A Darkness Forged in Fire (19 page)

T
en mounds of dirt marked the graves of the soldiers killed by the faeraug attack, the tenth having succumbed to his wounds during the night. It had been tough digging, the soil dry and hard-packed and shot through with roots. After a bit of enterprising bartering by the troops assigned to dig the graves, three muraphants were enlisted to gouge the area with their tusks. Even with their help, it took several hours and the graves were only just finished in time to lay the first casualties of the Iron Elves to rest before another first for the newly reformed regiment began.

Alwyn said a silent prayer for Meri and then in spite of himself another one for Corporal-now-Private Kritton as the elf was marched out to a clearing in the vines past the fresh graves. The regiment stood around the clearing in a three-sided hollow U facing inward. The elfkynan drivers and the correspondent, Miss Synjyn, stood off to one side just behind the troops. A brindo honked and was answered by a muraphant's trumpet, breaking the silence that smothered the clearing.

A sergeant held Kritton at each elbow, but the prisoner gave no indication of wanting to escape. He'd already removed, or had removed, his jacket and shako, so that all that covered his upper body was a brown cotton undershirt. His long black hair was tied in a queue at the back of his neck by a simple leather thong. He kept his head up and straight, showing no sign of what he was thinking as the three walked toward the center of the U where four halberds were lashed together forming an inverted pyramid. Their steps stirred up plumes of black ash, the remnants of the burning faeraugs, their smell still thick in the air.

On reaching the halberds the sergeants stripped off his shirt, and then tied his hands above his head to the wooden staffs. They quickly tied his ankles to the shafts and then stepped away. One of the sergeants pulled a piece of leather from his pocket and offered it to Kritton to bite on, but the elf only glared at him. Shrugging, the sergeant put it back and walked away, announcing in a loud voice that the prisoner was secure and ready for his sentence to be carried out.

Prince Tykkin stepped forward and looked around at the assembled soldiers. He was dressed in a new uniform, his silver-green coatee a bright exception among the dust- and ash-covered uniforms of the regiment. It was a matter of course that officers should look better than their men, and Alwyn supposed a Prince should look better than his officers, too. The major stood a few feet away from him and appeared even darker and wilder than he had when Alwyn had first laid eyes on him back at the camp just a few short days ago. The major kept reaching up to adjust his left lapel and then rest his hand on the pommel of his saber. Alwyn wondered if it was some kind of ritual.

"The Iron Elves have been blooded," the Prince said without preamble. His voice was a bit high, as if he was unsure how loudly to speak.
"We have suffered death and injury, as is to be expected in battle. What is not to be expected, or tolerated, however, is disobedience in the face of a direct order. No matter who, or what, your enemy is, you will perform your duty to the fullest at all times." He paused and looked around again at the troops.
"This regiment was written off the rolls of the Imperial Army once, to its great shame. That will not happen again! Any soldier, no matter what his rank, will follow my orders and those passed down through the chain of command without question, or pay the price." With that he turned on his heel and walked out of the U, never once looking back.

Sergeant Major Lorian stepped forward. "The prisoner will now receive his punishment. And I don't want no fainters in the ranks or you'll
feel the sting of the lash next."

The troops stiffened at the threat. Alwyn swallowed and looked straight ahead.

"Private Renwar, step forward."

Alwyn couldn't move. A murmur rose up in the ranks and was quickly silenced by the glare of the sergeant major.

"Renwar, step forward!"

Alwyn hesitantly took a step, then another.

Lorian walked over to him and handed him a rawhide whip.
"Easy does it now, boy," Lorian whispered. "Aim for his shoulders and don't lay
it on too heavy."

Alwyn looked back to Yimt, who shook his head helplessly. Alwyn nodded and walked toward Kritton without being able to feel his legs. His entire body had gone numb. His heart thudded in his ears like a berserk muraphant stampeding across a flagstone floor. He knew the regiment was still standing all around him, but he couldn't see anyone. It was as if his entire being had been boiled down to the rawhide whip held in his right hand and the bare panel of brown skin that was Corporal Kritton's back five yards in front of him.

Alwyn squeezed the handle hard, knowing the rough braid was creating a patchwork of red-and-white flesh in his hand, yet no feeling passed through into his skin. He continued to stare at Kritton's back and was utterly mesmerized by it. Ribbons of muscle flowed over shoulder blades, sweeping down toward the valley of his spine like water-polished rocks. He was looking at the very essence of nature, seeing in one elf's back the simple majesty of the natural world, and now he had to destroy it. It didn't matter that Kritton was a despicable person, probably even deserved to be flogged for a thousand other crimes, if not this one. Alwyn, for the first time in his life, was going to deliberately inflict harm on another creature. He'd fought for his life against the faeraugs, but this, this was different. This was cold-blooded.

The full realization of that hit Alwyn like a lightning bolt and he staggered for a step before regaining his balance. This was the army. This was life. Whatever was clean would be made dirty. Whatever was whole would be broken. It was a revelation Alwyn was entirely unprepared for.

You'll look sharp in a uniform, lad
, the recruiting sergeant had said, and Alwyn had believed it, wanted to believe it. Alwyn's father had agreed, noting the prize every young boy yearns for:
It'll make a man out of you.
Mr. Yuimi, the little elf tailor down the road, however, had shaken his head very sadly when Alwyn had told him the news. That single, silent head shake had hurt more than anything else. Only now did he begin to understand what the little elf had known.

The RSM cleared his throat and looked at Alwyn, who could only nod in response.
"On my count, twenty lashes and not one more…begin!"

As Alwyn drew his hand back he tried to imagine the small cobbler's shop and the joy his visits had elicited in both the cobbler and himself, but it had disappeared from his mind. All that remained was the small, stooped figure of a gray-haired elf shaking his head sadly. Alwyn looked at Kritton's back through tear-blurred eyes and brought his arm forward.

V
isyna turned her head as the first stroke whistled through the air and cut into the soldier's back. There was an audible intake of breath from the ranks, but no man moved. She could stop it if she wanted to. It would take little effort to call forth a wind to swirl the ash and dust so that it was all but impossible to see, and to keep it that way until sense prevailed. She allowed herself a moment to enjoy that thought, knowing full well that she would do nothing.

"One!"

It was Dhareg—Regimental Sergeant Major Lorian, she corrected herself bitterly—calling out the lashes. She thought her anger with Konowa intense, but now she found herself growing more furious as the other man who had expressed interest in her affections compounded his culpability in this atrocity.

"Don't be too hard on them, dear," a gravelly voice said in her ear,
"they all follow orders."

Visyna started and turned to see Rallie standing right beside her. She was adept at sensing the presence of others, yet the old woman had walked up beside her as insubstantial as a shadow on a moonless night.

"Hard on who?" Visyna asked, flinching as the second lash left a pink welt running diagonally across the soldier's back. His shoulders rose for a second and his head rocked back and forth, but no sound escaped his lips. The flogger appeared more affected, weaving on his feet and looking increasingly ill.

"Them, all of them," Rallie said, casting a hand toward the regiment.
"It's a hard life being a soldier. Most of them are illiterate louts, thieves, drunkards, and worse, and that's
just the officers, mind you."

A tiny laugh escaped Visyna's lips before she could stop it. Several of her father's muraphant drivers looked at her in shock.

"This is no laughing matter," Visyna said, glaring first at the drivers, then at Rallie.

The old woman had pulled her hood down so that her wild gray hair wreathed her head like a cloud, revealing portions of a weatherbeaten face as tough as any bark. She held a small, leather-bound booklet open in one hand and a quill in the other. She didn't smile, but the amusement in her voice was unmistakable.

"It never is, yet it's one of the most absurd contradictions in the world today. Look at them," Rallie said, pointing with the quill toward the regiment.
"Boys, most of them. I'd wager more have seen the inside of a man's skull than have seen the inside of a woman's bedchamber. They're trained to kill, to rip and rend, and it sometimes takes rough measures to keep them in check. We create monsters of a sort, but we need them, and we need them to be vile and heartless at times because it's them, boys and rogues all, that stand between us and the monsters we didn't create." Rallie nodded to herself and began writing.

"So you condone this?" Visyna asked, genuinely surprised. She had heard many of Rallie's stories and always thought her more concerned with the well-being of the troops than this.

Rallie looked up from her writing and shrugged her shoulders.
"It doesn't matter if I do or don't. My job is to record what I see so my readers understand what happens out here." She peered out at Visyna from a tangle of hair, her blue eyes clear and unblinking.
"The quill, after all, is mightier than the musket. It may just be that my readers will decide that there are better ways than this," Rallie said, turning away from the flogging and heading away from the spectacle,
"and I would not be disappointed if they did."

"Does that include enlightening them to the injustices of oppressing other people?" Visyna asked as another lash bit into flesh. The pain of the elf being whipped was palpable, even without her heightened abilities. She felt compelled to watch the next stroke, but willed herself to follow the old woman instead.

"A lesser of two evils I should think," Rallie said as she put distance between them and the regiment.
"The Empire, for all its arrogance and greed, is at its core concerned with the welfare of all the races." She raised her hand before Visyna could object.
"Yes, dear, that still doesn't make it right, I know, and were it a simpler time
I would support you fully in your endeavors, but this is not that time."

"Support me in my endeavors?" Visyna asked, a sudden chill racing through her body. She looked to see who might have heard, but of course, they were alone among the vines.

Now Rallie did smile and rubbed her nose with her quill.
"My little witch, you have a good heart and a strong mind, but you have much to learn about subtlety. The Prince is oblivious to most things, and Konowa has his own concerns, but if you continue shouting about the evils of the Empire, I suspect someone will eventually take an interest in you, and it won't
be friendly."

Visyna's heart raced, but she forced herself to stay calm. The flogging that had so disturbed her was now just one more indignity brought about by a corrupt power.
"There is a rebellion growing in the north. If the Star of Sillra is there, then
it is the Empire that should worry."

Rallie cackled softly and placed a hand on Visyna's arm. It was cool and light, and gave away nothing of her emotions.
"The Empire
is
worried, or the Iron Elves wouldn't be here now, but the refinding of the Star is but a small piece of the puzzle. The Shadow Monarch has delved deep in her High Forest, too deep even for the elves of the Long Watch to contain whatever she's
done. Everything is coming back, the good, the bad, and the very, very bad. With
the Star and the Iron Elves come rakkes and faeraugs and who knows what else? It
is a dangerous time to be politicking."

All this confirmed Visyna's suspicions, yet she was still taken aback.
"The Star is ours. With it, my people can be free. It is a risk worth taking."

Rallie turned away for a moment as a groan carried to them from the prisoner. She made a clucking sound with her tongue and began walking again, writing furiously in her book as she did so.

Visyna tried to read what she was writing, but the script was neither Empire nor any other she recognized.

Rallie spoke while still writing. "The Prince means to
take it for himself, and from him, it will find its way to Her."

Visyna kicked a vine out of their way and then put a hand to her mouth in surprise at what she had done.
"So he'll run back to the Queen with it so She can add it to their larder of
stolen treasure?"

Rallie stopped walking, closing her book with a snap and tucking it away within the folds of her cloak.
"The other Her, dear, the other Her." She turned and began walking back toward the U, the sound of another lash punctuating the air as she did so.

Visyna hurried to catch up. Sweat was already rolling down her face and the nape of her neck was steaming beneath the thick coil of her hair. Rallie, she noticed with annoyance, was unaffected.
"Konowa carries with him a piece of Her mountain. I feel the Shadow Monarch's
presence here, and it is growing. Konowa should never have accepted it. It is a
trap."

Rallie stuck the quill behind her right ear and spread her arms wide as if addressing a congregation.
"If you'll forgive an old hack her purple prose, dark clouds are gathering, and She is at the eye of the coming storm." She tilted her head toward Visyna and lowered her voice.
"Yes, it
is
a trap. It never ceases to
amaze me that people should choose to be so blind. You are a rare one, my dear,
a true child of the earth and the life force within it, in tune with all living
things in a way most are not. You see what so many choose not to, that opposites
exist everywhere—the sun and the moon, summer and winter, predator and prey. If
God, the Devil. If the Stars, then a Shadow Monarch seeking to quench their
light."

The whip cracked again, tightening the air until Visyna thought she could physically feel the bite of the lash.
"Then what do we do?" Visyna finally asked.

"For now, we bide our time, and do what we can to keep these lads safe from harm. They'll be needed for more than faeraugs before too long," Rallie answered.

They were now back to where they had stood before, and Visyna cast a quick look at the elfkynan nearby. They were all transfixed by the flogging, unused to such deliberate and cold violence.

Rallie placed a hand on her arm again. "Steady on,
child, there are many miles to go yet, and I, for one, have a few tricks up my
sleeve. All the same, be careful whom you listen to—the brightness of a star is
in part a reflection of the darkness that surrounds it."

Before Visyna could reply, a gasp rose from the regiment and there was the sound of a sack of flour being thrown to a flagstone floor.

"The poor thing has fainted," Rallie said, clucking again.
"He didn't even last the twenty lashes."