The Magelands Origins

by Christopher Mitchell

  She felt a crippling blow to her left arm and side, and fell to the ground, crying out in pain. She clasped her shattered limb with her other hand as excruciating agony tore through her, enveloping her every thought.

  She closed her eyes.

  Chapter 5

  Fractured

  River Tritos, Sanang – 22nd Day, First Third Summer 503

  The sun is shining overhead, and a warm wind blows across the plain, rustling the long summer grasses. Daphne runs, holding out her hands to either side, brushing them through the few remaining stems of blue and yellow wild flowers. She is wearing a dress, and her legs and feet are bare. As she approaches the top of a small incline, she can hear the noise, thundering and pounding. The powerful roar frightens her, but she finds it comforting at the same time. She reaches the prow of the gentle hill and stands there, gazing out over the endless savannah. Covering the plains below are thousands upon thousands of horses, their hoofs beating against the ground as the great herds gallop in synchronised swirls through the grass, sending a thick cloud of dust up into the deep blue vastness of the open sky above. Home.

  She cried out in pain as her left arm was held and lifted, bolts of flagellating agony scourging through her. She struggled, and more hands gripped and restrained her. She was flat on her back, but couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not, the pain from her arm all-consuming. Firm palms pressed against her head, and something like a cigarette was held to her lips. In her panic she inhaled. The pain faded, and she fell back into oblivion.

  ‘Is it true the Sanang have skin as pale as milk? Do they really look like apes?’ Jorge asked her, as he lay naked on her bed, smoking a cigarette. ‘You hear such dreadful nonsense about them from the more excitable students, first years mostly. About how they all live up in the trees, swinging from the branches like monkeys, beating their chests. Come on, Lieutenant, is it true?’

  Daphne laughed. ‘I’ve already told you. There were no Sanang at the frontier wall. But yes, I suppose that’s roughly the sort of thing the soldiers returning from the front would say.’

  ‘Could you not just pretend you’d seen them, make something up?’ he grinned. ‘Something ferociously savage and gruesome, which will turn stomachs at tonight’s dinner party. There’s a certain priest coming whom I’d particularly enjoy upsetting.’

  She gazed around her university room. She was using it again over the winter, to catch up on the studies she had missed while being stationed at the wall all summer. Someone else had been living in the room during the previous term, but Daphne had made it her own again. Jorge flicked ash into a tea cup, and passed her the cigarette. She looked at the dark skin of his chest, and his stomach, grown a little flabbier since the last time she had seen him.

  ‘On the subject of making things up,’ he said, a gleam in his eye. Daphne groaned.

  ‘The bloody so-called prophet, letting it be known that the voice of the Creator commands us to end the war? Did you hear? I mean, does he really think anyone believes that codswallop anymore? To imagine he’s actually got a little voice in his head, telling him what to do, it’s utterly barking. The queen should damn well order the prophets and priests to bugger off, stay out of politics and get back to reading their dusty old books. No one’s buying it any more.’

  ‘You finished?’

  He put on a hurt face, and pouted. She stifled a laugh. Such an angry boy.

  ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘you can get away with saying that sort of thing to me when we’re alone, but…’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t go embarrassing you with my unbelief in public.’

  ‘…all a favour and stop complaining. By the Creator’s balls, you’re starting to be a pain in the arse.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Where was she? She couldn’t move, not a toe, not a finger, nor would her eyes open.

  She heard movement.

  ‘No, Lieutenant.’ It was Sergeant Weir. ‘Put Lieutenant Mink down, sir. Please.’

  ‘Do as the sergeant says, there’s a good chap.’ Manahan, sounding tired but calm.

  More movement. A sigh as Chane sat back down.

  So they weren’t in immediate danger, Daphne thought, before starting to feel an ache build up from her left arm, centred on her elbow. It was manageable, but growing.

  ‘Whatever are you doing over there, Delia?’ Manahan said. ‘The captain needs her rest, don’t you be disturbing her.’

  ‘I thought for a moment I saw her move, sir,’ the junior doctor said, surprising Daphne with her proximity. Her voice sounded like it came from a foot away, to her left side. ‘Her poor arm.’

  ‘Don’t touch it, Delia,’ Manahan said. ‘We all saw what happened last time. We were fortunate that the slave was here with one of those narcotic cigarettes of his. Besides, without equipment, surgical instruments, and everything else we would require, there’s nothing more we can do. We saved her arm, but it will be crippled and useless the rest of her days. Her hand will be like a withered claw.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Chane. ‘No need to be cruel.’

  ‘My dear Lieutenant,’ the doctor said, ‘I am merely being factual regarding her injury. If the gory truth of battle upsets you, then perhaps the army wasn’t the best choice of career.’

  As they bickered, Daphne screamed inside. The pain was inexorably building, shooting fire from her fingers, wrist and forearm all the way up to her shoulder, but centred on her shattered elbow, a tight knot of agony. And now to discover that she would never use her arm again, her future dimmed and narrowed. A crippled prisoner in the Sanang forest. Would she ever be able to ride a horse again? The pain filled her, and she bathed in its tears for a moment that felt as long as an eternity.

  ‘Jaimes,’ she groaned, turning her head. ‘Jaimes, help me.’

  She heard whispering.

  ‘Jaimes, is that you?’ She felt sick, opened her eyes, and saw Chane leaning over her, shrouded in darkness, a guarded half-smile forming on her lips.

  ‘Captain,’ she said, ‘can you hear me?’

  ‘Here,’ said a voice to her left. She looked over, her head swimming, to see a young woman holding a water canteen. She held it to her lips. ‘Slowly,’ the young woman said, as Daphne gulped it down.

  Where was Jaimes? If she were ill, shouldn’t he be here to help her?

  She tried to lift her neck to see if he was there, but her muscles were too weak and she only succeeded in flopping her head from side to side, gasping.

  ‘Be still,’ Chane urged.

  Her nausea rose, and she felt the liquid she had just drunk start to come back up. She vomited, but couldn’t turn her head, and started to gag.

  ‘Turn her over, quickly,’ Delia whispered. ‘Try not to touch her arm.’

  She was choking now, and panicking. Hands took hold of her shoulders, and began shifting her onto her right side. Her head was tipped sideways, a hand pushing down on her cheek. She stopped choking, and water and bile gushed out of her mouth onto the sweat-stained sheets of the bed. She shuddered all over, her body shaking violently from exhaustion and pain.

  The hands were trying to push her over onto her back, but her spasms shook her from their grasp, and she fell onto the bed, cracking her left elbow against the frame as she landed.

  A skull-splitting scream tore through her ears, and it was only in the moment before she passed out that she realised it had come from her.

  A damp cloth was pressed to her forehead, and the sudden coolness of it was enough to wake her. She kept her eyes closed as the cloth tenderly wiped away her sweat and tears. She remembered being ill, back when she had been ten summers old. It had been the horse-fever, a rite of passage for most Holdings youth. Her mother had tended to her every day, applying soothing balms and creams to her blistered skin, so that she wouldn’t suffer any scarring that might endure into adulthood. She felt a pang of guilt at the thought of her mother. Had Daphne ever really expressed her gratitude for all
that she had done?

  She opened her eyes to thank her, and instead saw a tall, strange man leaning over her bed.

  ‘Who…?’ she gasped, trying to shout.

  ‘Lieutenant!’ the man said. ‘Come quickly.’

  She realised there were more people in the room. They were rising and moving towards her. Panic rose to overwhelm her, and her arm started to ache.

  ‘Give it to me, hurry!’ a female voice said. She thought she detected a faint scent of smoke. A woman appeared on her left, holding what looked like a cigarette. Daphne thought she recognised her from somewhere.

  ‘Here,’ the woman said. ‘Don’t be afraid. Smoke this. It’ll make you feel better.’

  She did know her, Daphne thought, as the pain from her left elbow grew. She would have to trust her.

  The woman held the lit brand to Daphne’s mouth, and she inhaled. She blew out a long low exhalation of grey smoke, and the panic and pain started to recede. She closed her eyes and relaxed back onto the mattress.

  ‘Get her some water,’ the woman said. ‘And let’s prop her head up this time.’

  She felt strong arms lift her by the shoulders, and pillows were pushed behind her head to raise it. She felt safe, and didn’t resist.

  ‘Here, Captain,’ the female voice said. ‘Drink.’

  A cup touched her parched lips, and she took a sip. ‘And have another smoke.’

  She inhaled again, and the last of the pain vanished.

  She opened her eyes.

  ‘Chane?’ she asked in surprise, her voice a weak whisper.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ the woman said. ‘How do you feel?’

  Daphne thought for a moment. ‘Numb. Where’s Jaimes?’

  There were a few nervous glances among the people gathered around her bed. Mink, she knew, Dreff, and Manahan… Memories began to seep back. Were they in the Sanang Forest?

  ‘Sergeant Jaimes is dead, Captain,’ Chane replied, looking right at her. ‘I’m sorry. Do you remember anything?’

  ‘Some… things. Were we attacked?’ A vision jumped into her mind of a tattooed man standing by a ditch, brandishing a sword, eyes afire, grinning at her.

  ‘Yes, Captain,’ Chane said.

  ‘We’re all that’s left,’ Mink muttered. Chane shot him a dark glance.

  Whatever she had smoked was making her thoughts slow and fuggy, and she took a moment to register what Lieutenant Mink had said. As the memory of what had happened finally returned, she started to cry. It was an odd feeling, as if it were someone else’s body that shuddered with sobs, her consciousness observing from a safe distance.

  ‘Great work, Mink,’ Chane said.

  She felt an arm go round her shoulder. ‘Everyone,’ Chane called out, ‘back to your bunks, give the captain some space. Delia, could you please dig out whatever food we have left?’

  Chane sat on the side of the bed, and held her as she wept.

  A voice in Daphne’s head that sounded a little like her father’s told her to pull herself together and act like an officer, and despite the temptation to burrow into Chane’s reassuring embrace, she stopped weeping. She tried to raise her left hand to wipe away her tears, but her arm wouldn’t respond. She glanced down at it. She knew what she would see, she could recall the words of Doctor Manahan when she had partially awoken some time before, but she had a tiny hope that she may have dreamt it.

  Her left limb was bandaged, with splints along her upper arm and forearm. Her elbow was bent in a position halfway between a straight line and a right angle. The hand was also bound, but she could see that her fingers had curled inwards on themselves.

  ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Captain,’ Chane said, as she disengaged from the embrace. ‘The doctors believe you have lost the use of your left arm.’

  Daphne nodded.

  ‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ she said, her voice steady. ‘My thanks to you all, for looking after me. How long has it been?’

  ‘This is our sixth morning, Captain,’ Chane replied. ‘We’re in what was Sergeant Goldie’s squad barracks. Mink spoke the truth before, we few are all that remains of the company.’

  Daphne looked around. There were nine of them in the room. Four soldiers: herself, Chane, Mink and Sergeant Weir, who sat crouched on a table by the far wall, peering out of a small opening to the outside. There were also the four company doctors: Manahan, Delia, Garrick, and Jonnas, who had been the one wiping her brow when she had awoken. There was also Dreff, who was lying motionless in his bed, near to the barrack’s doorway.

  ‘They killed all of the troopers,’ Daphne said.

  ‘Yes, Captain, they did,’ Chane replied.

  ‘Took a few days over some of them,’ Mink said, his eyes bloodshot and heavy.

  ‘The captain doesn’t need to hear the details,’ Chane said.

  ‘No, Lieutenant,’ Daphne replied. ‘It’s alright. Tell me.’

  Chane looked down, grief and rage on her face.

  ‘B’Dang kept a few of them alive, for a while,’ she said. ‘For sport. And to torment us. He made sure we heard it all.’

  There was silence in the room.

  ‘Has B’Dang been in here?’ Daphne asked after a while.

  ‘No,’ Chane replied. ‘Agang’s guards have kept him away. Although there’s only twelve of them, they’re more disciplined than B’Dang’s crew. Those clowns spend whole days and nights getting drunk and smoking drugs. If it came to a fight, Agang’s men could probably handle them without too much difficulty.’

  Chane lit a cigarette.

  ‘I’ve been remembering the battle,’ she went on. ‘I’m reasonably sure we killed at least as many of them as they did of us all told, only the vast majority of dead Sanang were from B’Dang’s force. Looking back, I don’t think we killed all that many of Agang’s soldiers.’ She paused. ‘Here’s the thing. If Agang’s trying to organise the Sanang, train them up… Well, if he succeeds, then this war will take on an entirely new flavour.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ called over Doctor Manahan. ‘They are savages, plain and simple. This Agang character may have gotten himself a dressed-up little troop of make believe soldiers, but the Sanang as a people? Organising themselves? Pah.’

  ‘Where are the women?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘What?’ replied Chane.

  ‘Among the Sanang warriors. Why are there no women?’

  Chane shrugged.

  ‘Maybe the Sanang female is unsuited to combat?’ suggested Manahan.

  From his little window, Weir snorted. ‘Not likely,’ he said. ‘I seen plenty of Sanang women in a village on the first year’s invasion, some of them fought well enough when we were clearing them out. None of them were dressed as warriors, though.’

  Daphne pondered. Why would an army exclude half of the population? Had the Sanang women refused to fight?

  Delia approached from the left. ‘I have the food you asked for,’ she said, holding out a greasy plate. On it was a small selection of dried grey meat, a husk of stale bread, and a couple of small wrinkled oranges. ‘It’s not much,’ she said, putting down the plate, ‘but I do also have this.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small rectangular wrapping. ‘Chocolate,’ she whispered. ‘Been saving it for you, Captain. It’s not much, but if you clear the plate, I’ll give it to you.’ She held it out.

  ‘You’re bribing me like a child,’ Daphne said.

  Delia nodded. ‘Is it working?’

  Daphne picked up a piece of dried meat and started chewing. She grimaced at its rancid saltiness, and tried to keep her mind on the chocolate, the one thing, in her opinion, that might justify the entire invasion of Sanang.

  Daphne awoke again as the last light of day was filtering through the slats in the wooden walls. She had fallen asleep with the taste of chocolate in her mouth, but now she felt the pain from her arm arise once more.

  She rolled over, retching.

  From the bed opposite, Delia sat up. ‘Captain?’

  Daphne
grimaced. ‘The arm.’

  Delia walked over to a small table next to Daphne’s bed. She rummaged around in a drawer for a few moments, then produced a flint and taper. She sat on the stool next to the bed and sparked up a small light. She lit a drugged cigarette, and passed it to Daphne.

  She inhaled, and the pain abated.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Is it like alcohol, might I become addicted?’

  ‘I don’t know, Captain,’ she said. ‘We have no idea what herb it is you’re smoking. Ethan, the slave, he had a packet of them, already rolled. It does work, though?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daphne said. ‘Leaves me a little confused, but it takes away the pain.’

  The young doctor smiled. ‘The pain will fade in time.’

  Daphne nodded.

  She heard a low cry, and looked over at the bed on her right where Chane was sleeping. Her face was troubled, the sheets twisted round her body.

  ‘Bad dreams,’ Delia said.

  One of the other young doctors, Garrick, joined them. ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘do you think you’re ready to try a little walking?’

  She was always stiff and sore after coming out of a protracted vision coma, and this had been one of her longest. Nodding, she pulled back the sheets from the bed with her right hand. Below the hem of her under-armour longshirt, her legs had thinned, and there were a few cuts and bruises marring her dark skin.

  She held out her right arm, and Garrick took it. She swung her legs and placed her bare feet onto the wooden floor. Leaning into him, she stood, and was surprised not to feel her joints screaming in pain. She straightened, and started to walk, keeping her left arm close to her body.

  ‘Whatever it is I’m smoking,’ she said, stretching out her legs in relief as she walked across the floor with ease. ‘It damn well works!’