Tahn spared a look at the bow in his hand, then stared sharply back at the Far. “I don’t want to die. And I don’t want you to die because of me.”
The Far captain didn’t let go. “I’ve never understood man’s bloodlust, even for the right cause. It makes him foolish.”
Tahn sighed, acknowledging the sentiment. “I’m not here for glory.” He clenched his teeth again, days of frustration getting the better of him—memories of a forgotten past, images of possible futures. “But I have to do something.”
The Far continued to hold him, appraising. Finally, he nodded. “Just promise me you won’t run in until we see the king emerge from the wall with the First Legion.”
Tahn agreed, and the two crawled to the rim of the depression and peeked over the edge onto the rocky plane. What they saw stole Tahn’s breath: more Bar’dyn than he could ever have imagined. The line stretched out of sight, and behind it row after row after row . . . “Dear dead gods,” Tahn whispered under his breath. Naltus would fall. Even with the great skill of the Far. Even with the help of Vendanj, and his Sheason abilities.
We can’t win. Despair filled him in a way he’d felt only once before—at Tillinghast.
And on they came. No battle cries. No horns. Just the steady march over dry, dark stone. A hundred strides away, closing, countless feet pounded the shale like a war machine. Tahn’s heart began to hammer in his chest.
Beside him, Daen spoke in a tongue Tahn didn’t understand. The sound of it like a prayer . . . and a curse.
Then he saw something that he would see in his dreams for a very long time. The Quiet army stopped thirty strides from him. The front line of Bar’dyn parted, and a slow procession emerged from the horde. First came a tall, withered figure wrapped in gauzy robes the color of dried blood. Velle! Silent hells. The Velle were like Sheason, renderers of the Will, except they refused to bear the cost of their rendering. They drew it from other sources.
The Velle’s garments rustled as the wind kicked up again, brushing across the shale plain. Tahn’s throat tightened. Not because of the Velle, or at least not the Velle alone, but because of what it held in its grasp: a handful of black tethers, and at the end of each . . . a child no more than eight years of age.
“No,” Tahn whispered. He lowered his face into the shale, needing to look away, wanting to deny the obvious use the Velle had of them.
When he looked again, two more Velle had come forward. One was female in appearance, and stood in a magisterial dress of midnight blue. The gown had broad cuffs and wide lapels, and polished black buttons in a triple column down the front. The broadly padded shoulders of the garment gave her an imposing, regal look. The third Velle might have been any field hand from any working farm in the Hollows. He wore a simple coat that looked comfortable, warm, and well used. His trousers and boots were likewise unremarkable. He didn’t appear ill fed. Or angry. He simply stood, looking on at the city as any man might after a long walk.
And in the collective hands of these Velle, tethers to six children. The little ones hunched against their bindings. Ragged makeshift smocks hung from their thin shoulders. Each gust of wind pulled at the loose, soiled garments, revealing skin drawn tight over ribs, and knobby legs appearing brittle to the touch.
Worst of all was the look in the children’s faces—haunted and scared. And scarred. A look he knew. A look resembling the one worn by many of the children from the Scar. A desolate place he’d only recently remembered. A place where he’d spent a large part of his childhood. Learning to fight. To distrust. Lessons of the abandoned.
Not every memory of the Scar had been bad, though. A name and face flared in his mind: Alemdra. But the bright memory of her quickly changed. Old grief became new at the thought of a ridge where they’d run to watch the sunrise, and seen a friend end her days. Devin. Some wounds, he realized, simply couldn’t be healed. No atonement was complete enough.
The Velle yanked at the fetters, gathering the small ones close on each side. The children didn’t yelp or complain, though grimaces of pain rose in a few faces. Mostly, they fought to keep their balance and avoid falling hard on the shale.
Then the Velle reached down and wrapped their fingers around the wrists of the young ones.
The Far king’s legion hadn’t emerged from the city wall. The siege on Naltus hadn’t yet begun. But Tahn knew the attack these Velle were preparing, fueled by the lives of these six children, would be catastrophic. Naltus might be destroyed before a single sword was raised.
Beside him, the Far captain cursed again and crept down to the dolmen to consult with his fellows. What do I do? His grip tightened on his bow. The tales of lone heroes standing against armies were author fancies. Fun to read, but wrong. All wrong. He could get off a few shots at the renderers before any of the Bar’dyn could react. But that wouldn’t be enough to stop them, or save the children.
Each Velle raised a hand toward Naltus. Tahn had to do something. Now.
Without thinking further, he climbed onto the shale plain and stood, setting his feet. He pulled his bow up in a smooth, swift motion as he drew an arrow.
Softly he began, “I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will—”
He stopped, not finishing the words he’d spoken all his life when drawing his bow, words taught to him by his father, to seek the rightness of his draw. The rightness of a kill. His father and Vendanj had meant for him to avoid of wrongfully killing anything, or anyone, because they’d thought one day they might need him to go to Tillinghast, where his chances of surviving were better if he went untainted by a wrong or selfish draw.
For as long as he could remember, he’d uttered the phrase and sensed the quiet confirmation that what he aimed at should die. Or not. Usually it was only an elk to stock a meat cellar. But not always. In his mind he saw the Bar’dyn that had stood over his sister Wendra, holding the child she’d just given birth to. He saw himself drawing his bow at it, feeling his words tell him not to shoot the creature. He’d followed that impression, and it had cankered his relationship with her ever since.
He was done with the old words. The Velle should die. He wanted to kill them. But he also knew he’d never take them all down. Not even with his ability to shoot a part of himself—something he hadn’t learned to control. He’d never be able to stop their rendering of the little ones.
More images. Faces he’d forgotten. Faces of older children—thirteen, fourteen—reposed in stillness. Forever still. Still by their own hands. The despair of the Scar had taken all their hope . . . like Devin, and his failure to save her.
And what of the young ones in these Velle’s hands? The ravages of their childhood? Long nights spent hoping their parents would come and rescue them. The bone-deep despair reserved for those who learn to stop hoping. He also sensed the ends that awaited each of them. The blinding pain that would tear their spirit from their flesh and remake it into a weapon of destruction. And they wouldn’t simply die. Their souls would be spent. If there was a next life, if they had family waiting there, these little ones would never find it. They’d have ceased to be.
Sufferings from his past.
This moment of suffering.
A terrible weight of sorrow and discouragement.
Then a voice in his mind whispered the unthinkable. An awful thing. An irredeemable thing. He fought it. Silently cried out against it. But the dark logic wouldn’t relent. And the Velle were nearly ready.
He took a deep breath, adjusted his aim only slightly. And let fly his awful mercy.
The arrow sailed against the shadows of morning and the charcoal hues of this valley of shale. And the first child dropped to the ground.
Through hot, silent tears, Tahn drew fast again, and again. It took the Quiet a few moments to understand what was happening. And when they finally saw Tahn standing beside the dolmen in the grey light of predawn, they appeared momentarily confused. Bar’dyn jumped in front of the Velle like shields. They still don’t understand.<
br />
Like scarecrows—light and yielding—each child fell. Tahn did not miss. Not once.
When it was done, he let out a great, loud cry, the scream ascending the morning air—the only vocal sound on the plain.
Bar’dyn began rushing toward him. Tahn sank to his knees, dropped his bow, and waited for them. He watched the Quiet come as he thought about the wretched thing he’d just done.
It didn’t matter that he knew he’d offered the children a greater mercy. Nor that he’d decided this for himself. In those moments, it didn’t even matter if what he’d done had saved Naltus.
These small ones, surprise on their faces—Or was it hope when they saw me? They thought I was going to save them—before his arrows struck home.
The shale trembled as the Bar’dyn rushed toward him, wearing their calm, reasoning expressions. Already he wondered what he’d do if he had these shots to take again. The bitterness overwhelmed him, and he suddenly yearned for the relief the Bar’dyn would offer him in a swift death. Then strong hands were dragging him backward by the feet, another set of hands retrieving his bow. The Far cast him into the safety of the dolmen. He flipped over and watched Daen Far captain and his squad defend the entrance to the barrow as Bar’dyn rushed in on them.
Jarron fell almost immediately, leaving Daen and Aelos to fight three Quiet.
Tahn couldn’t stop trembling. And it had nothing to do with the battle about to darken the Soliel with blood. It was about the way the Quiet would wage their war. About what men would have to do to fight back. Choices like he’d just made.
Abruptly, the Bar’dyn stepped aside. The two Far shared a confused look, their swords still held defensively before them. Then one of the Velle came slowly into view. It stopped and peered past the Far, into the dolmen.
“You’re too consumed by your own fear, Quillescent. Rough and untested, despite surviving Tillinghast.” Its words floated on the air like a soft, baneful prayer. “Have you learned what you are? What you should do?”
Its mouth pressed into a grim line.
Tahn shook his head in defiance and confusion. Whatever Tillinghast had proven to Vendanj about Tahn being able to stand against the Quiet, the thought of his own future seemed an affliction. He’d rather not know.
“You are a puppet, Quillescent. Or were. But you’ve cut your strings, haven’t you? Killing those children. And for us, you—”
A stream of black bile shot from the creature’s mouth, coating its ravaged lips and running down its chin. A blade ripped through its belly. As it fell, it raised a thin hand toward him, and a burst of energy threw Tahn back against one of the tall dolmen stones. Blood burst from his nose and mouth. Shards of pain shot behind his eyes. In his back, the bruising of muscle and bone was deep and immediate.
He dropped to the ground, darkness swimming in his eyes. But he saw Daen and Aelos and the Bar’dyn all look fast to the left, toward the whispering sound of countless feet racing across the shale to meet the Quiet army—the Far legion come to war.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PETER ORULLIAN has worked at Xbox for over a decade, which is good, because he’s a gamer. He’s toured internationally with various bands and been a featured vocalist at major rock and metal festivals, which is good, because he’s a musician.
He’s also learned when to hold his tongue, which is good, because he’s a contrarian.
Peter has published several short stories, which he thinks are good. The Unremembered and Trial of Intentions are his first novels, which he hopes you will think are good. He lives in Seattle, where it rains all the damn time. He has nothing to say about that. Visit Peter at: www.orullian.com
~ ~ * ~ ~
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
PREVIEW: AUTHOR'S EDITION OF THE UNREMEMBERED
PREVIEW: TRIAL OF INTENTIONS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
The Sound of Broken Absolutes Page 12