An army in the desert
Present Day - Clyvendi war camp
Clyvendi Harvest of the Rising Moon, 350 years after the Nyen Foh
“It is dark. The path that lies before you.”
The clan reader’s voice drifted through Captain Limneth’s dreams, bringing him back to the ground he lay on. The hard ground Lim had chosen over the softer sands the army slept on a few miles back. But it was quiet here. And even though the stars were far away and gave no warmth, they shone brightest where the light of the many fires did not mar the skies. It was lonely here, like most of his life, and how he imagined death to be. Not like the busy, built-up places in between where other men found a certain comfort.
“Daybreak is still hours away,” he said, opening one eye to make sure the reader was keeping her distance. “Of course it will be dark.” His lips curled into a smirk at their shared jest; he was surprised at how happy he was for her company.
“I come only when called.” She shrugged in reply.
“Lord Nagesh has released you from his tent to call upon others, then?” Limneth asked, ignoring her mood and propping himself up on one elbow to better regard her. Yulta hid her disapproval by reaching for the flask at her hip.
Her skin shone pale in the moonlight, the tiny bones she wore around her wrists clicking against one another when she moved. The many feathers woven into the cloak draped around her shoulders made her appear like some giant bird of prey come to pluck his eyes from his skull.
She poured the tea with practiced hands and flicked back her hood. Her lips and tongue were stained black from the god spirits she drank, her eyes the striking blue of a frost giant’s heart. Her great beauty aside, he realised he still pined for her and took the offered cup without thinking. Their fingers brushed.
“You still dream.”
The old anger resurfaced, and Limneth stared hard into the cup, pulling his blanket across his broad shoulders, bundling the fabric in a ball under his chin.
“I dream of nothing.” He tipped the tea down his throat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before shuffling his weight forward to stare at the ground between his feet.
Yulta chose not to press him. She got to her feet instead and said, “I want to show you something.”
He knew nothing good could come of this but had learned not to argue and stood to follow her into the darkness.
As they walked, Limneth gazed across at the army camp of Clan Clyvendi, his clan. Its fires made it seem as if the valley were ablaze, the desert mountains rising on either side so it looked as if a mage’s hands cupped the flames. There were no voices on the wind, as dawn hadn’t yet broken. Rest, they had been told; the gods favour us. For the army that lay spread across the western horizon had not yet moved against them.
Rest was for the dead, Limneth thought. And his thoughts bore fruit as he found himself suddenly walking among tombstones. “Where are we?”
Yulta stopped just ahead of him and crouched low, coaxing light from her fingertips. Limneth joined her to peer at the stone slab illuminated by her magic, on his haunches now as if they were children again.
“I found this place yesterday. The pull of the Askari chaos magic must have raised the stones from the ground. It’s what has drawn us all here. Drawn you.”
Limneth tsked and glanced at the horizon.
“The graves of those who came before?” She ran her fingers over the foreign script carved into the stone. “Or from a time yet to come.”
Limneth’s patience was wearing thin, so he stood up, not wanting to discuss the matter further and leaving the reader to her musings. Walking over to a massive pillar of carved rock jutting from the ground, he raised his hand to trace the outline of the woman depicted on the tablet. Without warning, the mark on his chest flared green, and his dreams flowered in his mind as if the stone he touched bled colour. Lim snatched his hand away before Yulta noticed. “Why did you bring me here?”
The glow of Yulta’s approaching light cast Lim’s shadow against the pillar. His hard lines broke the curves of the stone woman he had touched, the magic making her eyes dance in the darkness. He recognised those eyes, had felt the heat of those soft curves.
“I wanted to ask if you are any closer to finding out who she is.” Yulta’s tone was gentle. He could tell that she didn’t want to anger him. Which only served to make him angry.
“You talk to the bones, Yulta. You tell me.”
“Give me one of yours, and I’ll tell you.” A falsely coy smile curled from her lips.
Lim grinned, despite his annoyance. “Witch.”
“I didn’t ask for your heart!” she said, her hand on her chest as if offended.
Limneth gave a single bitter bark of laughter, but the rare sound died with the wind that stirred the sand around their feet.
He could feel Yulta tracking his gaze to the green-glowing horizon – the smudge of arcane discharge marking the enemy. Most men refused to look at it, but it was drawing him closer. Moving his camp away from the others was a slight that wouldn’t go unnoticed, and he could imagine Nagesh questioning Yulta about it. Could imagine her waving him off, reminding him with well-chosen words that Lim was exempt. Whatever that meant. But Yulta would not be dismissed so easily.
“Will you tell me when you know?” she asked.
Lim’s eyes remained fixed on the horizon as the star rose. Almost three harvests since they had last spoken like this, since they had even been alone together, and it was hard not to fall into this comfortable familiarity. To have someone to talk to about these things, someone he loved.
He said nothing for the longest time before he asked, “You think it means something?”
“Yes.” Quietly spoken, as if she was trying to make his vulnerability easier for him to bear. Then a pause to gather herself. “No matter how I throw the bones, all I see is you. And her.”
“And?” he pressed. “What else?”
Yulta didn’t answer. Lim grunted. He was no stranger to secrets; he couldn’t begrudge Yulta hers.
“Very well,” he conceded. “I dreamt of her again this night.” His face split with something close to anguish, something he couldn’t hide even if he tried. “The dreams are becoming more frequent the further I move from camp.” They both knew he meant the closer he crept to the enemy lines, but Yulta didn’t say as much; she didn’t need to. She just waited for him to speak again.
The silence between them stretched on. The quiet of long acquaintance. Their breathing fell into an easy rhythm until he might as well have been sitting alone.
“She is so near,” he breathed at last. “I don’t know who she is, but she is Askari. Not robed in chaos the way their mages are – it comes from inside her.”
He caught the glint of jealousy in Yulta’s eyes, which she thought were hidden beneath her hood. Guilt and anger replaced his truths with his shouted words.
“What does it matter what I dream? And in what manner bones fall on the sand? Whether we all die by the sword and chaos flame or this plague of nightmares, it makes no difference.”
“It matters because you are the only one who dreams of the Askari,” Yulta bit back. “The only one who truly touches the green. It matters because if we do not figure out why, if we do not figure out what you mean to them, then all of this will have been for nothing! Don’t you see? Don’t you want to find out?”
“My dreams,” Lim warned, “and the colour of my magic make no more difference to our fates than the cryptic mumblings of your tea-drinking ancestors.”
It seemed he had overstepped his mark, but the patience of this woman was astounding, and he watched her uncurl the fists clenched at her sides.
“What do you have to say to this, then?” she asked, plucking his leathers and pulling him toward the other side of the stone pillar. Lim’s scowl deepened as he followed her. He was tired of this game. His expression grew slack though at the image on the sandstone surface.
“Say what you will, Lim, but our people did not carve these stones, and that,” she said, nodding her head at the warrior depicted with painstaking detail, “is you.”
*
Lord Commander Nagesh stood alone, squinting tired eyes at the maps spread out before him, as every good leader should do when faced with strategic decisions. The answers always lay there. But it was late, and they didn’t. His attention was elsewhere, if he was honest. He had spent the last two weeks dividing his time between organizing his army and persuading Yulta that his bed was a better place to spend her evenings than the altars. Her mouth was only for the gods, she said, but she had given him leave to sample the rest of her sweet and secret places, and he smiled, still able to taste her on his tongue.
There was strategy in this too though, he reminded himself. He would need every advantage, including Yulta’s knowledge and her sight, if he were to lead the last free clan to victory against what awaited them on the horizon: the Askari chaos mages and their mad priest king, Kwan Ut Mortun. The fourth in a long line of mad priest kings, dating back three hundred fifty years to the first, Kwan Ut Haun. A man with black ambition and visions of a world under the rule of raw magic.
The first and second of the mad kings, father and son, had conquered the upper continents in their combined lifetimes. The third, less bloodthirsty and more industrious, had spent his efforts laying the foundations for world domination. Planting the seeds of their faith in the minds of the conquered. Building the means to war further than ever before and passing these gifts on to his nephew, Kwan the Fourth, the one they now faced. Ut Mortun had the same furious faith as his forefathers and had now brought his uncle’s army across the Valtama Sea to the desert coast of Nagesh’s kingdom.
Perhaps the Askari hesitated because of Clan Clyvendi’s own reputation. Clyvendi had defeated the godless Kori mages from the south, a cruel and ancient people who believed the consumption of man-flesh made them immortal. Their magic had been just as base as their cannibalistic rituals – spun from ice and called upon with blood, laying entire civilisations to waste. Nagesh’s army had bested the full might of the Kori. Limneth had bested them, a voice inside Nagesh whispered.
Perhaps this was why the chaos emperor had not yet moved against them. Perhaps this was why he had come for them last. But it was none of these things nagging at his mind now, pulling his focus from his battle plans. Last night, in the warm afterglow of Yulta’s embrace, Nagesh had learnt that even though she secretly shared his bed, she too was not yet conquered. She was like some great snow-capped mountain that men travelled from afar to gaze upon, its majestic heights shrouded in mists, still to be summited and survived.
“Camp followers are easier to discard,” a voice said, making Nagesh jump. “Plant seeds in their bellies and send them on their way. But witches – witches plant seeds of their own.”
Limneth grinned as he tapped a finger to the side of his head, though the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Sometimes it was easy to forget how dangerous he was. Nagesh had once seen him stand before a Kori high mage, her face painted red with the blood of her own children, her hands stained black from the frost magic she froze the hearts of her foes with. The man-eater had trembled with fear, as Nagesh would have, confronted with Lim. His eyes hard and glittering cold, mouth wide as his terrible magic curled from it, somehow breathing the immortal in, slowly, painfully, until she was nothing but a frozen husk crumbling in the wind.
Nagesh glanced over his shoulder toward the tangle of bedsheets behind and said, “Don’t worry. Yulta is well cared for.” He didn’t look up from his scrolls to read Limneth’s expression. They were boys no more, squabbling over the affections of one girl. On this, he would stand fast.
Limneth said nothing. He simply sidled up to the table and joined Nagesh in staring at the maps. A long stretch of silence ensued as both men decided which concerns to voice and which to keep to themselves. Nagesh broke first.
“Why have they not advanced?” He was muttering more to himself than anything else.
“I think they wait for something.” Limneth’s tone was hard to place.
“Wait for what?”
When Lim didn’t reply, Nagesh said, “We cannot afford to wait. We must strike.”
Nagesh could tell Lim wasn’t happy with the idea, he who was always so eager to lead the charge.
“Speak, Lim. The others will be here soon, and it is time to act. If you have anything you wish to share, then you must tell me now.”
Limneth hesitated, sucking a breath through his teeth, and it was enough to worry the lord commander.
“I must go alone.”
“Why?” Nagesh leaned over the table separating them, fists planted. When Limneth did not relent, he stood back. “It’s out of the question. If we lose you, morale will be shaken, and our numbers will count for nothing.”
“No one else need know.”
The lord commander frowned at this, but their exchange was interrupted by the arrival of the other captains. Nagesh turned to greet them. “Come.” He gestured at the scattered carpets in the centre of his pavilion tent. When he looked back to invite Lim to join them, he was already gone, taking his vague warnings and uneasy manner this day with him. Perhaps not the worst thing.
Nagesh shrugged on his heavy fur cloak and made his way over to the settling men who captained the last free clan of Kuvu.
“Where is Limneth?” Esyago asked.
“He has come and gone,” Nagesh said, the matter not open for discussion. The rivalry between Esyago and Limneth had begun long ago, and Nagesh took every opportunity to encourage it, using it to his advantage on and off the battlefield.
Malik was next to speak, the so-called foreigner. His forefathers had been a mercenary clan bought by Nagesh’s great-grandfather two hundred years ago. His people had never made the return journey home, choosing instead to remain with their new comrades and the fairer women of the Southern Reaches. Malik led the aerial battalion.
Their steeds, the vanyer, were fierce reptilian beasts with the gift of flight. Breeding them in the warmer climates had proved far easier than the colder ones up north, and their numbers had swelled tenfold since their first landing all those years ago.
“T’ree nights since ta last of ta men fell ter camp. Ready ta send scoutin’ party, gads favorin’,” Malik said.
Nagesh ran fingers over his bearded chin while mulling over the suggestion. He could see First Captain Izyan wanted to say something. Probably in response to Malik’s mention of the gods. Izyan was born of an old line, those who didn’t encourage unity among the clans. His kind had not welcomed the mercenaries as the others had, and his tolerance of Malik’s prominent position in the Clyvendi army was begrudging at best.
Nagesh looked at Savrek, ignoring Izyan’s discomfort. “What say you, Clan Elder?”
Savrek rolled reading bones between his hands, and Nagesh struggled to keep his expression neutral at the sight of him. His captains seemed less perturbed by Savrek’s scars – the puckered skin where his eyes had been. It was Savrek’s right to take one of the king’s wives to bed once in every luminary cycle that they might try to birth him an heir, and Nagesh’s skin crawled at the thought of his own mother, the king’s principal wife, having had to endure Savrek’s touch. Then he thought of Yulta, the clan elder’s sole prodigy, and it made the thought easier to bear, even though his mother had lost her life to give Yulta hers. Regardless, Savrek was clan elder, and they needed him.
Savrek raised one long-fingered hand and pointed at Umar, Nagesh’s general. “Your men dream of darkness.” The men Savrek spoke of were the Thirty Thousand, the foot soldiers of Clyvendi.
“My men dream of cleaving skulls,” Umar said. “All you and your old mothers speak of is dreams. We are the flesh and blood of this army. We sleep and dream, yes, but we eat and kill and fuck too. Which darkness do you want to talk about?”
“Enough,” Nagesh warned.
“Ter Mountain is right,” Malik said. “We cannee sit round mach langer.”
Nagesh furrowed his brow. “Tell me of the dreams,” he said to Umar.
The Mountain tensed, uncomfortable with the topic. He might have been able to deny the clan elder, but he could not deny Nagesh. He spared Savrek a sullen glance before speaking. “My men have been here the longest. It’s been two weeks since the first of us made camp. Some of my men complained of sickness after the second night. The old mothers told us it was the chaos magic keeping the men from a good night’s rest. I have done nothing about it.” His last words were a poorly veiled challenge.
Nagesh raised his hands in peace. He did not begrudge the general his discretion. “What do you make of it?” he asked Savrek instead.
The clan elder pursed his already wrinkled lips. “Soon,” the old man said, “we will all dream.”
Nagesh knew the old man spoke true because these wraiths had already visited him. He worried they were perhaps enemy spies, somehow cloaked with this raw chaos magic and able to walk through their sleeping minds. But Yulta, always keen to naysay him, thought they posed no immediate threat, that shadows were not always an ill omen. And he already knew she would condone Limneth’s decision to go ahead alone, as she condoned most things he did. What did Lim mean when he said they waited for something?
“Malik, send out a scouting party,” Nagesh said. “Wait till nightfall. The rest of you, leave now and make ready to march. Prepare for battle.”
The gathered men stood up, content with his decision, it seemed. A chance to take action when everyone was growing restless.
“I will send for our reader,” Nagesh said, looking to Savrek. “We will consult the bones before the riders leave.” If he was honest with himself, he did not wish to hear the gods speak on this matter. He would send Malik ahead with or without the blessing of the bones.
“She waits for you outside,” Savrek said, sinking back into his pillows. “She comes only when called.”
*
Yulta made her way toward what remained of the war council, extinguishing the lit candles with subtle gestures of her slender fingers so that when she joined the small party to make it three, they sat illuminated by the last of the fire. The day was brightening outside, but Nagesh’s pavilion tent let little light in. No air either, Nagesh thought, as he watched the steady flames.
Yulta pulled a pouch from the sleeves of her robes and leaned over Savrek to pull the low wooden table closer. The clan elder, usually so still and subdued, grabbed at her wrist, sniffing at the bag of bones she held. An awkward moment ensued till she dragged her hand away along with her precious pouch.
Savrek sank back into his pillows, pulling his smoking pipe from his robes. His face still turned in Yulta’s direction, as if he had eyes to glare at his daughter, while he rolled the sticky leaves between his fingers.
Yulta continued with her reading unperturbed, tipping the contents of the pouch into her left palm. Small and intricately carved pieces of bone. Though Nagesh couldn’t smell their power the way a mage could, he could feel it, like a pressing upon his chest.
It was strange to be doing this in the company of Savrek again. Yulta had been performing her readings of late after they had lain together.
“Your thoughts go quiet then,” she would always say. “And the moisture between us helps the spirits make their transition.” But today, there was no sweat or spilled seed or warm breath. There was only the heat of the desert and the slow dance of the clan elder’s smoke as he blew it from his blackened lips.
“Drink,” she said.
Nagesh took the chalice from the centre of the table and did as he was bid before passing the brew to the clan elder. Savrek tipped what remained down his throat, licked his swollen lips, and, without waiting for invitation, leaned forward and spat into Yulta’s cupped hands.
Savrek’s penchant for knowing where things were despite his blindness was unnerving, and the familiarity between him and Nagesh’s precious Yulta made Nagesh’s stomach roil. It was his turn to spit though, and he added his offering with more reservation.
Yulta rubbed her hands together, working Savrek’s blackened spittle into the engravings on the bones. She then began to whisper. Not the soft whisperings of a woman served well, but low and harsh, the words hissing through her teeth. She rocked back and forth, her eyes rolling in her head as the words took hold of her.
The change was sudden. Candlelight flickered, and the room seemed to shift beneath Nagesh’s feet, making his stomach lurch again. No matter how often they did this, he still couldn’t grow used to it.
Time slowed. Detail etched into the lord commander’s vision as if carved by wicked people with cruel knives. He could see every swirl and every grain of dirt on his hands. Every ridge, crease, callus, and haggard fingernail now stood out in vivid detail. He looked up and blinked. The firelight behind Yulta swelled, the flames roaring bright and furious, birthing a torrent of sparks. The glittering embers grew long, spindly legs and raced across the room, lighting candles until the entire space was alive with dancing flame. These strange fire sprites returned whispering to their cradles, calling to whomever was listening to join them. And then all was quiet.
Nagesh waited. Yulta sat calmly before him, her eyes now shut. Savrek lay as if in a deep sleep, his pipe forgotten in the palm of his slack hand. Only Nagesh was awake. Or so it seemed to him. He was about to reach out for the reader to tell her something was wrong when shadows bled from the sandy floor and up onto the white of his tent walls. As if the canvas were paper, drinking up spilled ink.
Nagesh sucked in a breath. He had only ever seen the silhouettes of the spirits dancing around Yulta or heard them chanting his name as they reached out for him. Today was different. Today, they had a story to tell him.
The first shadow rose ever upward until it bloomed onto the roof above him, and he had to tilt his head back to follow it. The shadow grew a monstrous head with gaping maws and teeth as long as Nagesh’s legs. Smoke billowed from its jaws, and through the smoke, a small creature came running. It darted across the walls like a frightened rabbit until the sands his pavilion stood upon opened wide and swallowed the tiny creature whole.
All was still until the sands shifted again. Nagesh immediately thought of the coffin snakes that lived in these parts. The way they moved beneath the sand to find shelter from the relentless star. Or to hunt. Before death came for you, all you would see was the black of the inside of their mouths, fangs pulled back to strike.
Nagesh sat frozen in some space between fascination and horror, as the creature beneath the sand moved toward him. Had the serpent god of death come for him? The sands opened, and it was not the glistening black of the coffin snake’s mouth that greeted him. It was not death. It was his beloved Yulta. Dressed in shadow, eyes lidded with lust.
She rose like mist before him, her arms wide, her smile inviting. Nagesh let out the breath he must have been holding this entire time and leaned back, muscles tense with the expectation of her touch. She pressed herself against him, and even her shadow self was warm and sweet. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her hair spilling onto her face, and leaned into him with a need she’d never shown him before.
He tried not to shut his eyes. Her sacred lips – only for the gods, she had said – so near to his own. His for the taking.
Before she kissed him, she whispered, “Nagesh, I need your heart.”
*
Esyago sat with his back to the fire. Three years it had been since the ice-devil’s blade had plunged into his shoulder, and still he felt the cold of it. Not a good battle wound. Not one he boasted about, and not a story he liked retelling.
The flesh-eating Kori tribe from the south had forged the weapon through frost and blood. Death came not from the blade itself. It would take more than a stab wound to the back to bring down a mage hunter. This blade was special. This type of blade broke off in the victim’s body, in a place where it could not be easily reached, and was forgotten for a while until the battle was over. It gave the blade time to melt, and therein lay the victim’s doom – tiny barbs frozen into the cutting edge, small enough to be taken into the bloodstream, free to make their way toward the victim’s heart.
It was Limneth who had spotted the telltale signs of Kori sorcery. He had pointed to the black wisps of smoke rising from Esyago’s shoulder and said, “You had best go see the Clan Elder, or make peace with the gods.”
Esyago had thought to lash out at the young mage hunter, promoted beyond his years, with no right to be handing out orders to a veteran. But the cold in his arm and the tightness in his chest had made him think less of reminding a boy of his place and more of his own life and how he planned to still be living it come morning.
Savrek had done what he could. His old mothers had hung Esyago upside down and lacerated the skin above his wound to draw out the barbs. That done, they’d untied him, and Savrek had pulled what frost he could from Esyago’s body with his bone magic. It had stunk, and it had hurt. Esyago had never retched so much in all his life.
By morning, he’d wished he had died by the Kori’s blade instead of tortured by his own clan elder. But with a little more help, the wounds had healed, as had any damage to his heart. The scar tissue still caused him discomfort though, freezing up on chilly nights such as this one, as if the frosted blade were still buried inside his flesh.
He rolled his shoulder and grunted. Perhaps once he had spoken with Izyan, he could find a camp follower to knead some warmth into it. They sent the strong ones to Umar’s camp, but they sent the skilled ones to the mage hunters. The ones with more talent than the simple ability to lie on their backs and endure. If he were honest, there was only one who could provide the services he needed, and she never strayed far from the yellow fire. Aeys, the noble-born beauty he’d met after the Kori battle.
So, with less reluctance than usual, Esyago rose to his feet and made his way toward the centre of the mage hunters’ camps where three large fires marked each of the Cadres. They blazed a different colour to lessen any confusion there might be as to whose territory ended where, an important issue when dealing with mage hunters – the soldiers of the Clyvendi army with magical affinity – able to defend the clan from invading mages since magic could only really be fought with magic.
The coloured fires were quite spectacular even to those who gathered around them every evening. Though entirely unnecessary since the mage hunter Cadres were all so different in custom and attire, each more suited to their specific area of expertise, that it was easy enough to tell them apart. And many officers, Umar among them, argued that it gave away the mage hunters’ position to the enemy.
Esyago didn’t care if the enemy knew where to find them. It saved them from waiting for their turn to fight. And mages could sniff each other out anyway – magic had a certain scent to it. It leaked from the pores of the wielder, a stench upon their breath. What difference did coloured flame make? If it was your time, then it was your time. The god of death would drag you from your hiding hole, regardless.
The largest and most well populated was the yellow fire. It was not a warm yellow, but the yellow of a plague sufferer’s skin. Sickly and unnatural. This fire belonged to Esyago and his men, the Cadre of Runes. Esyago held the title of Second Captain because the yellow was regarded of lesser import than the blue, which was the supposed fire of the gods: Izyan’s fire.
The skills of the hunters who made up Esyago’s battalion lay in the items of power handed down from generation to generation. Runes which granted them abilities despite the Cadre’s lack of magic line reading skill. These relics were charged with ancient power, and the secret of their making was lost to the ages or guarded by the men themselves. Most were everyday objects, tokens, vials of dust, carved stones. Others took the form of patterned ink etched into, or stitched onto, the warrior’s body. Such relics and the slight advantage they provided were ineffective against mages if used by inept and untrained men. Esyago’s men were, therefore, the fighting elite of the entire Clyvendi army. They had to be.
As he approached, Esyago could make out the silhouettes of two men. The first was his second-in-command, Dawu. He was talking to another man Esyago didn’t recognise except that he belonged to the Cadre of Gods, the blue fire. As soon as Dawu recognized Esyago looming from the surrounding shadows, he turned to salute.
“Captain,” Dawu said in greeting. “This is Adnan. He is Izyan’s new second-in-command.” Dawu seemed very pleased with himself, having taken the initiative to get to know his equal in the blue fire camp. Esyago gave the newcomer a once-over, taking in his leathers, his lack of battle scars, and the markings on the top of his hands. The marks of a god-fearing skin-changer.
“Where is your keeper?” Esyago asked.
Adnan laughed. Esyago did not laugh with him.
“I expect other duties have waylaid her.” Adnan gestured toward his camp as if to show that his keeper was somewhere within it. Esyago’s eyes followed the skin-changer’s waving hand. He then crossed his arms and waited. Adnan glanced at Dawu, for some sort of explanation perhaps, confirmation that this was a jest. Dawu shook his head and pursed his lips.
Esyago turned back to them when no keeper emerged from the shadows. “I trust no skin-changer without a keeper.”
Adnan stood dumbstruck by the insult, opening and closing his mouth as though not sure what to say. Esyago grabbed hold of the leathers around Adnan’s throat and jerked him forward, making him lose his footing and scramble to remain upright without leaning all his weight into the chokehold.
“Leave.”
Adnan nodded and Esyago pushed him away, making him stumble as he scrambled to get away from the relic mages and off into the safety of his own camp.
Esyago scowled and reached around to rub his aching shoulder. Dawu was silent.
“Who feeds the green fire?” Esyago asked.
Dawu frowned. “Is Ashuk not with us?”
“Captain Limneth,” Esyago corrected him. “And no, he isn’t.” He fell quiet again before adding, “I need you to go with Malik’s scouts. They leave tonight.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Esyago had given no small task to his second. Asking Malik’s men for a favour would mean being in their debt. Being indebted to a rider was not something you wanted. They were not a people to be taken lightly; they were a law unto themselves. Izyan would also send one of his own. He, too, would want a direct report without having to wait for news from Nagesh’s table.
“When you return, you come straight to me. Tell no one where you are going. And remember to keep your ears and your eyes open. You are the shield.”
Dawu nodded once and took his leave, no questions asked. He was a good man, and he had fought for the Cadre of Runes since his father had died in battle.
Esyago cringed every time he remembered that day. Dawu’s father had endured the removal of the skin from his back while he lay on his deathbed so he could pass the living rune to his only son. Dawu had seen only fifteen harvests as he lay down next to his father to share his pain. They cut his own skin away to replace with his father’s, who had been given the gift by his father before him, and his father before that.
It was an inked piece. An ancestral armour rune that could not be copied and recognised only the blood of kin. Dawu had been training for it since he could walk. They used to strap a canvas bag to his back and beat him with a stick till he could take no more. Then he had to learn to fight using a fine-chain whip because his back would always be turned to his enemies. He was brought to his knees there on the front line, every time, teeth gritted while sulphur and debris rained down upon him, eyes only on the lives he had to protect before him. It was a burden, not a gift. It was his willingness to carry the rune that made Dawu the man he was. A man doing what was right instead of what was easy, just like Esyago.
As Dawu disappeared into the camp, a light touch to Esyago’s arm dulled his dark thoughts of battle.
“This shoulder, it troubles you. May I ease your suffering?”
A soft voice, so welcome to his ears after days of nothing but the grumbling and barking of men on the warpath. Esyago looked to the delicate hand on his shoulder first and then to her face. Beautiful. Dusty bronze and bare, no gauzy silks to hide her sly smile.
“I remember telling you to stay home, Aeys,” Esyago remarked, though they both knew he was glad she had come.
“I felt like going for a stroll.” Her fingers traced the places between scars upon his back, places only she had touched. Esyago gave a tired smile. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine the warmth of his tent after a few hours of her company, her deft hands working their own brand of magic on his aching shoulder.
“Later,” he promised, pushing her hand away. To linger a moment longer would be his undoing, and he needed to find Izyan. The first captain was a man of the gods. His hands would soon be pressed to their altars in prayer, paying homage to their vanity. Esyago needed to go now, or he wouldn’t be able to speak with him until dawn.
“Later,” she promised in return.
With that thought in mind, Esyago picked a path into the blue camp, ensuring his Rune Cadre captain bands were visible. His rank would deter any troublemakers. Failing that, the scowl he was wearing would.
