Soldiers Live

81 The Shadowlander Military Cemetery: Laying To Rest

Willow Swan stuck his head into the tent. “Croaker. Murgen. Anybody who’s interested. Sahra’s ready to do her thing with Thai Dei and Uncle Doj.”

About damned time, I thought but did not say. There were moments, lately, when I wanted to have the whole damned Nyueng Bao Community lined up and spanked. They had dragged the two corpses a hundred fifty miles while they argued bitterly about what to do with them. I did manage to keep my mouth shut but kept wanting to scream, “They don’t care anymore! Do something! They smell. Bad!” Not the sort of thing you do with grieving relatives, of course. Not unless you feel like you have developed a shortage of enemies.

The Nyueng Bao had prepared a pair of ghats in a prominent place near the center of the Shadowlander military cemetery. Though only a few swamp folk remained with us those survivors were gathered in cliques, according to the funeral option they believed best honored the dead.

Who would believe a funeral could become savagely political? But people can find reasons to squabble about almost anything.

Thai Dei’s send-off was less controversial, of course. He had not believed in much of anything but his own honor, himself. A ritualistic passage through the purifying flame for a warrior who would not bend, troubled only a couple of conservative old-timers who thought the ceremonies too foreign. Uncle Doj was the great bone of contention.

With Doj the burning group were in dispute with the exposure group, who wanted to lay the corpse out on a high platform and leave it till its bones were clean.

This was supposed to be the proper send-off for a high priest of the Path of the Sword—though no one could say how, why or when that idea had arisen. None of the men from Hsien, some of whom had grown up in Hsien’s martial arts monasteries, had heard of any such practice there. The people of Hsien buried their dead. Doj’s cronies insisted that his predecessors had been exposed exactly the way they wanted to do him now.

As we filed past the ghats, each tossing on an herb packet and a folded piece of paper carrying a prayer the fire would send along with the dead, Suvrin suggested, “They might have acquired the custom when they first passed through my country. Some of the peoples back home, back then, did expose corpses that they were especially afraid would be seized by skinwalkers.”

Skinwalkers again. One of those monsters no one has ever seen, like vampires and werewolves. With all the real monsters loose in the world, seen and suffered often enough, why did so many people trouble themselves about things no reliable witness ever saw? “Wouldn’t fire work just as well?”

“Burning wasn’t acceptable. It isn’t even in modern times, even though so many northerners have come across the Dandha Presh.”

I grunted. It must have to do with religion and religion seldom makes sense to me.

“The common people, the poor, anyone that wouldn’t attract a skinwalker, gets a normal burial. Just like here.” He indicated the graves around us. “People who might attract a skinwalker will be exposed. So there won’t be a good suit of skin to steal.” He gestured. “The above-ground tombs. They must contain priests and captains who were being stored temporarily, until they could be properly exposed. Their army must have been hard-pressed. They never got back to deal with it.”

Actually, I could see several fallen collections of poles with bits of rag and bone beneath that might have been exposure platforms a long time ago. “Looks like your skinwalkers never got here to take advantage, either.”

That earned me a scowl.

I was not quite sure why Suvrin was Sleepy’s favorite and probable designated successor. But I never understood why Murgen picked Sleepy, either. Yet he had chosen well. She had brought the Company through the Kiaulune wars and the era of the Captivity. And there had been a lot of raised eyebrows when I had chosen Murgen to become Annalist. And Murgen had managed despite never having been quite certain of his sanity.

Sleepy saw something.

Suvrin did not agree. Suvrin insisted that he was going to leave us. But I noted that he had passed up several wonderful opportunities to do so already.

As was her right, being Thai Dei’s closest surviving relative, Sahra asked Murgen to join her and Tobo in placing the torches into Thai Dei’s pyre. Fitting, I thought, although the old men grumbled. Murgen and Thai Dei had been as close as brothers for a long, long time.

Sahra asked no one but Tobo to help bring the fire to Doj.

Even I saluted the dead swordmaster, though in life I never trusted him.

Lady leaned against me from my left. “I suppose you’ll have to admit that he was trustworthy now.” Mind reading.

“I don’t have to admit any such thing. He just kicked off before he could screw us over.”

“No fool like an old fool.”

I stopped arguing. She would win every debate by dint of outliving me. I changed the subject. “You still feel like you’re getting stronger?” For an age now she had been able to steal almost no supernatural power from Kina. But long ago she had been able to parasitize enough to come close to being Soulcatcher’s equal. She believed Goblin’s attack on the Goddess was why there was so little power left to steal.

It seemed reasonable to me that Goblin returning as Kina’s tool would mean fresh power available but it had not worked that way. Not until Goblin and the girl had entered the Grove of Doom.

“It’s coming. Little by little.” She sounded like she did not want to wait. “I can do a few parlor tricks now.” The way she thought, that might mean she was limited to destroying small villages with a single wink. “I need to get closer to see what helps.”

I did not follow up. I could feel her excitement. She hid it well but if I got her going she would drive me nuts talking about stuff that was entirely beyond me.

I could do that, too, either going on with my theories about diseases or about the Company’s history.

Definitely a match made in heaven.

I told her, “Soon as we’re done paying our respects, how about you see Howler? Find out if my idea gets him moving on the carpets any faster.”

“If you give him what he wants now he won’t have any incentive to stay with us.”

“Where’s he gonna run to?”

“He’ll find somewhere. He always has.”

And, somehow, that always ended up in our way. “Then I expect we’ll push him hard to get us a couple, three carpets. And you can hang around playing apprentice while he does, sister Shukrat.”

“Yech! No way! He’s creepy. He stinks. And he has more hands than some of those four-armed Gunni gods.”

“He’s little,” Tobo called from the chair we had brought along so he could rest between ceremonial stints. “Spank him.”

“That’s probably what he wants.”

“Get somebody to carry me around and I’ll go with you,” Tobo told Shukrat. “I make the Howler nervous. Croaker. What’ll we call him if Shivetya cures his screaming?”

“Stinky might work. Or the Stinker for formal.”

The flames of the funeral pyres leapt higher. Tobo ignored me now. I let it drop, too. Time to say goodbye, old man. They never took the oath but Thai Dei and Doj were brothers in their hearts. They stories were warp and woof of the Company tapestry.