“What makes you think they are innocent?”
The man was mad. “They’re farmers and tradesmen, women and children.”
The jansu turned a cynical look on him. “Very well. Why don’t you go see if you can convince them to surrender their weapons and supplies for the army?”
“Me?” It was not his place, even without the promise of rakeshi violence.
A woman’s scream drew his attention. A surging knot of flailing, shouting villagers threatened a horseman, only to be pushed back.
“What sort of weapon will you be today?” Bairith asked.
Sherakai darted him a frown of frustration and hurried toward the brawl, clasping shoulders and urging people to calm. “Easy! Easy! Let me through.” For a wonder, his determined presence appeased some of the bystanders. “Make way. It’s all right.”
“It’ll be all right when y’tell us what’s happening. What right have y’got to herd us like a bunch’a daft sheep?”
“Is it the Romuri?” A frightened woman pulled on Sherakai’s arm.
“What?” He stared at her in astonishment. “No—”
“Are they come this far?” a big farmer with a blunt face asked.
“You—Where are we?” Sherakai demanded, thoughts reeling.
“Otsu village,” the man retorted. “Where d’you think?”
“But that’s part of Tanoshi.”
“Bright boy, ain’t you? Now what’s the meaning of this, and who’s that halfer you’re with?”
A shout went up. Sherakai whirled to see a soldier with his spear raised. He held the blunt, bloodied end threateningly. “Stop! Stop!” Sherakai cried. “We’re in Alshan, not—”
A meaty thud in his midsection cut off his words. The soldier jabbed again. Another right behind him brandished the business end of his own shaft. “Stand—stand down!” he choked out.
Someone stepped toward him, caught his shoulder, and punched him hard and sharp in the face. Pain blossomed across his cheek. He blinked back stars, only to see everything limned in the bright energy of the rakeshi’s vision. “Stop! You don’t know—”
Another blow struck his back. In tandem, a tremendous force dragged him down and away. Shouts and screams came from every side. From the corner of his eye, he saw the descent of a shadow and struck out instinctively.
~There you are. There you are, my dragon…~
Chapter 41
Awareness came with the stab of a dozen spikes in his head and the shattering blue of the sky overhead. He lifted a hand to cover his eyes. It was too heavy to comprehend. The clank of metal that followed made no more sense.
“It’s awake.”
“About floodin’ time.”
“Fetch th’jansu.”
Sherakai squinted at the shadows arrayed in a circle around him. Slowly, they gained the aspect of men: white faces, hard looks, grim mouths. He could smell blood and shifted his gaze to the sky again.
No smoke. Where was he?
A rustle accompanied the arrival of another pale-faced shadow. The sergeant. “Is he in control yet?”
“Dunno, sarge. It just opened its eyes.”
“Well? What color are they?”
The sharp point of a spear pressed against his chest as one of the soldiers leaned close. “Green.”
The sergeant’s posture eased. “Good. Stand down.”
The others didn’t share his optimism. They retreated slowly, weapons still in their hands. None of them left to go tend to other duties, but ranged around Sherakai, staring at him as if he’d sprouted horns.
“His eyes have changed?” Bairith’s calm voice sliced through their uneasiness. “Remove the chains.”
“Sir?”
“I believe I made myself clear.”
“But what if it—”
“He won’t. Do as you’re told.”
Sherakai watched the process in bemusement. Along with the irons, he wore an obscene amount of blood. He had to look away. When the sergeant dragged the shackles one way, Sherakai turned the other to give up the contents of his belly.
The soldiers closest moved back with mutters of disgust.
“What happened?” He backhanded his mouth, then stood unsteadily. Lightheadedness made him sway. No one helped him. In the spaces between the soldiers, he saw bodies—men, women, and children strewn across the green like mangled dolls. He remembered them alive. Remembered them frightened and angry.
“You cleaned out the vipers.” The sergeant curled the chains at his feet. Hulking things for draft animals pulling heavy loads. “All of them.”
“All?” Sherakai echoed in a whisper. Cold horror, in close company with a heavy despair, descended upon him. It stilled his heart and smothered his soul.
“And a couple of ours,” someone else supplied, stroking the hilt of his sword.
“Did I not instruct you to quit the area immediately?” the jansu interrupted, interposing himself between Sherakai and the man.
“They didn’t have a chance!” the soldier shouted at his lord, grief and anger so bright it hurt to see.
Sherakai lowered his head to press his fist against his mouth. So many people. So many innocent people… Gods save him, why? Was he not firmly enough in Bairith Mindar’s hand?
“I am hardly responsible for the incompetence your companions displayed. Would you like to seek satisfaction from Sherakai?”
“No,” Sherakai protested. The man would die. He didn’t doubt it. Then, “Please,” he said again, softer.
The soldier took a much longer time to decide, the knuckles on his hilt white with tension. He never looked at Sherakai. Finally, he shook his head and let his fist fall to his side. “No. My lord.”
“Anyone else?” Bairith asked with an inviting smile.
The soldiers maintained rigid silence, even when the jansu put a hand on the back of Sherakai’s neck and beamed at them. “Is he not perfect?”
Sherakai wanted to slink away.
“Mark what he has accomplished, and what it means for all of us.”
The group shifted, still uneasy. The sergeant dropped the last chain atop the pile. Whether he approved of what happened or not, he had no trouble with his rank or his duties. “Move your sorry backsides! The show’s over and there’s work to be done. Get to it, or that one’ll be the least of your worries!”
The jansu kept Sherakai in place with his hand as the group burst into motion. Their departure exposed all the devastation he’d wrought. “Is this—” He had to stop and start again. “Is this what you wanted?” Would he one day see everything through a veil of crimson?
“You were incredible.”
“But these are our people.” The facts stuck in his brain like flies in honey. Alshani had died here today. Tanoshi. His own people. And he had killed them.
“They are a step, my dragon. A step that brings us closer to our goal.”
A goal the jansu would not divulge to a mere weapon to be wielded, but never fully trusted. “What did their lives buy?”
Bairith’s grip tightened, then eased again. “A few more raids like this, and the capital will finally give me my army.”
Dizzy with the awful idea, he leaned into the jansu’s hand. “For Romuru?” he dared to ask.
“Oh, much, much more than that.” He laughed and turned toward a nearby building. “Come. Drink with me before we go.”
Which of the bodies in this unforgettable scene of carnage had owned the house and boasted refreshment fit for a jansu? Sherakai examined his hands, bloody still, then made his way after Bairith.
Over the course of the next months, more raids drove Sherakai to a distant despair. They struck small villages—Romuri and Alshani alike. None survived the attacks. That was made certain by a pair of guards left behind each time to deal with potential rumormongers. After the first excursion, Lord Chiro went home to the Gates. The soldiers always rode out ahead. Sherakai came behind on foot. The men misliked him trailing them. They misliked the way he affected their
animals. They misliked what he did when they arrived at their destinations.
He’d turned aside several times, but the compulsion Bairith exercised did not allow such a thing. He could not even sit down in the middle of the road and refuse to go further. He’d tried that, too, only to find himself walking and no recollection of getting to his feet.
The soldiers complained of the worsening weather.
Sherakai walked in the rain, imagining the sky wept for the scores of dead he would deliver up to the gods. It was good that the sky could cry; he couldn’t.
He walked alone, he ate alone, and at night he bedded down alone, though he had his savage dreams for company. Sometimes on the long stretches he walked spirits kept him company. He could never see them except out of the corner of his eye now and then, but he could hear them. Sense them. Even smell them. They whispered like dry leaves, but they weren’t always cold and brittle or earthy. He would smell flowers or hay, the aroma of fresh bread, hear laughter or singing. And always, sadness circled like an errant breeze.
Who will mourn me?
My child! My child! Have you seen my child?
It hurts. By the stars, it hurts…
If he was going to be sensitive to spirits, why couldn’t he ever feel those who had experienced joy or love or exhilaration? Did only the miserable linger? He practiced the techniques Hamrin had taught him, but the melancholy band persisted.
The battlefields gave him new bits and pieces to carry with him and rub his conscience: a handful of coins from a faraway land, a little book of poetry, a well made harness and knife that fit up his sleeve, a new belt buckle, bone needles to replace his when they broke, a polished stone on a broken chain. It reminded him of the Twixt archer. His eyes had been the same color. He was probably dead now. There were new spirits, too, or so it seemed. He thought the most recent additions smelled fresher.
The rakeshi’s furies were a problem beyond the moral conflict. He lost track of the number of times he regained consciousness in chains with his head pounding. More often than not, he’d be bleeding from open wounds. The sergeant left him that way for hours at a stretch, then it vexed him that Sherakai did not complain about it.
The soldiers liked to taunt him, though. Once, a little too deeply in their cups, a half dozen decided he needed a beating. A lesson in respect, they called it. Evidently some of their number had died—again—because they did not heed the command to stay out of his way.
They found out that night how little the chains really meant.
Afterward, the men didn’t speak to him unless their duties required it. Someone started a rumor that he served Bahenn, the goddess of death. He thought it unlikely she’d have him. They forgot she was also the goddess of compassion, and he had none.
Two women fighters joined the company. They eyed Sherakai speculatively and dared each other to bed him. The men laughed, especially when Sherakai shook his head at their advances and walked away.
He considered taking the women up on their offers, just to have someone to talk to, but he had nothing to say and they weren’t interested in his words. When one of them made so bold as to caress him, he didn’t want her to stop. How long since anyone had touched him gently? As he thought to take her in his arms, his head began throbbing and the light changed. Her edges gleamed bright and hard.
He got up and left her.
She cursed him.
The men laughed at that, too.
Chapter 42
After a lengthy and almost-pleasant autumn, winter gained its voice with the onset of a storm that pinned the company down for four days. The soldiers complained, fought amongst themselves, then settled down to a sullen quiet. Sherakai watched and waited, with them but not a part of them.
The snow on the roads melted first. The horses churned it up into a sucking morass that had the men swearing and shouting at each other as they struggled to get the supply wagons through.
He watched that for a while, too, then struck out across country to return to the Gates. His arrival before the troop impressed no one. Meetings detained Lord Chiro. Sherakai waited in his tower rooms for six days before someone arrived to escort him straight to the portal.
Bairith awaited him there; he looked pleased, felt pleased by what the link gave away. “Are you ready?” he asked, as if Sherakai knew what to expect. His sea-blue eyes shone with an enticing light. A broad collar of navy velvet trimmed with gold edging draped over his shoulders. Small, exquisite leaves of brass were sewn flat to the cloth. In the central point over his chest was an intricately scribed badge as wide as a man’s palm.
Sherakai recognized it as the chain of office worn by the general of the Alshan armies. When he was a boy, he’d seen his father wear it, though only on important occasions. When he’d retired, King Muro had gifted Tameko with a smaller version of the medallion.
He studied it for a long moment, then lifted a steady, unmoved gaze. “Yes, lord.”
Such was the jansu’s mood that he laughed aloud, delighted. It was a rich, warm sound reminiscent of lute song and sunlight, summer berries and fresh breezes. Sherakai had never heard him so… expansive. Tameko had complained that the chain weighed more on his conscience than it did his shoulders. Evidently, it freed Bairith Mindar.
The mage embraced Sherakai, then clasped his arms for an examination as critical as ever. “Have you missed me?” he asked. “I’ve heard good things about you. We’ve made such great strides, I am the talk of all the land.”
“Yes, lord,” he replied, noncommittal. And then, “Congratulations,” for whatever he might have achieved. Domination of the armies. Of the entire country for all Sherakai knew, though he supposed a crown would now sit on the jansu’s head if that were true.
“Thank you.” He smiled again, wide, easy, and devastatingly beautiful. One hand touched the badge, at once self-conscious and dismissive.
Sherakai kept his gaze on Bairith’s far too perfect nose. It was lamentable that it bore no evidence of the damage he’d once done to it.
“Do you not wish to know where you’re going?”
“Of course.” After so many times through the magical passage even an idiot would realize where it led.
Bairith approached the white-framed portal. Sparks of energy danced across the surface as they always had, and the hair on Sherakai’s arms stood up as it always did. “I’ll be in the capital much of the winter, and there is no one else here to spar with you.” A motion of his fingers brought Sherakai to his side, and he rested a possessive hand on his arm. He spent a moment exploring the contour of the muscle hidden beneath plain cotton. That, too, made him smile. “I want you to keep up your training so you’ll be ready for the upcoming campaign. I’ve arranged for you to take part in the games again and, quite frankly, I could use the coin you’ll earn.” He chuckled. “War is an expensive business.”
Impassive, Sherakai waited to be sent on his way.
“Are you injured? Unwell?”
“No, sir.” Reminded of his duty to converse, he fished about for something to say but could only provide the obvious. “I’ve had several days to rest since my return.” Resting was subjective. Pacing his rooms didn’t quite measure up to walking or trotting behind the company as they traveled. His voice was rusty from disuse. It did not go unnoticed.
“You don’t sound yourself.” The jansu wrapped his hand around Sherakai’s throat and his eyes narrowed as he focused on the magic.
Sherakai had an answer for nearly everything that might go wrong with him. “Many things have changed since the rakeshi.” Uneven, murky green light worked up the jansu’s wrist; the prickle of Healing settled into soft tissue.
Bairith grunted softly. “What else?”
He hadn’t meant to invite an inquisition. “Headaches when it takes over. Soreness and disorientation.”
“Still.”
He had no cause to lie, and the link wouldn’t allow it. Sherakai went on as if the mage hadn’t questioned his truth. “When the rakeshi ta
kes charge it does so completely. I can do nothing.”
“You are aware, though? You are able to hear and see what is happening around you?”
“Only sometimes. I have—memories, but they are broken and confusing.”
“What kind of memories?”
“Blood. Screaming. Motion.”
“The sergeant tells me you often fall unconscious.”
“Yes. He and his men make it so.” It left him exposed and vulnerable. He was bound to take damage when they succeeded in knocking him out.
“They beat you?” He slid his hand down to press against Sherakai’s chest, full of incredulity and sympathy. As if he had not beaten Sherakai himself.
The rhythm of his heart remained as impassive as his demeanor. “They are afraid. The rakeshi has slain their companions.”
“Why are you justifying what they did?” he demanded. “How often did they attack you?”
He’d seen what the creature inside him could do. In their boots, he might do his best to beat the thing senseless before it killed him, too. “I do not know.” Though he had no reason to defend them, reporting their abuse would hardly encourage their favor. He should have considered his words more carefully before he spoke. He had not expected responsibility for the men’s actions. The threat of a philosophical headache decided him. “If you punish them, they will hate me more. If they hate me more, they will find other ways to hurt me and the work—our work—will suffer.”
Fine, elvish brows lowered. It imparted an impressively diabolical appearance. “They should not hate you at all. How dare they criticize my creation? What,” Bairith went on in a controlled voice, “do you recommend, my dragon?”
As the snare wrapped around him, Sherakai’s heart gave an inconvenient thump beneath the jansu’s hand. What test was this? Honor? Loyalty? No, something more subtle than that. If he opened his mouth, he would get the sergeant killed. Unless— “Do nothing against them. When you send us out again, give a warning, then let me deal with them.”
Flesh and Bone Page 27