Inheritance

by Gabrielle Harbowy

Chapter One: Unexpected Arrivals

Keren Rhinn, Knight of Ozem and Vigilant Defender of Lastwall, stood sputtering in the doorway, her face turning fascinating shades of crimson.

"Hello, darling!" Zae looked up from her work to greet her favorite human with a smile. "Long day?"

Keren had many talents, but the one that impressed Zae most was her unnatural sense of timing. Without fail, Keren always seemed to be able to walk in on a situation at the precise moment that would confound, annoy, or disarm her the most.

Case in point: there was a perfectly good explanation for the bloody, unconscious dog currently staining the floorboards of Keren's kitchen. If the crusader had looked beyond her initial confusion and anger, she would no doubt have seen Zae's surgical kit by her side and the needle and suturing thread in the gnome's nimble hands. But humans were quick to emote, and even quicker to jump to conclusions. It was one of the things Zae loved about them, and about this one in particular.

Since Keren seemed lost for words, Zae took it upon herself to fill in the conversational gap while she resumed her work. "He followed me home," she said. "Can I keep him?"

The hardened warrior made a strangled little sound. That particular set to her jaw meant she was reciting her oath to herself. Zae clicked her shiny bronze lip-ring quietly against her lower teeth and savored the countdown in her head. 3...2...1...

"You're lucky you're oathbound, pixie," Keren said, right on cue. The oaths sworn by all who wished to be citizens of Lastwall included a vow not to harm other oathbound residents. But Zae wasn't afraid of real violence, even though Keren was significantly larger than her own three-foot-three, and carried a sword that weighed more than Zae did. The use of the pet name told Zae that she was already forgiven, even if only on some deep subconscious level. Before Zae had taken the oaths to Vigil and Lastwall, it had been, "You're lucky you're cute."

She had it on assurance that her oath had not robbed her of cuteness, so the update to Keren's ultimatum didn't bother her in the slightest, especially when she accompanied it with some playful epithet. When Keren was truly angry, she was cold and silent, and her hand twitched for the weight of her sword hilt.

Keren fears no blade or magic, but family is a different story.

Zae thanked her by not squealing in delight at Keren's predictability. For some reason, big, tough warriors didn't like being giggled at. Even ones who thought you were cute.

Keren came to kneel by Zae's side, stroking gentle fingers through the healer's indigo curls. She observed a moment, then rose and stepped past the gnome to swing the kettle over the fire, as if resigned to the fact that dog surgery in her kitchen wasn't the strangest thing she was likely to encounter this week.

In fairness, it probably wasn't.

"Seriously." Zae knotted off the thread and snipped it carefully. "I want to keep him. He's obviously lost his person in battle, and we've got good rapport. Just look at him."

"He's unconscious," Keren pointed out.

Zae grinned. "But he wasn't unconscious when I brought him here. He was wounded and scared, and he still nuzzled my hand and followed me home. It's not like I'd have been able to carry him."

Keren poured boiled water into a bowl and brought it to Zae's side, along with some clean cloths. Zae poured in a packet of herbs, and together they washed the blood from Zae's instruments. And, when the water had cooled a bit, from the patient.

"Maybe he thought you were a snack. He's a big one."

Zae laughed. "I'm not very tasty."

Keren raised an eyebrow, glancing at her sidelong.

"All right, then: I'm not very filling. Is that more accurate?"

Under the dirt and blood, the dog's coat was a gorgeous white, and he had a cute black nose. Zae had guessed that he was a cold-weather sled dog from the shape of his ears and muzzle, his barrel chest and sturdy legs, but now she was certain of it. And a gorgeous one, at that.

"So," Keren said. "He was wounded on the front, and you brought him here because it's closer than your infirmary—or your own kitchen?"

"Am I so predictable? I'll have to try harder. Oh! And I was hoping you'd help me train him as a mount, once he's well."

"And you also promise you'll clean my floor?"

Zae grinned. She had won. "Every drop."

∗ ∗ ∗

Zae typically woke before Keren and took the small hours of the morning for her meditation and prayer. Brigh had no temples in the city of Vigil, but Zae always kept a traveling shrine with her. Polishing her treasured brass gears kept her hands busy and her mind free. She had crafted a special gear with a feminine mask engraved on its face, and she wore this on a leather string around her neck, using it to keep her morning worship on track. She ticked her thumb down the teeth one at a time as she prepared her spells for the day.

Warm breath washed across her cheek, followed by a very large, very wet nose, and something hard and wet landed in her lap. She opened her eyes into the dog's pale blue gaze. Something in there shone with intelligence, but before she had time to contemplate it, he dipped his muzzle to indicate the gift he'd just brought her.

Atop her gears and polishing cloths sat a very well-chewed apple, most of its red skin nearly gone, with a tooth pattern that suggested gnawing rather than eating.

Zae ruffled his rounded ears and scratched under his jaw with both her hands. "Good boy! Thank you!" His tail started to wag at that. She suspected the apple was thanks for healing him, and the gesture touched her. Presents stolen from your host's kitchen were still presents, after all. It was the intent that mattered.

She cleaned sweet juice from her gears and folded them back into their pouch. It wasn't just the one apple, she noticed as she rose—the entire basket of apples from the kitchen table had been systematically destroyed, all over the floor she had just cleaned to spotlessness the night before.

"You fierce apple-slayer," she praised the dog, giving his ears another rub. "You'd better help me clean this up, or Keren won't be pleased with us."

As if the improbability of the situation had summoned her, there was the crusader, rising from bed and padding barefooted toward the commotion. She halted at the door, but for once, her words were quiet and unexpected.

"When did this come?"

Zae turned to see beautifully disheveled brown hair, a jade silk robe hanging askew to frame the lime-sized metal medallion she always wore around her neck, and an ornately carved wooden box cradled in Keren's strong hands. The crusader's face was unusually ashen.

She hadn't even noticed the apples. Zae wasn't sure whether to be relieved or concerned. She supposed that rushing to clean them up would only draw attention to them, so she left the dog to finish off his prey and approached Keren instead, pulling out a chair for her.

"Oh! Right. It came yesterday, in the middle of dog surgery. A messenger brought it. I put it aside where it wouldn't get bled on, and then I must have forgotten all about it. Is it important?"

Keren sank into the chair, letting her hands ease onto the table, the box still between them. "It means my father is dead." She exhaled a slow, shuddering breath, staring at the box as if it was a nightmare made solid. "Do we have anything stronger than ale?"

Knowing Keren's high tolerance for drink, Zae took the liberty of choosing a supplement from her healer's kit instead of the pantry. Soothe syrup was a bit cloying on its own, but it added a pleasant flavor to strong tea. "Your father? You've never spoken of him." She rolled a light coating of syrup around the inside of an earthenware mug, then filled it with the tea she'd already brewed with her breakfast.

"He retired from the front, and was teaching up at the War College. I joined the Knights of Ozem in his footsteps, but Vigil is all we have in common now. We haven't spoken in a while."

Zae set the tea in front of Keren and climbed up into the chair beside her. The dog sprawled on the floor under the table, gnawing on a stray shoe and soaking up comfort from their proximity.

Keren turned the box toward Zae and cupped her hands around the tea, clinging to it and bringing the mug to her face to inhale the steam. Like Keren's medallion, the box was carved with painstakingly detailed castles and clouds and rolling waves. The seam of its lid disappeared into the carvings, and its hinges looked to be internal. On one side, two round concave impressions stared side by side like abstract eyes.

"It's beautiful," Zae said, because she felt she ought to say something. Loss didn't visit the knight's face often, and it looked interesting on her. While Zae supposed she shouldn't just watch the mesmerizing sight of Keren, half dressed and drinking her tea, she wasn't sure how to address that sentiment. Most of what she knew about human family structures had been gleaned from her patients. Which was to say, she knew that family was where you got your corpse sent when you died.

Keren tugged the medallion on its leather thong around her throat. It was etched with the same sorts of carvings, giving it an abstract quality unless one examined it closely, as Zae often had. But she had always assumed it to be a religious thing, like her own gear pendant, and never thought to ask about its purpose. "This fits in one of the locks. Ennis has the other key. If we force it, we destroy the contents."

Zae darted her hands innocently back to her lap. "Ennis?"

"My brother." Keren released the medallion and returned her attention to her tea. With half the brew gone, she already seemed to have shed her anxious edge. Now she was merely subdued. "He's up at the Worldwound. Or was. Iomedae keeps her own counsel where he's concerned—he could be demon food and fertilizer twice over by now, for all I know."

Zae sat silently for a few moments, integrating this new information into her mental portrait of Keren. "Do you know what's in the box?"

"No idea. He said it was our inheritance, but that's all he said, and that was years ago. Before Ennis left for the Worldwound and split the family apart."

Zae frowned, puzzled. "But aren't a lot of the Worldwound crusaders from here?"

Keren made a dismissive noise into her mug, then set it down, empty. She sighed. "Fine for other families, but not for mine. My father disowned Ennis—he raised us here, to fight this fight. He said our purpose was to defend Lastwall against the return of the Whispering Tyrant. Ennis said his purpose was to defend against the greatest threat, wherever it might be." She nudged the box, picked it up, and shook it gently. Nothing rattled. "I was finished with my father, for being finished with Ennis. Father put cause before kin. I say you have no cause when you forget the people you're fighting for. But there's no reasoning with my father."

Zae rested her hand on Keren's back, feeling the shift of powerful muscle and the faint shudder of emotion. "And now you have his inheritance, all the same. Do you still want it?"

Keren slumped forward, sighing, until her forehead rested on the wood with a faint thud. She lifted it an inch and thudded it down again.

Zae gently sifted her fingers through Keren's hair."We're going to the Worldwound, aren't we?"

Keren turned to look at Zae, amber eyes calm from the tea. "We?" She leaned sideways until her cheek rested on Zae's shoulder.

Zae brushed unruly brown hair aside and kissed her head. "Of course I'm coming with you. Me and Appleslayer both."

"Oh, pixie. You don't have to come."

"It'll be an adventure," Zae said. Under the table, the dog's tail wagged an eager beat against the floor.

Coming Next Week: A ride north for the Worldwound in Chapter Two of Gabrielle Harbowy's "Inheritance"!

Gabrielle Harbowy is an editor for such SF publishers as Pyr, Seven Realms Publishing, and Dragon Moon Press, as well as co-editor of the When the Hero Comes Home anthology series with Ed Greenwood. Her short fiction has been a finalist for the Parsec award, and has appeared in such anthologies as The Beast Within 2, Metastasis, Cthulhurotica, and more. For more information, visit gabrielle-edits.com.

Illustration by Kelly Perry

Inheritance

by Gabrielle Harbowy

Chapter Two: Adventure

Zae took care of cleaning Keren's home and procuring supplies for the journey, while Keren trained Appleslayer to be a riding hound. In just a few busy days, bags were packed, and homes and infirmary were closed up. Keren secured permission to ride along with a party of crusaders patrolling the Virlych border. Zae had wanted to strike out on their own and "rough it" through the Hungry Mountains, just the two of them, but Keren had been resolutely against that plan. It was just as exciting, Zae conceded, to be riding with a squadron of five knights. It certainly made her sit up straighter in her borrowed white-and-gold military saddle.

In short order, it became obvious that Appleslayer had been trained to ride with cavalry and showed no fear of horses. A few days of Keren's expert care groomed the big white dog into a pleasant and eager mount. Apple had obeyed her, but his devotion was to the little gnome who had healed him. They rode alongside Keren and her white war steed, Eridem, like a study in forced perspective.

The pace felt easy, but productive. Every few miles, they passed guard sentries in the white-and-gold armor of Ozem or the more mundane livery of the regular Lastwall military. That meant they were still skirting Virlych, where the Whispering Tyrant lay. Each time, the knights nodded to the sentries and exchanged some meaningless pleasantry, and each time the soldiers nodded back.

Appleslayer is a fine steed.

For a time, they kept the Path River between themselves and Virlych. Adian, the knight in the lead, called a halt to water the horses just as it turned west and dwindled to modest tributary, easily crossed on horseback—or dogback.

"So... where are we actually headed?" Zae was glad of a chance to have a rest from the saddle and stretch her legs. "You know where Ennis was going, but that was how long ago? Can you be sure he actually arrived there?"

"He sent messages to me and Father about a year ago—a sort of peace offering, which Father rejected." Keren took a breath as if was about to say more, then shook her head and lapsed into silence.

Zae clicked her bronze lip ring against her teeth. "Mm. Then you know he got to the Worldwound. That's a start."

"Maybe." Keren sounded surprisingly noncommittal.

"Are you afraid that he's dead, too?" Zae asked.

"I've heard tales of the Worldwound. Some of the strongest, bravest crusaders I've known have come back limp and skittish as week-old cats, jumping at their own shadows and dreading the things they see behind their eyelids in the dark. Am I afraid he's dead? No. It'd be a kindness to him if he is."

"Well, soon we'll have those stories," Zae said.

Keren shook her head and sighed. "Is this all so exciting to you? As much as you yearn for the new, I would think you'd have seen the world twice over by now."

Zae narrowed her eyes, peering past the company of knights and off toward Gallowspire. She wondered what the ruins looked like, and how sturdy the locks on the Tyrant's prison really were. "Oh, I certainly hope I never get to the point where I've seen the world twice over. Then there'd be nothing new to see. You know, I've never even been to the Eye of Abendego."

Keren gave her a sidewise glance. "Why would you want to go there?"

Zae shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not even sure what it is. I've just heard people say it and think it's an excellently fun word. Abendego!" Appleslayer perked his ears and barked.

"Good boy," Zae said, but then the bark turned into a whine and a low growl.

Adian and Marisol, a sorceress in white and gold leather, were already mounted again. "The horses sense it, too," Adian said quietly, and all the soldiers drew their weapons. Zae traced a finger around the tooled gear she wore at her throat.

Unfolding from the barren ground were five beige figures—skeletons, Zae realized, their bones the color of the dirt, slumbering at the base of the mountains that led to the Tyrant's tomb.

Keren swung herself up onto Eridem, but Zae remained on foot with the other knights. She drew her hammer from her belt and whispered a prayer to Brigh. Just as a collection of gears with no motor shouldn't run, a skeleton was a collection of bones with no heart or mind. If it did have a mind, Zae thought, it would have the good sense to remain a motionless pile of parts... especially in the presence of six holy crusaders.

A few dirty scraps of cloth and broken weapons were all that signified the people the skeletons might have been in life. They moved as one but with no particular group mind, only individual focus on the same goal. The knights, on the contrary, were skilled at group tactics. With just a few hand signals, they took to a practiced formation, each focusing on a specific enemy.

Zae mostly healed from her shopfront infirmary in town—healing on the front lines was an honor usually reserved for the paladins and battle clerics of Iomedae and other gods—so the knights' fluid battle tactics were a foreign and beautiful dance to her. It made her proud to see Keren a seamless cog in the crusaders' workings, singling out a skeleton with a shouted challenge and lopping half of it away with her first charge. Zae called upon Brigh's holy light, and a wave of energy blasted the skeleton, overpowering the dark force that animated it.

The gnome let out a gleeful shout, and two of the other skeletons altered their approach, turning toward the sound of her voice.

"Oops," she muttered, but Adian and the sorceress were already upon them, and both were slain before they could reach her. Zae shot Adian an apologetic look when he thundered by on his mount, preparing for another pass at one of the remaining foes, but secretly she was disappointed to have lost her chance to strike again. By the time she was in range of Keren's skeletal target, it was legless and almost sad, flailing its arms and fruitlessly clacking its jaw. She brought her holy light down upon it, just to make the noise stop.

A good thing about fighting skeletons, it turned out, was that they made for relatively bloodless battle. Apple paced around Zae, whimpering. At first she thought he had somehow been injured, but when she stopped him and ran her hands over his coat, she realized his tail was wagging expectantly.

"Okay, boy, go ahead."

He darted into the rubble that had been their attackers. The dog shifted bones with his muzzle, finally picking out a relatively whole forearm. He trotted back proudly with it and settled down at Zae's feet to gnaw.

"We're going into Witchgate Forest, but we can part ways at the tree line and you can skirt around, if you'd like," Marisol said. "Don't get too sure of yourselves, though. Only reason we took out five so fast is that we outnumbered them. It'll be a different game when it's only the two of you."

Zae and Keren exchanged a look, and Zae dipped her head in a slight, canted nod. It was Keren's quest, so the choice was hers.

Keren turned her palm up, tracing the Vigilant's shield marked there with her other hand, the way she did when she was of two minds about something. "It's important for me to get to the Worldwound, but I've sworn oaths to protect these lands. Even though I haven't been assigned with this patrol, I want to stay and honor my oath."

Zae's chest swelled with pride. She turned over her own palm, which bore a similar shield. She only had the one mark, proclaiming her an oathbound citizen of Lastwall; Keren and the others had Iomedae's symbol on their other palms, the sunburst sword signifying that they were also sworn defenders.

Witchgate Forest itself was something of a letdown. Zae saw cultists and orcs, skeletons and shambling, oozing things—all of which she and the knights duly put to rest—but no witches and no gates. When she asked if they might detour past one of the infamous gates, the request was soundly denied.

Though it was early morning, the forest was dark and foreboding, with only the occasional shaft of dusty light peering through the branches. "Hangman Trees over there," Adian said, pointing with his drawn longsword. He led the company off the well-groomed path and onto a side path that had initially looked less inviting.

"I suppose you patrol through here enough to know the landmarks," Zae said to Marisol.

"Indeed. We've tried to take the grove out, but they just grow back. Easier to avoid them, now."

"That's why no one wants to divert past a witchgate?" she surmised, and was pleased with herself when Marisol nodded.

"No sense weakening ourselves on the flora when we should be saving our resources for real threats."

It made sense. Zae was grudgingly glad to have experienced guides, even if it meant fewer chances to sightsee. She was still just a bit grumbly about not having seen a witch or a gate, and she resolved to make up for it by cantering toward the first wall she should happen to see in Canterwall.

They made camp in the forest that night, with soldiers standing guard against the shriekings and moanings. It was oddly disappointing to pass out of the forest the next day and into the relative safety of the fertile plains. They would part ways with their escort and ride north through farmland and rolling hills to the Vistear River, while the crusaders continued their patrol along the northern Virlych border.

The knights clasped hands with Keren, one by one, and then, to Zae's surprise, Adian extended his hand to her. She clasped it, shield to shield, and that seemed to please him; the others followed, exchanging handclasps and warm words of parting.

"Nice to see you getting along with my friends so well," Keren teased her as they rode away.

"I don't know... it's a big step for us," Zae said, playing along. "First we get a dog, then I meet your friends... Maybe I'll get to meet your family next?"

Keren laughed, her shoulders visibly releasing tension. "That's the plan."

Gently but more seriously, Zae asked, "So, where do we start? That's a long, creepy border up there."

Keren touched her fingers to her key medallion. "I was thinking of volunteering at the first outpost we come across once we hit the front lines, and then asking around."

Zae didn't realize her lip ring was clicking against her teeth until Keren gave her the stern "stop that" look. "I was just thinking... We've got a ride up a river between now and then, right? How long do you think that'll take?"

Keren shrugged her nearer shoulder. "I don't know. I've never done it. A couple of days? Why?"

Zae rubbed her hands together. "Give me a couple of hours to poke around for supplies in the next town, and I should have something useful for you by the time we disembark."

Keren eyed her warily. "It's not going to be something that explodes, is it?"

Zae straightened in the saddle and responded with a haughty sniff. "Presumptions! Cruel racial presumptions! When have you ever seen anything explode because of me?"

Keren tilted her head in thought. If Zae squinted, she could almost picture Eridem's rhythmic hoofbeats as the ticking of gears turning in Keren's mind.

"Dog guts all over my kitchen?" she ventured.

Zae patted Appleslayer's neck. "Don't listen to her. Your guts never left your body."

"Well, there was that one time when you tried to cook me dinner..."

Zae huffed, trying to hide her grin by lifting her chin and looking away in high dudgeon. "Pfff. Cheater. You know very well that's not the kind of explosion I meant!"

Coming Next Week: Up a river toward demons and death in Chapter Three of Gabrielle Harbowy's "Inheritance"!

Gabrielle Harbowy is an editor for such SF publishers as Pyr, Seven Realms Publishing, and Dragon Moon Press, as well as co-editor of the When the Hero Comes Home anthology series with Ed Greenwood. Her short fiction has been a finalist for the Parsec award, and has appeared in such anthologies as The Beast Within 2, Metastasis, Cthulhurotica, and more. For more information, visit gabrielle-edits.com.

Illustration by Kelly Perry

Inheritance

by Gabrielle Harbowy

Chapter Three: The Wound of the World

The next town, Bladswell, wasn't so much a town as a ferryboat station that happened to have an inn and some farms attached. Still, the inn had vacancies and Zae appreciated spending a night in privacy, in something resembling a real bed, after days on the trail. They treated themselves to something resembling a real meal and then a real bath, as well.

She gathered her long indigo curls in a towel and wrung her hair from dripping to damp, then carefully dried her ears—specifically, the line of shining bronze rings that pierced each, all the way from lobe to tip. "Wouldn't it be romantic to sleep in the hayloft instead?" she offered.

Keren, lounging on the bed in only a towel, made a face. "It may sound romantic, but trust me, hay is sharp and unyielding in all sorts of romantic-mood-killing ways."

The gnome raised an eyebrow. "And how do you come by this knowledge?"

Keren stretched and gave an exaggerated yawn. "Oh, look how late it's gotten!"

"Right. You won't distract me that easily."

Standing, Keren slowly and deliberately unwrapped her towel.

Zae, it turned out, was distracted that easily.

∗ ∗ ∗

Zae is always up for an adventure.

Keren became increasingly restless as they sailed nearer to the Worldwound. Her anxiety wanted very much to be contagious, but Zae refused to catch it. She sat on the uncomfortable bed with Appleslayer at her feet, and assembled the bits and parts she'd picked up in Chastel. There was something meditative about handling gears and wire. Partly because it was an activity she associated with prayer, but partly because she liked to fix what was broken. She knew the difference between the sentient and the inanimate, of course, but on a more theoretical level, she had always thought that healing a body and fixing a machine were much the same kind of action. Everything ticking along smoothly.

"Like clockwork..." she murmured, and Keren lifted her head.

"Hm?"

"Just thinking aloud," Zae answered. "Welcome back."

While Zae immersed herself in her tinkering, Keren had paced their small cabin, and then the deck, and then the cabin again. The knight refused soothe syrup—travel up the river was safer than travel along its banks, but not by much, and she wanted her wits about her. Zae could respect that, and was grateful for it.

Keren joined her, sprawling beside the dog and trailing her fingers through his snowy fur.

Zae enjoyed conversation while she worked. "You said you joined the crusade because your father wanted you to. Was it what you wanted, too?"

Keren frowned. "There was never any other option. Me and Ennis, we were groomed for it from birth. I got my first set of armor at age five. Not in the white and gold, of course, since I hadn't taken my oaths yet, but Father made the Knights sound like the worthiest goal in the world, and there wasn't anyone around to tell me otherwise. I don't know...I'd probably have been an artisan, and made beautiful things with my hands. Maybe I still will, someday." She sighed and rolled onto her back. "What will your contraption be when it's done?"

Zae cradled one half of a brass sphere carefully between her bare feet while she worked on the other half, occasionally switching off or testing to make sure that they still fit together. "It'll be a divining rod. Well, ball. Divining ball. It'll tell us which way your brother is, if we ask it the right questions. Except when it doesn't, of course. These things are never completely reliable. And I only have so much incense, so we won't be able to consult it too many times...but I thought it might get us started."

Keren studiously rubbed under Apple's chin. "That had to be stupidly expensive."

"It was," Zae said quietly. There was no point denying it. "But worth it. And don't even think of trying to pay me back. I've never gotten to build one of these before, and... well, I've never had a chance to do something so big and totally selfless for someone I care about before, either."

Silence stretched out comfortably for a moment. "Surely you've..." Keren ventured.

"Had lovers, as you know. Even almost married once—a halfling. He stole my heart, but I got it back."

The comfortable silence returned, broken only by the dog's quiet snores and the lapping of water against the hull. When Zae assembled the halves into a sphere and looked up, Keren was asleep.

It always surprised the gnome how soft even the most hardened humans became when their features relaxed. Curled up around Appleslayer as she was, it was easy to see her youth. Humans lived so briefly and so brightly, and felt things so intensely. Zae didn't think she'd ever truly understand what made them tick, but to get to share even a bit of that—not to mention being on the receiving end of those feelings—was a gift she didn't take for granted.

∗ ∗ ∗

Apple got his land legs back sooner than Zae did—perhaps because he had more of them to balance on. For gnome and human, the swaying of the riverboat became the swaying of a moderate gait in the saddle, gradually acclimating them both to solid ground.

Just in time to see it fall away. They drew to a halt just shy of the border of the Worldwound, staring out at the ravaged landscape. Overhead the sky was low and leaden gray, but in the distance it churned an unnatural palette of bile and sweet corn.

"Got your gadget?" Keren asked.

Zae fumbled in her satchel and withdrew the orb. She knew she had polished it to a shine, but the oppressive air seemed to take away all that was bright in the world. From a side pocket, she unwrapped a small purple cone of incense, added a few drops of clear oil to it, and slid it point-first into a perfectly sized hole in the orb. Making sure she was facing the ruined landscape, she closed her eyes to concentrate.

"Masked clockmaker, she who drives our gears, abide with us a time and be the whisper in our bronze. We seek Ennis Rhinn, and we travel overland. Is a path to the east toward weal or woe?"

For a few moments, nothing happened. Then the orb began to vibrate with the muffled whir of gears turning in their casing. After perhaps half a minute, it stopped. "There."

Zae turned the orb, and the smoke that filtered out was white and sweetly scented. "Thank you, Lady Brigh." She smiled up at Keren. "We go east."

∗ ∗ ∗

The first crusaders they met were a pair on patrol, wearing gouged, pitted armor that had seen many adventures. One look at Keren's white and gold told them her origin, and when she lifted a hand in greeting Zae wasn't surprised to see the Lastwall shield on the guardswoman's palm when it rose in response.

"Here to join the ranks?" the guard called. Keren dismounted and approached on foot. Zae remained on Appleslayer. The knights spoke briefly, clasped hands, and Keren returned to her horse.

"We're heading in the right direction," she said, and nudged Eridem onward.

A mile or so along, an outpost was set up at the edge of the Worldwound, only feet from where the ground turned from dirt and rock to foul wasteland. They reined in before the tent with the largest banner.

All the crusaders looked just as worn as their scouts had. Some were in makeshift armor or had chipped weapons. Scars abounded on roughened faces. One boy looked barely to have reached adulthood, but already had a pink gash cutting down over the socket of one milky eye.

"What've we here?" he called out, and the dozen or so others perked up and took notice. "Fresh blood from the south?" One of the other men coughed, and spat something green and phlegmy that wriggled away toward the cursed ground.

"That's right," Keren answered. "Making our way east." Zae could see her studying every face, looking for her brother among them. "We'll lend you our strength if we can share your camp tonight."

One of the older men laughed, a harsh sound like a file rasping across stone. "It's clear you're confident with your sword, lass, but what of your little friend?"

Zae straightened in her saddle. "I can make water for you."

A round of raucous laughter answered her. "Isn't a one of us who can't make water, tiny lass. What need have we of yours?"

Zae's cheeks flushed hot. "That's not what I meant! Holy water, to fight the demons. Purified water, to drink."

The older soldier pointed out toward the ruined land. "Can ye purify that, miss?" He shrugged and returned to sharpening his jagged sword. "Get on with you both. We don't need the faces of the fresh and eager to disrupt our lives or end 'em with your carelessness. Make water on someone else."

Zae exchanged a look with Keren, who shook her head minutely and put gentle heels to Eridem's sides.

They continued along the border, mindful of keeping to healthy ground. "Maybe our good fortune is still to come," Zae said, but Keren gave no response.

The sun was setting, turning the sky from an unnatural green to an unnatural reddish-brown. No lights shone in the Worldwound, but occasionally something cracked or slithered.

"Did you see them?" Keren finally asked as they rode along.

Zae's heart pounded. "What?" She scanned the horizon, but Keren shook her head.

"No. Those soldiers. They were so..."

"Close to death?" Zae supplied.

Keren frowned, but nodded. "I expected things to be shiny and organized here, like they are at Vigil, but it's all so... fractured. Desperate."

Another fortified outpost loomed in the distance. They arrived at it just at nightfall proper, as the last of the natural light gave way to an eerie malevolent glow.

"If they're anything like the last," Keren said as they walked their mounts up toward the cluster of buildings, "I wonder if we'd not be safer keeping to ourselves."

"Safer, perhaps," Zae answered, "but less likely to find Ennis."

"What about Ennis?" one of the sentries called.

Keren froze. It seemed to take her a moment to find her tongue, so Zae answered for her. "Ennis Rhinn. Is he part of your unit?"

The guard, who looked healthier and more whole than anyone Zae had seen at the border thus far, pursed his lips. Behind him, three more ragged soldiers limped into the camp, two supporting the weight of the one between them. "For now. By morning I suspect that'll change." He nodded out toward the scarred land. "Demonplague's got him. He's making his hours count."

"He's my brother." Keren rested her hand on her sword hilt, gaze hard. "Take me to him."

The knight held up his hand, showing his sigil. Keren and Zae both did the same. "Well met, Rhinn." When he signaled two more knights to join them, the gnome saw Keren's posture relax; she'd been tensed for a fight. "Been out into the 'Wound before?"

"Not yet."

"Figured not; your armor's too clean. That'll change quick. You sure you don't want to wait till morning? Riding through the Worldwound is nothing like picking off a few stray ghouls in the Hungry Mountains. And it's busiest at night."

"You just said morning might be too late. I'm ready." Keren looked at Zae, brown eyes aglow. "What do you think: weal or woe, when we find him?"

The guard lowered his visor. "Naught out there but woe. You'll see that for yourself soon enough."

Coming Next Week: Meetings and endings in the final chapter of Gabrielle Harbowy's "Inheritance"!

Gabrielle Harbowy is an editor for such SF publishers as Pyr, Seven Realms Publishing, and Dragon Moon Press, as well as co-editor of the When the Hero Comes Home anthology series with Ed Greenwood. Her short fiction has been a finalist for the Parsec award, and has appeared in such anthologies as The Beast Within 2, Metastasis, Cthulhurotica, and more. For more information, visit gabrielle-edits.com.

Illustration by Kelly Perry

Inheritance

by Gabrielle Harbowy

Chapter Four: People and Causes

The camp's last remaining healer had died two days before, infected by some foul colony of demonic parasites. Learning further details prompted Zae to add "never pray barefooted" to her list of life lessons.

Leodar, the knight who had greeted Keren, led the way with confidence through the broken landscape, while Carom and Saric, two young but weathered knights, brought up the rear. Strange geysers dotted the ground, some swelling like pustulant wounds, others rising and falling as if the land was a breathing beast. Above, beyond churning black clouds, the sky glowed the sickly color of rust, giving off just enough light for gnome eyes to see by. Under the cover of night, things clacked and slithered and grunted, distracting Zae with hints of movement in her peripheral vision. The others didn't seem to notice.

Leodar rode unerringly toward an outcropping of stone—the crumbling ruins of an old smithy, barely sturdy enough to serve as an outpost. A clash of swords rang out from beyond the building, followed by a blaze of firelight.

Leodar lowered his visor. "Seems we're not too late."

Keren took a deep breath and nudged her horse forward. "Ennis! It's Keren. I've come from Lastwall."

A burst of fire bloomed above the smithy, leaving blinding afterimages in Zae's vision. The knights charged toward the fray, and Zae nudged Appleslayer to follow the horses. They rounded the structure in time to see a half-dozen cloaked and hooded figures, all chanting in unison, surrounding a single knight in mismatched armor.

Ennis is devoted to his cause—even unto death.

Ennis Rhinn might once have looked very much like his sister, before the demonplague. Now he looked barely human—gaunt as a corpse, face mottled purple and red with bruises and open sores, and just a few thready strands of greasy, ash-dusted hair.

"Ennis!" Keren shouted again, and circled around to charge one of her brother's attackers.

"Begone, demon!" he shouted, hurling something as she passed. Keren deflected a jagged rock with her shield.

"Foul hallucination!" he screamed. "Do you lack the stones to face me in your own form?"

Keren cast a worried glance back at her companions. Leodar lifted his shoulders, as if to say This was your idea. Zae nudged Appleslayer forward to join her.

"Ennis, it's truly me. I'm here with Leodar, and others from your camp." She rode down one of the sword-wielding cultists, then turned Eridem and charged another. "Ennis, by Iomedae, I swear to you..."

A wordless scream interrupted her—one of fury, not agony. "I'll hear no more! I'll bash out my own brains before I let you defile my goddess, or the memory of my sister! Go back to the Abyss, demon!"

Zae sighed. "Well, at least he still cares about you."

At a signal from Leodar, the other knights rode in, blades drawn. They ignored Ennis's shouts of challenge and focused only on riding down his attackers. All the cultists were armed with sickles and other blades, and there was something about that which wasn't quite right.

"Wait!" Zae called. "Weren't there—"

A burst of flame exploded in Carom's face, setting his mount's mane ablaze. The horse panicked and reared, throwing its rider and trampling him before bolting away into the night.

"—sorcerers..."

Ennis slashed with his longsword at anything within reach, armored knight and robed cultist alike. Keren and Saric rode down cultist after cultist, beheading them or hacking off limbs with long sweeps of their swords, while Leodar took off after a sorcerer attempting to circle around and flank them.

Anticipating Zae's command, Appleslayer bounded to where Carom had fallen from his horse and lay unmoving on the ground. Zae tugged off one of his scorched gauntlets to reach his skin and explore the extent of his injuries.

The broken ribs were worse than the burns. Calling on Brigh, Zae pushed healing warmth through her fingers and into him, steadying him, then fished into the satchel still slung over her shoulder for a salve for the burns. Hail began to fall from the roiling clouds, small crystals pelting Carom's armor like pebbles. Zae pulled up her hood and ignored them, sheltering her patient with her small body while she repaired the worst of his wounds. Appleslayer stood vigil over them both.

Presently, Zae became aware that the annoying chanting had stopped. Instead, under the clash of battle, she heard human voices.

"Why do you aid me, demon?"

"I'm not a demon, Ennis. I'm your sister."

Zae stole a glance toward the siblings. Keren, Saric, and Ennis were on foot, parrying and dodging a grotesque flying demon. It looked as if a giant, bloated snowball of phlegm had consumed a few stray humans and a bat, with only wings and the odd nest of misshapen limbs protruding from its mass. One of those limbs held a long, barbed whip.

The cultists, and their chanting—they must have either been summoning the demon, or protecting it.

"Why'd you come?" Ennis asked. "Did Father disown you, too?"

"Father's dead, Ennis. I came to find you."

Saric swung upward at the demon's underbelly, but it only flew up beyond his reach and lashed out with a flick of its slender whip, capturing the crusader's arm. It turned with tug that knocked him to the ground and sent his sword skittering away. Zae crept up toward him, praying under her breath.

Keren hacked at one of the demon's wings while its whip was entangled, but it rose out of range. Another of its arms was reaching for something. At first Zae thought it was feeling for damage to its wing, but instead it looked to be extracting a chunk of its own viscous flesh. As Saric struggled to his feet, clutching the whip to keep the demon from pulling it free, a burst of fire caught him in the chest.

There was the sorcerer from before—the one Leodar had evidently not run down. Demonblooded, with wicked, curved horns, and tiny motes of fire that hovered around her like moths. She flung them toward the three knights with flicks of her wrist. Keren dodged the flame, and charged at the spellcaster with a fierce battle cry.

Zae was almost to Saric. His grasp on the whip only served as another tool for the demon, which jerked away so sharply that the man's shoulder wrenched from its socket. He lost his hold and slumped to the foul ground, where Zae was instantly at his side. Before she could do more than lift Saric's visor, however, Ennis let out a shout and dove toward her, knocking the gnome onto the prone man and falling atop them both.

A thick, caustic rain splattered around them. Ennis jerked against Zae's back and screamed, his breath rattling in his chest like nails shaken in a cup. Face inches from the ground, Zae watched the acid carve tiny pits in the rocky terrain. It was doing the same to Ennis's armor, and to Saric—by Brigh's shiny eyeholes, she'd just exposed Saric's face moments before the viscous attack.

Ennis tried to rise and failed, slumping back heavily on top of them. From beneath him, Zae saw Keren approaching, silhouetted against the night, longsword gleaming with the sorcerer's blood. She took a fierce overhead swipe, splitting the demon's belly. A loud squelch—the sound of a stalk of celery stabbing through an overripe tomato—heralded a second deluge. Zae ducked her head, squeezing eyes and lips shut until it passed and all was silent. She couldn't twist around far enough to reach Ennis's skin, or Saric's.

"Ennis...?" she asked.

His weight on her didn't move, and a wave of guilt and nausea flooded her.

Keren's voice answered as Ennis's weight eased away. "Careful what you touch."

Zae rose unsteadily to her knees. The ground around them, everywhere that Ennis's body hadn't shielded, was pocked and still quietly hissing. She was dry, as far as she could tell, but Saric's helm was full of viscous acid. He had choked on it even as it burned through his jaw and throat, and though she had been right there, she hadn't been able to save him—either of them. Not the knight she'd been about to heal, nor the one who, already plague-ridden, had sacrificed himself to shield her... even without knowing what she meant to his sister.

They walked gingerly, Keren carrying her brother's still hissing and popping corpse, to the ruined smithy. There, Carom waited with two horses and Appleslayer. His breaths were shallow, favoring his tender ribs, but he was whole.

Ennis was not so lucky. Keren set him down with care, supporting his shoulder to keep him from leaning his raw back against the stone, then realized that she needn't bother. He was already gone. Keren set her face in a mask of calm to hold the pain away until there was time for it.

It was a somber ride back to the encampment, with Ennis's body draped across Keren's saddle. When they passed the wardstone that marked the border and Zae pulled back her hood, white crystals fell from the folds. On closer inspection, she saw that they were tiny teeth.

∗ ∗ ∗

Keren traced her brother's medallion with her fingertips, lost in thought. Zae came to sit on the tent's carpeted floor beside her, and Apple padded over to rest his chin in her lap.

Keren fished her necklace out of her tunic and set the medallions on the box, side by side.

"Is it killing you that I haven't opened it yet?" It was a pale attempt at teasing, but it heartened Zae that Keren was up to trying.

"You're apprehensive. I can't blame you. But the hardest part is over, isn't it?"

Keren pushed Ennis's medallion toward Zae. It was more weathered than Keren's, but its intricacies were still intact.

"Together?" Keren asked.

They each placed a disc to an impression on the box. There was no sense of anything clicking into place, but the lid opened smoothly at Keren's touch.

A parchment envelope nestled on cream-colored velvet lining. Keren took it and examined both sides, but it was unmarked. She took a deep breath and lifted the unsealed flap.

Zae could see that the thick page bore neat lines of writing, but she couldn't make it out through the back side of the paper. She rubbed Apple's head and waited, watching wetness gather in Keren's eyes.

"It's a peace offering. He accepts that Ennis went his own way, and he's proud of both of us for fighting for what we believe in. Here: ‘There are three of these rings, which I had forged. I will wear mine into eternity, and the others are for you, to mark us as family. You bear a piece of me, and my blessing, always. The people are more important than the cause, Keren. Victory is meaningless without the people for whom we fight, and the people we go home to.'"

Keren caught her sleeve and swiped her wrist across her eyes, then let out a trembling sigh and upended the envelope into the box. "He just wanted me and Ennis to be together again. And at the end, I guess we were."

Two rings tumbled onto the velvet, gleaming and, to Zae's eye, quite finely wrought of gold and platinum. Minutes ticked by, but Keren didn't reach for them.

"What will you do with them?" Zae asked.

Keren looked up. Stubbornly, she still refused to let her tears fall. "He wanted these to mark us as family, but I don't have any family left—except you. Will you wear one?"

Zae arched one thin blue eyebrow. "Are you sure he'd approve of that?"

"He'd want me to be happy, and I'm happy with you. Your cooking is dangerous, and you perform dog surgery in my house, and every moment with you is full of wonder and something new."

Zae stood and wound her arms around Keren. "I'd be honored," she said. "I wish I'd gotten to meet Ennis in health, or your father, or see more of the Worldwound."

Keren laughed weakly. "Sometimes I think your curiosity is a death wish in disguise."

Zae touched her nose to Keren's cheek. "Oh, but it's not just curiosity. It's informed curiosity. I know how big and complicated and dangerous the world is. What fascinates me is all that variety—how the world can be so full of parts that are so complex and weird and beautiful, and interconnected. I'm not fascinated by birds in flight because I think flight is mystical and impossible, I'm fascinated because I understand how it works, and how it works is fascinating. That's the kind of wonder I see in the world. But to your second point?" She grinned. "Yes. Probably."

Keren rolled her eyes. "You'll need me to protect you."

"Definitely. And you'll need me to stitch you up after you protect me. I hear some creatures think I'm a tasty snack. They might be relentless."

"Are you a tasty snack, pixie?" There was a gleam in Keren's eyes.

"Are you relentless?" Zae countered.

Though—or perhaps because—Zae knew that both answers were yes, she was glad to have a long voyage home in which to explore them fully.

Coming Next Week: A sample chapter of Howard Andrew Jones's new novel Stalking the Beast, featuring the return of Elyana and Drelm from Plague of Shadows!

Gabrielle Harbowy is an editor for such SF publishers as Pyr, Seven Realms Publishing, and Dragon Moon Press, as well as co-editor of the When the Hero Comes Home anthology series with Ed Greenwood. Her short fiction has been a finalist for the Parsec award, and has appeared in such anthologies as The Beast Within 2, Metastasis, Cthulhurotica, and more. For more information, visit gabrielle-edits.com.

Illustration by Kelly Perry