No one looked at me as I made my way to my horse. I looked for Braylar, but he’d already ridden down the small hill. Mulldoos and Hewspear were alongside him, Hewspear bent over, hunchbacked.
I considered asking one of the Brunesmen to help me, but the rest of the riders began making their way towards the Syldoon, and they ignored Lloi and me as if we were trees. I tried to convince myself Braylar would come back for me. Of all of us, he knew Lloi the best, and beyond that, depended on her the most, for things no one else could possibly understand. But he was only interested in leading us back to the city. I’d nearly forgotten about the lancers, and the underpriest’s men that might still be roaming the wild, closing in on us.
I tried to climb into the saddle with Lloi in my arms, and nearly fell. I shifted her slightly and she cried out again. I told her we were heading home, and finally made it into the saddle on the third try.
I adjusted Lloi as best I could, but there was no way to make her comfortable. I tried not to jostle her as I flicked the reins and clicked at my horse, who slowly carried me down the hill. Lloi groaned and whimpered with each step the horse took, and I rode up alongside the Syldoon, my arms already beginning to burn from cradling her.
Hewspear looked over at me, face ashen, ribs clearly paining him. He nodded once, as if trying to stiffen my resolve or steel me for what was going to be an agonizing ride for her, and an exhausting one for me.
Braylar started off first, Hewspear and Vendurro on either side, and then Mulldoos, Xen, and I followed, with the Brunesmen and prisoner behind us as we set off towards Alespell once more. The roiling clouds had promised a heavy rain, but when it finally came, some miles later, it was just a drizzle. A full-on rain would have washed away some of the blood, sweat, mud, and gore that marked all of us. But the thin rain did little more than spread the filth around and lower spirits even further. The only redeeming feature was that Lloi seemed to go slack again, her whimpering subsiding.
I tried to think of anything except my shaking arms and aching back. I remembered an artist at Rivermost, a talented muralist who, like me, earned his coin by appealing to the vanity of major merchants and minor nobility. I couldn’t remember his name, but I recalled one mural he did, on a cracked wall just outside a tavern he used to frequent. While nearly everything he painted for his patrons was full of color and crowded with lively characters, the wall outside the tavern was a scene of the aftermath of a war. Soldiers were leaving a battlefield strewn with corpses. Most of the soldiers were sitting in wagons, while a few rode, but they weren’t celebrating the spoils of victory, laden with booty. They didn’t even look grateful their lives had been spared among so many who hadn’t. Almost to the man, their heads were hung, even the horses’ heads were low, and they were the most dejected company I’d ever seen depicted, bandaged and battered, but still riding. Everything about the mural-colors, expressions, posture, mood-was muted, slack, sad.
While I was impressed with the atmosphere the muralist had manufactured, I couldn’t understand how the victors of a battle could look so utterly lost or dejected. I thought he must have erred, never having witnessed real combat or is effects before. But looking around at our small, bloodied band, I realized that the artist’s only failing had been in not truly capturing all the horrible details. He had bandages, but didn’t show the gaping wounds. He showed grim faces, but not the jaw set so tight teeth might shatter as broken bones shifted with the ride. He showed corpses on the battlefield, but couldn’t illustrate how it feels to survive when comrades and friends have fallen.
I promised myself if I ever made it back to Rivermost, I’d find that muralist and commission him to paint the brightest, most cheerful tavern scene imaginable, filled with impossibly beautiful serving girls and ruddy-cheeked carousers, and a hundred mugs clinking in happy toast.
And then I began to pray. Not to Truth, because of course Truth isn’t interested in prayers. But to Countenance, to ease Lloi’s suffering, if only a little, prayed as earnestly as I ever prayed for anything before. It kept the wet miles rolling by as I came up with elaborate vows for what I would do in return if my prayers were answered. Quit Braylar’s “service” immediately. Chronicle only for those men and women who had nothing whatsoever to do with war. Join a reclusive temple so I could copy and recopy only old tomes and fantastic bestiaries. Leave chronicling behind altogether, and dedicate my life to service at a leper colony. I vowed that if Lloi recovered, I would carry her off from her fickle patron who left her behind for an archivist to save. I prayed because I fervently wanted to see Lloi recover, and because it distracted me from my own growing pains and weakness.
Lloi shook and twisted again, moaned, and continued moaning, and I looked around for help, and Hewspear was there then riding right next to me, his hand on Lloi’s arm as she cried out, again and again, each time more sharp. And then she was silent once more, her head rolling forward onto her chest.
She was dead.
I realized, dumbly, that I hadn’t understood how close she’d been. I’d expected her to wake again. I imagined her awful face would make people forget about her stumpy hand, and wondered if she might never again be herself, but I expected her to wake. I had had the opportunity to talk to her, console her, hum to her, make her some small gesture to possibly make her last moments more pleasant, and instead I chose to do whatever I could to distract myself from my own ordeal. Selfish. Only selfishness.
She hadn’t caused my heart to swoon. She wasn’t my childhood friend. I’d only known her a short time, and she’d shown herself to be as rough-hewn and indelicate as any lady who stalked the earth. But she was also honest and loyal, so very loyal, and of Braylar’s retinue, I knew her best of all. She’d deserved better than this. Whatever gods ruled sediment and firmament were cruel to visit so much pain and hostility on her. She’d deserved so much better.
I realized I was crying as I held her tight to my chest, half hoping I’d been mistaken, that there was some spark of life I hadn’t seen or felt. But Lloi was no more.
I heard two of the Brunesmen behind me talking quietly. The first said, “Mercy she’s gone. She would’ve been good for only one thing, and then only after a dozen drinks.”
The other replied, “All any of them are good for. At least the next whore I take will have a face and both hands.”
I spun my horse around, as angry as I’d ever been in my life. At the merciless gods, vicious horses, my own incompetence and selfishness, the stupid soldiers, everything. I wasn’t sure what I planned to do or say, but before doing anything, I lost my grip on Lloi and she slipped out of my arms and fell to the muddy ground.
One of the soldiers laughed and then I was drawing Lloi’s sword from my belt, holding it in both hands, lifting it above my head to strike him down, to split him open as Lloi had been split. The soldier’s eyes went wide, and he didn’t have a chance to defend himself, and I knew I would smite him.
But a strong hand grabbed my wrist just before I began the downward stroke. Mulldoos had me. I looked at him, and would have struck him as well if I’d been strong enough to wrestle free. But he held firm. “Back in the belt, scribbler. Put it back in the belt.”
I was shaking my head, but by now the soldier had reacted and moved his horse away. Even if Mulldoos had let go, the moment was gone, and my rage with it. I was only numb. As he unhanded me, I almost dropped the sword, my arms were so tired. I looked down at Lloi, her body in a heap, leggings and tunic filthy in the mud, and felt shame wash over me from a hundred directions. I started to dismount but Mulldoos said, “Front of the column. Now.”
I thought he was going to leave her there, and though I knew I couldn’t possibly overcome him, I wasn’t about to compound all of my failures by abandoning her. But before I could do anything else, Mulldoos dismounted.
The soldier who I nearly attacked forced a laugh and said to Mulldoos, “You were almost a man lighter, Black Noose. You keep that whelp of yours on a shorter rope, you hear?”
> Mulldoos turned and gave the soldier a stare that stole his smile. “I were you, Bruneboy, I’d shut my mouth tight as a priest’s ass. Open it again and I’ll let the whelp gut you. And he manages to screw that up, I got nothing against killing one more today. Nothing at all. You hear?”
And then he lifted Lloi’s body out of the mud as easily as if he were picking up a sleeping babe or straw doll. He laid her in front of his saddle and mounted his horse. It pained me to see her slung like that, but he’d done it gently enough, and I couldn’t really fault him. She was dead.
I rode alongside, passing the soldier who gave me a murderous look but wisely held his tongue, and followed Mulldoos to his place alongside Braylar. I was tempted to ask why he spared me the burden, or why he hadn’t draped her over her own horse, as had been done with the other dead before Braylar had conscripted them in our defense earlier. But I said nothing. In the end, it didn’t matter.
Others acknowledged us as we passed, if only with a sullen glance. When we reached the front of our party, Hewspear turned and looked at Lloi for a long time. He took a deep breath, grimaced, and whispered, “She saved my life and more with one hand. She might have saved the whole company with two.” Then he gave a small smile, through pained and mostly for my benefit.
I looked at Braylar, tried to gauge him for some reaction, any reaction at all, but he was inscrutable. We rode along, and now that I wasn’t charged with carrying Lloi and struggling to stay in the saddle, I hazarded a look behind us, but saw nothing beneath the gathering storm clouds besides Syldoon and Brunesmen.
Time continued to pass in that immeasurable way it does when you’re exhausted but have no chance to sleep, and the drizzle slowly gave way to real rain, cold and stinging. Even though we hadn’t reached the fortified city and safety from our enemies and the elements, hope began to stir the closer we got. If a little.
I fought the urge to look behind us, partly afraid I would see a column of lancers closing in, and partly because even if there were, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I stared ahead with the rest of the men. The rain picked up, so it was difficult to see very far ahead. I wondered if this was what it was like to be a ghost, alone, wandering through the gray nothingness. And as we crested a small hill, I finally made out the silhouette of Alespell ahead, its spires and towers shadowy smudges, but there was no mistaking it was there.
We sped up, not wanting to blow our horses so close to sanctuary, but it was impossible to resist. I still half expected an ambush to come down on us, even after we entered the North Gate. Every corner and cross street seemed a place for potential ambush. But we were unmolested. Gurdinn led his men and prisoner off without another word, and we made our way through the districts until we were at the stables of the Grieving Dog.
The horrible irony of our residence wasn’t lost on me.
The next day, I woke from such a deep slumber I couldn’t tell what time of day it was, or even what day it was. I vaguely remembered washing when we returned, flicking food around a plate, an eventually collapsing into bed. I’d never been more tired in my life. As I slowly roused and splashed water on my face, the previous day’s events came back to me with all of the suddenness of falling through ice.
I dressed slowly, thinking how I’d barely escaped death, and how others hadn’t been as fortunate. I wondered why I hadn’t been summoned, but it was clear I was very much a secondary or tertiary consideration to the Syldoon at this point. Maybe even a non-consideration. I grabbed my writing supplies and record everything that had happened while it was still painfully fresh.
Finished, I stepped out into the antechamber that served as a common hub for Braylar’s room. And what would’ve been Lloi’s, though I suspected her body wasn’t occupying it. Again, a dunk in the ice water, awash with guilt and sadness. Vendurro was sitting stiff-backed on a stool near the door leading to the hallway. He barely acknowledged me, which reminded me that he’d lost someone more dear to him than anyone to me. Which made me feel worse still for pitying myself.
I switched my writing case from arm to arm, and not knowing what to say or how to say it, I coughed gently.
He looked up, though still not alertly, and said, “Food’s there, if you’ve got the stomach.”
There was a plate of fruit and bread on the small table next to him. I didn’t feel like eating, but my stomach rumbled, reminding me that I’d only taken a few mouthfuls of bread the previous night. I nodded my thanks and grabbed some cheese and washed it down with some ale that was only a touch better than water. I expected the food to taste like ash or bark or at least stale food, but it was wonderful.
Perhaps soldiers experienced and handled grief differently than common folk, or maybe they didn’t deal with it at all. Maybe that was the key. I felt obligated to say something to Vendurro, but I knew whatever words I summoned would be inadequate, regardless of what he was in fact experiencing.
Still, the obligation overran any qualms, and so I cleared my throat, and then again, until he looked up at me, and said the simplest thing I could think of. “Glesswik seemed like a good man.”
Vendurro nodded slowly, three times. “Bad husband, lousy father, but a good soldier and friend. None better.”
Feeling more uncomfortable than I’d imagined, I told him I was sorry.
Vendurro nearly smiled, the corners of his lips turning ever so slightly before giving up. “Can’t say I totally understand why we need a scribe so awful bad, but you’re less of a lesion than the last one, or the one before that, when it comes to it.”
I wasn’t sure if that was deserving of proper thanks or not, but it was my turn to nod, and then I asked if he’d seen Captain Killcoin.
Vendurro cocked his head towards a door. “Asked me to send you in, after you filled your belly. Best not to keep him waiting. Real black mood.”
I thanked him and moved across the chamber. I knocked, and when no one replied, knocked again. I looked back to Vendurro, but he was vacantly starting at the wall again. I opened the door and stepped inside. Braylar was sitting at a table, elbows on the edge, shoulders hunched, a tall flagon of ale and a mug in front of him, eyes red and watery. His hair, normally oiled and slicked back, was now in disarray. Bloodsounder was sitting on the table, the two chains splayed apart, and he regarded the heads as they regarded him. The horn shutters were shut behind him, and the room was bathed in a dull orange glow from the sun that shone through them. The bed didn’t appear slept in.
I apologized for disturbing him and he laughed, took another swig from his flagon and said, with the crisp, over-enunciated words of a drunkard much-skilled in his craft, “You couldn’t possibly disturb me any more than I am. Sit. Write. You were conscripted to script, yes? Your scriptorium is where you find it. Script.”
I sat and unfolded the writing case and began scribbling some notes. He rotated his fingers in the air lazily and took another drink. And belched. And continued drinking.
I sat there, feeling ill at ease. Wondering how keenly he was feeling the absence of Lloi and her ministrations, and if he was going to sink completely within himself again, or if there was now something worse in store.
Braylar finished his mug, reached to refill it from the pottery flagon, and finding that empty as well, hurled it against the opposite wall. He began to shout Vendurro’s name, but his throat pained him, and massaging it, he ordered, “Call him. Loudly. Immediately.”
I yelled and received no response and Braylar slapped the table. “Scream it, you bastard, get him in here!”
I did, and a moment later, Vendurro stepped inside. “Cap?”
Braylar rubbed his throat for a moment before pointing at the remains of the flagon in the corner. “It seems I have need of another. Preferably one that doesn’t shatter quite so readily. And holds more ale. Yes, bigger.”
After a long pause, Vendurro replied, “As you say, Cap.”
Before Vendurro could make his exit, Braylar called out, “You aren’t turning mutinous
over an order for ale, I hope?”
Vendurro shook his head. “No, Cap. Not doing any such thing.”
“You hesitated, Vendurro. You aren’t a hesitator. It’s not in your nature. In fact, you could benefit from a little more reflection. But not just now.” He tipped the mug over as if to make sure it was in fact empty and not just withholding out of spite. “Explain yourself.”
Vendurro looked at me and it was my turn to shrug my shoulders.
Braylar said, “Speak freely, soldier.”
“Begging your pardon, Cap. For the hesitating and all. Just wondering if maybe you’d like me to bar the door, while you get some rest.”
“Wondering, or suggesting? I ask, Syldoon, because wondering is something a soldier is permitted, though advised against. Will the line withstand another assault? Is this the best ground to defend? Are the superior’s orders truly sound? Such thoughts naturally occur, and none but a Memoridon prevents you from pursuing them. And, clearly, I’m no Memoridon. But unsolicited suggestions to said superior-those are not only discouraged, but could considerably shorten a soldiering career. So, I ask again, do you wonder or suggest? It sounded suspiciously like a suggestion.”
“Begging your pardon again, Cap, but I wouldn’t have said nothing at all, so it would have stood at wondering, but you prompted me, so I’m thinking it’s a solicited suggestion. As it stands now, Cap.”
The scars around his mouth twitched with a too-brief smile. “Deftly done, soldier. But need I remind you-I didn’t solicit ale, I ordered it. I suggest you follow that order immediately.”
After Vendurro pulled the door shut behind him with no hesitation this time, Braylar lifted both hands and massaged his temples with the tips of his fingers. He began to reach for the mug again before stopping himself. “I should’ve suggested he bring two pitchers.”
Braylar moved one hand back and forth over a flail head, as if testing to see if it was too warm or too cold, before laying two fingertips on one of the horns and closing his eyes. After he said nothing else for some time, I feared he was already beginning to succumb to whatever had plagued him on the plains. Then he said, “You wonder-though silently, which I appreciate more than you know-what happens now, yes? Now, I drink. You are welcome to join me.”
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