THE MESSENGER

“ASHANA—”

“My name is Evie,” she corrects Brio, urgently. “You have to call me that while we’re here.”

“What? Why?”

“The Aegins arrested a drunken vagrant bar brawler named Evie. Laython crammed a blood coin down Evie the vagrant’s gullet.”

She watches him slowly process this, no doubt hindered by the other major revelations that have very recently blindsided him.

“We’ve all had our true selves stripped from us here,” he says. “That’s what they do. They don’t care who we really are. What difference does it make what you call yourself?”

“You are proof that isn’t entirely true,” she reminds him. “They may try to take your identity from you here, but they abducted you precisely because of who you are, Brio. Treating us as Savages and appointing callous brutes to whip us into submission is a tactic. That doesn’t mean people smarter and more important than those brutes aren’t paying attention. They care who is here and for what reason. I’m choosing caution for now.”

Brio opens his mouth to reply, but in the end, perhaps due to exhaustion more than anything else, he only nods silently. His eyes are wet and bloodshot. They flicker red in the light of the fire she’s fashioned from his pitiful burned log.

Brio never was much use sleeping rough.

She watches the ragged man she remembers as so crushingly handsome. Once, she lost everything she had because of him. Now she’s chosen to leave everything she knows behind for him. Evie is forced to consider the notion she’s either a hopeless glutton for punishment, or just an incredible devotee of symmetry.

“Do you understand now?” she asks Brio.

“I don’t understand any of this,” he says. “I mean… I understand where we are and what you’re saying, but… how are you here?”

“I’ll explain, but first I need to have a look at this leg.”

She kneels in front of him. The right leg of the filthy hemp pants he wears are already ripped and crusted with dried blood. She tears the rest of the stained material over his knee, exposing a deep gash that must stretch six inches down his calf. The wound is mostly black, and much of it is scabbed over. Evie knows the scabbing is only superficial, nothing but more dried blood. There’s no healing going on underneath.

“Is it numb?” she asks, trying to keep her voice even.

“I can feel my toes, but not much between my knee and my foot.”

Evie says nothing else. She stares at the wound with eyes full of storm clouds.

“Judging purely from your expression I take it my prognosis is not good,” Brio says, trying to sound playful, but the wavering in his voice betrays that utterly.

“It’s already festering.” She frowns up at him, her eyes flashing harshly. “Did you even clean it out?”

Brio actually laughs. It’s a hollow, mirthless sound.

“With what?” he asks. “Clean wraps and fresh water are difficult to come by in this camp. They don’t even have a surgeon for Savages.”

Evie’s eyes soften, just a little. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“Barely since the Revel. It appears to be the one time we’re treated like something resembling human beings. That courtesy does not extend to the cold camp. Food and water are doled out scarcely, and it seems to be first come, first served. We were watered and fed jerked duck on the road.”

Evie nods. “Us too. Wait here. I’ll be back, okay?”

His eyes widen, a desperate expression overtaking his face. “Where are you going?”

She raises a hand. “Relax, Brio. All right? I’m used to being served last. I know how to make do.”

Evie rests that placating hand on the knee of his injured leg. The desperation leaves his haggard features and his eyes soften on her. Brio covers her hand with both of his. Evie looks down at the tangle of their fingers, both relishing and resenting the falling sensation in her stomach the sight of it causes. She feels too much like the little girl who would’ve followed him anywhere, and Evie has no time for such saccharine flights. This isn’t a place for sentiment.

She slips her hand from beneath his.

“Just wait here,” Evie repeats. “I won’t be gone long.”

Brio nods, twining his fingers atop his knee tightly to steady his hands.

Evie holds his eyes reassuringly for a moment longer before rising from her knees and walking away, almost sprinting. She returns no more than ten minutes later, a cracked horn goblet in one hand and a bundle of drab but unstained rags in the other. A crooked and broken stick is balanced atop the goblet. Steam rises from the hunk of cooked meat skewered around the end of the stick. She kneels once more at his feet, placing the goblet on the ground.

Brio leans forward, picking up the skewer and peering down at what looks like clean water filling the horn from which the goblet is fashioned. He examines the meat, the smell of it causing his mouth to water painfully.

“What is this?” he asks, swallowing hard.

“Just eat it,” Evie instructs him.

She begins laying out the strips of cloth she’s collected on the boulder beside him.

Brio bites gratefully into the scorched skin of the mystery meat.

“How did you get all this?” he asks as he chews.

Evie shrugs. “The Savage who had them was otherwise occupied.”

“With what?”

“His arm. It broke.”

Brio looks away from her, grinning ruefully. “I see.”

“I need to clean this out and burn it,” Evie tells him, sounding dubious. “Even then, it’ll be by the grace of the outlawed gods that we don’t have to take your leg off.”

Evie bunches a length of cloth in her hand and dips the end of it into the water, soaking it through.

Brio watches her, his shoulders stiffening. “I should be frightened, I suppose, but I’m mostly amused you’re still invoking the God Stars at your age.”

“I like the stars. I can see them. They’re always up there.”

“The trouble you got us into as children, refusing to let go of those old symbols even when my father—”

“Let’s not visit the past right now,” she says.

Brio’s face drops. “All right.”

“Everything I’m about to do is going to hurt,” she warns him.

“I’m becoming used to it.”

Evie begins cleaning his wound, wetting the dried flecks covering the gash with her cloth and wiping them away as gently as possible.

Brio tenses, sucking air through his lips sharply, but he neither protests nor shrinks away.

“How have you survived?” she asks, both to distract him and because every bit of information is useful to her in their current state. “How many other battles have you seen?”

“Two. Both were further north from here. The first was little more than a skirmish, an outpost, a few dozen soldiers at most. We barely lost a Savage to the battle. The Skrain just watched. The second was a siege, what I take was the last Sicclunan stronghold halting our advancement. They sent the Savages over the wall first.”

Evie is already on her second strip of doused cloth and there’s still muck to dig from his wound. She pauses and looks up at him, genuinely taken aback.

“You? Scaled a castle wall?”

Brio tries to laugh, but what he comes out with is more like a sigh. “I tried. I made it about halfway up when I felt something slash through my leg. It was an ax blade. I don’t know if it was Sicclunan or Savage, but someone dropped it. I lost my grip on the rungs and fell. Fortunately the ground was mostly mud. I decided I much preferred wallowing there. Again, I got lucky. We took the castle in the first attack.”

“I doubt very much it was fully reinforced. The Sicclunans had to have known that their line was folding. They probably left a skeleton battalion in the keep to buy time for them to fall back and establish a new one. The force the Savages put me with faced south of here seemed like a half-hearted effort as well.”

Brio braces himself as Evie digs particularly deep into his wound with the wetted cloth, closing his eyes.

“I imagine the Sicclunans have become expert at falling back,” he says, shaken.

“We give them little choice in the matter.”

Evie finishes cleaning out the gash and tosses the stained-black rag aside.

“Who took you?” she asks. “And how?”

“I was in the Bottoms. I turned down an alley, a shortcut to the sky carriage. I’d used it a hundred times before—”

Evie grunts. “That’s why they were waiting for you there. They were, weren’t they?”

“Yes. A bag was thrown over my head, and the next thing I remember is standing in a field shoulder to shoulder with the people I used to plead for. My clothes had been stripped from me. I was wearing rags. When I tried to explain what had happened I took the butt of a mace in my gut.”

“Do you remember anything before the training field?”

“I caught a… a flash… of a black cape. Black boots.”

Evie’s brow hangs heavily. “The Protectorate Ministry.”

“Most likely. The only good thing is they took me leaving and not going. If they’d caught me while I was headed the other way they would’ve had what they were no doubt looking for.”

“What’s that?”

“Proof, of what’s really going on here, what the other purpose of the Savage Legion is.”

“What proof?”

“Dispatches, between the Protectorate Ministry and the Capitol’s Aegin commanders, instructing them to increase arrests in aid of filling the Savage ranks, focusing on vagrants. They stated explicitly they were expanding their recruiting beyond the condemned, against Crachian law. There were also decrees sent out to all the councils that any petitioners speaking against the state be reported to the Ministry. I found dozens of them, copies made of the originals, stored away in the Spectrum archives. Can you imagine? This wonderful, oppressive bureaucracy of ours, every document required to be penned three times for the sake of posterity or records or whatever.”

“They didn’t think anyone would ever bother to look.”

“Of course not. No one else cares.”

“Why did you?”

“I began to hear disturbing things. People were disappearing, from the Bottoms. They were being arrested and never returned. Husbands, wives, parents, brothers, and sisters, they came to me in secret, terrified of even talking about it, afraid they’d be next. I begin to hear muddled whispers about this… the Legion. People used as flesh weapons, hurled at the front line of our enemies like artillery.”

“And when you inquired at the Spectrum you were reported.”

“No doubt.”

“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, Brio.”

“I’m fine,” he insists. “Now will you tell me how you came to be here?”

“Lexi,” Evie explains. “She came to me. I was working as a retainer for Gen Ultimo. The kith-kins wanted an unassuming woman to escort their children to and from lessons in the city rather than a pack of hulking armored guards. It’s very in fashion just now, apparently. Lexi told me what happened, or what she suspected had happened, and your theory about conscripted vagrants and this place. She had a plan. I became Evie. I changed my clothes, stopping bathing with any regularity, and started frequenting every tavern in the Bottoms, picking fights. It seemed like such a far-fetched scheme… but it worked. The Savage Legion is real, and we’re both here.”

“How did you convince Gen Ultimo you were unassuming?”

“I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“Oh no,” Brio assures her, sounding magnanimous and for the first time like the man she remembers. “I’ve lost my freedom, my wardrobe, a fair amount of blood, and all memory of personal hygiene… but never my sense of humor.”

Evie unsheathes the flared blade of a dagger from her belt and holds the tip to the fire she built.

“Well, hold on to it now,” she advises him. “Because this next part is going to hurt far worse than the last part did.”

Brio draws in a deep breath and exhales serenely. “All right, then.”

While the tip of her blade continues to heat up, Evie offers Brio one of the remaining strips of clean cloth.

“Ball that up and bite down on it,” she instructs him.

He nods, taking the rag and rolling it up like a handkerchief. Brio holds it up and clamps his jaw around the thickly scrolled fabric.

When the dark steel of the dagger has turned bright orange with a smoldering red heart, Evie removes it from the flames. She reaches down with her free hand and grips the ankle of Brio’s injured leg firmly, looking up at him with sympathetic yet resolved eyes.

“Ready?”

He leans back and grips the stone on which he sits as best he can, nodding.

Evie presses the red-hot tip of the blade into the bottom of the gash, scorching the lower half of the wound. His throat fills with a horrific gargling noise, but Brio manages to neither scream nor jerk beneath her.

“One more time,” she tells him gently.

Again, Brio nods. Sweat is beginning to drip from both of his temples.

Evie burns the second half of the wound, and this time Brio tosses his head back so fiercely he almost flings himself over the stone. She tightens her grip on his ankle to steady him, and a few moments after she removes the still-burning blade he begins to relax, though his rune-covered face is now pouring with sweat.

“It’s all over,” she practically coos to him. “You did well.”

“You lived on the streets?” Brio asks, breathless, as Evie begins wrapping his calf with the remaining rags. “As Evie, I mean.”

She shrugs. “It’s no worse than how I began life.”

“A life I promised you’d never return to.”

“If you had that kind of power neither of us would be here in this place now. I was playing a role, that’s all. And it worked.”

Brio nods, accepting that as best he can. “Why did Lexi seek you out for this mission she concocted?”

“She remembered me from when we were children, and she remembered how devoted I was to you after your parents took me in. She said I was the only other woman you’ve ever loved. I was surprised that it didn’t sound at all like an accusation.”

“If Lexi even possesses lesser qualities, jealousy isn’t one of them, especially in the face of a task to which she’s appointed herself.”

“She’s a very determined woman.”

“Apparently it’s a virtue I seek out in the women I love.”

Evie ignores his implication, finishing a perfect field dressing on his leg.

“I understand why Lexi did this,” Brio says carefully, “but why did you agree to it?”

Evie shrugs. “Maybe I feel like I still owe your kith-kin.”

“They put you out,” Brio reminds her.

“And before that they saved my life.”

“Ashana, why—”

“Where’s all the proof you uncovered?” Evie cuts him off. “What did you do with it before they took you?”

“I left it with a friend, someone I trust. She’ll still have it, believe me.”

“We have to get word to Lexi, now,” Evie insists.

“Why can’t we tell her ourselves, after we’ve escaped?”

“Because it may take some time for that second part to happen. But we may be able to have a message delivered to her.”

“How?”

“A new friend of mine. If you lean on me, can you walk?”

“If you tell me I need to, then I can.”

Evie takes his hands in hers once more, this time using them to pull Brio to his feet. He winces and grinds his jaw to muffle whatever agonized sound is ruminating in his throat. He secures one arm around Evie’s shoulders and with her supporting half his weight is able to limp with relative ease and pain.

They find Spud-Bar sitting against one of the armory wagon’s rear wheels, sharpening the blade of an ax with a whetstone the size of a brick.

“Make a new friend, Sparrow?” Spud-Bar asks, using the name under which the Elder Company has adopted Evie. “I’ve warned you about taking in strays.”

“He’s an old friend,” Evie assures the armorist.

Spud-Bar grunts. “This ain’t much of a place for reunions, sorry to say.”

“In this one case it’s the best of places.”

Evie bends at the knees, sinking down to help Brio in lowering himself to the mostly dead grass.

“That don’t look good,” Spud-Bar remarks, eyes drifting to Brio’s leg wound.

“It’s not,” Evie says bluntly. “But I’ve tended to it the best I know how.”

“You really do have a deep bag of skills fer a vagrant, don’t ya?”

“When do you return to the Capitol?” Evie asks.

“I leave in the morning,” Spud-Bar answers. “It’s been a busy few days fer the Savages on the front. Need to replenish the ranks. We’ll barely have time to break ’em in and get ’em coined, from the look.”

“I need you to take something back to the Capitol for me.”

The armorist shakes their head. “Against the rules.”

“This is important, Spud-Bar. This may be the most important thing you ever do.”

The spit-dampened surface of the whetstone pauses halfway over the crescent of the shoddy ax’s poorly smithed blade.

The armorist looks up at Evie, heavy, thick brows hung low over dark eyes. “I suppose you’d be askin’ me to take him? Is that it? Get him to a surgeon?”

Evie shakes her head. “He’s my responsibility. I only need you to carry a message to a Gen in the Capitol. It’s a short message, one you can carry in your head. It needn’t even be put to parchment.”

Spud-Bar frowns. “Why would you wanna make my life difficult? Haven’t I been good to you since we met?”

“You have,” Evie assures the armorist, sincerely. “Because you’re a good person, too fine a person to be responsible for the monstrosity that’s been created here with this Legion. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“I’m a simple sort, Sparrow, and you’re losin’ me in a fog here.”

Evie looks at Brio. “Tell my friend who you are.”

“My name is Brio Alania, leader of Gen Stalbraid,” he says. “I’m the pleader for the Bottoms in the Capitol.”

“Now tell Spud-Bar what you did,” she urges him.

“If you mean what law I broke, then nothing. I did nothing.”

Spud-Bar snorts, staring down at the darkened surface of the whetstone.

“Nothing,” he repeats. “I obtained evidence I meant to present to the Arbitration Council that the Savage Legion was filling its ranks, not just with the condemned, but with minor offenders, and with people they simply snatched from the streets in the Bottoms. I also suspected the Legion was being used to dispose of those the state views as enemies, the dissident, anyone who speaks out openly against them. My being here proves that.”

“It’s exactly like the Professor said,” Evie implores the armorist. “He may have been mad, but he wasn’t lying about Crache.”

Spud-Bar is still staring into the microscopic crags and crannies of the whetstone, silently.

“Spud-Bar,” Evie pleads, “you know what’s going on here. You’ve always known. You think you’re beyond it because they allow you to travel to the cities and back, but you’re not. You will die serving this Legion. We all will, unless something is done, unless the truth is made known.”

“Crache don’t run on truth,” Spud-Bar says quietly.

Evie reaches out and cups her hand around the hand holding that whetstone.

Spud-Bar doesn’t look up.

“I know it’s easier to believe we all belong here, but I tell you, this man does not. He’s spent his life pleading for the people in the Bottoms, never asking nor taking from them. He’s here because he doesn’t want anyone else to suffer his fate. You must believe me, Spud-Bar.”

“And if I do?” Spud-Bar asks, still not meeting her eyes.

“Then I simply ask you to deliver a short message to the Gen Circus. That’s all.”

The armorist finally looks directly at her. Evie sees a deeper torment she never would’ve expected of the perpetually passive and dismissive Undeclared.

“Who are you? Really?”

“I’m a warrior, like you,” Evie answers. “And I fight for the people I love when they’re threatened, whatever the odds and however certain defeat. Because that’s what I was taught warriors do.”

Spud-Bar grins ruefully. “You ’ad better teachers than me.”

“Will you carry the message?” Evie presses, her desperation threatening to rip through the veil of the person she’s created to walk among the Savages.

Spud-Bar shakes their head darkly, but says, “All right, then. What’s the message?”

Evie looks at Brio once more, eyes urging him to seize the moment quickly.

“It’s for Lexi Xia,” he says, “also of Gen Stalbraid. It’s from Brio. I’ve been conscripted into the Savage Legion and Evie has found me. I’m alive and well and I need her to know there’s a merchant ship that docks in the Capitol for two days every fortnight. It’s a Rok vessel named The Black Turtle. The captain is a very old friend of my father’s. Her name is Staz. There are few people I trust more. She’s carrying the decrees and dispatches I found that prove everything about the Savage Legion.”

“And that’s all I need to tell this fine Te-Gen of the Capitol?”

Brio nods. “She’ll know what to do from there.”

Evie gently squeezes Spud-Bar’s hand. “Can I ask you to leave tonight, right away?”

Spud-Bar nods. “Hai. Probably best I do, before the crazy wears off.”

The armorist stands and chucks the whetstone into a bucket hung from a nail in the wagon. Spud-Bar returns the ax to one of the over-encumbered racks of rusted, secondhand weapons.

“Why can’t we go with your new friend here?” Brio asks Evie, quietly.

“Because we will all be executed if Spud-Bar is caught with us. You can deny carrying a message. Two people in your wagon is much more difficult.”

“You’re right, of course,” he says. “Spud-Bar is risking more than enough already.”

“We’ll find our own way,” Evie promises him. “When you’re healed.”

“I believe you.”

Evie walks over to where Spud-Bar is quickly hitching their small team of mounts to the wagon.

“Thank you for this,” she says.

“Don’t expect I’ll see you again, at least not like this” is all Spud-Bar offers.

“Do you feel like I lied to you?” Evie asks.

“Nah. I knew you weren’t what you seemed the second I spied you goin’ through my blades.”

“My name and my clothes may be false, but the rest is me. And I do consider you a friend. I wouldn’t ask such an important thing of you if I didn’t.”

Spud-Bar remains noncommittal, lashing the final bridle to their horse. “That’s good to know, I suppose.”

“Would you like to know my real name?”

Spud-Bar appears to think about it for a moment.

“No,” the armorist says, and walks away.