The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (34 page)

*****

Sarovy was in the middle of a sketch when the knock came.  He glanced to his time-candle.  Somewhat less than a mark had passed.

“
Enter,” he said, and set his quill down.

The door opened and Lieutenant Linciard stepped in, looking quite a bit more composed.  After him came Specialist Weshker.  And after him…

Sarovy stood automatically as the Corvishwoman entered the room.

She was a tiny thing, scowling, in a slave-woman’s plain dress with her coppery hair bound in a loose tail.  Her dark eyes swept Sarovy’s office then came to rest on him like the tips of two knives.

“Sir, I found them together in an alley,” said Linciard.  “You said you wanted to speak with her, so—“

“
Yes, lieutenant, very good,” said Sarovy.  He gestured to the chair folded against the wall.  “Sit, Miss…Sanava, was it?”

“
Sanava en-Verosh,” the woman said curtly, and did not move.  Linciard closed the door and took up a guard position beside it, arms crossed, while Weshker stared at the far wall like he wished he was on the other side of it.

“
I am Captain Firkad Sarovy, commander of Blaze Company,” said Sarovy, undaunted.  “I am aware that you have been observing Specialist Weshker, and that you were close to attempting to assassinate the Crimson General.  I would like to understand why.”

He heard Linciard’s surprised inhale, but did not look away from the woman.  Nor did she turn from him.  Unblinking, she stared him down across his desk, upper lip flickering over her sharp little teeth.

“Why yeh care?” she said at last, her accent far thicker than Weshker’s.

“
I do not think that you were interested in assassination, merely vengeance.  You backed off when you saw that Weshker had been freed.  I would know what you want with him.”

Sanava shot a hard look at Weshker and hissed, “
E’sengategi.
”  Weshker stiffened.  “
Drak khresihn ran tel tioren kithe auseruen.  Kav unkeinin.  Kav—
“

“
Esholvekha
!” Weshker snapped, baring his teeth at her.

She spat at him in response.

“Stop,” Sarovy barked as Weshker turned, his face clenched and his hand raised to smack her.  He stared at the Corvishman until Weshker let his arm fall and looked away again.

“
She said I joined the enemy,” Weshker muttered.  “She was insultin’ me.”

“
Yeh did,” the woman said harshly.  “
Isk viri, durnio vakyaeni—
“

“
Imperial.  Speak Imperial,” said Sarovy.

“
She dun speak it well,” said Weshker, glaring at the wall again.  “She said our clothes is bloody.  That’s what we call the Crimson Army, yeh know. 
Ilvargiten Vakyaeni
.  Bloody Army.”

Sarovy shook his head slowly, watching the woman.  “I am not here to mediate between you two.  I want to know her interest in you and what influence she has here.”

The woman stared at him flintily.  After a moment, Weshker sighed and jabbered something at her in their language.

Sanava’s eyes narrowed, and she said, “
Eyirra en-Zolvin T’okiel tivan.  Kav drakvenvagi.
”

“
Tel ruenvyekh
?”

“
Gih Trifolders.  Gih shaidaxruen.  Vylina esvetagi.  Ninnet koshdun.
”

Sarovy looked to Weshker expectantly.  For a moment the Corvishman just stared past him, expression a mix of unease and memory and plain fear.  Then he mumbled, “Stuff about the spirits.  The Old Crow.  An’ she say she knows Trifolders an’ Shadow Folk an’ such.  They’re everywhere.”

“In this army?”

“
Yeh.”

Sarovy grimaced.  As if being surrounded by abominations was not enough.  “In the slave camps, I imagine.”

Weshker nodded slowly.  “I knew some there m’self.  But she angry at me because I guess I’m supposed t’ be a spirit-speaker.”  He patted his left upper arm, where his deactivated slave-brand would be.  “Ain’t ever been trained though.  There was jus’, um, some birds when that ropy thing, that sarisigi en-dalur—“

Whiteness filled Sarovy’s vision.  He pressed it back, blinking rapidly, and saw Sanava straighten stiff as a rod as she hissed something at Weshker that included the phrase itself.  Weshker nodded to her warily.  For a moment, they were both very still.

Then the blades flashed out—hers from slits in her skirt, his from the crossed sheaths at the small of his back—and they would have been at each other’s throats had not Linciard grabbed the woman and flung her against the door.  She rebounded off it and sat down hard, eyes wide, as if she had forgotten they were not alone.

“
Weshker,” Sarovy snapped, and the Corvishman froze in mid-lunge.  “Stand down.”

“
She think I’m that thing,” Weshker growled.

“
I’m quite certain you’re not.”

Linciard had the woman at swordpoint now, and she stayed on the floor, glaring at them each in turn.  Weshker said something to her that included Trifolders, and Sarovy guessed that he was recounting his time in the infirmary.  The woman scowled, but eventually hiked up the skirts of her dress and slid the blades into the sheaths on her thighs.  Beside the belt and straps they hung from, she wore nothing underneath, and Sarovy averted his eyes from the patch of red fur.

Weshker sheathed his blades as well.  He had better than those two, including a regulation sword, which made Sarovy think the attempted knife-fight had been some kind of Corvish cultural thing—some kind of challenge.  He pressed fingertips to his brow and tried to quell his temper.

“
Lieutenant, take her outside for a moment,” he said.  Linciard hesitated, then nodded curtly and gestured with his sword, and Sanava rose with an angry toss of her hair.  They stepped out, the door clicking shut behind them.

Sarovy took a deep breath, then said, “Weshker, I have an assignment for you.  Get in that woman’s good graces.”

The blood drained from Weshker’s face.  “She jes’—“

“
I don’t care.  You said you specialize in crows.  She seems to know about it.  Pursue it.”

“
But—“

“
It is not a request.  Go escort her to her barrack, do what you must to arrange some kind of lessons, then return.  We need to talk about that…thing.”

Weshker blanched, but nodded.  “Yessir.”

“Dismissed.”

The Corvishman snapped a reasonable salute, then pulled the door open and slipped out.  Sarovy heard discussion through the gap, then Linciard peeked in questioningly.  “He has permission,” Sarovy said.  The lieutenant ducked back out, and after another brief discussion, he heard a sword being sheathed, then footsteps moving away.

He retook his seat, considered the paperwork still stacked before him, and was about to call for someone to close the accursed door when Linciard slid in and shut it behind him.  The lieutenant’s expression was strained, and he kept his eyes down as if afraid to meet Sarovy’s.

“
Um, sir.  I meant to tell you, as my superior,” he said.

“
Tell me what?”

The lieutenant opened his mouth, then seemed to lose his nerve.  The roil of emotions on his long face told Sarovy everything.  With a sigh, Sarovy sat back in his camp-chair.  “This is about the inoculation incident, yes?”

“Er…”

“
How long have I been your superior, lieutenant?”

“
Six years, sir.  Since I joined the Crimson.”

“
It took you six years and an encounter with a…’best man’ to think of mentioning it?”

Linciard winced.

Though he had more to say, Sarovy lapsed into silence, watching Linciard try not to fidget.  It was cruel, but the lieutenant had brought it upon himself.

“
Erolan,” he said finally, “it’s in your file.”

The lieutenant’s head snapped up.  “What?”

“Your file.  The one I’ve had access to since I became captain.  I'm not a westerner, lieutenant; I don't consider your personal life my business.  But for the record, your file commends your discretion.”

Linciard’s face went bright red.  He made several useless sounds that might have been embarrassment or indignation, then closed his eyes and made a visible effort to compose himself.  “I…see,” he said, his voice strangled.  “And so you let me volunteer for the lagalaina’s inoculation.”

“It was a gamble, which succeeded.  We now know that the lagalaina disdains you.  Perhaps she cannot affect you at all.”

Linciard’s mouth twitched, and he nodded marginally.  “Perhaps, though from what Sergeant Rallant was saying, his kind can influence everyone.  Maybe hers can too.  I just thought, you’re the commander.  We can’t let anything happen to you.  But then you let her bite you anyway.”

“I do not think I can back down in front of the specialists.”

“
No, sir.  Probably not.”

“
Inform me immediately if you start feeling strange.  I do not want secrets.”

“
Of course, sir.”

“
And watch yourself.  You are an officer now.  We have rules about fraternization.”

Linciard flushed and ducked his head.  “Yes sir.  I won’t let you down.”

“Good.  Is that all?”

“
Er…  Well…”  Linciard glanced at the door, then stepped toward the desk, lowering his voice as if suspecting an eavesdropper.  “Are you sure about all this, sir?  The Corvish and the biting and everything?  Like the Scryer said, this could turn on us.  Who knows what those monsters are thinking?”

Sarovy calmly flipped the top page of his work face-down and laced his hands over it.  “This is the task we have been set,” he said, “and these are the tools we have been given.  We will use them, lieutenant, for the good of the Crimson Claw, for that is our purpose.”

“But the Corvish—“

“
Your concern is noted, but this is not up for discussion.  Anything else?”

“
No, sir.”

“
Then you are dismissed.”

Linciard drew up in salute and Sarovy returned it, then waited as the lieutenant made his exit.  For a time afterward, he stared into space, the day’s events swimming restlessly in his head.

Then, finally, he turned the page face-up again, and looked down at the obsessive scrawl of sketches.  The ropy, clay-fleshed creature in all its twisted poses—the thing that had plagued him since he had saved Weshker from it.

The sarisigi en-dalur.

He pressed fingertips to his brow and tried to tell himself that all was well.

*****

Weshker had often dreamed of this situation: walking a woman back to her place with the anticipation of more.  He was even under orders to do what was necessary, and he could hardly contain his excitement.

The only damper on that was Sanava.  She walked beside him calmly, her gaze fixed ahead with all the expression of a stone fox, and though he had gallantly offered his arm, her grip on him sank nails in even through his uniform coat.  He tried not to wince, but all he could think was that he did not want to feel those nails elsewhere.

As he escorted her into the northern women’s area, he judged the possibilities of fun and of maiming to be approximately equal.

There were more than a thousand women in the Crimson camp, slave and free, separated into two areas surrounded by freesoldier barracks.  The eastern area held mostly free women, who did kitchen and laundry duties and ran two of the four infirmaries, plus provided childcare for those that had been born on the campaign.

The northern women’s area was larger, mostly slave, and not nearly so benign.  As Weshker and Sanava turned the corner, raucous laughter rang out, followed by the sound of a slap and a yelp.

Trestle tables had been set up in the street between the barracks, and men in uniform filled the benches, taking advantage of the remaining light to get a drink and ogle the slave women who served them.  All the slave women wore white dresses, some thin enough to be translucent in the sun, while in the doorways of the nearby bunkhouses, stony-faced matrons in red sashes and vests stood watch over the gathering and took coins as couples went in.

A few of the slave women flirted openly with the men, but most wore stiff smiles and did their best to avoid the hands as they poured drinks.  The alcohol here was not on ration, unlike the rest of the camp—where the beer was thin and tasteless and used in place of water when the water ran foul.  Here, the soldiers paid for it like they paid for the women, but there was plenty to go around.  Coins changed hands, cards lay neglected on the tables, and a few women had already ensconced themselves in men’s laps though it was still broad daylight.  Not that time mattered, with all the different shifts; Weshker had come here twice since being freed and the scene never really changed.