by Kirby Crow
Liall refused to answer him, only snarled at the guards to move. They did, gripping Scarlet by his upper arms and half-carrying him for a short distance until he thrashed wildly and cursed them.
“I said all right, damn you, I’ll go! Just put me down.” He didn’t care to be carried through the camp like an ill-mannered child needing to be put to bed. When the guards put him on his feet, he angrily straightened his cloak and clothing and marched on his own back to Liall’s ger, his boots kicking up skirls of snow. He thinks he can go back to ordering me whenever it suits him like I’m his servant or his subject. Well, I’m neither! He’ll learn that or I’ll go back to Byzantur straight away, even if I have to walk all the way back to Sul and swim the ocean.
But in his heart, Scarlet knew he would not leave Liall for so petty a reason. The Tribelander had been trying to harm him, and Scarlet had agreed to be silent and then broken his word. He knew that if he was driven from Liall at all, it would be his own fear pushing him the most. Liall had become harder in the past weeks, assuming his mantle as ruler of a nation and master of a fighting army. He had thought Liall a stern chieftain when it was only a band of Kasiri he was leading, a hard knife for a hard task, brittle if struck too hard. But as a king, Liall had turned to tempered steel. Unbreakable. It terrified Scarlet to think of the future and how their relationship could change if Liall ever came to see him through the eyes of his people, as a peasant beggar clutching the cloak of a greater man.
I was nothing in Byzantur, but so was everyone else. I didn't care and was content with my life, wanting only to let my wilding have its way. Birds and trees can’t tell a man how little he is. Every man is a king in the forest. Now I’m reminded every day that I’m less than a servant here. A servant at least has some purpose and use. I’m an oddity: a rare bauble that the king keeps pinned on his cloak, polished and cared for, yes, but still valued by his people only because I belong to the king. What about when my hold slips and I fall from your cloak, Liall? What, when I break and lose my shine and everyone sees me for how plain and brief I really am?
When they reached the king’s ger, Scarlet bullied the guards and sent them out with a fierce curse. Alone, he jerked the flaps closed and slumped down like Pik had done. The brazier crackled merrily with warmth as he hid his face in his hands.
I want to speak with someone who has a face like mine. I want to speak with my father. I want to go home.
Home was ashes and dust, and the Land of Night turned out not to be a fairytale, but the destiny he had been unknowingly chasing since he was born. He was afraid.
Scarlet wrapped his arms around his body and rocked by the fire, seeking a warmth that would not come. He was so afraid. He stared into the coals and listened to the fear knock around in his brain: afraid afraid afraid...who is the red king? Why am I so scared of those words?
The fire suddenly flared up in a bestial roar under his gaze, sending a shower of sparks across the rugs and a hiss like steam through the ger. Scarlet leapt up and stomped at the falling embers. The fire continued to blaze. He stood still and balled his fists, directing his attention back to the fire.
He shouted without words, forming the sounds silent in his head: Stop it!
As quickly as it rose up, the flames guttered down into coals again. It was again only a smoldering fire in an iron brazier, most of the fuel having burned out to ashes instantly.
Scarlet collapsed on the furs of the pallet, his head throbbing and his eyes grainy and heavy. Nausea rolled through his belly. He felt suddenly weak, as if he had raced leagues without rest or fought a pitched battle. What's happening to me?
Sweet Deva, he prayed. You made the Gift to be a blessing to Hilurin, but it's grown beyond my control. It's a wild animal inside me, like the ice cat I hunted in the Wildewatch. This time, I'm the prey. I can’t predict what it will do, and my will seems to matter less and less to it. It frightens me, Deva. Please... take it away from me. Take it away.
SCARLET DID NOT WAKE when Liall returned to him that night, and by morning, he was feeling unwell. Liall blamed the salted fish rations that the army traveled on and forbade Scarlet to eat any more of it. Scarlet was unwilling to reveal how the little brazier fire had almost gotten away from him. He was afraid that Liall would blame his sickness on his Gift.
On that count, I could not argue, he thought.
Liall was tight-lipped about Pik. “Did you kill him?” Scarlet asked.
“He was a spy, Scarlet. A raider spy. We cannot take prisoners into a war. He had no value, old as he was, and every man tasked with guarding him is one less sword for us. What would your Flower Prince have done with him?”
Liall refused to answer any further questions on the matter, and Scarlet had to relent. In any case, he felt awful, Liall was right, and he wasn’t sure he wanted those answers. Not at all.
Liall consulted with Esiuk in Sinha, then switched to Bizye for Scarlet’s benefit. “See that he drinks boiled water with wine, not milk or stronger drink.”
Esiuk wore a thick woolen cap over his skull, which was close-shaven after the manner of all curae. He bowed deeply. “Yes, sire.”
“If he's better in a few hours, bring che with honey and some bread.”
Esiuk bowed again before he left, and Scarlet wondered how a man of Esiuk's vast knowledge of healing deferred so easily to Liall's judgment. “I didn't know you were a curae,” Scarlet said with dry humor.
“I took care of you on the crossing, didn't I?” Liall knelt by the pallet where Scarlet was sprawled out, the soft furs tangled in his legs. He put his hand on Scarlet's sweating forehead. “And I was tutored in medicine when I was young, as well as many other subjects. Hm, no fever,” he murmured. His fingers played in Scarlet's hair for a moment. “I'm glad, but the lack of fever is a little puzzling. Leave it to you to hold up an army.” He tapped Scarlet's nose gently. “Twice.”
“It's not on purpose. I'd rather be well and riding.”
“You'll be sick and carried instead, I'm afraid. We can delay, but we won't stop. You'll have to put up with riding on a pulk.”
“Trussed like a bag of grain,” Scarlet sighed.
“Your dignity will take a beating, but it's better than trying to sit a-saddle with a bad belly. Trust me, I know. I was sick as a green mariner sailing the Serpent Sea on my first march with the army. By the third day, Jarek was threatening to send me back to the Nauhinir. She thought I was going to die on her.”
“I'm not going to die, I'm just going to wish I was.” Scarlet grimaced as another cramp shook his belly. “I never want to see salt fish again in my life,” he tried to joke, knowing it was not the fish.
Liall chuckled. “I will ban it from the royal plate when we are home again.” He stood up and talked to the curae in low tones, but Scarlet was barely interested. His stomach was heaving like the deck of a ship and the walls of the ger spun a little. He closed his eyes and dozed until they woke him to lead him to the pulk.
Riding in a pulk was like being strapped into a narrow bed and then having the bed thrown down a hill.
Scarlet pulled the furs up over his head as he reclined in a long pulk laid with quilts and dragged by a horse that was smaller than Argent, but larger than his own. Liall said it was a Rshani dray-pony, but it was fully as big as any Morturii warhorse. A man stood at the back of the pulk and guided it and the horse, but it was rough going. More than once, Scarlet thought he was going to be bounced right out of the thing, and his teeth rattled steadily for so long he could swear he still heard them long after they were stopped for the night's rest.
By the time the army was eating their supper, he felt much recovered. He waited in their ger for Liall to send for him or stop by, but only the curae came to make certain he was indeed getting well. He dozed off early and when he woke, Liall was fast asleep beside him.
Scarlet propped himself up on an elbow and watched Liall. How far we've come from where we were, he marveled, careful not to wake him. I'd never have believed my
life would turn out this way. Not in a thousand-thousand years.
He looked at Liall's face for a long time before he slept again, at peace for the first time in many days.
When the camp was awake and moving, Scarlet flatly refused to climb into the pulk and demanded his mount, which was eventually brought. He was certain the groom had gone to the king for permission. His horse was well-behaved during dusken, almost plodding along, carefully navigating the dips and waves in the road, as if sensing his rider was unwell. The horse seemed intent on his task and stubbornly would not be hurried.
Ten hours later, their march done, Scarlet dismounted and patted the animal's mane in gratitude, giving him a small, hard apple to eat.
“Good lad,” Scarlet murmured, scratching the horse’s velvet ear. “You still need a name. I think I have one for you after today. How would you like be called Wise?”
The newly-named Wise whickered and nosed Scarlet's pockets for more apples, but he had none to give. He handed Wise back to the groom and sought the king’s ger, but Liall was not there. He finally appeared several hours later, and Scarlet looked up from the small book he had been painfully making his way through, letter by tortuous letter.
“I almost sent Margun looking for you,” Scarlet said, rubbing an aching spot between his eyebrows. Reading and trying to make out all the strange words made his head hurt. “I thought perhaps you'd fallen asleep somewhere else.”
Liall threw off his cloak and settled close to Scarlet by the fire. “As you should be.” He took the book from Scarlet's hands. “As we both should be. What are you reading here?”
“Something Margun found for me, a story about Ramung in the days when the Ava Thule ruled everything north of Uzna. I thought I could help you find the knowledge you're looking for. I don’t get half of it, though.”
Liall laid the book aside carefully. “Thank you, but perhaps you should not read too much about them while we are on the march. Rshan has had quite a gruesome history, at times. Save such tales for when you’re back safe in the Nauhinir, with a warm fire in the hearth and the door locked.”
Scarlet opened his mouth to ask Liall about those tales, but Liall curled an arm around his neck and pulled him close, sealing his mouth over Scarlet's for a hungry kiss.
“Feeling better?” Liall murmured, his fingers already slipping the laces of Scarlet's virca. “Are you well?”
Scarlet nodded but did not get to say anything more. Liall's mouth was demanding, his hands insistent, and Scarlet moaned against Liall's tongue as Liall pressed his shoulders back to the bed.
Once Scarlet was on his back, Liall turned gentle. His lips brushed Scarlet's ear as he teased Scarlet's body with his hands alone, drawing out pleasure like the notes of a song. Scarlet lay back and watched the winds shake the roof of the ger, drifting on waves of pure delight as Liall removed his clothing piece by piece and added lips and tongue to the melody.
At last, Scarlet shuddered and cried out, his hips thrusting and his nails digging into Liall's shoulders. A few moments later, Liall lifted his head and wiped his mouth, smiling.
“You needed that, I think.” Liall kissed the inside of Scarlet's bare thigh.
Scarlet grinned with his eyes closed. His whole body felt lighter, almost floating, like he’d had one pint too many at Rufa’s. “It's been a while.”
Liall slid up to lie beside him. He tugged until Scarlet's head was on his shoulder and pulled the furs up over the both of them. “Sleep now, t'aishka.”
“What about you?” he murmured.
Liall shook his head, still smiling, and kissed Scarlet's temple. “I’m a bit weary. And saddle-sore.” He laughed and shrugged. “But I wanted to see you in your pleasure once more before we arrive at the Blackmoat. After that, I’m not sure when we’ll be alone again.”
Scarlet was too deliciously tired to argue. He threw a leg over Liall's hip and yawned hugely. “All right. But when we're both in a proper bed with a roof, I'm paying you back twofold.”
“Wanton. I shall try not to resist your advances too much.”
“Want-wit,” Scarlet mumbled.
Liall turned the lamp wick low to a burning eye, and Scarlet cuddled against his lover’s chest as wind batted the walls of the gear and pushed through the tight leather lacings at the corners, sometimes murmuring like a slow stream, sometimes calling like an owl.
Scarlet fell asleep and dreamed of a wheel of fire turning in the sky, black ashes raining down thick as snow.
An hour into the next day's March, when Liall was conferring with Alexyin at the head of the column and Scarlet had dropped behind, yawning in the saddle, he spied his first glimpse of the Blackmoat. The strange, shining road looped over a high hill and fell away beneath, and on the crest of the ridge he saw it: a wide, open valley like a porcelain cup, a circular wall of iron in its center, the snow around it patched with black, and the colossal central tower jutting up from the middle of the ring like a spike. Upon the tower was a great vertical wheel that seemed to move but did not. A scattered motley of a hundred empty wagons and small huts crouched beneath the towers like chicks under a hen’s wing, and the valley itself emitted a low hum that he could feel in his chest.
He brought his mount to a complete halt as he stared in open awe he could not hide. A curtain wall of solid iron! He had never seen so much metal in his life. Just thinking of the effort it must have taken to bring it all here left him speechless. Beneath him, Wise shied and laid his ears flat.
Liall rode back along the column to him.
“Is it real?” Scarlet asked, trying to take it in. There were five towers in all. He jumped, startled, as a measured, mechanical clack echoed up from the valley like distant hammering, a smith’s forge that never ceased. The wheel turned a fraction.
Liall was tense, but not as agog as he was. “It’s very real, but only a machine. A thing.”
“Have you seen this before?”
“Alexyin brought me here when I was a youth. I spent a year inside those iron walls, learning what the Setna could teach me of machines and mathematics. But there’s nothing for you to fear.” Liall said, his voice tender in a way that made Scarlet look at him strangely. “It’s not magic. Don’t be afraid, t’aishka.”
Scarlet frowned. The noise had startled him, but he wasn’t scared. “I’m not frighted,” he said. But Liall was, though he was trying to hide it. What could shake his fierce wolf so? “What’s wrong?”
Liall shook his head. “Nothing.”
He was lying and Scarlet knew it. Let it be, his wisdom argued. Whatever it was that Liall was keeping from him, it ran deep. He sensed this was ground he did not wish to conquer in front of others, or perhaps at all.
Against his better instinct, he let the moment pass and never asked Liall why he stared at the wheel tower with such naked sorrow in his eyes.
Shining Ones
A SMALL company of soldiers attempted to herd a family of urthorn into a column. The urthorns were unsettled by the pungent smell of black oil and the great shadows the towers cast on the landscape. The beasts made their displeasure known with whistling squeals and long, low honks from their trunks.
As Liall watched, a pair of the urthorns stubbornly broke from their ropes and shook their tusks at the soldiers who chased them. Though shorter at the shoulder than the smallest Rshani horse, the urthorns were thrice as strong and thrived in the cold, nearly impervious to extreme weather.
A man with a few urthorns serving as pack animals could travel all the way to Ged Fanorl, he thought, but then the sullen half of him began its muttering once more, pouring doubt into his brain: Yes, and then what? What if Ulan lied? He's as capable of treachery as Melev. What one Ancient is capable of, they all are. They see us as their children, but I very much fear that they see Scarlet as either a godling or a slave, or perhaps both. I do not trust them when it comes to him.
The wheel-tower advanced minutely, sending another loud clack throughout the valley like the snapping of a tre
e. The great wheel of Blackmoat moved so slowly that Liall would have to fix his eye on the patterns of jagged rock in the distance and gauge it against the position of the wheel, then wait for many minutes to pass before any measurable advance could be discerned. It moved perhaps a foot an hour, but it moved. The snapping sounds at regular intervals were the great gears inside the mechanism locking into place as it turned. The movement of the wheel signaled the harvesting of the thick black oil under the ice, far below the main tower. From the abundance of the oil came the fabled blue lamps of Rshan, and the means for his people to survive. Oil provided not only heat and warmth, but light as well, which was essential for the massive greenhouses in Kalas Nauhin.
Scarlet called all Rshani machines a northern magic. Liall believed he was at least half right: knowledge is a kind of magic to those who don't possess it. Rshani merchants and mariners sold many kinds of useful but harmless machines throughout Nemerl. No one in Morturii had ever seen a clock before Liall’s people had begun trading with them.
It's not a clock I need now, but men I can trust. And swords. Mustn't forget the swords. I can rely on Margun and his keriss solda: those young men who are so proud to wear the flame-flower on their breasts. I'll need them. But what of Jochi? If I do what I must, Scarlet will never forgive me.
As the thousands of the king’s army passed between the iron gates of the Blackmoat, Liall looked back at the long, long column of men, horses, wagons, drays, and pulks stretching for nearly a league on the Temple Road. It was an odd sight, so many gathered in such a formation, like a heaving serpent inching its way, beastlike, to the frozen heart of Rshan.
Pik had named them a serpent. He would call no longer call them that, or anything. After Scarlet was gone, Liall had ordered the man questioned.
“The hard or the soft question, my lord?” Theor had asked.