The Tiger (Chronicles of An Imperial Legionary Officer Book 2)

by Marc Alan Edelheit

  Stiger hesitated a moment as he considered. He indeed believed that, had Ogg wished it, he would be dead. He gave a shrug, sheathed his sword and took his seat once again before the fire. As he did so, he took another look around the camp. It was still dark beyond the light of his campfire. No others could be seen, which was damn odd. Moments before there had been hundreds of campfires before as many tents, with legionaries preparing to bed down for the night. Now he could see no one, not even his guards, who had stood watch not more than ten feet away.

  He made a show of pulling out his pipe. From a small pouch, he filled it with some of the captured tobacco, took a moment to light the pipe then puffed up a good burn.

  “How can I help you, Ogg?” Stiger asked conversationally, blowing out a long stream of smoke. Two could play at this game.

  “That is the correct question,” Ogg replied, which was followed by another giggle. “See, we are becoming acquainted, which is my purpose.”

  “Acquainted?” Stiger responded with a grunt, taking a deep pull from his pipe.

  “Though,” Ogg said after a slight hesitation, “you should have asked how we can help each other?”

  Stiger said nothing. Obviously the dwarf had come for something. He would eventually get to the point. So, Stiger decided to remain silent until he did. As a result, the two did not speak for a good while, each lost to his own thoughts. Strangely enough, as he smoked away, Stiger no longer felt as lonely as he had minutes before.

  “My people are gathering their warriors,” Ogg breathed after some time. “They are preparing to drive you imperials from the valley.”

  “What?” Stiger asked, sitting upright. Had he heard the dwarf correctly?

  “My people really do not like your people. Well, to be fair, we don’t like anyone, even our own at times,” Ogg explained. “But your people brought Castor’s influence into the valley and my people mean to cleanse it.”

  “I was not responsible for that,” Stiger stated firmly, taking the pipe from his mouth and jabbing it in the dwarf’s direction. “I had a hand in removing that filth.”

  “I know that,” Ogg admitted, turning his gaze back upon the fire.

  “Do your people?” Stiger asked. “Do they know?”

  “Not yet,” Ogg explained, which was followed up with another little maniacal giggle.

  “Tell them!” Stiger growled angrily. “By the gods, I will tell them! Give me the chance!”

  “I may take you up on that,” Ogg said, looking back at him. “My people are hard-headed. At times they hear only what they wish to, particularly our leaders. Sometimes words are just not good enough.”

  “Then why tell me?” Stiger asked bitterly. This all seemed to be a cruel jest. Was having to contend with one enemy not enough? How cruel the gods could be! “Why give me this warning?”

  “Unity, honor and friendship,” Ogg replied simply, offering Stiger a small, tight smile.

  Stiger held Ogg’s gaze. He had heard those words before. Then it hit him. Eli had read those very words off of the monument in the valley.

  “The monument to the 13th!” Stiger exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “Those words were inscribed there.”

  “They are the heart and soul of the Compact,” Ogg said sadly, then giggled. Stiger was beginning to wonder if Ogg was altogether sane. “You should thank General Delvaris. I am repaying a debt long owed, but still yet to be fully paid.”

  “I don’t understand,” Stiger spat. “Explain what you mean!”

  “You were lucky today,” Ogg said flatly, changing the subject, looking back at the fire. “I watched your skirmish. You were very lucky. Yes, very lucky.”

  Stiger frowned at the abrupt change in direction of the conversation.

  “Years of playing with power tends to convince wizards that they are omnipotent and infallible,” Ogg continued, eyeing Stiger as he said this. “I can assure you we are not, as you so aptly learned today. Stick a knife in me or shoot me with an arrow and I will bleed just as you would.”

  Stiger went cold. Though he had suspected it, the dwarf before him had just admitted to being a wizard. He felt like pulling out his sword again but restrained himself. Ogg held the power here and not he.

  “So, you can be killed as anyone else,” Stiger growled, almost as a challenge.

  “Yes,” Ogg agreed with a dangerous glint in his eye. “Unless, of course, I am prepared for such eventualities. I can assure you, I am unlike that weak-minded fool your elf struck down.”

  Thinking on what Ogg had told him, Stiger slowly leaned back and took another long pull from his pipe. He slowly blew out some smoke as he considered what he wanted to say next. It seemed as if, with the rebels to his front and the dwarves to his rear, he was truly screwed.

  “So, Ogg,” Stiger said, taking another pull. “What now?”

  There was no response. Stiger looked over at the dwarf wizard, only to find him gone, disappeared, as if he had never been. He looked around, searching. Beyond the firelight stood his two guards and beyond them the fires of the legionary camp, which shone brightly in the darkness. The sound and noise of the camp returned with an abruptness that surprised him. He shook his head in bemusement then turned his gaze back to the flames, his thoughts far more troubled than they had been just moments before.

  Fifteen

  LAN STEPPED OUT from the keep and into the castle courtyard as the first of several wagons, converted into ambulances, arrived. The cold air hit him immediately and he pulled his cloak closer about himself. In the confines of the courtyard, the wagon clattered loudly across the granite paving stones. The seriously injured lay in the beds, while those who could sat upright. Some were able to walk alongside or behind the wagons, blood-soaked bandages a testament to the intensity of the fighting.

  The large supply wagons were not known for their comfort. Bouncing and jostling from every rut or bump in the road, they were a torment for those already in unbearable agony. He could hear the cries and moans of the wounded as the wagon pulled to a stop.

  Some would survive and recover, returning to their respective companies. Others would recover, crippled for life, only to be discharged with a meager disability benefit. These poor unfortunates would be returned to Mal’Zeel. Likely they would end up living a life of idle squalor, dependent upon the grain dole and their disability payment, which would inevitably go toward cheap wine and the occasional diseased whore.

  “Lieutenant,” Sergeant Arnold greeted him in his normally gruff manner and pulled his wagon to a stop. He offered the lieutenant a lazy salute. Lan reflected that even being offered a salute was a far cry from what he had gotten from the sergeant a few weeks back, when they had first met. It seemed he had earned a little respect from the veteran.

  Sergeant Arnold himself was an anomaly in the legions. He had received a near-crippling injury to the knee. The man could barely get around and yet instead of being discharged for his disability, he had been assigned to supply and teamster duty. This typically only occurred when the man had performed a feat of intense bravery or completed some important service. Though the sergeant, like most of his rank, wore several phalera, which signified his honors fairly earned, Lan had difficulty seeing that side of the man.

  Several troopers stepped to the rear of the wagon to begin the careful unloading of the wounded. Others guided those who could walk toward the keep. Lan had ordered a hospital ward set up on the second floor. The garrison had not warranted a surgeon and as such, the wounded were at the tender mercy of the company surgeon’s mates, men trained as medics or, as they were called in the old tongue, medicus.

  They were trained to perform minor procedures, such as the sewing up of injuries, basic wound care and the tending of those who were ill. Unfortunately, they were not trained for surgery or the care and mending of those seriously injured. Worse, there were only six of them in the entire garrison, with only one remaining at the castle. The rest had gone forward with Captain Stiger.

  Once word had
reached the castle that wounded were on their way, and that some cases were extremely serious, Lan had asked Councilman Bester to send for anyone trained in surgery. With luck, the two valley doctors would arrive within the next few hours.

  “How many?” Lan asked grimly, glancing at the covered wagon from which he heard moans and cries. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon one’s point of view, the wagons could only travel two miles into the forest. Captain Stiger had excluded the last two miles of road from his defensive corridor. So it meant that the wounded were hand-carried many miles on litters, or litters pulled by horses, until they could reach the wagons. Over a hundred of the cavalry had been designated as litter-bearers and sent forward to help return the injured.

  “Around forty poor wretches,” Arnold answered tiredly. “Including, unfortunately for him, Lieutenant Banister.”

  “Banister?” Lan asked with some surprise.

  “He’s in the back,” the sergeant said, jerking a thumb.

  “Oh, great gods,” Lan breathed, realizing that if the lieutenant was wagon-bound it was a serious injury. He stepped around the side of the covered wagon to look and was horrified by the sight that greeted him. Because of the severity of his burns, he was only able to recognize Banister by his armor. Officers typically wore more ornate armor, greaves for their legs and with their swords secured to their left side instead of right like the rest of the rank and file.

  Lan stood there for a moment, staring at the wreck of a man that Banister had become. Banister looked to be unconscious, which was in all probability a blessing for the man.

  Looking at him, it was hard to see how he had managed to live long enough to be brought to the keep. The skin on his arms, legs, and hands had burned away. The skin on his face had burned off, leaving a mass of ugly red and black twisted and blistered flesh. Banister’s eyelids had been burned off, along with his lips, allowing his undamaged eyes and teeth to be seen in their entirety. Banister’s armor looked to have partially melted and at points fused with the twisted flesh, especially around the helmet. Both the sight and smell of burned flesh was strong and incredibly nauseating, to the point where it was nearly overpowering. Lan felt the bile in his throat rise and struggled to hold it down. He had seen men die before, either by sword or arrow. Yet never like this. Then he remembered something he had heard as a child.

  “Paladins can heal,” he whispered almost to himself.

  “What was that, sir?” a trooper asked, having set a litter down on the ground in preparation for the unloading of the wagon and carrying the seriously injured into the keep.

  “Send for Father Thomas, man, and hurry,” Lan ordered.

  The trooper saluted and dashed off for the keep.

  “Do you know what happened?” Lan asked of Arnold, who had struggled down from the wagon and had limped to the back.

  Two troopers carefully lifted Banister out of the wagon and down onto a waiting litter. One of the men staggered a few feet away before falling to his knees and retching.

  Looking down upon on the hideous creature laid out before him in horror, Lan could not imagine how Banister had been so badly burned.

  “I was told a wizard got him,” Arnold said. “Poor bastard. No one should have to go like that.”

  “Wizard?” Lan asked, aghast. He had gotten a terse note from the captain that they had had a skirmish and a number of wounded were on their way back, but not much else about the fight itself. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” Arnold spat upon the flagstone. “From what I heard, he burned a lot of good men before the captain’s elf took the bastard down.”

  Lan was about to ask more questions when he saw Father Thomas emerge from the keep. The paladin rushed over, brown robes aflutter and his expression concerned. Without a word to Lan or Arnold, he immediately knelt down before Banister and placed a hand on the man’s badly-burned face. The paladin closed his eyes and bowed his head. His lips moved in a silent prayer. Several troopers stopped to watch. Lan refrained from ordering them back to work for fear of disturbing Father Thomas.

  Banister stirred slightly and moaned with agony, lidless eyes looking around wildly, before becoming still as he fell back into unconsciousness, seemingly more at ease. A dribble of blood ran from his ruined mouth. After a time, Father Thomas opened his eyes and looked up at Lan with an incredibly sad look.

  “I am afraid he has walked too far down the path to the next world,” Father Thomas announced. “There is nothing to be done, other than to ease his pain and make his last hours comfortable.”

  Lan bowed his head in sadness and offered a prayer to the High Father. He asked that Banister’s passing be free from pain. The man had served the legions honorably and deserved better than the agonizing death he now faced.

  “Back to work,” Lan snapped at the idle troopers.

  The men jumped and continued their work, unloading the wounded from the wagon, setting each out on a stretcher. Another burned man was set down next to the mortally stricken lieutenant. This man’s left arm and side were badly burned. Someone had removed his armor and he wore only his service tunic, or what was left of it. The tunic had been burned through and the skin beneath was an ugly mass of twisted and burned flesh.

  Father Thomas wiped Banister’s blood off his hand with his robes and moved over to the man as he was laid down upon the granite flagstone. The man looked up at the paladin with tears of pain in his eyes. His forehead glistened with sweat and he shook terribly. Fever had taken hold, which was not a good sign for someone who had been burned. It meant infection had set in and that meant death was a close companion.

  “Please make the pain stop,” he begged, tears running down his face as he shook uncontrollably. He was doing his best to keep from screaming his agony to the world.

  “What is your name, son?” Father Thomas asked in a soothing tone, squatting beside the man.

  “Legionary Paulus,” he replied, tears streaking down his face. “Milk of the poppy! Please. It hurts terribly.”

  “There…there… Paulus you say,” Father Thomas spoke soothingly and then quoted from the holy book. “Bless the High Father and forget not all his benefits, for burn for burn and wound for wound, who forgives all of your iniquity, who heals your faithful body and soul, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns your soul with steadfast mercy and love.”

  The paladin placed a hand on the man’s forehead and closed his eyes. Almost immediately the legionary closed his eyes and seemed to completely relax, slipping into a deep slumber. The feverish shaking stopped as well. A solitary tear rolled down his face as he took a deep breath and began to snore.

  There was an intense flash of light that came from where the paladin’s hand touched Paulus’s forehead. Lan took an involuntary step backwards and shielded his eyes with his hands. The flash of light faded as quickly as it came, leaving Lan and Arnold blinking away the spots.

  “By the old gods…a miracle,” the grizzled old sergeant exclaimed in awe.

  Lan sucked in a breath and gave a shallow whistle. Where a moment before Paulus had been terribly burned, now there remained unmarred skin that looked a deep angry red, as if freshly sunburned. The snoring continued from Paulus as the paladin sat back before standing, a tired look in his eyes. A couple of the stretcher-bearers, having witnessed the healing, fell to their knees, offering up prayers to the High Father.

  “Just the High Father’s blessing,” Father Thomas stated wearily and then looked down at the man he had just healed. Something clenched in Paulus’s hand apparently caught his attention. He bent down and retrieved it and held it up for examination.

  “The High Father’s image,” the paladin said, showing the small wooden figurine to Lan and Arnold as he looked kindly down upon the sleeping legionary. After a moment, he returned the figurine to the man’s hand. “Lieutenant Ikely’s good work, I assume.”

  Lan and Arnold shared a surprised look.

  “Are there many more?” Father Thomas asked.
<
br />   Sergeant Arnold nodded as two more wagons clattered into the courtyard.

  “Around forty,” Lan said, struggling to keep the emotion from his voice. He had never before witnessed such a healing, but after having seen it, he wondered how he could ever again doubt the High Father’s existence.

  “Have the wounded moved into the hospital ward,” Father Thomas said. “I will tend to them there.”

  “Yes, Father,” Lan responded reverently. Though they did not have a surgeon available, with the paladin’s help he hoped many more would be saved.

  “I will require at least five assistants,” the paladin continued, “bandages, thread, fresh tunics and clean water too.”

  “Bandages?” Lan asked surprised. He had expected Father Thomas to be able to heal most of the wounded.

  “I will likely not have the strength to heal them all, only the more severe cases,” Father Thomas explained with a faraway look. “Each healing taxes my strength greatly and…I feel called.”

  “Very well,” Lan said with a slight frown as he watched the paladin look in the direction of the castle entrance. “You will have all that you require. If you need anything further, please ask.”

  “I will, my son,” the paladin responded. “I will do what I can, but I must leave tonight or at the very latest in the morning.”

  “Tonight?” Lan asked, frown deepening. Surely he would be needed for the wounded. “Why?”

  “The High Father calls me away,” the paladin said, focusing back on Lan. “I will do what I can, then I must go.”

  “I see,” Lan said. It seemed the doctors would be needed after all.

  “Father,” Arnold spoke up a little hesitantly. The paladin turned to look on the grizzled supply sergeant.

  “Yes?”

  “Father,” Arnold said, hesitating. “Do you think you might be able to look at me bum knee and fix it?”

  Father Thomas looked the sergeant up and down, considering him for a moment. The sergeant did not make the most presentable man and Lan felt Arnold was suddenly conscious of that. The sergeant tugged nervously on his stained tunic, straightening it under his armor.