I did and he looked me over. “Hmmm.” Then he pushed me with one hand and nearly sent me toppling over. “Got to have a solid base. Widen it a bit. Nope. Too wide. You got to be able to move as well.” I adjusted and he said, “There you go. Now drop that sword foot back some, angle the toe out.”
He circled me and inspected. “Could be worse. Now bend the knees. Little more. Keep the weight on the balls of your foot. Right. How do you feel?”
I felt my legs in a completely unnatural position that made me look an ass, but said, “I feel like . . . a coiled spring.”
He slapped me on the back, and while it wasn’t done with malice, it still almost knocked the wind out of me. But at least it didn’t knock me over.
“Right. So let’s see you hold that buckler.”
I held it out away from my body, arm nearly straight.
“What are you plaguing doing? Warding off a moth? No. Bring the elbow back, now tuck it close to your hip. That’s it. Not too tight, but cocked, coiled like you said. With a little shield like that, you’re going to be doing active blocking. Know what that is?”
I shook my head and he said, “Course you plaguing don’t. Because you know shit all. Your best bet is to avoid a blow altogether, but sometimes that just ain’t realistic. Active blocking means you’ll be moving the buckler around a lot.”
Mulldoos adjusted my arm. “Getting ahead of myself here though— we’ll get to blocking later—but the only way to do that is to have the buckler close to start. You can shove it out, intercept or deflect a blade, smash someone in the mouth real good, but first, keep the shield elbow anchored like that. Don’t want to start overextended to start, plus, it’ll get heavier quicker than you can imagine, so waving it around like that will sap your strength.”
I didn’t want to block anything and wanted to hit somebody in the mouth even less, but he made sense, so I nodded.
“Right. Now, slowly pull that barbarian slasher free.”
I reached for it and he added, “Slowly. I’d tell you to go get a blunt, but none of them got the curve like the Grass Dog thing there, and the balance would be different. Got to train with something that matches what you’ll be using when you get stuck in, so that one it is. But it ain’t a toy, ain’t even a knife. It’s a sword, and even if savages made it, you’ll treat it with respect or I’ll knock you in the dirt. You hear me?”
I nodded and held it out in front of me.
He said, “Now, we’re a long way from talking about how to wield it—we’ll get there sometime if you don’t get yourself dead first—but in order to have a proper stance, you need to feel the weight of the whole kit. So. How do you think you should hold that?”
I thought about seeing Vendurro fight, or Mulldoos, or anyone else who wielded a weapon or a sword. While there were variations, depending on the weapon, most favored a cocked elbow tucked in, and the weapon angled out above the shoulder, so I tried to approximate that.
Mulldoos looked me over, walked around me, pushed my arm here, changed the angle of the curved blade, kicked a foot, forced me to readjust a little, but not much really. I smiled and he scowled. “You been riding with us more days than I would have liked—if you didn’t somehow manage to pick up one plaguing thing from watching us gut Hornmen and Brunesmen, I’d think you were worse than useless. Wipe that plaguing smile off your dumb face, scribbler, or I’ll pound you to paste, you hear?”
The smile was gone in an instant. Sweat dripped down underneath the helm padding and into my eyes, and I reached up to wipe it off, forgetting for moment that I was holding a weapon. I clanged the small hilt off the bridge of my helm and Mulldoos laughed. “Serves you right for getting cocky, you green bastard. Now, you got a stance of sorts going on here. But you stay in one place rooted to the ground, you’ll be dead quicker than spit, so we got to build some movement in. We’ll start real plaguing basic, so I don’t have to repeat myself a dozen times. You ready?”
And so it went for the next hour. Mulldoos showed me how to take small steps on the balls of my feet, keep my knees bent, maintain my balance. All of which I did poorly and with a great heaping of derision.
When we were done, Mulldoos said, “Moving out soon. That’s a start. Not a great one. But it’ll have to do.”
He started to walk away, and after sliding the sword back into the scabbard without stabbing myself, I said, “Thank you. For helping me today, I mean.”
Mulldoos stopped. “Won’t just be today. You got a whole lot of learning to do before you stop embarrassing yourself and this outfit.”
“Fair enough. But why? You could have told Vendurro or one of the others to—”
“Because,” he said, the rest of the sentence hanging unsaid for a while, as if he were deciding whether or not to actually speak the words. Then, “That old goat was plaguing right. Just now, I’m not much good in a fight. Not like to instill confidence or steel nerves. The bastard wounded my pride on the other side of the Godveil, but as plaguing usual, he spoke true. Hated hearing it. But there it is. Only thing I ever been real exceptional at was cutting down enemies myself or inspiring the boys to do it. Knowing I couldn’t do either back there, well . . . like eating hot stinging nettles, and then shitting them out.”
Mulldoos looked at me, and while the left eye was half-hidden by a droopy eyelid, the right was fever bright. “Only other thing I got any real gift for, besides drinking copious amounts of alcohol, is turning tender recruits into hardened sons of whores. Still better at that than any man here. So it’s me. You plaguing lucky bastard.”
He headed back to his horse. I picked up my brass case and did the same. As we started riding again, I considered moving up alongside the captain and gently bringing up the idea of exploring further east on this side of the Godveil, as Soffjian suggested. But I knew how he would respond, so there was nothing to be gained except another earful, and I’d had enough of that for one afternoon. The rest of the day’s journey was without incident.
The third day was more of the same. More riding, more writing, more training with a battered but not broken Mulldoos, and more exhausted slumber after the miles were behind us. But the fourth day on the other side of the Godveil, it looked like everything might change.
A scout rode up, not galloping, but definitely a canter. I recognized him from some of the other reports he delivered, a lad named Dunkiss. Usually his long face gave him away, but this time it was difficult to tell what lay ahead.
Braylar said, “Report, Syldoon.”
Dunkiss replied, “There’s a city, Cap. Ahead. Big one.”
Vendurro, Soffjian, and Mulldoos all started talking at once, and Braylar shouted, “Silence, the lot of you!” Then he looked at Dunkiss again. “Populated?” He asked with the same tone you might inquiring after something mythical or supernatural.
“No,” Dunkiss said. “Dead. Long time, from the looks of it.”
Mulldoos shook his head. “Next time you lead with that, you dumb cock. Instead of ‘there’s a big plaguing city up yonder.’”
Braylar said, “The lieutenant has a point. You are certain it’s empty then? If it’s large, you couldn’t have explored all that far.”
Dunkiss took that as the challenge it was. “Had four men combing over it half the day. It’s older than dirt. Thousand years at least. And abandoned near as long from the looks of it. The wall and stone buildings are still standing, some of them leastwise. Though some are collapsed here or there from disrepair. And anything wood or wattle has gone to waste, falling over, warped, overgrown with weeds and whatnot.
“But that’s the queer thing. Usually, you see something like that all abandoned on the other side, temple or whatnot, it’s been picked over. Scavenged. Other settlements steal lead roofing, stones that could still be used, whatever. But not this city. Just old, dead, and falling over all on its own accord. Nobody took nothing that I could see. And there’s nobody there, Cap. Not a plaguing one.”
The captain remained skeptical and wante
d to ride close enough to see for himself.
Two hours later, we crossed a rise and looked down a shallow valley at the remains of what was once a city bigger than Rivermost but smaller than Alespell.
Dunkiss’s assessment had been accurate, as far as I could tell. Sections of the stone curtain wall had collapsed, the rubble core spilling all over the broken stones like a gaping wound, but one delivered by the siege of time rather than any invading army. While there wasn’t enough thick vegetation in the area to completely overtake the structures, nearly every standing building was covered in unchecked ivy or moss or fronds or weeds.
All men had seen deserted places before on the other side of the Godveil— temples, small villages, forts. But I’d never heard of an abandoned settlement this large, and it was exactly as Dunkiss described—haunted looking, as if the occupants had simply disappeared at the exact same time and left the city to fall beneath the weight of ages.
Even from far away, it was far more unnerving than the plague village we rode through, and I couldn’t suppress a shiver.
Mulldoos looked at the captain. “We going in, Cap?”
Braylar shaded his eyes, scanned the dead settlement, and shook his head in the negative.
The company rode by at a distance, every soldier staring at the empty, abandoned city, mumbling or cursing but unable to look away.
And on the fifth day on the other side of the Godveil, everything really did change.
Rudgi had been accompanying the scouts, and she came riding back earlier than usual. I moved ahead so I was within hearing distance when she reported, “There’s a forest ahead, Cap.”
Braylar asked, “And you thought this worthy of my attention, why exactly?”
She sat up straight in the saddle, despite having ridden hard to deliver the news. “Oh, I’ll wager this isn’t like any forest you’ve seen before, Cap. Or heard.”
“Heard?”
“Aye, Cap.” She maintained a level expression, but there was a strange tightness in her voice as well. Nervousness?
Azmorgon shook his huge head and said, “Is the Sergeant of Scouts getting scared by trees? Is that what I just heard?”
She stiffened and replied, “We’re on the wrong side of the Godveil, Lieutenant. Every little plaguing thing makes me jumpy. But these trees, or columns, or whatever they plaguing are, they aren’t natural.”
Azmorgon rumbled out a laugh. “Lasses being in armor ain’t natural. But it don’t make me quiver in my boots.”
Mulldoos said, “What are you plaguing going on about, Sergeant? What did you hear?”
She took a deep breath and addressed the shorter lieutenant. “First off, these trees, if that’s what they are, don’t look a thing like any trees I ever seen. Tall, but no limbs—just big trunks covered in some purplish moss. But that’s not the strange thing. Well, it’s a touch strange—whoever heard of trees with no limbs—but the strangest thing is the sound coming from the grove. From the tree columns.”
“What kind of sound?” Vendurro asked.
She looked at him. “Kind of a keening.”
Braylar said, “Did you say ‘keening’?”
“That I did, Cap. My people, my clan, they had this awful dirgeful wailing thing they were wont to do anytime anyone died. Went on for weeks at a time, day and night. Just terrible, a pox on the ears really. This sounds a lot like that. Only my people weren’t tree columns. On the other side of the Godveil.”
The captain replied, “Well. Now my curiosity is piqued. Is it due north?”
Rudgi said. “Northeast. That’s the other thing—there’s a big sluggish river ahead, heading out of the Godveil. Not moving fast, but pretty deep. Probably the Silt Hood, but hard to say. Either way, it will be tough to cross without a ford, so it’s going to force us east some. This grove is east of the river.”
“Very good, then. Northeast we go.”
We heard the forest before we saw it. Keening was an apt description. It immediately reminded me of something I hadn’t heard in many years. I don’t remember a great deal from my childhood at the inn with my mother, but there was a traveler who frequented it, who always brought a strange wooden horn with him, nearly as long as he was tall. It produced a grief-stricken baleful sound, and he sang sad tunes to accompany. He was not popular.
The noise sounded like a cross between that peculiar horn and a chorus of women wailing, as Rudgi described. She gave Azmorgon a smug look but he didn’t say anything. Though he did draw his long polearm out of its sheath and prop it on his armored shoulder.
We heard the sound increase, one wail intermingling with another in a horrible chorus. And then the incredibly odd forest came into view as well. If the sound it made was disconcerting, the “trees” themselves were no less so. We came around a bend and saw the first of them. Rudgi had done a good job describing those as well. The trunks were completely limbless, with every inch covered in a dusky purple moss, and they rose up higher than dreadshade pines. They did resemble columns more than trees, and I would have mistaken them for as much until we got closer. They were asymmetrical, some growing almost perfectly straight, others curved slightly, with a few of the shorter ones bent and contorted as if they were trying to get out of the shade of their larger siblings to drink up some sun.
And if the oddity of limblessness and complete coverage by moss weren’t enough, as we rode up to the first, I saw what must have been making the noise—each tree column was marked by hundreds or even thousands of holes, most the width of a few fingers. Whenever the wind blew, each column took the sound, amplified it, distorted it. The whole forest was a morose chorus.
The company rode around the outskirts of the forest. While there were a few stray columns close to us, and some even further west towards the Godveil, they grew tallest and thickest and most crowded to the east in the grove Rudgi mentioned. The horses were nervous, and their riders weren’t much better. Judging by the murmuring and exclamations behind me, no one had ever seen the like either. While the company wasn’t exactly used to the Godveil or easy around it, it was something they had seen, or at least heard about, all their lives. But these tree columns were completely alien.
I looked over at Soffjian and saw awe and pleasure on her face.
Braylar sent Rudgi ahead again to rejoin the other Syldoon who were scouting. After the initial chatter died down, we rode in silence for two more hours. Human silence, anyway. The tree columns continued their endless lament, crying out for some loss that had wounded them immeasurably. It was disquieting in every way possible.
We were about to rest the horses when Rudgi came galloping back to us, horse lathered, her freckled face flushed and sweaty.
She stopped in front of the captain and didn’t even wait for the order to report, but started right in, speaking fast. “Never going to guess what’s ahead, Cap!”
He sighed. “No. I expect I won’t, and I’m not especially in the mood for riddles, so let’s dispense with the clue-giving and cut directly to the specifics, yes?”
“Men!”
“Men.”
“Climbing trees.”
“Men climbing trees.”
She nodded, still looking excited. “Ayyup. Or columns. Whatever you want to call them.”
No one said anything. Mulldoos looked at Vendurro, Azmorgon looked at the dusky columns around us. Soffjian looked at me and smiled, only slightly less rapacious than usual.
Finally Braylar said, “And why, pray tell, are there men climbing these extraordinarily sad columns? To jump to their deaths?”
Rudgi replied, “Looks like they’re working. In harnesses, pulling some weird spikes out of the trunks, putting them in bags. That’s where all the holes came from.”
Braylar leaned forward. “And did they see you?”
“Cap, I have to say, I’m kind of insulted. I’d be a pretty piss-poor Sergeant of Scouts if I got got that easy.”
“How many?” he asked.
She thought about it. “There wer
e a handful working the columns on the edge of the forest, but couldn’t see deep in, and didn’t want to risk getting too close. On account of the not wanting to be seen thing. So I raced back here.”
Again, there was a long stretch of silence as everyone considered the unexpected revelation and what it might mean. I had read of a small handful of men parting the Godveil, separated by centuries, and while the accounts specified them coming back, some must have stayed on this side for some reason. But why? And how many? Had they repopulated this side of the Godveil? Why had the gods not expunged them as well, or struck them down as interlopers?
Finally, Mulldoos said, “Looks like the plaguing Deserters didn’t abandon the whole lot of us, did they? Kept some on this side to go spike picking on the weirdest plaguing tree-things ever seen. Makes total sense.”
Soffjian looked at Braylar. “It seems we didn’t have to stray far from your chosen path to see the exceptional after all. Marvelous, isn’t it?”
Braylar ignored her and turned to Mulldoos. “Convey the order—the main force will follow, but at a discreet distance. At least until we’ve ascertained what is afoot ahead and if it poses any threat.”
“Aye, Cap.”
As Mulldoos started down the line and Braylar and Soffjian started riding ahead, Azmorgon called back, “Speak slow and sure, Mushrooms.”
Mulldoos paused, looked about ready to turn and confront Azmorgon and then kept riding.
Vendurro said, “You might think you’re just jolting his jewels. But I’m pretty sure Mulldoos ain’t thinking the same thing at all.”
Azmorgon regarded the much smaller man. “Look at you. A few days in the mighty officer’s club and you gone and forgot who your elders are. Let me clear it up for you, Squirrel. I don’t much care what that damaged fuck thinks, and got even less of a concern what weird little stones you got spinning around in that hollowed out gourd of yours, Lieutenant. Keep it to yourself.”
Chains of the Heretic Page 12