Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“Watch!” she shouted again, her heart slamming away at her ribs. “You want to know who the Urghul are? This is who they are.”

The chanting on the far bank quickened, then quickened further, keeping pace with Gwenna’s pulse. The other Urghul joined in, and it grew louder. Pikker John screamed, an awful, animal sound, and with his scream, the riders lashed their horses, crops rising and falling over and over, the body suspended between them writhing, his mouth a gaping howl lost on the storm of Urghul voices. In the midst of the chaos, Annick stepped up beside Gwenna, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

“I can stop it. One arrow.”

Gwenna hesitated, watching the horses strain, watching John’s body as it twisted and writhed. “No,” she said, swallowing the bile that came with the word. “They need to see this.”

The sniper turned those hard blue eyes on her.

“They’re not soldiers. It’s terrifying them.”

“They need to be terrified,” Gwenna hissed. “If we lose, if the Urghul take the town, this is waiting for all of them, and you won’t be there to end it with an arrow.” She turned away before Annick could argue with her further, vaulted atop the highest log in the barricade.

“This is what is coming,” she shouted at the crouching townsmen. “It is not a raid. It is not a skirmish. It is the entire Urghul nation, and if we don’t hold them here, they will offer up everyone you know to Meshkent just like they’re doing with Pikker John over there. This is what they do. This is how they worship. This is who they are . So pay fucking attention!”

She wasn’t sure anyone could hear her over the commotion on the far bank, but the message seemed to get through. One man just at her feet was retching into the mud, but most of the small force straightened up, staring at the horror unfolding in what had, until that morning, been a part of their home.

Pikker John must have been made of gristle and bone. Even after he lost the strength to scream, his body held together. Even when the shoulders popped from their sockets and the joints went horribly loose, the ligaments held. For what seemed like hours, the horses pulled on him, pulled, and pawed at the dirt, and snorted, and pulled some more, until all at once, with an awful lurch, an arm tore away. The Urghul shrieked in a kind of collective ecstasy as the one rider galloped down the bank, pumping his fist in the air as that grisly tail bumped along behind him.

The other riders eased off their horses, allowing what was left of Pikker John to settle back to earth, where, amazingly, he writhed until his life drained out of him with his blood. The Urghul unhitched him, dragged the corpse to the river, and tossed it in. Balendin raised his eyes, looking first at the prisoners cowering behind him, then across the river at Gwenna once more.

It’s over, she told herself. They killed one old man, but they’re still on their side of the river.

But it was more than one old man. As she watched, a woman, probably someone from the outlying hamlets to the northeast, was dragged pleading toward the riverbank. The sacrifices were just getting started, and with each one, the leach’s power, sucked from the terror of his captives, would grow.

* * *

By the end of the second day, the Urghul had torn apart dozens more people, those poor, miserable souls who lived between Andt-Kyl and the Black, who had had no warning of the approaching army. The far bank was muddy with blood, while the bloated corpses dotted the river mouth, tangling in the roots and rushes where the current slowed. The Urghul killed, and killed, and killed, but they had made no effort to cross.

That made Gwenna nervous.

Around noon on the second day, she’d thought they were starting a push. A few dozen taabe and ksaabe had tossed some tree trunks into the river, watching them float down toward the old bridge pilings where they tangled between the posts. It wasn’t much, four or five logs, enough that some brave, stupid shithead might sneak across, but certainly not enough for a full-fledged attack. The Urghul stared at them for a while, as though expecting the bridge to grow itself, then went back to killing people. It was like they didn’t even care about getting to the town.

“What the fuck are they doing?” Gwenna demanded, biting her lip as she looked across the small table at Pyrre and Annick. After a day at the barricades, she’d had Bridger set up a command post inside one of the most easterly of the buildings, where she could still get to the river fast, but where she could discuss strategy with Annick, Pyrre, and Bridger out of earshot of the townspeople. It was good protocol, insulating the troops from the decision-making process, but mostly Gwenna just didn’t want the people of Andt-Kyl to hear how little their commanders actually knew.

“Long Fist has to be aware that the Army of the North will get here eventually. Every day the bastard waits is a risk.”

“We haven’t seen Long Fist,” Annick pointed out. “We don’t know he’s with his army.”

“Where else would he be?” Gwenna demanded.

Pyrre pursed her lips. “Off in the forest, perhaps. Torturing small woodland creatures.”

Gwenna ignored her, rounding on Bridger. “Are you sure there’s not another way to cross? Somewhere to the north?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been all through that territory logging. In the winter, when the bogs are frozen, you could maybe move across, but now you’d be weeks trying to get through even on foot, let alone with horses. The firs grow so thick on some of the high ground that you have to squeeze between the trunks, and the swamps’ll swallow you right up.”

“And there are no other towns?” she asked. “No bridges?”

“Nothing but the log camps, and they don’t have any need for bridges. Unless those horses can balance on rolling tree trunks floating downriver, there’s nothing to help him in the north.”

“I wonder what became of your short, bellicose friend and his large bird,” Pyrre mused. “Maybe he got to Long Fist after all. Maybe they’re all just milling on the far bank because they have no idea what else to do.”

It was a tempting explanation, but after a long pause, Gwenna shook her head. “Doesn’t make sense,” she said. “If the Flea carried out the hit, he’d be back by now. And if Long Fist were really dead, wouldn’t the Urghul tear each other apart? Even Balendin wouldn’t be able to hold them without the shaman’s power backing him.”

“Just trying to be optimistic,” the assassin said with a shrug. “Bridger, do you have any more beer?” She gestured to the tankard in front of her. “Sitting on one’s ass watching men and women get rent limb from limb tends to lead to a thirst.”

Gwenna started to respond, but an urgent chorus of shouts from just outside cut her off. She was out the door in three steps, scanning the far bank, the near bank, the lake, hunting for the attack that she’d missed. The townspeople were pointing upriver, but, in the growing gloom, she couldn’t make out much. Certainly there was no Urghul assault.

“Oh sweet Ciena,” Bridger swore, horror in his voice as he followed her eyes. “The drive.”

“The drive?” Gwenna demanded. “What’s the drive?”

“The log drive,” he said, pointing to the dark shapes bobbing just above the surface of the river, so thick on the water Gwenna hadn’t noticed them, a loose raft of shifting logs jostling one another as they floated south with the current.

“They can’t cross on those, can they?” Gwenna asked.

“Not there,” he said. “Not on horses. But that’s not the problem.”