The hall looks exactly as I pictured it. Light streams in from outside through great windows strategically placed to highlight statues of the guild’s most famous artificers. The room itself is three stories tall and longer than it is wide. High above, there are stuffed birds lining the walls, reminders that the guild chooses their namesakes. There’s a long nave, much like in an old church, with a sodden brown carpet down the center of the room. People are squeezed in, and far ahead, at the front of the hall, I can see a banner and a dais.
The crowd is obnoxious, jostling to get inside the hall. A man nearby elbows me, knocking me into my neighbor…who promptly palms my backside. I let out a squeal of outrage, but when I snap my umbrella shut to strike my attacker, I can’t tell who it is. There are several men smirking at me, dressed in fine coats and wearing hats, rain dripping off them.
An uneasy feeling starts in the pit of my gut and I wonder if I should have brought Gwenna after all. Now that I’m looking around, I don’t see any other women.
In fact, I might be the only woman here.
That is…very interesting in a very alarming sort of way.
I draw myself up, my jaw clenched, and decide the only way to handle this is to be aggressive. I swat at men with my closed umbrella. “Step aside. I need to enter,” I declare in a loud voice. “Move it! Coming through!”
There are a few grumbles, but the crowd continues to part, letting me in. I make it to the doors, and to my surprise, I’m standing behind one of the large, horned Taurians. There’s another thing I never see at my father’s hold—the strange bull-headed people from the plains.
Well, of course there are a few Taurians who are artificers. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If a human can be an artificer, why not a Taurian? I decide to treat them like everyone else and give the man in front of me a smack on his thick arm with my umbrella handle. “Let me through!”
He growls low and angry in his throat, turning to glare at me, and the swivel of his horned head is so great that I let out a very undignified squeak and retreat, losing my balance. I stagger, arms flailing—
—only to be caught around the waist and saved by strong arms and the irritated, strange expression of another Taurian, this one with golden eyes.
THREE HAWK
My skin practically itches as more and more humans crowd into the main guild hall. It’s recruitment day, so it shouldn’t be surprising. Today’s the day we try to find enough students to make a Five—a trained team for exploring the ruins. Only half of the people who are here will actually apply, but it feels like everyone in Vastwarren shows up to gawk at the normally closed-off guild buildings. It’s like this every time, but this year it’s particularly irksome because of the way the calendar falls.
“I hate the Conquest Moon,” Raptor says at my side, his tail thrashing almost as wildly as mine. “Makes me want to come out of my skin. Or rip someone out of theirs.”
I snort with amusement, because I know just what he means. Humans are blissfully unaware of such things, but Taurians are sensitive to the god Old Garesh, and the Conquest Moon is meaningful for every person with a drop of minotaur blood in their veins. Once every five years, the Blood Moon crosses over the White Moon, just as Old Garesh took to wife the queen of Old Prell. It’s called the Conquest Moon amongst the Taurians, because the god conquered the queen’s army and then kept her in his bed for five days. When she arose, she was pregnant with five sons.
And until the Conquest Moon passes, every Taurian is going to be agitated and on edge…or leaving the city entirely. Every Taurian female goes into heat, and every Taurian male is hit with the need to rut with abandon until the Conquest Moon passes.
It’s not convenient.
If you have a wife, I’m sure it’s fine. Fun, even.
But I don’t have a wife. I don’t even have a lover. My work in the tunnels takes up my days, and there’s no time for a woman or a family. The only female I’m ever around is Magpie, and the thought of falling upon her in a rutting frenzy makes me shudder with horror. We’re friends and business partners, but that’s as far as it goes.
I scratch at the fur on my neck and try not to snarl when another hopeful scholar tries to push forward. Baring my teeth at him, I manage to keep myself in check—but just barely. The Conquest Moon is almost a month away and yet I’m already short-tempered and impatient. I’m going to be an absolute wreck by the time the moon gets here. “Timing is awful,” I tell Raptor as the human moves past me with a quivering look. “I need to be here in the city.”
“You’ll murder someone and then rut their corpse if you stay here in the city,” Raptor tells me with a smirk not even his nose ring can hide. “And then they’ll lock you up and throw away the key.”
He’s not wrong, but he doesn’t know the half of it. Magpie needs students…yet she can’t be trusted to guide them on her own. If I count on her to pull things together, we’ll find ourselves with two students (or no students) instead of the standard five, and then they’ll quit because there’s no way a team of two will pass, and then there will be no income for either of us, because Magpie will be booted from the teaching program. Magpie will spend all her time at the bars, getting laid out and moping about the past, and I’ll find myself without a job.
I flex my magicked hand, the fingers aching despite the fact that they’re not real. If Magpie doesn’t get students, I’ll never get out of my indentured contract. So I have to stay. Magpie can’t be left to run things alone. “Can’t leave,” I say absently, flexing my hand again out of habit, just to make sure it’s there. “I don’t have a choice.”
“I always forget,” Raptor says, and there’s a hint of sympathy in his hard voice. Raptor works on a Five for Lord Nostrum, with a constantly rotating roster. Lord Nostrum is cheap and also neglectful, and I’m pretty certain that Raptor only stays because he can sell some of the artifacts he pilfers on the black market. Everyone else realizes that Lord Nostrum is paying pennies and so his team constantly switches out, leaving Raptor to do all the work. Sometimes I think it’s not about black-market sales, but just that Raptor would rather work alone than have to babysit the fools he’s normally saddled with.
“You’re leaving? Soon?” I ask, crossing my arms as another scholar pushes his way in out of the rain. It’s well-known that Taurians make the humans nervous, and we know to stay at the fringes of the room or in the shadows. They can’t do without us because we’re far superior in the tunnels, but we also know when to make ourselves scarce. I remain in the doorway instead of pushing my way inside. It lets me see the entire vicinity while also letting me leave easily…or so I tell myself.
Raptor shifts on his hooves. “I shouldn’t, but it’s pretty bad this year. I keep waking up sweaty, and I can’t sleep. It’s either stay or spend my entire fee on whorehouses, and then another fee for the delousing I’ll need after that.”
I wince. If I don’t leave Vastwarren for the Conquest Moon, I’m going to be the one in the whorehouses. I hate the thought. There’s something cold and impersonal about having a stranger with you through your rutting. I had to utilize a sex worker last time, and it left me feeling vaguely unsettled. Took me months to feel like myself again. The whores do their job and don’t discriminate between human men and Taurians, but it doesn’t mean I like it.
