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“Cian,” Nisang said, a little sadly.
“I won’t do it, Nisang! I… I need to see him. I can’t explain why, but I need to.”
Nisang lowered the paper and pen. “This human is not like Ren.”
“I know that!” Cian shouted and spun on him. “I know he’s not Ren. That doesn’t make him less worthy. You embraced Ren once because I loved him. I’m not asking you to do the same for Nevahn, but you will respect him, and you will obey me. Is that clear?”
The gargoyle’s jaw flexed, and he lowered his head in submission. “Yes, Lord Cian.”
“Leave us,” Cian commanded, and Nisang went.
I put a hand on Cian’s arm and leaned into him. “Cian…”
Cian deflated and sank onto the bed. After a moment, he fell back, staring at the ceiling. “What if he’s right, Hel? I couldn’t protect you. What if we can’t protect Nevahn?”
I scooted closer and put my head on his chest. “Nevahn is stronger than he looks. If I didn’t believe he could protect himself, I would not have argued in his favor.”
He sighed and put an arm around me, kissing the top of my head. “I hope you’re right, Hel.”
I didn’t tell him, but I was already sure that I was.
Ilookedoutatthe battlefield, my stomach churning. It was a tangled, muddy mess of corpses, a feast for flies and carrion birds. Broken standards jutted from the ground, the flags bloodstained and splashed with mud. The dead had been left where they lay, too many to carry back, or perhaps the retreat had come too quick. Wagons lay overturned in the muck, broken wheels spinning in the light breeze.
That was to say nothing of thesmell. The stink of decay hung heavy in the air, a visceral, wrong scent. Everything in me screamed that I should turn and go back the way I had come. I didn’t belong out here where I could so easily die. I was only human, after all, and these fallen warriors had been Nightmares, salamanders, djinn… Supernaturally powerful creatures with magic. What chance did I have against them?
But I hadn’t come out there to fight. I was on my way to the front to deliver the ballistas, which Forgemaster Xeltec and I both hoped would turn the tide of the war in our favor.
We were just two days out from Ezulari, having spent the first night with the caravan camping in the shadow of a rocky cliff. There had been dreamsteel in the high cliffs, and it had been magical to watch the moonlight dance along it.
Tonight, we would sleep in the shadow of corpses. We’d be upwind, though probably not far enough to get away from the smell. I didn’t think I’d ever escape it.
We had stopped near the battlefield so that some of the Nightmares traveling with us could walk through it and strip anything useful from the dead. I watched their dark, hunched forms kneel in the bloody field, pulling blades free and tossing them in their wagons.
“We’ll melt some of them down when we get to the front,” Xeltec was saying next to me. He crossed all four of his arms over his bulky body, white tusks gleaming in the dying light. “The ones that are still in working order will get a turn on the grindstone to sharpen them before they’re back in rotation. Better to have more swords than we need than not enough.”
If he expected an answer from me, I didn’t have anything to say. I had seen death before, perhaps more than most since coming across the Veil of Somnis. Yet, I had never seen so much in one place before. I wished I could say it was shocking, but I was numb to it already. We had been standing at the edge of that battlefield for more than an hour.
“How many do you suppose there are?” I asked quietly. It felt wrong to speak loudly in such a place.
Xeltec shrugged. “Less than you’d think, probably.”
But each one is someone’s son, someone’s brother, mother, father… A life lost. Someone with hopes and dreams. I swallowed and put the battlefield behind me.
“Where are you going?” Xeltec called after me as I trudged away.
“Where I can do some good,” I replied.
I left the battlefield and the corpse strippers behind and went back to the caravan. Most everyone was out in the field or watching the strippers, but a few had stayed behind to tend to the horses. I went to help them, bringing the horses water or just patting them as I passed.
Halfway back the caravan, I came upon a farrier who was reshoeing a horse. I stayed with him a while, passing him nails while he worked before going further down the column. A couple of Skaags had set up some buckets with onions, potatoes, and carrots and they were dicing them for the stew they’d make later at camp. They let me help them, mostly ignoring me as they chattered back and forth.
“Should have used the yellow potatoes,” one of them complained.
The other shook his head. “Those are for the officers.”
“What does it matter?” The first pointed his knife at the second. “Brown potatoes, white potatoes, yellow potatoes… It’s all shit in the end. Why should an officer’s shit be better than mine?”
The second shrugged. “Just what they said.”
