Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she told him, even as he’d begun to nod in understanding. “It’s what everybody thinks. That everyone from Wenslir is a religious zealot. That’s not so, of course—but then again, there are a lot of reasons people believe it. My family is one of those reasons. I was seven years of age before I knew the difference between conversation and prayer.”

  Her smile in response to his chuckle was faint but genuine, the first in two days. “Close to half of my family were clergy of the Empyrean Choir. If you hadn’t shown a penchant for some other craft or profession by adolescence, then it was just a matter of figuring out which god of the Choir you were best suited to serving.”

  “And did you? Show a penchant for something else?”

  “That… depends on your definition.” Her new drink arrived, dropped off by a massive, broad-shouldered man of dark skin and even darker hair. He’d been working in and around the bar since the two of them had arrived, and gave every impression of owning or at least running the place. Silbeth seemed not to notice him, and had apparently forgotten that she was thirsty.

  “Children fight,” she said. “It happens. Someone goes home with a split lip, maybe a broken nose, and quite possibly gets worse from their parents.

  “Most children don’t dig kitchenware into their opponents, or look for blunt objects as a reaction to perceived insults. I don’t know how many people’s bones I’d broken by the time I was eleven, but there’s a fairly good chance that was when I first killed somebody.”

  Nycos couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe. To say that this was not the story he’d anticipated was a colossal understatement. To say he couldn’t entirely comprehend why she would confide this in him, especially under their current circumstances, even more so.

  “I don’t know for certain that the boy died.” She spoke almost by rote, as if reciting off a written page. “People pulled me off him, hustled me away, and my family moved soon after. But I’d hit him in the head with a loose paving stone from the street. If I didn’t kill him, I can’t imagine he hasn’t wished every day since that I had.”

  She finally reached out to take a drink. Despite the apparent lack of emotion in her face, her voice, her posture, Nycos could hear the beer sloshing violently in the mug.

  “Silbeth—”

  “No.” She wiped her lips, lowered the flagon. “I had a knack for the fighting, skills I’d picked up from watching others or practicing behind my parents’ backs. It wasn’t just wild blows and fury. In fact, I really don’t remember ever feeling all that angry. I know I must have been, on some level, to react with such violence, but I didn’t feel it.

  “If my family didn’t do something, I was going to wind up dead, either in a fight or on the gibbet. So of course, they turned to the gods. And it was through some of our friends in the priesthoods that I was eventually passed into the custody of various temples. Temples of war gods, of course. And from them, the Priory.

  “Whatever was broken inside me, they fixed, though it took years. And I don’t just mean they taught me to control whatever it was, though they did. Through various martial practices, meditations, all of that. There was magic involved, Nycos. No overt sorcery, but more subtle mysticism, through ritual and prayer.”

  What was he to say to that? “I can only imagine how grateful you must feel to them.”

  “Grateful, absolutely. But of far greater importance, I believe. I’ve seen, felt, what the forms and focus of battle can do for me. I know there’s genuine power there. And I know that I’ve a knack for these skills, that the gods must have made me a warrior—even before I knew what to do with that—for a reason. That’s why, of all the martial gods of the Choir, all those to whom the Priory offers its veneration, I’ve chosen Louros as my primary patron.”

  “The Lady of the Moons? Why?” he asked, startled.

  “Because she watches over those who travel by night. Those who are lost in darkness. As I was, in my own way.” For the first time she looked away, gazing into her flagon or perhaps at the whorls in the wood of the table. “A lot of people scoff at the Priory of Steel even as they respect our skills. They don’t understand how we can consider what we do to be a religious practice, but—”

  “I understand. Or I think I do, anyway.” He felt dizzy, his entire view—of the world? Or just of Silbeth Rasik?—shaken slightly from its axis.

  “Maybe you do at that.” Again her chair scraped as she rose. “Good night, Nycos. I hope you heard whatever answer it was you were seeking.”

  He watched her go, winding between various tables on her way to the stairs. He had no idea what answers he had sought, or whether he’d heard them—but he knew, now, that he had more than a few new questions. That he might just be insane for even considering them.

  And that he probably ought not tell Smim he was thinking of asking them.

  ___

  The morning was crisp, cold, windy but surprisingly clear as they left Wayloq, the Hungry Dog Inn, and the coast of the Cerenean Sea behind. And fortunate for them that the weather held, that—though uncomfortable—it never approached the levels of misery it had reached during their earlier travels. For they rode in silence the bulk of that day, and a portion of the next, each far too deeply lost in his or her own thoughts and emotions for the telling of tales or the trading of jibes.

  It was just past noon, on the second day since they’d departed the port-and-fishing town, when they approached the border between Kirresc and Quindacra.

  The border, and one particularly devastating error in judgment.

  While thick woodland lay not far to the north, an extension of the same sprawling forest of which the Brackenwood was part, vast stretches of the border were grassland with sporadic copses. Between that, and two days without much precipitation, going off road would scarcely have slowed or inconvenienced them. Sneaking into a sovereign nation carried with it some risk, certainly, but the odds of discovery in the vast expanse were negligible. It would have been simplicity itself to avoid the official crossing, and the tariff-collecting border station that sat alongside the highway.

  In fact, the trio had gone off the road to avoid the Kirresci station. Nycos hadn’t wanted to risk being recognized, however remote the chance. It would have been simple to stay off the highway, to enter Quindacra with the same stealth they’d exited Kirresc. Both nations kept such outposts a couple of miles back from the actual line on the map, to avoid stepping on one another’s toes; a league-and-change across the grasses would have proved easy enough.

  But Nycos had fretted over the various ways his plan could go awry, and he’d decided that being caught trying to sneak into Quindacra—however improbable—was a gamble not worth taking. He’d chosen to approach the crossing openly.

  It was a simple hut, manned by roughly half a dozen soldiers, with little to differentiate it—or them—from their Kirresci counterparts, save colors and emblems on tabards. Perhaps their arms and armor were of slightly lower quality, their discipline suggestive of training not quite up to Kirresci standards, but not by any great degree.

  The guards emerged from shelter as the trio approached, their faces chapped red and their breath steaming in the chill. Smim put his arms around himself and shivered heavily to explain why he kept his face wrapped, while Nycos and Silbeth stepped forward to speak. They answered a few perfunctory questions with a tale of an emergency in a cousin’s business affairs, one that required winter travel. They were headed to Vidiir, the capital. Yes, they’d been here before and knew which highways to take. And yes, of course they were happy to pay an entry tariff, though Nycos made sure not to sound too content with the prospect.

  A smattering of silver Kirresci zlatka changed heavily gloved hands, the three of them began to ride on, and it was just as Nycos prepared to pull his scarf back over his face that the whole thing went to hell.

  “Sir Nycolos?” The death knell of a question came from a soldier at the back of the squad, a middle-aged man with the bear
ing of low gentry. “Captain Arvisk! Remember? We met when you escorted Leomyn Guldoell home for Duke Hemmet’s funeral.”

  Oh, damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn!

  Nycos had no memory of any such thing, of course, but he couldn’t exactly explain why to the excited soldier. And it wouldn’t have mattered even if he could.

  “Why in Alazir’s name are you traveling without a retinue, and in this weather no less? You could—”

  He died instantly, his skull neatly cloven with a single arc of Nycos’s szandzsya. He would go to Vizret’s realm, or wherever else, never knowing what had killed him, and for that, Nycos found himself oddly grateful. It would occur to him only later that what he felt in that moment was a pang, however faint, of guilt. That, though once he would have given it nary a second thought, today he actively wished he need not do what he was about to do.

  He wished, but it wouldn’t stop him.

  Avalanche spun at the merest pressure of his rider’s knees, the scent of blood driving the warhorse into a screaming exultation. The sabre-spear whistled, slicing cold air and hot flesh, and a second soldier fell, features locked in a mask of permanent bewilderment.

  By now the rest of the border guards had overcome their shock, crying out in alarm, hefting spears and yanking swords from scabbards. Nycos lunged into their midst, his mount surging beneath him, a living siege engine. Two more Quindacrans died, one by szandzsya, the other beneath the winter-wrapped but still iron-shod hooves of Avalanche.

  That left only two of the original six, but their shouted warnings had quickly drawn—perhaps awakened—others. Although unarmored, a few still blinking the sleep from their eyes, the second shift poured from the hut, and if any remained drowsy, the twin slaps of the cold and the sight of comrades sprawled across hard earth woke them well enough.

  Of greater concern to Nycos, three of them held not sword or spear, but recurved bows crafted in the Kirresci style. That last was an irony the knight felt unable to appreciate.

  Only two arrows flew, however—both of which Nycos evaded, though he nearly hurled himself from Avalanche’s back—before the newly arrived soldiers found themselves threatened up close. Silbeth was among them now, sword and buckler flashing, forcing the archers to drop their bows in favor of blades. Blood flew, the horse reared, and steel shrieked against steel.

  Smim appeared behind the pair still facing Nycos. He clutched a short chopping blade he’d acquired somewhere in Oztyerva, more cleaver than sword or sabre. One soldier fell, screaming, having never seen the goblin coming. The other perished an instant later beneath Nycos’s larger weapon.

  Nycos paused only an instant, troubled by Smim’s peculiar expression, then once again prodded Avalanche into a sprint. Skilled as Silbeth was, Nycos wasn’t prepared to leave her facing six-to-one odds on her own.

  Or even four-to-one, which is how the confrontation stood by the time he reached her side. Between the pair of them, those remaining four dwindled to zero in moments.

  Blood and other fluids steamed heavily in the winter air, while the miasma of offal and human pieces never intended for the light of day scratched at their nostrils, their throats, their lungs with ragged nails of fume. The horses shifted, whickering uneasily, their pulses still racing but no threats left to face. Silbeth reached two fingers to her forehead, wiping away a sheen of perspiration that was already freezing into a thin glaze.

  “Explain to me,” she said in low tone, “why we just slaughtered twelve people who were not our enemies?”

  He cast about him, his attention tugged in morbid fascination to the swiftly cooling pools of crimson, rippling glutinously in the breeze. When he did reply, his words were softer even than hers. “I… It never even crossed my mind that someone here might recognize me! Some random soldier, not even Kirresci? It… The odds…!”

  “Yeah. I’ve been on the boot-end of Donaris’s fickle moods more than a time or two, myself.” She, too, turned about as though burning the sight of the bodies into her memory. “You—we killed them to keep a secret?”

  “We killed them to prevent a war.” Nycos straightened in his saddle. “If anyone—anyone—learns that Nycolos Anvarri was here in Quindacra, what I’m planning won’t work.”

  “I suppose I’d have known that, if I had any idea what you were planning.” She no longer sounded accusatory or even especially irate over his reticence, just mildly discontent. “What are we doing with these poor idiots? The highways may not see a lot of travel at this time of year, but someone’s still going to find this mess well before we’ve reached Vidiir.”

  “We need to make this look like bandits,” he decided after a bit of thought. Then, “Yes, I know, it’s peculiar for bandits to attack an armed border station. Maybe they were desperate over the lack of winter traffic. I don’t know. It just has to look right. Smim?”

  “On it, Master.” The goblin dropped from his horse and set about rifling the bodies for valuables. Silbeth, vaguely disgusted, gathered the better of the fallen weapons, while Nycos went inside to find the strongbox, or wherever they kept the tariffs they collected.

  They even went so far as to leave some extra drag marks where the earth wasn’t too rock-hard to accept them, used a few of the dead—after careful maneuvering—to scatter extra bloodstains about the battlefield. It wouldn’t look right without some evidence of wounded raiders.

  And then there was nothing else for it but to move on.

  Nycos dropped back as they rode, letting Silbeth take the lead. “It’s not like you to keep your opinions to yourself, Smim,” he said to his old companion. “But you’ve clearly had something to say for a while now.”

  “Nothing important, Master. I’m just fine.”

  “Ah. Just being sullen and resentful for the warmth, then?”

  Beady eyes glared from a woven bird’s nest of scarves.

  “Come on, Smim. What’s bothering you?”

  “What’s bothering me, Master, is that you’re bothered!”

  It took Nycos a moment to work through that and figure out what the goblin referred to. “You mean the fight back there.”

  “Not a fight, Master. A massacre. The soldiers never had a chance, and you know it.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel worse about it?”

  The goblin’s fists clenched so tightly on the reins that his horse stumbled, twisting his head in confusion. “No, damn it, but that’s precisely my point!” He calmed himself, quieting his voice with a suspicious sneer at the woman riding ahead. “You shouldn’t feel anything about it!”

  Nycos shrugged. It wasn’t a huge weight, but… “Those people shouldn’t have had to die, Smim.”

  “And they didn’t especially have to live, either. Why does it matter, Master? Why are you giving it a second thought? They’re just humans!”

  “I… Yes, they are. And I did what I had to do.”

  “Yet you’re still fretting over it. Tzavalantzaval wouldn’t mope about it.”

  The many layers Smim wore to protect himself from the cold guarded him against the worst of the blow as well. Still, it was more than sufficient to bruise, and to send him hurtling from the saddle to the cold, packed earth.

  “I am Tzavalantzaval!” Nycos hissed at him, near shaking with rage. He couldn’t remember ever raising a hand or a claw to the goblin, but the implication behind Smim’s words gouged his soul. He only just kept his voice low enough that Silbeth, now riding madly back their way, would not hear the declaration. “Do not ever forget it!”

  “I’m not the one, Master,” Smim said, hauling himself upright with a hand on the stirrup and no doubt already coming up with some lie to tell Silbeth about what had happened, “who seems to be in danger of forgetting.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  More people would die tonight. He would take pains to avoid it where he could, and if fortune were with him they would be few, but Nycos had no illusions. Under no circumstances would he greet the dawn with clean hands.

  He wondered i
dly, as he peered at the flickering lights of Vidiir through a veil of sleet, why that thought disturbed him less than the murder of the border guards, now almost a week gone by. Did their proximity to the king, these soldiers of the capital and of Castle Auric, bestow upon them, in Nycos’s sight, some of the guilt and treachery of their sovereign? So that he felt they deserved an unkind fate more than their distant brethren?

  Or had the fact that this was always an element of his plan, that he’d had longer to adjust to the idea, simply rendered their possible deaths less impactful?

  Nycos shook himself, and not just to rid himself of the chilling snow accumulating on his shoulders and hood. It didn’t matter. He was here, and he knew what he had to do. The night was already half over, and he must be done and away by dawn.

  They had camped, the three travelers, in the wilds just outside Vidiir, hidden behind a small rise and within a copse of bare boles. Nycos had departed the moment Silbeth was asleep, leaving Smim with a variety of instructions—and a warning, in no uncertain terms, of what would happen to the goblin if the woman was to suffer any sort of “accident” in his master’s absence. He’d also left behind his weapons, which were too obviously of Kirresci make, and his armor, which would have rendered stealth nigh impossible.

  Anyone but Smim would have thought him a fool, that he’d rendered himself helpless.

  From there, Nycos chose a roundabout way to the city proper. The ice and snow fell heavily enough, but the weather was fickle, and the drifts that had already accumulated lay thick. He had no wish to risk leaving a trail, however unlikely, to his companions’ camp. Thus, Nycos had instead made his way to the shore, and through the lapping tides that would hide any tracks.

  He crouched now in those same frigid waters, soaked to the knees, leaning against the slimy pylon of a pier and studying, as best he could, the great port that was Quindacra’s seat of power. It scarcely bothered him, that cold. Little in the way of discomfort would bother him now.