A Place To Bloom

Going Down

It had just rained, and the courtyard was muddy but for patches where grass runners made a mat upon the ground for chickens to peck at them.

The gate creaked open. In a flash, Pu'iyo raced up on the back of that elder vita'o lizard and stood beside me to watch.

When the drawbridge thudded to the ground, two columns of men plodded across, easily four-dozen men—new recruits, from the look of them, wide-eyed and disorganized. They were mostly Herali; I counted not less than twenty eupin longbows among them. Amid their number were another half-dozen bison-pulled carts about to tip over for all the goods and supplies. Behind them all was Ahmi riding atop the vita'o with the dark-green color over his back and light blue underbelly, Thunder. She wore a white, cotton minidress that day.

She greeted the elder quartermaster. The two of them shared an embrace along with a few laughs and some discussion in the native language that went way too fast for me to understand, though I heard Miyani's name.

A tall man in his thirties came from behind the mess to greet the newcomers. He had the dark-green skin of the natives with curly, dark-green hair and eyes, and wore a white crescent moon tattoo on one shoulder. "Take these to the barracks. You, and you, through there. This group, take these crates to the kitchen.... Those go to the armory, that way. I need six volunteers for wall duty? You, you, and you..."

A voice called out from the ramparts. "Incoming!"

By the time anyone looked up, Blue flew across the drawbridge in one stride bearing Miyani on his back. He raced up to me and bowed low, breathing heavily. Miyani fixed her eyes on me directly. "Davod! Is true?"

Ahmi stared at her in confusion, then she and Miyani turned to Pu'iyo, who answered, "ti. fæ tʊxo Davod kiti fi kaŋi."

Ahmi looked away and muttered to herself, "xatʌ."

Miyani dismounted and threw her arms around me, burying her face in my belly. I needed that. I didn't realize how badly I needed that until I felt her arms squeezing my waist, and I caved into her. Then after a while she lifted her hand to my chest and leaned in. "How much bad?"

I breathed in deep and shrugged. I'd had no idea it could get as bad as it had got, neither did I care to imagine it being worse. "It's bad."

"ʒɪ 'aʒeze ŋuve?"

I pointed towards the back end of the tower, beyond the mill. "He's locked in the dungeon."

"OK," she nodded and took my hand. "pʊ zɪvɪdi."

I swallowed. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through that again.

Connected to the outer wall at the back end of Praying Mantis was a stone building with a few steps leading up and inside. From there, a long, narrow corridor came to a staircase leading down into the darkness where the air was as thick as it was musty. As we were going down, a lantern below cast its yellow hue over the stone floor with scraps of straw thrown about along the side.

Iron cages lined the left and the right with a good three strides between them. The wall on one side looked wet, and the whole place was cool but smelled stale. From a cage on the right, a voice called out to us. "saŋɪwesa fi damʌ! ŋayi tixese sʌbato?"

It was a gaunt native man sporting a white cloud tattoo with a pair of lightning bolts coming down. Miyani turned and lifted the backs of her hands to him, extending both her middle fingers up.

The man laughed along with a handful of other voices in other, nearby cages.

On the left, crouched in one corner with his arms around his knees, Davod stared into oblivion. He brought his eyes to us as we came, then smiled wide and stood with a friendly air. "Hey man! mɪyaŋi, vɪdose ʃɪ'uti?"