Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (61 page)

Ramon hated her desperation to quicken. She told him she would not ask him to formally acknowledge any child; all she wanted was a discharge, and her blazing need and the question mark it left over their relationship was an unacknowledged tension – but in spite of that, he willingly ploughed her, again and again, and every day felt his dependency on her growing. He liked how they were together; he felt witty and funny and ironic and strong when he was with her.

I’m a fool
, he admitted to himself.
I’m falling for her, idiot that I am.

The army crawled forward, moving more slowly with every passing day. As the water-wagons emptied they were abandoned alongside the road and the beasts that pulled them butchered for meat. Encounters with enemy scouts seldom resulted in much more than the exchange of arrows, but they were becoming increasingly frequent. The windships flying the long patrols still reported growing enemy forces in Shaliyah.

At the end of the third week, as Ramon was riding with Storn, word fizzed through the column: the advance guard had reached the city. Relief was palpable on every face and the legionaries picked up their pace. There was a low ridge ahead, already lined with the battle standards of the other legions who’d arrived ahead of them.

As the Thirteenth got closer, they could hear cheering, a distant rumble that grew and grew. Finally it was their turn to top the rise, the last in line, and look out over the shallow, wide valley. Below them stretched Echor’s army, his Argundian legions at the core, the Estella arrayed on his left, to the north, where an exposed plain gaped. The remaining legions, those from Bricia and Andressea and Noros, were arrayed to the right, on the southern flank not far from the tail-end of a line of low hills. An old ruin of some sort topped the closest hill, and it was to that flank that Duprey waved his men.

As they made their way along the ridge, the men of Pallacios XIII could see on their left the great city they had come so far to sack.

Shaliyah was a gleaming marvel. It was built round a small lake, the shimmer of which could be glimpsed beyond the walls – those
walls themselves were made of some kind of shiny flecked stone that glistened in the setting sun like pure gold. The domes of the Dom-al’Ahm and the turrets of the massive palace shone so brightly Ramon had to squint.

Figures robed in white filled every inch of the walls. The west-facing fortifications ran for at least a mile from the gatehouse at the centre of the defences, curving about the lake and ending with a fortress at either end.

‘Thank Kore,’ Storn said fervently, striking his right fist to his breastplate. ‘Thanks and praise.’

They had arrived. The army was a scarlet tide, pouring into the valley.

After marching for seven hundred miles, footsore and increasingly under-supplied, they’d finally found the enemy. The legionaries pulled off their helmets and waved them in the air as their cheers rolled down the valley and echoed from the hills, bouncing off the walls of the city. Here was where the war would begin: right here. Nature had been a formidable opponent, but she had been overcome. The enemy would surely be an easier foe.

Myths and legends of the Scytale

No artefact is so shrouded in mystique as the Scytale of Corineus. Some say that just to touch it grants immortality – or a vision of Corineus’ face; or godhood. Some say it is a weapon; others believe that it grants communion with Kore, and the wisdom of the ages. The superstitions of the common folk know no limit.

O
RDO
C
OSTRUO
C
OLLEGIATE
, P
ONTUS

Isle of Glass, Javon Coast, Antiopia
Zulhijja (Decore) 928
6
^th
month of the Moontide

Alaron woke early and lay for a while listening to the sounds of this strange place. At first it was eerily silent, but then he could make out the never-ending dim pounding of the waves on the rocks below. He could feel the almost imperceptible trembling of the tower of stone.
I bet this place has stood for thousands of years
, he reassured himself nervously.

He dressed quickly, strapped on his sword out of habit and went out into the hall. All of the doors were closed, so he took the stairs back to the main living room, where he was met by the scents of heavily spiced cooking. The little Lakh woman was in the kitchen, and three pots were simmering on her stove. Thankfully she wasn’t wearing that outrageous attire that left her pregnant stomach uncovered. He’d thought he was immune to female weirdness after months of bare lamia breasts, but a bare pregnant belly was just wrong. But she was crammed into a plain shift – well, simple, rather than plain, for
the cloth was alive with colourful decorative swirls and patterns, a cacophony of colour.

Now, what was her greeting word?
‘Uh … Nam-stay?’ he tried.

‘Namaste,’ she corrected brightly, looking up and smiling at him. Her teeth were beautifully white against her dark skin.

He noticed again how small she was – apart from her enormous belly, of course. She only came up to his chest, and he wasn’t overly tall. But he liked her demeanour: her eyes were smiling, but patient. She had a kind of dignity and self-sufficiency that made her seem almost middle-aged, though her clear skin looked too youthful for her to actually be middle-aged. She’d displayed flashes of temper last night, too, so she was no doormat. He wondered how old she really was.

‘Uh, nama-stay – er, Ramita, right?’ She waggled her head in that weird Lakh nod. It was kind of charming, he decided. ‘That’s a nice name.’

She smiled. ‘Thank you. Your name … it is amusing. Very barbaric, but sweet.’

‘Alaron? It’s just a name.’

‘In Keshi, al’Rhon means “Goat”.’ She giggled. ‘Although I am sure you are not a goat,’ she added consolingly.

Great, I have a stupid name in Keshi
. He pulled a face, looking around for something to eat. ‘Is there any bread?’

‘Bread? You mean roti? I can make some.’ She waved a hand towards an oven.

‘Ah, sure.’ He wondered what foreign bread would be like, then told himself,
It’s bread, how different can it be?
‘What’s cooking?’ He checked out the pots as she named them: foreign dishes he’d never heard of, all some kind of yellow or brown gloop, smelling of every spice he could ever have imagined. There were no proper breakfast foods like cheese or eggs in sight, so she had to be cooking for lunch or dinner.

‘Um, can I help?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied with mild condescension. ‘Please, relax.’

He leant against the bench. ‘So, um … you’re a Lakh.’ He dimly knew the place existed from geography lessons, but that was about it.
It was massive, and full of Indranicans … people like her,
he guessed.

She waggled her head again and said, ‘I am from Baranasi, on the holy river Imuna.’ Her voice held a lilt of longing.

‘How old are you?’ he asked curiously.

‘It is not proper to ask,’ she said, sounding amused.

Oops.

‘Uh, I’m nineteen,’ he offered by way of apology. He’d had his birthday a few days before they stole the windship in Gydan’s Cut, but he’d forgotten all about it at the time.

She waggled her head. ‘I am sixteen.’

He blinked.
Sixteen, and seven months pregnant? Great Kore … she’d probably been just fifteen when she married
. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting, ‘Really? You’re
so
young.’

She smiled prettily, taking his incredulous comment for a compliment. ‘Thank you.’ She patted her belly. ‘I’m having twins,’ she said proudly.

‘How do you know?’

Her face went sad. ‘I just know,’ she said softly. Then she
tsked
and went back to her cooking, producing flour from somewhere and creating wet dough, then kneading and rolling it. ‘I will make roti now,’ she announced.

‘Shouldn’t we wait for the others?’

‘Lady Justina does not get out of bed until much later.’ She stroked her belly again. ‘My babies and I cannot go without for so long.’ She waggled her head again, confusing him even more because he didn’t think she mean ‘yes’ this time, more something like ‘this is true’.

‘Cym likes to sleep late too,’ Alaron told her. They looked at each other and he knew she was thinking the same as him:
like mother, like daughter
. They both smiled at once, and he decided he rather liked this little woman, Ramita, young widow of the world’s greatest mage.

She made him breakfast, a bizarre meal of spiced gloop she called ‘curry’, something white and spongy she named as ‘rice’, and the
roti: which was most definitely not proper bread. It didn’t rise at all, and it contained all these strange seeds and yet more spices – but weirdly, it all tasted pretty good. However, the curried gloop went through him in ten minutes and he spent the next thirty minutes stuck in the privy. His mouth was burning too, almost as much as his arse.

After that he stuck to rice and water, which at least filled his belly. Ramita ate all the food with evident relish, and was visibly trying to suppress her mirth at the plight of his nether region.

‘Do not worry,’ she said kindly, patting his arm. ‘Many ferang struggle at first to eat proper food.’

‘
Proper?
’ he retorted. ‘It almost killed me!’

‘You will get used to it.’ She wagged her head, giving it yet another type of meaning, something like, ‘I know best’.

I have no intention of getting used to it
.

The room grew a bit dimmer and when he looked up at the skylight, he noticed it was beginning to rain. ‘Do you think I can move the windskiff to your other landing space,’ he asked? ‘Lady Justina said last night that I should, if the wind’s not too fierce.’

‘Of course,’ Ramita replied. ‘I will need to open the lower gates for you.’

When he went up, he found the wind was manageable. It was the work of minutes to get the skiff aloft. In the daylight, he could see that this pillar rose hundreds of feet above the highest waves – but the spray was incredible. It was only because he knew what he was looking for that he managed to make out the smoothed space below, and the dark opening in the rock.

Despite the buffeting winds he managed to get the craft down safely, though he was quickly tiring from exerting gnosis that wasn’t a strong affinity. Finally, he lowered the sails and pulled the mast out of its socket, before pulling it into the opening. He found himself on a smooth stone floor, beside a deep-looking pool with myriad large fish swimming in it.
Interesting—

Ramita was standing beside the doors, and he was about to ask her about the fish when she did something quite startling.

She turned the big doors with a gesture of her hands and they boomed closed, then sealed.

His jaw dropped. ‘
You’re a mage?
’

She waggled her head, and now it meant ‘
Yes
’ again, with strong overtones of ‘
You’ve only just realised?
’

‘From bearing my husband’s children,’ she told him, her head erect as if daring him to be shocked.

‘Oh.’
Of course – Mistress Yune told us about pregnancy manifestation, didn’t she? And of course that would happen to her, even though she’s not Rondian …

‘Uh … that must have been a shock for you.’

She cocked her head. ‘You have no idea.’

*

He’s like a big puppy
, Ramita thought as she watched Alaron fussing over the skiff. He folded the sails properly before stowing the mast, and only then did he go to the pool and start peering at the fish. He behaved awfully immature at times, as if he’d been sheltered from difficult things, but then he’d reveal something about himself that really took her aback – like that his mother was dead. And though his voice was filled with longing whenever he spoke Cymbellea’s name, something in his manner suggested he knew that she was quite out of his reach. She knew Lakh boys who would have been bitter about such a thing, but he appeared to be quietly accepting – that was no small thing in itself. It hinted at a strong but understated kind of manliness, like her father had. He would grow to be a good man, she thought.

Poor boy. This Cymbellea doesn’t appreciate what she’s got
.

‘You are very old to be unmarried,’ she observed.

He threw her a look. ‘Not really. We don’t marry until we’re nineteen or twenty.’

Holy Parvasi! No wonder Yuros is under-populated!

‘Then you are betrothed?

He blushed, as if this wasn’t a normal question, then started, ‘Sort of—’ which he quickly changed to, ‘Not really, no.’

‘Ask him about Anise,’ Cym called as she emerged from the stairs,
holding a towel. Alaron ducked his head shyly, which made the two young women smile at each other.

Cym peered at the pools. ‘Is there a bath with no fish in it?’

Ramita pointed at the smaller pool, then led Alaron back upstairs to the lounge. Shortly after a freshly washed Cym arrived, Justina joined them. Neither looked like they’d slept much. They appeared to expect Ramita to cook for them, but she decided she was okay with that. Alaron –
what a funny name!
– looked as if he wanted to stay well clear of them, so she showed him to the library, then took herself back to the kitchen.

Parvasi, let mother and daughter find understanding
, she asked the goddess as she busied herself with her pots and pans.

Seeing the two women together made her miss her own family dreadfully and she found her eyes misting over several times as she made lunch. They were such a dreadfully long way away. She worried over whether the promised money for her pregnancy had ever been sent. Were they safe? Were they happy? Had Jai gone home with his Keita?

Queen of Heaven, watch over them all
, she begged.

‘Um … are you all right?’ Alaron said. He had reappeared, a book clutched in his hand, looking at her concernedly.

She was immediately flustered. ‘Don’t creep up on people,’ she scolded him, then regretted it and said apologetically, ‘No, no, I am fine. I was just remembering my home.’

‘Were you a princess in Bara-what’s-it?’

She sniffed. ‘No, and all the happier for it. I am from Aruna Nagar Market. It is the best place in the world.’

He looked at her disbelievingly. Perhaps he thought that whatever cold and primitive place he came from was better, she thought irritably.
Just let him say so!
But he disarmed her with a quiet question. ‘Do they know of Yuros there?’

‘Yes. They say it is filled with afreet.’

‘Afreet?’

‘White-skinned demons who eat children.’

‘I don’t eat children,’ he said gravely. ‘They’re too fatty.’

It took her a moment to work out that this was a joke, but once she did she laughed involuntarily.
He is a nice boy
. It was fun to have someone to talk to, even if he was just a ferang. ‘What will you do with your Skittly-thing?’ she asked him as she used the gnosis to defrost the meat, then reached for the largest knife to chop it into thin slivers.

‘The Scytale?’ He exhaled heavily. ‘I don’t know. I thought Cym’s plan was good: she’d give it to her mother, who’d give it to her father, and Lord Meiros would solve everything. We’ve been hiding and running so long we never even heard that he was dead. If we had, we might never have come so far.’

‘The mother and child, they would still have sought each other,’ Ramita replied confidently. ‘I know families: we can’t keep away from each other.’

‘I have no family – no brothers or sisters, that is. Just my father left, now. And Aunty Elena.’

‘I have three brothers and two sisters, and three more who died, including my twin,’ she told him. ‘And Huriya too.’

‘You lost a twin? What’s that like?’ he asked with guileless insensitivity.

She decided she didn’t mind. ‘Jaya died when I was five. She was a loudmouth, she talked all the time.’ She waggled her fingers, smiling. ‘
Jabber-jabber
. I missed her for a long time, but our family is so big, no one can be lonely for long. Huriya became my twin – she took Jaya’s place, in a way. I still sometimes miss Jaya, but it was a long time ago.’

‘Who is Huriya?’ he asked, mangling the pronunciation.

‘Trouble.’ Ramita pursed her lips. ‘We have had a falling-out.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. She eats people like you for breakfast.’

He pulled a face. ‘Literally? Like an afreet?’

She squealed with laughter. ‘No! It is just one of your Rondian “figures of speech”.’

‘Phew.’ He grinned: ‘I’ve just been travelling with a group of creatures who really do eat people for breakfast!’ And he proceeded to fascinate her by telling her the strangest story, of men with snake-tails
who had trekked across the whole world seeking refuge. She didn’t actually believe him, but it was so absorbing she almost burned the food.

‘You are an outrageous liar,’ she scolded him good-naturedly.

‘No, it’s all true,’ he protested. ‘The lamiae are as real as you or me.’

‘It is true,’ Cymbellea, walking into the kitchen. ‘I can vouch for it all.’

‘Then your lands are even more primitive than I have been told,’ Ramita declared.