by Auryn Hadley
The iliri tried on outfit after outfit, each being presented to Zep for his approval. Each time, they either approved or discarded the choice based on not only its appearance but also its functionality in combat. Sal tried on the next and decided against it right away.
This will not be appropriate in Anglia! She warned Zep as the clerk gestured for her to show her "master."
"Yes, we'll take that one, too," he said, smiling at her.
Zep! she chided.
Not for the trip. That's for Cyno. Damn, man, you've got to see this thing. It's sparkly, and....
And? Cyno asked.
There's nothing to it, Sal finished.
Owe ya one, big brother, Cyno said.
The girl directed Sal to change again. When they had a suitable selection of court clothing – as well as the scandalous dress Zep purchased for Sal – he led them from the store. The iliri carried the packages and Zep walked ahead, knowing they would follow. Once outside, he held the act for almost half a block before pausing.
"Ok, hand me some of that shit," he said, grabbing items from their hands.
"You make a pretty convincing master," Sal teased.
"Yeah, I just try to act like my father. Ok. What's next?"
"Packing supplies are coming from the 112th, chemicals from Ran, we have armor and weapons." Sal thought out loud.
Cyno jerked his head back to the poorer district. "Rations, because I am na takin' what the military offers. We'd be near dead in a month."
"Ok," Zep said, thinking. "Food we get from Guttertown. Think Tensa can make up something?"
"Prolly," Cyno agreed. "Or she would know who could."
"Cold weather supplies," Sal remembered.
"Ok, I can do that easy enough." Zep led them onto the next place.
On and on it went until they had more supplies than the three of them could carry. Zep nodded at a group of people clustered on the corner and walked toward them. As they neared, Sal saw a sign that read "Delivery Services." Men and woman stood around it, each in an obvious uniform, a pad of paper in hand. Zep looked along the row and yelled out to a small pale boy, his nearly orange hair setting him apart from the others.
"You!" The boy ran over expectantly and Zep gestured at the items they carried. "All of this needs to go to the Prin military compound. Can you handle it?"
"Yes, sir," he said, standing up straighter. "I can have it there faster than the others, and I assure you - "
Zep cut him off. "I know. Deliver this to Major Blaec Doll of the Black Blades. He can sign for it and see that it's stored for me."
The boy's eyes went wide, and he looked quickly at Sal and Cyno. "Black Blades, sir?"
"Yeah," Sal said. "Easier to not make waves on this side of town if we're not in uniform."
"Him too?" he asked, glancing at Zep.
Sal nodded.
"No charge, sir," the boy said, reaching out for their parcels.
"Bullshit," Zep grumbled before stuffing a bill in his pocket. He walked to the kid's other side, and pushed in a second. "That's for your friend on the corner who keeps looking over here with plans to help."
"Thank you, ilus," the boy said solemnly. "I will be sure they know." He motioned for his companion, then glanced at Sal, careful not to meet her eyes. "Laetus Kaisae. Be safe."
"You, too," she told him, touching his arm.
The boy grinned, then nodded to his friend, passing over half the packages before they moved off down the street.
"Ya just tipped the kid a hell of a lot," Cyno told him.
"Yep," Zep said smugly. "Feels pretty damned good."
"You some kind of scrubber lover or something?" one of the men in the line demanded, glaring at Zep.
"Yeah," Zep told him, standing straight and turning to the man. "You have a problem with it?"
"So you're big and dumb?" the courier asked. "Fucking didn't want your trade anyway."
Zep just laughed and turned away, gesturing for Sal and Cyno to join him.
"Can't wait to get out of this place and back to the right side of town," Zep muttered. Cyno nodded in agreement.
They turned their feet south and had gone two blocks before Sal was sure. He's following us, she warned her brothers.
Ya sure it's the same one? Cyno asked. They all look alike.
It's the same. He'll duck between buildings in a moment, when he gets too close.
In a few meters, he did exactly that. Sal saw Zep check his waist.
If this goes bad, let me take it, he told the iliri. Parliament would love to use a city brawl against the two of you. If I do it, half of their complaints become invalid.
Do na like it, Cyno thought.
But he's right, Sal agreed. I hate it, but he's right.
They continued to walk casually, tracking the man behind them. Cyno glanced to his side and tapped Zep's arm, tilting his head across the street. A pair of men paced them, turning to look at the trio too often. This time, it was Sal's hand that went to her waist, checking the handle of her dagger. They only passed a few more shops before four men approached them ominously.
"Fuck," Zep muttered. "Ok, what do you want?" he asked, turning to the man following them.
"You don't bring their kind north of Guttertown then rub it in our faces," the courier spat.
"Did na realize that breathin' was offensive now," Cyno said cruelly.
"When your kind do it, it is."
"We're just trying to get back to the base," Sal said. "Not trying to cause a scene."
Sure enough, people were beginning to gather as the seven men cornered the Black Blades.
How we playin' this? Cyno asked.
Do nothing, Sal said. We have witnesses, and a few bruises never stopped us.
Both Zep and Cyno nodded.
"Don't look at each other like that," a dark man behind them said.
"Now lookin' is offensive," Cyno muttered.
The man grabbed him and shoved him against the wall, his arm against Cyno's throat. "Shut the fuck up, scrubber. You can't even speak Glish right."
"Jase," Sal warned.
Cyno held up his hands, empty, but refused to look away from the human's eyes, daring him to try something.
"Hey," Zep said. "Is this really necessary?" He raised his voice so the people crowding around could hear him easily, "We were just walking through, not trying to bother anyone."
"See this?" the courier said, pointing at Sal. "That fucking bothers me. That shit belongs in Guttertown, not in the business district. Look at her." He shoved her backward.
Sal stepped with the push, offering no resistance.
"Don't," Zep said.
"Fucking stop me. You don't like it when I make your girlfriend obey me? She's just a slave after all."
"Conscript," Sal corrected.
"Soldier," Zep warned him.
"That? A soldier?" The courier laughed then shoved her again. Sal's back hit the wall. When she didn't flinch, he grabbed her shoulders and slammed her into the stone siding.
Zep's jaw was clenched tightly. "Feel like a big man now, do you?"
"You lost me business," he said, shoving at Sal again. "Your kind comes up here and shit goes bad. Keep your bleached asses south of Trade Street and we'll leave you alone."
"I wouldn't do that," a voice in the crowd yelled.
"What?" the courier snapped at him.
"Fuck with her. That's Lady Death, man."
A teenage boy shoved forward, clutching a crudely bound magazine. He stopped at the edge of the crowd but held it up. A rough drawing of Sal and Cyno graced the cover.
"That crap's a bunch of shit," the man said dismissing him.
"That's Sal, Cyno, and the big one is Zep," he insisted.
Zep smiled, his head nodding. "Nice, I made the tabloids."
"Bout time," Cyno muttered.
The courier slammed Sal into the wall one more time. "Shut up," he yelled at them before turning back to the boy. "If they were the Black Blades, why are
n't they in Black?"
"Off duty," the boy said. "I dunno, maybe you should ask them."
"And you really think this little thing is Lady Death? Scrubbers are fucking with your heads."
The kid grinned. "Keep going, jackass. We'd all like to see if they really are as good as the stories make them. Besides, name another bitch pure enough to have ears like that."
Sal cursed under her breath, afraid of where this was going.
"She weighs like forty kilos soaking wet. He ain't much bigger. No way she could even stop me, let alone a damned soldier."
"Forty-seven kilos at my last weigh in," Sal said, smiling big enough to show her teeth.
"She's deceptively heavy," Zep added.
"If you're a Black Blade, why aren't you fighting back?" he snarled in her face.
"Our first oath is that we will not harm civilians. Our second is to die to protect you." Sal shrugged, trying to act like she wasn't terrified that this was about to become a riot.
"Can't be Lady Death," a man on the other side yelled. "Where's the metal dagger?"
Slowly, Sal slid her hand along the wall and drew the blade, slipping it down beside her leg. The courier still held her shoulders, but he was looking over to the last man who spoke. Sal tapped the flat edge of the knife against the stone siding, the metallic ring like nothing the people in the crowd had heard before. As heads turned to her, she lifted her hand to her side, flipping the knife and catching it by the blade, the hilt shining in the sunlight.
"Fuck," the courier whispered, stepping back.
"But isn't the other one supposed to be marked up?"
Cyno pulled his hand between him and the man holding him, and slowly pushed him back. With a feral smile, he loosened his cuff and shoved his left sleeve higher. "Tattooed," he corrected.
"Leave 'em alone," a girl in the back yelled, as the people in the crowd began to push closer.
"Hey!" Zep bellowed, "Back the fuck off."
"We don't need their kind to help us," someone called out.
"They took out the Escean Warlords, and no one else could get it done."
"You really Zep?" the first boy asked.
Zep just looked at him as if he was a fool. "No, I'm some big black-skinned fuck that you've never heard of who runs around with the two best assassins in the country."
"He's Zep," the boy said to his friend beside him. "It really is the fucking Black Blades, man. Hey, Sal, will you sign my book?"
Sal stepped back into Zep, more concerned by the handful of fanatical kids than the couriers who had started it all.
"Do it, Sal. In Iliran," Zep whispered. You make them love you, and you beat Parliament.
They're crazy!
You're a damned celebrity, just go with it.
She looked timidly at the boy and nodded.
"Can you sign it on the picture of you? I was gonna hang it in my room."
Seeing the picture, she couldn't help it, she laughed. The artist had made her ears too large and her teeth twice as long. She stood at the front of their unit, Cyno beside her, both of them half the size of the rest. Zep towered above them all, a hulking shadow at the back of the Black Blades.
"This is really bad," she told the boy.
"Nah, it's cool as shit. It's caricature of each of you, mixing your combat skills with how you look. Kinda a thing, ya know?"
"Sure," Sal agreed, taking a pen from Zep and writing her name sign in the space below her character, then signing it in Glish for good measure.
She passed both to Zep, and he passed it to Cyno as the next kid handed her something to sign. A few were from the same magazine, although some were older issues. All the fans were human, and all looked at her with only adoring respect.
"I love your ears, by the way. They're amazing," the girl said, offering her magazine to Sal. She couldn't have been more than thirteen.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Had my mom make me a headband like them. It's dumb, but," she shrugged, not finishing the sentence.
Sal nodded, her eyes widening and pressed a hand over her mouth. She nodded again when she passed back the magazine, but her voice refused to work.
"I'm sorry!" the girl said.
Sal just shook her head, so Zep put an arm around her, and chuckled. "Don't be. Just give her a second. No one's ever said something nice to her like that."
"You're not what I expected you to be like at all," the girl said. "I thought you'd be full of yourself, but you're nice, Sal."
"Thanks," Sal managed. She took a deep breath and smiled at them all. "I mean it. Thank you. I didn't expect this. I thought humans hated me."
The girl shook her head. "Nah. Most of my friends want to grow up and be a Black Blade, just like you."
Chapter 41
The three of them walked into the courtyard of the base, melting in the midday heat. Dark clouds rolled overhead, threatening rain, but so far offered nothing more than humidity to make the soldiers more miserable. Under the shade of a tree, Blaz and a few other men from the 112th clustered together cleaning their saddles and laughing. Blaz's shirt was off, her bites trailing across his left shoulder.
Cyno shook his head, glaring at the man.
Show time, Sal thought, forcing herself to smile brightly before heading toward them.
One man looked up and Sal held her finger to her lip, walking up behind Blaz. He nodded imperceptibly, but she caught the way his hand shifted. Blaz bent his head lower to the saddle as Sal wrapped her arms around him.
"Hey!" Blaz said, feigning surprise.
"Give it up," she told him, pressing into his side. "I saw the sign."
"Fuck," the man said. "You read ours, too?"
Sal gestured back, "Yes."
"How come we don't know yours, then?" he asked.
Sal just smiled. "Learn iliran."
"Nope," Lorenz said from the far side. "Behind you is still behind you, no matter what language it's in."
"But do you really want to learn the difference between enemy male behind you, friendly female behind you, and the six types of behind it could be?"
"Don't ask," Blaz warned them. "Trust me." He smiled down at Sal and kissed the top of her head, catching sight of Cyno out of the corner of his eye. "We ok, man?" He asked the assassin.
Cyno shrugged. "Yeh. Can na change orders. Things are good tween the Blades and the 112th."
Star Fall's around the corner, out of your line of sight, Sal told him when she caught one of the horsemen glance that way. Looks like all of the 112th know what's up, though.
Good ta know. Still hate seein' yer marks on him, but I'm tryin', kitten.
I know. Now go get our stuff put away.
"Pull up a saddle," Blaz offered. "I was gonna clean yours too, but I'll be damned if your Stablemaster hasn't learned to growl."
Sal laughed at that. "No one touches our tack but the Blades, and Tilso might as well be a Blade. I didn't catch all of your names, though, and Blaz hasn't been polite enough to introduce me."
"Lorenz ya know," Blaz said, "The others are Aleks and Celso."
"You're fuckin' playin' with fire, boss," Aleks muttered. "Hope it's worth it."
"So," Blaz said, ignoring that. "Rax looks good."
"He's getting plenty back for those bites," Celso told the others. "Him and that fucking horse." He turned to Sal. "And don't let him lie to you. Blaz isn't this nice to just anyone."
"Yeah," Sal said, catching his eyes. "I'm well aware."
"Fuck off, Celso," Blaz warned the man.
"Serious as shit, man. You don't do favors for anyone outside the 112th. Don't act like you're just some kind-hearted gentleman."
Sal's ears twisted back when she realized Celso was being serious. The four men around her all glanced at her head, and Blaz chuckled.
"Yeah, close enough to horses that you can read them," he told the guys. "Not completely the same."
Lorenz glanced over at the group of men in brown from Star Fall, then back to his saddle. "Pre
tty sure they can't hear us from there," he said softly.
"They can't," Sal said. "They're wondering what the rest of you think about your Second Officer sleeping with me."
"Wish I could just put my fucking crop up their ass," Celso grumbled. "How'd all the dumb-asses end up in the same unit?"
"Didn't," Lorenz said. "You forget about Azure or something?"
"Yeah, I try to." Celso laughed. "Seriously though, Sal, they far enough away we can talk?" She nodded, so he continued, "They think the Blades are headed to Ryass. They aren't sure when. Hell, none of us are. But rumor has it that's not where you're going."
"Nope," Sal assured him. "And I would rather not tell you."
"All good," Lorenz said beside him. "You're gonna finish it though, right?"
She sighed and leaned against the saddle, running her hands through the loose hair around her face. "That's the plan. Worst case, we know Star Fall should catch the steel on the other side. Look, we'd all rather see the bribe stopped than play politics."
"Why don't you just let them pick it up?" Aleks asked.
Blaz answered for her, "Because if the Blades fail, they run the real risk of getting disbanded."
"Look," Sal told them, "we're not about to lose the steel because of our damned pride, ok? If that shit makes it to Anglia, we're all fucked. I'd rather be busted back to blues than have my head sent to Myrosica."
"Damn," Lorenz whispered. "I didn't think about it like that. That's what the Emperor's been doing, isn't it. Shipping off iliri heads like trophies?"
She nodded. "Yep. We're fucked either way we go on this. Our only good option is to bring the steel back ourselves." Sal glanced away, trying to hide the anger on her face. "I'd really prefer not to go back to the way it was before, ya know?"
Blaz put his arm around her shoulder a bit awkwardly. "This is what you were telling me about, isn't it?"
She nodded.
"So how do we help?" Celso asked.
"Stay out of my way," Sal told him. "Don't stick your nose in my business because it'll likely end up bad." She ran her finger down Blaz's shoulder to make her point. "We can't play by the same rules as the rest of you."
"I did get some gear," Blaz told her. "It should be with your stableman by now. Anything else you need?"