by Patty Jansen
Milleus took his own plate and sat down. Isandor had taken Milleus’ usual spot and he had to sit at the head of the table.
“Now about you two. You came from the City of Glass?”
“From the south,” Isandor said.
All right. He wasn’t answering the question. “How did you get here?” The City of Glass was a long way away. The mountains across the border were pretty high and as far as he knew no one lived there.
“We had . . . we had a bird.”
Oh. Milleus saw. The bird he’d seen a few days ago. But then again . . . “You let it go?”
“The bird is free.”
“Is anyone after you?”
Isandor glanced at Nila. “Maybe.”
“Maybe or sure?”
“Maybe. Don’t know.”
“And those people who are after you, who are they?”
“You ask many questions for a farmer,” Nila said.
“I am giving you lodging. I think I have a right to know such things. Especially if they could lead to trouble.”
“No one will harm you. It is us they want.”
“And you didn’t commit a crime?”
“No. I swear by my heart.” She picked up a knife and held it, point to her chest.
“Oh, no, no.” Milleus eased it from her hand. “We don’t do that sort of thing here. We just promise.”
“I promise.”
Milleus normally lived and ate in the kitchen, but there was only one comfortable seat, so he told the youngsters to go to the adjacent room while he cleared the dishes.
When he entered the room, Nila sat in one of the chairs, half-asleep, her cheeks flushed, but Isandor stood at one of the many bookshelves.
“You have . . . many books.”
“Yes. They’re all big volumes about boring things.”
A boy this age would hardly have interest in politics, philosophy and statecraft. Even he hadn’t touched most volumes for many years. Who knew why he even kept all this stuff. Isandor’s blue eyes roamed the titles. Big leather-bound volumes covered in dust.
He pulled one book off the shelf.
Military strategy in the Aranian war.
Mercy, how had he and the Aranian ambassador discussed this tome—until they both red in the face and so drunk they fell asleep on these couches. Anything better than to disturb Suri’s wrath.
“You read this?” Isandor asked.
“Long ago.” Hah! He helped write it.
Isandor flicked through pages of diagrams and tables. “You use balloons in war.” It was not a question, and something about the way he said it made Milleus stop cold.
“Yes, the Chevakian army uses balloons.”
“Balloons better than eagles. Eagles carry one rider. Bows, arrows, maybe gun. Nothing heavy.”
“But an eagle is fast and you can use a knife or the bird’s claws to cut a balloon.”
“You use nets. Riders can’t cut. Not many have guns. I say if you have balloons you win the war.” Again, it was not a question. He shut the book and put it away.
Mercy, the boy had military training.
A Knight? A deserter? A spy?
But his smile was too disarming. If he was a real spy, he wouldn’t mention this so freely. And he would be much older. Yet, Milleus made sure he locked the door to his sleeping quarters that night.
Chapter 11
* * *
FLAMES LEAPED in the night, against the backdrop of forest, unfamiliar dark shapes that were trees, where creatures hid and rustled and hooted. The sky above was dark and full of stars like the sky in the City of Glass at lowsun.
As someone new to lands devoid of snow, Carro found his senses were all askew. The smells, the sounds, the feel of the ground under his feet, everything was different. And even the nights were so incredibly warm.
A shiver crawling over his arms, Carro finished rubbing his eagle and put the brush back in this kit bag. So neat and tidy it was compared to those of the hunters. They had non-standard bags, and non-standard saddles. Jeito wore a harness, but the other two didn’t. They’d laughed when he asked about their uniforms.
Farey knelt by the fire, using a fearfully sharp knife to slowly pull the skin off the animal Nolan had shot. Carro had seen him do it. A single shot from a Chevakian gun, from the back of a plummeting eagle, not wearing a harness.
And Rider Cornatan wanted him to control these hunters? That had to be his idea of a joke.
It brought up memories of the abuse at the hands of his fellow apprentices, and the eyrie he was glad to have left. It made him think of the promise he made to his father. Bring them back, dead or alive, but preferably dead. Avenge the Pirosian house. The medal that hung on a chain under his clothes burned against his chest. He was no heroic soldier.
“Hey, Carro.” Farey jerked his head at the pile of wood Nolan had collected. His hands shone with grease and blood.
Carro needed no more instructions. Tend to the fire. It wasn’t an order so much as a task. Everyone else was busy, too. They were all pieces of the puzzle that formed the achievements of a well-oiled team. Trying to command would be useless at best, at worst would earn him disrespect. You did not order these men.
He knelt inside the pool of warm orange light and poked the burning logs into a pile.
Farey’s knife worked at the carcass. His muscles cording in his arms, he was hacking the head off the animal. Bones cracked.
Nolan just returned from the creek with a bladder of water, some of which he poured into a pot. Teeth flashing, Farey grinned and threw the head of the animal across. Splash, in the pan.
“Oy!” Nolan shouted. “You wanna get me shirt all messed-up?”
Farey snorted and rose. With his long face and yellowish skin, he looked part-Aranian. Long black hair hung on either side of his face. He looked nothing like he had in the palace, yet this image was the real Farey. Had Carro met him in another life in the streets of the Outer City, he would have walked around the block.
Farey oozed danger, in his smile, in his intense look and in the way he went to stand behind Carro and breathed over his shoulder so close Carro could feel the warmth of his body, and he didn’t dare breathe for fear of being stripped of his pants and raped. That’s what happened to junior apprentices after all.
Farey laughed. “The pup is scared, huh?”
“No,” Carro said, but it came out as a strangled sound.
“Oh, quit that, Farey,” Nolan said. “He’s been a good replacement for that idiot we lost.”
“Yeah, he’s not half-bad,” Farey said, tracing Carro’s shoulder with a hand glistening with grease and blood. Carro’s heart thudded in his chest. “You fancy him, huh?”
“Quit that, I said.”
“Yeah, you fancy him.” Farey let his hand drop. “All right. You can have him.” But before he turned away, he pulled Carro against him. Carro could feel his cock through two layers of clothes.
“Hey, come and help me,” Nolan said.
Carro stumbled to the fire, his heart still thudding and blood roaring in his ears, and, embarrassingly, in other places.
“Thanks,” he mumbled to Nolan.
“Look after the fire for me,” Nolan said, his eyes meeting Carro’s in an intense look.
He transferred the pot to the fire, hanging it up on a wire frame. “Don’t make them flames too high, or you can scrub the soot off.”
Carro nodded, and pushed the logs a bit further apart.
Farey had pushed a stick through the carcass and hung it above the fire. He sank down with a sigh of satisfaction, wiped his hands on his trousers and pulled a bottle from his pocket.
/> “Want some?” He held it out to Carro, who took it from his bloodied hands.
The spirits were strong and burned in Carro’s throat. He wiped the mouth of the bottle and passed it to Jeito, who was studying a map. His long hair hung forward over his shoulder. Jeito’s fingers traced lines on the map. Long fingers with rings. Sometimes, when Jeito raked hair behind his ear, Carro thought he looked feminine. He was certainly not tall and lanky like Farey, or strong-jawed and stubble-chinned like Nolan.
But he’d seen Jeito with a knife, and he’d felt the strength in the grip of those fine-boned hands, and he’d seen how Jeito set fire to a farmhouse with an entire family locked inside. More than anyone, more even than Farey, Jeito scared him.
“Where are we, then?” In the group tasks were strictly divided, and it seemed talking was Nolan’s task. He was perhaps the youngest of the three, and with his soft honey-coloured curls and hazel eyes, he must have a lot of Chevakian blood.
Jeito grunted. “We’ve searched this area.” He circled a spot on the map. “Tomorrow, we’re going here.” He pointed at the map. His shirt hung open at the front, showing soft, hairless skin. “They’re around here somewhere.” Jeito’s finger circled the district on the map. There was a small farming village, and a larger town called Ensar.
Yesterday, they had spotted a riderless eagle, circling high. They tried to follow the animal, only to find that it was heading back over the mountains and that it had neither a harness nor listened to whistles. A wild bird? It might have been a coincidence, but they expected the Queen to be around here somewhere. Any further north and it would have been too hot for the eagle.
Carro nodded. “I think they’ve hidden somewhere in these hills.” He tried to sound authoritative. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they let the bird go, since it will give away their position. I think we—”
“Don’t think too much,” Farey said. His teeth flashed a warning.
“I know Isandor better than all of you. We grew up together.” That was why Rider Cornatan had sent him on this mission, wasn’t it?
“What you know would fit in a brain the size of the nail on my little finger,” Farey said.
“Whoa, calm down,” Nolan said. “What Farey means is that obeying orders is not the way we do things here, with us. We’re hunters, you know, and we don’t like being bossed around like you . . . would be used to.”
“Shut your trap, blabbermouth. I don’t need you to explain what I said. The pup’s got ears. We’ll have him along, if he doesn’t fuck up, but I don’t want him to get any illusions about commanding us.”
“You’re as blunt as the swordsmith’s hammer.”
“And your mouth’s gonna kill you one day.”
But Farey gave Nolan an affectionate smile as Nolan handed back the bottle, and a cracking slap on the shoulder. Nolan threw himself on Farey and the two rolled back in the grass. Carro jumped up, ready to discipline his team, but they were laughing, pushing away each other’s hands until Farey lay on his back and Nolan on top of him, having pushed Farey’s arms flat on the ground.
Nolan grinned. “Who’s the pup now?”
In a flash, Farey got his legs under him and bucked up, sending Nolan flying in the grass. He jumped up and ran into the darkness.
“Cut it, idiots, will ya?” Jeito snapped. Then his shifty glance met Carro’s. “Oh, sit down academy boy. They’re just stirring each other up.”
Branches cracked and Nolan came back out of the forest.
“Stop teasing the pup,” he said to Jeito, picking grass out of his hair. “I was like him just two years ago.”
“That long already, feels like two moons.” Sarcasm dripped from Farey’s voice. “Hey. You think there is any hope for this one?”
“You gotta be fair. He can’t help who his family is.”
Jeito raised his eyebrows.
An uncomfortable silence fell. Nolan blushed.
Eventually, Jeito said, “Family?”
Nolan shrugged and met Carro’s eyes. He mouthed sorry. “You don’t have to tell everyone if you don’t want to. Me and my big mouth.”
“You can say that again,” Farey growled. “If you shut your trap more often, we’d be in a lot less shit.”
Carro looked down in an uncomfortable silence. You don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. With these young men, nothing but the total truth would do. He spoke, still looking at the grass.
“I found out . . . before I came on this mission . . . that the people who raised me, an Outer City merchant and his family, were paid to do so. My real family . . .” He licked his lips, didn’t know what else to say, or how to say it, and pulled the medallion of the Pirosian house from under his tunic.
Three pairs of eyes fixed on it. One grey, one blue, one brown.
“Oh frolicking skylights,” Jeito said. “You’re Rider Cornatan’s son?”
Carro nodded.
Farey whistled between his teeth. “That’s some name to live up to. What’d you do?”
“What do you mean—what did I do?”
Nolan explained. “Well, the Knights normally send us poor boys when they misbehave in the Knight’s training. You know—to toughen them up.”
Oh.
“They usually don’t stick around for long,” Jeito said. “Can’t hack it.”
“Hey, but you’re not too bad,” Nolan said, meeting Carro’s eyes. “But tell us—what did you do?”
Carro shrugged. He didn’t do anything, as far as he was aware. Maybe that was the problem, or maybe even his father thought he was worthless and wanted to stick him away, somewhere he couldn’t do any more damage than he’d already done. The shame of the Pirosian house, a blot on his family.
“He speaks Chevakian, that’s what he did,” Farey said.
“Oh.” Nolan looked disappointed. Then he shrugged, took the bottle again and drank deeply. “Want some?” The skin around his eyes crinkled. There was something about that look that unsettled Carro.
Farey used the sleeve of his tunic to pick up the stick and turned the meat. Fat dripped into the fire, hissing into the flames. Jeito sat next to Farey, and whispered in his ear. Farey smiled. Jeito slapped Farey’s chest in a playful gesture.
The next thing they were kissing, a deep, passionate kiss that made Carro all hot and uncomfortable in certain places.
Farey’s hands moved down Jeito’s shoulders. Jeito sank slowly onto his back into the grass until all Carro could see was Farey’s back, and Jeito’s long-fingered hands.
Carro took the bottle, meeting Nolan’s eyes. “Don’t mind them,” Nolan said. “They’re always clowning.”
Carro shrugged. He couldn’t take his eyes off that scene. Firelight flickered over Farey’s back, and the rings on Jeito’s hands, their bodies rubbing against each other, totally absorbed.
He swallowed and asked, “So . . . why are you here?”
“Isn’t that obvious? I speak Chevakian, too.”
“Your mother is Chevakian?”
Nolan nodded. “Yes, before you ask me, I’m one of the slave children, born from a kidnapped woman. Never fitted in in the City of Glass, so . . . I became a hunter, a spy.”
You don’t need to be half-Chevakian not to fit in.
“You’ve been doing this two years?”
“Sure have.”
“Is it good?”
“You kidding? Best job I ever had. Better ’n playing cook in the Knights’ mess, I’d say. No, the worst job I had was washing up and cleaning the kitchens. What about you?”
Carro shuddered.
“Doing my . . . my stepfather’s accounts . . . all through the night. I was so cold. And when I complained . . .
he would bring me more work.” He stopped because his voice choked up. He stared into the fire, but Nolan said nothing, and he continued. “All night, I would sit there. He wouldn’t feed me until I finished, and if I fell asleep, he would bring me more work. I was cold, and it was scary in the warehouse in the dark . . .”
“Hey,” Nolan said. There was warm sympathy in his voice. He reached out, and when Carro didn’t react, put his hand on Carro’s shoulder.
“They treat you bad, huh?”
The fire swam in Carro’s eyes. He blinked and blinked, afraid to cry. If the Knights at the Eyrie heard that he, Carro, had cried . . . If his father heard it . . .
“You know, we all been hurt,” Nolan continued. “That’s really why they put us here. None of us fit in. Farey’s half Aranian, Jeito . . .” He shrugged. “Well, he speaks for himself. They hurt us and poke us, and hope that we grow into tough men. And you know? We don’t. Because we’re too hurt, too cut up inside. But us, we look out for each other.”
Carro nodded. He wiped furiously at his eyes, aware that Farey and Jeito looked at him, haunted looks on their faces. Not one of them laughed.
Jeito lifted the bottle to his lips and drank deeply. “Nolan blabbers too much, but he speaks right. It was no place for any of us, the City of Glass.”
They all fell silent.
Somehow, Carro didn’t care as much as he should. The City of Glass was far away and the warm wind in his hair was far too enjoyable. And what was more, ever since they had crossed the border, he had suffered no more debilitating flashbacks.
He lay back in the grass, staring at the star-dotted sky. The cooking meat made hissing and sizzling noises and spread the most delicious smell. The drink glowed comfortably in his belly. We look out for each other. No one had ever looked out for him. No one perhaps except . . . Isandor. But Isandor was the other side, now. He understood, Isandor was Thillei, a sorcerer, kidnapper of the Queen, to be exterminated. He could never be a friend.
“You all right?” Nolan said.
“Yeah.”
Nolan’s hand found Carro’s shoulder, caressing the skin through his clothes. Carro lay still, his heart thudding.