Witness

11 - Ashes, Ashes

Thaïs took a seat beside me, where sandbags reinforced the wall below the window. We were four stories high and back away from the edge of the district, but that meant nothing. The pressure was on for the military to recapture the half of Seisa currently in Lathraí control, because every minute we held out was another nail in the coffin of state power. Already similar uprisings were spreading in the south, though none as bloody as Seisa—yet.

I didn't look over at her sudden arrival, still focused on field-stripping my rifle. They were mostly reliable, though jams were more and more frequent as the quality of ammunition degraded. Our best weapons and ammunition were those taken from the enemy, whose soldiers were the only thing in abundant supply. "Shouldn't you be somewhere safer?"

Thaïs laughed. "And where would that be?" She paused, unscrewing the top of her flask. "I suppose the hells are empty these days. Think I could open a new brothel there?"

"It'd probably be cooler." The late summer sun beating down on Seisa was so punishing that even most of the fighting happened at night. I'd seen fighters from both sides pass out from heat exhaustion.

"Probably," she agreed before taking a quick swig. She was also carrying a canteen, one of the good ones with a filter, but seemed far more interested in her hip flask at the moment. "You want some?"

I shook my head, carefully cleaning my rifle while I had the chance. Things were slow now even with the military's crunch for time just because of the heat wave turning Seisa's streets into an oven. Even during the night, you could burn flesh by touching the paving stones without cloth in the way. It was the hottest year on record—not even Seisa's ocean breezes did much to cool it down.

She unslung the canteen and slid it over to me. "Have some water, then."

In that kind of heat, you could drink gallons in a day and still barely lose anything through your kidneys. Even we Lathraí, children of the deserts, felt it intensely. An offer of water was never to be passed up. "Thanks." I sped up, finishing my cleaning before reassembling the rifle as quickly as I could while avoiding a mistake. I double-checked that everything was working before setting the weapon down.

Thaïs sighed and leaned back into the shade of the sandbags, stretching like a cat. "You're getting pretty good at that."

I opened the canteen and tipped too fast for the shock of fresh, ice-cold water that hit me. I corrected and sputtered, dumping a mouthful's worth down the front of my shirt. "It's cold!"

Thaïs laughed herself to gasping at my expression, holding her ribs with both hands. When I stared at her uncomprehendingly, she felt the need to explain with a simple comment: "Your face!"

Her good mood was infectious enough that I felt the invisible weight on my shoulders lifting for a moment. "Thaïs, how? We haven't had power for anything besides radios for two weeks."

She had the gall to wipe away tears. "I was trying to be nice. I guess it was more insulated than I thought. I wrapped it in one of those chemical ice packs before I came up here." Thaïs grinned at me. "Looks like you've got more of a drinking problem than I do."

I looked down at my shirt, wiping some water off my chin. "I guess so." Now that I knew what I was in for, I took a few deep drinks from the water. It was a wonderful relief from the heat. "What brings you my way, anyway?"

Thaïs lost some of her teasing tone, settling into a more business-like mentality. "You're easier to find than Sostrate, so I figured I would give my report to you and hope you'll pass it along. They've lost control of the river, at least mostly, so we can break the little siege we're in. We've already gotten a couple of boats full of supplies. I figured..." She trailed off, distracted by something.