Amazonia

  "Now that is absolutely adorable," Titan rumbled in a quiet voice as he and Amazonia surveyed the room.

  Their hair still damp from the bath house, Greywolf and Wysper were curled up together under the blankets, with little Paulus wrapped in his own blanket next to Wysper's back. Asena was asleep on a pallet in front of the door. Her shaggy hair was damp as well, with her armor and her gear piled into a heap in a corner, and her hand on the hilt of the sword laying beside her.

  The moment Titan had eased the door open, her snoring had stopped, but now it started up again once more. Amazonia shook her head. "With that racket," she whispered, "it's a wonder any of them can sleep."

  Titan chuckled as he eased the door closed. "The greatest wonder is how someone got Asena into the bathing pool without throwing her in."

  "Wysper takes all the credit for that one," Az replied as she led them down the hall towards the common room next to the kitchen. Witchlight lanterns gave the room a greenish glow as they entered, the gaps between the shuttered windows telling her that the sun was up, at least barely. "Even though she was exhausted, Wysper cajoled Asena into the pool and made her let Dancer bind her wounds."

  As she led him towards the low table where a flagon of wine and several ceramic wine cups were scattered around its top, he asked, "What about the Celtic priestess who is the healer? Even if Greywolf and Wysper restore Asena's mana, she does not regenerate her wounds the way she used to."

  Amazonia sat down on one of the cushions with her back against the wall, while Titan gathered two and placed them together. As he sat, she replied, "Timur forbade it. He unbent enough to let Greywolf and Wysper stay here until Khingla's cremated and the khans have their counsel, but no more. I think after watching her fight he's a little afraid of her." Titan chuckled again while Az found the two cleanest cups and poured wine into them. "At least Osiris offered to shelter Paulus until this is over."

  She gave one of the cups to Titan, his hand engulfing it. "Gratitude. I must say I am surprised at the offer. Little Paulus is the son of a deceased Ludus owner, nothing more."

  They both took a drink as she shrugged. "Before you arrived, there was a rumor around the Ludus that little Paulus' father was actually someone different than Lord Paulus, someone important. A few people whispered it was Eurax."

  "Eurax?" Az nodded and Titan made a disgusted sound. "He would change his own son into a girl to have carnal relations with her?"

  "Remember who we're talking about." Titan gave her an unhappy nod and she added, "Anyway, it's only a rumor. Speaking of important people, has Avitohol arrived yet?"

  "No," Titan said with a sigh. "I waited at the main gate until the horn sounded the dawn, then watched the funeral procession bring in Khan Khingla's body from the same tent where the Great Khan had banished Prince Timur."

  "What if Avitohol comes galloping in? Will they let him watch?"

  Titan shook his head. "Once the last mourner walked inside, Prince Timur ordered all the city gates shut until the funeral is over. As I understand their customs, lighting the funeral pyre of the dead khan is the equivalent of receiving Tengri's blessing, and they are going to take Avitohol's absence as a slap in the face."

  Amazonia drank more as she turned it over in her mind. "On the way back to Bukhara, Hypam told me it was the Keeper of the Spirits who sent Avitohol on this rescue mission. She thought the Keeper wanted to force Khingla into accepting Avitohol as a man so it would strengthen his claim as Khan of khans."

  "Which went horribly wrong when the Sasnayams tried to assassinate Prince Timur." Titan doesn't know the truth behind the attack and I'm never going to tell him, either. Instead, Az nodded, and they drank together in silence for a few moments. Then he looked at her. "There is another possibility. Yasataar is a canny woman who has the gift... or curse, of foresight, and she may have seen a future where the Crimson Horde descended into civil war over the succession."

  "You're saying she might have sent Avitohol on this mission deliberately, so he'd miss the funeral and the chance to become the Great Khan?" Titan nodded, and Az drained her wine cup. "Now that would be cold."

  "I would call it practical." She refilled their cups as Titan said, "Yasataar has likely realized that the Crimson Horde is bent upon its own doom. So this way, Avitohol gets a chance to make a clean break without bloodshed and begin a new life with the Black Dragon clan."

  Amazonia gave Titan a sour smile. "You're about as cheerful as a dinner of rotgut wine and turnips. If that happens, are you going to join the Black Dragons as well?"

  Titan grimaced. "I am hoping Greywolf's father will return soon, bearing a third choice."

  "You could stay here with me," Az said, trying to keep her voice light. "The army won't be marching until the spring... well, the Shamblers will need to leave soon, but I'll be back right after I get them settled－"

  "No, Az," Titan said, his rumbling voice sounding sad, "I cannot remain. When Timur is confirmed as khan, or king, or whatever he proclaims himself to be, I have no choice except to leave Bukhara and never return, at least until he is dead."

  "Why?" I know my voice's getting sharp, but right now I don't care. "You claim you've got feelings for me, that you want us to be together, but now that things may settle down for a while, you're halfway out the gate and down the road."

  "I told you in the beginning there were lines I would not cross—"

  "Except you've already crossed them. Titan, you saw me changed into a Shadow Knight, but even though you kicked up a fuss, you didn't stop me."

  "Because I honestly believed it would be the only time." He gave Amazonia a dark look. "Timur has made his Shadow Knight the cornerstone of his victory over the Sasnayams, and if I do not leave soon, blood is going to be shed. I would rather leave you than have it be yours."

  "Titan—"

  "My mind is made up. Besides, your Chaldeans will be happy to see the last of me, especially Dancer."

  Az gave him a confused look. "What are you talking about?"

  "The night of the raid. While your Shadow Knight self was assembling her troops, Dancer accused me of raping you, then exploiting our relationship for my own gain."

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I'm going to thrash Dancer within an inch of his life. "Look," Az said in exasperation, "you were in rut and we all knew it. Lord Paulus let me decide whether to bed you or not; I accepted, and not only did I survive, but I got everything I was promised. It was my choice and I don't regret it."

  "You were a slave and slaves do not get to have a choice. Not real ones."

  "Neither do most people." Az stabbed a finger at his face. "Lucky for you I did agree and had a body modified enough to withstand you. What would you have done if I'd said no? How many females would've died when you lost control and went on a rampage? Hades' hairy eyeballs, what are you going to do when the urges get too strong again and you don't have me to slake them on?"

  His hands clenched into fists large as mace heads. "Do you even understand why I have those urges in the first place?"

  Amazonia drained the wine cup and slammed it onto the table, shattering it into shards. "I have no thrice damned idea. Hel's rancid breath, I didn't even know how old you were until Asena showed up and the two of you began sharing war stories. When we were together in the arena, you told me you wanted to keep the past buried and I understood because we were gladiators. But now everything’s changed. How can I understand why you're so desperate to leave when you won't tell me what's wrong?" Titan regarded her with a brooding look on his scarred, craggy face.

  Then he exhaled, uncurled his hands, and motioned at the ceramic shards on the table. "You broke your cup."

  Az glanced down at the pieces, then back up again. "Don't tell the owner or she'll toss me out on my arse for breaking her crockery."

  Titan chuckled as he used his hand to sweep the pieces over to the opposite side of the table. Then he poured wine into another cup and handed it to her. "Here," he rumbled as she took it from him. "Listening is thirsty work." He refilled his own cup and took a sip.

  Then Titan began to speak. "Before the war of the Daemo Princes, my people were nothing like they are now. The human tribes called us ogres, and that is exactly what we were: enormous savages that ate any animal or person unlucky enough to cross our path."

  "What about the Daemo?"

  A smile tugged at his lips. "As I understand our history, the Daemo enraged the ogres because they tasted delicious, but melted away with the first bite, leaving us hungry." The smile vanished. "Then the Celestials came in force. They saw incredible potential in my people and began to do experiments, changing us until they got exactly the heavy infantry they wanted. Oh, deep down we were still wild ogres, but they boosted our intelligence and made us appear less threatening to their human servants, so we could fight side by side and interact with them. Most important of all, though, is the Code of Conduct they embedded into the very fiber of our bodies. The Code modified our behavior so we would obey their commands and fight their war."

  Az crossed her legs, nomad style. "I'm not following. How could this Code change you?"

  "The Code is a difficult concept to explain. You saw the manikins the mages use here, with the instructions burned into their wooden bodies that tell the manikins what to do?" She gave him a nod and Titan said, "The Celestials did something similar. The Code is burned into us, in a sense, as a set of instructions ordering our behavior so we could be used in the war... except unlike the manikins, our Code could be modified as circumstances changed."

  Az slowly nodded. "As in your hatred of Necromancers. The Daemo Princes learned to raise the dead later in the war, right? So the Celestials added necromancy as something that went against your Code."

  "Exactly. They wrote the Code with enough ambiguity to let us use our judgment in certain situations, like the night of the raid. I knew the Sasnayams had planned to use necromancy first and told myself this would be the only time."

  "Which was the reason you didn't interfere with me or Lys."

  Titan sighed. "More like the reason I didn't kill anyone on our side. If I cannot justify what I am doing to the Code, it attempts to compel me to destroy who or what is offending it, and while I can resist for a while..."

  Bells of Hades, I'm beginning to understand why he never brought this up. "Did they put in this Code while you were in the womb, or when you were a baby?"

  He gave her a sardonic smile. "A womb is not a thing any of us ever knew. We were grown in batches of one hundred at a time."

  Amazonia’s eyes went wide. "Grown?"

  "Normal births would have been too time consuming," Titan said with a shrug. "Since we were the heavy infantry our growth was accelerated, and the moment we were deemed ready, they threw us onto the battlefield." He grimaced. "No matter how numerous we were, though, there were never enough."

  "But you survived."

  "Obviously," he said with a rumbling chuckle. "I was lucky enough to be born in the last batch created, and later squired to Asena. Most of us in the last batch did survive the war. Yet, over the years, the rest have either died in battle or went feral, and had to be put down by myself and others."

  A chill swept across her heart. "What do you mean, went feral?"

  Titan sighed again as he stared down into his cup. "The Celestials designed us without thinking through what would happen once the war was over. When we were created, they turned off whatever it is inside us that makes you grow old, so we would always be at the peak of our fighting ability. However, they neglected to do the same with the Code."

  "They didn't expect you to live long enough for that to be a problem."

  He nodded. "What the last of us discovered is that the Code, in some ways, resembles a living being. If I do not feed it by performing acts it considers important, like the killing of Daemo monsters in the arena, the Code loses its grip and begins to break down and die."

  Az sucked in her breath. "That's why you went into rut. You hadn't been doing things the Code thought was important and the ogre inside you began coming out."

  "By the time I realized what was happening," Titan said in a quiet rumble, "it was too late to stop it. At least I was able to keep a measure of control."

  "You were fighting with yourself while it was going on; I remember that part clear as day, though other parts I don't." As old, painful memories resurfaced, she took a deep breath. "Now I understand why you wanted to keep this buried and not tell me the truth. At the time, I thought it was an Ogri trait, something you had to get out of your system."

  Titan shook his head. "Normal Ogri never go into rut like ogres do. After the war was over, the Celestials felt guilty over what they had done to our race and crafted the Ogri into the wise people the civilized world knows them to be."

  "Do the Ogri know what you actually are?"

  The sardonic smile returned. "Why do you think I am forbidden to ever enter the Ogri city known as Haven? They respect me for what I did, but they also know it is just a matter of time before they will be called upon to put me down as well."

  Az reached out and placed her hand over his. "You should've told me all this years ago."

  "I did not want to burden you with this knowledge." Draining his cup, he set it down, then laid his other hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I loved you the moment I first saw you. Az, I truly believed the Shadow magic had been lost, and that by fighting alongside you after you became a Reaver Knight, the Code would be strengthened inside me."

  "Was it?"

  Titan nodded. "The Sasnayam Empire wants to destroy an empire that is working to embody many of the ideals the Code cherishes, and until the night of the raid, the Code remained strong."

  "But now it's not?"

  "It has begun to weaken, and I cannot let it unravel any further."

  This is your fate, Az... and no matter what you do, it won't change. Time to embrace it. "Then this is what we're going to do," Amazonia told him as she freed her hand and climbed to her feet. "Until the khans meet and chose a new leader, you and I are going down the stairs to the cellar, where the old owner had his private room, and we're going to stay there until Timur himself comes and pries me loose. Dancer will make sure we've got food and enough wine."

  "But—"

  "And then," her voice overriding his, "you are going to go with Asena and keep Greywolf out of trouble. Teach Wysper how to be a queen, save the Brittani, save the Empire of the East; Bells of Hades, do whatever you have to so your Code remains strong." Az grabbed him by the front of his tunic and stared up into his ugly face. "But most of all, when the Sasnayam Empire's finally shattered, get your arse back here and kill the Shadow Knight."

  "Az—"

  She shook him. "Kill her, whether I survive or not, because I can't. Even with the pain of transformation, becoming the Shadow Knight's too seductive to resist anymore. Fight the monster inside you, Titan. Because I will no longer fight mine."

  Amazonia turned and walked away, glancing over her shoulder. "Oh, and one more thing. I expect to be walking bowlegged by the time you leave.” Az put her hands on her hips. “Well, you coming or not?"

  Titan smiled as he rose to his feet.