Chains of the Heretic

by Jeff Salyards

  The wooden gate was still open, so that was something, but the Veil beyond was shimmering. Braylar looked at his sister. “Ready then?”

  Soffjian was pale, and the lightning-bolt vein was pulsing in her forehead, but she nodded. “This would have been a pointless exercise otherwise, Bray.”

  She stayed in the saddle ten paces from the Veil and called Nustenzia over, who looked more shaken than anyone, despite not suffering a single wound. Soffjian said, “I will mark them, as before, correct?”

  Nustenzia replied, “Yes. As before. Though I will need to help you. The mark must go deeper. Much deeper. If we do not embed it, I cannot promise what will happen.”

  Soffjian gave the Focus a grim look. “I can promise what will happen if we fail. We begin.”

  The first two Syldoon rode up, and Soffjian raised her hands and closed her eyes. Nustenzia did the same. Several moments crawled by, and I looked back down the main avenue, though I turned my head too quickly and had to bite back bile and close my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I saw the broken Deserters coming for us and heard the heavy twang of the crossbows all around. One by one, they fell, and still the rest came on, either not realizing how depleted their force was or driven by compulsions that made no sense to a human mind.

  As I took aim, I heard Soffjian say, “Go.”

  The pair of Syldoon looked at Braylar, but she repeated the order. “I believe I said you were ready. Go now.”

  Braylar nodded, and the Syldoon rode forward. I wasn’t the only one who watched to be sure they didn’t drop dead on the spot, but they disappeared into the woven, shifting whorls of air beyond the gate.

  The captain shouted, “Enough, you gaping twats! Loose! Loose, plague you!”

  The remaining Syldoon shot their crossbows and began spanning as more approaching Deserters dropped, huge bodies slumping to the cobblestones.

  When half the remaining company had parted the Veil, the last of the nearest Deserters lay in a puddle of blood twenty paces away. But the other battalion was coming, guided by the javelin throwers, still beyond the range of lead balls, but not by much, and their force was at full strength. We could not possibly survive an assault, especially with two of our own leaving at a time.

  Braylar finished spanning his bow and slapped the devil’s claw on the stock. “By all means, sister, do take your sweet time.”

  She didn’t reply but began preparing the next pair to leave.

  There were only eight of us left when the first lead ball struck the wall ten feet above us, raining plaster down.

  Soffjian ushered another pair of Syldoon forward. Braylar looked at Mulldoos. “You, Ven next, then Azmorgon and Arki.”

  Mulldoos started to shake his head, but Braylar stopped him before he could say anything. “That is a direct order. Go now.”

  “Cap, you—”

  “I shouldn’t have to suffer insolence at every turn. I will be right behind you.”

  Another lead shot struck ten paces to our left, followed by another hitting the cobblestones in front of us, spraying water and bouncing forward and nearly spooking Vendurro’s horse.

  Braylar said, “Now, Lieutenant. Unless you want me to get shot to death.”

  Mulldoos swore and grabbed his reins and headed to the gate, with Vendurro following.

  Braylar looked at me. “My apologies for not sending you through sooner, Arki, but—”

  “Jackals first,” I said.

  “What I was going to say was, I didn’t even recognize you.” He tilted his head in the direction of more lead striking, then looked at the last Azmorgon. “Keep moving, the both of you, but in no pattern. The cockless javelin chuckers are spotting for them, so let’s make their jobs a bit more difficult at least, yes?”

  We all started off in different directions as more lead struck the walls and gate around us, and it reminded me of dwarves at a fair, running back and forth as paying patrons threw rotten fruit at them. Only if we got hit now, it would be us splatted on the stones.

  Several more lead balls ricocheted off the wall and street around us as we rode back and forth. Mulldoos and Vendurro went through the Veil, and Braylar turned to me. “Now you and—”

  A lead ball caught the edge of the mail aventail on his helm. Had it struck cleanly, it would have crushed his throat, but even a glancing blow left him dazed for a moment. Braylar turned and shot his crossbow high in the air to achieve the greatest arc, then threw the strap over his shoulder as he pulled his shield off the saddle. “Go. Both of you. Now.”

  I rode up to the gate with Azmorgon, and as before on the other side, I didn’t experience much as Soffjian lifted her shaky hands and held them alongside my face, except the waves of nausea and dizziness I was already battling.

  Two lead shot struck nearby—Soffjian didn’t waver, but Nustenzia ducked and looked around.

  Soffjian hissed, “Concentrate, you stupid wretch.”

  Nustenzia closed her eyes again and lifted her hands. I suddenly felt an impact on my back, as if I’d been hit by a mace, and nearly fell out of my saddle. And then Soffjian ushered us through. The Syldoon were all gathered fifty yards from the Veil, and we rode over to them. I cursed every step my horse took, willing myself not to vomit, and hoping I didn’t have a lead shot in my lung. I didn’t see any exit wound, then remembered the writing case on my back. The thick brass panels might have saved my life.

  No one said a word as we all waited, and it seemed too long. Much too long.

  Mulldoos pulled his aventail drape up, turned, and spit into the grass near the road, and several Syldoon looked around nervously.

  Vendurro said, “Plague me. Do you think—”

  But then two more lead balls flew through the Veil, followed immediately by Braylar, his sister, and Nustenzia.

  He rode up to us and said, “Ride, you whoresons! Ride!”

  We rode clear of the Veiled City, and it was a good thing I wasn’t in command, as I would have kept us at a wild gallop until every horse came up lame while Roxtiniak was still on the horizon. But Braylar maintained a measured pace, hooves pounding in the mud as we headed west, but at a controlled trot as the miles came and went, breaking on occasion to rest the animals, and then hopping back in the saddle as night came on.

  If there was any pursuit, the drizzle continued to come down and thwart them for several hours, finally reduced to nothing more than a fine mist as the clouds broke free and showed the moon racing between them. We rode through the night, and the captain resumed his normal protocol of ordering scouts behind and riding far ahead, but we had established a solid enough lead that Braylar finally called a longer halt a few hours before dawn.

  After removing my saddle and caring for my horse with eyes half closed and muscles aching, I was about to collapse when I felt an especially sharp pain in my back and remembered the shot that nearly did me in.

  I pulled my writing case off to inspect it. Even though the shot had come in at an angle, the lead ball still punctured one side—which was hardly thin—tearing through the brass panel as if it were glass or gossamer. I flipped the case around, and the other side was dented where I’d felt the impact, but the shot hadn’t made it out the other panel. I undid the clasp and opened the case and saw a hole through a stack of papers inside—the lead ball was deformed and flattened, pressed up against the last few sheets.

  Vendurro was walking by as I pried the flattened lead out, careful to shield the pages and materials from what remained of the misting rain.

  He gave me a blank look. “Lousy time to write, ain’t it?”

  I explained what happened and showed him the case, and we marveled at it together as he stuck his finger through the hole on the outside. Then he whistled and said, “Maybe we ought to start making armor out of thick paper, eh?”

  He walked off, chuckling. I didn’t have the energy. I nearly tumbled onto the least soaked ground I could find, laid back against the saddle, clutched a blanket around me to try to stay warm and dry, a
nd then almost immediately slipped into black slumber. A battalion of approaching Deserters couldn’t have woken me.

  But sometime before dawn, Braylar’s sharp tongue did. He ordered us to break our fast quickly and get back in the saddle. When we were all up and moving again, the sun joined us. The rain clouds had scattered, leaving behind wispy barges gently floating, suffused with the softest, sweetest colors imaginable, the pastels of comforting flowers and delicate gowns, confectioner’s delights and exotic fruits.

  Vendurro was riding ahead of me alongside Mulldoos, and I saw him tilt his head up and say, “Those Deserter bastards might be bigger, more powerful, maybe even smarter—”

  “Definitely smarter,” Soffjian said.

  Vendurro continued, undeterred. “But they’ll never be able to take in something like this. We got that over those giant horned whoresons at least. They’ll never see a sunrise.”

  Rudgi was behind me as she said, “Or their own plaguing shadows for that matter. Or—”

  “Or the color of their shit,” Mulldoos finished. “The only thing I care about them seeing or sensing or whatever it is they plaguing do is the edge of my blade as I cut them down and murder them into bits.”

  Azmorgon turned around in his saddle. “We’re riding the wrong way to do that, Mushrooms.”

  Mulldoos said, “Now, sure. Got no advantage. No chance. But someday I’m going to come back here and kill every damned Deserter we come across.”

  Azmorgon rumbled a laugh. “You are, are you? Cap in on that plan, or that just you bibble-babbling away on your lonesome?”

  Mulldoos turned and spit, and seemed to be regaining some control of his lips and mouth, as he didn’t splatter himself with it at all. “Every. Plaguing. One. I don’t care how, but I’m doing it.”

  Soffjian said, “My, my, but that’s an ambitious list. First, we have to cross the Godveil again and slaughter Cynead and every Leopard we come nose to nose with, and then we have to come back to this side and eradicate a race of massive near-gods whose only apparent limitation is that rain befuddles them and they can’t see rainbows after.”

  Mulldoos slapped the helm hanging on his saddle. “There ain’t anything godly about those giant horsecunts, and nobody asked you for help or even invited your plaguing input.”

  Vendurro shook his head. “And you say I’ve been kicked in the head too many times by a horse . . .”

  There was some muted chuckling from Rudgi, and I smiled as well, but it was short-lived. Braylar silenced us with, “Now that the rain is gone, and likely for good, we’d best hope our lead suffices. They overtook us before, they can do so again.”

  Once again, there was a heaviness hanging in the air. Even if Mulldoos’s dreams of bloody vengeance weren’t remotely realistic, the reasons he had them were all too real and terrible. Braylar’s company had been cut down by two thirds at the hands of the Imperials and then the Deserters. What began as a small army was now only a largish band, and it was too much to think on all the men and women who’d been lost already. And yet, that’s all that seemed to occupy Mulldoos’s mind mile after mile. Maybe all that sustained him.

  That was one (and possibly the only) distinct advantage to being on the edge of the company, no matter how close I rode to the retinue—I had only recently formed indeterminate relationships with a small number of Jackals. I hadn’t trained anyone, seen them develop, lived and fought and argued with them for years, hadn’t hung alongside them or watched them transform from barbarian youth from the hinterlands of the world to some of the finest soldiers in the center of it. I would never be solidly in the Syldoon brotherhood, no matter how much they accepted me for what I could do.

  And while that gave me some pangs of loneliness, that was far preferable than overwhelming hate-fueled grief.

  The sunrise suddenly didn’t seem so beautiful. In fact, it seemed mocking.

  At midday we rested again, and the scouts reported that there was no sign of pursuers behind and no blockade ahead. After feeding and watering the horses and allowing them to graze in the stubbly, rough-edged grass, and then taking some sustenance ourselves, I had the chance to finally open my writing chest and began recording everything that had happened since the previous session. Some of it was still fresh in awful clarity, but I needed to ask Vendurro some questions to refresh some points and make sure I didn’t leave out any important notes.

  It felt so good to pick up a quill again. I might have been wearing a foul-smelling gambeson, and loosed a number of bolts that had ended life, but there was no question what my true vocation was, no matter how much I played at soldier and somehow survived another day.

  And still, I hadn’t put down four lines before my head started pounding, then swirling with dizziness, then pounding some more, and as I pressed on, it got nothing but worse, to the point that I felt nauseous and had to stop.

  I wondered if I would have a chance to do any more translating soon, but with how awful I felt, I was almost relieved when Rudgi stopped by.

  She started to say something, stopped, looked me over again. “You feeling all right, Arki? Looking kind of whitish and sweaty and, uh, not good.”

  I nodded, closing up my case, and even that small movement sent tremors of pain across my skull and down my spine. “I’m fine. Just took a shot to the head. I’ll be fine.” I corrected myself. Sort of. “I’m fine.”

  She nodded slowly. “Uh-huh. Fine it is. As you say. Anyway, Cap wants you.”

  I tried to stand, withstood another wave of nausea, and then steadied myself. “Well then. Best not to keep him waiting.”

  I walked slowly, taking stock with each step to be sure I truly was fine and not at risk to fall over unconscious or throw up on my feet.

  Rudgi walked alongside me, eyeing me closely, which made me try to walk taller and wobble less. “I told you,” I said, “I’m—”

  “Fine. Ayyup,” she said, sounding absolutely unconvinced. “So you did.”

  She led me away from the remainder of the company and around a small red butte.

  When we were out of view, I came upon the captain and Soffjian standing together, which surprised me. They didn’t occupy each other’s company unless it was absolutely necessary or they were under duress. Neither of which boded well.

  Rudgi stopped twenty paces off and let me continue the rest of the way unescorted. Which was just as well. The clouds had deserted the sky almost entirely and the sun wasn’t doing my blinding headache any favors.

  Braylar appeared ready to say something to his sister when he saw me approaching and waited. He looked at the case hanging by my side, then at my face. “Glad to be reunited with your old friend, I expect. Vendurro told me that case, or the contents at least, saved your life. Extraordinary, how things do play out sometimes. Are you whole, on the whole? You look . . . pained.”

  It might as well have been written on my face with red ink, though I felt foolish, given that countless others were dealing with more egregious physical wounds, and Mulldoos (and Hewspear, before his demise) had fought through far more debilitating abrasions of the mind. I nodded, careful to keep it small and slow, just the same. “A small head injury, Captain. Nothing serious. I am well.” He continued staring at me in that entirely disconcerting way he’d mastered. “Truly,” I added.

  Braylar twitch-smiled. “You are a tragically bad liar. What is it— dizziness, pain?”

  I gave a small nod. “Both. Yes.”

  “Anything else then?”

  “Some nausea. And spots. I see spots on the edge of my vision, and it’s a bit difficult to concentrate.”

  “That sounds less than auspicious. So now I ask with some trepidation: are you well enough to resume translating? That is the critically important question.”

  I nearly laughed at myself for thinking he had my interests at heart. “I believe so.”

  The captain shook his head and clicked his tongue in his mouth. “No, no, that will never do. Either you are fit to carry out your duties or
you are unfit. There is no middle ground. Everyone in this company has a role to perform, and in many cases, others can step in to spell them or replace them entirely if they are lost. But you are rather more indispensable in your capacity. So I ask again, and recommend you do not dissemble or suffer undue bravado: are you fit to do this thing or not, Arki?”

  “I am,” I replied, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. “I just finished bringing our account current. Which left me with several other questions.”

  He smiled again, a bit longer than usual, somewhere beyond wry and just short of humorless reflex. “But of course it did. For better or worse, that is your nature, is it not? Though in this instance, it is for the worse. We move with haste, so your questions, no matter how weighty and laden with import in your mind, will simply need to wait.”

  I glanced at Soffjian as she absently flicked over a small flat stone with the butt spike of her ranseur. She looked at me, and I said, “With respect, Captain, while my inquisitiveness might be a burr under your saddle most days, on this occasion I hope you will hear me out.”

  Braylar replied, “You have been taking far too many lessons from Vendurro of late. ‘With respect’ is an empty preamble designed to convince the listener to tolerate the absolutely impertinent point that immediately follows. I’m not sure which I despise more—that slyness or the blunt irreverence Mulldoos is so fond of.”

  “Or,” Soffjian offered, “the near mutinous open stupidity of Azmorgon.”

  “Quite,” he said. “At least Arki’s foolishness is more tolerable on the whole.” He gave me a hard look. “If barely. So, ask then. What is so pressing?”

  I shielded my eyes from the sun, then moved around so I stood more squarely in the shade and tried to compose my thoughts.

  “Be quick about it,” the captain barked, no longer especially concerned with my well-being.

  Still a little dizzy, I replied, “I suspect you two didn’t amble out here simply to rehash pleasant family memories.”