“Holy mother of gods,” he said.
Captain Tarn frowned at Lauze, and the corporal did what he could to rein in the heart pounding in his chest. Except he could not take his eyes off the hellish scar running down the man’s body.
His shirt was dirty. It might have even been white at one time.
Whatever color it had started out to be, it was torn to little more than shreds that hung from the man’s shoulders and left that horrid lesion plain to see.
It was pink with some red in places and the thing tracked down the man’s body like a curse from the heavens. If the scarred man found his voice and said he had been struck with a lance made of lightning, Lauze would not have been surprised.
The only real surprise was that the fellow had somehow survived such a wound.
“Easy there,” the captain said to him, just like Lauze had done to reassure his horse.
“Get your feet under you. Take your time.”
This time, it was the corporal’s turn to frown at his captain.
What’s with the nicey-nice, Cap’n? And for a stranger to boot ...
The man tried to say something, then coughed. Lauze did not need to be told to hand over his waterskin and watched the company’s captain, who watched the unsteady man drink deeply from it.
“That’s it,” Captain Tarn said, “In a minute, I’m sure you’ll notice that you have the affair of a company of soldiers before you. If you’ve been waylaid by brigands and their paths cross our own, I promise they’ll not see another day.”
The man coughed again then shook his head.
“No,” he said, and Lauze realized that the man was younger than he had taken him for, maybe even his own age. So much dust clung to him and what looked like outright misery that he had taken him for someone far older.
“No ... thieves,” he said, “I mean, I don’t think so.”
Captain Tarn nodded.
“As you say, but I can’t help but notice that you carry nothing about you. No pack or provisions that I can see. My thought was that someone had lightened your load and then dealt you a blow for their troubles.”
The scarred man shook his head.
“No ... nothing like that.”
Captain Tarn shrugged, then said, “Then what was it, man? You can't mean to say that you were lying there for the pleasure of it.”
“I don't know,” he said in return, and Corporal Lauze remarked how the man's grey eyes grew more focused, steadier as he looked around himself.
“Where are you from?” Lauze asked. In view of the circumstances, he supposed the captain would not mind his interjecting a word or two.
The focus in those eyes grew hesitant.
“I don't know.”
The response was immediate, without reflection. Not at all like some confabulator or a huckster about to launch into his pitch.
What Lauze saw in the man's cool, grey gaze was the unvarnished truth.
“Ok. Never mind that. Start by telling us your name,” Lauze said while Captain Tarn looked on.
The man went still, then looked down at himself. He held up his hands and curled them into fists, then opened them again.
Grey eyes locked onto Lauze's own.
“I have no idea.”
And in those grey eyes, the corporal saw more clearly than he would have liked that the scarred man was completely, entirely lost on all accounts.
And that he spoke the truth.
There was a rustling at the two officers' backs, and Corporal Lauze turned to see their stitcher, Crane, making his way through the ranks.
He did so with some difficulty as the Bargeau twins kept trying to pull him back, obliging the medic to twist and turn among his fellow soldiers to keep free of their enormous hands.
There were rumors that the twins had giantish blood running in their veins, but Lauze doubted it. The brother and sister were not much bigger than the rest of the Breakers and had refused to be separated when the company had been pared down for this mission.
Normally, the company numbered close to one hundred men and women, and the Breakers made up about one third of that.
However, the men and women so efficient at locking shields at the forefront of the company, making of themselves veritable rocks through which the waves of the enemy could not breach, most of those big folk were deemed too slow for the trip north.
Still, Lauze thought, the warhammers each of the Breakers wore upon their backs might come in handy if the company should run across a band of ruffians upon the road.
Crane dipped and weaved, avoiding his protectors handily, proving himself to be more squirrely than Lauze had imagined him to be despite his sobriquet.
Tiny Berry made a grab for the medic and missed him, her thick arms jiggling as she flailed. The corporal might have sniggered, but he knew beyond any doubt that the female half of the Bargeau twins could swing a hammer just as hard as her brother, Little Will.
Captain Tarn frowned.
The only reason that any of the Breakers had come along on this mission was that they were to keep Crane safe. In case of the least mishap, they were charged with forming a knot around the man and protecting his life with their own.
They would have done it anyway, as Crane was almost useless in a fight and no one could recollect the last time he had been seen to draw the sword scabbarded at his side.
Lauze thought back to the barbarian with the scimitar and the way blood had sprayed from his neck.
Of course, that skinny surgeon's blade he keeps on him is a whole other story.
Little Will seemed to think he had Crane in reach and jumped for him.
The only problem was that the male half of the Bargeau twins was just as massive as his sister, which was to say that when Little Will jumped a mighty leap, the result was mostly a modest hop.
Crane slipped past, then drew up short before Captain Tarn.
“This place is bad. It's going to get us if we don't go.”
No salute, no anything.
The captain might have dressed the medic down for such behavior, but both he and Corporal Lauze could see the panic in his face.
“What are you talking about, Crane?” the captain snapped.
Crane shuddered like a leaf, then lifted his hand to point beyond them, to the forest on all sides of them.
“There,” he said, his voice grown meek and quiet, as if that one word said all that was needed.
Lauze squinted and did not see anything amiss. There was nothing other than a narrow wagon track, mostly overgrown in weeds, that came out of the forest and met up with the road where they stood.
Where they had found the scarred man.
Unlike the captain and the corporal, the strange man did not look where Crane pointed. As lost as he appeared to be, it was if the danger Crane feared was of no surprise to him.
“Did you come from back there?” Lauze asked the man, who simply shook his head.
“No,” he said harshly, then, “I don’t know, but I don't think so.”
Then, as if he had suddenly forgot to be afraid, Crane dropped his arm and took a step toward the forest and that lonely wagon track leading who-knew-where. He appeared to be listening and when he turned to back to them, his eyes had gone round and shiny.
Lauze recognized what was going on.
A Windspoken man like Crane was far from being an outright wizard, but they had all got used to him making strange pronouncements from time to time. The kind of things that came true most of the time, sooner or later.
“Alexandre. Etienne,” Crane said, his eyes rolled back in his head and his beaklike nose bobbed just like that of his namesake.
“Her voice still rides upon the breath of that deathly place.”
Then the company's medic shook all over before his eyes rolled back around to look at the men standing perfectly still before him.
“Captain, I'm begging you. We have to get out of here ... now.”
A quick nod from his superior officer and L
auze called out, “Attention!”
Soldiers snapped to and tried to not stumble as Tiny Berry and Little Will shouldered past them to make it to the officers and Crane, at last.
The pair of Breakers kept their mouths shut.
And as they should, thought Lauze. Of course he also thought that none of them had known just how slippery Crane could be when he set his mind to it.
“I'm inclined to set a few more leagues behind us this day, Corporal.”
It was the captain's way of listening to Crane without seeming to. After all, their stitcher was almost always insubordinate, and they only put up with it because he was so important once the fighting started and the bleeding inevitably followed.
“Move the company out, Corporal. But before you do, see to it that this man is given what provisions we can spare.”
“Sir!” Lauze saluted, then turned on his heel.
A couple soldiers broke rank without being told. One of them undid his pack and held out a shirt to the corporal.
“'Think he's about my size,” the soldier said while the other one wrapped some bread and cheese in a cloth bundle. He passed it over along with a waterskin.
“That there bread is hard tack type. You'll want to dip it in water before you try eating it,” the soldier said and smiled as if to warn against doing otherwise.
He was missing more than a few teeth. But Lauze knew it was his idea of a joke since those teeth had been knocked out due to an unfortunate combination of drinking and gambling ... or it might have been gambling and losing. The truth was he did not remember and it did not matter.
The scarred man continued to look at them without speaking.
“What about a weapon, Corporal?” one of the soldiers asked. “So's he can keep hisself from getting knocked on the head again.”
Lauze nodded.
“What do you have in mind, soldier?”
The man held up an old blade, rusty and notched from one end to the other.
“I was keepin' it for a souvenir since I got issued my new one.”
Instead of passing it to Lauze, the soldier went straight to the grey-eyed man and held it out to him.
As an afterthought, he glanced over his shoulder and said, “With your permission, sir!”
Captain Tarn nodded.
The scarred man took it, then he looked over to Little Will and Tiny Berry and said, “I think I'd rather have one of those hammers.”
One of the twins guffawed, then stifled it quick as the captain shot both of them a hard glance.
“It takes a big man to swing hammers like those, my friend.”
The captain's voice was not so hard as he spoke to the stranger.
“There's nothing better at the front line for the onslaught, but a sword is a more likely weapon for you.”
The captain paused to look at the blade in the scarred man's hands, sniffed, then continued.
“Even one such as this. Not much can be done for the edge, but if you happen upon some sand, you can scrub away the worst of the rust.”
Grey eyes looked back at all of them and he said nothing.
A word of thanks isn't too much to ask, thought Lauze.
Oddly, the captain was unfazed.
“Good luck to you,” he said, then turned on his heel and went to mount his horse.
The scarred man turned to Lauze and looked him straight in the eyes.
“What should I do?”
The corporal shrugged and shook his head.
“South, I would reckon. Go south and learn to use that sword if you don't already know how. There's trouble brewing north-wise, so south is your answer.”
Lauze did not know how the man took his words, but he was sure the captain had caught his meaning.
The corporal turned away, also about to go to his horse, then he remembered Crane still standing there looking a little lost himself.
“Hey, Stitcher. What was it about those names you just said?”
The medic mumbled something low, then stumbled off to be collected by Tiny Berry and her brother. Then he called back loud and hard, “We need to get out of here, Captain!”
It was that more than Lauze's next command that got the company moving again.
Soldiers muttered and groaned but shouldered their packs all the same to take up the march that carried them ever onward.
Lauze heard someone call out to the stranger as the company marched by.
“Hey! You could always go in for a military career.”
The corporal thought it might have been Glinns that spoke.
“Har,” said a wretchedly gruff voice, “We sees the world, we do, and there h’aint anyone what’s gonna ask for yer real name ‘cause we c’aint care less.”
There were low chuckles among the ranks, and Lauze was sure that it had been Glinns who spoke first, since the man was never far from his partner in arms and in cards, the woolly soldier named Kruss. The man’s voice had become terribly distinctive after taking a mace blow to the throat the year before. The sort of thing that might have made of him a hero if it had been in battle, but if Lauze was not mistaken, it had been in a tavern.
The corporal tried to resist the urge to look back at the scarred man. He was almost sure the fellow still stood there looking more lost than anyone he had ever seen while the last of the soldiers filed past. His curiosity got the better of him, though, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the scarred man walking steadily away from the group of soldiers, apparently deciding to take the corporal’s advice to head south.
Several leagues later, the captain leaned over and asked, “So what was it Crane said about those names?”
Corporal Lauze shrugged.
“The man's half cracked, sir.”
“Of course, he is,” replied the Captain, “But still ... I admit to being curious.”
Lauze understood his captain, but he still did not understand what Crane had said.
“The medic just said that they belong to him.”
“Oh,” was the captain's reply, then, “The poor bastard.”
“Yessir ... the poor bastard. I think you're right.”
Captain Tarn did not take his eyes off the road ahead as he asked, “Right about what?”
Corporal Lauze shifted uncomfortably upon his saddle before speaking.
“Stop squirming, Lauze.”
“Sir, yes sir. I meant to say that I think he's probably a deserter. I mean, that's what you think too, right?”
It was the only explanation he had been able to think of for the captain's strange behavior with the man they had found. Tarn had seen a veteran wearing a terrible scar, just like he had.
“No, Corporal. That is not what I had in mind. Rather, it is that I have seen that lost look before. After battles that leave men without limbs, sometimes without parts of their faces, and never mind all their comrades who left their lives upon the field.
“Those kind of eyes belong to soldiers who have finally seen one thing too many and can't face their future any more than their past.”
Lauze had not thought of that.
“It's that scar, Corporal.”
Lauze nodded.
“Yes sir, I see.”
Captain Tarn replied, “No. I don't think you do. Some scars run just as deeply on the inside as they do on the outside. I think that man has known Hell itself. If our modest assistance helps him on his way, then I say that is a fine thing.”
“Yes sir,” Lauze said.
“It's not often soldiers have the opportunity to do something charitable and even if they did not know it, they saw the worth of that man,” the Captain went on, his voice growing quiet and thoughtful, “Besides, it's good for the morale.”
The two officers fell silent and did not feel the need to break it with words for a long time after.
The company traveled on until the sky dimmed and the evening was upon them.
They had made good time as the captain had kept his horse trotting along lively, setting a brisk pace
for them all. Without coming right out and saying so, there was no doubt he wanted a fair bit of distance between the company of soldiers and whatever danger Crane thought lay in wait back where they had found the scarred man.
The company had crossed into damp country that soon revealed itself to be the outskirts of marshlands from what Lauze could make out in the dim light.
He grimaced.
Swamps meant bugs, and bugs meant that no matter how smoky the company made their cookfires, they would spend the night tossing and turning while the flying little monsters feasted.
Something squawked in the darkness and a splash followed, both sounds making the officers’ horses sidestep.
Then Lauze’s mount, Maggie, nickered and blew out her nostrils. Not in fear, but in recognition.
A moment later, the corporal heard the sound of hooves thudding along in full gallop upon the soggy road. A sound that grew louder and louder until both he and the captain saw the pale face of Pintuk, the scout that had gone out ahead of them.
He reined his horse in hard and he was breathing just as lively as his mount.
“Cap’n!” he managed to get out as he kept sucking air.
Captain Tarn nodded before saying, “Catch your breath, soldier.”
Pintuk nodded, but the whites of his eyes were showing, making Corporal Lauze think of a spooked horse.
The scout fumbled for his waterskin then swallowed a couple large mouthfuls, his Adam’s apple jumping up and down violently enough it was as if the horse beneath the man was still at a gallop while standing stock still.
“Captain Tarn, sir,” Pintuk gasped as he saluted weakly.
And rather late about it for that matter, thought Lauze.
The captain saluted in return and before he could say anything, the scout blurted out, “Captain, we gotta get out of here!”
Lauze glanced at the captain to see if he was looking back at him, but the officer held himself rigidly in his saddle.
It appeared as though he did not want to discuss to what point Pintuk’s first comment resembled that of Crane earlier on and some leagues back.
“Pull yourself together, man,” snapped the captain, “You may not be an officer, but as an elite of the company, I expect my scouts to set an example for the rest. Button it down, son, and report.”
The Marechal Chronicles: Volume V, The Tower of the Alchemist Page 18