“Sure, after that,” she said, and noticed Zeb’s crossed legs. “Did you sleep like that?”
“I did. I’m fairly sure I am crippled now.”
Tilda sat up and Zeb unfolded his legs, wincing as pins and needles played up and down both.
“Mind the axe,” Zeb said, for one of Tilda’s hands was on the floor near the double-headed blade.
“Whoops,” Tilda said. “Good thing we didn’t roll around last night.”
“Actually, I was thinking that had been something of a shame.”
Tilda arched a dark eyebrow, which had a bit of a downward turn to begin with that gave her face a contemplative look. She smiled and her teeth were very white in the gray light.
“Zebulon,” she said, her Island accent stressing the middle syllable. “We are in a lost city, full of demons and dragons and the gods-know-what-all. Are you hitting on me right now?”
Nesha-tari had put her cloak around her shoulders and was changing her clothes beneath it with her back to the room. Zeb avoided breaking eye contact with Tilda to look in that direction, but it took a little effort.
“That depends,” he said. “Might I ask you a personal question?”
“Okay,” Tilda said, still with a smile but a suspicious tone.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any strange, mystical powers, would you? Something that makes men doe- eyed and foolish?”
“I wish.”
“I guess it is not a spell, then.”
Tilda rolled her eyes and stood up, but not so fast that Zeb failed to see the side of her mouth turn up in a smirk.
“You are a strange, strange fellow, Zebulon Baj Nif,” she said, extending a hand down to him. Zeb took it and felt a wiry strength as Tilda leaned back and pulled him to his feet. Despite the bulk of Tilda’s heavy trousers, sweater, vest, and half-cloak, there was cause to suspect the existence of a wicked little body within all that fabric.
With bedrolls and packs secured, the full party assembled down in the courtyard, where Amatesu had kindled a small fire to heat a tea of oddly-shaped leaves that had been included in the Shugak provisions. It was extremely bitter, but adequate to soften the hard biscuits with which the party broke their fast. The group passed around a single ladle as no one had a cup, and the talk was all small. Nothing about where they were, or what they had heard in the night.
The tent pegs used to seal the ground floor doors over night were pulled and replaced in packs. After a few quick words Amatesu opened a door and stepped aside, allowing Zeb and Tilda to lean out and scan the quiet street over their readied bows. When neither saw anything the party emerged and resumed their march, moving due south as much as the city allowed. Though Vod’Adia was cold this morning, and no less spooky than it had been the day before, as Zeb marched in the rear of the line next to Heggenauer he often caught himself smiling. The Jobian caught him, too.
“Are you feeling all right, Zebulon?” Heggenauer asked after a while.
“Brother, it is a beautiful day to die,” Zeb answered.
Zeb changed his mind an hour later, when they found the bodies.
*
There were a half-dozen of them at least, though it was hard to be sure. They were lying in the street and in the first room through an open doorway to a tall building, an unremarkable location apart from the fact that it had been the scene of terrible butchery the night before. They had been men, as near as could be determined, swordsmen in plate and chain mail of good quality that had been battered and hacked open like shells. Pieces of armor, helmets, broken swords, emptied packs, and body parts lay all around. The copious blood shone against the black cobblestones and walls. The smell was unspeakable.
Tilda and the rest of the party mostly kept their distance, but John Deskata approached near enough to squat beside a torso.
“Most of the wounds are claws and fangs,” he called back to the particular pleasure of no one. “The cutting was done with weapons, though. Cleavers or axes. Maybe pole-arms.”
“We should bury them,” Heggenauer said, loud enough for John to hear. The party was mostly standing in the street but the priest had gone to one knee.
John stood and walked back, slapping a sandal against the street.
“We aren’t burying anyone without a pick-axe,“ he said. “Besides, they weren’t Codians.”
“How can he tell?” Tilda asked no one. She had turned her back on the scene, ostensibly to keep her eyes and ready bow on windows and rooflines, but she had looked long enough to feel very queasy.
Heggenauer had heard her and he tapped a finger against the inside of his shield. Tilda glanced over and saw a stenciled insignia in an upper corner, the shape of a shield with a triangular bottom and a stylized “S” within it.
“Shanatar?” she asked, and Heggenauer nodded.
“All shields crafted in the Empire are inscribed by the priests of the Protector. The Shield Maiden’s blessing gives them added strength.”
“Makes them lighter, too,” John said, easily hoisting his own tower shield, the standard issue of the Legions.
Heggenauer rose to meet him.
“The origins of these people do not matter. Their remains should not be allowed to lie in the street.”
“Not in a perfect world, no,” John said. “But in a perfect world, it wouldn’t matter how long we left the Duchess of Chengdea to the mercies of three legionnaires either, now would it? Pretty girl, that one. What kind of trip do you suppose she’s having, Brother Heggenauer?”
Tilda glared at Deskata but he never looked at her, only marched up to stare directly into Heggenauer’s eyes while color rose in the Jobian’s face.
“We are moving too slow,” John said, loud enough that it was clearly meant for everyone.
“Then why are we standing here?” Tilda said. She moved past John and Heggenauer back to the front of the line, and set off at a trot around the worst of the carnage.
Tilda set a steady pace, but the next few hours were marred by more frustration than threat. In an area of great buildings with pillars and domes, each set on tall foundations with horseshoe staircases in front, there was a long section of street and sidewalk glowing dully with a sickly green sheen. After a quick conference it was decided not to walk through the stuff, and the party had to backtrack a good distance before hitting another cross street around the area. It was a while before they found another street heading southerly, for Tilda was beginning to appreciate that the layout of Vod’Adia was wholly chaotic. The day-to-day convenience of the people who had lived here long ago had seemingly had no part in the design.
Before noon the party came upon a tall black wall built athwart their intended direction. The street running in front and parallel to it was lined with small buildings that had been shops, judging by the fact that each had a stone post extending out from the front facade above the main doorway, though the signs and chains they had hung from were long gone. The party headed east until they reached an impassable intersection where the street had collapsed, leaving a huge crater full of murky gray water that gave off a sulfurous smell. They doubled-back again and headed west parallel to the wall.
After another half an hour, Tilda quickened her pace as the great wall on the left-hand side seemed to end up ahead. She and Amatesu reached a circular plaza with a standing obelisk on a dais in the center, broken off about thirty feet above the ground. Several streets connected there and the wall ended at a round tower with no visible point of entry on this side, but then it continued to the south as far as could be seen owing to the misty atmosphere and more tall buildings.
Before the rest of the party now strung-out behind them reached the plaza, Tilda turned to Amatesu.
“You may want to keep a little distance from me,” Tilda said between deep breaths. Amatesu, who was not breathing hard at all, only gave her a curious glance.
“I stopped looking for traps hours ago,” Tilda admitted. “If I hit something, you may want to be back a ways.”
“Do not worry,“ Amatesu said. “I am still looking for both of us.”
Deskata, Uriako Shikashe, and Nesha-tari arrived and looked around. Zeb and Heggenauer clanged up behind them, both perspiring in their heavy ring mail and plate armor and looking flushed.
