Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  In the late afternoon, with no end to the Controversy in sight, they heard the crash of hooves approaching the farm. A priest rode a horse up at a gallop, and gasped in Wit's direction while he caught his breath.

  "I…with all due respect, I am sorry to interrupt your business, but I must insist that you do something about your dwarf."

  "All the gods, I hope he hasn't hurt anyone. Whose liquor did he drink and how much did it cost?"

  "It's not that at all, well, he stole two jugs of spirits from the inn, but that isn't…he has enslaved the children of the village with dark magic, and enlisted them in some ritual to the black gods!"

  "What?"

  "He, along with a dozen children, is digging up a cemetery of Alliance soldiers form the last orcish invasion."

  "Shit on all the gods…sorry, your reverence, for the language." He turned and bowed to the farmers. "I am deeply sorry to end our business but…I must go see what this is about. I would be infinitely obliged if someone could lend me a horse."

  Wit's suspicions were further aroused when it turned out that the cemetery was five miles from the town in the opposite direction of the farm where Wit had been. Shadows were lengthening as he and the priest approached.

  Wit was taken aback at its size. He had learned the history of the invasion—the Order had guided the armies of the Alliance to a series of crushing victories over the orcs, and this was regarded as among their greatest feats. Wit knew that thousands upon thousands of Alliance soldiers had lost their lives. The cemetery stretched for as far as the eye could see; the portion that Wa'llach and his little helpers had dug up was barely noticeable.

  They had dug up the better part of a hundred graves. Four groups of three children were each excavating a grave, while Wa'llach was working on a fifth. The youngest child was seven years old and the oldest fourteen. When they saw Wit and the priest they immediately abandoned their work and started throwing rocks at them.

  "Go away!"

  "Leave us alone!"

  "Go screw a basilisk!"

  Wit's horse bolted, and Wit battled with it for a moment before he managed to dismount. A rock struck him in the shoulder. The priest fell off his horse and a rock hit him in the head.

  "Wa'llach, make them stop throwing rocks!"

  "Stop throwing rocks, you little brutes!"

  "No!" screamed the children in unison. "Go away! We're going to keep digging!"

  Wa'llach laughed heartily and continued to dig.

  "Stop throwing rocks!" yelled Wit. "I won't stop whatever this nonsense is just yet, I just want to watch."

  "Do you promise?"

  "Yes."

  The stream of rocks slowly died down.

  "Back to work! Back to work you lazy urchins!" Wa'llach yelled from the grave he was digging, and the children scampered back to their task.

  Wit, rubbing his shoulder, carefully approached the workers, with the priest following him. Around the area that had been dug up were little piles of objects taken from graves, bits of armor, the heads of spears and arrows, and tokens and talismans that had been buried with the dead. The great treasure appeared to be a broken sword.

  After a moment, one of the children's shovels struck a wooden coffin and a cheer went up, and the diggers converged on that grave.

  As Wa'llach swung himself out of the grave that he was working on, he yelled out, "How did he die?"

  "Trampled with horses!"

  "Head bashed in!"

  "Shot with arrows!"

  "Fever!"

  "Stabbed with a sword!"

  Wa'llach jumped into the grave and pried the lid off the coffin; the children went quiet. The skeleton lay in it, its ribcage covered in tattered and rusted chain mail. By the head lay a little stone carving of a winged horse.

  Wa'llach slowly inspected the remains. As he peeled away the chain mail there was a slightly audible "thunk" and a half of an arrow shaft fell to the bottom of the coffin.

  "Arrows! I win! Give me his things!" called one of the children.

  Wa'llach smiled and shook his head. "Which lucky bugger had stabbed with a sword?"

  "I did, sir."

  "But that's an arrow, plain as day!"

  "Aye, but it went in through this hole in his mail," Wa'llach held up the rusted coat and pointed to a hole near the bottom, "lodged in his side. Hurt him something bad, but this…" he pointed to the ribs, "that's the blow that killed him. You can see the scratches on the ribs, the blade went in thus," he showed with his fingers, "it's a stroke from a sword that got him in the heart."

  "What else can you tell?"

  "Well, the flying horse, that's a token of the Prozinga people of the west. They bury one with their dead to guide them to the afterlife. Not many Prozinga at the battle of Leone, so he was a mercenary, fighting for gold, most likely. Not very young, if he had been at it long enough to get a coat of mail that good: it don't look like much now, but a hundred years ago it would have been lovely. And a well liked man, if there was someone who lived and thought to bury him with his token. You can see here," he pointed to the right arm, "that he'd broken his arm some years ago, so maybe he'd been soldiering for a while. Indeed, the Prozinga fight mainly with a heavy spear, and breaking an arm in about that place happens often enough when they are training."

  The children listened with open mouths. Eventually, the one who had yelled "stabbed with a sword" started to climb into the grave to claim his treasure.

  "Hang on," said Wit, "you believe that this man was a well-trained fighter?"

  "It would be my best guess," said Wa'llach.

  The children watched Wit suspiciously.

  "And he probably fought with a spear?"

  "Most likely."

  "And the best guess is also that he got shot with an arrow before he was stabbed in the heart?"

  "Yes."

  "And you said that the arrow probably hurt him quite a lot?"

  "Well, yes. What are you getting at?"

  "Well, I think that the boy who said he was shot with an arrow should get something as well: from how you describe the man's injuries, if he was trained with a spear, he probably would not have let a man with a sword get close enough to stab him in the heart, unless he had already been shot with an arrow."

  An impressed murmur went up from the children, and the boy who had said 'arrow' joined the other one in the grave. "Because you said arrow, you should have the arrow. I want his flying horse, and we can't split the mail. But I'll give you one of the greaves that I got from the other fellow." The two boys shook hands, and collected their respective trophies.

  "Back to work, you indolent wretches!" hollered Wa'llach, "back to work!"

  "Um, no," said Wit. "I am afraid, that no matter how many rocks you throw"—the children were reaching for rocks except for a more enterprising one who had picked up the remnant of a rusty spear—"I am going to forbid Wa'llach from digging graves and telling you stories. Besides, it is getting dark and soon he won't be able to see the bones well enough, anyway. Gather what you have and return to your parents."

  "You are allowing this?" said the priest. "Blasphemy and desecration of our noble dead?"

  Wit pursed his lips and turned to one of the children, a twelve-year-old girl. "What do you have there?"

  "Some greaves, a bit of a shield, part of a glove, and a spear head."

  "What do you think of the man who carried them?"

  "That he was very brave and strong."

  "Why do you think that?"

  "Because his leg was broken, and the wise dwarf said that you could tell from how the bones were ground that he had walked a good distance, after the bones had broken apart. There was also a lot of blood in the greaves, so that he had been alive, bleeding from his leg, for a long time. He kept fighting on a broken leg, and must have been a brave and strong man."

  "His bravery and suffering is part of why you live in a peaceful Alliance, free of orcs. Because brave men like that fought the orcs, and died and suffered."r />
  "Yes, sir."

  "It would be best," Wit said to the children in general, "if you were to leave the rest of their comrades in peace. But if you were to keep the things you have found today, to remind you of those who died for your safety and freedom, I do not see any blasphemy in that."

  The priest growled, and the children nodded somberly. They collected their things and walked back to the town. Wit let the younger children take turns sitting on his horse, while other children led it. Wa'llach discussed the care and restoration of the objects that had been taken, telling the children what to use to polish which kind of metal, along with various hints for sharpening edges and removing rust.

  In the village the children dispersed to their homes. Wit and Wa'llach went to the tavern. The dwarf, in an excellent mood, called for mutton and ale. "And some for my friend!" he yelled.

  "I'll take soup," said Wit. "Remember, you poisoned me, you son of a bitch."

  Wa'llach shrugged. "You feel better now."

  "And you found the two most belligerent men in the region and got it into their heads that I could sort out years of minor grievances."

  "Is there something else that you wizards are good for?"

  "What was this all really about?"

  Wa'llach sighed. "Years ago, a bit before I was Bound to the Order, well, I had a dispute with some orcs that got a little…personal. One of them took an especial dislike to me."

  "Why?"

  "Killed his brothers, and he resented it mightily. He was called Blon'de, and he was an expert tracker and deadly fast with a knife. He killed my friends until no one would ride with me, and then followed me out into the wastes. Now, we played cat and mouse out in the desert for weeks, each of us trying to meet when we thought it would go the best for us. And…" A look of genuine sadness crossed the dwarf's face. "At first that son of a bitch got me. Came at me with the sun in my eyes, and backed me into a trap. Kept me tied up near a day, stabbing me from time to time, wanted me to suffer bad. But eventually, I got the better of him: I got loose of my bonds and bashed him over the head with a rock. Then I tied him up, and dragged him through the wastes, in the hot sun. I wanted to know how much of his clan was still out there—but he needed to be pretty thirsty before I would trust him. I was going to wait until he would sell out his mother for a drink of water, and then cut his throat."

  "Lovely."

  "Now, we are riding through the desert, when a herald of the Alliance comes riding out of nowhere, and falls off his horse. I run over to him, to see what he has, and why he's there. He just got mauled by a tiger-scorpion, so I start to take his knife and boots. Then he tells me about a great treasure, buried in one of the graves in the cemetery for the Alliance dead, from the battle of Leone. Then he passes out. I go to get him some water, so he can finish the story, tell me the name on the grave. When I get back, that miserable orc is next to him, and the herald is dead. Ask him what the herald said, and he says that he said a name. But he won't tell me what name, and then he passes out.

  "So I nursed that miserable orc back to health, and the two of us made a deal. I would take us to the cemetery, and he would tell me the name of the grave when we got there. The problem, of course, was that this place was deeper into the Alliance than I had been in decades. We were a few days away, when the gutless Alliance bastards got us. If I hadn't been weak from what he had done to me, I probably could have fought my way out, but they dragged me to the capital to be Bound. That slippery orc escaped."

  "But the orc must have got the treasure years ago."

  Wa'llach shook his head. "I never told him what cemetery. The last orc invasion was a blood bath. There are dozens of cemeteries like that one."

  "So you were just going to dig graves until you found it?"

  Wa'llach nodded.

  "Don't do that. Go to bed."

  The next morning, the children from the cemetery were waiting for Wa'llach in the stables. They gave the dwarf a basket of apples that they had picked and a long green scarf. "My pa said you were heading into the mountains, and it's cold there," one of the boys said.

  "We stitched the symbols on it," said another child. "That one is supposed to keep you safe from harm, and that one is supposed to bring you luck with money."

  Wa'llach stopped in his tracks and was motionless for nearly a minute. Then he laughed. "Ha ha. Many thanks! Remember what I told you about those bits of armor. If you find the right smith," he turned to one boy, "he'll make you a fine dagger from that half a sword. Be well, you lazy little runts!" He sprang onto his horse and rode out of town.

  Wit pointed to the scarf and the apples as they left the village. "Well, there it is: your great treasure of Leone."

  "To hell with you, you rotting hunk of whale blubber," said Wa'llach, as he tightened the scarf around his neck.

  In the second week they entered a village where peasants in the town square surrounded two bound and beaten men. The men seemed in good spirits in spite of their condition—and the frantic headman of the village quickly explained why.

  The men had kidnapped four children from the village and placed them in a cave with a heavily sedated wyvern. The wyvern would, in their estimation, wake up in about four hours. In return for a hundred gold and a cart of grain, the men were prepared to lead the villagers to the cave.

  A variation of the scheme would pop up from time to time throughout the lands of the Order, since as long as the children lived, the Powers of the Order could not be invoked. When Wit and Wa'llach arrived the peasants were loading grain into a wagon.

  Wit looked at the peasants: the chief, a gaunt old man; a sad farmer; a woman with tears in her eyes and blood on her dress. Come winter, the cart of grain would almost certainly cost lives.

  "Whose blood is that?" Wit asked the woman.

  "What do you care?"

  "Is it his?" indicating the bandit.

  The woman nodded.

  "How did his blood get on your dress?"

  "What in the name of the gods! We give your Order seven hundred in grain a year, and when they take my baby you stand there talking about a dress! To hell with you!"

  "Please," said Wit, "tell me how his blood got on the dress."

  "I threw myself at his feet and begged him to give back my baby." She left a bag of grain in the cart, and watched Wit intently.

  "Sir," Wit said to the head bandit, "I strongly advise that you tell these people where their children are. Please do it, and I won't hurt you."

  "Or what, little wizard? No, if they want to see their babes again they'll give me the gold."

  "You are immensely stupid," he said to the bandit. "Wa'llach, give me your flask."

  "Have you lost your mind? Dwarven rum is no drink for a human…" Wit nodded at him and Wa'llach's arm reached to his belt and handed him the flask while the dwarf continued to speak. "It'll rot your weak insides and drive you mad."

  Wit did not doubt that this was more or less true—but rotted insides and madness still seemed preferable to being sober for what he was about to do.

  6

  A week after Wit left, Haniel came home one day to find Mantyger and Bronzino standing over a large, embarrassingly expensive barrel of wine; a long black metal staff topped by a gold manticore with silver spikes on its tail was propped in a corner. Haniel's face twisted into a smile, but she tried to hide it and there was an awkward moment as they all thought of how to turn it into a joke. Haniel gave up first, ran over and hugged Mantyger.

  "I'm so happy for you," Haniel said. "What's your posting?"

  "Advanced Binding," said Mantyger.

  Haniel nodded and got herself a glass of wine. For most other wizards, jobs in Advanced Binding were deeply desirable, and only available at the end of a long and successful career. But although Mantyger was a Binding prodigy, she found it tedious, and her friends had always known that she had hoped to spend her wizard's career working for the small department that investigated magicks that were officially banned by the Order.


  "At least," Haniel said, "you get to stay in the 'wen."

  "There's that." A city girl through and through, Mantyger hated being in the country more than she hated being bored. "But even now I spend all my time putting off filthy old lords who want me to remove the 'no screwing' clause from some pretty young Bound person. Now even more of them will be pestering me, once I work for the department: everyone knows that if you want something special for one of your Bound, Advanced is the place. All the gods, it would save me time if I just started making Puppets and ran a Doll House."

  "Don't even joke!" said Haniel.

  The standard Bindings done by the Order included protections that prevented the Bound from being forced to follow commands that were explicitly sexual, sadistically violent, or likely to be fatal to the Bound. Puppets were people whose Binding had been done such that they would have sex, torture, or kill on command. Although these Bindings were strongly prohibited and considered revolting by most of members of the Order members, a minority of wizards had been creating them in secret for as long as the Order had been around.

  Mantyger seemed to look at her carefully for a moment. "Don't mope, Hanny: you know I would never really do something like that. Now, I bet you can't drink this whole flagon of wine before I count five."

  "Five?" said Haniel, "I'll be pouring the next one before you get to three."

  In the morning, they decided to save the rest of the barrel for a proper celebration when Wit got back. Mantyger left for her new room in the tower and Haniel cleaned up the mess from their celebration, not because she wanted the quarters to be clean, but because she wanted Bronzino—who had spilled several flagons on the sitting room floor—to feel guilty.

  Before, Haniel had never thought of herself as happy, but as she wiped up spilled wine, it occurred to her that she might have been. Wit and Mantyger had always been there, so she had never really had an occasion to examine her feelings for them: now that they were gone, she was confronted with the fact that they were the only friends she had ever had. She and Bronzino were the only Adepts who vaguely disliked each other—but the group had always been dominated by everyone's fondness for Wit and awe of Mantyger, so that the two had never really had an opportunity to explore this dislike. She left for her duties looking forward to the opportunity to let a feud develop in earnest.