The Desert Prince

by Peter V. Brett

  It’s not yet dawn when we step off the last greatward and into the wilds of the borderland. There’s no hint of danger, but still a shiver rushes through me. For fifteen summers I’ve done everything I’ve been told. Everything Mother ever wanted. Finally, I am doing something for myself.

  I want to impress Ella, and for once my training helps. Mother taught me to work a gathering, and I am quick to get to know the members of my group: Gyles, Tam, Boni, and Elexis.

  Gyles is shorter than me, with thick brown hair and a charming smile. His armor is worn, with faded wards burned into the leather. Tam is the largest boy on the tour, with thick arms and a barrel chest, but his shirt of metal links is heavy, and he gets out of breath easily. I keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t slow us down.

  Boni and Elexis are the two in the garb of the house guard. They look splendid, but step carefully, as if fearing to return the uniforms soiled. Elexis has her crank bow slung over her shoulder, but Boni has hers in hand.

  “Don’t keep your bow cranked all day,” I tell her. “You’ll ruin it.”

  “What if I need to shoot something?” she asks.

  “You’re more likely to shoot one of us, carrying a loaded bow,” I say. “Better to take a few seconds in the moment than try to shoot with a fouled bow.”

  “Thank you,” Boni says, easing the tension and removing the bolt. She smiles. “If we’re attacked, will you protect me, while I crank it?”

  I nod, turning away before she can see the surprise on my face. It’s amazing, what a few changes to my appearance has done.

  We hike for hours, the well-trodden paths near Pumpforge fading into half-overgrown ways, then trails that seem invisible even when you’re right on them. Ella sets a hard pace through woods, over rocky rises, and down grassy hills, until I’ve lost all sense of where we are.

  I’ve gone for walks in Gatherers’ Wood, the public park that surrounds Gatherers’ University, but I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like stepping into a landscape painting. I remember the bumpkins gaping at the ceiling of the Cathedral of Rizon, and keep my jaw shut as I take in huge stands of ancient trees, distant mountains, and views that go on for miles without a building in sight.

  We break for lunch, but there is no cooking of any sort. Just biscuits, dried fruit, nuts, and tough, smoked meat, washed down with cold water from canteens refilled at passing streams.

  My worry that Wonda might wake early and send out search parties fades the farther we go. Dozens of groups set out in different directions this morning, and only Ella seems to know where we are or where we’re going.

  If anyone expected our guide to teach as she led us into the borderlands, they were mistaken. For the most part, Ella behaves as if we’re not there at all, only occasionally barking for stragglers to keep pace, or warning us against loose stones or a boggy patch.

  We enter a thickly wooded area in the hills somewhere north of the Laktonian wetlands. Still Ella marches us on, even as the sun dips low in the sky and the floor beneath the forest canopy grows dark. I say nothing, but I stroke the wards on the armlet from the Krasian bazaar, wondering if it could truly protect me if a demon leapt from the shadows beneath the trees.

  The sky is purple when we reach a clearing ringed with heavy stones. The clearing is rough and overgrown, but there is a firepit in the center, and room for everyone. The outward faces of the stones are chiseled with wards scraped clear of the moss and lichen that mottles the inner circle.

  “Welcome to your new home for the night,” Ella says. “Ent any privies, so if you’ve got to make more than water, suggest you do it before night falls. Simen!”

  “Ay!” Selen steps forward.

  “Your group can stake spots first,” Ella says. “Drop your gear and start collecting firewood.”

  Selen scans the campsite, quickly settling on the hard-packed dirt near the firepit. “This way. Packs off! You can put out bedrolls and rest when the fire’s up!”

  “Ay, how come they…!” Oskar begins.

  “Lanna!” Ella barks. “Your group next.” She points a finger. “There’s a stream about half a mile that way. Take buckets and bring them back full.”

  “Ay.” Lanna leads her group to the spot on the opposite side of the fire from Selen’s, taking buckets hanging from their packs and heading into the woods.

  “Aman,” Ella says, and it takes a second to realize she’s talking to me. “Your group next. Then get to work on the firepit. I want it ready when they come back with kindling.”

  “Ay,” I tell her. The ground behind Selen’s group is overgrown and farther from the fire, but the grass is soft as we trample it flat, laying out our things before taking spades to the firepit to clear the ash and shore up the sides. How to build and care for fire was an early lesson in Gatherers’ University. There are wooden supports for cookpots and a spit, and we begin cleaning and setting them up.

  “What about—?” Oskar cuts off as Ella turns to him.

  “You boys been hiking all day in that ridiculous armor.” Ella smiles. “Figured you’d want to take a load off. You’ve got first patrol tonight.” She points to the remaining space in the campground. “Bit rocky over there, but you shouldn’t notice, wrapped in all that steel.”

  Ella vanishes, and returns not long after with a deer slung over one shoulder like an impudent toddler. Selen and I watch in morbid fascination as she guts and skins it, but our companions from Apple Hill are unfazed, helping prepare the meat for cooking.

  We’re tired from the day’s hike, but the mood in the camp is festive that evening. None of my worries have materialized, and the smell of cooking venison is heavenly. I feel a giddy excitement as the sun finally dips below the horizon, and I can tell I’m not alone. Selen has her spear ready, body tense like an arrow about to loose. Only Ella seems more interested in dinner as the rest of us watch the edge of the ward circle, half expecting demons to leap out at any moment.

  But they don’t. There isn’t so much as a cry in the distance. I think there is a soft glow to the wards on the stone, but it could just be the flickering firelight.

  Ella checks the wards on the weapons and shields of the boys in Oskar’s group, spinning them in practiced hands to test weight and balance. She presses the meat of her thumb against Oskar’s spearpoint until it draws blood.

  She thrusts the weapon back into Oskar’s hands. “It’ll do.” She sketches a rough map of the area in the dirt. “Take your group and start patrolling this route.”

  Oskar keeps an arched back and a straight face, but he pales a little in the firelight. “Shouldn’t we get…trainin’, or something?”

  Ella smiles. “Trainin’ you not to be scared of the dark. You see a demon, give a nice shriek, an’ I’ll come runnin’.”

  Oskar looks like he might say more, but he glances at the others in his group and swallows it. He takes a torch from his pack, affixing it to a socket on the end of his spear. He touches it to the fire, and it blazes to life. “You heard her, boys. Eyes sharp.”

  The others produce torches as well. Kenz and Tal hold axes in one hand and torches in the other. Oren holds a torch and a bow, though I don’t see how he could use both. Rig, who has the thick arms of a blacksmith, straps his warded hammer to his back, ducking behind a rounded shield. He holds his torch cocked back like a club. All five of them look nervous as they step across the circle of wards and into the naked night.

  I feel it, too. For all my scoffing at the chance of seeing a demon when we were safe on the Hollow greatwards, I hold my breath as if expecting corelings to leap out of the shadows to attack them.

  But again, nothing happens, and after a few moments, I start to relax. The boys move out beyond the edges of the fire’s glow, just bits of floating light in the darkness.

  I glance at Ella. She lounges on a rock, seemingly at ease, but the wards tattoo
ed around her eyes glow softly as she tracks Oskar’s group through the darkness. Like Mother’s spectacles, they grant her wardsight, the ability to see the glow of magic in all living things, illuminating the night with more clarity than brightest day, and letting her peer into the hearts of the unwary. She is letting the boys walk beyond the wards, but not unsupervised. If a coreling was out there, she would see its glow long before it came anywhere near the camp.

  She catches me staring, and turns those glowing eyes on me and Selen. Her eyes flick down for a moment, and I feel as exposed as if I were stripped bare. There is a hint of smile on her lips as she turns away, but I cannot fathom its meaning. Like Mother, she has an air of knowing more than she lets on.

  A howl cuts through the darkness, and I freeze. It is followed soon after by others, a chorus on the night wind.

  “Demons?” Lanna asks.

  Ella shakes her head. “Nightwolves. Demons ent the only thing to worry about this far from civilization. Lots of demon carcasses left out in the night during the war. Scavengers fed on them and…changed.”

  “Thought those were just stories,” Selen says.

  “Demon meat is potent stuff,” Ella says. “Addictive. Makes you strong. Feral. Saw a hound grow big as a house after gnawing at the remains of a few battlefields.”

  “Nightwolves took six of my mam’s sheep last winter,” one of the girls in Lanna’s group, Cayla, agrees. “Saw the prints in the snow myself. Paws bigger than my hand with fingers spread.”

  More howls in the distance, turning to barks echoing a staccato rhythm through the hills. I fetch my spear from where I left it with my pack. “Now you can load your bows,” I tell Boni and Elexis.

  “Ent cause for worry.” Ella’s head is cocked, listening. “They’re a long way off. Guessin’ they found dinner that’s puttin’ up a fight.”

  More howling, cut short by pained yelping. Ella hops down from her rock. She brushes herself off casually, but I see her loosening her knife in its sheath. “Gonna have a quick look. Be back soon.”

  “Ay, you can’t just leave!” Selen calls as Ella crosses the wards. “Who’s in charge?”

  “You are!” Ella calls back. “Keep patrolling, but stay close to the wards. I’ll be back soon.” A moment later she is swallowed by the darkness.

  The nervous tension returns to the camp, much as it had when Oskar’s group started their patrol. Long moments pass without further sounds of nightwolves, and slowly we begin to relax.

  There is laughter by the fire, and Cayla produces a fiddle, playing a lively tune. Lanna and some of the other girls begin dancing, skirts twirling as they spin and reel. I ache to join them, but I have no skirts to swish about.

  Lanna sees me watching and reaches out a hand. “Dance with us, Aman!”

  Why not? Mother’s herald Kendall taught me to dance, and it’s simple enough to reverse the steps and take the lead. Stepping in time to the music, I catch one girl by the arm, spinning and using her own momentum to lift her momentarily from her feet before bringing her back down in time to meet her next partner. I turn a circuit and link arms with Lanna.

  “Didn’t expect you to be so light on your feet.” Lanna’s eyes meet mine, flickering with reflected firelight. The top button of her dress has come undone, but she makes no effort to fix it.

  “I’m full of surprises,” I say, picking her up to spin. She smells like flowers as I hold her close, then release her, laughing as she reels away to the next partner.

  We soon learn Cayla only knows one dancing tune. She plays it twice more before putting the fiddle away, more interested in talking to Gyles. He’s woven some tough wildflowers into a garland for her hair.

  There is no moon, but the stars are bright and plentiful, much more visible than in the capital where there are lights in every house and street corner. I stand at the edge of the camp, admiring them. The air is crisp and clean with none of the smells of town, and for the first time I can remember, I feel like I can take a full breath.

  Selen appears at my side, breathing deeply of the cool night air. “Still having second thoughts?”

  I shake my head. “You were right.”

  Selen gives a snort. “I’m always right.”

  I want to say more, but Lanna comes over to join us. I point to a line of stars, instead. “There’s Kaji’s spear. And the lonely nightwolf.”

  “I don’t see a wolf,” Lanna says, drawing close. She lays a hand on my arm, and it feels as if all my senses are focused on that one spot.

  “I never thought it looked much like a wolf, either,” I admit. “Mistress Vika says you have to use your imagination.”

  “That your village Gatherer?” another girl, Andraya, asks. Her hair is orange, and brown freckles cover her face, running all the way down into the neckline of her dress.

  Selen coughs, and I remind myself not to mention the university. “Ay. She has a star chart and likes to teach the children to read the sky.”

  “What else do you see?” a third girl, Melany, asks.

  I look back to the sky, but before I can answer, Oskar appears out of the darkness, pointing upward. “That one is demon’s bung.”

  Andraya and Melany laugh, but Lanna is less impressed. “If you could keep your bung shut, you might learn a thing or two.”

  “What’s to learn?” he asks. “Just use your imagination, ay?” He points to another section of sky where a passing cloud obscures the stars. “That’s cow’s udder, and over there is Deliverer’s turd.” More laughter, and even Selen chuckles, running her eyes over him again.

  “Shouldn’t you be patrolling?” Lanna asks.

  “Think we’ve done our share, while you lot danced and looked at stars,” Oskar says. “Why not take your turn?”

  I expect Lanna to balk, and open my mouth to volunteer, but she surprises me. “Ay, think you’re right. Melany, Andraya, Cayla! Fetch your bows.”

  She turns to me as the other girls move to comply. “Scary out there. Walk with me?”

  “I…” My mind races, not sure how to reply. She doesn’t look frightened, and something about that scares me. She has more on her mind than demons.

  “He’d love to,” Selen finishes for me. I stammer something incomprehensible, but Lanna takes Selen’s words as an answer and smiles, running off to fetch her bow.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Making sure you have a little fun,” Selen says. “What’s the harm? Now that Oskar’s back, I think I might take him for a walk, as well.”

  “He thinks you’re a boy,” I remind her.

  “Might be that doesn’t matter to him. If it does…” Selen shrugs. “Maybe I let slip that ‘Simen’ is really ‘Simena,’ whose da wouldn’t let her go on the borough tour, so she stole his armor and went anyway.”

  I feel my stomach knotting and don’t understand how she can be so calm. “What do I tell Lanna?”

  “Who says you need to tell her anything?” Selen asks. “Any fool can see she likes you. Ent like you’re getting promised. Just a bit of fun on the borough tour. Go for a walk. See what happens.”

  I glance around the camp. We’re not the only ones. Gyles is kissing Cayla “for luck” before she goes into the night. Rig is putting his big arms to work, helping a perfectly capable Boni crank her bow. Others are talking, laughing, flirting. Why not me?

  Lanna returns, and I take a torch, setting it into a socket on my spear. She carries a loaded crank bow, carefully aimed down with the safety engaged. “Shall we?”

  I’m afraid and excited as we step together into the naked night, but, like Lanna, it isn’t demons on my mind.

  * * *

  —

  We begin the patrol as a group, but after several circuits of the camp, Lanna breaks the girls into teams of two and spreads them out, ostensibly to keep watch from all sides. We can stil
l see the campfire, but the figures around it are just silhouettes, too distant to make out.

  “We’re alone,” Lanna says, and something in her voice sends goosebumps running up my arms. I’ve tried to keep careful watch, scanning the darkness at the end of the torchlight and listening for any sign of disturbance, but my eyes keep flicking back to Lanna. The way her hair bounces around her smooth shoulders. Her round cheeks and large eyes. Her soft lips. The button that’s still undone.

  I’ve never given much thought to kissing girls, but I’m thinking about it now. In the same way a change of clothes made girls look at me differently, I’m seeing them in a new way, too. I can feel the kiss coming, like pressure in the air before a storm. My heart is drumming in my chest, a steady thump! Thump! Thump! My face feels flushed and hot.

  I look again, and find Lanna looking back with those wide brown eyes. Our gazes meet, and she moistens her lips with her tongue. I feel my mouth water.

  Grandmum says the boy should make the first move, but I don’t think Selen has ever waited for that. And what of me? I may be dressed as a boy, but I’m not one. I want to reach out—to get on with it because the tension is too much to bear—but what if I’m reading things wrong? What if I am too rough, or not rough enough? Do I open my mouth, or keep it closed?

  She takes a step toward me and I step back in surprise. Lanna giggles and steps forward again, backing me into a tree. “Didn’t think you’d be shy,” she whispers as she sets her crank bow down. “Bet you’ve kissed plenty of girls back in Sweet Succor.”

  I squirm against the trunk of the tree, resisting a sudden urge to run. “Not really,” I manage. “My…mother is very strict.”

  The answer seems to please Lanna. Her smile widens. “Your mum ent here, is she?”

  Mention of Mother does nothing to calm my racing heart, but then Lanna leans in, lips parted slightly, and my resistance breaks. I drop the spear to the ground, torch guttering against the damp soil, and put a hand on her waist, drawing her close like in the paintings of lovers I’ve seen. My other hand comes up gently to caress her cheek as I lean in and our lips touch.