Of Bone and Thunder (45 page)

“More slyts are bound to show up,” Listowk said, surveying the shield as they made their way toward him. As if to prove his point, a new salvo of ballista spears shot into the air as one of the rags they'd flown in on passed by overhead. Listowk watched their trajectory long enough to see they were well behind the beast.

“That's going to be a problem,” Wraith said, holding up his bow.

“Your string broke,” Listowk said.

“Everyone's did. The heat snapped them like twigs,” Wraith said. “Stressed the wood, too.”

“Another glorious day in the Lux,” Listowk said, slowly moving back from the wall of fire that was now spreading into the clearing. For such wet, green wood the jungle burned bright and wild.

“You wouldn't think it would burn that well,” Wraith said, as if reading Listowk's thoughts.

“Is everyone accounted for?” Listowk asked.

Wraith stopped walking. “Sinte's . . . missing.”

Sinte's disintegrating outline remained etched in front of Listowk's eyes. He tried to feel something but couldn't. “Anyone else?”

Wraith shook his head.

A whistling in the air cut their conversation. The flight of sparker rags dove again, this time coming in from the north and torching the jungle several hundred yards farther west. Orange light bloomed through the haze and smoke of the first fire as they unleashed another spray. A flick later the manic roar of their fire reached his ears. Listowk thought he heard screams.

Most of the shield now stood around them. Listowk became aware of their silence. Eyes stared at the fire, some with tears streaming down soot-blackened cheeks, others blinking as if that would change the image. Time, so agonizingly slow when the rags first attacked, now sped at him like a volley of arrows. The shield had met the enemy and killed many, but they had lost their leader and their weapons were currently useless.

Wraith began uncurling a backup bowstring. He looked at Listowk but
said nothing. Listowk heard him all the same.
Get
your fucking shit right and start leading.

“Everyone drink some water,” Listowk said, holding up his own water skin as if demonstrating something to a child. “Break out new strings and start restringing. If you dropped something, find it. Crossbows and bolts first, everything else after that. Big Hog, take half the shield and set up on the left side of the rag. Carny, you take the other half and set up on the right. Wraith, put your bowmen at the edge of the clearing and keep an eye out for slyts trying to flank the fire.”

“What about the SL?” Knockers asked.

Listowk felt the shield hesitate. This was the first time they'd lost someone in battle, and in a horrifying manner. It wasn't like the Weasel, or even Vooford. They had all seen Sinte die. Now they needed direction, purpose. If they thought any more about what had just happened he could lose them.

“He's dead,” Listowk said, more harshly than Knockers deserved, but this was for the whole shield. “That happens to soldiers. I'm in charge now, and Carny is acting lead crossbowman.”

“But don't we do something when someone dies?” Knockers asked, looking around for support. Tears cleaned streaks of dirt from his cheeks as they fell.

“We regroup, restring, and get back in the fucking fight,” Listowk said, turning to Carny and pointing. “Get your men on the flank and do it now! Big Hog, you too. All of you, move!”

The shield shuffled back and then began moving to their tasks. Carny waved his crossbow around like a madman while shouting, which would have worried Listowk more, but like everyone else, he had no string.

The rag behind him roared. Listowk turned in time to see it raise both its wings high into the air and flap them a few times. There were shouts from the mules. Sounded good. Dragonsmith Pagath walked down the length of the rag's tail and hopped into the clearing, heading toward Listowk.

“Sorry about your man,” Pagath said, walking up to stand beside Listowk. “Charking's a bad way to go, but he wouldn'ta felt a thing.”

Listowk stared at the fire where Sinte had disappeared. He imagined he saw him among the flames, still walking, still sneering.

“Nothing?” Listowk asked.

Pagath coughed. “Maybe for a flicker or two. A rag's flame is straight from the Valley of Fire and Damnation,” Pagath said. “Oh, and Cytisus is airworthy.”

“Good,” Listowk said, ignoring the rag and staring deep into the fire.

“DO YOU THINK HE
felt anything?” Knockers asked, nervously shifting his crossbow in his hands.

“Fuck, Knockers, enough,” Carny said, squinting up at him from his seat on a fallen tree trunk. The sun was a frayed orange ball behind Knockers, casting him in a glowing shadow. Carny's head pounded, his eyes itched from lack of sleep, and it was too hot and sticky for this shit again.

“But it was so hot,” Knockers said, ignoring Carny's anger. “I've burnt my hands a few times over the cook fire when I was young and it hurt. A lot. He must have felt something.”

A month gone and two hundred miles north from where Sinte charked, and Knockers still couldn't let it go. Truth be told, Carny hadn't forgotten it either. He doubted anyone in Red Shield had, but holy fuck you didn't keep talking about it.

“High bloody Druid, Knockers, let it go, please. He vanished in a flick. You saw it, I saw it, the whole fucking shield saw it. He couldn't have felt a thing,” Carny said, trying hard to believe that.

Carny stood up abruptly, brushing ash from his trousers, and looked around. Red Shield was perched on a fire-charred hill surrounded by jungle in the middle of, fuck, it wasn't even the middle of nowhere. Nowhere was somewhere compared to this. Soldiers were either standing guard or stringing more prick vine around their perimeter while Big Hog whistled as he hacked bamboo stalks into crude stakes to be set into the ground facing outward. The Bard kept tune with his psaltery, sort of, the instrument's notes vibrating in increasingly odd and jarring ways as he explored “the dark, mystical soul of the Lux” as he put it.

Poor bastard's going deep in the green
, Carny figured, knowing he probably was, too. The jungle still scared Carny, but he'd come to terms with his
fear. He'd never be Wraith or Listowk when it came to embracing the black, fetid depths of the jungle at night, but he'd learned how to walk without making noise, keep his crossbow from snagging on a vine, and where to drop his trousers to take a shit without a swarm of army ants trying to crawl up his ass.

Knockers opened his mouth to ask another question, then thought better of it and slowly walked away from Carny. Any sympathy Carny had had for Knockers was long gone. Carny was Lead Crossbow now and that was already more than he needed to deal with. Soldiers that used to bitch and moan to Listowk now came to him. And Listowk expected him to deal with that shit.

Carny sat down and fished into his trouser pockets for a folded leaf with a pinch of Sliver in it. He didn't find one. There hadn't been a rag flight to their hill in four days, which meant no supplies, which meant Squeak couldn't slip some of his special provisions in with the rest of the cargo. Carny was down to a smidge of Wild Flower. He'd used the last of his camphor two days ago and no one else had any left, or so they said.

The distinctive
whup-whup-whup
of rag wings carried on the air. Carny stood up again, not bothering to brush off his trousers this time. Praise the High Druid, fresh supplies at last!

The hill buzzed as Red Shield scurried to make ready for the rag's arrival. Listowk shouted orders in a humbler volume than Sinte, and the soldiers listened and obeyed, policing up their gear and clearing the very top of the hill. Between the whirlwind kicked up by the rag's wings and its tail swishing around like a spinning scythe, anything not firmly tied or weighted down would be blown hundreds of yards into the jungle, never to be seen again.

“Secure your quivers,” Carny said, doing his part to get Red Shield ready without much enthusiasm. Any soldier who didn't keep his shit tight deserved whatever he got out here.

The rag approached from the west, coming in at a thousand yards above the jungle. Black smoke trailed it, and Carny knew that wasn't a good sign. The driver had put the gaff to the rag, which meant speed, and they only did that when something was up.

“He's going too fast to land,” the Bard said, coming to stand beside Carny.

Only a few thousand yards out, the rag continued flying at the same speed and height.

“Maybe he's new,” Carny said, willing the rag to descend.

At two hundred yards out, a small bundle fell from the rag and landed on the far side of the hill as the beast flew overhead and kept on flying, no doubt heading for the other shields dotted over the hills for miles around.

“Tell me that's a message saying a flock of rags is heading our way with gallons of mead, fresh bread, and real meat,” Carny said, pointing at Listowk as a soldier handed him the satchel dropped from the rag.

Listowk slowly opened the flap and pulled out a single piece of paper and read it. When he was done, he put the paper back in the satchel and closed the flap. His mustache rolled up and down under his nose as he seemed to ponder what to say.

“Fuck, SL, what?” Carny said, speaking for all of them.

Listowk shrugged. “No supplies, but tomorrow morning they're flying in to take us off this little hill of ours.”

There were smiles and even a few cheers, but mostly from the newer soldiers.

“What's the catch?” Carny asked.

Listowk looked to the sky before answering.

“Instead of another hill, they've found us a valley.”

“YOU'RE PRETTY, LIKE ONE
of those oil paintings, only your skin is smoother.”

League of Worldly Fellowship crier Miska Hounowger massaged her temples. She sat near the front of a young bull dragon named Carduus, just behind the female thaum, Breeze. Miska had tried to talk to her, but Breeze made it clear that she was not to be disturbed while in flight. Doing so would result in a “kick where you split.” Miska had never heard a woman, let alone one who was a thaum, speak so crudely. Miska found Breeze that much more fascinating.

“Real pretty,” Wiz said, beaming a smile at her.

The driver, Flock Commander Astol, yelled something at Carduus, who bellowed in response. The vibration went up through her saddle, shaking her entire innards. She took the opportunity to look away and out at the land passing below them.

Luitox was carpeted in a verdant, startling, vast jungle. She had never seen anything like it. It was made all the more overwhelming by the occasional rows of palm trees and fruit orchards and the square and rectangular dosha swamps of shimmering brown that offered the eye a contrast. And through it all there seemed to always be at least one thick, fat brown river snaking its way toward the coast.

It was harvest season back in the Kingdom, but this land obviously didn't know it. Miska knew that foreign lands experienced the seasons differently, but it was still surprising. The sun beat down on the jungle with wave after wave of shimmering heat, which served to propel the towering trees ever higher into the sky. The leaves, far from turning and falling, grew fatter and greener. She wondered if they ever stopped growing.

Miska smiled and shook her head. She was letting Luitox get to her. She took pride in the fact that she was a “woman of character,” the term favored by traditionalists for renegades who didn't conform, especially women who were educated. Miska always thought that unfair. Yes, she was educated, but she could also cook, understood the basic principles of cleaning even if she didn't practice them, and believed that had she met a man of equal character she would have had a family. As for knowing her place, well, she was still figuring that out and happy to do so on her own.

The wind picked up, which meant the rag had gained speed. She watched its massive wings go up and down. It was mesmerizing. So much power and grace contained in an animal of unimaginable fury. She saw a little of herself in the dragon. She was more than people saw, more even than they wanted her to be.

“Nice day,” the Wizard said, trying again.

Unlike the other soldiers—unsurprisingly, Miska conceded—the shield's wizard looked less like a soldier and more like a traveling beggar, although to be fair they all looked exceedingly scruffy. Wiz, as he'd been introduced to her, took that scruffiness to a new level. Three different canvas
satchels bulging with various weeds, strips of bark, mushrooms, and small glass vials were slung over his shoulders. More curious, he'd clearly removed several of the protective iron plates sewn into his aketon and stuffed the empty pockets with all manner of flowers and herbs.

“Do you really use all that?” she asked, motioning to his miniature garden.

The Wiz looked down at his chest then back at her. “Depends. If someone's got the Lux Pox real bad, then I try a bit of everything.”

“Lux Pox?”

“It's like a rash, only nastier,” the Wiz said, leaning forward.

Miska smelled bright green scents, a tangy one she couldn't place, and just a touch of cinnamon.

“Is it contagious?”

The Wiz smiled brightly. “Only if you rub your privates against someone else's. It usually settles in the crotch area. Burns like hot embers. Gets all pus-y, too, but that's actually a good sign. It's when you get the boils that—”

Miska held up her hand. She would not be relaying these interesting facts back to the people of the Kingdom.

“So, you're with the Bleeding Hearts society, are you?” the Wiz asked.

Miska shifted in her saddle and wondered if she'd made a mistake coming to Luixtox. The battle for the future of the Kingdom was taking place back home, not out here. And yet, she'd heard enough stories at the pubs from soldiers who had returned that made her think more was going on in Luitox than the people were being told.