An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  “And you used to know how to talk without butchering your words,” Gaven snorted. “Agartes fucking hell, Oji, save some ale for the other patrons.”

  “They can...” Oji started, glancing around. He hiccupped. “Bucket. Where’s the bucket?”

  “Oy, I see Oji and his catamite!” Aden burst into the tavern with his arms wide open. The girl on Oji’s lap squealed and immediately left him to wrap her arms around Aden's waist. Oji rolled his eyes and then, on an entirely unrelated note, vomited a little on the floor.

  “I’d be jealous, but the fop just clearly pays them more,” Rok said, waving at Aden.

  The fair-faced Aden—who was pure Kag on his mother’s side—slumped into an empty chair. “So, last job,” he said, winking. “I told you that was the protocol.”

  “I blame Kefier.” Oji burped and wrapped his arm around Kefier's neck. “I’m telling you, my boy, all you need to do is let the old man have it. Just that one little tap of your perky ass. Don’t even need to take your pants off.” He pushed Kefier away and grew sombre. “Honestly, I’m just looking forward to having all of this behind me. My wife and sister make the best lami noodles that side of Jin-Sayeng. I’m going to get so fat!” He glanced at the girl. “Come back to me, woman. We’re not done yet.”

  “She likes me better, Jin.” Aden gave a smug grin.

  “I can see that,” Oji huffed. “Well, I know someone I’m not taking to Akki. I have a sister, you know.”

  “I know, and if she looked anything like you I wouldn’t touch her.”

  “And I wouldn’t let you! Urgh, damn mug…keeps moving…”

  Kefier pulled it away from him. “Think you’ve drank enough, Oji.”

  “To hell I have. Those bastards making me work tomorrow. We gotta catch a cart across the border when we get back. That’s inshane.”

  “We’ve had worse,” Rok snarled. “Remember that time in Cael? Fifteen days’ marching, four waves of bandits.”

  “More like four badly armed men,” Kefier murmured.

  “Piss off, boy. I'm telling this story. Four waves of bandits,” Rok continued. “And only half pay? I don't even know why we try!”

  “We did uh, allow that one fellow to kill him, remember?” Aden grinned. “Very hard to get pay out of a client when he’s expired. At least his family was sympathetic.”

  “Piss on your attempt. A contract’s a contract. The idiot fed us oatmeal and bran mush for five days. If we hadn't been so damn exhausted and hungry, we wouldn’t have neglected to inform him that a pointy stick was making its way to his brain. Don’t forget all that traipsing around in the mud, what for I don’t know, but my damned feet were itching for weeks.”

  “Was that why that one guy nearly beheaded you with a shovel, Rok?” Kefier asked. He pretended to poke at the roasted chicken with a fork.

  “You try to kick a cat with itchy feet,” Rok snarled. “See if you can laugh at my shovel story some more.”

  “Why are you idiots complaining? I was the one who had to explain to Baeddan why that job went as badly as it did,” Gaven broke in. “I should have saved the trouble and flat out told him how effectively you all botched it. Itchy feet, honestly.” He shook his head. Aden sniggered and made a circle with his fingers, pretending it was a tight butthole.

  “You have to admit we’ve had some fun times,” Oji said with a sigh. He smiled and wrapped an arm around Kefier’s shoulder. “But we’re done, boys. Me and my brother here are off to better pastures. In a week, we’ll be sunning our toes on the beautiful shores of Akki, gawking at beautiful maids and drinking plum wine to your health. Gods know,” he added, the smile turning into a sad one. “Seven years isn’t a joke.”

  He said it again later, half-asleep and leaning against Kefier as they walked out on the street. Kefier watched his face twitch and wondered what it would be like to long for a family. What does it feel like, he thought, to know that there are people who would greet your return with arms wide open? To know that you are missed, no matter how long you've been away? Oji had taught him words in Jinan that were meant as a response to the statement, welcome home. His friend had been so insistent that Kefier learn those words that even now, so many years later, he knew them still, although he had never uttered them in his life.

  Oji never really showed his feelings openly, of course, not to those hard, embittered men they worked with. To them, a family that didn’t leech off your pay and buy goats behind your back was a fantasy worth laughing at. You old softie, they’d say if a guy made the mistake of mentioning marriage or, God forbid, children, either drink some more or get into that grave while it’s early. It was a common rumour that the men who believed their families gave them strength and steadied the blow of their swords were usually the ones who died first. You weren’t really allowed to think of anything else if you wanted to live. “One foot forward, never back”—that was something Algat always said before a particularly dangerous job. If you think there’s someplace else you’d rather be, then we’d rather not have you with us.

  Kefier knew, but could never really understand, how conflicted Oji was when it came to his family. Perhaps it came from having spent so many years being laughed at by the men anyway, but he thought that Oji was overreacting. Was what he was going into so bad that he needed to bring a reminder of his old life with him? His friend had never asked, after all, if he wanted to go to Akki at all; he had simply assumed that Kefier would follow wherever he went.

  Oji began to snore. A beggar at the street corner awakened to the sound, stared at them, and went back to sleep.

  Kefier shifted Oji’s weight to his other shoulder and looked up. The roofs of Cairntown didn’t shimmer as Oji said the harbour in Akki did, but he supposed he could imagine it now. The sound of waves, the smell of salt-air. Just thinking about it made the hair on his arms stand on end. But he knew that was not the life for him. Once, perhaps...if Oji had not taken him here...

  Oji murmured something unintelligible. They had reached the doorstep of Mim Comfrey’s inn. Mim Comfrey herself was out on the yard, and she reached out to help.

  “This is pathetic,” Comfrey said, her hooped earrings jingling as she shook her head. “The way you men celebrate. One would think a few nice words and a lemon pie ought to be enough.”

  “A lemon pie sounds lovely,” Kefier replied. “It’s over now, anyway. Soon he’ll be on his way home.”

  “Aren’t you coming along?”

  Kefier said nothing and shook Oji again to wake him. The man didn't stir.

  “I don’t mean to pry, of course.” Comfrey took a candle from the nearest table and called for one of the girls to help. “It’s just that I don’t really see you staying here on your own after he’s gone.”

  That irritated Kefier. Why not? He almost said it out loud, but years of experience had taught him to hold his temper. He wiped his face instead. “He wants me to go with him. And I do want to go, I think. It sounds like my kind of place. I'd like to see the sea again. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I can hear waves and it turns out it's just someone upending last night's chamber pot across the street.” He laughed nervously.

  Comfrey pursed her lips together. “So why do you look like you want to stay here?”

  “He's got a family there.” Kefier glanced at her. “It doesn't seem right at all, does it? For me to intrude like that? It’s his family.”

  “He took you in. I imagine he would be more than happy to do the same for you in his home.”

  “I don't know if I want to leave the other guys.”

  “Grown attached to that surly lot, have you?” Comfrey snorted. “You can find better friends. I should know.”

  “They like me. I think.” Kefier glanced at the girl who just walked in with a bucket and a towel. “I’m used to them.”

  Comfrey wrung her hands together. “Here, here, let me get his shirt off, and rub his back like that. Poor man should know better than to overdo it. He’ll be sick tomorrow
, you know. You better go up to your room, and stop worrying over things you can't control. I’ll take care of him tonight. Agartes! The things you children make me go through. You’re mighty lucky I’m fond of you and this Jin here, or I’d have dumped you out on the streets before nightfall.”

  Moonlight slid through the shutters and over the cobbled streets of the city as he got into his room. He sat at the edge of the bed and stripped his boots. His feet were blotchy from standing around in the cold all day and he began to rub them.

  “You're being a little bitch,” Lisa said, walking in without knocking. She was carrying fresh sheets and unceremoniously pushed Kefier off the bed without warning. “If you don't want to go, then don't. Agartes, men these days.” She gave him an angry look. “At least you get the option of walking out of here. Look at this dump. Can I dress up as Kefier and get a free ride to Jin-Sayeng? No? Too much breasts?” She furiously started ripping the old blankets off the mattress.

  “I could help you.” He tried to reach for her arm, but she yanked it away before he could even touch her.

  “Oh, now don't start a pity party for me now, you stupid boy.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “I know I have problems, but they’re mine to mind. I'm saying go, or don't go. If you’re worried about what Oji will think, don’t.” Her voice softened a little. “That man loves you. Now, please stop making this room smell like a pig sty. We do have other clientele, you know.”

  “Lisa, I—”

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I'm not sleeping with you tonight either.”

  Kefier flushed. “I wasn't saying that!”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Right. Well, I'm off to start on breakfast. Again. That’s the kind of real problem normal people worry about, you see.” She walked out, stepped on the cat on her way down the stairs, and cursed for all the night to hear.

  “Marry you. You?” A pause, and then, “Okay. But I want a home, Kefier, and chickens. When Go-an married Jarn he made her live at his uncle’s. None of that for me. Next summer—”

  “Wake up, Kefier.” He opened his eyes and lunged for the dagger he kept by his hip. In that same instance, he saw Oji peering over him while keeping a respectful distance. There were pockets of sunlight on his dimpled face. “It’s me. Oji. Just me.”

  Kefier took a deep breath. “Where are we?”

  Oji smiled. “First morning on the Hartmur trailhead. We’re in Kago. Finishing up a job—our last job—for the Boarshind mercenaries.” He paused. “You awake now?”

  “Give me a moment,” he said. He tucked the dagger back into its hilt and felt his heartbeat slow down. He glanced back at Oji, who continued to wait. The way that man could understand, without ever needing an explanation, sent a chill through his bones. He didn’t really deserve a friend like that, did he? “Are we leaving now?”

  “No. Not yet. I haven’t made breakfast.” Oji scratched his head and smiled. “Get up. Take a look at this.” He strode towards the edge of the cliff and scrambled up a rock. “Don’t go back to sleep.”

  Kefier kicked off his sleeping sack and followed Oji’s gaze. In the distance, the sun was rising over Cairntown in a spray of orange light that masked the usual cloud of dust that surrounded the city. “Now isn’t that just wonderful,” Oji murmured. The look on his face reminded Kefier of a child’s.

  “As wonderful as a pile of shit sprinkled with gold dust. Who are you fooling, Oji? You love this place.”

  Oji’s shoulders drooped down and he laughed. “I do, don’t I?” He threw his head back. “I should have gone home sooner. I hated Cairntown when I first came. There was a dead cat on the street—a very bad omen, you know? And the first man I met spat on me. I didn’t even know that to get a bath in that rotten place you had to pay more than for a night with a woman. I was so upset I tried to swim in the lake.”

  Kefier glanced at the brown shape of Lake Ugoa behind the town and had to grin. On rainy days, rivers of sewage drained straight into the lake. “Somebody stopped you, I’m guessing, or you wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale.”

  “Somebody stopped me all right—or what used to be somebody. I didn’t want to get too acquainted with that body floating face-down in front of me.” Oji took a deep breath and tucked his knees underneath his chin. “The guy was part of the faction, too. Got into a fight behind the alley at Blue-dog’s, ran the wrong way and into a knife. Rok knew him.”

  “Rok knows everyone in every alley in Cairntown.”

  Oji smiled. They fell silent. Kefier felt the air getting warmer and returned to fold his sleeping sack and work on the fire. Oji continued to sit on the rock bare-footed, humming an Akki song, “Home away from home...”

  Kefier paused from scratching at the ashes and looked back at his friend. “Hey, Oji.”

  “Hmm?”

  He hesitated and started blowing into the ashes. Embers jumped to life. When they started glowing, he tore a piece of bark and slowly fed the growing fire. Oji came up to him and peered at his handiwork. “Kef? What’s wrong?”

  Kefier looked into the blaze and allowed the smoke to sting the corners of his eyes. He had avoided trying to discuss it the past few weeks, but it was suddenly very difficult not to say it out now. “You don’t have work in Akki. Isn’t it a whole lot better for your family if you stay here? Algat’s right, too—you don’t have much coin to spare. If you go back, it wouldn’t do your family any good. Won’t you just be another mouth to feed?”

  Kefier felt his face turn red in the silence that followed. “Never you mind,” he started to say, but Oji shook his head.

  “I didn’t know you felt that way.” Oji scratched the back of his head, looking embarrassed. “Believe me, Kef, it’s better if we leave. I thought by now I’d be helping guard estates over in Hafod or be helping out on one of the faction ships. The biggest job I ever did was that one in Dageis and…” He peered into Kefier’s face and laughed. “Maybe that’s why. I bungled that one up real bad. It was worth it, though.” He ruffled Kefier’s hair.

  Kefier slapped his hand away. “Stop doing that. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “So you say, little brother.”

  “I’m not your brother either.” Oji looked away, and Kefier took a deep breath and tried to change his tone. “Listen to me, Oji. There might be a job that’ll get us on their right side again.”

  “I’m not interested, Kef.” Oji smiled. “I like Cairntown, but I do want to go home. And don’t you worry because I know you’ll love it there. There’s plenty of pretty girls I can get my wife to introduce to you. An Akki woman is worth a fortune, my friend, believe me.”

  “Lisa...”

  “Is a whore.” Oji placed a hand on his shoulder and he had to struggle not to strike him. “I’m sorry, Kef, but that’s the truth. I know you’re in love with her. You know that necklace you gave her, the one you were wondering if she liked or not because you never saw her wear it? Mim Comfrey told me she sold it for coin. That’s how it is with these women. Hell, that’s how it is over here with everyone. Do you understand why that’s exactly the reason I want to leave?”

  They didn’t talk again for a while. They boiled and ate oatmeal mush in silence, covered the fire, and shouldered their packs before noon, heading higher up the trail. The section was rougher than yesterday’s, with boulders that needed scrambling and narrow ledges with rotting handholds. The only sign that others had been through the trail recently were the pieces of red flagging tied to branches along the way.

  By lunch time, they reached a small ridge, framed by giant trees with roots that seemed to have a life of their own. Oji opened their pack and found the dried beef and cheese sandwiches they made at the inn yesterday. He handed one to Kefier. Kefier took it and left him to scramble higher up the ridge and eat alone.

  Later in the afternoon, they reached a fork off the side of the cliff. A dilapidated signpost in the middle marked the direction of the trapper’s cabin on the right. The Sangut mines were to the left. “I’ve hear
d of that place,” Oji said, the first words either of them had uttered in hours. “Haunted or so. Part of it collapsed a few years back and trapped about a dozen miners.”

  “You know those mining companies like to feed people rumours to keep them out,” Kefier murmured.

  Oji grinned. “Got you talking to me again, didn’t it?”

  Kefier ignored him and peered through the brush at the rest of the trail. “Better hand me that package,” he said. “And wait here. That’s very rough going ahead.”

  “Good.” Oji dropped to the ground and began stripping his socks off. He had gotten his boots from someone else and they always rubbed the wrong way. He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at Kefier. “Don’t take too long.”

  A landslide had obliterated most of the trail to the trapper’s cabin. Kefier carefully marked each step and still had to crawl over the rocks to prevent himself from toppling over the edge. He was starting to doubt the legitimacy of their assignment; who, in their right mind, would require a package delivered so far away? He was tempted to throw the box over the cliff, job be damned and all, walk back to Cairntown, and shake Algat until his teeth rattled.

  The barking dog woke him from his thoughts. He had reached the end of the trail and saw the cabin, a string of smoke rising from the chimney. A spotted mutt with floppy ears appeared and pretended to charge him.

  “Hooey, Wulf,” a man whistled. He waved at Kefier. “Looks like you’ve come far. I’m guessing you brought me something.”

  Kefier handed him the package. “Regards from the Boarshind.”

  The man smiled through the corner of his mouth. “Good! I was beginning to think they’d forgotten.” He peered into the box. “Compass, map—ah, coin! Obviously.”

  “You live here?”

  The man snorted. “You take me for a hermit? No, thank goodness. I’m surveying up this area for Yn Garr Industries. They want to build ah—a tunnel here, or something.” He lifted the compass to his eye and grinned. “This is wonderful. Excellent workmanship. Help me spread the map out here, my lad.”