The Empire's Ruin, page 44
“Fuck,” Gwenna muttered to herself, dread folding over her as she stared at the girl’s filthy features.
Being locked in the brig with Bhuma Dhar had been bad enough, but at least they hadn’t been chained together.
No, she thought, tracing the cool steel links with a finger. The chain wasn’t the problem.
Bhuma Dhar had been a grown man and a naval captain, equal to his fate in all the ways that mattered. He might have preferred to share the long, dark weeks with a more talkative prisoner, someone who wasn’t lost in the labyrinth of her own emotions, but he didn’t need her. He’d made a few salvos when she stopped talking, tried asking questions, then gave up, retreated into his sleep and his prayers, left her to rot. Which was just what she’d wanted.
Now, though, Dhar was back in the brig, and she was here, on the soil of a foreign continent, chained to this fucking child. She considered ignoring her as she’d eventually ignored Dhar, spent half the night telling herself to put the girl out of her mind entirely, but the girl was nothing like Dhar. She was obviously baffled, and terrified, and utterly alone, and so, when the sun rose, Gwenna tried talking.
“My name is Gwenna,” she said again, pointing at herself. “Gwenna.”
The girl didn’t turn. She had her legs pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped tight around them, face buried in her knees. She was crying. Crying silently and motionlessly, but Gwenna could smell the tears.
“My name is Gwenna,” she said again. “Gwenna Sharpe.”
She felt, for some vicious reason to which she could not put a name, as though she were lying.
* * *
Every day the camp came alive before dawn. The men busied themselves with the eternal work of soldiers in the field—pissing and shitting, washing if they’d camped near water, checking weapons as they bolted down a cold morning ration of salt cod and water. The jokers joked, the malcontents grumbled, some few remained silent, staring mutely into their cups or stealing glances toward the horizon where Kiel’s promised mountains jutted up, still small as broken teeth.
They were moving every morning before full sunup. For the first two days, they marched along a wide dirt track through open farmland. Stone walls carved the dirt into neat parcels, but the fields, fallow at least a season, had gone to seed. The stone cottages that they passed were all empty, just like the houses in the city. According to the soldiers Jonon dispatched to search them, the inhabitants had left behind almost everything large—chairs, tables, cast-iron pots—and taken whatever a person might carry—blankets, knives, small tools.
Rat—Gwenna had decided to call the girl Rat because she was small and vicious, and because rats had seemed to be the only creatures left in the city—stared at the cottages with a kind of mute rage, as though the inhabitant of every single one had personally betrayed her.
“Gone,” Gwenna tried halfway through the first day, gesturing toward the fields, then the city behind them. “People gone.”
The girl refused to look at her.
Midmorning on the third day they came to a place where the land folded into low, treeless hills. The road straggled on a few more miles, threading between boulders, skirting exposed rocky ledges, turning to a dirt track, then petering out entirely. The occasional cottage dotted the gray-green hills, but these were squat, windowless—shelter for crofters caught out in the storm rather than proper dwellings.
Jonon set an exacting pace, close to thirty miles a day, as far as Gwenna could judge. Her legs throbbed. Her shoulders ached from lugging her pack. After a night sleeping on the chill ground, her back hardened into a solid knot and refused to let go. Blisters rose on her heels, burst, cracked, then bled. For all of that, however, the marching was the easy part. She didn’t have to think to march, didn’t have to hope to march, didn’t have to believe in anything to march. It was easier, actually, not thinking or hoping, just putting one bloody foot ahead of the next, over and over until someone told her to stop.
She might well have spent all day walking, all night unconscious in her bedroll, were it not for Rat.
Somehow, implausibly, the girl managed to keep pace, matching Gwenna step for sullen step. There was an uncanny, almost unnatural resilience to her young body. Whenever Gwenna tried to talk, however, she turned her face away, retreated to the end of the chain.
“Jonon is going to hurt you,” Gwenna told her. It was late in the fourth day, and she’d long ago given up on simple phrases, basic lessons. She wanted to give up on the whole fucking enterprise, but the thought of the girl strapped to the surgeon’s table while Jonon tried to cut or burn some truth out of her twisted Gwenna’s stomach to the point of nausea. And so she kept trying.
“Hurt you,” she said again, making a stabbing motion at the girl. “He is going to fuck you up.”
Rat looked away, off over the empty hills.
“She doesn’t understand.”
Gwenna glanced back to find the historian walking quietly at her shoulder. For all his brokenness, he moved easily, almost silently over the uneven ground.
“No shit,” she replied wearily. “You’re welcome to give it a try.”
Kiel shook his head. “In this, Jonon chose well. The girl is more likely to trust you.”
“Because I’m a woman?” Gwenna demanded wearily. “Because I’m the right age to be her fucking mother? I’m not her mother.”
“Because you are trustworthy,” the historian replied.
Before she could think of anything to say to that, the man moved on up the column, leaving her chained to the girl and somehow, at the same time, alone.
Later that afternoon, one of the soldiers brought down a deer, and that night Pattick came by with a cut of meat for Gwenna and Rat.
“Here,” he said awkwardly, offering it up, still sizzling from the spit.
“Thanks,” Gwenna said.
The legionary stood there a moment longer, as though he wanted to say something, then turned abruptly and walked back to his fire. Gwenna watched him go. It was hard to believe that he’d followed her onto an enemy vessel just months before.
She was still watching him when Rat came at her with the knife.
Where the girl picked it up, Gwenna had no fucking idea, not that it mattered. In the space of a heartbeat, Rat leapt across the space between them, silent as a shadow, hacking down.
Gwenna was saved by the Flea. Not the actual man, obviously; he was thousands and thousands of miles away, back on the Islands, training Kettral cadets, utterly oblivious to the fact that she was at the ass end of Menkiddoc, chained to some savage child. But the Flea had been in charge of knife-fighting when Gwenna herself was a cadet, and he had taken the training seriously. It was impossible to forget the endless drills—fighting with one knife or two knives, on foot or in the water; against one foe, or two, or three; against dogs; against soldiers wearing plate armor, or chain, or none; fighting with double-sided daggers, stilettos, filleting knives; and yes, fighting with no knife, empty-handed, against someone else who held the weapon. Without thinking, she knocked the attack aside, caught the girl’s wrist, twisted just so, and the blade clattered to the dirt. It was over in a quarter heartbeat. Rat stared at her, teeth bared, eyes brimming with tears.
“Don’t,” Gwenna said, picking up the blade.
The girl looked ready to die. Nine years old, chained to some bitch she’d never met, forced to walk thirty miles a day, and still defiant.
“Oh, fuck it,” Gwenna muttered. “Fine. Have another shot.”
She tossed the knife into the dirt at Rat’s feet. The girl stared at it. Gwenna could smell the anger on her, the hunger, the hesitation.
“Go ahead,” she said, gesturing. “You stab me, you win.”
Rat was fast. Very fast. Faster than any kid had a right to be. But Rat hadn’t spent an entire childhood drilling against the Flea.
She came in hard and low, Gwenna twisted, hacked down into her arm, knocked the knife free.
“Again,” she said, tossing it to the girl.
This time, Rat didn’t hesitate.
Again and again she attacked, and again and again Gwenna disarmed her. It wasn’t training. There was nothing playful in the motions. Rat attacked with everything she had, aiming for Gwenna’s chest, or face, or neck, aiming every time to maim or to kill. One missed block, one ill-timed grab, and the girl would be on top of her, opening a nice wide hole in her skin. The Emperor’s words floated through Gwenna’s mind for the thousandth time—all that about smart bets, and winning bets, and gambler’s folly. This was obviously the stupidest of stupid bets—nothing to win and a whole life to lose—but she found she didn’t give a shit. Rat’s attacks blotted out, if only for a few moments, all the rest of it—the doubt, the despair, the million-toothed dread burrowing constantly through her guts. Her whole world narrowed to that weaving knifepoint. It was almost like being back on the Islands—the rhythm of attack and defense, the heat rising through her muscles, the readiness.…
“Look,” she said, snatching the blade again. This time she didn’t give it back. Instead she raised it overhead, point angled down, the most basic threatening posture.
“You’re quick, but you need to learn to lie.”
She feinted with the knife, then slapped the girl across the cheek with her free hand.
Rat recoiled, face twisted with fury.
“See,” Gwenna said. “You don’t need to speak in order to lie.” She leaned slightly to the right, gave just a twitch of her right hand, then, when Rat turned to defend, tapped her ungently on the temple with the pommel of the knife.
“If you’re defending,” Gwenna went on, “you need to see three things at once. The knife.” She pointed to the fire-licked blade. “The hand.” To her own hand. “And the body.” To the center of her chest. “Any one of these can lie. The knife can point down, but the hand”—she gave a quick flick, reversing the blade—“can trick you. Or the knife and the hand can lead one direction”—she reached out with her arm—“while the body breaks the other way. Any one can lie, any two can lie, but if you learn to see the knife, the hand, and the body all at the same time … then you’re looking at the truth.
“If you’re attacking? Well, you need to learn to obscure that truth.”
She handed the blade back.
“Go again.”
This time, however, Rat did not go. She crouched, staring at Gwenna from behind her nest of tangled hair. Then she glanced down at the weapon.
“Knife,” she said.
“The point is, the knife is the least important part of…”
Gwenna trailed off, staring. “Well I’ll be shipped to ’Shael,” she muttered. “Yes. That’s the knife.”
So much for Hello, my name is …
“Hand,” Rat said, raising her hand.
Gwenna nodded.
“Body.” She pointed to her chest.
“That’s your body,” Gwenna agreed.
“Knife,” the girl said, pointing to Gwenna’s body. “Gwenna body.”
Gwenna’s grin was so sharp and shocking it hurt. “That’s right, you miserable little shit. Put the knife in Gwenna’s body.”
And the girl came on again.
* * *
Gwenna had been so wrapped up with Rat’s training, not to mention the exhaustion of the march, that she’d forgotten all about the words of the soldier who’d first captured the child: Had some kind of creature with her. Monkey, maybe. Lots of teeth.
Then, on the fifth day, as they were passing through a copse of trees, the ’Kent-kissing thing attacked.
Pattick had dropped back with some dried meat for Gwenna and Rat. Every day he came, sometimes twice a day. Ostensibly he was there to check over the chain and shackles, to make sure the two prisoners weren’t contriving some kind of escape, but he seemed more concerned with Rat’s diet—the girl was still incredibly thin—with Gwenna’s fucking diet, for that matter. It was ludicrous, having the legionary clucking over them as though he were their mother, but Rat hadn’t tried to murder him yet, which was saying something, and Gwenna wasn’t about to deny the girl the extra rations.
The young soldier had just finished his cursory inspection of the restraints, was straightening up, when he jerked back with a strangled cry.
Gwenna’s first thought was that he’d been shot.
Her body responded for her, one hand shooting out to drag the soldier down, the other hauling Rat behind her with the length of chain. The girl hissed, yanked back, but even after two months of doing nothing, Gwenna was stronger. Not that she had much of a plan beyond getting them to ground. The nearest cover—a long, rotting log—lay a few paces distant.
Should have gone for that. The thought was savage, lacerating. You fucked it up again, you stupid bitch.
“Shit,” Pattick managed.
“Where are you hit?”
“No.” He shook his head, wiped something foul-smelling from his face. “It’s shit.”
Gwenna stared at him, opened her mouth to reply, then felt her own head snap back. The smell came a moment later—rotten and foul—then the taste of it splattered across her teeth, over her tongue. She gagged, spat, gagged again, half puked, dragged herself back to her feet, scanned the surrounding trees.
It took her only a moment to find it.
Maybe ten paces away, high up on a tree limb, crouched … something.
It was the size of a bear cub—gray-haired, pointy-eared, with hands that looked almost human. It might have been cute—huge eyes set wide in the fuzzy head—were it not for the teeth. Those teeth—at least a dozen of them, gleaming, stiletto-sharp, at least as long as Gwenna’s thumb—looked as though they belonged to some other creature altogether—a barracuda or shark maybe, something that survived by ripping and rending flesh.
As she stared, the thing reached back, shat into its hand, and let fly another volley, although this time, Gwenna managed to dodge.
Several of the soldiers had taken hasty aim with their flatbows. Rat let out a desperate shriek, hurled herself at the nearest of them, tripped over the chain, and fell.
“Kill it,” Jonon commanded.
Three bowstrings loosed at once, but the creature was fast, too fast. It moved like something out of a dream, something not quite subject to the normal laws of the world. Two of the flatbow bolts sailed through the space where it had crouched. The third, it snatched from the air, snapped in half, hurled to the ground.
It bared its teeth, hissed at the soldiers.
“Yutaka!” Rat shouted. She made a flinging gesture with one hand.
The creature glared at her with those too-large eyes, gnashed the teeth, and then, before anyone could take another shot, fled into the trees, swinging nimbly from one branch to the next until the shadows swallowed it.
By the time Gwenna had untangled herself and Rat from the chain, Jonon loomed above them. He glared down at the girl.
“What was that thing?”
Rat stumbled to her feet, flashed her teeth, as though she were no more human than the creature in the trees.
Jonon took her by the hair, lifted her onto her toes.
“What was it?”
“She doesn’t understand you,” Gwenna said.
The admiral didn’t take his eyes from the girl. “She understands enough. Yutraga? Is that what you called it? What is a yutraga?”
Rat gave a wordless snarl. Jonon hoisted her higher, until Gwenna expected the hair to rip from her scalp. Then Kiel was there.
“That,” the historian said mildly, “was a gabhya.”
Jonon hesitated a moment, then dropped Rat as though she were a filthy rag, turned to face Kiel.
“How do you know?”
“There is a wrongness to the way they are made. A shape nature would never have created.”
“A gabhya,” Jonon mused, turning to gaze into the trees.
“An avesh, to be precise,” Kiel added. “At the very least, it fits the descriptions.”
The admiral reeked of disbelief. “The mythical creatures that eat their kits?”
“Most myth has a grounding in fact.”
“What did it want with the girl?”
“I don’t know.”
Jonon rounded on Gwenna. “You will learn what it is, how she knows of it, what it wanted. You will learn what she meant by that word.”
Gwenna opened her mouth to explain how ludicrous that was, to tell him she’d only barely established any kind of communication at all with the girl, that Rat spent most of the time trying to kill her, that even if they could speak the same language, she wasn’t likely to spill her secrets. Then she saw the girl out of the corner of her eye, tensing as though she were about to hurl herself at the admiral.
“Yes, sir,” Gwenna said, putting a hand on Rat’s shoulder, clamping down so that she couldn’t move. “As fast as I can, sir.”
* * *
Gwenna had learned precisely nothing about the avesh by the time they reached the foothills of the mountains, but the long days were not without progress. The girl had more or less gotten the hang of a dozen attacks, along with a working knowledge of the words yes, no, me, you, stab, piss, blood, shit, fuck, and, oddly, sun, moon, and rain. Though she’d staunchly refused to give her true name—despite Gwenna’s growing certainty that she understood the question—she responded to the name Gwenna had given her—Rat—and she knew those of Kiel, Pattick—who brought them food every night—along with a few of the legionaries. It was hardly a vocabulary for nuanced discussion.
“Rat,” Gwenna said one evening as they trained. “You need to keep your elbow in.” She pointed. “Your elbow.”
The girl glowered. “Fuck you. Fuck Gwenna.”
“You’re the one who’s gonna get fucked if your elbow keeps sloshing around.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Gwenna replied.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Rat lunged with the knife. Gwenna pivoted, tripped the girl, came down hard with a knee in the center of her back.
“Shit,” Rat said. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Moon.”
Maybe she hadn’t quite mastered a few of the words.
