Oath of Fealty

33

Matthis Stammel burned in a fire that had no beginning and no end. It had been before he could remember. Voices he dimly remembered called on him to hold a line he could not see, to stand in the fire, to endure … Don’t give in, they pled. Don’t quit. Young voices, older voices … he had no way to answer them, to ask what, why, who? Something—someone—dire held him down in that fire, someone who demanded that he give in, give up, let go, die. Someone who promised ease and rest if only he would retreat.

He fought with every fiber of will and strength to do what the voices asked, but the other one, the interior one who needed no voice to speak, demanded surrender. He wanted to ask the captain … ask the Duke … if he couldn’t please, just for a moment, have someone else take his place. He had not heard their voices for a very long time. The last thing the captain had said … the captain trusted him. The captain trusted him to hold.

He could feel his flesh burning away to nothing, the blood in his veins bubbling. His breaths, when he was aware of them, burned his throat; fire blazed in his lungs. Why am I not dead? he cried silently. The unspeaking one in his mind promised he would be, dead and cold, if only he would surrender. It was too much, too long, for anyone to endure. The unspeaking one agreed, offering hope, offering a dream of green grass, shade, cool water, if only he would let go, let the other take control.

He was so tired, tired of the pain, tired of the struggle. Wherever this was, whoever the enemy was, no man lived forever; no man could fight forever. The voices he knew faded, returned, faded … one came again, a girl’s voice, trembling, begging him …

“You promised to tell me more about Paks,” she said; he could barely hear her over the crackling that was his bones in the fire.

Paks. What Arcolin had said. What the girl—he struggled to think past the burning, past the pain, past the pressure that bore in on him, the dark presence that held him down—who was the girl? Paks had—had gone into the thieves’ lairs, in Vérella … she had endured five days and nights. How long had he endured? Forever, the dark presence told him. And it will go on forever unless you yield. He struggled—was it really forever? The girl was still murmuring to him. “The Marshal says it won’t last; the demon’s weakening …”

Demon? Was it a demon he had inside him? Stammel strained, trying to see, feel, somehow know what—who—it was. Fire—fire and smoke, and a shadowy something, the first actual, visual image of his enemy. Pain seared him, worse than ever, but this time he had a focus; he concentrated not just on holding on, but on attacking, pushing back at it. He still did not know how or when it had come, but he was not—not—going to fail the Duke, or his captain, or Paks or his other recruits.

He heard the voice more clearly now—not Paks, but another of his recruits—he could not think of her name or see her face, but he knew he had known them. Flames licked him again, white-hot as always, and he cried out. This time he heard himself cry out, felt the hands that held him … and something cool and wet on his burning lips, his parched tongue. The pressure inside swelled, but this time, as he fought it back, it retreated a little. He reached out, in that shadow-world of fire and smoke, grasped at it, and squeezed … squeezed as it struggled and fought in its turn, as it shrank, shrank to the size of a wasp—and with one last bone-piercing pain, stung like a wasp and was gone.

Silence, after the roaring of the flames, but for the very human voices he heard around him. The pain … was gone, as if it had never been. He could feel some hard surface under his back, wet fabric on his body. He was cool at last—too cool, cold and wet and shivering suddenly in reaction.

“Fever’s gone,” came a gruff voice. “And he’s breathing.”

Stammel took a breath. Easily, as if it had never been different, cool air moved into his nose, filled his lungs. No burning. No smoke. Hands touched him, gentle hands pulling away the wet cloth, drying him, laying something soft on him.

“When do you think he’ll wake?” came the girl’s voice, from somewhere near his head.

“I don’t know,” the gruff voice said. “And I don’t know what he’ll be like when he wakes. That fever alone—that many days—such fevers can leave men reft of sense and speech.”

But he was not senseless. He did not know where he was, or when, or what had happened, but he would know—he would remember—he was sure of that.

He tried to speak, to say that, and though he felt his tongue move in his mouth, the sound that came out was a rough, animal noise, nothing like words.

“Let’s see if he can swallow,” the gruff voice said. “Lift his shoulders, one of you.”

Someone held his head; someone else slid a strong arm under his shoulders and lifted him to rest against a living, breathing human. A cup came to his lips; water flooded his mouth. He swallowed, swallowed again.

“That’s good,” the gruff voice said.

“Sergeant—it’s me, Arñe,” said another voice, older than the girl’s. “Are you all right now?”

“Of course he’s not all right,” the gruff voice said. “He’s been battling a demon for days. Let the man rest … we’ll get him to a bed now …”

Stammel felt himself being turned, lifted, carried somewhere … he didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t flames. He slid into sleep without realizing it.

When he woke again, he could hear someone breathing in the room with him. He felt clean, rested—a sheet lay over him; he moved his legs, and whoever it was stirred. “Sergeant? Can I get you something?”

It must be night, it was so dark, and they had left someone with him—and it had been dark before. He must have slept the day around. But fear ran a cold finger down his spine.

“A light, first,” he said, rejoicing in the sound of his voice—his own voice, sounding like himself, and ignored the fear.

The hiss of indrawn breath told him a truth worse than fire. He felt himself trembling, tried to sit up and could not. “It’s not … dark …” he said.

“No, sir,” the girl said. “It’s broad day outside, and—and I must tell the Marshal you’re awake.” Her feet scraped on the floor—a stone floor, by the sound.

“Wait,” he said. He was not ready to face anyone else. “Is there water?”

“Yes, sir. Just a moment.” He heard the small sound as she picked up a jug, then the water falling from the jug to a mug—clay by the sound—and then her footsteps coming to the bed. It had to be a bed; her footsteps were below him, and the surface felt like a bed. “I—I don’t know—”

“Take my hand and put it on the mug,” he said. This close he could smell the familiar uniform; she was one of theirs, a soldier. Probably a first-year, from her nervousness. Her hand on his was firm, callused—definitely one of theirs—and she pulled it up, set the mug firmly in his palm and waited until his fingers gripped before she loosened her grip, but only to guide his hand toward his face.

“Should I lift your head?” she asked. He could hear the tension in her voice.

“Probably,” Stammel said, trying for a lightness he did not feel. “Or I may spill it.” His arm was trembling with the effort—he hoped that was the reason.

She lifted his head and guided the mug to his lips. He drank, a cautious swallow first, and then drained the mug. “That was good,” he said. “Now tell me—what happened? Where are we?”

“The Marshal said I shouldn’t tell you things,” she said.

He remembered Paks saying something about her time in Kolobia, how annoying it was when people wouldn’t explain. “Perhaps you should find the Marshal, then,” he said. She eased her hand out from under his head, set the mug back on something—a table?—with a little clunk, and went out. The door was on his right … her receding footsteps told him of a passage.

A current of air from his left suggested a window; the smells with the air—rotting vegetables, human filth—meant a city. Had he caught a fever and been left behind? But he knew better than to drink tainted water or eat the foods most likely to give men fevers.

He tried again to sit up, but he felt dizzy and sick. He lay back, feeling for the side of the bed, for the wall. He had these few moments—for he heard heavier footsteps, booted footsteps, coming down the passage—to prepare himself, to master the turmoil he felt.

“Suli—your private—said you were awake. I’m Marshal Harak. I saw you at your camp, but we did not meet.”

Harak. The name meant nothing to him, but a memory came of the Marshal who had come for the Captain, and later ridden away with him … and he himself … he had been … the memory faded.

“Suli said you could not see.”

“It’s dark,” Stammel said. His voice was firm, at least.

“I’m going to look at your eyes,” the man said.

Stammel felt the warmth from his body, the breath on his face.

“Your eyes are bloodshot, as if you’d been slugged,” Marshal Harak said. “They were like that when your captain brought you here. Do you remember anything about that?”

“No.” Stammel struggled with a darkness as black as the flames had been white. “Only the fire. White … hot …” Sudden nausea twisted his gut. “I—I need the jacks—”

The man called out; other footsteps came running; the man’s strong arm heaved him up and another grabbed his arm and put it over a shoulder. The two men half dragged him out … through another door, to a room he could smell. He heaved, felt the stuff come out his mouth, smelled it, felt the splash on his bare chest. Again … again … they supported him; he was too weak …

When that was over, they wiped him down with wet cloths, and carried him back to the room … he could still feel his own warmth on the bed when they laid him down. “Drink this,” the Marshal said, holding the mug to his lips. This time the water had some herb in it, not numbweed’s bitterness but something … he wasn’t sure.

“You’re alive and sane,” the other man said. His was the gruff voice he’d heard before—how long before? “I am Verstad, a Captain of Tir, and I tell you, soldier, you have fought long and bravely to come through so hard an ordeal. Though your captain brought you here, the Marshal has granted me the right to tend you alongside Marshals—”

“I’m in a … grange?” Stammel said.

“Yes.”

“Gird has no quarrels with Tir,” the Marshal said. “And your captain said you followed Tir.”

“I do. I … did.” Stammel struggled to keep his voice level. “But if I am blind—”

“Tir does not despise the wounded, and that includes the blind,” the Captain said.

“But I can’t fight—”

The Captain grunted. “You fought off a demon without sight or movement … I would not call you helpless.”

“I … don’t …”

“If you remember anything, now or in the next days, it would be good to tell us about it,” Harak said. “We know only what Captain Arcolin told us happened, not what happened inside you.”

Stammel lay still a moment. “I want to know why I can’t even sit up.”

Again Verstad grunted. “That would be because you lay for days in a high fever without eating and with only the little water we could drip into your mouth, the flesh melting from your bones: your clothes would be loose on you now. Anyone is weak after a long fever. You will have to rebuild that muscle.”

“I must—I have to be able to get to—to the jacks myself!” He hated the sudden whine in his voice, as he lost control of it, his diaphragm seized in a cramp.

“You must eat and drink first,” Harak said. “Has the nausea passed?”

“Yes.” One word at a time he could manage in close to his normal voice.

“Then we start feeding you. Or rather, your own soldiers will. And you consider giving thanks, Matthis Stammel, for your captain’s quick wit in bringing you here, and the days and nights your own people have watched over you.”

“I—do. I am … I am just …”

“Mazed, still. Very well. We’ll see what some good meals do for you.”

The others were all embarrassed; he could hear it in their voices. Suli alone was not, though still clearly timid with him because of his rank. He finally asked her why his blindness bothered her less.

“My uncle Saben,” she said. “He was kicked in the face by a cow; he had an infection in one eye that spread to the other—it nearly killed him—but after, when he decided to live … he was still my uncle, you see. He still knew everything he had known. He could still tell when one of the animals was sickening, by the sound of its walk, or its smell, better than my father. The dogs knew his whistles; I would take him out to the hill, and tell him where the animals were, where the dogs were, and he’d work them the same as ever. And you aren’t even scarred as he was.”

“And now that you’ve left home? What does he do now?”

“My little brother, who has no desire to leave the farm, is learning his whistles and goes everywhere with him. You did not think I would leave before I was sure—?”

“No. No, Suli, I know you would not. I’m sorry.”

“It is hard, the first year, my uncle said. He thought of finding a ledge, and stepping off into the air. One night he went out into a storm, when everyone else slept. He was sure he knew how to feel his way to the cliff, even in the storm … but the gods led him round, and his dogs found him, herded him just like a sheep, nipping his heels when he faltered. I remember waking the next morning and we all went out to look for him—there were his tracks, around the cow-byre and then in … he was in the straw, with both dogs on top of him.”

“So you will not let me find a ledge—not that there are many in Vonja—” Stammel put the thought of bridges and the Immerest’s swift current out of his mind. Suli would be disappointed in him.

“You would not go looking for ledges,” Suli said. “Not a sergeant in the Duke’s Company.”

In the night—the true night, not the night of blindness—the dreams and memories came. He was not always sure which was which. When the grange was quiet, and the night breeze changed the scents that blew in, he lay, sometimes dozing, sometimes truly sleeping, sometimes wakeful. Now he remembered most of the day it happened, remembered the soldiers drilling, the trips in and out of the city with Arcolin. He could almost see the faces, the places. Marshal Harak—his face would not come clear. That last ride into the city … he could almost feel the saddle between his thighs. Arcolin had called him in to speak to the Council about … about something. Someone.

One night it burst in on him. Recognizing one of the caravan guards as Korryn, his fox-head brand camouflaged with more scars. His own testimony to the Council—the Council’s request that they go see the man in prison to be sure of his identity. And Korryn had said—something—and then hands at Stammel’s neck, choking; he had fallen—unconscious—found himself under bodies, a welter of blood and guts, with Korryn free, and everyone else motionless. Arcolin’s hand, near his sword, had been trembling with the effort he made to move.

But he, Stammel, could move, and he had struggled out from under the bodies, stabbed Korryn, and Arcolin had struck at once … and then … and then … like a blow inside his head, he had been stunned, and the fires began.

He woke, aware that he’d cried out and was soaked with sweat.

“Sir?” Suli, as always, was first to his side.

“Bad dream,” he said. “Just a bad dream.”

The fires, he’d been told, were the demon’s invasion. But Korryn … that was not a demon, inside Korryn. He was sure of that. It was something else, something less than a demon, something … almost human.

What humans had powers to hold men still? Arcolin had told him what the prince said of the assassination attempt. The Verrakai had such powers. Magelords. But if Korryn had been a magelord, had such powers, why go for a soldier?

At first Stammel could totter only a few steps to the jacks, leaning on someone’s arm. Then he made it out to the grange itself. His soldiers applauded. He tried to grin; he hoped it looked normal. Day by day, days he found it impossible to count without light, he pushed himself for more, knowing from years of training that his body would respond. All the way to the front entrance, where he stood gasping for breath, feeling the sun on his face. All the way back, one hand on the wall to guide him. Around the interior, still touching the wall, until he could find his own way to the jacks, to the bathing room, to the little kitchen.

As Stammel became more able to navigate in the grange on his own—as long as he kept one hand on a wall—he was aware of discussions carried on just beyond what his people thought he could hear … but now, concentrating on hearing, he could hear all too clearly sometimes.

Arñe, doing her job as corporal, made sure they kept the grange clean and fetched whatever anyone needed—“We must not be a burden on the grange,” she said, perhaps more often than necessary. In truth, they weren’t busy enough, and soldiers needed to be kept busy. They polished everything that could be polished, to the point where Stammel heard the yeoman-marshal complain that he had nothing to do. Arñe arranged what drill she could but lacked space, since this city grange had no barton, and the street outside was busy dawn to dusk, noisy with the sound of smiths at work. Stammel could distinguish the solid whang-whang of the ironsmiths from the lighter tink-tink-tink of whitesmiths.

Some hands of days after he’d wakened, Stammel laid a hand on Bald Seli’s shoulder and came into the grange on a drill night for the first time. The big room was full of strangers, all talking, it seemed; it smelled of sweaty people and stale breath. Seli eased him onto a stool near the entrance.

“Go on,” Stammel said, when his people came to greet him. “All of you—go drill with them.”

Marshal Harak opened the drill with a prayer, then set his yeoman to doing basic exercises. He didn’t introduce the Phelani; by that Stammel knew they had been there long enough to become familiar to the locals. By the grunts and groans, Stammel could guess which exercises Harak assigned, though the names were different; his muscles twitched a little as he imagined doing those stretches and bends. After a few minutes, Harak told them to fetch hauks. Someone dropped one; it rattled on the floor. Someone else laughed; Harak growled at them in the same tone Stammel himself used.

Then came the tap-tap of the simple beginning exercises, with Arñe—Harak must have asked her—counting the time. In his mind he could see it; his body remembered every move. Someone—there, across the room, fourth row, near the front—was off-beat, constantly late. Arñe said nothing; she must be waiting for Harak to comment.

As she speeded the count, the slow one continued to lag, off the beat. Stammel opened his mouth and shut it again. It was not his place to correct another man’s unit. He hoped it wasn’t one of his people. Finally Harak said, “Gan, you’re behind. Pick it up.”

“Sorry,” a man said. Right location, Stammel thought, pleased with the accuracy of his hearing. “My arm’s sore, Marshal.”

“You think an enemy will slow down because it’s sore?” Harak asked.

“No, but … I’ll do better.”

But once more the tap of this man’s hauk was slower than the others, and slowing down. Stammel itched to correct him and before he quite realized it, he stood. The count stopped.

“Are you all right, Stammel? Do you need something?”

“I need a hauk,” he said. “It’s time I started training again.” As he expected, there were mutters of But he’s blind here and there in the room.

But from the Marshal, only silence. Then, “Of course, Sergeant. They’re on the wall to your right. Five strides across the entrance, ten to the corner, turn left and about ten strides—”

That was a challenge—he might have sent someone to be a guide—but also recognition. Stammel put his hand on the wall and set off into the dark; the wall disappeared—the entrance. Five strides … and the wall reappeared, solid stone he was glad to bump his fingers on. Ten—he felt the wall ahead before he reached it, a looming presence he did not know how he perceived. But it made turning the corner easier. In three strides he was abreast of some of the yeomen; he could feel the heat of them, and smell them, and hear their breathing. Another five strides, and two … and under his hand was a rack, mostly empty, but—as he felt his way along it—the well-worn handle of a hauk. He hefted it, then found another. They felt heavy, but he told himself that would be good, after his long illness. He heard a soft sigh that seemed to come from everyone in the room.

“Best come forward,” the Marshal said. Stammel stretched out one arm, so the hauk brushed the wall, and went toward the Marshal’s voice until the Marshal said, “Far enough. You’re even with the front rank, two strides from the platform. Gan—move over and make room. Keder, help the sergeant line up.”

“That’s me,” a voice said, from behind and to his left. “Take three steps sideways left, that’ll put you about right, and I can help if you need.”

But Stammel had been opening and closing ranks since he was a recruit; his body knew how to move sideways and his three steps, Keder told him softly, put him exactly right.

“You may resume,” the Marshal said, and Arñe’s voice, much closer now, started a slower count than it had. He lifted the hauks and beat time with the others. Beside him, Gan lagged a little, then caught up. Stammel supposed the Marshal’s eye was on him. Perhaps he considered having a blind man at the head of the line was a good example. As Arñe picked up the speed, Stammel concentrated on correct form, on precise timing. Up, across, forward, back, together in front, together behind … he began to wish he too had done the stretches and bends. A muscle in his back twinged; he ignored it. It was a healthy twinge.

On six, they should be tapping hauks with the person beside them—but Gan was never there when he was. He himself was on count, he was sure.

“Gan—you missed your tap!” the Marshal said.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Gan said.

“Don’t worry,” Stammel said. “I’m not easily hurt.” There was a moment of silence, and then the Marshal again.

“Gan, if you don’t keep time, I’ll bring you up here and drill you myself.”

That got a muffled chuckle from the others; apparently it was a familiar threat. The next time Arñe called six, Stammel’s hauk tapped another on his left. His tap was strong, the other’s weak, and the hapless Gan dropped his hauk. “Keep going,” the Marshal said. “Gan—recover on three …”

Stammel’s arms ached; the palms of his hands stung. He ignored that, too. Nothing was as bad as the fire, and it had been years of training, he was sure, that gave him the endurance to survive. He would not quit until he fell over.

The Marshal had other ideas. When the group moved into line-against-line, and Stammel turned about to face the man behind, the Marshal stopped him. “Sergeant, your captain put your health in my care. You have done enough for a first drill. Rest now.”

In truth, he was trembling, but he hated it, quitting in front of the yeomen. He took it as an order, instead of his own will. “Yes, Marshal,” he said, and without a reminder found his way back to the rack to put his hauks away, and—left hand on the wall this time—made it back down the grange, across the terrifying space where he had no wall to guide him, and found the stool he’d been sitting on by barking his shin on it.

He had at least started. He would come back somehow, some way, however long it took. Though what he could do as a blind man—a blind soldier—he could not imagine.