Free The Cache by Philip José Farmer

reached manhood, he fought the arch-enemy of mankind, Lu, the giant cannibal from the Northern Seas. Lu had split Kaywo with his sword and left him for dead. But their mother Biycha, had restored them to life. Now two individuals, they fought Lu again and killed him and buried him on the very spot where the statue was. Then they built the city of Kaywo, prophesying before they died that Kaywo, though small then, would some day grow big enough to rule the world.
    Around the Circle of the Wolf were the Pwez Paleh (the President’s Palace), the Temple of the First (a colossal flat-topped pyramid), and many governmental buildings. A mile past the Circle, the wagon stopped at the entrance to the Kaywo Legions. Here, Benoni and Zhem were taken into a barracks. They were put in the care of a tough sergeant charged with shaping the “wild-men” into disciplined soldiers.
    Benoni had expected to be called before the usspika (the Speaker of the House of Kefl’wiy) at once. But weeks went past, and he was busy from sunrise to sunset with drill, arms instruction, indoctrination, parade, weapons-cleaning and sharpening. There was, however, no kitchen duty. Slaves performed that menial task.
    The days were getting shorter, and the nights were colder. Benoni asked Zhem about the winters. He knew what intense cold and high snows meant. As part of the toughening every Fiiniks youth went through, he had spent several winters in the mountains to the far northwest of Fiiniks. But he had not liked it, and the prospect of being sent off to garrison duty in some remote snowbound forest made him wonder if he should not desert now. How could he serve Fiiniks by doing such duty?
    Zhem replied that, when he was a very little boy, he had been told by his grandfather that winter had once been very cold and snowy. But they had been getting warmer for a long time now. If the increasingly temperate weather kept on getting more temperate, a man would not be able to tell when summer left off and winter began.
    Oh, Benoni would see some snow, and he would freeze his buttocks off at night on maneuvers. But it was not too bad.
    A few weeks after this conversation, the recruits were given a weekend pass. Before they were released from the walls surrounding the Legion Grounds, their sergeant, Giyfa, told them exactly what they could and could not do. Specific about their limitations, Giyfa was even more detailed about what would happen to them if they strayed outside the proper area and behavior of a rookie wild-man on leave. Punishment, varying according to the degree of offense, ranged from a light flogging of ten strokes of the lash to beheading. However, it was better to lose one’s head than be roasted slowly over a fire. And so on.
    Giyfa advised that, if they had to find a release for their cooped-up spirits, they should not stray outside the Funah section of the riverfront. This area, inhabited mainly by the very poor, sailors, resident foreign merchants, traders, and ex-slaves, was more tolerant of wild-men’s actions. Moreover, a crime committed there was not as grave as one elsewhere. Provided, of course, that no Kaywo citizen of reasonable wealth or standing was offended or injured.
    “You think Giyfa meant all that?” said Benoni to Zhem as they left the barracks.
    “I hope we never find out,” replied Zhem. “You know what a mean man he is with a whip. He could take every inch of your skin off with ten strokes.”
    Benoni looked at the pay in hand. Twenty new hexagonal steel coins. Stamped on one side with the eagle profile of the late Pwez of Kaywo and on the other with the two-headed wolf and the rayed eye of Kaywo’s god, the First. “We can’t do much with this,” Benoni said.
    “When we run out, we can always take some from a drunk,” said Zhem. “Catch him in some dark alley.”
    Benoni said, “Be thieves?”
    “You don’t mind robbing an enemy, do you?”
    “But we are guests,” said Benoni. “In a way, that is. You