The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  A low-pitched howl sounded. Hearing it, Tessa felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Wiping her mouth, blinking furiously, she concentrated on the single shadow within her view.

  The shadow was large. It moved smoothly for a moment like a bat gliding into land, then it began to twitch. A spasm rippled through its pooled blackness, and then the shadow cleaved apart. Tessa heard a breath taken sharply, followed by a thick gurgling noise. The shadow separated into two. The larger shadow rocked back and forth for a moment before collapsing into an oblique line and then receding from Tessa’s sight. The boards under her back jerked as the body casting the shadow crashed to the ground.

  Suddenly Ravis was beside her, face spattered with blood, chest pumping, smelling like the man he’d just killed. He pulled her to her feet. “Come. Hurry!”

  Tessa would have liked gentler treatment just then. Her skull throbbed like a sore tooth, and her legs felt too thin and powerless to hold her up. Ravis didn’t seem to care. His eyes were focused on the near end of the bridge. With his free hand he cleaned his knife, first flicking the blade downward, then wiping it against his leg.

  Struggling to her feet, Tessa fought the tight braid of sickness stretching between her stomach and head. Ravis held her firm. He moved in close and whispered, “Someone waits at the end of the bridge.”

  Tessa squinted into the darkness. The bands of shadow and light along the bridge’s length played tricks with her watering eyes. She couldn’t see a thing.

  “Over there.” Ravis made the minutest gesture with his knife. His shoulder was bleeding. “In the shadows.”

  Tessa decided she’d take his word for it. “Let’s leave over the other side.”

  Ravis’ teeth flashed into view. “I don’t think,” he said, speaking very precisely, “that would be a very good idea.”

  “You think there’ll be more of them?” From where they stood, just short of the crown of the bridge, they could see only a short distance in the opposite direction.

  Ravis nodded. “Men on each side. It’s what I’d do.”

  And that, Tessa supposed, meant a whole lot more than she cared to think about at this particular moment. She said, “Well, we’ve got to go one way or another. Make a choice.” As she spoke, she felt the tail ends of her words slurring like a drunk’s.

  High up in the opposite building a shutter rattled open, and somewhere in the distance a dog began to bark.

  Guiding Tessa’s arm around, Ravis said, “I choose this way.”

  At first Tessa thought he had decided to risk the far side of the bridge, but instead he led her toward Widow Furbish’s door. The body of the second man lay across the step. Ravis had stabbed him in the back, and there was very little blood. As Tessa got close enough to see his features, she was surprised to see they were normal: not distorted or streamlined. He was just a man. Tessa shrugged. Her imagination had been playing tricks on her.

  “Look up,” hissed Ravis in her ear as she put her first foot on the step. “I’ll tell you when to look down.”

  Tessa responded to the authority in his voice immediately, though it took her a second to work out the reason behind the strange request. He didn’t want her to see Swigg’s body. Too late, she thought; already seen it. But she didn’t look down again.

  It was dark and cold in the house. The smell of blood caught in Tessa’s throat: she didn’t want to breathe it in. She stood, staring at the dark expanse of ceiling, and waited while Ravis locked and barred the door. Finished, he took her arm and guided her toward the stock room where she’d spent the night. “Stay here a moment,” he said as he moved back into the other room. Seconds later golden light spilled from the doorway.

  Outside the house, the sounds of barking became louder. Footfalls drummed against the boards of the bridge.

  When Ravis returned to the stock room, Tessa tensed. With the light behind him, he looked just like one of the attackers. Their meaty, wet-fur odor was on his clothes and in his hair. Did she smell the same? she wondered.

  “Now,” Ravis said. “We haven’t got much time. It won’t be long before whoever is waiting outside realizes we aren’t coming out. I’m counting on them thinking we never spotted them, and that the only reason we came in the house is to pick up our belongings.” He waited until Tessa nodded, then knelt on one knee before her. Wiping his blade one more time against his leg, he said, “This will only take a minute.”

  Alarmed, Tessa stepped back. Ravis grabbed the skirt of her dress, stopping her from taking another step. “I’m only going to cut it off at your knees. I’ll be sure to keep your modesty intact.”

  Cutting it off at her knees? What on earth was he talking about? Tessa wished that her head weren’t pounding so much and she could think straight.

  Seeing the confusion on her face, Ravis smiled. “If we’re going in the river, I don’t want to risk your skirt getting caught around your legs. Now hold still.” Pulling one section of her skirt taut, he began hacking away at the fabric.

  “The river?”

  Ravis nodded. “It’s the best way. I’ll lower you down from the window first, then follow you out. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be too cold this time of year. And I’m pretty sure it’s mostly mud down there, not water.” He cut the final fistful of cloth, and the bottom of Tessa’s skirt fell swishing to the floor. “Though it’s best not to take any chances.” He thought a moment, then added, “You can swim, can’t you?”

  Tessa nodded.

  Standing up, Ravis gazed at her bare legs. “Good. Let’s go.”

  Ridiculously, Tessa felt embarrassed by Ravis’ attention. She was only showing her knees, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she were half-naked or anything.

  Ravis opened the shutters. Sounds that had only been dull echoes earlier grew sharply louder. Barking, shouting, thudding. Tessa glanced at Ravis. “It’s all right,” he said. “The more noise the better—it will serve to cover our own.”

  He held out his hand. “The drop isn’t bad—about fifteen paces.”

  Tessa joined him by the window; glad that the thumping in her head prevented her from concentrating. This wasn’t a situation that would benefit from deep thought.

  The smell rose up like smoke from a poorly burning fire. After the stench of blood and animals, the foul air from the river was a welcome change. Peering out, Tessa saw the river itself glinting darkly below. Gray silt banks flanked the sides, and beyond the black line of the river wall, the city crowded close like a milling, angry mob.

  Thrmp! Thrmp!

  The door. Someone was trying to break in. Tessa glanced at Ravis, and although he looked calm, his tooth raked against his scar.

  He helped her up onto the windowsill. His touch was surprisingly gentle, and he paused a moment to push a strand of hair from her face. “Don’t worry,” he said softly, eyes looking straight into hers. “I’ll be down a second later. Spread your arms wide, don’t fight the current, but try to steer your way to the west bank.”

  Tessa barely nodded. She suddenly felt sick again. The face of the man who attacked her flashed through her mind. She saw teeth and gums and shining eyes. This was a world filled with mad, dangerous choices.

  Thrmp! Thrmp! More banging at the door.

  Ravis took her hands in his, and she scrambled out of the window. A cool draft blew over her bare legs as he lowered her down toward the water. His eyes were locked on hers and his grip was rock firm. He didn’t want to let her go—even through fear, pain, and confusion, she could sense that.

  “Only an instant behind you,” he murmured as he released his grip.

  Tessa dropped. Her stomach rose up to her chest and her heart found its way to her throat. Cold air buffeted her body, and then she crashed into the oily, viscous water of the river.

  Strangely, it wasn’t as cold as she had expected, and its thickness helped buoy her up. Her head barely went under. She had no way of knowing how deep the river was, and she had no desire to find out. Her eyes, mouth, and nose
were not going under again. There was no way she was going to risk any of this stinking, chunk-filled water finding its way down her throat. No way at all.

  Unaware she was moving with the current, Tessa was surprised to see how far away from the bridge she had moved. As she looked up, a dark form dropped from a half-lit window into the water. Ravis. Tessa raised an arm, waved, considered shouting, then decided it was wiser to wave some more. Remembering Ravis’ advice, she stretched out her arms on the surface and tried to steer herself toward the west bank. Her feet were kicking frantically, yet the water was so thick that she felt as if she were paddling through mud.

  The smell didn’t bear thinking about. Neither did the soft and bulging floaters that kept bobbing past her face. Grease formed a slick film on the water’s surface, a rainbow of night colors swirling within. Tessa thought she saw patterns within the swirls. Intricate, shimmering lines of color, coiling around and upon each other like age rings on a tree. Like the golden threads in her ring.

  The ring! Panicking, Tessa felt for the ribbon around her neck. Swollen fingers fumbled over drenched wool, desperate to feel the smoothness of silk. Finally her fingertips seized upon the ribbon, and she threaded it through her grasp until her thumb was pricked by barbs. Breathing a sigh of relief, she let the ribbon fall. She still had the ring.

  Increasingly aware of the heaviness of her dress, Tessa forced herself to paddle harder to keep afloat. Her arms and legs obeyed her as best they could, but she’d had a long, exhausting day, and she could feel herself tiring. Funny, but her head had cleared up entirely. Her skull still ached where she had been hit, but now the pain seemed to be more of a needling, wake-up pain rather than a dull, throbbing sleep pain.

  Shouting, splashing, howling noises sounded in the distance behind her. They seemed a long way off.

  “Tessa,” came a voice, rippling across the water’s surface like a breeze.

  Swinging her head back, Tessa spotted Ravis only feet behind her. She stretched out her hand, and within seconds he took it.

  “This isn’t normally where I take my lady friends in the evening,” he said, moving alongside her, “but it does have its rewards.” With that he brought his arm around her back and drew her close. “Now. Let’s get to the bank.”

  Kicking together, they made good time. Tessa could feel Ravis’ muscles working to hold her up. He didn’t so much swim through the water as attack it: slicing, cutting, lunging. A few minutes later Tessa’s foot hit the bottom. Feeling its soft, sludgy texture, she decided to continue paddling for as long as she could. Gradually she was forced to walk, feet sinking ankle deep into the sludge with every step. That in itself was bad enough, until Ravis hissed at her to get down. Almost clear of the water now, he didn’t want to risk their pursuers catching a glimpse of them.

  Cursing, Tessa fell onto all fours. The water began to look decidedly inviting as the silt sucked at her knees and wrists and her sodden dress hung on her body like a dead weight. She tried to take thin, fast breaths so as not to take in the terrible stench of dead things gone bad, but her lungs actively fought her. They needed all the air they could get.

  As they crawled toward the river wall, Tessa risked glancing back. It was too dark to see if anyone had entered the water after them, but she thought she heard splashing noises in the distance.

  Carcasses, bones, bloated bodies of rats and birds, rotting leaves, driftwood, and offal littered the silt. The nearer they got to the river wall, the worse it became. Long past disgust, Tessa actually found herself wanting to laugh. Here she was, running for her life, soaked to the skin, crawling through a mudbank that smelled like an open sewer. This wasn’t how adventures were supposed to be.

  The river wall was a pattern waiting to be read. The ground-level bricks were large and well cut, though very old. The higher the wall became, the less care had been put into its construction, and boulders, pebbles, and chips of stone had been added with little thought to either long-term preservation or aesthetics. The top layer had crumbled away completely. Streaks of mottled, yellow mortar laced between the bricks and stone like fat marbling through meat. Tessa studied the wall a moment longer, then shrugged. Patterns where everywhere she looked in this strange new world.

  Once she had scrambled over the wall, she didn’t dare stand. Crouching down, teeth chattering from cold, she turned to Ravis and said, “Where do we go from here?”

  Ravis’ eyes flicked from the wall, to the river, to the city. He chewed on his scar a while, then caught at her hand. “You know what?” he said, his lips curving to half a smile. “I think we may have been wrong to decline Emith’s invitation earlier. Perhaps we should pay our respects to his dear old mother after all.”

  “We will begin the border attack tomorrow at dawn. Go forth and give the order to your men.” Izgard of Garizon regarded the faces of his warlords and generals, looking for signs of weakness. A blink, a muscle twitch, a failure to meet his eye: anything that suggested fear or doubt. No man moved, not one of them. Izgard was well pleased. Snapping his wrist in dismissal, he turned his back upon them as they filed out the door.

  There were emotions of his own he had no wish to betray.

  Only when the door was closed and guarded seconds counted did Izgard let the stiffness ripple from his frame. Excitement was hot in his blood. As always these days when his thoughts dwelled on battle plans, he found himself trembling and short of breath. Crossing the great war room that formed the lead-and-granite heart of Sern Fortress, Izgard passed oak chests deep with maps, solid tables thick with scrolls, and bare stone walls crossed with weapons. In the corner of the room lay a dozen panels covered with cloth—paintings newly arrived from Veizach. Izgard had insisted they be ripped from the walls of Castle Veize: he had a craving to see images of war.

  After tearing the cloth from the back of the first panel, Izgard angled the painting to catch the light. It was a battle scene depicting Hierac’s great victory at Balinoc. The panel was alive with all the crimson shades of carnage, crowded with all the dark horrors of war. Broken limbs, weeping wounds, clenched fists, open mouths, and eyes wide, but blank, with terror.

  Izgard’s gaze was drawn to the deep crimson slash marking the death wound of Alroy, duke of Rosney. Slick and gleaming, his bloodied guts seemed to spill right off the board.

  Izgard licked his lips. No one could paint blood like a Garizon. The Veizach Masters had named five hundred shades of red.

  Letting the panel fall to the floor, Izgard stood and walked over to the nearest desk. Grasping one of several brim-full jugs, he did something he very rarely thought to do when alone. He poured himself a glass of wine. Red to match the blood on the paintings, strong to match the beating of his heart. He didn’t bother to call for his taster. He knew the wine was safe, as two of his warlords had drunk from the same jug earlier. He always kept note of things like that.

  Warming the glass in his fist, Izgard took a breath to calm himself. Tomorrow marked the true beginning of his reign. Only when the blood of the enemy had been spilled by his men and the emblem of the Barbed Coil had been raised over territory gained could he truly count himself a king.

  Izgard swilled the wine on his tongue. He didn’t taste it. He had never tasted anything in his life. Those who were born to wear the Barbed Coil always came into the world with one crucial flaw. Evlach the First had two fingers short of eight, his son Evlach the Second had been born with a clubbed foot, and his son after that had a disease that caused bone and flesh to grow at random on his face. He looked like a monster but won wars like a king: such were the rulers of Garizon. Even Hierac himself had been born blind in one eye. Yet he saw more with his one good eye than most men did with two, and it was that sense of something lost in order for something greater to be gained that united all the wearers of the crown. It was a thread, though not the only one, that linked kings past and present and added mystery and potency to the weft of the Coil.

  No whole man could wear it.

  Izgard
swallowed the wine. It was so much lukewarm fluid to him. He could smell it—that enjoyment had not been denied him—but the taste eluded him completely.

  Food was nothing but texture in his mouth. Soft, runny, oily, brittle, or rough: his smooth lizard’s tongue could tell him that much, nothing more. He took no joy in eating. It was a physical chore, like urinating in a chamber pot, or clipping one’s toenails, or rubbing fat into skin that was too dry. Izgard ate because he had to, because if he didn’t, he would die.

  As a child, he had once come close to death when he’d simply refused to eat anything set before him. Like fools, the kitchen staff thought to give him the richest joints of game meat, hoping to build up his strength. Meat was the worst thing to eat without taste. Leathery, fibrous, grizzled: it needed to be endlessly chewed and ground by the teeth before swallowing. And when one could not taste it while performing the task, the rewards were disappointing to say the least. The four-year-old Izgard had simply spat it out. After eight days of spitting, the physicians had become involved; they’d poked, prodded, postured, and puzzled. “What’s wrong with you, boy!” they’d exclaimed. “Can’t you taste how good the meat is?” Only when Izgard had shaken his head and replied, “I don’t know what you mean,” had they finally suspected the truth. Tests had been given. All sorts of foul-tasting potions had been dropped upon his tongue—iodine, castor oil, verjuice, and strong vinegar—and his reactions duly monitored like an insect under glass.

  When finally the doctors had realized that he simply could not taste food, they’d nodded their heads as if they had known such a thing all along and murmured privately to themselves that this young smooth-tongued boy would one day wear the Coil.

  He had the flaw for it.

  By the time he’d reached his manhood, he could travel nowhere in Veizach without people whispering, “There is Izgard, son of Abor. They say he has a taste for nothing except blood.” In any other city in the western continent those words would have been meant as an insult. In Veizach they were considered high praise.