by Tim Mathias
“Of course, we could remove Talazz altogether,” Barrett said. “While he rests.”
“What are you saying?”
“Kill the giant, capture Praene. Take control of the regiments.”
“Absolutely not!” Zayd growled. “I thought you held honour as a sacred principle!”
“Don’t lecture me,” Barrett waved a hand, dismissing Zayd’s objection. “I’ve always fought on the battlefield with honour, which is more than you can ever say. But this is not a battlefield, is it?”
“No, it is not,” Zayd admitted. “Regardless, we will not make murderers of ourselves, dishonour ourselves in the service of honour…… absolutely not.”
“Fine, fine,” Barrett said. “What else are we to do then, if we cannot remove him with force?” As a man who was his purest realization of himself only at war, Barrett seemed to approach every problem having already decided that the solution was the sword. Not here, though, Zayd knew. At least, not their own swords.
“Ten Tower fort,” Zayd said. “We must still be south of it.”
“What of it? We must be days away from it, at least.”
Ten Tower was the only Ryferian outpost between Yasri and where the army brought in supplies to the coast from the mainland. It was clear that Praene was not marching towards it, Zayd knew, but if he could tell how close they were to it, there could be a chance to remove Praene from command while keeping his head.
“One of us needs to get there. If Praene is going to abandon his duty, then he must have at least enough of his men ready to do the same, enough to overpower the rest of the column. Otherwise, how could he do it? We’ll need the soldiers at Ten Tower to intervene against him. Before he acts.”
Barrett stared into the dark forest, contemplating, mapping out his actions. He grunted. “Aye. Before… why hasn’t he already? We can’t leave this for long.” He paused, again looking into the darkness. “I will go to Ten Tower. But we will need Praene’s map, and he keeps it stowed away somewhere in his tent.”
“I will get it,” Zayd said.
Barrett nodded almost imperceptibly. “Tomorrow night. Make sure you are ready.”
Zayd tried to rest throughout the day, but the anticipation was like a voice that he could not silence, keeping him to only a few hours of light sleep. He ran his thumb over the scar of the sigil on the inside of his left arm. For a moment he thought it was the scar that kept him awake. Was it more sensitive somehow, or was it his nerves? Zayd pulled down his sleeve and dismissed it as the latter. He was nervous, and he wondered how much it showed.
The column stopped at midday for food and a short rest. Zayd scanned the column, looking for signs of anyone acting out of the ordinary. He looked to Barrett and saw that the knight was acting completely normal. Maybe others were noticing him if he truly was the only one expecting something to happen at that very moment. Barrett did not even make eye contact with him.
The Dramandi woman did, though. He caught her looking at him with apprehension and… was it fear? He approached her and held out his water skin which she accepted and, while taking a long drink, never took her eyes from him.
“What is your name?” Zayd asked.
“Did you dream?” she asked. He was taken off guard by the question.
“Not that I remember.” Her look did not change, still full of uncertainty. “Should I have dreamt?”
She reached out to touch him and Zayd drew back reflexively. “You have something on your arm,” she said.
“How is it you know that?”
Her hand dropped to the ground. “It does not matter. But you do, don’t you?”
Zayd didn’t know how she knew, but there was no point in lying. “Yes.”
“I need to see. You have to show me,” she whispered.
“Your name first.”
She was looking right into his eyes, and he could sense her seeking something out, measuring him for the most basic essence of trust; would he show her once she told him her name? Was he asking for it for a malign purpose? Zayd did not avoid her stare. A thought flashed into his mind the moment she spoke.
“Sera Naiat.”
He gave a slight nod of thanks, and looked around again to see if anyone was watching them before quickly raising his sleeve to show her the scarred sigil on his left forearm. She grabbed his arm and pulled it closer to her. The quickness of it surprised Zayd; he did not even have time to react. As she held his arm with one hand, she traced the scar with the other so lightly he almost did not feel it.
“How did you know it was there?” he asked. He slowly pulled his arm away.
“What is that?” she asked.
“The sigil of my family.” He questioned himself as soon as the words were spoken. Why tell this to her? Was she not the enemy? It must have been the homesickness that made him offer up information so freely. “How did you know it was there?” he repeated.
“Do you believe me? Do you believe what I told you about what you’ve unearthed?”
Zayd wondered for a moment if she was trying to manipulate him, building false trust to engineer an escape. He had thought that their attack had been to retrieve something from the column, something that they had taken from the city. Was that still her goal? Were they after the monolith? Amidst all the questions, he realized that if she knew he did not believe her, she may turn her attention to someone else and pursue her escape that way.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I am not gifted with the sight that you have. Back home my chieftain had the sight. But no, I don’t. I can’t. No one in my family has been able to.”
“The spirits are afraid of you,” she said. “I see them reaching out to the nasci. Trying to corrupt them. And I saw them reaching out… to you.”
“For what purpose?”
“Who can know? They are not the spirits of our people. I think they have… driven them away, or… killed them, if a spirit can be killed. I don’t know what they are, but they have a purpose. They have a desire.”
A soldier approached from behind Zayd. A clean-faced corporal gave him a suspicious look as he walked around Zayd to hand half a loaf of bread and a strip of dried, salted meat to Sera.
“You speak their language?” the corporal asked. Zayd noticed he did not address him properly, but he ignored it. Best not to arouse further suspicion.
“Trying. Not having much luck.”
“What for?”
“Just trying to find out if she knows anything useful.”
“And does she?”
Zayd stood and gave the corporal a hard look. The young man simply stood there, his arms folded, giving him an accusatory look. Zayd looked back at Sera, who was tearing into the bread.
“I don’t know yet,” he said, and walked away.
The sun seemed to take many long hours to set, and for the rest of the day, Zayd had grown more and more uncertain. He needed to speak with Barrett again to make sure nothing they discussed the night before had changed. He had imagined the course of events unfolding in as many ways as they might. The questions he could not answer were the most important ones: how long would it take Barrett to make it to Ten Tower fort? Would he be able to convince the commander there to ride out after Praene? What would happen to Zayd in the meantime? And the question that grew more pressing with each passing hour: what if they were wrong? For an accomplished and highly respected Trueborn like Barrett, it might mean a reprimand. But for Zayd, the punishment for disobedience was death. His, and his family’s.
When he finally heard the order called out to halt, Zayd’s heart quickened. It would be another hour at least before it would be safe for him to make his attempt, but he wanted it to be done with now. As he walked to his post for the first watch of the night, he pressed his hands to his sides to keep them still. Scaling the walls of Yasri had not made him so nervous. With that, though, it was only his life that was forfeit if he failed.
Zayd chose a discreet area on the outskirts of the camp where he could see Praene’s te
nt, and where it would be difficult for anyone, including his own men, to spot him. He was surprised when Barrett appeared to be walking towards him, though it was clear he could not see anything. Zayd remained motionless and only spoke when Barrett was within earshot of his whisper. “Here.”
Barrett was unarmed and unarmoured. He wore simple cotton and wool greys with a hardened leather vest as his armour. He would not be able to slip away unnoticed in his full plate.
“I’m ready. My horse is saddled and tied at the right rear flank of the column. Just get the map into my hands and I’ll be off.”
“Alright, I will…” Zayd suddenly realized he had been secretly hoping Barrett would change his mind, that he had found out they were back on course and that everything was fine. “I will wait for a few minutes, long enough for you to get there, and… well, wait for me there.”
Barrett nodded. “Good,” he said, and walked away without another word.
Zayd looked outward into the forest, not watching Barrett leave, and thought again about the consequences he might incur. He looked up into the sky at the stars peeking through the thin clouds and wondered if he and Barrett might succeed, or if his failure was already foreseen, and he had only to go through with the formality of the act itself. He turned towards the camp and made his way towards Praene’s tent.
The rows of tents were always arranged the same. The discipline of the army was rooted into every act, and so, as Zayd padded silently through the rows of tens, he knew exactly where he was going. He looped around a group of soldiers who sat around a fire debating which brothel in Lycernum was the most likely to leave you with an illness. He kept them in his periphery while remaining hidden in the darkness just outside the reach of the fire’s light.
He was about fifty feet from the back of Praene’s tent when he heard more voices. They sounded as though they were coming from in front of it. Zayd had thought Praene might be awake, drinking and cajoling with Corwin, Rindus, and the other knights, his brothers in treachery. He could see light from a fire on the opposite side of the tent. Good. If they were all drunk and noisy, his task would be that much easier. The command tent had a twenty foot radius where no other structures were to be built. It was a safety measure and also a sign of deference, but Zayd had always thought it foolish since it clearly identified the leader to any observant enemies.
Crouched on one knee, Zayd remained on the edge of the empty space, scanning the darkness for movement of any kind. His palms were flat on the ground, and it was only because of that that they were not trembling. He put his hand to his waist and felt the absence of his sword. He did not want anything that might hinder his mobility or make any noise, but he felt a sting of regret and vulnerability all the same. He patted his other hip – his dagger was there. Resting his hands flat on the ground once more, he inhaled slowly, and in a few deft strides, covered the open ground and narrowed himself against the backside of the tent.
He exhaled.
He spent a few moments there listening to the chatter out front. He tried not to focus on it, instead trying to determine if there were any sounds coming from within. He ran his fingers over the canvas and found where it was tied around the wooden support. With a smooth, forceful cut, he severed the rope holding the canvas to the support, and peered inside.
Willar Praene’s cot was towards the middle of the tent – empty. Immediately in front of him were several wooden crates, and further in, Areagus’ small but elegant wooden desk. There was a brazier towards the front of the tent, but it gave off only meager light. Enough to throw a shadow, he noted. There were a few other crates and a footlocker at the base of his cot, but Zayd could not see the map in plain view anywhere.
He slipped into the tent, keeping as low as he could, and closed the flap behind him. He started by searching the unlocked crates closest to him but only found Praene’s clothing mixed in with trinkets from Lycernum, as well as what appeared to be a handwritten journal next to an old copy of the Recounting that looked like its pages were about to fall out.
He checked the wooden desk next; there were papers out – supply ledgers, mostly – but no map. There was movement outside. Zayd ducked down behind the desk and steadied himself as footsteps trod away from the fire outside. One of the knights going to relieve himself, perhaps. He sincerely hoped they were not done with their drunken guffawing, otherwise his time was rapidly running out. He shifted over to the footlocker after checking the other unlocked crates and finding nothing. He tugged on the lock as hard as he could, but there was no looseness to it.
There was the sound of half-drunk laughing from outside followed by more footsteps leading away. Zayd’s palms were slick with sweat. He took out his dagger and tried to pry loose the iron brace fastened to the wood on the front of the locker, but they stubbornly remained in place. Whenever they had marched, Areagus had tracked their progress daily on whatever map he had. It would unfailingly be splayed out on his table each night. Why would Praene not adopt the same habit? Why lock it away?
Unless he knew to keep it safe…
Someone was approaching.
Zayd turned towards the loose tent flap, his legs nearly in motion –
“What in the black Beyond is going on?”
Praene stood inside the tent, and Barrett stood beside him. Zayd made eye contact with the knight, hoping to see some reassuring nod, but only got his stony grimace.
Of course Praene had kept the map under lock and key – Barrett must have warned him. Praene was not fully armoured, but his sword was slung at his side, and his hand was clasped around its hilt.
Zayd tried to keep his composure, but he was certain he looked guilty.
As he was.
“Explain yourself,” Praene said. Zayd thought he would have screamed and shouted, or lunged at him, weapon drawn, but the commander only acted as though he had found Zayd in dereliction of some minor duty. The three of them exchanged looks. Barrett was equally inscrutable.
Zayd turned towards them. There was no way for him to escape this, whatever it was, so best to accept his fate with dignity. If Barrett was part of Praene’s scheme, then his lack of character would be judged in the next life.
“I know what you’re planning,” Zayd said. “I came for proof.”
Praene curled his upper lip in a sneer. “So what is it that I’m planning, Tauthri?”
“You’re going to quit the army and take the loot we’re carrying with you. You’re going to kill or abandon what is left of the Eighth regiment. Perhaps even some of the Ninth.”
Willar raised his eyebrows. “Do you believe what we’re hearing, Barrett?”
“It’s madness, commander,” Barrett said.
“Who else shares your delusions?” Praene asked.
“Only me,” Zayd said. His eyes darted from Willar to Barrett and back again, an involuntary motion, but Praene caught it, inebriated as he was. He drew his blade and swung.
Barrett anticipated the move perfectly, catching Praene’s arm and using it to spin him off balance and onto the ground. Barrett pressed a hand over Praene’s mouth. “Not a sound.”
Zayd exhaled. “You could have warned me!”
“There was no time,” Barrett said.
“I thought you had…”
“Thought I had what? You narrow-minded Tauthri, you thought I set you up for him to find you?”
“Perhaps I did.”
“Well, I didn’t.” Barrett looked down at Praene. “Where is the map? Tell me now, and keep it quiet or I will snap your arm like a twig.” He slowly removed his hand from Praene’s mouth.
“What will you do?” Praene said quietly. “Are you going to fight off my entire regiment so you can deliver that loot to the capital? You know what they’ll give you in return? More service. They’ll conscript you back into the army and send you back into battle to die.”
“The war is nearly over,” Zayd interjected.
“It is never over. The emperor is at war with every land that has not be
en conquered. How terrible have our losses been in this campaign? Do you think you’ll survive another year of campaigning, Barrett? Do you think you’ll be released and allowed to return to Tauth, Zayd? I know that that is what awaited me, even though I’ve been long overdue for advancement. Areagus said as much before we left Yasri.”
“You are not walking away from this,” Zayd said.
“Why not take your share? We could divide that gold a thousand times over and still die rich men. All of us. Are you worried about your family, Zayd? Why do you think I left our dead unburied after the Dramandi attacked? Anyone who comes looking for us will think we are dead.”
“Where are you heading?” Barrett asked. He had one knee on Praene’s chest and the other on his right elbow. He began to twist his arm. “Tell me now.” He kept twisting. “I’ll break every bone, if I have to.”
Praene managed to smile through the agony being inflicted on him. “And then what? You’ll be cut down… both of you.” He inhaled sharply as Barrett put more pressure on his arm. “You’ve trapped yourselves. You can fall in line, or you can die.”
Tascell was keeping a watchful eye on the commander’s tent after he had seen Zayd enter, and once Barrett and Willar had entered, he had held his breath. He could not see or hear anything from his position at the edge of the encampment. After several moments he began to wonder if Zayd had slipped out the other side of the tent where he could not see.
Then he saw Devon Rindus hurry through the camp, away from the command tent, to Talazz. Tascell cursed under his breath. The giant stood, picked up his greatsword, and followed Devon back towards the command tent. He cursed again. “This is not good.”
He whistled once, mimicking the song of the kisolark, just loud enough to be heard by Daruthin and, with any luck, by Zayd. “This is not good,” he repeated to himself as he ran into the camp, ducking between rows of tents, making his way to the train of supply carts. As he approached the Dramandi woman, he drew his sword.
