Stars and Graves

by Roberto Calas

  A group of Grae’s soldiers had gathered in a tiny clearing. All of them spun, eyes wide, weapons raised. Maribrae sat a short distance away, writing into the tattered pages of a book with a sliver of charcoal. Her hand trembled as she wrote. Sir Jastyn, sitting beside her, nodded. Grae searched for an enemy but saw none.

  The men’s lanterns illuminated a circle of withered, almost translucent bodies. Corpses scattered across the forest floor.

  Hammer and Aramaesia pushed past the blackthorn and stared wildly, panting. The archer’s strange bow made wide arcs around the clearing.

  “What in Lojen’s Piss is happening here?” Hammer roared.

  “Have a look at this,” said Shanks. He thrust his lantern forward, illuminating a writhing pile of maurg a few paces away. They lay upon one another, slithering and undulating like serpents. There were at least a dozen. And beneath them, just visible, was a corpse wearing the Cobblethrie crimson.

  “Watch this,” said Shanks. He hefted his axe and hacked a long gash into a maurg’s back. The creature howled. It turned toward Shanks, hissed, and turned back to the corpse, the green blood flowing from the wound then clotting swiftly. “Did you see that?” he laughed. “Did you see it?”

  Rundle picked another creature and plunged his sword through its leg. The maurg roared and half turned toward the soldier, but as soon as Rundle withdrew the blade, the maurg returned to its meal. Shanks and Drissdie laughed. Even Jjarnee grinned.

  “It’s funny isn’t it?” Grae said. “Stabbing those things.” Drissdie nodded. No one else did. “Those used to be people. They were soldiers and mothers and sisters. Send them off properly. And quickly. We need to set up a camp.”

  “Why do they do that?” asked Aramaesia. She stared at the pile of squirming maurg. “Why do they ignore us?”

  “I’m a drunk ogre if I know,” said Shanks. “It’s funny though.”

  “Ain’t funny at all,” said Hammer.

  “Maybe they do this when night come,” Jjarnee said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Lord Aeren. “They seem enthralled.”

  “They don’t look enth... enthralled,” Hammer replied. “They look the same as the other ones we fought.”

  “No. Enthralled. Completely captivated by something. Their attention is fixed and cannot be diverted.”

  Hammer shifted. “Yeah. I know. Enthralled.” He cleared his throat and pointed at the dried bodies around the tiny clearing. “So these maugers sucked the corpses dry? Is that why we keep finding bodies like this.”

  “Maurg,” Lord Aeren replied. “Yes, I think so. I’m beginning to form some ideas about these creatures. I think that they may be—”

  “Later, Lord Aeren,” Grae said. “We need to finish here and get a camp ready.” He scanned the shriveled corpses. It would be nearly impossible to tell who was who. There were only a few members of the caravan unaccounted for, and only two Cobblethries. “The child. The child is missing. Ulrean Cobblethrie. And the Duchess of Lae Duerna.”

  “Murg eating boy, think?” said Jjarnee. “And Duchess La Durni maybe is there?” He pointed to what might once have been a woman lying a few yards away. A ring with the sigil of Lae Duerna glimmered on one finger.

  Grae knelt beside the duchess’s body. He couldn’t tell much, except that someone had slit her throat. The Necklace of Auberr was missing. It was one of the items on the Chamberlain’s list. Perhaps she had it in a pouch, or lost it on her journey. Other than that, only one item remained on the list. Grae looked to the slithering pile of maurg.

  “That’s the boy there?” Grae moved closer to the creatures. “Kill the maurg. Carefully. That’s a duke’s son under there. His body deserves respect.”

  A pendant clinked against Grae’s bevor. The King’s Authority. Mulbrey’s Chamberlain had given it to Grae, in case anyone challenged his authority on the mission. The brig grasped it and yanked, tossed the pendant to the mossy ground. No one who could be swayed by the pendant was left alive, and Grae was tired of the clinking thing. Aramaesia glanced at the glittering chain and scooped it up. She studied the strange pendant, tucked it into a pouch.

  Shanks slashed one of the maurg and, when it reared, he swung again and sheared the head from the body. “D’you see that?” he said laughing. “One blow!”

  Jjarnee and Rundle pulled the corpse away, exposing the boy’s thin face. “They musta just started on him,” said Shanks, chuckling. “He ain’t all white and flaky yet.”

  Grae studied the child. He was seven or eight years old. His corpse riddled with wounds and gashes, his clothes were torn and matted with blood. Dark brown hair hung over his forehead in shaggy locks that nearly obscured his eyes. A faint scar ran across his throat. An old wound perhaps. The boy’s cheek was spattered with dark green blood, so Grae placed a kerchief over the child’s face. “Go on,” he said. “Finish the rest of them.”

  Shanks and Rundle slaughtered the remaining maurg while Jjarnee and Drissdie dragged the bodies away. When the last maurg was dead, Grae knelt beside the boy and gently removed the kerchief.

  Drissdie gasped.

  The child’s eyes were open.

  “Sometimes… when people’r dead, their eyes open like that,” said Hammer. “That’s why Eridians put those fancy wooden brackets in the eyes of their dead, ain’t that so, Lurius?”

  “It’s so,” said the Eridian.

  Grae leaned over the body. He placed the kerchief on the boy’s chest and leaned down to listen for a heartbeat. As he did, he moved his hand under the thick bangs. His fingers found something cool and smooth there. The last item on the Chamberlain’s list.

  “His heart is silent,” Grae said finally, lifting his head. Blood had soaked through the kerchief. He wiped at his cheek, looked at his fingers. “Hammer, take the others to that clearing we passed—near those twisted trees—and have them start on the fortifications.”

  Grae lifted the boy in his arms, holding the body well away from his tabard, and walked back toward the hedges from where he had come. “There’s blood all over the child. I’m going to wash his face at the stream we passed.”

  Hammer ordered Sage to lead the others to the campsite and stumbled after Grae. “You shouldn’t be out here alone, Grae. Leave the child’s face alone. A little blood don’t matter, where he’s going.”

  “It’ll only take a moment.” Grae plodded down the slope and high stepped dangling vines. Hammer crashed through the leaves behind him, holding a bundle of green feathers in one hand and patting at his chest with the other. More Andraen superstitions.

  “Grae, I got a real bad feeling about this mission. Things don’t make sense.”

  Grae shoved his shoulder into the blackthorn. Hammer ran forward and pushed the grasping vines back.

  “It’s not our job to make sense of things, Hammer.”

  “I know. But it’s our job to stay alive, ain’t it? And I smell danger here. I smell it real bad.”

  “What you smell is your fear, Hammer.” Grae lifted the boy over a line of ferns and stomped toward the stream. “Get back to camp.”

  “Just ‘cause you’re my officer don’t mean I won’t pound you, Grae. I ain’t afraid. Things just don’t come together right on this assignment.”

  “What sort of things?”

  Hammer walked quietly behind him for a few paces. “Like you being called back to Nuldryn.”

  A tightness settled onto Grae’s shoulders. “They needed an experienced officer for this mission, Hammer.” He tried to keep his voice casual. “And I grew up near Maug Maurai. Makes perfect sense.”

  “Aye, that part does. But how did they know to call you here? You were on your way before the Cobblethries were even attacked. How did they know they would need you?”

  Grae didn’t respond.

  “You know what I think?” Hammer continued.

  Grae reached the stream, and turned to face his friend. “I don’t care what you think, Hammer. It is not our place to think. Shut that cavern unde
r your nose and get the men to set up the fortifications!”

  Hammer’s stared quietly. His hands fidgeted with the bundle of feathers. “I’ll... I’ll get the fortifications started.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Hammer, wait,” Grae dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry. Of course I care what you think. We can talk about all of this at camp tonight. You raise some very good points.” He walked toward his friend. “Forgive me. This forest makes me surly. Makes me a bit mad.”

  Hammer nodded. He’d felt the hand of Maug Maurai too. An irritability. A waft of desperation. He’d seen it in the others as well. But he wasn’t certain the forest had anything to do with his brig’s surliness on this night.

  “You got more than a dozen lives counting on you.” Hammer grinned, a token grin. “Is a wonder you’re not surly every minute of the day.”

  Grae’s returned a half-smile, then dropped his gaze. The half-smile fell away. Hammer followed the gaze and gasped.

  The boy was breathing.

  Chapter 5

  There is no grief more powerful than the grief of a woman.

  —Blythlojean proverb

  Darkness had snuffed out the forest, leaving only the campfire and the faces around it. And the fear.

  They had set up the camp in the small clearing, once again digging ditches and making crude ramparts. Once again casting long glances into the swirling darkness. Aramaesia sat on a long log, the child’s head in her lap, stroking his hair and watching him breathe. She had draped a woolen blanket over him. Grae, sitting next to her, watched closely, noting the moment when she discovered the stone beneath his bangs. She stiffened and started to brush the hair back, but he caught her hand, shook his head.

  “It’s beyond explaining,” said Hammer. “’e’s got to ‘ave enough of that maurg poison running through ‘im to kill three grown men. And those wounds ‘e got. Those wounds!”

  “He’ll be dead before sunrise,” said Grae. “Let’s hope he is, at any rate.”

  Aramaesia drew in a breath and stared at the brig.

  He met her gaze “We’re running lean as it is. Nothing will stop that child from dying. And we can’t spare someone to carry his body until the spirit departs.” He looked at the boy again. “If he’s still clinging to life in the morning, we’ll leave him here with Blythwynn and a blanket.”

  “I’m sorry?” Aramaesia shook her head, looked from Grae to the other squad mates, then back to Grae. “We cannot leave him here!”

  “Yours is not to question the brig,” called Hammer. “The boy’s dead. His body’s just stubborn.”

  “The archer speaks truth,” Maribrae called. “Will you leave a breathing child on the poisonous moss of Maug Maurai? Will you sacrifice a babe for your soldiers’s games?”

  “Quiet, Mari,” Sir Jastyn snapped.

  She shot him a squinting glance. “I thought a voice like mine must be heard often in this world, Sir Jastyn.”

  “Silence, Songmaiden.” Sir Jastyn’s voice was sharp, and though Maribrae’s eyes flashed, she fell silent.

  “I know it’s a difficult thing, Aramaesia,” said Grae. “But it’s the only recourse we have. There’s no help for him.”

  She put her arms around the child’s head defensively. “Zunar! We… we cannot just leave him... leave him in the forest like an unwanted caribou, to die!”

  Shanks laughed. “Unwanted caribou.” Grae and Aramaesia glared at him and he quieted with a shrug.

  “Look at his wounds, Aramaesia!” Grae whisked the blanket from the child and gestured with his hand. They all looked at the child for a long, silent moment. At the gashes that Hammer had sewn closed.

  Drissdie Hannish was the first to speak. “I thought... I thought his cuts were worse, d’you suppose?”

  “They were terrible,” Hammer said, but there was no conviction in his voice. “I used more than a yard of thread.”

  Grae tossed the blanket to the ground with more force than he intended. “The wounds are not the problem. He’s been poisoned. He cannot survive. Isn’t that so, Lord Aeren?”

  Lord Aeren scratched at his shoulder. “We don’t really know anything about the venom. Judging from the repercussions of one bite to Sage’s leg, I would expect that dozens of bites would be... mortiferous for a child.”

  “More tifferous than what?” Rundle Graen asked.

  “It means the pup is dead,” Shanks said. “Right? Is that what you mean?”

  “It means the pup is most likely dead,” Lord Aeren replied. “I’m terribly sorry, Aramaesia.” He sat beside her on the ground and put his arm around her shoulders. “So very sorry.”

  Aramaesia shrugged his arm off. “You are soldiers of Laraytia! Your duty is to protect the realm of Laraytia! What is there to protect in a realm if not the children? And this, this is a noble child. Do you not swear fealty to the nobles of this land?”

  “As Standards, our fealty is to the king, and only the king,” said Grae. “But as people of Laraytia, we honor and respect the authority of the nobility. That is why we must continue our hunt. The Beast has slaughtered hundreds of common children, too. It is up to us to ensure that no more children—nobles or commoners—are taken by it.”

  “Please, I do not want to create problems,” she stared into Grae’s eyes, “but I will not leave this child.”

  Hammer rose to his feet. “Grod’s Bollocks, you won’t!”

  “Stand down, Hammer,” Grae barked. “She doesn’t understand what she says. You are a soldier now, Aramaesia. You must follow your orders.”

  “All orders? Even ones that are morally not acceptable?”

  “Especially ones that are morally not acceptable,” said Grae quietly. “Soldiers, by definition... do what is morally not acceptable. Our... entire existence is morally not acceptable.”

  “I am sorry,” she said, looking down at the child. “Perhaps he will not live long. But at least he will die with someone at his side.” She stroked one of his cheeks. “No one deserves to die alone. Especially not a child.”

  A silence settled onto the camp. Grae stood. “Most likely he’ll be dead in the morning. If so, then we won’t have to put your loyalty to the test. My order stands.” He walked toward his pavilion, stopped and called back to her. “Aramaesia, a word with you. Now.”

  She looked at the child, then at Grae. Sir Jastyn took the seat Grae had vacated. “I’ll watch him,” he said. “Maribrae, can we have a song please?”

  Aramaesia nodded silent thanks and followed the brig to his pavilion. They stood outside the open flap while Maribrae played Children Come Home.

  “You will not challenge my orders again,” Grae whispered.

  Her chin fell almost to her chest. “I cannot express enough regret,” she said. “I would follow most any order you gave without question. But this one... ” She glanced back toward the boy. “He is a child. How can you leave a child to die in the forest?”

  “He’s dead already.”

  They listened to Maribrae’s voice, strangely muted in the forest night.

  “What is on his head?” said Aramaesia. “I felt something. You know what it is.”

  Grae looked toward the camp. The men were all watching Maribrae. “Do you want me to help or not?”

  “You wish to help me?”

  “The child will be dead by second watch tonight. I’m certain of it. But if by some stroke of divine fortune he makes it to morning... ” He sighed. “Who knows. Maybe we’ll find that the boy’s heart is beating with more strength. If that is the case, I would have no choice but to bring him along with us until his death.” He waited, letting her take in his words. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

  She gazed into his face and her smile nearly melted him. “I thank you, Brig Barragns. I thank you with everything that I am.”

  “Don’t get too thankful,” he said. “If he survives the night, the traveling will likely finish him. Either way, I expect you to carry and care for him yourself, without burdening t
he squad.”

  “He will be my charge, brig sir,” she gave him a playful Laraytian salute.

  “And I expect that the child won’t interfere with your duties.”

  “My bow will be always at my fingers.”

  He straightened and nodded once. Aramaesia leaned forward and, before he realized what was happening, gave him a long kiss on the cheek. Her scent—raspberries and summer daisies, grass after a rainstorm, jasmine in the wind—coiled through him, set him ablaze. “Thank you, Grae Barragns. You are a good man.”

  Something shifted in his heart. Great stones grinding apart. He stared into eyes the bright green of Maug Maurai, flecked with yellows and browns and blues. A universe of colors. He closed his own eyes, leaned forward, searched for her lips.

  And found nothing.

  He opened his eyes.

  She was looking back at the boy, her smile wider than he had ever seen it. Beautiful as a goddess. She turned back to him and he forced a blank expression.

  “I think he will live,” she said. “I think we have saved him.”

  “Move your feet. Get back to camp. And don’t go back with that monkey grin on your face. The others will know something is about.”

  She donned an expression of theatrical sadness.

  “Don’t overplay it,” he said with a half-smile.

  She returned the smile, then forced a more serious expression and returned to camp. Grae watched her go, still reeling.

  What are you doing, Grae Barragns? What are you thinking?

  †††

  Meedryk Bodlyn approached Aramaesia, who was wiping grime from the unconscious boy’s face and neck. Meedryk had given her a book written in Graci, and she had agreed to translate it for him. Not just a book. The book. Perhaps the most important book Meedryk had ever owned. Or, perhaps, just another ruse. Another bar in the prison of his hopes.

  The archer looked up as Meedryk approached. “Hello, Meedryk.”

  “Hello, Aramaesia.”

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I have only read the first four pages.”