Trial of Intentions (9 page)

In moments, the fire blazed out of control, becoming an inferno that consumed everything, everyone.

Vendanj sat back, spent from his rendering, listening to the frightened cries of women and children carried on the night air. He heard them over the distant roar of fire and the soft weeping of his beloved kneeling at his side.

“We will hope to have a better mercy if the life of our own child is ever in jeopardy,” Illenia whispered, mostly to herself.

The revelation of their unborn child struck Vendanj speechless, as he sat aching from what he'd just done. Now, that ache burned more bitterly. And though he remained convinced it had been right—that the struggle against the Quiet required awful choices—he began to know self-hatred. He rolled over and pushed his mouth into the loam beneath him, thinking to muffle a scream. In the end, even that seemed too much like a pardon. So, he laid his cheek on the cool soil and listened to himself breathe.

*   *   *

Braethen could bear it no more, and opened his eyes to find Vendanj staring up at him. Surprise and concern rested in the Sheason's face. There was also gratitude.

“Thank you,” Vendanj said with a weak whisper. “I didn't know you'd learned to
impart
.”

Braethen removed his hand, and took a long, steadying breath. Any sense of accomplishment was swept away in the wake of what he'd just seen.

“You didn't know it moves both ways.” Vendanj waved a hand back and forth between them. “Not a fair bargain, Braethen. If I could undo it, I would. But now the memory is yours, as well.”

Braethen stared back at Vendanj. “You were an advisor to the smith king of Alon'Itol. And you burned an entire town there before telling him.…”

“We'll talk more of the smith king soon enough.” Vendanj struggled to sit up, and weakly pushed Braethen aside. “The Velle? The book?”

From the smoke and shadows Grant emerged. In his hands he held only so much ash. “The flames took them both.”

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

Causing Death

“Kids are resilient” is the lie a horse's ass tells for treating little ones poorly.

—From an interview conducted by League recorders on the ill effects of pageants and poverty

S
utter Te Polis knelt in the shale, exhausted, as the Quiet trudged away to the northwest. The siege on Naltus had failed. “Go, you piles of horseshit.” They should be pursued. But the Far were as weary as he was.
Hells, most of them are dead.
Far littered the plain.

Survivors slowly walked the shale, searching for other survivors. Their boots shuffled through the loose rock—an unnerving sound. But he remained kneeling, holding his Sedagin blade across his lap.

The sword, as well as the Sedagin glove, had been gifts from the leader of the Sedagin people. They had come with that man's belief that Sutter had earned them.

He fingered the glove with his other hand, and spoke to no one. “All I did to deserve these was remind a man that a lady decides who she dances with.” He blew a burst of air from his nose. “Hardly helps when the battle starts.”

The Sedagin were celebrated for their swordwork with their longblades, celebrated for their valor, too. They'd been the first to march against the Quiet in the wars of the First and Second Promise
. They keep their honor, damn me.
Sedagin honor meant holding one's own in battle. Sutter hadn't lived up to that today.

“I should go back to my roots,” he said to the glove. He longed for a day back in the Hollows on his father's root farm.
Damn me twice. Never would have imagined that.

But he couldn't stand up. Not to return to his father's farm. Not to find a place to hide his shame. He could only stare at the dead Far lying in front of him. That's why he was kneeling here. That's why he hadn't moved. Because from his window in the deeps of night, he'd seen this Far's spirit. Like he'd seen so many spirits over the last moon cycle.

The first time had come a day or two after his and Tahn's encounter with the barrow robber in the wilds of Stonemount. That ghostly creature had put its filthy hand in Sutter's chest. Changed him somehow. Given him this damned
sight
. He'd realized it when he'd seen the soul of a Sheason woman scheduled to burn the next day. Her spirit had found the guest room window where he'd been laid up, healing.

Last night had been much the same. Except he'd seen thousands …

Then this morning, he'd gotten separated from Vendanj and the others. He'd been in trouble. This Far in front of him had come to his defense, and gotten killed for it.

I saw the spirit of a man who would later die saving my life.

And this Far was not the only one. Sutter had insisted on going into the fray. Several had died rallying to save him as he made a poor job of his own defense. He eyed his Sedagin blade again with disgust.

Did I kill them? Because I'm no damn good with a blade, did I kill them?

The bodies of the Far whose spirits he'd seen from his window in the small hours of night now lay dead across the rocky plain. They'd sought him out. He had no damn clue what they'd wanted, and it gnawed at him.

He reached out and gently closed the Far's eyes. He had no elegy to offer. But he knew a simple farmer's poem, and whispered it, the sound lost beneath the scrape of boots over shale: “The earth is warm and will provide. She'll give you meat and later become the best, last bed to your weary hands.” It was something his father said every morning when he led them to another day's labor in the field. That's what Sutter was, even still: a rootdigger. Yes, he might be better with a blade now than when he'd left his father's farm, but ask him to root out some potatoes and you'd see his true talent.

Da's farm.
He missed that place an awful lot. Missed hearing his father's daily poem.

Wanting to find his friends, he finally pushed himself up. A sickening dread opened in the pit of his stomach. He'd never scoured a battlefield before. He clenched his blade until his fingers ached, unable to loosen his grip, which was sticky with blood. There was blood all over his clothes, too. The remnants of death had soaked his shirt and trousers just as they'd soaked the soil around him. He felt like a blood rag, the kind used to prepare the dead for burial.

He moved from body to body, recognizing more Far whose spirits he'd seen the night before. More who'd died defending him. He turned fast, dropped to his knees in an open area, and retched. His gut continued to heave long after it was empty.

Staring down at the sour spillage, he vowed to become decent with his sword. It might not be enough to ease his guilt. But it was part of the answer. A part he could do something about, by damn.

He struggled to stand again, then continued his search through the bodies of the fallen. He placed his feet carefully on shale that was slick with blood. Many of the surviving Far had begun to wend their way back toward the city. The few who remained stood talking in reverent tones, looking north and west.

A moan.

At first it sounded like just another Far conferring over the dead. But it became distinct the farther east he moved.
That's someone in pain.
Sutter hurried, following the sound to a heap of dead Far. But none in the heap seemed alive. Then he realized what he was seeing. He grabbed one of the Far by the arm, and gently pulled him off the pile. Then another. Three bodies later, Sutter stared down at one of the living.

“Wendra!” He smiled wide, glad to see her. “You're a wreck.”

She clearly hadn't eaten in days. The dusky brown hair he'd only touched once lay matted and tangled. Her eyes were badly bloodshot, and darkly ringed from lack of sleep. And blood covered her cheeks and chin. He dropped to his knees and wiped it away with his hands.

“Where are you hurt?”

She moaned again, sucking air like one who's been too long underwater, and shook her head.

“Show me,” he insisted.

Wendra drew more ragged lungfuls of air, as though learning to breathe. “I'm not hurt,” she rasped.

He pulled a bit of balsa root from his pouch and broke off a small piece, pushing it gently into her mouth. “Eat this anyway.”

She gulped it down whole and turned to look at the dead Far that Sutter had pulled off her. “They piled on top of me.” She took another deep, stuttering breath. Her next words were hard to hear. “Why would they…?”

A look of understanding spread on her face. Her mouth opened wide in a silent cry. In that moment, Sutter knew the battlefield rumor was true: Wendra's song had torn at Quiet and Far alike.

She gasped, filling her lungs as if she might sob or wail. She did neither, but stared at him with pleading eyes. He pulled her close, and began to rock forward and back, the way his mother had when he was sick.

He wanted to say something that would help. But he had no words for any of this. Best he could do was hold her while she suffered it out.

They sat that way for an hour. A mild breeze tugged at their hair as he held her and they stared away south.

Wendra spoke first, her voice soft when she asked, “How are you?”

Not wanting to share the curse of seeing the dead before they fell, Sutter just shook his head. “I'm a fool.” He swallowed hard. “A lot of them died saving me. I don't know how I'm going to live with that.…”

Wendra nodded and sat up. “These Far…” She motioned to the dead bodies Sutter had dragged off her.

“I know.” He took a long look around. “And I understand they honor an oath and all that. But does it make you feel like they think we're something we're not? Like they've placed some faith in us that we just don't deserve? I'm a godsdamned rootdigger.”

Wendra looked back at him with understanding eyes. And he decided to tell her. Like he'd told Tahn.

“I wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for my da,” he began.

Her brow furrowed with question.

A wan smile touched his face. “I'm not truly a Te Polis. My father was walking his fields when he saw a couple of pageant wagon folk out in his hay. They were birthing their baby. And when that child came out, they started to put it down in a water bucket. Drown the boy.” He looked into her eyes. “That was me.”

“Dear gods, Sutter…” Wendra put a hand in his.

“Don't know who they are. But I have a good righteous hate for them.” He clenched his teeth a moment. “Part of leaving the Hollows was wanting to find them. No idea what I'd say. But I'd probably start with something about that bucket.” He laughed to keep from crying, his emotions raw from the sight of so much death. “I'd beat the last hell out of them. That's what I'd do. A day doesn't go by that I don't think about that bucket.” His smile came more warmly. “Or about my real da—the one who
saved
me from that bucket.”

“You're like him, Sutter.” She shook his hand gently. “You showed
me
kindness when no one else would.”

He returned her thoughtful look, remembering hard days in the Hollows. Then he pointed at the Far, thinking of those who'd died defending him. “I've been saved too many times by others. I should try and return the favor for someone else.” New firmness settled his nerves. “At the least, no one else will die because of me.”

Wendra nodded understanding and got to her feet. “Where are Tahn and the others?”

Sutter stood, too. “I haven't seen them.”

“They're probably fine,” she said. “We won't find them in the dark anyway. Help me back to the city.”

He hoped she was right.

He pulled one of her arms around his neck and put his other arm around her waist. Together, they started back. It was only then that he relaxed, realizing for the first time that he hadn't seen any of his friends' spirits. They weren't dead. Not yet.

 

CHAPTER NINE

Lamentations: The Past

I don't think we have any idea what might result from orbital dissonance. And by the time we do, it may be too late.

—From the end papers of
Scant Evidence of Eternal Truths,
a cosmologer's philosophy text

I
n the late-afternoon sun, Tahn gently removed his arrows from the bodies of the six children he'd shot down. He looked a long moment at the peaceful face of each child before covering them with heavy wool blankets he'd brought from the city. He then laid them side by side. And wept. He wept for young lives ended so early. And he wept for himself.

“I wish I could have found another way,” he whispered. “Please rest well.”

He wiped his eyes, tied back his hair, and began to dig their graves. He hadn't been at it long when someone interrupted him.

“Can I help?” The weathered voice of Grant. His father.

“We've had plenty of practice, haven't we?” Tahn continued to dig without looking up.

Devin.
A friend from Tahn's time in the Scar. The memory of her had flared that morning when he'd shot to spare these little ones. She'd been one of many that his father had cared for in that hellish place.

“I guess we have.” Grant had brought his own pick and shovel, like hundreds of Far who were burying their countrymen across the Soliel plain.

Without further discussion, the two worked the hard soil together. Only the sound of iron striking dirt and shale accompanied them for most of an hour. Their shadows, often moving in unison, reminded Tahn how much he looked like the man. Grant's hair was close-cropped and a paler shade of black due to his years beneath a Scar sun. His skin darker. But a considering, sometimes broody brow over sky-colored eyes might have been Tahn's own.

They managed to carve out several short pits—the graves for these little ones needn't be long.