Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2) (16 page)

“My, isn’t that something…” Bastille tried to end the chatter
there, but Sister Severin was as garrulous as a songbird.

“Brother Cournier told me he’s from a little village on the
Drakeneck called Hawk’s Inlet. Have you ever been there? I haven’t, but I’d
like to go. He makes it sound so charming, there by the bay. The waters are
gentler than the Tideguine. Easier on the skin. And oh, the dayrise and
nightfall over the open sea. A rainbow of colors every morning and evening, he
says. That sounds so nice, don’t you think?”

This idle blathering made Bastille want to slam her head into
the desk, if only to make it stop. Meanwhile, Brother Travers’ absence was
beginning to grate on her nerves. He’d been tardy before, but never by this
much. Such disobedience was unheard of in the Order.
It’s about time
disciplinary action was taken
, she decided.
It’s downright
insubordinate, is what this is
.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Brother Travers
wasn’t in the habit of knocking before he entered. Bastille went over. “Who is
it?” she asked without opening.

“With your leave, kind Sister. It’s Sister Voclain,” came the
muffled voice from beyond. “I’ve brought you something to eat.”

Bastille glanced at Severin, who was looking on expectantly.
“Is this your doing?”

“Not at all, kind Sister.”

Bastille yanked open the door and found the short graying
kitchener holding a tray containing three clay mugs, a covered plate, and a
candle. The hallway was otherwise dark. Bastille stepped aside to let the elder
woman enter. Sister Voclain slid the tray to rest on the nearest empty side
table.

“What’s this all about?” Bastille asked. “It’s hours after
sundown, and we’ve already eaten our supper.”

“Hot tea and fresh-baked biscuits drizzled with honey. For
you and your students,” said Sister Voclain. “Compliments of Sister Deniau.”
She lifted the domed cover to let a cloud of steam escape from half a dozen
warm, flaky biscuits. Honey was a rare treat, given Belmond’s scarcity of
beekeepers. To use it so lavishly spoke of a special occasion or a meal meant
to impress.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Bastille said irritably. “We’re hard
at work in here. We’ve plenty of material to cover and no time for
interruptions.”

Sister Voclain nodded her sympathies. “I’ll just leave these
here and be on my way, then. We’ll send someone back for the tableware in the
morning.”

Before Sister Voclain could leave, they heard laughter down
the hall and saw candlelight flickering on the stone walls. Two shadowy figures
emerged from the gloom. Brother Travers strolled through the doorway, followed
by none other than froggy-eyed Brother Liero.

The tray caught Travers’ eye. “Oh my. Biscuits. Don’t mind if
I do…” He snatched one up, then gasped in pain and tossed it hand to hand.

“Why, kind Brother Liero,” said Bastille, startled and
perturbed all at once. “What a marvelous surprise. I didn’t expect to see you
here at so late an hour.”
Come to keep an eye on me, have you?

“Yes, well. After our conference this afternoon, I thought
I’d stop by and see how things were progressing. Imagine my surprise at
encountering one of your students in the hallway.” Liero shifted his candle to
his left hand and craned his neck to peer around the room, as if searching for
something amiss. “May I?”

“Certainly, certainly. Come in.”

Sister Voclain plucked her candle from the tray and slipped
out before Liero seemed to notice her. The high priest circled the room, then
spent several minutes making a general nuisance of himself, greeting Sister
Severin with a long-winded conversation, examining Bastille’s instruments and
putting them back in the wrong order, and asking Bastille if he might see the
bodies in her cold lockers.

Everywhere he went, Liero kept looking around and nodding, like
someone whose primary goal is to pretend expertise. Bastille sat at her desk to
resume her scrubbing, but she remained on edge until Brother Liero gave one
final nod and said, “Well. Everything appears to be in order. I’ll say
goodnight.”

“Sleep well, kind Brother Liero.”
And may your nightmares
follow you into the waking world tomorrow
.

Liero left without closing the door behind him.

Bastille gave an aggravated sigh and stomped over to push it
closed. “You’re late, Brother Travers. Again.”

“Oh, cool off. Brother Liero and I were just shooting the
breeze.”

Bastille blinked.
Already seeking friends in high places,
are we?
“Have my ears gone out of tune, kind Brother? Or did I just hear
you tell me to
cool off
?”

Biscuit crumbs spewed from Travers’ mouth as he spoke.
“That’s what I said.”

Bastille reached deep inside herself to draw out what little
patience she had left. Tardiness was one thing; bold-faced mutiny was quite
another. “It seems you’re keen on creating an environment of disrespect,
Brother Travers. So be it. Choose a book.”

Travers took another bite of his biscuit. He lowered his
finger onto an arbitrary tome in front of him and gave Bastille a pulpous grin.

“A fine choice. You will now leave the comfort of your desk
and chair. You will take your chosen book into the cold storage rooms, where
you will live until you have learned to recite the first chapter of said book
from memory. Furthermore, you are forbidden to show your face again until
you’ve done so.”

Travers stared at her, chewing. His grin melted. “I get it.
Okay, I’m reading.” He opened the book and propped his chin on his elbow to
stare down at the page.

Bastille waited until he looked up again. “Need I repeat
myself?”

“Wait, what? You’re serious?”

“Brother Travers… I am always serious.”

“No way. I’m not going in there.”

“You’d spurn a chance to
cool off
with the
acquaintances you’ve been so desperate to make? Oh yes, kind Brother. You most
certainly are going in there.”

“I’m not.” He shook his head. “No way.”

“Shall I send for Sister Gallica? Discipline is her forte,
and I assure you, she is quite capable in daylight hours. I wonder how much
more good-humored and neighborly she’ll be when disturbed from sleep. Would you
like to find out?”

“No. I’m going.” Travers took a candle in one hand and a book
in the other, then trudged toward the storage rooms, shoulders slumped and
dreadlocks swinging. “Bitch,” she heard him say under his breath.

“I’m sorry, Brother Travers. What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“The Mouth… my ears must be going.”

Bastille finished scrubbing
Mother Bonnaire’s former NewPancreas about an hour later. “Alright, Sister
Severin. That’s enough for tonight. You may go.”

“Should I get Brother Travers?”

“Certainly not.”

“You’re really going to make him memorize the whole first
chapter?”

Bastille sighed loudly. “See you tomorrow, Sister Severin.”

“Goodnight, Sister Bastille.”

Severin took her candle and went out, leaving Bastille alone
in the room. She wondered whether Travers would call her bluff. She hoped not.
If he tried to pull some holdout stunt to see how long she could go without
breaking down and letting him out, he had chosen the wrong Sister to test.

CHAPTER 14

Brood-Father

Sniverlik was coming to Tanley.

He was making his way through the tunnels even now, the
village folk said. They said he had recruited a thousand
ikzhehn
in
Bolck-Azock to fight against the invading
calaihn
. But when the army
arrived, Lizneth saw that it was not nearly that many. Two hundred, at most.
Two hundred of the mangiest, scrawniest
ikzhehn
she had ever seen.

As soon as she scented Sniverlik’s
haick
on the cavern
wind, Lizneth wanted to hide; to disappear. But Raial and Thrin and Deequol
could not hide, nor could her family’s other hostages, and so neither would
she. She would stand for them all when she came face to face with Sniverlik.
She would be as brave as it took to endure his wrath. Courage did not seem so
laborious a thing when summoned in the name of those she loved.

She stood in the crevice of a familiar dip in the cavern
wall, just beyond her dry and decimated fields, knowing Sniverlik would’ve
found her by sight or by scent had she tried to escape him. The villagers had
picked clean the mulligraw vines Rotabak had felled, leaving only scraps for
Lizneth and her siblings to gather over the following days. The creatures who
scurried or flitted through the cave had stolen away the rest. New vines were
growing, but Lizneth knew they would fail to reach maturity before the harvest
season ended.

The
Bolck-Azockeh
conscripts marched more quietly than
the Marauders, armored in tough boiled hides instead of the abrasive forged
breastplates of brass and hammered copper worn by their betters. Sniverlik
entered like a great black monster, a full head and shoulders taller than the
rabble surrounding him. Even hunched over with fatigue, his hard paunch bulging
like a ripe turnip, he was a bear in a field of mice.

Rotabak’s Marauders stood in the village square while
Sniverlik greeted him with a celebratory clap on the shoulder that nearly
knocked the lazy-eyed
kradacht
off his feet. The stretched pelts of dead
calaihn
hung across the cavern walls and tunnel entrances like skin
sails, pinned up like party decorations to serve as a gruesome warning to any
hu-mans who might venture that way. A select few
calaihn
had been left
alive for torture and questioning, or to be offered in tribute to Sniverlik.
There were more hu-mans coming, if the rumors were true.

“A victory well-earned,” Lizneth heard Sniverlik roar above
the troops.

“As you commanded, Sniverlik,” Rotabak said with a sweeping
bow.

“Take these city-scum and make them ready for war,” Sniverlik
said. “They’ll need their weapons sharp and heavy if they’re to do the work of
bloodletting.” He lifted an arm to signal the new recruits.

The
Bolck-Azockeh
conscripts ambled forward to merge
with the sea of Marauders. The two groups sniffed each other out, forming
uneasy
haick
-bonds that would likely last no longer than their thin
alliance. Most of the metropolis-dwellers wielded simple weapons: short-handled
spades, switch-knives, chunks of driftwood, and clubs that were nothing more
than blunt lengths of rusted iron.

Sniverlik began conveying his plans to Rotabak and the others
in charge, seeming at first not to notice Lizneth. She knew he’d scented her
when he entered the village, which only made her more nervous.
If he hasn’t
expressed his outrage by now
, she postulated,
it’s only because he’s had
so much time to sit and stew over it. He’s probably worked out the perfect way
to punish me
.

The nestlings were home with Mama and Papa today. Lizneth had
half a mind to go there herself and hope Sniverlik would forget about her until
after the battle. Or better yet, until he and his army had moved on to the next
village and it was too late to go back. She was considering whether she could
escape the village unnoticed when she heard Rotabak utter the word ‘
scearib
’
and saw him point at her.
No! Rotabak, you slack-eyed cretin! You had to
remind him, didn’t you?

Next she knew, Sniverlik was thundering up the rise,
accompanied by half a dozen of his personal guard.
As if he needs guarding
,
Lizneth thought, a vain distraction from the fear threatening to cleave her
chest in two.
If I ever had a chance to run, I’ve missed it
.

“You are the
scearib
who speaks for the
calaihn
,
are you not?” Sniverlik asked as he came to a halt before her.

Lizneth was shocked at Sniverlik’s vagueness. He had treated
with her in his own throne room. She still remembered the cold dead look he’d
given her during the battle in the Brinescales the following day, a look that
said he meant to follow through with his threats. Now he barely knew her.
If
his threats are as empty as his memory, there’s hope for my family yet
.
“The
calaihn
helped me, so I brought you their message in return for
their kindness. I’ve since learned them to be false.”

Sniverlik gave a great sniff. His eyes took on a keen
glimmer. “I told you they were liars, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

“Yes,” she admitted meekly.

“What else did I tell you?”

Rotabak cut in. “Sniverlik, you said you would—”

“She remembers. Don’t you,
leparikua
?”

“Yes.”

“Say it, then. I want you to tell me what I promised.”

“You said…” she began. Her voice was quivering so hard she
couldn’t finish. She didn’t want to speak those words, or think about them, or
hear anyone say them ever again. “You said you were going t—” she choked back a
gag and had to stop. Her stomach churned violently. Then something warm and
bitter was in her mouth. She slapped a hand over her snout, too late. It
seethed past her longteeth and dripped to the ground, warm and thick.

“
Beh dyagth
,” Sniverlik cursed. He backed off in
disgust.

Lizneth swallowed the rest in embarrassment. As soon as she
could speak again, she began to apologize.

Sniverlik cut her off. “The
leparikua
can’t control
herself. She’s as cowardly as the
krahz-jaagivh calaihn
she serves.”

His guards laughed.

Sniverlik reached over and drew a blade from one of their
scabbards. “Here,
scearib
coward. Perhaps you will earn back a measure
of my mercy by fighting for your
vilck
, eh?” He shoved the blade into
her arms.

The heavy slab of curved iron began to bite at the insides of
her elbows. When she tried to lift it by the hilt, her arms felt like strings
of soft mutton. “But… I’m just a
lecuzhe
,” she said. “I can’t fight. I
don’t know how.”

“You carry that knife on your hip for bean-picking, is that
it?” he asked, pointing to her dagger. “Rotabak says you slew a full-grown
calai
keguzpikh
with it.”

“I didn’t, I just—”

“Am I a liar,
scearib
?” Rotabak said.

Lizneth was beginning to despise Rotabak as much as
Sniverlik. How could they call her a traitor if they knew she’d killed one of
the
calaihn
? She would’ve said as much, but the roiling in her stomach
made her thoughts go all crossed and jumbled. “No, I’m not… I—”

“And your fields,” Sniverlik interrupted. “What have you done
to them? A planned sabotage to starve us out of your village?”

“That was Rotabak.”

“You and your family have one responsibility,” Sniverlik
roared. “To feed this
vilck
with your harvest. If my Marauders don’t
eat, they don’t fight. If they don’t fight, the
calaihn
take you all to
slave tomorrow. If you are unable to look after these fields, perhaps I should
give them to someone who can.”

I thought you were going to kill my family
, Lizneth
was too frightened to say.
Who would’ve tended the fields then?
“I was
able to salvage a few bushels of mulligraws,” she said calmly. “Your
keguzpikhehn
will be fed tonight.”

“And what will they eat when the harvest season ends?”

Rotabak stood off to the side, pretending not to pay
attention. He could’ve stepped in at any moment to clear this up, to admit it
was he and his half-witted buffoons who’d slashed the fields to ribbons. But
Lizneth suspected Rotabak was just as afraid of Sniverlik as she was.

The Zithstone Scepter was swinging on a loop in Sniverlik’s
belt, its stone shrouded beneath a leather drawstring pouch. Lizneth wondered
whether Sniverlik was as susceptible to its effects as everyone else.
It’s
so close
, she thought,
and it isn’t the first thing on his mind. If I
could just get a hand on it
…

A voice snapped Lizneth out of her momentary madness.
“Sniverlik. The
calaihn
are coming,” said a heavy-set roan with dark
gray patterning.

“Already? Are you sure?”

The roan nodded. “The scouts have reported. It’s sooner than
we thought. They are moving fast.”

Sniverlik cursed. “I will deal with you when the battle is
done,” he said. “If you live.”

The alarm was raised. Orders were given. Buckets were filled
from the river, and the villagers took their places behind the Marauders. The
size of Sniverlik’s force combined with Rotabak’s was enough to clog Tanley’s
streets, so he sent detachments down every side tunnel to flank the
calaihn
when the time came.

Lizneth saw an open spot behind the small roofless stall from
which Tanley’s peddler, Bruck, sold his wares. The sword was so heavy she had
to drag it behind her, leaving a furrow in the dirt. A few
ikzhehn
almost tripped over the blade in their hurry.

The stall shook when Lizneth slumped over behind it, rattling
dozens of hanging trinkets on their hooks. The noise startled her; she closed
her eyes and put a hand to her belly, breathing deep against the queasiness.
Her belly felt firm and full.
Haven’t I been working hard enough to keep
myself in better health than this?
she wondered.

Chitt and Wyrda, young brother and sister agoutis whose
family kept the village tavern, darted behind the stall and crouched next to
Lizneth. “They’re making you fight, too?” Wyrda asked, concerned. The young doe
was wearing an old
eh-calai
helmet. She was holding a cracked shield
made of clear plastic in one hand and a set of wrist-mounted claws in the
other. Her brother held a sling and wore a leather pouch fat with riverstones.

“Yes,” Lizneth said, “although I can’t imagine why. I’ll only
end up getting in the way.”

“Sniverlik enjoys putting us in danger,” Chitt whispered. “I
think he gets a measure of personal satisfaction from watching us blunder
around.”

“He
is
very rude,” said Wyrda.

Chitt hushed her. “They’ll hear you.”

“That’s okay,” Wyrda said. “I want them to.”

“You think you’re so tough because you didn’t cry red when
they cornered you.”

“I haven’t cried red since I was a new-birth,” she said.

“You do it all the time.”

“No I don’t, fibber.”

“
Cuzhehn
,” Lizneth said. “We need to quiet ourselves.
Make enemies of the
calaihn
, not one another.”

Chitt twitched his nose and grumbled, but that was the end of
it.

When everyone was in place, the Marauders quieted the
villagers until the entire cavern had gone silent. Now it was only a matter of
waiting. It was a long time before Lizneth sensed the
calaihn
approaching down one of the wide eastern tunnels. There was no torchlight this
time; no pounding footsteps to indicate a hurried march.

They’re trying to sneak up on us
, Lizneth realized.
She almost laughed.
Do they not know we can scent them? That we can feel
them coming with our whiskers? That our hearing and our sight in dark places
exceeds theirs tenfold?
It was no wonder the
calaihn
were losing
this war. She assumed they were losing, at least, given their last attack on
Tanley. Such uninformed adversaries were doomed to fail.

The
calaihn
advanced until she could see their dark
shapes creeping down the tunnel. She imagined herself trying to move that way
through the blind-world, hoping a crowd of
calaihn
wouldn’t notice her
in the daylight.
They must truly be as simple-minded as they look
. This
was going to be another easy victory for the
ikzhehn
. The
calai
force was larger than last time, but their sensory disadvantages negated any
edge their numbers might’ve given them.

A scent came to Lizneth, borne on the breeze across the
cavern hollow. It was the smell of hu-man sweat, but one such scent in
particular was as familiar to her as any
haick
. It was only there for an
instant before she lost it.

Lizneth heard sparkstones being struck. Fires glittered to
life. Pellets of flame burning black tar smoke appeared in the hands of the
calaihn
and began to sail over the rooftops of Tanley. They landed on thatching and
shingle alike; they stuck where they fell, or skittered down the narrow streets
and came to rest against the sides of buildings.

These
calaihn
aren’t foolish at all. They know
exactly what they’re doing
.

The fires spread quickly. The villagers tried to douse them,
but a few dozen buckets did little to stop the progress of a hundred flames.
Soon the cave was as bright as midday in the blind-world. The
calaihn
flooded the village without stopping to speak with anyone. They cut down every
undefended villager they saw and dispatched those brave enough to fight back.

The Marauders and
Bolck-Azockeh
conscripts rose to
join the battle, but this fight had already begun to look very different from
the last. The taller
calai
warriors wielded their razor-sharp steel
blades in both hands, hacking through the tide of
ikzhehn
with practiced
ease. Their barbaric battle-screams filled the cave, frightful omens of the
coming death.