The captain knelt down, picked up a flat round stone, turned it over in his hand, and tossed it into the air. “I will admit, regardless of whether these accounts are mired in falsehood or fiction or delusion, they are intriguing.” He cocked his arm back and sent the rock flying, watching as it skipped six times before sliding under the surface, the ripples leaden and disappearing quickly. “But even if true or accurate, they still do not help us in the here and now.”
I countered, “If they are true, perhaps they could help you cleanse yourself when you are flooded with memories. Maybe you don’t need a rogue witch or Memoridon at all, you only need to approach the Godveil. Now, that won’t help you defeat Cynead or reclaim the Memoridons, but if it’s true—”
“If, if, if. You would have me gamble my life on the suppositions of some poorly substantiated claims from a millennium ago?”
“Centuries, not a millennium.” I resisted the urge to grind my teeth together. “Why have me sift through all these tomes at all if you’re simply going to dismiss everything I uncover?”
Braylar gave me a withering look. “You overstep, archivist. As always, your job is to simply translate and relay. Mine is to make sense of the findings and determine what, if anything, to do with them. You have done a solid job on the whole, though somewhat slow. But do not mistake my small praise for license to question my every decision.”
I was about to protest that his praise was mean indeed, when I saw Vendurro coming down the small hill. “Cap,” he called out.
Braylar turned and looked at him. “Sergeant. What can I help you with?”
Vendurro appeared ready to say something when he suddenly took notice of the rocky shore and slowly scanned the well-preserved animals near the water’s edge. “Got to say, you do have a soft spot for all kind of places dead, deserted, and otherwise queer.”
Braylar’s eyes narrowed to slits again as he stared hard at the younger man. “I do hope you didn’t jog all this way to discuss aesthetics? If so, jog right back up that hill.”
The sergeant shook his head. “Can’t say that I did, Cap. Just kind of hit me, is all. But thinking you’ll want to be done gazing at the waves and getting all aesthetical yourself. Well, if there were waves to speak of. Which there ain’t. That’s the real peculiar thing, if you ask me. Which of course you didn’t.”
“No,” the captain said, slowly and with great effort. “I did not. What I did ask is why you are here.”
“Begging your pardon, Cap, but that weren’t quite what you asked. Implied, maybe, but what you—”
“I’m not sure if you are deliberately being obtuse or if Mulldoos was right in guessing that you had been kicked in the head by your horse. Report, Sergeant. Immediately.”
Vendurro nodded. “I’m here on account of Mulldoos, Cap. Something’s got to be done.”
“Oh?” the captain asked. “And what would you have me do, precisely? Do you imagine that I can undo Rusejenna’s memorycraft and restore him? Make the sands in the hourglass flow up instead of down?”
Vendurro looked to me and I shrugged my shoulders and gave him a sympathetic look back. “Well, maybe no undoing what’s been done, but—and this ain’t me telling you how to captain, Cap, make no mistake—thinking it might be a good idea for you to talk to him.”
“Talk to him,” Braylar repeated without inflection.
“Ayyup. Little while ago, Sergeant of Scouts came back, the little one, Rudgi, with the freckles and upturned nose?”
“I am aware who my Sergeant of Scouts is, Sergeant of the Obvious.”
“Right. Well, she reported to Mulldoos, or tried to anyways. He looked ready to rip her in half. That is, if he had two good arms—hard to do much ripping with just the one. Anyway, he cursed her out, still slurring, and while she took it well enough, he dismissed the hells out of her before I heard what she saw or didn’t see.”
The captain looked displeased, though whether because of receiving a half-report, hearing his lieutenant’s condition, or something else, it was impossible to say.
I’d seen Rudgi once or twice before. She was one of the handful of women in our company. In Anjuria, a woman might be pressed to fight if her home were invaded, but I’d never heard of any being part of the military. The Syldoon had no such compunction, and while they didn’t have a large contingent of female soldiers, they certainly existed here or there. I wondered how they dealt with being surrounded by coarse men, especially those prone to violence. But I assumed they must have been able to hold their own.
“You do realize,” Braylar said, snapping off every word, “that the advantage of having officers at all is that they can handle issues themselves and only alert me to the ones that require my immediate attention.”
Vendurro nodded. “I hear you, Cap. I tried talking to Mulldoos, to find out what Rudgi reported, and he near bit my face off too. Worse than usual, I mean. Never seen him like this. And when he dismissed the hells out of me, just went back to closing his eyes and propping a tree up with his back like he’s been doing. Figured you’d want to know about it, is all.” Then he pointed at the rushes. “Awww, plague me, hate to see that.”
I looked where he indicated and saw a mummified bird of some kind. “What’s the matter? Why?”
“That’s a duck,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“And what is the significance?” I asked. “Why is that worse than a crane or any other dead thing on the shore?”
Vendurro replied, “Just got a soft spot for them, is all.”
“Ducks?” I asked.
“Ayyup. Back where I come from, my tribe, they put a lot of stock in ducks. Our totem, as it were.”
I thought he might have been putting me on, but if so, it was masterful, as his face was as flat and expressive as the lake. I asked again, “Ducks?”
“Ducks,” he said. “You name another animal that can walk, swim, and fly that well. Go on. Name one. Can’t, can you? That’s because there ain’t another. Leastwise that I know about. Kind of special, like that, ducks are.”
I had to admit—I’d never thought about it like that before. Still . . . a totem?
He turned to Braylar, “Always struck me as odd there weren’t no Duck Tower. In Sunwrack, that is.” As soon as the words were out of Vendurro’s mouth it looked like he wished he could recall them.
Hearing the name of the capital city we were all fugitives from, the captain’s already dark mood went all black. Without another word he stalked up the hill, one hand on Bloodsounder.
Vendurro kicked a piece of driftwood. “Plague me. Just never know when to shut my plaguing yap.” He started up the hill as well.
I glanced around. Vendurro did have a point earlier—between haunted tombs, forsaken temples, deserted plague villages, and now desolate and deadly lakes, the captain did seem to be drawn to the strangest and least hospitable locations in the world.
And with that, I followed the two of them away from the eerily still water and the odd bestial corpses that ringed it.
Braylar, Vendurro, and I walked through the pickets and tents, and Syldoon nodded or saluted the sergeant and captain and pointedly ignored me. Though Skeelana was a manipulative viper, she at least had been one other person in the company I could chat with who was also an outsider of sorts. With her gone, I was relegated again to the fringes, or even farther, given the captain’s foul mood and Vendurro doing double duty of late.
When I saw that we were heading towards Mulldoos, I nearly walked off towards the wagon instead. He was difficult enough to deal with under the best circumstances, and the last few days had not been the best. Despite all their bickering, it was clear he and Hewspear were close, and no change in the older Lieutenant’s condition had to be weighing on him. But even if Hewspear had been back on his feet, Mulldoos himself was hardly better, still stricken by whatever Rusejenna had done to him in Sunwrack before Braylar brained her.
Still, if calamity were approaching, it was better to hear about it now
than to sit in the wagon and wonder, dreaming up the worst scenarios imaginable. So I followed the captain and sergeant. Vendurro looked at me and whispered, “Best not to mention the eye. Or the face. Or really anything about him. Ayyup. Best not to say much of nothing.”
Sound advice.
The pale lieutenant was ignoring us as we approached, back against the gnarled trunk of one of the odd twisty trees, his eyes closed.
Captain Killcoin asked, “So answer true, Lieutenant, how are you faring?”
I was fairly certain Mulldoos wasn’t sleeping, but he took his time opening his eyes and replying, and I understood instantly why. The left side of his face was still immobile, and his words came out slurred, “Plaguing fantastic, Cap. Never been better. Can’t barely use this arm for shit. Sight’s all blurry. Got the balance of newborn colt, the energy of an old man. I—” he swallowed hard, and it looked like it took real effort. “Yeah. Real plaguing good.”
Mulldoos closed his eyes again and leaned his head back, and I was secretly glad of it—seeing that drooping eye on one side and murder in the other was as disconcerting as it got, no matter what warnings Vendurro gave.
For once, Braylar seemed at a loss for what to say. Slowly, he went down on one knee and laid his hand on the big man’s shoulder. “You know as well as I, the effects of some memory magic aren’t permanent.”
Without opening his eyes again, Mulldoos slurred, “Ain’t like you to deal in false hope, Cap. Figure you owe me better than that.”
“Very well. No one knows if you will regain what you’ve lost. But you are alive still. That’s something. And so long as you manage to remain so, you will have the chance to visit some measure of vengeance on Cynead. Hold on to that, if nothing else.”
Mulldoos laughed, though with only half his mouth working, it was a broken, ghastly thing. “Hate’s the only thing keeping me going right now. That, and trying hard not to shit myself. Got no time for nothing but those two things.”
Braylar grabbed Mulldoos by the arm that seemed nearly paralyzed and shook him hard. “You will make time. You are still an officer of the Jackal Tower. The men depend on you. I depend on you. Do your job. Stew in your self-pity all you like, but maintain and do your job, Syldoon. I owe you the truth, yes? Well, you owe me your service, and you will perform your duties to the best of your abilities, even if they are halved. You might very well shit yourself, and if you do, you will wipe it off and keep doing your duty, as you have always done. Do you understand me?”
Mulldoos opened his eyes again, and the good one was focused and hot as he jerked his shoulder away. “Duty and performance, is it? That’s rich, coming from you. How many times did me and Hew, Ven, even your plaguing scribbler there, cover for you, prop you up when your flail was doing its best to lay you low? More times that I can plaguing count is how many. And now Hew is husked and me . . . well, I can barely sit the saddle, or walk twenty paces without getting spinny like I been drinking half a day. All I ever been good at is fighting and teaching other whelps how to fight, but now I couldn’t hardly take Arki there. Even jawing at you now is winding me. Lot of plaguing good hate does when you can’t even—”
Braylar buffeted him across the chest with the back of his hand, rocking the beefy lieutenant into the tree. Mulldoos started to push off the bark, mostly with the right arm, when Braylar backhanded him in the chest again.
I’d seen Mulldoos angry a hundred times, but for the first time witnessed naked fury contorting half his face, with the other oddly slack. I thought for sure he would strike the captain back and looked around, noticing Vendurro was doing the same.
Braylar hissed, “We are as we are, Mulldoos. Damaged, diminished, yes, but not dead. Not yet. And until such time, you will get your ass out of the dust and do your duty. I do not care if the men see you wobble, or curse, or struggle, but they will not see you succumb. I thought we were damned in the streets of Sunwrack, penned in as we were against overwhelming odds. And I was willing to offer myself up, just as you were, for a chance to spare the men. Our men. But that was a mistake. We fought free at tremendous cost, Lieutenant, but free we are. And now . . . now we die with weapons in hand or readying the troops, no matter what else befalls us. We do not surrender. We do not succumb. And we do not lie in the dirt bemoaning our fates. Have I made myself clear?”
Mulldoos glared at him, and I half expected him to reach for his falchion or try to grapple the captain, but instead he turned and spat into the dirt. Or tried. At least half the spittle landed on his chin, and Mulldoos laughed then, reached up with his good arm, wiped it off with his fist, then shook his head. “Real plaguing inspiration to the troops I am.”
Vendurro said, “They don’t look to you for spitting lessons, Mull. Just being there, among them, that will go a long ways. They just need to see you, is all.”
Mulldoos glared at the sergeant as Braylar stood back up. “You think so, do you? Just me tripping amongst the troops going to boost morale, is it?”
Vendurro didn’t hesitate. “Not the tripping part so much, no. Maybe you ought to just settle for standing for now. Leaning against something. But ayyup, telling it true. We need you. So do what Cap here says. For once.” He smiled. Mulldoos did not.
Braylar offered his arm and Mulldoos glared at that too. But the captain left it hanging there until Mulldoos finally clasped forearms and Braylar hoisted him to his feet. Mulldoos hadn’t been exaggerating his condition—he did look besotted. But he found his footing and nodded once.
The captain gave his big shoulder one more squeeze. “Very good. Now then, let us check—”
Vendurro interrupted. “Cap.” He pointed and we all looked and saw a Syldoon running towards us, covered in the dust of the road. He thumped his chest and spun his salute.
“Report, Syldoon.”
The soldier replied, “Way’s clear ahead, Captain. Far as we can tell, that is. But we got company from the rear.”
Braylar said, “I imagine if it was the Imperial army on our heels, you would have a bit more urgency in delivering the news, yes?”
The soldier nodded. “Sorry, Captain. Couple of scouts ought to be here straight away.”
Braylar took a step forward so that the soldier was close enough to smell his breath. “Are you trying to tell me that the only Syldoon who can actually inform me of anything have yet to arrive? I do hope you didn’t interrupt us here just to tell me that. Because then I would be left thinking you are either a simpleton or you are intentionally doing your best to frustrate me, and neither option will do.”
The solider turned crimson and stared straight ahead. “No, Captain. That is, I only meant to say that the scouts are escorting your sister. They’ll be here shortly.”
The captain stepped back and nodded.
Mulldoos shook his head and said, “Well, ain’t that a hard kick to the jewels.”
The reporting soldier glanced at him after hearing the muddled words and then quickly looked away, but not before Mulldoos noticed. “You got anything else to say, you dumb prick? That the sum total of your report? Anything else you want to add just now?”
The soldier kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. “No, Lieutenant.”
“Good. Then get your poxy ass out of here, you stupid whoreson. Dismissed.”
The soldier saluted again, spun on his heel, and headed towards the rest of the troops with the fastest walk possible, clearly glad to be away from his temperamental officers.
Vendurro puffed out his cheeks and exhaled loudly. “What are you supposing that means, Cap? Soff following us, showing up?”
Mulldoos replied before Braylar could, “Can’t be nothing good, I’ll tell you that plaguing much.”
The captain locked his hands behind his back and started walking. “I cannot say what she intends. Or what motivates her from minute to minute. I never could. But we would not have escaped Sunwrack without her surprising intervention. That much is certain.”
Mulldoos said, “You can’t seriously b
e thinking of welcoming her with open arms, Cap? Been betrayed by one Memoridon bitch already, and they all lick Cynead’s rings now, every last one of them. Mems are the enemy, every last one.”
Braylar gave a twitch-smile. “Perhaps. But I doubt very much the Emperor authorized her to help destroy an Imperial battalion. She acted on her own. I reserve judgment as to what game she plays, but she did aid us. No doubt for her own purposes. But there is a good chance we would all be dead or in irons if she hadn’t assisted us. There is no disputing that.”
Mulldoos spit again, and managed it only slightly better now that he was upright. Then he slurred, “Mistake to trust her, is all I’m saying, Cap. Plaguing huge mistake.”
The captain started walking to the camp. “That is entirely possible. We shall see.”
Three riders crossed the field towards our camp, and with her scaled cuirass and red cloak and hair, it wasn’t difficult to pick out Soffjian in the middle. The two Syldoon escorting her were hanging back slightly, whether out of fear, distaste, or healthy respect, it was hard to say. One of them I recognized as the beak-nosed Benk, an impudent soldier whom Braylar had to browbeat earlier when we captured Henslester. The captain, Mulldoos, Vendurro, and I waited for the trio to rein up.
Azmorgon was there too, impossible to miss, as he towered over every human I’d ever seen and made Mulldoos look svelte, thick with muscle and fat. When I first saw him in the Jackal Tower, I hadn’t realized he was a lieutenant, and it was only after we fled Sunwrack that I saw he was in our company at all. Being unknown, and massive, and with a mean smile mostly hidden in a bristly beard that could have been home to several small animals, he was intimidating, and made me wish Hewspear was standing in his place instead. And hope against hope that he might recover.
Chains of the Heretic Page 2
