The Compass Rose. Gail Dayton

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      “Stop! Wait, dammit—what kind of friend are you?” Stone bent over, hands on his knees, and tried to decide whether the contents of his stomach were going to come out. He knew he’d feel better if he could just shed his jacket in this infernal heat, but the padded gray nuisance was part of the uniform. They could unbutton it, but they couldn’t leave it off even in camp.

      “I’m your only friend, thank you. No one else would put up with your rubbish.”

      Stone tilted his head and peered up at Fox who had stopped after all and was waiting, swaying slightly in the offshore wind, his face strange and shadowy in the firelight coming from the nearby crossway between tents. Stone knew that face better than his own. Both of them named Warrior, of the highest caste Tibre had to offer, below only the Rulers themselves. Both of them vo’Tsekrish, of the king’s own city.

      They had been partnered the day they left women’s quarters to begin warrior training, when they were six years old. They were now twenty-two. Or maybe twenty-three. Stone didn’t keep track of that sort of thing.

      He and Fox had learned to read side by side from the same book. They had learned to fight back-to-back against the same teachers. They had even discovered the pleasures of women at the same time, though not with the same woman. Stone trusted Fox with his life.

      But at the moment, he could cheerfully throttle him. “I thought you said you knew where women’s quarters were.”

      “I didn’t say that. You did.” Fox grabbed a handful of Stone’s hair and pulled him more or less upright, leaning down until they stood eye to eye.

      Stone envied him those few inches that made the lean necessary. “’S not fair,” he muttered. “I should be the taller. I’m lead in this pair.”

      “You’re drunk.” Fox shoved and Stone staggered back several paces.

      “Am not. If I was drunk, I’d have fallen. ’Sides, Stores won’t give us enough to get drunk. Just enough to get pleasantly snockered. Besides that, you’re drunk too.”

      “Not drunk. Snockered.” Fox frowned. “Why d’you suppose that is?”

      “Dunno.” Stone looked around for a place to sit. He didn’t recognize the tents—though why he thought he should since all something-thousand of them looked exactly alike, he didn’t know.

      The tents were wide enough for a tall man to stretch out without getting his feet wet, long enough for six men to sleep side by side without quite touching, and high enough to stand up in if you didn’t mind ducking a bit. Or ducking a bit more if you were Fox. And they were set up in identical long rows with space between them for walking and mustering.

      Stone didn’t recognize the warriors strolling about, either. Except for Fox. He recognized him. Worse luck. “Dunno why we’re snockered,” he said again, “’cept the First and Finest are always a little snockered when they go charging up through the breach. And ’cause they gave us the stuff and what else were we to do with it but drink it?”

      “Maybe that’s why.” Fox set a small keg on its end and plopped down on it. “Give us these fancy red poufs of trousers so we’ll be sure to get shot at. Get us just snockered enough we’ll run like lunatics into that hellmouth, and call us a brilliant-sounding name like First and Finest so we won’t realize we’re something else entirely, like First and Foolishest.”

      “No such word as foolishest,” Stone offered, nodding sagely. Or as sagely as he could, given that he was at least a quarter full of some truly vile liquor. “And you shouldn’t talk that way. It’ll get back to the Rulers. You do realize you’re sitting on a keg of black powder, don’t you?”

      Carefully, Fox leaned to one side and peered down at his impromptu seat. “Damn me, so I am. Suppose it wouldn’t do to get myself blown to bits prematurely.”

      “No. Won’t do at all.” Stone took his partner’s hand and hauled him to his feet. “D’you suppose we started drinking too early? They haven’t started the cannonade yet, have they?” He froze, trying to force thought through his slightly pickled brain, to hear what he ought to be hearing. “Have I gone deaf?”

      Just then, the concentrated thunder of hundreds of cannon firing simultaneously at close range threatened to knock both men off none-too-steady feet.

      “Did you hear that?” Fox said when the noise faded.

      “Yes.”

      “Then you’re not deaf.”

      “Do you know where we are?” Again Stone tried to pick out landmarks.

      “Haven’t a clue.”

      “I don’t suppose you know where women’s quarters are from here.”

      “Not a bit.”

      Stone shoved his hair out of his face with both hands. “Why doesn’t your hair ever get in your way? It’s just like mine, yellow and curly. It should get in your way like mine.”

      “I remember to get mine cut.” Fox produced a length of string, bunched Stone’s hair together on the top of his head and tied it off. “You look ridiculous. Like there’s a fountain sprouting from your head.”

      “Don’t care. It’s out of my way. Thanks, brodir.”

      “Anytime.” Fox paused, then pointed at the banner hanging above a nearby tent. “Isn’t that СКАЧАТЬ