by Chris Fox
Once all had disappeared, Aran was left hovering there, alone save for the Company and the woman who’d spoken on his behalf.
He floated down to stand next to her. “I guess we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Aran.” He extended a hand.
She looked at it, and rolled her eyes. “Come on. We have work to do, little brother.”
“Wait, I don’t even know your name,” he protested.
“Astria. Now keep up, or we’re both dead.” She turned and trotted deeper into the cavern.
22
March of Honor
Aran replaced his helmet, feeling the tiniest surge of relief as it hissed shut and his HUD lit. The armor wasn’t noticeably different from the Mark XI in terms of comfort, but it wasn’t the comfort that made him feel safe.
There was just something about having a suit of enhanced spellarmor between you and your problems. That was especially useful when your problems had a two-hundred-plus-meter wingspan.
“Major, I’m going to follow my sister.” Aran hovered above Davidson’s tank. He kept one eye on Astria’s retreating form. “Whatever this March of Honor is, it sounds like it can serve as the perfect distraction for you to locate the Spellship.”
“Aran, that’s suicide,” Nara protested. She zipped up beside him in her Mark V. His armor reflected back at him from her mirrored faceplate. “It sounds like they’re going to hunt you like an animal. Did you hear the way those Wyrms were talking? We’re not even pets to them. We’re cattle.”
“It isn’t suicide,” Voria countered. Her eyes had gone unfocused again. “There is a chance he will die, of course. I see many possibilities where Aran does not survive. But I see a strong possibility that he does. And he is right. We will never have a better opportunity. Lieutenant, go with your sister and participate in this March of Honor. Check in each evening by missive.”
“Major, she tried to kill him.” Nara stabbed an accusing hand at Astria’s retreating form. “We can find another distraction.”
“No, we can’t,” Aran said. “Not quickly enough, and you know it. You know it better than any of us.”
Nara’s armored shoulders slumped. “We should at least send someone with him.”
“Hey, Davidson,” Crewes barked. He jumped thirty meters, and landed right outside the tank. “How much you charge for babysitting?”
“For you? A case of brew and we’ll call it square.” Davidson’s words were followed by an amused laugh.
“Sir, how about I tag along with the LT? It’s not that I don’t trust that lady, but I don’t trust that lady.” Crewes fired his thruster, and rose to join Aran.
“Glad to have you along, Sergeant.” Aran spun to face Astria. She’d reached the far side of the cavern, and stood at the very edge of the shadows. That suit of hers made her nearly impossible to see, and that was before she activated it.
A missive request came from Nara. He accepted it, and her face appeared in the lower corner of his HUD. “Hey, I know you like to play hero, but be careful, okay? It feels like this whole world wants you dead.”
He gave her a wry smile. “That’s not too different from Shaya.”
“It is. Ree doesn’t want you dead. She wants you miserable,” Nara quipped.
They both laughed at that. Aran smiled as a swell of affection rose up. “I’ll be careful, I promise. You do the same. It’s not like you’re going to be hanging out on the ship. Finding the Spellship will take work, and you know the gods will have made finding it lethal. So I’ll turn it back on you. Be careful, Nara.”
Her cheeks dimpled as her smile widened. “See you on the other side.” Her missive window disappeared.
Aran triggered a Company-wide channel. “All right kids, you behave for the nice captain. Davidson, have them in bed by nine.”
“This is bullshit,” Bord protested. He hopped down off the tank, his silvered armor sending up a puff of dust as he landed. “We’re always getting left behind while you and the sarge are off doing cool stuff.”
“So staying with me is a burden? Is that what I’m hearing?” Kez demanded frostily. She gave a small sniff, and her armor turned away from Bord.
“You know it isn’t like that, Kez…” Bord trailed off. He looked up at Aran. “Fine, go on then. I’d rather stay here, anyway.”
Aran delivered a salute, and the Company mimicked it instantly. Then he turned and flew after Astria. The sergeant fell in beside him, but unlike the others, he stayed silent. Crewes understood, and that meant a lot.
He landed a few meters from Astria, who stood just inside the mouth of a narrow tunnel. Far too narrow for any of the Wyrms, though enforcers could probably squeeze through. She turned without a word and trotted up the tunnel.
Aran glided behind her, with Crewes hanging back a good ten meters. They continued down several twisting tunnels, and each time Astria took the left branch.
“You rely too much on that armor,” Astria said abruptly. The sudden comment caught Aran off guard.
“Yeah, I don’t know anyone who relies on a magical suit.” Aran had dialed the sarcasm up to eleven, but Astria didn’t react.
The tunnel finally ended, spilling them into a valley sheltered on three sides by ridges of the massive volcano. Squat adobe houses lined a packed-earth road. Most of the traffic on the road was pedestrians, but here and there a cart was pulled by…a dragon?
“You use dragons as beasts of burden?” Aran asked. How did that square with worshiping the Council of Wyrms?
“Those aren’t dragons, idiot.” Astria removed her mask and eyed him like he’d just said the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “Drakes are animals. They’re the lowest form. They come directly from the primals that find their way to our world. Most are feral, and extremely dangerous. Some are taken young, at an age when they can be trained. And yes, they are used as beasts of burden.”
Aran noticed more than the drakes pulling carts. Smaller drakes, some no larger than a house cat, sunned themselves on thatched roofs. The entire village was straight out of a Relic Hunter episode. It was like looking at world lost centuries in the past. None of the modern amenities Ternus had introduced were used here, at least not that Aran could see.
“This way.” Astria threaded a confident path through the traffic, which led them past one of the drakes.
The stench burned Aran’s eyes, and he blinked rapidly as he quickened his step. The crowd parted before Astria, and almost everyone murmured something and pressed two fingers to their forehead when she passed. Most eyed him curiously, but looked away quickly if his helmet faced their direction. What must he look like to these people?
High above, a Wyrm screeched, and the crowd collectively flinched. Most relaxed immediately, continuing with their business as if nothing had happened. But that moment had been telling. He read the fear there, and understood it.
“This is my home.” Astria led him to a simple adobe building. She pushed open a thick curtain of dark leather and ducked inside.
Aran followed and sketched the void sigil inside his gauntlet. He chose storage mode, and the armor began flowing down his body. It was still disorienting, but he knew what to expect now. He counted slowly down, noting that it took four seconds. If donning the armor took the same amount of time, that would be useful to know in a combat situation.
“You can simply hide your armor?” Astria asked. She folded her mask carefully, and set it on a beautifully carved marble bench. She sat on the bench next to the mask.
Aran looked around the room, but other than a narrow cot there was nowhere else to sit. He put his back to the wall and slid into a sitting position. “The armor is new, but yes, I can hide it.”
“That is a small, but very important detail. Tomorrow, when you begin the march, you will only be allowed to take what you can carry. Since you can carry the armor, you can take it.” Astria rose and stretched. She moved to a small cupboard, also carved from marble. “I am going to make dinner. Nothing fancy, mind. Not like the deca
dence of Shaya.”
Aran laughed at that. “Most of my meals are MREs the Confederacy made twenty years ago. That’s what I’ve got packed now. You could boil rocks, and I bet it would taste better. So, can you tell me about this March of Honor? What is it exactly?” He folded his legs and rocked back and forth until he was comfortable.
Astria removed a small knife and a pile of green tubers and began expertly slicing them. “The March of Honor, sometimes called the march of atonement, is reserved for an Outrider who wishes to be punished for a crime.”
“Hey, you guys in there?” Crewes called from outside the curtain.
“Inside, Sergeant,” Aran called back. He turned to Astria. “I hope it’s okay that one of my men came?”
“It is not.” Astria’s chopping stopped. She set the knife down, and fixed Aran with a glare. “I will remind you that you know nothing of our world. Nothing of our customs. If you wish to survive the next few days, then you cannot make arbitrary decisions. You must listen to me.”
“So, uh, can I stay?” Crewes asked as he poked his head through the doorway. “Cause I ain’t had dinner, and it looks like you’re about to.”
“You may stay, but you must make your armor disappear.” Astria’s chopping continued.
“Uh, only his armor does that. I can take it off, I guess.”
“There’s no point. If you leave it in here it will only take up more space, and if you put it outside the scavengers will make off with it long before dawn.” Astria scooped the tubers into a bowl then sprinkled orange dust on top of them. She took a handful, then passed the bowl to Crewes. “Sit, and don’t break anything.”
“I’ll be careful, ma’am.” Crewes slowly lowered himself to the ground. His armor took up almost a third of the room, and he gave a sheepish smile. “Thank you.” He took a couple generous handfuls of tubers, then passed the bowl to Aran.
“You were telling me what this march was,” Aran prompted. He took a handful and tried an experimental bite. The tuber tasted almost exactly like a potato, and the orange stuff reminded him a lot of garlic.
“It’s very simple, really,” Astria explained as she munched on the end of a tuber. “You must reach the Temple of Virkonna, the same temple where you and I gained our magic. Your enemies, anyone who feels you have wronged them, will attempt to kill you before you can reach it.”
“What kind of force can they bring to bear?” Aran asked.
“Anything they want, but honor dictates they only send enough to finish the job. More is seen as distasteful, and lessens the honor for those who participate.” She chewed thoughtfully for a moment before continuing. “Most of the time, they’ll send just enough to kill you. Since they don’t know you, some will underestimate you, and some will overestimate you.”
“Can I go with him?” Crewes asked.
“No. You can stay until he departs, but even I cannot go with him. He must do this alone,” she explained.
Aran munched thoughtfully. At least he knew what he was dealing with. People trying to kill him was just another normal day.
23
Ismene & Pytho
Nara pulled the strange cloak more tightly about her. On a good day, she felt naked without her spellarmor, but the weird, flowing dress made her feel worse than naked. She kept tripping over it if she walked any faster than a glacially slow amble.
It irked her that the major had sent her to do this, knowing it meant Nara would be the one who had to wear the dress. Mostly, though, Nara was worried about Aran. That sapped a lot of the anger. What right did she have to complain about minor discomfort when Aran was doing some sort of march designed to kill him?
She threaded through the crowd as she tried to find the most expedient way to the Temple of Virkonna. The building wasn’t hard to spot. It was the only building carved entirely of stone, a beautiful elder sister surrounded by ugly younger siblings.
A trickle of traffic flowed through a wide gateway. Each potential entrant was screened by a pair of war mages in white. Both uniforms had blue trim, but the patches on their arms were slightly different. She didn’t know enough about local politics to know how or why, but committed both symbols to memory so she could investigate them later.
Nara slowed her pace and aimed for dignified as she approached. She landed somewhere closer to a stumble and her cheeks heated as she approached the war mages. Damned dress.
“Name and reason for entering the Temple?” the war mage on the right asked. He was tall, though not quite as tall as Aran.
“Nara from the Temple of Enlightenment on Shaya,” she explained simply. She dropped her eyes to the gravel path. “I’m here to learn. I’d like to ask the Archivist some questions, if that’s allowed.”
She glanced up to see what sort of reaction she was getting. The guard eyed her thoughtfully. He ran a hand along his bald scalp, and gave his partner a shrug. “I don’t think it’s breaking any rules. You can go inside. But I can’t promise anyone will speak to you, least of all Archivist Jocasta.”
“Thank you.” She tried another curtsy—badly—and hurried up the path toward the building. She only tripped twice on the way.
She passed under an arched doorway into a room dominated by rows of marble columns. They held up a massive stone ceiling, and she was nervously aware that, if it crashed down, all the books lining this room would be crushed instantly.
Nara scanned those shelves, noting she saw only scroll cases or actual books. There was not a single dragon scale anywhere. Books were fine, but one of those shelves was also far, far less efficient than a single knowledge scale. Perhaps the Wyrms didn’t allow them.
A pleasant-looking girl just out of her teens approached. She wore a dress similar to Nara’s, though hers was the same white with blue trim they all seemed to love so much on this world. The girl would have very much fit with the other students back at the Temple of Enlightenment.
“Drake-tide, stranger,” she said as she bobbed a quick curtsy. “I am sub-archivist Ismene. Is for short, or Meanie if I just pulled a prank on you.” She gave a brilliant smile, and brushed a lock of thick, blond hair over one shoulder. Bord would have been salivating.
“My name is Nara. I’m from Shaya.” It wasn’t strictly true. She wasn’t from Shaya. But explaining the whole story was more trouble than it was worth.
“Shaya?” Ismene blinked. “That’s wonderful! You’ve come so far, across nearly the whole sector. Did you meet Cerberus? He’s the guardian of the depths.”
“Oh, yeah, we met him.” Nara raised a hand and mimed the dragon engulfing their ship. She considered using an illusion, but wasn’t sure if using magic publicly were a good idea. “He carried us down and just sort of dropped us off.”
“We? There are more of you?” Ismene blinked her large eyes.
“A whole ship of us,” Nara admitted. She’d briefly considered lying, but it was too easy to verify the truth. “We’re parked on the ridge northwest of here, on the edge of the crater.”
“And they sent you to us?” Ismene cocked her head. “Why? What are you looking for?”
“Ismene,” a voice cracked from across the room. Ismene’s posture snapped erect, and she spun to face the woman who’d spoken. The approaching woman had silvering hair pulled back into a severe bun, and age had added a sour set of lines to her face. “What are you doing, child? You are meant to help people find things, not interrogate them.”
She strode across the room at a fast walk, apparently untroubled by the miserably stupid dress. The woman stopped next to the pair of them, and took in Nara with the kind of glance Nara was used to getting from Eros. It said everything the woman didn’t.
“What does this urchin require of us?” she demanded.
Nara extended her right hand and summoned her staff from her void pocket. She tapped it lightly on the marble, rising to her full height. “I don’t require anything. I came because I’m told you have access to knowledge from the age of dragons. I had some specific questions I
was looking to have answered, and the archivists on Shaya seemed to believe you might help.”
Jocasta raised an eyebrow at the staff. She eyed it distastefully. “Ah, a Shayan. That explains a great deal. I’ll be certain to lower my expectations. Ask your trivial questions, and I will see if we can find a tome with small enough words. If you’re certain you don’t want to go find a tree you can sob on. That’s how you pray to your dead goddess, is it not?”
Nara was shocked by the outright hostility. The Shayans were all about subtle jabs. They made it clear they were superior, and they did it in a hundred different ways—not one of them overt, or ever coming right out and saying it. Any proper Shayan scholar would be horrified by Jocasta’s behavior.
Nara, on the other hand, didn’t care. Oh, hey look, another group of uppity scholars. What a shock.
“Yes please, small words with large print. Lots of pictures, if possible.” Nara affected her best imitation of Shayan arrogance. She even tried on a little accent. “I’d like to know about the original flights. There were eight, yes?”
“Of course,” Jocasta allowed. She folded her arms.
Ismene looked like she wanted to slink away, but hadn’t yet found the right opportunity. Having been on the receiving end of Eros’s temper more than once, Nara completely understood the desire.
“Unfortunately, most of the books on Shaya are nearly all pictures. We struggle with words, as you know.” Nara kept her tone completely serious. It wasn’t easy, but it was rather fun. “I can’t seem to find a picture, or a real name, for the Wyrm Father of Life. All the rest are accounted for, but not that one. Can you tell me more about him, or provide a book that can?”
“I’m unsurprised you know so little about the dragonflights. Your own goddess was merely a servant of a Wyrm Mother, after all,” Jocasta said, her tone all innocence. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you not know your goddess was the divine equivalent of a nurse?”