My eyes cracked open.
I was in the medical ward at Carthia wondering who in my unit was still alive.
Across the room, Shamuni, the tall, lanky girl who'd taught me the very important phrase pʊ ɣʊwose xatʌ, barked at six-year-old 'ækimi. "I told you to put away the trays in the back! Go take care of it now!"
She crossed her arms and turned on Besami, who was busy changing sheets on another bed. "I said, all of them! Even if they look clean!"
"He wakes!" To my left was a man with a widow's peak hairline, sharp features with full lips, and taut muscles beneath his dark-green skin. He wore a bright-green silk loincloth with fine, silver embroidery in a multitude of symbols. He sat with one leg over his knee and a book in hand.
"Good morning, Taganu."
He smiled wide. "You've been through some shit!"
My left leg was bandaged up with white gauze wrapped over some moist leaves. The wound where that dog had tried to steal a snack felt strangely numb. It was almost like a tingling in my toes that didn't belong. Scabs filled my hairline and under my chin where that snake had its teeth in me. When I sat up, a sharp, stabbing pain tore through my whole body.
I collapsed back down and tried to breathe without hurting. "Is there any word from the tower? Do you know who of my unit made it back?"
He shook his head. "That's not for me to answer. But, I will let the Princess know you're awake, and they can give you those details."
"Oh Goody!" The high, girlish voice of Dr zʊɣi came from behind him. She rushed up and knelt to peel the bandage from my leg. Her flat face and gentle yellow eyes felt like a warm welcome. "How are you feeling?"
"I've been better."
She giggled lightly. "Jungle tested you! Also, where's your medical kit?"
I didn't see it. It might have been in the bushes beside Borel, but it was hard to notice much beyond those birds ripping him apart. "I think I lost it."
She held one of those crystals to my head and watched it turn deep green. "You think, huh? That's the second one you lost already."
"What's the record?"
At that she pursed her lips and handed me a glass. "Lucky you, you have the honor of explaining firsthand what gebu'i tastes like."
Fermented shit. Slimy, goopy, clumps of glop with a thin sheen of sugar that felt more like an insult. I resolved to slam it down as quickly as possible, but that foul, rancid taste stayed with me no matter what.
At that, Taganu stood. "Oh, don't let me forget."
My eyes were drawn to the symbols on his loincloth. The crescent moon was there, and also the jaguar. Falcon, the coiled snake, Cougar, Orca, the same bat's wing on Miyani's shoulder, and several others. He reached out his hand and dropped some coins into my palm. By the time I figured out what it was for, he explained. "I was told, explicitly, to make sure you've been given your month's wages before your promotion to captain is made formal."
"Captain?"
He closed his eyes with a nod, turned, and left. I resolved to ask him someday about the three parallel lines of scars across his shoulderblade and down his back.
Dr zʊɣi smirked, "are you qualified to be a captain?"
"I am."
"Are you sure?" She smiled wide, poking me in my side where a rib wasn't broken. "Are you man enough?"
I didn't need to think about it. "If I'd been told a few days ago, I don't know. But I actually have a few ideas."
At that her face shifted. Her eyes widened along with her deep, warm smile, and she nodded in affirmation.
Then she handed me a walking stick. "In that case, I need this bed. So get up."
There were easily two dozen empty beds throughout.
She called Shamuni over to help, and they each took one side to help me up. It felt like hundreds of knives all throughout my chest, and I was afraid to ask how many ribs that snake actually broke. Then I tried to put weight on my left leg, the one with the gash below the knee that punished me with searing agony every time my foot shifted in some angle.
Dr zʊɣi handed me the cane and took my arm through a few steps. "It's very simple. Walk on it now, you should recover fully in a few weeks. Wait until later, it could be months. And, I need to keep an eye on that leg, so be back here after lunch."
"Do I at least get a piece of candy?"
She chuckled lightly and grinned. "Only if you come back!"
Outside were patches of blue sky like islands in a lattice of clouds. Far in the distance, at nearly eighteen-thousand feet, was the gate where men had warned us about the dangers of the jungle. It seemed a distant memory.
I limped through the grass of the practice yard, where trails of green had been cut through the morning dew. There was a short man shooting at a dummy with one of the native short bows.
I admired his resolve; while, judging from the noise from the mess hall, everyone else was at breakfast, he was practicing. From twenty yards out, he put an arrow into the heart of the burlap enemy.
Then I looked closer. "Renou?"
He snapped his attention towards me, and his narrow face lit up in a smile. "Holy shit!"
He rushed over and threw his arms around me. It was like thousands of knives all at once. He heard me wince and pulled back, then looked at my bandaged leg and laughed. "Well this is a change; I'm walking fine, and you're the one hobbling along!"
That made me laugh, too. "It's good to see you, man!"
His narrow face turned somber, and he nodded. "Well, you're alright, so I guess it can't be that bad."
"What do you mean?"
He threw a quick glance at the administration building. "Something happened yesterday. No one's talking about it, but they were sending out pigeons all evening. They won't tell us peons anything."
I tried to lean down into him, but my body punished me. "We were attacked."
"Oh my God, really? How bad?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. We switched groups, so I was with a couple new guys. We went out, we were waiting a while, and three enemy sekiwa attacked us. We scattered. I don't know who made it back to the tower, and who didn't."
"Damn."
"Borel's dead."
Renou covered his mouth with his hands. "Shit!"
"Also Davod." His name stung like a thousand lashes. I regretted saying it, as though holding back might have made it untrue. "Anyway, it looks like you're getting better."
Renou smirked. "Nothing else to do but practice. It's taken a long time to be able to walk again, and I don't want to be a liability—once they find a team to put me on, that is. So every morning I make sure to get a hundred shots in before breakfast."
With that, he nocked another arrow, pulled back, and loosed. From where we stood it was closer to thirty-five yards, and his arrow grazed the dummy's head.
He intrigued me. "May I make a suggestion? As someone who's been there before?"
"Sure?"
"Make it twenty hits. Don't count shots."
Renou raised an eyebrow.
"It changes the way you practice, trust me."
"That's interesting. That's actually a good idea."
"Also," I added, "don't aim for the dummy."
He gave me a curious look.
"Pick out a single thread and aim for that. Also, I noticed you held your breath. Breathe nice and easy, and loose on the exhale."
As Renou drew back for another shot, a familiar squawk of a vita'o echoed across the yard. I knew Blue's name for me; it sounded like a high chirp, followed by a low croak. Apparently, it translates as 'you're cute.' It wasn't Blue, though. A young woman's voice came with it. "WHERE'S JEZI?"
It was Dayumi, his girlfriend. Her vita'o was the gray one who, with Queen, had greeted me the day I made a fool of myself going after Ahmi. Gray leaped across the grass and was upon me in a second, sniffing all around my body. He spoke a low caw and some chirps.
Dayumi shouted at me from mere feet away. "WHERE'S JEZI???"
She was in tears. "Where is he?" Her voice quivered. Gray paced around me, sniffing my back side, my other side, my feet, and everywhere before clicking and chirping.
Dayumi tapped my shoulder. That hurt. "Where! Tell me!"
Renou gazed at her wide-eyed, and I could hardly speak. "We got separated."
"Separated!"
"I… I didn't see. I don't know which way he…"
"WHY DOES NO ONE KNOW!!" She sobbed. Gray chirped, and she started balling. "Mother! Mother! Give me my Jezi! Jezi!"
Gray sniffed my arms again, my hands, then my neck, before dropping his face with a low squawk.
"Mother! Mother please… please bring me my Jezi! Please…"
I swallowed. It was hard seeing her cry like that. "Has there been no word of him from the tower?"
Dayumi didn't address the question but muttered her prayer through whimpers. Gray rubbed his face in my cheek and carried her off.
Like her, I needed Jezi to be OK.
"That was difficult." Renou stood motionless, watching them leave. "You don't know what happened to him?"
"Maybe nothing happened to him; I didn't see him after the attack. Maybe he made it back to the tower? Hopefully."
Jezi grew up here. He could handle himself well enough with that bow, so likely he made it back. Surely Ude would have made it back, too. He knew those woods, he knew how to fight, and he knew what he was up against. Melox was pretty scrappy, he probably made it, too. And Sargon, he knew the wilderness at least as well as I did.
Renou assured me. "I bet Jezi's at the tower right now, wanking to her as we speak."
That made me laugh hard, but every chortle of laughter was a searing agony all over my chest.
"Sorry," he giggled. "Let's go eat."
Most of the men had finished eating when we walked in, and conversations blended into a unified sound.
One bite, and I missed the tower already. Apparently this was a craft in that whole region from Tower One east all the way into the mountains, but what they did was get a goat really, really drunk, milk her the next morning, and make a cheese out of that. Little details like that contrasted with the smashed-grain gruel they served every morning at Carthia.
It tasted like wet paper.
It was very healthy.
Allegedly.
Kelint sat down next to Renou, across from me. "Where's Rock? Where's Northstar?"
A few others crowded around.
I swallowed what was in my mouth. Images flooded my mind of turning Rock's body, stiff as a board, only to break over the clotted blood surrounding the knife wound that went through his back and came out through his chest. Just outside the mess hall was where he'd jumped laughing into a rain puddle, leaving Geraln to whine in protest. "We, uh… they were assigned to a different unit. I don't…"
The lady with the coffee urn locked her eyes onto mine. "Where is Faren?"
"I am to a different group…"
Another man spoke up. "What happened to Tobi?"
Lacius, head of the kitchen and man covered in scars and tattoos, sat down. "What the hell, man?"
Another man followed him from the kitchen. "Does this kid know what's going on?"
Lacius explained. "Last night, Ahmi goes out three times and comes back cussing and swearing but won't say anything. I finally get some mommy-time, and this is well after midnight, Thunder barges in squawking some shit about how Tikashi is at the gate and we owe her a bison. Then this kid shows up." He turned to me directly. "So start talking."
"Well," I shrugged. It hurt to shrug. "Yesterday morning…"
"Excuse me." A woman's voice cut through the throng of men.
They parted for Princess Rosalynd herself, not a messenger this time. Her dark-green hair was in braids but with several loose strands, her silk loincloth was crushed and wrinkled, and the silver crescent moon pendant around her neck seemed stuck to her dark-green skin. Her jaw was clenched, and she walked up to me in haste. "We need to talk."
Other men looked as they were about to speak, but she stared them all down until the crowd melted away. Lacius smirked and looked up at her for a moment before turning back to me. "You owe me!"
She watched him leave for a moment before peering at me. "You coming?"
I took another bite of the soggy paper. "May I finish my meal first?"
She took a deep breath and crossed her arms.
"I'm told you're making me captain. Is that true?"
"That's the plan."
"Can I have Renou on my team?" I turned to him. "If you're interested?"
He spoke through a mouthful of porridge. "Hell yeah!"
The Princess shrugged. "Sure. Are you done yet?"
I took another bite. "Has there been word from the tower? Do you know who of my unit made it back?"
She smoothed a thick braid with both hands. "As soon as you come with me, we can talk about that "
For that, I swallowed the remainder of my meal and fought the pain in my body to stand. Renou helped me up, and I followed the Princess out of the mess hall. She shuffled along quickly and had to stop and wait for my crippled self to catch up. The desperation on her face gave me a chill, and I dared ask, "did… any of my unit make it back to the tower?"
She stopped and stood, staring at my face as if Death itself had called.
My skin crawled. "How bad is it?"
"It's worse." She clenched her jaw, shook her head, and kept walking.
"Worse? What do you mean, worse? Worse than what?"
But as we stepped out of the mess hall, someone else approached. Ranía, the same woman who'd brokered the mosquito ward and predicted Massi's death, shuffled her bare feet through the grass until she was upon me. Her curly Goloagi hair fell down her back, and she looked up with that same smile she always wore. "Good to see you're well!"
I hobbled slowly through the grass and tried not to twist my body. "Well is relative in this case."
She walked alongside me, matching my pace whereas the Princess kept moving ahead. "I had a hunch you might want to talk to me, so I came here to meet you."
I bobbed my head. That hurt. "I am curious. You told me you were worried about Davod."
Her eyes popped and her smile widened. "Is that what you want to know about?"
"Uh…"
She cocked her head to the side. "I saw the road he traveled. He made a very difficult choice to leave his best friend to die in the jungle, he only ever knew how to deal with his emotions by drinking, and Pu'iyo was always lax with those rules. Men who spend half the time hungover don't survive, here. I'd hoped you could reach him, talk to him, I don't know. I'm sorry."
I lowered my eyes. "Yeah. Me too."
"I should have thought of that. You lost your best friend; that's difficult. And here I thought you wanted to know how you were able to communicate with Tikashi and her hatchlings."
I stopped and gaped at her.
Ranía tilted her head back to look up at me, shifting her emerald-green eyes back and forth between mine with a wide, warm smile.
The Princess cleared her throat, and I kept limping. "Maybe hanging around Blue has rubbed off on me."
My walking stick sank in the mud. I almost fell, but Ranía held my arm to steady me. "Oh, that's perfect! Use that." She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "If the wrong people find out how you really did it, they'd burn you at the stake."
That shook me. I froze. There were so many thoughts swirling through my mind. The very real possibility that my whole unit might have been wiped out was already distraction enough from the searing pain rippling throughout my body. The prospect of being a captain, of leading my own men into battle, a longing to see Miyani. I'd resolved to write my own letter to Davod's parents, but what would I say to them? And now this, whatever the hell this was.
The Princess cleared her throat again. She stood in a stone archway of the administration building with her arms crossed, tapping the floor.
Ranía leaned in with a satisfied grin. "The important people want to talk to you. I'll wait my turn. Bye for now!"
I gazed like an idiot. Ranía was right, though. Taganu had brushed her musings off as some harmless mental disorder, but Number 773-614 knew. I had no way of talking to those vita'o in the wild, and yet I did. Somehow.
"Are you coming?"
Rosalynd helped me up the staircase and down the hall to the room cordoned off with paper partitions and a plush rug that I was going to rub my toes in and she could go to hell if that was a problem.
Ahmi was there. She helped lower me into a plush bag chair, then resumed her place beside a plant with tall leaves that reached from the pot to the ceiling.
Rosalynd's father the Marquis was there. He stood, leaning against a wooden chest in one corner. The older woman scout who'd greeted me and Renou in the mango orchard the day he fell into that foot trap was also there. She eyed me with the same stern expression she wore to mock me for asking about the alarm.
"I never got your name?"
She smiled from one corner of her mouth. "Didi."
Commander was there. He sat next to Didi on a bag chair of his own.
Standing beside a stone pillar leading out to the balcony was the Imperial Voice. Last I'd seen that unmistakable square chin and long nose with a rounded bridge was the day we arrived at Carthia. He'd stood with Ahmi and the Princess on that same balcony.
"I'd like your name as well?"
The Marquis shook his head and grumbled. "We have important matters. You need to tell us everything you saw."
"I would like to know who of my unit made it back to the tower, please?"
Rosalynd buried her face in her hands. Ahmi urged me. "Would you speak first, please?"
"OK, so yesterday morning, we made some rotations. Borel asked for volunteers because he wanted to fight the enemy in the jungle instead of waiting at some high point."
"Miyani's plan?" Ahmi asked.
I nodded. "I stayed with Borel, Jame, I don't know if you know Ude…"
Didi nodded. "Yes, I knew Ude."
"He had two friends, Gozhu and Thavo. Also Jezi stayed with us and brought a friend, some kid he called Psycho, Melox…"
"Melox!" Commander laughed.
"Sargon, and two trainees, a kid named Torus, and I didn't get the other guy's name. Yumi took us out, and we were waiting for her for a little while, and we were attacked. Everyone ran… I ran."
Didi crossed her arms. "Did you see who attacked you?"
"Yes. After we scattered, I found Borel and Gozhu. Gozhu…" I swallowed. "He took an arrow in the back. Straight through the heart. Um… I tracked Borel, then we saw three enemy sekiwa."
Ahmi leaned in close. "What colors were their vita'o?"
I nodded. "Two of them were Sewu'oni. One was younger, her vita'o was bright yellow with beige spots."
"Chaos." Ahmi inserted.
"Her name's Chaos?"
"Her name is 'odani, but she is called Chaos."
"Well, the other one was a bit older," I turned to Didi, "maybe your age-ish? She was also Sewu'oni. Her vita'o was like a deep green with black stripes."
Didi cursed under her breath. "Inferno. Damnit!"
"The other was the same one Renou and I met that day. Pedhayana, her vita'o was black with opaline eyes."
Commander named her. "Apex. They brought in their elites."
Rosalynd sniffled. "What happened to Borel?"
"He, uh…" I needed a minute. I got one when a loud squawk came from outside. You're cute once again came to my ears.
A moment later, Blue jumped from the ground up to the second floor balcony and latched his claws onto the concrete railing. Miyani leaped from his back, turned, and helped tug him over before coming into our meeting.
"Caleb!" She was balling. Tears gushed down her cheeks and her voice quivered. "My Caleb!"
The Marquis pursed his lips at my girlfriend. "You shouldn't be here. You have a duty…"
Blue thrust his face at the man and hissed, baring his jagged teeth. The Imperial Voice laughed at that.
Miyani, still crying and whining so hard her voice shook, straddled my lap and threw her arms and legs around me. It hurt like hell where my ribs were broken, but it was heaven.
Blue curled himself around us, wrapping his tail and neck around me to rest in my lap, locking us together. Miyani, still crying, eeked out "my Caleb," and buried her face back into me.
Commander smiled and laughed to himself. His shallow baritone filled the room. "We got a report some time ago that you shot a man in the foot…"
Rosalynd cut him off. "I want to know about Borel. Sorry."
"He was eaten by birds. Big, red-and-white birds."
Miyani's eyes went wide. "vudufifɪða?"
Ahmi raised an eyebrow. "How can that be? The vudu will only attack groups of humans during dry season. Were you not together?"
I turned to the princess. "He saved my life."
Rosalynd furrowed her brow and gave me that familiar look that twice landed me in the sling. "Is that the truth?"
The Imperial Voice studied me with one eyebrow raised.
"Yes, it's the truth. After we saw those sekiwa, he made a distraction and lured them away from me. I wouldn't have escaped them otherwise. I tracked him, that's when I saw him being eaten by those vudufifɪða birds."
While I spoke, Miyani studied my face. She ran her fingers along the needle scars in my hairline and inspected the others beneath my chin. Her eyes bulged wider than I'd ever seen, and her mouth gaped in horror. Then she loosened her grasp on me, looking over my skin at the bruises. Then for a fleeing moment, she cocked an eyebrow and flashed a flirty glance.
Ahmi smirked. "fɪða means bird, Caleb. You might as well say vudu bird bird."
The Marquis huffed. "Is that important?"
Rosalynd had tears running down her cheeks. "We lost the tower."
I'd never been hit in the face with a brick before, but I imagined that was what it felt like. "What the hell do you mean, we lost the tower?"
Commander spoke matter-or-factly. "The enemy took it."
Rosalynd handed me a small slip of paper. "When we realized what happened, I sent a pigeon asking for prisoners. They responded in Herali."
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Your people are all dead,
Fuck you.
Ahmi spoke. "Every vita'o, every human."
Commander clarified. "Every man, woman, child, and elder. Everyone who was there has been killed."
Didi added. "We lost Yumi, Queen, we lost Marya, Ace, Keelin, Zhoni, Moka, Suzette, six scouts. All dead."
Miyani shouted at the older woman in Uhuida. "I told you this would happen!"
Ahmi's face was filled with sorrow. "Now is not the time…"
Miyani shouted again. "Now is NEVER the damned time! When will now EVER be the right time for you?"
While they traded words, I tapped Blue behind his chin. He tightened around her to come in close, and I stroked the back of his neck.
I tried really hard not to notice the sensation of Miyani's nipples on my skin. She was crying again. "And Master Pu'iyo?"
Ahmi swallowed. "They hung her and Zayeen from the walls. Everyone else they fed to the alligators."
I still couldn't wrap my head around it. "What about Shevi? And Sofiya? The ladies in the kitchen?"
Commander answered that. "Under Miwe'ishi war doctrine, civilians are all spies, and dealt with accordingly."
"What about all the men out on patrols? The vantage points?" What about Geraln?
He continued. "Do the math. With their scouts killed, they waited until late afternoon and headed back to the tower. When they got there, they had two choices: attack a heavily armed and fully-manned fortress under enemy control without a plan, without equipment…"
The Imperial Voice inserted, "without a means to cross the moat."
"... Or take their chances in the jungle after dark."
"But…"
The Princess cried. "Towers Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six, the Lake of Doom even, all of them reported. No one made it anywhere else."
"Caleb" Ahmi said. "You are the only survivor."