Veil of the Deserters

by Jeff Salyards

  Crowder looked down as he heard Rose wheeze his last, cough, sputter, and die.

  “Hornman!” Braylar yelled.

  The man snapped his head back up.

  “I will not ask again. Can you follow orders and save what remains of your sorry troop here?”

  Crowder nodded slowly, still tensed, and then belatedly added, “Aye. Yes. Yes, tell us what you want of us.”

  After hearing no further retorts, Braylar continued, “Very good. A sensible man at last. Now then, heed me closely. Baron Brune’s men are on the road behind us, led by a gruff man named Captain Gurdinn. They will likely be here in half a day, possibly less. When they come across your stumbling crew, you will convey a simple message. Something of a warning, really. Following me so far?”

  Crowder nodded fast, several times.

  “Good. You will tell them, as your condition bears out, that we destroyed a full company of Hornmen after our resident war Memoridon blinded near on sixty men, including your sad crew. Let the Brunesmen know we only allowed you to live to provide evidence of this. If they choose to pursue us, we will have ample time and opportunity to cripple their much smaller party, and you can be sure I will not be so charitable in leaving prisoners a second time.”

  Crowder made sure nothing more was forthcoming before asking, “Is that it, then?”

  Braylar started to nod and stopped himself. “That’s it. Stay on this road and deliver this warning as instructed, and you and your men live. Even a group of blind men can manage this, I am thinking.”

  Crowder was staring at the grass in the distance between them, nodded quickly, and then added, reluctantly, “And after?”

  “After?” Braylar asked. “Well, Gurdinn is no monster. I assume he will take you in, or see you provided for. But even if he leaves you at the roadside, you will be alive. And that is surely finer than the alternative, yes?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer and called out to another Syldoon. “See to it they have some food and water. And give them their weapons. I am a hard man, but not cruel top to bottom.”

  Riding alongside the wagon, Mulldoos muttered, “Waste of decent steel. Better to give them some walking sticks.”

  Braylar leaned back on the bench next to me and said, “Now, Mulldoos, I did give my word.”

  “Also shot one in the face.”

  “It was the throat. And I warned him, did I not?”

  “You should have shot them all in the face, you ask me. They’ll probably run for the woods the second we’re out of sight.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” I said and then regretted my joke immediately.

  Braylar laughed. “Delightful. But I am thinking this Crowder is too cowed to disobey, even after we ride off. He will deliver the message.”

  Mulldoos shook his head as our procession rolled on, leaving the stunned Hornmen on the side of the road—it was difficult to tell if they were more relieved to be alive, or terrified of being stranded without sight in the middle of nowhere. “You wanted to leave one to warn Brune’s bastards, one would have done it. All I’m saying. No need to leave a handful of them. And their weapons? What the hells will they do with those besides cut themselves up? Probably hurt themselves with spoons right now.”

  Braylar laughed. “A single blind man signifies nothing. Eight—”

  “Seven,” I amended.

  “Seven blind men make for a more compelling warning. Much harder to ignore. And as to their weapons, well, if brigands happen along, at least the sightless Hornmen can kill themselves first.”

  Mulldoos shook his head again. “Got a right peculiar sense of fair play, Cap. Right peculiar.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Mulldoos turned and rode back to either join the men or check on something, leaving the captain and me alone again. For once, I was actually sorry to see Mulldoos leave.

  Braylar didn’t look my way or say anything, but the silence was filled with palpable unease, though it was hard to tell if it was more on my part or the captain’s. He hadn’t struck down anyone else with Bloodsounder—I don’t think the Syldoon had even raised a melee weapon, except to use the flats of their blades to beat down a few blind prisoners—but his disquieting quiet was almost worse than an energetic rebuking.

  “Are you—”

  “If you say ‘well,’ I will throw you off the wagon and leave you to shepherd the blind bastards behind us.”

  Well. That was at least familiar.

  I tried a different tack. “I was wondering something.”

  “Of course you were.”

  “I don’t generally find myself agreeing with Mulldoos, but I am curious why you left any of the Hornmen back there.”

  We passed a dead horse and some blood stains in the grass on our left. “I’m rather surprised at you, Arki, exceptionally tender soul that you are. I imagined you would have been thrilled.”

  “I’m glad you spared them. Well, most of them anyway.”

  “Ahhh… so that’s what is troubling you, yes? That I shot a blind man?”

  “A blind prisoner.”

  Braylar looked at me and forced a smile, thin but surprisingly unwobbly. “It was clear Rose was not going to be cooperative. The whole point of sparing them was to have them be blind witness and keep Gurdinn from pursuing, and Rose would have led them into the woods the moment we rolled off. Or blindly attacked me if I gave him a blade. He has no one to blame but himself.”

  I chose not to argue the point. “Let’s assume Crowder does as you commanded. I still don’t quite understand, why the necessity for a warning at all? Don’t misunderstand—I am happy you let them live. But with Soffjian in the company, couldn’t you simply do the same thing to the Brunesmen?”

  Braylar replied, “I would have thought you could tutor me on that score. Given your newfound expertise in all things Memoridon.”

  And order on the wagon was restored. I felt my cheeks flush, even if I’d been wondering when he might comment on that. Perhaps I should have chosen to talk about caltrops or rolling gears instead. “I chatted with Skeelana briefly. She mentioned that the blindness might pass. Or not.”

  “Well, then clearly she neglected to mention that Soffjian is not all-powerful. Blinding dozens of men on a field of battle is not so easily done as all that. Frankly, I am surprised she is still sitting in the saddle. I imagine your short confidant is propping her up just now and tending to her needs. Even if she was inclined, which she is not, my sister won’t be of any use to us or even herself for some time. For everything, a cost, archivist. And some things are less cheaply purchased than others, yes?”

  Memory magic did seem to exact a toll on the user. Though Braylar was an unwitting user, at best. I was tempted to ask again how he was faring before recalling the warning. “Are there many like her? Among the Syldoon Towers?”

  “War Memoridons? No. Which is likely a good thing.”

  “Why is that?”

  He swatted at a cloud of gnats. “It is true, if we had more with Soffjian’s very dangerous talents, we would be all but unstoppable. Anjuria never would have opposed us, or if they had, turned into a kingdom of the blind and mad if we allowed any to survive. But the Syldoon have kept the Memoridons in check in part because they are so few in number, and even then, those who can wipe out battalions like my sister are fewer still. There are rigid limits on both counts that all Towers must abide by. Mutually agreed upon limits. Any found violating them risk severe penalties.”

  “Such as?”

  Braylar looked at me and twitch-smiled—I was finally growing accustomed to it. “The Fifth Man.”

  I waited for him to explain, and he must have enjoyed my waiting as he waited until I finally opened my mouth to ask for elaboration before saying, “Any Tower found violating the Memoridon limit must choose one fifth of its forces—nomination, lottery, volunteers, what have you—and summarily slaughter them. This includes the Tower’s Memoridons, so they don’t have incentive to try to swell their numbers o
n the sly.”

  “One fifth. That is a severe penalty. Have many Towers risked such a punishment?”

  Braylar replied, “That depends how you define ‘many.’ Four Towers have suffered the Fifth Man, but over the course of several centuries, that isn’t so very many. The largest of these was the Stag Tower—they were a prominent faction, nearly forty thousand strong. It took several days.”

  “The Emperor executed eight thousand men?”

  The twitching lip froze. “You misunderstand. The Stag Tower had to carry out the punishment themselves.”

  “What if they hadn’t? Complied? Has that ever happened?”

  Braylar nodded, slowly. “Once. Ten years ago. The Broken Tower.”

  “Did you… so you saw it happen, then? Were you in Sunwrack?”

  Braylar closed his eyes. “I was. The Broken Tower—well, that’s what they’re called now. Before the incident, they were the Fox Tower. The Broken Tower refused to strike down their own men. They were a smaller Tower—ten thousand strong. And they refused. So, it fell to the other Towers.”

  “You and the others executed the thousand men?”

  “No. We executed all of the men. Every last one. Most Towers that are commanded to enact the Fifth Man resist, stall, appeal. But none absolutely refused before. We didn’t have all ten thousand locked away. The Fox Tower repudiated, all but daring us to carry the sentence out. Perhaps thinking we wouldn’t. It was unprecedented, as I said.”

  “But…”

  “But the Emperor ordered it done. The law is the law. And so the other Towers attacked. Some from Fox escaped into the Torchfield and took to the streets. We hunted them down, district by district, house by house. Until every last one of the ten thousand was dead. Along with countless Thurvacians and casualties aplenty among the other Towers. Even Sunwrack, Capital of Coups, in all its bloody history, had never seen carnage in its streets as it did that day.”

  We lapsed into silence for some time before I finally asked, “So, what now?”

  “Now, we return to Sunwrack, hopefully without encountering any more large groups of armed men that would like to see me dead. And you return to your translation. You said you needed opportunity? Well, unless assaulted again, you shall have it. We have many, many miles before we reach Sunwrack. Surely enough for you to make considerable progress.”

  While the prospect of doing something useful that did not require wielding a crossbow made me excited, I paused to ask, “And what of Henlester?”

  “What of him?”

  “Well, you mentioned you wanted him for political reasons, and because he might have knowledge about Memoridons. Or at least the early versions of them, before the Syldoon used them. Are you going to, uh, interrogate him?”

  The wagon bounced over a rut and nearly sent me off the bench. “I do hope the High Priest proves worth the risk. I will not press him with Memoridons around, not until I have something of substance to talk to him about. If there was something that occurred deep in the history of his order, he would likely be aware though, and it would be better to have something concrete to assail him with. So, put your skills to use, Arki, and stop dawdling.”

  Even with the rising temperatures inside the wagon, it was a welcome distraction to seclude myself in there and being poring over pages again. The passages in Middle Anjurian, while not easy, weren’t entirely unfamiliar, and tended to go more quickly. Not quick. But more quickly. In some instances, I had to force myself to slow a bit, to be sure I wasn’t missing anything or performing the gravest of translator missteps, seeing what I wanted to.

  Still, hours came and went, and there was very little of interest in the remainder of the first chest. Well, of interest to Braylar—I found the entire contents absorbing. But while there were a number of references to the Deserter Gods here and there, none were especially illuminating or revealing anything new or noteworthy. And there were a few more oblique references to weapons like Bloodsounder, with one more corroborating the notion that wielder and weapon shared a name and were somehow bonded in both a physical and metaphysical sense (which was noteworthy, and certainly worth pointing out to the captain), but again, nothing entirely new for the remainder of that day.

  We made camp in some woods alongside the road, hiding the wagons as best we could.

  The next day passed, and I was so buried in the work I nearly forgot that the Brunesmen might still be out there hunting us until one of the scouts returned and reported that they were no longer even within a day’s ride of us. They had slowed or turned away. Or at least intended to give that impression. Braylar, suspecting a possible ploy and not one to deviate from protocol, especially as it involved gathering intelligence, ordered the scouts to remain vigilant. But it appeared that the blind men had indeed served as a warning.

  Even though the Hornmen had been attempting to kill us, I hoped the blindness proved to be temporary. It might have been more merciful to kill them otherwise. No one had an easy path through life, but cripples least of all.

  With the most recent threat having been averted and no new ones presenting themselves, we fell into a familiar rhythm over the next two days—breaking to rest the horses and feed and water them at almost the same time of day. I spent every hour of sunlight in the wagon, sweating and sifting through old or ancient documents, jotting notes, compiling and cataloguing what I discovered. Braylar even surprised me by allowing me to light a lantern each night to continue working.

  We hit Martyr’s Fork and started our journey on the north road, and aside from some subtle changes in the landscape, with slopes and hills beginning to become more pronounced, and forest and woods less frequent (or at least broken up by more patches of stony ground), little changed. My rolling scriptorium continued rolling, Syldoon recovered from wounds and tended their armor and weapons, and I found myself listening to pieces of their conversations, jokes, and songs, happy to be doing something I enjoyed, but again feeling alienated, as Braylar had commanded the soldiers to leave me to it. Vendurro stopped in a few times, or entreated me to take a meal with the men, which I sometimes accepted, but for the most part I was immersed in my work and content it was me and my pages.

  Aside from me, there were three other people who also rode with the company without being a part of it. Henlester was always either chained inside the other wagon, or guarded by one or two Syldoon a fair distance from wherever we stopped or rested. I rarely saw him, which was just as well. I might not have been familiar with the man, but what I did know made my skin crawl. And even beyond his taste for damaged whores and the likelihood that he killed them, his disloyalty to the Baron, and the fact that he had tried to trap and kill us at the ruined temple (never mind that we had intended the same for his underpriest), there was the churning arrogance. Though he was clearly a prisoner, he comported himself like the jailer.

  And Soffjian, of course, who stayed distant from the Syldoon, ate her meals separately, and didn’t engage the Syldoon any more than absolutely necessary. Though she did seem more at ease now that we were finally on Lord’s Highway heading north, she was still bristly and clearly made anyone within twenty yards nervous, especially after her display against the Hornmen.

  While Skeelana often joined her, she did occasionally attempt to joke with the men. Conversation seemed to wither and die quickly, however. While she wasn’t nearly as aloof (or dangerous) as Braylar’s sister, she was still a Memoridon. A creature apart.

  I found myself sometimes hoping we would have more opportunities to chat, but aside from a few brief exchanges, she gave me space. Which irritated me, whether done to protect me or comply with an order by Braylar or some mysterious whim. And I was irritated with myself for being irritated.

  But I needed to focus, not get distracted by ridiculous conversations with impossible women. Still, I found myself thinking of those exchanges we had had, and hoping we could have more once I had translated through the contents of all the crates and chests the Syldoon had gathered. Foolish beyond foolish, b
ut there it was.

  And then it happened. Finally.

  While I’d been happy enough just to be using my talents, and the captain didn’t overtly pressure me to deliver any result, I could tell by his looks and short questions about progress that he was impatient. And frustrated, even as I assured him that it was better to be as deliberate and accurate as possibly, rather than risk missing something or getting it wrong.

  In truth, after those original bits of text regarding mystical weapons, I was beginning to despair of finding anything related to any topic Braylar had put me on alert for. So when I came across a section written by what must have been one of the original priests serving the Temple of Truth, I was relieved, intrigued, and excited again.

  A great deal of it dealt with confusing clerical politics, their order’s somewhat antagonistic relationship with the secular rulers of the day (some things never changed!), and the day-to-day operations—all tithes and meal preparation and logistics and records of visits from visiting clerics, stretching over years. My initial enthusiasm waned.

  So when I finally came across a passage that dealt with what could only have been the forerunners to the Memoridons, I was elated. It was extremely difficult not to plow ahead, to try to find out what I discovered. I desperately wanted to simply be done, to share the translating success with Captain Killcoin.

  But I forced myself to proceed slowly, setting an agonizing pace, working with the source material for several hours, toying with various choices of interpretation, trying to stay as authentic to the original verbiage and intent as possible. And then I revisited again, and still again to be sure I had a handle on the language, the content, the meaning of the words, resisting the urge to scramble and rush, finally having something significant, substantial, and exciting to work through.

  After scribbling my final notes, I realized we had actually stopped at some point, and I’d been so occupied I hadn’t noticed. I grabbed the parchment, blew on the last of the ink to dry it, and then made my way out of the wagon, fighting off a dry breeze to avoid losing all my pages.