Cold Iron

by Stina Leicht

  It’s forbidden to draw a dead soldier’s blade. It wasn’t appropriate for someone of his standing to handle weapons of any kind—let alone a blooded saber. Blood was unclean. Karpanen was my friend. He was supposed to protect me.

  A whisper of anger stirred in the emptiness. Respect for the dead isn’t important. Survival is.

  I’m not a soldier. I’m the crown prince.

  Nels felt himself dragged a couple of feet to a cluster of fearful villagers. Others were driven from hiding. Cries of protest mingled with the terrified wailing of small children. An old woman trapped him with a wet stare full of expectation. Anxiety struck home. Captain Karpanen’s voice snarled in the back of his mind.

  It’s your duty to help the people. You are their prince.

  Nels squeezed his eyes shut. Although the corners felt sticky and itchy, when he opened them again, his vision cleared. For the first time, he noticed the weapon in Lucian’s hands. It resembled a crossbow without the prod—a handheld cannon. Years ago, rumors that the Acrasians had created new, more powerful ­weapons had filtered into court. It had resulted in a meager debate, but since humans held no magic, such things weren’t deemed a threat.

  “Hurry up!” Lucian said. “Daylight is burning.”

  Brown Boots and the other Acrasian humans drove more freeholders from their homes, shoving the slowest into the dirt. One of the humans was a female with fuzzy brown hair and a nasty burn scar covering half her face. Nels searched the roofs, hopeful for mercenaries, but there were none.

  It’s your duty.

  Lucian asked in broken Eledorean, “Where silver is?”

  When no one offered an answer, Lucian sighed. “Sil-ver,” he said, speaking more slowly as if his audience were stupid and not terrified. Grasping the front of a girl’s dress, he shouted into her face and drew a knife. “Silver!”

  “Killing her will not produce what you wish. There is no silver here, save this,” Nels said in Acrasian. He found himself stepping away from the others, pausing briefly to place a reassuring hand on a freeholder’s shoulder. He broke her gaze before it could erode his tenuous resolve. Then he produced a money pouch from inside his coat, tossing it at Lucian’s feet. “Take it and go. It is all you will get.”

  The pouch hit Lucian’s black boot with a heavy clank before he snatched it from the ground. “You speak Acrasian?” Lucian asked. “How?”

  “One of your missionaries visited the city where I live,” Nels said. “She generously offered to teach me your language.” In actuality, it had been less an offer and more of a command. She was under Father’s thrall like the Acrasian ambassador was under Uncle’s. He inwardly winced. “Please take the money. Trouble these people no more.”

  “Who are you, boy?” Lucian asked. His grizzled face with its pale eyes squeezed into a suspicious glare.

  “A traveler. Nothing more. Accept the money. It is all I have.”

  “That’s a lie! Everyone knows your kind buries money with their dead,” the scarred female said.

  Nels frowned. “Why would anyone do that?”

  Lucian bounced the leather pouch in his hand. Three slow clinks marked time. “How do we know you’re not lying?”

  “Search the baggage if you wish. I cannot stop you. As for the rest”—Nels made a sweeping gesture with his arm, showcasing the three cottages and one barn that constituted the whole of Onni—“does this look like a prosperous city to you?”

  Someone behind him muttered, “Stinking round ears.”

  “What did he say?” The scarred female stepped toward the freeholders with a hand on her sword. Her sneering half mouth was now matched with a frown.

  “He said please take the money with our compliments.” Nels stepped between the freeholders and the scarred human. If she chose to cut him down, there was no Royal Guardsman to stop her. He was trembling, but his voice remained steady. He didn’t know how that was possible. “Please take the money and go.”

  “I don’t like any of this,” Brown Boots said, pointing at Nels. “And I certainly don’t like the look of that kid. He’s lying.”

  “And what do you propose to do about it, Randal?” Lucian said.

  Randal grabbed a young woman by the arm and yanked her to him. “She looks like a talker.”

  A freeholder in the green shirt struggled to force his way through the clinging arms of the other hostages but was held fast. “Raisa!” He turned and caught Nels’s gaze. “Your Grace, please. Make them stop.”

  Again, Lucian squinted as if puzzling over something.

  Nels gave his back to Lucian and hissed in Eledorean, “No titles. Not now. Call me Nels. I give you my word that I’ll do everything I can. But you have to stay calm.” Stay calm? It occurred to him that it sounded like something Captain Karpanen would say. The thought made him feel a little stronger.

  “What did it say?” Lucian asked.

  “Nothing you would wish translated. I have reminded him you are our guests,” Nels said, resorting to the formal court tone out of reflex.

  “Come on, Lucian,” Brown Boots said. “Let’s have some fun.”

  “Honestly, Randal.” Lucian sighed. “Do you ever come up with anything original? There’s a reason I’m in charge of our little family and you aren’t,” he said, striding forward. He snatched an elderly male freeholder’s shirt front. Before Nels could say a word, Lucian cut the elder’s throat.

  Again, blood fountained into the dirt. The freeholders screamed and the one in the green shirt fought harder to free himself. Nels felt dizzy. His nausea worsened, and a monstrous headache bloomed behind his left eye. He blinked against the pain, not knowing what to do or say next. He’d never felt so powerless in his life. Captain Karpanen would’ve fought them. The king would’ve talked the Acrasians into surrendering. He would’ve used magic-laced court speech—domination magic—to convince the humans to throw themselves on their own daggers. Even Suvi could have compelled them into believing anything she wished, because Acrasians were notoriously weak-willed. However, it was obvious from Lucian’s expression that Nels didn’t even have enough magical power to misdirect suspicion from a lie.

  Make them stop.

  Nels knew what the freeholder was asking. He wished he could comply—with his whole being he wished it, but unlike every other kainen of royal blood his age, Nels didn’t have the magical talent to control a horse, let alone a human. He used to think the shame of that knowledge would kill him, that the possibility of others dis­covering his weakness was his worst nightmare. Now he understood his deficiencies could kill others. And that was much, much worse.

  “Boy, tell me where the silver is. Now,” Lucian said, moving on to Raisa. “Or I will kill her. Am I understood?”

  Nels swallowed. Please. Not this. “There is no more silver.”

  Lucian lifted his knife to Raisa’s throat. “Don’t lie. I don’t have the patience for it.”

  “Please! Don’t!”

  “Then tell me.”

  The freeholders moved closer, hesitantly at first. Their hands brushed his arms, back, shoulders. Hesitant and fearful, their voices surrounded him, but he continued to feel distant from them. It felt like a dream. A nightmare.

  “We implore you …”

  “Have we done something to offend, Your Highness? Please, save my daughter.”

  The saber.

  “Boy!” Lucian wasn’t watching him. The human was intent on Raisa.

  Nels acted upon the opportunity. He went to Captain Karpanen’s body and grabbed the sword. He didn’t think about what he was doing—the consequences. The aftermath. All he knew was that he, Nels Gunnar Ari Hännenen, Crown Prince of Eledore and Archduke of Hirvi, had touched the blooded saber of a dead soldier.

  Unclean.

  Straightening with one hand on the scabbard, the hilt felt oddly warm in his right palm. He shivered. There’ll be no going back after this. The sword seemed somehow right in his grip and yet, foreign. Not for him.

  The people depen
d upon you. You must do something.

  “No, Your Highness!”

  There’s no other option. Nels eased the curved blade from its scabbard. The hiss of steel sliding free got Lucian’s attention. All at once, Nels was inundated with a sense that Captain Karpanen was near, very close—too close. In a blink, Nels saw and knew things Captain Karpanen would never have told him. The captain had no family of his own but did in fact have a lover named Laina. Nels blinked back images too private and too jumbled to form coherent patterns. Captain Karpanen was a distant cousin and close friend of the queen and held his commission specifically as Nels’s protector at her request. The pair of them, Nels’s own mother and Captain Karpanen, had intended to make changes after Nels had assumed the throne, changes that would alter the way Eledore was ruled.

  I must set the lad on the right path. It isn’t proper, but someone must take a hand, or Nels will be worse than Henrik. Eledore won’t last another—

  Before Nels had time to register how he felt, the thoughts and images whirled away. Suddenly, he was seeing the captain’s death all over again from a more immediate perspective. Karpanen’s mind raced along scattered, broken paths. He’d never see Laina again, or the way her face lit up when she smiled. An overpowering sadness combined with the startling beauty of the trees and sky. Nels caught a disturbing vision of himself through Captain Karpanen’s eyes. The captain’s last thought threatened to shake Nels to the core of his being. He shied from it before it could take full form.

  Veli Ari Karpanen, that was his name.

  I’m so sorry. Nels’s cheeks burned with cold, and he tasted salt from tears.

  “Boy!” Lucian’s voice snapped Nels back to the present. “Just what do you think you’re going to do with that?”

  Heeding images from the sword, Nels shifted his grip on the weapon so that it was more secure—thumb parallel to the blade. That’s better.

  Lucian stepped away from Raisa and put out a hand. “Be a good lad. Give me that thing before you cut yourself.”

  Nels ran at Lucian with a roar. Lucian brought his knife to bear but was too late. Nels swung the saber. The point of the captain’s blade bounced off Lucian’s ribs and slid to the right, slicing a long, ineffective gash through cloth as it went. Lucian howled and twisted. Nels freed the sword and tried again, jamming the blade into the human’s belly using both hands. The sensation of steel sinking into living flesh was more horrible than anything he’d imagined. Cool blood poured onto the ground, coated the blade, splashed on his skin.

  It’s true. Acrasian blood is colder than Eledorean.

  There was an explosion. Nels felt the impact through his feet. Deafened, he hopped backward. The curve of the hilt briefly caught on the man’s clothing. Nels automatically jerked the sword free, and the blade slid downward, parting Lucian’s belt. The wound gaped wider. Lucian’s scream pierced Nels’s ears as his hearing recovered. The shriek issuing from the man’s throat rose to ever-higher notes of hysteria. Entrails sprang from the cut like a greasy rope, hitting the already blood-soaked ground with a splat. Shocked and nauseated, Nels retreated another step and slipped and fell in the steaming gore. He almost lost the captain’s saber.

  I’ve killed Monitoris Lucian, father of five, former carter, Nels thought. Along with his name and family came the knowledge that Onni wasn’t the first Eledorean village Lucian had raided. It didn’t lessen the terrible sensation of the human’s life draining away.

  Another explosion parted the smoke-filled air. Sulfur masked the stench of blood and entrails. Struggling to get up, Nels turned toward the sound. One of the humans poured gunpowder into his hand cannon. The uncapped bull’s horn rattled and most of the black powder spilled useless onto the ground.

  Musket, Nels thought. The weapon is called a musket. He got to his knees and then his feet, using his hands to steady himself. He nearly vomited when he saw the ground. Standing, he moved away from Lucian. At the corner of his vision he spied a large freeholder in the green shirt. The young man rushed to Raisa’s aid with an Acrasian dagger. Others attacked their captors with bare fists. Sick, Nels watched Lucian vainly hold his guts closed. The human babbled that he was fine, that everything would be all right and then fell over. Beyond him, Green Shirt struggled on the ground with Randal. All the while, voices battled for Nels’s attention from within and without. Captain Karpanen. Lucian. The freeholders. The awful stench of death filled his nose and throat. Nels didn’t want to breathe it any more and choked.

  I don’t want to kill anyone else. Please don’t make me.

  A human slipped in the bloody muck at Nels’s feet, dropping his gun. Scrabbling for his sword, the human found the scabbard empty. Nels took the opportunity to kick the musket out of reach. With that, the human scooted backward. A trail of fresh blood was traced in the dirt. Nels looked on, not knowing what else he should do.

  “Have mercy! Please! I didn’t want to come here,” the human said, flinching and holding a hand up to protect his head. “I’ll never return. I swear. Just let me live.”

  “Then leave now and—” Something blunt slammed into Nels’s left shoulder, shoving him sideways and back. He turned. It was the woman with the burn scar. Her ugly face was twisted in fury. She held a musket by the barrel.

  “Don’t you dare hurt my Marrek. Don’t you …” She stopped before she could finish the sentence. Her anger transformed into confusion and then terror. “It’s going to use its demon magic. Look at its eyes.”

  She dropped her musket and then made a complex motion with her fingers. Clumsy with terror, she tripped over Marrek. He yelped in pain and jerked his hand from under her boot. She stooped, helping him up—all the while maintaining that meaning­less sign. Nels watched them flee into the woods. A bitter laugh bubbled up his throat and died on his lips. It was such a simple thing. The way his irises changed color from their normal black to an unnatural green and then blue. Sometimes, they faded to white when he was frightened. It was the only evidence that he held any magic at all. He didn’t even have the ability to control it as Suvi did. Why couldn’t that have frightened Lucian away before anyone died?

  The surviving freeholders gathered into a tight group, inquiring after one another and inventorying their injuries. Nels lurched to Captain Karpanen’s body. His knees felt loose, and he swayed like a drunk. The saber tip dragged in the dirt. His head ached, and his guts twisted in terrible knots. He put a hand against a tree to steady himself. He felt empty of everything but misery and agon­ized whispers so quiet that he couldn’t make out words. It was the captain’s saber, Nels suddenly understood. He shook his head to clear it. After several deep breaths, he crouched next to Captain Karpanen. The captain lay in the mud, one leg twisted under him, staring upward. The black irises were blank and empty. Nels ­trembled. For a moment, he saw the trees and sky as Captain Karpanen had last seen them. Nels reached out to tug the captain’s leg straight and then paused. Unclean.

  With a hesitant bloodstained hand, Nels shut Captain Karpanen’s eyelids instead.

  Don’t worry, Nels thought. There’s no chance of me becoming like Father now. Tears crowded the edges of Nels’s burning eyes and traced cool paths down tight, itching cheeks. He sensed movement behind him but didn’t have the energy to care. He wiped his face with a stiffening sleeve before a young woman with blond hair and a bloody lump on her forehead sidled into view. She looked terrified until he blinked.

  “I am Inari. Raisa’s sister. Are you well, Your Grace?”

  Your Grace. Suvi would succeed their father now. He, Nels, would become a soldier. That’s better than the palace dungeon, I suppose.

  Inari waited for an answer while unease played on her face.

  She’s afraid Father will blame them for what I’ve done. And if something weren’t wrong in me, she’d have good reason to fear.

  Unclean.

  He couldn’t open his mouth, so he nodded instead. Inari looked relieved. An old mother moved next to Inari, her hair was a wispy white,
and her skin was brown. She stared at Nels for a long time before she spoke.

  “I am Marjatta, the elder. We thank you for your great sacrifice and will mourn for you until your family is able.” She gave Nels an expectant look. When whatever Marjatta waited for didn’t come to pass, she said, “The dead, Your Grace. It is now your place to see to them. Do you need help?”

  A soldier buries the dead. Nels blinked at the bodies strewn on the ground. Lucian. Captain Karpanen. The nameless guardsmen. Onni’s former guardians. Randal. Three unarmed freeholders.

  So many dead.

  At least most of the freeholders are safe.

  It is your duty to protect them. He winced, but his mouth remained sealed. It was difficult to think around the ache inside his skull.

  Marjatta took charge in a soothing but firm tone. “His Highness needs assistance. Dig the graves and light a pyre for the Acrasians. His Highness and the new Guardian will take care of the dead. Erja. Hilma. Find something for winding cloth.” When the others were gone, Marjatta moved toward those who remained. “The Guardians of Onni have passed. Their loss will be felt by all, but their places must now be filled. Who would accept this burden?”

  The Green Shirt glanced up. His hands were bloodstained, and he stood near Raisa without touching her. He bent, whis­pering in her ear, and then waited until she gave him a sorrowful nod.

  “I, Armas, must accept,” he said.

  Raisa huddled deeper into her blanket and stifled another cry. Inari hugged her, pressing Raisa’s head to her chest in a motherly gesture. Armas stepped next to Nels, the top of his head level with Nels’s shoulder. Armas was stout with muscles forged by hard labor. Nels couldn’t help thinking that the freeholder would make a far better soldier than he ever would.

  There were no other volunteers.

  THREE

  The freeholders left to care for the wounded and organize the work details. Nels was relieved to spy Loimuta being led into the barn with the remaining horses. There was a long scratch along the gelding’s flank that would need tending. However, he seemed otherwise unharmed. As the young girl led him away, Loimuta jerked the halter out of his handler’s grasp. Knowing what would be next, Nels opened his mouth to shout a warning, but he was too late. Loimuta arched his neck and nipped the girl on the shoulder.