When Coan hugged Kiqat, she imagined her brother was there too. The fleeting fantasy vanished the moment it hit her heart, and Coan backed away from her grandfather to face her people. Under the masks, did their faces show dread or bravery? What was she hiding behind her own face? Now more than ever, I must not be the loner. Healers rushed to her aid first, trailed by everyone else. Instincts told her to brush them away, but Coan yielded and let them tend to her wounds. Sharp pain crept across her body. Old cuts were bleeding again. Crimson mixed with mud stained the clothes she stole from the pirates. Compared to her comrades, Coan stood short, the long-past famines leaving their scars. But sitting behind the torchlight, she cast a tall shadow, capturing her people, the warlord’s pride. Even Gele and the two pirates looked to her, waiting for the call to war. One word. A single command from Coan’s lips would send her army out into the storm, where history would be carved in flesh.
While she was imprisoned within the depths of the ship, the people of Vall bunkered through the storm and kept on building. These soldiers outright refused cowardice or fear. Makeshift armor of sea monster scales sewn together with wildgrass capes prepared them with camouflage for a jungle ambush. One had been handed to Coan, and she hastily put it over her stolen coat and pants from the pirate ship. Time had not granted enough time to outfit them all. So many only went with leafy cloaks or outright wearing slabs of monster flesh. Swords and guns looted from the pirates made up their arsenal, next to new spears tipped with bones of fallen leviathans. The bravest warriors went to them the moment they saw Coan, already aware of what she was going to say.
And then there were the corpses. Coan stumbled when she saw them, her legs tripping over themselves. Mysk, Mapsokas, and all the others lay sleeping inside cocoons of amber. Sap had been slathered over their bodies, layer by layer until it hardened. When Coan placed her hand on her brother’s tomb, it was sticky and cold. He can see me, she knew. They all can see me. From Vall’s beginning to its end.
A deep breath rattled out her throat. Her brother was sleeping. He would not need to fight again. “The invaders are here, most likely already at the temple.” What else would a Coan before me say? Her eyes looked to Mashur, to Zassamurr, to Gele. Only she could help herself lead them. Gazing up at the Second Sea, Coan could only see the mural in the cave, where all the swords used to sleep. Every night, from a starving child to a hungry adult, she watched the painted monsters fight the soldiers. “Follow me,” Coan said. The rain from the Second Sea and the guts of the splattered sea creatures smeared their painted bodies. The people of the House melted together, everything washing away. They had so little. Vall had her and Vall had them. “The invaders are at the temple. If not, they are nearby.” Coan took a deep breath, searching for something to say next, but she did all she needed to. In that small second of silence, a hundred marched forward. Stone spears, hammers, and some even had only blunt rocks. My calloused hands are so small they can only carry so much. Even if Vall survives today, how many people here will not return?
Despite their dedicated soldiers, fodder was regulated among the army too. Old men and women went with nothing, some went with instruments and bells. Mashur led them in a line, carrying a conch horn and nodding at Coan as she passed. “You’ve done good, girl,” she whispered, “I’m glad you made it home.” The crone only wore a belt of unfinished masks around her chest. “Of all the warlords I’ve met, you’re the fittest for this. You’re here when it matters most.”
“You’re sacri–”
“I suppose I am,” Mashur cut her off, “what a pity. Do something I can’t. Make things well.”
Coan stood silent and let the elders have their way. Zassamurr and Massamurr held the gates open as they marched out in a winding line into the ashfield. Vall against the endless waves of monsters. Did the battle begin now or were we always fighting it? Coan walked among her soldiers, sharing final instructions and strategies. The captain needed to die early or the camouflage would prove useless. The storm would be their cover until then. Their swarm would flood and overwhelm the pirates, never stopping until every thief laid dead or captured. Gele relayed the same to the two pirates. The shaggy man, Kipper, helped the captive Niall walk, ignoring all protests. “They’re going behind the enemy to try and convince them to retreat,” explained Gele quietly. His voice was strained, clutching his head as he spoke.
“Are you well?” Coan said, focused on the scales. No healer would know how to handle any ailment they caused. And surely he had some kind of fever.
“Sawyer is somewhere else,” Gele said in a harsh whisper. “She is too far away, trapped somewhere. I don’t know. I can only see short flashes.”
“Has it happened before?” Coan asked.
“Not like this.” The dancer admitted, but he returned to the pirates despite it. “Thank you for checking up on me, but don’t worry, attend to your people first. You have other invaders to be worrying about.”
“Okay,” Coan said. “Once this is done, do you want to return as a captive in that cave?” Mysk would tell a joke in a time like this, she assumed.
Gele wore an uneasy smile. “No, and I don’t want to be flung over someone’s shoulder and carried there either.”
“Sorry,” Coan said, not really knowing what to say to a friend. “Watch the front, I’ll watch the soldiers in the backlines, then we can switch once we get into the jungle.”
Gele nodded. “For Kipper and Niall, make sure the soldiers know their faces before they leave. We can’t be fighting people on our side.”
“Right,” Coan looked to Kipper and Niall, who seemed enveloped in their own discussion. Tired talk bounced between the two. She left them with it and went to tell each cluster of fighters the plan.
At the end of the line, two dozen children marched with their heads held high. Zassamurr and Massamurr led them, their spears pointed toward the jungle. The others though, sharpened stakes and stones were all they had. Sharing quiet jokes with each other, they laughed as they were the last to leave the House.
“No,” Coan began to say. But a hand grasped her shoulder. Nimereen was still dressed in the pirate’s garb, with a steel sword hanging around a leather belt and a musket strapped to his back. Instincts not yet quelled spiked whenever Coan glanced at him, same for the pirates in her ranks and even Gele. A fragment of her lingered on the past battlefield. Once she noticed it, she fell back in time, waist-deep in the mud, surrounded by gunsmoke and chaos. The taste of the vile potion spilled back onto her tongue as she threw up in her mouth.
“Don’t stop them,” Nimereen said, not noticing her revulsion. He closed the door to the House, barring anyone else from following. New mothers, their infants, and those incapable of fighting were left behind to bunker under the painted shell. Children, even the older ones, were told to wait with them. However, a gang of them had disobeyed that command outright. “I already tried. They made their choice,” Nimereen protested, half a child himself.
“I will not lead children into battle to die,” Coan hissed, lifting up her mask to spit out the bile. In that isolated moment, she glanced down at herself. A shawl of leaves draped over her shoulders, hiding the thin sash of hard scales that was supposed to be her armor. Droplets of time gave the artisans no leeway to make anything better. Maybe if they survived, the corpses of giants could outfit them all. But not tonight. Tonight they only had scraps. Underneath Vall’s gifts to her, the clothes pilfered from the pirates felt more like shackles atop her skin. Despite staving off the sudden cold, the black coat and trousers only reminded her what she had lost and could yet lose. Her fingers fiddled with the metal buttons while she withheld encroaching anxiety. Then her hands reached for the coat and bundled herself in it. It truly was cold out. The wind and rain had picked up again, and with a frigid bite never felt on the island before. So much to endure, forced to catch up and adapt, with more threats crawling at Vall’s throat no matter what its people did. No mercy was spared for them. The only choice besides extinction was a shrouded road toward endless war. “Tell them to go back,” she ordered. “They weren’t there when the captain butchered, they don’t know what happened.” They would have to march past that battleground. Even now, Coan kept forgetting Mysk was dead. She wished she could just turn around, and he would be standing there. But no. The pirates, true thieves, had snatched everything from her besides the soil underneath her sandals. All she could cling to was her title of Coan the Warlord and every promise attached to it.
“Our future is undecided,” Nimereen shook his head. “We either fight for it, or we lose it. I don’t believe they should be here, either. But maybe it is best to tolerate them now that they are here. We are not just sheltering the children, but everyone. If you only worry about the weakest, you may lose the strongest in the chaos.”
Nearly a quarter of my soldiers are barely even adults, boy. Dread spun in her stomach. Watching the young soldiers following the old was worse than the shaking ship. If I look away for even a moment, I’ll lose who I have left. “We have to keep them all safe, even the ones wearing the bells and carrying horns. I killed five pirates, maybe more. I’ll have them stacked atop a pyre before these children see them. Keep them back, nowhere near the front. If they cannot obey that, send them back to the walls immediately. I will not humor their game.”
“Right,” Nimereen said. “Both the people and the spirits are with you, Coan.”
“Thank you, Nimereen,” Coan said, struggling to remember his name. She trusted him despite their disagreement. Though, before the pirates came, she had never noticed him before. “Now spread out, I’m taking the front.”
When the army reached the jungle, the soldiers fanned out, walking several feet apart as they swept across the brush. The elders, the fodder, led with those wearing bells at the wings. “Make them believe we’re coming at both sides, and then charge through the middle,” Coan ordered, as the message spread as a whisper, hidden under the rhythm of the rain. And she tried to estimate how many would be slain from that simple command. There was a long march until they reached the temple, too much time for second guesses to sow themselves.
Any mistake I make will follow me until the end of time. Stone statues rose from the mud and a layer of splattered chum. Their carved eyes mocked the monsters, leering at them from a higher place: history. My name may have walked this path already, before the painted walls and before the name was a legacy. All I am is another ghost. Coan marched with the stone statues. The world was falling atop of them, as it must have done. That previous age, was that Coan like her? There was no way to tell. She was lucky. The legend gave her a fragment of hope, such chaos seemed survivable with paintings telling a similar tale. There was a shadow to follow, a place to fall into. Long ago, they only had empty caves and blank faces. They may have never painted their skin. If not, what did the heroes wear when they died? Coan glanced at the headless sea serpent butchered on the tree tops. It was far from over, history did not take her yet. I could still fail. I could still die. The coldness crept up against the bottom of her sandals. Her people were marching towards the battle through the crusty red-brown slush.
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If her brother was with him, he would have said something stupid. Mysk always tried to lull himself from how dire things were. He forgot I was there during the burning of our city. It felt like a lie to say it, but there had been a city on Vall where the river was not tainted and the soil not stained. She remembered faint flashes of being carried in her mother’s arms. She remembered huts, people, and food she would never taste again, blurred together into a feeble thing that could never come back again.
A crackle tore Coan from her fragmented memories. In the loud echo, the gunshot roared like a beast. Throw away all your worries, the peace will not come if you wait. You’re not on the ship anymore. They cannot take you back. Another boom burst out and a bullet broke through the branches and whizzed past. And all around her, Vall’s soldiers charged, and simultaneously, they looked to her. Lifting her sword, she pointed the tip of her blade toward the source of the noise. She could see sparse shadows slinking in the maze of trees. They have come to meet us. If I kill half of them myself, how many of my own will I save? She sucked in her breath and yelled louder than she ever had before.“Scatter! Strike when ready!” Refusing her own command, she remained standing over the grass. “For those waiting for our return at the House!” Her feet pressed against the ground. With one more quick breath, she threw herself at the figures lumbering in the distance. Her wounds broke open again instantly. The pain came back as a droning agony. Sprinting, she ran past the chiming bells and the muffled cries. Like a spear, she dove right into the first pirate, catching them off guard as an army tailed her, equally fierce. All of the invaders were listening for the bells, ringing from the left and right, for just a moment too preoccupied to see the true threat rushing up the center.
Her cloak of woven leaves fell away as Coan lunged at the first enemy. The singed hum of metal on metal boomed as a grizzled man bashed her sword back with a rust-speckled hatchet. Then she killed him. The blade was pulled from his neck, and then she went to the next man. Faster she went, to reach them before her people did. To her left, a weaver lay dead, a spear stuck in their stomach. And across the grasses, an old woman wrapped in bells had been shot. Lightning struck in the distance. Rain came down even harder, inviting hail to join the downpour. The wind whirled, bending the trees to their will, uprooting the feeble and ripping into the weak. Faster! Coan grit her teeth. Her legs trembled as she forced them to continue. Whether by the will of the monsters or the spirits, the storm above swelled into a hurricane. Flying leaves and branches came at her sooner than the pirates did. Falling trees tried and failed to block her path. Not even nature could halt the warlord now! Faster! By the end, would she even be able to stand? Coan slashed through the man who put the spear in the weaver. What was her name? Do I even know who she is? Two-hundred and . . . how many people are left now?
A cutlass swiped at Coan, nearly taking off her head. Ducking, she drove the sword upwards. Though, a spear gutted the man a second sooner than she could. Zassamurr recoiled when Coan faced her next. Not an enemy, she held back her reflexes. It was easier to fall into the trance when she was alone. Everything hurts, making me slow.
“We’re swarming them like ants on a beetle. But all us bugs are the same size.” Zassamurr said in a cold tone, watching the dead invader collapse.
“Go back to the House,” Coan tried to say, but it came as a mute order as the ground began to shake and moonlight broke through the clouds. Through the trees, an array of colors pierced through the mist and the canopy. A hundred colors swept over Coan as she glanced up. The battle halted only for a moment as ice formed and cracked on the surface and the soil split beneath their feet. Ever since she was a tiny girl, she taught herself to brave the cold of the temple with all the dead watching her. But as the humid air vanquished at the coming of snow, the frost made her shiver. Gooseprickles arrived a second after her instincts sprung her to pivot, running back toward her soldiers.
“Get back!” She screamed louder, throat nearly tearing at the volume. The drumming of footsteps against thin crusty ice overshadowed her, but enough listened to create a wave of silence on the battlefield. The only interruption was a tall red tree collapsing, its roots upended, and then another. A fissure sliced the ground in two, and orange light seeped out along the dancing grass.
“Look,” Zassamurr whispered. She took off her mask to see. “The sky, what is that?”
How could she answer that? Whenever she looked upon the mural in Coan’s cave, her eyes would wander upwards to the raining monsters. But the largest was always half-cloaked in shadow. Here, it was enveloped in a pale blue light as if it was born from the moon itself. Shimmering fingers broke through the Second Sea, reaching for Vall. Behind the veil of green water, a cloud of blue swirled together, building the arm as it plummeted. Like a legion of festering worms, the scales on the leviathan shook and split, unraveling and reconnecting as muscles were created and destroyed all at once. The blue void in the water began to swirl, a vortex feeding into the body as piece by piece it bore itself in the open sky. But in itself, Coan truly believed that she did not have the sight to even comprehend what she was a witness to.
Coan fixated on the bubbles that floated up through the whirlpool of shifting color. It was not a school of fish or a single creature, nor was it a vessel of spirits. She had seen them all in the water above. This was something else. Her people were witnesses to dragons, whales, and monsters that bloated out the sun. What was it? The arm grew longer, sprouting elbows that allowed it to bend in crooked ways. The hand snaked around, swatting at the tops of clouds as it grew.
The monstrosity’s head still hid behind the second sea. With hair sewn from stardust and azure whirlpools for eyes—akin to the design of Coan’s own mask with eyes of swirling teeth. A song came from a thin-lipped smile, not spoken or sung, but delivered straight to the soul. A shrill but soothing tone draped over the storm and the war. It made Coan’s heart thrash inside her chest, both enraptured by fear and viciously happy. A want to join the choir festered inside her, placed there like a parasite. Why am I happy? The sound intoxicated her. The creature was almost human. It was almost like her mother. Biting down on her tongue helped hold the feeling back, and–
Bang! A gunshot interrupted the creature’s blissful melody, snapping the Coan’s attention from the end. One of the pirates who took her to the ship was standing there. Only three were left. The old man who killed my brother stopped me from killing this one. He was the young man carrying brass rods, she remembered. The musket in his hands was spewing a stream of smoke. And tears fell down his frightened face.
“Coan,” a yelp came from beside her. Zassamurr staggered and stumbled. “I can’t stand up.” She could not. The hole in her abdomen was far too large. He was aiming for me. Coan yanked the spear from Zassamurr’s trembling hands and hurled it into the pirate’s chest. And when he fell, the battle restarted, a wave of soldiers charging toward the pirates. The invaders, though, had collected themselves from the ambush in the short moment of terrible respite. They pulled glass bottles from their belts and let their torches have a drink. One sip and the pirates flung out fireballs that latched to the wet bark and the skin of the soldiers unlucky enough to be inside their range. In seconds, an inferno hunted down the jungle. A dozen more gunshots roared alongside the thunder, and soon the thing above them was entirely forgotten.
“Zassamurr,” Coan pressed her hands against the hole. She could feel the iron ball but did not dare pull it out. She had no knowledge of what to do and could only wait until a healer came if one ever would.
I can see her face, her nose, her eyes, her mouth. When I see her in the temple, will I return to this moment? I can’t save her. Switch with me, my brother. Let me die in your place. Her prayers went unanswered. The gatekeeper stopped breathing before she stopped crying. Shouldn’t have let them come. Ice clung to Zassamurr’s skin. Children should not have had to bear the burden of my role, of the war I survived. Climbing to her feet, she let the dead girl sleep in the snow. Even if we survive, children will be born to struggle, suffer, and fight. I let her die. Will the next Coan be born into a worse world than I? I let her die. I let a little girl die.
The close rumbles of musket fire lured Coan back into the battle. Her people had already left the gatekeeper behind in the company of other fallen comrades. She could hear the rattling battlecries, two languages clashing as loudly as swords. She could hear Nimereen's booming commands. She could hear Gele somewhere too, she thought. How many were going through what she did when Mysk was murdered? How many are trapped in the battle with foggy minds and no way to escape?
An earthquake shook the island as Coan went to join them. Dust from far away rockslides slid into the jungle, mixing with the fire, rain, and the forthcoming black ash. And the wind made it near impossible to even stand. Bracing herself, Coan trudged after the soldiers, following the noise that seemed to surround her. Blinded by the elements, Coan went forth, trying to follow the war. I should have stayed with her, she believed once she looked back and could no longer see Zassamurr. Only the trees and the grass were with her now, the fog was too thick and her legs ached. Stumbling, she leaned against a trunk and watched for shadows. For a moment, gunfire was silenced by the crash of a sea monster falling from the sky.
Where am I supposed to be? Lost, Coan listened to the cacophony. It went farther and farther away, leaving her behind. Sometimes she would wander and find a dead man or woman. And there were a dying few who asked to be done with the pain. It was easier to recognize the jungle than the people. Always in the cave, always patrolling the island, she grew up looking at the walls of the House rather than venturing inside. Alone, she tried to fight, but she had gone too far. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed into the mud and ice. Would it be okay if the warlord rested? Would it be okay if she joined her family?
“Zassamurr!” A shrill scream threw Coan back into a run, scampering through the brush, enduring the surging pain. Massamurr’s voice, she realized, he’s calling for his sister. Every few steps she would need to search for a tree for support. So many had been uprooted, falling over atop themselves to build barricades just for her. Carcasses from the Second Sea lay skewered or flattened. Their bones made for the easiest things to climb.
When Massamurr yelled again, it was a screeching howl. Halfway to the noise, Coan fashioned herself a splint from vines and sturdy sticks, something Mysk taught her when they were young. By now, the soldiers on either side noticed the arm wrapping around the sky and reaching for the island. Part of its paleness was polluted as fish crashed into it too, painting it in red splotches. Terrified, the soldiers retreated, rushing towards the House and helping the injured with them. The muskets were silent, and there were no more swords to be heard. Waterfalls poured down from the Second Sea now and flooded the pathway back to the ashfields. The wind mixed with the cold made every breath heavy and taxing. Coan, in a hobbling run, pushed through the storm, carrying her sword. A few times, soldiers came to her, begging to take her back to the House, but she only shoved past them. The ice had climbed up the tree trunks now. Snow and hail were falling from the sky now, barely any more rain. The arm of the monster Coan needed to kill had broken through the cyclone above. And Coan found Massamurr surrounded by enemies, screaming as coddled his missing leg, trying to stop the blood.
A pair of pirates, armed with steel and torches, circled the boy. One was nearly as young as Massamurr. The invader whimpered, staring at the ground, beset by shock. Another was an older man with a gray beard and fiddling with a leather belt. Wrapping it around the gatekeeper’s leg, the pirate tore off his shirt and harvested rags from the cloth. He’s trying to save him, Coan realized as she stood there, aiming her sword at them. Rage bubbled. It was hard to tell this scene from the ones where Mysk and Zassamurr died. The ground shook again, and Massamurr cried. Would he ever survive with his leg gone? The monster in the sky was growing closer. In the corner of her eye, Coan saw the light of the temple. It peered out from behind the toppled trees and dead monsters. They’re trying to save him. Coan could only hear her own heartbeat as she gazed up at the hand reaching for her. My people or my home? Coan gazed into the sword as if it would tell her the answer. Massamurr yelped again, and the old pirate whispered something to him.
“His sister is dead,” Coan muttered, expecting the invaders to understand, begging them to take pity on the boy who followed her to war. What have I done? She could have killed the murderer when he took her brother away. She could have kept fighting. She could have gone out alone instead. I can’t do it. The feeling tore through her. To be a warlord was to choose who lived and who died. It was Coan’s burden to choose whose faces she saw behind the amber and behind the masks. And who was she? Too scared to do either? Pivoting, she pressed her mask against her face and marched towards the temple. Light spilled from the dead tree. The shining beacon showed her the captain’s shadow. But then Coan pivoted again. Mysk may have taught her enough. With shambling steps, she rushed to Massamurr’s side.