A camp never sleeps, the king’s son thought to himself. Someone is always sharpening a blade, or braiding a pair of sandals, or eating, or farting, even during times of war when stealth is needed. And this was no tactical camp, but an odd assemblage of people—many of them young soldiers, armed and dangerous, some of them old politicians, sleek and deceitful. Statesmen, family men, and at least three different kinds of sorcerer. The air seethed with suspicion and magic and lust. A potent mixture, not conducive to a restful night.
Leviathus gave up trying to sleep and rose from his bedroll with a grimace. He had to pee, anyway.
He made his way to the hastily dug latrines, face heating as he passed through the Zeerani camp. Eyes gleamed out at him from the dim circles of their small and shielded fires—cats’ eyes, women’s eyes, lingering upon him with open hunger so that he wished he had dressed in more than a long tunic and sword belt.
There was a single guard at the stinking sand pit, and he was relieved to see Zeina’s little apprentice. The Ja’Akari did not know to turn away and give a man the courtesy of a private piss, and holding it in was painful.
The boy sat with his back against a stack of baskets and boxes, eyes wide against the night. He flushed and looked away as Leviathus emptied his bladder, hugging bony knees to his thin chest. When Leviathus was finished, he turned to the child and grinned.
“Pulled guard duty tonight, did you? Shitty luck, that.” He chuckled at his own pun.
Daru shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. Leviathus wondered whether perhaps the boy considered him a threat. He thought about the sort of threat a grown man might pose under cover of dark, especially to a vulnerable child. What had Zeina been thinking, to give the boy such a task?
“I find myself unable to sleep tonight,” he said. “What do you say I take over your watch, and you go catch some sleep? Your mistress will not mind, I am sure.” And I will have a word with her about this in the morning.
The boy shrugged again and seemed to draw in upon himself. Was this the same child who had laughed with him over old poetry? “Daru? Are you all—”
One of the big baskets tipped over, spilling its contents onto the sand. Leviathus gaped to see the captive slaver cowering between them in the thin torchlight. He was young, very young, ragged and terrified.
Ah.
Leviathus sighed. “Daru…”
“Sssst!” Daru jumped to his feet, holding his finger over his lips in a shushing motion. His eyes darted, pleading, between Leviathus and the young slaver.
“Daru, you cannot let him go,” he whispered. “There are wyverns and worse out there, you know. Even if he survived the night, he would be hunted down at first light. Better he should live as a slave.”
“No.” Daru’s voice trembled, but his chin took on a stubborn set that Leviathus knew well. “Zeeranim do not own other people. It is not right.”
“Daru…”
“It is not right,” Daru insisted. Tears welled in his eyes, and he scowled as fiercely as his mistress might have. “If Sulema keeps a slave, it will not just hurt him.” He waved a thin hand at the trembling slaver. “It will hurt her sa. It will hurt all of us. We are all connected.” He pointed from the captive, to Leviathus, to himself, and then to the camp. “Do you not see?”
“I see a boy who is going to get in trouble over something that is none of his business. He is a slaver, Daru. What do you think slavers do? Why do you think he was here, in the first place? His kind steals children and sells them at market. He deserves his fate.”
“He did not choose to be a slaver.”
Leviathus stepped closer to the trembling captive. This one is even younger than I thought, he realized with some chagrin. Not much older than Daru. He hardened his heart.
“There is always a choice. This boy would have taken my sister captive, had he the chance. He would have taken you. Would he have shown you the same mercy, I wonder?”
“There is always a choice,” Daru agreed. He stood, and his shadow stretched tall in the pale torchlight. “My choice is mercy, no matter what his might have been.”
“You are determined to do this?”
“I am. Are you going to stop me?”
“No. I am going to help you.” He sighed. “Of all the nights to need a piss.”
* * *
The sky was beginning to burn a little about the edges as Leviathus cut the slaver’s tethers and handed him the bag of provisions Daru had stashed away.
“It is not enough,” he warned the lad, in the tongue of traders and slavers. “You would do better to stay with us.”
The captive shook his head, clutching the bag to his chest, his eyes deep pools of fear. When he spoke, it was in a boy’s voice, high and breaking, and his speech had a rough western edge to it.
“I have to get back. If I do not…” His voice choked off.
“There is nowhere for you to run. Come back with me, and I will see that you are well cared for.”
“I cannot.” The boy sobbed. “They have my sisters.” He took a long, shuddering breath, and squeezed his eyes shut tight. “I cannot.” Then he opened his eyes, and bowed low. “I owe you my life. As they say, ehuani.” He turned and fled, narrow bare feet kicking up puffs of dust until he was lost to sight.
Leviathus sighed. “I fear you owe me nothing but your death, but so be it.”
“What do you owe me, outlander? That slave was not yours to free.”
Leviathus spun round, drawing his sword, but it was knocked from his hand as a powerful blow sent him flying. He landed some distance away, gasping, groaning at the pain that blossomed in his chest even as the first rays of sun kissed the eastern sky.
Stupid, he thought, stupid. Unarmored and alone. Stupid.
“I see you are considering the error of your ways.” She spoke Atualonian with the barest hint of sand and honey.
He looked up, up past the stomping, snorting mass of horse that had just kicked half the life out of him, past the golden robes and gleaming breastplate, and into the grinning face of a warrior ridden straight out of the old stories.
“Huh…” He coughed, and dragged a breath in, hoping his ribs were merely bruised.
She looked across the desert, after the fleeing slaver. A great cat roared, and was answered by another, and she smiled.
“Your little mouse runs, but I do not think he will get far. As for you…” She drew a blade, long and wicked, from its sheath across her shoulders.
A horn sounded, long and low, calling the hunt, calling to battle, calling the lost ships home.
Her smile widened, full of dark promises. “Save me a dance,” she said. “We will meet again, you and I.” She blew him a kiss, and raised her sword over her head, and rode off laughing into the dawn.