Veil of the Deserters

by Jeff Salyards

  From the looks of it, I must have been lost in translation for quite some time—saddles were off, most of the horses groomed and fed already, some men were preparing a fire. Mulldoos and Hewspear were closest to the lead wagon, both leaning against their saddles, Mulldoos with his arms crossed behind his head, Hewspear more upright and looking less comfortable, his ribs still giving him trouble, no doubt. I wondered how long it took bruised or broken ribs to heal. I’d had a toe broken by a large wine barrel before, and that had been a minor misery. And I didn’t have to keep riding and fighting every day.

  They were both watching two of the younger Syldoon sparring with shields and blunted blades. Not seeing Braylar anywhere, I walked over to his lieutenants and stood a few feet away and then asked where I could find the captain.

  Hewspear started to reply when Mulldoos slapped his meaty thigh. “Fusko, you dumb whoreson. You used the same feint six times running—you really think he’s falling for it again?”

  Fusko, short and thin-framed but incongruously having a moon-face, now red with exertion, called out over his shoulder, “Fell for it twice already. Didn’t you, Welt?”

  The other soldier was breathing heavily as he circled his opponent. “Once, you prick. And quit calling me Welt!”

  “Twice, and quit getting hit and I will!” Fusko feinted a blow to his opponent’s head, and when “Welt” shifted his shield just a hair, the real blow snapped down toward the opposite leg. But Welt dropped his shield in time and knocked the blunt away.

  Welt called out, “Once, you dumb prick!” and kept circling.

  Hewspear started to answer me again when Mulldoos yelled, “I’m inclined to side with Welt on this one. You are a dumb prick. And while you might be fast, most experienced fighters ain’t falling for your feint anyway. Best come up with a different tack, boy. And another thing, you’re stopping anytime he blocks or avoids the blow, resetting. Got to keep after it, more blows, change it up, keep his shield and legs moving. String more combinations together, one blow flowing into the next.”

  “Even if I struck him?”

  “Ain’t struck him the last few times, have you, quick prick?”

  Fusko couldn’t really argue that point. He kept pivoting and circling as Mulldoos leaned back against the saddle again. “Been a free soldier, what, five years now? Shouldn’t have to be reminding you of this shit, boy.”

  Fusko stepped in, threw a shot at Welt’s helm, blocked by the shield, and another blow to the opposite side, blocked by the shield, but he slid the edge of his own shield around his opponent’s, ripped it out of the way, and thrust, blade perpendicular to the ground.

  But Welt had anticipated it, sidestepped it, so the rounded tip of the blade slid past his gambeson.

  Mulldoos shook his head. “Miserable display, boy. Miserable. And your thrust wasn’t parallel anyway. Bad form. Now switch up—Welt’s got the active sword now. If you defend half as poorly as you strike, it’ll be you covered in bruises, you plaguing bastard. What are you waiting for, Welt? Get after it!”

  Welt seemed only happy to do so—he began a barrage of blows, using his length, reach, and excellent footwork to good effect until he had Fusko almost spinning and tripping over himself. He landed a blow on Fusko’s exposed thigh, and the smaller man, thinking the engagement was over, started to lower his defense when Welt struck him again on the shoulder.

  “You dumb prick! It’s to one! Can’t you plaguing count? One!”

  Mulldoos laughed and said, “Now that’s how you string together a combination! And Fusko—anytime you lower your guard, you deserve to get hit again.”

  Fusko gritted his teeth, shook his arm out, and got back in position, swallowing whatever retort he had in mind.

  Hewspear looked up at me. “I believe the captain is stretching his legs.”

  “Is he…?”

  “I cannot say. He did not look especially afflicted.”

  I nodded, watching as Welt circled the shorter Fusko, moving well for a bigger man, confidently, smoothly. I said, “I would have thought, just coming from a battle and not sure if another might be around the next bend, that you’d all take the break to, well, not train. To let wounds heal.”

  Mulldoos glanced up at me as if seeing me for the first time, despite the fact I’d spoken twice and Hewspear had responded. “Notice only the young stupid pups are out there getting sweaty and dusty.” It wasn’t nearly as much of a rebuke as I expected.

  “When you got on Fusko about his thrust, what was that all about? Why does the sword positioning matter?”

  Mulldoos curled his index finger and invited me closer. I suddenly felt like I’d lowered my guard and hesitated. He said, “Ain’t going to hurt you, scribbler. Too much exertion. But I ain’t getting up to show you neither. Come here.”

  I fought the urge to look at Hewspear and bent over. Mulldoos reached up and grabbed my shoulder firmly with one big hand, and kept the fingers straight and tight together with the other hand, simulating a blade. He turned the hand so it was perpendicular to the ground. “Now see, you thrust like this—” the fingertips shot out, and though they only went a short distance, his hand still almost knocked the wind out of me, “—and a real bad thing could happen. Might be you get it lodged on the edge of a rib, or worse, stuck between a pair. Get caught like that, blade’s not likely to go in far, the man you’re stabbing is going to stab or slash you back.”

  He pulled his hand back, turned it flat to the ground, and out it shot, thumping into my stomach, again nearly sending all the air out. The scary thing was, I don’t think he was actually trying to hurt me at all. “Do it like this though, and might be you still hit a rib, but if you do, point only, quicker to withdraw. Not likely to get you killed. And if you miss the ribs, get a clean thrust, no chance of catching it on anything going in or coming out.”

  Mulldoos released my shoulder, and I nodded and stepped back, trying not to sputter as I said, “Makes sense.”

  “Course it does.” Mulldoos looked at Hewspear and kicked his leg. “Remember Ultonis? That’s how he went out, wasn’t it? Stuck on a rib?”

  Hewspear pulled his leg out of Mulldoos’s reach. “It is. Though all this talk of ribs is making mine ache.”

  “Only thing worse than an old goat is a whiny old goat, bleating on about how his ribs are hurting.”

  “We still have nothing on gimpy pale boars.”

  Mulldoos kicked out at him again but Hewspear had moved just out of reach. Then he looked back at me and I was afraid he was going to offer another demonstration again. Instead he said, “Ultonis jabbed an Anjurian something fierce, but the blade was at a bad angle. Got in there, punctured some organ or other, but he couldn’t pull it free, the edge was lodged on a rib, just like I said. Anjurian had time for one blow of his own. Ultonis died with an Anjurian sword in his gullet, the Anjurian with a Syldoon blade lodged in his gut. Looked like dance partners.”

  Then he laughed, and Hewspear smiled.

  Every time I felt like I was just beginning to understand the Syldoon…

  I saw the captain round the end of the wagon at the rear of our small camp, heading in our direction. Turning to Mulldoos, I said, “Many thanks for the thrusting lesson. But I have something I need to speak to the captain about just now.”

  Mulldoos glanced at the pages in my arm. “Got something good, do you?”

  I tried not to smile and failed. “I think so.”

  Mulldoos got to his feet. “And I’m thinking I’ll want to hear this, too. Cap told us about the Bloodsounder bit. Like to hear what you got for us now.”

  I didn’t welcome explaining everything with him as part of the audience—he always seemed to unsettle me, even when he wasn’t jabbing me hard enough to leave bruises.

  He reached down and offered his forearm to Hewspear. “Come on, you mummified bastard. Ain’t planning on running through the whole thing later at your leisure.”

  Hewspear accepted his help as they each clasped the other’s
forearm and the shorter man hoisted him to his feet. “Your kindness is effervescent at times, Mulldoos. Truly.”

  “Your sarcasm stinks worse than ox piss.” He called over to the sparring Syldoon. “Fusko—go fetch Vendurro. Quick. And make sure you sight the witches. If you can’t spot them, you tell me quick as spit, you hear?”

  Fusko saluted, laid his waster and shield on a blanket on the grass, and ran back toward the other wagon.

  The lieutenants and I approached Captain Killcoin. He stood there, arms behind his back. “Three unlikely allies, yes? This can only be very good or very bad. I just saw Henlester, so I know he hasn’t escaped or been killed. Has Scorn died then?”

  Mulldoos slapped me on the back, and I nearly fell over. “Scribbler’s unriddled something in the dusty pages, he says. Figured we’d save some time and go through it all on the once. Ven’s on the way.”

  “Well. Even if it proves less than gripping or convincing, it is better than a dead horse.” The captain turned and started walking away from the wagons and the camp, over the stones and stubbly grass. Vendurro saw us and ran to catch up.

  When we were a suitable distance from the other men and any Memoridons (that I could see anyway—if Fusko hadn’t located them, he would have reported it already), Braylar stopped and said, “Very well, archivist. I am prepared to be regaled, mystified, and awed. Or at least reasonably distracted. Tell us what you’ve uncovered.”

  I hadn’t been prepared to share it in front of his retinue. It was difficult enough to discuss these things with the captain alone. But there was no getting out of it now.

  After clearing my throat, I began prefacing with the caveat about the perils of translating, and that it could be rife with errors if rushed, and sometimes even when not.

  “So,” Mulldoos said, “What you’re saying is you’re guessing here. You really don’t know shit?”

  Hewspear answered before I had a chance to. “I believe what he’s saying—correct me if I’m wrong, Arki—is that it is an imperfect endeavor, so we will need to bear that in mind as we listen.”

  “Sounds like he doesn’t know horseshit. But go on, scribbler. Tell us all what you don’t know.”

  I was going to ignore the jab, slide out of its path, but instead chose to address it. “With any translation, there is always the question of felicity, or synonymous choices that don’t overly muddy the original text. Yes, there is doubt that despite your best efforts, you have missed something, or distorted it, that you’ve somehow lost the essence of what had original been put to paper. Pure, perfect translation is only a dream. That much is true. Especially when you are talking about a culture that existed nearly a thousand years ago and taking into account how much has changed. Even with two live languages used in the here and now, you can’t have perfect translation. I don’t deny any of that.”

  Mulldoos looked at Braylar, “See, Cap, told you from the beginning, this was a waste—”

  “But I am as well equipped as any scholar you could have chosen to read these texts, and while perfect felicity isn’t possible, I am reasonably confident that I have translated them well, and done them no injustice. I simply wanted you to understand that there will be some minor gaps, or variance in interpretation. It can’t be perfect. But I have translated them and translated them well. And I’m positive that what I’ve found, if not wholly complete, is exactly the sort of thing you were hoping might be in these pages.”

  I heard Vendurro whistle behind me. No one else made a sound as Mulldoos looked at me a long time, pale eyes hard and unblinking, nostrils flaring a little. “Well then, why didn’t you just say as much from the get-go? Enough with the hemming and hawing, scribbler! What did you plaguing find?”

  Braylar couldn’t fight off a small smile, and I held my notes and the original pages in front of me, summing up that this was the personal record of an ambitious underpriest of Truth who was somewhat obsessed with the memory witches he had been hearing so much about. And as it would turn out, he would have quite a bit of experience with them.

  Mulldoos interrupted, “See? That’s what you should have led with.”

  “When was this, Arki?” Hewspear asked. “Roughly?”

  “Judging by other references in the text, this had to be fairly early in the order’s history, as quite a bit of what preceded all the memory witch passages was dealing with the temples establishing their protocols and infrastructure, what they had adopted from other religions that were springing up, and practices they intended to avoid and not repeat. So, though the underpriest never says as much, I’d guess somewhere in the vicinity of eight hundred years or so.”

  Mulldoos looked ready to ridicule again, but held his tongue. So I pressed on, “Anroviak spent a lot of time writing about problems his order was facing, both bureaucratic and simply in terms of attracting followers. He laments the recent plague and—”

  Vendurro said, “A thousand years, and they plaguing had the plague.”

  “Shut it,” Mulldoos said.

  “He catalogued all the things that were proving problematic,” I continued, “but finally arrives at the one that seemed to be troubling his order the most, as it was apparently a recent, and unprecedented phenomenon.”

  I looked up, feeling a little awkward that all eyes were on me, but also pleased to see that they were, if not rapt and hanging on every word, at least locked in and waiting. But Braylar anticipated where I was going. “Memoridons. Or their forerunners at least, as the Syldoon coined that phrase.”

  “That’s right. Memory witches. The populace at large was understandably in an uproar any time there was even a hint of a possible witch being in their midst, stealing their dreams, invading their memories, slithering through their minds.”

  Mulldoos said, “You’d think they would have been knocking the temple doors down. Anytime there’s plagues or famines or folks find themselves knee deep in a rising shit river, people look to the gods for help.”

  Hewspear replied, “Ahh, but you’re forgetting one thing. This was in the immediate aftermath of the most powerful gods fleeing the world, not only turning their backs on us, but damning us as well. I can see where the people would have been reluctant to place their faith in higher powers again. A thousand years, and the wounds still haven’t healed—I’m sure just then they were gaping and raw.”

  “You mouth is gaping and raw. Go on, scribbler.”

  I forced myself not to smile, with effort. “Despite the outcry from all corners, Anroviak seemed somewhat sympathetic, at least initially—he didn’t blame the witches directly, but seemed to consider that they might only have been a residual effect of the Deserter Gods, unfortunate souls who had merely been somehow blighted or contaminated in the wake of the gods taking their leave of the world.” I read from my notes: “While I hesitate to grant them any kind of special status or elevate them too far above rabid animals or trees struck by lightning—miserable creatures or things simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, rather than the beneficiaries of any conscious gifts or talents by the gods, old or new—I believe it is a mistake to see them destroyed altogether. This will prove an unpopular position with my brothers, I’m certain, but perhaps there is something to be learned from them’”

  Mulldoos laughed-hooted, it was hard to be certain which. “Unpopular? I’d say. Wish to gods here and gone everyone had just stuck to hanging or burning them. Us included.”

  Vendurro looked around, no doubt to be sure Soffjian and Skeelana weren’t nearby, though even not seeing them didn’t guarantee they weren’t there.

  I explained that some of the next passages were a little murky, quick to point out for Mulldoos’s sake that this was largely due to stained pages and faded ink rather than any limitations of mine as a translator. “As far as I could tell, Anroviak was going into detail describing some of the heated debates he had with other members of his order as he advocated studying the witches rather than simply killing them off. He was met by quite a bit of opposition from his
temple brothers, but for reasons he didn’t delve into, it seemed he had the ear of one of the higher priests—at least as far as his own estimation of his importance and worth went, and was allegedly thought of as a reasonable legate in the order.”

  “Don’t they all?” Mulldoos said, smirking.

  I didn’t point out that the same charge of overestimating our talents or position could be leveled at almost any of us, mostly because it would call my own skills into question again. So I ignored the point and moved on. “Anroviak’s arguments didn’t win over the bulk of his order, but he convinced enough of the important minorities who had clout and sway. While he was charged with destroying any other sorcerers he came across, Anroviak was granted the opportunity to capture and study the memory mages as he saw fit, provided he relayed all his findings.”

  “Wait, other sorcerers?” Vendurro asked. “What kinds of other sorcerers are we talking about here?”

  Mulldoos said, “The kind that turn dumb people asking dumb questions into slugs or ash.”

  Braylar elaborated a little further. “While memory witches have been the prime subject of hatred, fear, and oppression over the centuries, you will on occasion see someone else accused of other forms of witchcraft and nailed to a wall.”

  I continued, “The next several chapters in the memoir detailed his mostly failed efforts to track down the dream thieves/memory witches. His soldiers always seemed to arrive too late to rescue the witches before villages or lords killed them, or when they did managed to capture one, they either didn’t possess the powers they were accused of or failed to cooperate.”

  “Huh,” Mulldoos said, looking at Braylar. “Fancy that. Never saw that coming in a thousand years.”

  Braylar replied, “Ignore the jabbering apes and continue, archivist.”

  “Well, Anroviak didn’t give up. He kept capturing, kept experimenting with reluctant witches, challenged them, and when they insisted they couldn’t do what was asked,” I looked at Mulldoos, “the underpriest ordered them cut open, sometimes after he killed them, sometimes when they were still alive. There was mention of skull saws, ribs being extracted and pulled free, and organs poked and prodded and removed. Again, sometimes while the poor wretch still lived.”