by Kirby Crow
He did not know what he expected Cadan to say, some threat or promise of harm perhaps. After how talkative Cadan had been in the past, this new silence was more frightening than any threat.
Scarlet risked a quick look behind him, hoping to see another traveler in the distance, but it was hopeless. After the last raid, there would be none coming north from the Salt Road. None but he, and he had lingered too long in Nantua.
Cadan saw the direction of Scarlet’s glance and signaled to his men. Lame he might have been, but he still had his authority. “Bring him.”
“Wait!” Scarlet said desperately to the soldiers. “Your captain, he was a Kasiri once.”
One of the soldiers spat in the dust, unconcerned at the news. “Listen to him. Whey-faced Hilurin is what he is. First Tribe scum. Next, he’ll lecture us about our duty as soldiers of the vine.”
Another soldier gave a grunting laugh. “Soldiers of the vine! Do we look like country bumpkins to you, pedlar? All that is past.”
“You still swore to uphold the law,” Scarlet said, shamed to hear his voice shaking. “You obey the Flower Prince.”
“I obey whoever pays me, and lately, it ent been a shit-arsed prince in silk pants.”
Scarlet backed up a little. He had thought to reveal Cadan’s past crimes to them and appeal to their sense of honor, but when he searched their faces, he found them as hard and carved as the stone statue at the Fate Dealer’s. From then on, it was pride alone that held him silent.
He darted aside and tried to make a run for it, but as two of the soldiers stepped in opposite directions and expertly closed in on him, he froze in fear and hesitated for a moment. The soldiers fell on him, pinning his arms and stripping him of his pack and bundle, jerking the knife-belt from his waist and letting it drop in the road. He was dragged and shoved in silence into the thick stand of junipers lining the road. The scent of evergreen and springtime roses was thick in the air, and his only thought was relief that, whatever happened, Scaja and Linhona could not be hurt any more. He did not know who Cadan’s comrades were, only that they were probably as foul as Cadan himself, and that they hated all Hilurin.
They arrived very quickly at a rough camp the soldiers had made in the woods: a canvas tent, a few bedrolls on the ground, and a heap of stones that circled a campfire dwindled down to ash and embers.
Cadan motioned to his men and they released Scarlet’s arms. Scarlet had saved his strength and not struggled very much, and he stood glaring at them, his body trembling with stress and delayed fear. Still, Cadan did not speak, only kept staring with that even light in his eyes that did more to tear Scarlet down than any words could have.
“Where’s your friend?”
Scarlet’s mind went blank for a moment, still locked in dread. “Who...”
“The Wolf. Where is he?”
Scarlet shook his head. “I don’t know. He left.”
Cadan stepped forward and struck him hard across the face. “I know he left, hill-brat! Where did he go? He wasn’t with the Longspur krait when they made it to Dorogi. When did he leave them and where was he bound?”
Liall’s words came back to him: It is Norl Udur, as has been rumored, and I will get there by traveling to the port of Volkovoi across the Channel.
A trickle of blood ran from Scarlet’s nose. “He didn’t tell me.”
“Oh, did he not?” Cadan shifted a look from Scarlet to his men and back. “I figured you’d be in his yurt by now, playing cushion to the great chieftain’s belly. He mustn’t have been that interested in you, after all.”
Scarlet kept his silence, refusing to take the bait.
“There’s a price on his head, did you know? The word’s spread to every port from here to Ankar and even in Khet. An envoy from Norl Udur came to the army garrison in Patra, carrying more silver than any soldier will see in a lifetime. It’s all for the man who brings the White Wolf back in chains.”
Scarlet fought to keep his mind clear, for Liall as much as for himself. “What do they want with him?”
Cadan hawked and spat into the dirt. “Doesn’t matter. I can make you rich, pedlar. Rich enough to guarantee your safety anywhere. Then you’d be able to protect that pretty sister of yours.” Cadan’s grin was ugly with menace. “Nantua, is it? I wonder if that’s far enough. I bet on a windy day, she can still smell the smoke from Lysia.”
With a cry of rage, Scarlet bunched his fists and charged Cadan. The soldiers tackled him and knocked him to the ground. Cadan watched the struggling knot of them, smiling his pitiless smile. “There’s plenty of time,” he said. “If you won’t tell me now, you’ll tell me by tonight. Wait and see.”
They dragged Scarlet up and two of the soldiers held his arms out straight as Cadan squared up to him. The last soldier sat down by the smoldering fire to watch.
“I told you, I don’t know!”
Cadan drew back his arm and backhanded Scarlet. His head rocked back and his ears began ringing. He grunted in pain and focused on Cadan dizzily, just in time to see the soldier draw his fist back. Cadan punched him low in the gut.
The pain was worse than Scarlet could imagine. It felt like his stomach had been pushed back to his spine. His legs gave way and he retched, doubling over. Cadan’s fist came down on the back of his neck.
He lost track of time. There was dirt against his face and the strong smell of earth and smoke. The soldiers hauled him back to his feet, and Cadan turned to nod to the man by the fire. The soldier slipped his knife from his belt and lodged the blade deep in the coals.
Cadan put his hands on Scarlet’s shoulders. “Tell me where Liall is,” he said almost pleasantly. “You owe him no loyalty. Come,” he coaxed, patting Scarlet’s cheek. “Tell me what I want to know.”
Scarlet glanced to the man by the fire, watching him turn his knife to heat the blade evenly. He knew with a deadly certainty that if he did not give Cadan the information he wanted, the soldiers would kill him right here. It would not be a quick death.
He looked at the sky, the weight of the awful decision filling him with anguish. His life or Liall’s? The world took on a peculiar brightness as he looked up at the dark, jagged scrawls of evergreen branches cutting through the warm blue calm of the sky. Despite everything, the murder of his parents, his home, the strong sense of loss when Liall said goodbye, now that he had come to it, he realized that he wanted very much to live.
But he desperately wanted Liall to live as well.
A small redbird drifted in the sky behind Cadan, journeying across the great disk of the sun in the span of an instant, and Scarlet thought: That is my life there, all the time that I have left. In a very little while, I’ll be dead, and no one but Annaya or Liall will ever mourn me.
Scarlet thought of Liall’s face—handsome, strong, and inscrutable—and wondered if the atya would make it to his homeland, and if not, would they meet again in the Otherworld? Would Deva keep them apart, or would she understand? I love him, Scarlet thought in wonder, amazed that he was the one person who had not seen that.
Then, in that stilled moment, he finally faced the truth of the fate of his people in Byzantur. They were all going to die, just as surely as he was going to die, and very soon. The Hilurin were few and they were feared and they were unwanted, and they had dared to rule. The coming war would be swift and decisive, its inevitable outcome already determined. Their fate was as plain to him as if it were written across the sky.
He was suddenly profoundly sorry that he had never truly lived his life as he wanted to, that he had never reached out to another’s body for pleasure or comfort or warmth, and that he had been too afraid of his nature to learn what it might have been like to be loved by a man like Liall.
Why didn’t Liall ask me to go with him? he thought mournfully. I would do it all differently now. I never had the wilding. I was only running away from myself, and now... I can’t be the one to betray him, even if I die. Oh, Deva, help me, I can’t, I can’t...
A shadow dip
ped across the sun, and the lazy-looking redbird darted aside, missing the razor claws of the hawk by so narrow a margin that it seemed, in that moment, a miracle that the prey had escaped. The hawk flew harmlessly past, and Scarlet stared transfixed at the disappearing outline of the predator, not even realizing that his body had gone limp in the soldier’s grasp. The soldiers, perhaps not wanting to exert further effort into struggling that would soon be put to more enjoyable use, had loosened their holds on Scarlet’s limbs. They held him lightly, just enough to keep him on his feet.
A thin thread of sound, silent as a falling cord of spider-silk, but so glorious that it seemed the sun had come alive to speak to him, reached his mind: On danaee Deva shani.
The soundless words seared through his limbs like liquid fire. Scarlet stared up at the sun, his eyes blind, his muscles like water, as Cadan’s demanding voice faded into the sighing of the wind. Cadan’s expression was languid with the pleasurable prospect of torment to come, his eyes heavy as if very weary, and his expression did not change in the slightest as Scarlet’s unseeing gaze met his. Scarlet could hear the sound of Cadan’s heart slowing down to a lazy, measured thump. A twig fell from the juniper and took an age to strike the ground.
The soldiers were barely holding him at all. He waited with the flames roaring in his blood as time crawled slowly around him, waited as Deva’s holy voice whispered to his brain what he should do, what he must do if he wanted to live.
Cadan hit him again, a straight blow that landed on his chin and snapped his head back violently. Swift as a breath, Scarlet pretended to collapse. His eyes rolled up in his head and he let his knees buckle. The soldiers were taken by surprise and let him drop, but Scarlet only went to one knee. His fingertips grazed the haft of the dagger Liall had given him, safely hidden in the top of his boot.
The inferno in his veins threatened to burst out of his skin, to leave him ripped apart, bleeding and broken. It cried for him to let it free, to let it go before it tore him from within, and he did.
He let it free.
Scarlet rose as lightning-fast as the shadow of the hawk, and his left arm moved, the arm with the fragile, too-small hand that carried Deva’s blessing. It moved seemingly independent of his brain, so quick that he could not have stopped it even if he wanted to. It was the hand of the goddess, not his own: her swiftness, not his, her power that slowed time itself around the core of their communion. Sudden warmth striped his face and neck. Cadan’s expression did not change.
The soldiers cried out their shock in one voice and leapt away as if a dragon had dropped from the sky. The secret terror that all Aralyrin harbored against Hilurin—the fear of magic—had come to life among them, for the pedlar had moved faster than sight, so quick that it could only be sorcery, and now Cadan’s neck was sprouting a dagger that seemed conjured from the very air. A small, bright dagger with a red-enameled hilt.
The Aralyrin soldiers fell back from the gout of Cadan’s blood and from the enchanter come to life among them. Scarlet moved without thinking, without feeling, without emotion. His expression was almost sleepy as he whirled and vaulted past the two stunned men.
They could not catch him. No man could have.
He seized his pack and knives as he raced past, not even looking behind him as his feet found the road to Patra. Time resumed its natural pace. As he ran, the earth falling away beneath his boots, he gave thanks to Deva, blessing the creatures she had sent to show him the way, and in his mind the thought kept running over and over: I’m alive, I’m still alive, thank Deva I’m alive and I can save Liall...
Volkovoi
THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED were a blur. Liall walked hard, aware that the weather was against him and he had lingered almost too long in Byzantur. In Rusa, he went to the harbormaster, seeking to find a vessel bound across the Channel for Khet and the port of Volkovoi. He was directed to a cargo vessel that he did not like the look of. The crew was a filthy lot. They looked to be either drugged with centaury, or idiots, or both, but their ship was the only vessel bound for Khet and there might not be another for days. Truly, the harbormaster advised him, the place was better avoided and was he sure he knew what he was doing?
The captain of the cargo ship was no better groomed than his crew, but Liall dickered for a small cabin below the main deck with a bunk that smelled of old wine and worse. He worried it might be infested with fleas. He had concealed his large coin pouch inside his shirt and kept only a few in his pockets to pay his passage, but the captain examined him with a narrow eye, as if trying to assess what else of value he might have.
They lifted anchor shortly after dawn the next day. Liall kept both his long-knives at hand once they were underway. When it grew dark, he locked himself in the stinking cabin, almost choking on the putrid smell of bilge. It would take two days to cross the wide Channel if the wind stayed fair, four if not. He had a good skin of water in his pack and the supplies Peysho had packed for him, so he would have few reasons to venture onto the deck. Many travelers from Byzantur who set out for Khet were never heard from again.
He was certain that one of the crew would try to come in at some point, and he was dozing on the second night when the hatch to his cabin was tried. Waking fully between one breath and another, Liall clasped a long-knife in one hand and rose soundlessly, waiting with his back to the wall. There was a scraping sound in the iron lock and the hatch creaked open. He waited until a head appeared, a shadow darker than the night, and then brought the iron hilt of his knife down.
The crewman sprawled dead-still in the hatchway. Mindful of tricks, Liall stayed where he was until a second figure appeared. Liall lunged forward and seized the man by the arm, jerking him forward so fast that the man’s legs failed him and he was dragged into the cabin. Liall held the point of his blade just under the crewman’s jaw.
The crewman was small but wiry. He froze when he felt steel against his skin.
“Get out,” Liall said, ever so softly. “I want no trouble, but I’ll kill you if you push me to it.” The man gulped and nodded nervously.
“Take this bastard with you.”
Liall released him with a shove and stepped back and to the side in case the crewman changed his mind. He did not, but bent to drag his shipmate out of the hatchway.
“Close it.”
When they were gone, Liall jammed a chair against the hatch. He sank down again onto the rough pallet he had made on the deck. Tomorrow, he would be off this stinking bucket and in Khet. Out of boiling water and into the flames, for the natives there were far more perilous than a half-starved merchant crew. With luck, he would not be there long. The night crawled on: anxious hours spent listening to the creak of timber and the lashing of waves against the hull. He tried to conjure images of his home and family, wondering what they looked like now and if they had changed very much, trying to rekindle his eagerness to see them again. Yet, the only image that filled his mind was Scarlet. All he could feel was a deep sense of regret and loss, as if he had held a precious jewel for only a short time before losing it through some gross lack of judgment on his part.
VOLKOVOI WAS WHAT PIRATES called a cutthroat port. From a distance, it looked like a stack of sagging wooden boxes left out in the rain, though the landscape stayed roughly the same when one got nearer. The spring rains had come to Khet with a vengeance and everything was wet or had recently been wet or had stayed wet so long it was rotten. All the buildings were the color of mildewed straw and reeked of damp plaster, a fitting dwelling for its citizens: a mish-mash of whores, cutpurses, merchant sailors, deserters, professional thieves, and slavers. The town was dirty and cluttered, and a constant pelting of rain fell from the heavy gray layer of clouds perched over the Channel.
The Rshani brigantine was five days late so far. What little Volkovoi had to offer in the way of comfort had grated on Liall after one day, and he longed to be off. Yet, he must wait for the ship. There was no other way to get home, and it had to be a Rshani vessel. A foreign ship caugh
t within sight of the capital port of Rshan would be fired on with cannon.
In Volkovoi, men with white hair and amber skin were uncommon but not unknown, and even though the residents called them Norls or just Northmen, they knew little about where they came from, save that it was very far away and hostile. Liall saw none of his countrymen on the streets of the harbor the few times he ventured out, but his appearance caused little comment and no one gave him more than a second glance.
No one, that was, except the whore.
The boy looked scarcely old enough to be out by himself at night, much less being about the kind of business he so obviously was seeking. The only reason he caught Liall’s eye was because he was slender and black-haired and he had a red cloak wrapped about him. The whore saw Liall’s interest and cast a friendly smile at him, one without much hope. Liall was not walking with any purpose, just striding through the rain because he was tired of being penned up in his stinking chicken coop of a room. At least the wind blowing in from the Channel smelled fresh and had the clean tang of salt to it, and he enjoyed the sound of the loud swells booming against the wooden quay; a low, bass report that he could feel in the center of his chest.
Liall was standing under the flickering glow of a streetlamp filled with noxious, stinking whale oil. The boy strolled over to him and the lamp belched black smoke and threw greenish light down on them. The whore had an oiled woolen cloak wrapped around him to keep off the rain, and his hard eyes scanned Liall up and down as he drew nearer, uninvited.
“Zadi,” he said, giving Liall a Minh honorific as he stared at the strange coloring of the foreigner.
A whore received all kinds of trade in a port, but Rshani mariners rarely left the safety of their ships when visiting the Southern Continent. The old taboos and hatreds were still too great. Liall chanced a guess that this young one had never seen anyone quite like him before.
The whore had perused him, so it was only fair that he got to do the same. What he saw made him sad; slender beauty marred by dirt and weariness. Upon closer inspection, Liall saw that the brilliant red cloak was mildewed in places and that the boy’s nails needed a good cleaning. His black hair was lank and dirty. Still, his smile was winsome if jaded, and he plucked at Liall’s sleeve entreatingly.
