camp is always just to the east of theirs.”
“Don’t tell me you know where east is. The sun’s down. The moon’s not up yet.”
Fox pointed. “The city is east. Therefore east is that way. Our tent is also that way.”
Stone sighed, his chest heaving in his disappointment. “I really wanted a woman tonight.”
“One last time before we die.”
Anger flashing like sparks in dry grass, Stone swung, his fist plowing into his partner’s face, knocking him to his backside. Stone spat in the sand beside him, invoking the warrior’s god. “Don’t say that,” he ordered, fists clenched. “Maybe we’ll die, but maybe we won’t. It’s not up to us. You go into battle knowing you’ll die, Khralsh will give you what you want. Death is easy.”
Once more he reached down and pulled Fox to his feet. “You go into battle determined to live, maybe he lets you live. Life, that’s not so easy, not in battle. Either way, Khralsh decides. But if you ask for what you want, maybe he gives it.”
“And maybe he doesn’t.” Fox couldn’t meet Stone’s gaze.
“Maybe not.” Stone shook the wrist he gripped, jarring his partner’s whole body, willing him to understand, to believe. “But who guaranteed you life to begin with? Remember that Bureaucrat we saw get run down by the ale wagon? Or the Farmer who got gored by his bull? Everybody dies, Fox, sooner or later. Swear your life to Khralsh, let him look after it. You can’t.”
This time, Fox’s sharp brown gaze locked onto Stone’s. He envied Fox his eyes as well. Few others had the pale blue of Stone’s eyes. Their mentors had always shuddered and called them uncanny, witchy. But he didn’t mind uncanny now if it convinced Fox.
Slowly, Fox nodded. “All right. I’ll swear. With you at my shoulder I believe it.”
“Then swear. We swear together, we fight together, fight well, and surely Khralsh will let us live.”
“I swear. I swear myself to Khralsh. I ask for life, but my life in his hands whatever happens.” Fox spat in the sand, offering a body fluid precious to the warrior god.
Stone copied him. “And so I swear also. My life to Khralsh.”
They stood another moment, swaying faintly when the wind gusted through, setting tent walls to flapping.
“D’you suppose we ought to try to sleep?” Stone scratched his head, careful not to disturb his new topknot.
The cannon crashed again, less in unison than before.
“In this noise?” Fox turned his partner and pushed him in the direction of their division. “You can try.”
“Why do you always have all the answers?”
“Because somebody has to, and you obviously don’t.”
Stone punched Fox in the shoulder hard enough to send him reeling to the far side of the tent street. “What is it I have then?”
“Lunatic courage.”
“You have courage. Plenty of it. I’ve seen it.”
“Ah, but I have the sensible sort of courage. Somebody has to be the crazy one, the one who’ll charge cannon with a misfired musket or volunteer for First and Finest. And that’s you.”
“You were right there charging and volunteering with me.”
“We’re paired. Where else am I supposed to be but at your back, making sure you don’t get your fool self killed.”
Stone thought long enough they passed two tents, trying to work his way to Fox’s meaning. The cannon’s booming, now a steady rumble as the big guns fired at will, seemed to shake the alcohol from his brain. “You’re pissed.” He stopped in the throughway. “Not drunk pissed. Angry pissed. Because I volunteered.”
“I’m not angry.” Fox took his arm and got him moving again. “I was. But I’m not anymore. You convinced me we’d live through this. And if we don’t, Khralsh will welcome us to his hall.”
“Yes.” Stone believed it. He couldn’t believe anything else. “Volunteering for First and Finest will get us noticed. It could get us promoted.”
Fox sighed. “Don’t you ever get tired?”
“Of what?”
“This.” Fox swept his arm in a half circle, indicating the camp around them, the cannon, the city with its broken walls. “Living in tents. Slogging through mud or heat or rain or all three to the next camp. Fighting. Bleeding. Healing up so we can do it all over again. Don’t you wish we could rest for a little while? Go home, soak in the baths, spend some time with a woman who has all her teeth?”
“I don’t know, I rather like the toothless one. The way she can wrap her mouth aro—”
Fox shoved him and Stone broke off, laughing. His laughter didn’t last long. They’d reached their own tent, shared with two other pairs, all elsewhere just now. They probably knew how to find the women’s tents.
Stone took advantage of their absence to speak frankly, half shouting over the cannon noise. “This is the way it is, Fox. We were born Warrior caste. We are the King’s Fist. His Sword and Shield. Where our king sends, we go. It’s no use wishing it was some other way, because it’s not, and it won’t ever be. You’ll shatter your soul trying to fight it.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right.” Fox pulled his musket from the stack and sat down to clean it once more. “I think too much.” He grinned at his partner. “The curse of a brilliant mind.”
Stone grinned back, relief flooding him. “Crazy and stupid. That’s what a good warrior ought to be. You should work on that.”
“I will. Damn me! The flint’s cracked already. I just replaced it this morning.” Grumbling, Fox set to putting the finicky firearm back into working order.
Stone pulled out a whetstone and his bayonet. In a charge like the one facing them, they’d only get one chance to fire their muskets. A sharp bayonet seemed more useful.
The boom of cannon fire set the walls of the women’s tents to trembling. All night the bombardment had continued, a constant underpinning to the activity within the tents. The activity had ceased with the departure of the men. The women slept haphazardly wherever they found a comfortable spot, twitching when the cannon roared, but sleeping nonetheless. All save one.
Aisse vo’Haav, assigned to the Warrior caste, crept carefully from the communal areas to the tiny partitioned section where the women washed, dressed and kept their few personal belongings. If anyone woke, she would have questions, and though Aisse had answers, she couldn’t afford the delay.
She took the moments necessary to stop at the shrine to Ulilianeth, healer, seductress, protector of women, the only goddess in a heaven full of gods. Aisse felt the need for her blessing before embarking on her path.
Ulilianeth had spoken to Aisse
