“She ripped the veils off the Hornmen altogether. Especially the first, the one she focused on. She tore his to tiny pieces and it blew away like it never existed at all, and there was no repairing it, even if someone had been there with the power and inclination to do it. Poor bastard was bombarded by thousands, maybe tens of thousands of sensations he just wasn’t equipped to handle. Would have driven him mad if she left him a layer or two, but with nothing there to protect him, it simply killed him.”
She fell silent, and I looked at Braylar at the head of our company, and Soffjian riding a discrete distance behind. “They might not look that much alike, but the resemblance is still uncanny.”
Skeelana grinned, briefly, but it was grim, and accompanied by another shiver. The next question was out before I knew it was coming. “You’ve never been in combat, have you?”
Her eyes darted to me and back to the rider in front of us. “No. No, I haven’t.” This admission seemed grudging, as if she felt lessened by it. It was strange to think that I actually had more experience in these things than one other member of our small company. Even Lloi had been in a number of battles, and likely seen a fair number of men die, before and after leaving the Green Sea.
Skeelana pricked a hole in any satisfaction I was feeling. “I’m also guessing you’ve never shot and killed a man before, have you, Arki?”
I briefly considered lying, and then for no reason I could explain, opted for the truth. “I’ve shot at men before. A few times now. Out of necessity. But no, I’ve never killed a man. Until this morning.”
Saying it out loud, I felt a strange mix of relief and desperate horror swirling together. I’d never be able to say I’d never killed a man again. No matter where I was headed, there was never any going back.
Skeelana nodded, once, quickly, but somehow firmly. “Then we are both a bit out of place in this hardened company. I suggest we stay in the rear.”
I felt the nausea die down. A little. “Agreed. Or maybe one row in. You never can tell when we might get attacked from behind.”
Even as she laughed, I fought the urge to look over my shoulder. But unless the ripper was just about to leap up and tear me from the saddle, the most pressing danger was ahead. Immediately ahead. We were almost to the gates.
We slowed down as we crossed the bridge. Unlike the Hero’s Bridge we’d originally entered Alespell from, this wouldn’t take nearly as long. The traffic was still very thin at this early hour, as we seemed to be the only ones leaving and only those in the closest outlying villages and farms could have made it to the city this early. Since the Fair still ran for a bit, there was no cause for anyone to camp outside the walls waiting for entrance. So, there wouldn’t be any delays due to passage of people or carts or livestock or wagons, or any random checks.
In theory, we’d be gone soon enough. Assuming we weren’t detained. And as our horses carried us forward, I thought of a dozen reasons why that might happen. A telltale bloodstain someone missed washing off. The likelihood that an alarm had been raised, and someone had reported Syldoon killing scores of men in the streets, or the Hornmen who escaped had sought help or regrouped. The fact that a large band of armed Syldoon was in the city at all. Leaving was better than entering, but our presence would make any guards uneasy, no matter which direction we were going.
We reached the first gate, the portcullis up, the guards walking out of the gatehouse to see why a large group was departing so early in the day. There were two of them in soiled gambesons and boiled leather, neither looking especially anxious or on edge, both holding their spears as if they would rather lean on them than use them. Until they realized who they had in front of them.
When the younger guard saw Syldoon soldiers, armed, armored, with nooses on full display, he stopped, stood up straighter, tightened the grip on his spear, and immediately looked at the older guard for the lead. That man also seemed to have tensed up, but then some recognition flashed across his face, and it took me a second to place him. He was one of the guards who had allowed us to leave the city before curfew when the group had headed for the temple ruins with Captain Gurdinn and the Brunesmen.
He had large tufts of hair sticking out of his ears and below the rim of his iron helm, and gray stubble on his face, which marked him as a seasoned soldier, but probably more accustomed to breaking up the odd scuffle or running down a thief like the one in the stocks than any kind of real combat. Or facing a potential threat like the Syldoon or deciding what to do with them.
I didn’t envy him.
He recovered quickly enough though, eyes narrowing. “Saw you leaving the city the other day. Less of you, leastwise. And I recollect you were dressed a mite differently then.”
Braylar moved his helm from the crook of his right arm to the other, casually, the mail draping over his vambraces, but I had the sense that he was just freeing up his good hand to pull Bloodsounder off his belt, or the crossbow off the saddle if need be. Still, he blew on his right hand and answered nonchalantly, as if the Syldoon always trafficked in and out of an Anjurian city just after dawn. “That’s a fine memory you have. You must be quite good with faces.”
“Aye.” The older guard gave the younger a stern look, his wiry eyebrows drawn down, eyes nearly slits. The younger guard nodded as if spoken to and hurried back into the squat guard tower. It occurred to me that they surely weren’t the only two housed there, just the only two assigned to the damp and chill of inspection.
The older guard nodded. “Also recollect you were riding with the baron’s men.” Several wooden shutters above us opened simultaneously with a loud creak and I just about jumped out of the saddle. They were propped open and a fair number of archers looked down on us. Arrows were knocked, but no strings pulled back that I could tell. Still, as one of only two not wearing armor, I immediately began to sweat, chill be damned. Skeelana didn’t look any more at ease alongside me.
Continuing as if he hadn’t heard those shutters at all, the older guard said, “The baron got use for your kind here, he must have his reasons. Can’t fathom what they’d be, but that ain’t my place. So, guessing he wouldn’t be too pleased about a gate guard waking him up to ask about your kind skulking about. So there’ll be none of that.”
Braylar responded as if he, too, were oblivious to the arrows above. “Sounds as if you have a fine appreciation for your liege lord’s temperament. Restraint and good at placing faces. It’s no wonder you were given this prestigious post.”
The guard took a step forward and patted Braylar’s horse on the muzzle, as if the men were just having the friendliest exchange in the world. “No need to involve the baron none. But I’ll tell you this, Black Noose, with peace on for a while, some men in Anjuria might not have lost any to your kind, but I ain’t one of them. You and yours took my brother, just north of Brassfield. Border raid. By you cunts.”
Braylar replied, “Hmmm, I don’t recall having been to Brassfield.” He called over to Hewspear, “Did we ever raid a Brassfield, Lieutenant?”
“No, Captain. I can’t say that we ever did.”
“I thought not.” He turned back to the guard. “So I can’t take any credit or blame for that particular engagement. Did your brother fight heroically? Some men do, some men don’t. In fact, some simply shit themselves, trip over their spears, and get trampled in the mud by their own side. I do hope he died more nobly than that. Those who die gloriously are often remembered in song, but they tend not to compose too many tunes for the ones who shit themselves.”
The gate guard grabbed the reins tight, knuckles white, and looked up at Braylar. I heard bows straining as arrows were drawn back and it took all my willpower not to look up or kick my heels into my mount and run for cover. “Weren’t but two and twenty at the time, he was. Married a year. Just had a daughter. So I’m working real hard here to come up with a reason not to let my boys fill you full of arrows, Brune be damned. Figure out cause later.”