Trail of Pyres

by L. James Rice

  “Chicken? You’ve an idea what a rooster fetches these days?”

  She sauntered in a horseshoe to avoid the man, but her eyes locked his. “Roasted, raw, still breathing, my buyer pisses silver and has a taste for the blood.” She sighed with a dramatic flare and muttered a prayer for Light and Dark under her breath, savoring the tingles of energy tickling her spine.

  Karu leaned in, cocking her head. “What’d you say?”

  “What I need to know, is did you share in your husband’s silver?”

  Shuffling came fast from behind and Meliu spun. The old man wielded his broom held high like a play sword in a child’s hands. She unleashed the Dark and the man disappeared into shadow. He screeched and collapsed and the broom clattered from his grip.

  She willed the Dark to circle the room, blocking exits, and let the man’s halo recede enough to see his face. Bloodshot eyes stared at her, drool dripping from his lip. “Did she know?” Dark slammed into him when he nodded and she stood, watching. Arms and legs flailed from the shadow, beating the floor, a poisoned bug in a shadow shell. His screams gurgled to an end and she released the Dark, revealing the curled insect’s gnarled limbs and bloodied knuckles from pounding the floor.

  Karu stood trembling and Jile crawled on all fours to get behind the counter.

  “I didn’t know until after, I swear.”

  “I’d like to believe you. But honestly, what I’m going to do to you, might break your mind. You might well prefer to be dead.” The woman’s eyes rolled into her head and she collapsed backward, banging her skull on the floor.

  Meliu broke into laughter and released the well of Dark within her. She strode to the girl behind the counter and offered a hand, helping her shaking legs regain their feet. “I need four chickens in a sack. Do this thing, and you’ve no reason to fear me.” Meliu directed Light into the girl, giving her strength, and Jile’s limbs calmed.

  “You won’t hurt me?”

  “Never mention me to another soul, and you’ll never see me again. Remind Karu of this when she wakes.”

  Jile bolted through the back door and Meliu stepped behind the counter, opened the money box and took the handful of silver within.

  Jile returned carrying a wooden crate stuffed with five speckled gray roosters. “You said alive was good?”

  “I did. And I’m sorry, I do need your dress; a man stained mine with his blood.”

  Meliu stepped from the bakery gowned in an ill fitting but bloodless dress and packing her clucking prize. But she took fewer than a dozen strides before she stopped to the sound of clapping.

  A boy stood in the street with beautiful blue eyes and a smile full of perfect white teeth stretching his face. He applauded three more times, as if she were an actor on a stage. “Well done,” he said in Silone.

  Was the child following her? “Stupid boy, I gave you a roll, didn’t mean I loved you or gave a horse’s shit about you.”

  She turned her back on the youngster’s nonplussed smile, but cut her steps short at the tone in his voice, but it was the words that stopped her heart. “I’ve been beaten and spat upon, cursed to every corner of the Twelve Hells, and tasted the Maimer’s Lash—”

  She spun and her roosters squawked in their cage. “Liar. A pissin’ child—”

  “I’ve even been killed to rise again.” He smiled at what she knew must be an aghast look on her face. “We never could beat the villager vulgarity from your tongue, a brilliant scholar but forever the daughter of a simple cook. Still, we never gave up on you, and you’ve grown into a remarkable soul.”

  Meliu looked around, desperate. For what, help? Damned near everyone in this town was an enemy. But the scattered people in the street strolled by, giving them berth, but not so much as glancing at them, let alone seeming to hear a word the two spoke. Oblivious gazes, she and the boy might as well have been two clods of dirt in an otherwise empty street. It wasn’t natural. She set the crate down. “Who the hells are you, Ulrikt or some abomination?”

  “A name can be as much a lie as more ordinary words, or even appearances, wouldn’t you agree? How long since you donned the robes of who you are? The only words that do not lie are those of the gods. Which brings me to my gift for you.”

  “I am not what I wear.” Meliu glared, hoping he felt the heat. She’d never believed the rumors of the Lord Priest’s Face, but how to deny the truth while staring into the kind blue eyes of this boy, eyes so similar to the gentle gaze of Ulrikt as he healed her scars. For the first time, she found it easy to believe. But the images of carnage and blood were too fresh for forgiveness, despite the innocent smile of a child, and the grateful memories of an old man healing her beauty. “I don’t know how you could be the man… but if, all those dead, you killed them. I want nothing from you.”

  “Yes you do.” He smirked as if he knew her better than she knew herself. “You wish to understand.” He’d won, she couldn’t walk away. The boy slung a pack from his shoulder, her haversack, holding it out for her.

  “How the hells?”

  “The heavens and hells all work toward a single goal from different directions. Please, take it. Your coins are there, your robes. A dagger, if you still think you need it.”

  She snagged the haver and knew right off it was too heavy. “What else?” He smirked and pointed to the sack. She growled under her breath, but the snarl died the moment the strings loosened to reveal the boy’s gift: A heavy tome with a lock, but the steel clasp dangled open.

  She knew the book well, she’d spent days with it clutched to her bosom, sleeping with it beneath her head before handing it to Woxlin in Istinjoln. “The Codex of Sol.”

  “The original, no translations. Pure and clean, left to you to interpret and ponder, to understand.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “At what cost?”`

  “Your innocence?” He giggled as the child he appeared. “And I desire you reacquaint yourself with the Choerkin.” He held his hand high to end her coming protest. “If you find Sol’s words inspiring, follow his will, if you find them so onerous, tell the Choerkin, reveal that Lord Priest Ulrikt still walks amongst the people... that he wishes them no ill, if you’d be so generous.”

  She ripped the book from the haversack and tossed it to the ground at his feet, a billow of dust rising. “Keep your book. The Choerkin won’t take me in.”

  He picked it up, brushing dirt from its cover. “You aren’t Ivin’s enemy, dear girl. He’ll have more than his share of those soon, and more formidable than me. It’d be a shame to leave such a valuable piece of history sitting in the street.” He puffed dust from the crannies of its cover and held it out, but she folded her arms. “Come now, child. The Codex etches curiosity across your face, take it, I beseech of you.”

  Meliu snorted and grabbed it from him, flipped the book open, forgetting to breathe as she set eyes on text she’d only dreamed of reading while bed-ridden with fever weeks ago. The words lay scrawled across the pages with pristine penmanship, but the characters may as well have been ink blobs. Hundreds of pages dense with words. “It’ll take months to decipher this.”

  “Longer to grasp its depths, perhaps a lifetime, but you are a bright girl. You will know enough to make a reasoned decision. The book is yours now, do with it as you will.”

  She closed the book with a thump, holding it out for him to reclaim. “Thousands died because of these words.”

  The boy nodded with a sigh. “To say things didn’t go as planned would be heavenly generous, but it was only one of a multitude of possible endings, so many of which would have been more pleasant. Others, more bloody.”

  “Our people driven from their homes by demons, you can justify this horror?”

  “No, I can’t.” He tapped the book. “But this just might. Thousands died, the rest driven from their homes, as you say, but you’ve read the histories of war, how many more might’ve died? Were the horrors any worse? Maybe yes, maybe no. Read, and the next time we speak, you tell me.” He held out a
brass key. “In case you’d prefer it locked.”

  Meliu clutched the tome and nabbed the key. “We won’t need to speak again.”

  The boy grinned and cocked his head. “Oh, we will. Maybe before you even know it’s me.”

  He turned and walked away, and as he mingled with a gaggle of buyers outside a vendor’s tent, she noted eyes trained on her for the first time since beginning the conversation. Ulrikt, the Face of Ulrikt, whoever the hells this boy was, he was powerful beyond her imagining, and the notion of him being able to turn up anywhere as anyone…

  She stood straight, slipping the book and key into the haver and slinging it over her shoulder. She hefted the chickens and groaned: her load grew heavy.

  She walked, thinking, cussing to herself, cussing at the chickens and her weakening arms. Cussing Ulrikt. He might be able to snuff her life with a prayer, but the hells if she was going to do his bidding. She puffed her chest and strode from the town gates with guards looking at her tasty chickens instead of her face, and made a quick turn southeast.

  She’d translate the book, the temptation was undeniable as eating to stay alive, but to get close to Ivin again she’d need reveal herself, a dangerous proposition.

  Dangerous? Hells, had she forgotten the last few candles already? If the Choerkin accepted her… or the good looking Emudar… She cut the thought off, but grinned anyhow. But most everyone hated priests now, and for reasons she found hard to argue. They might blame her, she’d returned the book to Istinjoln.

  She rounded the corner of the town’s wall heading due south, and a nervousness fell across her like a cloud. She felt it before she could explain it, the hushed voices, the hunched shoulders of folks ducking into tents as if hiding from a thunderstorm, the glances south with the hunted eyes of rabbits.

  Meliu trotted to an empty wagon, set her roosters in the bed, and climbed to its seat, stretching to tiptoes, craning her neck to see. On a high hill to the south, where yesterday there had only been blowing grasses, the dark masses of horses and warriors milled in the midst of green banners. Not just a scattered few, a shadowed living wall spread along the entire southern horizon, thousands, an army. The good news, they weren’t charging, not yet.

  She leaped from the wagon, her knees weak and uncertain, mumbling to herself. “They’ve more enemies. We. We’ve got more enemies.”

  She nabbed her crate of birds, turning toward the Choerkin tents and those of the smiths. Several deep breaths steadied her nerves. Maybe being a priest wasn’t so much more dangerous after all.

  11

  Wind Break on the Rise

  What did I see in the Righteous Eyes…

  a reflection of self, a deflection of truth,

  a determination to prove myself right

  even when the eyes know I’m wrong.

  So you say, so I do not. No. Yes. At your behest.

  Look into my eyes, witness your own lies.

  –Tomes of the Touched

  Solineus dreamed of the Lady often, but the visions were flat and her words incoherent. Snakes or rats or even white bears came from nowhere to chase him, but he couldn’t run. In his dreams there was never peace, only fear, panic, and cold sweats.

  Tonight was different. He rested calm with his arms spread, the knobby bones of his ankles touching with straight legs, and when warmth brushed over his skin he was no longer alone.

  “You’ve been gone a while.”

  “I’m always with you, my love.”

  “So you say.” Solineus chortled, the sound of his voice warbling through the wavering blue universe. “I failed.”

  “The girls live, you live. A single hard line should never define the difference between success and failure.”

  “Ulrikt? Eliles?”

  “They live too, each in their own way. Much depends on one’s perspective.”

  He struggled against the weight of the rippling, cool universe, but his legs remained pinned at the ankles and his arms spread. Not that they were real. What the hells was real here? “You knew I’d fail. And no horse shit about lines, you sent me to kill the lord priest.”

  She sighed and faded from view before her hair reemerged draped over his shoulder, her face beside his, her head laying on his arm. Her smile was warm and reassuring, her whisper heating his ear with a breath. “Hush, sweet warrior. Failure may be as fleeting as victory. Events didn’t unfold as I wished, but you must understand there are forces aligned against me, us, not all of them do I understand. It is enough for now to live, to know the future is still alive in those two girls and the Choerkin.”

  “Alu and Kinesee, why’re they important? To you, I mean. Why risk so much for them?”

  The lady smiled, pursed her lips and kissed him on the nose. “Because you care so much for them. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No. I get why I risked my life, but if I’m your tool why risk me?”

  Her eyes narrowed and lips spread in mock offense. “Which are you, a hammer or a shovel?”

  “A sword.”

  She chortled, her breath tickling his ear, sultry and seductive. “I need you to help Ivin Choerkin forget the girl.”

  It was his turn to glare, and there was nothing mocking in his tone. “Eliles, I couldn’t… how, why?”

  The lady sighed. “He’s never getting back to her, a mortal will never pass those fires alive. He will need to grow, to seize his own worth, he is important.”

  “You talk a whole lot about folks being important, but I don’t reckon you’ll tell me why.”

  “You understand why Ivin’s important, you’ve seen in it him.”

  Solineus figured he knew her mind: People followed the boy by nature, despite Ivin not wanting the command. If the day came when Ivin the boy grew into Ivin the man, and took command, he might be the leader the Choerkin needed. “He’s a good man.”

  “Not just a good man. A good heart. A good soul.”

  “I forgot my life before washing ashore, but I sure as hells can’t make him forget Eliles.”

  “Not forget, no one lives long enough to forget a love. Forget the romantic notion of making a life with a woman he can’t have. To remember that he is a man with a people.”

  Solineus didn’t know whether to take her at her word, but arguing was pointless. But neither would he do as she asked. “Tell me your name?”

  She grinned at him with perfect teeth and put a finger to his lips as the universe faded. “One last thing, beware the Craven Raven. He will have his eyes on you, not yet, but soon.”

  Blue faded into black and grays as his eyes fluttered open, staring at the elk-hide roof of his tent. More light than he expected slipped through cracks of the flap. The Lady had kept him asleep longer than normal. He glanced about the tent, the girls and the goat had already left, finding breakfast with the Ravinrin, no doubt. He was happy the girls had a woman’s influence.

  He rose to his feet with a deep breath, stretched. His ears caught the sound of bustling feet and he sniffed the air, his cheeks twitching. Something was amiss. He pulled on his trousers and was halfway into his leather gambeson when the flap of his tent flipped open. A familiar face ducked through the breach.

  Puxele said, “We’ve got visitors, a whole godsdamned mess of ‘em.”

  Solineus shifted his gear, slipping mail over leather and slinging the Twins over his shoulder. He tucked his new lobster tailed helmet under his arm. “Where’re the Choerkin boys?”

  “Outside the main tent staring at our guests.”

  He stepped into the morning sun. A tense air hung over the camp, and it didn’t take long to see why. A dozen green banners stood staked on the ridge of the southern hill, no more than half a horizon from camp. The Hidreng came early and in force.

  Puxele led him to the southern edge of the tents where Ivin, Roplin, and Polus stood amid a nervous throng. Solineus squinted to the hill as he shuffled through folks, noting gleams of polished steel on the cavalry. “Armored horse. We got a count on how many our good frien
d the overseer brought for breakfast?”

  Roplin answered. “Four hundred horse we’re hearing, but no count on how many are armored. Two, three thousand footmen, word is. They’re still trailing in.”

  Polus spit and ground the tobacco into the grass. “Pissin’ bastards ain’t leavin’ much to chance.”

  Ivin said, “We’d be dead they wanted us that way.”

  Solineus asked, “The Ravinrin boy here yet? Well”—Solineus nudged through the men.—“Ivin, Polus. I reckon there’s no cause to be rude.” He strode forward into open ground, the other two men trotting to catch him.

  Polus asked, “He shittin’ serious? Is he always this way?”

  Ivin said, “Far as I can tell. I won’t bother to ask if you have a plan.”

  Solineus chuckled. “Of course I got a plan. We talk, or we kill as many of them we can before we die.”

  Polus said, “Mmm. Yer one crazy son of a bitch.” He spat. “I was hopin’ to outlive my third wife so I could marry a fourth. Startin’ to think I ain’t makin’ it with you ‘round.”

  “Likely as not she’d thank me.”

  Polus laughed. “Most times you might be right, but she’s expectin’ our third and would be plum angered if I got out of this world without wipin’ her ass once.”

  Ivin asked, “Her?”

  “Irose is convinced we’ll have that daughter she’s wanted, I humor her.”

  They crested a small rise, between the city of Inster and the Hidreng army, and Solineus stopped. “We meet him half way, like he did us.”

  Ivin said, “You can’t be sure Iro is even here.”

  “Nope, but he is. Sure as Polus here is about to piss his trousers.”

  The Broldun guffawed, but there was a nervous ring in his voice. “Ain’t pissed m’self since I drank half a keg several Eves past, couldn’t untie my damned britches, so drunk.”