Waking up with Miyani in my arms, I felt whole. Complete. With purple hues overtaking the starry sky, the scent of coconut blossom in her hair, her breath on my chest when I entered her, the sweet music of her voice…
How could this be a sin?
She wrapped her arms and legs around my body and lifted up to glue our bodies together. I pushed in deep. She hung from me. I wanted nothing more than to cling to this moment.
The stars surrendered one by one to the blueing sky, footfalls echoed from the courtyard, and a chord of honey and ginger wafted from the mess hall. Today, dozens of new recruits and bison trains would come down from the passes, and it was her job to make sure enemy forces didn't molest them on their way in. It was my job to bring the current crop of recruits to Carthia.
By the time Princess Rosalynd let me out of the sling, I'd have my salary back.
Blue went through his customary morning routine of groaning, pretending to sleep, going back to sleep, groaning again. She donned her necklace of giant wooden beads, her bow sling, arrows with red-and-white fletchings, a leather belt with a simple undyed cotton flap that hung down front and back along with a knife each on her left and right. On her fingernails she had those black lacquered claws.
On her left shoulder was the scar from where Blue had marked her to complete the bond. I leaned down to kiss the white bat's wing tattoo on her right shoulder. She turned her face to kiss my lips and reach her arms around my neck.
It would be a while before I saw her again.
The rattling of heavy chains rose above the rising conversation in the mess hall, and the wooden drawbridge creaked as it unfolded across the water. Through the stone archway of the main gate, streaks of sunlight that matched her eyes bloomed up from beyond the shadow of mountains in the distance.
She sat atop the lizard with the blue stripe down the length of his body, atop a simple cotton saddle with pockets, pouches, and a loop of hemp rope for her to hold onto when he jumped down from the trees and took hairpin turns at blistering speeds. His forelimb talons hung below his body. He coiled his neck around to fix one eye with a black, vertical slit on me, then rubbed his face in my cheek before shifting forward to allow her to kiss my lips.
Then he darted across the bridge, carried her over the grassy plain, and they disappeared into Jungle.
All around me, strange men went about the carts overloaded with goods tying down canvas coverings, checking yokes, oiling wheels, reticulating splines. One man was trying to coax a bull to lift up his hoof, but the creature put his full weight into it. When the man pushed the beast to shift his weight, the bull moved away instead. The man shouted and waved his hands about, went after him again, only for the bull to move away, and I swear the whole herd grunted in bison-laughter.
The mess hall was crowded and loud. Every recruit at the Lake of Doom was packed and midway through breakfast. My team sat at two adjacent circular tables among several of the recruits. Bilal was surrounded by five men, while Ta'o and Renou sat with another four.
Exactly twelve men.
"Did I miss something?"
Bilal huffed. "We chose without you."
Ta'o glanced up at me briefly before turning his eyes back to his bowl. He'd spent the night without Iyemi in his arms, and his face betrayed no emotion.
"Sit here, man." Rolon moved over to make room for me at a table that included Finn, Kurt, Dax, and the giant, Rool. At the table with Renou and Ta'o was Charis the whaler's nephew, Gaius Mango's Bane, Scree who'd fought the chef the day we arrived, and Wan. Blue says he's smart.
"So this is the team?" At the center of the table was an iron cauldron filled with a meal of mashed grains mixed with dried fruits and nuts, and I ladled some into a bowl.
"Yeah, man," Rolon said. "Anyway as I was saying, if you ever seen the Duchess of Heralia, I mean, there's a fine wine if there ever was one. She came to the nut festival at our village and me and my step dad, we saw her. He said that long ago when the Duke, you know before he was the Duke, they tried to hook him up with the Emperor's sister but he said he wanted a pureblooded Herali girl so they found her instead. She was the daughter of some Wolf clan chief, so I guess that's nobility enough. I think Wolf babes are the prettiest. I shouldn't say that out loud being a Bear guy, but that's my opinion. The Emperor's sister ended up marrying some loser from Mayeno, and have you ever tried Mayeni food? Boiled maize and potatoes, boiled beans and potatoes, boiled cabbage and potatoes, boiled squash and potatoes—"
"I'm sorry," I cut him off and looked around the two tables. Finn, Kurt, and Charis were easy choices; when we were ambushed, they held it together. Gaius I liked because even though he missed three-fifty, he kept trying. Both he and Rolon understood the value of making peace with the team under fire.
Rool was massive. He was about as tall as Kylen, a few inches over my head, and ripped with lean, powerful muscle.
"What's your story?" I asked.
He smiled out of one side of his mouth and shrugged.
Bilal answered for him. "He was Siddik's number two on mold duty. Always eager to help, never complained about what needed to be done, just got it done."
"And he kicked my arse!" Dax added with a smirk.
"Barely!" Rool chuckled.
"Wan," Bilal called him over from the other table and explained. "You remember when we got here, the matted grass? This guy did an experiment. Turns out, the vita'o are what makes the grass grow. It's growing back now because of him."
Wan was average height, average build, and tied his hair in the back with a silver Orca pin inlaid with deep red gemstones. "Their talons digging into the mat inspires it to send out new runners. Since there's been so many men here, they avoided certain areas, and that's why the grass wasn't regenerating."
"What did you do before you came here?" I asked.
"I was an investigator for the Kyoen County sheriff."
My eyes popped. "And they sent you to war?"
Wan shrugged.
I turned to Dax. "And what about you? What's your story?"
He grinned. "I was spawned beneath the waves of the great western ocean. Yonaru—that's the Queen of the Orca—"
"I know who Yonaru is," I said.
Dax pursed his lips. "I thought you were Falcon."
Finn furrowed his brow. "A Falcon can't know about Yonaru?"
"I'm just saying," Dax shrugged.
Finn shook his head in feigned offense. "Just because we don't piss in the sea we can't possibly know…"
"Well I didn't know about Naveris for the longest time!" Dax excused himself.
Rool furrowed his brow. "How do you not know about Naveris?"
"I didn't know she was Falcon's daughter until yesterday."
"Wait," Rolon inserted, "how did you not know that?"
Bilal shook his head and laughed.
I brought it back to Dax. "You were saying?"
"Yes," Dax raised his chin high. "Yonaru said I was the chosen one."
"Chosen for what?" Charis stood behind Rolon and myself.
Finn answered for him. "Chosen to wipe her arse!"
The table erupted in laughter. Dax chuckled and shook his head.
Scree stood behind Bilal and Finn with his arms crossed and a serious question for Dax. "How do you even wipe an orca's arse?"
He earned more laughter for that.
"What I want to know," Dax held up a finger and turned to Kurt, "is where this guy is actually from."
Kurt shrugged. "Nowhere and everywhere, man."
"Naaah!" Ta'o worked his way around the table and stood behind Dax. "We need specifics!"
Rolon fired the first question. "What clan are you?"
"Not Crane," I answered. Kurt smiled wide at that. He was a tall man with a wide face and broad shoulders, and straight, dark-green hair cascaded loose down his back. He wasn't Wolf, either, though he had John's bow with the light-colored poetry in darkened wood slung across his back—they'd been friends, it was better in his hands than a stranger's.
Finn egged him further. "Come on, man. Me, Caleb, Scree, we're Falcon. Rool and Gaius are Cougar, and Rolon is Bear. Dax, Charis, Wan, and Renou are all Orca, Ta'o is crescent-moon thing, and Bilal is Slime Monster."
"Seriously?" Bilal fought off a laugh.
"Leech clan?"
"He's Gologai, they don't have clans…"
"Tick, then."
Bilal lowered his face and shook his head.
"I was asking about Kurt," Dax insisted. "He's the only one we don't know."
Bilal sweetened the pot. "If you tell us, our fine captain has agreed to tell us all about some hedonistic debauchery he was involved in."
"What?" They all looked at me.
"Oh yeah," Renou grinned wide. "He promised to tell us. Apparently it involves Princess Davina!"
"Wait, what?" Charis's eyes went wide, and half the men at the table turned their curious faces towards me.
"Who's Princess Davina?" Finn asked.
"C'mon man," Rolon inserted. "I'm from way up north, and I've heard of her."
"Only the most beautiful girl in the world!" Wan swooned.
"That's Kyoni law, by the way," Dax added.
Kurt smirked. "Well, I'm Coyote clan. This, I need to hear!"
"A promise is a promise…" I took a deep breath and settled on Bilal. "Just like your promise to tell us all why you stabbed your last captain in the back."
The men all turned to him with mouths and eyes open wide. He grimaced at that and popped his eyebrows. "You first."
"Fine. This all happened, I was around fifteen. My friend Gino and I, we met this girl named Alys. She was a dancer. She would invite me to her recitals, and she was pretty, but the thing about her, she was… forward. And I mean forward. I'd never met a girl so… so direct before. It was nice. Kind-of an addictive feeling. The problem was, she wanted to go all the way. Of course I was a church kid, so that wasn't happening. One day she got all pissy about it, so I told her I didn't want to see her again."
"What does that have to do with…" Wan started. The others shushed him.
"It wasn't long after that… so there was this other girl, she came by to deliver blankets and food to the church for us to hand out to the poor, and she was a stunner. I mean… she's no Miyani, but yeah, she was a looker."
"Not gonna touch that!" Dax chuckled.
"Gino says to me, that's the Count's daughter, Davina. You should go talk to her. So I did. I cut into her something fierce. I don't even know what came over me, but I went off on her all this stuff about hereditary privilege, about performative charity, all that. And I said to Gino, there, I talked to her."
Ta'o's face was wide with amusement. "Bro! How many princesses have you mouthed off to?"
"Yeah." I lowered my eyes. "Well, later that day, I was in the garden, and I saw her there. She was alone, and she was crying. I felt like a complete shit."
"You were a complete shit!" Dax added.
"I apologized, and we started talking. And then… we kept talking. Next thing I knew it was getting dark, and her father's man who'd been waiting at the carriage to bring her home came in to look for her."
Wan asked, "what all did you talk about?"
"Everything! She asked me what it was like growing up in diamond tree country, she asked about the kinds of chores the friar sent me on. She was enchanted by the industrial underbelly of society; she wanted to see how everything worked. She wanted me to show her how to hook and bumper incoming ships and where the cargo was stored and inspected for auction. Her friends liked to talk about the latest fashionable clothes; Davina was more interested in seeing how the silk was harvested, spun into thread, woven into fabric, then cut and sewn together. She saw beauty in the process. Before I met her, everything was just a chore. She opened my eyes."
Kurt nodded. "You really liked her."
"I did. One time she invited me to her father's manse in the city, and she was teaching me how to play the water organ when her mum walks in screaming, 'don't you ever let me catch that street rat around here again!' and she had the guards toss me out."
A couple of the guys laughed. "Nice!"
"We found ways to see each other. One time, I snuck in with the gardeners. I'm there weeding, pruning, and she comes out with a pitcher of peach juice, and we spend the day together. And of course, she still came by the church. Then one day, Alys comes by. She's got about ten friends with her. I have no idea who these girls are; I'd never seen them before. She says she's looking for Gino. I told her he's in the library, so she goes off to look for him. So I'm there in the dishroom scrubbing pots and pans, and these girls, they start flirting with me. I just… froze. I didn't know what to think. I'd never had anything like that happen before, and these girls, they're getting frisky. And they're feeling up on me, and I've got my hands in places they don't belong, and when I look up the friar is there, and Davina is there, with her mum."
"Whoops!" Dax chuckled.
"The friar shouted at me to leave at once. The Countess said that if I ever set foot in Kyoen again, she'd carve me up for chum. I wanted to say something to Davina but… she just ran off."
"What could you have even said, bro?" Ta'o tried not to laugh.
"What would you have said?"
"I would have said…" Ta'o looked up and scratched his chin.
Finn answered for him. "Nice knowin' ya!"
We all had a good laugh at that, and I turned back to Bilal. "That was it. That was the hedonistic debauchery. Now it's your turn."
"Give me a moment," Dax chuckled. "I need to savor this—our glorious captain had a real shot with Princess Davina, and blew it!"
I sneered at him, and he laughed at me.
"Come on, now!" Gaius huffed. "What about Bilal the Backstabber?"
A sly grin stretched across Bilal's face, and he nodded. "Well, he'd have got the whole unit killed if I didn't."
"Fair enough," Gaius nodded. "But why? How?"
"A couple days before, we were out on an op, and I saw him talking to an enemy scout."
"Talking?" Rool the Giant furrowed his brow.
Bilal nodded. "He was just talking to her. Away from everyone else. Said he needed to piss, and when I went to look for him, he was talking to her."
"What did she look like?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Some older lady with a falcon. She disappeared as soon as I came around. Over the next few days, he started going on about the Emperor, how evil he is, this, that, and everything else, and how we're all fighting for the wrong thing, throwing our lives away for the greedy Emperor, all that shit."
"In his defense," Scree raised a finger, "the Emperor is a cunt."
The men laughed and nodded in agreement.
Bilal continued. "No argument here! But see, this guy, he was just… walking in the wrong direction. It's hard to say, but there was something about the way he was going that didn't feel right, like he would get agitated. Like he was looking for something and getting impatient. Some of the other guys called him out for it, and he snaps at them like don't question my orders, that shit. He'd turned. He was looking for that lady to meet up with her and switch over to their side, and he was leading the rest of us into an ambush to cover it up. So yeah, I took—"
"LISTEN UP!" The voice of Hoden, the quartermaster, filled the mess hall.
Tables fell silent but for a few men who still chatted in one corner. The older man glared at them until everyone was silent.
"Gentlemen, it's been swell, but the swelling has gone down. I want all of you out of my castle, right now! Not you, sorry. Only those who aren't staying…"
As everyone got up, I gathered my team together. "Here's the plan. I count eighteen carts, and there's thirteen of us. I want each of us to grab four guys, that's your squad—"
"Won't be enough," Bilal interrupted me. "Gaedi recruited about twenty guys to stay here."
I was a captain, and yet I knew so little about what was going on. "OK, so three guys. Choose one cart, make sure there aren't two adjacent—"
"Segay!" Dax left.
"Daemon! Aydel!" Rolon followed, and soon they all went about gathering up men. Gaius grabbed Cutthroat and two men from the archery tournament, and Wan found his little brother and two others. Rool grabbed Ardou, Faris the Climber and some other guy, while Finn selected a few men from shit pit. Haron, the guy with the Cougar brand and bear claw scar across his chest who wasn't selected for our team, saw what we were doing and recruited his own squad. Orel the Pickpocket who owned the City of Ulum and Commander Gaedi's Cousin-in-Law Jorven the Profane were among those who chose to remain at the Lake of Doom, along with Hereim who was clearly afraid to face Kelint of Dignestran in a proper archery tournament at Carthia even though he denied that was the reason.
He was scared.
Outside the gate, the relentless midmorning sun baked my skin. A line of bison-drawn carts stretched across the irregular black slate road that cut through the plain surrounding the castle. Beyond the plain, jungle-carpeted hills promised the sweet respite of shade for at least a few hours until we reached Carthia.
As my team approached their carts and arranged their squad around them, the drivers gave them peculiar looks. Two in the middle exchanged glances and rolled their eyes at one another. Dax claimed the lead cart with Bilal behind him, and I arranged Jake of Linud, Turic the Big Fat Guy, and Rumen, who'd been on shit pit with me, around mine.
The driver was an older Herali with thinning gray hair beneath a wide-brimmed cone of a straw hat. He squinted at us and raised his arm for someone to come over.
About a hundred yards ahead, where the road disappeared into thick trees, Ahmi sat astride a light gray-blue lizard with dark green spots all over her back. The vita'o raced towards us and sniffed my sweaty shoulders and waist, taking note of the bow in my hand and chirping with a few clicks mixed in.
Ahmi giggled lightly. "She is invisible."
"Huh?"
The lizard laughed in a string of clicks.
By this time, though, I'd grown accustomed to their brand of humor. "Her name is Invisible."
"Come with me," Ahmi rode Invisible about fifty yards across from the train.
I followed her, and together we took in the sight of each of my men with their own squads in position.
"I have to admit I am impressed." Her thick accent was the same as Miyani's was becoming. "You have given them all something to make them feel important during the journey."
Invisible clicked and whistled. Ahmi answered her in Uhuida. "Yes, I am curious about that, too."
"Curious about what?"
"We are curious as to why sometimes you understand vita'o, and sometimes you do not. You have spent more time around Blue than any other, and yet it was Tikashi you spoke with though she insists on a most obstinate dialect, and now Dessert who I believe you had never spoken with before."
Her piercing yellow eyes on mine would not accept a failure to answer.
"I… guess. Sometimes. I guess right… sometimes."
She stared at me for a painfully long moment. "Bullshit."
I scratched my head. "Maybe it's something in the water, I don't know…"
"I suppose we all have our secrets. It is only fair; there are things I do not share with you."
"Like what?"
Invisible let out a long string of clicks and raised her head high. Ahmi laughed with her. The lead cart had passed into the forest, and I felt a pang of envy over the shade. "Is Rosalynd going to eviscerate me when I get back?"
"Most likely. I need you to do me a favor, though. I need you to remind each of your men that there will be friendly sekɪwa all around them, including myself, and I do not want them to be overzealous with those bows.
"I can do that."
"Also, I spoke with Inferno this morning."
I furrowed my brow at her. "What about?"
Ahmi smirked. "About your altercation yesterday."
I still didn't want to think about that. Oma Right Hook and Dannie What's-This-Do were deemed too wounded to travel. "I got four guys killed. They were my responsibility."
"Hmm," she shrugged. "It hits harder when they are your responsibility. Always. Believe me, I know this too well. Know that you are not alone. All of the best commanders know the feeling of losing someone under their command. My advice to you is to accept the pain and welcome it."
"Welcome it? Why?"
"Because a captain who does not feel it is a monster. Without that pain, you are truly lost. But, if it is any consolation," she added with a smirk, "Chaos will be spending the next few days answering very uncomfortable questions."
"Why?"
She grinned. "I think you know why! Trainees armed with practice arrows killed twelve elite veterans. Another lost an eye, and another will never walk again. They already knew that Miyani was formidable. I am allowing them to believe that her boyfriend, the man who delivered that spanking, has chosen to remain at the Lake of Doom with her. I made sure to point out that it was you, personally, who sniped Chaos's men from the rock perch overlooking the battle. Things should be quiet in this area for a time I suspect."
I chuckled. "You're bigging me up?"
"You are already big; her plan was to assassinate you. And now, your enemy has named you."
"Named me?"
"You are called Sewa'a Nea Ane. It is Dayuda. It translates as, The One Who Got Away."