City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [44]
Denlin briefed their companions, now that they were further inland. The old man’s age and experience were useful out here, but Denlin now seemed to have an opinion on everything. ‘Girls from a fancy background who have lost everything – money, family and whatever. You two are nobodies, now, right? What are you?’
‘Nobodies,’ they mumbled, sounding as if they had been berated for some petty misdemeanour, not fighting for survival in a deleterious landscape. Both were garbed in featureless brown furs, hoods flipped up for protection, travelling bags at their feet. Rika’s once-elegant hair was now lank and dishevelled, leaving black tendrils clinging to her face. Unlike Randur’s partner Eir – her hair was shorter, scruffier, her face more gently rounded than Rika’s, but otherwise almost identical in appearance. This similarity gave Randur some concern – that he might make some inappropriate suggestion to the wrong sister, maybe slap the wrong behind. And get his face slapped back. Two times he had come close, two times he caught a fine detail at the last moment in time to make him stop.
‘Because if you’re somebody, you get your arse kicked,’ Denlin declared. ‘No, you get the crap thieved from your arse.’
‘Does he have to be so crude?’ Eir asked.
‘It grows on you,’ Randur grunted.
‘Seen a lot, lad. I’m a man of the world, me.’ Denlin faced him with this new-found authority, and this sense of command added a little dignity to his age-sagged face. His forest-green cloak, ex-military, was annoyingly clean, probably an old soldier’s habit. When Randur had first met the old man, he could barely keep himself clean, could barely gather together enough money to buy himself a meal in the rancid taverns of Villjamur. Randur no longer hated being the best dressed, even out in the middle of nowhere, under these big island skies.
‘This ain’t the time to be nice and kind,’ Denlin said. ‘You got to speak the language of the wild.’
A movement in the distance.
‘Well, using that same language,’ Randur interrupted him, ‘how do you say “There’s a caravan of militants over there, and they’re heading our way”?’
The old man turned to observe the approaching group. ‘Good point, lad. Bugger.’
A horse-drawn caravan crested the hill, with a red symbol painted on its side: a crude image of an eagle on fire. Randur knew it to signify one of the rebel groups that cropped up now and then across the Empire, a crew of rascals that he’d encountered once before on Folke. They called for freedom from Jamur power, and refused to pay their taxes, but still managed to defile the good name of anarchism. You would hear about them cruising from town to town, seducing girls who were impressed with their half-baked philosophies stolen from others, more thrilled at outraging their elders’ feelings than engaging in revolutionary activities. These young men liked to challenge others to fights, but it was only machismo, nothing more than posturing in taverns.
‘Two horses at the front, one at the back, one to the side of the caravan and, more importantly, four armed men in ragged cloaks, all carrying big, fuck-off swords,’ Randur observed. ‘Reckon they’re selling flowers?’
‘You think we can take them, Rand?’ Eir fingered a gold necklace, one of the few trinkets he’d rescued from the city. She had certainly grown in confidence since he had tutored her in swordsmanship back in Villjamur. Randur liked her new attitude – he longed to get a moment alone with her so they could explore their developing feelings. Truth be told he was gagging for it, but with her god-blighted sister and Denlin always hanging around, that wasn’t possible.
‘Wouldn’t recommend it,’ Denlin suggested. ‘You two fancy yourselves something rotten since Villjamur.