Wichtig is not the only coward.
With an utter lack of drama, the endless grey sky opened like blood leaking from abraded skin. Though it never quite managing a proper fall of rain, Stehlen and Lebendig were soon soaked through. After stopping to don the oiled cloaks they purchased in Selbsthass, they continued on in silence. Stehlen took some small pleasure in the thought of Wichtig riding in this icy misting in one of his pretty shirts. She imagined him shivering and cursing the sky, unable to understand he was to blame for his misery.
They rode alongside an endless forest of trees growing in straight lines. Stehlen couldn’t decide if this was a comfortable silence, an uncomfortable one, or something else all together. Maybe the discomfort was hers alone.
The forest, trees too tall to be new saplings, enthralled and disturbed Stehlen. Were they here last time she rode this route? Were they planted this way—and why would anyone bother?—or was this a manifestation of Selbsthass’ obsession with order? Neither were particularly happy alternatives. The godling’s doomed attempts to hurl himself against the inevitability of decay was sad. Or pathetic. Or both.
Stehlen spotted the scattered remnants of Wichtig’s camp. The fool slept in the mud. Stopping at a sodden pile of ash, she dismounted and bent to sniff at it. “Typical.”
“What is?” asked Lebendig, alert and ready for trouble.
Stehlen loved her for it. The Swordswoman never let her guard down, not for an instant. Except…Stehlen sighed. Except when the two were intimate. Which they hadn’t been since escaping the Afterdeath.
“No scent of animal fat on the fire,” said Stehlen. “Wichtig forgot to purchase supplies before leaving Selbsthass.” Then she remembered taking his money and laughed. The fool would have wasted it on pretty clothes and women anyway. “We’re less than half a day north of the Flussrand River,” she said. “There’s a bridge there we can use to cross into Gottlos.”
“You’ve been here before?” asked Lebendig.
Stehlen nodded.
Lebendig raised an eyebrow, waiting.
“We met a priestess in Unbrauchbar,” she finally said when the silence stretched long. How the hells does she do that to me? “She told us about the Geborene god. At that point, he was a boy, a stupid little shite.” She laughed. “He hasn’t changed. The priestess, I killed her.” She shrugged, remembering the scarves she took from the girl as she died, bleeding from a cut throat, in the dark alley. “We came through here on our way north to steal the boy.”
Lebendig watched her, expression unreadable.
“It’s pretty much when everything went to shite,” said Stehlen.
“Not everything turned out badly,” said Lebendig.
Not yet. Stehlen remounted her horse. “Let’s go.”
She turned the beast south, following the tracks left by Wichtig’s stallion. Lebendig rode at her side.
Hours passed, Stehlen wondering what she would do when she found the Swordsman. Judging from the tracks they followed, Wichtig wasn’t riding particularly quickly. If they pushed the pace, she and Lebendig could catch him by nightfall. Maybe sooner.
So why are we riding so slowly?
“What are we doing?” asked the Swordswoman, distracting Stehlen from her thoughts.
“Following Wichtig.”
“Why?”
“Morgen wants me to kill him.” Stehlen flared her nostrils and spat, knowing she hadn’t really answered the question. “And Bedeckt.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Plan?” Stehlen snorted. “You sound like— No plan.”
“Are we going to kill them?”
Stehlen nodded. I think so.
As they neared the Flussrand River, the hills stretched and flattened. Though still rich with life, the land faded from deep green to something pale as if nearing Gottlos poisoned it. As the sun set the cold mist which plagued them all day, finally lifted. She caught sight of the tower jutting from the Gottlos side of the river like a blunt cock trying to rut the sky.
No doubt built by men, she decided. A woman would never build something so obviously and ridiculously phallic. Only men stumbled about littering the landscape with monuments erected to their little stickers. Such colossal insecurity. She imagined women building domed breast-like structures and laughed.
Lebendig glanced at her, an eyebrow lifting in query.
“Looks like a cock,” said Stehlen, nodding at the tower. “Why don’t men ever build anything that looks like a set of teats?”
“They do,” said Lebendig. “The grassland tribes build domed reed huts and go as far as to mount woven nipples on the roofs.”
“We should go there,” said Stehlen, joking.
Lebendig nodded agreement and the Kleptic understood what the Swordswoman hadn’t said: We should go there instead of where we are going.
If she asks, I’ll go.