Lines of Thunder: The First Days on the Front (Lines of Thunder Universe)

by Walter Blaire

  “Do not add more regret to my day, son,” the general said, and turned away. His retinue of Haphan officers, and a single ancient Tachba orderly, followed him around the traverse and out of sight.

  17

  “Good service, boys,” said a new voice. “Return to your posts.”

  It wasn’t Colonel Luscetian, who had gone still as only a Haphan could, staring after the general. The Tachba had waited in silence long after the stop order faded. Eventually, one of the other Haphan officers had stepped forward and dismissed them.

  Corphy and Sophalon turned and disappeared down the trench.

  “Yes? What?” the officer snapped, seeing Gole immobile.

  “Am I really to have a summary?” Gole asked. He hated his voice, compared to the colonel’s or even the general’s. He didn’t sound as he was, tired and angry and insulted. He sounded fourteen years old or younger. “The general didn’t say it, but everybody heard it.”

  The officer glanced wryly at the colonel. “Caught at the last minute, Seul.”

  “He really can’t shut up,” the colonel said.

  “You’re speaking about me?” Fresh anger pulsed through Gole. “Maybe I’d shut up if I could get a clear answer.”

  The colonel’s face turned hard. “Then it’s a sad day, boot, because I won’t be cornered by giving a clear answer to anything. I didn’t think you were a child, but maybe I was wrong.”

  “My blood-fed is alive out there. My brother. I request permission to retrieve him.”

  “Denied.”

  “Humbly request permission.”

  “Denied.”

  Gole struggled for control. “If I’m to be executed, then nothing is lost if I don’t come back. Surely that is obvious, sir.”

  “The cheek of this one!” This time, the other Haphan actually burst out laughing. Gole had never heard of an amused Overlord. It was unnerving, but Gole still wanted to punch him. Perhaps the Haphan noticed this because he said, “Oh, unclench your ass, Golephan. Stop making friends into enemies.”

  Stunned to silence, Gole watched the Haphan return to the map table under the awning.

  “As for your summary, soldier,” Colonel Luscetian continued, “I believe Lord General Duke Tawarna closed the book. Get back to your unit, that’s an order, and don’t give me another decision to regret.”

  A pinch of guilt. Gole dismissed that as the Pollution, his innate urge to obey authority and please his superiors. I am manipulated inside and out.

  So he resisted, despite the unequivocal direct order. For resisting, he had yet another technique that had frustrated his sister Nana when he was young: he pictured long metal spikes through his heels, pinning him to the ground. The Pollution made his legs tremble but it couldn’t move them, and without the movement, it couldn’t convince him that obeying had been his idea all along.

  Gole thought furiously, trying to ignore the Haphan’s sudden interest.

  This was the Haphan colonel in front of him. An Overlord. The last word on everything. To a Tachba facing the rest of his life on the eternal front, this Haphan was akin to a living god. When would he have another chance like this? Gole needed squeeze every ounce of blood from this opportunity.

  As it usually did when he needed it most, his mind failed to help. It veered instead to the skin sigil, the tattooed circle of leather he kept in his breast pocket.

  His sister Nana, the little girl from his memories of faraway home, had been only two years older than him. Yet she’d been charged with teaching him and his brothers how to navigate the world. When she gave him the skin sigil on the day he was inducted into the army, she’d had such a proud, self-satisfied expression that he’d actually laughed at her.

  Tachba boys hated their know-it-all sisters, hated and loved them. Even now, with Gole on the other side of the map and diligently trying to ruin his life, he couldn’t escape her. Nana was telling him, as always: Animals have feeling, people have thought.

  His sister would want him to be thoughtful. Between people, very little could be taken at face value. That sounded right to Gole—after all, what had he seen here? Corphy humbled without harshness. Colonel Luscetian somehow abraded by the general, without a single direct word. A random Haphan officer telling him to unclench his ass, as if they were friends with some affection… Yes, Gole was out of his depth, with no idea what he’d witnessed. At least, for once, he was aware of his lack of understanding.

  Colonel Luscetian still waited in front of him. His eyes were over Gole’s shoulder, focused in the distance. That was a Tachba cue, something for a people easily mortified by what might be scrolling across their faces. It meant something like, “It's what you think it is, but I won’t watch as you’re humbled to realize it.”

  Had his thoughts played across his face? Had Nana been on his face, for all love? Gole wished again for the Haphan self-control. He’d master himself someday—if they gave him the chance—and become as inscrutable as the eternal front itself.

  “Yes, of course, sir,” Gole said evenly. “I will add no further to your regrets.”

  The colonel nodded, his face blank.

  18

  On his way back to his unit, Gole moved through the multiple lines of trench. They were as full as he’d ever seen them. Every unit had subtle variations that distinguished it from the others. The soldiers around him didn’t wear rill helmets like his Fusiliers; instead they had forager caps. Also, their ammunition satchels had straps of braided twine rather than folded tarpaulin.

  Their only similarity was in how they were engaged: sitting in rows and rocking, or staring at the sky with close-seeing eyes, or simply shaking their heads with their eyes closed. The Pollution strong in them.

  He didn’t know if this was normal in the trenches, or if he was simply more attuned to the symptoms at the moment. Either way, the other soldiers were collectively unnerving and Gole became aware he was muttering aloud. The accumulating stress and worry were undermining his control. He couldn’t succumb, not yet.

  Melt your teeth, Nana would say. For boys, the mind could be controlled through the body. Imagine a deed, and the mind will follow. Gole clenched his teeth and envisioned his molars melting together. His muttering stopped. One thing fixed.

  He made unerring progress back to the 51st, despite the bustle and confusion of the trenches. Yes, he had grown all too familiar with the route to where the Haphan Overlords gathered to hear his latest failures. If he could have a day, just one, where he wasn’t brought up for some transgression…well, then he’d have a day.

  Don’t get distracted, Nana said in his mind. Tie Gole back to Gole’s body. It’s yours to command.

  Gole paused at the traverse where the trench turned a right angle, and the 51st Ville Emsa Fusiliers took over. The edge picket, a soldier he didn’t know, kept watch. The lookout shifted his weight from foot to foot and poked the sandbags with each finger in turn. Gole felt the urge to do the same.

  No. More distraction. The Pollution seemed bent on turning him away from thoughtfulness. He had to think.

  Gole would get his summary—Corphy would see to that. It would be unofficial, informal. Corphy would handle it inside his platoon. Thus, it would take place at the front before the unit was pulled off for rest leave. When it was done, the Haphans would be bothered no further with the regrettable story of Gole.

  So—think, Gole!—if his fellow soldiers were going to kill him…it would have to be a quiet thing. Understood but not acknowledged. It wouldn’t be in the open, subject to discussion. Gole would be struck from behind when the trench was quiet and empty. His watchfulness would lapse, and one of these twitchy, mumbling scrags would suddenly turn faultlessly competent and perform the one act at which all Tachba excelled. It would be fast and unexpected—except Gole now expected it and he would be alert. So it probably wouldn’t be fast either.

  Gole stepped up to the picket, who glanced at his unit patch before his face. “You found your home, the glorious 51st. There’s nothin
g doing tonight. Unless the South has a notion to attack, we might even get some sleep.”

  “Did I miss the food?” Gole asked.

  “Happily, yes,” the lookout said. “Sadly, you might live longer having missed it. ’Twas boiled we-dunno-what that they poured into our helmets. The mess team called it slosch. We’em called it something else. You didn’t miss a thing.”

  Gole almost grinned, but the soldier finally looked at his face.

  “You’re Gole Naremsa?”

  “Am I?” Gole asked.

  The soldier turned shifty. It was painful to watch. “I mean, la, what’s your name, boot?”

  Gole sighed. “Hello, my name is Gole Naremsa.”

  The soldier edged closer to him. “Hello, Gole. Did you just come from that direction?”

  He pointed over Gole’s shoulder, as if Gole would have come by any other route. As if Gole would actually turn his face away from the man.

  “Yes, I came from that direction.”

  “How do you know?” the lookout asked, with unremitting cleverness. “How do you know where I’m pointing? Shouldn’t you look where I’m pointing?”

  “That depends.” Gole permitted himself a tight grin. “What do you get if I turn around?”

  It didn’t occur to the soldier to even attempt to lie. “I get to hit you, for starters. Then another foul helmet of slosch. Then I’ll get sent to hospital with signed papers. I’ll be examined and then released for simple indolence, and thereby receive two extra days of rest leave.”

  The food and the additional rest leave sounded enticing even to Gole. He edged around the lookout, keeping him at a distance, until the other man finally understood that Gole hadn’t been fooled.

  “Well,” the lookout said, “now you made this awkward.”

  “I think you helped a little, boot,” Gole said.

  After he passed the picket, the soldiers of the 51st became too numerous for any other covert attempts. Eyes touched him, left, then quickly returned. Conversations lagged as he walked past. He picked his way through one large cluster of soldiers still sipping slosch from their helmets.

  “Make way,” Gole cried out. “Gole Naremsa moving through. This is Gole Naremsa here, still alive. Gole Naremsa, you probably don’t know me, but I have a beating heart.”

  It wasn’t his intention, but the soldiers turned back to their food, ashamed. Gole nearly reached his home traverse, the one he’d shared with Grulle and really didn’t have any reason to return to. That was when a corporal he didn’t know called out to him.

  “Scrag, attend me.”

  Gole waffled a moment, couldn’t think of anything. “I give service.”

  The corporal was shorter than Gole and not much older, but like every other noncom he looked tough. Like he’d been fermented and cured on the front, with his softness burned away under fire.

  “How can you give service when you’re not even armed?” the corporal asked pointedly.

  “Which my shooter exploded between the lines and I just made it back.” Gole held up his hands, with their missing parts, but the corporal didn’t spare them a glance.

  “Facing the enemy unarmed is a discipline infraction.”

  “More than that,” Gole said, “it probably slows down the war.”

  “Sarcasm?” The corporal crooked an eyebrow. “Sarcasm don’t touch me.”

  “Then I know a boot you’d like,” Gole shrugged.

  “I don’t follow joking much, either.” The corporal pointed over Gole’s shoulder, above the rear wall of the trench. Gole didn’t turn. “For your infraction, you’ll fetch an ammunition crate from the pile. They’re in the explosives cache. The big crater, twenty yards toward the first support trench.”

  Gole presented his fingers again. “I will fumble whatever I carry. I’ll take the night to let them heal. It would be bad service otherwise, and you might not get your box of ammunition.”

  The corporal dropped silent for a moment, actually stymied by Gole’s answer. “Which the ammo don’t matter, scrag. Screw your service, this is your discipline. Your discipline for wandering the trenches unarmed.”

  “If you give me a minute,” Gole said, “I can think of a better punishment. Yours sounds lonely and a little dangerous—”

  The corporal had him in the air before he could finish. He held Gole aloft one-handed by the collars of his coat. “Let me make it an order. Do you refuse an order?”

  “You are unnaturally strong,” Gole gasped.

  The corporal’s free hand balled into a fist and socked him in the ear. “Do you refuse an order, scrag?”

  The world reeled in Gole’s vision.

  This is hopeless, Gole realized. Screw being thoughtful. Thinking only worked if other people were thinking too. Gole should have turned around when the lookout pointed over his shoulder. He should have taken the blow to the back of his head and been grateful for it. He should never have come to the front, not that he’d had a choice. He should have never been born.

  “You know what, corporal?” Gole said, and his self control failed. Bitterness poured through the gap. “Fuck your order, it’s stupid. Fuck this unit—from what I can tell, it’s only good for getting killed. Fuck the whole war, you’re all too dimwitted to fight it. And since you’re letting me finish—fuck you too.”

  From there, it was a simple matter of hanging in the air while the words penetrated the corporal’s mind.

  The first blow, to Gole’s temple, snapped his head sideways. It was powerful enough to tear his neck wound open, but not to free him from the iron grip on his collar. The corporal hit him again as his head lolled, and after that, Gole lost count. It didn’t matter, anyway. The bright impacts from each punch blended together.

  He thought he felt lips and cheeks split open, but couldn’t be sure. His flesh felt wet, and it could have been blood. The corporal dropped him to the trench floor—Gole was only aware of his limbs reconfiguring abruptly—but the man wasn’t finished. A boot impacted his ribs, then his stomach. A heel stomped on one of his hands, flattening and spreading his knuckles.

  19

  The beating only stopped when the South intervened. A call to receive an assault passed down the trench line, putting the boots on alert. The corporal tore himself away and turned to the parapet. A few rounds came their way, and the 51st returned fire.

  Gole fell unconscious.

  When he woke again, the gunfire had increased. It may have been minutes or hours, but the corporal hadn’t returned. There were fewer soldiers now in this length of trench, and they were shifting around the traverses on each end, perhaps to get better angles on the enemy.

  A strange mechanical racket from the top of the trench…odd shadows in the blowing smoke. Gole tried to sit up but only managed to turn his head. He kept his eyes open through a feat of will and saw it, one of the marvelous Haphan beasts. A bot. It strode along the parapet not twenty feet from Gole, its massive blades spinning. It raised showers of dirt, and more: bits and pieces of bodies, old and new, flew into the air wherever the blades touched.

  It moves with nothing moving it!

  Though it was not alive, it moved thoughtfully and with care. It was a simple dumb contrivance, but somehow invested with agency and intent. This was Gole’s first glimpse of true magic, his first sighting of something that matched the eternal front’s renown. Gole forgot his pain and bitterness for a moment and watched with bald wonder. He stared until a turn of the trench took the bot away, and even its belches of steam faded from view.

  It was walking so carefully. Gole’s mind was placid and at peace, but only for a moment. Then: Why is it here? The bots were supposedly a last resort. Are we being overrun?

  The Pollution pricked Gole’s conscience. His unit was fighting without him. He tried to sit up again but dizziness knocked him flat. Gole given up on the war, comprehensively given up, but Pretty Polly was still goading him to continue. His unit wanted nothing to do with him, and still he was almost shaking with the need
to help them fight.

  I’m no better than that Haphan bot. Gole was a simple dumb machine of bone and sinew, animated by the Pollution, and he moved with nothing moving him.

  It’s really everywhere, isn’t it? There was really no escape from his mind. It really never ended, and it never would. If he’d had the means at that moment, Gole would have conducted his own summary personally, just to escape himself.

  Instead, he slipped back to sleep.

  When he woke next, the sky was dark. Moreover, the trench was empty and quiet. He was alone in the twenty-foot span. No one was visible even at the traverses where it turned. The other boots had drifted off or stolen away as Gole slept.

  This is it, Gole thought. I’m alone and I cannot move. What comes next…is the next thing.

  Underneath the blanket of aches that wrapped his body, a spark of anticipation and interest. The Pollution, still guttering in his soul.

  Gole heard a shuffle of steps nearby.

  He raised a hand and croaked, “Over here. Murdering scrag over here.”

  The boots drew nearer.

  “Hello, murdering scrag,” said a voice Gole recognized.

  Malley settled beside him with a maximum of disturbance and jostling.

  Gole couldn’t believe how much relief he felt. “Does this mean I’m sitting on Dephic again?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, but fell fast asleep.

  When Gole woke it was daylight. He had slept through the night and into the next day and somehow survived.

  With calloused fingers on his forehead, Malley turned Gole’s lips to a water skin and drizzled a few drops into his mouth. The moisture seemed to unlock a surge of strength, and he was able to speak.

  “More water.”

  “It’s water with blood mixed in. The soldier’s antidote. Remember it for hangovers, too.” Malley nodded at his leg. “Yours is right there.”