Kari's Reckoning (The Rose Shield Book 4)

by D. Wallace Peach

  Underwater, he opened his eyes to the streaming luminescence. Ribbons of silken color rushed him downriver, slippery against his skin like a fish or crajek or waterdragon. The pain eased as he became the water, his element, his emotion, the power he shared with the world. Water encompassed love, the mystery of intuition and dreams, the intrinsic impulse of all life to heal. He shut his eyes, drifting serenely into the kari’s arms as his body filled with light.

  A hand drew him to the surface, and he breathed the damp air.

  You enjoy the pleasure of this sensation, the woman’s voice cooed inside his head. Hmm, perhaps a trace too much.

  He did enjoy it, the surrender to tranquility.

  We can only replace so much blood before you cease to be human.

  “I’m human,” he said, chuckling.

  “Whitt.” A man’s voice.

  Don’t mind him. This is our private time. A sliver of eternity to satisfy our mutual desire for harmony.

  “Whitt, wake up.”

  In all seriousness, any variety of alien would be incapable of setting perfect limits and behaving responsibly when it comes to the kari. You aren’t of this planet, after all.

  “We can learn,” Whitt murmured.

  You did, yet look at you. Half-drowned and perforated like a sieve. We have to trust that most of you will do your best without repeatedly dying.

  “I can help you.”

  “Whitt.” Raker’s voice.

  My young Ellegean, you have done your part admirably, and we’ll ask no more. We are the kari. Our nature is balance, not chaos. You have suffered enough, and it’s almost your time for peace.

  “For my death?” Whitt suspected so.

  The goddess blew through him, warming his cold bones, and he woke. He gasped and coughed water, flailing on his back in the cold river. His arm slapped something hard. A hand dragged him across wet planking by the straps of his armor

  “Raker?”

  “It’s about time.” Raker let go.

  Whitt flipped over on the slanted surface, coughed, and spat a wad of old watery blood. His heart beat, his ribs ached, and he sucked in a breath, though a damp rasp made it an effort. He twisted as he squinted up at the rafter.

  Raker’s chest heaved from the effort, his clothes soaked through and black hair dripping. He’d lost his eyepatch, and the puckered socket glistened. “We have a problem.”

  “Obviously.” Their raft consisted of a piece of dock with one barrel keeping it afloat, the planking angled like a ramp. Elan-Sia towered out of the water south of them, and the river surged with uncanny speed.

  “Look where we’re headed.” The eyebrow above Raker’s damaged socket edged up his forehead.

  Whitt crawled up the planking. Ahead of them, the Cull Sea heaved, a massive frothy, muddy wall of turbulence. The water ruptured over the top, flinging spray into a cloak of fog before the sea sucked it back in. It ground the river bottom and gobbled up the Slipsilver as if it were a trickling stream. The roiling, roaring mass of power would splinter their measly craft and drown them.

  The alternative pulled at its anchors at the river’s end, blasted by sea spray and rocking on its keel—The Sea God. The hulking ship loomed. A litter of wrecks caught in the muck at her bow. Nets flapped from its gunwales for anyone fortunate enough to reach them. A dragnet, her hull cleaved, lay off her starboard side, luminescence rushing through the gap. Half of the ship began to slide. Water pounded into the open hull and pushed it toward the liquid maelstrom. The sea swept it up and crushed it, adding shattered wood to the churn.

  “The ship,” Whitt said. For the moment, he intended to resist the goddess’s offer of a peaceful death, not that the Cull Tarr wouldn’t enjoy making him suffer for it.

  “We need to get closer.” Raker rose to a squat.

  The raft’s heading would leave a gap of swift water between them and the hull. Whitt crawled up to Raker’s perch at the peak of the incline. If they jumped now, they might swim crosscurrent to the hull before they were swept past. “Go for the wrecks at the bow. Now!”

  They leapt. Whitt surfaced, the current’s pull stronger than he anticipated. Raker swam ahead of him, arms sweeping the water as he struggled to cross the gap. Whitt’s ribs hurt, his stroke stunted. His breath struggled, lungs wet and raspy, forcing a cough. Raker plowed the river, halfway across, and Whitt lagged. Not nearly far enough, he’d never make it.

  Raker glanced back. “…water,” he shouted, the words lost.

  Wheezing for breath, Whitt pulled and kicked after him, ignoring the pain. The current swept him past Raker as the rafter clutched the jutting spar of a drowned ship. Past the nets hung from the hull. Past any chance of hope and into the roar of the battering sea.

  “Water,” Whitt whispered, understanding. He relaxed, trusting, the outcome beyond his control. The long shape moved under him. He grabbed for the neck, slipped on the sleek scale, and caught the waterdragon on the crook of the wing. The creature dove, plunging him into the luminescence and then shot up, breaching the surface. Whitt flew from its back into the hull, bounced, and tumbled into the water. Raker caught his wrist and shoved his hand to the net.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Another payload of rocks slammed into the tiers. Rails tore free, and glass exploded into showers of razor-edged rain. Catling bounded down the staircase from the ninth tier, hands gripping satchels jammed with medical supplies. She frowned at the muddy delta, wrecked boats, and trails of white smoke from burning sails. Fog rolled from the tumultuous sea in a waterfall, obscuring The Sea God and traveling upriver to purl around stranded ships. She didn’t know the status of the war, didn’t have time to wonder.

  Her relief in escaping the tavern had reeled into horror as she listened to the frantic voices of the prisoners from Nor-Bis. In no time, their panic had surrendered to new suffering as the bombardment of the tiers ripped through guardians, Cull Tarr jacks, and civilians alike. Even when another pair of catapults added to the pounding of the city, Jagur had refused to hurl his deadly payloads at the offending ships. He would secure Elan-Sia and decide the next step.

  She cringed as another hail of rock flew toward her. It sailed into the lower tiers, and she staggered as the city shook. Three more flights to the fifth tier. She gulped a breath and swung onto another set of spiraling stairs.

  Most injuries occurred on the lower levels within reach of the catapults’ assaults. The trade-crafters’ tier lay out of range, and the doyen had claimed a weaver’s workshop for the wounded. Brenna and Neven had ordered influencers to shove looms and tables to the walls. Clean bandages and needles no longer eluded them, plentiful in the shop’s supplies, but they required antiseptics and instruments for surgeries beyond a mercy’s skill to heal. The number of injuries, the smashed flesh, and shattered bones overwhelmed them.

  The work served a second purpose—preventing the traitor from endangering Guardian’s warriors who battled in the tiers.

  Catling yelped as Elan-Sia juddered under the barrage. She darted from the stairs onto the fifth tier and ran down a narrow lane, her heart pounding. With an elbow, she hit the door’s panel and lurched inside, delivering her supplies to a makeshift infirmary. At least fifty wounded men and women blanketed the floor. Vincen, Moira, and Tora-Mur glanced up from their work. Without a word, Ardal-Mur took the satchels and pointed to her next task, a guardian with a grisly leg.

  The day already stretched interminably long, time lengthening into a taut and fraying rope. The work required concentration, delicacy, influence focused on the rigorous demands of healing while simultaneously alleviating pain and countering fear. Dragging in a breath, she knelt by the guardian and touched his leg to probe his injury. Her hand retracted, the man dead. Tears flooded her eyes, the unexpected shock thrusting her composure over the edge. She wanted Whitt, wanted Rose, wanted to go home.

  Somewhere below a payload pounded into the tiers. The city crumpled and shattered, rocks and debris ripping through the lanes. Amids
t all the ruin, the Founder-made walls and railings and stairs repaired themselves. If human bodies were only so blessed. Wiping her eyes, she moved on, hurrying from one wound to another, stuffing her despair for the destruction and death into a corner of her mind.

  Another blast rattled the walls, and the windows cracked into spider webs. Large sections of the panes slipped free, fell, and splintered on the floor. Her bones ached, her nerves on fire. More influencers arrived, their faces grim. Ardal-Mur greeted them and handed out assignments.

  A woman reached for Catling’s hand. The gash in her bloody forehead scarcely merited a glance when compared to severed veins and crushed limbs, yet her anguish wrung Catling’s heart. It sliced through her fatigue like a hot blade. "I’m from Nor-Bis,” the woman wept. “I don’t know where my children are.”

  An old man wagged his head over his crushed hand as if it were an interesting find on an afternoon stroll. “Guardian ships retreated from the galleass when the Cull Tarr dropped dead Ellegeans to their decks.”

  “Shush, that’s not helpful,” Moira said as she healed his hand. “I’m from Nor-Bis as well. We will find a way to end this, whatever that requires.”

  Moira glanced at Catling and edged a shade of antagonism into the air. Catling frowned at the old bitterness. Why after all these years? The guild knew about her shield. Didn’t they know she could sense the threads of influence so acutely she virtually saw them? She blocked the hurtful woman’s sway, healed the gash, and soothed her victim’s distress.

  Kadan beckoned, and she shuffled on to assist him with more serious injuries, repairing arteries and organs sliced by knives, head injuries from falls and flying debris, complex fractures, and heart failure. The shop filled with wounded, and for every body saved, two died, beyond their skill to heal. Useless and frustrated, she felt ill-equipped for war. No amount of influence could banish her dread.

  ***

  Jagur leaned on the fourth-tier rail, staring at the deepening fog. For the first time in his life, hope abandoned him. Despair embraced him like an old familiar friend. During the South War, thirty years ago, he’d turned his hurt feelings over Vianne into reckless engagement, drinking, whoring, and eventual victory. His estrangement from his bond mate and her eventual departure had hammered a nail into his wounded heart. His imprisonment by the Cull Tarr had taken a physical toll, and on the darkest days, he hadn’t expected to survive it. Then, Tavor’s death, Whitt’s death, and most of all his final, irreversible loss of Vianne tested his determination to live.

  Despite all those trials, he’d always held out hope.

  He was losing Elan-Sia, losing this war, losing the whole of Ellegeance. Lives and futures depended on him, and he had nothing left. The Cull Tarr fought in the tiers, bolstered by the constant barrage. His only means of fighting back entailed heaping boulders in the catapults’ buckets and hurling the lethal payload at Ellegean women and children. How many would haunt his dreams? Hundreds? Could he live with that?

  This time, hope abandoned him.

  “Sanson,” he called the snow-bearded influencer to the rail. The man refused to leave him despite the requirement for healers above. Some foolish notion about the commander needing to survive for the benefit of Ellegeance.

  The influencer joined him. “How can I help, Commander?”

  Jagur glared at the Cull Tarr ships and scraped his hands over his face as if he could scour the vision away. “I’m giving the order to take out those ships. The only other option is surrender.”

  “The catapults,” Sanson said, no hint of censure in his voice.

  “I order you to influence the men who will carry out the task. When this is finished, they can blame me. You can blame me as well. I take full responsibility for the action.”

  “Influence is unnecessary, Commander.”

  Sanson likely meant that the men would follow his orders, regardless of influence. But the other interpretation was equally true—he’d bear the blame either way. He knew it; he just didn’t want to contend with the condemnation in their faces as he gave the command.

  “That’s an order, Sanson. Nothing they’ll be ashamed of later, just make it easier on them.” He pivoted to the guardians idling by the catapults. “Prepare to launch!”

  The men leapt to attention, furrows plowed into their foreheads as they set to work. “Targets?” the portly warrior asked.

  “Aim for the larger ships. They’ll carry the most remaining payload.” Jagur exhaled and murmured to himself, “and the most victims.”

  The adjustments took minutes. With the buckets loaded, the men waited for his command. Jagur paused at the rail, staring at the Cull Tarr galleass as its catapult’s arm slammed into its crossbar. The payload of rock flew high this time. The projectiles disappeared in the light of a crimson sun before beginning their downward arc.

  Jagur sucked in a breath. “Run!” He bellowed at his men, “Run!” They’d barely spun when the payload rained down on them. Boulders smashed into the catapults and pounded into the tier. Wood cracked, and the contraptions bucked and broke loose. Men screamed, their limbs crushed. A wooden arm snapped up, unleashing its burden. Jagur scarcely saw it coming before it hit.

  ***

  The red sun sparkled through the crackled glass in the windows. A thundering assault shook the room, and the last panes broke apart, shards raining to the floor like sleet. Catling closed her eyes for a breath and continued working.

  A ceaseless procession of wounded blurred her vision. Guardian was losing; she knew it. Projectiles bashed into Elan-Sia, one strike after another. The tier shook beneath her. “When will they run out of rocks?” she cried to the air. “They’re on ships, for Founders’ sake.”

  Kadan knelt beside her and touched her hand, offering a flush of solace. She leaned into him and closed her eyes, slowing her breath and accepting the gift. “Come with me,” he said, and a wave of trepidation surged up her spine.

  He climbed to his feet, drawing her up by the hand. In a corner of the room, his white beard tinged with scarlet, Sanson knelt over a large body. Catling recognized the man who lay there, and the emotion Kadan had tamped down roared into her face. Sanson looked up and beckoned to them.

  “He’s dying,” Kadan whispered to her.

  Her fingernails dug into her palms, and she swallowed, steeling her emotions. She drifted over in a strange wooden trance and knelt by Jagur. Blood covered his clothes, and when she reached to lift them, to assess his wounds, Sanson shook his head. The influencer’s hand rested on the commander’s arm, the threads of influence plain to her eye. He infused the dying man with comfort, affection, and peace. If she were to view them through her rose eye, she expected she’d behold nothing less.

  Jagur gazed at her, his expression soft with small creases folded into his brow. “I’m dying… no sense in telling me otherwise. Two things I should have said…” His attention wandered into the space below the ceiling. She rested her fingers on his wrist and helped him rest.

  He turned to face her, his rumbling voice a whisper, “Vianne should have let you be. She… Sometimes things ought to go their way without a fight. For all the harm she did, I think she grew to love you.”

  “I know.” Catling wiped her cheeks, and the commander drifted away again, his life fading.

  “There was something else?” Sanson reminded him.

  Jagur nodded. “Whitt.”

  “I don’t know if… where he is,” she said.

  “Knowing that boy, he’s alive.” Jagur smiled, a tear sliding from the corner of his eye. “Tell him he made a fine page and I’m proud…”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  A cheer climbed the tiers from below. The influencers in the room looked up. Catling listened. “The catapults stopped.”

  “Well, there you go,” Jagur sighed and shut his eyes.

  Kadan stepped out to the promenade, swung around, and strode back in, his face gray as ash. He mouthed the words, Cull Tarr.

  “Go,” Sanson
whispered.

  “But…” Catling glanced down at the commander, her fingers resting in his. Sanson’s influence gently cut the air to the man’s brain, and she withdrew her hand, staring at him.

  “We need to run.” Kadan drew her to her feet. Influence rose up her spine like a brand and exploded in her head. She gasped, white light flashing in her eyes. Her legs folded, knees like water, and she crumpled. Kadan caught her. “Catling?”

  She slapped her shield over herself, and the searing pain stopped. She pivoted out of his grip, reeling as her gaze swept the room. The influencers faced her, expressions carved with a glut of emotions: raw fear, anger, guilt, and desperation. One of them had assaulted her, and she didn’t know which.

  “What’s going on here,” Brenna-Dar demanded, rising to her feet.

  Catling turned to Kadan and caught her breath. Ardal-Mur, the man from Tor, held a knife to Kadan’s throat. Her friend met her eyes, his face a mask of calm. “Do it.”

  “Or don’t,” Ardal said, influenced authority exuding from his skin. “I can kill Kadan with a blade or a thought. It’s you or him.”

  “Put that down!” Neven ordered. Brenna marched toward them, clutched her chest, and wilted to her knees. Ardal ignored them, his eyes locked on Catling.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  Rising to his old feet, Sanson stepped around the commander’s body. “The Cull Tarr are headed this way.”

  “Right on time.” Ardal moved back to the wall, pulling Kadan with him. “Shield him, Catling, and I’ll torture you. Block me or torture me, and I’ll cut him. And if that doesn’t stop you, think about your daughter.”

  “We don’t mean to hurt anyone,” Moira said from across the room. “If we surrender you, we may save others, save our guild.”

  “They don’t care about you, Moira.” Catling faced the woman. “They’re not going to negotiate with you.” Helplessness kindled her rage, and it boiled through her. She was tired of influencers, tired of the Cull Tarr, exhausted by the threats and having to choose between two evils.