by Ben Peek
He was aware that, behind him, Aelyn Meah had taken two steps back, giving him privacy he did not need. ‘You could have done more for her,’ he said. ‘You had a duty.’
‘To defy my god?’
‘She’s not your god.’
‘After all this time, you don’t understand.’ Kaze nodded to Aelyn. ‘We’re not like her. She is nothing. A fluke. A creation made by fate’s whim, fit only to be consumed by Se’Saera. She is chaos. The only reason she hasn’t been killed already is because Se’Saera has given orders for us not to kill her. She is supposed to be here, now. But you and I, we are different. Our fates were locked down from before we are born. Everything about us has been decided. We are the servants of a god. We are defined by that. We cannot defy a god, not for love, not for hate, not for kindness, and not for cruelty.’ She rose, her slight stoop straightening as she did. ‘I did as I was made to do.’
She tried to shoulder past him, but Bueralan held his arm up. ‘You and I, we can’t kill each other. That’s how it works, right?’ He met her hazel eyes. ‘But I can hurt you.’
‘Pain is our life.’ She held his gaze. ‘I would have thought you understood that by now.’
He did, and it was because of that, that he did not turn to her as she pushed past him. With long, even strides, she walked past Aelyn Meah and into the darkness of the stables. When the door shut, he turned to the grey, who had watched him with his steady dark eyes the entire time.
‘Orlan’s horse is in the next stall,’ the saboteur said. ‘We won’t leave her, either.’
2.
Before Heast gave the order to ride to Ranan, before Refuge and the Brotherhood left the ash-stained air of Celp, he returned to the camp for one more night.
Heast kept the copy of The Eternal Kingdom in his saddlebag and did not remove it until the afternoon’s sun began to rise. Before that, he spent his time talking to Essa and his soldiers and watching Lehana’s reaction. At least half of the Ooilan soldiers who had served the First Queen would have fought in the war between Ooila and Qaaina. He was unsurprised, then, when the first meeting he held between Essa and Lehana turned out to be tense. Lehana stood silent and still beside Heast while Essa explained what had happened in Leera – Aela Ren’s duel with Xrie, the Mountain of Ger breaking, and Bueralan Le’s words – and throughout, the Captain of the Brotherhood kept looking at the Ooilan soldier, as if expecting her to attack him.
After Essa had finished, silence fell between the three of them. They stood behind the wagon where Dural had been laid, near where Heast and Taaira had buried him. ‘Is there going to be a problem between you two?’ he asked, after a moment.
‘Qaaina was a long time ago.’ The scarred mercenary shrugged. ‘It isn’t returning. I have no problems letting it go.’
‘The Brotherhood might be a problem for some of us,’ Lehana admitted. ‘We lost friends on those fields. We lost them fighting Sergeant Essa’s division, in truth.’
‘I’m a captain now.’ He gazed at her. ‘I don’t remember you.’
‘Armour makes it hard to distinguish sometimes.’
‘Aye, but even if I did, I’ve been on the road too long to hold that grudge.’ He glanced at Heast. ‘I have no problem with your people. I followed the smoke to find you. I know what they’re capable of. Me and mine will ride into Ranan beside Refuge without a problem. As for the rest?’ He shrugged again and met Lehana’s gaze. ‘Our road is long and paved with small coins. All that holds it together is blood. My boys and girls are all we got of each other. Qaaina stopped mattering in that equation a long time ago.’
After he had left, Heast said, ‘You’ll fight beside worse in this life. You’ll see some of it in Ranan. The Faaishan Army will not hold a line with you. The Saan will offer you nothing in battle. Indeed, they are just as likely to try and kill you afterwards. But you can trust in Kal Essa. Outside the people you lie and die with, that’s a rare thing.’
Lehana nodded, but her face was impassive. ‘I will tell the others that, sir.’ She saluted him sharply before she left.
She would learn, he thought. Not soon, but in a few years’ time, she would answer as Essa did. It would be after Ranan. After she and the other Ooilan soldiers had stood on muddy fields in Illate, after they stood beside men and women who hated them for generations of slavery, but who needed them now. But it would only happen if they survived the upcoming battle in Ranan, where immortals and gods waited beside the swords and arrows of the Faithful. Heast could still hear Ren’s words, could still see him pick up Waalstan and walk out of Celp, unafraid of the soldiers who stood around him. It might be that Lieutenant Lehana would never have a chance to learn the lesson of separating a life of coin from state, Heast admitted privately to himself.
‘Is it an interesting book, Captain?’ Anemone asked, after the suns had risen and set, after the camp had fallen into a light slumber without incident. ‘You’ve been reading it since you returned.’
Heast turned The Eternal Kingdom over in his hands. ‘I thought it might offer some insights into the battle before us.’
The witch sat next to him on the log, the dark of the Faaishan forest before them, the rustle of the camp behind them. ‘But it did not?’
‘Not so far,’ he admitted. ‘It is a strange book, really. I am no scholar by any means, but it is an incomplete book, I think. It talks about a paradise you and I will go to when we die, where we will not want for anything, where we will not know fear and only know love and bliss. For that, however, we must pledge our allegiance to our new god. We must do it to such an extent that we watch our neighbours and convert them and then speak against them if they do not serve. We must not be afraid to lift the sword against them, it says at one point. It goes on like that, but then, every twenty or so pages, there will be a story about the old gods, and how they loved—’ Heast stopped himself before he said Se’Saera’s name. ‘—their child,’ he said. ‘On those pages, it argues that we should honour all the ways of life the old gods promoted, for they live in the new god. Those pages read very much like fragments. It returns to servitude quickly enough.’
‘Why does the idea bother you? Our lives are ones of servitude.’ Anemone tapped her wrist, where the hint of a tattoo showed. ‘I am in the service of my grandmother and those who came before her. We are both in the service of those who pay us.’
‘Both of us made those choices.’
‘Are we not being offered one?’
‘To believe or die is not a choice.’ Heast laid the book to one side and stretched out his heavy leg. ‘She speaks of one other thing, however.’
‘Must I read it myself?’ Anemone asked. ‘Or will you tell me?’
‘It is the promise of renewal, of rebirth.’ He indicated the book. ‘She promises paradise to those who are Faithful, but it is what she claims she will do to our world once she is complete that fascinates me. She promises to mend what the old gods did. To give us a sun that is whole, to clean the ocean of its poison, to bring back food sources and animals we have lost. She promises to make us stronger and give us longer lives.’
‘It is an attractive promise.’
‘It is, until you start to pull it apart, to see why a man like Faet Cohn, for example, would be part of it.’
‘Oh?’
‘A man whose family history is in slavery is a man who sees himself as someone better than another. He believes there are those human and those not,’ Heast said. ‘If I could, I would have many things returned to us. I would see the species we have lost brought back to life, for example. It is a terrible thing to think that a living creature has stopped existing. For myself, I do not know that one sun or three is preferable, but I would see the ocean free of poison, and the Mad Coast rendered safe. But if those are only achieved by going back to a way of life we have left, then I am not supportive of it. We must go forwards.’
‘And so we will go forwards?’ Anemone reached over his leg for The Eternal Kingdom. ‘To Ranan?’
; He was surprised by the question in her voice. ‘You would rather not?’
‘What we saw in Celp bothers me. My grandmother tells me I should simply accept what I saw. I will see its like again, she assures me.’ With the book in her hand, she met Heast’s gaze, and he saw not Anemone, not the witch of Refuge, but rather the young woman he had met months ago, the woman who had not long ago been a child, and who had not left her town unless it was in the safe presence of her grandmother. ‘But I see men and women in my dreams. They are burning. They are the people I know. They are you and Kye and the rest of Refuge. I want to make them stop, but I do not know how to.’
‘Time stops them. Nothing else.’ He did not reach out to her. ‘I will not make you ride to Ranan with us, not if you do not wish. You can return home and forget all this.’
‘I do not have a home outside Refuge.’
‘I can find you one,’ he said gently. ‘If it is what you want.’
Later, after the morning’s sun broke through the treelines and after Heast gave the order to break camp, Anemone rode out beside the Captain of Refuge towards Ranan.
3.
Nearly four dozen swamp crows sat, or walked, along the wooden bridges Eidan had built from the slavers’ ships. When Ayae approached with a pair of horses, the birds turned to stare at her, but did not lift into the air.
‘I think they like you,’ Jae’le said from behind.
‘Which one is yours?’ she asked without turning. ‘They all look the same to me.’
One of the crows who sat at the edge of the bridge lifted into the air. ‘People often say that about each other, as well.’ The crow settled on Jae’le’s shoulder and he scratched its head. ‘It is as wrong then as it is now.’
‘That one looks smaller than yesterday’s.’
‘Does it?’
With a smile, he led not just his horses, but Ayae’s, around the bridges and began, quietly and calmly, to attach the harnesses to each that would allow them to pull them to Ranan.
The rest of Tinh Tu’s forces were also busy preparing to leave Gtara. The action had, to some extent, given a physical release to the resentment and anger that simmered in the camp, but Ayae knew that it was not gone. Last night, after Lord Tuael and his soldiers had left, she had gone out in search of Vune and the other soldiers from Mireea and Yeflam. She had in mind to talk to them, to help ease their situation. She found them in a small building on the other side of Gtara, but they had not been welcoming. Vune answered her questions shortly and stiffly and, after a while, Ayae left the building.
Her first instinct was to return to Tinh Tu and tell her that it did not matter what the god-touched could do, or could not do, what they were doing to the soldiers was wrong, and it had to stop.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she stood in the middle of Gtara, near where she and Jae’le had found the remains of the Keepers and the slavers, near where the wire of the slave pen had been half formed. We’re doing nothing different. We’re just like the slavers, just like the gods. When she closed her eyes, however, she saw the walls of the town in Sooia, and the people living behind it. She saw the small crops, the wells that had gone dry, the others where access was rationed. If Se’Saera and the Innocent were not defeated at Ranan, that would be the fate of any who did not become the god’s Faithful. They would live lives of desperation and of withered hopes and opportunities. Or like this. Like the soldiers around her, unless she was wrong. After all, Se’Saera was a god and she could do anything she wanted once she was complete.
But Ayae did not believe she was wrong.
She stared at the stars, at the darkness, and imagined the god within that, a force capable of reaching out, of changing the fates of people, of using them as if she owned them, as if they were a tool for a project she worked on.
‘How long until the horses are ready?’ Tinh Tu asked, breaking Ayae’s thoughts. She had stepped out of the hotel, her white raven on the top of her staff. ‘We have four days’ ride to Ranan and I do not want to delay it.’
‘Soon.’ Jae’le stood between two docile horses as he attached the harness that would drag the bridges. A swamp crow – one larger than before, Ayae was sure – stood on the back of the first horse. ‘Have you decided what we will do with our brother and sister, yet?’
‘We will get both back. Or, more precisely, you two will.’
‘We don’t know where they are,’ Ayae said, caught off-guard by the order. ‘We do not have scouts, or spies in the city.’
‘They are in the cathedral,’ Jae’le said. ‘Zaifyr is on the top floor. Aelyn is allowed to move freely on the lower floors.’
‘How do—?’ She stopped herself. ‘Birds. The crows tell you?’
He smiled. ‘Whispers in the ear.’
‘He has a habit of keeping things to himself,’ Tinh Tu said, a note of irritation in her voice. ‘But you, Ayae, will make sure he does not slip off to deal with old vendettas.’
Jae’le shrugged, unconcerned by either her tone, or what she said. ‘It has taken time to learn most of it. At any rate, sister, you have been busy holding our forces together. And you will need to continue doing that in Ranan. Why don’t you leave Aelyn and Zaifyr to me? Ayae can help you in the battle.’
‘You are not the Animal Lord any more, brother.’
He stopped, a leather strap in his hand. Behind him, one of the crows let out a squawk as if in indignation. ‘The last mirror I saw revealed only my reflection,’ Jae’le said.
‘Did it reveal the man who has not eaten for over a thousand years? These crows do not gather around you in friendship, but because they wait for you to fall over.’ Tinh Tu let out a frustrated sigh. ‘You and I both know that once he learns you are there, he will hunt you.’
‘He will hunt us all.’
‘That is why you will need Ayae.’
They meant the Innocent, they meant – ‘I think . . .’ Ayae took a breath to calm her voice. ‘Look, I am happy to avoid Aela Ren.’
‘You cannot give her this task,’ Jae’le said. ‘She has only known him as a figure of fear.’
‘Who else is there to give it to? The Saan? Would you like some of Miat Dvir’s favourites to shadow you?’ Tinh Tu made a dismissive sound. ‘They are not worth a thing next to her.’
‘It is true: they would just die.’ He returned to the harness. ‘But do not ask this of her, sister.’
‘You cannot do this alone.’
‘I’m here, y’know?’ Ayae stepped between the two. ‘Don’t treat me the way you treat the others. I can hear you just fine.’
‘Then don’t let him out of your sight.’ Tinh Tu began to walk away. ‘Don’t let him fight that man by himself, sister. He isn’t what he once was.’
Frustrated, she glanced at Jae’le, who offered a faint shrug. Without a word, he scratched the head of a crow – this one smaller than the previous two – and returned to attaching the harnesses to the horses, who waited with a patience she had rarely seen in an animal.
4.
The swamps turned into marshes, the marshes turned into the coastline, but Zean’s trail remained a broken line with no end.
Bueralan tried not to call the creature Zean, but no matter how he tried to replace it – he used Se’Saera’s child, Taela’s child, creature, and even monster – he returned to Zean. As the trail he and Aelyn Meah followed wound further and further from Ranan, Bueralan told himself that it was not truly his blood brother whom he followed, that it wasn’t the man he had known whom he was hunting, and, in truth, there was evidence of that. The tracks, while human, had a long stride to them, longer than any man or woman could make, and the feet that made them were narrow, rather like a child’s, further adding to the likelihood that the physiology of a human had been altered by Se’Saera. But, as both Bueralan and Aelyn said at one point or another to each other, that was not a surprise given the length and size of Taela’s pregnancy. The remains of feeding – bloody swamp crows torn apart by sharp teeth –
did not suggest a human child, either, just as the waste Zean left was likewise not recognizable. But for Bueralan, Zean’s name persisted, and after two days, he stopped trying to call him anything different.
On the third day, he and Aelyn came across the first of the Faaishan forces marching upon Leera.
They appeared first as scouts, riders moving in pairs, easy enough to avoid. Bueralan could have killed them, but he had little desire, and little need. Aelyn was no different. The two of them did not even discuss the fact that battle would soon break out. They had both been living with the expectation since Se’Saera had returned to Ranan. It was inevitable. The only question was if he or Aelyn would return to Ranan to take part. That question was not one that they asked each other, not even when the larger bodies of the Faaishan force began to appear. The two simply continued to follow Zean’s trail and skirt the forces. The only real moment of interest was when, at the end of the third day, the trail led them to the edge of a logging camp.
There was not much that could be made from the trees in Leera, but from Zean’s empty camp, Bueralan and Aelyn watched the Faaishans felling trees. A second group, Bueralan saw, were assembling bridges, binding the wood together with a mix of nails and ropes.
‘He watched them as well,’ Aelyn said, pointing to a collection of crow remains. ‘He was here half a day.’
Hopefully that meant they were closing in on him.
‘I think he is growing,’ she added. ‘His tracks are bigger.’
Bueralan had noticed that, as well. ‘The strides get longer, as if he is jumping, rather than running.’
On the fourth day, they came to an abandoned town. Once, it would had been a trader’s stop, a single gate in a simple, wooden wall. Beyond it was a single street, a handful of dirty paths and two dozen buildings. It was a town on the way to somewhere else. Bueralan had seen hundreds of its like, but this town, whatever its name, was no longer that: its wall had been torn down, taken over a year ago when Se’Saera’s War began, and beyond the gate, the buildings were skeletons, perches to a dwindling population of swamp crows. In the middle of what remained of the town, the strongest collection of birds burst out in angry flight at their approach and revealed the body of a soldier.
