The blazing sun speared us through the clouds. It was hot and muggy before, but now, we were being roasted. It didn't help that the practice yard was hemmed in by the high, outer walls of the city on one side with the barracks and administrative buildings on the other. We got no breeze of any kind. There wasn't even a tree to stand beneath.
Bilal's scalp glistened beneath stubble, and when he rubbed his head, droplets of sweat flew everywhere. Renou's curly hair looked like he'd just bathed, though he didn't smell that way. Even Ta'o's dark-green skin shimmered in direct sunlight, and he grew up here. "It'll get hotter once dry season sets in, don't worry."
I wasn't worried, really.
Bilal took one of the dark-brown short bows and fired an arrow across the practice yard. It flew too low and burrowed into the grass several yards short of the burlap man-on-a-stick. He sneered and stuck his tongue out at the thing.
Renou scored a headshot and needled him. "I thought you said you were in the Imperial army?"
Without looking up, Bilal nocked another arrow and drew. "Been in that prison cell long enough. I'll get it back." He lifted his chin towards Ta'o. "I'm more worried about this fool!"
Rather than pull the string, Ta'o gripped the arrow shaft behind the fletchings and tried to pull from there.
"Um…" I tilted my head to the side. "Why… are you pulling like that? Haven't you shot a bow before?"
"Hehehe!" Ta'o blushed through a big smile.
Bilal shook his head and laughed, then sent another arrow two feet left of the target that clacked against the stone wall behind it.
Renou's second head-shot popped into the dummy.
Ta'o studied his fingers and tried to copy him, but when he started to draw, the arrow pulled away from the rest. He pressed his lips together and shifted his eyes around in embarrassment.
I wasn't worried. I rested my hand on his shoulder and faced Bilal. "He can learn to shoot, but trust me, this man can wrestle a vita'o to the ground bare-handed."
Ta'o's eyes went wide. "Uh…"
Bilal struggled to contain a giggle. "What was that?"
"I was there," Renou added. "We both saw it."
We'd all watched him. Fluffy, the brown four-hundred-pound throat-ripping lizard with white spots, snapped her jagged teeth towards him. He caught the side of her jaw, trapped her neck in the crook of his arm and twisted around, pinning her talons beneath him until she chirped for mercy.
Bilal smirked at me. His eyes nearly watered from contained laughter. "You don't say?"
Renou and I glanced at one another. It was Renou who spoke. "What do you mean?"
Ta'o furled his shoulders together and stepped back as if to brace for our replies. "It was an act."
I snapped towards him. "WHAT?"
Bilal erupted in laughter. "You thought that shit was real?"
My jaw dropped. Renou and I both turned to Ta'o, who lowered his gaze. "It was an act. Fluffy and I spent months perfecting it; we made so much damned money, bro!"
I couldn't wrap my head around it. I turned back to Bilal. "And you knew?"
The man couldn't stop laughing. "I knew where to put my money the second time I saw those two in the ring together!"
Renou's eyes gaped. I needed a moment, so I gave him an assignment. I faced the smallest man on our team and took his shoulders in my hands. "You learn best what you teach."
And I stepped away.
Bilal called after me. "Where are you going?"
"I need to think."
I didn't turn. I didn't want to see Ta'o's face at that moment.
To think that was my basis for recruiting him. To go through what I went through to get him on my team.
He was built heavy. Chiseled muscles graced his body from his legs to his chest, his arms and his back. When he flexed, rows and rows of muscles rippled up and down his abs. He looked like a fighter. He looked like a man who could handle himself. That was what I wanted, a certified badass who knew the area and knew how to fight. What I got was a playboy con-artist who couldn't shoot and never left the city.
I had no words for the anger welling up in me. After what I went through.
He never once asked. I asked him.
It was my own damned fault.
I'd had in mind to go outside the walls and walk around. Partly I wanted to be in a different place, but mostly I hoped to catch a breeze that might give respite from that tyrannical sun.
When I rounded the yellow-and-gray stone corner of the administration building, a strange procession emerged from the thick trees of the vita'o yard on my right. Ahmi walked alongside Thunder, the blue-green lizard who'd earned his name by cowering beneath her during a storm as a hatchling. Walking on his powerful hind legs, he towered above her even with his long neck arched down to her level. Beside them, the gray vita'o carried Jezi's girlfriend, Dayumi, on his back.
I really should get his name.
Ahmi was dressed in the same simple loincloth about her waist as me and Ta'o, and her white hair fell in a feral mass behind her back. How she wasn't covered in sweat was beyond me.
She locked her yellow eyes on me for more than a moment. Her jaw was clenched and her lips pursed. "Go back to the barracks."
The barracks were hotter inside than it was outside. "What's going on?"
Dayumi didn't look at me, but rather fixed her gaze through the archway of the main gate. Her voice was stern and resolute. "We will get our answers!"
Ahmi turned around and stroked Gray's neck. "We will behave ourselves."
I walked with them. "Answers from whom?"
Ahmi clenched her jaw and took a deep breath. "If you want to come, I cannot stop you, but Caleb listen to me very, very carefully. They are here to talk. Do not, and I must emphasize this, do NOT do anything foolish. Do you understand?"
"Who's they?"
We passed beneath the wide stone archway of the main gate and stepped onto the drawbridge that unfolded across the black river. A thousand yards of open grass surrounded the city before the jungle carpeted hills into the distance all the way to the purple wall of mountains that thrust towards the sky half hidden in clouds.
None of the goatherds were out. Not one. A marked emptiness dominated the entire plain surrounding the city. Even the giant alligator who basked on the road outside the gate was gone; the grass was pressed down where he'd gone into the water.
Thunder chirped and clicked, turned his green-blue lizard face to me, and squawked.
Ahmi nodded to him. She stopped and looked up at me, shifting her yellow eyes back and forth between mine. "Do you remember what I told you about rules?"
"Uh… yeah?"
"These are the rules, Caleb. It will be your life if you break them. We will talk. They will talk. It will all be talk. There will be nothing more than talk. That is the rule. Tell me right now that you will abide."
"I will, but who are they?"
About eight-hundred yards out and a few strides from where Miyani and I played our touch game, my question was answered.
Two sekiwa sat atop their vita'o.
Two enemy sekiwa.
One was a woman in her mid-forties who held a pole with a red cloth tied at the top, and a falcon perched on her opposite shoulder. Her lizard was deep green with black vertical stripes.
Inferno.
The other was around Miyani's age. Her vita'o was yellow with thumb-sized beige spots down her back.
Chaos.
Two of the three Borel and I saw before those birds ripped him apart. They'd attacked my unit and killed my friends the day we lost Praying Mantis.
They wanted to talk.
I let slip a pang of hope that they were making an offer to exchange prisoners. Maybe Geraln was alive after all.
Gray groaned and chirped, then started to carry Dayumi towards our enemy a little faster.
Ahmi snapped. "Stay with me!"
Dayumi didn't look back. "They have rules, too!"
"Niraq!" she snapped again. I knew that name. That was an ancient Daenma prophet; it meant 'grounded one.' When she said it, Gray stopped and turned one yellow eye with a black vertical iris to her.
Dayumi growled at the lizard carrying her and shifted her hips forward and back. He curled his long neck around and hissed at her, baring a mouthful of serrated teeth. She already had an old bite scar on the back of her neck.
Ahmi walked up and put her hand on Dayumi's thigh.
The apprentice shouted. "Why are we stopping?"
"There is power in allowing your enemy to wait for you."
The enemy, in this case, each wore the white, jaguar tattoo of the sewu'oŋi on their right shoulders. Inferno straddled her mount with one hand on her hip while the falcon clung to a leather strap over her shoulder. The yithi she wore about her hips was blue silk with gold embroidery around the edges, and her bow sling had arrows with fletchings in a rainbow of colors. Chaos held her bow in her hands, and her arrows all had red-and-white fletchings. The loincloth she wore was woven hemp. Her hair was two white braids that fell behind her back, and her fingernails were done with the same black lacquer spikes Miyani wore.
Inferno gazed at us with piercing eyes. Her face was hard and, together with the bird and her lizard, they were motionless but for the red cloth at the top of her pole lilting in the breeze. The yellow lizard shifted in her feet.
Ahmi clicked her tongue and whistled a strange warble. Thunder chirped, then placed himself directly between us and them. He reared his neck way up high, towering above us, and cawed loud, growling and clicking. Inferno didn't react, and neither did her vita'o, but the yellow one cocked her neck and said a few clicks and chirps in reply.
Ahmi pulled me to face her. Her gaze lingered on the severed-human-ear pendant Miyani had given me. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" I asked.
"I feel like it was all my fault." Her voice sounded like it was about to crack.
"What do you mean?"
She turned her face to the ground. A tear meandered down her cheek.
Ahmi wiped it away and looked up at me. "It was myself, Miyani, and Marya, and Pu'iyo. And we were listening to Miyani, she told us all about her plan, and it made sense. She was right. I knew she was right. And I listened to the way they spoke to her, the way they belittled her, and I knew she was right, and I said nothing. And I listened to those two talking down to her, talking to her like some kind of child, but she was right, and I knew she was right, and I said nothing, Caleb! I said nothing!"
"Can we go now?" Dayumi insisted.
"Patience," Teacher scolded her. Then her tone softened. "I need to get this out of the way."
Niraq squawked and clicked loud, rearing his neck to the sky, and Inferno's falcon screeched and spread her wings. The woman lifted a finger to stroke the bird and cooed.
Turning back to me, Ahmi's breath shuddered as she wiped away another tear. "I wanted to say something. I knew I should have said something. In that moment I knew I should have said something but… these were my elders. I remained silent. I… I should have spoken."
I wasn't sure what to say to her; I had my own demons. "At least you didn't let Davod out."
Teacher huffed, casting a glance at our enemy for a brief moment. Chaos smiled at us. A big, bold, wide-toothed grin. When she saw me looking, she winked at me.
Ahmi leaned in close. "I told Feyazu a hundred-forty-four times you cannot leave the key right there for anyone to use! But," she mimicked his voice, "this is my dungeon and you cannot tell me what to do."
It helped, hearing that. It wouldn't bring my friends back, but knowing there was enough blame to go around for all of us to take a slice took the edge off.
At last, Ahmi rested her hand over my heart. "Caleb, I want you to promise me something. If ever, and I mean ever you catch me blocking one of my ears with age and the other with experience, I need you to remind me of this moment. Promise me you will do that?"
"I will."
"Can we go, now?" Dayumi's voice cut through.
Ahmi wiped her face and looked up at me once more, but all emotion had disappeared. I understood and tried to mirror her cold, blank stare as best I could. She nodded, and we met the enemy face to face.
A subtle grin curled Inferno's lips.
Before anyone else had a chance to speak, Dayumi blurted out, "WHERE'S JEZI?"
Herali was done; we were speaking Uhuida here on out.
The older scout turned to Chaos without a word. The younger one giggled, then tossed her two braids to the front. There at the ends, dangling over her chest were a pair of glass butterfly beads. She faced Inferno and asked, "do these go with my complexion?"
Those were Yumi's beads. She was wearing them the last time I saw her alive.
She wore them the day Miyani and I figured out how to talk through the issue of that boy who liked her. Yumi sat with her back leaned up against Queen, ostensibly reading a book and refusing to translate for us, only to beam with pride when we found a rhythm that worked.
Seeing this woman wear them made my blood boil. Inferno grinned. "I think they look 'eŋadoʒi on you!"
"You will NOT sʌŋo me!" Dayumi tried again. "His name is Jezi! Where is he?"
The yellow lizard sniffed at the air, then crept towards me.
Ahmi's voice came stern and resolute. "Don't move, Caleb."
"Caleb, is it?" Inferno gazed at me with a wry grin while the yellow vita'o passed her snout up and down my body only to end that with a peculiar string of chirps and clicks. Inferno faced the lizard with her eyes wide. "You're joking!"
Chaos giggled and smiled. Her voice danced up and down the musical register. "This is the one that got away!"
Dayumi kept pleading. "His name is Jezi! He is Tobori, he has a number on his arm…"
Thunder crouched low in front of Ahmi with his neck coiled. The last time I saw a vita'o in that position, Massi got his throat ripped out. Ahmi crossed her arms and glared at Inferno. "You may answer my bigʊwaʒɪ."
"Which kebigʊwaʒɪ, Ahmi?" Inferno tilted her head to the side. "That kokaxa who didn't vʌmu to look behind her, or that deaf bifʌɣe, or that 'amuŋaxatʌ alligator-food? Really, Ahmi, I'd be ðuxozo to call myself 'teacher' after a day like that."
Ahmi breathed out audibly and pursed her lips. At least she spoke slowly enough for me to hear every word. "I take it your purpose here is to taunt us, and nothing more? I have important things to do."
"Actually, there is something." Inferno reached for the bird on her shoulder, brushed her feathers and giggled, then took a small roll of paper from her talons. She unrolled it and read aloud, exaggerating every point like she was reading to a child. "From Praying Mantis, we are under attack! This is an emergency! Send reinforcements immediately!"
Then she offered it to Ahmi. "I believe this was supposed to be for you."
Chaos cackled loud, nearly falling over from laughter while Inferno merely held out the paper with a smug grin.
Ahmi stood like stone and said nothing. If there was a crack somewhere, I didn't see it.
Chaos turned to Inferno. "I wonder if Ahmi would put up as much of a fight as that mutt?"
"Her name was Marya," Ahmi corrected her.
Niraq croaked and reeled his head back while Dayumi shouted from atop his back. "I asked you many times! Tell me where he is!"
A smile curled Inferno's lips. She faced Ahmi directly, but slowed her cadence considerably. "I find it interesting she says 'mutt' and you assume she meant Marya. Very interesting. Is that jealousy?"
"It's jealousy," Chaos echoed. "That mutt was twelve times the teacher she will ever be."
"Where… is… Jezi?"
Inferno leaned forward in her saddle, keeping her cadence deliberately slow. "Are you so passive of casual racism in the presence of your children? I really want to know."
Ahmi didn't flinch. In this oppressive heat, her face was ice. "Do you have anything useful to say? Because right now, you're wasting my time."
The yellow lizard yawned, displaying a mouth full of serrated teeth.
I couldn't let them just lob taunts at us without hitting back. "Your breath has smell similar with pig's arse."
Chaos turned to Inferno. "One."
Inferno answered. "I'll give him a two. Delivery needs work."
Chaos shook her head. "Horrible timing."
Inferno turned back to Ahmi. "But seriously, there must be something to the way you run your lessons why your kebigʊwaʒɪ keep getting killed out here. Let's analyze this. Do you have any ideas?"
Dayumi's jaw clenched, her lips pursed, and her chest heaved with each heavy breath. She glared at inferno as if her eyes alone could kill. As it were, Inferno was built. Powerful arms, shoulders, and toned muscle rippled all over her body, not to mention the bow at her back and foot-long knives hanging from each side of her belt. Dayumi still had a girl's body, soft and slim, and she carried no weapons of any kind.
I feared the trainee might get a bad idea, so I spoke to Inferno myself. "Please tell at us to locate Jezi where?"
Chaos turned to her senior with a mocking tone. "He said 'please.'"
Inferno sat upright and examined her fingernails, brushing off a speck of dust. "Which one are we talking about?"
Dayumi pleaded with her. "He is Tobori. He has skin like white mivafisafu with long, yellow hair. He was born a slave, but he is free. He has a number on his arm…"
"Oh, that one!" Inferno grinned. Then she leaned forward and asked her green, black-striped lizard. "How did he taste?"
"You BITCH!"
Dayumi kicked as if she could run while sitting atop her vita'o, and Niraq squawked in pain. She erupted into a flow of obscenities only a tenth of which I knew. She thrust her hips forward and squeezed, and the gray lizard reared up, throwing her to the ground. He faced her with a few chirps and clicks, but she didn't respond to that. She launched herself at our enemy with flailing fists and continued to shout. "kʌŋʌ daxadewa! I'M GOING TO KILL ALL OF YOU!"
Thunder stepped in front to block her and caught a few fists while she continued to shout.
The green, striped vita'o carrying Inferno gargled and squawked.
Niraq turned to him and hissed hard, then coiled his neck around his human to hold her in place.
Chaos giggled through Dayumi's tirade. "Shows what I know; I thought he'd be nice and tender."
Ahmi reached in and took hold of her student's arm. "DAYUMI! GO BACK INSIDE! NOW!"
She opened her mouth wide and screamed until her voice broke.
Ahmi stood silent, pointing back to the gate.
Dayumi walked off, wailing all the way back with Niraq by her side.
Inferno rolled her neck around and stretched her shoulders. "I wonder if Ahmi should do a lesson on self-control?"
Chaos giggled. "Maybe. Something's definitely missing. That might be it."
I stood still and quiet. Inside, I was breaking. Jezi was my friend. I admired his resolve, his courage. When Borel asked for volunteers, he didn't hesitate. He went out of his way to make Carthia feel like a home for me. For all of us.
He and I made our first kills in the same fight. Watching him that evening, the way his gaze lingered on the drink in front of him, his face, usually cheery, sunken into introspection. Losing him, hearing about it like that, stung, and it stung hard.
I stood still and quiet, but I felt every word Dayumi said.
I had to keep a brave face, so I turned to Ahmi, who painted boredom all over herself. "These little-girls talk only? Is hot weather this location."
Chaos grinned wide and looked at the older one. With that, the green-and-black striped lizard crept up and turned to the side, allowing Inferno to look down on me directly. She reached behind her head and pulled something, allowing white hair to fall freely behind her shoulders. She brought it forward and showed it to me.
It was a gold, circular pin with ivory and obsidian in the shape of Orca surrounded by ancient Herali runes. It was Jame's hair pin.
"Do me a favor, boy. Translate this for me?"
A shock went through me, and all my emotions went numb. It was one thing to be told that everyone was killed, this was something else. I glanced at Ahmi for a moment. Ahmi shook her head subtly, while Chaos cackled again.
Inferno kept her gaze at me with a smug grin. I should have told her to piss off. I should have told her to eat shit. Instead, I looked at it closely. "These letters… uh… they from Orca Song. I not know good, but I know it. The people were scary, and they want be afraid of thing. Orca rebuke at them to say this, 'no one scary is more… uh…'"
"There is no terror greater than the invention of the human mind," Ahmi helped me out.
The younger scout couldn't contain her laughter. "You know we're mocking you, right?"
I glanced up at her and kept my face as stoic as I could. "This owned to my friend. His mother gifted it at him. She died when she saw your face."
Chaos pursed her lips. She didn't laugh at that, but I earned a light chuckle from Inferno. Thunder let out a string of clicks, and even Ahmi smiled.
The older one locked her yellow eyes onto mine and studied my face for a moment. Her entire disposition shifted into something I couldn't read. Then, she leaned in close and spoke to me in Herali. "There once was a boy, and he loved a girr. She sang, she danced for him. She was wile and free, and so full of life, and he was mady in love with her. And so he pursued her. He wanted to have her. Then one day, she gave herseff to him. But he was afraid. She was so beautifu, he thought, and she dances so beautifu, I muss keep her safe. And so he lock her in a cage.
"Years went by, and he kep her in that cage. She became withdrawn. Quiet. She no longer sang, she no longer dance. She sat quiety in her cage. And this boy look at her, where is this beautifu girr who used to sing and dance for me? Now all she does is mope and cry! He became tire of her, and so he threw her away. Discarded her. And now he looks for another girr, younger and full of life."
"Why are you telling me this?" I said.
She answered. "This is not your fight, Herali. You should go home and fight the enemy there."
"We have no enemy in Heralia."
She blinked long and slow, turned, and her vita'o carried her off into the trees.
Chaos lingered. Her lizard took one more sniff of me and turned away, pretending to gag and cough. Her human giggled once more and swooned, "if I see you out there again, you're dead!"
I answered. "You have pretty ears."
The enemy popped her eyebrows. Her lizard twisted one of her forelimbs around and raised her middle claw towards me before bounding off and carrying her human into the forest.
Ahmi, speechless, turned and headed back towards the gate. Thunder strode alongside her, clicking and squawking, and she laughed a little.
I was still reeling. "Was that… normal?"
"Hmm," she huffed. "It was expected. They knew one of our people escaped, now they know who you are. I hadn't intended to give them anything."
"So I messed up, then."
"You did nothing wrong. It is Dayumi who upsets me. Please do not talk to her about this; I will handle it myself."
I shrugged. "At least we know now why they didn't send a pigeon."
"Hmpfh!"
A line of goats poured out from the main gate. A giant black monster crawled out of the water and lurched towards his favorite basking spot, and a pair of goatherds tapped Peti's nose with the butt end of their spears to hold him there while the goats passed. Sorry, Shadi's nose. Peti had a scar on his tail. Shadi was the fat one.
Make that really fat.
Back in the practice yard, Renou and Bilal were coaching Ta'o on how to shoot. I stood for a moment and watched. Ta'o drew and held, and Renou coached him on how to hold his elbow, showed him how to aim, and how to breathe through it. Ta'o's shot grazed a flap of burlap that hung down from the dummy. He would get there.
Bilal's arrows consistently popped into his target.
I knew what I needed to do. The exchange with those two women showed me that time was being wasted.
Ta'o looked up at me as I approached. "Look, bro, I'm really sorry. I should have told you. If… if you don't want me on your team anymore, I…"
"Pack up," I said. "We're heading out. All four of us."
Renou furrowed his brow. "Huh?"
"Right now. We're going to the Lake of Doom. If we leave now, we'll make it well before nightfall."
Bilal turned his gaze to look at me sideways. "Why?"
"Because the enemy isn't wasting any time, and neither should we. All the fresh recruits are there, just waiting. They're not being trained. We're going to go there, all four of us, and together we're going to pick out the rest of our team before the other captains see them."