by Anthony Ryan
“What places?”
“Places you were always going to go. Just as you and I were always going to find ourselves standing here at this moment. In time, we will find ourselves in another place, and there you will repay your debt.”
She moved away from the cart, starting back towards her shelter, then pausing at my side. The pleasant scent of summer assailed me once again as she leaned close, whispering in her flowing, perfect voice, “The next service you require of me will entail a far greater debt. Be sure you’re willing to pay it.”
She said no more, even though I called after her, “How will I find you?” Crouching, she entered her shelter, sealing the entrance. The hide covering seemed a flimsy thing but I knew it was shut as tight as any dungeon door.
Brewer slept for all the following day and night, awakening come the morn with no recollection beyond our journey from the battlefield. Supplicant Delric insisted on spending several hours in close study of Brewer’s person. He said little, as was customary, but his face betrayed evident mystification and no small measure of suspicion, neither of which was abated by my bland explication.
“He just got better, Supplicant.” Delric continued to scowl wordlessly in the face of my smile as I added, “A miracle, you might say. Perhaps the Seraphile chose to reward one so faithful in his devotion to the Covenant.”
The healer’s gaze narrowed further but, for reasons unsaid, he made no further enquiry. Also, to my relief, neither Sergeant Swain nor Evadine appeared to be aware of this apparent miracle and so I was spared a barrage of potentially hazardous questions.
Much of the king’s host had dispersed by then, the churls released back to their farms and the nobles to their castles. Covenant Company, however, lingered, for our now famed captain had volunteered to clear away the many bodies still littering the ground.
“The holy rites of the Covenant will not be denied to the fallen,” she told us, “be they honoured friend or condemned foe.”
In addition to the hacked, stiffened and rapidly putrefying remains suffering the attentions of the crows on the field, there were also dozens of corpses crowding the riverbank. Either slain by vengeful nobles or claimed by the river, they had been carried by the current to wash up on shore for over a mile downstream. Our troop was chosen to drag these unfortunates clear of the water so that they too might receive rites before being consigned to one of the half-dozen mass graves we had dug. In some ways it was almost as unpleasant a task as fighting in the battle itself, for water does vile things to a body while also carrying away much of the loot we might otherwise have garnered.
“Oh, Scourge take you, you dead bastard!” Toria’s curses were muffled by the arm she clamped over her face as one particularly bloated corpse disgorged a miasma of truly noteworthy foulness from a gaping wound in its chest.
“Mind your tongue,” Ofihla told her, though not with the curt snap she employed when rebuking the rest of us. “You heard the captain: respect the fallen.”
“I’d respect these stinkers more if they had a single coin between them,” Toria muttered as the Supplicant moved off.
“Here,” Brewer grunted, dragging another body through the reeds fringing the bank. This one had been a hale fellow in life, long of limb and well muscled with it, not that his bulk troubled Brewer at all. Since waking he appeared to have acquired a limitless energy as well as a ready smile. “He’s still got his purse.”
“You don’t want it?” Toria asked, squinting up at Brewer as she crouched at the corpse’s side, hands busy on his belt.
“Wealth is frippery,” Brewer said with a sniff, a quote from one of the sermons Evadine had given when we’d consigned another batch of dead to the earth. He raised his face to the sky, smiling as the sun played on his skin before wading back into the current, whistling a jaunty tune as he snagged another corpse.
“Much preferred him as a miserable sod,” Toria said, her face souring further as she emptied the purse’s contents into her palm. “Four sheks and a quartet of dice. My fortune is made.”
She glanced up at me as I rifled the pockets of a far less impressive figure, rake thin, gapped of tooth and mean of garb. His hands were calloused from a life of fieldwork and it seemed unlikely he would provide any pickings of worth. Yet, when I dragged the thin leather shoe off his foot, a bright silver sovereign dropped into my hand, much to Toria’s disgust.
“You lucky fuck.” She frowned, watching me shrug and consign the sovereign to my own purse. “Could buy a horse with that and still have change, maybe two since there’ll be plenty for sale after all this.”
I said nothing. The suggestion in her words was obvious but not one I was willing to entertain.
“Brewer’s turned cheerful and you’ve gone all misery-balls,” Toria persisted, lowering her voice to a careful mutter. “Ever since we met that witch.”
“Taking part in a slaughter is likely to change a man,” I told her, though in truth I was aware of the reason for my reticence over the past couple of days. I’d spent what spare hours we’d had poring over the pages of the Sack Witch’s book, finding nothing I understood but still scarcely able to take my eyes from it. Something about the curved elegance of the text and the enigma of the many baffling pictograms compelled me in a way books I could actually read did not.
“Do we still have a plan?” Toria pressed, leaning across the corpse that separated us, face hard and intent. “I meant what I said: I am not fighting another battle.”
“I know,” I said. “And yes, we still have a plan, but it requires us to stay soldiers, for a while at least.” I thought for a second then reached for my purse, extracting the sovereign and tossing it to her. “Take some payment on account if it’ll still your worries.”
Her face bunched in consternation as she looked at the coin and then at me. “This buys a few months, but no more. You and I are fast running out of rope, Alwyn.”
More placatory words might have come to my lips had we not been provided a welcome distraction in the form of a loud fracas further along the bank. Rising, I saw Wilhum delivering a hard shove to the chest of a wiry trooper named Tiler. The noble’s face was hard with a forbidding mix of anger and grief.
“Get away from him, you filthy cur!” he snarled. Tiler, by far the weaker fellow, quailed for a moment before taking sudden heart as a group of comrades came to his side, lifting him from the mud.
“Got no rights to put hands on me!” Tiler shouted back, drawing an affirmative murmur from his helpers. “You’re no fucking lord now!”
“Leave it,” Toria cautioned as I started forward. “A beating might do the popinjay some good.”
“I doubt this lot will stop at a beating,” I returned. “And I didn’t get him off that field to watch him die.”
Tiler and his clutch of friends were edging forwards as I approached, he reaching for his dagger while the others balled their fists. My forcefully cheerful greeting caused them to pause but not retreat.
“What’s this about, then?”
Tiler scowled at me while the others were more wary. I had been seen often enough in the captain’s company to mark me out as holding a small measure of favour, but not actual authority.
“Piss off, Scribe,” Tiler hissed. However, his voice was muted and his gaze averted. Evidently, he knew my type and I knew his. Like me, he had been one of those to swear to the company in Callintor, but the fact that I had only a vague recollection of his face marked him as a fellow who liked to keep to the shadows.
I regarded him for a silent second or two, seeing how he failed to meet my eye, before turning to Wilhum. The noble bore no arms but stood in readiness for combat, fists raised in a manner that indicated he knew how to use them. At his back, the body of a large man lay on the bank. Looking closer I saw the gleam of plate armour through the muck that covered it. A knight then. Something in the set of the man’s slumped bearing stirred a sense of recognition and I moved closer, looking at the pale features pressed into the mud. Death wil
l rob a face of much that makes it recognisable, so it took a moment of frowning concentration before I realised I knew these broad, blocky features.
“Sir Eldurm,” I muttered. So, he found his glory but not his reward.
I should have been relieved. This meant one less enemy at my back. One less noose awaiting my neck. Instead, I could only think of all the hours spent with this man in his chamber, all that time composing letters to a woman who couldn’t or wouldn’t love him in the manner he craved. Even though Gulatte would have strung me up in a heartbeat, I felt he deserved a better end than drowning among rebels at the apex of a battle that had already been won.
Glancing over my shoulder, I fixed Tiler with the kind of stare he and I knew well: the promise of a final warning. “Fuck off,” I told him with icy precision. He cast a glance at his supporters, but their prior aggression had now evaporated in favour of returning their attentions to rifling easier pickings among the other corpses. Tiler dared a final sour grimace in my direction before trudging away.
“The captain said you were friends,” I commented to Wilhum as he turned back to Gulatte’s body. “The three of you, when you were young.”
Wilhum gave no reply beyond a stiff nod, his gaze fixed on the dead knight’s bleached, dirt-spattered face.
“Well then,” I said, moving to take hold of Gulatte’s arms, teeth gritted as I dragged his feet clear of the water. “Let’s get him seen to.”
The task was done by noon the next day, Evadine calling the company together to hear her final sermon for the dead. In all, we had filled four mass graves with eight hundred and forty-three corpses, each one counted and entered in the company books by my own hand. The scant nobles among them were named along with a score of men-at-arms known to Sergeant Swain or the other Supplicants. Most were put into the earth with no record made beyond a tally mark in a ledger few eyes would ever see.
Sir Eldurm Gulatte was duly recorded as having died heroically in the final charge before being laid to rest in full armour, his gauntleted hands set atop the pommel of the sword placed upon his chest. Wilhum had taken great pains to clean and polish every scrap of his dead friend’s plate, reacting with considerable harshness to Toria’s suggestion that it and his sword would be worth a great deal to the right buyer. I thought it noteworthy that we found no sign of Sergeant Lebas or any of Gulatte’s men-at-arms among the dead. If they had survived the battle it seemed their loyalty didn’t extend beyond their lord’s demise. I assumed they were already off seeking employment elsewhere or heading back to the Pit Mines to beseech their new owner for a return to their prior roles.
Evadine had come to stand with Wilhum after we’d laid Gulatte to rest, the two joining hands as they stood vigil over their fallen friend until I heard Wilhum say in a strained murmur, “I always thought he would be the one to bury us, Evvie.”
Her only reply was to squeeze Wilhum’s hand before issuing an order to cover the bodies. With the last grave filled in she had the company form ranks to observe funeral rites. Her sermon was unusual in being a recitation from one of the Martyr Scrolls, the questions asked by Martyr Ahlianna of the heathen king who would subsequently execute her for spurning his offer of marriage.
“‘Is it our blood that divides us, great king? No, for the blood in my veins is as red as yours, and, I assure you, runs just as hot. Is it our speech? No, for with time all tongues can be learned, and few are the souls not enlightened in the learning. It is faith that sets us apart. The faith that closes my heart to yours for I cannot love what is incapable of love. Only those who accept the Covenant between the Seraphile and the earthbound, in heart, body and soul, can know true love.’”
The captain paused, lowering her gaze to the freshly dug earth concealing the corpses beneath. The wind swept her hair from her face, revealing the unscarred, unspoilt beauty she remained. Despite crossing swords with the Pretender himself and her vicious melee with the turncoat knights, she hadn’t suffered a single cut.
I saw her draw breath to say more but whatever it may have been was forever lost, for she turned towards the sound of approaching horses. A small party of knights crested the rise to the south, reining their mounts to a halt a hundred paces off, the king’s banner rising from their midst.
“Our business here is concluded,” Evadine told us. “Go now and spend the day at rest. Sergeant Swain, with me if you please.”
The company began to disperse, wandering away to their tents or small amusements, but I lingered to watch as Evadine and the sergeant strode off towards the knights. They all wore the livery of Crown Company, my eye making out the brass eagle on the breastplate of the knight at the forefront of the party. I found it odd that Sir Althus and the other knights wore full armour. Surely there was no one left to fight.
As Evadine and Swain halted to greet him with a bow, Sir Althus raised his visor and unfurled a scroll. I saw how the sergeant tensed at the obvious insult of the knight commander failing to respond by dismounting to offer a bow of his own. Raising the scroll with formal stiffness, Sir Althus began to read, the words brief and too distant to make out. Upon finishing he leaned forward to proffer the document to Evadine, which she accepted, taking her time over reading it while the knight commander maintained what appeared to me an overly rigid composure. After reading the scroll, Evadine spoke. I could catch the inflection of a question but not the content. Whatever she had asked, it brought a hard frown to Sir Althus’s brow and a series of clipped responses. Once again, the words were lost to me but not to Sergeant Swain, who exploded in anger.
“What worthless cur has spoken so?” he demanded, face dark with murderous intent as he started towards the knight commander, a hand on his sword. The rest of the king’s knights instantly bridled, guiding their mounts to spread out, gauntleted hands reaching for swords and maces.
“Hold up!” I shouted, raising a hand and calling out to the company. “Look to the captain!”
Brewer, predictably, was the first to respond, drawing his falchion and letting out a loud growl, which was soon echoed throughout the ranks. The Supplicants shouted no orders and yet the company assembled itself into troops with unconscious automation, spreading to form a well-ordered line. The angry murmur built as they hefted their weapons. The Traitors’ Field had provided little monetary wealth but had been rich in arms and armour. I had procured myself a well-made halberd in place of my billhook, as had many others, along with plenty of swords and axes.
The thicket of steel caught the midday sun as we faced the knights. I saw how they exchanged glances, picturing the nervous faces behind their visors. We had fought their kind now and knew them not to be invincible. Also, they were outnumbered by at least ten to one. But there would be no second battle on the Traitors’ Field that day, much to my regret, for I felt it the best chance I would ever get to settle accounts with Sir Althus Levalle.
“Silence in the ranks!” Evadine’s voice rang out, clear and sharp, with a note of angry reproach that quelled our ugly murmuring. She surveyed us with a forbidding glare, letting her gaze linger on several faces, my own included. Her ire was such that I found myself resisting the urge to bow in contrition. Instead, I met her gaze squarely, seeing it narrow in response before she turned back to the knight commander.
By some trick of the wind I managed to catch her reply as she furled the scroll she held and bowed. “My thanks, my lord. Please convey my deepest respects to the king and my gratitude for entrusting Covenant Company with this most vital mission.”
Sir Althus straightened in the saddle, his gaze tracking over our ranks until, inevitably, it found me. As with Lorine, it would have been far smarter to have remained anonymous, but I had marked myself by calling out and further attracted his notice by virtue of Evadine’s prolonged glare. In place of the instant shock of recognition I had seen on Lorine’s face, Sir Althus’s heavy features were drawn in confusion. He might have had difficulty in recalling my face, but I had none in remembering the man who had saved me from
mutilation and hanging only to lock me in the pillory. I should have lowered my head and stepped back into the concealing crowd but found I couldn’t. Vengeance exerted its perverse grip once again, keeping me in place to return his scrutiny in full until at last I saw the memory dawn. I wanted him to know I lived. I wanted him to know I had not forgotten.
Sir Althus made further contrast with Lorine by making no pretence of ignoring me once recollection dawned, a smile appearing on his lips as he inclined his head, the greeting a long-parted friend might offer another. I didn’t return the gesture, which seemed to amuse him more.
“I’ll fare you well then, my lady,” he told Evadine with a laugh, finally consenting to bow but remaining in the saddle as he did so. “You might want to spend what funds the council gives you on furs. I hear it gets cold up there.”
He laughed again, shooting a final glance in my direction, then wheeled his horse about and departed at the gallop. His no doubt relieved knights followed swiftly, apparently deaf to the catcalls and insults my more foolish comrades cast in their wake.
“Shut your yapping!” Swain snarled, his sergeant’s voice effortlessly reaching the ears of all present and bringing an instant silence. “Break camp and prepare to march within the hour!” I had seen him angry many times, but the lividity of his face told of a previously unseen depth of rage. “And if any of you voices a single complaint, I’ll see your backbone come nightfall!”
For the second time the company dispersed, but with far greater alacrity. I waited until most had cleared the field before daring to approach the sergeant. He stood watching Evadine mount her grey charger, his face less red but his lingering rage evident in the hard stare he turned on me. “What is it, Scribe?”
“Our destination, Supplicant Sergeant,” I said. “For the company log. Upon commencement of a day’s march the destination is to be recorded along with distance to be covered. It’s stipulated in the company rules, as I’m sure you recall.”
I was ready for a rebuke, possibly physical in nature, but Swain just let out a heavy sigh. It seemed my efforts on the field, including saving the captain’s life, might have won me a measure of indulgence, but not particular regard.
