Evan Dicken - [BCS310 S02] Read online

  The Transubstantiation

  By Evan Dicken

  Neren wailed as we chased her through the Chalkwood—great, moaning sobs that echoed among the dusty trees, her tear tracks shining silver in the moonlight every time she glanced back. The moans weren’t necessary for us as the dogs had picked up her scent miles ago. It was all the lads and I could do to keep the dumb beasts from tearing off after her, but their baying was fit to wake half the forest, which I suppose was just fine with Captain Sthis.

  If I hadn’t known just where to look, I would’ve missed her. Sthis ranged behind us, silent, almost invisible in her dusty cloak, martyrbone crossbow at the ready as she padded through ashy drifts of bark. Not that anyone would be looking for someone trailing behind, what with all the lads waving torches and shrieking like Adjenci savages.

  We all had our role to play, I just sometimes wished mine wasn’t so blunt.

  Neren let out a shriek as she pretended to trip over something, maybe an exposed root, and tumbled down a muddy embankment. I couldn’t help but admire her dedication to her role. Somehow, she’d found the only stream in a dozen miles that wasn’t completely gummy with chalkbark.

  Captain Sthis took up position behind us along the rise as the lads and I surrounded Neren. She lay silhouetted in a shaft of moonlight. Torchlight picked out her gaunt cheeks, shadows pooling in the darkened hollows of her eyes. Trembling, she pushed to her feet, pitiful as the sodden wedding gown that clung to her thin frame.

  “I won’t go back to that monster.”

  “That monster is your husband.” I let my grin turn ugly, my accent a rough Unser twang. “Your rich husband.”

  There was a nervous edge to the lads’ laughter. The branches above us trembled, and I saw a couple lads look to the trees. Professionalism was too much to expect from jobbers recruited from alleys and wine-sinks. It had been a long time since I’d even bothered to learn their names.

  “Please, don’t take me back. I’ll do anything,” Neren called, fresh tears gleaming in her eyes. Overwrought as her reaction was, it dragged everyone’s attention back to the scene.

  “That you will, girl.” I nodded to the others. “Take her.”

  Laughing, a few of the braver lads splashed into the stream. There was a moment of indrawn breath, imminent violence like a charge in the air. The whole scene sat like a Nightfeast cake still hot from the oven, just waiting for some passerby to snatch it from the windowsill.

  And our hero didn’t disappoint.

  His arrow took the nearest lad in the hand. He stumbled back, his shrieks imbued with an authenticity I found wholly refreshing.

  “Leave her alone.” The man who dropped from the trees was enormous. Broad-shouldered and long-limbed, his bare arms were corded with lean muscle. He wore hunter’s leathers, shirt unlaced despite the late autumn chill in the air. His longbow was a length of wych elm, unadorned but polished from heavy use, and a long wide-bladed knife was belted at his side.

  I let my eyes go wide and afraid. “Bao Broadbow?”

  “In the flesh.” The fool grinned, his teeth like diamonds in the torchlight. “And the girl isn’t going anywhere with you.”

  “She can go where she likes.” I shed my affect like a ragged cloak, hands tightening on the grip of my axe. “We’re not after her.”

  “You’re glory hounds?” Bao’s laugh was like the peal of a Liberation Day bell, clear and high. “Thieves and murderers, scrabbling at the censors’ leavings.” He slapped his chest. “I am the hero of Unser, slayer of Nine-Dusks and its monstrous brood. I spit upon the Synod. I spit upon the censors. I spit upon you.”

  “And therein lies the problem.” I shook my head, not needing to feign regret. So it was with heroes. The story was always the same. Trapped in a world that could never match their expectations, they were doomed to break everything they found in the hopes of making it perfect.

  At my nod, a crossbow bolt slammed into Bao’s chest. Normally, his hero’s skin would’ve been proof against such a tawdry missile, but the steel for Sthis’ quarrels had been quenched in saints’ blood, the bolt propelled by the bones and sinew of martyrs. And if that wasn’t enough, it had been coated in enough coldwillow sap to drop a team of oxen.

  Bao coughed. Looking down at the bloodied shaft, he did a slow, shocked pirouette, longbow slipping from his grasp. His eyes found mine. In them, I saw what I always did—shock, disbelief, then fear. To be a hero was to give oneself wholly over to the belief that the world would bend before you did.

  “Let go. Just let go. Please.” I spoke as if Bao and I were old friends, but my throat was tight, and my mouth tasted of copper and chalk.

  With a gurgling roar, he surged forward. Even mortally wounded, Bao was adder quick. One huge hand closed around the nearest lad, casually lifting him from the ground. With a wet pop the man went from flailing to limp, and Bao tossed him aside with barely a glance.

  The dogs went mad as Bao stepped among us in a spray of fists and bloody water. One lad with more courage than sense tried to tackle him. Bao’s backhand almost tore the lad’s head clean off.

  I dove away, powdery chalkbark filling my mouth, the impact knocking the axe from my hands. There was nothing to see; what little torchlight remained was lost in the choking cloud the fight had kicked up. Dimly, I heard Captain Sthis cursing, the thud of martybone bolts loud as parade drums in the clinging gloom.

  Bao loomed above me like an avenging titan, arms outstretched. One heavy hand gripped my shoulder, tight enough to make the bones grind as he lifted me.

  Strangely, I felt no panic when Bao hugged me close. Sthis’s broken shafts dug into my flesh. In a way, it was actually a fitting end to my unremarkable tale—poor actor turned even poorer revolutionary, crushed to death by some rustic hero half-a-hundred miles from civilization.

  Saints’ steel glittered in the gloom. I saw Neren’s face appear behind Bao’s, her long hair whipping around as she clung to his back. One delicate hand cupped Bao’s chin. With a frown of concentration, Neren drew her dagger across his throat.

  Hot blood soaked my shirt, my chest prickling as scratches scabbed and healed over. All I could think was that there were those in Heko who would’ve paid a small fortune for such a treatment.

  The terrible strength fled Bao’s limbs, and he slowly sunk to his knees, toppling sideways. His breath was hot on my cheek, smelling of pine and freshly turned earth.

  The hero gave one last wracking gasp, then fell still.

  I extricated myself from his slack arms and stood, shivering in the gloom, bloodied but unhurt. In fact, I felt better than I had in years.

  Breath ragged, I met Neren’s gaze. “Thank you.”

  She scowled at the rivulets of red oozing down my shirt. “That there is coming from your cut.”

  “Told you it would work.” Captain Sthis nodded at the body in the cart, already bled, sectioned, and concealed in salt for the journey back to Heko. “Gallant bastards just can’t help themselves.”

  I spat over the side of the wagon, feeling sour but not really able to put my foot on the root of it. We’d paid off the jobbers—triple for the kin of the two Bao had killed—and were heading back with a full load ready to be smuggled past the censors.

  “I still think the dogs were a mistake,” I said.

  “Dogs are cheaper than men,” Sthis replied.

  “Depends on the man.” I shrugged. “Or the dog.”

  Sthis’s laugh was high and musical. Word was she had played the damsel herself back in the day. Hard to figure, what with her being all gravel and sharp edges for as long as I’d known her, but the past bled through in odd ways.

  “I liked the dogs. They gave the c
hase some urgency.” Neren opened one eye. She’d been napping in the back. I never understood how she could sleep so soon after a hunt. My hands were still trembling, and I knew it’d be days before I could shut my eyes without seeing the look on Bao’s face when the captain had feathered him.

  “‘Course you liked the dogs.” I snorted. “You weren’t the one trying to hold the damn things back.”

  “And you weren’t the one wading through silt in a fucking ball gown. Five nights I spent shivering in the damp before that big bastard decided to get involved.” She gave one of the barrels an irritated thump. “And for what? Barely an eight-footer.”

  “Tell that to the lad whose back Bao broke.” I winced. Even now I hadn’t bothered to learn the poor sod’s name.

  “You tell him, old man.” Neren slapped me on the shoulder. “I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”

  By the time I’d thought of a suitable response, she had already turned to Sthis.

  “What do you think the payout will be?”

  Sthis sucked air through her teeth. “Depends on the war, I suppose. Zemmel’s crew was bragging about how they’re going to bag Suntalon or one of the other Adjenci heroes.”

  “That’s where we should be,” Neren said. “Hunting the big game instead of trawling for local trash. I bet a hero like Suntalon could net us enough to retire on.”

  I thrust my chin at the barrels in the back. “That local trash keeps us safe and fed. You ever seen what a real hero can do to a person?”

  “No,” she said with a grin. “But Zemmel has, and he’s still got the balls to try.”

  “Zemmel is a hack.” I scowled. “You know he wears the eye patch just for show.”

  Sthis shrugged. “It’s all for show, Deff. You should know that by now.”

  We rode in silence for a bit after that, the rattle of wagon wheels punctuated by the occasional bird call from the forest around us. The day was pleasant enough, autumn just shading into winter, an easterly breeze whispering through the forest around us. Still, I couldn’t seem to get my fists to unclench.

  “Nice to be among proper trees, again.” I nodded at the thick rows of pine and larch that crowded the path.

  Sthis grunted.

  “Suppose it’ll take a while before the chalk taste is out of my mouth.” I stuck out my tongue. “Can’t see how those Unsermen stand the stuff. Why, even their beer tastes like—”

  She gave an irritated sigh. “All right, out with it.”

  “What?”

  “How long have we worked together, Deff?” she asked.

  I gave that a good think. “Twenty years or thereabouts, more if you count the Bad Dozen.”

  “Long enough to know when you’re chewing cud. I can’t have my best man ruminating. It makes you slow.” She fixed me with a sharp stare. “So, out with it.”

  I looked away, more than a little chagrined at being so transparent. Before the Leveling, I’d been an actor—not a good one, but Sthis’s words still rankled.

  Somewhere, out in the pines, a treecat yowled. There was a brief scuffle—claws on bark, whipping branches, a pained screech, then silence.

  “Remember Towerbane?”

  “How could I forget?” She slapped her leg. “I still have stone in my thigh from when she knocked that battlement out from under us.”

  I glanced back at Bao’s bow, easily a dozen feet unstrung, its central grip as thick as my forearm. “Towerbane’s hammer, how much do you think the damn thing weighed?”

  “Two tons if it was an ounce,” she replied.

  “Exactly.” I nodded at the longbow. “Now, look. Half those prancing idiots in the city guard could probably string that bow.”

  She frowned. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

  I went quiet for a bit after that. There was no need to elaborate. She’d been through the Bad Dozen same as me, seen the Weeper cast down kings and queens then raise herself up in their place. Although she never spoke of it, I knew Sthis had lost friends and family during the war. Everyone had. We’d both stood for the Levelers, added our bodies to the human waves that eventually dragged the Weeper’s sword saints down into the bloody muck. The Synod was far from perfect, but at least no one was kicking down mountains anymore.

  “It’s just...” I swallowed, looking around as if the words I was searching for might tumble from the trees. “Bao was doing good, truly helping people.”

  Sthis snorted. “That’s how it always starts—defending the weak, helping the poor. Soon he’d’ve been stealing from the tax caravans, offing local officials, leading a rebellion.”

  “But what if this time was different?”

  “That’s what they always say. The Weeper, Goshawk, Towerbane, they all promised this time it would be different. And was it?”

  I stared at my hands. Bao’s blood had smoothed away a lifetime of scars and calluses, my skin soft as a career politician’s. “No.”

  “Martyrs are more useful than heroes,” Sthis said quietly.

  I gave her a look, but she was squinting at the road ahead. The wagon path curved around a stand of pine to link up with the old Tyrant’s Highway. Following her gaze, I could see a long line of folk crowding the ancient stone thoroughfare.

  “Refugees?” I asked.

  “This far from the Adjenci border?” She scowled and spat.

  “Maybe it’s Goshawk reborn.” Neren scrambled up to peer past us. “Or the Weeper back from climbing the Vault of Heaven.”

  “You been tumbling bards again, girl? The captain and I were there when Goshawk burned, and the Weeper ain’t never coming back.” Although I laughed, I cast a nervous eye skyward, relieved to see unbroken blue, nary a crack in sight.

  Neren gave me a chilly glare but bit back her response as Sthis hailed the nearest group of travelers.

  “Where you been? It’s on every broadsheet!” a round-faced woman in a faded lavender frock and sunhat shouted back. “The censors captured Suntalon. They’re marching the savage to Heko for a proper Triumph.”

  Sthis gave an irritated hiss. “There goes our chance of reaching the capital tonight.”

  I felt my shoulders loosen. “The war must be going well, after all.”

  “A Triumph? Of all the cursed luck.” Neren slumped back against the barrels. “The Synod will be up to their elbows in parts after they carve up Suntalon. We’re bound for a buyer’s market.”

  It started as a distant cheer, stilling mutters as people in the crowd jostled and craned their necks. Like an approaching wave, the sound grew until it washed over us, surrounded us.

  Sthis pulled the cart into the grass a dozen paces off the highway as the crowd parted, a wedge of soldiers in the white and gold of the Synod Guard shoving aside any too slow or stupid to make way.

  A phalanx of censors came next. A far cry from our ragged motley, they were mounted on white chargers, their tabards bright with the spoked wheel of the Levelers—different kingdoms, different peoples, all circumscribed by law, none above another. It was one of many fictions spread by the Synod. One had only to set foot in the slums of Heko and gaze up at the manses studding the Celedine heights to see the lie.

  The censors’ oiled hair and amber skin gleamed in the afternoon sun. Armored in saints’ steel and bearing martyrbone lances, they looked half-heroes themselves. They waved at the crowd, acknowledging the accolades with tight-lipped smiles—far less enthusiastic than I would’ve expected from knights who had captured such a big prize.

  The cause for their chagrin became evident as Suntalon rounded the corner. Easily twenty feet of lantern-jawed majesty, she stood in the martyrbone cage like a god come to earth. They had taken her armor and golden scythe, and clothed her in rough sackcloth, her hair plastered with mud and blood. And yet, a hush fell over the onlookers as the Adjenci hero rattled by. Some of the peasants had brought stones and rotten fruit to throw, but not a single one raised their hand.

  I felt my breath catch, my palms suddenly sweaty. It had been
years, decades since I’d been in the presence of a proper hero. A few of the crowd fell to their knees. Somewhere, a child screamed, calling out as it struggled to reach her. Even I felt a little tingle in my chest as Suntalon’s gaze swept over us, her dark eyes like a rising tide. A feeling of wrongness filled me, a surety that somehow we had failed her.

  No one had yet found a way to manufacture the particular admixture of will, deed, and acclaim that created a hero. Gods only knew, the Synod had tried. But no one could deny the effect they had on us.

  Neren let out a low whistle. “What a payday that would be.”

  “Don’t care what Zemmel says, it’d take more than a pretty face and a mess of hounds to bring down Suntalon.” My words came sharper than I’d intended.

  A slow smile lit Neren’s face, her eyes widening in mock surprise. “Captain, I think the old man is in love.”

  “Enough, both of you.” Sthis flicked the reins and the cart lurched into jarring motion. “We’ll take the back roads and reach Heko before the city goes mad.”

  Neren leaned back against the barrels, still grinning but thankfully silent. When I met her gaze she made a kissing motion, pressing a hand to her mouth to stifle laughter.

  I swallowed the urge to throttle her. Neren was a dockside waif with a flair for the dramatic. She’d never seen a real hero; never trembled in pants-shitting terror as Goshawk rained fire on the Celedine heights; never fled, squealing like a child, as Towerbane scattered her regiment like burning leaves; never stood, paralyzed with grief, as the Weeper scaled the Vault of Heaven.

  So I sat, hands clenched in my lap, as we clattered toward Heko, reminding myself again and again that things were better this way.

  “Look at him, now.” Neren nudged me, smiling at the rest of the table. “Not a day over forty. Why, I bet he could even manage a girl he didn’t have to pay for.”

  The other glory hounds laughed, and I laughed with them. Neren wasn’t half-bad when she’d had a few drinks, or maybe it was when I’d had a few. We’d been in the riverside tavern since midday, spending what little coin Captain Sthis had been able to wring from the clutching talons of those buyers willing to risk the ban on the hero trade.