“You can’t kill him,” I replied.
“I can. In fact, it isn’t altogether difficult.” Braylar drummed his fingers along the outside of his crossbow. “A little pressure is all it takes. Now, step aside unless you want his blood on you.”
The soldier moaned then, a mournful, honking sound through his battered nose. I pleaded, “Don’t take him prisoner, then—release him.”
“Simply let him wander into the wilderness, until he winds up getting torn to pieces by a hungry family of rippers or skinned alive by Grass Dogs? Is that your idea of mercy, then? It would be better to kill him quick now.”
He leveled the crossbow at the soldier’s chest, but I surprised all three of us by stepping in front of the soldier. “He’s unarmed,” I protested. “Badly injured. He’s no danger to you.”
Braylar didn’t lower the crossbow, and for an instant I was sure I’d acted far too rashly, but he didn’t shoot. “Injuries heal. And what’s more, tongues wag. He’s seen me. That’s no large matter—the others who fled, they can identify me as well. But he’s also seen you. This unarmed, badly injured boy who’s so wholly won your heart, he’s the only one who knows you exist.”
I couldn’t argue this point, and so didn’t. “If his life or death don’t affect you, only me, shouldn’t I be the one deciding his fate?”
Braylar lowered the crossbow slightly and his horse snorted. “And you would have me let him go, even though he can identify you? You have your own fate to consider, so I recommend you consider it well.”
I turned and looked down at the soldier, his arms still in the air. There was a large welt on the side of his head, his eyes were bloodshot, nose twisted in the wrong direction, lips swollen to obscene proportions, face crusted with dark blood. I knew what I was doing might be madness, or at least monstrous stupidity, but I’d seen enough bloodshed for one day. And so I said to the solider, “Do you swear that you won’t speak of what happened here?”
He nodded quickly as spittle dribbled from the corners of his lips.
I couldn’t hope to intimidate like Braylar might, so I mustered as much solemnity as possible. “You must swear it. On the life I’m giving you. Swear that you’ll say nothing of this. If your commander or comrades ask what befell you, you must say you were struck in the head, which your injuries will bear out, and that you remember only falling from the wagon, crawling free when this man rode off, and then riding off yourself before he returned. If you speak of what occurred here, or of me, I won’t do anything to save you again. In fact, this man will likely take his time killing you, and enjoy every moment. Do you understand?”
He nodded and said he did, although it was absurdly difficult to make out through his torn and puffy lips.
I asked, “And you swear to reveal nothing?”
He said, with a great deal of desperation, “Ah sweah.”
Braylar laughed behind me, clearly mocking, but I didn’t turn around. I believed the soldier meant his oath just then, but I wasn’t certain he’d keep it. Still, there was no turning back. So I told him he could have his horse and whatever food and water he’d brought.
He looked past my shoulder, at Braylar, and back to me again, wondering if he was being toyed with.
I told him to go and I thought tears would roll down his cheeks. He said, “Thank oo” and tripped over his feet, barely righting himself as he ran off through the grass to claim his horse.
Even after he was in the saddle, he gave a final furtive look in our direction before digging his heels into his horse’s flanks and galloping off.
⊕
Braylar ordered me to remove the body from the wagon. I balked, but he insisted, claiming I was lucky that was the full extent of my punishment, given my incompetence during the battle and foolishness after. There wasn’t much I could say to that.
After steeling myself to the task, I unlatched the back gate of the wagon. The dead soldier was slumped in a pile, the floorboards stained a dark red all around, nearly black. I took hold of his belt and the one ankle I could reach, closed my eyes and tried unsuccessfully to pretend I was moving something other than a body, and pulled until I felt the weight slide free of the gate and fall in the grass. Forcing myself not to look at the body or its awful wounds, I quickly walked to the front. Braylar was standing next to the horses. He moved from one to the next, rubbing their necks, wiping them down with handfuls of grass, and though it was difficult to reconcile coming from a man who’d shot two men today and struck down two more, he was apologizing to the horses for having to endure such an ordeal.
I stood there, looking at the spear that was still lodged in the seat. My eyes traveled up to the canvas flap, and the small spray of blood, the handiwork of Braylar’s buckler. Looking away, I noticed he was walking into the grass. His back was stiff, arms at his sides, feet heavy and halting as if his balance were off.
Wondering if he was hurt, I called after him, but he didn’t respond. I started after him.
He eyes were closed, face pale in the fading light. He braced one arm on his knee and turned his back to me. His shoulders shook, and for a moment I thought he might be weeping, but then he suddenly turned to the side and vomited, doubled over. He wiped his mouth with his forearm, started to straighten, and then took several steps forward before heaving violently again, almost falling to his knees with the force of it.
Staring, I wondering at this oddity, when he compounded it further. Hands on his knees, he cursed and muttered something to himself. Although it was still little more than a rough whisper, I heard him say, “Are you not appeased? Have I not sacrificed enough? Leave me.” And then he trailed off, repeating himself, “Leave me be.”
I walked back to the wagon. Not long after, he returned. He grabbed the spear with both hands, pulled it free from the seat, and threw it in the covered section. “Get in.”
I said, “You drove our attackers off. They’re gone. We’re safe.”
“Safety is an illusion for imbeciles. Get in.”
He waited a moment, and when I didn’t reply, flicked the reins and the wagon creaked into motion. I stumbled alongside awkwardly, trying and failing to get a good handhold to pull myself up.
He stopped the horses, looked down, and said, “I tell you to load, you load, I tell you to get in, you get in, I tell you to shit, you shit. This is our arrangement. As you’ve seen already, our lives, mine and yours, may depend on you doing what I say when I say it. Do you understand? This is our arrangement.”
I nodded and he allowed me to climb on. I didn’t want to sit next to him and made my way inside the wagon again. The sight of the large bloodstain on the floor sent my stomach fluttering, so I sat down, leaned against the side panel, and positioned a barrel to block the view as much as possible. And recorded these events to the best of my abilities, which admittedly, was somewhat suspect, given that my hands were still shaking and mind racing from the battle and its aftermath. That said, it was the best that I could muster.
⊕
We traveled some miles from the site of the attack in the dark before making camp with only the dimmest of moonlight to light our work.
When I finally crawled back in the wagon and tried to sleep, careful to stay far from the stain at the rear, my mind kept revisiting moments of the battle, a chaotic jumble… the spearhead coming at me like a striking serpent, or that same soldier’s body pumping his last lifeblood onto the wagon floor after Braylar had struck him repeatedly with the vicious flail; the Hornman captain gently stroking the fletching of the bolt that barely protruded from his chest, as if touching the wing of an injured bird; the soldier with the ruined mouth pleading for his life, bubbles of spit and blood dancing on his torn lips.
Sleep was elusive, to say the least.
I woke in the morning when the wagon lurched into motion. There was some jerky by my side, a hard heel of bread, and a flask of water. I hadn’t heard him harness the horses, or move inside the wagon, but he’d obviously done them.
After eating what I could, I rejoined Braylar on the bench. We sat in silence. I wondered if this was a normal reaction among the soldiering kind—did they need time to put their violent deeds in order or to forget them? Was he filled with thoughts of guilt? Triumph? Regret? I couldn’t say, and doubted my companion would if I asked, so I didn’t.
Instead, I said, “You don’t seem to have an especially good relationship with these Hornmen, do you?”
“I don’t have a good relationship with anyone, Arki. I would’ve thought that much obvious by now.”
“What were they doing out here in the Green Sea?”
He looked at me and shook his head, “I would’ve thought that obvious as well. Road tolls only go so far. Hornmen are opportunists like anyone else. Only with swords.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, you quivering dullard, there’s profit to be had in the grass. Smugglers, sly merchants attempting to slide past the toll stations, pilgrims, anyone else who can be bullied and—”
He broke off suddenly, closing his eyes. After a moment, his head snapped forward. He pulled the scarf loose and touched the back of his neck, and his hand came away bright with blood. He dabbed at his neck a few more times, looked at his hand again, swore quietly, and then casually wiped the blood on my pants. I jumped and attempted to move away, but it was too late.
I looked at his neck. “You’re wounded?”
He nodded slowly, voice strangely flat, like he’d woken from a deep slumber and wasn’t sure of his whereabouts. “A wound, yes.”
“From the attack?” I asked.
“From the attack?” he said, suddenly far away. “You could say that. Yes.”
“Do you need… that is, do you need any help? Assistance cleaning it maybe?”
He paused a long time before answering. “No need to clean it. I wouldn’t trust you to do so if there were. But it will bleed no more. The wound has closed.”
Having seen how much blood coated his hands, I didn’t believe him. Realizing it was impudent and possibly dangerous but unable to restrain myself, I leaned over and looked at his neck. There was no wound at all. Only a scar. An old, white, long-healed scar.
He saw me inspecting and pulled the scarf up higher, covering his neck. “Begone, nurse-mother.”
I looked at the blood he’d smeared on me and said, “But scars don’t bleed.”
“You’re correct. The wound isn’t mine.” He mistook my confused silence for skepticism and added, “I’m many things, but charlatan isn’t one of them. The wound isn’t my own. It was inflicted on another, by my hand.”
He closed his eyes and ignored my slew of questions. Receiving no answers, I relented and waited. Braylar rubbed his temple with the knuckle of his thumb, eyes still closed, scowling. Unsure if I wanted to truly know the answer, I asked if he was well.
He didn’t respond, didn’t even move.
I waited and waited, uncertain what to do, when he finally opened his eyes again and blinked several times, like a man coming out of a darkened room into bright sunlight. “No conversation. We’re done. Go inside the wagon. Walk alongside. I don’t care what you do, so long as you’re silent.”
I started to say something, but he said, “Don’t make me tell you again. If I must silence you myself, I will.”
That’s all it took. I returned to the interior of the wagon. The bleeding scar would’ve been strange enough on its own, but Braylar’s behavior only compounded it. Every time I started to think I’d seen the oddest thing on this journey, I was proven wrong.
I looked at the red smear on my leg and then glanced at the much larger bloody stain near the gate. So much blood. Front to rear, the wagon was marked with it.
I rolled a barrel over the stain, nearly covering it, but not quite. I pushed a box over the remainder, and resolved not to think on the things that happened in the wagon yesterday. It was a hollow resolution.
We traveled the rest of the day in silence. Like a hound that had been kicked but couldn’t help itself, I kept one ear perked, waiting for Braylar to call me back to his side, but that never happened, and I was reluctant to approach.
He pinched his nose or knuckled his temple on more than one occasion, and if his face was any indication, he was sorely grieved by something.
I wondered if this was the result of the blow he received from the haft of the soldier’s axe, but while I’m no expert in judging such things, the helm seemed to absorb the brunt of it, and he had only a mild abrasion on his scalp and no apparent swelling. Still, this was all exceedingly peculiar, even for him.
The second day after the attack began much as the previous day ended, with Braylar uninterested in anything, even mundane conversation. A few directives to be silent, some clipped orders, and a handful of threats, though lacking the usual venom or verve.
I was riding inside when he quietly announced, “The boy is dead. I felt it coming since yesterday, but… he’s dead now.”
I immediately moved to the front, sat next to him, and asked, “Who? What boy?”
He looked at me like I was the one behaving strangely. “The soldier boy. I struck him across the neck as he passed, do you recall? The back of the head. The neck. Do you see?” He locked eyes with me, waiting. I glanced at his neck and the dried blood on his scarf. He nodded. “There you go. Now you have it.”
I was absolutely positive I didn’t. And almost as sure I didn’t want it.
“He lingered for a time,” he said. “But now he’s dead for a certainty.”
With a shiver crossing my shoulders, I asked, whispering without meaning to, “How do you know?”
He pulled the flail off his hip again, and I reflexively scanned the horizon for approaching horses. Seeing nothing, I looked back to him. He held one of the Deserters on a level with his own, rubbing the edge of his thumb across a spike as he stared into the small contorted face.
“Bloodsounder.” He twisted the head quickly and the chain jingled.
I was awash in confusion. “The boy’s name was Bloodsounder?”
“No, you idiot. The flail.” Eyes narrowing when I still didn’t comprehend, he added, “You asked how I know, yes? His death? Well, I’m telling you. Bloodsounder. Bloodsounder; the flail. The flail; Bloodsounder. It isn’t so very complicated.”