I turned to look behind me, hoping if Miyani had come through at that moment I would see her. She wasn't there. This was silly; she'd gone somewhere else. If God wanted me to ever see her again, surely He would make it happen in His own time.
In the distance, the tall towers were shrouded in a dark mist that came down from the cloudy sky. Then I realized the mist was like a wall approaching us. Quickly.
The man who'd greeted us at the gate and taught us how to walk around a giant alligator also noticed. He turned to us and smiled. "You'd better come this way!"
From the open area, we followed him into the building just in time for a chorus of clattering to fill the expanse outside. White lines fell from the sky and splashed into pools throughout the grounds all around us.
"My name is Tagaŋu," the man said. "Please come this way."
Inside, the air felt sticky and hot despite the rain. Three walls were naught but open archways separated by thick columns of gray-and-yellow stones mortared together half covered by sheer curtains that seemed frozen in place. Elsewhere, a wooden partition, painted in a variety of colors with some kind of abstract imagery, was unfolded across the floor leaving space enough for a stone staircase leading upwards.
While Taganu moved around and sat down behind a rough wooden desk, my mind raced over how I might ask someone if they knew about Miyani.
"Alright," he said, "who's first?"
"First for what?" I said.
There was a book atop the desk adjacent to a glass vial with a long white feather reaching up from it. Taganu opened the book and began rifling through. Names. Rows and rows of names filled the pages, many of them crossed out. He kept at it until he came to a page where the names ended, leaving blank space. Then he picked up the feather, tapped it against the rim of the vial, and looked up at us in expectation. At least a dozen names were on the page where the tip of his pen rested.
"I'll go first," Davod stepped up. "Davod of Gath."
The man wrote. "Who's your Naveris?"
Davod glanced at me, shrugged, then spoke. "Runya of Gath."
"Any special skills?"
Davod shrugged. "I smith."
Taganu nodded, wrote that down and called out, "next?"
Davod looked at me and shrugged me forward, but Ales stepped up. "Ales of Suuya, Naveris is Tanee of Suuya."
I looked back out towards the gate on the off chance that Miyani might pass through at that moment. I didn't see her. Half of me hoped to see her coming in from the rain; my minds eye envisioned the glistening shimmer of water all over her dark skin, filling the lines of muscles in her legs, droplets peppering her small breasts, taut arms, and every curve of her back. Fresh images of her coming down from Blue and turning her back to me, the way that scant cloth covered merely the center of her arse leaving such delicious curves to my eyes tickled my thoughts. The other half normally would have flagellated my emotions as atonement for such thoughts but rather rested in silent awe of her.
Taganu looked up at Ales. "Skills?"
Ales shrugged. "I sail, I fish. I clean fish, I cook fish, I eat fish."
Faren added, "he's very good at eating fish."
Ales smirked. "Very good. Very good. Lots of practice."
Taganu nodded with a smile of his own. "The Yasivuŋa used to make a squid souffle that was just unbelievable." Then he shrugged, "they probably still do."
Ales's eyes perked up. "Is it anything like the one they make in Tobor?"
Taganu smiled and nodded. "Similar. They spice it differently; soak it in lemongrass and basil, and not so heavy-handed with the nice pepper. Next?"
"Geraln of Gath."
"Naveris?"
"I don't have one." He shot a glare in my direction and locked his jaw. I looked away; several spiders had woven their webs across one of the archways. Strings of tiny droplets fanned out towards the columns making an otherwise invisible wall. Outside, the rain stopped.
Taganu smirked. "You're going to be popular."
Geraln turned to him. "What do you mean?"
Taganu raised one eyebrow and spoke through a wry grin. "I'm sure you can figure it out."
Geraln shook his head. "I don't know. What do you mean?"
Taganu laughed. "Let's see here… there's been a war going on for ten years now; there aren't many men left. What's one thing a woman can't do without a man's help, except for the problem of there being some Naveris coming over the mountains to claim your child. I'm sure you can figure it out."
Geraln's eyes bulged as he began to put the pieces together. He turned to look at me in shock. I could tell he fought it, but a grin was beginning to form across his face.
Taganu looked at him directly. "Any skills?"
Geraln's eyes were fixed at some point that didn't exist in our world. He shook it off slightly and turned back to Taganu. "Huh?"
Taganu chuckled and spoke to him through a wide grin. "Let me give you some advice: there is no greater curse than to get everything you think you want, so be careful. Any skills?"
Geraln shrugged. He hesitated, so I spoke up for him. "He took gold at the knowledge tourney last winter."
Taganu nodded and wrote that down. "Next?"
Kelint muscled forward to wedge his small frame between us and stepped up. "Kelint of Dignestran. Naveris is Gitteilat of Dignestran. For skills, I won gold at the Ulum County archery championship three years running." Kelint then glanced around at Geraln, Davod, and myself with a smug grin.
There was something about the way she tilted her face I couldn't get over. Last night over dinner, she would look at whoever was talking, probably trying to understand the words, her eyes were so beautiful. Her lips so soft, and when she smiled it was enchanting. She had a wide, round face with soft cheeks that scrunched in the most adorable of ways when she smiled; I could look at her endlessly. Every now and then she would glance at me and catch me looking. I know that when a girl catches you looking you're supposed to look away as though you hadn't been staring at her just then, but I didn't. And she would lower her eyes and smile a little.
"Next?"
Rock stepped up, as did Faren. They glanced at one another, and Faren waved him on. Rock then approached the desk. "Are you speaking the Goloagi?"
Taganu nodded. "Tell to me your the name?"
"Rock of Tortiess."
"Is Naveris tradition at you have part of the Saen?"
"Yes. She is naming Sanjani of Dignestran."
Taganu glanced up at him and raised an eyebrow. It was Kelint who filled in the details, "that's my sister."
"Are you have the skills to be special?"
Rock bobbed his head back and forth. "I am building things."
"Next?"
"Faren of Suuya, Naveris is Shiree of Suuya. Skills…" Faren scrunched his chin and looked at Ales.
Ales grinned. "Purveyor of fine… herbal intoxicants?"
The two shared a laugh. Geraln, Davod, and I shared a light giggle of our own as well.
Taganu tilted his head to the side and wrote in his book. "Nothing wrong with that, normally, but remember we're at war…"
"I know."
"... if it takes you a fraction of a second longer to react to something, that fraction of a second will get you killed. That detail on the road you weren't paying attention to may be a spike trap; if you're lucky, you'll only lose a leg. Men who stay alive down here stay sharp at all times. Do you understand?"
Faren shrugged. "I haven't… since before we came to the pass."
"Good. Because even the gators in the moat can tell when a man isn't walking right. Next?"
That left me and Northstar. Northstar glanced at me and urged me forward, so I stepped up. "Caleb of Gath. No Naveris."
"Any skills?"
A growing obsession with a girl I had no way of talking to, though that probably didn't count as a skill. "No, not really."
Davod spoke up with a firm hand across my back, "he's a medic."
"Yeah," Geraln confirmed.
I added, "I'm really not."
Davod insisted, "yes, he is."
Taganu passed his yellow eyes back and forth between us, and Geraln spoke up. "Write that down. He's a medic."
Taganu then looked at me directly.
"I have some… limited… medical training. That's all, really."
With that, the man tapped his finger down the list, counting out the names, then looked up and counted us. Then he faced Northstar directly. "Are you have speak the Goloagi? What you have name?"
We cleared the way for him, and he stepped up to the table. He'd spoken so little before that I hadn't noticed his deep baritone. "I am Northstar. I am having Naveris she is Wind."
"Any skills?"
Northstar turned to Rock and spoke. "Da-ayi ka awu'ne save-edi shabo?"
Rock looked upwards as if searching for the words before turning to Kelint, who then translated. "He's a weaver; he makes tapestries, rugs, that sort of thing."
With that, Taganu set the feather back into the vial and blew on the fresh ink before pulling the book to the side. He then reached down and pulled up a brown burlap sack tied at the top that chinked from the coins within as he set it down. He then opened it and turned it down, and a sizable pile of coins clattered all over the wooden table. He dug his fingers through it, pulling out a pair of sixteens and set them aside. Then he set aside another pair, then a sixteen, three fives, and a one, then six fives and two ones. Then he found two more sixteens, then another sixteen with two fives and six ones, followed by two more stacks of six fives with two ones. Finally he put the rest of the coins back in the bag and looked up at us. "Your first month's wages."
I reached for a stack, but Geraln protested. "Thirty-two kren for the month? That's it?"
Taganu excused himself, "soldiers' wages are set by your Emperor."
Geraln looked around wide-eyed. "This is ridiculous! What are we supposed to do with thirty-two kren, man?"
Taganu shrugged. "Buy something? I don't know. Come this way."
We left through archways on a different side from the one we'd come in. We hadn't filed out in a proper line, but rather as a cluster. Ales walked along the side through a different archway only to reach his hands out vigorously, trying to peel the spider web from his face. Outside, there was a path of beaten grass through the field towards the cluster of old wooden buildings. While Taganu stepped his bare feet through fresh puddles without a thought, water had soaked through my boots and seeped into my toes.
I heard a splash behind me, followed by Geraln crying out in protest. "Really, man?"
I turned, and Rock had jumped into a puddle, splashing everyone around him. His answer for Geraln was a big smile across his meaty face. Davod tried to get around the puddles by stepping on the thicker grass, only to catch his foot in a deep pocket of mud. Men filed out of a stone shed from having waited out the rain and resumed their training. Some of them waved at us as we passed.
As for me, I turned to look towards the gate again. And again, I didn't see her come through at that moment, either.
"These are the barracks." We stood in the center of a wide corridor of beaten grass abutted on both sides by rows of long buildings made of dark wood set atop stone piles with some inches of clearance above the ground. Several of the planks had worn away from rot towards the bottom or had otherwise been decorated with green moss, and each had a few steps leading up to an open doorway at one end. The old, water-logged wooden steps bowed and creaked as we stepped up, and I saw a family of small pigs scurry beneath the building.
Inside, the air was hot and musty and carried the stench of mold. The wood floors protested loudly at being walked over, and a long, narrow path cut through rows of beds stacked two high with the lower on the floor and the upper on a small, elevated bunk above it. Light came from a series of windows that lacked any kind of closure save for the spiderwebs stretched across. In one corner, a trickle of water from the rain moments before ran down along the wall and pooled on the floor before draining through a pinhole in the wood.
Taganu then reached down and grabbed up a pack that had been left on one of the beds along with a stack of fresh laundry. He tucked that under his arms and pointed as he spoke. "So… the spiders are your friends…"
"What?" Kelint gaped.
"If the web looks old, clean it out so they can make a new one. Always check for snakes; the little green ones you need a rod to chase them out, the others you can pick up like normal."
Geraln gaped. "What do you mean pick up?"
"If you see any fat white ones with a yellow diamond pattern, bring those ones to the kitchen; they're delicious. I'll show you where that is later. Go ahead and pick a bed, any bed. None of them have names. You should be able to leave your things here; no one will disturb them."
"What about that guy's things?" Ales pointed to the pack he'd picked up moments before.
Taganu looked at his arms, then back. "He's dead. Over here…"
He walked over to a wall beside the entrance. Faren and I lingered, staring at the empty bed where the pack had been removed from. We glanced at one another; he had a sense of foreboding on his face.
"Gentlemen?" he said. Beside him was a board with several columns separated by thin wooden lines, with rows under each holding several wooden blocks with names written on them. At the top of each column was a chore—laundry, dishes, cleaning, bath water, and so forth. "Every morning, the slots get emptied. First one to put their name up gets the first pick. If it's full, pick a different one, and if you don't pick you get whatever's left over. Over here…"
Whoever doesn't pick gets to empty the latrine.
Beside the chore board, a small table was set with ceramic jars and a stack of oily rags stained with rust. "If you brought a eupin longbow, you need to oil it up or the wood will split. Those of you who brought chain armor, especially during the rainy season, make sure to dry off the links completely and oil them up after because they'll rust as well. Use plenty and don't worry about your shirt; oil comes out easier than blood."
I looked at Kelint. He let out a slow exhalation and ran his fingers through his hair. We were all silent.
"This way."
We followed him towards the end of the corridor. My eyes once again passed over the vacant bed before following Taganu over to a side room where several wooden tubs were laid out.
"Bathe daily," he held up a finger. "Bathe with a partner. I know men bathing one another is weird in your culture, but do it anyway. Those little white bumps under your skin, those are worm eggs; you can get them out with your fingernail, but do it before they hatch, trust me. There's also ticks, leeches, fleas, foot rot, and thorns that'll make you very sick. You see a rash, anything unusual, see the medic."
We all glanced at one another. All our eyes were wide with horror.
With that, he led us outside once more, where the hot, humid air was a welcome respite from the stale mustiness of the wooden barracks. I looked at the gate again. She wasn't there this time, either.
We gathered around.
From the stone building, another man emerged and made his way towards us. Taganu nodded to him, then turned to us. "The kitchen is there," he pointed. "Breakfast at daybreak, dinner after the gate closes. Food in the old city is much better, but that'll run you a few kren; this you don't have to pay for. Miyani should bring five more men in the morning; training begins tomorrow at noon. What else… what else… ahh. OK. This is important. The women here…"
I glanced around. Eyes perked up throughout our little group. Taganu, however, looked serious.
"... it's a different culture from what you're used to, but let's simplify it this way: she comes to you. Stick to that rule and you'll be fine; she comes to you. If she doesn't, another one will. And if that doesn't work, brush your teeth—sometimes that helps. Anyway, the Marquis wants a word with you all. After that you're welcome to enjoy the city."
With that, he turned and left.
This other man, the Marquis, was fairly tall—not so much as Davod and Northstar, but still tall, and lean. He had the same olive-green skin as us with long, straight, dark-green hair he'd let fall behind his back though his face bore the age of a man into his forties. His brow, his lips, seemed fixed in consternation as though he hadn't smiled in years. He had on a torn white shirt pulled reluctantly over his shoulders and left open revealing hard muscle all up and down his chest, with a black loincloth with gold trim that hemmed about his knees held up by a simple leather belt.
He came up and stood, glancing around before speaking. His voice had a raspy, breathy tone to it. "A couple months ago we had a guy, had a thing for one of our scouts. She didn't want nothin to do with him. He refused to leave her alone, so her vɪta'o knocks him down, rips out his liver, and eats it right in front of him while he's still breathing."
The Marquis then looked each of us in the eyes before finishing. "Welcome to Carthia."
Then he turned and walked off. Everyone turned to face me.
Rock turned to Kelint. "What he did saying?"
Kelint plastered a wide smirk all over his baby face with a glance in my direction. "That girl brought us over here, the one this guy Caleb been drooling over? Stay away from her."
Geraln corrected him with a cruel grimace, "that's not what he said! He merely said that if Caleb spoke to her again, that lizard was going to eat his liver; that's all."
Kelint laughed. Faren slapped my back and corrected both of them with a smile. "A better translation would be, 'rip his liver out, and then eat it.' Get it right."
Geraln chuckled while Northstar looked at me with a smug grin. At that, all of them started to walk off while Davod stared at me and shook his head, nearly laughing. "Only you, man! Only you!"