How the world had changed since they’d dragged him down under the cathedral a hundred years ago. At first it seemed as if nothing was different. He was in the cell he remembered being locked in, leaving him to starve and go mad for want of a drink. They’d left him there, ignored his screams and curses. Even Saint Ciro had abandoned him, the soft presence in the back of his head that had so often offered him good counsel drying up as his skin dried and his organs shrivelled. He’d suffered a slow death that was never complete. Always aware, even when his muscles desiccated and he couldn’t move or speak or blink. He could always hear, even after his ears cracked and he envied the desperate cries of those locked up beside him. He felt their pain when the Abbot came to pry confessions of demonic nature out of them, he sorrowed when the change in pitch and desperation of the screams meant the prisoner was headed for the Room of Mirrors. Then, after a long, long time, he couldn’t feel anything. He heard and, on some deeply buried level, understood, but it ceased to matter. Nothing was real. He wasn’t real.
His first moments after waking were far from clear, fluttering at the edges of his thoughts like birds battering themselves at a window. There was an image of a man in the robes of a Dean of Ciro lifting the heads of three Bone Mages and slitting their throats while they were too tired to protest. He could vaguely recall the Abbess stepping over spreading pools of blood, holding her robes above her ankles. She wasn’t the Abbot he remembered closing the door on him all those years ago. Neither was it the same Prior that handed David a bag of clothes.
While the Abbess and Prior were new, they were but different faces attached to the same dogma and rigmarole of the church David remembered. The cathedral they’d led him through had changed on the surface—new mosaics, fresh paint, finer marble, more gilt—but underneath it was the same building, the same unimpeachable laws and beliefs. Even the monks cleaning the floor were the same Nameless, faceless drones.
The duke was the worst. He, too, had a new face and different eyes that burned like fire magic, but underneath the clothes, inside the skin, there was something deeply, horribly familiar to David. It was an invisible tether hooked around his heart, stretching toward the regal man who looked at David as if he was little more than a tool.
“You’re a weapon,” the duke had said. “A blade I alone wield. Don’t forget that.”
Everything in those first hours had been superficially different but ultimately, sadly, unchanged.
It was the world outside the church that had changed. It was louder, faster, taller. The ducal palace had spread, devouring the surrounding buildings and shitting out gardens, pebbled yards and ridiculously tall towers.
“The only air-docks in all of Delaluz,” the duke had announced proudly. “Though I hear Galo de Giron is trying to gather the funds to build one.” He sneered at mention of what David could only assume was another duke.
“Air-docks?” he’d asked, dismissive of politics in the face of this new mystery.
“For the dirigibles.”
The first sight of the flying contraptions had stunned David into speechless paralysis. He’d never seen their like, never imagined any such thing could ever exist. The only creatures capable of flight in David’s experience were birds, the extinct dragons of Talamh and Air Mages. It seemed unnatural, unfathomable, to see the awkward, heavy hulks suspended beside the air-docks, lashed tight much like the dragon-ships in the harbour of Roque City.
Then there was the land-yacht he and the duke had ridden in from the cathedral to the palace. No horses but a magic-fuelled engine that buzzed like a horde of wasps getting angrier and angrier the faster they went.
The worst change, however, came in the duke’s armoury. David had been given unremarkable clothes—black pants with a dozen pockets; a grey, heavy linen shirt; long, leather coat with metal plates sewn into its lining over his torso; thick soled boots—but the weapons were extraordinary. A two handed, double-edged great sword too long to wear in a scabbard on his belt and had to be slung across his back for a dramatic, over the shoulder draw. Two small crossbows that condensed down to fit into the pockets on his pants but would unfold with a snap of his wrist, accompanied by several rolls of tiny bolts, some coated in fast acting poison. A brace of perfectly balanced throwing knives with blackened blades. Daggers for the sheaths hidden in his boots, one to wear in plain view on his belt, another pair concealed under his shirt.
“And these,” Duke Ibarra had said, opening a locked cabinet and displaying its contents. “They’re called firearms.” He lifted out one of the smaller weapons and showed David how to hold it. “This is a revolver, because the cylinder revolves. Six shot capability.”
The weapon was heavy and settled into David’s hand easily. “It’s like a crossbow?”
“Similar but far more powerful.” Ibarra lifted another revolver and, arm held out straight, he pointed the barrel at David. “When you pull the trigger, it’s like fire from your hand and it can burn down anything in your path.”
He didn’t know why, but staring at the revolver, seeing nothing but darkness in the end of the barrel, David had the strongest urge to dive to the side, draw the sword and destroy the threat. He had only Ibarra’s word the thing was a weapon, but he knew it was true. When you’d lived as long as David had, fought as many battles, caused as much death, instinct came to rule all thought and action, and David’s instincts were as sharp as the edges of his sword. Instinct told him firearms were dangerous, but it also told him they weren’t as dangerous as the man holding the weapon.
Duke Ibarra had given him a pair of ebony-handled revolvers that rode in holsters on either hip.
“And this,” the duke said, reaching for a final weapon, “is a rifle.”
It was shorter than his sword but as heavy. Ibarra showed him how to set the stock into his shoulder, right hand cradling it, finger on the trigger, left hand supporting the barrel. He told David how to use the sight to line up the target.
“A rifle is much more powerful than a pistol. It has a longer range and accuracy. If you want to scare your opponent, fire at him with a revolver by all means, but if you mean to kill him, keep back and use a rifle.”
The rifle went into a harness across his back. Bullets filled the remainder of his pockets.
“Is it fire magic that the firearms use?” David asked. “Like the...” He dug through all the new, confusing information for the word he wanted. “Like the engines on the land-yacht.”
“No, not at all. Though it seems very magical. The firearms come from Gan. Alarie thought bringing the firearms here would give them an advantage against us. I’ll admit facing a gun is not something to take lightly, but they’re no match for a Fire Mage. Still, what they lack in finesse they make up for in numbers.”
David had spent an hour at the duke’s private range, learning how to use the firearms and remembering the blade skills he’d mastered so long ago. Satisfied with David’s technique, the duke had hurried him up to one of the air-docks, revealing the reason they’d awoken the Immortal Soldier.
David had boarded a dirigible and, mere hours away from being a dried out husk, had embarked on another mission for the Duke of Ibarra.
Days later, their destination approaching, David had come to terms with the changes in the world, yet couldn’t think about the similarities anymore. There were too many, all of them distasteful. As before, the duke had told him he had no name beyond ‘the Immortal Soldier’. David, Ibarra had said, was dead, nothing, a forgotten orphan born hundreds of years ago. All that remained was the weapon, the cursed soldier tied to the Dukes of Ibarra.
Sitting so close to a perilous drop and a hard stop on the far away ground was as close to freedom as David could get. Not even his memories were his own. His body, his thoughts, his life belonged to the Dukes of Ibarra. He was forever bound to the duke, tied by the invisible tether that didn’t weaken with the growing distance between them. All of his memories were of the blood he spilled for the dukes, the killing he’d done
, the anger and terror of being locked away over and over, of being woken only to start the endless cycle again.
There were two things the Immortal Soldier refused to give up, two things he knew were his alone. The first was his Name. David Exposito de Ciro. He clung to it even though the dukes wanted him to forget. They wanted him to be theirs completely, the mindless weapon, but he always remembered his Name and he would never let it go.
The second was a dream he held as tightly as he held his Name and he vowed that one day, it would be made real. One day, he dreamed, he would die.
#
David had never been beyond Delaluz’s borders. He’d been close once, chasing a band of Talamhian assassins back across the Ranges. Most he’d managed to catch on the Delaluz side of the mountains. One, however, had proven canny, making it to the far side bare minutes ahead of David. Still on Delaluz soil, David had dropped the man with an arrow to the back. He’d sat there the entire night it took for the Talamhian to die, following his orders precisely. The same compulsion that drove him to kill all of his targets drew him back to Ibarra City, where his weapons were taken away, his clothes were stripped from him and he was put back in the cell.
Shaking away the memory, David leaned out as far as he could, relishing the heady rush of fear as he took in the vast, empty space between him and the ground. The previous day, they’d followed the border between Herrera and Leon, heading for the edge of Delaluz. The land had steadily become drier. Vegetation lost its vibrant colours, turning to shades of yellow and brown, dusty green and muted red. They passed over wide-flung herds of cattle and the occasional patch of bright green where farmers could irrigate from rivers or wells. Across the river they flew and David was in a new place.
The crew called it the Valley, said there were savages living there. Poor, defenceless creatures the Alarians thought they could subjugate. Duke Ibarra, the crew said, had had to talk hard to convince the First Estate of the danger Alarie posed to the Valleymen. Everyone had a right to live free, the duke had pronounced, even the simple-minded people of the Valley and if they couldn’t defend themselves, then it was up to Delaluz, a shining bastion of progress and civilisation, to defend them.
On Duke Ibarra’s orders, when they reached the fifth valley, site of Negron Battalion, the dirigible’s flight path curved toward the west, taking David over the frontline. Much of the Valley was sliced into pieces by the chasms of long dead rivers and the war was being fought around these natural barriers. The enemies faced each other across valley floors littered with mines, pocked with explosion craters and stained with blood. Above them, carrion birds circled in great numbers, drifting on the same air currents the dirigible cut through.
Negron Battalion was dug into the hills on the eastern side of the valley, rows of great catapults flinging oil-bombs into the enemy’s face with rhythmic precision. Set lower down were massive things that looked like overgrown versions of the firearms David carried. Cannons, he learned, that worked on the same principle as the firearms, only far, far more destructive. Each cannon had a crew of soldiers clustered about it, working to load and pack the giant metal ball, scattering once the fuse was lit. As they banked over the front, a cannon fired and the huge contraption jerked backward on a track fastened to the ground. The sound shocked David into almost letting go of the ropes. On the flatter ground were what looked like smaller cannons, though these were pointed almost straight up into the air. Mortars, lobbing smaller, deadly bombs high into the air so they came down with ballistic force on the heads of the enemy.
It was magnificently different to the battles David was used to. In the past, you could stand back at a hundred yards and pierce your enemy with a longbow or stand toe to toe and face him or her down three feet of steel. It was messy and bloody and terrifying but it was real. The weight of the steel, the smell of spilled guts and fear loosened bladders, the grunts and screams, the curses and the pressure of resistance as your blade dug into a body.
What he saw as the dirigible very carefully flew over the front was cold, despite all the explosions and fire. There were hundreds of yards between opponents. How could you look in the enemy’s eyes and know what you did was right and just? People died without ever seeing the face of their killer. No one had to wash the blood off their hands at the end of the day, didn’t have to see the red pooling at their feet. Weren’t reminded of the cost, the value of what they had taken away from another human.
And Duke Ibarra and Abbess Morales were even further away, sitting safe and happily detached from the slaughter on their thrones.
Of all the things he’d learned in the last couple of days, this was the one that drove David away from the front of the dirigible and into the cabin. He couldn’t look at the foolishness anymore. All the arguments he’d had so long ago, when he’d still been human, still able to die, were down there, buried under the weight of cannons and torn to shreds by mortar blasts. It left him breathless with horror. He wanted to take the truth of what it meant to fight for your life back to the duke. He wanted to put the point of his sword to Ibarra’s throat and demand an honest answer to the question, ‘How do you want to die?’
He spent the remainder of the flight to the supply camp sliding blades into sheaths, loading revolvers and packing pockets with bullets. He settled the crossed sword and rifle onto his back, checking the draw of both weapons, then returned to the deck for the landing.
The camp they landed beside was much like those from David’s memories. A square of fortified earthworks crafted by an Earth Mage, towers at each corner and one by the gates for an Air Mage to work from. Neat rows of tents blocked out around the central yard, following a tried and true military pattern. Smoke rose from the smithy and kitchen, soldiers drilled in the yard and non-combat personnel moved about their duties. What was different were the mud-brick huts scattered haphazardly between the tents and walls. Another difference was the building constructed where the hospital tent should have been.
A small contingent exited the camp and came to greet the dirigible. While the pilot clambered down the ladder dropped over the side of the gondola, David stepped up onto the railing and studied the group waiting on the ground. Standing prominently before the others was a Second-Lieutenant. His overly-muscled chest puffed out beneath a pristine jacket, sash proudly displaying a pitifully small number of medals that were nevertheless polished to such a shine they were in danger of blinding anyone who looked at them in direct sunlight. The sabre hanging at his side was not military issue, but some grand piece of barely functional frippery probably gifted to the self-inflated fool by a family naively proud of his minor achievements. Not one hair dared fly out of place on the big, square block of a head and quite likely, not one original thought dared enter it, either.
With the Second-Lieutenant were a company clerk, charcoal pencils tucked behind her ears, pockets overflowing with papers; an Engineer, hands liberally coated in grease as if he’d been pulled away from his job with no warning, looking bored; a Fire Mage picking at a loose thread on his robe; and two privates, clearly non-combatants if the awkward way they held their rifles was any sort of indication.
“I’m Second-Lieutenant Jaime Climaco Botello Ferrer de Paloma. We haven’t received word of your arrival,” Botello said the moment the pilot’s feet touched ground. “By whose authority are you here?”
Pilot Garza removed a message tube from his jacket and Botello snatched it out of his hand. Flipping it open, Botello tipped the rolled paper out while glaring at Garza, imperiously slapping the empty tube into the chest of the mage standing to his right. Grimacing, the mage took it and for a fleeting moment looked as if he would belt the lieutenant over the head with it. David smirked and the mage seemed to sense it, looking up at him. The Fire Mage gave David a quick once over, a slower second look and then frowned.
Botello unrolled the papers and, after giving the pilot a doubtful glance, read the orders. David noticed the company badge at the top of his sash. Some things changed, some di
dn’t. It was nice to see Tejon Company still active three hundred odd years after it was formed. David had some fond memories of the Badger, even if the events around its formation were some of the worst.
“Hmm.” Botello flipped the first page over and read the second. “Most unusual. I think Captain Meraz should see this. It’s highly unlikely a high speed dirigible would be diverted to Tejon Company without our prior knowledge.”
Garza politely pointed to the bottom of the page. “If you would care to observe the authorising signature, sir.”
Lips thinning at the pilot’s audacity, Botello glanced at the bottom of the page. His eyes widened.
“That’s right, Lieutenant.” David stepped off the gondola and dropped to the ground. He landed balanced, knees bent, gaze never leaving the stunned officer. “Abbess Morales herself directed this dirigible to bring me here. I hope that’s authority enough for you.”
Botello checked the signature several more times, in between looking David over with a forced sneer. “You’re from the church?” Clearly David didn’t appear pious enough.
“If this means I’m working for Saint Ciro, then yes, I’m from the church.” David turned back the edge of his coat to reveal the golden badge pinned over his heart. It wasn’t the wolf rampant of Ciro, but a ruby-eyed stalking wolf.
Botello squinted at the insignia, as if unsure of the difference between the wolf rampant and this cunning, sneaking counterpart. Then he checked with his entourage, to see if they understood the significance.
Dead Bones Page 12
