Blue lowered his hind legs, bringing Miyani down to where she could kiss me. "'uŋi gæðudeɣa ʃa ki'i daxadeɣa."
She'd said she was going to meet a friend who had some information, so, whatever that was supposed to mean.
North beyond the city walls, the Terbulin mountains floated above the purple morning mist, the highest peaks crowned in bright orange snow with dark rock disappearing into the shadows. A blanket of trees rose and sank with the hills into the distance carrying the chorus of a million chirps, whistles, and caws.
With one last brush of his lizard face in my cheek, Blue carried her across the thousand yards of open plain into the deep jungle full of hungry critters and murderous enemy soldiers.
She peeked over her shoulder one last time and smiled at me before they disappeared.
It was a sin.
How could it be?
Chastity before marriage. That was the rule. I should have at least broached marriage with her. We were living in sin.
She doesn't see it that way, and neither should you. Besides, what if that's the last time you see her alive?
A sharp stabbing pain ripped through my chest and up along my throat. My skin crawled, and a deep chill gripped my soul. It shouldn't have mattered. I was supposed to have faith. I was supposed to trust in obedience to God, and here I was making excuses, indulging under the guise of war. I was weak.
The crisp musk of her pussy clung to my finger. God, I couldn't wait to see her again.
Presently, she had work to do, and I was supposed to see Dr. Zughi in the medical ward before breakfast. Already my stomach grumbled; last time, she had maize crisps with five colors of gooey deliciousness—creamy green stuff that smelt strongly of lemon and coriander, thick, rich brown stuff, cheese that stretched out for miles, and a red sauce with enough nice pepper to light a bonfire.
It was early enough without men clattering spears against shields or shooting practice dummies in the training yard to hear my footfalls in the grass on approach to the line of stone archways a few steps up from the ground. Most of the arches held a spider the size of my hand with a brown-and-white pattern along its body floating mid-air, but I found one who hadn't spun her web, yet. She was busy in the cracks between stoneworks above, wrapping a secret up in silk.
Inside, light came from paper ball-lanterns hanging from sconces along the columns between spiders.
I didn't see Dr. Zughi, but two-thirds of the beds were taken. A man had gauze wrapped around his head with a thick patch over his eye. The man next to him had a bandaged stump where his left foot belonged. Three others in the corner had sunken skin, and their whole bodies looked like one contiguous bruise. Two other men on the far side lay their heads to one side with their eyes gaped open, barely breathing, while a third one's face was covered in a sheet.
Several women I didn't know made rounds among them. One held one of those crystals to a patient, wrote down his color, and moved on to the next. Two other, much older women followed the lanky teenager, Shamuni, around while she showed them how to fold a bedsheet.
"Caleb!" Dr Zughi's high-pitched, girlish voice pulled to me from the corner of two folded-wooden partitions. She'd let out her cornrows, and a cascade of white curls framed her flat, dark-green face and gentle, yellow eyes.
I stepped towards her when a young girl rushed in to grab a washbasin piled high with bloody linens. She looked up and glanced sheepishly between the doctor and me.
Zughi waved her on with a warm smile. While the girl carried off the tub, the Doctor explained. "I've Article-62'd you. Come!"
Whatever that meant.
I followed her along a folded partition with pictures of herbs along with their names and descriptions. A stalk of tiny purple flowers was good for arthritis, apparently, and some crabgrass-looking thing cured diarrhea. I took in the smell on my finger one more time before we turned the corner to the room where breakfast had been last time.
Seated at the same table where she'd tested my ability to tie a tourniquet were three women. Two were about my age-ish, and the other had to be in her sixties. One of the younger ones had alabaster-white skin, yellow hair, and deep green eyes, while the other two were Na'uhui like Dr. zʊɣi and my girlfriend.
At the center of the table, my heart sank. Bread scraps littered the bottom of a basket with crumbs fallen between the wicker, one ceramic pot held nothing but streaks of tiny white clumps that clung to the sides, and the other had only a remnant of oil with specks of herbs to pool at the bottom.
"Gavalya!" the young Na'uhui woman accused.
"You ate more than I did!" the Tobori woman excused herself. Half concealed by a white cotton armband with a red plus-sign sewn in, she had a number branded into her skin from each elbow to each shoulder.
The old Na'uhui woman laughed at the other two. All three of them wore the same armband, but the fabric on hers was threadbare and stained, and the plus-sign had faded into a light pink.
"I'm sorry," Dr Zughi gave a cursory glance at the empty pots and bread basket. "Caleb, this is Gavalya, tayuʃi, and sɪtaŋi, my latest graduates. They've volunteered to be field medics. Ladies, this is Caleb Jungle-Tested. He'll be escorting you to Dog's Arse…"
I found a scrap of flatbread about the size of a fingernail and used it to dry up the remnant of oil in the one pot.
"... Where do you meet with your men?"
There was barely enough oil for the scrap, and all the other scraps were too small for anything. I thought perhaps to collect as much as I can and smush them together into a bread-marble and use that to wipe the other pot clean. Alas, it was too dry and crumbled apart. I should have used that one for the oil and the other piece to scrape the creamy stuff.
"Caleb?"
"Huh?"
"I need to talk to you in private. Where can I send these volunteers to wait with your men?"
"Oh. They're probably in the mess hall."
With a glance, the three volunteer field medics gathered up their packs. The old woman, Sitani, took a staff and waved away a spider web from one of the open archways for them to pass through, and the three of them disappeared around the corner.
A small bird flew up to the side of a stone column beside a cluster of silk cocoons just outside. The spider inched closer along her web. Quick as lightning, the bird snatched one of them in its beak and flew off before the spider could get to it, and flew off.
"I lied to them." Dr Zughi sat on a bag chair with her eyes fixed on the empty breakfast. Her face was downcast.
"What do you mean you lied to them?"
zʊɣi took in a deep breath. "Back when the tribes were always at war with one another, they used to kidnap medics. A lot. My mother was kidnapped by pirates and brought to Carthia. That's actually the legend of the first storyteller; she was a medic. She was kidnapped so often that she ended up traveling the world. But this war is different. The Miwe'ishi want our extermination. Years ago, we kidnapped a few of their medics—the first one stabbed three patients before they could stop her, and the last one poisoned the well in Tower Four. She killed over thirty people. They're a brainwashed people filled with hate; they've been killing our medics. Targeting them. I haven't told them. And I need you to not tell them, either."
"So wait… they volunteered thinking the worst that could happen is they'll have to live somewhere else, instead they're definitely going to get killed…"
"Definitely is a strong word."
Right. Davod, Geraln, Gino, Faren, Ales, Borel, Jame, Massi, he was asking for it though, Rock, Northstar, Malchuk, Dayumi's boyfriend Jezi, Trey, Filau, Sargon, Melox, Torus, Psycho, Miyani's people Ude, Thavo, and Gozhu, John of Boilya—that was my fault, Bazen Spider-Web's Bane, Kely, Siddik, and Jenzui all definitely got killed. "And you're asking me to carry that lie for you, now?"
She looked up at me and wiped a tear from her cheek. "What Miyani said during the xɪðiʃa, she was right. We can't keep losing men like this. We need field medics. That's why I've issued your Article-62; I need you to bring them to Tower Two. See Commander Yu'ushi, tell her you need a sekiwa, she should give you one. And don't tell them. Call it a mission parameter if you have to."
I didn't know which was worse: the yoke of that over my head, or that she'd put it on me instead of telling them herself.
If she'd told them, they'd have refused to go. I have orders to follow.
The third emperor.
A season for every purpose under the sun. A time to heal, a time to kill, a time to steal, a time to lie to three women who didn't know they volunteered to walk into a death trap. Maybe. Father in heaven, guide my hand as I take this secret over my shoulders and deal with me according to your will. Please forgive me.
Leaving the medical ward, I raised my finger to my nose and took her in.
I'd become a walking contradiction. Here I was knowingly, willingly committing evil, asking forgiveness before even doing the evil thing while basking in the scent of lust.
Intoxicating.
Following orders.
I was part of the problem.
To the east, rays of sunlight burst through the crenelated city walls and cast my weak faith in judgment, and I couldn't do it. It was bad enough I'd surrendered to the will of my body.
To her body. She wanted this as bad as I did.
Didn't make it right.
I had to tell them the truth. Orders be damned, it was wrong.
I took a moment to allow the rising sun to warm my face before stepping into the mess hall.
My team took up one long table near the center of the hall. The three volunteer field medics who were definitely probably going to get killed out there stood beside one of the stone columns.
"You!" Sitani, who was at least sixty though she still had all her teeth, grabbed my arm as I walked in. "Which one is your team?"
Before I could answer, half my men were upon us, led by Rolon of Kyfe. "Hey, man where you been? We been waitin' on you! Hi, I'm Rolon. And you are?"
The young Na'uhui woman wore a cotton yithi tie-dyed in greens, browns, and deep yellows. She responded with a smile and a nod. "tayuʃi."
"Tayushi?" Montus echoed. "That's a pretty name…"
While she blushed at that, Kaye's attention was on the other young woman. "Gavalya zawa!"
She sucked her teeth and looked away.
While my men fixated on the two younger women, Sitani glanced back and forth between them fighting off a smirk, and Tenae pulled me aside. He locked his pitch-black eyes on me directly. "You are have our mission for today?"
"Yeah," I began. We had a mission to lie to these women, that was our mission. That was my mission; it wouldn't be fair to put that on anyone else. "We're to escort these medics to Dog's Arse."
The rest of my team were still finishing their breakfast of mashed, boiled grains that looked and tasted like wet paper. At least they gave us fruit when I first came through here. We had berries that exploded in sweet juice that Chirpy chomped down on and splattered Geraln's face like it was a game. Rock was the only one to play that game with her. And I could still see his light-green eyes staring motionless into the sky with the bloody gash through his chest.
These guys didn't even get fruit. Or bread. Or anything else beyond the paper slop. The lady who used to come by with the coffee urn was nowhere around, either.
Overhead, carved stone trusses stretched across the ceiling with plants like giant clusters of growth suspended from chains. Beneath that ceiling on one side, a loft overlooking the main hall had a stone staircase leading up. The officer's mess. Davod once came down from there with a fat piece of crispy-fried chicken.
Aren't you a captain?
How would that go? Suppose I went upstairs and grabbed a piece. I may have already received my orders, but I was still technically an officer. So I technically had a right to go up there. Beside the kitchen, there were no more bowls of paper slop, meaning I would be conducting the day's operation hungry. I wouldn't be focused on the mission.
I'd been Article-62'd, and crispy, fried breading followed by succulent meat oozing salty, fatty goodness was within mission parameters. There was probably a formal document somewhere that definitely said that.
Upon my ascent, Commander Rayitiu's deep baritone filled the cracks between the cacophony of men's conversation below. He'd gathered among several other captains, mostly Herali like me, over a table with a map spread out. Dax was among them. The stylized red-and-black Orca tattoo that stretched across his back had sections filled in with white ink that weren't there before. He, along with the others, turned his dark-green eyes upon me in silent inquisition.
No words were spoken, but something about the way their gazes followed me in unison told me I had to act quickly.
A long buffet table stretched across the wall directly adjacent to the stairwell.
No time to be choosy.
I took up a large, copper platter with what had to be at least thirty fingers of crispy, rolled maize flatcakes, and carried it downstairs.
Dax's eyes popped and he smirked. Two older, scarred-up Falcon men glanced at one another with their brows furrowed. Commander tilted his head and his black eyes followed me. Maybe they thought I was out of my mind. Maybe I'd been given instructions from the kitchen that these things were poisonous and I was told to come get them. Regardless, if they wanted to put me in trouble, it would have to wait until I got back, because I'd been Article-62'd, meaning they couldn't do anything about it.
"Gods!" Turic the Big Fat Guy was on his feet. His eyes feasted on the platter and he licked his lips.
Montus and Daemon were talking to Tayushi. When they heard Turic, all three of them gazed in wide wonder at the offering descending from above.
The rolled fingers were stuffed full of what looked like shredded pork and dripping with fat and red sauce, still letting off steam with hints of coriander, garlic, and caramelized onions.
Then I tripped on the uneven steps and fell forward.
I couldn't tell up from down, but a call from deep within my desperate mind pulled my hand up to shield my face as my body tumbled to the floor. Metal clanged across stone, the world twisted around, and my elbow hurt like hell. My knee had a sharp pain as well.
Overhead, the clapping of hands echoed through the stone ceiling along with the hoots and cheers from the captains whose important meeting I'd interrupted.
I was somewhere on the floor, and those fingers fell all over the place. One hung precariously on the edge of a stone step, three others had collapsed into a pile, and there was something hot and moist under my hip. Two skittered across the floor towards the kitchen, another was under Renou's chair.
The other captains finished their applause and went back to their meeting while Commander lingered a moment to smirk and shake his head in muted laughter.
Turic desperately surveyed the ruins and found one whose crispy shell hadn't cracked. He broke it open and scooped out the meat. Vayance picked one up and put it in his pack. Ajak, Gavalya and Sitani dusted some of them off from the floor and bit into them while Tayushi watched them in disgust.
As for me, my knee took some damage but I could walk on it, and my left elbow hurt like hell.
It didn't stop Lacius from handing me a mop with a big smile across his face. He wore his eye-patch over the left this time. No idea why.
At least her scent was still on my finger.
Outside, the Terrible Sun had begun its reign, baking the dry grass beneath our feet. I limped alongside my team and the three women I still needed to be honest with.
Ahead of us beside the main gate, a train of bison pulled mostly-empty carts alongside groups of Herali men. Many of them wore the same sweaty shirts they'd worn on their way down the mountain. They, like my friends, would be fed into a meatgrinder without adequate training against an enemy bent on our extermination. Presumably, these were the ones who'd volunteered for the hottest combat zone on the front in exchange for a little extra cash, not knowing they would most likely not survive long enough to earn a second month's wages.
Just like the three field medics.
Just like me.
If we were the good guys, how come so much of what we did revolved around lying to people?
And what made me any better?
A woman sat astride a lizard on her hind legs, watching them pass. The vita'o was dark-gray with deep-red spots all up and down her body. She arched her long neck to turn one red eye with a black, vertical stripe upon me, and squawked.
"What is this?" Commander Yu'ushi was maybe in her forties, about the same age as Didi and Inferno, perhaps. Her right forearm bore a gash of a scar from her elbow to her pinky finger, and she wore a white crescent-moon tattoo on her dark-green shoulder.
"I'm Caleb of Gath, we've been Article-62'd. You have to give me a sekiwa."
Her lips and droopy eyes pointed an emotionless blank expression at me. The lizard tilted her head, yawned open a mouthful of jagged, serrated teeth, and chirped. A cluster of circular knives hung from one side of her belt, each like a solid-steel star with six blades for points tied to a hole in the middle by a delicate string.
"Um… I've been Article-62'd. Uh… I have to… we, uh… my team is to bring these field medics to Dog's Arse—"
"Go with the entourage. They're leaving now." And she turned her attention back to a cluster of four men, all Herali, none of whom could hold a bow. One of them wore a black-and-red Orca tattoo down the length of one arm.
"Sorry, uh… I've been Article-62'd. I'm to—"
The lizard squawked and clicked. Yu'ushi followed. "You said that already."
I swallowed. "We're not going with the entourage. I need you to provide a sekiwa to guide us through a jungle route."
She furrowed her brow and glared at me. "Says who?"
"Dr. Zughi. We've been Article-62'd." Of course the doctor may or may not have specified which route to take, but either way, I didn't need the distraction of babysitting noobs.
A giant, wooly beast with horns that could throw a man a dozen yards dropped a trail of goopy brown pellets on the ground before clomping his hooves over the wooden drawbridge. The Terrible Sun assaulted my shoulders, and yu'uʃi glared back at me without betraying a hint of anything behind her face. The woman was covered in rippling muscle and sinew, and a short bow and quiver of arrows with black-and-tan striped fletchings was slung over her back. "Who are you?"
"Caleb of Gath."
"Oh, you're that jungle-tested." Her words soaked through with contempt, wrung out, and soaked up again.
The lizard rolled a squawk and chirped twice.
Slowly, the commander's mouth widened into a grin, and she chuckled heartily. "You can't be serious!"
The lizard gave out a long string of clicks.
"Do you know where she is?"
Haron furrowed his brow at me. Montus tilted his head to one side. I had nothing.
The woman dismounted, and the lizard raced off into the thick forest of the vita'o yard.
As with all the sekiwa, standing on wrap-over leather sandals in the grass, Yu'ishi barely came up to my chest. With a wicked grin, she ushered all of us towards the armory shed at the end of the practice yard. "This is perfect! I can't tell you how perfect this is!"
"You mind explainin' miss? I'm Rolon, by the way, Rolon of Kyfe. Nice to meet you. I had a great-aunt with a scar like that, you know. On my dad's side. Not my step-dad, my birth dad. She burnt herself cookin'. She liked to sing, and she always talked about how she was better than this other singer who got all this praise and stuff but they made her an understudy in this big show and the other lady got sick so they put her on and all the press said she did it better and she showed me the newspapers where they all said she did it better, but they still kept her as the understudy. And that was when she was about my age, and she was already old, you know, when she said all this…"
The commander let him talk while we walked over to the armory shed. If she was listening, she didn't show it on her face.
"... she told me they had this idea that she and this other lady would do a duet before the Duke of Heralia, but she refused. Said 'I'd never share the stage with that trifling cunt.' This was twenty years after the Great Plague took that other lady, and she still talked like that."
When we reached the armory, she raised her hand to silence him and began passing around short bows and practice arrows.
My team traded confused glances.
"Keep your broadheads; you may encounter a live enemy."
Behind us, a squawk echoed across the practice yard. Barreling across the grass beside the gray-spotted lizard was Ghuni, riding Invisible. She raced up to us, leaned over to kiss Haron on the lips, and fixed her one-blue-and-one-yellow eyes on the commander.
"Gentlemen," Yu'ushi grinned. "I presume you already know my niece."
She hopped back atop her vita'o with her bow in hand. Nocking a practice arrow, she issued her challenge at Ghuni. "Babygirl, you asked, I promised. If you think you can bring these field medics to Dog's Arse…"
With that she rode off. Invisible stepped among us to give the three women a good sniff.
As for Ghuni, a big smile stretched across her face.
As for the medics, I could tell them the truth once we got there. The danger was in the field—if they were placed with a patrol unit, they'd be targeted and killed. If I waited until we got to the tower and then told them, they might refuse to go out into the field, but at least they could augment the medical staff behind the walls.
Good God, that smell!