01 - The Compass Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

Remember that Bureaucrat we saw get run down by the ale wagon? Or the Farmer who got gored by his bull? Everybody dies, Fox, sooner or later. Swear your life to Khralsh, let him look after it. You can’t.”
    This time, Fox’s sharp brown gaze locked onto Stone’s. He envied Fox his eyes as well. Few others had the pale blue of Stone’s eyes. Their mentors had always shuddered and called them uncanny, witchy. But he didn’t mind uncanny now if it convinced Fox.
    Slowly, Fox nodded. “All right. I’ll swear. With you at my shoulder I believe it.”
    “Then swear. We swear together, we fight together, fight well, and surely Khralsh will let us live.”
    “I swear. I swear myself to Khralsh. I ask for life, but my life in his hands whatever happens.” Fox spat in the sand, offering a body fluid precious to the warrior god.
    Stone copied him. “And so I swear also. My life to Khralsh.”
    They stood another moment, swaying faintly when the wind gusted through, setting tent walls to flapping.
    “D’you suppose we ought to try to sleep?” Stone scratched his head, careful not to disturb his new topknot.
    The cannon crashed again, less in unison than before.
    “In this noise?” Fox turned his partner and pushed him in the direction of their division. “You can try .”
    “Why do you always have all the answers?”
    “Because somebody has to, and you obviously don’t.”
    Stone punched Fox in the shoulder hard enough to send him reeling to the far side of the tent street. “What is it I have then?”
    “Lunatic courage.”
    “You have courage. Plenty of it. I’ve seen it.”
    “Ah, but I have the sensible sort of courage. Somebody has to be the crazy one, the one who’ll charge cannon with a misfired musket or volunteer for First and Finest. And that’s you.”
    “You were right there charging and volunteering with me.”
    “We’re paired. Where else am I supposed to be but at your back, making sure you don’t get your fool self killed.”
    Stone thought long enough they passed two tents, trying to work his way to Fox’s meaning. The cannon’s booming, now a steady rumble as the big guns fired at will, seemed to shake the alcohol from his brain. “You’re pissed.” He stopped in the throughway. “Not drunk pissed. Angry pissed. Because I volunteered.”
    “I’m not angry.” Fox took his arm and got him moving again. “I was. But I’m not anymore. You convinced me we’d live through this. And if we don’t, Khralsh will welcome us to his hall.”
    “Yes.” Stone believed it. He couldn’t believe anything else. “Volunteering for First and Finest will get us noticed. It could get us promoted.”
    Fox sighed. “Don’t you ever get tired?”
    “Of what?”
    “This.” Fox swept his arm in a half circle, indicating the camp around them, the cannon, the city with its broken walls. “Living in tents. Slogging through mud or heat or rain or all three to the next camp. Fighting. Bleeding. Healing up so we can do it all over again. Don’t you wish we could rest for a little while? Go home, soak in the baths, spend some time with a woman who has all her teeth?”
    “I don’t know, I rather like the toothless one. The way she can wrap her mouth aro—”
    Fox shoved him and Stone broke off, laughing. His laughter didn’t last long. They’d reached their own tent, shared with two other pairs, all elsewhere just now. They probably knew how to find the women’s tents.
    Stone took advantage of their absence to speak frankly, half shouting over the cannon noise. “This is the way it is, Fox. We were born Warrior caste. We are the King’s Fist. His Sword and Shield. Where our king sends, we go. It’s no use wishing it was some other way, because it’s not, and it won’t ever be. You’ll shatter your soul trying to fight it.”
    “You’re right. I know you’re right.” Fox pulled his musket from the stack and sat down to clean it once more. “I think too much.” He grinned at his