The Barbed Coil

by J. V. Jones

  “Here, my sister,” Brother Llathro said, stopping by a door located at the end of a long, remote corridor. “This will be your cell for the night.” He pushed open the door and walked in. Tessa followed him through. Using the flame from the candle on the tray, he lit a second candle, waited for the top layer of wax to melt, then fixed it upright on the floor in a pool of its own wax.

  The cell was tiny and very cold. A draft blew around the room. Shutters blocking the only window rattled along with the wind. It sounded as though the storm were moving in.

  “God’s rest, my sister.”

  Tessa looked around in time to see Brother Llathro closing the door behind him as he left. The tray he had been carrying now lay on the floor next to the candle. The soup in the bowl rippled with every gust of the wind. Tessa took a deep breath, ran a hand across her temples. She was so tired, she could barely think. Tomorrow. She would decide what to do tomorrow.

  A woven rug laid over with a blanket was the only item in the cell, and Tessa collapsed onto it, unhooking her cloak and unpinning her hair. Pulling the food tray forward, she tore a piece of bread from the loaf. Her mouth was so dry she could barely swallow, and she didn’t take another bite. As she lifted the bowl of soup from the tray, a bell began to toll.

  Eight times it tolled: long, hollow notes that hung in the air minutes after sounding. Eighth Toll.

  No one may eat, raise their voices, or move from their cells once it sounds.

  Tessa put down the bowl. She didn’t want to tempt fate.

  Lying on the mat, she pulled the blanket up to her chin.

  Patterns. There were patterns etched into the wood-and-plaster ceiling overhead. Too exhausted to pick out any details, Tessa closed her eyes and began to drift off to sleep. Dimly, in the back of her mind, she remembered the abbot saying Eighth Toll was when the last light went out. Only her candle was still burning, and before she could make the decision to snuff it out, she fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

  Izgard held out his hand and ran his fingertips over the scribe’s shadow. The canvas was rough and streaked with dried mud, yet the sensation pleased him all the same. The only part of the shadow that moved was the section cast by the scribe’s right arm. Ederius was inside his tent, putting the final touches to a pattern from the Coil. Izgard wanted to enter the tent, wanted to sit quietly and watch the old scribe work—just as he used to before he was king.

  With a heavy sigh, Izgard pulled himself back from the canvas and made his way across the camp. He could not risk disturbing Ederius tonight. The design he was working on was important enough, but nothing compared to the great feat of scribing he would begin in the darkness before dawn.

  The camp was unnaturally still. Men gathered around low-burning fires, feigning or waiting for sleep. No one sang, or drew a blade over a whetstone, or held a cup to the barrel and tapped. There was no need for last minute preparations and no desire for the companionship of song. The Garizon army was ready for war.

  Tomorrow at dawn the first battle would be joined. The Sire of Rhaize’s forces would meet the Garizon army on territory south of the rise. Izgard had picked both the time and the place, and he knew in his heart, his liver, and his bones that victory would soon be his.

  One battle was all he needed. One bloody, decisive battle to give him the war.

  The brave, arrogant knights of Rhaize would advance into a valley marked for death. The Garizon army would surround them like the Barbed Coil itself: wounding, impaling, casting shadows red with blood. Sandor would be too proud to plan for retreat. His pride only allowed one vision of the battle, and his memories only began at Mount Creed. He didn’t know what a Garizon war king was capable of. He had been told, but he didn’t really know.

  Tomorrow he would receive a lesson in the dangers of forgetting: he, his army, and the country for which they fought. Fifty years ago Rhaize knights had burned Veizach to the ground, and although little blood was spilled in a torching, a blood debt still remained. The Barbed Coil had been driven out of sight and out of mind, and it had fifty dormant years to reclaim. For half a century it had lingered, like an assassin in the shadows, in the darkest, deepest cellar in Sirabayus. The holy sisters couldn’t wait to be rid of it. They said it robbed them of their peace of mind and poisoned all their dreams.

  Coming to a break in the dirt path, Izgard considered walking the camp perimeter, talking to the latest scouts to return from the Rhaize camp, and checking that everything was going to plan. Deciding against it, he took the turn leading back to his tent. His troops had no need of last minute precautions. As their leader he would honor them the same.

  All was ready. Traps had been laid. The harras who would be drawn together by the patterns on the Coil had been hand-picked by Izgard himself. One thousand of them. One-twentieth of the number gathered around Garizon campfires this night would emerge as a ruthless fighting force at dawn. Ederius and his patterns would see to that.

  An animal cry broke the silence of the camp. The high, haunting howl drove through the night like splinters of broken bone through flesh. Although he had grown accustomed to such sounds by now, Izgard could not help but flinch. It meant one more harrar would have to be slain.

  The Barbed Coil exacted a price for its gifts. One-third of the harras who had been sent into the Valley of Broken Stones to fight Ravis of Burano and Camron of Thorn were now dead. They had to be slaughtered for the good of the camp. When the illumination was finished and the ink long dry, there were those who held on to the patterns in the Coil. The bloodlust never left them. Their features shifted between man and beast. Bones thickened, appetites sharpened, claws curled inward and grew into flesh. The physicians didn’t care to discuss what caused the harras so much pain that they howled, but Izgard only had to look at their jawlines and fingernails to guess.

  They split open the first victim: the third rib on the left had detached from the sternum and grown into his heart.

  They slaughtered all of them now the moment they felt any pain. Deaths as discreet as the howls of pain would allow, bodies carried from the camp in utter darkness. Izgard could not risk the wrong sort of fear sweeping the camp, so he had instructed his warlords to inform the troops that the harras were under attack by foul Rhaize sorcery. It made everyone more eager to fight.

  Izgard approached his tent, noted the pale light still burning and the shadow cast by his wife’s silhouette. Angeline was still awake, petting her silly, little girl’s dog, talking to herself in her high, little girl’s voice. Izgard pulled his lips to a line as he yanked the flap to the side and entered the tent.

  “Izgard.” Angeline jumped up from her chair at his entrance, sending her little dog rolling onto the floor. A guilty flush stole across her cheek. There was a plate of food next to her on a chest. Seeing Izgard’s look at it, she said, “It’s leftovers. For Snowy.”

  Izgard noticed Angeline swallowing something herself. He sucked at his cheeks. The stupid girl had now taken to eating scraps meant for her dog. She was getting worse. He wished he had never sent for her. “Go to your chamber and take that animal with you.”

  Angeline raised her hand toward him, took a step forward. “But, Izgard—”

  “Go!”

  He didn’t know who flinched first: Angeline or her dog. Both of them stepped back. The creature moved to his mistress’s heels. Bending down, Angeline petted the cowering animal. Izgard noticed the expression in her eyes change as she stroked the soft fur behind its ears. Fear was replaced with something else.

  Angeline swallowed again, only this time there was no food in her mouth. “Gerta says we need an heir. And the only way we can get one is if you and I . . .” Her words trailed away as she suddenly became intent on plucking a bit of straw from her dog’s coat.

  Izgard was in no mood for Angeline. His mind was on war. Everything had to go as planned. He had an entire night to get through, and he knew he would not sleep. One decisive victory tomorrow and the road to Bay’Zell would be cleared. O
h, the Sire and what remained of his army would eventually regroup and reattack, but stories would have spread, and old memories would have stirred, and fear would have set in by then. Every Rhaize knight who survived the battle at dawn would have a tale of horror to tell: popping bones, tearing flesh, harras attacking in black waves. Word of demons would drip from every fever-bloated tongue, and fear of death would shine in every bloodshot eye. “Izgard is the devil incarnate,” they would say, “and his harras are more monsters than men.”

  Terror would do half the work for him. Many would desert the Rhaize army rather than fight such unnatural forces. Those who stayed would be blighted by fear.

  “Izgard, here, let me take your cloak.”

  Izgard’s thoughts snapped back to the moment. Angeline. He had forgotten she was here. Mistaking his lack of response for consent, Angeline moved forward to unhook his cloak. Izgard raised his hand to stop her.

  “I said go. Do you no longer understand what I say?”

  Angeline froze, her arm suspended in midair. Blue eyes regarded him with a child’s hesitant indignation. The little dog shrunk farther away.

  Chin tilting upward, Angeline said, “I understand what you say. I’m not a child. It’s you who aren’t making any sense. You brought me here to beget an heir, and now you do nothing but ignore me. How am I supposed to become pregnant unless you take me to your bed?”

  Izgard felt a muscle pumping in his neck. How dare Angeline speak to him in such a way? She was picking up ideas from that fat, lazy servant of hers. “Do you know what tomorrow means?” he said, snatching her wrist from the air and twisting it. “Do you?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  Izgard’s finger dug into her tendons. Her wrist was so small, he could feel his fingertips pressing from the other side. “Tomorrow is the first Garizon battle since Mount Creed. Mount Creed. Twenty thousand of our sons died there—bodies frozen on that mountain until spring thaw brought them down, the Veize choked with their remains for two seasons.”

  As he spoke, Izgard pictured the scenes of carnage and corruption: the Veizach masters had painted them all. Inventing new colors as they worked, they detailed all the subtle variances of rotting flesh and crumbling bone. Izgard’s heartbeat quickened. Saliva filled the dip beneath his tongue. Lying beneath the images, like initials etched into the trunk of an ancient tree, was the shadow of the Barbed Coil itself.

  Angeline pulled against his grip. She looked frightened now.

  “No,” Izgard murmured, excited by the visions flashing through his mind. Angeline’s wrist was damp beneath his finger. Damp and hot as it shook. “You wanted to stay. Well, stay you shall.”

  Digging fingertips through tendon to bone, Izgard twisted Angeline’s arm back toward her body. Angeline was forced to lower her shoulders and step back. The tension on her forearm was enough to break the bones if she tried to fight. The dog howled and then slunk into the shadows well behind his mistress’s back.

  “So you want me to bed you, do you?” Izgard hissed. “This night before I head to war? Before I send Garizon sons to die?”

  Angeline shook her head. Drops of spittle speckled her right cheek. Dimly Izgard realized he must have sprayed them from his own mouth.

  “I’m sorry, Izgard,” she said. “I’m sorry. Gerta said—”

  “Gerta said! Gerta said!” Izgard jabbed Angeline’s wrist toward her body with every word. Her back was almost doubled up. “Should I tell you what I say? I say that woman will be gone by morning. Gone. Get her in here now.”

  Angeline bit her lip. Although her face was only a hand’s span away from his, she avoided looking into his eyes.

  “Call her.”

  Angeline shook her head. “I’m sorry, Izgard. It’s not Gerta’s fault. It’s mine. I just felt . . . lonely.”

  She was lying. Her cheeks were so hot, Izgard could see his own spittle evaporating before his eyes. Beneath his fingertips, Angeline’s pulse throbbed as blood forced its way round his grip to her hand. She had a strong heart, this child wife of his. “Call Gerta,” he murmured, his voice bearing the lode of his visions. He saw bone growing into a beating heart, felt the ground throb in time to Angeline’s pulse as an army charged toward him, blades drawn. Tomorrow suddenly seemed too far away. He needed to see the blood of his enemies. Now.

  “Gerta.” Angeline’s heart wasn’t in the call. Tears reddened her eyes.

  “Call again. Louder.” To his own ears, his voice sounded calm. But Angeline must have heard something he didn’t, for she called again straight away. Loud enough to draw sailors in a storm.

  Looking at Angeline’s plump, flushed cheeks and the awkward curve of her back, Izgard felt only contempt She became one more thing to break. Like Rhaize. He would soften her with fear first, take the fight right out of her before the battle was even begun.

  “Mistress. Sire.” The servant woman Gerta parted the tent slit with capable hands. Too large and graceless for curtsies, she bowed her way into the chamber as if the ceiling were too low for her to stand. Her eyes registered no surprise at the scene that awaited her, and after a quick glance at Angeline’s face, she met Izgard’s eye with a level gaze. “You have need of me, sire?”

  Prepared to be angered by her shock, Izgard found himself even further enraged by her lack of response. She sought to rob him of the fear that was his due. “Your mistress no longer requires your services. You will head back to Garizon this night.”

  “This night!” Angeline cried. “But—”

  Izgard silenced her with a twist to her wrist. Angeline drew in breath. From somewhere deep in the shadows, her dog growled.

  Gerta stood her ground. Her large Garizon frame lost none of its sense of purpose by being bent in supplication at the waist. “If you give me but a few hours, sire, I can have both myself and your lady ready to journey back to Sern. We will need an escort of six armed men, a covered cart, and a—”

  Releasing his grip on Angeline’s wrist, Izgard sent his fist smashing into Gerta’s square jaw. Angeline screamed. The old servant reeled back but didn’t fall. Various metal items hanging from her belt jingled as she steadied herself against a timber.

  “I said you will return to Garizon. Not my wife. You alone. Get your belongings together. Get a pony from the stablehand, pick an escort from the wounded, then make haste out of my sight.” As he spoke, Izgard glanced toward Angeline to see her reaction. Blood drained from her face, making her skin look as if it were covered by a layer of rapidly cooling wax. Izgard wanted to touch her cheek, monitor the withdrawal of blood firsthand. He didn’t, though. Other urges called with more powerful voices.

  Returning his gaze to Gerta, he said, “Do my bidding.”

  Gerta hesitated. She looked at Angeline, passing along a message with her eyes, before bending her back into a deeper bow and murmuring the word, “Aye,” deliberately omitting his title.

  Izgard saw red. He saw the caked-in shadow of old blood and the bright flaring spill of new. His mind’s eye fractured into a dozen separate images like the surface of a diamond-cut stone, each individual facet reflecting a vision of what it was to win a war. Glory, immortality, power, reverence, and fear: victory would inspire them all. He would inspire them all.

  Mouth thick with saliva, Izgard watched as Gerta began the process of backing out of the chamber. He detected insolence in the way she dared to rub her injured jaw in his presence, defiance in the slowness of her gait. How dare this woman hesitate? How dare she raise her eyes to flash a warning to his wife? How dare she question the orders of the wearer of the Coil?

  Izgard went for her. Tomorrow at dawn he would command an army. Garizon sons would jump at his bidding, eager to please their country and their king. Yet this woman, with her placid, old-maid toughness and her message-sending eyes, deliberately defied him in his own tent, in front of his wife. He would not have it.

  Although Izgard had a knife sheathed at his side, it never occurred to him to draw it. He needed to touch, to feel. Ha
nds grasping at the rolls of fat beneath Gerta’s chin, Izgard felt a momentary satisfaction as his fingers slipped over skin slick with sweat. She had been scared all along and hadn’t shown it. The woman was strong in her heavy-limbed way and fought back by pushing and slapping. But Izgard was fired by a dozen burning visions, and her blows fell like cushioned punches on his chest. Cupping her chin in his hands, he drove the back of her skull into the wooden timber she had used minutes earlier to steady herself.

  Angeline screamed and screamed. Her dog came out of the shadows and danced a snarling, snapping circle around Izgard’s heels. Izgard lashed out with his foot, sending the toe of his boot smashing into a nearby chest, barely missing the creature by a tail. Out of the corner of his eye, Izgard saw Angeline scoop the animal into her arms and hug it very tight. Both mistress and dog were quiet after that.

  Again and again, Izgard rammed Gerta’s skull into the wood. The pewter cup and brush suspended from the old maid’s belt chimed like a cow bell with each blow. The pole itself began to loosen in its seating, and the oilcloth ceiling it supported began to shake. Izgard continued beating Gerta against the listing timber until he got what he wanted.

  Finally blood flowed, running down from the back of Gerta’s large Garizon head, across her jaw, and onto Izgard’s hands. Gerta’s body was limp, her arms dead by her sides, her eyelids fluttering as if in deep sleep. A thin stream of mucus ran down from her nose. Izgard felt the warm thickness of her blood coat his fingers. There was not much, really, barely sufficient to fill four thimbles, but it was enough to appease the visions in his head.

  Like smoke rising from a once hot pot, the visions deserted him in thin, curling plumes. The need for victory passed, leaving him as disoriented as a man stripped of a blindfold and then pushed into the brightness of day. Removing his hand from Gerta’s throat, Izgard lowered her body to the floor, careful not to cause any further damage. Looking down at the old maid’s crumpled, bloodstained face, Izgard trembled so deeply that he felt muscles in his chest working to still his heart. He could no longer remember the reason behind his rage.