Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Knights
& Squires
“It
won’t work,” he said.
“It’s
gonna.”
“It
hasn’t the last dozen times.”
“Oh,
you wanna bet?”
Isaac
gazed up at the shattered skull. A day ago, it had been a house. Now, it was a
few fragments of stone jutting out from beneath a boulder, close to sixty feet
above their heads. One of the white stone slivers was sticking from the edge.
“Come
on,” Zaria said, swinging the rope like a lasso. “What’s your wager?”
Isaac
rolled his eyes. “Five sapphires.”
“Five?
Goin’ cheap on me?”
“I’m
helping you be graceful in defeat.”
She swung
the lasso high into the air. The loop missed the jutting bone by a couple of
feet, landing instead on a loose collection of scree. A shower of rock followed
the rope as Zaria tugged it back. She growled, swiped some pebbles from her
fur, and began to swing the knot again, glaring at the stone that used to be a
house.
They
had been climbing for hours, making their way through the jagged, open valley
where the colossus had once rested, where a city of necromancers had once
conducted the foundation of empire. Isaac judged, as best he could, that they
were halfway up the hollowed escarpment. A few waterfalls poured from the rocky
cliffs. Beneath the rubble and drifts of wind-blown sand, there were still
visible reminders of the unnamed city—shards of furniture, broken walls,
signposts and window frames, an entire street’s worth of fingers scattered like
gravel. Stone dust was thick in the air, constantly belching from the cracks
and gaps as the wreckage continued to settle.
So far,
the majority of the climb had required them to scramble over the faces of
boulders, leap across slotted canyons, and crawl beneath the gaps of rocks in
the places they could not ascend. More than once, they had nearly been swept
away by a river of spilling debris. Now, they were faced with a large stack of
boulders crushing a residential neighborhood of skulls. There was no other path
worth considering.
They
had to climb.
“I’m
raising the wager,” Zaria said, tightening the bowline knot. “Seven opals, four
onyx.”
“This
is a pointless game.”
“Play
along, squire.”
Isaac
sighed. “I’ll raise five citrine.”
“Oh,
what? The piss-yellow?”
“The
piss yellow, yes.”
She
blew a raspberry. “Worthless. I’d rather you piss yourself.”
“I
will, if you take any longer.”
She
swung the rope again. This time, the loop hit the underside of the slivered
bone. It bounced away, spilling flaccidly to the floor. Zaria quickly bundled
the rope.
“It’s
not going to work,” Isaac said.
She
swung once more. Instead of hitting the thin sliver of their target, the rope
managed to rest on the jagged suture of a nearby parietal plate, which stuck
from the rim of a shattered cranium. When Zaria tugged, the stone came loose,
and a massive bony slab came spilling from the rock, spraying sand and rock.
The hyena had to throw herself away. When both of them had finished coughing
from the dust, Zaria clambered back over to her original position, swinging the
lasso in rhythm with her tail.
“It’s
not going to work,” Isaac said, sweeping the area with his slinged arm. “We
should go back. There was a hillside—”
“That’s
all scree, over yonder. It’s too loose.”
She
threw the rope, missing again.
Isaac
pointed to their left. “We could try to climb along the columns—”
“Ain’t
sturdy.”
He
pointed to the right. “That boulder—”
“Needs
two hands, which neither of us got.” She swung, missed, and growled. “Why am I
slingin’ the knot? You’re the one that’s got two bloody eyes.”
“Oh,
but my knight is strong and gallant. Surely, she desires the lead.”
She
levelled a glare.
“Can I
shine your leather?” Isaac offered.
Zaria
flashed her teeth, twirling the rope until it blurred. With a great bodily
heave, she hurled the loop towards the promontory. It missed. The ruins of the
necropolis echoed with a loud “fuck!”
“It’s
not going to work,” Isaac said.
She
growled as she retied the rope. She flung it hastily. It sailed far off-target.
“Can we
take a rest now?”
She
whirled around. “Cork it, squire! I’m sick of hearin’ you! Xotra’s cunt, you’re
bleating like a babe without a teat!”
Isaac
adjusted his seat on the broken house. “Is there any way I can help?”
She
looked at him with a curling muzzle. After a moment, she straightened herself,
sported an obviously fake grin, and sauntered over, her digitigrade feet nimble
on the jagged ground. “Aye. There’s something.”
Isaac
scooted back, suddenly nervous.
Zaria
stood over him, fondling one of her breasts through the cloth. Her tattered
clothing kept her bosom concealed, but only just. “Give us a kiss. For luck,
we’ll say.”
“Pardon?”
“You
heard me. If you’ll whine like a babe, I’ll treat you as such.” She cupped the
breast, pulling it from her chest. “Kiss my tit.”
“I’m
not—”
He
blinked. He could see her nipple rising beneath the fabric.
“Hm?”
Zaria asked, amused.
“I’m
not doing that.”
“You
seemed rather happy to, when we were ruttin’ at the
bath. Sucked my salami like a lid off a pot.”
“Don’t
ever call your nipples ‘salami’. Ivtarr preserve.”
“What’s
the answer, love?”
It took
Isaac a significant effort to meet her eye. “Don’t people kiss on the mouth,
usually?”
“Well,”
Zaria replied, “my face ain’t flat like yours. Thing is, I do got another set
of lips.” She dipped her outstretched breast, pointing toward her legs. “If
you’d rather kiss them instead—”
“I’m
not kissing you at all!”
She
leaned over him, cupping her breast towards his face.
“Zaria!”
“Kiss
‘em, squire. I need some luck.”
“The
rope!”
“Hm?”
“The
rope! Throw the rope!”
“Oh?
That rope there?”
“Yes!”
“You
want me to throw that rope?”
“Yes!”
“Want
me to toss that rope up to that bony bit, there?”
“Yes!
Yes! Please, just—”
He
stopped. She leaned back and laughed. His blush warmed the sunburn on his
cheek.
“Too
easy,” Zaria said, walking away.
“That
won’t work forever!”
She
picked up the rope, looked back at him, managed to wink with only one eye, and
threw it into the air. The loop caught on the broken bone. She tugged the
length a few times, testing the strength. Nothing came loose, and the rope held
secure.
“Shoulda
learned not to doubt me.” She shrugged off her pack, tossing it heavily to his
side. “I’ll be taking them gems now.”
Reluctantly,
Isaac dug through his own pack, burying a hand through the rainbow of precious
stones. Zaria dragged the hanging rope line over to the face of a boulder. With
one hand, she placed a foot against the craggy face, lifting herself from the
ground. Since one of her hands was nearly split in half, she had improvised a
system of climbing one-armed, which mostly involved using her teeth as an
improvised clamp. Isaac was sure that, if she didn’t have one of the strongest
jaws of all zoanthrope species, it would not work at all.
Even
still, it pained him to watch.
“Right,”
she said. “Feels sturdy enough. I’ll scamper up and make a winch for you, same
as usual.”
“Hey.”
She
looked his way.
Isaac
was already moving towards her. Before he could lose his nerve, he cupped her
breast, found the nipple beneath the fabric, and gave it a gentle kiss. The
look of surprise on her face made his blush burn all the hotter.
“I was
just pullin’ your tail, love.”
“Please
be careful.”
She
sported a grin, which was now real. “Nothin’ to it. Count my gems nice and
proper, would you?”
Isaac
nodded stiffly. She began to climb.
He
watched her ascend towards the broken house, using the loose stack of boulders
as improvised holds. All her muscles were clearly outlined through the fur,
and, though the climb was awkward and perilous, she made rapid progress toward
the summit. So far today, her strength had never ceased to impress him.
Isaac
looked back at the cavern. Down past the sloping wreckage, the ossein canopy
stretched out over a blanket of concrete, studded with boulders, dug through
with the furrows of massive reptilian feet. Colossal bones littered the floor
like rifts of snow across a mountainside. He could see the pyramid in the
center of the destruction. He couldn’t see what remained on top of it, but his
mind was filling the gaps.
Rotting.
Baking
in the sun.
Loose
robes and blood.
He
could hear Berith’s voice again. The look in his eyes, when the blade—
“Isaac.”
He tore
his gaze away. Zaria was resting her feet on the protruding face of a boulder,
leaning her body out over a forty-foot drop. “Keep counting the gems.”
He
opened his palm, which was full of citrine, opals, and onyx. “They’re right
here.” He let them fall into the open mouth of her pack. “Done.”
“Great.
Keep an eye above, then. Let me know if there’s an
avalanche again.”
“I
can’t exactly catch you if there is.”
“Just
give me a warning, would you?”
“I
don’t see how—”
“Isaac,”
Zaria said, firmly. “Eyes up here. Not down there.”
He
blinked several times. “Right. Sorry.”
“Don’t
be sorry. Just do it. Alright?”
He
nodded. She resumed the climb.
He kept
his gaze focused.
He
dangled his feet off the edge, watching the pebbles bounce and fall.
The sun
was creeping toward the horizon. All day, it had been a constant foe, burning
his skin, drying his throat, aching his eyes to the root. There had been little
shade to offer, and his robes, already stiff with blood, were growing lines of
salt where the sweat had soaked. He was not sorry to see the day end.
Still,
the sunset was beautiful. There was a distant storm off to the west, the belly
of the clouds shining a wine-dark red, a rainbow stretching between the
curtains of rain. By now, they had climbed so far out of the cavern that he was
beginning to see the tops of the dunes, which ringed the distant cliffs like
the curving crenellations of a castle. From where he was sitting, the distances