Escana (45 page)

Ella blinked, the words had come
streaming into her ears at a great speed and yet she found herself
understanding what the creature was implying.

'Your own language is not native
to those you are forced to be accompany, you have divined our
language not through observation but through study of scripture.
Access to such text in this era is a priceless commodity afforded to
few and the extended lexicon that you speak of is doled out to the
privileged alone to set them apart.' She dared to edge closer to him
then, trying to study his face for any sign of a reaction. 'I believe
that you were in conflict with my friend and that your kidnapping of
me was retribution for a previous slight.'

El-Vador's eyes had widened with
each word, clearly it had not been expecting such a response and it
remained silent for some time after.

'Where did you learn such an
elongated form of expression?' it finally asked her, eyes filled with
curiosity and a hint of longing that made her ill at ease. Apparently
the topic of Jimmy had been cast aside in light of her response to
him.

'When I was very young my father
sent me a teacher to learn my letters from. He told me that he wanted
to afford me a gift he never had and bought me a book. It was a large
leather-bound tome describing the trials and tribulations of an
orphan child. It was written in a very exhaustive fashion and most of
my time was spent trying to decipher what the various words meant
using what little I had been taught.'

She looked up at him, it was
staring at her with rapt attention and had noticed her lapsing into
silence.

'Please, do continue. What
happened to the orphan child?'

She tried to hide the confusion
from her face. It seemed that it now wanted to know more about the
story than why she had talked in a mimicry of his own speech. Not a
moment ago it seemed completely engrossed in that, had such a simple
explanation sufficed?

'The orphan child's village was
destroyed by invaders. He fled as the sole survivor and lived in the
wild forests, there he befriended pixies and fought an evil
necromancer.'

El-Vador nodded. 'Pixies with
gossamer wings and tinkling high voices as they danced upon the lakes
in the twilight hours.'

The words it spoke were a direct
quote from the book, was it reading her mind? She sensed he wanted to
hear more and ploughed on, hoping that the tale would satisfy his
unsettling curiosity.

'The orphan grew from boy into
man, adored by his surrogate people and content for the longest of
time.'

It sighed at her then, cutting
her off. 'Then came the darker times, with their brethren defeated
the others overstepped their boundaries. The orphan was now a man and
with the aid of the landspeople he fought off the incursion. Then
came the reincarnated cloaked figures, emissaries from the cliffs of
afar and ultimately even darker times than before.'

She nodded, it was a perfect
synopsis of the events of her book. It also seemed subdued and
regretful in the telling.

'You have read the book then?'
she asked it, chancing a question of her own.

It didn't say anything to that,
it simply beckoned her to come closer with tentative arms. She found
herself acquiescing without any given reason but not involuntarily as
she had before. She didn't feel drawn against her will in doing so.
Prior to this her every action had been necessitated by the complete
control the creature seemed to exude. Here it seemed a very different
domain, it looked strangely vulnerable in offering her the chance to
reject it.

She stepped toward it and the
creature encircled her in its arms. A flash of colour exploded in her
head and the mountains were forgotten. She felt weightless and her
head span, the only other sensation was the light brush of thin arms
on her back. El-Vador's voice spoke as if directly into her mind.

'You know of me better than my
instincts had suggested. I have not read this book you speak of, I am
the very orphan that lived through its pages.'

T
he carriage
came to a stop, the door swung open and mercifully Mayer found
someone else to talk at.

It had been an unspeakably long
journey, Mayer's tongue surpassed that of the local traders in its
ability to wag endlessly about any number of dull subjects. For the
eternity it felt, Garth knew that the few day's ride had barely taken
them beyond Urial.

He spent a brief moment wondering
what had happened to Thom, whether he had caught up with Solomon's
murderer and if the villain treated young Ella with any sort of
dignity whatsoever. He doubted it. If there was one man capable of
exacting vengeance for such debauchery it was Thom. That it had been
days since he had last seen him meant nothing, he worried about him
plenty but deep down he knew Thom could handle himself. His friend
wasn't going to be happy when he arrived back with the murderer's
head only to find him absent. He'd probably have to recount the tale
to Gooseman, who was never one for violence and wouldn't appreciate
the comeuppance.

The rain tore through the sky as
if each droplet was racing the other to the muddy earth below. They
had stopped at a roadside inn that seemed surprisingly populated
given the foul weather. Garth was beginning to hope that they'd have
beds to spare and then caught himself. Mayer would undoubtedly pull
the privilege of rank and flash it around for all to see. Military
men always got first choice of rooms in local establishments wanting
to seem loyal to the Empire. That these rooms were occupied was of
little consequence and quite often those inside happily gave way. He
doubted this was out of either fear or generosity. The inflated
prices Mayer and his men would have to pay for bed and board would be
split between the owner and former occupants.

Their chauffeur and the other
guard marched their way forward with much pomp and ceremony, Mayer in
close attendance trying to look as important as possible even though
nobody would be watching them yet.

This was one of the few perks of
rank that Garth actually enjoyed. While others in the military had to
exude that sense of order and discipline, the General's outfit they
had supplied him allowed for a more relaxed disposition, the patches
on his chest spoke for themselves.

He had surveyed them briefly,
someone had been keeping tabs on his history and even the honours he
was loathed to parade about in public were stitched into the uniform.
They brightly depicted glorious victories and conflicts hard fought.
That a number of them had been hopeless massacres under his command
seemed to have been consigned to the basement of the past where only
the prying eyes of historians could steal over their true depiction.

The inn was small and crowded.
Mayer had already marched forward and demanded to speak to the
innkeeper in a loud voice. The coach driver found a seat and the
other guard ordered a round of drinks, it would appear that they
weren't going straight to their beds after a long journey.

A number of glances were being
cast at their uniforms now, Garth was expecting hostility given how
terribly the war had been going but all he saw were nods and smiles.

It became the same routine each
time. A member of the crowd would gaze at his uniform, stare briefly
at his chest and then avert his eyes as if he had seen something
shameful. Garth said as much to the coach driver sat next to him.

'They look at you funny cos your
uniform is different from ours sir. Then they see your patches and
they avert their eyes out of fear. Aint none of them seen a General
in their lifetimes but they heard enough about them to be feared.'

He nodded. To the folk out on the
fringes of the world a General of an army was as much a mythical
creature as a cockatrice. They may have heard about them in stories
and such but they'd never seen the likes of one in the flesh. It was
as if he had wandered in out of a storybook to grace their small inn.
He imagined the reaction would probably be the same in Escana had
anyone known who he used to be.

Mayer and the other guard finally
came back with drinks, big grins on both their faces and neither of
them seemingly wearied in the slightest.

'The innkeeper says he keeps a
number of private rooms free should customers of our calibre come
calling. I haggled the price down and we'll be sleeping soundly
tonight after a few rounds.'

Garth may not have a choice as to
who he was travelling with, he certainly had a choice as to who he
drank with. 'Would you care to show me to my room, Colonel?'

Mayer's grin died on his face,
his voice was tinged with just the right amount of uncertainty as to
pull at his heartstrings. 'Are you sure you don't want to share a
drink with us sir? Your company would be most valued by us officers.'

A blithering idiot this man might
sound but he also seemed to have a slippery way with words, appealing
to a sense of comradeship that Garth didn't feel. He noted this for
further study, slippery could easily turn into dangerous given the
wrong motivations.

'I'm afraid I must insist Mayer,
it's been some time since I travelled such a great distance and I
need my bed.'

Mayer got up and Garth cautiously
followed him, the refusal had rendered the boisterous man silent and
that made him nervous.

They were about to ascend the
stairs towards the room when Mayer finally spoke.

'Sir, I must respectfully request
that you join us for a round in your official capacity as General.'

Garth blinked. The audacity of
this little man to try and order him around.

Noticing the anger starting to
mount, Mayer quickly added more words. 'I am not trying to order you
into drinking with us sir, our duties include a recruitment drive for
our forces and the regulations state that the commanding officer must
be present at all times.'

Garth snorted. 'Do they really
now? Would you care to show me these regulations?'

Mayer
paused,
briefly
patting
his
uniform
as
if
he
were
going
to
pull
out
the
regulation
and
cite
it
on
the
spot.
'I
appear
to
have
left
the
order
in
the
carriage,
General
.'

Garth
turned
and
started
ascending
the
stairs,
the
petulant
tone
in
Mayer's
address
was
unbecoming.
'I'm
sure
you
did,
Colonel
.
Enjoy
your
drinks,
I'll
find
my
own
bed.'

He left on that.

Later that night all he heard
were haunted smatterings of screaming and pain. A film of dust or
sand seemed to reduce his eyesight to a blunted haze that rendered
everything indistinct until much too close.

Someone appeared to be calling
for his attention, yet they couldn't be heard over the noise of the
horrors unfolding nearby.

He felt an almost overwhelming
urge to run, to leave these cursed lands far behind and settle for
living with the guilt the rest of his life. It may be an existence he
looked at with utter disgust before but he was beginning to see the
appeal of spending his days as a deserter in some far-flung corner of
the land than ending his life in an equally remote and far more
inhospitable place.

The voice called to him once
again, couldn't he see it was futile? He didn't have any answers and
was in no fit state to give orders, even if the situation hadn't been
so hopeless.

A strange chill took him then,
there was no reason for his feeling so cold in this scorching tomb,
the voice was growing louder now. A strange knocking sound emanated
from outside the flaps of his command tent. That made even less sense
than the sounds of the battle receding, perhaps the heat had finally
got to him and he was passing out.

The knocking came again, that
same repetitive noise as if on wood. The tents couldn't make that
sound, where was it coming from?

Garth woke to the sound of
knocking on his door, he can't have slept for more than a clutch of
hours. There was nothing unaccustomed about that, he was a light
sleeper at the best of times after all he'd endured over the years.

He slumped forward to the side of
the bed and pulled on his slacks, muttering whoever it was at the
door to wait while he got his bearings.

'General Garth,' the pompous
voice of Mayer sounded through the wood. 'The new recruits are lined
up outside awaiting your inspection.'