Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

There was a knock at the tent pole. They both froze. Winter caught Bobby’s eye and jerked her head in the direction of the tent flap, and the girl nodded.

“Who’s there?” Bobby said.

“Feor.”

Winter relaxed. “One moment,” she said in Khandarai, and got up to get clothing. She was down to her last clean shirt, and there was no choice but to wear the stained trousers again. She left the jacket in the dirt. It would need a thorough wash before she could even think of putting it back on. Once she was at least decent, she waved at Bobby, who held the tent flap open. Feor ducked inside.

The girl had changed somehow. She’d discarded the splint that had held her arm since they’d first tended her, but it was more than that. The glassy look in her eyes was gone, replaced with a hard sense of purpose. The march from Ashe-Katarion had thinned her, too, hollowing her cheeks and giving her a lean, hungry look.

“Winter,” Feor said, looking her over. “You are. . well?”

“Well enough. Your arm?”

Feor raised it experimentally. “It still feels weak,” she said, “but Corporal Graff said the bone has healed true.” She cocked her head. “I think that is what he said, at least. My Vordanai is improving, but he still speaks too quickly.”

Winter gave an uneasy chuckle. “Good. That’s good.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Winter glanced at Bobby, who gave a tiny shrug, reminding her that she understood nothing of the Khandarai conversation.

“I wanted to apologize,” Feor said.

Winter blinked. “Apologize?”

“For my behavior the night of the Desoltai raid, and during the time since we left the city.”

“Ah.” It’s about damn time. Winter shifted awkwardly and tried to sound conciliatory. Feor was clearly having a hard time getting this out. “I don’t know. I mean, it hasn’t been easy for you-”

“It’s no excuse.” Feor swallowed. “Especially for what I. . tried to do, at the end. I put you and Bobby in danger from my own selfishness.”

“But-” Winter shook her head. “All right. Apology accepted. If it means anything to you, I think I understand. After Ashe-Katarion. .”

“But you had the truth of it all along,” Feor said earnestly. “Onvidaer returned my life to me. To waste it now would be to cast away his suffering as well as mine.”

Winter had said something like that, come to think of it, although at the time she’d just spouted whatever came to mind in order to get Feor moving. She shrugged.

“Well. I’m glad you’ve worked it out.”

“It has become clear to me,” Feor said, “that it was the will of the gods that I meet you, and do as I have done. Even Mother’s sanction is nothing beside that. Bobby is the proof.”

“Proof?” Winter said. “What about her?”

“My naath . .” Feor hesitated. “It is a sacred thing. Obv-scar-iot . In Khandarai it means. .” Her lips worked silently for a moment. “‘Prayer of the Heavenly Guardian,’ perhaps. It is the closest I can come. The language of magic is. . difficult.”

“I remember. What about it?”

“It grants the strength and power of Heaven to defend the faithful and the cause of the Heavens in this world. When I used it on a raschem , a nonbeliever, I thought it would not achieve its full flowering. The power of the Heavens would not invest one who was not worthy.”

“Its full. . flowering?” Winter said.

“No.” Feor hesitated. “Have you examined where she was. . wounded, the first time?”

“I did.” Winter glanced again at Bobby, but spoke in Khandarai. “It’s growing, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

Winter chewed her lip. “What’s happening to her?”

“The Heavens favor her. I do not know why, but they have chosen to grant her their power. She is truly becoming the Heavenly Guardian.” Feor blew out a deep breath. “That is how I know that coming to you was their will.”

“But what’s going to happen to Bobby? Is that stuff going to spread over her whole body?”

“I don’t know. There has not been a true Guardian in many generations, and I was not permitted to study the oldest lore.” Feor shook her head. “It may be that the process will halt when she has accomplished the purpose the Heavens have set for her.”

“‘May be’?” Winter tried to squelch her anger. Without this naath , Bobby would be dead twice over, and likely me in the bargain. “All right. So you don’t really know. Is there anyone who does?”

“Mother. Or perhaps not even she. Much of the knowledge of ancient days is lost to us.”

“Right.” Winter rubbed her forehead with two fingers, trying to fight off an incipient headache. “Right. So when we capture your ‘Mother,’ I’ll just ask the colonel if we can have a moment alone with her.”

“She will not be captured.” A haunted look passed across Feor’s face, and she hugged herself tightly. “She will die instead. They all will.”

“They might escape again,” Winter said.

“No.” Feor looked up. “That is what I came to tell you. Mother is close. I can feel her. Onvidaer as well.”

“You think they’re here? At the oasis?”

“Yes.”

“But. .” Winter turned to Bobby and switched to Vordanai. “You said the oasis was taken, right?”

The corporal nodded. “Why?”

“Feor insists that someone is still there. Those people we saw in Ashe-Katarion the night of the fire. Could they be hiding somewhere?”

Bobby paused. “I know the colonel ordered the place searched for supplies, but I hadn’t heard of anybody finding anything like that. They’re still at it, though.” She shrugged. “Graff and the rest of the company are out there now with Captain d’Ivoire.”

Winter went very quiet. Something in her chest had tightened into a knot, and it was a moment before she could speak.

“You stayed behind?” she said.

“We wanted someone to be with you when you woke up,” Bobby said. “I thought it would be best if it was me. Because-well, you know.”

Winter blew out a breath. Her side ached.

“Well,” she said, “now that I’m up, I’d better get back to my post. Let’s track down the others.”

“That’s not really necessary,” Bobby said. “Graff can handle things-”

“I’d rather go myself,” Winter said, through gritted teeth. The memory of that terrible night in Ashe-Katarion kept playing out behind her eyes, with the young man named Onvidaer dispatching three armed men in the casual way one might kill a chicken for the pot. She turned to Feor and said in Khandarai, “Do you think you can find your way to Onvidaer?”

“Not. . precisely. I can feel him when he is close, but no more than that.”

“If we found him. .” Winter hesitated. “He disobeyed your Mother once. Do you think he would do it again? If you had the chance to talk to him?”

“I do not know.” Something in Feor’s expression told Winter that she’d been thinking along the same lines. “But I would like to try.”

MARCUS

Up close, a cannon always seemed like a tiny thing compared to the god-awful noise it produced.

Field guns did, anyway. Marcus had seen siege pieces, first at the War College and later on the docks in Ashe-Katarion. Those iron monsters were so enormous it was hard to imagine anyone even being able to load them, much less daring to be nearby when a spark was applied to the touchhole.

The twelve-pounder was tiny by comparison, a six-foot metal tube with a barrel not much larger than Marcus’ head at the business end. It was dwarfed by its own wheels, big hoops of iron-banded wood. This was one of the Preacher’s original three, carefully engraved from muzzle to axle with scripture from the Wisdoms, and now mottled all over with powder residue.