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The karmoko flips her long black hair, which she’s left unbound. “Have you seen me on the battlefield? I may not be an alaki, but—”
“You’re a thousand times more frightening than even the best of them.” To that much I can attest.
“Of course I am.” Karmoko Huon smiles at me, humor in her eyes—a strange sight. Just two years ago, I was terrified of this woman. Now she is my friend.
“Tell me the truth, Deka,” she says with a companionable nudge, “how likely are we to survive this?”
“Us or the world?”
“Both.”
I ponder her question. “Half and half,” I finally reply. “Either I become a god and slay the Oteran pantheons, or they slay me and cause such chaos that everything dies, ending the world as we know it.”
“Frightening odds.”
I shrug. “We’ve had worse.”
She nods. “That we have….”
I can tell she’s thinking of our dramatic escape from the Warthu Bera three months ago, after she’d spent nearly an entire year being tortured by jatu soldiers.
I may have survived horrific things, but Karmoko Huon has as well. And she always manages to do so with her grace and flowery manner intact.
“And yet, here we still are.” This humphed statement comes from one-eyed Karmoko Calderis, whose red-haired lover, the former jatu, Rustam, is waiting patiently just beyond the front lines. Like Jeneba, he’s wearing blue.
As I nod to them both, a familiar whirring sound catches my ear. “Come along, Deka,” Lord Kamanda calls grandly, a bevy of servants trailing behind his golden chair. “Battle plans do not finalize themselves.”
I sigh. “Indeed, they do not,” I say, turning to follow him. And then we make our way to the main tent, which has been set up for our arrival.
Like most of the tents in the camp, the ceiling has sheer panels the aviax can brush aside for easy entry and perches at varying intervals so the bird folk can rest, as well as assorted chairs for the more humanlike folk. There are no special concessions for the equus, who are, of course, used to standing. In the center of all this is a heavy wooden table, a map of Hemaira carved into its center. This is where the generals will determine how to move their troops for the coming battle. This is where all the action will be planned.
Except right now, the tent is unoccupied, save for one person.
Gazal. I’m gratified to see that she is already half finished putting on the distinctive blue armor that’s been created to resemble my own, down to the faint golden lines that mark the edge of the ebiki scales. It even has padding to transform Gazal’s much slimmer body into a curvier version that’s nearly identical to mine.
I marvel at this as I walk over to her. “Thank you for doing this,” I say as she reaches for a golden war mask indistinguishable from the one I wore into the camp.
“Putting a target on my back?” Gazal humphs, slapping the mask over her face.
“Pretending to be me.”
As my decoy, Gazal will lead the army into battle while my friends and I sneak into Hemaira to steal my kelai.
“As if it’s so difficult.” Gazal grunts. “All I have to do is fumble around, pretending to be oh so tortured, and everyone will assume I’m you.”
“And there’s that wit I missed so much,” I mutter.
Gazal and I are what you would call reluctant allies. We don’t particularly see eye to eye, but we have both a cause and friends in common, so we coexist. I have no doubt that if we were on opposite sides of a conflict, we would be the bitterest of rivals, as we once were in the Warthu Bera.
At my words, the side of Gazal’s mouth quirks up, an expression so similar to Jeneba’s, I almost laugh. So it is true what they say: lovers do start to resemble each other after a while. I can’t help but wonder how this manifests with Keita and I.
I return my attention to Gazal as she replies, “Funny.”
“What is?” I blink.
“You’ve finally developed a backbone.”
“And you’ve stopped being such a miserable pissfart all the time.”
