by Sam Sykes
“It doesn’t stop. Not for me. Not for you. Maybe the others get to die better—the small one will burn himself alive, the tall female will die on her sword, the rat will drink himself to death. But you and I, we fight until we die. All we do is try to find a good time to do it.”
He started walking after the tulwar.
His tulwar.
“I have found mine.”
As he walked away, that faint scent persisted, but only barely. It was overwhelmed by baser reeks—fear, anger, the usual cloying odors that followed weak creatures.
They came out of Lenk in great clouds as the human got to his feet, chased after the dragonman, waved his arms in a futile plea. He was screaming something—many things, really, about demons and war and apocalypses. Gariath had no reason to disbelieve them, any of them. He had seen enough strange things to know that Lenk had seen more.
But it didn’t matter.
In another few steps, he didn’t hear anything. And the faint scent disappeared completely.
TWENTY-NINE
A LAST LONG WALK
It was said that of all the gifts he gave mortals, the most important thing Talanas ever bestowed upon the world was mercy.
Among the other colder, crueler gods, the Healer alone bore traits shared with the mortals he loved and protected. There were endless hymns and scrolls devoted to describing his capacity for compassion, for sorrow, for joy and for fear.
There were no hymns that suggested he was a passive aggressive asshole who enjoyed watching people’s plans fall apart, of course.
But Asper was getting ready to write one.
“FUCK.”
And that was going to be a word frequently used in it.
“Fucking fucker and her piece of fucking fucker fuck!”
She spit her curses into the air. And when she could think of no better curses, she simply shrieked into the night sky. With a snarl, she hurled the scroll in her hand toward the railing of the watchtower with the intent of throwing it out. It was simply cruel luck—or maybe more of the gods’ petty humor—that it struck the railing and bounced back onto the tower’s deck again.
It infuriated her that she could still hear the sound of Haethen’s steps, perfectly measured and calm as the Karnerian walked over to the fallen scroll, gingerly plucked it up, and unfurled it.
“‘To the attention of the False Prophet,’” she read aloud. “Ah. I can tell this will be interesting. ‘In protest of recent blasphemies, the fashas decline to send aid to your movement. While the tulwar form a considerable threat, it would be an utter betrayal of all that this city holds dear to expend wealth that could be better used to—’”
“No dragonmen,” Asper interrupted. “They aren’t sending any fucking dragonmen. Even a half dozen of them could hold this entire fucking line for a week and they won’t send a single piece-of-shit reptile.”
“It’s signed by the ‘Council of Concerned Fashas.’” Haethen hummed. “I didn’t know there was a council, let alone that they were concerned.”
“There isn’t. It’s Teneir. That fucking bitch has called back her dragonmen into Silktown to wait this out. I expected her to be treacherous, not brazen.” Asper rubbed her face. “Does she not see that we’re fighting to defend the entire city with her in it?”
“I would say she sees exactly that. When your forces are exhausted, she’ll try to use her dragonmen to clean up the tulwar and claim victory. Folly, of course. There will be no containing the enemy should they breach Harmony Road.”
“We were counting on those dragonmen,” Asper said. “They and the Venarium were going to be our turning point. But I haven’t heard shit from Lector Shinka, either. I’ve sent a dozen runners to their stupid tower and she won’t give me a single fucking word in reply beyond assurances that she supports me.”
“Her wizards did bury the roads for you,” Haethen replied. She unfurled a scroll and began writing something down. “Still, the thought is alarming. Our allies’ continued silence suggests that there is more behind their support than we know.”
“And?”
“And it would be folly to press them on it,” the Karnerian added. “Half of strategy is diplomacy, and wizards conform to no etiquette I am familiar with. They could be unreliable allies or very reliable enemies, depending on your words.” She sniffed. “Also, you should try to curse less. It’s unbecoming of a Prophet.”
“Noted.” Asper sighed. “Now I have to watch my back around a conniving woman who shits coin and a conniving woman who shits fire. Fucking wonderful.”
“Language.”
“And how are you so calm about this?” Asper demanded. “No wizards, no dragonmen, a handful of soldiers, and a few scraws to fight off thousands of blood-hungry tulwar.”
“A handful of soldiers, a few scraws, and an extremely talented Foescribe of six campaigns.” Haethen rolled up her scroll, tied it off, then took another one, unfurled it, and began writing something else. “I have overseen many defenses, assaults, and supply trains. I am very aware of what I am doing, Prophet.”
“I don’t doubt your skills,” Asper said, frowning. “But I don’t doubt what we’re up against, either. Gariath’s a monster. And he’s at the head of thousands of monsters. Even if we had the best warriors in the world, we could all still die horribly.”
“I am aware of that, too.”
“Then how—”
“Because it is my duty, Prophet.” At this, Haethen finally looked up. Her face was firm, the wrinkles exaggerated by recent long, sleepless nights evident in her dark skin. “I swore an oath to the Arda Scriptis, to the emperor, and to Daeon to serve as I must in the capacity I am best suited for. As you have sworn an oath to all who follow you to defend them.”
She held Asper’s eyes for just a moment longer before returning to her scroll.
“I suggest we both fulfill them.”
Asper could do little more than offer a nod before she stepped away from the table, leaving Haethen to her scrolls as she left the watchtower.
The Karnerian was correct, of course—frustratingly so, sometimes. Trying to coerce a wizard into service would have been futile, even in a best-case scenario. After all, she had tried that before.
She paused at the bottom of the watchtower as she realized that, wherever it had gotten her, she wasn’t quite sure where she was anymore.
How had it come to the point where she was fighting people she had once called her friends? How had it come to the point that it wasn’t just five people, but thousands who were relying on her? How had she gone from a healer to a war leader?
How did it all go so wrong?
She shook her head.
Stop that, she thought, scolding herself. However it happened, it happened. There’ll be time to wonder how when Gariath is dead. Or when you are. She looked long to Harmony Road, to the forces mustering below. In the meantime, no sense in making it easy for him.
A quick trudge down the hill took her to the camps below. The Karnerians knelt in a perfect square, their helmets doffed and heads bowed toward Careus, who stood in full armor at their head, his voice carrying through the night sky like a gale wind.
“There is no fate but what the Conqueror wills,” he bellowed. “There is no cause but what the Conqueror demands. There is no master of man but what he can claim. So says the emperor.”
“So says the emperor,” the Karnerians replied in perfect harmony.
“Let no savage shake you,” the speaker continued. “Let no pagan taint you. Let no weak mind, no weak body, no weak spirit infect you. So says the emperor.”
“So says the emperor.”
“For us, there is no defeat. For us, there is no end. The battle is unending. The conquest is forever. Karneria is eternal.”
He caught Asper’s look as she walked by. His jaw set. He offered her a nod. And, his voice soft and reverent as a man of his volume could make it, he spoke.
“And heaven is watching.”
“Heaven is watchi
ng,” the Karnerians echoed.
She offered Careus a nod of her own before stepping across the road and heading toward the camp on the opposite side.
The Karnerian Empire was, according to some, the birthplace of both warfare and opera. She found it easier to believe after seeing their preparations. Daeon was, after all, a god of war. It made sense that the Karnerians would treat the eve of battle with the reverence and quiet dignity of any religious holiday.
As she approached the Sainite camp across the road, and the sound of a lilting song rose up, she wondered what sort of prayers the Sainites offered on such a solemn evening.
“Oh, her cunt was slick as honey and his cock was thick and raw …”
Ah, she thought. That sort.
“And were you to see them nude, your words’d stick in your craw,” the song continued. “And that’s just what happened, one fine and sunny day! When the lady and the lad came strollin’ out, naked down the lane.”
“DOWN THE LANE!” a chorus of men and women roared in accompaniment. “Down the lane! We saw ’em naked and glistenin’, strolling down the lane!”
Where the Karnerians had knelt in uniform lines, perfectly rigid, the Sainites gathered in a large, rowdy circle around a roaring fire. Where the Karnerians were led in solemn prayer by an armored foe, the Sainites appeared to be taking the lead of a shirtless woman, belting out lyrics in a crass, booming voice. And where the Karnerians fasted and denied themselves, the Sainites … did not.
“Well, the Sovereign and the Knight, they both came down to see,” the half-naked woman said, pausing to take a deep drink from a frothing flagon, foam dribbling onto her chest. “To gaze upon these two young fucks, walkin’ brazen as could be. You’d think the gods would frown upon a love so coarse and odd. But you’d be surprised to see with your eyes the gods stand by and applaud.”
“AND APPLAUD!” the ring boomed out. “And applaud! The gods smile upon the mortal who walks without a fear of god!”
Not quite as reverent as a hymn, Asper thought.
But catchier.
“Prophet!”
She turned at the sound of a cry. A Sainite soldier, a young man with a flagon and a broad grin, came rushing forward. His blue coat was dirty, his hair hung about him in unwashed strands, but the crossbow on his back was impeccably cared for.
“May I offer you a drink?” he asked. “It’s my only one—W.S.’s orders—but it’d be an honor to offer it to you.”
“Er … and it would be an honor to accept,” Asper said, holding up a hand. “But I couldn’t deny a soldier his hard-earned—”
“As you say, Prophet!” The Sainite tilted his head and the flagon back, draining it in a few impressive gulps. The belch he let out was a touch crude, but he at least had the shame to cover his mouth after the fact. “Apologies. No drunkenness tonight. W.S.’s orders. One ration tonight, another if we’re alive tomorrow. Keeps the edge off.”
“Uh-huh.” Asper cringed as a particularly crude lyric rose up—she didn’t even know there was a word that rhymed with vagina—and begat a roaring laugh from the crowd. “And … does that?”
“I suppose it’s no hymn,” the Sainite said. “But ‘The Lady and the Lad’ is our regimental battle song.”
“And songs about public sex are … stir you to battle?”
“We’re not Karnies, Prophet.” The Sainite shook his head. “No man or woman here wants to die and it’s a foul song that tries to make us want to. A good battle song reminds us of the life we’re going to go back to some day, what we’re fighting for.”
If that is true, Asper thought, the civilian life of the average Sainite must be amazing. But she chose to say something else.
“I need to speak to Blacksbarrow,” she said.
“Command tent’s at the edge.” The Sainite pointed to the far end of the camp. “She’s left orders not to be disturbed.”
“A Prophet doesn’t disturb,” Asper replied as she turned and left. “A Prophet delivers.”
Perhaps she should have had that drink.
But by the time the singing had died down enough for her to think about it, she was already at the far end of the camp. And, as she approached Blacksbarrow’s tent, a different song reached her ears.
“Your voice is ambrosia,” someone said from behind the tent flaps.
“Oh yeah?”
“I yearn to hear you speak once more, my darling.” The first voice—a male, deep and lyrical—spoke. “I feel the ache in my very soul.”
“Mm.” Another voice—female, not nearly so lyrical—replied. “I’ve never had a man ache for me before.”
“Your eyes glisten like stars. I see the entirety of the night sky within your stare, as vast, as eternal, as deep and as—”
“Aw, for fuck’s sake, man, what’s this? Can’t you use your tongue like you did earlier?”
“Sorry, it’s just … women like it when I talk sweet to them.”
“Aye, a few words here and there are nice. I don’t need you running a fucking soliloquy to my pussy.”
Whether it was curiosity or abhorrence that made Asper pull the flap back, she didn’t know. But it became pretty fucking clear once she looked inside.
Blacksbarrow, splayed across a straw mat on the ground, looked up with a long and lazy smile across her face. The reason for which was made evident by her clothes lying in a heap beside her and the burly-looking man whose face was buried between her legs.
When Dransun looked up, it was something else entirely that was across his face. And the reason for that, too, was evident.
“Priestess!” he sputtered, his chin glistening with something other than sweat. “I mean … Asper. I mean—”
“I don’t want to be accused of insubordination,” Blacksbarrow said, “but just because you’re the Prophet doesn’t mean you don’t knock. I could have been doing something sensitive in here.”
Asper, for her part, simply stared—she would never be able to sear this image from her mind, anyway.
“I came to see how preparations were going,” she said. “Have your scraws reported back with enemy movement?”
“Fuck me, they probably have. Apologies, Prophet.” Blacksbarrow sighed and gave Dransun an affectionate scratch behind his ear. “Work to do. Let me up, big man.”
The guard tried to sputter out some form of dignity but, failing that, simply scurried away and let her rise. Blacksbarrow rose, gathering her clothes with a yawn and scratching her naked flank. She offered a grin to Asper as she pulled her breeches up around her hips and tightened her belt.
“Forgive the tardiness, Prophet,” she said. “I would have gotten the reports to you sooner, but …” She looked over her shoulder and cast a lascivious wink at Dransun. “I got distracted.” She fired off a salute and, tugging her coat over her shoulders, slipped out of the tent. “We’ll tell you where the tulwar are in a moment. Sit tight.”
There were a handful of times where the departure of a mostly naked woman with a drinking problem did not do anything to make a situation less awkward. And, Asper knew, this was one of them.
Dransun pointedly avoided her gaze, and avoided even acknowledging her, as he gathered up his clothes and began to pull them on.
“So, uh …” Asper said, “you and Blacksbarrow are—”
“We are compatriots in battle,” Dransun replied, curt and coarse. “We happened to get to talking about our strategy after the meeting. Then we happened to get to sharing a drink. Then we happened to get to …”
He trailed off, clearing his throat as he pulled his belt around him and tucked his shirt into his trousers.
“Okay, so …” Asper rubbed her neck. “Are you …”
“We are a man and a woman on the eve of a battle that could see us both flayed by tulwar blades tomorrow.” Dransun looked up long enough to cast her an indignant look as he gathered his boots up. “This may very well be my last night alive.”
“No, I get that. Entirely. It’s just …” Asper’s
face screwed up, searching for the words. “You chose to spend it …”
“With my face between the legs of a woman.” Dransun offered her a challenging glare as he pulled on his boots. “What of it?”
Asper stared at him for a long, quiet moment.
Slowly, a smile spread across her face. She reached out, touched him on the shoulder, and gave him a gentle, encouraging squeeze.
“You’re a good man, Captain Dransun,” she said. “The world will be poorer if you die.”
Dransun stared at her for a long, quiet moment.
And, with profound unease creasing his face, he hurried out of the tent.
She stared at the tent flap as it fluttered. From the night beyond, the sound of singing could still be heard. There was a new song now, one with a softer tune that not everyone knew the words to. Many of the voices had fallen silent, with a few of them likely having gone to rest for tomorrow.
The Karnerians, too, might have gone to their bedrolls. Those soldiers, regardless of nationality, would lay their heads down on the same uncomfortable blankets. Those who truly believed would whisper a prayer to be reunited with families. Those who doubted would simply close their eyes and wish desperately for it. They would all fight the same fears and doubts before each of them went to a hard sleep, content in the knowledge that the Prophet was with them, and heaven was with the Prophet.
And maybe all of them would be dead by this time tomorrow.
“They’re cute,” someone said.
“Yeah, it’s nice that—”
Asper paused when she realized that the voice had come from behind her.
She whirled around, ready to strike, ready to scream, ready for anything but the sight she saw.
Sitting atop a footlocker, her dusty breeches in a cross-legged position, her pointed ears poking up through a mop of sweaty, dirty blond hair, she looked up at Asper through eyes glittering green in the dark. Overlarge canines flashed as she brought a haunch of meat to her mouth, tore off a piece, and began to chew.