Grudgebearer

by J. F. Lewis

  “I have never fought your kind before, scarback,” his opponent hissed. “You are a true warrior. I doubt the others will fare as well.”

  Kholster slapped the Skreel aside with his warpick and caught the Zaur by the throat. “The others?” His mind raced. The Zaur had said they were here for the softskins: the weeds and the magic slingers.

  “Is your warlord trying to stop the Conjunction, lizard?” Kholster growled.

  “When scarback’s rage,” the Zaur hissed, “brings him for war / Then Aldo’s prophecy will spur / the quick defeat of Aern and weed / serving Kilke’s secret need.”

  “I respect Aldo, lizard. I do, but those are merely words in the wind to me. The Aern are not slaves to prophecy.”

  “To His secret purpose,” the Zaur rasped. “To His secret purpose.”

  Kholster swore under his breath, and the Zaur spit blood in his face. With a quick exchange of blows, Kholster ended it, the Zaur falling lifeless at his feet. Kholster wiped the blood from his warpick and smiled as he saw a nearby blood oak.

  You got all that? he asked along his link. With the fight over, the connection with his people tapered off, color seeping back into his vision.

  Maker! Bloodmane shouted in his mind at the same time Vander shouted, Kholster!

  What?

  The two spoke over each other so much that, at first, he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Something about Malmung and Kazan and . . . Rae’en.

  One at a time, he shouted at the two of them. Vander, speak!

  Malmung sent word via—an image of Malmung’s warsuit hit Kholster’s mind—Kazan, M’jynn, Joose, and Arbokk were almost within range of Rae’en when she thought: “Oh no! I think I just—” and then she stopped sending.

  Kholster abandoned pursuit of the escaping Zaur, stopping as swiftly as a bull struck dead in in mid-charge by a war maul.

  Did she send anything else before that?

  Kazan says he thought she’d found some sort of tunnel and she thought something about blood being the same color in the dark and Zaur not taking any prisoners.

  “Zaur take no prisoners,” Kholster whispered. Blood seemed to congeal in his veins. For a being who was not bothered by the elements, Kholster felt as if he might freeze solid and never move again. Chest tight, he clutched the mail over his heart. “If she is dead, then I will kill every single—”

  Zhan! He sent, cutting off his oath. How close are your nearest Bone Finders?

  I sent them on ahead to Fort Sunder to reunite with their warsuits. Once you reached The Parliament of Ages, I—

  Rae’en has encountered the Zaur and stopped transmitting. Are her—

  I’m checking, Zhan sent back. She’s not sending at all?

  Not according to her Overwatches—they say they were almost within range for full contact.

  I can’t touch her mind, Kholster. I can only sense her bones . . . approximate distance and direction. The closer I am, the more information I can glean, the more precise I can be—

  I know all that, Kholster snapped, but is she—

  Her bones are in motion. I can’t tell you where exactly; it doesn’t work like that, but we can—

  FIND. THEM.

  If she is still alive, that would be a violation of our purpose, First Bones, but with her status undetermined, I can act under the presumption that she is dead and her bones need to be retrieved. You will have to tell me very explicitly, or I cannot act lest I be Foresworn. What do you want me to do?

  I want, Kholster stared blindly at the blood oak tree which had made him smile only moments before. Hands tightening around Grudge’s haft, he swung the implement, Grudge’s forespike biting deep into wood. Releasing the haft he stepped away from the warpick and fought back a roar.

  I want you to bring back the bones of my daughter, Zhan. The Armored Bone Finders are temporarily relieved of all other duties . . . except Caz. If Rae’en is still alive you will have my thanks and my apologies for what will then, with the benefit of hindsight, be viewed as an extreme overreaction and a misuse of the Ossuary’s limited resources.

  And do you have any further—

  Break. Kholster tore Grudge free of the tree and struck it again. No. And again. Oaths. With the fourth blow Grudge screeched like an eagle diving for prey . . . and with a resounding crack, the tree came down.

  The Ossuarian, Zhan thought formally, sees no reason to deny the kholster of the Aernese army this request.

  Kholster stared at the felled tree and shook his head in disgust, not just for killing the tree out of rage and frustration but at what his oaths required of him next. He wanted nothing more than to turn back and look for Rae’en. Alive or dead, he didn’t know, but he needed to know. If she was dead . . .

  Are you going to join up with the Bone Finders, Vander thought, or—

  The Conjunction is upon us; I have sworn an oath, Kholster thought grimly, and the representative I dispatched to keep it has been delayed.

  Kholster turned, breaking into a run. Show me roughly where I—

  A map appeared at the corner of his vision displaying his estimated position and the suggested route to Oot.

  If the Zaur are trying to stop the Conjunction, Vander thought, the other representatives might need assistance.

  I swore to be there. Nothing more. Kholster thought bitterly. Let them die.

  CHAPTER 41

  AGE-OLD ENEMIES

  Sneaking down the hallway of the royal palace in Port Ammond, Yavi spotted Gloomy. Gloomy wasn’t his real name, but it was what Yavi had come to call Prince Dolvek in her head. She had always known there were physical differences between her people and his, but she hadn’t expected them to make such a big difference. Vael tried to focus on the being inside the flesh, not the flesh itself, but the Oathbreakers, Dolvek, in particular, couldn’t see past it. As a result, Yavi had taken it upon herself to catalogue the differences in hopes of understanding the Oathbreaker’s point of view even if it was, well . . . stupid.

  Gloomy, like most Eldrennai, stood a hand and a fist taller than Yavi, and where her ears were long and pointed, his showed a more subdued, rounded point, almost like a human’s ears. Smaller ears probably explained why it was so easy for her to sneak up on him. Gloomy had teeth instead of dental ridges. His hair was fine, like silken thread, not thick like hers. Her spring skin—she tried not to think about what it meant for her to have kept both her head petals and soft skin this late into Fall when heading to spend an extended period with an Aern—was very similar to his, still soft, smooth, and supple, not yet coarse and dark as it thickened at winter. Yavi still couldn’t understand why it made such a huge difference.

  All Eldrennai possessed a certain preoccupation with their own thoughts, which, in Yavi’s opinion, made Dolvek’s people rather stuffy. Vael had no such problem. Forging a life in the wild, far from the dead cities, her people lived life with an exuberance and freedom she wished she could explain to Dolvek.

  Unable to convey this fierce pioneer spirit to him, she settled for sneaking up behind him and making him spill his tea.

  “Good morning!” she said sharply as she passed behind his chair in the Great Hall. As was becoming usual, he dropped his teacup entirely and reached for his sword before he realized that he’d been “Vaeled” again. Yavi loved that phrase.

  “Fair morning to you as well,” he said gruffly, wiping ineffectually with a silk handkerchief at the green tea on his blue velvet doublet. His long black hair fell partially in his eyes, and she grinned back at him from beneath her samir.

  One of the serving women, Tasha, stifled a giggle and winked at her. That was another difference: Eldrennai dressed much too formally. Even the human serving woman wore a lace-trimmed formal gown. Yavi had tried to wear one of those contraptions to a dinner held for her by the Eldrennai, and the results had been quite scandalous.

  Worn backwards, the dresses were much more comfortable, but far too revealing for the prudish Eldrennai. I mean honestly, she thoug
ht to herself, they’re just nipples. We only have them because the Oathbreakers like them so much. Why are they so afraid to see them? And why were they so scandalized by her pants? Was it that they didn’t know she had legs or that they wished she were shaped like a bell, carried around by tiny roots, like the cilia of a caterpillar?

  From that point on Yavi had worn her doeskin leathers, and no one had suggested she do otherwise. Yavi wondered briefly how an Eldrennai would react to the sight of a Vael sunning herself, then blinked it away with a cold shiver as she realized she didn’t really want to think about it.

  Fetching her own plate, a thin ceramic dish bordered with enameled roses chased with silver, she went right into the kitchens and served herself several slices of toast. She hesitated at the eggs and the thickly sliced bacon, then looked to the cook for confirmation that the food was safe.

  “Don’t you worry, dear,” the large matronly human cook said. “I sent my Jason out this morning to find wild quail eggs, and that bacon is from the same boar our Howard killed yesterday. All properly hunted and pleasing to the Huntsman.”

  “My thanks to you, Emma!” Grinning, Yavi helped herself to two soft-boiled quail eggs and three large slices of the savory boar bacon. “And to Jason and Howard.”

  “I,” Emma hesitated, “had Felix bring in some of his good potting soil too, if you have a craving . . . ?”

  “No, but thank you.” Yavi shook her head. “I might sneak back in for some, but it distresses the prince. I don’t know why. There are good minerals in there.”

  Emma laughed. “It’ll be here, Princess.”

  Tasha steered Yavi out of the kitchen with a gentle tap—backs of her fingers only—against Yavi’s waist and gestured to a seat across from the prince.

  As Yavi sat down, Grivek, king of the Eldrennai, came into the Hall. Far more severe than his son, Dolvek’s father scared the yarp (not that Vael yarped or had any need to rid themselves of bodily waste, but Queen Kari had assured her that was the new Aern word for their equivalent of defecation) out of Yavi every time he walked into the room. His eyes had seen the passage of millennia and found fault with most of it.

  “Our human scouts sighted an Aern male traveling north toward Oot,” Grivek said as he walked up to the table. “Reports from Silver Leaf claim the Vaelsilyn spotted a female Aern traveling alone two days back.”

  “Either one is good news,” said Dolvek. “So the Grudgebearers really are sending . . . someone.” He paused, noticing the displeasure on his father’s face and the amusement on Yavi’s.

  “Kholster gave his word, son,” Grivek said. “Barrone itself would have to break in half and be scattered into the ether before he or his representative would fail to arrive for the Conjunction.”

  “I’m sorry, Father, but you must admit they have held a grudge against us for centuries. The Eldrennai have offered reparations, generous reparations, over and over again and have been rebuffed . . .”

  With a scowl and a slight movement of his fingers, Grivek sent a bolt of green flame at his son’s plate, disintegrating the fragile china. Impressed by the prince’s reaction (barely a flinch), Yavi retreated hastily beneath the table, taking her plate, the small pot of butter, the honey, and the jam with her. Taking a brief moment to adjust the tablecloth so she could spot any further pyrotechnics, Yavi removed her samir.

  Howard picks great boars, she thought as she bit into a piece of bacon.

  Queen Kari had not mentioned this particular aspect of Oathbreaker dining, but Yavi had gotten used to it after the sixth broken dish. Much more fun than the plays, recitals, and art showings they continuously tried to engage her interest in.

  If they’d only have a real duel . . .

  “We created them and then enslaved them!” Grivek shouted. “We made them fight our battles for seven thousand years. Just slightly longer than the service we forced upon the Vaelsilyn. They fought the Zaur for us, not to mention the humans, the dragons, and the Ghaiattri.”

  There was a whoosh as he lifted himself into the air. Yavi feared for the chandelier but not enough to say anything or interrupt her breakfast. Instead, she began to slather honey, jams, and butter onto pieces of toast.

  “We would have been slaughtered without them, but when they asked for their freedom we refused. At the slightest sign of discontent, my father punished them.” Grivek’s eyes unfocused and in that instant he seemed to see something horrible from the past, which haunted him. “Brutally.”

  “Debts long paid, Father.” Dolvek’s palm slapped the table. “We now owe them nothing!”

  And away he goes, thought Yavi just before Dolvek took to the air as well.

  “Don’t owe them?” Grivek snarled from somewhere near the ceiling. “When the world crystal was shattered, it was Kholster himself who led the combined task force to rescue the pieces and hide them so they could not be threatened again. He saved our entire plane of existence and we still called him slave. And you say we don’t owe them. Gods! Is it any wonder he . . . they . . . rebelled?”

  On the “rebelled” Yavi heard another gout of flame and the tinkling crystals of the jostled chandelier. Yavi braced for a crash, and when it didn’t come, decided to try a quail egg, her eyes closing raptly as the perfectly cooked yolk burst on her tongue.

  “Apologists like you need to stop playing the weeping woman about the past, Father.”

  Maybe if I drilled a little hole in the table I could see better. She peeked out from behind the table’s edge, a jam-covered piece of toast sticking out of the corner of her mouth. And why “weeping woman”? Were human women or Eldrennai females more prone to tears for some reason of which Yavi was unaware?

  “The Aern need to move past these exaggerated horrors of an over-­dramatized apocryphal past.” Dolvek floated next to the chandelier facing his royal father, a war of emotion displayed plainly on his face, fury fighting against duty and propriety. “And I am not the only one who thinks so!”

  “They happened,” Grivek said, his voice firm.

  Yavi suspected that if they ate more meat, the Oathbreakers as a whole would be less irritable. She brandished a strip of crispy bacon in her hand as if she might charge into the fray and save them with it, but she couldn’t bring herself to waste good bacon on an Oathbreaker.

  “My memory may not be as clear as an Aern’s, but I trust that my son does not mean to imply that his father the king is a liar.” Grivek gestured angrily at his son, sparks sizzling at the tip of his accusing finger. “Just because the Vaelsilyn saw fit to forgive us, to make peace with us, doesn’t mean . . .” The king’s voice trailed off as he noticed Yavi under the table.

  “Great Aldo,” he sighed. “What have we done?” Landing in a kneel at the table’s edge, he peered beneath the rich dark wood. “Please forgive me.” From this perspective, he looked less severe, almost grandfatherly. Yavi decided she liked him after all. A little.

  “The green fire bolt was prettier than the purple one yesterday.” Yavi smiled at Grivek. “But I think the blue from the night before was best. I’ve been wondering though . . . can you do pink? Oh, and we use the word ‘Vael’ now. Just say it like you’re saying ‘Vaelsilyn’ and when you get to the ‘s,’ stop.”

  Grivek chuckled despite himself. “If only the Aern were as amused by our tempers as your people,” he said softly.

  “Your crazy great-great-great grand evil created us to be amiable.” Yavi handed him her plate and crawled out from under the table, taking her seat once more. “Besides, Your Majesty,” Yavi said sparklingly, “I never get to see flashy magic at home unless it’s being used on shadebeasts or irkanth. Though you’re right; my mother said that at the last Conjunction Kholster almost left because of what the Eldrennai representative said.”

  “According to the history books,” Dolvek protested, “it was Aernese pride that caused the Sundering. All Bloodmane had to do was kiss the king’s sword and swear fealty, and instead he murdered him!”

  Grivek shot an angry gl
ance at his son, who winced. “It was more complicated than that, Dolvek. And why would an Oathbound slave need to swear loyalty to his master. Half the points you and your fellow ideologues propose make no sense at all.” The king sounded tired, as if this were an argument he had with his son over and over again. “King Zillek—my father—could have dealt with things differently. We are all very thankful to the . . . Vael for helping us survive.”

  “Without your people,” Dolvek simpered at Yavi, whose samir lay on the bench next to her plate, “all three races would have died out long ago . . .”

  “Fallen into darkness,” Grivek cut him off. “Aldo said all three races would fall into darkness if the Conjunction failed to take place. There is a difference.”

  “I bet Kholster would prefer to take his chances with prophecy,” Yavi said in a whisper, picturing not the Aern her mother had described but Bloodmane, Kholster’s armor, with a warpick in its gauntlets. She remembered the armor’s gentle touch on her cheek. Here where you are safest. Convince Kholster to come back in another hundred years. Pollination optional.

  Grivek nodded, favoring Yavi with a tender smile. “Only the Vael could convince him to agree to come, and he has done so personally each century not because he fears what will happen if he does not but because of a promise.” He let out a long breath. “In a small way, we are lucky that the Aern share our immortality. I’m not sure any other Aern would come, unless Kholster gave the order.”

  “Then why don’t you go, Father, if you like this butcher so much?” Dolvek asked.

  “I doubt he would tolerate my presence. I was the one who exiled his people after he killed my father, and . . . Rivvek has scars on—” King Grivek winced at whatever he had been about to say, swallowed the words like bitter medicine, and continued. “I was the one who insisted they leave their armor and weapons behind. I had no way of knowing at the time that the Aern had wrought life into their armor. It was the Aern’s most closely guarded secret, though it seems Uled suspected it.” Grivek looked at Yavi, who raised an eyebrow.