Into the Storm

by Larry Correia

  “Nobody wants you alive, Devlin. I only offered to arrest you because you were kind enough to buy a down-on-his-luck swordsman a drink.”

  “S’pose I should’ve surrendered, then . . .”

  “I suppose.” Madigan lifted Devlin’s repeater, cocked the hammer, and put the bandit out of his misery.

  Cleasby was panting. The way he stood so long over the body of the man he’d stabbed, watching the red puddle spread, told Madigan this was probably the first life the young soldier had ever taken. Better get used to it, lad.

  The tavern was dead quiet. The man with the leg wound had quit screaming. The smell of blasting powder mingled with other assorted unpleasant smells. “Anybody else have an issue?” Madigan waited to the count of five. “Very well, then. There will be no more attacks on military convoys in this area. Living here in this godforsaken farrow wallow, you may think you’ve been forgotten by the kingdom, but you’re still Cygnaran subjects, and you’d damn well better act it. King Leto’s soldiers protect your miserable lives every single day. Do not think you can deprive the men who defend you the tools they need to survive and not face the consequences.” Madigan got out of the chair, took another patron’s mug of ale, and finished it. Sadly, it was watered-down swill. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sergeant Cleasby!”

  To his credit, the young soldier snapped out of his stupor. “Yes, sir!”

  He kicked Devlin’s corpse. “Carry this body outside and put it on the back of your horse.”

  “My horse, sir?”

  “I don’t want to get blood on mine.”

  Sergeant Kelvan Cleasby had a cold, uncomfortable lump in his stomach as he rode along beside the infamous Hugh Madigan. Between the cold fog of the mysterious Thornwood, his traveling companion’s nefarious reputation, and the fact that he’d just stabbed someone to death, Cleasby was feeling a bit nauseated. The dead body pushed up against his backside and hanging over both sides of his horse, flopping about, wasn’t helping either.

  “Well, it seems we’ve got a bit of a journey ahead of us. We’ll take the Bramblerut Road to Corvis and then a long train ride to Caspia.” It was the first time Madigan had spoken since reading the message. They had been riding for nearly an hour, and the only sound had been the slow clop of hooves. “How’re you feeling, Cleasby?”

  “I’m fine, sir.”

  “You don’t need to lie to me. The last time I saw a man’s face that shade of grey he was a Cryxian. Disgusting undead monsters.” Madigan hawked and spit on the ground. “So that was the first time you’ve taken a life.”

  It wasn’t a question. “That was the first time I’ve seen combat, yes.”

  “Combat?” Madigan smiled. “Heh . . . That’s a quaint notion.”

  Cleasby felt his cheeks burn. Madigan had a foul reputation, but his martial skills were never in doubt, only his character. “Lieutenant Madigan, I meant no—”

  “It’s fine. You can die just as easily at the hands of a good-for-nothing thief as you can leading a magnificent cavalry charge that bards will write songs about for generations—or slipping and hitting your head getting out of the bath, for that matter. You did well in that fight.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Even though there wouldn’t have been a fight to begin with if you hadn’t been a sodding idiot. I wanted them to lead me back to their hideout, where we could have swept up all of them at once. As it is now, we’ll have to make do with killing their leader, but the rest of the gang will reform, thanks to your inability to pay attention.”

  Cleasby bit his tongue. Madigan was the one who had thrown away a promising military career. No superiors wanted Madigan under their command, no officers wanted to serve alongside him, and no men wanted to follow him. Of course, he should expect rudeness from the man who had outright murdered one of King Leto’s best friends. “Won’t happen again, sir.”

  “Don’t they still give lessons in reconnaissance at the Strategic Academy?”

  “I didn’t go to the Strategic Academy.”

  “Westwatch, then?”

  “No, sir.” Cleasby swatted a mosquito that had landed on his cheek.

  “Hmmm . . . interesting. An enlisted man, but obviously educated, with good breeding. Absolutely no common sense, no combat experience, and too young to have been in long, but already a sergeant. Your father must be a fairly rich man.”

  “My father was a cobbler.” Promotions could come along for things other than a strong sword arm or steady aim with a rifle, but men like Madigan wouldn’t understand that. Cleasby happened to be very good at preparing and expediting vitally necessary reports and paperwork. “Actually, until recently I attended the University of Corvis.”

  “A scholar? Well, that’s handy, I suppose. I met Viktor Pendrake on his travels. Good man. Learning everything he could about monsters and beasties and how best to deal with them. Fascinating, useful information.”

  “I only took the required introductory class in the Department of Extraordinary Zoology, so I never studied with Professor Pendrake.”

  Madigan turned on his saddle, looking honestly disappointed. “What did you study then?”

  “History and classical literature, mostly.”

  “Morrow preserve us.” Madigan let out a long breath. “That explains a lot.”

  “I did go through the officer training program, sir. And in my defense, your . . . operation among the local criminals was rather unorthodox conduct for a knight.”

  “I wasn’t given that title because of my courtly skills, Cleasby.” Madigan chuckled. “I was knighted because King Vinter thought I was especially good at killing things.”

  “Is that why you sided with him during the coup?” Cleasby immediately regretted saying it. Sometimes his mouth had a bad tendency to run before his mind was done deciding if things were better left unsaid.

  “What was that?” Madigan pulled on his reins and brought his horse to a stop. Cleasby wasn’t as good a horseman, and it took him a moment to get his mount under control. When he had wrestled the horse about, he saw Madigan was giving him a cold stare, not too different from the one the man had been wearing before he’d started chopping up bandits. “If you’ve got something you want to say, spit it out.”

  “I . . . I meant nothing by it, sir. I’ve just heard . . .”

  “What’ve you heard?”

  “Just soldiers talking. When I was told to fetch you, some people may have said a few things about your . . . history.”

  “History, eh?” Madigan scowled. Cleasby realized the grizzled knight’s eyes were an eerie shade of blue, nearly the color of ice. Cleasby’s horse took a few nervous steps and snorted. The dead man’s damaged arm swung forward and bumped Cleasby’s boot heel. “I suppose you found my history fascinating, then? A little personal glimpse into the minor events surrounding the Lion’s Coup?”

  “No, sir! I—”

  “So these people of yours told you about what I did to Earl Hartcliff?”

  By “people,” Cleasby had meant the officer who had given him this message to deliver and then every other officer in the command staff of the 2nd Division he’d spoken with. The details differed, but the point remained the same: if you wanted to have a career in the Cygnaran Army, avoid Madigan like the plague. There was nothing to be gained by serving with the man who had butchered King Leto’s childhood friend during the coup and had remained remorseless about it ever since, but rather than say all that Cleasby only nodded.

  “Listen carefully, Sergeant. Vinter Raelthorne was our king. I followed his orders then exactly like I follow King Leto’s now. When a soldier gets orders, he doesn’t question them; he follows them. Right now my orders are to go with you to Caspia.” Madigan forced a smile that was almost worse than the glare. “So relax.” Madigan made a clicking noise with his tongue and his horse obediently set out back down the road.

  Cleasby realized he’d been so tense he’d stopped breathing. He thumped his horse with his boots
and they followed along. The Thornwood was eerily quiet.

  Half a mile later, Madigan addressed him again, but this time he didn’t bother to turn around. “I’ve been away from the chain of command for so long I wasn’t sure anyone even remembered I was still alive. What else did they tell you about me? And consider answering that question truthfully as a direct order from a superior officer.”

  “Well . . .” He swallowed hard. He had been given quite an earful. Driving his blade through someone’s ribs had been easier than this. “They said you’re bad luck.”

  “How so?”

  “Wherever you go, bad things happen.”

  “Maybe I have a knack for knowing where trouble is going to be and getting there first.”

  “They say you cut corners, break rules, get your soldiers killed.” Madigan jerked his head just a bit at that last one. “That you’re without honor, compassion, or any other knightly virtues. That the king is remarkably merciful for not executing you. Let’s see, what else . . . You’re a sorry excuse for a knight . . . you—”

  “You are a remarkably honest man, Cleasby. That’s admirable, if somewhat stupid.”

  “Uh . . . thank you?”

  Madigan raised one fist. “Hold up.”

  Cleasby managed to stop his horse faster this time. The knight was carefully watching the thick underbrush. “What is it?”

  “Shhh.” Madigan tilted his head to the side, listening.

  Cleasby couldn’t hear or see anything different. His horse seemed jittery, but Madigan’s horse was fine.

  “Dismount and cut that body loose,” the older man said.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Remember what I said about following orders, Sergeant Cleasby?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Cleasby grumbled as he dismounted. Leather creaked as his horse stomped nervously. It took him a moment to untie the knots in the rope securing the corpse, and by the time he looked up from his work, he was surprised to see a gigantic, heavily armored ogrun standing in the middle of the road. “Bandit!”

  The beastly figure had to be nearly eight feet tall and was carrying a mace big enough to smash a warjack, and it had come seemingly out of nowhere. Cleasby drew his rapier and then realized the little blade would be next to useless against someone that big and wearing that much armor.

  Then the bandit corpse slid off the back of his horse and Cleasby yelped as it fell on him.

  The ogrun was watching them with beady black eyes that seemed comparatively tiny compared to his wide mouth. “Your friend is mighty high strung,” he said to Madigan in a raspy voice loud enough to fit his massive stature. Then he turned to Cleasby. “Put the pig sticker away before you accidently poke somebody.”

  “Stand down, Cleasby.” Madigan dismounted as the ogrun approached. “How’ve you been, Hutchuck?”

  “You know him?” Cleasby asked nervously as he tried to disentangle himself from the dead man, but the corpse had become remarkably stiff and uncooperative.

  “No. Hutchuck is a common ogrun name and the old human got lucky,” the ogrun said flatly. “Where did you find this bright one, Madigan?”

  “He found me. I’m to be transferred to Caspia.”

  “Good. With you gone, the fort will go back to being lazy, patrols will slack, and crime will go up. More bounties for me to collect means more gold to buy alchemical supplies for my experiments. Everyone is happy.”

  “You’re an alchemist?” Cleasby was incredulous.

  Hutchuck ignored him and turned to Madigan. “They will let you back inside the City of Walls?”

  “I was never officially banished.”

  “Close enough.” The ogrun’s armor rattled as he shrugged. It seemed to be made up of bits and pieces from various other suits—most of them too small—and even metal scraps and plates torn from ’jacks. He was wearing a bandolier which held several very large, roughly fashioned grenades. Cleasby felt even worse when he realized someone that heavy and that explosive had managed to sneak up on him. “They say there will be war there soon, against the Menites. They are smart to bring you back. War is all you are good for.”

  “You’ll get no disagreement from me on that. Come on. I’ve got what you want.”

  Hutchuck stomped over to the corpse. He gave Cleasby a suspicious look before kneeling and pulling the burlap sack from the bandit’s head, revealing the face. The ogrun growled—a low, dangerous sound—then pulled a rolled piece of paper from inside his breastplate. It was a wanted poster. He looked at the picture, then the body, then back at the picture. “Hard to tell. You humans get puffy when you die, but the beard is right.” He pried open the dead man’s mouth with two giant fingers. “Bad teeth, too.”

  “As big as that reward is, it should buy you plenty of corrosive reagents to keep you occupied for a while. It’s Devlin. You’ve got my word.”

  “The monetary value of your word couldn’t buy a goat anywhere in Cygnar.” The horrendous bellowing noise that came next had to be ogrun laughter. Hutchuck removed a large coin purse from his belt and tossed it to Madigan. “Always a pleasure doing business, my friend.” The mace went over one shoulder, and then he effortlessly picked up the corpse in his other hand, carrying Devlin by the belt like a piece of luggage. “Farewell, Madigan. May you have a very good war.”

  “Until next time, Hutchuck.” Madigan stuffed the bulging coin purse into a saddlebag, then climbed back onto his horse as the ogrun walked in the opposite direction. “Come along, Cleasby.”

  He waited until the mighty brute was out of earshot. “What was that?” he demanded, even though he suspected he already knew the answer.

  “A mutually beneficial transaction. Military officers can’t collect bounties; Hutchuck’s trade is bounty hunting. So Hutchuck gives me half up front, I bring him the body, and then he goes to the fort and collects the whole reward.” Madigan didn’t seem even the least bit ashamed. “No use letting a perfectly good dead bandit go to waste.”

  “That’s against regulations!”

  “Which is why I used the ogrun.”

  “But . . . but regulations!”

  Madigan didn’t seem interested in explaining himself further. “Mount up. We’ve got a train to catch.”

  Offended and angry, Cleasby followed. He didn’t want to disobey orders, and he certainly didn’t want to be caught on the road in the Thornwood alone after dark. When he’d first heard the rumors about Madigan, he’d thought maybe, just maybe, they were exaggerated, but now he wasn’t so sure. This man was supposed to be a knight? Where was the dignity and the honor like he’d seen from the command staff in Corvis? Those knights had been models of chivalry. Surely, none of them would seek out personal profit for doing something that should be done simply out of duty. Such a lack of propriety was disgusting.

  Cleasby knew he could be idealistic at times, but Sir Madigan was proving to be as bad as everyone had made him out to be.

  Cleasby watched out the train window as they approached the biggest structures he had ever seen. The capital of Cygnar was one of the largest cities in Caen, a magnificent testament to the greatness of their people. It had been the only city in western Immoren never to fall before the Orgoth invaders, and it had only grown more impressive since. He had read much about it, but this was the first time he’d actually seen Caspia. It hardly seemed possible, but the city was even better than he’d imagined.

  The first thing he noticed when approaching Caspia was the walls. They were ancient and overwhelming. He’d been taught they were two hundred feet tall in places, and some were a hundred feet thick. To the east, on the other side of the great bridge that spanned the Black River, rose even more great walls, painted white and gold.

  That was Sul. It had originally been the eastern slums of Caspia, but the worshipers of Menoth had taken it during the civil war and named it after their rebellious Hierarch Sulon. As a historian, Cleasby was giddy. This place was absolutely filled with history.

  The train entered Caspia’s north
gate, and Cleasby looked around eagerly, drinking it all in. Great walls reached up everywhere, seemingly without order, creating dozens of separate neighborhoods and districts. People had even built into the walls. As for those people . . . Cleasby had never imagined so many people in one place.

  “It is absolutely wonderful,” Cleasby spoke his thought aloud.

  “Indeed.” His reluctant traveling companion, Lieutenant Madigan, was watching out the same window. The two of them hadn’t spoken much over the last few days of the long train ride. Cleasby had passed the time rereading the few books he’d packed, while Madigan had spent the days visiting with the civilian passengers and sleeping a lot. “Caspia is as beautiful as she is merciless.”

  “We’re living during a revolution of industry, and this is the center of it all. I’ve been told Caspia is growing at a rapid pace. There are over a million residents now.”

  “First time in the capital, Cleasby?”

  “It is, sir. I’m to be stationed here. Headquarters, 33rd Battalion.”

  “The 33rd? That’s Storm Lance heavy cavalry.” Madigan sounded suspicious; Cleasby suspected the man didn’t regard him very highly. The feeling was mutual. “You didn’t particularly strike me as a horseman.”

  It had been a long journey, but they were too close to their destination to bother getting offended now. “Can’t say I’m much inclined to the horses, sir. I can stay atop one provided it travels in a straight line, and not too quickly. I believe I’m needed for an administrative post.”

  “Is that why you joined the military, Cleasby? Administrative duties?”

  “Of course not . . .” The young soldier hesitated. “That’s where my superiors felt my talents would be of the most use, sir.”

  “I’m not degrading it, lad. It’s a necessary assignment, as any solider who has ever been in a unit with bad logistical support can tell you. Campaigning is bad enough as it is, but it’s worse on an empty stomach and without proper boots. Every unit needs an organizational man, but nobody signs up for a war effort to shuffle paper, especially a young scholar with a university education and no shortage of prospects in society.” Madigan absently scratched at his scar. “So why did you enlist, Cleasby?”