The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (18 page)

He hit the turf, disoriented, and heard a woman’s snarl, a beast’s yelp.  The tide of fur flowed backward to straddle him, vibrating with anger.  He blinked and shook his head, raised it to see Dasira standing between Arik and Lark, who looked thoroughly rattled.  The blonde bodyguard was just lowering her booted foot, the hobnails in its sole speckled with red.

“
Oh my goddess,” said Fiora from the sidelines.  “Maybe we should calm down.”

Cob patted Arik's bristling flank, already regretting this.  The wolf raised one ear from its flattened position but did not break his gaze on the two women; a thin thread of blood drooled from his muzzle.  “S’all right,” Cob said.  “Stand down.”

The wolf growled once more, then sneezed a red wad into the moss and sat back.  Crackles sounded from within his muzzle, then from skull and shoulders and spine as he slowly shifted toward humanoid.

Instead of looking at the women, Cob looked for the armband.  It had fallen halfway between them, so he stood reluctantly to retrieve it.  His ankle throbbed but already the Guardian was at work on it, blessedly without comment.  The women backed up as he approached, Lark skittish, Dasira calm.

“Look, I shouldn’ta done that,” he mumbled, not raising his head as he pushed the band up under his sleeve where it belonged.  “But you made me mad.”

“
You think you’re the only one?” Lark snapped.  “Where’s my baby?  Where’s Rian?”

He glanced up guiltily.  “He’s…  I dunno.  I think he got out with the mage.”

“Mage?  A
mage
? 
What mage?
”

“
In Thynbell, this fellow they locked me up with.  I got him out—I think—”

Lark made to lunge past Dasira but the blonde woman caught her neatly around the waist and flung her backward, strong for such a small thing.  Cursing, Lark regained her balance and attempted another run but then Fiora was there as well, grabbing her by the coat while Dasira got her arm, and together they held her back.

“I hate you!” Lark shrieked, thrashing in their grip.  “You bastard, you ruin everything you touch!”

Cob watched uncomfortably as the two women wrestled to keep Lark under control and finally turned her away, walking her toward the entwined trees and the crystal.  Adrenaline still pounded in his head, anger in his veins, and he clutched at the armband through his sleeve, where it nestled once more in its place over his slave brand.

Let it go.  You’re the leader now.  You have to be responsible, stay calm, stay sane.  Not just you and a wolf anymore.  Now it’s you and a wolf and a wraith and a pack of women.

Anyway, it was your fault.

The sound of sobs filtered through the cluster of women, and he winced and rose slowly, brushing himself off.  The skinchanger rose beside him, beastman-shaped now, and slung a heavy furred arm across his shoulders.  He wanted to shrug it away but made himself accept.

“
Go say sorry,” Arik growled softly.  “Is right.”

Cob would rather have chewed his own tongue off, but nodded reluctantly.  Fiora and Dasira shot warning looks at him as he approached, and he wondered if he should circle wide like with a draft-hog.  Out of eye-gouging range.  “Look, Lark, I’m—“

“Not talking to you,” the girl said, voice watery.

“
But—“

“
No.”  She lifted her head and fixed him with a look that could cut glass.  Her eye-paint had run, drawing thin red smears down her cheeks, but her face was set firm.  “If you talk, I will scream.  So just walk.”

Cob glanced to the wolfbeast, who shrugged massive shoulders, then to Ilshenrir, who seemed completely indifferent.

“All right,” he said.  “We’re goin’.”

As he retrieved his rucksack and started into the trees, the five of them trailing behind him, he thought,
This is what I get for leaving the Light.

In southern Illane, the rain drummed steadily on the roof of the main Blaze Company bunkhouse.  Captain Firkad Sarovy tapped his fingers on the table in idle echo and frowned at the mage at the other end, Scryer Makoura Jaedani Yrsian—or Scryer Mako, as she preferred.

“Would you stop that?” Scryer Mako said, squinting at her cards.  She was a dainty little Riddishwoman with bobbed chestnut-brown hair, a pert demeanor and a robe that showed enough cleavage to count as a dress.  “I don’t play very often, I need a moment to think.”

Beside her, Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek scowled.  “You’ve said that every time.”  He was the head of the Blaze Company Special Platoon, a burly northerner with a touch of ogre blood ruddying his complexion, and sat with his uniform coat open and shirt off, a gold pendant half-hidden in his forest of black chest-hair.  His gaze flicked slyly to Sarovy, then returned to the neckline of the scryer’s robe again, ugly face twisted in a mix of annoyance and lewdness.

Not for the first time, Sarovy regretted not assigning the seating.

It was Cylanmont 7
th
, fifteen days since his appointment as the captain of the still half-formed Blaze Company.  The Crimson General, Crown Prince Kelturin Aradysson, had mandated its creation personally, but what with Illane's current batch of storms, progress in assembling it had been slow.  The rise of the Losgannon River last week had turned the command-post hill into an island and threatened to wipe out half of the camp’s warehouses, so most of the camp’s men—those who had not been hit by the current wave of retching fever—had been focused on berming and sandbagging every inch they could.  No one had expected to be stuck besieging Kanrodi for this long, and now they were suffering for it.

Into this ragged, weary mood, Sarovy had poured a few extra alcohol rations and tried to hold some preliminary meetings.

When full, Blaze Company would be comprised of two-hundred and thirteen men split into five platoons.  At the moment, he only had three: the Lancer platoon in which he had been lieutenant, a surprisingly mixed Archer platoon, and the Specialist platoon led by Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek.  Though he had met with the first two groups, this was his first sit-down with the command staff of the Specialists, not so much to discuss any plans as to simply take their measure.

Technically three of the eight individuals he had called here were not Specialists—Scryer Mako, Magus Revek Voorkei with whom Sarovy had worked before, and newly-commissioned Lancer-Lieutenant Erolan Linciard—but he had yet to meet with the two mages officially, and Lieutenant Linciard had insisted that he not run this meeting alone.  Linciard sat at his right hand now, near the keg; a gregarious Wynd, he had been refilling mugs throughout the game but Sarovy had noted him not drinking much.

Not that Sarovy had touched his own mug.

He had gotten Linciard commissioned to the lieutenancy partially on merit and partially from practicality.  He wanted a soldier he already knew, not a transfer, and while Sergeant Benson would have been his first choice, Benson was as flexible as a brick.  And rather bookish; as Sarovy’s sergeant, he had overseen logistics more than soldiering and made it clear he liked it that way.

On the other hand, Linciard was a splendid lancer—aggressive, daring, yet good-natured when off the horse—and also a commoner, at ease with the men.  Sarovy had always had trouble with that.  Protective as he felt toward his soldiers, his nature was distance, and he knew they thought him cold.  He hoped that Linciard could help to balance his command, as he had balanced his former Captain Terrant’s rages with his own calm.

And should Linciard fail at the task, Sarovy knew that Sergeant Benson would tell him in detail.

Scryer Mako was the newest addition as of this morning.  She had been the Crimson General’s personal scryer as well as his not-so-secret lover, but it was rumored that she had been flung out of the General’s cabin, naked, in the middle of the storm last night.

If so, she did not seem perturbed by it, but she was a mentalist.  They were largely inscrutable.

She slapped down a trio of tens beside her other sets of cards—her ‘bounties’ in their game of Cutthroat—and said, “There.  Anyone care to block me?”

On her other side, Specialist-Sergeant Presh said, “Pass.”  He was Padrastan—a bronze-skinned, black-haired, sly-eyed collaborator from the kingdom to which Kanrodi belonged—and according to his personnel file, he was also a serpent-mage.  This bothered Sarovy on multiple levels: first, that the Army had recruited a Dark-magic practitioner; second, that Presh was not permitted in the Silent Circle ranks and thus could not be regulated by them; and third, that he therefore was not required to wear a robe, as all Imperial mages did to identify themselves.

He was also Houndmaster-Lieutenant Vrallek’s second-in-command.

Unfortunately, he had been appointed to his post by the Crimson General and vetted by the Inquisitor Archmagus, and so Sarovy could not object on any of those grounds.  He would simply have to watch for trouble.

Beside Presh, one of the black-uniformed scouts consulted his cards, then said, “Pass.”  The other one echoed him, and they both sat back.  They were Corporals Coyle and Avran, and though they were distinctly different—one a Trivestean like Sarovy, thin and coal-haired, the other Riddish, ruddy, short—he found himself forgetting which was which any time he looked away.  It was maddening.  He was not even certain that these were the true Coyle and Avran, as every scout in the Specialist Platoon had the same personnel file, minus name and rank.

Continuing around the circle, Lieutenant Linciard scratched his sandy-blond scruff of beard and shrugged at the scryer.  “Looks like you’ve foxed us again.”

Scryer Mako beamed at him, then looked to Sarovy.

He waved her on.  He did not need to look at his cards, face-down on the table beside his own bounties; he had memorized them.

To his left, the only scout who had a normal personnel file said, "Heh.  Still out."  Specialist Weshker had not been paid yet, having just been raised from slave-worker to freesoldier, and though he had accepted Vrallek's loan of a few bronze rakar to play at the start, he was now in hock to the northerner.  He was very bad at cards, despite being a Corvishman and thus, presumably, quite adept at bluffing and cheating.

Sarovy had been keeping him close since their assignment to Blaze Company, thus his presence here despite his lack of rank.  It had been a scant two weeks since Weshker had fallen at Sarovy’s feet, near death from an assault by a monster within the walls of the Army camp—a clay-like creature that now plagued Sarovy’s dreams—and he had the sense that they were both still in danger for having seen it.

He had not voiced these concerns, nor any whisper of the incident, to any others.  Only Colonel Wreth, his aide, and a medic knew of it.  Should retribution come, he would know its source.

Beyond Weshker, the half-ogre mage Revek Voorkei gnashed his tusk-like teeth around his pipe, then shook his head.  “Hyou vait us,” he said to Scryer Mako, and crossed long bony arms over the many strands of beads, rocks, claws and teeth that covered his orange-robed chest.  The plume of rashi smoke he exhaled barely masked his own pungent stink, strong in these close and humid quarters.  Sarovy hoped he would not have to grow used to it.  They had worked together on the Guardian pursuit, and as a Gejaran Voorkei was a perfectly competent mage, but as with Presh, Sarovy resented having non-Imperials in his company.  Again, it was at the Inquisitor Archmagus’ command.

“Bait you?  Why would I do that?” said Scryer Mako.

Between them, Houndmaster Vrallek sat forward eagerly to slap down a card: the Herald of Swords, one of the Cutthroats of the game.  “I capture your trio,” he said, pointing to the cards that Scryer Mako had just set down.  “And then I win.  With that, my bounties beat yours.”

Calmly, Scryer Mako tossed another card down upon the Houndmaster’s Herald.  It was the Herald of Gems, an equal-ranked Cutthroat.  “Tie goes to the defender,” she told the northerner.  “The bounty is mine.”

Triumph convulsed into anger on the Houndmaster’s face.  He half-rose from his seat, and Sarovy said, “Houndmaster-Lieutenant,” sharply enough that the northerner’s attention snapped to him.  After a long stare, the ugly man grunted and sat down.

“I knew she had that,” muttered one of the scouts.

Sarovy added Scryer Mako’s newest bounty to the slate where he had been counting.  Their value edged past Vrallek’s for the third time in a row.  “Endgame,” he said, noting they had finished the dregs of the deck.  “Any other bounties, claim them now.”

“Just singles,” said one of the corporals, flicking his cards into the middle.  The others claimed a pair here and there, but Vrallek threw all his cards down in anger and no one else surpassed Scryer Mako’s count.

Sarovy declared the win, and as Scryer Mako leaned forward to gather her winnings, he saw every eye but Linciard’s turn to her cleavage.  He sighed inwardly.  Not that it was a bad view, but that sort of behavior was distracting.

He had no objection to women in the Armies.  Military service was compulsory for Trivestean girls as well as boys, and many went on to careers in soldiering, but they knew how to dress for the job.  As Scryer Mako counted her coins, he watched Vrallek’s eyes flick from the stacks to her neckline and back, expression contorting in a mix of emotions he never liked to see.  Bruised ego, vindictiveness, lust.

The beer was too weak to be blamed.  The Houndmaster-Lieutenant had a file full of commendations for the discipline he instilled in the Specialists, but evidently that discipline did not extend to himself.

“Well, I think that’s enough for today,” said Scryer Mako brightly.  She stood, and as if by reflex, Vrallek stood as well.  He loomed over the petite scryer, seven feet tall to her bare five, his teeth bared slightly, and Sarovy pushed from his chair with a thick feeling in his throat.  He hated this part.

Beside him, Linciard started to rise, but the others just watched—Weshker and Voorkei warily, the others almost avid.  In the tension, Scryer Mako looked at Vrallek slantwise, then dimpled and reached up to pat his hairy cheek with her fine little hand.  “Rematch tomorrow?”

For a moment Sarovy thought Vrallek would bite her.  Then the beast left his features, though the anger did not.  “Come around tonight and I’ll show you a proper handful,” he said through his teeth.

“
Oh?  Just one?”

Beside her, Sergeant Presh smothered a laugh.

Vrallek’s gaze snapped to Presh and with a snarl, he leaned across the table, one massive hand reaching for the Padrastan mage.  Before Sarovy could shout, Magus Voorkei lurched up and intercepted the northerner’s arm, and said, “
Au gezihn, aher-ghreshegi.
”

“
A’tirinihn
,” Vrallek growled, and yanked his arm free.  Magus Voorkei bared his tusks and loomed, taller than Vrallek by a hand but skinny as a coat-rack covered in ornaments, and gargled more ogrish at the officer.  Vrallek responded in kind, red-faced with anger.

“
I think he jus’ called ‘im a hog-raper,” Weshker mumbled in bemusement.

Sarovy clenched his teeth, loath to get between two ogres but aware that it was necessary.  “Both of you, sit down,” he said sharply.  The ogre-bloods broke off their argument to stare at him, Magus Voorkei grinning through snaggle-teeth but Vrallek’s gaze showing only contempt.

That was unacceptable.  He held the Houndmaster’s gaze, unflinching, as the contempt switched to black amusement, then blatant challenge.  From the moment Scryer Mako had walked in, Houndmaster Vrallek had alternated leers and sneers at her with quick glances at Sarovy, like a dog testing the limits of its chain, and though Sarovy had reprimanded him several times, he had let Scryer Mako handle herself more often; for all that she was tiny, she was both Riddish and a mentalist, and therefore capable of fending for herself.  She deserved the opportunity to show it.

But this was something else.  More than a big man trying to dominate the one woman in the group; more than a superior officer lording over his subordinates.  Sarovy was Vrallek’s commander, but that seemed to mean little to the Houndmaster.  His thick brows were lifted, his upper lip flickering over his teeth, and in the lamplight his eyes were a strange color—ruddy brown, almost red, and reduced to just a thin rim around his pupils.

A crawling sensation went up Sarovy’s spine.  All had gone quiet around them, as if they were in a tunnel, the rest of the world distant.  He felt his own lip twitch toward a snarl.  Something was changing in the Houndmaster’s eyes.  Moving…

Pressure coalesced deep in his head, like a hand had reached into his skull and clenched.  His vision wiggled. 
The Scryer
, he thought first, but there was no itch of mentalism, so he narrowed his eyes and refused to blink.  The strangeness in Vrallek’s gaze burned into him, mocking, pushing like a physical force.  Trying to bend him.

His jaw clenched.  He was a Trivestean, a cold and proud son of the Sarovingian house.  He would not submit to one of his own soldiers, no matter what tricks they pulled.

Without thought, he touched the lump that was the six-winged Light pendant beneath his uniform shirt.

—
and Vrallek’s eyes were crimson, his pupils black stars, the face around them not ruddy flesh but pale plates of chitin with a mouth cut from ear to ear, showing teeth like the blade of a saw
—