Marnak shrugged. “That never bothered me much. You take imperial coin, chances are sooner or later you’re going up against the League. You go up against the League, chances are sooner or later you’re going to find yourself facing Majak. Just the way it is. No different from squabbling with the Ishlinak up here like we used to. I fought for the League myself once or twice, back in the day, before the Empire really started hiring. And yeah, it always figured if we did ever beat the lizards, everyone’d go back to fighting each other again, just like before.”
“So why not stay and make some more coin?”
“Don’t think I didn’t give it some thought. I had a line commander’s commission by then. But like I said, it’s all well and good if you’re young. I just
“But you didn’t die.”
“No.” Egar thought he heard something that was almost disappointment in the other man’s tone. “I didn’t. Not even at Gallows Gap, and Urann knows we came close enough there. Now, that was a perfect place for a good death, if ever I saw one.”
And now it was Egar’s turn to chuckle. But it was a grim sound he made, not much humor in it.
Marnak’s lips bent in silent echo. “Instead of which, we all became heroes. You, me, even that fucking faggot friend of yours.”
“Look, he wasn’t exactly my—”
“And next thing you know, we’re back to fighting humans again. And that’s fine, you know, like I said, but . . .” Another helpless gesture. “It got
“Yeah, I remember.” Mostly, what Egar remembered was wanting to break their shiny, enthusiastic faces for them. The fact that they reminded him so much of himself a decade earlier only made it worse. “Weird times, huh?”
“You know what it felt like?” Marnak slipped off his cap, scrubbed vigorously at his scalp with the nails of a half-clenched fist. “You remember those round-and-round-about machines the Kiriath put into the tea gardens at Ynval? The ones with the wooden horses?”
“Yeah. Been on them a couple of times.”
“Yeah, well, you know what it’s like when the ride’s finished, then. Everything comes to a halt, you’re sitting there, getting used to the whole world not spinning around you, and you’ve got a whole new set of people, mostly kids, all swarming to get on. You don’t know whether you want to give up your seat or not, and then it suddenly hits you.” He slipped his cap back on again, shot Egar a sidelong glance. “You realize you don’t
They both laughed this time, and loud. Quick bark of tension released, then the looser, more reflective stretch of genuine amusement, shared under the massive sky. The small, human sounds it made held briefly against the landscape, then soaked away into the vast quiet and the wind, like piss into the ground.
“You know,” Marnak said, maybe loath to let the silence win. “I broke one of those horses once. I ever tell you that? I mean, broke its neck right fucking off, hanging off it when I was blasted on pipe one time. They were going to make me pay for the fucking repairs, too, about half a week’s wages as it happens. Called the City Guard on me when I wouldn’t cough up. I ever tell you that story?”
In fact, he had, but Egar shook his head amiably and the other man launched into the tale. There was an easy pleasure to be had from hearing the escapade again, all its wall-scaling, roof-leaping, harem-invading chases and shocks and reversals, plus a couple of fresh embellishments added into the mix, just to keep it sharp. It was like sitting around the fire and listening to a skilled storyteller run through the Tale of Takavach and the Mermaid’s Virtue, or something equally well worn.
