“Everything is from and of the stars. We are each of us only star dust.”
“Give her over,” Nyx said.
The Plague Sister bowed and scuttled over to the farthest corner of the cabinet on her insectile legs. She picked up an urn little different from the rest.
“Give it to Anneke.”
Anneke came over and took the urn.
“We’re going to get out of here,” Nyx said. “You have a problem with that.”
“I ask only that you never return.”
“Who else knows about this place?”
“Only those who are worthy. I have no idea how either of you got in.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why it wasn’t one of us doing the asking. Lead the way out.”
The Plague Sister led them back around to the front of the ziggurat through a narrow corridor. She deposited them a few feet behind the bakkie.
Nyx kept the gun on the woman until she closed up the door to the pyramid behind them. One moment, an open door, the next – nothing. Trickery.
Nyx opened the back door and put the urn next to Rhys, who yelled aloud when he heard her.
“Are you… you’re alive!”
“No this is my fucking ghost haunting you,” she growled, and she saw him again, the image of him, in that second gate. Tricks and lies.
“Her body?” he said.
“Yeah. Anneke, drive. I need to sleep.” Her guts hurt again. She wanted a drink. She couldn’t look at Rhys.
It took half the night to find a decent place to sleep. Nyx slept another ten hours and ate three plates of yams and a whole carafe of buni the next day. Rhys was first into the bakkie, tucking the urn beside him.
When they finally made it back to the storefront, Khos was waiting outside, looking put-out.
Nyx pulled the urn out of the back and shoved it at him. “Here,” she said, “put that in the fridge.”
“Sure,” he said. “You aren’t going to ask where I’ve been?”
“I’m not your fucking mother.”
“You want me to call the client, boss?”
“Sure, Anneke.”
“Anything else, boss?”
“Just leave me the fuck alone.
#
Misha arrived again in the middle of the night, just after evening prayer. Rhys answered her knock this time, prayer rug under his arm.
When Misha saw the urn on Nyx’s desk, she came up short. “Is that…?”
“I’m afraid so,” Nyx said. “She underwent a sort of… initiation. It didn’t go well.”
“The authorities –”
“It’s the kind of initiation that’s so old the authorities are all in on it. That’s likely why the bel dames and order keepers wouldn’t help you. I’m sorry. You wanted a body, though, and I brought the body. Cremated. She have anything metal on her? They would have burned that up with her. Might make it easier to feel it’s her.”
Misha collapsed into the chair. “But what… what happened?”
What should Nyx tell her? That her wife was so in love with her she couldn’t leave a simulation, but not in love with her enough to not go through with the initiation?
“It just didn’t work out. I can tell you she thought it was pretty important. Would have made her a better spy… or… you know, a better diplomat, I guess, if she passed.”
“Maybe that’s why she failed. Maybe they did it on purpose. They thought she was a spy.”
“Maybe.”
“Thank you.” Misha said, hugging the urn to her chest. Tears rolled down her fat cheeks. Nyx wanted to rub them away, to feel the smooth, soothing plumpness beneath her skin. Something soft and unmarred in all this death and decay. How long until Misha, too, was sacrificed to the Nasheenian desert.
“You should go back to Heidia,” Nyx said, more forcefully than she intended. It came out a harsh command. “This is no place for you.”
“It’s not a place for anyone,” Misha said softly.
Nyx couldn’t argue with that.
Misha paid her what was owed, in cash. When she was gone, Nyx counted it out a second time.
“All there?” Rhys asked.
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“You going to get your kidney back?”
Nyx winced. The memory of Kine there at the table, their mother sending the boys to the front, Kine off doing what Kine did, upholding the status quo in her own way. Same as Nyx did.
“Naw, gonna get a brand new one. We got enough. It’s old, anyway. Gone in and out too many times.”
“It seemed like a nice gesture, from your sister.”
“Not nice. It made her feel better. I’m sure she got a brand new one, better, hopped up on good bugs and engineered by tissue mechanics. Our family isn’t about charity.”
“So that’s where you get it.”
Nyx held out a note. “Your share.”
“A single note. Really?”
“Cowards get one note.”
“But fools get new kidneys.”
“Life isn’t fair. Nobody said being successful was a fucking meritocracy.”
Rhys rolled his eyes and took the note.
She watched him. “You knew what it was like in there, didn’t you?”
He did not look at her. Nodded once. “I… had an idea. It’s designed to help us know ourselves, to look at who we are and… transcend it. But to do that, first, one must accept it.”
“You didn’t think you could do that.”
Now he met her look. “You couldn’t either.” He shoved the note into his pocket and left her.
Nyx put the rest of the money away and went out to the call box in the foyer. Dialed the local information service.
“What pattern?” the woman on the other end asked.
“A good fucking magician,” Nyx said. “I need a brand new kidney. One nobody else has had before. One I can drink with until I fucking die”
“One moment,” the woman said.
The moment went on forever.
END
We Burn
Armies withered. Armies burned. Armies rose. Armies fell.
The armies marched again.
A team of scouts hunkered near a small fire at the center of a battered tent that stank of muskox and damp. Matron Narathas of Gaol crouched across from them and asked, “How far off is their army?”
“Two miles south, Sir, but they’ll freeze before they reach the camp, Sir,” one of the scouts, Mattie, said.
“Neither of you froze,” Narathas said, “and you came as far as they’ll have to. You can see why that gives me little comfort.”
Narathas’s own army lay camped behind her. A scant dozen fires burned in pits among their tents, wet wood piled over dry to evaporate the water from it, sending up swirls of gray smoke almost lost in the leaden pallor of the sky. Could that army guess how many soldiers waited for them here? If they guessed, would they turn away, or descend now and get it done with? That was always the question Narathas had, in assessing numbers.
“One other thing, Sir,” the second scout said, voice low. “Lord Aurora is among them, holed up in the noble's tent.”
Cold crept up Narathas’s spine. “Get me Tashina.”
The scouts bowed their heads and left the tent.
Narathas warmed her hands, scowling. She should have gone around these bloody mountains. Trying to conquer mountain people was a fools’ errand. Here she was playing the fool while the wind wailed and her soldiers whined. She longed for the cold if only to keep her soldiers distracted from their own stink.
Tashina entered. Her black hair hung long and loose past her shoulders. Gray peppered her hair. A few stray gray hairs protruded from her chin. She often tugged thoughtfully at them, usually while telling the old story about how her mother was born of a bear and how happy she would be to show all the other places on her broad body where the hair lay in matted tangles, keeping her warm.
Tashina bowed her head.
“There’s an army two miles south. Little less than nine-hundred,” Narathas said.
“That's more than three times ours.”
“I can do figures.” Narathas cleared a circle of grass to show the bare earth beneath. She drew out her position in the dirt. “We can hope that they don’t cross the river. It’s frozen, but to take that many soldiers across could be disastrous.”
Tashina crouched beside the dirt circle. “They would chance it if they knew you were here. That girl never recognized you as Matron, and it stirs her up. She’s young and hot-headed.”
“If I move the soldiers from camp, they may freeze waiting for an army that never appears. If I don't move them, we'll be forced into the mountains at our backs.”
Tashina remained silent.
“Oh, just say it,” Narathas spat.
Tashina shrugged. “You wanted this war. Get all that blood ore and conquer the world form the mountains to the sea.”
“I can see it, Tashina. Why can’t you, old friend?”
“Oh, I see it. But I also have to count the wounded and replace the dead.” Tashina tapped at their position in the dirt. “We could go on the offensive. Attack them.”
Tashina took the stick from Narathas’s hand. “We have three patrols here, here and here. They're only thirty head apiece, but a force that would surprise a sleeping army. If they come from behind, we can split the bulk of our army into three forces and send them across the river separately. Our bowstrings will freeze and snap, eventually. We’ll have just enough time to send fire into the camp. Take the supply wagons first, then the girl’s tent, some others along the rim to trap those within, and head in among the confusion.” Tashina sat back on her heels.
“You should know that your son Aurora is with them.”
The woman’s mouth formed a tight line. “He’s always been a witch-child. If he prefers the company of petty foreign nobles to the blood of his own people, that is his decision, and his downfall.”
“This is a bold attack. Why so bold?”
“Should we wait for a thousand soldiers to trap us up against the Simde Mountains at our backs? We don't have enough of an army left to survive that kind of an attack.”
“They’ll be a defending force. We would have to outnumber them three to one to succeed. And we haven’t considered Aurora.”
“I told you—”
Narathas held up a hand. “I know he’s a found child. I’ve heard the rumors about his… gifts. If the girl persuades him, seduces him, how badly can he move against us?”
“When last I heard from him, he was seeking a teacher who could teach her how to control his... Gift. But when he left, he could do little. Had odd dreams that came true. Could stir up a wind….”
“Is that all?” Narathas took the stick that she had been drawing in the dirt with and shoved it back into the fire. “He can’t set fire to things, hurl objects, or project images?”
“No.” Tashina's voice was soft.
Narathas rested her elbows on her knees. “I care for my armies, my soldiers, because they are loyal to me as you are, and believe in my cause as you do. And I will not betray their loyalty to me by sending them into a perilous situation unprepared, just as I would never betray your loyalty in a similar way. I think that’s fair, don't you?”
“You are indeed a fair woman, Narathas of Gaol. I’ll not begrudge you that.”
Narathas gave a slow nod. “Then ready the them. We move in two hours.”
Another army for the field.
#
Lord Burla of Grandia watched the smoke rising from the north, small wisps of gray that were barely perceivable against the leaden sky. Blankets of white covered the world in all directions, the pale color broken only by drab clusters of evergreen trees that made up the woodland on the other side of the river. Somewhere, nestled within that shrouded woodland, was an army waiting to be annihilated.
Burla held a warm cup of tea in one hand. Steam warmed her chin. She was just twenty, but understood how to move, how to speak, in a way that carried weight. Her lineage helped. She knew much about bluster and confidence. She was leading her army back from a border squabble, showing them off to the locals as she did. Showing the small folk the might of the army never hurt; it helped morale for those who wanted protection, and dissuaded those bent on insurrection.
A cry rose from the outlying ring of tents, and she glanced back to the river. Plowing up great sprays of snow came a single runner, a man who looked to be no more than a disembodied head at first glance, clothed as he was in stark white tunic, trousers, and boots.
The runner dropped a hurried bow that took him to his knees.
Burla put a gloved hand to the boy's face.
“Narathas,” the boy sputtered, and gasped in another breath. “Matron Narathas of Gaol... with a small force. We easily outnumber them three to one! Two miles out.”
“Are you certain?” A stab of hope, or was it anticipation? Finally, Narathas had come for her.
“Aye,” the boy said. “Saw her with my own eyes meeting with her runners… called in the woman. Her… war commander, sir.”
Burla gazed out again at the wispy tails of smoke trailing skyward.
“Narathas of Gaol. Ever punctual. You lazy harridan.” She helped the boy to his feet. “Come boy, into my tent. Garera!”
A man ran over from a small fire several yards away. “Yes, lord?”
“Get me my war commanders. And Aurora. We’re to finish Narathas today.”
#
Narathas led, with Tashina at her right. At her left stood the thick, stocky form of Itague of Gaol, a man with a great swath of graying brown hair, and a grating voice that sent the runners hopping to report the plan to the three scouting forces at the other side of the river.
In her mind’s eye, Narathas saw the river, the layout of the girl’s camp. She stumbled, and cursed herself for her lack of attention to the snow laden woodland. From the massed army at Narathas’s back, a single woman came to Narathas’s shoulder and told her the soldiers were suffering from numbed feet and fingers.
“We’ll split them up here,” Narathas said. “We’re not far from the river. The fight will warm their blood.”
They halted the army and split up the forces. Itague led the right flank, Tashina the left, and Narathas took the force that would come in from the center.
“Wait for our arrows,” Narathas said to Tashina and Itague. “My group will hit the girl’s tent and supply wagons. You take the outlying tents. Move in at my call. I’ll be at the head of the group. If I’m not, assume the worst, and Tashina, you have my army and titles. Is this agreeable?”
The two commanders nodded. A clap on the back, brief handshakes, and the three parted, taking their forces with them.
With less than a mile left to march, Narathas sent out a woman to scout ahead. Progress was slow across the snowy plain and cluttered woodlands. Narathas began to doubt her offensive. Their pace was agony in this terrain. But she wanted this over with, wanted that dull upstart of a girl and her upstart of a country rolled into hers. Narathas called for silence. They were almost upon the camp.
Narathas could make out the snowy white depression that was the Ylnd River. And there, on the other side, the huddle of tents spreading out across the snowy plain. The snow had been packed down between each of the tents, dirtying the pale ground cover to a dull brown. Narathas paused. That seemed to be a great deal of activity for a single overnight stay. Worse, not a soul walked among the tents, and not a wisp of smoke rose into the cold air.
“Sir?” Whispers from her army.
Narathas held up a hand. “Not yet. Be still and listen. She withdrew them. Use your eyes and look for them.” Narathas looked out past the camp, but could make out nothing but blurry clumps of evergreen trees. Not a breath of movement stirred the plain.
“There, Sir.” A girl at her
right pointed a brown swathed arm toward a clump of evergreens at the far side of the river, so far out Narathas could only make out the green and brown colors, hazy and indistinct to her eyes.
“Tell me what you see,” Narathas said, “and keep your arm down. Be still.”
The girl came alongside Narathas. Her face was filthy, and little bits of frozen condensation clung to her lashes.
“I can see a dozen men there under the bows,” the girl said. “The line might go back three, four, maybe more deep.”
“Find me two fast runners.”
The girl came back with runners. “We’re as fast as you’ll find, sir,” one of them said.
“What are your names?’
“I’m Calik, this is Jak.”
“Calik, find Tashina and our right flanking force. Jak, report to Itague. Tell them that the noble’s men are waiting to ambush us. Tell him to wait for my signal. If we light our arrows, both forces’ orders are to hit the trees, then charge across. But if I emerge from the wood unarmed, we retreat. Understood?”
Both nodded.
“Repeat it back to me.” They did, and Narathas dismissed them. If her luck held, neither would be murdered before relaying their messages.
As she waited in the brush, her legs began to cramp up, and she forced herself to kneel. Slowly, carefully, she stretched out her aching limbs. Her soldiers also began to stir, grow restless, but Narathas dared not tell them to string their bows just yet. They had lost the element of surprise, and she was still on the edge of turning back.
Calik returned ten minutes later, slinking through the woodland at Narathas’s right. Tashina, Calik said, was ready for her signal.
Narathas settled in to wait for Jak, but after a quarter hour – nothing. The move was Narathas’s. She grimaced.
“String bows!” Narathas called. Forty-three bows were strung with warmed bowstrings kept close to the body to keep them supple. Tar-coated arrowheads were pulled from quivers, and a precious coal was taken from its place inside a tinder-packed antler.
“Light them,” Narathas said. “Calik, give them the target.”
Calik instructed the first line of fighters on the evergreen groves and joined their ranks. Within moments, the coal ignited the first arrow, and they shared the fire down the line, until a blistering line of fire wound fifty soldiers across.
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