Beneath Ceaseless Skies #223, Page 2

  Jared watched the pulsing water and felt furtive, demon-like. He was meant to ride into battle with the sun on his face. But the rain still fell.

  Kat smiled at him, her face ghostly, her eyes bright. What had Baerd said, that she had an air of sadness to her? She was thin and drawn. But the smile was pleasant. Genuine.

  “You’re a good man, Jared,” she said. “But my Ben, he was the best.”

  Jared didn’t doubt it.

  * * *

  When they got back to camp, the others were waking.

  Mariana sat up, rubbing her face. “I’ve had an awful dream.”

  “It’s no dream, lady. We must leave.” Jared shook Baerd’s shoulder. “Get up. We’ve been betrayed.”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Baerd reached for his dagger.

  Jared gathered up his blanket. “We’re leaving now.”

  “Where’s Aldis?”

  “I said we’ve been betrayed.”

  “By the Gods,” Mariana said. “Not Aldis.”

  Kat had efficiently gathered the few of their supplies into a pack. She touched Mariana’s arm, urging her to stand.

  “Rain is death, my lady.” Her gaze was fierce. Mad, even. The mask had returned.

  “We’ll go up the coast a mile,” Baerd said. “The fisher folk will sell us passage before dawn.”

  Jared nodded. “Good. We should hurry.”

  Kat said, “I know a cheerful song about fisher folk. You still want to hear a cheerful song?”

  Baerd said patiently, “Perhaps it’s best if you stay quiet just now, Kat.”

  Jared caught her gaze then, or she caught his. Hers was bold, laughing.

  A little mad, to survive in such a world.

  Copyright © 2017 Carrie Vaughn

  Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

  Carrie Vaughn is the bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series, the final installment of which is Kitty Saves the World. Her most recent novel is the YA-flavored space adventure Martians Abroad. She has also written several other fantasy and young adult novels. Her short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, from Lightspeed to Tor.com and George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series. She lives in Colorado with a fluffy attack dog. Learn more at carrievaughn.com.

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  WHEN WE GO

  by Evan Dicken

  The smile bled from Raven’s lips as I drove the World Serpent’s Fang into her side. Slate gray veins spread from the wound, creeping up her chest to flow like rainwater along creases in the cracked hardpan of her face. I could feel Raven’s breath on my cheek, sharp as burning prairie sage. Wind from thousands of beating wings made a wild tangle of our hair, the spirits of the underworld enfolding us in a spinning cloud of night-dark feathers. I wondered dully if my children were among them; the lost and forsaken had always been Raven’s domain.

  I held her gaze. There might be closure amidst the swirling flint-eyed faces of the dead, but if I glanced away, even for a moment, she would be as wind in my hands. Dreamgrief, Bone Rattle, Mother of Sighs—Raven had always been the thinnest of gods, a thing of smoke and tears. Besides, it didn’t matter if my children were dead or slaves to the Bronze Faces. I was no mother to them. I couldn’t even remember their names.

  Raven sagged in my grip and I snaked an arm behind her to hold her close, just as I had held Hashuf after the Bronze Face priests cut his burned and broken body from the wheel. Strange, how I could remember that moment but not the feel of Hashuf’s skin on mine, the curve of his jaw in my cupped hands, or if he ever smiled.

  Clouds stole over Raven’s glossy black eyes, but there was still time. The Fang killed slow, as patient as age.

  “Why did you forsake us?” The question hissed like smoke through my gritted teeth. I had put it to all the gods before the end: Red Claw, Grandmother Turtle, even the Green Corn Woman, their answers hollow as their devotion.

  “Why not?” Raven had no teeth, no lips, no tongue. Her mouth yawned deep as the night sky, empty as a chasm, ready to swallow me as she had the smoke from our last desperate offerings. I remembered the heat of the pyre, hot enough to snatch the tears from my eyes as I fed my grandmother’s tortoiseshell comb to the roaring blaze. The gods had taken it and so much more, but the sky had not darkened with fury and no pestilence came to strike down the invaders.

  “You were gods,” I said, voice rising with the wind.

  “Your name, not ours.”

  “You were our gods!”

  “Your choice, not ours.” She spoke as if from deep inside the earth, an echo with no maker.

  “Where is Coyote?” I asked.

  “At the end, where else?” Streamers of greasy black smoke leaked from her cloak to vanish in the wind, her body like dry grass in my arms. I shook her, but she, the god of the dead, was dead herself and my hands empty but for her cloak of feathers.

  And then there was one.

  Coyote had always been the closest to us, weakest of the gods or perhaps the strongest mortal. That old trickster, he carried no blade, had no home, with his arms forever open, a grin on his changing face and a secret in his eyes. It was said he dwelt among mortals because he loved us, or because he hated us—it depended on the tale, and there were many. His betrayal had cut the deepest. Not because he could’ve stopped the Bronze Faces, but because he was too much of a coward to even watch us go.

  Distant sunlight threaded the gloom, boiling away the underworld like morning mist. Galleries of bone and whip-tight sinew fell away to reveal rough limestone, the polished obsidian floor tiles crumbling to fine black sand beneath my feet. In the time it took my heart to stop racing, the underworld had become little more than a large, unremarkable cavern.

  I wrapped Raven’s cloak about my shoulders, the feathers cool against my skin in the warmth of the cave. It wasn’t that I needed or even wanted the thing, but it seemed a shame to leave it, and there was precedent, of a sort. It had felt only right to take a comb from Grandmother Turtle to replace the one she’d stolen from me. I’d told myself I had to take the Green Corn Woman’s satchel to keep it from the Bronze Faces. It was the same with Raven’s cloak. The gods had done my people little good. I would see they did little harm.

  The dead slipped away, taking the wind of their breath to wherever spirits go when nothing remains to watch over them. For a moment, I felt small hands in mine. When I looked down there was only the Fang—a gift from the Serpent, not enough to devour the world but perhaps enough to make it regret.

  The dull thunder of hooves greeted me as I ducked from the cave. I blinked through the unaccustomed brightness to see a party of Bronze Face riders crest a nearby rise. They wore battle masks wrought to resemble lions, spiders, hawks, and all manner of fearsome animals. Light from the setting sun glinted from their helms and lacquered breastplates, reminding me of the water beetles my children used to catch in the shallows north of the longhouse. I remembered their cupped hands overflowing with tiny things; their laughter, quick and breathless from the sprint up from the pond; the smell of hot oil as Hashuf fried the beetles with black beans and gingerroot. The memory was old leather worn thin from long use. I held it tight, searching for names, smiles, anything, but the faces of my family were salt in the rain.

  An arrow hissed past my cheek.

  The riders bore down on me, circling with shouts and yips, more arrows leaping from their long, lopsided horse bows. Barbed shafts skittered between my ribs, flicked darkness across my eyes, slipped coolly into the hollow of my throat, but they might as well have been harsh words for all the mark they left upon my flesh. I wore Death’s mantle—the only thing that could end me now was clutched in my sweaty palm.

  They broke off, confusion evident in their bearing if not their masked faces. Three swapped their bows for spears and rode at me, dirt flying. Irritated, I killed them quickly, leaping up to draw the Fang across their throats as they galloped past. There was no anger in my heart, even after all the Br
onze Faces had done. They’d made no promises, broken no oaths, never lied about what they were.

  One of them rode forward, her weapons slung, one hand at her side, palm parallel to the ground. Her mask was featureless, but her breastplate bore the round spoked symbol of the Bronze Faces’ god-who-was-not-a-god.

  She said something in their halting, hard-edged tongue, then gestured at the cave.

  I shook my head and thrust my chin back the way they had come.

  She nodded and turned away.

  I took one of the riderless horses’ bridles and swung into the saddle. A few of the Bronze Faces shouted at this, but the priest woman cut them off with a flick of her fingers.

  No arrows followed me into the sunset. When I reached the top of the hill, the riders were gone, a serpent of trampled grass coiling back upon itself.

  “Thank you.”

  I hadn’t heard the old man approach. He was short and crook-backed, his grey-black beard heavy with ancestor charms. He had the look of a hunter long past his prime, hands rough with old calluses, face screwed into a perpetual squint but his notched ears and arms crisscrossed with scars spoke of frequent bloodlettings.

  “You drove off the Bronze Faces.” When he smiled, I could see his teeth had been filed with speaking runes. A shaman, then.

  “They’ll be back.”

  “Another day is another day.” He winked up at me. “Did Raven send you?”

  “I came for Raven.”

  “Ah, I see.” He glanced at the Fang. “You’re her, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “I knew you’d come.” A smile ghosted across his cracked lips.

  I nudged the horse forward, rising in the saddle as I prepared to ride him down. There were many among my people who still thought the gods would save them, even believed the Bronze Faces were punishment for our lack of faith. I had no time to waste on an old shaman’s tricks and wood lore, not when the end was so near. Coyote would not stalk me through the ancient coastal forests, snarling fiery mist into the sky; he would not seek to turn me aside with visions of departed loves or snare me with unsolvable riddles. No, ever the trickster, he would hide as he always did, hoping to lose himself among mortals and other little things.

  “No need for that.” The old man made shields of his raised hands. “Won’t find any trouble here, not from me, not from any who saw the Scaffold fall. What manner of gods won’t even save their own temple?”

  I couldn’t sheathe the Fang, so I let it drop to my side, low but threatening.

  “My name is Ardrun,” he said. “Yours?”

  I couldn’t remember. So I just looked away.

  Ardrun watched me for a moment, then shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  He nodded at thin coils of smoke rising from the valley beyond. “Come to camp. You’ve earned a rest and a meal, might as well collect before the Bronze Faces kill us all.”

  His offer meant little. I’d felt neither hunger nor exhaustion since the Field of Husks, the emptiness inside me lost against the vast hollow expanse of a thousand worlds fallen to rot amid the roots of the World Tree. I’d left more than my blood upon that long crawl down to the Serpent’s lair, the jagged tangle of obsidian roots carving away whole parts of me. And yet, something tightened in my chest as I surveyed the valley. The smoke on the air, the faint calls of herders, the distant glimmer of fires—I needed no rest, I needn’t even stop, but it would be nice to ride toward the camp for a while, to pretend I was coming home.

  It might be my last chance before the Bronze Faces killed us all.

  * * *

  There were thousands of refugees huddled in the shadow of a long barrow, one of the many overgrown heaps of stone and earth piled over the bones of those who had called the plains home before my people had come. Legends said the Mound Folk had been dead and gone long before we came, but I’d seen their shades while I hunted Raven through the underworld—tall, with the pale white eyes of corpses, their wings not feathered but thin and dusty like moths’. They had not spoken, had not bade me carry messages to their kin; they had only stared, heads thrown back and lips pursed like they were throat singing. No sound had broken the breathless silence, but the Mound Folk’s emptiness echoed within me. In that moment, I knew we had done to them what the Bronze Faces were doing to us. I wondered if the Mound Folk had prayed for deliverance when we swept across the plains.

  I wondered if they’d deserved it.

  Ardrun ran ahead, calling to the refugees while my horse took its time picking through the carpet of tangled snakebrush.

  The people watched me come. I could feel the hollowness in their hearts, in their stomachs. What I’d mistaken for cook fires were actually the remains of pyres, burnt down to sullen ashes. A half-made kraal surrounded the camp, the fence of woven sticks rising to waist height before petering out as if the builders had simply lost interest. Those few goats that remained inside were tottering, raw-boned things, barely good for meat let alone milk.

  A knot of warriors slouched out to meet me, pushing past Ardrun. Most were old, the ink of their tattoos as faded as their glories. They carried bows and long axes, but I could tell from the shuffle of their feet, the gentle rounding of their shoulders, that they weren’t about to use them.

  For the first time since I stepped from Raven’s cave, I wondered how long I’d been down there. The underworld was slippery, days creeping by. I looked again at the older warriors and recognized some ancestor lines among the whorls and hachures on their faces, but most of their tattoos were foreign as Bronze Face sigils. Here and there, I saw fresh marks still glistening with blood. Those who wore them were little more than children, their faces smooth and unlined yet already steeped in bitterness.

  It was one of these who stepped forward to glare up at me. She was tall and long-limbed, her hair woven with dark feathers and her hands blackened with soot. Although most warriors prayed to Red Claw, a few sacrificed to Raven.

  “Who are you?” She held her axe tight, gaze flicking to the Bronze Face markings on my horse.

  I couldn’t remember, so I just stared back.

  “It’s her, Fehu.” Ardrun tried to slip through the tightly packed group, then gave up and walked around them.

  “Now, she returns.” Fehu’s lips made a tight line as she scowled at my satchel, my comb, my cloak. “Come to end us, too, murderer?”

  That was new.

  The older warriors edged back, which wasn’t unexpected. They would’ve been children when I set out for the Tree, just coming into their prime when my battle with Red Claw set the great pines aflame. I knew there were tales, had even heard a few as I crept up on a camp, listening from beyond the firelight, close enough to imagine I was one of them, tired and frightened rather than empty and sharp. People love to tell stories, to try and make sense of it all. The worse it got, the more they needed to believe.

  “Why did you do it?” Fehu asked.

  I looked at my hand, knuckles whitening on the Fang. I’d only meant to threaten Grandmother Turtle, to force her to honor her promises.

  Why have you forsaken us?

  Grandmother had just smiled that serene, self-righteous smile. “Can the sun forsake the sky? Seasons change, daughter. Do you blame the winter for being cold?”

  We had spoken for days, perhaps longer, Grandmother Turtle twisting my questions back upon themselves until my thoughts were burr-tangled hair. It wasn’t until I saw the Scaffold burn that I’d finally grown tired of her riddles. I could still picture blood blossoming like red spider-lilies from the thin slash in her throat. It seemed such a tiny thing, too small to kill a god, but she had fallen, smiling even as the grayness crept over her. I hadn’t known what would happen, hadn’t trusted the World Serpent, hadn’t even believed I could do it.

  “Answer me!” Fehu’s shout snapped my head up like a hurled stone.

  “They abandoned us.”

  “Why should the gods stay? You were killing them!”

  I knew Fehu was g
oing to charge before she knew it herself—the slight shift in her stance, the quick inhalation as the rage boiled up.

  It was like looking into a mirror.

  The hunt had made me fast as a spring flood. I could’ve slapped the axe from Fehu’s hands and set her on her back before she even took a step. There didn’t seem much of a point, though—I wasn’t after her. So I let her come, dark and fierce, howling as she brought her axe down in a tight arc. It slipped through the joint of my hip, flesh and bone parting like clouds around the blade. She couldn’t hurt me. Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered the horse.

  It shuddered beneath me, the bright spray of blood from its nostrils speckling the faces of the front rank of warriors. Fehu reeled back, dripping axe held tight, her expression one of wide-eyed surprise.

  The horse kicked out, then pitched to the side, its hooves churning the dry earth. One quick blink and I was kneeling beside it, not exactly sure how I’d dismounted. The wound was deep, deadly but slow. The Fang wouldn’t be any quicker, so I stepped to Fehu with a speed that set her stumbling over her heels. I made sure to keep my knife hand behind, fist pressed tight into the small of my back. Fehu was a fool, but I didn’t want to end her.

  Even one-handed, taking her axe was easy as pulling grass. Two quick steps and I was looking down at the horse. I spared it a grateful nod before bringing the blade down—it hadn’t carried me far, but it had carried me. Just one more regret in a long, shameful litany.

  Fehu watched me for a moment, empty hands flexing as if to strangle the air. With a frustrated grunt she turned and pushed her way back through the crowd. A few of the younger warriors followed her; none of the old ones did.

  I tossed her axe away then sat, free hand on the horse’s cooling cheek. It was a while before anyone spoke.

  “Should’ve warned you about her.” Ardrun’s craggy shadow fell over me. “Most people take silence for what it is; others, well, some think it means they need to shout all the louder.”