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Luma Li, where I learned to kill.
Julis 35th, 1125 Dom.The bandages tied tightly against my arm, underneath the sting of burns and cuts still aching from time to time. A slimy panacea for pain rubbed all over underneath, dripping and staining the bandages green. The boat rocked around me, my head turned out to sea and to where we approached the shoreline. I stood from the edge of the boat and wobbled and stood myself with the aid of railways, making my way to the top of the ship where a black-phlegm spitting sailor eyed me with his only good eye. Sylas stood, arms crossed, near the spear of the ship. He reached underneath his arm and took a bite of a pear-shaped red fruit. Nibbling pieces with his front teeth.
I came up behind him, rubbing my arm.
“You’re lucky to still have your arm. The blackflyre explosion almost killed you.”
“I wouldn’t call anything about me lucky.”
“Did you want something?” He turned slightly, head planted in his palm. The pear coming up slow with his other.
“I know you said that before I shouldn’t or couldn’t or that you wouldn’t-” I took a deep breath. “I know I have no talent. T-That this world isn’t for me. That I don’t have it in me. I know you don’t teach people like me but-”
“Okay.” Sylas nibbled at his fruit.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve come to ask me to teach you how to fight, no?” Sylas said.
“Y-yes.”
“We’ll be staying in Luma Li for a month or two. I can teach you while we idle.”
“Really? I thought you said you didn’t like teaching. That it wasn’t goo-”
“I’d like to think that maybe with a bit of my knowledge, you’d stop making so many stupid damn decisions.” He took a big bite of his fruit.
“Really? You’ll teach me?”
“Really.” It was all mumbled behind his chewing. He swallowed. “I wouldn’t get that excited if I were you though.”
And I’d ended that conversation smiling, withe coast line coming up against me and the small figures and square buildings coming to closer view. The wind brisk and salty and fair against my skin, the smell of clean air coming up into me and exhausted from the word as if this whole earth was taking relief at one good turn of luck.
That’s what I thought at least.
The blade came up high and I saw the sheen run across my face. I swear I was blind for five minutes. Right before he brought the handle down and bopped me across the top of my head.
“Training hasn’t even started!” I rubbed my scalp.
“First rule. Always be prepared.” Sylas threw a backpack to my feet.
And I picked it up because I didn’t want to get hit again, and slung it across to my back and rubbed the pain away from the top of my head when it was all done.
“It wasn’t even that hard.” Sylas said. “I barely tapped you.”
“Yeah, yeah. You barely tapped me.” I said. Behind us, the port town bustled with the noise of people coming in and out, waves and boats that couldn’t stop erecting their sails. A life that’d make the Lao Li denizens envious and for good reason.
Most of the flock was in town, resting. Their pale forms were obvious against the plenty tanned citizens. The crows walked into taverns, or markets, with heavy purses full of fresh minted coin whose shaking and rattling seduced the fat vendors to rear their heads from wooden stand posts. It was hard not to miss the Crows. And Sylas and I weren’t any different. We walked down the street towards the main gate. Obrick and Kal approaching from some shaded alley market way with giant weaved baskets of green spiked fruits.
“Off to training? We barely got here.” Obrick said.
“Training as quick as we can is reason enough.” Sylas said.
“The disciplined life will be good for you, young Keffur.” Kal slapped my back.
“What does Keffur even mean?” I asked.
“Young lamb.” Obrick said. We all looked at him. Obrick smiled. “I learned it from a Kavenian.”
“How’d a brick head like you learn to speak another language?”
He leaned his head closer, eyes narrowed. I did the same. We’ve…had civil disagreements since he (Obrick) started to hang out (refuse to leave) with us
Sylas pulled us apart and laughed. It was a laugh that attracted the rest of the flock, we were all coming up on a tavern and by sheer chance or by virtue of it being the largest of the taverns, a particularly special guest came out from the wobbling front doors. Like two saloon doors come full swing open.
“I don’t even know why you’re teaching him, Sylas.” Vincent said. “He’s already made a name for himself.”
“Name? I’ve got another one? What’re they calling me now?” I extended my hand out, smiling. Vincent grabbed it and reeled me in for a side-hug.
“Fire starter. What do you think?” Vincent said.
“It’s nice. I guess so.” I didn’t even realize it but my face was stuck in a perpetual smile and my dimples hurt. “You here to see us off?”
“I’m here to congratulate you. I’m guessing you’re officially joining the Flock?”
“M-Maybe.” I looked to Sylas. “I’m a mercenary. And I’m offering my services to the Flock.”
“Oh, is that right?” Vincent chuckled. “A mercenary with all the superlatives of a hero, taught and reared by Sylas, one of the greatest warriors ever born. What prestige. I’m envious.”
“Envious? Should the best swordsmen be envious of anyone?” Sylas said. But there was no love in his voice, not in Vincent’s too as they looked at each other.
“We don’t quite know if I’m the best yet, do we?” Vincent smiled at Sylas. There was no likability to it. Just an even, soft-spoken tone of casual resentment.
“I’m not a young man.” Sylas said. “Duels aren’t quite thrilling enough for me anymore.”
“Maybe I should start wagering then.” Vincent said.
“There’s only one thing worth wagering.”
“That right?” Vincent laughed. “What’s that?”
“What do you think?”
“Is that the disgraceful tone you should be speaking with, Sylas?” Soveros came up behind Vincent in such a quick movement that all I could see was the cloak shake as he found his footing, leering and hovering over all of us. There he stood, tall, like the father crow come to protect his child. His long fuligin Sylas reeled back, turning his head sideways and away from both of them.
“Aye.” Sylas said. “My apologies, Commander. Please excuse us, we need to head on.”
“When will you be back?” Vincent didn’t move. But he followed us with his eyes as we took a few steps past him.
“Who knows.” Sylas mumbled.
“W-we’ll be back soon.” I said. “For sure.”
“For sure.” Vincent extended his hand. This time I was the one who pulled him into a hug. Him and Obrick (who I barely got to know, but who now that I’ve fought with meant something a little more than a stranger and a little less than a friend) and Kal. Kal, who was saddest and proudest of all.
Kal brought me in with his large arms and rubbed my head. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t hate it necessarily. I made my way out, Sylas already taking the lead and outside the gate. I approached him near the front and as I came to the first post-sign near a migrations office at the front where all the Luma Li soldiers were lined up, someone grabbed my arm. No. Someone bumped into my arm. I turned my body. Soveros. He’d run up? Just to grab me?
“Virgil.” He said.
I pulled my elbow away from him.
“You came to see me off too?” I said. “I’m honored.”
He didn’t show any emotion in his eyes or lips or cheeks. Stone-faced, he talked.
“It is by Vicentius’s grace that you still walk among us.” He said. “Were it by my design, I’d have killed beaten you for disobedience months ago. And killed you for insolence weeks ago. So here’s some advice and you take it with you and that degenerate you call master; you’d do best to leave and never return.”
“That right, old man?”
“It’s general, to you. General Soveros.” He said.
“What do you have against me, General?” I asked. “Is it ‘cause Vincent likes me a little more than you?”
“What shouldn’t I dislike about someone who disrupts my men? You are a parasite to the flock, one who has leeched enough honest blood. And worse, your sensibilities seem to be contagious.” He said.
“Are you mad that people are coming around? They call me fire starter, you know that?” I raised my neck up his face, though he was much taller than me. But there I was, chest puffed and face up and smiling.
His eyes narrowed.
“You will be the death of our league. You lazy, sleepy fool.” He said. “Your disobedience will kill the ranks. And ranks and order are the stuff armies live by.”
“Yeah? Well this lazy, disobedient, sleepy fool is the man who sent the basilisks back. Don’t you forget that, no one else ever will.”
“Whatever title or honor you’ve gained falls short of what you stand to take from all of us.” He said.
“And what’s that?”
“Integrity.” Soveros said. “The men who fight with us fight for a dream. But you? You fight for yourself. Tell me, if I asked what you ambition rears you, would you be able to answer me? Do you have that in you? To imagine a future and to summon that strength of will required to reach it? I’ve seen your ilk before. The kind with false bravado; roadless and undisciplined. I’ve seen your ilk die by scores and it is by good grace in your favor that you’ve to get yourself killed. But you will and when you do, what I fear most is that you’ll take us all with you.”
I felt the blood up to my face. I could hear the footsteps behind me approaching but I didn’t want to see who was coming. I didn’t need them to save me, not from the old fuck.
“What do you want, General Soveros?”
“I want you to fall into ranks, proper.” His face lowered, we were inches away and I could smell his odor-less breath and body. This phantom figure, pale and white haired with wide eyes. “But preferably, I’d like you to leave. You vain boy.”
“Will that be it, General?” I asked. “Am I dismissed?”
“Yes.” He tightened his face. “Go on.”
I walked past him, circumventing his body like he was a plague-carrier. Sylas still waited at the front, folded arms and beyond him the tropics themselves, waited. I didn’t look back. Couldn’t. Forward I went, Sylas by my side as we lost ourselves into leaves and shrubbery and palm trees, with my boots sunk into sand.
I knew it was strange to think, even now strange to say, but training felt like it’d be a vacation. My burned armed ached for it. My whole body shook at the thought of it. To be out, to become something else of myself. They say the past never dies and if that be the case then let my bleed it infinitely then, let living dead memories of mine fuel some greater image. Some greater thought. Some greater man.
I shook for it. I trembled for it. Glory and hope and anger, I couldn’t tell which but they all took hold of me, so fast and so often they might as well have been the same thing.
“Don’t let him get to you.” Sylas said. We swerved out of the busy streets and into the vines, where he grabbed one of the green whips and pushed it aside, over my head.
“He didn’t.”
“Uh-huh.” Sylas chuckled. “I’ve got to make you tough. Tough enough to deal with that prick, at least.”
We walked through the tropics, down some slopes, towards the seashore where dimples of sands waited for us, each a pocket to plant ourselves in. A few miles off the city. It must have been a two hour walk. To be honest, it wasn’t nearly long enough to clear my head.
What’d he mean? I didn’t fight for a dream? I’d been fighting all my damn life.
