Chapter Nine
East of Dalhmun Prison
Former Transellia
Natalya Baston
Natalya observed as the Almacian patrol marched down the same road as the day before. When she looked up at the position of the sun, she noted it was around the same time as yesterday. The Almacians were creatures of habit. Their proclivity toward order made them easy to predict.
When Vals had tasked her with gathering intelligence on Dalhmun Prison, he’d mentioned the need for general intelligence on the area as well. A casual suggestion from a member of Kolakolvia’s secret police held the weight of a direct order from her regular officers. So she intended to do a very thorough job for the Oprichnik, because impressing a man like Vals put her one step closer to getting her parents freed.
She watched the enemy through her rifle scope—a marvelous implement that made everything seem five times bigger than it should be. It made picking out details easy. The Almacian walking point looked hardly more than a boy. The long wool coat he was dressed in was warmer than the season strictly dictated, but it wasn’t too out of place, as Transellia was a land of constant rain and fog. Natalya wasn’t sure what Almacian uniform protocol was, so perhaps this was the only uniform assigned him. If Almacia faced any of the same textile shortages as Kolakolvia, the assumption was reasonable enough.
Wind. From the southeast. Slight. Account for drop. At this distance, the patrol lead would have about a second and a half left to live after she pulled the trigger.
Not that she would.
Probably.
She always developed an itch when she went too long without shooting anything. It wasn’t that she needed to kill. Bloodthirstiness wasn’t a trait Natalya imagined she held, though she was honest enough to recognize she could be wrong about herself. Her itch to squeeze the trigger was more about power, cause and effect. When she pulled the trigger, she expected to hit her target, whatever it may be. Tree. Stone. Animal. And yes, oftentimes people. A rifle was a purpose-driven tool, after all.
If Natalya willed for the round from her rifle to hit something, it did. She pulled the trigger, and like magic, she enacted her will upon her target. The power was in the decision. Everywhere else in her life, her decisions had been taken from her. Out here, she was in control.
No. She wouldn’t shoot the boy. This was a scouting mission, not a hunting mission, apologies to her goddess. But, if she did need to engage, she’d only shoot the point man if the path was particularly narrow so the rest of them couldn’t escape, or if the lead man was riding a horse, perhaps, because a dead horse would serve as a nice impediment. In this case, given the nature of the terrain, how spread out the patrol was, and how many places there were for them to take cover, killing the last soldier in line would be a better option.
Even with her scope, she couldn’t tell as many details about the trailing soldier. Regardless, that particular Almacian would have just over two seconds to live from shot to impact. Such a short culmination to what may very well be an impressive life. Or a worthless one. She never knew. Natalya wasn’t the judge. Just the executioner.
Well . . . maybe she was the smallest bit bloodthirsty.
The issue with the patrol wasn’t the existence of it, nor its size. The issue was this particular patrol being the tenth she’d seen this trip. Ten patrols, and half of those had been in territory supposedly under the Tsar’s control.
Almacia was up to something.
Transellia was south of the main front of the war. The front was a mud-churned no-man’s-land where both sides were hunkered down in a warren of trenches. Progress there consisted of slow churns measured in inches. The further one got from the front, the battles became more fluid, often spilling through forests, mountains, or even towns. There were even naval battles between great ships, but her gifts had no use at sea, so she’d never dealt with that sort of thing.
No matter how far the war raged, the main focus always came back to the front, for whoever controlled that patch of land, controlled access to Praja. Which neither side could allow, because whichever nation took Praja’s secrets would be able to conquer every other kingdom in all of Novimir and rule the world. If it were up to her, she’d say to hell with the Prajans’ magic, gather a huge force to flank around through the mountains, to surprise-strike deep into Almacia, burn their capitol to the ground, and end the war once and for all.
But Natalya was just a lowly scout, and she wasn’t even Kolakolvian, so it wasn’t like the Kommandant wanted her opinion on strategy.
She laid in the bushes, perfectly still, until the patrol passed by. She wore a poncho, knotted with ragged strips of burlap, covered in leaves and dead grass, so even if someone looked directly at her all they’d see was undergrowth. It wasn’t until she was absolutely certain that the patrol was out of sight did she move, setting her rifle aside so she could take out her small notebook, in order to note the enemy troop numbers and route. Then she took a small waterskin from her pack and drank. The water was followed by a strip of dried meat, and then more drink. Even this time of year, it got sweaty hiding under all that camouflage. Once her instincts told her it was safe, she moved out.
Avoiding the roads and using the forest for cover, Natalya continued hiking south. The terrain was rough, rocky, and had endless changes in elevation. There was plenty of water, but very little forage available. If a prisoner escaped from Dalhmun without supplies, they wouldn’t survive more than a few days out here. Perhaps that was the point in the location.
She’d memorized the maps of Transellia that had been available in Cobetsnya before leaving. The garrison cartographer’s map looked like it had been reworked dozens of times as land had been taken, lost, and then retaken. This dance had been going on for over a century, and it didn’t seem like it would stop anytime soon. But even with the tiny kingdom trading hands, it wasn’t like they would move some obscure prison. If she continued roughly following the river the locals called the Bega, she should find it.
As evening neared, the temperature began dropping noticeably. Maybe that soldier in the big coat had the right idea, after all. Cold never really bothered her, nor did heat. Those were some of the blessings of her people. Constantly being on the move while exposed to the elements tended to build tolerances in a way weak-willed city dwellers could never grasp.
But then, even among the blessed Rolmani, occasionally one of them was born especially favored by one of the gods. Because of the divinations read in bones, cards, and the stars, her parents had known the Goddess of the Hunt had taken a special interest in their child even before she’d been born. Their caravan would gain a mighty hunter. With so many signs and portents they’d been expecting a boy, and had been a bit surprised that she was a girl. But the Goddess had spoken, and the Rolmani knew better than to question the old gods.
The divinations about her had been proven true early on. Even as a child, she could wait patiently in ambush for days. She could run for hours without getting too tired, and she could do it on an empty stomach when needed. As she got older, tracks became as easy for her to read as letters, and her parents made sure she learned both. Her senses were far sharper than anyone else’s. She could see farther, hear clearer, catch the faintest scents, and was sensitive enough to the wind that she could tell its direction and speed by how the hairs on her arms felt. She’d brought a lot of meat back to the caravan, first with bows, and then with guns. So much meat that her people were constantly fat and happy even through the worst winters.
Unfortunately, once the empire found out about her skills they had decided she would be very useful in their endless war. The Tsar was a nonbeliever who mocked the old gods, but he was smart enough to know that some Rolmani were magically blessed. He also knew Rolmani were notorious for having no kings or countries and hating authority, their only true loyalty to their family. So whenever a Rolmani was drafted, some of their loved ones were placed in state custody—which was a nicer way of saying they were prisoners in a work camp.
As long as her parents were locked up, Natalya had no choice but to serve the hated Tsar. But Kristoph Vals was one of the Tsar’s secret policemen, and a high-ranking one if he’d been given one of the Chancellor’s Cursed monsters. Someone like that would have the authority to have her parents released.
Natalya pushed on for another hour and was rewarded with her first view of Dalhmun Prison’s towers as she crested a particularly steep rise. The cartographer’s map had been fairly accurate after all, but she resolved to give them a more complete description of the area when she returned. Mapmakers seemed to love that sort of thing, and in general, Natalya liked being in people’s good graces. Unless she was drinking. Then everyone could go hang themselves . . . except the barkeep.
She dropped prone because a silhouette was an easy target on a hill. She’d taken out more than a few that exact way over the years. Her first human kill, in fact, when she’d been fourteen. Even at that age the rifle had felt like an extension of her. An extra arm with the reach of a goddess.
With the dying sun in her eyes, she knew she’d never be able to get a good look at the camp, and with the sun at this angle, a reflection off the glass of her scope could easily give away her position. So Natalya dug in between two large boulders, where a depression had been dug out by a long-since-gone animal and took a nap.
The sun set, and the stars woke up.
No matter how many nights she spent under them, she never tired of looking at the stars. It was one of the many things she despised about being ordered into the cities. Natalya missed the stars’ presence nearly as much as she missed her parents. And the moon. The moon was never as bright anywhere else as it was away from civilization. She admired the view for five more seconds—an eternity as she counted them off silently—then edged out of her hiding place to view the prison at night.
Electricity hadn’t made it out this far yet, and Natalya doubted it ever would. Moonlight washed over the landscape, making clear the buildings of the prison to her keen eyes. Tall stone walls surrounded the property, and there was only one entrance that she could see from here. Watchtowers had been built at every corner, but they were too short to be very effective at looking out. They were intended for looking inward. A tiny flare of light from one tower drew her attention. An idiot guard had lit a cigarette. Through her scope she could barely make out his form, a small dark blotch against a slightly lighter backdrop. If she’d wanted the fool dead it would have been an easy shot.
The interior buildings didn’t look Kolakolvian, and the wall definitely wasn’t. It was all . . . soft. She didn’t have anything against the Transellians in general, but this didn’t seem like the right setting to have weak walls and poorly made buildings. Either there were no funds to make the prison better, or no one was really worried too much about anyone attacking. She’d know better after observing in daylight.
Natalya slid back between the boulders and stared up at the night sky. She wished she had brought her tarot cards. Tonight was a perfect night to try reading the fates. Her mother had called nights like these Fate’s Darkness. You could learn a lot about the future on a night like this.
The stars and moon watched over her as she slept.
* * *
Natalya was awake before the dawn. For as long as she could remember, she’d never slept past sunrise outside of a city. When trapped in civilization and all it’s overwhelming noise, she simply drank herself into oblivion until she could leave again. But outside those walls, she was always eager to greet the new day. She spied the best vantage point that would allow her to look down on the prison unseen and moved there.
The guard shift changed, and she could tell both those being relieved, and those doing the relieving, were barely awake. Shameful. She wagered she could probably get off five or six shots before anyone even realized what was going on. And by then, all the tower guards would be dead. They were too complacent.
She watched for hours. Prisoners were allowed to walk the grounds inside the wall. She’d seen gulags before. These prisoners were older and not nearly as imposing as the types who were sentenced for crimes of violence. Even when relaxed, those gave off a predator feel. These were sedate in comparison. Political prisoners, then, and not bomb throwers either. She’d expected to see some sort of unruly behavior from someone, but it never came. The guard shifts changed every six hours, give or take. They didn’t seem to be religious about it.
She saw dozens of men approximately her target’s age throughout the day. Vals’ description of the man he was searching for was twenty years out of date, and then he had been of average size, build, and with no distinguishing physical features. Vals wouldn’t even tell her the man’s name, and yet the Oprichnik expected some sort of briefing when she returned. The difficult part of any mission here would be getting a sufficient raiding party this far from Kolakolvian lines. If they could make it this far, extracting the prisoner would be the easy part. Getting out would be a real challenge.
The Bega River flowed from Kolakolvian-controlled territory right past the prison. Inserting by boat would be the fastest, but there was civilian river traffic, which meant witnesses, and Almacian forces liked to set up camp along the shores. Traveling by land would take longer, but there would be a multitude of patrols to dodge, and most of the Tsar’s soldiers were noisy oafs in the forest compared to her.
Neither approach seemed ideal. But then, she didn’t have to make the decision.
Natalya made her notes, including a sketch of the prison grounds, and was packing up her gear when a chill settled over her.
A rustle of feathers.
The single caw of a raven.
She knew she would hear a twig break before it actually happened. A diviner’s instinct, her father would have called it.
Snap.
Natalya didn’t spin. Didn’t grow concerned. Calm settled over her like a warm blanket on a cold night. She pulled her hood up over her head and sank into the leaves, hiding as someone approached. She pulled back the steel knob on the back of her rifle’s bolt to cock it, and then waited.
It was a single Almacian soldier. In this location, he couldn’t have been with any of the other patrols she’d observed in her travels. So she’d either missed one somewhere along the way, or this was just bad luck and he was blundering about on his own.
The soldier’s skin was wrinkle-free, but blemished. He wore square, thin-framed spectacles. A boy from a family of means, then. And a boy he was. Natalya would have been shocked to discover he was any older than fifteen. He had a rifle in his hands, one of their new needle guns. A boy of means, indeed.
Natalya was patient. She’d simply wait for the soldier to pass and then continue on her way. Except then a flapping of wings caught both of their attention. A raven landed on the branch directly above her. It looked down, studying her, cocking its head, first one way then the other.
The raven cawed at her. She felt this was an omen. Death was here. Not necessarily hers, but the moment could veer that way without much warning. Unfortunately, the bird was drawing attention to where she’d hastily hid herself.
The boy saw the bird, then he followed its curious gaze. It was almost as if the raven was trying to give away her position. It wasn’t just an omen of death. It would be the cause.
If she’d had more time, she would have been able to conceal herself to be nearly invisible. Unfortunately, the boy realized something was not right about the misshapen bush at the base of the raven’s tree.
“Who’s there?” He reached for a whistle that was on a chain around his neck. “Identify yourself! Come out or I’ll . . . I’ll . . . ”
From the moment the Almacian soldier had trailed off, his life had reached its final few seconds.
He never knew what hit him. So terribly fast. Almost like magic a hole appeared in his chest, and he collapsed. The noise of her shot echoed off the rocks of the mountainside.
She moved to his fallen form and ended it quick with her knife.
The raven cawed its praise. Seemingly pleased, it flew away.
No sounds of another patrol reached her ears, but that didn’t mean they weren’t near. The prison guards were certainly close enough to hear, but hopefully they would just think it was someone poaching on their puppet king’s land. She patted down the soldier’s pockets and found some ammunition and a folded map with markings on it, but nothing else. She stuffed the map in her coat. The Almacian’s sightless eyes stared up into the sky. Natalya plucked the spectacles from his face, pocketed them because such things were rare and valuable in Kolakolvia, then ran fingers over his eyelids. The soldier looked the boy again.
Time was short, but she grabbed three pebbles from the ground nearby, and put one over each of his eyes, and the last between his lips. “Stones bind him to the land,” she whispered. “Please blind his death from the corpse eaters.”
She picked up the boy’s rifle, slung it over her shoulder, and took off at a run.
She was a mile away when she heard the first whistles.
The chase was on.
Dalhmun Prison
Former Transellia
Amos Lowe
“Well something has certainly gotten the staff riled up.”
“It appears so,” Amos agreed with the priest, for the guards did seem very nervous. Normally there were only one or two rifles visible, and those were in the hands of the men in the watchtowers. The rest were armed with truncheons at most. Today, they were all armed with guns, long ones on slings and small ones in holsters. Amos didn’t know much about firearms, but these looked like archaic antiques to him, speckled with rust. But what had caused Warden Tamf to unlock Dalhmun’s seldom opened armory to pass out its weapons?
Amos and Father Pelidar were working outside the small prison chapel. Amos did not worship here. In fact he was the only member of his faith in the entire prison, but the warden had known that Amos was a skilled craftsman, so he had assigned him to the work crew that was helping the priest repair the tiny building. Amos had enjoyed the assignment, as Pelidar was one of the few men here who had seen enough of the world to actually be an interesting conversationalist.
Today the guards’ anxiety made Amos too worried to enjoy their talk. The warden’s letter to the Almacian government hadn’t been sent yet, but the idea that his name was out there again had set Amos on edge, no matter how unlikely that name was to ever come to the attention of Nicodemus. The odds of it being seen by anyone who knew who he was were virtually nonexistent, and surely by now, after twenty-two long years in exile his old friend would have assumed he was dead.
Dead would be safer.
Though that idea had crossed Amos’ mind many times over the years, it was not an option for him. Taking his own life was forbidden by his beliefs, but more importantly there were a great many innocent souls who he had inadvertently bound through his research, and if they were ever freed, they might require his aid to help them move to the next realm. It was his fault they were trapped. Amos could never abandon them.
If Nicodemus found him, he’d surely try to force Amos to chain a multitude more souls to power his machines and abominations. Were the guards on alert because the armies of Kolakolvia were marching here to claim him?
However doubtful, it was still possible . . . But there was nothing he could do about it now that he hadn’t done already, so he returned to his labor, using a file to shape a piece of wood to fix a broken pew.
“Will you come to my sermon this Sunday, Zaydele?” Father Pelidar asked.
“That depends. Do you wish for me to speak up and educate everyone about how you’re wrong again?”
Pelidar chuckled. “The teachings of the church are never wrong, but the congregation enjoyed our last lively debate.”
That much was true, but that’s because they were prisoners who weren’t allowed to do anything fun. “What’s your topic going to be, Father?”
“The creation.”
“Ah, a classic. But the creation of which world? The one our ancestors came from? Or the one we inhabit now?”
“I was thinking both.”
“An ambitious task.”
“Not really. The Earth was created by the Almighty over seven days. The light, the firmament, the land, the moon and stars, the birds and the fish, the animals, and the Sabbath to be a day of rest. Even your tribe agrees with that order. Surely this world is the same.”
“My tribe wrote those things down long before your heretical offshoot religion came to be, Father. But that was about the world of Adam. Novimir, the world we live in now, nobody knows when or how it came to be, or who made the strange fairy things who lived upon it when we arrived.”
“The Almighty, obviously. Creator of all.”
“Perhaps. But did he make the Three Sisters? Because by all accounts they already ruled these lands long before our ancestors wandered through the mists between worlds and were forced to settle here.”
“Who else would have made them? The Sisters prepared the way for the children of God. He wanted us to have these lands.”
Amos always marveled at how arrogant man could be. “Then why didn’t he tell his prophets about this place? Why didn’t he send conquering armies? Why was it always in small groups, tribes, wanderers and the lost? Crossing over in dribs and drabs from many nations and kingdoms, slowly growing in numbers over time, for thousands of years, who gradually drove back the creatures who lived here before and replaced their reality with our own?”
Pelidar snorted derisively. “There’s only one reality, Amos.”
They were both so caught up in the debate that it took him a moment to realize Pelidar had used his real name again. He scowled. Pelidar raised his hands apologetically.
Amos continued. “Man was created in His image, but in whose image was created the fey? Or the dryad? The huld? The karlik or the leshy? The domovoy who bless your home, or the nabats who hide in the fields?”
The priest snorted again. “Some of those are myths or figments of the imagination. Others were simply primitive tribes of pagans whom the first settlers ascribed monstrous traits to, before driving them into the wilderness.”
“And the corpse eaters?”
That stopped Pelidar, because ghouls were one pest which was still distressingly common. They were always a nuisance, appearing to feed on dead bodies, and occasionally they would swarm in great numbers, carrying off every living thing in the area, to be devoured later wherever they dwelled.
“Those are creatures from Hell, obviously.”
“You mean Sheol,” Amos corrected him. “The domain beneath this one, home of the wicked dead. The place where the Third Sister was banished after the other two betrayed and murdered her, because she wouldn’t pick a side in their war.”
“You have curious beliefs, Zaydele.”
“And I would tell you all of them, if you would but listen.” Amos set down his file. Fixing the lopsided pew could wait because he genuinely enjoyed a good discussion of history. “The truth is this world we live in now has always touched our old world since the beginning, but the two realms were governed by different eternal laws. This place was the source of many of the strange, legendary beings who harried man. Those creatures would cross over, and then return back here when they were done. Occasionally, some of us would inadvertently cross over to their side, only for us, there was no return. For those people, they either perished or learned to survive here. Over the centuries more and more humans blundered across, bringing their languages, cultures, and beliefs with them, and multitudes more were born here. As we gradually colonized this place, the land changed to suit us. Villages turned into cities, tribes turned into kingdoms, and we slowly drove back the original residents, which is why monsters are scarce now, or only found in the most inaccessible regions.”
Pelidar seemed amused. “I’m afraid you’ve gotten some fairytales mixed in with your theology, my friend.”
“Hardly. This also explains why back on Earth, the odd and mysterious beasts became rarer and rarer over time. In the histories of the tribes who’ve been here the longest, they speak as if those creatures were commonplace in the lands they hailed from, yet for groups which arrived on this side centuries later, the supernatural was only legends to them. I believe that’s because as man’s influence spread on this side of the mists, it cut off the creatures access to our old world.”
“If the warden does manage to get you amnesty and release you into the Kolakolvian Empire, don’t speak such blasphemies in front of the state church or they’ll have your head.”
Amos laughed, for he was no stranger to that sort of threat. “The Tsar will have to wait his turn. Now, if you require evidence that what I’m saying is true, look no further than the fact that as man changed this world, Novimir also changed us. Magic was almost nonexistent there, but it is strong here, enabling us to do things which would be impossible in the old world.”
“Not so. There’s plenty of examples in the scriptures of miracles from God, and even magicians given powers by the devil.”
“More likely those took their power from where this world touched the old one. I’m not speaking of holy miracles. Do you deny the Sisters have power?”
Pelidar paused, choosing his words carefully. “I’m sure whatever power they have is only what He allows them to have. They are like saints.”
“They are nothing like your saints.” Amos’ voice became low and dangerous. “They are ancient eldritch beings, never to be trifled with. They could have destroyed every human being on this side of the mists if they’d felt like it, but our struggles amused them. As the ancient races fled, they adopted new pets. To the west, one Sister picked your people, the tribe known as the Almacs, and to the east, the other Sister picked the Kolaks. They raised them up, and made them strong, and they’ve been fighting ever since. When the Third Sister wouldn’t choose a side in their war, they killed her for it. Who knows how many other gods they have killed in their jealous rage?”
“There is only one God, Zaydele. But if what you say is true, it’s not our industry or scholarship that allowed Almacia to grow and thrive, oh no, it is simply because the Sister of Logic picked us?” The priest seemed to find all of that mildly amusing. “If that was how it worked, you’d be lording it over us all, because your tribe claimed to be God’s chosen people.”
“Once. Only we weren’t worthy, so we were punished, defeated, divided, and carried off into captivity. My tribe were lost along the way and ended up in this world.” They probably would have perished in Novimir too, if the Prajans hadn’t recognized just how mighty his tribe’s golem magic had become here and granted them safe haven in exchange for it. “The Sister’s chosen peoples have a different, unknown purpose, and through their not-so-gentle guidance, those two tribes have grown into the great and terrible empires which rule most of us today. Through them, the Sisters continue their fight.”
“A war seemingly without end.” Pelidar sighed.
With Praja as the ultimate prize both sides sought, but Amos didn’t say that aloud.
“As interesting as your tall tales are, Zaydele, I believe that guard is trying to catch my attention.”
Kartevur was approaching, carrying a gun that made him look very uncomfortable. He held the thing as if it were a snake that might bite him. “Good day, Father.”
“Bless you, my son.”
The guard nodded. “Zaydele.”
“How is that hand, Mr. Kartevur?”
“Wonderful. Thank you again. But I was sent to get the Father. The occupiers don’t have a chaplain, but they requested a priest’s service, and were happy to hear you were one of their countrymen. They’re wanting to do a funeral.”
“It is a sad occasion, but I am glad to be of service.” Pelidar stood up and brushed the sawdust from his trousers. “What happened?”
Kartevur glanced around to see if any of the other prisoners were listening. Apparently, he didn’t really think of Amos as a regular prisoner. “There’s been a murder nearby. Not too far outside the walls in fact. One of the occupiers got killed.”
“That’s terrible,” Pelidar said.
“Murdered by who?” Amos asked.
“Don’t know. They’re assuming a poacher, but who knows?”
“Lead the way, Mr. Kartevur,” the priest said. “Would you kindly finish fixing that pew without me, Zaydele? I look forward to continuing our discussion another time.”
“Of course,” Amos answered, while trying to hide the terrible feeling of dread which had descended upon him.