by Sam Sykes
“For how long?”
“Riffid knows. I do not.” Thua said softly. “I do not know what humans will do when they are panicked. The last time, they burned our homes to the ground, they stole everything we owned that glittered, and they took my…”
He held his voice within a stilled breath. He closed his eyes.
“They are like any other animal. We tread lightly when they have the scent of blood.” He gestured to the camp. “If they come to burn, they will find our fires cold. He gestured to the hole. “If they come to rob, they will find nothing. And if they try to kill us, anyway…”
Thua’s ears flickered in time with hers. They heard the same thing through the Howling—a warning growl, the baring of teeth. Their eyes were drawn up to the black windows of the long-vacant buildings surrounding Shicttown. Arrowheads glinted silver in the moonlight; wooden masks peered out as pale, empty faces staring down.
“If this is because of what happened at the fasha’s house,” Kataria said, “I don’t think they’d come here. They have no reason to.”
“There are twenty of them for every one of us and each one of them is panicked and terrified. They do not need more reason.”
“But why would they blame the shicts?”
Thua’s eyes sharpened to thin blades. He grunted something at the other two khoshicts. They nodded, collected their remaining bags, and left, the yiji panting after them as they did. As soon as they were gone, Thua’s ears flattened against his skull as he swept forward, a hairbreadth away from Kataria.
“How long have you listened to Kwar?” he growled, teeth clenched. “Do you believe her when she calls me a coward? An idiot?”
She said nothing that could not be said with the flattening of her own ears, the narrowing of her own eyes, the firm plant of her feet as she stood before him, arms folded and canines bared.
“There are humans out there,” he snarled. “They have steel, they have fire, and there are thousands of them. They do not speak our tongue, so we speak theirs, and Kwar would call me a coward for doing so to keep our tribe safe.
“I know where this gold came from.” He stomped on the sodden earth. “I know you were with her last night. She came home looking as she did when our mother died. Each time she goes out with her knife, she is looking for our mother. But our mother is dead, so she looks where death walks.”
His hands fell to his sides and trembled into fists. It struck Kataria, then, how utterly petulant the gesture seemed with arms as big and strong as his.
“Is it any wonder, then,” he said balefully, “that she found you?”
Kataria lowered her arms to her sides, inhaled sharply. She leaned forward and let the heat of her breath wash over Thua’s face.
“Say what you want to say,” she said, “hit me if you want to hit me. Then turn around, walk away, and never look back.”
His flinch was minor, but all too visible. His eyes softened, his lips eased, and the tips of his ears quivered.
“I try to be like my father,” he said. “I try to understand the humans. But you, I think, understand them too well.” He snorted. “You want to find Kwar, I won’t stop you. But if you are at all grateful to her, to my tribe, say what you will to her and then go back to the round-ears.”
He turned too swiftly to convince her he was walking away of his own choice. His back was too rigid to convince her he was standing tall. And his hands still trembled, still looked so small at the end of his arms.
He had looked so very big when she first saw him him. He looked so stern, so serious. And now he looked so very worried, so very scared.
So very unlike Kwar, she thought.
It would probably be poor etiquette to chase after him and ask her where his sister was, of course. But then, it hadn’t been the brightest of ideas to come to Shicttown in the first place.
She was already late, she knew. Lenk had told her to meet him and the others at some place in the city ages ago. And, of course, she had set out fully intending to do so.
Of course.
And as she walked to the place—this “Meat Market”—she had fully intended to try to keep her step steady, despite the night she had spent thinking instead of sleeping. That humans had died hadn’t bothered her; none of them had been hers. That humans had died in great numbers hadn’t bothered her; there were always more, after all.
Numbers hadn’t kept her from sleeping. Numbers didn’t bother her.
Names did. Specifically, her name.
Repeated over and over, hour after hour, echoing off of itself so many times she no longer remembered it as a word. Merely as a voice.
Kwar’s voice, as fevered and frantic as it had been when the fire fell between them, had never left her through last night. Between every thought like a desperate comma in a slow poem, it had been there. She had heard it every time she closed her eyes. She had heard it when she set out to meet Lenk and the others. She had heard it when her feet had inexplicably turned her toward Shicttown.
And she heard it now, as it spoke to her across the Howling.
No longer a name, no longer a word. Now it was entirely Kwar’s voice, speaking so soft and so close that it could be a language with a single word meant for a single person.
And she followed it here, to the flap of a modest tent rimmed with the light of a fire burning inside.
She ran a finger down the fabric of the flap, warm to the touch. She hadn’t realized how cold it got in this part of the city.
Maybe Lenk was thinking how cold it was right now.
Lenk. You’re supposed to be back there. You should go there now. Her feet steadfastly ignored her thoughts, however. All right, just go in, show her you survived, and then leave. Lenk needs you. They all do. They’re helpless without you.
She drew in a deep breath.
In. Out.
She let it out.
Right?
That thought, like so many others, went unanswered as she pulled back the tent flap and entered.
Kwar sat on a yiji-hide mat, staring into the dying remains of a fire. She wore the shadows like war paint, black streaked across her dark skin, eyes bright against the gloom. She did not look up as Kataria entered.
But Kataria knew she had the khoshict’s full attention. Her ears were trembling, sending out into the Howling, searching for answers. But as Kataria drew closer, their seizure slowed with each step until they finally lay still against Kwar’s head.
Kataria sat upon a mat on the other side of the fire. Only then did the sound of the Howling stop; only then did a silence fill Kataria’s ears. And that silence hung between them, cooking over the sighs and sputters of the flames, just long enough for Kataria to start thinking again.
Say something. In. Out. Remember.
“So,” she said, “you didn’t die.”
Nice.
“I didn’t,” Kwar replied. The omnipresent boast that edged her voice was dull now, leaving her voice something softer.
Kataria nodded, staring into the fire. “I didn’t, either.”
Very nice.
“I see that.”
Okay, then. Good enough. Let’s get out of here.
And Kataria made to rise and do just that when a log crumbled into ash and the shadows shifted across Kwar’s face. And there, Kataria saw it. Beneath the dark laid the same fear, the same quiver, the same weakness that had been on Thua’s.
And yet, where Thua wore his fear like a mask, she wore hers like a wound: something lasting that she bled into the fire.
“Are you all right?” Kataria asked.
“I’m fine,” Kwar said. “You can go now.”
“I don’t need to.”
What?
“You should,” Kwar said. “There’ll be trouble soon.”
She’s right.
“There’s always trouble,” Kataria replied. “It’ll wait until later.”
It won’t.
She knew this thought to be true, but only for a moment. Once Kwar looked
up from the fire, across to Kataria, she knew only those eyes staring through the shadows.
“That’s it?” Kwar asked flatly.
“That’s what?”
“You disappear behind a wall of fire, then come ambling back to tell me it was all okay the whole time?”
“I… thought you knew. Or would have known, anyway. I do this sort of thing a lot.”
“How would I know that?” The edge began to return to Kwar’s voice. Her posture stiffened. “I know barely anything about you except that you’re not like anyone here in Shicttown. And before I could know any more, you disappeared.” Each word came with a flash of sharp canine. “Too many people have done that to me.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“And nobody has seen me like this!”
Kwar all but roared as she leapt to her feet, and Kataria found herself scrambling to hers from sheer instinct. Kwar’s muscles tensed beneath exposed skin, her entire body trembling, her eyes flashing like a wild animal’s.
“I didn’t sleep,” she said, slowly approaching Kataria around the fire. “I didn’t eat. I didn’t talk to Thua, but he looked at me and he knew and I hate that he knew. I hate that he can still do that to me.”
Kataria was tempted to take a step backward as Kwar approached. She felt her own body trembling, the fire suddenly not warm enough to ward off the chill that had entered the tent. She was aware of the fire in Kwar’s eyes, the curl of her lip exposing bared teeth, the slinking stride that brought her ever closer to Kataria.
She felt the urge to turn and run.
She did not know why she didn’t.
“I know you don’t get along with your brother,” Kataria said, “but that’s got nothing to do with me.”
“It does. But it shouldn’t,” Kwar said. “It’s not that I don’t get along with Thua. It’s that I don’t get Thua. I haven’t understood him, my father, or anyone in this camp for years and I was fine with that up until you came along and things were…” She shook her head, rubbed her temples. “And you said words about Lenk, and then you disappeared and… and…”
Her head snapped up at Kataria suddenly. The last remnants of the fire lit her eyes wild. Her nostrils flared with each breath, and with each breath she only seemed to grow more tense, more angry.
And Kataria felt herself reflect that tension. Her hands tightened into fists and her jaw clenched, as if anticipating a punch. Her ears flattened and the silence between them grew loud.
“Well?” she asked.
And Kwar’s hands were up, about her throat, fingers against her jaw. And Kwar’s leg was forward, pulling her closer. And Kwar’s eyes were closed, Kwar’s lips were on hers, Kwar’s scent was in her nostrils.
And the silence between them was no longer so vast.
Just as suddenly, Kwar released her, stepping away. She swallowed hard, breath disappearing into a body held taut as a bowstring. All the fear that Kataria had seen still flashed in Kwar’s eyes, but it grew smaller each moment, vanishing behind something brighter, something bolder.
A challenge.
Kataria’s ears were ringing. Her head felt very heavy and she rubbed the back of her neck to see if her skull was as thin as it suddenly felt. She swallowed hard and tasted Kwar’s dusky scent upon her lips. She looked up and saw Kwar turning away, eyes downcast.
She saw Kwar walking away. She felt her own hand on Kwar’s shoulder, turning her about, sliding behind her neck, drawing her closer until she tasted her once more.
She felt long, thin arms wrap around her torso, hands clasping her about her waist. She felt a handful of Kwar’s thick braids between her fingers and the airy sensation of the sand slipping beneath her feet as she and the khoshict fell to the hide mats in a tangle of limbs.
Leg crossed over leg, hands grasped hands until she rose up atop Kwar, straddling her waist and staring down at her. And from down on the mat, sand clinging to her bare skin, the woman who had looked so strong when Kataria had met her now looked up at her, wide-eyed and breathless.
“So,” she said, “are you…”
She let the question hang. Kataria did not know the answer. She smiled, shrugged. This was enough. The familiar grin returned to Kwar’s face, impish and alight, as her fingers entwined with Kataria’s.
Kwar’s legs rose up behind her, gave her the momentum to send the two tumbling across the mats until they bumped against one of the tent’s support poles. The khoshict rose atop Kataria now, her grin full of teeth, her eyes full of fire as she slid her fingers from Kataria’s fingers to Kataria’s wrists.
The breath left her as Kwar pressed them against the floor, leaned over, and let her braids brush against Kataria’s cheek.
“What are you doing?”
What are you doing, she asked herself. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be with… you should be with… you should…
It was hard to think. Too hard to remember names.
Kwar’s reply was a flash of skin that became a slither. She laid a palm upon Kataria’s naked flank and drew her hand down the pale flesh slowly; each finger felt upon each rib until they swept across her belly and drummed upon the buckle of her belt.
“Trust me,” Kwar whispered.
There was an urge not to, an urge that made Kataria squirm beneath the khoshict’s legs, that made her grit her teeth as the sound of her belt sliding free of her breeches filled her ears. But never to cry out, never to resist as Kwar guided her hands behind the tent’s support pole and deftly bound them together with her belt.
For a moment, she counted: breaths leaving her body, droplets of sweat sliding into the hollow of her collarbone, fingers clenching and unclenching against her bonds, braids dropping into her face as Kwar lowered herself closer.
And then, she felt her ears fill with her own breathless gasp.
Kwar’s lips found a tender strand of flesh upon her neck. Kwar’s teeth gripped it gently, bit down just enough to make her cry out. Kwar’s tongue found the sweat in her collarbone, the tension down the centerline of her belly, the fine hairs rising in a halo about her navel. And Kwar’s fingers found the waist of her breeches, pulling them free from her hips.
Kataria counted the kisses. One beneath her navel, again above her sex, and the third…
Her head fell back, too heavy to support. Her eyes snapped shut, the tent unbearably bright. She arched her spine, her hips steadied by Kwar’s hands as her tongue slid between her thighs and spoke a language meant for her alone.
And through the sound of her breathless gasps, and through the sound of Kwar’s lips upon her skin, and through the sound of a very loud silence, she could hear but one sound.
One voice.
Speaking one word, over and over.
FORTY-TWO
THE COMMON COLLECTORS OF MAN
When Dransun signed up for the Jhouche guard, they had given him boots. He had hoarded what little gold the city paid him to buy polish and new laces and to resole them when constant patrols had worn them enough to earn him a promotion.
When Dransun was made sergeant, they had given him a helmet. A meager pay raise earned him enough to have a smith to hammer out the dents that rioters had put in his helmet and to hire a Gevrauchian to bury those guards without helmets somewhere nice.
And when Dransun was made captain, they had given him a sword and a flask, because he would never need one and not the other so long as he stood guard for the City of Silk.
Never once in all his years had they given him an oath to read. Never once had they given him allegiance to swear. Never once had the city asked anything more of him than the skin to fill those nice boots.
It didn’t take much more than that to be a guard in Cier’Djaal.
“But it fucking ought to,” he snarled from beneath his helmet. “If I had my way, the only way you’d be getting past me is in a corpsewagon as the Gevrauchians haul you out to a charnel house.”
The guards before him were not looking at his eyes. They were looking
at his shiny boots, his undented helmet, or at the great archway leading out of the city that he currently stood under. He stood there, arms folded and glowering, as he had stood for the past half hour. And not one of his boys had looked him in the eye since.
“Come on, Captain, don’t say that,” one of them finally spoke. “We want to stay and help, but…”
“But what?” Dransun asked. “You could do it well enough when the city gave you gold and wine.”
“Gold and wine were all we needed to deal with pickpockets and bar drunks, Captain,” another of them offered. “What are we supposed to use against the Karnerians and Sainites?”
Dransun winced, stung. “You can’t leave,” he said. “I can’t hold this city without help.”
“Then come with us, Captain,” another guard said. “The foreigners are tearing this place apart. It won’t be here by next week! My father has a rice field outside the city and my family’s already ridden off to see him. We’ve got room there. You could stay with us.”
Dransun’s eyes began to water. He sniffed and looked away to wipe the tears. He suspected that might be a more dramatic gesture if everyone else weren’t also doing it.
Smoke hung heavy in the air. Another fire had broken out somewhere nearby. Possibly the Karnerians and Sainites. Possibly the Jackals and the Khovura. Possibly looters taking advantage of the chaos.
Duty called.
“Don’t expect any fucking jobs when you come back,” Dransun snarled.
He pushed his way past the small throng of his guards. Even as he left, they could not bring themselves to look at him. Even when he looked over his shoulder to see them joining the convoy of people fleeing the city with their belongings stacked on wagons and backs, they didn’t look back at him.
Pity, he thought. The next time they looked behind there might not be a city left to see.
Broken glass and bloodstains greeted him as he turned the corner. Karnerian steel had shattered the glass, Sainite steel had spilled the blood, and Djaalic bodies had been left in the wake.