Forever Soldiers: The Tyrus Chronicle - Book Four

by Joshua P. Simon

  My anger flared. I was not fooled by his feigned sincerity. “You act like I’m so stupid I can’t see what’s right in front of me. You are far more ready than you should be for us. It’s as if you were preparing for us to retaliate. You know, we spotted your scout this morning.”

  “We are always ready for threats of raiders, and there are always scouts out and about.”

  “Really? Threats from the south?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “From everywhere.”

  I studied him, but his face betrayed nothing other than his distaste. “Hang onto that lie if you like. My warning is this, if anyone in your town harms anyone or anything of Kasala again, I will come back and raze Sinsca to the ground.” I gestured to their moat. “This may keep out your silly raiders, but it is nothing more than a ten-minute delay for me.” I exhaled through my nose, breath hot against my upper lip. “I am tainted by things from war I regret. However, I will do them all again if you or anyone else threatens to destroy our livelihood.”

  Paki held my stare for what seemed like an eternity. He had my respect for that.

  Eventually, he swallowed. “I see.”

  There was the tiniest flicker of movement from his right elbow, a rise and fall so small it would have gone unnoticed by most anyone. The only reason why it drew my attention was because of how unnatural it appeared. In response to the movement, a man to Paki’s far right shifted in his saddle.

  I pointed at him. “Don’t! No!”

  Myra shouted beside me, clearly understanding. So focused on the man to Paki’s right, I missed what she actually yelled.

  I expected a knife, or something similar, not the small ball of light that flew from the man’s hand.

  Molak’s balls, he was a sorcerer. How had I not suspected him?

  I braced myself for the light, intending to absorb the sorcery with my resistance as I had countless times.

  Then I remembered. I no longer had a resistance.

  The light struck me square in the chest, and by the gods did it hurt. There wasn’t much force behind the attack as I remained in the saddle, however, there was a subtlety that, had I not been in so much pain, would have impressed me.

  Had I still my resistance, the attack would have been inconsequential. Without it, the light spread over my body with a radiating a heat. I closed my eyes and concentrated on it as best as I could, hoping that I might be able to call upon some residual resistance deep down to aid me. But there was only pain.

  A woman’s hand came into my line of sight. It touched my chest. At contact, the sorcery and pain dissipated.

  Myra had continued to shout, but in the confusion, I couldn’t make any sense of it.

  A breath later, I felt normal except for the hammering of my heart. With the humming in my ears gone, she said in a lower tone, “I have you, Pa.”

  I inhaled deeply to steady myself, but the foul odor of recent sorcery sent my mind into a spin.

  I sat on Hol’s half-destroyed walls. My hands gripped an old piece of wood carved into the image of the Geneshan god, Beel. The artifact’s power coursed through my body, bringing pain I couldn’t put into words.

  I grasped onto a moment of clarity, fighting not to get lost in a memory just as I promised Myra I wouldn’t. The present refocused as Myra lifted her hand from my chest. Her arm jerked forward, catching a second ball of light in midair. Her hand closed around the light, snuffing out the sorcery as easily as one might crumble a thin sheet of parchment.

  My mind still reeled, but I glimpsed Paki, wide-eyed in both shock and fear of my daughter. He had not known of her resistance. The satisfaction his response brought me was my undoing. It distracted my focus on guarding my mind. The next whiff of spent sorcery transported me right back to Hol’s high walls where I became lost in reliving my awful fight against the artifact and the friend I lost in doing so.

  CHAPTER 31

  “Ao-be-damned, no!” swore Ava as she stormed up to the sorcerer. “Didn’t I just tell you that spell was one of the worst possible things you could cast when trying to move in this formation?”

  “High Mage Ava!” yelled Lungile behind her.

  Ava ignored the captain while glaring up at the lanky sorcerer.

  The sorcerer scowled down. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “No. You don’t,” she snapped. “As I told you before, casting a sleep spell over so many is far too complicated to do in the midst of battle. You won’t be able to properly keep your own defenses up, nor will you be able to properly support the rest of the company as things progress.”

  “I am not a novice. I’ve cast this spell many times before.”

  “Not under these circumstances. Casting spells at a distance with others around you to pick up your slack is much different than being in the thick of things and the only one holding the whole gods-be-damned plan together. If you keep this up, you’re liable to get your company killed.”

  The sorcerer stepped closer. “That might have happened with one of your Turine mages, but we do not make such mistakes.”

  Ava clenched her jaw tight as Lungile continued shouting while stomping up to them.

  It had been the same thing with the other two companies. She was a woman and a foreigner. No matter how she approached speaking with each group, none wanted to believe that she knew something they did not. She could have gone back to Danso and had him berate each company into listening. But Danso had enough to worry about as the first scouts had returned with incomplete information. Behind schedule, he was not pleased.

  “High Mage Ava,” said Captain Lungile, using her title like a curse. “My men are highly-trained soldiers. You will not speak to them in such a way.”

  She recalled the irony of how Lungile had first treated her.

  “Then perhaps they should stop acting like green recruits. A good soldier should be able to recognize the better solution.”

  Lungile grinned. “Who’s to say that they haven’t? Perhaps you’re the one who is blind to the best solution.”

  She would have thought that after working with Captain Kamau earlier, word would have gotten around about the effectiveness of her teachings. That had been her entire reason for speaking with Lungile last. She had hoped two previous examples would make the man more amenable to her suggestions.

  But no. That would make too much sense.

  She glanced over to the Turine soldiers who waited in position. She had asked them to act out enemy movements to better illustrate how her strategies would work in a live situation. Their impatience was obvious, some standing with arms crossed, others with hands that gripped and regripped the blunted training weapons.

  Ava did not want to pit her men against another company, as she had done twice already to drive home that she knew what she was talking about. She had already seen how the two previous occasions had eaten away at some of the goodwill her men had obtained.

  Sergeant Margo caught her eye and gave a slight nod as if understanding her hesitancy.

  She felt pride at that nod, knowing that he spoke for all. They don’t care. They have a job and will see it done. Ava was reminded of the attitude her old unit had about themselves under Balak. Often we weren’t well-liked, but we had each other. That was enough then, so why not now?

  “Captain, ready your men. My group will once again pretend to be the enemy. However, we will go at full speed, imitating the enemy just as we’ve tried to practice so far. Therefore, you will already have an advantage over us in that you will know exactly how this mock battle will begin and what methods we will use initially. Try to defeat us using what I’ve shown you, or something else that you think is best. If you defeat us, I will leave you alone and the rest of the day is yours. Lose and you will stop the posturing and order your men to do as I say without any further argument. Do you accept the challenge?”

  “Hardly a challenge, but
yes, I accept.” A grin started to form on Lungile’s face, but then it briefly faltered as if doubt crept into his mind. “What about your participation?”

  “I’ll be part of the exercise. After all, you need an enemy sorcerer to kill, correct? But don’t worry, the spells I cast will mimic only those that the enemy has used so far, with the exception of necromancy. There will be no Turine specific spells.”

  Lungile’s smile returned. “Company! To me!”

  Ava walked past Lungile, purposefully bumping into him on her way to Margo. The move was childish, but it satisfied some of her desire to put a fist through the captain’s face.

  “Ava,” greeted Margo.

  “Get the men ready to go all out, Sergeant. We have yet another group of idiots.”

  “Same positioning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything we should expect?”

  She considered how Lungile would handle the exercise. Despite his obvious desire to embarrass her and her men, he was not stupid. He wouldn’t use a strategy she was familiar with.

  However, there is also the southern kingdom sorcerer. He’s headstrong and wants to prove he knows more.

  “Formation wise, no. But plan on the sorcerer using a sleep spell.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Up close like this?”

  She nodded, pleased that Margo’s experience had him so quickly reach the same conclusion as her.

  “Couple ways to handle that. We could—”

  She cut him off, not to belittle Margo, but because she had a specific goal in mind. “After our initial advance, have a small squad of eight attack from the left flank. Make it obvious so they draw a lot of attention. I’ll cast a couple of illusions to confuse those they’ll leave behind to protect their sorcerer. Then farther out, sweep in a team of five from the right. Put Eder on that team and see that he’s the one to make the killing blow on their sorcerer.”

  Margo raised an eyebrow. “Eder? You want a scout to take down a sorcerer?”

  “Sure. They know what he is. Factor in his age, and can you think of anything that would be more embarrassing for them?”

  Confusion left Margo’s face, replaced with a devilish slash of teeth. “I like it. Anything else?”

  “No. Otherwise, you’re in command. Just remember, don’t shift strategy until they react to our initial advance. We want to act as much like the enemy for as long as possible in order to make our point to them.”

  “Aye,” said Margo, puffing his chest out.

  The sergeant had already proven himself several times over to her and she continually had increased his responsibility.

  Delegating and developing talent. How do you like that, Big Brother?

  * * *

  The mock battle began and Sergeant Margo gained optimal field position quickly, leading the charge down the center. However, it seemed Lungile had paid more attention than Ava had thought. He targeted Margo immediately.

  When Margo “died” early in the conflict, there was a brief moment where things looked as though they might fall apart for Ava’s men. It was hard for her to keep from taking charge, but true to her word, she played the role of a Kartan sorcerer, focusing mostly on illusion spells with an occasional stun attack that in battle would have killed. With perhaps a lesser-trained group, her company would have been lost at Margo’s “death.” But others stepped up, taking command and changing tactics to counter Lungile’s strategy.

  The true turning point came when, as expected, she felt the beginning of a sleep spell from the Southern Kingdom sorcerer. She swore she could even hear Captain Lungile yell for the man to properly support the company over the mock battle’s din.

  She shifted her focus, casting a blinding light to her illusions on the left in order to turn the attention of those stationed around the sorcerer to the Turine squad advancing on them. They fell for her ruse, missing the small team of five coming in from the right with Eder leading. So caught up in trying to complete his sleep spell, the sorcerer did not realize his mistake until Eder wrenched his head back and ran a wooden dagger lined with red paint across the man’s throat, signifying the kill.

  The battle should have been over then. Those were the terms. First to kill the other’s sorcerer won. However, Lungile did not call for an immediate halt.

  Angry at his unwillingness to admit defeat, she reneged on her terms as well and pressed into battle like a raging bull. While supporting her men, she flung fireballs and charges of lightning at the feet of the “enemy.”

  In seconds, Lungile had enough of her wrath. He waved his hand wildly overhead and tried to surrender. “Enough!”

  But she wasn’t having it, ignoring him until her men had “killed” each of the captain’s.

  Ava took satisfaction in the silence that hung over the field when Lungile himself “died” last. The utter defeat he wore said more than any string of words that came to mind.

  Neither he nor the sorcerer apologized for their behavior or in second-guessing her strategies.

  From that point on, none questioned her instruction.

  * * *

  As the evening sun set, Captain Lungile dismissed his men for dinner. She did the same, eager to join them as her stomach rolled with hunger.

  “High Mage Ava, may I have a word?” Lungile asked just as she had begun the trek back to camp.

  Great. Now what?

  She waited for him to catch up.

  “Captain?”

  Lungile looked uneasy. “I wanted to apologize for my earlier behavior.”

  Ava tried to hide her surprise, but wasn’t very successful. “No need to.”

  “There is. Thank you for making your point, but choosing not to embarrass me any further. I appreciate that.” He paused. “You know, many of us have wondered how Jumla Danso could have changed his opinion of you.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “I understand now.”

  “Thank you,” she said, surprised at how much she meant it. Acceptance was a nice welcome. Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her not to linger. “If you’ll excuse me though, I’m starved.”

  “Of course. Afterward though, I was wondering if I could come by your fire? An idea came to me about how to combine a particular Southern Kingdom formation with one of the strategies you showed us. I’d like your opinion.”

  Ao’s teats, am I even talking to the same man?

  She did her best to hide her surprise, calmly replying, “Sure.”

  “Till then,” he said and walked away.

  She shook her head.

  Amazing how things change.

  CHAPTER 32

  I awoke on my back. A starry night sky hung above me. Even in my foggy state of mind, I understood that a lot of time had passed since my last moment of awareness. I only hoped it had been hours and not days.

  Myra leaned into my line of sight. “Pa?” she asked hesitantly. “Are you awake?”

  I shifted my gaze to meet hers. The tightness in her jaw spoke of how much she worried. It extended to her neck, shoulders, and arms. More than despair had caused that tightness. She was on guard, poised and ready to react, should the need arise for her to defend herself from me. That was one of the last things I had wanted to think about with awareness returning.

  I opened my mouth, licking unbelievably dry lips.

  “Pa?”

  “Is he up?” I heard Lieutenant Dar ask in his raspy voice.

  “I think so,” Myra answered.

  “Water,” I whispered.

  Her face flooded with relief.

  Dar came into view, kneeling next to me on my other side. He eased my head up as Myra brought a cup to my lips. I didn’t fight against the help as I normally would have. I felt unbelievably weak while I took the first sip.

  Expecting water, my mouth puckered at the
bitter taste that greeted me. But I didn’t pull away from the unknown liquid. I was too thirsty. After draining the cup, Dar eased my head down.

  “That tasted like piss,” I managed, trying to add some levity to what I knew was an awkward situation.

  Dar seized on my comment. “And how do you know what piss tastes like, sir?”

  The flicker of a memory that involved me crawling through a latrine on the way to a D’engiti tent with a destruction globe flashed across my mind. I closed my eyes tight to stop the memory.

  I could no longer keep up the levity when I replied, “You don’t want to know.”

  “Lieutenant Dar put it together,” Myra said. I was glad she changed topics.

  Dar continued, “I know I’m a bit old to be an apprentice, but about a week ago I had asked Vered for the opportunity. The boy helping him at the apothecary isn’t showing much interest. Anyway, Vered gave me a few things to bring along in case we ran into trouble.”

  I tried to get my elbows under me.

  “You sure you’re ready to sit up?” Myra asked.

  Rolling to my side, they steadied me as I pushed myself up. “Gods, I don’t think there’s a part of me that doesn’t hurt.”

  “Not surprised,” said Dar. “You had your entire body clenched tight for hours. Also why you’re so weak.”

  I bobbed my head gingerly, until it dawned on me what I had missed. “Gods, Sinsca! What—”

  Myra placed a hand on my chest, speaking calmly like hushing a worried child. “Everyone is fine, Pa.”

  “How?”

  “It’s probably not a good idea to revisit that right now,” said Myra.

  “Tell me.”

  She stayed silent for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line. After a heavy sigh, she began to recount all that I had missed.

  “Despite the sorcery that struck you, I managed to keep things from escalating. The men did well. They followed my orders rather than get caught up in seeking vengeance for you.” She shook her head. “I still don’t understand why the sorcerer acted on his own like that.”