She perplexed me. Intrigued me. And then, she was gone.
Green-and-purple grasses reached several feet above our heads with thick stalks I couldn't wrap a hand around. Water had pooled in long, narrow troughs cut on both sides of the road and continued down parallel lines that stretched into the distance row after row after row. The road was set with irregular slats of gray-black slate amid tufts of herbs growing from the mud. Above, clouds formed a patchwork of white with gray spots. The hot, sticky air surrounded us, and all of our clothes were soaked through with sweat. The perfect, mildly sweet taste of fresh coconut lingered on my tongue, and my mind puzzled over that expression on her face.
Davod, Geraln, Ales, Faren, Rock, Kelint, and Northstar all stopped where the tall grass had ended and gaped.
A thousand yards of open field with uneven tufts of green grass gave way to a massive wall of stone mortared together in a patchwork of gray and yellow with rows of square crenelations at the top and towers every so often. This was surrounded by an expanse of black water that emerged from a river beyond on one side only to rejoin on the other. The whole place had to be at least a mile wide with walls wrapping around beyond view on both sides. On the left, behind the outer wall was a cluster of tall stone towers that reached even further into the sky with more crenelations encircling the top and set with narrow slits running down the sides and out of view. To the right, the purple rock wall of the Terbulin ridge faded into the mist. To the left, thick trees covered rolling hills that rose into the distance while a streak of dark gray clouds reached down from the sky and brushed its fingers upon the forest.
Carthia.
The rough, gray-black slate road cut through the clearing and led directly to the gate, a massive archway in the stone wall bridged by a wooden span that unfolded itself across the moat. All about the field on both sides, herds of goats and pigs grazed, tended by women with exceedingly dark-green skin and hair white as snow who wore naught but a simple cloth about their hips, leaving their bare chest and back exposed to the elements. Several of them turned and glanced our way as we emerged from the bush.
Up on the ramparts, men paced with bows in hand and arrows nocked.
I turned to look behind me. There was no sight of her. I lamented not having the words to wish her a safe journey. Father in heaven, keep her safe? For me?
From the archway ahead emerged a train of people—men who looked Herali, olive-green skin and long, straight, dark-green hair wearing chain armor over padded leather accompanied women with dark-green skin and white hair, mostly naked as the others. Three small bison pulled empty wooden carts. Women walked alongside the beasts with sticks in hand while the men walked the perimeter, keeping their eyes outward. Together they made their way across the field towards the tall grasses with a brief nod to us as they passed. I looked closely, and while one of the men kept his eyes to the bush with his hands on his weapon, one of the women came up and stroked his bum. He leaned down and kissed her lips, and they kept walking.
As we approached the bridge, I saw something long and bulky lying across the stone slats with a thick tail that reached onto the wooden bridge. Its heavy, armored, gray-black barrel of a body rose up about knee-height with four clawed tree-trunk hands out at its sides, but had to be at least six yards from the front of its snout to the end of its heavy tail. Two eyelets sat atop its head, and several fangs stuck out from its long mouth.
Rock's eyes bulged when he realized it was alive. "Holy fuck what that is being?"
Faren smirked and answered him in Goloagi. "That's a sign. It reads… 'No Swimming.'"
We stopped a good ten yards from the gargantuan alligator, and a man's voice called out from above the gate. "You'll have to pay the toll!"
Up on the rampart two men, Herali, stood gawking at us and sending words in our direction while laughing among themselves. The other man spoke through muted laughter. "Yeah! You'll have to feed him one of you!"
At that, another man came out from under the archway and looked up at our tormentors. As soon as they saw him, they looked away and wandered off.
This man was average height with a sharp jaw and lean build. His skin was dark, not so dark as the others, but darker than ours. His hair had a sandy-green color like the Saeni, but his eyes were bright yellow. His sharp features and widow's peak hairline placed him into his thirties, with wide, full lips and high cheeks. A bright-yellow loincloth set with silver embroidery along the edges hung front and back from a leather strap about his waist, but other than that he was naked. He wasn't bulky, but finely chiseled muscles graced his knees, his stomach, his chest, shoulders, and arms. He had a handful of circular scars on one thigh and a line of scar on his opposite shoulder.
"Come around this way," he spoke Herali with a hint of accent, gesturing for us to go around the No Swimming sign.
Davod refused to take his eyes off the monster. His voice oozed apprehension. "Are you sure?"
The man smiled. "Well, his teeth are on that end. Isn't that right, Peti?" He pursed his lips as he spoke that last part, cooing out some weird affectation for the beast, who didn't react to him at all even as he crouched low to slap the alligator's tail. He then smiled at us and moved his arms in an ark.
We took his suggestion and walked around, and Peti didn't react to us, either.
Ales remarked, "he must like those stones. He's just basking."
Rock, Northstar, Davod, Geraln, and Kelint couldn't stop gawking at the beast. They gingerly stepped around him, onto the wooden planks before rushing to get clear.
Through the archway I heard men grunting and sticks clattering against one another. I looked off to the right, and through a passage between a large stone building and the recessed gate there was an open field where lines of men, Herali like us, attacked one another with long staffs tipped with padded cloth at one end. A series of pops sounded off, and in another section of the clearing was another group of men lined up with bows who shot at an opposing line of burlap men raised on sticks some twenty yards away. At the end of the yard, mortared gray and yellow stones of the outer walls rose up from tall grass.
The man led us directly ahead, towards an imposing structure of the same yellow-and-gray stone as the outer walls, three stories high with wrap-around balconies on the second and third floors covering a verandah on the ground level. Walls weren't more than a line of open archways, some of which had sheer curtains to obscure the interior. Looking down upon us from the second floor were three people, a man and two girls.
The man was Goloagi and taller than the girls by a head. Lines of silver dotted his otherwise dark-green, curly hair. He had a long nose with a rounded bridge, and his square chin seemed fixed in consternation. He wore no shirt, but a long, black rectangle of a loincloth set with gold embroidery, and about his shoulders was an ornate silk scarf with bands of colors behind black lettering sewn in to indicate his rank, the Imperial Voice.
To his left stood a girl with skin the same color as the man who'd greeted us at the gate—dark, but not so dark as the others. She was likely our age with yellow eyes and hair with streaks of white amid dark green set in braids that incidentally covered her bare breasts and dangled down to her waist. The only clothes she had on were a white silk loincloth with a golden flower print that hung down to her knees, and leather sandals that webbed over her feet and up beyond her ankles.
The other girl was one of the natives. Noticeably shorter than the other, her skin was the same green shade of black as Miyani's, and her eyes were the same bright yellow, too. Her ivory-white hair was a little longer, falling just over her shoulders. She'd dressed in a white cotton sleeveless robe of a dress that left a plunging V-line at the center of her body and had a hem that scarcely covered her marvelous toned thighs.
I turned around to look behind us on an off chance that Miyani had decided to come through the gate behind us at that moment. She wasn't there.
Then I heard a screech, followed by a rapid thumping across rustling leaves.
To the left, an open expanse cordoned off by a line of pillars with no fence between them held groves of coconut trees, large shady trees, and a few small sheds. From this area, a blur of a thing zoomed towards us kicking up clods of mud behind it. It was one of those lizards like the one Miyani rode, only small, scarcely knee high with bright green scales, flitting about on two gangly legs. It raced up to Davod, bobbing its head about rapidly and chirped, sniffing all up and down his leg before bounding over to Faren. Faren could scarcely greet the creature before, moving its snout around frantically and sniffing everything it could reach, it darted over to Northstar to sniff at him.
"Don't try to pet her," the man grinned, "just stand perfectly still."
I looked up, and the girl with the dress had leaned over to rest her arms on a handrail. She watched the small creature as it flitted about among us with a wide smile across her strikingly beautiful face. She turned to look off to her right.
I looked, and another lizard stepped towards us, only much bigger. This one stood as tall as Blue, probably taller, and was light brown in color with a dark-brown diamond pattern on its back. It let out another screech as it came close to us but then stopped about ten feet from where we stood.
The little one bounded over to Geraln, sniffed his feet, then his knees, then jumped up at him several times and chirped in rapid succession. Geraln looked down, furrowed his brow, then looked up at me as if to beg for some kind of help before turning around to look at our host.
The man laughed. "She likes you!"
The big lizard took two more steps towards us and screeched again, holding its body still while snaking its long neck so as to turn its head towards the little one. A flap of skin under its neck wiggled as it let out a string of clicks.
I stepped back and glanced up at our three onlookers, who'd kept their attention on this event as it unfolded.
The little one flitted about as though the big one wasn't there growling and chirping to get its attention. It darted over to Kelint and sniffed his feet. Kelint tried to back away, but the creature followed him, craning her tiny neck up to sniff his knees before frolicking over to Ales.
The large one stepped forward to stand between me and the rest of our group, then let out a sharp caw followed by more clicks.
The little one turned to face it, then opened its tiny jaws wide and hissed before turning away and rushing over to Rock to sniff up and down his leg. Rock lifted his meaty hands and tried to watch as she ran in circles around his feet.
I looked around. The man who'd greeted us at the gate stood with his arms folded and smiling wide. Davod's eyes bulged and he glanced at me, then back to the large lizard, while Geraln kept watching the little one. Ales stood like a statue with a look of great confusion on his face while Faren looked back and forth between the two lizards. Northstar kept glancing up at the three on the balcony, Kelint was trembling, and Rock had his attention ensnared by the tiny creature at his feet.
The big one then got down on all fours and let out a loud screech, then started to rush towards the little one.
The tiny creature then ran straight over to our host and jumped up into his waiting arms. He caught her and lifted her up, laughing while the little thing nestled its tiny head in the crook of his neck. The larger one then stood on its hind legs and pulled its head back while the man brought the little one over to it. Finally he set her back down, and she spirited off into the wide expanse of fruit trees while the bigger one followed.
Ales looked at Faren. Rock looked at Northstar, and Davod looked at me while a wave of tension passed through us. None of us were prepared for what we'd walked into.
I turned to look behind me, hoping if Miyani had come through at that moment I would see her. She wasn't there. This was silly; she'd gone somewhere else. If God wanted me to ever see her again, surely He would make it happen in His own time.
In the distance, the tall towers were shrouded in a dark mist that came down from the cloudy sky. Then I realized the mist was like a wall approaching us. Quickly.
The man who'd greeted us at the gate and taught us how to walk around a giant alligator also noticed. He turned to us and smiled. "You'd better come this way!"
From the open area, we followed him into the building just in time for a chorus of clattering to fill the expanse outside. White lines fell from the sky and splashed into pools throughout the grounds all around us.
"My name is Tagaŋu," the man said. "Please come this way."
Inside, the air felt sticky and hot despite the rain. Three walls were naught but open archways separated by thick columns of gray-and-yellow stones mortared together half covered by sheer curtains that seemed frozen in place. Elsewhere, a wooden partition, painted in a variety of colors with some kind of abstract imagery, was unfolded across the floor leaving space enough for a stone staircase leading upwards.
While Taganu moved around and sat down behind a rough wooden desk, my mind raced over how I might ask someone if they knew about Miyani.
"Alright," he said, "who's first?"
"First for what?" I said.
There was a book atop the desk adjacent to a glass vial with a long white feather reaching up from it. Taganu opened the book and began rifling through. Names. Rows and rows of names filled the pages, many of them crossed out. He kept at it until he came to a page where the names ended, leaving blank space. Then he picked up the feather, tapped it against the rim of the vial, and looked up at us in expectation. At least a dozen names were on the page where the tip of his pen rested.
"I'll go first," Davod stepped up. "Davod of Gath."
The man wrote. "Who's your Naveris?"
Davod glanced at me, shrugged, then spoke. "Runya of Gath."
"Any special skills?"
Davod shrugged. "I smith."
Taganu nodded, wrote that down and called out, "next?"
Davod looked at me and shrugged me forward, but Ales stepped up. "Ales of Suuya, Naveris is Tanee of Suuya."
I looked back out towards the gate on the off chance that Miyani might pass through at that moment. I didn't see her. Half of me hoped to see her coming in from the rain; my minds eye envisioned the glistening shimmer of water all over her dark skin, filling the lines of muscles in her legs, droplets peppering her small breasts, taut arms, and every curve of her back. Fresh images of her coming down from Blue and turning her back to me, the way that scant cloth covered merely the center of her arse leaving such delicious curves to my eyes tickled my thoughts. The other half normally would have flagellated my emotions as atonement for such thoughts but rather rested in silent awe of her.
Taganu looked up at Ales. "Skills?"
Ales shrugged. "I sail, I fish. I clean fish, I cook fish, I eat fish."
Faren added, "he's very good at eating fish."
Ales smirked. "Very good. Very good. Lots of practice."
Taganu nodded with a smile of his own. "The Yasivuŋa used to make a squid souffle that was just unbelievable." Then he shrugged, "they probably still do."
Ales's eyes perked up. "Is it anything like the one they make in Tobor?"
Taganu smiled and nodded. "Similar. They spice it differently; soak it in lemongrass and basil, and not so heavy-handed with the nice pepper. Next?"
"Geraln of Gath."
"Naveris?"
"I don't have one." He shot a glare in my direction and locked his jaw. I looked away; several spiders had woven their webs across one of the archways. Strings of tiny droplets fanned out towards the columns making an otherwise invisible wall. Outside, the rain stopped.
Taganu smirked. "You're going to be popular."
Geraln turned to him. "What do you mean?"
Taganu raised one eyebrow and spoke through a wry grin. "I'm sure you can figure it out."
Geraln shook his head. "I don't know. What do you mean?"
Taganu laughed. "Let's see here… there's been a war going on for ten years now; there aren't many men left. What's one thing a woman can't do without a man's help, except for the problem of there being some Naveris coming over the mountains to claim your child. I'm sure you can figure it out."
Geraln's eyes bulged as he began to put the pieces together. He turned to look at me in shock. I could tell he fought it, but a grin was beginning to form across his face.
Taganu looked at him directly. "Any skills?"
Geraln's eyes were fixed at some point that didn't exist in our world. He shook it off slightly and turned back to Taganu. "Huh?"
Taganu chuckled and spoke to him through a wide grin. "Let me give you some advice: there is no greater curse than to get everything you think you want, so be careful. Any skills?"
Geraln shrugged. He hesitated, so I spoke up for him. "He took gold at the knowledge tourney last winter."
Taganu nodded and wrote that down. "Next?"
Kelint muscled forward to wedge his small frame between us and stepped up. "Kelint of Dignestran. Naveris is Gitteilat of Dignestran. For skills, I won gold at the Ulum County archery championship three years running." Kelint then glanced around at Geraln, Davod, and myself with a smug grin.
There was something about the way she tilted her face I couldn't get over. Last night over dinner, she would look at whoever was talking, probably trying to understand the words, her eyes were so beautiful. Her lips so soft, and when she smiled it was enchanting. She had a wide, round face with soft cheeks that scrunched in the most adorable of ways when she smiled; I could look at her endlessly. Every now and then she would glance at me and catch me looking. I know that when a girl catches you looking you're supposed to look away as though you hadn't been staring at her just then, but I didn't. And she would lower her eyes and smile a little.
"Next?"
Rock stepped up, as did Faren. They glanced at one another, and Faren waved him on. Rock then approached the desk. "Are you speaking the Goloagi?"
Taganu nodded. "Tell to me your the name?"
"Rock of Tortiess."
"Is Naveris tradition at you have part of the Saen?"
"Yes. She is naming Sanjani of Dignestran."
Taganu glanced up at him and raised an eyebrow. It was Kelint who filled in the details, "that's my sister."
"Are you have the skills to be special?"
Rock bobbed his head back and forth. "I am building things."
"Next?"
"Faren of Suuya, Naveris is Shiree of Suuya. Skills…" Faren scrunched his chin and looked at Ales.
Ales grinned. "Purveyor of fine… herbal intoxicants?"
The two shared a laugh. Geraln, Davod, and I shared a light giggle of our own as well.
Taganu tilted his head to the side and wrote in his book. "Nothing wrong with that, normally, but remember we're at war…"
"I know."
"... if it takes you a fraction of a second longer to react to something, that fraction of a second will get you killed. That detail on the road you weren't paying attention to may be a spike trap; if you're lucky, you'll only lose a leg. Men who stay alive down here stay sharp at all times. Do you understand?"
Faren shrugged. "I haven't… since before we came to the pass."
"Good. Because even the gators in the moat can tell when a man isn't walking right. Next?"
That left me and Northstar. Northstar glanced at me and urged me forward, so I stepped up. "Caleb of Gath. No Naveris."
"Any skills?"
A growing obsession with a girl I had no way of talking to, though that probably didn't count as a skill. "No, not really."
Davod spoke up with a firm hand across my back, "he's a medic."
"Yeah," Geraln confirmed.
I added, "I'm really not."
Davod insisted, "yes, he is."
Taganu passed his yellow eyes back and forth between us, and Geraln spoke up. "Write that down. He's a medic."
Taganu then looked at me directly.
"I have some… limited… medical training. That's all, really."
With that, the man tapped his finger down the list, counting out the names, then looked up and counted us. Then he faced Northstar directly. "Are you have speak the Goloagi? What you have name?"
We cleared the way for him, and he stepped up to the table. He'd spoken so little before that I hadn't noticed his deep baritone. "I am Northstar. I am having Naveris she is Wind."
"Any skills?"
Northstar turned to Rock and spoke. "Da-ayi ka awu'ne save-edi shabo?"
Rock looked upwards as if searching for the words before turning to Kelint, who then translated. "He's a weaver; he makes tapestries, rugs, that sort of thing."
With that, Taganu set the feather back into the vial and blew on the fresh ink before pulling the book to the side. He then reached down and pulled up a brown burlap sack tied at the top that chinked from the coins within as he set it down. He then opened it and turned it down, and a sizable pile of coins clattered all over the wooden table. He dug his fingers through it, pulling out a pair of sixteens and set them aside. Then he set aside another pair, then a sixteen, three fives, and a one, then six fives and two ones. Then he found two more sixteens, then another sixteen with two fives and six ones, followed by two more stacks of six fives with two ones. Finally he put the rest of the coins back in the bag and looked up at us. "Your first month's wages."
I reached for a stack, but Geraln protested. "Thirty-two kren for the month? That's it?"
Taganu excused himself, "soldiers' wages are set by your Emperor."
Geraln looked around wide-eyed. "This is ridiculous! What are we supposed to do with thirty-two kren, man?"
Taganu shrugged. "Buy something? I don't know. Come this way."
We left through archways on a different side from the one we'd come in. We hadn't filed out in a proper line, but rather as a cluster. Ales walked along the side through a different archway only to reach his hands out vigorously, trying to peel the spider web from his face. Outside, there was a path of beaten grass through the field towards the cluster of old wooden buildings. While Taganu stepped his bare feet through fresh puddles without a thought, water had soaked through my boots and seeped into my toes.
I heard a splash behind me, followed by Geraln crying out in protest. "Really, man?"
I turned, and Rock had jumped into a puddle, splashing everyone around him. His answer for Geraln was a big smile across his meaty face. Davod tried to get around the puddles by stepping on the thicker grass, only to catch his foot in a deep pocket of mud. Men filed out of a stone shed from having waited out the rain and resumed their training. Some of them waved at us as we passed.
As for me, I turned to look towards the gate again. And again, I didn't see her come through at that moment, either.
"These are the barracks." We stood in the center of a wide corridor of beaten grass abutted on both sides by rows of long buildings made of dark wood set atop stone piles with some inches of clearance above the ground. Several of the planks had worn away from rot towards the bottom or had otherwise been decorated with green moss, and each had a few steps leading up to an open doorway at one end. The old, water-logged wooden steps bowed and creaked as we stepped up, and I saw a family of small pigs scurry beneath the building.
Inside, the air was hot and musty and carried the stench of mold. The wood floors protested loudly at being walked over, and a long, narrow path cut through rows of beds stacked two high with the lower on the floor and the upper on a small, elevated bunk above it. Light came from a series of windows that lacked any kind of closure save for the spiderwebs stretched across. In one corner, a trickle of water from the rain moments before ran down along the wall and pooled on the floor before draining through a pinhole in the wood.
Taganu then reached down and grabbed up a pack that had been left on one of the beds along with a stack of fresh laundry. He tucked that under his arms and pointed as he spoke. "So… the spiders are your friends…"
"What?" Kelint gaped.
"If the web looks old, clean it out so they can make a new one. Always check for snakes; the little green ones you need a rod to chase them out, the others you can pick up like normal."
Geraln gaped. "What do you mean pick up?"
"If you see any fat white ones with a yellow diamond pattern, bring those ones to the kitchen; they're delicious. I'll show you where that is later. Go ahead and pick a bed, any bed. None of them have names. You should be able to leave your things here; no one will disturb them."
"What about that guy's things?" Ales pointed to the pack he'd picked up moments before.
Taganu looked at his arms, then back. "He's dead. Over here…"
He walked over to a wall beside the entrance. Faren and I lingered, staring at the empty bed where the pack had been removed from. We glanced at one another; he had a sense of foreboding on his face.
"Gentlemen?" he said. Beside him was a board with several columns separated by thin wooden lines, with rows under each holding several wooden blocks with names written on them. At the top of each column was a chore—laundry, dishes, cleaning, bath water, and so forth. "Every morning, the slots get emptied. First one to put their name up gets the first pick. If it's full, pick a different one, and if you don't pick you get whatever's left over. Over here…"
Whoever doesn't pick gets to empty the latrine.
Beside the chore board, a small table was set with ceramic jars and a stack of oily rags stained with rust. "If you brought a eupin longbow, you need to oil it up or the wood will split. Those of you who brought chain armor, especially during the rainy season, make sure to dry off the links completely and oil them up after because they'll rust as well. Use plenty and don't worry about your shirt; oil comes out easier than blood."
I looked at Kelint. He let out a slow exhalation and ran his fingers through his hair. We were all silent.
"This way."
We followed him towards the end of the corridor. My eyes once again passed over the vacant bed before following Taganu over to a side room where several wooden tubs were laid out.
"Bathe daily," he held up a finger. "Bathe with a partner. I know men bathing one another is weird in your culture, but do it anyway. Those little white bumps under your skin, those are worm eggs; you can get them out with your fingernail, but do it before they hatch, trust me. There's also ticks, leeches, fleas, foot rot, and thorns that'll make you very sick. You see a rash, anything unusual, see the medic."
We all glanced at one another. All our eyes were wide with horror.
With that, he led us outside once more, where the hot, humid air was a welcome respite from the stale mustiness of the wooden barracks. I looked at the gate again. She wasn't there this time, either.
We gathered around.
From the stone building, another man emerged and made his way towards us. Taganu nodded to him, then turned to us. "The kitchen is there," he pointed. "Breakfast at daybreak, dinner after the gate closes. Food in the old city is much better, but that'll run you a few kren; this you don't have to pay for. Miyani should bring five more men in the morning; training begins tomorrow at noon. What else… what else… ahh. OK. This is important. The women here…"
I glanced around. Eyes perked up throughout our little group. Taganu, however, looked serious.
"... it's a different culture from what you're used to, but let's simplify it this way: she comes to you. Stick to that rule and you'll be fine; she comes to you. If she doesn't, another one will. And if that doesn't work, brush your teeth—sometimes that helps. Anyway, the Marquis wants a word with you all. After that you're welcome to enjoy the city."
With that, he turned and left.
This other man, the Marquis, was fairly tall—not so much as Davod and Northstar, but still tall, and lean. He had the same olive-green skin as us with long, straight, dark-green hair he'd let fall behind his back though his face bore the age of a man into his forties. His brow, his lips, seemed fixed in consternation as though he hadn't smiled in years. He had on a torn white shirt pulled reluctantly over his shoulders and left open revealing hard muscle all up and down his chest, with a black loincloth with gold trim that hemmed about his knees held up by a simple leather belt.
He came up and stood, glancing around before speaking. His voice had a raspy, breathy tone to it. "A couple months ago we had a guy, had a thing for one of our scouts. She didn't want nothin to do with him. He refused to leave her alone, so her vɪta'o knocks him down, rips out his liver, and eats it right in front of him while he's still breathing."
The Marquis then looked each of us in the eyes before finishing. "Welcome to Carthia."
Then he turned and walked off. Everyone turned to face me.
Rock turned to Kelint. "What he did saying?"
Kelint plastered a wide smirk all over his baby face with a glance in my direction. "That girl brought us over here, the one this guy Caleb been drooling over? Stay away from her."
Geraln corrected him with a cruel grimace, "that's not what he said! He merely said that if Caleb spoke to her again, that lizard was going to eat his liver; that's all."
Kelint laughed. Faren slapped my back and corrected both of them with a smile. "A better translation would be, 'rip his liver out, and then eat it.' Get it right."
Geraln chuckled while Northstar looked at me with a smug grin. At that, all of them started to walk off while Davod stared at me and shook his head, nearly laughing. "Only you, man! Only you!"