Crimson Valley

by Hausladen, Blake;

  They were slow to it. Some wept. One boat rowed to retrieve bodies, despite my protests, until they realized they were taking on water. Several boats were damaged, and the bodies were forgotten as we struggled to get everyone to the north shore.

  The calm of the lake people was all but gone. Some cried and every simple thing became very hard. We called on them to hurry and it took too long for them to start the next portage. Ghemma and Burhn held hands as though it was the last thing they would ever do.

  Harmond’s men carried their clubs on their shoulders as we marched north. They stayed close to me, and I tried to be cheered, but did not like the look in their eyes. I kept Clea covered and out of site.

  The portage proved a short one over a ridge, and from the high vantage I was heartened to see an enormous blue almond named Lake Goad. On the far side we would find Pashwarmuth, its tithe roads, and wagons. Knowing where we were, I began to search the eastern shoreline for the small town I knew to be there.

  “Yentifrani,” Harmond said and pointed to a smug of smoke obscured by the thick trees. “It is an ugly place run by slavers. It might have been faster for us to stay east and enter Goad from there, but I’ll not set foot in that miserable town.”

  “Lord Vall grew up on this lake.”

  “That’s the story. I’ve also heard he would chase down bull caribou on foot with nothing but a knife. This might be where the Yentif came from but Lord Vall was not Bermish.”

  With nothing more to say we trudged down the last of the ridge. A large number of boats had already gathered there. Word had spread fast. We joined the rough camp and the reunions of a few families inspired a bit of cheer. The chatter though was of the unnatural things, the monsters that were on the hunt in the trees. Some did not believe the danger was real. Others were angry we were not already moving and wanted to set across the lake at once. A wise voice suggested we head southwest and out across the tundra to live off the herd until the trouble passed.

  I gave the idea some thought, too. I would not have said no to a fresh cutting of caribou fat and an afternoon working with candles.

  The notion was shouted down by those with families on the east side of the tithe road who wanted to get across to warn them.

  “We need not go together,” I said about the rising voices. “West, north, east. No one here can tell you where you should go. I say only that you should go now.”

  “Where will you go?” one of them shouted at me.

  “I will cross to Pashwarmuth and get as far away from the darkness as I can. The Hessier coming north will kill us all.”

  The crowd hissed at me. None of them wanted to leave Berm.

  Burhn, still hand-in-hand with Ghemma, said, “I was an acolyte of the Priests’ Home. Many of you know me. We kidnapped Dia and it was our intention to render her children into powdered bone and rule the world. The corruption that led us to this wickedness is what we are fleeing from now. You go where you will, but the boats with us are going north and we will leave Berm behind, though it rips out my hearts to do so. We are leaving now. I urge you to do the same.”

  A few continued to squabble until Burhn and Ghemma started to move. Harmond called the rest to follow and everyone from Verd began to move. The debate behind us faded. Most hurried after us and followed us out onto the lake. The rest headed up the east shore. I could not blame them for trying to save their families.

  One boat went southwest, and I watched them go with a touch of envy. I would never see the tundra again.

  We made it out into the center of the lake beneath a clear sky. I stood, stretched, and admired the solitary whist of cloud that dared to try to cross the heaven alone. It seemed as doomed as we were.

  My back and shoulders were the first to alert me that something more substantial was changing. I needed to sit and nudged Burhn’s shoulder, hoping he would move.

  “Something is wrong,” he said.

  “I know. I’m having a baby. Help if you can or get the hell out of out of the way. I am in the middle of a contraction.”

  None of them seemed not to hear me, and I had to plop myself onto the section of seat between Burhn and Ghemma. They kept holding hands right around me.

  “The boats that went east,” he said. “They are headed back this way. Rowing fast.”

  “They have found us,” Ghemma said. “Hundreds of them at least.”

  This made no sense to me until the contraction passed and I could get a look for myself at the frothy line moving across the lake. Here and there, a dark spot that might be a boat was caught by the froth. None of them would make it. Ahead of us, Pashwarmuth was a hazy smudge of brown building along a wall of trees.

  “Will make it to the town?” I asked.

  “Yes, but what then? On land they will run us down,” Harmond said.

  “We must fight them,” I said.

  Burhn and Harmond looked at each other but said nothing. I tried to say more. I wanted to convince them to fight and to win, but another contraction took me. A third crashed upon me with no more than a gulp of air between.

  “Too close together,” I said at some point. “Someone’s in a damned hurry.”

  Ghemma became aware of my situation then, and it was a relief when she took charge. A hasty layer of coat became a makeshift bed and she laid me down.

  “This is not your first time,” she said, and held my hand. “Breathe between the contractions. Relax.”

  Her calm was helpful, but before I could lay my head back and focus, a tingle of fear began to creep up my arm. When the next contraction came I had no good sense of time or touch.

  “Row faster,” someone shouted. The next contraction passed and another piled right on top of it. I tried to push.

  “Not yet, Dia. Next one,” she said, “Relax. You’re not ready.”

  When the next contraction stabbed me, I could not keep from pushing and Ghemma began to sing. It was their ten-word verse and it banished the touch of Geart’s foul creature. I relaxed back and the contraction passed.

  Ghemma stroked by face and found the will to gift me a touch of the blue. It felt better than the warmth of the sun and the smile of my children, but as the last note faded, the dark grip returned like the slap of cold ire. The next contraction followed.

  The boy inside me wanted out. I screamed and pushed. The choirs’ song pulled away the dark touch once more, but it only took away the fear. I lost all sense of the world. I was slammed sideways, and then hands were upon me.

  Yells and screams bit my ears, and I fell hard onto a surface that did not bob with the waves.

  I lay upon the end of a wide and heavy pier. Our flatboats were crammed around it like the petals of a daisy, and people crowded up onto the pier.

  Ghemma verse washed over me again, and Harmond stood over me. I could hear the splash and baying of the caribou.

  ”Here,” Harmond yelled. “We fight them here.”

  I managed to prop myself up on my elbow. Pashwarmuth was wide and flat, with a single hill and tiny keep. Its brown buildings were thin and the stockade that ringed the town was old and broken. Its gates were closed. Harmond was right. We would live or die right there.

  The splashing grew louder.

  I turned to see a brown wave of mangled flesh. Their hides and white faces were torn and decayed, their eyes filled with madness.

  The next contraction came like a blanket of hate. The last thing that made sense was Ghemma kneeling next to me, Clea cradled in one arm.

  Pain, fear, and thunder. The pier shook. Men cried out.

  I wanted to stand—to fight. I pushed and I screamed. Tears blinded me. A man laid himself over my face and chest, and would not get off. Something hard slammed my forearm, and I heard the bone snap. The person lying across me cried out and went limp. I lost my breath as noises bashed at me. Ghemma was not singing. I felt a soft hand upon the inside of my thigh. It squeezed, urging me to push. I bit my lip and pushed. My face felt it would pop.

  “Out! Get out of
me you stubborn damned Vesteal. Your father will hear about this.”

  He surrendered, moved, and as he went, so did the pain. The placenta quickly followed.

  I lay back on the hard pier and sipped air.

  Pain. Everything was pain.

  My child. I had to get to him.

  I wiped my eyes on the coarse tunica of the man who lay across me. It was one of Harmond’s men, and his head was smashed open. The caribou he’d protected me from lay alongside me. And all around me hooves beat upon the heavy planks while clubs cracked upon thick skulls.

  I got my good arm under the dead man’s body and rolled him up over my head. The sun blinded me, and my smashed arm folded over as I tried to lift it. The world spun and lashed out in every direction around me.

  All I could do was roll onto my side and curl up. I had no voice. I had nothing to hold onto except the trembling planks.

  Where is my son?

  To my left, a caribou began to climb up onto the pier. Its eyes were focused upon something at my feet. I tried to get up—to cry out. I could only watch as it scrambled up and stood over me.

  A man’s voice pierced the sky, the brown shape above me was knocked away, and everything slowed. The white song blinded the yellow sun and the beat of hooves ceased. I baked in the violent light and found a good breath of air. Somewhere a club worked with my good arm, cracking one skull after another with a beat as regular as the song.

  The grip of terror diminished, and I found the strength to stand.

  A lone man stood at the end of the pier bashing away at the animated meat around him. His song had frozen the river, trapping the creatures in the ice. He smashed in one skull after another until the weakening grip of despair let go of me all together. Then his song faded and his club fell from his gray hand.

  Ghemma and Burhn lay between the man and me, and were struggling to get their knees. She did not have my children.

  The man turned, stumbled, and saw me. It was Harmond, but his skin and eyes were gray and his mouth was smeared with blood. He clutched a bundle in one arm.

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  “What did you do?” I screamed.

  He wept, and hugged the bundle close. “Their blood. To fight them. A voice whispered to me—gave me the song to free the water—to save us.”

  Fury thrust the world back. My ears rang, and I heard a whispering.

  ‘Burn him. Take it. Take the word and make him burn.’

  The haze of death there was thick. I’d felt the dark touch a hundred times but never like this. I wanted to sing. I wanted Harmond to burn. I could do it. My throat warmed and His word tickled my ears.

  Harmond fell forward onto the bloody planks and the bundle rolled opened. Two small heads appeared, both were covered in bit marks. Clea and my boy. I limped across and fumbled through the wrap. My boy … my boy …

  “Dia, give them to us,” Burhn said.

  “Never,” I scream and spun on him as my throat warmed again.

  Ghemma stood next to him, clutching his arm to stay upright. Both had been badly beaten. A blue glow lit Ghemma’s skin and a pair of sparks leapt from her hands.

  “Dia, please,” he said. “Hurry. The Spirit has taken her.”

  They knelt on either side of me. Burhn gathered me into a hug and coaxed the bundle from my arms.

  And then she laid her hands upon them and sang. Word after word poured from her and I heard every one—cascading like water as she named all the parts of a man. Noun after noun, a list almost without end. And then came a verb. I could not hear it, but as it leapt up from her throat the darkness around us roared as if bitten. The Vesteal blood upon my children and Harmond’s face cooked away, and the sky thrashed and swirled as if the plug had been pulled from a drain and all the evil above us was dumping into her. The roaring became a thunder, her skin blazed white, and the ground shook.

  A click bit me and the world became still and silent until two voices, angry and fierce, screamed at the world.

  My pain was gone. The click had been my arm as her song mended it. I gathered up my children and helped them to my breasts. Clea’s arm had not been healed, and Cavim was missing a foot, but they were alive and they were hungry.

  Ghemma blinked her eyes and the light in them were extinguished. She slumped sideways. No one else upon the pier was moving.

  On the far side of the rocky shoreline, the gates of Pashwarmuth opened and a crowd started out toward us. The first forward was an old woman, weather-beaten and untroubled. Her dress was a bright Yentif blue and her shawl was the yellow of Urmand.

  “What devilry is this?” one of the men behind her asked. “Stay back, ma’am. Someone here is a singer.”

  “Was,” she said and pointed at Harmond. She strolled through the carnage, kicking at the dead until she reached us.

  She gripped Ghemma’s face, turning it one way and then the other before doing the same to me. I could manage nothing more than to growl at her. “Seems his best two made it. Get them in the wagons.”

  “Dump the children?” the man asked as he pushed me onto my back, and began to shackle my legs.

  “Haven’t you learned anything,” she said, and cuffed him. “You don’t shackle the pretty ones. Scarred ankles hurt the purchase price, and proof of children bearing has as much value in the Kaaryon. If the children are criers you can pitch ‘em, otherwise we let the buyer decided what to do with the whelps.”

  Burhn sat up and tried to take hold of the man. Another kicked him in the face and shackled his feet.

  “Some in town will need to be convinced to abandon Berm,” the second man said.

  “Walk them out here. Only a fool would stay while beasts like these roam the lakes. If they don’t want to pay me for a spot in one of my wagons, they can walk or stay. I don’t care much either way. If they die while we are away, we’ll own more of the town when this trouble is settled.”

  Someone scooped us up, and I held my children close.

  58

  Sikhek Vesteal

  The bull caribou looped along the rocky road toward me. It did not look at first like a thing to be worried about. It was not real, my mind said—a dream. A hawk turned Hessier was madness, a caribou was impossible. The mass was too much for a single spell to hold together.

  Had Geart used a different verb? The Song the Hessier and Ashmari used the word “bind.” Perhaps Geart had learned a new song.

  The impossible thing continued to puzzle me until it reached my horse, scooped it up in its house-sized antlers, and flung it aside. The horse spun high over a pair of young cheery trees and crashed into a rocky gully.

  I was left to watch the bull renew its charge and I considered how well I would heal after it was done with me.

  The dead thing barked a mad throaty cough, as if the man inside wished to scream. Its eyes swirled with madness.

  This thing is going to kill me. I should do something. I’d thought myself clever for many centuries. Was I still? The hawk screeched, as if laughing.

  Perhaps.

  Crave caribou eye

  The song’s magic came fast and the hawk dived. It struck the bull’s head, latched on, and began to feast.

  The stupid thing didn’t think to shake the thing off until both of its eyes were pierced. It swung its weight around, grunted, and charged straight into the cherry trees. One snapped clean off at the base of the trunk, pulverizing the hawk before the bull pitched headlong into the gully.

  A time later I found myself sitting down. Somewhere to my left, the bull coughed and clattered it tried to climb up the rock side of the gully.

  Geart’s undead creatures would swarm this land in search of me. I could not flee across country and hope to outwit them all. Yudyith would be overrun, and Geart would render me into my parts and make from me an army that Zoviya could not stop. He needed only to catch Dia or catch me.

  What the hell am I doing in Yudyith?

  Geart would be wondering the same. There was nothing here
but a mass of wanton criminals, chief amongst them me.

  What would Barok do, all selfless and noble?

  He’d warn Yudyith and get its people out of harm’s way. It was a strangely attractive option. Geart could not make an army of beasts and thralls if no one was here when he arrived.

  Madness. What reason did I have to help the vermin of Yudyith?

  The bull clamored over the lip of the gully, missing an antler, its stomach cavity, and the bottom half of both front legs. It sniffed the air and lumbered blindly toward me.

  I laughed at it, but stopped. There would be so many more. Geart had worked out a new magic—something I’d not considered. Alone, I was doomed. I could not help but imagine Barok smiling at the choice left to me.

  I turned, got my bearings, and marched back toward the city. By the time I sighted Cyaudi another hawk was circling wide around the bull caribou, so I waited until dark to find my way into the city.

  The gates had been closed for the night. I spun for the guards the same tale I’d told the corsair captain and they escorted me up long streets toward estates I knew and a palace I had built.

  I met the Arilas of Yudyith as he was enjoying a fine meal with his retainers, a redhead that was not his wife, and a few officers.

  “Who are you,” he said as their collective smiles faded. My condition was poor. He was young, rounded by his feasting, and groomed to a fault. He set down his wine. Two of the officers stood.

  The map upon the wall behind him caught my eye and I pointed at it. I’d not thought that any copies had survived my order that they be destroyed.

  “Your great grandfather’s map has served your corsairs well.”

  “Get this thing out of here.”

  “Be still, Arilas Roto. I am Minister Sikhek.”

  “And I am Admiral Soma upon the deck of a great ship. String this fool up by his toes.”

  rest man

  rest man

  The officers slid to the floor.

  “I do not have time to teach you the things your father or grandfather failed to learn. This is the only chance I will give you to save your people or I will replace you.”