Ishe rolled the sleeves nearly to her elbows, as far as the leather would tolerate. Drosa didn’t protest further beyond a disappointed look. They walked for a while hand in hand, until Drosa leaned close. “Ratman have taint too. Eyah says it different, not trying to spread. It weird.”
Ishe nodded; the one-eyed ratman who had been walking at the front of the group, with Orchid, briefly glanced back at them. Yaki seemed to trust him, but could you really trust a man the gods had turned into a rodent? A light snicker in the back of her head seemed to be the answer.
They borrowed a knife from one of the more human-looking former Enshadowed; he had pointed ears and large amber eyes, his hair spotted like jaguar’s. The knife made short work of Ishe’s sleeves and revealed gray, mottled skin above Ishe’s elbows. Drosa tsked at it.
The gray had retreated back into her bones as they grew closer to the Grove.
The character of forest gradually shifted, the needles seemed to curl on themselves, the wind shook the trees, reminding Ishe of herself as a child trying to hold back a temper tantrum. You could feel the anger in them in a passing touch like a sting. The source of the kami’s rage became apparent, a stone road slicing through the forest. The gray cobbles seemed to shine, as if smiling in the face of the forest’s anger. The Seven had declared that all stone roads would be undone, but within the borders of Golden Hills, the absent Sun Emperor’s declarations still held sway. Ishe hadn’t realized that not all the kami in Golden Hills were happy about the rules they existed under.
Orchid gestured for everyone to wait at the forest’s border. “Stick to the trees. That road is a loud one.” They retreated so they would not be easily spotted, its gray face visible between the trees. Yaki thought about where they could be; most of the hills had been converted to crop terraces, but this was far outside the city, nearly at the mouth of the northern valley of the High Tree Tribe.
Another mile and the forest simply stopped at a wall of stone. It had appeared so suddenly that Orchid had nearly run into it. It stood higher than the trees, decorated with teeth like spikes. Although they grew no more than two feet from the black stone, the trees bent away from the wall as if it would burn them.
“Where in the nine hells did that come from?” Ishe strode forward, fingers stretched out toward the black brick.
Orchid slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch!”
Drosa instantly appeared at her side, hair and eyes blazing bright enough that Orchid’s flowers appeared to wilt beneath. “Do not strike your captain!”
Ishe held up a hand to ward Drosa off. “It’s all right,” she said, although she found her own fists balled up and forced herself to relax.
Orchid bowed her head. “Forgive me. We need to be invited in. Touch that wall and everyone inside will know of it.”
The woman’s slap had stung like a nettle, and Ishe resisted the urge to shake it out. “And how are we getting in, then?
“I know someone inside. Let me call to him.” Orchid began to pluck the flower petals that covered her chin until the pink petals gave way to a green smile.
The group followed her around to a disused-looking door. Carved of the same black stone as the wall, it had a closed slit at eye level. No path led up to it, and the leaf litter had hidden any sign of recent use.
“Emergency exit,” Orchid said as she pulled off her black cloak. Ishe wasn’t the only one to gasp at Orchid’s body. Thin tendrils of green crisscrossed her skin, rooted in nodules of red, angry flesh. Where the tendrils knotted together, a cluster of green buds grew. “Give me a moment, Captain.” She nodded at Yaki as she stepped into the sunlight that streamed through a gap between the foliage and the wall.
Exhaling, Orchid closed her eyes and bent over. A shiver passed up from her toes and through her body. After it passed, she stilled. Her body simply stopped, no breathe, her tan skin paling as vines drew color in, becoming vibrant green. The tendrils of her hair reached up toward the sun, uncurling their ends into broad leaves. A moan filled the air, a heady mix of pleasure and pain as the buds swelled.
Everyone stayed absolutely silent, and Ishe felt eyes on her back. Turning slightly, she saw one amber eye peeking out from behind a tree, a coyote. Ishe quickly turned her back on him, focusing her gaze on the buds that studded Orchid’s back. One by one, they began to blossom into flowers that swirled with pinks and lily greens. A heady scent, floral and delicate, filled the air.
Ishe found herself breathing hard, arm slipping around Drosa’s unresisting waist and pulling her close. The scent summoned memories of waking to the morning light among a tangle of limbs. Ishe knew this to be the influence of Orchid and squeezed Drosa tight to her, if only to avoid doing much more with her hands. The scent didn’t push, but its invitation beckoned, whispering delights.
The buzz of insects broke the spell. A small swarm of maybe fifty black-and-yellow bees descended from above, onto Orchid’s flowers. Orchid whimpered as they landed among the blossoms.
Drosa seemed to melt in Ishe’s arms, both of them breathing in shallow pants, heat dancing between them. Ishe hands had drifted upward, squeezing Drosa’s small breasts, while one of Drosa’s hands found its way down Ishe’s pants.
“Later,” Ishe breathed, sliding her hands back down to Drosa’s waist.
“Not too later. You tease.” Drosa pulled her own hand back.
Several of the others had been similarly affected; notably, Yaki and Gama were disentangling themselves, Yaki fixing him with a glare that told him not to get any additional ideas. Ishe had to chuckle at that, and a barbed comment nearly escaped her tongue, but a grating sound came from the fortress. Ishe whirled toward it. The slit in the door had opened.
“My love?” a deep voice asked. Nobody said anything; one of the bees broke off from swarming among the flowers and wobbled drunkenly back toward the door.
“Xiy, what are you doing?” a quieter voice hissed as the bee made it through the slot.
“It’s her! It’s Kiala! Open the door!” The first voice grew urgent.
“OW! Careful! Hey, those are mine! You’re gonna get me in trouble, Xiy!”
Heedless, the door swung outward as Orchid took a long gasp of air, her body shuddering back to life.
A man in light blue livery rushed out of the door toward Orchid. She warded him off with a hand as the flowers rapidly withered. The bees retreated, buzzing back to the man and landing among his curly hair.
“More beautiful than ever, my love.” Xiy’s voice brimmed with breathless admiration as Orchid slowly got to her feet; her skin was not regaining its color and her movements were languid. Still, she and Xiy embraced with a passionate hunger; their lips seeking each other’s out and consuming each other’s tongue.
A smaller man in a red uniform watched anxiously from the doorway. His eyes were growing wider as he took in the crowd around his doorway. “Xiy? Who are her friends?”
Orchid and her beloved parted to twin smiles. “Xiy, can we come in?” she asked.
“Uh. Come in?” he answered in that same breathless tone, slowly blinking.
“Xiy!” The man moved to shut the door, but Glub, the tentacle man, shot forward from around a tree and swiftly entangled the man.
The man struggled until Grim stepped from the shadows, skin-wrapped skull bearing a ghoulish grin as he brandished twin hatchets. “Would you prefer that I silence you instead?” Something in Grim’s empty eye sockets danced.
The man stopped struggling and hung limp. Eye wide with fear.
“Good, then you will stay silent. Glub?” Grim asked, and the tentacles removed themselves from the guard, plucking the small crossbow from his belt as they did so. He backed himself against the wall and hugged his knees.
Orchid stepped forward, hand in hand with Xiy. “Captain Yaki and her sister Ishe, this is Xiy, my more-than-friend.”
“If we must have ranks, then I am Commander Ishe.” That would place her over the lieutenant there.
Yaki gave a nonchalan
t shrug, then nodded back at Orchid.
Xiy bowed low, and as he did, she could see lumps on his back. “Thank you. This is a peculiar way to become Enshadowed but not surprising. My little friends are getting very hard to hide. Even here. I had expected priests.”
Silence reigned for a moment, and Ishe realized she had been waiting for Yaki to speak. Realizing that wasn’t about to happen, Ishe said, “We’re not here for that. We are Yaki and Ishe of Madria and we need your help. We have wounded people in need of medical crystals.”
Xiy’s jaw fell open, and several bees looked out at her over his teeth. “Madria?” His voice sounded like a high-pitched chorus. He turned to Orchid, his eyes searching her face.
“It is a long story. But I can’t live underground, Xiy, or even in the dark. I’m starving for sun. I don’t know how to sail, but I’m going to learn. Please, Xiy, help us and then come with us?” Her gaze drifted back toward Ishe, pleading.
Both sisters nodded.
He swallowed. “I—I don’t know; I work in the gardens. The medical crystals are in the southern grotto. Security’s up after someone destroyed an entire crop of power crystals last winter. If you want a crop crystal, I could simply grab one of those.” His smile waned.
“How many guards?” Ishe asked, looking over his shoulder toward the still-open door. “In fact, tell me everything you know about the security in there.”
Xiy did. He seemed to have very little love for the guards, who were of a different minor house than his. But there were far more of them in there.
She had ten fighters with her versus a garrison of at least thirty. Not an overwhelming number; the Yokoyama were not suspecting an open raid, but rather, the security was there to prevent sabotage. More worrying were Xiy’s description of House Yokoyama’s elite guards, a squad of troops who carried crystal-enhanced weapons in the style of Golden Hills’ Yozi hunting priests.
Mother had won against far stiffer odds. In and out. And then what? How many more wounded would that generate? Would any of them die? Not to mention without numerical advantages, they’d have to kill those who opposed them, which would not endear them to the Steward if they had to go to him later.
Not a task for a Rhino. Today, she Ishe needed to be a Coyote.
“Xiy, you’re about my size; give me your clothes. Yaki, take the guard’s.”
Yaki smiled. “Yes.”
Xiy hurried behind a tree to comply, relief on his face and buzzing to himself. As Ishe donned the garment over her clothing, she found there were spots of it that were sticky, and she couldn’t stop herself from shuddering at that. The uniforms had no hoods, and Ishe felt oddly exposed when she put it on.
“Most guards don’t bother learning faces, but everyone in my family knows everyone. We all tend the gardens. Try to hurry through into the main courtyard quickly,” Xiy cautioned as Ishe made adjustments. Ishe tried not to stare at the thumb-sized holes that studded his torso, some leaking what looked to be honey.
Behind him, unnoticed by everyone, stood Coyote, leaning causally against a tree. He wore his animal form now but held himself as a man, limbs bending in ways at odds with the designs of his joints. “Tell him not to worry. Tell him your name that you whispered to the winds,” he mouthed with lips not made for speaking, yet Ishe understood him perfectly.
For a brief moment, she felt as she had in the storm. The cloying sweetness of Xiy’s honey-drenched garment filled her nose; the wind whispered of the forest’s anger at the stone that denied their questing roots. Ishe spun away from her declared father and the sensation vanished. “I can do this myself.”
Yaki stared up at her with one eye, now wearing the guard’s red livery, his small, curved sword at her waist. Panic fluttered through Ishe’s chest. Yaki had always been good at seeing the unseen. Had she sensed Coyote?
“Uh, ready?” Ishe asked.
Yaki nodded, glanced at the little man in his underwear who huddled in Grim’s shadow, and shifted her posture to a somewhat-slouched position. With a slight jerk of her head, she indicated that Ishe should go through the door first. Ishe walked toward the door, trying to remember how Xiy had held his body. He slumped too, but differently; he walked as if he had been worn away, while Yaki somehow radiated immense boredom.
Beyond the door stretched a short passage and another door; light glowed around its seams, so bright that Ishe imagined that the light might shatter it at any moment. A few tools were propped against the wall. Set in each side of the passage was a small pattern of cubical earth crystals, each about the size of Ishe’s thumbnail.
Yaki immediately went to work, pulling her shortened rapier from somewhere and using the blade to pop the crystals out. The Death Panther’s mark shone oddly in the dimness, through a hole cut in the livery. Ishe wondered if her sister’s patron and Coyote crowded into the tiny room with them. Chuckling at the thought, Ishe looked up and saw that the ceiling of the passage had a middle section that appeared to be one massive stone tile. Probably not a tile at all. The walls the crystals were set in were also single blocks of stone. Had the earth crystals been set off, they’d have dissolved the supports and the stone would have crashed down into the passage, sealing it. Good to disable that.
Ishe checked on the hand cannon she’d stuck beneath her own robe and went to the door as Yaki finished up. The door had not been fitted correctly, and Ishe peered through the crack and into the courtyard beyond. A lush test garden stretched out in front of her. The light of the noon sun competed with a sun crystal the size of Yaki’s head that blazed on a central pillar, casting light down onto four different square gardens. Each crop stood in its own huge terra-cotta planter. Green grain, corn as tall as Hawk, and rice that seemed to be attempting to escape, to mention a few. Over each garden stood one of the reasons that Golden Hills fed itself and significant portions of its neighbors, both city dwellers and tribal people, crop crystals. They were emerald in color and highly branched, like roots or treetops. One crystal would be said to triple the yield of all the fields in a mile radius. And they had four in an area a tenth of that size. Little wonder that Orchid and Xiy had become crystal-touched, if they worked in this garden.
Among the pots and plants Ishe counted nearly two dozen people working, mostly in pale blue. Each garden had a red guard sitting in an elevated chair. Most toiled in the garden in the northeast corner, where a full-scale harvest seemed to be taking place; in the other patches two or three people carried watering buckets. At the opposite end of the garden stood a large stone torii, painted red. Beyond that would be the grove’s central yard. Xiy said everyone in the garden knew each other, but in the central yard, people came and went often enough that she and Yaki would safe in the crowd. If they could slip around the other way. Maybe.
Stepping back, Ishe she found Yaki peering through the hinge side crack. “Sooo,” Ishe began. “Play it like I’ve gotten in trouble and you’re taking me to see the supervisor?”
Yaki nodded curtly as she sucked her cheek in, concentrating. “Bee Lude.”
“I can be surly for the both of us.”
“Mrmmarch!” Yaki pointed at the door.
Ishe swung it open and strode out into the sunlight.
Chapter Five
Becoming a crystal-touched used to be an incredibly rare affliction, the mark of a brave or foolish soul who ventured into a crystal forest. Nowadays, any wound inflicted by a crystal’s sharp facets can cause the disease. And if you if you happen to work in a crystal grove, it’s only a matter of time.
Hon Nishamura, chief historian of the Steward’s archives
Ishe paused for a breath, waiting for a shout of alarm. It didn’t come; all the blues remained focused on their tasks, while the red guards did not stir from their inattentive slumps on their perches. Smack! Ishe started as something hit the back of her calf. Yaki returned her angry glare by waggling her sheathed sword. Perfectly in character, she gestured for Ishe to get moving.
With a reluctant amble, Ishe began t
o walk in the opposite direction of the bustling garden. In this corner, the guard openly snored as the blues continued watering the plants. Nobody bothered to even look in their direction as Ishe followed the courtyard wall. They were rounding the corner when a rustle drew Ishe’s attention. A sleek Coyote stepped from a pot of tall grass and padded beneath the guard’s chair. A vicious grin grew on his muzzle as he lifted his hind leg, making as if he were about to kick one of the legs of the chair.
Ishe shook her head in the negative.
Coyote nodded back with enthusiastic vigor. He kicked. The support snapped; the guard, already leaning in that direction, woke up midway to the ground with a shriek as Coyote disappeared into a patch of over sized pumpkins.
“Nine hells!” someone exclaimed as Ishe hurried farther down the path.
…only to have Yaki grab her belt and jerk her back so hard that her feet nearly left the ground. “Sssslow,” Yaki said in a voice like the offspring of a snake and a gravel pit.
Since when is she so strong? Is that the Death Panther? Or did Yaz’noth’s heart do that? Ishe pushed her questions from her mind. There would be time later. Either outside or in the local dungeon.
“Pro-test!” Yaki hissed, and smacked her with the sheathed blade.
“Ugh, I didn’t do anything!” Ishe made herself whine.
Behind them, the guard had been helped up to his feet and was hurling curses as he rubbed his bald head.
“Move!” Yaki hissed again.
“Told ya it wasn’t my fault. I’m way over here,” Ishe said loudly, but that guard never looked her way. However, the next one was. He watched them both, shading his eyes from the sun stone’s light with a hand.
“Hey, who are you?” The guard leapt down from his chair and began to approach. “I don’t recognize you.”
Ishe glanced past the man and at the exit. Two more guards flanked the gate, making cold-cocking this one unwise. “I’m new!” Ishe stuck out her chin stubbornly.
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