by Sarah Remy
Everin didn’t bother to point out they both smelled worse than any person they passed. “I told you not to speak,” he said instead.
“You promised we’d be out of the sun, in a tent, with water,” Drem retorted, turning silken sidhe vowels sharp. “We’ve been walking for more than a day, half of that time now beneath burning skies.” It stopped, forcing traffic around them both. A woman dressed in a linen chiton instead of snakeskin glanced their way as she trotted past, a large jug of fermented mesquite beer balanced on her shoulder. Six kilted warriors, faces wrapped against the wind, passed three to either side. They gave Desma’s strong thighs a cursory, appreciative glance before moving on. Drem didn’t notice. “I am fatigued.”
Everin adjusted his veil. Between the lodges the wind was lesser but a sandy grit still hung in the air, making his eyes water. He’d been so intent on weaving his way through the temporary city toward their goal he had forgotten that, in the heat and surrounded by steel, Drem did not have a mortal’s endurance. He saw now what he’d ignored and what the passing sand snakes had not noticed: behind Desma’s stern desert beauty, Drem was beginning to droop.
“Water,” the sidhe said, twisting Desma’s mouth into a sneer, “and a sit down is all I require. Don’t look so eager. The iron hasn’t got me yet.”
Everin squinted past lodge poles at the horizon. He’d lost track of time. The sun hung midsky. Awareness made his stomach wake and cramp on emptiness. Blisters stung between his toes where sandal leather rubbed. The skin on his shoulders felt stretched from too much time in the heat.
“This way,” he decided, choosing a promising tent from amidst a forest of similar. “Don’t speak.”
Drem scoffed but followed.
The encampment Everin approached flew two flags from its highest tent pole. The topmost was a crimson starburst on white background. Below that flapped a smaller pennant: two black scorpions on a field of red. Three lodges were pitched side by side, canvas doors fastened shut against wind. A large pot hung from a tripod over a banked cook fire. Sisal rugs covered the ground between the tents, the cook fire, and two hobbled camels. The rugs kept the sand from blowing into the lodges or the food or onto the camel. They were weighted down at each corner with elaborately woven capped baskets.
Two men sat in the shade cast by the lodges, talking softly. They looked up when Everin and Drem stepped off the road and onto their rugs. Their faces were wrapped and they wore feathers in their long hair and sewn into the pleats of their kilts. They did not seem alarmed by the intrusion.
“How much,” asked Everin, “for one of yon beasts?”
One of the men uncurled and rose to his feet. His chest and feet were naked in the heat. He pulled away his scarf, baring an amused smile. The camels stirred as Drem came near, squeaking uneasily. Their master hushed them with a sharp word.
“Not for sale,” he replied.
“Everything is for sale,” said Everin. “At the right price. We’ve come a long way. Our camel died east of the fissure. One is all we need to carry our tent and our baskets.”
“A long way indeed,” the man said, “and late to news. Those are not beasts of burden any longer. They are supper.”
The second warrior laughed at Everin’s surprise. He stayed seated but also pulled down his scarf. He was older, his yellow eyes clouded. Gray salted his brows and beard, and age lines pulled down the corners of his mouth.
“Join us,” he offered formally, “before you fall down. We have beer, and some meat to share. Then we will talk camels.”
Everin accepted the invitation, squatting on his heels in the shade. There the wind was nonexistent. He freed his nose and mouth from folds of cloth. The shade was only marginally cooler than direct sun but it was a relief to sit.
“You, also,” their host told Drem, who hadn’t yet moved. “I am Myron, and this is my son Pelagius. The others are resting after a night in the saddle.” He nodded at the tents. While Drem settled on the rug, spear laid carefully beside Desma’s knee, Pelagius fetched a pitcher and four cups from within a basket. He poured out a round of beer before sitting again in the shade.
“Erastos.” The old name fell easily off Everin’s tongue. “And my sister, Demetria.” For courtesy’s sake he toasted Myron before taking a healthy swallow of beer. Unlike flatland ale, the liquor was sweet and syrupy, and warm. One cup refreshed the body. Four could send a man into a drunken stupor. To Everin, the beer tasted like home. “May your enemies fall before you.”
Myron chuckled. “It’s been a good year,” he conceded, “and not just for the scorpion tribe.” He sipped his drink before raising gray brows in polite enquiry. “From east of the fissure, you said? I had family east. They were not so late as you to war. They arrived a full season past, with the rains.”
Drem had not touched the beer. Pelagius watched the sidhe minutely. Everin could not tell whether the young man was admiring Desma’s beauty or affronted by Drem’s abysmal manners.
“Sister,” Everin chided. “If you fall asleep over your drink you will offend our hosts.”
Drem glared, through the folds of its veil. Then it plucked aside silk, raised its cup in a succinct toast in Myron’s direction, and downed the drink in one gulp. Myron’s smile deepened. Pelagius’s mouth twitched.
“Good,” Drem said, smothering a cough. “Thank you.”
“My family serve in isolation,” Everin continued, hoping Drem was not about to vomit all over Myron’s rugs. “As brick makers, in the mudflats. News always comes to us several seasons too late.”
Myron puckered his lips in sympathy. “And which lord is it that you serve, Erastos?”
Everin took another swallow of drink to hide vacillation. It was possible, although not probable, that in his absence titles had shifted or been lost. Like the white sands, desert hierarchy was oft changing, prey to familial schism or tribal feuds. There was no guarantee the man he had served ruled still.
“Nicanor,” he ventured.
For a heartbeat Everin thought they were lost. Myron closed his eyes in thought, brow wrinkled. Drem shifted, one hand alighting on the rug very near its spear. Everin rested his own casually on the pommel of the Aug’s sword. Then Pelagius nodded.
“Nicanor is here,” he said. “They are much closer to the gateway, near Black Crom’s lodges. Remember, father. We saw his flag when he came in.”
“Ah, yes.” Myron’s eyes snapped open. “But that was moons ago, before even the rains. You are quite tardy, Erastos. Nicanor will not be pleased.”
Everin finished the dregs of his beer to hide his face.
“Tell us,” Drem said after a moment of silence. “About eating the humped beasts.”
Everin coughed. Drem arranged Desma’s mouth into a bland expression, deliberately not looking Everin’s way.
“New orders from the top,” replied Pelagius. He licked his lips. “Camels, they will not go near the demon gateway. They spit and moan and fall in the sand. The ponies are not so smart, and do much better, as promised.” He propped his chin on one fist, regarding the two dozing camels with fond resignation. “I will be sorry to put old friends to the slaughter, but who knows what we will find on the other side of the mountains? I would rather eat gamy camels than starve.”
“I have heard,” Myron added, “that the flatlanders are forced to catch their suppers in river waters, or in the sea.”
“Fish,” said Drem with relish.
“Demetria has spent time on the other side of the divide,” explained Everin hastily. “Scouting the west face of the mountains.”
“Ah!” Pelagius leaned close. “Demetria! Tell us! Is it as they say? A land bursting with true gold and opion and plenty of fields for a man to make his own? Greener than scrubland after a hard rain?”
“It is,” replied Drem, “a green and gold land, also black as dusk and red as dawn. Plenty of rain on root and leaf, and sweet meat to fill an empty belly. If,” the sidhe added, “one is willing to kill for a piece of it.”
Myron busied himself with refilling their cups. “I look forward to sweet meat,” he said. “I grow tired of famine. Every year is harder than the last. The rainy season is shorter each turn: the crops turn to dust, the animals die. We all suffer for it.” He swirled the beer in his cup. “For a little while longer we will make do with khaim and camel meat. So then. You were not wrong. Everything under Two Scorpions is for sale—at a price. I am willing to sell to you a piece of my beasts. Say, a quarter of a haunch. If you are interested.”
“I am more interested,” replied Everin, “in talk of ponies. We would rather ride proud through the gateway than run behind.”
“That is your Nicanor’s business,” retorted Myron. “Whom of his tribe shall ride and whom shall walk? Take it up with him.”
Everin flicked two fingers in acceptance. Desma’s head was lolling; Drem was not pretending weariness. Pelagius looked dangerously close to laying his head in her lap.
“A place in one of your lodges,” Everin decided. “Until sun down. So my sister may sleep.”
“For the telescope,” answered Myron. “You may each share a sleeping fur in one of my tents. Also—” he wrinkled his nose “—water to wash. For the sake of my family.”
“Telescope?” Baffled, Everin followed the other man’s gaze to the lens hanging on his belt. “Of course. But we are hungry. And this telescope is very fine, indeed.”
“Water to wash. A place to sleep until sundown. Khaim and a jug of beer. For the rest, you’ll have to find your lord. If you are lucky, he will not whip you for being tardy.”
Everin spit in his left hand and then offered it, palm up, in the manner of a desert bargain sealed. “Done,” he said. “And thank you.”
Myron’s cloudy eyes danced. “Pelagius will show you to the water cask. Mind he keeps his hands to himself. He is of an age for a second wife, and your Demetria is a rare jewel.”
They left Two Scorpions after sunset. Pelagius was visibly disappointed to see them go. Myron, busy taking apart his new telescope near the cook fire, was less so. His family, forsaking bed for the evening’s activities, gathered to see them off, inquisitive and solemn.
“May your enemies fall before you,” Pelagius said. “But if they do not, may you find the god’s cradle in good time.”
“I will look for you there,” Everin responded, bowing from the waist. Drem, gnawing a strip of khaim, said nothing. Everin ushered the sidhe away from the lodge and back onto the road. Light was coming up all throughout the encampment; torches burned near each lodge and at every intersection, smelling heavily of animal fat. Cook fires were fed fresh tinder until the flames leapt high and hot. Laughter rang out as day-sleepers stirred. The wind had abated at last. The army was waking, singing praises to the gloaming.
“Is it the same god?” Drem wondered around a mouthful of jerky. “Pelagius’s god and the one on the other side of the mountains?”
“There are no gods but the sidhe,” Everin recited. He meant it as mockery. Drem shrugged.
“The gate is directly that way,” the lesser sidhe said, jabbing khaim at the twilight. “‘Twould be simpler to cut across.”
“Simpler but hardly expedient. Every lodge we crossed would play host. We’d soon be too drunk to find our own feet. These are a congenial people, Drem. They value allegiance.”
“When they’re not fighting amongst themselves.”
“Which they are not, for the moment.” Everin stopped at a crossroads to find his bearings. Drem was right. The tent city was a maze. He could not be sure the correct turning was the most obvious and they did not have time to waste. Already they’d been off the mountain two days too long. Drem might claim no ill effects, but there was no certainty Faolan’s magic would hold up indefinitely under the weight of so much surrounding iron.
“Nicanor?” he asked, stopping a lass before she could hurry by. “Nicanor’s lodge?”
“Lord Nicanor?” She pointed opposite the path he would have chosen. “That way. Next to Black Crom’s lodge, you can’t miss it. The demon gate shines upon his tent flap.”
“Shines?” Everin asked Drem when the lass had trotted away.
“Black Crom?” Drem frowned.
They walked on, stopping frequently so Everin might ask further directions. From Skerrit’s Pass he’d assumed the army was exactly as it had looked: lodge squares laid out in a tidy grid. In fact there were as many sideways and byways as main roads, trails carved into the sand by necessity of use. Some squares had become rectangles as lodges were added to a family grouping, turning roads into dead ends as space ran out.
There were tinkers living alongside the sand snakes, carts and wagons tied up near tents. From the depths of sand around the wagon wheels they were long ensconced. They whistled cheerfully as they set out their wares for the night, joking easily with the desert merchants who were their competition.
“They’ve been here some time,” Drem said.
“The tinkers?”
“The army. Also the tinkers. The sun has faded the paint on their wagons. The tents, also, are more worn to the north, from whence the wind comes. Patched in places, do you see?”
“I see,” Everin replied. “But I never thought it possible. To stop moving in the desert is to die.”
“If you are a camel or a wolf or even a sand serpent,” agreed Drem, “but these people have something neither the camel nor the wolf nor the serpent claims to know.”
“And what’s that?”
“Hope.” For an instant sharp sidhe teeth flashed in Desma’s smile.
Everin grunted. “Renault will never let go the flatlands.”
“So we said, when the woods and waters and prairies belonged to the sidhe.” Before Everin could respond, Drem lifted its spear, indicating with the tip. “Look there. It shines upon his tent flap.”
In their circuitous ramblings, dusk had turned the sky to deep purple, and then to near black. The moon was not yet bright. A new brilliance bloomed on the horizon to the southeast, turning lodge roofs from white to rose. It shifted like a candle flame through wavy glass: expanding, retreating, and then burgeoning once more. Alarm made Everin’s heart catch.
“Skald’s balls.” His feet stopped moving of their own accord. Drem dragged him off the busy road under the scant shelter of a merchant’s canvas. The merchant, busy plucking spines from cactus fruit, looked up in welcome. Everin ignored him. “By the Aug—”
“Hsst,” Drem interrupted. “Hush.” The sidhe directed a scowl at the fruit merchant. “What is that? That light?”
The man walked around his counter to get a better look. When he glimpsed the rosy incandescence, he smiled. “Black Crom’s grace,” he said. “Isn’t it lovely? Lately it shines often, as victory approaches and he graces us more often with his presence.”
“Black Crom?” Everin paused in unhooking Myron’s gift of beer from his belt. Drem snatched it away and stole a swallow. The merchant looked between them, puzzled.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Called Crom Dubh by his equals. May all his enemies—”
“Fall before him. Thank you.” Drem placed a hand hard between Everin’s shoulders blades and pushed him on ahead. Once out of the merchant’s earshot, the sidhe began to laugh. Drem’s laughter was as piercing as its voice, silver bells in a winter sky. It drew attention from nearby tents. Drem stifled the sound with one hand.
“Crom Dubh.” Everin bit back more curses. “Not a tribesman, nor even a sand lord. I should have guessed. It needed something bigger to unite the desert.” He looked bitterly at Drem. “Does Faolan know?”
“That a sidhe elder marshals mortal against mortal?” Drem’s laughter subsided to musical giggles. “Would he have sent you, his best game piece, into the heart of it if he did? I think not.” Desma’s mouth curled, and that should have been warning enough, but Everin did not expect Drem’s betrayal and so when the sidhe sprang, Everin barely missed being knocked to the ground. As it was, Drem’s spear haft connected so
lidly with his ribs. Everin staggered, drawing his sword as he backpedaled.
“Hope,” said Drem. Desma’s spear whirled in its hand. “Until just now, you see, I’d mislaid it.” Drem reversed the spear haft and struck at Everin’s unguarded right side with the butt end. Everin blocked the blow, if not handily, then competently. The last time he’d had need to use a blade in earnest he’d been in Nicanor’s employ. The irony did not escape him.
Drem slashed low. Everin hopped the spear haft, dancing forward. Drem scuttled sideways, evading Everin’s thrust. Around them men, women, and children gathered, seeking entertainment. A few whistled approvingly and stomped their feet when Everin managed to dodge a third swat. The spear made Drem’s reach much longer than Everin’s own. Drem was faster, more agile. But Everin was unbloodied.
“You don’t want to end me.”
“Not yet,” agreed Drem, closing their distance. “Not until I visit Crom Dubh and see how things stand.” The sidhe leapt into the air, making spectators gasp. The spear butt came down with a crack on Everin’s left wrist. The gathered crowd groaned sympathy. Everin grabbed at his falling sword with his right hand just as his left went numb, bobbled the pommel, and went down on his knees in the road to grab it again.
A warrior in snakeskin and wolf pelt clapped her hands, enjoying the show. “Your woman is good,” she shouted cheerfully at Everin, “best apologize before she makes an eunuch of you.” The people around her began to hoot.
“If Faolan didn’t know, then things stand badly,” gasped Everin, back on his feet. His left arm from his fingers to his elbow felt dead. In sword’s play he was weaker with his right side than his left, but not incompetent. He clenched his jaw and set his guard. If Drem did not intend to kill him, all was far from lost. “Think. A new-waked sidhe elder? You’d be but a nuisance, an annoyance.”
Drem’s anticipation gleamed behind Desma’s yellow eyes. “With you over my shoulder, I’d surely be welcomed.”