by K. Eason
And then her vision tunneled. Black on the edges, a narrow pinspot of light at the end. But no blindness this time, no tumbled images through a svartjagr’s eyes. Only a sense of direction, blurred by altitude and speed. North and east, Briel wanted. A sense of whiteness, of size. Maybe a cave, then.
Or incoming blindness, which she couldn’t afford. She sent
no, not now
urgency at Briel. Got her own eyes back. Sharp snap to clarity, aches in both sockets, fuck but she hated that feeling. Briel wouldn’t be happy on the other end, either. Would be scared now, and maybe angry, and that meant unpredictable. Briel might try another sending. Might come herself and attack the soldiers with teeth and tail-spike.
That wouldn’t be unwelcome, no. Just real unlikely. Svartjagr were not brave by themselves. They were pack hunters, and Briel’s pack consisted of one half-blood Dvergir in a lot of trouble.
She dared half a beat’s rest to reorient. Briel wanted her going down this time, and so she would—down the hill and into the valley and angle up the other side. Bigger trees on the south face, more scrub, she might make it to cover before Kenjak saw where she’d gone. And maybe, here on the stones, in the rocks, she might dare a conjuring. Crazy-stupid, this far from a city, this deep in the Wild, but so was running blind in a forest in winter; and rocks were at least like the caves.
Any Dvergir could weave shadows, with a little guidance. But very few could do what she could, which was—
Crash and clatter of steel against stone. A yelp, in a young man’s voice, and a pain-strangled:
“Stop! You there!”
—run, at the moment. Faster.
The half-blood would’ve gotten away if Kenjak had listened to Ollu. Fast runner, long legs, and no armor. No hesitation, either, like she knew the forest. She must’ve had an egress already plotted, she and the dead man, which might make them Taliri agents, spies, part of the raiders who’d destroyed the village. Sure, he’d argued otherwise with Ollu, but maybe he’d been wrong. The half-blood’s companion had tried to kill Salis, which no innocent citizen would. So this woman wasn’t a citizen, or she wasn’t innocent, and either way Kenjak meant to run her down and drag her back to the First Spear.
The how of that niggled at the back of his brain. He should’ve caught her on the downhill rush. Except his helmet found every low-lying branch, while she slid beneath them. His armor clung and slid and threw his balance; his scabbard tenderized his thigh. She wasn’t having those troubles. Ducked and slid between trees like shadows while he dodged traitorous pines and leapt treacherous stones and, half the time, bounced into one or the other.
She knew the terrain, that was all. Had more experience. But he’d catch her on the next uphill, because she’d started up at an angle, was already slipping a little. Slowing down. He’d catch her up, and then he’d—
Die, if you’re stupid. Wait for Ollu. Don’t run alone. A soldier never—
Rurik’s warnings, and Ollu’s, the advice of every veteran he’d ever met. The half-blood could be leading him to ambush. Could be running him into a camp of raiders, maybe the same that burned Davni. They must be out here.
And where are their tracks, then?
They must be concealed. Which made it more prudent to wait for Ollu, and keep his eyes on where she went. Except Ollu would’ve gone the wrong way, Ollu had been doing exactly that until Kenjak had seen her running. And Ollu pounded behind him now, slow and fallible. Kenjak heard an occasional snatch of his name, other orphan syllables he could interpret as stop or wait.
Which he would not do. The snow was falling thicker now, sifting through the branches and dusting the forest floor. Her tracks trailed in front of him, smudged and shallow and far in between. Long legs, damn her. She’d clear the next hilltop again before he did.
He thought about Rurik’s face if he reported an escape. The cold-eyed what are you good for, little brother, except breeding? stare.
He dipped his chin and dug his toes deep into the pine needles and mud and dirt. Dug deep in himself, too, and strained and found a little more speed in muscles that had been tired an hour ago. Gained ground, step by step, closed the distance. A dozen more steps and he’d have her.
She tried to escape, First Spear, but I caught her—
She must’ve heard him. Sensed him. Kenjak wondered if she had wings, or charmed boots, or if she’d been playing before. Mocking him by letting him get close.
Setting you up, boy, that’s what she’s doing, it’s a trap.
He missed a step. Caught himself on one hand and lurched upright. That cost him an arm’s length of ground on her. So she did get to the hill summit before he did. And instead of plunging over the top, she paused. Looked back and flicked a smile at him that made Kenjak think he should stop and wait for Ollu. Let her go. Then he saw the rings in her ears for the first time, and the tangled topknot, and realized, too late, what he’d cornered.
Conjuror.
The half-blood scooped a handful of earth into one gloved palm, clenched it, and uncurled her fingers. Kenjak had a sick-bellied split second to realize her hand was empty, that the earth had vanished, before the ground under his feet turned traitor and heaved.
He sprawled backward on the pine needles. Nearly brained himself on a stump. And saw, with his vision throwing pain-sparks, the forest ripple around him. Trees wriggled, bent. Straightened again, while the earth still shuddered under him. Kenjak expected a thunderclap. Smoke. Lightning that the stories said accompanied backlash.
He heard swearing instead, Dvergiri and inventive as any soldier. A crashing of a body through brush. When he looked up, the woman was gone.
And so was the crest of the hill.
Veiko followed the bat-snake south. It wasn’t simple to track it, in storm-twilight and thick snowfall. It flew hunter-silent now, near invisible through tree limbs. But even when he couldn’t see it, he could feel it. Knew where it wanted him to go, which was unsettling. And more unsettling: the bat-snake’s intended destination was both south and west from his campsite, toward the burned village. That would put them closer to the legion than he wanted. Wrong direction altogether. He wanted away from that place, from the soldiers, nowhere they could find trace of him.
He thought about stopping, calling the dogs, turning back to his campsite. That was smart shelter, upwind so that any fire of his would be lost in the larger burn-stink. Turn his back and go, well, if not home, then at least to a place of his choosing. The bat-snake’s need tugged at him, but he could ignore it.
Up ahead, Helgi slammed to a stiff-legged stop. Snarled at Logi as the younger dog crowded up on his flank. That was all the warning Veiko got before the ground bucked like a half-tamed takin. It twisted and rippled like water, dirt-slip and needle-slide, he and the dogs scratching for purchase. His skin tingled, itched and pebbled like the moment before a lightning strike. Wrong season for that, too, wrong weather altogether. And then that fast, the feeling was gone. Normal cold air, normal storm-swirl. Solid earth underfoot.
Helgi whined. Logi flattened himself to the snow. Veiko thought he might want to do the same.
The trees had moved. The hillside had. It felt just a little steeper now. A little more rugged. And maybe it was the snowfall blurring his vision
no, it is not
but the profile of the ridge ahead looked different, too, as if someone had gouged the earth away.
And put it where?
The bat-snake swooped and caught itself on the trunk of the nearest spruce, the same one that’d been seven paces left and downslope just moments earlier. It paused there, wings wide, and stared at him.
“Chrrip!”
Impatient, as if it couldn’t grasp why the dogs were cowering, or why he’d joined them. As if it hadn’t felt that flux at all, or didn’t care. As if the earth rearranged itself regularly, nothing to fret over.
All right. Animals
that thing is not, quite
were a good judge of danger. If this on
e wasn’t afraid
and what about the dogs?
then perhaps he needn’t be. Maybe such happenings were common in the Illhari Republic.
Tell yourself that.
Veiko stood carefully. Nodded at the bat-snake, who chrripped approval. And then it was off again, a flicker of black in the snow. A new direction, too: down, into the grooves between the hills, in the direction the land-flux had come from. Going right to the source.
Of course. Veiko shook his head. He must be spirit-touched. Snow-mad.
Curious.
Which was just as dangerous. He resettled his pack and his axe and started after it.
“Helgi. Logi.”
This time, the dogs let him lead.
Ollu caught up while Kenjak was still scouring out his guts. Heave and gag. His ears wouldn’t stop ringing, the world wouldn’t stop moving.
Ollu hooked the back of his belt and hauled him roughly upright. Steadied him as his knees wobbled. As his stomach tried to climb up his throat again.
“Backlash,” he said, and had to swallow hard. Wouldn’t puke on Ollu’s boots. Wouldn’t.
“Yeah, I felt it.” Ollu’s face steamed, mouth and nose and skin. “She’s desperate, to try conjuring out here.”
Kenjak nodded. Of course. Desperate. He pointed a leaf-steady hand at the ridgeline. “She—”
“I see where she went, boy. Running slantwise up this hill. She’ll keep that direction on the other side. Guessing she can still run, anyway. Backlash’ll kill the conjuror, sometimes.”
“What if the land’s different on that side?”
Ollu snorted. “Conjuring doesn’t remake the world, boy. It just rearranges what’s there.” He palmed the top of Kenjak’s helmet. Twisted his head ungently. “See that crease? It’s a gully now, but it’s still following where the streambed was. Wraps around, yeah? We take that, cut her off. And if she broke something in the fall, or died . . . better luck.”
“She’s alive.” Gulping now, to keep his guts steady. “I heard her swearing.”
“So she’s a tough conjuror, then.” Ollu slapped an open palm on the back of his helmet. Said, clear through the new ringing in Kenjak’s ears: “Twice stupid to chase her alone, boy. You’re lucky so far. Now stay with me, yeah? See if you learn how to deal with her kind.”
CHAPTER THREE
Deep crevice she’d landed in, a winter-dry riverbed layered with snow and dead leaves. Might be rocks underneath, or frozen mud. Hell for footing. Which meant going slower, maybe, or risking what the fall hadn’t managed. Snow thought about trying to climb the other side for exactly two rapid heartbeats. Thump-thump and no thank you. She could scale any wall that was solid. This—wasn’t. Mud. Roots. Slip and slime and no fucking chance.
She squinted up through the cold-kiss flakes. Two voices up there, words smeared to useless with distance and altitude and the echoes and knives in her own head. Toadfucking backlash and the headache that went with it, worse than anything Briel ever gave her. At least she could still see.
The soldiers hadn’t followed her over the top. The backlash hadn’t left much of the hilltop, and only a fool would jump blind after her. But they’d be coming. Wouldn’t abandon the trail. The Illhari legion didn’t quit. Charmingly predictable, on so many fronts.
So run, yeah?
Yeah.
She gathered her balance and stood up. Took a test step and let her breath out slowly. Thank
the Laughing God
luck that she hadn’t broken or twisted anything. Bruises, yeah, that iron pan in her pack had left marks, but nothing lethal. Now the backlash, that could’ve killed her and the soldiers and leveled a square league of forest. Lucky twice over all she’d gotten was a mudslide for her daring.
Her former instructors at the Academy would’ve beaten her for something that stupid. Broken her fingers so she couldn’t repeat the stupidity and expelled her. Tsabrak, though, might approve.
The Laughing God loves the bold, Snow.
And the stupid. Apparently.
She picked the direction she thought was most easterly. Readjusted the pack on her shoulders. Should’ve left the pan in the ashes. Should’ve hit Drasan with it, first thing, and left him alive for the legion, gotten herself out. Might still be lost in the forest, but at least she wouldn’t have soldiers on her trail.
Where am I, then?
Briel’s sending answered that question, and then it blinded her.
Veiko found himself chasing the curves of a dry riverbed that hadn’t been there two days ago. He’d crossed this terrain already. It was—had been—familiar. A tiny creekbed scarcely wider than his foot, in a shallow dip between hills. Now it was much deeper, a gully carved through the hillside.
His chest tightened around a chill that had nothing to do with weather. He had heard tales of the southlanders’ witch-wars, and how the spirits of the land had struck back at them. Hadn’t believed those tales until now. A hunter, a crofter’s son, had no business with spirits. Spirits were a noidghe’s affair.
He licked his lips. He should turn around and return to the work of surviving a winter alone, without his village, his father and brothers, four solid walls. But he could feel the bat-snake’s distress tugging at him. Knew, somehow
spirit-touched
that it wasn’t that far away. That
she/I/we
it needed
me
help. Needed him.
Fool.
Battle sounds, sudden and close, from around a sharp bend in the channel. Steel-clang and shouts echoing off the embankments.
Heat and cold together spiked through his belly, spread to his fingertips, settled into the long muscles of his thighs. Battle tension, but not his, and another familiar surge of need. Of real terror, too, and a desire to
dive
rush forward, to
strike
protect and
tear
defend and
fly
escape all at once.
Helgi snarled suddenly, savagely. Logi barked and leapt forward, ears flat and furious. Veiko realized then that he had a fighting grip on the axe that he couldn’t remember pulling out of its sling. Realized that he’d got two more steps toward the bend in the riverbed and that he’d cleared enough of the corner to see the woman from his vision, alone, unarmored, running from a pair of Illhari soldiers, one of them cocking his arm back, ready to cast a javelin at her back.
She skidded on what had been the stony bed of the river, awkward and unbalanced by the pack that slewed across her back and by the blade she held left-handed like a lantern in darkness. She looked up, shouted at the sky. Panic stripped her voice raw.
“Briel!”
A keening answered, like restless dead at midwinter, the forgotten and furious ancestors who would take a man’s soul if they caught him. The bat-snake streaked down between the soldiers. Its tail whipped, and the javelin thrower clamped his hand to his face. Screamed as red spilled through his fingers.
The woman skidded on snow, bounced herself on palm and knee and back upright. Spun toward the source of the screaming, took a step and tripped on an obvious stone and staggered again.
And then Logi barked and the woman spun and slashed with the blade. Veiko’s throat sealed around Logi’s name, even as he lunged forward and swung the axe to block. Wouldn’t get there in time; she was too close, moving too fast.
She missed. Cleanly.
The blade swiped over the dog’s head. Caught Veiko’s late-arriving axe on the backswing and stuck in the wood. The woman tugged at it.
“Fuck and damn,” she said clearly. Her eyes swept across Veiko’s face, stopped and hung on a point just above his shoulder. Wide eyes, blue as summer midnight and blank as fresh snow.
Blind.
Kenjak lay on his belly in the snow, eyes squeezed tight. The svartjagr’s wingtip had laid his cheek open, but its tail had taken Ollu across the face. Ollu had stopped screaming. Down to whimpers
and moans now, which were worse. Kenjak wanted to go to him, wanted to peel Ollu’s hands back and see what’d happened. Wanted to make that sound stop. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t make himself
get up, K’Hess Kenjak, why are you lying there?
go to Ollu, because he knew the svartjagr was still up there, still circling, and it could
rip out your eye
hurt him like that.
Coward, aren’t you boy?
It’d missed his eyes on that first pass. Might not, with another chance. Better to stay flat, play dead, hope it left with the half-blood.
A dog barked, very big and very close. Kenjak’s heart clawed its way into his throat. He risked movement, twisted his neck and looked, and yes, there it was. And not just the dog—the woman, too, and a tall Alvir man—no. Kenjak blinked. Blamed blood and tears for the one eye’s blurring, but there was nothing wrong with the other. The man was no Alvir, for all the pallid resemblance. He wore rough-spun wool and fur and leather, pale hair sectioned into narrow braids, taller than anyone Kenjak had seen. Skraeling, must be, whose people lived on mountaintops and ate only snow and who spoke in the language of beasts.
The skraeling held an axe in both hands, leveled above the dog’s head. The half-blood’s seax was stuck in the shaft. The skraeling’s face didn’t say friendly.
“Fuck and damn,” said the half-blood. She tugged at her blade. “I didn’t just hit a tree.”
The skraeling’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
“Right.”
Kenjak pulled himself onto his elbows. Heard a deep-throated snarl and saw paws coming at him—
“Helgi.”
—then watched the paws slew aside and circle back to the man, to the half-blood, to the second dog. He saw Ollu, too, gone silent now, uncurling limp, his face rolling toward Kenjak, and oh foremothers, he had no eyes, was nothing but ragged slash and blood, a whole river of it.
