the corpses.

  … You have let us here to rot …

  “I haven’t.”

  … For without our testimony, the Evil in the Mountains spreads, spreads, its reach wide …

  “It’s not true.”

  Regina averted her gaze from the dead and found a ghostly hare slumped against the altar at the back of the temple. His scent was faint with fear.

  As she neared, the hare looked up and called out into the din. “Have you returned to cast your lots?” His voice was hoarse, tired with strain. “Oh … it’s only you. Come here, skunk.”

  Regina hedged towards him. He was tied round the front of the altar with wilting manila rope, with his arms forcibly bound behind his back. His strong legs lay splayed across the top of the steps. Regina wondered if he had tried to somehow hop free, and imagined the whole altar uprooting, carried upon his back, as a result. This fellow certainly seemed strong enough to do so.

  “You’re an Alliance peace officer,” she said.

  “How observant of you,” he replied.

  “Why do I stand before corpses of the innocent?”

  The hare tried to sneer, but instead produced an expression more resembling hollow-faced disgust. “I see none among them who has ever held the title of innocence. These lands are safer with them all dead – and will remain safer still, if you cut me free…”

  Regina hesitated. “I’m not sure that I believe you.” She looked around. “Not even the kits? Certainly, they must be innocent of … whatever reason you killed them.”

  “Sins of the father, and all that hullabaloo. Would you believe the words of a terrorist, then? Remember the ill of the canines, skunk. They are not our friends.”

  “And yet they exist within the Alliance?” Regina asked. “Am I to entrust my safety to the Zuut when wolves, hounds, coyotes, and foxes are free to represent peacefulness?”

  The hare didn’t answer right away. “We see the same stain, but at different ends of the table. Those of us who fought against these Retainers years ago feel similarly about their current vows of peace to the Aznain faith.”

  “These mammals were Retainers?”

  The heretic’s voice spoke from behind: “Truly. Reformed fanatics. They weren’t to be slaughtered, either.” Regina faced him just as he drew into the temple, a silhouette under the light of the moon.

  Aruto clucked his tongue.

  The heretic continued. “The Zuut has wild ones, too, like those who served Twigleaf Company. Our dear Sergeant Aruto here isn’t one of them, though. No, he’s simply a thug – a true heretic who would have excelled under the bloodthirsty command of Alexia Garbonde.”

  “Oh, save me the insults, fox,” said Aruto. “I’ve not much left, unless you wish to rid me of my teeth. If it’s any consolation, they drew weapons on us.”

  The heretic passed Regina, towards him. “Droppings. We both know how the Alliance has the upper hand in every right. Your mission today, as repulsive as it is, could have been handled with relative civility.”

  “I honestly don’t see how,” Aruto said. He formed a weak grin. “But either way, you caught me. May as well tie me to your … walking staff and take me to Keeto’s outpost to await trial, then.”

  Without another word, the heretic raised Nimbus’s glinting tip to Aruto’s chest.

  The hare’s grin widened. “I’m not to be killed, remember?” He looked to Regina. “You said so yourself! You did! You did!”

  The heretic threw a bored look Regina’s way. “True, she did. But I don’t speak skunk, nor hare. What does not mean, again?”

  With the heretic’s attention turned away, Regina saw the smug look on Aruto’s face evaporated to a true expression of contempt.

  In a flash, the Alliance sergeant sent a free arm, loosened in stealth, for a pouch at his hip. A piercing hum sounded off the walls, and in an instant, the wind from out in the valley gusted into the temple with full torrential force, blasting both Regina and the heretic to the floor. They watched in baffled horror as the ropes snapped free around Aruto’s body. He then lifted into the air, seemingly of his own volition, enveloped completely by the punishing gale.

  “What’s happening?!” Regina shouted over the loud howls in her ears. But the heretic was paralyzed by the sight before them. She followed his gaze and found Sergeant Aruto. He withdrew a glimmering sliver of yellow-gray. It throbbed in his paw, lifting the shadows of the dark temple hall in a dull burst of pulsing luminescence.

  The winds gusted around Aruto, drew his whole body up off the temple floor. There he levitated in the air, chuckling with the sliver of yellow-grey clutched tightly in his grasp. Aruto’s voice flowed on the very air that carried him. “I can feel it … flowing through my body…” His lips formed a perverse smile. He closed his eyes and extended his arms. “Heretic, I can feel it – the essence of the Crystal – it fills my veins with all of Galheist’s power!”

  The heretic bared sharp teeth between quivering lips. He struggled to stand with Nimbus brandished, when Aruto’s eyelids suddenly flashed open. Glowing orbs appeared where pupils should have been. The heretic vanished in an instant.

  Regina gasped, darted frantic glances all around until she found her canine kidnapper thrown clean across the length of the temple, smashing headlong into a section of pews near the entrance.

  Aruto cracked his neck to one side. “Damn, that felt good. Arrogant sod had it a long-time coming.” He found Regina’s terrified stare and flashed her a buck-toothed grin.

  She got up slowly, started to back away, when the wind suddenly swooped in, scooping her up like a gusty chair out of the ether, and brought her to rest sitting atop the altar – face to face with Sergeant Aruto.

  “Hullo, then,” he said, grin widening. His eyes burned like smouldering arrow flints. “Now, where was we? Hrm. Ahh – yes. The Minister of Peace was naïve to believe the Retainers would simply hand over their precious Wind Crystal. Really, between you and me though, they were going to get their brains bashed in, no matter how things went today. Payback for history being a cruel mother to the rest of us, and all.”

  Aruto then shuddered with deep pleasure.

  “But now … now, I understand why their deaths were secondarily necessary.”

  He tickled beneath Regina’s chin with an icy touch that resembled none other than death itself. She shuddered away, but the power of the wind bound her to the altar top, like the very ropes that had once kept Aruto tied down.

  “Now, tell me, pretty little one: Where. Have you. Hidden. The Crystal? Hmm?” He gently poked down her chest and belly with each sharp enunciation. Regina felt her father’s map rustle against her fur and kept a brave stare brandished.

  Off in the distance, debris clattered about as the heretic wheezed, coughed himself back into existence.

  Aruto’s expression dulled. “Mm, stay here a moment, poppet.”

  He left Regina upon the altar, taking the power of Wind with him. Aruto floated over to the heretic with an expectant paw outstretched, “Right. Nimbus. Give me the Zuut’s blade, heretic, and I shall forgive your harsh words to me today.”

  The heretic struggled up onto his arms. “Sod off, drunkard.”

  A dark chortle dripped from Sergeant Aruto’s tongue. “Die, then.”

  “No!” Regina hollered. “It’s – I have it! The Crystal, it’s inside my body!”

  Aruto threw her a speculative pawful of blinks. “Inside you? Did you swallow it, my dear? Sit on it, perhaps?” He laughed. “Colourful lies won’t spare t
raitors’ lives. Justice must prevail.” He shook his head at the heretic. “Kits, though, Got to love their vivacity for imagination.”

  The heretic glared at him, spat blood out the corner of his mouth.

  Regina glared at Aruto, standing tall upon the altar now. “I’ll have you know that I am in fact thirteen years old as of yesterday mid-afternoon, and that grants me right as an adult in these lands!”

  “I’ll be sure to inform the academy,” said Aruto. “Oh, but you’ll be a scavenged carcass by then. Pity.” He hovered back over to her with his claws ready to disembowel. “Heretic, give up the goods, because this one’s about to get it, savagely.”

  “I absorbed it!” said Regina. “As an alchemical healer under the guidance of Master Magician Astral Ages, I have used the power of elemancy to absorb the Crystal of the Wind into my very essence!”

  “Really, now? I suppose we’ll just have to see for ourselves, then.”

  Rapid foot-falls echoed across the interlock floor. Aruto started to turn when searing agony ripped through his torso. Regina gasped in horror as the heretic wrenched Nimbus diagonally upward through Aruto’s chest plate, severing his body heart-to-shoulder.

  The power that had flowed through the Alliance sergeant left him in an instant, and he fell to the temple floor in a lifeless heap. The shard bounced away from his grasp and rolled to a stop against the heretic’s toes.

  Regina shook her head to try and stave off her dizziness. She found her gaze upon the body of a young badger, about her age. She couldn’t help but stare at him, curious and wonder just how similar he looked to her old Altusian friend, Barty Molonue…

  “Are you all right?” The heretic appeared in front of her.

  Regina blinked, taken aback by his question. A hint of genuine concern gleamed off his tone. She swallowed hard, nodded.

  “Good.” The heretic grabbed tight around her wrist and started to yank her off the altar, towards the open temple doors. “I’ve wasted too much time. There’s an airship to catch.”

  “Wait – Let go of me!” Regina demanded. “I’m not yours to throw around as you please! I will not be some chess piece in this war you aim to start!”

  “The war has already begun,” spat the heretic. “It’s been waging right over our heads. You think these past five seasons have been of peace? What do you think the Retainers aimed to protect? What do you think the Zuut wants? Hah. The damned war never ended!”

  36. Campfire and Conspiracy

  Junior Lieutenant Sara Uriost of the Phoenix Platoon sat alone within a hidden grove about a half mile from Keeto Town’s protective serpentstone walls. Pensive eyes gazed into deep thought while twitching wolf ears listened to water ripples of a nearby stream. She tried to calm her angry nerves without success. The memories of what she had witnessed along the wooded path that afternoon – the memories of ignorant wheda arrogance in the wake of canine brutality.

  Uriost thought back to that morning, before Twigleaf Platoon left for the Stone Zephyr.

  “You don’t seem concerned that we’ll be facing Retainers today.” She had found Sergeant Aruto outside of the outpost in Keeto Town, picking away bits of steamed carrot caught in his teeth from breakfast.

  “Lieutenant Uriost…” Aruto eyed her up and down with disinterest. “Ah, the boys back home warned me of your … habit of unrequited forthcoming. Minister Longclaw may have allowed you to play with us big boys for awhile, but that doesn’t give you special access to our concerns or otherwise.”

  Uriost glared daggers at him beneath her raised visor.

  “They’ll be ready for us,” she said.

  “They’re reformed temple-keepers, Uriost, what have they to offer us but incense and mantras? They’ve no way to get through Twigleaf Company.”

  “They’re wizards, with the power to bend the elements at their very will,” she balked. “I assume you’ve read the reports assigned to our platoons; those who followed the teachings of Alexia the Sage practiced dark sorcery.”

  Aruto snorted incredulously at this. “Maidens tales.”

  “If you’d actually fought the war, you’d have seen it,” Uriost spat. “In any case, reformed or not, the mammals we are dealing with are world terrorists – Retainers – not simple bandits. The war we waged against them was only a half decade ago; they’ve hidden from us until now, and you believe we can simply waltz in and politely ask for the very icon they ritualize?”

  At this, Aruto scoffed and let his eyes gaze over hustle and bustle of Drury Street – but his perked ears betrayed his general indifference to Uriost’s honesty.

  “They’ll attack us with everything possible until they’re able to drive us off. The Retainers know they can’t kill us, and our duty to the Zuut disallows us to kill them. But it is plain stupid to believe we will simply walk right into their domain without compromise to peaceful resolutions.”

  “And you believe the broadsword there at your hip is a simple totem to peaceful resolution?” Aruto asked. “The Minister of Peace knows what we’re up against.”

  “Yes, and she explicitly stated during the brief that no Retainers are to be fatally harmed.”

  Aruto studied Uriost with a weary eye. “That’s right. How could I have forgotten your eager presence at the adults’ table?” Flicking aside his used toothpick, he started for the flap back inside the outpost’s mess tent. “Nothing can be promised when war has ravaged us already, Lieutenant. All one can hope for is the best, I suppose.”

  “Need I remind you, the Ministry of Peace granted you temporary lordship over Twigleaf Company for our mission, Sergeant,” said Uriost. “Do you ride for honour?”

  “Cut me free.” Aruto waved her off without looking back. “Lecture me in the ways of boot blacking. You’re right – Twigleaf is my platoon, for now. And you are accompanying us as a guest and nothing more. That means, Lieutenant, when I yip, you sniff. When I bite, you yelp. Make sure to realize who between us is of the current higher rank. The Canine Empire is no more, little wolf.”

  The ignorant sod was so sure of himself.

  Blind arrogance gave way to corruption and over-estimation. Aruto wanted to lay a trap for the heretic. Unbeknownst to anybody, not even the Ministry of Peace, not even Minister Longclaw.

  A direct act of insubordination.

  It would be Rudolph Aruto’s downfall. None knew such grace with a blade; knew such worth in the actions of the soldiers he made but myth, knew the importance of Nimbus – the Blade of the Unicorn.

  Yarmouth and Shemp felt it too: the swift deadliness of his sword strokes, the intimidation that came from his directness in hatred of small talk. He was once a hero, and now he was…

  Uriost deflected sudden pain in her chest with a deep breath.

  It was no dream today, it had been him.

  The impossible reality haunted her.

  She reached into a pouch at her belt and withdrew three small slips of paper, one folded over the other into a perfect square shape. These were Alliance-issued identification – all that was left of Sergeant Aruto’s fallen comrades – Flitcher, Augustus, and Barrett.

  And now Aruto and the rest of his platoon were late to meet with Uriost’s division.

  The ignorant sod was so sure of himself.

  “Rwost’lya…” The utterance ground its way through Uriost’s bared teeth. The word itself was of native canine dialect. It meant a great insult against loyalty, against kinship honour. Something the ancient canine tribes of the once great Empire took with as much seriousness as the Alliance did, treason.

  Uriost found her horned helmet in a soft patch of grass by her tail. The words silent war came to her then – it was a flash, a firefly’s flicker in the night, though the shadow of illumination left its stain behind her mind’s eyelids.

  There was a powerful omen to those words. Startling. She didn’t like them. And yet her nagging memories sang them again and again with knowing malice, the whole journey Uriost made back to where her pony grazed.

>   …As long as our silent war persists…

  Rebus was a shadow against the night with eyes so red they burned the blue-blackness of the hidden grove. Pink gums glowed Uriost’s way to him, and when she neared, big yellow teeth dotted with dirt and grass-guts flashed behind lips that curled back into an unsteady, witless, grin.

  Uriost removed her gauntlet and placed a gentle paw over the bridge of his nose. Rebus brayed to his master under the hiss of rattling sycamore branches and pushed his face into her paw pads. His jet-black mane flowed in the wind like pyre smoke.

  “Everything will be all right,” she cooed, feeding him sugar cubes from her pouch. “We were made to be humiliated today. But I assure you, my friend, our victory is soon to come. This mission is a test – a test that is not yet over.”

  She led Rebus out into an adjacent clearing, where Yarmouth and Shemp sat slumped around a campfire, sharing a flask of wyvern’s waste, a silvery brew that was hard on the tongue and even harder on the liver. They spoke together in mumbled tones, listless and distressed eyes gazing upon the orange flicker before them. Their helmets lay discarded at their footpads. Beyond them, three semi-fresh grave sites lay in the brush, mostly hidden, if not for markers made of freshly-hewn birch.

  Both Yarmouth and Shemp shifted with discomfort when they smelled their false commander draw near.

  “…It’s not right,” said Shemp. “It’s just…”

  “Oi, why we gotta leave ‘em here, anyway?” Yarmouth asked her.

  “I don’t like it either,” Uriost said as she drew into the firelight. She let Rebus go to find the other ponies to graze. “But the fact is the weight is too much.” Both soldiers winced and looked away, but she continued. “We should be grateful our mounts brought them this far.”

  “Such droppings,” said Yarmouth. Shemp nodded agreement.

  “A temporary stop,” Uriost said. “I’ve marked the road to this place – I’ll have Captain Hobbs send spotters in the morning, to bring your men back to Keeto Town, where they’ll be celebrated.”