“Yeah. I was the only witness to his greatest humiliation.”
“And Sibrial never said a word about Montego.”
“If he had,” Kizzie explained, “he would have outed himself. The revenge of seeing Montego executed would not have compared to the humiliation of being beaten half to death by a kid. I’m sure if Montego had never made anything out of himself Sibrial might have one day had his revenge. Instead, Montego became Baby Montego, the most accomplished killer in the Ossan Empire. Now hand me that list.”
“Glassdamn,” Gorian said again, shaking his head. “That is something else. Yeah, of course. Here.” He dug in his pocket and removed a piece of paper, which he thrust into her hands. It had a few dozen names on it in Gorian’s messy handwriting. She scanned them, shocked at a few, amused by some, and unsurprised by many.
“Is this it?” she asked.
Gorian grimaced. “Maybe. Maybe not. Those lists are rarely complete, since they’re made from rumors and surveillance rather than by the Society itself.”
“You might have mentioned that,” Kizzie grumbled. She felt naked after telling that story, a little worm of regret working its way through her belly. “Remember what I said. You repeat that to anyone…”
“Hey, I gave my word. I respect you, Kizzie, and even if I didn’t, do you think I’m gonna gossip about Sibrial or Montego? Either of them could eat me for breakfast.” His eyes widened slightly. “Montego perhaps literally.”
“Keep that in mind,” Kizzie said. “Thanks again for the list. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else.”
30
It was late in the afternoon and Idrian stared out across the Copper Hills west of Ossa, playing a game with himself: Which shadows flitting across the fallow fields were caused by the clouds, and which were caused by the aching madness locked away in the corner of his brain? He could feel the madness pushing at the restraining sorcery of his godglass eye like a prisoner probing at the bars of his cell, and Idrian wondered how much longer he had until the eye just didn’t work anymore. Could he handle the madness on his own? Should he tell Tadeas, or the Ministry of the Legion, how quickly his mind seemed to be degrading?
Or was he imagining all of it? The eye still had plenty of resonance. It should last for several more years. Perhaps Tadeas was right and his mind was just coping with the loss of Kastora. If he could push through it – get to the end of this war and turn in his debt marker – he could use Demir’s phoenix channel to recharge his godglass.
“Sir?”
Idrian started out of his reverie, turning to find Braileer at his side. “Hmm?”
“You were grimacing, sir. Is something wrong?”
“Just thinking of friends long gone.” It was an easy lie. He usually was.
“Oh. Do you dwell on them often?”
“More than I’d like to admit.”
Braileer sat down on a rock next to Idrian and the two remained in companionable silence for some time before Braileer spoke again. “Will I dwell on lost friends, sir?”
It was a surprisingly poignant question. Idrian was used to young recruits coming in and thinking they were invincible; that they and their friends would see the end of whatever next war without anything more than a few sexy scars. They were always disabused of that notion violently, and some of them broke for it. “How long have you been with us?”
“Just six days, sir.”
“Have you been getting to know the battalion?”
“As much as I can, sir. I think I understand the engineers better than the soldiers. We all work with our hands. We take things apart and make and mend.” He paused. “But Mika terrifies me.”
“She should,” Idrian chuckled. “She’s just as insane as the rest of us veterans, but she has access to explosives. Have you fallen in with anyone? People you eat breakfast with, or throw down a bedroll near?”
Braileer looked down at his hands. “Do you know Steph and Halion?”
Steph and Halion were a pair of siblings; engineers underneath Mika, both with the rank of corporal. “Steph take you under her wing, hmm?” Idrian asked, bemused.
“More like Halion,” Braileer said slowly, blushing. “I think he likes me. Steph giggles and elbows him every time I’m around.”
Idrian breathed out through his nose. It was easy to remember how quickly these things happened when you were young. The terror of the battlefield; the loneliness of being away from home; the need for some respite from blood and suffering. He considered his next words, trying to keep them from coming out too dour. “My best advice for you is that people will die. You’ll lose friends. Maybe just one. Maybe all of them. But it will happen. You get used to it, kind of, but it always hurts. Have your fun – piss knows we all need it – but guard this well.” He leaned over to thump Braileer’s chest over his heart.
Braileer swallowed hard. “I’ll try, sir.”
“Good.” Idrian scratched at his godglass eye, feeling that itch in the back of the socket. “Now make sure my armor is polished. We’re going to see battle sooner than any of us wants.” He got up and headed to the pavilion, where Tadeas had laid out one of his bean maps to represent the defensive array of the Ossan Foreign Legion. Idrian joined Tadeas in staring at that array until his friend finally turned to him.
Tadeas gestured at the bean map. “This whole thing. It’s too…” He snapped his fingers thoughtfully. “… too by-the-book.”
“You think Kerite can unseat us?”
“I don’t know about that,” Tadeas responded, “but from what I know about Kerite, she’s read the handbooks and she’s found them lacking. General Stavri thinks he can lure her in and crush her with a straightforward battle. I’ll be surprised if it’s that easy.”
“What’s the latest word?” Idrian asked. The itching behind his godglass eye grew in intensity. He’d never truly known if he had a sixth sense, or if he’d just been doing this so long that he had a subconscious feel for the winds of war.
“Last I heard, Kerite is hanging back about four miles to our west. The Drakes have been reinforced by soldiers from Grent. The numbers are about even, if you count our National Guard reinforcements. She’s going to give us battle but we don’t know when. Tonight? Tomorrow? Kerite has always been unpredictable.”
Idrian tore his eyes from the bean map and looked over at his friend. Tadeas was clearly exhausted, his shoulders slumped, a frown fixed on his face for the last forty-eight hours. Like Idrian, he was covered in dirt from helping dig trenches all morning and afternoon.
Despite Mika’s insistence that it would take three days to finish the fortifications, they were almost done. A web of dirt barricades and ditches filled with wooden spikes now protected their artillery battery, and that was only some of it. Mika’s engineers had carefully laid mines all across the hillside, marked for the soldiers under their command but otherwise hard to spot, as the sod had been taken up and then carefully replaced. If you cared to look closely enough, you’d spot the blasting cord winding through the thick grass, coming up the hill to the “blasting wheel,” as Mika liked to call it.
They were by far the most advanced fortifications along the entire defensive line, and Idrian worried that the rest of the army wasn’t taking Kerite’s threat very seriously.
“Tad!” a voice called. It belonged to a scrawny woman of medium height, well into her forties. Her name was Forsel Pergos, but everyone called her Halfwing. Idrian had no idea why. She wore the black Ossan uniform with a yellow patch on her shoulders shaped like a stack of cannonballs. “Come up here!”
Tadeas sighed. “No rest for the weary, eh?”