by K. Eason
Knife-edge moment, with three pairs of eyes making rounds.
“No,” Dekklis said finally. “I hear you, Istel. But I won’t be the one to start a civil war.”
A smirk skipped across Istel’s face like a stone across water. And then the ripples settled, and he was sober-faced Istel again. “Yes, First Legate,” that might mean fuck you. That certainly meant I’ve said my piece. On your head, whatever comes.
She had Istel back, but she did not have her partner. Would not, she thought, ever again. She could mourn that, and might, later and alone, when she was just Dekklis. But now, with Istel and Rurik watching her, she was both First Legate and a Senator. There was a whole city of trouble beneath her, seething amid the Suburba’s walls and warrens.
And Istel had not, Dekklis noted, once denied Rurik’s accusation of heresy. Hell and damn.
CHAPTER FIVE
There were some two dozen Taliri in their escort. They carried bows and spears, some of them; for the others, there were stolen Illhari swords, long plain steel knives, patchwork armor. Raiders, a man might say, if he saw them coming at his village in the dark.
The Talir who had spoken with them—Kellehn the only one, by Veiko’s guess, who had sufficient grasp of Dvergiri to manage conversation—called them, and himself, a’Rhostiddir, and seemed offended that they did not grasp the significance.
A tribe name, Snow had muttered. They name themselves after ancestors, like the Alviri. —Talir just means horse, yeah? Taliri, people of the horse. —You know what a horse is?
Veiko did. Had heard stories from his ancestor, Taru, who had lived when there were such creatures in the world.
Stupid animals, Taru had told him. Delicate. Beautiful. They would eat themselves to death if you let them. Not as quick-footed as a takin, and half the wits. But oh, they could run. They did not deserve what happened to them. And she had added, Your Illhari are stupider than any horse, for having killed them. The spirits do not forget that kind of insult.
The spirits had not. Illhari conjuring would not work here in the Wild. Would cause backlash. So, the Illhari, as a rule, held to their roads and their cities. And the horse people, now horseless, remained merely Taliri to Illhari sensibility, in the same way that Pohja and Jaihnu were collectively skraeling.
A stupid people, your Illhari. Taru had said it more than once, and in several contexts.
They are not mine.
No? Whose food do you eat, Nyrikki’s son? At whose table? Whose bed do you warm?
Taru knew better, on the last. Had been baiting him. He had scowled at her, which made her laugh.
Nyrikki’s son. Veiko. You will make a fine noidghe, but not if you do not also learn honesty. With yourself at least, if not your teacher.
A man, if he had any wits, did not protest otherwise, not to a wise ancestor, not to the only teacher he had. He kept his lips together, and sifted for truth in her baiting later, when he had his whole self in the flesh lands and some leisure for thinking.
This was not one of those times. This was surrounded by
enemies
allies who marched in near-silence, mostly single file, like wolves on the hunt. Half ahead, by his count, and another half behind, with one or two scouting and circling. He and Snowdenaelikk were squarely in the middle of the line, which he did not like. She marched behind him, which made his shoulder blades itch less. But it also meant he had to turn his head to see her, which meant taking his eyes off trail and the Talir who walked in front of him. The trail did not worry him. But the Talir, who had a habit of rolling his own eyes back, while pretending to examine the forest on either side of them, did.
So he walked, eyes on that man, while his mind chased itself like a pup after its tail. They had not taken his weapons or Snow’s, which argued for Dekklis’s impressions of them as allies. But an axe would do him no good against arrows, and the trees here might hide a dozen archers.
From his eyes, he reminded himself. Not from Logi. And Logi was not worried. Ears up, tail curled, nose busy—happy to be outside again, Above, and moving. Briel was not worried either. The svartjagr was also happy to be outside and moving, though less pleased about the daylight. Cutting low, was Briel, dodging among trees. She would not give archers a clear shot at her. Would not etch herself dark and clear against the bright, daylit sky.
So Veiko guessed that Briel did not trust these Taliri either, which meant that Snow didn’t, which was exactly the same as water is wet and stone is hard.
Snowdenaelikk in the Wild had only metal to defend her, unless she called on the God for help. His stomach rearranged itself, thinking on that.
Veiko risked a glance back. Crossed his partner’s stare and raised his brows.
Two bodies could not fit easily abreast on this trail. But they were both tall and narrow and stubborn. She stretched stride and tucked in close to his left side, so that shoulder and hip and thigh brushed as they walked.
“Nothing,” she murmured. “Briel can’t see anything. But I know they’re out there.”
“Allies of these, perhaps.”
“Or not. They’re Taliri.”
There was movement on the trail ahead, a ripple in the line. Snow saw it, dropped back a step, out of his periphery. He thought she might fall in behind him, again, but then she reappeared, a draw-length off his left side, half a step behind.
“Kellehn coming,” she said, pitched for his ears. “Briel says.”
And on the heels of that whisper, Briel’s sending thumped into his skull like a fist. One person looked very much like another to a svartjagr. Two legs, two arms, short neck—that was the usual person-shape in her mind. Someone who mattered—a man, a woman, a dog—would come with flavors and textures, and a sensation for which Veiko did not have a name. The man who had been a hunter would call it scent and have done. But the man who was also noidghe might call it the shape of a soul.
The sending itself was blurry. Medium smudge of medium brown and grey, which matched Kellehn and the color of Taliri clothes well enough. But that smudge came with summer wind laced with smoke, and a pattern of stark shadow with an ominous silhouette, like something jagged lurking out of sight.
And then gone. Veiko blinked, and the path snapped into focus. He blinked a second time and saw Kellehn threading back through the Taliri line like a rock leopard stalking prey. Coming for him, Veiko realized.
“Noidghe,” Kellehn said by way of greeting, and tried to take Veiko’s arm—reached, certainly, and stopped when he slammed into Veiko’s stare.
“Talir,” Veiko said. And amended, “Rhostidd.”
Kellehn bowed a finger’s width. “I would walk with you,” he said in stiff Jaihnu. “There are things I wish to say.” He looked pointedly past Veiko’s shoulder. “For your ears.”
“She is my partner,” Veiko said in Dvergiri.
“Your ears,” Kellehn repeated in Jaihnu. “And only yours, noidghe. Come with me. Please.”
Veiko pretended to consider it for another several steps before he answered. “We can walk here. She does not understand this language.”
“So she tells you. She is Jaihnu.”
Echoes of his own arguments with her, time and again. This time, Veiko played Snow’s part. “She is Illhari. Her mother is Dvergir.”
“I do not speak of the mother.”
That was an Illhari taboo, to acknowledge paternity. To draw attention to it. Veiko felt his skin flush. Knew Snow would see it and wonder. That Briel would feel it, and maybe share the reason, as much as Briel understood it. The svartjagr would pick Kaj’s face out of Veiko’s mind easily enough, and Snow had wit enough to reckon the rest.
“Her father did not teach her this tongue.”
“So she tells you.”
“So I tell you,” Veiko said sharply. Which got Logi’s attention. The dog’s hackles rose. Snow slid a cool blue stare at him and reached down for Logi’s ruff. Took a fistful of fur and held it.
Veiko folded his arms. Stopped, in
the middle of the trail, so that the Taliri behind him must either stop or break around him. “I am not a fool,” he said, in Dvergiri again.
“Among my people,” Kellehn answered, also in Dvergiri, “a man who must insist so casts himself in doubt.”
“Her parentage is not in question. How you know her father’s tribe is.”
Snowdenaelikk let go of Logi’s ruff. Stood and came to stand by Veiko. “So, the Taliri have agents in Illharek. That doesn’t surprise me. What I want to know is where.”
Kellehn diverted a glance. A grimace. “We can speak of that another time.”
“Oh. Well. That’s fine, then. I’ll just walk over here, yeah? And pretend you’re not whispering some toadshit to my partner.”
Kellehn’s frown sank into his face, until it looked as if the very bones might melt and twist. “You are godsworn.” His lip curled. “To the Usurper.”
Snow snorted. “Foremothers’ own sake, Kellehn. The God isn’t listening.”
“Are you certain? Can you be?” Kellehn looked at Veiko. “Can you?”
A question Veiko had asked both himself and Taru, more than once. And more than once, Taru had told him:
The oaths between the Dvergiri and their spirits are not well known to me. Ask her, Nyrikki’s son, for those details, if you think she will tell you. Or trust her wits and her word.
Snow would not lie to him. He believed that. And trust his partner’s wits, yes, he did that, too, though she had made her bargain with the God while Istel lay dying. When she thought that bargain might be her best and only way to stop Tal’Shik. She said that the God could not wear her skin, but she had said nothing about the God listening through her ears.
And if that were true, well, it would not matter whether Snow heard whatever secrets Kellehn had from Kellehn or from Veiko, because he would tell her what Kellehn said, and then the God would know them anyway.
“She is my partner,” Veiko told Kellehn, “and she is Illhari. You asked for Illhari help. You asked for her. Why should you cast it away now?”
Almost pleading now: “What I have to say is for a noidghe’s ears.”
“Snowdenaelikk is noidghe by my people’s reckoning,” Veiko added, as Kellehn gaped at him: “She has crossed the black river and returned. I was her guide.”
Kellehn sighed. Gave up the argument and bowed his shoulders. “On your head,” thrust out in Jaihnu, like a knife in the ribs. And then in smooth Dvergiri:
“I have heard a tale. A year ago, one man killed another with an axe. The killer was a crofter’s youngest son, who earned his way as a hunter. The man he killed was the chieftain’s oldest son and heir. The hunter fled the village before anyone knew of the crime.”
There was no air at all in the forest. None in his lungs. Veiko’s left hand felt cold, where it hung between him and Snow. He let it fall. Let it curl into a fist. “My partner knows this story.”
“And does she also know that the chieftain offers reward for any word of you? Does she know that he has sent his men out to hunt you? They describe you well. A tall man with Jaihnu hunter’s braids, carrying axe and bow. They say he has two dogs, one grey and one red as a fox, though I see only the second. The whole valley knows your offense, every settlement and hut and village between the glacier and the Illhari border. You are to be shown no kindness, given no aid. Any man who finds you has leave to kill you, without penalty.”
It was not unexpected. It was better news than he’d feared. A man had nightmares, sometimes, that his whole family had suffered for his crime. Father and all his brothers dead, mother and sister sold into thralldom. This was far, far better.
“And.” Kellehn paused. “They say that Nyrikki claims only three sons now.”
Also not unexpected. But it hurt, and hollowed him out at the same time. Left nothing but sand and stones in his throat.
Snow peered into his face. “Veiko?”
“I am dead. To the family, and to the clan. They will have agreed to that, to avoid a bloodfeud. That was wisdom. That was.” A breath. “What I had hoped they would do.”
“Toadshit,” so calmly, so without expression, that Veiko knew she was truly angry. Her fingers closed on his wrist. Stiff-armed, as if she meant to prevent him from going anywhere. There was no need. Veiko was as rooted as the trees around him. “Kellehn. Why the fuck do the Rhostiddir care if Veiko killed a thief? It’s not your business, yeah? You or your tribe’s.”
“A thief, was he?” Kellehn’s brows rose and sank. “Perhaps. But you are right, godsworn. We did not care. We were not hunting an outlaw. His chieftain sent men out to find him and some of them came to our camp before the first snow. We were not the only tribe they visited. There were many tribes nearby at that time.” His gaze sought Veiko’s. “Do you understand?”
“You mean the godsworn tribes.” The words fell out of Veiko’s mouth like stones. “The Taliri who follow Tal’Shik.” Hesitate, and imagine the old ache returned to his leg. “Ehkla’s tribe was among them.”
A breath, held too long. Kellehn let it out in a gust. “Yes.”
“My thanks,” said Veiko, because that was the correct thing to say. And then he closed his eyes. Sought the darkness on the other side, and the grey that lingered on the borders of that darkness. The ghost roads were a step sideways, and the glacier’s cold, constant breath.
He took that step.
The forest faded. A woman waited on the glacier, wearing silver-shot hunter’s braids, her eyes the color of Illhari witchfires.
“I am no longer Nyrikki,” he said.
Taru was not smiling at him, but Taru rarely did.
“Fool,” she said, which was also normal. “I call you Nyrikki’s son, and so you are, until you choose another name.”
“Then you knew.”
“Of course I did, and what of it? I am Pohja, and your great-grandmother was my youngest daughter. No Nyrikki can cast you out of my family.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“To what end? You are noidghe, whatever your name. A better thing to ask is how this Talir found you so easily.”
Taru put her hand out then and pushed him. Felt like a hammerblow, if the hammer was ice and not iron. He staggered back into a summer afternoon’s heat. Into the buzzing of insects and wind through evergreen branches. Into the gut-deep shiver that said he was losing balance, his knees gone to water and his head spinning. He caught breath and self before his knees crumpled. Opened his eyes on a sun-spangled forest, the light shifting as the trees moved in the breeze. To a partner’s worry, and a partner’s two hands on him. A fistful of sleeve in her right hand, a left-handed grip on his armor, fingers pushed into a gap between strips of leather. Her back to Kellehn, oh ancestors, and unguarded, for his sake.
No. Not unguarded. Briel brushed his awareness. Wings passed overhead, leather flap that made Kellehn glance up. And there was Logi, too, alert and angry. Let the Talir move, he might regret it. Kellehn showed no inclination to it at the moment. Looked thoughtful, like a man who has found a new tool and has to reckon the best way to use it.
“I do not,” Veiko said slowly and clearly, “owe debt for this knowledge. But I will remember the kindness of your telling.”
Snow let go of Veiko’s sleeve and shoulder. Stepped around and in front of him, so that Veiko had to look past the rings in her ear to see Kellehn’s face shift into wariness and the first leakings of alarm. “Fuck your gifts. Tell me something, if you want to talk. How do you know the chieftain’s men came to Ehkla’s tribe? You weren’t there.”
Kellehn’s mouth pulled into a grimace, as if the words tasted bad. “I was, and I heard what they said.”
That led to another look traded between partners, to a knot and chill in Veiko’s guts. Slowly, “Does that mean you were part of Ehkla’s tribe?”
“Yes.” Kellehn looked as if he smelled something unpleasant. “She was born a thrall. The daughter of an Illhari taken in battle years ago. One of dozens of half-blood children. She
made friends of the thralls first. Then the women. Then she murdered our noidghe. By the time we realized how much power she had, it was too late to stop her.”
Snow laughed, sharp and raw. “Fucking careless, yeah, to let that happen.”
“There was no let,” Kellen hissed. “Men who opposed her died, and those who helped her prospered. But more than that, godsworn. She promised us revenge on the Illhari.”
“Oh, I bet she did. Fucking idiot to believe her, yeah?”
Veiko put his left hand out. Hold in that gesture, and wait. Snow wrung herself back to silence. “Then what?”
The Talir gifted him with a flat-lipped smile. “Then you killed Ehkla. Some of us have taken our freedom back. The rest of the tribe remains with her successor.”
“So, Tal’Shik’s been planning this Taliri toadshit a long time,” Snow said. “Since Ehkla’s childhood.”
Kellehn peeled a smile. “Not just Tal’Shik. Do you think it was accident that you found Veiko in the forest when you did? Do you think your God did not plan that meeting?” Kellehn turned toward Veiko. “Do you believe it was chance that you found her?”
“If it was the God’s plan, it went poorly. Neither Tal’Shik nor the Laughing God have been pleased with our partnership thus far, so if it was their intent that we come together, then it is also their regret that we have done so. But you still have not said why you require a noidghe’s skills.”
“Nor,” Snow muttered, “how you know I killed Ehkla.”
“The answer to both is the same.” Kellehn paused, as if gathering courage along with his breath. “There are many dead in Cardik. They have many tales to tell about you, godsworn. And they are asking for you, Veiko Nyrikki, by name.”
CHAPTER SIX
Optio Pyatta poked her head into Dekklis’s office. “First Legate. Your appointment is here.”
It was Pyatta’s business to know that, down to the candlemark. She attended to the First Legate’s schedule with determined good cheer, since the First Legate was also a senator and had more than the usual number of appointments. Dekklis might have used her mother’s office, in House Szanys, to conduct business. Might have lived there, too, among her surviving sisters, with a staff of bondies and servants and the House consorts. Might have even added to those consorts, with alliances of her own. Foremothers defend. She had offended her sisters, insisting on apartments at the garrison. Astonished the Senate, too. These quarters consisted of an office and small sitting room in one, with a separate bedchamber. Hardly luxurious for someone who had agreed to two prominent Illhari titles and all their attendant responsibilities.
