Draka

Tribune Veretil was a tall, thin man somewhere in his forties, with eyebrows that looked like two miniature mustaches attached to his forehead, the hairs curling every which way. I wondered if they got in the way of his eyesight at all. I got to see those eyebrows move around a lot; the man’s face was as expressive as his eyebrows were bushy.

While he was nowhere as terrified of me as the first tribune, Verlan, had been, he still had a healthy dose of respect, and a transparent unwillingness to say or do anything that might possibly wound my pride. As he went through the different things that a scout should take note of, I asked a lot of questions, usually because there was something I didn’t understand or needed clarification on. Without fail he blamed himself, being careful to phrase everything in such a way that it couldn’t possibly be my fault that I hadn’t understood. It quickly grew tiresome, but I put up with it. The man was a fount of information, and seemed to know everything there was to know about maps, geography, troop types and armaments, and military logistics. If I came across a camp he even wanted me to count the number of each type of livestock, which he could apparently use to estimate something or other. When he tried to explain anything beyond what to look for it quickly went over my head, but the important parts stuck pretty well. He even copied the key points down on a scroll for me to take with me.

After class I was shown to a small part of the inner camp where two large tents had been set up. Garal and Lalia lay on the grass, holding hands and basking in the last rays of the sun as a nervous-looking soldier stood guard nearby, a fairly tall, square faced woman. The soldier’s eyes nearly popped out of her head as we approached, and it took Tribune Veretil clearing his throat for her to notice him. To her credit, once she did she snapped to attention and saluted him.

Garal and Lalia got to their feet. They didn’t salute the tribune, since they weren’t part of the army, but they did give him one of those hand-on-chest half bows that I saw every so often. I could only assume that they had orders to be on their best behavior and to make nice with the officers

“Thank you, Tribune,” I said. “I won’t take any more of your time.”

The man’s face was all over the place as he answered, his eyebrows seeming to move by an inch or more as it stretched and contorted. It was a little disturbing, like some kind of early Jim Carrey character. “Ah, no trouble at all, Lady Draka. None of my other duties this afternoon were important or urgent enough to worry about. Call on me any time if you have further questions. Sentry—” he peered at the guard. “Your name is… Darim, soldier. Is that correct?”

“Yes, Tribune!”

“Sentry Darim here will see to your needs. If you need something or wish to speak with someone, tell her and she will take care of it. Mister Garal and miss Lalia, an evening meal will be served in the command mess, the tent over there with the green flag, in about an hour. We’d be delighted for you to join us. Lady Draka, the general instructed me to arrange some meat and water for you, but if you’d rather…”

He looked doubtfully towards the mess tent. I took pity on him. “A few pounds of meat and a small barrel or large bucket of water will do nicely, Tribune.”

The relief radiated off him. Feeding two extra mouths was surely no trouble, but accommodating me might have been difficult. And that was without taking into account the commotion I’d cause just by being in the mess tent. “I will take care of that immediately, then. Good evening!” he said, then turned and walked quickly away.

“So. Good evening, Garal. Lalia. Sentry Darim?”

The soldier looked back to me, her eyes bugging out again. She swallowed and licked her lips, and I got the impression that her mouth was very dry. “Ah— ah— yeah?” she managed, then jerked to attention, looking horrified. “I mean, yes, Lady Draka. What can I do for you?”

“Are you going to be hanging around the whole time we’re here, or are you just here for the afternoon?”

I couldn't decide if she looked relieved or crestfallen at my question. “I, ah, I was assigned to look after yourself and your two companions for the duration of your stay, but if you’re not satisfied I’m sure I could—”

“Yeah, nah, that’s not it. No worries, all right? But if you’re going to be with us for a few days I can’t have you looking like you’re about to piss yourself the whole time. Come on. Have a sit, chat a little, get used to me.”

“I, ah, I’m supposed to—”

“Come on! Think of it as a request from an important guest. And whatever you’re supposed to do, guard us or keep an eye on us, you can do it better from right next to me. Here, now.” I lay down on the grass between the two tents. “Sit down, and let’s talk a bit.”

“I— yes, ma’am.”

Garal and Lalia had both watched the exchange with open amusement, plopping down next to each other to my left. “Go on, then!” Lalia said, leaning over and patting the ground in a spot that would make a triangle with myself and her and Garal. “Sit down!”

Darim approached us cautiously, as though she feared walking into an ambush. With clear reluctance she adjusted the sheathed sword on her belt, then sat down smoothly on the grass with both legs beneath her. She looked ready to bolt at any moment, but with how skittish she was around me I counted her sitting down at all as a victory.

Maglan, it turned out, had been sent away to join the rest of his regiment. Only half of them had been sent back to Karakan for rest and relaxation; they were currently marching south to join us, but the other half were still here, eagerly waiting for their turn.

“Oh, yeah, I can take you to him. Now, or later, after we eat. No problem,” Darim told Garal when he asked. The contrast between how she treated the Wolves and me was ridiculous. With them she was easy-going and something of a chatterbox, but whenever I spoke up her whole posture changed. She went stiff and silent, and she kept her eyes on my chest, as though trying to predict how I might move in case I decided to— I wasn’t sure. Eat her? She was slow to ease up, too, and I was starting to regret asking her to sit down. What was the point if she was just going to make it awkward?

“So, Darim,” Lalia said, glancing between the two of us. “You mentioned siblings?”

“Oh, yeah! A sister and a brother, both younger than me. My sister just married out, but my brother’s a real little prince. A bit of a surprise blessing, you know? He’s only eight, and gets whatever he wants.” She rolled her eyes, but with a smile on her face. “We couldn’t afford nice things like what he gets when I was growing up. That’s why I joined up, you know? Army feeds you, clothes you, and pays you. Left the folks more money for my siblings. But Papa picked up a new Advancement two years back that lets him sew the finest, surest seams in minutes — he’s a tailor, you see — and now business is better than we ever dreamed. He offered to buy me out of my contract, but I like it here. Stable, orderly, good friends, handsome men — what’s not to like?”

“I did something similar,” Lalia said. “Though not wanting to be a wood carver was a big part of it, too. And I joined the Wolves instead of the army, of course, though that’s mostly this one’s fault.” She ruffled Garal’s hair affectionately. “I’ve got a little sister, Lahnie. Draka loves her. Don’t you, Draka?”

“Yeah, she’s a sweet kid. Loves to ride around on my back. A bit reckless, but she’s what, six?”

“Six, yeah. About to turn seven, though, and won’t let anyone forget it. She was born about four weeks after the solstice, so it’s not far off now. Close to Herald, actually.”

“Wait!” Darim turned large, astonished eyes on me. “You let a little girl ride you?”

“I mean, yeah?” I said. “Like I said: she’s a sweet kid. I don’t take her up though; I don’t know if she could hang on. Don’t know if I could hold her tight enough without hurting her, either.”

“Up?”

“Yeah, you know.” I looked skyward. “Up.”

Darim followed my gaze upwards, then back down. For the first time, instead of apprehension I saw wonder and maybe something like longing on her face.

“Do you want to try it?” I asked carefully. It was a total impulse. I hadn’t planned to try to win her over. I didn’t need her to like me; it had just bothered me that she looked so damned uncomfortable. But there was something about the look in her eyes that made me think that I could literally make a dream of hers come true, and it would cost me nothing. “I fly regularly with a friend of mine. It’s safe and all.”

“I have duties to attend to,” she said, and when she did, when she looked away from me, it was with such clear reluctance and regret that my heart hurt a little.

“Well, find me when you’re off duty, then. As long as I’m here, you have an open invitation. I don’t need any preparation. Just say the word and I can have you a thousand feet in the air in two minutes.”

Her head snapped to me, and all her fear was gone. All I saw was hope. “You mean that? You’re not just saying that?”

“Yeah! Just say the word! I’ll be out tonight, but just catch me between naps during the day and we’ll get you up there.” I turned to Garal and Lalia. “What about you two? You wanna fly?”

“No, thank you!” Garal said quickly. “Your offer is appreciated, but I love the land and want to stay on it.”

“Lalia?”

Lalia looked nonplussed. “I— maybe? Someday? Don’t think I’m ready yet, but yeah. Some day. I think.”

“All right. The offer stands.”

Soon after that my dinner arrived: about ten pounds of raw, fresh meat, along with a small barrel of cold, clear water. The others left for the mess tent. The sun had descended behind the distant mountains, and as the light slowly faded a buzzing excitement filled me. In my mind these reconnaissance flights had just been a formality, a means to an end, but since arriving at the army camp, since talking to General Sarvalian and Tribune Veretil, I’d become invested. I wanted to do well, not because I wanted to impress anyone but because I wanted them to do well in turn, thanks to the information I might be able to give them. If there was a war brewing — and it looked like there might be, no matter if they rotated companies or not — I wanted Karakan to win. Not because I owed the city anything, but because everyone I knew and liked called it or its territories home. So I was going to do my best, and I was going to take the experience and whatever feedback I got, and the next night I was going to do better, and better, and better.

The draw of the nearby Nest Hearts, their threads bright and strong, added to my motivation. I wanted to know what was going on with that, why there were so many near the border. And to be perfectly honest with myself, I was hoping to find one unguarded, so that I could eat it. I knew that I shouldn’t. I knew that it was dangerous, and that I would probably pass out again. But the temptation was strong, and I wanted to know if I’d at least have the option. Maybe if I found one I could take Lalia out with me for a quick flight, and she could guard me. Maybe “someday” could come quickly. Maybe.

I gave the meat and water a good sniff, then tasted a little bit of each and gave it a few minutes. I didn’t expect anyone to try to poison me, but whoever had prepared and handled my food and drink, they weren’t my friends. When nothing happened it took me only minutes to go through the rest; ten pounds of meat for tea was nothing unusual for me, and it wasn’t like I needed to chew. It wasn’t nearly enough to send me into a torpor, but I lay down for a quick nap anyway. I ignored the large tent that was intended for me and simply lay down on the grass, trusting that no one would be stupid enough to try to bother me.

I woke to the sound of Lalia singing The Wrong Scabbard, a raunchy song that I’d once heard from Pot, about a drunken soldier who had trouble sheathing his sword. From her volume and the way she slurred her words she was nearly as drunk as the soldier, and Garal kept trying to shush her. When I looked up Darim was walking behind them, grinning like a damn fool and joining in on the refrain, though she seemed sober herself.

“Did you have a good dinner?” I asked as they got close, and the song finished with a ringing crescendo. Lalia had a surprisingly good singing voice, even when drunk.

“Excellent!” Lalia replied, enunciating carefully. “Good food, and damned good wine!”

“Though a little stronger than my waves and stars is used to,” Garal said, smiling patiently. “No quarter wine in the officer’s mess here. They like it strong in the army!”

“Oh, they water it to a quarter for us soldiers!” Darim said. As they got closer I could see that I’d been wrong: she was a little more relaxed than she’d been, a little looser in her gait. Not leggy, but definitely riding the upper edge of tipsy. “How long are you staying? I could get used to this!”

“A couple of days,” I told her. “I can try to drag it out a bit. Anyway, I was just waiting for you guys to get back, so I could tell you I’m heading out.”

“Just. Reconnaissance!” Lalia said, still speaking slowly and carefully and punctuating her words with a finger that she poked towards me. “Kira’s nice and all but you can’t be dragging back any Happarans, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. I promise. I’ll only look and not touch, all right?”

“I’m serious, Draka! We’re not at war with ‘em yet!”

“I promise!”

* * *

Veretil had suggested that I stay in the air the whole first night. I did, but it was a struggle.

I flew along the Happaran side of the border in long, overlapping circles, starting from the coast in the east and working my way west, covering about a fifteen mile strip on the southern side of the Divide, the river that separated Karakan from the duchy. The terrain below me was less hilly than on the northern side, more suitable for farming, but there were few villages and no towns at all. Despite the favorable terrain, the area was as sparsely populated as the northern reaches of the forest. The emptiness looked somewhat recent, too; I could see the remains of abandoned villages and a few small towns, their fields, streets, and squares overgrown but the buildings still whole. I flew low over some of them, and the small trees growing here and there couldn’t be more than two years old at most.

The reason was simple: monsters. I didn’t know how it had happened or why they were allowed to persist, but that strip of land had a shockingly high density of Nest Hearts, rivaling the far northern forest. They weren’t everywhere, but there were enough of them that anyone living there would be constantly at risk. They were only on the southern side of the river; I checked. Nor were there any within a few miles of the large road that continued south from the bridge the Spurs had crossed; I assumed that those Hearts, at least, must have been cleared out. But everywhere else there would be one every few miles, dotting the landscape. Tempting me, drawing me in and forcing me to use all my willpower to not land for a taste.

None of them were out in the open, I noticed that immediately. They were hidden away in woods or gullies, or even under hills. I flew low over those that weren’t too covered, and I saw lots of goblins, but also valkin, which I’d hoped never to see again. Both types of creatures liked to build their small villages around a Nest Heart, and a few of them had grown into proper settlements. I even saw rough fields and pens of animals in some of them, something I’d never expected, but which shouldn’t come as such a surprise. The valkin in the mountains had kept humans and taken their draft animals and livestock; why couldn’t they keep sheep and poultry, or farm the land? The goblins seemed less inclined towards keeping livestock, but even they had some small garden patches. They traded for things, so why couldn't they produce? It made it hard to think of them as monsters, and I wondered if the Happarans had reached some kind of agreement with them.

Other Hearts were unattended. For those, I had no good explanation at all. Nor did I have any way to tell what kind of creature they might spawn. Those were the most tempting, and I almost talked myself into going for one of them. It was night, after all. Surely most creatures would be asleep? But my encounter with a monstrous bear one night some months ago, while I was traveling in the mountains with Lalia, had taught me that I was not the only enormously dangerous creature that hunted at night. The thought of a three tonne bear coming across me while I lay unconscious and using my head as a chew toy was enough to put me off the idea, but not by much.

Not tonight, I told myself and flew on. I had army encampments to scout.