#and like. alcoves are rarely actually the size that would perfectly fit a bed in

[damnprecious]

apartment hunting hurts my head

[ekebolou]

New Book: Chapter Fifteen

Sorry for the test post - had to do something to get the links to previous parts because search wasn’t working, hahahaha oh god I need to actually move this shit somewhere designed for writing soon.  Really.  Gotta get on that.

You waited all this time for this!?  Sorry, it’s a very busy time at school for me.  If I can do it at all, I’ll try to get more up today, but it may not be until later. (by the way, most of the typos are due to the fact that the New Book file is so long Word’s spellchecker has stopped functioning?  Which is a thing, I guess?  Or I need to check some settings.  Anyway, I ought to know how to spell, but fun facts, y’all).  

Prelude

Chapter One

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Sixteen

That said, here you go:

Chapter Fifteen

Generally, Rev was not one for looting; it was just more shit to carry, and unless it was a really nice rifle, he had no use for it.  Citizens were rarely in possession in rifles any nicer than the one the army had given him. Exchange, however, demanded goods. Plus, he owed the soldier who’d let him have his kit at least a little consideration.

Aster was fine, when he got back, grazing contently on the short grasses and ignoring the soldier who watched her with the doting eye of a hereditary horseman.  She lipped Rev’s hair as they enacted their exchange.

Those soldiers were fools. They had learned nothing from the march by the sea, and had no eye for the tools their surroundings offered.  This random infantryman had the great good luck of having run across Rev, but lacked the wit the appreciate it.  Rev had snatched three long cloths from those discarded on the battlefield; one, he gave to the soldier, as his due for the favor he’d done. Another, Rev exchanged for a heavy woolen uniform coat.  Perhaps Rev should have realized it to start with, but he could neither beg, exchange, or threaten the soldier’s knife away from him (foolish he might be, but he wasn’t stupid: unlike pistols, knives didn’t run out of ammunition).  As it was, the soldier looked both surprised and supremely dubious that Rev returned the pistol having never fired it.

Next battlefield spoils, he would get a knife, Rev promised himself. 

The soldier seemed amused, but not convinced by Rev’s demonstration of how to tie the cloth over his head. Apparently he had a perfectly good hat (he wasn’t wearing), that didn’t look so silly (it did).  Still, he took the cloths, no doubt to exchange them for something useless, like money. 

The afternoon was long, but Rev had something to keep him busy, and a horse for shade, when she wasn’t using him for shade.  Plus, Anik’s extra canteen still had wine in it, which was unwise but nice.  

Rev returned to the baggage and made a temporary camp, ignoring Aster’s occasional prodding as he folded himself a headdress like the ones he’d seen in the city.  With Anik’s sewing kit, he could begin to disassemble the coat. 

By the time Thespasian found him, curled up with Aster in the shade of supply wagon, he looked more like a traveling tinker than soldier, settled to rest among his junk.  Baggage with the baggage.

Thespasian wasn’t fooled, but the anger that darkened his brow didn’t breech his lips (or magnificent mustache).  Angrily tossing about their kit as he loaded it up, checking to make sure Rev hadn’t lost anything, he cast one sand-covered glower after another at Rev, then worldlessly (and reluctantly) signaled for him to follow. 

The march back to the city felt longer without battle drawing him on; or, at least, he found himself growing tired – bone tired, weary, even – as the drew closer.  Thespasian just kept glaring at him, perhaps daring him to make some allusion to his disobedience, to knowing how the battle went before they arrived, but Rev’s mind was buzzing and blank. 

Having a great, nasty hole in the outer wall somehow didn’t diminish the majesty of Niwat-Ra. Perhaps because she was so ancient, Rev thought; there were many ancient things in Sivery, but few which so much defied the land around them.  They built big walls on little hills, big towers in little valleys.  Sivery liked its land, and mountain was good enough without something built over it.  Niwat-Ra rose up in defiance of the rolling sands, the black rocks, the endless, undulating sea. 

Rev though briefly about leaving the sea behind, and was disturbed to find the thought pricked some anxious spot buried deep in his guts.  He had gotten used to it – he had gotten used to it, again – a small and contained space with all its terrible threats and endless, inescapable tension, and he had gotten used to it and missed it now that he really knew he was leaving it. Nothing could be more hateful. When they passed under the great gates, ten times taller than him, he ducked.

It hadn’t taken long for the clearing to begin.  The streets were unusually dusty, the crowds in them unusually cowed, but the signs of battle were all already tucked away.  A random storm could have caused the damage to the houses, except where a lucky ball or unlucky explosion had totally caved walls in.  But for their resentful, suspicious gazes, the people were like any other city or village trying to ignore that a war they hadn’t wanted had come anyway. 

They wound their way up the ever-narrowing streets to a central nest of buildings – an old temple, Rev guessed, rather than a palace, because many of the halls and rooms seemed disused, with air not stale but undisturbed.  There were numerous niches and alcoves, and scores of harried Felanese people pressing themselves flat against walls as the Baathians passed to open long-locked doors and brush dust out balcony doors. 

Surprisingly deep into the complex, Thespasian let an already-established troop of Baathian soldiers take Aster, the sheer displeasure on his face warning enough that they should take the utmost care.  He and Rev climbed further, until Rev thought perhaps his growing light-headed fatigue might be due to altitude.  (This didn’t cheer him up one bit).

Thespasian opened a heavy door into a set of rooms, not so disused as some of the others they passed. He threw down the kit, rounding on Rev.

“This will be Anik’s room. Make ready.”

Was his glare softer as he turned away?  Perhaps not. He certainly slammed the door hard enough.

Left alone, the last of Rev’s energy left him.  The old splicing of comfort and discomfort at being shut away, alone but sealed in, returned, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it.  Part of him wished Aster were back.

He meant to survey the room, but only saw the bed – an insulting thing, if this were one of those prudish religions.  Made wholly of pillows over a silk-rope frame, piled with silk sheets, the bed could fit a family of ten – it even had long gauzy curtains to protect it from insects and breezes from the gaping bay window, and the room’s enormous balcony.

He knew what the bed was for.

Grabbing the blanket rolls from the tops of the bags, Rev made himself a nest on the far side, out of sight of the door, where he could watch the curtains on the balcony waft in the sunlight.  He coud hear water flowing somewhere nearby, but hardly stayed awake long enough to register the noise.

 *

 The day had been long, and now the night was dark.  Anik felt slightly like a fool for having sent away the Felanese boy with the latern at the bottom of the sloped hallway, but one more sullen look – no matter how completely reasonable it was for him to look so – and Anik would have exploded. At least it was dark enough no one could see him also look like a fool as he groped his way along the wall, feeling for the door. 

All day had been one long, sustained explosion.  Most of it had been contained. 

The battle – that had been easy.  Unnervingly so.  Normally this would have been a prompt for feelings of Fortune’s favor upon their mission. Perhaps it was carryover from the tensions of the voyage, or perhaps deeper doubts, but Anik could not feel lucky. He did not feel the blessing hand of Fate on them when the Theras stationed in the city turned and ran, tossing down their elaborate, gilded weapons rather than fight an army many times their size.  He did not get a sense of victory out of the tired look of resignation on the Felanese faces who watched their overlords desert them.  He did not like an easy victory, or mistake it for a sure one.

So it was with grave suspicion he started to work his way up the convoluted chains of command and favor to try to speak with Bohdan about his misgivings.  Along the way he received more intelligence: Manas has been shot, but the bullet only grazed his head, and left him in a foul mood that made him ill-prepared to accept the honor of being placed in charge of the city. Manas would hate being away from battle, but with his wound, it was the only reasonable choice; Anik could only hope it wouldn’t be permanent.  The swarm of Felanese experts Bohdan had brought next absorbed his attention, putting Anik and his tactical concerns at the end of a long line of relief-rubbers, sand-sifters, and pursed-lipped philologists.

Then Dulal had arrived, similarly frustrated by the priorities of their commander and much less prone to try to control her temper – but after hearing her news, Anik couldn’t blame her.  Some of Dulal’s soldiers had been kidnapped by desert raiders that the Felanese called the Nitesh; those that had escaped passed tales of brutal treatment, of the sort which begged vengeance.  Anik had seen vengeance.  Anik had seen vengeance in the supposed cradle of civilization, seen vengeance begged in Baath itself, and there was no power, righteous and divine, that could salve the memory.  Dulal took little convincing, but he had his doubts that Bohdan would take action to stop the spread of such bloody, misnamed justice. 

Dulal also had greater concerns.  The Theras, not native Felanese, but client rulers, had potentially successfully delayed the invaders long enough to begin to send word for reinforcement from their long-ignored but still-powerful homeland.  Both she and Anik had noticed that even in a march so short as the one undertaken in the morning, dozens of soldiers had come down with what the surgeons were calling a heat-sickness.  Half of Dulal’s supplies had turned out to be bad, and according to her local sources, the timing of the invasion was wrong for the countryside to be completely dependable for supplying fresh food. 

Chitt had arrived and informed them both – while also waiting for an audience, now delayed due to the establishement of temporary civil authority from amongst Bohdan’s favorites – and informed them a half-dozen of the cannons had been lost overboard in unloading.  The Admiral, unwilling to lend them any of his ships’ cannons, instead promised them a boat to help bring the guns back up from the ocean floor – and rather than awaiting his appeals, was having his ships sail around the point as soon as they were unloaded so they could not be raided for guns – which was why Anik, Dulal, and Chitt were yet again delayed, as Jatin stormed into the room, nearly squashing the city’s former ruler, screaming at Bohdan.

By then Dulal was half-drunk, and had arranged a duel with one of Bohdan’s favorites, who had bumped her as he left his audience and offered an insufficient apology.  Anik allowed Chitt to precede them as he and the other second attempted to persuade their relative friends that the duel was both uniwise and not worth it.  This was difficult, as Dulal kept of steady stream of more and more offensive accusations as they negotiated the details, until her valet was able to persuade her she needed to change her coat before murdering anyone (she would forget, most likely, who she had challenged by the time she sobered up and thus everyone would get to live), and Anik was able to reassure Bohdan’s pet that Dulal had not at all meant to call him the tumerous product of prolapsed pig’s uterus dragging through the back alley of the Baathian capitol’s most infamous district for prostitution.  It could be considered a term of endearment in some quarters of her home district. 

In the dark, he found the door.  True, he had eventually addressed Bohdan, but by then their problems had so multiplied he found his initial report lacking.  Bohdan seemed to be aware of the issues, or at least he dismissed them with an infallible authority.  Then he added to them: there were no horses.

Three thousand cavalry soldiers, and there were no horses.  Any of the horses they had brought that did not belong to officers would be requisitioned for the Guides regiments, as apparently there was some local strictures regarding social status and camels.  That was what the Theras, and therefore the Felanese under the Theras, went in for – camels.  He could get a thousand fine camels with the snap of his fingers, but there was not a horse fit for riding into battle in fifty miles of the city.  Bohdan would, of course, just requisition what camels were needed, local customs be damned, to satisfy the requirements of functionality and propriety for the Guides and the cavalry, but there simply weren’t enough to go around.  The cavalry would, in large part, have to walk.

Anik had found himself losing his temper.  He opened the door quietly, shut it gently, stepped into the moonlit room and tripped over a pile of packs.  Fortunately, he’d been still in his shuffling gait from the dark hallway, and thus was able to right himself before he bashed his face into the stone floor, but at some expense of dignity as he flailed.  A flash of anger, then a cool wave of relief, as even before he heard it, he expected Rev to laugh.

There came no laugh. What had been cool turned cold, his heart beat seeming obscenely loud as he listened hard for what would not come. The sound of running water, the faintest whispers of city noise, the scrape of the curtain over the floor as breeze from the balcony brushed them inward…

In the stillness, his eyes adjusted to the light in the room – still dark, but much brighter than the hallway thanks to the moon spilling in from the balcony.  It was thanks to the moon, too, that through the light gauze of the bed’s inner curtain he could see a divot in the pillows, its emptiness the more vast for his expectation it would be filled. 

Of course, he thought. Of course.  Of course.  Of course.

He made himself move.  Brush the curtains aside, sit on the edge of the bed, start making his hands work stiffly on the buttons of his uniform. Of course, he tried again, and it was so hollow.

A dozen lovers had left him. Many on the eve of great campaigns. There was something about it – the start of something new, that required a change.  There were lovers in peace and lovers in war and they were rarely the same.

He tried to think of any other lovers of peace he’d had.  Technically – only Rev.  That was how long he had been at war.  What an odd thing it was, too, that it was only Rev. 

Uniform coat came off like shedding a pack after a long march.  He worked on his breeches as if it were normal. 

Of course he would go, though.  Why stay surrounded by Baathians?  They, as a people, were dangerous to him.  The Felanese, though strangers, were longtime trading partners of Sivery. It was reasonable to leave here, now, join what might be a good flood of Siveric people fleeing as the Baathians invaded.  Of course he would go.  He should go. It was safest.

He hissed as his boots came off, like peeling skin.  Of course it wasn’t safe enough with him.  He was not all-powerful.  He was not always present.  He was not strong enough to protect Rev, and hadn’t that been proven?  What did his promises mean, in the face of that reality? He could mean it – he could mean his offered protection with every fiber of his being – he could promise to die for a thing, but that didn’t make the thing real.  Hadn’t he learned that?  Hadn’t Papa Bel told him that?  It was well and good to die for a cause, but what could the dead do to ensure that cause continued? 

His chest hurt.  His chest hurt and he couldn’t breathe.  He felt as if taking a breath in would somehow break him, like the fragile ice still clinging tight to the spring flood.

Hadn’t he done it himself? Hadn’t he left Rev there, with the baggage, thinking, oh, god, at least here he was safe, and the battle could go on without Anik having to cast his glances back at the bloody scrum.  He had meant Rev to be safe, and safe he was, and now – now, now that he was away from this, all this, all this including Anik – he was as safe as he could possibly be.  Safe even from Anik himself. 

His breath caught.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Anik turned, hand grasping the air where his sword hilt had once been.  A raggedy face poked over the far edge of the bed.  Squinting up from the dark, even still, Anik could see the lines etched into Rev’s face.

Anik couldn’t make his throat work to speak.  He meant to say something – something reassuring, something calm, something to help make sense of Rev’s strange excuse, something by way of a greeting, but instead his hand reached out of its own volition, offering itself over the bed.

As confused as Anik, Rev took it.

Anik pulled him up, and Rev came.  Falling back, Anik drew Rev to him, chest to back, tangling legs with legs, crossing their arms together, bundling him in tight, and finally breathed in, chin tucked over Rev’s shoulder.  If it bothered Rev, he gave no sign, but curled in to Anik’s grip, letting it grow tight as together they breathed.

Sleep would come quickly, all thought of the war obliterated, and only later, much later, would Anik start awake with the thought of what a bad thing that was for his part of this campaign.