The Shadow Watch

by S. A. Klopfenstein

  Part III

  A Shadow Among Legions

  We are not many.

  We are one.

  The chancellor’s hands and feet.

  His boots on the ground.

  The blade in his hand.

  The Shadows in his Legions.

  —a mantra of the Night Legions

  9

  The Night Legions marched across the Meridian and south along the coast of Greater Osha, streams of movement in perfect, organized unison. They were not many. They were one. A magnificent mechanism. One shadow that spread the Oshan Empire’s influence farther and farther across the New World.

  Darien Redvar did not know if the world had ever been another way. There might have been no Old World at all—no War Between the Worlds, no Watchers, no gods—nothing but tales to make the chancellors appear more and more powerful for defeating them. Darien had never believed in gods; however, he had not believed in Watchers either. Yet there was no other explanation for why he was still alive. He pushed the thought from his mind and marched on, matching the rhythm of Jujen, the young Faerish soldier in front of him. Darien never dwelt long on thoughts of Tori. He could not afford to.

  She was dead, of course. He had seen the creatures descend, seen them morph, before he’d been dragged away from Maro Square. The chancellor had strung up her corpse for all the city to see, and the new Legion recruits had been marched right past the tower, a solemn reminder of the fate of defectors. All defectors but Darien, that is.

  Darien shifted his musket on his sore shoulder and pressed forward. The thought of Tori’s dead body drove him mad, but hope drove him madder. He could not hope, could not listen to rumors. Damn Ol’ Merri for spreading rumors!

  How could Tori have escaped? It couldn’t be true! Even if, by some miracle, she was alive, it was impossible she could have escaped the clutches of the chancellor’s Metamorphi. Darien would not believe it, and he would never speak of it. Ol’ Merri would get herself killed spreading such nonsense among the troops. General Thrain would not hesitate if he overheard. Still, Darien was glad he and Merri had been assigned to the same regiment.

  A cry rose up ahead, and the units spread out to make camp. Jujen sidled up beside him. “When we gonna make war, ey? I’m sick of all this marching. When we gonna slit some Morgathian throats?” Jujen was from the Ruined Empire of Faere, and his people hated the Morgathians nearly as much as the Oshans did. Jujen’s light brown skin flushed with fierce anticipation.

  Darien smiled a practiced smile, lowering his pack, relief spreading through his aching shoulders. “Ooh, rah! Soon enough, comrade, soon enough, we will have blood.”

  “Not soon enough. We been training and training and marching and marching. I’m worried I’ll lose my touch. En’t shot my musket in weeks.”

  “Why don’t you practice your aim on Fran Dosen’s fat ass?” said Valeria, a tall, fierce soldier from the Southern Isles. She shook out silvery-blonde hair from her fur hat. “I’m sick of watching it jiggle all damn-long day.”

  “Wouldn’t be no practice, would it?” said Jujen. “I could shoot with my back turned. Gods, I could toss a rock across Glacier Sound, and I’d hit her.”

  Darien laughed, though he didn’t find Jujen particularly funny. It didn’t matter—Jujen was joking, and so he was supposed to laugh. The three young Shadows set to hoisting the poles for their bunk tent. The field became a temporary city, a forest of tents on the plains of the Green Sea. Fires were lit, provisions checked, muskets cleaned. Then, Ol’ Merri served stew.

  Darien filled his bowl and took a seat by the fire as he ate his supper. Thrain’s regiment ate better than all the Legions, Darien felt sure, and Ol’ Merri always gave Darien a little extra portion. If only she didn’t risk rumors…

  They were spreading. Darien had overheard soldiers murmuring at night about whether another War Between the Worlds was coming; whether the chancellors hadn’t truly rid the land of the Watcher curse; whether the Gallows Girl wasn’t truly out there, somewhere. Three days previous, the marching army of Shadows had been joined by a band of Metamorphi. Darien wished it was Scelero’s regiment. He had not seen the commander since he’d been taken away to the Shadow Camps.

  Darien hadn’t been altogether surprised to learn Scelero was the commander of the creatures. There had always been something different about him. His duties more sporadic, his ways more secretive than most officers in the Legions. But when he let his mind wander, Darien sometimes wondered how Scelero hadn’t known what Tori was all those years she had served him. Did she even know what she was?

  The thought angered him, and yet his very anger angered him as well. He shouldn’t be thinking of it.

  “Redvar, why you so bloody solemn?” said Valeria, squatting beside him around the fire. “You been staring at that fire like it’s gonna speak to you.”

  “Just anxious for some combat is all,” he recited.

  Valeria nodded and patted his shoulder, but there was something off about her eyes, and it unnerved him. It almost felt like… suspicion.

  Jujen hooted. “Ooh, rah! We’ll blow right through ’em bloody Morgaths! Wait till we get to their townships, comrades. Then we’ll really have us some fun, won’t we?”

  “Ooh, rah!” cried Darien mechanically.

  “Ooh, rah!” cried Valeria.

  Soon, the whole camp was crying out, “Ooh, rah! Ooh, rah!” The warrior’s chant rumbled across the plains like a roll of thunder, and then their cries transformed into a braying song of conquest and honor in battle. Darien sang along.

  He had learned to blend in quickly. Indoctrination was rigorous during the Shadow Camps, and since he’d been the Gallows Boy, he was closely watched. He’d been smart, though, and learned to look like the others, to think like the others. Sometimes, he wondered if he wasn’t starting to believe the mantras. Too often, he found himself reacting less and less by practice and more and more by instinct. Found himself thinking about how Osha was mightier and altogether superior to Morgath and their pagan fire god, how the Morgathian rebellion deserved to finally be vanquished. Darien found himself chanting words from deeper and deeper memory, without having to think what the words were.

  He had survived the Shadow Camps with what he thought was his sanity, what he thought was a remnant of the boy from Scelero’s estate, but more and more, he had trouble recalling what life had been like in those old days. When he thought of Tori, he thought of a fleeting shade of a person. He could barely remember the timbre of her voice. For some time, this was a torment. But he had moved on.

  Whatever the rumors might be, Tori was long dead, and he was left to live, to march to the borderlands of Osha and drive out the Morgathians. Soon, they would take back Morgath for the empire, and the chancellor would rule over more and more of the New World, and Darien would have helped him. And more and more each day, this felt right.

  As the troops left the cook fires, Ol’ Merri caught him by the arm and demanded he help her finish scrubbing the pots. Darien obliged, and Valeria and Jujen left them alone.

  “Whispers been telling o’ the commander,” said Merri, when it was safe to speak. “Say the chancellor placed Scelero in some sort o’ reclamation.”

  “What in the Abyss is that?”

  “For reclaiming his mind. Locked him away in the dungeons. On account o’ her escape, I reckon. How bad you s’pose the chancellor’s wrath would be for breaking her out?”

  “She’s dead, Merri. The rumors came from the Fringes. Lowborns say that stuff because they need something to cling to.”

  “I refuse ter believe she’s dead.”

  “You saw her dead, same as me. We marched right beneath her bloody corpse when we left for the Shadow Camps. She’s been dead for a year. And if the chancellor was angry with Scelero, he wouldn’t reclaim him. He’d execute him. Rumors, all.”

  But was it absolutely true? He didn’t execute me…

  Merri responded as though she’d not heard a word he’d said. S
he touched his arm in a motherly fashion. “Heard tell there’s still no sign o’ her. Reckon they lost ’em Morphs in the Forest o’ Ghen. Bloody clever ter go there.”

  “Don’t start, Merri. You’re gonna get yourself killed, and me too, if you don’t shut up about these rumors.”

  “She’s free. I believe it.”

  “Believing en’t brought the old gods back to save you, and believing can’t bring back the dead neither.”

  “She’s coming back one day, and by the gods, she’ll be raising an army.”

  “It’s a gods-damned fantasy!” Darien pulled away from the base of the pot he was scrubbing, the film thick on the brush.

  “You can’t let go o’ hope,” Merri whispered. “You can’t let the Shadows take you over. You were spared for a reason, Darien. So one day, you’d finish what you started on that gallows. You survived so much! Don’t let ’em steal your hope!”

  Darien threw the brush on the ground and cursed. “Finish your own duty!” And he stormed off.

  He did not make for his bunk. Darien trudged through the thick grass and perched himself on a rock at the outskirts of the tent city. The sun slid over the edge of the earth, but the colors did not stir him. Beauty meant little to him these days. It served him no purpose. Beauty reminded him of other days, days when he was a boy with a mum and father, days when he was a slave for Scelero and life had been good, working hard alongside Tori and Ollie and the others. But memories served him no purpose, and he had learned to measure every deed, every thought, according to its usefulness.

  Darien pushed the useless thoughts aside, turned from the sunset, stared off at the sea of grass for a time, then returned to the encampment, unsure why he’d gone. He weaved amidst the throng of men and women howling round fires as the night descended and the flagons of ale came out.

  The chancellor treated his soldiers well. Sure, they marched long hours and kept a rigorous training regimen, but Darien ate better than he’d eaten in all his life. Every meal included hearty cuts of meat, and every evening brought ale and wine. Life in the Legions was not nearly as bad as he’d expected. Not at all.

  The week previous, for the first time, Darien had entertained the thought that perhaps his parents had somehow deserved to be killed in the raids those years ago. Darien had shown merit—that was why he’d been chosen by Scelero, why he’d been spared the noose by the chancellor. He was a fine shot, and he had grown stronger and faster by the day. The closer they got to Morgath, the more he found himself longing for the chance to prove himself in battle.

  Even so, Darien did not relish the prospect of killing. He’d never killed a man in his life. But if they deserve it…

  No, blood spilled was always wrong. Suddenly, he felt ashamed of himself. What would Tori think to see him now?

  Damn it, she’s dead! Dead dead dead!

  As Darien lifted the flap to his tent, he caught a flash of blue and silver that set his heart racing. Valeria Sardona withdrew quickly from behind a neighboring tent, where she’d been watching him. She disappeared into the night, the flash of her silver hair in the firelight imprinted on his mind like a flare of the sun.

  Darien froze, guilt eating at his insides. How long had she been watching him? Only the moment? Had she followed him to the edge of camp? Seen him shouting at Ol’ Merri? Why was she watching?

  He shook the thought away. It was nothing.

  Darien entered the tent, and as he lay awake on his mat deep into the night, he told himself over and over again that it was nothing. He had nothing to hide from Valeria or anyone else. So what if he’d gazed out at the Green Sea and the setting sun? He had told Ol’ Merri off about the rumors. He was loyal to the chancellor, a Shadow in his Legions, ready to slit some Morgathian throats any day now. Darien had nothing to hide.

  It was nothing.

  10

  Through another week of marching, Darien dispelled any possible notions of suspicion from Valeria or anyone else. He didn’t talk to Ol’ Merri; he didn’t wander off by himself; he enjoyed himself in the company of his regiment.

  They were fine warriors, and fine men and women, all of them. Even the fact the chancellor recruited women was a testament to the superiority of Osha. The Morgathians were a barbaric patriarchal nation. Darien would meet no women in battle except at his side. The Morgathian women were weak, left home to tend frail children. When the men died, the women and children would be helpless. They deserved to be overcome by the inevitable future—casualties in the progress of the human race.

  Round the fires at night, Darien drank ale and laughed and relished the prospect of battle. There was no fear among the Oshan troops, only anticipation.

  When they reached the edge of the Green Sea, crossing the border into Morgath, the excitement approached a boiling point. They had only to cross the Klavash Mountains, and there would be blood.

  When General Thrain’s regiment was chosen to venture to the far eastern ends of the range, to circle round and surprise the Morgathians from behind, Darien cried, “Ooh, rah! Ooh, rah!” like never before. Such a sensitive mission was entrusted only to the very best of the best, and Darien, the Gallows Boy, was among the finest soldiers in the Legions. Like a plague, they would descend upon Morgath.

  Thrain’s regiment marched deep into the mountains. Darien led the company at the general’s side, hand chosen, because he knew the Klavash peaks. He had grown up in them.

  “Must be strange to come back, comrade,” said Thrain. The general had always been cordial toward Darien. Thrain was stern, yet not above his troops. He trained them himself. The final test of swordsmanship was to spar with Thrain. When the fighting came, he would be in the middle of the fray. Darien admired his leader, yet he had never once carried on a personal conversation with the general. He noted a resentful glare from Jujen as Thrain addressed him. Darien could not help but swell with pride.

  Something deep in him stirred, though, at the general’s question. He tried to suppress it. “No, er, not strange at all, sir.”

  “You cannot fool me, comrade,” Thrain said, not angrily, but with an air of bestowing wisdom.

  Still, Darien found himself gulping, a pain forming in his gut. It was strange to return to the mountains of his boyhood. He had striven to displace those thoughts, for the sake of his duty. Why would the general try to stir them up?

  Thrain went on. “Most of us harbor sentiment for the place, and the people, that raised us, even if that sentiment be falsely founded. I was sixteen when I joined the Legions myself. Raised on the Steppe. My father was a tribesman. Barbarians, the tribesmen. The soltaynes and their heathen goddess and barbaric hierarchy. My father was a cobbler for my soltayne’s herd, and he would have been his whole life, and I would have been after him. Anytime he wanted, my soltayne could take my mother or my sister for his pleasure, and he took many mothers and sisters. I was glad to claim an Oshan name when I was promoted to general.

  “The world is a cruel place throughout, comrade. But I could never have risen among my people the way I have in the Legions. My first battle was with the Yan Avii. Many years ago, a band of tribes rose up to take back the Western Steppe. I was torn, but I did not let it sway my duty. It would have been wrong for the Yan Avii to triumph. It would have been wrong for them to be spared. So, in my first battle, I slew a dozen of my kinsmen, my soltayne among them.”

  “Ooh, rah, sir.”

  “I did not relish it, at first, but I knew it to be true. As I think you do now. You were meant to begin your duty in these mountains. You were meant to be spared the gallows so you could lead us through to attack Morgath and end this civil war. The chancellor himself may have foreseen this. We could not complete our mission without you, comrade.”

  Darien was speechless at the general’s forthrightness. Thrain was voicing the very things he had been wondering, the very things he needed to hear to keep his courage and resolve up. His upbringing, his parents’ deaths, slavery, Tori, the gallows, the rigors of the camps, all
his hardships—it had all brought him here. It had all been part of his progression, his destiny.

  A calm settled upon him as the air thinned and the vegetation grew scarcer. The Legions marched high into the heart of the mountains Darien remembered so well; it was as though they had been mapped in his mind during his Klavash boyhood. He embraced the feeling, he did not deny it, and he found that once he owned it, the power of his past lost its grasp on him.

  The higher they climbed, the freer he felt.

  Thrain’s regiment trekked through the mountains for three days. Jujen and Valeria joined Darien at the front of the line, while the general brought up the rear. The three were talking of the glorious battle soon to come, when the child appeared.

  A tiny, spindly thing, as most Klavash girls were, she couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. Brown doe eyes shone from behind her fur hood. Bits of long black hair poked out in messy strands like a frayed rope. Snow coated her parka, as though she’d been rolling in it. When she stumbled into the clearing—giggling and then, at the sight of the soldiers, hushing to a whimper—the whole regiment froze.

  They had not seen a single soul in these mountains, but they knew what was expected if they did. A single cry could alert a Morgathian ranger. Darien had been all eyes for men at the edge of their path.

  But a little girl?

  She could have been no older than Darien’s own sister had been the day the Legions came.

  “What do we do?” Valeria whispered to Darien.

  What does she mean, what do we do? Is she testing me? There’s only one thing we can do! Darien glanced around, but the general remained at the back of the line, nowhere in sight. By the time Thrain reached the scene, the girl would have shrieked or run for help. The call was on Darien, and he had but fractions of a moment. All were looking to him. He had been the one chosen to lead them through the mountains. He was the one Thrain spoke to, as to a son.