Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  For a moment, he just held the thing in his hands. The battle’s toll finally broke through the battle-black, piling down on his shoulders in an avalanche of pain. No. Stay up, damn you. Don’t fall. But his knees thudded to the ground. Not yet. Just a few more seconds. Suddenly the privateer found himself kissing the ground. You’re supposed to do what I say, he said to his body. I’m warning you right now. If you don’t get on your feet...

  The threat worked. Tired and bloodied the privateer worked his way to the door of his cabin. I am not going to pass out. Far too many victories saw him surrendering to exhaustion. Not now. Not this time. At the door Tolrep looked over his shoulder. The crew was bloodied and weary, and yet they worked their own chores without as much as a curse.

  “To victory!” he shouted, fist pumping the air. The oath was given back a thousand times over. Wounds meant little at the end of battle. They had lived, the enemy died. That was the bargain of war, uncluttered by philosophy or pacifism. Again, the privateer roared the oath and then disappeared into his cabin.

  Within Tolrep gaped. The boat had shaken in so many different directions that the best one could hope for was a scene of destruction. And yet the room was perfect. Not a chair tipped over, not a plank upturned, nothing. Tolrep found himself smiling. Having a manna-driven ship had its advantages. “Thanks,” he whispered to the ship as he dropped into his favorite chair, crossing his ankles at the desk. Having a manna-driven ship definitely had its advantages.

  Gingerly Tolrep opened the scroll. He did not like what it said.

  Mykel LeKym goes to Irismil. Aid him in you can. Everything rides on this.

  Lazarus.

  Tolrep nearly tossed the damn thing out the porthole. One evacuation and another mystical meeting – Tolrep was still puzzled how the old mage had done that – was enough to make them bedfellows? No. Not bedfellows. Master and pawn. The privateer seethed at this pathetic attempt at manipulation. Only...it was Myke they were talking about. That one seemed mired in trouble. And despite himself Tolrep developed a fondness for the one-armed fellow. “For him, old man. Not for you.”

  There was one thing left to do, then. Tolrep opened the cabin door to see the entire deck filled with ravens of every color. And the two noble fops were at the heart of it, scribbling like madmen faster than the crew could bind the message to the bird leg. There had to be a thousand of them, Tolrep realized. A thousand times a thousand.

  “Quite a sight, isn’t it?” Somehow the dwarf had crossed the barrier of raven wings without so much of a ruffled feather in the bargain.

  “Are you sure this will work?”

  “Do we have time to go to every battlefield and convince every soldier the war is already done? It’s the best I can do under the circumstances.”

  The best under the circumstances. The plan was to send the birds off in the shape of a V, which was supposed to mean victory and peace in some ancient dialect. Everyone would know the symbolism and stop the fighting. If a hungry archer was not swifter by just a second. If the message was not ignored. There were a thousand ways the plan could crumble apart. Everything hinged on these birds, and yet Tolrep could not deny DeLuca’s frustration. There was literally no other choice. The privateer watched the sky explode with feathers as the ravens were loosed. He could almost feel the air their wings beat down, the currents on which hope soared. Tolrep remained on the deck until the last raven melted into the horizon and sighed. Back in his cabin a faint power throbbed with anxiety. One battle won, while another waited. The privateer whipped his crew to the ready and set course to Irismil. There was a promise to keep and a friend to save.

  He just hoped Mykel could stay alive in the meantime.

  LXVII

  The snow had slackened in Mint, enough that children were enjoying the play so harshly denied them for endless weeks. Even the adults were out, buoyed by an irrational comfort that the worst of things had passed.

  Sylver felt none of that hope in the Naiaka house. Clothed in imitation swansilk, she watched the children play from the safety of a frosted window. Unbidden a smile came to her lips when a plump boy miscalculated a jump and ended up buried head-first into a mound of snow, his little legs wobbling like a wound-up toy soldier. That might be you in a couple of years, the ranger said to the life growing within. There was a twinge of fear, even in her thoughts. The child’s birth spelled out her death, she knew, but she couldn’t change it. She could make the world a better place for that child, though. That she intended to do.

  It didn’t help that there was so little in which to do. Days and night came and went without answers. How to destroy the Coicro’s stranglehold here? Oliver and his brood were an ever-present threat to the city’s stability, and yet their import was miniscule at best. They had their uses, but even that was in danger of running dry. What was one woman to do against an army? Again the fear climbed her throat, again brought to heel by sheer determination. John would not have sent her if he didn’t believe she was capable. There was an answer, Sylver told herself. Either she would find it, or it would find her.

  If only time was not of the essence!

  The clomping of horse-hooves snapped the ranger from her reverie. It was curiosity as much as caution that made her squint through the frosted panes, and when that failed, led her outside into an ever-growing crowd. Together they waited over an abyss they didn’t fully understand.

  A team of horses emerged from the gloom, quickly followed by a carriage. Majestic as it was, it might as well have been gild and bronze, for it was the lack of a master that drew the eyes of the on-lookers. Whispers spun about its voices, repulsive and attractive at the same time. After a time one of the women poked one of the men, adding a glare that sent the husband creeping towards the wagon inch by inch, hurrying at the irritated grunts of the on-lookers behind him. Sylver had to join in out of necessity; within she was on fire. I don’t see any of you rushing to help him. Typical. People without courage would rather force their duties on another. And then they compare the superiority of an act they never wanted to execute. The worst part was the illusion itself was more tempting than Sylver had counted on.

  “It’s nothing!” The chosen scout dropped from the steps he’d peeked over, relieved and puffed up on a confidence suddenly real upon the threat’s absence. Already the notion warmed the man’s frozen courage as it beckoned the rest of the village to his side, lifted them up to see what he had seen.

  Nothing. The carriage was empty.

  “Is this a joke?”

  “It has to be a prank.”

  “How could the horses know the path?”

  “A joke at a time like this? Ridiculous.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  Abruptly the crowd turned. A tall, broad figure towered over them. His hair glinted silver in the snowfall, cut with such military precision that every strand was sharper than a sword. His eyebrows were dark gray longbows, his nose a squared shield, his teeth white daggers designed to tear and flay. Above all else, his eyes held a flat determination that allowed nothing less than the full completion of his mission. Everything else was a distraction.

  “You’re in deeper shit than I thought. Even the scrubbers know that trick. Of course, that’s to be expected in the countryside. Farmers that don’t know the right end of a stick.”

  Who are you? Sylver wanted to ask, the question shining on every surrounding face. Her role in this act demanded a degree of stealth, so she left the question for the buffoons to answer.

  “Who am I? Sweet Mother of Mercy. I’m the Tactician.” He left the word trailing to bask in some inherit admiration and scowled when it was clear they didn’t know him from an oliphant. “Didn’t your swill-shit mayor tell you?”

  “Magi Ghedd has been dead fo
r a week.” Sylver flinched at the memory. He had been one of the first when the wolves, starved for meat, began attacking the townsfolk. A man at his advanced age had no place in a hunting party, but some need of glory, a reminder of past vigor, had over-ridden common sense. There was nothing honorable in being torn apart piece by piece.

  “Perfect. Just fucking perfect. Which one of you is the fucking replacement? You? Good. We need to talk. Where’s the court?” The question barely lasted beyond the finger of newly-christened Magi Jacob Tizee, stabbing at the shack in question because the man simply didn’t know what else to do. The villagers, jolted from their paralysis by the door’s whining hinges, began to disperse back to their residence. The questions were plain on their faces amidst all the weariness and sorrow. So much had gone astray that the fire within was almost smothered. It was easier to pretend joyous news than to search it out.

  Sylver resigned herself to her seat at the window, peering through the frost. She was not a Weirwynd and it burned not to be so. While the walls of that hovel were impregnable to her eyes, to John’s they would be less than nothing. Once more she railed at her helplessness. Waiting was a fate she resigned to, a fate she took to a thousand times before, yet now it was a cruel fit. It wasn’t enough. Especially if the reports on this Tactician were as graphic as she remembered.

  They called him the Tactician because his was a strategist’s mind. Where other men staggered in defeat, he stepped in and applied a violent solution. There were legends of such exploits, hushed over flickering fires and mugs of warm ale. Revilo. Na’droj. Aliven. Each one attacked by for the resettling of maps and the campaigns that birthed them. The ever-shifting seas of conquest and colonization, deciding who would live and who would die, simply because a new master was forced upon the lands.

  And the Tactician would destroy all that would defy those new masters. It was nothing he hadn’t done before.

  The dawn came all too quickly.

  “My sweet, it is time.” Oliver looked the part of a beggar, one leg stiff to better convince the passerby of a limp; his knobby hands gripping a stout cane so tightly it was difficult to tell where the wood ended and the flesh began. Worst of all was the open grin on his face. He actually enjoyed this little farce, and somehow that was the most pathetic thing of all.

  “This is the most important part,” the Tactician was saying as Sylver joined the huddle. “You must be at this point before three turns of the glass. Once you get there wait for my signal.” His eyes snapped Oliver’s question before it even began and returned to the plan without as much as a whisper in difference. “The signal will be a short series of flashes delivered by mirror.” Suddenly the Tactician leaned towards Oliver, his words pitched low for the other’s ears alone; after which the two rejoined the group. “You think you can handle that, son?”

  “Yes. Yes sir.”

  “Good. Watch your asses. If you die, then this whole mission will be worthless. Good luck and God bless.” Like a phantom he disappeared into the night and was gone.

  “Can you believe it?” Oliver’s smile grew even broader. “I’ve been waiting all my life for this, and it’s happening. It’s finally happening.”

  It took everything Sylver had not to flinch. The man’s eyes were glassy with worship, galvanized with purpose. “My dear, what was it that the Tactician discussed with you?”

  The man blinked as though realizing Sylver was there in the first place. “Oh. I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

  The first of the ranger’s mental alarms flared. “I thought we didn’t keep secrets from one another.”

  “Well yes yes. We don’t keep secrets from each other. We don’t. But this is the exception to the rule.”

  The alarms shirked louder. Oliver was not stable to begin with; something had to change drastically for him to reverse his vows. “Dear. You can tell me –”

  “No!” Oliver shouted, ignorant of the faces that turned upon him. “You will do what I ask without question!” Sylver tensed. This was usually the part where the jumbled mind lashed out at the threats closing in. “Now come. We have a job to do.”

  Idly Sylver wondered if Oliver himself knew the niceties of the plan he was charged with. She would have to be very careful when the scales would tip. And they would tip. Sylver had seen too much to know otherwise.

  The task was simple. Take the path to the neighboring village Naven under the cover of darkness – Naven was important in that it stood a goodly distance away and was isolated enough from the mainland to be relatively immune to the war effort – and there they would meet with a select group of loyalists specifically hand-picked by the Tactician himself. From there they would pretend to be ragged survivors fleeing the war, where they would obtain the equipment necessary for the next part of the plan. Once everything was taken care of, the true work would begin.

  The crawling was the worst part. The night was not yet ready to surrender to the inevitable dawn; there wouldn’t be any light for hours. And yet Sylver kept seeing ghosts of the children she had watched days prior, frolicking with the simple purity only they could enjoy. It seemed ill that one host of children were snug in their beds while she was scrambling like a snake along the road, intent on scaring another to death.

  This is for a good cause, Sylver reminded herself. It didn’t change the fact that deception was the game she played. Somehow that mere truth itched at her more than her first slaying did.

  Their chosen hideaway was already bustling with activity by the time they arrived. “Oh, there you are. Almost didn’t recognize you with that cloak on. Is that new?”

  Harold D’larah. The town’s barber. Gossip hinted that he used imported seal blubber to slick his hair in those wide blades of white he so favored. Had three children and a nose that stayed red no matter the weather. Nicest guy to meet.

  “What are you doing in that robe? It’s soaked through! Here. This will help.”

  Naomi Rolyas. Thin to the point of skeletal, her wizened fingers wove the most amazing crotchets. Not to mention the legends surrounding her apple pie. Some townsfolk thought her a Weirwynd, for no other mortal could produce such heavenly taste. One of those self-same pies – how in the world could she cook that thing with no light or even a fire Sylver never knew – wafted seductively. Sylver didn’t even notice her fingers were juicy until the plain tin case smiled at her. “There now. Got to keep your strength up.”

  Then Oliver came back into her vision, wholly ignorant of the disgust he aroused in her. He was the very picture of one surviving the hell of battle: tattered clothing, bare skin covered in soot, an almost feline crouch and shuffling pace meant to emulate a fractured leg. There was even blood of a sort; whole tomatoes squashed of their juices. Enough to suggest glancing wounds, nothing more. Too much blood would hinder rather than help the disguise.

  Sylver took a deep breath. Protect me John.

  She descended upon the town like the survivor she was playing, fighting the treacherous ice lining the path. Gradually the speed took over, the world jumping and bouncing with each step. Behind her a terrible tremor rose from the mob’s throats, buffeting her shoulders, propelling her forward. Somewhere along the line she discovered her voice amidst the chanting, rising higher and higher as the speed increased. Along her peripherals Sylver saw lanterns sparkling to life among the windows, followed by weary faces jutting from open doors.

  The bulk of the mob stopped at the front gates, wheezing a ragged fatigue that was almost real in of itself. Others kept going, the power of their devotion carrying them along. Sylver found herself at the town square, hands on knees, her breath escaping in sharp, agonizing wheezes.

  Sylver forced herself to breathe. Each pant of breath seared her to the bone, ripping out the vitality instead of restoring it. “No.”
She put one foot forward, then another. The clop of boot on cobblestone was hard, strong. She pulled on the finality of that strength, took solace in it. By the time Sylver returned to Naven’s gates she was strong once more.

  Just as she’d expected, the townsfolk were huddling around the “survivors” and their tales. “It was terrible,” Oliver was saying. “One moment I was picking the pie from the window, and the next there was screaming. So much screaming.”

  “What happened next?” That from a burly man a stout fellow with one eye swollen under a lump of purple flesh. The other was red and rolling about of its own volition. The town magistrate, as his black raiment attested.

  “It was terrible,” Oliver repeated.

  “I’m sure it was. But I wouldn’t press the matter if it weren’t important. What happened next?”

  “The bastards barged in,” Sylver answered, sliding in-between the two men. She had to crane her neck nearly double to meet the magistrate’s gaze, he was so tall. “There were two of them, snarling like savages. They didn’t even say what they wanted. They just came at us...” She hugged herself against a cold already burning her bones. “My Samuel...my dear sweet Samuel...he jumped in front of me...”

  “Then what? Then what happened?”

  “They killed my son. What do you think happened?”

  Finally, the magistrate had nothing to say.

  “The next thing I know the whole town’s screaming. They’re only the vanguard. We had to run. So, we ran. All the way from Bara.”

  The magistrate whistled. “Bara? That’s five leagues to the east.”

  “Distance fades when you’re running for your life.” Even as the words left her Sylver regretted them. Too much defiance would seem out of place for a helpless peasant. “Is there someplace I can rest?”