Healer's Ruin (5 page)

It was then that he saw the huge demon-faced helm sitting on a rock next to the Krune officer. It was the first time he had seen Jolm without it, although he could only see the back of the man's head. Chalos noticed that beneath its black braids the lieutenant's skull was misshapen as though it had once been split and reattached in ham-fisted haste. The hair grew strangely on that skull as if the man's scalp had two crowns, one wildly off-centre. The healer's eyes moved down along the lieutenant's broad and muscular form to the hips where the armoured legs seemed identical, both bowing out to the same side. Even the feet seemed fixed the same way and Chalos saw that the man wore two right boots. This detail, more than any other, illustrated how Jolm of the Twisted Root had earned his cruel monicker.

'Lieutenant,' he said. 'Good morning.'

'And to you,' said Jolm, a gauntleted hand casting the apple aside. Chalos watched it bounce, now but a fragment, into the foliage.

'That was edible?' Chalos enquired. He had heard that much of the fruit of the Dallian Woodland was poisonous or at the very least unpleasant.

'Most things are edible,' Jolm replied. 'If you have a strong stomach.'

Now Chalos noticed something else, a grotesque display high on the tree above Jolm.

Another marker.

The body was strapped even higher up the trunk. A Riln warrior hung there, arms and legs pulled brutally back, bound at the wrists and ankles. The corpse was again headless but unlike the others it was also split from throat to groin with dozens of flowers rammed into the bloody crevice. Chalos doubled over at once and vomited. When he was done wiping the strands of slime from his lips he lowered himself shakily to the ground.

'The Gilt Plates have marked our path well, don't you think?' Jolm said. 'Resourceful of them to use the fallen enemy in so practical a fashion, no?'

'Very resourceful,' Chalos said weakly.

'They travelled that way,' said Jolm, pointing north-eastward with his clawed finger. 'I have sent scouts ahead. We will break camp only when they return.'

'Sounds good.'

'Hm-hmm.'

Chalos felt Mysa spasm. He looked down. Her eye threatened to flutter open but then she slumped back into despondent stillness. He stroked her wing.

'What wounded her?' the lieutenant asked.

Chalos glanced back to Jolm. The Krune still had his back to the healer but the helm stared from its place on the rock, the eye grilles somehow seeming to see everything. Chalos found himself speaking to the helm.

'An arrow, I think,' he said. 'I'm not sure.'

'It was not in the wound?'

'No. I think Samine plucked it out.'

'You can't heal her, I take it?'

'No,' said Chalos glumly. 'I can't. I can only heal people and animals. Or at least, the people and animals whose anatomies I have studied. Krune, Rovann, Phaeron, Ektan, Sanul... shadamar, pavarine, curalk...' He sighed, listing the various creatures that flocked to the banner of the Ten Plains King or followed in the wake of its soldiers. 'Nobody can heal Accomplices, so far as I know. It takes too much power.'

He saw Jolm give a solemn nod.

'You are alone then.'

Chalos had not been prepared for the sudden sadness in the Krune's voice and it touched him.

'I suppose so,' he admitted. 'Although Samine – I mean, the Dread Spear – has been supportive.'

'It is good to have friends,' Jolm said. 'For some of us, forming such bonds is difficult, is it not? There are... obstacles.'

'Yes.'

With a grunt the mighty Krune warrior hefted the helm and slammed it over his head, without turning around. Chalos heard fixings clip into place. Then the lieutenant spun to stare down at him through the impassive demon's face.

'You are important to our mission, slinger. If there is anything you need, you must come to me immediately.'

'Thank you, lieutenant.'

'Let us walk back together,' Jolm said, striding past in his peculiar but effective gait. 'I must appraise you of certain details pertaining to the Gilt Plates for when we find them, many will certainly require your healing touch.'

Chalos followed him, finding that despite the deformity of the Krune's lower limbs Jolm possessed a sure-footedness that left the healer struggling to keep up, especially on the uneven ground.

'You really think we'll find the Gilt Plates?'

Jolm reached up to push a branch away. The ancient wood groaned and cracked under the gauntlet.

'Of course! They are a redoubtable band of killers known across the kingdom for their intractability. Whatever losses they took there will be something of them worth salvaging. We will rescue the company even if it means assimilating the survivors into this force.' He cocked his head. 'Although, marching alongside Dauwarks does not appeal to me. Whatever their attributes, a mix of peoples is no good for a unit of soldiers. Purity is coherence, and coherence is purity.'

Twice Chalos almost slipped on the mossy earth. Slick tubers, tangled vines, unstable logs, strange guano – all of it threatened to upend him. Yet even in his heavy clanking boots, both curved to the left at the toe, Jolm moved with something approaching grace.

'I had not known they were Dauwarks. I thought they were Rovann, like me.'

The Krune officer seemed amused by this and a low chuckle escaped him.

'Rovann? Blood-drenched Sickles of the Gladestorm, slinger! You Rovann are too small to be real soldiers. What are your kind at best, six foot? Six foot and a half? No, the Gilt Plates are Dauwarks alright. Big and wide, clad in armour your kind could not even lift let alone march under.' They passed under a dappled shaft of light. Shiny black insects the size of fists scurried amongst fuzzy orange-stalked plants. 'You have not been trained in Dauwark anatomy?'

'Uh, not really.'

'Don't worry. They may not look it but they are like big Rovann. Everything is in the same place, more or less, and functions in the same way. They don't have their brains in their buttocks or their balls in their throats, for instance.' Again, he chuckled. 'The folk of the Ten Plains have more in common than you think, beneath the skin.'

Well, we're all willing to die in a strange land for a king we have never even met,
Chalos thought.
How's that for common ground?

'We soldiers know a lot about anatomy,' Jolm added. 'We carry out more autopsies than any of your scholars. We just do it quicker, and with bigger blades.'

'You also know a lot about the Gilt Plates,' Chalos asked, keen to maintain conversation. Although they were mere minutes from camp it still seemed as if they had slipped into some other, distant realm of the Dallian Woodland, and would never see another soul again. 'You have fought alongside them before?'

'Oh, ha!' the lieutenant roared. 'Fought, yes. Alongside, no!'

'You were enemies?' the healer gasped.

'When the King finally conquered Datha'Aish, it was the Gilt Plates that broke us,' he said without a shred of bitterness. 'They smashed into our lines like a huge glittering bull, leaving paths of blood and shattered bone. In awe, we surrendered to them. First, the callow Tarukaveri and then my people, the brave Tarukataru. The master of the Gilt Plates, Dolga, saw the worth in our warriors, and advised the King to offer us a place in his army. Now, the Black Talon and the Gilt Plates are the most renowned close-quarter fighters in all of the southern plains.'

Fascinated by the tale, Chalos realised why Jolm held Agryce, the other Krune lieutenant, in such contempt. She was Tarukaveri, the tribe that had surrendered to the King first. He wondered which tribe Duke Elas belonged to. He was about to ask when Jolm suddenly paused and turned, placing a huge gauntleted hand on the healer's shoulder. Frozen to the spot, Chalos stared wide-eyed into the dark glare of the demon helm. 'With any luck, Dolga still leads the Gilt Plates,' Jolm boomed. 'Then you shall see a hero!'

With that, the lieutenant burst into the camp, calling for his aides and officers. Chalos was left standing on the edge of the camp, cradling Mysa and wondering what else the day would bring.

For three more days they rode, passing a series of grotesque sign-posts carved from the corpses of Riln warriors, each more grisly than the last. Even the Krune seemed disturbed by the mass of entrails and organs nailed high to a tree, crowned with a pallid severed head, the eyes stitched shut and what appeared to be a rodent stuffed into the mouth, the tail hanging limply over the putrid red mass of gore beneath.

Chalos had been spending more time alongside Jolm, who had now moved his retinue up the column to ride on the vanguard's heels, and the healer found himself developing a resistance to these horrific sculptures of dead flesh. This numbness disturbed him as much as the sculptures themselves.

Jolm was making use of him, dredging his memory of myths and legends, especially pertaining to the golems. The lieutenant seemed convinced that they would encounter those creatures sooner or later. Chalos had also been pressed to tell all he knew about Riln magic, its focus on illusion and its lack of actual offensive power. As if to underline his trust in the healer's knowledge, after one particular discussion Jolm had ordered a scout to climb up to one of the grisly sign-posts and prod it to make sure it was real, and not some Riln trick.

'I hadn't thought they might be illusions,' said Chalos.

'That's why you're not an officer!' Jolm had boomed.

But when scouts returned from the front of the column, or officers approached seeking audience with their leader, Jolm would send Chalos back to the heart of the column. These moments were uniquely humiliating.

'Done with you, is he?' Samine said, when Chalos returned that afternoon, sidling up next to her on his shadamar.

'Scoutsword Nukt is making a report,' Chalos said. 'Something about food supplies running low. I don't think its anything to worry about.'

The Dread Spear laughed.

'I'm lucky to have you here to keep me informed.'

'I didn't mean - ' he stammered, blushing. 'I wasn't being arrogant, was I?'

'A little.'

He chuckled, hanging his head.

'I suppose I'm getting used to living like a soldier.'

'Weak minds always find hierarchies comfortable,' Samine said.

He looked up at her, seeing the scorn in her eyes. He could understand her annoyance. Jolm had not yet made much use of the Dread Spear's abilities, and this had left her feeling insignificant.
Maybe one day I'll be cast to the periphery,
he wondered.
And she'll be brought into the fold. If that time comes, will I miss feeling important? Or will I be glad of the anonymity?

'How is your bird?'

'Still sleeping,' Chalos sighed. He wore Mysa in a pouch strapped to his torso, where she rocked against his kidney. She was a warm bundle, life still coursing through her, but she had not yet awakened. 'I don't know if she'll ever open her eyes again.'

Samine's expression softened. She reached out and touched his arm.

'I'm sure she will, Chalos. Sixt has a good feeling.'

'Oh?'

'He's perked up a little. I think it's the Riln corpses. Carnage has always been good for his mood. He is a Dread Spear's Accomplice, after all.'

The iguana peeked out of its pouch, eyeing Chalos with mistrust. It blinked slowly, stony lids sliding over wide eyes.

'I'm glad,' said Chalos. 'It's not easy being without them, is it?'

'They give them to us to keep us sane,' said Samine. 'Did you know that? In the early times, when mages began drawing power using mirrors, they would quickly lose the tether of the real world and sink into a solipsism soaked in fantasy and madness. So, the colleges began giving every mage an animal, a companion that was fused to the world of magic. Someone to talk to, a friend that understood the lure of the magical world.' She spread her hands. 'Goodness knows, our own kind don't understand us.'

That was true. Chalos did not have many friends back home. It had not helped that he had spent so many years of his youth poring over old tomes of magic in attic rooms whilst his peers had gone about their lives, drinking, loving and toiling together. In time, he had got used to it. But hearing Samine's words, the words of someone who had experienced the same social dislocation, brought a pang to his heart. A regret that worked on his resolve like an acid. He smiled sadly at her.

'Yes, we are shunned. But we have a place in the world now, Samine. We are valued.'

'By Jolm? You think so?' she said, a cynical smirk at the edge of her lips. 'He's managing you, Chalos. Do you not think it odd that he brought you into the fold when you were at your lowest ebb? He needs you healthy and functioning, for when we find the Gilt Plates. What good are you to him depressed and detached? He fears that you will lose your power, or even your mind, unless he keeps an eagle-eye on you.' She cocked her head to one side and gave him a flat stare. 'I'm sorry to say this, but he's not our friend, Chalos. He's our commander. The only reason he cares about your welfare is because he knows he will need you. And the only reason he cares for the welfare of your bird is because, once we are out of this damn Woodland, he will again have need of her eyes.'

Her hand found his arm again.

'Don't forget how you felt about the Krune when you first came amongst them, or how you feared Jolm. Nothing has changed. Whatever bonds you think have formed between you and the lieutenant, it is all engineered. It is all false.'

She withdrew her hand then, a flicker of regret on her face.  Then, biting her lip, she pressed her shadamar forward two ranks, leaving him alone amidst the sherdlings and their pavarine, which were now thinned down to just a dozen or so beasts.

Thinned down to a few. Is that an omen?

He looked down at Mysa. She would have had an answer for him. She knew an omen when she saw one.

They rode into the early evening and struck camp by a harsh cliff of bleak stone that hung over a roaring river, the only place where the foliage was thin enough for the force to bed down. The white noise from the rushing water at least drowned out the buzz of insects and the shrill cawing of birds. The column was also able to refill its canteens. Chalos and Samine went down to the river's edge and threw water over their faces. The Dread Spear grinned.

'You know, parts of the Dallian Woodland are beautiful, no?'

Chalos nodded.

'I get the feeling there are more marvels to witness as we move north,' he said. 'Like the Great Carvings of Cornu and the Mallagard Dam.' He cupped some water in his hands and slurped it greedily. It was very cold, and very pure. 'Then, of course, there's the Ruin itself.'

Samine made a low noise.

'I wonder about that place,' she muttered. 'They say it's older than any other city in the world and that when its denizens walked its streets, the first of our kind was not even born. That its civilisation is older even than the Phaeron! It's hard to imagine.' A shudder passed over her body, not entirely caused by the temperature of the water. 'They say the Riln treat it with reverence. That they refuse to even camp there, let alone fortify it. The Ten Plains King thinks he will march in and occupy the Ruin, and use it as a bulwark from which to launch his attack on Aphazail. But I wonder...'

Chalos could sense her trepidation. He waited for her to finish but she merely waved a dismissive hand and smiled.

'Don't mind me, Chalos, I'm just tired. My bedroll calls.'

They were on their way back to camp when one of Jolm's officers stopped them. The Krune towered over the two Rovann, saluting them half-heartedly. An expression of disdain crossed its broad purple face.

'Slinger Latharn,' the soldier said, 'your presence is required.'

'Eh?'

'The lieutenant wants you to come with me immediately.'

Chalos exchanged a look with Samine. She offered him a supportive smile.

'Will you take Mysa?' Chalos asked her, unslinging the carrier from his shoulder. 'Keep her warm and give her some water from your canteen if she'll take it?'

'Of course,' Samine said, taking the burlap and glancing up at the soldier, noting the rank glyph on his breastplate. 'I hope you won't be keeping the healer too late, corporal. We need him at full strength, for when we next encounter the Riln.' She cast her eyes about. 'They could strike at any time.'

The Krune grunted rudely but kept his eyes on Chalos.

'Come,' he said, gruffly.

Chalos sighed and followed the enormous warrior, glancing back to see Samine cradling the bird, a frown of concern on her narrow face. She brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and waved at him. He smiled back, a stupid smile, the wrong smile for such a moment. She turned away and began to trudge towards the camp. Chalos slumped his shoulders and walked after the corporal. They were moving back along the column, past squads of Krune stripping out of their Baldaw Mesh, stowing their weapons and preparing their bedrolls, crooning harsh songs that the healer did not comprehend. Their language baffled him, every syllable sounding like a knife sliding through meat or a jaw chomping on muscle. Thankfully, all the Krune he had met talked Regentine, the official language of the Ten Plains, though admittedly with thick accents. But as he walked past line after line of soldiery, hearing those rough melodies and brutal refrains, the healer was glad that he couldn't understand the meaning. Sometimes, ignorance was a blessing.

How I wish I had not seen much of what has offended my eyes since arriving here. How I wish I was as ignorant as I had been before this assignment.

They were now moving beyond the last line of the column and most of the noise was behind them. Chalos became nervous, drawing his robes around his slender frame and shivering. He stumbled on a rock hidden under a sheet of sodden leaves and cursed. The corporal glanced back at him.

'Watch your footing,' he said. 'I forget you Rovann are blind in the darkness.'

'Where are we going?'

With another grunt, the corporal pointed into the trees ahead. Now, Chalos could see lights. Squinting, he could make out a series of huddled forms. Curved surfaces, glistening links. The edges of weapons.
More Black Talon Krune.
As they got closer, he realised that there were about twenty of the warriors here, their shadamar in a silent mass beside them. The warriors were looking shiftily about, appearing anxious and irritated.

'They're exposed back here, aren't they?' asked Chalos. 'What if we're attacked from the rear of the column?'

The corporal shrugged.

'They are
vullok
. Half-castes. Tarukadul.' He gestured into the darkness beyond. 'Besides, somewhere to the south is Agryce and her miserable host of Tarukaveri. The Riln know better than to stick their balls between two open jaws.'

'You can trust these men, even though they are not from your tribe?'

'The vullok are spineless whelps. They look tough, but underneath they are cowards. They do as they are told, having no real will of their own.' He grinned evilly. 'Will is the first thing we beat out of them. Pride, the next. After that, there is only obedience.'

The Tarukadul were sitting around a fire, rubbing their big hands and pressing their palms to the flickering light. Chalos could see now that their armour was different. The glyphs and sigils were crudely marked, not carven with care as they were with the other Krune he had seen, and their hair was completely shaved clean, eyebrows too. It made them look like a different people entirely, which he assumed was the point.

Now he heard a fresh sound. A murmuring, sobbing noise. He stopped.

'What's that?'

The corporal turned to face him, reaching around to plant a big hand in the small of his back to urge him on.

'The lieutenant wants use of your skills, slinger.' The Krune's dull green eyes gleamed.

'We have wounded?'

'Of sorts.'

They approached a caravan, a wide-wheeled vehicle covered with ragged tarpaulin. A couple of Krune shuffled furtively from boot to boot at the rear of the vehicle, glancing up at the corporal beneath their brows.
He's Tarukataru, they're half-castes,
Chalos realised.
They're afraid of him, wills broken, turned into serfs by a lifetime of abuse and rejection.
Not for the first time, he thanked the gods that he had been born a Rovann.

The corporal barked something at the two Tarukadul and they parted,boots shuffling in the mulch of leaves. Then the corporal turned to Chalos and raised a thick finger.

'You must keep secret what you see,' he said. 'There are codes of conduct in the army of the Ten Plains King. Codes that he likes to see followed by all who ride under his banner. But sometimes fate places us in peril, and all the laws of men must be bent, lest doom befall.' The huge purple face leaned close, the voice dropping to a whisper that grated like a razor on skin. 'Lieutenant Jolm says that you are his friend. That he trusts you to do what is required. This is true, yes?'

Chalos gritted his teeth, thinking back to his meeting with Jolm. A vision of the back of the man's head, twisted and malformed, flashed into his mind's eye.
It is good to have friends,
Jolm had said.