Frightened as he was by the coming conflict, Janks smiled. At last, he’d be one-up on Kittins. “Yes, sir, Major!” He saluted and led his companions out of the tent.
*****
Back at the campfire, Sergeant Kittins leaned with feigned indifference against the wheel of a nearby supply wagon. Janks could tell the big man wanted to know why the corporal had been called away, but was too proud to ask.
“We gotta get ready to move.”
“Says who?”
Janks was in a great mood. He walked right up to Kittins and smashed his fist into his sergeant’s face with every ounce of strength he could muster. Kittins did not go down, but there was a satisfying crunch in his nose and a subsequent geyser of blood that redeemed every miserable moment Janks had spent in his company. For a few heartbeats, he was afraid Kittins would kill him on the spot, until he saw the big man’s eyes drift over to D’Kem.
“Who’s this, then?” he growled, wiping his nose and upper lip with the back of his hand.
“Company Shaper,” D’Kem answered curtly.
Kittins spat an enormous gob of bloody phlegm into the dirt at Janks’ feet. “’Nother fuckin’ magicker, eh? Just what I don’t need.”
Unbelievably, Spirk had something useful to say. “Maybe you should worry ‘bout the major’s order, huh?”
A look of confusion came to Kittins eyes as he suddenly became aware of Spirk. “The fuck? Where’d you come from?”
“You’re wasting time, Sergeant – sir. Word is, the enemy’s moving this way at speed.” Janks made up that last, of course, but he felt entitled to a little artistic license after all he’d been through. “We gotta break ‘er down and pack ‘er up.”
Kittins shot him one last vicious look and started yelling at his unit. “Okay, fuckers and fuckees, I know you all heard that. Let’s get moving!”
*****
Long, the End’s Host
Try as he might, Long could never get over the sheer size of the End’s host. It was like watching the countryside move along with his horse. The thralls and their mercenary tenders stretched from horizon to horizon on either side, while reaching nearly the same distance in front and in back, though Long guessed he was closer to the van. The End must’ve subjugated every man, woman and child on the eastern half of the continent. Every day, Long rode over scores of the fallen, but it never seemed to make any difference in the host’s basic size. Of course, he knew the End was adding new thralls every day, as well. Human fodder, as the End saw them, was virtually inexhaustible. So, too, were the carrion fowl that followed the host – crows, vultures and worse, things out of legend, things out of nightmares, things that were drawn by the stench of putrefaction and despair. Long did his best to keep his eyes forward and down. Best not to know too much of what surrounded him.
But he had plenty of time to think, between visits from his new master. In many ways, it was a laughable army…except for its size. If a way could be found to neutralize that…Then, it occurred to Long that the End’s host had one other advantage: the Queen’s army – or whoever the End fought next – might be reluctant to battle enslaved peasants, no matter how fearsome the End’s influence made them. Who in his right mind wants to butcher milk maids, stable boys and innkeeper’s wives? There was no honor in that and no satisfaction, either, especially when the enemy looked like the folks back home.
Long heard a rider approaching from behind, forcing his way through the throng, and he turned as best he could to see who it was. One of the mercs, a messenger of some sort.
“What news?” Long called out, to save a few of his thralls an unnecessary trampling.
“River up ahead. Shallow enough we can ford it dead-on. The End says we’re to water and soak our thralls, clean off some ‘o this filth.”
How nice of him, Long thought sourly. Soak the poor bastards outdoors in winter. That’ll reduce our numbers for sure. And so much for that river, while we’re at it. Probably never recover from the damage we’re about to do. “Will do!” Long yelled back.
The merc veered to his left and began forging off in a new direction. So, too, did Long’s thoughts. In his mind, Mardine had a strange gravity all her own, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not avoid thinking about her for long. And thoughts of her inevitably led to thoughts of their unborn child. The babe was a miracle, surely, but was the world worthy of him (already, Long thought of the child as “him”)? Would he even be given a chance to find out? For the millionth time, Long struggled to find a way out of this mess, for himself, for Mardine, and for their child. He was not an especially brave man, he knew, but he could not altogether abandon hope, as it seemed his master would have him. Which might have been bravery of a sort.
The promised river appeared up ahead, a vast silver-grey line that constituted the largest body of water Long had seen in years. It was a mile across, if it was an inch. Still, the front of the host would be able to enter and exit before the center reached the near shore. A crossing like this could take all day, which was just fine with Long; he’d absolutely no desire to begin the next battle. The first thralls hit the water. Many went down, struggling to adjust to the sudden current. Most got back up and continued onwards; some few never rose again, but were carried southward by the surging flow. Long wondered if that might work for him, as well: dismount and pretend to help one of the beleaguered thralls, only to be conveniently swept away himself. He looked over at the nearest merc, who was eyeing him rather intently. So much for that idea. The sound of a whip cracking brought his attention back to the shoreline, where the thralls were being herded into the water like nervous sheep. Long had to admit the mercs did their jobs efficiently, if perhaps without much imagination or enthusiasm. He’d oft heard it said that mercenaries would swing swords for whoever paid the most, regardless of their employers’ intentions or prospects. He very much doubted, though, that mere gold would convince these mercs to abandon the End, such was their fear of him. Their only hope was also Long’s, that somehow, some way, the End would fall. Would they ever admit it, even in their cups? Not in this lifetime.
“Thinkin’ o’ goin’ for a swim?” the familiar – and welcome – voice of Yendor asked from a few horse-lengths away. The man looked terrible, but Long was happy to see him just the same.
“What happened to you?”
A dry chuckle. Yendor was missing a few more teeth. “The other officers, is what.”
“You been passin’ that fermented goat’s piss around to them, too?”
“Nah. ‘S too good fer the likes ‘o them. Nah, they don’t like me talkin’ to you.”
Long was taken aback. “They what now? They don’t like you talking to me?”
“Fuck ‘em all.”
“Why don’t they like it?”
“They’re afraid I’ll bring the End down on ‘em, somehow.”
“Alheria’s tits! Is that all anyone ever talks about in this damned army? The-Bleeding-End-of-All-Things? Tell you one thing, even in Tarmun Vykers’ army, there’s talk o’ women, there’s cards and boasting of battles past. There’s camaraderie. It ain’t all about the leader, no matter who the fuck he is!” Long was on a rant now, and Yendor was clearly amused.
“You sayin’ there’s no brotherhood here?” he goaded.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me? There’s brotherhood, aye. The brotherhood of cattle being led to slaughter. The brotherhood of orphans being whipped by an unruly and unreasonable master.” Long gestured down to the river, to the merc with the whip. “There’s precious few in his host in possession o’ their right minds, and those that are don’t side with each other for shit!”
Having finally brought his horse alongside, Yendor reached out and slapped Long on the back. “That there’s why I like you so much: you ain’t given up.”
“Oh,” Long sighed, “I talk a big game…”
“Come on, now. The End’s either gonna kill us outright or get us all killed, eventually. We know this. But there’s nothing say
s we can’t have a laugh or two along the way.”
Long eyed him askance, provoking gales of laughter from his companion. “Plotz, were you ever kicked in the head by a horse when you were young?”
“Twice,” Yendor beamed. “Horse came up lame the second time!”
*****
Aoife, On the Road
Without the calming influence of Toomt’-La’s company, Aoife lost focus, wandered, became worried and then depressed. Before crossing the ruined remains of the forest of Nar, she’d intended to travel to Lunessfor, to…to…she could not fully remember. Something about finding an ally in her endless quest for vengeance against her brother. Well, she’d found one. In losing the satyr, though, she’d lost the means to communicate with and understand this ally. What was she supposed to do next? What did it expect of her?
A bell tolled somewhere in the fog ahead of her, startling her from her trance. Unwittingly, she’d drifted back amongst her own kind, amongst people. A rush of emotions and sensations besieged her: she was hungry, yearned for a hot bath, craved the sounds of singing and laughter, ached for an environment and interaction she intrinsically understood. She wanted to be human again, if only for a short time.
Fifty paces brought her through the fog and within sight of a village. The bell, she surmised, belonged not to a church but the town square. It rang out the hours between dawn and dusk, measuring the working day for those who lived here. Drawing closer, Aoife found what she’d been looking for, the largest building in town. Nine times out of ten, this was the inn, and so she hoped to find it today.
It was early morning. Funny, she hadn’t noticed that until now. Any moment, the locals would emerge from their homes to work, tending the livestock, stoking the forge, chopping the firewood, kneading the dough – whatever it was they did to contribute to the town’s continued survival. As the bell’s chime faded into silence, a rooster leapt into the void, crowing for all he was worth. Shortly, Aoife heard the lowing of a single cow; she would have expected more from a town with so many buildings. Still, no one appeared. Reaching the perimeter at last, Aoife gasped. Much of the town was in ruins. The shapes she’d taken for whole buildings were instead their gutted shells, their skeletons. In the streets lay the broken remains of wagons and vendors’ carts, along with other things far less recognizable.
Anders had come through. But not recently.
A furtive, shuffling sound off to her left put the A’shea on alert: she was not alone. Looking up, she saw, in the bones of a nearby home, a small boy, perhaps four years old. She knelt, to diminish her size, make herself appear less threatening. She expected to have to coax him out of the shadows, to prove her harmlessness. “It’s okay,” she began, “I’m not…”
The boy ran to her arms. As he got closer, he began to weep. By the time he reached her, he was sobbing. Aoife had no words, hoping her embrace would say what needed saying. In her peripheral vision, she saw other shapes moving into the clear, other children. Five, ten, fifteen, seventeen. Seventeen orphans, dressed in rags, filthy as the ground they stood on, perilously thin and broken. But not beaten. Aoife felt hot tears of her own roll down her cheeks.
“You’re an A’Shea?” one of the girls asked, her voice unusually husky.
Aoife nodded vigorously, still unable to speak.
“Can you help us, then?”
Aoife rose, sweeping the boy up into her arms. He weighed nothing. Or she had gotten stronger. The two were not mutually exclusive. The boy buried his face in the crook of her neck and continued weeping quietly.
The children stood in a semi-circle in front of her. A few were younger, even, than the boy in Aoife’s arms. The oldest, a boy, was perhaps twelve or thirteen, almost old enough for conscription in desperate times.
“Is this all of you?” the A’Shea inquired.
“Nah, nah.” One of the older boys replied. “Terce’s in the tower-top with the baby.”
On the far side of the square, there was, indeed, a three-story tower, attached, it seemed to the ruin and rubble of the town’s inn, declared as such by a rickety sign that still dangled from the charred framework: “Shreds and Patches.” Now, that was an ill-fated name.
“How is it you all survived the…the…?” She could not find the words.
“When our folks saw ‘em coming, they hid us all in a root cellar outside o’ town,” said the girl with the burly alto. She stepped forward. “They call me ‘Meeps.”
Aoife nearly grinned. Nearly. “Meeps?”
“’S a nickname!” the boy on Meeps’ left said. “On account o’ she meeps when she snores.”
The A’Shea looked down at the children’s feet, bare on the frost-crusted cobblestones. “Let’s get you all inside, shall we?” she suggested. “I can help you better if we’re not all freezing to death!”
*****
The top of the tower consisted of one large room, apparently used for meetings of the town’s council. Now, the entire floor was covered in mattresses in various states of decay and dishevelment. The room itself reeked of sweat, urine and worse. But the children, who sat along the room’s perimeter, were alive, which was a miracle in Aoife’s mind. Terce, the oldest of them (having recently flowered into womanhood), sat cross-legged near a window, holding a baby not her own, though you’d never have known it by the way she held it. As much as she wanted to believe in Aoife’s benevolence, experience had taught the girl to be wary, wary and above all, wary. Aoife wondered if her name wasn’t spelled “Terse.”
“So, y’can help us, then?” Terce began.
“Some.” Aoife answered. “Much. But I cannot solve your central problem, which is that you all need…adults, a community, to…protect you.”
Terce snorted, derisively. “Yeah, we’ve seen how well that works.”
“You need a bigger community,” Aoife clarified. “Or one further from harm’s way.”
“And how far is that, pray?”
“We can find one.”
“Don’t lie to us!” Terce yelled. “We seen ‘im, the one calls himself ‘The-End-of-All-Things.” Some of the younger children began to cry again. “We heard ‘im speak, we know what he plans for us!”
Without knowing why, Aoife rose and extended her arms. A soft golden-green light radiated from her and filled the chamber. Before Terce could even cry in alarm, she relaxed, and the anger drained from her face.
“What…what ‘ave you done?” she asked, lazily.
“I understand why you don’t trust adults. But you must trust me. You simply must. I am an A’Shea and…and more. Now,” Aoife concluded, “sleep.” And every child in the room drifted off into peaceful, healing slumber.
*****
It was hard to keep all their names straight, but a few stood out: Meeps, of course, and Terce. There was Danty, the oldest boy, and Will, the one who’d first run to her arms. There were Lisbeth and Moll, twins. And there was Tadpole, the Irrepressible (as she thought of him), whose goodwill, mirth and sense of mischief seemed completely unharmed by the chaos and suffering around him. He was the kind of boy her brother might have been, if. And she feared she was getting too attached to him.
“When y’ go about your travels,” he said to her one day while helping her bathe one of the younger children, “can you take me with you?”
It was a serious question, she knew, and Aoife gave it the attention it deserved. She sat back and regarded Tadpole in silence for a moment. He was a charismatic young imp, that was certain. With his nut-brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, his quirky smile undiminished by a missing tooth in front, a light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks and, lastly, the hint of a brogue, Tadpole was an undeniable and captivating character, the sort who could probably one day find an apprenticeship in any trade he chose to study. He was, in short, the little brother she’d always wanted.
“Mine is a dangerous path,” Aoife started.
“Dangerous?” Tadpole laughed. “Are you kidding me, Miss Aoife? Have you not noticed
the scenery?”
Aoife laughed in return. Then, solemnly, “Things are not likely to end well for me.”
“I won’t let no one nor nothing hurt you!” Tadpole swore.
“Mmmmm,” Aoife nodded, seriously. “Even if my fight’s with the End-of-All-Things himself?”
Tadpole’s face took on a stony aspect. “’Specially then.”
“You’re a fine young man, Tadpole.” Aoife said. “But you’re still a young man. A boy, in fact.”
In a flash, Tadpole’s arm shot out, and Aoife heard a thud in the wall across the room. A small skinning knife juddered inside a circle that had clearly been used for such before. “The right boy can kill as well as any man,” Tadpole said, quietly.
Aoife was not reassured. “The End-of-All-Things is no circle on the wall. He’s an unimaginably powerful sorcerer with an impossibly large and ruthless host at his command.”
Steel, Blood & Fire (Immortal Treachery Book 1) Page 36
