The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) (33 page)

“I don't th—“

“Dun get me wrong, I dun wanna be a slave again!  That was real bad, they could jes' grab yeh any time and say 'hoi shithead do what I say or yeh get whipped' and it was exactly how they said, right?  I got whipped so much, sir, I had this friend who'd clobber me jes' so I wouldn't do shit t'get myself whipped again.  I know I en't done anythin' useful here but please dun send me back like that.”

“I don't think—“

“I din't even really hurt him!  I coulda stabbed him fulla holes but I jes' slashed, right, that has t'be good.  Din't go fer the face which is what yeh supposed t'do, y'know, go fer the eyes or the throat, and he's all stitched up, it's gonna be fine, right?”

“If you would just—“

“And I swear I won't tell about anythin' I seen or done or anythin', so I don't even need mindwashin', right, I can jes' get whipped as usual and it's all back to normal.  Yeh can tell 'im that, I won't say nothin' about nothin', and everythin'll be jes' fine.  I swear I'll—“

“
Specialist Weshker.
”

Weshker's mouth hung open, a dozen other apologies dancing on his tongue, but the captain gave him a look sharp enough to stitch it shut.

“Specialist Weshker, I wish you had brought these matters to my attention earlier,” said the captain.  “I realize that your people and Linciard's are not friendly, but I did not expect such a flagrant display.  I placed you with the specialists to buffer you from the common soldiers, which has obviously failed.  However, since you have shown your spiritist talent—“

“Wha'?”

The captain raised an eyebrow.  “According to witnesses, a murder of crows burst from your tattoo and attacked both you and the lieutenant.  I saw them myself, though not their provenance.  You do recall claiming to specialize in crows, yes?”

T'okiel
, thought Weshker dazedly,
that wasn't my imagination?

He was here in Blaze Company because the Crimsons thought he was a spiritist, a shaman.  He had the tattoo of a crowspeaker, but except for the ones that had saved him from the grey clay-monster and the ones he saw in his dreams, he had made no contact.  He had tried here in Bahlaer, but all his rooftop offerings of food, water and shiny things had netted him only watchful stares as crows perched on balconies or laundry-lines but never came close.

But if it was his tattoo, then it wasn't about real crows.

“I uh...  Yeh, I remember,” he said, fumbling with his thoughts. 
How do they all fit in the tattoo?  Are they made of ink?  They sure as pikes felt real when they were tearing the monster off of me.  Do I just swear by Zolvin T'okiel and they come out?  But I couldn't breathe enough to swear while it was trying to take my face.  Does someone have to be killing me first?  That stinks.
  “I dunno how to control it yet.”

Captain Sarovy exhaled.  “That is unfortunate.  But in that case, Specialist Weshker, I will not be punishing you.  I hold you and the lieutenant equally responsible, and as the higher-ranking soldier, he bears the greater burden of good behavior.”

Weshker blinked.  He wondered if Linciard had popped his eardrums, or maybe hit him so hard he was hallucinating.

“Also, I have an offer for you.  The Field Marshal has ordered you back to base-camp—I don't know why.  I had prepared to contest the order, and I am still willing to do so in light of your...talent, but if you wish to leave Blaze Company, it can be done.”

Immediately Weshker thought of Sanava, alone there at the base-camp.  She was newer to the army than him, and as savage a Corvishwoman as he had ever known.  How she had survived in the women's quarters without bloodshed, he could not imagine.  But if he was still a freesoldier, he could see her again.

And maybe she could explain this.

“Yeh.  Yeh, I'll go.”

The captain frowned, perhaps at the quickness of the decision.  Weshker could think of no other reason to regret losing a screw-up like him.  “If you find yourself in trouble there, I cannot assist you.”

“S'all right, captain.  Yeh been great, but uh, I need more trainin' afore I can be useful t'yeh.  What's the point of me bein' here makin' people angry?”

A long pause, then the captain nodded curtly.  “You are dismissed to pack.  I do not know how long it will take to have you transferred, but best to be prepared.  And send in the lieutenant.”

Scrambling up, Weshker snapped the best salute he could with a splinted wrist.  “Lemme say it's been good workin' fer yeh even this short time, sir, yeh a good person and it's been real eye-openin'.  And I'm probably gonna be mindwashed of it all so jes'...thanks fer not whippin' me!”

With an arched brow, Sarovy said, “You have a few candlemarks with me yet.  Try to behave.  Dismissed, specialist.”

Grinning, Weshker bobbed him a brief bow then edged to the door, peeking out cautiously in case Linciard planned to ambush him again.  The Wyndish officer was stationed several feet down the wall as if trying to avoid doing just that, and when he looked over, Weshker thumbed at the office.

“Yeh turn,” he said, then limped away at speed.

*****

Linciard stared after him, too worried to react.  The door stood open, the captain waiting, and a lump formed in his throat. 
How did this even happen?

He could hear the murmurs of speculation from the gathering below.  Most of the lancers were down there, plus infantrymen and all of the specialists.  Captain Sarovy had explicitly barred Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek from coming upstairs, for the ruengriin's face had gone dark when he learned of the fight, and Linciard knew he held grudges.

I've piked myself, piked my career, piked my life.  And for what?

He couldn't remember.  He'd tried to reason it out—tried to explain to himself as much to the captain what Weshker had done to deserve that beating—and it was all true, even if the lead-up had been fabricated.  But he couldn't remember how he'd ended up in the scouts' bunkroom.

It was hard to concentrate.  He felt hazy from blood-loss and the headache had returned in force, but there was something else.  He remembered being angry—so angry—but...

He should have known better.  He'd thought he
did
know better.  And now he'd put his foot in his mouth in front of the captain—outright lied to him—and probably picked a fight with the whole Specialist platoon.  Weshker might not have many friends there, but he was one of them, and Linciard was an outsider.

He moved to rub his temples, but halted as pain shot up his hands and arms.  This was his reward for his crime: eight sets of stitches, most on the backs of his arms but two on his palms where Medic Shuralla had needed to sew the tendons together.  Due to her care, he still had all of his fingers, though some of them tingled through the salve.  No big veins had been damaged, nothing irreparably severed.  He would live to fight again.

Worse was the memory of the crows boiling out from Weshker's skin like so much smoke, screeching his doom.  He had seen his share of combat, but nothing was as frightening as trying to bare-hand grapple a knife-wielding spiritist maniac in a cloud of wings and claws.

“Lieutenant,” came the captain's voice from the office.

Squaring his shoulders, Linciard headed in.

The captain barely glanced up from his records.  “Sit, lieutenant.  I have a few additional questions for you.”

“Yessir.”  Lowering himself to the chair, Linciard rested his bandaged hands on his knees and tried to stay stiff-spined and still.  The tingle in his fingers made them twitch though, and he kept catching himself tapping his broken boot-heel against the leg of the chair.

He waited for what felt like eternity, the scratch of the quill-pen rasping at his nerves.  Sarovy was still in armor, as he had been when Linciard had come to, with his helm in reach as if he expected an attack.  Linciard considered asking what had happened, but thought better of it.

Finally the captain looked up, quill still poised over the page.  “You stated that you attempted to speak with him in the garrison and he ran, correct?”

Sweat sprang up on Linciard's brow.  The lies had come automatically; in Wyndon and the Gold Army, selective truth-telling and manipulation of facts were the standard in getting the paperwork done, and their previous superior—Captain Terrant—had continued the tradition.  Captain Sarovy was not such a man.  From the cool way he regarded Linciard over the report, he thought Sarovy might stab him with that quill-pen if he dared lie again.

“I—  I guess I surprised him, and he considered my...approach...threatening, sir,” he said, knowing he could not say
ambush
without getting himself thrown in jail.

Sarovy crossed something off the page.  “And then you pursued him, concerned that he would be a danger to others?”

“...In retrospect, sir, I see that I evaluated the situation wrong.”

“Mm.  And you stated that after the accident on the stairs, you attempted to apprehend him but he attacked you.”

Linciard opened his mouth and saw the Corvishman's face, already bloodied, already wide-eyed in fear.  And he saw the pit-trap in the woods behind his family's winter lodge, with another pair of pain-shocked eyes staring up at him from within.  And the palisade on fire, the bloody footprints in the snow...

“N-no, sir,” he said, almost choking on the truth.  “No, I started it.  I'm sorry.  I let you down.”

Sarovy paused, then sighed and returned the quill to its inkwell.  Steepling his hands at the edge of the desk, he regarded Linciard frankly, and the lieutenant could not hold his gaze.

“You did more than that,” he said.  “You lied to me.”

“...Yes.”

“Why?”

“I...  The Corvishman...  We Wynds, you know we...”

He trailed off, unable to follow his own thread.  It got lost in the haze, unexplainable by his prevaricating reflex, unexplainable by his hatred of the Corvish—because he didn't hate them, not really.  Not enough to do this.  Like any good Wynd, he wanted them to cease to exist, but he had no desire to be involved in that effort anymore.

“I was angry,” he tried instead.  “He saw me and Rallant, and I...”

But that wasn't right either.  They had nothing to hide, except maybe from the Jernizen, and he doubted Weshker would have tattled.  Even if he did, it wouldn't matter.  As much as Linciard wanted to keep his private life quiet, he knew it was impossible in such close quarters.

“The truth is, you don't know why,” said Sarovy.

Linciard looked down at his hands.  He'd always feared the scrutiny of others.  Over his military record, his lackluster faith, his politics, his love-life, his martial prowess, his leadership abilities, and now maybe his sanity.  “No,” he murmured.

“Lieutenant, you've been controlled.”

His head snapped up.  “What?  No, that's ridiculous.  I—“

“You're sleeping with one of the controllers.  Sergeant Rallant.  That is twice you've lied.”

“No sir,” Linciard mumbled lamely.  “You asked if he was following me.  He's not.”

Sarovy's expression told him what he thought of that.

“But he can't be controlling me,” Linciard continued, fumbling for logic.  “I've been inoculated, right?  And he never said to attack the Corvishman.  He wasn't even there when I jumped him.  And he wouldn't do that to me.  We're...”

Close.
  But the word would not come to his lips, because he knew it was wrong.  All of it was wrong, and he couldn't think straight.  His head was killing him.

He saw the captain straighten, frowning heavily, and then the office door opened and slippered feet skittered up behind him.  He tried to look back but he couldn't move, couldn't react as a hand came to rest on the top of his head, fingers spanning his brow.

Something cold slithered across him like a cloak of ice-chips, and suddenly the headache was gone, and the fog.  He glanced sidelong to see normally sweet-faced Scryer Mako staring at him like he was a bug being dissected.

“It's hard to pin down,” she mused.  “Not mentalism.  Deeper than that, and regenerating—no, that's wrong, that's not the influence.  That's the withdrawal.  Oh my.”

“What is it?” said Sarovy.  “And why didn't you catch it sooner?”

Scryer Mako's face pinched with annoyance.  “First of all, I'm still not an Inquisitor.  Secondly, I'm supporting the earhook network and a third of the wards, plus any portals anyone suddenly needs, plus scrying, plus warding your target-bearing ass.  Thirdly, do you know how many thoughts clamor at me?  Half the men project something lewd when I pass by, and those are far more intrusive than this one's private wallowing.  Fourthly—“

“Should I speak with them?”

“What?”

“About the lewd thoughts.”

“Why?  What can they do about it?  They're men.  I jump in on them sometimes to teach them a lesson, but otherwise it's just fantasizing.”

The captain opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it and switched his attention to Linciard.  “You have been controlled,” he reiterated, “and we are going to amend that.  As useful as the controllers were during the coastal raids, I can not allow them to tamper with the men.  I will have them reassigned.”