The Moon Rogue

by L M R Clarke

  Blackness shadowed Rel’s face. “We’re to travel with the troops as the healers’ contingent,” she continued. “I will make my decision on who will stay and who will go today. Those who’ll come with me, we leave tomorrow at dawn.”

  Emmy, Yarim, and Asri fell silent, the reality of the next morning weighing upon them. No one spoke, as if to utter any words would be to condemn them to join the fighting. Emmy pressed her claws into the palms of her hands. She should have known by now that nothing ever worked out the way she wanted it to. She gave Rel a fearful glance, not daring to ask the question that was on her lips. What would happen to their plan now?

  Do not fret.

  Emmy started at the words, once more so clear—yet no one had opened their mouth. Medicine-Yarim, mistaking her jump for fear, smirked and prodded Emmy’s back. “Maybe you should take Medicine-Emmy,” she said. “The experience might toughen her up.”

  “And the experience might clip your arrogance,” Rel snapped back.

  Medicine-Yarim blanched and retracted her hand immediately. “I did not mean offense, Medicine-Rel.”

  “But you did,” Rel continued, “and that’s part of your problem. I will make my decisions based on what I feel is best, not what you think should happen. Now, all of you,” she said, gesturing beyond the curtain to the rows of patients, “get back to work.”

  Slowly, the healers shuffled out, their legs leaden and their hearts even more so. As she went to follow the others, Emmy was pulled back by Rel. Waiting until Yarim and Asri were far enough away, the older healer gave a grim smile.

  “Don’t worry, Emmy,” she said. “We can continue with our plans. In fact, this might be of benefit. I’m going to choose you as one of my companions, but the reasoning is this: you’ll need to get armor, and that can only be good for us. We’ll still leave this evening. We’ll simply be more prepared, and our disappearance will be more believable. With the Masvam threat increasing, we’ll be assumed to be dead.”

  Emmy dropped her voice to a whisper.

  “And what if we do come across Masvams, Rel?” she asked. “The closest to a soldier among us is Charo, and she’s only had a little training. Zecha’s good with a bow, but he doesn’t have one, and he’s still healing. And I can’t fight,” she continued, her tone becoming strained with self-depreciation. “What happened back in Bellim proved that. Not to mention our training with the ohza.”

  Rel grinned in a way that made Emmy’s neck scales rise. Didn’t she realize how dangerous this was?

  “Then,” Rel said, “it’s even more important that you get armor.” She pulled the curtain all the way back, allowing light to spill in from the main room.

  “Go and get fitted for armor, Medicine-Emmy,” she said sternly, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. Only Emmy could see the slight upturn at the edge of her lips. “Perhaps Medicine-Yarim is right. A little battle will do you good.”

  In different places across the room, Zecha and Charo popped up like shrooms. Zecha’s eyes narrowed, whereas Charo’s widened. Emmy shrugged.

  “I’ll tell you later,” she mouthed, although their continued confusion suggested they didn’t understand.

  As she walked towards the door, Medicine-Yarim paused before she drew her curtain and shot Emmy a vicious glare. Though rage flared inside, Emmy chose not to respond. Instead, she stepped out into the dim morning light.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist, though it wasn’t cold, and glanced up. Gargons fluttered overhead, carrying messages from one unit to another. On the ground, soldiers carried stacks of supplies, led huge vaemar steeds, or loaded carts. Messengers scurried to and fro in the growing dawn, flitting like shadows. One young messenger was fond of vaulting the barrels being rolled around. Whatever was in them was heavy, for each was pushed by two soldiers. When one broke open, the messenger skidded on its contents, which put an end to his jumping. The tongue-lashing he received was severe.

  The barrels were full of sand, though why they were rolling them around, Emmy couldn’t fathom. But when one of the females plucked a gleaming weave from the barrel wreck, she understood. They were cleaning chain mail. That explains why the barrels are coming from the armory.

  The armory was where Emmy was going. It was a wooden structure, full to bursting, the crowd barely kept in check by mounted guards. Soldier-slaves were herded forward like animals to receive their battle garments. Emmy joined the crush, examining the piles the soldiers left with. Mail. Shields. Scrappy leather armor. None of it looked particularly protective.

  Jostled with increasing frequency, Emmy’s temper flared. Between the shoving and the stink of barely-washed bodies, the desire to cleave an inconsiderate head from someone’s shoulders was high, if unlikely. As she was shoved forward and wedged between two burly Metakalans, she gritted her teeth. For once, she wished she’d learned to fight.

  Great clangs and crashes sounded from the smithy nearby. The heat was tremendous, even from a distance. The temperature made the stench even more unbearable. As she was jerked to the side again, Emmy wished that Rel was with her. The other soldiers would have given her a comfortable berth if she was flanked by the respected Medicine-Rel.

  As the days had passed, Emmy reflected more on Rel and the kindness she had shown. The last thing she’d expected was to find a friend in the Althemerian camp, but that was exactly what Rel was becoming. Not only a friend, but she was also kin of a kind—the only other folk of Uloni blood Emmy had ever found. That and their plan for escape made the ordeal in the armory more bearable. At least they were actually escaping, not walking into the jaws of battle.

  The line crept forward. The armorers’ craggy faces became clear. They were battle-worn females and bore thick scars on their faces and arms—or arm, in the case of the brutal-looking one whose left appendage had been cut off above the elbow. They all sweated, the air thick with the stench and their swearing.

  When she reached the front, Emmy came face-to-face with the one-armed armorer. Her dark eyes looked Emmy up and down, her lips curling. Then she turned, rummaging in racks of blue leather tunics with her one hand. When she turned again, she threw one into Emmy’s hands.

  “Put it on,” the armorer grunted.

  Emmy struggled to pull it over her head. The smell of stale leather and old blood invaded her nostrils. The one-armed female jerked the hem down, and Emmy’s head popped through the neck hole. The armorer spun her around to get a better look.

  “It’ll do,” she grunted. “It ain’t like you’ll survive too long for it to matter none.”

  “I’m a healer,” Emmy blurted out. “I won’t be fighting.”

  “Won’t you?” the armorer said. She turned and rummaged in a rack, returning with a tattered red sash. She thrust it into Emmy’s claws. “That goes over the left shoulder,” she said. “Marks you as a healer. And don’t think that means you’ll be safe,” she said with a grunt. “The Masvams love killing healers.”

  With that, the armorer began to laugh. The sound grated in Emmy’s ears as she stumbled out of the armory.

  She didn’t look back as she crossed the compound. The leather armor was as heavy as a bag of boulders, and the one-armed female’s laughter echoed after her.

  Nothing seemed real. Blood rushed to Emmy’s head faster and faster until it was all that she could hear. Please let me wake up and be rid of this terrible nightmare. Let me go back to Krodge. Let me go back to what I know. She knew it couldn’t happen. Bellim was nothing more than a distant memory, Krodge a character in a story she had half-forgotten.

  When she lumbered back to the safety of the healers’ building, she disappeared behind her curtain and fell onto her cot. Dread pooled in her feet, but the sight of Rel through a crack in the material shield bolstered her nerve.

  They would escape. They would be safe. They had to.

  Emmy swallowed against the lump in her throat and squeezed her claws ever-tighter around her armor.

  She had to hope. She had no choice.
r />   CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Emmy

  Emmy sat astride her vaemar, waiting in the moonlight. She petted the beast’s mane and patted his strong neck through his thick golden fur. The huge feline shifted and whined, pawing the dusty ground. It was as if he could sense the tension within her. The moons loomed high above them, which did nothing for her nerves. Their light bathed the whole encampment in pearlescence, gilding Emmy’s fear along with the twined serpents on her blue leather surcoat. Dato was low, hanging just above her head. We are but small things, she thought as she rubbed circles on the vaemar’s neck.

  She turned and looked for her companions, but they hadn’t yet emerged. Charo and Zecha were dressing in their armor and mail, and Rel was gathering as much as she could into as small a saddlebag as possible. The more normal they looked, the more easily they’d fool the guards. That meant no huge bags of supplies. Thus, Rel had walked her own vaemar to the rear of the building, for ease of sneaking as much onto it as possible. Only Emmy was ready and waiting, with daggers borrowed from Rel at her waist, trying to settle her mount.

  Her mind went back to Krodge’s vaemar, Zesi, from many cycles before. Emmy had loved spending time with the gentle and formidable beast, often curling against her soft black belly, escaping from the knives of the outside world. When Zesi died, Emmy was still ungendered. In her youthful innocence, she’d decided she would never love again. Her heart was utterly broken when they sent Zesi away to be burned.

  This beast—Skitter, Rel had called him—didn’t share Zesi’s doe-eyed calm. He tottered on uncertain paws. It was strange for the creature to behave this way, for vaemar were prized for their calm nobility and their steely nerves. Perhaps it was her nervousness that seeped into him, or perhaps he could tell that something was wrong.

  “Shh, now, shh,” Emmy cooed. She couldn’t muster up the love she had for Zesi, but cruelty would do nothing to calm this beast.

  “I’m afraid that vaemar is named well,” Rel said as she padded to Emmy’s side. She rode a muscular, short-coated vaemar, whose fur was dark as the night sky. “His name is Skitter and, as you can tell, he’s a nervous sort. But you’ll manage. There’s a lot to be said for a kind word and a gentle hand.”

  Emmy nodded. The vaemar whimpered a little more, but as Emmy petted and cooed, he settled.

  “The vaemarhands say Skitter cannot be ridden and cannot pull a cart,” Rel said. “That was why they were so willing to part with him when I asked for two vaemar instead of one for this journey. They’re cruel to him, so he won’t obey. But he can read your heart. He knows you are kindly.”

  Emmy allowed herself a smile as she rubbed Skitter’s neck again and bent to whisper into his ear. “Good boy.”

  When she straightened again, Rel’s penetrating gaze was on her. Emmy tilted her head back. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Despite that healer’s sash, you still look too much a soldier,” Rel said. “Here.”

  She detached a cloakpin. The heart-and-eye glimmered in her palm.

  “Put it on,” she said as she rearranged her now half-loose cloak. “You need the mark of tsimi upon you. The sash is not enough.”

  Emmy wiped the surface of the little badge with the flat of her thumb before she fixed it to her sash, just over her heart. “Thank you.”

  Rel too wore the tsimi emblem and sash over her soldier’s mail shirt and blue tunic. But curiously, her arms were bedecked with hundreds of bracelets, made of many materials Emmy had never seen before. There were leather and cloth ones, and rings of every metal Emmy could name—and more she couldn’t. Rel’s ears were newly dotted with piercings of stone. There was even a stud under her lip Emmy hadn’t seen her wear.

  Seeing her intrigue, Rel gave a gentle smile.

  “I’ve seen many battles,” she said. “I wasn’t always tsimi. When I first came here, the Althemerians called me Bonebreaker. I’ve fought many battles and have saved many lives. I earned each one of these.”

  She shook her wrists. The bracelets clicked and jangled.

  “How do you get them?” Emmy asked.

  “It’s an Althemerian custom,” Rel said. She shook her right arm. “These are for death. These,” she shook the left, “are for life. You earn one for every life you take and every life you save. Some folk stack their bracelets up when they have no call to, but it’s easy to see through their lies. The truth of the bracelets lies in your honor.” She gave a wan smile. “To my shame, on my arms there are more for death than for life, but you’ll see that some others leave their left arms barren.”

  Emmy tentatively reached out to touch the bracelets on Rel’s right arm: her kills. “Couldn’t you leave your right arm bare if it bothers you?”

  Rel shook her head.

  “I don’t think that would be honorable,” she said. “For me, they’re not boasts of my kills, but they’re reminders that I have taken lives. It’s uncomfortable, but I believe that taking a life should never be allowed to be comfortable.”

  She looked at Emmy for a moment. There was a slow upturn of her lips. She removed two metal bracelets from her left arm and passed them to Emmy. “Have these. One for Charo. You saved her all that time ago in Bellim, so you should show it. The second is for Zecha, as you doubtless saved him on the boat.”

  “But they’re yours,” Emmy said.

  Rel pressed the bracelets into Emmy’s hand. “Yes, so I can do what I like with them,” she said. “May your left arm be full and your right empty. I didn’t learn that lesson soon enough.”

  She held up her right arm again. The bracelets clinked and shimmered. She let it drop. As Emmy slipped the metal rings around her left wrist, Rel’s grin returned.

  Emmy looked at Rel, elegant astride the sable-furred vaemar, her long fronds glistening in the moons’ light. Curiosity bred curiosity, and Emmy ventured another question. “Rel?”

  “Yes, Emmy?”

  “Why are you here? With the Althemerians, I mean. I know you said you were waiting for me, but why here?”

  “Ah,” Rel said, though she didn’t look at Emmy. “That’s a boring story.”

  “Will you tell me?” Emmy asked.

  Rel shrugged, chuckling.

  “I suppose it’ll pass the moments before Charo and Zecha arrive,” she said. “As I said before, Belfon isn’t like Althemer or Metakala or Va Chress, or even the slavers in Valtat. In all those places, the female is the soldier, the ruler. The female is power. In Belfon, things are tipped on their heads. Males have the power—like with the Masvams—and females are permitted little.”

  “Right,” Emmy said.

  “Females are expected to abide and obey and stay at foot of the male.” Rel’s jaw clenched. “But I couldn’t stomach that, so I left, and you know the rest of that story.”

  Emmy nodded. “You said you earned your freedom,” she said, “so why are you still here?”

  Rel blew out her cheeks and shrugged. The moons painted her green fronds silver.

  “I had nowhere to go,” she said. “I can’t go back to Belfon, even though it’s my home. I am ingufu. Evil, because I couldn’t supplicate myself before the males. I don’t belong there. I found a new home with my friend, but now she’s gone. She said I had to stay here, and so I did. And here you are, and here I am.”

  Emmy nodded, regarding Rel with round eyes.

  “I know how it feels to have nowhere to go,” she said. “I don’t want to go back to Metakala. In fact, I don’t know where I want to go. Folk treat me like a demon.” She chanted, singsong: “‘Moon Rogue, Moon Rogue. Go back to your hole and die’.” That’s what they said. Everyone.”

  Rel exhaled a sharp “ha!” and shook her head.

  “Let me tell you about ingufu: ‘Moon Rogue,’ in your words,” she said. “The idea of Moon Rogue, someone forgotten by the goddess, is a fable. It’s a made-up story to scare little younglings into obeying their parents. They say there are demons in the Dark and the Moon Rogue leads them. These d
emons spread their wings across the Arc of the Sky to bring eternal night, and all that their shadows fall upon are doomed to eternal punishment, darkness, never-ending pain—ha!” Rel made a sweeping gesture across the encampment. “What is this, if not evil? Evil comes from folk, not gods. I don’t believe in any kind of Dark. Do you know what the Uloni god Meia does for punishment?”

  Emmy sat up in the saddle. The name of her folk sent her heart fluttering. “What?”

  Rel shook her head, spreading her free hand to the sky. “Nothing,” she said. “Folk bring their own punishment. If you turn from the path of goodness and don’t turn back, you turn from god. You push yourself away. And what could be a worse punishment than being far from god?”

  Rel’s question rang in her mind as Emmy sat back, wondering where Krodge was now—or how close Bose was to his god.

  Finished them off, I did.

  “Will you tell me more about Meia?” Emmy asked.

  Rel inclined her head. The green of her eyes was touched with pewter.

  “I will,” she said, “but the best one to ask is Bomsoi. She’ll tell you all you need to know when we see her.”

  “Bomsoi,” Emmy said.

  Rel’s eyes crinkled. “Yes, Bomsoi,” she said. “I miss her very much. I think you’ll like her when you meet.”

  A creak drew their attention. Both Emmy and Rel turned.

  “Ah, they’re finally ready,” Rel said.

  Two soldiers in blue tunics and mail shirts emerged from the healers’ building, gleaming in the paleness of the moons’ light. It was Charo and Zecha.

  Charo’s face was too old under her burnished helm. Zecha looked handsome in his uniform. For a moment Emmy was proud. He had always wanted to wear a uniform and fight. But her pride disappeared as quickly as it came. This was no game. With Masvams on the prowl, they could easily be dead within hours.

  Her vaemar whimpered again, as if reading her thoughts, and Emmy murmured words of comfort into his tall ears.

  “Let’s go,” Rel said, turning her vaemar towards the guards at the gate. “The sooner we leave this place, the better.”