TILLA
The cart trundled forward, and they were close now. Dragons shrieked ahead, fire crackled, and Tilla could feel it. After ten days in the wilderness, they were nearing their destination.
What fort will it be? she wondered, standing in the dark cart as a hundred other girls pressed against her. She tried to remember all the forts she knew within ten days of Cadport, but there were too many. It would have to be one for training recruits--seasoned soldiers didn't share forts with recruits--but that only narrowed it down by a couple of forts.
She went over all the names she had heard soldiers speak of. This could be Castra Nova Murus, a great fortress in the east; that would be good fortune, Tilla thought, for soldiers said a benevolent lord commanded Murus. Or it could be Castra Alira, a dilapidated fortress in the west; Tilla remembered soldiers saying the rooms there were rough, but the training light.
Or it could be... Tilla swallowed and twisted her fingers. She did not want to be grim but had to consider the possibility. They could be rolling toward the infamous Castra Luna.
Tilla clenched her jaw, remembering the stories. They whispered that Luna was not only the cruelest fortress in the south, but in the entire empire. They said obsidian tiles covered the old bricks of Castra Luna, as black and cold as the heart of its commanders. They said recruits were broken there--physically and mentally. Tilla had once met a soldier who had, they said, trained in Castra Luna; the man had been a mute, grim killer, a demon in human flesh.
Her own brother had trained at Castra Luna. He had never come home.
Tilla sucked in her breath.
No, she thought, the odds are against it. It won't be Luna. Please, stars of my fathers, don't let it be Luna.
She moved through the crowd of girls, heading toward a cart wall. Two days back, the cart had overturned, and a crack now opened in the wall, too high for the other girls to peek through, but just the right height for Tilla. She jostled her way forward. The other girls moved aside, mumbling prayers. Tilla reached the crack, stood on her toes, and peered outside.
Her heart sank.
A snowy forest rolled around her, the trees bare and dark. Above the branches, still about a mile away, Tilla saw black, glimmering walls.
Obsidian. Castra Luna.
A hand tugged at her sleeve.
"Tilla, what do you see?"
Tilla turned to see Mae peering up at her. The baker's daughter bit her trembling lip. Other recruits gathered around and peered at Tilla, all whispering.
"What do you see?"
"I hear dragons flying, are we close?"
"Tilla, where are we?"
In darkness, Tilla thought. At the gates of pain. In a world we might never escape.
She raised her hand.
"We've reached a fort," she began.
"Which one?" demanded Erry Docker. The scrawny waif's short, brown hair lay in tangles, her knees were skinned, and her eyes flashed. "Tell us the bloody fort's name, Tilla."
"Are we at Castra Murus?" called another girl. "My brother trained there."
Mae Baker began to weep. "But I want to go home! I don't want to go to any fort. I want to go back to Cadport... Please... My father will be so angry, he's going to come save me..."
Tilla had to shout over them all. "Be quiet! Don't make noise or Beras will hear. You know he hates noise. We've reached the fort of Castra Luna." The girls began to whisper and weep, and Tilla raised her hands and spoke louder. "You will be safe here! I promise this to you. I know men who trained at this fortress, and I will protect you."
"How will you protect us?" Erry said and spat onto the floor. "You're just a pissant recruit like us. Bloody bollocks, I could take you in a fight, I reckon."
"No you couldn't, Erry!" said Mae, tears in her eyes. "Tilla is stronger than us, and she's about twice your height, so be quiet. And stop cussing; my mother said a girl should never cuss. Princess Shari liked Tilla too, you all saw it, and even Beras was a little afraid of her." She clung to Tilla and her lips wobbled. "Tilla is going to look after us here."
Erry rolled her eyes and groaned.
The shrieks of dragons grew louder, and Tilla peered out the crack again. She cursed under her breath. Two dragons were circling above the fortress, blowing pillars of fire. One was red, male, and long of fang. The other was female, and her scales were an iron gray. Both sported gilded horns; these ones were nobility.
And they are cruel, Tilla thought. I can see it in their fire. They will try to break us. She clenched her fists at her sides. But I will not be broken. Whatever horror awaits here, I will survive it. I will see Cadport and Rune again.
The cart kept trundling, and the black walls grew closer. Cannons lined their battlements, and soldiers in leather armor manned each gun. Tilla had seen cannons before, long and narrow things along Cadport's boardwalk; not far from the Old Wheel stood the oldest cannon in Requiem, a rusted sentinel watching the sea. But these cannons dwarfed Cadport's like greatswords beside daggers. Each gun was long as a dragon; she could have climbed into the barrels.
She swallowed. These cannons were not built to blast ships, she thought. They were built to slay dragons.
"Tilla, bloody dog dung, what do you s--" Erry began, but Tilla hushed her and kept staring outside.
The gates of Castra Luna rose ahead. From where she stood, Tilla could only see half of one door. That door loomed twenty feet tall, its oak engraved with carvings of the red spiral. The sigil also appeared upon black banners that draped the walls and fluttered from the tower tops.
But Castra Luna hadn't always been a Cadigus stronghold, Tilla knew. She thought back to the old, banned books Rune kept hidden under the Old Wheel's floor. Once this had been a castle of House Aeternum. The great Princess Mori Aeternum had raised this place from a small, southern outpost into a great castle, and many princes and princesses of Aeternum had ruled here, a beacon of southern light. In old drawings, Tilla had seen a castle of bright bricks, of green-and-silver banners sporting Aeternum's two-headed dragon, and of justice and light. Today... today she saw a prison of darkness.
The doors creaked open, revealing lines of soldiers. A chill ran through Tilla. Each soldier stood stiff as a statue, clad in leather armor studded with iron. Each bore a longsword. Helms hid their heads, bowls of black steel. They seemed to her not human, but automatons of metal, leather, and cruelty.
This will be me soon, Tilla thought. I will no longer be Tilla Roper of Cadport. I will be one in a line, a soul broken and remolded into a killer, nothing but a machine--no more alive than the cannons upon the walls.
Several carts rolled ahead of her own. They vanished under the archway, and Tilla's cart soon followed.
And so we enter the long, cold night, she thought and her throat tightened. She missed Rune so badly her belly clenched. Perhaps, she dared to hope, when he was drafted in summer, he would be sent to Castra Luna too. Would Tilla still be stationed here then? And if so, would Rune even recognize whatever demon they molded her into?
Six carts rolled into Castra Luna's courtyard. Through the crack, Tilla saw the brutish Beras lumbering about. He was howling, banging on cart walls, and unlocking the doors. Saliva sprayed from his mouth as he shouted.
"Out, vermin!" He growled and spat. "We've carried you maggots for long enough. Out, you miserable lot of bastards and whores!"
When the brute reached Tilla's cart and tugged the door open, the light nearly blinded the recruits inside. A few whimpered and covered their eyes. They had not seen daylight for ten days now, not since leaving Cadport, aside from what little light fell through the cracked wall.
Cadport's youths stumbled out into the courtyard like prisoners from dungeons, pale and blinking and frail in the sun. The sky was white, and the small winter sun reflected off the fort's obsidian walls. Tilla blinked and struggled to steady her limbs. Throughout the journey, they had been fed but scraps--old bread, burnt sausages, and some moldy cheese. Their training had not even begun, and already Tilla felt weaker than she'd ever been.
She looked around her, trying to focus her eyes. The recruits stood in the courtyard, still wearing the same tunics and leggings they had worn when leaving Cadport. A thousand other youths surrounded the square, but these ones were not weak. They did not tremble or blink or whimper. They stood in armor, silent, faces blank.
Tilla looked beyond them to see walls and barracks, all carved of the same obsidian, all bearing banners of the red spiral. A tower rose above them, the tallest she'd ever seen; it must have stood three hundred feet tall. It sported a great clock as large as a wagon; its hands were shaped as swords, ticking in an eternal battle. A hall stood below the tower, large enough to house a thousand men, and upon its walls perched two dragons, red and gray.
The red dragon stared directly at her, and Tilla felt as if an icy fist punched her.
Lust filled that red dragon's eyes--lust for her flesh, for her blood, and for her very soul. The beast stared into her, licked his chops, and snarled. Smoke rose between his teeth, and Tilla tore her eyes away. Her heart thrashed and her fingers trembled.
"Form ranks!" Beras bellowed, lolloping around the courtyard. "By the Abyss, if you embarrass me now, I'll flay your hides. Form ranks, sons of whores!"
Standing beside Tilla, Erry smirked. "He still walks like he got a stick up his arse. I bet he stick 'em there good himself."
Tilla glared at the skinny ragamuffin. "Don't you ever stop talking? Come on, form ranks; stand behind me."
Cadport's recruits shuffled together, forming ranks as Beras and his fellow soldiers barked orders. They had formed ranks every night for ten days, and they moved faster now. The girls stood in lines to one side, the boys to another. As always, Erry Docker stood to Tilla's right, smirking to herself, and Mae Baker stood to her left, biting her wobbling lip.
When they all stood in three lines, Beras stared at them in disgust.
"Miserable maggots," he said and spat again. "Bloody waste of time, you are. Good riddance to you. I deliver you now to your new masters. My only regret is I won't be here to see you broken."
He marched down the lines, huffing and thumping his boots. When he walked by Tilla, he paused and turned toward her. His beady eyes narrowed and he snarled. His breath wafted between his crooked teeth, scented of rotting meat.
Tilla stood stiff and frozen before him, chin raised. Her heart pounded, but she dared not say a thing, not even breathe.
"Oh, I'll miss you, child," Beras said, voice rough as his face. "I'll be seeing you again, don't you doubt it. You'll spread your legs for me yet." He spat onto her face. "You'll be mine, whore."
With that, he stepped back, shifted into a bronze dragon, and took flight. With a few flaps of his wings he was gone, leaving only a wake of smoke.
Tilla stood, knees weak and nausea rising in her. Belas's foul spit clung to her face, but she dared not wipe it off. The last recruit who'd moved in formation had been dragged off, hung from a tree, and beaten until his ribs snapped. And so she stood, breathing hard and struggling not to gag as the saliva dripped down her cheek.
"Recruits!" rose a female voice above. "Face north!"
Around the courtyard, a thousand soldiers spun upon their heels, slammed their boots down, and faced the grand hall. Fumbling and glancing around, Cadport's recruits followed, a breath late. Tilla and the others stood facing the hall. Upon its walls, the two dragons--red and gray--glared down at them, smoke pluming from their nostrils.
The gray dragon blasted fire skyward, then shifted. She stood upon the walls in human form, hands on her hips and a smirk on her face.
She was a young woman; she looked not much older than Tilla herself. Her yellow hair was just long enough to fall across her brow, and mockery filled her eyes; Tilla could see that even from here. She wore tan leggings, tall boots, and a breastplate engraved with a black rose. A sword hung across her back, and a she held a punisher in one gloved hand. Its tip crackled.
"Welcome to pain!" the young woman shouted. "Welcome to blood, to tears, and to death. Welcome to Castra Luna! I am Lanse Nairi, but to you, I am a goddess, I am a mother, I am a tyrant, and I am your savior." She smirked. "To me you are worms to crush."
Lanse. Tilla had heard that word before. It was a rank, she remembered. Tilla knew little of rank; she did not know how lofty a lanse was.
Lofty enough to command me, she thought. But then again, that is probably everyone here other than my fellow recruits.
"Today," Nairi continued, "we have a new lord in Castra Luna. Kneel, servants of the red spiral. Kneel before Prince Leresy Cadigus!"
Nairi gestured toward the red dragon, who snorted fire and shifted into human form.
The recruits below gasped, paled, and knelt.
The red dragon now stood as a young, golden-haired man. A smirk played across his lips. Unlike the others in this fort, Prince Leresy wore no crude leather. The finest steel plates formed his armor, each filigreed with golden dragons. A cloak hung across his shoulders, the crimson fabric lined with fur and probably worth more than all the coins in Cadport. A sword hung at his belt, its pommel shaped as a dragonclaw, its scabbard jeweled. A red spiral, shaped of rubies, shone upon his breastplate.
Shari's younger brother, Tilla thought, glancing up at him as she knelt. Ten days, and I've met two of the emperor's children, and I don't know which one frightens me more.
"He's looking right at you," Erry whispered from the corner of her mouth; the urchin knelt beside her. "The prince. Bet he wants to thrust right into you with his royal rod, and I don't mean his punisher. Not bad-looking, he is. Bloody bollocks, Tilla, but all the menfolk stare at you. I also need to grow a pair of big--"
"Shush!" Tilla whispered.
Terror froze her, but it seemed nobody had heard the exchange. She glanced back up at Prince Leresy. He stood on the wall, looking down upon the courtyard, and again he met her eyes.
She shivered. She had heard of Leresy's cruelty; everyone in Requiem had. They said that every week, Prince Leresy walked through the capital, seeking a woman he fancied. They said he favored mothers. When he found one, he would slaughter her family before her eyes, take her to his palace chambers, and force himself upon her. In the morning, they whispered, servants would collect the woman's battered corpse from the courtyard outside Leresy's window.
And now this prince--this monster--stared right at her across the crowd. His smirk grew, and he gave her a wink. He licked his lips--slowly, luxuriously, as if savoring the taste.
Tilla forced her gaze away. Her belly twisted and her heart pounded. She released her breath, only now realizing she had held it.
I must never stare at him again, she thought. He is the most dangerous man in Requiem.
"Children of Requiem!" the prince cried. He had the high voice of a youth, but carried it with the arrogance of a man. "I welcome you to my home. Rise."
The recruits rose to their feet, those newly arrived and those already armored.
"Hail the red spiral!" Prince Leresy shouted and slammed his fist against his chest.
"Hail the red spiral!" shouted thousands of recruits below, and thousands of fists thumped against chests.
To her left, Tilla heard Mae whimper. To her right, she heard Erry smirk and whisper something about sneaking into the prince's bed. But Tilla only stood still and silent, and though she had vowed to never look at the prince again, she could not help it. She found herself once more glancing his way.
He met her eyes and stared. The stare seemed to last forever, and in his eyes Tilla saw haughtiness, lust, and unending malice.
Without another word, the prince spun on his heel and stepped away from the battlements. He vanished, leaving Tilla feeling as empty and violated as a ransacked home.
"All right, you miserable lot of filthy maggots!" Nairi shouted above. She shifted back into a gray dragon and took flight. "It's time to sort your useless arses into phalanxes. A bloody waste of time, if you ask me." She blasted a pillar of fire. "Commanders, to the courtyard! Fresh meat!"
With roaring fire and thudding wings, five dragons appeared, rising from behind the grand hall. Fire and smoke filled the air. Scales clanked. Orders rang. Soldiers rushed about the courtyard, goading recruits with crackling punishers. Welts rose on flesh and recruits screamed.
Tilla moved with the crowd, her belly knotting.
Her life in Castra Luna began with fire, smoke, and pain.