The Devil's Deuce (The Barrier War) (59 page)

“My heart’s a little empty to give you an answer now, sir,”
Flasch replied.

“Try.”

Vinder watched frustration play over the young man’s face,
and he wondered if the other paladin was trying to think of a way to get rid of
him now. But beneath the frustration, he sensed curiosity, as well as a burning
hunger for just this sort of message. In the end, the hunger won out, as Vinder
knew it would. He remembered Flasch from the classes he’d taught during the
most recent training session, and he’d been secretly impressed by the young
man’s crafty insights.

“Belief in the divine message,” Flasch said tentatively
after a long moment of silent struggle.

“A good beginning,” Vinder allowed. “It’s both too complex
and too simple of an answer, though. Most men in this world believe in God, and
if put to the question, they believe His message, or at least what they’ve been
told it is. But are they men of faith?”

“Some are, no doubt,” Flasch said.

Vinder nodded, accepting the point. “Faith is more than just
believing in God, or even believing in His words to us. In fact, faith need not
have anything to do with the divine. You have faith in your brother paladins,
faith in your denarae soldiers, even faith in the strength of your sword.”

Flasch frowned in thought.

“Do you know the man who forged that sword?” Vinder asked.
Flasch shook his head. “But you use it day in and day out, putting it between
you and an army of slavering beasts who seek your blood, and I daresay it has
yet to fail you.”

“It’s a strong blade,” Flasch said. “I trust it.”

“Ah, excellent,” Vinder said with a satisfied smile. “Now,
would you take my sword into battle instead of your own?”

He awkwardly drew his sword and laid it across his knees.
The blade was battle worn and had seen years of service, but it was obviously
well maintained and would kill many more demons in its time.

“It’s clearly served you well, so yes,” Flasch replied,
studying the blade more closely.

“You trust my blade, then?”

“You do, so I would.”

“And a new sword, fresh from the forge, untested in battle?”
Vinder continued. “Would you rather carry a brand new sword, made by a master
craftsman no less, or either of ours?”

“Obviously one of ours,” Flasch replied, now clearly
confused where Vinder was going with this topic.

“That is your faith, young man,” Vinder replied. “You have
carried your sword and seen ample evidence of its strength. You can clearly see
my sword and the scars it carries, and the fact that I yet live is a testament
to the strength of this sword. Faith is believing the evidence.

“I believe in the craftsmanship of that new, untested blade,
but when my life is on the line, I want this old hunk of metal,” Vinder said,
touching the blade familiarly. “You can believe and accept something as true
all day long, but faith asks you to leap blindly into the darkness, trusting
that belief with your life.”

Flasch stared at the metal sword, absorbing the older
Violet’s message.

“That’s what separates us from the men who stand in the
pews, arms raised in praise, voices raised in supplication, hearts held in
safety,” Vinder said. “Faith asks us to look at God’s message to us, and not
only believe the words, but trust them. Trust them so wholly, so completely, we
can hold them up to the world and say unabashedly they are what’s right and
true. The virtues we live by and the morality they instill within us are the
surest test of God’s divine will you’ll ever find in this world. Where actions
fail to live up to those ideals, you will not find God. You’ll find men. Good
men perhaps, but still men, and we are flawed creatures.”

The younger paladin stared at him in something akin to awe.

“Do I have something on my face?” Vinder asked. “I thought I
washed.”

Flasch suddenly barked a laugh, the sound so out-of-place
amidst the scattered denarae that he blushed and had the grace to look
chagrined.

“We all doubt from time to time, son,” Vinder said softly.
“Most people slide through life safe in their beliefs because they’re never
asked to trust them, just accept them. Belief is for the easy times, faith is
for the rough ones. Look within yourself and decide whether you really trust
not only yourself, not only God, but whether you trust Gerard and his judgment.
I knew him as a trainee, I knew him as a paladin, and I knew him as a gifted
instructor. He knew what he was doing, and if you really trusted him, honor his
memory and celebrate the life he gave willingly to God.”

Vinder stood, sheathed his sword, and laid a hand on
Flasch’s shoulder.

“For God and for man. For life,” he murmured, then left the
young man in silence.

- 3 -

A shadow fell across Garnet and he looked up to see his
father standing in front of the nearest fire, his armor still covered in blood
and gore. The two men were alone. Garnet gave no indication that he saw his
father. Garet walked over and sat down next to him. There was barely enough
room for the two mountainous men, so Garnet brushed aside some snow and shifted
over to allow his father more room. The two Red paladins sat in silence, both
staring into nearby flames and lost in their own thoughts. Sin was just visible
overhead through a break in the clouds, the Ice Moon’s full light shining down
on the nearly empty street. The sky was brightening in preparation for the
coming dawn.

“You know,” Garet said finally, “the first time I left home
after marrying your mother was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my
life.”

Garnet twitched his head to the side slightly, indicating he
was listening.

“Your mother’s never been what you could call robust, and
she was pregnant with your brother and sister. You were only a couple years old
then, but already running about waving sticks at the chickens and trying to use
your dog as a horse,” Garet said, causing Garnet to smile briefly at the
thought. Then the expression faded back into gloom. “I was angry at the Prism
for taking me away just then, and I seriously considered refusing to go, but
when the time came, I joined with the
jintaal
they’d assigned me to and
went to do my duty.

“I was gone for nearly three months. We did our job and
eradicated a pocket of demons that had been terrorizing a town in the
mountains,” Garet said. He stopped a moment and tossed a piece of wood on the
nearby fire, kicking up a flurry of sparks. Then he settled back down and
looked up at the stars and the full moon overhead. “The mission went bad almost
from the start, though, and would have failed without me, of that we were all
sure. I know the man they would have replaced me with, and while he’s
courageous, he hasn’t the same skill with a blade I do. The demons pinned us in
a network of tunnels, and I held off several dozen of them while the Green
healed the other three surviving paladins. There were times they pressed me
back into the cave and I was quite literally swinging my sword over the bodies
of my comrades. Twice I pulled the Green away from a sudden rush that would
have killed him while he was concentrating on healing.

“They accompanied me home on our way back to Nocka, and your
mother went into labor within hours of our arrival. With twins, it was a hard
labor for her, and she nearly died.” Garet’s eyes were lost in the past, and
his face colored with remembered anguish at the thought of losing his wife. “If
it hadn’t been for the Green, she surely would have been lost to us. My healing
skills are almost nonexistent, and there was no one of skill whom I could have
reached and returned with in time. He saved your mother’s life.

“But what would have happened if I had refused to go?” Garet
asked, turning to look at his son, who still wouldn’t face him. “That Green
would probably have died, and so would the others, I would have lost your
mother, and your siblings would have never seen their first glimpse of
sunlight. It took a very special kind of courage to leave my loved ones behind
and go on that
jintaal
, but had I not, I would have lost everything. I
look on that as God’s reward to me for doing as He called me to do.

“That Green was Perky, the quiet, bright, little fellow who
went with us this last time,” Garet said quietly, “and even now, he’s risking
his neck to crawl to some of the hottest spots of the battle to retrieve the
wounded and administer his special touch of healing. Quiet as a mouse, but the
heart of a lion. I think he’s what they had in mind when they invented the word
‘saint.’”

The two men were silent for a long moment.

“He glowed on the battlefield,” Garnet said finally, his
voice barely a whisper. His throat was choked with unshed tears.

“Who?”

“Gerard. When he was fighting that Black paladin, this
Malith,” Garnet said, remembering the name the denarae had picked up from
Gerard’s mind before his death. “Just before he died, Gerard’s body shone with
a white light all its own. It hurt me here,” Garnet said, putting his hand on
his chest, “just to see him. I think he knew he couldn’t beat Malith, not and
come out alive, but he fought anyway, hoping to take the Black paladin with him
into death. I think he truly embodied his virtue, and it changed him.”

“I don’t doubt you, son,” Garet said. “A lot of companies,
especially the older units more steeped in tradition, have patron saints they
believe watch over them. Most were extraordinary men who lived back before the
coming of the Merging, or who died in those wars, and not even all of them were
warriors. Maybe Gerard has joined their ranks.”

“He was no saint, he was the Shepherd,” Garnet said with a
sniff. Then he squared his shoulders and wiped his eyes with a rag lying
nearby. Something drifted through his mind, a comment he’d heard echoed on the
lips of many men of Shadow Company.

“With the Shepherd dead, what will happen to the flock?”
Garnet whispered, voicing the thought. Then he stood and looked down at his
father. “When the Shepherd dies, it falls to the sheep to slay the wolves and
defend themselves.”

Garet reached up and clasped his son’s hand, and Garnet
hauled him to his feet. Father and son looked at each other a moment, then they
embraced.

“Thanks, dad,” Garnet said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve
got a company to lead.”

- 4 -

Garnet walked back in the midst of Shadow Company, his
resolve firm. Perhaps Gerard was dead, but Garnet was determined to see that
his spirit would live on in the backbone of their unit. Garnet couldn’t imagine
Gerard sitting around moping about anything in the world, nor would he have let
them do so. Denarae who saw Garnet pass stood and walked after him, a sense of
wonder seeping over their faces. They didn’t kythe in his mind, so they didn’t
know what Garnet was thinking, but the sheer sense of purpose with which he
walked was enough to draw them after him as though enchanted.

The Red paladin stopped near the center of where the denarae
had camped, and he looked around him at all the faces. Most of the denarae sat
with thousand-mile stares, still in shock from the battle and the fall of their
leader and so many of their comrades. Thirty or so had followed Garnet as he
cut a path to the middle, and those few looked at him in expectant confusion.

“What in God’s good name and grace do you think you’re
doing?” Garnet shouted toward a group of denarae lost in thought. They glanced
up in surprise and some anger. Michael and Marc stood and took a worried step
toward Garnet, but they stopped at the look on his face. Flasch looked up from
where he sat on a low set of steps. He, too, saw the look on Garnet’s face, and
he smiled.

“Is this the legacy we’re going to be left with?” Garnet
said angrily. “Gerard Morningham took us in and made us one of the most
dangerous fighting forces this world has ever seen, and look at you. You’re
sitting around like children who’ve just lost a pet, moping about how awful you
feel and how empty the world is without it. The man I knew and followed would
have kicked you all in the ass and spit before you in disgust for such a
display of self-pity and sorrow.

“Our Shepherd died protecting his flock,” Garnet stated, his
voice firm. He glared at the gray-skinned faces around him, daring any one of
them to utter a single word. For a moment, he felt like Gerard was standing by
him, one hand on his shoulder to guide and encourage him. “Now the wolves are
howling at the door, and the sheep are cowering behind the walls crying out in
despair and bleating like cowards. Well screw the wolves!” Garnet shouted
suddenly. “I believe Gerard is looking down on us now, and I’ll be damned to
Hell if I’m going use his death as an excuse to fail him. He will always be our
Shepherd, but it’s time we stopped being sheep. It’s time we shed our wool and
became wolves ourselves. Sheep gather in flocks for safety and are led about.
Wolves join together in packs and hunt. Sheep get slaughtered. Wolves feast on
their prey.

“And we will be the most dangerous, the most vicious, the
most lethal wolves God ever granted the power to kill,” Garnet said. His voice
rang off the stones of the buildings around him, and now the denarae were all
on their feet, their eyes rapt on the large paladin at the center of their
midst. Some wept. Garnet turned as he talked, addressing the remaining company
as a whole. Perhaps by coincidence, the first rays of dawn broke through to the
street and lit the area around Shadow Company with a ruddy glow.

“The training he gave us, the purpose he envisioned, and the
force of will with which he drove us will always remain a part of Shadow
Company,” Garnet said firmly. “His very spirit lives on as the heart and soul
of this unit, even now. We have only to prove ourselves worthy of the trust he
placed in us. We have a choice now to sit here and wallow in shame and despair,
betraying everything he ever gave us, or we can return to the front and make
those Hell-spawned bastards sorry they ever thought of crossing our path.”