by Ben Peek
It was shortly after the wall that Eidan stopped. ‘A quake is coming,’ he said.
It was much stronger under the mountains: the walls around Ayae shook and stones and dirt broke free. The ground beneath her feet opened in hairline fractures, and she stepped away from them.
‘That seemed worse,’ Tinh Tu said, once the ground stilled. ‘Worse than the others.’
‘It was,’ Eidan said. ‘We do not want to be here much longer. A mountain range of this size is difficult to control, even for me.’
The footsteps led them into a new tunnel, one littered by soil and stone. The phosphorescent light, however, remained clear and steady until the tunnel began to branch into a new cavern. From there, a faint hint of smoke could be seen, clawing along the roof.
‘He is up ahead,’ the stout man said softly. ‘He has started a fire. I believe he is waiting for us.’
Jae’le took a step past him, but Eidan’s hand stilled him.
‘Zaifyr is not there with him,’ he said.
‘Where is he?’
‘I do not know. He came down the wall with him. The stones remember the weight of the two, but they cannot tell me where it changed, or if there was another here with him.’
In the pale light, Ayae could see the concern on Jae’le’s face. She thought that he might say something, but instead he nodded and continued forwards.
The smoke thickened and, shortly before the narrow tunnel opened into a much larger room, a fire was visible. It was a small campfire, ringed by rocks. There was a woodpile behind the fire, on which the old man Jae’le had told her about sat. He was an old white man, a nest of bones, grey hair and tattered clothing. He was small and did not look as if he could lift the blocks of wood that he sat on, much less a body.
But it was not that the sight of him that caught Ayae’s attention.
It was not he who stole her breath.
Behind him was a splitting bone, but to describe it as such, to suggest that it was a bone, was to give it a sense of perspective and reality that Ayae did not believe it had. It was of such a size that it filled the entire cavern behind the old man, the edges disappearing into shadows and smoke before becoming lost in the stone.
Upon it was a painting.
It was a battle, one in a city that Ayae did not recognize, but which was defined by flat roofs. Across the roofs men and women and creatures fought, while around them rivers of fire burned, the flames leaping out of the ground as if it had fractured, much like the bone that it was painted on. In the centre of the painting was a great cathedral and the smoke from the fire was drawn towards it. It twisted around the building, taking on a form that resembled the seething, unformed shape Ayae had seen at Zaifyr’s trial. Her attention did not linger on it, but was instead drawn to the foreground, to the images of herself, of Jae’le, Eidan, Tinh Tu and Aelyn Meah. Her face was turned towards her, and in her eyes, Ayae could see flames, and fear. Of the five, only she was turned away from the cathedral, towards the entrance of the cave. On one of the flat roofs close to the cathedral Jae’le fought with shadowed figures, while further down, Tinh Tu led a force. But it was to the right of her face that Ayae found her gaze drawn, to images of Eidan and Aelyn, to the sight of the latter cradling the former in her lap, while Eidan’s blood pooled around them and into the shadows of the cave.
8.
The gates of Nymar Alahn’s estate were surrounded by Yeflam’s own refugees and, from the room that she was given, Eilona spent most of the night watching them.
She was out of her depth. The thought repeated in her head like the chorus of a song. It had begun when Nymar’s carriage approached the estate gates and sombre grey-dressed guards had come out to clear the road. When people had not moved quickly enough, the guards used wooden batons. Eilona saw one woman hit across the face and when she turned away from the grisly sight, she had turned to Nymar, who stared straight ahead, as if by doing so he could deny what was taking place around him. He did not move or say a word until the carriage halted outside the doors of his main estate. There, he stepped out of the carriage first and barked at the guards, demanding to know why the people were still outside his home. It was on the tip of Eilona’s tongue to tell him it was because they had nowhere else to go, but she refrained. Instead, she stood in the forecourt and listened and watched. After Nymar finished, he turned to Eilona and Caeli and, after a struggle to compose his face, led them into the estate. There a thin white man whose head was shaved took them up to their rooms for the night. The man, who did not introduce himself, said only that a light meal would soon be provided.
The meal remained still, largely untouched. It was cold meat and fruit. Eilona had picked at it, but otherwise left it. Instead, she watched the people on the street. She thought about how she could not do what her mother wanted, not here. She had spent years outside the real politics of countries: she had lived in the politics of academics, of the university’s small world of intellectual positions, and even there she had largely kept to herself. She had certainly not kept up with the practice of politics.
Her mother had not helped, either. Despite what Nymar believed, Muriel Wagan had told her daughter very little about what to expect in the Spires of Alati. ‘We have a few birds,’ she said. ‘We get a few letters. It isn’t much. I suspect that Lian gets some extra messages from his son, but what we know is vague at best.’ Eilona’s mother had known about the people in the streets, but not how bad it was, or about the Faithful.
‘They were in the cities before Yeflam broke,’ Nymar said while she and Caeli were still in the carriage. ‘Se’Saera came to Nale herself for the Keepers’ trial of Qian. She did not have a name then, and for the most part, the Faithful were largely ignored. But after the storms they appeared on the streets, offering food and clothing to the refugees.’ He shook his head. ‘They have saved a lot of lives.’
‘She was responsible for part of the attack on Yeflam,’ Caeli said. ‘Surely very few would be willing to accept anything from her?’
‘The Enclave is responsible for the attack on Yeflam,’ Nymar corrected her curtly. ‘Please see that you are informed of the facts. The Enclave was a corrupt government. The people know this. That is why they are ready to embrace real and alternative government, why they are ready to be something other than Yeflam. Fortunately, we are helped in this by Aelyn Meah’s chief steward, Faje Metura. He has been speaking quite publicly against the Keepers.’
‘Why would he do that?’ Eilona asked.
‘He is an honest man. In fact, he is the spokesman for the Faithful.’ The look on Eilona’s face must have said what she thought, because Nymar added, ‘You must treat him with respect. It was he who negotiated the peace that all the cities have, and who has looked after the refugees. What you see outside the windows would be much worse if not for him.’
‘Perish the thought that you might take responsibility for your own people,’ Caeli said, the evenness of her replying revealing a cold contempt.
Perhaps because of that, Nymar did not speak again until he left the carriage.
It might have surprised her mother’s guard to learn that Eilona shared much of her opinion. A part of Eilona wanted to press the point Caeli made, to tell Nymar that his response to the crisis was a poor one, that he was shifting the responsibility for his fellow humans to another. But she didn’t. Instead of thinking about how Nymar would respond, she thought of Caeli, of how the other woman would think that she was agreeing not out of common sentiment, but out of fear, or another emotion altogether. After all, Eilona was suddenly dependent on Caeli, not just on her skill with a sword, but on her experience of these situations. Without her, she would have to rely upon her old knowledge, the knowledge that had led her so poorly in the past.
Eilona was woken by her door opening.
The morning’s sun cast the dark shadows of the spires into her room and she saw, in the tall, sharp lines, the helms of soldiers again. When she rose stiffly from the large chair in which she h
ad fallen asleep, she saw Caeli.
‘Breakfast will be up soon,’ the guard said, the smell of cooking food drifting in behind her, before she shut the door. ‘We probably won’t get much time to talk after that.’
Eilona nodded slowly. For a moment, she found herself unable to speak. She wanted to bring up the carriage, but to do so would be to unearth more of the past: of what had been said, of the attack on Caeli’s family, of – ‘It’s awful here,’ she said, instead.
‘The first thing to leave a human is kindness for another.’ Caeli walked over to the window, to where the nearly full tray of food still sat. ‘You weren’t hungry?’
‘Look out of the window. How can you eat while people starve on your doorstep?’
‘I eat when I can,’ the other woman said. ‘It is what living in the camp teaches you.’
‘I don’t live in the camp.’
‘Not yet.’
Eilona did not know how to respond. ‘What did you want to talk about?’
‘Everyone here is afraid,’ Caeli said. ‘I don’t mean the people outside, I mean the people in here, with us. They’re afraid of being punished. Afraid of being thrown out onto the streets. Nymar Alahn holds that threat like a blade above the heads of everyone here. The girl who brought me my food last night told me that.’
‘If she was afraid, why did she talk to you?’ The words twisted in her, came out with a tone she didn’t want. ‘Sorry,’ she said hastily, ‘that didn’t come out right – I meant only if she’s afraid, why talk to a stranger?’
‘Because I have a sword, I imagine.’ Caeli gave Eilona a chill glance. It spoke of their history, of their roles now, of how the former wanted nothing for it but to end. ‘It changes how people look at you. You give someone a sword, and they become a saviour, or a villain. Or maybe the girl was just desperate. Either way, she spoke to me. She told me that Nymar has a copy of The Eternal Kingdom in his room. She assured me that he is Faithful. If that is true, it does not bode well for anything we have come here to do.’
There was a gentle knock on the door before Eilona could respond. A young white maid pushed in the food cart, the plates on it shifting spears and swords, the metal struts jangling like armour.
9.
The morning’s sun cast a dark, bloody light over Celp.
Heast and the First Queen’s Guard had found more bodies, each of them burned as the first had been, as they approached the ruins of the city. They had counted eighteen, but Heast believed there were more. At the edge of Celp, before the ruined gates, he halted their progression and pulled out his spyglass. Beyond the ruins, a long stretch of blackened land ran until it was lost in the smoke and the violent light. He could see half a dozen figures there. After he closed the spyglass, Heast raised his hand and had everyone fall in around him.
‘Anemone,’ he said. ‘Find out where Refuge and the Leerans are in there.’
She nodded and around her, a shield without needing to be told to be a shield, Lehana and the First Queen’s Guard waited. They were stained in ash, the red of their armour all but obscured after the ride to Celp, just as the colour of their horses had begun to disappear. Heast could hear some of the soldiers cough and spit, saw some reach for water, but otherwise they were composed. He was pleased to see that. It meant that they too knew what kind of battle awaited them in Celp.
The city had been heavily damaged when General Waalstan had laid siege to it shortly after his battle against Mireea. After his success, Heast had heard that he made camp in the ruins for a week and had spent the time beheading survivors and harvesting their bodies for flesh. Heast tended to not give much credence to stories like that, but when he had entered Celp after Maosa, he had found headless bodies hanging crucified in the streets. There was no sign of the cannibalism that others spoke of – the bodies were simply too decomposed – but Anemone had told him that it had indeed happened. He ordered the bodies and the crosses torn down and the men and women and children buried.
Heast had stayed in Celp for a week. In that time, he had walked stiffly through the ruined streets and outside the walls. He studied the scars in the ground where the siege engines had been laid and the damage done to the buildings. It had been a quick battle, in part, Heast thought at the time, because of poor decisions by Faet Cohn. He had left a section of the northern wall under-defended and it had allowed Waalstan to punch through easily. The Faithful had swarmed the streets while a badly organized retreat was sounded. It had not occurred to Heast then that Cohn had betrayed his duty: he had simply thought the marshal unprepared and stupid, but he admitted that it made more sense to him now.
‘Grandmother,’ Anemone said, ‘says that the Leerans are through the streets to the south.’
‘And Refuge?’
‘Scattered throughout the south and west.’ She paused, listening to another conversation that no one else could hear. ‘They are being herded towards the centre,’ she said.
‘Towards the town hall?’
‘The fire is strongest there.’ The witch sounded troubled and unsure. ‘Captain, Grandmother says that there are no ancestors here, but General Waalstan is.’
That surprised Heast. ‘What else does she say?’
‘She says that the soldiers are on fire.’
He silenced the sudden conversation around him and pointed to the north, to the broken wall that the Leerans had originally come through. After Anemone said the General’s name, Heast felt suddenly exposed, though he knew logically that no one was watching. There was nowhere in the burning ruins by the gates to hide. Still, he had felt as if an eye had been cast over him. He could not shake the sensation, not even after he and the First Queen’s Guard had ridden through the broken wall and into the blackened streets.
Burning buildings and bodies lay ahead of them. For a moment, what Heast saw was overlaid with the memory of Mireea in flames. He saw again the industrial area of the city that had been attacked from a tunnel the Leerans had made. Queila Meina and Steel had been using that part of the city as a camp and they had been forced to retreat through streets of burning buildings before he ordered the floor of the city to be exploded.
The sensation of being watched intensified with the memory. Heast dropped a hand to his sword, but he could see nothing alive ahead of him. There was only burning buildings. There was only burned bodies. The soldiers are on fire, Anemone had said, but surely that had been a mistake. Surely the old witch had simply been unable to distinguish the two. If she had been right, surely screams would fill Celp, not the sound of fires, cracking wood, of dim shouts and faint battles, and little else.
‘Lehana.’ Heast indicated to the right, to the road that ran beside the broken wall, where a Leeran body lay by itself, and the fire was at its weakest. ‘There is a main road that ends a little down that way. It runs through the middle of Celp. I want you to take half of the force down there. Take our best archers, but leave me our best riders. Anemone, you go with her. Try and contact Refuge in the city. Tell them we will clear a path down the main street. We’ll try and bring the Leerans who are at the edges down for you to have a clear shot at, Lehana. We’ll be riding in pairs. Try not to shoot anyone who looks as if they were born in Faaisha.’
‘Sir,’ Lehana began, but stopped, the smoke causing her to cough. ‘Captain,’ she said again, ‘maybe I should ride?’
He was anything but an elegant rider, he knew. ‘Refuge won’t respond to you, not yet,’ Heast said. He turned his gaze to the soldiers around her. ‘When you hear the horn, that is the signal to fall back. We’ll group up and push forwards then.’
Lehana did not like it, but he was right. She would be just another soldier Refuge did not know and, in the smoke, in the fire, they would just as soon attack her and the First Queen’s Guard as the Leerans. Heast could at least limit that by his presence. With a squaring of her shoulders, Lehana gathered her soldiers to her. Once done, she led them down the smoke-stained street to the right.
After they had disappear
ed, Heast pulled out his canteen. He took a drink of water that tasted of smoke and used it to dampen his clothes. It was not much – it would have been better to soak his clothes in a barrel of water – but it would help dull the heat of the fires in the streets before him. Around him, the soldiers who had remained followed his lead. None of them, he was sure, relished the idea of charging into the fire.
Oya came up beside him. The muscular soldier had an axe in one hand and a shield strapped over her other. ‘I want you to know, sir, that you won me ten gold.’
He drew his sword. ‘What did you bet on?’
‘That you’d order us to do something crazy stupid before the week was out.’
He smiled beneath his mask. ‘You stay with me on my left.’
The flames were hot and, as if they sensed him and the soldiers with him into the fire, they seemed to grow. They became larger, gained shape. Briefly, it looked as if they wanted to reach out.
After a moment, Heast ignored the flames as he rode along the street. His gaze switched to the buildings, to the broken windows and doors where fire leapt out, and then he looked back to the street, searching for life, or for a sign that someone was watching him. He saw nothing: the closest he came to it was a body lodged in one of the doorways, the flames like a blanket over it. He did not know if it was one of his or Leeran. A couple of seconds later another body appeared in the street, face-down. His horse cleared it easy, its steel hooves falling on the broken stones, each step a steady, well-trained beat.
Another two bodies followed. These, he saw, were not completely covered in flames, and he could see the white skin, the Leeran skin.
Ahead, the sounds of battle grew.
10.
The morning’s sun ran through the thick foliage of the campsite and tinted Leera in a strange mix of orange and green. In its midst, at the head of the camp, stood Aela Ren with a tin cup of water in his hand. The mixed light ran across his scarred skin, his leather armour and the hilts of his old swords. It left him looking moulted, as if his skin was breaking apart and revealing the monk that he had once been, so long ago.
