“Yes,” said Bryndine. There was little more she could say.
Ralsten spoke with resignation, as if voicing a conclusion he had come to days ago. “Then we have already lost. Even if we start burning the fireleafs, the King will send the Army out behind us. We’ll be trapped between them and the rebels.”
“Wait until the next attack comes,” Bryndine said. “If we burn the trees now, it will only warn the Burnt. We might hurt or kill some of them, but as you say, they will stop us. If we wait, they will not expect it. It will not work well more than once, but it may shock them into retreat, or at least make them more vulnerable.”
Ralsten was obviously taken aback; he had never much respected Bryndine as a soldier. “Not a bad plan,” he said. “Not bad at all. Next time the bastards show their faces, we’ll burn them off. At least we’ll go down fighting.” A savage grin stretched across his gaunt, bearded face.
I realized my hands were trembling, and I asked, “A last stand, then? Is that what it comes to?”
Orya’s grin stretched the claw scars the snowcats had left in her cheek and made her look almost feral. “If that’s what you’re thinkin’, Bryn, I’m with you.”
“W—we all are,” said Wynne.
Deanyn forced a smile. “Living was getting tiresome anyway.”
It was plain on the face of every woman in Bryndine’s company—they would follow her in this, and die with her if she asked them to. Only Sylla, at Bryndine’s side as always, wore a different look: one of dismay. Not because she was afraid to die—I doubt Sylla ever gave much thought to her own well being—but because Bryndine might. I was humbled and ashamed by the bravery of these women. For my own part, I wanted to hide somewhere until it was over.
But Bryndine had another plan in mind. “No,” she said. “It has not come to that, not yet.”
“What, then?” I asked, glad for any option that might not end in our deaths.
“I am surprised you haven’t thought of it, Scriber Dennon. We go to the Academy. The Scribers are sworn to the Kingsland, not the King. They will have to lend us their aid when they see the books. If the Council supports us, Scribers all over the Kingsland will do as they say. Hundreds of Warfare-pinned Scribers from every barony will desert the Army—enough to burn a great many fireleaf trees.”
Relief washed over me, and I had to laugh. “It’s a sorry excuse for a Scriber who forgets the entire Academy. Of course we go to them.”
Bryndine turned back to Ralsten. “Lieutenant Ralsten, can you hold here for a few more weeks?”
“I don’t know, La—Captain Bryndine. But by the Divide, we’ll try.”
Bryndine nodded. “We’ll leave immediately, then. There’s no time to waste.”
“There is one more thing you need to see before you go,” said Ralsten.
He led us deeper into the camp, to a flat patch of dirt where a small group—a mix of men in Army browns, commoners in piecemeal armor, and even a Justice in his white cloak—were sparring and running drills. As we approached, I saw a woman in boiled leather armor watching the current match. Her back was turned and I could not see her face, but she was short and stocky, with shoulder length blond hair.
“She said she’s one of yours,” Ralsten said. “Stumbled in a few weeks ago.”
Bryndine voiced the hope we all shared. “Genna?”
The woman turned, and I knew that round, gentle face instantly. And yet, the joy I wanted to feel eluded me. It was too much to believe. I had seen her fall to the Burnt—would they have let her escape without making her one of them? I tried to focus on the whispers, but the air was thick with the voices of the Burnt, and if one of those voices came from Genna, I could not tell it from all the others.
The women must have shared my suspicions, because none of us moved. The company seemed to be collectively holding its breath, waiting to see what their lost member did.
“Bryndine?” Genna’s face broke into a wide smile, and she started towards us. A warmth settled over my heart. She knows us.
“Genna, how… How are you here?” Bryndine asked.
“They left me. After they pulled me down, they left me there. They were too busy chasing the rest of you to see if I was dead. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I woke, they were gone. I couldn’t find you, so I came back here.”
I could feel the women relaxing around me, the excitement starting to build. Bryndine’s mouth rose into the largest smile I had ever seen from her, and she started forward to embrace Genna.
Then, just for the slightest instant, Genna’s gaze flickered in my direction, and her eyes met mine. She did not so much as flinch. Right then, I knew this was not shy, damaged Genna. This was something else.
But she knew us, I told myself, trying to deny what I knew to be true. It wasn’t convincing. Of course she knew us. Uran Ord knows us. The Burnt know us, and their voices are everywhere. It isn’t her.
She was a yard from Bryndine now, and one hand was at her side, reaching for something in her belt. I thought I saw a dull glint of light on metal, but no one else seemed to notice.
Words deserted me, and I did the only thing I could think to do.
Sprinting forward, I threw myself at the thing that looked like Genna. She was squat and sure-footed; hitting her was like colliding with a wall of stone. But the attack caught her off guard, and somehow I took her to the ground with me.
I tried to hold her down, but she was on top of me in moments, pinning my arms with her knees. She might have lacked Genna’s training, but not her strength. In one hand, she held a small dagger, the dagger she had been about to use on Bryndine, and a hysterical thought floated through my head: I was right about that, at least. I’m not just making a fool of myself.
The dagger swept down.
Steel flashed, and then the hand holding the dagger was gone; Genna’s arm ended in a raw red stump. The wound did not bleed. I jerked my head to the side as the severed hand fell to the ground, the blade it clasped barely missing my face. Over Genna’s shoulder, I could see Bryndine standing with her sword bared, staring down at us in confusion and horror.
The wound did not slow Genna down for even an instant. She clawed at my throat with the hand that remained to her, and her fingers were just closing around my windpipe when Bryndine pulled her away, pinning her arms behind her back.
Genna struggled, but Bryndine’s grip was too strong for her to escape. “You will all burn!” she shrieked. Then, abruptly, her body went still, sagging in Bryndine’s arms.
“Genna!” Bryndine shook the other woman, trying to rouse her, and looked at me in panic. “I did nothing, she just… Scriber, help her!” She laid Genna’s limp body on the ground, and I scrambled to her side.
Genna was motionless, her eyes wide and unblinking. She was not breathing. I felt for a heartbeat, but found nothing. I looked up at Bryndine and shook my head.
Bryndine’s shoulders slumped. “She was… one of them?” Only moments before, she had been overjoyed by the reunion; now, sorrow made her voice break.
Though Genna’s fingers no longer clutched my neck, I could not seem to properly find my breath. When I spoke, it came out hoarse and angry. “What do you think? She nearly killed you. And me.” I immediately felt remorse for the sharp retort—Bryndine was not the true target of my ire.
“She’s been with them all this time?” Ralsten asked incredulously. “Why in the depths didn’t she act until now?”
“Because,” I said, “she was waiting for us. The Burnt knew we would let her get close.” They let us believe she was alive, and then took it away. I wanted to scream.
I forced myself to look again at the body, though the sight made my stomach roil. Blood was just now beginning to flow from her severed wrist, slow and dark. But not only from her wrist. A dark stain grew under her left arm, where her leather armor parted to reveal the padding beneath. When I touched it, my fingers came back red and sticky.
The revaen, the book said. All othe
r thoughts fled from my mind. They can only possess those lacking… lacking what?
I grabbed the dagger she had dropped. Forgive me for this, Genna, I pleaded silently as I sliced through the straps on her armor and the padding beneath.
“What are you doing?” Bryndine demanded. “Leave her!”
“Wait. Look.”
I peeled Genna’s tabard and armored jerkin aside, revealing her bare torso. Just beneath her left arm, a long gash split her chest, cutting up towards the heart. No one could have survived a wound like that.
Bryndine frowned. “That is not where I cut her. How…”
The books had said that the Wyddin could take plants and animals, things without true self-awareness or identity, but not humans. But if Genna was killed weeks ago… “The revaen,” I said. “Not just without awareness—without mind, or soul. The Wyddin can possess the dead.”
Even as I said it, the full, terrifying implication of that truth dawned on me. “This is how they always disappear so cleanly, why they are never captured. They appear to die, leave their hosts, and nothing remains but corpses. The Wyddin themselves are already in some other group of dead villagers halfway across the Kingsland.”
As she always did, Bryndine struggled to hide her emotions, but her anger was writ in the set of her jaw, the white-knuckled fists at her sides. “She was one of mine. The Burnt will answer for this.” She was silent a moment, then, “They are already dead? All of them? The King?”
“I think so, yes.”
Her voice was as cold as a Salt Mountain winter. “Then we need not show them any mercy.”
I could barely hear her—the terrible voices all around Three Rivers swallowed her words. It was only then that I noticed how loud they had become; they had been rising since Genna attacked. “We will have vengeance,” they screamed. “All will burn.”
I fought to control my panic. If I gave in to fear, I knew that I would burn. “She told them we’re here.” My voice sounded unnaturally calm in my ears. “They’re coming.”
Bryndine didn’t hesitate; she started giving orders before I finished speaking. “Selvi, Elene, get your horses and ride north into the hills. Stay out of sight and make for the nearest two fireleafs. When the attack comes, burn them. If you can find oil, prepare flaming arrows—the fires will give away your position, and the further away you are the better.” She pointed to each woman in turn, and each saluted upon receipt of her assignment. “Debra and Rylene, ride with Selvi; Ivyla and Leste with Elene. You may have to fight your way closer if the arrows do not work. Deanyn and Wynne, stay with Scriber Dennon, keep him safe. Orya and Sylla, with me.”
The women set about their tasks immediately, and Bryndine turned back to Ralsten. “Lieutenant, gather your men. We need to organize a defense around the palisades.”
If Ralsten objected to her taking command, he hid it well. Whistling for attention, he interrupted the training soldiers and called them over, sending runners to gather the rest. Other men gathered around as well, men who wore no uniforms and carried only improvised weapons—shovels and sickles, rough clubs and wood-chopping axes.
Ralsten directed two men to remove Genna’s body. “She will be laid to rest with the dead after the battle,” he said. Bryndine nodded, watching in silence as her friend was carried away.
Ralsten’s men accepted our story as easily as the Lieutenant had. They had been fighting the Burnt for weeks, and it came as no surprise to them that their foes were something other than human. However, the idea that the rebels were not living creatures at all was accepted with less grace—an uneasy murmur rippled through the gathered men.
It was Sylla who voiced the question that must have been on everyone’s mind: “If they’re already dead, how are we supposed to fight them?”
“They do not fall easily,” Bryndine said, “but we have killed them before. Scriber, is there anything in Fyrril’s books that might help?”
I could only shake my head. “Nothing, but as you say, you’ve killed them before. It’s possible that doing enough damage to the body drives them out, or perhaps certain types of injury—destroying the head or severing the spine seems to have worked in the past. The bodies may be as useless to them as they would be to us with such wounds.”
Motioning Bryndine closer, I lowered my voice—what I had to say next was not something I wanted the entire camp to hear. “The truth is, we can’t be certain wounding them does anything at all. It may be that they are only trying to hide their true nature by leaving a host when it appears mortally wounded. Now that we have the books, they must assume we know what they are, which would make the charade unnecessary. They may be… difficult to stop.”
“Pray that is not true, Scriber,” Bryndine said. “We have no choice but to fight them as though it is not.”
Then, raising her voice for all to hear, she addressed the gathered soldiers, the frightened men and women of the camp. “Do not give in to fear! You have held these rebels back this long—knowing what they are can only be an advantage. They can be beaten. Strike for the head, the neck, the spine; they will fall. Do not give in to fear, and we will not fail!” Holding her sword high, she cried, “For the Promise!”
“For the Promise!” The men raised their weapons and echoed her cry, even those who did not wear the burning tree, and I found myself shouting with them. I could see it in their eyes, some spark of hope reigniting after long weeks holding against an implacable foe. Bryndine had given them the words they needed, and for once, I think, they saw her as something more than the King’s strange, oft-maligned niece. For perhaps the first time, they saw her for what she was: a born leader. She strode towards the palisades, and they followed her almost eagerly. Soon, Deanyn, Wynne, and I stood alone beside the empty training ground.
“We should be with them,” Wynne said, staring after her Captain.
Deanyn clapped the younger girl on the shoulder. “Trust me, Wynne, they don’t envy us this task. Dennon’s sure to do something foolish.” She winked at me, and I made myself smile back.
It was not long before the sounds of battle began.
At the first cry, the first clash of metal ringing from beyond the palisades, Deanyn drew her long, thin sword from its sheath. Wynne had already strapped a light buckler onto her arm, and now she followed Deanyn’s lead, pulling free her shortsword. In moments, the noise from beyond the walls grew to rival the shrieking of the Burnt in my head. I took several deep breaths, trying to keep in check the terror writhing in my gut.
“Let’s get you some place safe,” Deanyn said, gripping me by the arm.
It was a suggestion I was all too happy to accept, and I would have followed her, except that at that moment, I heard something. Through the wailing voices in my head and over the cacophony of battle, someone was screaming, “It burns.”
I had heard those words before. “Wait,” I said, looking for the source of the scream. There, some forty yards from us, a woman had collapsed by her tent just inside the palisades. Without stopping to think, I ran towards her.
I heard Wynne yelling after me. “Scriber Dennon!”
I didn’t stop, but I was peripherally aware of both women following behind me. When I reached the fallen woman, there was a girl of no more than ten kneeling beside her, her eyes wide with fear.
“I was joking when I said you’d do something foolish,” Deanyn said as she and Wynne reached the tent. “You didn’t need to prove me right.”
I paid her no mind. The woman on the ground was convulsing wildly, and I dropped to one knee beside her.
“What happened?” I asked the child, though I already knew.
“She… she just fell. Help her, please!”
The woman screamed again, but this time she formed no words, just an incomprehensible howl.
“I don’t know how,” I whispered. The Burnt were doing this, just as they had to Josia, and to me so many times.
Just then, a brilliant light erupted on the walls not ten feet away, and a roar of t
hunder split the air. The young girl screamed.
As the after-image of lightning faded, I saw the burning stakes of the nearby palisades collapse inwards. Rebels streamed through the opening. Women and children screamed and tried to flee, but the Burnt cut them down without mercy. Lightning flashed again, and a nearby tent exploded in flaming debris. The flames spread along the dried yellow grass to the tents nearby like a swarm of burning locusts, devouring everything in its path.
“Run!” I pushed the child towards the infirmary tent, away from the rebels and the raging fire. “We’ll do what we can for your mother.” The girl hesitated a moment, looked back at her mother, sobbed, and ran.
The first of the Burnt drew near, swinging his sword in a heavy downward arc; Deanyn caught his blade on hers just above her head. With a savage kick to the stomach, she sent the man stumbling back. “We need to get away from here ourselves, right now,” she shouted.
The woman on the ground let out a desperate wail and then ceased moving altogether. I did not have to check to know that she was dead, like Josia. Why not me? I wondered. Why am I still alive?
“Scriber Dennon! Get up, you have to go!” Wynne’s cry brought me back to my senses, and I surged to my feet.
Wynne and Deanyn fought side by side in an elaborate dance of blades, fending off five rebels now with many more closing in. A dead-eyed woman struck at Wynne’s side and the young soldier caught the blow on her buckler, then ducked under a second man’s slash so that it struck one of Deanyn’s opponents in the shoulder. The stray attack sent the man off balance, opened his guard, and Deanyn’s blade neatly severed his neck.
“Run, Dennon!” Deanyn yelled. “We’ll keep them back!”
I should have fled, but I couldn’t leave them to die for me. The others should have set the trees burning by now. The realization caused panic to rise up my throat; I barely kept myself from vomiting. We’re going to die here.
Deanyn and Wynne shouted again for me to run as more men and women charged towards us, but I could not. I was no longer in control of my body; fear had turned my limbs to stone. I felt the Burnt turn their attention towards me, and braced myself for the pain.
Scriber Page 28
