The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (77 page)

None of this would be possible outside of the Crimson Army—outside of Blaze Company.  Always before, the Crimson had maintained segregation between mages, specialists and common soldiers, the same as the Gold Army that had spawned it.  From his memories of the Sapphire, he expected the same, though he could recall no specialist troops at all.  Only the Riddish conscripts and their Trivestean superiors.

He smiled thinly at the thought of that, because managing this bickering horde made him feel more Trivestean than he had since his exile.  Leading his people was never a matter of shouting but of managing: soothing egos, hearing grievances, scolding bad behavior but never punishing.  Punishment was exile, because to strike a Trivestean was to become his deadly enemy, superior officer or no.  It was to invite a blade in the back—or the face, for some of them lacked subtlety.

The soft guiding hand and the sharp eye did not work on everyone here in the west, which was why he had learned to use the whip.  But the basics were the same.  Hear, explain, adapt, and remove those who refused to learn.

Tomorrow, more adjustments would be made.  More lessons displayed.  He did not know what he would learn or why, and it frustrated him to have a General who told instead of taught.  But he had swallowed that grudge a long time ago and would continue to keep it down.  Exile or no, he was better than his kin.

Blaze Company was the proof.  Now he just had to keep it.

*****

At the flush of true dawn, the lancers and their captain were already far out from Miirut, following Scryer Mako on her lighter horse.  The rest of the company had been rousted from their bedrolls and set to packing up the camp, as by the Field Marshal’s command it seemed they were to be re-stationed in Bahlaer.

Should they continue to exist as a company after today.

Scryer Mako rode awkwardly; like most easterners, she was not comfortable in the saddle, even with a Sky horse and its light, springy step.  She was ahead only because her steed, which she had named Bell, was utterly terrified of the lancers’ Tasgard horses and would otherwise be lugging her through the tall grass or creeping slowly at the rear.  She hated being in the back, feeling like baggage, and so though she did not know the way, she had decided to lead.

Not that it seemed difficult.  Illane was flat, and the captain had marked out a straight line between Miirut and their destination a few marks south of Bahlaer.  She had plenty of opportunity to let Bell run.

Though she would not admit it, she had other reasons to be away from the bulk of the men.  She had long since learned to wall other people’s anxiety from her mind, but was not so adept at hiding her own.

Kelturin was gone.  That was all she had been able to think about since the captain’s announcement last night, and though she had tried to downplay her concern, to shrug it off with a glib ex-lover comment, it troubled her deeply.

They had had a fling.  It was no big thing—the Crown Prince was notorious for bedding any free woman who cycled through his army—and it had ended nearly two weeks ago, but she had enjoyed it.  Liked him.  He was more of a gentleman than she had expected from a pampered prince: tender, almost tentative as if concerned he could hurt her.  As she was petite and he was a large man, she understood the concern, though it had irked her.  She was not made of glass.

Nevertheless, it had been good until she had idly started reading his tattoos aloud.

He had them all across his shoulders, sides and back, which was peculiar in itself.  Most Imperials turned up their noses at such primitive body-art, though soldiers from the fringe territories had their share.  Black ink for the Trivestean fortholders, colors for the highland Darronwayn, earthy reds for Illanites recruited from around Fellen and Varaku.  White ink for the few Padrastan enlistees.

But stranger was the fact that they were Gheshvan pictograms.  Mako hailed from Riddian, the north-easternmost of the Imperial territories and one of the last kingdoms to retain any ogre-age ruins or relics.  A land of scrub and salt flats trapped in the overlapping rain-shadows of the Garnet Mountains and the Trivestean Tablelands, Riddian was arid and inhospitable, but that kept the old ogrish places from weathering to rubble.  Elaborate pictograms could still be seen on the columns and statues that lined the old streets, and Mako had studied them extensively during her journeyman years.  It was her hobby.

She had started reading his tattoos aloud because she thought they were jokes.  Not that she had wanted to embarrass the Prince, but if he was getting Gheshvan tattoos, he needed to be told what they really meant.  After all, who would get ‘ankle’ tattooed on their ankle?

They had been in bed at the time, lazy after lovemaking, but the moment she had started talking about them, he had tensed, his face tightening like a fist.  Imposing as he was, she had never been frightened of him until he had sat up and clutched her shoulder, thumb digging painfully into the hollow under her collarbone, and told her in a frigid voice to never speak of them again.

When she had protested, he had unceremoniously picked her up and pitched her from the command cabin.  Her clothes had followed shortly.

Oh, the humiliation still stung.  Running from the cabin with her robe clutched to her chest, hearing the laughter of the guards and the strange chuffs of the hounds at the base of the hill, she had thought she would burn up in rage and embarrassment.  But the days had passed, and her anger had ebbed.

Now she just wondered what had happened.  He would never willingly leave his army.

Not my business.  He moved on immediately
, she told herself.  According to the other women, he always did.  But the fear behind his tense expression still stuck with her; wards down, she had felt it like a knife in her chest, one designed to drive her away.  It made her think that she had stumbled across a secret.  Or a wound.

Stop it.  Some people can’t be helped.

As a mentalist, she had to remember that.  She had only so much energy to devote to others, and most of that went into her Imperial duties: mindwashing, conditioning, spying.  She could not allow her heart to dictate the use of her skills, because if she opened herself to compassion once, it might never stop.

The world was a black pit of misery that no amount of blood, sweat or tears would fill.  She knew that.  And so she stayed detached and followed her orders, trusting them to keep her safe.

Still.  Who would tattoo ‘ankle’ on their ankle?

*****

The heavy Tasgard horses cut a path through the long grass, following the skittish Sky horse as the scryer signaled to them.  Though she had been in the lead the whole time, Captain Sarovy had opted to send her further forward as they approached the area he remembered for the cottage; without being able to check his report and not having a map, he could only pinpoint it with her help.

The Mist Forest and the great wall of the Rift loomed beyond the grasslands here, the sun painting them from the center of the sky.  They had made decent time, and Sarovy expected no trouble.  Two women, three children, and no opportunity for them to send for aid from the so-called harvest men.  He only hoped to catch them all in the same area so as not to spend the whole day playing hide-and-seek in the fields.

Scryer Mako was here to solve that, and by her hand-signals she had sensed them all.

Birds exploded from the brush as they passed.  The plains had gone green again, revived by the rain, and the land looked healthy—the Losgannon River filled to the brim but not flooding and all the dry stalks starting to bloom.  Thick clouds still hulked to the south, but Blaze Company had not seen rain in Miirut; since their departure from camp, the wind had turned eastward, piling the clouds toward the Rift like a grey flotilla seeking shore.

A cottage rose through the grass ahead.  Sarovy signaled to his lancers to spread out and cut off escape-routes.  As they drew near—the scryer’s horse skittering through the open yard to keep away from the Tasgards—Sarovy saw the front door open.

The farm-woman stepped into the gap.  Her dark hair was bound up under a red kerchief, her arms crossed beneath her bosom, patchwork dress shrouding her sturdy form.

“Mistress Ammala Cray,” Sarovy called out as he reined his horse in beside the vegetable patch.  Those of his men who had not spread out followed suit.  “I am Captain Firkad Sarovy of Blaze Company, of the Imperial Third Army, the Crimson Claw.  I require that you and your family come with me.”

“
Yes, I remember you,” said the woman, lifting her chin imperiously.  “What is this about?”

“
My orders are to retrieve you and your family, mistress.  That is all I can say.”

“
Have you a writ, then?”

“
No, mistress.  But I have my orders.”

“
And if I refuse?”

“
Then I will have you retrieved by force.”

Behind Ammala, a querulous voice said something, and the woman answered it quietly over her shoulder.  Sarovy remembered the old crone—a witch if he had ever seen one—but saw no need to order them to silence.  His mission was hard-handed enough, and they were only civilians.

He dismounted and approached the cottage, the clink and rattle of armor following him as several of his men did the same.  As he neared, Ammala shrank back inside as if thinking her home would protect her.  Sarovy frowned beneath his helm but pulled it off; even if he must pursue them, he would keep to propriety.

“
Mistress Cray, I insist that you submit to this order,” he said, stopping momentarily at the threshold.  The cottage was ill-lit compared to the outside and he squinted, peripherally aware of the red line that marked the door-frame.  He knew he should make use of his lancers—send them in like a proper officer—but trepidation had set its hand on him, and it was not his way to allow superstition or baseless fear to push him back.

“
Mistress Cray,” he said again, more sternly.  “Exit the domicile or I will be forced to enter, with or without your permission.”

Whispers in the dark.  His eyes narrowed.  He did not like this, but he liked being pushed into the role of the villain even less, and that was what these women were doing.  They had nowhere to run, after all.  There was no rational reason to resist the Empire.

“By the authority of the Crimson General, I am entering this house,” he said sharply, and stepped over the red line.

Like the first time he had come here in pursuit of KRD1184, he felt a strange twinge as he set foot inside the house.  An odd lightheaded sensation, a sink in the gut, a sudden hot pressure from the winged star beneath his uniform.  At his momentary disorientation, something lurched from the shadows, and he brought up a hand to forestall it.

Metal rasped on metal, then he caught the old woman’s wrist and slammed it into the door-frame.  Brittle bones crunched and the crone howled, the kitchen knife dropping from her grip.  With a quick step, he yanked her from the house and sent her tumbling into the arms of his men.

“
Monsters!  You monsters!” the old woman shrieked as the soldiers struggled to contain her.  Grey hair wild, eyes blazing, she scratched at their helmed faces with her good hand, the other spasming awkwardly.  “How dare you—!”

“
Sir, you all right?” said a man, and Sarovy glanced down to check himself.  There was a slice in his tabard beside the light chestplate, but in prodding it he felt the chainmail below and no blood, no hint of pain.

“
Fine.  Put her on a horse,” he said, then took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold again.  The dizziness reoccurred, but no attack followed, and he blinked his eyes clear to see Ammala standing before the hearth, wan-faced, a young girl clinging to her from the side.

“
And to think that when I first saw you, I thought you a knightly sort,” said Ammala.

Sarovy shook his head, still hearing the infuriated shrieks of the old woman and the swearing of his men.  “I am a soldier, mistress, and these are my orders.  I will not bring charges against your relative for this assault; it is understandable.  But I require that you and your children come with us peacefully.  No harm will befall you.”

“Not by your hand, perhaps.  But your Empire—your so-called Imperial Light—is a cursed thing,” she said.  “A vicious, devouring thing.  And it seems that you, sir, have already been devoured, though you’ve yet to notice.”

“
I serve by choice.  What you think of the Imperial Light does not matter; you are a heretic.“

"And what I think of the Empire?  What I think of it ignoring its own laws as it pleases?  Does that matter?"

He stared at her, irritated by this and by himself for being taken off-guard, for allowing the argument.  Before he could speak, she said, "What redemption do you seek through your blind service, soldier?  What have you done?"

You can not needle me with the tenets of the Light
, he thought, but they rose to the fore anyway.  Redemption through service, purification through sacrifice.

They had no bearing upon this mission.  He could not examine every order for what it should mean in the Light.  Some things just had to be done.