by Dawn Steele
Somewhere, a child screamed.
Red Moustache countered by reaching into his coat. He drew out something metallic and silvery, and tossed it with an almost careless flick of his wrist. The bald woman ducked. A shutter behind her thrummed as something struck it: a two-sided silver comb with spikes for teeth. Snow White’s head throbbed. Above her, windows began to slam shut in rapid succession. The street was closing down, leaving them to mercy of the guards.
Snow White’s trembling hand went to her scalp. She could feel the cold spine of the comb like the backbone of some steel animal.
As she tried to pull it out, she saw that the rest of the guards were similarly engaged by other small women. The women fought with the ferocity of mongooses attacking snakes. Aein was parrying thrust after thrust with Bonebreaker. Several guards lay sprawled across the cobblestones.
More scuffling at her feet. A clatter as the first woman’s spear fell onto the street. Red Moustache turned to Snow White. He raised the knife once more above her breasts.
She feebly threw up her arms.
A whoosh sliced the air. Red Moustache vanished. Or more correctly, his head vanished. His body now ended in a neck stump. The blade slipped from his suddenly lifeless grasp, and struck the fleshy curve of her right arm. Her body was already so numbed to pain that she barely felt it.
Red Moustache’s torso toppled forward in a slow, agonizing moment, and fell beside her in a heap. The top of her head was a hotbed of red coals. When her hand came away from the front of her shirt, it was wet.
Blood did not normally faze Snow White. But this time, it was her own and there was too much of it. I’ll make a terrible vampyr, she thought as the mélange of her injured parts spun in a weird carousel, and the world mercifully winked out.
#
The moment Snow White was felled, Aein raced to her, only to be blocked by guards. The very brightness of their uniforms irked him. The nearest guard brought his sword down in a diagonal slash meant to cleave Aein’s shoulder blade, but Aein parried the thrust with Bonebreaker. With a speed that made the guard’s eyes widen in surprise, Aein sliced open his gut.
Aein noted the stances of three other guards bearing down on him. He estimated their distance, and exploded. Bonebreaker felt like an extended arm. Moments later, the three guards lay dead at his feet.
Finally, something he was good at!
Unfortunately, it had to do with killing.
A tiny woman whose hair was braided with brightly colored beads appeared beside him. Her robe of rainbow colors moved fluidly over her skin. Aein didn’t stop to wonder who she was. More guards were coming at them. Together, they flowed into the battle, watching each other’s back as though they had been fighting partners forever. More dark-skinned women appeared. He counted seven of them. Their size seemed to be an advantage, allowing them to pirouette in lightning moves that took their opponents by surprise.
Before long, all the guards were either dead or severely injured. Gretel had conveniently disappeared. When Aein finally reached Snow White’s prone body, one of the women was already by her side.
“She is hurt very badly,” she said softly in accented German. “The poison, it seeps into her blood.”
Poison. His stomach roiled as the woman grasped the metal comb in Snow White’s scalp and pulled it out. Snow White’s eyes were closed like death itself. The strength bled from Aein’s knees and he almost fell until he saw that she breathed still.
Relief washed over him.
Dimynedon was right. I’m not cut out to be a Judge.
How could he be so careless, allowing himself to get close to her like that? Perhaps he was never going to be worthy of being a Knight.
“We must get her away,” said the woman in a sharp voice. “Now.”
Of course. Not only was he not cut out to be a Judge, he wasn’t even fit to be anyone’s savior. Another woman scurried to them. She held out a long black cape with a latticework mesh. He stared at it, wondering where he’d seen it.
Then it struck him.
“In the street,” he said in wonder. “You were all wearing this . . . but you were all taller.”
“Long story.” The woman covered Snow White with the cape. “Carry her and follow us.”
Aein scooped Snow White up in his arms, taking care not to let her wounded head loll around. The blood on her scalp was already congealing. His heart sank when he saw how helpless she was.
“Come,” the woman urged as they ran into a side street. “They will be back with reinforcements.”
He followed, his strides long and swift despite Snow White’s burden. Window shutters above them were beginning to open again. People peered down into the street. Doors opened to cracks as furtive eyes regarded them.
“I am Nevue, by the way,” said the woman who was first at Snow White’s side.
“Aein.”
He trailed them to the dockside, where they weaved past suspicious crewmen hauling crates. Snow White’s limp body began to tell on his aching arms. The salty tang of the sea once again overwhelmed his senses. He had never been in the presence of such a large body of water before, and to be honest, the sea scared him as much as fire. But he steeled his apprehension as Nevue led him to a long houseboat nestled between larger vessels. A young man with knobby joints was tying a rope around the rigging. He looked up, his face betraying no surprise, as though a crowd of little women descended on him every day.
“Ivar, we have to go now,” Nevue said in a stentorian tone.
Ivar spat out a piece of chewed tobacco. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?”
They all clambered onto the houseboat, Ivar helping Aein with Snow White. The boat rocked as each of them got on. Seawater splashed as the floor boards sank progressively lower. A commotion sounded somewhere at the other end of the quay. Aein looked uneasily up. Crewmen near them stopped in their tracks, still holding crates as they turned to view the mass of people suddenly swilling on the far side.
“Get inside,” Ivar ordered tersely.
Aein needed no encouragement. He dove in with Snow White as the women huddled around him, and watched through a flap as crimson-coated guards poured onto the dock, their swords glinting like teeth. The houseboat pulled away. Ivar worked the oars nonchalantly, as though he were on a leisure cruise instead of a boat full of fugitives. As a result, the houseboat moved at an excruciating pace.
Aein sucked in his breath to try to lighten the load despite knowing that it was futile. He understood that Ivar was attempting to deflect attention, but the pulse still roared maddeningly at his throat, trying to slam its way out. He had to stop every inch of himself from running out there and wresting an oar from Ivar to propel them away faster. But the guards on dock became tinier with each heave of the oars, until they were scarlet splashes on the stone tier far, far away.
Aein unclenched his fists from Snow White’s body. He realized that he was still holding her in his arms like a rag doll, and she was still covered in the black cape as though it were her death shroud.
It was only after a while that he realized the dock was not receding anymore. They had stopped. The boat rocked violently in the choppy water. When Aein turned to what he thought would be the open sea, he was startled to see the black hull of a ship taking up the whole horizon. Ivar threw down the oars.
“Let ‘er down!” he cried to someone on deck.
A grapple dropped from the ship. Ivar seized it and hooked it onto the boat.
Aein and the others made their way out of the cabin. With Snow White still in his arms, he knew he had deviated from his path. Suddenly, the mountain on the green lake was an insignificant speck against the uncertain landscape of keeping Snow White alive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
What a mess he was.
Aein stood at the ship’s prow and clutched the cold iron railing. He watched the waves dash across the bows into white froth and the gulls which crested the winds. The ship was called the Varna, and he had never b
een on such a vessel. Its constant lurching sent him scuttling across the deck many a time to the mirth of the crew, but at least he wasn’t throwing up his guts.
The rest of his thoughts were lost in the choppy waves. Other ships dotted the horizon, their sails unfurling to catch the wind. The crew, mostly boys below the age of twenty, hauled rope, adjusted the rigging, and busied themselves with a hundred and one things that could be found on a ship’s deck. The crow’s nest cast a long shadow upon the long wooden boards.
“To Ursk,” said a voice behind him.
He turned and saw no one. Then he looked down to see a bald scalp, shining in chocolate richness. Nevue joined him at the railing, the top of her head coming up to his waist.
Aein smiled despite his troubles. “I do not even know where Ursk is,” he admitted.
“I noticed. It is a port in Lapland, which you tell me your lady love desires to be.”
“What makes you say she is my lady love?”
“Your concern for her shows in every gesture.” Nevue’s clear brown eyes shone with honesty.
Aein sighed. No use denying it to himself any longer. “How is she?”
“No change. We are still trying all we can.”
His feet shifting from under him again, Aein made to bolt to the cabins. But Nevue stayed his arm. “Leave my sisters to their task. They are bathing her and cleaning her scalp to leach the poison out. There is nothing you can do. Your presence will merely be a disturbance.”
Aein forced himself to calm down. They were right. He knew nothing about human healing, and his agonized pacing in Snow White’s cramped confines would only complicate matters. He turned back to the sea, renewing his vice-like grasp on the railing.
After a while, he asked Nevue, “Who are you really?”
Nevue’s voluminous caftan fluttered like a peasant skirt. “We are a family from the continent of Afrique. Sisters, cousins, all seven of us. At first, we travelled through the lands as ourselves, but our size evoked much unkindness among the taller beings.”
Heavy footsteps approached from behind them. Aein turned. One of the tall black-garbed figures he had seen on the streets of Skiva knelt, the robe swirling like a dark curtain. The figure crumpled and sort of folded unto itself, alarming Aein. Then the black robe’s hem rose, and from within came the bead-braided woman who had fought beside him. She flung back the robe to reveal yet another tiny woman underneath.
The crew applauded. They had obviously seen this before.
“We practice walking around in this manner during our rest periods so that we can easily maintain our facade in the streets,” Nevue said with a grin. “People call us dwarves. We, on the other hand, know ourselves to be Bambenga, or pygmies. Slavers tried to seize us and sell us at marketplace auctions. Common folk tried to hunt us for food because they believe we can confer magical powers.”
“And yet you travel. Very brave of you.” Aein was struck by similar their situations were. “How long have you been on your journey?”
“Seven months,” the bead-braided woman said. “I am Nevue’s sister, Ravanne. Everywhere we go, we are reviled or looked upon as curiosities. In the end, we decided to disguise ourselves as monks of a secret order. Because of our mystery and fighting prowess, people left us alone.”
“But why travel at all?” Aein said. “What is your purpose? And why did you help me and my friend?”
He had come to expect nothing but barbarism from this world. Nevue and her kin’s help came as something of a surprise.
The women glanced at one another. In the background, the working crewmen’s chatter dwindled to a halt. They too pricked up their ears to listen.
Nevue said, “Back in our village, we were each sent a dream, all seven of us. It was the same dream. We were at a mountain surrounded by seven hills, far, far north in the continent of Europa. A green lake basks at the bottom of it.”
Aein felt a sudden tickle on the back of his neck. “Go on,” he said.
“The mountain is surrounded by a bright light of gold, vermillion, and purple. Something of momentous import will occur there.”
A splash sounded on deck. Soap water from an overturned pail sloshed across the wooden planks towards their feet. A young crewman with florid pimples on his face hurried over with a mop, looking embarrassed.
“Where is this mountain, do you know?” Aein said.
“We are on this journey to find out,” the third woman replied. Her face was chubbier than the other two, but her arms were thin. Her accent was more pronounced than theirs. “I am Maise, cousin to these two. Forgive me, but I do not speak your language well. Each of us has decided to master a different tongue. Mine will be Finnish, which will serve us well when we land in Ursk.”
“So you think this mountain is in Ursk?” Aein persisted.
“There is a place in Ursk called the City of Joy. A wise woman who is said to know all things in our hearts lives there. We sail to her in the hope that she will guide us.”
The coincidence of it all floored Aein. “A dream,” he repeated. “How can this be?”
“There is more,” Nevue said. “Two weeks ago, when we were on this ship from Guttenberg, we had another collective dream. In the dream, a woman carrying a mulberry tree came to us and said, ‘The kindness of a stranger will point the way’.”
Ravanne’s face was solemn. “You were the only stranger to be kind to us. And now here you are.”
Here I am indeed. Aein looked down at his feet. A line of ants carried fragments of wood chips into a hole.
Insects on deck. Seven puzzling dreams. He frowned.
What did it all mean?
#
Aein watched Snow White on her bed, sleeping the sleep of the almost dead. Her body was very warm and her skin exuded a sheen of sweat. Her black hair lay like seaweed across her damp pillow. The porthole was open to let the sea breeze through, but her temperature did not abate. If anything, she was burning up more feverishly, her very flesh consumed from within.
He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life, and he didn't understand why. Every time the shadow of a cloud moved across the porthole, he jumped.
“The poison has leached into her blood,” Ravanne had warned him. “She is gravely ill. We have given her a concoction of herbs from our village, but she is very weak.”
They had been at sea for a week already, and Snow White still had not awoken. Aein spent most of his time keeping vigil in her cabin, waiting for the moment she would toss and turn in her sleep, mutter, and perhaps open her eyes. But Snow White was as still and pale as a corpse. Her chest rose and sank rapidly, the bellows of the grievously ill.
He could tell. His own father lay abed in such a manner after the Battle of Erisik. Four Sporadean days later, he was dead.
Aein reached out to touch Snow White’s arm. The heat of her skin caused the lump in his throat to sink to his unshod feet. His eyes stung with exhaustion, and he clutched at her, willing his own strength to flow into her. He gazed down at her in equal heartache and adoration, but the smell she exuded was one of decay.
He didn’t know how long he stared at her, or even if he fell asleep. But he was back in his old lecture hall in Spora. The walls and ceiling, made from the extremely common beaten gold, shimmered in the scorching afternoon sun that filtered in through the apertures. Supreme General Thulrika stood upon the dazzling dais. Her voice was magnified by the structured acoustics of the stage.
“Annihilation of the indigenous people,” she boomed, “is desirable in any colony you wish to make. Refer to Chapters 34 until 42.”
Aein thumbed through his crystal tablet, scrolling to the aforementioned chapters. His eyes glazed at the many textbook examples of uprisings and rebellions.
“They will form armies against you and you will regret the day,” Thulrika went on. “It’s not as if these natives are real Sporadeans. They’re nothing but a protein source.”
Aein opened his eyes in fright.
He had
fallen off his chair at the side of Snow White’s bed. The dream fragments fled, but Thulrika’s pronouncements still rang in his head.
Snow White, he thought, his heart hammering loudly. A protein source.
It was almost pitch dark in the cabin, with not even a sliver of moon in the porthole to guide him. He was extremely thirsty. When he reached for the jug of water, it was empty. So he made his way noiselessly out of the cabin, afraid to wake Snow White from her possible healing sleep. The wall sconces were alight, but the passage was completely empty.
Aein padded out onto the deck. The smell of the sea and the pounding sound of waves against the ship’s hull immediately gusted over him. The moon was obscured by gathering clouds. He welcomed the cool breeze upon his unwashed cheeks. How long had it been since he had taken a bath?
Loud voices floated to him from aft.
“Coward. Liar. Eavesdropper.”
Whimpers. The sharp sound of a fist against flesh.
Unable to shrug the strong feeling of déjà vu, Aein peered behind a wall. The young crewman with the pimples who had earlier mopped the deck was being held down by Ivar and three others. The pimpled youth struggled in their grasp.
Ivar struck him on the face. “You planning on tattling to the captain? Huh?”
“No,” the youth said weakly. He flinched as another blow caught him under the eye.
Aein bridled.
Before he could pounce onto the scene, full of righteous rage, another figure beat him to it. Ravanne strode onto the deck, her bare feet padding noiselessly, and her black robe whipping like a death flag in the wind. After a moment’s hesitation, Aein crouched in the darkness to watch.
“What are you doing?” Ravanne demanded. She carried no weapon.
