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‘Opprobrium will do for that man,’ Dathenar said, waving the stick in a dismissive gesture. ‘He is lonely and grieves, yet twists both into spite for the survivors, of whom he is the first and foremost. We will turn him about.’
‘Or slap him silly,’ Prazek said.
‘Rance,’ said Dathenar after a moment, looking up at Faror. ‘She is the quiet one with the wounded hands, yes?’
‘She heats a
brimming cauldron every morning,’ said Faror. ‘Nigh unto boiling. Then, behind her tent, stripped down to the waist, she plunges her hands into the scalding water. She scrubs them raw with pumice and lye.’ After some hesitation, during which neither man spoke, she continued. ‘She has no memory of drowning her newborn babe. But her hands remind her. The pain reminds her too, I suppose. She answers what she never felt, and cannot recall, with rituals of hurt. Sirs, I beg you, this is not to be challenged. It may be that she cannot command a company, but that she holds herself together at all is, to me, remarkable.’
‘I knew few details,’ Dathenar said in a low voice, ‘but I sensed well something unbreakable within her. Faror Hend, we would burden her further.’
‘Sirs—’
‘This legion wears and wields madness,’ Prazek said. ‘It will need its own spine. Neither Hust’s history, nor its fame, nor even its infamy, will suffice this rebirth. The weapons and armour laugh, but the timbre of that voice betrays helplessness. So, we cannot look even to the fever of magic iron.’
‘We have prisoners,’ Dathenar said, his gaze hard upon her. ‘This is our lot. Up from pits and holes carved down through rock and earth. Up from where we put them. No outside authority will reach them, for their habits long ago rejected that authority. There is a vast difference between kneeling and being forced to kneel. Galar Baras was right in plunging into their midst. Now it falls to us to take their stock, to see what we can use.’
‘But Rance’s inner torment?’
‘We will be cruel, yes.’
‘She does not scrub her hands raw out of some manic need to cleanse unseen stains, Dathenar. If either of you think the symbol so crass as that—’
‘No, Faror, we heard you well enough.’
Prazek nodded. ‘A ritual intended to awaken pain, because the pain keeps her here, keeps her conscious. Keeps her alive.’
‘Nothing of that can belong to the Legion, sirs.’
In answer, Prazek drew his new sword. The reflected flames licked down its length with a lurid red tongue. A dull muttering sound rose from the blade, breaking then into a low, dreadful laugh. ‘This attends us all, Faror Hend. Every edge, however, promises pain, yes? Prisoners – by the title alone we see their plight. All was taken from them. For each, some past incident has been made into a shrine of hurts, betrayals, losses and sour violence. Like penitents they can but circle this unholy moment, whipping their backs to keep it alive. They will speak of forgetting what they have done. Some will even claim to have done so. Others will protect their shrine, believing it a place of righteous justice, thus absolving themselves of all responsibility. But all this – all these pronouncements, these evasions, these pathetic defiances – they are helpless and hopeless. Each man, each woman, up from the pit, is burdened with what they must live with.’
Dathenar added, ‘Loss of freedom delivers its own pain. This is an army that ritually scalds itself every dawn. The soldiers fill their days with talk of freedom – some even seek to run away – but now, at last, they begin to see. There will be no freedom, neither here nor there – out beyond the campfires, beyond the pickets. No freedom at all, Faror Hend.’
‘We must make of the Hust Legion,’ said Prazek, sheathing the weapon once more, ‘a promise. To each prisoner, each soldier. Wake with pain? March with pain? Eat with it? Sleep with it? Breathe it with every breath drawn in, every breath loosed? Oh yes, my friends. And here is the Hust Legion, an answer to you all.’
‘The Hust Legion builds the fire in the crisp light of the sun’s rise,’ said Dathenar. ‘Sets the cauldron upon the coals, and calls the soldiers into line. Hands into the scalding water, thus beginning the pain of a new day.’
‘We will make this legion their home,’ Prazek said. ‘A familiar temple to house their familiar, personal, shrines of pain. The iron now laughs, in proof of its imprisonment, its helplessness. When we are done with our soldiers, we shall make the iron weep.’
Faror Hend stared at the two men, their harsh visages lit in flames. Abyss below, I face two monsters … and find myself blessing their every word.
* * *
Tent walls made for flimsy barriers, and through the entirety of Wareth’s short career as a soldier of the Hust Legion he had felt neither safe nor protected by them. The waxed canvas even failed in disguising an occupant’s presence come the night, with oil lamps or lanterns painting silhouettes upon the walls. When, as he prepared for sleep, the scratching came upon the front flap, followed a moment later by the tap of a knife pommel on the ridge pole, he considered for a long moment the prospect of not responding. Yet there had been no hiding his presence, and to pretend otherwise seemed both puerile and petty.
Grunting an invitation, he sat upon the cot to await yet another messenger with still more bad news, as it seemed the litany was unending, and when enough people were gathered anywhere the train of news never paused. It was no wonder that most officers stumbled between exhaustion and incompetence, as each fed the other. That history recounted the tales of battles gone awry, filled with appalling errors in judgement, a cascade of fatal decisions and the pointless slaughter of hundreds, if not thousands of misled soldiers, no longer surprised Wareth.
Logistics could gnaw like termites through the base of a tree—
Sergeant Rance stepped through the tent entrance.
‘What now?’ Wareth asked.
She flinched at his tone, and half turned as if to leave again – and in that instant Wareth comprehended that nothing official had brought her into his company. Silently cursing, he raised a staying hand and said, ‘No, wait. Do come in, Rance. Take that bench there – someone delivered it for reasons unknown to me. Perhaps the seating of guests? That seems reasonable.’
‘It’s nothing, sir,’ she said. ‘I saw the light, and motion, and wondered at your being awake this late.’
‘Well,’ he said, watching her tentatively settle on to the bench, ‘there is some good timing in all this, Rance. I found myself drawn short by a thought. Tell me, what do you know about the habits of termites? I recall seeing mounds – nay, towers – in the drylands to the south, constructed of mud. But here in Kurald Galain we mostly know of them as delivering ruination to wood. I have in my mind an image of a large tree riven through by the insects – did I see some such thing as a child? I must have.’
