Blackdog

by K V Johansen

  “I went to see if your fire would lure away the guards on the conscripts’ door and the stables,” Koneh said over his shoulder, as the milling riders were left behind. “I figured I could make it—I thought the patrols would already be heading for the square. They weren’t, but I dodged them. And when I got to the barracks our boys and girls were already out and saddling their horses. It was Lissavakaili on duty keeping them locked in, and the mountain men had unlocked ‘em, the men’s side of the barracks and the women’s both, and told ‘em to rise up for their goddess. How did you manage that?”

  “I asked the Lissavakaili nicely to go home. They thought that sounded like a good idea.”

  “You’re beautiful, you know.”

  “Koneh!”

  A quick grin over his shoulder as they headed down the alley that was the shortcut from the caravanserai ridge to the spring. This end of town was silent, deserted. But it wouldn’t stay that way. They’d all be up on the roofs, awake and wondering, and before long the gates of the compounds would open…

  “Fine, you were fairly beautiful too, when that Grasslander with the spear was so close. But that doesn’t mean I fancy you any more than I did yesterday. Great Gods, what’s wrong with these people?”

  The small group she had left digging out the spring had grown smaller, and only a few, Elsinna and her father among them, were digging. At least the skulls—skulls and random jawbones—were all laid out nearby, though how they’d ever be claimed by their families now…perhaps Sera could name them.

  “People started leaving when your fire-tubes went off,” Mooshka said, standing up to his waist in a dry pit, leaning on a spade. She had not thought her father knew she had kept any of the fire-tubes. “They thought it was wizardry, Tamghat attacking us again.”

  “Idiots.”

  “I did try to tell them it was just a trick to keep the Tamghati and their lapdogs busy in town.” He grinned, scratched his beard. “You don’t think setting fire to the whole town was a bit excessive, though?”

  “I didn’t—” Jerusha looked over her shoulder. The sky was lit orange, smoke rolling up like thunderclouds, reflecting down the livid light. “It’s just the tribute granary.” Sera grant that was so. And the old Chiefs’ Hall, if the onlookers weren’t quicker with the water than they’d been till now.

  “Could have used that grain,” someone else said thoughtfully.

  “We weren’t going to have a chance to,” she snapped. “It was Tamghat’s grain, it was all headed for the mountains. And while you’re finding fault here, the conscripts are taking back the town.”

  “I wasn’t finding fault, Mistress Jerusha, I was just saying…” The man shrugged and picked up a spade again. “Well, what’s to stop the Lake-Lord coming back and cutting off all our heads this time, that’s all.”

  “Sera,” she said, which wasn’t the most reassuring answer, Sera having been defeated so thoroughly last time. “And Attalissa.”

  Great Gods, she hung all their lives and the future of her folk on belief in a sickly caravan-guard. She had believed because Mooshka had believed, because he had seen a man he thought he knew turn into a monstrous dog. And because Elsinna stared at her with those glorious amber eyes and said, “Sera will come back.”

  Jerusha sighed. She had never felt so tired in her life. “Have you got the spring clear?”

  “We’re down to rock,” her uncle said. “But it’s dry, bone dry.” Ill-chosen phrase. Maybe it was a physician’s humour.

  A woman heaved out a last scraping of sand and sat down on the rock ledge that had once been the edge of the pool. “Now what? Do we pray?”

  “Water,” Elsinna said. “She’s a goddess. She needs water, not stone.”

  “You a priestess?” Koneh asked warily.

  “No.” Elsinna said it like a curse.

  “There isn’t any water,” Jerusha’s uncle pointed out.

  Elsinna sighed. “Well, get some.”

  “We can’t just dump a jug of water in and say, there, that’s the sacred spring restored,” protested a woman.

  “Why not?” Mooshka demanded suddenly. “Sera bless us, why not? This was a well for the Red Desert nomads and the caravans before ever a brick was laid of Serakallash. And what do the caravaneers do? They bring water in worship of her.”

  “Filthy custom,” someone muttered. “Never understood why the sept-chiefs didn’t stop it. Dumping rotten dregs in from stinking old waterskins, all spit and sand.”

  “Who has water?” Jerusha asked.

  “I’ll bring some from our well.” Koneh led Firebird around, set foot in the stirrup again, and froze. Someone was coming down the path from the town. Blades whispered out all around. The figure came on. It walked with shoulders slumped, feet dragging, and didn’t seem to realize there was anyone before it till Firebird tossed his head and snorted. Then it flinched and looked up, stared around, set hand to sabre.

  “Who’s that?” it demanded.

  The voice was hoarse, but known. “Tusa?” Jerusha asked. “What are you doing here? Your gang’s gone, you know.”

  “I know,” the Grasslander woman said dully. She turned away, as though she would walk down the steep side of the shelving rock to where the saxaul grove had once flourished.

  Mooshka caught her arm. She reeked of stale wine. “You’re drunk,” he said.

  “No. I was, earlier. Now I’m not.”

  “You need to go back to the caravanserai. Sleep.”

  “No.”

  “Is that water or wine?” Jerusha pointed at the gourd on the woman’s belt. Caravaneer’s habit. It might be empty.

  “Water, I guess.”

  “We need it.”

  Tusa untied the thong and handed it over without a questioning word.

  Jerusha shook the gourd. It sloshed.

  Tusa pulled away from Mooshka’s hold on her. “Let me go.”

  “Where are you going?” Jerusha’s uncle asked gently.

  “To the desert.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re dead,” she said.

  “Who’s dead? Gaguush and the gang? They’re not. They’ve gone up to the mountains to give Tamghat the wrong side of your boss’s tongue.”

  “Your husband’s with them,” Mooshka put in. “And on my white filly, too.”

  “My babies are dead. Years dead. They told me the Lake-Lord would find them for me, and that fool of a deputy says the governor’s known they were dead all along. I showed him where to find Pakdhala, I knew that was what I was doing, and it was for nothing. Nothing at all. They’re dead.”

  “Showed who?” Jerusha asked.

  “Tamghat. I’m not a fool. I knew it was a spell when I put it in the fire.”

  “You, mountain woman, you say you brought the goddess with you. Now’s the time, we have water. Give her to us!”

  Jerusha turned to glower at the Sevanim man who had spoken. Dawn wasn’t on them yet, but yellow twilight slid over the horizon ahead of it, enough for him to see her scowl. “Leave her. Elsinna was chosen for this. Elsinna—what now?”

  For a moment Elsinna looked panicked. Then she nodded. “Return Sera to her spring, return water to her…that’s all I can think of.” Under her breath, so that only Jerusha, close by her side, could hear, she added, “Your guess is as good as mine. I said my god was mad, didn’t I? It’s not like he gave me any ritual.”

  The others clustered around as Elsinna untied the shawl that had made a sling from her neck and shoulder, as though she carried a baby. From another shawl she unwrapped a wedge of red sandstone. Even Jerusha hadn’t seen it yet, not since that bloody night when Attavaia, walking on her broken leg, carried it up to Enneas’s deathbed. Her hand hovered over it, not touching.

  Elsinna frowned at the edge of the pool and stepped in, crouched there on the rocks. She ran a hand over them, found the very spot where the stone had been broken, and set it in place. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Then she frowned again, took the st
one out, and laid it at her feet on the seamed and cracked layer of rock from which they had so laboriously dug the sand of years.

  “You said the caravaneers brought water to her. Was there, I don’t know, some hymn they sang, or a prayer? Some proper words?”

  “They say, ‘Water for water,’” Mooshka said, whispering it like it was a prayer. “That’s all.”

  “You do it, Jerusha.”

  “You brought her back.”

  “She’s your goddess. You should do it. Pour it over the stone and wake her.”

  Jerusha twisted the stopper out of the gourd and knelt at the edge of the pool. Caution made her sniff it. Yes, water, not sour wine. Elsinna remained where she was, squatting there, her hand on the lump of stone.

  Jerusha’s hand shook as she sprinkled the water, over the stone, the bottom of the pool, over Elsinna’s fingers. It splattered and made dark stains on the red stone. “Water for water, Sera,” she said. “Wake up. Come back to us. You’re home, and we need you.”

  “Water for water,” Mooshka murmured at her back, and other voices took it up.

  Then silence. Light spread.

  The dark patches on the rocks did too, seeping, almost imperceptibly, from the seams in the stone.

  “Is it—?” her uncle asked.

  Dark patches touched, merged, ran faster to eat up the dry stone.

  Water welled, forming ridges over the cracks. Water rose around Elsinna’s boot-soles, rose high enough to touch her fingertips.

  “Daughter of Narva…”

  Elsinna looked up, startled, and fled the water. She seemed about to bolt through them all and flee. Jerusha caught her. The woman shook in her grip, like a dog in thunder.

  “Be easy, Daughter of Narva. No harm comes to you from me.” Water rose in droplets, in mist and rainbow-sparking spray, into a column, woman-high. Another moment and spray thickened, took colour from the rocks, from the dawn, and became a woman of dark hair and horse-tattooed skin.

  Elsinna dipped her head in a nod, her body rigid as if she braced for some attack.

  Sera looked around them all, looked through each heart with eyes the colour of the sand.

  “But Tamghat is not dead. He rules you still, and Narva knows, Narva has seen what he is. The devils walk among us again and this time they seek to overmaster the gods of the earth. Tamghat is a devil.” The goddess dissolved into spray again. “Why am I woken?”

  “Narva…” Elsinna forced the word out through chattering teeth.

  “But Attalissa has gone back to the mountains,” said Jerusha, with her arm around Elsinna’s shoulders. A devil. That was for tales told against the cold of winter. But they had been defeated in the north, and he was only one, and Attalissa was a goddess and had the Blackdog at her side. And Elsinna’s god must be fearsome, for her to tremble so at even Sera’s presence, as though gods were some monster themselves.

  “Attalissa? What can she do against that? But—I…see.” Sera breathed the words slowly. “I…Narva sees. But what? Elsinna.” She reached a hand, human flesh once more.

  “It’s all right, she won’t hurt you.” Jerusha edged Elsinna forward, and the goddess took her hand. The woman flinched and then, when nothing happened, took a deep breath.

  Then Sera let Elsinna go and she retreated back into Jerusha’s arm again, blinking and astonished.

  “Attalissa is drawn back to her lake and Ghatai’s death or the end of all hope comes in the stone sword. Sera must return to her spring. The time for waiting is past. The dreams are over and the devil in the west will destroy us all. Narva hazards too much that is not his. But…I do see…yes. Tell me, Jerusha Rostvadim, why is the town burning?”

  “That’s…my fault, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes. Last time it was the Blackdog,” Sera said tartly. “At least you have a good reason, I hope?”

  Sera, the back of Jerusha’s mind said, was obviously one of those people who woke up grumpy. She grinned. The goddess, too, suddenly flashed a smile. “Perhaps I am,” she said. “Now answer me.”

  Because I set a warehouse on fire was not the answer the goddess waited to hear.

  “Because we have to rise against him sometime. We fight, the mountains will fight. Attalissa and the Blackdog have come back, and if we do nothing, now, and wait for a better time, we could wait forever. We can’t decide to be slaves.”

  “You would have me face a devil, and die, and leave you all to his mercy?”

  “I don’t know anything about devils, but Tamghat isn’t here. He’s in the mountains, and if…if Attalissa and the Blackdog and that Northron wizard that brought Bikkim back from the dead can’t stop him, then nothing will. Am I right? So what good is there in hiding our strength any longer, or pretending we’re cowed and beaten? We’ll deserve to be his bondfolk, if we don’t try now. We can defeat the Tamghati here and take back the town, move out and take back the sept-lands and the villages, while the Lake-Lord is distracted in the mountains. That’s what we planned, Attavaia and I—we’d aid one another by fighting at once. Well, she’s going to be fighting soon, and if we keep home our young folk forced into Tamghat’s service, and send the Lissavakaili men back where they belong and on Attalissa’s side, then we’re striking at Tamghat twice over, aren’t we? If we fail now, we never had a chance and never would have had, no matter how long we waited. You’d have been forgotten. Most folk think you’re dead. You’d have been dead, lost in the mountains forever, or until Tamghat defeated Elsinna’s god too and found you. If we fight now, at least we’ll die without shame and people won’t call our memory coward and traitor to our heirs. We’ll have tried.”

  Sera frowned, and dissolved into water again. Mooshka put his arm around Jerusha from the other side. Droplets of water rained back into the pool and their ripples stilled. The only sound was the first chiming trickle of the overflow that had fed the stream and the saxauls.

  Then the wind came, clean and warm out of the west, the scent of the desert and the sun-baked grass of the hills with the dew still on it. Dust flew in the wind, sand and earth and rags of leaf, and it spun not into a woman’s body, but a mare the colour of the desert and the hills, a horse of cloud and wind that ran before them. Words floated back.

  “Then let us take back our town, Jerusha Rostvadim.”

  Men and women streamed after her. Even Elsinna left Jerusha’s grasp to follow.

  “Where’s Tusa?” Jerusha searched the departing backs, looked around. “Tusa—the caravan-mercenary—has anyone seen her?”

  No one remaining remembered seeing her after she handed over the water. No one remembered seeing her leave. And out there, the wind was still blowing, raising sand, maybe setting in for a second storm in as many days.

  “Ah, damn.”

  “I’ll go,” Koneh said. “You need to be in the town.” He turned Firebird’s head, but Jerusha caught the bridle.

  “No,” she said. “Two lost in a sandstorm is two dead. She knows the desert. She shouldn’t be a fool.” Out there, the land was ridged and folded, seamed with gullies, riddled with caves. Lots of places to shelter close to town, even if you walked out dull-wit drunk.

  She peered into the distance. The horizon still hung close, a curtain of dust where grass and sand merged. There was no swaying black mound that might be a walking human. Ah, Tusa. Jerusha hardened her heart. She had made too many choices for other people’s deaths this past night. Tusa at least was being a fool of her own choosing. And she was a caravan-mercenary; she knew the desert’s ways.

  Koneh nodded, reluctant, but understanding the truth of what she said, and turned Firebird’s head to town. “I’ll take the news through the caravanserais?”

  “Do.” Jerusha turned her back on the desert as he cantered ahead. At the alleyway into the town, at the back of the hurrying crowd—her army?—Elsinna was waiting. Jerusha ran to overtake.

  The room was dark when Pakdhala drifted to wakefulness again, a darkness relieved by the steady flame of a single butter
-fuelled lamp and the dim silver sheen of moon and water. The bed-curtains had not been drawn, leaving her exposed to the view of her guards, not that she could exactly pile pillows under the quilt and sneak out along the floor beneath their feet, like the hero in a child’s winter-tale. Her eyelids were heavy. Sleep was a great weight, drowning her. But she was a goddess, or she had been once. She could not drown. She would not let herself. By main force she rolled her head sideways on the pillow—she was lying down, tucked in, no longer wearing the heavy gown of red and gold. The girls were gone. Not one had understood her plea for water. To be fair, what else could she expect? They were hostages raised in the temple, educated by Tamghat. If they remembered anything of earlier days, they must have had to bury it, to dissemble, for their own survival. How many of the real sisters were doing likewise? How many would take up sword and spear again if she could call them? She could see one of the guards slouched on a chair, spear leaning on the wall beside her. An owl called outside and the woman turned her head, leather armour creaking.

  How late was it? How much time? Holla-Sayan was not here yet, but soon, surely soon.

  “My lord said you were to sleep.” She hadn’t heard the noekar move, and here she was bent whispering over the bed. “Be a good girl, Your Holiness. Drink your medicine. My lord knows what’s best for you.” A hand was thrust under her neck, raising her head, a cup tilted to her lips. She clenched her teeth. The noekar hissed. “Hey, some help here?”

  The other woman came from the window. The second noekar muttered a perfunctory, “Forgive us, Your Holiness,” and pinched Pakdhala’s nose. Her body took over and opened her mouth to breathe, and the woman caught her jaw and held it, as if they were dosing some recalcitrant beast, while the other tipped the cup, a little at a time. The beer was bitter beneath the sweetness of the honey. She gulped and swallowed, not to choke, and coughed and choked anyway. It burned going down. They poured it all into her, in the end, and wiped her face and sticky neck afterwards, with unfelt apologies. Whether they believed her a goddess or not, they obviously feared their lord too much to show disrespect to his declared bride. If she could somehow gain control of her limbs—they wouldn’t dare hurt her and she could outrun them on the roofs, of that she was certain…And that was the last thought she had.