Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

The scout glanced at the men behind him. By the hard set of their faces, they didn’t care for either the assassin’s tone or her suggestion, but they were military men. They would obey their officer.

“All right,” Jeril said, turning to Gwenna. “I need to send two men back each day, one at dawn, one at dusk, to bring a report to the kenarang . The rest of us are yours.”

* * *

Gwenna looked into the predawn mist and steam rising off the bogs and ponds, streams and lakes to the east. It threaded through the balsams and pines like smoke, draped thick over the lake, brightening slowly as the sun rose from a wooly gray, to white, to dull orange, as though the whole forest had caught fire. Each morning for three days, she’d climbed the beacon tower, in part to survey the town’s fortifications, in part to hunt for some sign of the Urghul, but mostly because it allowed her to be alone, to step outside of the throng of people for a few minutes, to leave behind the unending questions and requests, demands and complaints and pleas.

The whole thing was less of a shit-show than she’d expected, actually. The East Bridge had been hacked to kindling, save for the four final pilings thrust up from the channel like dead trees. Jeril and his scouts had been useful in overseeing the movement of all food and relevant supplies off East Island. Despite her hesitation, Annick had built up an impressive set of earthworks and barricades on the eastern shore of the island, and even now had half the village making arrows. Andt-Kyl’s two forges had been ringing day and night as the blacksmiths pounded every scrap of extra metal-pot iron and scrap steel, barn hinges and old nails-into arrowheads. Some people had griped about that. Annick sent them to Bridger, Bridger sent them to Gwenna, and Gwenna sent them back to their homes with a few choice words and orders to scare up more steel.

It was exhausting trying to think through every aspect of the defense, and infuriating arguing with the loggers over every little point, but the hardest part was the worry, a sick, corrosive acid in her gut, a never-silent humming in her brain that refused to let her sleep more than a few hours each night, that made it hard to keep down anything more than a biscuit and water. Truth be told, she’d been frightened for weeks, ever since quitting the Islands, but that was a different kind of fear, one for herself and her Wing. The trainers had prepared her for that- When you fight, went the motto, sometimes you die . There had been no motto, though, for people who didn’t expect to fight, for the loggers and farmers and fishermen who would end up on Urghul lances if Gwenna failed. The Eyrie had told her all about killing, but there hadn’t been much about keeping tiny little villages at the end of the empire alive.

“Sir?” It was Bridger, stepping up through the trap onto the broad platform atop the tower. Above them, the flimsy wooden roof creaked. She glanced at it: the beams were rotted with damp, just about ready to collapse, but she had more pressing worries than the roof on the beacon tower. The battle wasn’t shaping up to take place there.

“What?” she asked.

“We’ve moved the boats from the docks and anchored them just off the western shore of the lake, as you requested.”

Gwenna turned. The fog had lifted enough for her to see the hulls bobbing peacefully as the water lapped up against the steep bank. She had no idea what to do with the boats, but it seemed like they might be useful and she didn’t want them falling into Urghul hands if she lost East Island. That was strategy in a nutshell-doing things you didn’t understand with the hope they might pay off later. And there were so many things she didn’t understand.…

“You ever been in a fight, Bridger?” she asked.

The man hesitated. “Couple of times, down at the Duck. Had to get firm with some boys from down the south end of the lake.”

Gwenna shook her head. Bar brawls. The whole Urghul nation hammering down on them, and she was leading a few hundred people whose best approximation of battle came from bar brawls.

“You ever kill anyone?” she asked.

He shook his head slowly. “I know you’re worried, sir, but we’re strong folk up here. Logging’s hard work. Breeds hard men and harder women. I figure putting an ax in a man can’t be that different from putting it in a tree.”

They were brave words, given the circumstances, but they filled Gwenna with rage. She wanted to scream at him that felling some mountain pine was nothing like killing a man, wanted to tell him how it had felt when she stabbed the young legionary in the eye during the Kwihna Saapi, how he’d sobbed and pleaded before she killed him, and then, worse, sagged against her, slack, limp, like something that had never lived. She wanted to tell him about the Urghul camp, and the blood on her sword, in her eyes, sticky between her fingers. She wanted to tell him that even after eight years on the Islands poring over corpses and beating people bloody in the ring she still wasn’t ready for it. He was watching her, dark eyes nervous.

Before she could respond, a shrill horn shivered the air to the east, then another, then another, then a thousand. An enormous flock of birds alighted, dark shapes wheeling in a great, swift circle, then flying west, south, and away. The horns kept on and on, coming and coming, until she thought they would drive her mad. When they finally stopped, however, the silence was even worse.

“Is that…” Bridger began.

“The Urghul,” Gwenna said. “I guess the Flea didn’t get to Long Fist.”

It seemed as though she’d always known he wouldn’t. Whatever the case, there was no time to worry about the older Wing Leader, not anymore.

“What do we do now?” Bridger asked.

“We fight. Make sure all the very old and young are off East Island and out of the way. Tell Annick to get the archers ready.” It was a pointless order. Knowing Annick, the men and women probably had their bows half drawn by the second horn. Still, saying something made Gwenna feel like she was doing something.

Bridger nodded, turned, then Gwenna stopped him.

“It’s not that different,” she said.

He shook his head. “What’s not?”

“Killing a man. Felling a tree. Just hit it with the ax until it goes down. Not that different.”

The logger smiled shakily. “Thank you, sir. We know how to hit things with axes, here.”

Gwenna turned back to the dark trees lining the eastern bank before he could see the lie in her eyes. Maybe she should have told him the truth, maybe he deserved that, but with Long Fist somewhere back in those dark shadows, the truth didn’t look likely to do anyone a ’Kent-kissing bit of good.

“Neutral ground” turned out to be a dilapidated wooden warehouse down by the docks, a huge, cavernous place stacked ceiling high with crates and barrels, reeking of salt, and tar, and mold. Pulleys and tackle hung silently from the rafters overhead, ropes as thick as Kaden’s wrist ending in great steel hooks. It was only the apparatus necessary to the movement and storage of heavy cargo, but late at night, in the flickering light of their storm lantern, the silent lengths of rope with their rusting tackle seemed morbid, menacing. Gabril had offered to host the secret meeting in his own palace, but the others had refused, insisting on neutral ground. That insistence, too, seemed menacing.

The three of them, Kaden, Kiel, and Gabril, paused just inside the door, allowing their eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“You must remember,” Gabril murmured, “that these people hate your empire, but their hatred bubbles up from different wells.”

“But you’re all in agreement,” Kaden replied. “You see eye to eye on the basic issues?”