D. Thourson Palmer's Blog, page 8

My serial needs your vote!

Every vote counts

If you’ve been following RAZE (or if you haven’t), I could use your vote and your rating on topwebfiction.com. This’ll help increase the visibility of my web series and get more readers. Just click here to cast your vote. Top Web Fiction and its sister site, Web Fiction Guide, are the premier place for readers of online serial fiction to find the best stories, all posted for free. Ranking will get me views, readers, and more votes.

I could also use your review. RAZE is listed at Wattpad and at webfictionguide.com. Those links will take you to the appropriate place to drop a star rating and a couple of words. It would make a huge difference so I hope you can spare a couple of minutes.

Lastly, tell your friends! RAZE is a series of short entries, readable on any of your online devices through my site and through Wattpad. If you know someone who likes mature, adult takes on fantasy literature, RAZE might be there thing. That said…

About RAZE and “mature” material

RAZE is an ongoing, weekly epic fantasy web serial, a serious, character driven portrait of the greatest warrior the world has ever known, told from his holding cell before his execution at the hands of the woman he loves; a cell he chose; a cell in which he waits. To find out why, you have to get to know RAZE.

RAZE is also fairly dark thus far, and explores some mature themes that may prove upsetting to some. I’m of the opinion that fiction is the correct place to explore and understand things that frighten us, disturb us, or even things that have traumatized us. I think it’s the right place, both for myself and for many readers. It’s not everyone’s thing and readers looking for lighter entertainment may not be interested in this story. Of course I want RAZE to be entertaining, but it’s also an outlet for my own thoughts, concerns, fears, and wounds. All that said, and with my intentions being what they are, I also know that there’s room for improvement and better understanding in my own work. I hope anyone who reads and has thoughts about the work will let me hear those thoughts.

Thanks everyone.

 

 

The post My serial needs your vote! appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 017

It is difficult to recall the time I spent in the army of the Lonireilans. I recall some things. The first time I followed the knife wind into a settlement, north of Naban, and saw how it had flayed the living where they stood, pushing their blood in red streaks. That, I recall well. I recall when I learned that Estevo was my friend, and not my enemy. And I recall my first victory.

I was the subject of many brutalities in the service of the Lonireilan company that took me away from my home, though none so terrible as my sister’s killing and what was done to me before.

I was fourteen, and it had been some months since the Lonireilans had taken me. I was not the only one. Other children they had taken as well, children of Naban and of the neighboring provinces Opac, Haal, and Rouk. We were starved, whipped, made to march with heavy loads. The packs and bags cut into my shoulders, made my knees quake, my muscles tremble. Sweat poured off of me and soaked my rough clothes to my skin, making me shiver in the cold. When we made camp, they beat us, then gave us food and water. I came to anticipate the beatings because I knew that after, there would be food. I craved them. When we stopped and I saw the whips or canes, my mouth watered.

The Lonireilans made us fight and the winners got extra ration biscuits. The biscuits were hard, stale things, but they tasted very fine indeed, and sometimes a soldier would lay a congratulating hand on my head after I beat another child into a bloody mess just for a little extra food. I craved the touch as much as the biscuits.

At night we were herded together, I and the other children, into a tent or stable or outlying house, depending on where the Lonireilans took us as they pushed north into Serehvan. I was, as I mentioned, a big lad, and so when the others learned they could not bully me they left me to myself. I always took the warmest sleeping place. I was tired and hurt beyond caring about the others. The others bullied each other for hidden scraps of food or the warmest places to sleep, for blankets, for better robes or shoes. Then, they bullied the smaller for sport, when there was nothing left. I did it too. The reward of control, even such a pittance, was too great. This I did not understand until much, much later, when I managed to bring myself to look back on those days for the first time.

When it became too simple for me to eat well, to beat another child for food, to take the best shoes in which to march, the Lonireilan captain took me aside. I expected a beating, or worse, and was afraid and sat cowering, stinking, filthy and starved. As I recall, we were camped on the north of the province, not far from the capital of Serehvan, such as it was. Serehvan was never a rich country. We were billeted in the grounds of a plantation, a great farm with a great house and many serfs and slaves who worked the poppy fields. The Lonireilan captain, called de Trastorces, sat on an ornate, carved stool within the house and his soldiers brought me to him. The room was plush, comfortable, with gold candelabras and a hookah and painted scrolls on the walls. It seemed a foreign landscape and for some reason I worried that I would track in dirt on the brightly-colored, woven straw mats. That, I recall: worrying about the dirt on my stolen shoes.

De Trastorces spoke to the Lonireilans in their own tongue, a tongue I did not know, and they brought food. He held it out to me. He wore boots indoors, but not his armor, and was dressed very finely in bright Lonireilan silk with geometric, brocade patterns. I stared at the food, grapes and hot mezakh with yellow sauce, and waited for the beating to commence.

“Eat,” he said. “Go on, boy.” His accent was the lazy sound I remembered from outside my family’s farm. How long ago had that been? I had no idea, and the smell and sight of food beyond biscuit and water made my mind spin. “Go on,” he repeated, and I must have crawled forward and eaten out of his hand. The taste of that food, I remember. He gave me wine next.

While I ate, his hand rested on my back. I collapsed, as if stricken. I yelped like a dog. He waited, coaxed me back to my plate, and put his hand on me again. I flinched, but didn’t stop eating, and while I ate and drank he rested his hand on my back and spoke. The feeling of his hand was warm indeed, and the sound of his accented voice at once hateful and so kind, so kind.

“You’re growing strong, now. You’ve been punished enough. Do you understand why we punished you? A parent must punish a child.”

I ate, but then his hand tightened on my shoulder and I dropped handful of mezakh in my haste to cower. “Yes,” I said, “I understand.”

“You attacked my soldiers. They are my family.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. He released his grip and I ate again after a pause.

“You could eat like this every day. Have a wine ration. Would you like that?” I nodded, my face stuffed with food, and he smiled kindly. “Will you be a good child? Will you do as you’re told now?” Again, I agreed.

“Good.” He rubbed my back, most comfortingly. “Very good.”

That night, I slept in a tent with soldiers. The called me foul names in Lonireilan, the few words I had learned used over and over. At the time, the names seemed deserved. I was a dog, or worse. They pushed and kicked me, but I had a full belly, and new clothes, clothes like the soldiers’. I slept on a bedroll instead of on the floor. In the morning, they gave me a spear and I marched behind the Lonireilans’ camels, and I sneered at the children still bound and walking behind even as the soldiers ahead mocked me, struck me when I was slow or foolish or tired. They did not beat me anymore, though, and that night I got good food again.

That is how I became a good Lonireilan soldier. Does it seem cruel? Foolish, to break so soon?  I was half-starved, beaten daily, in constant pain, scarred, weak, parched. My wish was for a morsel of food, to set down the pack weighing me without being kicked until I couldn’t scream for lack of breath. You might be surprised to find how little it takes to make you do as you’re told, and, in the midst of such horror, how warm a kind hand can feel.

The post RAZE – 017 appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

RAZE – 016

I left the tent with a glowing knot of warm light in my stomach, doing battle with the cold void, like the void of the Seducer’s promises, like the cold suggestion and the feeling brought on by the unknown, by a priest’s warnings, drawing in from all sides around it. I stood a few paces from Ivanyaska’s tent with the sky clear overhead and the cold digging back into me through my exposed face with needle fingers. I stood and went over her propositions, her promises of fortune and glory, and the promises of danger ahead. We would become the rulers of the Bear’s Tooth, and we would kill Vasily Avosha Brobov and all those he commanded. A tall order indeed.

My nose was cold and my eyes watering almost immediately. I started back for the healer’s wagon, my wounds slowing my advance as I tromped through the heavy snow. I had killed, in the Lonireilan army. I had been forced, and I had also killed of my own accord. Why did I feel this was different? Was it the planning? The intent? That, indeed, I had not felt before, and something about it turned my stomach in a way that the killing before had not. In Weckar’s service, in the army I had been pressed into with other sad children from Serehvan, we had killed without thought. We had done much without thought. The thoughtless place had been our only refuge from our horror. The idea reminded me of the holy men of Ria Vancha, who give up passion and thought to be free, to attain peace. Was it the same? Had I, unknowingly, touched the Perfect Emptiness that spirituals seek, in my own small, sad attempt to escape what I had done, and what had been done to me?

A fire circle glowed between black silhouettes ahead and provka laughed, passing a bottle. Estevo’s ridiculous accent rose above the other voices, a jest in Kalughri at our tevkas which earned him another swig. I changed direction, to round the cold dark on the other side of the wagon, to return to the road without having to stop and pretend at not knowing what I knew. The mood to jest and laugh was not on me. I needed to return to the healer’s wagon, to rest. The drink in my stomach was not a pleasant warming, but a coal, smouldering, waiting. It would wait three months before it was blown up into a blaze.

The healer had gone to his small tent, set up beside his wagon, but had left the little heater and fuel inside for me. I stoked it up, added a little more coal, left it near the cloth curtain across the back of the wagon so the smoke might mostly travel out and rise away into the night. My feet would be warm, and the rest of me would take care of itself beneath furs and the healer’s old stained quilt. I slept immediately, though shallowly, the restless sleep of liquor and of being too weary.

A sound stirred me I know not how long after. In my state I reacted slowly, too slowly. A gloved hand covered my mouth, smashed the back of my head into the thin straw mattress. A cold edge dug at my throat beneath it. What I at first had taken for darkness resolved into a figure as I struggled. My limbs were lead, my breath taken from me. Even as I tried to arise, pain blossomed out of my ribs. A spark shot through my jaw from where the tooth had been pulled. I feebly struggled at the hands on me, unable to breathe, then sagged back.

“Stay still and quiet, Heshim Nashak Na,” a harsh whisper said above me. “Still.” I ceased struggling, lungs empty, and saw bright motes of light as I suffocated. However, because I’d gone still, the hand moved somewhat and I gasped in a cold, biting breath. “Stay quiet or they’ll find you dead, understand?” It was Vasily Avosha Brobov. He smiled at me, a joyless grin hanging in the darkness of the wagon. The faintest silver glow came from the snow outside through the gaps in the curtain behind him. “I know you met with Ivanyaska. That sow.”

“She–”

He didn’t let the words out. He punched the side of my jaw and tears welled in my eyes as the shock echoed all through me. Blood rushed from the empty, swollen socket.

“I said quiet, dog.” He pressed the knife to my neck. “You’re mine, now, dog. You do as I say. What did she want, for you to be her provka? Fine. If she claims you, you’ll go with her but you’ll do as I say, understand? Nod if you understand. You’re my provka.” He hissed out the words. “My dog.”

With tears in my eyes, I nodded. Helpless. The shames and miserys of my past rushed back and I was a child again. Vasily Avosha Brobov’s knife moved at my throat.

“You’ll say nothing to her, or you’ll die. Nothing to the rasakanova, or you die. Do you understand?”

Again I nodded.

“Whine. Like a dog.” It was all I could do not too. I whimpered at his command, merely let myself make the noise that had been building inside me. Shame flooded my face, my chest, hot and foul just beneath my skin. Vasily moved the knife blade to my face, below my eye. “Weeping. Just like a foreigner. Weak, pathetic pup. Do as I say, and you’ll live. That’s all you need to know, coward. Keep quiet about this, and do what I say when I say. Impress me, and I might even reward you.” He got up, moved away in the wagon. Again, his teeth flashed. “You’re my dog now, Nashak Na.”

He left, and I lay hurting and crying in the back of the wagon, alone. I struggled against my own sobs to keep quiet. No one could know. I could not let anyone see.

His dog. Nashak Na. Fatherless, clanless.

I was not his dog. This I resolved. A cold rage, a coward’s rage I thought it at the time, came to me. I would not oppose him openly. I would be clever. Cleverer than he, and crueler. I would wait, and I would use my fear. I would find the right place and time. Position. That was the lesson of my time with the Bear’s Tooth in cold Kalughnor. The lesson was Position. In the dark, alone, I wept and resolved to wait to kill Vasily Avosha Brobov.

My shame, my weakness, brought back the years in the Lonireilan army that I had forgotten, that had gone past me like fog in the night. But this time, I would not wait years to escape.

The post RAZE – 016 appeared first on D. Thourson Palmer.

Blog Probs

Hey everyone. So, due to some higher than expected website traffic, I overshot my bandwidth and the site is down till the end of the month. Raze will continue as soon as my bandwidth resets in May. Thanks for your patience and thanks for following along!

RAZE – 015

The inside of the tent was dim but for a wick flickering within a silver-wrought, green glass lamp. Kalughnoran tents are tall enough to stand in, round, warm. The floor was strewn with a few woven rugs and in one corner Ivanyaska Broveschka Prupov’s bedroll, still bound in a fat cylinder, sat beside a short carved table with clever folding legs. Ivanyaska invited me in with a typical Kalughnoran bow and we sat, I more slowly than I’d have liked. To my satisfaction, however, I did not wince or groan at the bending of my waist and flexing of my newly-acquired joints as I steadied myself and sat on a proffered, short stool. It was just high enough to keep one’s ass off the cold Kalughnoran ground while one sat, cross-legged.

The table held a little bronze warmer, faintly sputtering an almost invisible flame at the bottom of a decorated ceramic teapot. The fuel was a Skertah alchemical invention, a black paste that burns hot and slow. The scent of it, like burning wet grass, and of the tea in the pot, invaded my nostrils: dry berries, clove, rose, bright bark. Warmth, finally, began to seep into me, diffusing through my weary arms and legs and chest. The healer’s wagon was too cold. My ears and nose tingled.

Ivanyaska poured tea into little wood cups. She was very fine, older than me, with long fingers and slender white wrists. Her hair was out, a tangle of dark brown in masses of braids that heaped on her shoulders. Estevo, fool that he was, had sewn the idea into my mind and now I could not ignore it. Ivanyaska’s full lips pursed as she poured tea to the brim.

As I mentioned before, I was around twenty-two years old at that time. Twenty-two year old men, and twenty-two year old women, I suspect, are idiots.

I waited and tried to focus elsewhere. The silver-wrought lamp with green glass hung from a tether at the apex of the tent. It was a fine thing, too delicate for the harsh country I found myself in, and I looked from it to the woman that it belonged to.

“Drink,” she said, her voice gruff. She lifted her cup, one handed, holding her embroidered wool sleeve with her other hand. I did likewise, the fashion of toasting in that place, and we lifted the tea to each other, to the sky with our eyes raised, and then turned our  torsos somewhat to the left and drank.

The tea boiled down into me, warming, coursing, throat then chest, then pit of stomach. Spices tingled on my tongue. When I placed the cup back on the table, she filled it again. “Tell me everything about what happened in the forest.”

I told her. She stopped me only once, at word of the borovoi. I made certain embellishments, but was not such a fool as to claim to have killed such a creature alone. I told her the woman fought it and ran when she was wounded, leaving the loot behind for me to retrieve.

When it was over, we drank again, and she waited for a long time in silence. In that time, she produced a slender, ceramic bottle, a liquor made from berries, called favel. She poured it and this we drank, and it burned most wonderfully and by then I felt very warm and hopeful and idiotic indeed. Then, she said, “You spoke against Vasily Avosha Brobov. Called him a liar. If this reaches his ears, he’ll have you killed by the provka serving him.”

“They’ll be welcome to try, once I’m well.”

“Once you’re well. For now you are very vulnerable, Heshim Nashak Na.”

“Not so vulnerable as they might think. I walked here, didn’t I?”

“And you would fall over from a snowball,” she said. “Eleven provka serve Vasily Avosha Brobov. Can you fight them all?”

Here, I paused. Boasting would only get me so far. “Eleven? I thought six.” Eleven was, I thought, more than his fair share.  

“He was  already Zhrovocha’s most powerful tevka, and more so now that your own tevka is dead. Did you know he died, in the green woman’s attack?”

“I believe I missed that detail in the sprays of blood. Also I fought a borovoi while I recovered what was stolen. I did mention the borovoi?”

“You have a mouth cleverer than your brains, Heshim Nashak Na. Vasily Avosha Brobov has already recruited your former comrades, apart from the Lonireilan.”

“Estevo.”

“His name doesn’t matter. Vasily has eleven pledged to him, and two other weak tevka and their few provka. He will destroy you, if he wishes. But,” she motioned in the air, a swiveling of the wrist, “I would have you as my provka. I will ask the rasakanova tomorrow.”

I began to hope that perhaps Estevo had been right. I met her eyes and found them lovely. “As you wish, my tevka.”

“This is not a–stop looking like that and pay attention.” She paused, inspecting me with a confused look. “Are you going to be sick?”

I sat up straighter and took a breath. “No. I am fine.”

“What was that face?”

“Nothing.” I was an idiot, remember.

She waited, then went on. “This is not a kindness. I am going to ask your secrecy. A pledge. You will give it before I go on, or you’ll get out. If you break this pledge, I’ll kill you. If you reveal what I ask, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

Very confused, I nodded. She offered favel again, pushing it towards me. “Drink.”

I picked up the cup and, after the proper civilities, I drank.

Ivanyaska smiled. “Very soon, Rasakanova Zhrovocha will make one of his tevka his blood. Understand? He is leaving the Bear’s Tooth, taking his share and going while he is still rasakanova.” The kings of Kalughnor do not die on their thrones. They go, either into the wild to die, like old bears, or into a quiet life where they are advisors and parents to the younger kings, who they take as their children. In this way, they avoid weak familial rule, keep their kingdoms strong, and avoid assassination. This much I understood. I nodded.

“I will be his choice. To make certain of that, I need strong provka and stronger tevka .Vasily Avosha Brobov will also want the rasakanova’s throne. He has the most of us, the most provka, the most coin, the most allies. He is strong. He will kill a weak rasakanova, and all who serve him. I will not be weak. I will elevate your status once you are mine to direct, and you will be tevka. Then, we are going to kill Vasily Avosha Brobov, and all who serve him.”

RAZE – 014

I called Vasily Avosha Brobov a liar. I awaited the knife, the hand on my throat. Perhaps, because she had asked, I would have some time to heal. My assertion would come before the tevkas, but not until I was well. In a matter of weeks, I would be brought to an earthen circle surrounded by howling mercenaries, blessed with salt and blood and ice, and there would face Vasily Avosha Brobov in combat for the truth of my words.

Ivanyaska smiled at me then. “You fought and reclaimed our reputation. You dare speak against a tevka. You are strong spirited, as I said. I would hear the full tale from your mouth. Tonight, in my tent, we will drink tea.” I was reminded of Lady Oulesur, goddess of smoke and prophecy from my home. Ivanyaska’s smile was veiled as if by smoke or time, and then faded.

“He cannot arise for at least two days,” the healer said from the corner.

“He can and will, if he is as strong as I think.”

I lifted myself on one elbow, groaning, and gave as much bow as I could from my position. “I thank you, Ivanyaska Broveschka Prupov.” My ribs lit with new fire but I hid it as best I could, which, I suspect from the contorting of my face, was not well at all. I lay back, wheezing. My head throbbed. “It is fine,” I said. “I have several hours yet to heal before I must move.” Ivanyaska gave a little snort, as of amusement, and left, and the healer returned to his work.

He pushed and prodded. Bones shifted. He stitched, needle and thread, and the thread felt most curious indeed as it slid through skin and tugged. The man made another concoction, stewing herbs in ox milk over the small brazier, giving off a sour-smelling steam. I retched as he put the cup to my lips. “What for?” I asked.

“To dull your senses. Your tooth must come out or it will rot and you will have a fever.” He must have seen my face. “This is Skertah alchemy, not some hedge-healer’s tea. It will aid you.”

“I need my wits later. Take the tooth, but keep your potion.”

He stared at me, then put aside the draught and took up instead a pair of black metal tongs. “Open your mouth, then, brave boy.”

I should have had the potion. The sound of metal on my tooth, of what came after, a sound which I felt between my ears, was the worst of it.

For some hours I lay and twisted. Each movement wracked my bound ribs, but I was unable to lie still. The healer brought me packed snow to hold against my jaw. “It’s good you kept your wits,”  he said as I wordlessly moaned and held snow to my aching but somehow still numb jaw. “Such a stimulating mind.”

“Go ride a stick,” I believe was my reply, at which he chuckled.

At sundown, I arose. Each movement was a labor. It took longer than I’d have liked to don my coat and furs and stinking boots.

Out in the dark roadway, the smashed wagon was mostly repaired. We would move on in the morning, but in the west high clouds had gathered and blocked the stars. Fading red and violet  lit them in waves from below, and in the army I had learned that meant storms to follow. It would be a hard day to travel, but I would be in the cart, resting, with any luck. Rasakanova Zhrovocha could hardly afford to lose more fighters after the green woman’s attack.

Each step burned and pulled my ribs. I hadn’t realized yet, but my legs ached too, from running and fighting and falling. While I trudged through mud and snow along the road, looking for Ivanyaska’s tent, Estevo caught me.

“Heshim,” he said, patting my shoulder. I almost fell. “Mother of shit, Heshim, shouldn’t you be resting?” He spoke Serehvan. Too many of the Khalugnorians spoke Loniran.

“I’ve been summoned to Ivanyaska Broveschka Prupov’s tent, for tea.”

Estevo laughed. He struck my back and again I staggered in the rough road. “Ox-lover,” I wheezed. “I have broken ribs, you shit-lick.”

“You’re the shit-lick.” He leaned close, whispering. I could smell the smoke in his breath. “Ivanyaska’s going to break you in half if you can’t take my tapping on your shoulder.”

“Tea, not that kind of tea. She wants to talk.”

“She wants you to to wag your tongue, at least.”

“Ox-lover,” I repeated.

The wagons were staggered along the roadway. Provka with scarves up to their eyes and hats pulled low patrolled around the outside of them, and tents had been set up in the shelter of the wagons. Snow came in a gentle fall, like sugar at the baker’s in Naban, mounding on a confection. I suddenly missed home, my own bed, my house, my family who I had not seen in eight years. Punam, who Weckar, the Lacquer-faced woman, had killed; Punam, whose face I would never seen again. I turned my mind, rather than let it be further addled. “You smell of smoke,” I told my friend. “Where did you get it?”

“I wagered you’d be the last back, after the rest of us gave up and returned from the road. I bet that lizard Ukya you’d be the last back or not come back at all.”

“I’m pleased you profited from my perseverance, my friend. So, do I get some?”

“I smoked it all,” he said. His yellowed teeth glowed at me in the glow of a fire glinting beside the roadway.

“Ox-lover.”

“You keep saying so, but you raised them, not me.” He stopped and pointed. “Ivanyaska’s camped there, the tent closest to the forest. So why, if not…?” He made a lewd gesture.

“I can’t say, now.” I hesitated. Did I want to risk all the provka hearing more of the meeting? “She has questions for me.” Even that may have been too much. “I will tell you later.”

“Don’t forget me,” Estevo said, suddenly serious.

“As you forgot me, like a khren in your smoke?” His face fell and I put out a hand. “I don’t mean it. What did we say, Estevo, when we left?”

“You and me.” He looked up, met my eyes in the dark. We had said the words a hundred times, since I was taken by Estevo’s company eight years past.

“And the rest can hang,” I finished our impromptu verse. He nodded, and I pushed through the deep snow beside the road to Ivanyaska’s tent.

 

Review time!

Hey everyone. It’s time for me to push on y’all a little bit. Many of you have left reviews for Ours Is the Storm, and for that I thank you. Others I’ve asked not to post reviews, as you’re personal friends and I didn’t want all my reviews to be from folks who know me. That time has passed, and now I want to get everyone who’s read the book to post a review*. Whether you’ve got only good things to say, or bad, please post either way. I’ll only grow if I hear the hard stuff, so don’t let that stop you.

*Even if you’re just going to leave stars and a word or two, it helps.

There are a couple of places you can review. Feel free to copy your review, post different ones, or post in only one spot. Everything helps.

Post a review here:

Ours Is the Storm on Amazon.com (of course)
Ours Is the Storm on goodreads
on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes
Last but not least, Ours Is the Storm was listed as one of the top 25 Indie Fantasy Books on BestFantasyBooks.com . That puts it right next to top-reviewed, well-done independent fantasy novels.  Post a review there as well!


Like reviews you agree with. Vote them up or recommend their reviews as ‘helpful

Both on Amazon and goodreads

 

 

 

 

 

Liking the reviews of folks you agree with helps move those reviews to the top, where potential readers will be most likely to see them.

Last of all, tell a friend about the book!

Thank you all ever so much for your continuing support.

RAZE – 013

Ivanyaska squatted on her heels to enter the wagon. She pulled down her scarf. A harsh face, angled, but full-lipped. The little brass heater cast flickers of light upwards at her, giving her an ominous look. The healer had given me an infusion of bitter herbs and milk. The taste lingered at the back of my tongue, and my vision had taken on a bright quality. However, my mind was slow, as upon waking in an unfamiliar, dark room, taking time to think of where I was and why. Ivanyaska was a ghost, lacquer-masked, for a moment. I cringed away but the healer reached out and steadied me, whispering for stillness.

“Dur Nashak,” Ivanyaska said to me. “Attend.” I must have waited too long to answer. “Can he hear me?”

“He can.” The healer answered. “But the sleeping drink will have slowed him. Habra, boy, listen to your tevka.”

At his words, I found my voice. “I hear you, Ivanyaska Broveschka Prupov.”

To the healer, she said, “I would speak with him.”

“Then speak.”

“Alone.”

“This is my house, and I am caring for this one. Speak or leave.”

Ivanyaska glowered, then returned her attention to me. She was portentous. Like a khren, limned in fire, come to me to pass judgement and claim my spirit for its master. I blinked but failed to clear the haze of the healer’s herbs. Behind her, a glimpse of sun-glare of the white snow outside pressed on my eyes. “Your full name, provka,” she asked me.

“Heshim Nashak Na.”

“Your true name. Where are you from and who was your father, wherever you came from?” I was silent, a cold pit opening in my stomach. The herbs dulled it, and I almost answered. “Do Serehvan people know their fathers, barbarian boy? Or are you whelped in litters, as they say?”

I shook my head.

“Then tell me.”

“I have no father.”

“He is dead?”

“I have no father. A man lives who called me son.”

She tapped my ribs. Just a tap, no more, but I yelped out like a dog and lay groaning. “Do not test me. I care not for your petty problems. Your tevka asks, now speak.”

The healer raised a hand but she caught it up, her gloves creaking as she squeezed. “Healer, I will make you a customer of your own business. Let me do mine.” He pulled his hand away.

“I have no father,” I gasped.

Ivanyaska stared. “Shall I strike harder?”

“Worse has been done.” My breathing strained, but I began to master my pain. The herbs helped. At times I struggled to remember words in the harsh Kalughri language, but either the infusion or the pain made them come easier. It was later, much later, that I understood why. “I have no father. I am from Serehvan, where we have no clans. I am a man of the Bear’s Tooth now. Is that all you wish, my tevka?”

I forced my eyes open and looked up at her where she stared down. Even kneeling in the dark wagon, her presence dwarfed mine, made me small, as a child. Even so, our eyes met and for a moment I was proud. I felt no need to look away, like a child who has discovered the whippings do nothing. Service in the Lonireilan army had done something, then. She spoke. “Since you’re lacking in fingernails, I’ll pull on your broken ribs. Would that loosen your tongue?”

“I think,” I said, grinding my teeth, “It would only loosen the rib.”

She snorted and her full lips twisted. “A joke. Very well. You’ve got a strong spirit, Heshim Nashak Na. Tell me, then, how a slip of the feet could break–” she paused and glanced at the healer.

“Two ribs. And one tooth loosened and likely to rot out.”

“Two ribs, from a fall. Does the Bear’s Tooth consist of such weaklings?”

I lay without speaking, my jaw shut and sealed. What would I say? Also, I nudged my tooth with my tongue, and it clicked echoingly inside my jaw. Rot out?

“Tell me, Heshim Nashak Na.”

“It is not a good answer.”

“I don’t care if it’s good, I care if it’s true.”

“To speak true, I would call another a liar.” It was too much, but the herbs had me, and I was as weary as I’d been since escaping the Lonireilans. A lack of care brought out the foreign tongue I thought I barely knew.

“You would call tevka Vasily Avosha Brobov a liar, then?” When I shook my head, she sighed. “Heshim Nashak Na, you vex me. Speak. I value truth, not rank, at this moment. You are not a provka, you are but a nameless barbarian. If you do not give me the truth, I will kill you here.” She raised a hand to the healer, to stave off his protests. “So, the choice is yours, Heshim Nahsak Na, fatherless, faithless barbarian. Show me you people have some honor in you. Speak.”

To speak might doom me, but I had no doubt of the harsh gaze awaiting me, expectant. I lay, wounded, still aching, my mind hazed through with cloud and dust. I opened my mouth, changing my life yet again. “I recovered the stolen bag. Vasily Avosha Brobov took it, and the glory, from me.”

I spoke against a tevka, while Ivanyaska and the healer looked on. I had chosen, and my choice was a hard, hard road.

RAZE – 012

Leaving the question of the cart, I hurried ahead while the other provka, or untested members of the mercenary company, stared at the blood on my furs. Estevo followed, helping me to stand, asking questions that I couldn’t waste the effort to answer. The merchants and porters we were guarding waved their hands and argued in raised voices. I pushed past them and saw ahead a crowd of provka and tevka, gathered around Vasily Avosha Brobov and Rasakonova Zhrovocha.

Vasily had dismounted and stood at the center of the tevka, in their fine furs and hats and silver jewelery, hands in the air in the grand storytelling style of the Kalughnorans. “She met two others, waiting. In my haste to catch her I nearly raced upon their spears.” Rasakonova Zhrovocha stood before him, arms folded. He had a fine black mustache, gray-tinged, and hard eyes beneath thick brows and a burn scar that boiled flesh into his beard on one side. I pushed through, more by virtue of disgusted movings-aside at my bloodied appearance and reek than by my depleted strength. Estevo hissed to me, asked what had happened, what I was doing, but his protests subsided within the crowd.

“How many fought you, Vasily Avosha Brobov?”

“What did you do, Vasily Avosha Brobov?”

The gathered tevka shouted questions, but he waited for quiet before going on. “They had numbers, and I was far from any other, so I drew my blade and thrust the point to the nearest knave’s face. ‘You can’t fight all three of us,’ the green-garbed woman said to me. ‘You must see that.’ ‘I do see that,’ I said to the woman, my blade a hair’s breadth from her comrade’s eye. ‘Deliver that which is ours, and your companion will keep the means to see it, too. You’ve taken property of the Bear’s Tooth.’ At your company’s name, I saw them quail, great rasakanova.”

Zhrovocha’s gaze flicked to me where I stood, holding my ribs and covered in blood. I thought to speak, but then Vasily caught my eyes as well. The threat was plain. What could I say of a tevka, and myself still a lowly provka, before his fellows? Should I have called him a liar? In my state there would be no answering the certain challenge that would result, and even uninjured I wasn’t certain of beating Vasily Avosha Brobov. Through the pain of my broken ribs, I felt the long scar on my belly warm. I had learned in forced service to the Lonireilians the price of questioning a captain in front of his fellows.

“So,” Zhrovocha said, after too long a time. He returned his attention to Vasily. The tevka watched them. By this time they’d all noticed me and the blood on my furs. As they, together, held their breaths for a moment, my own breathing filled the bright afternoon air and spread over the snow and road.

“And him?” The speaker was Ivanyaska Broveschka Prupov Zhrovocha, and she jabbed a long finger at me. Her voice was iron behind her wool scarf and her black eyes shot to Vasily.

He waved the back of his hand at me. “Get out of here, provka dur Nashak. There’s work to do.” He then looked back to Ivanyaska. “The idiot fell when racing up to help. Mashed his face on rocks. A good thing, too. He might have cut me instead of them. Luckily, by that time the woman had given over the bag that she stole. She and her knaves went into the forest, running like dogs.”

Ivanyaska looked at me. Zhrovocha looked at me. “Is that so, Serehvan provka?” Zhrovocha asked.

Vasily stared at me, still holding the goods I had recovered, not he. He held them out in triumph, but the glare he gave me was anything but celebratory. His jaw tightened and his eyes burned, ice bright and ice deadly. He bared his fine teeth in the joyless smile. “It’s alright, dur Nashak. Accidents happen.”

I met their gazes in turn and then studied the befouled snow. “I fell,” I said.

“Let’s go, Heshim.” Estevo led me away.

The company healer saw me a short time later. I could taste ash. I had two ribs broken, a shredded lip, cut forehead. Two fingernails had come off in my glove and, now that it was warmed by the little brass hand-furnace in the healer’s wagon, my hand had swollen and gone red. My head ached, but not from the wounds.

When I looked up at a shadow darkening the wagon’s doorway, it was tevka Ivanyaska.

RAZE – 011

Returning to the road was simple. My trail was clear, although it was a long way back. My ribs and insides were afire, but, gritting my teeth, I followed the path of churned snow and deep brown earth.

Shouts reached my ears. The calls echoed through the trees, and I tried to raise my voice in response. I knew only a few words in the guttural Kalughri that most of the company spoke. My wounds, I think, enhanced my usually poor pronunciation, but I barely managed a hoarse whisper. My chest was full of coals, searing my insides. I pushed onward and spotted one of the tevkas, on horseback, through the trees. Raising my voice feebly again, I called out to him.

This man’s name was Vasily Avosha Brobov Zhrovocha, meaning he was son of Avosha of the Brovob clan, and that his king was Zhrovocha, who was our company’s rasakonova. It was important to the Kalughnorans to use all their names. “Habra,” he shouted, the typical noncommittal greeting in those parts, “who’s that?” He approached. His bow, short and curved, was in his hand. A fine bow of black ghanavocha horn. “Dur Nashak, is it? I see your brown face.” All the folk of Khalughnor made mention of my brownness, of my strange name. Dur Naskak, as he called me, means “no one’s son,” as I told them when Estevo and I joined Zhrovocha’s company.

“Heshim Nashak Na Zhrovocha,” Vasily said, drawing up to me through the trees on his mount. The horse was fine, gray spotted, shaggy. Vasily called me Heshim, fatherless, from no clan. He and the others called me barbarian, but the men of that country eat raw meat. To the Khalughnorians, all outsiders are clanless barbarians. Vasily hung his bow over his shoulder and drew his narrow, curved sabre as he eyed the sack I now carried. “Where has she gone? The woman?”

“I chased her away.” I had gotten no further in constructing my lie, with exhaustion dragging at my limbs and my head.

He laned down and offered his other, empty hand. A tall, thin man, he was as white as any Khalughnoran, brown-haired, with a mustache  and very fine teeth that he showed often in broad smiles. He smiled at me then with his mouth only, his gaze flat and expectant.

“Is that our stolen cargo?”

I nodded, my grip tightening on the bag. On quivering legs, I fell back a pace. His smile remained, unchanging, as he watched me. Vasily’s sword hand had dipped out of sight on the other side of his horse from me. The fog of my breath came in involuntary, ragged sheets.

“Give it here,” he said. “I’ll carry it back for you.”

My prestige, my salvation and Estevo’s, my promotion, were in that bag. It would preserve our reputation as a mercenary company. The reward would be great. I, though, was near to collapse, while Vasily was fresh, rested, and mounted. He was a tevka, my superior in the company. The punishment, should I harm him or kill him without proof of cause, was as great as the reward I meekly delivered to him. I handed over the bag, along with all my hopes, and the weight was heavy indeed as I followed him back to the road.

“Call the rasakonova,” Vasily shouted when he broke the treeline, me staggering behind. “Rasakonova Zhrovocha! Look what I have recovered.” He rode away while our fellows raised cheers as he passed.

Some of the others had begun to patch the shattered cart under the direction of one of the tevkas. Still others had wrapped the fallen in their fur cloaks, hiding their bloodied faces. Stealing the goods of a dead comrade was forbidden. The dead were hallowed, but we could have used the extra warm furs and good boots. I followed Vasily Avosha Brobov, stumbling and gasping with my chest burning at each breath. With my fingertips I touched the wound. Even through the thick furs and leather arming coat beneath, the lightest touch ignited such sudden fire, trails of hot ash, sparks and cinders, that I paused, leaning on the broken cart, and closed my eyes.

Estevo’s voice came through the dark. “Heshim.” His hand met my back, near the wound, and my legs buckled but he caught me before I fell. I gasped and gritted my teeth as he pulled me back upright and returned me to leaning on the cart. “Mother of shit, Heshim. What happened to you?”

“I got it back,” I managed. “I got it back but that lover-of-oxen, Vasily–”

“Easy. Keep your voice down.”

It was just as well, for speaking was worse than just breathing. Finally the pain subsided enough for me to open my eyes and I saw the cart that I leaned on, the one that had been broken.

The damned green woman had shattered arm-thick wooden timbers, the whole side of the cart, with one blow. How could anyone do this?