Read Shattered Shields - eARC Online
Authors: Jennifer Brozek,Bryan Thomas Schmidt
Shattered Shields - eARC (4 page)
“Believe me, I am more grateful than you can know, but Nimue, I need more.” He pushed my hand gently away. “My men wonder why this is the battle we press above all others, when there are Faerie mounds and hollow hills near-undefended all over Albion. This is a castle.”
“This is an icon,” I corrected gently. “Fly your flag above it and assert that you have a place in this world, even if you are not allowed a place in Faerie. That is what must happen here.”
“And how many will die for an icon?”
I turned my eyes away, lest he somehow see the fields of carrion birds reflected in them. Ten merlins for every fae warrior, that was to be the cost of a free and fair tomorrow. His breed would be near-decimated by the battlefield at Brocéliande. “Too many,” I said softly.
“Then give me a reason, Nimue, or leave my tent. You have given us enough information to know the castle’s weak points.”
“I didn’t think my brother would come.” The words escaped before I could stop them, a truth compelled by Eira’s damn geas. I looked back at him, the near-mortal man with my family’s eyes, and said, “His name is Michael. He won’t die tomorrow—it is difficult to kill the Firstborn, and none of us will fall, win or lose—but his presence changes the field. He can borrow the eyes of any living thing. Your men. The birds that fly above the battle. There is nothing you can do that he will not see.”
“Then we are lost.”
“No.” I shook my head fiercely. “I would not be here if you were lost.” I would be far away, sunk deep in the grieving tides, weeping into the sea, who would always, always forgive me my shortcomings. “There is still a way you can emerge triumphant from the bloodied day to come. But you must trust me now, and you must decide, once and for all, to believe me when I say that I have never lied to you.”
Emrys looked at me silently for a time. Finally, he asked, “Nimue, what happens if we do not carry tomorrow’s field? Why are you so willing to betray your people?”
I closed my eyes. “Please don’t ask me that.”
“No.” His fingers closed around the flesh of my upper arm. Because he was family, I did not pull away. Because I loved him, at least a little, I did not sink my teeth into his throat to punish him for his transgression. “I have come here because you told me that this battle was the one to turn the tide. I have listened as you changed your song a dozen times because something had shifted. I have told my men that you will not betray us, and watched their faith in me weaken every time you went back to your own kind. I may die tomorrow. We may all die tomorrow, and grant Faerie the victory it so dearly wishes. You
will
tell me.”
“I am willing to betray my people because my people betray themselves by taking up arms against you. Faerie was…” I hesitated, searching for the words to frame a truth too big to be contained. “Faerie was pure in the beginning. Untainted by mortality. We were always a house divided, but we were all one family.”
“You, too, Auntie?” Emrys pushed himself away, releasing my arm at the same time. I heard him stand. I did not open my eyes. “I always thought that you were different, but you’re just like the rest of them, mewling over blood purity and hating us for what we represent.”
“No, Emrys. That’s not it at all. Faerie was pure, and had Faerie stayed pure, we would not be here. But my brothers and sisters couldn’t resist the mortal world—the candle that burns the briefest often gives the brightest flame, and they were drawn to touch the fire. They had children, and those children had children, and the children of those children had children. Faerie is so joined with the mortal world now that there’s little sense in pretending the two can ever be separate again.” I opened my eyes to find him scowling at me, mistrust written plainly on his face. “The changelings were our responsibility. We failed them. Their children were our responsibility. We failed them as well. Now we’re on the verge of failing you.”
“And this would make you betray your kin?”
“You
are
my kin,” I said. “All of you, through one parent or another, are kin to us. If we kill you…” I faltered. Again, the words seemed too small for something so great and so terrible. “Faerie stands at a crossroads. If we lose here at Brocéliande, our parents will step in. They will say ‘You have managed your children poorly,’ and my father will change the rules.” I had seen them in my dreams, Oberon’s hope chests, with the power to make changeling children fae, or to rip the magic from the hands of merlins. We needed them. I didn’t know why yet, but I knew that one day, all of Faerie would depend on those trinkets.
“And if you win?”
“If we win—if the tide of battle runs toward Faerie, and not toward her descendants—then our parents will keep their distance, as they always do. The merlins on the field will be slaughtered without mercy, put down as dogs who dared to bite their masters.” I closed my eyes again. It didn’t stop the images that flowed like water through my mind, but it saved me from the sight of Emrys’s face as I continued. “The children of fair Titania will call for a cleansing, and the children of Oberon will be blood-mazed enough to agree. The children of Maeve will argue against it, and we will lose, and the Wild Hunt will ride.”
“Who will be left for the Hunt to take?” Emrys sounded horrified, as well he might. It was the slaughter of his people that I spoke of.
“Your wives and daughters; your sons,” I said. “Your mothers and your fathers, until every heart that beats with a mingling of fae and human blood has been extinguished. They will kill you all, Emrys. Every changeling, every weak-blood, every merlin, and when the gutters run red, they will say ‘We have done well’ and go back to the arms of their mortal lovers.” And when those unions brought forth more children, they would be left on the hillsides to die, until the night-haunts were reduced to a flock of squalling babes, none of whom had been allowed more than the first fragments of their lives.
Silence fell between us. I opened my eyes to find Emrys staring at me, his cheeks as pale as paper and his eyes filled with unshed tears.
“We will carry the field,” he whispered. “Only tell me what must be done, and I will see to it that it is so.”
I nodded gravely. “You are a wise man,” I said. “Sit beside me.”
He reclaimed his seat upon the bench.
I told him what he would have to do.
May Faerie one day forgive me.
* * *
Morning dawned bright across the fields of Brocéliande. The air grew heavy with the stink of dying magic as the sun ripped down the small illusions of the night, and an army of men appeared at the gates.
Illusions are strange things: when cast simply enough, using primitive enough methods, they can become undetectable to the strongest among us. I leaned against the wall of my secret passage, catching my breath, and listened to the guards on the battlements above me as they sounded the alarm. Emrys’s merlins had crept close under cover of their single-natured spells, until they covered the broad, boastful bridge and stood near the very walls of Brocéliande. Feet thundered in the hallway outside.
“Now?” hissed Emrys. I turned to find him all but dancing in place, eager to join the battle that was even now getting underway. It had grieved him dearly to come with me, rather than standing by his men. Some of them would never trust him again, nor follow him anywhere; that would come to trouble him more and more in the days to come. But his was the hand that held the sword. I knew that.
“Not yet,” I replied. More feet thundered past. “Wait.”
“I will not wait forever,” he snarled. The men behind him—five good men, hand-selected for this mission—grumbled their agreement. My hold on him was wavering, and without him, I had no hold at all over them.
“You will not need to,” I softly replied. “Soon.”
Men roared both inside and outside the gates. The battle would be joined by now, merlins casting their subtle spells and swinging their swords as fast as they could, and my siblings and their children mowing them down like wheat in a field. Ten for every one that fell, that was the cost of this battlefield. Ten for every one.
The sound of footsteps finally faded. I pushed myself away from the wall, looking to Emrys, and asked, “Do you remember what you must do?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Then we move.” The hidden entrance to the castle proper was not far; I led them there and pushed it open, revealing the empty hall. All who could answer the alarm had gone already, and those of us who were not warriors were expected to be high on the battlements, casting support spells, or hiding in our rooms, waiting for the carnage to pass. No one would question my absence from the field.
Together, the seven of us ran fleetly down the hall. Two serving girls peeped out from a closet, and two of Emrys’ men stopped to subdue them, tying their hands and covering their mouths to keep them from screaming. Those men would live. We continued on as five, until we could see the open castle gates ahead of us, and the backs of my brothers who held the field, and the carnage unfolding beyond.
The clash of metal and the stink of a thousand mingled magics drifted on the wind, obscuring the smells of blood and shit and urine that were the true perfumes of battle. A hawk the size of a stallion dropped from the sky, grabbing a merlin in either talon before soaring away again, and a volley of arrows pursued it. A Silene who had come to the fields of Brocéliande only to please her mother fell, her skull cleaved in two by the axe of the merlin who now stood across her body, waiting for his next challenger.
“Now,” I murmured. Emrys—dear boy, who understood what we did this day—grabbed me from behind, one arm locking around my neck. I cried out, the sharp, anguished sound of a dying seabird. It pierced the other sounds of battle, washing them away.
When my siblings turned, this is what they saw: a merlin man holding the oldest of Maeve’s daughters, an iron knife in his hand and pressed to the soft flesh beneath my chin, which was already beginning to blister from the metal’s nearness.
“I have silver,” he shouted. “This castle is ours now, or you can explain her body to your parents.”
Aoife stepped forward, one hand raised in the beginnings of a spell. “Let her go, merlin, and you can walk away.”
“Leave this castle,” he replied. “It is ours now.”
I closed my eyes, sagging in his arms. It was all down to choice now; all down to how my siblings played their fated roles.
The twang of a bowstring came from somewhere close, and I heard the arrows strike home in the breasts of Emrys’s men. They fell. Emrys did not let me go.
“Leave this castle,” he said again.
Oh my brothers, oh my sisters, you spent the lives of your descendants like so much coin, but the deaths of our own? Those had always been rare. Those had always mattered. I heard the horns blow to call off the men still fighting in the fields, and still Emrys held me. The servants and the noncombatants were moved from the castle, and still Emrys held me. My throat ached where the iron burnt my skin, and I did not move, and he held me. The surviving merlins came in from the fields. I opened my eyes to see the gates swing shut on the forces of Faerie, standing on the bridge with murder in their eyes.
“You will need to unmake the bridge,” I rasped, my voice low and strained from the iron against my skin. “They cannot attack the castle walls, but the bridge…”
“It will be done,” he said, and ran the knife across my throat, and I knew no more.
* * *
I awoke on the moor, face down in the bracken, the front of my white samite gown stained black with my own blood. Michael crouched nearby, his hands on his thighs and his milk colored eyes turned in my direction. A raven perched on his shoulder, doubtless lending him its eyes.
“How long?” I rasped.
“A day,” he replied, and offered me his hand. I took it, allowing him to pull me from the muck. “He should have used the silver as well, if he wanted your death to keep.”
“Mercy is a virtue,” I said, standing on unsteady feet and feeling the smooth skin of my throat, already healed from what Emrys had done—what I had ordered him to do. “Brocéliande?”
“The merlins hold it. The spells in the walls were woven well. Too well. We can’t reclaim what’s ours.”
I nodded. “Then the battle is lost.”
“Yes.” The raven on Michael’s shoulder looked at me intently as he asked, “How were you taken, Annie? You are my cleverest sister. You shouldn’t have been caught so easily.”
“Ah,” I sighed. “That is easy, dear brother. I betrayed you. I betrayed you all.”
Michael nodded. “I thought as much. Father is here.”
“…truly?”
“Truly.” He smiled. “Let us go and tell Oberon that his stronghold is lost, but his daughter lives.” There was no judgment in his expression. Michael understood better than most that what I did, I did for good reason.
“I would like that,” I said. “Borrow my eyes.” There was a tingle as his magic slid into my mind, and then the raven that had been serving him took flight, racing to join its family in the feast that covered the fields. Together, arm in arm, we walked away from Brocéliande.
Keeper of Names
Larry Correia
“The demons must be emerging from the sea again,” the overseer said as he entered the storehouse.
Alarmed, Keta the butcher sprinted to the entrance, meat cleaver in hand. He looked toward the distant shore, but saw no monsters. The ocean was its normal blue, not blood red like the last time. “Are they coming?” he gasped. It had been nearly twenty years since their last incursion into the lands of House Uttara. “How do you know? Have you seen them?”
Yet the overseer wasn’t panicking like most men would if they’d seen such horrors. “Calm yourself, butcher.” The large man scowled as he moved one hand to the whip at his side. He was a hard man but, unlike most appointed to his station, not a totally unkind one. Such disrespectful questions could earn a beating. They were both casteless, but even amongst the lowest of the low, there was order.
Keta bowed his head. “Forgive me. I was little the last time the demons came. They slaughtered everyone.” Realizing that he was still clutching the sharpened cleaver, Keta quickly dropped it onto a nearby table. The Law said his kind were not allowed weapons, only the tools necessary to perform their work. “Fear made me speak out of turn.”
The overseer let go of the whip. “I’ve seen the ocean beasts myself. Only a fool would be unafraid. There have been no raids yet.” Remarkably, he took the time to answer the young man’s questions. “This morning I was told that one of the Protectors of the Law is on his way here.”
Keta’s mouth was suddenly very dry.
“A Protector is coming all the way from the capital.” The overseer scratched his head. “That’s a long journey, and this house isn’t so big to warrant such a visit. I bet demons have been seen along these shores again. What else could attract a Protector’s attention?”
An uprising…
But Keta didn’t speak. The Protectors kept order between houses and the castes in their place. He could only pray to the Forgotten that it was demons from the Haunted Sea and not another purge that brought such a perfect killer into their midst.
What a horrible thing to wish for.
“Regardless of the reason for the visit, the master wants his holdings in top shape for a visitor of such high status.” The overseer glanced around Keta’s storehouse. Cured meats hung from chains. Barrels of salted fish were neatly stacked in the corners. The storehouse was already extremely neat and organized, as Keta had learned a long time ago that the best way to avoid trouble was to never cause any. “I can’t imagine a warrior who can kill demons with his bare hands inventorying meat, but clean everything just in case.”
“As you command, it will be done.”
“And one other thing.” The overseer leaned in conspiratorially. “I heard the master giving instructions. If it is demons, and we’re raided, the warriors are to protect the master’s household first, then the town, then the livestock next, and once the cows and pigs are safe, only
then
see to the casteless quarter.” The overseer’s disgust was obvious. “It’s nice to know that years of loyal service has made it so that our master values the chickens more than he values the lives of my children.”
Was this a test of his obedience? “That is how they are valued according to the Law.”
“I don’t think demons honor the Law.” The overseer’s eyes darted toward the discarded meat cleaver. “I’d keep that handy if I were you.”
“That is just a tool necessary to fulfill the responsibilities assigned to me,” Keta said automatically. “I would never—”
“Of course.” The overseer nodded. “It’s just a tool. I forget myself. That’s not a wise thing to do with a Protector coming. I will spread the word. Get back to work.”
He waited until the master’s man had left the storehouse before returning the meat cleaver to its place on his apron. The overseer was correct. The master and the Law were correct. A sharpened piece of steel was just a tool. The spears, knives, and clubs Keta had been secretly stockpiling beneath the barrels of fish were also just tools.
His mind was the weapon.
* * *
“I think the overseer might join with us when the time comes,” Keta whispered to his fellow conspirators.
“He strikes me as the master’s man,” Baldev said. “I wouldn’t trust him.”
“I don’t know. He seemed truthful. I think he’s had enough of the Law. Same as us.”
“The overseer’s words are worth salt water.” Govind’s teeth were visible in the dark when he grinned. “Besides, he’s given me the whip one too many times for no good reason. He’s getting his throat cut, same as the rest of the master’s pets, when the time comes.”
There was a constant low level of noise in the bunkhouse, as was bound to happen when you packed over two dozen casteless men, women, and children into one shack, so they weren’t too worried about being overheard. There were many other bunkhouses just like this one on the master’s lands, and each one had its own conspirators as well.
“When the time comes? We keep talking about that like it’s the return of the Forgotten.” Baldev was casual about his blasphemy. “If this Protector is on his way because of us, the time needs to be
now.
We need to strike soon.
”
The dirt floor was covered in straw. Everyone slept on top of their personal belongings to keep them from getting stolen during the night. Keta rolled over on his meat cutter’s apron to stare at his friend. “Are you mad? We’re not ready. There aren’t enough of us.”
“The master’s house only has a hundred warriors. We’ve got twice that now.”
“Have you been out in the sun too long, Govind?” Keta was actually surprised the fisherman could count that high. “Your duty is to mend the nets. That’s all you do. Sleep, eat, shit, screw, and mend nets, and then complain about mending nets to us before you repeat it all the next day. Your whole life you’ve worked on nets. How good are you at mending nets?”
“I’m really good at mending nets.”
“So, if I grabbed any two men here, and sent them to the beach tomorrow, they together would be able to handle nets as good as you by yourself?”
“Of course not. It takes time.”
“Exactly, stupid. The warrior caste’s only duty is to fight and train to fight. That’s all they do. That’s all they care about. You hear them on the other side of that fence, hitting each other with wooden swords from dawn to dusk. They’re as good at their duty as you are at yours. No, we wait until we have enough to overwhelm the house all at once. And then when we win, we win fast and clean. All of the casteless in this province will rise up and kill their warriors, too.”
Baldev was the strongest, but he knew Keta was the smart one. “And there’s so many of us that even the other houses won’t be able to do a thing.”
“This province is the ass end of the land. We’ve got cursed ocean on three sides. The other houses are too busy fighting each other to send an army to deal with us, and by the time they do, we’ll have formed our own army. A real casteless army. Only then, we won’t be casteless anymore. We’ll be whole men, like them, and even the Law will have to recognize us.”
“Just because you’re the only one of us who can read makes you think you’re so smart,” Govind snarled. “You steal one of the master’s books about strategy, and you think you’re such an expert. You’re a dreamer.”
The book had merely given him new ideas. Govind had no idea just how much of a dreamer Keta really was. They were focused on freeing themselves, but Keta wanted to free
all
of the casteless in every province. He wanted to see the great houses in flames. Even though they weren’t allowed to speak of the old ways or practice any of their traditions, Keta knew in his heart that the Forgotten was real, and though they had abandoned their god, their god would never abandon them.
“We keep doing what we’re doing. Find more like us, willing to fight and smart enough to keep their mouths shut. When the day comes, we’ll know. Soon, my friends, it’ll be very soon.”
Govind grunted. “Fine. We’ll wait then. And while we wait, this Protector will show up, breathing fire, kill us all, eat our souls, and we’ll be so much better off. I’m going to sleep.”
Keta lay on his back, stared at the logs of the ceiling, and tried to ignore the screaming of hungry babies.
Baldev waited a minute before whispering again. “What are we going to do about the Protector, Keta?”
“Nobody will talk. Our plan is safe.”
“And if it’s not?”
They’d all heard stories about what the Protectors of the Law were capable of. “The Protectors are only men, Baldev. They’re only men.”
* * *
“You are wrong.”
Keta woke up with a start. He sat up in the straw, and his first instinct was to move his hands about to make sure no one had stolen his belongings or the meager amount of food he had stashed. It took him a moment to regain enough sense to understand that it was very late, and the bunkhouse was too quiet. The snoring, grunting, and farting of the packed in bodies seemed muted, like his ears were plugged. But he’d heard a voice. Keta looked around and flinched as he realized somebody was sitting in the straw behind him, only a few feet away.
“The Protectors are more than men now. It is best to think of them as a one man army, or perhaps a one-man inquisition. They are warrior monks of the highest caste, whose bodies and minds have been broken by hardship and reformed by magic, and if one of them is trying to kill you, then you will more than likely die.”
Keta slowly put one hand on the handle of his cleaver. Squinting, he tried to make out the visitor’s features in the dark. The stranger was very old, probably forty years at least, thin even by casteless standards, and dressed in fabric made of the coarse woven fibers common to one of their station. “Who’re you?”
“Someone who has been listening to your plotting and been rather amused by it. Our people were thrown down forty generations ago. Do you really think in all those years you are the first who has thought he could destroy the Law?”
“Quiet!” Keta hissed. The old man wasn’t even whispering. He scanned the room, but everyone appeared to be asleep. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“You are doing a fine job of that without any help from me. Besides, none of them can hear us. We may speak freely.”
Keta snorted. “What? Are you supposed to be a wizard or something?”
“Yes, Keta the butcher, something like that. I am the Ratul, Keeper of Names, and I have come to help you shake the foundations of the world.”
* * *
Keta did not speak of the strange visitor to anyone, especially his fellow conspirators. They would’ve either thought he was mad, or that it was some sort of elaborate ploy to expose them. But a Keeper of Names? They were a tale that casteless mothers would tell their children to give them enough hope to sleep at night. Even talking of the Forgotten’s clergy was a violation of the Law. Only a babbling madman would claim to be one. Yet, Keta had to know the truth.
The next night he waited for everyone assigned to his shack to fall asleep before sneaking out the back window. His sandals didn’t make much noise on the grass. There were so few warriors here that he wasn’t worried about being seen, but even if he was, he’d never been caught violating curfew before and more than likely could plead his way out of it by saying that he was going to visit one of the women assigned to a different shack. He’d probably only get a beating to show for it at worst. As much as the higher castes would never admit it, Keta suspected he was far too valuable at his duties to start chopping his limbs off for such a minor infraction. He did the work of a butcher and a storekeeper, and it would take far too long to teach another casteless to read the inventory ledgers.
The tide was high. The surf was crashing against the black rocks. Ratul was waiting for him there.
The madman did not turn to look as Keta approached. “Did you know that in the days before the sky opened and the demons fell from the heavens, that man actually moved across the waters in great vessels?”
“That’s foolishness.” The ocean was pure evil. There were only two things to be found in the ocean: death and fish. And fish were only good to feed to the casteless, as whole men would never touch something tainted by unclean salt water. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”
“Because we are not alone, or maybe we are now, but we were not then. There are other lands, as big or bigger than this one, and isles, so many isles, thousands of them in between.”
Keta knew that there were islands. On a clear day some could even be seen on the horizon. He remembered a time many years ago when some of the casteless decided to try and make it to one. A false prophet had a vision, saying they could go live in a place beyond the Law’s reach, and be whole men there. He said the Forgotten would protect them during their journey. Many fools had gone with him on their pathetic cobbled-together boat, while the rest had watched, curious, along the shore. Of course, the demons had come from the deep and consumed them, and the master of the house had laughed and laughed at the foolishness of his non-people.
“There used to be trade, of ideas, things, animals and crops. Men explored and settled and made new lives and bore children who’d do the same. Now that the demons own the sea, I wonder if those other lands have become as dark and isolated as this one, or if they still live at all. Here, Ramrowan pushed the demons back into the sea. Maybe the Forgotten didn’t send other lands such a hero.”
He had heard so many conflicting myths and stories, but this was new. “Ramrowan?”
“They’ve done such a fine job stomping out our history here.” Ratul looked at Keta for the first time. “When God defeated the demons in the War in Heaven, they fell here and began a great slaughter. Mortals could not slice the hide of a demon, so God sent one of his generals to the world to protect us. It was Ramrowan who united all the houses and pushed the demons back into the sea. Thus Ramrowan became the First King. We built a great temple at the spot where he fell to the world, and a city sprung up around it. It is still the capital today.”
“The Law says that there are no gods and no kings,” Keta said suspiciously. “There is no temple in the capital, and there is certainly no king over the houses.”