Oath of Fealty (58 page)

“I don’t see why he isn’t happy with a dukedom,” Burek said.

“Nor I,” Arcolin said, with a sigh. “And our immediate problem is these brigands and tonight’s camp.”

Burek flushed. “Sorry, sir—”

“No—that wasn’t a correction. Thinking long-term is what made Phelan successful, but while thinking long-term we must not lose
track of today’s duties. Let’s get these wagons across—we may have to unload them—and try to reach that village—ruined or not—tonight.” He cast a last look at the bootprinted game trail before turning to the cohort.

Devlin’s choices as junior sergeant and corporals had already shown their ability and energy in the previous night’s camp. Now Jenits in particular pulled almost equal weight to Devlin. Arcolin, remembering the brash youth of Jenits’s first campaign year, the last of Siniava’s War, watched the serious, determined young man organize his two files quickly and get the second wagon unloaded even before Devlin had the first one ready to cross. And it was Jenits who suggested using the spare horses and the four mules to move cargo across the stream alongside the wagons.

More quickly than Arcolin expected, they were across, the wagons reloaded, and on their way. The next village site, when they came to it, looked clearly deserted—the cottages no more than tumbled stone walls pierced by saplings and weeds. It had backed on the woods, with fields before it … fields now growing up in weeds and bushes, even young trees. The village well, surprisingly, had a few flowers, barely withered, on its curbstone.

“Someone uses this,” Devlin said. “And it smells clean.”

“Dip a bucket,” Arcolin said. The wellhouse and axle were gone, but the stone edging was remarkably clean. Someone was maintaining this well—someone who cared about the
merin
. The bucket came up with clear water that smelled fresh. Arcolin dipped a handful—it tasted as clean as it smelled.

He took the bucket and walked around the well, pouring a thin stream. “Thanks to the
merin
of the well, for the good water,” he said aloud. “We honor the Lady and her handmaidens. No harm will come to this well by our use.” Then he turned to Burek and Devlin. “We’ll camp here tonight. A solid defensive perimeter. When my tent is up, I want to talk to both of you.”

While Devlin organized the camp, Arcolin rode out into the fields a short way, weeds brilliant with yellow, blue, and white flowers up to his horse’s belly. Ample cover for a force to approach on that side, the old furrow ridges and hollows concealed by tall vegetation. He saw no sign of disturbance, off the wagon track, but with the thick growth he knew he could miss such signs easily. He rode across the
wagon track and there, near the forest edge, found a well-traveled footpath running just along the margin, between field and wood. Well-traveled, but not by many, and the only footprint he found was bare.

In the last year of Siniava’s War, he’d seen the like: peasants driven from their villages, eking out a poor living in the edges of woodland, hiding from everyone. A clean well would be a boon to them. And such people would not welcome brigands any more than soldiers. If he could convince them to talk to him, he might save the cohort time and blood.

He rode back to the camp, now bustling as his people dug a ditch, cut stakes, and laid out the campsite itself. All were at work but the sentries and the scouts he’d assigned to patrol beyond the perimeter, even Burek. As he dismounted, he caught a glance from Devlin; he nodded, tied his horse to the tail of a wagon, and went over.

“Problems, Sergeant?”

“Not exactly,” Devlin said. “But—I have a feeling.”

“So do I,” Arcolin said. “There’s a lot more going on than some brigands bothering farmers or merchants. Is the feeling about this place, or more than that?”

“I wish we had two cohorts,” Devlin said. “Or all three. Marching through the woods today—I don’t know, sir, I just—it’s been a long time since I felt like we were a small group.”

“We are a small group,” Arcolin said. “For what it’s worth, I had the same feeling. I’m half inclined to go back tomorrow, just patrol in the open land closer to the city. But I think it’s as much having Stammel gone, and the five we left there, as real danger. You’re having to bring along juniors faster than ever and we’re down six, including a sergeant and a corporal.”

“I know we’ve lost only one in combat,” Devlin said. “It’s just …” He shook his head.

Arcolin clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll talk when camp’s made.”

As soon as the camp was set up, Arcolin called Burek and Dev into his tent. “We’re in over our heads,” he said quietly. “There’s much more going on here than some leftover homeless peasants and soldiers from Siniava’s War.”

M
atthis Stammel burned in a fire that had no beginning and no end. It had been before he could remember. Voices he dimly remembered called on him to hold a line he could not see, to stand in the fire, to endure … Don’t give in, they pled. Don’t quit. Young voices, older voices … he had no way to answer them, to ask what, why, who? Something—some
one
—dire held him down in that fire, someone who demanded that he give in, give up, let go, die. Someone who promised ease and rest if only he would retreat.

He fought with every fiber of will and strength to do what the voices asked, but the other one, the interior one who needed no voice to speak, demanded surrender. He wanted to ask the captain … ask the Duke … if he couldn’t please, just for a moment, have someone else take his place. He had not heard their voices for a very long time. The last thing the captain had said … the captain trusted him. The captain trusted him to hold.

He could feel his flesh burning away to nothing, the blood in his veins bubbling. His breaths, when he was aware of them, burned his throat; fire blazed in his lungs. Why am I not dead? he cried silently. The unspeaking one in his mind promised he would be, dead and cold, if only he would surrender. It was too much, too long, for anyone to endure. The unspeaking one agreed, offering hope, offering a dream of green grass, shade, cool water, if only he would let go, let the other take control.

He was so tired, tired of the pain, tired of the struggle. Wherever this was, whoever the enemy was, no man lived forever; no man could fight forever. The voices he knew faded, returned, faded … one came again, a girl’s voice, trembling, begging him …

“You promised to tell me more about Paks,” she said; he could barely hear her over the crackling that was his bones in the fire.

Paks. What Arcolin had said. What the girl—he struggled to think past the burning, past the pain, past the pressure that bore in on him, the dark presence that held him down—who was the girl? Paks had—had gone into the thieves’ lairs, in Vérella … she had endured five days and nights. How long had he endured? Forever, the dark presence told him. And it will go on forever unless you yield. He struggled—was it really forever? The girl was still murmuring to him. “The Marshal says it won’t last; the demon’s weakening …”

Demon? Was it a demon he had inside him? Stammel strained, trying to see, feel, somehow know what—who—it was. Fire—fire and smoke, and a shadowy something, the first actual, visual image of his enemy. Pain seared him, worse than ever, but this time he had a focus; he concentrated not just on holding on, but on attacking, pushing back at it. He still did not know how or when it had come, but he was not—
not
—going to fail the Duke, or his captain, or Paks or his other recruits.

He heard the voice more clearly now—not Paks, but another of his recruits—he could not think of her name or see her face, but he knew he had known them. Flames licked him again, white-hot as always, and he cried out. This time he heard himself cry out, felt the hands that held him … and something cool and wet on his burning lips, his parched tongue. The pressure inside swelled, but this time, as he fought it back, it retreated a little. He reached out, in that shadow-world of fire and smoke, grasped at it, and squeezed … squeezed as it struggled and fought in its turn, as it shrank, shrank to the size of a wasp—and with one last bone-piercing pain, stung like a wasp and was gone.

Silence, after the roaring of the flames, but for the very human voices he heard around him. The pain … was gone, as if it had never been. He could feel some hard surface under his back, wet fabric on his body. He was cool at last—too cool, cold and wet and shivering suddenly in reaction.

“Fever’s gone,” came a gruff voice. “And he’s breathing.”

Stammel took a breath. Easily, as if it had never been different, cool air moved into his nose, filled his lungs. No burning. No smoke. Hands touched him, gentle hands pulling away the wet cloth, drying him, laying something soft on him.

“When do you think he’ll wake?” came the girl’s voice, from somewhere near his head.

“I don’t know,” the gruff voice said. “And I don’t know what he’ll be like when he wakes. That fever alone—that many days—such fevers can leave men reft of sense and speech.”

But he was not senseless. He did not know where he was, or when, or what had happened, but he would know—he would remember—he was sure of that.

He tried to speak, to say that, and though he felt his tongue move in his mouth, the sound that came out was a rough, animal noise, nothing like words.

“Let’s see if he can swallow,” the gruff voice said. “Lift his shoulders, one of you.”

Someone held his head; someone else slid a strong arm under his shoulders and lifted him to rest against a living, breathing human. A cup came to his lips; water flooded his mouth. He swallowed, swallowed again.

“That’s good,” the gruff voice said.

“Sergeant—it’s me, Arñe,” said another voice, older than the girl’s. “Are you all right now?”

“Of course he’s not all right,” the gruff voice said. “He’s been battling a demon for days. Let the man rest … we’ll get him to a bed now …”

Stammel felt himself being turned, lifted, carried somewhere … he didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t flames. He slid into sleep without realizing it.

W
hen he woke again, he could hear someone breathing in the room with him. He felt clean, rested—a sheet lay over him; he moved his legs, and whoever it was stirred. “Sergeant? Can I get you something?”

It must be night, it was so dark, and they had left someone with him—and it had been dark before. He must have slept the day around. But fear ran a cold finger down his spine.

“A light, first,” he said, rejoicing in the sound of his voice—his own voice, sounding like himself, and ignored the fear.

The hiss of indrawn breath told him a truth worse than fire. He felt himself trembling, tried to sit up and could not. “It’s not … dark …” he said.

“No, sir,” the girl said. “It’s broad day outside, and—and I must tell the Marshal you’re awake.” Her feet scraped on the floor—a stone floor, by the sound.

“Wait,” he said. He was not ready to face anyone else. “Is there water?”

“Yes, sir. Just a moment.” He heard the small sound as she picked up a jug, then the water falling from the jug to a mug—clay by the sound—and then her footsteps coming to the bed. It had to be a bed; her footsteps were below him, and the surface felt like a bed. “I—I don’t know—”

“Take my hand and put it on the mug,” he said. This close he could smell the familiar uniform; she was one of theirs, a soldier. Probably a first-year, from her nervousness. Her hand on his was firm, callused—definitely one of theirs—and she pulled it up, set the mug firmly in his palm and waited until his fingers gripped before she loosened her grip, but only to guide his hand toward his face.

“Should I lift your head?” she asked. He could hear the tension in her voice.

“Probably,” Stammel said, trying for a lightness he did not feel. “Or I may spill it.” His arm was trembling with the effort—he hoped that was the reason.

She lifted his head and guided the mug to his lips. He drank, a cautious swallow first, and then drained the mug. “That was good,” he said. “Now tell me—what happened? Where are we?”