We broke camp and marched for half a day to the north. The rough grass remained, but the undulations became larger and higher as we entered what Dag’Vosh told me were the Lower Rans. He seemed more certain now, as if he’d spent some time last night using his powers to scour the lands ahead of our camp. I didn’t think he’d been to the Lower Rans before, though there was no reason anyone would want to come here voluntarily.
After a further hour, we started to see signs that people lived here. A few sheep dotted the hills, in fields enclosed by low, stone walls. There were huts visible in the distance, though our path did not take us close enough that we were able to speak to the residents, if anyone lived in them at all. If I had chosen the life of a shepherd, I was sure that I would not have made efforts to greet a contingent of heavily-armed soldiers passing by my shack.
It had been raining since the latter part of the morning, a miserable, fine drizzle that found its way into everything, leaving us blinking constantly to clear our eyes in order that we might see the ground ahead. It soaked our heads, leading many of the men to unhitch their helmets and put them on, willing to suffer the extra discomfort of the weight in order that the leather neck guards might deflect some of the rain away from trickling down their necks.
We didn’t suffer from the cold, or at least we suffered much less than other men did. Even so, I think we all longed for the feeling of sunshine upon our skin. The cold didn’t pain us, but we still had a preference for warmth and most of us still found the rain to be an irritant, even when the weather was warm. I had not met a soldier who liked the rain and had I ever met a commander who claimed that he preferred a battle fought on a wet field, I would have done my utmost to ensure I never fought for that man.
“What a shit hole,” muttered Corporal Langs, more to himself than anyone else.
“Pants chafing your balls again, are they?” asked Craddock cheerily.
“No, sir, my balls are doing just fine,” Langs responded, though his hand adjusted his armour in an unconscious gesture. “Just this rain looks like it’s set in for good now.”
I stared up at the sky. Where once it had been clear, it was now uniformly grey, as if the cloud had somehow coalesced overhead, rather than drifting across from elsewhere. I’d seen places like this before – if it wasn’t raining, it was because it was too cold to rain. The sun might appear briefly during a short few months of the year, but otherwise it would be unremittingly bleak. The people living out here would be stoic and hard, but their life would always be a struggle. Out here there’d never be a good year of plenty for them to look forward to. It would be lean year after lean year, with never a chance to put something aside for next year in order to make the future a little easier. I didn’t envy people like this. I wasn’t more ambitious than the position I held, but there should always be a chance, an opportunity, to make something of yourself. If you have no hopes of improvement or for something better to come, you may as well lay down and die with the animals, for your life is truly without meaning.
“Captain, please ask your men to stop,” said Dag’Vosh.
The First Cohort drew to a halt on the side of a low hill – no different to any of the others we’d travelled so far.
“Come,” said the sorcerer, as he guided his mare through the men, heading up the hill. I joined him, keeping up easily, since he made no effort to spur away. Near the top of the hill, he dismounted and led his horse the rest of the hundred paces it took until we could see into the valley beyond. He was silent for a while and I did not disturb him. Even in our short acquaintance I knew he did not use his periods of silence as a mechanism to try and prompt me into speaking something to fill the gap.
“What I seek is in there,” he said, pointing at the sprawling village beneath us. There were no walls to protect it and it contained perhaps three hundred dwellings, sitting to either side of a watercourse that contained what was little more than a broad, fast-flowing stream. Across the valley on the far side of the village, I could see that fields had been tilled and there were pens for cattle. Smoke rose from chimneys and a mill turned lazily in the breeze, to indicate that the village was not abandoned.
“What is this place?” I asked.
He glanced over at me. “I neither know, nor care. We aren’t even in the Duke’s lands anymore.”
I started at this news, though I already knew we were at the farthest reaches of his domain. This was the first time I’d left the Empire in many decades. Dag’Vosh saw my look.
“Don’t go getting a taste for freedom,” he said with a peculiar wink. I realised he had attempted a jest, though his words had struck home. When you fight for someone else’s cause, you may feel like you are free, but really you are not. The cause must be your own, freely decided upon. All you gain in fighting for someone else is an escape from making a decision of your own about what is right and what is not. Did that mean that we in the First Cohort were all cowards, too scared to choose a cause of our own? And was this something that I had led them to? The question came as a shock to me.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“I will know it when I see it,” he replied. I could tell he was being evasive. “I would like your men to surround these houses. No one must escape, but no one must be killed. Do you understand?”
“I’m in no haste to kill these villagers,” I told him. “I’ll make sure that the men know they are to disarm anyone who attacks.”
“How long will it take you to get into position?”
I studied the land carefully. “Less than an hour. They may already know that we’re here and every passing minute makes it more likely.”
“No one must escape!” he repeated. “It is certain that they will try and carry away my prize. Go, Captain! I will wait here until you have searched every hut and brought every villager to the centre square.”
I turned away and returned to the troops, gathering my corporals and lieutenants to me, as well as Ploster. We had no privacy as I explained the lay of the land, but we didn’t need any.
“Get the men into position as quickly as possible,” I said. “Run if you have to. We’re going to split off to the left and right, with a hundred men to go straight over the brow of the hill. They’ll split into groups of five. The sorcerer wants everyone found and flushed into the village square in the centre. There must be no deaths.”
“No deaths, Captain,” they acknowledged. None of them looked like they had a taste for it anyway.
Sinnar looked over his shoulder to see what Dag’Vosh was doing. He was still further up the hill, watching the village. “What about the sorcerer?” he asked. “Is he coming with us?”
“He’s going to stay away until the action is over. He’ll wait where he is.” I fixed Sinnar with a look. “I think we need some men to keep a watch over him, just in case he gets into unexpected trouble. But we don’t want him knowing about it, in case he gets the wrong impression.”
Sinnar grinned. “I reckon Stabber and Furtive might be able to look out for him. The terrain is a bit open, but I’m sure it’s nothing they can’t handle.”
“See to it, please. And let’s get ready to move.”
We were a well-oiled machine and there was little we hadn’t seen or done. Our wage was high, but he who paid it knew that he was getting something irreplaceable in battle. These words may sound like pride or bravado, but they were the simple truth. We fought for our fellows and we had a determination every time we entered battle that we would all come through it alive. Even the worst of us were proficient in several weapons; the best of us were masters of the blade. We all had skills of some sort that we brought to the group.
As the men split off into three columns, I returned to the top of the hill with Dag’Vosh. Two of the columns headed east and west, whilst the third stood with me below the hill’s brow. There was an occasional cough or rattle of metal upon metal, but otherwise we made no sound that would carry to the village below.
From my vantage, I
saw that Sinnar and Craddock had managed to completely encircle the dwellings, separating into smaller groups in order to blockade the muddy tracks leading away. It was almost impossible to complete such a manoeuvre without being detected – a farmer in his field or a boy playing by a stream might see the soldiers before they were in position. A good attacking force accepted this and would have a contingency in place to prevent the plan from being ruined. On this occasion, we didn’t need to implement ours – just as our pincer was closing, I saw activity that denoted alarm and heard a bell ringing somewhere in the village. It was too late by the time they’d noticed what was happening and I lifted my fist into the air in order that Corporal Gloom and Langs would know that it was time to move.
We advanced at speed in two columns, our paths diverging as we approached the village. When it was apparent that there would be no significant resistance, the columns divided into teams of five and began the work of searching each house and forcing the occupants into the centre of the village. I heard shouting and cries, but there were no sounds of conflict. I was pleased, since I bore these people no ill-will. I thirsted for action, not for murder.
We had made good progress with our search and I was walking with Corporal Gloom along one of the mud-sticky paths between the houses when I happened to glance back whence we’d come. The sorcerer was gone from his position atop the hill. He could have simply dropped away out of sight, but I didn’t trust him for a minute.
“Dag’Vosh is gone!” I said to Gloom with a sense of urgency. The Corporal knew me well enough to fill in the unspoken words for himself: we must find him.
There was little difficulty in the search. Off to one side, up the hill towards the lone mill there was a rending crack, as if a thousand peals of thunder had been focused in that one place. A second later, a thumping concussion rolled over us, shaking the surrounding houses and battering at our ear drums. Rough-hewn planks were torn from roofs and thrown hither and yon, landing in the mud and leaving the houses open to the rain. Where I was standing, I could see the villagers in the square tossed from their feet, or fall to their knees and cower in fear.
“That way!” I shouted with urgency to the men closest. We broke into a run, weaving between damaged houses until we emerged onto the hillside below the mill. There were fifteen of us – those who’d been close enough to hear the command to follow me. The sails of the mill had been torn off, leaving only one of the four remaining, which hung splintered and unmoving.
There was another boom, smaller and more muffled than the first. I recognized it as Ploster’s. As we approached, I could see figures at the far side of the mill, one of them dressed in black robes. A swirling fog of darkness appeared to surround him as he moved his arms in the unmistakable patterns that accompanied the unleashing of power. I could feel the air around me being sucked inwards as the sorcerer drew his power along the warps and wefts. The man must have possessed immense power to have affected the air from such a distance. Suddenly and without warning, a figure appeared behind the black robed sorcerer, something heavy in its hand, which struck downwards onto the skull of Warmont’s Third. There was a bright, white flash and the figure was hurled ten feet backwards. At the same time, Dag’Vosh toppled over onto the ground and the darkness around him dissipated.
We arrived and I took in the scene. Ploster was pitched up in a heap next to the mill’s entrance. He was very still, his body contorted as if he’d been bent unnaturally backwards over a post. Stabber had been thrown against the wall of the mill and looked strangely crumpled. Furtive stood to one side, watching the black cloaked sorcerer. He pretended insouciance by throwing his dagger up into the air so that it spun thrice, before he’d catch it again by the hilt.
I saw movement in the darkened entrance doorway of the battered mill. Before I could focus on what it was, I felt a heavy, grinding vibration run through my body, which increased tenfold in its intensity. It gripped my body in a fist of iron, rolling through me with an indefatigable determination. I roared and clutched at my head as the vibration tried to shatter my resolve and destroy me. I saw my men fall to the ground, their ward-patterns glowing as their scant defence against the assault was overwhelmed. My own tattoos flared up brightly on my face and my body as they called on my will to erect internal walls of solid, black iron to protect my core within. The attack soared upwards, seeking to find a way over my blockades, faster than I could raise them.
“Enough!” I shouted, and abruptly I was no longer assailed.
“Who are you and what do you want with me?” The voice came from a young woman, in her late teenage years. I looked at her and knew at once who she was. Her face was serene and there was a depth of knowing about her, which even the most ignorant of men would have seen. With it, she had a disarming innocence, even in those few short words she had spoken - a mixture of fear and curiosity.
I heard myself speak as if from a distance, as though a part of me I had long denied had pushed its way to the fore and voiced the feelings that I had felt for many years, but without knowing what these feelings were or why I felt them. “We are lost,” I said. “And if you will save us, we will defend you for an eternity.”
I felt tendrils of power reach out and gently caress my mind, searching my soul to see what was within. She was subtle but raw, and I allowed her to see what she would see, willing to let her judge me on what she found.
She stared at me, her eyes bright and a piercing blue. “But you died such a long time ago,” she said. “How can I save you?”
Six
There was a commotion behind me and I pushed myself to my feet. Even the pain felt like a relief. Men from the First Cohort were running up the hillside towards us. From as far as two hundred paces below they’d felt the outpouring of power from the girl. As the first of them arrived, Sprinter and Flight, I saw them stare at the small figure, who had now emerged from the mill’s entrance to stand alone on the worn ground. They stopped still and said nothing at all. As more of the men arrived, they too, did the same.
“Sprinter, Flight,” I said. “Take two men each and recall Craddock and Sinnar. Tell them to come with haste.”
I had never before been struck by such a feeling of certainty and enlightenment. Even so, I was not surprised that the part of my brain which was fascinated by practicalities took over and dealt with that which needed to be handled immediately.
“Corporal Grief, see to Ploster and the men. If they still live.”
“The ones I attacked are alive,” said the girl. “Though your caster has been badly hurt by the sorcerer. I will see to him.” She hesitated. “The man over there will not be coming back to this world. His body has been too badly damaged by the sorcerer’s defences.”
With fifty men staring mutely, this slender young woman walked to the prone body of Ploster as if she had not a care in the world, and stooped over him, her rough-cloth robes catching the dirt.
I moved over to where Dag’Vosh lay, front-side down on the earth, with his pale, red-lipped face canted to the left. Though he didn’t move, I could tell that he was alive. There was still an aura of power about him, gathering itself slowly as he fought to return to consciousness.
“Stabber hit him, Captain,” said Furtive, pointing at Dag’Vosh. “When we saw him and Ploster at it, we thought he was up to no good. His wards got Stabber, but not before Stabber’s cosh knocked him over.”
“It was the right decision Stabber made,” I said. “I don’t know how many of us he’s saved, but we’ll have a toast for him. We’ve lost a good man today.” Furtive looked at me with a pained expression. He and Stabber had been close friends.
There was a groan at our feet and I saw Dag’Vosh wince as his will overcame his body’s incapacity.
“Kill him,” I commanded softly.
Furtive drew a short dagger and plunged it into Dag’Vosh’s spine. The sorcerer shouted in pain and rolled onto his side, his eyes fixing on us with hatred. He raised a hand, the fingers sketching a mark in the air
as his lips mumbled. I swung my sword, hard, taking the man’s hand off cleanly though it felt as if I had chopped through a thick tree branch. No blood flowed from the stump or the severed hand. Chunky appeared at my side and hacked at the sorcerer’s neck. Chunky was as strong as an ox and carried a hand-and-a-half sword, wielding it with one hand as easily as another man might wave a dagger. Even so, his first blow could only cut halfway through Dag’Vosh’s neck and Chunky grunted as he triggered another ward, which flashed up his blade and into his arms. We watched in fascination as the sorcerer spat at us, refusing to die, but his defences were weaker now that his power was diverted towards the renewal of his body.
With another swing of his sword, Chunky finished his work and the head of Warmont’s Third fell away from his body. To my disgust, the man’s eyes remained open and the jaw continued to work. Even with his head separated from his body, I could feel Dag’Vosh fighting to remain alive.
“Push some cloth into that bastard’s mouth,” I said. “Chop him into pieces and bury the parts deep, a hundred yards apart. Burn the head first, until it’s ash.” I tore Warmont’s necklace with its silver mirror away from my neck. “And throw this in with the pieces,” I told Chunky, tossing it onto the ground nearby.
I turned my back on the sorcerer, ignoring the wheezing and spitting sounds coming from his mouth. Shortly the wheezings were drowned out by the noises of chopping, as Chunky went to work. By now, there was over a hundred of us gathered here, as the closest of Sinnar’s and Craddock’s men reached us. I felt satisfaction when I noted that the men who’d been tasked with guarding the villagers had not left their posts.
“Go down there,” I said to Lotus. “Tell them to send the villagers back to their homes and then to attend with us here.”
Soldiers' Redemption (First Cohort Book 1) Page 5
