Her waist was narrow, but she widened above and below in ways a woman ought to. He guessed she’d joined the other camp followers not long before he’d noticed her, or she would have been as skinny and wasted as they were. Yet he hadn’t chosen her for her body alone. Something in her eyes reassured him. It was an awareness, that told him she knew exactly what she was doing, despite her obvious youth, and wasn’t tormented by it. It was the absence of desperation, loathing, horror or resignation in her face that had caused him to look twice, and invite her to join him.
All his doubts about her had faded as the days and weeks, villages and towns had fallen to the advancing army. She did not chatter, did not fawn or beg, and never complained. She was quiet, obedient and willing. She rubbed his sore muscles after battle. She had a skill with the cook pot that could turn the worst of rationed foodstuffs into edible fare.
Choosing her had been the best thing he’d done since joining the Conquest.
* * *
Looking down from the ridge, Reny felt the breath catch in his throat. Wavy, sinuous lines of trampled whetta ran between the forest and the farmhouse. A lot of people had passed this way. The sort of people who did not care if they ruined a crop. This could be evidence of their arriving or leaving. They could be gone or still in the farmhouse. Reny’s anger at this careless destruction was overtaken by dread.
Then he was at the house. He tried to shout but could not make a sound. I don’t need to see this again. Though he knew what he would find, he started searching. I’m dreaming; I must wake myself up. There was nobody in the kitchen where he knew he should find his wife . . . doomed to die after agonising days of pain and fever from infection within.
Better they had killed her than left her like this. The rooms upstairs were also empty. He ought to be grateful to not see, yet again, what they had done to his daughter and youngest son, but instead their absence left him fraught and hollow.
They’re gone. Where have they gone?
In the distance he heard the sound of horns—
He jolted awake.
And remembered.
His homeland had been invaded by the Henelan. The Laxen, his own people, had offered their empty throne to a sorcerer mercenary, Dael, if he would defeat their enemy. Within a year the Henelan, to the last child, no longer existed. A secret agreement was discovered between other neighbouring lands, who had planned to carve up Laxen among themselves once they defeated the Henelan. So a greater war started, until someone came up with the idea that lands united were lands free of warfare. And so, the Conquest began.
A retired soldier and former strategy adviser to the king of Laxen, Reny had offered his services to Dael at the beginning. When he had told Kala this, she had asked how long ago it had been, and he could not tell her the exact number of years with confidence. More than ten. Not as many as twenty.
The horns in his dreams rang out again, but his time he knew them to be real: the signal that the army was to pack up and be ready to march. Reny cursed and got to his feet. The woman looked up at him, a question in his eyes.
“Packing time,” he told her.
She got up and started moving about, opening the trunks that held his belongings and started putting what had been removed back inside them. He moved to the tent opening and looked out, then sighed heavily and turned back to see her watching him, her smooth brow wrinkling in mute enquiry.
“I should have been told about this,” he answered. “Vorl is still punishing me for disobeying him.”
She nodded and started folding the bedding, but her frown did not fade.
“It was something that happened before we . . . before I invited you to my tent,” he explained.
The look she gave him was accepting, as if she didn’t expect him to tell her anything more, but he thought he saw a glint of curiosity in her eyes.
He took a deep breath. “Vorl had just been promoted to General. He wanted to test his authority. In the wrong situation, that can make a man do needlessly cruel things. Or order others to do so. I refused.”
She grimaced in sympathy and understanding. “Do you regret it?” she asked in her lilting voice. Her strange accent had been annoying at first, but now that he’d grown familiar enough to understand her he found it appealing.
He considered her question, looking away as he remembered the incident. “No. Besides, I don’t think I could have managed it anyway. Perhaps Vorl guessed that and wanted me humiliated.” He turned back to find her looking bemused, and smiled grimly in apology. “Sorry, that won’t make much sense to you. Dael sent Vorl to attack a place in the mountains. Though it was not directly in the path of the army, there was a risk people there could attack our rear if we didn’t deal with them first. It turned out to be a temple run by women. Priestesses. No threat at all.”
Kala went still, her face hardening as she comprehended the fate of the priestesses.
“And you refused to take part?”
Her voice was deeper and stronger than he had heard it before. It also had a tone of demand. Another man in his position might have punished her for that, he realised.
“Yes.” He shuddered. To watch what had been done to his wife and daughter being done to others . . . He pushed the memory away and set his mind on packing. Kala, accepting his silence, said nothing more for some time; then, as the last tent rope loosened and the oilcloth collapsed on the ground, she glanced sideways at him.
“Dael hasn’t got rid of you yet. You must still be valuable to him,” she said quietly.
He shrugged, too astonished by her insight to be angry at her presumption. “Until Vorl convinces him otherwise.”
“Vorl is a weapon, to be used and discarded when blunted. Advisers are like scrolls or books, to be consulted over and over. You don’t hit your enemy with a book, then go consult your sword, do you?”
He stared at her in amazement, but she was walking away, stooping to take up one side of the tent and start folding it ready for travel.
* * *
The stink of sweat, blood and gut juices permeated Reny’s skin and clothing. These last were of an enemy soldier who had managed to dash through the front line of soldiers and Dael’s guards only to impale himself on the captain’s sword. Reny suspected he’d never forget the expression of surprise and dismay on the young man’s face.
He reached the tent, staggered inside and stood there, swaying in the lamplight.
I’m still alive. Another battle survived.
Two buckets of water waited next to a neatly folded pile of clothing, ready for his return, but something was missing. He frowned and cast his eyes about the tent. Kala was absent.
Probably getting more water. Or food. Or something. He shrugged and started cleaning himself up. Long experience had taught him to start from the top of his head and work his way down, so that gore that might be trapped within his armour, clothing or hair would not drip onto parts already cleaned. Each piece of armour was removed separately, the soiled clothing stripped off and set aside. It was not easy this time, without Kala’s help, but he felt a perverse determination to do it himself. Do I think that if I show her I can manage this myself, she’ll make sure she’s here next time in case I decide I don’t need her anymore?
Once he was clean, he donned fresh undergarments, then set about putting much of the armour back on. Fortunately the protective shell was not heavy. Most of it was hardened leather and when camped on the battlefield he avoided removing it as much as possible. The enemy might launch a stealthy night attack. It had happened in the past. The King’s army had lost many good leaders.
Even though exhaustion usually overrode discomfort, it was torture to sleep in full armour, so Reny compromised by leaving off the back piece. When he was ready for sleep and found Kala still hadn’t returned, something made him turn from the bed and replace the missing piece. He paced around the confines of the tent slowly, then went looking for her outside.
He trudged around the camp twice in the deepening night, even checking Vorl’s
tent. In the end, he found her, but only because he had overheard a watcher chatting to the man sent to replace him.
“ . . . one with the yellow hair again.”
“Same as last night. I searched her when she came back, but she wasn’t carrying anything. She still out there?”
Reny had stopped to listen, his heart skipping at the mention of yellow hair. The two men were squinting out over the battlefield. His eyes followed their gaze. A thin sliver of moon lit a landscape that was far lumpier than it had appeared when the army had arrived a few days before. Figures moved about carrying lamps, bending and stooping over the dark mounds.
Reny had seen and watched this post-battle ritual many times before. Long after battle had ceased, the field remained a scene of activity. The wounded deemed to have a chance at recovery were carried from the field, but those considered unlikely to survive were given a quick and merciful death. Despite rules against the practice, whores also slipped out after darkness to take trinkets and small weapons from the bodies of the dead, though if they were spotted returning to the camp they risked losing the most part of their takings to the watchmen as bribes. Soldiers did not look favourably on those who stole from the dead—unless they benefited from it themselves.
Surely Kala was not partaking in this shameful trade? Reny had taken care of her as best he could, though admittedly hers was hardly a life of comfort and riches. Was she greedy for more? As Reny stared out into the darkness his eyes were drawn to a figure, familiar in the way it moved. Suddenly he did not want to know. But if it is her and the soldiers hear I’m keeping a scavenger in my tent . . .
Sighing, he set out onto the battlefield. As he approached the figure he felt his heart sink. It was Kala.
She hadn’t seen him yet. He stopped, suddenly reluctant to approach. Perhaps he could try to pretend he didn’t know what she had done. The thought of throwing her out and returning to an empty tent each night was surprisingly painful.
While he watched, she squatted beside one of the dark shapes. He heard a groan, and then a voice.
“Please. End it for me,” the voice begged. “I can’t . . . stand it anymore. Please.”
Kala reached out and touched the soldier’s face gently. “I will give you peace,” she said.
She moved her hand down and spread her fingers out above his chest. Reny could see that the man was shaking convulsively. The air between her hand and the soldier rippled, then her fingers slowly curled into a fist. The man gasped, let out a long breath and went limp.
Reny’s skin pricked with cold. He felt the world shift around him like a wheel on a carriage slipping into a rut. He knew nothing would be the same again.
Kala got to her feet. She looked down at the soldier, then sighed and shook her head. Stepping away, she began walking among the bodies with slow and unhurried steps.
She is no thief, Reny realised. She took nothing. But he knew that wasn’t true.
She had taken the man’s life. Something within him knew this. He considered the shimmering air he’d seen between her hand and the dying soldier. It would be so easy to dismiss it as a bit of air heated by a campfire behind her, shimmering around her arm as she made a gesture of sympathy toward the man. But there was no campfire nearby.
Clearly she was not just a whore.
I have seen Dael perform magic, both subtle and dazzling. To deny the possibility that she is a sorcerer would be foolish and dangerous. Kala was walking away from him now. She hadn’t noticed him standing there. He waited until she was too far away to hear or see him, then he made his way back to the camp. As he reached the watchmen, two soldiers overtook him, carrying a wounded man between them.
“We found him!” they called out to two other soldiers, who hurried to join them. “He’d been knocked out.” They set the wounded man they had rescued down beside a campfire. Reny paused to watch as the man sat up and groggily accepted some water.
“I’ve seen Lady Death,” the man said, his eyes wide. “And she’s beautiful.”
The four soldiers laughed.
“Must have been a good knock to the head.”
“Just like you to have visions of pretty women.”
“Well, if you’re going to have visions, why not ones of pretty women?”
“I saw her,” the wounded man said. “She saw me. But she let me live. She said I would live.”
They laughed again.
Reny shook his head and continued on to his tent. From such talk, superstitions and legends might spring. He hoped Kala knew what she was doing.
If she returned tonight, he wasn’t going to ask what it was.
* * *
It must have been torment enough to be dragged, defeated and in chains, to face one’s enemy. But to have been given the freedom to walk to meet his conqueror, and then waste that small gift of dignity by stumbling and falling onto his face in the mud, was too much humiliation for the prince. There were smothered sniggers among the audience of army captains, though not from the captive locals brought to witness the surrender of their leader. He struggled to rise, but could not get his legs under him on the steep embankment. A low sob escaped him, then two guards came forward, hauled him back to his feet and half-carried him forward, forcing him to his knees before Dael. He sagged, all pride and fight gone, his head bowed.
Reny was surprised to find that, after the countless defeated men and women he’d seen brought before the sorcerer King, he still felt a stirring of pity for this particular man. Even in the fading light he could see that the prince was young, barely old enough to claim the princedom from his father, who had been killed in this nation’s first battle against Dael.
“Your army is defeated, your cities have fallen,” Dael told him. “Do you surrender your land and people to me? Do you give your remaining army into my hands, to fight in the glorious Conquest to unite the lands?”
The prince remained silent. He was still so long that Reny began to worry that the youth would not respond. Then suddenly the prince straightened his body and lifted his head. He glared at Dael with intense hatred.
“I do not.”
Reny looked at Dael. The sorcerer’s eyebrows had risen slightly. There was a strange, avid light in his eyes.
“You know that the penalty for refusing is death, for you and everyone in your land?”
“Yes.” The hatred in the young man’s face vanished and was replaced by a blissful, wide-eyed stare as he tilted his head to the sky. “The Goddess of Death will take us. She will bring us peace.” His gaze dropped to Dael and his eyes narrowed again. “And she will avenge our deaths.”
The Goddess of Death? For a moment Reny could not inhale or move, then his heart began hammering in his chest and his knees felt weak. Was this a deity these people worshipped? Or was it, as he suddenly feared, the whore in his tent. The woman who had returned to his bed and fallen asleep at his side, then prepared his morning meal as if nothing had changed. In the morning light, it was too easy to dismiss what he’d seen last night as an illusion, or a dream. He forced himself to stand still and breathe normally, not wanting to give any hint of the shock that the prince’s declaration had given him.
Fortunately Dael was not looking at Reny. His gaze was fixed on the youth as he rose.
“Are you sure,” he asked. “I wouldn’t want it to be known that I didn’t offer you a choice.”
The young man’s eyes filled with fear as the sorcerer approached, but his voice was steady. “I am sure. As are my people.”
Dael paused. “How disappointing,” he said quietly. He nodded to the guards, who hauled the prince to his feet. Then he drew a long knife and plunged it into the young man’s chest.
As always, Reny made his eyes stay focused on the scene, but not his attention. He’d grown adept at not seeing in these moments, and thinking of something else. Usually the whore. But this time, something caught his eye. Something strange and yet familiar. Something he might not have noticed if he hadn’t slid down the ranks of Dael’
s favour in recent weeks, and been standing further down the slope, rather than in his usual place nearer to the King.
For the first time, he could see the knife protruding from the prince’s chest, and the hand holding it . . . and more importantly, the air surrounding both.
It was shimmering.
The movement was barely noticeable, and he might have again dismissed it as an effect of the twilight descending upon the battlefields, or the heat from a fire or torch beyond the sorcerer and the prince. Now he knew better, and he wished he didn’t.
But I do know, and it is dangerous to pretend otherwise. I must do what I would recommend to another man in this situation: consider every possibility, no matter how strange—because it is better to be over-prepared than be caught out by the unexpected—then deal with the problem.
He wished he could do his thinking alone and in peace, but, as ever, he didn’t have that luxury. Now, after the prince’s corpse had been removed, the sorcerer King and his captains retreated to the big tent where battle strategy was discussed and decisions made. Several hours had passed before all were sent to their beds. But as Reny reached the entrance of the tent he heard Dael call his name.
“Stay a moment, Captain Reny. I wish to talk to you.”
As the tent emptied, the sorcerer King regarded Reny from the battered throne that was always dragged from battle to battle.
“Vorl doesn’t like you,” he said when they were finally alone. One thing Reny liked about the leader was how he always got to the point.
“I know,” Reny replied, shrugging. “I don’t like him.”
“Why not?
“He is needlessly cruel.”
“He is ruthless.” Dael nodded. “Killing is what he does, and he does it well.”
“Women and children?”
Dael’s gaze became hard. “This is war. Nobody should pretend that it is merciful to the weak.”
Reny opened his mouth to protest, thought better of it and nodded.
“He wants me to get rid of you,” Dael told him. “He says you have rebellion in you, and your scruples will lose us battles one day. What do you say to that?”
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2013 Page 33
