Violya

Chapter 20 Violya

20

VIOLYA

V waited for the absolute still of sleeping warriors. When Monya’s gentle snoring began she slipped silently out of bed in precisely the right way to stop it creaking or moving and waking her bunk mate.

V knew precisely how to move, how much pressure to exert, how quickly to lift off the straw mattress. She had learnt how when Emmya was still sleeping above her and V used to sneak off into the bamboo forest to harm herself in her teenage years. Back then, she’d been wracked with crippling self-doubt and fervently denied her magic. Releasing blood was the only way to tamp down the magic’s frustration. This had been her bunk since she had left the pen and started training as a warrior.

She dressed in silence, purposely placing her clothes the night before in a specific place and in a specific order so that she could swiftly put them on in the black of the dormitory. Once clothed, she crept past the warrior on duty, and out the back door. On this occasion though she didn’t turn towards the bamboo forest. Keeping to the shadows, she silently jogged towards the wooded area outside the Melokai’s enclosure.

She edged through the woods and towards a makeshift den. A shallow burrow had been dug out of the earth and covered with fallen branches; the entrance hidden. She crouched low and crawled through the opening.

Darrio and Sarry were curled up asleep. Darrio’s eye opened and he watched V crawl into the hollow space.

V moulded herself around the wolves, her face in the back of Darrio’s neck. She breathed in his scent and gently placed a hand on Sarry’s back leg and stroked her soft fur. Sarry stirred in her sleep and sighed deeply.

“Sleep well, my love,” Darrio whispered.

She nuzzled her face into his fur and closed her eyes.

After Sybilya’s death, the gaping hollow in her chest had consumed her. Had consumed every Peqkian. V had retreated into herself, hardly speaking, wandering in a daze. Weeks had passed in this state.

Darrio and Sarry had been offered rooms in the guest quarters. They had refused, preferring to make a den for themselves outside. They had scouted the small wooded area and made their den in the heavy snow. They had remained there for weeks, Sarry adjusting herself to the loss of Sybilya.

When V’s grief had started to lift, she understood her heart ached for others. She needed to be close to her soulmatch and her child. It was not the appropriate time to declare her relationship to them to her people, so she’d snuck out and found their den.

She’d first gone to Darrio and Sarry two weeks before. Each night since she slept for a few hours curled up with her family, then before first light, tiptoed back into the warrior barracks. And each night she found peace in their presence.

***

Two Peqkians and two wolves ran through their daylight dances in the training ground. They did so silently, more slowly than usual. The mood in the city was still sombre and subdued after Sybilya’s passing. But after almost two months, the city was gradually coming back to life. But the great loss still pervaded everyone’s thoughts and movements.

The freak winter weather felt wholly appropriate. The most persistent snowfall V had ever known had covered Riaow in a deep layer up to V’s shoulder. It had snowed all day, every day for months. The white blanket wrapped the people in a suffocating embrace. The loss of the Stone Prophetess was crippling, and so too was the snow.

Every morning they cleared the training ground of snow, and every day they trained. There was little else to do, they had to wait out the weather. Months ago, Lizya had sent spies to Drome and to Fertilian, but neither had returned. Either the snow held them up or they had been caught. V hoped it was the former.

And she hadn’t heard anything yet from Fin and Robya’s expedition to Troglo with Gwrlain.

Patient, be patient.

Lizya was overseeing the training of the young peons who had been saved from the culling and allowed to pass into peonhood. There was just under a thousand of them, and the Head Warrior had set up a dedicated camp and training ground outside of the city. Their progress was slow, but they were eager to learn; relieved to still be alive, relieved to have some purpose.

V ached with the desire to do something, to take action. The priority had been to reassess and reinforce Peqkya’s borders, which Lizya had capably managed. And now… and now we wait for the snow to clear, for our women to return so we can strategize. We are as frozen as the weather.

“Hand-to-hand combat practice today,” V said to Monya and Sarry after they completed their final posture.

“The snow is easing,” Darrio mused as he sauntered off to one side. He watched the trio carefully and followed the moves but in his own time, his leg injury inhibiting his movement.

V demonstrated an attack move on Monya and then helped the young warrior and Sarry to perfect their stance and movements.

“Here, like this,” Monya said to Sarry.

She bent the wolf’s elbow into the correct position.

“Thanks,” Sarry said.

Then Monya whispered something to Sarry and they both giggled, losing concentration.

“Warriors,” V said, “focus.”

They continued to practise the move, but Monya bit her lip and Sarry stifled her mirth. She couldn’t hold it much longer and she snorted. Monya burst into a fit of laughter and Sarry joined her.

“Sorry, V,” Monya mumbled but they couldn’t stop.

V should discipline them but let it go. She was pleased Sarry was making a friend. Monya was fifteen and Sarry, in her wolf years, was almost a teenager now.

Darrio rolled his eye at V and she smiled. As Sarry and Monya laughed themselves dry, V watched as the Jute Captain, Brinjinqa, trained with his fighters on the other side of the grounds. They were formed up in a tight pack, moving rapidly as one in quick sequences that V couldn’t follow. Next to the Jutes, Captain Laurya led a group of novices in a battle simulation.

“You two, go and report to Captain Laurya, you can train with her for the rest of the day,” V said and pointed towards the warrior. “Monya, I’ll be right here.”

The pair nodded but didn’t move as Lizya’s grey clevercat skittered to a halt before V.

“The warriorssss you ssssent to check on the sssstone army have returned. They are coming up from the peon camp now.”

Daya and six warriors came on ponies towards the courtyard where V waited with the wolves, Monya and Brin. Lizya ran on foot beside them. At the gates, Daya dismounted, handed her pony’s rein to another warrior and gave orders. The warriors trotted away towards the barrack’s stables. Daya and Lizya jogged towards V.

Lizya gave V a brief nod and then bent forward, resting her elbows on her knees. She panted with exertion, fighting to control her breathing. She puffed, “Go on… Daya… don’t mind me.”

“Well, you did insist on running next to our ponies.” Daya rolled her eyes and grinned at V. They embraced and slapped each other’s backs.

V thumped her fist to her chest and Daya returned the gesture. “What news, Daya?”

“The stone army is alive and rampaging,” Daya said, without preamble. “They became unrooted, more animated on the day our great Sybilya passed from this world.”

“Zhaq,” V swore.

Daya continued, “The two opposing sides have come together as one force, we estimate eight thousand stone men.”

“Zhaq.”

“There are also ponies and tigers. They are on the move. At first, they ambled about in random directions, but then came together in a pack. They do not seem to have any purpose other than destruction. They marched, flattening great swathes of land and destroying six settlements. They’ve ripped numerous flocks of sheep and their shepherds to shreds, and pulled to pieces a herd of ponies.

We watched as they came to the place where the North West Road meets the West Way. V, they turned east onto the West Way, heading straight for Riaow. They’ll devastate the town of Qipaz first.”

The skies opened and fat rain fell, a blessed relief from snow. All with hoods raised them, but as the rain picked up the plopping noise became deafening. V ushered them towards the covered entrance of the Melokai’s buildings.

“Ways to bring them down?” Lizya asked. She was now stood upright, hands on her hips.

“We engaged a stoney straggler. He had only one leg, and was hopping behind the others, following at quite a distance. They all seem of the same mindset. But there does not appear to be a leader that we could determine. We shot the straggler with an arrow, engaged with swords, tackled bodily. I broke my zhaq arm.” Daya pulled aside her cloak with a grimace to show V her sling and clenched her mouth in annoyance.

She continued, “The cockface would not go down. It is a lump of stone. We had an advantage as the zhaq stoney had one leg, so we managed to tip him over, but it kept fighting back, kept trying to get up to follow the rest, or dragging itself along the ground. He had two swords, which were also stone and had fused to his hands. The stone swords are blunt, but they hurt when they connect. He was swinging them around endlessly. He did not seem to tire. These stonies don’t sleep, eat, s**t.

“We managed to tie the arms and leave it trussed up, but the stone cockface broke free of the rope – simply ripping it apart. Their strength is…” Daya shook her head, at a loss for words. “It took all seven of us to take down a one-legger. It would take more warriors to bring down a two-legged stoney and bind it with stronger rope. But how to kill it?” The warrior shook her head. “We’d need hammers, but to catch and smash eight thousand stonies?” She whistled and grimaced.

“Why have they merged as one? They were two opposing armies, why not smash each other to smithereens?” the Head Warrior asked.

Sarry, in a quiet voice with perfect Shella, said, “They have been looking at each other for one thousand years. Their anger lies with who did this to them, and no longer with each other. They have shared the same fate and now they share an enemy. Us.”

All considered her. Sarry spoke the truth and they all knew it. It was as if Sybilya had spoken. V swelled with pride for her daughter.

“Do you see how to kill them?” Daya asked the young wolf.

Sarry shook her head.

Lizya scratched her cheek, calculating. “In total we have near seven thousand warriors, mostly novices. Three thousand of those are away from Riaow, dotted around the country protecting our borders. We have one hundred skilled Jutes. There are also one thousand untrained peons, who would be near to useless right now, still young and weak. We’d need to keep at least two thousand warriors here to protect the city, so that leaves us with two thousand against eight thousand stone men.”

Daya shook her head. “It would be a suicide mission. Zhaq knows how many warriors would be needed to take down one of the stone tigers.”

Brin raised his three-fingered hand, to get their attention. “If I may, we have V’s magic,” he said with a bow towards V.

V nodded. “We do. But I don’t know if my magic alone could defeat the stone army.”

It could! came the reply in her mind as her magic swirled in her veins. We can defeat anything!

“Not alone, my dear, with our help,” Brin said with a grin and twirled his vial in his fingers.

V dipped her head at him and considered for a moment. “We have an enemy within our borders rampaging through our country. We have enemies outside our borders. We must deal first with this internal threat or Peqkya will crumble. We must prevent the stone army from reaching the town of Qipaz, there are thousands who live there.”

Those around her indicated their agreement.

“We will take our two thousand warriors and one hundred Jutes. And we will take two hundred traitorous peons and one hundred Dromedars. It’ll have to be enough.”

“You think the prisoners will fight for us?” Lizya said.

“I’ll give them a choice,” V replied.

In Riaow’s only prison, two hundred peons and the one hundred captured cammer soldiers crammed together in the small cells. They were fed and watered, but there was no comfort. The air was thick with sweat, vomit, piss and s**t.

The peon rebellion leader, a steel worker with huge biceps, was dragged from a cell and held by two warriors in front of V. He glared at her, a snarl on his face. All the prisoners had fallen silent, listening.

In a clear voice that carried along the cells, V said, “You succeeded, Lamaz, or Steely as I hear you are known.”

Steely’s brow tightened, confused.

“The practice of culling useless peens at fifteen has been ended.”

“Lies,” Steely growled in a deep voice. “Just kill us all ‘n’ ‘ave done with it.”

“Peons have a better life now than before your rebellion. There are now three reasons why peons still exist – to pleasure women, to make babies and, now, to fight for Peqkya. We are at war. We have internal and external threats. Peons who fail the usefulness tests will not be culled. They will enter a peon division of the army. Will be trained as warriors and army helpers. Every peen born in Peqkya now has a purpose.”

A murmur rippled through the cells. V held up her red palms and said in Steely’s mind, “I tell you the truth.”

Steely’s eyes widened. His face softened and he nodded.

“You and your traitorous peons should be punished. Tortured and put on public display to suffer a slow, excruciating death as a warning to other peons not to rebel.”

Steely slumped between the two warriors. “We’re ready,” he said quietly, head down.

There were whimpers and cries from the peons in the cells. They had been waiting months for this.

“Peqkya is at war, every Peqkian, be it woman or peon is in the same danger. I am giving you and your traitorous peons a choice. Fight or die.

“If you choose to fight, you will be trained to wield a sword, shoot a bow and fight hand-to-hand. You will fight alongside Peqkian warriors and our allies against our enemies. Some of you might die. As some of my warriors and allies might die. As I might die. When all our enemies are defeated and Peqkya is safe once again, those of you who survive will be given a choice. Return to your old life and profession or remain in the Peqkian army. Progression and success are based on merit, so prove yourselves to me, to Head Warrior Lizya, to your captains. We’ll be watching.

“Those who choose to die, I will ask the women of Riaow what they think your sentence should be. I do not imagine it will be kind.”

Steely chewed at the corner of his mouth.

“You have until this time tomorrow to consider. Those who want to fight, will be trained. Those who don’t will be left in the cells awaiting their sentence. Know this, any peon who disobeys a woman will die. That custom has not changed.” V indicated for him to be returned to the cells.

She walked to the other side of the prison where the cammers huddled silently in their cells. Chaz had sent a translator who spoke the Drome language to translate for Lizya and her warriors.

In perfect Dromedari, V said, “Soldiers from Drome. Your rulers committed an atrocity by invading our country, and you were left behind. We have tended to your injuries, fed you and treated you leniently. Be thankful you are still alive.

“Peqkya has a battle looming. I now give you a choice. Fight with us against our foe, and once they are defeated those of you who survive will be returned to Drome. There will be no opportunity to flee, there will be no opportunity to hide from the battle.

“Those who choose not to fight with us will die here in the city. The sentence will be decided upon by the women of Riaow. Many of whom want you flayed, tortured and made an example of.”

A cammer dragged himself along the floor to the bars, he was missing half of one leg and his foot from the other. “What if we cannot fight?”

“Those who cannot fight will serve Peqkya in other ways, giving food to your cammer comrades, or tending to the injured. You will be judged on your usefulness.”

“If we fight, we will die anyway…” a cammer grumbled from deep in the cells.

V wasn’t certain that anyone would survive the stone army, Peqkian, Jute or Dromedar, but she didn’t voice her fears.

A hand flew out from one of the cells and V scrutinised its owner. Stood alone, the other cell occupants keeping a respectful distance. The leader of this little group.

The Dromedar pulled back a hood and wrenched down the grimy scarf covering the face. Fingers fiddled with something behind the ears and under the neck, and then peeled away the beard, dropping the hairy mask on the floor. The other soldiers in the cell gasped and then groused:

“A woman.”

“It’s a f*****g woman!”

“We followed a woman. No wonder we got caught.”

The Dromedar female soldier stood near the bars looking at V, the men crept closer shaking fists, spitting and pointing. She glared at them and raised her own fist and they backed away. She turned back to V.

She was clearly a skilled fighter. Her body was lean and muscular, her shoulders broad and hips narrow – a physique similar to the males around her. But, unlike most of the soldiers whose humps were large and misshapen, her hump was small and round, barely poking out of the split in her shirt. Her dark-brown hair fell to her shoulders in greasy waves, similar in style to the Dromedar males. Her face was hard, scarred and lined, with alert eyes, a small nose and thin lips. She had clearly seen some action and was perhaps thirty years in age. By keeping her face hidden with the beard-mask, wrapped with the scarf and altering her speaking voice, she could easily pass for a Dromedar male.

V studied her for a while. The cammer army was all male, she was an anomaly.

The woman said, “I pretended to be male to join the army. I also allowed myself and these men to be captured so I could remain in Peqkya when the rest of the army was driven out or destroyed.”

The men growled and grunted angrily at this news, spitting towards her.

V felt a pang in the bottom of her belly. Sybilya had told her to listen to her instinct. She speaks the truth, her gut told her. V indicated for the prisoner to continue.

“What I have to say is not for their ears.” The woman gestured towards the cammer men in her cell.

V whistled to the warriors guarding the cells and one came forward with the key to the barred gate.

Two warriors stood either side of the prisoner, securing an arm each and their daggers pointed at her throat. V sat in the council room, Lizya positioned between V and the prisoner with her arms folded. She looked casual, but V knew she would move quicker than any of them if the cammer woman attempted to attack or escape. Monya stood behind V and a further six warriors waited outside the door.

The scholar sat opposite the Head Warrior, translating V’s Dromedari into Shella.

“Sit.” V gestured for the warriors to allow the prisoner to sit on a stool at the far end of the table.

The Dromedar woman sat and placed her trussed hands on the table. She wasn’t worried by the warriors holding their weapons to her neck. She held herself with the confidence of one who knows how to fight. She kept her eyes on V and was not intimidated.

“What’s your name?” V said.

“Nameeri,” the prisoner answered and dipped her chin.

“Nameeri, tell us your story.”

“I am a spy,” she said simply, “for a clan in Drome who opposes the ruler and the ruling elite. We are called the Khumarah. Our kind has been persecuted for thousands of years. My mission was to infiltrate the army, to witness the invasion, to report back on the Drome army’s strengths and weaknesses, tactics, numbers killed and so on. But I realised when I was here, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So, I allowed myself, and the little group that followed me, to be captured, for the chance to speak with the Melokai of Peqkya.”

Lizya rolled her shoulder as the translator repeated Nameeri’s words. Then she raised an eyebrow at V.

“Go on,” V said.

“The Khumarah have a different way of thinking about the world than the ruling clans. We live secretly outside the Parchad city crater wall and in pockets throughout the desert. A number of us are skilled assassins, and have been ridding the city of its corrupt leaders. But we are few, and they are many.

“My partner is the leader of the Khumarah. His name is Ibin. He was reluctant to send me, of course, but after him, I am the most skilled fighter in the clan. He needed someone he could trust to stay alive and return. I know everything there is to know about Drome, Parchad, the rulers. I am willing to share that knowledge with you, should you require it. I ask in return that you help my clan to overthrow the Wakrime clan, to usher in a new rule led by the Khumarah.”

V waited for the translator to finish.

The Head Warrior scratched at her cheek. “Drome invaded our country and we will take revenge on the Wakrime clan. But how do we know that your clan, the Khumarah, will not turn against us?”

Nameeri waited for the translator before she replied, “I will fight for you as you fight for me. You asked the Dromedar soldiers to fight for you. I will. And I will fight with honour.”

“A test of her allegiance,” Lizya said in Shella to V.

In Shella, V said to the warriors who held Nameeri, “Take her to a cell of her own, treat her well until we have need of her, however she is still a prisoner. Get Chaz to send a language scholar to teach her Shella.”

Nameeri was marched away. V dismissed the translator and asked for Monya to wait outside. When it was just the two of them in the council room, Lizya said, “You don’t trust her?”

“My instinct tells me that she is telling the truth. But I do not want her to know too much about us. Not yet anyway. First, we must rid Peqkya of the stone army, then we take revenge on Drome.”

“And then we deal with the zhaq Trogrs and Denya’s dishonourable betrayal in Fertilian,” Lizya said and laughed. “I can see now why you picked me as Head Warrior, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

V clapped a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We’d better get on with it then.”