Chapter Twenty-Three #4
them, there was nothing but sand and sky. The sun was a searing heat on their
backs. Their rations were low, their wounds were aching, they were tired and
beaten and had miles upon miles to travel before rest could be found, and their
coming life would only be fraught with danger.
There
would be fleets of pirate ships scouring the dunes. There would be teams of
sorcerers whose sole purpose was to hunt down and assassinate rogue mages, lest
they threaten the sovereignty of the Diet of Nine. There would be a
constabulary at every town, there would be vicious criminals they would have to
call friends, and there was no telling what kinds of lands and peoples they
would meet out there, in the world at large, if they managed to escape at all.
Their
future was far less than certain.
They
were lost.
Abandoned.
But,
right then, standing above the ruins of an ancient empire, they had each other.
And, despite it all, it didn’t feel as if they needed anything else.
Isaac
felt a hitching in Zaria’s breath. When he looked up, she was wiping her one
remaining eye, wetting the back of her hand with tears.
“Nothin’,”
she said, stepping slightly back. “Don’t mind me.”
“What’s
wrong?”
“Oh,
it’s nothin’. Just. . . .” She broke out into a toothy grin. “Just got my Lem
again. Just got that pride in me, for the first time.” She tousled the mop of
hair on his head, and she kept doing so even after he swiped at her hand. She
only stopped after pinching his cheek. “I mean, gods, shame on you. Don’t you
know not to consort with a pirate?”
She
cleared her throat, looking down.
“I’m
just a no-good thief. Never had any prospects other
than what I could steal. Never done much good for anyone my whole life. Except
for Lem. And now you, too.”
Isaac
felt that his mouth was aching from smiling.
“Glad I
could be here,” Zaria said, wiping another tear from her eye. “Glad I could do
something nice for a change. I’d be glad to keep being nice, if you wouldn’t
mind.”
He
looked out over the tomb. He could hear the voices again.
His
uncle, drowning in blood.
You
deserved. . . .
His
father, drifting into dust.
Live
your life. Be happy.
“Isaac?”
He felt her step close. “You’re coming with me, right?”
“Yes,”
he said. He tore his vision from the tomb, determined to never see it again.
“I’d like that. I want to take the shot. I want. . . .” He felt a smile on his
face, one of the few of his life that was entirely natural. “I want to try.”
She
slapped his shoulder. “Brilliant. Let’s go, then. Need to find shade before the
sun gets too high.”
“Hold
on. I just have one condition, first.”
“Oh,
we’ve got demands, do we?” She put her hands on her armored waist, her grin
wide and cocky. “Fine, then. Suppose I’ll allow it.”
“You,”
Isaac said, “are going to stop calling me squire.”
“You’re
still on this? What’s the problem, exactly?”
“It’s demeaning,”
he said. “A squire is just a servant. A young, clueless boy who polishes armor
and feeds the horses. I’m more than that. I could kill you, very easily.”
“You
wouldn’t dare, though,” Zaria said.
“No,”
Isaac said, “but I could.”
“Aye.
Sure.”
“Anytime
I wanted to, really.”
“Undoubtedly,
squire.”
“So,”
he said, “why do you insist on calling me that? Is it still just a joke?”
“Oh, it
was, at first. Just a little fun at your expense.” She looked him up and down.
“Not anymore, I think. It’s taken a better meaning.”
Isaac
raised an unamused brow.
“A
squire ain’t just a servant,” Zaria said. “Sure, they do all the minor trifles
that a proper knight don’t got time for, but think of it this way. They’re the
knight’s protection. When the knight’s out travelling, braving the road,
fighting the wickedness of the world, her squire’s the only friend she’s got.
Her squire keeps the knives from her back. Her squire keeps her healed and
gallant. Oftentimes, her squire’s the only source of comfort she’s got at all.
I know all them stories just
give glory to the one in plate and mail, but trust me on this—a knight would be
nothing without her squire.”
Isaac
gave her a measured look.
“Besides,”
Zaria said, “squires are just knights in training, are they not? No shame in
that. Everyone’s gotta learn somewhere. And while the squire’s aiding the
knight, the knight is aiding the squire, teaching them lessons, giving them
guidance.” She patted his chest with the back of her hand. “Making sure the
young boy turns into the same dashing hero that they serve.”
Isaac
rolled his eyes.
“One
day,” the hyena said, “this tiny little squire will be strong and wise, and
he’ll have his knight to thank for it.”
Isaac
shook his head, looking away.
She
stepped forward, towering over him, a wall of fur and muscle and leather.
“You’re my squire.”
He did
not answer.
She
pressed a finger to his chest. “You’re my squire.”
He
still did not answer.
“We’re
not leaving till you say so.”
“I
suppose,” Isaac said, reluctantly, “that I don’t hate it so much, when you put
it that way. Just . . . please, for the grace of gods, don’t call me that in
public.”
“Not a
chance, squire.”
He
sighed.
She
gestured toward the desert. “Are we ready, then?”
“After
you, madam knight.”
She
grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. They began to walk through the sand,
shielding their eyes from the morning sun. He could already feel, from the
burning light on his skin, that the day would be miserably hot. There would be
no shelter waiting for them. They would sleep in the sand, and they would soon
exhaust the last of their water.
He
remembered, for a moment, how it had felt stumbling through the dunes, growing
dizzy from thirst.
He
glanced up at Zaria.
The pirates
would be out there, skimming across the dunes. They might have fled from the
thrashing of the colossus, but they would return, either for vengeance or
plunder, and, soon enough, the Diet would follow in their wake, lured by the
promise of the colossus itself.
Here,
now, the dunes of sand were clear of all life, but that hardly mattered. Life
would fill in the cracks, as it always did. The people would come.
They
were heading into certain danger.
But
Isaac kept walking, his gaze resting far along the horizon. He kept his
thoughts beyond the pirates, beyond the mages, beyond the lands and kingdoms
that had banded to form the Diet of Nine. He thought of the world. He thought
of continents he had never seen, oceans he had never sailed. He thought of
foreign cities, he thought of culture, he thought of languages he had only read
in books, he thought of roads and fields and forests and mountains and all the
sunsets that he would have the fortune to see again.
Somewhere,
they would find shelter. Their wounds would heal, they would have soft beds to
rest, and they would have all the hot meals their gems could buy. Once they
were free, once they had escaped their fates, they would find a world that was
vast and old and full of possibility. Somewhere, they would be safe. Out there,
somewhere, they would find the things they had both been wanting. Sometime, somewhere, they would find a place better than the
ones they had left behind.
Somewhere, a whole new life was waiting for them.