Beggar's Rebellion

by Levi Jacobs

  “Aye. Which is exactly why we can’t risk you. The things you can do with your resonance,” Karhail shook his head. “The people are beginning to look up to you, Tai.”

  “And they will look up to this. Look at the recruits I got us yesterday! Imagine if we got the whole scatting prison camp on our side! We have the money now, have the yura to sell.” There were more murmurs of assent at this.

  Karhail grimaced, glancing at the gathered rebels. “But this isn’t about the recruits is it? Or even the whole prison camp? It’s about your kids. About saving the kids you were taking care of. I respect that, Tai. But the cause is bigger than your kids now. It’ll have to wait.”

  There were murmurs of assent at this too, but Tai shook his head. “I won’t wait. I can’t wait.” He looked at the assembled group, meeting some eyes, others looking away. “If you’re all too worried about strategy, about protecting yourselves rather than the people that we’re here for, fine. But I’m getting them out. Today.”

  Karhail cracked his knuckles. “And if we don’t support you?”

  “Then I’ll do it alone.”

  22

  Coldferth to dig the earth,

  Alsthen for pigs and hens,

  Galya for house and home,

  Ergstad for ships to roam.

  Byaldsen for worker might,

  Sablos for men to fight.

  Kellandrial’s dreamleaf and cane,

  Deyenal for keisua fame.

  Talhens for ships and trade,

  Mettelken for debts repaid.

  Fenril works to cut the trees,

  Jeltennets for crafts you need.

  --Council song, Councilate primary education

  Tai walked the road to the prison camp. The sun shone right overhead, and the forest was quiet save for goldbeetle song. He was alone, unarmed, dressed back in the same rags he’d come to the rebellion in. Desperate. Determined.

  The guards hailed him when he was barely into the clearing. The space had grown, more logs felled around the log fortress of the prison camp, giant piles of cleaned lumber and kindling dotting the wide space. The scent of burning pine boughs filled the air. “Halt there, good man!” a voice yelled in educated Yersh.

  Tai ignored him, kept walking. Achuri men and women were out, working the timber or digging foundations, many of them neck-deep in the emerging outline of a giant addition, nearly three times as large. A Titan fell from the sky, spear held threateningly, resonance humming, though not so loud as Tai’s could. “Halt darkhair! Or find yourself on the far side of Councilate graces.”

  Hake moaned at the sight of him, a muscular man clad in gleaming armor. Tai brushed past. “I have business with those inside.”

  Two more Titans dropped in front of him, easily wafting higher and faster than anyone he’d known. Other than himself, that was. They crossed spears in his path. “Stop, darkhair,” one of them said in lower Yersh. “Hands up or I put this spear through your gut.”

  Tai stopped. Held his arms up. “I’m unarmed. I have business with those inside.”

  The guard sneered. “No one gets inside less we say so.”

  “And no one who does gets out,” the other put in, a thick woman with uneven eyes. “So git.”

  “And what do I have to do to get inside?”

  “Something illegal,” the first one said.

  Tai decked him.

  They took him through a sally port near the main gate, into a stone building with scarred and stained walls, muted cries coming through a door to the left—the prison proper, most likely. A bored looking lawkeeper efficiently stripped and searched him, then thrust his clothes back into his hands. “You want to survive here, you do like we say. Got it?”

  Tai didn’t bother to answer, eyes only on the far door. They shoved him through.

  Into hell.

  A hell of unwashed bodies. A hell of hollow, watching eyes. A hell of sweat stink stacking on shit stink stacking on exhaled, used-up air. The place was packed, darkhaired people knotted together in dirty clothing, mud squelching underfoot, releasing air fouler still.

  “Gods,” Tai croaked, stomach clenching. He had expected it to be bad—but not like this. And Fisher had been here for weeks? Ping and Curly? The guilt was almost as bad as the stench, rolling off Hake as well as himself.

  “Here now, brother,” a man said, snapping him out of it. He was Achuri, but looked better fed than the rest, and carried a polished wooden cane. “Just arrived?”

  Tai’s instincts were up at once, emotions smothered for the moment. “Who are you?”

  “One of the tenders,” he said, using an Achuri word that worked equally for guard, guardian or shepherd. The man looked none of the three. “I’ll be needing a look through your things, little brother.”

  Tai pulled his clothes close, realizing he was still naked, then began pulling them on. “I have nothing.”

  “That’s for us to decide.” He pulled at Tai’s shirt, the same holey roughspun he’d worn the last two years, and in a flash Tai was angry.

  Tai struck the man’s hand away, pulled the shirt back. “Well cock off. I’m in no need of tending.”

  The people nearby drew back, and Tai understood he’d made a mistake. This man must be some sort of local lawkeeping force. The kind that tried to steal from people.

  The tender raised his cane, snarling, and Tai struck his resonance. He had not wanted to do this, not wanted to show he had the option, but neither did he want to fight this man.

  The force of the vibration stopped the tender in his tracks. Gasps rose from the side, and the man’s eyes widened. There was a hunger in them. “You—have yura?”

  “I have the blessing of the ancestors,” Tai growled, letting the resonance drop before a lighthair noticed. “Unlike you. So back off.”

  He shoved into the crowd, pulling his shirt on. He had no time for petty thugs—he needed to find his kids. Though the question nagged at him, what an Achuri man—a prisoner too, clearly—was doing carrying a weapon and bullying people. It reminded him uneasily of Tulric, the street tough-turned-lawkeeper.

  The people parted for him, waves of dark hair and dirty clothes and sunken cheeks. “We’ll come for you!” the man yelled after him. “Your yura can’t last forever!”

  He has a point, Tai.

  “I’m not using yura,” Tai muttered back, pushing on and grimacing at the feel of lumps in the mud beneath his feet. Did they want the whole camp to die of filth diseases?

  But you are counting on your uai. And the more times you have to use it, the less power you have to get out of here.

  “Doesn’t matter till I find them anyway.” He’d already decided there was no leaving without his kids. If his uai ran out before he found them, he would stay here with them, protect them, trust in Karhail and the rest to eventually break them free.

  I’m not sure you want to do that, Hake said, as the crowd thinned out around a pile of clothes. No—not clothes. Tai’s stomach heaved, and he turned away. Bodies. Bodies getting loaded on a cart, by other Achuri who looked little more than rags themselves. His stomach turned again. What was this place?

  A place we should spend as little time in as possible.

  “I’m here for your sister, Hake. Or did you forget that?”

  That shut him up. Tai focused on his surroundings, heading away from the loaded cart. The inside of the fort was a single open space, ringed with high walls and towers, soldiers and lawkeepers heavy on the walls. He noticed with a grimace that as many faced in as out—good for an attack, if they ever got a chance, but bad for escaping. If his plan would even work.

  A woman in stained roughspun held a child close to her, looking a bit healthier and clearer-eyed than the rest. “Excuse me, older sister,” Tai greeted in humble-polite form. “I am new to the camp, and seeking my family. Have you seen a pack of four children, two girls and two boys, two with mixed hair?”

  She gave him hawk eyes for a moment, and Tai feared she would pull a stick o
f her own, but when she spoke it was surprisingly soft, and in the familiar form. “I’m afraid not, little brother. There are not many children here, and yet too many to count.”

  Tai thanked her and moved on, asking others, getting only the same reply, or sometimes nothing at all. Anxiety grew in him—had Tulric lied? Were they still on the streets somewhere? Or—

  He couldn’t think of that. Not until he’d made a thorough search of the place.

  He began to make distinctions between the people, as he made a slow circle through the five hundredpace square camp. There were those like the woman, looking reasonably healthy and appearing to have their wits about them. There were those who appeared more listless, more drawn into their own thoughts, many of them talking without pause to their guides, seeming not even to hear him when he tried hailing them. And there were those who had given up, shells of people who sat against the rough walls or lay in the mud, gazing blankly, emaciated, often with no or very few clothes to cover themselves.

  The worst would be to find the children like this. He had already seen a few, terror striking as he made himself look into their eyes, check their faces, make sure they weren’t one of his. Rather that they were dead. Rather that they were anything other than these, the given-up.

  He saw more tenders too, though by this time Tai had learned to look normal, to pitch himself somewhere between a reasonable and a listless inmate, eyes down, movements slow. He felt no fear of them—what he felt was anger, that anyone would take advantage of their own like that. But anger would mean fighting them, drawing attention to himself, losing the fragile chance he had to find his kids and get them out.

  And there were others who made him angrier still. For all that those Achuri should know better, there was something deep in him, something animal that understood. Survival came first, and there looked to be precious few options for survival here, though Tai would take them all over walking on the backs of his fellow inmates. The guards however, the Titans and lawkeepers and soldiers pacing the walls, they had no excuse. There was no way one human could look at another, in conditions like these, and not know what they were doing was wrong. And yet they paced and joked and smiled up there on the wall, sharing food and smoking pipes as though this were any normal day.

  Because it was. This was normal for them, had been going on for months, was likely all things they’d seen in Yatiland, in Seingard. The necessary steps to controlling a population.

  It made his fists clench white. Rage coiled in his veins, begging to strike resonance and fly up to the wall and start killing. The same rage he felt in the days after Hake’s death. It drowned out Hake, drowned out Tai, nearly drowned out most logical thought, until he had to force himself not look up, lest the rage drown out his plan. To find his children. To save his children.

  But even if he did, who would save everyone else? And what good would killing these men do?

  The Councilate was a sickness. They had to be sick to think this was a good idea.

  How did you fight this kind of sickness?

  He nearly missed them as he paced the western wall, fists clenched and thoughts dark. Just another clump of mud-spattered souls, huddled at the base of one of the towers that studded the circular wood walls. Three frail figures in wool and roughspun.

  Three.

  Tai looked again, spotting a head among them as much light as it was dark, the strands of hair spangled like snowflakes on ash. Fisher. “Fisher!”

  She didn’t look up. “Curly! Ping!”

  That got their attention. A young boy fixed eyes on him, face a woeful map of mud and bruise. “Tai!” His voice was hoarser, and he ran slower, but there was no mistaking the hair—it was Curly. Tai swung him up in his arms, rage and darkness evaporating in the heat of relief. Ping was there a moment later, wrapping arms around him, laughing, or crying maybe, asking too many questions to answer at once.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “How did you find us?”

  “Where were you?”

  “Are you going to get us out?”

  Tai had his own questions too, more than he felt he could speak, but kept his head enough to shush them, steer them back to where they’d been sitting, not wanting to draw any undue attention. Fisher was still there, still staring in the distance, with a look he knew too well. “Is she—“

  Ping nodded. “She’s out. Been out since we got here. How—how long has it been?”

  Curly couldn’t wait for the answer. “Are you gonna kill em Tai? Are you gonna get us all out of here?”

  Tai glanced around, worried that someone might hear but grinning nonetheless at the spark that was still in Curly’s voice. He hadn’t given up. “Yes,” he answered, low as he could. “That’s why I came. To get you guys out. But I need your help, okay? We have to pretend like everything’s normal.”

  Curly nodded, face suddenly serious. “We can do that.”

  “Where’s Aelya?” Ping asked. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s okay,” Tai assured her, feeling a weight that had been in his chest for weeks finally start to lift. His kids were okay. He was here, with them. They would find a way out. Curly was too quiet, and Fisher was in full shock sickness, but they were together, at least. Now his plan just had to work.

  They spent a strange afternoon together, squatting on the relatively dry ground next to the Tower. Despite the bright sunlight and warm weather, the prison was dark, people drifting half-dead, as though searching for something they knew they wouldn’t find. In contrast to this was Curly’s laughter, and—after a while—Pang’s crusty hand, clutching Tai’s as they sat. Fisher didn’t rouse or look up, but she at least scooted close to them if they shifted away.

  The kids had seen the escape through the gate, had seen most of the people get shot as they ran. Ping was worried about Aelya, about whether she would get better or not, and Curly was all questions about the rebellion, sure the rebels were going to come boiling over the wall at any moment.

  “So what…” Tai wasn’t sure how to ask this question, but he needed to know. “How did you get by in here?”

  Pang shrugged. She had taken charge, since they came in, and looked older than her eleven or twelve winters. “It’s not so different than the streets. We made sure we weren’t the biggest gang, or the smallest. Don’t try to take too much food, don’t draw much attention, and you’ll be fine. Same as we always do.”

  Pride swelled in him. “Well good job. All of you. I’m so proud of you for getting by in here. Even you, little Fishy.” He reached over and tousled her hair. There was no response.

  A bell began ringing on the far side of the prison, and Tai started. “It’s just the food,” Pang said. “They drop it in a big box and everyone fights for it.”

  “Are you gonna get us some Tai?” Curly asked. “Are you gonna fight em?”

  Tai hesitated, not wanting to leave them but wanting to make sure they had enough to eat. “It’s not worth it,” Pang said. “First meal of the day always gets rough. That’s how Curly got bruised up, trying to get in yesterday.”

  Curly puffed up his chest. “And I woulda too, if they hadn’t pushed me!”

  “Okay,” Tai said. “We’ll get you real food tonight, after we’re out. Or I’ll go tomorrow, if it doesn’t work.”

  “Doesn’t work?” Curly asked, and Tai felt the weight of his expectation. He was relieved to see Pang understand it in the glance she gave him—she was really growing up. Fast, just like he’d done.

  The day passed. Many of the inmates lay down to sleep even before the sun set, and Fisher and Curly started yawning around the same time. “When are we going, Tai?” he asked, snuggling against his shoulder.

  “Tonight. But sleep, I’ll wake you up.”

  He straightened up. “No way, I’m staying up!”

  He was asleep half a hand later, but Pang did stay up with him, watching the light shift from purple to starlit blue, guards lighting torches on the walls. They were still heavily manned, an
d Tai was dismayed to see how much light the torches cast down on the central space. It would be easy to see someone trying to waft out.

  Especially if that someone was carrying four kids.

  He periodically checked his uai, but like hunger it was hard to gauge until it was really starting to run out. As the star sank in the west, Pang’s breathing started to grow more regular beside him, adding to the soft sounds of Curly and Fisher. The whole prison echoed, really, the ground and walls covered in sleeping forms, echoing in soft slumber noises like a chicken coops at night.

  The guards thinned too, though there were still too many. Especially if they could waft like they had when he attacked the last time.

  The star’s light finally dimmed in the west, minor stars beginning to come out in the black. Luck was with him, and the moon was mostly dark in the sky. There would be a few hours of darkness before the sun rose again. Had it been winter the whole plan would have failed—the star rose exactly opposite the sun then, and as many people worked at night, tending wintercrops, as did during the day.

  Then again, had it been winter, everyone here would be dead from exposure. What were they planning to do then? Build a giant roof?

  With the star’s fading came a sense of urgency. This was their time, their window. He roused Pang, who roused the rest of them, all coming awake with the sudden watchfulness of kids raised on the streets. “Is it time?” Curly hissed.

  “Soon.” Tai promised. He needed just one more thing.

  It didn’t come. Still he waited, watching, hoping, Curly starting to get heavy again next to him.

  Time passed, impossible to read in the darkness, and nothing happened. Tai shook his head. The rebels had abandoned him, then. Maybe they were just mercenaries at heart, and saw there was little gain to this risk.

  Tai flexed his shoulders. Little except everything, to him. Time to go.

  Tai gathered his kids close, pulling even Fisher’s head into the huddle. “We’re going to all fly out of here together, okay? Pang, Curly, you’re the heaviest, I want you to hold onto my shoulders. Fisher, you hold onto my middle, and I’ll hold you too, okay?”