by Robert Brady
“Not when you lie stinking on a battle field with your guts beside you,” Jerod said to her. He shook his head and he stood.
“People like you,” he said, and then pointed at Glynn. “People like her, like the Emperor, they speak lightly of battle and war. But those of us who fight it, whose taxes pay for it, whose blood pays for it—to us, there is no difference between winning and victory.”
“But to the gods—” Glynn began.
“And you think you speak for the gods?” Jerod said, cutting her off.
Ill-mannered Man, Glynn couldn’t help thinking, but she held her tongue.
Yes, she thought, I speak for the gods, but no, you could not understand it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Raven said, pressing on. “We have to decide what that means, victory and winning. We have to find these other weapons, this devil, born and raised; this one who eludes prying eyes, and the one who fights like the sun.”
Jerod shook his head. “I don’t have to do anything,” he said. “I think you’re all fools, and I don’t see why I should leave with you.”
“Nor I,” Xinto said. Glynn was surprised—she thought she had an ally with that one. “I’m sorry, but if the Emperor wants a war, he’ll have it, and I say, ‘Why fight, if we can’t win it?’”
“Gentles,” Glynn said, “you cannot defy a prophecy from the gods.”
Jerod just smiled. “Watch me,” he said.
Chapter Twenty:
One Who Eludes Prying Eyes
The sun rose up warm and inviting over the plains. The pink light touched Raven’s face, too weak to warm her in the cold morning air, as she stretched and smiled in the uncomfortable bed.
Bed: uncomfortable. Man: very comfortable. She’d let herself pretend Jack was a barbarian Volkhydran, and inspired him to ravage her, whispering into his ear how he’d fought like a hero and had vanquished the younger man.
Her behind still stung from his slapping it, her hips throbbed dully from his weight. Not just her hips, she thought, smiling to herself. Knowing he would sleep for at least another hour, she slipped silently out of bed and padded naked across the cold wood floor.
The room had a little heater, but they hadn’t used it. She slept better in the cold. She found her new Andaran clothing, quite a change from her Uman-Chi dress, ruined now by Jack’s sweat stains.
First she donned her black leather harness, essentially a few strips of horsehide that tied behind her neck and held her breasts in place with two diamond-shaped cuttings. Below them it became one wide diamond that traveled down her stomach, narrowing as it passed between her legs, then up her backside like a thong, breaking off once again into two pieces that tied across her belly. She adjusted the front with the excess behind her neck, making it truly a ‘one size fits all’.
Over the halter went a black leather mini, slit up the side. That she liked—in fact, she’d had one like it once upon a time. It came with a long leather duster’s jacket, open in front with narrow lapels, its back with tails running almost to her knees, with three quarter sleeves. It moved with her so it felt light, but kept her warm as well. Finally she put on black, thigh-high, calfskin boots, flat-heeled, rounded in the toes, and a sheath on the inside of the right one for her boot knife. Dressed like this, no wonder an Andaran woman needed a hidden weapon! She tossed her hair over her shoulder and she looked at herself in the room’s one cloudy mirror.
And there stood Raven; the champion, come from earth. She left Jack to his dreams, his beard flat from sleeping on it and wet from his drooling, and slipped out of their one door like a soft breeze.
She’d been given a room on the hostel’s second floor. She clunked down the narrow set of hardwood stairs to the common room, where the good smell of roast meat mingled with the sour smells of ale and old milk. She’d never been one for breakfast, although she’d found herself eating it here. This was one of those times when she’d really have gone for a cig.
No one had come down to eat yet, so she didn’t stay in the common room. She didn’t want to eat alone, and she didn’t feel that hungry yet. She had work waiting for her in the stable.
She swept out the door into the compound, her jacket billowing out behind her. The Toorians camped now on the edge of the hostel’s compound, wrapped in their robes around the smoldering remains of their night fire where the ribcage of some animal still hung spitted.
The tub they had enjoyed stood empty, tiny ripples running in the morning breeze across its black surface. She flirted with the idea of a quick bath, but discarded it. She didn’t want to be surprised by drooling men with an eye for her naked body, and she didn’t want to see ‘Jack’ in another fight so soon.
It had left him sore, she thought, as she walked to the barn. The boots had her taking long steps, her back straight, her bust out. As much as he had done a good job with her the night before, she could see the pain on his face, felt the hesitancy in his muscles, seen the bruises on his stomach and his groin. She smiled to herself that she had let him spank her, first tentatively and, as he decided she liked it, with more authority.
It got her juices flowing just to think about it now.
She tugged the barn door open and found the horses munching on their morning hay. Glynn had mentioned that they’d likely be fed early for those who planned to leave with the rising sun.
She stepped into the barn, dust hung in motes suspended in the air. A huge pile of hay sat rounded at the top to her left, stalls lined the right. Tack hung from pegs on the left wall past the hay.
Something wriggled in the hay stack. She stepped back from it, fearing rats, but received a bigger surprise when an actual lizard emerged before her.
The lizard was as big as a man; green skinned with long, black claws, a small ridge running down its back, a flat saurian snout and yellow eyes with black slits looking up at her, its tail whipping to the left and right.
She took a step back and saw it clutched a spear made of bone in its right claw between webbed fingers. All of a sudden it rose up before her on its hind legs, facing her and revealing a white, scalloped belly.
It stood a little taller than she. Its nostrils had scales which opened and closed when it breathed. Teeth like an alligator’s protruded from under thin, black lips.
“Ray—en,” it hissed at her, and approached without being asked.
This had to be her ‘almost there,’ the thing she felt had been following her since Galnesh Eldador. She’d caught a glimpse of it in the bay when she’d stepped off of The Bitch of Eldador. She recognized it now.
“That’s right,” she said, as if to a child. “I’m Raven. Do you have a name?”
She spoke in Uman and it didn’t respond. She tried again in the language of Men.
“Slurn,” it hissed at her. He tapped his scalloped breast. “Slurn.”
Raven nodded. Her heart was bounding in her chest. This thing could tear her apart with those claws or spit her on that spear. She couldn’t imagine what it wanted.
“Are you hungry, Slurn?” she asked him. He looked at all of the horses, then back at her.
“Eat,” it hissed.
“Oh, don’t eat the horses!” she insisted. “I will bring you—um—meat. You want meat?”
“Hish,” it said, and tried again. “F—f—f—ish.”
“I’ll try, Slurn,” she offered. “You stay hidden, I’ll be back.”
“Ray—en,” it hissed, and walked back to a pile of hay. It slithered into it, and disappeared as if it had never been there.
‘One who eludes prying eyes,’ she reminded herself. Her horse bobbed its head, skittish from being close to him. Little Storm stood stock still in the next stall. She left the barn and closed the door behind her.
Time to call for backup.
* * *
Jerod took the same place he had taken the night before, in the hostel’s common room, and called for meat, bread and ale from the Uman servants.
He liked the spot. No one could get behind hi
m. He could see the one exit without putting his back to the stairs, and the common boards and seats around them made an obstacle for any attackers.
He’d lost a fight before, but it hurt him a lot to lose the one last night. He looked into the wooden bowl of ale in front of him before he drank it. That gaffer had a fist like a hammer, and a belly so fat that Jerod couldn’t punch through it. If he’d been thinking, Jerod would have danced around more and made the gaffer chase him before engaging. At the end of the fight he left the old man panting, and Jerod on his back, but he could still have gone for more.
“You look angry,” Jack said, approaching him.
He hadn’t noticed the big Man and hadn’t heard him walking down the stairs. That made Jerod cranky. A man that large shouldn’t move that quietly, and no one should get that close to Jerod the Bold and not alert him.
“Sit,” he said.
The gaffer sat. He had to move the stool back from the board to accommodate his belly. He had a half-smile showing through his beard, so he wanted to pretend that last night hadn’t happened.
Jerod could play that game.
“Is that good?” Jack asked him.
He looked at his meal. “No,” he said. Stabbing his meat with a hunting knife. “And if you are going to complain about it, sit somewhere I can’t hear you.”
The gaffer smiled even broader. “I just wanted to know if I should try the oats.”
“Uck,” Jerod shuddered. “No way for a man to start his day.”
“You don’t like oats?”
Jerod stuffed a wad of meat into his mouth so he didn’t have to answer. He had the bread right there as well if he needed to stall the answer further. He didn’t like to talk in the morning and even if he had to, he wasn’t in the mood to play nice with the man who had just bested him, after insulting him to his core.
As if to rescue him, the gaffer’s woman walked in the front door to the hostel—another one who had gotten past him.
She dressed like an Andaran woman on a raid. Riding boots fit for scrub, skirt slit up the side for riding, raider’s coat cut long in back for the warmth, open in front so she could shed it if she had to, tight on her arms so it moved with her. All she lacked was a bow.
She stomped in, making too much noise with her boots, and smiled when she saw them. She cuddled up to Jack and nuzzled his ear in greetings.
“I thought you would still be asleep,” she told him.
“Bed got cold,” he told her. She hooked a stool with the toe of her boot and dragged it next to him. Sitting on it, she looked for the Uman servants.
“No caw-fee,” she commented. He didn’t know the word.
“No,” the gaffer said. “Ale, though. And milk.”
“Have milk,” she said. Jerod swallowed and shook his head.
“You do what she tells you?” he asked the gaffer seriously.
The old man bristled. He liked that better. He looked Jerod straight in the eye and said, “She didn’t tell me to beat you last night.”
“You want to try and do it again?”
“I could work up an appetite,” the gaffer warned him, which probably meant yes.
Jerod put his hands on the board to stand, the old man with him, and Jahunga’s spear inserted itself between them.
He hadn’t thrown it—that would have gotten them all kicked out. He held on to it, and laid it down on the board. He meant to get their attention, and he had. That meant that another person who had gotten too close to Jerod without him noticing.
He could forgive himself the Toorian—they moved like cats. Jahunga had a ready smile and already wore his robe and sandals. His wooly hair, still matted from sleeping, said he’d just gotten up.
“You two complain like old men at a fire,” he told them, keeping the point of his spear on the board as he circled to sit next to Jerod. “And at least one of you has no excuse for it.”
Raven laughed. The Uman staff had already started watching for the fight that might break out, but Jahunga put up his spear and sat next to Jerod. The old man took his hands off the board and settled down, so Jerod let himself relax a little.
Just a little.
“I was just in the barn,” Raven informed them, “and I found something in there.”
“Horses?” Jack asked her. She struck him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. That was more of a Volkhydran response than an Andaran. An Andaran man would have slapped her if she’d done that in front of his friends.
“No, some kind of lizard thing,” she said. “It’s hiding in the hay. It stands up like a man if it wants to, and it called me ‘Raven.’”
Jerod leapt back up onto his feet, Jahunga with him. “A Slee?” he demanded of her. “A Slee is in the barn with the horses?”
“I don’t know what a Slee is,” she said.
“Half of a man, half of a lizard, mouth like a crocodile, webbed fingers and toes?” Jahunga asked.
Raven nodded. Jahunga turned to Jerod.
“We must kill it,” he said. “I will gather my men. There must be more of them—”
“Just the one, Sirrah,” Glynn’s voice trailed down the stairs before her. She entered the room in a faded blue riding dress with little bows on the skirt, cut high for the cold and long in the sleeves. It wasn’t fit to fight in, but she likely had him here for that.
Seeing no room next to Jerod, she pulled a chair up next to Jahunga. No Uman-Chi would sit on a stool. She daintily placed her ass on the chair’s edge and called for clear water, then informed them she had taken breakfast in her rooms.
Raven shot her a dark look. Jerod noted bad blood there. Well, no one liked Uman-Chi, and being around them too long usually put a normal person off. Jerod saw some real animosity here though, and it interested him.
“You knew that thing was following us?” Raven asked her.
Glynn put her nose in the air. Uman-Chi did that, too. She elevated the tip a hair’s breath, and it seem like they soared over you.
“No, dear Raven, I knew that thing was following you, and that you’d seen it debarking from our ship in Galnesh Eldador. I don’t know where it hid when we were in the palace, but it left with us for here from Galnesh Eldador.”
Xinto leapt up onto the stool next to Raven, appearing from nowhere as Scitai will. “In case you’re wondering,” he said, “that thing is a Slee, and it won’t touch the horses.”
Glynn raised an eyebrow at him, and Raven smiled. Jack’s oats arrived with a pitcher of milk. The greasy Uman set another of water between them.
The Scitai looked once around the table. “I heard her rise and followed her to the barn,” he said. “When she left, I spoke with the thing. It was drawn to her, it doesn’t know why, and it’s hungry.
“I feel the same way,” he added.
Jerod stabbed his hunting knife into the board, picked his meat up with his hands, and tore a healthy bite out with his teeth as he sat.
“I can’t be rid of you people soon enough,” Jerod said.
“Nor I, except that I’ll be staying,” Xinto said, and banged on the board with his tiny fist. “Ale, woman! I am sober in the company of Men!”
Jerod called for more meat, and Raven poured milk for her man and herself, calling for melon and oats.
“You changed your mind?” Raven said, looking directly at Xinto.
“I have,” he said, “no thanks to your speech.”
“What swayed you then, Sirrah?” Glynn asked him. Jerod could see the curiosity on her face, beyond the unreadable eyes.
“Last night I looked at a collection of Men in a land ruled by Men, to fight another Man, and I asked myself what a Scitai would be doing in it,” he said.
“This morning I see a Slee in a barn, waiting for a woman,” he continued as an Uman servant girl laid a plate and a mug in front of him.
“If this song has a power to draw Slee out of their swamp, then it speaks of divinity, especially considering this one’s special skill. This is the ‘One who eludes p
rying eyes.’”
“I still don’t know about this common goal,” Jerod said, finishing his meal. “And even when I agreed to meet you, I didn’t agree to travel around with this carnival. That mutual friend of ours spends a lot of resources to know what is going on here, and if he doesn’t know exactly where we are, he will soon.”
“Jerod speaks true,” Jahunga said, stabbing at his meat. “The Emperor’s spies are in every village and hostel in Eldador, Andoran and as far away as my own Toor.”
They sat quiet. Jerod got his second helping of meat and took a long drink of ale. Glynn sipped her water and made a face.
“I think they dipped this in the bath,” she complained.
“I know they did,” Raven added. “You can see the hairs in it.”
Glynn pushed the cup away. Raven couldn’t have possibly seen through the wooden mug’s sides, Jerod thought.
He liked this girl.
“We must create a base of operations for ourselves, where we can further our studies and be safe,” Jahunga said.
Jerod nodded. That made sense to him. “We need to do it outside of Eldador,” he said, “but close enough to watch Eldador.”
Xinto turned to him. “You mean Kor?” he asked.
Jerod nodded again. “Kor is a lawless port city,” he said. “We can hire a ship from there; we can escape to the outer islands if we need to. The Emperor had shown almost no interest in Kor—it’s a good place.”
He shot a glance at Glynn. She hadn’t put forward the idea, so he expected her to oppose it. She was receiving another mug of water from an Uman, and she turned to face the rest of them.
“I concur,” she said, surprising them. “No matter what our needs, I think we’ll find them in the free city.”
“City of pirates, you mean,” Xinto said. “They’d as like to cut our throats as help us, in fact more probably just skip to the throat cutting. Why can’t we go to your nation? I’m well liked in Outpost IX.”
“I’m sure you are, Sirrah,” Glynn said, “however King Angron Aurelias would not like to know that I am estranged from his new ally, the Emperor, and would most likely return us to his mercies.”
