by Devin Madson
“In the middle of a battle he’s going to take soldiers to search for the priest who is actually outside the walls?”
“Yes. That’s about the gist of it. He seems to think the Chiltaens will stop attacking as soon as Leo, or his body, is given over respectfully.”
Before Nuru finished speaking, the Kisian lord spun on his heel and strode across the busy courtyard toward the manor, exactly as if there were no wounded soldiers or stones or bodies, as though no battle was happening at all.
“Shit,” I said. “If he finds Gideon, we’re in trouble.”
Nuru grimaced. “Would he know about the caves?”
“He might. He’s Kisian. I don’t know what he knows.”
“Then go. Find someone you trust to guard the passage if you can, else stay yourself.”
“What of Si—”
“I can guard her.” Nuru set her hand upon one of her sword hilts. “I’m as capable and well-trained as any Sword, even if I’m not Made.”
I hadn’t doubted it, but with Lord Nishi disappearing into the manor I didn’t have time to reassure her, only to nod and run, hoping they would be all right until I returned.
Servants and soldiers alike were hurrying through the entrance hall carrying bundles of arrows and cloth and water, stones and old blades and food, the chaos here a quieter mirror to the chaos outside. I could only hope our walls and gates would stand long enough for supplies to matter.
After the bustle and noise of the hall, stepping into the empty cellar was like stepping into another world. There was no sign of Lord Nishi or any of his supporters, and hoping it would stay that way, I shifted the stone cover and dropped the short distance into the narrow underground passage. Light from the pair of lanterns we’d left glimmered on the damp walls, filling the cave ahead with a pale glow, their flicker the only movement or sign of life.
“Gideon?” I called as I ducked beneath the low arch.
Air ripped and a blade halted before me, all threat and no welcome. At the other end of the long, clean edge was Rah. Tired, thinner, dirty from the caves, and with the shadow of old bruises on his face, but still Rah with his intent gaze that looked right through me. Our eyes met, but he didn’t lower the sword.
“Dishiva,” he said.
“Rah.”
Gideon lay against the cave wall where I had left him, twitching and trembling in his sleep. Rah’s gaze shied sideways with mine. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Tep gave him something to help him sleep. It just hasn’t been restful. He’ll probably wake soon, and you’ll wish he hadn’t.”
“Why? And why send for me?”
I folded my arms, no longer afraid he would use the outstretched weapon. “Because you were right, but you shouldn’t have been.” I gestured around. “This should have worked. Would have worked. Gideon was making it work. But that fucking little monster ruined everything. Everything we could have had and could have been. He gets inside your head, like a voice. A feeling of peace. A raging attack of noise, whatever he needs to—” Unable to find words, I mimed tearing something apart with my hands.
“He’s an Entrancer.”
“A what the fuck?”
He finally lowered his sword, nicked the edge of one of his fingers, and sheathed it. A tired sigh led his next words. “Ezma told me. She said that’s how our herd masters have been controlled. She’s a believer in the One True God, but she thinks Leo is a fraud and the real Veld is a Levanti.” He ran a hand over his face, leaving it dirtier and more lined with fatigue. “I think she wants to build a holy empire on the plains.”
“But she’s a horse whisperer!” The words were out of my mouth before my cynicism caught up. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Is that why she was exiled?”
“Yes. Tor’s been working on the book, by the way, but I don’t know how much help it will be now.”
There was something disconnected about having a conversation about Veld and Leo and Ezma here beneath a Kisian manor, but even more so about having it with Rah. I ought not to have been surprised Tor had confided in him, but for weeks this problem had consumed me and weighed its horrors upon me, and I had felt alone. Even with Sichi and Nuru and Edo. Rah knowing, Rah talking about it without questioning its truth, lifted a fear I hadn’t known I was carrying. Someone believed me. Someone who hadn’t been there, who hadn’t seen it firsthand, believed me.
Unable to voice such feelings, I gestured at Gideon. “He’s a mess. I think he’s afraid and… fragile.” I touched the side of my head. “He’s had Leo in here too long. He did it to protect us in the end, but… he couldn’t fight when it mattered and is… tortured by the things he’s done and can’t undo.”
“Yitti.” Rah’s voice was even, a determined state of calm hiding his pain. “Who else?”
“Oh, Jass told you, did he? I told him he shouldn’t. But I guess he didn’t want you to come all the way only to find out and still feel obligated to look after him. Trust Jass to think like that.”
“Unlike you?”
“Unlike me. I have to be more pragmatic.”
“But not pragmatic enough to kill him and make it easy.”
I shook my head. “No, but it was close. I had to watch them die. I had to listen to the condemnations come from his lips in his voice, watch him smile while it happened. So even though I know, I know, it wasn’t him, I can’t separate the two. I figured you’re the only one left who gives a shit about him who can.”
Rah turned, watching Gideon twitch in his half doze, and I was glad I could not see his expression. “Thank you,” he said, the dull tone tightening a fist around my heart. “But you didn’t answer my question. Who else?”
“Is that a question you really want me to answer? Now of all moments?”
“No, but I need to know.”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. “Yitti,” I said, thinking it would be easier to start with the name he already knew, but it stuck in my throat like blades. “Himi. Istet. And Lok. The rest were Bedjuti, not your Swords.”
What was there to say? Rah’s face was a dead mask behind which he held his pain close, and there was nothing I could do to lessen it that hadn’t already been said. Perhaps it would have been kinder to kill Gideon after all.
At last he nodded, a slow, regretful motion as much thanks for my honesty as acknowledgement. “I should go.” He glanced up at the cave roof through which the distant thud of steps could be heard. “Are you going to be all right?”
No would have been the honest answer, but there was nothing he could do to help. “I think we can hold them off. Sichi sent a message to your empress, so hopefully she’s on her way. If not, do tell her when you get back that we’d rather like some help.”
He nodded, looking again at Gideon. “I’ll do that. Not that she has any reason to trust me now.”
We stood a minute in silence. Rah kept his back to me and I let him keep his pain, knowing there was nothing I could do to lighten it. Eventually, he heaved a sigh and stepped toward Gideon, tentative like a hunter.
“Gideon?” Rah knelt, his hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “It’s Rah. I’ve come back for you.”
His voice cracked on suppressed emotion, and I had to swallow a lump in my throat and fight the urge to leave. This was too raw a reunion to be present for, but until I was sure Rah could manage him, I could not go.
“Gideon, I’m—”
Gideon rolled, lashing out with his fist. Rah flinched but caught it, only for Gideon to lunge at him with a mangled cry. For a moment they were a mess of tangled limbs and sharp grunts before Rah pinned him to the ground. “Stop trying to hit me, you idiot,” he growled. “I came to save you, but I could just as easily leave you.”
“Rah?” A sob broke upon his name, and Gideon shoved Rah off him. “Get away from here. Go. Go! Don’t let him find you.”
“I am going, but I’m taking you with me.”
The man who had once held all the Levanti hopes in his capable hands clung to Rah like he was
drowning, gulping lungfuls of grief. His whole body shook and tears streaked down his dirt-smeared face, and I had to look away and remind myself he had not ordered those deaths. Remind myself that what Gideon had been through deserved kindness. But it was hard to think of Yitti and Himi and Istet and believe it.
Rah murmured words I tried not to hear, speaking over Gideon’s every attempt to explain or beg him to leave, until at last he fell silent.
“We’re getting out of here,” Rah said. “You can lean on me most of the way, but you’re going to have to walk. You can do that for me, can’t you?”
He was treating Gideon like a troubled horse, and I wondered if it was easier to think that way, to solve the problem at hand rather than try to grapple with reconciling all his different thoughts of Gideon.
Rah started to his feet and I stepped forward, stopping as he shook his head. Whether it was because he feared I would spook Gideon or because he understood how difficult this was for me, I wasn’t sure, only grateful.
“You can go,” he said when he had Gideon on unsteady feet. “Jass is waiting. He’ll help me if needed.”
That Jass was so close but I would not see him hurt more than I expected. We had both chosen to put helping our people before each other, before the hope of a relationship that might not even last beyond these shores, yet his strong arms wrapped around me would have made the world feel all right for a few blissful moments. Instead he had his task and I had mine, and Sichi and Nuru might already be in need of me.
“We prepared some supplies for the journey,” I said, pointing to the two satchels sitting against the cave wall. “Give one to Jass for me and say… say thank you. Again.”
It was not enough, but it would have to do. Rah nodded, his lips twisting into a wry smile, one that contained all the things we had never said to each other and now never would. I had to make peace with that, as I had to make peace with being parted from Jass. All I could do was trust they would make it and turn away, my heart as full as it was broken.
The floor shook as I reached the top of the stairs. I steadied myself against a wall, shouts sounding through the tumbling of dust and the cracking of timbers. Nearby, a pair of servants huddled in a doorway, watching me as I ran on, back into the bright daylight.
A boulder sat in the crumbled ruins of the steps, making a jagged jumble of the stones. They shifted under my feet, sliding as I tried to run down them. The courtyard was a mess. Stones broken from the wall scattered the ground, along with fallen arrows and a smattering of bodies. A boy was running along collecting the arrows, and two Levanti healers knelt beside a screaming soldier. It was all too much with the stink of dust and blood and the thunder of a ram beating against the gates.
“Have you seen the empress?” I shouted at a passing soldier, but he didn’t look around, let alone answer. The gates were holding, but the wall was a mess. Some archers were still atop part of it, but most soldiers were gathered inside now, tense and waiting. I headed for the flash of a crimson surcoat.
Edo stood in the centre of a large gathering of soldiers, shouting orders. They watched him with the confidence I’d once had in my leaders.
“Edo!”
And now here was I, breaking in on his speech. He looked around at his name, relief flashing across his face. Before I could ask my question, he pointed in the direction of the stable. “Empress Sichi” were the only words I understood, but they were all I needed.
He picked up where he had left off as I pushed my way back out through the crowd of soldiers, stinking of sweat and fear.
The main stable yard sat in the shadow of the north tower, its decorative stonework watching Levanti gather with their horses. Made tense with fear and noise, the animals were twitchy as everyone rushed to saddle their mounts. Loklan dashed about, helping with anything he could get his hands to, a dozen people calling to him all at once.
“Loklan!”
He looked around, wiping sweat from his eyes. “Captain! Itaghai is here and ready.”
Oh, to be a captain again, to be on my horse fighting the way I understood, the way I had trained. But that was not my path now.
“You ride him,” I said. “I have to find the empress.”
“Me?”
“Yes, your horse was left with Ezma. You need a mount more than I do.”
He gaped at me. “Are… are you sure, Captain?”
I wasn’t. “Yes,” I said anyway, telling myself that if I couldn’t trust my horse master with him, I couldn’t trust anyone. “I know you’ll take care of him. Fight hard.”
“And you, Captain. I saw Nuru and the empress climbing onto the stable roof earlier.”
I didn’t stay to ask why or to thank him, too afraid I would rescind my own offer. I left him to it, ignoring all the calls and shouts as I edged back out through the press of horses and Levanti, mud and hay trampled beneath hooves and boots.
On one side of the main stable building, a rickety gate made for good footholds, and I pulled myself onto it. From there I could reach the edge of the roof. My hands and arms protested my weight, but I dragged myself up onto the roof’s slippery slates.
Sichi and Nuru stood at the far end, each balancing on the roof as they peered through a gap in the stones. They had their heads together, talking fast, but turned at the clinking of tiles beneath my boots.
“Rah came,” I said. “They’ve gone. You should get out of here too; I’m not sure how long we can hold out if the other empress isn’t coming.”
I didn’t need to ask if there had been any sign of Empress Miko. Their expressions told me we were alone.
“I’ve been trying to persuade Sichi to leave,” Nuru said with a glance at the empress—a different woman in her borrowed armour. “But she says a leader doesn’t run.”
“Sure, but what is she the leader of at this point?” My foot slipped and I only just managed to save myself from sliding down the roof by gripping the ridge. Sichi had half lunged to save me, but straightened when I shook my head to show I was all right. “She cannot lead the Levanti into battle, and Edo has the Kisians. If Leo wants her, we need to get her out of here.”
“I am here as you speak,” Sichi said in her imperfect Levanti. “Speak me. Not Nuru.”
Stung by the reproof, I looked right at her. “You have to leave. It isn’t safe here. You don’t want to get caught by Leo. Go, through the caves. If you hurry you might be able to catch up with Rah and Jass and Gideon, they won’t be moving fast.”
Nuru translated, leaving Sichi biting her lip. She looked around at the courtyard, at the fast-crumbling wall and the gate beginning to splinter. We had soldiers and riders, we had archers and blades, but when the Chiltaens got through they would crush us into our own walls until there was no one left.
“Your presence will make no difference to the outcome,” I said, and cruel though the words might be, they were true and she knew it.
Sichi nodded.
“Good. Now go, before—”
A rush of air overhead heralded the passing of a huge boulder. Its shadow swept over, and stone smashed stone in a burst so loud I pressed my hands over my ears.
The crashing ought to have faded away, but it grew, a thunderous cascade of tumbling rocks. Stones burst from the middle of the north tower, and the whole thing toppled sideways like a dropping tree. Chunks spewed out across the courtyard, but the bulk of it crashed outside the wall, hammering the track leading into the mountains. A track that buckled under the weight, the ground beneath it subsiding as though struck by a giant fist.
The caves.
Cold dread shot through me even as a fierce cloud of dust blew over us. It stung my eyes and tore my breath from my body, each tiny stab of grit against skin nothing to the overwhelming fear of what I might have just lost. Jass had been down there.
Hunched over and coughing, Nuru said, “Was that the caves?”
I dared not speak lest my words make it true, but Sichi nodded.
I hadn’t noticed how much t
he ground had been shaking until it stopped, the remains of the tower settling, only small rocks left to trickle down its slopes. Inside the compound, cries rose from the injured, followed by calls for healers as people scrabbled at the rockfall, looking for survivors.
“Fuck,” I said, and the word just didn’t seem big enough to encompass the full size of either my fears or my shock. I couldn’t bring myself to move.
“All right,” Nuru said. “That’s that plan gone. No way out. What now? The gate isn’t going to hold much longer.”
She was asking me like I had an answer, but my brain seemed to have filled with dust. Every thought skittered away and I stared at her, trying to focus, to think, able to do nothing but suck fast breaths and hold down panic. Leo was out there. He was coming for us, and there was nothing we could do to stop him.
Sichi spouted a stream of rapid Kisian, pointing to the other side of the compound, and even before she had finished, Nuru was nodding.
“Some of the south wall has broken away in places,” she said. “If we go that way, we might be able to find a way through, or somewhere we can climb down without the Chiltaens seeing us.”
It was a terrible plan, but it was the only one we had.
Thrusting aside all thought of Jass and Rah, I drew a deep breath and followed Nuru and Sichi to the edge of the roof.
All was chaos in the courtyard. The dust had turned everything hazy. Footsteps hurried past. Someone nearby was crying. I dared not look, just hurried in Nuru’s wake, afraid of losing her in the confusion. All around us horses whinnied and snorted and people were shouting, punctuated by the ever-present rhythmic boom of the ram hitting the gates. It was speeding up, the inevitability of the end making my pulse roar in my ears.
Darting and dodging around rubble and people, Sichi led us across the yard, her surcoat flapping behind her. It was easier to follow than Nuru’s dark leathers, and we made it to the opposite wall without losing each other in the rows of Kisians lining up amid Edo’s orders.
“Let’s see if there’s a way up on this end,” Nuru shouted. “The front stairs are too close to the fighting, and these ones are broken.”
