Heartland

by Lucy Hounsom

  Into the camp strode a heavy-shouldered man clad in the same red plate as the others, but from the way the soldiers suddenly scurried to attention, Kyndra guessed he was someone important. A cloak the colour of carnelian hung down to his spurred heels and the helmet tucked under his arm was hammered into a monstrous visage. There was a woman behind him, her pauldrons engraved with some kind of bird.

  A female soldier hurried forward, bent her knee to both newcomers and thumped her fist to her shoulder. The two returned her salute and the soldier rose to her feet. She began to speak rapidly, pointing towards Kyndra and the others.

  Immediately Kyndra shut her eyes. She lay there, tensed in her bonds, hearing their footfalls coming nearer and nearer. The urge to look was overwhelming, but she couldn’t reveal herself, not until she knew their intentions. A shadow blocked the firelight; she could see it through her closed eyelids. The footfalls stopped and Kyndra expected to be touched, but the shadow remained where it was and she could only imagine the three Sartyans staring down at her.

  ‘Where did you find them?’ the man asked. His accent was rounded, a little more precise than that of the villagers.

  ‘Asha,’ a woman’s voice replied. ‘The elder claimed they came from Rairam.’ She laughed and the footfalls moved away as the Sartyans took their conversation elsewhere. Kyndra cursed silently. If only she could hear what was being said …

  Ansu knows.

  Kyndra went cold. Was the thought hers, or some vestige of Kierik, whose memories lurked in a distant corner of her mind? He’s dead, she reminded herself, he can’t speak to me. But sometimes it felt like he could, as if the madman were able to reach out from the past, to look through her eyes, to comment on the things she saw. Would it be the same for someone else one day? When she was dust and another Starborn walked the world, would Kyndra linger on in their head – an unwelcome shade of days long dead?

  Ansu knows. Yes, Ansu would know, but it meant opening the dark door, crossing into the void, travelling its chill reaches until she found the star that could lend her the power to sharpen her hearing.

  I don’t want them. I didn’t choose this. Kyndra remembered speaking those words a short time ago … and look where they had led her. Shika was dead and her friends were captured, likely about to be killed. She didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t just her life that hung in the balance.

  Before her courage failed, she steeled herself, focusing as best she could. Every time it was a little easier, finding the black door buried in her mind.

  As she opened herself to the void, awareness of her surroundings dissolved. Once more she stood on the black pathway under the chill regard of the stars. How could she find Ansu? She was never sure. Unlike the Wielders and their years of training, she relied on the stars to aid her. But they were oddly silent tonight – a challenge, she guessed. They would keep her in the void as long as they could, knowing that every moment she spent in this soulless waste meant she became a little more like them, a little less like the girl from Brenwym.

  As it is supposed to be. One voice, numberless.

  She cursed them, knowing they could hear her. Very well. Emotion was already fading, taking all thoughts of Brenwym with it. She was here for a reason.

  Kyndra began walking. It was not really walking, but a series of seamless steps, as she searched countless constellations for Ansu. But there were hundreds of constellations, thousands. The sky was too vast, too full of itself. If she carried on this way, it would take an infinite number of years, and in that time, the world would wither around her.

  She had to stop thinking like a human.

  Call, Starborn, Kierik seemed to say. Who serves whom?

  They will not serve me, she thought. Why should they?

  I am their instrument. Without me, all their power is useless. She didn’t know whether it was Kierik or her own subconscious that spoke. Perhaps now they were one and the same and it didn’t matter. She understood.

  The stars blazed all around her. The cold of the void pulsed in her bones. Ansu, she commanded, trusting to Kierik’s knowledge that the star could not refuse the summons.

  A light grew on one horizon, dimmer than Austri and paler than Hagal. Ansu was ancient and small. Unlike Sigel, it did not rave or clamour for ruin. It merely hung, burning, reaching out with long fingers of light for the Starborn’s hand.

  Kyndra took it and –

  ‘The peasant believed it rebel rubbish.’

  Kyndra was back in her body, peeping through narrowed eyes and holding fast to Ansu. The soldiers were still too far away for her to hear them naturally, but the star’s power sharpened her hearing to the point where she heard other sounds too, all the scrapes and chirps of the night. She filtered them out, only half able to focus on what was being said. The other half of her had to concentrate on maintaining the connection to Ansu and it wasn’t easy, not when she was trying to hold on to herself too.

  ‘Sir?’ asked the female soldier. ‘What is it?’

  The man had paled, noticeable even in the shadows that spilled out of the firelight. He turned and Kyndra shut her eyes again, imagining his intense gaze on her apparently unconscious form. He didn’t scoff like the other soldiers. Did that mean he believed they had come from Rairam?

  ‘General Hagdon?’ the soldier said and Kyndra felt a thrill. A Sartyan general here – possibilities spilled into her mind, almost breaking her hold on Ansu. This was the man who would lead the Sartyan Fist into her home, should the emperor decide to invade. He had the emperor’s ear. If Kyndra could convince him that Mariar was not a threat –

  ‘Yes, excuse me,’ she heard him say. Kyndra cracked open her eyes in time to see him turn to the woman with the birds – hawks, she thought – on her armour. ‘These prisoners could serve well, Iresonté. Perhaps they’ll go some way to appeasing His Imperial Majesty when he hears what happened at Khronosta.’

  Iresonté wore unruffled arrogance like a mantle. ‘We’ve spoken of this, Hagdon. You think he will excuse your failure so easily?’

  ‘My failure?’ The man clenched his fists, as furious as Iresonté was calm. ‘You sabotaged the mission and killed five hundred of my men in the process. Do you want me dead so badly?’

  ‘A wild story,’ she answered, ‘to cover your folly. I pulled the stealth force out of there before we shared your fate.’

  ‘A fate you engineered.’ Anger mottled Hagdon’s cheeks. ‘You betrayed us, Iresonté. You alerted the dualakat to our presence and you left us to die.’

  ‘A good general admits his mistakes, Hagdon.’ She smiled coldly. ‘And he learns from them.’

  ‘I’ve learned never to place my trust in you again.’

  ‘Ah,’ Iresonté said. ‘But you trust so easily, James. Even those who give you no reason to. Your nephew paid a heavy price for your trust.’

  Hagdon’s eyes darkened with a frightening kind of emptiness. For a moment, it seemed he would strike her. Perhaps Iresonté realized she had gone too far for she quickly turned to the other woman.

  ‘His Imperial Majesty will not take this defeat well,’ she said. ‘Whatever Hagdon claims, the fact remains that we failed. The Davaratch is not a forgiving man.’

  ‘Which is why I’ll take your prisoners,’ Hagdon said. ‘If what they claim is true …’

  ‘One got away,’ the soldier informed him. ‘An aberration.’

  Kyndra lay quite still, closed her eyes and hoped they wouldn’t notice the sweat beading her face. Holding on to Ansu was taking all of her strength and she could feel it ebbing. The memory of losing control of Hagal seized her and, suddenly afraid, Kyndra relinquished her grip on the star. It felt as if she fell from an impossible height to crash back into her aching body and pounding head. She gave an involuntary groan.

  Although she now knew what the Sartyans planned to do with them, the knowledge was no comfort. Hagdon would take them to the Davaratch and Kyndra didn’t need to hear the fear in the soldiers’ voices to tell her that the emperor
was a dangerous man. She couldn’t afford to meet him as a prisoner. That would give altogether the wrong impression. And what did the female soldier mean when she referred to Medavle as an aberration?

  One thing was clear to her: the Sartyans must not discover that Nediah and the others were anything out of the ordinary. If a group of Wielders could be subdued so easily, what did that say about Mariar? The emperor would see it as a country ripe for the taking.

  The Sartyans’ conversation grew even fainter. Kyndra opened her eyes again and saw them moving towards the fire. The aroma of roasting meat wafted to where she lay, starving and thirsty on the hard ground. Her stomach gave an angry rumble.

  Nediah was awake. That was something. Irilin and Kait lay still, but even if they were just pretending to sleep, they’d be feeling as ill as she: none of them were in a position to fight their way free.

  ‘Kyndra.’

  The voice seemed to come from all around her, out of the air, the ground, the night itself. So Medavle hadn’t abandoned her after all.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ his voice asked.

  Kyndra nodded her head a fraction, hoping he was close enough to catch the movement.

  ‘About time you showed, Yadin.’ That was Kait, and Kyndra suppressed a sigh of relief. She kept an eye on the Sartyans, hearing the small clatter of dislodged stones somewhere behind her. With a minute turn of her head, she spotted a Medavle-shaped shadow, as if the Yadin were cut out of darkness. He bent over her and the ropes binding her wrists and ankles fell away. Blood rushed into cramped limbs and Kyndra bit her lip at the pain. Slowly, carefully, she rose onto her hands and knees.

  The leaping flames of the fire slapped Medavle’s outline onto the flat rock behind him. If a soldier looked up now, they surely couldn’t miss seeing the one shadow that didn’t dance alongside the rest. ‘Can you fight, if you have to?’ he whispered and Kyndra realized he was speaking to Irilin.

  The young woman nodded. Her eyes were bright, fever-bright. She didn’t look well. Nediah was staring fixedly at her, his face whitening. ‘No –’ he began, but it was too late. Irilin jumped to her feet and strode plain as day towards the Sartyans gathered around the fire.

  Medavle swore. ‘I did not mean now.’ Shadows ran off him like water until he stood fully visible, his pale garments a poor camouflage.

  Kyndra could only gaze in horror as Irilin became a figure of moonlight, the Lunar turning her pale hair to glaring silver. She raised her hands, a ball of light burning in each.

  The Sartyans’ surprise was short-lived. In moments, they’d assumed a defensive formation that closed around Irilin, linked shields raised against her. There were no cries of dismay, no confused shouts. That told Kyndra two things. First, the Sartyans were familiar with a Wielder’s power. Second, Irilin was in a lot of trouble.

  Medavle digested the scene in one black-eyed glance and then swept the flute from his belt. ‘Get to the picket line,’ he said to Nediah and ran for the Sartyans.

  Although Kyndra knew she had to move, she found herself staring. The flute grew longer in Medavle’s hand until it resembled a metal staff, which he swung at the nearest soldier. The staff hit with a thrum of energy. Sparks in his eyes, the soldier stumbled back and Medavle’s next swing took his feet out from under him. The Yadin dodged the sweep of a broadsword, reversed his grip on the staff and sent it into the groin of another Sartyan. He was fast, almost as fast as Kait, and Kyndra wondered why he hadn’t used the ability before.

  There came a shout as she and the others were spotted, and a squad of soldiers made for them. Kyndra turned and dashed with Kait and Nediah for the pickets. Their own horses were tethered in a group at the end of the line. Nediah pulled at the knots, while Kait searched for a weapon. Kyndra scanned the ground too, but the Sartyans weren’t foolish enough to leave even a stray tool lying around.

  Although it seemed to take forever, Nediah had the rope free in seconds, and Kait slapped the flanks of the nearest horses. The camp had become a chaos of light and noise, and the horses added their terror, breaking in all directions. Kyndra kept a firm hold on her stallion, afraid he would join them, but the black remained calm.

  So did the Sartyans. Even amidst the tumult – amidst a battle they couldn’t have foreseen – the soldiers were disciplined. The group making for her split into three, some going to round up the horses, others bolstering the ranks of the soldiers around Irilin and Medavle. Kyndra could see the two would tire before their opponents. Irilin wore a fierce grin, almost a rictus. It turned her usually gentle face ghastly, so that Kyndra couldn’t stand to look at her. Was she doing this for Shika?

  Then, under Kyndra’s horrified gaze, Hagdon rose up behind the young woman, his cloak bloody in the firelight. She sensed him at the last moment, and the smile froze on her lips. She leapt aside, but the Sartyan general caught the trailing length of her hair and pulled her up short. Irilin shrieked.

  Kyndra couldn’t spare her another glance. The soldiers were almost upon them. Nediah and Kait formed up around her, one at each shoulder, and Kyndra steeled herself. This was her duty; this was what she ought to have done for Shika. But her mind was bright and panicked as the Sartyans closed, their red plate looking impenetrable as a dragon’s scales. Firelight licked along the length of drawn swords and the silence with which they charged was more frightening than a battle cry.

  A voice screamed inside her, a voice that had witnessed this onslaught a hundred times before and seen the litter of bodies left in the Sartyans’ wake. The hacked-off limbs of children, mingled with their parents’. The squires of the Kingswold Knights, who vowed to avenge their slain masters and were slain in turn. The killing didn’t stop. Had his sacrifice been for naught in the end? It would all begin again, an endless cycle where the only victors were the ravens that pecked at the dead.

  No. He wouldn’t let it, not while he lived and had command of the void.

  ‘Get out of my head!’ Kyndra screamed, shoving Kierik’s overbearing memories aside.

  Burn them.

  The star, Sigel, sang its furnace-song, as if it could sense the resolve fast replacing her fear. Why should she hold back? These were Sartyan soldiers, after all: the violent hand of the emperor. They had slaughtered their way through Acre –

  But that was before. She couldn’t hold these soldiers responsible for crimes five centuries old.

  A sword swing interrupted her thoughts and Kyndra threw herself clear. Cold swept through her; were they aiming to kill? The next strike raked her shoulder. The pain hit a moment later and Kyndra pressed her hand to the wound. Hot wetness coated her fingers.

  The wraiths hadn’t cared that she was not Kierik. They would happily have forced her to answer for his crimes. She looked up at her assailant and saw a fierce-eyed woman, face stiff and dismissive. I am nothing to them, she thought. The Sartyan backhanded her and Kyndra felt her lip split as she was knocked sprawling. And they are nothing to me.

  The fist swung again … and Kyndra caught it. She heard the woman gasp, as she tightened her grip. Armour crunched and the Sartyan hissed through her teeth. She tried to disengage, but it was too late.

  Keeping a firm hold on the woman, Kyndra calmly raised her other hand. It wasn’t Sigel’s power that clung like tarnished silver to her skin, but Tyr’s. She threw a punch at the woman’s abdomen and noted, as if from a distance, how the red plate crumpled like paper and her fist passed right through the soldier’s body. With no feeling apart from a cold interest in how easy it was, Kyndra wrapped her hand around the woman’s spine and pulled. The Sartyan came apart in a spray of blood.

  Gore coated Kyndra’s arm to her shoulder. The bloody ruin slumped sideways and, dispassionate, she looked for another opponent.

  Hagdon was shouting orders. His gaze was fixed on Kyndra, on the dead woman at her feet; so were the eyes of the Sartyans who’d planned to engage her. They were backing away, looking to Hagdon for instruction. Wrapped in Tyr’s hard embrace, Kyndra started after them,
but a cry sounded behind her and she turned.

  Figures leapt from concealment, dashing into the fray. The night was suddenly filled with battle cries, a stark contrast to the Sartyans’ silent assault. The newcomers brandished miscellaneous weapons: swords and axes, morningstars, shortbows and spiked clubs. Torches flared and arrows were set afire. The strangers out of the night sent them streaking into the regrouping Sartyans, who raised hasty shields against them. But the arrows mostly struck tents and barrels, and the burning pitch spread swiftly.

  Stunned by the sudden onslaught, perhaps, Hagdon’s grip loosened, for Irilin seized her chance to escape. Kyndra watched as the young woman lashed out, her nails raking the Sartyan general’s face. He yelled, clapped a hand to his cheek and Irilin disappeared in a cloak of shadows. As soon as she did, Medavle took her lead and vanished too. They left a dozen or so soldiers injured or dead in their wake.

  Hagdon looked around for her before clearly conceding defeat and concentrating instead on this new foe. He barked a command and his soldiers formed into several close-knit diamonds, which spread out and systematically began to hunt down the strangers. Another squad of soldiers worked to bring the fires under control.

  Close up, Kyndra realized the strangers’ faces were obscured with mud or paint, the same stuff that caked their makeshift armour. Without the element of surprise, they were no match for the Sartyans and it seemed as if they knew it, for a voice cried out and the group tightened its ranks, preparing to break for safer ground.

  Medavle and Irilin reappeared beside her just as Kyndra felt her hold on Tyr beginning to tremble. Where Kierik had spent an entire night with the stars, separating Rairam from Acre, creating his world, her control over them lasted scant minutes. The chill she had relished only moments ago was suddenly piercing, almost unbearable, and she practically threw Tyr from her mind.