T
he following morning, the soldiers were on the point of mutiny.
Lorian had formed them into a hollow square and was issuing new uniforms and equipment out of two wagons. Konowa didn't need to be there, but something told him he should, just in case.
"I'm not wearing no dress!" Yimt yelled, tossing the offending item to the ground.
"Hold your tongue, you poxy dog!" Lorian roared back, stepping between Konowa and the soldiers.
"You'll do exactly as you're told or it'll be the taste of rawhide on your back!
You were eager enough yesterday to join."
"That was afore I knew you had to wear a dress!"
Konowa reached down and picked up the cloth, a rough, black wool overlaid with a dark-green vine and leaf pattern, and gently brushed the dirt from it. Another brilliant idea of the Prince's.
"This is a
caerna
, a broad cloth worn wrapped around the waist. It's cut so that it's
as long as a soldier is tall, which allows it to be wrapped around your waist
two and a half times, and wide enough to cover from waist to knee. It was the
fashion in Calahr some two hundred years ago and was considered a sign of honor,
for only warriors could wear it."
"That's all well and good, sir," Yimt said, keeping a wary eye on Lorian,
"but it looks like a dress to me."
The other soldiers chimed in, nodding and voicing their agreement.
"Besides, the Hintys didn't wear no dresses, er,
caernas, afore when you were in charge, sir."
Konowa paused a moment before responding. The troops grew quiet, recognizing that they had reached the limit of an officer's indulgence.
"Let's be perfectly clear," Konawa said, staring down any lingering resentment,
"the colonel of this regiment, its knight superior, is His Highness the Prince. It is completely within his prerogative to attire the regiment as he sees fit, and he has done so. He has decreed that the Iron Elves adopt a new tradition in keeping with its resurrection, and in order to ensure a glorious future," he said. He hoped his sarcasm wasn't obvious; the men needed to trust their leaders. Without that, the regiment was doomed.
"Some of this will no doubt seem odd at first, but you will get used to it…and you
will
follow orders."
"Will the Prince and the major be wearing them then?" Yimt asked. The silence was palpable as the men waited for Konowa's reply.
"The Prince has also decreed that all officers are to be mounted, and therefore will wear a trousered version of the caerna." The reaction he got wasn't a full-on revolt.
Private Arkhorn scratched his beard. "On horses? But what about when we form line and go into battle? Surely you'll come down then? You'll
be as obvious as dragons in a pigeon coop up there."
Lorian snorted. "I've been in my share of cavalry
charges with barely a scratch on me."
"That's all well and good, sir," the dwarf said, "but I'd wager you were going a mite faster than a foot regiment formed in line. The major here will be head and shoulders above us and moving at a snail's
pace. The bastards in the enemy line will be drawn to him like flies to blood."
Konowa could have done without that particular analogy, especially as the dwarf was right. Sitting on a horse with a line regiment was akin to painting a target on yourself. Perhaps the Prince was trying to prove something to mother dearest back home.
"You just look after the boys to your left and right, and the officers will take care of themselves," Konowa said, with far more conviction than he felt. In fact, the more he thought about things, the less sure he felt about any of it. They were leaving in less than an hour, woefully unprepared to do so. They barely had enough
"volunteers" to make up three companies of ninety men each plus the regimental staff and a handful of artificers. They had no surgeon and a colonel with no experience. Worse, they had no wizard. Konowa had thought his father would accompany them, but Jurwan had said he had other matters to attend to. What could be more important than this? Whatever it was, it meant the regiment was 313 souls, less than half of what the first battalion of a regiment should have. The leather pouch his father had given him now felt as light and insubstantial as the hope they had of surviving.
"A few tricks hidden away then, Major?" Yimt asked. The other soldiers visibly relaxed when they heard this. They were eager to believe the Iron Elves were imbued with mystical powers, ignoring the fact that the regiment had been unceremoniously disbanded and sent packing without so much as a puff of magical smoke, unless vanishing without a trace had been magic.
Konowa was nonplussed for a moment, his hand halfway to the pouch before he caught himself.
"Here, here, and here," he said, recovering his composure and pointing to his head, heart, and crotch.
"Think with your head and fight with your heart and you'll be fine."
"Uh, Major, sir?" the private with spectacles asked. He was pale, skinny, and scared, not exactly the Empire's finest.
"What about the, um, third bit?"
Konowa looked around at the soldiers and smiled. "Find a willing lady, she'll show you," he said, to a great roar of approval. He turned to Lorian.
"RSM, we move out in an hour. I expect to see every last man, elf, and dwarf in
full uniform, no exceptions."
"Yes, sir!" Lorian said, saluting Konowa before turning back to the troops.
"You heard the major. I want a pile of all your old kit over here, now! You
there, four-eyes, any idea how to wear this thing? Look, someone find someone
who can show me how to put this on!"
Konowa walked away, leaving Lorian to work it out. He chose a route behind a row of tents bordering a thick copse of tall, sharp-edged jimik. If there had been any kind of breeze he wouldn't have dared walk near a patch of sword grass. Each blade was over four feet tall and as sharp as any forged weapon. He'd once seen a panicked ox charge straight into a stand of jimik. The poor beast had bled out in less than two minutes, but the men had eaten well that night.
As Konowa continued on his way, the immutable truth of the situation hit him: The Shadow MonĂĄrch was looking for him. He'd always believed there was more than a little truth to the legends, but until the rakkes it had been easy to push the thought aside. Less easy to dismiss was the question of why She was interested in him and why so many Hynta elves had been born with black ear tips. He tried to recall moments in his life when he'd felt drawn to commit evil, and while there was much blood on his hands, he couldn't say that he'd ever felt anything call to him with black intent, certainly not Her.
He walked on, trying to puzzle it through, and realized something else was vying for his attention. Konowa slowed, trying to make sense of what he felt. The back of his neck tingled and his skin had grown cold again. He reached up and shifted the pouch under his jacket. The feeling got stronger. Konowa stopped walking and closed his eyes, letting his senses flow out around him. There was the usual chaos of smells and sounds, voices and sensations that swirled together into a maelstrom of everything and nothing at once. This time however, he didn't give up, but pushed himself to keep trying. The cacophony of life remained, but now he could feel a path through it, as if a force were parting the fog in front of him. In a sudden burst of red emotion he saw, or rather felt, a figure moving toward him. He opened his eyes, and for perhaps the first time in over a week, was not surprised to find someone wanting to kill him.
"It's been a long time,
ruij-ki
," hissed a voice, one that transported Konowa back to the night he had killed the Viceroy.
Corporal Kritton stood before him. It
had
been a long time since Konowa last saw his face, but there was no mistaking the twisted mask of rage that glared at him now. It was the same look he'd worn at Luuguth Jor when he threatened to kill Konowa if he attacked the Viceroy. Kritton had seen the repercussions Konowa hadn't, but killing the Viceroy had been the right thing to do, no matter the cost.
"You call me leader in our native tongue yet I hear no honor in it," Konowa said, breaking eye contact in hopes of averting the inevitable. Kritton's knuckles were white as he gripped his musket, giving Konowa little hope he could. The elf had emerged from between the tents, pinning Konowa with his back to the jimik. The only way out was through him.
"Do you expect it?" Kritton asked, saying each word through clenched teeth. Drops of spittle dribbled down his chin.
"Do you believe I would honor the elf who betrayed us all? We followed you, we trusted you. Save our tribe, and our people, you said. Join the Empire, change it from the inside." He turned his head slightly to show his own ruined ear.
"It was our destiny, you said, the fate of the marked ones unfit to become
ryk faur
."
The contents of the pouch in Konowa's jacket trembled as if frantic to be released.
"And I believe it still."
The expression on Kritton's face finally changed, to one of surprise.
"You have the gall to say that after allowing
pwal gor
into the Iron Elves?"
Konowa winced at the slur.
Impure.
Throughout his youth, it had been used against him and those like him.
"Humans and dwarves are part of the greater world. If we are to preserve the
Hynta, we must learn to deal with them, and the other races, too."
Kritton sneered. "Is the regiment to be nothing more
than a collection of refuse then?"
The hilt of his saber was in his hand before Konowa had realized it. He forced his hand to release its grip.
"Times have changed. The Prince himself has raised the regiment and thus will fill its ranks as he sees fit." That wasn't entirely true. Konowa had taken the dwarf both because he was a tough veteran and because it pleased him to know it annoyed the Prince.
"But surely you could have stopped the dwarf; he was assigned to the Trading
Company like you."
This time Kritton looked away, and Konowa made the connection.
"You put him up to it," he said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. "A
test to see what I would do."
Kritton clearly was like many of the marked ones, never having come to terms with who they were. For them, the shame and guilt of being impure was a consuming force. Unable to join the Long Watch, they had created a belief that if they fought hard enough in service to the Hynta, the Wolf Oaks would one day accept them and purify their tainted souls of Her touch. To this end, they chose to serve the very Empire that threatened their ancestral home and a way of life that they could not wholly participate in, and fought like demons in the hope that one day they could. Having suffered from prejudice their whole lives, they were nonetheless eager to form a pure regiment of marked elves alone, and for its part, the Empire had welcomed these fierce warriors and used their rage against her enemies.
"A test, and you failed," Kritton said. His grip on his musket never loosened, but his voice began to shake.
"The Iron Elves were once proud and noble. Now the regiment is no different from
any other."
Konowa shook his head. The blackness resting against his chest pulsed in time with his heart, pumping cold ichor through his veins.
"You are wrong, Takoli," Konowa said, using Kritton's Hynta name. "The regiment is very different. You'll
have to trust me."
Kritton's eyes grew wide and his head pulled back as if he had been slapped.
"Trust you? We trusted you once and where are the others now?"
"I am doing everything I can to get them back. But how is it that you are not among them?" Konowa asked.
"My attempts to stop you from killing the Viceroy were viewed as proving my loyalty to the crown, and for that I was spared the fate of the others. I was allowed to remain as a shining example," Kritton said. His mouth twisted as if the very words were bitter on his tongue.
"I am truly sorry, Takoli."
The elf's eyes glared. "Takoli is dead! I should have
killed you when I had the chance."
"I expected it," Konowa said truthfully. "And after I was court-martialed, I waited in the forest for one of you to find me, but no one came. Perhaps the real reason elves like you can't
join the Long Watch is that your forest craft is not good enough."
Kritton bared his teeth and stepped a few inches closer.
"I could track you down anywhere, even if you fled to Her forest. But I am no fool. Your father is Ruwl's
pet wizard. He walks in the spirit world, wields great power. He would protect
you."
Konowa snorted. "My father could have done nothing even if he had wanted to, which he wouldn't. Some battles are an elf's to fight alone." The cold burned him as no fire ever had. He knew in a way that both thrilled and terrified him that he could reach out and kill Kritton with a single touch, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to fight that urge.
"Easily said when all the other elves are banished."
Konowa bristled at the words and took a step forward.
"Enough! I offer you no more than what I offered you the first time: the
opportunity to serve Her Majesty and this Empire. Do it with honor, and with
conviction, and we will serve the Hynta as well. Now, either attack and accept
the consequences or learn your place. I do not have time for the weak-willed."
The sound of boots heralded the approach of many troops, cutting off Kritton's reply.
"Is there a problem, Major?" Lorian said, coming around a tent with several soldiers behind him.
Konowa looked at Kritton, who returned his gaze with one of pure hatred before turning away. The acorn was no longer cold against Konowa's breast. It was as if a string holding him upright had been cut, and he had to concentrate on not falling down. Sweat beaded on his face and everything appeared blurred around the edges.
"No, no trouble at all. I was just getting
reacquainted with an old friend."
Lorian didn't look as if he was buying it, but he knew enough to let it go.
"Well, if you're done with the reunion I could really use the corporal's help in
getting the new troops squared away."
