by M. A. Ray
“Sure you are. Are you even growing a beard yet? Listen, why don’t you go over by the little kids? This doesn’t concern you anyway.”
“I’m standing,” he bit off. “I’m seventeen.” Not that it’s any of your business.
“They shouldn’t let anyone stand who hasn’t done their six,” Arkady said again.
“If Vandis wanted me to wait, I’d wait! He asked me to stand. They need us to take the Oath. We need more Knights.”
“See?” Tony pointed at him; Dingus’s face burned. “See what I mean? Doesn’t matter how long you been in, if you get it. Forty-eight people I knew have not shown up yet, but you know what? I’m getting my leaf. I’m getting it even if Adeon pulls my name for the Practical exam—even if Vandis pulls my name,” he finished, with a shudder the other kids echoed.
“Is Vandis tough?” Dingus asked, hoping to get an idea of how he might do.
“Hui said he was a nightmare,” said Francine. “He got Vandis his first try. He flunked. Bad.”
“I hope he pulls my name,” Arkady said, a little loudly, to make sure everyone heard.
Tony made a gesture as if giving something to Arkady. “You can have him!” Then he called to a group of younger Squires. “Hey, let’s have some drinks over here. It’s tradition, you know.” A few of them, Kessa included, went to the barrels and started pulling mugs.
Arkady forged on. “I’ll bet if he draws me, I catch him. He used to be shit-hot, but he’s getting old. He must be fifty.”
“So what if he is?” Vandis actually was fifty—he’d turned two weeks ago—but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been able to give Dingus the slip for days on end this spring, while they practiced tracking. “Best believe he’s still got it.” They must’ve gone back and forth ten times, him and Vandis, and the only time he’d caught up was a day right after it rained.
“Yeah? What would you know?”
“He’s my Master. I know enough,” Dingus said, his hands pulling into fists.
“Not worth it,” Wallace said, quietly, singsong, while the mugs went around.
Dingus breathed in the smoke and sweat and cider again. Kessa somehow managed to be the one to hand him his drink. “Don’t worry,” she said, close to his ear. “Vandis told me one time he’s never seen anyone as good as you.”
“Thanks,” he said, grinning. Kess was the best sometimes, and the rest of the time she was cool, too. She flashed him the high sign and turned away.
“What’s your name?” Arkady called.
“Kessa,” she said, looking flirtatiously over her shoulder. “What’s yours?”
“Arkady.” He made to follow her, and without even thinking, Dingus stood up from his end of log and put out his arm to block.
“Nuh-uh.”
“She’s your girl?”
Arkady said that in a disbelieving (and extremely unflattering) tone, but Dingus ignored it, shaking his head. “My little sister.”
“Not much of a family resemblance.”
“Just don’t.”
They stared at each other. Arkady was shorter, but not by much, and his arms were thicker than Dingus’s twigs—but that wouldn’t matter, no, not with the party noise fading behind the pulse in his ears and the heat tickling down his spine.
“Who’s going to stop me? You?”
Dingus squeezed his eyes shut. Not now. Not here. He opened them and said, “Yeah.”
Arkady gave another one of those eloquent snorts and pushed past, banging his shoulder into Dingus’s—hard. Dingus reached out, faster than he could think about it, and grabbed Arkady’s arm, yanking him around. Dingus’s fist met up with his face, and he sprawled flat on his back.
The party noise wasn’t background anymore; it was just gone, and when he looked up at the people around the fire, when he looked around the rest of the party, all he saw were strangers’ faces with wide-open eyes and mouths. When he saw Wallace and Francine staring just the same, he felt a little poke of regret. “About fucking time,” said Tony, and Wallace nodded slowly.
“Hey!” someone yelled, and pushed through the crowd. “You can’t do that!”
Dingus didn’t wait for him. He cracked his stinging knuckles, stepped over Arkady’s groaning form, and walked toward Kessa. “Let’s go.”
“Aw, but—”
“Come on.”
“Hey, I’m talking to you!” said a thick-faced boy at his elbow. “You can’t—”
Dingus wheeled on him. “I just did.”
He went for it, of course he did. They always did. Dingus knocked his fist out of the way and put a knee in his gut. He gasped and folded.
It’s easy, Dingus thought, watching him slip to the ground. Surprised him how easy, but these guys weren’t real serious; they weren’t out to kill, and he—well, he wasn’t out to kill them neither, but he had killed and he guessed it changed a guy. I’m sick of getting fucked with, he thought, exhausted. It’s easy, hitting back. How come I never did it before? “Anybody else?” he asked, breathing, calm. “Let’s get it over with.”
No takers.
Just as well. Dingus wheeled again and stalked away. “Kessa!” he snapped over his shoulder.
“Sorry, guys,” she said to her friends. She tagged after him when he headed toward the campsite, jogging to catch up. “What is your problem?” she hissed.
In a low voice—they were still close enough to be overheard—he said, “Better not let me catch you hanging around with that guy.”
“I can do whatever I want,” she said airily.
“Oh, sure,” Dingus said. “You can. But ‘can’ and ‘should’ live in two different countries.”
She stopped dead and folded her arms across her breasts. When he turned to look at her, she scowled. “You don’t get to tell me that stuff. If you don’t want—”
“You know what? Fine! You do anything you want, but don’t come crying to me after.”
“I never did. That was all your idea,” she snapped, and stomped back to the party.
Dingus let out a frustrated growl and walked away, or started to. “Hey, Dingus! Wait!” he heard Wallace call, and then Tony dashed out in front and turned a gleeful face toward him, hands spread partway out, shaking with excitement.
“Holy shit! Dingus—that was awesome!”
He blinked. “It was?”
“Hell yeah!”
Wallace came up a little bit past, turning the three of them into points on a triangle. “Wasn’t it just!”
Tony laughed and jumped up and down, a foot at least, throwing a sloppy haymaker in the air. “Bam! Like that. Oh man, I’ve wanted to paste him one for years!”
“Well,” Dingus said slowly, “wasn’t quite like that. More like—” He demonstrated what he’d done, a quick punch that snapped from the hip and right back again, the way Grandma and later Vandis had shown him.
“Damn!” Tony said. “Damn! You’re so fucking fast, man! You’re a hero, is what you are! You know how many guys he’s messed with? Him and Bruno. My first year…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“Held him down and farted on his face, they did,” Wallace said. “They went for him all the time. Mind, I’m bigger, but that didn’t stop them much. Fatty Walleye, that’s me, or just Fatty, even though I’m not so fat as I was.”
“And I’m Squirrel Nuts.” Tony made a face. “I mean, okay, I know I’m kinda squirrelly, but come on.”
Dingus thought again, for a long, long moment, and then he broke into a smile. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Thingus,” he said. “I’m Thingus.”
Freaky
Fort Rule, Section One: Special Units
“From the hip, Eddie,” Krakus said. “That’s how you get your weight into it. Watch my side.” He hefted the axe he’d snagged out of the armory and gave it a wicked sidewise hack at around neck height, slightly exaggerating the snap in his hip, then followed through, adding, “And on the backswing. Watch again.” He repeated the motions three more times, swing and bac
kswing. Then he laid down his axe, tucked the crushed-fairy ring in his breeches pocket, and said, “Now, you try.” He circled behind Eddie Jablonsky and put his hands on either side of the massive boy’s back.
Eddie looked down over his shoulder, his brown cow’s eyes huge and liquid. “I’ll hurt you.”
“If you do, it’s on me,” Krakus said. “Go on.”
Eddie swung, followed through.
“Try again. Less in the shoulder, more from the hip.” They worked on it for half an hour, under the beating near-Longday sun, before Krakus felt just the right shifting of muscle in Eddie’s torso. “Just like that!” he crowed. “You feel that?”
“I felt it!” Eddie said, beaming. “That’s how it’s supposed to feel, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.” Krakus beamed, too. “Do it a few more times for me, I want to make sure you’ve got it.”
Eddie did it beautifully five times in a row. By now sweat lathered his bull’s hide, and Krakus told him to go take a water break, and then come back and try it on a few of the dummies. Krakus needed water himself, and while Eddie sucked down half a barrel, he got a bucket and filled it from the well. After he’d drunk his fill he stripped off his tunic and poured the rest over his head. When he looked down at himself he grinned at the muscles that were starting to reappear on his body. Okay, the belly hadn’t completely disappeared, not enough to see his abdominals yet, and his chest hair was grayer than not, but he had pectorals again, instead of floppy man breasts.
He enjoyed working with Eddie and the others here. They were doing him a world of good, and he’d like to think he was doing some for them, too. He turned to see Eddie looking his way, that gigantic axe in hand, and flashed the kid a thumbs-up.
Eddie grinned and squared off against one of the training dummies. He swung, just right, and the straw-stuffed head bounced away. Less than a heartbeat later, his backswing crunched into the dummy’s chest, shearing off the top.
Krakus whooped. “Dead as a doornail! Keep it up!” He leaned against the well to watch, relishing the others who stopped to watch, too.
“Hi, Father Krakus,” said a sweet voice at his back, and he couldn’t suppress a smile as big as Eddie’s axe. He turned.
“Hello to you, Miss Nadia.” Bright Lady, she was beautiful, just Krakus’s speed. The knee-length tunic that was part of the women’s uniform couldn’t hide the swaying of ample breasts or the hourglass nip of waist. The loose pants underneath couldn’t cover the perfect swell of ass. The way she moved just … called to him. He hadn’t done anything about it—she was younger, not a child, maybe twenty—decades younger than Krakus, but she made him feel as randy as a seventeen-year-old. The only difference between her and an ordinary girl was that her skin … well, she was blue, her face and hands at least, a deep cerulean, and the red that should have been the inside of her mouth was purple as blueberry stains.
I’ve been missing out all these years, Krakus thought, not for the first time since he’d noticed her noticing him.
“Will you help me, Father Krakus?” she asked, and the purple end of her tongue touched full violet lips.
“Of course, sweetheart,” he said. “Anything you need.”
Her smile glowed, white, white teeth between those lips. “I have to get something out of the storage shed—but it’s just up so high, I can’t reach.”
He smiled again, too, slowly. “Lead the way.”
In the corner of Section One, there was a huge storage shed with a few tiny parchment windows to let in the light, and he followed her inside. She shut the door, closing them into the dim, and pointed to a wooden crate on a top shelf, in the back. Krakus knew his part in this game. He reached up to fetch the crate; he didn’t know what might be in it, or care, and when he turned around, he could’ve written a rhapsody about blue, the vision standing in the weak light from the parchment-covered window was so marvelous.
Dust motes made a soft curtain, swirling around her body: the heavy blue breasts with blueberry-stain nipples, and her hair, Bright Lady, her hair, blue as the dome of the sky on an achingly clear summer midnight, spilling in waves over the healthy glow of her skin. She looked at him almost shyly from under deep blue lashes and rested her hands on her thighs, framing the indigo shadow between her legs.
“Glory be,” Krakus blasphemed in an undertone, and tugged at the lacing that held his breeches up. She smiled.
He knelt down on the dusty floor and worshipped. She didn’t taste of blueberries, but disappointment was about the farthest thing from his mind, and when her knees went to jam, he eased the sky beneath him and made it last. He left a milky star trail across her breasts and sat back, reluctantly, on his heels, stroking the warm firmament of her belly while she lay loose and sighing.
“You were amazing,” she murmured.
“You say that to everyone.” She wasn’t a virgin, hadn’t been one. A girl like this in a compound filled with soldiers … wouldn’t be, especially since she’d probably been here at least as long as Krakus had.
“Pretty much,” she admitted, “but this time, I mean it.” She cast around for something to wipe off her chest, and her legs opened, showing purple. “Could we do it again soon?”
Krakus looked down at his lap, then back at her. “How about now?” The door didn’t lock from the inside, but he didn’t worry about getting caught, not really. Being one of the Heads had its benefits. He hadn’t dipped into Lech’s pet project before now, but he didn’t care anymore what Lech knew or thought.
She pushed up to her knees, smiling her stellar smile, and threw her arms around his neck. Her flesh pressed against his from shoulder to knee, and her mouth sealed over his.
Some days, it was damn good to be Krakus.
Long Day
Knightsvalley
Vandis woke, as dawn stained the sky above the trees, to the smell of morning and of coffee; to the song of birds and the crackling of sausages in the pan; to Dingus’s muttering. Vandis frowned at that before he realized Dingus was hashing out a story under his breath, backtracking, tweaking words. An amused smile worked across Vandis’s face. “ … Oda was very jealous … no, Oda envied the Queen of Heaven, and He put Himself between … no, dammit, I don’t like that, blocked, blotted out … ”
“Morning,” Vandis said, sitting up.
“Coffee’s ready,” Dingus said, holding a mug in his own hands. He took a sip and went back to his barefoot pacing. “He put Himself—He sneaked, yeah, one day He sneaked in between Naheel and the world, slow, so at first She didn’t notice Him blotting out Her light…yeah…”
“Slowly.”
“Huh?”
“Not ‘slow’. Slowly.”
“Right, thanks…blocking out Her light?”
Vandis shook his head, smiling again, and rose to fetch himself a cup of coffee. On the way, he prodded Kessa lightly with a toe. “Up.”
She groaned, rolled over, and pulled her blanket over her head.
“Up,” he repeated, nudging her with a bit more force.
“It’s still dark,” she protested, muffled in the blanket.
“No, it isn’t.”
Kessa grumped her way out of her bedroll and shuffled off to the latrine. He got his knife, speared himself a sausage, and ate it against the backdrop of Dingus’s mumbling. Vandis had a full day ahead, and officially opening the Moot that night was the least of what he needed to do. He swilled three cups of powerful coffee, ate two more sausages, and then tugged on his shirt and jerkin. Kessa came back while he was lacing his boots. After she poured her own coffee, she sipped it and grimaced. “I don’t know how you can drink so much of this,” she said.
“Wakes up the blood,” Vandis said, standing to buckle on his belt. “Behave yourself today, hear?”
“Yes, Vandis.”
“If anybody touches you, what do you do?”
Kessa rolled her baby blues, but she grinned over it the way she had every morning since they’d come to Knightsvalley. “Make sure he dr
aws back a stump.”
“Exactly right,” he said, adjusting his jerkin a little so it didn’t bunch up under his belt. He patted her shoulder. “Dingus.”
“Hmm.”
“Socialize.”
“Uh-huh,” Dingus said, in that teenager way of his: I’m busy and I’ll say yes to make you go away, but I’m not going to do it.
“If you don’t,” Vandis told him, “I’ll find out.”
“He won’t,” Kessa said sweetly. “Nobody wants to be around him anyway, he was such a jerk last night.” Dingus stopped pacing to glare daggers at her.
Well, Vandis thought, glad I’m leaving. “See you guys tonight. Dusk, down at the beach. Don’t forget.” He met Wally on the way out, holding hands with a girl—Pearl’s Squire, he remembered, Francine or something. Tony Scalietti trailed them, wearing the loudest patterned jerkin Vandis had seen since Santo was a kid.
“Good morning, Vandis,” Francine said, and the boys nodded and echoed her.
“Looking for Dingus?” he asked, secretly pleased.
Tony said, “Yeah, he up yet?”
“He never sleeps past dawn.”
Francine said, “Thanks, Vandis,” and the kids moved past him into the pine copse that hid Vandis’s favorite campsite. He made sure he got it every year; he preferred the privacy.
He walked through the forest until he came to a spot where he could see the sky through the treetops, bounced on his toes a couple of times, and jumped into the air. After almost thirty years, the transition from leap to flight felt as easy and natural as breathing. By now he simply assumed he’d fly. It hadn’t been that easy the first few dozen times, and never mind the landings he’d had back then, but now the air shaped itself around him like his favorite jerkin and streamed out behind, propelling him along. Vandis shot above the trees. As he dipped lower to fly over the lake, Beautiful day, he said to Her.
That it is! Are you ready to open Moot, then?
Ready and waiting. Damn, but it’s always good to be back here. His face ached with a smile when he zipped close to the water, close enough to raise a wake.
It’s certainly a wonderful place, My own. Better, if you don’t mind My saying, since you’ve had it in your charge.
