Hoden the Quartermaster held up the armor he'd earned as a young knight in the Imperial army. Specks of sunlight littered its shadow, and a chunk of metal broke off and clattered onto the stone floor. His wife, Meyisi, sat with one knee over the other and her arms crossed, scowling at me. Apparently that cart of hers was brand-new.
Five months, no salary.
Presently, I stood with Bilal beneath the covered sitting area by the courtyard surrounded by three dozen recruits. High stone walls blocked the wind and trapped the morning sun, and even in the shade it felt like a furnace.
I wiped the sweat from my brow, unfurled the very authentic-looking ancient scroll, and read from the list of names of those who would get slaughtered that day. "Kurt of Nowhere!"
A tallish Herali with a wide face and strong build stood quietly.
"Bazen Spider-Web's Bane!"
The man laughed and stepped forward. He was about average height, and he had a faint line of hair that wrapped from his ears around and beneath his chin; I'd never seen that before.
Nickel… Where's Nickel?"
The men seated on the log benches all looked around. Beside us in the courtyard, the quartermaster's wife directed several recruits to empty out the storeroom. Up on the ramparts were a few other recruits Commander Gaedi had volunteered for wall duty.
"He's still sleepin'," Rolon peered over the list. "Daemon, you're up man, you ready? You got this. You can do this, man!"
"Yeah," Bazen quipped. "Walk around until you get shot. Very easy."
I crossed out Nickel's name. "Orel, Pickpocket of Ulum."
The man with the short cropped hair and long nose chuckled and joined us.
"Listen. I owe you guys for Second Captain, so I have to give it back where I can. Oma…"
Bazen snickered. "Call him Right Hook."
I lowered my face and tried, unsuccessfully, to not join the low murmur of laughter passing through the crowd. "Kely Sine-Two-Theta."
Kely of Linud stepped up, clasped hands with Bazen, and they embraced.
"Turic the Big Fat Guy." I nodded to Bazen. "That works; we're going to keep that one. Derek… where's Derek?"
Sweat gathered around Bilal's thickening hair. "He's in the medical ward shitting everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It's all over his clothes, it's on the walls, in that thing you ate for breakfast, it's everywhere!"
"Well, that's good to know." I nodded.
"Some of it got in your coffee this morning."
"It did taste funny."
"Can I go?" A light tenor called out. A recruit with hair cropped around his shoulders and narrow, monolid eyes raised his hand and stood. "Dannie of Eelie."
The bow on his back had etchings of the fight between Cougar and Crane when Crane first came from across the Great Western Ocean. I didn't bother checking the list; I liked his enthusiasm. "Dannie What's-This-Do, you know you can't shoot practice arrows with a eupin bow?"
He nodded. "If it's alright, I like to have it with me."
I shrugged. "Siddik, Moldslayer of Kyoen?"
A tall Herali with a lean face stepped forward.
"Ardou and Jenzui? I don't know these guys."
Bazen raised a finger. "That's Ardou Beaver-Tooth, and Jenzui Opossum-Cuddler."
Kely stood beside him and laughed. Standing up was a short, lanky Herali with a curl to his hair who shook his head. "I thought it was a cat!"
"Alright," Bilal instructed them. "Now you all need to choose a captain."
A huge, sweaty arm rose into the air, and a massive man covered in muscle and fat stepped forward. "I nominate myself."
All the others looked silently among each other. Bazen was the first to say it. "Turic volunteers to get shot first! All in favor?"
The others chuckled. "No objection here."
For his lieutenant, Turic chose a tall, thin Herali with unusually pale skin, the whaler's nephew. "Charis."
We made our way across the grass runners that covered the ground of the courtyard; some of the torn-up patches had new growth. Bilal handed me a writing tablet and a piece of sharpened coal wrapped in cloth. "Your turn."
"Why is it my turn?"
At that moment, Guenevieve's ex-boyfriend that she never told me about, Finn, showed up with a full pack and his eupin bow in a sling on his back.
"I thought you weren't coming."
Finn stood up straight and bowed his head at me. "Sorry, sir. I wanted to be prepared for anything."
Bazen gazed wonderingly at the huge sack slung over Finn's shoulders. "By Orca's semen what do you have in there, man? You got a sleeping bag? Pots and pans? Oh, you've got a water pipe, don't you? And some fresh herb, yeah? We all gettin' smiley later, yeah? Yeah?"
Finn chuckled. "Nothin in there but your mum's arse I'm afraid."
"Oh gods, you'll need a way bigger bag for that!" Bazen batted that off.
That gave me an idea. "Finn, it is your job to take notes. Now, you remember this is a special invitation. My team have already begun to discuss—"
"Get down!" Bilal clicked something in his hand.
The twelve recruits all looked at one another.
"God!" Bilal exclaimed. Then he ran his fingers through his thickening stubble and waved his arm around. "When I say get down, you need to get down."
I leaned in to Finn. "And you need to be like Ta'o in this. You remember how he was with you? That."
"Got it." A mischievous grin stretched across Finn's face.
"Get down!" Bilal called out again, and all the men dropped down.
"All the way down," Finn corrected them. Then he looked around as the men lay flat on the ground.
Finn looked to his right. "That's all of them except this guy's bony arse. I'm gonna write that down. Daemon… has… a bony… arse." He glanced at me and Bilal with a smile on his face.
Bilal popped his eyebrows and checked his clicker thingy. "Six and a half. We'll have to work on that."
The rest of the team started across the drawbridge while Oma Right Hook held me back. "What was your cut for our little show? If you don't mind me asking?"
"Twenty-six and a fraction. Why?"
We started walking. Maybe his jaw was always like that? "Ta'o's girlfriend said she'd give us each eighteen kren plus the winners and losers pots for a rematch."
"I don't know if my face can handle a rematch." Except for the small matter of losing my salary for the next five months.
We crossed the grassy plain and passed a goatherd on the left, a young-ish dark-green woman with white hair over her shoulders like a curtain. Her yellow eyes passed up and down each of us, pausing at the severed ear pendant around my neck that Miyani had given me before settling on Oma with a smirk.
Down the field about five-hundred yards in the low ground by the lake, another goatherd raised her arms high and moved her hands about.
The one beside us spoke in Uhuida. "She says to wish you bad luck. I do not; I am but the messenger. She says this because she has money on Miyani."
Oma stopped and surveyed her body while she watched. "Miss, I don't know what you said, but I'm Oma."
"Oma of Kolymou," she smiled. "ɣɪvaŋi."
"Givani? I like that…"
I pulled at his arm and told her, "we have to focus for now, sorry."
She answered, "Bye bye Oma."
"Get down!"
Up ahead, the cluster of recruits dropped to the ground. Bilal and Finn studied them until Finn turned his eyes across the grass to us.
"Oh," Oma dropped to the ground.
Bilal shook his head and exhaled, looking at his clicker.
As we made our way across the grass, Bazen leaned in to his friend. "Do you know who's shooting at us?"
Kely answered. "Miyani's hunting, Iyemi's spotting, though I'm not convinced they don't take turns with us out there."
Kurt added in his deep baritone, "Miyani shot the commander."
Half the men faced him with questions in their wide eyes.
"Shoyi told me she used to be on their side, and she mentored under this ace enemy scout called Apex."
The same one who escorted Renou and me back to Carthia the day he fell into that foot trap. Why don't I know these things?
Kurt continued. "Also, didn't some guy kill Iyemi the other day?"
Finn looked up from his writing tablet. "That was me, and that was yesterday."
"He barely nicked her," Bilal clarified.
"I killed her, man."
"She was given a thirty minute penalty to seek medical attention. It was the correct ruling."
Finn shook his head and lifted the coal to his writing tablet. "The… ruling… was… xayufipiga."
About eighty yards before the grassy plain surrendered to Jungle, Kurt of Somewhere held a hand out to stop everyone. "Listen up. She always hits one of us right as we're coming up to the forest, so let's get ready."
"That's right." Captain Turic turned around to direct the team, half of whom already had their bows out while the rest nocked practice arrows with little bags of red chalk at the business end.
"Get down!"
The men all dropped to the ground. Siddik moved his arm around, and Ardou Beaver-Tooth flattened out his feet before Bilal looked at his timer and nodded. "Two and three-sixteenths. We're getting there. Alright, let the games begin."
After a brief huddle, the trainees made a single-file line with four groups of three. Two groups watched right and two left, with one each looking high and the other low. The map was hidden in someone's pack.
Ahead of us, chirps, whistles, squawks, and screeches of distant animals painted a chorus above the grinding of insects. There was no wind, and the sun massacred us out in the open. I tried to copy the goatherds and curtain my hair around my shoulders, but it wouldn't stay there.
Sweat poured out over everyone's skin. We all looked around, and no one saw any sign of her.
We entered the trailhead into the thick forest. The other day, Shoyi took out a man while they waited for their eyes to adjust. Today, nothing.
The cool shade of the jungle canopy was a welcome respite. The men marched through the trees along a narrow trail that snaked through thick bush that blocked visibility beyond twenty feet in every direction. The trail meandered through a carpet of bright green leaves that blanketed the forest for hundreds of yards before passing beneath a tunnel of a long, fallen tree with tendrils of vines and stringy roots for walls left and right.
We'd passed plenty of ambush points she could have used, but I didn't see her, and she had yet to shoot anyone.
"Get down!"
All the men hit the ground and froze in that position.
Bilal checked the clicker thingy. "One and three quarters."
Finn wrote that down, and we continued our journey.
The men wrestled through thick trees and came to a small clearing alongside a fence made of hewn wooden planks covered in scratches like from an animal claw but in that tall, narrow Uhuida script. Someone was selling a breeding pair of piglets? I think.
The men scoped out the area, checking over numerous bushes and behind trees before they all came back to look over the map. The trail moved past the wall, and they continued their journey. No one said a word.
They passed through a patch of trees with the red stems, the ones with the berries, and I took a few as we walked through. Sweet, tangy juiciness exploded in my mouth; Finn saw that and took a few for himself.
Far away to the right, the siren bird called out for vita'o, but it was so muted by the distance I could barely hear the warble at the end. The recruits crouched low and looked around.
The song had rung out one time, and that was it.
I looked everywhere. I didn't see her.
We passed by a plain of packed grass with sparse trees and harsh sunlight overhead, and came into a dense grove of bushes with large, blue, saw-blade leaves that bloomed eight feet up from thick, tree-trunk-like roots that crisscrossed over the ground. To the right was an outcropping of rock about a hundred yards out.
And no Miyani.
A jolt of terror ripped across my skin, and my heart quickened. "Finn, put that book away and take out your bow. Everyone, take a broadhead! Right now!"
The others looked at me in shock. Bilal, Finn, and I started passing out the killing arrows.
"We are no longer training."
That sound. That low, grinding croak that filled my nightmares, the sound of Borel getting ripped apart. It was those red-and-white vudufɪða birds. They'd gathered in the canopy overhead, hopping from tree to tree.
Approaching us.
Wood creaked.
"GET DOWN!"
A symphony of wood sliced through the air.
A man shrieked in pain.
I jumped up.
Enemy warriors crashed through the bushes towards us with blades out.
My arrow punched clean through a man's chest and out the other end bringing globs of flesh with it.
To his left, another enemy took a practice arrow to his eye. He twisted around hard and fell over.
More of our arrows found meat on the other side.
Oma Right Hook slashed his sword through a man's neck, and Finn shot another between his eyes.
"ɣetu'a!" Enemy warriors fell back and disappeared into the bush.
Bilal nocked another arrow and fired after them.
Some of our guys ran off.
"Hold it down!" I yelled, then chased after one of them.
The runner crashed through palm leaves, shredding them on his way through. I followed his trail until I saw Daemon's bony arse ahead of me. He looked over his shoulder, then tripped on a massive root and fell face-first into the dirt. His eyes bulged up at me and his fingers shook.
"Breathe."
His breath was so heavy he couldn't steady himself.
"Come on!" I took his hand. I tried to pull him up, but he winced and nearly sobbed. His whole body trembled, and his weight dragged.
"Breathe," I said to him. "It's OK. We have to stay together."
A few more breaths, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Then at last, he climbed onto his trembling feet and gave out a sound somewhere between a groan and a cry. I took his hand and led him across from the rest of our men towards the direction of where another man had run off.
From where the palm bushes gave way to tall trees and dark forest, a blood-curdling scream. It was an elongated cry of total agony that echoed through the darkness.
"Stay with me!" I told Daemon and went after it.
We followed the screams until we found the shredded trail of another runner. By this time, the cries stopped, and my heart skipped. With an arrow nocked, we pressed forward much faster than I felt comfortable.
Chirps and whistles, grinding of the vudu birds high in the trees behind me, and the steady chorus of insects filled my ears, but no more sound from our man.
In the darkness of the deep jungle, I pulled branches away and found him.
Kely of Linud lay still amid piles of light-brown mud. Ants an inch long with blue stripes around their abdomens swarmed over him. They crawled into his mouth and over his eyes, carving chunks of meat from all over his body to carry down into the colony.
Daemon froze. His eyes and mouth gaped and his hands trembled.
I tugged at his arm. "We have to go."
"But…" his lip quivered and his eyes shook, and he couldn't pull his gaze away.
"We still have the rest of our team. Come on."
"But…"
I led Daemon back through the forest towards where I'd left the others. But when we came to the palm bush field, the vudu birds were still in the trees. They hadn't swooped down to claim the dead. "The fight is still going on. This way."
Not far to my right was the rock outcropping, so I led Daemon that way, and we climbed it together. We mostly clung to trees growing out from the rock, and I used the end of my bow to probe the cracks for little green snakes until we reached the top.
Below me, the field of blue sawblade palm bushes stretched out for hundreds of yards. Bilal and the recruits had taken cover in a thick tumble of those tree-trunk roots. Finn and Kurt had their bows trained to one side, where a cluster of enemy warriors hid in the leaves. On the side closest to me, a cluster of Na'uhui men had their backs turned. They fired a volley of arrows at our guys while a cluster of enemy warriors on the far side crept closer.
More leaves from a third cluster moved. They fired another volley of arrows while the other two groups moved in.
We were surrounded.
I sent my first shot through the spine of a man's neck. He went down, and the men next to him all turned around and scrambled for cover. As they took cover from me, Finn shot one of them in the back; the broadhead punched out from the side of his chest.
Amid the group of enemy warriors on the farthest side, I glimpsed a man's shoulder and inferred the rest of his body. I punched my arrow through a palm leaf and was answered with a shriek of pain.
"goba!" someone yelled. Leaves rustled as men pulled back.
A man in the near cluster broke from cover and rushed sideways through the bush. Orel the Pickpocket nailed him in his butt. He tripped over a tree-trunk root and dragged himself across the forest floor.
Men scrambled away towards the far other side and withdrew into the tall trees beyond. I led one of them about two-hundred yards out and impaled the back of his head. The men around him sprinted for the dark forest beyond.
Finn shot an enemy warrior on the other side, and he went down hard.
"goba!" another man yelled, and the enemy vacated the battlefield. From my perch, one enemy warrior crouched low between two trees keeping himself barely concealed from each of us. Orel watched him with an arrow ready, as did I. After a minute, he peeked out from the trees, so I punched an arrow into his ear.
The man dragging himself with the arrow in his arse screamed as three of those red-and-white birds swooped down upon him.
I didn't see any more enemy warriors, and those birds descended all around.
Daemon and I climbed back down the rock and we made our way through the palm field towards Bilal.
Those terrible grinding caws filled the forest.
Wood creaked. Charis the Whaler's Nephew drew his bow at us. He let out a breath and relaxed as we came into the clearing.
Jenzui Opossum-Cuddler lay face down in the mud with an arrow shaft protruding from the side of his head, and another broadhead sticking out from the middle of his back. All around him the ground was soaked in blood, and his eyes and mouth gaped open in forever stillness. Ardou crouched over him sobbing.
Dannie What's-This-Do lay on his side with a broadhead sticking out from the center of his gut. He clutched it in his bloody fingers, and his chest lifted slowly up and down.
Bilal kept his eyes out towards the bushes. "Where's Siddik? Where's Kely?"
"Kely's not coming back."
Oma had an arrow through his arm. Bazen had a shaft poking out from the side of his chest, and he was doubled over coughing up blood. I knelt beside him with my medical kit.
Where is Siddik?
Finn swallowed. The diamond-tree stones along Falcon's feathers in his bow glinted in the sun, and he counted two broadheads in his quiver.
I slammed my hand flat against Bazen's chest, grasping the arrow shaft between my thumb and the rest of my hand. He heaved and coughed. A bloody glob dropped out from his mouth and splatted onto the black dirt below. "I need someone to hold him!"
I felt arrows being pulled from my sling, and Finn's steady voice behind me. "Daemon, Turic, you need to get up, man. Come on."
Captain Turic sat in a corner beneath a thick cover of bluish sawblade palm leaves. He'd wrapped his arms around his knees and he shook. His eyes were glued to the ground in the center of our stronghold. Across from him, Ardou lay on the ground beside Jenzui with his hand on the man, his eyes blinking, and his breath slowly lifting up and down.
Daemon's fingers trembled inches from Bazen's skin. Bazen shook violently, pulling hard against my grasp.
"Hold him!" I shouted at Daemon.
Immediately, Bazen shook free from me, doubled over, and heaved another glob of blood onto the ground, only to cough more. The feathered end of the arrow snagged on the ground, tilting the angle sharply upward. I tried to grab his arm, and his whole body shot up and his muscles grew tense. He coughed, and another spray of blood shot out from his mouth.
Bilal rushed over and helped me pick him back up. Bazen coughed violently, but between the two of us, we held him mostly steady. "Need more!"
Daemon crouched behind him and took his shoulders in his arms, locking him in place. Charis the whaler's nephew knelt and took my place so that I could get to work.
"OK," Finn said behind me. "I'll take ten arrows and get up on that rock. Orel, Kurt, that only leaves two to keep watch."
I tried to focus on extracting the arrow, but I also didn't need another casualty. "Stay here. Listen to the vudu birds; they'll let us know if they come back."
"I don't think it's…"
"Don't argue!"
It was bad. The broadhead cut through the ribs diagonally, making the entry grooves too small to fit the arrowhead puller, and I couldn't push it all the way through without running into his shoulder blade. I would have to cut through the meat between his ribs to get it out. "Bilal, I need you to hold the arrow shaft up here."
Bazen's body shook, and he coughed and gargled, but with three men holding him, we'd kept him steady.
I washed the blood away, and more came out. I washed that, and it trickled down his chest.
Still no sign of Miyani.
Oma snapped the arrow shaft from his arm and pulled it through with a grimace. He came over and rummaged through my medical kit for supplies. "What's a vudu bird?"
Bilal answered him. "Those red and white birds you see swooping down, that low grinding you hear. There's dead bodies all around. If those assholes try coming at us again, those birds will tell us."
Bazen's whole body jerked in spasms, violently at first, and then he calmed down and gave a weak cough. His head was tilted to the side, and a trail of blood dribbled down his chin.
"Come to think of it," Bilal added, "If I were them and I did come back for another round, I'd take out that rock perch, first. I don't think you want to be up there."
Behind me, I heard Orel the Pickpocket's voice talking softly with Turic and Ardou. He'd got them sitting together, at least. Kurt borrowed Dannie's eupin bow, and he and Finn kept watch, listening out for the birds.
In front of me, Bazen Spider-Web's Bane was dead.