by Ray, M. A.
“I got to act like I don’t know any of that.”
“Not with me.”
“Always. Otherwise—I get beat on. I get hanged.”
Vandis rubbed a hand back through his hair. “Things won’t be that way forever,” he said finally.
Dingus pressed his lips together and shook his head. He couldn’t really imagine what his life would be if it wasn’t that way. He didn’t ask to be born dilihi, but he was, and that wasn’t about to change no matter how much Vandis got him feeling like he was a whole person. It was worse, feeling like that, because nobody else did.
“Dingus,” Vandis insisted, “not everybody in the world’s that ignorant. You think this backwater is the whole world? Wealaia’s a speck. Wait and see.”
“We’re crossing the border today,” Dingus said slowly, his spirit rising a little, then sinking again at Vandis’s grimace.
“It won’t take long to go through Green Mountain. We’ll try to stick to the Little States as much as we can, but we can’t avoid Muscoda completely—that won’t be fun.”
Dingus kicked dirt over the fire pit while Kessa swabbed out the cook pot and Vandis fixed his clothes. “It can’t be worse than here.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Vandis said. “Both of you better keep your hoods up around people, but especially you, Dingus. Kessa, she’ll be a slattern with her hair uncovered. The People are forest demons. It probably won’t be a problem—you’ll be with me—but I don’t want anybody seeing a pair of pointy ears and getting overzealous.”
“I thought you said it was going to get better.”
“It is. The Knights are popular in Muscoda. For the most part, it’s not going to matter, but we don’t want to chance running into any of the psychos.”
“I think it sounds horrible,” Kessa said.
“Far be it from me to judge how people choose to live their lives,” Vandis said virtuously, one hand over his heart. “But I wouldn’t live in Muscoda if you paid me to, not since Kasimir took over. Sometimes a coup can be a good thing—don’t repeat that, by the way—but not that one.”
“What’s a coup?” Kessa asked, stuffing the last of her clean stockings into her pack, and saving Dingus from having to ask the question.
“It’s when a person or a group of people overthrow the sitting government so they can run the country. In Muscoda’s case it was the King’s Army, but Kasimir was pretty much running things already—he was the Grand Marshal. Weak king, strong centralized military.” Vandis shrugged. “Recipe for disaster if you ask me, having a standing army. Now come on, let’s get moving. I want to get to the way station in Green Mountain by dusk.”
They moved, down the high hill they were on and up the next. Dingus saved his question until they were at the top. “What’s so bad about Kasimir?”
“Only that he’s sitting on top of a repressive regime,” Vandis said. Dingus chewed that one over, figuring out what the words meant while Vandis explained them to Kessa. They ended up talking about that for quite a while, especially about Muscoda’s established state religion, which was the only one the citizens were allowed to have, and which wasn’t Akeere. The Knights were popular everywhere, Vandis said, but Naheel Queen of Heaven was the only one allowed to have temples in Muscoda. Dingus had been with Vandis long enough to know he had funny ideas about people getting to say what they wanted and live how they wanted, and some outright weird ones about taxes, but it was all news to Kessa. Now he was real happy, because he had an excuse to give her the same lecture about governments and citizens he gave Dingus at Elwin’s Ford—and at least four times afterward. The first time it’d been interesting, but Dingus probably could’ve recited it all by heart if he had to.
He interrupted to ask Vandis, “Which way’s the pass? Think I want to go on ahead a little.”
“North-by-northwest,” Vandis said, and went on explaining to Kessa about voting, one of his very craziest ideas. It made a batty kind of sense, but it had about the same chances of happening as a hot meal in the cold heart of Hell.
“See you up there.” Dingus lifted his thumb and pinky up near the sun, did some quick calculations, and picked up his pace a little. He had some aches, but it was a beautiful day, a little cool, the sky blazing blue with a few puffs of cloud here and here. They were getting up pretty high by now, not anywhere near the snowline, but high enough they were starting to get fewer trees and less grass. Rough enough to give Dingus a real good run.
He put on more speed, but gradual, warming up his legs until he hit his stride, a ground-eating lope like a wolf’s. He would’ve run faster on a flat, but this way he wasn’t going too fast to adjust for obstacles. He slid down into gullies, climbed up the opposite sides, and bounded from rock to rock, not thinking really, only running. Once he passed a big brown bear in a row of blueberry bushes sprouting out of a seam of dirt. It didn’t pay him any mind; it kept on stuffing itself like he didn’t exist.
The mountains that all his life had been a jagged smear of purple in the distance were up close, gigantic, with white caps. He climbed a high ridge. When his head came up over the top, his breath caught, and he stopped dead, clutching his handholds. Yeah, the mountains were huge, he’d been able to see it on his way up here, but it wasn’t the same. For the first time ever, Dingus felt small.
He pulled himself up, over the edge, got his feet under him, and looked. He forgot every bruise, every ache in his legs and feet, everything. Right there, he was exactly like everybody else. Five paces from his toes, the ridge dropped off again into a broad wash of gray boulders and rocks, and at the bottom a skinny green strip of valley before another mountain soared up to the sky. If he walked along the ridge about a mile, mile and a half, he’d be able to climb a little ways and get to the pass.
He looked back the way he’d come and grinned. When he went through it’d been beautiful in a small way, the small things he’d seen: a dark boulder with pale, pale streaks, the bear, a tiny waterfall from a stream. Now it was beautiful in a big way, all dark rocks and patches of fierce green from trees and grass. He felt like shouting hey-la-hey, as loud as he could.
Instead he stretched out his legs a little, squirted about half his waterskin into his mouth, and since it was getting on past noon, went in his pack and took out jerked venison, three apples, and the end of his cheese. For a few moments he debated whether he was hungry enough to gnaw hardtack. My belly’s gonna have to be a long time empty before I want to eat that, he decided, and ate the other stuff. After his lunch had time to settle, Vandis and Kessa still hadn’t come, so he decided to walk up and take a look at the pass. He knew he shouldn’t go through on his own, but nothing said he couldn’t look. Maybe he’d be able to see Green Mountain on the other side.
The way it went, though, he didn’t really pay too much attention to what might be on the other side of the pass. He hadn’t thought there’d be a stockade lying across it, with a little gate and a guard standing in front of it with a spear and shield. The shield was black and painted with a device Dingus couldn’t quite make out, but he thought it must be the same as the banner rippling on a pole that stuck up above the stockade: a black field with a round yellow sun, lying over a sword pointing down. On top of the whole thing was a yellow crown.
He bit on his thumbnail. When he tasted blood, he turned around and walked slowly back to where he’d come up. Then he sat down on the edge to wait for Vandis and Kessa.
The Border
Vandis didn't like that stockade one bit. He bitched under his breath the whole way up to the pass. Then they got to the gate and Dingus saw the guard's eyes glue themselves on the badge pinned to his jerkin (there hadn't been a spare for Kessa), and then snap over to Vandis. "Sir," the soldier said without even waiting for Vandis to talk, "I'm going to need you to remove your right glove."
"Really," Vandis said.
"Yes, sir."
Finger by finger, Vandis took off the glove. He flashed the faded little leaf between thumb and forefinger and pu
t his glove back on. "Are you finished wasting my time, Private?"
Dingus wondered how he knew the guard was a private and started examining the guy, trying to figure it out.
"Yes sir."
Vandis waited patiently, for all of ten heartbeats. "Daylight's burning. Open the gate."
"No, I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that."
"Excuse me? I must have something in my ear."
"The Muscodite border is closed to all affiliates of the seditious organization Knights of the Air."
"What do you mean, closed?" Vandis said in his quietest, calmest, snake-meanest voice. "Since when is Green Mountain Muscodite territory?"
"Since—" The guard made a real effort not to cringe. "Since it is, sir."
"I see. Private, do you know who I am?"
"A Knight of the Air."
"I'm Vandis fucking Vail," Vandis said. "Open the damned gate."
"The Muscodite border is closed to all affiliates of the seditious organization Knights of the Air," the checkpoint guard repeated, his knuckles white on his spear, blanching at the need to defy Vandis fucking Vail to his face. "Sir Vail, you may not pass."
"All right," Vandis said, in a wintertime tone that said it definitely wasn't all right. "I want to see your commanding officer. Now."
"Yes, sir," said the guard, relieved, and pounded on the gate with his spear haft, beat-beat-beat, pause, beat, pause, beat-beat. There was a noise from the other side like a big beam sliding away, and the gate opened a crack to let him in. It snapped shut again as soon as he squeezed past, and the big beam slid back.
They waited. After a few minutes Dingus asked how anyone could tell the soldier was a private, and Vandis started to explain Muscodite rank insignia. It took another few minutes. Kessa sat down and draped her arms over her knees. "Stand up," Vandis told her, and she did. They waited. Dingus fidgeted a little, then more. "Stand still," Vandis told him, and then said to both of them in an undertone, "Don't show yourselves weak. Not here."
Not everybody could stand as still as a rock—as Vandis—but Dingus gave it his best. So did Kessa; actually, she was better at it than he was. Every so often he had to move his feet a little, because the stone he stood on leeched the heat right out of them. He was starting to see Vandis's point about wearing his boots.
They ended up waiting at least half an hour, for no reason he could see. When the gate swung open this time, it swung wide, and let out a tall, fat man with a fat-caterpillar mustache under his broad nose. He had a chaw in his lip. The jerkin he wore was plain black like the private's, but he had two brass rounds pinned on the right side of his chest. The circles were for generals, Vandis had explained. A double general?
"Well, well," said Vandis, like they hadn't been waiting even a minute. "If it isn't Big Mike. Looks like you got yourself a promotion. Congratulations. How many heretics did you have to stake to get that second pip?"
"I could always do one more," said Big Mike cheerfully, and the two men shared a laugh—except Vandis's was all broken glass.
"You aren't going to let me pass, are you?"
"I'd rather fuck my wife's prize rooster."
"I have people inside this sorry excuse for a dictatorship," Vandis said. "Did they have the opportunity to pass before you built this wall?"
"The Muscodite border is closed to all affiliates of the seditious organization Knights of the Air," said Big Mike, with real relish.
Vandis went white, then purple, honest-to-gods purple. "You. Can't. Do. This," he said, and Dingus kind of eased himself back out of the way, as much as he could on the narrow strip of stone where they stood. He took Kessa's arm and pulled her back, too.
"This isn't Dreamport."
"No kidding." Vandis's hand closed around his purse. "Are we going to deal, Kochansky?"
"Sure, we could." Big Mike spat a contemptuous wad of dip slobber on the ground by Vandis's feet. “Why not? The instant you step inside that gate, your ass is mine. A whore, a demon, and Vandis fucking Vail. I’ll be Grand Marshal inside of a week.”
Should’ve put my hood up, Dingus thought angrily, and when Vandis glanced back at him, he knew his teacher was thinking the same thing.
“No, you take my advice,” Big Mike went on. “You take your pet demon and your piece of ass, and you walk away.”
“Or?” Vandis said, which Dingus could’ve told him was a real bad idea.
"I wasn't thinking of alternatives, but if you want it that way, we could start by nailing that thing to the gate," Kochansky said with a thick index finger pointed at Dingus. "We'll see where it goes from there."
Vandis's lip curled in a sneer. It was a staredown, and inside the checkpoint, through the opening between the gate and the jamb, Dingus could see a bunch of soldiers waiting for an excuse. A hot little itch ran up his back. "Let's go," he said, breaking through that horrible, thick silence. "Come on, Vandis, let's just—"
"Listen to your pet, Vail," said Kochansky, spitting again, this time on Dingus's cheek. Dingus wiped at his burning face with his sleeve. "Why train it to talk otherwise?"
"I'll remember your face," Dingus blurted, before Vandis could say anything. He wouldn't have dared to say so a couple months ago, but that was the thing about feeling like a person. He knew it was going to get him in deep shit. Probably today, he thought.
Big Mike kept talking. "What happened to its face? That's the ugliest elf I ever saw."
Now Vandis did start to say something, but Dingus talked right over it, in a voice so low and hard he was shocked it came out of him. "Leastways I can beat off without a harness for my gut." Why'd he have to go and say that? He'd had to, but he wished he could've kept his mouth shut.
"I changed my mind, Vail. You can go, and the whore. But you leave this right here with me."
Dingus took a step forward. He didn't know what he was fixing to do, but his hands were balled up into fists. Anyway he never got a chance, because Vandis got hold of his arm. The moment he did, Dingus shut his hot, dry eyes. His body sang like a spinning wheel at top speed. As if from far away he heard Vandis tell Big Mike, "This isn't over, Kochansky."
“Huh!” Another slobbery wad landed on the ground. Dingus heard it slap against the stone and he felt himself go tight in every muscle. His eyes snapped open and his throat rumbled a sound all by itself. When Kochansky’s beady eyes met Dingus’s, his head jerked back, and the smug smile fell right out from under his fat-caterpillar mustache.
“Time to go,” said Vandis firmly. “Honey, you go ahead now. Come on, Dingus. You’re right.”
“Yes, Vandis,” Kessa peeped, and walked carefully away toward the ridge. Dingus didn’t really want to leave now. He wanted to stay and show Big Mike what was what. And then get nailed to the gate? the little rational corner of his mind demanded, and he let Vandis ease him away.
“Fine time to start sticking up for yourself,” Vandis said quietly, once they got to the ridge. “Are you under control?”
“I got it.” It was pretty much true. He could listen to himself, anyways, telling him it was a bad idea. He stepped out on the ridge after Kessa. “I guess I shouldn’t have said what I said,” he muttered when they’d gone far enough away that for sure none of the soldiers could hear, and sent a rock flying into space with a kick.
“He had it coming. Next time count to ten before you start running your mouth, that’s all I’m saying.”
“He called us names. Threatened us—Kessa and me. Even you. It pissed me off.”
“He had it coming,” Vandis repeated. “I didn’t help things running my own mouth. Let’s move on.”
“What’ll we do now?” Dingus asked after another while of walking. The scenery didn’t have the same attraction this time around. “We can’t go through the Little States and Muscoda, so how’re we supposed to get over to Windish?”
“I know,” Kessa said. “Let’s go around south. That’s Lightsbridge, right?”
He heard Vandis sucking wind to blast her and real quick, Dingus s
aid, “We can’t go there either. They got a war going with Brightwater.” Behind him, Vandis’s air went out slow.
“We’ll have to go around to the north,” Vandis said. “It’ll take about three times as long—but we can’t go yet in any case. We need to go back to Elwin’s Ford so—”
“No!” Dingus blurted.
“Shit happens, Dingus. I need to work on getting our people out of Muscoda. There are at least two hundred Knights and Squires trapped inside those borders right now. Do you want me to leave them to rot?”
“No,” he repeated, looking at the ground. Shame squeezed his heart. “I—” But then he stopped himself. It didn’t really need to be said.
“I know. I’ll get you out,” Vandis said. “As soon as I can.” That he bothered to say anything about it at all was as good as a promise. Sure as hell didn’t make Dingus feel any better. They started south and east, back into Wealaia.
Brotherhood
Fort Rule
The hum of busy insects and the groans of the dying tormented Krakus’s ears. He stood, sweating steadily in his white breastplate and staring out over the field. The ravens had already begun to arrive. He watched one flap up, startled, when the body it pecked thrashed his head from side to side. Krakus couldn’t count at a glance all the Knights of the Air in the field, spread-eagled and staked to the ground for the light of the Queen of Heaven to cleanse soul from flesh. If he had to guess, he would have guessed three hundred.
This was what Lech had been doing? All those letters flying back and forth between him and Vlad, and now this? Krakus felt as if his head had been swaddled in wool since the day he’d last drawn his sword. He stood there, remembering it: that stupid parade. He couldn’t even think what it had been for, or how they’d drawn enough attention for Father Lazar and Father Vaclav to invite them into the high box, but he remembered Lech that day. He remembered the savage excitement on Lech’s face as he’d carefully helped Krakus into the suit of black armor with the golden disk-and-rays on the breastplate, and neatened his own formal robes so that the gold medallions of an ASP hung just so from his shoulders.