CHAPTER 433: 433: ONE SPEAR, MANY TEETH PART FOUR

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By the time the last of the white lacquer moved under the mountain shade (not inside), the flats looked like the desert had sent up the edges of an old dream. Corpses lay in combs where the scrapes had chewed men into lines. Nets lay like dead snakes. Reed mats were sprawled at wrong angles like drunk tables. Skall’s causeway teams were down in pieces, honest hands still clutching rope. Oru’s veil lay torn in bright air that refused to be lied to anymore.

A few from one hundred and a little of Mardek’s original remnants could not be seen at all — and they were not there. They knew the horrors. They fled far at the beginning of the battle. There were like twenty of them. They saw everything from far away.

Far out, another roar wrote itself along the sky and died in a shape that made Alka’s answering cry feel like the edge of a blade sliding back into its place.

"Report," Shadeclaw said without turning.

"Two thousand from the male lines are dead," Silvershadow murmured from the stone where the shadow was deepest. "The rest ran early and ran far before they were more than men again. The women? Around hundred dead by my count. Nine hundred plus alive, now unarmed and surrounded by one thousand dorones. The lady vice captain is watched by hundreds of drones."

"Near-death?" Luna asked.

"Sixty-two of ours," Shale answered immediately. "Already in Naaro’s hands and Lirien’s. We’ll keep them alive."

Vexor exhaled through his nose. The breath had the weight of a mountain’s first coolness after noon. "We hold them until he returns," he said. "No one touches the captives. No one taunts. No one feeds them until our own have eaten, but no one lets them thirst. We are not that kind of cruel."

Flint and Needle’s men started water lines without being told. Wolf posted pairs on the left shadow. Shadeclaw adjusted the inner scrapes a finger’s width to account for the white lacquer’s height; small humor crept into his mouth and vanished again when he remembered the morning.

Yavri’s women sat in quiet rows between the mountain shade and the first outer mountain ring, gauntlets on their knees, eyes forward. They were not broken. They were decided. A few looked up the shaft, as if asking Stone to be honest with them for once. Stone was.

Vexor walked to the front of their row and stopped three steps from Yavri. He didn’t bow. She didn’t either. That was their bow.

"You knew me when I was a runner with a bad performance," he said. "You told me to stop loving distance and start loving angles."

"You listened," she said, almost approving. "You always had a good head. Your friends hid it badly by shouting for fun."

"Flint still shouts," Vexor said, a ghost of a smile, and Flint, twenty paces away, snorted.

Needle hid a grin behind a waterskin and then wiped it from her face because it wasn’t time.

Shale planted his hammer and rested both hands on its head. The gesture made men calm; he knew it and used it. "If you planned to turn coat," he said to Yavri, not accusing, not inviting, "you made the right choice. Our king loves women." He jokes.

"I planned to keep my sister alive," she said. "I am trained to know when a wall has lost the house behind it." A slow exhale. "If your king is a ruthless man, he will kill us. If he is not, he will trade us with the kingdom. I do not want to change my side. I built this army. I want to keep them alive."

"Good," Vexor said. "But don’t fall for our king when you see him." He said with a grin.

A dull boom rolled in from the flats. Not a roar. The kind of sound you get when something heavy decides to remember it is heavier than another heavy thing. No one on the ledge said a word. Everyone listened. The sound did not come again.

Silvershadow leaned closer to Vexor without seeming to move at all. "He will decide, don’t talk too much with the enemy." Silvershadow said, meaning Kai. "Don’t joke about the king. If the queen finds out you are trying to recruit women... for bed. I bet you will get cleaning shit duties."

"Then we keep it secret," Vexor replied. He lifted his chin. "Think about it. There are so many women. If they join us we will get a wife too. You are single too. Don’t you understand. Kai, I mean the king said he will find us a wife. It’s the perfect opportunity. If you tell it to the queens I will fight you for a hundred rounds."

Shadeclaw’s mouth twitched. "That’s not a bad idea. We can get a wife. You are a genius."

Suddenly, Naaro came to the outer edge and looked at the wall of women. She had no envy and no hate in her face, only a counting of bodies and the work they would require if allowed to live. Lirien came behind Naaro, her soot grin had faded to a line; she noted metal and weight and future work in the pile of surrendered weapons, already thinking in grips and collars and how many nights the forge could love before she would have to sleep.

Luna, hands still smelling of mint and clean water, brought Miryam with her and set the child to lean on her hip so the girl could see with half-open eyes that the world was not on fire anymore. Miryam blinked, looked at the pale shields and the drone ranks and then at the blue sky where Alka’s shadow sometimes slid, and settled her cheek against Luna’s shoulder. The hurt behind her eyes didn’t go away. It made a place to sit.

"Where is Papa?" Miryam whispered.

"Cutting the enemy," Luna said softly. "He will be back."

The mountain kept very still.

Down on the far flat, beyond the view of anyone with ordinary eyes, three figures moved in a circle of torn sand while they were facing death. That story would be told later, when it was time. The face had its ending for now.

Yavri’s women waited, unarmed, unsullen, their eyes steady. Vexor’s line ringed them with respect and sharpness in the same measure. Shale’s heavies leaned their weight just enough to make the ground think twice. Flint and Needle’s cohorts became water and shade and stitches instead of teeth. Wolf watched the left rib with the patience of a hunter who understands that pride is a bush that hides more pride.

Hours would lay themselves down until Kai returned. No one would waste them. The first fight of the day had cost the enemy their edge and their men. The second had taken both male armies and left the white lacquer where it could still be put to work. The mountain hadn’t sung. It didn’t need to. It has done exactly what mountains do when they decide to live.

’Stand tall.’

Silence answered, the good kind — work ready to be done, hands steady, eyes on the line where a white head would reappear against the slope, Alka a black ink-mark in the sky behind him.