The Dusk Watchman

CHAPTER 36

General Lahk slowly unfastened the embossed buckles of his jacket and eased it off. The stink of rancid wool and unwashed skin filled the sleeping half of his tent, but he’d long since grown used to that. His linen undershirt was greasy to the touch and he pulled it up over his head and discarded it on the bed. Slumping down in his campaign chair, he began to unbuckle his greaves and unlace the high cavalry boots before wearily tugging them from his legs.

He sat for a moment with his feet on the edge of the bed, looking up at the peaked roof of the tent. It took him a while, but eventually the white-eye general heaved himself up again and stripped off his leggings so he was naked. It was chilly in there, but even the northern parts of the Chetse lands were far further south than back home, where snow would be coming soon — these plains and valleys had never been covered overnight by a white blanket. Outside was dusty scrubland dotted with patchy clumps of brown grass. What little rain fell vanished almost immediately into the parched ground.

Lahk ran his fingers over his body in his nightly inspection. Once he’d finished checking his body for the ticks and infections that plagued every soldier, he opened the small box beside his chair. Inside was a mirror, several rolled pieces of cloth and a clay pot. He raised the mirror briefly and stared at the face reflected in it: white-eyes, weathered cheeks and uneven eyebrows; the lump of his nose and broad, muscular jawline common to his kind; the scar on his cheek that most white-eyes had in one form or another.

He picked up the candle illuminating the inside of the tent and brought it closer, staring into his own eyes, following the circle of his white irises and the small black dot at its heart.

Not so different to any other man’s eye, Lahk thought to himself, and yet it means so much.

He touched the gold ring in his ear, an ornament he’d not cared for until recently. As a white-eye his skin healed quickly and earrings were an annoyance, but despite all that, Lahk had taken to wearing the single ring of rank normally left packed and forgotten in his belongings. It was a reminder of home, of the tribe he’d left behind — though most of those he knew and respected were with him now.

He unclipped the ring and set it on the table, wiping away the slight trace of blood on his earlobe. It would be half healed by the time he woke up, but this was as long as he’d ever been away from the tribe that was his entire life. Lord Bahl had not been one for conquest, and his faithful general had been kept largely within Farlan borders.

He’d been made a marshal for reasons of political etiquette as much as anything, and he felt little affection for the manor or the lands he owned. It was the grey streets of Tirah he missed, the cloud-wreathed spires and besieging forest beyond. He had his orders still, but the cause was a remote one for a man so used to the certainty and strength of Lord Bahl.

He picked up the mirror again and inspected the scars on his neck. The skin was red-raw where his cuirass, dented by a halberd a week back, was rubbing. He was loath to ask the smiths to beat it out again; that it rubbed against his tender scar tissue was not a good enough reason to distract them from their more vital work.

With the mirror he followed the line of jagged scars, running from his neck, branching around his shoulder, then spreading down over his chest and stomach in a long fern pattern. Another scar, two fingers thick, ran down his shoulder and back before it merged again with the other at his hip and ran down the buttock, with more strange fern-spreads, then tapering until it reached his calf, where it ended.

The scar was old, darker than his flesh, with whitened cracks crossing it where the skin was dry. It had been years since Nartis had so savagely rejected him as Lord Bahl’s Krann, but he could still remember the white-hot pain, as if a strip of his skin had been ripped off his body and discarded. And then he’d smelled the burnt flesh..

With the patience of many years’ practice, Lahk began to daub wool-grease onto the worst parts, centred on his neck and hip, moving in turn to the other scars on his body, feeling an echo of each one as he reached it: the chunk of flesh gouged from his thigh in the Great Forest beyond Lomin; the small scar on his bicep which was the only trace of an axe blow that had broken his arm and pained him to this day.

The litany of injuries continued: his cheek, pierced by the steel-shod butt of a spear that had broken two teeth. White-eye bones healed — some had been forcibly mended a dozen times or more — but teeth didn’t grow back. Sword-cut to his forearm, here; a knife-wound up his ribs, there, that had notched two of them. The dark circle above his hip was an arrow-wound, innocuous in size, but it had caused terrible damage within and the healers had only just managed to save his life that time. His kneecap, spilt neatly across the middle; his ankle, shattered by a lance; another arrow wound to his thigh… Even the fingers he was using to massage in the ointment had suffered. His little fingers had been broken four times between them — the one on the left hand had fared worst and now barely moved; nowadays it was usually splinted to its neighbour. Even his knuckles were scarred and ugly with use.

His kind didn’t age as quickly as normal humans, yet as each day ended, General Lahk felt the years more heavily: the slow, stiff ache in his shoulders, the dull clunk from his shoulder socket whenever he drew his left arm right back, the gnarled and twisted toes, with every nail ridged and bruised.

Everything hurts, Lahk concluded, easing back into his chair and ignoring the cold that raised goose bumps on his flesh. Am I lucky or foolish? I’ve served longer than almost any other — as long as Suzerain Torl, and I don’t envy him his body. I’ve seen the discomfort, and even shitting pains him.

The thought made Lahk look down at his crotch. The one I always forget.

He took a little more ointment and pushed his penis aside. Even that was scarred, the faint white line down its side marking where a sword had sliced, missing the groin artery, but tearing away one ball, leaving his sack looking even uglier than most: a small, misshapen lump half-covered in hair.

He stopped as the weight of damage drained the strength from him. He’d only once seen disgust on a whore’s face, but the hurt of it remained with him still. The woman he kept in Tirah was cheerfully unbothered by any sort of disfigurement, but it was her presence in the dark of night that made him pay her house bills, not the sex.

Gods, he thought, I’ve never even met a white-eye female — and my brother’s been as useless as me when it comes to bringing new life into the Land. ‘Are we only good for killing?’ he said aloud, though the empty tent never gave him any answer.

My body’s a record of service — sometimes I think it belongs to the army. Maybe one day Quartermaster-General Kervar will ask for it back. Would I complain? No other man can be this damaged. Each time they patch me up and send me back out, because I’m the fool who does not say no, who does not complain or argue. For thirty-five years I’ve been first to be tended by the healers. Any other soldier would have lost his arm or leg and been pensioned out — or be dead of his wounds, more likely — yet here I am, still fighting.

He sat back and reached into the box once again, this time withdrawing a cloth roll. Fumbling a little, he fitted a small porcelain pipe and ivory stem together, then withdrew a tiny black lump from a pouch, placed it in the bowl of the pipe and used the candle to heat it. Finally breathing in the thick smoke, Lahk closed his eyes and waited for the dull aches in his body to fade. He used the drug rarely, only when he knew the pain of old injuries would keep him from sleeping, but they had been riding hard for a week now, through these inhospitable Chetse lands, and his ankle and knee in particular pained him enough that his brother had not been the only one to notice. Others had asked, King Emin and Carel most pointedly.

Lahk bowed his head. I am not my lord. I do not have his strength.

Memories of Lord Bahl filled his mind. As Lahk had been the bedrock of the Ghosts, the unmovable heart of that entire legion, so Bahl had been for Lahk: his strength and power surpassed the general’s understanding.

Had I known him, had I fought beside him before that day at the temple, I would have never offered myself so readily. He bore the weight of the nation on his shoulders; he suffered the whispers and lies while he served them all. Without him — without a ruler of his ilk — I am lost. Isak wears greatness like a mantle, but see how that incandescence has burned him. I follow him out of habit as much as loyalty. Truth and justice are just words to me. All I ask for is purpose.

The lingering note of pain in his limbs began to dim and his head fogged as the drug started to take effect. He spat on the ground, revolted by the bitter taste — in truth, everything about it revolted him, not least the days when he felt the need for it growing further apart from the catalogue of injuries, seen and unseen, he had accumulated.

He capped the pipe, dismantled it and put it away in the box before slipping his leggings back on again. His movements were slow and ponderous, but that was as he wanted: the smoke drove away the pain and the doubts and allowed a few hours of emptiness in his mind. The lumps were deliberately small, limited by the strength of will some saw as an iron soul. Some things were necessary and therefore they were done. He could make no sense of how others could lie and betray themselves out of doing what they needed to.

The chill in the room was gone now. As he went about the motions of stowing his armour and boots, unable to let himself sleep while it lay in disorder, he muttered the words of prayer he’d been taught so long ago. He couldn’t pray to Nartis, not since that day he was so gravely scarred, but the words of reverence his father had taught him returned without effort. As a boy, Tiniq had always scowled as he mumbled them at their bedside, trusting in his brother’s strong voice to hide his own reluctance. Now Lahk always pictured Lord Bahl as he spoke the words taught to all Farlan under his breath:

‘Give me strength, lord, for all I must do. Give me strength, lord, for the fear I must face. Give me strength, lord-’

He broke off, suddenly aware there was someone else in the tent. His battle-instincts had been dulled, but even as he realised they were there, he felt no panic. It was simply awareness, not fear. The long-knife entered his back cleanly: a quick, professional strike that pierced his great heart and sent the general rigid. He tried to turn, but the person had a firm grip on his arm. As Lahk moved, the knife twisted in the wound and the sharp blossom of agony spread around his ribcage, flowering hot over his skin though the blade was as cold as ice.

He felt his heart stutter, then a flicker of fear as he realised he was dead, but that faded almost immediately. Lahk remained standing even as the knife was removed and driven in again. The first blow had killed him; Lahk knew that with utter certainty, and his life’s blood spilled from his back, but he had seen too much death to fear it now. Battle had been his life, not his pleasure; he had no dreams of glory to follow, no heroic death to seek. He was beyond pain.

Lahk stared at the faded tent cloth, and at last his immovability ended. His killer eased him forward, just a step, to reach the bed and then down he went — sprawled across it, his face perched on the edge looking at the tent wall just a foot away. The light dimmed, the tent grew dark around him and Lahk found himself sinking into darkness. But the darkness was not empty, he felt power there — strength beyond mortal bounds. Something waited patiently for him, and Lahk would face it without regrets.

I come, my lord. I come to serve you once more.

‘Give me strength, lord,’ his killer finished, ‘for the man I must be.’ He withdrew the knife and wiped it on the bed. Once the weapon was sheathed he stood for a while looking down at the body.

‘I’m sorry. You deserved better,’ the killer whispered.

He collected the Crystal Skull from Lahk’s armour and held it up to the weak light for a moment. The shadows in the room swarmed and danced around him, swirling up to meet him even before the killer bent to blow out the candle. Then he left, wreathed in shadow, as unseen by the guards as when he had entered.

Isak sat, unmoving, as Suzerain Torl spilled the news, tears shining wetly in the ageing warrior’s eyes, his grey and lined face crumpled by grief.

‘Dead?’ he asked dumbly.

‘Found by his guards this morning,’ Torl choked. ‘Stabbed in the night, his Crystal Skull taken.’

‘How?’

‘They claim they don’t know. They swear no one entered or left all night.’ Torl’s face hardened. ‘Shinir will find the truth of it, but I’ve known Lahk’s hurscals for years…’ His voice tailed off. He looked shaken to his core. Even after all the death and battle he had seen, for his implacable friend to be murdered without putting up a fight tore at the man’s heart.

‘It must be done — it’s better Shinir questions them than Tiniq getting his hands on them. Speaking of Tiniq, has he been told?’

A strangled howl answered his question, and Isak rose and saw the hooded figure of Tiniq, staggering down the pathway between the Palace Guard’s tents. He had a messenger by the throat and was dragging the man in his wake, apparently unaware he still had the man in his grip.

‘Tiniq!’ Isak shouted, and the ranger stopped dead, hesitating for a moment before swinging around to face his lord. Isak and Torl headed out past their guards to meet him. The man’s eyes were red-rimmed with grief.

‘Let him go, Tiniq,’ Torl ordered. ‘He’s not the one to blame.’

The ranger looked down to find the young messenger in his hand still. The man hung from Tiniq’s grip, his knees dragging on the ground, both hands wrapped fruitlessly around the man’s fist. With an effort, the shaking ranger released him and the messenger flopped onto his back, gasping for air.

‘Go with him, Torl,’ Isak said. ‘Lahk was your friend; you should help prepare his body.’

‘Prepare his body?’ Tiniq echoed hoarsely.

‘Funeral rites — he was our greatest general, and we will honour him as such.’

Tiniq shook his head. ‘We wrap the body and bring him with us.’

‘Bring him?’ Suzerain Torl said, horrified. ‘Damn it, man, he was your brother!’

Tiniq advanced on the suzerain, for a moment looking like he was going to attack him, then he started fighting for control. ‘He was my brother, yes,’ he said, ‘and we will honour him — he wouldn’t care about a eulogy or memorial. We honour him by following the example he set.’ He looked around wildly at the soldiers drawing closer, hearing the whispers already running through the crowds. ‘You hear me?’ he shouted, ‘you want to honour my brother, you’ll bloody march for him! You think he’d want to lose hours of daylight when there’s an enemy to catch? You think he’ll give a shit about pretty words being spoken over him? There’s the job at hand, nothing more, and your job is to catch and kill the enemy. If you want to honour him, you’ll give him fifty miles this day to make up the ground we’ve lost!’

He voice wavered. With one final glare at Torl and Isak, Tiniq started off again towards his brother’s command tent.

‘You heard him,’ Isak said quietly. ‘We march for General Lahk; we’ll honour him tonight. Go and make sure he doesn’t kill anyone, Torl. I’ll get them ready to march; no man’ll need telling twice today.’

‘The final test?’ Ilumene asked, hurrying forward.

Ruhen turned and smiled. ‘The final test,’ the child in white confirmed as Ilumene joined him. He still towered over the boy, though Ruhen was taller than natural for his years. His composed stillness or smooth, restrained purpose set him apart from normal children — that and the shadows in his remaining eye.

‘It all went as you intended?’

‘All involved passed the test,’ Ruhen replied, ‘and that is all I ever plan for.’

Ilumene nodded in approval. ‘At least some things about that damn white-eye are predictable.’

‘You think him incapable of restraining himself?’

‘All the time? No, but you catch that boy off-guard and his first reaction’ll be to call the storm inside. Don’t give a man time to think and he’ll act on instinct — that’s when you know his true heart, and it tells you he doesn’t suspect our agent.’

Ruhen pursed his lips. ‘Let us not make too many assumptions; they have surprised us in the past.’

‘Aye, well, they’re running out of cards to play. Once our agent performs his task, they’ll be left reeling and unable to stop us.’

‘And then the game will be ours,’ Ruhen finished, savouring the words on his tongue with the ghost of a smile. ‘But until then, it remains at risk.’

It was morning and the Devoted army was ready to march again. Seeded through their ranks were ragged figures in greys and whites, the wild-eyed, exhausted and half-starved preachers and followers who called themselves Ruhen’s Children. Some knelt and muttered prayers, watched by Chetse farmhands and villagers. They all faced Ruhen as they droned devotionals of Venn’s and Luerce’s devising, or keened wordlessly, arms linked with their fellow devout, or gripping the shoulders of the person in front.

‘It is a lesson for us both,’ Ruhen said after a while, gesturing to the masses around them.

‘In what?’

‘In the unexpected. Look at these soldiers, professional, obedient, but unremarkable in many ways. They have no proud pedigree, no great nation to inspire their pride, nothing more than a basic level of devotion and the regimen of training.’

Ilumene followed Ruhen’s gaze. ‘Unexpected, aye,’ he commented as he watched the white clad worshippers slowly clump together.

They had no tents or supplies with them — they were beggars, the mad and the lost, who either had nothing, or had not understood what they might need on their journey. All the way through the central states they had been in lands sworn to Ruhen and the Knights of the Temples, and the local preachers at every village and town had provided basic provisions. The followers who had accompanied them from the Circle City hadn’t fallen away as some had expected; instead, they had swelled in number, and for every one who found the going too hard, or who fell to sickness, a dozen more joined the cause, driven by a consuming zeal.

Advance scouts had negotiated supplies for the army once they’d entered Chetse lands, but the haphazard organisation of Ruhen’s Children fell away. Ilumene had predicted a vicious but necessary culling as only the strongest among them survived, but something entirely different had happened, and now the man and boy watched in silent wonder as men, women and children crawled from the tents of the Devoted, ready to resume their march.

Without orders, the men of the army had taken them in, sheltering and feeding them without complaint. There was enough to go around, they estimated, but it was the care and effort expended that surprised all who saw it.

‘I underestimated them,’ Ruhen said. ‘I had not thought soldiers would embrace my message too.’

Ilumene laughed softly. ‘They didn’t, not really,’ he said when Ruhen turned enquiringly towards him. ‘It’s not that you underestimated them, you just don’t know ’em.’

‘I have watched humans for long enough, I think,’ Ruhen replied coldly.

‘Watched, yes, but you ain’t one.’ Ilumene prodded the boy on his thin shoulder, ignoring the dark look he received.

‘This bag o’ bones you’re wearing,’ Ilumene said, grinning, ‘this doesn’t tell you what it’s like to be human. Those scar-hearted troops of the Devoted haven’t embraced your message, not so much as you think. They’re simple men; all soldiers are when they’re on the march. The Devoted’s weakness has always been its disparate roots: competing cultures and peoples, all wearing the Runesword. It’s always much harder to get strangers to fight side-by-side for a cause that matters to neither. This army doesn’t understand its purpose here, so it’s made one up.’

‘They embrace the spirit of the message without paying attention to the words?’ Ruhen said hesitantly.

Ilumene nodded. ‘This ain’t devotion or fanaticism, it’s human ity, grubby and uneasy maybe, but it’s naked humanity for all the Land to see. They see the weak and broken and they care for ’em. They see others driven by devotion and they honour them. They hear talk about protecting the innocent — and sure, it seeps into some, but it’s really two more basic instincts converging. Soldiers are always looking for a cause. It takes a heartless man to watch some poor fool to die at the side of the road.’

‘They have made frailty their banner,’ Ruhen mused. ‘That it matches my message of innocence is mere confirmation in their hearts, a justification for what they all feel is right.’

‘And now we’ve got an army,’ Ilumene added. ‘Your followers are the common thread for all these troops, some of whom faced each other on the battlefield last year. They’re bound together now, and they’ll fight together because they’re all fighting for the same thing. The Knight-Cardinal knows he’s just a figurehead; his soul’s bound to you and that’s shackled him as surely as a pet dog. Soon the rest’ll realise just how empty their authority is too, and on that day, any of ’em with a backbone left will most likely be cut down by his own men.’ He shrugged. ‘If not, I’ll do it myself.’