Kingmaker
Page 17
CHAPTER 17
“So I’m left of Rarin, right of ole’ Chewlip, and behind a mouse.” Whoever said it earned general laughter, but Butu scowled as he adjusted his pack and looked over his shoulder at the grinning man behind him. Lujo struggled with his waist strap. Blay walked over to help him.
“Don’t tie it in a knot like this,” Blay advised, picking at the twists of leather. “If there’s an attack, you need drop your pack quickly. It’ll just get in your way if you try to fight while wearing it.”
“Hope you’re fast, mouse,” the sordenu behind Butu said. “I don’t want to crush you beneath my boots.”
If the rest of this morning had been anything normal, Butu thought, I might take this as sick humor. But he didn’t feel up to accepting a joke right now. How often is a new, young squad placed at the head of a company?
First had come the packs — three times the size of their camp packs, but full of necessary supplies. It was nearly as large as Butu. Then, when they assembled in the yard, Tem-35 at the back of Tem-3, Zhek — that water-starved idiot lieutenant — had ordered Tem-35 ahead of Tem-31. Only the captain’s brief flash of surprise and the sergeant’s sharpening of jaw had let Butu know this was out of line. Butu wanted to explode at someone.
“What’re you up to, mouse?”
“Just memorizing your face,” Butu said, more calmly than he felt. He looked down at the sordenu’s boots. “Your lace is untied.”
The man looked down, bending a bit. Butu grabbed his shoulder and pulled. Off-balance in part because of his big pack, the round-faced sordenu fell over to shouts from the other ranks of Butu’s platoon. Butu fell on top of the aggressor, under a pile of other sordenu trying to pull him off.
“Leave us alone,” he whispered into the man’s ear, as Puro’s enraged shouts commanded order. “I’ll do worse next time.”
Blay and Tirud hauled him upright, and the round-faced sordenu’s squad helped him up.
“Squad Tem-35 will have the first two watches tonight,” Zhek said from atop his horse, when they had lined up again.
Butu twitched, feeling the stare on the back of his neck. Tirud had replaced Lujo to his right. Jani stood impatiently on his left, radiating anger. Well, why not? Zhek had all but hauled her out of the squad after he moved us forward. Is he punishing me or her?
He had not seen much of the kluntra’s son in the past three years, but Zhek didn’t look very different. His stint in the army had visibly toned his muscles, but he looked just as self-assured as ever. That fall from the roof must have shaken his faith a little, though. Butu recalled the secret conversation with Pater, Aeklan and Blay. The old Zhek never would have admitted the possibility that he could fail at any project.
Zhek said something to Sergeant Puro that Butu didn’t quite catch. Puro saluted and turned to his platoon with a dark expression.
Zhek rode back to the front of the short column, joining Philbe and the other lieutenants. Once the company had mostly resettled into their ranks — the scuffle had not gone unnoticed — the sergeants gave one last inspection. Puro glared murder at Butu and the round-faced sordenu behind him.
“Company, attention!” Philbe shouted from the head of the column.
There was a great clatter as a hundred sordenu dressed in full kit stiffened in unison.
“Forward, march!”
The company marched in perfect step behind the captain. Butu could hear orders being given to the sordenu at the gates and could sense people moving out of the way of the marching column. He had difficulty concentrating on anything but marching, though, because the weight of his equipment was too much of a distraction. With every step, he thought for sure he would collapse, and then Rarin, Chewlip and their squad would cheerfully trample him.
The cool air of the early morning soon gave way to the blazing heat of day, adding a new layer of discomfort. More than once, Tirud grabbed Butu’s elbow and hauled him forward as their line bent.
“Straighten up your rank!” Puro shouted.
The sergeant was much younger than Aeklan, but still weathered, and the two sounded exactly the same when he had met the youngest squad in the Gordney. “I didn’t ask for you water-starved mice, but you’re with my platoon now,” he’d said. “So fall in, don’t make trouble, and you’ll only get second watch for the first month. Move it!”
Glancing down the line, Butu saw only Blay keeping pace with the platoon in front. Jani lagged even behind Butu, and he could see members of the squad behind them grimacing.
“We’re all gonna get night watch at this rate,” the sordenu behind Butu grumbled. He was called Tak, Butu had learned quickly. The one called Chewlip, who had an ugly scar on his face and was missing part of his upper lip, lisped madly but started every sentence with his name.
“Tak, the lieutenant wanted them to lead.”
“Yeah,” Tak grumbled again. “What a water-starved camel turd.”
“Quiet in the ranks!”
Butu grinned and redoubled his efforts, but his knees shook. His shoulders ached and his fingers were going numb because the straps cut off circulation.
“Focus on keeping up,” Blay hissed from Butu’s left.
Puro walked backward, facing the platoon as he marched. His stern face swept back and forth through the ranks. After a minute, he turned around.
“Left. Left. Left, right, left,” he called in time with his steps, and the platoon stirred as sordenu shuffled their feet to match the sergeant’s. “Left. Left. Left, right, left.”
Everyone was on the same foot, now. Then Puro did something that surprised Butu very much. He chanted.
“Fought the Kanjea in their orchards green,” he called in time with the march.
“Fought the Kanjea in their orchards green,” answered the sordenu of the platoon.
“Saw the sweetest fruit that I’d ever seen.”
The sordenu answered, and Butu joined them, this time. He heard Jani and Tirud do the same.
“Plucked that fruit right off the tree.”
Is this magic? Butu wondered. But the pack didn’t feel any lighter. His shoulders and feet still ached. And he was still miserable and covered in sweat.
“Brought it back to camp with me.”
The chant isn’t done, yet, and sometimes it takes a few repetitions for the magic to work. Butu frowned. Of course, if it was a magic chant, thinking about it might keep it from working. He needed to concentrate on something else. Like keeping pace with the sordenu in front of me, and keeping ahead of Tak and Chewlip.
“Ate ‘til I could eat no more.”
Butu concentrated on that as he repeated Puro’s chant.
“Had a pile of seeds and cores. Planted my seeds in fertile ground. Now I’ve children all around.”
Nolen quickly suppressed a laugh, confirming what Butu already suspected. The chant is about more than just fruit.
“Left. Left. Left, right, left.”
Instead of repeating the first chant the way children using magic did, the sergeant followed with a new chant. This time, the battle was with the Nukata, and the Ahjea carried off all the other clan’s ore and heated the ore until it gave all its gold to the sordenu. Each clan had a turn as the focus of the chant, and by the time Captain Philbe called the first halt, the platoon had stolen every other clan’s most precious commodities. Butu felt sore, but he also felt better than he had when the march started.
Maybe we’ll make it, he thought, grinning at Tirud.