by A A Woods
“Your report?” Yokan asked.
Something red fluttered in the mountain breeze. With the instinct of a wild thing, Yokan caught the object Denaya threw at her.
It was a hood.
Yokan stared at it.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the tunnels,” Denaya answered as her stag shifted restlessly. The southern warriors had never quite mastered Ebonal mounts, and a nervous, questioning distance still separated Denaya and her steed.
Yokan ran the wool of the hood through her fingers.
“Check the inner pocket,” Denaya said, jerking her chin.
Frowning, Yokan fished out a slim letter, folded in half. The paper was creamy and white as snow, marked in graceful swirls of high-quality ink.
Yokan ran a finger around the seal.
It was the mark of that bitch who ran Jemelle. Yokan had seen it before, on the letters they had intercepted when raiding Durchemin.
Yokan leapt off Aed, keeping a firm hold on the letter and the red hood. Denaya watched impassively as she grabbed one of the prisoners, yanking the man forwards.
He was a Collector, the slimiest of all Delasir settlers. One of Yokan’s raiding parties had captured him transporting six Ebonal virgins through the mountains, destined for the Convent of Others. Yokan had taken great pleasure in giving him the open slash that ran down one side of his face.
“Read it,” Yokan said, thrusting the letter at him.
“Suck my cock,” he growled, spitting on Yokan’s boots.
For a moment, she just smiled. This man’s arrogance had been fueled by power, by the fear of frightened little girls taken from their homes. With the armed support of Delasir soldiers and a red hood and her pack of dogs, it was true that this Collectors was likely a force to be approached with caution. Once. But now, without all those fancy weapons and obedient slaves, this man stood in front of her as if he had nothing to be afraid of.
She grinned.
Slowly, languidly, Yokan pulled the man’s bound wrists towards her. With her free hand, she drew a tiny, slender blade from her belt buckle, its bone handle decorated with flecks of obsidian. It was a strange knife, shaped like a snapped reed. Yokan had requested it specifically. Designed it herself.
Holding the man’s hands tenderly in her own, Yokan tilted her head. Still he glared at her, waiting for her to ask again so he could refuse.
But polite negotiation was a thing of his world.
And he was in her territory now.
With a single, smooth motion, Yokan jammed the knife beneath the nail of his middle finger, all the way up to the hilt.
The man’s shriek echoed through the gully. A flock of birds exploded out of a nearby Goddeau tree. Yokan twisted the knife and his scream echoed again. Behind him, one of the prisoners fell to the ground, heaving.
“Every time you refuse,” Yokan said, offering him the letter again. “I will hurt another finger.”
The man was still screaming, staring at his hands as if surprised they could cause him so much agony.
She smiled wider.
This pampered creature from across the sea knew nothing of pain. But it was a language she spoke fluently, one she relished in teaching to others. Grabbing the knife to get his attention, she held the letter up to his face.
“What does it say?”
“I-It’s an edict of free passage,” he panted, breathless. “Signed by Grand Mera!”
“And that means…?”
“It means that you can go anywhere,” the man said, his words tumbling out. “It allows whoever is carrying it to go in and out of Jemelle without being arrested.”
“It was found in a dropped hood. What does that mean?”
When he didn’t answer, she jerked the knife. The man screamed again, throwing his head back.
“Pull it out! Pull it out!”
“I imagine there are girls who say that in your Convent,” Yokan growled, pressing even harder. “Do you think anyone listens to them?” She clucked her tongue as the man’s voice began to tear.
“It was probably given to whoever wore it!” the man cried, his eyes watering. “It’s a way for them to travel without an escort! Please, that’s all I know!”
“So whoever wears this can enter Jemelle without questioning?”
“I think so! I don’t know, just please, stop!”
Yokan yanked the knife free. Blood spurted from the man’s finger as he collapsed into the snow, snot and tears streaming down his face in rivers. Yokan didn’t look at him, her attention instead on the letter, the hood.
A plan was moving into place like shifting ice plates.
Was it possible that so much could be solved by such a little thing?
“Tell me, Denaya,” Yokan said, stepping up to the edge of their vantage point, gazing towards the ocean where she knew Tuleaux bulged like a fat insect, “When is their holiday? That festival to honor the first settlers?”
“Two days from now,” Denaya answered.
“Well then, my friend,” Yokan said, her lips curving into a smile as wicked as her blade, “we have work to do.”
Chapter Nineteen: What Could Have Been
Carlette rubbed her wrists as she watched one of the Moians struggle to pick the lock on Tuk’s manacles.
“Dirt,” said the man, gesturing at the lock hole. “Much dirt.”
“Yeah, well, we haven’t exactly been strolling through the park here,” Tuk muttered.
The Moian shook his head, shrugging.
“He doesn’t speak Delarese,” said Byrna’s father, who had now introduced himself with a long, complicated Moian title that loosely translated to Roland Cloud-Death. When Carlette had asked him what the name meant, he had simply shrugged and said, “Reputations seem to make themselves, don’t they?”
“How did you learn to speak it?” Carlette asked. Byrna watched them from the other side of the platform, arms crossed, smirking as Tabis’s feelers played with her dirty hair.
“Missionaries,” Roland said, signaling to someone in the trees. “The Church of the Hand is very generous with their lessons. For a while at least.”
“It’s illegal for them to be out here alone,” Carlette said.
“That’s illegal for you as well,” said Roland with a sly smile. “And yet here you are.”
Carlette bit her lip. “Are the preachers still in your city?”
A darkness passed over Roland’s face.
“No,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “They are no longer welcome.”
Carlette wasn’t listening, though, because at that moment six huge sionaches landed on the deck, their huge claws scraping against the wood. Carlette swallowed a gasp as Tuk scrambled out of their way.
The Moian’s flying foxes were marvelous to behold; three times the size of anything bred beneath Jemelle, their fur gleamed and their limbs were strong and sure. On each fox sat a warrior, knees gripping the edges of molded leather saddles. Black bandanas were tied around their mouths and from their belts hung slingshots, throwing knives, and poisoned darts.
Carlette exchanged a look with Tuk, struggling to hide how impressed she was.
The man who was supposed to be picking Tuk’s lock threw his hands in the air, shaking his head at Roland.
“Well, son,” said the Moian leader with a half-laugh. “It looks like you’re stuck in those for the time being. We’ll visit our blacksmith later, but he’s on ground level. Can’t have him lighting fires up in our trees, eh?”
Tuk stood, grinning up at the nearest towering sionach. “Does we get to ride those?”
Roland laughed.
“Airmen,” he said, patting a flank as its rider leapt to the deck. “Always ready to leap into the skies.”
Tuk shrugged, his smile sheepish, but Roland had turned away to give orders, gesturing at the six riders. Byrna strode forward, her knees bouncing.
“What’s going on?” Carlette asked, gaze pointedly avoiding the bleeding paw tattoo.
Byrna’s eyes glittered.
“You wanted to see what we fight for. Now stop picking your ass and get on.”
· · ─────── ·❅· ─────── · ·
The foxes moved like blowing clouds, almost silent as they leapt from branch to branch. Carlette had to swallow a cry every time the one beneath her spread its arms, coiled its muscles, and soared to the next tree. But the trip was as smooth as a dream and soon she began to relax, enjoying the wind in her face and the gentle rustle of leaves each time they landed.
Tuk shouted behind her, “This is amazing!”
She fought the urge to laugh.
Ahead of them, Byrna rode Tabis, the gigantic cairog keeping an impressive pace as it skittered through the canopy. Carlette caught glimpses of the glistening black exoskeleton through the branches, and every so often a cluster of birds would burst out, spooked by Tabis’s pincers.
Roland led them deeper into the forest, riding his own sionach with an easy, majestic grace. But where were they going? What could they show Carlette that would convince her to abandon everything she’d ever known?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
Suddenly, they were rising. Gliding into the vast canopy of a beastly tree, all knots and whorls. Carlette watched Byrna’s cairog vanish into the thick foliage. And then they were plunging in behind her. Trees scraped at Carlette’s face, but the borrowed bandana kept her mouth safe. The sionach launched up, into a wide opening nestled in the heart of the Goddeau tree.
Carlette leaned out to get a better view.
On a wide deck, built into the tree’s open palm, was a building. It was open, airy, and hung with woven reeds and brown leathers that fluttered in the breeze. Movement caught Carlette’s eye, and she realized that the platform was teeming with small bodies. Children laughing, playing, tumbling over one another. And, all around them, infant sionaches rolling between the children’s legs. Carlette watched one little boy reach out and touch the nose of a striped fox, happiness radiating from both bodies.
The whole forest seemed to envelop this place, holding it like a treasure.
Carlette’s rider pulled up short at a lowered area of the platform. It was an unloading area, with built-in steps to make it easy to dismount the massive beasts. Carlette stumbled off, ignoring Roland’s offered hand and Byrna’s knowing smirk. She knew her mouth was open, but she couldn’t close it.
Tuk eyes darted between the children and Carlette’s awestruck expression, but he couldn’t see what she did. Couldn’t feel what she did. Because to Carlette, who was woven into the world like thread in a tapestry, it was so much more than just children, more than young Moian warriors being trained to ride.
It was magic.
Roland stepped up to her as the instructors called out, organizing the chaos with nothing more than a smile and a touch. One cackling youngster made a run for the edge of the deck, his sionach bouncing along behind him, only to get scooped up by a laughing woman.
“What do you think?” Roland asked with a sideways glance.
“They’re… happy,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice.
Such a simple word.
In Jemelle, students might have bouts of happiness, moments of joy. Snowball fights, mud pits, playing tag in the main square. But these brief reprieves were broken by sneering guards, interrupted by brutal training sessions. Tainted, always, by the bleak architecture of their lives.
Here, though, there was no undertow of fear or loneliness. No thrum of noxious hate. Just children, playing with their friends, cared for by people who loved them.
She fell to her knees.
“I imagine this feels a bit different than where you grew up,” Roland said in a gentle voice, crouching next to her.
“A school’s a school,” Tuk said from somewhere very far off.
Carlette was drowning.
A hand came down on her shoulder.
“This is why we fight your Collectors,” Roland said, gesturing to a tiny girl as she giggled, toddling toward a grinning warrior. “This is why my people hate yours. We do not seek bloodshed, only the means to stop it.”
“All the settlers know is blood and death,” Byrna broke in, sitting on the railing as Tabis nuzzled her elbow. “We must speak their language to be heard.”
“Anyone can learn a new tongue,” Roland said.
Stay the path.
Did Grand Mera know about this? About the stark contrast between Jemelle and this? Did she know that there was another way to live?
Suddenly, options burst in front of Carlette like lightning strikes, one right after the other. Delasir could trade with the natives, contract their help for the war. Imagine what could be accomplished; Delasir’s technological might paired with Ferrenese magic. Finding Caika would be easy with the help of Ceillan pirates. The Wandering Pass could be secured with mountain stags. Everything could be so much better.
And the war itself?
If Roland had given her a new view of Moians, Tuk had done that and more for Nurkaij. He was nothing like the soldier she’d expected. He was kind. Brave. Loyal. She knew in her soul that she couldn’t hand him over, and if she wouldn’t do that…
Carlette glanced at him, emotion welling.
Maybe there was another way there too.
She shook her head. These ideas were foolish, dangerously naïve. But how could she ignore them? Maybe the only way to bring about a better world was to believe, stupidly, that it was possible, to be a fool.
She shoved to her feet.
“What would you have me do?” Carlette asked unsteadily.
“I would have you join us,” said Roland with a smile. “Learn our ways. And help us try to speak with the leaders of your city. Perhaps they will listen to you.”
Byrna released an explosive breath.
“Father, that’s pointless,” she said, throwing out her hands. “You know the Magistrate won’t listen to a hood. If we come to them whining for peace, they will fuck us to death.”
“Violence will only ever create more violence,” Roland said, facing his daughter.
Byrna grinned, a savage expression. “Exactly.”
“Glad she’s on our side,” Tuk muttered under his breath. “I think.”
“I serve Voka,” Byrna went on.
“She’s dead.”
“No she’s not,” Byrna said, her eyes shifting to Carlette. “Not yet.”
“I need to think,” Carlette cut in. “Please.”
Roland paused and then, at last, nodded. Turning to the six riders, he said, “Take them home. And leave them alone.” The last order was directed right at his daughter.
Byrna leapt onto her cairog, face twisted in a scowl.
“These whelps will know war, father,” she said, gesturing at the children. “They’ll know that we failed them. Unless we act soon.”
“Go home, Byrna,” Roland said.
But, as Carlette mounted behind her own rider and the sionach carried them away, she allowed a private thought to bubble inside her, a thought she would never speak aloud.
What if Byrna was right?
· · ─────── ·❅· ─────── · ·
When they landed back on the deck around Roland’s cabin, two burly figures were waiting for them out front. As tall as Tuk and twice as wide, the Moian men were identical in every way except for the color of their bandana—one forest green, the other murky brown.
Byrna leapt from her cairog and hit the deck running, sprinting towards them.
“You fuckers!”
Carlette’s eyes widened as the two men tackled Byrna to the ground. She disappeared under their massive bulk and for a moment Carlette wondered if they’d killed her. Then, suddenly, her head popped free and the three of them were hugging and laughing and pulling down their bandanas. All three jabbered away in cheerful Moian as Carlette dismounted.
“Is that how they greet each other here?” Tuk said, massagin
g his wrists. They’d been rubbed raw, the skin beneath his manacles pink and bleeding.
“Maybe they’re… related?” Carlette answered, eyeing the tangle of arms and legs.
“I just hope they don’t do it to one of us. They’d crush you flat.”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
“I know that,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But look at those two. They could bring down any of our airships just by grabbing hold.”
“I’d like to see that,” Carlette said with a smile.
Tuk glanced at her, his brown cheeks pink. And she felt a change in the air. A thrilling, intoxicating, bone-deep thrum, almost imperceptible but for the way it changed everything.
Dangerous.
Carlette shifted her body away from Tuk.
“I’m sure airships are amazing to behold,” she said in a stiff voice.
“The most beautiful things in the world,” Tuk said, rubbing his neck with a rueful expression. “Damn, I miss flying.”
Carlette wanted to ask more, to learn about Tuk’s past and how he could possibly enjoy being so high in the air, but they were interrupted by Byrna shoving toward them.
“These two mammoths,” Byrna said, punching one on the arm, “Are my brothers. And they’ll be guarding the house.”
“Thank you,” Carlette said.
“For what? You try to escape and they’ll rip your guts out,” Byrna said with a grin, as if relishing the idea. “With their hands.”
“I thought you were loyal to Voka,” Carlette said.
“I’m loyal, not stupid,” Byrna said. “Now get inside. I’m bored of you, and when I get bored, I tend to kill things.”
Tuk snorted.
“I pity the man who catches your eye,” Tuk said as the two hulking men led them inside.
“Oh, don’t worry.” Byrna waggled her fingers. “I don’t like Nuri. Sand in the bloodstream, ruins the taste.”
And with an echoing cackle that made Carlette’s hair stand on end, Byrna shut the door and locked them inside.
Carlette found a shaped bit of wood protruding from the wall and sank onto it, rubbing her face.
