The Truth of Shadows

by Jacob Peppers

  And he walked.

  And he burned.

  ***

  Katherine found herself smiling as Marta jabbered on at Alesh, but to her surprise, he didn’t seem bothered by the girl’s unending talk, seemed to be concentrating on something. It’s probably the pain, she thought. He hadn’t complained of it, but that didn’t make her feel better. His shoulders looked stiff, and he seemed to take each step almost gingerly, as if unsure whether or not he would be able to make it until he did. She couldn’t imagine what he’d been through in the last days and weeks, but proof of much of it lay in the innumerable scratches and bruises that showed on his skin. And what of the wound, the one in his arm?

  She hadn’t gotten a good look at it, as they’d been too busy running for their lives, but Katherine reminded herself—for at least the dozenth time—that they would have to see to it soon. Such wounds—if it was the one left by the crossbow bolt, and it seemed it must be—could be dangerous, if left alone. And if what Darl said was true, it was already infected. She had nearly called for them to stop several times already, but in the end she had decided against it. Those men, the Redeemers, were following them, that she didn’t doubt, and according to Darl they would reach the Ferinan lands in another day, perhaps two. And if the wound was that bad, surely Alesh would have said something.

  She was pulled from her thoughts as Marta fell back to walk beside her. The girl was frowning and, for one of the few times Katherine had seen, she said nothing. “Is everything alright?” she asked after a moment.

  “Men,” the girl said, making the word a curse. “They’re fools.”

  Katherine laughed. She couldn’t help it. The incongruity of hearing such a world-weary statement from one so young was strange.

  Marta turned and scowled at her. “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  Katherine cleared her throat, choking down her laughter. “Nothing. Just…what’s bothering you?”

  “Sonya this, and Sonya that,” the girl said. “Everything’s about Sonya.”

  And then Katherine knew. The girl had a crush. Oh, she’d had some when she was younger as well, remembered, particularly, an actor who had been a member of a visiting troupe. She’d been little more than a child herself then, but the man, wearing his cape, running a hand through his long blond hair as he pronounced—with theatric emphasis—each of his lines, had seemed the epitome of a knightly hero, the man who surely all the story books must have been about. It was only later, when she grew older, that she considered that the man was paid to act as such, and that the sword he waved around so gallantly was made of foil. Also, if she were being honest with herself, the man had been a terrible actor, no matter how strong his jaw or how broad his shoulders.

  She remembered him well, just as she remembered the feeling she’d had, how fragile a thing it had been—how fragile she had been—and when she turned back to the girl, she made sure her expression was serious. “Sonya is young—seven or eight, no more than that. She is like a sister to him.”

  Marta nodded slowly. “A sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” the girl said, suddenly looking embarrassed. “I guess that’s good then. Or not, I don’t know.”

  Katherine shrugged, as if it was of little importance. “I just thought you might want to know, that’s all.”

  Marta turned her nose up so high that Katherine thought she ran a real risk of tipping over. “Whatever. I don’t care nothing about him and his sister.”

  But you do, Katherine thought, turning to study Alesh’s back. And, gods help me, so do I. There was something about him, something different that she found she couldn’t define. Part of it was the way he put everyone else’s needs before his own, part of it was his broad shoulders—as broad as the actor’s had been, if not more so—and his face, handsome in the rare moments it wasn’t twisted with worry or anger. And the rest of it…well, she didn’t know what the rest of it was. But then, that was part of the magic of the thing, wasn’t it?

  “He’s hard,” Marta said.

  Katherine started, pulled from her own thoughts, and she felt her face heat as she turned back to the girl. “I’m sorry, what’s that?”

  The girl flushed. “I said he’s hard, you know, like…like iron hard. Like a sword or…I don’t know, something else that’s hard.”

  Katherine remembered the way he’d dealt with the Redeemers at the gate, the way he’d charged them, never hesitating even though he was wounded. “Yes.”

  “But soft too,” Marta went on, as if thinking out loud. “Vulnerable. Like…like maybe he hasn’t had a lot, and he’s scared he’s going to lose what little he does have. I don’t know…I guess that sounds stupid.”

  “No,” Katherine said, shaking her head slowly. “No, it doesn’t. Hard and soft. I think that’s just about right.”

  “Really?” Marta said, meeting her eyes.

  Katherine nodded. “Really.” And she believed that the girl had hit on it exactly. Alesh had a lot of rough edges—the world had seen to that, as it always did—but in rare moments, such as when he’d been reunited with Sonya, there had been an almost childlike innocence and joy to him. And the way he looked at Katherine sometimes…she felt herself flush again.

  “He is…something,” she said. “I think—” She cut off as Alesh suddenly stumbled and collapsed to the ground, as if his legs had given out beneath him. She rushed forward, but Darl was already kneeling beside him, turning him over onto his back. “What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m…fine,” Alesh said, his voice sounding strained. “I just…tripped. That’s all.”

  Katherine glanced to Darl who gave a single shake of his head, his expression troubled. “Is it your wounds?” she asked.

  “I told you,” Alesh said. “I’m fine, I just wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  Katherine frowned, holding her hand out to his forehead. She snatched her hand away, shocked at the heat. “By the gods, Alesh,” she said, “you’re burning up.”

  “It’s a little…fever, that’s all.” He started to rise, but his strength seemed to leave him, and he fell back to the ground, wincing. “I just need a second. To rest.”

  Katherine looked at his arm where the makeshift bandage was wrapped around his wound, saw that it was stained with blood—along with another yellowish substance—and felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. Let it not be bad. Please, gods, let it not be bad. “Alesh, I need to look at your wound.” She reached for his arm, but he pulled it away.

  “I told you, I’m fine. There’s no time. If you’ll help me up, we have to—”

  “Enough,” Katherine snapped, her fear making her voice crack. “Look, those men will either catch up with us or they won’t, but if we don’t see to your wounds, you’ll be no good to any of us, and you’ll slow us down even more. Is that what you want? Do you want us all to die because you slowed us down?”

  A profoundly hurt look came on his face, and Katherine wanted to cry out at the anguish there. “O-of course not,” he said, “but…”

  “No buts,” she said, forcing the words out past the sudden lump in her throat. “We can’t afford to stop for days while you recuperate because you pushed yourself too hard. So whatever this is, we have to see to it.”

  He hesitated, meeting her eyes, then with obvious reluctance, he offered his wounded arm to her. Katherine began to peel the bandage back and before she had gotten close to taking it all the way off, the smell of infection, of rot, struck her, and it was all she could do to keep a straight face. Swallowing, she continued to peel the bandage off until the wound showed, and she could not help the gasp that escaped her. Rion and Marta also let out cries of surprise and disgust.

  “How long ago did you take this wound?” Katherine said, forcing a calm into her voice though she felt like screaming and crying all at once.

  “I’m not…sure,” Alesh said. “A week ago? Maybe more. The days…they sort of blend together. I don’t remembe
r much.”

  His words came out in a slur now, and he seemed sluggish, as if it was all he could do to force himself to speak. His eyelids flitted, seeming to grow heavier even as she watched. Katherine turned to Darl, and the Ferinan was studying her, his worried gaze communicating his thoughts clearly enough. Katherine swallowed down the lump rising in her throat. “I’m going to need everyone’s water, Marta. Bring it to me. Rion, see if you can find something we can use as a bandage.” She looked up at Darl who nodded.

  “I will make a fire.”

  “Damnit,” Alesh panted, “there’s no time for…” He trailed off, his eyes closing, and moments later he was unconscious.

  “He’s right, you know,” Rion said from where he stood beside Katherine, his own expression troubled. “They can’t be too far behind us, and you said yourself we can’t carry him.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Katherine snapped. “Leave him, is that it?”

  Rion recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “Of course not. I’m just…I just think we should consider what we’re going to do, that’s all.”

  “We’re going to see to his wounds,” Katherine said, “that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “Of course,” he said. Then, reluctantly, “And after that?”

  “After that, we’ll see,” Katherine said. “But if I have to carry him on my own back, by the gods, Rion, I will. We won’t leave him.”

  He studied her for a second then nodded. “I’ll go find some bandages.”

  ***

  In the end, they hadn’t had to carry Alesh on their backs, as Katherine had said—and as Rion had feared. Instead, Darl had made use of his seemingly limitless store of practical knowledge—perhaps, Rion had to admit, a bit more useful than his own education on the finer points of cards and dice—and had fashioned a litter from some branches and strips of clothing.

  It wasn’t pretty, but it worked well enough. Rion grunted as one of his feet struck a rock, and he nearly tripped, just managing to keep hold of the stretcher. Just too bad it doesn’t make the bastard any lighter, he thought. He glanced back at Darl who held the opposite end of the stretcher and scowled. They had been at it for hours now, two at a time taking a turn at carrying the litter—except Marta, as she was too young—while the other carried two torches, leading the way while the girl carried two more behind them, keeping the nightlings at bay.

  Rion’s arms felt rubbery, and he was bathed in sweat from exertion, but the Ferinan seemed to carry his end of the litter with ease, even having a conversation with Marta while he did. For her part, Katherine spent her period of rest constantly glancing back at Alesh from where she led the way down the path, her expression troubled. Not that Rion could blame her. They had not been able to rouse the man from his unconsciousness, and one didn’t need to be a healer to know that wasn’t a good sign. But unconscious or not, Alesh didn’t seem to be having a good time of it.

  Amedan’s Chosen was bathed in sweat, and he shifted restlessly where he lay in the litter, mumbling incoherently. His fever had gotten worse, and Rion didn’t think he was imagining the heat he could feel coming off the man in waves. The Son of the Morning, supposed savior of mankind, slain by infection. It would have almost been funny, if it weren’t true.

  Alesh might have been a bit too serious for Rion’s tastes, and more than a little bit of a creepy bastard, but he seemed a good enough sort, if you could get past the way he tended to scowl at everything like he was trying to decide if maybe he should kill it. And he was a good fighter—possibly a great one, though Rion wasn’t the best judge of such things—a trait that couldn’t be overestimated when a man was being chased down by an army of soldiers doing their level-best to murder him. But, perhaps the most apparent of Alesh’s traits—at least at the moment—was that the bastard was damned heavy.

  “Tell me again…how far away your…tribe is?” Rion panted.

  “Not far,” Darl responded, and Rion wanted to kick him. Not that he would, of course. The Ferinan was also a good fighter, and Rion didn’t relish the thought of getting a spear through his guts. The problem with optimists, he decided, is that they disdain specifics. How far? Not far. Not ten miles, not twenty, only “not far.” How much longer? Not an hour, not a day or two days, only “soon,” as if their perspective had no room for details.

  Rion was forced, then, to look to their surroundings to gain some idea of their progress. The scraggly trees and bushes that had crowded the roadside had given way to hard-packed, sun-baked ground, and what little plant life Rion saw in the glow of the torches were pitiful, desperate looking specimens. Not so unlike ourselves, he thought sourly. They were all covered in the dirt and dust of the road, covered in sweat as if they each ran their own fever, much like Alesh’s. How long until we’re all trying to carry each other on litters? he thought.

  But even that wasn’t the worst of it. Rion had never considered himself a spoiled, rich nobleman—mostly because he was a poor nobleman with just enough coin to get himself into trouble. But he had begun to realize that there were degrees of poor, different levels of desperation—many of which he wasn’t finding particularly alluring. Namely, he stank. He wasn’t sure when the first breeze had carried his own smell to him, but since then he hadn’t been able to smell anything else. To make matters worse, he was tired. Exhausted, really, and why not? And the most damndest bit of it was that he couldn’t even complain—oh, he’d tried, of course, but Darl had only given him that small smile—the bastard—and Katherine would only make some comment of how at least he wasn’t near-death from fever, glancing worriedly at Alesh as if reminding herself of the man’s plight.

  But the more and more Rion considered it, he thought maybe the man didn’t have it so bad, after all. Sure, maybe he was dying and maybe he was plagued with disturbing dreams brought on by fever—his incoherent ramblings seemed to indicate as much—but at least he got to lie down, to sleep.

  Sleep. Even the thought of it brought a yawn, and Rion blinked to bring some relief to eyes that felt as if they’d been filled with sand.

  He’d seen men fall to sleep in strange positions before. Reclined in a chair, or lying with his head in a pile of his own puke after having drank far more than was good for him. He’d even once heard tale of a prostitute falling asleep in the middle of…well, earning her coin, heard that it had taken the man quite a while to discover it as she had gone on making her fake noises of pleasure without interruption. Crazy, unbelievable, but Rion realized that, just then, maybe he did believe it, that he certainly wanted to believe it. After all, if a woman could fall asleep in the middle of that, then why couldn’t someone fall asleep while, say, walking and carrying a litter? And who’s the optimist now? he thought sourly.

  It couldn’t be done, was ridiculous to even think so. Still…there was only one way to know for sure.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kale reclined in the throne in his audience chamber, smiling pleasantly as Guildmaster Eskal, the leader of the Lightbringers of the northern town of Farilax, was marched through the door by his guards and dumped unceremoniously in the floor.

  “Ah, Guildmaster Eskal,” Kale said as the guards took station on either side of the door. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  The man climbed laboriously to his feet, then shuffled forward. He was clearly favoring one leg from some recent injury, and his clothes were ragged and torn. His face had a pinched, strained look, as if he was trying to restrain some powerful emotion. “Chosen Leandrian,” he said stiffly, bowing his head.

  “I am glad to hear from you, Guildmaster, truly,” Kale went on, finding himself pleased at the man’s beleaguered state. “I have sent several messages to your guild, and I was beginning to believe my messengers were being waylaid on the road by bandits or worse.” He paused, shrugging. “It was the only explanation I could think as to why I was getting no response. Don’t you agree?”

  The man’s jaw clenched. A proud man, that much was sure, but also a broken one,
and why not? That had been the task Kale had set his soldiers, after all. An example had needed to be made and, judging by the fresh cut on the guildmaster’s face, and the haunted look in his eyes, one had been. “Of course, Chosen,” the man managed in a voice ragged with barely restrained emotion.

  “Still,” Kale went on, “you needn’t have come yourself, Guildmaster. I mean, there are others you have, others you might have sent, are there not? Truly, I am…humbled by your presence here.”

  The guildmaster’s fingers worked, as if he wanted to reach for a weapon. “I…I had to come. There were not enough of us left, after…” He made a strangled sound in his throat and tears began to gather in his eyes.

  Perhaps not so proud any longer, Kale thought. “Oh?” he asked innocently. “But I am sorry to hear that, Eskal, truly. I may call you Eskal?”

  “If it pleases you,” the man said through gritted teeth.

  “Yes, I believe it does,” Kale said. “I find much that pleases me lately, Eskal. Still, it must be said that, by the look of you, you and yours have suffered. That it too bad. I do so abhor needless suffering.”

  The man’s carefully controlled mask of contrition broke then, and he bared his teeth with a growl, starting forward. “You son of a—”

  Kale had been ready for it, had even hoped for it, and he surged out of his own chair toward the guildmaster. Kale had been trained by Olliman for years, but in the short time since he’d begun to worship Shira, his speed and strength seemed to have doubled, and he was on the man in a moment. Eskal barely had time to draw a fist back when Kale’s own punch sunk into his gut. The breath exploded out of the guildmaster, and he doubled over.

  “It is proper,” Kale said, staring at the panting man, “to kneel before one’s Chosen.”

  The guildmaster spat. “I’ll never kneel before you, you ba—”