Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  Wit waited instead, watching Wa'llach wavering on his feet. After a moment, the dwarf threw himself at Wit again.

  Wit tried to brain him with a short, controlled blow from the staff, but Wa'llach weaved out of the path of the staff. Moving the hammer in a blur, he struck Wit once on the right forearm, and once on the left shoulder, and Wit dropped the staff. Wa'llach gave him a shove, mostly it seemed in an effort to keep his own balance, and Wit lurched away.

  "Staff's no good—cowardly magician's weapon. Draw your knife."

  Slowly, Wit drew his dagger.

  "C'mon, stab me! Do it you coward! What else do I have to live for!" The color was out of the dwarf's face, and he seemed as earnest as Wit could ever remember him.

  Wit lunged at Wa'llach with the knife. The dwarf shook his head sadly. He waited for as long as he could before parrying the blow with the head of the hammer. He hit Wit in the head with the shaft of the hammer. He did not seem to put much effort into the blow, but afterwards Wit was not sure if he was standing or on the ground.

  Wa'llach grinned and dropped the hammer. "Don't quit now, magician, I'm just starting to have fun."

  Not sure why he was doing it, Wit swung a fist at Wa'llach, who ducked with no effort and punched him savagely in the face. Wit fell down to his knees and Wa'llach snatched the collar of his shirt.

  "You might be my favorite magician," he said, grinning, "but that still makes you one of the most rotten pieces of shit ever to befoul Isadoro. And I'll not pass up a chance to pummel the likes of you."

  His fist smashed into Wit's face again and again, each a blinding shock of pain. After what seemed like an eternity a voice sounded.

  "Well, I think that's enough, get him into the cart."

  "As you say, you foul pimple on a basilisk's ass."

  Wit looked up. The travelers who he had seen in the distance were upon them.

  "Well, it seems as if you have not learned any manners since we last met, Wa'llach," said the man in the cloak.

  The dwarf spat in disgust. "And you're still a wicked pox with no heart or soul, Vechtin."

  Vechtin smiled benignly. "I suppose I was wrong: hit him again, and then get him into the cart."

  31

  Shain didn't call for a stop until the peak, along with its manor full of dead humans, dwarves, and orcs, hung behind them like a taboo. A wintry haze was rolling in from the north, sifting through the needles of the pine trees and closing visibility to less than a mile ahead. They stood in a valley of boulders and pines fenced in by snowy ridges on both sides.

  "From here on out, the name of the game is discipline." Shain stood apart from the others, her metallic cloak turned inside out to show nothing but dull gray. "We're traveling off the road and out of sight. Until we get to Youngkent, don't so much as wander off to take a leak without my permission. Keep your eyes open and your faces covered at all times. If someone tells you to get down, you drop like you've been kicked in the balls—and you stay down like they fell off and you're trying to find them. Am I understood?"

  The others, about a score in number, grunted in agreement. After a moment, Gogg stuck up his meaty hand. "But I thought we want for the humans to know orcs is here."

  "False. We want the people of Youngkent to see us. If people were to see us prior to our arrival, they might run off to warn the defenders, rendering it vastly more difficult for us to kill them."

  "Why not kill everyone on the way to Youngkent? Then no one can see us."

  "Because, Gogg, it is the duty of the No-Clan to prevent the unnecessary slaughter of Alliance peoples."

  "Except in Youngkent."

  Shain's voice grew strained. "We are going to be killing very specific people there. With the express purpose of averting a great deal more deaths. Beyond that, the wizard and his dwarf pet are also traveling this way. It sounds as though the Order's already dealing with rips in the fabric of its institution. The last thing we want is to make someone suspect—quite rightly—that they're working with the enemy."

  Gogg frowned deeply, scratching his chest. "But I don't understand."

  "As I just told you—"

  "If we're not supposed to kill humans, then why are they so soft?"

  Shain took a long breath through her nose. She appeared ready to reply, then thought better of it and continued onward, motioning the others to follow behind her. They entered a forest of crooked pines. The forest floor was slippery with fallen red needles, but the trees were tall and dense enough to leave little light for any undergrowth, leaving a clear way forward.

  The wizard, the dwarf, and their scaly lizard-friend were traveling along the road on the other side of the eastern ridge. To keep pace, Shain alternated the band between jogging and walking, stirring the scents of pine resin and churned earth. Scouts ranged ahead and to either flank, eyes sharp for any signs of habitation.

  After their fourth or fifth jogging session, Shain made her way over to Joti. "You understand it isn't over."

  He looked at her sidelong. "But you don't know that, do you?"

  "The business in Youngkent is a present emergency that could destabilize the entire region. Once we've administered to it, we'll return our attentions to our orange friend."

  "This has already cost us her trail. By the time we stick a knife in the dragar chieftain and get back here, she'll have had more than enough time to finish her business and cross the border. After all the trouble she's caused, it wouldn't surprise me if she runs all the way back to the southlands."

  "For all we know, she's wrapped up in this scheme involving the wall! Scouting the lay of the land, only to return with a full war party once these Alliance idiots have pulled down the one thing protecting them from thirteen kinds of hell. I made a judgment call, Joti. That's my duty."

  "Don't get mad. I'm not. Just don't lie to me."

  Shain grunted, then punched him on the shoulder in a hard but friendly manner. "You're correct. This might be where we lose her. But I don't believe she's done with the Duk Mak. If she returns to our lands, the No-Clan will go after her—and I'll make sure you're with us when we do."

  Joti nodded, then glanced to his right, where he thought he'd seen cords of light stretching through the boughs. There was nothing there. "What if they're leading us into a trap? Are you sure you can trust them?"

  "Am I certain I can trust a baby wizard, an insane dragar, and a dwarf who's got more bodies to his name than most graveyards?"

  "Then why'd you agree to help them?"

  "Because the Order wants to sustain and enlarge its power. That requires maintaining a stable Alliance—and Wit's so eager to serve them that they'll hang him if they ever find out what he's done here."

  "For all that, what if this is a trick? How do you deal with an angry wizard?"

  Shain scratched behind her ear. "The best thing to do is to loose an arrow into their back. Before they can see you. Failing that, I'd recommend running."

  "But they respected you. Feared you."

  "They respect the Warp. They're so used to running about as little gods that they dampen their britches when they run into someone whose power can stand against theirs."

  Joti's heart quickened. "When did you first learn you had the Warp?"

  "When that old bastard in the tree made me drink his disgusting mushroom broth."

  "You couldn't feel it before then? Not even a glimmer?"

  She made a searching motion with her right hand. "In hindsight, there were signs. Glimpses of strange things that would disappear before I could be certain they were there. They were like…strings. Strings connecting an object to the deeper fabric of the world."

  A scout jogged up with his report, pulling her away. Joti moved to the rear of the procession, suddenly aware Shain hadn't included him in the scouting rotation. Because he was no longer No-Clan? Or because she didn't trust him not to slip away after the Orange Lady?

  Annoyed that she didn't trust his promise, he slowed, letting himself fall ten feet behind the las
t soldier, then twenty. Shain was giving orders to the scouts, imperious as always. If Joti dropped back another fifty feet, then cut left into the wilds, how long would it be until she even noticed?

  Imagining his little rebellion was oddly satisfying. With this change in his mood, a memory bowled into him like a dog of war: Holding the wizard over the balcony. An instant away from sending him cartwheeling down to a red death, and feeling good about it. The look of fear in the human's dark eyes, followed by the flash of resolve—and then it was driving into his head like a metal bolt that couldn't decide if it was steel or quicksilver. An invasion, but also an unlocking, an animating: where every memory he had became like an animal, alive within itself.

  He tumbled into yet another memory. Gathered among the humans with their human smells, their anxious young faces watching in horror as another youth slumped unconscious before them, his mind as shattered as a dropped glass. They knew there was nothing left of him—that he was as irretrievably gone as the water from that dropped glass, soaked into the dirt beneath it—but Joti positioned a knife. Sliced it into the Adept's knee. And twisted.

  The body stayed as inert as a gutted fish. There was a moment of anticipation, like the way the leaves blow upward before a storm. Then it crashed together, thunderous but clarifying, as if they were all words on the same page. Before them, the Adept's eyes popped open.

  Joti seemed to lurch forward, disgorging back into the frigid forest. He'd fallen further back of the others and had to lope to catch up. Strange, indistinct bands angled away from the boles of the trees. Joti reached out for them, trying to access the feeling of exaltation he'd had after he and the wizard had stopped trying to kill each other, but as soon as he tried to close his hand on the looming bands, they slipped away like trout beneath the rippling waters of a fast stream.

  ~

  They made a cold camp that night. The scouts reported there were towns and farms along the road beyond the ridge, but the forest valley was as dark and silent as a cavern. It should have been unwelcoming, but something stirred in Joti's blood. They were on the hunt in a foreign land. He understood, at last, the urge in other orcs to go forth, and take that which could be taken.

  They moved out at first light. Shain switched out the scouts, but Joti was still assigned to stay with the main body of troops. With little to occupy him, he quested after every hint of weirdness he felt in the air, but the unfolding of the world he'd felt on the balcony seemed to be receding behind him. And every hour that passed took him a little further away.

  A scout dashed at them through the forest, pine needles flying from his boots. "Humans! Off the trail!"

  The warriors dissolved into the forest, running to their left until they found a dry stream bed, banks kept intact by the roots of trees. They hunkered down there and waited. Human male voices drifted through the trees, drunken and laughing. They lingered for several minutes, in no hurry whatsoever, before fading away through the forest.

  It was another twenty minutes before Shain motioned them back to the trail. Joti found himself next to Yorog, an older Gru squire.

  "Vagabonds." Yorog spat, glaring behind them. "Too drunk to hear us coming. Nobody'd miss 'em. Why not cut them down and leave their carcasses for the wolves?"

  Joti had no answer to that.

  Apparently feeling the encounter had been too close for comfort, Shain pulled even more of their forces for scouting duty, leaving only half of their band traveling together. Ranging ahead through the rugged terrain, constantly hustling back to make their reports, the scouts were run so ragged that some of them had to be awakened in the morning with cups of cold stream water dashed over their faces. Joti's legs stayed strong enough, but inside, he felt as sluggish as the scouts. Whatever had happened to him at the balcony seemed as though it was already lost.

  They were roughly halfway to Youngkent when Shain, following a quick assessment of her people, strolled up to Joti and grabbed the shoulder of his cloak. "Come on, kid. Our turn to clear the path."

  Joti straightened his collar. "Together? Why does a Marshal need a common soldier's help scouting?"

  "So that I have someone to throw to our enemies if we're ambushed."

  She broke into a light run. Within a quarter mile, she stopped at the edge of a meadow, the grass rimed with frost. Shain watched it for a minute before skirting around it. Joti stayed vigilant even though Shain was perfectly capable of watching out for herself—and in fact would probably be more efficient on her own. He steeled himself for another lecture.

  Beyond the meadow, the ridges to their right climbed higher while the land to their left sloped away, soon plunging down into drops that were nearly sheer. A wall of rock rose ahead. At a distance, it looked like cliffs, but as they got closer, it resolved into a series of shelves and slopes. It didn't look like an easy climb, but a series of pale zigzags indicated where game made its way up and down the crags.

  The corner of Joti's mouth twitched. "If there was an ambush, it'd be right here."

  "I didn't much love the idea of scaling this alone. Once we've cleared it, you'll hold the top until I bring the rest of the crew up to meet you."

  She loosened her sword in its scabbard, advancing on the rocky defile. Joti's strung bow hung from his shoulder. If she was that concerned about an attack Nod would be better suited to hold the advance position. Did she consider him expendable? Was she testing his loyalty? Or was it instead a way to reward him for his loyalty, giving him a small measure of glory in clearing the way forward?

  He decided, for once, to stop trying to tease out the machinations of Shain's mind, which sometimes felt as complicated as Gru clockwork, and just be happy he had something to do. They hiked up the foot of the slopes. Broken rock lay everywhere, but there was a clear path upward to the top. Shain climbed without any hurry, allowing herself to watch the boulders and ridges without being worried about her footing.

  Halfway up the trail, Joti caught a whiff of something animal on the wind: not as earthy and manurey as a wozzit, but not entirely different, along with a mustiness like a damp rug. He didn't hear any braying or lowing, though, and the dung pellets they spotted a minute later looked hardened and cold.

  They soon reached the top, a boulder-strewn plateau leading into a pine-spotted swath of grass. A steep valley fell away to their left.

  "Any tribe of Artuskers would kill for a portion like this," Shain said. "Quite literally. And the Alliance just leaves it empty."

  Joti turned around, examining the view of the incline they'd just ascended for the best spot to camp out while the others caught up.

  "Oh."

  Shain's voice carried the disgusted regret of someone who's just plunged their boot into a pile of shit. Joti spun about. Across from her, a human male had emerged from behind a wall of boulders. He carried a shepherd's crook in one hand and wore a simple cloak with a hole cut out for his head. He looked young, possibly not yet fully grown.

  "Ah," Shain said, modulating her accent to sound more like the wizard's. "Hello, young man. Pleasant day, isn't it?"

  The shepherd gripped his crook in both hands. He backed up a step, gravel scraping under his battered boots. "Don't you come any closer!"

  "I don't intend to. Please, there's no reason to fear us. We're merely passing through. We worked in the mines of Baron Hogan, you see. Near Cohos. Do you know it?"

  The boy nodded.

  "Good," Shain continued. "There's been an orc raid at the mines. A very bad one. The town formed a mob at once to hunt down every orc in the area. We were loyal servants, but the baron knew that if the mob found us, they'd rip us apart. He told us to run south to our homeland and never return." She smiled tightly, making sure her fangs didn't peep out from her lips. "You won't tell anyone you saw us, will you? If you do, they'll hang us—or worse."

  "You're orcs," the boy said, as if this was a profound truth. His eyes lowered to Shain's sheathed sword, then to Joti's, then to the bow hanging over Joti's shoulder. He opened his mo
uth to say more, then turned and ran.

  "Stop! Stop!" Shain ran after him, but he was as nimble on the rocks as a goat. Shain cursed violently and snapped her fingers at Joti. "Bring him down!"

  Joti jerked around to look at her. "But his back is—"

  "Bring him down!"

  Cold swept over Joti's body. Mechanically, as if he were shooting targets at Marshal Willam's range, he drew his bow, fitting an arrow to the string. The weapon offered its familiar resistance to his draw, but as always, he overpowered it, bending it to his will. He sighted in on the human's back, timed the man's steps, and let loose.

  The human cried out sharply as the arrow rapped into his back. He fell into the rocks, his abbreviated scream echoing from the ridges. As Shain ran forward, sword in hand, tremendous vertigo swept over Joti like—

  It was dark: he was in a field, and it was very cold and he wanted to be home by the fire, but he ran on into the woods. Far behind him, his father called his name. He glanced back. The lantern shed a weak circle of light in the yard, the silhouette of his father barely there at all.

  He was suddenly aware that he was a young boy and that his father would beat him for what he was doing. But Isabelle hadn't come home, and she needed him. He ran harder, whistling for her, his breath steaming away from his mouth. He stopped sometimes to listen, but all he could hear was the wind swishing through the trees.

  It had been snowing earlier, leaving a half inch of it on the dirt, and it now began to snow again, thick fast flakes that promised to be half a foot deep by morning. And that Isabelle, pregnant as she was, would never make it home. He ran for what felt like a long time, whistling and whistling, but she just wasn't there. He stopped in a snowy field and turned in a circle, scanning the dark pines. His cold cheeks stung; he was crying. She was gone.

  The snow was falling harder now, but part of the field was scuffed and dirtied. He jogged toward it. Smeared animal tracks had gouged down into the frozen dirt. Blood spotted the snow. A set of sheep tracks led to the south, accompanied by more drops of blood. Heart beating painfully, he followed the signs to the low cliffs that marked one edge of their grazing land.