by Sam Sykes
“Is it important?” Gariath grunted.
“Assuming you would like your attack on Cier’Djaal to end in something other than all of us being killed?” Mototaru puffed thoughtfully on his pipe, then exhaled a long cloud of smoke. “Possibly.”
“For that to happen, we would have to be fighting something stronger than humans.” Gariath waved a clawed hand. “I have fought many, killed many. I am not worried about humans.”
“Oh, good,” the old tulwar said. “For a moment there, I thought declaring war on an enemy that outnumbers us greatly and crushed us decisively in the past might be difficult. But thank goodness, you’re not worried. I’ll go inform the soldiers that they need not fear never seeing their families again.”
Gariath’s lips peeled back, baring sharp teeth at Mototaru. He drew himself up and loomed over the old tulwar, letting his wings and ear-frills spread and his claws sink into the wood of the table.
“You were crushed,” the dragonman snarled. “Because you were weak. I don’t have that problem.”
“Mototaru is right, daanaja.”
Gariath swept his scowl to the other side of the table. A younger tulwar, the gray lean muscle of his body adorned with silver fur and the orange-and-red cloth of his half robe, looked back. The thick knots of flesh across his face grew with color, reds and yellows and blues flooding his face as he furrowed his brow.
“No one doubts that you’re stronger,” Daaru said. He bared his own simian fangs—pitiful against Gariath’s, but still broad and sharp. “No one doubts that the tulwar are stronger. But if your attack is to succeed, we must have strategy.”
Gariath rubbed a sore spot beneath his left horn. “When did this become my attack? We’re taking Cier’Djaal for the tulwar.”
“The tulwar will follow you,” Daaru grunted. “But the humans are entrenched. They know their land and they are rooted deep inside it. It’s not a simple matter of going in and burning them out.”
“They are weak,” Gariath growled.
“They are many,” Daaru replied.
“So are we.”
“So we were,” Motataru added, “when we tried to first take the city so many years ago.”
Gariath’s eyes narrowed to slits so thin he could barely keep the two tulwar in his sight. He clenched his fist, felt a snarl boiling behind his throat. He held on to it for only a moment before it evaporated into a sigh.
There was a time when this argument would be over by now. He would punch them both, break one of their hands—probably Daaru’s, he was younger—and then start breaking things until everyone agreed that his way was best.
Perhaps he was getting too lenient.
Or, he thought, perhaps he was only now realizing the weight of things.
The map looked like such a flimsy thing on the table. He could tear it up in an instant, smash the table to pieces, light them both on fire. But the more he looked at it, the heavier it seemed.
There was the Lyre river in blue, a long jagged scar running along the north. Below it to the east was their position, the city of Jalaang they had killed so many to take. Farther west was the valley wall to the Green Belt, as Mototaru had said. And then, where the Lyre met the ocean, there was a big red dot.
Cier’Djaal.
The city he had left behind, the city he had sworn to destroy, the city he had beaten one of his companions—former, he caught himself, former companions—half to death over.
And there it was. Just a big red dot. A smudge of ink on a piece of paper.
But the more he stared at it, the more it seemed something bigger. He could see the people in it, all the people he had vowed to kill in all the buildings he had vowed to burn. He could see the long march between Jalaang and the Green Belt. And if he strained his eyes just so, he could almost see all the graves that would be filled with tulwar bodies because of him.
One here for Mototaru. One here for Daaru. Maybe a few hundred or so here for the ones he had killed back in Shaab Sahaar …
His nostrils quivered, suddenly filled with phantom scents of burning buildings, of flesh and hair cooking, of rank fear in the skies as fire rained from above and sent tulwar screaming into the streets to be cut down by humans.
All because of him.
He staggered suddenly, leaning hard against the table. His head suddenly felt like an iron weight, his neck like a blade of grass. The scents overwhelmed him, swirled inside his skull.
“Are you all right, daanaja?” Mototaru hummed.
“Stop calling me that,” Gariath growled. He shook his head, straightened himself. “I’m fine. I just need some air.” He snorted. “The reek of your pipe is giving me a headache.”
“Just as well.” Daaru nodded. “Not all the leaders are here. We should gather everyone and return to planning in an hour.”
“Not an hour,” Gariath growled as he stalked toward the door of the small house.
“Two hours, then.”
“No.”
“Then when do we—”
“When I say,” the dragonman snapped. “If this is my war, we win it when I say we do, how we say we do.”
“You sound confident,” Mototaru noted.
Gariath shoved the door open so hard it nearly flew off its hinges. Bright sunlight stung his eyes. He snarled.
“I got you this city, didn’t I?”
“True. You led. We followed. You won Jalaang and the trust of the tulwar.” Mototaru puffed his pipe thoughtfully. “They will follow you, daanaja.” His next words came sternly on a cloud of gray ash. “Anywhere.”
Anywhere.
That last word hadn’t seemed so meaningful until Gariath had left the small house they had made their command room. And if he didn’t believe it before, it was hard to deny as he walked the streets of Jalaang.
Barely half the size of Cier’Djaal and nowhere near as wealthy, this city had originally been built as an outpost. After the failed Uprising, in which the tulwar attempted to storm Cier’Djaal and were brutally beaten back, Jalaang had been built as a precautionary measure against future aggression. Over the years, it had gone from a fortress to a city to a glorified trading post. Tulwar attacks had failed to manifest. The fashas of Cier’Djaal, thinking their backs broken, abhorred the waste of valuable trading space that Jalaang was using for guards and moved in more merchants.
Gariath supposed that Jalaang’s fall at the hands of tulwar clans would be considered “ironic.”
Lenk would have called it that, Gariath thought as he stalked through the streets. The pointy-eared human would have called it funny. The tall human woman would … He paused. What did she call it, again? Barbaric? Cruel? Unthinkable?
It was hard to remember. He had been too busy beating the life out of her to listen.
Whatever Jalaang had been, it was his now.
Or rather, it was his army’s. For whatever they had been, that was what the tulwar were now.
The streets were alive with them. Tall, powerful, long of arm and leg, they hurried throughout the city. Though they came from many different clans, the tulwar looked like one people here.
Tho Thu Bhu clansmen, their fur flecked with sweat, pulled red-hot blades from forges. Rua Tong warriors, muscles glistening, sharpened their weapons. Chee Chree hunters carefully fletched arrows with long simian fingers. All of them, their faces were alive with color. The tulwar “war paint,” the reds and blues and yellows that came into their gray skin when their blood was up, was on full display as they sparred and practiced drills in the yards of the barracks.
Once, they had been many. Now, they were one army.
His army.
A distant shriek caught his attention. At the far end of the city, gaambols hooted, shrieked, and hopped in their pens. Massive beasts, resembling red-faced baboons that stood taller than a horse, they eagerly stomped their feet and slapped the earth, baring large fangs eagerly as their Yengu Thuun clan handlers tossed them chunks of raw meat, which they eagerly tore into.
I
t wasn’t hard to imagine those simian noises intermingling with the screams of dying humans. It wasn’t hard to imagine the gaambols feasting on a different kind of meat.
And it was even easier to imagine them lying dead on the ground, bleeding out on the sand among hundreds of tulwar corpses, their eyes glassy and staring up at the sky, mouths wordlessly whispering with dying breaths …
You led us here, daanaja. You led us to die.
He shook his head, pushed out the thoughts, drew in a deep breath.
And he could still smell the reek of burning flesh.
He growled, locking his eyes on the ground as he stalked through the streets. He ignored the tulwar who noticed him and hailed him by raising their weapons and howling: “Rise up!” Ignoring their crowing and excited howling was easy. Ignoring the reek of their rage, that was much harder.
Since the humans had attacked their city of Shaab Sahaar, he had smelled nothing else. The march to Jalaang had been rife with the odor of their anger. He couldn’t blame them; half their city had been burned down that day.
He wondered what they might do if they knew he was responsible for it.
Within a few more steps, his nostrils filled with plainer scents: the reek of filth and offal, of dried blood and old wounds. Only then did he look up.
Right into a broad, yellow smile.
“Hello, daanaja. What brings you to our little side of paradise?”
Chakaa stood before him, tall and muscular. Her skin was black as pitch, her fur grew in sparse patches on her arms and legs, giving way to knots of old scars that mapped a body left generously bare by her tattered half-robe. She had no color on her face like other tulwar—that is, except for the ugly yellow of her sharp-toothed smile—but then, there wasn’t much about her like other tulwar.
The intricacies of tulwar society were still a mystery to Gariath, but he had learned enough to know that Chakaa and her clan, the Mak Lak Kai, were malaa: creatures who existed outside the Tul that governed all tulwar life.
While the tulwar had lengthy explanations as to why this made her and her kin undesirable, they had fought well to help take Jalaang, and Gariath would not cast them out of the city. Still, he had yielded to their demands to keep the Mak Lak Kai far away from the other tulwar.
And Chakaa didn’t seem to mind jail duty.
“I’m here to see the prisoner,” Gariath said.
He glanced up. The large warehouse at the edge of the city was already showing signs of its Mak Lak Kai occupation. Shit and blood were smeared on its side. Gaambol offal lay where it had fallen. If the other Mak Lak Kai noticed, they didn’t mind. They gathered in small clusters around campfires, gnawing undercooked meat and sharpening rusted blades.
Gariath couldn’t help but wonder if they had been branded malaa because they were so disgusting or if they had been called that first and simply decided to live up to the title.
“Where is Kudj? He and his kin were supposed to be helping you guard.”
Gariath glanced to an empty spot where a two-ton creature resembling a very drunken night between a gorilla and a rhinoceros should be. Kudj’s vulgores, the hulking creatures who had been called to the city once it fell, were nowhere to be seen.
“Apparently, the vulgore’s delicate senses were offended by our presence.” Chakaa laughed, spraying spittle from yellow teeth. “You would think two-ton beasts wouldn’t mind a little stink.”
Gariath’s nostrils twitched; whatever words one would use to describe the scent of the Mak Lak Kai, little was not one of them.
“He and his cousins are loitering at the other end of the city, discussing economics or tea instead of readying for battle. Flagrant disregard of your order.” She reached over her shoulder to the filthy leather-wrapped hilt of a very large blade strapped to her back. “Should I punish him for you, daanaja?”
Gariath might have said yes, were he not certain that Chakaa’s definition of punishment likely began with decapitation and ended with defecation.
“You have your own mission to look to,” he grunted.
“As you say. We leave tomorrow morning. Would you like me to bring you back a present? Maybe a necklace of ears? Or a nice bouquet?” She slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “But where are my manners? You were on your way to see the prisoner.” She stepped aside, gesturing to the door of the warehouse. “I beg your forgiveness; if we knew you were coming, we would have cleaned the shit out first.”
Gariath spared a moment to let his glower linger on her before stalking past and pulling the massive door open. The reek of ancient gaambol offal assaulted his nostrils immediately. The warehouse had been used as a stable for the Mak Lak Kai’s mounts—the other clans’ gaambols found their presence upsetting. But Gariath had had it repurposed when he decided the barracks serving as the previous prison was a bit too comfortable.
There was a moment, as he stalked into the reek-ridden darkness of the warehouse, flies buzzing at his ear-frills and roaches scattering away, where he wondered if he had been too cruel.
But once he saw his prisoner, he wondered if there was anywhere worse he could stash him.
“How are you getting on?” he asked.
Chains rattled. At the end of the warehouse, an immense shape stirred. Ten feet tall, roughly the color, size, and shape of a great stone, a creature rose up. As much as he could, anyway. A great, reptilian head, its snout dominated by a rhinoceros-like horn, swung toward Gariath. A single black eye took him in.
Kharga said nothing. Not with words, anyway. His scent was clear, though: a reek of rage and contempt and hatred that overwhelmed the stink of gaambol offal.
“Can’t complain,” a deep voice boomed back.
Gariath glanced at a nearby pile of shit before looking back at Kharga. “No?”
“Nah,” the other dragonman rumbled. “Chained up, covered in flies, surrounded by shit.” He snorted, dispelling a cloud of insects from his face. “Could be worse.” His scaly lips peeled back, revealing sharp teeth. “I could be stuck outside with your monkeys.”
Gariath growled. “The tulwar are warriors. They are strong, fierce, proud.”
“Make good rugs, too,” Kharga grunted. “Back during the Uprising, I stomped sixty of them into the earth. Felt like walking on air. Must have been the pride. Makes them nice and soft.”
“They took this city,” Gariath snarled. “They took you.”
Kharga straightened up. Through the shafts of light pouring through the broken slats of the roof, Gariath saw the dull shimmer of his gray, armorlike scales. And over them, the great iron chains that bound him. The dragonman let loose a long, low sigh.
“I should be dead, Rhega.” He spit the word, the name, let it lie limp and glistening on the ground in the shit. “It should have been you and me. No monkeys. No others. A real fight. A real death. You disgrace yourself with these chains.”
“You don’t deserve death at my hands, Drokha,” Gariath replied. “I thought you did, you and the rest of your cowardly people, but I changed my mind.” He stalked forward, looking up at the bigger dragonman. “Before you die, I want you to see.”
“See what?” Kharga snorted.
“See what you people sold yourselves for. The Drokha are supposed to be brave, strong, proud. And you sold yourselves to the humans, giant dogs to bark and bite at whatever scares them.” Gariath sneered, baring his teeth. “The Rhega would never—”
“The Rhega are dead.”
Gariath paused. Kharga spoke the words plainly, with only minimal contempt. It was a fact, not an insult, and Gariath knew it. The Rhega had once been numerous. But if there were others out there besides himself, he had never met one.
And when he spoke again, it was with that knowledge in his throat.
“Everything the humans built with your strength,” Gariath said, slowly, “all the enemies they drove back with your claws, all the stone houses they raised with your protection … I will burn to the ground.”
Kharga stared
back, his expression unreadable. His scent betrayed nothing that Gariath could smell over the shit.
“Every wall, every home, every palace. The pubs where they eat broken meat and drink piss, the big homes where they make each other slaves. Everything with the stink of human on it will be gone, and only the scent of ash will remain. And when it’s gone”—he leaned forward—“we’ll sift through the embers to see if we can find the blood you sold to build it.”
Kharga blinked. “You think you can burn it down. You want to destroy Cier’Djaal.”
“Cowards think, Drokha. Weaklings want.” Gariath narrowed his eyes. “I destroy.”
The two dragonmen stared at each other. Gariath’s nostrils opened, inhaling the reek of offal and flies. He searched between the stenches, looking for a scent more profound: the odor of fear, of shame, anything that would betray Kharga. It had to be there, he knew, the stink that would show him that Kharga knew now just how far his people had fallen and for nothing.
A long silence passed and Gariath smelled nothing but shit. In the darkness, Kharga betrayed no shame, no fear, nothing.
No scent, at least.
His chains rattled as his body shook. A deep, low chuckle emerged out of the darkness.
Not a haughty chuckle, nor a desperate attempt to appear brave in the face of his captor. Kharga’s laughter was something bitter and black, the punch line of an ugly joke with several foul verses.
And in the heat of his breath as he laughed, to Gariath’s fury, there was not a single whiff of fear.
“Yeah,” Kharga grunted. “Good luck.”
“Wood burns. Stone breaks. Humans die,” Gariath snarled. “This city will fall.”
“I’m sure you’re the only one who’s had that idea before,” Kharga said. “You’re not even the first dragonman. Hundreds of years ago, when Cier’Djaal was just a village of oxshit and logs, we Drokha thought to come in and knock it over. And we did.”