Chapter Two

Red Moon in the Basement

 

 

Red Moon woke to soft snoring coming from somewhere close. She built a witchlight on the end of her finger and studied her surroundings, trying to fill in the gaps in her memory. The soft, golden light revealed an enormous man lying next to her. She remembered him. Had he told her his name? Her head felt full of fuzzy wool. The dark skin marked him as Zendalian or Bingarian or one of the other planets with white hot stars. She could not remember which one tended to grow small giants, for that was surely what was lying next to her. He was a soldier much as she was, the short beard cut as long as the stubble on his head to accommodate the helmet of the battle armor. Bold tribal tattoos ran from chin to the top of his head where they disappeared into his rusty red mat of curly hair. Zendalian.

Red Moon frowned. Gar. He said his name was Taurok Gar. Artillery man. She let the witchlight drift away as she put out a finger and poked him in the shoulder. It was like poking stone.

“Hey. Wake up.”

Taurok snorted and opened his eyes, squinting against the glare of the golden ball of light. He yawned. “I was having a dream. My brother was here, but he was younger. Like from when we were boys. Said the gods were glad I have taken service with the Crimson Eyrie.”

Alarmed, Red Moon sat up and pushed herself away from this crazy man. The wall stopped her. “I don’t remember a lot but I am pretty sure I did not accept you as my shield-man,” she said, trying to be reasonable.

“Eliar said you would fight me about this.”

“Who is Eliar, exactly?” Red Moon asked. This man was giving her a headache right between her eyeballs.

“I told you. My dead brother. You need someone to watch your back. Someone who knows all the stories about your family. Someone who can help you find what you are looking for. Did you know when your power is at rest you have eyes the color of my mother’s carnelian necklace? Thought fershur you was going to be blind when you woke up.”

Red Moon held up her hand, hoping to silence Taurok while she sent a bit of energy towards the headache. Taurok was staring at her intently when next she looked up. “Did a healing spell again,” he nodded. “I see the hint of gold starting along the edges of your irises. Can you control that? It’s a dead giveaway if someone was to come looking for you.”

“Who would come looking for me?” Red Moon asked, trying to control her rising annoyance. It was hard to think with this man chattering away in her ear. “No one knows I am alive.”

“I know, and if I know then surely others must,” Taurok said with a shrug as if that was all the explanation needed. He sat up and took off his bloody jersey. Pulling his knife out of its sheath, he began picking the stitching apart that held his battalion and rank insignias to the collar of his shirt.

Red Moon glanced down the hall, wondering what would happen if she made a dash for it. He would probably catch her. Big did not necessarily mean slow or stupid.

“You best get out your knife and do what I am doing,” he admonished her. “We can’t walk around looking like Royalists but we can’t go naked. If we make it look like we stole the shirts off dead bodies, people might not look twice at us.”

“So, being a grave robber is one step above being a Royalist on the social ladder now?” she asked, amused. “Yours is a bloody rag. As much as I hate it, we may actually have to rob the dead to get you a shirt and pants that will keep out the cold.”

“Good luck with that. You didn’t leave a lot for the carrion lizards, did you?” Taurok snorted.

Red Moon froze. “What?” she asked faintly. “What does that mean?”

Taurok looked up, horrified and instantly contrite. “Nothing. I prattle on like an old ma sometimes. Talking nonsense.”

“You said . . . I thought you said everything was OK?”

“Yeah, but I thought you was dying at the time,” Taurok said defensively.

Panic kicked her heart into high gear. Red Moon leaped to her feet and would have gone racing up the corridor but Taurok caught her wrist and pulled her down beside him. “Time enough to sight-see later,” he growled fiercely. “You have no idea how many Rebel patrols are up there still. Get your head on right. About this. About surviving the next hour. About living through the next day.”

Red Moon glared at him but she stayed all the same. He was right. If they wanted to get out of this hole and find what was left of the Royal army, they needed to be smart.

What did he mean, there was nothing left for the carrion feeders? She tried to make the memories of the battle form some sort of coherent narrative. The final assault by the Rebels. Building the shield. General Far Ranger. Adam had been standing next to her when she let it collapse. Adam and Petre and Jasper and so many more.

“How many, do you think?” Red Moon asked, feeling sick. “Dead, I mean.” There was a deep black hole growing inside her and if she let it have its way, it would consume this world. She shuddered with the effort it took to keep it a bay.

Taurok was watching her, dismayed at how her emotions played across her face for all to see. He wanted to hold her and comfort her. But that would not make her tough. Only being tough would keep her alive.

“For a soldier assigned to the Royalist army, you are a might squeamish about death, ain’t ya?” Taurok snorted. “Far Ranger keep you sheltered from the worst of the bloody mayhem created by the Rebels, did he?”

Red Moon scowled at him. By the gods, he was a rude one.

“Special Envoy was just a title. Far Ranger wanted me to seem a non-combatant in case I was ever caught. It was Far Ranger’s joke and his way of keeping me close,” Red Moon said. “There is no badge for a far-seeing assassin bodyguard.”

Taurok eyed her, obviously not believing anything she said.

“Assassin. You? A strong wind would blow you over. Please.”

“There is nothing I can say to that but I will remind you of this moment later,” Red Moon said, the words almost a growl.

Taurok grunted and went back to popping the threads on his insignia. Red Moon watched him, and after a while, took off her jersey, pulled her knife from its thigh sheath, and did the same.

“About what happened up there yesterday,” Taurok said into the silence. “Ya know, you said it yourself. The Rebels got their hands on something powerful and had no clue as to its purpose or power. One puny little Ancellian sorcerer like you wasn’t going to stop that. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You are a queen. Queens do not kill.”

Red Moon paused in her task and thought about a kitchen full of Wizards that she had turned to ash in a fit of uncontrolled fury. If she told this warrior about that would it earn her a little respect? She shuddered. It was an ugly memory. They had tortured her beloved Taliba until she died. Arriving too late, Red Moon had stood in the doorway of that kitchen staring at the body of her teacher. Perhaps she had made a sound. Surprised, the Wizards had turned their inhuman dark eyes towards her. She had no memory of the next few minutes. It was like falling into a dark hole. In her next conscious moment, she was standing in the middle of an empty kitchen. She had killed them all, burned them to ash with just a thought. There had been no honor in those deaths. She had let her rage take control, and when it had burned itself out, the kitchen had been empty. Not even Taliba’s ruined body remained.

Red Moon did not want to think about that day. Death did not disturb her. It was just that it had solved nothing. Taliba was dead and she had been forced to flee the only real home she had known since leaving the egg. What troubled her most was that she had lost control of her emotions and death was the result. Ever since, she had been careful of falling into such rages. Instead she cultivated a cold heart behind a wall of ice where no one could touch her.

Red Moon glanced over at Taurok. Maybe if she told him about the dead Wizards, he might understand that she was in no way worthy of his devotion. Maybe he would leave her. She opened her mouth to speak but could find no words. Did she really want to be alone again? Did she want to lose this new companion so soon? She remained silent. Instead, she forced the memories away and drew in a long breath that sounded suspiciously like the hitching sigh of a child who had cried herself out.

“I am hungry. Are you hungry?” Taurok asked, pretending not to have heard that sound. He stood, shoved his knife back into its sheath, and put on his jersey. The fabric hung off his chest in ribbons. “I could eat a horse. Let’s go hunting.”

Red Moon jumped to her feet and put her jersey back on. “I don’t know about horse but a nice fry-up sounds lovely.”

Taurok laughed and shook his wormlight again. The blue glow preceded him up the ramp. Red Moon extinguished the witchlight with the snap of her fingers and followed him, ignoring Taliba’s ghostly voice whispering to her from the other side of the Veil.