The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (67 page)

His feet landed in a hole, and he fell flat on his face. Something jabbed at his stomach. Turning around, he saw a piece of tack with a rusty buckle sticking through his robe. No blood, but he had almost impaled himself. The witch was still firing at them. The pellets were bursting closer and closer still. Soon, they would be exposed.

I should have listened to the boy
, he thought.
That weapon is a curse
.

Ewan hobbled on, not looking back. He was still in shock. Jarman scrambled, legs and hands pumping, his palms burning from scraping the icy ground. The bloodstaff rested in the filthy snow, pristine and perfect. He collected the weapon in his raw hand and moved forward. The ground shook, shards flying again.

I can’t protect you any longer, friend
. He felt the thought in his head.

Jarman squared his shoulders, waiting for a red pellet to pulverize his rib cage.

“Wizard, here!” someone shouted. Jarman looked through the flurry of rubble and dirt and saw that half Sirtai coming his way. The scarlet storm subsided. Was this man shielding them?

Jarman fell onto his knees, panting. Ewan was standing, looking back, confused.

The other man swept past the boy and knelt at his side. “My name is Adelbert. I will help you.”

Jarman snorted mucus onto the ground, gasping for fresh air. “Thank you.” A hand closed on the bloodstaff just above his. He frowned. Looking up, he saw a curious grin on the mongrel’s face.

“That is—” he tried to say with what little breath he had, his body too slow to react.

Adelbert flew sideways. Hot blood splashed Jarman in the face. Ewan lowered his right hand. It was dripping red.

Calemore’s attack intensified.

Jarman looked at the half Sirtai lying dead in the snow. He saw Ewan’s chest rising and falling erratically. The boy was staring north. “We have to flee,” he told the Special Child.

“It cannot end this way,” Ewan spoke. “It cannot.” He looked at Jarman. “Keep the weapon safe. If I return, promise to return it to me. Please, wizard. Please, Jarman.”

Jarman licked his lips and regretted it. They tasted like salt and metal and human life. He wiped the gore away. “I swear it. On my honor.” Ewan probably had not heard it. He looked like an enraged animal, and he started walking back toward danger and death, his gait lopsided with agony.

The red pellets stayed with Jarman.

Oh, I see
.

He was running again, but now, he had a whole village in front of him, low, squat towers bristling with stakes, sheds that housed soldiers and horses alike, low walls of stone and wood.
Like a mouse, he bent low and scurried into the maze, and the destruction around him stopped. Calemore fired for a while longer, but the attack eventually ceased.

Jarman bent down and puked. Every fiber in his body burned. His vision was flashing black, and he thought he would pass out. But he did not, the anguish in his throat and belly keeping him away, his stomach heaving like some feral thing was kicking inside it.

As he recovered, he noticed terrified soldiers watching him. Athesians, Parusites, boys with fuzz on their cheeks, and older men with long beards that kept some of the winter cold at bay.
They must be amazed by the weapon
, he thought. No, it was the red mess on his face, arms, and robe.

The battle continued, but he heard it only as one unending groan, the roar of a dying beast, a thunder that belched acid and bile. Gripping the bloodstaff with the same intensity as the self-loathing gripping his soul, he made his way back to Lucas.

They’d won that day. Or rather, they hadn’t lost.

Calemore must have lost too many troops to continue his campaign into the night, so he had retreated to his lines, probably confident that his subsequent attacks would be successful. He had no reason to worry. He had no reason to rush. He could not be stopped.

The realms would be defeated, Jarman realized.

He ached all over. He could hardly walk. But he made himself do it. He owed that much to the mourning king.

Princess Sasha had died defending him, after all. Bought him time. Saved Ewan and him from death. All it had taken was one simple plea. True chivalry and gallantry. There was some grim lesson in that, he thought, something his upbringing at the Temple of Justice could never have taught him.

Despite all the chaos and the screams from tens of thousands of wounded, the Parusites were staging a large funeral procession for the king’s sister. She would be carried into Roalas and interred next to her nephew.

As he dragged his feet across the cold ground, he saw Ewan sitting on an empty crate, an itchy blanket thrown over his shoulders, not because he seemed cold underneath but to hide the layers of bloody mush covering him. The boy was staring at his feet, and he paid no attention to the noise, to the men walking around him, keeping a safe distance. He was gripping the bloodstaff once again.

Jarman felt his soul tug him toward the boy. He wanted to talk to him. But what could he tell a child who had just killed countless thousands with his bare hands, then limped back to the garrison, dripping red, shunned and hated by his comrades probably as much as by the foe?

Nothing.

“We are invited to see the king,” Lucas said.

Jarman nodded. He did not relish the meeting. “Thank you.”

Lucas sniffed, his only exhibit of emotion. “Amalia wishes to see you, too.”

They passed another group getting ready to bury their favorite. Gavril had been assassinated. So many deaths in one day, Jarman thought. What did it mean for these pilgrims? Would their faith die with their leader? What did they expect from their gods and goddesses? Compassion? Pity? Relief?

“We will lose.” Jarman choked on his own words.

“Perhaps,” Lucas admitted.

“There seems to be no way we can defeat the witch.”

“We will surely not stop trying,” Lucas offered, unyielding.

Jarman just wanted to sleep. To shut his eyes, to banish the pain for a while. But he had to see a girl who had lost her realm and her mother, and the king who had lost his father, his son, and now, his sister. What could he tell them that would make their pain go away?

Again, nothing.

CHAPTER 48

O
nce upon a time, Mali would have dreaded the notion of walking this deep into enemy territory. Not anymore.

The northern army had ravaged Caytor, too. Almost every village and road post stood abandoned, the people and animals long gone. Her little squad was forced to hunt wild game in the forest, because there was nothing left in the frozen fields and musty basements.

They headed north first, toward Bassac, then struck west, following a long stretch of cobbles and gravel, now hiding under fresh snow, aimed straight as an arrow toward Pain Daye. She had secured several maps for her scouts. Some of the charts dated back to the time she had been a young girl starting her career in the military. Others had been drawn more recently, but they all showed the same line crossing the Caytorean heartland.

This was her first time in the enemy land, and it was nothing like she had expected. The terrain looked the same as back home: same hills, same copses of trees, same houses. The snow hid the details, but she guessed no one could really tell Eracia and Caytor apart. Blessedly, it also masked most of the destruction left by the northern host.

Mali met no living soul for almost three weeks. Then, they sighted bandits. Thin, starved men who tried to attack them. But the sorry horde had no horses, so she just spurred forward without incident. Another gang moved on to intercept them not three days later, but once they saw sharp swords and solid breastplates, they wheeled back and headed away, searching for easier prey.

The weather was fair for a while, except for the wind, keening like an old woman in mourning, blasting across the ground in a white haze, making the snow smooth like polished tin. Then it started exposing the bodies, lumps of blue flesh, too hard even for birds and foxes to nibble on.

Most of them did not seem hurt. They had just died of exposure or hunger, lain down and taken a final sleep. Their faces reminded her of Eracia. These Caytoreans were just like the peasants back home. Women and older folk, very few men. Poor and very much fucked when wars started.

She found dead dogs and dead sheep, but all that remained of their carcasses were ivory bones, picked clean. The refugees had scavenged the meat and the skin. At least they had not eaten their fellow countrymen, she thought with some relief.

A fair number of northerners had died, too. She could identify them by their snowshoes and their thick furs, which hadn’t kept them alive on their march. They must have died of disease or exhaustion, but she wouldn’t let anyone inspect the bodies too closely. She feared ill humors, and ever since the Crap Charge, she was rather wary of infections.

There were no living foes, neither troops nor supply caravans. She was grateful for that.

They spent their time riding in silence, then walking to rest their horses, heads covered in woolen scarves and hunched down to keep the wind from sneaking down their napes. They
only spoke when they stopped to eat, which was not often enough. Bjaras tried to learn their language, but he struggled. He could mumble only a few sorry words, and she was in no mood to learn his. He sure did communicate his desire well enough, but Mali refused to bed him. She had made a promise to Gordon.

The road was buried under the snow, and with no carts rolling, it was almost invisible. They guessed where it was by the lack of trees and shrubbery, and the sun rose more or less ahead of them each dawn, which gave them a good idea where they were going. The closer they got to Pain Daye, the more worried Mali became. It seemed as if Caytor had been totally ruined.

What if her son had fought against these northerners?

What if he had been forced to flee south?

What if he’d been hurt?

She did not want to contemplate that.

They figured the old year had died and a new one was born somewhere halfway to Pain Daye.

A fresh blizzard delayed them for a while, and they stayed in one of the ghost hamlets, cold and miserable but at least with a solid roof above their heads. They all slept bunched together for warmth, pressing against one another. Bjaras tried to insinuate his intentions again, but she wouldn’t let him. The sky cleared soon thereafter, and it even became pleasant. With the yellow sun beating on them, they took off the filthy scarves and enjoyed a trace of warmth. The world shimmered like it was on silvery fire. Then the road dipped into a valley, and Pain Daye opened before them.

Smoke, human presence, life.

Cautiously, they dismounted and led their horses toward the estate. It was a huge thing, with a sprawling mess of walls
and fortifications, designed to be elegant and deadly. The fields around were blanketed in snow or dotted with tents and houses, which looked like temporary camps for the army. The pattern was all too familiar. And that made her slightly worried.

Was there an army in Pain Daye? If so, who did it serve, and would it welcome four strangers, with open arms and no drawn weapons?

Contrasting the sprawl of buildings and canvas was the obvious scarcity of life. There was no traffic on the myriad of tiny access roads leading around the farms and through the surrounding villages and bivouacs. No troops patrolled the area, only a handful of fires and wispy trails of smoke. A perfect ambush or just the remnants of old life and bustle, frozen in place like everything else?

“I don’t like this,” she muttered, just to hear her own voice.

“This is the reason we came,” Alexa reminded her. She fished the oiled paper from her hip bag and spread it open on top of her thigh. “I guess it’s the right place.”

“Want me to dash over and check, sir?” Suzy asked.

Mali shook her head. “No. We don’t want to act hostile. Nothing that speaks military. We are just traders. As lost and confused as everyone else.” Explaining armor would be a problem, but it was nicely hidden under leather and fur. They had stripped off any insignia that might betray them as Eracians, but it was still all rather risky.

“So what do we do?” Alexa said, looking at Bjaras.

“We just approach. Slowly, sensibly.” Mali turned toward the curly headed northerner. “You do not speak. You are mute. Understand? No speak.” She gestured with her index finger pressed against her lips. “Shhh.”

Bjaras nodded, smirking softly. “No shpeak.”

Mali took a deep breath. Three women wearing sword belts. That was not a common sight in Caytor. The idea of female troops had not caught on in this realm. The locals, if those people out there were indeed locals, would probably be suspicious. But she was not going to walk into this estate unarmed.

Suzy was knocking crossbows and tying them to the outside of each saddle, on both sides. Their group might be small, but the corporal would make sure to fire a dozen bolts at anyone trying to approach them. The burly soldier was a serious type. She reminded Mali of Alexa in her younger days.

“What about him? Do we give him any weapons?” Alexa asked.