It was the woman who had spoken so bitterly the night before. He turned his head, studied her dark form. Wishing she was both beautiful and blind, even her fingers senseless and dumb. Wishing he could lie to her and convince her and then slide into her and afterwards feel at peace.
‘You awake?’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Good.’ She moved on to the next sleeping form, and he knew that she had been oblivious of his thoughts.
Just as well. He’d had enough of their laughter.
A short time later, over a hundred armed figures were moving through the forest. Narad was among them, a few steps behind Corporal Bursa. He had drawn his sword but the hand that held it was cold. He was shivering under his clothes yet his skin was slick with sweat, and in his mind there was turmoil.
He saw his life unfurled behind him: all the times when he cut people with words, mocking all their pretensions. When he had viewed with disdain every gesture of kindness or supposed sincerity. It seemed to him now that he had been fighting a war all his life. Nothing was real enough to believe in; nothing was good enough to fight for, barring the patch of useless ground he stood upon, and the flimsy borders of his contempt.
And now he found himself in the company of murderers, just one more shadowy form threading between silent boles. Somewhere ahead slept innocent people. Assuming innocence even existed, and of that he had a lifetime of doubt gnawing the edges of his faith. No matter. Their dawn was about to be shattered in a sudden descent into violence and brutality.
He did not want this, and yet something in him hungered for what was to come, the ugliest part of himself — the outside pulled in and made still more venal, still more disgusting. Among all the soldiers in this midst, he alone bore the physical truth of what was hidden inside each and every one of them.
They had their lists, their grievances, just as he had his own.
Moving through the wood, as it drew the darkness down and around them all. There were different kinds of purity, different kinds of pain, but in the gloom every distinction was lost, made the same. He was no uglier than anyone here, they no more beautiful or handsome than he. We’re all the same.
Every cause is just when it is your own, when feelings count for something. But sometimes, among some people, feelings count for nothing at all.
This was the soldier’s gift, he supposed.
He staggered then, down to one knee, and his breakfast came back up his throat, sprayed out on to the black earth. The convulsions continued, until there was nothing left inside. Head hanging, threads of mucus and bile dangling from his twisted lips, he sensed people moving past him. Heard a few low laughs.
A gloved hand rapped him on the shoulder and the woman who’d woken him leaned down and said, ‘Rancid meat, Waft. Been fighting to keep it down all the way. Get up, stay with me, we’re almost there.’
He pushed himself upright, wondering at her invitation. Had Bursa put her up to this? Did they think him a coward, someone they needed to keep an eye on? Shamed, he wiped his mouth with a sleeve, spat out the bitter taste, and set off, the woman falling in beside him.
‘We’re going to make this a horror, Waft.’
He nodded, a gesture she could not even see.
‘As bad as can be. You can’t let it get to you. You got to shut it all down, understand? Do but don’t think, that’s the soldier’s creed. If you think of anything at all, think of the peace to come, a year or two from now. Think of a new way of things in Kurald Galain, the nobles knocked down and weak, real people — like you and me — living well and living respected.’
Living respected. Empty Abyss, woman, you think that’ll take the place of self-respect? It won’t. You’re fooling yourself. We all are.
‘You with me, Waft?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
There was a lightening of the way ahead, the trees thinning, stumps rising from beaten down grasses. A bulky shape — a carriage — and a row of horses tied to a rope stretching between two upright banners. The glimmer of an ebbing fire.
And figures at the clearing’s edge, motionless, seeming to stare directly at Narad.
Sudden shouts, the hiss of iron on scabbard rims ‘ Let’s go! ’ barked the woman.
And then they were running into the clearing, upon the open grounds of the Great House of Andarist.
Lord Jaen had stood the night, fully dressed, as if in vigil. He had walked the round, checking on his Houseblades, sharing a few quiet words. Andarist and his retinue were at least a day away, with the guests to follow the day after. The night was measured by his circling strides, a slow spiral that, eventually, brought him once more to his position beside the waning fire.
