Meliu Read online

  Water streaked, tore, and washed away Shadow, and the thing’s shriek was shrill, feeling as if it passed from this world into another along with this demon. In moments all that remained was the mutilation of what once might’ve been a good man.

  The guards stared at her, even as she found it difficult to look away from the dead’s one good eye. Her arms and shoulders shuddered. “Peace, child of Sol. Move for the Living Stars and find your way.” She had no idea if the soul had passed on when Taken or not, but a prayer for the dead never felt as wasted breath.

  “The Shadow. It’s gone?”

  Meliu ripped her eyes from the dead stare, looking up at the burly warrior. “No need to chop them to chunks. Kill the Taken, and douse the Shadow in water.”

  The warrior’s smile was born in relief, she could see him breathe a little easier. He shouted to pikemen and archers around him: “Word down the line! Let it rain on these godsdamned bastards!” Men bellowed and cheered, and the guard turned back to her. “My thanks.”

  “I hope it helps.” She smiled and took a step to leave, but the girl clung to her left thigh, anchoring her foot to cobble. “Let go, child. You’re safe.” But the girl was having nothing to do with that idea.

  “First leech I’ve seen with two legs.” The warrior laughed, and Meliu couldn’t resist a grin to lighten the dark all around.

  “Where’s your family?”

  “I don’t have none.”

  Meliu’s head rolled to blame the sky. “Then let go my leg and follow me, for the love of Januel.” The girl nodded, but kept a grip on her robes with one hand; it was enough to let her walk. To the south on the docks battle raged, but on the northern perimeter commoners huddled in various states of despair and shock. Tears and rage, hugging and pounding chests, screaming at the clouds.

  We need to find a boat. Her eyes squinted in disgust. We? She glanced to the girl at her hip. How’d it become ‘we’ so fast? Shit! The boy under the dock. We’ll get him safe, I swear it. Children were never a part of her life, not even when she was one. Now she knew why. “What’s your name, child?”

  “Deelee.”

  “Well, Deelee… You don’t happen to have a boat hidden around here?”

  “No.” The child took her dead serious. Maybe she was, in a wishful way.

  “Then we need to find one, right?” A child would just make it more a pain in the ass to find a ride. Or… “Are you a good liar? I mean real good?”

  “Mmhmm, yes ma’am. I can cry too, just jam my nails into my hand.”

  Meliu’s brow arched. “I don’t have no family I call my own these days neither. You’re my li’l sis now, you hear?”

  The child cocked her head and damned if there wasn’t a tear. And the girl’s hands weren’t balled into fists. “I’d like that.”

  “So, sis, where do I find new boots?”

  6

  Swarming Maggots

  To ally with one enemy to destroy another is an ages old strategy to survive. With victory at hand, or even before, one must decide if this new friend is as a wolf domesticated, or if its blood still boils with the wild. Be prepared to put an arrow into your new friend’s, and old enemy’s, heart, lest he eat your soul.

  — Codex of Sol

  Meliu wiggled her toes in oversized boots. They weren’t the fanciest boots she’d ever owned, that distinction belonged to a pair which lay lost in the Chanting Caverns. Tooled leather softer than a bunny’s butt (as her mother would have said), light as sandals, and imported from the Gorotan, they’d cost five hundred songs. The price felt fair at the time, but right now she’d trade them for an hour’s deep sleep.

  Her new boots weren’t pretty nor light, but they were sealskin and Deelee swore up and down she’d be able to run into the surf and stay dry and warm. When ugly, heavy, and an imperfect fit could save your life, they became beautiful. More beautiful if she wasn’t glancing at the doors and windows, flinching every time someone passed and cast a shadow. It was only time that stood between horror and these few moments of peace.

  The cobbler’s shop sat on the outskirts of the perimeter set by Choerkin spears, and folks had picked over the shelves, but they both had new boots.

  “Are we stealing?”

  “Hard to say if the cobbler’s dead or no, can’t steal from the dead can you?” The girl’s quizzical stare annoyed her, but touched a soft spot. “What kind of orphaned urchin are you?”

  “I’m your sister now, and I never liked taking stuff, no how.”

  “I suppose even a young girl can be right once in a Heaven’s Age. I’ll leave a few coins… maybe not what these fine boots’re worth, but better than nothing… if you know where we can grab clean new dresses.”

  Meliu picked out two dresses for each of them, heavy fur-lined cloaks, and a haversack, plus she paid for them proper; the owners of the general store weren’t dead, nor had they run away. They were, however, shocked to find anyone looking to buy anything, let alone a priestess wanting something other than robes.

  It was the first time in two years she’d worn anything other than her habit. At least on the outside. The new linen dress bore quality hand stitching, and they befitted the silk smallclothes underneath. When staring at the pretty girl in the mirror, she wondered if she hadn’t been born to the wrong parents: The dress suited her, and she imagined she should’ve been born to wealthy merchants, not a violent bastard without a sense of taste and a woman who loved whiskey more than her own blood.

  They stepped from the shop as new people; they weren’t a priestess from Istinjoln and a roof rat, they were two sisters wronged by an ill fate and desperate for a boat to Herald’s Watch.

  A Shadow’s shriek jarred her senses. How quick could she slip into normality? Normal was dead, yet even a couple wicks of banter and peace had eased her wits into a vulnerable state.

  Meliu clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes, staring hard at the world around her. Unaware makes the mightiest warrior a corpse. A child two steps ahead will never die. Try to be six steps ahead to assure those two steps are real. Wisdom to stay alive by from the Book of Dolomi.

  An hour earlier the wharf had been a roaring mass fighting for survival, now there was a frightening quiet over the area. With Deelee’s hand in hers, she sought the nearest guardsman. “Sir? Pray, what has happened? Were the Shadows defeated?”

  “Way I hear, no. There’s a standoff at the docks. And still plenty of Taken roaming the Fost.” Which explained why his eyes never left the streets behind them.

  Meliu nodded and bowed her head as she walked away. A standoff was better than slaughter, but what sense did it make?

  “These monsters, we’re winning?”

  “No, child. But we ain’t dead neither.”

  High Priestess Adelin never promised victory, but leading the people to the sea. Harsh reality, defeatism, or all a spoke in the War Wheel? “Come, Deelee, let’s see if we can find Auntie.”

  Meliu needed to see about the boy and a boat, but her gut compelled her to spy on the battle first. They wriggled between common folk, and claimed a search for their mother whenever they stepped on toes, until they reached a stretch of street with a view from higher than the docks. They were too far away for details, but a quick prayer allowed her eyes to cut the distance in half.

  There was a standoff of a sorts, just as the guard had said. A wall of fog or smoke, or maybe gauzy shadow, rose between men and Taken. The barrier horseshoed into the bay, so any access would need come straight at the end of the dock where the great Shadow stood. Silone warriors paced its boundary on land, but the Taken sat in precise rows stretching down the dock, legs folded and hands resting in their laps as if in meditation. The scene was surreal when compared to the manic bloodthirst she’d always seen. The great Shadow stood just as she’d left it, arms outstretched and staring out to the bay.

  “What the hells?” She stared for a wick stupefied, before her wits snapped to a nameless book which dated from the Age of Warlords: A bolster
ing trance. In a chapter retelling battles between two warlords (their names escaped her) it mentioned that followers of both camps lended their warlords power with a trance to connect their souls. The war on both sides focused on breaking the meditation as the path to victory and defeat.

  Her master passed the story off as myth; the whole book was filled with balderdash, far as everyone believed. Stories for postulants and children. It was terrifying to believe half those stories held some truth if what once was could again be.

  Her gaze passed back to the docks where the view remained clear. A blond man paced at the front, and if she hadn’t seen Ivin Choerkin leaving on her ship, she might’ve sworn it was him. In his hand a sword like she’d never seen before, its length as tall as a man, but translucent as fine crystal. Another myth from a dead age. Latchu. In a matter of a couple weeks her entire perception of the world and its past had changed.

  Sedut stood nearby, her hand aglow with the same power which had raised Ulrikt from the dead. That tidbit brought her tongue to her lip for a curious lick. When and why the hells would Ulrikt have given that back to her? The more she knew, the less she understood, or as her father once said: You dig in the compost, you never know what kinda shit you’ll find.

  She squinted at the scene, wishing her prayers for Life would let her see further with clarity; the waters of the bay looked turned to ice. Ice. “Godsdamn.”

  Deelee tugged her dress. “What do you see? What?”

  She squeezed the girl’s hand and bolted for the eastern wharf with Deelee struggling to keep up. Shadows and Taken would die in water, but walk straight across ice; the boy’s hiding place wasn’t safe. Their path was clear until they reached the line of guards, and they slipped through without question.

  They were halfway to the end of the wharf when a Shadow’s shriek brought her to a sliding stop. Unless her ears failed her, the chilling cry came from in front of them, not behind. She glanced back at the hundred strides between her and safety, and a second shriek rose from the north. Another and another, piecing together in a song fit for the Slave Forges. The next scream brought her eyes to the gatehouse ahead, and atop the tower stood a Shadow.

  “Run girl, back to the guards. Go!”

  “No.”

  Figured that her new kin would be a brat, and there was no time to argue. She let go the girl’s hand and ran, hoping she’d at least hang back, but footfalls drummed behind her; the Shadow leaped over the parapets, and instead of floating like a falling leaf as she expected, it fell with the weight of a man, but lit with the grace of a feline.

  She spun around the end post of the wharf and gazed beneath into the rocks with her prayer-filled eyes. “Godsdamn!” A run for nothing; the boy was gone. She turned back to Deelee who’d fallen behind, waved. “Back! Run!” Damned if the girl didn’t listen, or… she glanced over her shoulder and saw the Shadow gliding for her, and two more further behind. At least the girl wasn’t so thick as to not run for her life.

  Armed men and folks with buckets of water were only a couple hundred strides away, but those once beautiful lifesaving boots were weighting her feet down with drumming strides on the dock. She felt as though she were clogging along like a giant duck, and someone ahead must’ve decided she wasn’t going to make it, as the wall of guards opened. A blond man and a priestess ran her way. Saved by a Choerkin and Sedut would embarrass her face to a beet red, but she didn’t have the breath to cuss her shame.

  The Choerkin chambered his sword over his shoulder for a strike that made her question if he came for her head. “Slide!”

  Legs burning from calf to thigh and breath gone it took a flicker to register, and she dropped to her hip in a slide as the blade flicked past her head in a near invisible swipe. She rolled to her back, casting her eyes back in time to see the crystal sword cleave a perfect streak through the Shadow. The thing stopped as if it’d hit an invisible wall and shrieked, but its death was less a horrifying wail and more dying whisper. Then it disappeared as if never there.

  A half dozen Shadows stood statue still as she lay panting on the dock’s worn boards. The man stood guard over her as she came to a knee, and a glance to Sedut spoke to why they didn’t attack: the woman stood in a swirl of frightening energy with dancing surges that mimicked rotating blades. No way in all the hells anything would meet her willingly.

  The Choerkin gave Meliu his hand, lifting her to her feet. “You’re well?” This Choerkin sure wasn’t Ivin; he had a smile and way to tame a wild spirit. Or, her childish grin was because he’d just saved her life.

  “I’m alive, thank you.”

  “Good.”

  And he shoved her toward the line. She stumbled and ducked her head as she passed Sedut, but it didn’t appear the high priestess looked at her, let alone recognized her.

  Deelee rushed in to clamp both her legs before Meliu could brace, and she damned near toppled. She clutched the girl’s head in a hug to her hip. The girl cried and Meliu laughed.

  “What the hells were you doing out there anyhow?”

  The Choerkin bore a scolding gaze, and she couldn’t help but giggle. But the giggle died, and so too her smile. “Looking for a boy under the dock, he was unconscious, I hid him there. He was gone.”

  “So many people missing others. My kin are smoke now, but at least I know where they are.”

  Meliu blanched and stared Deelee in the eye rather than catching his. “I heard. I’m so sorry.”

  “You know me? I doubt I’d miss such a pretty lass in town.”

  She dipped her head and blushed. “Not your name proper. But, you’re a Choerkin, you remind me much of Ivin.”

  “You know my cousin. My name’s Eredin.”

  “Well met, sir. I am Meliu. I met Ivin in Ervinhin not far back.”

  He nodded, face grave. “Ervinhin… I’d heard hope of most escaping from there.” A dour frown sank the corners of his lips. “We may look alike, but Ivin is the better man. If your life needs saved, trust him before me.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t get the rise from the man she’d hoped. “It was you who saved me just now.”

  “You were the lucky one. I… must be going.” His face grew darker, and the way he cast his eyes to the cracks in the dock suggested he recalled some blood-soaked memory. “Stay near the guards from now on.” His smile was weak as he walked away, but at least it’d returned.

  Deelee punched her in the hip as he disappeared in the crowd. “He’s an alley cat, and every girl in the Fost knows it.”

  “I bet it doesn’t stop ‘em.” The girl pursed her lips and planted a foot. “Don’t worry, sis. We’re getting the hells out of here on the first boat I find.”

  Raised near a spine of mountains in a mining camp didn’t prepare Meliu for the creaking scramble of boards some fishermen called boats, nor what variety of filth captained them. Reputable vessels were full or suspicious of strangers, in truth most were gone already, and the tubs which remained wreaked of profiteering. Several larger ships, and a dozen square-sailed raiders, bobbed in the open waters of the bay, clear of the peninsula of ice, but they were Choerkin controlled. She considered tracking down Eredin and flirting their way aboard a skiff to one of these ships, but then if those same ships went into battle?

  Better to die dry.

  She plied her and Deelee’s tale to sailor after sailor, with no small number of whimpers and tears from the girl, but unless her tears were gold Meliu figured not a one would pay their sorrow no mind. One woman spat in her face when she offered a hundred songs for passage, but most turned their backs with a snort and dismissive wave. If she threw on her priestess’ robes might buy a favor, but just as likely they’d squeeze her for every song she had or thought she had. Prayers and wealth were what priests were known for here on the docks.

  Meliu set eyes on a three-masted ship, also bristling with a bank of oars, mooring at the furthest western dock. It was a breath of hope until she noted the swarm of souls as desperate as they were waiting on
the dock already. More would follow swift as swallows. “Hurry.”

  Deelee’s feet carried her faster than her short legs would suggest, but everyone always underestimated Meliu too. A man’s voice rang out as they approached: “We’ve space and supplies for a hundred, and that’s piling the mule’s back! A hundred, no more! A short trip to the Watch, and we’ll be back to load as many as we’re able.” Sailors lined the rails of the ship, each armed with an axe, cutlass, or bow. “We keep it tidy, the cap’n points to you, you board. Any other catches an arrow!”

  Pleading shouts and angry curses answered, but no bowstrings sang. People were filing aboard by the time they reached the line. Meliu’s heart beat and it was hard as hell to keep her feet still. There were more than a hundred in front of them, but while the Captain fingered men, he weighted boarding toward women and children; if they’d arrived quicker, they’d be on deck. Damn every moment I spent haggling. I’m two steps behind.

  They jostled and bounced as folks pressed in from the rear. Meliu lifted Deelee onto her shoulders. “Count.” And she figured it didn’t hurt to raise a youngster to the Captain’s eyes.

  “Ten already on deck… maybe? Close.”

  “Keep counting.”

  “Seventeen. Twenty-five.”

  Meliu’s knees buckled when kneed from behind, and she stumbled, but kept the girl aloft.

  “Thirty-seven, now forty?”

  Meliu nudged a dozen steps closer, close enough she caught glances of the Captain through gaps in the crowd. Clean shaven, broad shouldered, and ordinary as any man except for his broad-brimmed hat and authoritative stare. She also caught the name of the ship, Januel’s Grace, but a swath of fresh black paint streaked across the letters as if someone had grown unhappy with the name.