Most said “Aye, Lieutenant,” and started back to their respective horses before Braylar halted them. “It so happens, I have just the thing. Pluck the bolts out of these bodies and take the Hornmen to the stables. Set the horses loose and burn the thing to the ground.”
One of the Syldoon—the one with the face that looked like it had been hit by a shovel, eyes set too far apart, nose flat and pulpy, said, “Fire, Cap?”
“Aye. Fire. The thing that burns other things.”
Pulp-nose said, “Begging your pardon, Cap, but what I meant was, the tower’s stone. Not like to light up real well.”
Braylar slowly pivoted to face him and hissed. “The stable and barn, you ass. Large wooden buildings, just alongside the tower there, full of four-legged beasts. That you will set loose first. Set fire to that. And be quick about it. I want to be away from this place immediately.”
The Syldoon saluted and set to work.
Vendurro scratched the back of his neck, still staring at the Hornman at the base of the tower covered in blood with a pale bone jutting out of his torn hose. “Shit job, that. Shit job.”
Mulldoos turned on him, about to shout something at him as well, but then reconsidered, cursed, and stalked back to his horse. Maybe he was going to harass him for passing the job off before he remembered he’d done the very same.
I turned and watched as a Syldoon approached the Hornman that was behind the wagons. He grabbed him under the arms and started to drag him toward the barn, heard him groan, and dropped the body. Then, not wanting to repeat the bloody performance from a few moments ago, the Syldoon spanned his crossbow and nonchalantly planted another bolt in the middle of the man’s chest. The Hornman jerked once and went still for good.
The Syldoon swung his crossbow around out of the way on its strap, and went back to work moving the body to the barn.
I felt my stomach twist. The captain was right, as awful as it was—those deaths in Alespell were my fault. In saving one life, I’d managed to end several more. Though Braylar had clearly chosen to try his luck with the outpost. I couldn’t be held accountable for the aftermath of that.
The captain was eyeing me, measuring my expression. “I can see it on your face, Arki. Writ as clear as if put there in ink by a stylus.”
I readied myself for mockery or a cruel jibe. “Oh?”
“Yes. It’s the quills, is it not?”
Worried I was only being baited, I asked carefully, “I’m sorry—the quills?”
“The lack of them, to be precise. In the Green Sea, I could tell you thought it a poor choice for a cover story. And now you’re absolutely certain of it, yes?”
I didn’t reply, sill fearing that he was ready to verbally ambush me.
“Well, it pains me to no end to admit it, but you might be on to something, I still feel the story itself is credible, and my delivery impeccable, but it has failed two performances in a row. So. You must help me think of something else the next time we have Hornmen, Brunesmen, or any other nosy men poking around the wagon. I leave it to you.” He watched his men hoisting the dead. “Put that creative mind of yours to use, and leave off whatever it is that weighs heavy on you here.”
Did he suddenly regret being so hard on me? And if so, was it only because he thought me too weak to be able to take it? Or was it because he believed he was overly harsh? As always, I had difficulty determining what it was that motivated him from moment to moment, but he was offering me a reprieve. Or trying to, at the least.
I felt my throat clench and nodded. “It could be that, no matter how flawlessly you sold the tale, the fault might have been only poor timing or odd circumstance.”
“Perhaps.” Braylar climbed up onto the bench.
I did the same. “Or it could be you just don’t look like someone who sells quills for a living.”
Braylar looked at me, and I thought I might have spoiled things, and was about to hastily add something else, when he laughed and slapped me on the back. “Entirely possible. I was going for innocuous.”
“That, Captain, might have strained credibility. Just a bit.”
He nodded, a small smile still there. “So then. What would you suggest, oh learned scribe?”
I thought about it as he got the team of horses moving, forgetting for a moment that the Syldoon were hiding a fair number of bodies and getting ready to burn everything to ash. “Well. You need a ruse that arouses no suspicion and seems entirely plausible. How about gravedigger?”
He gave me the sharp look that usually prefaced a sharper rebuke, stopped as he realized I was joking, and slapped my back again. “Very good, Arki. Very good.”
We rode off as hastily as the uneven and stony road would allow. I looked behind us, saw the dark smoke rising above the trees, the burning stable hidden as we rounded a small bend. I wondered what would have happened if any other travelers had come by just after the attack. But I knew, really, and just gave silent thanks it was only Hornmen corpses burning in the barn. At least the captain had spared the horses. He did seem to have a soft spot for animals.
It was silent for the next hour or so, and some of the smoke must have wafted onto the canvas, or my clothes, even though I hadn’t been all that close to the flames, as the smell stuck with us the entire time. Muldoos and Vendurro flanked our wagon, and the other Syldoon rode alongside the one behind us. We rounded another bend and saw a large group of horsemen waiting for us. I nearly choked on the wine I was drinking until recognizing Soffjian and her red cloak among them. We closed the distance and the riders fell in among us, rounding out our small caravan. Not surprisingly, Soffjian looked particularly perturbed as she sidled up next to our wagon.
Looking straight ahead, she said, “You do seem to court a great deal of conflict wherever you go.”
“I am a great courtier, it is true,” Braylar replied, eyes also fixed straight ahead.
“Are you sure your quarry is worth all this excessive maneuvering and effort, brother? We could be halfway to Sunwrack by now, but instead, we are riding through the woods in the wrong direction, with the likelihood of you incurring imperial wrath growing every mile. Nothing would delight me more, of course, so I ask only out of idle curiosity.”
“There is nothing idle about you, sister. And never has been. But as to your question, we could have come up with a multitude of plans that would not have involved us going out of our way, had the Emperor given us leave to do so. As he commanded us back directly, this was my only move that would still help us accomplish our goals here without capsizing the entire enterprise. I find your use of the word ‘excessive’ excessive.”
She smiled, and though the physical resemblance might not have been strong on the whole, the joyless smile was absolutely a familial trait.
“Remind me again,” she replied, “why we are traipsing so far afield and off the northern path? My curiosity—idle or otherwise—demands parley.”
“Does it now? Very well. I will tell you this. Most of our machinations in Anjuria involved setting one caste against another, aggravating what were already volatile conditions between them, and seeking to destabilize things, in advance of the emperor’s invasion.”
“That has not materialized.”
“That has not materialized,” Braylar agreed. “But still very well could. Likely will, in fact. The ravages of the plague are still felt, but I suspect Cynead believes we have recovered enough that we no longer need to work in the background setting the stage for assault. But if so, what he is neglecting to realize is that Anjuria has recovered as well. And while they are still fractured, and ruled by a very young monarch, it is foolish to abandon everything we’ve achieved here without doing one final thing while we have opportunity. A rare opportunity.”
Soffjian considered this, or made a show of considering anyway, before saying, “And if your brilliant hunch is off, and he has no such plans? What if he doesn’t intend to invade now? What if never?”
Braylar laughed. “The Syldoon are either in
vading, planning on invading, or paving streets in conquered lands. Even the most atypically peaceful emperor doesn’t sit the throne long without giving us some martial objective or other. We tend to resort to killing each other in the streets if we grow bored, Soff. Or deposing emperors.”
“Be that as it may, given that you are operating solely on supposition—unsupported supposition, in fact—it seems odd you would be so eager to risk his wrath for capturing one piece on the board, when he could have moved onto a different game entirely.”
She was looking in our direction now as she waited for a reply. No. Not “our,” I suddenly realized with a lurch in my chest—she was looking at me. Only me. With those dark, very dangerous eyes. While she surely knew how gifted her brother was at subverting the truth and probably wasn’t looking for tells from him, she seemed to suspect—rightly so—that I was far closer to transparent than opaque.
If I glanced away quickly I would arouse suspicion, and if I locked eyes too long, it was like challenging some wild beast. Her gaze appeared casual enough, but I felt like she was slowly peeling layers of my face away the longer I looked at her.
I turned to Braylar, as if I were waiting for his response as well, and not at all like I was trying desperately to do something casual and blameless.
He ignored both of us, or at least what we were doing, and I feared he might not reply at all, which would leave me trying to manufacture some other innocent gesture, or excuse myself and head back into the wagon as nonchalantly as I could. But then he said, “It’s true, I’m far from Cynead’s inner circle. In fact, I’m somewhere in one of his outermost circles. I cannot know his mind. Just as you can’t. So everything we do here is fraught with risk. Everything. That is simply the way of it.”
She sniffed and said, “As you say.” Then she rejoined Skeelana further ahead.
Keeping my voice low but avoiding the urge to lean in and whisper, I asked, “Do you think she suspects? That there is more to you going after Henlester?”
“You mean because you fidgeted like a small child about to piss himself the second she so much as looked at you?”
I started to fumble a reply when he continued, “But even if you hadn’t behaved like a complete ass, I always suspect her of being suspicious. It’s in our natures, you see. And her more than most.”
Hewspear and Vendurro had warned me to bite my tongue, but I nearly ignored such sage advice and queried the captain about whatever poisonous past they shared. The timing seemed ideal, in that I’d just seen the siblings engage in some more verbal sparring, but the timing was equally terrible, in that I’d obviously irritated Braylar again, and his sister doubly so.
Would there ever be an opportunity to deftly weave it into conversation when he didn’t look ready to chew stones and spit the pieces at me?
Unlikely. Most unlikely.
As dusk approached, I wondered where we intended to make camp for the night. When we were in the Green Sea, we simply camped where we stopped, and little different on the road to Alespell. But having killed a large host of Hornmen in Alespell, and a small tower full of them not long after, we couldn’t possibly be sleeping just on the side of the road. Too dangerous. We had to turn off somewhere. The only question was where, and if the captain had selected the spot ahead of time. I supposed it was too much to hope we would find a small village that had an inn of some kind.
We headed off the main road, onto a much smaller rutted trail only wide enough to accommodate one wagon. I wondered what we would do if we encountered any traffic coming the opposite direction, but there was none. The track was overgrown and nearly as grassy as the wild areas around it. And there wasn’t any noise at all, besides the chirping of birds or the ever-present buzz and hum of insects, drawn to fresh flesh before being repulsed (somewhat) by the herbs strewn all over the wagon and hanging from the tack and harness.
A fox darted out of the brush, looked in our direction for a while, and then scampered across our path before disappearing on the other side.
When we finally made it around a small bend and saw a horseman standing in the middle of the track, I tensed, fearing it was a bandit, or a Hornman, but no one else even seemed surprised.
The Syldoon rode up to us and reported the site was clear. I wasn’t quite sure just how clear until we rounded the bend a bit further and came across the village. The most deserted village I had ever seen.
Judging by the fences that had fallen and the encroachment of weeds and grasping roots and other aggressive vegetation, it had been for quite some time. But what made it especially odd wasn’t the state of desertion, or the way the wilderness had sensed its opportunity and begun reclaiming the area as its own, but the fact that most of the structures looked solid and still in good repair. As we entered the outskirts of the village, I noticed several doorways open, windows as well. Peering inside as we passed, I saw a fair number of the usual items you would expect to encounter in any home—hints of chests, dressers, tables and chairs, rugs still on the wooden or dirt floor.
On the road to Highgrove University, heading there the first time, nothing but a frightened boy, I remember we came across a settlement that was equally abandoned, but it had clearly suffered the ill-use of whatever bandits or marauders had driven the inhabitants off. Buildings burned to the ground, everything that might have contained anything of value cracked open or shattered, other objects that were completely utilitarian broken or smashed out of spite or some vindictive lust. The entire village was ransacked. We’d hurried on, as it felt like the damage might have been done recently, and the thieves might still be prowling around.
But this was something altogether different. This place didn’t seem like it had been attacked. In some ways, it reminded me of the temple by the River Debt. But while those ruins had been foreboding, the area devoid of most sentient life, filled with a heavy spirit of desolation, it had the shimmering, endless, and horrible Godveil to explain why it had been forsaken, destroying the minds of any who ventured too close.
There was no obvious reason this village was utterly empty, or why it had not been looted. It was different from the temple, but no less eerie. It felt like all the inhabitants were spirited away right in the middle of whatever they’d been doing.
My mouth went dry and I fumbled for some wine before asking Braylar, “What happened here?”
We kept rolling along and he didn’t reply, only looked around the deserted village, trying to find something. Finally, he pointed at a plot of land behind one house that contained graves. Several, and of varying sizes. “The plague.”
“The…?” I looked everywhere at once, and the truth of it was suddenly so obvious it hurt. The place was so abandoned because people had tired of burying their own, and the survivors had moved on as quickly as they could, afraid to contract the same, or so overcome by the quiet destruction that had claimed so many they simply couldn’t remain. Maybe they even suspected their possessions were tainted, as so many had been left behind and left undisturbed.
That was why the place felt so haunted. It probably was.
“But… is it smart to stay here? Some physicians claim the plague runs its course in short order, but others mention the possibility that whatever causes it might be lying dormant, simply waiting for the fools to stumble in and startle it awake again. Is this… foolish? It feels foolish.”
Braylar gave one of those hard looks that made men exceptionally uncomfortable, me more than most. “We will be absolutely undisturbed for the night here, because fools believe as you do. I am far more worried about armed men hunting us than some dormant plague rising like a vengeful spirit. Is there anything else you wish to add? No? Very good.”
The community was a tiny hamlet and it didn’t take us long to reach the center of it, which is about where we stopped. Braylar guided the team of horses into a barn that had either been left open by the plague survivors or by his own men who had ridden here ahead of us. While most people likely avoided the village, he wasn’t taki
ng any chances either. The rest of his men followed his lead and moved their horses and the other wagon inside, though it couldn’t house all of them, so several took their horses elsewhere.
Braylar lit a lantern, hung it from a hook, untethered Scorn and started tending to her, and I did the same with my own ignoble steed. My horse hadn’t been ridden during the day, so I was tempted to rush through it, but the captain’s steed hadn’t been worked any harder and he still treated her as if she had nearly been blown galloping the entire day, so I mirrored him as best I could. Even my horse looked at me as if I was being overzealous, but I wasn’t going to stop brushing until he did. Which seemed to take far longer than it should have.
When we were done and led the horses to some stalls, we unharnessed the team that had been pulling the wagon and gave them their due attention. Never having owned a horse and needing to care for one before accompanying Captain Killcoin, I was still somewhat surprised by just how much handling they required. I suppose I always imagined you simply rode until you were done riding and then got off.
Braylar was right—I could be something of a fool. I just hoped he was equally right about the plague no longer being in the empty village. I found myself breathing as shallowly as possible, with my heart beating like a startled hare, before realizing that if there was a danger it was likely too late. We were here. And would be for the night. If the plague would claim any of us, it had probably already chosen its victims and begun working our demise.
When we were finally done with the horses, I followed Braylar out of the barn and across the thoroughfare, over a small stone bridge over a dry streambed choked with branches and dried leaves from seasons past.
I thought he intended to stay at what appeared to be the manor house, home to whatever mayor had died or otherwise departed, but he kept walking.
Then Braylar stopped, swayed, reached out for the nearest wall and nearly missed it. I put my hand out, reluctant to grab him outright, but not wanting to fail to offer aid of some kind either. He rubbed furiously at his temples as he steadied himself against the wall, then gritted his teeth, nearly gnashing them, before his head lolled to the side. I was sure he was going to fall and did grab his arm, but he caught himself, shook me off, and slapped himself in the side of the face.
Veil of the Deserters Page 20