EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (168 page)

She mulled over each option. Running seemed the worst of the bunch. Tilla had seen deserters caught before; the Cadigus family made sure every citizen in Cadport came to see them quartered by mules. Tilla rather liked having four limbs, so running was out of the question.

As for moping, she did not relish that option either. Thinking about Rune wouldn’t get her back to him any sooner. Thinking about home would only weaken her. There was no point missing home now; or at least, she could try to suppress her homesickness. She could push those thoughts deep down where they couldn’t hurt her. After all, how would weeping and yearning help her survive?

And so that left only one option.

I will play the game,
she thought.
I will become the soldier they want me to be. For now, I will play by their rules. And maybe I can survive the next five years. Maybe I will learn enough to fight and live once they cart us off to fight the Resistance.

Tilla nodded. Here in this cart, surrounded by the weeping and trembling girls, she vowed that she would
live
. If she had to fight a war, she would be strong and she would survive it, and in five years she could return home. In five years, maybe she could see her father and Rune again.

She looked at Mae, who still wept at her side, and iciness clutched Tilla, for she knew: Once their training was complete, and they were sent to fight, Mae would die.

She would die first.

Tilla closed her eyes and tried to forget Pery’s head splattering down at her feet.

The cart kept trundling on and on. Finally whatever sunlight leaked through cracks in the walls faded. Darkness fell over the cart, and even the heat of a hundred bodies pressed together could not warm Tilla. She had not eaten, drunk, or sat down since that morning. Her back, feet, and stomach ached. Wolves howled outside, wind shrieked, and still the cart kept rolling.

“Tilla,” Mae said, speaking for the first time in hours, “are we going to keep traveling all night?”

Tilla grumbled at the baker’s daughter. “How should I know? Do I look like Beras?”

The girl whimpered and bit her lip. “Don’t say his name,” she pleaded. “Don’t say the name of that man. They say he... he...” She sniffed. “It’s horrible, but they said he r-r-... he did something horrible to a little girl. And then he strangled her to death.” She shuddered. “Please don’t say his name.”

Tilla wondered if the stories were true. Had Beras the Brute truly raped a child, then strangled her and buried her body? Had the Cadigus family, impressed with his cruelty and reputation, hired him based on that merit? Tilla did not know, but after seeing Shari Cadigus behead Pery, she was inclined to believe it.

A woman like Shari would find a child-killer her perfect companion, she thought. Tilla looked at her boots and clenched her fists. Yet like it or not, Beras was the one leading this caravan. And Shari Cadigus, the emperor’s daughter, was the one who had recruited them.

I might find them repulsive. But if I’m to survive, I must follow them.
Tilla gritted her teeth so mightily it hurt.
I will live. I will return home. I will not be another Pery.

After what seemed like hours of darkness, the cart finally slowed to a halt. It came with both a sigh of relief and a chill of fear.

The girls around Tilla looked at one another, mewling and whispering. Mae grabbed Tilla’s arm, squeezing it so hard Tilla grunted and yanked herself free.

“What’s happening?” Mae whispered.

“Hush!” Tilla said. “Be quiet, Mae, and be strong. No more tears, okay? If you want to live, you can’t cry. Wipe your eyes.”

Sniffling, Mae obeyed. After knuckling her eyes dry, she bit her wobbling lip so hard it turned white.

Boots thumped outside, and a voice cried out hoarsely across the convoy, the words muffled. The door of her cart jolted madly, keys rattled in the lock, and a low voice muttered curses.

Mae trembled. The hundred girls in the cart fell silent, and all eyes turned toward the door. Tilla squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and raised her chin. She could easily stare above the shorter girls, and she sucked in her breath and held it.

The door yanked open.

Beras the Brute stood outside in the night, holding keys in one hand, a torch in the other.

The girls inside the cart stared, frozen. Beras stared back, his beady eyes shadowed beneath his thrusting brow. Dark sacks hung under those eyes, tugging them down toward his cheeks. His face was ashen, and though close-shaven, his beard was so dark it left his cheeks in perpetual shadow. He wore no black, polished steel like the other soldiers, but crude plates of iron over patches of mail. Even this suit of metal could not hide his size; he easily weighed twice as much as Tilla, a blend of muscle and fat that pushed at his armor.

For a long moment, he merely glared at the girls. He grumbled, then hawked loudly and spat. A few girls started and Mae whimpered.

For the first time, Tilla heard Beras speak.

“All right, you miserable lot of whores,” he rumbled. “If you ask me, you’re good for nothing but spreading your legs in a brothel, the lot of you.” He spat again. “But since Shari Cadigus thinks she can whip you into soldiers, you’re mine for a few days until you reach your barracks.” He clutched his groin and tugged it. “Any one of you harlots moves too slowly or disobeys my orders, you’ll get a taste of this.” His voice rose to a howl. “So move—now! Off the cart!”

For an instant, rage bloomed inside of Tilla. It coursed through her and spun her head. How dared this man threaten them? There were a hundred women in this cart, and each one could turn into a dragon. He was one man, one miserable murderer who—

She gritted her teeth.

He’s one miserable murderer who’s a darling of the empire,
she reminded herself.
Unless you want to shift into a dragon and have that empire hunt you down, obey him.

The girls began exiting the cart, silent, their eyes darting. Tilla moved among them. When she stepped outside, cold air stung her, so shocking after the stifling cart that she gasped. She found herself on a roadside in a forest clearing. All around the glade, dark trees rose naked to claw at a starless sky. Six carts camped here in a ring, and Cadport’s youths were stepping out from each one, faces pale. At every cart, a soldier stood shouting, threatening to flay, whip, or behead anyone who moved too slowly. The shouts rose across the forest.

“Move it, maggots!” howled one soldier.

“Form ranks, worms!” cried another and raised his punisher, its tip crackling.

Tilla had seen soldiers in Castellum Acta, the small hilltop fortress in Cadport; she knew about forming ranks, but did the others? The six hundred recruits stumbled into the center of the clearing. Around them spread the carts and twenty soldiers or more, each holding a crackling punisher.

“Form ranks—move it!” one soldier howled, a gaunt man with one eye. “Or I swear, blood will spill tonight.”

The other soldiers all shouted and thrust their punishers, goading the recruits closer together. All around the clearing, the trees creaked and distant wolves howled.

“Come on!” Tilla hissed and grabbed a girl beside her. She pulled her forward and stood her in place. “Stand here. You—Mae. Stand behind her, like this. Go. And stand tall and still, don’t slouch!”

The girls glanced around nervously, but they stood where Tilla directed them. She grabbed their shoulders, pulled them straight, and shoved their chins up. Around them, the other recruits saw and followed suit.

“Form lines!” Tilla whispered, moving between the others. “Three soldiers deep; that’s the standard form. Go! And stand straight.”

Finally the recruits began to form ranks. They stood in three lines, every recruit a foot apart from the others. Tilla took her spot at the front line; Mae stood to her left, trembling and standing so straight her heels did not touch the ground.

Tilla stood frozen, barely daring to breathe. She stretched her own back straight, kept her arms firm at her sides, and raised her chin. She had seen this formation in Cadport before—it seemed the most common one—but she knew there were other formations too. Which one did these soldiers demand? If they formed these ranks wrong, and she was responsible, would they behead her too?

When the ranks were complete, and the recruits stood at attention, Beras began trundling down the lines. He lolloped like a bear, armor clanking and axe clattering against his back. His torch crackled and he grunted as he walked.

“He walks like he got a thorny stick up his arse,” whispered a girl beside Tilla, a scrawny little thing with short brown hair, an upturned nose, and fiery eyes. “You reckon he likes to shove sticks up there, Tilla? I knew me a man once who—“

“Shh!” Tilla hushed her.

She remembered this skinny girl—an orphan named Erry Docker, a dockside urchin who slept on the beach and ate whatever she stole. Some whispered that Erry was the daughter of a long-dead prostitute. Others whispered that Erry herself had taken up the profession and already bedded a thousand men.

“I was only—“ Erry began, eyes flashing.

“Hush!” Tilla said.

Beras kept lumbering around, indeed moving much like Erry had described. The recruits stood silently.

“I could have bedded two whores by the time you formed ranks!” Beras shouted. “If you cannot form ranks here, in a guarded camp, how will you survive at war? When we send you miserable worms to fight the Resistance, do you think the enemy will wait for you to form the lines?” He spat and shouted hoarsely. “They will butcher you, and skin you alive, and they will rape your flayed bodies as you thrash and beg to die.”

Tilla’s throat tightened. She had heard many stories of the Resistance. They whispered that these rebels, wild men and women who lurked in the forests, were even crueler than the Cadigus family. They were bloodthirsty.

They killed my brother.

Cold sweat trickled down Tilla’s back. Could the Resistance be hiding in
this
forest, waiting to charge with steel and fire?

Beras kept moving down the lines, inspecting each recruit in turn.

“In a few days,” he called out, “you will reach your barracks, and they will try to train you, to turn you whelps into soldiers. If you ask me, they’ll be wasting their time. I don’t see soldiers. I see cannon fodder.” He stopped before one boy, leaned close, and sneered. “You’re a skinny one; I bet you weigh less than my axe.”

The thin, pale youth kept standing still. “Yes, my lord,” he whispered.

Beras grunted and walked on. He paused before another girl, licked his lips, and ogled her.

“And you,” he said, “you are soft and rounded. You’re made for a brothel, not a barracks.” He spat at her feet. “I bet two coppers you end up in one. I’ll be there to break you in.”

He kept moving and stopped before a tall, broad youth with black hair. Tilla recognized him as Jem Chandler, the lazy lout who spent days drunk at the Old Wheel—the youth Mae pined for.

“You!” Beras barked. “You’ve got some meat on you. Big lad. You think you can be a soldier?”

Jem stood so stiffly it looked like his bones could shatter. He managed to nod.

“Yes, my lord.”

Beras spat at his feet. “I’m not a lord, boy. And you’re not a soldier and never will be. What did you do back at that cesspool you call a city?”

Jem held his head high, the veins straining in his neck. “I’m a chandler.”

“Chandler!” Beras rumbled. “What the Abyss is that—you rolled over in a whorehouse for sailors?”

“I... I made candles, my—“ Jem bit his lip. “I just made candles. But I can be a soldier. I can fight. I’m strong.”

Beras snorted. “Are you now? We will see. Fight me.” He tossed his torch down; it crackled upon the earth. “Come on. Show me how you fight, boy.”

Jem looked aside nervously and licked his lips.

“I—“

Beras drove his fist into Jem’s belly.

Tilla winced, clenched her jaw, and held her breath.

Jem doubled over, gasping for breath. Standing before the youth, Beras changed—his eyes burned with wildfire, his lips pulled back from his yellow teeth, and drool ran down his chin. He was like a rabid beast. He swung, and his fist
cracked
against Jem’s head.

At Tilla’s side, Mae whimpered.

“Hush!” Tilla whispered to the girl. Her fists trembled. “Don’t make a sound!”

Jem lay on the ground, hacking and coughing blood. Beras laughed and kicked him, again and again, as the youth mewled.

“See the mighty candlemaker!” Beras announced, arms raised and fists bloodied. “See the boy who thought himself a soldier!”

With a laugh, Beras kicked hard. The steel-tipped boot drove into Jem’s head. The youth’s neck snapped, and Tilla closed her eyes and struggled not to gag, not to faint.

Stars, oh stars.
Her eyes stung and the world spun around her.
Another death.

“You lot are nothing but maggots!” Beras shouted. “You think you can be soldiers? You can be dead! You will be fed to the cannons, and your flesh will rot in the fields. You are nothing! You will be nothing. You are worms and if any of you doubts it, I will crush you.”