Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3)

by Brian J Moses

  Why should we fight for either side? Brican wondered. If our lives weren’t on the line, I’d say let them fight among themselves until the stars burn out and to Hell with all the immortals.

  When the company finally settled down and turned in for the night, Brican sought out Caeesha and hugged her tightly. He placed his hands on her belly and directed a kythe toward the two tiny minds that were forming within her. Brican was convinced he could feel their infant minds trying to talk back to him, and he sent whispered words of love and promises of safety. Caeesha watched him with glowing eyes, and as they lay down to sleep, Brican felt he had never loved his wife more.

  - 2 -

  He lay on a slab of cold, glittering obsidian. He was completely naked, and only a series of thick leather straps had kept him from writhing in pain during his last torture session. First his eyes had been cut and rendered useless once again – the demons took an intense joy in blinding him, and usually they blinded him before their most agonizing tortures so he couldn’t see or know what was coming. Blinding had now become a sort of psychological torture by itself, because he knew it portended something truly painful.

  Hours or days ago, they had clawed at his eyes. Sometime later, tiny drops of fire had slowly been showered down on his body – they burned with a slow, searing pain that seemed to eat right through his flesh and into his bones with excruciating agony. He screamed and he screamed, until finally he realized the torture had long-since stopped.

  Then silence. He didn’t know if they had left him again, or if someone was waiting silently, watching as he struggled to regain the strength to heal himself and restore his vision once more. Then the Voice had come again.

  There was no sound until his first words came, not even the softest of footsteps. He knew the Voice now, remembered several conversations they had had before. He still had no other name for it though, and it only came when he was blind, so it remained only “the Voice.”

  “You’ve mentioned a woman’s name to me, someone you love,” the Voice said without preamble, as if they were continuing a conversation that had lapsed only seconds before. “Tell me about this Moreen.”

  “She is beautiful,” he began.

  “Compared to what?”

  He was silent, taken aback by the sudden interruption and the question itself.

  “Never mind. Please continue,” the Voice said.

  “She is very strong-willed…”

  “Compared to whom?”

  “Any woman I’ve met.”

  “And men?” the Voice probed.

  “Most, yes.”

  “Including yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, trying to sort through his thoughts. The Voice was tricky and loved to play mind games with him, always probing and delving for some hidden information that was beyond his ability to discern. Still, talking to the Voice was better than sitting in silence, so he played along.

  “I suppose I’d have to say we’re the same, it just manifests differently.”

  “Excellent. Continue.”

  He paused.

  “She’s intelligent…”

  “Intelligent or wise?” the Voice interrupted again.

  “Both.”

  “Compared to most people?”

  “Yes.”

  “Compared to yourself?”

  Again, he was forced to stop and consider his answer.

  “She is not as learned, but she is just as intelligent and more wise than I in some ways, less so in others.”

  “Wonderful,” the Voice said with genuine pleasure. “Now, describe her in as few words as possible.”

  Silence.

  “She is Moreen,” he said finally, as if that explained her in entirety. Indeed, for anyone who knew her, that was enough.

  The Voice laughed, a silky sound that was dark and seductive.

  “Excellent, mortal,” the Voice said. “You show more promise with every passing day. I look forward to our next conversation.”

  “As do I,” he replied, and he was surprised to discover he truly meant it.

  - 3 -

  The next ten days passed without event, for which Garnet was especially thankful. He had just called a halt for a midday rest, and even as they ceased their orderly marching, the three separate commands broke off by unit in a sort of unilateral, unspoken agreement of segregation. For the most part, the force traveled in these three distinct groups, which both pleased and worried Garnet. He was glad he didn’t have to deal with any inter-racial animosity that might spring up from the different races of humans and demi-humans traveling together for such an extended period of time – it was one less headache to deal with amidst the countless others that plagued him daily.

  On the other hand, dividing the races would never heal the rifts between them, and while there may not have been any open hostility, their constant separation was just as worrisome. Unfortunately, there was little he could do about it. Garnet couldn’t very well order the groups to mingle; that would completely defeat the purpose and possibly result in the exact opposite effect.

  He turned the problem over in his mind.

  “You look upset.”

  Garnet nearly reached for his sword as he spun at the unexpected voice. Trames was standing a few feet behind him, his ever-present look of calm curiosity still firmly in place. The old man’s white goatee was damp (he’d shaved his moustache the night before), and he showed signs of just having immersed himself in water somewhere. Fortunately, he appeared to be mostly dry beneath his clothing.

  “Did you fall in something?” Garnet said, not unkindly, as his pulse returned to normal.

  “There’s a small waterfall a quarter mile north of here,” Trames replied. “I prefer bathing in running water when possible. But you’ve changed the subject.”

  “Not upset. Thoughtful, you might say,” Garnet said, humoring Kala’s charge. “Just trying to work out a resolution to a problem.”

  “Won’t work.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It won’t work,” Trames said. He strolled forward and settled himself cross-legged on the ground. Garnet stared at the older man for a moment, then sighed and knelt beside him.

  “What do you mean, it won’t work?” he asked once he was at eye-level with Trames.

  “You can’t work out a resolution,” Trames said, “the resolution works itself out. Oh, you might have a part in that, but you’ll find you end up doing very little of the work that matters. The bigger the problem, the less you can do to fix it.”

  Garnet stared at him in perplexity.

  “Things have a tendency to work out all by themselves,” Trames said, “usually without the rest of the world even knowing something was wrong. Once the path of a problem is laid down and it’s put in motion, there’s usually not much you can do that will help, and a lot you can do that will just get you hurt for trying. Solving problems is sort of like trying to cook a small fish: the more you poke at it, the more it’s going to fall apart on you.

  “You’d be amazed how much you can accomplish by doing nothing at all,” Trames said with a happy smile on his face.

  “It’s an important problem, Trames,” Garnet said patiently. Even if the old man wasn’t a bit touched in the head, he obviously had no perspective and didn’t understand the potential scope of the issue. San! He didn’t even know what the issue was in the first place. “It’s not something I can just let alone and hope that it works out for the best.”

  “Things always work out for the best,” Trames said, smiling brilliantly up at Garnet, “they just may not work out the best for you.”

  Garnet shifted his weight and took a step backward. “I…”

  “Shhh,” Trames shushed him urgently, lifting a finger to Garnet’s lips. Slowly, he removed his finger and pointed at Garnet’s foot. “Quickly lift your foot and put your hands down like you’re trying to catch a grasshopper,” Trames said in a conspiratorial whisper.

  At a loss, Garnet followed the old man
’s instructions. In one swift motion, he shifted his foot to the side and cupped his hands over the ground without ever seeing what it was he was supposed to be trapping.

  “Now carefully scoop your hands up and keep them closed,” Trames said. Garnet started to move his hands. “Carefully!” Trames insisted urgently. Curious in spite of himself, Garnet obeyed and carefully cupped his hands around each other. It didn’t feel like anything was in his hands, but he wasn’t sure if pointing that out would make any difference to Trames.

  “Now what?” Garnet asked. “What do I… uh, do with it?” he asked.

  “We need someplace to put her,” Trames said, peering about anxiously as though a box or something would just be lying around in the open. Then his face lit up, and he reached into a satchel at his side and took out the small, empty jar he’d brought with him from Garnet’s home. The jar was about the size of two men’s fists, and Trames removed the lid and peered inside with a triumphant expression.

  “Here, here,” Trames said, “put her in here.”

  “Her?” Garnet asked.

  “Shhhh,” Trames said and motioned urgently with his hands.

  A look of resignation on his face, Garnet obliged and opened his hands over the jar as though placing something inside. He tried to peek in, but Trames slipped the lid in place too quickly for Garnet to see anything more than an empty jar. Which, to be honest, was all he really expected to see.

  “What is it?” Garnet asked.

  Trames peered down at the closed jar with a look of ecstatic pleasure and said, “See, an empty jar no longer.”

  “Trames,” Garnet said insistently. The old man looked up at him in surprise. “What did we just catch?”

  “A fire faerie,” Trames said, his eyes gleaming. “I’ve always wanted to see one up close to see if I could talk to her.”

  Garnet frowned. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “Most people haven’t,” Trames said. “You almost never see them at night, and you can’t see them during the day.”

  Garnet looked up at the sun shining in the sky overhead.

  “How did you see it, then?” he asked.

  “You have to pay attention to everything, young man,” Trames said. “If you focus on just one thing at a time, you’re as good as blind. Don’t focus on anything if you want to see everything.”

  Garnet almost laughed, but something in what the old man said brought him up short.

  Attack with a form, but keep your overall attitude formless.

  Don’t fix your eyes on my sword, damn it. If you watch my sword, I’m going to put my boot in your bloody jewels. No, don’t watch my feet! I’ll split open that ass sitting on your shoulders! Don’t focus on anything, you fool. Watch the whole attitude of your opponent, and you’ll see everything at once. Focus on any one thing, and you will die.

  Garnet heard the words of Gerard Morningham echoing in his head like they had just been shouted at him moments before. Strange to think he should now hear something so similar from a crazy old man.

  Is there something more to Trames? Garnet wondered.

  Garnet stared speculatively at the old man, who was frowning at the jar in his hands.

  “What’s wrong?” Garnet asked.

  “Now I don’t have an empty jar.”

  Well, maybe not.

  - 4 -

  During the next two days, their expedition made its way slowly through the mountains, climbing ever higher toward their destination. They followed Mikal’s directions unquestioningly, and the angel seemed to have no doubts about their route.

  Garnet developed a throbbing headache that he initially blamed on overuse of using Brican to look through people’s eyes. Shadow Company continued to run training drills, and platoons often broke away to practice maneuvers and group tactics away from the main body of the column. Most of the time they completed their practice sessions without observation or interruption, but sometimes a handful of elves or human paladins would accompany the denarae – Siran especially watched them with great interest, and he and Garnet often spoke about tactics, training, and most of all what it meant to be a “warrior,” a term that had special significance for the elf. Garnet was coming to appreciate the elven captain’s philosophy, and he added the man’s ideas to his own growing repertoire of combat philosophy.

  Because of his overall command duties, during many of the training sessions, Garnet stayed with the column and just had visual images of the training routed to him by Brican, and it was on this that Garnet blamed the pounding in his skull. Gradually, though, Garnet realized the headache wasn’t unique to him. He had Blue Platoon disperse and wander through the camps, and they reported that nearly a third of the expedition was experiencing headaches of some degree. There also seemed to be an unusual incidence of insomnia and general fatigue. Elves and humans suffered equally, but the denarae seemed especially hard-hit by the sudden onset. Garnet began to worry about some sort of disease to which the denarae were especially susceptible.

  It was Kala and Perklet who discovered the cause.

  “We’re pushing to make good time, and the men aren’t used to the altitude,” Perklet explained to Garnet and his officers.

  “We call it altitude sickness,” Kala said. “The air is thinner up here, and it will only get worse the higher we go. We’re only marching, so most of your men are only experiencing headaches. The more you work your body, the more it will affect you, though.”

  “We’ve been running practice drills,” Garnet mused, absent-mindedly straightening his tunic and brushing his hair out of his eyes, “so we’ve been exercising more than any of the other units. No wonder the denarae are being affected so sorely.”

  “I told you it wasn’t my fault I missed the target so often yesterday,” Marc said. “It was the headaches.”

  Guilian laid a consoling hand on Marc’s shoulder and said somberly, “Marc, your aim is even worse than mine, which is an accomplishment.”

  Flasch snorted. “Marc, your aim is worse than Garnet’s flirting, and that’s an accomplishment.”

  “My what?” Garnet asked, too preoccupied to pay attention.

  “Nothing.”

  Garnet muttered a curse, oblivious to the half-hidden grins around him. “Alright, so what do we do about it? How do we prevent this? I can’t have half my men suffering from this sickness, but I’d rather not lose the training unless I have to.”

  “You have to,” Kala said firmly, “at least until they become more acclimated to the altitude. Ease up the marching pace a bit and let them recover and get used to it. Extra rations of water for everyone, and lots of grain foods and potatoes for meals.”

  Danner nodded.

  “I remember Maran told me about something like this once, Garnet,” the Blue said softly. “Trust her experience.”

  “I do,” Garnet said, combing a hand through his hair, “I just hate having to curtail training for something like this.”

  “Practice more on archery than melee exercises,” Kala suggested. “It’s less exertion, and you can still put time to good use.”

  Garnet smiled at her gratefully.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I should have seen that myself. Don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “I can guess,” Brican said, raising a hand. Danner quickly reached out and lowered Brican’s arm while maintaining a straight face. Garnet frowned slightly at them, his eyebrows drawn together in irritated puzzlement.

  “Must be the headaches,” Flasch said blandly.

  “Must be,” Marc agreed. Behind him, Guilian nodded with a deeply serious expression on his face.

  “What is with you all?” Garnet asked irritably.

  “Us?” Marc asked innocently.

  “Not a damn thing, sir,” Brican answered with a grin.

  “Just ignore us. Must be the headaches,” Flasch said again. Garnet’s hand twitched, but he resisted the urge to smack his friend upside the head. He chose the better part of valor and deliberately ignored them.<
br />
  “For now, I’ll extend the late afternoon break by a half hour. Now get out of here, all of you,” Garnet ordered, waving a hand. “My headache right now has nothing to do with the altitude.”

  With a few chuckles, Garnet’s friends wandered off to rejoin their units. Garnet slumped down on a convenient rock and rubbed his temples.

  “You really do care about them all, don’t you?” Kala asked, and Garnet jerked in surprise. He’d forgotten she was there. He straightened up and automatically brushed his hair out of his eyes again. The stray thought crossed his mind that he needed a haircut.

  “Those idiots?” Garnet asked. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Not just them,” Kala said, shaking her head. She bent gracefully and knelt on both knees next to him. The tough leather of her trousers did little to disguise the athletic curves of her body, and Garnet had to force himself to look away before he embarrassed himself.

  “You really care for all the men in your command,” she said. “Denarae and humans both. Equally.”

  “A man is a man,” Garnet said with a shrug. “My father told me if a man’s good enough to pick up a sword and fight with you, he should fight by you, no matter his race or beliefs.”

  “I was taught that humans hated denarae,” Kala said. She had already told Garnet about her mixed heritage, and he knew all about the impression her people had of the outside world and its prejudices. For the most part, he was forced to concede they were fairly accurate.

  “That makes men who can see past that rare and a cut above their close-minded fellows,” she continued, “and the fact that you shrug it off as natural means a lot. Your men love you as much as you love them.”

  Garnet smiled wryly. “I don’t always feel like I’ve earned it yet. The original Shadow Company was formed and trained by Gerard, and I just inherited the embodiment of his dream and vision. All our success in the Barrier War I attribute to him.

  “This Shadow Company is practically a different entity entirely,” he said, waving a hand toward the denarae resting in the distance. “Over half our number fell during the war, and we had to rebuild that and retrain almost from scratch. We’ve done well in the few skirmishes we’ve had, but,” Garnet paused, shaking his head. “We haven’t been tested and proven where it counts. In war.”