by T. C. Edge
With me, of course, he's required to observe the proper protocol, bowing abruptly as I near, and cutting short a brief reprimand of a young worker, who scuttles away as soon as his attention turns to me.
"Mistress Herald," he says. "What are the likes of you doing in this part of the camp?"
As I've come to expect from certain parties, he delivers the right words, but in the wrong manner. A very clear undertone to show his aversion or, at the least, slight disrespect for my elevation and ownership of such a lofty position.
"I'm sure you know, Master...?"
I leave the question open for him to fill in.
"Curly, Mistress," he says. "Though I'm no master."
"Right, Curly," I say, eyes looking to his hair. It's balding now in a couple of spots, but what remains does have an obvious twirl to it. Like a nickname that stuck when he had plenty of hair, now rather more redundant. "Well, I'm here to check on one of the workers. I'm sure you know who."
"Oh yes, sure. The Overseer was down here this morning checking in. What a lucky boy to have such friends."
"Lucky wouldn't be my word," I say, looking over the slaves. They're all in various states of decrepitude, mostly filthy from their days work and, if my senses don't deceive me, smelling like they haven't washed in some time.
"Well, you know what I mean," grunts Curly.
"Yes. Anyway, I wanted to check to see if he was doing OK. I heard there was some trouble yesterday."
"Ah yes, bit of that. Few workers got killed in the raids. Teething problems most likely. We're still clearing the lands to make any enemy approach more obvious, more easily spottable. Much harder when there are trees about."
"I'm sure. And Jude is OK?"
"Yes, Mistress, he's quite all right. Been working hard, actually, since he came back from his nice long rest."
"That wasn't a rest," I say angrily. "He was beaten half to death, and was recovering in the infirmary."
"Apologies, Mistress. You know what I meant."
"Hmmmm..."
"Anyhow, strong boy, and doesn't let anyone down. Always up for it if I call for any volunteers for the more dangerous jobs. He's, er, out there now actually. Due a break, but he's working hard."
"Where is he?" I ask, my voice tight.
Curly's eyes dance up towards the edge of the workers camp, looking towards a spot that, if my sense of direction is right, isn't too far from the front side of the city facing our way. "Over that way," he says. "Few soldiers came around, needed extra workers to help out there. Jude's hand was first to go up."
I frown. Why would he put himself in danger like that? Why...
"Look Curly," I say, all but grabbing the guy, who stands a fair bit taller than me, by the neck. "If Jude asks again to volunteer for anything, you ignore him, OK? I don't want him leaving this camp again, you hear me?"
The man frowns. For a Herald to make such an effort for a simple worker must be simply unheard of. Of course, he'll know all about my past, and might even know that Jude was the one who accompanied me to Olympus for the first time, but still. It's an unusual situation.
He has no option but to agree, though does so non-verbally with a nod, rather than any spoken words. In fact, he looks quite perturbed by the request, almost angered he's going to have to lose one of his best workers to more menial, camp-based work.
"Well, good," I say, having my order obeyed. It's hardly the sort of leadership Perses tasked me to perform, but it'll do for now.
I leave the camp at that, deciding that going out there looking for Jude would seem a bit ridiculous, and that he'd probably hate the special treatment too. It would be akin to a mother marching up to her son's school, embarrassing him in front of the other kids.
Of course, it was probably all a bit unnecessary, seeing as Elian's working to have Kovas consent to the same arrangement. But still, I'd rather make my face known to the likes of Curly myself, providing my own veiled threats should I find that Jude has been sent out to endure the more dangerous roles among the workers.
No matter if he wants it or not.
I march back towards Black Thunder at that, to find Elian emerging from the command tent. Spotting me, he rushes over.
"Done," he says, grinning.
"What? Oh..."
"Yep. Jude'll be kept in camp from now on. So long as you stop questioning Herald Kovas, that is. Do what he says, and your friend will be fine."
My eyes move towards the command tent. I get the sense of a figure watching from the shadows of the doorway. "Er...sure," I say. "I'll keep the peace."
"Excellent," Elian smiles. "In that case, we're to keep training. Another session tomorrow?"
I nod, the explosions still ringing out in the distance. Within the darkening skies, the cloud of smog above the city is growing more obvious now. "Assuming we sleep well enough," I say. "Any idea how long that's gonna go on for?"
"As long as it takes," Elian says. "It's quiet enough inside. Shouldn't stop you being able to rest."
"No, I suppose not."
I start moving off, and find Elian's eyes tracing my step as I head back towards Black Thunder. I get the sense that he's hoping I'll invite him in, have him stay with me as we did before. It was...nice to have company at night, that short period where we started to get along so well a nice memory for me.
But, in truth, it's no more than that right now. Just a memory. Not something that's likely to be repeated any time soon.
No, that ship has temporarily sailed. I have no idea if it'll ever return to port again.
As I reach my quarters, and prepare to step inside, I turn a final time to look out across the camp. My eyes fall upon the command centre once more. Past the threshold, and down the short corridor beyond, I sense, again, the figure looking on.
A feeling of foreboding fills me.
This deal I've struck, it is positive in a way, but only if I stay on a leash. In reality, all I've done is put myself in chains, lashing me to Kovas's orders and demands, Jude nothing but collateral, his life hanging in the balance.
After all, he is a heretic, and he has been branded Defiant. If Kovas desires it, he has every right within the law to see Jude executed for those crimes.
With a heavy thud of realisation, I glance up into the shadows of that corridor. And there, I'm sure, I see the glint of a toothy smile looking back.
97
I stand atop the wall, my eyes staring upon the murk beyond. Haven, hidden amid the dusty cloud of smog, has been given little respite over the past few days. Three days and counting, I think. I wonder how long they can last...
The last few days have entered into an almost familiar pattern. Aside from the permanence of the camp, and the constant sound of distant bombing, my time has been spent training, preparing, and, now that we're on the enemy's doorstep, entering into war meetings.
The latter have been performed each morning, the leaders among the army providing any nightly updates, orders being passed on by Kovas to those best suited to fulfil them. For me and Elian, that has simply been to continue our training, something I'm at least accustomed to. For others, including Dianna - perhaps, I imagine, as a means of keeping her onside - duties of various importance have been handed down. The result is a slightly more harmonious camp, Kovas's rule no longer being so liberally challenged or questioned.
Thankfully, there hasn't been anything to challenge as yet, making my new shackles slightly more comfortable to wear.
Keeping quiet, and staying in line is, after all, a lot more simple when there's nothing to complain about.
Those days, therefore, forge us into a slightly more united front, our collective attention being turned to the single task set to us by the Prime. It may be, in many ways, a front in itself - certainly, my lingering doubts and mistrusts aren't likely to go away any time soon - but it at least gives the impression of a single entity, combining our efforts to defeat our assigned enemy.
Now, with the morning on our fifth full day in camp gettin
g into full swing, and with my training session with Elian not due until this afternoon, I stand atop the wall, finally feeling strong enough to look upon the city once more. Before, it stood intact, though hardly visible due to the limitations of my eyesight. Now, it's no longer intact, but remains hardly visible due to both the aforementioned eyesight constraints, and the fact that there's a great big cloud of smoke hovering around it.
I do, however, get the odd glimpse through the fog, the wall coming into view occasionally, or the nearer buildings beyond appearing before my set of standard, un-augmented eyes. What I witness is a city that's seen much better days, the buildings showing clear signs of significant destruction, the walls the same. Mostly, I learn from Herald Avon, the bombing has been centred beyond the city walls and gates, targeting the regular, primarily residential buildings that lie beyond. To that end, the campaign has been a success, this unending period of terrorising the city through artillery fire surely liable to have a result eventually.
I don't let my mind fill with doubts that morning as I look at the city. If there were some citizens living in the parts of the city we've thus far targeted, they'd have quickly been evacuated elsewhere as soon as the first energy-shell hit. Ever since, the attack has been fairly widespread, but never enough to reach the inner part of Haven. With our guns unable to reach that far from here, we can't move further in without coming into range of what we believe the firing limits of the Haven defensive turrets to be.
We could, I'm told by Avon, try to forge a new wall further up, and fire from behind it, but it would likely be quickly obliterated if it came under attack. I ask him about the energy shield surrounding the camp itself, and whether we could move forward, and position a shield around our guns a lot closer to the city, but he returns with a similar sentiment.
"Those shields can only take so much punishment before they'd begin to fail," he says. "And getting them into position, and digging them in, would likely be impossible if we were being fired upon at the same time."
It seems, then, that this is the current state of play. A stalemate, almost, as we fire into the city, and they take the punishment, hoping to wear us down through inactivity, and perhaps force us into making a mistake that will see them to some advantage. It's also become clear, from reports from some of our Farsights, that the Havenites are quite skilled at shooting down our ballistics before they even hit the ground. Avon, a supreme Farsight himself, confirms that too, much of his time spent up here on the wall, watching over things from this high vantage.
"Their defensive weapons can force our charges to explode when they connect in the air," he says. "Quite a few get through, especially when we change the angle, or fire multiple charges at once, but many don't. It just means we have to keep firing until we get a hit."
It all sounds very time-consuming, the equivalent of poking at a caged animal, again and again, until it flips out and attacks, seeing no other way out of the constant torture and torment. This seems to be the same, just on a wildly different scale. Keep firing and firing until they get worn down by it all. Until they can take no more, and decide to lash out.
Mostly, our own forces have remained within the camp, or within our borders, outlined by the sentry positions we've now fully dug in. Any time any repairs are needed, however, it is the Fringers sent out to do the work. Casualties are still occurring, though in small and infrequent numbers. And though we have lost the odd soldier when on patrol, our losses to military personnel have been mostly insignificant. At least, discounting the forest ambush from nearly a week ago, which weakened our forces by several hundred of our most potent men.
In all, however, the time since then has helped to calm the mood within the camp. Following the frenetic packing of the convoy, the final journey here, and the establishment of the camp, little of great note has occurred. The soldiers are starting to grow a little more secure, the general feeling being that Haven, as expected, simply doesn't have the manpower to challenge us by conventional means. That they have no choice but to hide behind their high walls, feverishly conscripting whoever they can to fight when we finally storm through.
It's hard to properly corroborate whether that is true, given we haven't been able to enter the city as yet. Yet Kovas is talking with a greater degree of certainty and clarity now, his confidence as leader growing by the day. I suspect the reason could be partly due to our new captive, who seems to have borne more fruit than the wild men before him, whose escape, despite the Overseer's best efforts, remains something of a mystery.
No one seems to care about that now, however, their disappearance of little concern. Even if they were in league with Haven, and had managed to get into the city to provide them with information, they really don't know anything of value. They can't have known of our numbers, our capabilities, the various powers of our soldiers. They have no knowledge of our plans, our supplies, and thus how long we can maintain this siege.
It is, as Kovas says one morning, "a matter of irritation and nothing more."
Still, it seems, now, a case of if and not when. With the orders coming down from the top to make sure they're ever on alert, the soldiers begin to sense something stirring, an invasion order not too far away.
My eyes continue to sway, reviewing everything that's been happening so far. On the scale of things, given the recent turmoil, things at least appear to be on the turn. And that, in as much as it can be given his current role, includes Jude. For the last two and a bit days, he's been kept to the workers camp, assigned a new role. It's not glamorous, but it's something. Kovas, at least so far, has kept to that bargain.
I haven't visited with him much, of course, my own time growing more short, my focus required elsewhere. When I did, however, I found him in an unexpectedly sanguine mood, despite the conditions in which he's living, and the circumstances of his life.
"It's not all bad," he told me two days back, when I'd gone to see Curly to confirm Jude's new role, and ended up running into Jude himself.
I'd raised my eyes at his comment.
"Better here than being under the watch of the soldiers all the time," he explained, though through a hushed breath. "Here, it's just us. I...I like the segregation."
It made sense to me, given his experience. At least at the workers camp, though the days are long and the labour is hard, he's almost always amongst his own folk. And even though his arm remains a little painful, he seems quite able to work through it, doing all he can as though not wanting to put a foot wrong, and come in for further punishment.
"I heard you've been volunteering for dangerous jobs," I'd said, my tone caring, though rebuking all at once. "Why, Jude?"
His eyes tightened. "Why do you think? To get out of here for a while. I'm keeping my head down, doing what I can. And," he went on, turning his eyes to the hills, "out there you get to see things, just like we always wanted. Even the city itself."
"You've seen Haven?"
"Sure, a couple of times now. It's something, isn't it? Huge."
"I've only seen it from afar. The top of the wall at the..."
"Oh yeah, that great thing at the front of camp? Yeah, well, that's something too." He didn't say that with the same wonder. His entire voice coiled into something altogether more aggrieved and disdainful.
"Jude, maybe it's best if you don't volunteer for these things. Workers are being killed. It's hardly safe."
"Yeah, well that doesn't bother me as much as it used to. It's worth it to get out there for a while."
"Jude..."
"And if I didn't volunteer, someone else would have to be picked anyway. Why should I deserve to sit here while others are sent out there?"
That question sent a shiver of shame through me. He didn't know, of course, that I'd made sure such volunteering missions were now at an end. That I'd consigned him to camp for good.
I wonder, now, as I stand atop the wall, thinking of that exchange two days ago, whether he's worked out my involvement? Whether he's thrown his hand up, only to
have it ignored. Whether his assignment elsewhere has only served to dampen his growing flame, cut off the one thing that, perhaps, he felt he could do around here, the only good he could accomplish. Helping others was always his forte. Now, I've stripped him of that responsibility.
I haven't seen him since, and perhaps that's just why. Maybe I just don't want to face him now. Maybe, if he hasn't worked it out for himself already, he'll see the truth in my eyes...
I continue to peruse the world for a time, the morning racing along, and bringing with it a brightening of the day. Though the weather in the far distance ahead is artificially ugly, owing to our incessant bombing, outside of that it's blue and fresh, the air crisp and clean. There's been no sign of storm clouds or rain, no inclement weather at all. If it wasn't like this as far as the eye could see, I'd imagine it was down to the remaining Skymasters, perhaps to help lift our spirits, get behind the theory that a bright sky begets a bright mood.
Certainly, it's participated in the improvement to my own mood, though the larger part of that is down to the general state of affairs in camp. Feeling quite relaxed, and with the day ahead promising further reward, I stroll a little along the wall, passing by some of those on watch. Herald Avon, as per usual, runs things from up here, his eyes missing little as he watches over the lands around us, his demeanour generally the sort to make you feel at ease.
He nods at me from his perch along the top, the artillery cannons, mercifully, taking a short break for the time being. They do that sometimes, just to make the Havenites think the bombardment is at an end, only to start up again a little later, varying the period of rest each time.
I wander towards him, set to perform the standing greetings, and find out if there have been any updates since the meeting earlier that morning. Yet, as I approach, I find his gaze suddenly turning, his eyes narrowing. From looking towards me, they suddenly swing out towards the city, something caught in his peripheral vision.
