The patriarchs had abandoned them.
CHAPTER 13
East.
Ewan woke up. He lay on a hard cot in a spartan room, badly lit by tallow lamps. The tightly packed straw pallet bore into his back.
Gently, he propped himself up. There was an aftertaste of uneasiness in his mouth, but he could not tell why. His head felt blank.
“Hello,” a girl’s voice at his side said.
He turned. His eyes widened in surprise. “Sarith.”
“You have slept for three days, like a dead man,” the girl said.
Ewan stumbled for words. He remembered the sweet, shy kisses he had stolen. “I’m in the convent?” he managed stupidly.
“Yes. We brought you in after you…” She trailed off.
The young brother frowned. A ghost of uneasiness spasmed in his chest. “What?”
“You did an unholy thing,” an older, scabby voice cracked from the opposite corner of the small room.
Ewan whipped his head about. An old woman, wrapped in rags, sat in a rickety rocking chair, which seemed too small even for her frail form, forcing her to bunch and double like a tortoise. Ewan’s eyes sought detail in the murk-hidden face. He recoiled. The woman had nothing inside her eye sockets.
“Sarith, leave us,” the woman barked.
The girl bit her lip. Ewan wanted to say something; instead, he just stared stupidly.
A look of sadness on her face, the young sister retreated.
“There are things that apprentices are not meant to hear,” the woman rasped. She rocked her chair once, in morbid approval of her own words. Although she could not see, the black pits bore into him like augers.
Ewan thought of fleeing the room. But memories seemed to flood him, incapacitated him. He remembered Adrian and Bojan. He recalled meeting the two soldiers. They had stood outside the convent, arguing, shouting. And then, there was the darkness of the tomb.
“Where are my friends?” he mumbled. “What did I do?”
“You do not remember,” she said.
“Who are you?”
“You have no idea what happened three days ago, do you?”
Ewan let his taut muscles relax. “No.”
“You killed a man,” the hag stated simply.
The room spun. “No…” he croaked. “I did not kill anyone.” He rose from the bed. He swayed, his legs rubbery. “Leave me alone.” He exited the little chamber.
Unaware of his whereabouts, he wandered aimlessly, taking random turns left and right. Running again, he thought.
The convent was not large. The third corner led him into the small backyard. A group of girls were playing in the dust. They saw him and fled. Sunlight glared into his face. Scowling, he tottered, touching a wall for support.
“Ewan! Ewan!” a voice shouted, almost in panic. It was Adrian.
His friend came through the same door, running. Very quickly, a herd of people swarmed the little yard, girls of all sizes and his companions from the monastery. Bojan squirmed past the elders, rushing to his side, and ferociously hugged his leg.
“Keep that thing away from us!” Duvall hissed.
“What’s wrong?” Ewan pleaded.
Adrian swallowed. His friend stood nearby and looked afraid. “You are not well.”
“I feel all right,” the young brother protested.
Rais, Duvall’s shadow, was holding a short knife in front of him. “Come here, and I’ll gut you, you monster.”
Matriarch Elena joined the crowd. “Make way. Step back, children. Brother, put that knife down. You are defiling this holy place. Adrian, Bojan, come here.”
Ewan stood alone, confused, facing a horde of distrusting and frightened faces.
“You must leave us,” the matriarch stated plainly.
Ewan felt color drain from his face. “What did I do?”
Elena threw something at his feet. “Take it.”
He bent down and picked up a little purse; inside were a few coins. “What did I do?” he whispered.
“You must leave before sunset. We have done what we can. It’s up to the gods now. Our duty has been fulfilled,” the matriarch intoned.
Ewan desperately sought some warmth from his friends. But they averted their gaze and would not look him in the eye. Only Rais stared at him, with open hatred in his beady eyes.
“Be gone by sunset,” Matriarch Elena warned.
Like a man in fever, Ewan walked back the way he had come, into the musty little room. The blind woman was there, sucking on her toothless gums.
He plopped onto the hard cot, his eyes watering.
“Are you crying?” she asked.
Ewan did not know if she mocked him or sympathized with him. He just ignored her.
“You must be burning to know what happened. But your friends cannot tell you. They don’t know. And because they don’t know, they are afraid.”
“And you do know?” he asked after a long pause. This time, the woman kept quiet, letting him fret. “No, I don’t,” she said at last.
Ewan felt rage bubble up inside him.
“I can only tell you what they saw,” she spoke suddenly. “I can only tell what they think they saw and believe has happened. But only the gods know the truth.”
The young brother mustered some of his civility and humility. “Please, tell me.”
“In days past, I used to have eyes, before they were taken from me. I have read books. There was a mention of…things like that, but nothing solid, nothing explicit.”
Ewan said nothing.
“A man, usually a young man, would catch a strong fever. And then, it would go away, as if nothing happened. But then, after a few days, a new bout would cripple him.”
The old woman rocked once again. Ewan tried to look at her for more than a moment, but the sight of her horrified him.
“And then, there would be rages. They call them ‘the black rages.’ Terrible things would happen. But the man with the fever would not be able to remember them.”
“What then?” he said when he realized the woman would not speak any more.
“I don’t know. You must find out for yourself. The books don’t say.”
“What did I do?”
“You killed a man.”
Disgusted, he ran out of the room again.
He was just tall enough to see beyond the breastwork. Standing on a cobble amidst a patch of onions, he stared at the vast expanse of the Territories, summer heat beating details into vapor. Not a soul stirred outside the convent.
“You were very brave that day,” the familiar voice said again.
Ewan smiled. “Hello, Sarith.” He felt a tear slip down his cheek. Ashamed, he wiped it away quickly.
“I know they won’t tell you, because they are afraid. But I’m not.”
He turned to regard her. She was so sweet and lovely, fragile and coy, just like that day in the village market.
“Please, I don’t remember anything,” he rasped.
Sarith hopped from one cobble to the next, coming closer to him. “You came to our convent, the lot of you. We saw you, but we stayed hidden, not knowing who you were or why you came. We saw the two soldiers with you, and we thought you were the enemy. But when we saw the children, Matriarch Elena let us out.”
Sarith smiled sadly. “Our matriarch refused entrance to the soldiers. One of them grabbed a boy and threatened to kill him if we didn’t let them in.”
Ewan listened raptly. This was complete news to him.
“Then, you staggered. They said you had a plague, but I didn’t believe them. You…you approached one of these soldiers. And he…fired a crossbow at your chest.”
Ewan’s hands rose up involuntarily, touching solid, unscathed flesh beneath the shirt he wore. A flash of an ugly dream flashed inside his head. That dark feeling of despair wrapped him again.
“But you didn’t die. You…you didn’t even flinch. The arrow just splintered, like you were made of hard rock. And then you hit the soldi
er and broke his neck.”
The young brother did not know what to say.
“After that, you fell down. That other soldier surrendered, but Matriarch Elena ordered him stoned to death. We buried them there, outside the wall.” She propped up on her toes and pointed. Ewan leaned. A pair of long lumps of freshly overturned earth, like big loaves of bread, could be seen by one of the walls.
“Matriarch Elena asked the girls to stone the soldier. But I refused.”
She played with her fingers nervously, staring at them. “We then brought you all in. You were unconscious. Matriarch Elena wanted you stoned as well, but Lora would not let her.”
“Who is Lora?” he heard himself say.
“The blind hag. She is our convent’s protector.”
Ewan nodded. “Besides, she said we couldn’t stone you even if we wanted to,” Sarith continued.
“They think you are a monster, Ewan. But I know you are not. But Matriarch Elena wants to expel you. You cannot stay here. And we will be going as well.”
“Why? Where?” Ewan frowned.
“Lora says our protection is failing. It has kept us safe from the infidels so far, but it will not last much longer. We will go to Jaruka. Matriarch Elena wants to take the brothers with us.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” Ewan said in a barely audible tone. “What am I? What protection?”
Sarith gave him another sad smile. “Lora protects us from outside harm. But she can no longer do it. Her goddess has no power left. We must go before the infidels find us, Matriarch Elena said.”
The sun was arcing toward the horizon.
“Are you allowed to talk to me, even?” he blurted.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not. But I don’t care.”
Ewan looked behind him. Small girls played outside, but far from him. Several sisters stood guard over the kids, watching him with suspicion and fear. He had so many questions.
Where will I go?
He looked at the world’s corners. Of all, east seemed like the best choice. He did not know why.
Sarith and he stood in silence, watching the quiet world. Gradually, the shadows lengthened. The sun slipped behind the bulk of the convent.
Gently, he poked a finger against his own forearm. It felt no different. The white smudge quickly faded as blood returned to it.
“I don’t know what to do,” he confessed.
“I believe in you, Ewan. I know you’ll be fine. Just pray to the gods, and they will guide you.”
Ewan nodded feebly. He was shaken to the core of his existence. He knew he was in shock. Most of what he had heard had not yet fully registered with his dull mind.
More people came outside, Matriarch Elena with them.
“Sarith, join us for the evening prayer,” she ordered.
“I will never forget you,” Ewan whispered. He fought tears back.
“Sarith!” one of the girls yelled.
“And I won’t forget you,” she mouthed without saying it, retreating hastily.
“Be gone,” an anonymous face shouted at him.
“You are a disgrace to the gods and goddesses, an unholy thing,” someone else said.
Some of his friends came out, too. Duvall was there, sneering. He waved at them. They just looked away, ashamed. He no longer had friends. He was all alone. Bojan squirmed in Rais’s grip, trying to run toward him, but they would not let him.
“I’m a servant of the gods, just like you,” he tried feebly, but it was of no use. He closed his eyes. East. He let the purse with coins drop at his feet. Without a thing on him except a threadbare tunic and trousers, he exited the convent and started pacing into the dusk, never looking back.
Half a mile from the convent, he collapsed on the ground and cried.
CHAPTER 14
“What do you want to do, sir?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.” Adam stared back, unrelenting.
There were many ways to kill a man, he thought. You could stab him, but you could also shove him into a bear pit.
He was not really sure how well his resurrection had succeeded. He was a captain now, and ten times more likely to get killed than ever before. Worse, he knew nothing about the business of war.
Luckily, kal Armis’s men were seasoned soldiers, with many a border skirmish under their belt. And they burned to wash away the shame and the dishonor of their officer’s death and defeat. Deferring to them was not a natural thing to do, but it worked.
They hated him. They saluted him and sirred him, but they spat and cursed behind his back. There was no outright mutiny, but it came quite close to that. Adam believed the only reason they had not yet killed him was because they wanted to kill Caytoreans first.
It would be pointless to try and win them over. His lieutenants considered him a stranger and a usurper, claiming a lucrative post they had hoped to gain one day. Reflecting the feelings of their immediate superiors, the sergeants, and in turn, the entire battalion, saw him as a leech.
This was his new nickname: Captain Leech.
Absurdly, his lack of military knowledge became his strongest advantage. He gave them an almost free hand running their units and consulted them on every little thing. At first, they had been extremely cautious and suspicious of his benevolence. Now, they were under an impression that he respected them and truly believed they knew best what their troops needed. Their hate had lessened somewhat since.
“It’s madness,” Lieutenant Gerard said.
Adam grimaced. “We have to take that hill.”
Three miles ahead of him, a Caytorean camp slept under the summer night, confident in its supremacy of the region. Scouring the land free of Eracian troops, the Caytoreans had established a number of outposts that controlled the passages over the hills to which, on a daily basis, reinforcements poured in and fresh detachments came out of, streaming into the Territories. The enemy convoys went almost straight west, heading for Talmath. They did not seem to worry about the Eracians on their north flank about twenty miles away, considering them defeated.
Adam was no expert, but he believed that the Eracians had made a long series of errors in the first days of fighting. They had not scouted the region properly, missing entire regiments of enemy troops much deeper inside the holy land than they had expected.
The Eracians had lost quite a few battles, the one he had participated in being just one in a long series of ambushes that his fellow troops had suffered. Now, the Caytoreans were a black presence in the entire region, a wedge that sliced into the heart of the Territories and threatened one of its most important sites. The Eracians were an embarrassed pocket of beaten dogs, stranded near the common border of the three realms, with insufficient forces and morale to do anything.
Worse, no one could even begin to guess what the enemy was doing further south, toward Poereni or Mista, the other large pilgrim cities in the east of the Territories. It felt like the brilliant beginning of a spectacular defeat.
Adam had not been surprised when they had asked him to move his battalion south and capture one of the outposts, disrupting the enemy supplies and slowing their advance.
Some weeks ago, the grassy expanses of the border region had been devoid of almost any army presence. Now, enemy strongholds dotted the countryside like poisonous mushrooms, blistering bigger and bigger.
He parked now not very far from where his previous battle had been fought.
Under the cover of darkness, he had moved in, bringing along only the regulars. There was no purpose to lugging the hundreds of useless peasants. At best, they would be a hindrance. At worst, they would compromise his rather suicidal mission.
If they failed to achieve their goal, they would be left with no reserve in the middle of enemy territory, more than a day’s march from any friendly forces. Then it would truly be suicide.
“Madness or not, we have to do it,” Adam said again.
Lieutenant Shendor spat. “I don’t like this one bit.”
Adam sighed. “Nevertheless, what do you think is the best way to do it?”
A flash of respect lit the faces of the three officers. They did not like him, but he seemed to like their ideas.
Gerard leaned closer. “We should strike just before dawn, from the west. The guards will be staring at the rising sun and not into the dying night’s gloom.”
Adam nodded. “Sounds reasonable. Do we split our forces?”
Lieutenant Beno shook his head. “We’re too few. But we can send some archers onto the roads to cut down anyone trying to flee. That way, they don’t bring word of the attack to other camps.”
“How many are they?” Adam asked.
Shendor rolled his eyes, as if it helped him think of numbers. “Round five hundred.”
It was almost twice the number of what he had. And from what little he knew about wars, you never attacked unless you had at least three times as many spears as the defender. It would be suicide.
“Mostly low-quality troops, some artisans and such,” Beno added.
“All right then, archers on the roads, we move as one body. No shouting and yelling. We kill them quick and quiet. Don’t burn any supplies. We’ll need them.”
They crawled back to their troops. As one, they wore soft green and brown leather that blended well into the surrounding, with breastplates of good steel underneath. Their helms and gauntlets were painted ash-black and did not reflect the light unnecessarily.
The archers departed first, two teams, a score of men each. Half an hour later, a dozen men specializing in infiltration departed, armed with crossbows and knives. Their task was to dispose of the perimeter guards.
The remaining two hundred warriors waited, hiding in the tall grass and bushes, the night sky turning silver with dawn haze as time slipped onward. No one spoke. They were professionals, oiled with cold revenge. They had waited a long time for this chance to redeem themselves.
Adam sat in their midst, a stranger with no knowledge of combat. And yet, he was just as calm as they, life such a simple menu of choices before him.
He was still learning about the units he allegedly commanded. He knew the names of the individual companies and their mascots. He knew the names of all the sergeants. He had even mastered the pyramidal hierarchy of his troops. Three squads a platoon, led by a corporal, a dozen men strong; three platoons in a company, three companies per battalion, plus auxiliaries, scouts, and other detachments. All in all, he commanded roughly five hundred people.
The Betrayed: Book one of The Lost Words Page 10
