“Do not forget the Ghosts of Ahnok!” Sergeant Girod cried, slapping his scarred chest as if he alone had won the village. The other three sergeants chuckled uneasily. Girod, a brutish beast with a face to match his demeanor, the bastard of the head of the king’s council, was a man shunned. He had not risen through the ranks, as had all the other Ghosts, but rather had been placed amongst them. Such was unprecedented, and sparked suspicion that Girod was a spy.
Shaded by spreading willows, Rathe ignored Girod and wetted his mane of black hair with a dented cook pot. The water was cold and clear and sweet, but did little to lift his mood. Around the broad wellspring’s ancient stone-and-mortar wall, the rest of his subordinates went back to scouring away the residue of battle, leaving it to mingle with the mud squishing between their toes.
Rathe knew he should bury his dissatisfaction, but could not. He was a soldier, a skilled man of war, yet in the hands of the king to whom he swore fealty, he had become a murderer’s savaging sword. Of late, nothing he had done brought him honor, nor could those atrocities please Ahnok, the god he served.
In the last year, King Tazzim of Cerrikoth had ordered Rathe and the Ghosts to avoid battling Qairennor patrols, and instead to lead the company against undefended villages throughout the enemy’s realm. The king intended to break the faith the Qairennor lowborn had in Queen Shukura, rumored to be a witch with eyes set upon Cerrikoth.
Thus far, Rathe’s bold assaults had caught every settlement unawares, but he had yet to discover any evidence that Queen Shukura was a practitioner of dark arts, or had any designs for invading Cerrikoth. As for breaking anyone’s will, this morning had proven once more that Queen Shukura’s people stood firm in their fealty, and were willing to fight and die under the Rose of Qairennor banner.
From far off, the whistling crack of a scourge evoked a man’s scream. The note of pain echoed down streets empty of all but blowing dust and corpses fresh enough to leak blood. Where the sounds of agony made Rathe’s insides roil, they disturbed his men no more than the sprawled dead. Why should it bother them, or me, to conquer sworn enemies?
His thin resolve failed when he glanced around at a scene that had become as common to him as his reflection. Smoke rose from the village’s charred shops and homes. A gentle wind tugged apart the sooty plumes, dragging the remnants east across a rolling grassland toward the Mountains of Arakas. That boundary between the kingdoms of Qairennor and Cerrikoth rose to peaks high, jagged, and crowned in snow through every season.
Farther down the village’s main street, a pack of wild dogs converged on a small, half-burned corpse, snapping and growling to see which would have the first bite. Rathe’s teeth ground together as the dead boy’s thin limbs thrashed lifelessly. Other boys, girls, men, and women awaited the curs’ jaws and ripping teeth. As well, vultures circled above, black scribbles on a cerulean canvas, patient for their turn at the butchers’ leavings.
Yes, it was all too familiar, and he’d had his fill of it…. But he was a soldier of Cerrikoth, the king’s champion, the most esteemed Cerrikothian warrior in five generations. How could he balk at his liege’s will? And how can I not? he considered, as the scourge’s unseen leather tongues snapped again.
Rathe lifted his face to the breeze. It favored him by bringing on its foul breath a pleading chorus from the other captives. The questioning had begun three hours past dawn. It would continue until some wretch disclosed the information Rathe sought at the behest of King Tazzim. What offerings does the witch-queen demand? Is there gold within the village?Have you seen Qairennor patrols riding east … supply caravans?
The prisoners would speak eventually, they always did, but what they revealed was common knowledge, and nothing of value. A few trinkets would be found, a healer’s cupboard of potions, foodstuffs meant to hold the villagers through lean seasons, maybe even a few odd swords and spears held over from campaigns of old-heirlooms and necessities, nothing more. Yet that bric-a-brac would serve as evidence of Queen Shukura’s treachery … at least in the eyes of King Tazzim. Afterward, Rathe would command the villager’s executions, as he had so often in the last year.
How many dead at my order? Hundreds, without question, and that blood stained his soul more than that of the soldiers he had slain in honest combat during the border wars between Cerrikoth and the kingdoms of Unylle and Trem.
When another scream soared over the village, Thushar said, “The banner of our glorious god stiffens their tongues.” He used wet sand to scrub away stubborn bloodstains from his hands.
As if livened by praise, the company’s crimson banner bearing the golden face of Ahnok, the Cerrikothian god of war, lifted and flapped. Rathe looked askance at the head of that snarling lion, with its mane of fanged serpents. At one time, he would have killed the one who let even a corner of that banner touch the soil men tread upon. Now … well, now, things had changed. His greatest regret was that his actions had sullied his god’s likeness and name.
“It’s wise that they fear our device,” Rathe agreed in a somber tone. He hesitated, the proud words he must speak as the leader of the Ghosts bitter on his tongue. “A hundred years of victory are bound up with the standard of the Ghosts of Ahnok. When seen, the hearts of our strongest enemies quail.” In a smaller voice, he added, “More’s the pity that fear now breeds hatred, giving rabble the strength to resist at the price of their lives.”
Thushar gave a mystified snort. “Why should you care? Your people have been fighting these scum a generation.”
“Before that,” Rathe answered, “these enemies were our allies, and we fought against your forefathers.”
Indifferent about a point that still brought anger to many of those of the eastern kingdom of Pryth, Thushar shrugged his thick shoulders. “In Pryth we fight family against family-ofttimes brother against brother. If honor needs restoring, or vengeance taken, then blood wets steel and soil. To do less is the way of the craven. Were I you, I’d be happy to be rid of all Qairennorans, along with the witch who rules them.”
Fury boiled up inside Rathe. He stabbed a finger at the torn remains of the child the wild dogs had left behind. “Should I be happy for his death? He was but a boy! What did he do to me, or any of us, that we should cleave his spirit from his flesh? As to witches, have you seen sign of sorceries anywhere in Qairennor? Has lightning struck our ranks, have fireballs burned our brothers, have abominable words come on the wings of the night to still our hearts? I have not seen any of these things, have you?”
Sergeants Girod and Saros paused in cleaning themselves, and listened with heads cocked. The faces of Algios and Zalvid stiffened.
Thushar, Rathe’s dearest friend, shook his head, baffled. “In ten years, that boy would have fathered sons to raise swords against the sons you and I will one day sire. It matters naught if Queen Shukura is a witch. King Tazzim has declared Qairennor and its queen the enemies of Cerrikoth, and he pays good coin to destroy his foes, and grants the right of pillage against the vanquished.”
Rathe stared back, wondering if his doubts were treacherous weakness, or if simple exhaustion had sapped the fire and lust for battle from his spirit? It seemed possible, for fatigue was the destroyer of courage. Possible, but doubtful. Making war against farmers was abhorrent … yet, he had waged that war, and could not condemn the men under his command any easier than he could accuse King Tazzim, not without judging himself. Trapped between conscience and duty, he surrendered to the latter.