Soldier at the Door (Forest at the Edge)

by Mercer, Trish

  “Son, son—you stupid boy!” he whispered.

  The General opened his eyes again and continued to read, the faint smile reforming on his lips.

  “But fantastic, Perrin!” he said a few minutes later. “Why did I know you went further into that forest than a few paces? But now,” he sighed heavily, “what to do with you? What will Mal—”

  Relf Shin pondered.

  “Fourteen Guarders dead, no soldiers or citizens hurt, your wife preserved, and you were the only one injured, and not by a tree branch . . . Sounds to me as if your twenty stitches were punishment enough. And since this is an army matter,” he said with a sly smile, tossing the message into the fireplace where the flames consumed the confession, “the head of the army will take care of it.”

  He pulled out a piece of parchment and began writing.

  As High General of the Army of Idumea, I must inform you, Captain Perrin Shin, that your behavior in deliberately entering the forest a second time three moons ago—although for noble and commendable reasons—violated the firm admonitions sent to you by General Cush. I hereby officially reprimand you with a strict warning to never reveal your activities that night to anyone else. Not even to your mother. This is not a matter to be celebrated or boasted about, but one to feel great shame and embarrassment, as you undoubtedly do, thus prompting your most remorseful, albeit delayed, confession to me . . .

  The High General chuckled the entire time.

  ---

  Captain Shin stared the formal-looking message from Idumea two days later. He held it at arm’s length as if waiting for it to bite.

  “It’s his handwriting, isn’t it?” Sergeant Major Grandpy Neeks said, stopping in the process of opening another message.

  Lieutenant Karna looked up from the latest announcement he was scanning to look at his commander.

  “Yep,” was all that Shin said as he slowly unfolded the parchment.

  Karna and Neeks exchanged worried looks as Captain Shin started to read the High General Shin’s response to the report—the real report—of what happened in the forest a season ago.

  The men held their collective breath as the captain read, his eyes revealing no emotion until he got to the end. That’s when he finally blinked and folded the letter again.

  “Well?!” Neeks nearly burst out.

  Shin swallowed. “My father is very disappointed in me. I’ve been reprimanded. I should never brag about that night, nor reveal to anyone else what I did, so that no other commanders or soldiers feel the need to replicate my deplorable actions. He’s so disappointed in me that he won’t even reveal the enormity of my ‘success’ to General Cush or Chairman Mal. Or even my mother. I am officially on notice.”

  Neeks scowled. “Notice? Never heard of an officer on ‘notice.’ What does that mean?”

  Shin smiled. “Absolutely nothing at all.”

  Then he started to chuckle.

  ---

  Two weeks later in the evening of the 89th Day of Planting Season, in the forests outside the small village of Edge, several men stood in a thick stand of trees. All but one of them was dressed in concealing clothing, allowing them to blend into the woods. The one who didn’t was younger than the others, and wore clothing like the villagers.

  They had been watching the erratic patrols all evening, trying to predict the pattern. One patrol went by, followed by another. Then another.

  Realizing it would be impossible to choose a perfect moment, the young man suddenly nodded once, then darted across the dark, barren field unnoticed.

  Tomorrow, the fort at Edge would receive a new recruit.

  ---

  On the 90th and almost last day of Planting Season, Captain Shin jogged up the stairs of the command tower in the late afternoon.

  Lieutenant Karna looked at him expectantly.

  The captain shook his head. “False alarm. Again. Might as well finish out the day. But I don’t know how she can get any bigger. She bumped into the corner of the table last night and I fully expected to hear a large popping sound.”

  Karna chuckled. “You spend over a season helping her to stop the pains, now you can’t get them started again?”

  Perrin shook his head soberly. “It’s hopeless. Nothing will scare that baby out.”

  “Now, not being a father or married, I won’t confess to knowing anything about children,” Karna began, “but if her expecting is any indication of the kind of baby she’s about to birth, that will be one stubborn, annoying child. Probably a boy, much like his father.”

  Perrin chuckled and rubbed his eyes wearily. “That’s what my uncle Hogal said last night! Brillen, I’m not sure how much more of this I can stand. We were up half the night counting the minutes before the pains suddenly stopped. I thought she was going to explode from disappointment. Then the same thing happened at midday meal. I’ve got Corporal Yip patrolling the alley behind the house so she can holler to him if anything happens.”

  “Poor Captain,” Karna smiled and patted his shoulder sympathetically. “Maybe this is why people have only two children.”

  Shin smiled sadly. “Not for population control, but for sanity preservation! I couldn’t imagine doing this a third time.”

  The men chuckled and Captain Shin headed for the command office.

  “Sir,” Karna stopped him. “There’s someone in there waiting. Said he wants to be a volunteer for a time. I was just about to go interview him, but—”

  Shin frowned. “Volunteer? I’ll take care of him.” In a whisper he added, “Something must be wrong with him if he wants to work for me without wages.”

  Karna laughed as Shin went into his office. Inside stood a strapping young man, already at attention.

  Shin nodded a greeting. “Captain Perrin Shin,” he held out his hand in introduction. “And already I doubt your ability to be of service.”

  The young man with light brown hair swallowed hard as he shook the captain’s hand. “Sir?”

  “You want to do this without pay? What does that say about your intelligence? Not a great deal.” Shin winked at him and sat down at his desk. He gestured for the hopeful volunteer to take a seat across from him.

  With a hesitant smile the large boy sat down.

  Shin shifted some neat stacks of paper needlessly around on his desk before launching into his routine of subtle interrogation. There were only a few other cases of volunteerism he had ever seen, and each one ended up with the prospect taken in chains to incarceration. The army was no place to hide from law enforcers, difficult parents, or expecting girlfriends. Even if he didn’t sign up officially, someone’s still going to write down his name.

  “So,” Shin said, finally looking up at him once he was sure the young man had grown uneasy with waiting, “my lieutenant says you’re interested in volunteering?”

  The hopeful cleared his throat. “Yes, sir, I am. For two, maybe three seasons, sir. Just to see if I really want to stay.”

  Shin squinted. “Two seasons? Work half a year without slips of silver?”

  “To be honest, sir—”

  Deceit frequently begins with the words To be honest, Perrin thought to himself.

  “—I’m not sure I’m up to being a soldier. But I’m very interested in helping track down the Guarders. I’m good at tracking. My father has a herd of cattle that are always escaping. I can find a lost calf anywhere.”

  Shin nodded once. “Good skill. But Guarders don’t moo. And we’re not allowed to track into the forest.”

  “But sir, I can tell you if someone has come out of the forest, then gone back in.”

  Shin couldn’t help but smile at his confidence. “Well, I’d be foolish not to accept your help, then. I can let you stay in the barracks and eat in the mess hall, but I can’t issue you a uniform if you’re not official.”

  The young man began to smile back. “That’s all right, sir! Don’t need one. And I have a little bit of savings, so I don’t need slips of silver.”

  Shin pulled ou
t a clean paper. “Well, then, I don’t have a stamped form to fill out for volunteers. You must be the first. But I do need some information. Name?” He would check it, along with variations, with the chief of enforcement later.

  “Shem Zenos, sir.”

  He offered that up easily, Perrin thought. Usually young men stammer a bit with a false name, even if they practiced it.

  Still . . .

  Shin furrowed his brow. “Zenos? Never heard that last name before. Not from Edge, are you?”

  “No, sir. I kind of wanted to get away from home. So I came north.”

  “Understood,” he said casually as he wrote the name. “Where are you from? Mountseen? Quake? Rivers?”

  “From between Flax and Waves, sir.”

  Shin blinked, completely taken aback. Even though he knew the villages were at the furthest southern edges of the world, still he turned to stare at the large map of the world that hung on the wall.

  “Really? Talk about getting away from home. You can’t get any further than that.”

  Zenos shrugged. “I know, sir.”

  Perrin’s suspicions rose, but he remained relaxed. “Take you a long time to get here?”

  “Weeks, sir,” he sighed. “Sold my horse down in Trades to have enough silver to get up here, so I wouldn’t have to touch my savings. Walked the rest of the way.”

  Shin watched him for a moment. “Sold your own horse?” Few young men owned their own horses. Only very wealthy families could take on the expense of an extra animal.

  Even Perrin had never owned his own horse, he remembered with the smallest twinge of jealousy, although he ‘claimed’ one or two over the years that the stables at the garrison allowed him to ride.

  And although he was allowed to choose a horse at the fort to be designated his own, he had yet to do so. None of the animals were the right blend of strength and speed to match Perrin’s build. If a stallion was fast enough, it also grew tired too quickly. If a mare was sturdy enough, it couldn’t keep up. Perrin alternated between three different animals, occasionally wishing he could find the right one.

  And this overgrown boy in front of him had his very own?

  He also realized that farmers often owned a horse in conjunction with their oxen, and ranchers—yes, very successful ranchers frequently had several horses to keep up with their cattle.

  But why would a father allow his son to sell such a valuable animal?

  Or perhaps, he didn’t.

  Shin watched the young man for signs that the sale hadn’t been sanctioned, but he met the captain’s steady gaze.

  “Yes, sir, I did. So I could come chase Guarders. No forests near Waves, sir. Only salty water.”

  Shin leaned back in his seat, intrigued. “There are places closer to your home where Guarders are attacking. In fact, there was that raid just a few weeks ago on Coast. Guarders came in on canoes. Might be coming to Waves in canoes, too.”

  Zenos smiled cautiously. “And they’ll have just as a difficult time. The water is rougher at Waves than at Coast, sir.”

  The captain nodded as he appraised the large boy, still unconvinced that he travelled so far. It was common knowledge that the waves in Waves were much stronger than Coast. The name was a bit of a giveaway.

  “That it is,” Perrin said. “I’ve been to both villages. I’m not in the least bit surprised the Guarder canoes all sank, although I was rather disappointed. I was hoping someone might be able to catch one of them alive. Guess it would be rather hard to track on the water, wouldn’t it?”

  Zenos nodded. “I imagine they’ve abandoned that strategy, sir. I’m confident the village of Waves will be safe from future water attacks.”

  Shin watched him again for a moment—the young man held his penetrating gaze remarkably well—before Shin looked back at the map.

  “A lot of people have speculated about where they launched their canoes. Around here folks are guessing they somehow managed to make a home in the marshes east of here and went south. But then they would have had to travel for quite a distance.”

  “It’s not really that far, sir,” Zenos suggested.

  Shin turned his attention to boy. “About fifty miles in a canoe isn’t ‘that far’? Few people would agree with you, Zenos. Anywhere more than ten miles away might as well be one hundred.”

  Zenos swallowed. “Sir, you said you’ve been all the way south, so you’ve travelled, right?”

  “Yes,” Shin said slowly.

  “Surely you would agree that travelling one hundred twenty miles isn’t that much harder than travelling ten miles. Just . . . do it longer. Most people have never tried it, so they don’t know. You simply keep going. You don’t die from it. You rest, eat, walk, sleep. Every village has a market with food, and there are inns and taverns to stay in. Even some barns if no one’s looking,” he confessed, a little uncomfortably.

  Perrin smiled.

  The boy’s demeanor changed significantly when he confessed to sleeping in barns. He didn’t have to reveal that information, but apparently he didn’t know how to hold back on the truth. So, likely, he did come from a long distance.

  The next question then was, why.

  “You’re right,” Shin said, “I don’t understand why people fear travelling, but then again, now that I’ve settled down, I’m rather content to be where I am. Why leave home when all that I want is right here?”

  “Yes, sir,” Zenos looked down at his hands and started rubbing them as if trying to remove unseen dirt.

  Shin noticed the boy’s previously confident manner vanished completely, replaced by guilty behavior.

  “Well, we’ll provide you a horse to chase Guarders with, but it may be rather dull here for a time. Been exceptionally quiet for over three moons now. More recently they hit Trades again, just north of Flax, out of the forest about there.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “You could have stayed near home to find Guarders,” he hinted again.

  Zenos swallowed again. “But I also wanted to see the world. Saw most of it walking north, sir!” he chuckled anxiously.

  “And a very long way to walk it is, Zenos.” Shin smiled genially.

  Zenos smiled cautiously back.

  In the same casual tone, Perrin got right to the point. “Trouble at home, son?”

  Zenos shook his head rapidly. “No, sir. None at all. Not really.”

  Shin put down his quill to show he wasn’t about to record anything more. “Was she pretty?”

  Zenos’s eyes grew big. “Sir?”

  Shin raised his eyebrows in suggestion. The boy needed to hide for two to three seasons. Long enough for anything that might be developing to arrive.

  Zenos blushed a deep shade of red. “Sir, no girl! I promise! I’ve never, never—”

  Shin raised his hand to stop the young man’s frantic defense. He didn’t need that much honesty.

  Zenos bit his lower lip to silence it.

  Perrin considered him. There was no deceit in his clear blue eyes, so there must have been something else. While Zenos’s body was surprisingly broad and muscular, his smooth, almost gentle face looked like it belonged to a twelve-year-old.

  “Do you have your parents’ permission to be here?”

  Zenos furrowed his eyebrows. “Sir, I don’t have a mother anymore, and my father wasn’t too happy about me leaving, but he’s getting over it.”

  “I may need a signature, Zenos.”

  Zenos’s mouth dropped open. “Sir, I’m of age! I’m twenty. My birthday was at the beginning of the season!”

  Shin smiled dubiously. “Really.”

  Zenos rubbed his smooth chin. “My father can’t grow much of a beard either, sir. I assure you, I am of age. Have been for two years.”

  If a single hair emerged on his chin, the boy probably would have thrown a celebration.

  “Well, no crime in not growing a beard. Saves you some time each morning. While the rest of the army is shaving, you’ll be first in line for breakfast. But if you choose to
sign up later, I may need a verifying signature from your father.”

  Zenos shifted uneasily. “Would take some time to get that but . . . yes, sir.”

  So it was likely his age. Nothing else made him as uncomfortable as that. Perrin would send a message to the chief of enforcement asking if any villages were missing a younger-than-legal boy. Until he received word back, there was nothing else he could do except let him stay and work for food. At least he’d be safe at the fort.

  Perrin went back to writing, hoping to elicit something about Zenos’s relationship with his family. “Your father owns cattle, you say? Between Flax and Waves?”

  “Yes, sir. Large herd. Even brought some of it up to Idumea once to sell. May do it again when he has a big surplus.”

  “The garrison is always looking for good beef.” Shin continued to write.

  “My father sold his last surplus to the garrison, sir. About a year ago.”

  Perrin nodded as he took careful notes on the paper, stalling to come up with another tactic to gather more information about the boy’s father.

  Zenos leaned forward a bit to see what the captain was writing.

  Perrin looked up abruptly, but didn’t focus on the young man who froze in alarm that he’d been caught snooping. Instead he watched the door.

  A moment later it swung open.

  There stood a wide-eyed corporal, panting. Realizing that he’d opened the door without knocking first, he lamely did so then. Then he looked at the door in complete confusion as if trying to work out what he was doing.

  “Well, Yip?!” Shin demanded.

  The corporal turned immediately to the captain and nodded.

  “Said she’s positive this time,” he gasped. “Something about water rupturing? Mrs. Peto arrived and said to come get you. Midwives are on their way.”

  Shin slammed down the quill and stood up.

  “Zenos, welcome to Edge,” he said hurriedly. “You’ll have to excuse me, but Karna will show you around and get you a cot. I’m due at home. I need to take my daughter for a very long walk.”