Sweat stuck to everything. It painted her face, it rolled down her arms, and it made the sheets cling to her scales like a second skin. Tight around the muscles and curves and the hard, scarred places where bullets and other, more savage missiles had cut her scales and the soft flesh beneath.
Outside, she could hear the flapping of canvas from the camp next to the city, though at this point the camp and the city were one and the same. There was no wind in all that thick, wet heat.
The voices, the shouts of vendors - both cyran and that shrill, local accent - hawking their wares and services, lifted up to her window. And the grind of insects, of course. Scents of gas, and wet earth, and cooking jungle meat and camp waste and whore’s perfume wafted in through the window.
After being in this room for so long, it smelled like nothing at all.
She swatted at a fly.
She couldn’t help but feel like she was forgetting something.
Then, forget it. If it was important, it would find her.
Her mouth tasted like stale whiskey and swamp water. There were dozens of glass bottles and tin cups scattered around the room (not all of them from last night), a plate of half-eaten mash from the canteen, and a girl snoring in the bed beside her. Her limbs were tangled in the scratchy bedsheets. Agra had forgotten the girl’s name. She had forgotten if they’d done this before.
Last night, the girl had reminded Agra of someone back home, back on Cyre. But this girl was prettier, and too confident in bed, like every part was an act in some overly-rehearsed performance.
There was a knock.
Agraneia looked at the door, and then turned her eyes back to the ceiling. Letting the sweat-soaked pillow swallow the back of her skull.
“Soldier,” a stern voice said from the otherside. “Open up.”
The girl in the bed stirred, and opened her eyes. Hiding her worry with a delicate, practiced smile. “Aren’t you going to see who it is?”
“I know who it is,” Agra said, not taking her eyes off the ceiling.
The girl gave a little hmph, and got out of the bed. This time, in the clarity of the late morning, her nakedness did little to stir anything inside Agraneia. She didn’t even watch as the girl put on her clothes, grabbed the coins off the dresser, and went to the door.
“Soldier- oh, pardon us,” the voice said in that polite ‘I didn’t see anything’ kind of way as the girl slipped past them, leaving the door wide open. Then, the centurion’s officer stepped into the room, him and his little pet. Both of them were in full dress, as if expecting the general of the army to march through town any minute.
“Soldier,” the officer said, “Your presence has been requested by the Legate at half-bell.”
And when she didn’t respond, his tone sharpened. “Agraneia, clean yourself up. It’s the Prefect for the Emperor’s sake. By the gods, take some pride.”
His little pet, an eel-necked cyran who belonged behind a desk, stared down at her, just barely concealing his judgement behind those black-rimmed spectacles.
“Pride,” she said, her voice cracking from disuse, “Is what got me here in the first place.”
***
The Prefect’s tent was near the center of the city, just north of the gate. Agraneia carried her rucksacks with her, everything she owned in two bags slung over her shoulders. By the time she made it to the tent, her boots and breeches were slathered in fresh mud. At least she was in uniform.
The guards at the front told her to leave her gear outside. They even took her rifle and the knives in her boots. When she finished dropping her gear, she held her arms out so they could pat her down. Back in the early days of Thrass, a legate had been murdered by his own soldiers, and the higher ups had never faltered in their self-preservation since then. If only they had extended that courtesy down the chain...
Compared to her room in the city, The Prefect’s tent was a palace. Inside, a cadet was on her hands and knees, polishing the hardwood floors. Another one was wiping the moisture off the imported furniture. Heavy curtains and walls made of local bamboo created hallways and private rooms where she could hear officers and desk prawns talking and laughing. A haze of tobacco smoke filtered up through the gaslights strung along the tent's interior.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
In the entryway, the head of an animal was mounted on a trophy board. It was a huge, red thing, with razor mandibles large enough to lop off her head, and it seemed to watch over the entrance with its glittering, compound eyes. Words, engraved underneath the head said: Discipline Never Fails, but what that had to do with the head of a giant insect, she couldn’t guess.
Someone coughed behind her. Another desk prawn. And judging by the shine of his scales, this one looked destined for officer duty when he got back home. She could imagine him telling the next crop of soldiers how to prepare for the horrors of war, despite never having set foot outside Sseran Thay City.
“Lieutenant,” the soon-to-be officer said, “The Prefect is waiting for you. Wipe your boots before you go.”
He gestured with one slender, delicate hand toward the wall of the tent, where a lacquered chest lay open, bearing towels and tools for scraping.
Agraneia took one look at her boots. At the chest. And wiped, heel to toe on the expensive-looking wood. That earned her a frustrated hiss from the officer. Maybe a few months ago, she would’ve found it satisfying to piss someone like him off. But now, she couldn’t feel it.
The Officer led her into the back through the surprisingly deep hallways of the Prefect’s tent. Painted portraits and stone busts of old generals and imperial military leaders lined the walls. All of them looked like central cyrans. True cyrans.
The Prefect was sitting at a olive-topped desk, broad and wide enough to lay a body on. It was pressed up against the edge of a long table which was dominated by a map that Agraneia knew all too well. She had been on the ground of a few of those places where tiny flags or wooden soldiers or fat red markers now sat. She had claimed one or two of them, for the glory of the Emperor. She knew these places, not by their names, but by the way they felt in the red glow of twilight as it became the black violet of night.
The Officer snapped a salute at the Prefect. Agraneia gave hers too, which was more of an easy draw of the hand all the way up to her forehead.
The Prefect took a deep breath in, and pushed himself up from his chair. He cocked his own salute at the two of them and said, “At ease.”
The Prefect was a hard-edged man. Gaunt, where he wasn’t muscular. His cheeks were sunken, his brow furrowed deep with old wrinkles, and his nose was proud and straight. Gold and silver scales flecked his chin and ran down his azure throat. Azure, not blue, because nobody could describe that color as anything less.
His greatest, and maybe only, imperfections were the chunks of flesh missing from the fins that ran along the tips of his ears and his scalp. Marks of battle, though Agraneia did not think he had earned them on Thrass et Yunum.
“Lieutenant,” the Prefect said, appraising her with his keen eyes. “What the hells is wrong with you?”
His voice cracked like a whip, making the Officer wince away from him. But Agraneia was unmoved.
“Nothing that I’m aware of, sir. Medics have cleared my physical.”
He stared at her a moment longer. Trying to detect if there was sarcasm lurking beneath her flat tone. When he found none, he sighed, and pulled a cloth from somewhere in his uniform, wiping it across the sweat that had gathered across his brow. The Prefect could have had fans, and servants to work them, but he wasn’t that kind of leader.
“What are you doing here, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, I was given a message that my presence was req-”
“No, not that,” he said, his voice suddenly hard, “What are you trying to do here? You won’t take the aptitude tests. Fine. I accept that not everyone is cut out for paperwork,” he made a meaningful glance at the Officer standing in the corner, who promptly cleared his throat. “But we need leaders like you out in the field. Someone with your...” his eyes rolled down her figure. It was not a salacious glance, not like the men who saw only a warm body. No, his gaze was calculating. “Someone with your grit. There are whole centuries out there with nothing but wet-eared fry to lead them. I can make you a captain today. Pay rise, command potential, citizenship when you return home. But I don’t want to be rejected by one of my own soldiers. Again.”
His eyes searched her face, and only now could she feel the beat of her heart, making her feel too hot in this humid air.
How was she supposed to answer him?
There was only one thing she was any good at. And it certainly wasn’t being a leader.
The Prefect ambled around the table, his bad leg scraping heavy against the wood floor, slow and heavy.
“You could go home, Lieutenant,” he said, sitting back against the table. The fabric of the map crinkled lightly underneath him. “You’ve served. You’ve more than earned those golden shores. Fight’ll still be here, when you get back.”
Not once did he take his gaze off of her. Not once did he blink. Agraneia could feel it coming, feel it rising inside her.
Her cheek twitched.
“Nevermind,” the Prefect said, and just like that, it went back down. Slowly, slowly.
“We’ve got a mission for you.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, her voice a flat, monotonous line, “Thank you, sir.”
“Damn it, Lieutenant. You applied for this. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Sir.”
His bullet-shot fins went pinker than usual, filling with blood. He held her gaze, one eyebrow raised. She merely blinked.
Finally, he broke contact with a sigh. He pulled a long cigar made from local leaf out of his coat pocket, and bit into the reddish-brown wrapper. The Officer stepped forward, and offered a light. The Prefect muttered his thanks, and puffed until the smoke lifted to the tent’s canvas ceiling. Then, he stomped in a slow circle around the table and the map, and stopped in front of the target.
“Skishan village,” he said, pointing at a spot halfway between this city and the next. There was a small red marker sitting on top of a small, black dot. “You know it? Good. We’re sending two cohorts out. We’ve been rounding up bodies the whole week, looking for fresh fins who want to prove their mettle.”
Poor bastards, she thought. But she didn't say anything. That's just how it was out here. That's just how it was.
“There’s an old Sensinite fort up there. Don’t ask me what clan, I never could tell them apart. In two days, the moons will finish their transit, so get it done before then. Clear?”
She nodded.
The Prefect exhaled slowly. Almost painfully.
He turned to the Officer, “Get her what she needs. New headgear. Fresh ammunition. Canteens. Whatever.”
Then, he turned back to her, the burning cherry of his cigar glinting in his black eyes.
“Good luck, soldier. They’re going to need you.”