Unbound (23 page)

Fire had taken her son from The Great Way. She could have tried to comfort herself with a trite saying about the Little Spinner and how she never slows. She could have cursed Fire for the death it had brought, or called to Fury for aid. She could have prayed to Monument for the strength to endure. She could have begged Song to remember, as Song always did.

In the end, she did nothing. She was nothing.
The world conspires to take everything from us in the end
. She had been reduced to a lump of meat floating toward the ocean. Something there would devour her and it would mean nothing. Her son was dead. Her daughter would soon be dead. Alinder had, by mischance, saved her own life and failed her children.

* * * * *

The Red Salt River picked up speed as the land gently sloped downward toward the sea. Night fell shortly after Shawa receded from sight, and Alinder clung to her broken piece of canoe through the long hours, dozing sometimes, staring up into the starless darkness when she woke. Dawn brought a chilly gray light. There would be no patches of blue sky today.

Rivershelf appeared suddenly, when Alinder passed around a bend and the ridge road no longer blocked her view. The pink granite walls stood an astonishing four stories high, almost as tall as the walls of Peradain itself. It was the Holvos’s loyalty during the last rebellion that had earned them such an engineering marvel: King Ellifer had sent his own team of building scholars to cast the spells that created it.

Alinder thought it was an ugly thing, but there was no denying its power.

Once, she’d thought her son would stand atop those walls. Once, she’d thought they would be his.

She did nothing to catch the attention of the fisherfolk preparing to spike giant eels at the shallow river’s end—she wouldn’t even look at them—but they pulled her from the water anyway. They recognized her immediately, and she was so cold and weary she had to be carried in a blanket.

The guards atop the walls said the tyr her brother was near the ocean gate, so the fisherfolk carried her along the plankways that surrounded the city wall on the east and south. Here, the scholar-made pink granite walls came right to the stony edge of the bay.

Then they passed the southeastern corner of the city.

Alinder had been to the southern edge of Rivershelf, of course, but never outside the wall. The waters of the Red Salt swirled and eddied here, flowing through the rocks, over the cliffs, and into the perilous ocean below. She looked at the bay stones, seeing the blood-red salt encrusted on those rocks.

Her father had told her the cliff was slowly crumbling. The waves below and the water running overtop had the continent in a slow retreat. One day, he’d said, the foundations of the southern wall would collapse, and it would topple fifty feet into the ocean below, leaving the entire city exposed. Then the great beasts of the sea would be able to reach up with their long tentacles and pluck the Holvos people from the streets.

Alinder could picture it in her mind: the colossal noise of tumbling stone, the screams, the futile prayers for Fire to pass them by. The deaths. So many deaths.

She shut her eyes. Her son had been killed. Her daughter had been stolen. The Holvos heirs . . .

The images returned. The screams. The falling granite. The shocked faces of the citizens, all of whom thought there would be at least another decade of life and happiness, another year, another hour.

Alinder knew her thoughts were a slender shield against her private grief. Soon, the tears would flow. To stop them, all she had to do was roll out of this blanket into the swirling waters below. She would be swept over the cliff, and die from the impact at the bottom or be swallowed alive like a grain of rice by one of the great beasts.

But she didn’t. Her daughter was injured but still alive. A single square couldn’t best those four creatures, but Rivershelf had long held more than a single square. Even if her daughter couldn’t be saved, she might be avenged.

The ocean gate was barely larger than a door; no carts or wagons needed access to a cliff top that faced the open sea, nor could they travel the plankways. Fisherfolk called to the guards as they approached. Explanations were made, messengers sent, blankets laid across her. Something stank like an open chamber pot. So much activity, but Alinder shut her eyes against the city. She imagined the voices around her screaming, the footfalls fleeing in terror.

The tyr her brother would be coming soon, and so would Eslind, the wife of her younger brother Ilinder. When they arrived, she would have to explain what had happened. The truth would become undeniable. There was no return to her old life—she knew it—but to speak her
losses
aloud would be like declaring allegiance to grief.

Alinder opened her eyes at the sound of Eslind’s voice. She had arrived first, her baby boy in her arms. The new heir, now that Ilinder and Shoaw were both dead. There was no ambition in her expression. Of course not. Only concern.

Behind her was a great curving wall of timber the like of which Alinder had never seen before, and that could have no use at all.

Finally, Alinder began to cry.

Not long after, her face still wet with tears, she stood before the Holvos court and the great stone chair.

The tyr her brother did not believe her.

Not that he thought Shoaw was still alive, or that the spears had not fallen, or the outpost remained intact. He didn’t believe in the creatures she described.

“Describe them to me again,” he urged.

She did, listless but still grateful for the distraction. A time was coming where she would have no distractions left. She did not think she could endure it.

Alinder described it all again, how the creatures’ wounds had seemed to heal quickly, how they threw soldiers like crockery, how they killed like a grass lion in a chicken coop.

A thump of wood on stone echoed through the Holvos great hall. Alinder had been asked to tell her story in front of the court. Linder himself sat in the stone chair—not a throne, never a throne, not while they were ruled from Peradain—while his general, his spy catcher, his tax collector, and other influential figures stood at the periphery, whispering at everything she said. The only familiar faces missing were the Peradaini secretary and the bureaucrats he used to keep Linder in line.

The thump had come from the butt of a general’s spear, struck against the ground. “My spears are not chickens to be plucked!”

Alinder sighed. “You’re right. They were brave soldiers, and well trained, too. But it was four against your forty, and these creatures struck down your spears the way you would slap aside a child with a sharpened stick.”

The general didn’t like that, and neither did the tyr her brother. “Are you sure,” Linder said quietly, “that they couldn’t be men in disguise?”

“I have been closer to them than I am to you now.”

“Of course. I should not have asked again. Allie, I loved Shoaw. He was a smart, courageous boy, and what happened to him will be avenged. As for Shawa—”

“We must search for her,” Alinder said. “Not with forty spears, but four hundred. A large force might frighten the beasts into retreat.”

“I will see to her return,” the general said, “personally.”

“No,” Linder said. “Not yet.”

Alinder gaped at him. “Not yet? NOT YET?” Her voice shook. “Shawa was alive when I last saw her. She may be alive still—”

“Yes,” the tyr her brother interrupted. “And I love her as if she were my own child. We are Holvos, are we not? What people in all of Kal-Maddum values family as we do? However! We have to look after the city, the lands around us, and the people living on them as well. I learned long ago to take the measure of an enemy before engaging them. We need to send out scouts.”

“Scouts!” Alinder remembered the pimply girl who had made her report to the captain. “Lin, scouts will not free my daughter. My only child. Any delay might see her
torn apart
.” The last two words were ragged in her throat.

The tyr her brother was maddeningly calm. “Allie, we have been waiting
years
for Ellifer to pass from The Way. That he was Fire-taken during his Festival is . . .” He waved his hand as though brushing aside a housefly. “Lar is not the man to rule an empire. He has already abandoned Peradain and the Palace of Song and Morning. I don’t have to tell you what that means.

“We are ready. We have been ready for eight years, waiting for the Throne of Skulls to pass to that scholar-prince. We have become wealthy, have armed our troops with steel, and have drilled them incessantly. I would match a Holvos square against any in Kal-Maddum. Peradain is ours for the taking, and . . . Allie, would you risk all that we have worked for to rush into battle against an unknown enemy?”

Alinder looked down at her hands. They were shaking. “Lin, I would send every Holvos spear and bow after her. I would press knives and hammers into the hands of every citizen able to hold one and march them upon the road. For my daughter, I would empty the city—“

“My tyr!”

A messenger boy dressed in the colors of a city guard stood in the doorway. All turned toward him; the boys would not interrupt unless there was an emergency.

The messenger bowed low. Irritated, Linder called. “Speak.”

“My tyr, there are strange beasts at the walls.”

From the guard post above the northern gates, Alinder, the tyr her brother, and his council stared at the long slope between Rivershelf and the marshes. The creatures moved among the yellow grasses, their fur standing out like spatters of dye on white linen. Now, he believed.

“What of those?” Linder asked, pointing to smaller, dark blue creatures.

Alinder shrugged. “There were no small ones at the ridge road outpost.” Linder frowned and stared at them as though he might discover their secrets from the safety of his wall walk.

Silence. The world suddenly seemed utterly unreal. Was this really Alinder’s life, to be standing here, exhausted and poisoned by grief?

“Fire pass us by,” one of the sentries muttered. Alinder followed his gaze.

At first, she couldn’t see what had alarmed the archer. The brightly colored creatures were withdrawing down the long stony slope into the marshes.

Unlike most of the large cities on Kal-Maddum, Rivershelf did not permit shacks and slums to cluster against the outer wall. Even the skin tents of migrant herders, usually so commonplace this time of year, were missing.

There. Human beings trudged up the slope from behind a clump of trees. Some were old, some young, some male, some female . . . They weren’t rushing for the safety of the gate and the city walls. They shuffled like condemned prisoners.

One of the little children raised her head and Alinder felt a sudden spasm of recognition. Shawa.

Alinder cried out. She looked so tiny from up here, and the bloody stain at the shoulder of her tunic so large.

The girl, with all the others around her, moved listlessly into a stony clearing, then dropped to the ground like puppets with cut strings. They did not move again, nor did they appear to want to.

Linder stared out at them, his jaw set. Silence had fallen over the guard post, as everyone waited for the tyr to make a decision.

“General, although this is not my heir, it appears we must send troops after all.”

The general nodded. “My tyr, we have a contingent of spears stationed at the north gate, two hundred strong. Let me take them out personally. I’ll escort the injured inside the walls and kill a few of those beasts. Then we’ll mount their heads on pikes, to discourage the rest.”

“Only two hundred?” Alinder asked. “You—”

“Leave some spears to guard the gate,” Linder interrupted. “If the beasts do not flee at the sight of you, bring back more than one color, to discourage them all.” The general nodded to them both, then left.

The tyr her brother turned on her. “Alinder, you may be the older sister, but I am tyr.
Tyr
. I set the taxes. I make the laws. I command the troops. You stand at my shoulder because tradition makes you an advisor, but you will not come between me and my military again.”

“Tradition.” Alinder said. “Such a sour word when you say it. What did you mean when you said ‘although this is not my heir’? Would you have marched out immediately to rescue my son?”

“Of course! I told you that family is important, but I have a people to care for. Shoaw was going to be tyr someday. King.”

“Those are the ways of Peradain, Lin.
Peradain
. You talk as though Ellifer’s ghost stands at your shoulder. The Holvos once ruled as a family, through a family council. Are you still planning to lay power on the male children of our line, as though Peradaini steel still commands it, or will you return to the tradition of our people?”

The tyr her brother—little Linder, who had put little muddy handprints on the hem of her dress before he could speak a word—looked at her with a cold, stony expression. The skin on her back prickled and she had no idea why. It’s not as if her own brother would order her execution . . .

Linder snapped his fingers. The messenger boy who had interrupted the council stepped forward. “Get to the eastern gate. Tell the commander to open the sluices and fill the moat. Quickly. I want water flowing before the general returns from his errand.”

The boy sprinted off. Linder was still angry but he said nothing. Whatever he’d intended to say or do to her, it would wait.

“They’re just lying there,” one of the archers said.

“Why don’t they proceed to the gate?” the tyr her brother demanded, as though she possessed some hidden expertise she had not yet shared.

Alinder was wondering the same thing. Still, her brother made the question sound like an accusation. “Perhaps they’re exhausted,” she snapped. Alinder was exhausted herself. “All have clearly lost a lot of blood.”

The tyr her brother couldn’t argue with that. Soon, they heard the sound of the drawbridge lowering, then boots marching along the road. The square came into view, ten spears wide and ten spears deep, points spread in a fan. The general had only taken half the contingent.