CHAPTER
16
In
the Star Chamber
THEY FED. THEIR great
jaw detached and their teeth ratcheted on to the newborn foal and
began pulling it down their gullet. Saliva jetted from the roof of
their mouth to grease the motion, and when the head reached their
throat banks of muscle contracted in waves. As the muscle drew the
foal deeper, they began constricting its spine. When the head
reached the digestive tract they allowed themselves to relax. The
largest section was through. Everything else—shoulders, hips,
legs—could be crushed.
They settled into a
languor as the full length of the foal was enclosed. A half-moon
was up and its perfect blue light provided a second, no lesser,
nourishment. They felt heavy and overstretched and content. Horse
blood pooled at the back of their throat and they would taste it
later with relish. The night world was theirs. They owned and
controlled it.
Sidewinding across
sparkling snow, they returned to their den to sleep.
Cold water thrown at
force onto his face woke him from profoundly strange dreams. He
felt himself being peeled away from Moonsnake and grafted onto
another life.
It was hot here. The
world was crammed with too much color and movement. All stillness
and purity was gone. Someone touched him and he lashed out. A
startled cry informed him of the success of the contact. He
received a single jab of pain to the meat of his upper arm in
return.
The world immediately
blurred. A word floated to him. Drugged. He blinked, remembered some things he had
no desire to remember, then watched as they prepared him to
fight.
Two Sull worked with
the economy of men who had performed their task more than once.
They pulled him upright, toweled him dry and strapped armor plates
to the planes of his chest, arms and legs. It was like being buried
alive. They ran a line of grease around his neck and plugged the
helm against his face. Straps were cinched at the back of his head.
Indignation was a fury in his blood, but his body would not obey
the command to hurt the men who did this. Among the memories he
recalled one that was useful: this state wore off quickly. Soon it
would be possible to strike.
The Sull returned him
to the pallet and left. A clangor of rusted iron echoed through the
chamber as a bolt was engaged behind the door and then silence.
Raif, for he recalled his name now, lay flat on his back and stared
at the traprock ceiling, waiting for the numbness in his limbs to
wear off.
They, Moonsnake named the Sull. In the world of
moon and stars they were beneath her. They claimed to own the
night, but they could not see in the darkness as she could see in
the darkness. They could not move and strike in perfect silence and
live month after month upon the moon-blued snow. Her contempt
fueled Raif’s anger. How dare they hold him. He was Mor Drakka. They needed him to fight the
Unmade.
Kill them and we will feed.
Current passed along
Raif’s body. His legs twitched and the tendons in his fingers
contracted. Objects floating across his vision began to slow. His
body was becoming his own again. They drugged him in different
ways, he’d noticed, sometimes forcing sleep, other times subduing
him while they worked on his body. He wondered if they still
poisoned his water. His piss always smelled like the chemicals his
mother used to soften hides.
Da.
The word helped hold
him in place. It was the reason not to return to Moonsnake. Da was
dead. Mace Blackhail had killed him. Through his, Raif Sevrance’s
own negligence, Mace Blackhail still lived and ruled in the
clan.
Kill him and we’ll swallow him whole.
Raif turned his head
a fraction and looked around the chamber. Traprock blocks,
blackened with age and damp encased the tomb-like space. Moonholes
in the upper wall and ceiling let in circles of pale gray light.
Part of the chamber was sunk belowground, and water seeped through
cracks in the mortar. The dome of the night sky had been deeply
carved across the ceiling and walls. The quarter moon rising in the
east was the only feature he recognized. The stars and
constellations might have been from a different world.
A thunk sounded on the far side of the door as the
bolt was drawn back. Raif looked wildly around the room. Where was
the mark? Hadn’t he kept a record of the time that had passed? He
had a clear memory of scoring lines with his thumbnail—one for
every day. Had they scrubbed it clean from the wall?
The door opened and
the two Sull who had battle dressed him earlier entered. This time
they did not need their hands free to tend him. Swords were drawn
and the brilliant white light of meteor steel sent sparks across
the room.
“Up.”
The command was
spoken by the Sull with the hard purple-blue eyes and copper skin.
His nostrils flared fiercely as he spoke, and Raif wondered if his
contempt was for his task or his prisoner. Or both.
Raif’s own contempt
rose in response.
They are beneath us.
He swung his legs off
the pallet, fought the nausea. Stood.
“Out,” the Copper One
said. Both he and his companion stood wide of the pallet, leaving
clear space between Raif and the door.
Raif noticed the
other Sull, the younger one with golden eyes and deep slots cut in
his earlobes, glance toward the water pail in the corner of the
room. Was he checking if any had been drunk?
The thought slid away
as Raif concentrated on moving his body. The drug was wearing off
quickly now, but it left shocks and tingles and patches of numbness
that had to be managed in order to walk.
As he passed the
younger Sull, Raif calculated the probability of a successful
strike. Nights hunting with Moonsnake had shifted the way he saw
things. Surprise was everything to her. To achieve it she worked
the angles and tangents, finding the blind spot and using it to lay
a short and perfect line of strike. It was survival in its purest
form. Calculate the correct angle and she would eat.
Raif headed through
the doorway. He could see a possible line of strike. The younger
Sull was holding his two-handed sword with a single hand, his
right. Smash the left quickly enough, driving close to his body,
and the Sull could be thrown off center and denied sufficient space
to wheel the sword. There were two problems with this though.
First, Raif didn’t know if he had the necessary speed while his
body was still jerking back to life. And second, Copper One. The
older Sull could cross the room while possession of the younger
Sull’s sword was still unresolved.
Climbing a short
series of steps, Raif emerged into the forest. It was dusk. Broken
sections of wall and paving tiles set amidst the ferns told him
something had once stood over the chamber that had become his
prison. Absurdly Raif recalled something Angus had once told him
about Sull fortresses: They cut perfectly
aligned moonholes through every floor and ceiling so no matter what
level they are on they can look up and see the
sky.
Bloodwood saplings as
slender as reeds stirred in the wind. Raif smelled wood and tar
smoke. The Sull camp was close and to the east, the rayskin canopy
just to the west. A third Sull walked him at spear point to the
paved circle he had first seen from the cage. A drum was beating
and torches had been lit. Sull were gathering. Raif recognized the
tall not-quite-perfect form of Yiselle No Knife. Her lips had been
painted blue-red and her eyes were inhumanly bright.
Have I done this before? He felt a moment of free
fall, as if the ground vanished from under him. The circle, the
torches, No Knife: it all looked familiar but he couldn’t be sure.
Abruptly, he remembered the thumb marks on the chamber wall. Had he
remembered to look for them? A muscle in his heart missed its cue
and he felt the sickening suction of panic. What was happening
here? He was Raif Sevrance from Clan Blackhail and this was
madness.
Kill them we must feed.
The spear point
prompted the back of his neck, directing him into the circle. Raif
spun and smashed the spear to the ground. His jaw sprung apart and
suddenly he no longer knew what he was doing. He hesitated, and in
that instant the Sull drew his sword. The body armor strapped
across Raif’s chest bowed as it took
the point of meteor steel. The shock wave rolled across Raif’s rib
cage, punching his lungs. He blacked out, stumbled, somehow managed
to keep on his feet. The Sull was on him, guiding his sword toward
the crack between Raif’s chest and back plates; left side, oblique
angle, straight for the heart.
“Xaxu ull,” the Sull murmured as he slid the point
of his blade a third of an inch into the meat between Raif’s third
and fourth rib. First blood.
It took a moment for
Raif to realize the blade wasn’t going any deeper. There were rules
here he didn’t understand. Dropping to his knees, he waited for the
pain to register. His body was working—blood was seeping through
his undershirt—but although he was aware of the site of the cut he
didn’t feel any sharpness or sting.
“Into the ring.” The
Sull had cleaned his blade of blood and he used it to point the way
forward. Raif didn’t understand the rules but he understood that by
tagging his opponent’s heart the Sull had regained what had been
lost when his spear was forced from his grip. Sull pride and clan
pride were identical in this.
It seemed an
important thought and Raif tried to hold on to it as he took up
position in the center of the ring. A sword had been laid on the
ground for him, its blade aligned with true north. Again he had the
sense that he had done this before, fought here before, but the
memory wouldn’t dislodge. Night was falling and the surrounding
forest was as deep and vast as the Rift. Impurities in the tar made
the torches burn green. As Raif picked up the sword he caught sight
of something on the blade. With a shock he realized it was his own
reflection. The face plate made him a monster. The armor was
thickly segmented like dragonhide and the person living behind it
looked trapped. For the briefest instant Raif recalled Raven Lord.
Armed and armored for thousands of years, dead beneath the
ice.
Raif
shuddered
“You failed last
time, Clansman,” Yiselle No Knife said quietly from just beyond the
circle. “Failed yourself and your friend.” She stepped to the side,
revealing a small huddled figure behind her. Addie
Gunn.
“Fuck them, Raif,” he
shouted. He was shivering and he no longer had a right
hand.
Raif took a step
back. Disorientation and horror hit him like a blast. What had he
done? Addie’s hand was gone. That was real—he could see the
bandages at the stump of the cragsman’s arm—but he couldn’t
remember how it had happened.
“You lost,” No Knife
told him. With a small movement of her gloved hand she ordered
Addie to be removed. Raif’s gaze jumped to the cragsman’s face as
he was pulled away. Addie Gunn was waiting for him. There was water
in Addie’s eyes but the gaze behind it was clear and searching. He
was a sheepman, Raif understood instantly, watching out for his
sheep.
Who would watch out
for him?
I will. Watcher of the Dead.
You didn’t have to
understand the rules of a game to win it. Raif weighed the sword,
and cut air to get its balance. Addie’s face was no longer visible
but Raif tracked the cragsman’s silhouette as he was escorted away
from the fight circle. A second silhouette caught his eye and he
tracked that also as it moved in the opposite direction. His night
vision was up and running and his body felt wholly his own. Even
pain was returning to him. The wound on his side tingled
unpleasantly. He welcomed it. It was unnerving not to know when you
were hurt.
The Sull were silent
as the figure who Raif now realized was his opponent entered the
circle. He was a Sull warrior armed with meteor steel. His chest
armor had been reinforced above the heart with a raised plate
embedded with diamonds. Raif had never seen one before but he’d
heard clansmen speak of them. Steel eaters, they were called. Even
a passing glance could ruin a sword.
The Sull glittered
like a form emerging from water. His gaze rose to meet Raif’s as he
drew closer, and information passed between them.
“Xhalia ex nihl,” the Sull murmured. All becomes
nothing. It sounded like a promise, not a prayer.
Straightaway he
struck, wedging his sword into the space below Raif’s gut. Raif
raised his guard. As steel chopped into steel, he leaned back. The
Sull drove forward, pressing the advantage. Unwilling to use time
retracting his sword for a full strike, the Sull needle-jabbed at
Raif’s thigh. He was low and he was off balance and his head and
shoulders were wide open. Raif saw the angle. His jaw sprung apart.
Wheeling his sword behind his back and over his shoulder, he sent
it axing into the Sull’s right shoulder blade. The Sull was in the
process of darting back and the blow caught him a fraction of a
second too late. Power was lost. His shoulder plate bowed,
instantly distributing the force across the bone. Raif dislodged
the sword as the Sull worked to keep his footing.
As Raif’s muscles
shortened for a second strike, the Sull found his balance and
raised his sword. He was strong and he was fast and his armor was
superior to anything cast in the clans. Raif registered a flicker
in the Sull’s iron gray eyes and anticipated the line he would
take. Raif perceived the available space as a series of hollow
shapes waiting to be occupied. I’ve seen this
before; done this before. Did I fail?
Raif scanned the
crowd, looking for sign of Addie. The Sull launched a series of
brutal attacks, sending weight into the final foot of meteor steel
and driving it into Raif’s sword. Raif struggled to hold his guard.
Each of his blocks was a split second too late and his body took a
beating as it absorbed the full power of each blow. He could see
what he had to do, but he didn’t have the speed to do it. The heart
was in his sights—red and close—and even with the diamond plate it
was vulnerable. Every time he struck, the Sull exposed space above,
below and to the side of his heart.
A better swordsman
could have finished this by now. Frustrated, Raif swiped at the
Sull’s ribcage. A high-pitched screech sounded as a jagged edge of
diamond peeled a curl of steel from Raif’s sword. Raif smelled hot
metal. As he pulled back his sword, he saw the brilliant flash of
meteor steel. It was closer than it should be, he thought stupidly.
Cold air whipped against his upper arm. He felt warm wetness . . .
waited for the pain.
A single jab at the
back of his neck made his knees buckle under him. He hit the
ground. Hard. It occurred to him as he blacked out that he still
waiting for the pain.
Moonsnake wound
through the darkness. She was close—closer than she’d ever been to
the settlement. The Sull were away from their tents and livestock.
Fires smoked, unattended. Solitary figures armed with bows
patrolled the perimeter. They were alert and watchful but it was
easy to avoid them. She tasted horse sweat in the air but her
appetite didn’t rise in response to it. Land fowl caged in a pen
were more to her taste tonight.
Raif slid into her
heart and she flexed in welcome. The cool and muscular substance of
her body had become a familiar place. They were old friends now,
co-conspirators and hunters. Without missing a beat of their shared
heart they glided downwind of the camp.
Others were alert to
the absences in the camp. Creatures with more reason to be wary of
the Sull were testing the boundaries. Tasting fox and wolf on the
night currents, they opened a gland in their underbelly and smeared
a warning onto the snow. Ours. Keep away. The horse corral was a
square mass ahead of them and they knew it would be easy to enter.
In anticipation of moon snakes, Sull had hammered wood planks a
foot into the ground. That did not concern them. With only one Sull
guarding the corral, they could climb the fence and rip off a
mare’s leg before detection. Panicking horses—the need to release
them and shoot around them—would aid their escape.
As they approached
the bird pen, they read the wind and adjusted their line of strike.
They, the Sull, placed high value on their horses and watched them
even when the camp was deserted. The land fowl they valued only as
food and the pen, though secured, was unguarded. A wolf was close,
ghosting the same vector, staying behind the wind. It would not
approach but would wait and see if anything could be scavenged once
they were done.
Ignoring it, they
hunted.
And fed.
Raif came to,
blinking water from his eyes. A Sull with copper skin and
cheekbones as blunt as shields, stood over him with an empty
bucket. A second Sull, younger and more golden, stood in the open
doorway. He was armed with a razor-edge spear.
“Up,” commanded the
Copper One.
Raif swung his feet
off the pallet. His vision blurred as he moved and he sat still for
a moment before standing. His clothes were soaking, and there was
an uncomfortable tightness in his left arm. A thick layer of
bandages prevented him from seeing what was wrong. As he gathered
strength to stand a voice called from beyond the door.
“Xhi hal.” Leave him
The Copper One
exchanged glances with the younger Sull and nodded. They left and
bolted the door.
Raif sat on the
pallet and waited. He had a bad feeling. Light traveling through
the moonholes told him it was after midday. Suddenly he recalled
that he had made thumb marks in the stone—one for every day he’d
spent here—and he stood and searched the walls of the chamber.
Nothing. Crouching close to the bloodwood door, he scraped a mark
in the traprock with his thumbnail, exposing a line of
lighter-colored stone. He looked at it a long time, thinking.
Fixing its position in his head, he stood.
Two leather buckets
stood on the opposite side of the door. One was empty, the other
full of water. He pissed in the empty bucket and drank from the
full one. He wasn’t hungry. It seemed his stomach was working on
digesting something. He searched for a recent memory of eating,
came up blank.
“Raif Sevrance of
Clan Blackhail.” He spoke so he wouldn’t forget. “Drey. Effie. Da.
Ash.”
Inhaling softly, he
remembered another name. “Addie.”
You failed last time, Clansman. Failed yourself and your
friend.
“No.” Seizing his
left arm, Raif tore off the bandage. A dark red wound, perfectly
straight and expertly stitched with horse gut, ran along the muscle
at the top of his arm.
No.
Small, jagged bits of
memory returned to him. Addie’s right hand. Gone. Barium-rich tar
burning green. A swordfight. Lost.
Raif shook his head.
He hadn’t been fast enough.
Instinctively he
began to move, pacing at first and then dashing the short distance
across the chamber. If he leapt high enough, he could brush the
stars on the dome ceiling with his fingertips. He picked one as he
ran and jumped to touch it. His body ached and trembled, but he
ignored it.
He hadn’t been fast
enough. And he couldn’t bear to think what that meant to Addie
Gunn.