Darkstone - An Evil Reborn (Book 4) (13 page)

Another attacker loomed over one of his brothers three or four paces away. He threw his dagger and heard a thud. “Thanks.” Parvenu’s voice. He wasn’t the traitor, but he thought of the brother with the light as he retrieved his knife.

Vishan followed his ears and heard fighting towards the troopers, but he heard more men jump into the wash. His life hung in the balance and he had to know friend from foe. He took a deep breath and spelled a string of light along the wash. The men stopped fighting as the glow increased.

No time could be lost. Most of the men were attacking the princes. Vaka ran into their midst as Vishan fought side by side with the sergeant.

Vishan let his training take hold and thrust, parried and slashed his way. He didn’t hold back at all as he lost count of his opponents, but he must have fought at least four men. Parvenu slid down the side of the wash as Vish took care of his assailant, number five.

He saw Kartor slashed in the arm while Vaka hurried to save him. The troopers had gotten the upper hand. Vishan looked for Teshyr, the one he suspected. The prince clambered up the bank and disappeared into the night. Vish climbed up after him. He spotted a dot of light bobbing in the darkness.

He grabbed the sling out of his pouch and grabbed a stone. It didn’t matter which one, since they were all hand-picked. He whirled the sling around his head and let it go. The light bobbled. He loaded another stone and let it fly. The light slid to the ground.

Vish ran towards the still light. He reached the spot to see a headband lying on the ground. He saw a glint of light in the darkness and jumped to the side only to feel a blade slice into his arm. His hand was sticky and slick and he couldn’t draw his sword.

He barely made out a glint reflecting the lights that still illuminated the wash and slid aside again, to hear the whine of a passing blade. Vishan yelled out the spell that once froze Sulm’s legs. This time he broadcast it wider and the movement stopped but moonlight reflected a myriad of tiny lights.

Vishan spelled a light, looking back at the wash. No men were near except for the form of Teshyr, covered with a thin coating of clear ice. His opponent’s eyes grew wide as he struggled within his frigid bonds. The ice began to crack. Vishan began to feel his arm throb with pain as he drew his dagger and plunged it through the ice. The Assassin’s Blade cut through Teshyr’s leather armor and the chain mail shirt beneath. Vishan struggled to pull the dagger out, but could only move the blade back and forth as his brother fought him. Teshyr screamed as the sharp blade continued worked damage to the inside of his chest until he toppled over.

The sounds of battle began to subside as Vishan dragged himself back to the wash. Vaka stood over the last attacker, wiping his sword on the fallen man’s clothing.

Three troopers remained standing. Vaka held his shoulder. All of them were wounded. Vishan stood over the bodies of Parvenu and Kartor.

“I could only fight them one at a time,” Vaka said. They were both down and the enemy took them out before I could…” He slumped down, holding his shoulder. “Can either of you three walk?”

Two of the troopers nodded. “Find the pack horse with the bandages, it looks like we all will get a turn at playing healer.”

~~~

Chapter Ten

~

V
aka and Vishan made sure that all of the attackers were dead.
While Vishan’s lights faded, the dawn lit up the grisly scene. “We’re saving the hangman,” Vaka said. “Remember the innocent folks at the farm.” He found one of the attackers still alive and took care of him without another word.

Vaka directed the bandaging. All of them had their injuries bound tightly and their stomachs filled with travel rations; the five survivors laid out the dead. The troopers retrieved the twenty horses ridden by the attackers.

“We won’t be taking the bodies of Teshyr’s men, but the three princes and our fallen brothers will get a proper burial at the outpost.”

Vishan bent over and went through the attacker’s pockets looking for clues. He pulled out their purses and tossed them into a pile. Those would go to the families of the dead troopers. One man carried a paper with instructions on how Cuminee staked out their victims.

“There you are,” Vaka said when Vishan let him examine the evidence. “We’ll take this along and show Captain Bishyar.”

They found a map in a saddlebag with the location of the farm noted. Not too far from the Outpost, but far enough that by the time any reinforcements arrived the attackers would be far away.

As they assigned each other a string of horses to manage on the trip back, Vishan called the survivors together. “I know this might sound a bit bizarre, but I’d like this to have been the result of a Cuminee raid. We’ll have to take the time to bury these men, but for all of our sakes, the less said of this the better. And no mention of the magic lights or the ice around Teshyr.”

“What lights? What ice?” one of the troopers said.

“Damn Cuminee,” Sergeant Vaka said. “We’ll handle it the way you want Lieutenant. We’d be dead men if it wasn’t for you and your sorcery.”

“Used judiciously,” Vishan said. Parvenu and Kartor didn’t deserve to die any more than Heshyar and Daryan. He didn’t include the murdering brothers in that thought. What a horrible night. What a horrible trip. If he had been thrown in with the brothers before he had served his time at the Peshakan Outpost, he’d have been dead as well. He shivered from the thought and ached from the rough stitches in his arm.

They made it to the farm with the burned barn that night. The farmer told them to picket the horses with the bodies on the other side of his wood. Vishan spent his night on some scattered straw outside. He didn’t want to move back into the barn, although the other men did, including Sergeant Vaka.

The bodies of his brothers gave him nightmares, making him wake up in a sweat.

He must have yelled out since Vaka came out of the barn and put his hand to Vishan’s head. “You’re not feverish.”

“Nightmare. Seven of my brothers died on this trip, all but me. How could that happen?” Vishan felt the world go sideways.

He woke later than he intended. The farmer’s wife cleaned his face with a wet rag.

“Are you feeling better?” she said.

Vish put his hand to his head. His other arm still ached, but he noticed a new bandage. “I put some special salve on it last night when you fainted.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue.  “Infections can bloom in minutes.  I think we took care of yours in time and I made sure the rest of the troopers used it as well. Saved another of you from infection, I did.” She looked intently into his eyes. “This has all been too much on you, boy.”

“He’ll get some rest at the outpost,” Vaka said from behind him.

The farmer helped him to his horse.

“I’m all right,” Vishan said. He wasn’t all right. From the time his brothers showed up, his time at Peshakan seemed surreal and the nightmare was the last straw. He didn’t want to rule the empire, yet he returned twice as close to the throne. How would he extricate himself from this mess?

He still didn’t have an answer by the time they wearily rode through the outpost gates. Captain Bishyar walked up the Sergeant Vaka. “We executed the prince. It looks like only one of them returned. Our man.” The captain said.

‘Our man.’ Vishan produced a half smile. ‘Our man’ He had belonged to the outpost and the men had ultimately identified him as theirs. He felt more connected to the soldiers than he ever had to his brothers.

After another treatment for infection at the infirmary, Vishan took his weapons and armor to the quartermaster.

“This bow looks pretty beat up,” the man said. He didn’t smile at Vishan.

“It performed its job well enough. You didn’t bet the twenty dreks on me, did you?”

The quartermaster looked away. “I put my money on the oldest. I guess the oldest isn’t necessarily the best.”

Vishan looked at the battle-scarred pile on the counter. “Perhaps the best didn’t win. The survivor did.” He walked out of the quartermaster building. The weight of the world pressed down on him.

His head hurt, his arm hurt, his soul hurt. The soul part was the worse. He thought the deadly game’s outcome hadn’t indicated victory, but survival. He didn’t lie to the quartermaster. He thought he’d never actually been in the game anyway.

The four scholars sat around Captain Bishyar’s dinner table. Vishan had been invited to dine in the captain’s quarters for the first time ever.

“These gentlemen have orders to return to Baku tomorrow morning.”

“We have no one to teach, except you and we’ll get another chance to do that once Captain Bishyar is finished with your military training,” Noryton said.

They all smiled. Vishan wouldn’t regret their departure, but managed a smile and a nod.

The quartermaster came around to Vish’s table at breakfast. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I don’t want you to hold it against me. What you did out there brought honor to us all. We all want you to know that before you go.”

“Where am I going?” Vishan said, his mouth pursed, restraining a smile. “I’m afraid, I’m only getting a new assignment. That’s what happens when you bring honor, I guess. Captain Bishyar told me I’d still be training here as a scout. Survival skills are important to a scout, right?”

The quartermaster grinned and nodded. “Right. I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps it will give me a chance to bet on you again.” The man gave Vish a great slap on the back and left him to his breakfast.

Vishan felt more like a soldier than an Emperor’s son at that moment and it felt good.

~

Sergeant Vaka walked with Vishan from the now-empty barracks that once held eight princes.

“I had my doubts, but you surprised me out there. Not many men earn my trust and you did. If there is anything I can do for you, just ask.” He put out his hand and shook it rather than saluted. Both of them straightened out as Captain Bishyar joined them to see the scholars off.

Vishan had never felt like a part of something before now, but the soldiers had treated him differently since he had come back. Perhaps now all that he had to worry about was death at the hands of a wild Cuminee tribesman.

~

Training never seemed to end. Vish still trained with all of the other soldiers, but he now bunked in a six-person room, not unlike the room he had shared with his late brothers. Captain Bishyar gave him a new rank, Scout, Second Class.

If one would look at the order of battle, his rank was a demotion, equivalent to Vaka’s. The camp didn’t have a Scout, First Class, an officer’s rating, but there were only two other Scouts, Second Class, among the six scouts at the outpost. There were two Third Class and one Fourth Class in their group. Vish didn’t care. His new rank had been earned. The Junior Lieutenant rank came courtesy of his proximity to the throne.

He threw himself into the training that the scouts had to do after general drills. Each of the scouts had various levels of power. All of them could start a fire and four could draw water out of the air, including Vish. He learned that those were the minimum proficiencies required for a scout at one of his early sessions.

“Why fire and water?” Vish asked.

“Good question, Second Daryaku,” Jimaal Restylu said. All of them used their class rank to address each other. Second Restylu had seniority and led the group. “If you are heading cross country, trailing a raiding party, you can’t spend your time looking for water and fuel. A scout doesn’t have to zig-zag across the plains, moving from water hole to water hole.”

“The rest of the army doesn’t use sorcerers to do the same thing?” Vish asked.

“No, the men aren’t too comfortable around sorcerers. The Cuminee tribes generally have a shaman along with them on their raids, but as far as we can tell, they don’t have the skills or the inclination to serve or defend their people.”

Vish thought that Restylu had unintentionally filled his statement with cultural questions. If the shamans didn’t work for the tribe, then what was their rank? And if they ranked high, then why go on raids at all? The raiding parties had to ride long distances to attack Dakkoran settlements. There had to be a reason.

His training had just begun to go over reading tracks like Sergeant Vaka did and travel as an outrider, looking for raiders while on patrol.

Had Vaka been a scout? He had quickly discovered who had killed whom on the ill-fated patrol with his brothers and found the tracks of the mercenaries Teshyr had hired. If he did, he had become adept in keeping his power a secret.

The sessions continued. Sometimes the scouts would leave the outpost for practice out on the plains. Vishan did just enough magic to carry out the instructions.

On one of these practice expeditions, they broke into pairs. Vish and Fourth Mesyrat, a recent recruit, were the ones to lead the other four on a chase. They had successfully evaded detection for a full day. They had found an abandoned farm to spend the night.

Mesyrat had conjured up a small fire and Vishan cooked a stew using water that he had extracted from the air. He looked older than his claimed sixteen years, but then, Vish thought that he looked younger than his near-nineteen years.

“What made you into a scout, Mesyrat?” Vish asked while he stirred the pot.

“My family was killed by the Cuminee two years ago while I stayed at my aunt and uncle’s farm further to the North. I had to avenge their deaths somehow. I knew I had a bit of power, so I tried to join up as soon as I became a man. When they learned I could make fire and water, they finally let me join a few months ago, just after your brothers, uh, died. I like it at the outpost, so far.”

“Have you had a chance to fight the Cuminee?”

“Yes, but I haven’t killed any yet. Clashes are not very common, as you know. By the time we get to a district where there are attacks, the savages have left the dead and all we can do is extinguish the fires and bury the bodies.” Fourth Mesyrat’s eyes glistened in the firelight. His experience had seemed to harden his outlook. “Tell me, can I learn to use a sling like you do?”

Vishan had to smile. “I can do that. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to show someone how to make one and here you are. I’ll show you right after dinner. We’ll make one out of spare boots. They are about ready for replacement, anyway.”

After dinner, Vishan showed Mesyrat how to use the laces, if his boots had them, for the thongs and cut out the soft leather tongue of one workout shoe as a pouch. He discussed how the leather should feel.

“Now, if you are out here, far from the outpost, how would you make it?” Vish said.

Mesyrat’s eyes brightened. “I could bend a wire pot handle and heat it up and burn two holes in the pouch. The pouch just takes a sharp knife and some careful cutting.”

Vish hadn’t thought of using the wire from a cooking pot. Good for Mesyrat. He brought out one of the two slings he always kept with him and showed Mesyrat the size of the pouch and the little leather pad on the loop.

“There. You’ve done it.” Vish said, as the boy finished the last knot. “Now, you get to show someone else how to do it. Promise?”

Fourth Mesyrat’s smiled with his mouth but not his eyes as he looked at his work, comparing it to Vish’s. The two slings looked much the same. Perhaps he didn’t like the work that he did, or he thought the little pledge was a stupid idea. “I promise. And to think I learned this from a Prince of the Dakkoran Empire.” The boy shook his head. “We can practice tomorrow?”

Haryr, the old soldier who had taught him to make this particular style of sling had recently retired and left the outpost. Vish felt good about teaching another person the simple task; something he doubted none of his other brothers would do. He didn’t want to be like them. It was a little thing, but it was something that would have made him feel better, except he felt that Mesyrat didn’t really appreciate the lesson.