Savage Legion Page 17

  Brio braces himself as Evie digs particularly deep into his wound with the wetted cloth, closing his eyes.

  “I imagine the Sicclunans have become expert at falling back,” he says, shaken.

  “We give them little choice in the matter.”

  Evie finishes cleaning out the gash and tosses the stained-black rag aside.

  “Who took you?” she asks. “And how?”

  “I was in the Bottoms. I turned down an alley, a shortcut to the sky carriage. I’d used it a hundred times before—”

  Evie grunts. “That’s why they were waiting for you there. They were, weren’t they?”

  “Yes. A bag was thrown over my head, and the next thing I remember is standing in a field shoulder to shoulder with the people I used to plead for. My clothes had been stripped from me. I was wearing rags. When I tried to explain what had happened I took the butt of a mace in my gut.”

  “Do you remember anything before the training field?”

  “I caught a… a flash… of a black cape. Black boots.”

  Evie’s brow hangs heavily. “The Protectorate Ministry.”

  “Most likely. The only good thing is they took me leaving and not going. If they’d caught me while I was headed the other way they would’ve had what they were no doubt looking for.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Proof, of what’s really going on here, what the other purpose of the Savage Legion is.”

  “What proof?”

  “Dispatches, between the Protectorate Ministry and the Capitol’s Aegin commanders, instructing them to increase arrests in aid of filling the Savage ranks, focusing on vagrants. They stated explicitly they were expanding their recruiting beyond the condemned, against Crachian law. There were also decrees sent out to all the councils that any petitioners speaking against the state be reported to the Ministry. I found dozens of them, copies made of the originals, stored away in the Spectrum archives. Can you imagine? This wonderful, oppressive bureaucracy of ours, every document required to be penned three times for the sake of posterity or records or whatever.”

  “They didn’t think anyone would ever bother to look.”

  “Of course not. No one else cares.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I began to hear disturbing things. People were disappearing, from the Bottoms. They were being arrested and never returned. Husbands, wives, parents, brothers, and sisters, they came to me in secret, terrified of even talking about it, afraid they’d be next. I begin to hear muddled whispers about this… the Legion. People used as flesh weapons, hurled at the front line of our enemies like artillery.”

  “And when you inquired at the Spectrum you were reported.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, Brio.”

  “I’m fine,” he insists. “Now will you tell me how you came to be here?”

  “Lexi,” Evie explains. “She came to me. I was working as a retainer for Gen Ultimo. The kith-kins wanted an unassuming woman to escort their children to and from lessons in the city rather than a pack of hulking armored guards. It’s very in fashion just now, apparently. Lexi told me what happened, or what she suspected had happened, and your theory about conscripted vagrants and this place. She had a plan. I became Evie. I changed my clothes, stopping bathing with any regularity, and started frequenting every tavern in the Bottoms, picking fights. It seemed like such a far-fetched scheme… but it worked. The Savage Legion is real, and we’re both here.”

  “How did you convince Gen Ultimo you were unassuming?”

  “I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “Oh no,” Brio assures her, sounding magnanimous and for the first time like the man she remembers. “I’ve lost my freedom, my wardrobe, a fair amount of blood, and all memory of personal hygiene… but never my sense of humor.”

  Evie unsheathes the flared blade of a dagger from her belt and holds the tip to the fire she built.

  “Well, hold on to it now,” she advises him. “Because this next part is going to hurt far worse than the last part did.”

  Brio draws in a deep breath and exhales serenely. “All right, then.”

  While the tip of her blade continues to heat up, Evie offers Brio one of the remaining strips of clean cloth.

  “Ball that up and bite down on it,” she instructs him.

  He nods, taking the rag and rolling it up like a handkerchief. Brio holds it up and clamps his jaw around the thickly scrolled fabric.

  When the dark steel of the dagger has turned bright orange with a smoldering red heart, Evie removes it from the flames. She reaches down with her free hand and grips the ankle of Brio’s injured leg firmly, looking up at him with sympathetic yet resolved eyes.

  “Ready?”

  He leans back and grips the stone on which he sits as best he can, nodding.

  Evie presses the red-hot tip of the blade into the bottom of the gash, scorching the lower half of the wound. His throat fills with a horrific gargling noise, but Brio manages to neither scream nor jerk beneath her.

  “One more time,” she tells him gently.

  Again, Brio nods. Sweat is beginning to drip from both of his temples.

  Evie burns the second half of the wound, and this time Brio tosses his head back so fiercely he almost flings himself over the stone. She tightens her grip on his ankle to steady him, and a few moments after she removes the still-burning blade he begins to relax, though his rune-covered face is now pouring with sweat.

  “It’s all over,” she practically coos to him. “You did well.”

  “You lived on the streets?” Brio asks, breathless, as Evie begins wrapping his calf with the remaining rags. “As Evie, I mean.”

  She shrugs. “It’s no worse than how I began life.”

  “A life I promised you’d never return to.”

  “If you had that kind of power neither of us would be here in this place now. I was playing a role, that’s all. And it worked.”

  Brio nods, accepting that as best he can. “Why did Lexi seek you out for this mission she concocted?”

  “She remembered me from when we were children, and she remembered how devoted I was to you after your parents took me in. She said I was the only other woman you’ve ever loved. I was surprised that it didn’t sound at all like an accusation.”

  “If Lexi even possesses lesser qualities, jealousy isn’t one of them, especially in the face of a task to which she’s appointed herself.”

  “She’s a very determined woman.”

  “Apparently it’s a virtue I seek out in the women I love.”

  Evie ignores his implication, finishing a perfect field dressing on his leg.

  “I understand why Lexi did this,” Brio says carefully, “but why did you agree to it?”

  Evie shrugs. “Maybe I feel like I still owe your kith-kin.”

  “They put you out,” Brio reminds her.

  “And before that they saved my life.”

  “Ashana, why—”

  “Where’s all the proof you uncovered?” Evie cuts him off. “What did you do with it before they took you?”

  “I left it with a friend, someone I trust. She’ll still have it, believe me.”

  “We have to get word to Lexi, now,” Evie insists.

  “Why can’t we tell her ourselves, after we’ve escaped?”

  “Because it may take some time for that second part to happen. But we may be able to have a message delivered to her.”

  “How?”

  “A new friend of mine. If you lean on me, can you walk?”

  “If you tell me I need to, then I can.”

  Evie takes his hands in hers once more, this time using them to pull Brio to his feet. He winces and grinds his jaw to muffle whatever agonized sound is ruminating in his throat. He secures one arm around Evie’s shoulders and with her supporting half his weight is able to limp with relative ease and pain.

  They find Spud-Bar sitting against one of t
he armory wagon’s rear wheels, sharpening the blade of an ax with a whetstone the size of a brick.

  “Make a new friend, Sparrow?” Spud-Bar asks, using the name under which the Elder Company has adopted Evie. “I’ve warned you about taking in strays.”

  “He’s an old friend,” Evie assures the armorist.

  Spud-Bar grunts. “This ain’t much of a place for reunions, sorry to say.”

  “In this one case it’s the best of places.”

  Evie bends at the knees, sinking down to help Brio in lowering himself to the mostly dead grass.

  “That don’t look good,” Spud-Bar remarks, eyes drifting to Brio’s leg wound.

  “It’s not,” Evie says bluntly. “But I’ve tended to it the best I know how.”

  “You really do have a deep bag of skills fer a vagrant, don’t ya?”

  “When do you return to the Capitol?” Evie asks.

  “I leave in the morning,” Spud-Bar answers. “It’s been a busy few days fer the Savages on the front. Need to replenish the ranks. We’ll barely have time to break ’em in and get ’em coined, from the look.”

  “I need you to take something back to the Capitol for me.”

  The armorist shakes their head. “Against the rules.”

  “This is important, Spud-Bar. This may be the most important thing you ever do.”

  The spit-dampened surface of the whetstone pauses halfway over the crescent of the shoddy ax’s poorly smithed blade.

  The armorist looks up at Evie, heavy, thick brows hung low over dark eyes. “I suppose you’d be askin’ me to take him? Is that it? Get him to a surgeon?”

  Evie shakes her head. “He’s my responsibility. I only need you to carry a message to a Gen in the Capitol. It’s a short message, one you can carry in your head. It needn’t even be put to parchment.”

  Spud-Bar frowns. “Why would you wanna make my life difficult? Haven’t I been good to you since we met?”

  “You have,” Evie assures the armorist, sincerely. “Because you’re a good person, too fine a person to be responsible for the monstrosity that’s been created here with this Legion. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “I’m a simple sort, Sparrow, and you’re losin’ me in a fog here.”

  Evie looks at Brio. “Tell my friend who you are.”

  “My name is Brio Alania, leader of Gen Stalbraid,” he says. “I’m the pleader for the Bottoms in the Capitol.”

  “Now tell Spud-Bar what you did,” she urges him.

  “If you mean what law I broke, then nothing. I did nothing.”

  Spud-Bar snorts, staring down at the darkened surface of the whetstone.

  “Nothing,” he repeats. “I obtained evidence I meant to present to the Arbitration Council that the Savage Legion was filling its ranks, not just with the condemned, but with minor offenders, and with people they simply snatched from the streets in the Bottoms. I also suspected the Legion was being used to dispose of those the state views as enemies, the dissident, anyone who speaks out openly against them. My being here proves that.”

  “It’s exactly like the Professor said,” Evie implores the armorist. “He may have been mad, but he wasn’t lying about Crache.”

  Spud-Bar is still staring into the microscopic crags and crannies of the whetstone, silently.

  “Spud-Bar,” Evie pleads, “you know what’s going on here. You’ve always known. You think you’re beyond it because they allow you to travel to the cities and back, but you’re not. You will die serving this Legion. We all will, unless something is done, unless the truth is made known.”

  “Crache don’t run on truth,” Spud-Bar says quietly.

  Evie reaches out and cups her hand around the hand holding that whetstone.

  Spud-Bar doesn’t look up.

  “I know it’s easier to believe we all belong here, but I tell you, this man does not. He’s spent his life pleading for the people in the Bottoms, never asking nor taking from them. He’s here because he doesn’t want anyone else to suffer his fate. You must believe me, Spud-Bar.”

  “And if I do?” Spud-Bar asks, still not meeting her eyes.

  “Then I simply ask you to deliver a short message to the Gen Circus. That’s all.”

  The armorist finally looks directly at her. Evie sees a deeper torment she never would’ve expected of the perpetually passive and dismissive Undeclared.

  “Who are you? Really?”

  “I’m a warrior, like you,” Evie answers. “And I fight for the people I love when they’re threatened, whatever the odds and however certain defeat. Because that’s what I was taught warriors do.”

  Spud-Bar grins ruefully. “You ’ad better teachers than me.”

  “Will you carry the message?” Evie presses, her desperation threatening to rip through the veil of the person she’s created to walk among the Savages.

  Spud-Bar shakes their head darkly, but says, “All right, then. What’s the message?”

  Evie looks at Brio once more, eyes urging him to seize the moment quickly.

  “It’s for Lexi Xia,” he says, “also of Gen Stalbraid. It’s from Brio. I’ve been conscripted into the Savage Legion and Evie has found me. I’m alive and well and I need her to know there’s a merchant ship that docks in the Capitol for two days every fortnight. It’s a Rok vessel named The Black Turtle. The captain is a very old friend of my father’s. Her name is Staz. There are few people I trust more. She’s carrying the decrees and dispatches I found that prove everything about the Savage Legion.”

  “And that’s all I need to tell this fine Te-Gen of the Capitol?”

  Brio nods. “She’ll know what to do from there.”

  Evie gently squeezes Spud-Bar’s hand. “Can I ask you to leave tonight, right away?”

  Spud-Bar nods. “Hai. Probably best I do, before the crazy wears off.”

  The armorist stands and chucks the whetstone into a bucket hung from a nail in the wagon. Spud-Bar returns the ax to one of the over-encumbered racks of rusted, secondhand weapons.

  “Why can’t we go with your new friend here?” Brio asks Evie, quietly.

  “Because we will all be executed if Spud-Bar is caught with us. You can deny carrying a message. Two people in your wagon is much more difficult.”

  “You’re right, of course,” he says. “Spud-Bar is risking more than enough already.”

  “We’ll find our own way,” Evie promises him. “When you’re healed.”

  “I believe you.”

  Evie walks over to where Spud-Bar is quickly hitching their small team of mounts to the wagon.

  “Thank you for this,” she says.

  “Don’t expect I’ll see you again, at least not like this” is all Spud-Bar offers.

  “Do you feel like I lied to you?” Evie asks.

  “Nah. I knew you weren’t what you seemed the second I spied you goin’ through my blades.”

  “My name and my clothes may be false, but the rest is me. And I do consider you a friend. I wouldn’t ask such an important thing of you if I didn’t.”

  Spud-Bar remains noncommittal, lashing the final bridle to their horse. “That’s good to know, I suppose.”

  “Would you like to know my real name?”

  Spud-Bar appears to think about it for a moment.

  “No,” the armorist says, and walks away.

  A PEBBLE IN A MAZE

  THREE MORNINGS AFTER PRESENTING EDGER with her invention, Dyeawan awoke to the first task.

  It was sitting atop the blanket as if someone had brought her breakfast in bed while she slept. The sack was small, but bulging, made of silk cloth the color of dead violets and tied off with a midnight ribbon that shined in the morning sunlight. When her rapidly blinking eyes first took it in there was panic, the errant thought that it must be something bad, like a message, perhaps the Planning Cadre’s way of telling her she had to leave.

  When Dyeawan realized such an idea was absurd, it occurred to her that it might actually be a gift, from Edger
or perhaps Tahei. It never occurred to her, however, to find the notion of somebody, or somebodies, sneaking into her room while she sleeps disquieting; she’s spent most of her short life on the streets of the Capitol. The idea of privacy or sacred space is unknown to her.

  Pulling the loose end of the ribbon, the cloth fell away to spill dozens upon dozens of small, intricately carved wooden pieces over her blanket. They appeared identical, rectangles with forked ends, but Dyeawan quickly noticed tiny differences in their cut. She picked up one of the pieces and examined it closer, then another. When she fit them together it was like a lightning crack between her temples. Dyeawan looked down at the pile of wood and saw with her mind’s eye what they could be, and what they should be.

  She began picking up piece after piece and slotting them together. It took her less than a minute to assemble all the pieces into one object, a full-bodied wooden star that could stand on its own when she placed it back down atop the blanket.

  Dyeawan stared at that star for a long time in silence, marveling at how so many seemingly complete parts could compose such a whole when properly joined together. She supposed it was meant to represent some aspect of the Planning Cadre itself, and wondered if that was the lesson to take away from it.

  She’d climbed out of bed and onto her tender to begin her day. She delivered messages and parcels and materials between the concentric floors of the Cadre. She took her meals in the great hall, eating with Riko and Tahei, never mentioning the strange puzzle.

  On the few occasions she’d crossed paths with Edger, not a word was exchanged about it.

  When Dyeawan returned to her room in the evening, the wooden cipher was gone. That night she dreamed of a sky whose stars she could reach up and rearrange with her bare hands, forming magnificent shapes and patterns that she made swirl and shine by touching each star with her fingertip. The dream lasted all night, and by morning she’d created a vast heaven of wheels and mandalas and triangles that somehow all fit and moved together like a great, brilliant machine of pure light.