Furies of Calderon (3 page)

“Yes,” said Fidelias. “He is.” Then he cuffed her along the head and said, loud enough for Aldrick to hear, “Keep your lazy mouth shut. I’ll feed you when I please and not a second before. Not another word.”

They walked in silence, then, into the camp. Aldrick led them through the camp’s gate and down the main path dividing the camp in half. He turned left and led them to what Amara knew would be, in an Aleran Legion’s camp, the commander’s tent. A large tent sat there, and two
legionares
stood outside it, breastplates gleaming, armed with spears in their hands and swords at their belts. Aldrik nodded to one of them and went inside. He appeared a moment later and said to Fidelias, “You. Merchant. Come inside. The commander wants to speak to you.”

Fidelias stepped forward, and Amara moved to follow him. Aldrick put a hand on Fidelias’s chest and said, “Just you. Not the slave.”

Fidelias blinked, “You expect me to just leave her out here, good master? It could be dangerous.” He shot Amara a glance, which she did not miss. A warning. “To leave a pretty young girl in a camp full of soldiers.”

Aldrick said, “You should have thought of that before you came here. They won’t kill her. Get inside.”

Fidelias looked back at her and licked his lips. Then he stepped forward into the tent. Aldrick looked at Amara for a moment, his eyes distant, cool. Then he stepped back inside. A moment later, he came back to the opening of the tent, dragging a girl with him. She was petite, even emaciated, and her clothes hung off of her like a scarecrow’s. The collar around her neck, even on its smallest sizing, hung loosely. Her brown hair looked dry, brittle as hay, and she had dust on her skirts, though her feet were clean enough. Aldrick shoved the girl out unceremoniously and said, “Business.” Then he tugged the flap of the tent closed and went back inside.

The girl tumbled to the ground, along with a woven basket, and landed with a soft cry in a tangle of basket and skirts and frizzy hair.

Amara knelt down beside the girl and asked, “Are you all right?”

“Oh, fine,” the girl snapped. She rose shakily to her feet and kicked a puff of dust at the tent with her toe. “Bastard,” she muttered. “Here I am trying to clean things up for him, and he throws me around like a sack of meal.” Her eyes sparkled with defiance, and she turned to Amara. “I’m Odiana.”

“Amara,” she responded, feeling her mouth tug up at the corners. She glanced around her, licking her lips, and thought for a moment. She needed to see more of the camp. Try to find something she could take with her. “Odiana, is there any place to get a drink around here? We were traveling for hours, and I’m parched.”

The girl tossed her frizzy hair over one shoulder and sniffed at the commander’s tent. “What’s your pleasure? There’s some cheap beer, but it’s mostly water. Optionally, we could get a drink of water. And if none of that suits you, I think there’s some water.”

“I’ll have the water,” Amara said.

“A dry wit,” Odiana noted. She hooked the handle of the basket over the crook of her arm and said, “This way.” Then she turned and walked with a kind of bristling, crackling energy through the camp, toward the opposite gate. Amara caught up with her, eyes flicking around. A troop of soldiers came jogging by, boots striking the ground in rhythm, and the two girls had to skip back, between two tents, to let them pass.

Odiana looked at her with an amused smile. “You’ve not been around soldiers much, have you. It doesn’t matter where you go.
This
,” she gestured broadly, at the camp, “never changes. It’s the same, if you’re down by the ocean or up at the Wall. And the men never change. The sky never changes, and the earth doesn’t change enough to notice. This is it.”

“But still. You get to go to new places. See new things.”

“Only new stains on uniforms,” said Odiana. The soldiers passed, and the girls stepped out onto the track again. “But I’ve heard further north and maybe east a ways.”

“Toward Aquitaine?”

Odiana shrugged. “Is that what’s that way?” She walked along and opened the basket as they neared the stream, rummaging around inside. “Here,” she said. “Hold these.” She thrust a pair of dirty plates into Amara’s arms. “We can wash them while we’re here. Crows, soldiers are so messy. But at least the
legionares
keep their tents clean.” She fished out a bone and threw it toward a passing dog. Then an apple core, from which she took a judicious nibble before wrinkling up her nose and tossing it into the stream. Next came a piece of paper, which she hardly glanced at before flicking it aside.

Amara turned and stomped the paper flat with her foot, before the wind could catch it. Then she bent over and picked it up.

“What?” asked Odiana. “What are you doing?”

Amara picked up the paper. “Well. Um. It hardly seems like a good idea to just toss it on the ground if you’re trying to clean up.”

“If it isn’t in the camp, no one will care,” Odiana said. She tilted her head to one side, watching, as Amara unfolded the paper and studied the writing inside. “You can read?” the slave asked.

“Some,” said Amara, distracted. She read the note, and her hands started shaking as she did.
 

There was more, but Amara skipped over it, barely skimming, to see what was at the bottom.
 

Amara’s breath caught in her throat, her heart racing. Her fears were true. Insurrection. Rebellion.
War
.

“What does it say?” asked Odiana. She shoved another plate into Amara’s hands and said, “Here. Put these in the stream.”

“It says…” Amara fumbled with the plates, moving to the water’s edge and leaning down to drop them in. “It, uh. I can’t really read it.” She fumbled with the note, sliding it away, into one of her shoes, mind racing with the implications.

“You know,” said Odiana, voice bright and cheerful, “I think you’re lying. You don’t often run into literate slaves. Who ask questions about troop movements. And who are also politically learned enough to realize the wider implications of one little note. That’s the kind of thing you expect from, oh, I don’t know.” Her voice dropped, and she almost purred, “One of the Cursori.”

Amara stiffened and turned just in time to ?[take]? Odiana’s bare heel in the chin. Pain flashed through her, dull and hot. The wasted-seeming girl had far more strength than Amara would have credited to her, and the blow stunned Amara and sent her tumbling back into the stream.

She stood up out of it, shaking water from her face and eyes and drawing in a breath to cry out to her furies—but water rushed down into her mouth and nose as she inhaled, and she began choking. Amara’s heart raced with sudden panic, and she reached up to her face—only to find it coated to above the nose with a thin layer of water. She scraped at it with her fingers, but it didn’t flow down, and she couldn’t clear it away. She struggled and choked, but only more water rushed in, coating her like a layer of oil. She couldn’t breathe. The world began to glaze over with darkness, and she grew dizzy.

The letter. She had to get the letter out, back to the First Lord. The proof he would need.

She made it to the bank before the water filling her lungs made her collapse. She writhed, smothering on dry land, and found herself staring at Odiana’s bare, clean feet.

Amara looked up as the wasted slave girl stared down at her, a gentle smile on her face. “You needn’t worry, love,” the girl said. And she began to change. Her sunken cheeks filled out. The gangling limbs gained rondure, beauty. Hips and breasts began to curve in enticing lines, filling out the clothes she wore. Her hair grew a bit longer, lustrous, darker, and she shook it out with a little laugh, before kneeling down next to Amara.

Odiana reached out and stroked fingers through Amara’s damp hair. “You needn’t worry,” she repeated. “We aren’t going to kill you. We need you.” Calmly, she removed a black sash from the basket, and tied it around her waist. “But you Cursori can be a slippery breed. We’ll take no chances. Just go to sleep, Amara. It will be so much easier. And then I can send all the water back and let you breathe again.”

Amara struggled and fought for simple breath, but none came. Darkness gathered, points of light appearing before her eyes. She clutched at Odiana, but her fingers had gone nerveless and weak.

The last thing she saw was the beautiful water-crafter leaning down to place a gentle kiss upon her forehead. “Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep.”

And then Amara sank down, into the blackness.

Chapter 2

Amara woke, buried to her armpits in the earth. Loose dirt had been piled over her arms and into her hair. Her face felt thick, heavy, and after a moment, she realized that her entire head had been liberally smeared with mud.

She struggled to gather her wits through a pounding headache, piecing together fragments of memories and perceptions until, with a dizzying rush of clarity, she remembered where she was and what had happened to her.

Her heart started to thud hard in her chest, and fear made her buried limbs feel cold.

She opened her eyes, and bits of dirt fell into them, so that she had to blink quickly. Tears formed to wash the dirt out. After a few moments, she was able to see.

She was in a tent. The commander’s tent in the camp, she guessed. Light poured into it through a gap in the flap that served as a door, leaving the tent’s interior described in terms of dimness, shadow, and dark.

“You awake yet?” croaked a voice from behind her. She turned her head, trying to look. She could barely see Fidelias out of the corner of her eye, but he was there, hanging in a cage of iron bars by straps around his shoulders and outstretched arms, leaving his feet dangling a good ten inches off of the floor. He had a swelling bruise on his face, and his lip had been split and was crusted with dry blood.