Darknesses (33 page)

After
Feran left, Alucius disrobed slowly. What could he do? What should he do? And
he still didn’t know why the spirit-woman had shown him the mural in Dereka,
but he feared what might happen when he found out.

A
lucius
had spent
most of the morning working with the clerks at Northern Guard
headquarters to arrange for the back pay of troopers, since his stocks of
golds—those sent to the companies before leaving Emal—had run out at about the
time he had been recovering from his wounds in Dereka. Then, he’d had to argue
over sending the two-gold payment to the families of the dead—the golds
supplied by the Landarch—because he didn’t have the records of families with
him. Even Majer Imealt had sided with him on that, but that could have been
because the golds weren’t coming out of the Northern Guard’s treasury.

After
that, he’d had to arrange for replacement uniforms and gear, then write out the
letters and appointments necessary to promote Egyl to senior squad leader and
four other experienced troopers to squad leader. By that time, it was almost
noon.

Immediately
after the midday dinner, Alucius slipped back to his comparatively capacious
quarters and wrote a letter to Wendra, knowing that at last he had a chance to
get word to her.

My dearest Wendra—

This letter will tell you that I
am alive and well, if only recently returned to full strength. I was wounded in
the final battle at Dereka, but we prevailed, and the nomads retreated to
Illegea. It did take several weeks for me to recover enough to be able to ride,
and then two more weeks on the high road before we reached Dekhron yesterday.

I am still in Dekhron, but I
will not be heading home soon. I am preparing for a journey to Tempre to meet
the Lord-Protector, since he has requested my presence to congratulate me on
behalf of all those in the Northern Guard. It is still hard at times to think
that we are the Northern Guard of Lanachrona, rather than the militia of the
Iron Valleys. How long the journey and return will last, I do not know, but it
will take several days even before we can depart. I also have no idea how long
I will be in Tempre. I will be accompanied by a full squad, but not by the
entire company, or what remains of Twenty-first Company. We left the Iron
Valleys with four companies at close to full strength, and returned with fewer
than two. Twenty-first Company was more fortunate than the others, but we came
back with little more than half those who left.

I was most surprised at how
empty and how barren the eastern part of northern Lanachrona is, and how few
live there. It is almost as dry as our quarasote lands, but dusty rather than
sandy. I fear I would never be a southerner. I miss the cool and the open
spaces of the stead, and you most of all, and I look forward to the time when I
can lay aside the uniform and return.

With all my love

After
signing the missive, Alucius folded and sealed it, then wrote Wendra’s name and
the address of her father’s cooperage in Iron Stem on the outside before
slipping it inside his tunic until he found a guard messenger headed north.

He
slowly stood and stretched, then headed out of his quarters. He still had to
arrange for the reshoeing of a number of mounts. He also had to write up a
report on the losses of mounts and equipment in the battles in Deforya. The
colonel had insisted on the report, explaining that while such reports were a
formality, they were still required by the Arms-Commander of Lanachrona.
Alucius wondered how many other letters and reports would be necessary over the
next few days.

Tempre,
Lanachrona

I
n
the gray light of a cloudy morning,
not long after dawn, the Recorder of
Deeds stood in his undergarments before the mirror in his private quarters, an
apartment consisting of a capacious but not luxurious sitting chamber, a
bedchamber, and a combined washroom and dressing room. The quarters had always
been those of the Recorder of Deeds and were located on the second level of the
Lord-Protector’s palace, a structure rebuilt—and greatly enlarged—several
generations earlier upon the foundations of another structure. The Recorder’s
chambers were located above the ancient foundations and the underground
chambers that had survived the Cataclysm and more.

After
taking from the unmarked blue bottle the unguent he had formulated earlier, the
Recorder slowly worked it into his dark black hair, then brushed his hair
thoroughly. As he brushed, his hair lightened into silver. He studied his
reflected visage for a long moment, then set the hairbrush aside. Next, he
poured the contents of a second brownish bottle into his hands, and worked the
lotionlike liquid into his skin, so that when he had finished, his face
appeared lightly tanned, rather than shimmering white. Finally, he lifted a
tiny brush and dipped it in a dark liquid. Carefully, most carefully, he
applied the liquid along the faintest remnants of the lines that had once
creased his face. When he finished, he nodded approvingly before replacing the
containers in the plain wooden box. He returned the box to the hidden compartment
in the false back of the commode.

Only
then did he don his silver vestments as Recorder of Deeds and turn toward the
door to begin his day.

A
lucius
struggled through yet another day
filled with more administrative
details, including having to get authorization from the overcaptain who handled
the accounts for horses in order to pay the farrier for reshoeing some fifty
mounts, then having to use his Talent to persuade the quartermaster to issue
more uniforms without charging the troopers. The quartermaster captain had
wanted to insist that the damaged and missing uniforms were the result of
carelessness and not normal wear. The captain’s new quartermaster’s manual—sent
from Tempre—did not mention battle damage. By using his orders from the Lord-Protector—and
his Talent—Alucius managed to get the uniforms for all the returned troopers
under the rubric of “at the request of the Lord-Protector.”

He
walked around the courtyard for a quarter of a glass after that, taking long
and slow deep breaths, before returning to the headquarters building to meet,
again, with Colonel Weslyn.

Weslyn
had a study on the second level of the building, with a balcony overlooking the
courtyard. The double doors were open when Alucius stepped into the room, but
the colonel was seated behind an old walnut desk and did not rise.

Weslyn
set down the papers he held and looked over the low stacks of papers neatly
arranged across the front of the desk. “Good afternoon, Overcaptain. How are
matters coming?”

Alucius
glanced at the stacks of papers. “I’d thought I’d seen enough paper, but I’d
not want to go through all those.”

“The
Northern Guard has more reports than the militia did, I fear. It has its
advantages and disadvantages. The Council did not wish to see reports, and what
they did not wish to see spelled the end of their power, and now I must report
directly to the Arms-Commander of Lanachrona. The reports mean that we can
explain our situations and our needs, but they take far too much time.” The
colonel shrugged. “You had asked to see me?”

“Yes,
sir. The Council is no longer—”

“The
Lord-Protector dissolved it. He threatened to execute any of the members who
protested, then gave them amnesty. Now…what did you have in mind?”

Alucius
decided against asking more about the Council. “I had hoped we could talk about
the companies that returned from Deforya, if you would not mind.” Alucius
looked at the well-dressed colonel.

“Part
of that will not be my decision at all,” Weslyn replied smoothly. “I will be
making my recommendations to Marshal Wyerl. He is the arms-commander over both
the Northern and the Southern Guards, you know, and he will either accept or
change my recommendations. It may be some time before we hear. I had thought,
based on your recommendation, that we would give the men a month’s furlough.
With luck, by the time they return, we will know how to proceed.” Weslyn
smiled. “What would you suggest?”

Alucius
returned the smile with one equally false, and probably as transparent. “Before
we left Emal Outpost, you had mentioned that the Lord-Protector was more
interested in adding and reinforcing Northern Guard posts to the north and
west. Because we have been well away from the Iron Valleys, I have no knowledge
of what has been recommended and accomplished. I would not wish to suggest
something contrary to his and your desires. If you could enlighten me, briefly,
on where matters stand, and what posts are short of companies?”

The
colonel leaned back slightly in the old wooden armchair, smiling more broadly.
“Yes…we must consider what is possible, and I wish more officers understood
that.”

Alucius
ignored the implication that he didn’t, continued smiling politely, and waited.

“The
outpost at Soulend was moved to the former stead at the west end of the valley
just short of the Westerhills—the same stead, I believe, where the Matrites
encamped. It has been expanded to a staging base capable of holding as many as
ten companies. There are five there at present. Matters have been slower
farther north. This summer we completed a small post for two companies in
Eastice, and work is proceeding on a temporary post in the Westerhills east of
Klamat. The arms-commander had hoped to begin a northern campaign late this
summer, but the logistics dissuaded him. The post in Wesrigg has also been
expanded, and there are now five companies there, with space for another five.”

“I
see. You have twelve companies on the high roads leading to the northern part
of Madrien. We had four companies, and I would assume that you have a company
here. If I might ask, where are the other four stationed? Along the River Vedra
to the west?”

“Exactly.”
The colonel smiled. “In fact, the arms-commander has been so impressed with the
performance of the Northern Guard that he has indicated that we will receive
enough golds to recruit enough troopers to replace those lost in Deforya and
train and add three more companies before next spring.”

Alucius
could feel his stomach tighten. Clearly, the Lord-Protector intended to use the
Northern Guard as the spearhead of the northern assault on Madrien. While
Alucius had no great love of Madrien, he also did not see much good in having
the troopers of the Iron Valleys die in such an assault, when the benefits
would go almost entirely to the south, effectively weakening the Iron Valleys
and further strengthening Lanachrona.

Yet,
the traders would approve—or not oppose the strategy, Alucius was certain,
because it would put more golds in their coffers. More mounts would be
purchased, more saddles, more uniforms, and more supplies, and Dekhron would
become even more tightly bound to Tempre and Lanachrona—and the herders of the
north would become even more isolated.

“Where
would you recommend that your companies go?” asked the colonel. “After their
furlough?”

Alucius
didn’t want to answer the question. If he made a recommendation, it was
effectively endorsing the strategy. “I’ve been away for a time, Colonel, and I
might have missed something…but…there are a couple of matters. First, more than
half of Twenty-first Company troopers finish their tours at year-end.”

“Including
their overcaptain, and I’ve been told that your releases will be honored. I had
thought that those remaining in Twenty-first Company would be transferred to
Fifth Company, except perhaps for any who might be good squad leader material
in another company. What else?”

“Well…it
seems to me that we’ll be fighting the same war a second time, except that the
Lord-Protector will be supplying the golds while we provide the men and blood.”

Weslyn
tilted his head to the side, then nodded thoughtfully. “That is a real
possibility, Overcaptain. It’s not a good bargain, but it’s the best one we
could strike. The Iron Valleys are poor, far poorer than anyone outside the
former Council ever knew. We could not have raised the golds to fight off the
Lanachronans. We were without the golds even to pay the militia we had, and
that was without being in a fight. We had no golds even for ammunition. And a
war would have destroyed us. The Southern Guard has been fighting Madrien in
the south. They have taken Zalt, and hold Southgate. That was all that allowed
us to push back the Matrites the last time. Fighting the Matrites again is not
what any of us would wish, but it is far better than anything else that was
going to happen.”

Alucius
could tell that the colonel honestly believed his own words. Worse, Alucius
himself wasn’t so sure that the colonel wasn’t right. “I can’t say that I like
the situation…”

“Overcaptain,
none of us likes it, and the former members of the Council will like it least
of all in time. But you haven’t addressed my question.”

“If
I had a choice for those companies,” Alucius said quietly, “I’d request that
they be assigned to Soulend.”

“I
would have thought Wesrigg.”

“Wesrigg
would be more pleasant, but the fighting will be worse, and they’ve fought a
great deal with little support.”

Colonel
Weslyn frowned. “Why do you think the fighting will be worse out of Wesrigg?”

“Because
the lower high road leads to Arwyn, and there are more Matrite companies there,
and because Arwyn is far closer to Hieron and can be reinforced more directly
and quickly.”

“There
won’t be much fighting at all out of Eastice,” Weslyn pointed out.

“No…but
a number of troopers said they’d rather do some fighting than be that far
north.”

“You
asked them?”

“No.
They told me so in the spring, when you indicated that many companies would be
reassigned. I just recalled what they said then.”

“I
see. Well…we’ll see what we can do.” Weslyn cleared his throat and squared his
shoulders. “What squad do you intend to take to Tempre?”

“My
orders from Marshal Wyerl stated that I was to bring a full squad of my
choosing. I don’t have a full squad anywhere. I thought I’d bring the third and
fourth squads from Twenty-first Company. That works out to nineteen troopers.
But I would still want them to get furlough when we return. A full month, the
same as the others.”

“That
would be satisfactory. When do you plan to leave?”

“The
day after tomorrow. That’s as soon as everything will be ready.”

“Good.”
With his professional smile, the colonel stood. “Let me know if there’s
anything else you need help with…although, from what I’ve seen, you do quite
well without it, Overcaptain.”

Alucius
stood. “We do the best we can, sir.” He bowed slightly, before leaving.