NOVEL NEXT Chapter 21 - Bloodshed
her banquet halls were filled with feasts
the souls she owned drank wine, ate meats
they feasted long without a pause
never feeling hunger's calls
- "Never Enough," Verse 3
Rejod is a short man with a rectangular frame and a long crop of black hair pulled back into a braid. He informs me he teaches immunology and pharmacology classes at L-WAH—Lady War's Academy of Healing—and I'm half afraid he'll start quizzing me about herbs and mutes while we string bunks in various tents. Hammering wooden stakes into the ground is a task unto itself; by the fifth hammock, my shoulder and back burn with the strain of lifting the heavy iron mallet. I broke my right arm during the Battle of Crête Déchiquetée, and it's still bound in straps—it's healing though, and it hurts less than it did running laps during PT. The fingernails on my left hand are starting to grow back too—if it wasn't for my missing essence, I'd be down to fight for my hometown.
The day only gets harder when the patients start rolling in. Most are whips—semi-official guardsmen stationed to a particular city or district as acting law enforcement—who're being moved from the uptown medi-centers as the city evacuates. They were the first line of opposition as Xobs penetrated with an eastbound line. Armed with only spears and clubs, they had their work cut out for them against chain-link and steel blades. The suture kit Rejod gives me is almost empty by high noon, and Rejod watches my stitches with a critical eye between his own rotations.
"Neat lines," he says. "You've done this before?"
"I've stitched myself up a couple of times," I say. "Never done another person before, though."
"Don't pull the thread too tight," he suggests. "The skin should come together without puckering."
"Roger that."
My first civilian looks like a torture victim—she's missing most of her fingers and has a nasty gash across her face that's split her eye in two. Blood oozes from behind the gauze. I have no idea how to clean such a wound and ask Rejod if we should remove what's left behind the bandage. He stares at me as if I've just asked him if we should slit her throat and put her out of her misery.
"Ever thought about medi-school?" he asks.
"A little." I rub the back of my neck. "I just made staffmaster, though, and the elite guard doesn't need another Bardic. I'm more use on the frontline."
"First rule of shadowing—don't fuck with eyes unless you're a specialist," he barks. "Change the dressings. Give her virgin's bower for the pain."
"I don't have any of that in the kit you gave me." I don't even know what it looks like. "Is that a plant?"
"The roots will knock her out." He points toward the scrapyard. "Stores are being assembled behind the barricade. Don't dally."
Large scraps of metal have been arranged to form a shelter, and canopies have been erected to provide shade from the beating sun. The herbs are being kept in slatted boxes lined with waxed cloth to keep them fresh. Bard is sitting on a tarp and using a mortar to grind a blunt-leafed weed into a paste. Somehow he's changed from his formal leathers into a green healer's cassock—I wonder if he brought it in his kitbag when we left for Bathune. It's a task that would normally go to an aide, so I find myself staring at him for longer than necessary. He looks up and I tell him what I need.
"We're low on bower," he says. "There's a drought in the Fifth Circuit, and our stocks were low last year too. How bad is the wound? Fatal?"
"She's down an eye and some digits. Want me to take over grinding?"
"I've yet to find another healer who's pedantic enough to get all the seeds out." His cassock bunches as he leans over the mortar, examining his work. "I wish I'd brought my aides from the First Circuit medi-center, but I sent a hussar to deploy them—with all hope, they'll ride in soon. Pop quiz—would your patient be tagged yellow or red?"
I haven't taken any classes on healing at L-DAW, so I give it my best guess and hope that's enough.
"Blood flow stemmed," I say. "Rejod cauterized her hands. No loss of consciousness, but she's hurting bad. I'd say red."
"I'd say yellow," he shoots back. "Wait until the lawyers start rolling in from the Judicial District—no one bitches like an injured attorney. Tell Rejod to save the painkillers so we can keep them quiet. No doubt they'll blame Lady Death's guard for failing to hold the city. Lawsuits will crop up before we've taken back the Municipal Building."
The vast majority of lawyers—if we're getting nitpicky and labeling the Judicial District as a one-partisan subdivision—are participating members in Lady Love's church, not Death's. They'd never let anyone from L-Street in their churches, but I took Ila up there a few times to look at the murals.
"They can sue us?" I ask.
"They're lawyers," he says darkly. "They don't need facts—they need a soapbox and a stance."
I go back to Rejod empty handed, and he gives me a sermon in front of the damn patient. I remove the bandage, and the gaping hole of red goop oozes down the side of her face. Her eye compacts inward when I dab it with a saline bandage, and the barest glimpse of what was once a blue iris stares back at me. The tear duct waters, mixes with black-crimson, drips. I soothe her with a few bars of a cathouse song—some bards and troubadours leave sheet music for the girls to dig through when business is dry—and stroke her hair a few times. She leans into me.
"My daughters," she breathes, grasping at the front of my leathers like I alone hold the keys to her salvation. "What happened to my daughters?"
"They'll have evacuated," I say with confidence I don't feel.
I'm still tending to her when the steady pounding of fast hooves jar a few pebbles into action on the ground. A man sticks his head into the tent and greats Rejod with familiarity. I recognize his stout face and bald head—Denmaster Rio. He's aged since I last saw him—the frontline has accentuated his crow's feet and deepened his face. He leans against a hammock stake as if the sheer act of staying on his feet would exhaust him.
"I'm here to pull aides and an evac team." The words are short, harsh. "Fire in the primary school off Rue de Printemps and Justice Row—sixteen victims and counting, all minors. We've stacked them behind the school, but there's no protection from the sun. Major burns, all of them. I've got a few medics, but I need more bodies."
"Shit," Rejod says. "Why couldn't Xobs have attacked in winter? We could use some snow right now."
"We need to move them into cover," Rio says. "And get them farther away."
"We're filling up fast."
"Priorities, old friend. You heard me say the damn school is on fire?"
"I heard, I heard. Winds might blow it down the block—Rue de Printemps and Justice Row, you said? Shit. There's an historical archive center close by."
Justice Row is eight miles from here, past the Municipal Building—how are we going to get enough healers and stretchers to evacuate a school? I know what's coming the second Rio looks over at me. He squints, spectacle lines bunching.
"Pridemaster Ko!" He bellows. "Change of job, eh? Nice black leathers. Feel like taking a break from jerking yourself to the sick and wounded?"
I learned last time we met that there's no getting out of it when he decides you're leading a pride, but I try anyway. "General Killián stationed me here."
"Sure, and then the Xobs arsoned a kids' school into a pile of kindling. Aren't you from around here? Never heard a thicker accent. I need someone who can get us through the backstreets."
There's only one bridge across the Rivière Rugueuse, which marks the end of the strip and the beginning of the uptown districts. I can get him there, but the public school for Whoresons and Whoredaughters is directly adjacent to the viaduct—I've only been westward a handful of times. We got our food from the ration center—a church at the northern tip of the Shopping District—and any business outside the Pleasure District checks wrists if they catch the faintest hint of raggy clothes or smell.
Leómadura has my essence. If something happens to me—if I move farther into the city and put my life at risk—I'm playing directly into his hand. Killián stationed me here for a reason—we don't know how to fix this yet, and he wants to keep me out of danger. Defying him wouldn't just be a shitty move for an elite guardsman—it's not my life that's at risk, it's my eternity. On the other hand, kids are in danger. I'm a soldier, and it's my job to protect civilians. Who am I if I let my own baggage get in the way of helping? Could I live with myself if I have to spend the rest of my life fleeing from danger like a bluedeer? I don't know how long it's going to take us to fix this, or even if we can. You know the stakes. The voice in my head is smug, delighted. Your choice, Whoreson.
It's not, though.
"You're a shit medic," Rejod tells me. "Go with Rio. I'll get one of the uppers from L-WAH to shadow me."
"You're giving me a shit medic for my burn vics?" Rio casts one last look in my direction. "Bring your scythe, boy. You'll need it."
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For the first time in my memory, the backroads of L-Street are deserted. Dilapidated wooden buildings tilt upward like tent stakes, straight enough to stay upright but so slanted they look like a light breeze could knock them down. Wooden boards are nailed over the windows on all the lower levels. I see a curtain twitch behind one as we cut off Main Street—a brothel with furniture stacked in front of the double doors—but it's the only sign of movement beside the occasional rat.
There are twenty soldiers in our procession, ten of whom are medics, and Rio heads the convoy. A trail of smoke shoots upward beyond the line of buildings, tar-black against the blue sky. Sun beats down on the back of my neck—it's hot, and I feel the skin starting to burn. Most of the backstreet alleys dead-end into brick walls protecting backroom casinos; Rio seems glad to have brought me. You have to know your way around if you want to avoid Main Street—otherwise it's an endless jaunt of frustration and reversals. Red-hot tingles engage my inner thighs from urging my mare onward.
She needs a name.
Lore says you should always name your steed after someone you care for—or someone you admire. I didn't get to name Sinope, but I named the horse I rode into my first battle on Killer, after Killián's monicker. I thought naming him after the general might give me luck in the coming battle. Linden's horse is Gwenaëlle, combining the names of his two sisters—he told me that once. Killián's massive black stallion is Bee—after Brid or Bard, I don't know. Kempe's is Ada after her ex-girlfriend.
I decide to call this one Akee, for Keev. She's a good steed, white and quick, with black spots on her face and flank. She doesn't balk when I give her orders, not like Sinope would do, and she nuzzled me when I slipped the bit between her lips. I pat her neck, and she trots onward. "Sure is a shit part of town," one of Rio's pridemasters—Bayford—says. He's on Rio's right while I'm on the left. "Who'd buy a woman here? Five franks say they all have sores."
Rio bellows out a laugh, then casts an apologetic glance in my direction. "Any comment, Diable?"
I think of my sisters, my friends—the girls and women who raised me in the backroom of Kolton's Kitties. Cissy, Precious, Lila, countless others who fed me morsels while I used plantpaint on their nails and lips. I can't put into words the love I feel for them—overwhelming and entrenching, so strong my eyes water from sheer frustration. They'll never be free from their caste any more than I am, despite what Killián says, but their lot is worse because most of the johns who've had their fun with them are still alive, free men. That's the point of Lady Lust's caste—blow off your steam on the designated few born with her brand so the sin is on them and not on you.
"If you're pathetic enough to pay for sex, sores are the least of your worries," I say. "What's the problem, Bayford—your wife sick of seeing your hideous teeth every time you reach for her?"
That shuts him up—kind of. He falls back to bitch to Fortesque as we turn onto Rue d'Aube. The putrid stench of smoke is stronger by the time we reach the viaduct, and I pull a medic's pocket mask over my face to form a makeshift barrier. Stone arches stretch over the boarded planks, which are damp in some places and absolutely rotted in others. I'm worried one of the horses will fall through—the city made an empty promise to redo the deck with stonework around the time Ila turned four—but we make it to the other bank without a tragedy. The Rivière Rugueuse sounds like a mutant beast, deafening with its telltale roar, but we leave that behind as we turn right into the Judicial District. Immediately we're confronted by nicer buildings—still woodwork instead of stone architectural masterpieces like the buildings uptown, but nice all the same. Packed one after another like conjoined cages, we pass a saloon, a barber's shop, and a couple of bookstores. A fruit stand has been abandoned in front of the grocers—Rio leans down to grab an orange and lobs it in my direction. My gaze is fixed on a title in the glass window of a shop—Myths and their Meanings—so I'm a little late to the draw; it smacks my cheek, hits Akee on the way down, and lands on the cobbles. I rub the painful sting, sure it will redden. He's my commanding officer, I remind myself to keep my tongue from shooting off. Is he, though? I'm a staffmaster—I should be in charge of a hive, and denmasters are next in the chain of command. I wonder if he knows that—he commented on my black leathers, but throwing fruit at my head is hardly a declaration of subservience. Plus, the only reason I'm here is because he ordered me to follow. I'm putting everything on the line for him.
Everything, agrees the voice in my mind—I stiffen. Glad you realize that. Die soon, Whoreson—I'm bored, and I've got a nice place in the Lands of the Dead. Care to join me?
I'll never get used to the fact that none of my thoughts are private anymore.
"Already caught one from Lady Fate," is all I say. "I don't need yours, sir."
Rio looks at me curiously—if he's heard the story, he doesn't show it. "How's that going for you?"
Terribly. "Fantastic."
"Sure," he says, and we make it to the burning primary school without further degradation. The air is thick, worse, when we get to Boulevard des Quais, and flames lick up a three-story church-esque steeple at the end of the row. Orange serpents twist out of burning windows. Someone—several someones, probably—are screaming from within. Part of the paneled roof has collapsed inward, and roaring fire extends into black air. When I start coughing, I find I can't stop until Rio reaches over and thumps me on the back.
"Shit medic with bad lungs," he says. "You just keep getting better."
"Hey—remember that three-to-one victory at Crête Déchiquetée?"
"Yeah, you hold onto that one until you're old," he says. "All the best soldiers were in their prime at 15."
There's no cover for our horses when we dismount behind the school, but worrying about Akee is the last thing on my mind. Stretched out in rows are the fire's victims, all of whom look pretty mucked up. I kneel by the nearest one—a little thing in a charred skirt, slip sticking out beneath the plats—and find I can't take a pulse beneath the white boils on her wrist. She screams, ear-splitting, when I try to touch her, and I hasten in my kit for some cream. Rio's not watching—he's peering at the school on his tiptoes like he's trying to figure out if he can get away with a rescue mission.
"That thing is thirty seconds away from collapsing," I tell him. "You'll be trapped."
"There are still kids in there."
"What—your men stopped fishing the second you left?"
"Looks that way."
"We did the right thing." A whip in gray leathers is staring down at my girl with an expression of disgust on his face. "Nicer to let them die—you, boy. Focus on the ones that can be saved. She's already slipped out twice."
"Losing consciousness isn't a death sentence." I can't believe he's talking about a kid this way—to her face, no less. Beneath the burns covering her face and neck, her narrow eyes and dark hair remind me of Ila, and my heart twists in my chest. "What's wrong with you?"
"It's a death sentence when you've breathed in as much smoke as she did."
I wish Bard were here to give him the patients aren't dead until they're dead sermon. "Who's the medic?"
He eyes my black leathers. "Neither of us."
"I meant—she needs one."
I rub a bit of cream on her hands and face, scared to use too much of my stock. The canister is full, but how long will it last? There must be twenty people stretched out in two rows of ten, and most aren't moving. One of the blisters pops when I push too deep, and a mixture of red and yellow fluid gushes from the loose skin. Bile hits the back of my throat. I breathe through my mouth then instantly regret it—smoke fills my trachea.
"Xobs!" someone shouts, and then I'm on my feet and racing toward Akee. I fumble for my scythe and almost lose a toe when the straps come loose. The javelin tip plunges into the dirt millimeters from my boot, and I grab the hilt with my right hand. There's only seven of them, and they approach on foot—chain-linked, flanking into a diamond procession that meets our two lancers and assorted swordsmen like circling wolves. The side of their formation pushes out, the diamond tip penetrates. I skirt Bayford and wince when a broadsword tip parts his back like two halves of a loaf of bread. A smattering of red droplets splash across my face, warm and then cold in an instant. I shove him aside—bastard's really gone, unlike the girl—and meet his killer head-on.
He tries to tug his blade free, and the scythe of my bistaff takes off his arm in one swoop. He drops like a rabbit with an arrow through the eye, howling. There are more where he came from, though, and I find myself facing three other chain-linkers.
They circle—I'm the biggest threat with a blade that can cut through iron. I drive my javelin tip into a boot, duck under a swishing blade, slip on dust. Next thing I know I'm on my back and one of the fuckers has impaled himself on my raised scythe—a mixture of blood and vomit rains down on my face from his agape mouth. I choke on it, roll over, vomit myself. The hot kiss of steel moves through my side—it takes a moment to realize I've been stabbed from behind. I try to move and a woman's voice screams at me to stay still.
I recognize that voice. A convoy in the Sixth Circuit, a First Circuit medi-center, Lefe's boozer, rising whispers from abandoned corners of the di Vivar family palazzo.
Lady Death.
Stunned to stillness, my fingers leave the hilt of my blade. Face down in grit, clangs echo around me as my comrades engage the Xobs in combat. I open my mouth into the beige debris, lick the acidic twang from my lips. Eyes watering, lungs burning, I heave myself onto my side. Purple-red blood mars the dirt beneath where my left kidney should be, thereabout, but a hand under the front of my leathers lets me know the blade didn't make it all the way through my body. My vision blurs, my pulse pounds beneath my tongue. I heave a dry sob—I feel no pain, but my body feels strangely heavy. It's like I've been thrown from a moving stronghorse carriage. Everything is out-of-sorts and faintly electric, pulsing with an unexpected warmth that has nothing to do with the overhead sun.
Brid Naya'il kneels beside me and places a hand to my forehead. Gone is the beautiful girl who urged me to choose Death when I was lolling on a medi-bed—in her place is a skeleton with holes for eyes and a ratty mess of hair. The skinless jaw reveals two rows of rotted teeth. "It's time," she whispers. "I have your spirit, your memory—not your essence. I cannot guide you beyond this world. You'll have to go alone."
"A flesh wound," I assure her, echoing Brid's words from Marbacante. "I'm fine."
She touches my forehead, and a volatile repugnance fills me at her touch. I have the sudden and instantaneous desire to get as far away from her as possible—but I can't move. Why can't I move? Why are my limbs so heavy? Has someone filled them with sand?
"Soulless," she says sadly.
Not what you want to hear from Lady Death when you're dying. "I said I'm fine."
Laughter—bubbling laughter, not mine—fills my mind.
Somehow I manage to push myself to my feet. Stumbling slightly, I jam the javelin tip of my bistaff into the nearest back. My enemy falls onto the Circite he's fighting, and I twist the triangle spearhead inside him a few times for good measure. The guardsman shoves him off and we turn to face what remains of the brigade. Two are left, but the lancers are making good work defecting blows even if they can't penetrate the armor. I hook the scythe blade up and over a head, pull back, decapitate. The movement sends me stumbling backward and gives me my first real jolt of pain, a hot flash that doesn't dissipate. It gets worse when I fall on my ass, and I find myself hyperventilating into my knees while a Xob head stares up at me with wide eyes. Beginnings of flat-cut vertebra stick out from maroon. I reach out and close the lids.
"Go to your god," I mutter.
"Don't go to yours," someone says, and it's with some relief that I realize it's a guardsman and not Lady Death. Smoke billows over us; when the wind blows it clear, I find myself staring at a fourth-year L-WAH student Rio pulled from Rejod. She pulls up the back of my leathers and examines my wound. My eyes close once, twice.
"Keep them open," she says.
I let loose a string of curse words as she prods it.
Agony. Blinding agony.
I have time to rue the minute I chose to disobey Killián.
I slip into blackness.
The last thing I hear is a voice in my mind.
See you soon, is all it says.