by Jackson Lear
Anger spilled out of Torunn. “You want to die now? To stop your lies? We are forty and you are one.”
“We could be sixty against Draegor’s cavalry or you could be forty without us. My people know how to fight riders. From what I saw in Faersrock, they’re better at it than you.” I gave them a moment to simmer. “Think carefully.”
I found a rock to sit on halfway between the squabbling northerners and uncertain vanguard. The clouds started to lift, sunk again, rose once more, then completely obscured the tree that was only ten feet away. I reached into my pouch for some meat. Chastised myself for not remembering that my pouch was empty the last time I dug into it. Considered chewing on a piece of leather to suck some flavor out of it.
This situation was probably one of those annoying quandaries that Alysia loved to explore. If the northerners agreed to help us then they are up to no good. If they refused we could trust them. Politicians love that crap. Soldiers don’t. Mercenaries would start renegotiating our payday or find something less complicated to be involved in.
I waited. Wished I had taken Draegor’s fur cloak as well as his gloves. I also wish Agnarr had actually caught a moose for our arrival. A spectacle like that would’ve helped convince me that we were actually expected to arrive and that our arrival was welcomed. And it would’ve given me a chance to fill my pouch and not have to sit on a mountain days later with my stomach growling at me.
Crunch crunch cruch.
Ithka jolted when he caught sight of me. Settled. “Jarmella?”
“This way.”
Two minutes later we stood in front of the vanguard, half of them stirring from an hour long nap, the other half still too wired to actually sleep. The young northerner looked over all of us quickly. Held his hand out to Jarmella. “Torunn says Agnarr trusts Miss Kasera.”
She shook his hand. The kid ran back to his people. Jarmella looked my way. “Agnarr trusts us?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Why does it sound like a problem?”
“Do we trust him?”
“No.”
“Do we trust anyone up here?”
“No.”
“So why should he trust us?”
Jarmella stared back at the kid running into the white-out. “We’re still trapped up here with them.”
“Which gives us the advantage.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because if their plan has gone to hell then they’re going to have to be a lot more cautious about when to strike.”
“Forgive me for not sharing your optimism.”
I held my wrists together, waiting to be re-roped.
“Not anymore. I need you in the lead.”
“With Wilbur pinned to my ass?”
“No. Me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Not really. You’re my defensive line and I don’t want them to be the only ones playing mind games.”
Chapter Forty
Miles dragged on. Day turned to dusk. The clouds smothered us completely, turning the whole mountain top white and reducing our visibility down to twenty yards. I could make out half of the vanguard behind me and only one of the northerners in front. The hunters in both groups had found a couple of light tracks in the snow. Came back empty handed. Stomachs rumbled, roiled, and stung, screaming at our own ineptitude for not being able to feed ourselves.
Our vampire had been a delirious for hours, murmuring from under her gag and pointing this way and that. The northerners refused to help us any further with the stretchers. It seemed like a fight we weren’t going to win so we didn’t make an issue out of it.
The sun continued to fall, changing the color of the sky from a murky gray to a plunging black. Jarmella gave the okay to use hooded lanterns. They were the size of a single mug of ale and illuminated next to nothing, but I was told you could still read by one if you didn’t mind straining your eyes. Mostly, she didn’t want anyone getting lost among the thick cloud cover. I imagine the sight from above would’ve looked like glow worms as we threaded our way through the uneven snowcapped mountain forest.
We stopped for five minutes. Gathered snow into our skins so that it would melt into water, reapplied bandages to our feet, and had a chance to finally sit after hours of ducking tree branches and tripping over hidden roots. Heads started to droop. Eyelids fell. Someone shifted in the snow and everyone around them jolted awake again.
“Gaynun, you watching the rear?”
“Nothing’s there.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I just looked.”
Elgrid scooped up some snow. Fashioned it into a ball. Hurled it into the back of Gaynun’s head. Gaynun barely reacted, turning slowly to death stare whoever threw the wet missile at him.
Odeh held a patch of snow against his eyes. Breathed in. Shook himself awake. Kilmur stretched, warming himself up as best he could before shivering once again. Ewen started sharpening his sword. Schnick. Saskia murmured. Schnick. Aedalis stood facing a tree, trying to take a piss and finding it impossible to do so. Schnick.
“Ewen?” mumbled Otario.
“Hmm?”
“Knock it off.”
Schnick. Otario’s shoulders rose with agitation. Schnick. And again.
Saskia murmured. “… erik …” Pointed to the east.
Five minutes turned into ten. Jarmella held her eyes closed as she massaged her temples.
“… erik …”
“Will someone shut her up?” said Benar.
Schnick.
“Ewen! For fuck’s sake! Knock it off!”
I glanced to Adalyn. She had locked eyes with me and looked as defeated as they came. I nodded to Jarmella as she started squeezing the sides of her feet through her boots. I sent Adalyn a signal: you, Jarmella, over there.
Adalyn trudged forward. Knelt in front of Jarmella. “Need some help?” She squeezed Jarmella’s other foot. Jarmella wheezed from the relief. Started listening to whatever Adalyn had to say.
Ten minutes turned into fifteen.
Odalis slapped himself in the face. Sprung to his feet. “Okay, that’s long enough. Everyone up! Dicks in. Pants on. Boots up. Anyone leaves anything behind and you’ll be fighting mountain wolves with your fists. Up! Up! Up! Or do you want to hear me whistle again? Ivar? Come on. Up.”
It took an eternity but Ivar managed to climb to his feet.
“Let’s go! If no one else stands in the next five seconds I’m going to whistle as loud as I can and bring everything on this mountain down on top of us. All I need is one person. Five … Otario, is it going to be you? Four … come on Otario. Three …”
Otario rolled onto his knees. Climbed to his feet.
“Next person up. Four … three … two …”
Ewen stood.
“Five more in three … two …”
Aedalis, Leif, and Gilmero staggered to their feet.
“That’s only three of you. Everyone else? You’ve been as lazy as hell. Two seconds … One …” He shoved his fingers into his mouth.
“All right all right all right!” half of them cried. Slowly – and painfully slowly at that – the rest of the vanguard were up and ready to go. Even Jarmella. “Thank you.”
“Just doing my job.” Odalis went to Saskia’s stretcher. Lifted it up with Leif, Gilmero, and Kilmur’s help.
Jarmella watched him carefully. No doubt decided it was best to help with Benar’s stretcher. I took that as my cue to help Elgrid with Dalo.
We bumped into the back of the northerners. Several of them continued sharpening their blades while we waited. A howl of wolves drifted our way. A few miles to the north. Just what we needed. The bearded archer lifted his wolf-skin cloak tighter around his neck. Double checked the quiver hanging by his waist. Squinted into the darkness.
Torunn ignored me completely. Strode over to Jarmella. Spent some time talking to her quietly while the rest of his people slowly got a move on. When they were done he left Jarmella be
and joined the rest of his kin.
“What was that about?” asked Dalo from his stretcher.
“Not sure. Maybe I hurt Torunn’s feelings.”
We carried on walking.
“Sir?” mumbled Dalo. “Raike, sir?”
“Easy on the sirs, Dalo.”
“Sorry. My father’s name was also sir so I know how embarrassing that can be.” He grinned. Faltered. Faded. “Someone in Anglaterra said there were werewolves up here.”
Elgrid muttered in front of me. “Werewolves don’t like the snow, numbnuts.”
“Well, they’re not always werewolves are they? Sometimes they’re human.”
“Who told you they were up here?”
“One of Lavarta’s guys.”
“Did he mention dragons as well? Or trolls?”
“Trolls are real,” said Dalo.
“Never said they weren’t. It’s just no one’s ever seen one.”
“General Renair has.”
“Good for him.”
“And you’re more likely to find a troll than a vampire.”
“Well yeah … one is fifteen feet tall and the other isn’t.”
“Would be pretty cool watching one crumble to dust in the sunlight when they’re dead,” said Dalo.
“Maybe all these mountains are just dead trolls.”
“Maybe.”
“Also sounds like a good way of killing off some of your people if you don’t like them. ‘Oh, sorry sir, Gids went after a troll. It killed him and we killed it but there’s no proof that we got it so you’ll just have to take our word that Gids died fighting a troll.’”
Another chorus of howls broke across the mountain, chilling everyone around us.
“That was a werewolf,” said Dalo.
“Werewolves don’t howl,” I said. “They growl, they snarl, they cough and whatever else, but they don’t howl like wolves. You should get some rest.”
“I’ve been resting for the last two days, sir.”
“That was a code, Dalo,” said Elgrid.
Dalo leaned back in his stretcher, apologetic and now with nothing to look at. I gave in. “So apparently you’re one of the best hunters we have up here.”
A hopeful curiosity came over him. “Who said that?”
“Your commanding officer. I assume you have commendations or the like.”
Now he was overwhelmed with a smile. “Yes sir. I was selected for the open archers competition last year in Torne. Two thousand army archers all together over four days. It was incredible. I heard you were in Torne a while ago.”
“Four months ago.”
“Ah, you just missed it.”
“By another six months,” muttered Elgrid.
“How’d you do?” I asked.
“I got a hundred and ninety five points at two hundred yards.”
“What does that mean?”
“There are seven rounds. You get three arrows per round. The best half in each round move onto the next round. Your scores are all added up together. You get ten points for hitting the target dead on and five points for hitting the yellow outer part. I got a hundred and ninety five points out of a possible two hundred and ten. Lieutenant Gustali personally congratulated me on behalf of the governor.”
“That must’ve been something.”
“It was. One day when he becomes a general or a governor I will be able to milk that story for all it’s worth.”
“You’ve been milking already,” said Elgrid.
“I’m just doing it now to get the wording right, don’t you worry about me.”
As annoying as it was, I found myself trying to keep his spirits up. I didn’t quite realize it would be with a horror story but he was scared so I delivered. “Trolls are real. They decay exceptionally quickly when they’re killed and do look like they crumble into chunks of rock. Sunlight and fire just speeds it up. Do you know why you rarely see werewolves in their human form?”
“No.” Even Elgrid craned his head around to listen in.
“It’s because they are so mangled and crippled from the attack that turned them into one that it’s obvious what they are. Even if you’ve never seen one before you’ll know that this person should not be alive with their wounds. Their face will be slashed open and it will never heal. Their arms and legs are torn apart, leaving them to hobble for the rest of their lives. Most become deranged by it, their minds turning to poison while their strength becomes overwhelmingly stronger. Really, the only time you see one in human form is when they have just been turned, trying to make it back to town. They’re ripped apart and begging for help but no one will come anywhere near them. The locals know what they are and will do whatever they can to chase them away. The new werewolf believes they can fight it or if they lock themselves in a cage they won’t injure anyone. And while it might work they are still horribly disfigured for the rest of their lives, having to wear masks over their faces and never leave any patch of skin exposed again. Only the rich can keep on going like that. The poor don’t stand a chance and will be shunned. Another problem is their personality starts to change. They’re pack animals that don’t do well with isolation. They want to mate. They want companionship. Turn even the most hardened philosopher into a werewolf and they will soon lust after someone else. But who? A complete stranger? No. Not for your first victim. You’ll choose someone who means a good deal to you. Your husband or wife, or the one you think about when you’re with them. Whoever you choose it will be because you have an animalistic connection to them. You approach. Are rejected. Approach again. Rejected again, only now there’s a pattern forming and your target is scared. They bring support – someone who will defend them against you. But this is madness. All you want to do is prove that there is something primal between you two and you need to be together. Everyone is shouting, telling you that if you come any closer they’ll kill you. But you’re fast. And strong. And the only way this ends in your favor is if you turn them into a werewolf just like you.”
Dalo gulped. His forehead glistening with a faint trace of sweat.
“Unfortunately, the transformation never takes. It never does for the first few times. You end up killing everyone you desired and there is nothing you can do about it.”
We reached a sharp incline, requiring us to lift Dalo up at a steep angle before carrying on.
“Vampires are the same. You have new powers and emotions running through you that you can’t control. You want revenge? It’s against someone you know. You want to seduce someone? It’s someone you know. It’s what you now live for. Why bother watching an unknown scream in fear when you can target that asshole who made your life a misery? Why romance some unknown when you can go after the one you never stopped thinking about?”
Dalo blew out a long, nervous breath. “Maybe we should be fighting trolls instead of vampires or werewolves.”
“Give it time,” muttered Elgrid. “We were already on the edge of civilization in Anglaterra and now look where we are. You think this is going to be our only trip up here? Nope. Now we’re experienced … in the very loosest sense of the word.”
“I think by now it’s off the books,” said Dalo.
“Yeah, at this point no one really has a choice in that. If we die up here we die. No rites of funeral. We’ll be drifting through the world trying to find our way out, only to realize that we’re stuck together for the rest of time. If we’re caught, Ispar will ask the general what the hell he was thinking. If he was a senator he might be able to win them over but he’s not. He’ll have to either wash his hands of us completely and we end up court martialed for the rest of our lives, or he accepts full blame for this whole thing going wrong and everything under his command will be disbanded. Either way, there’s no citizenship waiting for us by the time we get chewed out. You might as well work on that story about shaking Gustali’s hand ‘cause unless we go on a full blown phoenix operation that story is going to be your only source of income if we ever make it back.”
; Silence fell.
“What exactly is a phoenix operation?”
Elgrid glanced back. “I’m sorry, sir. I got a little carried away.”
More silence.
“What is it?”
“It’s … I mean no disrespect, sir, it’s just a pre-emptive way of army command washing their hands of a colossal fuck up.”
“Dalo?”
The archer tried to bury himself into his stretcher. “I shouldn’t say, sir … I mean Raike. Not Raike … just not ‘sir’. Sorry. Habit.”
“Fine time for you fellas to suddenly become tongue tied. Is it as bad as I think it is?”
“Worse,” said Elgrid.
“How so?”
“I shouldn’t say anything while Jarmella is nearby,” whispered Elgrid.
I looked to Dalo.
“I might get some rest.”
“Spit it out.”
“It’s … just you’ve made threats in the past about chopping off our arms and legs and feeding them to Saskia.”
“And our balls,” said Elgrid.
“Yes sir, and I like my balls. So with all of that in mind … it’s when a mission goes so badly that you have to burn it to the ground and come up with something new – while the mission is going on.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“Because you have to guarantee that no one – not even your enemies – remember the first mission you were on, only the new one. Which means it has to be so big and attention seeking that if we get caught by the enemy there’s no ransom, only death. And if we get caught by Ispar there’s no discharge, there’s only death.”
“Why so extreme?”
Dalo chewed on his lips for a moment. “Okay. Say we’re in enemy territory without authorization and through no fault of our own, the king of that territory happened to die through non-natural causes. Like it or not, questions will be asked and heads will roll. Our heads, mostly. So we come up with something new as a way of controlling the damage. ‘We were never here’ doesn’t always work because sometimes you’re seen by the enemy and they know exactly who you are so instead you go with: ‘we were never here but renegades were and they were posing as us to stir up trouble. They’re the ones responsible.’ Of course, to pull that off convincingly you need to make a spectacle so great that even your enemy believes the imperial army was never here and those responsible were in fact … you know.” Dalo fell quiet. Elgrid glanced over, then decided the better of it.