Rosemarked Page 3

  I know that voice. I’ve drilled so often to her commands that I could follow her orders in my sleep. I scan the forest until a short muscular woman steps out from the shadows. Gatha looks older than when I left her. There’s more gray in her short cropped hair, and she sports a fresh scar on her face, but I recognize the fierce grin she directs right at me.

  “Dineas, son of Youtab and Artabanos. Welcome back from the dead.”

  I stand in the midst of a storm.

  Soldiers march in from all directions. They line up as they arrive, rigid with imperial precision. From a distance, they appear to be the same imperturbable military machine, but I can see the whites of their eyes, the way they take care not to touch each other.

  Word spreads. People from my village come by, take in the scene, and rush back to the bonfire to tell others. Doron walks in front of the line of soldiers, holding a torch to each man’s face and searching him for signs of rash or fever. The air around us is thick with fear, and it infects me too, sliding up my arms and settling, cold and damp, on my skin. For a long time, I’m paralyzed, but finally I cast it aside and take a step toward Doron. I don’t know what I aim to do, just that I need to help.

  Kaylah grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Not yet,” she says.

  She follows Doron with her eyes, as if staring would grant him the power to cure the illness. Her whisper is urgent in my ear. “Remember. Rose plague is deadly, but its essence is heavy. It clings to the patient and doesn’t travel easily through the air. You must not touch the sick if you can help it. Wear plague gloves, wash your hands and face to rid yourself of any essence you pick up.” She stops. “You can make it through this, Zivah, if you’re careful.”

  I don’t remind her that she’d tested me on this knowledge this very morning. Her words aren’t meant to teach. They’re meant to reassure, to kindle courage, and they’re meant for both of us.

  Tal, our village leader, soon orders this part of the village to be set aside as a quarantine and hospital for the soldiers. The paths fill with families hurriedly packing their belongings, strapping them to the backs of household goats. The pack animals pick up on the tension, and the air echoes with their bleating.

  As the villagers clear out, I run back and forth between the quarantine area and Kaylah’s supply hut, gathering herbs, tinctures, buckets, and washcloths. As I carry a pail of water around a corner, I glimpse my father talking with Kaylah. Something about his expression makes me tuck back out of view.

  His voice carries through the air, angrier than I’ve ever heard it before. “She’s too young for this,” he says. “You send Zivah in there to attend the soldiers, you send her to her death.” The desperation in his voice breaks my heart.

  Whatever Kaylah says does not mollify my father, and the arguing continues. I drop the bucket I’m holding and dig my nails into my palms, willing my hands not to shake. If I’m honest with myself, part of me hopes my father will win. The rose plague terrifies me, and I know the worst is yet to come. But to leave the quarantine would be to abandon Kaylah and the other healers, and that I will not do.

  In the end though, it doesn’t matter what I want, because I have no choice. It’s not about my life, or the other healers’ lives, or even the soldiers’. It’s about our village. If word gets back to the empire that we withheld an able-bodied healer when the soldiers needed attention, all our people would pay the price.

  And so my father relents, as I know he must. By dawn, everybody is gone except for four healers and one hundred soldiers. The dust of last night’s exodus settles, carrying with it an eerie silence. Any sound, the stomp of boots or a sick soldier’s cry, seems strangely dampened.

  Doron divides the remaining healthy soldiers into two groups.

  “Clear out three cottages and divide the sick among them,” he tells one group. He charges the other with digging a trench. When one soldier asks how big the trench should be, Doron falls silent for a moment. “Fifty bodies, at least,” he says, his voice flat, and then he heads into the nearest cottage.

  More soldiers fall ill by the hour, collapsing and having to be carried in turn by their comrades. There’s so much sickness around that it’s easy to imagine myself light-headed as well, to sense a prickling on my own skin. I tell myself that the plague takes days to manifest, and force myself to keep working. By evening, eighty of the one hundred soldiers lie on sleeping mats inside our makeshift hospital.

  “This isn’t natural,” Kaylah says. “Rose plague simply doesn’t spread this way. Someone must have deliberately infected these soldiers, perhaps with blood in their water or food.”

  I count the days in my head. Rose plague takes nearly a fortnight to take hold, and the soldiers arrived five days ago. “They weren’t infected here.”

  Everybody nods in agreement. They’ve been doing the same figures.

  “It doesn’t bode well for the future,” says Zad. “If deliberate infection becomes a weapon of war…”

  A soldier calls out for water, his eyes wild with fever delirium. I rush to his side and hold a cup to his lips. Just a day ago, he would have swaggered down our streets, taking what he wished. Should I pity him now? Hate him still?

  When I straighten, Doron is beside me. “Come, Zivah,” he says. “I have a job for you.”

  He’s been giving me jobs to do all day, but something in his voice tells me this is different. I follow him out the door.

  We’ve divided the foot soldiers into three separate cottages for treatment. Now, though, Doron leads me to a fourth, one that I didn’t help set up. Inside is a cot with a single patient. His hair is damp with sweat, his face obscured by fever rash—he looks like any of the others in our care. But finally, I recognize Commander Arxa. It’s clear that the sickness has taken a firm hold on him. He tosses his head from side to side, and he mumbles words I can’t quite make out. Though his eyes are open, he doesn’t see me.

  “The Goddess teaches us all lives are equal,” says Doron. “But in the empire’s eyes, this is the life we must most zealously guard. I’ll oversee Arxa’s treatment, but I want you to be with him when I can’t. Check on him every hour. Let me know immediately if anything looks awry.”

  The weight of the charge doesn’t escape me. “If he doesn’t make it,” I say. “The emperor can’t possibly blame us for a disease….” I trail off when I see the way Doron is looking at me. He must be at least sixty years old, but this is the first time I’ve seen him look his age.

  “Just keep him alive,” Doron says.

  My welcome feast is simple, since any big celebration risks attracting attention. Still, Gatha allots me a double portion of meat. My fellow fighters make obnoxious comments about my umbermarks and shake their heads over how I managed to survive the plague.

  “Zenagua had no use for Dineas in her underworld,” says Tus, a veteran fighter with a missing eye. “Even goddesses know he’s trouble.”

  I spit a piece of gristle into the fire. “Here’s what really happened. Zenagua took one look at my face and deemed me too great a temptation for the maidens of her realm.”

  “Ha! And she marked you up so you’d leave the live ones be as well.”

  Pouriya, a warrior one year my senior, comes and clasps my hands. “Looking handsome, Dineas. You might even have a chance with some of the Dara villagers’ goats.”

  “His face is still prettier than yours, Pouriya,” calls another voice.

  Laughter erupts, and we settle down to eat. Before I was captured, I hadn’t realized how much these feasts meant to me. Our tribe has always shared tight bonds, but there’s something about these rare times we let ourselves celebrate, when we face each other rather than stand shoulder to shoulder in combat, that cements what it means to be Shidadi. We have our squabbles and differences, but not in what matters. When I was in prison, I saw power struggles between the soldiers who guarded me, but my people don’t have quarter for that. When the enemy surrounds us, we breathe as one and we fight as one.

  Stil
l, as much as I’ve yearned for this, I find it hard to jump into the festivities. It feels too odd to simply fall back into this world. The ghosts of the dungeons still cling to me, and everywhere I look, I see how vulnerable we are, how easily we can be scattered by the empire. Though I’m a continent away from ­Khaygal, part of me is still there.

  Pouriya’s still repeating his goat joke—he’s always been far too amused at his own wit—and I tune out of the conversation. Instead, I find myself studying everyone, picking up who looks older, who has a new scar, who’s not here. There are some definite faces missing, but I don’t have the courage to ask after them. Not yet.

  Gatha stands up. “Come with me, Dineas.”

  I’m relieved to obey. She leads me a short distance away and stops at a pile of cloth-wrapped bundles. I swallow reflexively when I realize what she’s about to do. Gatha bends over to pick up the first bundle. It’s small, but she holds it with both hands and takes great care to unwrap it. She pulls the cloth away to reveal a matched set of daggers.

  “These belonged to Stateira,” she says. “Lost her in battle last month.”

  Stateira. She’d been deadly with those daggers. I can still see her crouched with a blade in each hand. She was lightning fast and beautiful, the way she darted in and out of her enemy’s reach. She’d kissed me once, in a celebration after a successful raid. A reward, she’d said, for shooting so many dogs that day.

  A cold breeze brushes my skin. As I tuck the knives into my belt, I make her a silent promise to use them well.

  The next bundle is a set of swords, last used by a man who’d helped me learn to use them as a boy. I balance his swords in my hands, feeling their weight. I wish his spirit well and strap the blades to my back.

  Gatha pauses before the last bundle, long enough for me to fear the worst. And when she unwraps a well-polished bow and a quiver of arrows, a fist closes around my heart.

  “Your mother’s bow,” Gatha says gently, as if the weapon were not as recognizable to me as my own skin. “She fought bravely. Took at least three Amparan soldiers with her.” This is Gatha’s way of telling me what I’d been too afraid to ask. My hands shake when I take the bow—the wood is worn smooth where my mother held it.

  When my father died eight years ago, my mother didn’t let me cry. Instead, she’d strapped my father’s dagger around my waist and pulled the belt tight. If you love him, Dineas, avenge him. It was what she’d said then, and what she’d want me to do now. Still, my eyes burn and I turn away. The weight continues to press on my chest.

  Gatha’s voice is gruff. “I won’t lie to you, Dineas. Things have not gotten any easier. The soldiers continue to hunt us. They strike at us from their bases in the valley villages.”

  I brush the dust off my arms. “Cowards.” The villagers have always traded their self-respect for safety, and their cooperation makes it that much easier for Ampara’s armies to fight us.

  “Maybe, but there may come a time when we need each other. Ampara doesn’t stop until it drains you dry. The Dara are starting to realize this.”

  These are words I’d never expected from Gatha. “Have you been talking to them?”

  “A bit.” Gatha doesn’t elaborate.

  We’re facing desperate times indeed, if Gatha’s thinking of allying with the villagers. But still, how helpful could they be? “They’re not warriors. They’d be destroyed in a fight.” Ampara forbade them to bear arms when they surrendered, and like sheep, they obeyed.

  “Maybe,” says Gatha. “But they have strengths and skills that we don’t.”

  I look back toward the campfire. A boy and girl of eight or nine have started an impromptu grappling match, and people gather around to cheer them on and give advice.

  “You’re heavier, boy. Push your advantage!” one man shouts as a woman tells the fighters to guard their faces.

  Suddenly, a cheer erupts. I crane my head to see around the crowd. The girl has her arm snaked around the boy’s neck from behind, and after a moment he taps his defeat. Onlookers congratulate the victor and give advice to the loser.

  In the aftermath of the contest, I make my way back to the campfire and settle down. It’s not long before Tus, the man who’d teased me about being kicked out of Zenagua’s underworld, comes to my side.

  “Gatha told you?” he says.

  He means my mother. I nod, my throat constricting, and keep my eyes on the flames.

  Tus lets out a long breath. “We’re never really orphans in this tribe,” he says. “Shidadi blood runs deep.”

  I remember now, how Tus had been one of the first to take an interest in me after my father died. There wasn’t much my mother couldn’t do, but in those few domains where a father’s example would have helped, Tus stepped in. When my beard started growing, he showed me how to angle my dagger so I wouldn’t cut myself when I shaved. When my shoulders and chest developed a man’s muscles, Tus taught me exercises to develop this new strength. Years later, he’s still watching out for me.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “No need for that,” he says.

  A thin whistle floats through the air. Around me, everything goes silent. We’re all intimately familiar with the sound of our sentry’s signal.

  The man nearest the fire dumps a basket of dirt over it, snuffing out the light. All around me, I hear people taking cover. Someone runs past me, so close that I feel the breeze. Someone else shoves me from the side.

  “Move, Dineas,” Tus growls. “Have you been gone so long?”

  I spring into motion, running for one of the thicker stalks of bamboo. Others who know the terrain better than me will go farther, but I’ll take my chances here. It’s hard to climb without dropping anything, and my swords knock noisily against my back. But finally I get to a point where the bamboo forks into two stalks, and I wedge one foot in the split. By now, I can see again in the darkness, and I scan the forest floor below. My skin prickles with the possibility of combat. To calm my nerves, I take my bow from my back and run my finger along the wood, lingering around the spot worn smooth by my mother’s grip. An image of her face flashes through my mind—sharp, angular, with strength etched into every ridge and shadow. I feel her rough brown hands on my arms and shoulders, adjusting my hold. I hear her voice. Steady, Dineas. You must be calmer than the enemy. If I can no longer have her with me, I can at least do her proud.

  All around me, the crickets start chirping again. I lift my gaze to see the girl who’d won the wrestling match perched in a tree nearby. She’s too young for a sword, but she holds a sling in one hand and a stone in the other. The determination in her face feels familiar. Did I look like that at her age?

  The crickets fall silent. Down below, there are faint footsteps, and then I see the purple-and-gold overtunic of an Amparan soldier. At the sight of him, my heart starts to hammer against my chest. Did he follow me? Did I lead him right here? My breaths come harsh and ragged. Screams from the dungeons echo in my ears.

  I grit my teeth and force myself to focus. To think. The soldier’s alert, but he’s not wound up like he’s expecting an attack. Most likely, he’s just a scout. This man has no idea what’s above him—we don’t let scouts return to camp after seeing us in the trees.

  Nearby, the girl readies her sling. The man only wears a light cap—no helmet. If the girl is as good with the sling as she is a grappler, I’ve no doubt she can make the kill. Still, I catch her eye and signal her to stop. Her eyes narrow, but I’m her elder, and she obeys.

  I draw an arrow and take aim. The string feels tighter than I remember and digs into my fingers now that my calluses are gone, but the movement stays with me. Draw the string, breathe out, hold, release. The arrow buries itself in the soldier’s throat, and he sinks to the ground without a sound. I slide down to the forest floor, scanning for his comrades. The empty woods stare back at me.

  The girl reaches the body at the same time I do. “Good shot,” she says, but there’s bitterness in her voice. She thinks I wan
ted the glory for myself.

  I check the soldier’s pulse—nothing. As I pull my arm back, my hand brushes against the imperial seal on his tunic.

  I’m on the mainland with Gatha’s other top soldiers, trying to steal records from Khaygal outpost. Gatha’s created a diversion a quarter league away, and now I’m in the commander’s study, digging through tablets for a code key or translated message. I’m looking at one slate with a cryptic list of troop movements when my lookout whistles. I bite back a curse and scan the tablet one more time, trying to commit what I can to memory. Then my lookout whistles again. I put everything back in its place and jump out the window.

  “Intruder! Stop him!” someone shouts before my feet even touch the ground. I don’t look to see who’s spotted me—just take off at a dead run. An arrow whistles by my ear and another grazes my arm. Then pain explodes on the back of my thigh. I tumble head over heels, the arrow digging itself deeper with every somersault.

  As I lie stunned, Amparans close in around me. Someone shouts that they want me captured alive, and that kicks me into action. I fumble for my dagger. Useless against these numbers, but quite effective on myself. I can’t let them take me.

  I look up to see an Amparan guard raising a club. A scream builds in my lungs.

  I swallow the scream at the last moment, but not before a ragged sound escapes my throat. The girl jumps away from me. I realize I’ve thrown my hand up over my head. I stagger, struggling to get my bearings. My heart is about to burst out of my chest. The girl’s staring at me, and I thread my arms under the dead soldier’s armpits to hide my confusion. That memory had been far too real.

  “Clear me some space in those bushes,” I tell the girl. When she continues to stare, I raise my voice. “Move!”

  She runs ahead of me, pushing branches aside, and then the two of us start the work of hiding the body. She keeps her distance from me, and I can’t blame her. Have I gone mad?

  Finally the body’s well hidden. I wave the girl away and she runs off. I kick some more leaves over the corpse as I watch her go. She’s silent and fast—like a wood sprite, if wood sprites carried slings and had deadly aim. To be honest, I’m not sure why I commanded the girl against taking that shot. She had as much of a right to go for the kill as I did. But then, where would that have led? One kill and then another. In several years she’ll be leading raids on the mainland, and one day she’ll be captured. For a moment, the future stretches out all too clear. For me, for her, for the boy she wrestled, and for everyone else around the campfire tonight.