Swords of Waar (15 page)

Lhan paused like he was considering it, then sighed and shook his head. “As appealing as that might sound, it cannot be. You propose a vow of brothers, not lovers. The vow of lovers states that a dhan must protect his dhanshai. It matters not the weakness of the dhan, nor the strength of the dhanshai. The rule remains the same.”

And there we were back to the beginning again. A dhan protected his dhanshai because a dhan protected his dhanshai because a dhan protected his dhanshai and that’s all there was to it. I was too tired from all the running and fighting we’d done to go through it all again, and besides, we were alone, and his lips were
right there
!

“Okay, Lhan, listen. I can’t say I won’t fight if it comes to fighting. But I won’t lead, okay? I’ll let you give the orders. And I won’t pick you up anymore.”

I patted the sails. After a second, he sat down beside me, and I put a hand on his leg. “And if you want me to love, comfort and support you, you got it—in sickness and in health, in lean times and fat, forever and ever amen. I promise.”

He frowned, thinking about it, his mouth hard, and I was worried he was gonna say no dice, but I gave his leg a squeeze and he shivered.

“Very well, mistress. In light of your martial nature, I suppose an allowance can be made. But you must abide by my orders. I must insist on that.”

I kissed his neck. “Of course, Lhan. Absolutely.”

“Thank you, beloved. I know it was not an easy decision. I am honored that you have allowed me to be your dhan.”

I started untying his robes. “And I’m honored that you offered.”

And after that it was on ’er and off ’er all night long.

***

Actually, that’s just a cheap joke. It didn’t go like that at all. Not even close. You know what happens. You blow something up so big in your head, nothing in real life can match it, and I remembered that lost last night with Lhan like it was something out of a romance novel, all soft-focus and slow motion and power ballad guitar solos. Reality was gonna have a tough time living up to that, right?

And, well, it didn’t.

That first night was a disaster. It didn’t work at all. The first time we tried, Lhan popped his cork almost before we got started, and then spent an hour apologizing for letting me down, while I kept saying it didn’t matter—and wishing I thought it didn’t. The second time was no better. That time, he did fine, but I couldn’t cum for love nor money, I’m not sure why. Maybe ’cause my head was going around and around, wondering about all that vow business and if it was all going to work out.

Afterwards we spent another awkward hour or so holding each other like we were afraid to be the first one to let go. Finally though, that pile of sails just got too small, so I kissed him good night and rolled off onto the floor. I lay awake for a long time, pretending to sleep, wondering if I’d made a huge mistake—and then thinking that maybe it wouldn’t matter since Lhan and I were both going to be killed by the priests anyway, and maybe that was for the best. Yeah, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself right about then, but after a while it got me thinking about what we were heading into, and I asked the question I woulda asked if all that other stuff hadn’ta come up first.

“So what the hell is Durgallah, and why the fuck is this priest taking us there?”

Lhan answered right away, which told me he hadn’t been asleep either. “Durgallah is an ancient city to the south of here, known now as the City of Black Glass. It too lies on the shores of the Vanished Sea, but it is a ruin—destroyed by the Church of the Seven for heresy thousands of years ago.”

“Heresy?”

“Aye. The people of Durgallah turned from the Seven and worshiped false gods. The church rained the fire of heaven down upon them as punishment.” He shook his head. “It is strange that the church would bring us there. The priests fear it like no other place on Waar.”

“Why?”

“The ghosts of their victims. They are said to haunt the ruins still, held to this world by their hatred for the church. I have heard that no priest who has entered the ruins has left with his life or sanity intact.”

I normally don’t believe in ghosts, or any of that supernatural bullshit, but after everything I’d seen on this weird-ass planet it was a little harder to be all rational and modern.

“You—you think there are really ghosts there?”

He shrugged. “I think ghosts will be the least of our worries in Durgallah. Whatever the reason the Church wants us, I am certain it will not be pleasant. Indeed, it may be the death of us.”

He looked so miserable that I reached up to him and squeezed his hand.

“I’m sorry, Lhan. If I hadn’t dropped into your life, none of this evil shit would have happened.”

He squeezed back and looked down at me, and those purple eyes swallowed me whole. “And I would count that a tragedy, Mistress. Despite these troubles, I would choose any life that contained you over an easier one without.”

Man, that boy could talk. I almost pulled him down to the floor and started lovin’ on him again, but I was still too freaked out about how badly things had gone earlier, so I just stayed where I was.

***

After that, though, it gradually got better—even when it didn’t. Once we started to realize that having a bad night one night didn’t mean we were falling out of love, and that we were going to be there for each other every night, no matter how the sex went, we started to have more good nights.

It’s funny. Well, sad really. I’d known all this stuff back when I was with Big Don—taking it as it came, being easy when it didn’t. All that hard-won wisdom shoulda carried over, right? Not so much. I guess it’s something you have to relearn with every new person you get with.

Anyway, by the time we got to Durgallah, we were laughing when it was good, we were laughing when it was bad, and some nights we blew the fucking roof off the place. Captain Pit-Bull and his crew musta had to sleep with their fingers in their ears, and I bet we gave Brother Rollo ulcers.

Yeah, we were locked up in jail and heading into deep shit, but still, it mighta just been my happiest time on Waar.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SOLD!

“I
don’t get it. Why is it called the City of Black Glass? It looks like a bunch of sandcastles after a wave hit ’em.”

Lhan and I were craning our necks to look out the tiny port-hole which was the only source of light in the sail closet, as the City of Black Glass appeared in the distance below us, silhouetted in the pink light of a desert dawn. There were towers and spires everywhere, but all half crumbled and rounded off and caved in. And I didn’t see any black glass anywhere. Everything looked red and dead and dusty to me.

“We are not at quite the right angle. It is the north half of the city that—”

Then the ship turned and all of a sudden we
were
at the right angle, and Lhan and I flinched back as the city stabbed us in the eyes.

“There. You see?”

“Can’t see a goddamned thing. Yikes.”

When the spots faded I shielded my eyes and looked again. The whole north side, which had been hidden behind the hull of the ship, was spread out below us, shining like a freshly polished Mercedes and reflecting the morning sun right into our faces. In the middle of the glare was a huge crater, half a mile wide, and all around it a circle of glittery rubble that spread out to a ring of lumpy, half-melted buildings all leaning away from the center like they’d been frozen halfway through falling down.

I’d never seen anything like it. What the fuck had happened? Did these sword-swinging savages have an atom bomb? They didn’t even have cannons yet! On the other hand, the priests had wands of blue fire and anti-gravity ski-doos, so I guessed anything was possible.

“The church did that?”

“Thousands of years ago, yes.”

“Sheesh. No wonder they don’t like to come back. That musta killed everybody within a hundred miles.”

The ship turned away from the glare again, and we watched as we dropped toward the sandy part of the city, angling to land in the middle of what looked like the main drag, a freeway-wide boulevard with fancy buildings on both sides, all slumped and shattered, and neighborhoods of smaller buildings and skinnier streets behind them, all completely dead, deserted and knee-deep in sand.

A few minutes later we heard the pounding of sledgehammers below us, then the back and forth tug of the crew threading the lines through the mooring rings and tying them off. We pulled on our red robes and hoods, and few minutes after that, there was a key in the lock and our door swung open. Captain Pit-Bull wasn’t taking any chances. He had two guys with crossbows covering us as another two guys came in and tied us up, then they all marched us up onto the deck where the prissy priest, Brother Rollo, was waiting and looking over the side like he was being stood up on his big date.

“Where are they?” he asked nobody in particular, then he turned to Captain Pit-Bull. “Lower the gangplank. We must descend.”

“Where is my reward?”

“Those we are here to meet will have it. Now let us go.”

Pit-Bull didn’t look very happy about that, but had his guys let down the long plank anyway, and Rollo tip-toed down it while the sailors prodded us along behind and carried our weapons and gear all wrapped up in bundles.

We ended up in the middle of the street, with the wind moaning through the empty ruins all around us and dust blowing in our faces. There wasn’t any other sound, or any other movement, just wind and sand and all those empty windows and doors looking at us like they were the eyes and mouths of giant skulls. The whole scene gave me the creeps.

I shot Rollo a look. “So, we here for a picnic?”

“Silence! We are waiting!”

So we waited—me and Lhan sagging against our ropes, our guards fidgeting, Rollo twitching and looking over his shoulder every five seconds, and Captain Pit-Bull with his arms crossed, grunting and glaring at the back of Rollo’s head.

Finally, just as the sand was starting to bury my feet, a voice on my seven made us all jump out of our pants.

“What do you want here?”

Everybody spun around, gasping, and we saw a guy in head-to-toe black robes standing in the street and aiming a crossbow at us. Then we saw the dozen or so other crossbows pointing out of the dark windows of the building behind him, and we all did the gasp and jump out of our pants thing a second time. We couldn’t see any men in there—just crossbows. And we couldn’t see any face under Mr. Black-Robes’ hood either—just black.

Rollo was shaking like someone’d shoved a jackhammer up his ass. “We—we seek a priest of Ormolu, who—”

“There are no priests here, fool. Who told you there were priests here?”

All the crossbows swung toward Rollo. He threw up his hands.

“It was in the edict! If we found the fugitives we were to bring them here to meet with a priest of the Temple!”

“Fugitives?”

Rollo motioned to us with a trembling hand. “The kidnappers! The outcast dhan and the outland giantess!”

At this, Black-Robes looked at us for the first time. “Pull back their hoods.”

Rollo motioned to the sailors, and they yanked our hoods off.

Black-Robes stared, then lowered his crossbow and started to laugh. He pulled back his hood, grinning like a sideshow geek, and it was my turn to stare, ’cause it was the same Beak-Nosed asshole priest who’d threatened me with the wand of blue fire when I’d jumped on board the priest ship back at Toaga!

“Ormolu be praised! I had thought them lost!”

He started toward us and Rollo backed up, hands out. “Stay back! We are armed!”

This made Beak-Nose crack up even more. He pulled open his black robes to show orange and white beneath. “You squealing ruktug. I am the priest you are looking for.”

Rollo let out a breath and slumped like an inflatable snowman with a bad leak. “Oh, my brother. I am so glad to see you. I feared—”

“Never mind. Never mind. You must sail away again at once. There can be no ships here when our play begins. Give them to us and go.”

More guys in black robes stepped out of the nearby buildings and closed in on us, but Captain Pit-Bull stepped in front of us, chin out.

“There was a reward.”

Beak-Nose looked annoyed, but then pasted on a smile. “It was you who captured them?”

Pit-Bull nodded. “I did.”

Beak-Nose looked at Rollo.

He nodded. “He did.”

“Very good. Will water tokens be acceptable?”

Pit-Bull licked his lips. “Certainly, your reverence.”

I shot Lhan a questioning look. He nodded in agreement. We weren’t about to let that happen. I raised my voice.

“Hey, Beak-Nose. Yeah, you. You shouldn’t give the captain any more tokens. He already has plenty. He stole the ones we stole from you. They’re in his cabin.”

Beak-Nose turned on Pit-Bull, who was looking at me like he wanted to tear my lungs out with his bare hands.

“Is this true?”

Pit-Bull opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Beak-Nose turned to his men. “Search the cabin.”

Three of ’em trotted up the gangplank, then came back down again about five minutes later with the satchel. They opened it and showed it to Beak-Nose.

He nodded, then turned to Pit-Bull, cold. “I would kill you for stealing temple property, but your ship must be gone as soon as possible, so you are free to go, but there will be no reward for you, and no mercy if you cross the church again, do you understand?”

“Yes, your reverence.”

“Good. Then go, and quickly.”

I gave Pit-Bull a big smile as he turned to the gangplank. “Now you know how it feels, dick.”

He gave me the death stare, but couldn’t say anything in front of the priests, so he just walked on, stiff as week-old roadkill, with his men following up behind him.

“I think that guy wants to kill me.”

Lhan chuckled. “I fear there are others who will beat him to it.”

I looked around and found Beak-Nose standing in front of me. He grinned again, which was too bad. He was ugly to begin with. Smiling he was hideous.

“Truly, Ormolu blesses us. I did not expect my master’s broadsheets to bear fruit in time for our little drama, and feared we would have to make do with bit players. But here you are. The cast is complete. The stage is set. We wait only for our audience to arrive.”