The Godless (32 page)

Zaifyr's smile deepened, but she felt that the raven on his shoulder was not as pleased. The bird said nothing, lifting itself off its perch to drift to the ledge of the window as Zaifyr rose and stomped his feet, settling them into the boots he wore. He looked much as he had the first time she had seen him, dressed in blacks and reds and seemingly unarmed, but with holes in his boots and the odor of smoke about him.

It was a sight that comforted her, strangely, as they left the room and walked downstairs, past the large man who was winding a new cloth around his finger.

Despite that, Ayae did not speak much as she and Zaifyr made their way to Illaan's house, the midday's sun beginning to set while the afternoon's sun rose. She was unsure of what she would find, though there would not be much of hers there. Having her own house after the orphanage had been important to her; and Illaan, in the early stages of their relationship when he had given more of himself, had understood. He understood that she had something, finally—a tangible, physical piece of property that was her own, even if the money had come from another. But the deeds were in her name, the responsibility to furnish and repair was hers, and after growing up in a narrow dorm with a bed that three other girls had slept on—their names carved on the headboard—and with blankets shared and handed down, that had been terribly important to her.

Illaan's house was different. It was his third since she had known him, each a new purchase moved into after a pay raise, the last in a rich neighborhood defined by narrow lanes that limited the sprawl of Mireea's markets. All the buildings were on two levels, with each having roof terraces that were hidden by ancient, elderly trees with roots sunk deep into Ger's Spine. She remembered him complaining, with a touch of irony, about the Mireean Guards who had climbed into the trees to cut them back. He had joked about writing a letter to Captain Heast and Lady Wagan about the injustice.

At the polished wooden door, Ayae pulled the key from her pocket. She had not asked for one from Heast, and he had not offered.

“Will we find terrible secrets inside?” Zaifyr asked lightly beside her. “Invitations to underground markets, perhaps?”

She turned the key, pushed on the door. “Just—”

“—birds,” he finished.

Inside, two large cages lay on the floor, the bars bent and broken, as if trampled on. There were no birds.

“He had about a dozen,” Ayae said, approaching the fallen cages. “He would let them out when he was home and they would fly between both levels.”

“What kind were they?”

He had told her, but she couldn't remember. “Green colored,” she said lamely. Slowly, she crouched down over the remains, pulling the bars away and revealing the crushed feeders beneath. A few green feathers lay on the rug, but there was no other sign of the creatures.

The rest of the floor did not look as if it had been touched. The fireplace had a small pile of wood, threaded with gray lines over the black. The pale-gray couch sat away from it, a torn-up book on its left side. The book did not look as if it had suffered like the cages, but rather that someone had torn long strips down the middle. Zaifyr was already there, leaning over to pick it up, but she knew that Illaan had destroyed it. After the mercenary companies began to arrive, he had purchased a popular military series to learn about them, or so he had told her. With the yellow cover and the hint of swords that she could see, Ayae guessed that was what it was. Upstairs were different books, military studies, serious pieces that he would not have kept beside the other. Downstairs, there only remained the kitchen table, and behind it cupboards and drawers, as well as a series of rolled-up pictures.

Her pictures.

Pictures she had drawn for him, taken down.

She turned, facing Zaifyr, who was looking up at the ceiling.

“What—”

He held up his hand for silence.

She began to speak again, then stopped, hearing a faint movement.

Zaifyr was moving up the stairs before her; she followed, the knife in her hand, though she did not know what she would do with it.

Not that it mattered. As Zaifyr pushed open the door, revealing Illaan's bedroom and office, Ayae realized what the faint noise was that she had heard: a window opening. At the far end of the room, a rope fell from it. The charm-laced man in front of her made his way to the window, picking his steps carefully, making his way around the small, frail forms of the dead birds.

They had flown up here when whoever had broken in opened the cages. Frightened, they had gone straight for safety, but there was none. Indents on the bed, and the pillow case that was stained with blood, showed how the intruder had killed them. She bent down slowly, intent on picking them up.

Zaifyr stopped her. “That's probably what infected him.”

Her hand balled into a fist.

“You see the money?” He pointed to what lay on the floor beside the bed, beneath a pair of the birds.

“He wouldn't leave money like that.”

“No.” Zaifyr approached the bed, pulled off the second case. “We must have interrupted her before she could get it properly stashed away.”

“Her?”

“The perfume.”

It was there, a faint, delicate fragrance already disintegrating. Zaifyr bent down and, using the case, picked up one of the birds. “Should you do that?” she asked.

“It should be fine.” He glanced up, looking at something that she could not see. “They are looking for him.”

The birds. She realized with a chill that he was looking at the dead birds.

“Here.” Holding the bird, he approached the bookshelf against the wall. Books had tumbled from it, scattered across the floor, but the debris was only half complete. A pair lay open, their pages ripped, as if something had been held inside. “Did he keep treats for the birds here?”

“They had liked to perch there.”

His hand reached out, and he turned, revealing a small piece of twine. “Something for their legs, perhaps.”

“We can take the bird to Reila,” she said, quietly. The implication that Illaan was using his birds to send messages was not surprising. He had always been proud of his training of the green creatures. But the fact that someone had killed them, that someone had come in search of the messages that they carried, and that they had seemingly found them, even as Zaifyr and Ayae entered his house, left her strangely empty. “Maybe their bodies will tell her more.”

 

8.

 

He watched the sprawling Leeran Army stop from his perch on the back of the cart:

It began in hand signals, the general lifting his right fist after the afternoon's sun had peaked. Two young boys and one girl began running back through the lines from beside him. As they did, others in position raised their hands and silently the army ground to a halt. It left the saboteur with a strange feeling in his stomach not estranged from awe, watching as picket lines were struck, horses and cattle watered and rubbed down, tents and camps unrolled. He had never seen an army of its size move with such synchronization, such cohesion.

He had not been spoken to after Waalstan left him, neither by the general or others, but he had been fed twice as his cell warmed. Warm water and cold food, both delivered by silent soldiers, neither of them offering him conversation. That did not bother him, but he knew it would in time. Samuel Orlan would have reached Dark and, while Bueralan believed that they would find him and sight him from a distance before they agreed to go anywhere with him, he knew that they would eventually agree to his plan. The old cartographer held the key that would unlock his cage, allow him to step out of it.

At least, that was what he would tell Zean and the others.

Bueralan had to free himself, and right now it looked impossible. There was no weak link in the guards, no immediate chink in their armor that he could exploit, but patience would be a virtue in relation to that. However, the longer he remained in the cage, the less likely he would be to keep his patience. That, he knew, was his immediate danger.

As the afternoon's sun sank behind the dense treetops and the humidity began to recede, poles were erected around an empty patch of muddy grass. They were lit, but differently to the fires that had begun to emerge through the camp, the fire burning brighter, cleaner, fueled by oil rather than wood, Bueralan assumed. As they burned, soldiers approached the cart that he was in and, stepping past him, lifted the podium out. He watched them wordlessly position it in the middle of the grass.

Later, a shadow emerged beside him, pushing a plate of food through the bottom of the cage. “You look like a man with urges to stand upright, saboteur.”

Bueralan took the plate. “Let me out for a walk, Lieutenant?”

“I don't have a leash.” Dural, still in his leather and chain, pulled himself onto the back of the cart and eased himself down before the map table, his legs stretched out. “If I let you out now, I would just have to kill you.”

The old leather boots were within reach. “We couldn't have that,” he said, picking a piece of barely cooked meat from the plate. “I don't suppose this is one of your men?”

Dural's smile twisted one side of his face. “One of our cattle, freshly slaughtered for tonight. The general wants your strength to remain.”

“So kind of him.” Beneath the meat there was mashed potato, awash with blood and fat. “How does he plan to talk to the entire army from here?”

“Patience, saboteur. All will be revealed soon enough. When he speaks, you will be the first foreigner to hear him. I hope you appreciate that.”

Bueralan scooped a piece of meat through the mash. “That why you're here?”

“Everyone must be attentive.”

The saboteur smiled and shook his head. Both he and Dural knew that he would not interrupt the speech, just as both knew that the presence of the soldier had nothing to do with security and everything to do with gauging his response. Dural lifted a canteen of water and took a drink, his feet crossing before the cage.

The lieutenant was a career soldier, a man Bueralan suspected had volunteered at a young age, leaving the farm, or the son of five children with no family future available to him. His unassuming, easy bearing, the chain mail old but well cared for and the speech with its slight roughness told the saboteur that he was not a man who had purchased his position. In Bueralan's experience, Dural as he was now was a soldier who would not want to progress further, a man who believed he had enough responsibility one step up from sergeant, and did not seek to add to his burdens with rank and privilege.

Soon, a silence fell over the camp, amplifying the snap of fire and the movement of animals around him as the general stepped up to his podium.

At first, Bueralan did not recognize Waalstan. Whereas before he had appeared as an affluent man with a sword purchased by or gifted to him, he now appeared in a heavy suit of ceremonial plate armor. Polished until it shone, the steel verged on being liquid white beneath the fires that surrounded him, while the fine sword he had worn earlier hung at his side by a clean, but well-worn leather strap that held both the weight of it and the bright, heavy gauntlet hands that rested upon its hilt.

“My friends.” His voice was clear, carried easily. “My friends, we are drawing closer to our destination, to the start of our crusade.

“I have said before that when you look beside you, when you look at the brother and sister who stands beside you, who will fight with you, that you must cherish them now. There is a sad truth about war, whether it be for the noblest of intentions such as ours, or the basest, and that truth is that no man or woman is safe from death. When we are done, your brothers, your sisters, your family, could very well be gone.”

The audience was attentive, solemn. In the back of his throat, the greasy taste of the bloody meat grew, but when Bueralan spat to the ground, his spittle was clean.

“It is a risk we take. We are faithful.
The Faithful
. That is how we will be known soon, not as Leeran, not as men and women who worked this land, who toiled, who struggled, no. We will be known as those who have faith. Those who do not enter battles to take, or to steal, but to bring a truth. To bring
the
truth.

“Tomorrow, we will cross the border and march on the trails that lead to Mireea, to the city beneath which Ger lies entombed, a city of capital and greed. Tomorrow, we will leave our homeland. Our true tests will begin there—for we will be tempted, first by our own fear, by the threat of battle, and then by our bodies as we endure what has been asked of us, as we embark on making not just an empire but on saving the divine and freeing it from the shackles about it.

“Our enemy anticipates us. They have sent spies into our forces. One, as no doubt you have heard, is kept in a cage beside me.” Uncomfortably, Bueralan lowered his plate as the gaze of all those around him turned. Infamy as a symbol, as a representation of what they fought, a grounding for the new recruits. The saboteur had a grudging admiration for Waalstan. “He is a man who works for money, whose loyalty is bought, who can be your friend one day, your enemy another. He is a symbol of those that you must be vigilant against, brothers and sisters. Do not underestimate him and do not mistake him for the men and women you march against. Yes, he is hired by those who perch above us, but as we approach their majestic wall, know that at their core they are not purchased men and women.

“They are people who have made their homes on the back of a god and that god will soon die. Without us, without our faith, all of him will be lost. The people on that mountain will allow that to happen. They will continue in this world that we find ourselves, never truly aware of what has been lost.

“But we will know what has been lost.

“We are the Faithful.”

Behind General Waalstan, a white stallion emerged. It was drawn out of the shadows by a soldier, but the animal moved slowly and majestically, as if it knew that every eye had turned to it, that it was now the center of all attention.