James West - Shadow and Steel

He abruptly spun on his heel and moved beside Adu’lin. Hesitantly, the rest of the Brothers fell in line. Behind them, the Fauthian guards wheeled a cart next to the weapons, and began carelessly tossing them into the wooden bed.

Leitos moved between Adham and Halan, doing his best to make himself seem the most uninteresting Brother of the lot. More than Ulmek’s order to do so, he wanted to remain anonymous. He did not feel as if he were coming into a place of safety, but rather into an enemy stronghold. It concerned him that Ba’Sel seemed oblivious. Even now, their leader walked alongside Adu’lin as a deferential servant, speaking quietly and smiling a great deal. The Fauthian paid Ba’Sel little mind.

As they progressed through the city, Leitos began to think less about their situation, and more about his surroundings.

Built upon a narrow plateau, the city climbed gently to the south, joining a moonlit ridgeline that meandered down from high peaks, and passed through milky curtains of mist. Leitos guessed Armala stretched north to south for a league, but was only a quarter that in width. A snaking wall surrounded the city. At the center of it all stood a domed palace, with four towers at each corner of its curtain wall. It was the only place in Armala with lights of any sort.

He saw no signs of activity or life beyond the center of the city. In truth, the streets they walked, the buildings they passed, all had the look of long disuse. They reminded him of the bone-towns he and Zera had passed through. The thought of those, and the Mahk’lar that had claimed them for their own, made him uneasy. But other than a familiar feeling of abandonment and a decrepit aspect, he saw no indication of demonic spirits within Armala.

“This city,” Adham whispered, searching the darkness as intently as Leitos and the rest of the Brothers, “it reminds me of Fortress El’hadar and the Black Keep, a place my father spoke of.”

Leitos cocked his head in curiosity, as the party moved through a broad, circular intersection of two streets. His eyes fixed on a feminine figure carved from bone-pale stone, and towering thrice his height. Naked and majestic, she stood frozen between steps, one hand brushing her smooth hip, the other eternally reaching for something unknown. Above her rounded breasts, she ceased to be a woman. The creature’s skull was grotesquely swollen and elongated, and it peered northward with huge, rounded sockets.

Leitos jerked his gaze away. Beside him, Adham shivered, his face ashen in the moonlight. When he spoke again, his voice was rough.

“Since before the dawn of our people, the Black Keep has stood. Many tales say it has been there at the edge of the Qaharadin Marshes since the forming of the world. Walls built around it crumble faster than stone and mortar should, and nothing wholesome will grow in its shadow. Yet the dark stone of that keep resists time and decay. Armala is a city of Black Keeps.”

Leitos realized then that the paving stones beneath their feet, the walls of the buildings around them, the monuments and fountains they had passed, were all built of dark stone.

Before they reached the thin pools of light escaping the high, arched windows of the palace, Adham said quietly, “Watch your step and your back. This city is cursed, every bit as much as Fortress El’hadar. We are not guests here, but prisoners.”

We are not guests here, but prisoners….

Days had passed since Adham spoke those words, and each new dawn stole away a little more of their grim portent. Armala was indeed a city built of black stone, but during the day, when sweltering under the hot sun, or dripping after one of the rain showers that soaked all with fleeting ferocity, those stones were, in the end, simply dark by the nature of their creation. And though many of the city’s monuments and fountains were terrible to look upon, they were only small blights.

While Adham stayed on edge, always casting about with a mistrustful glare, Leitos and the others settled in. Sumahn and Ulmek seemed to forgive Ba’Sel’s order to surrender their weapons, and so did the rest of the Brothers. Those were not the only changes.

While hesitant at first, everyone soon accepted Adu’lin’s offers of Fauthian delicacies. Of the copious amounts Fauthian fruit wine, only Leitos and Adham abstained. For Leitos, the sickly-sweet drink curdled in his gut, where Adham refused to imbibe any spirits other than jagdah -the only liquor, he insisted, potent enough for those of Izutarian blood.

When not feasting, all the Brothers save Ulmek and Ba’Sel luxuriated in the palace’s large, colonnaded bathhouse, fed by hot springs that bubbled up from deep under the city. After much cajoling, Adham and Leitos joined them, learning why the Brothers had taken to bathing three and four times in a single day.

“It is not cleanliness these fools seek,” Adham growled, hastily toweling himself off.

Leitos followed his father’s gaze, and nearly swallowed his tongue.

At one end of the bathhouse, a train of Fauthian women, clad in diaphanous silks of every bright hue, swept through an archway. When all had gathered round the edge of the bath, some of them pressed wooden flutes to their lips and struck up a trilling melody. The bathing Brothers began clapping a slow beat, to which the rest of the women danced. It was a dance, Leitos noted with shock, that involved shedding a strip of silk every few twirling steps.

Like Fauthian men, the women were tall. Where the men were given to gangly builds, Fauthian women were sleek of limb, and generously rounded at hip and breast. And to the last, each was breathtakingly beautiful, with cascading waves of red-gold hair falling to their waists. Seeing them that way, naked and smiling playfully, brought a pang to Leitos’s heart.

When he had been on the run from the changelings Sandros and Pathil, Zera had taken him to a secret cavern in the desert. There had been a pool there, as well, but cold and deep. She had worn the same kind of mischievous look as the Fauthian women did now, putting him terribly out of sorts. Though nothing had happened between them, afterward she had promised never to try and seduce him again. She had named them friends, but he had loved her as much then as he did now.

“Time to go,” Adham ordered, snatching Leitos out of the steaming pool, and then heaping his clothing into his arms.

“Where are you off to, little brother?” Daris hooted.

Juggling his boots and robes, Leitos waved awkwardly. The Brothers looked his way just long enough to shout a few good-natured taunts, then returned their attention to the giggling women, who by now had doffed all their silks in favor of throwing themselves into the bath and the eager arms of the Brothers.

In a chamber beyond the muggy confines, Adham paused long enough for Leitos to get dressed-a tricky affair, since he was still wet. After that, they strolled outside into the heat of the day. Only when Leitos noticed that they were heading toward the main gate in the palace wall, did he speak.

“We should turn around, go back to our quarters. I’m sure Ulmek and Ba’Sel are in the gathering hall. Maybe we could get something to eat-”

“I’m finished with gathering halls and rich food, and all this accursed Fauthian friendliness,” Adham snarled. When he caught Leitos eyeing him uncertainly, he halted and shook his head. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. But there is something wrong here. I have felt it in my bones since the night we arrived. Gods good and wise, I felt it the moment those snaky yellow bastards crept from the forest, and all but begged to lay hands on Ke’uld.”

Leitos did not know what to say to that. He did not overly trust the Fauthians, but other than Adu’lin’s occasional lingering looks and sly smiles, none of them had done anything to make him as uneasy as his father was.