Umbra

Arreana

Volume One of

The Darkest Days

Copyright © 2013 Arreana Krueger

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Prologue

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

Part Ten

Part Eleven

Part Twelve

About the Author

Also by Arreana

A Sneak Peek: Evergreen

PROLOGUE

The calendar does not lie. It has served me, my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, without fail. The stone carvings on its face prepare us for every ill approaching. Drought, famine, disease.

Today it warns of death.

I do not believe the calendar so I realign the circular rings. The Moon spins. The Sun spins. Once again they meet above the hideous face carved into the calendar’s center.

Neither annular nor partial, the coming eclipse shall cast a complete shadow, and I have not the heart to warn the others. In the marsh they rake the evaporation pits. In the village they stoke the smokehouse fires. Further down the coast they cut great chunks of crystalline salt from the pock-faced rocks.

I do not tell them what the calendar says. I cannot stand to put the fear in their otherwise peaceful minds. I cannot tell them that today one amongst them shall die.

My hand grips the outermost ring of my calendar—the Sun. I spin and spin and spin, but She always comes to rest above the Moon. Above the scaled face.

The total eclipse is coming. To the east the Sun rises over the opaque sea, and to the south the Moon, a pale gray shadow against light blue skies, rushes after Her.

The calendar never lies. Today someone will die.

I cross my legs and set the calendar upon my thighs. It’s heavy and cold and the designs on its surface are as familiar to me as the lines on my palm. The celestial engravings point towards the empty sea as we watch the undulating waters together. Milky whiteness, salt pillars, and the gentle ripples of perch finning.

Nothing lives in the Sythian Sea but fish and monsters. Nothing grows on the sea’s banks but rubber weeds, their chewy red cases swollen with salt water. The breeze from this morning has departed with its cool, fresh air, and now nothing remains but stillness and dread.

The Moon catches the Sun. She swallows the light, and the revolving sky slows to a stop.

The Sun vanishes behind the Moon. My chest itches and the hairs the back of my neck stand on end. Static energy without a storm, darkness without night. The shadow follows, engulfing the coast and skating out across the still water.

Minutes pass, but my heart has slowed and time pauses. The Sun and the Moon lock together, and I watch their intimate dance.

The eclipse is beautiful when it has no right to be. The craterous Moon is an imperfect fit for the Sun’s perfection. Beads of sunlight peek around the Moon’s rough edges, but the Sun vanishes. Left in its place is a black void framed by drops of light.

My family, my friends, my neighbors. They will be watching. They will realize what it means. Has the void claimed someone already? Could it take me?

My hand slides from the calendar’s dials to the harpoon at my side. I curl my fingers around its wooden shaft and force myself to take a few measured breaths. The moment will pass. The Sun and Moon will break apart. Then I will gather my people. We will bury the dead. Together, we will curse the cruelty of the Moon and the apathy of the Sun.

I wait for the eclipse to end, but it lasts minutes, many, many minutes.

I am still watching, waiting, when the first sound draws my attention away from the drab skies: a ripple, a splash, a gurgle.

Harpoon in hand, I spring to my feet. The calendar, my calendar, lands upside down on the salty shore.

Rising from the water, gray skin drooping, fanged mouths slack, are the creatures we fear above all others. They come in pairs, gills flapping, webbed-fingers flexing, and lidless eyes staring at me.

They advance on spindly legs. They unsheathe knives and swords of black glass.

Only a few at first, but then more surface from the lapping tide until hundreds crowd the shallows. They stagger from the water and gulp down their first breath of air.

I don’t wait for the end of the eclipse. I am not a fighter, and my salt magic will not stop the horde. I wish I could claim bravery, but what I do next is not an act of bravery. I run for the animal pens. I run for the protection of villagers bigger, stronger, and more courageous than myself.

Behind me, they clamber over the rocks and teeter on wet fins. An army of them march on us, on our little village perched on the top of the bank. Our little huts made of elk hide and mammoth bones will not stop them. Our men are too few and our weapons too weak.

By the time I’ve reached the village, the cry is echoing down the street. My friends and my neighbors and my family are racing for safety.

The eclipse ends, but it’s taken far more than it was ever due.

SHAMAN

I am sure Petya hates me. I am sure he blames me for not warning his family. One of his boys is dead, drowned. The other is cowering in a cellar. Since the eclipse, I have well considered the lives I could have saved if I had only warned them. The calendar gave me notice, after all, plenty of notice. The villagers might have had hours had I not tried to spare their feelings instead.

Petya may hate me. I will not try to soothe his feelings. I escaped with my life while his youngest son had not. His wife and remaining children are locked away beneath the earth.

He didn’t want to leave them. He is a good father, but I am still his chief, the last of my father’s line. I am the first child my parents did not throw to the sea. I am Soren Veduny, and Petya is my servant.

I must go for help, I said to the survivors, twenty-three in all.

Petya, my village’s last warrior, my village’s last link to the outside world, has no other choice but to put himself forward. Then I shall be at your side. He holds out his harpoon. A clot of red flesh still hangs from its hooked barb.

His words swear fidelity, but his beard quivers as he grinds his teeth. His eyes are two black hollows glinting in the dim cellar.

His wife cries for him to stay.

His little daughter weeps into her father’s leg.

His eldest son, his only son, sits in the corner, tugging at his long hair. Long like his father’s.

Petya fought to save his family. I ran to save myself. My moose waits outside. My harpoon, shiny like new, hangs limp at my side. The tiny leather pouches lining the inside of my vest are full. I hadn’t even tried.

The next morning we leave. Petya’s wife envelops him in a final farewell, but no one’s left to embrace me. It’s just me, Vadeem, our cart of salt and supplies, and the sweeping golden grasses.

How many lives might my salt magic have saved if I had only been brave?

But these are things I can’t ask, not to anyone, and especially not to Petya. He sits in the cart and I sit astride my moose, and through the dreary rain we spot the first flicker of lamplight. The first sign of civilization since pulling ourselves up those slick ladder steps.

A village, I call over my shoulder.

Good, Petya grunts. He’s buried his face into the collar of his deerskin jacket. He does not stir to look. His harpoon lies flat across the salt crates. His wet hair hangs flush to his forehead, cropped short on the right, long and tangled on the left. He doesn’t cut it, even after the sea monsters have defeated us. He doesn’t acknowledge it.

The lantern in the distance hangs above the door of a large cabin. Its chimney smokes, and the two windows are fogged but glowing. A sign post sits crooked in the muck by the front step—a pewter mug against a splash of orange. The paint is fading, but I understand its meaning without Petya translating.

We will sleep inside tonight. I’m almost happy to have good news to report. Near a week spent curled up beneath the cart, struggling to light fires from damp brush.

We should stop. At last, Petya emerges from his fur cocoon. Hide the cart.

So I swing myself off Vadeem and pull away the riding blanket before the rain soaks through it. I carry it back to the cart and stuff it under the oiled canvas with the rest of our dwindling supplies.

We must hide the cart because the salt is the closest thing to currency we possess. I have brought all Vadeem could pull, and yet I still fear I will not have enough to buy the army we need.

Vadeem is unhitched, and together Petya and I lift the cart and push it into the underbrush. A couple sodden boughs thrown on top complete the disguise. The bulk of the salt should be safe from anyone traveling this abandoned road, and the salt stashed in my pocket should be enough to buy the services we need.

Vadeem does not care for the crackling, smoking lamp smoldering above the door, nor does he seem to trust the old nag tethered to the hitching post. I curse him as I loop his lead around his antlers and tie him to the post.

I fear someone will steal your precious bull, my Chief.

I glance at Petya, catching his sneer before he can turn away. A familiar chill races down my spine. Guilt washes over me, prickling my skin.

No one will touch Vadeem. The beast is taller than a man. Point to point, his antlers are an arm-span wide. My father raised him for me and trained him for my particular use since he was a wobbly-kneed calf. Petya’s warning warrants no response. He only means to upset my composure. He means to wound me.

He succeeds, but then… I deserve it.

He knocks on the cabin door while I’m still fighting to cool the shame boiling in my gut. My people are screaming, and the Y’Hae beasts stare at me with their lidless eyes. They butcher my neighbors and friends like trout, and I’m running. Crying. I’ve abandoned my father’s legacy, strength, and pride upon the shore. His calendar, the Veduny calendar, is now a forgotten stone on a rocky beach.

Inside, an occupant is shouting, so Petya knocks harder.

The loud man is the owner. He trips over a bench as he wrestles the door from its crooked frame.

He takes a long look at the both of us. First at Petya with his long hair, naked right arm, and his harpoon, and then at me with my salt tattoos and blue vest. His gaze lingers longest upon my azure eyes. He can’t seem to decide who is more peculiar, the weathered warrior or the tattooed magician.

He doesn’t open the door wider to admit us, but over his shoulder I scan the interior of the lodge. The ground is strewn in straw. A man is laughing, and somewhere unseen the powerful aroma of rotten meat and leek soup poisons the smoky space.

The man speaks, but not in words I recognize. His forest tongue is fluid, quick, and, from the consternated expression that flickers across Petya’s face, colorful.

Petya responds. He knows some of the language from having spent two years learning at monastery, but he is not proficient. His pronunciation is blockish and garbled as he scrounges his memory for the right word.

The man in the doorway cocks his head and scowls, but he seems to at least understand.

What did you say?

I’ve asked for food and lodging.

And what did he say?

The owner interrupts Petya’s answer. He’s spotted Vadeem tied up to his hitching post. His voice is several octaves higher and his face several shades paler when he speaks again.

He wishes you to take Vadeem away from his mare, Great One.

Vadeem stays where he is. Tell him we’ll pay for his trouble.

The mention of payment is barely enough to pull the man’s stare from my bull moose. He arches an eyebrow, not believing us.

Salt, I say, withdrawing the larger pouch from my pocket. The salt it contains is not like the salt hidden in my vest. This is just salt, plain and pure. It’s a curative and a preservative, and found in one place in the entire world: Sythia. Salt is a word recognized in every language. It is coveted in every culture and prized by every kingdom.

In the entire world, only we know how to harvest, mine, and evaporate it. We know how to work its magic. Now that we are a dying race, how will its value climb?

The man in the doorway doesn’t know that this salt might well be the last salt he ever sees. He doesn’t know that the man with the harpoon is mourning his dead son. He only knows salt.

His eyes go wide. They’re red from the smoke choking the interior of his home. A black speck appears and disappears in his blonde beard—a louse.

"Salt," he says back.

Petya nods, gestures to the pouch I’m holding up, and says, Salt.

The man’s hand lashes towards me, but I snatch the bag away before he can grab it. Not all of it! I hiss. Tell him. Not all!

The innkeeper stares at the pouch, licks his lips, and glances furtively between us. He says three words I soon understand to mean, How much?

I consider the hay-strewn floor, the warmth radiating off the hearth at the back, and the pungent stench of leeks. An ounce.

Petya hasn’t finished translating the words before the man is swinging the door open for us. He disappears behind the reed mat separating the main room from the adjoining kitchen. He clatters through his dishes and the racket silences the revel-makers tucked in around the hearth. Shaggy-faced men. Villagers, millers, farmers. They might not have seen a clean bath in weeks.

Their stench is disgusting even from a distance, and I can’t help staring at them as Petya and I shuffle in through the doorway. Their skin is tough like bark. When they whisper to one another I spy brown teeth.

The owner appears again, barreling from his kitchen with a tiny copper cup clutched in his hand. It’s no bigger than an egg shell, and the way he clutches it makes it seem equally fragile.

He offers it for me. I’m supposed to fill it with the payment I had promised, but the others’ stares unnerve me. The men lick their lips, and the smoky fire makes the room seem much too small to hold us all.

Pay him, or he’ll kick us out, Petya hisses.

I have no other choice; I take the copper cup and turn my back on my audience.

My fingers know the weight of salt. They know its strengths, its properties. From touch alone, I can tell how it was harvested and from where it was taken. Salt tells a story that my people have spent centuries recording. I wear a chapter of its tale on my skin, just as my father did before me and his father before him.

My fingers dig into the sea salt and I’m home again. I’m chipping the crusted salt from the stones on the seashore. I’m fetching the shards back to my mother’s smoke house. She cuts open my father’s perch. She rubs the sharp crystals into the fish’s pink flesh. She brushes the fish with honey and cooks it over cedar chips.

I measure an ounce in my hand and carefully transfer it to the man’s little cup. I’m gentle as I brush each grain from my palm.

Not until I’m cinching the bag closed do I notice the man’s extraordinary reaction.

He’s weeping, like Petya’s daughter when we left home.

The man takes his cup, cradles it to his forehead, and weeps like a child. He’s not ashamed that Petya and I are watching. He doesn’t mind that a table of his fellows can see him.

Behind us, a bench clatters across the straw-covered floorboards. Someone stands.

Salt!

The other bench screeches backwards. A man’s voice shouts something I don’t understand.

I turn to find all five strangers on their feet. Two of them have drawn knives. Not made of bone or glass, but of dull iron. They are little more than rusty fillet knives, but they’re pointed at us.

Petya acts before I’ve even registered what’s happened. He shouts at them in their language, and his garbled demands lend a panicked edge to my confusion.

I’m still holding the bag of sea salt, but my other hand shoots up between the folds of my woven vest. I know the arrangements of my salts by heart. Second to the top and on the left: gray salt. My fingers shake as they loosen the draw cord.

Tell them to put down their weapons!

Petya doesn’t listen. He unwinds the hemp rope from his harpoon. He shifts his hold so now it’s cocked over his shoulder. The smooth wooden shaft sits against his bare bicep, flexed and twitching.

I hate not knowing what’s happening. I hate the hunger in the men’s eyes as they stare at us. I hate that behind us the innkeeper is still sobbing and still clinging to his little cup of salt.

One of the men breaks from the others. He charges for Petya, and Petya, doing what he knows best, throws his harpoon.

The force is enough to knock elk sideways, and it’s well enough to break through the man’s ribcage. The throw drives him back through the moldy straw. It kills him instantly.

There is no turning back.

The others charge over the body of their fallen comrade, expressions tight with a combination of emotions I recognize: fear, anger, desperation. It was the same look frozen upon the faces of my dead warriors back home.

Petya yanks on the harpoon’s cord to dislodge it from the dead man’s chest, but it doesn’t come free. The barb must be hooked on a bone.

I’m too slow. When I take my pinch of gray salt and throw it upon the floorboards, it’s already too late for Petya.

The first man jumps him. His little knife thrusts between the ribs. Petya gasps but keeps to his feet.

The gray salt strikes the floor. With a crack and a sulfuric stink, a plume rolls out across the space, obscuring us all.

Someone falls. Petya’s stabber, Petya, or both? I can’t tell. Another man trips over a bench in the haze.

A third man dives after me, but grabs the innkeeper behind me instead. I fall to my knees as the man howls in pain. I wait for his copper cup to hit the floor, but he doesn’t drop it.

Petya!

No response. I reach out into the gray where I’d last seen him. I don’t find him. I scramble about on all fours, searching the floorboards. Above me, the men are bellowing at one another. They can’t distinguish friend from foe.

I find Petya. I can tell it’s him by his hair, cropped short on one side, long on the other.

Get up, I hiss. I dare not raise my voice. I’m afraid that the men might hear me and know where to look. Please get up.

He twitches and his pulse thunders against my fingertips. His heart is quickening, and sticky blood coats my hand as I find his mouth. I can’t tell if he’s still breathing.

Get up, I plea.

He doesn’t wake.

He is dying here, here of all places, in a bed of straw, having accomplished nothing, having saved no one.

I loosen a second pouch—red salt. A couple granules would be enough to light this tiny cabin aflame, but in my panic I take a hearty pinch. The men are regrouping and sweeping the ground trying to locate me. Petya’s body jerks when they kick him.

The salt rolls into my palm. I angle my head up and blow.

Flames erupt from my fingertips and cut a yellow and orange hole through the gray. My fire finds their faces. It eats at their beards, and their limp, muddy hair burns like candlewicks.

They screech and scream and the thatched roof begins to burn.

Petya.

He does not respond, and when I touch his skull again the pulse is no longer pounding.

So I wrench open the sticking door and scuttle from the inn before the ceiling collapses and claims me with the rest of them.

The flames surge, the roof outside begins to steam, and Vadeem rears and trumpets. I pull him down and make him listen as I undo his tether. He lets me grab his antler and swing myself onto his back. He leaps into a gallop and carries me away.

Petya is dead, and without him I will never be able to protect the salt. I’ll never make it to any king’s court. I’ll never buy the services of any army. I’ll be dead by then. Thieves will take my salt before my body is even cold.

It’s too valuable, far more valuable than the Romani trader ever admitted. It is more precious than the life of the father lying dead in the burning inn.

Vadeem keeps running, and I can’t see for the rain whipping into my face.

MERCENARY

Two years I’ve spent sitting on this stump minding my bridge, and I have never seen anything so strange as this rider and his mount.

I think the creature might be a moose. It is certainly much like how I imagined them: scooping antlers, rounded muzzle, snarled gruff. It’s huge, but its head hangs low.

The rider has pushed the creature too hard. I’ve seen exhaustion enough in horses; their heads droop and a lather of foam covers their flanks. They wheeze and pull against their bridles. Eventually they’ll collapse. The heavier their load, the sooner they die.

This rider seems hardly better off than his mount. His chin rests against his chest and the reins lie limp in his lap. Like the moose, he is quite unusual. Creamy tattoos cover his forehead and cheekbones. The markings are faded, formless. The design lacks any pattern. It’s not like henna, the acidic paste the Bidoun use to decorate their bodies. No, the rider’s tattoos are nothing like the geometric motifs I’ve seen before.

His markings appear permanent, and yet the rider seems so young. He can’t be far into his twenties, but the fading of his tattoos suggest them to be several decades old.

The moose approaches but the rider does not stir. It’s likely he’s asleep.

So I stand up from my well-worn stump and take my position at the head of the bridge. The sheet of metal covering my breast is too small for me, and it pinches me beneath the arms as I shove the butt of my halberd into a crack between the stones.

I grab the hilt of my sword with my right hand.

The moose sees me before I have a chance to call out. The creature jerks his big head, tearing the reins from his rider’s hands and waking him in the process.

His eyes open, sapphire eyes, and now I know what he is. His white markings and cropped hair, and the polished harpoon he points at me…. I have heard stories of such men.

Halt, Sythian! No further!

I hold out my hand—stop—but I doubt he understands. He curses under his breath and yanks on the moose’s reins. The creature starts to turn. He’s retreating.

It’s only been a couple years; am I really so hideous looking?

Hey! Hey! I’m not going to hurt you! It’s just a toll! My first rider in three days, and I’ve gone and scared him off. Sythians are known for magic, but I would brave a little magic if it meant I might eat something fresh tonight.

He slows his mount and glances over his shoulder.

Maybe he understands me after all. Lifting both hands, I signal peace with a shrug of my shoulders. Then I put up two fingers, the toll price. One penny goes to the tax man, the other is for me.

Just pay and you’re free to go on your merry way. Yeah?

He looks back the way he’s come, before favoring me with a long, distrustful stare. His gaze lingers longest on my two fingers.

He brings up his hand and makes a circular shape with his forefinger and thumb. He’s pantomiming a coin. He hasn’t understood a word I’ve said.

I sigh and nod.

He places a hand on his chest before pointing out across the river. I have another post at the other end of the bridge. There I sit in the evenings, when farmers returning home from town have coins filling their pockets. If he wants to go west, he’ll have to pay like the rest of them.

I shake my hand. No crossing until you’ve paid.

He considers me with a scowl, but I’m not intimidated. I stare back. He’s clean shaven, but his clothes are rumpled. His face is thin and long, and his nose is tall and pointed. He’s fit, but the way he fumbles with his harpoon tells me he’s no warrior.

He makes the coin shape with his fingers again, but this time he shakes his head. He doesn’t have any money.

I don’t believe travelers are ever without coin—farmers are notorious liars—but do the Sythians even have currency? With all their salt what need do they have for copper pennies?

Either way, no money means no crossing. Then you best head back! Find a farm and hire yourself out for the day if you want. Then come back. I make a shooing gesture, and the moose lifts his head with a snort.

The man’s sapphire stare hardens. His irises are like tiny disks of ice. A brothel in the south would pay more than a hundred crowns for a Sythian woman with eyes like his.

No.

Ah, finally a word I recognize.

So you understand me, then? No toll, no bridge. Go back and find some work.

No, he repeats.

So much for that.

I’m not changing the rules just for—

Salt, he says, stopping me short. Then, in a softer voice as if afraid someone might hear, he repeats, Salt.

I can’t believe him. I can’t believe any Sythian would broker such a deal. Aren’t they warlocks? Their magic is in their salt, and they’ll die defending it. Greedy King George learned that lesson two hundred years ago.

You’re offering me salt? Just how much salt is two penny’s worth? A single grain?

I have seen salt. The sultan of Sasamon had a tiny mound he kept locked in a chest. He liked to show it to us when the Duc de Cavette came calling. He would parade out his chest of salt and set it in front of his lounge for all of us to ogle. I never had cared much for the sultan.

Salt, the Sythian confirms.

How much?

He understands nothing else, but these words he knows. His bright-eyed stare is unnerving. I’m blinking far more often than him. Since when did little boys scare me?

How much…? he pauses, grasping for a word he doesn’t quite remember. You?

Me? I point at myself, thinking he doesn’t know what he says.

Yes, you. How much you?

What are you about? I say with growing unease. I’m not some bond servant you can just buy.

My words are lost on him. His eyes go to the halberd staked between the stones, and then to the broadsword strapped to my waist. My weapons are cheap, second-hand. I scavenged them off the body of their last owner. It’s only luck they have managed to serve me better than they had him.

You…. He doesn’t know the word, so he makes a slashing motion with his harpoon. He has to jab the air a couple more times before I get the message.

I am a squire, I take hold of my halberd. Holding a weapon makes my words feel truer.

How much… squire?

He’s trying to buy my services. He’s trying to buy my sword arm, and isn’t that why I returned to my toll bridge in the first place? I remember Louis Duc de Cavette when his armor was still shiny. I had stopped him and his men for the toll, and he had hired me, given me a name.

Only the Duke had promised prestige while this Sythian was offering something far more precious: the wealth to purchase it. Enough salt could buy me a barony, maybe even a country villa. I could own land and employ farmers. I could make wine. Mulled wine for the winter, ice wine for the hot summers.

Four ounces. I hold up my fingers again. I’m not even sure if my future employer can count.

I’m prepared to settle for less when he says, Yes.

Damn. I should have asked for more.

But his readiness also makes me suspicious. I want to see it. Where is this salt?

His hand goes to his inside pocket, and then he hesitates. His eyes lock upon the hand clapped around the halberd.

I release the weapon and raise my hands, and he withdraws the pouch with my promised payment.

I really should have asked for more.

There must be two pounds of salt in that leather bag. Two pounds is enough to make me sultan ten times over. Enough to buy all the wine I would ever want. I could return to Yah-Bida and