The Marcher Lord (Over Guard) (12 page)

“Quite brilliant,” the lieutenant repeated with some
respect.

“This one must be the
main carrier between Alcatel and Portsmouth. They’ve kept it up in good order,” the captain said as they progressed into the next car, tastefully decorated with a slightly noticeable variation from the last.

The hatchway
s in front of them were open for quite some distance, and between the shoulders of his company mates, Ian could glimpse the next couple passenger cars in what must have been the dozens that made up the locomotive’s length.

T
he captain’s musings on their vehicle continued for some amount of time that Ian couldn’t really recall. He did remember experiencing fluid bursts of frustration when their captain gave the finale while pausing at the threshold of their accommodations. But after that, only a few closing details remained. Each flank was assigned its own drawing compartment across from each other. The captain required them all to change out of their primary regimentals and into their mess dress while they hung up their regimentals to cycle-clean. This was actually a good idea, though Ian deeply begrudged it at the time. And not just because the captain had distractedly singled him out as the one who should do this to practice commonsense hygiene.

One memorable moment occurred
when Ian and Rory first settled into their seats. They experienced a mutual moment of uncertainty as they tentatively adjusted their seats backwards. To some relief, they tilted back just enough to be bearable and were better than nothing, though the space beneath the wall that the headrest tucked under wasn’t all that tall. Ian saw Rory and some of their other, taller company mates struggling to accommodate their own accommodations. As bleary, irritable, and generally uncaring about present existence as he was, Ian had to fight a fair bit not to laugh at some of the low curses Rory leveled at the Dervish civilization.

But then
he had nothing but clean clothes against gentle cushioning and the gentle thrumming of the locomotive, which started off at some point.

Subsequent events were hard to order, but
they shut off their compartment lights. The windows were tinted to mute the hallway light. Somehow, Ian knew the captain hadn’t gone to bed with them but had set out to speak with the engineers about the locomotive, or something along those lines.

Rory slept to his left while
Ian was against the wall, and their flank’s corporal sat across from him, though he didn’t settle down immediately either. On a positive note, Rory seemed to be a heavy sleeper. So though he occasionally muttered, he also kept curled into the opposite corner of his seat away from Ian. On the contrary, Ian remembered moving around a lot, always decently comfortable but not really satisfied. He didn’t remember the dreams he had, though they left the impression of having been odd.

Maybe a few hours later
, he turned suddenly in his sleep and knocked his head against the side of the seat frame. Reaching around groggily, it took him a moment to replace where he was.

The horizontal area of … wall?
Hull? Whatever the wall next to him was called, it threw him off as it was translucent like the hallway ceiling was, and though there weren’t any running lights as before, there was a soft blue shimmer that illuminated the water passing by them, just enough to give a visible depth to what they were traveling through.

It was actually quite pretty, and
Ian stared at it for a long minute, glad that his head was throbbing, but in a more natural way now. When he turned to look out the hallway, he abruptly noticed that the corporal across from him was also awake.

“Oh, hullo,”
Ian started slightly.

“Hello,” the corporal said quietly.

Rearranging himself, Ian tried to figure out if he should just leave it at that. The other man was definitely exuding a detached air, but it didn’t seem hostile. And while Ian pondered that he should probably leave the corporal to his own quiet, Ian’s curiosity insisted.

“I’m
Private Ian Kanters,” he said, deciding it more prudent to nod instead of getting up to shake hands.

“Corporal Ellis Hanley,” the other offered, not begrudgingly, but there was a definite lack of enthusiasm.

“Pleased to meet you,” Ian said, keeping his voice low and looking at Rory, though his second didn’t seem to be bothered at all. “Is the captain out?”

Corporal
Hanley nodded and turned his head back toward the outside, his mouth resting against his fist. Ian thought that was going to be that, but then the other murmured something about the captain getting food from the mess car.

“It really
is a great chance to travel on something like this,” Ian said, striving for some reconciliation from the last conversation he’d had with a corporal referencing their captain. “He is right. I bet it’s not often that we get to do this sort of thing.”

“No, not really,” the corporal said.

“Have you been with the Guard long?” Ian asked.

Corporal
Hanley shrugged a little. “Three years now. I’ve been with Captain Marsden about four months.”

“Good,” Ian said. “It was a good day of marching—not the dry stuff I mean, but the real marching. I mean
, all things considered. I thought we moved pretty well given that we barely know each other.”

The corporal nodded but didn’t say anything.

Ian shifted in his seat, looking at Ellis carefully. “I don’t … mean to bother you, but are you all right?”

Corporal
Hanley turned his head to look at Ian again, staring at him for several long moments, as though Ian were two very repulsive options that the corporal had to choose between.

“No,” Ellis answered finally. “But who is? Just can’t sleep, that’s all.”

“Well,” Ian urged a bit, “what would keep anyone awake after today?”

A
motion went across Corporal Hanley’s face that might’ve been amusement under different circumstances. “You haven’t run into them yet?”

Ian couldn’t help but laugh at the other man’s implication, as curiously sure as it was. He couldn’t help but continue to laugh back into his seat at the corporal’s expression, so much so
that he had to restrain himself when he remembered Rory next to him.

“Women?”

Corporal Hanley leaned away from him, looking mostly unaffected.

“It’s because of a
girl you can’t sleep?” Ian asked.

“I suppose it’s not really the woman,” Corporal
Hanley said, “just what naturally accompanies them.”

“Trouble?”
Ian supplied, trying to draw together a sterner face. “So what did she do to you?”

Corporal Hanley took a few moments, measuring him up. “You haven’t been around
very many women, have you?”

Ian
shrugged. “I have a little. Enough. There’s never been much time for seeing girls, and probably won’t for a long time yet.”

“We were to be married,
” Ellis stared down at his knee, his face alternating between something hard and something lesser, “this November. But … she decided that she wouldn’t enjoy being a soldier’s wife.”

“
Oh,” Ian conceded, rubbing the back of his palm across his eyes, “I suppose it might be hard. Though it’s too bad she didn’t decide that sooner on.”

“Yes,” Ellis said, frowning. “We quarreled a great deal before all of it. I suppose I’m very much to blame.
It usually doesn’t feel that way, but it’s probably true. But … she’s left me with nothing.”

“
No,” Ian protested, looking back down at the corporal, whose face was gray and shifting in and out of the light. Ian readjusted his voice, seeking a more reassuring tone. “Sure it’s not good. But look at all this; you’ve got everything ahead of you. Your career, your prospects. Things are always changing—no one knows what will happen in the future. There are plenty of other girls out there.”

Ellis nodded with a detached sort of thanks. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever see her again.”

“Well …” Ian tried, struggling to come up with new phrases for the ones he’d heard far too many times before, “it’s probably for the best. It’ll all turn up in the end.”

Ellis gave no answer, but settled his head back on his
fist, his eyes somewhere out past the lights.

Hoping that he hadn’t gone off in the wrong direction, Ian tried to resettle himself for sleep again, deciding against bothering the corporal any longer. He really did wan
t to talk more, because even though Corporal Hanley didn’t exude nearly the same sort of authority or sophistication Corporal Wesshire did, he seemed like a good enough fellow.

But—Ian promised himself as he
firmly tugged the blanket around his shoulders—he was never going to let himself be like that.

“—and to the extreme northwest lie the Hovoloko
Plains: long, gentle tracts of plains populated by smaller birds and animals, and punctuated by larger herd animals which are not hostile unless provoked. For the margrave’s purposes, I would recommend this area as ideal.”

—Memo from Nathan Morinus Blake, acting Bevish governor of Orinoco

Their wakeup dawned harsh and early, but Ian was mostly just grateful he was in much better shape for this one. He was tired again, but that was nothing he couldn’t handle. The captain had them up at five-thirty, his boots freshly shined and mustache smartly trimmed. If anything, he was even more energetic than the day before, and Ian wondered how that could be possible. Evidently, he was just one of those people who didn’t require much sleep; he certainly hadn’t been in their drawing compartment much—at least for the bit that Ian could account for.

After
a thorough going over by the captain, with special criticism leveled again at Ian for nothing tangible, and Rory for the slightly rumpled state of his regimentals, they took an informally official breakfast together in the meal area that was a few cars further down. It wasn’t fantastic, but not bad either, some sort of egg and biscuit concoction that seemed local and as much sweet-tasting green juice as they wanted. It was a pretty hushed affair for the most part, Ian and Corporal Hanley sitting beside a group of dapper engineers who would take nothing but talk of the Dervish locomotive. It took Ian a bit to figure out that they mainly wanted patriotic criticism of it, but with a cautious admiration underneath it all to keep things in order. Corporal Hanley had little to do with it either way, and indeed, didn’t seem at all changed from the previous night. Ian wondered just how long someone could go on like that.

By eight they had arrived,
although it was over an hour before they were allowed to disembark. They were mostly able to amuse themselves, constantly threatening each other that they would start a breks game to settle whatever they were arguing about. But there was always the chance that they would get called back at any moment, so nothing came of it. It was mostly Ian and Brodie and Kieran. Both corporals were keeping to themselves. Rory hovered near the edges of their squabbles but kept something of a distance, which made Ian feel guilty, and even guiltier that he didn’t do anything about it.

But at last they
messaged the captain that they were cleared. They all fell in then and exited the way they’d come. It was odd this time, as the sunlight was bright enough that a decent deal of it made it through the translucent ceiling, and exiting up out from the rear car was an entirely different experience. The blooming heat was quickly evident, and the humidity much more insistent than it had been by either Alcatel or Carciti. Their regulators snapped in token protest as they rose up into it. It was also immediately apparent that their general landscape had wholly shifted. Gone were the muted colors of the arid Carciti region. In their place, they found the mouth of a large bay that lay ahead of the locomotive, and everywhere else was lush green—so much of it, like nothing Ian had never seen with his natural eyes. It was a deeper color than anything on Baldave, with something that lurked around the edges he couldn’t quite identify that made the wash of it look so explicitly wild and endless.

“The most
capital way to travel thirteen hundred miles,” the captain declared, looking in pride down the length of the locomotive that was barely visible beneath the river, which was far more boisterous at this point upstream.

Ian couldn’t help grinning, craning his head around
the best he could, taking it all in and breathing in deep lungfuls of the sweet-smelling air.

They started off, disembarking at the small harbor and making their way up
toward the small town by a wide and dusty road.

“Ever met any royalty before?” Ian murmured to Rory beside him.

Rory gave him a sideways glare and Kieran to his diagonal left started to turn his head toward Ian before thinking better of it.

The captain up ahead was giving some histor
ical points on the town—from where, Ian didn’t know, and he made sure he wasn’t impressed.

“Have you?” Ian asked, looking at him quizzically.

“Quiet,” Rory hissed.

“Well, we’re about to,” Ian said, lookin
g a bit off to the right of their shoulders. He was quiet for the appropriate moment. “Excited?”

“No,” Rory said, a little louder, “we can’t talk in formation.”

“We
can
,” Ian stressed and jerked his head down a little as he stared at the captain’s sweeping gestures, “and are.”

“Stop it,” Rory said.

“Only if you admit you’re excited,” Ian said, a little quieter as he noticed Brodie twitching uncomfortably in front of him.

“No,” Rory answered.

“No, you won’t say?” Ian asked. “Or no, you’re not?”

“No,” Rory said, exasperated, “I mean—fine.
Yes.”

“What did you say?” Ian asked.

“I said yes,” Rory whisper loudly, “I’m excited.”

“
Oh …” Ian said. “You shouldn’t say those things while we’re marching. You’ll get us in trouble.”

“Shut up,” Kieran hissed over his shoulder at Ian, not taking his eyes off the front.

“Right,” Ian said, smirking forward. There was an empty pause of marching, the captain being in between dissertations. Ian looked meaningfully over at Rory. “Whoever’s excited, tap the lapel twice.”

Rory and Brodie reached up and made
two quick, appeasing taps on their left shoulders in time with Ian’s own.

By the time
Lieutenant Taylor had swung his questing glare back at them, Ian and presumably everyone else had sufficiently killed all signs of the disruption that the lieutenant was left with a disappointed expression when he turned back around.

*              *              *              *

A good deal of Bevish regulars was afoot on the west edge of town, just outside one of the walled gates that was atop a considerable hill. The men looked to be locally assigned, somewhat indignant, but obviously posturing all the same. That was how it generally was around nobility, Ian supposed.

At the middle of it all was an upri
ght man, dressed in very costly-looking trousers and good boots, his head bent over the rear sights of a large rifle. As they approached, he raised it up to his shoulders in a practiced manner, aimed for a short moment, then let off the muted crack of a low-energy shot that hit somewhere down out of sight.

“Excellent,”
said one of the regulars, a nearby lieutenant, “splendid shot, sir.”

The man, the lord
—for what else could he be?—didn’t answer. Ian noticed a very small, and therefore very expensive, regulator fastened to his belt. It was no doubt also more powerful than their own army regulators, and it seemed to say something about the man that he didn’t bother trying to hide it out of sight as per general etiquette among the higher classes.

As the
ir company neared the edge of the sparse group around the man, he lifted up his rifle after carefully reloading and fired again, the sound of metal being struck echoing back up again.

“You have amazing aim, sire,” the lieutenant went on. “
Shall I have Brown restack the targets?”

The lord’s rifle got the blunt end of a glare, as the lord didn’t bother to turn it
toward the lieutenant. “He will when they’re all down. As I requested.”

“
Of course,” the lieutenant said, only a little deterred. “As you wish, My Lord.”

“Attention,” called a slightly less ambitious
sergeant, who had been watching their company’s approach.

“Fall in,” the lieutenant cried out. As his men, if they were indeed his, did so with some shambling as Ian’s company came to a neat stop a little ways off from the lord. The lieutenant quickly
started at them, saluting Captain Marsden almost on the fly. “Captain, you’ve arrived, I—”

“Yes, thank you, that will be all,” Captain Marsden said, brushing past him
toward the lord.

Ian h
ad to fight back a grin at that.

For whatever reason
, Ian happened to glance to the right, and though a good deal of materials and some Chax were moving about, he immediately caught sight of a golden-haired girl poised on a crate, her dress all around her, a book reader in hand, and her careful eyes on his.

Jolted a little bit, he realized that his attempt not to smile about the officers hadn’t gone
quite as well as he’d thought. Fixing that, sort of, her lips answered a little before she raised her eyebrows and looked at where Captain Marsden was warmly introducing himself.

“—a true pleasure,” the captain was saying, having bowed already, “we are most eager to assist y
ou and your family in any way. Know that myself and this company are at your utter disposal, My Lord Wester.”

“Thank you,”
said the man who was a margrave, a marcher lord, or simply Lord Wester. He scrutinized Captain Marsden for a moment, then the rest of their company for an even shorter moment. “Everything is almost in order, and we will leave within the quarter-hour.”

“Very good,
My Lord,” Captain Marsden said, all business. “I see that you have the Chax all in motion, let us—”

“Yes,” Lord Wester said.
“Please help them to hurry.”

“Most happy to,” the captain hurriedly bowed his head and turned
back toward them, “Company—”

The captain hitched a little. Ian saw this because he was actually looking at the captain, but a number of the rest of the company weren’t so lucky. Making sure to keep staring straight ahead, Ian was able to read the story that played across Captain Marsden’s reddening face well enough to guess
just exactly where, or rather who, their other men’s errant stares were on.

“Company,” the captain hissed under his breath as he strode
toward them, “come to order! We’re being watched.”

And that was true enough. The Bevish regulars, glorified foreign militia as Ian categorized them, had more or less already fallen out of attention unprompted, and were somewhat milling about, their eyes casually watching the proceedings.

“This way then,” Lieutenant Taylor assisted. They turned at his prompt and loosely marched over to where the crew of Chax was scurrying about, loading materials on two very large animals that were taller than two large men and looked excellent for packing … they were squat, with ladder-like pouches that hung to either side of them … with flat backs and …

Ian snuck another glance at the girl. Her head was bent down
to her reader, but her eyes were up, scrutinizing them from just beneath her darker brows. Even as he watched her for a pair of heartbeats, her eyes made their way down along their company’s column and met Ian’s again.

Something jumped inside of his gut, and he swung his head back to the front. He couldn’t help from smiling, though he knew he should be playing a more composed manner. But something
ran through his nerves, freshly stirred by the simple combination of a pleased smirk beneath a pair of clear, green eyes.

“Gorgeous,”
he whispered, and only in part for rebellious reasons.

The lieutenant and captain took a short sampling from the
Chax about their job then ordered the company to drop their packs to do the heaviest transfers of possessions from the ground to the top of the pack animals.

While he wasn’t the only one who jumped into this s
udden assignment with a purpose-driven gusto, Ian liked to think that he was the one who did so with the most tact. He knew she was watching them, so there was no need to look at her periodically as some of the others did. In the end, whatever short-term pleasures they imparted were easily offset by the negative publicity they earned when their inattentions became the target of their captain’s zealous critiques.

“
Watch your hands, Anglas,” Captain Marsden snapped when Kieran nearly dropped a long crate he was handing up, “or else the rest of the company will watch you carrying a half-crate for the duration of this excursion.”

Anglas gave a small salute and a humiliated
acknowledgement. His face was flushed—even more so than the rest of them—and he cursed underneath his breath as soon as it was convenient.

“Come on, steady,” Ian said as Rory fumbled at his end of a full-crate they were hoisting up to the chittery
natives. “Easy now.”

“I a
m going steady,” Rory bit back while taking in great mouthfuls of air, raising it from underneath. Switching their hands to push from its outside with their palms, they were able to hoist it up, over their shoulders easier, and then from there gingerly raise it up above their heads where the chorus of Chax hands were involuntarily making erratic signing motions while they clicked air through their teeth.

“Lift it higher,” Rory grunted, his face bulging as the
Chax leaned even further out of the broad saddle contraption fastened to the top of the pack animals.