Steel And Flame (Book 1) (47 page)

When he’d first heard that large scale trouble brewed
in Tullainia, Colbey had been elated.  Was this it?  Was it part of the
Tullainian aristocracy who had organized the raid on his home?  Were they
making their move?  The Rovasii
was
closer to the western border than
any other.

No one could tell him the trouble’s exact nature.  His
sudden interaction with the other men in the specialist units, along with his
many questions, left his squad fellows unsettled.  A massive conflict brewed,
everyone told him, one which forced both sides to gather as many fighters as
they could.  The highlords involved were influential enough to reach far, and
the head-to-head conflict would involve mercenaries from outside their
kingdom.  Highlord Faylin-dow had sent representatives to the top bands in
Galemar, requesting only their most skilled, while Highlord Markis-gune had
brought in the best fighters from Perrisan who were willing to leave their
desert.  All the available bands in Tullainia, good or poor, were divided
between the two.  With their own standing armsmen, it would be a battle of
thousands versus thousands.

The Kings had sent Squads Two and Three, since
Faylin-Dow’s recruiter requested specialists.  But once they arrived and talked
to the armsmen employed by their contractor, Colbey learned it was just two
irritated highlords rattling their sabers at one another.  His spirits had
fallen for a long time while his frustrations mounted.

He had found slight interest in the job itself for
awhile, pleased at how easily he could defeat these outlanders.  The Second and
Third Squads did behind-the-lines work; scouting enemy movements or making
occasional strikes at a supply line.

The Guardian had never been in Tullainia before.  It
interested him mildly, except he soon learned that its people were as foolish
and stupid as the Galemarans.  Lack of intelligence, it seemed, was not an
affliction stopped by borders.

Colbey had spent the spring and summer moving as
directed, choosing only to become involved when fighting arose.  On those
occasions he merely concentrated on the fighting, unconcerned with the reasons
behind it.

He reserved his mental energies for his thoughts.  If
these men were not the ones he sought, then where were they?  Perhaps across
the opposite border in Nolier?  If so, they must have traveled along the
southern coast in boats and penetrated the forest from the south, through the
sealed areas.  That might explain why the Guardians had been caught off guard. 
With only ocean facing the southern Rovasii, no outsiders ever wandered into
the groves from that direction.

Of course, they might still have originated from
Tullainia, coming from deeper in than he had journeyed.  The Tullainians also
could have sailed by boat, or these two highlords might have been behind the
attack after all.  Colbey felt that unlikely.  In so large a conflict as this,
surely they would produce the horrors that had killed the villagers in order to
dominate their opponent, if they had access to such demonic creatures.  Yet he
had seen neither hide nor hair of them.  With the descriptions he’d gathered
from his fellow villagers, he would know the monsters when he saw one.

Perhaps they had come from the north, from Perrisan,
but wouldn’t they have attracted attention marching across the countryside if
that were the case?  Colbey had kept his ears open even though he avoided
socializing.  No rumors of terrifying beast-things nor unusually clad strangers
reached him.  They could never have crossed the Stygan Gulf.  That would have
attracted equal attention.

Colbey kept turning the questions over in his head,
never coming any closer to an answer.  He told himself to be patient, as hard
as such a course would be.  The bastards would show their hand soon, and then he
would make them know their mistake in making him their enemy.

It considerably soured his mood further that half the
men he’d marked as possibly being useful to him had gotten themselves killed
during the war in Tullainia. 
That’s what comes from being one of these
foolish outlanders,
he thought bitterly. 
You’re better than the fools
around you, so you believe yourself a capable warrior in truth.  Then you get
yourself in a situation you can’t handle because you could not recognize your
own weaknesses, and look what happens.

He needed to completely revise his plans for using
these cattle.  If he’d had the opportunity to pull them aside and show them how
to be true warriors, they might have aided him.  That had not happened and he
knew now it never would.  When the confrontation finally came, he would need to
play it fast and loose, taking the opportunities as they came.  Not a good
strategy when planning a battle, depending on chance and lucky breaks, but his
options were narrow at the moment.

Again he waited in Kingshome, watching the chattel
squads return as the fighting season drew to a close.  He perched on the
eastern wall above where the grooms and the stable master were releasing
several horses returned by whichever squad had used them.  When the last gate
opened, they galloped down the slope to the sunken vale and the pond and their
waiting herd mates.

Homesickness struck him harshly while he watched the
distant horses trot upslope to greet their newly returned relatives and nuzzle
their noses.  His home was gone.  He had no place to return to, no one to
welcome him back from his journeys.

Colbey closed his eyes.  He wanted to remember his
village as it had been.  Only the images of smoking wreckage and light
glistening off tears running down the weathered checks of a dying old man
remained.

I will not cry, damn it all!  I am not so weak as
that!

He had not even the comfort of his past to retreat to
anymore.  All had been stolen from him by those he vowed to find and make pay
for their sins.

Perhaps he could return one day to what Thomas and the
others managed to rebuild.  He could hopefully bury the searing memories of the
past under the experiences of the present.  Perhaps he might one day find
peace.

But that would be long years in the future, if indeed
he could ever return.  Too much remained unfinished, and it would all happen
far too quickly once it began.  Without proper knowledge regarding his quarry
he could not adequately prepare, could not use this null time of sitting in the
barracks, listening to his squad mates rehash old glories and watching the
horizon from atop the walls.  The days trickled away down history’s stream,
unused and that much time less before the enemy appeared.  One day closer to
his battle.  One day fewer to ready himself.

Colbey brooded and he knew it.  No deductions came to
mind which he had not already rehashed a thousand times before, so he decided
to spend the evening practicing his Guardian drills.  He did this alone, in the
woods beyond the walls where no one would interrupt him, where no others would
see him.  Not that any of these deluded outlanders would learn anything by
watching him.  Except better to be on the safe side.

While on the road these past months, he’d found few
opportunities to slip away and meditate or practice the highly complex Euvea
Guardian skills.  Not that it mattered overmuch.  Once mastered, they would
always be available to him.

The summer’s fighting had offered ample opportunity to
exercise the skills which qualified him as an advanced scout, yet those
sprawling battles had required none of the higher skills needed in the sealed
areas, skills which distinguished the Guardians from the regular scouts.  That
had, after all, only been a conflict between men.

Colbey was a nearly qualified Guardian.  He had only
to finish the training that would grant him mastery over the final higher
techniques.  If Farr had been alive to teach those final lessons, Colbey would
have achieved the highest scout rank available in a month or so.

He shook his head while he walked along the wall,
determined not to dwell on the might-have-beens as he did too often already. 
After wallowing in a sea of self-pity and misery, he would be even more
temperamental than usual with his squad mates for several days.

When he reached the southern wall, he prepared to jump
down the planks beside the postern gate so he could leave the compound. 
Movement on the road caught his attention.  A squad returning from their
journeys, riding at a much faster pace than the others.

Probably in a hurry to drown themselves in the nearest
tavern,
he thought cynically.  The
only matters of consequence to these men were their weapons and their ale, not
necessarily in that order.

Colbey watched them ride hard, seeing a half-squad
rather than a full.  The two riders at the head would be the unit sergeants, so
it was not a full squad hit by excessive casualties.  One man broke away to
gallop faster toward the gate.  He shouted at the Homeguard, pausing only long
enough to flash his Crimson Kings tag that proved him a band member.

Too far away to hear the shouted words, Colbey toyed
with the idea of enhancing his senses to expand his hearing range.  But then he
thought,
What’s the point?  It’s a ragged batch of outlanders scurrying like
ants, on business of no importance to anyone except themselves.

Once inside the man galloped through the town, yelling
at anybody in his way.  He disappeared behind a building, leaving Colbey’s
thoughts as he left his sight.  Colbey returned his attention to the procession
on the road.

They trotted fast, visibly fretting at the pace set by
the slower wagon bringing up the rear.  A wagon they remained very close to. 
Farm horses pulled the wagon, rather than the war mounts bred and raised by the
band.  After they drew closer he saw past the riders to distinguish the wagon’s
load.

A very injured man lay on the flat bed atop a
collection of cloaks.  Bandages wrapped his body from neck to foot.  Every
cloak the company owned must line the cart, padding it to ease the strain of
travel on injured flesh.  Only the man’s head remained visible.  Colbey had
seen a similar injury before.

Once, while still training with the scouts, the
Guardians had brought back one of their own to the village’s true Healers. 
He’d encountered a fire salamander in a sealed area, a small creature that
looked harmless but which should never be underestimated under any
circumstances.  This Guardian’s encounter had resulted in severe burns all
across his body and the loss of his hair to the creature’s flames.  The Healer
had tended him for an eightday.  Owing to the expert ministrations, the
Guardian retained no scarring from the burns, though he’d held a superstitious
fear of untended flames forever afterward.

The man below must have been in a similar situation.  Either
he had been caught in a burning building or grassfire or run afoul of a magic
user.  Whichever, judging from the visible wounds, luck alone had kept him
alive.  Colbey tweaked his senses after all, taking a closer look at the body.

As ugly as it looked on the surface, the man must have
received a true Healing already, for the blisters were in recession.  Fresh
skin would grow from beneath.  The twisted scars and bulbous flesh that should
have covered him were absent.  Whoever performed the ministrations had repaired
the worst damage, then left his body to finish the remaining work.

This hardly meant the man would heal without a
blemish.  No, he would be marked from this encounter for the rest of his life. 
A gurgling groan escaped cracked lips, only heard by the scout owing to his
enhanced senses.  He revised his estimation.

If he recovers.  He’s not safely home yet.

The Homeguard, having been warned by the forerunner,
held the main gates open.  They rode into the Marching Grounds, halting when
the first rider returned with a pair of the band’s chirurgeons in tow.  After a
quick examination, the two took charge of the cart and drove it back the
direction they had come.  The squad waited uncertainly until ordered to return
their mounts by their sergeants who, seeing the men off, departed for the
command building.

Colbey descended the plank stairs and left through the
postern gate.  That had been a nice distraction from his own worries, but he
needed to get down to business.  While he walked toward the trees overlooking
the horses’ sunken vale, he reviewed his lessons in the higher Guardian
techniques.

Marik swam through the darkness clouding his mind,
dreaming bizarre dreams and fully aware of it.  He had never before been aware
while he dreamt, but no doubts about it plagued him concerning the realities he
walked through now.

His location constantly changed.  He relived his past,
events flashing by as though each scene were a card in a gambler’s deck,
shuffling through dexterous hands faster than the eye could follow.  One moment
he would be in the Randy Unicorn’s common room, tossing coppers down the alley
with Chatham encouraging him all the way, then he would step back through the
wall expecting to rejoin Harlan and Maddock at the table with their meal,
except they would no longer be there.  They were not there because he had left
the Randy Unicorn and stood instead in the stable-cum-barracks at Dornshold
with the rest of the Fourth Unit, arguing about who had bet what while Kerwin
gave out odds on the race involving four cockroaches the men had captured.  He
would step outside because he knew he needed to be there practicing his
swordsmanship, and if he was not then Landon and Kerwin would never find him
and he would miss whatever they were going to tell him.  When he stepped
through the doorway though, the courtyard had vanished, turning into the
Kingshome armory, and Dietrik stood arguing with Sennet about selling the
rapier set while Marik still decided if he should get a helm or not.  He turned
to ask the weapons master about the different advantages between styles, but
Sennet had become a caravan master in Tattersfield, telling him if he wanted
his coppers he had better unload everything from the third wagon and be quick
about it.

No sense of time pervaded the dream world.  Marik felt
trapped by the confines of his own mind.  Apparently knowing he dreamt granted
him no power over it, leaving him to repeat his life in this jigsaw manner over
and over.  Soon, he started screaming.

*        *        *        *        *

The head chirurgeon studied his patient.  With him
waited Sergeant Fraser, the leader of his patient’s unit.  A quiet calm filled
the room.  Quiet because he’d finally had enough and chased away the patient’s
friends, who kept pestering him with questions, interrupting his thoughts. 
Annoyed, he had shoved them into a room down the hall, telling them they could
return to their friend’s side once he felt gods damned good and ready to let
them.

For a greater number of years than he cared to count
he had practiced medicine.  The head chirurgeon had seen worse than this,
though not lately.  After retiring from battlefield work, the most he treated
these days were injuries suffered during the extensive practices the Crimson
Kings engaged in during the winter, or patching up men returned from said
fields of combat.  Often this consisted of re-breaking bones so they could heal
straight.  Anything other than minor injuries were handled by field
chirurgeons.  Life-threatening wounds usually killed the patient before he
could return.

The head chirurgeon had never been a man who strove to
relive his glory years and could have done without this particular mess falling
upon his shoulders.

“No one else survived then?”

“None that were hit,” the sergeant replied curtly.

“Do you know if he was hit directly by the spell, or
was it a glancing blow?”

“My man who witnessed it says it was a direct blow. 
The men to either side of him caught the edges.  They were incinerated.”

The chirurgeon shook his head.  “Magical injuries are
not within my normal practice, but I can see he’s been treated already.  Did
the Healer leave you any instructions?”

“It was a pair of priests and no, they only said
they’d done what they could and it was up to him from there on.”

“Priests?  What denomination?”

“I don’t know.  Whatever faith they were, it’s one
that lends healing powers to its true believers.”

“This could be worrisome.  Did they require he follow
their faith after this?  Certain faiths change the patients when they receive a
Healing.  It can effect the outcome if the one in question doesn’t accept it.”

“One of the men asked.  They don’t require such.”

The head chirurgeon nodded, storing the information
away.  “There’s little left to do then.  I can apply salves to help the
blistering and a few drafts that will boost his energy; his body will need it. 
But I don’t like the sound of his breathing.  He might be succumbing to
consumption.  I think we’ll need to keep clearing his lungs.”

The sergeant wanted a simple answer, same as every
other the head chirurgeon had dealt with during his time in this band.  “Will
he live?  Can he continue fighting?”

“Yes, I’m confident he’ll live after receiving the
Healing, if we keep an eye on him.  I’ll assign one of the new journeymen
chirurgeons to stay by his side, and I’ll check on him myself every few
candlemarks.  Fight?  I don’t know.  The priests you had work on him managed to
repair all of the lasting damage that I can see, but if the young man doesn’t
want to heal, he won’t.”

“Then he’ll heal.”

“Only as long as he believes he can.”

“He’ll heal,” the sergeant repeated.  “I know his
type.  He’ll want to be out working with his sword as soon as he wakes.”

“About that…”

“You want to have him tested?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve already broached the subject with Commander
Torrance.  He promised to have Tollaf come over and check my lad out.”

“I think I can tell you what he’ll find.  It’s the
only reason I can think of that would account for his surviving a direct
blast.”

“If he has latent talent, it might have burned itself
out protecting his life from the spell.”

“Or it might have fully awakened.  That would
have…ramifications.”

“That’s Tollaf’s area.  I’ll talk to him once he’s had
a chance to examine Marik.”

“As for the rest of his injuries, I expect it will
take him at least a pair of eightdays before he can leave the bed, and another
pair to regain his strength.  The last re-growth in skin will take until
midwinter.  The consumption, if it’s there, and the rest of the immediate
problems can be handled over the next few eightdays.”

“He lucked out then.”

The head chirurgeon shook his head again.  “Luck? 
Finding a priest with true Healing talent can be difficult even in a large
city.  Surviving an attack like this, and then finding
two
such priests
nearby in the field?  That’s more than luck.  Someone is watching out for this
one.  Someone has plans for him, I think.”

Fraser snorted, his contempt for this idea clear.  “I
expect Tollaf will be around soon.”

“I’ll be looking for him.”

The two left the room, the chirurgeon noticing that
the sergeant continued past the closed door without stopping to speak to the
young man’s friends.  Like all the others, he left it to the chirurgeon to
explain the details to those concerned, as if he had nothing better to do than
repeat himself all day.  With a deep sigh he opened the door on their expectant
faces.

*        *        *        *        *

Marik lay on a grassy hill, watching the clouds and
hoping the dream Pate would not appear to drag him back to the workshop.  He
was hesitant to move lest he fling himself into a deeper cesspit within his
mind.  Lying here in the cool spring breeze felt refreshing.  Restarting the
whirlwind journey anew might finally shatter the remains of his sanity.

In all his traveling, he returned most often to the
tree edging the forest clearing.  Ashlin stared up at him with dead, accusing
eyes.  No life sparkled in them yet they seemed to see him all the same. 
Though he did not speak, Marik could hear words.

In front of you!  I died in front of you!  My blood
dried on your clothing for candlemarks while you stood there doing nothing! 
How dare you forget me?  How dare you think of me as a number?  One lost in
rover attack.  Are your new friends no more than acceptable losses?  Are you?

The voice echoed louder, harsher, increasingly accusing
the longer he stayed with Ashlin.  Marik knew a simple movement could whisk him
off to a different scene from his past, but if he so much as twitched, arrows
would kill him as surely as they had killed Ashlin.  Many believed if you died
in your dreams you died in truth.  Perhaps they were wrong, perhaps they were
right.  He did not want to learn the truth the hard way.  At first he’d thought
to sneak away in the dark as he had before, except the daylight persisted
through endless marks.  Finally, after enduring Ashlin’s cold gaze for days, he
would summon enough courage to risk the arrows and fly away on the winds of
history.

But soon enough, back he would be at the tree,
listening to Ashlin’s hollow voice challenging his loyalties.  How many times
had he waited endless days pinned to that tree?  Ten?  Twenty?  He did not
know.  When he had found himself on this hillside, he vowed to remain
immobile.  This was a fairly pleasant place to spend eternity.  If he returned
to the dead man, he might cross into the abyss of raving dementia.

Secure in his safe mental harbor, he strove to think,
to understand what had happened to him, for something surely had happened. 
All
his memories were jumbled, not only these vivid reconstructions.  No matter how
he strained, he was unable to pinpoint when he had fallen asleep, if sleep it
truly was.  He was no longer certain that he hadn’t fallen into one of the
hells on the deeper levels of Vernilock’s domain.  The unit was in the north
pursuing a bandit gang.  Clearer recall beyond that eluded him.

He rolled to his side, which turned out to be a
mistake.  Tattersfield’s hillside melted in a wash of colors.  The running
paint solidified and he lay on his cot in the Ninth’s barracks.  Everyone else
slept.  Only he lay awake.

Well, this isn’t so bad either.  I just need to stay
still.

Marik remained immobile, listening to men breathing,
watching the lump identifying Dietrik buried in his blanket cocoon.  The
familiar sight comforted despite its falsity.

Except it
had
changed.  He knew the barracks as
well as his own hands by now.  An unidentifiable, subtle wrongness assailed
him.  Marik could hear the breathing fade.  The atmosphere grew hollow, such as
a room that has been unused so long a person could tell immediately upon entering.

His vision swam.  Marik turned on his back, forgetting
he should remain immobile.  When the world stopped spinning, a new room
surrounded him.  He still lay flat on his back.

Dietrik and Kerwin talked silently beside the small
room’s door.  Marik felt confused.  Could he remember any time when Kerwin had
joined the two of them without Landon?  He tried turning his head for a better
look but it took colossal effort to move, so he shifted his eyes instead.

No, Landon was nowhere to be seen.  Instead a stranger
sat at a small table beside his bed, grinding brown powder in a pestle.  Marik
did not know him, or rather he could not remember which memory this man sprang
from.  He wore the white and soft sky-blue colors of the Healers and
chirurgeons…except Marik could remember no time when he’d had occasion to meet
one.

Young, with sandy brown hair, the stranger glanced up
from his grinding to notice Marik studying him.

“Oh, hello.  I’m glad to see you awake.”

This immediately caught Dietrik and Kerwin’s attention,
who, seeing his eyes open, rushed to his side.

“Marik!  Hells, it’s bloody good to see you awake!”

The stranger raised a hand.  “Now, I know you’re happy
and all, but stand back for a few moments and let me examine him.  Step back,
please!  Look, why don’t you stand against the wall there?  Stand!”

They reluctantly gave him room to work.  Marik’s
confusion intensified.  When had anything like this ever happened before?

“Are you thirsty?”

When he attempted to speak, to ask a question, his
throat seized.  He found it to be as dry as the mud flat in the training area. 
Marik managed a slight nod after the man’s question penetrated his fog-shrouded
mind.

“That’s good.  Here, let’s get you a drink of water. 
Take only small sips.”

He held a cup to Marik’s cracked lips and allowed
small trickles to tip into his mouth.  The refreshing sensation felt like the
heavens.  Marik held it in his mouth for several moments while the moisture
saturated his fevered being, then panicked because he could not swallow.

“Careful now!  Let it slide down your throat.  Don’t
work the muscles.  They’re as battered as the rest of you.  Good!  Let’s drink
more.”

They emptied the cup after a great while.  Profound
exhaustion gripped him by the time they finished.  The young man apologized and
explained he needed to check several vitals before he would go away and let
Marik rest.

He asked Marik to move each of his toes, his fingers,
all of his joints.  While holding a small candle flame, he asked Marik to
follow it with his eyes as he moved it left and right.   He placed his hand
under Marik’s, whispered in his ear with increasingly softer words, telling
Marik to tap with his finger every time he heard a sound.  Probing across his
body revealed no numb areas yet elicited several sharp gasps from the patient
when raw flesh received pokes.  After making him drink further, the young man
said he had checked enough for the moment, then left Marik with his friends.