It would take only a moment before one of them overcame his fear, or at least succumbed to the conditioning beaten into him, and men died needlessly.
“No one needs to die today,” Milo croaked, one hand massaging his chest. “I know the enemy is here, but that isn’t a reason to pack up and leave. We need to reconnoiter, to assess the best way to go after their commander and his connection to the Guardians.”
Lokkemand stopped glaring at Ambrose to look down his nose at Milo and sniff contemptuously.
“Oh, now the Americans are not the primary concern, are they? My laziness is no longer responsible for your incomplete victory?”
Milo straightened painfully and nearly rebuked the captain for his taunt, but with a weary wheeze, he folded and bowed his head instead.
“You were right and I was wrong,” he said softly but with enough volume to be heard across the courtyard. “The Americans were a third party, and they don’t seem to be connected with the Guardians.”
Lokkemand’s smile at Milo’s words was cold and sharp, without a hint of humor.
“I’m so glad you’ve come to this understanding, but it’s too little, too late.” He sneered. “All of this is too little too late. You weren’t here when the enemy rolled to Tiflis, and without you, we had no hope of slowing his advance. Now the Georgian Bolsheviks are in power, the country is enemy territory, and the Transcaucasian Federation is on the brink of civil war.”
Milo stared, mouth hanging open at the revelation of so much changed in so short a time. The captain leveled his accusation in condemning terms.
“Your errand has expanded the War into once-peaceful nations and resulted in the end of Nicht-KAT. Is this the kind of magic you perform, Magus, because I’m not sure this is what Colonel Jorge was hoping for?”
“Still don’t see any reason for you to run scared,” Ambrose said flatly, his cheek pressed against the stock of his rifle. “The situation has changed, but initiative and leadership are what an officer uses to overcome these situations. New challenges mean new tactics.”
Lokkemand turned his withering gaze back on Ambrose, and for a moment, it was as though he wasn’t under the scrutiny of a gun barrel.
“I don’t need a lesson in leadership, deserter,” he hissed. “And there is only one tactic. When a superior enemy force knows your position and makes clear their intent to wipe you out, you retreat. It’s not heroic and it’s not glorious, but it is sound and wise.”
“How do you know they know we are here?” Milo asked.
Lokkemand laughed, and it set Milo’s teeth on edge. He’d had quite enough of men laughing at matters devoid of humor.
“The Georgian command knew, and more than that, a message was delivered by local Bolshevik sympathizers this morning. I think some of them were the same men I paid off because of your nightly excursions. Any foreign forces still within Georgia within the week will be considered invaders and killed to a man.”
Milo felt a pang of guilt accompanying the ache in his chest, but it was a distraction from the gnawing in his mind at the mention of the Bolsheviks. The marquis’ enigmatic words of the enemy commander’s connection with Milo, combined with nightmarish memories of the night he’d met Roland, would not be ignored.
“Did you expect this was going to be easy?” Ambrose taunted as he squinted down the Gewehr. “An officer leads his men to accomplish their mission. He doesn’t run when things get complicated.”
Lokkemand’s nostrils flared, and the look he gave Ambrose might have set any other man ablaze with its intensity.
“An officer doesn’t throw his men’s lives away needlessly,” Lokkemand snapped back. “Blood is the currency of war, but I never spend it freely. You were gone when we needed you, and now the mission has failed; it is simple as that. Maybe you couldn’t have stopped what happened, but we’ll never know because you. Weren’t. HERE.”
Lokkemand’s eyes were back on Milo, and he felt the weight of the whole courtyard’s gaze settling on him.
“Do we know who the enemy commander is?” Milo asked, hating how weak and small his voice sounded in his own ears.
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard the Bolsheviks howling it drunkenly across the countryside,” the captain spat sourly. “The name of Joseph Stalin has been toasted by every Marxist within a hundred miles.”
Milo stared, and Ambrose raised his head from his rifle.
“Yes,” Lokkemand intoned grimly. “That Joseph Stalin.”
“The Butcher of Petrograd?” Ambrose muttered as he lowered his rifle, and the entire courtyard seemed to take a breath.
“The same,” Lokkemand said, unable to hide that his body relaxed. “Seems he’s recovered much of the strength he lost fighting the Whites in Omsk but couldn’t make peace with the Reds like Rokossovsky and Zhukov. He’s come back home to start over.”
“And the Georgians just let him?” Milo asked.
“What choice did they have?” Lokkemand said, his tone sympathetic. “Nearly a third of the people agree with the madman’s socialist principles, and the rest realize he only got here by marching through German-held territory, showing he’s either strong enough to defy us or that we are secretly in allegiance with him. It doesn’t matter which. He’s here, and we need to leave before we’re rounded up for execution.”
Milo took a moment to look around and stare into the face of every man in that courtyard. There was anger and fear and despair in each face, in their eyes and the set of their jaws. Some of them were brave men, some were not, but all of them were broken. To expect them to carry on wouldn’t only be wrong, it would be pointless, and he knew it. The thought of facing what lay ahead without even a token allotment of soldiers filled his belly with ice, but there was nothing for it. They were done.
“Go,” Milo said, and every eye swung toward him.
“What?” Ambrose and Lokkemand hissed together.
“Go,” Milo repeated, straightening and meeting every man’s gaze in turn. “You’ve done your duty and then some. This War will keep taking more and more until there’s nothing but ashes and bones, but those bones don’t have to be yours today. Go.”
“This isn’t a rout, damn it,” Lokkemand began, his voice struggling to stoke the anger implicit in the words. “This is a reasonable retreat.”
Milo nodded, hoping the sincere sympathy he felt was conveyed by his voice and face.
“I believe it,” he said, turning to look the captain in the eye while addressing the courtyard. “I may not like him very much, but I do believe at bottom that Captain Lokkemand is a good man and a responsible officer. If he says it is time to leave, then it is your duty to do so.”
A heavy quiet fell across the courtyard as men weighed their motivations and wrestled with their souls. Milo could read in their faces that some of them came up wanting, but he met their stares with the same unjudging expression.
“Go,” Milo said one last time and turned to enter the fortress.
“What will you do?” Lokkemand called after him.
“What I intended to do all along,” Milo said without turning back. “My duty.”
19
The Broken
Using the Art on a fey seemed to be both easier and more difficult than Milo had expected. Rihyani’s will was more accessible to his efforts than Ezekiel’s had been but also more reactive. His probing attempts at her slumbering will were met with a powerful resistance that he imagined was habitual.
She was unconscious and so pale she seemed ethereal stretched out on the cot, her whole body sinking in on itself. For a creature who was nearly eternal, it was a chilling thing for Milo to see and think she looked old. It seemed wrong.
Upon seeing her this way, Milo had made a hasty play at her will and been rebuffed so quickly her nurse barely had time to climb out of his seat beside her.
“Are you going to wake her up?” Brodden asked, seeming to have aged ten years since they’d left him a few days ago.
“No,” Milo s
aid, looking away from Rihyani for a second. “I’m not sure she can be woken up, and I don’t think she needs to be.”
“If you say so.” The medic sighed, settling back into a chair. “I don’t understand how she’s still alive, to be honest. It seems like will alone is keeping her here.”
“You might not be wrong about that,” Ambrose said softly as Milo turned back to Rihyani.
“I’ll need you to not interrupt me now,” Milo explained between steadying breaths. “You may see or feel strange things, but whatever you do, don’t distract me.”
Brodden shook his head and fell silent.
Milo pressed his will outward again.
The second brush of his will against hers was met with as much resistance as before, but rather than simply withdrawing, he pushed harder. He felt her will manifesting as suggestions of terrifying fates and lonely ends clawing and yowling to keep him at bay, but he turned the tables by instituting his own visions of bringing joy and resolution to those dire guardian visions. It was imperfect, and more than one magical insinuation pierced through, making him break out in a cold sweat and clutch his hammering chest, but he held fast all the same.
She could batter his mind with terrors all she wanted. He needed to reach her.
Her initial defenses diverted, Milo pressed out more and felt the response of her will against his own, a kind of static spark of psychic energy as contact was made.
Rihyani, can you hear me? he called to her, shaping words only she could decipher through the Art. They weren’t just words but sentiments, fragments of thoughts and feelings, the likes of which he could never have explained. As the marquis had explained, it came intuitively to him.
Milo? came the soft, almost brittle answer. You have learned the Art.
Milo felt a weight slide off his chest. She was still there, or at least enough of her to hear and respond to him.
The marquis taught you? she asked.
In a way, Milo thought to her, uncertainty quavering in the communication. I’ll explain later, but first, we need to release you from the hex.
Milo could sense the psychic sigh sliding from the fey’s mind.
Yes, I do think I’m coming to the end of my resolve to resist, she replied, a response disturbingly nonchalant for what it portended. You found the release for it?
Yes, Milo answered eagerly, stretching out to take her hand in his, trying not to recoil at how cold her flesh felt. It may seem crazy, but you must forgive Ezekiel. His curse is rooted in his inability to forgive himself and let himself die, so you must forgive him to break the hex’s hold over you.
There was a long silence, and only the trembling throb of Rihyani’s will in his supernatural awareness kept Milo from assuming she’d died.
Rihyani?
That will be difficult.
Feelings and images flooded through Milo’s mind, visions of Ezekiel’s sneering, cackling face with a bloodied knife flickering in his hands. Fear, pain, and hatred accompanied the images, and through Rihyani’s senses, Milo relived their duel between the trees in a single heartbeat and felt her soul-wrenching anguish not only at the death of her centuries-old companions but their desecration at his hands.
“Rihyani, please!” Milo cried, breaking the connection the Art provided for a moment to keep himself from becoming lost in the onrush of her will.
His eyes had slid out of focus, but in that breathless moment when he pulled away from her, Milo saw blood dribbling down his arm. Sympathetic wounds had opened along the same line as what Rihyani had experienced.
“Milo?” Ambrose rumbled at Milo’s shoulder, not quite daring to rest a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” Milo said with a gulping swallow as he watched his blood slide down his outstretched hand to Rihyani’s gray grip. “It’s going to be okay.”
Ambrose didn’t say anything, but Milo could feel his frown at his back.
“Please,” Milo said as gently as he could. “I need to focus.”
When Ambrose made no protest, Milo clamped his eyes shut and pressed outward.
I’m sorry, I was overwhelmed, Milo broadcasted to her as their wills connected. I am here now.
No, Milo, I’m sorry.
He felt waves of the fey’s regret, not overpowering but steady and sincere.
I am struggling to keep myself together. The hex and the wounds are taking their toll.
Milo felt a thrill of fear, which made his next thoughts sharper than he intended, but off they flew like arrows.
Which is why you need to forgive him. The longer you hold onto this, the harder it will be. Please, before it is too late!
A caustic film covered her next thoughts, and Milo had to harden himself to blunt the worst of their fury.
You talk as though it is easy! I watched that monster butcher two of my oldest friends, who I met when Latin was still a trade language! You speak of forgiveness like it is a flower to be plucked in a field!
Milo fought a rush of matching anger. He wanted to demand she stop being so proud, so stupid, but he beat the feelings down mercilessly. Pushing back wouldn’t help because he couldn’t drive her to forgiveness. He could only invite her, and with a start, he realized that the invitation could only come one way that would be understood.
You want revenge, he thought, pressing toward her with an understanding that mirrored his own experiences with the desire. But what if I showed you that revenge against Ezekiel is exactly what he wants, too?
What?
He felt her will rebel against the seeming contradiction, pulling away from him, but he remained open to her even as she came to the cusp of severing the connection. Milo wondered if that happened, would she have the strength to continue interacting? Her will was potent, but he sensed a brittleness that threw up more cracks after each outburst.
I don’t understand.
Milo squeezed her icy hand with his bloodied fingers.
Let me show you, he begged. Let me show you what I learned. Then make the decision for yourself.
Another aching pause followed, but finally, Rihyani called out to him from what seemed like a greater distance than before.
All right.
Milo felt invisible barriers falling and intangible wards coming undone, and he touched the fey’s raw, undiluted will with his own. It was beautiful, precious, and frightening both in power and fragility. Tears sprang unbidden to his eyes.
He is a monster, Milo said as he drew upon the jagged shards of memory still embedded from his encounter with Ezekiel. But even monsters can love in their own fashion, and that means they can hurt and regret and be given our pity.
With as much agonizing immediacy as before, Milo relived the sad tale of Ezekiel Boucher’s living damnation with Rihyani.
She saw and felt everything: the piercing of Ezekiel's child by the vengeful warriors, Ezekiel’s grief fueling the slaughtering of innocents, the coming of the curse, and him murdering the fey who cursed him.
Milo thought having seen it before would harden him against the experience, but he felt tears welling up, the blows to his heart penetrating even harder. Knowing what came did not make it better but only heightened his dread at each coming blow and his disgust at each predestined atrocity. Bound in will, he and Rihyani bore witness and felt what Ezekiel felt, and even amid the blood and hysterical laughter, it was an awful, gnawing agony.
The vigil completed and the smells of burning bodies and Ezekiel’s laughter fading, there was a stillness of body and mind so profound that Milo didn’t dare to disturb it. Eyes sealed, his will present but passive within the fey’s, there was a quiet closeness the likes of which he’d never known. In the fearful presence of that undiluted intimacy, he both basked and cringed.
When she finally reached out to him, a surprised, shuddering breath wracked his body.
He is like so many humans, worthy of hate and pity in his brokenness. I suppose I can tighten my grip and let his jagged edges cut me to the quick, but perhaps I’d rather let
him go.
Like a skein unraveling, the hex became null.
* * *
“Thank you,” Rihyani breathed, and leaned in with a gentle kiss.
Brodden’s face was a comical explosion of wonder and anxiety, eyes bulging even as his lips met the fey’s. The kiss lasted barely more than a second, but the bedraggled medic emerged as though he were coming up from pearl diving.
“Nothing much,” he sputtered sheepishly as he stumbled back. “Just my duty.”
Rihyani was still sunken and gray from her ordeal, but her smile was a radiant thing.
“We both know that isn’t true,” she said softly, holding out one waifish hand that Brodden took between thick, shaking fingers. “You performed above and beyond, and for that, I will grant you a boon.”
Brodden looked nervously from Rihyani to Milo and Ambrose, who stood beside her chair by the fireplace.
“A boon from a fey,” Ambrose muttered out the side of his mouth in an overloud whisper. “Careful what you wish for, eh?”
Milo didn’t say anything, only nodded grimly, fighting to keep his dour expression as he watched the color drain from the medic’s blotchy face.
“W-what boon would that be, f-fräulein?” Brodden gasped, absentmindedly tucking his uniform back into place and doing a generally poor job of the business.
Rihyani’s smile slid away as her eyelids drooped to half-mast, and she gripped the medic’s meaty fingers in both of her delicate hands. She drew a deep breath and let it slide out in a misty, monotone voice that was quite unlike her usual lively tones.
“You will write to your sweetheart in the next week and ask for her hand in marriage,” she said, her hooded eyes looking through Brodden. “She will write back with haste to tell you her answer is yes.”
Brodden made to say something, but his mouth seemed ill-equipped. He only managed a hoarse splutter.
“Don’t speak,” the contessa warned in her medium’s drone. “A single word could unhinge the magic and release an awful curse on both of you.”
World's First Wizard Complete Series Boxed Set Page 56
