The Silent Army (25 page)

What is often not said is that it is not only soldiers who can acquire a hatred of the enemy and a desire to see them suffer. Let any soul endure enough and the darkness must surely touch it.

By the time Nachia Krous left the palace with her brother and several others, the murmur of cheers and sobs alike had become nearly a roar of approval and as she stepped into the front courtyard of the palace the cacophony was nearly deafening.

Several citizens started chanting her name and more followed quickly, though she still had no idea why.

From her left Desh Krohan emerged and joined the progression, followed quickly by Merros Dulver who was still settling his cape over his shoulders.

The first sight to fill her eyes as she looked to the cobbled street was a dozen or more of the Silent Army. It took her a moment to puzzle out that the different colors on them were splashes and droplets of old and drying blood.

In the center of a circle formed by the stone warriors was a tribute the likes of which she had never expected.

At the base of a hastily formed stack of grisly trophies was a layer of heads from beasts she could barely fathom. She had seen them before, of course, but never without their war masks. The mounts were dead, obviously, but each had disfigurements she could barely fathom.

Desh Krohan spoke softly. “I don’t believe what I’m seeing.”

Merros Dulver nearly sighed the words, “It hardly seems possible.”

Above the heads of the slaughtered mounts a towering stack of fresh heads rested. It only took a moment to recognize that they belonged to the Sa’ba Taalor.

Nachia looked at the pile of heads stacked higher than she stood and nodded as she slowly circled around it.

She raised her hands into the air and yelled, “Death to the Sa’ba Taalor!” as loudly as she could.

The response was immediate: the call was picked up by the crowd, who carried on the chant even as Nachia made a slow, steady retreat back into her palace, imagining a thousand arrows coming at her from all directions.

Despite that dread, a smile kept trying to break on her face.

Cullen heard the noises down below, looked out into the courtyard and felt a thrill run through her. She could not decide if it was joy at the death of her enemies or joy that something, anything at all, was capable of stopping them.

The gray-skins had seemed unstoppable in Trecharch.

“You killed a few of them, you know. I don’t think that I did, but your arrows struck true.”

“I ran away just the same. Deltrea. I watched everything we loved die.”

“Not everything I loved. That’s why I’m here you know. Because I love you. You are my sister and my friend.”

“And all I ever do is yell at you for talking too much.”

Deltrea laughed. “You have always yelled at everyone for talking too much. I have never known anyone so happy to be alone in my entire life.”

“I was never alone.” Cullen shrugged her shoulders and looked away from the dead below. “I always had the trees and the wind and my thoughts.”

“I always tried not to think that hard. Whenever I did I just got sad or angry.”

Cullen smiled at that one.

“It’s almost time, you know.”

“Time for what?”

“I do not know. I only know that the time is almost here.”

“Are you scared, Cullen?”

“I don’t know what I am anymore.” She sighed and looked out the window again, but this time at the skies, not at the ground and its dark rewards. “I only know that all I was is gone with Trecharch and all that is left wants everything to change.”

“Well, I am fine with things the way they are. I like having time to do nothing.”

Cullen shook her head. “Not me. I grow restless.”

Deltrea had no answer to that.

To the east the fires of Wrommish shone from the west and brightened an already glorious morning.

Tuskandru tore a chunk from a hard bread made of logga nut and grunted as he chewed it. The air was cold and he liked that too. Better to fight in the cold. War was hot work.

“You are calm.” The King in Iron was sitting next to him and rubbing oil along the blade of his massive sword.

“What is there to be excited about, Paedori?” Tusk offered the other king a lump of bread and got a nod of thanks. The sword settled against a rock as the man ate.

“You have been angry of late.”

“No. I have been impatient.”

Tusk pointed with his chin to the lake in the distance. “There is our target. There is a city the size of which I did not think possible. You will come from one side. I will come from another and two more kings bring their armies to bear on this place.”

Tarag Paedori nodded.

Tusk continued. “To the north Wrommish offers us new light and the blessings of a god. That is a good sign, I think. But mostly, we are here. We are alive, and we have come to offer our gods countless sacrifices.” He patted the heavy axe at his side. “I think this will be a glorious day.”

The Fellein had their sorcerers who told them secrets. The Sa’ba Taalor had their gods who did the same. The deaths of so many of their brethren were not hidden from the kings. They heard of the violence and the Silent Army’s brutality.

There was no mourning to be done. They had lived good lives and died for their gods. What else was there?

Tusk looked at the massive lake. It was more water than he had ever seen at one time before. He had never traveled to Wheklam’s heart, had never tried to learn the ways of the water. He focused on Durhallem, instead. Very likely that was why he was a king.

The city itself was a crescent moon on the distant side of the vast lake. There were smaller cities and towns dotted here and there, but Goltha rested on the far side and waited like a treasure. The Fellein had nearly danced when gifted with gold. It was a metal, shiny enough and nice to look at, but soft and only good for hobbies. You could not make a good axe from gold, though he had been told it could kill if a fool ate enough of it. He did not know the truth of that and felt no reason to find out.

The Fellein liked their gold. The Sa’ba Taalor preferred different treasures, like a city that could be crushed.

The plans had already been discussed. Tarag Paedori was a master tactician – he followed the god of armed combat and led the armies of the Daxar Taalor, how could he be less? They had gone over the variables, chosen the paths they would take and decided when they would ride.

This was their final rest before the siege would begin. It would be a siege, too, they knew that. The armies of the Fellein had been gathering in the city called Goltha. Even from this distance the banners and flags of their soldiers could be seen.

There were no horns, no battle cries. They did not announce themselves this day. Instead they moved toward their destinations and prepared themselves for whatever the gods might demand.

Cullen stood upon his ship and stared out at the waters ahead.

He was a captain again, but somehow the title didn’t mean as much this time around. The ship was given to him by the people who had killed his crew and left him to witness their deeds.

His crew was dead. The new crew was untested. To be sure they could row a boat and fish, but the Louron were hardly known for their skills as warriors and sailors. If one wanted a person tortured they were among the best, but to sail into battle was a different thing.

Still, looking at the dark-skinned people around him, he could see that they were dangerous enough.

Their demeanor gave away none of that. It was the conversations with them as they nursed him back to health and fed him that told the difference. A dozen Inquisitors had pried questions from him. They did not torture him nor were they cruel, but they were persistent. Darsken Murdro had been direct and harsh, but the others here were subtler and in some ways more cruel. The questions they asked were painful to answer, not because they used torture, but because they made him face aspects of himself that he did not like. Perhaps it was a drug in the food, or in the water, or perhaps it was simply that he needed to tell someone and they knew how to ask. They found ways to get truths from him even when he tried not to tell them anything.

Now they smiled and they joked softly among themselves, and they moved up the masts of the ship, and for over a week he watched as they painted the wood with dark inks and sang softly to themselves. The wood of the ship was no different. The shape of the vessel remained the same, but there was something menacing about the Brellar boat that had not been there before.

“What is it you have done, Daivem Murdro?”

The woman he looked at was sleek and dark and ageless. She could have been fifteen or fifty and he would not have known the difference. She had silver in her hair but her skin was smooth. Her eyes held the frank expression of an older woman but she giggled when she laughed and sounded like a child at those times. Like her brother, her hair was drawn into a dozen braids, hers all beaded and covered with wire and odds and ends. It should have looked preposterous, but it did not.

“My brother said you are a good man. He asked that we help you.”

That thought puzzled him greatly. The notion that Darsken Murdro would call him a good man made as little sense as the rest of his life of late.

“Yes, and thank you. But what have you done to the ship?”

“Two crews died here. Yours and the Brellar who owned the ship, yes?”

“Yes.”

Her voice carried that same lilt as all of her people and was almost a purr. “They are angry. They want justice. They want to taste the blood of their killers. If this does not happen, they will never rest properly. They will search for their killers until the end of time. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I think.” He had heard of the Lourons’ fixation with the dead. He understood it well enough to know they were not to be trifled with. “And so we have offered them a map. It is carved into your boat. Their boat. They will guide you. We will sail with you.”

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“For the dead. They will have a voice again, if only for a while. When they are at peace, we can be at peace.”

She smiled as she spoke and then she called out to the crew around him. They called back, some loudly and some with nothing but a gesture.

Satisfied, Daivem looked to him again. “We are ready.”

“Then let’s get to it.” He didn’t give himself enough time to think and get nervous. If he did that he might well tell them to let some other fool be their captain. He owed his crew, however, and he owed the Brellar. If not for his actions they would all likely still be alive. He had led his crew, and the Brellar had been brought into negotiations with the Empire because of his suggestions and actions.

The ship lurched as the anchors were raised and the sails were spread.

Callan looked at the sky and frowned. “What is wrong with the clouds?”

They danced and shifted in a way that was not at all to his liking. They seemed oddly out of focus, even when he looked directly at them.

“The clouds are fine. We have found ways to go faster than other ships. We will meet up with our enemies in hours.”

“In
hours
?” Despite his willingness to fight against the enemy, he had rather been hoping for a few weeks in which they could get more of themselves killed.

“In hours,” Daivem confirmed.

“But they have had
weeks
.”

“The dead have watched. The dead have waited. They wish to wait no longer.”

He wished the woman would stop speaking of the dead as if they were alive. The thought made his skin shiver as if fevered.

Callan knew the coastline better than most. He was shocked to see that they had travelled much farther than should have been possible an hour into their voyage. The man currently steering the ship did not look his way, but instead focused on the wheel. The rest of the crew stayed busy.

Daivem was close by and he called to her. “How does he know where to go? I haven’t told him.”

“
You
do not know where to go. Why would he ask you?”

Her logic was solid.

“Just the same, where are we going and how does he know?”

“Look carefully at your helmsman and tell me what you see.” The dark-skinned man was the same as before when he looked but there was something there, a smudge in the air that made no sense.

Daivem’s long fingers moved up the back of his neck and into the tangle of hair on the back of his skull. “Look carefully,” she whispered.

He looked and saw Vonders there, holding the wheel with the helmsman. Vonders whom he’d seen killed. Vonders whom he’d mourned.

“The dead know the way to retribution, Captain Callan. They have no secrets from us.”

Callan nodded and stayed where he was, cold and dread-filled in the warm ocean breeze. The miles went quickly, very quickly indeed.

Andover woke from a doze. He was still on Gorwich’s broad back. “You sleep like the dead,” the mount observed.

“And you stink like the dead, oaf.” The words were spoken with affection on both sides.

Andover looked around carefully. They had reached the passage between the mountains. Canhoon was above them, so high up it barely seemed possible that the shape was a city. Wrommish had moved, according to Drask. The winds from the north blew hot enough to convince Andover that the man was right, even if the gods had not told him already.

Drask rode next to him on the left, with Tega riding behind him. On the right Nolan March sat on Delil’s mount, where Delil’s body still rode. Nolan still offered no expression. How he rode without falling Andover could not begin to guess.

Delil did not rot. She should have been a reeking mess after the time they’d spent riding, but she was not.

“Should we not be closer?” Andover yawned as he spoke.

“We are where we need to be,” Drask replied. “We are days away from the Great Tide, Andover Lashk.”

“Have the gods ever raised the dead before, Drask?”

“You know the answer to this already, Andover.”

“I know one answer. I know that nothing ever goes to waste. I know that the punished come back as the Broken or as the Pra-Moresh. I know that the worthiest come back as mounts. But have the Daxar Taalor ever resurrected someone as they were before they died?”