War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  “Lio’s breath.” Levin exclaimed. “How long will that be?”

  “The black pox usually runs its course in two weeks, Levin. I’ll be honest with you, not many survive it, and those that do are usually marked for life. It cripples children and blinds adults, and it leaves bad scars. If we were in Tolrissa or in Vherador we could find healers, men and women who can use the Art to heal it.”

  “Magic, you mean.”

  “Yes, magic. Only magic can cure this, and not even Brizaki wizards can prevent its spread.”

  “But why would they use it then? Wouldn’t it kill the Auligs, too?”

  “Probably not. Once the pox runs its course through a village or a band of Auligs, it is done, and those who survive it need never fear catching it again. It is like many diseases that way. Most likely the Auligs who brought it here are already immune to it.”

  Levin felt a helpless fury toward whoever had placed the body in the aqueduct, but whoever it had been, they were long gone now, and likely would not return. He was beginning to understand what the Auligs meant when they called this their final war. What was happening in northern Mortentia was not a raid or taking prisoners or seeking a surrender. The Auligs meant to annihilate everyone.

  Limme was shocked and horrified by the news when Levin and Kuljin told them that afternoon. A plague called the red death had hit Mortentia before, during a dark time of several decades called simply the plague years, and society had almost completely collapsed. That was over two centuries in the past, and the red death had played a large part in the Tolrissan conquest of the hundred kingdoms that existed before. Whole kingdoms had been reduced to mere remnants of their former populations, and that had made unity not only possible, but imperative.

  This plague, this black pox, sounded horrible once Kuljin described the symptoms, and an atmosphere of terror consumed the camp. They went about the business of gathering and cooking food numbly, afraid to speak, for at the back of each person’s mind was the fear. They gathered in corn and ground it, picked over gardens with women’s efficiency, and Kuljin and Levin kept watch, knowing that it was unlikely that anyone would dare to attack them here. The charcoal mark on the gate was now explained. It wasn’t a mark of conquest or any kind of direction, it was a warning. Gaikan God of Plagues ruled this desolate village, and you entered at your own risk.

  They slept fitfully in the abandoned church, lining the stone benches with furs salvaged from the Wrath and wrapping themselves within them. In the morning both Helisende O’Sion and Hawisa Ploughman rose early and staggered outside to vomit, and everyone except Kuljin and Limme had a fever. Aching and sweating, they went about their tasks woodenly, gathering wood for fires. Herleya and Matty, the Felder sisters, found a large kettle at Kuljin’s direction and they boiled water for drinking. Every bit of food they ate was thoroughly cooked first, but the fevers continued. Fyella O’Mangavolle was still in shock, and had been ever since being abused by the Borni, and she ate only when forced by the others. She had the fever, too.

  On the second day Kuljin and Levin scavenged timbers to build a decent roof on top of one of the larger and more intact buildings in the village, a structure of mostly stone that had a good fireplace. That night they had a fire to keep out the night’s chill, but they didn’t really need it. The fever had them alternately sweating and freezing, throwing off blankets only to wrap themselves tightly again. From time to time they would leave the blankets to stagger into the street, vomiting up the soup they had eaten for supper or emptying their bowels noisily in a vacant building they’d set aside for use as a latrine.

  It was on the third day that the blisters appeared, rising first on their faces, then spreading to hands and feet. Kuljin told them not to scratch them, but he might as well have told them not to breath. Helisende did not rise from her furs on the third day, but lay there weeping and scratching at the poxy blisters around her eyelids.

  Levin tried to stay busy, but when the pox appeared on his cheeks and around his left eye, his perpetual optimism seemed to die, and he grew morose and would not speak. The blisters appeared in his nose and around his mouth, swelling and disfiguring his face.

  Limme was not completely unaffected. A few small pink blisters appeared on her cheeks, but she did not scratch them no matter how much they itched, and they faded by the end of the day.

  “I think it has run its course with you.” Kuljin told her. “Probably you had something like it as a child, and your body knows how to fight it.” Limme could not remember the last time she’d been sick, however, and even as a child she had not been ill very often. Certainly with nothing so bad as this.

  Levin’s voice would not work. When he tried to speak, all that came out was a hoarse croaking, and he could almost feel the pox blisters swelling in his throat. He had them around his left eye and his cheeks and neck were fairly covered. It was painful to eat or drink, and he only did so because he knew he had to. It was the fifth day since they had come to this village, and everyone had the pox in some form or another except for Kuljin.

  Limme’s case of the pox had come swiftly and departed nearly as fast, leaving her unaffected. She was playing at nurse to the sick, and there were many. Helisende O’Sion, the worst affected by far, was coughing up blood. Amalina Gardiner lay beside her, her breath coming in wheezing gasps, and Levin knew it would not be long before she too, was coughing blood. The blisters on Levin’s face had widened, and they were painful to the touch. At the center of each blister was a black spot like a blood blister.

  Levin had the pox in his nostrils and mouth, and his hands and arms were covered, too. The few pox on his torso made it painful to lie down, and he had taken off his boots due to the constant itch from the pox on his feet and legs. Dark pus oozed from the blisters when he broke them, and his clothing was stained with it.

  Kuljin had concocted a mud paste that smelled of mint and basil, and it provided some relief from the constant itch, but it was fleeting. If Levin could have drowned himself in it he would have.

  The groans and cries of the women around him at first moved him to pity, but now he was caught up in his own agony. Sleep was impossible, but consciousness was agony. He lay absolutely still, staring at the ceiling, and he wished for death.

  His mind wandered fruitlessly, but his imaginings were filled with images of the ghouls of Damrek Island. He knew from the pity-filled expression on Limme’s face that he had begun to resemble one, and his face felt like someone else’s. His left eye would no longer open, and he sensed that if it ever did, he would be blind in it.

  On the morning of the sixth day he was coughing up black phlegm, and breathing was a constant struggle. Helisende and and Amalina had died during the night, and Kuljin took their bodies out and buried them. The halfman told him that the large plot of dug up ground they’d seen from the church tower was a communal grave, large enough for the entire village.

  Kuljin reached up and scratched his head. He’d found a blister just under his hairline, and he knew what it was. Perhaps because of his Sesseri blood, the pox had taken a long time to get him, nearly seven full days, but he knew he had it. The Felder sisters died sometime during the night, and and Tiddy Tamson, Elewys O’Darkwater and Atlis Saris were coughing up copious amounts of black blood, as was Levin. Levin no longer lay on his back, but on his side, and his bedding was stained black from burst pox.

  Several of the women no longer rose from their beds to make water or void their bowels, and when Limme baked unleavened bread or boiled vegetable soup, most of it went uneaten. She cleaned or replaced the furs on which the dying lay, and together they had scavenged many sheets and linens from around the town which they boiled before using. Still there weren’t enough to go around, and when a woman died, they stripped the sheets from her before taking her for burial, boiled them and reused them.

  He’d never seen the black pox before, only heard of it, but now he was experiencing it. It was worse than he’d ever imagined, worse really than words could
describe. The worst of it was the waiting, for death was most certainly coming, just taking its patient time. Elewys and Atlis died before noon.

  The itching was abominable, and he wished he knew where to get help, if there was such a thing in this land where magic was dead. He rubbed some of the salve he’d concocted on the blister on his scalp, noticing another on the back of his hand when he did so.

  Mylla O’Audriel, Tiddy Tamson, Levora Saris, Beotra Byre, Hawisa Ploughman and Sela Fletcher died during the night of the seventh day, and Limme suspected that they drowned in their own blood. She found each of them with strings of black mucus around their mouths, sunken eyes wide and staring, their hands clutched tight and grasping their blankets, as if even in death they did not want to let go.

  Kuljin was sick and feverish, with pox on his cheeks and arms, and he could barely help Limme to carry the bodies out of the sick room. Limme forced him to lay down while she boiled linens and made broth. Like most of the women who still clung to life, Levin was emaciated, for he’d quit taking water and he couldn’t speak. The entire left side of his face was a continuous sheet of black spotted blisters from his forehead to his swollen neck. There was blood on his lips and his skin had taken on a yellowish tint.

  At noontime Limme found that sturdy Marcella Tanager had died, and Aubreda Jinser was gone. Aubreda had been delirious for much of the previous night, raving about the Borni, and apparently she left when Limme was gathering herbs for Kuljin’s paste and Kuljin was asleep and couldn’t watch her. Limme searched the village, but there was no sign of the girl. When she returned to the sick room, as they all called it now, Roysa D’Imberton was dead, and Limme sat down hard and wept for a while.

  It wasn’t a sick room. It was a dying room, and every person in it was waiting for death to come and call.

  On the morning of the eighth day Limme rose to see who Gaikan had claimed during the night.

  Fyella O’Mangavolle also rose from her sick bed on the morning of the eighth day. She was achingly tired, but the itch had subsided and her blisters were shrinking in size. She wandered as if dazed to the cistern that had poisoned them all, climbed into it, lay on her back and drank deeply, turning her mouth to the side to do so. She washed the foul stink of the pox from her body, then she wept quietly for a long time.

  Gathers Scalps had raped her violently so many times, and then passed her to his friends until she no longer felt them entering her, beating her and biting her skin until she bled. She had scars on her stomach where they had cut her for fun, the horrible Borni, and they had cut off a small piece of her ear to see if they could make her scream. By that time she had been so numb, and so dead inside that she hadn’t even flinched.

  Now she had pox scars on her cheeks and hands to complement those left by the Borni, and she knew that no one would ever think her beautiful again.

  She breathed deep and water came into her nostrils. She sputtered and coughed suddenly, sitting up. She realized again that she was still alive, which made her weep again. She had prayed often over the past month for the Secret Gods to take her life, but they had ignored her pleas, knowing that she lacked the courage to do it herself. She had climbed into the cistern with the hope that she might drown, but the water was not deep enough.

  “Are you all right?”

  Fyella looked up and saw Limme D’Cadmouth sitting on the side of the cistern, a concerned look on her face. It was the first time she had met the eyes of another human being in weeks, and she looked at Limme’s pretty little face and her curly golden hair. The sun was bright and it was warm, a fine day in late Indicas, or maybe it was Merryis already.

  Fyella shook her head at the girl, and then she screamed. It was a scream of pure fury, or perhaps it was grief, an inarticulate piercing wail that should have made the Secret Gods themselves weep, but Fyella knew that they did not. All that she had learned of their love and care for humankind was a lie, and Fyella knew that now.

  Once the fury left her she looked at Limme, looking warily back at her, as if with half a mind to flee. “I’m not all right.” She said at last. “But I am alive, and the Secret Gods can be damned.”

  “Do you think you can help me?” Limme asked after a moment. “Roysa and Rosa are dead, and I need to move their bodies.”

  Fyella moved her arms and legs and felt her stubborn strength returning. “I think I can do that.” She said, rising from the water like one newly born.

  Kuljin drifted in a strange dream of itching and pain. Unlike the women and Levin, his pox had been very slow to fill with blood, and they were slow to burn and sting, as if the disease was giving him more time in which to savor its relentless and furious course. He knew that sometimes delirium was a part of this sickness, and he knew rationally that he was seeing things that were not true, but the images of Limme and of Fyella walking around his body and feeding him seemed very real. He knew that Limme at least was still alive, but Fyella? Even if somehow the girl had managed to recover, she was still practically comatose, and had been ever since he’d first seen her.

  Kuljin of Khumenov had been alive for nearly one hundred years, but he knew he still looked like a young man, perhaps just a year or two older than Levin. Aging slowly was a gift of his kind, the mingled and usually unwanted offspring of human and Sesseri parentage. It had been his good fortune to be born to a Thimenian woman, and when her clansmen had come to do away with her ‘cat-eyed bastard’ she had met them at the door with a battle axe and dared them to have a go at it. Many times his mother Renli Fogarsdottar had told him that story, usually along with an imprecation that he had better make a life worth her trouble.

  He did not want his life to end here, and certainly not in this fashion. He had risen this morning just long enough to make water and vomit, then fallen back into the bed painfully. There had been blood in his puke.

  It was the ninth day of the illness, and he did not bother to look in the other beds to see who still lived.

  Emelyn Orcher died during the night of the eighth day, and Limme found her on the morning of the ninth. Together with Fyella they dragged the heavy girl outside to the place where they had been burying the dead, and the air stank and was thick with flies. Limme knew she should have been putting them deeper into the ground, but the soil was stony and she wasn’t very good with a shovel. Even with Fyella’s help they had not been making much of a job of it.

  Two weeks, Kuljin had said, back when he was still well enough to talk. It had been nine days, and out of the twenty three people who had come here from the Wrath, seventeen were dead, and only Limme, Fyella and two other women looked like they would survive this plague. Levin should have been dead two days ago, and he had not moved more than a few inches in that time, curled up on his side with his arms wrapped around his knees. Only the occasional rasping liquidy breath told her that he was still alive.

  Kuljin seemed to drift in and out of reality, and sometimes his eyes would stare at things that were not there. The pox had not covered him as thickly as it had Levin, but he had it, and it was on the inside now, where it seemed to inflict the most damage. She had seen his bloody leavings when he failed to make it to the place where they had all been vomiting.

  Ivetta O’Seithe was alive, and it appeared her pox were getting smaller, but she was blind now. The pox had settled on her eyes and killed them, which was perhaps a small mercy, for her once proud and beautiful face was pitted deeply and ruined. She would never have to see it in a mirror at least.

  Grissel Reapinger was recovering, if not as quickly as Fyella had, and she had been up this morning to take vegetable broth. Her throat was still too sore to take biscuit, which is what they called the flatbread they were making with the ground corn, and she could only speak in a whisper. Her face had been largely unscarred by the pox, and she was still beautiful, but her neck had a stiff textured look, like sloppy plastering on a poor man’s wall, and her body was marked by many little scars.

  Only Limme remained as she had been, but she wore
scars on her heart that she imagined would never fade away. So the women had taken ill a bit faster than the men, but they had recovered more swiftly as well. All that was left was to wait for them to die, or perhaps live.

  In the case of Levin, she thought there was very small chance of it.

  At noon on the tenth day the men came.

  Something cold and wet was on his forehead when Levin awoke in the very early morning hours of the fifteenth day, and he was desperately thirsty. He opened his eyes, but could see nothing on the left side. His right eye could see only dim shapes, for it was still mostly dark. He reached up to touch his face, and a gentle hand caught his wrist. “Hush now. Be still.” A voice said, and he did not recognize it.

  “Who are you?” He said, and his voice was raspy and barely audible.

  “Fyella.” The voice replied, and he could barely make out a dim figure in the darkness.

  “Limme?” He croaked. “Where’s Limme?”

  “She’s gone, Levin.” The voice replied. “The king’s men came and took her away.”

  He sat up, and the room spun around him. He could make out the shape of Kuljin in a bed nearby. “Thirsty.” He managed to say, and Fyella handed him a waterskin. He drank deeply until the skin was empty.

  He felt of his face, and the pox was gone, but a dense web of scarred tissue covered the left side of it, running all the way down to his neck. “What’s happened?” He asked. “Where have they taken her?”

  “The king’s men came five days ago, Levin.” Fyella explained. “I hid in one of the empty houses. They spoke to Limme, and apparently she’s the king’s daughter. They said they were from the Zoric muster, and they’d already had their run of the pox, so they weren’t afraid of us.”

  “She’s not the king’s daughter.” Levin protested, his throat still dry and rough sounding. “She’s the daughter of the duke of Elderest. And why didn’t they take us, too?”