His grasping hands leaked thick, sluggish blood. His palms pressed down upon the broken, steaming mud and stones. He blinded her with every reach, but even that no longer mattered. Endest felt himself to be dying, and a dying man should be left alone.
‘My lords, we have failed you. Soldiers of the Hust, Houseblades, we have failed you. Forgive us.
‘But no! Disregard this self-pity. We fail from a crisis of faith. Violent defence revealed the truth of that, just as Hunn Raal impugns the glory of Light. Ah, such weak vessels …’
He crawled onward, as strange shadows swept over him. Head twisting, he peered up at the heavy clouds, squinted as he saw massive dark shapes wheeling through them. My love, are you there? Turn away now, please. Do not look down.
Simple truths are often the hardest ones to bear. Dying alone is the only real way of dying, after all. The most personal act, the most private battle. Leave me to it, and if my strength holds I will reach my friend’s side. I ask for nothing more. I seek no other solace.
Death punctuates this pilgrim’s path. He should have known that all along.
* * *
‘Dissension among the commanders!’ cried the ancient lord, his knees now stained with mud, his hands strangely blue with the cold. He’d placed a number of the lead soldiers in a circle behind the ranks. ‘Dismay has stolen the First Son’s heart. Others hold him back – he would rush down to that dying man, the only one left. Sleet and fierce winds buffet them! Winter freezes their tears! He strains, fearless against the terrible sorcery!’
Wreneck stared down at the small figures to either side of the ditch. The advance had involved scant few of the soldiers, as the lord had insisted that champions must magically duel first. In the midst of frantic rolls of the knucklebones and triumphant cries from the old man, the sky lowered, and frozen rain began to pummel them. Shivering and miserable, Wreneck sat hunched beneath the torrent. Again and again he glanced to where he’d set down the spear, watched the ice growing upon its iron point, water trickling across the wooden shaft. In the meantime, the old man continued his tale.
‘Here then,’ he said in a ragged voice, ‘is where the heart breaks. Old standards are raised. Honour, loyalty. Even … ah, that is most sorrowful, is it not? To lift high this last virtue, to utter its lonely name, and in its sweet shadow, ah, Wreneck, I see soldiers toppling by the score.’ He fell back on to the slope of the ditch and stared up into the blackened sky, the sleet slashing at his weathered face. ‘Shall we hear their words, then? They stand, almost alone. They face each other, and all that once bound them now unravels. And yet, such decorum! Such … dignity.’ He reached up filthy hands to claw at his face.
Wreneck studied the soldiers, and saw now that the old man had moved his ‘dying’ champion to the side of his fallen comrade; whilst upon Wreneck’s own side of the ditch, his lone champion remained standing, ankle-deep in the mud. Do I push him down too? Are we done with these ones, then?
The thunder was gone, the last of the lightning had flashed and now sunset and gloom fought a silent war in the sky. The column of ghosts continued on, too many to even comprehend, but heads turned to watch them as they passed.
‘One day,’ the old lord muttered as he eyed Wreneck, ‘you will become a man – no, make no spurious claim. You may wear the accoutrements. You may wield that artless spear and play at the dead-hearted, and make dull coins of your eyes, but these masks you don are too fresh. Your face is yet to settle into the mould it would so bravely display.’
Wreneck lifted his head, frowned across at the man as he continued.
‘Cast in fire-hardened clay, an empty space defined, simply awaiting all that is malleable. By this means we pour our children into adulthood. Alas, too many of us prove unskilled in the shaping of that mould. Or careless, or so bound up in our own torments that all we make becomes twisted in its own right, a perfect reflection of our malformed selves.’ He waved weakly down at the soldiers. ‘Yielding this.’
‘The world,’ said Wreneck, ‘needs soldiers. Things were done. People were ruined. A soldier gives answer. A soldier makes right.’
‘You describe an honourable pose.’
‘Yes, milord. Honour. That must be at the heart of a soldier, or a guard, or a city watch. You keep honour inside and it becomes what you defend – not just your own, but everyone else’s too.’
‘Then I must ask you, Wreneck of Abara Delack, does honour wear a uniform? Do describe it, boy.’ He waved at the lead soldiers. ‘Blue or green? Does honour wear a skin’s hue? Black or white? Blue or grey? What if it wears all of them? Or none? What if no uniform can make such a claim for the one wearing it? It’s naught but cloth, leather and iron, after all. It protects one and all and cares nothing for virtue.’ He sat up suddenly and leaned forward, his eyes bright. ‘Now imagine a new kind of armour, my young friend. One that does care. Armour of such power that it changes the wearer. A mould to challenge the set ways of the grown man and woman, a mould that forces their bodies, and the souls cowering within them, to find a new truth!’
Wreneck rubbed at his face, feeling his cheeks stinging with heat. ‘Gripp Galas told me that Lord Anomander’s Houseblades is a company that demands the highest virtues of its members. So the uniform does have a virtue.’
The lord made a face and settled back. ‘Until it’s lost. Iron is hard but words are soft. You can squeeze words, all those spoken virtues, into any mad and maddening mould. You can make honour drip blood. You can make honesty the destroyer of lives. You can make conscience a weapon of fear and hate. No, young Wreneck, I speak of an unyielding truth – look here, see my Hust Legion! I have discovered something, about my swords and my armour. The reason for their screams, their howls. It’s not pleasure. Not bloodlust. No glee in the midst of slaughter. It’s none of those things.’
‘Then what is it?’
The lord’s face suddenly crumpled, folded in on itself with grief. He fell back as a sob took him.
Wreneck stared down at the lead soldiers. He knew about the Hust Legion. He knew about swords that were said to be cursed. And now there was armour, too. He glanced back at the spear lying on the ground, the shaft and point now crusted with frozen rain.
He wanted to be away from this old man and all his tears and confusing words. Soldiers were needed, for when things went bad. For when people needed protecting. Blue or green? Is the only difference the side they’re on? What happens when soldiers stop protecting people? When they start protecting other things? And what if those things are awful, or cruel or selfish? What happens to honour then?
‘Dignity,’ the old lord muttered again, as he began to weep in earnest.
‘Milord?’
A frail hand waved carelessly, ‘Advance your cohorts, child, and see us break like chaff before the breeze.’
‘But milord, nothing has changed!’
He drew a deep, shuddering breath, and then shook his head. ‘Everything has changed, my young friend. The game drips blood. Upon my side, priests buckle beneath the weight of their doubts. The goddess has no face – her darkness swallows all. Upon your side, the light blinds. We wage a war against our own irrelevance, which is what gives it such a nasty edge. Do lead your troops down into the valley. We can ignore the dragons for now.’