“Yes, I hope it doesn’t sound again. We’ll never find the others with that racket in the background.”
“They must have gone back to the camp,” Hammer said.
“A very dangerous thing to do.” Grae pointed toward the sound. “Sage, that’s the direction of the camp, isn’t it?”
Sage nodded.
Grae steepled his fingers against his face. “I won’t have the squad separated again if the trees start firing at us.” He closed his eyes and the others waited silently. “I’ll go. Sage, I need you to come with me.” He studied the squad mates, his eyes lingering on Shanks and Rundle. “Shanks, you can come with us.”
Hammer held up a hand. “Grae I don’t—”
“That’s how it will be Hammer. The rest of you make your way back to the new camp.” He walked forward until he stood directly in front of Shanks and Rundle, his brows creased. “I want to make something very clear to both of you.”
Shanks looked away, into the forest. “I know. If we so much as make a face you’ll put the C-mark on us yourself.”
“Silence, trudge!” Both soldiers snapped to attention. “What I was going to say, is that you did some admirable work against the cire hulk.” He motioned to Hammer, who handed him Shanks’s shield. Grae shoved it at the big infantryman, who took it and stared at Grae with squinted eyes. The brig took a side step until he was in front of Rundle. “As for you, Trudge Graen.” Rundle kept his shoulders square, back straight, eyes staring past Grae’s shoulder. “How’s that rib?”
Rundle’s eyes flicked toward Grae, then back to the forest. “Ain’t bad, brig, sir.”
“Good.” Grae reached back and took the second shield. Handed it to Rundle. “You earned this.”
Rundle nodded once.
Grae turned and waved Shanks to follow him. “Let’s go Sage.” He followed the scout into the forest for a few paces then stopped. “And Shanks, Graen?” He turned and held up his forefinger. “If I so much as see you make a face, I’ll put the C-mark on you myself.”
†††
They walked for a half bell through the mossy tangle of Maug Maurai, fording a wide creek and scaling a fallen tree that was easily ten feet thick.
“Sage, let me know when we’re a quarter bell from the camp.”
Sage nodded. “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Brig Barragns?”
“Yes?”
“We’re a quarter bell from the camp.”
Grae sighed and pushed past the scout. “You two wait here. No sense all of us risking those trees.”
“I’ll go, brig, sir,” said Shanks. “You being the brig and such. And me being the lowest ranking soldier.”
“Stay put, Shanks. I’m going.” Grae pointed forward as he walked. “That way? Straight?”
Sage nodded. “More or less.”
Grae shook his head and plunged forward, stumbling through a mesh of dangling vines. It took him less than a quarter bell before he saw the first of the massive, goitered trees. He walked softly, staring up at the vast, dangling boils hanging dozens of feet over his head.
He smelled the smoke of roasting meat and his stomach groaned. The damaged ramparts came into view, and then Lokk Lurius and Drissdie Hannish. The Eridian whirled, hands ready beside his short swords. Drissdie drew a sharp breath and backed away until he caught sight of the brig. Grae raised a hand and pointed upward. Both of them nodded.
Grae scanned the campsite but he didn’t see Black Murrogar’s body.
Grae stared at the spot where the old hero had died, glanced at Lokk Lurius. The Eridian raised a hand, as if to explain what happened, cocked his head to one side, then shrugged.
Grae’s heart pounded in his chest as he rolled two haypads and attached them to packs. Drissdie and Lokk did the same. They gathered whatever items they could and strapped them to the wood-framed packs. The Eridian picked up the two wooden shovels and slid them into the spaces between haypads and packs. The three of them quietly left the camp, glancing back and up once last time.
†††
“Black Murrogar,” said Grae when they were a safe distance from the murderous trees. “What happened to him?”
“He was dead,” Lokk said.
“And then he was alive, d’you suppose?” Drissdie added.
Lokk shrugged. “And he’s dead again.”
“Where’s his body?” Grae asked.
“That way,” said Lokk, pointing. “One hundred and ninety two paces.”
“Show me.”
Lokk nodded and walked toward the body. “We have to bury him. And do the goodbye ceremony.”
“No,” Grae replied. “We’ll do that later. You two need to help me hide the body. And you can’t say a word to the others.” He nodded to Drissdie. “There’s an upcycle for you Drissdie, if you keep your mouth shut.”
Lokk trudged through the forest and spoke without looking back. “We need to bury him.”
“We will,” Grae replied. “We’ll come back. Right now, I have a squad on the precipice of breaking rank. If they hear Murrogar’s dead, they’re going to run like frightened sheep. I paid you well, Eridian. And I need you to help me.”
Lokk stopped and looked at Grae. “We’ll come back to bury him?”
Grae nodded. “You have my word.”
“And the goodbye ceremony?”
“We’ll give him the Farewell.”
Lokk stared at Grae, then gestured to a fallen tree in the distance. “He’s there. Next to the stone.”
Grae pushed past Lokk and strode to the fallen tree and looked.
Black Murrogar was dead.
“Lokk,” Grae called.
“Aye, sir?”
“Where, precisely, did you say the body was?”
†††
Grae led Lokk and Drissdie back to the camp to get his bearings, then back toward Sage and Shanks. When they were clear of the deadly trees, he spoke.
“Remember, Murrogar was with you, you got separated, and you haven’t seen him since.”
Lokk nodded.
“We haven’t seen him since,” Drissdie replied. “And I get an upcycle, d’you suppose?”
“Stout Hannish,” Grae replied. “Has a nice ring. And five more hawks a month.”
Drissdie grinned. “Stout Hannish. Has a nice ring.”
“He was there,” Lokk said. “I gave him the mercy. Watched him bleed out. Think he might have gotten stung.”
Grae let out a long breath. “Let’s hope we don’t see him again. That’s one maurg I don’t want to face.”
The two men found Sage and Shanks, then returned to the clearing where they had slain the cire hulk. Lokk and Drissdie were greeted with smiles and back slaps, but Rundle and Jjarnee kept glancing into the forest.
“What about Murrogar?” Rundle asked. “Ain’t no one seen Murrogar?”
“He was with us.” Drissdie looked at Grae as he spoke. “But we got separated, d’you suppose?”
Jastyn folded his arms. “How did you separate, Drissdie?”
The young soldier looked at Sir Jastyn, then back to Grae. “He was with us. But we got separated.”
“Maurg,” said Lokk. “Hordes of ‘em.”
Drissdie nodded. “Maurg. Hordes of ‘em.”
“Enough chatter,” Grae called. “The squad’s together again. We’ve got two hours of light, so we’ll sleep here tonight. And tomorrow...” he paused for dramatic effect, held a fist in the air, “... we’re going to kill another Beast!” He shouted the last words, but there were no cheers. Only silence. Grae straightened his tabard and walked silently toward his pavilion.
Chapter 26
So Meedryk had accepted his fate without complaint, even proudly. But the men of Peregrine stripped that pride away. How they had laughed when they heard where Meedryk was headed. “Meedryk the Mighty!” they had shouted. “Going to smite the Beast!” They had followed him to the wagon, tugging at his cloak and laughing. “Meedryk Mule-bane!” They started a chant and it swep
t from man to man until it sounded like a cheering crowd: “Mee-dryk Mule-bane, Mee-dryk Mule-bane, Mee-dryk Mule-bane, Mee-dryk Mule-bane”
— From “The Headsman of Laraytia,” by Jurn Hallion
Meedryk sat outside the low ramparts, and willed the world away. His eyes were closed. His right hand held the orison bracelet Aramaesia had loaned him.
Bar and embrace. Ignore the world, but listen to the world.
He was getting better at it. The forest faded. Life receded. And in its place, he could hear the buzzing rhythm of life. He was aware of everything around him. Esereult. That’s what Aramaesia called it.
A distant drumbeat pulsed in time with his heart. A thrumming deep in his core. The sounds of someone walking toward him. The drumbeat faltered. The orison bracelet was ripped from his hand.
“You turning grack on us, boy?” Beldrun Shanks stood over him.
“Give it... give it back,” The bruise on Meedryk’s cheek seemed to throb in the presence of the big infantryman.
“You know, if you was turning grack, it would be my duty to kill you.” Shanks walked toward the perimeter still holding the bracelet. Meedryk stood and reached for the bracelet, but the big man lifted it out of reach.
“Give it back!”
“Or what?” Shanks reached out and grabbed the apprentice’s neck with his free hand. “You gonna tap me again with that tiny fist?”
Meedryk gasped as the hand tightened on his throat. He tried to pry the fingers off but they were like stone. He beat at Shanks’s arm, felt the panic rising.
He’s going to kill me. He’s going to strangle me. He’s a criminal. He’s killed people. He hates me. Blythwynn protect me. He’s going to...
He forced himself to relax.
Concentrated on his heartbeat. Felt it slow. Regained control.
He won’t kill me. They’d string him up, and he knows it.
Meedryk opened his eyes calmly and spit at Beldrun Shanks. His aim was perfect. It struck Beldrun in the pit of one eye and ran downward.
The drums rumbled again. The esereult was upon him. A red flush crept over Shanks’s face. Blossomed there like red ink creeping across a page. The muscles of Shanks’s face tightened. Blood vessels throbbed beneath the skin of the infantryman’s temple and neck. Meedryk watched. He’d never known how beautiful such tiny details could be.
Shanks pushed Meedryk backwards. The big man was shouting something. A fleck of spittle drifted slowly through the air. Shanks was missing at least five teeth. The big man’s fist moved forward. Hair on the knuckles. Three scars on his fingers. The fist plunged into Meedryk’s stomach and the world flooded back into the apprentice’s awareness.
Meedryk fell to his knees and curled against the pain. He gasped for breath as Shanks wiped the saliva from his face. The big man held his hand in front of his eyes, studied the spit and scowled. He kicked Meedryk in the back, knocking him onto his stomach. The apprentice couldn’t even scream. He had no breath. He waited silently for the next blow.
When it didn’t come he opened his eyes. Shanks had both hands hooked into the orison bracelet. The big man pulled and the bracelet snapped apart, charms falling to the ground by Meedryk’s face.
“No!” Meedryk croaked.
Shanks hurled the bracelet into the forest, the charms tumbling off like sparks as the silver loop arched out of sight.
“No!” Meedryk tried to rise but Shanks put a foot on his cheek and pinned him to the forest floor.
“Sage! Sir Jast—”
Shanks dug out a handful of dirt, spit on it then rubbed the mud into Meedryk’s mouth and up his nostrils. Meedryk gagged and coughed and tried to scramble away but Shanks grabbed his legs. The infantryman drew out his knife and Meedryk flailed.
“Don—” Meedryk inhaled dirt and curled into a fit of coughing.
Shanks flipped the meridian cloak upward. The staggering firmness of the knife blade touched Meedryk’s back. The apprentice, still coughing, tried to roll onto his back. But Shanks’s held him fast.
“D... don’t!” Meedryk sputtered between coughs.
The spine of Shanks’s blade chilled Meedryk’s back. Shanks sawed until he had cut the apprentice’s belt off.
“What... what are you... ” Meedryk couldn’t get the words out. He gagged, and spit out mud.
Shanks pulled the apprentice’s leather breeches down, tugging in spurts. Meedryk tried to hold the trousers up, but shanks was too strong.
“Stop it!” Meedryk shouted, tears stinging his eyes. “Help!”
The breeches rolled down to his ankles. The big infantryman flipped Meedryk over onto his back and laughed.
“You think a mage could make his cock bigger.” Shanks bellowed a laugh.
Meedryk tried to cover himself. He looked in the direction Shanks had thrown the orison bracelet. Thought of the burned pages of his book. He thought of Aramaesia and felt the tears rise. Steeled himself against them but they had come from a long way down, with a lifetime’s force. The tears coursed down his cheeks and he broke into tiny sobs, still trying to cover himself with the meridian cloak.
Shanks bellowed with laughter. “Meedryk Littlewand!” The big man ran his fingers down his own cheeks and made a pout. “You ain’t hardly got a stalk! And them the smallest raisin bollocks I’ve ever seen!”
Meedryk sobbed for Aramaesia, he stood, tried to pull his pants up and lost his balance. He fell with a crash to the ground. Shanks laughed even harder. “Meedryk Blubbermage! Calling for his mummy!”
The taunts scorched Meedryk clear to the soul. Until the agony became something else. Something hot and razored. Past anger. Past rage. Something past murderous. Beyond all emotion. Something barely human.
“Blubbermage lost his jewels,” called Shanks. “It makes Blubbermage cry.”
Other voices flooded Meedryk’s brain. Soldiers in Peregrine Company laughing at him, calling him Mulebane for the accidental death of his master’s donkey.
His mother shrieking at him for his inability to do anything properly, for never looking anyone in the eyes, for his laziness, clumsiness, his manners, his stupidity, tardiness.
He heard Master Craen calling him “a worthless and cowardly dollop.”
Heard the echoes of Beldrun Shanks’s laughter, and the last mocking nickname he would ever tolerate.
He rose slowly, his pants still pooled at his feet, his hands reaching deep into his sleeves. He felt for pockets he rarely thought of. Stolen chemics, chemics he was forbidden from knowing about. fulminastic talc. Galvitreous particulate. Clumsy names for what he pinched from the compartments, but Meedryk’s mind held only one word; death.
Something in his eyes made Shanks stop laughing.
Drums. The drums were beating.
Shank’s smile took an eternity to fade. Bristles of hair on his cheeks. Individual hairs. A few gray ones mixed in with the black. A pox scar below his lips.
Esereult.
Meedryk swept a hand at Shanks before the big man could speak. A fine mist of powder swirled around the infantryman. Like dust caught in sunbeams. The dust was an abeyant. A chemic that held the power of the spell, stored in itself, ready to be activated.
Shanks tried to back out of the dust cloud. But Meedryk’s other hand was already moving forward with the fomentriatic—the chemic that would activate the spell. Something thundered in Meedryk’s head. Something eternal and pulsing and terrifying. A mad cadence, pounded out on a thousand drums. Like the frantic heartbeat of a desperate world.
Meedryk’s hand arched forward. The cloud of dust—still swirling around Shanks—erupted in a brilliant flash.
Bolts of lightning arced, filling the space with bands of liquid fire. More lightning. Crackling, like the sky itself was tearing. An electrical storm centered on Beldrun Shanks. The air was thick and acrid with smoke and burning chemics. The big man convulsed and fell to his knees as the bolts ravaged him.
The lightning faded.
Shanks fell forward in a heap.
/>
Meedryk gasped.
Not at Shanks’s lifeless body, but at his own fist. It was still closed. The pinch of galvitreous particulate still inside.
Chapter 27
Can you truly order someone to put an entire village to the sword if you have never heard a mother, who’s throat is about to be cut, tell her young son to close his eyes? Is it proper to order an attack against an unassailable fortress without having seen most of a battalion lying dead on the marches? Without hearing the screams of men as boiling sand is showered upon them from machicolations? Without seeing their fellow soldiers flee in fear of the melted, howling monstrosities they have become?
Does anyone have a right to ask men to do such things? Does anyone who is not intimately familiar with the effects of such actions have a right to give those orders? To issue an order without understanding, in gross detail, what it is you are asking is an injustice. It is the one injustice in the world that can never be forgiven.
—Brig Grae Barragns, personal journal
They flogged Meedryk. Five strokes.
“He got off easy,” Sage told Aramaesia. “They can sentence you to death for casting on fellow soldiers. But it was only Shanks.”
Meedryk didn’t look lucky to Aramaesia. He was a heap on his haypad. His back was gashed and torn, with swatches of skin dangling. She sat beside him and treated the wounds with salve, and wolf’s milk for the pain.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” he mumbled to her. “I never let go of the fomentriatic.”
She dabbed at his skin with the salve and shook her head. “Meedryk, you could have killed him.”
“A few granules must have slipped out of my hand,” he murmured, groaning at the pain. “A few grains must have drifted into the cloud of fulminastic talc. It was just an accident. He would have died for certain if I had released all of it.”
“Beldrun is still having trouble speaking,” said Aramaesia.
“I killed a mule with that spell once,” he said. “That was an accident too.”
“He has burns across his body.”
“When you are in a barn, you can’t tell where the talc ends and the normal dust begins. The poor mule. I still see him twitching sometimes, when I sleep.”
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