Issue #180 • Aug. 20, 2015

“Fire Rises,” by Alec Austin

“Defy the Grey Kings,” by Jason Fischer

For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

FIRE RISES

by Alec Austin

        Yzebel and her squad lay on the tomb floor, sprawled in a parody of sleep. Like all Olori, they’d been born under the Great Conjunction and so were destined for greatness—not as spies but as poets; mathematicians; painters; chefs.

        Now, Li saw, her lover and companions were so much meat, their organs pulped within their bodies or riddled with monstrous growths.

        Nasrin draped a handkerchief over the teeth jutting from Yzebel’s orbital ridge. “One of the An-Astrae killed her,” she said as she stood. “Her destiny is in tatters, and her heart and liver are full of teratomas. The greatest necromancer in history couldn’t bring her back.”

        “Will you look at the rest?” Li asked. They’d been her allies too, though she’d have traded them for Yzebel in a heartbeat. “I’m not asking for miracles. Just... look.”

        Nasrin went down the line, examining each corpse in turn: Melqart; Elissa; Hiram; Zinn. “The same An-Astrae did for them,” she confirmed. “A master of the Rent Veil, I’m guessing, or she couldn’t have taken down five Commune agents.”

        “What makes you think they were agents?” Li asked, keeping her tone carefully neutral.

        Nasrin snorted behind her veil. “One Olori might be a tourist. But two Olori? At least one is a spy.” She produced another handkerchief and opened a flask of grain spirits, wetting the cloth. “Which makes me wonder: what was a Regime pyromancer doing with five Heroes of the Revolution?”

        “We were a joint trade delegation.”

        Nasrin laughed; trade missions were infamous for harboring spies. “Pull the other one.”

        Li chuckled too, considering how to kill her. Nasrin was too knowing by half, and with Yzebel beyond the reach of necromancy, Nasrin’s usefulness was over.

        “Before you do anything rash,” Nasrin said, cleaning her unlined hands, “there are two things you should know.”

        “Oh?”

        “One,” Nasrin said, holding up a sun-browned finger. “Firestar IV just passed below the horizon. So you have a quarter of an hour before Firestar V reaches its zenith, and starting a fight before your stars are ascendant would be unwise.”

        “Go on,” Li said, curious in spite of herself. An ordinary necromancer wouldn’t keep track of when the Regime’s satellites were overhead.

        “Two,” Nasrin said, adjusting her veil and releasing two tiny obsidian moons from inside her chador, which rose to orbit her head, “we share common interests. Isn’t that right, Captain?”

        “You have me at a disadvantage, magos,” Li said, eying the circling satellites. Of course. Nasrin was a Druzh sorceress, and individual Druzh were notorious for embroiling themselves in the Great Game, whether their order was involved or not.

        “Please—just Nasrin. We’ll be working together, after all.”

        “Will we?” Li asked dryly.

        “Of course,” Nasrin said. “You’ll need assistance once you reach the dig site at Kyr-Nessus. As for myself, I have no desire to have one of the An-Astrae shatter my moons and unspool my destiny like a ball of yarn.”

        “You think I can protect you?”

        “Your future’s been burnt to a cinder. You’d fare better against the An-Astrae than I would.”

        Nasrin’s reasoning was sound, as far as it went. The Regime made certain its agents had no destinies to be warped by the An-Astrae, or charted by other foes. But a master of the Rent Veil was still a deadly opponent. The last Rent Veil adept Li had faced could unmake bullets.

        Dodging falling masonry had proved beyond him, however.

        “Suppose I am headed to Kyr-Nessus,” Li said. “What’s in it for you? What do you hope to find there?”

        “I want a piece of the Impossible Moon.”

        “My. What did it ever do to you?”

        “Funny,” Nasrin said. “But really, I want a chunk of the moon. Before you blast it into dust and gravel.”

        “And what makes you think I’ll do that?”

        “The Regime and the Commune would only join forces to keep the Impossible Moon from rising. The Great Game has too many players without Sakharia dealing itself in.”

        “All right,” Li said at length. “An alliance. We protect each other, and you get as large a chunk of the Impossible Moon as we can contrive.”

        Nasrin smiled, the skin around her eyes betraying the expression. “I knew you’d see things my way.”

* * *

        The Valley of the Astrologers lay inside Kyr-Them, at the heart of the city’s necropolis. As Li and Nasrin emerged from the tomb into the sweltering night, gas lamps, reed torches, and coal-fired braziers lit the city’s distant thoroughfares, and a thousand voices and the clatter of mechanized looms reached them on the breeze.

        “You were born in Sakharia?” Li asked, following Nasrin past a mortuary temple and dozens of cairns and broken kouroi. Ruddy light limned the shattered statues, and Li couldn’t help thinking that Yzebel would have wanted to paint the scene.

        “Why the sudden interest?”

        Li shrugged. “You have a local accent. I wouldn’t have guessed you were Druzh.”

        “The Order has chapters everywhere,” Nasrin said, with an edge of bitterness. “Even here, at the ends of the earth.”

        “Ah,” Li said. She waited several heartbeats before asking, “The Motherhouse views Sakharia as a backwater?”

        Nasrin’s silence was more eloquent than words.

        “It’s the same with the Regime,” Li said, watching a mote of red light—Firestar V—climb the arc of the sky. “If you’re born in the Annexation, you might marry one of the Cho, but you’ll never be one of them.”

        Nasrin glanced at Li. “You’re not Cho?”

        Li ran her hand over the stubble above her ears. “The Cho don’t have to shave their temples and necks on pain of death, or tie their hair in knots.” She felt her lip curl as she watched Nasrin re-evaluate the ethnicity of every Regime citizen she’d ever met.

        “I didn’t know,” Nasrin said as they passed through a gap in the necropolis’s wall.

        “Of course you didn’t,” Li said evenly. “You couldn’t tell a Huo amah from a Yue grandma or an Ain matriarch.”

        “So,” Nasrin said. “What are you?”

        Li shot her a scornful glance. “I’m Regime.”

        “But you said...”

        “I said you’re too ignorant to tell the difference. Besides, no one outside the Regime’s territory cares. If I told you I was Yue, would it make a difference that my ancestors ate millet and pickled cabbage?”

        “It would mean you weren’t Cho.”

        “I’m not Cho,” Li agreed. “But I might as well be. I’m the fist and the blade of the Regime. That’s all the world sees of me. That’s all it needs to understand.”

        Li strode ahead, letting Nasrin scurry to keep up. She shouldn’t have said anything. She’d spent too long in Olor, where people like Yzebel wanted to learn about the Annexation for the sake of it, not because they thought they could turn her against her country.

        “When’s the next train to Kyr-Nessus?” Li asked as Nasrin caught up.

        “Two hours after midnight,” Nasrin said, panting for breath. “You don’t have luggage? We’ll want supplies...”

        “Oh, I have luggage,” Li murmured, checking Firestar V’s position in the sky. “It should be going off right about... now.”

        Halfway across Kyr-Them, the Kussite consulate erupted in a pillar of orange flame. Li smiled as she felt the explosion in her belly, and everyone in the street turned towards the fire.

        Everyone except Nasrin, who stared at Li with dawning comprehension. “You did that,” she whispered.

        Li inclined her head.

        “Why?”

        “To simplify an equation, you eliminate variables,” Li said, thinking of the Kussite geomancers who’d arrived that afternoon. “This is the Great Game, Druzh. Try to keep up.”

        When Li headed off for Kyr-Them’s train station, Nasrin followed, visibly shaken.

        The soldiers that had been posted at the station had run off to investigate the explosion, and Li raised the hood on her burnous and kept an eye on passersby while Nasrin bought two second-class tickets to Kyr-Nessus. The clocks on the platform had been made in Olor, but their faces were illuminated and protected from grit by lenses of Regime fire-glass.

        Yzebel had pointed out the pairing to Li when they’d arrived two days before. It had amused her, for some reason.

        “Nasrin,” Li said, taking her ticket. “Do you have a... pastime? A vocation?”

        “A hobby?”

        Li pursed her lips. “I suppose.” The word was too casual for the determination with which Yzebel had pursued her art.

        Nasrin followed Li’s gaze to the clocks and shook her head. “Not the way the Olori do. I mean, I take tomb-rubbings. And collect meteorites.”

        “Meteorites?” Li asked, prompting Nasrin to chatter about the chunks of sky-iron she’d gathered until their train arrived.

        Once they were ensconced in a compartment and a conductor had defaced their tickets with a mechanical punch, Li settled into her padded seat and watched the starlit desert roll past. “Get some sleep,” she told Nasrin. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”

        Nasrin made a show of obeying, but two more Firestars passed overhead before her obvious wariness gave way to exhaustion. As she slumped against the window and snored, Li drew a vial from her jacket and let a pinch of Seventh Wind dissolve on her tongue. She hated the stuff—it made her twitchy and impatient—but she couldn’t afford to fall asleep.

        As the desert rolled past and satellites swept overhead, mimicking the influence of real and theoretical planets, Li reviewed what she knew about the excavation at Kyr-Nessus. Popular wisdom held that Sakharim necromancers had unearthed the tomb complex of an ancient king—perhaps Ramash the Stargazer, mythical founder of Sakharia.

        Popular wisdom was wrong.

        Like all the magical arts, necromancy was governed by physical laws. With sufficient skill, the dead could be revived and broken objects made whole—but the power required to undo the ravages of time increased exponentially the further one reached into the past. If the Amir of Sakharia had actually discovered a tomb several millennia old, sending necromancers to the dig would have been pointless. Li had done the calculations; mending a toothpick that had been broken three centuries before verged on impossible.

        That meant the tomb and its contents weren’t being excavated out of the earth, but out of legends.

        All necromancers are liars, Li thought. If you solved the equations governing necromancy for imaginary values, the term for time became belief instead. Convince enough people something was true, and it became easier to make it true.

        Which was how the tomb of a king who’d never lived—along with the moon he’d never had buried with him—was being excavated outside Kyr-Nessus.

        Li ran down a mental list of the Great Powers, crossing off those whose agents had been eliminated. The Olor Commune now joined Kussia, Verhalt, and the Yana Archipelago on the list of the defeated. That left the Regime, the Druzh, the Nayid High Church... and the An-Astrae.

        Li wasn’t worried about the High Church. Their only satellite which used to cross this latitude had been torn out of orbit during the Peninsular War.

        That left the An-Astrae, and the Sakharim themselves.

        Li glanced across the compartment at Nasrin, who was drooling into her veil. It wouldn’t have surprised her if the Druzh had fielded a second operative, but she’d seen no evidence of it. And even a two-moon sorceress could be a formidable opponent.

        Not for the first time, Li considered killing Nasrin. The young woman was too trusting; too confident in the persuasive power of her logic. But everything Li had seen of Nasrin told her she wasn’t a threat. At best, she was someone else’s catspaw.

        But if Nasrin was a pawn, whose pawn was she?

        Li went through her list a dozen times before the sky lightened in the east, but none of the answers satisfied her.

* * *

        There were Royal Guards waiting on the platform at Kyr-Nessus. The black armbands they wore marked them as Sakhari nationalists.

        “Vice-Consul Li?” their lieutenant called as Li disembarked. “If you and your companion could step this way?”

        “What can I do for you, officer?” Li said, spreading her hands to show she was unarmed. The lieutenant had five troopers carrying rifles and collapsible spears, and he wore a revolver and a scimitar.

        “We’ve been charged with investigating deaths in Kyr-Them,” the lieutenant said. “Would you assist us by answering some questions?”

        Li could see Nasrin making quelling motions. She suppressed a sigh. Did the girl really think they could refuse and walk away? “We are at your disposal, of course,” Li said. “Lead on.”

        “What are you doing?” Nasrin whispered as the guards fell in around them.

        “Going somewhere less public,” Li murmured.

        The lieutenant led them to a mud-brick barracks and motioned for Li to enter. The barracks had two rooms; one living area, for the troops posted there, and a cell with a wrought-iron door and reinforced walls.

        “So,” Li said as the lieutenant gestured at a table, clearly expecting her to sit. “How can I assist the Amir?”

        The lieutenant smiled without humor. “You know why you’re here, Vice-Consul Li. No one can interfere with the excavation.”

        “Interfere with the excavation?” Li said. “Perish the thought. Nasrin and I are here on business.”

        “Be that as it may,” the lieutenant said, “your business will have to wait. We have no desire to offend the Regime, but my orders are that any foreign citizens and their companions in Kyr-Nessus are to be interned immediately.”

        “I see,” Li said. “Well. Orders are orders. But I have a personal request.” She placed a stack of silver dinars on the table. “You see, I spent the last few years at the embassy in Olor. If I’m to be interned, I want materials to practice my art.”

        “That may be possible,” the lieutenant allowed. “What art is that?”

        High above, Firestar III reached its zenith, and Li bared her teeth.

        “Spontaneous human combustion,” she said.

* * *

        Once Nasrin was done vomiting, Li took her elbow and led her past heaps of charcoal that had once been men.

        “You burned their bones to ash,” Nasrin whispered. “What kind of monster are you?”

        “The kind they train at the Crucible,” Li said, raising the hood of her burnous and steering Nasrin down an empty side street. “The kind the Regime sends to kill a moon.”

        “You could have killed me in the tomb,” Nasrin said, looking ready to vomit again. “Even without a satellite overhead.”

        “Probably,” Li agreed. “I didn’t want to draw attention.”

        “And what you just did won’t?”

        “Not immediately. Though we’ll need a place to hide.”

        “I know a place,” Nasrin said after a moment. “But you have to swear you won’t kill anyone.”

        Li studied her for a moment. “Your family?”

        Nasrin inclined her head, her lips pressed into a line.

        “All right. I won’t kill anyone.” Except in self-defense.

        Nasrin’s family compound was on the far side of Kyr-Nessus. Though the day’s heat was oppressive, Li kept her hood up and her head down, and was glad of the empty avenues.

        Nasrin had to hammer on the compound gate for half a minute, but eventually a veiled woman slid open a slat and peered out.

        “It’s me, Irsa,” Nasrin said. “Let us in.”

        “Young mistress,” Irsa said reprovingly as she let them in and barred the compound’s gate once more. “You should have told us you were coming.” She turned her attention to Li, who was staring at her feet. “Who’s your companion?”

        “A foreigner,” Nasrin said, as if Li’s hands and unveiled face didn’t make that obvious. “Father will want to see her.”

        Irsa grunted. “I’ll bring you tea in the clock room. You can wait for him there.”

        Li reassessed her picture of Nasrin’s family as Irsa led them through two courtyards and up a flight of stairs. The Druzh recruited talent wherever they found it, but they didn’t usually make inroads among a nation’s elite.

        The clock room was richly carpeted, with divans surrounding a central table. Clocks from three continents hung from hooks, stood against its walls, and rested in fire-glass display cases. Li recognized several Olori timepieces, a High Church prayer calendar, an ancient Sakharim sundial, and even a Yue water clock. Nasrin’s collection of meteorites no longer seemed surprising.

        Li thanked Irsa for her tea and sipped carefully from her cup. It tasted of sugar, mint, and more sugar, but it took the edge off of Li’s exhaustion.

        “So,” Li said once Irsa was gone. “What should I know about your father?”

        “My father is Azad Rahimi.”

        General Rahimi. Head of Sakharia’s intelligence service.

        Before Li could reply, footsteps heralded the General’s approach. Nasrin’s father was not a large man, and his uniform lacked the trailing braid and shiny buttons that had festooned the Royal Guards’ uniforms. Li stood as he entered and bowed her head. She was startled to see General Azad offer her his hand.

        “Captain Li, I presume,” Azad said. “Colonel Kim speaks highly of you.”

        “I see,” Li said, taking Azad’s hand and squeezing it. Kim was her supervisor, back in Olor. Nasrin had guessed she was here to destroy the Impossible Moon. And if Colonel Kim had told the General about her...

        “You want the excavation to fail,” Li said, releasing Azad’s hand. “So you cut a deal with Kim.”

        Nasrin and her father traded glances. “Sakharia isn’t ready to contend with the Great Powers,” he said. “As you saw in Kyr-Them. So yes. I contacted the Regime to make sure the Impossible Moon never leaves the ground.”

        “And what did you offer Colonel Kim to make her send me?”

        Azad met Li’s gaze without flinching. “The last of the Five Who Broke the Sky,” he said. “Nadya Chernova of the An-Astrae.”

        Li stared at him, suddenly wide awake.

        Chernova. Yama’s Hells.

        No wonder Kim had sent her.

* * *

        Vilskiy. Stikhina. Kepva. Borodin. Chernova. Before Li had been chosen for the Crucible, before she learned to read, she had known the names of the Five Who Broke the Sky.

        “They stole everything from us,” her grandmother said, eyes as black as the coal they couldn’t afford. “Everything.”

        Li had learned the story at her grandmother’s knee. How the Regime’s geosynchronous satellites had risen over the Annexation and spread to the surrounding lands, making minor pyromancers mighty and masters into gods of death. How her great-uncle—the first soldier from the Annexation to achieve flag rank under the Cho—had led the Regime’s armies into the Gorod Federation.

        And how the Five had ruined him.

        “They cracked open the heavens rather than admit defeat,” Li’s grandmother said. “They made their homeland a frozen waste, where the sun and moon never shone, nor the stars.” Every time, her voice shook with fury. “And because they were too proud to kneel, our family was humiliated and my brother took his own life.”

        The other Great Powers, reeling from what the An-Astrae had done, forced the Regime to sign the Broken Sky Accords, surrendering most of its conquests and banning geo-synchronous satellites. In accordance with the treaty, the Regime had detonated the original Firestars. Its prestige had never recovered.

        And there had been no more generals—or ministers, or high officials of any sort—from the Annexation.

* * *

        “What do you have on Chernova?” Li asked, finishing off the dregs of her tea.

        “She’s getting old,” Azad said. “She was the youngest of the Five at the time of the Breaking, and that was four decades ago.”

        “Hasn’t slowed her down much,” Li said, thinking of Yzebel and Melqart. It was just barely possible that there were two An-Astrae masters in Sakaharia, but Li’s gut told her Chernova was the one who’d murdered Yzebel. “Do you know when she plans to strike?”

        “She wasn’t on the train,” Azad said. “So odds are she’s crossing the desert. Assuming she has a mount, she should arrive at the dig an hour or two after sunset.”

        “That presumes she’ll rest during the day.”

        “Not even the An-Astrae are immune to heatstroke. Or dehydration.”

        “Mmm,” Li said. “So we have an hour after sunset to get into position. The guards on the dig site aren’t yours?”

        “Only a handful.”

        “Do you need any of them to survive?”

        Nasrin flinched. “Li—”

        “I wasn’t asking you,” Li said, her gaze fixed on Azad. “Be honest. Do you need them alive? Because if you do, get them out now. Once Chernova shows up, I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety.”

        “There are three hundred guards at the dig site!” Nasrin protested.

        “And come morning there will be the better part of three hundred corpses. The first thing Chernova will do is blot out the stars. Then she’ll kill a few dozen people on her way to the Impossible Moon. And then the real trouble will start.”

        Nasrin went gray as she realized what Li was implying, but Azad was the one who put it into words. “She’ll try to unmake the Moon.”

        Li inclined her head.

        Nasrin’s veil bobbed as her jaw worked in distress. “But that means— Everyone around her will—- Doesn’t she care?”

        “She’s An-Astrae,” Li snapped. “She tore a hole in the sky over her own country rather than let the Regime claim it. You think she cares about anyone who isn’t a part of her death cult? If she had to kill everyone in Kyr-Nessus and Kyr-Them, she’d call it a necessary sacrifice.”

        “But she wouldn’t,” Nasrin murmured. “Kill them, I mean. At that distance from the city, indirect exposure wouldn’t be lethal.” She paused and corrected herself. “Not immediately.”

        “You can live without a mouth,” Li agreed. “Or eyes, or limbs, or genitals. You even live without skin. One of my colleagues lasted a week.”

        The only sounds in the clock room were the ticking of mechanisms and the slow drip of water. Finally, Azad spoke. “Can you kill her?”

        Li smiled a crocodile smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I can kill anyone.”

        Nasrin and her father let Li alone after that. Giving her time to prepare, Azad said, but his eyes told a different story.

        Li snorted as Irza brought her a mirror and a razor, so she could shave the stubble from her neck and temples. Azad was no fool. Anyone with sense would be afraid of her.

        But Yzebel hadn’t been.

        Li quashed the voice that had ventured that thought, smashing it flat as an onion pancake. She couldn’t afford sentiment or regret: not now, not ever. She was fire, and if fire stopped moving, it died. She would not think of Yzebel’s face, jaw gone slack, eyes dull and lifeless.

        She would not—could not—falter.

        Li shook another dose of Seventh Wind onto her tongue and dry-swallowed the crystals.

        She would sleep once Chernova was dead.

* * *

        The dig site was a nest of shadows as Nasrin led Li past the pickets, muffling the sound of their footsteps by resurrecting the breeze of a minute before. They skirted the encampment that had grown up beside the dig and reached the main pit without trouble.

        “Sure you don’t need my help?” Nasrin asked as Li surveyed the excavation. Guards were posted between the crypts and mortuary temples—and wasn’t that so very Sakhar, to think an ancient king would build and bury a temple complex?—but they were concentrated around two buildings. The smaller was carved with royal icons, which meant the Impossible Moon was in the other—the enormous vault with the partly caved-in roof.

        “I’m sure,” Li said, studying the sheets of canvas covering the hole in the vault’s roof. Azad had told her the moon was unnaturally buoyant, and that its buoyancy had increased once it was exposed to the sky. Even the most fanatical Sakhari nationalists didn’t want to risk the moon shattering itself against the vault’s ceiling, so they’d covered the hole. Reports said the moon was tied to the ground like an airship.

        Nasrin began to protest, but Li silenced her with a look. “We’ve been over this. You watch the camp with field glasses from outside the pickets. If you see a distortion field or teratomorphic effects, ride to Kyr-Nessus, tell your father I’ve failed, and keep riding. If you’re lucky, you won’t grow an extra nose inside your kidneys.”

        “And if you succeed?” Nasrin asked.

        “The explosion will be visible for miles,” Li said. When she looked up, Nasrin hadn’t budged. “What?”

        Nasrin touched Li’s shoulder. “Thank you for trying to stop her.”

        “She killed my friends,” Li said, moving to shrug off Nasrin’s hand. Before she could do so, a surge of energy washed through her. She felt rested for the first time in days.

        “You should’ve slept,” Nasrin said, sagging as Li broke contact. “But this is almost as good. Better than your drugs, anyway.”

        My drugs don’t require trust, Li thought. Nasrin could just as easily have stopped her heart instead of restoring her. Aloud, she said, “Thank you. Now go. This will be ugly.”

        Nasrin ghosted away, and Li dropped into the pit, taking cover behind a crypt. She watched two flecks of red light ascend the vault of heaven—Firestar VII outpacing the planet that had given it and the rest of the Regime’s satellites their names—and settled in to wait.

        As Firestar VII sank towards the horizon, a familiar chill ran down her arms. Li sat bolt upright and looked up. The Fire Star and every other star and planet in the heavens were gone, effaced by a single titanic brush stroke.

        Rising, Li discarded her burnous, checked her arm guards, and headed for the Impossible Moon. The guards were focused on the sky, and no one paid her any attention as she slid between partially excavated tombs and sphinxes.

        A strangled cry came from up ahead, and Li raced towards the sound. When she arrived, a guard lay in a small lake of gore. Steam and distortion rose from where Chernova had torn out his heart.

        Li jogged toward the vault as more guards cried out and were silenced. A few got off gunshots, the sounds oddly muffled, and one of the sphinxes in front of Li shimmered and began to melt as Chernova unmade the bullets in flight. Li avoided the runoff. The sphinx seemed to have turned to ice, but there were several less pleasant alternatives.

        There were corpses around the Royal Crypt; corpses strewn along the boulevard leading to the vault and the Impossible Moon. Most of them were primary casualties, with severed limbs, holes in their throats, or missing hearts. But a handful had died of teratomorphic effects. One guard’s head had been replaced by a glistening coil of intestines. Another had lost his skeleton and collapsed into a puddle of flesh. Li pushed on, momentarily grateful to have no destiny to warp. However she might die, it wouldn’t be like that.

        The doors to the cyclopean vault were propped open, and Li followed Chernova inside.

        The Impossible Moon loomed in the center of the vault, lit from below by chains of lanterns. Spikes were hammered into its matte black surface, and cables joined them to improvised moorings. Other ropes ran over the moon’s upper face, pinning it to the earth.

        Li ignored the friezes adorning the vault’s interior; the moon’s alien immensity; the guns and bodies cooling on the floor. Her attention was fixed on the woman running up a cable, in defiance of Yama only knew how many natural laws. Nadya Chernova was squat and stocky, with the build of a dockworker. Her hair was short and iron-gray, scars striped her arms, and her hands were black with blood.

        Li conjured a jet of flame and severed the cable Chernova was standing on.

        Chernova fell, and a heartbeat passed before she lunged for the severed cable. Though she had no traction, no way to alter her motion, the cable leapt into her hands, arresting her fall.

        Li had expected that. The cable Chernova swung on was already alight, flames chewing away at its fibers. And as the cable disintegrated and Chernova dropped, Li charged across the vault, a sword of superheated gas in her hand.

        Chernova was standing when Li reached her. “You’re Regime,” she said, snuffing Li’s blade with a single mudra. “Of course.”

        Li hammered her fist at Chernova’s face; let Chernova’s block carry her into a kick. White fire trailed her hands and feet, but Chernova blocked Li’s strikes with her bare hands, suffering tiny welts instead having the flesh seared from her bones.

        “Die,” Li snarled, throwing fist-sized fireballs as Chernova retreated from her onslaught. One of them struck a cable, setting it alight. “You walking atrocity; you inhuman disease. Just. Die!”

        “Quit yapping, bitch,” Chernova said, raising her hand. Li bared her teeth as she felt the attempt at unmaking slide off her like water on oilcloth.

        “Never,” Li said, and detonated the ammunition of the guard lying behind Chernova.

        Chernova winced as shrapnel tore through the air. “Idiots,” she said as a thread of blood ran down her calf. “Using guns.”

        Li rushed her again, and as they traded blows, she dropped into a sweep, aiming for Chernova’s injured leg. Chernova dodged backward and struck as Li stood up, rocking Li back on her heels.

        “You’re too reliant on tricks,” Chernova said as Li threw flames at her face. “And your artificial stars. Just like those Commune brats.” She dodged sideways as Li detonated another soldier’s ammunition pouch. “The world has forgotten what strength looks like.”

        “And what’s that?” Li said, dumping heat into a canteen at Chernova’s feet. “Killing your own country?”

        Chernova shrugged. “Better that than letting you have it.” She dived to one side as the canteen burst, superheated steam gushing out.

        Li reached Chernova while she was on her knees. She drove her boot into Chernova’s gut, sending her rolling. “Hold still,” she snapped, conjuring another blowtorch blade.

        Chernova dismissed the blade with a gesture and rolled to her feet. As she rose, the thunder of dozens of booted feet came from outside the vault. “Your doing?” Chernova asked.

        Li didn’t dignify that with a response.

        As they circled, Royal Guards streamed through the vault’s doors. “In the name of the Amir,” one of them began, only to collapse, bleeding from the eyes, as Chernova bent a finger.

        “Get out of here, you idiots!” Li bellowed. “She’s An-Astrae!”

        “Kill the intruders!” a voice shouted, and Li swore as the guards inside the vault leveled their rifles.

        Throwing herself flat, Li drained the heat from every lantern in the vault, plunging the chamber into darkness. At some point in the fight, her topknot had come undone, and her hair covered her face like a veil. She could feel Chernova’s proximity as an itch on her skin; a cyst in the fabric of the world. A few guards fired blindly, and Li winced as Chernova unmade their bullets. One of them screamed. Another began gurgling in a way that suggested he no longer had a throat.

        “Illumination flare!” an officer’s voice barked, and Li smiled. Two years back, Sakharia had bought boatloads of surplus Regime flares. And Regime flares had several uses.

        There was a loud report, and a distinctive red-white flare rocketed toward the vault’s roof. In the bloody light, Li could read the horror on Chernova’s face.

        On its own, a flare couldn’t empower pyromancy. But if a Firestar was ascendant, a flare could transmit the satellite’s influence through the thickest clouds—even clouds made of darkness.

        “That,” Li said as Royal Guards trained their weapons on her, “was a mistake.”

        Then there was fire blossoming from their guns; igniting their ammunition pouches; erupting from their bones.

        Li lashed out, sending a massive wave of flame at Chernova. Chernova shrugged it off, shielding her face with her arms, but by the time she had, Li was halfway to the body of the soldier with the flare gun. She’d set even more mooring cables on fire, but that wasn’t important. The flare gun was.

        Li could feel Chernova pursuing her, so she ripped the heat from the ground as she passed, forming a slick of ice. As Chernova overbalanced and fell, Li tore the flare gun from the corpse that held it. There were two more flares in his bandolier.

        Li only needed one.

        “Fire rises,” Li told Chernova, and fired the flare at the hole in the vault’s roof.

        As the flare punched through canvas, Li reached heavenwards and set the darkness Chernova had conjured on fire. The effect wasn’t complete—there were still patches of darkness blotting out the stars—but as the canvas burned and the flare reached its zenith, Li could see the original Fire Star blazing overhead.

        “Now, where were we?” Li said as Chernova levered herself upright. “Right. I haven’t killed you yet.”

        Chernova spat. “Come and try.”

        Li flung javelins of flame at Chernova, one after another. Some sailed wide; some Chernova dodged; some set more mooring cables on fire. Li grinned as another pair of cables snapped, and the remaining ones groaned ominously.

        Chernova looked between Li and the Impossible Moon, her expression stricken. “No. You wouldn’t.”

        “Wouldn’t I?” Li said, and cut another rope.

        This had always been the plan. If the Impossible Moon rose, Sakharia would be in blatant violation of the Broken Sky Accords. Even better, the moon had no failsafe. There was no way to detonate it, the way the Regime had detonated its stationary Firestars.

        Sakharia would claim they hadn’t meant to break the treaty. But—so sorry—there was no way to bring the Impossible Moon down. The Regime’s diplomats would be sympathetic and argue that the Moon’s rise meant the Broken Sky Accords were a dead letter.

        And one by one, stationary Firestars would return to the skies over the Annexation.

        Chernova’s face contorted. “Do you know what you’re doing?” she said, her voice thick with loathing.

        “Yes,” Li said. “Still proud of killing your own country?”

        “You aren’t Cho. Why are you doing this?”

        Li’s grandmother’s face swam across her vision. “Because,” she said, “you should have fucking surrendered.”

        Chernova stared, uncomprehending. But Li wasn’t about to explain herself.

        As she gathered another firebolt, Chernova ran for the nearest cable.

        Li swore and lashed out, but Chernova had extended her fire resistance to the cable, so Li’s flames just charred its outer layer. In moments, Chernova would reach the top of the Moon, where she could unmake it at leisure.

        “Like Hell,” Li muttered, and began to run.

        Flames exploded from her boots, launching her into the air, and Li aimed for the hole in the vault’s ceiling. It wouldn’t do to smear herself across the vault’s roof or get crushed by the moon as it ascended.

        The Impossible Moon was unevenly shaped, with several divots and craters on its upper surface. Chernova had occupied a crater near its summit.

        “You’re as stubborn as a cockroach,” Chernova snarled as Li arrested her descent with a pillar of flame and tumbled to a halt.

        “I am,” Li agreed, forcing herself to her feet.

        They met in a flurry of hands and feet. Li smashed her armguard into Chernova’s nose, and Chernova knocked Li back, sending her vial of Seventh Wind flying. Li snatched it out of the air and flung it at Chernova.

        It exploded inches from her face.

        Glass splinters flew everywhere, and Chernova gagged on the noxious fumes. As she did, the ropes and cables Li had ignited on her way up snapped one after another, and the Impossible Moon surged towards the roof of the vault.

        Li bowled Chernova over, kneeling on her as they skidded to the lip of a crater. She punched Chernova in the face, snapping her head back.

        A heartbeat later, the Impossible Moon hit the vault’s roof, sending giant stone blocks and chunks of Moon rock flying. Pieces of burnt canvas drifted down like ashen snowflakes.

        Chernova grabbed Li’s fist and shoved her off.

        As she did, Li englobed Chernova’s head in flames.

        She couldn’t hurt Chernova directly, Li thought as Chernova flailed at the flames covering her face. But beneath the open sky, with the Fire Star blazing overhead, she could blind her and starve her of air. Sooner or later, Chernova would have to inhale.

        And Li would learn if the woman’s lungs were as fireproof as her skin.

        The Moon shuddered beneath her as it tore its way through the vault’s roof. Li stood up, her hair trailing like a pennon, as Chernova fell to her knees, still flailing at her face.

        “You think I’m a fool?” Li said, keeping her distance. It hadn’t even been a minute.

        Kneeling, Chernova placed her palms against the Moon. Before she could try to unmake it, Li kicked her in the head. Opening a gap in the flames she’d conjured, she grabbed Chernova’s hair and smashed her face against the Moon. Once; twice; three times.

        A ragged scream erupted from Chernova, and Li had her answer. As expected, Chernova’s lungs weren’t fireproof.

        Li dismissed the globe of flames and dragged Chernova to the lip of the crater. Lifting Chernova’s head with both hands, she pointed it at the retreating ground. “See that?” Li said. “You failed. Take that knowledge with you to Hell.”

        Chernova tried to speak, but it came out a croak.

        Before she could try again, Li snapped her neck.

        Chernova was still alive when Li kicked her off the Impossible Moon. She was still alive when she hit the ground.

        Li landed on top of her. The column of flame she’d used to control her descent reduced Chernova to charcoal.

* * *

        Colonel Kim’s office was separated from the dig in Kyr-Nessus by three hundred leagues and two months, but it felt like a different world. Li slouched in her chair as Kim flipped through her report, studying the pattern in the carpet. Some Yue woman had spent the better part of a decade weaving it.

        “Good work,” Kim said, dropping the report on her desk. “First Minister Rahimi has already requested military assistance. We’re sending two companies of advisors.”

        “You saw the note about the Moon’s shards?”

        Kim grunted. “That they allow necromancers to ‘revive’ objects from the future? It’s a little far-fetched.”

        “The math checks out,” Li said. She and Nasrin had reviewed it a dozen times. “We need to stay very good friends with the Sakharim, sir.”

        “Well, you’ve made inroads there,” Kim said. “I’ll tell the General Staff, but...” She shrugged. Kim was part Ain, and the Cho didn’t like taking advice from half-breeds.

        “Will that be all, sir?” Li asked, as Kim’s gaze wandered to the row of clocks on her wall.

        “Right,” Kim said. “You wanted to visit your late liason’s mother. She’s the Assistant Deputy Sub-Minister of something tedious, isn’t she?”

        “Agriculture,” Li murmured. She refrained from pointing out the only reason the Regime could feed itself was the small army of geomancers it contracted from Olor and Kussia.

        “Go,” Kim said, waving her hand.

        Leaving the embassy was like walking into a crowded, cacophonous sauna. The streets of the Olori capital were crammed with midday traffic, pedicabs mingling with pedestrians and velocipedes, but despite the crush, Li had never seen a serious accident. Everyone was destined for greater things.

        Li flagged down a pedicab and gave the driver the address for Yzebel’s mother. Ten minutes later, she disembarked on a quiet side street, clutching a package. She didn’t need to check the house numbers. One house’s door was smeared with ash.

        Li knocked on the door and waited. After a minute, a hard-eyed Olori woman opened it.

        “Deputy Minister Tanith?” Li asked.

        The woman studied Li for a moment. “Vice-Consul Li,” she said. “Do come in.”

        Tanith’s home was full of sculpted plants. There were tiny trees in the entry hall and climbing roses attached to an indoor trellis in the parlor. She’d put a lot of work into them.

        “My condolences on your loss,” Li said.

        “You and Yzebel were close?” As if she didn’t know.

        “Yes,” Li said. “We used to go to galleries and shows together.” She paused. “She deserved better.” From Li, and from life.

        “You were there when she died?”

        “No. By the time I arrived...” Li drew a ragged breath. “No. I wasn’t.”

        The two of them sat in silence: Yzebel’s mother, and her lover. At length, Tanith spoke. “Why are you here, Captain Li?”

        “I’ve read your poetry,” Li said.

        Tanith’s shoulders tensed. “Oh?”

        “I didn’t understand it,” Li said. “But you were a rising star when you stopped. And that fall, you were in Kussia when someone shoved a kebab through Vilskiy’s skull. Skewer and all.”

        “Get to the point.”

        “Your destiny had been scoured clean,” Li said. “You gave up your gift with language and your chance at greatness to fight the An-Astrae.”

        Like me, she didn’t say. Tanith knew what Li was.

        Li placed her package on the table. Tanith regarded it with a wariness usually reserved for venomous animals. “What’s that?”

        “The orbits of the geosynchronous Firestars the Regime will loft over the Annexation,” Li said, and watched Tanith’s face go rigid. “As well as orbits for two additional satellites, which would make the Firestar network duplicate the effect of the Great Conjunction.”

        “You aren’t serious.”

        “‘A great destiny is the birthright of all humanity, and the only path to true equality,’” Li said, quoting the Olori Constitution. “Or did being human and being Olori become synonymous when I wasn’t looking?”

        Slowly, tentatively, Tanith tugged the package open. She flipped through Li’s calligraphed equations, pausing to study a diagram of the position of satellites in the sky.

        “Why are you giving me this?” she asked at length.

        “Because everyone should have a life like your daughter’s, full of joy and music,” Li said. “And no one should have to live like us.”

        She’d meant herself and Tanith. But Tanith stared at Li, as if trying to recall something important. “Of course,” she said. “You’re Hwa.” Hwa was the Cho word for the Huo people, who’d ruled the Ancient Regime.

        Li didn’t bother to correct her pronunciation.

        “The Regime was ours for a thousand years before the Cho,” Li said. And will be again. With or without your help.

        After a silence of several seconds, she added, “Fire rises, Deputy Minister. I’ll show myself out.”

        Tanith watched her go. Outside, Li hailed the pedicab driver who was idling at the end of the block. She knew him, of course; he was one of the Commune agents assigned to watch her. His handler had lunch with Tanith every month.

        “Joy of the day to you, Vice-Consul,” the driver said, pedaling over. “Where to?”

        “Joy of the day, Hanno,” Li replied. “The embassy, please.”

        As Hanno pedaled onto a main road, burbling about the latest poet to burst onto the literary scene, Li closed her eyes and dreamt of a Grand Conjunction blazing over the Annexation; of every child in the Regime being born under fortunate stars.

Copyright © 2015 Alec Austin

Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

Alec Austin’s fascination with heresies and schisms grew out of reading Borges. He’s a game designer, media scholar, and an alumnus of the Clarion West and Viable Paradise writing workshops. In addition to multiple stories in BCS, Alec’s fiction has appeared in Apex, Daily Science Fiction, and Strange Horizons, and he has stories forthcoming in Analog and On Spec. He’s @AlecAustin on Twitter.

Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

DEFY THE GREY KINGS

by Jason Fischer

        There are many ways to kill an elephant. When that mountain bears down on you, shaking the earth and screaming for your blood, show no fear.

        Only without fear will you see the truth. They are quick, even draped in chain and iron, but you are quicker by a whisker. They fight like devils, but it only takes three people who know what they are doing to bring an elephant down.

        They are afraid of you.

        All elephants can die.

* * *

        I bring you two things today. Iron, sharp and true, and a story. If you don’t gain the truth of things from this, you would best drive these blades into your own hearts.

        I have slain many enemies, both grey and pale. I’ve learnt things in that awful quiet, the moments of pain and sorrow after the fury, where men like me pass over the dead and dying. The road that brought me here is slick with blood, and if you do not listen to me carefully, your own deadly road will wash you away.

* * *

        I was born a slave, like all of you. My master was a hoary old bull known as Ascaro, one of the Bull-King’s champions. Twenty feet high at the shoulders, and even past his prime he was a quick devil, though old muscles were turning into fat.

        Where other elephants cover themselves in tattoos and silk and let the scriveners carve boasts upon their tusks, Ascaro only ever wore his scars. The end of his right tusk was shattered from an enemy axe, and a lucky blow had taken his left eye long before I ever drew breath.

        I spent many hours scouring his hide with brushes and bronze scrapers, and I knew that grey map of his battles well. He drank melon wine during his mud baths, and when his one eye turned red and crazed, he played his favorite game with the house slaves. Without warning, his trunk would flick backwards, and those of us cleaning his back would have to dodge his drunken fumblings and try not to slip and fall. The first slave to fall into the mud bath was the one that he would kill that day. He would pin them down with his foot, exerting just enough pressure to hold them under the mud.

        I would stand on that heaving back with perfect balance, and not once did I cease my endless scrubbing, staring only at my broom as someone else drowned in the mud.

        His lieutenants and lackeys would cheer him on while he murdered a human being for no reason. Even the house poet would stop plucking the bouzouki with his trunk and join in the laughter. Just before the bubbles finally stopped, Ascaro would step down hard, crunching bones. He would pluck each corpse out of the mud, tossing it across his great hall. Each body fell with a meaty smack, arms and legs a muddy broken tangle. The elephants would roar and laugh at the sight, each of them screeching that horrible deep-throated rasp that every man loathes.

        I survived the bath game longer than any of the other slaves in the house of Ascaro, and only then did my master look upon me with value. He took the broom from my hands and gave me to a man named Mouse.

        “This one dances well,” Ascaro told Mouse. “Teach him to dance with a knife.”

* * *

        Mouse was a hulk of a man, almost as scarred and grizzled as our master. He took me away from that miserable house, from all I’d ever known.

        He led me across the streets of Tusk, through the plazas and across the causeways. It is a city built to the scale of our masters, already old when the elephants learned script and set their histories down. I felt like an ant, just another attendant below the notice of our grey kings. Here the wealthy promenaded, draped in silk and gold-dust, and each elephant carried a dozen slaves armed with fly-switches and scratch-sticks.

        “You will be dead within a week,” was all that Mouse said to me during that long journey. “I will call you Ghost, just to save time.” It was as good a name as any I’d been called.

        We passed through the deep throat of a gate, dwarfed by the walls no siege engine could level. I saw a field of sawdust below, bordered by the city wall and the dark murk of the Indus River. Hundreds of slaves worked the field, scattering fresh sawdust like they were sowing seeds. Longhouses ran level with the edge of the field, mud brick daubed with red ochre. One of these was marked with the sigil of House Ascaro.

        “Welcome to Blood Meadow,” Mouse said.

* * *

        The longhouse of Ascaro was rude but functional. In the gloom lay a hundred empty slave pallets, bare slabs of wood. A handful of people huddled around a firepit.

        “What is this you’ve brought us, Mouse?” one of them called out.

        “A ghost,” Mouse replied, and the group chuckled.

        The slaves were devouring some small animal cooked on a spit. Their sharp knives flickered over the carcass, reducing it to bones in minutes. One scarred woman flicked a morsel of meat directly into Mouse’s open mouth, and the group roared with laughter.

        Like Mouse, these people were hard-edged and confident and drank their master’s melon-wine with gusto. They did not act like any of the house-slaves I’d ever seen.

        “Sit down, Ghost,” one of them said, pushing over a chunk of log with a boot. “You’re not dead today.”

        I shared their meat and their grog, quietly taking in my new home. As the sun set and the lodge filled with shadows, I stared at the racks of elephant weapons on the walls. Oversized javelins, spiked maces, and battle-axes no human could even hope to lift. Two great swords rested in an iron bracket, crafted to fit the exact curve of our master’s tusks.

        Beneath this lay the thick iron shell that Ascaro wore into battle, heaped into a pile of plates and links and buckles. I saw the face plate, battered in dozens of places, the spot in front of his dead eye covered by an extra layer of iron and rivets. The empty eye socket watched me as I ate his food and drank his wine. I shivered.

        I learned the others’ names as the wine flowed. A man with a great grey beard and no hair, who they had called Boy. Two women with muscles like hard wood, twin sisters called First and Second. A giant of a man, muscled like an ox, with only a stub of tongue. Punishment from speaking ill of Ascaro. They called him Lucky.

        “When does it begin?” Boy asked.

        “One week,” Mouse said.

        “Time enough to train your Ghost?” Second said.

        “No,” Mouse said. “He’ll die, or not, and it’s nothing on us.”

        Ever since I could toddle, I’d been a slave. I knew my own utter lack of worth. Even as they talked about my death, I stared into the flames and ate every scrap of meat from the bone in my hands. That was another day’s problem, and tonight I was free.

        “Come here, Ghost,” Mouse said, and stood me up in front of the firepit. The others jostled together, all glee and nudging elbows.

        “You’ve the look and stink of a house slave,” Mouse said, his eyes boring into my own. “We don’t mix with pot-scrubs here.”

        “Stinking pot-scrub,” First hissed, and the others hooted.

        “You’re dead meat,” Mouse continued. “I’ll give you five minutes out on the sawdust. You’ll beg for a broom in your hand, Ghost.”

        “Probably wet himself,” Boy grunted, and the twins howled with laughter. Even Lucky joined in, barking out his own tongueless enjoyment.

        “Changed my mind. The slave dies here tonight,” Mouse said. Seizing me in his hands, he tore my tunic from me with one swift motion. It was the last thing I owned, and he threw the filthy fabric into the fire. I stood before these people, naked and defeated.

        “You’re dead,” Mouse said, and held a knife to my throat. It bit into my adam’s apple as I swallowed, but when I looked up from the blade, I met his eyes calmly, without fear. At that moment I was empty of everything, and he raised an eyebrow, seeming to approve of what he saw.

        He stepped back, raising his knife in salute. That was when the water splashed me, soaking me from head to toe. Coughing and wiping my eyes, I saw Boy and Second, holding a dripping half-barrel.

        “Is this slave dead?” Mouse asked.

        “He’s dead. Dead as dead,” Boy said. They surrounded me, clapping me on the shoulders, and bidding me welcome. Lucky attacked me with a rough scrap of towel. First brought out a cloth undershirt and pants, and Second helped me put on the first pair of boots I’d ever worn.

        When I was dressed, Boy filled my hands with a square parcel, a heavy bundle of metal links and leather. A chain-mail shirt, reaching down past my groin but split up the sides for mobility.

        They fitted it to me, Mouse tutting and making measurements. They spoke of a blacksmith, expected any day now.

        “Bring it out, Lucky,” Mouse called, and the one-armed giant put something into my hands. It was a sword in a sheath, curved like the master’s tusk blades. The handle felt old and worn, and the leather scabbard was scratched in dozens of places.

        I drew the sword in one movement. The blade was battered and rough, more of a tool than a weapon. When I tested the edge, it sliced open my thumb with no effort.

        “This belonged to Pup,” Mouse said. “Pup ended up with a tusk in his guts, so now it belongs to you.” 

        I learnt that we were called Rothai, and in the longhouses all around me, other teams of Rothai were gathering. In one week, they would all do their best to kill me.

* * *

        Other slaves came, to fill the bunks. House slaves from the city, shuffling in by the dozen. Already I looked down on them as animals. Pot-scrubs. Next came the blacksmith, making the long-house unpleasantly hot as he banked white-hot coals in the forge.

        My hours were filled with swordplay, as the Rothai played at killing. Mouse carried the twin of my sword - our two curved blades represented the twin tusks of our master. The twins First and Second wielded the kontoi, double-handed lances with iron points two feet long. Boy had a battle-axe, while Lucky swung a flail with enough force to crack skulls.

        All about us, the Rothai of the other elephant houses made their own practice in the sawdust. Each was armed in an identical fashion to us. This was because of something called the Concord, Mouse said, and that was all the explanation he offered.

        It wasn’t enough to learn the death skills; we sparred on log frames ten feet above the ground, leaping across tightropes and netting, all while our fellows jerked at the workings to test our balance. We Rothai would ride out on the backs of our masters and fight on the move.

        I felt a stone twisting in my guts whenever I looked at the other warriors. We had no quarrel, but any of these people would end my life and think nothing of it.

        Mouse studied my form with the sword. He declared me fit enough to not embarrass him but still unlikely to live out the first day. I spent the last night hunched over the latrine pit, purging from both ends. The twins and Boy laughed and called out encouragement.

        When dawn came, we heard the poets bawling out on the sawdust, paid to recite elephant lineage and exaggerate their patron’s deadliness. Then came the hammer of drums, the call of a hundred conch shells. Elephants roared with anger and blood lust.

        Ascaro finally arrived, stinking of grog and covered in his own filth. He berated and abused the house slaves as they got underfoot, killing two before Mouse could quiet him.

        We hauled on ropes, lifting the chain-mail skirt up and over Ascaro’s back. Two dozen big men sweated and heaved on a pulley, hauling the inch-thick chest plates up and into place.

        Next came the iron greaves around his legs, laced up with leather trusses. A team of children climbed up and down a rig, deftly connecting the dozens of segmented pieces that made up the trunk armor. Ascaro tested his trunk for flexibility, and the pieces rattled as he gripped an enormous axe.

        “My swords!” he roared, stamping impatiently.

        As another crew winched the enormous face-plate into position, we ran up with the swords. It took three of us to lift each blade up to our master’s tusks, nine feet of solid iron. The blacksmith threw the hasps over each tusk, and swiftly hammered in metal pins to hold the blades fast.

        We swarmed over our elephant like birds looking for ticks. Everywhere was a pair of hands tightening a buckle or a rope or setting the iron plates. Planks were passed across and lashed into a rough platform for us Rothai to walk upon. Finally Ascaro had enough of this fussing and started to move, shedding slaves with every lurching step. They wriggled down ropes and fell to the dirt floor until the only humans who remained on Ascaro’s back were those of us clad in leather and chain.

        We Rothai took up our positions, each of us lashed to a rail that ran up the center of Ascaro’s back. Long knives at our belts had the sole purpose of severing this rope - or someone else’s.

        As Ascaro burst through the doors of his longhouse, I saw the Blood Meadow in all its awful glory. I vomited over my master’s side, and the twins laughed all the way into battle.

* * *

        Everywhere, elephants encased in metal, hundreds of iron mountains at full gallop, and they raged and clashed. Iron struck iron, and already the sea of sawdust was spattered with blood.

        “Be ready,” Mouse shouted from his perch just behind Ascaro’s head. Second stood above Ascaro’s shoulders, her long kontoi at the ready, calmly watching the thunderous murder that we were racing towards. Her twin sister paced around above Ascaro’s rump, watching behind for sneak attacks.

        Our master veered around a whirling knot of combat where three elephants fought each other, enormous maces and axes rising and falling.

        Ascaro made a sudden left, and my feet nearly slipped out from beneath me. Two elephants lay tangled in death, their tusk swords buried in throat and breast. The downed Rothai crews fought to the last on that grey hill, swords and flails flashing. Someone hoisted a lone kontoi with a red pennant tied to the shaft.

        “No point waving the blood flag,” Boy laughed, and sure enough the flag-waver was butchered by his enemies. Moments later, another elephant ran past in a rage, blinded from a head wound, and slammed into the dead elephants at a full charge. When the wounded elephant rose, I saw that he’d crushed the surviving humans into paste.

        “Stay off the ground, Ghost,” First shouted. “If your rope gives, you’re dead.”

        Ascaro weaved through the melee, smashing his axe to left and right, forcing his way through like an unstoppable force. Then, he shrieked with glee, and his nimble maneuvering became a charge.

        “Ghanghil!” he shouted. “Face me!”

        He bore down upon an elephant in black iron. This new enemy had been in combat for some hours now. His plates were heavily dented and his chain skirts torn and dangling in several places. Ghanghil looked upon my master with undisguised hatred. He raced towards him with fresh energy, raising a bloody mace high into the air.

        “Rail!” Mouse shouted, and we knew to drop low, holding onto the middle rail for all we were worth. Ascaro and Ghanghil met with a deafening crash, and we were flopped around on his back like landed fish.

        The two bulls strained at each other, tusk-swords scraping and rasping. Between this, their armored trunks twisted like great serpents, the big axe and mace rising and falling.

        Over Ghanghil’s head, we saw his Rothai rise, and Mouse screamed, ordered us to our feet. Second was up and lunging, batting aside the enemy kontoi that sought out her heart. Ghanghil’s second kontoi came out of that press of faces, but Lucky wrapped his flail around it, pinning it down for Boy to snap with his axe.

        I waited at the back with First, sword at the ready. Two other warring elephants passed us by in a deadly race, and a man with a kontoi took a quick stab at us, trying for a sneak kill.

        First simply ducked, but I was not quick enough. The iron lance-head caught me in the shoulder, snapping through the chain-links and pushing me straight over the side.

        “Ghost!” First screamed, and then I was falling towards the sawdust. Then the rope caught, and I was a dangling dead weight, swinging just short of the ground. I swayed and lurched as Ascaro shifted. It was all I could do to hold onto my sword.

        Around me, elephants thundered, and a passing axe-man took a swing at my rope. If I didn’t get up soon, someone would sever my rope and I’d die on the sawdust.

        “Hold on,” First shouted. She held her kontoi over the side of the elephant for me to grab. When I snatched it with my free hand, she drew me up slowly, grunting with my weight.

        First helped me to my feet, grinning with relief, when a blur over her shoulder made me cry out. We turned just in time to see a second elephant, in the same black iron as Ghanghil, crashing into our master at a full charge.

        His tusk-swords buckled Ascaro’s rear plates, one of them reaching through leather and chain to cut deeply into our master’s rump. We barely had time to regain our footing when Ghanghil’s axe came smashing down.

        It was only the skills learnt in the bath game that saved my life then. The axe blow split the plate where I’d stood a moment earlier. A flood of enemy Rothai leapt over the elephant’s head, hooting and hollering as they slid down his trunk. Six warriors, each of them trailing a flapping length of rope.

        “They’ve cut cords! Mouse, help!” First shouted, trying to keep them at bay with her lone kontoi. I hovered at her side, swatting away the second one with my sword, even as the enemy rushed us.

        Then Ascaro turned, withdrawing and fighting his way free of Ghanghil. The three elephants circled, the two in black iron fighting as one.

        “Grengkil and Ghanghil,” Ascaro snorted. “You bastard brothers in black. I’ll bleed you today!”

        Grengkil’s entire crew were on Ascaro’s rump now, forcing us back towards Ascaro’s head. First lost the head of her kontoi to an enemy axe-man, and she retreated with a curse, left with only her rope-knife to fight with.

        I took a spear to the thigh and was fighting a losing battle against two swordsmen when Mouse and Lucky came to my side. In moments one foe was dead, another dying, and then Second was there with her kontoi to prod the survivors backwards. The last man fell bleeding from the gut, to the sawdust and certain death.

        Ascaro was holding his own. He’d crushed Ghanghil’s trunk armor with one lucky blow, and Ghanghil bled deeply. His Rothai raised the blood flag, and he retreated from the melee in defeat.

        Grengkil had done his best to smash Ascaro’s blind side, but now it was one on one. My master shrugged off half a dozen deep wounds, driving the black-armored elephant back with his superior size.

        Their axes came down with fury, sparks flying from each crash of metal. Finally Ascaro twined his trunk around Grengkil’s own, holding the smaller bull’s axe in place.

        “Now, cut cords!” Mouse shouted, and it was our turn to slice at our ropes. We leapt from one elephant to another, and no one was there to oppose us as we sliced away buckles and straps, stripping away layers of chain and plate.

        “Mercy!” Grengkil cried. “I show blood flag. Please!”

        But there were no Rothai on his back to raise the red blood flag of surrender.

        “Master?” Mouse asked. The glare in Ascaro’s eye was instruction enough. We struck at the base of Grengkil’s skull, knives and blades seeking out his veins and spinal cord, and we robbed this giant of his life.

* * *

        It was a great victory for my master. Ghanghil and Grengkil were two of the Bull-King’s favorites, and to slay one and humiliate the other had raised Ascaro in that complex hierarchy.

        But Ascaro was furious. Even as the dead elephants were carved apart and put on wagons for interment in the Memory Hall, he lined us up in front of his longhouse. Six Rothai, most of us still bleeding, but we stood as straight as a row of nails.

        House slaves swarmed over Ascaro, pasting on unguent with trowels and mops. Two were trained surgeons, stitching up his wounds with foot-long needles and cord.

        “That wretch Grengkil got the jump on me,” Ascaro rumbled. “If I wasn’t faster and stronger, those brothers would be pissing on my corpse right now.”

        We stood silent. Next to me, First flushed, and I saw her tremble slightly. If she hadn’t been saving me, she’d have spotted Grengkil attacking from the rear and would have been able to give the warning.

        “I am the greatest on Blood Meadow. The greatest!” he said. His trunk snaked sinuously; his great ears flapped. From hours of scrubbing this monster, I knew every sign, every little twitch. Our master was at his most dangerous.

        “So why have I got a gaping hole in my backside?” he roared. “Who was meant to be watching back there?”

        It was always up to those with kontoi to watch, front and back. The elephant loomed above the twin sisters, all grey wrath and vengeance.

        “It was me,” Second said, and First cried out in disbelief. The sisters both tried to accept blame, and Ascaro stamped at the ground, losing patience. Elephants, as you know, have trouble telling humans apart, so it would have been impossible for him to pick out which twin was which.

        Mouse stepped forward, and with no expression he pointed at First. The sisters gave up on all self-sacrifice, and First waited for her master’s judgment.

        “You will die,” Ascaro said, and First bowed her head. “You have served well until today, so I offer you a choice. Put your head beneath my foot, or fall on your sister’s blade.”

        “No!” Second said. “You cannot!”

        “Hold your tongue,” Ascaro said, “or Mouse will find two new Rothai tomorrow.”

        The twins turned from the elephant, and I saw Second draw her rope-knife with a shaking hand. The sisters kissed and touched brow to brow, tears mingling across those mirror-image faces.

        “Enough! Do it!” Ascaro roared, and First pushed herself forward, the knife biting deep into her chest. Sobbing, Second thrust up with her blade, again and again, until her sister finally stopped twitching and screaming.

        Mouse brought a replacement to the longhouse the next day, a Rothai with a dead master. Mouse named her Nails, and as always the joke of this new name was something he kept private. We threw water on her, and drank, and pretended that First had never walked amongst us.

* * *

        We had many victories that season on the Blood Meadow. Ascaro began taking more risks on the field than ever.

        I gained confidence with the sword, and soon I was at Mouse’s elbow whenever the call came to cut the cord, to take the fight across to another elephant. Each fight brought another scar, and more memories of carnage. I tried to wash them away with melon-wine.

        I drank, I slew, and I survived.

        Men faced me over bare blades, and I struck them down first, drove the life out of them with urgency. Each one was a poor slave like me, but one thought drove my sword-arm: Better you than me!

        One day, the madness stopped. Like my master I woke up with a hangover, but instead of combat, we were kneeling in the sawdust, paying obeisance to the Bull-King, the most perfect of all elephants.

        A pair of palace elephants waited behind us with maces, ready to crush any human who dared to look upon the Bull-King’s radiance. I caught a perfectly painted foot but dared not look any higher.

        The Bull-King spoke for many minutes, praising Ascaro, offering him titles, more slaves, new land. When he paused, soaking up the polite trumpeting that passed for elephant applause, Ascaro said “No.”

        “No?” the Bull-King said, somewhere between amusement and displeasure. I felt the Bull-King’s elephants close in, and I knew that they would beat us all for Ascaro’s disrespect.

        “Bull-King, I ask only one thing. Make me the Scourge.”

        “But... you are old now, Ascaro,” the Bull-King said. “That should be borne by a young bull.”

        “I have won Blood Meadow by strength of arms,” Ascaro said. “Your young bulls quiver before me and raise blood flag before I can close with them. I am the best, and I must be the Scourge.”

        A conch horn sounded, and more elephants came running. Advisors to the Bull-King. They spoke on the sawdust for many minutes before the Bull-King gave his grace.

* * *

        Our master now commanded the Legion and brought fire and iron in the Bull-King’s name. You know what Ascaro did, if you’ve ever walked past the poets or scurried through the Memory Hall on some errand. We brought war to the Bull-King’s enemies, brought rebel villages under his rule. We fought the mammoths of the North and the skulking creatures of the Eastern Waste, but Ascaro did not meet his end in a glorious battle.

        Three long years I painted the land with the blood of the enemy. Each season we returned to Tusk and to Blood Meadow, wondering if that was the year the sawdust would drink up our lives. None were able to snatch the Legion from Ascaro, once he had his trunk firmly wrapped around that prize.

        When our vassals paid their taxes and our enemies wintered away from the front, we hunted runaway slaves. The Marchlands were thick with wild tribes who’d never lived under elephant rule, but these barbarians were wily and hard to track. Worse still were places like Deeping Forest, craggy and thick-grown, hard for elephants to enter.

        We spent endless hours in that damp wood, on elephant back or loping alongside, shivering and wet from the daily downpour. Everywhere I looked, I could see the shape of elephants in the trees, pushing through the thick growth, hacking branches with their axes. If there were runaway slaves here, they’d have already fled from that endless chopping sound.

        Each mile was hard won, and evening brought us to a sulking camp. Scores of elephants jostled around the wine cart, snarling at each other and cursing Ascaro when he wasn’t within earshot. We Rothai huddled around the baggage train with our own beetroot grog, all the elephants were allowing us on this trip.

        “We will find nothing,” Boy said, his white beard stained red from weeks of drinking the rotgut stuff. “One campfire, and it was cold ash.”

        Later on, the elephants grew drunk and boastful. One of Ascaro’s lieutenants fancied himself as a poet. Even though he was so drunk he could barely stand, he belched and farted his way through a grotesque recital of the mammoth wars. This sparked off an all-out brawl between the poet and half a dozen of his listeners.

        Trees fell, and blood was spilt by the time Ascaro intervened. Laying about with his armored trunk, my master separated the brawlers. “Have some pride!” he shouted. “You are Legion. Find some other way to occupy yourselves!”

        By way of example, Ascaro snatched up a Rothai trying to sneak away from the melee. Gripping him by an ankle, he tossed him across the camp. Another elephant caught the wailing man, and then others joined in, tossing the warrior back and forth.

        We watched in horror as first the flying man screamed in terror, then in pain as the exuberant elephants dislocated all his joints, then in horror when they simply decided to pull the man apart and see who got the biggest piece.

        “No. That’s not right,” I said to Boy. “He wasn’t a pot-scrub. Rothai don’t die that way. They just don’t!”

        “We die however our masters decide we die,” Boy said. “Tomorrow that could be you, or I, and that’s the way of it.”

        That was the moment that I knew Ascaro would, sooner or later, turn on all of us. Better you than me, I thought. Silent and thoughtful, I considered the gloomy depths of the forest.

* * *

        I did not trust anyone outside of my own Rothai crew. I sounded out my thoughts with Second, waiting until she was so drunk that I could deny the conversation.

        “I want to see that devil bleed,” she whispered. “If you are serious, I’m with you.”

        I did not trust the woman named Nails, First’s replacement. Mouse had claimed her as his wife, and she ran to his ear over the slightest things. I took care to approach Boy when neither Nails nor Mouse were around. To my surprise he wasn’t even concerned to hear about the planned murder of our master.

        “You mean for us to live in that?” Boy said, eyeing off the damp forest with distaste.

        “There are people in there, and they are free,” I said. “Second says she saw a boy in a tree, just watching us.”

        “She saw a runaway, and didn’t say anything?” Boy said. I nodded, and knew this was the moment that the old man would either turn us in or chew the idea over in his mind.

        There was the faintest of footfalls behind an old oak, the sound of a boot scuffing moldy leaves. I put a hand to my sword-hilt and Boy stepped towards the noise, baring his rope-knife.

        It was Lucky who emerged from behind the tree, and who eyed us both warily. He’d have heard every word of our palaver, and knew enough to damn us.

        “You tongueless mutt,” Boy spat. “Skulking around your own crew. Hear anything interesting?”

        Lucky nodded. Boy looked at me, long, considering, then he sheathed his knife with a sigh.

        “Ghost has the right of it. We can escape here, but it will be a red day’s work. Can we count on you?”

        Lucky frowned, and looked to the main camp. Two elephants were sparring with broken tree trunks, and the Rothai were brooding lumps, huddled around the smoky campfires. A feeling of murder hung over Ascaro’s camp, and Lucky had worked the Meadow long enough to know when to tread lightly.

        “What will he take from you next?” Boy said. “A finger? A hand? That grey bastard has already decided to kill you one part at a time. I’ve seen him do it before.”

        Lucky wavered by the tree, indecision on his face. He worked his lips and grunted with frustration.

        “It took ten years for the last one to die,” Boy said. “A mighty Rothai, whittled away until he was a torso and a head. The house-slaves fed him, and cleaned him, but every night Ascaro would come and watch that poor idiot, struggling to eat without hands, tongue, even lips. Our master there, he’d hold his foot above that bag of meat while he ate, waiting for him to nod.”

        “That Rothai lasted one month before he asked for Ascaro to crush the life out of him. He begged for his own death, and don’t think you won’t do the same.”

        Lucky barked and made a rude gesture. He didn’t believe Boy. He slunk back into the camp, body tense as he waited for us to rush him.

        “Easy,” Boy said, and I let go of my sword. “He can’t tell Mouse anything, not if he tries.”

        I saw Lucky approach the grog-cart, and he sat down on the same log as Mouse and Nails. Our crew leader was holding court with the other Rothai bosses, who howled with laughter as the ladle of beet grog passed around their damp circle.

        “He’ll ponder it some,” Lucky said. “When the moment comes, he’ll either be for or against. If he hesitates, even for a moment, kill him.”   

        Over at the elephant camp, the sparring match turned ugly. Ascaro ended the brawl by burying his axe in an elephant’s face. Night fell in our dripping forest camp, even as a team of Rothai stripped the cold grey body of arms and armor.

        Neither elephant nor Man rested easily that night.

* * *

        No elephant who’d served as Scourge of the Legion had ever rooted out the human settlements of Deeping Forest. Ascaro blustered and raged during each night’s camp, vowing to be the first to end this haven for escaped slaves.

        Deeping Forest clung to the back of a mountain range, affording few paths that an elephant to easily climb. Only Ascaro’s pride kept that force moving forwards and upwards, snapping trees every minute, trampling centuries of undergrowth beneath that inexorable advance.

        We found what passed for a small village, long abandoned by the time Ascaro’s armored bulls reached the plateau. There were signs of a hasty evacuation and the ashes in the firepit were still warm.

        We destroyed that rude place. There was a miserable vegetable patch, hard-won from the stony soil, and we took everything before we turned salt into the earth. There was a spring here, clean and pure, and Ascaro ordered the elephants to take turns fouling it with dung. Our grey masters trod the huts and lean-tos into kindling.

        Finished from our work in the village’s gardens, we set torches to the ruined buildings. The elephants of the Legion relaxed, assuming their hard journey was over. Ascaro soured that idea the moment he heard it.

        “We lose hundreds of runaways every year,” he grunted. “There were maybe twenty of the pink rats living here. We keep searching.”

        The elephants held themselves a small feast, roasting vegetables and mash over the coals of the burnt settlement. The Rothai were sent up into the tallest trees to look down for smoke, for any movement. There was a larger settlement in Deeping Forest, and Ascaro meant to have it.

        I clung to the tip of a pine and saw how the terrain grew ahead of us. Thickly wooded ridges, bunched up into folds of near-vertical rock.

        “Tomorrow,” I whispered to Second that night. Boy nodded when our eyes met over the grog ladle, and that was all the planning we made. I took out a whet-stone and sharpened my sword with long slow strokes. Mouse and Nails returned from their latest tryst, sharing a jug of the good melon wine. Ascaro had been generous to his favorites that night.

        “You expecting a fight, Ghost?” Mouse said. I grunted, and worked on the point of my blade, making sure it was sharp enough to punch through mail. Nails stared at me for a long time, lip curled into a sneer. If she thought I had ambitions on Mouse’s position, she was sure to cut me in my sleep.

        “You’d be smart to bring down a runaway,” Mouse said. “You know that Ascaro is offering a brace of slaves for each one that we kill or capture? Our own slaves, Ghost! And the first Rothai to spot a large settlement will be given his own estate in Tusk! You could be a free man tomorrow!”

        I paused. Ascaro’s offer was stunning in its generosity. Freedom for a human was a rare gift, unheard of in my lifetime.

        I looked over at the drunken elephants. We were here for their pride, to punish those humans who’d dared to defy the grey kings. I drew on the whet-stone too hard, a squeal that drew a spark and left a burr.

        “Perhaps I’ll let you visit my new house,” Mouse said dryly. “There’ll be blood on my blade before there’s any on yours.”

        I drew the whetstone once more.

* * *

        Morning took us down from the plateau and into the next valley, axes flashing as our grey lords smashed through yet more forest. The high rock at our backs held off the morning sun, and soon we were swallowed up by fog. I could barely see the elephants to our left and right, and soon even these rolling shapes were eaten up by the white.

        I heard the sound of axes biting into wood, the creak and crash as the lesser trees were pushed aside, and could not have said whether this was ten feet away or a hundred. We were alone in a pale universe, with no witnesses. There would be no better time than this.

        I tried to signal Boy and Second without alerting the others. When I turned to Ascaro’s front, I saw that Mouse was kneeling right his ear, holding a low conference – our master grunted, a tone of annoyance in the sound. I knew it well. Mouse always pushed his luck when he offered suggestions to the mad brute.

        Mouse had picked a different railing order this morning. Lucky and Nails were up the front with him, the rest of us stationed from Ascaro’s midsection to where Second sat above his rump.

        Even as Mouse steered Ascaro through the gloom, I slowly drew my sword. Boy nodded once, holding his axe low and ready, and from the corner of my eye I saw the tip of the kontoi that meant Second was at our shoulders. Our ropes traced along the center rail, and we made our move.

        Perhaps it was the pad of our feet moving across the chain-mail and planks, or the whisper of the sliding ropes, but Mouse looked up. The moment he saw us running, he gave a whistle between his teeth and leapt out into the fog.

        Lucky and Nails vanished just as fast, and I saw the flapping trail of severed ropes following them down into the mist. Beneath us Ascaro stepped up the pace, laughing as he crashed from tree to tree, trying to shake us off balance.

        “A trio of villains on my back,” he roared, “and all day to kill them!”

        His trunk flicked backwards then, axe held on the flat as he attempted to swat us. Second and I dodged that flurry of blows, but Boy was not so fast. I saw him crumple, and a red smear followed him as he slid out into space, bloody and limp.

        “We need to cut ropes!” Second cried, but I ignored this. Reaching the base of his skull, I dodged the rolling metal serpent of Ascaro’s trunk, hacking away buckles and straps. Second fenced with her kontoi, lance head dancing up and down the trunk armor, searching for a weak spot.

        I’d peeled away the chain skirts and neck plates, and only the leather undershirt held me away from Ascaro’s spine. I raised my sword. Then the world crashed around me.

        Two other elephants had appeared out of the mists, drawn by Ascaro’s cursing. They held fast, and Rothai flooded onto Ascaro’s back, driving me away from the vital spot. Another swordsman slashed across my knuckles, and the sword tumbled from my hands.

        I fought on with my rope-knife and sent away one or two of them bleeding, but the end was the same. I was beaten senseless and dragged down from my master’s back.

        Through eyes half-closed by swelling, I saw Second dangling from her rope, the tip of a broken kontoi still lodged in her throat. Amazingly Boy was still alive, but he’d been broken grievously by the swat of Ascaro’s giant axe. The other Rothai cut him down and presented him to his master.

        “You have served me for many years, Boy,” Ascaro rumbled. “So I shall show you mercy.”

        Mercy was Ascaro stepping on each limb in turn, slowly grinding Boy’s body into paste. As the bones snapped I dry-heaved and begged my master to stop, but on and on he went, pushing his weight into my screaming friend. Whenever Boy passed out, Ascaro gave him time to revive. Once, he ordered the other Rothai to dose him up with rotgut grog, to dull the pain just enough that he would stay awake throughout the ordeal.

        Finally, Ascaro wrapped his trunk around Boy’s neck and plucked off his head like a grape. It was my task to carry it the whole way home to Tusk, and every time I looked down into Boy’s horrified face, it was a reminder that my master was far from finished with me.

* * *

        Once more I placed in Ascaro’s villa. I was the lowest of his house-slaves, and my drudgery was only interrupted by a daily flogging.

        Each month, Mouse visited, and I lost something else to his blade. An ear, a toe, a finger. Each time, Ascaro and his cronies would laugh at my extended punishment.

        “I taught Lucky to read and write the moment he lost his voice,” Mouse teased, flicking my severed pinky finger over his shoulder. “Passes on all sorts of interesting scraps to me, that tongueless bastard.”

        I spent days scrubbing the latrine trenches and trod laundry in the putrid fullery vats. Over the months I was given every vile task Ascaro could dream up. My food was rotten and worm-ridden, if it arrived at all.

        Then I was given a broom and pushed into the baths, and I knew it was all going to be over soon. I cleaned up the mud and helped to haul away dead slaves whenever Ascaro murdered one.

        Mouse bathed with Nails, holding court with the other freed slaves. Emancipation was now the fashion, but it was rare, and those freed were always the worst examples of humanity. They played their own variety of the bath game, and it pleased the elephants to see humans drowning slaves in the baths over the smallest slight.

        Yet none of them were permitted to touch me. I was Ascaro’s alone to kill.

* * *

        Ascaro summoned me to the baths one night, after all of his guests had retired. My master stank of grog and vomit, and he had a look of madness in his one eye.

        “Ghost,” he said. “I want you to scrub my back.”

        He hooked his trunk into a kind of step and lifted me up and behind his shoulders. I trod lightly across his mud-slick skin, taking care to sweep deeply, watching for the twitch in his muscles, the sign that he was going to strike.

        For long moments he sighed in contentment as I scrubbed, the bristles scratching and digging deep into his skin. It didn’t make sense that he would kill me this way. No-one was here to witness his ultimate triumph over my rebellion.

        He moved fast then, but only to draw melon-wine into his trunk. He let it drain into his mouth and chuckled darkly when I flinched.

        “Don’t let that broom slow,” he teased. “Keep me in a good mood, and you may live out the day.”

        I pushed the broom again, and that was when he struck. He flicked his trunk backwards, a grey sinuous serpent that snatched for me, again and again.

        I dodged, leapt, and slid around on his back. He grabbed again and again, but each time he was a second behind me. But for all my speed, I was tired, and there were no other slaves to hide behind. Since Mouse had taken some of my toes, my sense of balance was off. He’d snatch me up, and soon.

        “Hold still, you damn slave,” he growled. I did just that, but even as his trunk snaked towards me, I broke the broom across my knee.

        His trunk wrapped around my waist, but before he could plunge me into the mud, I rapped him across the snout with the broom handle.

        “Face me, you fat old coward!” I shouted.

        Ascaro brought me forward, the trunk tightening around me, squeezing the life out of me. He roared in fury, cracking my ribs and making my vision go dark, and then brought me in front of his face to watch me die.

        I stabbed out with my snapped broom-handle and buried it deep in his eye. He howled in fury and tried to pull me away, but I clung onto the handle, twisting it, screaming my own defiance.

        “You are killing me,” Ascaro cried, surprised and afraid.

        I drove that stick deep into his brain. He sank down into the mud, twitching and gasping, and then finally he was still.

* * *

        The murder of a master by his slave is not the point of my story. The elephants are monsters, but they are not for you to kill. If you fight them, they will break you, or kill you. Look on what they have done to my body, I who they have trained in the arts of death. You are pot-scrubs. Mark this lesson well.

        There are others like me, others hiding in the in-between places. We slip in and out of Tusk like mice, and we nibble in the dark, bringing their city down one grain at a time.

        No. Your place in this war is different. You must leave. In ones or twos, and never by the same way. Your job is to walk away from Tusk.

        When you leave, we will find you. There is a human nation, hidden beneath the grey one. But the iron in your hands comes with a price.

        That night when I left Ascaro’s body in the mud, I slipped into Mouse’s fine new house and left it a burning knackery. I murdered those collaborators, but this revenge wasn’t sweet. I was sad when I stood over their bodies, sad that it needed to happen.

        Come to us with a bloody blade, or we will turn you away. There is someone near you like Mouse or Lucky. They are traitors to your people, and your true enemy. Be swift when you kill them, no matter how cruel they were in life. Take care that you do not linger long once your knives are wet.

        For all that your masters strut and bully, they need your clever hands. Above all they need your fear. Fear gives them farms full of starving slaves, while the canals run choked with food barges and miserable wagoneers file into Tusk, hauling food they dare not touch themselves.

        The elephant’s foul city only exists by our sufferance. Every day I picture that flood of wagons and barges slowing to a trickle, the ancient gates sucking at the last of the food like a dozen hungry mouths. I see their temples and pyramids overgrown in vines, forgotten in a jungle of our making.

        Above all, I picture their bones in the plazas. Outside of their ruined city, I imagine our villages, huts made from their rib-cages and covered with stretched skin. I see their tusks used for ornaments and trade, but most of all, I dream of the day when those grey killers are fastened into the ploughs, urged on by a whip in a human hand.

        Defy the grey kings. Our time is now.

Copyright © 2015 Jason Fischer

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Jason Fischer lives near Adelaide, South Australia. He is a winner of the Writers of the Future contest, with short-listings in the Ditmars, Aurealis, and Australian Shadows Awards. He is the author of dozens of short stories, with his first collection Everything is a Graveyard available from Ticonderoga Publications. Jason’s YA zombie apocalypse novel Quiver is now available from tamsynwebb.com.

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COVER ART

“Kodran Migrant Fleet,” by Tyler Edlin

Tyler Edlin is a freelance illustrator and concept artist for the entertainment industry, creating epic fantasy and science fiction worlds. He gives back to the community providing regular classes and tutorials on such popular subjects as the fundamentals of character and environment design. View more of his work online at tyleredlinart.com.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

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