The Godless (36 page)

Don't go to Ranan.
Bueralan caught Zean's gaze and held it, trying desperately to impart his words to him.
I will find a way out of here. None of you have to take risks.
Following Orlan is a bad choice. Whatever waits in that cathedral will be blood gorged—it doesn't matter if it is a “child” or a “mother”—the risk is one you shouldn't take. It is too dark a gamble on our set of weary souls.
Don't take that risk. Not now. Not here. Take the others, take them away—

Zean shrugged. With a swift movement, he pulled himself onto his horse. “None of us wins in this, General. I will tell you about Ranan when I see you next.”

After he had gone, Waalstan bent his head, met Bueralan's gaze through the bars. “He may be just as dangerous as you.”

“He'll kill you before your war is done.”

It was bravado, a hint of defiance, a reaction to the situation that saw him caged and ill and knowing that Dark would, once they returned to the town where they had left Orlan and Ruk, begin to ride to Ranan. They would not like it; they would know instinctively to cut the head off the army would not stop it, not even if the head was figurative.

Yet he could offer them no alternative but to leave him.

Outside the cage, General Waalstan smiled sadly. “I know I will not see the end of this war. In that regard, however, I will not be alone.”

 

9.

 

By the time the afternoon's sun had begun to set, Ayae knew she was being watched.

After leaving Zaifyr, she had not returned to her home. At first her steps had been without direction. Fo's words replayed in her mind, the horror she felt was strong; but when the sense of being followed emerged she realized that she did not want to bring whoever it was into
her
home. The thought was a surprising and sad one. As she passed along the Spine, lined with men and women who had not spoken to her since the fire in Orlan's shop and who now sought to catch sight of the approaching army, she knew the thought was untenable. The wooden walls around her had begun to look more and more like the walls of the camp in Sooia and she knew that the war would come to her home no matter what she wished; but she told herself that it could wait.

Two blocks to her left, where
The Pale House
rose like a thick, white gravestone, there was the sound of a horn and the Mireean Guard began moving quickly to the building, passing her with grim faces. She did not follow. No matter what drew them—and she believed that it was nothing more than a training exercise—it did not have anything to do with her, but the sudden appearance of the guard did put a thought in her mind, and she began the slow circuit that took her looping around Mireea to where Steel were encamped.

The mercenary army was camped on the western edge of the city, in a timber yard that had been closed shortly after their arrival. The wood from the company had been used for the gates that stood in rough attention around the city, while what remained in offcuts had been taken by Steel and turned into barricades throughout the western part of the city. The camp was located near the Spine, but to reach it Ayae had to pass through three guard checkpoints and at the second, with two lean mercenaries nodding her through, she heard a woman calling her name out.

The Captain of Steel—Queila Meina, shadowed by her two uncles—lifted her hand in greeting when she turned.

“You missed all the fun,” the dark-haired woman said, drawing closer. When Ayae made no response, she added, “Heast was attacked on the top of his building. Well, attacked is too strong a word: he killed an assassin who had slipped in at the back of a meeting. I was there and I still can barely believe he walked up to an unassuming looking man, grabbed the back of his head, and slit his throat all while talking about supplies. Before the man hit the ground, Heast had reached for his horn to call the guard to send them to the hospital and the Keep.”

“How did he know?”

“He had never seen the man before. I would not have had the confidence to do it myself, but by the time we were leaving, reports of men and women breaking into both the Keep and hospital were being carried to him. No one was hurt, by all accounts.” Meina shook her head and laughed, a quiet sense of disbelief in both. “If that's the opening gambit of the Leerans, it's going to be a short war, I tell you that. Now, what brings you here?”

Ayae hesitated, then said, “I'm being followed.”

“Still?”

She nodded, though she could not have explained how she knew, other than the warmth that had begun to spread throughout her body, a sensation so different to what she had felt before that she could only explain it as a warning.

“It would make sense,” Bael murmured quietly. “Heast, the Lady Wagan, that Healer and the Keepers. They're the power in this city.”

And Zaifyr?

“We'll have to trust that the Keepers can take care of themselves.” To Ayae, she said, “Let's head in and see if we can't draw whoever this is out.”

Ayae doubted that whoever was following her would do so as all four walked deeper into Steel's camp, but the sensation of being followed did not leave her.

Steel's camp was the timber mill itself, located deep in the poor working-class district of the city. Past a thick wooden wall and gate, the mill nestled against the Spine, dominating the expanse of land it owned with a large building that had housed the timber that had been brought in, not by river, but by human and animal muscle. Ayae had been told by Orlan it was a business that defied the usual practice, forcing loggers to pay the price of hauling their merchandise up the mountain rather than using a river as was traditional. But even located at the edge of Mireea as it was, it was a mill that was in the center of numerous trade routes, a mill that the owners took pride in having a variety of wood available for those who came to it—wood now, Ayae knew, that dominated the city's skyline, taken at a quarter of the going price under the order of Captain Heast.

The large warehouse was being used as Steel's sleeping quarters. As she walked past the mercenaries with Meina greeting most she passed, Ayae was told that the other two buildings in the yard—both large offices—were used by herself and her officers for meetings and as a storage facility for their food and water, rations that she said would be important if the siege began to drag on, or if they were forced into retreat.

At the door to her new office, Meina—free from her uncles—sat herself down on the stairs, leaving room for Ayae. “You don't appear that impressed.”

She took the offered place next to her. “Memories,” she admitted.

“You've been in sieges before?”

“I was born in a village called Iqua, in Sooia.”

“We're competing against the memory of Aela Ren? I will be happy to come in second.”

“I never saw him.”

“Few have,” Meina said. “One of the advantages of genocide, I imagine.”

She nodded.

“There are rumors that he has left Sooia,” Meina continued. “A lot of gold has started to come out of Ooila, and with it the rumors that he is there.”

“It was said that the armies of Sooia rose up against him, at first. That they were huge, nearly equal to the armies of the Five Kingdoms, but they did nothing. In the camps they would talk about those old battlefields, and men and women would dig in them for weapons.” She spread her warm hands out in front of her. “It is not the same, but—”

“This is all too familiar,” Meina finished.

Ayae nodded.

“It's home to me,” the mercenary said. “My family is here, the memories of my family and the business I was raised to inherit.”

And she would die for it as well, but neither she nor Ayae said the words.

Instead Ayae let her gaze drift over the paved ground, the afternoon's sun having risen to start baking the stone. The mercenaries of Steel came and went beneath her gaze, half a dozen entering the provisions building and emerging with freshly slaughtered meat.

The mercenary began to speak again, but her voice was stolen by a sudden explosion that shook the ground and the Spine, that caused the base of the wall to fall inward. A cloud of debris rose and it fell like a curtain across the mill.

And from it emerged armed men and women.

 

THE WOMAN MADE FROM FIRE

It was agreed that we would make our own kingdoms. We had conquered enough. We had fought long enough. We had to lead, to teach, to love. We had half the world and we needed rest. We needed to consolidate. We needed to show our armies that their faith was not misplaced.

In the heart of the Five Kingdoms, Jae'le built his domain, and gave voice to the creatures that had none. To the west, Aelyn's intricate, beautiful cities rose over forests and rivers, and her gaze, now, as then, was ever upward. In the east, Eidan dug beneath for iron, for gold, for gems, for wealth. He dug for what is locked beneath us. In the south, Tinh Tu took in those with crippled hands and built libraries of such wealth, such knowledge, that she now begins to deny the opening of her gates, while in the north …

In the north, there were cities dedicated to those who spoke, but could not be heard.

—Qian,
The Godless

 

1.

 

At first, Ayae did not react.

She remained on the stairs as Queila Meina rose, her voice ripping out through the dust and silence, her response immediate, seasoned, commanding. Her orders cut out the shapes of the men and women rising from the debris and drew the eye of those under her command to the leather they wore, the steel they carried. But beneath Meina's voice—“Archers! Defensive positions!”– Ayae could hear a dull, repetitious thudding, the sound of something solid hitting a wooden ramp at a great speed and weight and her breath caught when she realized what it was—

“Horses!” Queila Meina cried. “Steel! Fall back to the streets!
Fall back, Steel!
”

The first horse burst from the dust as her final words tore across the mill's now broken lot, its rider crouched low, a short, hard blade held at his side. Ayae could make out little else, for he was a shadow wreathed in dirt, a dark and terrifying figure followed by a second and third, each unfolding like a fan around the first.

“
Archers!
”

Ayae was wrenched to her feet as the mercenary grabbed her, dragged her off the stairs as she ran toward the entrance of the yard.

A small group of men and women from Steel were running toward them, armed with heavy crossbows. Releasing her, Meina pushed Ayae forward, pushed her past the mercenaries to take one of the weapons. Stumbling, Ayae turned to see her and the mercenaries drop into position as more riders swept through the yard. Emerging from the dust, she could see their mouths split into vicious, sharp-toothed grins as they cut off small groups of mercenaries, rode down those who did not move fast enough and hacked down with their swords.

“
Fire!
”

The first volley of crossbow bolts punched into riders and horses, but drew the attention of a group to Ayae and those around her.

This time, she moved of her own accord, sprinting to the left as the riders thundered toward her. She saw Meina hurl her unloaded crossbow at one, saw the other members of Steel drop the heavy weapons and pull out swords; then a rider bore down on her. More out of instinct than any conscious choice, the cartographer's apprentice ducked beneath the wild swing aimed at her head, trying desperately to grab her attacker—

Who screamed suddenly.

His sword hit the ground before he did, and Ayae snatched it from the dirt. His screaming had not stopped when she turned on him, his sword-wielding hand clutched at his face. Blood was seeping from the ruined right eye his fingers were desperately trying to keep in the socket.

She heard shouts and screams and horses around her, but there was no indication of what had attacked him; but, with no time, Ayae gritted her teeth and slammed the sharp end of the sword into her attacker's neck. The blade cut deep, but not all the way through, and she left it there in the man as she turned back to where she had last seen Meina.

The mercenary captain was pushing herself up from beneath the rider who had attacked her, the other man's stomach a bloody mess from the dagger that Meina had thrust into him. She stumbled as she straightened and Ayae, moving quickly now, ran to her side.

“I'm fine,” she said, but leaned on the other woman's shoulder. “Really, I'm fine. Better than most.”

The charge had broken against the small group, but half of the twenty members of Steel that had stood against the attack lay on the ground, injured or dead, surrounded by the remains of the small charge. Of the mercenaries, a middle-aged man had the worst wound, his hands holding his stomach together as he muttered to himself and tried to move backward with his legs. His killer was bloody from where she had driven her sword into him, her leather armor untouched but held together in strips, while through her hair were twists of twine and feather. The mercenary had crushed her face with the stock of a crossbow, but Ayae could still make out a tattoo that went from her left eye to her cheek.

“Raiders,” she whispered.

“Leeran raiders.” Meina limped over to the middle-aged mercenary, dropping down next to him. “You were a good man, Rel.”

The fallen man did not respond, and a second later could not.

“Gather up those you can.” The Captain of Steel rose. “We need to be at the gate, and we need to be there, now. Is your protector going to come with us?”

Ayae glanced to her right, following Meina's gaze, and found a raven perched on the body of a horse.

“He'll go where he wants to go,” she said, finally. “But—thank you.”

The bird's head tilted slightly and then lifted into the air with an easy jump and glided to her shoulder.