Vesteal 01 – 01 – Ghost in the Yew

by Blake Hausladen

  One of Leger’s men met us at the bridge and led us up to Ojesti. We met my alsman in the wide common room of his inn. The space was transformed, and Darmia was radiant, but I had little patience past Dia’s polite compliments.

  Leger got right to it. “The scouts report no sign of Kuren on the road, and it has snowed twice upon the peaks since I wrote to you. He might still make it across, but he would be a true fool to try it. We were nearly caught by the weather ourselves.”

  “And the men at his timber camps?”

  “The camps are deserted. They withdrew for the season well before we returned.”

  I managed to relax a bit then and was better still after he handed me an accounting of the trip.

  “Onmar did well,” I smiled as I read. “The farmers must be pleased.”

  “Yes. They could not be happier. Most earned a Hemari’s wage. Thell made more than I do as your alsman.”

  “An alsman’s wage. Truly? Is it that much?” I asked and found the number for myself. I shook my head. Thell had earned in one season more than his father and grandfather had made in all their years. I allowed myself a long moment’s due pride and was fortunate to have done it. The next document he had ready tied my stomach in knots.

  “Our auction call did not go as well,” he summarized as I read the bad news. “We managed to bring all the leather, wool, and silk but very little of the metals.”

  “No silver or copper at all?”

  “None. Iron was near as scarce. We bought all we could, but the quality is poor and the price we paid was too high.”

  “Everyone is making swords.”

  “Yes, and we are starved for it. We’ll have to find a provincial source for metals and quickly. The Kaaryon has none to spare. The winter and war is all anyone could speak of. Did your father’s messenger make the return trip while we were away?”

  “Yes. Sorry I did not forward it along. It was not very surprising or memorable of a missive. He started south after his birthday. Going on a caribou hunt of all things.”

  Darmia asked, “With all that is going on, your father chooses to vacation for the winter in the south?”

  I was surprised by her sudden question but should not have expected any less from someone who could catch Leger. Her voice was light but had an earnest, confident edge. Her question was also a very thoughtful one. I replied, “My father has always loved the cold. Culls the weak from the herd, he says. I sent him wishes for a good hunt. We won’t hear from him again until spring.”

  Leger said, “Your father has not aged well. His decline will invite the worst.”

  “Not until the spring, my friend. Not until the spring.”

  “Have funerals for the fallen been planned?” Dia asked, and I was ashamed to have not thought of it at all. I took her gently by the arm in way of thanks.

  “Yes. Pyres will be lit by the river at dawn.”

  “Did I know any of them?” I asked.

  “One lad, yes. Anry Hadish. You met him first the day we arrived—Gern’s counterpart in Urnedi’s mighty garrison of two.”

  I scoffed sadly, remembering how truly ridiculous I had been that day.

  Dia said, “He was also the man who tried to stop me that day I rode out to the yew. The man you beat so badly.”

  “Oh. Yes. I remember now. Was he married? Children?”

  “No. Pemini and Anry were very close, though,” Dia informed and said to Darmia, “I should go see how she is doing. Care to join me?”

  “Take care of her,” I said awkwardly. “Send her my best.”

  Dia seemed unimpressed, continued a few more paces, but then turned. “I know you are not simply pretending to care, Barok, but sometimes it sure does sound like it.”

  I could not think of one word to say against that. I hung my head, and they continued out.

  Leger said to me, “Leave it, lad. This will not be the first time men you do not know die in your service.”

  The terrible quality of the sudden experience could not be confined. It pulled open all my understanding of the world and pressed me down. The moment was one Kyoden had taught me to expect, or more precisely, had framed for me with the respect and deference he paid to the Chaukai. But I was not ready for it. Nothing could have prepared me for the sudden tug upon my guts and my heart. It was bitter and it was cruel.

  “How do I do this? How do I live with this?” I asked, hoping as I said it that Kyoden and his kin would gift me a hundred such moments, but they did not break their silence.

  Leger said, “You don’t. It will never be easy. Each man who falls will add to the weight, and it never goes away. All you can do is not make it worse for yourself and for their families and friends. Learn to be quiet. Learn to listen. Speak of the importance of their duty. Help them be proud.”

  “Who tells them? The families, I mean.”

  “I do. It is for me to know their names and explain to their kin why their sons are dead.”

  “You have written a lot of letters, haven’t you Leger?”

  “Eight hundred seventeen,” he told me, so matter of fact I did not at first believe him.

  “I will have to speak to the crowd, won’t I? Before they are put to the torch?”

  “Yes. That is something you must do.”

  “Can you help me write something? Something Kyoden would be proud of?”

  “Yes, but forget Kyoden. It is families and neighbors you will be speaking to. Let’s sit down with Gern and the boy’s father. They knew him best. Let them do the talking and learn why he will be missed.”

  It was not an education I wanted, but I followed and listened.

  The next morning, I threw up three times before the ceremony but managed somehow to say the words.

  * * *

  Family, friends, neighbors,

  How do we continue? What do we do when we look to the places where these men stood quietly watching over us and see that they are gone? When the band has no flute or the great snort is missing when a good joke is told. How do we dance? How do we laugh? When we think upon the words they last spoke or the place we last saw them. How? How do we continue?

  I feel like a thief. The cause I have brought cost us this—stole from us these great men. Their dedication and their fidelity made so many so very proud, and I thought I understood what their service meant. But I see here today the reason they chose to stand the line and risk death to defend us.

  You are worth defending. The lives you lead are worth dying for.

  We will laugh and dance and walk time-and-again past the places where they stood, but we will remember, and we will be grateful.

  * * *

  83

  Geart Goib

  The season was getting old—too old, we hoped, for another campaign. Still, the men kept their eyes east. Perhaps Harod’s men would not find a buyer and we would return to Apped. Perhaps Heneur would surrender and civil war would not come. The men used to dream of what they would do when their twenty years was up. If it would snow early, maybe they could start to dream again.

  But riders came, and they brought five more Hessier. The group met briefly with Harod’s senior officers. The officers seemed very pleased. Whoever had hired us must have paid plenty.

  A terrible gloom settled over the camp like a wool blanket soaked in piss.

  We broke camp immediately. One of the jailors said something he wasn’t supposed to as we were getting underway. The senior Hessier rode his Akal right over the man and spun the sharp-hoofed stallion in two tight circles over him. The men stayed very quiet after that and moved where and when they were told.

  They didn’t tell us where we were going, and it was the only thing whispered about when our keepers were far enough away. Which noble was paying to have which other killed? Whose turn was it to be thrown over a high wall? All that the men had to wager with was their morning ration and their clothes, but most began to take bets on our target. The list of names grew long when we crossed into the Kaaryon. When we continued p
ast all the fat estates around Alsonvale, a good number of men went naked and hungry.

  I half hoped Alsonvale’s garrison would challenge us, but with Hessier at the head of our force, no one would interfere. No one challenges the Hessier.

  We turned north and after two days of it there were only two names left in the running, Kuren of Trace and Barok of Enhedu. Rumors of Barok swirled, and I listened for them all. Murderer some said—killer of kin, Hemari, and Hessier. Others talked of secret deals that had filled his pockets with enough gold to buy half of Alsonvale and hire away Bessradi’s best craftsmen. There was also a tale of a half-mad thirty-year man who bought 10,000 mountain ponies to use as cavalry mounts. It was my favorite of the stories, though it was the least believable. No Hemari would ever ride a working breed.

  By the time we were getting close to Trace, there was no shame left in how they told tales of him—the washerwomen he abused and the bloody fights he had with the other princes. They made him sound a devil. Many wagered everything on my prince being our target. I prayed to Bayen it wasn’t true.

  Avin listened to none of it. He had a harder and harder time finishing his food. He got knocked down once for his bowl, and I had to break a man’s jaw. He began to look sick. He clutched his books while he slept.

  The next morning showed us the white top of a mountain, and I rejoiced. Barok was safe from us. Another group lost their clothes and gruel.

  But when we marched within sight of Almidi, its gates were open, men rode out to greet us, and a long line of barges waited along the cold shore before the town. We were bound for Enhedu after all.

  The fight that broke out between the new winners and losers drew in the Hessier, and two score more bodies were left to fertilize the fields.

  That night I moved us as close to the Hessiers’ tents as I dared, but they did not speak any words for me to overhear.

  Avin began to shiver during the night. We had no blankets, so I wrapped him in my arms. I was up most of the night trying to think how we could escape—how I could warn Barok. I fell asleep feeling stupid.

  The morning came fast, and we were herded onto the barges. I kept Avin close. The senior jailor was aboard mine.

  “Gruel when we arrive,” he boomed. “The faster you board, the faster you eat.”

  “Why not now?” someone stupidly asked.

  “So you don’t puke and shit all over each other, that’s why. The next man who asks a stupid question gets dead. Get moving.”

  We jammed into the old barge—hundreds of us crammed upright into the deep box. The tide lifted the barge off the beach, and the captain of the fleet had us moving north at once with the boom of his voice and the loud pound of drums. I was tall enough to see how they did it. The barges were lashed together in lines of five, each line pulled by a ship with a single square sail and long oars. It seemed a chancy affair. The sailors of Trace were brave men.

  The thick smells of salt and tree sap were replaced the reek of puke, but the view kept me distracted. The mountains we skirted were so very different from the smooth red folds of Heneur. The peaks were dark, sharp, and impossibly tall. There were no beaches, the shoreline one great thrust of stone after another, as if it had all been pushed straight up out of the sea.

  We all stared at the mountain all morning, but the view did not change. I closed my eyes like any good guardsman and managed to miss an uneventful day.

  Well into the morning of the next, we figured we’d been lied to.

  “Another day before we arrive?” someone yelled, and the shouting lasted a long time. But there wasn’t space enough for a man to do much else but yell. The sides of those barges could be climbed but what then—jump into the sea? One man tried to climb the tall box at the back of the barge but got his skull split for his trouble. The yelling slowed, and the misery of being pissed, and puked, and shat upon took hold.

  Avin collapsed the second night, as did others. I barely got ahold of him before he sank below. The cries of others who had slid down and were stood upon did not last long. I managed to heft my friend over my shoulder. The man behind me struck him. I got hold of him by the neck and gave it a long slow squeeze. He sank to the deck when I was done, and no one touched Avin again.

  Many of the sick and weak died in the dark of the long night, and by dawn there was space enough to crouch. You had to do it over a carpet of the dead, but on that day, it was a luxury. I made it better still by forcing my way into one of the corners so that we could lean upon something solid.

  I was asleep there when a terrible grinding noise had everyone screaming.

  “Shut up,” the jailor yelled from the box. “Make way.”

  The barge ground to a halt, and long planks were set into the hold. The men scrambled up and jumped into the waves that rolled up a rocky beach. It was a chancy thing, carrying Avin and leaping over, but the water was warmer than I expected. The other barges ran aground, too. Avin came awake briefly amidst the sounds of the thousands who washed the voyage from their bodies. The salt stung, but only the weak minded it, and few of those made it through the night.

  The Tracians got organized and started pushing the slaves up the beach. The view inland was not what I expected. The mountains were south of us, and the land descended from them in a jagged tumble of tree-covered ridges until it leveled onto the pair of worn hills before us. All of the trees were cleared from both, and between them was a vast camp of men, six, maybe seven thousand strong. They were an odd lot, too. The forward piece looked like proper enough soldiers, but those who camped closer to the shore were levies and laborers. The churlish conscripts seemed somehow to fit right in, jammed onto the rocky patch between the army and the sea.

  How was Kuren affording it all? I could not make sense of it until I spotted the contingent of bailiffs on the north edge of the camp. Parsatayn was Kuren’s friend, too. I looked for the black-dalmatics of Chancellery men, but was not surprised I could not find them. They were cowards.

  The gruel they had ready for us was strangely excellent, full of meat and flavor. Each man also got a loaf of bread and a copper cup of clean water. I was given a triple share without asking. The generosity made me suspicious and nervous.

  I was not able to think on it much, though. Avin was getting sicker. He managed only a few sips of the water and a single crust of his bread. A trio lurked nearby, thinking perhaps to steal the rest of his food. I threw a rock at the largest, splitting his eyebrow to the bone. His fellows robbed him, instead, and moved on. I ate the rest of Avin’s food.

  A noble and a general approached us all after the meal. The general was proper looking, well groomed, with strict posture, and in a uniform that lacked the fake layer of medals and finery provincial officers often wore. The noble was fatter than any man I had seen in years, sweaty, and bald. He had a very big voice.

  “My name is Kuren Pormes, Arilas of Trace. I am your new owner. We march west tomorrow through this forest. There is a miserable little prince on the other side that we have been tasked with arresting. When his soldiers are dead and he is in chains, you will all be free men. Sleep well tonight. In the morning, you will eat as well and again when the task is done.”

  The churls cheered as the arilas departed. Freedom was great news for them, better than they could have hoped. It was a lie, of course. I’d never seen municipal service forgiven in all my years. There would be no freedom for these men, either. But I could not care about them. I cared only for Avin and for my prince, and I could think only of escape.

  To the east were the cold waves of a dark ocean, and to the west and north Kuren’s army blanketed the open ground. The only route open was to the south, where the only thing that separated us from a tree line and small river was the Hessier and thirty-odd jailors who camped along it.

  I found us a spot as close to the jailors as I could, but could not think of any plan that would get Avin and me safely into the trees.

  The sun began to set when a big meeting was called. The Hessier and a fe
w of the jailors went too. I tried to whisper this to Avin but I could not wake him. He was getting sicker. I wanted to send the blue light deep into his body but couldn’t risk the attention of the Hessier. I could have used Avin’s help. I still could not think of a way to get us into those trees.

  I was cheered, though, by the slow rise of the watchman’s friend up over the sea. She was full, and no clouds obscured her.

  The jailors returned some time later, but fewer came back than had gone. One man seemed badly wounded. Hopeful, I stood so they could see me. The senior jailor waved me over, and I joined them beside the fire. The injured man had been stabbed deep above the left nipple. I looked up to see the jailors all crowded low around the fire. The Hessier were moving past. In the moon’s bright light, their heavy armor glowed.

  One of the Hessier that had been with us the longest said to the group, “Sikhek will want us to come back with the big one, probably.”

  “A recruit? There has not been a new one in years. What did he do exactly?”

  “Healed a horse. Colic.”

  The senior Hessier came to a sudden halt and did not respond for a very long time. “That cannot be true. None have managed such a magic in centuries.”

  “Saw it myself. It was different—yellow instead of blue.”

  The senior Hessier spat a curse and struck his junior with a magic that knocked him onto his back. Then he glared out at the conscripts, perhaps searching for me, before he led the rest away. The last was slow to follow.

  When they disappeared into the tents, I got back up to look at the wounded man, but he had died. We stared at him in the glow of the fire and moon. He looked very sad. The senior jailor wore the same defeated face.

  “You never told me your name,” I said to him.