Veil of the Deserters

by Jeff Salyards

  It felt good to laugh after witnessing the battle in Alespell. Not just witnessing, I reminded myself. I had participated in the worst way possible. Even if it had been defending myself and Skeelana, I had taken a life. And what’s more, suggested freeing the ripper, which had surely ended several more. I almost felt guilty laughing, but still, it felt good.

  We were quiet for a minute after the laughter died away, and while I was reluctant to ask or say anything that might spoil the moment, I never knew when I would have another opportunity, so I gave it a go. “You said you’ve been in Anjuria for three years?”

  Vendurro nodded. “Something like that. Wasn’t counting the days. Ought to ask Hewspear. That man knows something about practically everything. The lieutenant could probably tell you down to the minute.”

  “And Lloi had been in the company for two? Or close to?”

  Vendurro thought about it, then replied, “Near enough.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to be sure no one was immediately behind us. “And how long has Captain Killcoin had Bloodsounder then?”

  Vendurro said, “About four years, give or take. About a year before we come to Anjuria. Thereabouts.”

  “And how did he come to have it? Lloi told me he unearthed Blood-sounder. But she wasn’t with him, obviously. What did she mean by that?”

  Vendurro looked at me, lower lip moving back and forth, dragging that patch of sandy hair on his chin with it, as he seemed to be wrestling with how to, or whether to, respond. Then he looked ahead to make sure no one was close enough to hear. As the company had the road to ourselves, we had spread out a fair amount—someone would need to drop back or ride forward quite a bit to make out our conversation. “I was there, as it happened. Kind of wishing I hadn’t been. But Cap, guessing he’s wishing the same right about now.”

  “Where was ‘there’?”

  “We was riding screen for the army. In—”

  “Riding screen?”

  Vendurro stopped himself. “Easy to forget the only things you know about soldiering you read in some book or other. You seen the captain sending scouts ahead, behind, all around?” I nodded and he continued. “Well, an army, they do the same thing, only bigger like. Usually send a small unit. Scour the countryside for stores of food, signs of the enemy. Sometimes sent out to destroy crops, or poison wells, or work up some other kind of mischief. That’s what the crossbow cavalry was best at—scouting, gathering intelligence, taking what needed to be taken, breaking what needed breaking.”

  “Crossbow cavalry? I take it you mean this unit?”

  Vendurro tapped the side of his long nose. “Yup. Nailed it true, Arki. But this is only a portion of it. Anyway, the army was on the move. This was in the hills of Gurtagoi. We weren’t at war with the Anjurians just then, so this wasn’t the army entire or nothing. Just a few battalions, set to check out reports of some movement from uppity Gurtagese bandits. Worst kind of screening there is—just getting a lay of the countryside, not expecting any scrapes, not stirring up trouble of any note. Just riding. Sleeping. Riding. Sleeping. So when we come upon a burial mound, and Cap said he wanted to take a closer look, we were half bored out of our minds and all curious as cats.”

  I’d read about burial mounds, but never seen one. “You said Gurtagoi? There weren’t any tribes or clans in the vicinity, were there? If memory serves, this province had been settled for some time, right?”

  “Yup. A lot of open country, still, but no active tribes that I know of. Any that lived there were wiped out or moved on a long time ago. Why?”

  “Well, my studies indicated that burial mounds in active tribe lands might have something worthwhile in them. But since this was in a settled region, open or not, I’m guessing it would have been looted a long time ago, wouldn’t it? So what caused the captain to want to investigate?”

  Vendurro scratched at his stubbly neck with two fingers. “Can’t rightly say. You weren’t the only one who had that thought. A few of the men said the same thing. Mulldoos the loudest. But you seen the Cap—when he gets a thought lodged proper in his head…”

  “A blacksmith with tongs couldn’t pull it out.”

  Vendurro chuckled. “Right. And you got to remember—well, maybe you don’t, since you probably didn’t know this in the first of all, but Cap, before he was with the Syldoon, him and his sister—” he looked up the line at Soffjian. “They were something of experts when it came to robbing burial mounds. To hear him tell it. So maybe he gleaned something in the flowers and dirt, or the slope of the land, or devils know what he saw—but he seemed real certain this mound was worth exploring for a bit. And since we weren’t in a bull-busting hurry just then, most of the men were more than happy to let the horses graze and lay in the thistles while the Cap and a few of us investigated.

  “We followed his lead as we walked the perimeter. Looked like a big mound of grass most of the way, until we came to the entrance. A big old stone slab in place, bunch of squiggly carving worked into the face. Cap told us to find some logs to bust in there. Mulldoos, he looked at Cap, you know, like he does, and said, ‘Cap, what makes you think somebody else ain’t busted in here in before now? Why are we playing in the dirt? Let’s get back to camp.’

  “But Cap, being Cap, said, ‘Have you no spirit of adventure, Lieutenant?’ Well, Mulldoos weren’t one to have the size of his manhood questioned, so he helped fetch some logs and pry that stone slab off the entrance. Heavier than it looked. Took some sweat from all of us, but we finally worked it free.”

  “Did you have torches?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have thought to bring none, it being midday and all, and the mound didn’t look all that big, figured enough sun would come down there with us to see what was what. But Cap insisted we get some ready, which earned him another of those Mulldoos looks. But we went about it, worked something up, started inside.”

  I asked, “Did it… smell?”

  Vendurro laughed. “Now that you mention it, it did. But not like death or rot. Just a stale, trapped sort of smell. Like the earth had belched but never had a hole to let it out. So we hoisted those makeshift torches, started in. The dirt floor was packed tight, covered in dust of the ages, and there weren’t footprints that I could make out. Didn’t look to me like no one had broken in there before us. As we started down the incline, Hewspear must have been thinking on that and said, ‘Captain,’—you know, never have heard him shorten it, just wouldn’t sit right with him, I suppose—‘Captain,’ he says, ‘I do have a spirit of adventure. But don’t you find it peculiar that a crypt like this would have been undisturbed for so long?’”

  Vendurro managed a good impression of nearly everyone, capturing the rhythm and cadence. “Well, Cap looks at him and says, ‘Perhaps, but it’s most definitely disturbed now. Do you really wish to turn back before seeing what’s inside?’

  “There wasn’t one of us that said much to that. So in we went, following a tunnel down. And Cap was right, after we turned away from the entrance, the sunlight would’ve known better than to follow us, so the torches proved mighty useful.”

  “Thought they might,” I said, smiling.

  “Real right head on them shoulders, you got. Anyway, we kept walking until we got to the burial chamber. It was big, bigger than I would have expected. Ceiling about fifteen feet high, so Hewspear could straighten up again. Bracketed with wooden beams. The ceiling, that is, not Hewspear of course.”

  “Why was it so big?”

  “Well, I might’ve asked the same question, never been graverobbing myself neither, coming from a clan that didn’t do burial mounds.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. Burned the dead to ash, high and low. Can’t say why, for a certainty. Always just been done that way. But Cap said this mound likely belonged to a warrior of note. And if it was anything like where he was from, that warrior didn’t head into the afterlife traveling light.

  “And he was righter than right about that. All along the outer edge of the
chamber, all manner of things. Jars that once had oil, or mead, or who knows what else. Some flutes that got Hew’s attention—always did like his windy instruments. A small table with some sort of game board on it, the pieces caked in dust so much it was hard to tell what they were, besides lumps. Blew the dust free, choking on it, found onyx, started stuffing them in a pouch. Trays for food. Wicker baskets, drinking horns, combs and brushes, fox-fur blankets. On and on. I saw Mulldoos grab some old brass torcs, getting into the spirit of things. We were circling around, examining this and that, pocketing anything that wasn’t too warped or cracked. But Cap had already made it across the chamber to an open door on the other side. He called out, ‘Baubles. Come on, men,’ and disappeared into the next room without waiting on us.”

  Vendurro stopped talking for a second, looking down at the pommel on his saddle, the reins loose in his hands. He glanced at me, and he might have shivered, though I might have only imagined the last. Or not.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “You know me. Well, not really. But you know I ain’t a coward. And not one to get real superstitious like. But as I walked toward that open door, I felt like we ought not to have been there at all just then. It wasn’t just that we were about to meet the dead man who owned that hole in the ground. It was something… else.

  “I stopped just outside the doorway, watching Cap’s torch play across the wall inside, heard him shifting through the dust, and it just felt… wrong. Real wrong. Tough to put to words. But just then, Hew-spear seemed to have the right of it. Maybe there was a good reason we were the first ones to pull that slab aside in a good long while.”

  “Bloodsounder. And it’s…” I hesitated to use the word, but nothing else sufficed. “Curse.”

  “Didn’t know it at the time, but yup. And it was too late—Cap was in, we were out, and even though I knew it was foolishness, I put my hand on my sword stepping through the door, just the same.

  “There were three stone tables set in the middle of the room, bigger than the one we just left. On one side, the skeleton of a horse. Had what once must have been one hell of a pretty saddle, bells all up and down the harness. On the opposite table, there were two skeletons in rags. Again, probably real pretty gowns at one point. Cap must have sensed our questions. As he was circling the tables, he said, ‘They send the warrior to the afterlife with his best horse and two finest slaves. Well, that would be my guess. We had a similar practice in my homeland. It’s supposed to be an honor, but I don’t imagine the horse or slaves shared that view.’”

  Vendurro scratched at his stubble again, and continued. “And in that center table, that was the big chief hisself. Bones and some embroidered death gown mostly in tatters. Must have been something to see at some point. The gown, I was meaning. And on the side, his wargear. Big scaled cuirass of bronze, iron helm with a faceplate in the shape of a screaming bearded man, a shield—the leather face rotten away—sword in a scabbard, a spear, iron head black and haft as curvy as a scared snake. And … well, you know that already. Cap saw that wicked flail, drawn right to it, traced his finger along it in the flickering light, gently shook the dust free from the chains, and slowly hoisted it. It rattled down there, links clinking, sounding louder than it had any right to. Cap cleaned Bloodsounder off—though of course didn’t know the name just then—examined the heads, and the whole thing was free of the patina or warping that had waylaid so much else in the crypt. It didn’t look new, but you could tell that weapon would have no problem working just fine, with a quick cleaning. Wasn’t rusted like it ought to have been.”

  I tried to imagine the scene. “Did Captain Killcoin seem to sense anything wrong?”

  Vendurro shook his head. “Not that I could tell. But he’s about as hard to read as a blank book most days. If he did, didn’t stop him from giving us leave to gather whatever loot was salvageable to distribute among the men. We set to it, moving awful quiet, even though wasn’t nobody left to disturb. And Cap just sat there, leaning against the edge of the stone table, turning those Deserter heads over and over. So can’t say that he sensed something was amiss, but his actions did seem mighty peculiar. Seemed right fixated on the thing, and while he was a man of moods, can’t rightly say that I’ve ever seen him locked in on something like that. Never knew him to have any sort of affinity or interest in the Deserters, so to see him turning those awful heads over in his hands, the torch light seeming to slide right off that dark metal, was queer, to be certain. But still, never thought to think something real awful was about to befall the man. I never would have guessed.”

  Well, it was difficult to imagine the mood of the men or women who had interred the body, as the pain of the Deserter Gods abdicating this realm and leaving us alone behind the Godveil must have been sharper and fresher for them. But even now, so many centuries later, I know if I uncovered a wicked looking weapon shaped in their awful image, that would be an absolute deterrent and send me fleeing in the other direction immediately.

  Vendurro said, “And even if we got some kind of warning or other, can’t say that would have held up Cap. Might just have intrigued him fiercer.”

  He had a point. When Braylar set his mind to something, it just wasn’t like him to allow anyone else to push him in a different direction. With sparing the Hornman being the lone exception, efforts to persuade or dissuade the man seemed to steel his resolve in whatever direction he was already going in. “Lloi mentioned that at some point, he was beset by those memories Bloodsounder stole. And that you all tried to bury it back in the ground. That wasn’t the same tomb though, was it?”

  Vendurro shook his head. “Nope. Fair distance from it, if I recollect right. He’d killed men in battle with the thing, after stealing it from the grave. Can’t say the count, but more than two or three over the next year or so. But Bloodsounder seemed to take its time working its evil magic on him. Real gradual like. We all noticed something was strange. Leastwise, me and Gless and the lieutenants, knowing him better than most, and spending more time in the man’s company. So we saw a change. The upchucking after combat—that was new. Always a hard bastard, Cap, not one to get wobbly-kneed over any killing that needed doing. Leastwise, before using the flail.

  “And he must have been bloated with the memories of the dead for some time before he finally fessed up to having them. Curses are a tough thing to believe in overmuch. Unless it’s you bearing the brunt of it. Coming from anyone else, we would have thought him mad. But it was Cap, we could see him suffering. Spells come over him. Drifting like a tiny branch in a big eddy. Only it were one no one else could see or do anything about.”

  “What about the other men in his command?”

  “What about them?”

  “Didn’t they notice that their captain was… unwell?”

  Vendurro nodded. “Ayyup. Sure they did. And once whispers start, real hard to unwhisper them. Luckily, Mulldoos wasn’t one to brook any nonsense like that. First time he caught someone talking about it, shoved that man’s face into a tree until he choked on bark and practically gouged out his eyes, told him to shut his hole or Mulldoos would do the shutting himself. You know. Like he does.”

  “Like he does.”

  “So that’s when we tried burying the flail, middle of the night, off on campaign. Only that seemed to make the Cap worse off than holding the thing in his hands, tortured him, made him scream and thrash like he was on fire. So we dug it up and brought it back. And just like that, things seemed to improve all on their lonesome. For a while, leastwise. We started to think maybe severing the tether like that, even in the temporary,

  broke whatever hold it had on him, stopped the affliction cold. Of course, it didn’t work out like that. Took some more time for it to start deviling him again, but less than before, and he was worse off. I heard one of the men openly wondering if it were the plague, or something worse, only I didn’t bash him into a tree, just told him to bite that tongue before I carved it out. That was when we happened upon Lloi.”
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  I considered the timing of everything. “It sounds like you were on campaign in or around Anjuria the whole time this happened.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So…” I looked up the column, to where the women were riding in a pocket by themselves. “His sister, the other Memoridons, they have no idea then? About Bloodsounder. What it does to him. The stolen memories. The warnings it gives him. None of it.”

  Vendurro leaned over toward me and lowered his voice, though the pair weren’t anywhere near close enough to hear anything except the tromp of their horses’ hooves. “No. And I expect Cap is real eager to keep it that way. Real. Eager. So don’t go mentioning the first thing about it around no female ears. Memoridon nor otherwise, when it comes to it. In fact, best not to talk about it much at all to anyone, excepting me, the lieutenants, or Cap. And Mulldoos might make you eat bark or drop you hard if you do. And Cap, well, harass him too much on that front and could be your memories devilling him next. Though he does seem to like you more than the last couple archivists we had. Still, best not to test that overmuch.”

  With a wink, Vendurro rode ahead, leaving me to my thoughts. Which was always a dangerous proposition.

  Braylar called for a brief halt to water and feed the horses. We moved off the road, and I followed the Syldoon lead of hobbling my horse and allowing it to graze on the grass, which wasn’t billowing in the breeze like any found on the Green Sea, but still seemed plentiful enough to feed the horses of a very small company on the move. I left my horse where it was and joined Braylar. He was absently patting Scorn’s neck while his other mount moved off a short distance, chewing some grass.

  I had specific questions in mind, but hesitated to bring them up. Of course, I shouldn’t have approached until I was really ready, as my silent looming seemed to annoy him as much as someone shouting in his ear. “I have the uncomfortable feeling you intend to speak at some point, and yet there you mutely stand, like a nervous actor waiting for the curtain to rise, shifting feet, wringing hands, trying not to draw attention to yourself, and managing to do exactly that. Well, consider the curtain up. Out with it.”