The Providence of Fire

35

The sun-splashed clearing was, Gwenna supposed, as good a spot as any to die. The farm on which she’d been raised had backed up to woods like this, a mix of hemlock, pine, and fir, dark green needles shoved aside by the odd birch shouldering its way up through the gloom. Wood-peas chirruped in the high branches, while blackbirds hunted over the mossy ground, heads stabbing down for the bugs and seeds. It was a peaceful spot, but the Flea wasn’t paying much attention to the birds or the trees. After Sigrid and Newt had dragged Pyrre and Annick down to the other end of the small meadow, he turned his dark eyes on Gwenna.

“Here’s how it’s going to work.” His voice was quiet, almost weary. “I’m going to ask questions. You answer them. If you lie, I’ll kill you. Start fucking around, I’ll kill you. Leave out anything important, I’ll kill you. When we’re done, I’ll talk with my Wing, see what your friends said to them, and if your stories don’t match, I’ll kill you.” He didn’t sound like he wanted to do it, but he didn’t sound like he was bluffing, either.

“And if they do match?” Gwenna asked.

“Then maybe we can talk about something other than killing.”

Gwenna wanted to make some sort of quick, cutting remark, the kind of crack the Kettral were famous for, but she felt anything but quick and cutting. Blood stained her hands, her arms, her face. It had soaked into her blacks, then dried, stiffening the cloth. Her hair was matted with it. Most belonged to the Urghul, but she had a dozen small wounds of her own, and her muscles were watery after fighting halfway through the camp, then clinging to the talon straps for the rest of the night. And then there was the noose around her neck. That didn’t help either.

The Flea might have rescued them, but it became clear as soon as they were in the air that he didn’t trust them. While his own Wing all wore belt harnesses that allowed them to fly hands-free, Gwenna, Annick, and Pyrre were left clinging to the high loops, smacked about by the wind and the bird’s steep, banking turns, one slip away from a long fall followed by a sick crunch. Smart thinking on the Flea’s part-if the rescuees proved less than grateful, well, there wasn’t much they could do, clutching to the straps and trying not to fall. The other Wing still had weapons drawn-not that they really needed them-and as the bird flew west, the Flea’s soldiers stripped Pyrre of her knives, dropped Annick’s bow and Gwenna’s swords into the hungry night, then fitted each of the three women with the one-way noose the Kettral referred to as a kill-collar.

“Go ahead,” Gwenna said, her voice a pathetic croak. Maybe the Flea was a part of the whole ’Kent-kissing conspiracy and maybe he wasn’t. Either way, she couldn’t see that it mattered all that much what she told him. Wasn’t as though she had any idea what the fuck was going on, and if you didn’t know what was going on, you weren’t likely to give away anything all that vital. “Ask your questions,” she said wearily.

The questions were repetitive but straightforward. Why did they flee the Islands? How many men died in the mountains? What happened to the monks? On and on and on, while the noose around her neck chafed with each breath, each movement. The Flea didn’t do much talking of his own, and his face didn’t give much away. He frowned at the possible implication of Daveen Shaleel in the plot, and again when Gwenna told him what she knew about the connection between Balendin and il Tornja. There were dozens of questions that didn’t seem relevant at all-What color was Adiv’s blindfold? What had the Urghul fed them? Gwenna answered those, too. It was a strange sort of relief, after so many weeks of confusion, not to have to figure anything out, to let someone else do the thinking, to tell what she knew without trying to fit the broken pieces together.

“So,” she said, when the Flea fell silent at last, “you going to kill me?”

He considered her for a while before responding. “I hope not, Gwenna.” He looked tired. “I hope not.”

* * *

Evidently, the stories squared. At least, that was how Gwenna interpreted her sudden freedom. After spending the better part of an hour tied to the tree, trying pointlessly to slip out of the Flea’s knots, she had watched helplessly as the Wing leader returned, nodded, then slit the ropes with a few quick cuts. Annick was similarly freed, although things didn’t look as rosy for Pyrre. Gwenna had no love for the woman, but it came as a shock to see her hauled into the small clearing trussed tighter than a pig for the slaughter, Newt’s knife at her throat. The Kettral had treated her more roughly than they had Gwenna or Annick. Bruises purpled her face, her nose looked broken, and her left eye had swollen shut. Despite the injuries, she managed a wink at Gwenna when Newt deposited her on the uneven ground.

Sigrid hacked up something that might have been a laugh or a cough. Even after the fight in the Urghul camp, even after spending the end of the night strapped in to the bird’s talons, the woman looked as though she had stepped directly into the forest from some aristocrat’s ball. Gwenna’s blacks were mud-caked, blood-soaked, and torn ragged. The other Kettral looked just about the same, even the Flea. Sigrid’s clothes, on the other hand, might have come straight from the laundress, cloth so immaculately dark it looked like velvet. Only her arms, crisscrossed with dried blood and scar, suggested the violence she had just seen and wrought. She opened her mouth again in a guttural stutter, then pointed at Pyrre.

Newt nodded thoughtfully as he picked at some scab beneath his scraggly beard.

“What?” the Flea asked.

“My lovely and esteemed companion suggests,” Newt replied, “that we plant a knife in the Skullsworn’s eye for what she did to Finn.”

The Flea studied Pyrre for a moment, face unreadable, then turned back to Newt. “And you?”

The Aphorist shrugged. “Killing is easier than unkilling.”

“Does that mean kill her, or don’t kill her?” the Wing leader asked patiently.

“It means what it means,” Newt replied. “I have no vote.”

“I will abstain from voting as well,” Pyrre said, twisting her head around to face the Flea. “Though I appreciate the democratic process, I am ready to meet my god.” Her voice was as battered as her body, the words little more than dried husks.

“You can’t kill her,” Gwenna blurted, amazed to hear herself speak.

The Flea turned to her, eyebrow raised, but Sigrid coughed up another series of broken sounds before he could respond.

“Sigrid also suggests,” Newt interpreted, “taking Gwenna’s tongue. As a cautionary measure. My companion observes that the girl can do her work without a tongue and will prove considerably less trying.”

It sounded like a joke. Gwenna hoped it was a ’Kent-kissing joke, but Sigrid’s smile held all the mirth of a bloody knife.

“I’m not taking tongues,” the Flea said flatly, as though he had to deal with the suggestion weekly. “I’m deciding what to do with the Skullsworn, then we’re getting in the air. I’ll remind everyone that there’s an Urghul army riding for Annur right now, and, unless il Tornja has better intelligence than I’d realized, it’s going to hit him like a hammer to the back of the head.”

“That’s justice,” Annick said curtly. “Il Tornja killed the Emperor. He’s a traitor.”

“Sounds like he is,” the Flea agreed, “but he’s also the kenarang. We all have jobs, and it’s his job to stop the Urghul. If Long Fist’s army gets past the frontier, it’ll be all over except for the screaming, at least in Raalte and the northern atrepies. Doesn’t matter who’s loyal and who’s not when everyone’s dead.”

“But Valyn’s gone to kill il Tornja,” Gwenna said, shaking her head.

The Flea grimaced, wiped a hand down over his forehead. “Let’s hope he fails.”

“So,” Gwenna said, shaking her head, “you believe us, but you want to let il Tornja live?”

“Until he defeats Long Fist, yes.”

Gwenna’s head throbbed. She’d been up all night fighting, running, flying, feeling, most of the time, half a heartbeat away from a knife in the neck. It was a relief to be free, finally. A relief not to be dead. She was ready to fly some more, or ride some more, or even to fight some more, but the thing she just couldn’t take was talking anymore, especially when all the talk led nowhere, twisting back on itself until she wasn’t even sure which end was up.

“Valyn can kill il Tornja,” she said, sick with frustration, “and someone else can fucking defeat Long Fist. Doesn’t Annur have five ’Kent-kissing generals?”

“Ten,” the Flea replied, “if you include their seconds, but they’re children next to il Tornja. I swear, that bastard is smarter than Hendran and twice as ruthless. If Long Fist breaks past the border, we’ll need il Tornja if we ever hope to bottle him up again. As Newt says, ‘Killing is easier than unkilling.’”

“So what’s the play?” Annick asked. She was staring into the trees to the northeast, as though she could see all the way to the approaching mass of Urghul. If her recent captivity bothered her, she didn’t show it. Always the mission, with Annick, and to Hull with normal human things like emotions. “What do we do?”

The Flea spread his hands. “Not a whole great pile of choices that I can see. Long Fist’s already crossed north of the confluence, which means he just needs to get across the Black. There are no garrisons out here because even if he gets across it, he’s still on the wrong side of the Thousand Lakes.”

“So he’s screwed, right?” Gwenna asked. “Even without the garrisons, given the terrain, he’s totally buggered.”

Sigrid made a disgusted sound and walked off across the meadow toward the bird.

Newt watched her for a while, whistling tunelessly between his crooked teeth, then turned back to Gwenna. “A net,” he said, “is not a wall.”

“What he means,” the Flea said, “is that the lakes are just lakes. Lakes and bogs. There’s a lot of them, and it’d be a bitch trying to move an army through, especially an army on horseback, but that’s not to say it can’t be done if you have the right maps and a few dozen good scouts.”

Gwenna stared. “So why aren’t there any garrisons there?”

The Flea shrugged. “Lot of frontier. Not so many soldiers. The Urghul never had a chief like Long Fist, so we never bothered worrying about one.”

“This is edifying,” Pyrre said, “but I can’t help feeling as though we’ve strayed from the original-”

The Flea’s backhand caught her square in the jaw. It didn’t look like much of a blow, but it knocked the woman clean off the log and into a patch of thorns beyond. The Wing leader didn’t so much as glance over. “I don’t like many people,” he said, gazing into the cool shadows beneath the trees, talking quietly, as though to himself, “but I liked Finn. We were in the same group of cadets. Went through the Trial together.”

He looked over at Pyrre finally. “It’d feel good to kill you.”

The Skullsworn, unable to break her fall, had landed awkwardly, face half in the moss, half pressed against a rotting stump. With an effort, she hauled herself up, then rose to her knees to meet his eyes. The fall had tightened the noose around her throat, and Gwenna could hear her laboring to breathe.

“You know what the difference is between the Kettral and the priests of Ananshael?” she rasped.

The Flea watched her, but didn’t respond.

“We’re all fighters,” Pyrre continued after a pause. “We’re all killers. The difference is that you kill in order to keep something else alive: your empire, your Wing, yourself. The death is incidental to the life.”

“And you?” the Flea asked.

Pyrre smiled. “For the priests, death is the point, the ultimate justice. You hold the knife, but death belongs to Ananshael, and I will never fear my god.”

The Flea watched her awhile longer, his head tilted to the side, then ran a hand over the graying stubble of his scalp.

“Well,” he said, “you’re going to have to wait awhile longer to meet him.”

The Skullsworn raised her eyebrows.

“My god is patient, but I’m surprised that you are.”

“I’m not patient,” the Flea said. “I’m practical. I can use you.”

Pyrre shook her head, the motion limited by the rope around her neck. “What is it with the Kettral? Why does every Wing leader think I’m a part of their Wing?”

“You’re not coming with my Wing,” the Flea said. “I need you to stay with Gwenna and Annick. To help them.”

“Stay with us where?” Gwenna demanded. It sounded suspiciously as though they’d been rescued only to be questioned and abandoned. She might not understand a ’Kent-kissing thing about what was going on, but there was a fight coming, that was clear enough, and she’d be shipped to ’Shael before she was left out of it.

“Andt-Kyl,” the Flea said, turning to her.

“What’s Andt-Kyl?”

“Small town,” Annick said, “near the center of the Thousand Lakes.”

“A little to the north of center, actually,” the Flea replied.

“And what are we doing in Andt-Kyl?”

“Getting ready.”

“For the summer fishing season?” Gwenna demanded, incredulous.

“For the Urghul,” the Flea replied. “If Long Fist manages to cross the river, there are half a dozen ways south through the Lakes for an army the size of his, but they all pass through Andt-Kyl. We’ll drop you there. We can hope the Urghul won’t show up, but if they do, it’ll be in three days, maybe four.”

“Andt-Kyl is a town,” Annick observed. “Not a garrison. Not a fort.”

“Your job is to fortify it.”

Gwenna was shaking her head. “And if the Urghul show up?”

“Hold them. Until il Tornja arrives.”

“Il Tornja doesn’t even know they’re coming,” Gwenna said, worry mounting inside her. The Kettral trained to be knives in the night, not to fight pitched battles against entire armies. It was hard to even imagine what they could do. Even with Pyrre, there were only three of them against the assembled Urghul might.

“I’m going to tell him.”

“What do you want us to do with the town?” Annick asked. Her voice was cold and measured as ever, but it was clear she felt no more comfortable with the strange orders than Gwenna.

“It’s vaguely defensible already. Make it more so. Rally the people.” He shrugged. “We spent most of a decade training you. Do what needs doing. The assassin will help.”

“And why,” Pyrre asked, “would the assassin do that?”

“Three reasons,” the Flea replied. “You’re stubborn and you don’t want Long Fist spreading his pain-worship over half the earth.”

Pyrre frowned. “Where did you get that idea?”

“You’re not the first Skullsworn I’ve come across. I know how Ananshael’s priests feel about Meshkent.”

The Skullsworn’s eyes went wide with surprise, then she pursed her lips appraisingly.

“All right,” she said, nodding, “and the third reason?”

The Flea met her gaze. “If things go wrong, there’ll be dead piled high as the eaves.”

“Indeed,” Pyrre replied, nodding slowly, then smiling. “One could make a great prayer to the god.”

“What about you?” Gwenna demanded, staring at the Wing leader. “Once you’ve warned il Tornja, you’re coming back? Why are we holding the choke point? I mean, I want to do it, to help, but you’re the fucking vets.…”

“And because we’re the fucking vets,” the Flea replied, “we’re going to do the hard work.”

“Meaning what?” Annick asked.

“Meaning killing Long Fist and his ex-Kettral traitor of a pet leach before they get to you.”