Грег Бир - The Unfinished Land

Reynard could no longer detect the presence of Valdis, and felt the lack acutely.

“This way,” the first soldier said. All had the wear and tear of battle on their clothes and armor, especially on the resin-soaked plates, cracked and chipped. One soldier had the stump of a missing arm wrapped in a bloody bandage, and seemed paler and perhaps weaker than the others, but still vigilant.

“We have no drakes,” the leader said as he walked beside them, the others on the outside. “But we still have our courage. We would face you with our bare hands when the Queens are finished.”

The one-armed man held out his stump. “The courage of the east, not the sorcery of the west!” he said, his voice hoarse.

Up a flight of wicker stairs, not unlike the stairways in the seed-cage city, and through more translucent drapes, they were led into the throne room of the Sister Queens.

The thrones were empty.

“WHERE ARE THY DRAKES, men of the western shores?” a soft voice asked. They turned to face two standing women, of medium height and comely, identical of feature, with long, flowing straw-colored hair, standing shoulder to shoulder. The figure on the left had extended her right arm forward and held a cane. The figure on the right seemed to keep her shoulder behind that arm, so close were they.

Reynard glanced at Widsith, who nodded with startled fascination.

Beneath their black gowns, the Sister Queens were joined at their hips—actually joined, it seemed, by a ribbon of flesh and perhaps bone. They were flanked by four other women, all in eastern armor, all stronger and taller than the Queens and fiercer of mien, and Reynard wondered if these were Anakim, like Kern.

But what irresistibly drew his eyes were the Queens, who seemed completely at ease in their proximity, their rule—their identity.

“We have faced those drakes often, and suffered—but where are they now?” asked the Queen on the right.

“Have they passed their season and lie on some mountain, rotting?” asked the Queen on the left.

“You killed their masters,” Kaiholo said to both, making Reynard flinch with his boldness. In England, he could not imagine addressing royalty so directly, and clearly this pair was of such a power—of such a royal heritage. Kaiholo finished, “Never wise when the season is still upon them. And for those who split and fly near the end of the cycle, it is still their season.”

“How many more of these monsters are waiting to protect you?” asked the Queen on the left. Reynard could detect by her expression that her role sat more lightly upon this sister, and the other took things with a heavier heart.

“We have come to find those who need our stories,” Widsith said. “We are filled with sorrow to find them killed or enslaved. Where are the Travelers and servants being taken?”

“We are happy to receive thy stories,” the Queen on the right said. “We can even convey the best to those whom we have taken, mostly, to live in comfort on the eastern shores, or to be returned to the lands we have rid of war and the monsters who once filled these kraters. But you will never finish your tasks, for those monsters are dead or dying.”

“Of old age,” Widsith said. “They were mostly dead before you began your conquests!”

The Queen on the left followed her sister’s words with “Out of curiosity, we have left two of the monsters alive. Their servants seem willing to help our scholars, if we do not kill them.”

“Can you kill them?” Reynard asked.

“We have sought warriors who can look upon their evil and not go mad. But we have not yet killed them.”

“The shrouded one in the cathedral city seems safe enough,” the left Queen said.

“But to be sure, we have not been allowed to look at that one, either,” the right Queen said with a prim expression. “For thousands of years, the Isles of the Blessed have suffered under the tyranny of the one who invited these monsters, and gifted them with the sole guidance of human destiny. To end the reign of Hel, we planned our journeys in the west and destroyed those villages that still send men across the oceans, that still support and report to the cities that surround the monsters. We have leveled all but two of the cities around the chafing waste. So Hel’s time is now ending.”

“Are you certain?” Kaiholo asked. One of the tall women reached out to admonish him, but the Queens raised their hands and the guard withdrew, still angry.

“I am not sure I believe any of this nonsense,” said the Queen on the left. “I do not believe Hel ever existed, or any great sky people. My sister and I lead practical lives, guided by study and irrefutable nature—not by sorcery.”

“But the drakes still kill,” Kaiholo said.

“That they do,” said the left Queen. “But not for long. This, I have been told, will be their last season.” She raised her cane. “Now is the time to introduce our guests to th’other players. One not of the west hath sent a figure ahead, made of sticks and perhaps bones—a bone-wife, we hear it is called, incapable of being driven insane. It might be able to kill these monsters. Dost ye know of the King of Troy and his toys?”

“He did not serve Hel,” the right Queen said. “Perhaps his toys will serve the island.”

The one-armed Spanish soldier approached a guard and tugged her down to whisper in her ear. At this, with no further ceremony, the Queens were guided from their throne room. They walked with surprising grace side by side, though the right-hand Queen rested her arm on a guard’s outstretched hand.

Widsith and Kaiholo and Reynard were roughly shoved and hurried out of the tent chambers, one of the giants wielding a sword without much care, out of the tent itself, and across the ground between the wounded on cots and the dead in their shrouds. The great tent was now surrounded by a frightened, exhausted mob of eastern soldiers, and scattered through this roil, a handful of Spaniards, though Reynard could not see Cardoza anywhere.

“Where are we going?” Kaiholo asked as they were nudged on by pikes and spears.

“Where you will not get us killed,” said the one-armed soldier when they were a hundred yards from the tent. He seemed high in rank, and his wound did little more than slow him down. He carried a long sword and his aide carried a Spanish crossbow, and they kept glancing at the sky.

Reynard looked at Widsith, then at Kaiholo. Where would they be able to summon their drakes? Reynard did not know how that relationship worked, or what summoned whom—or even how drakes and their masters communicated! He had hoped to have instruction from Anutha, but now his mind was empty both of hope and knowledge.

The soldiers in their guard urged them one direction, then merged with another group that poked and prodded them another, until they all had cuts and bruises from spear points or sword blades, and no one seemed to have any plan—except to get the captives away from the tent and to a place where they could be unable to interact, perhaps, with any drakes.

Came a flurry of confusion among those surrounding them, a roar of anger followed by shouts of pain—and several great glinting streaks of shadow over the mass of men and women, along with the pound of hooves and screams of horses—

“They are here!” Kaiholo called, and was struck by a shield, which knocked him flat. The one who struck him, a broad, bald, young eastern man, knelt down beside him, as if he regretted striking such a blow, but knew not what to do, and almost gently, he lifted the island Traveler as if he would revive him.