Web of Eyes

by Rhett C. Bruno

Whitney ran straight at him. If he’d learned anything from avoiding battles over the years, a fighter approached from the sides knew what to do instinctively, but straight on forced them to think. The man swung, and Whitney hit the floor. Another thing about the rich: they always have their wooden floors polished and sanded, so he was able to slide right under the attack.

  As he twisted back, the guard was able to stick out a hand and get two fingers on Whitney’s leg. He stumbled into the front door, which burst open, then tripped down the marble stairs outside.

  “Get back here!” the one-eyed guard yelled.

  He leaped as Whitney hit the ground, but just before he could bring his sword down, a pair of hooves sent him flying into the wall of the mansion.

  “I guess they caught the horse!” Sora yelled.

  She stuck her leg down from the top of the mount and helped Whitney up onto the saddle. He felt a blast of warm air from the blazing fire that now enveloped an entire side of the mansion.

  “I said to warn me, not play Black Sandsman!” Whitney said.

  “Improvise!” she replied.

  He smirked. “Not bad for a knife-ear.”

  A few more guards hurried down the stairs, but she swung the horse around fast. Its hindquarters sent them all bowling over one another. Constable Darkings appeared in the doorway. When he saw them on a horse, his eyes went wide.

  “I’ll find you and kill you!” he shouted.

  “Consider yourself honored, Constable!” Whitney shouted. “You’ve been robbed by Whitney Fierstown, the greatest thief alive.” He was in the midst of performing an exaggerated bow of his head when Sora urged the horse to take off. The whole yard was in flames now, building a barrier around the property.

  “What now?” Whitney asked.

  “Hold on!” Sora shouted.

  The horse jerked into a gallop, barreling toward the inferno.

  “Sora, you’re not thinking—”

  “Just hold on!”

  She reached down and sliced her thumb on the base of her dagger, then raised it toward the flames. Whitney closed his eyes and let out a primal scream as she muttered under her breath. The heat was so intense he couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t burn. He snuck a peek and saw flames bending all around them, a tunnel of safety within a sea of fiery death.

  The horse hurdled the constable’s wall and the heat dissipated. Whitney looked back, eyes tearing from the smoke. The constable’s mansion was now a glowing, orange beacon soaring over Bridleton. All Whitney wanted were clothes, but it was tough for him to feel bad. Whatever Darkings had done to get so rich in so small a town, not a bit of it was good.

  He whooped in excitement, then turned back to find Sora regarding the burning mansion with a thousand-meter-stare.

  “You didn’t mean for the fire to get that big, did you?” he asked.

  He could see in her eyes that she considered denying it before settling on shaking her head.

  “Don’t worry, he got what was coming,” Whitney said. “Daughters don’t betray kind fathers.”

  Sora nodded, inhaled the crisp autumn air and then a few quiet seconds later released a laugh unlike any Whitney had ever heard from her as their mount tore across the plains. Half terrified, half thrilled, all the signs of a successful heist.

  “We make a half-decent team, don’t we?” she said.

  “Sloppy, but decent,” he said, smirking.

  “You said you liked improvisation.”

  “Sure,” he said, “but let’s keep the fire to a low roar next time.”

  “It’s hard to keep focus with you getting caught all the time!”

  “I assure you, every time I get spotted it’s completely intentional.”

  Sora sighed. “I can’t wait to see you looking all prim and proper in Darkings' clothing.”

  “Anything will be better than wearing this dress. He really does have great taste, but I’d have to eat this whole yigging horse for them to fit properly. Oh, well, it’ll all go to ruin in the Webbed Woods anyhow.”

  Sora eyes glinted like gold beneath the light of the moons. “So, you’ve decided to go?” she asked.

  “I don’t think I have much of a choice after that performance.”

  “The great Whitney Fierstown, letting a woman boss him around?”

  “Hey! I’m not like those guys. I love women—I mean… I don’t have a problem with—I uh.”

  Sora gave him a playful nudge with her elbow. “Whatever, tough guy. That was some scream back there.”

  “War cry,” Whitney corrected, leaning forward. He pointed to the smaller of Pantego’s two moons. “And, if you’re intent on sitting up front, you might want to head that way. The Webbed Woods are south.”

  For a woman who’d barely left Troborough, heading in the right direction was likely something she’d never had to worry about.

  She grumbled something under her breath, then gave the horse a hard kick in the side. It turned so sharply Whitney was almost thrown off. His arm brushed against the amulet folded in with the stolen clothes as he clutched the saddle.

  For a moment, while Sora giggled, he found himself wondering how it would look on her, then shook the thought away.

  Only a fool would head to the Webbed Woods on purpose, but with Sora at his side, two fools would be more than enough. The glow of the burning mansion slowly faded, and he realized that not once during the heist had he found himself bored or just going through the motions. Even though it was only clothing and jewelry he’d stolen, doing it with Sora was more exciting than robbing the Glass Crown. Of course, he’d never tell her that.

  He’d get that doll, march it right up to the Queen herself, and demand his new name from her. Anyone had to be more reasonable than Torsten. Then he’d see where his new partnership with Sora led, and for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t wait to find out.

  XXV

  THE KNIGHT

  All of Torsten’s fears for his kingdom had come to pass, sooner than he could have imagined. So many nations had been conquered under Liam’s rule; they feared and respected him so immensely that even as his mind decayed, nobody dared make a move against the Glass Crown. Torsten hoped those loyalties would linger longer after his death, but it wasn’t to be.

  The Glass sat on the precipice of war as thousands prepared to march on the heart of the kingdom, and Torsten was as guilty of it as any. Who knew which allies the Black Sands had already scrounged up—how many scorned and broken kingdoms. They’d been shown the light of Iam through Torsten’s beloved King Liam, but if Torsten had learned anything in his years, it was how easily people reject blessing. How easily they sin.

  I must warn Oleander, he thought, then realized how foolish that was. He’d been exiled. Cast out of the kingdom, stripped of his rank despite the armor he clung to. He’d sent so many men through the Fellwater on a perilous mission into the Webbed Woods. He couldn’t say if any of them had stumbled upon this army hiding in the fog or when it started gathering, but if any did, fear of upsetting their queen likely urged them onward instead of back with the news. Like them, Torsten couldn’t abandon his quest. It was the only way to make the grief-stricken Queen Regent see reason enough to put an end to this.

  He glanced up at the murky sky. Judging by the faint glow of the moons lost behind the veil of fog, he had a few hours until morning. A few hours of smothering darkness. He couldn’t do much to sow unrest in the camp without fire—he remembered the annoyance of the Shesaitju reliance on nigh’jels from their wars—but he could send a message.

  He scanned the camp for the slaves and found dozens, mostly dedicated to lugging supplies. Surrounded by so many soldiers, they’d be difficult to target. Others dumped buckets of Shesaitju piss and shog into the swampy waters, but Torsten had his attention on those dealing with a different kind of shog.

  The zhulong may have looked part wingless dragon, but they acted more like their hog half. They ate constantly and rolled in mud that, if not properly kept, wound up be
ing mostly their own excrement. It took more than a few hands to keep one of their pens in order. Torsten grew up in a wretched place, but he didn’t truly know what an assault on the nostrils felt like until he raided his first Shesaitju zhulong stable under Liam.

  He hurried down the slope toward the camp. Staying low wasn’t easy for a man his size. However, with his dark skin and his bright white armor now covered in mud, he had the night as an ally. He hugged the edge of the delta in case any part of his armor wasn’t covered, hoping it might seem like a ripple in the fetid waters.

  The Shesaitju were used to the warm, humid nights of the southern, black, sandy beaches bordering the Boiling Waters. The cold of early winter nipped, and the nigh’jels provided only a nominal bit of warmth, not like fire… not that one would even stay lit in such a damp place. The nearest pen wasn’t far, but it was on the other side of a large, covered area; the rec-tent judging by the hubbub coming from it. Even the war-hungry Shesaitju needed a place to blow off steam.

  Off-duty soldiers drank and caroused throughout, playing games of chance—evidently trying to distract from the harsh cold. The tent, open on all sides, was edged by countless barrels of food and drink, and in its center: a Shesaitju tradition—a roped off arena where soldiers could show off their prowess in Black Fist, a hand-to-hand martial style unique to the Black Sands and without rival in Pantego.

  Presently, a large, raucous crowd cheered on two warriors in the arena. They traded blows and grapples, the dance of battle. Torsten preferred the feel of cold steel in his hands when it came to combat. It was said no man could best a Black Fist Master in one-on-one combat, but Torsten had proven that untrue many times over at the end of his claymore.

  He ducked behind a stack of barrels and slowly shuffled around them in the direction of the pen. He could no longer see the makeshift arena, but bodies hitting the dirt and myriad expressions of both pain and excitement told him nothing had changed. When the fight ended, there was such revelry it was as if they’d just sacked Yarrington.

  Celebration before victory. Typical.

  In Liam’s camps, all that was celebrated before battle was Iam. They’d beg his forgiveness for the bloodshed to come in His holy name, and because of it, they never lost. Ale and games were reserved for the victorious.

  Torsten reached the end of the supply stacks where there was an open gap between him and the pen’s fence. At least a ten-meter strip of swampland without anything for cover and fully illuminated by the nigh’jel lanterns hanging along the rim of the tent.

  The soldiers were distracted, but not that distracted. Torsten found himself wishing he still had a thief with him, someone soft on his feet and used to skulking through shadows. To make things worse, his armor had already begun squeaking a bit from drying mud. He quickly shook his head.

  Only Iam is with me now.

  He waited for an opening. So long in fact, that his boots began to sink into the muck. Every time new combatants sparred in the arena there was a ton of movement, only the tables never emptied. More soldiers cycled in and out, from an army that he now realized was even bigger than he’d first thought. More than ten thousand men, easy.

  Torsten considered making a break for it when suddenly, everyone beneath the tent went silent. He peeked over the top of a barrel to see a man arriving, flanked by masked warriors in gilded armor. He himself was wrapped head to toe in flowing silk, gold chains dangling from his neck and elaborate white tattoos covering his ashen, gray, bald head.

  He was young and, Torsten had to admit, handsome, with a sharp jawline that ended in a braided beard adorned with gold jewelry. His eyes were black as pitch. His cheekbones rose high and, along with his forehead, were covered with gold flakes that shimmered against his ashen skin. Shesaitju royalty, and judging by the jewel-encrusted hilt of the scimitar hanging from his belt, an afhem warlord.

  The tent’s occupants bowed low in reverence as if the man were a god. To the heathen Shesaitju, he may as well have been. Liam’s conquest converted a great many of their people, but there were those who still worshipped the afhems and the Caleef himself standing as the chief of their living pantheon—the God of Sand and Sea. Their temples bore fewer images of gods like Iam or Nesilia than fallen warlords.

  The afhem walked as if on air, like the whole world beneath him.

  A soldier greeted him in Saitjuese, then said in common, “Afhem Muskigo, we are graced by your presence.”

  “Farhan Uki’a, commander,” Muskigo replied. His voice was soft and calculating. He pronounced every syllable in both languages as if he’d be cursed if he messed up. “I have come to see if my afhemate is prepared.”

  “We are prepared. In the name of my ancestors I swear, we will stain the Glass red.”

  Torsten prepared to move while everyone was focused on the afhem, but Muskigo’s gaze froze him. He looked both at his commander and around him all at once, face aimed toward the path Torsten needed to take. Muskigo reached out and grasped his commander’s chin, turning his head as if grading livestock.

  “Show me,” he said.

  He raised his arms, and his guards removed his silk wrappings first, then his shirt. His body was laced with muscle like he was carved from stone. More white tattoos covered every inch of him, many of them bearing the same gold flecks as the ones on his head. His breath billowed in the cold, but it didn’t seem to affect him.

  He stepped into the arena, parting men like a curtain at one of the Queen’s plays, but this was no acting troupe.

  “My Lord, I c-can’t—” Farhan stammered.

  “Am I not your afhem?” Muskigo said. “You will do as I command.”

  He stretched his arms high and fell into a Black Fist grappling stance, left arm fully extended, hand as flat as a dagger’s blade. He looked like a bird of prey and Torsten knew, just as deadly.

  Farhan, the commander, eyed his men in turn, then finally stepped in. Cheers rained down on them as he met the Afhem’s stance and they circled each other, every pair of eyes in the tent fixed on them.

  Curious as he was, Torsten used the opening to creep along the outside of the tent to the next batch of supplies piled up beside the zhulong pen. When he made it, he glanced back over, and again found himself captivated. He had a perfect view of the fight now.

  Muskigo waited until the commander made the first move and slid gracefully out of the way. As his right leg swept behind him, dust clouded up at his feet and fell just as quickly. Farhan swiped and grappled, but Muskigo was a blur. His hands both thrust forward so gracefully, Torsten wondered how they could have done any real damage, but the cry of pain that escaped the Farhan’s lips left nothing to question.

  Muskigo slid back, nearly floating again. His muscles weren’t even tensed. Farhan rose and brought his leg around in a spinning kick.

  “The moment we underestimate our enemies…” Muskigo said, ducking and sweeping the commander’s grounded foot “…is the moment we fall again.”

  Farhan sprang up and charged. Fluid as a master painter, Muskigo slapped away every blow. Then he grasped the Farhan’s forearm and wrenched his arm behind his back.

  “Our fathers thought themselves invincible, and that was their folly,” he said.

  He shoved Farhan forward into the line of warriors. They spun him and sent him right back into the fight. Farhan was tired now, panting. He leaped forward with what little energy remained, swung at Muskigo’s head, and caught only air. Muskigo fist pistoned into Farhan’s solar plexus and sent him reeling back.

  The afhem pressed, and the crowd parted. Muskigo hit the man again, and again until they were both outside the arena. Farhan’s feet found mud, and he slipped, spinning in time to get his hands out beneath him. He rose to all fours like a dog and sloshed through the slurry into the feet of his men, and stayed there, hoping for protection.

  Muskigo shook the grime off his hands, then gestured to his guards to clothe him. He wasn’t even breathing heavy.

  “The Glass is fading,�
� he said, “but we must fight every battle as if it is our last. If we do not, we will join our fathers beneath the sand. So, you will all sleep here, in the freezing cold, until your bones are near shattering. Because, until one of you can best me in combat, we will attack nothing. We will starve if we must because mediocrity will not do.”

  The crowd stared in silence and Torsten couldn’t help but join them. The Black Sandsmen he’d battled were arrogant and eager to charge full-tilt into Liam’s wall of shields. They believed that in death they’d join their fallen ancestors in the depths of the Boiling Waters, and they acted like it. This man was different. As he strolled out of the tent, Torsten felt a very human chill run up his spine.

  At least that means there’s time, he decided.

  This young, impressive afhem was an enemy for a different day. He turned and peered into the crate behind him. The smell wafting out was rank. Raw meat for the beasts. That would come in handy later. He climbed over the fence and into the pen where the smell was even worse. Even on four legs, the zhulong’s backs were as high as Torsten’s chest. The mane along their reptilian necks ran down into a body sheathed in rust-colored scales. Hoglike-snouts, complete with tusks that could gore a man straight through, snorted and dripped. But despite their appearance, they were mild creatures, happy to lounge and roll in the mud—so long as the temptation of fresh meat was far from them.

  Torsten snaked his way through the bulky beasts, not daring look down, for even in the darkness he knew what he was slogging through. He pushed forward until he spotted a human slave kneeling amongst a cluster of zhulong, scooping shog into a bucket. She was young, too young for such work, her dress tattered, stained and wet. She lifted the bucket and went to walk toward the water when Torsten lay his massive hand on her shoulder. She shrieked as she whipped around, dropping the bucket onto one of the zhulong’s massive paws, causing a few others to respond as if threatened.

  Torsten could only imagine what he looked like to her: a giant, mud-covered monster. He held a finger to his lips as she stared at him, wide-eyed. “I’m here to help you, girl,” he whispered.