Savage Legion

by Matt Wallace

  “I see.”

  Dyeawan fears he’ll press the subject, her blood rushing unpleasantly, but to her relief Edger moves on.

  “Tell me, Slider, do you like your new tender? The conveyance we’ve fashioned for you?”

  She looks down at the masterpiece of motion beneath her, rubbing her hands and forearms against the top of the paddles just to feel the high polish in the wood.

  “It’s… the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen,” she answers honestly.

  “I’m very glad to hear that. I’m pleased to say I designed it myself. We have many very fine wheeled chairs, but when I was informed of how you devised to move yourself around… quite ingenious, by the way… I thought this would be better, would feel more natural to you.”

  “It does,” she assures him, gratefully. “I’m sorry, De-Gen, but—”

  “There’s no need for that,” he corrects her. “I’m not a member of a Gen. You may simply call me Edger.”

  That only confuses Dyeawan further, but her burning question takes precedent. “Did you say… that you made this for me?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “But… why? Why would you do that? I’m… I’m not anybody. I don’t understand—”

  “How else can I expect you to do your job efficiently? Besides which, those raw sheets of tin would wreak havoc on our floors.”

  Dyeawan begins to feel as if she’s falling down a long, dark, narrow hole, and just slow enough to make her believe the fall won’t hurt.

  “My job?”

  “Yes. I’d like to offer you a job here, if you’re willing.”

  “And where is here, Edger? If it’s okay to ask.”

  He nods, dipping the mask in time with the gesture and making both motions seem awkward and unnatural.

  “Of course. You’re on a small island off the coast of the Capitol. It’s very lovely and very private. And this place is called the Planning Cadre. We help solve Crache’s… well… everyday problems. The sky carriages, the streetlights, they were all invented here, by people like me. It’s our job to come up with ideas that would make Crachian life better, and then devise how to make those ideas real.”

  When Dyeawan slid atop the tender less than an hour ago, she was certain nothing would ever be that remarkable again. But hearing such a place could exist, does exist, and more than that she’s inside it, is beyond remarkable.

  “But what could I do here?” she asks. “I’m not… like you.”

  “It takes all types of ingenuity to keep this place running, I assure you. You’d be a helper. And much needed, believe me. We have many, and they’re still never enough. In the early mornings you’d help sweep up the floors. That tender we’ve given you will be ideal for ferrying equipment and deliveries from place to place quickly within the Cadre.”

  “I can do all that,” Dyeawan says quickly. “I’d be happy to do it.”

  Edger replaces his cordial smile with a mask that captures his face in the midst of laughing heartily, and though it’s even more disturbing than the frozen smile, Dyeawan has become determined not to let it bother her.

  “I’m delighted to hear that, Slider,” he says. “And I appreciate your enthusiasm.”

  He lowers the laughing mask and selects a new one. The expression isn’t quite stern, but it’s the most serious face he’s yet worn in front of her.

  “Now, to the matter of your compensation. We are not a wealthy arm of the nation, you understand. But we can offer you room and board. Three meals a day. And I assume your current accommodations are to your liking?”

  Dyeawan quickly nods. “I’ve never had a room of my own before.”

  “I’m very sorry for that, and glad to change it. Does that mean the conditions are acceptable to you?”

  She nods.

  “May I ask one more question, though?”

  “Of course, Slider. And for future reference, you need not request permission to ask a question. Asking questions is what we do here.”

  “How did I get here? And why don’t I remember leaving the dungeon?”

  “Ah yes. I’ll ask your indulgence in that. For security reasons only a few may know our exact location here. Some of what we build is for the Skrain, and we can’t have Crache’s enemies gaining knowledge of such things.”

  Dyeawan nods genuinely, accepting that.

  “I understand.”

  It’s the third thing he’s lied about since they began talking. Dyeawan always knows when someone is lying to her. It’s a gift she’s possessed for as long as she can remember, and though she doesn’t fully understand how she comes by that knowledge, life in the streets of the Capitol has taught her to always trust it.

  Edger was lying when we spoke of the scale of what the Planning Cadre does, especially just solving “everyday” problems. He lied when he spoke about being a poor arm of Crache able to offer her only room and board (not that it mattered; Dyeawan would agree to scrounge her meals from the garbage and sleep on the beach she saw from her window if it meant being allowed to stay here).

  And he’s lying about why they don’t want her to know precisely where she is.

  It’s a troubling lie, even to her, but what he’s told the truth about thus far outweighs any other concerns Dyeawan has. She knows Edger has no ulterior motives like most men in the Capitol streets who would offer her favors. He wasn’t lying about the job or its parameters; she truly is being hired to clean floors and cart deliveries.

  Looking at Edger, and judging from the helper she watched polishing fixtures in the corridors, it’s not difficult to discern that the voiceless, expressionless man in front of her has a soft heart for cripples of all varieties. He’s obviously led a sheltered life, one of privilege and comfort. He’s no doubt fixated for much of that life on the unfairness of his condition.

  Dyeawan has never been concerned with what is “fair” or “unfair.” She concerns herself every day with what is, and what needs to be done to survive. And if today Edger’s pity can secure her future then so be it.

  So Dyeawan nods and makes her eyes wide and doe-soft and completely trusting. He can have his secrets if it means she can call this place of wonders home.

  “Thank you so much, Edger,” she says, and her gratitude is sincere. “I won’t let you down.”

  He replaces his serious expression with the familiar cordial smile, which seems to be his default.

  “I know you won’t,” he says. “You may return to your quarters now, Slider. There will be a bell for dinner, and I’ll have Quan come to escort you to the commissary. We can talk more about your daily duties then.”

  Before Dyeawan can answer, the door behind her clicks open and the tall, gaunt attendant is there, waiting with his kind smile.

  She drags her left paddle back and rows the opposite one forward, turning her toward the door.

  Dyeawan stops.

  “Edger?” she asks. “This isn’t a dream, is it? I’m not… I’m not still in that cell? In the dungeon?”

  “No, my dear,” he answers without hesitation. “This place is realer than most.”

  Dyeawan can’t be certain what he means by that, but she knows beyond any doubt that he’s telling the truth.

  BLOOD COINS AND BLOOD COIN HUNTERS

  THE STEADY STRIKE OF THE smith’s hammer is meant to be a siege tactic. Evie knows this. They, the new recruits, have been gathered here beside the thatch lean-to shielding the blacksmith from the midday sun to watch the old woman work. They’re left to stand without instruction for several long moments, the silence narrated solely by the brutal fall of that steel hammer. It’s no different from drums beating outside a besieged fortification, only the target is the invisible parapet guarding their minds.

  Evie studies the elderly woman whose flesh has been hardened to near stone by decades of intense heat and labor. She is fashioning coins. They aren’t large coins, only slightly rounder and wider than the tip of a thumb, and they aren’t gold or silver. They look to Evie to be cheap
copper, or perhaps tin. After she cools each one, the smithy carefully brushes both sides of the small coins with a mixture from a bowl near her forge.

  Evie has no idea what the substance is, but its slicks on top like oil, green and purple and black all at once, and the smell as the old woman lashes each coin with it is awful.

  Laython is standing behind a waist-high object covered with an old moth-eaten blanket, watching the smithy. When he seems satisfied she’s minted enough, he gathers the cover of the object in front of him with one giant hand and whips it away, revealing a chair fashioned from both wood and steel. Its back is deeply recessed and a panel has been added to cradle the legs and feet. Its most menacing feature, however, are the many buckled leather straps dangling from its joints.

  “By now you’ve no doubt absorbed the fact there are no guards,” he addresses them all in his bombastic way. “The few Skrain you’ll see about are mostly here as punishment for some dereliction of their duties. They don’t want to be here and they certainly don’t like you. I’d keep that in mind before running afoul of any of them. No, this isn’t a prison and you’re not prisoners. If we had to waste walls and towers and guards on you it’d defeat the purpose. If you’re of a mind late tonight after everyone’s fucked off to sleep to run, you’ll have an easy time of it. I promise you. In fact, there’s no need to run. I’d walk. Hell, I’d stroll. No one will stop you.”

  Laython gives a nod to his tasker underlings. The pair of them stride forth and seize the first new Savage within reach, the same portly, bearded man who was the only one besides Evie to protest their conscription.

  “What now?” he half whines, half demands. “I’m just a pickpocket! I don’t deserve this!”

  His struggling goes barely noticed by the taskers as they ferry him under the lean-to and tip him back into the chair, one of them hoisting his legs up onto the wooden rest. They each firmly secure one of his arms, waiting.

  Laython steps over to the forge and picks up one of the newly minted and treated coins. He holds it up against the rays of the midday sun.

  In the light it looks more copper than tin to Evie. She can also make out a design pounded into the coin, not the Crachian ant or any other national symbol. It appears to be a crude face, bearded and with wild hair. The eyes and mouth are just hollows.

  The face of a Savage, she realizes.

  “This is a blood coin,” he informs them all. “This is Crachian ingenuity at its finest and most elegant. And this is why none of you are going anywhere except where I tell you to go.”

  Laython turns and strides to the reclining chair, leaning over its burly, terrified occupant. With his free hand, Laython reaches past the man’s bushy beard and painfully grips his lower lip, yanking it until the man has no choice but to open his mouth. As soon as he does, Laython jams the coin inside it. One of his massive hands clamps down over the man’s lips while the other pinches his bulbous nose closed.

  The poor thief has no choice but to swallow, deeply, ingesting the coin.

  Laython releases him and steps away, the smithy tossing him a soiled cloth with which he proceeds to wipe his hand.

  The portly man in the chair gasps for breath, but the coin doesn’t come up.

  “It’s very simple,” Laython explains. “The blood coin sits in your gut. It doesn’t pass. Drink all you want. Puke all you want…” He looks at Evie. “There it stays, inside you. Over time the dye the coin is treated with gets into your own blood. It raises those runes you see on your new brothers and sisters. It marks you as a Savage for all to see. The runes don’t scrub out. And it should be obvious tryin’ to cut ’em out produces the same effect as letting them show.”

  Behind Laython, the other taskers are affixing the chair’s half dozen straps around the man’s legs, arms, torso, and head.

  “Why’re you strapping him in after you’ve already shoved it down his throat?” Evie asks, disturbed and angry.

  With an angry dog’s expression, he strides over to her and puts his face directly above her, his shouts like thunder from a stormy sky.

  “You’re developing a distasteful habit of telling me my business, little girl! I suggest you save that sass for the Sicclunan front line where it might actually serve you well, lest you find my boot burrowing toward where I’m about to deposit a blood coin!”

  Evie says nothing. She’s long sober now and able to see there’s no percentage in it for her to speak another word.

  Her silence only serves to highlight the screams that pour forth from the chair in the next moment. The portly, bearded man begins thrashing against the tight straps, struggling more fiercely and violently than he did when the taskers seized him. They all watch as for the next thirty seconds straight all-consuming agony has its way with the man, no one lifting a finger to help or even attempt to help him.

  Finally, gratefully, he falls still and silent.

  Laython turns back to him, walking over to the chair and gripping the half-unconscious man by his abundance of beard. Laython tilts the portly man’s head to the right for them all to see.

  There, on his cheek, is a bluish green mark almost like a sickle.

  “That’s a good’n,” Laython remarks, releasing the man’s beard and making a show of wiping his hands on the cloth again. “The marks’ll fade if you ever get the coin out. And the only way that happens is if we give you the right mixture to help you pass it. To earn that particular cup of wine, you only need to survive one hundred battles. It’s that simple, children.

  “Now then. Any man, woman, or child who returns a blood coin, either still inside a runaway Savage or a coin on its own, will be rewarded with one of these.”

  He reaches inside his tunic and removes a small stringed sack. Loosing its ties, he opens the sack and upends it over the smithy’s anvil, raining small, intricately cut multicolored stones down atop the pounded-raw steel.

  They’re star rubies, so named because each color represents a god star of the old and abolished religion.

  “No questions asked,” Laython adds as they all stare at the priceless stones in awe. “Imagine how hard and how far you’d ride and how many of you you’d kill to claim such a reward. Then look at the mark on the fat man’s cheek here, the first of many to come. Then decide if you want to run.”

  Even Evie has to admit to herself he makes a powerful and salient argument.

  “And lest you think we rely solely on the initiative of the good citizens of Crache,” Laython continues, “I’d like you to meet some close friends of mine.”

  Laython ducks under the lean-to awning and steps out into the harsh sunlight. He sticks two lengthy digits in his mouth and whistles shrilly.

  Evie and the rest hear hooves tearing up the dry grass. A second later two riders charge around the lean-to and rear their mounts beside the group’s new freemaster.

  Laython gestures grandly up at the pair. “Savages, meet Tomoe and Namrok, two of the finest blood coin hunters alive.”

  The woman must be six feet tall, perhaps over. She appears absolutely gigantic sitting atop her mount. Her armor is composed almost entirely of bone, human and animal, from what Evie can discern. A whole rib cage is laid over Tomoe’s own, tooled upon thick leather. Her helm must’ve been fashioned from a bear’s skull, and Evie can scarcely summon in her mind the scale of that creature when it was alive. The fanged jaws that serve as the helm’s face shield are pulled apart, revealing a face whose gauntness and many scars haven’t dulled the shine of two perfect jade eyes.

  Tomoe’s primary weapon appears to be a poleax. From bottom tip to blade it must be as tall as she is and weigh more than one hundred pounds. A pair of matched daggers is sheathed in gauntlets, also shaved bone, clamped around her forearms. The handle of each is angled to allow the smoothest possible draw by the opposing hand.

  Tomoe’s companion, Namrok, is of average size and shape, and would be thoroughly unremarkable save for one feature. Half of his face is dark a cavity with jagged edges; he’s missing a
n eye, cheek, and the corner of his mouth. Rather than leave the sinkhole of flesh exposed, Namrok has taken a wedge of hardwood adorned with dozens of tiny steel spikes and plugged most of the empty space with it.

  “By my count, Tomoe there is well rich enough to retire in luxury and comfort,” Laython tells them. “But she keeps hunting, for the love. Namrok, well, I’m not sure he knows where he is right now, but with a face like that he just needs to be pointed in the right direction.”

  Namrok laughs raucously at that, though Tomoe only grins thinly and much more, it seems to Evie, at something in her own head.

  “Why don’t you show ’em the catch of the day, my friends,” Laython bids the blood coin hunters.

  Tomoe reaches behind her and unties a large bundle concealed in dark cloth atop her mount. It takes some tussling with the bundle, but she quickly unfurls and muscles the bundle from its perch, spilling its contents onto the hot grass.

  The eviscerated corpse once belonged to a middle-aged woman. Runes that were once bluish-green have now turned gray, but they still stained the cold flesh of her face and hands.

  From her saddle, Tomoe reaches inside her armor and removes a blood coin, flicking it to Laython, who catches it expertly.

  He holds this one up to the sun as he did with its newly minted fellow.

  This coin, unlike that fresh-forged one, is stained brown and red with the eviscerated woman’s blood.

  “So you know it’s not just a clever name,” Laython informs them, tucking the coin inside his belt.

  “Why bother digging it out of her?” Evie asks Tomoe directly, sounding very tired all of a sudden.

  “I believe in being certain,” the blood coin hunter answers her in a voice far softer and more feminine than Tomoe’s visage.

  “Was she still alive?” Evie presses.

  “Not for as long as I’d hoped,” Namrok answers for them, and laughs again, a disturbing cackle.

  “Any more questions, my presumptuous girl?” Laython asks Evie.