Chains of the Heretic

by Jeff Salyards

  Vendurro looked over at me, questioning, and I pointed up at the dome. “A good day for crossbows, am I right?”

  He laughed as well as the Deserters came for us, only the dome suddenly disappeared—the bright blue sky above was so brilliant I gaped and felt more laughter bubbling up.

  And then I saw why it had vanished.

  Vrulinka had a crossbow bolt buried in the side of her throat and was reaching up, running her long fingers over the fletching gently, as if it were part of a necklace she was about to reposition for better effect. Then Braylar rode past, throwing his crossbow behind him and pulling Bloodsounder in time to strike her on the back of the head, dropping her to her knees.

  Mulldoos galloped past as well and sliced off the top of her skull with his falchion for good measure, thick strands of mane fluttering to the ground before she toppled over.

  One of the Wielders turned and swung the elongated translucent spine at Braylar as he passed, striking him across the chest and vaulting him out of the saddle.

  And then hundreds of Braylar’s crossbow cavalry rode into the rear of the Deserters attacking us and I lost sight of the captain and the Wielder who struck him.

  The Deserters took out a dozen more Syldoon and half as many horses, but they were quickly overwhelmed and cut down from all sides. There was still fighting occurring up and down the line, but the Syldoon wings, while depleted, managed to flank the remaining Deserter forces now that the Wielders were taken out. And the Memoridons stepped in, stunning huge pockets of Deserters with the abundance of toxic human memories at their disposal.

  With the Matriarch dead, the tide turned quickly. I walked among the giant corpses of Deserters, the punctured and mangled corpses of human soldiers, moved past shattered spears and broken bodies, ignoring the moans from the injured and the sounds of combat near and far.

  The captain was lying on his back, with Scorn standing nearby, and Bloodsounder a few feet from his hand. I ran over to him as he struggled to sit up and fell back to the ground.

  “My helm . . .” Braylar said, voice loamy. “Take it . . . off.”

  I knelt next to him and called over my shoulder, “Water! Get me some water!”

  “Wine . . . make it wine . . .” He coughed as I undid the strap and pulled the aventail up.

  Bloody spittle was all over his lips and chin. “What part of off. . . do you not . . . understand?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said and slowly pulled the helm free.

  Braylar turned and looked at the body of the Wielder nearby. “Her face . . . bitten off. . .” then he grunted as he looked at Scorn. He gasped and said, “Told . . . you.”

  I nodded slowly as I smiled and tried not to cry, vaguely aware that others had joined us.

  “Gods, Cap,” Mulldoos said, his slurry voice catching. I looked up at him as he ripped off his own helm and yelled, “Vendurro! Over here! Now, you skinny bastard!”

  I passed the captain the only flask I had. He took a small drink of water, swirled it around his mouth, then turned his head and spit pink water out. “Better. Now . . . wine . . . yes?”

  “I don’t—” I said, then looked at Mulldoos and Vendurro and Rudgi as they joined us. “Wine? Does anyone have wine?”

  Vendurro slowly knelt down as well. “Cap?” he asked, quietly. “Are you—”

  Braylar nodded at Vendurro. “No. My ribs are . . . shattered.” He spit up some more blood. “Some in my . . . lungs.”

  Mulldoos turned and yelled, “Wine, you plaguing whoresons! Give me some wine now!” to no one and everyone.

  Braylar looked up at what remained of his retinue. “If I die . . . waiting for wine . . .” he said through shallow breaths, “I will haunt . . . every one of you . . .”

  A young Jackal who must have only just had his manumission ran up to us, handed Mulldoos a flask. The pale boar unstoppered it, eyes wet, then said to the soldier, “Good lad. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  The Jackal nodded quickly, backing away. Mulldoos knelt and brought the flask to Braylar’s mouth, tipped it up.

  A great deal of red didn’t make it anywhere, but at least it disguised the blood as it ran down the captain’s chin.

  Braylar coughed, sputtered, and tried to raise a hand, but then dropped it as Mulldoos took the flask away.

  “Gods be . . . cruel,” the captain wheezed, chest rattling, “but that is . . . bitter . . .”

  That was the last thing he said just before Soffjian approached, leaning on Commander Darzaak.

  She saw him and stumbled. “Bray . . .” The Commander kept her on her feet, but she pushed away from him, nearly falling again before jabbing the ranseur into the earth. “Braylar?”

  Captain Braylar Killcoin stared unblinking into the brilliant blue sky.

  Mulldoos stood, tears leaving jagged tracks on the dirt on his cheeks. “Too plaguing late.”

  The Lieutenant walked over to Bloodsounder, stared down at it, fists clenched, chin on his chest.

  I wiped the wine of the captain’s face as best I could, though it was difficult to find any cloth clean enough not to make things worse, and it was hard seeing what I was doing through the tears in my eyes.

  Finally, I gave up and rose just as Soffjian used the ranseur to lower herself to the ground, clenching her teeth. She reached out, closed his eyes, then put her hand gently on the captain’s chest, and closed her own eyes.

  She stayed like that for a long time before finally whispering, “I warned you to go, you fool . . .”

  “And if he plaguing tucked tail and left Sunwrack behind,” Mulldoos said, standing over her, “you’d all be dead. Syldoon would all be dead. Witches, Towers, every last plaguing one of us. He saved our sorry asses.” His voice broke, but he kept talking. “It were me, I would have killed you a long time ago. Half tempted to do it right now. But he saved you. So there it is. Not undoing what he did. Not today.”

  He shook Bloodsounder, watched the Deserter heads clink together. “But if you and your bitch sisters don’t honor your promise, I’ll kill every last one of you. If Commander says the Jackals are pulling out, or any other Tower for that matter, and you try to stop them, this plaguing flail will be the last thing you see. You understand me? Don’t think the promise died with him. Because it didn’t.”

  Vendurro said, “Mull, maybe—”

  “Don’t feel anything yet,” Mulldoos said. “Not even sure it’ll work for me. Maybe it was just Cap. Maybe it won’t protect me from witchery. Maybe it will.” He looked back at Soffjian. “But you don’t honor your plaguing word, you can be sure we’ll all find out in a real plaguing hurry.”

  Soffjian sighed and nodded. Then she slowly got to her feet. I reached out a hand to offer her help, and she shook it off, using the ranseur to support her weight instead.

  Then she turned and looked at us each in turn, eyes wet. I expected her to say something, anything—profound, inane, uncharacteristically revealing, biting. But instead she wiped her face, gave a small cryptic smile that seemed both sad and amused at something only she could appreciate, turned, and hobbled away.

  Rudgi looked at Bloodsounder, then up at Mulldoos. “Is that . . . do you think it might not be a, you know, a bad idea . . .”

  Mulldoos was staring at Braylar, the tears still coming, and he sucked the snot into his throat, turned, and spat it into the dirt. “Terrible plaguing idea. No two ways around it,” he said. “Maybe I’ll live to regret it, maybe not. But if it grants immunity to memory witches . . . ” He shrugged his big shoulders, then tucked Bloodsounder in his belt.

  Mulldoos looked around at us and wiped his face again. Then he slipped his head back into his helm and buckled it on, before pointing across the valley at some of the fighting that had moved off. “Those giant rootercunts are trying to desert again, looks like. Cap was a rigid bastard sometimes. Lot of things he didn’t budge much on. Chief among them, though, was doing your duty. And he might just haunt the lot of us if we skirt ours. So let’s go hunt some Deser
ters down before they make it to the Veil, and come back and give this man the proper sendoff he deserves after we plaguing earn it.”

  Rudgi and Vendurro both said “Aye” quietly, and Mulldoos and the sergeant walked off to get their horses.

  Vendurro looked at me then, wiped his eyes with his forearm. “Gods . . . first time in my life I might have lost my plaguing appetite.” He looked up at the sky as the tears came, then slapped his face. “Like Mull said, got duty to do, yet. Got to ride. What about . . .”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “Ayyup,” Vendurro said. “What about you?”

  I thought about it, looked over at Braylar, then around at the incredible carnage and death everywhere in the valley. “Well . . . you’re all still here. Bloodsounder is still here. The weapon and the man, looks like.”

  Vendurro grinned and then seemed to feel guilty, as it disappeared. “He’ll plaguing hate that, he will.”

  “And I’m still the Arc. I’m a horrible rider. I’d only get one of you ki—. I’d only get in the way. But I’ll be here when you get back.”

  I looked around at the battlefield again. “There are a lot of wounded. I’m sure I can make myself useful.”

  Vendurro started to turn to look at Braylar, then forced himself not to, looking instead at the Deserters fleeing the valley, eyes full of wrath. “Aye. Duty all around, then.”

  “Duty all around, then.”

  Vendurro ran off to find his horse, or any horse, and when I saw Scorn still standing over the fallen captain, I nearly wept.

  But I forced myself to look away as well. Plenty of time for that.

  Duty all around.

  It felt like years had passed since Captain Killcoin originally solicited my services. I distinctly remember his words in that dingy inn in Rivermost, when he assured me I would accompany him on an exceptional venture with far-reaching consequences that involved the expiration of a way of life, the death of a kingdom, and the redrawing of a map.

  Somehow, I doubt this was what he had in mind.

  Braylar intended me to chronicle the downfall of the Kingdom of Anjuria, I’m sure, but instead, I witnessed what lay beyond the Godveil for the first time in human history— irrevocably altering the map—and saw the most significant coup the Syldoon Empire had ever experienced. Would that result in the death of a body politic? Was the Empire truly crumbling now, right before our eyes, because we had unwittingly assisted Soffjian in freeing the Memoridons? Was it truly the Syldoon Empire anymore now, or was it now the Memoridon Empire? Could it last, as crippled and compromised as it was? The army had survived the Deserter incursion, driven them back across the Veil, but at horrendous cost.

  All the lives lost along the way, and the widowcoin being doled out fast enough to empty the Tower coffers as Syldoon and Memoridon alike buried their dead and tried to make sense of the aftermath.

  Braylar had no heirs, no widow or fatherless children left behind. A blessing and a curse, really. No one understood him like his men, so it was just as well they were his only family—if he had any wife or offspring, I imagine their mourning would have been suffused with bitterness, just like Glesswik’s widow.

  The captain had been exceedingly difficult to deal with on the best of days, and I had questioned him past the point of safety on numerous occasions, had been mortified at some of his decisions—many, in truth—but I knew I would never meet a man of his ilk again.

  Perhaps that was also a blessing and a curse.

  Glesswik, Lloi, Hewspear, and of course the captain, dead. Thumaar, Skeelana, and even the traitor Azmorgon, dead. Countless Syldoon and Memoridons, gone.

  So I was bitter when I learned that the Focus Nustenzia had survived when so many hadn’t. Still, I wasn’t surprised to learn that she wasn’t allowed to cross the Veil and return to her slow son. Soffjian and her sisters recognized her for the resource she was, both in knowledge of the Deserters and how they operated, and in magnifying the power the Memoridons had. Nustenzia would be their prisoner indefinitely. While the rulers might have changed in Sunwrack, the Memoridons were no less coldly pragmatic than the Syldoon. Possibly more so. And they would use any advantage they had to survive. She would never return to her kin or her homeland. Perhaps that was worse than death.

  But even if the Deserters never crossed the Veil again in our lifetime, the future of this new Memoridon Empire was uncertain and fraught with human dangers within and without, especially as the Memoridons proved true to their word. Whether Mulldoos’s threat was compelling or they merely thought it prudent to cull those factions most likely to try to actively work against them, the Memoridons allowed those Towers who wished to leave to do so unmolested.

  There were certainly some Syldoon who marched out of the capital or principalities around the Empire, but not as many as I expected. I supposed if the City of Coups imparted any lesson, it was that nothing at all was set or certain forever—bloody change was inevitable. I found myself oddly relieved that Commander Darzaak opted to keep the Jackals in Sunwrack. Perhaps he was aligning the Jackals with other Towers to check the power of the Memoridons, or maybe Darzaak considered the prospects outside the Empire even more grim than those inside.

  But beyond the borders of the Empire, there were plenty of threats even if the remaining Syldoon and the Memoridons established a dynamic that persevered. The Anjurians and Vortagoi Confederacy hadn’t thrown their support behind Thumaar out of the goodness of their hearts, after all, but because they perceived rewards in the gamble. And they had doubtless heard by now what had occurred in the Empire. They might not have believed it—stories of eyeless gods or giants storming through the Veil to destroy cities and nearly undermine an empire were probably difficult to swallow if you had not seen the events firsthand. They were difficult to believe even if you had.

  But the Vortagoi and Anjurians knew the Memoridons had seized power, and likely attributed the extreme casualties and attrition to that. Men like Baron Brune were still out there, opportunists who wouldn’t hesitate to strike if they saw how weakened the Empire was now. Brune would gather the support of his baronial brothers. Who knows, even the weak boy king might be convinced to invade.

  Still, as Vendurro liked to say, a soldier’s lot was to do only what he could do, follow orders, and eat as many eggs as possible. An archivist’s lot wasn’t much different, really. Well, except for the eggs. I didn’t have the hankering for them that Vendurro had. But those larger shifts and schemes and politics were above me, beyond me, and I wasn’t in a position to do much about them anyway.

  Immediately after the battle with the Deserters, Darzaak promoted Mulldoos to captain. And Captain Mulldoos agreed to keep me on as Tower archivist. He said (and I didn’t even need to write it down to remember it clearly), “You’re still a shit combatant, and get in the way half the time. But you’re twice as loyal as I ever expected. And you got stones, scribbler. Likely to get you killed, but you got stones, have to grant you that. Plus, it would be too much plaguing work to teach another pen monkey not to trip over his two feet. So you’re staying.”

  That was as ringing an endorsement as I was ever likely to get. Mulldoos was no less difficult to deal with than his predecessor, but no worse when it came to it. More crass, perhaps, but he’d protect his own with a ferocity and single-mindedness that was equal parts inspiring and terrifying.

  So, I would worry about the next assignment, the next orders to follow, whether or not Rudgi and I would have a chance to repeat our rendezvous, and if I had enough ink and quills to record everything. Only what was directly in front of me. At least, I would try. It was difficult to keep my mind from spinning over the possibilities.

  Captain Killcoin hadn’t predicted what had come to pass in Sunwrack, but he had been absolutely right about one thing—I’d seen things so far beyond the pale they made me dizzy to think about. Joining the Syldoon was surely the most remarkable adventure I could have embarked on, no matter how things turned out.

&n
bsp; There was a knock on my door. I was starting to get up from the table when Vendurro poked his head in. “Come on, Arki, Commander called us to a meeting.” He was about to withdraw when he looked down at my feet. “You got no shoes on. It’s the middle of the day. Why don’t you have any shoes on?”

  I replied, “My left ankle. It’s a little swollen.”

  “Twist it in the library, did you?” Vendurro smiled, and for the first time since Braylar died, it didn’t fall off his face right away.

  I returned the smile. It felt good. Surprising, but good. “No. I turned it in the yard the other day.”

  “Captain Bloodsounder using you for pell practice again?”

  “My pellishness is one of my defining features,” I said. “But I thought Mulldoos wasn’t too taken with that name. ‘Captain Bloodsounder.’”

  “Oh, he hated it plenty the first time he heard it,” Vendurro replied. “Still looks at the wicked flail on his hip like it’s a two-headed snake that might sink its fangs into him any second. Which, come to think about it, is pretty much on the plaguing mark. But still, it’s a good name, ‘Captain Bloodsounder.’ Sounds right fierce, don’t it? Mulldoos’ll come around, given enough time.” He shook his head. “But that’s something in real short supply, just now. Commander wants us in his quarters yesterday. Sounds important. So get some shoes on your plaguing feet, and you best hurry. Maybe you failed to notice, but Commander’s not real big on truancy.”

  “Really?” I said. “So shocking. Syldoon are paragons of patience.” I limped around, looking for my shoes. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Vendurro nodded, still smiling, and pulled the door shut behind him.

  I finally found my shoes and then fetched my writing case. Whatever else happened to the Jackals, to the new regime, or to the Empire itself, I would be there, to play what part I could, to try to avoid accidentally shooting an ally with my crossbow, and as ever, to witness and record.

  The End

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS