He had not spoken to Sume since their arrival. Despite his best attempts, she found ways to avoid him, choosing to stay locked up after Reema made it clear—over a thinly veiled threat that it would prove most harmful for the children should they try anything—that they were free to walk around. It was the first time he had seen her out of her room.
She was telling Rosha a story from a book. They were too far away for him to hear what story it was, but he watched the movement of her lips and felt that same, perplexing emotion when he kissed her back in the boat.
Enosh was aware that most people would call what he was feeling love. The thought irritated him. Love was irrational. Stories of star-crossed idiots filled every library he had ever walked in. They usually ended badly for everyone involved. He had prided himself in being sensible whenever it came to romance and Sume had been no different. It was why he was able to walk away from her as easily as he did back in Enji.
Enosh realized, a moment too late, that Sume had looked up at him. He smirked and crossed the grounds towards them. “Keep reading in the dark like this and you’ll both be squinting at everything you see,” he said. “You’ll have to get fitted for spectacles up in Dageis and then no one will be able to tell any of you apart from Sapphire.”
“Three Sapphires. How’re you supposed to handle that, I wonder?” Sume asked.
“I’ll kill myself the first chance I get,” he grinned.
“Then I do believe we’re on the right track.” She turned a page.
Enosh sat beside her. “What are you reading?” he asked, trying to get a peek at the book. Rosha looked annoyed.
“Sapphire brought this with her. Suggested we go through it while we have time. Stories about young mages coming into power. I think she means to lecture us once we’re done.”
“She does like to do that, doesn’t she? She should’ve just stayed in Eheldeth as a giver. Imagine the names her students could come up for her! The first ought to be badger lady. ‘Oh Giver Badger Lady! Snot-nosed Thom took my inkwell!’” He chuckled, before he noticed Sume staring at him.
“Have you forgiven me?” Enosh asked.
“No,” Sume said. She turned another page, pressing a finger at the top of it.
He waited a moment. “How about now?”
Sume sighed. “Aren’t there other people you could bother? Your lady wife, perhaps?”
“As a matter of fact, I was just trying to talk to her about a divorce, but silly me forgot I didn’t need one. She married a fake name.”
“The man was real,” Sume pointed out.
“No he wasn’t,” Enosh said. The sound of sincerity in his own voice startled him. “You know he wasn’t.”
She looked up at him, thinking. “You can go take this to your room, my love,” she said, turning to Rosha.
Rosha placed the book against her chest. Her eyes were angry, but she didn’t say anything. She walked away.
“The things I’ve done for Yn Garr Industries have not always been things I personally agreed with,” Enosh said, as soon as Rosha was out of earshot. “I’m not sure I can, or want, to explain more than that to you.”
“I’m not sure I care,” Sume said, after a moment’s reflection.
He grimaced. “You do. Of course you do. Take my arm, my lady.” He offered her the crook of his elbow.
She looked at it for a moment. When she finally took it, the expression on her face told him she was doing it against her better judgement.
They strolled through the gardens, stepping over the grass that grew between the cracked pathways. For a while, they didn’t talk. He found this less disconcerting than he thought it would be, although she seemed more at ease with the silence.
Love…Enosh didn’t know love, not the way it was meant to be known. The years between when he had last known it and tonight had made sure of that. He was under no illusions that she could save him, as if he wanted to be saved in the first place! Things had worked out very well for him up until he had met her.
Was that what it was? That all of this was her fault, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about blaming her? He placed one hand on hers, watching the contrast his dark fingers made against her paler skin. He felt like they both wanted to push each other away, but that they weren’t going to.
He leaned in to kiss her.
Kefier woke up from a dream that curdled in his throat and seemed to want to choke him. He forgot it as soon as his eyes opened. Above him, the stars were spread out like a celestial blanket, wrapped in a faint, bluish-green haze.
Beside him, Caiso grumbled in his sleep and tried to put a leg over him. He kicked it away and sat up.
His shift didn’t come until a little after sunrise, but he knew he couldn’t go back to sleep now. Drawing his blanket over him like a cloak, he crossed over another sleeping figure and left the huddle of soldiers in the thicket to join the northern watch.
“You should get your rest,” Aden said. He was sitting on a rock a few paces from the edge of the woods overlooking the wall. He yawned. “By Agartes’ balls, I sure could use one myself.”
“We can switch,” Kefier offered.
Aden patted the ground beside him. “Sit with me instead. I could use the company. Blessed Yohak, but there’s nothing like the night before another day of battle to make a young man feel old. I’ve seen too many wars.”
“Er, how many, exactly?”
“One is too much.” Aden grinned. “I still remember when Oji brought you to Cairntown. You weren’t taller than my shoulder. Couldn’t even grow hair on your face. I should let you know I have no regrets. I mean, I know it sounds like I’m hammering in the last nail of my coffin, there, but…” He scratched his cheek with a finger. “It’s been good knowing you, Kefier. A pleasure. Despite everything.”
“Fuck you, Aden. Are you that certain we’re going to die?”
Aden looked away. “How are we supposed to survive this?”
Kefier glanced at the handful of other soldiers with them. They had heard Aden’s words and were looking at him hopefully. “Something will come up,” Kefier said. “Yn Garr hasn’t showed yet. We’re commodities. I doubt he’ll want us damaged. He’s going to do something.”
“That’s…comforting, I suppose.”
“It better be. You remember what he did to Dasten after he bungled up that shipment of Caelian stone?”
“Poor Dasten. Don’t think he ever thought he would die out here on Dageian soil.” Aden started to fiddle with something near his shoe and pulled out a jug.
“You snuck in a drink?”
“Red Lion wine,” Aden said with a grin. He uncorked it and took a swig. “Don’t even think about denying me. You may be Commander now…”
“I didn’t say anything,” Kefier said. Aden handed him the jug and he took a mouthful. The famous Gasparian wine—manufactured in Cael now, thanks to Yn Garr Industries—went down easily. He hadn’t had a proper meal that day and the small amount was enough to make his head swim a little.
“What about you, Kefier?” Aden asked. “You have any regrets?”
“Sume,” Kefier said. Something about the atmosphere, or the unexpected potency of the wine, made her name easier to say.
Aden laughed. “Of course. Oji’s sister. I heard you had a daughter together and then she left you. Tough luck, my friend.”
“How do women do that? Burrow under you like a fucking hornet? I can’t get the buzzing out of my head.”
“You’re asking me?”
“I thought, with your experience…”
“Whoring and leaving a trail of broken hearts. Not the same.” Aden took another swig. “Caiso would know more, I think, if you’re willing to stretch things. Quite the romantic, that one.”
“I don’t have a way with words and I’ve spent too many years with you foul mouths to know my way around how any of this works.” Kefier pressed his fingers around the wine jug, but didn’t lift it to his mouth. His face tightened. “If I die tonight, she w
ill never know that I’ve been thinking of her.”
Sometime during the night, Enosh found himself with Sume in his bed with nothing else between them. He was the one with his head pressed against the pillows, watching her face against the moonlight.
It wasn’t that he felt no desire for her at all. But he realized, feeling the weight of her lips on his, that the depths of his need terrified him. He was drowning in her scent and his own thoughts until he couldn’t distinguish between the two. He knew he was slipping, even as he fought for control.
“What are you doing to me?” he asked, realizing, too late, that he had spoken aloud. He also realized, with a sort of blood-curdling sensation, that she understood exactly what he meant.
Sume gave him an odd look, as if she needed to stop and consider the question. “I think you know,” she said. An amused glimmer appeared in her eyes. “This isn’t exactly your first time, is it?”
Enosh laughed. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, I’ll be sure to remember and remind you when it’s most inappropriate,” she said, tracing the lines on his face with her thumb.
He swallowed. The tenderness of her touch was unsettling. A moment later, he grabbed her hand to pull it away from him. He turned over, pressing her against the bed. “Where do we go from here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“You’re too honest.”
“I really don’t, Enosh,” she said.
“Do you want me to go away? Do you want me to stay? Tell me.”
She pulled him to her. He hesitated for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts, trying to regain his footing over the whole situation. A moment later, he burrowed his face into her hair.
“Is it so bad not to know?” she asked.
Enosh looked at her. “Yes. You—you do not fit into what I want, Sume. Into what I need to happen. But you’re here now, you and Rosha, and I’m…at a loss. I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with you. I tried to set you aside and then you came barreling back into my life.”
He stopped to take a breath and realized she was still listening, her eyes searching him. For what? What are you hoping to see and why can’t I know about it? “It would be easier if the things I say would frighten you out of this door,” he said. “I can take that.”
“You were the one who wanted this, Enosh.”
“You were the one who didn’t turn me away.”
He might have said the wrong thing. She did turn away now, her eyes staring through the window.
“We’ll go to Dageis,” Enosh said, placing a hand on her bare shoulder. When she didn’t flinch, he ran his hand down to her belly, pulling her towards him. “Once we’re out of this goat-infested hell-hole, we’ll head straight to Eheldeth.”
“They weren’t thrilled with you the last time we were there.”
“I wasn’t thrilled with them. We proved them wrong, didn’t we? Naijwa’s beast was hiding out in the south. If I can’t negotiate this new knowledge to our favour…” He placed his lips over her shoulder.
Sume gave a soft sigh. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Distract me.”
“My lady, if you knew how ironic that sounded, you would not say such things.” He turned her towards him. “I think,” he said, “that I’m done with talking.”
“For once,” she murmured.
Kefier left Aden and the sombre conversation behind to take a walk. Most of the other soldiers on patrol looked exhausted. None were spared from yesterday’s assault. If the Dageians had left a singular or two untouched, so that he had fresh men the next time they came, he would feel more at ease.
He wondered if he meant what he said about Yn Garr not allowing them to die that easily. The campaign had cost Yn Garr a considerable sum of money. Moving the Boarshind soldiers from Kago to Hafod alone took up Yn Garr Industries’ earnings from the last few years. They may just be sheep in the eyes of the Hafed lords, but you don’t just open the gates to let the wolves have the pick of your flock. A shrewd businessman like Yn Garr wouldn’t make that sort of mistake.
But he did. He was probably relying on having Naijwa’s beast with us, Kefier thought. Yn Garr had never been explicit about his plans, but it was there for anyone who cared to look. But we attacked before he could get it here. I don’t even know how he was planning to transport it.
Perhaps Yn Garr was still locked in an argument with the King. Perhaps, even as he thought these things, the Hafed lords were waking their soldiers, telling them to attack the Dageians in their camp. Perhaps he had ordered Officer Ranias, who had stayed behind with a handful of soldiers at Thunder's-Mouth, to send aid. Maybe reinforcements were marching towards them right at that very moment.
He knew it was all wishful thinking. The night remained quiet, except for the occasional cough from a soldier. At least it wasn’t raining and there was no fog. Small blessings. If the weather hadn’t cooperated, the Dageians would be stumbling over their stiff corpses in the morning.
The thought of corpses made him look out at the field and the dead, mangled bodies of his men. They had tried to salvage arrows and other weapons once the sun had gone down, but nobody wanted to do more than that. It was difficult to take care of the dead when you knew you would join them soon. He noticed a movement, and thought perhaps someone had decided to rifle through the dead’s pockets.
Kefier got up, intending to scold the man. He froze two steps downhill.
The figure that had been standing over a corpse looked towards him. It lacked a jaw and much of its cheek. Its arm hung loosely from a socket. Almost as if on signal, the corpse under it began to move.
Kefier ran back to the patrol to sound the alarm. Two sharp, horn-blasts, and then he found himself struggling against two undead. These did not smell as strongly as the ones that had attacked them several nights ago. The dead mercenaries didn’t have time to rot in the cold.
He managed to strike their heads off. The mixture of adrenaline, the heady aftereffects of the wine, and the darkness made everything feel like a dream. His body moved of its own accord, meeting each attack with reflexes that went beyond his thoughts.
The thought of impending death made him think about being back in Jin-Sayeng in their one-bedroom house in Shirrokaru. He knew it dulled his senses, but he couldn’t help it. Sume was in his arms in a moment that transcended his abhorrence over his thinking that she was his brother’s woman. Someone who had been a slave should have known better—you didn’t own people, you didn’t lay claim to their hearts. For that moment in time, she was with him, and he should’ve found a way to be happy with that. And perhaps he had been—perhaps he had simply forgotten. A moment of love, like a single coin, was too easily spent. You go through your whole life wanting more.
If he was going to die, he was at least going to do it with that memory as his last thought.
After a length of time, he found himself out in the open, where it was easier to swing his sword without hitting a tree instead. He noticed that many of the men had the same idea. “Isn’t this just wonderful, Kefier?” Caiso asked, appearing beside him. “I was just dreaming about this. Cutting off heads, groaning corpses…”
“So dreams do come true,” Kefier snorted, kicking an incoming corpse. His sword clacked against its spine. He pulled away and struck it a second time, severing it completely. Blood sprayed across his face.
Caiso laughed. “Now if we could just switch to the one involving virgins, I’ll die a happy man.”
“I normally wouldn’t agree with you, Caiso, but in this case, I think I’ll welcome the virgins.”
“I don’t know if you want anything to do with the ones in my dream, but what the hell. We’ll throw in a few blushing Jin maidens just for you, Commander.”
The fact that they could converse at all suddenly made Kefier stop. These undead weren’t as relentless as the ones before. There were less of them, and the mage controlling them—someone who was
very likely doing it from the battlements—were only awakening a few at a time. He signalled to Caiso and fought his way up to higher ground. There, he caught sight of Aden.
“Can you see the mage doing this?” Caiso asked, pointing at the wall.
Aden huffed, his tunic drenched in blood. “Do I look like I have owl eyes?”
“Now that you mention it…”
“There’s something wrong here,” Kefier said. “This attack makes no sense. We’ll make short work of these in no time.”
“Obviously, they just want us exhausted,” Caiso said. “You still haven’t answered my question, Aden.”
“What is it about my eyes, Caiso? I have good-looking eyes. All the women say so.”
“I beg to differ.”
They heard a Dageian signal horn.
“I hope that’s not what I think it is,” Caiso said.
Kefier heard a shot fired in the distance. More of the Boarshind men were fleeing the choking darkness of the woods to join them in the field. Behind them, he caught sight of Dageian soldiers.
They stopped at the edge of the wood and didn’t venture further.
“What are they doing?” Aden asked. “It’s like they’re just watching us.”
“They have us where they want,” Kefier said.
“I don’t understand,” Aden said.
Caiso gave the laugh of a man one step away from madness. “Oh, you poor idiot. Don’t you see?” He lifted his sword. “When the sun goes up, we’ll be in full view of their archers. We’re waiting for our deaths.”
“They should just do it now and get it over with,” Aden whispered. “Oh, Yohak.”
“I don’t think they want to risk missing and us using their arrows against them,” Kefier murmured. “I’d do it, too.”
“I think they just want poetic justice,” Caiso offered. “See us die in the morning light. I would.”
They stared at each other. The undead assault had died down, relegated to a few stragglers at the flank. The silence became deafening. Kefier tried to summon that memory again and realized he couldn’t.
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