The False Martyr (100 page)

Yet as horrible as these
men’s experience had been, Jaret knew how much worse it could be.
The men had experienced the poison for minutes. Jaret had felt it
for days. His men knew now what he had lived through, and as Jaret
walked by, they stared in awe, realizing only now what their
commander had endured and wondering how any man could take that
much suffering and come out of it with is life much less his
sanity.

Did I survive it with my
sanity
? Jaret asked himself as he looked
at the wide eyes of his men. Certainly, he had not been sane before
Nabim’s henchman had taken the pain, before he had blocked his
emotion. He had been little more than an animal then, capable of no
thought beyond his suffering and fear that its source would return.
And now, wasn’t he just a different kind of animal? Without
freewill, could he be anything else? Or was that just an excuse, a
way to blame some higher power for the inhuman decisions he had
made? He dismissed the thought.
You made
the decisions that needed to be made
, he
told himself for the hundredth time.

The rain had stopped, the
storm passed. The sun was finally rising enough so that Jaret could
see his men, the Camp, the creatures, the damage done. The Camp was
a wreck of fallen tents, tree branches, mud, and bodies. But the
vast majority of the bodies were those of the creatures. They laid
primarily in a great pile in the center of the clearing where the
men had stacked them in the hour since the battle and storm had
stopped. Almost as terrifying in death as they had been in life,
their inhuman, misshapen forms – claws, teeth, weapons, fur,
scales, exoskeletons – were jutting from the pile so that it looked
almost like its own creature that might reanimate and have to be
killed all over again.

Though most of the
creatures were like Thagas’kuila, a number of others had made it
past Jaret as well, and he stared at these, trying to understand
what they had been in life. Certainly, he had faced them that
night, but that was a blur of rain, darkness, and desperation.
Then, the creatures had seemed like a single great mass of
destruction. He had stabbed and slashed at whatever was before him,
dependent upon the Order to carry out the intricacies of the
plan.

And that plan had worked
to perfection. Despite their wide eyes and shaking limbs, the
knights and legionnaires were as fit as they’d ever been. Lost in
their lust for pain, the creatures had bitten every man with an
injury, had healed even the ones that their fellows had cut down.
Then the spearmen had come in a rush and finished them. And only a
few of the spearmen that Jaret had left as guards had died before
the creatures could heal them.

Those to the west of the
stream, who had served no other purpose than to draw the creatures
away, had not been so lucky. Though he could see little of that
battlefield through the tangled remnants of the trees, he somehow
knew that the soldiers there had been massacred.

Somewhere, Jaret
recognized the tragedy of that. He looked out at the still swollen
stream and thought about those boys. Well over a hundred of them
had been trapped on the wrong side of that stream. Their deaths
were the cost of healing the knights and legionnaires, but it was
still the first time that Jaret had blatantly sacrificed his men,
that he had provided them with no leadership, no advantages, no
escape, no chance whatsoever to survive. He just as well could have
executed those boys. It went against everything he believed, and no
matter how many times he explained the logic of it to himself, he
could not accept that it had been him that had given the order,
that he was, even now, capable of such a callous disregard for
life.

“
I know what you did!”
Joal bellowed from across the camp. “You knew they were coming! You
and your little monk, you knew. You knew and you sent us to sleep
like nothing was happening.” The big man strode across the length
of the Camp flanked by all four of his sons and a great number of
spearmen. They formed a wedge behind their commander, trying their
hardest to match the anger in his eyes with the set of their faces.
Yet none of them seemed to fully understand that anger. Except . .
. . “What in the Order’s holy name were you thinking? How could you
leave men isolated on the far side of the stream? How could you
know that these things were coming and not give them any warning?
They were boys, the Maelstrom take you, boys!”

Jaret’s eyes left Joal’s
youngest son-in-law and went instinctively to where the command
tent was supposed to be. It had been leveled by the wind, was
sprawled across the trees at the edge of the clearing, a creature
as dead and black as those piled in the center of the clearing.
Without any privacy, he would have to end this conversation quickly
and decisively. No matter what force guided him, he knew the one
thing that no commander could have was subordinates openly
questioning his authority.

“
And where were you?” he
shot back, eyes blazing to match those of his friend. “See that
pile of creatures on the far side of the stream? I killed those.”
He gestured to his still healing calf and emphasized it with a
limping step forward – he was honestly beginning to wonder if even
Thagas’kuila’s poison could heal it fully. “I’d be dead if not for
the time I spent with those creatures. These men,” Jaret swept his
hand across the knights and legionnaires, “know what that means.
They know the cost of that miracle, and I used it to save us, to
keep our slight hope alive. So where were you when I was holding
that bridge?”

Joal sputtered into his
beard and tried to understand what had just happened. It was
something that Jaret had mastered under the tutelage of Commander
Rastabi.
When you can’t win the argument,
change it to one you can
, he had always
said.
It doesn’t matter what argument you
win, just as long as it is the last one.

“
What about the boys on
that side of the stream?” Joal tried to find his footing. “There
were over a hundred of them, and you abandoned them. You left them
to those creatures.”

“
Have you been there?”
Jaret asked. “You don’t know they’re dead. And even if they are,
men die in battle. How could we possibly know what was coming? How
could we know that the storm would flood the stream, that we would
be split?”
But you did
know
, Jaret said to himself.
You knew and you chose. You chose the knights and
legionnaires over them, decided that healing them was more
important than the lives of those boys.
And it had been a choice. Properly prepared, with Lius’
powers to help, the spearmen could have handled the creatures. But
they still would have lost many of them, and the knights and
legionnaires would be worthless. The knights and legionnaires were
the ones that would win this war. The creatures had been Jaret’s
only chance to save them. And a hundred spearmen had been the
cost.

Joal sputtered again and
looked to the trees. There was hope in his eyes where none was
deserved. He eyed Jaret skeptically then seemed to accept the world
as it was rather than how he’d like it to be. “Anders, we need a
bridge. There may be wounded on that side of the stream. I want
something spanning it within the hour. We cross in force in case
any of those . . . things are still out there. Do you
understand?”

Anders looked momentarily
surprised by the change but recovered quickly and nodded. “Sir,
yes, Commander.” He turned to his brothers-in-law, shouting orders.
Those, in turn, found their lieutenants and shouted the same
orders, creating a ripple that eventually consolidated into a wave
of activity.

And finally, Joal turned
back to Jaret placed a hand on his shoulder and came in close.
“Clearly, I should not have doubted you about the monsters, but
this still isn’t you. I know you, my friend. I see what you’ve
done. I know why, but that doesn’t make it right. I don’t pretend
to understand what happened to you, but I know that this is not
what my friend, my commander, would have done.” He looked long into
Jaret’s eyes then turned to oversee the work of his men.

Jaret went to find Yatier,
to help the knights and legionnaires, but it was Quinn that he
found instead. The youngest of Joal’s sons-in-law held Jaret’s
stare, then looked at the knights and legionnaires and creatures.
He nodded in understanding, but this was different understanding
from his father’s.

“
That one,” Lius said,
coming to Jaret’s side. “He is the only one that really understand
what happened last night. Maybe even more than you or
I.”

Jaret thought the same
thing, but he did not yet know what it meant. He watched Quinn
working with the men, not only giving orders but jumping in to help
steady the weight of a fallen tree that they were attempting to
lift. The sight made Jaret look again at the destruction all
around. Only a few trees were down, but the camp was littered with
branches, the dirt below was mud, the stream was swollen nearly to
bursting. The Empire had not seen a rain like that in years – he
knew because his prayers for it had been going unanswered for as
long as he could remember.

“
You did well last night,”
he said to Lius. “That storm was exactly what we needed. I thought
it was going to be too late, but it all happened exactly as you
said.” He looked at the monk, so small and meek that it was hard to
remember that he was the one who had controlled it all, that he was
the real power in this camp.

Lius laughed. “You think I
created that storm?” He laughed again, this time nearing hysterics.
Another look showed a boy about to crack. “You overestimate me. I
cannot change the weather or control storms. It would . . . it
would take years. I . . . I don’t even know if I could manage it
then.” He seemed to consider the possibility and shook his head to
dismiss it. “That storm was already coming. I made no more than the
smallest changes, ensured the dam would burst, that the cottonwood
would fall. But even those things were already in place. I needed
only to make the final stitch. I was not even making a true pattern
as our savior would have thought of it.”

He paused, seeming to
think of how best to say what he meant. “I was like the apprentice
who finishes a tapestry. I trimmed some strings. I pulled a few
others to ensure the pattern had not strayed. I made a few stitches
where threads had broken. But I had nothing to do with making the
tapestry. I could not even tell you how it was created or who the
master was. I do not know if it had been there since the time of
creation or created by Valatarian or another far more powerful than
I. All I know is that it was waiting for us. And even then, I
nearly failed to see it through. If you didn’t notice, the flood
was late. I feared it would not happen at all, that I had ruined
the entire thing, that we would both die. That is how much power I
have. I cannot even maintain these small weavings. After all this,
I nearly cost us everything. I nearly got everyone killed. I . . .
.”

Jaret cut the boy off with
a hand on his shoulder. “You did what needed to be done.” He paused
until his eyes came up. “I should have realized this before, but
you are no soldier. You have not been trained for this. And even
so, no amount of training can prepare you for your first time. I
have seen men who have trained for their entire lives, who could
best every man in their company, who seemed to have no fear. I have
seen those same men freeze the first time they see a man die. I
have seen them curl into a ball on the ground the first time they
see blood fly. And I have seen the least member of a company turn
into a lion when his friends were in trouble. I have seen a boy who
could barely hold a spear kill a Morg to help his friends. And the
one truth through it all is that no one cares what you did in
training when the battle is done. They don’t care when you found
your fight. They only care that you found it in time to save their
lives.”

Jaret stopped there and
looked out over the Camp again. “Go. Read your book. Learn. None of
these soldiers was born in a week. The best were created over
years. They were hardened by battles like this. Every one of them
has made mistakes, but the reason they’re still alive is that they
learned from those mistakes. They used them to get better. They
worked harder because they know that the Order is a fickle master,
and it seldom leaves the same mistake unpunished twice. So next
time, you will do better. And better still the time after that.
Until, eventually, you
are
the one that brings the storm.”

“
You don’t . . .
.”

Jaret stopped him. “I
understand enough. Now, I must see to my men.” He looked at the
knights and legionnaires, who were slowly pulling themselves from
the ground and joining the effort build a bridge. It was a good
sign. They were accepting that they had been made whole, that they
were still the men they had been before. The Legion of the Rising
Sun was restored, but there were still so few and so many more
battles to fight. How would he ever maintain them through
everything they would face? Then his eyes shifted to the creatures,
and the answer was clear.

He caught Lius before he
could leave. “Can you see the creatures in the Order? Can you see
if any of them are still alive?”

The monk nodded. “I can
see them to an extent. Exact locations is hard to translate, but .
. . .”