Jay Lake - Green

The day went on in idle chatter and difficult riding. The problem was not so much challenging horsewomanship as my challenging horse. I persevered.

That afternoon, the horses tired, we stopped just below the highest pass amid the last of the meadows. Smoke was visible in the northern sky beyond. Our little river was no more than a trickle up here, but there were pools. I spotted fish darting above their sandy floors, before darkness claimed such details, and wondered how their ancestors had come so far from the sea. Did they have small cold-hearted gods who spoke in voices of the tide?

I still ached, but today’s ride had been better. I found myself aching in other ways, too, and eyeing Septio with a mix of appreciation and pity.

We built no fire as evening approached, for fear of showing a light. Septio explored a boulder field which had rolled down off the eastern cliffs until he found a crevice with no sign of recent occupation. There we set our blankets and ate a cold supper.

“The Temple of Air will be visible from beyond the crest of this pass,” I told him. I’d read many maps in the Pomegranate Court. “This is the Giant’s Wallow. It lets into a high valley that runs toward the east to join the Eirigene Pass.”

“How far?”

“That I am not so sure.” I looked at him, a pale blur in the starlight with the old moon yet unrisen. “I have never walked this land. Only seen it on a map as a bird soaring above a paper world.”

“Well,” said Septio, “either we will meet some of Choybalsan’s men there, or we will find his trail.” I could hear the pretense of confidence in his voice. “We shall approach from behind his line, a pair of unarmed religious wanderers, and ask for parley.”

“Let us hope he gives it to us,” I muttered.

Septio looked at me strangely. “We each have the protection of a god. You are marked by some southern power strange to me. I am Blackblood’s man from the beginning to the end. We will don those brown robes tomorrow and style ourselves Brothers of the Empty Hilt.”

“Who are they?” I liked something of the name.

“A jest, in truth.” His voice was turned in embarrassment. “The acolytes of the Temple Quarter used to claim to be Brothers of the Empty Hilt, in the days before the Duke fell. That became a sort of password among us.”

What would befall if this Choybalsan knew of the jest, I wondered, but that seemed to rank small among the sum of my fears.

After we had drawn off our boots, Septio preceded me into the rock cleft. We were to sleep close, both for warmth at this higher altitude, and because of the small space. He seemed so hot, and flinched when I moved to hug him.

“What is the matter?” I asked.

He would not answer, but I realized he was trembling. I ran my hands down his chest, and his trembling became nearly a fit. I do not know what possessed me-impishness, slyness, or a stirring of the love of the heart-but I touched his trousers and found him straining fit to burst his buttons.

“We should not-,” he began, but I shushed him with a kiss.

I began to stroke him. “I am not accustomed to lying with men, but you delighted my heart and challenged my thoughts today.”

“You for me as well,” he whispered hoarsely, though by then his mind was elsewhere. We soon both reached that place.

Lying with a man did not hurt so much as I might have thought. The feeling of being filled with flesh was so different from the glass and leather and metal toys. So I rode him hard until we both were well spent.

Finally I lay wedged beside Septio. “You are my first b-man,” I whispered.

“You are my first woman.” Something in his voice grew very shy. “My first entry, in truth. I have only been the vessel, not the seed, within the temple rites.”

We curled close then, wrapped ourselves in blankets, and slept through the hours of the night.

I awoke aching and sticky. Pretending not to see the way he strained for me anew, I slipped out of our little cave, threw a blanket over my shoulders, and wandered to the stream. The water was cold enough for pain, but it served to scrub me clean.

What was the point of that? I wondered, but I caught myself. Back at the Lily Temple after Samma and I had parted ways, I did not pretend so much at love of the heart with the older women. Instead I had treated the whole business as being of no consequence. Sex with Septio had been clumsy, to say the least, but also possessed of a sweetness I had not felt since Samma and I first began to slide our hands across one another in the dormitory.

“I do not need to push him aside,” I told the fish in their pool. “There is also no need to cleave to him.” The matter would play itself out.

Standing with the blanket open wide to fold around me, I turned to meet half a dozen grinning men. Three held crossbows.

It is very difficult to attack a man with a crossbow. Even an archer can be rushed, if you have the nerve. Men with blades may be met a dozen different ways. A crossbowman will have only one shot in a fight, but at arm’s distance, that can well be fatal.

When one of the men began to open the laces of his trousers, I took my risk in hand. With a shriek, I leapt straight for the would-be rapist. I hurled my blanket at the two crossbowmen standing close to one another. Their shots were caught in the cloth as I had hoped. I took my first target down with a shoulder to the gut and a punch into his testicles.

The third bolt, however, tore a line of fire through the muscles of my bare ass.

I rolled forward to find myself unable to spring back to my feet. Another roll lent me the momentum to be up and moving toward our horses and my knife even as blades slipped free of their scabbards behind me.

Forty paces, uphill. I could easily outrun all those men, but the crossbowmen would have time to reset their cranks. I sprinted barefooted over gravel and raw, stubbled grass as Septio stumbled out of the cleft where we had been sleeping. His eyes widened, and he dived back into the shadows.

You’d better have a weapon in there, boy, I thought savagely.

I reached the horses and snatched free their hobbles. I would not fight from the back of one of those horrid beasts, even if my butt were not bleeding, but having the nasty animals stumbling about in ill-tempered panic served me better than it served the bandits.

Our saddles and gear were tucked in a cleft just beyond. I recovered my knife and turned to meet my attackers.

They were smarter than I’d hoped. The group had hung back to let the crossbowmen reset their weapons, and to laugh at their fallen comrade. When they saw that I had not taken up a bow of my own, the six spread out. Five trudged up the slope toward me. The last staggered groaning behind.

That was fine with me. I could catch my breath and climb a boulder or two. The height would slow them down. Well, if they bothered to climb. They could always shoot me off like a heron on a post.

I was forced to work with what was to hand.

Unfortunately, the muscles of my ass were giving up. I couldn’t tell how large the wound was, but the backs of my thighs were sticky with blood. Climbing was far more difficult than it should have been.

Septio’s head popped up from a gap in the rock. “Green.”

“Get up here and fight.” I turned so their clearest shot wouldn’t be a second bolt in my butt.

That was a mistake, as I’d sat down unthinking. Very bad idea. I managed not to howl in pain, but was forced up into a very unstable crouch.

“I think these men are with Choybalsan,” he said. “We should ask for him.”

I could not believe my ears. “After the six of them have split me like a melon with their pustulent cocks, they might take you to him.”