Chapter 521: 521: After the Blood part four
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"In this case, what I want is to make a note for my own ledger," he said. "If you and I ever meet again at the same rank, with no politics hanging over our heads, I fully expect you to be able to take me apart in ten exchanges. Twelve, if I am feeling generous."
"Ten," Kai repeated, half incredulous. "You think very highly of my ability to learn."
"I think very highly of your ability to be annoying," Vorak said dryly. "Given more time and a few more scars, that tends to translate into skill."
Kai snorted.
The movement made something in his side flare; he winced.
Vorak saw it and nodded toward Kai’s ribs.
"How bad," he asked.
"Three fractured, maybe four," Kai said. "Nothing punctured so far. The mountain objects when I breathe too deeply. You."
Vorak glanced down at his own bandages.
"Clean tear," he said. "Your claw missed the vital bits by about two finger widths. If it had been a little higher, I would be decorating the sand. As it is, my physician informs me I am banned from wrestling for a few weeks."
"Tragic," Kai said.
"It is," Vorak said, dead serious for a heartbeat. "I enjoy wrestling."
They both smiled, small and tired.
Behind Vorak, his army had formed a relaxed but ready line. Shields were slung, not braced. Spears pointed mostly at the sky. It was a posture of departure, not attack.
"So," Kai said. "The terms."
Vorak nodded.
"I said that if you survived me in the circle," he said, "I would take my army and go. I do not make a habit of breaking such things. It does terrible things to the quality of your mercenaries. They get jumpy. They start wondering if your promises about pay are negotiable too."
"You are contracted by Hoorius," Kai said. "Not supporting her with your army?"
"Correct," Vorak said. "I am very expensive. The court knows this. She pays me when they (her supporters) need something broken that makes them nervous."
He looked up at the mountain, taking in the scars on the ramp, the patched plates, the faint movement of drones on the ledges.
"They will be... irritated," he said. "Some of the followers wanted your head on a spike. Some of them wanted your hive soaked. Some of them wanted both. They want to pleasure her and she... Hoorius wants revenge. Returning with neither and a ledger that says I tried and failed will make for a few tense dinners."
"So why keep your word," Kai asked quietly. "You could declare the duel inconclusive. Say you were ambushed. Blame me. March again. You have the rank to sell a new story."
Vorak’s gaze came back to him.
"Because I am old enough to know that cutting corners on this kind of thing comes due with interest," he said. "The woman who came to my camp last night did not threaten me. She merely explained the balances involved. If I break this parley, if I choose to keep pressing, I may succeed today or tomorrow. But the debt incurred will follow me home, and it will not just be your mountain that bites me. I prefer my enemies in front of me, where I can see them. Not lurking in the roots of the world."
Ikea, in her tree, made a small, satisfied sound.
"Good boy," she said softly. "You do know how to listen when someone draws you a diagram."
Kai did not look her way. He kept his eyes on Vorak.
"You do not know her name," he said.
"I have some guesses," Vorak said. "I have read stories. I am not stupid enough to say any of those guesses out loud. What matters is that something old decided you were worth the trouble of a conversation. That makes you a more complicated target than the court realized."
He rolled his shoulders again, then winced and stopped.
"In any case," he continued, "a promise is a promise. I told my officers before we marched that if the duel came to it, we would abide by the outcome. You held. So I leave. We will take our wounded and our dead. We will not take your stones or your drones. We will not leave anything in the ground that explodes in three days. I am petty, not stupid."
"Thank you," Kai said.
Vorak snorted.
"Do not thank me," he said. "You earned it the hard way. Besides, I suspect the Kingdom will find another way to trouble you. They do not like leaving new Lords unclassified."
He paused.
"When that happens," he said, "if fate is bored and decides to throw us at each other again, do me a favor."
"What favor," Kai asked, wary but curious.
"Go easy on me," Vorak said. "I am not getting any younger. If you show up one day as some eight or nine star thing with a Crown that answers your calls instead of sulking, try not to break all of my bones at once. Leave a few for the next generation to study."
Kai laughed, then clutched his ribs.
"I will consider it," he said when he could breathe again. "On one condition."
Vorak lifted an eyebrow.
"That you consider," Kai said slowly, "that not every contract has to be written in the Scarlet ledger. If the day comes when you are tired of being rented out to princes with more gold than sense, and you decide that you would rather point your army at something of your own choosing, there is a mountain here that remembers its debts as carefully as you keep yours."
Vorak looked at him for a long time.
Wind tugged at the fringes of his sling. Somewhere behind him, a banner snapped.
"If you decide to become ruler of all of this," he said eventually, sweeping a finger in a small arc that took in mountain, desert, and the hazy line of distant forest, "and not just the Lord of one stubborn hive, send word. I would like to see what the world looks like with a ledger kept by someone who knows what it costs to stand where you stand."
