Too Cold to Bleed

by D Murray

  “Major Ferah,” Lucius spoke from behind Subath. His clipped voice, in its too-high tone, frayed at Subath’s nerves. “This carriage will take you to your ship.”

  “Thank you, Commander.” Leilah offered a slight bow.

  “May we have a word in private?” Subath asked her.

  “Of course.” She spoke in Cannan to the two soldiers beside her, and they hurried towards the carriage and entered.

  “Do you mind?” Subath asked Merkham and Lucius. They bowed to Leilah, and ascended the steps back into the High Command.

  Subath stood in front of Leilah alone. “You think on my words last night?”

  “I did,” she replied, her eyes sliding from one side to the other. “You said last night that I am not without my means. You’re correct. I have people.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “Recently there have been rumours one of our agents has been turned. This, coupled with the words you shared last night of Bergnon and the Daughter of the People, troubled me much. Sleep didn’t come to me. But something else did.”

  “Oh?”

  “Your man, Kalfinar. He would gain nothing from killing the Daughter of the People, from goading Canna into a fight the Free Provinces cannot win.”

  “Logic came to you.” Subath smiled, and hooked his thumbs around his sword belt. “Always been a fan of that mode of reckoning myself.”

  “Logic, perhaps, but not the answer the Father of the People seeks. He wants Kalfinar in chains, and he wants vengeance for his child.”

  “Surely he can understand logic?”

  “The Father of the People has a mind unlike anyone else. He is wise, and just, compassionate and ruthless all at once. He was a great man.”

  “Was? What do you mean, ‘was’?”

  “My men are loyal, to me, and to the Father of the People. It did not befit them to hear me say this: the Father of the People is grief mad. I fear he will not hear of logic or reason now.”

  “What do you mean? He will not turn from his course without Kalfinar?”

  “Perhaps, with time, his sorrow will diminish, and his reason will return. But for now, no. His heart and mind are broken. Add to that someone perhaps whispering honeyed words in his ears–” She paused. “That is a poor choice of words.”

  Subath recalled Kalfinar’s recounting of the mission into the Cannan palace, where he found the Mother of the People murdered, and the Father of the People grievously injured, his ears having been cut from his head. “You think for now he is too far gone to stop?”

  “I do.”

  “So it is to war?”

  “I’ll do what I can to persuade the Father of the People to abate. Perhaps my actions in doing so will expose to me the hand of the traitor.”

  “Can you dispatch word to me from Nabruuk?”

  “There are ways. Until then, perhaps you should be ready for the worst.” She offered him a smile all twisted up with regret.

  Subath grinned wide. “Been preparing for the worst every morning since me old mam left me with a pair of boots ten years too big and a nicked old sword. I’ve made it through each day since.”

  “If it comes to it, a quick surrender could save a lot of lives.”

  Subath shook his head. “You know I can’t deliver such an order.”

  “Well then, I will be sorry.” She offered her hand. “May the packmates remain so.”

  “Aye.” They clasped hands. “Make no mistake, Major. This is one lame wolf that will take your fucking eyes before you have its throat.”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  He let go of her hand and watched as she crossed the courtyard towards the carriage. The driver cracked the reins and the carriage jolted into life and out of the inner gate of the High Command towards the ruin of a dock.

  Merkham and Lucius appeared beside Subath. “Well?” Merkham asked.

  Subath faced them with a smile. “Well, to put it in as eloquent a manner as I can: we’re fucked.”

  Twelve

  All The Friends

  Ruah’s leg was beginning to ache like a bastard as the sun clawed its way into the ugly morning. They had been walking since Grunnxe’s scouts paid them a visit.

  “So just what exactly are you two planning on doing when you catch up with your Grunnxe?” Culver broke the silence as they trudged along the bent grass that marked the passage of the horde.

  “Where’s that accent of yours from, anyhow?” Ruah asked, ignoring Culver’s question.

  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s impolite to answer a question with a question?” Culver replied, his accent corrected.

  “No.”

  “Roo’s right,” Halpern chipped in. “That accent of yours comes and goes a bit, that’s all.” His tone had a casualness to it, as if by some pissing miracle Halpern had relaxed a little. “Sometimes, it just don’t sound like it altogether fits your mouth, is all.”

  “Dajda, quite the inquisition.” Culver looked at Ruah and his smile reflected a sparkle of the red sunrise. “Grass trail leads off there to the left. We’re off it a ways.”

  “Aye, I see it. Don’t change the subject,” Ruah pressed. “Where you really from?” She stopped limping and stood watching Culver’s back. “Well?”

  Halpern stopped too, and finally Culver. He turned and looked Ruah square in the face. “You know, for a small kid with a crooked leg, you can rightly kick the shit out of someone. You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?”

  “Not a fucking chance. Come on then. Spill.”

  “Right you are.” Culver sighed and crossed his arms. “I’m from the borderlands, small township called Two-Side Town. Called it that 'cause it was always back and forth between Solansia and the Free Provinces from one skirmish season to the next. That’s why the accent comes and goes a bit. But I fought for Solansia, saw action for a few years.”

  “Bullshit,” Ruah said. “Not sure I like that answer. No one from Solansia calls it the Free Provinces. They're fucking trench rats.”

  “Aye!” Halpern said, realisation dawning on his face. “And I fancy you’re one of them.”

  Culver’s hand twitched a little, as if he wanted to reach for something.

  Fuck. He’s going for his sword. “Not that it matters a shit to us,” Ruah said, trying to calm Culver. “Just wanting to get straight what you are. The accent bothered me, that’s all.”

  Culver’s arm relaxed and he started to rub at the palm of his gloved left hand. He smiled at Ruah and then Halpern. “Look, I’m from the borderlands. Two-Side Town. Call me a trench rat or a Solansian as you please, but don’t question me. I’ve had that too much in my life lately. I mean to help you, and I hope you can see from last night’s work that I mean to do it well. Aye, my accent is shitty, and throws out a question now and then, but it is what it is. Fine?”

  Ruah smiled at him, the best she could offer given she was thinking about the bloody work she did the night before. A shame-filled sickness grew in her belly. It squirmed about, making her gorge rise as she heard the crack of the hatchet hitting the scout’s skull over and over in her head. “Aye.” She nodded in as casual a manner as she could and started to limp on and past where he stood. “Fine by me.”

  “Aye, me too,” said Halpern, walking alongside Ruah.

  “Good,” Culver said from behind. “Glad to meet with your approval at last. What do you say to taking a stop for some rest? We need to eat, and afterwards maybe I can look at that leg, Roo? Never got the chance last night, and the thing looks like it’s hurting you now.”

  “Bastarding thing’s always hurting me,” Ruah grumbled. Breathe. Step. Pain. Pray.

  “I’m starving,” Halpern added. “You reckon you could get another of them marmots you got the other morning?”

  “Plenty of them about,” Culver said, “just not sure you’d fancy eating it raw. Don’t much fancy sending up a pillar of smoke for more of Grunnxe’s scouts to come looking, do you?”

&n
bsp; Halpern frowned and kicked a stone. “Never had raw marmot before. Suppose it’s more of the dried beef.”

  “The very best of it.” Ruah forced a grin and tried to ignore the sound of the hatchet strike in her head. Crack. Crack. Crack.

  “Right then,” Culver said, chewing the last of his strip of beef. He grimaced as he worked his jaw on some gristle, then patted his thigh. “Let’s get a look.”

  Ruah eyed him, a flutter of nerves in her belly. “You sure you can help it?”

  “No point in not trying, is there?” Culver added, “Come on.”

  Ruah stood from the patch of yellowing grass she’d been sat on. The hollow they chose to take breakfast in was barely deep enough to keep out the wind, but she was damn happy for the chance to rest up. Her leg was sending thin threads of fire from her ankle right up around her knee, and into her hip. From the hip it felt like hot needles spreading pulse after pulse about her lower back and up to settle in a fizzing ache at the back of her skull. “No point not trying,” she mumbled.

  “Sit here.” Culver pointed beside him.

  Ruah sat down, wincing with the action. She looked up and saw Halpern was looking. “Fuck off,” she mouthed, and he sheepishly looked away, suddenly fascinated by a blade of grass. The same type of grass he’d been looking at his entire life. Didn’t matter, she supposed. Better than him looking at her bastarding leg.

  “Mind if I see it?” Culver asked in a quiet voice. Ruah almost missed it with the whistle of the wind. “I’ve seen some wounds in the past. It may be that I know how to help this, but I’ll need to see it first.”

  “Fine,” Ruah said, trying to sound like she wasn't shitting herself. “You’ll not have seen anything like this, though.” Please don’t look. Please don’t look. Please make it stop hurting.

  “Fine to lift your trouser leg?”

  “Aye. I’ll help.” She leaned over and folded her boot down from the mid-calf point to her ankle. She unbuttoned the four small wooden buttons that closed the ankle of her trousers and slowly, carefully began to roll the fabric up.

  The skin beneath was a mottled mix of yellow and grey, with black threads coiling and zig-zagging with no order. The side of the calf was pitted with deep, dark pocks, and the bone narrowed mid-shin into a twist, with several small, deep-purple plates that looked like lizard scales.

  “There it is.” Ruah smiled. She had smiled in the face of scorn and swallowed her pain countless times before, but this was up there with the best of her performances.

  “Dajda! Roo–”

  “I told you not to look!” Ruah snapped at Halpern.

  “Relax, Roo.” Culver looked over at Halpern and inclined his head, as if to suggest he get himself lost for a while.

  Halpern obliged and left them to the hollow.

  “Do you mind if I touch it?”

  “Fine.” Please don’t touch it.

  Culver’s fingers gently followed the twisting shape of her shin, tracing the bone and feeling out where the muscles warped. “This doesn’t look so bad,” Culver said with a gentle smile. “I can maybe do some work on the muscles to loosen them up and get the blood flowing better to them. That should make the pain ease a little.” He clicked his tongue and winked at her. “Not such a problem at all.”

  Ruah felt tears edging on her eyelids and thumbed them away. “Doesn’t get much better above the knee.”

  “Oh.” Culver looked up, no doubt seeing the fear in her eyes. “Well, why don’t we start with this, and we’ll try the rest tomorrow maybe.”

  “Aye.”

  He started to gently massage the muscle rising from the back of her heel, causing a flare of pain to creep up to Ruah’s knee. She winced.

  “It may hurt a little to start.”

  “No shit!” she said, her forearm covering her eyes as she tilted her head back.

  The flare of pain did ease, and in its place a warm tingle began. It climbed slow and gentle up to her knee, following the small circles Culver’s thumbs worked in the twisted and mottled flesh of Ruah’s leg. A warmth flooded below the knee, and a ticklish tingle grew, like there was new life in it.

  She smiled at him. “That feels better. Thank you.”

  “If we’re going to walk across the country, then we need you feeling better. Happy to help. Come to think of it, I can maybe teach you a little about how to use that hatchet of yours. Can’t always expect to be able to step up behind someone and brain them.”

  Halpern leapt back into the hollow, chest heaving and sweat sparkling over his face.

  “Breathe, man. Breathe!” Culver had his hands on Halpern’s shoulders. “What is it? Scouts?”

  Halpern shook his head, wincing and gulping for breath.

  Ruah scrambled to her feet. No pain. Strange, that. She grabbed at her hatchet.

  “Not scouts.” Halpern near coughed out the words. “Farmstead. Burned.” He rested his hands on his knees and sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. “Killed everyone. Even the young ones.”

  As she ran the distance up and over the hill and down the long, swaying grass towards the farmstead, Ruah couldn’t help but notice the pain in her leg had eased somewhat, allowing her more freedom of movement than she had experienced before. The pins and needles tingle in the sole of her foot was new. Might have been that was the blood flow Culver was talking about. Might have been he was full of shit too. But that didn’t matter; it felt better, and better was a damn sight preferable to it feeling worse.

  The scene before her was one of blackened ruination, with a wilful smearing of chaos and pain across the small land holding of the farmstead. The stone-and-mud walls of the farmhouse still stood, for the most part. The fire that had raged within had scorched the walls and tumbled one corner, giving Ruah an insight into the smouldering blackness of its heart. The thatched roof had been ravaged by the flames, with the few large beams having collapsed in, leaving the roof yawning wide and black to the cold grey morning sky. The pens around the farmhouse were empty, gates ripped from hinges and stock missing. Several livestock carcasses lay about the sandy dirt yard, slaughtered, their best meat taken on the road. Surprisingly, the barn still stood, only half burned. The flames must have died out after the horde moved on.

  They descended the grassy hillock that surrounded the west side of the farmstead and rounded the farmhouse.

  “Where are they?” Culver asked Halpern as they stopped to regain their breath.

  “Round the front.” Halpern looked up at Culver, his eyes betraying his fear. “It’s not pretty.”

  “I’ve seen ‘not pretty’ before.” Culver set off around the front of the farmhouse.

  Ruah followed, her leg sending her a reminder of what 'not pretty' felt like. She grimaced and bit the inside of her lip to steel herself to the pain, and nearly barged into the back of Culver.

  “Dajda!” he mumbled.

  “What?” Ruah asked, stepping around him and observing the grisly scene.

  She didn’t know whether to vomit or cry, or both. Four figures, descending in size, sat before her. The smallest was about half Ruah's size. Could only have been maybe seven, or eight. Their wrists were bound above their heads to the blackened fence, their lips peeled back to show soot-stained and fractured teeth. “Monsters.”

  “It’s Grunnxe’s way,” Culver said.

  “Spoken like a true patriot,” Ruah replied, her hand covering her mouth, words half-obscured.

  “When a king treats his people like this, there is rarely true patriotism.”

  “We should give them the respect they're due. Don’t you think?” Ruah said.

  “Aye,” Halpern’s voice sounded from behind.

  Ruah turned and saw him take a couple of hesitant steps behind her, his hands wringing in front of his mouth.

  “Think that’s the least we can do for them,” he said, his eyes fixed on the smallest of the forms before them.

  “I’ll check the barn for shovels,” Ruah said. She limped off towards the semi-burn
ed structure, trying to block out the image of the child's heat-cracked white teeth surrounded by the charred lips. She approached the red-painted door that hung on one hinge and looked into the dark. Spears of light shot through from cracks in the roof and walls. Dust motes drifted with a lazy, casual pace, as if nothing untoward had occurred here at all. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. She found an old water barrel filled with tools. She pulled out one, and found nothing but a splintered end of wood. She pulled out another and found a hoe. “Not much pissing use digging with a hoe.” She tossed it into the dark and pulled out another, a good spade this time. “Perfect. That’ll do just–”

  A growl sounded from the dark where she had tossed the hoe.

  Prairie jackal. Ruah took a step backwards, and swung the spade head round behind her shoulder, making ready to strike. The low, rumbling growl sounded again; it was coming closer. She swayed the spade in her hands with anticipation. “Come on!”

  A black, shiny nose peeked out of the dark, followed by a long red-haired snout. White teeth showed from peeled-back lips. The rest of the face appeared now: brown eyes, red, shaggy hair and two sooty brown ears flopping down in triangles to the side of the head.

  Ruah let the spade drop as the dog stepped fully out of the dark.

  Its ears slid nervously back and it lowered its broad head, eyes fixed on her. It edged around to the side, making towards the door to the farmyard. It was missing its hind left leg.

  Ruah reached inside the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the strip of dry beef she had pocketed during breakfast. “Here,” she said, trying to sound friendly. Hadn’t tried that much in the last few years, except with Paw. “Won’t hurt you. Have something to eat.”

  The dog’s tongue slid out and curled about its whiskers, hungry for the morsel.

  “Come on.” Ruah hunkered down, and instantly regretted it as a thread of pain flared up from her knee to the small of her back. She winced, and noticed the dog stepped back at the sight of her discomfort. She forced a smile onto her face and coaxed the dog on again. “Come on, won’t bite. Hope I can say the same for you.” She reached out with the dried beef as the dog edged forward, stretching its mouth towards the meat before backing away once more.