* * *

  “I’m telling you, just learn a few words, at least,” said Bronnr, as he led the way down the narrow alley. “Speaking Albian, they just give you this blank stare while they lie on the bed.”

  “What, so you’re saying the whores actually talk naughty back to you? Beg for more, and all that?” asked Mannan.

  “Well, no. But you can see it in their eyes that they understand what you’re saying, while you plow ‘em. It enhances the whole experience. And trust me, if command is only giving us two weeks away from the front every rotation, you want to make every day of shore leave count.”

  “So I should make it count… by wasting my time learning the language of some nation of shitfarmers?”

  “No, no, no,” said Bronnr. “You have it all wrong. You’re not thinking about this like a man planning for a career in the navy, yet. Don’t you know? Your first enemy is the enemy of Albion. But your second enemy is the officer right above you. Always remember that. How do you think I climbed so high in the ranks?”

  “Pray, tell, frigate-captain Bronnr,” said Mannan dryly. Bronnr had been promoted two days before their shore leave rotation had come up, and he’d managed to bring up his new station in conversation at least a dozen times since then.

  “Here’s what you do,” said Bronnr. “You spend time studying Setetic while you’re at the front. Tell your superior officer you’re doing it to enhance your usefulness in service. And, hey — every so often, it is useful to be a bit more fluent in shitfarmer-language, when you’re at war with a nation of shitfarmers. Why do you think they gave us those booklets, before we made the crossing? Anyway, you tell your C.O. you’re doing it to be a better soldier. Either he’ll buy the story, or he’ll have pulled the same tricks himself when he was a junior officer on some other campaign and he won’t want to be hypocrite. Then before you know it, you’re back on shore leave, plowing some native whore, and you know all the right things to whisper in their ears to make ‘em squirm.”

  “Maybe I’ll give it some thought,” said Mannan, rolling his eyes, as they came to the front door of the brothel at last.

  “Good evening,” Bronnr said in his fluent Setetic. “My friend here will have your prettiest folia. Female for him, please.”

  The madame gave them a lazy appraisal, as she chewed a wad of that leaf the natives seemed so fond of. Then she gestured to a room down the hall of the back annex, and held out a hand for Mannan’s coin.

  “And I’ll have a male folia, please,” said Bronnr. “Do you have someone fresh for the day?”

  The madame stared at him, then gestured to her left.

  “Third door down.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Thank you!”

  Bronnr had never actually managed to grasp what folia or rhiza actually meant — it seemed like the sort of word that just didn’t actually have a direct translation into Albian. But he’d asked for a rhiza, one time, and he wouldn’t be making that mistake again anytime soon. Foreign cultures were so strange.

  In contrast, the slim young man waiting for him in that third room down the hall was exactly what he’d been hoping for, that evening. Almost nothing covered his exotic caramel skin, save for a sheer, skirt-like loincloth cut of sheer fabric, and a gold-silk veil over the lower half of his face.

  “My, look at you,” said Bronnr, as he began to undo his belt. “Maybe the madame deserves a tip—”

  Something cold pressed against the nape of his neck, and he heard a pistol’s hammer click.

  “Don’t scream,” said Lycera. “Don’t move.”

  The man he’d thought to be a prostitute pulled a rifle from under the bed, and aimed it square at his chest, as well.

  Bronnr swallowed, and slowly put up his hands.

  * * *

  “Hello. Here she comes,” said the lookout.

  Kera nodded. With a hand signal to her squad, they started through the alleys of Ventium, shadowing Lycera on a parallel street as her group slipped out of the brothel’s rear exit.

  She almost couldn’t believe it. Kera had been sure at least something should’ve gone wrong, by that point. But the glimpses she caught of the Albian pushed along by Lycera indeed matched the exact description of their lead.

  Don’t celebrate, yet. Cross the finish line, first.

  Kera looked away and felt at the pistol beneath her civilian clothes, as they passed a pair of Albian military police patrolling the street. Once the white-coats had passed, she motioned for the lookout to scout the next streetcorner, and the disguised patrol officer jogged ahead. She counted herself lucky for perhaps the dozenth time that their mission was premised on stealth, and subtlety. She could do hand-signals. And she was an expert at trying to fade into the background.

  But just as Lycera neared the crossing, two more Albian marines emerged from a tavern door, hidden from view right around the corner.

  Kera froze.

  For just one critical instant, the coded warning phrase was as if a blank space in her memory, as instead she could think of nothing else but how speaking would attract the attention of so many.

  “Another— another round, on me!” she shouted, as if to her ‘friends’ nearby, half-drunk.

  It’d only taken her a split-second to think straight once more. But that split-second mattered.

  Lycera backpedaled, but not fast enough to duck elsewhere out of sight before the marines rounded the corner. The Albian from the brothel said nothing in particular — only meeting the eyes of his two compatriots was enough to make them suspicious.

  “Hey, what’s this then?” said one of the marines, unslinging his rifle. “Are you—”

  Kera drew, and fired.

  For that, she didn’t hesitate.

  Her first shot felled the marine who’d spoken. The other marine almost had time to unsling his own rifle, before Lycera brought him down with her own pistol raised past her hostage.

  At once, shouting resounded from every nearby side-street, and a dozen hostile vis burst onto the plane of sense.

  “The stables! Go!”