Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (96 page)

Immobility froze Marik.  Did he truly see such a perverted
display?  This was sickening, and yet he could no more have lifted a hand or
raised his voice in protest than he could have moved in time to save Shalla. 
He watched as in a dream, trapped in helpless observation.

The scout pulled his sword free, the mad glint in his
eyes mirrored in his teeth when filtered sunlight reflected off the
saliva-coated whiteness.  He lowered the sword point, this time pushing the tip
slowly into the crying man’s neck.  Blood welled around the silver tip. 
Fingernail after fingernail pierced deeper through the tan skin.  Screaming in
pain, dirt smeared into the tear tracks wetting his cheeks, the soldier
desperately tried to wriggle away.  His struggles on the ground only forced the
sword deeper into his neck.

Marik felt his gorge rising.  He had never been sick
on a battlefield, never suffered the violent shakes other men experienced
during their first fights where men died.  Watching Colbey’s excitement as he
tortured a helpless man threatened to make him vomit.

It was worse than a dream.  This was reality, and he
would be forced to watch Colbey kill a man in the cruelest fashion outside of
honest combat.  Nothing would stop the atrocity.

Through the slow time, moving as though suspended in
the syrup, Sloan barreled into Colbey.  Sloan tackled the scout, knocking him
sideways and the sword from his grip.  The world lurched as it came back into
focus for Marik.  He could hear Kineta shouting, startling since all sound
other than the victim’s had been smothered a moment before.

Colbey shoved Sloan off him to explode to his feet,
glaring death at him and Kineta both.

An archer in the First Unit hastily knelt beside the
enemy soldier.  He glanced up at Kineta after probing the wound.  “He’s gonna
bleed out soon, sarge.  Blood’s coming outta his mouth and the cut’s too deep
to sew up.  Bleeding inside.”  The archer stood, hardly devastated by an enemy
dying, but obviously displeased at the manner of his death.

Kineta, furious, rounded on Colbey.  “You goat-loving
bastard!  You have a lot to answer for!  How dare you kill a prisoner? 
Especially before we questioned him!”

“He deserved no better!” Colbey shouted back, on the
verge of leaping on the sergeant.  “He and his fellow vermin owe blood for all
the people they killed!  For their tormented ends, they must pay in kind!”

“We all lost shieldmates in that battle,” Kineta
roared, barely holding her anger in check.  She maintained a death-grip on her
scimitar’s hilt, clearly restraining her hand from drawing it.  “Every one of
us!  But we are not going to avenge them by killing the enemy before we learn
about who they are, what their numbers are, and where they came from!”

Colbey stared at her as though she spoke a different
language.  After a short pause, he visibly calmed enough to answer,
“Shieldmates.  Yes.  Yo—
we
lost many men…
friends
…in the pass. 
These…
invaders
…must be made to pay.  Yes.  We will make them pay for
every man they killed.  Revenge will be…ours.”

Kineta might be happy that Colbey had rediscovered
restraint, though she had no intention of letting the issue drop.  She
continued her demands that Colbey explain what possessed him to commit such a
horrendous act, whatever the damage they had suffered.

Colbey listened for about a minute, disinterested and
finally turning to walk away.  When he did, he found himself nose-to-nose with
Sloan.  He made to step around the Fourth’s sergeant, an idea vetoed by Sloan
when, without warning, he smashed Colbey in the face with a punch that
impressed Marik.

The blow knocked Colbey off his feet.  Kineta halted
in mid-yell, stepping aside to allow the scout to hit the ground hard.

For a moment Colbey looked stunned before the rage
swelled within him.  He scrambled to his feet, lips snarling and advanced on
the sergeant.  Sloan held his ground, arms folded.

When Colbey paused, wrestling with his desire to kill
the sergeant, Sloan said, “You are a rabid animal.  An animal that has tasted
blood and continues to thirst for it.  I have no need of a killer in my unit. 
Be off with you.”

The scout rocked, as if from a second blow.  He
echoed, incredulously, “Killer?  A killer?”  He laughed once with the sound of
a bone snapping in a deep well.  “We are
all
of us killers, Sergeant
Mercenary, but that is ironic coming from
you
!  You who loves nothing
better than to wallow in a mountain of corpses slain by your own hand!”

Sloan bent forward with astonishing speed.  His
forehead came to rest only an inch from the scout’s.  Colbey jerked back in
surprise, then returned in a refusal to surrender ground.  “I take pride in
defeating an enemy, in facing a foe, skill against skill, and overcoming the
challenge,” Sloan pointed out, his voice completely flat.  “I take no delight
in pain, suffering and torture.  Get out of my unit.”

Colbey’s hands twitched, and he snarled, “You are in a
dangerous venue, Sergeant Mercenary!  Enemies you cannot overcome surround
you.  You may be able to hide from them for a time, but you cannot hide from
the trees.  There is no way out for you or your men, except through me!  I alone
can guide you safely through.”

“Safely?”  A slight tinge of anger crept into Sloan’s
voice, mostly, Marik suspected, because Colbey had yet to run off.  “Your
scouting skills are lacking!  You led us into an enemy force.”

“I was given the duty to scout ahead, and I am only
one man!  Do you believe one scout able to cover all quadrants for a group on
the move?  They came from the north after I checked this area.  I returned as
fast as I was able when I heard your battle.”

Sloan started to reply.  Kineta cut him off with,
“Sloan!”  After they made eye contact, she faced Colbey.  “Enough pissing
around!  Can you lead us to the mountains like you said?”

“I can.”  Colbey still sounded affronted.

“You are the only scout we have who’s woodwise.  We
have to travel cautiously.  You
will
lead us straight as you can.”  She
glanced at Sloan.  “We can put him in the First Unit, if we must.  You two can
discuss matters over with Torrance as soon as we return to Kingshome.”

Sloan resumed his normal statue impersonation.  “I
will definitely meet with the commander when we return.”  He gazed with weighty
meaning at Colbey.  “Assuming you are still with us, then.”

“In Kingshome,” Colbey sniped with a cynical
inflection.

Kineta started in on Colbey’s hide, though with a
trace less force than before.  Sloan moved away.  The other men also returned
to whatever they had been doing, seemingly casual, yet none facing the
direction in which Colbey stood.

Marik knelt beside Dietrik, who had watched the whole
scene from where he sat.  Neither commented about it.  They were both glad to
have Dietrik’s kill as a distraction.

The closer examination revealed only minor points
Marik had not already surmised.  All the limb guards were indeed single plates
held in place with leather straps.  Marik prodded the leather jerkin.

“Damn tough for leather.  You think they make leather
from the hides of those beasts they use?”

Dietrik, sounding closer to his normal self despite
the lingering disbelief still evident in his voice, replied, “No, I doubt it,
mate.  It’s too thin to be that.”  He fingered the seams on the edge near the
belt.  “This looks and feels like bull hide, if I’ve ever felt any, which I
have.”

“Must have been a pretty tough bull.”

“Perhaps, but this reminds me of the boots and vests the
gulf traders used to wear.  They boil the leather in wax, I think.”

“Wax?  You sound like Cork!”

A rancid frown pulled at Dietrik’s mouth.  “I trust I
have never given you cause to doubt my word.”  He fingered the leather with a
harder pinch.  “I am fairly certain wax was how they managed it.  After taking
the leather from the boiling vat, it would harden to a near steel-like quality
while remaining somewhat pliable.  I haven’t run into it away from the gulf. 
Then again, I hardly travel in circles that have too much coin for their own
good.”

“Is this a clue, then?  Did these beasts, and the men
with them, come from across the Stygan?”

“I don’t know.  I would guess this is not significant
in and of itself.  This kind of leather…I think it is called…cure belly?  Cure
belly, or close to that.  It should be simple to manufacture, provided you are
familiar with the processes.  But this does not feel exactly the same as what I
know.”

“Cure belly.”  Marik shook his head.  “That might be
the most foolish name I’ve ever heard.  I’m lucky it’s you telling me that,
instead of having to rely on…other sources.”

He gave Dietrik a hand up when Kineta shouted to
move.  Colbey had vanished into the trees so he must be scouting the way.  The
men trudged after the First Unit’s sergeant, alert to the surrounding woods
after the skirmish.

Conversations were muted.  Nobody wanted enemies to
overhear them at a distance, though everyone, it seemed, wanted to talk.  Marik
held little doubt what they were discussing.

He wanted to forget it the entire sickening incident,
so instead asked Dietrik, “You feeling better?  You looked like you were moving
fast as your usual when you were fighting.”

Dietrik waited a dozen paces before replying, ignoring
the surface question, answering the concern he sensed Marik harbored.  “Yes, I
am feeling better.  Tomorrow does not look quite so dark any longer.”

Marik nodded.  “We still need to come up with a
strategy for the beasts, but we can deal with the men who will be coming with
them.”

“The Kings can handle ordinary men.  As for the
creatures, perhaps a thousand crossbow men would be a good start.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.  We’ll stop by the nearest
supply shop and pick up a few bushels of them.”

“I might have suggested a thousand mages, except you
did little beyond making them think twice.”

“Well,” Marik hesitated.  “Don’t judge that by me.  A
better mage like Tollaf, or a different magic user like Jeremy or Caresse would
probably be able to kill those monsters without breathing hard.  Tollaf would
know what in the hells those white-robes were about, and probably be able to
jam a stick in their spokes while he was at it.”

“Let’s wish for a deer made of toothpicks to carry us
to the fairy-glen ball while we are at it.”  Dietrik sighed, then reluctantly
mentioned, “Have you thought about that mirror at all?”

“Mirror?”

“In my pack.”  He tossed his head to gesture at his
back.  “I think it might be a good idea to contact your mage friend.”

“Celerity?”  Marik’s guts filled with ice.  “Don’t
call her my friend, will you?  What could she do to help us anyway?  She’s
halfway across the kingdom.”

“She did want to know about any developments.  I think
this qualifies.  The outpost captain might not have gotten word out, and who
knows what havoc the creatures have played throughout the patrol line.”

“I don’t know.”

“Also,” Dietrik added, still unhappy, “there’s
Colbey.  Something is changing with him.  I’m not certain, but I would feel
better if we had another out rather than him alone.  Celerity might be able to send
us reinforcements if she knows where we are.”

“I…well,” Marik stared at his feet.  “I’ll think about
it.”

“Don’t think too long, mate.  Time is a luxury we can
no longer bandy about, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah.  And I’m afraid you might be right, Dietrik.”

The sudden encounter in the trees embarrassed Marik
into keeping a tighter watch the rest of the march.  No one suggested he might
be at fault, let alone blamed him outright.  His ability to see auras was their
best defense against the foreigners roaming the forest, trespassers who were
increasing in number by the mark.  Four times Colbey returned to steer them
around parties he had scouted.  Two came near enough for the men to see.

Hidden by the thick foliage, the mercenaries remained
invisible provided they suppressed any urges to dance the latest court jigs. 
Given Kineta’s hissed promises, every man somehow found the restraint to remain
still.

Neither hostile party kept the mercenaries pinned down
for long.  Marik’s relieved sighs were echoed, if faintly, when the black
soldiers pushed deeper into the forest without any hunting about.  They must
believe their quarry had run deep into the forest to escape pursuit.  This
misestimation aided the Kings, and they slunk toward the western mountains,
pausing only to let the soldiers pass them by.  That might change instantly
when the enemy officers realized a unit had gone missing.

Colbey brought them to the Stoneseams less than half a
mile from the forest’s northwestern corner by late afternoon.  The Rovasii
abutted the mountains, leaving no space between its trees and the range’s
abrupt rise.

No rolling hills eased the progression from flatter
land to mountainous terrain.  The brown rock walls could have been dagger
blades resting on edge.  At other places, Marik knew, the grade lessened. 
Perhaps a man could climb spans apart from the rare passes through these peaks,
but no escape existed here.  A rockgoat would have despaired, gazing upon this
sheer wall.

Though far too steep to climb, the mountains were the
opposite of arrow-shot straight.  Hardly a hundred yards existed without bends
or folds.  To Marik they resembled the curtains he had seen in the odd tavern,
the fabric pleated together when unstretched across the window.  There were
concealed pockets through narrow crevices that were devilishly hard to see from
any angle except straight on.  Colbey brought them single-file into one that
opened into a tall hollow large enough to hold the command building without
difficulty.

Sunlight only fell directly down onto a small patch. 
The hollow blossomed into a bowl on the mountainside several hundred feet above
them.  Light bouncing from rock wall to rock wall provided enough illumination
to see by and shrouded the lower reaches in a gloom usually reserved for the
early false dawn.

The men gratefully found cold perches to rest upon. 
Snow had not found its way through the bowl, or else had melted fast, though
that seemed unlikely since the cold bit with sharper fangs than outside. 
Minimal sunlight prevented the winter temperatures from bowing in submission.

Boulders and shifted rock littered the hollow, its
floor canted beneath the rubble.  It made walking a cautious proposition. 
Marik found it easier to sit atop a large bolder with a minimal curve rather
than search for a flat patch of ground.  He might never find one anyway.

Marik chose to wait just beyond the crevice’s last
bend.  He wanted to be near the narrow entrance so he could watch for enemies
lucky enough to stumble on their hidden sanctuary.  Also, if a demon-beast
could
squeeze through, he wanted no one between his orbs and the target.  Dietrik sat
on the next lower boulder, which placed his head close to Marik’s foot, using
the rest period to examine his rapier for the first time since the skirmish.

First Unit, being the first to ingress, worked their
way further back to allow Fourth Unit the room they needed.  Sloan had entered
with the First.  During their quick conference moments earlier, the sergeants
had decided one should enter first in case of possible danger inside.  He had
immediately decided she would be the one left standing outside.

 Sloan worked his way back to where Kineta stood
beside the narrow crack in the mountain wall.  Marik heard him assure her that
the hollow possessed no back entrance before the two debated their next action.

The two made no effort to keep any decisions they
reached a secret.  Nevertheless, Kineta cast several hard glances at Marik. 
They were standing beside the crevice and Marik, using his magesight to
instantly notice any shift in color from sneaking bodies, appeared to be
staring at them.

“What do you have to add?” she demanded.  Dietrik kept
his attention focused on his rapier.  “If you’ve worked out a brilliant mage
scheme, I, for one, would love to hear it.”

From her tone, Marik understood more than he wished
to.  Kineta had never given the men in her unit any slack, keeping them firmly
under her thumb.  The past few days had rattled the cool surety she used to
assert her will over the meatheads under her command.  She hated this
on-the-fly decision making since it kept her from making full use of her
resources.

Marik had come to think of her as a hard, no-nonsense
yet extremely efficient commander.  She made use of what was available to her,
so reined in her men from haring off, following their own ideas.

It made no difference that he was outside her unit. 
She was the senior acting sergeant.  Plain on her face was the suspicion that
this half-mage might be entertaining ideas of self-aggrandizement without
consideration for the unit’s welfare.  So far he had performed effectively
against their unknown enemies since the battle in the pass, saving their hides
during the long run, safeguarding their trek through the woods by keeping watch
as no others could.  If he were starting to think that he alone had the skill
to take command and see them through, then she intended to crush that notion
from him right there and then.

All these thoughts flashed through Marik’s mind before
her last word faded.  “No ideas from me, sergeant.  I’m only using what skills
I happen to have, as best I can.”

He meant to suggest that he was like any other man in
the squad.  Swordsmen had sword skills, archers had archery skills, others had
herb lore, cooking or hunting skills.  The band liked each man to contribute
his expertise to the whole, after all.

Kineta’s eyes narrowed.  Marik realized the sergeant
misinterpreted the remark to mean that the half-mage had taken it into his head
to start acting on his own.  “So what are you’re doing with your fabled skills,
then?” she barked.  “Weaving a pitfall in the corridor?  Or maybe summoning a
fire demon to kill the beasts if they find our hole?”  She managed to sound
scornful, annoyed and questioning all at once.

Marik sighed, and made no effort to hide it.  In fact
he wanted her to see the exasperation he could not voice.  “I couldn’t do any
of that if I wanted to.  Besides, I don’t know if there is such a thing as a
‘fire demon’.  I only meant that I can usually see other people before they
come too close.”  He waited a long breath before adding, “You remember that
from before?”

Kineta scowled, but the brief inspection Marik had
performed that morning for Sloan resurfaced in her mind.  “I would have greater
confidence in that if we hadn’t been waylaid not four marks agone.  Still, we
have to make do with the materials at hand.”  She probably gave no thought to
the inherent insult in her comment, speaking as she did to vent her
frustrations.  It would have irritated him except he had been dressing himself
down since the incident.

“I haven’t seen anybody for a while.  Colbey saw us
through safely, but I don’t know how many soldiers are crawling through the
woods.”

“I thought you could see these folks,” Kineta
challenged with a sharp edge.  The days had stressed her.  He held his tongue
since he understood her frustrations.  “If you didn’t see anybody, then they
must not be there to be seen, is that correct?”

“It’s not that simple, sergeant.  No one was near
enough for me to see, same as they weren’t close enough for you to see.  But
for all I know, there could fifty of those small parties roaming in the trees a
mile away.”

“What good—” Kineta began snapping, but Sloan cut her
off.

“Are there?”

Marik returned his sergeant’s gaze.  “Give me a few
minutes to find out.  I can’t walk
and
see beyond the limits of normal
sight at the same time.  I have to be sitting still.”

Sloan nodded a curt approval.  Marik shifted on the
boulder so his weight distributed evenly.  Falling from the perch while his
self
drifted through the etheric plane would be a harsh price to pay.  With all
these fractured rocks, he would undoubtedly twist an arm or a leg between the
many crannies until it broke.

Kineta crossed her arms.  She breathed heavily through
her nose and glared while she boiled under her skin, a sound that Marik happily
cut off by drifting from his body.  The etheric’s dead silence enveloped him
while he floated from the hollow to hover over the mountainside.

Bellow, the vast forest stretched in a vibrant green
unmatched on the physical plane.  Marik had made his best effort to describe
plant auras to Dietrik, coming closest with the candle explanation.  He had
held his hand before the flame, showing his friend the way the light shone
through his closed fingers in a peach-colored glow.  If it had been the fresh,
bright green of dandelion stems, that would have been a nearly perfect match.

Birds flitted through the leaves.  Squirrels darted
through the forest.  The trees were tall enough to make them look like fish
swimming in a green sea.  He never appreciated how much life filled so small an
area until he could separate them from the vegetation, a feat impossible with
ordinary vision.

He needed to search for marauding soldiers.  With so
thick a tree cover to peer down through, they might actually be smothered under
the dense forest aura.  Best to search from below.  Marik plunged feet-first
through the ground outside the hollow until he hovered underneath the Rovasii,
looking up through starry constellations of worms and insects.

Three large auras caught his attention as they moved
against the green background.

He sped closer.  Only deer.  Two females and a larger
buck guarding them, antlers flicking sideways as it searched for danger.  It
ignored the rabbits when the grazing does startled them from the tall grass. 
Peace and calm ruled.

Marik crisscrossed beneath the trees, at times
shooting up through the canopy for overhead views, working his way south. 
After five minutes he felt reasonably certain that there were no soldiers near
the mountains.  Five groups were working their way south into the deep forest. 
The nearest stumbled along two miles east.

He winged his way back rather than instantly snapping
into his body.  The extra journey might reveal a detail he had overlooked.  It
did not, as he’d assumed, but before reentering the hollow, he decided he may
as well do the job right.  A quick hop north brought him to forest’s edge.

If he’d had breath, he would have expelled it. 
Dietrik had asked him earlier why he thought the black soldiers were sending
such small parties after them, knowing their size to be larger than the
twenty-man teams they were encountering.  Marik had replied that they must have
broken up into smaller units to cover the ground faster in hopes of finding
them.

Was there any truth to that?  He felt his confidence
in the estimate drain away.  A small army camped beyond the trees.

Several hundred men did not actually need much room,
Marik knew.  The Crimson Kings claimed a number of fighters beyond what he
saw.  But after adding the mounts these invaders rode, the tents that were
being erected and the pack horses used by a fighting force that could
ill-afford to be slowed by supply wagons, the space they consumed grew
exponentially.

The fluctuating, multi-hued aura pool generated by the
soldiers was dwarfed by the forest’s.  Despite the skewed perspective, its size
sickened Marik.  He drifted toward the yellow-orange-red mass, a massive bowl
filled with different sugary sweets through which rooted an unseen hand.

So many men were moving around the camp that their
auras illuminated nearly everything.  Enough life energy had concentrated and
combined with the abundant vegetation’s light that the normal black silhouettes
of inanimate objects were no longer their usual holes in the world.  Marik
could see an object’s distinction, as if straining hard in last half-minute
before full nightfall.  This had happened so rarely before that Marik trusted
nothing he thought he saw.  The faint marks on what looked to be a flag might
stem from his desire to see something, rather than what he could actually
discern.

Several of these probable flags were mounted on long
poles planted in a circle around a broad tent.  Four men stood on guard by the
entrance flap, two on either side.  Several figures approached, saluting with a
closed fist against the heart instead of a flat palm to their brows.  They all
waited until a signal, unheard from the etheric, came from within.  Each
entered briskly.  The flap never remained open for longer than the time
required to duck through.

A commander’s tent, if Marik had ever seen one.  That
made this entire encampment more troubling that it already was.