EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (165 page)

“You are confident,” the princess hissed. She leaned so close to Tilla their faces almost touched. “You are a haughty one, aren’t you? Nothing but a ropemaker. Nothing but a pathetic little worm. And you think you can be one of my soldiers.”

Tilla froze, daring not speak; if her neck bobbed, the blade would slice it. She only stared back, not averting her eyes from Shari’s fiery gaze.

There is madness in those brown eyes,
Tilla thought.
There is cruelty. But there is cunning too; there is method to this madness. I must play her game to live.

She chanced a whisper, allowing the blade to scrape her skin.

“If you teach me, my princess, I will fight for you, and I will kill for you, and I will grow stronger. I am not afraid. I am not weak like the other girls. I will fight for the red spiral until my last drop of blood.”

And I will live,
she thought.
I will spit upon the red spiral in my dreams every night, but in the days, I must survive. The weak will die. I will be strong, and I will live to return to Rune.

Shari pulled back her dagger, and Tilla took a quick, hissing breath.

“You are an interesting little worm,” Shari said. She narrowed her eyes and scrutinized Tilla, as if trying to peer through curtained windows. “You are either very brave or very cunning. Which one will remain to be seen.” She tapped her dagger against her hip. “I will keep an eye on you, Tilla the ropemaker. I will watch you like a poor drunkard watches a tavern’s last mug of ale. If you stray one inch... if you make one mistake...” Shari sliced the air with her dagger. “...your head will rot with the other one.”

With that, Shari slammed her dagger back into its sheath, turned to the crowd, and shouted.

“All right, you miserable lot! Beras will lead you out. We’re heading north to make you soldiers. You will crush the Resistance, or you will die in their fire!”

With that, Shari leaped off the balcony, shifted into a blue dragon, and flew so low over the square the youths had to duck. With a grunt like a beast in heat, the dragon disappeared over the city roofs.

Beras shifted too. The gruff, silent man became the bronze dragon, grabbed Tilla in his claws, and carried her back to the square. He tossed her down among her comrades. Tilla fell again, banging her hip so hard she gasped and saw stars. She forced herself to her feet among hundreds of other recruits.

Around the square, the soldiers drew their punishers; the tips crackled with lightning. They began herding the crowd forward, shouting and cursing.

“Move it, scum!” one soldier shouted. “Move!”

“Go on, maggot!” another said. “Damn you, move, or I’ll make you move.”

They thrust their punishers. Bolts crackled, youths yowled, and smoke rose from seared flesh. The soldiers laughed and kept goading the crowd forward, cruel dogs herding sheep. Soon all six hundred youths were moving across the square, then following Beras down Cadport’s main street. The youths jostled against one another, looking over their shoulders with darting eyes.

Tilla moved among them, limping and wincing with the pain. Her hip and knees throbbed; bruises would cover them tomorrow. As the recruits flowed into the street, Tilla kept looking over her shoulder, trying to see Rune among the crowd of onlookers. She saw parents, grandparents, and siblings, but they were all strangers. Where was Rune? She wanted to give him one last look, to whisper to him, to call out one last goodbye, maybe even reach out and touch his fingertips. But she could not see him, and the faces of the crowd swam around her.

With tears and whispers and the memory of blood, six hundred of Cadport’s children, eighteen and old enough to die, swept out of their city walls... and into a wilderness of steel, snow, and fire.

RUNE

F
OR
A
LONG
TIME
, R
UNE
stood in the empty square, staring at the blood on the cobblestones.

The recruits were gone, Tilla among them, and Rune’s heart ached at their loss. The crowd of families and onlookers dispersed slowly, many among them teary, leaving the city square empty. Yet Rune remained standing here, staring at the blood, unable to calm his thrashing heart.

They cut off her head,
he thought.
Stars, they cut off her head right here, and we stood in the square and did nothing, and they almost killed Tilla too, and we only stared like sheep frozen before the wolves.

He clenched his fists. The blood seeped between the cobblestones and ran toward his boots. A priest had lifted Pery’s head, chanted a prayer, and placed it into a bag for burial. But Rune could still imagine it—its mouth open in a silent scream, its eyes still wide with fear, blood dripping from its neck.

“I’m sorry, Pery,” he whispered. “We should have helped you. We should have done something.”

Thousands of people had watched the execution, and each had magic to shift into a dragon, to thrust claws, to roar fire. Only a hundred guards had surrounded the square.

We should have shifted!
Rune thought.
We could have saved her! We could have slain the soldiers, and...

He sighed.

And thousands more soldiers would have streamed here from the capital,
he thought.
They would have burned this city to the ground and slaughtered us all.

He turned and began walking home.

He normally took the wide main road, but today, Rune walked on narrow side streets, seeking solitude. His boots thumped against the cobblestones. Houses and shops rose at his sides, built of wattle and daub; oaken beams formed rough frames, and white clay filled the space between the timbers. Rot darkened these wooden frameworks, and holes dotted many roofs; since the port had closed a few years ago, few could afford to maintain their homes. Only Cadport’s largest buildings—like the courthouse, the fort on the hill, and the prison—were built of brick. The Cadigus family now ruled those.

It wasn’t always like this,
Rune thought. He watched a thin little girl sit outside her home, hugging an equally thin dog.
When I was a child, we’d run playing down these streets, laughing and banging wooden swords together.

It had been years since he’d heard children laughing; children today did not play, but scavenged and begged for food.

Rune fished through his pocket, found a copper coin, and tossed it toward the skinny girl. Her eyes lit up. She caught the coin and ran off.

“Buy something to eat!” Rune called after her, but she vanished around a corner, and he did not know if she heard.

As he kept walking, again rage filled Rune. He remembered standing at the docks with Tilla years ago; they’d been younger than that thin girl. They’d watch the ships from foreign lands approach, bearing sacks of grain, exotic fruits, strong dry wine, and many other treasures. The ships would leave days later, laden with Requiem’s crafts: ropes Tilla’s father wove, shoes Pery’s family cobbled, ale Rune’s father brewed, and many other goods.

Nobody in Cadport was hungry then,
Rune thought. It wasn’t even called Cadport in those years, of course; it had been Lynport, the jewel of the south.

But then... then the war broke out, the Regime’s great war to purify the world of “lesser nations”. Then the Cadigus family burned those distant lands. Then those ships sank, and the port closed, and Cadport began to rot.

“And now this,” Rune whispered. “Silence and hunger and blood upon stone.”

And Tilla torn away from me.

He kept walking until he reached the boardwalk along the sea. He walked upon the cobblestones, watching the gray waves beat the sand below. A breakwater thrust into the water like a stone dragon, and upon it rose the old lighthouse; it hadn’t shone in years. Docks still spread out into the water, but their wood was rotted, and many planks had fallen and floated away. Rune could barely remember the ships that would dock here; the only sign of life now was a stray, thin cat who wandered the beach, seeking dead fish.

Rune kept walking. To his other side, shops lined the boardwalk, but their wood too decayed. Most doors were boarded shut. Years ago, these shops had sold ale, wine, meat pies, and even women for lonely sailors. When the ships stopped sailing here, the shops fell to ruin; one now housed a scrawny orphan girl named Erry, a waif Rune sometimes brought food to, and the others housed rats.

Only the Old Wheel Tavern remained in business, Rune’s home. When Rune reached it, he stood outside for a moment and stared. The cold wind whipped his cloak and ruffled his hair.

“Home,” he whispered.

The tavern stood three stories tall, built of wattle and daub. Tiles were missing from its roof, and mold had invaded its timbers. Only one of the three chimneys pumped smoke.

By summer, I’ll be eighteen too,
Rune thought.
And I’ll be carted off with hundreds of youths. Who will help Father then?

He sighed. He knew the answer. Wil Brewer was growing older, and he depended on his son’s help. Without Rune, the tavern would become another ghost hall like the dozens along this boardwalk.

A gull circled above, cawing a laugh as if the bird could read Rune’s mind and was mocking him. Rune smoothed his cloak, opened the tavern’s door, and stepped inside.

The shadowy common room greeted him. Scratches covered the hardwood floor like cobwebs. Odds and ends that Rune’s father collected bedecked the walls: an old tapestry showing dragons aflight in a starry night, antlers on a plaque, a canvas map of the city, and two fake swords—forged from cheap tin—crossed upon a shield. At the back of the room stood the bar, its surface waxed a thousand times. Mugs hung above it from pegs, and behind the bar, casks of ale and wine stood upon shelves. Ten tables filled the room; all were empty today.

Hands in his pockets, Rune stared up at the ceiling. A wagon wheel hung there, topped with candles, forming a makeshift chandelier. It gave the Old Wheel its name. When Rune had been a babe, the tavern was called
Lyana’s
, named after the legendary Queen of Requiem who had fought a battle at Ralora Cliffs outside the city. But of course, Lyana had been an Aeternum, a queen of the old dynasty. Today all memories of that dynasty were forbidden. And so the tavern’s name had changed. And so everything had changed.

“Father!” Rune called out. “Father, are you home?”

A shadow scuttled. Paws scratched across the floor. A large black dog came lolloping from the kitchen, leaped onto Rune, and began to lick his face.

“Hello, Scraggles,” Rune said and patted the mutt. “Are you alone here? Guarding the place?”

Scraggles panted, a wide smile across his face. Some folk, Rune knew, claimed that dogs couldn’t smile, but they had never met Scraggles. He was an old hound now but still acted like a pup, happy and careless. His tail wagged furiously, dusting the floor, and Rune felt a little better.

“At least I still have you, Scrags,” he said, but then a lump filled his throat. In summer, when Rune himself was drafted, he would be torn away from his dog too. Scraggles was getting on in years; when Rune returned from his service, the dog would be gone.

Rune blinked his stinging eyes. The tavern seemed too silent, too cold, even with Scraggles jumping against him. Tilla used to visit here most days. They would play dice or mancala, a southern board game a ship had once brought from the desert. They would sweep and polish the tavern while talking about their lives. Sometimes they would just sit by the fireplace, sip ale, and say nothing, but feel warm and safe and close.

Five years,
Rune thought.
Five years in the Legions.

She had been gone for a couple hours, and already Rune wanted to pound the walls, fly toward the capital, slay the emperor, and bring Tilla home.

“Father!” he called out again. He wanted to see the man, the only other soul he now had, aside from his dear dog. Where was the old brewer?

Leaving Scraggles in the common room, Rune trudged upstairs. The second floor of the Old Wheel held the guest rooms for merchants and travelers; those rooms were now empty. He kept climbing to the third floor where his own chambers lay.

He entered his room, and his breath died.

Upon his bed sat the most beautiful woman Rune had ever seen.

He froze and stared.

The beautiful woman stood up. Her clothes were torn and bloody, and she bore a bow and sword.

“Rune,” she said, “we must run. They are going to kill you. They are coming.”

Rune blinked, looked over his shoulder, then back at her.

“Excuse me,” he said, “do I...?”

She stepped toward him, grabbed his arm, and narrowed her eyes.

“You don’t know me, Rune Brewer,” she said. “But I know you very well. And you must trust me today. We leave—now. Or we’re both dead.” She began tugging him toward the door. “Come.”

He stood frozen, squinting at her. She was not from Cadport, that was certain; she spoke with the northern accent of the capital, a great metropolis many leagues away. And surely, Rune would have noticed a young Cadport woman so, well... so perfect.

Rune had seen beautiful women before. As a hot-blooded young man, seeking beautiful women was among his main pursuits. With her pale skin, noble features, and midnight hair, Tilla was beautiful; Rune had always thought so. And he had noticed Mae Baker too, a girl up the road with a strawberry braid, pink cheeks, and shy eyes. Even Erry the waif, who lived sandy and scrawny on the docks, had big brown eyes that Rune liked looking into.