Chapter Three
THREE
HAWK
My skin practically itches as more and more humans crowd into the main guild hall. It’s recruitment day, so it shouldn’t be surprising. Today’s the day we try to find enough students to make a Five—a trained team for exploring the ruins. Only half of the people who are here will actually apply, but it feels like everyone in Vastwarren shows up to gawk at the normally closed-off guild buildings. It’s like this every time, but this year it’s particularly irksome because of the way the calendar falls.
“I hate the Conquest Moon,” Raptor says at my side, his tail thrashing almost as wildly as mine. “Makes me want to come out of my skin. Or rip someone out of theirs.”
I snort with amusement, because I know just what he means. Humans are blissfully unaware of such things, but Taurians are sensitive to the god Old Garesh, and the Conquest Moon is meaningful for every person with a drop of minotaur blood in their veins. Once every five years, the Blood Moon crosses over the White Moon, just as Old Garesh took to wife the queen of Old Prell. It’s called the Conquest Moon amongst the Taurians, because the god conquered the queen’s army and then kept her in his bed for five days. When she arose, she was pregnant with five sons.
And until the Conquest Moon passes, every Taurian is going to be agitated and on edge…or leaving the city entirely. Every Taurian female goes into heat, and every Taurian male is hit with the need to rut with abandon until the Conquest Moon passes.
It’s not convenient.
If you have a wife, I’m sure it’s fine. Fun, even.
But I don’t have a wife. I don’t even have a lover. My work in the tunnels takes up my days, and there’s no time for a woman or a family. The only female I’m ever around is Magpie, and the thought of falling upon her in a rutting frenzy makes me shudder with horror. We’re friends and business partners, but that’s as far as it goes.
I scratch at the fur on my neck and try not to snarl when another hopeful scholar tries to push forward. Baring my teeth at him, I manage to keep myself in check—but just barely. The Conquest Moon is almost a month away and yet I’m already short-tempered and impatient. I’m going to be an absolute wreck by the time the moon gets here. “Timing is awful,” I tell Raptor as the human moves past me with a quivering look. “I need to be here in the city.”
“You’ll murder someone and then rut their corpse if you stay here in the city,” Raptor tells me with a smirk not even his nose ring can hide. “And then they’ll lock you up and throw away the key.”
He’s not wrong, but he doesn’t know the half of it. Magpie needs students…yet she can’t be trusted to guide them on her own. If I count on her to pull things together, we’ll find ourselves with two students (or no students) instead of the standard five, and then they’ll quit because there’s no way a team of two will pass, and then there will be no income for either of us, because Magpie will be booted from the teaching program. Magpie will spend all her time at the bars, getting laid out and moping about the past, and I’ll find myself without a job.
I flex my magicked hand, the fingers aching despite the fact that they’re not real. If Magpie doesn’t get students, I’ll never get out of my indentured contract. So I have to stay. Magpie can’t be left to run things alone. “Can’t leave,” I say absently, flexing my hand again out of habit, just to make sure it’s there. “I don’t have a choice.”
“I always forget,” Raptor says, and there’s a hint of sympathy in his hard voice. Raptor works on a Five for Lord Nostrum, with a constantly rotating roster. Lord Nostrum is cheap and also neglectful, and I’m pretty certain that Raptor only stays because he can sell some of the artifacts he pilfers on the black market. Everyone else realizes that Lord Nostrum is paying pennies and so his team constantly switches out, leaving Raptor to do all the work. Sometimes I think it’s not about black-market sales, but just that Raptor would rather work alone than have to babysit the fools he’s normally saddled with.
“You’re leaving? Soon?” I ask, crossing my arms as another scholar pushes his way in out of the rain. It’s well-known that Taurians make the humans nervous, and we know to stay at the fringes of the room or in the shadows. They can’t do without us because we’re far superior in the tunnels, but we also know when to make ourselves scarce. I remain in the doorway instead of pushing my way inside. It lets me see the entire vicinity while also letting me leave easily…or so I tell myself.
Raptor shifts on his hooves. “I shouldn’t, but it’s pretty bad this year. I keep waking up sweaty, and I can’t sleep. It’s either stay or spend my entire fee on whorehouses, and then another fee for the delousing I’ll need after that.”
I wince. If I don’t leave Vastwarren for the Conquest Moon, I’m going to be the one in the whorehouses. I hate the thought. There’s something cold and impersonal about having a stranger with you through your rutting. I had to utilize a sex worker last time, and it left me feeling vaguely unsettled. Took me months to feel like myself again. The whores do their job and don’t discriminate between human men and Taurians, but it doesn’t mean I like it.
Maybe I’m particular, but I’d rather be touched by familiar hands than a stranger’s, no matter how eager the stranger.
But that’s not looking like an option. Maybe I can slip away for a couple of weeks once Magpie has a team of fledglings established. Take the fastest coach I can—or find someone with a teleportation stone—and head for one of the Taurian festivals out in the plains to the south and just fuck everything moving for a week straight.
The odds of that happening fill me with a vague sense of despair, but I’m low on options. At least the Taurian festival is free. Any sex worker in Vastwarren City during the Conquest Moon is going to charge a premium. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I admit to Raptor, gazing out at the sea of people crowding into the benches in the hall. I turn back to my brother Taurian, considering. “I think—”
An umbrella comes out of nowhere and smacks Raptor on the arm. His eyes flare with anger and he turns so hard and so fast that the stranger—a woman—immediately stumbles into me, a mouselike squeak in her throat.
I automatically grab her and save her before she pitches to the floor. Perhaps it’s all the years of practice with Magpie. My arm goes around a sturdy, corseted waist, and I haul the woman against me like a bride, because it’s either that or dump her on the floor.
This isn’t helping the latent heat pulsing through my veins. The Conquest Moon might be a month away, but I’m already feeling the effects.
The stranger’s eyes go very wide and she takes in my features. I’d bet a handful of pennies that she’s never seen a Taurian this close before—there’s something about her demeanor that speaks of being sheltered. She gapes at me, at my bull-head and horns, at the jewelry on my ears and nose. I scowl in her direction, releasing her.
“Watch where you’re going,” I snap. “You could get trampled.”
“It is rather crowded,” she admits, straightening herself and then shaking out her umbrella, which causes water to rain all over me and a few others. “Oops. My apologies.” Her gaze goes to me again, and then to my shirt. “Oh dear.”
I look down. Soaked orange fur clings to my sleeve in clumps, transferred from her clothing.
“Sorry,” she says quickly, plucking the clump I hold up out of my grasp. “That’s from my cat. She’s quite the shedder. Just ignore all that.”
Raptor muffles a snort of amusement, looking at me over the woman’s head as she continues to pat my arm, pulling off bits of wet fur from my linen sleeves. Maybe it’s just the oncoming rut making my mind focus on all the wrong things, but I can’t stop staring at her.
She’s interesting, I think, in the way unexpected things are. Her cheeks are flushed pink, her clothing well-made if drab, and it’s all soaked and clinging to what looks like a fine, plump, sturdy figure. She’s tall, nearly coming to my chin. It’s a fine height for a female, and the fact that she’s built solidly makes me think about her in lascivious ways that are most definitely rut-influenced. Her face is human, so I don’t know if she’s what they would consider pretty or not, but her eyes are big and dark and expressive, and her fingers are blunt with short nails.
And busy. She has very busy fingers. If she pets my sleeve one more time, my cock is going to act up.
“Leave it be,” I tell the drenched woman, and then because everyone in the hall is staring at her, I add helpfully, “You shouldn’t be here.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. She stiffens, all softness leaving that face of hers. Her mouth flattens into a line of distaste and her head rears back. “Is that so ?”
“You see any other women here?” Raptor joins in.
The woman turns to him, scowling, and for a moment, I think she’s going to hit him with her umbrella again, and then I’ll really have to step in. “This is the Royal Artifactual Guild’s annual meeting, isn’t it?”
“It is,” says a nearby human man. “Are you lost?”
Her expression gets even more brittle, the color on her cheeks heightening. “Not at all. I’m here to join.”
The woman’s voice carries across the large chamber, and I’m not entirely surprised when all the men burst into laughter. They take one look at her—young, disheveled, female, and alone—and laugh as if they’ve seen nothing funnier.
“Where’s your chaperone, love?” one of the men calls out.
“Go back home to Daddy,” calls another.
More laughter rings out.
To her credit, the woman’s expression only grows harder, more determined. “I fail to see what’s so very amusing.” She pulls out a soaked pamphlet from her bodice and shakes it open. “The bylaws state that anyone may join if they arrive by Swansday and present themselves as a fledgling.” She looks up from her reading, scanning the room. “Is that not the case?”
The guild master approaches her, a short, elderly human with a very loudly colored vest and garishly expensive clothing. He gestures at the others, indicating they should pipe down, and moves to the woman’s side. “My dear, my name is Rooster. I’m the head guild master in charge here. Please don’t be alarmed. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.”
“I’m glad we agree,” she says, her chin lifting. Even though I find her annoying, I’m impressed at her bravado. “So where do I sign up?”
“I’m afraid it’s not possible,” Rooster continues. He holds a hand out to take the pamphlet from her, but she folds it and tucks it back into her dress. “It wouldn’t be correct for a woman to join a team full of men, even for training purposes.”
She looks down her nose at him, and Rooster only comes up to her chin, which I find rather amusing. Her shoulders are stiff and back, and she looks ready to go to war. “If that’s your only concern, then you need not worry. My friend—who goes by the name Wren—will be joining me. We both wish to learn.” She makes a benevolent gesture with her hand. “You may assign us anywhere. We are not choosy.”
Raptor snorts, glancing over at me with amusement. It’s not often these sorts of meetings are worth the time, and the entire crowd is now focused on the dripping woman in brown standing up to their leader.
Rooster still has that patronizing smile on his face—I’ve seen it many times directed at Taurians—and shakes his head. “Women do not join the Royal Artifactual Guild. Everyone knows this.”
“Do they? Because I have read your pamphlet from back to front, and nothing is mentioned about gender in the slightest.” She tilts her head at him, regarding him in that withering way that the holders seem to use. “Might I remind you that twenty years ago, Artificer Magpie located the greatest find of our generation? And every treatise and book I have read quite clearly shows Magpie to be a woman. So you see, Cockerel , you are mistaken.”
If it’s a slip of the tongue, it’s a clever one. Rooster’s florid face turns three different colors and he straightens his clothing. “My guild name is Rooster. And Artificer Magpie is different.”
“In what way?” She waits, the tip of her umbrella dripping water on the floor, and holds on to the thing like a cane, her hands delicately perched upon the curved handle.
“She doesn’t wear skirts,” a man catcalls from the crowd, and they erupt into laughter again.
This doesn’t faze the woman. “So if I take them off, you’ll let me attend?”
More laughter floods the room, and Rooster looks as if he wants to choke someone. He fiddles with the ornate buttons on the front of his guild dress coat—a ridiculous concoction that no one who ever goes into a tunnel would wear—and adjusts his bejeweled sash, the material the deep gold color of the guild leader. “Madam, you are mistaken. It does not matter how you dress. Women have not proven themselves to be valuable members of our guild. Magpie was an aberration. She is not how we prefer to represent ourselves.”
I grit my teeth, thinking of Magpie, who’s no doubt curled up in a pool of her own vomit in her bed, reeking of spirits. No, I can’t imagine that anyone thinks she’s a good representation of the guild. Even so, they can’t kick her out. As long as she’s an active member, they’re stuck with her. It’s another reason why I can’t leave for the Conquest Moon. If I abandon Magpie’s side and word gets out that no one’s teaching her students, she’ll be removed from the guild for certain.
I’ll definitely have to resort to sex workers, I realize, and the thought is as unappealing as it is impersonal. Raptor wouldn’t understand how I feel, though. He’s perfectly happy to share a bed with anything and anyone willing.
I can’t let my guard down enough to do the same. My hand flexes again, phantom pain fizzling at my fingertips.
“But Artificer Magpie—” the woman is saying again.
Rooster clears his throat, shaking his head again. “I don’t know what sorts of ideas you’ve gotten into your head about who we are and what we do, but I assure you that a job with the Royal Artifactual Guild is as difficult as it is dangerous. It’s not a place for young women who cannot find a husband and think they can take on men’s work.”
“Excuse me!” Her nostrils flare with anger, her eyes narrowing, and for a moment she looks utterly magnificent in her ire. “Do you know who I am ?”
That response—and the confident, almost arrogant way she carries herself—makes me wonder.
“I do not,” Rooster declares. “Who are you? Tell us.”
She pauses, and then her demeanor changes, losing its confidence. “My name is Sparrow.”
The room erupts in laughter again. Even Raptor chuckles. I don’t. I don’t find any of this particularly funny.
“You haven’t earned that name, love,” another man calls out.
“Perhaps she’s having a case of the vapors,” yells another, and more laughter erupts from the room.
Rooster shakes his head again, both hands in the air to calm the onlookers. To most, he seems like a kindly, well-dressed leader, wearing finery that he’s earned through his years of service to the guild. That he has a gut now just speaks to his leadership, that he’s needed more for administration than actual ruin diving. “I understand your disappointment, my girl, but please understand. The guild’s work is of an extremely dangerous nature. Many of our members do not make it ten years before retiring, or worse. Every year we lose good men. Every year, we are forced to retrieve competent men from the tunnels because it’s too difficult.”
Raptor coughs loudly, his hooped earrings jingling. It’s a reminder—not that Rooster will realize it—that he’s not the one rescuing men from the tunnels. That duty always falls to the Taurians. I can’t count how many times I’ve been pulled from teaching duties or woken in the middle of the night to go on a retrieval party simply because some fool who barely passed his tests has decided that he can strike out on his own.
Taurians always clean up after the humans.
“It’s nothing against you,” Rooster continues. “It’s your gender . A woman in the mix will make it unsafe for the entire team. They won’t be able to focus with a woman around.”
She grabs her umbrella in the middle and taps the hooked end of it on Rooster’s coat like a teacher lecturing a child with her ruler. “You may write this down, Cock . My name is Sparrow . And you will hear from me again.” With one last nudge of her umbrella at him, she turns, her chin in the air, and storms out of the room, heading toward the doors again.
Both Raptor and I step aside to let her pass, and the laughter follows her out of the hall.
Raptor shoots me an amused look, as if to say that he approves of her spirit. “I like her.”
I don’t. All that enthusiasm has nowhere to go, just like with Magpie, and I’m tired of seeing people broken by the system, myself included. My hand aches and I flex it again. It’s a reminder that this very same system owns me until I’ve repaid my debt.
“It’s Rooster,” the man left on the floor yells after her with annoyance. He swipes at the wet spot left on his coat. “Rooster.”