A Glimmer on the Blade

by Rachel E. Baddorf

  “You never told me how you met Anoni in the first place...” Corin said conversationally to Arjent. A few of the men glanced up.

  The young man looked up from his mostly empty bowl. “I tried to pick her pocket in Oruno. Thought she was just a prosperous student of some scholar. She caught me, started raising a fuss...”

  “And? Like in some tale, she beat you and you joined her band of loyal followers, tried and true?” Corin said, half joking.

  “Nah, got her into an alley. Stabbed her ‘tween the ribs with a pretty backhand twist. She never made a sound, just wrestled back her purse and ran away,” explained Arjent.

  “She walked four and a half miles back to the Warcollege,” supplied Vansainté. “I found her in her room, blood everywhere. She couldn’t get the college healers to look at it because they knew she was a girl and some of the masters were searching for a reason to kick her out. I’d figured out by then that she was a girl,” said Vansainté. “I didn't know any healing. She told me to get a flat iron from one of the maids.” His words came slowly, like the memory was not a pleasant one. “She had me use it to cauterize the wound.”

  Corin was silent for a moment, trying not to think about how that must have felt for both parties. “Then what happened?”

  “She came back,” Arjent said with a smile, still surprised by her actions. “Asked me if I’d teach her the move. I said no. She said she’d pay me. So, I taught her the same things I taught you. Later, I helped the college students in some of their raids. When she left Oruno, she asked me to come with her. I thought, sure, get me some fine suits and the best food the palace can buy. Now, I’m the youngest Dragon to ever be recorded on the imperial rolls.” He put aside his bowl. “I’ll stand by the most powerful man on the continent when he gets married. It’s a long way from the Charib slums.” He shrugged.

  Corin nodded. His imagination could barely glimpse what that life could have been.

  “What about you, Nekobashi?”

  “Me?” The gold-skinned man laughed. “I was the only one to meet the boss as herself. She was this red-head beauty buying fruit in an Aquillion market. This cutpurse tries to walk off with her purse and she almost breaks his hand. I asked her out for tea. The boss says yes, and then she trips on the hem of her dress. I almost fell over laughing, but I could tell there was more there,” he said. “My people are eastern islanders. They don’t think much of us in the Empire, not willing to trade. But now there’s an islander wielding the bikari glaive in their emperor’s defense, tested and chosen over all of their marines.”

  “She gave that to you, saw that in all of you,” Corin commented in as even a tone as he could. He needed the Dragons to stay as a functioning team. He needed them to complete the mission. And he desperately didn’t want them to feel how angry their lack of faith made him on Anoni’s behalf. They would have to come to their own decisions. He washed his bowl and set it to dry. Trying to look like he didn’t care, he walked into the forest in the direction Anoni had taken.

  ***

  Tall Grasses, Safiro Wilds, South of the Isle of Asteri

  Anoni

  Anoni spun when she heard a rustle of bracken behind her.

  “You really need to learn how to knock,” she said in a slightly gruff voice. She cleared her throat to disguise the tightness there, brushing tears off her cheeks. “Please go away, Corin.”

  Corin ignored her and asked, “What’s that?”

  She turned back to the thing emitting orange light in front of her. “Low level Ozuk, a specter. It’s tied to this place.”

  Corin came beside her to watch it as it started over. It was a man of orange light in a strange mottled uniform and boots, carrying a blurry weapon, stalking around a large stone in this little clearing. She had almost rushed him when he stared at her, but his gaze passed over her. Then he looked up, with such real abject terror on his face she had ducked. But whatever he saw, it was not here and now. An orange light bloomed, crashing down into him and blowing his flesh away. He fell, writhing in this silent tableau. He was down to strings and bones but he never stopped moving. He got up, with most of his flesh gone and the rest horribly burnt, and began his patrol again. As he stalked, bit-by-bit his image returned to whole.

  Corin watched silently as it began again. “It’s horrifying.”

  Anoni nodded her head and said, “I think it’s a memory. Maybe the day Califf burned the world.”

  There were a few moments where they both continued to stare at the specter until Corin coughed and asked, “Can we get some privacy?”

  “All right. Don’t think I can ever un-see that. Don’t tell the men.” She walked back with him over a rise and down the other side to where the moon shown as the only form of light down through the tree branches.

  “I talked to the men,” Corin said, stopping. “I don’t think you’ll have to look out for grave markers in the morning.”

  “I can understand their doubt,” she said tightly. “Men can be expected to give their lives for a symbol, but few are ready to risk their souls for it.”

  “You would do that for the prince...?” he asked, concealing how the thought made something in his chest contract.

  “Sometimes I feel like I already have lost my soul for the prince.” She crossed her arms, hugging herself and turning away. It was all too raw. “And I don’t even know him anymore.”

  “He’s not so different from me,” Corin said, coming closer. “Just a man...who feels like a mirror.” He reached out a hand, tentatively touching her shoulder.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She didn’t turn.

  “Brittle, like all I am is a reflection of those around me...” He touched her other shoulder, letting his warm hands rest there.

  “Riddles...” she shook her head, causing her long hair to brush his hands. “In Lyceo, you said you were indifferent to me.”

  “I said you were beautiful,” he corrected.

  “Aren’t you used to the pampered Highlord daughters? Even the high-priced whores store their beauty up as if it were gold coin. I told you truth doesn’t fade. Under my shirt, there is no beauty. These are just the latest set.” She put one of her hands on his, showing him the sinuous lines.

  “There is the beauty in survival, in endurance, in suffering. These marks don’t really bother you do they? They’re just an excuse to push me away.” He massaged her shoulders, easing the tension there. “What is the problem really?”

  She was quiet for a long time as he pressed knots from her shoulders. “What if they’re right? What if whatever talent or power that allowed me to get this far is lost?”

  He stilled. “You really think that?”

  Defensively she cried, “I don’t know. It could be...I’ll never know all that the communion stones and the other stones did.”

  “Are you still the same girl who stood up to Markham Shaiso in the lower hall?”

  She heaved a sob. “No, I’m not that girl anymore.”

  “What, now you would let him have his way with you?” he said angrily. He shook her gently. “Maybe you should have let him drag you up those stairs. Gone along with him to his chamber. Let him bounce you on his bed. You’d still be a steward’s daughter, carrying tea to the accountants and the suppliers when they called you. All if you just let him claim you. Not just your body, but yourself as well. The place and person your parents made you in this world.” He shook her again. “As your attacker, he’d have owned your skin, all your senses, any way you saw the world. Just from putting his hands on you.”

  She covered her face with her hands, weeping. But he continued, the words burning him like acid. “But I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s not even really rape after all. You’re just a low-born piece of flesh. Just like every other woman he has taken. You shouldn’t even mind.”

  A tortured “No” tore from her lips. She spun, the back of her fist slamming into his face. He blocked her second shot, tried to sweep her legs from under her, but she leapt free
. She kicked him and was on him when he tried to roll away. She straddled the backs of his thighs with his arms locked up on his back. “Bastard, you think I shouldn’t care?” she demanded, rage having broken through.

  Corin heard the swipe of a short blade being pulled from a sheath. He couldn’t move. She had his wrists in an immovable grip. He tried to break them free but she just laughed low in her throat.

  “My body is mine. My mind is mine,” she growled, letting the sharp cold metal blade whisper against his neck.

  “What are you doing?” asked Corin, panicked.

  “I think you need a taste. You won’t think rape is nothing when you feel it,” she said and there was a rip of cloth. The night air tickled the skin of his ass. “The first man I killed was a rapist in Oruno. We were hunting him in the Charib and I found him first.”

  Corin stilled. Things had gone way too far. He couldn’t let her know how terrified he was, but he also needed her to see this lesson. “You can’t rape the willing.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “But I guess you’re still the girl from that hall back in Aquillion...” He strained for an even voice. He heard Anoni gasp and a soft shing of the blade as it dropped into the leaves. She rolled off him and he sat up cautiously. She was curled up, knees to chin, hands wrapped around her legs, eyes locked on him, rocking in shock.

  “Why did you do that? Do you know what I almost did...? Goddess,” she gasped.

  “You had to know that you, the you that leads here, that walks into Tall Grasses tomorrow, is still the you who took your first step in Aquillion. You wouldn’t let Markham Shaiso have your body, and you were willing to do something about it. Not the bandit, not Ryelis Mizrahi the Oruno graduate. You.” He came over to her. “No matter what how much training and magic happened afterwards, that is you.”

  She shook her head, but she wasn’t crying anymore.

  “Feeling better?” He stood and held a hand out to her.

  “Would you really have let me do that to you?” she asked, standing up.

  “Actually, I was about to try a last-ditch maneuver Wix taught me. I wasn’t sure what you were going to do with that dagger.” He grinned sheepishly, covering the shakiness.

  “Neither was I,” she said after a deep breath.

  “Will you fix my pants? I can’t exactly ask Yupendra to do it for me...” he said dryly.

  She laughed and said, “You would do better to swallow your manly pride and get him to do it. I’ve seen blind people sew straighter than I.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you. Please don’t ever do that again. My control is not very good around those subjects.” Right before they walked back through the trees to the camp, Anoni turned to look at Corin and his ripped pants. She said, “Just tell them you snagged it on a tree or something.”

  Looking troubled but much more herself, she left him and ducked inside her tent.

  ***

  Tall Grasses, Safiro Wilds, South of the Isle of Asteri

  Anoni

  At dawn, the Dragons put on their mail and strapped on as many extra weapons as they could and still be able to walk. The Dragons were still here, so they must believe in her enough to stick around. Seeing the men ready for battle kindled a fire in her belly. They were a team and they were ready. Pelaki skittered a little when she mounted, but Anoni rode it out tolerably well. Vansainté called out some comment on her temperament. She just whooped and shook her head.

  The column formed up with Anoni and Vansainté in the front. Corin rode a few lengths behind them with Wix and Tevix. Anoni called them onward and they rode to the edge of the forest. The sun was coming up, lighting the puffy round clouds in golds, pinks, and reds. The clouds floated, unmoving over the golden grassy plain. The grass grew three feet tall in places, a mixed prairie stretching to the horizon in three directions. The only interruption to the wavering grass was a few rocky crags and the odd tree. The air was still cool, but a dry wind was blowing.

  Their water bottles and the barrels were as full as they were going to get. Anoni nodded and they passed out from under the trees into the growing sunlight. A ray of light caught on a small shiny object in the grass. “I see something,” Vansainté called, pausing to investigate.

  Anoni looked back. “Check it out, I’ll scout ahead.” She kicked her horse to pull out front. Corin followed. Vansainté dismounted and crouched, picking through the grass with a dagger point. Yupendra slowed his horse.

  “What is it?” Yupendra asked.

  Vansainté held it up, “Chain mail with a dented fox badge in the same style and shape as our Dragon badges. Spread out, see if there’s anything else. Fox squad is a marine insignia.” The men fanned out, still moving cautiously. Nekobashi found a buckle. Arjent, with his quick eyes despite the fact he was on the wagon, found a spearhead and the steel toe of a boot.

  Corin and Anoni got about two hundred yards out without seeing anything out of the ordinary and began to loop back to the men at a gallop. An uncomfortable feeling caught Corin and he looked back. A strange glint of motion in the air sent his heart racing. What was it? He couldn’t tell. He was caught completely unawares when Anoni launched out of her saddle, tackling him and dragging them both over Rosa’s other side. They landed heavily in a pile in the grass.

  Anoni rolled onto her back, staring at Pelaki’s and Rosa’s bellies and thrashing legs as something, a thin rope, wrapped around the horses’ chests, pulled the mares up into the sky. Up into the clouds they went, Pelaki shrieking the whole way. Anoni felt like screaming. The low-lying clouds rippled and dipped as the horses shot into their depths. She rolled to get up, and felt a flutter of air beside her. She dodged the other way, as another of the rope tentacles swept by. Her dodge put her half on top of Corin. She rolled back over, flattening just in time to miss a third tentacle shooting low over their chests, missing by inches. “What the hell is that?” Corin asked breathlessly.

  Anoni ignored him, shouting to the Dragons, “Get back under the trees!” She could hear them scrambling back. The clouds twitched and their red and orange hues shifted. Something about them made Anoni want to bolt. They were moving, reminding her of something from the ocean. She momentarily closed her eyes.

  “Did I ever thank you for saving my life?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t think so...”

  “Well I just did.” She had it. Jellyfish floating along the shoreline. She looked up again from her nest of flattened grass. Her jellyfish were each a good fifty feet long. The one closest to her let down a couple dozen tentacles, trailing them through the air. It seemed to have lost her and Corin’s position without movement to track.

  “That’s the scourge of Tall Grasses,” he said faintly.

  She watched as arrows flew from the direction of the forest toward the clouds. Feeling strangely calm in the grasses, she thought how interesting it was to see their flight from directly underneath. She saw the flashes of movement that were the tentacles picking the arrows out of the air, fast as a reflex. The clouds brought the arrows up under its bell. A breeze swayed the grasses and the cloud tentacles.

  They were lighter than air and they were waiting for her to move.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it?” he asked.

  “I seem to remember eating things like that on crackers with imported mustard at the last corps Imperial Day party,” she said blithely.

  “They’re tasty, but you have to admit this one seems to be a little bit bigger.”

  “That would cover a hell of a lot crackers...”

  Corin snorted with laughter. Her mind raced. Every living creature had a weakness. They had to too.

  “Any ideas?” she asked.

  “They’re lighter than air,” he said. “I remember something Giovicci was saying—”

  She nodded, recalling Giovicci’s story from the trail a few days back. “About his visit to those scientists. The monks had been producing gases and catching them in bladders. The gases were lighter than air and...” sh
e followed the thoughts to the logical conclusion.

  “Fire arrows! Build a fire. Vansainté, get everybody ready for a little archery practice!” she called to the men.

  “What about you?” Vansainté asked.

  “We’re not going anywhere. Get it ready!”

  It seemed like hours before the Dragons had a sizable fire and arrows ready. Corin and Anoni just waited, motionless in the nest of grasses. The breezes ruffled their hair.

  “You okay?” Anoni asked.

  “Fine, lovely weather don’t you think?”

  Anoni smiled. “You keep a cool head. I admire that in a man. You really want to join me in my tent sometime?”

  “You want to talk about it now?” Corin asked incredulously.

  “If I’m about to be eaten by a Califf-cursed jellyfish, then yes. I’d like to know.”

  “You are a strange, strange person. I said you were beautiful,” he said, startled.

  “But complicated,” she retorted.

  “Anoni, we’re all complicated.”

  She shifted in the grass. “Just trying to make civil conversation.”

  “I’m willing, yes. All right, now can we talk about something practi—”

  They were interrupted by Vansainté’s call that the Dragons were ready. Anoni and Corin braced themselves to run. Anoni called out, “Fire!”

  The fire arrows flew in arcs like falling stars. The first three were caught by the tentacles and brought swiftly up under the bell. A fourth and fifth were high enough to hit the bell. The whole creature gave a screeching protest that echoed in Anoni’s bones as the bell blossomed with flames and exploded.

  Anoni and Corin were up and dashing toward the forest before the first bits of flaming jellyfish could drift to the ground. A few steps toward the Dragons and Corin dragged Anoni to a stop.