The Breath That Breaks the Stone, page 28
It was a very small boat, on a very rough sea.
The boat was a poor, rickety thing, barely holding together as it was tossed about. She could feel the searching waves pounding at the underside of the boat, like a mob trying to barge through a gate.
She looked out to the horizon, but there was only endless, storm-tossed sea. No land to make for. No safe harbor.
The boat had holes in it. So many holes. And cracks between the planks, poorly sealed with pitch and beeswax. She could feel the boat sinking beneath her, the sea threatening to swallow her whole. Except that it wasn’t water leaking in through those holes and cracks.
There were fingers. Hundreds of fingers. They were black, but not black like Kayna’s Haedan skin—black like charred flesh. They grasped and clawed, pulling at the boat from underneath, causing the wood to creak and tremble.
The wind howled, and in it were the howls of men in agony.
She tried to kick at the fingers, but they seized her, iron-strong, and toppled her. She fell, almost going overboard, and looked over the side at the churning sea beneath.
There was no sea.
She was atop a mound of corpses. They were dead, and yet…not dead. Their hands grasped the side of the boat, and their fingers stuck in through the cracks, ravenous to capsize her, or pull her down, or rip the boat apart. Charred faces gaped in uncomprehending horror as they writhed around each other, and their screams were distant and terrible, and in their eyes was starvation and injustice. They knew only fear and want.
The boat’s planks began to splinter.
The clawing fingers tore bigger and bigger holes in the boat.
Kayna felt their fear becoming her fear. Threatening to swallow her whole.
No, she said, resisting their terrible call. On the other side of fear is ecstasy.
But then she thought something entirely different—something that just seemed to alight upon her mind like a single sparrow in the midst of a desert. She did not know where the thought came from, but it was right.
On the other side of fear is…control.
Then Kayna did what she’d done every time she’d ever taken gest: She centered herself, and she breathed, and she let the fear be what it was, and she did not shy away from it, nor did she invite it into herself. She acknowledged it. And then let it go.
The sea did not calm. It continued to churn. Her leaky little craft was coming apart at the seams, while blackened arms threw themselves over the sides and reached for her—so many hands reaching for her, fearing, and wanting, though they had no comprehension of what they feared, or what they wanted.
Kayna was calm, but they were not.
Much like her horse.
Easy now, she said to the sea of blackened corpses that wanted her. Steady on.
She thought of only gentle, non-threatening things, and she pushed those thoughts into them.
And on the other side of fear, was control.
“Oi!” the deck sergeant bellowed at the three men that should’ve been firing the damned dracanmaega into the city. He waved his hands at them, fuming as he raced over. “The fuck are you doing? Fire the sootydamned—”
One of the men turned and locked eyes with the deck sergeant.
Something in that man’s gaze was not right. But the deck sergeant never had time to figure it out, because the man plunged a dirk under his chin, up through the roof of his mouth, and into his brain.
Further downriver, where the two landing craft had drifted, all the men in the raiding parties turned from staring at the hill. They moved in unison, as though it were all a choregraphed dance. Men took up the oars and began to row for the shore, where several other landing craft were already spilling men.
Those that weren’t rowing on those two landing craft gripped steels and bows, their eyes locked not on the city which they’d come to plunder, but on their comrades climbing the banks of the river.
One of the bowmen stood at the prow of the landing craft as it hurried against the current, moving surprisingly fast with the determined strokes of the single-minded oarsmen. The bowman nocked an arrow and waited until he was within a hundred strides of another landing party.
He lifted the bow. Sighted along the shaft of his arrow. Then let fly.
The arrow streaked through the air and embedded itself in the back of a privateer, who yelped, clawed at his back, then fell, kicking and gibbering.
The bowman took out five more privateers before any in the landing parties realized what was happening. Even then, they were confused. Those that stood too long in one spot received arrows to the face. And then the whole bank of the river turned into a bloody, chaotic melee.
On the decks of the ships, handfuls of men who’d fallen for no apparent reason, and then got up again with all the mindfulness of sleepwalkers, turned on their fellows.
On the near bank of the river, the thirty Damned which Master Tior had sucked the souls out of, stooped to grab up their stonethrowers. But they did not turn on their fellow Damned. Instead, they got down into firing positions, and began sending fusillades of withering fire at the privateer vessels.
The First of the Damned saw one of her reanimated comrades shooting his stonethrower just a few strides from her. This one they called Fast Fire, and the reason why became apparent as soon as he opened up on the privateers.
And yet the First did not know him. The unique flavor of his mind had been suddenly rendered unrecognizable to her.
She pointed her stonethrower at his head. Fast Fire…What happened to you?
Fast Fire paused in his relentless shooting. Swiveled his head to look at her.
It is me, Fast Fire said, in a voice that was not his own. It is…us.
Then he simply went back to firing.
The First hesitated, sensing that there were many others of her Damned whose minds were no longer theirs. But there was still a fight going on. Still a city to protect. So she shoved away her questions, and her growing sense of horror, and started firing shotstones at the privateers.
On the hill, Kayna blinked, then sat up.
In her mind, she was still in that failing boat, perched atop a sea of blackened limbs. But she did not fight their grasping hands and fingers anymore. She soothed them. She let them touch her, let them hold onto her. And she held them back. Hands linking. Fingers interlacing.
Who she’d been was no longer who she was. That’d been shattered into a hundred pieces, mixed up and recombined with the souls of others, and then scattered like seed in a hayfield. All those seeds found fertile ground in the empty vessels that both she and Master Tior had left behind.
And yet, while Kayna was no longer fully herself, a part of her existed in each of them.
A very dominant part.
She could feel every one of them like you feel your own limbs and extremities. She was conscious of each of them, and yet not actively thinking about any of them. One did not need to think about how to make their fingers pick something up—they simply did it.
Each body seemed to have a physical memory, separate from a mental or emotional one. It knew how to do the things it’d done in life, and did not need Kayna to manage its actions. She’d never pulled a bow. But the privateer bowman on the prow of his landing craft was an expert shot, and he moved smoothly under the control of her will, firing arrow after arrow into men that’d been his friends only moments before.
She’d never had the draedic power to move things with her mind, and yet it took no effort to control the body of Fast Fire, which knew from countless repetitions how to fire shotstones with incredible speed and accuracy.
Kayna and the hundreds of souls she’d consumed, and the scores of bodies both Leftlander and privateer, were now one single entity, united in single-minded purpose.
Bloody-faced and red-eyed, the body of Kayna rose to its feet.
“Kill them all,” she hissed, with hands clenched at her sides.
The eerie susurration was echoed back, audible only because it came from the throats of so many others, simultaneously.
Kill them all.
On the far banks of the river, the landing parties had been thrown into a panic. They did not know who was friend and who was foe, and had set upon each other just as much as the ones that were trying to kill them.
But twenty of them knew exactly who they were. They were a part of the us, and they knew who their enemies were. They fought as a single, cohesive unit, and the effect was devastating. They knifed through the fear-stricken privateers with stoic calm. Each of the twenty reanimated bodies no longer worried about death, or pain, though they avoided injury to maintain their effectiveness. They no longer thought of competition with their peers, or status, or rank, or gain. They simply acted. No one had to give them commands. They all knew exactly what needed to be done, exactly when it was needed. They had no personal goals, only a mission, and in their unity, they were unstoppable.
On the ship that’d gone broadside to the bridge, most of the bowmen turned on whoever was not a part of them. They’d struck nearly every privateer on the deck by the time anyone realized what had happened. The captain of that ship cried “Mutiny!” and was shot through the throat. The crews of the dracanmaega begged for mercy and were given none. The sailors tried to jump overboard. Several toppled to the deck with multiple arrows in them. Those that made it into the water only swam a handful of strides before they were lanced and sunk into the river.
Then the bowmen silently and methodically began to sweep belowdecks, killing any crewmember they found.
In the galley, a cabin boy was found hiding under a sack of potatoes.
Two bowmen pointed their arrows at him, their eyes devoid of emotion.
The boy wailed and raised his hands, tears streaming down his face. “Please! I didn’t do nothin’! You can have the ship! I’m just the cabin boy!”
The bowmen stared for a moment, faces impassive.
Then they lowered their bows.
One said, “Stay,” in an odd, dry rasp, and then they both turned and continued their hunt.
On the near bank, the Leftlander that had been Fast Fire turned to look at the First of the Damned. Tell your people not to shoot at the ship near the bridge.
This time the First detected something in those thoughts—a familiar presence, though faint, and all mixed up with strangers. Kayna? Is that you?
Fast Fire only stared for a half-beat longer. It is us, he said again, then went back to shooting.
Another ship fell to two dozen men that’d all collapsed, and then popped back up a moment later, and turned to hacking their comrades to bits. They fought with unspeakable ferocity, even while their faces held no glimmer of expression.
The privateers figured some terrible betrayal was afoot, and rallied around their captain, fighting hard against what they thought were mutineers.
One of the reanimated men caught a handaxe to the side of the head and died, instantly.
On the hill overlooking the river, Kayna twitched and felt the collective power of her multi-bodied-self increase by a fraction, even as it lost one of its bodies. The rest of her bodies fought incrementally harder—steels flashing faster, arrows flying more precisely.
The captain and his score of loyal men were all slaughtered on the quarter deck.
The ship where all the clay jugs of pitch had ignited was fully engulfed. Rigging and sails burned away. Charred, flaming masts toppled. Everyone on it was either burned alive, or shot when they tried to jump overboard.
Of the last two ships, the Damned did the bulk of the work, blasting a hole in any privateer foolish enough not to be hiding. Those that were hiding were eventually found by small packs of men roaming the ships with bloody steels in their hands. When the survivors were found, they were immediately butchered. They screamed, but the butchers never uttered a sound.
The withering fire of the Damned’s stonethrowers slowed to a more sporadic rhythm, as targets became less and less plentiful.
Eventually, the First heard that voice in her head again—the voice that was neither Fast Fire, nor Kayna, but somehow both, as well as many others.
Do not fire on the ships, he-she-they said. The ships are ours.
Before the First could even issue the command to the others, thirty of her Damned—including Fast Fire—stood up, as though following some order she had not yet given.
No more firing! The First sent to the rest of her people.
There are still privateers on those ships! One of her Damned cried, eager to finish the job.
Do not shoot them, Fast Fire said in an oddly imposing tone. They are us.
The First could not help but gape, uncomprehending. And yet, despite the strangeness of Fast Fire’s mind, she could see that the being she was conversing with was not holding any of its thoughts private. It was laid bare. And it was honest.
No more firing, the First repeated her command. Any other privateer you see will be spared, unless I tell you otherwise.
She said this to all of her Damned, and they relented.
All of her Damned, that was, except for the thirty that seemed to be operating under someone else’s control.
It all felt terribly wrong to her. But then…they’d stopped the attack on the City of Rivers, hadn’t they?
The First turned to look back at the hill where she’d left Kayna, but found the woman approaching. She moved strangely. Not awkwardly, but almost too gracefully. Each step gentle and measured, her arms not swinging, but rather hovering at her sides, so that she seemed to float down the hill.
Fear gripped the First, and she could not deny a disquieted nausea that curdled in her stomach. What have you done, Kayna?
Kayna’s black skin was striped with blood that seemed to come from her nose and eyes. She stopped a few strides from Kayna. Her gaze was not vacant, but it seemed to be seeing things that weren’t there—the eyes moving as though tracking invisible motes as they drifted.
Kayna spoke aloud, rather than through Second Sight. “I am sorry, First of the Damned.”
A little more focus came to Kayna’s eyes and she looked down at herself, at her hands.
“I…was not aware…”
The First started to repeat her demand to know what Kayna had done, but movement out of the corner of her eyes interrupted her thoughts.
The thirty Damned she’d lost, including Fast Fire, walked over to stand behind Kayna.
“I have meddled with powers…” Kayna’s voice lilted.
The First whipped around to look at her, finding the other woman’s eyes slightly more focused than before.
“…Powers I do not understand,” Kayna finished. Then she bowed her head, and the First felt regret pouring out of not only Kayna’s mind, but the minds of the thirty Damned that now gathered around her. Almost as though they were all of one mind. And yet, despite that regret, Kayna’s face remained blank, and her voice had none of the musical ups and downs the First had become accustomed to when hearing spoken words.
“I am sorry to take them from you. That was not my intention.”
The First’s eyes shot around at the Damned that had been her sisters and brothers at the beginning of the day. They were all strangers now.
What did you do to them? the First demanded.
“I did nothing to them. But now…they are a part of us.”
Chapter 27
Vera was aloft in the void, and had no idea what the hell she’d just witnessed.
From her perspective, it had seemed like some incomprehensible cosmic event. All she knew for sure was that it involved Master Tior and Kayna Redstone—the two brightest lights. She still did not understand why their lights were brighter than everyone else’s, but she did understand that what had occurred between them had been violent and unfriendly.
There’d been great flashes, and glowing ribbons of light, and both Master Tior and Kayna Redstone had grown brighter, and done so very quickly.
That was, until Kayna had exploded into scores of burning shards, and blew Master Tior straight out of the void.
It had seemed to Vera that Kayna Redstone had struggled after that. And Vera didn’t know why she’d done it—perhaps because it was obvious that Kayna was struggling with Master Tior, and the enemy of your enemy is your friend—but she’d flew across the void and whispered a tiny bit of wisdom to the woman.
On the other side of fear is control.
It had seemed to work. Now, all the little pieces of Kayna were in a cluster, somewhere over in Leftland. They did not reincorporate into the light that Vera knew as Kayna. They remained separate, and who or what they were was a mystery to Vera, because none of them were Kayna. And yet they all had a bit of her in them.
The voice came to her distantly: “Vera. What do you see?”
Ah, right. Her purpose. She’d come into the void fixed on her purpose, as Cargast had taught her, but become highly distracted by the celestial struggle between the two brightest stars.
She pulled back and refocused. She remained in the void, but became slightly more aware of her physical self. She was sitting belowdecks, in the crew cabin she’d been sharing with Annistis. The other woman was standing over her, waiting for her report.
Concentrating on her task again, Vera’s mind whirled through the starlit void, and she became conscious of geography, and distance, and direction. They were nearing the end of the Caldegrund Pass, just a few thousandstride ahead.
But when she peered out towards the Shattered Sea, which the Caldegrund Pass emptied into, she saw something she did not understand.
Seemed to be a lot of that happening today.
It took some effort for her to speak aloud while on gest, and her voice came out muddy and dreamlike: “I see…five draeids…in the Shattered Sea.”
This must’ve confused Annistis as well, because she didn’t respond.
Curious, Vera zoomed into one of the lights, trying to sense who it was, and why they were out floating in the middle of the Shattered Sea. Now that she was paying attention, and was focused on distance and direction, she realized that the lights were in something of a circle, though they must’ve been thousands of strides apart.
