A Mist of Grit and Splinters

by Graydon Saunders

  Oh ho.

  “You cannot be spared. General Chert informs me it would not be wise to inquire of the graul in the Army of the Western Hills.”

  There’s an eyebrow quirk with that, meant for a question. “Do you wish these graul taught that their ultimate obligation is Laurel’s service?”

  Both eyebrows, and a little shock. “No.”

  “General Chert is entirely correct.”

  The Book-gesith makes an elegant, understated, and quite complex series of motions with their hands. I wonder what a conspecific would make of it.

  “Have Shadow teach them.” That gets me many more eyebrows and Chert making half a sign against evil.

  “Graul were made to serve.” Not at all tactful from the Peace-gesith’s fylstan, but more tactful than laying out the whole concern for rule of sorcerers.

  “Shadow ate who I commanded them to eat, fighting the Sea People. We may now read the texts of the Sea People. Shadow and Shadow’s fellows contain that eaten mind for the remainder of their existence. Worth it, for the Commonweal. Shadow didn’t question.” Not quite, from what Shadow says, a living mind. Whole enough that it could be, if Shadow wished and the law allowed.

  Chert is nodding slowly. Both sergeant-majors are carefully blank. The Book-gesith looks upset and the Peace-gesith fylstan is an Amazon. Amazons look happy all the time, perhaps unless you are one.

  “You assert that the Independent Shadow would not seek to have the service of these graul.” The Book-gesith has doubts.

  “Graul were made to serve pre-eminent sorcerers. One reason graul in the First Commonweal keep apart is to avoid capable Independents.” Quizzical, well, let us have questions and not horror from the gesith. “The determination to await Laurel’s return is a source of misery and awkwardness.”

  Everyone’s face says they’ll go that far, and maybe a little further. It’s something like a religion.

  “I serve the Commonweal. It may not be a readily available philosophical insight.” Let us be tactful and reference small sample sizes instead of history. “If I cannot impart this insight, and there are no regular teachers — ” I’m being asked — “give them Shadow. Shadow believes in the Commonweal. They will seek to serve Shadow and find the Commonweal.”

  Chert starts to laugh, stops, starts, stops.

  “You’re serious.” The Book-gesith isn’t laughing.

  “It will not take Shadow long to speak to them.” I make what I hope is not purely the Creek gesture for ‘some things are necessary’. “Shadow has a grasp of the graul sensorium. Anyone clumsy with their tail — ” and I shrug. “Obviously and entirely accepting the Commonweal sets an example.”

  “Better to send Rule than Death or Victory.” The Line fylstan, slow and thoughtful. “You — ” a look specifically to me — “wished to formalize Shadow as an officer?”

  I nod. “The standards so regard them.” The standards, and the Wapentake.

  “They’re qualified.” Chert growls it; Chert doesn’t like the Wapentake part. “You’re thinking Shadow will need to speak for the Line?”

  “Graul will ask about fighting.” Everyone very carefully does not nod. ‘Being so made’ is not politely recognized.

  “Graul,” the Book-gesith says, “have asked about the increase of their number. They were told that this must wait on education.”

  I wait. My face doesn’t do anything.

  “It is the consensus of the gesiths that waiting does not well-serve the Commonweal.” The Book-gesith looks determined. Typicals look determined rhetorically, but I think this is real. “It is eight years before young simiform graul come out of the water, and at least twenty for ophidiform graul. Any concerns of education can be addressed in such time.”

  Chert, who ran the opposition for some of Shadow’s warrant-of-commission sand-table exercises, doesn’t keep their face still. Shadow won’t put language skills directly into anyone’s mind. Shadow won’t haunt anyone with spectres chanting the syllabus, or vocabulary exercises, or times-tables. Shadow is carefully, consciously lawful. This shall not save from learning anyone the Book-gesith requires Shadow to educate.

  “Our new citizens have expressed a strong preference that you should contribute to their reproduction.” The Line-gesith fylstan. “Yet this involves risk and time.”

  “Slow enjoys the confidence of the Wapentake.” An old and formal phrase, sometimes said in hope. Factual today.

  There’s a pause. Everyone’s read the statistics and not any of the details.

  “Nor do I possess any desire to emulate Einar Swiftedge.” Called Thrice-bred, and notable for having survived twice. “Simiform contributors fail to survive in conditions where the currents in the water lapse.”

  “Gates at both ends,” Chert says. Maybe Chert read the details.

  “Do you possess a desire to so contribute?” The Line-gesith fylstan, stance and tone formal.

  “I would accept an honour offered few.” Presuming my fellow graul in the Line don’t kill me first; not an honour the dead may receive. Mustn’t smile that smile, those who’d understand’d be worse than those who wouldn’t.

  D-Day Minus 1005

  Year of Peace 544, Vendémiaire, Thirteenth Day (Early Fall)

  Sergeant-Major Brisket looks like a Creek archetype. They are no taller than the regular run of Creek men; their width and thickness gives them about twice the mass expected for a regular Creek lad notably fit.

  Brisket’s famously robust equanimity departs from the archetype. Brisket is not the grim warrior of old stories nor the modern solitary worker at a materially challenging trade.

  Brisket had been a platoon sergeant in the Second of the Tenth; they had not been on the March North, but had seen hell-things. After the Second Commonweal’s Line formally existed, Brisket had requested a transfer to the Wapentake. Initially doubtful Wapentake veterans decided hell-things would do. The Captain had been pleased to see them. They’ve been the First’s sergeant-major since the First was established.

  The Old Line custom that the sergeant-majors of a battalion make a short file for dining purposes has been kept in the First. It might be a table in a corner and physically distant from the rest of the mess in garrison in the First Commonweal; Below the Edge, in an open camp, it’s much less formal. There are enough rocks to sit on. That’s not a reliable expectation, Below the Edge.

  The social space gets maintained; this is not a close camp. Everyone in the group of six is facing in. You’d need a strong reason to come up and interrupt.

  “We ain’t supposed to go about expending standard-captains.” It’s a conversational voice. It doesn’t go with Knicknack’s body language. They’re Fierce’s sergeant-major, and used to part-captain Knives, which makes the tense posture notable.

  “Anybody else do the reading?” Brisket keeps it a real question.

  “Tried.” Thorn’s new sergeant-major. Part-Captain Grim’s maintained equanimity. Steady’s been trying in several directions. Meek’s not easy to replace. No one expects Grim to replace Slow, not as you could maybe expect Steady to replace Meek. “Bunch of ophidiform graul lay eggs in water, early in the fall. Come mid-summer those’re established in the water. One simiform graul volunteers, goes into the water, and melts. What melts off them turns mobile and hungry. An established egg eats it. Years later you’ve got a graul kid.”

  “The simiform graul don’t always survive.” Knicknack again. “Didn’t know there were two kinds of graul until we found some.”

  “I wrote the Independent Ongen.” Brisket’s equanimity entirely suffices the looks they get. “It ain’t quite safe, the first time; the current’s got to be steady, the ritual’s got to be right. Given that, it ain’t lethal itself. Second can be, third will be; more dissolves.”

  “Ain’t our choice to say.” Trifle’s not entirely successful keeping their voice conversational, instead of firm. “We get some say in setting the watch.”

  “You thinking Prowess?�
�� Steady’s best effort doesn’t quite make it a real question.

  Sergeant-Instructor Prowess tried to kill the Captain after the March, from what the Wapentake has concluded were more graul reasons than personal.

  “Or another one. The eggs ain’t in the water, but there’s arrangements being made. That news’ll spread.” Trifle nearly hisses. “It’s more religion than politics, the Captain’ll say that. Don’t know, don’t need to know. Don’t care to see it made politics.” It would be a lot of politics. An awareness of just how much leaks out of Trifle, past their intent.

  “Got some thoughts about that,” Brisket says. Everyone leans in.

  D-Day Minus 768

  Year of Peace 544, Prairial, Tenth Day (Late Spring)

  Duckling

  A regular focus doesn’t give you much if you’re on the push; lots, well-most, of regular focuses it’s just evenness comes back so you know how hard you ought to push yourself. A battle-standard’s not quite all there, there’s stuff you can’t do unless you’re the standard-captain assigned, but you can’t tell that stuff’s there when you’re latched. Latched looks like everything’s there. Get interested in the funny feeling and the standard will show you. Get practiced and the standard will show you what it sees, whole and entire.

  That’s why Fire shows up in armour only when the First in Authority ought, rather than could.

  I know why, about the standards; devising some means to restrict access that’s smart enough to tell who is and who isn’t mind-controlled by an enemy sorcerer or still a mind apprehending the material situation isn’t practical. If it’s possible it’d mean standards harder to make, and there’s full few to make a standard just as there are. You fit yourself into a battalion and hope you never need to do more job than custom assigns you. You get skilled because hope isn’t a plan, and we don’t know who is going to have to take the bubble someday, bubble or front or the periph.

  Fire’s here today. I went down below the Edge with Ogive of the First, whose turn it was to fetch supplies. It’s ambiguous whether ‘Signaller’ means what ‘adjutant’ means, but it ain’t no sort of ambiguous who’s responsible for shifting dispatches.

  Just me; the Second’s Colour Party’s attending on Slow as it ought. Fire showed up on the way down like they’d always been there and always worn armour. It was a startlement to the whole of Ogive. Now there’s nobody right here who weren’t on the March but Brisket. Not like I know what’s going on. Someone’s arranged a big space in the midst of the camp. Camp’s up on some smooth rock just tall enough to call an outcrop, so easier than down in the wet. Rock’s damp, watery sunlight notwithstanding.

  The Captain does that thing with their face they mean to look inquisitive.

  “Begging the Captain’s pardon,” Brisket says, “it’s the consensus of those in authority in the Wapentake that the full-captains of the First and Second are habitually out of uniform.”

  Brisket’s looking entirely bland. Fire’s looking like nothing.

  “In what particular?” The Captain sounds blander than Brisket’s looking, and the Captain sounds like it’s all accident. The Captain was a sergeant and a sergeant-major in the Old Line for thereabouts of fifty years. They don’t often remind you.

  “Line regulations are clear that the Full-Captain should carry a signaller’s wand.” Brisket produces one. Lots of room down the back of Brisket’s armour-smock.

  The Captain takes it, strangely tentative.

  Signaller’s wands are a metre long by regulation with one end white and one end red. This has the look, an extra couple decimetres, a touch of curve, as a wand oughtn’t, and a swept hilt. If a hilt, then the rest’s a scabbard; the chape’s the white end, like milk poured on a mirror. The hilt fixtures look redder than copper and as dull as dirt. The hilt wrapping’s wire in the same tones. It’d be a passable signaller’s wand, if we still used signaller’s wands. Haven’t got one. Never seen Chert with one.

  “Ensign Shadow.” The Captain’s entirely conversational. Shadow’s standing beside Fire. No walking up, they’re just there. Weren’t there before.

  The Captain’s got the purported signaller’s wand gripped under the hilt where the frog ought to go on the scabbard. They make enough of a motion with it that Shadow will unquestionably know what’s meant. “What is this?”

  “Flexion, resilience, slickness, and obduracy in various proportions.” Shadow’s tone and face are entirely pleasant and helpful. Everybody in the First got skilled at never looking at Shadow with the focus. Still got the reflex. “In the blade, those support cut and slicing. The point has pierce instead of slicing.” There’s words back of what Shadow’s saying, nearly shuddersome.

  Shadow makes a deprecatory gesture. “The grip has some metal wire, and some held. The furniture has bounce and immutability with the obduracy.” No idea why the real names don’t always echo into what Shadow’s saying. Wouldn’t mind never-ever of that. Wouldn’t mind not knowing, certain-sure knowing, you could take the focus and push the smooth swept hilt through an anvil and never scuff the finish.

  The Captain makes a small head-motion that sends anybody closer than four metres back. There’s a small shifting of feet, but only Brisket really needs to step back. When the Captain grips the hilt, there’s a pause. Whatever expression that Captain has, it’s a graul one.

  Fire waves the feather they’re holding. Chicken tail plume; half a metre long and iridescent and soft. There’s a fraction of a nod from the Captain, and Fire flicks the feather forward. Shouldn’t work; no one tells the feather. It shoots up and out along a straight course to stop well over head high, then it moves like it ought, loose and twisting as it falls.

  The feather falls in two pieces. The Captain’s hand’s off the hilt, the other loose on the scabbard, loose and easy and conversational. Smells like the hiss from an oiled hone. The standard could slow it down enough you could see how what happened.

  Your eyes will tell you the feather halves on the ground got split down the length of the quill, bird-end last. Even a careful look with the standard won’t tell you how that happened, cut down the curl as it fell rolling, cut with the corner where the top of the point and the yelman join.

  Wouldn’t try that with a short knife and the feather in a clamp.

  The Captain’s got a different graul expression. “There is a social significance to providing graul with swords.”

  “Line-gesith’s job.” Brisket’s produced some paperwork. “Formally procured and issued for evaluation.” Sergeant-majors have armour smocks with a paperwork pocket. Brisket’s smocks have four.

  Brisket found some old books in the armoury library. Chert’s been getting correspondence using a succession of obsolete honourifics from the False Peace. So have Line-gesith clerks. Brisket claims the point is to find those who will go find a reference book and answer in kind. If it can get a single sword formally issued, something’s working.

  “What do you propose to issue Slow?” The Captain’s voice is just a bit too even, taking the paperwork from Brisket. “Crinoline?”

  “Creek-style war-sword.” Brisket’s entirely serious. Ought to be a spear for Slow. Brisket tips a hand at Fire.

  Fire doesn’t quite smile. “None of it’s got anything to do with the Power once it’s made.”

  Brisket does the little pause of decorum. “Crinoline’s expressed that the Fourth of the Twelfth may prefer to wait on a general directive.” Entirely properly neutral.

  “Don’t want to be opening biscuit-boxes with something made out of keenness.” Every time Lolly says anything, my brain goes ‘Lolly’s a part-captain’. It was Lollygaggle because they didn’t take the Line particular serious before they survived the March from a start in One Platoon. Now they’ve got Robust’s banner and no one’s complaining.

  “Nor do we, sir.” Brisket’s a bit formal. “Don’t imagine these will ever be issued but to graul.”

  “In the Western Hills?” The Captain’s quite sure Brisket thinks th
is is a real question.

  “That’d be pending your evaluation, Captain.” Nothing about Brisket suggests there’s anything the least bit untoward. “Line-gesith doesn’t see a need to address supply absent a recommendation to adopt.”

  “For five hundred and fifty-eight years standard-captains have not themselves borne weapons.”

  “The March succeeded because you picked up swords,” Fire says. “Slow’s skilled with a spear.” ‘Or the Fight Below the Edge would have gone much worse’ doesn’t need to be said aloud. Slow weren’t a standard-captain then, but what happened to Thorn happens to battalions.

  “Success does not have single causes.” The Captain sounds just a little wry. It’s an axiom of the officer’s curriculum and not a subtle point to be making.

  Everyone here remembers the stacks of corpses. Consensus don’t budge.

  “Let us not be concerned for unlikely chances.” Crisp’s the First’s piper. Anybody with a battle-standard advanced silent for five hundred and fifty years, and that change was the Captain’s.

  The standard of the First eats the paperwork the Captain was holding as the Captain looks at Shadow. Shadow hands them a sword belt, waits until the Captain has the belt on and the very specific sword in the frog. Then Shadow hands them the graul-style targe. Graul bucklers are little and ovate and edged and if you’re not graul you don’t pick one up. They’re for punching holes and pulling guts out the hole, more critter-team than Line.

  Graul-style targes aren’t edged or spiked or sharp; the symmetry’s not a spherical section, more like an egg the long way. Looks round from the front. The Captain hefts it once and passes it into the standard without any more hesitation or looking than sheathing the sword got.

  “When does the Line-gesith expect to receive an evaluation, Sergeant-Major?”

  “Gesith didn’t set a date.” Brisket manages a completely natural smile. “The view was expressed that an evaluation prior to some operational use would be premature.”