by Malcolm Schmitz
in Issue 90, July 2019
You’re a lacemaker, Karvek told himself. You should be braver than this.
He dug through his pack one more time. His needle and thread were stuck in his breast pocket, just as they should be. His greataxe was on his back. His lantern had a good stock of oil, and his coalpot was filled with boiling water.
Taking stock of what he had was wise. But doing it again and again was an excuse to delay, and he knew it. His supplies were well in order; they had been since mid-morning.
He needed to set out before nightfall, or he wouldn’t reach the oasis before the hottest part of the day. But this morning a new caravan had come into the village. They said they’d seen a firebird on the road. *That* made him hesitate.
Tribe’s sake, pull it together, he told himself.
The orc closed his pack and got to his feet. He glanced up at the dull blue evening sky, picking out Tlemekka- the Evening Star.
Follow Tlemekka for a night, and you’ll find the oasis.
It wasn’t a long journey. Master Sevtes had taken him there many a time back in the golden days of his apprenticeship, had shown him how to pull the silkworms from their trees like so many berries from a vine. He didn’t need the stars to guide him anymore, but their steady light was comforting.
He shouldn’t have needed comfort. This would be a safe journey, as journeys went. But that bloody firebird…
Folk said as long as a firebird burned, it’d live forever. They said firebirds followed the summer rains, going to the desert to die. They’d tear apart anything that got in their way.
Karvek didn’t put much stock in those stories, but you’d have to be a fool to say firebirds weren’t real. There was no way he was going anywhere near a creature that constantly burned alive and tore arms off with a bite. Not after what had happened to Alkett.
But the tribe needed silk, and that was all there was to it. No silk meant no lace. No lace meant no magic, and no magic meant if his tribe got into a skirmish, their warriors would get ground to a fine paste.
Karvek’s arrakos had slipped off his head. Clammy sweat ran down the back of his neck, pooling where it met his hunched back. He wiped the sweat away with the back of his hand, pulled the arrakos up, and tied it tight around his brow with a leather cord.
He had a duty, and he’d fulfil it, firebird or no. With any luck, it had gone back to the mountains. Or gotten itself killed.
He glanced back up at the sky one more time, shouldered his pack, and set off.
A cold wind blew through the desert, kicking up sand around Karvek’s boots. Even his thick boar-hide gloves couldn’t keep the feeling in his fingers.
Karvek’s lantern lit the path a little ways ahead, and the full moons lit more, but he could barely see the path ahead. Dull red cliffs rose up on both sides of him, grey in the gloom.
Something moved in the distance. It was small– not a giant scorpion– and as it got closer, he picked out two legs and a head. Too tall to be a dwarf, too broad to be a human.
Another orc. This far into the desert, coming from the south? Without a caravan or traveling companion to her name? Odd.
Karvek raised his free hand and waved.
The other traveler paused, then waved back. Karvek approached cautiously.
It was an orc. Two long scars curved from the corner of her left eye to her broken left tusk. Her left arm was a stump capped by a machine– a clicking, whirring mass of grinding gears that stretched to a metal hand with long, clawed fingers. She wore her arrakos low, and it was tattered and torn, a shadow wrapped around her shoulders. Jerboa skulls studded her helmet, gleaming in the faint lantern light. A small pack hung in front of her axe sheath, and a coil of rope hung from her belt.
Karvek ground his teeth.
Of all the people who could be traveling this desert road, it had to be Alkett. With his luck, who else could it have been?
“Karvek Whitetusk.” She smirked. “Didn’t expect to see you out here.”
“Alkett.”
Karvek’s voice was as cold as a salt flat, but his face burnt. Leaving off her epithet was an insult. He didn’t care. After their last meeting, she deserved it.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Can’t you guess?” She shrugged; her broad shoulders rolled. “How’s your tribe?”
His eyes narrowed.
“After what you did, you don’t get to ask that question.”
She glanced down at her claws, polishing them against her sleeve. Their shadows swayed against the sand like blades of witchgrass.
“I went back home.”
She looked back up at him with tired eyes.
“You really want to fight this battle again, Kar? In the middle of the road?”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped. “You lost that right, too.”
“Oi, when did you become my master?” Alkett snorted.
“Never was.” Karvek pulled a face.
Even thinking about her like that made his skin crawl. They’d been students together. He’d never be her follower- they had been like brother and sister, halfway to family.
Made her betrayal that much worse.
“I’ve got better things to do than argue like a spear-carrier,” she said. “But if you want a traveling companion–”
A puff of steam hissed from the pipe at Alkett’s elbow. She turned her arm and fiddled with a gauge. Karvek chewed on his thoughts.
They were tough to swallow. As little as he wanted to admit it, he couldn’t handle a firebird on his own. You could only run so far from something that could fly. There was safety, however shaky, in numbers.
He jutted out his jaw, showing his tusks.
“I could use a companion,” he admitted. “But you won’t get behind me. Not for a second.”
“Relax,” Alkett said. “ I’m not here for my tribe.”
“Then why are you here?”
Karvek’s pack sagged. The coalpot weighed heavy on his back. He tugged the straps up carefully and cinched them tight. Wouldn’t do to let it spill. No coalpot meant no silk…
Alkett glanced down at her claws.
“Glory,” she said. “Aren’t we all?”
Karvek scowled.
“Some of us. Some of us go out for our people,” he said.
“What kind of orc are you?” Alkett laughed.
The kind, he thought, who lives to fight another day.
They walked in silence for a good mile. The flame of Karvek’s lantern trembled with every step. Alkett watched him for a moment, but soon turned her gaze back to the road.
The red cliffs gave way to open dunes, stark white in the moonlight. Black sand curved over and around the valleys between them. Had they been on the cliffs above, she could have seen the dunes for what they were– a masterpiece. The dark sand had been raked by orcs from across the Wastes, and each tapered sandstroke was a masterpiece of calligraphy. They told the story of Khagulak Godslayer and her stripling warriors.
Someday, she’d come back and study them. But this was not that day.
She glanced back at Karvek. His grip on the lantern was so tight it paled his knuckles.
Still gnawing on that anger? Ach.
It had been years since their tribes last skirmished, and even longer since she’d ended her studies. She’d have thought he’d given up his grudge by now. But he clung to it like a wolf with a dry bone.
The red moon rose.
It was easier to travel by the red moon’s light. The white moon was smaller than the red moon, and it was covered in dark stains. By the white moon’s light, you could barely see your hand in front of your face. By the red moon’s light, you could follow the path.
But the red moon meant the sun would rise soon. And out on the dunes, sunlight was white fire. She could bear it for a while, but it would stiffen her skin and blister her back.
This was what she got for dragging her feet. She hadn’t wanted to travel alone. The silkworms’ oasis was too far away for most. Tarrek had caught a cough; she’d looked for another traveling companion, but she’d had no luck.
But now she had a companion, like it or not. Karvek could be a real waste of breath, but he was another pair of hands. That counted for something.
Alkett squinted. The oasis wavered on the horizon. Light flickered at the edge of her vision. She glanced over.
“Oi– douse that.”
Karvek glared at her like she’d asked him to murder his mother. She raised her eyebrows.
“We can see fine,” she said.
“Speak for yourself,” he grumbled.
In the dark before red moonrise, carrying a lantern was worth the risk. Now, it was pointless. And Karvek should have known that. He could play the fool all he wanted, but she wouldn’t let him get them killed.
“You want to let the whole desert know where we are?” she asked.
Karvek didn’t say a word, but he pinched out the flame. Its smoke hung in the dull red air, then faded.
They kept walking. Karvek’s head hung low. Alkett sighed.
“When we get to the oasis, we should clear the air,” she said.
“Why?” Karvek’s eyes narrowed.
“You’d best not travel with someone you hate. And I’d best not travel with someone who acts like I treached his tribe.”
“You think this is a joke?”
Karvek stopped in his tracks and glared at Alkett.
“You did treach my tribe. You want me to just take it? Like it’s a lost ekarra match?”
Alkett turned to look at him.
“I want you to take it for what it is. And I want you to clear it. Axe or words, your choice.”
If Alkett stood her ground, Karvek would have an opening. Her bad eye was closer to him than her good one. So she took a step to her right and reached for her axe. Just in case.
She knew which he’d pick, though. Karvek had always been a coward.
“Fine. I’ll use my words,” Karvek said. “But you’d better use yours well, because you have a lot to answer for.”
“What’s there to answer?”
“You made lace for our enemies. That says a lot, doesn’t it?”
“‘Your enemies’ were my tribe. I made lace for them so they wouldn’t die.”
Alkett’s prosthetic tightened around her elbow. She twisted the valve at her wrist and let off some steam, hot against her upper arm.
Overheating again? She’d need to replace it soon.
“I wanted to keep my people safe,” she said. “Is that so wrong?”
“We were your people.” Karvek’s voice trembled.
“You were. But so were they.”
“Does that matter? Everything he taught you, you used against your people. All the secrets, all the craftwork, you stole them. You disrespected us, you disrespected him–”
“Him?” She frowned.
“Master Sevtes.” Karvek worried his upper lip between his tusks.
Alkett took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. In Karvek’s tribe, that only meant two things- deep disrespect, or grave importance.
She hoped he knew which she meant.
“I never meant to disrespect your tribe, or disrespect Sevtes. But your tribe didn’t adopt me, and he wasn’t my master. I left with no bonds broken.”
Karvek picked at the fringe of his arrakos.
“We were both his pupils,” he murmured. His voice was rough and hesitant, but his gaze was soft- looking at something in his mind’s eye. “Nearly his followers. Isn’t that bond enough?”
Realization struck her.
Anyone could study under a craftsmaster. But to follow a craftsmaster was an entirely different thing. A master and a follower were closer than warband or clan. They were more than teacher and student, more than lovers, sworn to each other until the follower had surpassed their master– often, sworn for life.
The two of them hadn’t been Sevtes’ followers. They’d been ordinary students, no different than the hundreds he’d had before. Karvek should have known that.
Alkett couldn’t help but laugh. She knew it was cruel, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“This was never about me, was it?” she said. “It was about him.”
“Why would it be about him?”
“You loved him, didn’t you?”
Karvek looked down at his lantern.
“You wanted his love,” she said. “Wanted him to show you the whole world. But it was worm-love. Hadn’t grown, because you hadn’t grown. You were too young. Then he died–”
“Shut your fool mouth,” Karvek said through clenched teeth.
“Truth ain’t foolish.” Alkett gave him a long, hard stare. “You calling me a liar?”
Karvek tugged his arrakos tight around his shoulders.
“… Listen. I know you want his memory shining clean,” Alkett said. “But I didn’t smirch it.”
She took a step closer to him. He shrunk back.
“You used him against us,” he said.
“Not outside your skull.” Alkett closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than she already had. She needed the right words. And she was anything but a poet.
“You try to keep his memory bright… you keep him bound here,” she said. “He’ll never pass on. That what you want? A ghost’s love?”
Karvek took a deep breath and looked her in the eye. He started to speak– but his words were drowned out by the loudest screech she’d ever heard.
She drew her axe. He grabbed his own and looked her straight in the eye.
“Firebird,” he said.
They crept forward. Alkett glanced up at the mountain. A faint glow shimmered at the edge– almost like sunrise. But the thick black smoke that rose with it told another tale.
A red-hot shape rose above the mountains, giant wings outstretched. Looking at it was like staring at the sun. Its light burnt Alkett’s eyes and glowed behind them when she blinked.
White flames scorched its skin, exposing bone. A cruel, dark beak jutted out from its near-skeletal head. Three golden plumes dangled from its brow, burning to cinder and growing anew. Spurts of fire shot from the plumes at wild angles, along the firebird’s back and up into the dull red sky.
Firebirds came to the desert to die. This one was nearly a corpse.
Alkett grinned. This was her chance.
Glory waited for anyone who slew a firebird. If she could strike the killing blow– and bring back its plumes as proof– she’d be a minor hero. She’d have the right to wear those plumes, and maybe even its skull if she could drag it back. A firebird skull, carved well, made a fine breastplate.
The firebird plunged like a flaming arrow, diving towards Karvek. Alkett jumped for its throat.
It swooped away and circled above them like a vulture.
She tried to track it with her good eye. But when its claws raked down, it was from her blind spot. She raised her axe just in time– they slashed its handle.
Fire licked at her skin. She dropped to the ground and rolled. Her arrakos glowed; healing light spread down its twisting patterns. Lace frayed as magic unwound. The dark burns on her shoulders faded.
Alkett scrambled to her feet, picked up her axe, and looked up at the sky. The firebird left a long plume of smoke in its wake, but it still hung above them.
Karvek’s axe wobbled in his shaking hands. He shifted his weight to his other foot. She couldn’t tell whether he was ready to fight or run.
“Get your guts together!” she shouted.
Karvek didn’t get the chance to answer. When the firebird dove, it snatched him up into the sky. Its claws snarled in his arrakos, splitting it down the middle. Magic puffed out like steam from boiling water.
He struggled in its grip, trying to break free, but squirming only dug its claws in deeper. The torn arrakos’ lace shriveled, and its healing glow ran over his skin, knitting his wounds together– around the firebird’s talons.
Alkett hissed through her teeth. If his arrakos vanished, he was dead meat. She couldn’t throw her axe at it — the balance was all wrong– but there had to be something she could do.
The firebird flew in crooked circles as it tried to catch the wind. Karvek cried out.
She grabbed the rope from her belt.
Alkett wasn’t a noose-thrower, never had been. She’d been taught to use one, but she only ever caught the rabbit twice in five times. Bad odds. Twice would have to be enough.
Over, under, coil, tighten. The rough rope prickled her hand.
Karvek’s body dangled from the firebird’s talons. She couldn’t tell if he still breathed, but his arrakos still glowed, shriveling thinner and thinner.
Alkett tightened the noose and swung.
It hit the firebird’s beak, but didn’t catch. The cord dropped like a stone.
She cursed, and threw again. The noose caught its wingbone. She pulled herself onto the rope and climbed hand over hand.
The firebird’s screech sent every bristle on her neck upright. Flames arced from the plumes atop its head down its back, frying its feathers and roasting its flesh. Burning-feather reek and heat, sharp heat– Alkett felt her arrakos’ glow before she saw its light.
Her back felt too light. Axe? Where was her axe? She realized it had fallen to the ground far below.
Smoke scratched her eyes and lungs. The firebird rolled, trying to shake her off. Its dry bones rattled. She pulled herself up blindly, clinging to whatever she could. The smoke cleared for a moment, and she found herself on its back.
Alkett couldn’t reach him from here. She still had her cocoon knife, and if all else failed, she had her claws; if she reached its head, she could stab it in the eye.
She crawled up, finding handholds in exposed vertebrae and pulsing tumors. Her mechanical claws dug in deeper than her fleshy fingers ever could, keeping her steady. Her arrakos shielded her from the worst of the flame, but pain still licked at her legs.
When she reached its long neck, she braced herself with her claws and fumbled for her cocoon knife. It was strapped to her belt, barely a handspan long.
The firebird’s eye sockets were huge, but its eyes were small and shriveled as dry figs. Alkett squinted and raised the knife.
Its blade plunged in with a satisfying squelch. Tears leaked around it, making the knife wobble in her grip, but Alkett held firm–
Until fire shot back from its plumes, swallowing her.
Alkett’s hand slipped. Her claws slid from the firebird’s back. She dropped like a stone.
She shoved her good hand under her arrakos, blindly begging the pain to stop. The light fizzled and sputtered, but its glow surrounded her.
Her back hit the ground with a sick *thud*. Her arrakos shriveled to nothing. The firebird’s heat surged around her–
Smoke, thick and choking, filled the air. Alkett shielded her face with her arms and tried not to breathe until her lungs burnt.
Karvek’s spirit slipped in and out of the world.
His vision blurred and cleared, running fuzzy at the edges. His arrakos sagged limp at his shoulders, held together by his spiked pauldrons. His head throbbed like he’d been drunk for a week. But he managed to stagger to his feet and squint at the sky.
He wished he hadn’t. The firebird hung over Alkett’s body. Her knife’s hilt stuck out of its eye socket, but weak flames still clung to its shoulders and wings. It shuddered and jerked like a puppet with cut strings.
She’d distracted it. He could run. He should run. There was no shame in leaving a traitor to her fate.
What kind of orc are you? Alkett had said.
Some of us go out for our people. His own voice hung in the air.
Alkett had been one of his people, once. There was no shame in leaving a traitor. But if Karvek left her behind, he’d never forgive himself.
The stories had been true– its fire kept the firebird alive. He had to put it out. He needed water. The oasis had a spring, but he’d never get there and back in time to save her.
Wait, he had water. He threw his pack to the ground, dumping everything he could in a panic.
Karvek pulled his coalpot from his pack. The clay was still hot to the touch, magically kept boiling; the handles were just cool enough to hold. The lid clinked as he lifted it. The pot wobbled in his shaking hands.
“Oi, ugly!” he shouted. The firebird turned.
Its wings flapped. It glided towards him, claws extended. Karvek’s heart beat like a hammer on an anvil.
Karvek threw the coalpot at it with all his strength– a moment too late. Pain shot across his forehead. He staggered back, clutching his face.
The coalpot’s water splashed against the firebird’s withered body. The fire sputtered and cooled to embers.
The firebird collapsed. Its eyes shriveled away. Its blackened bones collapsed. A cloud of thick black smoke burst from its corpse, and the fine grey ash that had once been its feathers mingled with the desert’s white sand.
The smoke cleared. All that remained of the firebird was bones and ash. But atop its skull, unharmed by fire or water, rested the three golden plumes.
The world whirled around Alkett. Sitting up felt like falling. She hugged her knees to her chest and breathed in deep.
When her head cleared, the first thing she saw was Karvek, kneeling beside the firebird’s corpse.
His face was covered in drying blood– most of it his own, thick and green. The firebird’s claws had caught his forehead. It looked like death, but it was already half-healed. By the end of the week, it’d be a scar, if that. Other than the gash, he wasn’t wounded, but his arrakos was little more than a few black threads tangled round his pauldrons.
Karvek looked forward, staring at nothing. His gaze was dull. His hands shook. But he was alive, and so was she. A knot of relief tightened in Alkett’s chest.
Then she realized Karvek had killed the firebird. The knot snapped.
She’d wanted that kill. She’d wanted the plumes for her headdress and the skull for her breastplate, wanted to claim “Fireslayer” as her epithet and the tale of its death as hers alone. She’d left camp without a traveling companion like a fool; it was glory she was after as much as lace.
And now Karvek, a coward among cowards, had taken that kill.
Alkett tensed. She took a deep breath; her shoulders sagged. What was done was done. She couldn’t raise the firebird from the dead to kill it again.
“Kar–” She waved her hand in front of his face. His eyes focused; he looked at her.
“You’re alive,” he said.
“So are you.”
Even with her feelings tangled into knots, the words felt like water in her mouth.
She steadied herself by gathering her things, whatever she could salvage. Her pack was fine. Her axe’s blade had dulled, but she could sharpen it. Her rope was burned beyond repair, and her cocoon knife was short a handle.
Karvek’s pack lay tumbled open on the ground. His lantern was dented, and oil leaked from inside. His coalpot– if you could still call it that- was a thousand scattered shards of clay.
But he didn’t seem to notice. He hugged his knees to his chest.
“You there, Kar?” she said.
He stared at Alkett as if she were a ghost.
“Get up,” she said. “The oasis won’t walk to us.”
Alkett sheathed her axe. The weight on her back felt familiar and real.
Karvek gathered his things like a man in a dream. He pulled the plumes from the firebird’s skull.
“You ought to take your spoils,” he said.
He held the feathers out. Alkett gave him her steadiest stare.
“How hard did you hit your head?” she asked.
“Hard enough to know you saved my life.” The corner of his mouth twitched into a half-smile.
She raised both eyebrows. He rubbed the back of his neck.
“…You had the chance to let me die,” he said. “More than one.”
“I ran into danger,” she said. “Dragged you with me. That’s all.”
“Maybe, but still. I nearly died, you could have let it happen, and you saved my hide instead. The least I can do is give you the glory.”
The plumes glowed golden in Karvek’s palm. Alkett closed her living hand around his and pushed it to his chest.
“Glory without honour isn’t glory at all,” she said. “It’s your kill. Own it.”
She let go. He looked down at his feet.
“It wouldn’t be dead if you hadn’t stabbed it,” he said.
“I don’t need to save face,” Alkett said. “They’re yours. No forks in this path.”
“If you won’t take them as your spoils…” Karvek’s voice grew gruff. He twisted the plumes between his fingers.
“Take them as an apology.”
“For what?” Alkett blinked.
“…Choosing a ghost’s love over your friendship.”
Alkett reached out with her mechanical hand and took the plumes. She ran a claw down one plume, severing it in half. Sparks scattered; the air smelled like lightning.
She held them out to him.
“Fair’s fair,” she said. “Here’s your half.”
“Of what?”
“An apology.”
He took the feathers and slipped them under his breastplate.
Alkett shaded her eyes and looked out along the road ahead. The oasis cast a welcoming shadow in the red moonlight.
“Wasn’t gonna ask,” she said, “but you’re short a coalpot. I’m short a knife. Want to join forces?”
Karvek looked her in the eye and smiled.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said.
The oasis lay before them. Behind them, the wind carried away the firebird’s ashes, wiping the white sands clean.
©July 2019, Malcolm Schmitz
Malcolm Schmitz‘s story “The Captain’s Sphere” appeared in Crossed Genres and made the long list for the 2015 James Tiptree Award. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery.