Soldier Scarred

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I would have questioned.”

  Urik snorted. “If I were still the soldier I once had been, maybe I would have questioned, but that man is no more. I have been away from him far too long to have him be useful to me anymore.”

  “And so you will blame this on the fact that you were eager for knowledge?”

  “I blame it on the fact that I don’t view the world the same way that I once did.”

  “Help me with these bodies.”

  “What you want me to do with them?”

  Endric thought about it. They couldn’t drag them out of the temple, and he didn’t want to leave them here. It didn’t seem as if they belonged within the temple. Was there something else that they could do with them?

  Endric looked back toward the fountain of fire.

  “Help me toss them there.”

  Urik’s eyes widened. “And you say that I’m defiling the temple.”

  “How does that defile anything? I’m using the fire that the gods have created to return their creation to them.”

  “That’s the kind of logic that a historian would make,” Urik said.

  “It’s the kind of practicality the soldier would say,” Endric said.

  Urik chuckled and grabbed the feet of the man who had poisoned himself. Endric grabbed the man’s arms, they dragged him over to the opening of the pit, and, with a quick heave, they tossed him in. He fell silently, and there was no sense of him striking the bottom. Endric imagined the fire swallowing him as he fell.

  The two of them went back to the chamber and grabbed each of the fallen soldiers in turn, carrying them out to the pit, where they tossed them in. They worked without saying a word, and when they were finished, Endric stood staring out at the fire.

  “It really is quite impressive,” he said.

  “There is something about this that strikes more awe into me than even the Tower in Thealon,” Urik said.

  Endric felt the same way. There was a simple beauty to the Tower. It was striking in its enormity and the way that it rose high into the sky, often obscured by clouds. With the fountain of flame, there was a different sort of simplicity to it, a different sort of majesty to it. There was no doubting the power involved in the lava pouring from above and disappearing far below. It was a column of fire, one that he couldn’t see the beginning or the ending to. He understood why the people of Salvat had worshipped it.

  “You can’t keep deceiving people for power,” Endric said.

  “This was not a deception.”

  Endric rounded on him. “This was a deception. You deceived me. Had you only told me the truth…”

  “What? Would you have offered to help?”

  “You know that I’ve been trying to help Tresten. That’s the entire purpose for this journey.”

  “There’s more to it than that. Your father sent you here for another purpose.”

  Endric sighed. “I don’t entirely know what other purpose my father sent me here for. He may have had another idea in mind, but it is hidden from me.”

  “I used to think that Dendril was too simple to outmaneuver me. It was a mistake that I made, assuming that his straightforward approach meant that he didn’t have a calculating mind. I know better now.” He looked over at Endric, catching his eyes. “Everything that has happened to you since your brother’s passing has been calculated on your father’s part.”

  “I don’t think my father intended me to head to the Antrilii lands. I’m not even sure that he intended for me to challenge him.”

  “No? Didn’t he essentially leave you with no choice? It’s almost as if he’s been playing a game with you all along.”

  “The only game that he’s been playing has been trying to keep you from destroying everything that he has vowed to protect.”

  “I made the same vow.”

  “And your vow has meant much less to you than the vow my father made.”

  “You forget that I made a vow long before I made one to the Denraen,” Urik said.

  Endric frowned. “And what does that mean?”

  “It means that I made a vow to my family and to my wife. Those vows mean much more to me than any other vow that I have made. I long ago vowed to get vengeance for what happened to them.”

  “And you would defile their memory simply to gain vengeance? Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

  “You have spoken to me about your feelings often enough that I understand exactly what you think of my decisions, but that doesn’t mean that I have broken my vows.” He spoke with more vehemence than Endric had expected and it gave him pause.

  Endric thought about the Antrilii view of his father and how he was a supposed oathbreaker, but Dendril hadn’t allowed himself to get that angry over the perception. It didn’t matter to him.

  No—that wasn’t quite right. It had mattered, only there wasn’t anything that Dendril was able to do. He took his commitment to the Denraen seriously, and he intended to continue serving.

  What Endric needed to do was find a way to connect with Urik so that he didn’t anger him. There had to be some way that he could work with Urik, convincing him that he was making a mistake by continuing this battle.

  “What do you intend to find out here?”

  Urik stared out at the fire pouring down from high overhead. “I don’t know what I will find out. I thought that coming here and understanding a piece of the history of Salvat, a place that views the gods much differently than the rest of the world, might give me insight that I wasn’t able to glean anywhere else. I still do.”

  “And the Conclave?”

  “The Conclave will have answers.” He tore his gaze away from the flames and looked over at Endric. “You view the Conclave much differently than I do.”

  “My experience with the Conclave has been with those who serve it actively.”

  “Such as Tresten?”

  “Such as Novan. Brohmin. My father.”

  “You know only a part of the Conclave. There are others—scholars—and that is the part of the Conclave that I hope to gain access to. They have knowledge that I seek.”

  “And you’ve shown that you use knowledge for power. Why should they grant you the ability to have access to that knowledge?”

  Urik sighed. “It’s not so much a granting of knowledge as it is a quest for understanding. Look at what you’ve seen here. Would you ever have believed that the people of Salvat would have such extensive temples?”

  “All people have faith in something else. I’m not surprised that this is here.”

  “Yet, what you see before you is literally thousands of years old. These people have worshipped the gods for centuries, much longer than anything that we have found in Thealon or other places in the north. Doesn’t that raise questions to you?”

  “The only questions it raises are about why the priests—or whoever that woman is—fear our presence so much.”

  “They fear it because they think that we will destroy their traditions. It’s the same thing that has happened for countless years. People who are hidden from the rest of the world get exposed and outsiders think to bring their knowledge to them, and all that it does is dilute the traditions of the past.”

  “And yet you were willing to do that?”

  “I was willing to observe. I had no interest in defiling.”

  Endric looked back, staring into the depths of the temple. There had to be other priests there. The woman had said as much. And if there were, where were they? Why weren’t they coming out to protect the temple?

  “Something is taking place on Salvat. It’s more than about simply finding the temple.”

  “Finding the temple is important,” Urik said.

  “To you. Finding the temple was important to you. But there are other things that are taking place. They have to be. There is no other explanation for it.”

  That had to be the reason that his father had urged him to come here. It was more than about helping him find a way to bring Tresten to a final
resting place. It was more than about the Conclave. There was something that his father’s informants must have known about.

  And maybe Senda had known about it.

  She had been eager for him to come this way, and had she not been injured, he suspected that she had an ulterior motive for accompanying him.

  Maybe Urik was right and that his father had manipulated things around him for years. In that way, his father wasn’t so different than Urik. He used people.

  Not people. Soldiers.

  Wasn’t that what Endric was? Wasn’t he a soldier? Wouldn’t he have wanted to be used?

  That wasn’t what bothered him. It was more about the fact that his father had used him but had not shared with him why. There had to be a reason; there had to be something that would explain what his father had wanted from him, but he didn’t yet know it.

  “What is it?” Urik asked.

  “I’m piecing things together,” Endric said.

  “What sort of things?”

  “The sort of things that help me understand my purpose.”

  “I thought your purpose was to be a soldier. I thought your purpose was to bring Tresten to Salvat and to the resting place of the Conclave. I thought your purpose was to find help for your friend.”

  “Those are the obvious purposes. It’s the less obvious ones that I think are more important.”

  Wasn’t that always the case? Wasn’t it always about him having a secondary mission? When he had gone to the Antrilii lands, what had he learned? He had helped reunite the Antrilii after arguments had separated them. He had risked himself, and he doubted that his father had intended him to do so, but maybe Dendril had known that there was a need for Endric’s presence. And he did believe that Dendril was responsible for his going after Tresten. He had kept him marginalized intentionally, using that to force Endric away from the city.

  It was all very calculating. It was all the sort of thing that he would’ve expected of Urik.

  He looked over at the man. “Have you been working with my father still?”

  Urik’s brow furrowed. “You know that I haven’t. Why do you even ask?”

  “Only because so much has been happening that I don’t have an answer for.”

  The ground rumbled again, a tremor shaking them. This one was stronger than many of the others had been, and Endric braced himself against the wall, only realizing after the tremor had passed that he had grabbed onto the sculpture of the God, holding on to the sculpture’s arm.

  Urik looked over at him, a smile spreading across his face. “I think will make a believer out of you before too long,” he said.

  “I doubt that,” Endric said.

  “What do you intend to do now?”

  “Now? I have to find what reason my father had in sending me here.”

  And it had to do with these men that Urik had encountered. Endric was certain of it.

  In order to do so, he thought that he needed to find Tresten. Then he could understand what they were after.

  Finding Tresten required an intermediary step.

  “I think it’s time for us to go,” Endric said.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  Endric cast an appraising eye at Urik. “I think we need to go where you have wanted to go all along.” Urik watched him, waiting for Endric to say more. “I think it’s time that we find the Conclave.”

  24

  At the base of the mountain, Endric stared at the bleakness all around him. The air had a heat to it that was different than what he’d experienced inside the mountain. He took a deep breath, drawing in the sulfuric air, trying to ignore the way it burned at his lungs. High overhead near the peak of the mountain, clouds swirled. There was a haze in the air that reflected the flames that spewed from the peak every so often. Thunder rumbled, and this time, he felt as if it were thunder rather than the shaking of the ground. Maybe rain would come.

  “We don’t have any way of finding the Conclave,” Urik said.

  “Other than the clues that we were given.”

  “And those clues are?”

  “They were ones my father gave us.”

  Dendril had directed him where to go when they reached Salvat, but when they had landed, the storm had come. Endric doubted that Dendril would have accounted for a storm and suspected his father wasn’t trying to be that deceptive. That meant that he intended for them to find the Conclave. Only, for Endric to do so, he would need to have some way of navigating across the barren plains of Salvat.

  “Those others know where to find the temple now.”

  “Some of them do. I am hopeful that the priests will restrict them from reaching it.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “They have protected the temple for centuries. As you’ve said, it has stood for countless years.” Endric thought that the priest had another advantage, one that perhaps the Conclave imposters did not. With their pale eyes and their potential vision to see into the darkness, it seemed as if they were uniquely equipped to prevent anyone else from getting to the temple.

  “You did something, didn’t you?” Urik asked.

  Endric smiled grimly. “For now.”

  “What did you do?”

  “The entire mountain is comprised of teralin. Most of it is neutral, and I just caused a reaction around the entrance to the cavern.”

  “What would your reaction do?”

  “If it works”—and Endric wasn’t certain that it would—”then it will trigger a collapse if someone bearing negatively charged teralin enters.”

  “You’re convinced that the men who found me carry negatively charged teralin?”

  “Their arrows were.”

  “That could be just chance. You don’t know that they were intentionally carrying negatively charged arrows.”

  “You’re smarter than that, Urik. In order to have weapons that are negatively charged, you need to have some way of charging it. Otherwise, it would have remained neutral.”

  “You have gained quite a bit of understanding with teralin.”

  “I have quite a bit of experience with it now.”

  “Such as your sword?”

  Endric glanced at his sheathed blade. “My sword, among other things.”

  “What other things?”

  “I have no intention of sharing all of my secrets with you, Urik. Isn’t that the same response you would have given me?” Endric smiled as he said it, but Urik met his smile with a frown.

  “You continually accuse me of deception, yet every time I ask you a question about your experiences, you refuse to answer. How is that any different than what you accuse me of?”

  “I’m not deceiving you. I’m telling you what truth I can, which is not everything. Unfortunately, there are things that I have experienced that I can’t share with you or even with those who are closest to me. In spite of how much of they would like to know.”

  “Perhaps there will come a time when the two of us can work together without such disagreement between us.”

  “I don’t know that there will,” Endric said. “With everything that you have put me and my family through, I don’t know that we’ll ever be friends.”

  “We don’t have to be friends for us to be allies.”

  “Fine. Then we can be allies. I haven’t refused an alliance with you. In fact, I have counted on having an alliance with you in order for us to find the Conclave.”

  “Yet, you don’t—or won’t—tell me certain things that will help me. There is much that I know that could be useful.”

  Endric glanced over but chose to say nothing as he continued across the plain. It was unfortunate that he had abandoned the horse, sending her back to Elaniin. Without her, they would be walking the entire distance. Endric didn’t look forward to such a walk, especially as he didn’t know how long it would take to reach the Conclave—if they even did. And when they did, from there, they might have additional marching to do.

  They paused at a small pool, and Endric did
n’t hesitate to drink. Urik watched him, a curious expression on his face.

  “Are you sure that water is safe? This close to the volcano, you’re likely drinking ash and other debris that rains down from it.”

  “Probably. And it’s infused with teralin.”

  “Teralin?”

  Endric nodded. This wasn’t nearly as bitter as the other pool—the one that he considered a primary pool—but it still had enough of a bite to it that Endric suspected it was laced with a reasonable amount of teralin.

  “If it’s infused with teralin, then that’s even more reason not to drink it,” Urik said.

  “That’s your choice. I am choosing to drink when I can. It’s been far too long since I had enough to drink.” The water did little to sate his appetite, but he used the opportunity to refill his water skin, not wanting to wander indefinitely before they found another pool like this. He didn’t know how common they were out on the plains.

  “There are other pockets of water, Endric.”

  Endric glanced over. “You know this?”

  “When I was traveling with the others, they avoided these pools. They claimed they were toxic.”

  “I hope that’s not the case,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I brought Senda to one of these.”

  “Teralin doesn’t have any healing properties. Why would you think to bring her to it?”

  Endric sighed. This was one of those times when he could share with Urik, and there would be no consequences—other than having Uric think him mad. “I had a vision.”

  Urik started to smile but stopped. “You had a vision?”

  Endric nodded. “Everything that occurred in the vision has come true. I thought that if nothing else, I would bring Senda to the same place that I saw in my vision. I don’t know if there’s anything that it can do to help her, but the Teachers weren’t able to help her, either.”

  “I was wrong,” Urik said.

  “About what?”

  “About you. You already have found the faith that you were missing.”

  “Have I? I don’t think that it was a matter of faith.”

  “Faith is trusting something that you can’t prove. You don’t have faith in the Urmahne, yet you believe in the gods despite not ever seeing one. You had enough faith to trust that this vision would help your friend despite having no evidence that it would.”