* * * * *
“So let me get this straight,” Bailey said, hands on her hips, standing on the prow of the ship. “We sailed to Kingswall to stop the day from attacking the night … and while I was in the dungeon, somehow you managed to get all eight kingdoms of Timandra to sail east to invade Eloria. And to top things off, you’re going to invade with them.” She tilted her head. “Did I miss anything, Winky? Or am I correct and while I was away, you basically made things the very worst they could possibly be?”
They stood upon the River Raven, the flagship of the Ardish fleet, a carrack of four masts, two hundred feet of deck, and a hull bearing a full thousand warriors. It was the largest ship in Arden; some claimed it the largest ship in the world. It flowed down the Sern River, leading a fleet of a hundred more ships that spread behind, an army sailing to war. Looking at the trail of masts and sails, Torin sighed.
“It wasn’t entirely my fault, Bails,” he said.
She shoved him across the deck, eyes flashing. Torin tried to ignore the snickers he heard from surrounding sailors.
“I would have talked sense to that oaf of a king,” she said. “I would have stopped this rubbish. And now look at you!” She jabbed a finger against his breastplate and tugged at his cloak. “Now you’re wearing the armor of a soldier. Now you plan to … to…” She covered her face. “Now you will sail to war.”
Torin looked around him, praying the king hadn’t heard, but Ceranor stood across the deck, conversing with his generals. The king wore plate armor, the golden half-sun of Idar upon his breastplate; a second halved sun formed the pommel of his sword. His helmet was shaped as the raven of Arden, a masterwork of gold and onyx, its visor beaked.
He’s not a man of Sailith, Torin thought, but I don’t trust this king. Now I wish my father never saved his life.
Awkwardly, Torin placed an arm around the distraught Bailey.
“It won’t be that bad,” he said, knowing he was lying. “The king promises it’ll be a short campaign. We’ll enter the night, light a bunch of torches, make a lot of noise, and scare the Elorians a bit. And then we’ll come back home. This won’t be a long war like the one my father fought. The Eight Kings just want to flex their muscles, then sail home with stories of adventure.”
He thought she was weeping, but when she pulled her hands away from her eyes, they were not teary but blazing with fury. She placed both hands against his breastplate and shoved him against the ship’s railing. He nearly toppled overboard.
“How do you know that?” she said. “Torin, look around you! The entire fleet of Arden is sailing east. The entire fleet. I don’t think they left a single cog behind. And look at the riverbanks! Soldiers march everywhere, Ardish troops in the north and Nayans in the south. All of Timandra is mustering! Short war?” She laughed bitterly. “You really did it this time, you foolish boy.”
He stepped away from the railing, leaned toward her, and grumbled under his breath.
“Lower your voice, Bailey. You’re embarrassing me in front of the other soldiers.”
She snorted. “The other soldiers? Do you think you’re a soldier now just because you wear the black and gold cloak? You are a gardener, Torin. A gardener. Not a fighter. Even if you couldn’t stop the war, why did you agree to fight it?” She tugged both her braids. “In the name of sanity, remove your armor and tell the king you won’t fight. If you can’t stop this war, stay in Fairwool-by-Night with me and grow your gardens. Don’t take part in this.”
Torin looked at the northern riverbank. Across the plains of Arden, thousands of troops marched, cloaked in black and gold, their breastplates bearing their raven sigil. Their banners fluttered, and their knights rode upon armored horses. When Torin turned to look across the starboard bow, he saw the southern lands of Naya, grasslands sprawling toward the jungles. Warriors marched there too, wearing tiger skin cloaks and hoods, their spears bright and their red beards thick. Sailing upon the Sern River, Torin would not pass through Timandra’s six other kingdoms, but he knew that troops were moving there too.
Never before in Moth’s history have all Eight Kings of Daylight marched together, he thought. Bailey is right. This will not be a short war. This will be a war to change the world.
He looked back at Bailey. She was staring at him, head tilted, breathing heavily. She was his foster sister, his best friend, and Torin didn’t know how to tell her. How could he reveal his secret—that he had joined these forces to save her from the dungeon? That he most likely marched to his death in the darkness?
If I refused to fight, the king would have kept you in prison, he wanted to say. If I back down now, he will let Ferius imprison you again. I’m only doing this to protect you.
Yet he could not speak these words, but only stared at her silently, looking into her brown eyes.
You will blame yourself if you knew, Bailey. If I die in the darkness, the guilt would break you. You cannot know that I’m doing this to save you.
And so he remained silent, and Bailey groaned, rolled her eyes, and turned away from him. She crossed her arms and stared across the river.
“You are not the boy I knew,” she said. “My Torin would never have agreed to fight.”
With a sniff, she ran across the deck and into the hull. Torin wanted to chase her. He ached to embrace her, to reveal his secret, to soothe her … but he did not know how. So he only remained upon the deck between soldiers as all around him Timandra’s armies flowed eastward.
Torin lowered his head, thought about the young woman with the scarred face, and wondered how many Elorians would die.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BUSKERS AND THIEVES
“Go—away, away!” shouted the wild-haired woman, her eyes bugging out. She held a drum in one hand, a knife in the other. “Away! My corner. Mine.”
Koyee bared her teeth, hissed at the woman, and reached for her sword. Sheytusung was a blade of legend, an ancient weapon forged by master smiths, its steel folded and hammered a dozen times. Koyee drew a foot of that steel, but her foe—wielding nothing but a knife of sharpened bone—refused to back down.
“This is my corner,” the woman repeated. Her snarl revealed only three teeth. “I play drum here. No flute. No flute here.”
Koyee grumbled and slammed her sword back into its scabbard. The woman seemed crazed with hunger; unless Koyee was prepared to kill, she’d have to find another street corner.
“Your drumming sounds like the heartbeat of a dying whale,” she said and spun around. She marched away, her own heart beating madly.
She sighed and tried to ignore the tightness of her belly. She had been wandering the city for … she no longer knew, not without her hourglass, but it felt like a lifetime. Wherever she found a busy street corner full of purse-carrying shoppers, some busker, juggler, or beggar chased her away.
“They’re more territorial than nightwolves, Eelani,” she muttered. “Is every street in this city already claimed?” She sighed. “How will we ever earn enough money for the journey home?” Her belly gave a rumble. “How will we even earn enough money to live another day?”
She walked down another street, one of thousands, a strand of gossamer in a web she thought she’d never escape. No people filled this small, cobbled road, and grime covered the walls of glass bricks. A rat scurried down the road, and Koyee tried to catch it—she had seen beggars eat rats before—but it fled into a hole. Her legs itched—they had been itching for a long time—and she scratched them until they bled. An insect landed on her arm and bit her. Koyee slapped it dead, then tossed it into her mouth, nearly gagging but forcing herself to swallow.
“The nice thing about being filthy is the free insects,” she said to Eelani. “If I pretend, they taste just like crayfish. Do you remember how we’d eat crayfish at home? Beautiful, red crayfish simmering in a pot, filling our hut with their smell?” Her mouth watered. “I miss home, Eelani. I know you do too.”
Clouds thickened overhead, hiding the stars and moon, an
d it began to rain. Koyee was thankful. Rain cleansed the dirt off and gave her something to fill her belly with. Shivering in the cold, she knelt by a puddle, lowered her head, and drank until her belly bulged. It would trick her hunger into waiting a while longer. The water was brackish and filled her mouth with dirt, but she forced herself to keep drinking.
She walked on, shivering in the cold, her tunic and hair drenched. She had not stopped shivering for a long time, though when she touched her forehead, it felt warm.
“I’m scared, Eelani,” she whispered, walking under an awning and around a few discarded barrels. “I’m scared that we’ll turn into that woman, a crazy old thing with three teeth, playing a drum on a street corner fifty years from now.” Her eyes stung. “We should never have come to this place. I miss home so much. I miss my father.”
Invisible hands tugged her ear, and Koyee tightened her lips.
“Yes, Eelani, you’re right. We can’t despair. Despair leads to hopelessness. Despair worsens every hardship. It’s a pit we would never escape. We will fight on.” She raised her chin. “We will not abandon our home or our lives.”
She kept walking, passing through a cobbled square where elders sat at stone tables, playing xin, a game of seashells and bones. The Library of Pahmey rose to her north, its columns forged of crystal, its steps carved of marble. Its dome gleamed as the moon emerged from the clouds. As Koyee walked by, several women exited the library, walked down the stairs toward the square, then froze when they saw her. They wore fine fabrics, the green and blue silk embroidered with golden wings, and glowing jewels filled with the lights of lanternfish. Staring at Koyee, their faces twisted in disgust, and one pinched her nose shut.
Koyee wanted to shout, to scold them, to hurl insults their way. But she felt too ashamed. She caught her reflection in a crystal column: a half-starved thing, limbs stick-thin, hair bedraggled, her face scarred and twisted. A lump filled her throat.
“Is this who we are, Eelani?” she whispered. “A creature?”
She turned away, eyes stinging, and walked on. She wondered if she was going mad. She wondered if Eelani even existed, or whether the invisible friend was only the product of insanity, a figment of a crazy beggar’s fever.
A few streets away from the library, Koyee found a little cobbled square; it was barely larger than her missing boat’s deck. A bronze statue of a bird stood here, its beak holding a sign that read: “Bluefeather Corner.”
Behind the sign stood the square’s namesake: a corral of bluefeathers. Each taller than Koyee, the wingless birds stood chained to posts, tilting their heads. Their eyes blinked, purple eyelids clacking like metal shutters, and their beaks opened as Koyee approached, as if they were hoping for treats. Saddles topped their backs, woven of leather and tin, hourglasses affixed to the horns. The birds’ owner sat upon a pedestal, looking bored, an empty mug in his hand.
Koyee looked around the square. She saw only a few other people. One man stood outside a seashell shop, sweeping his patio. A fortune teller sat upon a stone chest, sound asleep, his eyebrows and mustache fluttering with every snore. A tavern nestled into the shadows, its awning displaying the words “The Fat Philosopher”; a fat man stood sweeping outside, looking more like a cook than a sage. A woman walked toward the corral with her daughter, paid a few coins, and rented a bluefeather, promising to return the bird once its hourglass ran out.
“This is as good a place as we’ll find,” Koyee said. “Bluefeather Corner—our stage.”
She positioned herself between the corral, the seashell shop, and the fortune teller. She cleared her throat, dusted off her flute, and began to play.
Her fingers were weak and breathing hurt her throat, but she kept playing. As her notes flowed, she thought back to her friend Maniko, the little man with the large beard. Make me proud, Koyee, he had said. And so she played as best she could, though her eyes stung and her notes trembled. She played the song he’d taught her—”Sailing Alone”, an old tune she could imagine had been written for her. She had sailed alone to this city, and still she sailed alone through the seas of her loss and fear.
I will make you proud, Maniko. I will make you proud, my father. I am not a filthy creature. I am Koyee Mai of Oshy, the daughter of a warrior. I will live.
An elderly couple walked by, carrying baskets of dried fish. The husband smiled at Koyee, reached into his pocket, and tossed her a copper coin.
Hope leaped in Koyee’s chest. She had earned a coin! A true piece of copper without stealing! She almost stopped playing with joy, and tears filled her eyes. She nodded and played on.
She played for a long time.
Few people walked across the square, and most did not spare her a glance, but some did toss coins her way. When the woman and her daughter returned with the bluefeather, they listened for a while, then gave her a coin each.
When Koyee finally finished playing, a smile trembling on her lips, she had fourteen copper pieces.
It was more money than she’d ever owned.
Delicately, she placed the bone flute into her pocket; it was now her most precious possession.
“We’ll have to save this money,” she said to Eelani. “We can only buy a humble meal for now, then rest and come back and play some more.”
She stepped toward The Fat Philosopher, the rickety tavern. It was too poor an establishment for glass bricks; its walls were humble clay. But Koyee wasn’t picky, not after so many meals scrounged from trash. She brushed her tunic, raised her head, and stepped inside.
A shadowy chamber awaited her. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, their tin shaped as fat, smiling faces. Skewers of sea urchins, spiders, and mushrooms lay upon a counter. Five bone tables stood here, only one empty; diners sat at the others, eating from clay bowls. Dust and grime covered the floor, but the scents of delicious foods rose from the kitchen. Koyee’s mouth watered and her belly growled like a cornered wolf.
“Remember, Eelani,” she said, sitting down at the empty table. “Only a few nibbles. We have to save our money.”
The corpulent cook greeted her, clad in green silks, and bowed his head. His cheeks were plump and pink.
Oh, to the sunlight with frugality, Koyee thought.
She slammed all fourteen coins onto the tabletop.
“I want the best meal this can buy and a bed for a turn,” she said. “I want to spend every last one of these coins, so make this a feast.”
She could swear she felt Eelani sigh against her cheek. Koyee only smiled tremulously.
The cook took her money and soon returned with a tray laden with food. Slices of roast fowl steamed in a lacquerware bowl, doused in gravy and topped with spiced milkcaps. Fried lanternfish filled a second bowl, and steamed clams filled a third. Wine glimmered in a pewter mug, a golden liquid from fermented matsutake mushrooms.
“Will this be to your liking, young mistress?” asked the cook.
Her mouth watered so much she could barely reply.
“Yes,” she whispered, nearly fainting. “Yes, this will be fine.”
She surrendered to the food.
Her eyes rolled back with the first bite.
It was heavenly. It was the best thing she had ever eaten. Her entire body shook as the energy flowed through her, filling her with warmth and nourishment and healing. The roast meat melted in her mouth, flavored with sliced truffles. The dried fish crunched. The wine swirled and fizzed. She had needed this so badly that tears filled her eyes.
After her meal the cook showed her upstairs, where Koyee found a warm bed topped with fur blankets. After sleeping for two moons in graveyards and alleys, this humble mattress felt better than the bed of an emperor.
For the first time since arriving in Pahmey, Koyee slept soundly. She slept for what felt like two hourglass turns.
Fed and rested and feeling better than she had since her father’s death, she returned to Bluefeather Corner. She placed the flute between her lips and played some more.
Her notes floated
through the night air.
Silks swaying, the people of Pahmey walked back and forth.
Coins gleamed in the moonlight at Koyee’s feet. She played on.
I will see my home again, she swore as she played. She closed her eyes and let her soul float with the music. On its wings, she could imagine that she was back home, back in Oshy with her father and brother. She played a song of moonlight on the great plains, a song of stars reflected in the river, a song of family and childhood. It was no longer the song Maniko had taught her. Here in the dark, eyes closed and hair billowing in the wind, she played the song of Koyee Mai—a song of a girl far from her village, a woman alone in the dark, a light that would guide her home.
She did not know how long passed as she played. She learned to guess time by the movements around her: the stars that wheeled above, the moon that spun, and the coming and going of bluefeathers from their corral. She had eleven copper coins before she lowered her flute.
When she returned to the Fat Philosopher and sat at her table, she gave the cook only one coin.
“I need no bed this night,” she said. “I need only what food this can buy me.”
She ate only mushroom stew that visit, and it left her still hungry, but she would not spend more.
“I know you’re hungry, but we need to save our money, Eelani,” she admonished her friend. “If we save enough, we can buy a warm cloak, sturdy boots, a fishing rod, and enough food to last the moon’s walk back home.”
As she left the tavern, she reached into her pocket and felt her ten remaining coins. They were not just money; they were a step to Oshy.
She slept in an alley beneath a refuse bin, trying to ignore the cockroaches she heard squeaking in the dark. She arose shivering in the cold, wet with rain and covered in mud, but light filled her heart. She had ten coins. Hope lived within her.
She returned to her corner and she played some more.
Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels Page 16
