Sergeant Giyara herded the shivering child forward and, at his gesture, moved away to the perimeter. No one could overhear them now.
'You did as you were told,' he said to the child: he wasn't sure if it was a homely boy or a brawny girl. 'How many were left at camp?'
The child was weeping, tears smearing lines through its filthy face. 'Dunno. A few. Not fighters.'
'Any outlanders?'
'I saw one.' Its voice trembled as it contemplated the ashes of its triumph. Under Arras's steady gaze it found its tongue and spoke in a whisper. 'You won't kill my family?'
'First, you'll lead us to the clearing.' The captain fastened a hand over the neck of the child's jacket.
The raid on the villages was well in hand, according to the runners who came in from his other companies to report. He called in the men, had the wounded set up a perimeter within the ruins to await his return, and settled the rest into files, making sure his
strongest, most stubborn fighters were concentrated in the van and at the rearguard. The dogs and their handlers were sprinkled throughout the line in case of attack while they were strung out and vulnerable on a forest track. This was the dangerous part of the operation, so he took point with a pair of trusted men, put the child on a rope, and sent him ahead like a dog. They trotted at good speed along the track.
A mind, surely, was like this forest, tangled and overgrown, its reaches hidden to the common eye. What the cloaks possessed was something like the path they marched along, a way to punch into what you otherwise could not penetrate. What if there was a way to let your thoughts grow over and hide from the cloaks?
The enemy hadn't been entirely stupid. They'd emplaced a lookout, but the person had fled, the only survivor. They'd tried to cover their tracks, keep their base hidden. His company had to wade up a stream, a good technique for throwing off dogs on a scent, and take a second track yet deeper into the forest. But in the end they found the clearing with its canvas structures still strung up. The fire was ashes. Platters were scattered around logs set out as benches; small animals had been feeding on the leavings. Wind bellied the canvas awnings. Birds fluttered away through high branches. Two corpses cooled: an elderly woman and a lass wearing the blue cloak of an envoy of Ilu.
He had an itch on his shoulders, that gods-rotted feeling he was being watched, but although he paced the edge of the clearing and peered into the foliage, he saw not even a bold crow. There! The bright flash revealed birds with red and yellow plumage.
'Track over here, Captain,' called Sergeant Giyara.
'Secure the site,' said Arras to her. 'Search for weapons, supplies, and coin. You twenty, come with me.'
They followed the second trail through more forest, over rockier ground, only to have it give way at a rocky spine thrust out of the earth and covered with hanging vines and low-growing shrubs nestled in its crevices. There was an actual cave inhabited by a scatter of ancient debris, rotting leaves blown in through the vines that screened the entrance, and a jumbled pile of animal bones scored with tooth marks.
'A predator's nest,' said one of the men nervously.
'Nothing's lived here for a long while,' observed the captain, 'and I see no sign they were storing anything here either.'
They lit a pair of torches, but the cave's ceiling lowered in the
back until they'd have had to crawl to get in any farther, and there was an odd smell like rotten eggs that made the man in the front cough and choke until he couldn't speak, so Arras called them back. They searched the vicinity but found only a scumble of tracks.
'I think we've flushed out what's left of this nest of rats.' He took no pleasure in killing; it's just it had to be done and he liked doing what he was good at. Yet he still had that prickling feeling on the back of his neck: someone watching. 'We'll gather up the other units and march on.'
'We going back to Toskala, Captain?' asked one of the newcomers assigned to his command by Toskala's governor along with seventeen other untested men. Arras had spread them out, three to each cadre, keeping them isolated from each other so they'd bond with the soldiers he knew and trusted.
'No.' His strong voice carried. 'We're marching on Nessumara to join the army there, as we were commanded to by Lord Twilight himself. There's fighting ahead, and plenty of coin and loot to be had after the city falls.'
The three newcomers whooped, then fell silent as the veterans yawned and scratched, pretending to ignore the novices' enthusiasm.
The cadre retraced their steps to the clearing, where the pathetic items swept up from the remains of the camp were neatly laid out under Sergeant Giyara's supervision. Arras liked a woman with a tidy mind; Giyara was tough-minded and effective. She was attractive as well, but he knew better than to indulge that itch with a valued subordinate.
To the men he said, 'Divvy up what's portable in even lots.'
Giyara had already divided out the food: ten small sacks of rice, nai, turnips, bundled herbs, and a substantial store of smoked venison. The durable trenchers were easy to store in their travel packs. The canvas was good quality.
'We'll meet up with our other companies and continue south to Nessumara,' he said, again, his voice ringing beneath the canopy. 'According to our orders from Lord Twilight. We're expected to make good time, so let's hustle.'
The sergeant called out, 'Line up!'
The child looked like a beaten dog, all mournful eyes and drooping head. 'Are you leaving? What about my family?'
'Your family has not been harmed.' As the men began to march
out, he realized he could still make use of the child. 'A word of warning. The other survivors will begin to suspect your family's curious luck in escaping with no injuries. And although your family may be grateful now, they'll come to hate you later. Your kinsfolk's resentment may be worse than the anger of your neighbors. If I were you, I'd leave, and find a new place to make your way.'
He fell in with the rearguard.
No doubt it would straggle home bawling, yet wasn't it better to die than be a traitor? The angry ghosts of its dead would haunt it for the rest of its life, however long that would prove to be in these disordered times. He wondered if he felt kinship or disgust for the child.
'Captain?' Sergeant Giyara had fallen back. 'Sure you don't want that child's kinsfolk cleansed? Traitors ought to be punished.'
'Neh, we made them, so leave them be. Anyway, if I were a wagering man, I'd bet you the child will follow us and before five days are out be begging to let it join the company.'
'You think so?'
This was how you obscured your trail. 'I do.'
He scanned the forest. He was used to high-elevation trees, ones that could survive frost and a seasonal dusting of the snow never seen down here. These lowland hothouse woodlands creeped him, for sure, so dense and moist it was like being inside a vast sensate beast. Branches were swaying although the breeze wasn't strong enough to send them rocking like that.
At the ruins of the waterwheel, they carted up their wounded and called in the other companies, leaving behind half-pillaged villages with corpses and burned houses scattered like chaff. There was a decent north-south road here, running roughly parallel to but rather more inland than the famed Istri Walk, the major road that ran on high ground on both banks alongside the magnificent River Istri, whose humble headwaters he had grown up fishing.
Strange where life took an insignificant ordinand. He'd never imagined in his youth that he'd find himself living in a time where he could become a true soldier, just like those who were more reviled than admired in the tales.