The Core

  Erny took back the slate and drew another equation beneath the first. “This is the calculation for how many stones an hour it would take to drain the ward completely.”

  Leesha felt a throbbing pain begin to build behind her left eye. “And if that were to happen?”

  Erny threw up his hands. “All the magic in the Hollow winks out. Maybe for a second, maybe a minute, or longer if the corelings keep up the attack.”

  “Creator,” Leesha said.

  “Ent gonna happen, Leesh,” Gared said. “Fire teams have warded stingers and stones. We’ll have Hollow Soldiers to take down any rock or wood demons big enough to toss a barrel.”

  He raised his axe as the Cutters escorted the engine back onto the ward, and the men came over, led by Dug and Merrem Butcher. “Got some new recruits to show you. One of ’em’s bigger’n me. Practically a rock demon himself.”

  The Cutters formed a line at sharp attention as Leesha and her group passed, punching fists to the breasts of wooden armor. There were folk of all kinds in the group—short Angierians, lanky Rizonans, bowlegged Laktonians, and…

  Leesha broke stride, coming up short when she saw the giant Cutter, carrying an enormous mattock like a straw broom. Her heart clenched.

  “This is the one I was tellin’ you about,” Gared said, oblivious. “Quiet Jonn dun’t say much, but he’s got more kills than any five in his squad combined.”

  The huge man had been looking straight ahead, but at the sound of his name, the man turned and caught Leesha’s eye.

  She knew him instantly, his face etched forever in her mind. The mute giant who’d raped Leesha on the road—who’d sat upon Rojer while his friends did the same—was here in the Hollow.

  —

  Leesha froze, suddenly shaking with fear. It was ludicrous. She, who had stared down a mind demon, felt helpless before this man. And yet…

  The other bandits who attacked her were dead, slaughtered by corelings after Arlen and Rojer reclaimed the portable circle they had stolen. But the mute had not been among the bodies. Leesha thought she had seen him a hundred times since, hiding in this shadow or that grove, his face reflected in firelight on a windowpane.

  Recognition blossomed on his face, too, followed by fear and horror. He turned and ran.

  “Wonda, stop him!” Leesha shrieked. It was a desperate, fearful wail, but in the moment, Leesha didn’t care.

  Wonda was a blur of movement, reaching the man in two great bounds. She caught his wrist and gave a wrench, causing the mattock to fall from spasming fingers. The giant roared, shoving at her with his other arm, but Wonda’s feet were already at work, tangling the giant’s legs and tripping him to the ground.

  Gared and the other Cutters rushed forward, but Wonda needed no help, working her way steadily into a hold that kept the man prone, unable to strike back at her as she squeezed, slowly cutting off the flow of blood to his brain. The giant’s face reddened, and when his struggles eased, just before he lost consciousness, Wonda relaxed, letting him draw a breath.

  “Night,” Gared muttered. “What’d he do?”

  Leesha realized she had been holding her breath. She forced it out and pulled another in, feeling her heart restart with heavy beats.

  “He was one of the bandits who…” Leesha’s throat went dry and she swallowed hard, “…robbed me and Rojer on the road, before we returned with Arlen.”

  “Din’t meana hurt!” the giant cried. The words were atonal, slurred, and Leesha realized the man wasn’t mute at all. Just…simple.

  “Jussa quick squirt!” the giant cried. “Dom said s’what they’re made for.” He began to weep. “S’what they’re made for.” He began to rock back and forth, repeating the words until Wonda tightened her hold, cutting them off.

  Leesha froze again. She had kept the details of the attack secret, though there were always rumormongers in the Hollow whose guesses were uncomfortably close. Now they were laid bare before Favah and her Sharum, not to mention Leesha’s most trusted allies, teams of engineers, Warders, and new recruits.

  Eyes and auras grew dark as the words sank in, coloring in a way Leesha had never seen before.

  Wonda produced a long knife in one hand. She looked up, meeting Leesha’s eyes. “Want I should kill him, mistress?”

  She meant it. Looking around, Leesha realized they all did. Darsy, Favah, the Butchers, the Sharum and the Cutters, the engineers. Even Erny had no mercy in his aura. Any of them would kill for her, and not just demons.

  The thought sickened her, even though her own hands were not without their share of blood. She had poisoned her own Sharum escort on the road, and dropped thundersticks on Jayan’s army as they rammed the gates of Angiers. She still remembered the way Dama Gorja’s spine felt as it whipped and shattered beneath her foot.

  But those had all been moments of life and death. Her decision to harm had been for the direct protection of others, not the murder of a simpleton, helpless in Wonda’s iron grasp.

  Leesha looked back to the man, meeting his eyes, remembering what he did to her. The casual way he had brushed aside her resistance and pinned her. The savagery of his last moments before spending himself in her.

  Had women endured that horror from him since? Would others in the future, if she let him live? Simple or not, the giant was equipped to take such things, and even the large women of the Hollow would be like children against one of his size and strength. Her roiling stomach brought bile to the back of her throat, and the pain behind her eye roared to life.

  Wonda would do it. She would kill him then and there, and none in the Hollow would judge either of them for it. Wonda would sleep easy after, and Leesha could not deny she might do the same, knowing the last of those wretched men was gone from the world.

  Her hand hurt, and Leesha looked down to see it clutching her hora wand. “Let him up.”

  Leesha expected Wonda to argue, but the woman disengaged immediately, rolling to her feet and stepping away before Quiet Jonn had time to recover. He might have gone for his mattock, but instead he remained on his hands and knees, shaking, tears streaking the dirt on his face.

  She pointed the wand at him. “I wish the corelings had taken you, too.”

  Erny looked up at the words, and something changed in his aura. Some hint of mercy. Leesha still remembered what he’d said years before, the night she wished for the corelings to take her mother: Don’t ever say that. Not about anyone.

  “Do it.” Gared had his axe in hand. “Or let me.” Quiet Jonn was not so large compared with Gared Cutter. He was more than willing. He wanted to do it, to kill anyone who would dare lay a hand on her.

  Leesha lifted her wand further, but her hand shook.

  “The man owes a blood debt,” Favah said. “It is death to strike a dama’ting.”

  The word triggered another memory, the day Arlen confronted Kaval and Coliv, men who had tried to murder him. We have a blood debt. I could have collected today, but I kill only alagai.

  How many times had Arlen repeated those words to her, as they shared kisses in the night? It’s us against the corelings, Leesh. Anything else is a losing fight.

  But even he had broken that promise, for her.

  “No.” Leesha dropped her arm, letting the wand fall to her side. “This is no gibbet, and we are no hangmen.”

  “I’ll get chains,” Wonda said. “Throw him in the cells.”

  The thought of the man who attacked her, bound and screaming in the tunnels below where Leesha slept, was no comfort. She lifted her wand slightly, making the giant flinch as she stepped close, examining his aura.

  “Do you want forgiveness?” she asked.

  “Ay!” the giant moaned.

  “New moon is coming!” Leesha shouted, drawing a quick ward that caused her voice to boom through the night. “Do you swear to stand for the Hollow when the deep dark comes, and the demons come for us?”

  “Ay!” the giant moaned. “Ay! Ay! Ay!” His aura was as simple as he was, clear
and easy to read. He meant the words.

  She turned to face the Cutters, veteran and raw wood alike. “The corelings do not care what we have done. They will come at us, united in our destruction. We must stand together, united in theirs!”

  “Ay!” the Hollowers boomed, raising fists and weapons. Even Favah’s eunuchs, divested of their tongues as well as their trees, clattered their spears against their shields.

  Leesha looked back to Quiet Jonn, still shaking in fear. She dropped her voice, releasing the magic that amplified it. “You will report to Headmistress Darsy thrice a week, to discuss what women are…for.”

  Jonn nodded eagerly as Darsy pushed up the sleeves of her dress and put her hands on her hips. “And you’d best keep your hands off ’em until I’m satisfied.”

  “Ay,” Jonn said again in his toneless voice.

  Leesha clipped the wand back onto her belt, bending to lift the giant’s heavy mattock. “Now get back in line.”

  The giant hesitated, then snatched the weapon, hurrying back to the position he had fled. The recruits to either side shied away from him now, but none protested.

  It’s us against the corelings. Anything else is a losing fight.

  Leesha drew a deep breath and arched her back, striding to the horses with grace that would have done Duchess Araine proud.

  —

  Favah inspected Leesha’s dice closely. Leesha knew the ancient dama’ting would seize on any flaw, no matter how slight, that she might demand they be destroyed and carved anew.

  In the end she only grunted, handing them back and choosing three cards from a deck. These she laid facedown. “Cast, and tell me what you see.”

  Leesha sliced her hand, coated the dice, and felt them warm in her hands as she shook, flaring with light as she threw. She felt a thrill as she watched them jerk out of their natural spin and come to a stop.

  Favah looked less impressed, having seen the trick countless times. “Well? What do you see?”

  Leesha did not need a lot of time. “Three of Water, five of Spears, Sharum of Shields.” She spoke with confidence, the reading clear. It was the most basic skill of dice lore. She was reading her own future looking at the cards, and that future was locked once the cards were laid.

  Favah turned the cards, offering no comment as Leesha’s predictions came true. She shuffled the cards again, putting the deck on the floor in front of her. “Now tell me which three I shall choose next.”

  It was a harder test. There was no way to know if Favah would pull from the top of the deck or the bottom, choosing the first three in line, or selecting from the deck at random. Leesha cast the dice, searching more than a hundred thousand possible outcomes.

  “Damaji’ting of Skulls,” she said after long moments. “Seven of Spears. Khaffit.”

  Favah’s eyes flicked down, studying the dice herself, then chose from the deck at random, producing the cards Leesha predicted. She grunted. “The permutations of cards are in the thousands. The futures of the living are infinite.”

  Leesha nodded. “Would that I had the luxury to spend years in the Chamber of Shadows, but Sharak Ka is upon us.”

  Favah put away the cards. “Ask a real question now.”

  Leesha took a tiny vial of blood from Elissa and coated the dice. “Creator of life and light, your children seek answers. Reveal to me the fate of Elissa vah Ragen am’Messenger am’Miln.”

  They had gone weeks without word from the city in the mountains. The regular envoys of Miln had ceased, and no Messenger who ventured more than a day’s travel north of Riverbridge returned.

  Leesha cast, and this time Favah was paying close attention as the dice jerked to a stop. They both leaned in, studying the result. Rock and wind wards intersected, and Leesha pointed. “Mountain.”

  Favah tilted her head. “Facing north they are inverted. Valley.”

  “The city of Miln is nestled in the valley between two mountains,” Leesha said.

  “Are you studying the pattern, or searching for justification?” Favah asked.

  Leesha knit her brows, focusing again on the pattern. “So you do not ascribe to the teachings of Dama’ting Corelvah, who says the dice should be read from north to south, and follow Dama’ting Vahcorel, who believed they must be read from the center outward?”

  “You deduce that from a single word?” Favah made a spitting sound, though no moisture left her dry lips. “The Damajah did not exaggerate when she said your arrogance was boundless.”

  Leesha pulled back. “I meant no offense.” The woman’s tone reminded her of Bruna.

  “Corelvah was my grandmother,” Favah said. “Vahcorel her sister. I listened to them shouting at each other when I was a child.”

  Night, how old are you? Leesha wondered. Again she thought of Bruna, wisdom piled like weight upon her years.

  “Both so sure they’d unlocked a mystery of the universe,” Favah went on. “So sure Everam spoke only to them.

  “And why not? None could deny both had the Sight. My great-aunt predicted the time and date of her own death a hundred years before it happened, and my grandmother stopped an attempted coup by the Majah simply by tripping a man on the street. She’d known since she was a girl to be there at that precise moment. Each had staunch supporters. Partisan fools who refused to even consider the other’s work. Yet both schools of thought produced seers who walked with one foot on Ala and the other in the infinite.”

  Favah raised a sharp finger. “You think the mysteries of the universe are an equation to be solved. But the future is not an equation. It is a story. And there are many ways to tell a story.”

  Leesha bowed, lower than she had allowed herself to honor the woman in public. “You are correct, Dama’ting. I apologize. I am simply…eager to learn.”

  Favah sniffed, flicking a finger back to the dice. “Read, girl.”

  “Air over water,” Leesha said. “A cloud…no, there is lightning. Storm cloud.”

  “Storm clouds gather like fog around the city in the…mountain valley.” Favah winked so quickly Leesha thought she might have imagined it. She clawed a hand through the air over a group of demon symbols on the edges of the dice. “The alagai are thick about their walls. But the Northerners are…” She pointed to a symbol.

  “Arrogant,” Leesha translated. She put her hands over her mouth. “They don’t see it coming! We must…”

  “Perhaps there is nothing we can do.” Favah pointed to another symbol.

  “Island,” Leesha said. “They’re alone? Cut off?”

  “In nearly every future,” Favah said. “A pillar in the river of time.”

  “I can’t just not send help because the island symbol is pointed toward the mountain valley,” Leesha said. “What’s the point of seeing the future if you can do nothing about it?”

  “What’s the p…!” Favah’s eyes bulged. “Arrogant, idiot girl! You spend five minutes staring at the puzzle, guess a few pieces, and move on to conclusions? Do you think my grandmother made all her prophecies at a glance? She often spent a week, meditating without rest or sustenance, to examine every permutation of an important throw.”

  “I don’t have a week to starve myself, staring at a set of dice,” Leesha said. “New moon comes tomorrow night, and I have a county to run.”

  “So there can be no middle, between five minutes and a week?” Favah asked. “Surely even the great Countess Paper can spare an hour between pardoning Sharum rapists and suckling that hungry babe.”

  Leesha glared at her, but the woman’s aura was serene. Favah swept a hand over the dice. “Sharak Ka is upon us, and there are a thousand stories of blood in this throw, Leesha vah Erny. They deserve more than a passing glance.”

  —

  “Mistress, will you not reconsider returning to the capital?” Arther asked for the thousandth time. The first minister looked awkward in his wooden armor, defter with a pen than a spear.

  The alagai will strike at nightfall in the north of the Hollow, Leesha and Fa
vah agreed, after staring for hours at Leesha’s final throw of the dice. Shaselle and Jaia were brought in to study the dice, and reached the same conclusion with no hint from Leesha or Favah.

  Leesha stroked the hora wand at her belt, feeling a pulse of magic. “I am needed here.”

  Pestle stood like an obsidian statue, but Leesha could feel the tension in the powerful stallion, ready to leap to action. His silver horseshoes were worked with demon bone and powerful wards. He would be swift. Tireless. His kick could crush a wood demon’s skull.

  The horses of her captains and the Hollow Lancers were similarly equipped, a mix of giant Angierian mustangs and sleek, fast coursers. They stamped and paced, echoing the agitation of their riders.

  Leesha was in Stallion’s Ranch, the northernmost greatward of Hollow County. While it was the least populous of the boroughs, Stallion’s Ranch sat upon vast acreage for grazing and training the powerful mustang and fast coursers the Hollow’s cavalry depended upon.

  But while large, the Stallion greatward was one of the Hollow’s weakest, shaped mostly by wooden fences and the few buildings at its center. Baron Stallion employed hundreds of hands now, but they all still gathered in the town hall for communal meals, more family than barony.

  It made sense the demons would strike here. A few well-thrown rocks and the sweep of full-sized trees rock demons favored as clubs would open too many holes in the greatward to guard. A loss here would deprive the Hollow of one of its most important resources.

  Leesha ordered the Stallion civilians evacuated to the inner boroughs, along with the horses too young or wild to take a saddle. The rest of Jon’s people were mounted and patrolling the edges of the greatward, or hidden in the grass with bows, as the sun dipped in the sky.

  Gared waited next to her on the hilltop vantage Leesha had chosen. His best Cutters and the Hollow Lancers waited at the base, ready at his command to reinforce any breaches.

  “Means a lot to have you here, mistress.” Jon Stallion loomed at her side atop his massive brown mustang. “Hope it ends up a waste of your time.”

  Blood will flow in rivers tonight, the dice predicted.