EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (187 page)

The girls fell silent and Mae began to weep. Tilla dared to lift the blanket and look down at her body. She closed her eyes.

Stars.

Nairi had indeed done a job on her, as Erry had said. Below the blanket, bruises and welts covered Tilla’s naked body. Her leather armor had perhaps protected her from dulled swords, but not from Nairi’s punisher. She wondered if she’d forever carry these scars.

“It’s... not that bad,” Erry said. “Really, Till. Stars, I got beat up worse on the docks a few times, and I’m still standing.” The waif snarled. “You’re going to keep fighting, Roper, or I’m going to beat you up even worse.”

Sniffing back tears, Mae reached into a pack she carried and pulled out a bundle of cloth. When she unwrapped the fabric, the scents of honey and bread filled Tilla’s nostrils so powerfully her mouth watered, and she couldn’t help but moan. Inside the bundle lay three plump pastries still steaming from the oven.

“Honey cakes!” Mae said. “With raisins in them. We, uhm... kind of... stole them.”

Erry nodded. “It was a daring heist: sneaking out of our tent at night, breaking into the kitchens, grabbing honey cakes, and finally climbing the wall into this place. Forget being soldiers. We should become thieves.”

“Oh, you were always a thief,” Mae said to the girl. “She has a lock pick set, Tilla! Stars, a real one, with a bunch of little skeleton keys and wires and stuff. I bet she stole from at least half the houses in Cadport.”

Erry raised her chin. “More than half! By the way, Mae, nice little doll collection you’ve got in your old bedroom. How old are you again—one?”

The two girls lifted their hands again, ready for more blows.

“Stop!” Tilla had to say. “Fight later. Now we eat.”

“They’re all for you,” Mae said. “All three honey cakes. Erry and I already ate ours.”

Tilla looked at the cakes. Each steaming pastry was larger than her hand. She did not imagine she could eat one, let alone all three. Yet when she bit into the first pastry, it melted in her mouth, rich with butter and raisins and honey. She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. She had not eaten a proper meal since leaving Cadport; she thought this was the best food she’d ever tasted.

“It’s what the officers eat,” Erry said. “Stars, Till, you should see their kitchen! Roast chicken, cakes, fresh fruits, wines...” Erry smacked her lips. “And all they give us is stale wafers, moldy cheese, and slop that’s probably full of rat droppings. I need to be a lanse too someday.”

Tilla finished the first honeycake. Her stomach still rumbled, and she was tempted to eat the remaining two. Instead, she wrapped them back into the cloth and placed them under the blankets. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be here, or how scarce food would be.

“How are things back at the Black Rose?” Tilla asked, trying to keep her mind off her wounds.

“Awful!” Mae said. “We only got three hours of sleep last night too, and we failed the morning inspection. Erry’s boots weren’t polished.”

“And your sword wasn’t oiled!” Erry said, eyes flashing.

“Well, I don’t know how to oil a sword!” Mae sighed. “Nairi said we can only sleep for three hours this night too, and we have to carry the cannonballs again soon. Erry, when did she say we have to—“

The clock tower chimed outside, cutting her off. Four chimes. Four in the morning.

“Wormy dragon vomit!” Erry said and leaped off the bed. “It’s our night patrol time. If we’re not there...” She made a beeline to the window, placed one foot upon the ledge, then looked back at Tilla. “Get better soon, Till. We need our flight leader back.”

With a wink and a grin, Erry leaped outside into the darkness. Sniffing back tears, Mae followed; Tilla heard the baker’s daughter thump against the ground outside and wail. Then their boots thudded and disappeared into the distance.

Weariness tugged on Tilla. She closed her eyes and slept.

It was another two days before the infirmary nurse, a severe woman with muscles like the ropes Tilla would weave, deemed Tilla healed. Tilla did not feel healed; bruises and welts still covered her, and when she tried to walk every step hurt.

“If you can walk, you can train,” the nurse said, a scowl twisting her wrinkly face. “Now out! Return to your phalanx, soldier, and by the red spiral, stay out of trouble this time.”

Tilla left the infirmary clad in her leather armor, which rubbed against her welts so powerfully every movement made her wince. Her sword hung upon her hip, her helmet topped her head, and fear gripped her heart.

What if Nairi hurts me again?
she wondered as she stepped into the courtyard. Snow dusted the cobblestones and glided before her.
What if Leresy speaks to me, and Nairi gets jealous, and...

Suddenly Tilla wanted to flee. She stood alone in this courtyard, the nurse still in the infirmary, her phalanx in the forest.

I can shift into a dragon,
Tilla thought.
I can fly away from this place—back to Cadport, back to Rune.

She stood alone in the snow and looked at the southern wall. No, she could not fly back home, she knew. If she fled the Legions, she would be an outlaw; the Cadigus Regime would hunt her down and slay her.

I can join the Resistance,
she thought,
if I can find them.
Yet the stories she had heard returned to her: stories of the Resistance slaughtering babes, snatching children and forcing them to fight, burning farms and killing peasants simply to punish the emperor. As bad as Nairi was, surely the Resistance was worse. Even if Tilla could find the resistors, would she only stumble into a den of monsters? Would they kill her like they had killed her brother?

She sighed. No. There was nothing over those walls—Cadport was now banned to her, the Resistance frightened her, and Tilla did not fancy a life on the run, hiding in caves and forests.

All she could do now, she decided, was survive this training. Nairi would not command her forever. If Tilla completed her training, she would advance in the ranks. She would be assigned to a better fortress. She would become a warrior, a proud legionary of the empire, clad in steel and glory. Surely that was better than living as a filthy, frightened outlaw.

I’m going to show Nairi.
She clenched her fists, and marched across the courtyard.
I’m going to be the best damn soldier in Castra Luna.

She marched out the gates, took a deep breath, and headed back to her tent.

The clock chimed.

The snow fell.

Day and night molded into a blur of pain and weariness.

Every night, as the clock chimed one, the Black Roses emerged from their tent to carry their cannonballs around the camp. Every morning, as the clock chimed four, Nairi woke them with screams, threats, and thrusts of her punisher.

They fought with blunted swords, then sharpened ones.

They ran through the forest for hours, tasting the punisher when they fell.

They ate scraps. They slept shivering in moldy blankets. They drank melted snow when they could steal it. They were always hungry, always thirsty; they would fight for the last slice of stale bread.

Castra Luna brought them to the edge of humanity. The Black Roses did not bathe; they stole snow, melted it in their tent, and shivered as they rinsed their grime. They had no outhouses or chamber pots; when Nairi looked aside, they sneaked into the forest and dug holes, praying that Nairi would not shout and order them back into formation. Whenever the young lanse slept or ate, she left with them the hulking siragis, and they were worse; they thrust their punishers with glee, and once they whipped a recruit until she passed out.

More than the hunger and thirst, and more than the pain, Tilla longed for sleep.

I can live without food,
she thought during the endless runs, marches, and swordplay.
I can live without water to drink or bathe in. But sleep... sleep I long for with every aching fiber in my body.

And yet sleep, this most precious of lovers, was only allowed brief visits. An hour here, two hours there; that was all.

“Whenever they march us,” Tilla whispered to her fellow soldiers, “I want to sit down. Whenever they sit us down, I want to stand and march.”

Marching was agony—it was blisters upon her feet, cramping muscles, aching breath, and her spine twisting under the sacks of cannonballs. Whenever she marched, she prayed for it to end. She prayed only for rest—to sit, to rub her feet, to breathe again.

Yet whenever Nairi ordered them to sit—while they ate, while they listened to her speeches, while she demonstrated new sword thrusts—Tilla prayed to please, please stars, only to stand up, only to walk. Sitting down meant a visit from her greatest foe: weariness.

Whenever she sat, sleep leaped onto her at once, tugging more powerfully than all the ropes Tilla had ever woven. Blackness began to spread across her. Invisible demons tugged at her eyelids, forcing them down.

Sleep, Tilla,
voices whispered.
Sleep, sleep...

One time, sitting with her fellow Black Roses to hear Nairi praise the emperor, Tilla could not help it. Her eyes closed—just for an instant, barely more than a blink.

At once, Nairi pounced upon her. The punisher drove into her chest. Lightning crackled.

“You will not sleep as I speak, dog!” the lanse shouted and pulled her punisher back, leaving Tilla gasping. “Anyone who closes her eyes, I’ll cut off her eyelids!”

And so whenever they sat—or even stood—Tilla bit her cheek, dug her fingernails into her palms, and used every bit of strength to stay awake, to keep her eyes opened.

Every time they sat or stood, a few eyes closed. A few recruits screamed under the punisher. Twice recruits fell asleep while marching, a feat Tilla had thought impossible; Nairi’s punisher burned them.

How long had it been? A moon now? Two moons? Three?

Whenever we marched, we wanted to sit. Whenever we sat, we prayed to march.

That was how, Tilla knew, she would remember her training for the rest of her life—marching in pain and hunger, sitting through the agony of forbidden sleep, one or the other, again and again, day after day. A dreamscape. A blur. A nightmare of weariness, hunger, thirst, dirt, chiming hours, and endless pain.

During these moons, Tilla found comfort only one hour a day—her favorite hour of the day, the hour that kept her going, that made this agony bearable.

The morning hour right after dawn.

The hour they trained as dragons.

All her life in Cadport, shifting into dragons was forbidden. Dragons were not docile citizens. Dragons could blow fire, slash claws, and rise up against the Cadigus family. Dragons were outlawed.

It was one law that Tilla, all her life, could not obey. Since she was old enough to shift, she had craved Requiem’s ancient magic, the magic that flowed from the Draco stars. And so she and Rune would walk upon the beach at night, shift into dragons in darkness, and fly over the water. She knew that many others in town shifted too; she had seen other youths above the waters at night, even some older souls.

But this—this was new. This was flying in daylight, in the open, not concealing her fire behind her teeth, but roaring it in great pillars of fury.

This was life in death, light in darkness, the beacon of her soul.

“Warriors of the Black Rose!” Nairi shouted, pacing along the courtyard before her troops. She drew her sword and raised it high. “Shift and fly!”

With that, Nairi shifted into a gray dragon, beat her wings, and took flight. Across the courtyard, her ninety-nine soldiers shifted and followed.

Tilla inhaled deeply and let the magic flow across her. For the first few days of training, her armor and sword would constrict her; she had ripped one breastplate trying to shift. Today her armor and blade were like parts of her, as familiar as her own skin. They shifted with her, melting into her body. Her wings sprouted from her back. Her white scales clanked across her. She soared and blew a pillar of fire.

All around her, the other dragons ascended too. Her flight crew flew around her, one defender at each side. Erry flew to her right, a slim copper dragon with blazing eyes. Mae flew to her left, a lavender dragon with white horns.

“Flight one!” Nairi shouted. “Flight two—charge!”

Three dragons swooped in from the east. Three more charged from the west. They crashed together with beating wings and blasts of smoke.

“Flight three, four—charge!”

When it was Tilla’s turn to fly, she led her flight in assault. She screamed and blew streams of smoke, charging toward another flight of three dragons. Sparks and smoke flew. Their claws and horns, tipped with cork, slammed against scales.

In real battle, Tilla knew, she would breathe fire, not just smoke, and slash bare claws. Day by day, she practiced with cork and smoke, and she grew faster. Her defenders whisked around her, holding back the enemies, letting Tilla charge into battle.

Every day her flight won more rounds. Within a moon, Tilla’s Three, as they called them, was ranked top flight in their phalanx.

Some days, Nairi cracked open cages of doves and sent hundreds of birds flying. The Black Rose dragons chased, blew jets of fire, and roasted the birds; for every dove that escaped, Nairi docked them a meal. Other days, they flew for hours over the forests, shifting from attack formation to defense and back again a hundred times—changing shape in the sky from arrows, to rings, to great V’s like skeins of geese.