Chapter 12
Morning fog rolled in, thicker than most and reluctant to lift. It sank lower, sliding along Duskweld’s stone walls and pooling in the churned-up dirt. A hundred pairs of boots had churned the frost into cold, gray mud that stuck to everything. If you stood at the edge of the range, you could see the bones of the city, a skeletal monument to war and industry. Many of the towers looked like shattered teeth, with smoke spiraling from the forges and banners limp and heavy with dew.
Theron stood there, freezing, with the taste of cold iron on his tongue and the scratchy twine of a bowstring between his fingers as he fidgeted with his bow. He stood with his squad, twelve men now, all pale-faced with the morning cold, and bundled in ill-fitting blue, shivering beside him, half-awake and blinking against the early light. The trainer paced at the head of the line, a slow march of measured irritation. His breath was visible in the fog, puffing out in slow, grudging clouds of white.
“This is your trial today,” the trainer, Tyle, said. His voice had a rasp to it, representing the years of yelling at fresh recruits. “Each of you will fire three arrows at the moving target. If you miss, you run the course twice. If you hit, you only run it once. Unless you’re an idiot and break your ankle in the trench, in which case I shoot you myself and save the Dominion a ration, and then still make you run it again.” He smiled. A grin of perfectly white teeth. “Begin with the leftmost man. Keval, you’re up.”
Keval, a farm boy with shoulders like an ox and fingers already red with cold, lunged forward, nocking the first arrow as he went, knuckles whitening in his grasp. He squinted through the veil of fog, biting his lip, eyeing the bronze-colored padded disc, battered and patched, that swung on a pendulum thirty paces downrange. The disc wobbled, swinging from left to right with each gust of wind.
He pulled back, drew the string to his cheek, and loosed. The arrow sang through the air before clunking into the dirt behind the target. The squad groaned, but Tyle only grunted. “Again.”
Keval nocked two more arrows, shooting with a twitchy desperation. One sailed off to nowhere, but the other skittered off the side of the disc. The boy turned to the trainer, who only nodded and said, “Two misses. One run. Go.” Keval looked relieved as he started off toward the course, boots slurping mud at every step. It was a large, sloped trench, lined with boards on either side and full of icy runoff and mud, followed by a vertical wall of rough-hewn timber, eight feet tall and smeared with lard on the handholds for good measure. It was a miserable endurance training course, and the men loathed it.
Sval went next. He shot three in a row, none of which made solid contact, but the last of them hit close enough to the target to tear a section off the edge of the disc. The trainer made a mark in charcoal on his battered slate and waved the man forward. “Close enough. One run,” he said.
Then came Hrengar, who spat in his palm before every shot. He hit the target with his first two arrows and crowed like a rooster after the second, raising his bow to the fog-washed sky. “Not bad for a latrine digger, eh?” he shouted to no one in particular, then strutted off to join the others in the trench course after he missed his third shot.
Rook followed, a showman in the most literal sense. He waggled his eyebrows, called to the assembled squad, “Watch this!” then snapped off three in rapid succession. Two missed the target, the other struck the disc near the top and stuck there, quivering. The squad cheered, and Rook bowed as if he’d just finished a stage act.
Theron waited his turn, letting the morning chill sink deep into his muscles until cold reached his bones and every sensation sharpened to a spike. Around him, shouting rose, groans echoed, and bodies slapped and splashed through the mud of the trench course. All of it faded from his attention. His eyes stayed fixed on the disc.
Tyle noticed and took a step forward. “You next, Scarecrow. Show the rest how it’s done, eh?” The nickname had stuck, and he now carried it with him.
Theron stepped up to the line, bow in hand. He inhaled, and then exhaled, slow and even, until the world shrank around the disc, until the pendulum was all that existed and everything else receded. The pendulum arced left. He waited. It reached the zenith, hung there for the barest instant, and as it began to return, Theron let his arrow fly.
It struck dead-on, burying itself so deeply into the padded target it jerked backward, shuddering on its chain. He heard a collective gasp from the remaining men.
Theron notched the next arrow, timed the rhythm, and struck again, missing the center but still landing inside the ring painted around it. The third shot became a challenge as the target oscillated from the last hit, swinging with an erratic jerk. He waited an extra half-beat, accounted for the movement, and let the arrow fly.
The final shaft hit the center a hairs-breadth away from his first arrow, and both stuck in the disk like a grotesque, two-pronged finger.
Silence rolled down the line. Even Tyle was motionless for a moment. Then elated shouting from all the men who saw.
Theron stepped back, bow held low. He didn’t look at the others, but he could feel their eyes on him as they cheered, a stew of envy and awe.
Tyle scribbled a mark on his slate. “That’s three hits,” he said. His voice was flat, devoid of inflection. “You only run once, unless you want to go again for fun.”
Theron shrugged. “Once is enough, sir.”
The trainer smirked. “Right, go on then.”
He gestured towards the trench course, then turned to the rest. “You, you, you—next!” Three men stepped to the line, and the trial started anew. Most missed at least once, and the men steeled themselves for the run.
Theron surged forward at the trainer’s nod. The first step swallowed him mid-calf in mud and freezing water. Muscles straining, arms tight to his sides, chin down, he pushed onward, lungs burning. The trench stretched fifty paces, each step a gamble over uneven slopes and hidden ruts. Behind him, men bellowed, cursed, and flailed headlong into the muck.
The wall came out of the mist without warning. Theron drove a foot into the base, used the momentum to vault upward, and caught the top with both hands. The lard made it treacherous, but he didn’t hesitate. He hauled himself up, swung a leg over, then the other, and dropped on the other side. His boots hit mud again, but he was ready for that. He sprinted the last ten paces to the end post and slapped it hard.
Slowly jogging back above the trench, he watched as the rest of the squad took their runs. A brute of a man named Danill crashed into the wall twice before heaving himself over, face a mask of pain and embarrassment. Carpen barely made it to the end of the trench, crawling the last ten feet on hands and knees.
By the time the last man finished, the entire squad was shivering, soaked through, and covered in mud. A few had lost boots and most of their pride. Tyle made a show of clicking his tongue in disappointment.
“You all look pathetic and exhausted. That means tomorrow, you all run the course twice. In full armor.”
A groan rolled over the men.
Tyle shrugged. “Life isn’t fair. You want to survive, get stronger. You think the battlefield will be kind to your bodies?” He barked a laugh and then pointed at Theron. “You. Stay behind. I want to see that shot again.”
Theron hung back after the rest of the squad shuffled off to the cold, dark bathhouse to get cleaned off before breakfast. The trainer stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
“You ever served in a bow unit before?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“You’re lying,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Your form is perfect and perfectly matches the Dominion standard. Keep this up though, and you’ll be drawing attention from all the higher-ups before spring.”
Theron nodded, not knowing what else to say.
Tyle leaned in, voice dropping. “Some advice? Keep your head down. You’re good, but the Dominion eats good men alive. Better to be average sometimes.”
Theron looked him in the eye. “Noted, sir.”
The trainer nodded and then strode off, leaving Theron alone in the fog.
He stood there for a while, letting the numbness seep back into his hands, letting the city groan and awaken behind him. He looked at the target and wondered if there was a word for being good at something you hated.
The halls behind the officers’ barracks were usually empty. Especially during the cold black hours around midnight, when the torches burned down to stubs and the air was thick with the sick sweetness of burnt oil and sweat. There was rarely a cough, or a whisper, or a breath. But tonight, there was a heartbeat, a heartbeat hammering so hard it made the world flicker.
Carpen pressed his back against the cool stone and tried to slow his breathing. He’d counted the seconds, every one an agony, every footstep from the other side of the wall another lurch of panic in his gut. The knife in his hand was too small, too light, and he worried that when the time came, he wouldn’t be able to use it properly. He flexed his grip, imagining the blade piercing through the tough blue of a captain’s uniform, through skin, through whatever armor men like Houlis wore beneath.
He’d once heard Houlis boast he couldn’t be killed. That he was the only captain in the southern regiments who’d never lost a man to mutiny or defection. That he carried out his own executions, and that he smiled each time he did. Most of what he said was probably lies, but Carpen had seen enough to know that some of them had teeth.
He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to be back home, or in the tavern with Rook and the others, or even back running the Jac-damned training course in full armor. But what Houlis had done to him with that beating, in front of all those men, the way the captain’s hand had whipped him with his belt while the Brightwardens stood by and watched… he couldn’t let it go, no matter how hard he tried. He had never felt so humiliated, and it burned so brightly within him it consumed every thought.
A man with nothing to lose needs only the smallest excuse. He had no family to risk, even if he got caught. But he had still made sure there would be no suspicion of him.
A month ago, during the first grueling trench run in armor, he’d come up with an idea, and yesterday he implemented it. He had faked an illness. He’d gotten up early, willed himself to it, and sliced the bottom of his foot with a sharp rock. After that, he’d ground dirt into the wound. Then he crushed a few berries and worked the pulp into the cut to make it look like the start of an infection. He pressed his face close to a torch until his skin reddened, then went back to bed and asked one of his squadmates to call a healer. He made a show of fever and rambled nonsense while the healer examined him.
It had worked. They excused him from duty for the day and the next day and gave him a large vial of a foul-smelling concoction to heal his supposed infection.
Now he was waiting in this narrow hallway, where he’d been crouched for almost an hour. Everyone else was asleep. He knew Houlis routinely came this way to avoid drawing attention after his weekly trip to his favorite tavern.
The steps were close now, clicking out a steady rhythm against the stone. A shadow cut the light at the corridor’s mouth, then moved in, resolving into Houlis’s silhouette. He strode with the easy arrogance of a man who expected nothing from anyone, who thought himself untouchable.
Carpen’s hand shook. He tried to steady it. The blade bit into his finger, and blood filled his mouth as he realized he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep his teeth from chattering.
Houlis came even with the alcove he was hiding in. Carpen could see the captain’s face now, red in the torchlight, lips curved in a permanent sneer. He was alone. That had been the plan. Carpen had watched this weekly ritual unfold more than once on patrol duty.
Carpen counted the steps. Two more. One.
He leapt.
“Carpen, STOP!” A shout from down the opposite end of the hallway as a door slammed open.
The world contracted to an instant as his arm rose, the knife glinting in the torchlight, and the startled widening of Houlis’s eyes. The captain twisted just in time from the sudden shout, but the blade caught him just above the hip, snagging on the uniform and tearing a wet line through to the skin beneath. Houlis grunted, teeth bared in a sound that was more animal than man.
He backhanded Carpen with such force that the smaller man’s head snapped sideways, blood flinging from his split lip onto the wall. But Carpen grabbed hold of Houlis, years of hauling sacks and splitting wood turning his arms to ropes of desperation. He jammed the knife in, this time higher, and grazed a rib.
Houlis screamed. For a second, Carpen thought he had him. Then, someone violently tackled him to the ground from behind. Rough hands held him down.
“Help me! Grab the knife!” the voice shouted. Carpen saw Rook jump over him and grab his wrist.
“No!” he shouted. “Stop! I need to do this!”
“Enough, Carpen!” The voice was right at his ear. Theron’s voice, flat and cold. “Danill, help the captain.” Theron said.
After a few moments of struggling, something broke in Carpen, and he sagged. Rook jerked the knife from his hand and flung it aside. It clanged across the flagstones and slid out of reach. Houlis sat heavily on the floor, clutching his side. Blood trickled through his fingers and dripped onto the stone in heavy, dark drops.
Theron twisted Carpen’s arms behind him, locking them at the elbows. “Stay down,” he said.
Rook fumbled for his belt, yanked it free, and wrapped it twice around Carpen’s wrists, pinning them so tightly that they went numb.
Carpen stared at the nearest wall. He couldn’t breathe right. Each gulp of air was a stitch in his ribs. The corridor flickered, torchlight trembling on the soot-stained stone, shadows writhing.
Houlis hauled himself upright with the help of Danill, using the wall for leverage. He glared at Theron first, then at Carpen. “He’s not dead,” the captain said, like it was a personal failing.
Theron didn’t answer. He wiped sweat from his brow, then grabbed Carpen by the collar and dragged him upright. “You need a medic,” he said to Houlis.
The captain snorted. “I need him dead, is what I need.”
Theron’s eyes were slate. “I don’t know how crimes are dealt with in this city, but I know murder isn’t how to deal with them. For now, we keep him breathing.”
Houlis growled but made no protest. He ripped part of his shirt and stuffed it into his wound to slow the bleeding, then lurched down the hall dripping blood. Danill followed close behind him and caught him every time he faltered. The blade had not pierced deeply, fortunately, and it seemed not to have hit any vital spots.
Rook shoved Carpen ahead, none too gently, heading to the barracks to hand him off to the Brightwardens. “Bloody Jac, man. What were you thinking?” he asked. Carpen remained silent.
The walk was short, but every step sent new spasms through Carpen’s shoulders. He was finished.
Afterwards, inside a cell, Theron and Rook helped a Brightwarden lower him onto the bench. Theron met Carpen’s eyes.
“You shouldn’t have tried,” he said. “It never would have brought you satisfaction.”
Carpen wanted to scream, to spit, to curse the man for stopping him at all. But all he managed was a gurgling, “He deserved it.”
Theron nodded, just once. “Maybe he did.”
“How did you know?” he asked.
“You think I haven’t noticed the way you stare at Houlis after what happened on the march here? I’ve been watching you for weeks,” Theron said. “I knew you’d try something eventually. Your fake injury fooled that drunk healer yesterday, sure, but I’ve seen men pull that trick before. I expected you to act last night. I watched you for most of it. Waiting a full day was smart, though. I’ll give you that. But it was only a matter of time. So when you slipped out of your bed an hour ago, I woke Rook and Danill to help track you down. Didn’t take long to figure out where you’d gone, we just didn’t know the exact spot. I wish we’d reached you sooner… because now this has turned into something no one can stop.” He looked at Carpen with genuine sadness.
He stepped back, and the iron grate slammed shut. The Brightwarden checked the lock, then turned away.
The torchlight flickered and shrank until the only thing left was the ache in Carpen’s arms and his silent sobbing.