The Pleasure of Memory (70 page)

“You’re thinking’s fuzzy. Khe’naeg’s balls, it’s a buzzard. Let it go.”

“What do you reckon it sees?”

“How in the Nine would I know?” Wenzil said, “Likely it’s looking for dinner. We’ll just have to wait and find out.”

“Something dead, I expect,” Hector said, “Dead or damned near.”

“Don’t get jagged up yet. It’s probably just a deer or coyote.”

“Jagged up?” Hector asked with a glare thrown back over his shoulder, “What jagged up? I just said it was a strange looking bird.”

A red light flashed on the hill directly across from them. It was as brilliant as sunlight reflecting off a shard of broken glass. It was off to his right on the western slope. It was nearly at the top of the hill. “What the hell was that?” Wenzil said, “Did you see that?”

Hector shaded his eyes and studied the hill. “See what?”

“There, on the east side of that hill. I saw a light.”

“A light?” Hector said. He studied the indicated hillside through cupped hands. After a bit, he whispered, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Wenzil cursed his eyesight. He probably had the worst eyes of any runner he knew. He couldn’t see detail very well over any significant distance, and his night vision was near worthless, and getting lousier by the year. Add this miserable wind to the mix, and he was damned near blind.

“Well?” he asked impatiently, “What do you see?”

“There’s only one,” Hector said as he watched, “He’s marching due east up the crest of that next hill a half mile over. He’s got his arms up in the air like he’s a prisoner, but I’m damned if I see anyone else around him.”

“Goddamn it!” Wenzil said, “I can’t see shit. I’m going to have to get closer.”

“Too small to be a Baeldon,” Hector said, “But it ain’t the mage, neither, I’m sure of that. And that makes it fair game, by my reckoning.”

“It’s moving pretty slow,” Wenzil said. It was the most he could offer.

“Yea, and it’s either limping or swaying,” Hector said, “Can’t rightly tell which. I’m thinking it might be wounded.”

Wenzil waited as his partner studied the field.

“Calina’s tits!” Hector said suddenly, “I think it’s one of the savages.”

Wenzil felt his skin prickle. “You sure?” he asked.

“It’s hard to tell, but…I think he’s wearing battle mail.”

“You don’t sound sure. Is it mail or not?”

Hector climbed up into his saddle and adjusted his hat, taking an extra effort to smooth back the long blue feather in the rim. “Their mail’s pure deviltry,” he said, looking over at Wenzil, “The way it changes color, they could be standing right in front of you and you’d never see them.”

“Yea, but it’s not right in front of us,” Wenzil said, “It’s way over there, isn’t it? So is it mail or not?”

“I hate these godless plains,” Hector said, frowning, “All this grass makes for better cover than a forest. If we hadn't been atop this knoll? Well, hell. We’d never have seen that—”

Wenzil leaned over from his horse and slapped the back of his partner’s head, knocking his hat into the grass again. “Damn you, Hec! Is it battle mail or not?”

“Damn you straight back!” Hector said. He leaned low from his saddle and scooped up his hat. As he again readjusted it, he stared at his partner. “Do that again and I swear to Hob’te, I’ll slap the sin clean out of you.”

“Hector,” Wenzil said carefully, “Is it mail or not?”

Hector let his stare linger for a bit on Wenzil before turning back to the traveler. “Yea,” he said at last, “It’s standard issue, field-tested, Vaemysh battle mail!”

“Might be a trap,” Wenzil thought out loud, “That son of a bitch over there might just be drawing attention to himself. Who knows what’s hiding in the grass between us? From this distance, its horns’ll sense us coming the minute we set out.”

“Then there’s no point sneaking in, is there?” Hec said, grinning, “We’re going to have to run in at full gallop. It won’t be hard to overtake him, and he sure as the hells can’t hide.”

“I suppose if we split up—”

“Wait a minute,” Hector said suddenly, “What’s that?” He shot a finger toward the plains a hundred yards or so west down the backside of that same hill well behind the Vaemyn.

Wenzil shaded his eyes. A gray dot was pushing its way up through the grass. “Yeah, I see it,” he said, “Another savage, you think?”

“Yea. No mail, though. And his gait ain’t right, neither. Looks like he’s wounded, too.”

Wenzil looked over at Hector. “Why don’t they know we’re here?” he asked, “They should’ve sensed our horses galloping up the back of this hill, don’t you think?”

“Mayhaps it’s true. Mayhaps it ain’t. We’re still a ways back from them. And they don’t look exactly right, if you ask me.”

“Well,” Wenzil said, “There’s two of them and there’s two of us. By my estimates, that makes them outnumbered by at least twice.”

Hector laughed. He pulled his longbow around his shoulder and dragged a long arrow free from his quiver. “Well, I don’t reckon it’ll take much to slow them down.” He loaded the arrow and began to span the bow, but Wenzil’s hand on the shaft stopped him.

“What?” Hector asked impatiently, “Once they crest that damned hill we’ll lose our shot.”

“It’s damned near a half mile out!”

“And?”

“I want them alive,” Wenzil said.

“Alive? Are you insane?”

“Yea,” Wenzil said, laughing, “Reckon I’m likely quite insane, but that’s another discussion. Jhom sent us here to ferret out what’s going on, not to hunt.”

Hector relaxed his drawn string. “Yea, so?”

“So killing them won’t prove nothing.”

Hector laughed at that. “Oh hell, we’ll just cut their horns off. Don’t need no more proof than that, yea?”

“It’s not enough,” Wenzil said as he studied the blurry shapes, “We need them to tell us why they’re here. Scalped horns can’t do that.”

Hector shrugged, but didn’t put his weapon away. “All right,” he said, “How about you take the savage trailing low to the west there, and I’ll take that there one up on the hill?”

Wenzil nodded. “Let’s take at least one alive. Go easy with your bow, but use it if you need to. Let’s move our way into position slowly, then we’ll charge once we’re both about a hundred yards out.”

“Your will be done, sir.”

Wenzil examined the sky. The strange bird was lower now. As he examined it, he realized Hec was right. “That is one big ass vulture,” he said, “Best you keep an eye on it, eh?”

Hector wheeled his restless beast around to face Wenzil. “Forget the bird. And don’t you go worrying your pretty little head none about that savage out there, neither. I swear I won’t do more than pin one or two arrows in his leg.”

“Just don’t be bursting any damned arteries this time. Remember that Pendt back in Fairy’s Hide last year.”

“Now, just you stop right there!” Hector said, scowling, “You said we’d forget about that little episode. Besides, you might need my arrows before this here’s done, so I’d think hard before you go hexing me.”

Wenzil threw his friend a sloppy salute. “Keep your backside covered, Hec.”

“Yea. I’ll cover mine and yours as well, just like every other day of the week!” Hector wheeled his horse around and urged it carefully down the hill toward the east.

Wenzil looked up at the vulture. It was hazy and out of focus, like it was floating behind a light fog. He could tell that the effect wasn’t the result of his lousy eyesight. Something else was amiss about that bird. He wondered if it was a consequence of the wind, mayhaps dust in the air.

He pulled his horse around and coaxed it down the long hill toward the west. He’d circle around back of the savage and come up behind him. If luck was with him, if the savage actually was wounded, his horns might not sense his approach until too late. And if luck wanted nothing to do with him...well, he’d trade surprise for brute force. He’d just ride in at full bore, knock the savage senseless and be done with it.

∞

Mawby used the grass like a rope, pulling himself up the hill one fistful at a time. Every movement sent his knife wound screaming. He prayed it wasn’t too late, prayed that Maeryc hadn’t killed him before the fight even began.

He immediately shucked such defeatist thoughts from his head. He may be dying, but he wouldn’t be stopped from completing his mission first. He was going to stop that damned caeyl from reaching the demons if it was the last thing he did in this miserable world. Even though he was exhausted to the point of stumbling confusion, he refused to stop. He couldn’t stop. Not while he was so close.

It took him the better half of thirty minutes to climb that hillside. He came upon Maeryc just as he cleared the crest of the hill. The hack was standing in the tall grass at the crown a few dozen paces ahead. He had his back to him. He was holding his sword up as if expecting a fight, though he didn’t turn around.

Mawby drew his sword. The dreaded time had come and he hoped to make it quick.

“I know you’re there,” Maeryc yelled over his shoulder. His voice sounded scratched and slurred. He still didn’t turn around.

Mawby felt his sword trembling, and suffered a pang of discouragement for it. He tightened his grip, then steadied himself and began walking forward.

“I know you’re there!” Maeryc said again, “I can hear you! You move like a cow!”

Mawby stopped. He was shaking like a frightened schoolchild. He wished the goddamned hack would turn around. It’d feel more honorable to look Maeryc in the eye when he did the miserable deed. He adjusted his grip on the sword and started walking forward.

Maeryc finally turned, and the sight of him stopped Mawby cold.

The face looking back at him was charred nearly beyond recognition. His skin was raw and black, and covered in weeping sores. His lips were shriveled and drawn back into a grotesque sneer of bared, dirty teeth. His left eye was a raw, meaty socket, covered with dried blood and oozing fresh pus, but the other eye was worse.

The other eye was gone as well, but Maeryc had pushed the Blood Caeyl into his pustulant socket as if to replace his own melted organ. Red light spiked from the embedded gem like the beam from a miner’s lantern. The light sliced the air in front of him, following the hack’s gaze as he twisted his head this way and that in pursuit of Mawby.

Maeryc stumbled a few steps closer to Mawby, swinging his sword back and forth in the space between them. A dark veil of flies crawled across the remains of his face like a living mask. His oteuryns were black stubs weeping beneath the melted remains of his ears. He was blind in every sense. That was why he was swinging his sword so wildly; he was acting by sound alone. He didn’t know where Mawby was.

Mawby’s anger drained from him like water from a kicked bucket. He understood the academics of the situation, understood that this horror standing before him wasn’t Maeryc at all, but just a hack, just a shell operating without any control or sense of self. He understood that killing this flesh would sever the demon’s ties and release whatever memory of Maeryc might still haunt that walking corpse. He would be doing Maeryc a favor. He would be setting him free.

Yet, even as he made the decision, Mawby’s memories argued contrary. They’d grown up together. They’d joined the military together, become trackers together. What if that echo of Maeryc’s humanity could be saved? He’d lost Prae’s token when his oteuryn was burned by the Water Caeyl. What if the love that’d defined their friendship could breach the demon’s hold? Could he just walk away from it? Could he risk murdering his oldest friend unnecessarily?

He lowered his sword. He closed the distance between them to several feet. He held out a hand. “Maeryc,” he said gently, “You’re…you’re sick. Let me help you.”

Maeryc froze with his face up high and his sword held stiffly before him. He cocked his head awkwardly toward Mawby in the way of the newly blind. “Maw?” he asked, “Mawby? Is that you?”

There it was! A glimmer of Maeryc in that dreadful voice. Mawby stepped closer. “Ay’a, Maeryc,” he said carefully, “It is. It’s me. It’s Mawby. I’m here to help you.”

“Help me?” Maeryc released an unnatural laugh. The flies erupted from his face like a puff of smoke, but quickly sucked back in. The laughter quickly devolved into a series of wet coughs.

“I have medical supplies, Maeryc,” Mawby said as calmly as he could manage, “I can help you.”

“Do I look like I need your goddamned help?” Maeryc said, still coughing, “I’m on top of the world!”

“You’re sick. You’re burned pretty good, but I’ve got some salve here in my pack. It’s from the sap of a fough tree.”

“You go to hell!” Maeryc yelled. He sliced his blade viciously across the space between them.

“Please, Maeryc,” Mawby said, “Please come with me. Do it for Koo.”

Maeryc stiffened at that. Then he screeched hideously and lunged toward Mawby, slashing the air between them. “You stay back!” he shrieked as he spun wildly around, “You stay back or I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

Mawby easily slipped out of the path of the aimless sword.

“You just want the caeyl!” Maeryc cried, his sightless head twisting back and forth in search of Mawby, “I know you do, Maw. You’re no better than the rest of them! You’re no better, you hear me?”

“I just want to help you, Maeryc.”

“No! You lie! You want the caeyl! I know you do!”

“You’re wrong, Maeryc. I—”

“You can’t have it! I need it now, don’t you see? It’s a Blood Caeyl. It’s going to heal me. It’s going to make me a god! Do you hear? A god!”

Mawby backed slowly away. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t fight the truth any longer. Maeryc was lost. He was lost beyond saving. There was no hope for him now except release.

“Where are you, you bastard?” Maeryc called out as he slowly turned, “You’re a traitor, Mawby!” Then he sliced the air so aggressively that he fell down for the effort. His sword flipped off into the grass.

Mawby walked up behind him. He stopped just at Maeryc’s head. The flies were swarming Maeryc’s face densely enough to mask the horror of his wounds

Mawby adjusted his grip so that the blade dripped down from his hands. One strike, he told himself, placed carefully so you sever his heart cleanly. You have to do this with one strike. Maeryc deserves to go quickly.