The Crescent Stone

by Matt Mikalatos

  Madeline’s heart began to pound. The thought of being in a battle, of being in a fight at all, made her nervous. Her palms began to sweat. Shula squeezed Madeline’s shoulder. “Do not fear. You made an agreement to serve the Elenil, but there is no guarantee they will assign you to fight. They may put you on guard duty, or have you serve food in the archon’s palace. You agreed to serve them, not necessarily to fight.”

  “But the prophecy Hanali keeps mentioning—it sure sounds like fighting.”

  Shula sighed. “Six months ago, Hanali was invited to a party for someone in the Elenil elite. It was a big deal. He went to sixteen prophets, four soothsayers, and three party planners. He chose his outfit and bought new gloves and obsessed about this party for more than two months. One of the prophets told him I would ruin the party. I was supposed to go as his ‘bodyguard’ . . . The Elenil like ridiculous shows of luxury, and that was one of his. But he was so terrified that he switched me out for someone else. The party came, and he attended, and he even spoke to some of the most influential Elenil, the magistrates. The whole city was talking about it the next day, and Hanali’s name came up more than once in the gossip chains.”

  “So you didn’t ruin it?”

  “No,” Shula said. “But the next time I saw him, he cornered me and said, ‘You ruined the party. I spent the entire night worried about how you were going to ruin it, so I didn’t enjoy it for a moment.’”

  Madeline laughed.

  It was definitely getting darker now, but there was still plenty of light to see. They had walked past Mrs. Raymond’s house and were now at the base of the city wall. “So just because my sword will bring justice, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m fighting a war?”

  Shula shook her head. In the dim light, the scar on her face stood out more clearly. “Maybe you drop a sword on someone’s toe, and they get so angry they destroy the Scim once and for all. Or maybe you work in the kitchens and make a sword cake that gives all the Scim a stomachache at the signing of a peace treaty. Or—” Shula up held a finger. “—and this is the most likely one of all—Hanali is trying to get some attention and has made up a prophecy. The whole city would be looking for you if the prophets pronounced you as some sort of chosen one.”

  Madeline thanked Shula, then gave her a hug. Madeline’s muscles unknotted, and her fists unclenched. She took a deep breath, something she would never, never get tired of doing. “I’ve been worried,” she said, “that I would come all the way here to get away from—from the thing that was killing me back home—and that I would get killed by the Scim instead.” She felt weird not telling Shula about her deal with Hanali, but Mrs. Raymond had seemed to feel so strongly about it. Maybe she would wait a few days until she better understood how everything worked. But she already knew she could trust Shula. She felt it to the core of her being.

  “The Scim can’t kill you if you kill them first,” Shula said. “Climb to the top of this stairway and tell them your name. I have to get ready to fight. But it’s time for you to see the Scim.”

  13

  WAR PARTY

  None could stand for long against the might of the Majestic One or his servants, the Elenil.

  FROM “THE ORDERING OF THE WORLD,” AN ELENIL STORY

  Jason debated whether to go into battle with his friends. He debated right until the moment when another teen said to him, “You’re the guy who gets the unicorn, right?”

  “I’m the—” Jason looked around, bewildered. David, Kekoa, and Jason had just walked outside the city wall, into a sort of staging area where the army of the Elenil was preparing for war.

  The other guy, an African American kid with a military buzz cut and green fatigues, looked him over. “Listen, kid, I know you’re new here, but I gotta get everyone outfitted. Are you the guy who gets the unicorn or not?”

  David elbowed him. “Speak up, Jason. Sorry, Jasper, he’s new.”

  Jasper rolled his eyes. “I could tell by the white clothes, Glenn.”

  “Yeah, I’m the one who gets a unicorn.” He couldn’t stop the enormous smile from growing across his face. “Jason Wu.” He held his hand out.

  “Gloves, Wu. Where are your gloves?” Jasper sighed. “Come here.” He led Jason to a stand that held what looked like traditional Chinese armor, but all white. “Hanali sent this over. Said you didn’t like the Japanese stuff in the armory. You know how to put this on? It’s a Song dynasty replica, pretty typical mountain pattern armor. Leg plates, chest plate . . . You tie this all together with the silk cords. And the helmet is there on top.”

  Jason had no idea how to put it on. And how did this guy Jasper know so much about ancient Chinese armor? I guess that’s how you get put in charge of the armory. “I’ll figure it out,” he said. Why would he need armor anyway? He would be on a unicorn.

  Jasper looked at him skeptically. “When you’re fitted out, meet us outside the wall, and we’ll get you mounted.” Jasper moved off into the crowd.

  The crowd was strange. Human teenagers, mostly. In fact, almost all of the people here looked to be about the same age. There weren’t a lot of Elenil (“They watch sometimes, from the wall,” David had said), and he hadn’t seen Baileya, or any other Kakri for that matter. It was weird that the humans did all the fighting . . . On the other hand, they were the ones who had made deals to fight the Scim. Except him. He was fighting because . . . well, because Break Bones seemed pretty awful, and David and Kekoa had made the whole thing sound more like a sporting event than anything dangerous, and also there was a unicorn.

  “We’ve never had a unicorn,” David said. David wore an open buckskin jacket and a looping necklace of some sort that looked like a ladder of beads hanging in front. His hair was swept up in a sort of pompadour in the middle, with two thick braids on either side of his face, and he had worked a few feathers into his hair. He had two white lines on the front of his face, coming down like tears. He and Kekoa had been the ones to tell Hanali there was nothing appropriate for Jason in the armory. It wasn’t mandatory to wear a traditional war outfit, it was just his roommates’ preference. You could request whatever you wanted. A lot of people wore some sort of military gear from modern times or earlier. A medieval European knight’s armor just seemed right to a lot of people who had grown up watching fantasy movies.

  “What do you usually have instead of a unicorn?” Jason asked, trying to figure out how to put his breastplate on.

  “Horses, mostly. Elephants, too. These big birds called rocs sometimes, but I think those are seasonal or something. I tried riding a giant cat once, but it went crazy and started pouncing on our own people, so we shrank it again. Lives in Mrs. Raymond’s kitchen now, but I think it might have gotten a taste for human blood. I try to stay far away from it. Name is Fluffywoogins.”

  “Terrifying,” Jason said. He had the breastplate on, he thought, more or less correctly. The other pieces tied on with silk cords that ran through holes in the armor.

  “Howzit?” Kekoa called. He was barefoot and bare chested, wearing what looked like a red towel around his waist. He had his leiomanō in one hand.

  “Dude got his unicorn,” David said.

  “What? That’s epic, brah.”

  The leg guards fell off again. “Do unicorns talk, you think?”

  Kekoa laughed. “One day I was practicing slinging stones at a bird, and it came over and asked me to stop. It’s always hard to say in the Sunlit Lands.”

  “Help me tie these,” Jason said, and the three of them set to work knotting the armor together. In the end, David and Kekoa said he looked fierce, but Jason was almost certain it wasn’t on correctly. He settled the helmet on his head. The boys clapped.

  “Man, you’re unrecognizable,” David said. “Pretty awesome.”

  The armor was heavy. Jason started sweating after a few steps. David slung a quiver of arrows on Jason’s back and gave him a bow. “Use your magic, and you should be able to hit a Scim even while riding a giant white stallion with a horn
.”

  They walked toward the wall, debating if the unicorn would gore people with its horn. It seemed likely, and Jason didn’t think that would make for a comfortable ride. Not that war was about comfort, but still.

  “Now we all line up,” Kekoa said. “Not much organization to it—we sort of pick our own places.”

  “Some kids tried to organize us last week because they had grown up playing strategy games or something, but the Elenil don’t care, so we do what we want. That’s why we’re the War Party,” David said, and he and Kekoa tapped their weapons together like toasting someone at a party.

  “Three Musketeers,” Kekoa said.

  “Speaking of which,” Jason said. “What happened to your previous roommate, anyway? Did he, um, you know, get horribly beheaded?”

  David and Kekoa burst out laughing. “No, man, he finished his service and went home. He was from Ohio, I think. Hanging out in Cincinnati right now, I bet.”

  “The Scim will line up over there,” Kekoa said. There was a long ridge to the west of the city. “When it’s dark enough—they always wait for the darkest moment—we fight. Not for long, usually. Our job is to keep them out of the city. Their job is to . . . Well, I never listen to their whole thing. You know, bring a thousand years of darkness and so on.”

  “I’m surprised they don’t burn the farmlands and everything outside the city, or put it under siege.”

  “They’re not the smartest,” David said.

  A horn sounded, and an entourage came out of the city gates. A fully armored knight led the way, his helmet under one arm. His horse was a silvery color, wide chested and powerful. The knight’s armor flashed brilliantly even in the low light, and he wore an emerald-green sash across his chest, and on his flag was a stylized silver horse prancing on an emerald field. His face was weathered and scarred, and Jason realized he was the oldest human he had seen since coming to the Sunlit Lands. Ancient. Maybe in his mid-forties.

  “The Knight of the Mirror,” Kekoa said. A large group of warriors surrounded him, a few on horses but many of them on foot.

  “He won’t use magic,” David said. “None of his people will, either.”

  “Like Baileya,” Jason said, and as the words came from his mouth he saw her, taller than most of the men around her. She hadn’t changed from earlier, other than to use a long white scarf to tie her loose clothing closer to her body. Probably to keep it from getting in her way during the battle. She carried something like a long spear with a pointed metal head on one side and a curved blade on the other. Red feathers hung from the base of each blade. “She’s amazing,” Jason said.

  Kekoa rapped him, hard, on the breastplate. “Pull it together. You’re going into battle, not on a date.”

  “Uh.” Jason tried to snap out of it. “Why do they call him the Knight of the Mirror?”

  “He’s vain,” David said, jumping from foot to foot, warming up. “Always looking in mirrors. He usually brings one out to—yup, there he goes.”

  The knight pulled a mirror from the inside of his sash and held it up, looking intently into it. He didn’t seem to see or hear anything else going on around him, even when a monstrous cheer rose from the western ridge and a nightmare army crested the top.

  David shoved Jason back toward the wall. “Go get your unicorn, dude, and meet us in the middle of the fight.”

  Kekoa shouted, “Some of the Scim, they target the newbies, so be careful. The white armor gives it away!”

  “And stay away from the Black Skulls,” David said. “Just . . . don’t even go near them. Focus on the regular Scim.”

  Jasper stood near the wall, next to an enormous tent. Elephants came lumbering from inside, small decks built on top of them, warriors at the ready looking out the sides. Jason paused and shouted back to his friends, “How will I know which ones are the Black Skulls?” but they were already gone, pushing their way to the front of the lineup.

  Jason ran to the tent—well, as close to running as he could get in his armor—and stopped in front of Jasper. He gave him a quick salute. “Jason Wu, Unicorn Captain First Class, reporting for duty.”

  “Unicorn Cap—” Jasper looked disgusted. “Get in here, Wu. I’ll introduce you to your animal.”

  “Does she have a name already?” Jason asked as Jasper led him past partitioned stalls in the monstrous tent.

  “You get to name your own war beast, that’s tradition around here,” Jasper said.

  Jason stood up straight. “Then I shall name her . . . Delightful Glitter Lady!” He grinned. Now that was a good unicorn name. “My sister, she would have wanted Sparkling Ruby Rainbow, but I’m thinking it’s too many r’s.”

  Jasper rolled his eyes. Outside there was a roaring sound, and then the muffled sounds of a gravelly voice shouting. Jasper said, “The Scim are making their declaration of battle. You have maybe three minutes. Okay, listen, kid. You ever ridden a unicorn before?”

  “I’ve never even seen one. Unless you count dreams.”

  “Focus, Wu, I’m trying to train you. You know how to connect your magic to your weapon?”

  “Sure.” Connect through his tattoo, and reach out to take the skill he needed.

  “Same thing, only you use the saddle. Not the unicorn, okay? The saddle.” He glared until Jason nodded. Jasper stopped in front of a fifteen-foot-tall curtain. “If you’re losing your concentration and can’t focus on both your weapon and the saddle, then you should—”

  “Stay focused on my weapon,” Jason said, nodding.

  “On the saddle,” Jasper said, exasperated. “Better to lose control of your weapon than to fall off your mount. I’m not sure you’re ready to go out.” He rubbed his eyes. “Okay, look. If you get in trouble, you find one of the big magic users, okay? There’s a woman named Shula Bishara, she’s the one who’ll be shooting fire everywhere. Or find Diego Fernández, he’s the one who can fly. Or that kid—what’s his name?—Alex, I think, who can make rocks move. And if you can’t find them, or they’re too far, you stick to the Knight of the Mirror. You know that guy, the old one?”

  “I saw him, sure.”

  “And stay away from the Black Skulls.”

  Jason nodded sagely. He paused for a long moment, waiting for Jasper to say more. When it was clear Jasper wasn’t going to volunteer the information, Jason asked, “I’ll be able to recognize the Black Skulls . . . how, exactly?”

  Jasper looked at him in complete amazement. “They are wearing black skulls. Seriously, who briefed you for tonight?”

  “Aaaaanyway,” Jason said, “Can I see Delightful Glitter Lady now?”

  Jasper waved a hand at the curtain. “Go ahead.”

  Jason took a deep breath and leaned his face up against the curtain. He heard a snort. He imagined her beautiful white mane and pearlescent horn. He threw the curtain aside. Delightful Glitter Lady lifted her thick neck and snorted again.

  Jason cocked his head to one side. He turned to Jasper. “That’s a rhinoceros,” he said. “A really, really huge one.”

  “The Elenil are a little sketchy on zoological classifications,” Jasper said. “But, yeah, I think you’re right.”

  Not only was it a rhinoceros, it was about twice as large as a regular Earth rhino, easily as large as an elephant. It had deep-grey skin, wrinkled and tough, and a horn three times as big around as Jason’s arm. “Just the one horn,” Jason said. “So I guess, technically . . .” He walked carefully in front of the rhino. It turned its head sideways, watching him with a tiny black eye.

  A multicolored cloth had been thrown across the rhino’s swayed back, with a massive saddle on top of that. Jason kept his distance as he made his way around the rhino’s side. There was a stepladder. He climbed it slowly. Jasper was nowhere to be seen. A wise man, Jason thought.

  Before getting into the saddle, Jason looked for the spot to connect his tattoo. It was just close enough that he could touch it before climbing on. He let the magic flow through his tattoo and reached out to fin
d the skills of some Sunlit Lands unicorn rider. A feeling of certainty came over him, and he vaulted onto the rhino’s back. He leaned close and patted the thick folds of skin on the creature’s neck. The rhino’s ears turned back toward him.

  He nocked an arrow. Then he shouted, “ONWARD TO VICTORY, DELIGHTFUL GLITTER LADY!” and jabbed the rhino hard in the sides. She made a sound that was a cross between ten untalented trumpet players and an enormous balloon shrieking as air was being forced out of it, and charged.

  She went straight through the side of the tent, pulling it down around them. The tent billowed up and covered their faces, tearing away in time for Jason to see Delightful Glitter Lady trampling their own soldiers as she galloped through the front lines.

  “Sorry!” he shouted back at the trampled humans. “Still getting the hang of my rhinocorn!”

  He burst through the enemy front lines. Terrible beasts hacked at him with axes and fired arrows at Delightful Glitter Lady. Terror coursed through his body like electricity, and he wanted to shout at the top of his lungs. But then his leg plates came off, thrown from the side of the rhino, and Jason saw them get trampled into splinters. That could have been me, he thought, and all desire to shout disappeared. He frantically checked his breastplate and helmet—they, at least, seemed to be secure.

  The Scim looked more frightening and terrible than Break Bones, if such a thing was possible—long limbed, with too-large heads and protruding, tusklike teeth set in wide mouths. Some of them rode enormous rats, and one streaked by flying on the wide, leathery wings of a bat. It would have seemed like a video game, except that instead of a carefully created entertainment experience, the sounds around him clashed together into one muddy roar, the smells of the creatures and the chaotic movements of the enemy spinning past him faster than he could process. He needed to focus, to try to remove the dizzy confusion of the battlefield. He chose the bat because the sight of the giant thing gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.