The Continent (The Continent #1)(88)

Takashi stands, his jaw clenched, his right hand gripping the hilt of his sword, twisting it nervously. “I wish to say something.”

Noro raises a brow, but no one speaks. The four of us wait. Eventually, Takashi clears his throat, gives his sword another twist in the scabbard, and clears his throat again. His eyes are white with…is it fear?

“Whatever is it, Takashi?” I say. “You look downright spooked.”

“I’m not spooked,” he says, but his face is pale in the firelight. “I…Yuki? Yuki Sanzo, I wish to marry you.” He nods. “I propose a marriage to you.”

Yuki opens her mouth, then closes it again.

Noro chuckles. “Your timing is impeccable, friend. You ask on this, what may be the eve of our doom?”

Takashi gives him a determined frown. “I ask on this, the night of the rain and song, when Yuki looks lovelier than ever she has. I ask because I now fear a rebuke far less than I fear leaving this world without her.”

Yuki has regained her composure. “I am no wife, Takashi, no thing made for bearing children and sweeping stone floors.”

Takashi drops to his knee. “Of course you’re not. I shall sweep the floors myself! You are a warrior, Yuki—brave and strong, and I love everything about you. I see your eyes in the twinkling stars above; I hear your voice in the words of the wind. I—”

“Stop!” Yuki says, making a face. “Have you forgotten that in a day or two, we die?”

“Let our blood mingle in the killing fields—”

“Ew,” I say.

Takashi scowls at me, then turns back to Yuki. “Let us leave this life together, and spend eternity in a spiritual embrace.”

She sighs, measuring him in that calculating way of hers. “I will lie with you,” she whispers. “There’s no need for all the—”

“I do not want to lie with you!” Takashi says between his teeth. “I mean—I do want that,” he continues, “but I want to wed you first.”

Yuki turns to me. “Did you hear that? He wants to wed me.”

I smile. “I think it’s sort of romantic.”

“Romantic,” she says. “More like ludicrous.”

He takes her hands in his. “Marry me.”

“You’re an idiot!” she says, but her eyes are fixed on his, and they do not waver.

“I am a man with nothing to lose.”

A heartbeat passes, and Yuki shakes her head. But the word she speaks is… “Yes,” she says, sounding far more surprised than committed. “Yes, I will marry you.”

“You…will?” Takashi says. An ear-to-ear grin spreads across his face. “Then let it be so! Let us take one another as husband and wife, in life and in the hereafter, before these, our friends!”

She looks down at me, a bit dazed, and I give her an encouraging nod. “Let it be so,” she whispers, and the thing is done. She seems a bit queasy—a bit shaky about the knees—but her face and neck are flushed with pink.

Noro raises a mug of tea. “To your happiness,” he says.

To your health, Keiji spells.

“To the shortest marriage in the history of the Aven’ei,” Yuki says. But she smiles, flashing white teeth at all of us, and clings to Takashi’s hand as though she’s only just discovered that hands might be held.

“I will love you forever,” Takashi says, and kisses her full on the lips, as bold as you please. In half a moment, her arms are wrapped around his neck, and the two are entangled like flowering vines. Keiji gestures as though to make himself vomit.

“I’m with you there,” Noro says quietly.

“Oh, hush,” I say. “Let them be. They have each found love at last.”

“At very last,” Noro says. “And they’d best not couple with one another by the fire. No one needs to see that.”

But he need not worry, for Takashi and Yuki have disappeared into the night.

“Come now,” I say, taking Noro’s hand in my left and Keiji’s in my right. “Teach me the song about Sana-Zo. This time, I shall hold the words close to my heart.”

On the third morning, as the Aven’ei predicted, the Topi come.

We stand at the north end of the field—Noro, Keiji, Yuki, Takashi and I—looking down upon the valley. The Topi swarm into the hollow by the hundreds, the clatter of their weapons and armor audible even from this distance. They look like ants, filling the Vale from one side to the other, advancing in a slowly moving line ever reinforced by those coming behind. I pray silently, against all reason, that the five of us should survive this day.

This is it. A war waged for more than three centuries has come to this: seventy-five thousand men and women below, fifty thousand above. Nearly all who are left of the Aven’ei have come for this battle, to die with honor.

A contingent of our archers, many men deep, stretches across the plain nearest the slope leading into the valley. They are waiting for the Topi to move within range, and will shift to the rear when the enemy is close. Meanwhile, the warriors on foot have gathered behind, ready to switch places with the archers when the order is given. These brave souls will die first.

A drumbeat sounds, echoing in rhythmic bursts. But save for the drums and the clamoring insect noise of the Topi, there is an eerie hush amongst the Aven’ei; not a voice is to be heard.