by Chris Evans
The one of just a short time ago had faded to the point that he wondered how much was his, and how much was Her.
He remembered the Shadow Monarch reaching out Her hand…and he remembered reaching to Her…but then everything blurred. His memory went blank after that.
A brindo brayed and Alwyn turned to watch the wagon slowly creak past. As tough as they were, even the brindos needed a respite from pulling the extra weight. The three women remained on the wagon, talking quietly among themselves. Every once in a while, Miss Tekoy or Miss Red Owl would get off and sift the sand and weave the air, then they would set off again, always heading south.
Like Alwyn, the rest of the section walked along behind the wagon in single file. Even Jir had come out from his resting place to stretch his legs, though he seemed disoriented by the lack of trees. It was hard to mark territory when there was nothing to mark. Alwyn had already had to shoo him away from his wooden leg twice. Jir now slunk underneath the wagon, keeping pace and walking there in the shade.
Alwyn preferred the sun right now, no matter how hot. The limbs that made up his new leg creaked in the dry heat, and sand began to wear the burnished sheen of the wood. He didn’t want to use any more of the special tree sap until it was absolutely necessary, but if he didn’t find a way to protect the leg, it would eventually grind itself apart in the sand.
He looked around and then found a solution.
“Hey, Jir, come here, boy,” Alwyn said, beckoning to the bengar.
Jir looked out from underneath the wagon, his head tilting one way, then the other.
Alwyn clicked his tongue and motioned for the animal to come to him. “It’s all right, I just need you to mark a little territory.”
Teeter marched past, his chin resting on his chest as he limped through the sand. “That’s genius, and disgusting,” he said.
Jir came out and padded over to Alwyn, who pointed at the wooden leg and smiled hopefully. “You know you want to,” Alwyn said.
Jir sniffed at Alwyn’s wooden leg, then walked around him a couple of times. He stopped, sniffed again, then took care of business. Magic sparked briefly throughout the leg. The limbs became supple once again. Alwyn had to quickly shake his leg to keep it from trying to take root in the sand. Without earth to delve into, the magic channeled its power up the leg, reviving the wood as it went. Alwyn felt new shoots wrap around his stump and knew the leg would be good to walk on again for some time to come.
“Remind me,” Yimt said, trudging up to stand a few feet away, “to never borrow a toothpick from your leg again.”
“Great that your leg’s watered, but what about us?” Zwitty complained. “Shouldn’t we be coming up to that oh-way-seas place you were talking about, Sergeant?”
Yimt glared at Zwitty, then pointed forward. They continued walking. “We’ll get there when we get there, and no, Scolly,” he said, looking over his shoulder as the soldier came near, “we are not there yet.”
Scolly’s opened mouth closed into a pout.
They walked on in silence, each coping with the heat and the sun as best he could. Yimt flapped his caerna a few times to create a breeze before moving back to take his place walking beside the wagon and chatting with Miss Synjyn.
“You had to go and talk to the girl at the Blue Scorpion instead of just getting on with business,” Zwitty said, breaking the silence. He came close to Alwyn and poked a finger in his back. “Why couldn’t you have left well enough alone? We would have lived like kings in Nazalla. Now look at us. We’re right back out in the middle of bloody nowhere looking for more monsters. Who gives a damn if this Kaman Rhal character is out here? He can have his desert. There’s nothing here any sane person would want.”
“This is important, Zwitty,” Alwyn said. “We couldn’t just sit and wait in Nazalla hoping things would work out. And those people wanted to kill us. For all we know the Iron Elves and the other regiments are fighting them now,” he said, though he suspected that if that were really the case he would have sensed it. “We don’t have a choice.”
“We don’t have a choice?” Zwitty asked, holding his hands up in disbelief. “Ever since we took that damned oath we’ve had nothing but eternity staring us in the face. I figure we might as well enjoy the time we got here and now while we can.”
“What are you saying?” Alwyn asked, looking behind him.
“Yeah,” Hrem said, moving in closer as they marched, “what are you getting at?”
Zwitty looked around at them, then shrugged. “If we only got a short amount of time as men, and forever as shadows, why waste our time here plodding around deserts and jungles and the like? Why not go off on our own?”
“You’re talking about desertion,” Alwyn said. “They’d have you shot for that.” The rest of the soldiers bunched up around them to listen.
Zwitty snorted. “Don’t be a fool. What do you think’s going to happen to us if we stay here? Eventually we’ll be shot anyway, or cut down by a sword, torn in half by a cannonball, or something worse. I think I’d rather take my chances out there,” he said, waving his arm at the desert.
Yimt suddenly appeared beside them, the wings of his shako flapping as he stomped along to keep pace. He stuffed a pinch of crute between his gums and cheek, then stuffed a pipe into the corner of his mouth and lit it. “There’s more noise from you lot than a bag full of dragons and one virgin. I’d say you lads was gettin’ sun-crazy if I didn’t already know you. What are you jawing about anyway?”
“Zwitty was talking about having dessert,” Scolly said.
Zwitty snarled something under his breath.
Yimt puffed on his pipe, sending clouds of acrid smoke skyward. “Is that so, Zwitty?”
“The halfwit is talking through his shako. I didn’t say nothing about dessert.”
Yimt looked Zwitty up and down. “No, I’m sure you didn’t. But you know, seeing as we’re on the subject, I thought I’d relate a little story to you all. The sun and the heat out here can fry a man’s brain pan quicker than an egg on a skillet if he ain’t careful. Scrambles his thinking, it does. Before he knows it, he’s thinking the army life ain’t for him, and maybe he’d be better off out on his own.”
“Kritton got away with it,” Zwitty remarked.
The bowl of Yimt’s pipe sparked violently for a moment then subsided. “Aye, he did, but that was in Elfkyna. No shortage of water and food in that place if you know how to get by in a forest—and whatever else Kritton was, that elf knew how to take care of himself. But in case you haven’t noticed, this ain’t Elfkyna. Have a look around.” He took a few more puffs on his pipe as that sank in.
Alwyn did. Everywhere was shades of beige. Heat shimmered above the sand like sheets of glass wherever he turned his gaze. Rocks and great curving sand dunes provided the only change in an otherwise flat vastness of desolation. How anyone could live out here was beyond him.
“Not exactly paradise, is it?” Yimt continued. “Now if we was in Calahr or some other civilized place, a man might make a run for it, but then you have to ask yourself why? If you’re in a good place with food and drink and things is relatively calm, what’s the point of doin’ a runner? On the other hand, in a place like this there’s even less point. Where would a fellow go to out here? There’s nothing but sand, sun, and dying of thirst if something worse don’t get you first. You’re safer off with the army than not.”
Alwyn wasn’t so sure. It was being in the army that had brought them all to this point—oath-bound by the Shadow Monarch’s magic and doomed to eternal hell if they couldn’t find a way to break the oath. He looked around. Eyes betrayed fear and uncertainty.
“Now, it’s not for me to judge a man, elf, or dwarf who’s reached his breaking point,” Yimt continued. “The army will do that, and with a rope or a musket ball. Thing is, we all got ’em. Every sigger that ever put on the uniform has a breaking point. The major does. The Prince does. Even I do.”
“So what’s your point?” Zwitty asked.
“We’re all going to snap like twigs in this heat and go stark raving mad?”
Yimt pulled his pipe out of his mouth and pointed it at them. “My point is that when a fellow reaches that breaking point, if he’s got buddies around who don’t entirely hate his guts, they’ll probably help him keep his head until he gets back to himself again. It’s the only way armies work. Going off to war and killing will crack anyone’s crystal ball. That’s why they keep soldiers together in regiments. You get to know the other fellow and maybe even become friends.” Yimt turned to look directly at Zwitty. “A friend, Zwitty, is a person who will do something for you without expecting anything in return.”
Zwitty only sneered and said nothing.
“I hate to interrupt your little chat, gentlemen, but I believe the oasis in question is just ahead,” Rallie said from the front seat of the wagon.
Alwyn and the others turned and climbed up the gentle slope to where she was pointing. At first, all Alwyn saw was shimmering sand and sky. Blurred images swam in and out of focus. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes and immediately regretted it, then put them back on and tried again.
“Wait, I think I see it,” he said. A cluster of low, white-walled buildings appeared beside several palm trees. He looked away and then back. The palm trees were now smudged and fragmented, but now that he’d seen them he could keep some of it in focus.
“Load your men, Sergeant,” Rallie said, “I think it best we get there as quickly as possible.”
“You heard the lady,” Yimt said, “get your arses on the wagon. Move.”
Alwyn walked over to the wagon and began to climb on, not an easy feat with a wooden leg—no matter how magical—then paused and looked around. “Where’s Jir?”
The bengar was sniffing in the sand a few yards away. “Jir, let’s go,” Alwyn said, motioning with his hand. The bengar ignored him and continued to worry at a spot in the sand. He began pawing at it.
“Ally, get your butt on the wagon—the beastie can catch us up,” Yimt said.
“Just a minute,” Alwyn said, walking over to Jir. Alwyn gently nudged Jir out of the way with his musket, then looked down. It was only some cloth. Alwyn started to turn away when something about the fabric made him reach down and grab it.
“We’re getting baked to a crisp out here, Renwar,” Zwitty shouted. There were a few grumbles of agreement.
Alwyn ignored them and shook the cloth a few times to rid it of sand and dust. It was an unremarkable black save for a small section of embroidery just visible at one tattered end. Stitched on the cloth was a green vine. Alwyn looked down at his caerna and placed the cloth beside it.
The color and the vine were a perfect match.
This was part of the uniform of an Iron Elf. But how?
“I’ve half a mind to take off your leg and beat you about the head and shoulders with it,” Yimt said, huffing as he stomped toward Alwyn. “What are you doing?”
Instead of answering, Alwyn called forth the frost fire. It sparkled in his palm and ignited the cloth. There, for just a moment, a tiny white flame burned before being consumed. The pain told him everything.
“Tell me that wasn’t a piece of a caerna…and that I didn’t just see white flame.” Yimt said slowly.
Alywn turned and looked again toward the oasis. “We have to save him.”
“Save who?”
Alwyn lowered his head and shook it slowly. “I don’t know how, but Kester Harkon is here. That’s who we have to save.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Why are we risking our live bodies to try and save a dead one?” Zwitty asked. “If something really has Harkon’s body, which makes no sense at all if you ask me, I say let him keep it. Harkon’s got no more use for it.”
Alwyn was tired of arguing the point and kept his mouth shut. Zwitty was far too concerned with his own well-being to understand that it was much more than simply the body—this was a battle for Kester’s soul. Alwyn flexed his fingers around his musket and scanned the ground ahead of him.
The section was spread out in a line moving slowly toward the oasis. Palm trees and some figs grew up around a green area that Alwyn hoped contained a well or even a pond. His head pounded with the relentless heat, his eyes were on fire from the punishing sun. Then there was the sand, which was in everything and everywhere; all over his uniform, boots, and pack; in his eyes, up his nose, in his ears and mouth so that all he tasted was grit. It felt like being simultaneously slow-roasted and ground between scouring pads.
Alwyn narrowed his eyes and pulled his shako a little farther down over his forehead. A cluster of five single-story buildings sat off to one side of the oasis, indicating there might be inhabitants here…though there was no smoke from a fire and no sign of movement. A ridge of sand ran behind the oasis, blocking the view beyond, but until they searched the buildings and the oasis itself, whatever was beyond could wait.
The sun was now scorching the right side of Alwyn’s neck, and he twisted his head and hunched his shoulder to compensate. Alwyn tried to relax his grip on his musket and stay calm. The hammer was cocked, a musket ball and charge were loaded, and the bayonet was fixed. The same thought kept racing through his mind—they had Kester’s body.
“I cannot tell what, if anything, is in there,” Miss Tekoy said, indicating the oasis while walking a few paces to the left of Alwyn. Miss Red Owl was on the other side of Yimt and Miss Synjyn was standing on top of her wagon holding on to Jir. The bengar stared straight ahead, the fur on the back of his neck standing up. Definitely not a good sign.
It bothered Alwyn that the women were there—not that he didn’t appreciate their abilities, but it seemed wrong somehow for them to be putting themselves in such grave danger.
“There is no safe place out here, Alwyn of the Empire,” Miss Red Owl said, displaying her uncanny ability to respond to Alwyn’s thoughts.
“Maybe Jir’s just excited to see all those trees,” Hrem said, attempting some levity. He pointed with his musket toward the palms that lined the small watering hole. “Be a nice change of pace for him after only having Ally’s leg to water.”
They kept walking. Alwyn shivered and stomped his one good leg on the ground. Cold, as if he’d just taken a breath on a snowy night, filled his chest and then was gone.
“But how did they get his body all the way out here?” Scolly asked. “We buried him at sea, just like all the rest of them.”
“He didn’t become a shadow, did he?” Inkermon said. “His soul is lost. It is as I feared.”
“Do we have to talk about this?” Teeter asked, holding his head with one hand. “I’m hot, tired, and hung over, and talking about something out there waiting to steal our bodies and souls is not helping.”
“So stick your head in the sand if you don’t want to listen,” Zwitty said, pointing his musket toward Teeter. “See, this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Bet leavin’ the army don’t seem so crazy now, does it?”
For a while there was only the muffled sound of their footsteps as they plodded through the sand. The silence built until Alwyn felt the need to cough just to hear something, but Yimt spoke first.
“Ever notice wherever you go you can always find a mud hut? It’s true. You know, I’ve lost count of the number of countries I’ve been to,” he said, keeping his shatterbow ready at his hip. “But it doesn’t matter if it’s so far north you sneeze ice, or so far west you find yourself east, you can always find mud huts.”
“How’s that, Sergeant?” Hrem asked.
“Like those ahead,” Yimt said. “Clearly made out of mud bricks. Same with most of Nazalla, too.”
“I’d say they were more buildings than huts,” Teeter said, apparently deciding this was a conversation he approved of. “See how that one there has a window opening? Clearly a building.”
Alwyn looked to where Teeter was pointing. There was a window opening in the wall of one of the structures. He didn’t care, if it offered shade from this sun.
Yimt stared at Teeter for a moment before turning his head back to scan the buildings up ahead. “It’s just that it’s mud. Water and dirt mashed together. Oh, sure, sometimes they mix in some straw, or cattle manure, but in the end a mud hut is a mud hut is a mud hut. I don’t know, I guess I just was hoping we’d go someplace and be surprised for once.”
“I see something!” Scolly shouted, followed by the crack of his musket firing. The sreexes in Rallie’s wagon started screeching. Jir growled and leaped from the wagon, bounding across the sand and into the short vegetation growing around the oasis.
“I think we just got our surprise!” Alwyn shouted, as they all broke into a run.
Scolly crashed through the vegetation first, his caerna flying. Jir let out a piercing roar.
The air vibrated with an energy. Alwyn was sure he could hear a voice carried on it.
“An oath weapon!” Miss Red Owl shouted, running after Scolly. “Tyul is in there! Be careful!” Behind Alwyn, reins snapped and brindos brayed.
“Keep spread out! Inkermon, Hrem, watch the buildings!” Yimt ordered as he plunged through the brush with Alwyn right behind him.
As the entered the clearing, they saw three black-cloaked figures standing near a watering hole, a small rock-lined pond ten feet across. Each held a long, curved sword in its hand. A body lay facedown on the ground behind them. It was still sewn up in canvas sailcloth, but Alwyn knew it was Kester. A few feet away, Tyul Mountain Spring faced the figures with his dagger drawn. The voice Alwyn had heard was coming from Tyul’s weapon. Jurwan sat perched on Tyul’s shoulder, his tail bushed.
“Drop your weapons,” Yimt shouted, pointing his shatterbow at the nearest figure.
It motioned to the other two, which bent down and picked up the body. The first turned toward Yimt and raised its sword.
Scolly was furiously reloading his musket. “Kill them, kill them!”
“We’ve got this under control, everyone take a breath. Now,” Yimt said, taking a step closer to the mysterious figures, “drop your weapons and that body.”