The Mortal Tally

by Sam Sykes

  Sheffu was still talking. Lenk knew this, but he didn’t see a need to listen much. He knew this monologue. It had come out of a hundred mouths of a hundred men who had offered him the same thing a hundred times.

  If only he would pick up his sword one more time. If only he would go on this one last adventure. If only he would kill just this one more time.

  Somehow it always came down to that. The names changed, the foes changed, the promises changed. But the request was always the same, the way was always the same.

  Always blood. Always the sword.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  Mocca’s voice—uncomfortably close—cut Lenk like a blade. For the first time, he dared look at the man in white. Funny; he knew that Mocca was nothing more than air and light, yet in that moment, he looked so very burdened.

  “Listen to him talk.” Mocca gestured to Sheffu, who was now going over some route on the map that Kataria seemed to be paying cursory attention to. “He invents all these vague reasons: instincts, theories, a hand he senses. And he thinks these reasons fit to make a man to throw his life away.”

  He turned to Lenk and, at that moment, his stare was something hard and sharp.

  “Are his promises enough for you?” he asked. “Are you willing to throw your life away for a name?”

  “I have no choice,” Lenk whispered, so softly as to not be heard by anyone else but the man meant to hear him.

  “Then,” Mocca replied, “what life do you have to offer?”

  The wind picked up, carrying the reek of the river that stung Lenk’s eyes. He blinked. When he opened them, Mocca was gone, and he was aware of two pairs of eyes on him, neither of them happy. Though, as usual, Kataria’s glare mustered just a bit more fury.

  “Sorry, what?” he asked.

  “Are you listening to this… this…” Kataria turned her scowl on Sheffu and snorted. “How the hell is anyone supposed to insult you if you won’t show your ugly face, you fucking reptile?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You weren’t listening.” Kataria flung the accusation as she whirled on him. “You weren’t even fucking listening. He’s bringing in a fucking bug and you just sat there and you weren’t even listening.”

  “He is not a bug,” Sheffu protested. “The tribelands between here and the Rhuul Khaas are treacherous, fraught with creatures that have no love for humans. A guide was required to bring you through the shicts and—”

  “I’m a shict,” Kataria snarled. “Am I not good enough to get us through it? Am I a ‘creature’?”

  “Shicts and tulwar,” Sheffu continued over her. “The guide I hired has a solid reputation for successful negotiations with every tribe east of here.”

  “You hired a fucking bug,” Kataria snarled. “You’d take a bug over me.”

  “Who?” Lenk shook his head. “What bug?”

  “A customary pardon is requested.” A voice, a monotone so flat it could have been an iron struck over Lenk’s head, spoke up. “This one is under the impression that the term bug is a slur intended to be derogatory in nature for the race of couthi.”

  The newcomer stood so still, one might have thought him a bunch of laundry strung over a pole, if his robes hadn’t been far too fine. He stood a full head and a half taller than any of those assembled, his black garb falling around him like an inky waterfall. Four sleeves accommodated an equal number of limbs: two with large clawed hands, two smaller ones with finer fingers, all of them folded in a polite pose.

  As strange as that all was, though, it was the couthi’s face—or lack thereof—that drew Lenk’s attention. A hood was drawn up over his head and resting across his face was a portrait of lush, rolling landscapes set in a gold frame. The creature inclined this in greeting.

  “This one offers the requisite overture of pleasure to introduce himself as Man-Khoo Yun,” he said in that unerring monotone. He turned his gaze—if he could, indeed, see from behind that portrait—to Kataria. “Though this one procures adequate offense to risk alienation of a client by noting that he was not informed that a shict would be party to the proceedings.”

  Lenk’s eyes widened in surprise. He looked to Kataria’s hat, covering her ears. “How’d you know she was a shict?”

  “This one notes the unfortunate by-products of a lifetime of war,” Man-Khoo Yun replied, irately as his monotone would allow. “Among them, an instantaneous recognition of one’s traditional foe.”

  “You got something to say, bug,” Kataria snarled, “you say it to me and you use less words.”

  “Forgive me, Man-Khoo Yun,” Sheffu said, stepping forward even as Lenk moved to hold Kataria back. “Your reputation as a negotiator with the shictish tribes is well known. I thought you were acclimated to their presence.”

  “This one notes that negotiation is specifically and definitively dissimilar to association, esteemed client,” Man-Khoo Yun said. “This one would be more inclined toward forgiveness if aforementioned client acknowledged that no acclimation is possible with a race born of perfidy.”

  “What’d I just say, bug?” Kataria growled. “You like big words so much, I’ve got a few for you, you spider-sucking, goat-fucking—”

  “Calm down,” Lenk interrupted.

  “I’ll be plenty calm once I cut him. Shicts and bugs, they—”

  “We don’t have time for this right now,” Lenk hissed, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “And you cutting him isn’t going to make anything easier.”

  She turned on him and the anger ebbed from her eyes. Her mouth hung open wordlessly and something brimmed in her eyes, something wet and glistening with hurt. She snarled, shoved his hand off, pushed past him, and stalked away.

  “This one musters adequate humility to annotate this moment as evidence of shictish instability,” Man-Khoo Yun spoke. “If so desired, this one volunteers a wealth of subsequent anecdotal evidence as to the accusation.”

  “If you would be willing,” Sheffu spoke to the couthi, though glancing at Lenk, “we may be able to renegotiate our contract as to—”

  “She’s coming,” Lenk said.

  Sheffu nodded briefly to Man-Khoo Yun before turning back to Lenk. “Understand,” he whispered, “that this is not a mission that can afford complications. If you desire me to fulfill my end of the bargain and give you a new life…”

  “Any life I have includes her,” Lenk replied simply.

  He turned to go to Kataria, only to feel a hand clamp down on his wrist. He looked down, saw Sheffu’s sleeve peel back to reveal a thin, flexible wrist, as though no bones were beneath the flesh that shimmered with a scalelike texture.

  “There is more to this than just your life,” Sheffu said, his voice punctuated by a serpentine hiss. “So much more.”

  Lenk pulled away, feeling a clammy wetness where the saccarii had clutched him.

  Of course there was more to this than his life. As though he needed reminding, between the war raging to the west and whatever lay to the east.

  Granted, there was something wrong with Sheffu, as there was something wrong with all the race of saccarii. Something that made their bones flexible and turned their tongues pointed and made their limbs shrink back into their bodies. Something that made this quest, however mad, of the utmost importance to them.

  Everyone had problems.

  Lenk’s, at that moment, stood at the edge of the dock.

  Kataria was shivering. Or perhaps just trembling with contained fury. Her eyes were cast down at the river, her hat hung low over her head.

  He took a step toward her. An airy voice brushed against his ear.

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

  An irritating twinge at the back of his neck told him Mocca was right behind him, just as it told him the man—hallucination, whatever—was probably right. But he couldn’t take another six days of this. He couldn’t take another six breaths.

  He had to know.

  “Hey,” he said, approaching her.

 
; She did not reply. She did not even look up. Her eyes were locked upon the river flowing beneath them. He cleared his throat, rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Sorry about that, back there,” he said. Her ears pricked up. Encouraged, he continued. “For not listening to you about the couthi.”

  “Yeah, well,” she sighed, rubbing her eyes. “I guess it’s my fault.”

  Relief fluttered across his face like a moth. And as with a moth, it didn’t take much for her to reach out and crush it between her fingers.

  “My fault for thinking you might be paying attention to something other than yourself.”

  She finally deigned to look at him, and her eyes shook in their sockets. There was wetness there, nearly boiling over with the heat of her scowl. He found himself matching it, his jaw clenching without his even noticing.

  “I said I was sorry,” he said forcefully. “You either take that or you don’t.”

  “What am I going to take, Lenk?” she asked. “All you’re giving me is empty words.”

  “Just what the hell am I supposed to do, then? What the hell did I do? You’ve been bristling since dawn and I haven’t seen you—or anyone—in six days, so forgive me if I’m a little slow but if I fucked up, I’m going to need you to tell me.”

  Something changed in her eyes. A little more wetness. A little less fury. She turned away and he felt a stab in his chest. Something told him it would be a mistake to reach out and touch her.

  It was that pain in his chest that made him do it anyway.

  “Kataria,” he said softly, “what happened?”

  “How long have I been with you?”

  The question came swift as a blow. And as from a blow, he staggered.

  “What?” he asked.

  “How long?”

  “Two years,” he said. “Longer.”

  “Two years.” She stared at him now with eyes hard as stone, bereft of tears. “Two years and you’re still every bit the stupid, round-eared human I threw away everything for. My people, my tribe, my ways… all for two years. And you.”

  Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. Fire burned behind them. Her words came like poison.

  “Six fucking days go by and you suddenly forget who I am?” She approached him, so close he could feel the heat of her breath. “You want me here, I’m here. You need me here, I’m here. But after two years, don’t you ever ask me about something as meager as six days, Farlan.”

  She seemed such a nebulous thing as she turned to stalk away at that moment: a thing of fire and boiling water, shifting and twitching with contained fury. She was hard to hold as he reached out to seize her by the shoulder, hard to even look at.

  So hard, in fact, that he didn’t even notice her elbow. Not until it smashed upward and into his nose.

  The blood flowing from his nose was decidedly less nebulous.

  He watched her stalk away from the docks, villagers scurrying out of her way. His nose ached admirably, trying to distract him from the deeper pain welling up in his chest.

  And failing.

  Still, however numb he was, he was not so desensitized that he couldn’t feel the presence of someone behind him.

  “Don’t,” he said, with a quavering voice. “Don’t fucking say it, all right?”

  “What do you think I’m going to say?”

  That was not Mocca’s voice. He turned around to see a woman standing before him.

  As he was rather embarrassingly used to finding himself the same height as most women, her height struck him. Short, angular, hard: She was like a blade in a black sheath. He would have guessed her to be a warrior of some sort, had it not been for the fine cut of her loose-fitting garb that suggested merchant work.

  Her hair was bundled beneath a broad-brimmed hat, beneath which blue eyes glimmered with a genuine—if stiff—smile.

  “Because if it’s that you shouldn’t have tried to grab her, I think you already got that.” She held out a white cloth to him. “But I’m not going to apologize for thinking you should clean yourself up.”

  He took it without a word and began sopping up the blood. The white cloth quickly turned a dark red, and he absently returned it to the woman. She cringed, took it demurely between two fingers, and promptly dropped it over the edge of the docks.

  “That’s quite a bit,” she said. “She must have been pissed.”

  “Annoyed, maybe, but not pissed,” Lenk replied. “When she’s pissed, she uses teeth.” He coughed. “Sorry.”

  “About the handkerchief? I can afford more.”

  “About you having to see…” He made a vague gesture off in Kataria’s direction. “That.”

  The woman followed his gesture, frowning. “Will she be back?”

  “Eventually.” That word tasted sick with doubt in his mouth. “Before we have to leave, anyway.”

  “And you’re certain being stuck on the river with her will be a good idea?”

  He managed a weak smile—or a strong sneer, it was hard to tell. “Is unwanted advice the price of the handkerchief I ruined? I think I’d rather pay in coin.”

  “You only have to listen to it,” she replied with a smirk. “If you don’t care for it, you can throw it into the river with the handkerchief. But…”

  At her hesitation, he waved her forward. “Go on.”

  “You’re trying to appeal to something that isn’t there. She’s too used to conflict. And you’re too unused to peace.” He must have worn his confusion plainly, for she gestured to his shoulder. “If the way you wear that sword is any indication, anyway.”

  “My sword?” Lenk glanced at the burden on his back, only then remembering he wasn’t supposed to have one. “Oh, no. This isn’t a sword. This is… this…” He cleared his throat. “This is the bundle of sticks I carry around. For reasons.”

  She met his smile with a flat expression. He sighed, adjusted the basket on his back.

  “Look, so long as you’re doing me favors, maybe you can keep that to yourself. I don’t need people knowing about this.”

  “Why? Are you ashamed of it?”

  That question surprised him. Though not quite as much as the answer that tumbled out of his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not what I want to be comfortable wearing, let alone using. The world’s got enough killers without me adding to the pile.”

  “Are you a killer?”

  “I carry a sword, don’t I?”

  “That’s not enough to make you a killer. A sword is merely an extension of a will, not a curse that dictates what you do.”

  “Sure, everyone thinks that at some point,” Lenk replied, suddenly feeling quite tired. “But you carry one of these long enough, you start thinking of it less as a tool or an extension or whatever and more as an answer. And the more you use it, the easier it is to start using that answer for every problem.” He glanced over her clothes. “Look, you look more like you could afford to pay someone to hold this iron for you than use it yourself, so I don’t blame you, but this thing’s a burden.”

  Whatever mirth had creased her face up to that moment was drained in a breath. Her face fell flat, whatever energy it had held now flooding her eyes. Her stare became a blade unto itself, pinning Lenk where he stood.

  “I have seen many swords,” she said softly. “And I have seen too many bodies fall beneath them to believe that they were all equal.”

  Hers was not a harsh voice. Hers was not an imposing figure. Yet there was something in her tone that made Lenk feel a bit colder.

  “What kind of merchant did you say you were?” he asked.

  “I didn’t,” she replied. “But as it happens, I’m taking some rice down the river, past Jalaang and into the east.” She extended a hand to him. “Shuro.”

  He took it; her grip was firm, her palm cold. He cleared his throat.

  “Sandish. Farlan Sandish,” he said. “How far are you taking it?”

  “However far they’ll pay for sixty pounds.
They can’t grow anything out past Jalaang.”

  “Sixty pounds? Won’t that take up too much room on the boat?”

  “Boat?” Her lips curled up in a bemused smile. “You don’t come to the Lyre much, do you, Farlan?”

  He thought to ask, but before he could, the dock started to tremble with hundreds of feet. The children came first, a tide of hip-high squealing waifs charging down the docks to the edge. Laborers followed: fishermen with fish on the line, washerwomen with repaired silks, spice merchants, silk dealers, more than a few people taking care to hide whatever it was they planned to hawk. And at the end came the elders, in no particular rush as they ambled after the crowd and left Lenk, befuddled, behind them all.

  Before he could ask, Shuro took his hand and smiled. “Come on. It’s something of an event here.”

  “What is?”

  She didn’t answer as they found their way to the crowd gathered about the edge of the docks, fighting not to fall in as they leaned over and looked downriver. She glanced around, found a stack of crates suitable for climbing, and led him up it. He tried to follow the excited gaze of the crowd, squinting as the sun rose to cast a glare off the river. But even from here, he could see a distant shadow growing steadily larger as it loomed closer.

  And within the span of ten breaths, he realized that the vantage point wasn’t at all necessary.

  It moved slowly on four legs the size of tree trunks, yet with each titanic stride it took, it cleared ten feet through the water. Its hide was a thick shade of green, glittering as the sunlight danced off the water to kiss its colossal body. A broad head bearing night-deep eyes swung precariously with each step.

  At a glance—and a glance was not nearly enough to take in the vastness of the thing—Lenk would have sworn it was a moving statue hewn of jade and adorned with obsidian eyes. Yet only as it drew ponderously up beside the docks did he realize that there was not enough stone in the world to compose a beast this vast.

  It towered above the dockhouses, tall as three of them stacked atop each other, its massive back adorned with what appeared to be a platform topped by a wooden canopy. From its head, where a mouth should be, eight long green tendrils hung precariously, dipping into the water. It came to a halt, the waves it kicked up sending the docks rattling, and settled on its tremendous limbs with a slow groan.