“It isn’t right,” Vedas said.
Her cheeks bloomed red. “It’s my fucking money! We’ve traveled two thousand goddamn miles together, and your faith’s been nothing but a liability. Finally, you get a chance to profit from it, to help out, and you can’t do it because it’s wrong. I had plans for that money.”
Finally, Vedas met her eye. “Oh, yes. I saw the gleam in your eye as we passed the gambling houses.”
The muscles in Churls’s shoulders and thighs twitched, and Berun stepped forward.
But the woman only spat. “I make my own choices. I take responsibility for myself. I don’t let my shit spill over onto others. I doubt you can say the same.”
With this, she wheeled her horse around and spurred it northward.
Berun raised his brows.
Vedas sighed. “Maybe I should have done it. Taken the discount. It would have been faster.”
“Maybe you should have,” Berun agreed. “But I’m not one for convictions, so you can’t trust me.” Their eyes met. The lines around Vedas’s eyes had deepened. He looked years older than when they had left Golna. “Do you have a plan?” Berun asked.
Vedas closed his eyes and nodded. Then he shook his head. “I only know what I’m not going to say. I’m no writer, no philosopher. If I’d known what I was getting into by leaving, I never would have left.” He opened his eyes. “And you? Do you have a plan?”
“It hasn’t changed,” Berun said. “I plan on winning.”
“Amen,” Vedas said, and kicked his horse’s brass flanks.
Berun picked two rocks from the ground and followed, metal soles ringing loudly on the packed earth. Grinding the stones in his hands, he joined the thousand-footed train of travelers following the northwesterly curve of Grass Trail to Danoor.
THE 21
st
TO 25
th
OF THE MONTH OF ROYALTY, 12499 MD
THE CITY OF DANOOR, THE REPUBLIC OF KNOS MIN
T
hey ran the construct horses from sunup to sundown—a grueling pace, devoid of joy, alleviated by only the briefest moments of rest. At night they collapsed in whatever camp they came upon, sleeping the night through as though drugged.
At noon on the fourth day, the mounts refused to go any further, their contracts at an end. Churls and Vedas immediately dismounted and removed the packs, anxious not to lose their belongings. Churls, who had lived on horseback during her three-year stint in the Castan cavalry, gritted her teeth as she pounded life into her cramped thighs. Vedas, no great horseman, moved about with enviable vigor. Yet another miracle performed by his suit.
Churls’s muscles loosened during the fifteen-mile descent out of the scrub hills and into the desert. She shed clothes as the weather grew hot, stripping down to a leather skirt and halter. Before long, even these began to cling and chafe uncomfortably. She considered with some bitterness that in only a few hours it would be cold and windy again, requiring yet another change of clothes. She jealously eyed the loose cotton outfits many of the travelers wore.
From ten miles away, the city of Danoor was nearly lost amid the shifting red dunes that hemmed it on three sides. Usveet Mesa, the largest and most easterly of the Aroonan chain, loomed ridiculously large at the western edge of the city. The mountain’s foothills, higher even than those ringing the valley, seemed tiny by comparison.
From five miles away, the mesa’s scope became even more daunting. Its nearly vertical wall looked as if it were about to topple over, snuffing out the pathetic signs of civilization lying in its shadow. Churls wondered what it must be like to live in such a place. Did its people grow used to living in darkness for half the day, feeling that weight pressing down?
Perhaps it was not the mountain causing her to think such thoughts, but history itself. According to legend, Danoor had been founded upon the rubble of Hawees, an ancient elder city that had once clung to the mountainside—a city Adrash had razed in celebration of mankind’s birth. Precious stones and inexplicable glass mechanisms, proof of the legend’s origins, were still being unearthed from underground excavations.
As a youth, Churls had seen a few of these relics on display in Onsa. Her mind nearly buckled as she considered their age—a hundred thousand years, two hundred thousand? Academics insisted the elders had been interred in the ground long before the era of man, the modern and mythic history of which spanned a mere twenty-five millennia. Perhaps Adrash himself did not recall the age of Hawees’s beautiful relics.
How, Churls had wondered as she stared at the shattered remnants of an extinct people, could men worship a god who would destroy such precious things? How could men live in a city dedicated to that destruction?
She could think of no worse place to make a home.
On the other hand, she could think of no better place to host a battle between the Followers of Adrash and the Followers of Man.
‡
As they entered the vast tent camp visitors had erected south of the city, the sun disappeared over the mesa, plunging the valley into another degree of darkness. Churls made out the many fires of the Tomen camps Berun had described in the foothills.
“You see them?” she asked Vedas. “Orrus Alachum, they’ve tripled in size since we last looked! There must be five thousand of them now. What do you think they’re waiting for?”
He scratched at his thick, wiry black beard. For once, the weather seemed to bother him as much as it bothered her. His lips were cracked, his eyes red. “The winner, I assume. That will determine which way the riot goes, who they start killing first.”
“That’s a grim outlook,” Berun said. “You think that’s their plan—five thousand against an entire city, bloated to twice its normal size by travelers? They’ve done nothing so far. Maybe they’ve come to their senses and just decided to enjoy the tournament.”
Vedas regarded the constructed man. “You can believe whatever fantasy you like, but I’m done with deceiving myself. We all saw what Fesuy did to that woman on the trail.” He squinted into the distance, and then pointed to a pool of firelight below the encamped Tomen. “Another thing—what do you see at the base of the hill?”
“Another group is camped there.”
“Notice anything else?”
“No. Yes. The men are wearing uniforms. They’re very well organized.” Vedas nodded. “As I suspected. An army battalion, which proves I’m not the only cynical one. The Tomen intend to attack, and the Knosi government knows it.”
“They couldn’t stop them from entering the city?” Berun asked.
“How?” Vedas spread his arms wide. “The influx of travelers has stretched the resources in Danoor for months now. When you were last able to check your map, that army battalion wasn’t here, which means they must have double-timed it from the capitol. All their general can do now is send for more troops and wait for the inevitable. Perhaps they will muster enough to stand against the threat, but I doubt it. We have riots even in civilized Golna. They have a way of spreading.”
Churls chuckled at this understatement. She scanned the faces around the campfires, noted the posture of men and women as they walked from tent to tent, trading gossip. They hardly seemed concerned, but only a fool looked to the gathered masses for wisdom.
They reached the first buildings of Danoor proper, which unlike the majority of Knosi cities had never been surrounded by a wall. For millennia its relative isolation had dissuaded conquering peoples, though one could not discount its citizens’ legendary fighting skill as an equal factor. Lomen, one of Churls’s former lovers and gambling partners, had hailed from a neighboring region, and claimed all children of the mesas were taught to wield the ckomale, a pair of sickles linked together with wire.
Travelers thronged bone-dry streets the color of rust. Everywhere, the color of rust. Except for infrequent splashes of painted wood, the buildings were uniformly and seamlessly constructed of red clay and red sand. They rarely rose above the third floor and seldom existed in anything other than a rectangular shape. The uniformity depressed Churls, but the presence of lavish parks, where broad- and thin-leaved succulents fought for space with thorny, winter-blooming bushes and wiry jocasta trees, compensated for this.
“Not far now,” Churls said to no one in particular.
“Yes,” Vedas and Berun responded together. Vedas cleared his throat.
Keenly aware of how little time they had left as companions, Churls fought to keep the melancholy from her face. She had failed to determine what Vedas and Berun ultimately meant to her, though she had spent no small amount of time pondering the question.
Perhaps she and Berun could remain friends. He liked her, and might even be swayed to stay with her in the city, even accompany her home—positing, of course, that they did not kill one another in tournament.
But Vedas? She could not be Vedas’s friend, even if he wanted such a thing. Her desire would always betray her.
Despite her persistent attempts to reign in her emotions.
Despite the anger this lack of self-control inspired.
The curve of his lips, the timbre of his voice, the way thoughts showed on his face several heartbeats before words ever came out: She had memorized every detail of Vedas Tezul. His presence had long ago become a dilemma, causing her every ounce as much distress as joy.
It ached in her marrow, being so close yet so far.
‡
After nearly two hours of walking, they reached the northern end of the city, which to Churls’s eyes was indistinguishable from the southern. The streets were crowded this close to the White and Black Suit camps, filled with the sounds of conversation and trade. Revelers spilled from every inn and restaurant door.
Clearly, lodging near Vedas would be difficult to find. Churls wondered how long it would take for the man to comment on this fact. Undoubtedly, he wondered why his companions had remained with him for so long.
She had no answer. It was foolish to prolong the inevitable, yet she could not help herself. She stole glances at him, found excuses to slow their progress.
It took her a while to understand that such diversions were not only being allowed, but encouraged. Vedas and Berun were dragging their heels. Twice, Vedas complained of soreness in his legs and asked them to stop in a park—an awkward moment, both times, as he massaged his thighs and stretched while she examined plants that held no real interest for her. Berun was no help, standing in place as though he were a statue.
Light spilling into an alleyway marked yet another inn. Unlike the others, it appeared relatively unoccupied.
“We should stop for a drink,” Churls ventured. “Say goodbye and all that. Celebrate our arrival and soon-to-be victories.” She laughed, and it sounded pitifully hollow.
Berun smiled, nodded. Vedas looked northward, clearly conflicted.
“All right,” he said. “Just one.”
They entered the dimly lit interior, where the smell of coffee hit Churls like a friendly kiss. Contrasting sharply with the biting cold that descended with nightfall out of doors, the inn was delightfully warm and close. She whistled softly, surprised by the opulence of the room. Voluptuous Knosi women in diaphanous robes reclined on low couches, dipping folds of spongebread into various sauces, sipping from small flutes of wine. The few men, mostly soft-looking Knosi in fine silks, each had two or three women attending to their every need: peeling grapes, massaging feet and shoulders.
Reaching under waistbands.
It was all quite cozy, yet Churls understood immediately why the establishment had attracted so few customers. The influx of travelers into the city must have spurred the opening of dozens of new bordellos, each offering cheap wares. An establishment catering to the wealthy must therefore have seen a drop in business.
Churls had been to more than a few whorehouses in her day, and none of the acts performed within had ever scandalized her. Nonetheless, she could imagine few places less conducive to the kind of goodbye she had hoped for.
On second thought, perhaps it did not matter. Vedas managed to be uncomfortable in any social situation. That he had agreed to a drink at all was a minor miracle.
She sat on a couch and signaled to the bar, at the same time conducting a quick survey of the room. Several of the prostitutes were watching her. Many more had their eyes on Vedas. Churls considered how best to dissuade the women from approaching him, but shelved it as irrelevant. He would not return their attentions.
He sat opposite her. “Interesting choice,” he said. “Isn’t this out of your price range?”
“A little,” Churls allowed. “Where’s Berun?”
“He stayed outside.” Vedas shrugged. “I looked back, but he just waved me in.”
Churls hid a smile behind her hand.
A server arrived—a teenage girl with proportions Churls had once cursed herself for lacking. Now such women looked soft and ungainly to her. Fighting with breasts like that would be almost impossible. How did the girl know who she was without scars, tattoos to prove she had been to this place at this time? Very likely, she had never been anywhere but Danoor, traveled no farther than a nearby quarter to see her parents.
To be the daughter of this man, the wife of this man, etcetera and etcetera. Nothing more.
Churls thought of Fyra. She would be about the server’s age if she were alive. What would she have said about her family, her position in the world? Would she have been a warrior, a good lover to a faithful, boring man?
“What is your desire?” the girl asked. She looked only at Vedas and cocked her hip slightly, causing the fabric of her short robe to part, offering him a view of her shaved pudendum. In most whorehouses, this view alone cost money.
The drinks would be expensive, Churls reasoned.
Of course, the girl might have revealed herself on a whim, made a flirtatious gesture for the heroic Black Suit. Vedas had received enough shy looks in the streets, suffered enough awkward greetings. Due to the lack of other suited individuals, Churls gathered brothers and sisters of the Order were not allowed to stray from camp during the tournament. A smart move. Fighters became lax if pussy and cock were free for the taking.