by Jaime Castle
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. 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.
XXIX
The Knight
ALL OF TORSTEN’S fears for his kingdom had come to pass, sooner than he could have imagined. So many nations 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. Who knew what allies the Black Sands had 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 couldn’t abandon his quest. It was the only way to make the Queen Regent see reason.
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 being 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 their warm, humid nights—the southern 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—surely 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 battle. 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 swamp 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, all 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 deal of their people, but there were many who remained godless, their only deities being the afhems and the Caleef himself standing as the chief of their living pantheon. Their temples bore no images of gods like Iam or Nesilia, but of fallen warlords.
The afhem walked as if on air, like the whole world beneath him.
A soldier greeted him in Saitjuese. “Afhem Muskigo, we are graced by your presence.”
“Dazsh Mattaki, 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 the leader’s gaze froze him, looking both at his commander and through 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—” the commander 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.
The commander eyed his men in turn, then finally stepped in. Ch
eers rained down on them as he met the Afhem’s stance and they circled each other, not a pair of eyes not 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. The Commander 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 commander’s lips left nothing to question.
Muskigo slid back, nearly floating again. His muscles weren’t even tensed. The commander 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.”
The commander sprang up and charged. Fluid as a painter, Muskigo slapped away every blow. Then he grasped the commander’s forearm and wrenched his arm behind his back.
“Our fathers thought themselves invincible and that was their folly,” he said.
He shoved the commander forward into the line of warriors. They spun him and sent him right back into the fight. The commander 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 the commander’s solar plexus and sent him reeling back.
The afhem pressed, and the crowd parted. He hit the man again, and again until they were both outside the arena. The commander’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 mud 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 on the eternal beaches, 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 frills 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.
He could only imagine what he looked like to her: a giant, mud-covered monster. Torsten held a finger to his lips as she stared at him, wide-eyed. “I’m here to help you, girl.”
“By Iam, You’re a…a…a…”
“A Hand of our Lord, brought here to save you from this place. Were you from Oxgate?” She nodded. “They’ll pay for that. But for now, I need you to do something for me.”
“You’re not going to free us?”
“I am, but King Pi needs you.”
“Surely you mean King Liam?”
She didn’t know. Was it possible none of them knew?
“That is a discussion for another day,” he said. “For now, when I leave, you must gather the others in here. When the time is right, you must all run north.”
“How will I kn—”
“You’ll know. I want you to run, fast as you can. Go to Yarrington and ask to speak with Ran—with Wardric of the King’s Shield.”
Rand was a good kid, but he was young and an impressionable. Torsten knew better than most what even a week trying to appease Queen Oleander could do to a man. But Wardric had served under Liam. He may have been dour, but only because he’d seen so many of the horrors in Pantego under the flag of a true leader.
“Show this at the gates and they’ll let you in.” Torsten removed his necklace. He took one long look at the glass pendant, his Eye of Iam given to him by Liam himself, before handing it over.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Abigail,” she squeaked out.
“I’m trusting you with this,” he said. “The Queen Regent is trusting you. Tell the King’s Shield what you saw here. Spare no detail. Do this, and you will never want for anything again in your life, I swear it by the light of Iam.”
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Abigail,” she squeaked out.
“I’m trusting you with this,” he said. “Your Queen is trusting you. Tell the King’s Shield what you saw here. Spare no detail. Do this, and you will never want for anything again in your life, I swear it by the light of Iam.”
The girl marveled at the necklace as it rested in her shaking palms. She was common born judging by the gauntness of her cheeks. Probably had never seen a piece of jewelry so fine in her life.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I must continue on. But do not fear, Abigail. Iam is with us, even here. He will guide you home. Now, gather the others and prepare to run. Stick to the shadows and let nothing stop you from warning the kingdom.”
She looked terrified. But Torsten knew: fear was a better choice than slavery. He held her gaze until finally she nodded and turned.
He grabbed her arm. “The fate of the very Kingdom is in your hands, Abigail.”
She nodded slowly and headed off. Torsten watched her go until she vanished behind the haunches of a zhulong. Putting his faith in others hadn’t been easy lately, but, yet again, he had no choice. He had to trust she wouldn’t abscond from duty as Whitney had.
There is still decency in this world, he told himself. Iam hasn’t abandoned us yet.
He hurried back to the portion of fence running along the rec-tent. He crouched by the wood and removed his claymore from its back-scabbard. Then he slid the sword through a gap, careful to not make a sound. Although the warriors were still very much affected by their leader’s speech, that didn’t mean they were deaf.
He poked the blade right under the lid of a crate filled with raw meat for the zhulong, then pushed. He took his time, remaining quiet until the crate tipped and the meat spilled out. All at once, a dozen snouts snorted. Torsten could feel the heat of the zhulong’s breath on the back of his neck. He chose to ignore the spray of mucus that accompanied it.
A small company of the Shesaitju heard the crash and stood to find its source. They’d be too late. Torsten raised his sword and brought it crashing down on the makeshift fence, cleaving the entire panel in two. A swift kick sent it folding over.
The gentle zhulong were gentle no more. Tusks clashed, gargantuan bodies slammed, and Torsten had the distraction he needed. He turned and saw Abigail with a group of slaves sprinting across the far edge of the pen. He caught her eye and gestured toward the hill from which he’d come.
He traced his eyes in the name of Iam, and before the group picked up their pace, Abigail returned the holy gesture. His spirits lifted.
Not all bad after all.
Now he just needed to keep the Black Sands distracted long enough for the slaves to put a good distance between them and their captors. If they were caught escaping, their fate would be far worse than shilling shog.
He backed up behind the mess of zhulong, searching for the most bashful. He spotted one—young by the looks of it, its tusks still coming in—waiting at the back instead of joining the fray.
Torsten had never ridden a zhulong, but he’d spent a lifetime on horseback. He approached it from the side so he didn’t make eye contact, grabbed its tusk, and gently tilted its head down until it could see him with one eye. The young beast remained docile and permitted Torsten to climb onto its back. As young as it was, it still proved difficult for Torsten’s armored legs to wrap around its thick sides. Now he understood why the Shesaitju wore leather and cloth instead of metal greaves.
Torsten grasped a handful of its scaly frills with one hand, then gave it a kick. It was like striking steel. The beast tore forward through the mud so fast he nearly toppled off. Sinking down, he used the frills to guide it through the opening in the fence. With his other hand, he brandished his claymore, a sword so large it would require two hands from any normal sized man.
“Abbat mos! Spy!” A Shesaitju shouted over the din of feeding beasts.