Days of Blood & Starlight (27 page)

He moved steadily down the slope, keeping to the thickest cover, and by the time he came to the edge of the clearing the
enemy was gone from the horizon. He surveyed the clearing. The seraph fire was an infernal thing, and burned so hot that the bodies had been eaten to nothing. A wind was rising, stirring the mound of ashes, carrying it into Ziri’s eyes and worse: sundering what little the souls had left to cling to. He lit four cones of incense in his thurible and held it steady. Five soldiers and one volunteer. He hoped he had them all, the boy, too.

He’d done all he could. He closed the thurible with a twist and slipped the gleaning staff back through its loop across his back. He scanned the sky. It was empty, but he knew he had to wait until dark to fly—more hiding, more waiting. The Dominion were everywhere, still spreading the emperor’s message with their terrible efficiency, and, as he had seen… enjoying themselves.

At first, in the rebels’ opening strike, Ziri had hated cutting the Warlord’s smiles on the dead, but right now, all he could think was that the angels’ black joy must be answered.

And what if the act of answering sparked a black joy of its own? What would Karou think of that?
No.
Ziri pushed down the thought. He had taken no joy in it, but he couldn’t blame Karou for her scorn. It had surprised him, at the river, how deeply it cut—how she looked at him, how she walked away. He’d covered his shame with anger in the moment—who was
she
to scorn
him
?—but he couldn’t fool himself anymore. When Balieros had pulled the patrol aside to ask if they were with him—if they wished to slaughter enemy civilians or aid their own—Ziri’s first thought had been of Karou, of erasing
her scorn and replacing it with something else. Respect? Approval?
Pride?

Maybe he was still that lovestruck little boy, after all.

Ziri shook his head. He turned back toward the cover of the trees. And saw them standing there watching him: three angels with their arms crossed.

43

“
You
,” said Ziri.

It was often said among chimaera that all seraphim look alike, with such sameness of parts as make them up, but any chimaera would know this angel on sight. The scar that split his face was unique.

Ziri whistled. “Wait until my friends hear that I killed the Captain of the Dominion. They won’t believe it.”

Jael laughed. It was a wet sound. He stepped forward, and his soldiers fanned out to encircle Ziri. Three angels didn’t upset him overmuch, even if one of them was the emperor’s brother. Three was easy. He heard a sound behind him and glanced back to see another… six… emerge from the far wood.
Ah.
And when he turned back, another three behind Jael. A dozen.

So death, then.

Probably.

“Do you know,” Ziri said to Jael, “every last chimaera soldier claims to have given you that scar. It’s a game we play when we’re bored, who can come up with the best story. Would you like to hear mine?”

“Every last chimaera soldier?” said Jael. “And how many is that these days, four? Five?”

“Yes, well. One chimaera
is
worth”—he made a show of counting them and a show of smiling—“
at least
a dozen seraphim. So that should be taken into account.” He had drawn his blades at the first sight of them. They gave him a wide berth now, but he knew that they would close in and try to take him. He welcomed it. All the anguish of the past hours was alive in his hands—a hot thrum where he clasped his hilts. “The story goes like this,” he said. “We were having dinner together, you and I. As we do from time to time. It was grimgrouse. Overspiced. You killed the cook for that.
Temper.
” He added, as an instructive aside, “You know, in a story, it’s the details like that that make it seem real. Anyway, you got a bone stuck in your mustache. Did I mention you had a mustache?”

Jael did not have a mustache. Around him, Ziri sensed the Dominion tightening. Jael stood at a safe remove, his face showing calculated forbearance. “Did I,” he said.

“A sad, wispy specimen, but never mind. I went to cut the bone out, using
your
sword, and that was my mistake right there. It’s much bigger than I’m used to.” He held up his crescent moons to illustrate his point. “And, well, I missed. Spectacularly, really, though I always say: I wish I’d missed in the other direction.” He mimicked slashing a throat. “Nothing personal.”

“Of course not.” Jael ran a fingertip down the long, jagged line of his scar. “Do you want to know how I really got it?”

“No, thank you. I’m this close to believing my own version.” A flicker of movement. Behind Ziri, a soldier; he spun, his knives glinting, the sunlight bright and beckoning along their well-honed curves. The steel wanted blood and so did he. The soldier pulled back.

“You can lower your weapons,” said Jael. “We aren’t going to kill you.”

“I know,” Ziri replied. “I’m going to kill you.”

They thought this was funny. Several laughed. But not for very long.

Ziri was a blur. He took the laughers first, and two angels were dead where they stood, throats gaping open before the others could even draw their weapons.

If any of them had ever fought a Kirin, they wouldn’t have felt such comfort in their numbers as to stand so near him with their swords sheathed. Well, their swords came out fast now. The two bodies slumped to the ground, and another two angels were bleeding before ever steel rang on steel. Then it was a melee.
Nithilam
, as the seraphim called it. Chaos.

Ziri was outnumbered, but he turned it to his advantage. He moved so fast in the spinning kata of moon blades that the seraphim scarcely knew where to look for him. They followed; he spun. They got in the way of one another’s strikes. Ziri’s part was easier: everything was enemy. Everything was target. His crescent-moon blades seemed to multiply in the air; this was what they were made for, not slicing smiles but taking on multiple
opponents, blocking, slashing, piercing. Two more angels fell: gut wound, cut tendons.

“Keep him alive!” roared Jael, and Ziri was aware, even in the spiral and glint of flesh and steel, that this was not good news.

He lunged at them, gripping his hilts hard so blood wouldn’t flow beneath his fingers and make his grip slippery. He flew at them, took the fight airborne, and cut and killed, but he never held out any real hope of escape. These were seraph soldiers; he was fast, but they were far from slow, and they were many. Not for the first time in his life, he wished for hamsas. The marks might have weakened them, given him a chance. By the time they disarmed him their host was halved, but he himself bled only from shallow wounds—which he attributed as much to their discipline as to his own agility. They wanted him alive, and so he was.

He was on his knees before them, and no one was laughing now. Jael came toward him. He had lost his smugness; his face was rigid, the scar livid white against the red of his fury. Ziri saw the kick coming and curled to absorb the blow, but it still caught his stomach hard and drove the breath from him.

He turned the gasp into a laugh. “What was that for?” he asked, straightening back up. “If I’ve done something to give offense—”

Jael kicked him again. And again. Ziri ran out of laughter. Only when he was choking up blood did Jael come close enough to rip the gleaning staff off of his back. His eyes were hard with triumph, and Ziri felt the first burn of fear.

“I have an amusing story, too, only mine is true. I met your
Warlord and Brimstone recently, and I burned them like I burned your comrades and that is how I know that they are dead and gone, and that
this
”—he held up the thurible—“can only be for someone else. So… who?”

Ziri’s blood had become strangely loud in his head. It was dawning on him what this was about, that the seraphim had laid a trap in the clearing and waited to see if anyone came gleaning. The rebels had been ghosts, as the Wolf had said; now they were real. He had tipped their hand. “I’m sorry.” Ziri feigned confusion. “Who what now?”

Jael looked down. He stirred the ashes with the tip of his sword. “You will tell me who the resurrectionist is,” he said. “Sooner would be better. For you, I mean. Myself, truly I don’t mind if it takes… a bit of work.”

Well, that didn’t sound like fun at all. Ziri had no experience of torture, and when he thought of it, there was one face that came to mind.

Akiva’s.

Ziri would never forget the day. The agora, all of Loramendi turned out to watch, and Madrigal’s lover forced to watch, too. The seraph had been on his knees as Ziri was now, weak from beatings and hamsas and undone by grief. Had he given up anything to the Wolf? Ziri didn’t think so, and strangely enough, the thought gave him strength. If the angel could withstand torture, he could, too. To protect Karou, and with her, the chimaera’s hope, he thought he could endure anything.

“Who is it?” asked the captain again.

“Come closer,” replied Ziri with a bloody grin. “I’ll whisper it in your ear.”

“Oh, good.” Jael sounded pleased. “I was afraid you were going to make it easy.” He gestured to his soldiers, and two stepped in to seize Ziri’s arms. “Hold him,” he said. He stabbed the gleaning staff into the black earth and began to roll up his sleeves. “I’m feeling inspired.”

44

“I said no humans would be hurt.” Karou’s voice, already hoarse from arguing, sounded like a growl to her. “That was the first thing. No humans hurt. Period.” She was pacing in the court. Chimaera were gathered in the gallery and on the ground, some basking in the sun and others withdrawn in shade.

As if he were teaching her a hard life truth, Thiago said, “In war, Karou, some luxuries must be put aside.”

“Luxuries? You mean not killing innocent people?” He didn’t say anything. That
was
what he meant. Karou’s stomach twisted in a knot. “Oh god, no. Absolutely
no
. Whoever they are, they’re nothing to do with your—” She stopped. Corrected herself. “
Our
war.”

“But if they endanger our position here, they are everything to do with it. You had to know the risk, Karou.”