The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (24 page)

With the deep sounds of the men thrumming through the very air, rumbling Styophan’s chest, the wodjan danced. They circled the menhir, some raising their arms to the sky as if begging the knowledge of the stars, while others spun low like a leaf on a windswept pond. Each of them—every one—had darkened hands, but it wasn’t the same color as the paint upon their stomachs and arms and breasts. This paint was muddier. Browner. And it slowly dawned on Styophan that it was blood. They had blood upon their hands. Blood from his men, who’d done nothing to them.

As they moved beyond the circling wodjan, the space closest to the menhir was revealed. The Haelish kings stood there, as did many of their queens. Bahett was there with his guardsmen as well, but Styophan paid little attention to them.

For staked to the ground, naked, his middle cut open, was Vyagos.

His arms pulled above his head.

His wrists tied to a wooden stake.

His ankles were similarly tied, but it was the travesty between them that held Styophan’s gaze.

A cut trailed from sternum down to his pelvis, opening the cavity and allowing plain view of all that lay within. His viscera had been pulled out and laid upon the ground in a clear pattern, though what in the ancients’ names it might mean Styophan had no idea.

On the far side, Oleg was also staked to the ground, though—dear mothers—he
still breathed
. He breathed when his torso was cut stem to stern and his guts were thrown about. A woman stood over him, a bloody knife in her hand, her breasts hanging down as she peered into his eyes and his chest rose and fell as slow as the coming of winter.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The other times harm had befallen his men at the hands of the Haelish, Styophan had been consumed with rage. But here, seeing his men like this, he had no idea what to think. He’d heard of the Haelish’s bloody rituals many times. Even in the tent while Anahid pleaded with him to understand, he thought he’d known how cruel they were, but here, standing before Vyagos’s lifeless remains, watching Oleg somehow draw breath, he was unmanned.

He nearly tripped, hobbled as he was, but the Haelish warriors on either side of him pulled him up and dragged him before King Brechan. Kürad and Elean stood nearby as well. The mystery of the queen’s visitation in the woods, of her strange request to examine her, still haunted him. The other queens were little different—dark eyes with the same color. All but Queen Dahlia, the wife of King Brechan.
Her
eyes seemed more sunken, and they had the proper yellowish tinge with no signs of the strange orange that Elean exhibited. She coughed as Styophan watched, but she bore a defiant look, as if she’d vowed long ago to fight this disease, to win against it. It stood in stark contrast to the other queens, who seemed sick, certainly, but somehow accepting of it. It was a mystery that dogged him, but at the moment he could spare no thought for it.

King Brechan wore an elaborate shirt of leather, braided with horsehair along the chest and arms. His crown of thorns rested upon his head, its hidden rubies glinting beneath the firelight.

“The kings have spoken,” Brechan said in low tones. His eyes were hazy as he looked at Styophan. The whites were red. He’d been drinking, not alcohol, surely, but some brew prepared by the wodjan.

Styophan saw to his left Anahid being taken to the northern side of the menhir stone. He nearly called out—nearly surged forward to fight for her—but the words of Datha rang true. He was sure that if he were to speak a single word, the wodjan would kill her, and him, and do so painfully. He would wait, for only in this did there seem to be some small chance of survival.

Brechan continued. “It is judged that you brought the withering here. You and your brothers, the men of Anuskaya. You and your sisters, the women and the Matri. The wodjan have seen it while looking death in the eye, while speaking with her at long length.”

Styophan felt sick. He meant the death throes of Vyagos and Oleg. The wodjan had used them to sift through the passages of time, to have questions answered from beyond the grave, from beyond this world.

Brechan nodded to Styophan, his eyebrows pinching, perhaps in pain or confusion from the elixir he’d imbibed. “What have you to say?”

Styophan looked at the gathered assemblage. Was he to defend himself from this? Was he to defend all of Anuskaya from these accusations? What could he say? They’d done no such thing. The
rifts
had caused the wasting. And since the conflict on Galahesh, they’d been spreading, faster and farther than ever before. It wasn’t the Grand Duchy that was responsible, but the Al-Aqim. But how could he tell the Haelish this? They would have none of it.

He looked to Queen Elean, who stared on with a look of intense concentration, as if she cared about the outcome of this conversation very much. Her eyes… Her apparent affliction… He didn’t even know why he cared, but he did. It seemed part and parcel of his fate—his and the fates of his men.

And then he caught Bahett, this regent from Yrstanla who stood to gain so much from the Haelish. The war between them would be stopped. He could focus his forces eastward to meet the oncoming threat of the Grand Duchy’s push onto the continent. He might even gain allies among the Haelish, as Styophan had planned to secure for Duke Ranos. Standing behind Bahett were three swordsmen in boiled leather armor. They stood easily, eyes watching the proceedings lazily, but Styophan knew these would be the very sharpest and brightest of the Kamarisi’s swords.

Styophan looked to the other queens. The one to Brechan’s right, his wife, had the same dark eyes as Elean. A brazier burned nearby, shedding light on her face, on her eyes, and Styophan could tell that they were the same hue as Elean’s. He looked to another of the queens, and another. There were seven of them in all, and he could see it now, plain as day. With the exception of Dahlia, they were all afflicted in the same manner as Elean.

Nyet
, Styophan thought. Not afflicted. Suffered. They suffered from this condition, because it was something that had been done to them. They were victims.

He stared into Bahett’s eyes. He was staring back with a look of cold discomfort, as if he’d rather this night be done and his treaty signed so that he could return to Alekeşir and resume his role at the Kamarisi’s side.

And then Styophan knew.

Cold prickled his skin. A shiver shook him from the mere certainty of this newfound insight.

It was Bahett.

Bahett had done this.

Styophan didn’t know how, but he had. He’d poisoned the queens. His resources were considerable, and the knowledge held within the library of Alekeşir and the wise men that groomed it were vast. Could he not find a poison or a venom that could mimic the withering given the right dosage? How else could all of the queens have contracted it? The wasting was indiscriminate. But a poison?
That
could be delivered precisely given the right access, and it would give Bahett exactly the leverage he wanted: a reason for the kings to join him, or at the very least to cease hostilities while he took care of the upstart islands.

As Anahid was laid down on the ground, his mind raced. How? How could Bahett have done this?

Elean was watching him intently. Did she know? Did she suspect where his thoughts were headed? Perhaps she did. Else why would she have called him to her that night in the forest?

And then, for the love of all that was good, he remembered her words. More and more of the picture filled in, and as he looked over Bahett’s shoulder, full understanding finally came.

Bahett glanced over his shoulder to where his three Kiliç Şaik stood, curious as to what Styophan was thinking, but then his expression returned to the same look of disinterest he’d had ever since Styophan had arrived—disinterest, Styophan thought, when men had just been put to death in front of him.

Brechan, meanwhile, stared down at Styophan, his face growing angry. He was waiting for an answer to the charges he’d leveled. But how could Styophan respond? He couldn’t simply accuse Bahett. It would be discarded as a desperate attempt to free himself and his men.

“The withering started among the islands,” Styophan acknowledged with a nod, “but it isn’t the withering that stands among you now.”

Brechan’s face constricted into a look of confusion. “It
does
stand among us, everywhere.” He motioned back to where the women stood. “Even the queens.”

“
Evet
,” Styophan replied, “they
look
as though they have the wasting, but they do not.”

Brechan’s face grew even darker. “I can see it with my own eyes.”

“As can I, but they aren’t the symptoms of the withering, King Brechan. They are the symptoms of a poison, rendered to your queen.” He stared at each of the gathered Kings. “Rendered to
all
of your queens.”

“We are no fools, Styophan Andrashayev. There are hundreds who’ve taken ill. Dozens have already died from it. Our graves are filled with their bodies, and you tell me that Yrstanla has poisoned all of them?”

“Indeed the withering has come, and surely many
have
died from it. But not your queens.”

“How can you know?”

“Because they don’t have the same symptoms.”

This only seemed to make Brechan angrier. “How can you know?”

“Because I saw Queen Elean. I examined her.”

“You lie,” Brechan said, his voice rising in volume.

“I do not. I examined her fully as she stood naked before me.”

The gathered crowd spoke in low tones until Brechan turned and shouted, “Silence!”

Nearby, the wodjan faltered in their dance. They stopped and stared with scowling expressions. Even the constant drone of the men standing sentinel around the edge of the basin broke momentarily before picking up once more.

All eyes turned to Elean, but she kept her gaze pointed downward, refusing to meet the eyes of Brechan or her king.

Kürad stepped out from the line of kings, and as he did, Brechan backed away with a tilt of his head, an acknowledgement that it was within Kürad’s rights to question Styophan. Kürad paused only long enough to pull the long length of steel at his side. The sword’s straight blade was nicked from countless battles, but its edge was otherwise gleaming and sharp. Styophan had no doubt it could cleave his head from his shoulders with little trouble, especially from a man like Kürad, whose corded muscles rippled as he gripped the leather-wrapped hilt.

For the first time Bahett was nervous—Styophan could see it in the way he sent fleeting glances among the kings, the way his shoulders had tightened—but he hid it well, and he doubted the Haelish would note that anything was amiss.

Kürad continued until he was nearly chest-to-chest with Styophan, and he spoke low enough for only Styophan to hear. “When did you do this?”

“Speak clearly,” Brechan said behind him. “All will hear.”

The only response Styophan could see to this demand was a momentary tightening of Kürad’s jaw. When he spoke again, however, it was with a strong voice. “When did you do this?”

“In the forest four nights ago, Elean came to me. She brought me to the woods, fearful that something was amiss. And a good thing she did, for it was clear to me that she had not been struck by the same thing I’ve seen among the people of the islands.”

“You cannot be sure,” Kürad said.

“I’ve seen hundreds of cases, oh King. Hundreds. The islands have been struck hard these past years. From the moment we enter the service of our dukes, the men of the staaya are taught to recognize the signs, but in truth such things are unnecessary. Anyone born and raised in the Grand Duchy knows the signs, for all families have been struck. Elean has eyes of the wrong color. Her hair remains lustrous where it should be dry and brittle. There are no lumps in the pits of her arms or the hollow where her thighs meet.”

Kürad’s nostrils flared at this, but he did nothing to stop Styophan from speaking.

“Look upon Queen Dahlia. Her eyes are the proper color, and her hair is thinning. She will have had trouble keeping her food down, as Elean no doubt has, but Elean’s will have come and gone, where Dahlia’s would be constant. And the pits of their arms”—Styophan waited until Kürad had turned to stare at Dahlia—“one need only look at the two of them and compare.”

The assemblage stared between the two women. When Styophan had first arrived he’d been too blinded to see it, but now it seemed as plain as day.

“The wasting can take different forms,” Bahett said.

“Only at first,” Styophan replied, loudly enough for all to hear. “In the final stages, all will fall to the same signs.”

The kings moved more closely to the two queens. The queens seemed nervous at first, but Styophan was under no illusions. Elean was pleased. It was why she’d brought him into the forest in the first place. Indeed, there could be no greater evidence of this than what she did next. After pulling at the ties that held her buckskin dress closed about her chest, she slipped her arms out of her sleeves and allowed the bodice to fall around her hips. She raised her hands to reveal the pits of her arms. Queen Dahlia, apparently drawing courage from this, did the same, slipping out of her dress to raise her arms. It was strange seeing these two women naked from the waist up, baring themselves for all to see, a thing that would never happen among the islands. Even now, Styophan was embarrassed over it, but he was relieved they’d had the courage to do this, for the differences between them were immediately obvious. Dahlia stared from the deep pits of her eyes, triumphant. Elean looked to Styophan, but then she turned to Bahett, who was watching this exchange with ever growing alarm.

Brechan turned to him next, then Kürad, and then the rest of the kings.

“This is foolishness,” Bahett said with a confident air. “Whether they have the wasting or not, it certainly wasn’t the Empire that came to Hael and poisoned them. How could anyone have done so?”

“Skolohalla,” Styophan replied. “The queens met a mere eight weeks ago to discuss what would be done of Yrstanla’s overture given that they’d already accepted the offer from my Lord, the Duke of Khalakovo.” Styophan motioned easily to the men standing behind Bahett. “We both know, oh Kings of Hael, how gifted and cruel are the Kiliç Şaik. Could they not have stolen into Skolohalla under cover of night? Could they not have poisoned the wine of the queens as they met?”