They left. Bershad and Vash sat in silence for a moment.
“How’s the war going, truly?”
“We’re losing it. And more food isn’t going to change that.”
“I can do more than give you the donkeys. I can fight.”
Bershad shook his head. “One more sword and one more life to lose isn’t going to make a difference. I want you here, raising that boy to be a proper child of the Dainwood.” He swallowed. “If we don’t make it, promise me that you’ll stay in the Gloom as long as you can. Promise me you’ll survive.”
Vash nodded. “I promise, but you gotta do something for me, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Carve yourself a mask.”
“What?”
“A warden’s mask. You’re leading the Jaguar Army and you don’t have one. It’s unseemly.”
Bershad waved the notion away. “Willem’s their leader more than I am.” He paused. “And some of the things that you lose need to stay lost.”
“The Dainwood is your home, Silas. That’s something you’ll never lose.”
Bershad rubbed his throat. Pushed his emotions down as best he could.
“I’ll think about it, Vash. I promise.”
Vash gave him a sad smile. “Good enough.”
12
JOLAN
Dainwood Jungle
After weeks of being cooped up in the castle of Deepdale, Jolan enjoyed the jungle. Even days like this, where it had been raining for nine hours straight. Toucans and motmots were chirping from the canopy. Rare flowers grew from almost every Daintree. To him, it was a paradise.
Everyone was up ahead, setting up camp. But Jolan had lingered in the dense undergrowth, picking around at different clusters of edible mushrooms, which were few and far between in the Dainwood. Most were toxic. He hummed to himself as he picked. His bag was half full.
“You seem to be having a good time.”
Jolan jumped. Turned around. Silas Bershad was coming out of the undergrowth. He had a handful of headless snakes in one hand, and there was blood dripping down his beard.
“I like the jungle.”
Bershad nodded. “Me too.”
Jolan motioned to the snakes. “Did you, uh, bite the heads off?”
“Ate ’em.”
“Why would you do that? They’re poisonous.”
He shrugged. “The venom doesn’t bother me. Leaves more meat for everyone else.”
They walked past the donkeys, whose rain-wet backs were shimmering in the late-day light like a twisting river. Jolan noticed that while the donkeys all reacted to Bershad with friendly sniffs and ear wiggles, he never touched any of them.
They started passing the men, who’d made small camps tucked into different Daintree nooks. A lot of the Jaguars had managed to scrounge their own meals from the forest—insects and rodents and caches of nuts, mostly. Bershad offered a snake to anyone who’d come up empty. Jolan did the same with his mushrooms.
He also stopped to check a few wardens’ wounds for infection. One warden had decided he was going to stop wearing boots like Silas, and now had torn up soles because of it. Jolan worked out a poultice and Bershad told him to put his boots back on.
Eventually, they found Ashlyn. She was huddled up in her yellow poncho, sharing a cook fire with Kerrigan, Simeon, Goll, and Felgor. There was a pot of water over the fire, but it looked like the only thing they had boiling inside of it was a bunch of dilly thistles.
“Flawless!” Goll called. “You bring us something to eat besides weeds?”
Bershad dropped his last snake in front of Goll, which was about a stride long with decent meat.
“It’ll do,” said Goll. Then he turned to Jolan. “What about you, alchemist? You finally gonna turn my water into something worth drinking?”
Goll frequently offered Jolan suspiciously large sums of gold if he could transmute water into Dunfarian rum.
“I told you before, I’m not that kind of alchemist. That kind of alchemist doesn’t exist.”
Goll narrowed his eyes. “I have seen you gray robes bring monsters up from the ground and grow enchanted mushrooms the size of trees. You are telling me this these things are possible, but conjuring me a decent drink is not?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Hm. I think you’re in league with Ashlyn to deprive me of my rum.”
Goll butchered the snake, cut its meat into cubes, and dropped it into the pot. Felgor produced a sack of salt and pinched in a few good helpings, then started to stir.
“Where’d you get that?” Ashlyn asked.
“Usual place. Won it at dice.”
“You know, Felgor, one of these days the wardens are going to realize you’re cheating,” Bershad said.
“But not today. And we’re all benefiting from that fact.”
Kerrigan frowned at the boiling pot of snake meat. “Back at Naga Rock, I used to breakfast on dragon eggs and dine on choice cuts of swine that were fed nothing except the freshest Dunfarian acorns. Gods, those were the fucking days.”
Simeon grunted. “Well, if you wanna mentally jerk yourself off about meals past, I’m more than happy to eat your share of the snakes, Kerri.”
“No, no. I was just remembering. Nostalgia makes for good seasoning.”
While the snake boiled, Ashlyn took a lodestone out of her satchel and went through a few exercises—raising and lowering it across a varied set of heights. Her bands twisted and whirred in slow circles as the orb moved.
“Okay, witch queen, I want you to explain how that arm of yours works,” said Kerrigan, watching the orb bob in the air like a fisherman’s float on the surface of a lake.
“Sorcery isn’t a satisfactory explanation for you?” Ashlyn asked.
“No. And don’t give me some vague dragonshit about the mathematics being too complex. If I can run an island economy built on piracy but operating in a hundred different legitimate exchange markets, I can handle the particulars of that floating rock.”
Ashlyn gave her a look. “Very well. Do you understand the basics of lodestone attraction?”
“Sure. Some of the gray rocks from Ghost Moth stick to each other. Others do the opposite.”
“Right. In their natural state, lodestones have a simple relationship. Attraction or repulsion.” Ashlyn held up her arm so that Kerrigan could see the bands rotate. “But these complicate that relationship.”
“How?”
“Each of these bands has scores of lodestones implanted inside of it. And each position represents a different kind of relationship to that orb. It’s all attraction and repulsion, but coming from hundreds of angles and with hundreds of degrees of strength. By changing those relationships rapidly, I can make the orb move in any direction that I want.”
The bands on Ashlyn’s arm started turning a little faster, and the orb rose higher, then swooped down through the fire like a suicidal moth and back out again.
“And the scrap of dragon that’s burned into your body powers the bands?” Kerrigan asked.
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t it hurt to use it?”
Ashlyn froze her bands. The lodestone dropped into her waiting palm. “You get used to the pain.”
Kerrigan nodded. Went quiet.
Felgor stirred the stew a little. Tasted it. “We’re good here.”
Between the six of them, there was barely enough for each of them to have more than a few bites, even though Bershad didn’t have any.
“You ate the snake heads again?” Ashlyn asked.
“They’re filling. Probably won’t be hungry for two, three days.”
“Their heads are full of poison,” said Ashlyn. “Which means I won’t be able to come near your mouth for two or three days, either.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “I’ll rinse everything out real good before we tent up for the night. Make sure it doesn’t get between the witch queen and her pleasure.”
“Ugh, stow the romance,” Felgo
r said, scratching a nasty rash on his neck. “Just ’cause you two have yourselves for company out in this muddy wilderness doesn’t mean we all wanna bear witness.”
“What’s the matter, Balarian?” asked Kerrigan. “You missing your city brothels?”
“Yes, Kerri. I am missing them most severely.” He looked up at the canopy, where a team of monkeys was scrambling across the branches. “I’m not built for this wilderness work. Truly.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Bershad pointed out.
Felgor gave him a long, cool look. “Silas Bershad. After all that we’ve been through, that is an unbelievably insensitive thing to say. My feelings are hurt.”
“Uh-huh. That grieves me.”
Felgor stood up and cracked his back. “Excuse me, friends. I have personal business with which I must attend. Silas, which stretch of private jungle is safe for a shit?”
Bershad pointed to the left. “Don’t go more than fifty paces.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Felgor muttered something, then disappeared into the jungle.
“What’s out there?” Ashlyn asked.
“Nothing dangerous. Just a toucan’s nest full of chicks. Don’t want Felgor’s farts startling the little ones.”
Simeon muttered a Skojit curse. “You know, after that scrap of ours on Ghost Moth Island, I took you for a genuine killer. I respected you for it. Hell, that’s half the reason I came down here to fight this war with you—aside from the huge number of Ghalamarians available for killing. Thought it’d be a real honor and pleasure to go into battle with such a merciless bastard.”
“But?” Bershad asked.
“But the more I see you acting all tenderhearted for tiny birds with massive beaks and communing with lizards like some monk, the more disappointed I am in you.”
Bershad shrugged. “You dote on Cabbage an awful lot.”
Simeon’s face hardened. “I don’t dote on Cabbage. He’s a moron who needs constant supervision or else he’ll get himself killed. Idiot couldn’t even maintain a hold on his own ears.”
“Speaking of communing with lizards, where’s your gray friend?” asked Kerrigan. “Much as that dragon scares me, there’s no way that I’m going into that stretch of Blackjack country without her directly overhead.”
“Oh, she’s around,” Bershad said. “Don’t worry.”
“All Kerri does is worry,” said Simeon.
“Fuck off, Simeon. Anyone who doesn’t worry is just too stupid to think situations through to their most likely consequences.”
“Oh, I’m well aware of consequences,” said Simeon. “Most of the time, I just don’t care about them.”
Kerrigan’s response to that was cut short by Felgor coming back out of the bushes, tying up his pants. He flopped down in his spot and stoked the fire a bit.
“Hey, Simeon. Something I’ve been wondering about. How do you take that armor off?”
“Doesn’t come off,” said Simeon, running a hand over the scales on his wrist. “Part of the bargain I made with Kasamir.”
“Okay, but if it doesn’t come off, how do you take a shit?”
Simeon looked up, saw that everyone was looking at him expectantly.
“I was always curious about it, being honest,” said Kerrigan.
Simeon hesitated. Sucked on his teeth and spat in their fire.
“There’s a mechanism,” he muttered eventually.
“A mechanism?” Felgor asked. “What kind of mech—”
“It’s complex and personal!” Simeon growled, standing up. “How ’bout you all just fuck off with your questions, yeah?”
Simeon stalked off. There was a silence. As usual, Felgor was the first one to break it.
“Guess he’s off to clear the mechanism, yeah?”
They all laughed.
Everyone chatted by the fire for a while. Felgor told the story about picking a Balarian seal with a chicken bone, which Jolan had already heard about fifty times, but pretended that he hadn’t.
He didn’t feel quite like he was part of their crew—they’d all been on so many adventures together, and all Jolan had done was write lodestone orientations with Ashlyn in a pantry of Deepdale’s Castle. But he liked spending time with them. It reminded Jolan of his time with Cumberland and the others on their way to Blackrock. Before everything had gone sour and poisoned.
Eventually, everyone began to turn in for the night. Felgor bundled himself up in a blanket by the fire—muttering about wrapping himself tight to keep the bugs and ants out. Bershad and Ashlyn left together with clear plans to test the limits of Silas’s poisoned breath. Goll went looking for alcohol.
That just left Kerrigan and Jolan. They stared at the fire in silence for a bit.
“What passed between you and that dour warden in the black mask? Oromir, I think.”
Jolan straightened up, surprised. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing. But any time the two of you are in a room together the temperature seems to drop a mite with all those icy stares and glances. I’m curious what’s causing them.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“We’re all heading into a nest of dragons tomorrow, with nobody to look out for us besides each other. So, it kind of does matter, Jolan.”
He blew out a breath. “Last fall, we traveled together for a time. Things ended badly. Someone who Oromir cared for deeply was killed, and he blames me for it.”
“Do you blame yourself?”
Jolan looked at his boots. “Yes.”
Kerrigan nodded. “The thing about blame, in my experience, is that there’s always plenty to go around and the shit is pretty much useless. Take my last supply run, where a hundred of my men died. Now, the most immediate party to blame there is the Balarian skyships that turned them to splinters. But a thinking person would take it to the next level. Blame the asshole who started the war. Problem there is that it’s a bit unclear who that is. Some idiot general named Actus Thorn, maybe. But his role is murky at best, plus he’s already dead so who cares? Instead, maybe let’s blame the crazy asshole who built those skyships to begin with? That’s not bad. No skyships, no dead men. But then there’s the notion that those men never would have been on those ships if it weren’t for me. And they never would have met me if I hadn’t founded Naga Rock. But if I hadn’t done that, the men on that ship would have been eaten by dragons a decade ago because of the asshole who wrote the laws of this realm.” She leaned forward. Tapped her temple. “See what I mean?”
“You’re saying nobody’s to blame?”
“I’m saying everyone’s to blame.”
Jolan met her eyes. “Does that help you sleep at night?”
Kerrigan winced. “No. Not really.”
“Then it doesn’t do me any good.”
* * *
Jolan didn’t make a conscious decision to go see Oromir. He just kind of found himself walking to the circle of tents that Oromir and his men had set up apart from the others.
Oromir’s crew decorated their tents with the bones of the Wormwrot they’d killed. A lot of warden crews did the same, they just didn’t have nearly as much material to work with. The ribs, femurs, and skulls of slain mercenaries rattled in the wind. Jolan made his way to the center of the circle, where there was a tent with five skulls hung over the entrance.
Oromir’s horse was hobbled next to it, munching on some wild grass.
Jolan hesitated. He suddenly had no idea what he was going to say. Maybe he should go back. This was stupid. But before he could slip away, the tent opened and a warden came out.
It wasn’t Oromir.
He was about thirty, with long black hair full of rings and a rough beard that glistened with oil in the moonlight. He was tying up his pants with thick, callused fingers.
“You tryna get yourself killed, boy?” he asked in a thick Dainwood accent.
“I, uh. Sorry. I—”
“What’s the trouble
, Kes?” came Oromir’s voice from inside the tent.
“Some skinny kid out here,” said Kes, taking a closer look at Jolan. “That healer, looks like. The one who walks in the queen’s shadow like a cowed bitch.”
Oromir grunted. “He’s harmless. Let him through.”
Kes shrugged, then shoved past Jolan.
Inside, the air smelled like ale and sweat. Oromir was sitting up on his bedroll in the corner. He was naked and cradling an earthenware jug in the crook of his elbow.
Outside, it started raining.
“Kes seems like a pleasant person,” Jolan said.
“What do you want, Jolan?”
“I came to talk.”
Oromir shrugged. “Talk, then.”
Jolan studied Oromir’s face. The wounds he’d taken at Fallon’s Roost had been stitched together messy and erratic, leaving deeper scars than necessary.
“I wish you’d come to me for those,” Jolan said, putting a finger to his own cheek. “I could have limited the scarring.”
Oromir scoffed. Took a gulp from the jug. “Nobody ever died from uneven stitches.”
“That’s true.” He swallowed. Sat down on the floor of the tent. “Willem told me that you’re still hunting Garret.”
“I’ll be hunting him until he goes down the river, or I do.”
“Do you know where he is?”
Oromir’s face twitched. “Did you come down here to talk about Garret?”
“No.” Jolan hesitated. “We haven’t really spoken since Cumberland died. I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Oh, I’m fantastic. Living the life I’ve always dreamed about.”
Jolan felt a sudden surge of anger rush through him.
“Fine.” Jolan stood up. “You wanna drown yourself in alcohol and anger, go right ahead. Sorry I interrupted you. Try not to die tomorrow in the Blackjack nest.”
Jolan turned and reached for the tent flap.
“Wait,” Oromir said, then sighed. “It’s raining, and you walked all the way down here. I’ll give you something to drink, at least.”
Oromir dug up a ceramic mug and filled it with a brutally powerful and thick alcohol.
“What did you ferment to make this?” Jolan asked, eyes watering after his first sip.
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