Chapter Twenty-Seven Lettle
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lettle
‘Fire!’ Reena said, and Lettle’s faith in her god began to waver. She felt the air vibrate with the distinctive thrum of drumfire.
Someone heavy barrelled into her and Lettle felt something hot splatter against her face.
‘Stop!’ Lettle dimly thought she recognised the voice, but she couldn’t register it as she grappled with the person on top of her.
Blood seeped into the corner of her eyes, leaving a red film over her vision. She blinked it away.
‘Lettle, are you hurt?’ Alder said, as he pulled her up from beneath the lifeless limbs of the body.
‘I’m all right, are you?’
She looked him up and down. Drumfire had caught him in the arm, but they both knew it would heal quickly.
‘Father?’ Mortah’s voice was a croak. She crouched beside the body, her torso crimson with blood. Not hers, Imna’s.
Horror and relief vied for purchase in Lettle’s mind as she looked down at the broken body of Imna. He had sacrificed himself, taking the drumfire meant for them.
‘How?’ she said, the question answering itself as she turned and looked around.
There, standing in front of the soldiers, were twenty of the Gural diviners led by Lettle’s old mentor, Shaman Namana.
‘Bosome’s children, power reclaimed, will aid you in your plight…’ she whispered the prophecy and wanted to weep. Elves had come to her aid, but not just any elves–her brethren under Bosome’s light.
The diviners linked their arms as they stood between Lettle and Reena’s soldiers.
A human shield.
‘You killed him,’ Mortah raised an accusing finger at Reena.
‘He knew of his fate,’ Namana said gently to Mortah. ‘He foretold it decades ago. His mind had left him, all but for this one purpose. To save you.’
But Mortah was beyond listening. ‘You killed a helpless old man.’ Blood and tears streaked her face. She lunged forward, as though to strike Reena.
‘Don’t!’ the colonel cried. ‘We will fire again.’
Namana straightened, her silver cloak shimmering in the sunlight. It was an heirloom passed down from shaman to apprentice, each silver panel stitched with formations of the moon. Lettle had once hoped to have it draped across her own shoulders one day.
The shaman looked up at Reena defiantly.
‘Colonel Reena, I am the shaman of the Gural diviners. Our god has brought us here to see safe passage to these people into Mosima. If you strike us, you strike the heart of your very own people.’
Reena frowned, pointing to Lettle’s group. ‘Who are these interlopers to you?’
‘They are our family,’ Namana said and Lettle felt her heart swell with gratitude.
Reena rested her fingers on the lip of her drum. ‘Family is not answer enough, I’m afraid.’
‘They have our protection and that should be enough for you.’
‘Family they may be, but sadly, this is a war.’
‘This is no war. How can it be with only one group wielding weapons?’ Namana said.
Reena yawned, then said to her soldiers, ‘Dispatch the diviners.’
‘You would kill innocents?’ Lettle shouted. She couldn’t believe this turn of events.
‘Innocents? That’s not what I see. I see a group of religious fanatics stopping me from doing my duty.’
Reena’s hand signalled once and the soldiers readied their drums.
Lettle looked to Alder, hoping he’d call the obeah. But she understood why he didn’t want to. The line between him and Afa was steel, and he wanted to maintain it. So she played her final gambit.
‘I’m Yeeran’s sister,’ she said. Reena’s eyes narrowed as she scrutinised Lettle.
‘Lettle, no,’ Alder said, tugging on her wrist.
‘I should have known,’ Reena said. ‘There are few elves with eyes as violet as your sister’s. Except yours, of course.’
‘Take me to Chieftain Motogo. We’ll be worth more to you alive than dead. All three of us are valuable to the fae. Let the diviners go free.’
Lettle knew she had sealed her fate as a prisoner once more, but it was worth it to save her friends.
Reena considered for less than a second before nodding. The skirmish had drawn the attention of other soldiers outside of her regiment, and Lettle noticed that not all of them wore the singular Waning symbol.
She thought of the second half of the prophecy: The half-moon seeks to own the night. And Lettle knew then with certainty that a coup was brewing in the heart of the coalition.
‘Diviners, disperse, I wish never to set eyes on you again,’ Reena said with a wave of her hand, almost as if she were swatting a fly.
‘Lettle, are you sure?’ Namana said. Lettle looked down the line of faces–her friends, her family. Then her gaze rested on the body of Imna. Mortah was crying silently next to him.
‘Yes, go with Bosome, let our god’s light shine on you, all of you,’ Lettle said softly. ‘I will see you after the waning moon has turned. Tell the others.’ Namana’s flicker of confusion was brief.
Please Namana, understand what I am saying. Lettle pleaded with her eyes. The moon was full, and as a diviner there was no way she didn’t know that.
Lettle looked to Reena and raised her eyebrow slightly, trying to convey her meaning.
Had she been too subtle?
Then Namana nodded. ‘I will tell the others that the moon has turned.’
The soldiers let the diviners take Imna’s body, though it took more threats before Mortah would let herself be prised away from him. Now she stood beside Lettle, distant and broken.
The colonel called forward a squad of soldiers. ‘Escort them to Chieftain Malak’s tent. I think he’d be happy to know we have captured Yeeran’s sister.’
‘Chieftain Malak?’ Dread was a cold knife slicing into her stomach as the soldiers grabbed them by their shoulders and jostled them forwards.
Soldiers watched as they were escorted through the camp. Distrust lit their eyes, but Lettle didn’t think it was directed at them alone. Reena’s regiment seemed to have garnered plenty of animosity.
It wasn’t raining, but it might as well have been, since the air was so thick with humidity it left a sheen of water on her skin. It was warm, too, exacerbating the smell of sulphur that bubbled up from the swamps.
They stopped outside a large tent guarded by two soldiers. ‘He only wants to see you,’ said one of them, pointing at Lettle.
Alder reached for her, tightening his hand around hers while Mortah grabbed the other. ‘We go together,’ the Nomad said.
‘Either she goes, or no one goes. And I’ve been told to take you to the cage should you refuse.’
Lettle didn’t know what the cage was, but it didn’t sound good.
‘We’re not leaving her,’ Alder said. She could feel his hand shaking in hers and she gripped it harder.
‘It’s OK. I’m too valuable, he won’t hurt me,’ Lettle said to Alder with a confidence that was only skin-deep. She gently removed her hand from his.
Then, without a backwards glance, she stepped into Chieftain Malak’s tent, head held high.
—
‘Welcome,’ Malak said in a theatrical voice. He held open the tent flaps for her as she ducked in away from the rain.
Lettle had been in many war tents during her life, but Malak’s was unlike any she’d ever seen.
The room smelled faintly of incense, and she was surprised to see a vase of lilies on his desk.
He’d furnished the floor with knitted rugs from spun wool, each dyed a different bright colour.
A painting even hung from the tarp. It was rudimentary, clearly drawn by a child.
‘Observing my son’s handiwork, I see,’ Malak said.
Lettle was proud that she managed to suppress her startle as he came up behind her. She was surprised that he had not bothered to restrain her, and it wounded her pride a little that he thought her so little a threat.
But her words could still cut. ‘Did you bring your son with you when you decided to lay siege and wage war? All the best lessons are learned from experience, after all.’
‘No,’ was all Malak said. He gestured to the softly furnished chairs opposite his desk.
She sat down. It had been a while since Lettle had experienced the luxury of cushions.
‘What happened to Motogo?’
‘Dead, killed by the fae queen.’
Lettle swallowed her shock. Not because Furi had killed Motogo–that didn’t surprise her–but that she wasn’t standing on a battlefield. If Motogo was dead by fae hands, then negotiations had not gone well.
‘And the peace treaty?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Peace is all I have ever wanted, but the other chieftains were hard to convince. Now the fae are refusing to engage with us at all,’ Malak said.
‘Where are the other chieftains?’
‘There was an outbreak of the wasting pox, and sadly the three chieftains were the first to get sick. They’re being sequestered until the disease passes.’
‘The wasting pox?’ Lettle instinctively cradled her left arm. ‘There was an outbreak?’
‘Yes, sadly it struck Mosima too.’
Lettle’s grip tightened on the wrinkled flesh above her elbow where the disease had eaten away at her muscles.
Malak’s hand went to his shoulder, removing a speck of lint from his uniform.
The half-moon seeks to own the night.
‘Those wearing the Waning uniform–they’re your personal army?’ she said.
‘They’re part of the Waning army who report to me, if that’s what you mean?’
Lettle leaned back and crossed her ankles. ‘You may have played Yeeran like this, but I’m not my sister.’
Malak laughed but didn’t answer.
This is all a game to him.
She knew then that Malak was far more dangerous than he seemed.
Candles, like the ones Namana made from beeswax, burned low on the desk in front of her. She reached for one, dipping her fingers into the warm wax–knowing the pain that would follow but deeming it worth it for the sensation.
‘You don’t use fraedia?’ she said.
Malak scowled, and it completely transformed his affable face into something bitter.
‘Fraedia? Fool’s gold. It is tainted by the blood of so many.’
Lettle was surprised. ‘An end to poverty. An end to the war. Food and peace are what we fight for,’ she chanted Salawa’s old mantra.
Malak’s scowl only deepened. ‘Fraedia was just a front for Salawa’s greed. Motogo’s too. They wanted the Bleeding Field because they wanted to own the land.’
Once again, Malak had surprised her. ‘Yet you are a soldier, laying siege to the fae for their fraedia.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I told you, I want peace. War has taken everything from me.’ He looked to the painting on the wall, then away again.
‘Then end it.’
Malak’s eyes flashed. ‘It’s not that simple. I am one man.’
‘From what I can see, you’re staging a coup.’
Lettle gathered from his expression that he didn’t expect her to have worked out his plans so quickly. But it was obvious once she had seen it.
Malak stood up and walked to the painting made by his son. He didn’t speak again.
‘If you don’t tell me what your plan is, then I won’t be able to support you when I talk to Yeeran–which is what I assume you want from me?’
He turned and looked to her, and she thought that this was the first time she’d truly seen the real him.
His eyes were alight with a fevered glory unique to those with unmatched ambition.
His smile was wide but touched with a mania that reminded Lettle of the many soldiers she’d seen affected by war.
Then he spoke and her stomach sank. ‘Mosima must join the Elven Lands.’
And there it is. She had hoped for a moment that he might have been the answer to all their worries.
‘You want Mosima to be annexed by the Elven Lands?’ she said neutrally.
‘Yes.’ He spoke eagerly.
‘And who will rule it?’
‘If this siege has shown us anything, is that too many rulers cause too many problems. We need an emperor.’
‘And who would that be?’
‘It would make sense for it to be one of the chieftains…but since the others are dead…’
‘Dead? ‘Lettle hated that her voice squeaked with surprise.
Malak nodded. ‘A tragic thing, they each fell face forward into a blade.’
Lettle’s throat burned with bile. ‘You killed them?’
‘Don’t worry. I gave them a soldier’s funeral, just like the thousands of soldiers who had died during their reign,’ he grinned. ‘We stripped their bodies of their uniforms then tipped them all together into an unmarked grave. Right behind this tent, actually.’
Malak spoke with pride, as though his actions had been righteous.
He thinks he’s different but he’s just like them.
‘So, you will be the one to rule this new nation of elf and fae?’
‘Exactly. An empire needs an emperor.’
Emperor Malak sounds awfully like Emperor Afa.
‘And all I need you to do is help me convince the fae to surrender to me, and no one needs to get hurt.’ He pulled out a piece of white paper and slid it across to her.
She looked at it, making a show of considering his words. Then she picked up the candle and flung it at him. Hot wax splattered across his face as she ran to the tent flap.
‘Alder! Mortah! Run!’ she shouted, but Lettle didn’t get far before rough hands grabbed her by the shoulders and she was dragged backwards.
She began to buck and bite at her assailants.
‘Argh!’ the soldier who held her cried when she managed to break skin.
She bared her bloody teeth at him as she got an arm free, swiping for his face with her nails. But before she could make contact, another soldier lunged forward and grabbed her, crushing Lettle against his chest with his arms.
She laughed, a bit manically, which perturbed the soldier enough for her to smash her head backwards into his nose. Hot blood sprayed from his face and he let her go.
The next soldier that came for her was promptly dispatched with a kick to the groin.
Lettle stole a glance Mortah and Alder’s way.
Mortah had managed to claim one of the soldiers’ drums and was using it to shoot drumfire at the soldier holding Alder.
Blood was seeping from a bullet wound in her shoulder.
We might actually fight them off, Lettle thought. But then she saw Reena up ahead, and with her a dozen more soldiers with their hands poised above their drums.
‘Stop! Don’t harm her,’ Malak shouted as he strode out of his tent. The hot wax had left the skin on his face an angry red. ‘Take them all to the cage–a few days without food and drink will make her more amenable.’
Lettle felt all the fight go out of her. She slipped from the soldier’s hands and collapsed onto the ground, her bones weary, her spirit spent.
She was tired of people with power causing harm.
She was tired with every race’s selfishness.
She was tired, most of all, of being put in a cage.
First it had been the cage of poverty, then the cage of war.
Mosima’s walls had been a cage too, then the bonds of prophecy held her tight. And now, she would have no more of it.
She screamed and screamed and screamed.