Blade of Glass: Chapter 28

The plague lands. Some called them a desert, others a misery, but all people agreed: if you stepped on the sands, your life was forfeit.

Geneve knew she might be able to walk the blasted steppes. The Light in all Knights kept them safe from disease and most of the ravages of time, but the sands were forbidden to all. No Knights came back from trying to cross them. The Tresward Great Library held no clues as to what lay in the middle. All maps ended at the border of such areas with a simple word: DANGER. The world was littered with plague lands. Vast stretches of scorched ground from the time of the ancients. Most were hundreds of klicks across, and without water or a horse, survival seemed tricky. Armitage snorted at her concerns. You’ve never had a guide with balls, is all.

She was nervous about her companions. Not the monster, of course: his people called the plague lands home. The hot, dry climate let them live in relative comfort, and they didn’t seem to get sick. To hear him tell it, the desert makes us strong! You feeble fucks could learn something from it. The brute continued with snide, insincere comments, but for all that he did his part. He did his time over the cook pot and hunted with enthusiasm if not elegance. The Vhemin was worthless with a bow, but frighteningly fast over short distances. He ran deer to ground, knocking the life right out of them with his massive club.

It was the kind of speed it would be good to remember. Geneve was fast and strong, but she was only human. She didn’t know if her training would be sufficient against a monster like Armitage without the Light, but it seemed he wondered the same thing. Their truce held. At least his bear was nice, as far as bears went. Beck showed affection for Armitage, and Geneve wondered at it. Her training said the Vhemin were evil to their core. Monsters who lusted for battle. And yet, Armitage play-wrestled with his bear, scratched under his chin, and talked to him in a low, gravelly voice when the night drew close.

The safety of Sight of Day and Meriwether when they reached the desert was more concerning. Feybrind didn’t get sick like people did, but they weren’t immune to disease. And Meriwether was just a man. Human, and without the Light’s protection. She chewed her nails at night, watching him across the campfire. She wondered what dying of the desert sickness would look like, and if she’d have the strength to end his misery. These thoughts rode with her, weighing her down more than Smithsteel. Her feelings were born not from the teachings of the Three but from her heart, and her beliefs warred with a darker part of her that wanted him free and clear. She’d seen the good in him and knew for all his jokes of being a sinner, she’d struggle to set the edge of her steel to his throat in anger, and maybe not for mercy, either.

When they arrived at the plague lands, the ground didn’t change all at once. The road they followed faded a klick or more past. Armitage led the way from atop Beck’s back. Trees didn’t try to grow here. Foliage stopped being quite the right color green. Firm ground became muddy, brackish water with an oily rainbow slick. The world stopped smelling clean, and a pervasive scent of rot floated on the air. Wind didn’t rustle her hair.

Armitage held up a hand for them to halt. His bear grumbled, and he cuffed Beck. To Geneve’s eye, it looked like a well-hidden pat. “This here’s a swamp.”

“No shit,” Meriwether said. He made a great show of looking around, eyes wide. “Thank you for telling us. I wondered what the marshy ground was all about. The insects are feral, and the air smells of—”

“It smells like ass,” Armitage rumbled. “Just remember your week’s almost up. I might kill you tomorrow.”

Geneve nudged a protesting Tristan forward. “And we all might die from sickness, too. What’s your point?”

“My point is this. In five klicks, maybe a little more, the swamp dies. Everything dies. No more bad smell. The ground will dry out, like ground’s supposed to. And then we might die. You step where I step. If I stop, you better fucking stop, too. I’m not pulling you out of swallowing sands.” The monster squinted north, visoring his eyes with a hand. “And if we see other Vhemin—”

“Let you do the talking,” Meriwether agreed. “Makes sense.”

“Fuck, no,” the monster scoffed. “Kill those assholes.”

Geneve blinked. “Aren’t they—”

“You have a funny idea of how we work,” Armitage said. “We don’t sit around a hearth singing songs and drinking wine. We spit our enemy’s heads on pikes and drink their blood. The sooner you get with the idea we’re not a family, the more likely it is you’ll survive.”

Meriwether scratched his chin. A short beard had taken root on his face, and Geneve admitted to herself she quite liked it. It wasn’t patchy and highlighted the line of his jaw. “I’m curious about how you make baby Vhemin with that kind of society.”

“We fuck,” admitted the monster. “It’s all in the fucking.”

“That’s not what I meant. I was thinking more of—”

“The point is, my tribe’s not somewhere helpful, like here. They’re,” Armitage seemed to search for the right words, “taking a break. Anyone else is not my tribe, and that means they’re fair game. Before you go all bleeding-heart on me, runt, it’s worth bearing in mind they’ll think you look delicious.”

Meriwether shuddered. “Times like this I wish I knew how to use a weapon.”

“Nah, you’re all good without,” the monster said. “You’d make a decent snack, and if it comes time to run, it’s best to hamstring the helpless and leave ‘em as bait on the sand.” He nudged Beck, and the bear trundled in a northerly direction with a low, rumbling murmur.

Sight of Day offered a half-smile. Fidget followed the Vhemin without any obvious sign of direction.

The young man watched the Vhemin and Feybrind go. “I don’t think I like Armitage.” He bowed his head. “I don’t want to get eaten.”

Geneve brought Tristan next to Troubles. “I don’t think he eats people.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’d have made a snack of you already.” She felt an impish smile touch her lips at his astonished expression. “Don’t worry, Meri. I’ve got you.”

Geneve followed the Vhemin and Feybrind, leaving Meriwether to catch up. She almost didn’t hear his whisper, but she caught it anyway. “Yes, but who’s got you?”

* * *

Armitage wasn’t wrong. The marsh stopped, becoming a verge of dirt before the sand took over. It felt like it happened all at once. One minute their horse’s hooves were trudging through muck, and then next sand was clinging to their still-wet fetlocks. Geneve swiveled in her saddle, looking behind. Marsh became sand in less than twenty meters. To the east and west, the line of marshland stopped like one of the Three drew a line in the ground and decreed this is where the ass-water stops.

She shook her head. Armitage’s turn of phrase was getting inside her head. I shouldn’t think of the Three like that.

‘Desert’ was the right term. There wasn’t a hint of grass or green. Not even a tumbleweed had the decency to blow across the dunes, of which there were plenty. The sands rose like frozen waves. Armitage led them from the relative flat of the marshlands up the smooth slope of a miniature sand mountain. He got off Beck, and the rest followed suit.

The initial freedom from the cold south was welcome, but within an hour of the sun beating like a hammer of fire on her armor, Geneve wanted to be somewhere else. She walked like she’d been trained. Stand tall. Don’t bend, and don’t break. I’m not glass. That’s for blades. She eyed Armitage in the lead, taking a shrewd glance at his leather armor. It made a lot more sense now. You didn’t want to encase yourself in a steel oven out here.

Meriwether looked to be suffering as well. He’d wrapped his cloak about his head to protect from the sun. Geneve felt it on her face too and wondered how long it’d be before she crisped. Maybe I’ve burned already. At least my skin isn’t pale.

Sight of Day seemed to be having the best time of any of them. He padded along the sand like slipping was a thing that other people had to put up with. His tail was low, relaxed, and his eyes were bright. The Feybrind stepped back to her on feet that disturbed almost none of the desert beneath them. {Are you well, Daughter of the Three?}

“I’m great,” she croaked.

{Oh, good. I asked because your skin is turning a peculiar color.} He offered her a small shawl. {Here’s something I prepared earlier.}

Geneve nodded her thanks, wrapping the shawl about her face. Red hair strained for freedom around the sides of her makeshift cowl. “Is it just me, or is it hot here?”

“Did you get dropped as a baby?” Armitage scowled from the head of their column. “Of course it’s hot. It’s a desert. The sun,” he pointed above, “pisses heat everywhere. There’s no trees, or water. If your Three made a hell, this is it.” He grinned shark teeth. “I kinda like it.”

“How about a rest?” Meriwether rasped.

“How about we wait until the Vhemin behind us catch up and kill us all?” Armitage scratched an armpit. “I dunno. It doesn’t sound great now I’ve said it out loud. What do you think?”

Sight of Day’s tail lashed. {Much as I wish all Vhemin done, it doesn’t make this one wrong.}

“No, and it doesn’t make me blind, either.” At Sight of Day’s astonished expression, Armitage chuckled. “What, you think your flailing hand speech is hidden from us? Two people can keep a secret if one of ‘em’s dead, cat, and there’s still plenty of you running about.”

Meriwether put his hand on Sight of Day’s shoulder as the Feybrind tensed. “Then we march on.”

“We do,” Armitage agreed. “We keep marching until the sun’s at its zenith.” He squinted. “A couple more hours, then we break. Beck doesn’t like midday. Not on the sands.”

They continued. The desert was featureless insofar as Geneve couldn’t tell one dune from another. Their footsteps marked their passage, but she had no doubt a good wind would solve that problem. At the top of a dune, she caught the glint of metal from the west. “What’s that?”

Armitage grunted. “Metal.”

“I can see that. What kind of metal?”

“Why don’t you go take a look?” At her glare, he shrugged. “I don’t know, Adept. Could be an Artifice. Could be a dead Knight. Or a hundred other things. The sands spit up shit they swallowed hundreds of years ago all the time. Might be a dangerous relic, or a child’s toy.” He turned away, trudging on.

A dead Knight. A child’s toy. Or a dangerous relic. Geneve wondered what life on the sands was like when you didn’t know what lay a couple klicks away. Things outside the plague lands were predictable. The ground didn’t vomit up history. The horrors were mostly just people. She bowed her head and followed.

The heat was oppressive. Geneve felt like she carried another on her shoulders. The air shimmered with it. The sand smelled hot and dry. It didn’t smell of poison or death. It didn’t smell of much at all. Scoured clean, as if the Three erased all memory of people from here. They’ve forsaken this place. And what they turned away from, the Vhemin made into a home.

The horizon ahead blurred, and she swayed, putting a hand on Tristan for support. The horse chuffed, but his head hung low. She spared a glance for Chesterfield. The big charger looked miserable, but also too damn ornery to let a bear have the upper hand. He stamped on, tossing his head every so often, but there weren’t any flies. Nothing lived here.

The northern blur resolved into a smudge, and the smudge became a low range of coal-gray facades. “What’s that?”

“That’s a place we ain’t going.” Armitage arched his back. “That’s one of your cities. Was, anyway. Pretty fucked up now.”

“A city of the ancients?”

“Did I stutter?” The monster ran a finger under his collar. “We don’t go there. Even Vhemin get sick where you left your footprints.” He spat. “Humans spread across this world like a disease. And you poisoned the earth where you stepped.”

“You don’t know that.” Meriwether coughed, the sound dry, like old leaves. “No one knows that.”

“I know over there,” Armitage jabbed a finger at the dead city, “the air kills anyone who breathes it. There’s plenty more like it. Sometimes it ain’t the air that’s bad.” He looked away. “Can be fun, though. Guardians remain in some of these places. We use ‘em for training.”

Geneve visored her eyes. “What kind of training?”

“The kind where we kill the guardians and wear their skulls as hats. You know what? This place feels as good as any to stop. Let’s take five.”

“Only five?” Meriwether paled despite the heat.

“It’s an expression, runt. Might be an hour. A little more, if the heat sticks like it sometimes does.” The monster patted Beck’s hide, then rummaged in his saddlebags. He retrieved a tarp and some short metal poles. Armitage shook the poles, then with a grunt of frustration, slapped one against his thigh. It telescoped into a longer rod, which he rammed into the ground. In a couple of minutes, he’d assembled a sunshade. Beck ambled underneath, throwing himself on the sand with a huff.

Meriwether looked to the shade with longing, then shook his head before facing Geneve. “Let’s get your armor off.”

“I can’t—”

“It’s hotter than a forge out here. I’ve got sweat where I didn’t know it could go. You must be miserable inside all that metal.” He tipped his head sideways. “You and I both know you’re too stubborn to admit it, so I’m suggesting it, so’s you can yell at me, then take the steel off in a begrudging manner.”

“Stubborn?” Geneve felt her voice rise an octave and tried to wind it back down.

“That’s what I’m talking about.” He grinned, like this was his plan all along. “C’mon, Red. You can holler at me while we get it off you.”

Geneve eyed him. The wrinkle of a smile at the corners of his eyes, the easy grin he wore. There’s no deceit there. He’s just thinking about me, and what it means to be me. She’d not expected that from a sinner.

But then, she’d not expected to spend so much time with one who defied the Three’s edicts. She certainly hadn’t expected to like one. “Okay. But maybe I’ll only shout a little bit. The dry air’s making me hoarse.”

* * *

Geneve dozed in Armitage’s cover. It’d been a struggle getting everyone in there, but the monster himself didn’t join them. He removed the stone tablet from his back, stretched, and rolled his shoulders before setting off across the sands. She didn’t know where he went.

It didn’t matter. The cold-blooded Vhemin relished this time of day. He left his bear behind, which she took to mean he was coming back. Beck didn’t seem to care, laying like a harpooned furry whale, panting in the heat. She wondered about their partnership. Geneve hadn’t seen other Vhemin riding beasts. Not horses, nor bears. They were foot soldiers. Tresward scripture said no beasts let the monsters near, which sounded correct, except here she was, sharing shade with a seal brown bear that played with a monster like dog and boy.

It didn’t make a lot of sense, much like the rest of her life at the moment.

An hour passed and dragged its heels with a second. Huffing announced Armitage’s return. She sat upright, fingers resting on Requiem’s pommel. She spied Sight of Day sitting upright, bow in hand. They shared a look that asked, has he brought enemies with him?

The shimmering heat stole details from Armitage, but he seemed … off. As he drew closer, she saw why. On his shoulders was a creature that looked like a dog crossed with a lizard. Scaled like the Vhemin, but much smaller. It looked dead, mostly because its skull was smashed in. She stood, bringing her steel with her. “What’s that?”

“We call ‘em dust hoppers.” Armitage slung the carcass to the ground. Sand puffed up from where it hit. Geneve saw its feet we large and padded, each toe ending in a nasty-looking claw. “Usually they hunt in packs. This one wasn’t with his friends, and that’s why I’ve named this one, ‘Lunch.’”

“I’ve given up eating raw dog, but thanks.” Meriwether sat upright, watching.

“Suit yourself. It’s pretty nice when dried into jerky.” The Vhemin tore one of the dust hopper’s legs off, crunching away. Geneve looked away, feeling slightly sick. “What?”

{You’re a very vigorous eater.} Sight of Day showed his fangs. {It upsets the children.}

“Fuck ‘em,” Armitage suggested. He nudged the carcass with his foot. “Want some, cat?”

The Feybrind nodded. {I’ve never had dust hopper.}

Geneve shuddered. She’d known the Vhemin were eaters of flesh but forgotten the Feybrind were carnivores too—they just preferred their meat cooked. Didn’t they? I don’t understand how the Three made both species meat-eaters, yet also made them different in every other way. Sight of Day didn’t tear a piece of the dust hopper away, instead choosing to use a slender, elegantly-made blade to skin the carcass, parting out the pieces within.

Armitage retrieved a small rack from his saddlebags, then hunkered down beside the Feybrind. The two set to work laying strips of skin on the rack. In the desert air, they’d dry into jerky in little time at all. They might have some ready by tomorrow. Geneve wasn’t sure if it was a time of miracles, but she’d seen a dead dragon corpse, and found a saddle to match. The big surprise was a Vhemin and Feybrind working together.

Meriwether joined her. He looked like he might never stop sweating. “Can I have a word?” She nodded, and they walked away from the other two. They headed down a dune, the peak offering a little shade if you lay against its sandy back. Meriwether lay down, then patted the ground beside him. “I don’t like it.”

Geneve joined him. It felt like they were the only two people in the world. She glanced at him, but he wasn’t watching her, choosing to stare at the cloudless sky instead. “Which particular part?”

“Those two. I don’t like how Sight of Day feels he needs to protect us from the creature. Or, protect me, anyway.” He turned to face her, propping himself on an elbow. “He’s in danger.”

“Armitage would be hard to kill,” she admitted.

“Not just that.” Meriwether scrabbled some sand from his hair. “Armitage knows what made the Feybrind fall. What if it’s a spell? What if he knows the trick? I know the Feybrind are excellent fighters. Everything in this Three-damned world seems better at killing than us.”

She sat up, feeling the sand shift beneath her. “That’s why we have the Tresward.”

“I’m not interested in a sermon—”

“Do I look like the preaching type?” She felt her cheeks flush and bowed her head. “Sorry. I’m hot, and it’s making me irritable.”

“So, you’re going to be irritable for weeks?”

“I hope you fall into the sinking sands.” Geneve felt the smile touch her face. “But I hear you. Feybrind are fast. A better, more accurate shot with a bow than any human or Vhemin. Precise with a blade. Did you know the Tresward asked them to come teach us?” Meriwether shook his head. “We have the twenty-one hundred patterns of the Three. We train for years upon years, and only once we get the sash,” her fingers touched her shoulder where the black sash would have lain across her breastplate, “would we be considered better fighters than the Feybrind.”

“They don’t seem the fighting kind.”

“They’re not. They refused.” She shook her head. “The first overture happened hundreds of years ago. It’s a kind of ceremony now. Every ten years the Tresward asks Feybrind to come, and they always refuse. Or we can’t find them. Their villages aren’t on our maps.”

“That must annoy the Tresward.” He leaned back, staring at the sky again. “I like the cat even more, now.”

She snorted. “In a fair fight, he would hold his own.”

“It won’t be a fair fight. That’s my point. Sight of Day will drop like a discarded puppet. The monster moves fast, Red. He moves like lightning that someone let out of a bottle.” Meriwether closed his eyes. “I like him. I don’t want him to die. I know things between us are … weird, but will you look out for him?”

Geneve listened to the cadence of his words. The softness of them, the simple request. He wasn’t like most men she’d met. Outside the Tresward, men tried to show how strong they were. They’d have trouble asking for aid from a woman. Meriwether, not so much. He knew what he was, and he knew it insufficient to help a friend. Here he was, asking his enemy for aid. “I will.”

“I would if I could, but … wait, what?”

“I said, I’ll look out for him. He’s my friend too, Meri.” She wanted to reach out, to touch his shoulder, to let him know it would be okay. But she was a Knight of the Tresward, and he was a sinner. They lived on two sides of a divide, and while they shared a temporary common purpose, she felt at the end of their journey was heartache. He’d have to run, and they might ask her to give chase. Geneve stood. “I’ll try and look out for all of us.”

* * *

When she returned to their small shelter, the dust hopper’s corpse was gone, and Beck looked much happier, leaving no confusion about what happened to the bones and gristle.

“Vhemin waste nothing?” Geneve looked at the dark stained sand.

Armitage shrugged, the motion massive. “Vhemin are Vhemin.”

Geneve glanced to the drying meat. “Are there more dust hoppers?”

“Sure, but we’ve got bigger problems.” Armitage pointed to the west, the motion imprecise and vague. “I know what the metal was. I saw two armored figures heading toward us.”

She took a step closer to the monster. “Two?”

“Leading horses. Had the holier-than-thou look of Knights.” He grinned ghastly teeth. “Like the dust hoppers, many creatures hope we perish. Few are willing to make it happen. Knights are a danger we want to avoid, especially since you’re,” he pointed to her chest where her sash would have been, “a baby Knight.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ll be beaten like a toy drum if they’re after you. Been wondering what a Knight’s doing out here alone. Not really my concern, and you know what? I don’t give a shit. But if there are Knights after you, it’d be nice to have that confirmed so we can make a plan.”

Geneve gave a slow nod. “I can’t confirm it. Not because I’m trying to mislead you, but because I don’t know.” She looked at her feet. “We were separated.”

“They could be friends, then?”

Geneve didn’t know how to respond to that. She held her silence for a moment longer. If it was Israel and Vertiline, would they be coming to help her? She glanced back at the dune where she’d left Meriwether. What will they say when they see I’ve a sinner in tow? Could I explain it to Israel in a way he’d understand? “I don’t think so.”

“Plan B, then.” Armitage snarled like this was the fun part. “We’ll set a trap.”

“I won’t kill Knights.”

“Of course not. You couldn’t, anyway.” A little more feral made it into his shark smile. “But I know who might.”

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