The Executioness

by Tobias S. Buckell

  But if I thought him jolly, that was a mistake. His smile was tight, controlled, and his eyes shrewd. This man saw more miles pass under the wheels of his home in a year than most ever traveled in a life.

  And judging by the lines in his face, he’d had a long life doing this. Like Anezka, trader tattoos ran up and down his forearms, and his ears dangled with earrings.

  He had no mustaches, his lips were shaved clean, like a refugee from Alacan.

  I’d heard tales of the caravan, and the coastal spice route. Townsmen who travelled south to markets were told tales of the great market of Mimastiva by other townsmen who ventured that far south, and here I was, sitting on a wagon with the Roadmaster of the caravan himself.

  “Welcome to the spice road,” the Roadmaster said with a twitch in the corner of his lips. He did not hold the reins himself: that was a job for a young man in a loincloth with massive arms who sat next to him, the thick leather straps leading to the aurochs draped across his lap. He watched the road like an owl, his eyes never blinking.

  “Thank you,” I said, and brushed my skirts up to sit by him. Sitting higher than the bramble along the road meant that a soft sea breeze cooled my skin.

  From this perch, I could see the road stretching out along the rocky coastline before us. The ocean, hundreds of feet below us, slammed and boomed against the wall of brown rock. And out beyond the spray, the green waves surged around pinnacles of rock shaped like the spires of castles. And beyond the spray and foam, the ocean stretched out forever: flat, unbreaking, the color of winter-green leaves.

  “It is a beautiful sight,” the Roadmaster said, noticing my gaze.

  “I never thought I’d see it in my life,” I whispered. I wondered if Duram or Set had seen this, as they were being marched west.

  I leaned forward and hid my face in my grief, and the Roadmaster leaned close and touched my shoulder. “What is your name, lady executioner?”

  “Tana.” I swallowed. “Tana the lost. Tana the homeless. Tana the abandoned. But not Tana the lady executioner. I’m not that thing.”

  “I am Jal,” he said softly. “Where are you from Tana?”

  “Khaim,” I told him, and then I corrected myself. “Lesser Khaim.”

  “Ah, Khaim.” He nodded. “I think I remember Khaim when I was just a boy. I was still sitting on my father’s lap when he led the last caravan through. Sometimes I think I remember the start of that journey, or the greater cities of the Jhandparan Empire. I know I remember seeing a great palace that had fallen to earth, tilted, its foundational plane shattered like a plate! And the bramble, it gripped the city like a giant’s fist, it did.”

  My grief broke a little, hearing his memories. “You are that old?”

  Jal laughed at me. “I am that old. Yes. Hopefully old enough that I’ll die before I lose the title of Roadmaster to the title of Bushmaster, which is what they will call me when even the spice road on this coast becomes choked by damned bramble.”

  I looked out on the road, and thought about what came next. “Where do you head?”

  “Paika,” the Roadmaster said. “And you will too.”

  He said this so firmly, I jerked to stare at him. “What do you mean?”

  “The men who delivered you here said you attacked four Paikans on your own. They said you demanded your family back, and fought to the near death. So I have to imagine that a person who did that, would not then turn around and head back where she came from.”

  As he spoke, he turned and looked at me with a larger smile.

  “I will not be going back to Lesser Khaim,” I agreed.

  “The men who brought you to me thought so. Paika is the greatest city in the west, and where your family most probably will be taken. And Paika is a carefully guarded city. You cannot enter without an examination, and papers, and a writ, unless you are like me and have dispensation. The Paikans fear people like you coming in to try and find their families. Yes, a person who attacks four of them would go to Paika with someone like me, who could get you inside, I think.”

  I shook my head in frustration. “I didn’t attack all four of the raid… I mean Paikans. The stories are wrong.”

  “Of course they are. They’re always wrong. Stories are for the listener, Tana. And it is what the listener makes of them that truly matters. The men who saw you attack the Paikans, they told us they found their courage. If one woman could attack four horsemen, then they could do the same. For two days and two nights they plotted, and then finally… attacked!”

  I couldn’t believe what I heard. But it had to be true, didn’t it? Or I wouldn’t be here. “And they succeeded?”

  “They killed three of the Paikans and took their gold, their weapons, and their horses. Then one of them rode back to find you, where you were deep in the clutches of bramble sleep.”

  “How long,” I asked. Jal waved a hand at me and ignored the question.

  “When I saw them outside Mimastiva, they had you on a travois pulled behind a horse. They wanted to ride to Paika as fast as they could, so they gave me gold and a captive Paikan horseman. We will ransom him back to Paika for good coin.”

  Up ahead the aurochs plodded forward. The wagon groaned and creaked along.

  “How long have I slept?” I asked again, fearing the worst.

  “Three weeks, I think. Maybe a month. It could have been far, far worse. You are lucky to be alive.”

  I rubbed my arms. Would it be possible to find my family then, after a month? Or would they be scattered to even stranger lands? I bit my lip and looked at Jal. “The stories I have heard say the caravan is an expensive place to ride. Wherever I am, you can’t carry any goods for trade, right? What are you asking for the price of my passage?”

  I asked that, while fearing the worse.

  “I’m not after your body,” Jal muttered. “The coin and the prisoner your inspired friends gave me is enough. Or we would have left you asleep by the side of the road weeks ago. But you are right: no one in the caravan lies around. Well, unless they’re in a bramble sleep. I will move you to another wagon, and you will work. Everyone in the caravan helps the caravan. That is our way.”

  I was relieved. “In Lesser Khaim I…”

  Jal held up a hand to stop me. “Our needs are different than a town’s. I don’t care what you used to do. The caravan is a new life for you, until we reach Paika. Anezka says we need cooks in the lagging wagons to the rear. Or firewood scroungers. We need hagglers and movers with the trading teams, inventory managers to make sure nothing is being stolen…”

  Now it was my time to interrupt. I thought about my fight with the raiders, and about the future I was reaching for. I was in a strange new land, and as Jal said, starting a new life.

  I pointed at the wagon ahead of the fire crew. “Those men, with the arquebuses. Let me join them. I want to learn how to use those weapons. In Khaim there are just a handful of those old weapons, left over from the lords that once vacationed there, before the fall of Jhandpara. And here you have a team armed with them, it is very impressive.”

  Jal made a face. “Impressive? The magisters of Jhandpara would call down rocks from the skies and fly over their enemies to rain fire on them. That was impressive. These things are just loud tubes.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No, no, I suppose you are right. The arquebus would be an interesting weapon for a lady…” and I could see the word ‘executioner’ lurk behind his lips, but then falter as I stared coolly at him. “Tana, to wield,” he finished saying.

  I looked at the road curving off into my future, filled with ruts and ropes of bramble. “Jal. The caravan goes all the way to Paika, then back to Mimastiva. You trade with them?”

  “Of course. I am a man of trade,” the Roadmaster said. “I work with anyone willing to pay a fair price for my goods, and leave me to the spice road. But my allegiance is to no one city. Most of us abandon such loyalties after years on the road, as cities rise and fall, come and go. Many of the f
amilies on the caravan have always been in the caravan, and will never rest until they reach the halls of Sisinak, if Borzai wills it and your life’s trades have been judged honest. It is only there they will rest in the oasis markets, where the goods are never scarce, and the gold in your purse refills every night.” Jal chuckled.

  “So you are no friend of the… Paikans.” I still had to hunt to use the right word. They had always just been known as ‘raiders’ to us in the north.

  “I am no one’s friend, I am a trader,” Jal said. “If you doubt me, go see the Paikan chained away in our wagon. He will remain there until we get to Paika, and I negotiate a good price for his freedom.”

  “I may well do that,” I said.

  Jal raised his hands and clapped them together. “So. You want to use an arquebus. I will humor you. Bojdan!

  Come here.”

  One of the warriors looked back at us, set his arquebus down, then swung over the shields to drop to the road. He waited for the Roadmaster’s wagon to approach, then climbed easily up onto the deck and walked up to us. “Yes?”

  He was tall, with curled hair and a thick mustache. A massive scimitar hung on his left hip.

  “This is Tana, the lady executioner. She will work with you to protect the caravan.”

  Bojdan looked me up, then down. “She is a woman,” he said.

  “Your powers of observation are astounding, Bojdan. It’s a damned shame you aren’t in charge of accounts, or haggling. Yes, she’s a woman, it is plain for you and me to see. She is the woman who took on four Paikan soldiers by herself. Can you say the same?”

  Again Bojdan regarded me. “Whatever you want, Roadmaster.”

  “You’re correct, Bojdan. It is whatever I want. Take her back to a wagon with space to sleep, and teach her what she needs to know. And get out of my sight, by all the damned halls, get out of my sight.”

  Bojdan smiled. This was banter for them, the bluster that men exchanged. He turned around. “Let’s go, Tana.”

  Jal cleared his throat. “Oh, and tell Anezka that Tana will not be joining them at the rear of the caravan to help out. She will be disappointed, I’m sure, but she is a capable manager, and will carry on.”

  I looked back at Jal. “Thank you.”

  “Good luck…” and he seemed to think about something, then smiled and said, “Executioness.”

  I shook my head and went back to fetch my things.

  When Bojdan saw the axe, with the black stains in the handle, he nodded.

  The muscular warrior and I stood, our backs to scrub, rock, and bramble, and waited for the caravan to pass us by.

  “Do you know anything about the raiders?” I asked.

  “The Paikans? Dogs. All of them,” Bojdan spat.

  I liked the large man better for the reaction. “They took my family.”

  “They all but own the coast and more ever north. Ask Jal sometime, he’ll piss himself complaining about the extortions they rip from him to ‘allow’ him to keep trafficking the spice road.”

  “They burned Lesser Khaim,” I told him. “And my home.”

  “They have reached that far north? They call what they do the Culling. They believe it is their holy duty. You’re lucky to live: they go after young women and children. Eliminate the breed cows, they say.”

  I stared at him. “How do you know all this?”

  “Their preachers are all over Mimastiva, these days,” Bojdan said. “Things will get worse in the East, now.”

  “Why do they do it?” I asked. What bizarre blasphemy did they preach?

  “They blame us for the bramble,” Bojdan said, and pointed at a small wagon with a single auroch pulling it. “The surviving Paikan of the four you faced is in that wagon…”

  I cut him off. “I keep saying, I didn’t face all four of them. It was just one, and he knocked me to the ground easily. They hobbled me and left me.”

  Bojdan nodded as we watched the wagon pass. For a moment, I thought about swinging aboard, and using my axe to kill the man inside. But Bojdan saw the thought crossing my face, and he smiled. “Don’t think about sneaking off in the night to come and kill him. Jal will know it was you, and you wouldn’t want to experience his anger if he were to lose his ransom.”

  It was better not to endanger my chance of getting to Paika, I thought. As the wagon passed on, I saw a glimpse of a figure sitting behind iron bars, his back to the world. I didn’t recognize him as one of the two Paikans I’d fought.

  “How long until we get to Paika?” I asked.

  “Five weeks. Maybe six. The caravan is slow.” Bojdan folded his arms. “We’ll find you a place to sleep, and get your axe sharpened up. And then I guess I’m the one stuck training you so that the next time you decide to take on a group of Paikans, you might at least kill one of them.”

  For the first two days Bojdan set me to walking alongside the caravan to get my feet back under me. We passed through more scrub and rock on the cliffs, but even in those two days, we began to move downhill, toward the ocean. We passed coves of sand, nestled in between the scallops of coast. My ankle was somewhat tender, and at night, I’d walk back to the wagon near the very end of the caravan and curse the pain.

  But by the third day it was a dull ache, and Bojdan let me up into the guard wagon as we eased past a tiny fishing village perched over the ocean. Fishermen in rags raced up foothills, loudly hawking dried fish hanging from poles on their backs.

  I noticed none of the other men on the guard wagon would look me in the eye. I could feel that they resented my being there.

  We stood higher than all the caravan here, and I could see the five other guard wagons scattered throughout the snake-like convoy behind us.

  “We used to have scouts running out ahead, beside, and lagging behind,” Bojdan told me. “But Jal cannot afford it anymore. So we must be more vigilant than ever.”

  As he said that, he looked around at the villagers to our side, pressing close to the wagons, shouting and trying to barter as the caravan stolidly moved on.

  I pointed at the gilded, brassworked arquebus Bojdan had over his shoulder. “But what about that? Isn’t it a good weapon?”

  “All weapons are good, if used properly,” Bojdan said. He handed me the device. “It is loud, and almost anyone can use it, with some training. It sends bandits scurrying well enough.”

  It was heavy, and clumsy in my hands. I looked down the long barrel, its surface etched with thin, serpentine dragons. “I want to learn how to use this properly…”

  He smiled.

  I learned how to pour the powder, light the matchlock, and raise the arquebus to the side of the shieldwall to balance the ever-heavy barrel.

  Powder was expensive, so Bojdan drilled me for the day without it. Over and over again I mimed putting in powder, putting in shot, tamping, then setting the gun on the ledge and aiming. I did it until my shoulders were sore.

  “Look past the barrel,” Bojdan urged, “to your target. That tree right over there. They are not accurate like a crossbow, or arrows, but you should still make the effort to aim.”

  This time the gun was loaded. The acrid burning match, pinched between the serpentine lock, had been pulled back and was ready to strike. All I had to do was pull the trigger, and the burning fuse would descend into the pan.

  “Okay, fire it,” Bojdan said.

  I did, and the world exploded in light and smoke. “Sons of whores,” I shouted, startled, and when the smoke cleared I saw a mess of shredded leaves and some broken branches far to the right of where I had aimed. And my shoulder hurt.

  Bojdan’s men laughed at me. “It’s got a kick, yeah?”

  But Bojdan didn’t laugh. “Clean it, get a new one in, try again. Same tree!”

  I reloaded rapidly, but not quick enough. The tree was almost obscured by the Roadmaster’s wagon by the time I set the barrel on the shieldwall.

  Bojdan grabbed it. “That was not bad, but not quick enough. So let’s not shoot our employer w
ith stray shot today. Shoot that tree.”

  I aimed at our sides again, and this time I was expecting the unholy roar of the weapon. Smoke burnt my face, and tears stung my eyes, but pieces of shot had fanned out and hit the tree I’d aimed at.

  “Good,” Bojdan said.

  And then it was back to walking alongside the caravan for me.

  In the second week, after more drills, Bojdan decided I could handle the arquebus well enough. We had left the coastal cliffs long behind us, and wound our way through soft plains near the ocean’s edge. Trees, and further inland, woods, began to hem the road we traveled on, not just bramble and brush. “You know as much as us about the arquebus,” he said. “Now it’s time to think about close quarters. I will teach you to use your axe.”

  For this we left the caravan, once I’d retrieved the executioner’s axe. We walked out into the woods as the wagons slowly rumbled past. Bojdan came with his scimitar, which was always at his side, and a small round shield he’d taken from the wagon’s wall.

  He looked me up and down. “You may think that because you are a woman that you are not a match for my men in the caravan. But if a one hundred pound warrior came to me, I would not turn him away merely because my men weigh twice what he does. I would, however, have to understand how best to use him. He is a tool. Some tools are large and heavy, useful for clubbing and smashing things. Some are thin daggers, useful for stabbing quickly.”

  This was the longest thing I’d heard him say, and it sounded carefully thought out, like a speech. “Did you think of how you would say this all last night, as you sat sentry?” I asked him.

  “Shut up. There are hard lands we will pass through, and we will be attacked, and you will protect the caravan.” He pulled his shirt apart to show scars on his chest, then pushed his sleeves up to show a wicked scar that cut deep into his upper arm, biting into the muscle there. “Whether you be a trained warrior, or an old lady, the skill of fighting lies not in what you can pick up, but in how much flesh you carve, and how well you will carve it, Tana. No one cares whether the person who does this is large, small, woman, or man. Even the best die suddenly on the battlefield. Death is death.”