by Erik A Otto
Baldric jumped to his feet. With one hand he pointed in the direction Jaffee indicated. With the other he placed a cautionary finger against his lips.
They moved through the forest quickly at first, and then Jaffee urged them to slow down and stay low. They peered over the crest of a hill, down to the lip of another pond. There, standing next to the water, was a skinny, naked man. He was pouring a jug of the pond water over a tussled mane of scraggly hair. It dripped off his chest-length beard as well. He didn’t look like he had soap, rather he was grabbing a sandy loam from shallow waters to rub against his skin under his armpits and in his groin area.
“How do you know he’s Sambayan?” Baldric whispered to Jaffee.
“Wait ‘till he turns around.”
Baldric waited and saw what Jaffee was referring to. When he turned around you could see a large mass of puffy flesh hanging around his throat. It was a Sambayan goiter.
“Should we report him to Henly?” Jaffee asked quietly.
Baldric would prefer allowing Henly to make the call, but they might lose the man if they made to leave. “No,” Baldric whispered in response. “Let’s take him, but don’t hurt him.”
They walked over the crest as stealthily as they could. “Not a sound now,” Baldric said, “and fan out so he can’t escape.”
Baldric knew the man would notice them eventually. He hoped they could get close enough to encircle him before he fled. Sure enough, when they were half way down the hill, the man’s head jerked up at them. He dropped his jug and immediately bolted into the forest, shedding drops of water in all directions like a wet dog shaking its fur.
They were ready, of course. The ten of them followed, bounding down the hill and continuing to fan out further. There was only one opening for the Sambayan to escape, and he took it.
“Stay wide,” Baldric huffed at the men. “He’ll have to turn eventually.”
The man was in good shape, and wasn’t tiring. The terrain became pebbly, then stony, and eventually the rocks became large boulders that his men had to navigate around.
The naked man ducked behind boulders, and up hills, but his men kept track of him.
“He’s on the right. I see him!”
“He’s turning left, behind that rock!”
Some of Baldric’s men were gaining on him, others were left behind. Hanna, one of the toughest privates in his sub-squad, was closest to the man, only a few feet away. She called out as she ran, “This way. He’s right here. Follow me.”
Baldric navigated around another boulder. Then another. He nearly twisted his ankle when he slipped over a patch moss in a small cleft. “Watch your step,” he called out. He didn’t want any of his men made lame from chasing a single naked Sambayan.
He slowed to a stop around the next boulder. Below him was a broad fissure in the rock that led to a dark opening. Hanna was standing in front, her axe at the ready. Darian was already with her, as was another private. “He’s in there,” Hanna said. “I thought we should go in together.”
“Good idea,” Baldric responded.
Baldric hovered at the entrance, peering into the gloom beyond the mossy contour of stone.
“What’re we waiting for?” Clyve said, finally catching up and then waltzing right past Baldric into the cave. Baldric clenched his teeth, annoyed at Clyve’s irreverence.
But Clyve was right; they shouldn’t be idle. Baldric unsheathed his sword and said, “Let’s go.”
Once they entered, their eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, allowing them to make out the finer details of the cave. The roof was one immense slanted slab of rock, and the walls were collections of boulders and sediment. The ground was flat in the middle, cleared of debris and well-trodden. The cave curved around a large boulder on their right.
Clyve had waited on the inside, showing at least a modicum of good sense to not go any further without the rest of them. They formed a line four across and crept around the curvature of the tunnel. It went down a shallow grade, and then rose again.
A waft of pungent air hit his nose. It smelled rank, like body odor. Then there was light ahead.
The tunnel opened up into a broader cavern. Here wyg lamps were brightening several precincts of the chamber. Signs of settlement were everywhere; rough beds lined up along the far side, a heap of trash in one corner, a half-butchered antelope on a spit, and, of course, there were the Sambayans.
There looked to be eleven of them, all tense, all staring back at them with fear and desperation. The man from the pond was there, still naked, oblivious to his exposed genitals, but now brandishing a scabber. A large one-armed man was standing next to him, his face lined with a double scar. He was holding what looked like a well-forged sword. Another man had an axe beside him, and a woman held a makeshift mace made out of wood, twine and stone. There were also three women behind the armed Sambayans, with two children clinging to their legs. In the back, an offshoot to the cave could be seen climbing up into the gloom. There he could make out a man and a woman pulling at stones and moving them aside, as if there might be a way out through the jumble of rock.
“You’re outmatched,” Baldric said firmly. “We’re with the Thelonian army. We are well trained, and fully armed. Surrender and you won’t be harmed.”
He couldn’t know if they understood Belidoran. The Sambayans looked to the one-armed man with the heavy sword, as if seeking guidance. The one-armed man, in turn, was staring down Baldric and his men, gauging their intent, perhaps looking for weaknesses. He slowly shook his head left to right and crouched down in an attack position.
The other Sambayans also tensed. The naked hairy man—the one they’d chased—winced as if about to break down in tears, but he also braced for combat. One of the children in the back started to cry. All the while the two Sambayans in the back corner pulled away loose stones. These would occasionally role down onto the floor in front of them.
But why would they want to attack? Couldn’t they see it was hopeless?
The one-armed man charged them first, headed for Jaffee. Jaffee was surprised by the move. He tried to parry the blow but it was too strong—it knocked his blade out of his hand. Jaffee reached for a dagger in his belt but before he could grab it the one armed man impaled him in his gut.
The other Sambayans also began charging.
Baldric, Clyve and Henna received them first, while a private moved up from the back to take Jaffee’s place.
The woman with the mace was heading for Baldric. He stepped aside and her weapon clobbered the dirt where he’d been standing. He managed to smash the pommel of his sword on her head, knocking her down to the ground.
To his right he saw Hanna sparring with the man with the axe. Their two axe blades were hooked together and she was pushing him farther into the room. They knocked over the spitted antelope and the Sambayan tumbled to the ground.
“Look out!” Clyve yelled, and Baldric heard blades clashing behind him. He turned to his left to see Clyve deflecting a blow from the one-armed man that was directed squarely at Baldric’s neck.
The one-armed man’s second victim lay a few feet away. This man was not to be underestimated.
Baldric joined Clyve, hacking down at the one-armed man. Their assailant danced away but couldn’t avoid Clyve’s blow that came from the opposite angle. Clyve’s blade sliced neatly into the man’s good shoulder, causing him to call out in pain before releasing his hold on his sword. After falling to his knees, he managed to regain his blade. He held it limply in his only hand as he scrambled backwards until he was against a wall.
With the one-armed man temporarily neutralized, Baldric turned back to assess the situation. More of his men had flowed in from the back. They were better able to assert their strength in numbers.
The woman with the mace was subdued, with a Thelonian blade held at her throat. Her hands still held her head from Baldric’s blow. The hairy naked one they’d chased had succumbed to a crossbow bolt to his chest. He lay listless on the floor, w
ith another one of Baldric’s men hovering over him. His eyes still had life, but barely, and probably not for long. The Sambayan who’d wielded the axe lay dead, his head cleaved at the temple, with Hanna standing over him. Darian and another of Baldric’s men were encroaching on the two who were digging out the back tunnel. They had stopped their digging and were turning to defend themselves, brandishing short daggers.
All the while, in the back, intertwined with a woman’s leg, a little girl still cried in piercing screams. The woman with her was desperately trying to shush her.
“Enough of this!” Baldric yelled. He pointed his sword at the one-armed man on the floor, who he presumed was their leader. “Yield!”
The one armed man looked about the room. His jaw was clenched, but he no longer had the same verve in his eyes. His gaze lingered to the man and the woman who had been digging out the back, and then to the child crying. Finally he looked at the sword in his hand.
He was having trouble holding the weapon. It was as if his fingers could no longer form a proper grip. Perhaps Clyve’s wound had damaged the tendons in his arm. Nevertheless, using mostly his palm and his foot he managed to place the sword onto the ground in front of him, with the blade pointing up. He said, “unhen apako le jaane na den.” Then he heaved his body forward, splitting his chest open onto his blade.
Baldric cringed and looked away.
When he forced himself to look back to the scene the two in the back of the tunnel had brought blades to their throats. “No, no!” Darian said, lunging for them, but he wasn’t quick enough. Their blades crossed their necks and red coursed down onto the rocks. Soon after their eyes faded, and they toppled onto the boulders they’d only recently unearthed.
Baldric’s heart was beating erratically. What was wrong with these people? “Take them.” Baldric barked, pointing to the only remaining survivors. “Tie them up and seize any weapons before they gut themselves.”
They followed his orders. There was only the woman with the mace that still held a weapon, and she was in no state to use it. The naked man had died.
As his men tended to the prisoners Baldric searched throughout the cavern to see what he could find. He was still breathing in tight gasps, trying to calm himself after the charged battle.
There were no hidden exits, and he couldn’t find any papers on them of any kind. He found a few Sambayan books, but they didn’t look like anything connected to the war. One had a picture of a sailboat drawn on it, and another buildings of Ghopal. A third was clearly the Sambayan equivalent of the Book of Canons.
When he’d finished scanning the extent of the chamber, he came back and kneeled down in front of the prisoners. He moved slowly, with his hands open and apart, trying to not look hostile. The girl was still crying, her wailing fierce and loud. Being bound probably wasn’t helping but he wasn’t going to give them any more opportunities to kill themselves.
Baldric shimmied up closer to her. “We’re not here to hurt you,” he said quietly.
She didn’t relent. The girl had tattered hair, and a dirty face, but her eyes were a vibrant green. She also wore a pendant. It was a carving of something feline, maybe a cougar. The cougar was lying in sleep, and an infant cub was nestled under its paw.
“You have beautiful eyes,” Baldric said, “and I like your pendant.” As he pointed to it she stopped crying. Her mother said something in Sambayan, and she winced. Then, with her hands still bound, she took off the pendant and handed it to him. Baldric didn’t take it though. Instead he closed her hand over it, pushed the hand back, and smiled at her. “No, this belongs to you. Don’t ever let anyone take it from you.”
He didn’t know if she understood, but she fastened the pendant to her neck again. And finally, after a few more sobs and heaves, she stopped weeping.
After a few moments of welcome silence, Baldric addressed one of the women who’d been harboring the children. “Please. Tell us why you’re hiding here. There was no need for this conflict. We aren’t here to hurt peaceful citizens.”
She shook her head and pointed to her mouth. “No Belidoras.”
“Anyone speak Belidoran?” He glanced about the room.
The two other women shook their heads.
There was only one way to find out more. There was a man in Henly’s main squad that spoke Sambayan. He would be able to help.
Baldric addressed his men. “Hanna, Ward, report to Henly. He’ll want to see this, all of this, and ask him to bring the translator.” When they acknowledged him and left, Baldric turned away from the Sambayans, and from his men, and let out an extended sigh. His breath sizzled as it escaped through his clenched teeth.
Henly camped the rest of the regiment near the cave for the next two days. They searched the environs but found nothing; no other Sambayans, no signs of flight. There weren’t even any homes nearby that these cave dwellers could have come from.
Henly chose to interrogate the Sambayans on his own. He told Baldric the Sambayans would be escorted to one of the main refugee centers to be connected with other families and resettled. He commended Baldric and his sub-squad for their valor and said they should take time to rest and reflect. So that’s what they did. They had little else to do those days by the pond.
Reflecting gave Baldric no joy, nor any relief.
He kept thinking, what did these people fear so much that death was the only escape?
He’d been told time and again to expect the unexpected. The day they met the scout was one for sure, and here was another. But no matter how many times he told himself it was all part of the engine of war, that it was just a random blip of violence attributed to chance, somehow it didn’t fit. Even in the confines of combat there was a code. Some had a code of honor, others actions were based on survival instincts, but not this; rational people weren’t supposed to act this way.
And it was his first real skirmish. He’d been worried he would come home empty handed, with no medals, no tangible contribution to the war effort, and no account of struggle against their heinous enemy. The farther they made it east, with so few Sambayan’s left, it was looking like his service would be a non-event, an honorless vacuum.
Now he had wet his sword, as they say in the league barracks. Yet he couldn’t imagine telling Father, or even his friends. They had chased down a half-naked man to a nest of Sambayans. His men slaughtered most of them. The rest decided to haphazardly kill themselves in lieu of surrender. All the while a child was wailing in the background. And for what? To capture three refugee women and two children that were horribly traumatized? Did they even manage to collect any intelligence from the survivors? Baldric doubted it, and Henly wasn’t inclined to share.
It was hard to see how the army was better off. These Sambayans were just scared. They were scared, desperate people, and they killed them.
No, that’s not a story to bring back to his friends. It’s not a story for Bartholomew Bronté to recount to his business colleagues about his valiant sons.
It’s a story that should never be told.
Chapter 13
The Naustic
She couldn’t help but smile as she saw the fence with Matteo’s moon carved into it. She knew beyond it was the farm where she’d harvested wheat one summer. Soon she would be able to smell the Pappas family pig stys before the turn south into Albondo.
Nala had no regrets about her decision to tell the Purveyor about the ruin. She was elated to be away from Round Top and even more overjoyed to be back in Belidor again.
“Why is it that it’s only you coming to Albondo to see the ruin?” she asked the Purveyor. “Won’t you need a lot of people to take the silverstone away?” She had been posing many questions along the way. The Purveyor never seemed to tire of them.
This time the Purveyor countered with a question of his own. “Have you ever seen more than two Fringe traveling together?”
“No.”
“That’s because we know that Belidorans are intimidated by seeing us in numbers.
If they see a band of ten or fifteen Fringe, they will think us an organized naustic threat, but just two are seen as misguided heathen drifters. This is why I come with you to chart the path and verify the claim. We will then pass it on to the appropriate people to exploit it, two by two.”
“Why is it that you Fringe aren’t worried about what you’ll find? The Canons say the ruins are unholy places—that if you stay in one for long you could be tainted forever.”
“The Canons also say that silverstone is tainted, and yet the Sandaliers allow the armies of Belidor to tolerate its use. No Nala, obviously we don’t believe what it says in the Canons about ruins. It’s just another mine, like a bone mound, to be exploited and sold. I know of no man who has been flung into the Rim of Fire or been stricken down by Matteo for exploiting a mine. We have older records in our Fringe Arcana that speak of strange beasts and other dangers lurking in these ruins, but we haven’t encountered anything like that. I should say, however, that there is only one other silverstone ruin that I have seen in my lifetime, and the mining of it was mostly complete by the time I had a chance to visit.”
“The Canons also say these silverstone ruins were made by the heathen Forefathers—that the Shepherd liberated us from them. Do you believe that?”
“We do believe there were people here before, but we don’t believe them to be heathen—or at least any worse than people that live today. And since we Fringe are considered heathen by most, it’s hard for us to think of the Forefathers as any different. Maybe they were simply naustic but meant no ill will, like us Fringe.”
Nala had to refrain from telling him what most people actually thought about the Fringe. She bit her lip, and it temporarily stemmed her tide of questions.
“Tell me about how you found the ruin,” the Purveyor said. Perhaps he wanted to change the subject. Or maybe he was just trying to get in a question of his own.
