by Mike Brooks
Saana’s heart sank at the stablemaster’s explanation. She hadn’t really thought about exactly how deep-set the Naridans’ beliefs about women must be. “You truly think Daimon views our women as… a threat?”
“Perhaps you can work on him,” Tavi offered. “He likes you.”
Saana burst out laughing. “He shows it strangely!”
“The boy’s never had a woman to talk to as his equal since he was raised to nobility,” Tavi pointed out, and Saana abruptly stopped laughing. “His family was lowborn. He’s no highborn sister, no highborn mother, he’s never courted a highborn girl because we’re in the arse end of nowhere, and Lord Asrel and the nearest thane hate each other. And then there’s you, as tall as he is, walking around calling yourself ‘this man’ and looking him straight in the eye.” Tavi took another swig. “He hasn’t a clue what to make of you, is s’man’s guess, but he likes you. Even if he hasn’t realised it yet.”
Saana snatched the bottle off him and took a swig of her own. “What d’you mean?”
“S’man saw how Lord Daimon looked at you in his brother’s armour,” Tavi said with a wicked grin. “That’ll be a young thane who’s had some confusing dreams, s’man would wager.” He grimaced at the bottle she was holding. “Nari’s teeth, but s’man’s drunk. Should not be saying this.”
“No!” Saana pointed an accusing finger at him. “No no no. No. You don’t get to stop talking now you’ve said that. What in t’Dark Father’s name you talking about?”
Tavi laughed. “You know what s’man’s talking about, else Zhanna’s birth must’ve come as a surprise!”
Saana gaped. “But he’s only a… How old is he?”
“Two-and-twenty?” Tavi asked himself, wrinkling his nose up with the effort of remembering. “Two-and-twenty, yes.”
Two years older than when I had Zhanna. Saana had been thinking of Daimon as a youth, but actually that wasn’t really accurate. But even so… “Surely he thinks this man too old?”
“Do your people stop fucking at five-and-twenty?” Tavi asked.
Tsolga’s leer swam into Saana’s mind’s eye. “No.”
“Well then,” Tavi said with a shrug. “In time, Daimon may come to his senses and realise what his cock’s telling him.”
Saana stopped with the bottle of applejack halfway to her mouth and a flutter in her stomach that wasn’t entirely related to the alcohol. “‘Come to his senses’?”
Tavi’s face flattened out again, and he looked away. “S’man’s drunk…”
Saana grabbed his shoulder and waved the bottle of applejack under his nose. “You don’t get to blame this for everything you say, Tavi of Black Keep!”
He snatched it from her and took another swig. “Very well! S’man is drunk and he thinks that Saana of the Brown Eagle clan is a rare beauty.” He faced her, their eyes just a hand’s span apart. Saana met those dark eyes, and forced herself not to look away.
“Did you bring this man here to get her drunk and say these things, Tavi?” she asked, keeping her voice steady.
“No,” he replied simply. “S’man brought you here because he hates big fires, and he thought you might like applejack.” He shrugged, and Saana felt the hard muscles of his shoulder move under his rough-spun shirt. She swallowed.
“This man has two questions.” She raised one finger. “Does applejack make people want to fuck more than they do normally?”
Tavi’s brow wrinkled. “No more than other drink?”
She nodded, and raised a second finger. “How long before we’re missed?”
“The Wooden Man takes a long time to burn,” Tavi said slowly. “They’ll be a while.”
Saana licked her lips to moisten them. “Well, then.” Her mind was throwing up memories of straddling Tavi in the mud earlier, and the strength in his limbs as he bucked under her, and when they’d wrist-wrestled, and his hand upon her backside when he’d shoved her into Bastion’s saddle. And maybe he was somewhat smooth-cheeked, and none too tall, but that last part wouldn’t matter if they were lying down. And perhaps he was sort of handsome, in an odd Naridan way, or at least he was in the flickering half-light of the torch burning on the wall, and after ale, and shorat, and applejack. Most importantly, perhaps, he was here, and he was warm, and it felt like he was the only person in the last two weeks who hadn’t been asking or expecting something of her…
“Wait, third question.” She held up another finger. “If this man fucks you, does she have to marry you? Is that a Naridan thing?”
Tavi shook his head. “No. Definitely not.”
Saana kissed him.
He tasted of applejack, which was both pleasant and unsurprising. She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into her, and he did the same, twining his fingers in her hair. His other hand slipped up underneath her furs, fingers cold on her back. She pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the firm plane of muscle there, and slid her right leg across him so she was straddling him as he sat on the straw. He made an appreciative sound deep in his throat, and kissed her harder.
It wasn’t long before she was reaching down to peel his shirt up over his head, and as she finished tugging it clear of his arms his hands found their way to her breasts. She leaned in to kiss him some more and he rolled sideways, seeking to bring her under him, but she rolled with him and ended up sitting astride him on the straw-strewn stall floor.
“You said it was clean,” she told his surprised expression, reaching back to pull at one of her boots. They didn’t come off easily, but after a bit of contorting she’d thrown them into a corner of the stall and started on the ties of her breeches. Tavi reached down to wrestle with his own laces as she slid off him to shuck one leg free, then she gripped the waist of his and wrenched them downwards to his knees while he wriggled to assist her.
It turned out Naridan men were made more or less the same as Tjakorshi ones, which had been a source of some speculation amongst the women, since Avlja had never been forthcoming about Nalon’s body. It also seemed they reacted in much the same way to too much alcohol, so she took him in her hand and gripped firmly, then took his hand and placed it between her legs. He quickly got the idea of what she was about, and she kissed him ferociously while their hands worked a twin rhythm. At one point he started to push himself up, perhaps thinking he was ready for something more; and he might have been, but she wasn’t yet, so she released her grip and pushed him back down again. With his legs still tangled in his breeches he couldn’t do much to argue, and he relented.
Saana could feel pressure building inside her now, a delicious tension in her lower stomach like a storm wave building in height, until finally she crested, and broke, and dashed herself on the shore. Tavi cried out too and she realised she’d bitten his lower lip, and her nails had drawn blood from his right shoulder. Her other hand seemed to have done its work though, and she threw her leg across him to straddle him again. It wasn’t long before Tavi was huffing and blowing underneath her, then spasmed and cried out, then lay still apart from his heaving, sweat-slicked chest.
Saana leaned down, kissed him again, then rolled off him and stumbled outside to piss.
NABANDA
THEY WERE INTO the garden as easy and quick as shadows. Hê’d brought five others, all good hands, discreet and capable. They’d already agreed how they were going to do this; no lurking, just going in fast and hard to overwhelm the guards.
There were two in a pool of lamp light, in maille and half-helm, spears resting on their shoulders and talking idly. They hadn’t preserved their night vision, and they hadn’t been alert. By the time they realised they weren’t alone, it was too late.
Perlishu whipped a wind ring off the first finger of hēr right hand. The sharpened steel disc took one guard in the throat, biting so deep it nearly took their head off. They fell, their hands flying uselessly to the red tide gushing from their throat. The other turned and gaped for a second as Nabanda charged them, then fled with a panicked scream.
&nb
sp; Another wind ring took them between the shoulder blades. The maille held, but the impact sent them stumbling. Nabanda caught them within a few steps and slashed hîs sickle across the unarmoured back of their right leg. The guard collapsed onto their side, and Badir stepped in and brought one of hìs axes down to make a red ruin of the guard’s face and instantly still their limbs.
“Only two?” Badir asked, putting one foot on the guard’s forehead to wrench hìs axe free. Hè was Morlithian by name and blood, but Alaban by birth, and Nabanda trusted hìm as much as hê did anyone else in the islands.
“There’ll be more inside,” Nabanda said, looking up at the house. It was too much to hope the noise had gone unnoticed. “Take Perlishu, and make sure no one escapes in the carriage.”
Badir nodded and loped off towards the front of the house, with Perlishu slipping out of the shadows to follow hìm. Hēr wind rings would be less use inside a building, but ideal if someone tried to make a break for it across open ground.
“Want to give me a hand up?” Tungkung said, appearing at Nabanda’s shoulder. Nabanda nodded and tucked hîs sickle and knife back into hîs belt to cup hîs hands, then boosted Tungkung upwards for thëm to grab the railing running around the balcony of the first floor. The ground floor was the carriage house and stable, with high, shuttered windows, and the main wooden doors at the front that would be barred from inside. There would be stairs in there leading up into the dwelling, but getting in that way would be time-consuming.
There were three main doors to a house like this: one at each side of the front facing, each with their own steps leading down to the ground so as not to obstruct the carriage entrance, and the shutter doors at the rear. Guelan ran for one of the front doors and Kedenta the other, while Nabanda unwound the grapnel and rope from around hîs waist, twirled it briefly, then threw to hook the barbed metal over the balcony railing. Now on the balcony itself, Tungkung already had thëir blades out; a long knife and a short sword, both of them slender and wickedly sharp, much like their owner, and single-edged.
Nabanda was halfway up the rope when the shutter doors above hîm crashed open and someone wielding twin crutch blades burst out. They immediately engaged Tungkung, parrying thëir first thrust with a downward swipe of their right arm and lashing out with the left to send Tungkung dodging backwards.
“Intruder!” the guard shouted, following up. This was no amateur with a spear, but a trained warrior. Nabanda wondered if the guards who’d just died had known they were only there for their deaths to provide warning to those inside the house.
Still, despite being better trained, this guard hadn’t realised there was more than one intruder. Nabanda reached the top of hîs rope and hauled hîmself up and over as quickly as hê could, praying to all the Hundred the guard wouldn’t turn and skewer hîm while hê was unable to defend hîmself. At least one god must have listened, as hê got his feet onto the decking while the guard was still engaged with Tungkung.
Hê wasn’t as light on hîs feet as hê might have been, and the guard heard the noise. They turned, backing away from Tungkung as they did so, and whirled towards Nabanda with a slashing blow that hê only avoided by throwing hîmself through the shutter door and into the room beyond. Hê tripped on a rug, fell, rolled, and came back up to hîs feet clawing the sickle from hîs belt, but Tungkung had pressed forwards again, and the guard was forced onto the defensive instead of being able to follow Nabanda inside and stab him.
A flicker of movement past another shutter at the side of the house caught Nabanda’s attention, and there was the strangled grunt of a body having a blade punched into it from behind. Guelan must have run along the encircling balcony from where hê was supposed to be watching one of the main doors in order to get involved.
Nabanda turned, pulling hîs knife out, and quickly took stock. There were no lamps lit in here, but hê could make out the long, low shapes of furniture. A room for rich folk to sit and entertain their guests, perhaps. For Nabanda, who’d never lived in anything larger than the one small room near the docks where hê slept on a lumpy pallet of old blankets, it was a bizarre concept.
Hê heard movement above him, frantic footsteps on wooden floors. All element of surprise had gone. Hê half-expected them to shout for help, but perhaps they didn’t realise how keen hîs ears were; perhaps they still thought they could hide, or that their guards’ screams and shouts would have alerted the neighbours. Possible, of course, but not that likely. Rich people liked their privacy, which was why they had these wide grounds and walls, and that cut both ways.
Literally.
The room hê was in ran the entire width of the house, and there was only one interior door. Nabanda sidled towards it, hîs blades held low and ready, waiting for any movement. A sound behind hîm caused hîm to whirl, but it was only Tungkung.
“Anyone?” thëy asked quietly, picking thëir way across the rug that had tripped Nabanda.
“Upstairs,” hê replied, hîs tone just as low. “Are you hurt?”
“A cut on my arm,” Tungkung said. “It can wait.”
“Guelan?”
“Gone back to watch hîs door.”
“Come on, then.” Nabanda slid forwards with Tungkung in tow. No attack came as hê passed the threshold into the next room, floored in pale marble. This too ran the width of the house, with a corridor down to the front door on the right hand side, the one hê’d sent Guelan to guard. Directly in front of hîm, taking up the remaining width of the room, was a white-painted wall with a door in it. Nabanda checked it and found a well-appointed kitchen, with its own door to the outside; the servant’s entrance. A wide staircase ran up to the next floor from the main hallway, and Nabanda could see another door, set into the side of the stairs, which would lead down to the carriage house.
“Hsst!”
Nabanda turned at Tungkung’s hiss and brought hîs weapons up, looking for the threat; two shadows at the top of the stairs, the light glinting off their weapons. One had twin crescent blades, the other a hookbill axe, a two-handed affair with a pole as tall as the person wielding it. Nasty tools, to be sure, especially when they held the high ground across a narrow front, so they needed to be tempted from it.
“Guelan!” Nabanda shouted, hîs voice so loud that Tungkung flinched in surprise. “Kedenta! Come in through the rear! Knock if you hear me!”
There was a thump on each door, then the sound of running footsteps approaching. Now the guards at the top of the stairs knew that within a few seconds they would be outnumbered by at least two to one, possibly more, at which point high ground or no, choke point or no, their situation would be much worse.
They reacted as Nabanda hoped they would: they flowed down the stairs, looking to thin the odds against them before more enemies could arrive.
“This was your plan?” Tungkung hissed in alarm, raising thëir blades as the axe-armed guard headed for them, the vicious curved blade chopping at the air. For hîs part, Nabanda was too busy to reply, for the guard with crescent blades had elected to come at hîm.
They were dangerous indeed: two lengths of sharpened metal protruding some way above and a little way below the fabric-wrapped grips, with the top curved over into a sharpened hook, while the grips themselves were protected by crescent-shaped blades that could be used in an edged punch if necessary. They were weapons in truth, designed only for killing, quite different to the sickle and long knife Nabanda carried.
The guard attacked, blades flashing, looking to hook Nabanda’s weapons aside and leave hîm open for a killing stroke. Nabanda retreated, blocking and parrying without committing, gauging hîs opponent’s speed and timing. Then, just before hê was going to be pressed up against the wall, hê stepped into a block with hîs sickle instead of backing away further, and lashed out with a kick that caught the other fighter in the left shortribs.
The guard threw a cut with their right-hand weapon, but they were off-balance: Nabanda spun past it and drove the point of hîs sickle into the flesh
over their shoulder blade, then reached around and cut their throat with hîs knife. The guard slumped sideways, and Nabanda turned hîs attention to the other as someone screamed.
Guelan was on the floor, arms clutched around hîs own midsection. Hê’d come running in too fast, too eager, and the hookbill axe had opened hîm across the middle. The remaining guard backed off towards the stairs, aware they were now alone, but one of Tungkung’s arms hung loosely by thëir side and Kedenta held only a pair of dragon claws: straight-gripped, underslung sickle-bladed knives, deadly in corridors or alleys, but of less use in a large room against an enemy with a polearm. Nabanda hadn’t expected so much space inside the house; hê’d anticipated more internal walls.
There was a crash, and the door to the carriage house flew open. Kedenta whirled towards it, dropping into a ready stance with hìs dragon claws, but it was only Badir, axes in hand. However, the guard took advantage of the momentary distraction to attack.
It wasn’t a killing blow, but the hookbill blade flashed in the dim light and sliced across Kedenta’s shoulder, drawing forth a cry of pain. Badir roared and charged, hìs own shorter-hafted axes raised, and the guard hastily retreated behind the thick wooden bannister of the stairs, slashing out at head height as they rose up a couple of steps. Badir ducked, and Tungkung abruptly curtailed thëir lunge as the hookbill flashed towards thëm.
