TWELVE
Visyna pulled her hair back and tied it in ponytail, carefully brushing back every wet strand matted to her forehead. Her hands only shook a little. She hadn’t had a drink of water in hours, and hadn’t slept in well over a day, but it was more than that. She didn’t need her weaving to know that blood was going to spill. With each step they took in the company of Kritton and the disgraced elves, a reckoning loomed.
“They’re going to kill us,” she whispered to Chayii, turning her head slightly to watch the elf’s reaction.
Chayii kept walking, her left hand gently stroking the fur on Jir’s head as he padded beside her. “They have strayed far from their upbringing. Kritton is a foul influence on them, and I fear that his taint is every bit as toxic as the Shadow Monarch’s.”
The procession suddenly ground to a halt. Visyna stood on the balls of her feet, her hands by her sides. She didn’t know what to expect, but feared the worst.
“We’ll rest for ten minutes, no more!” Kritton shouted from further up the tunnel.
The prisoners collapsed to the sandy floor. Visyna was tempted to join them, but she couldn’t rest. Their very lives were at stake.
“What are you doing, my child?” Chayii asked, easing herself into a sitting position against one wall. Jir sank down onto his belly and rested his head in her lap and closed his eyes.
“I don’t know. .” she said, letting the thought trail off as she moved up the tunnel.
She was surprised she didn’t bump into an elf right away, but they had stayed as far away from the prisoners as possible. After all, it wasn’t as if they could run anywhere down here. Still, perhaps there was something to that. Had Kritton warned them to stay back? But why? She was still pondering that when a bayonet loomed out of the shadows and pointed straight at her stomach. She froze, following the steel back to the musket and the elf holding it.
“Get back with the others.”
Visyna stood her ground. “I’m just stretching my legs,” she lied, cringing as soon as she said it. They had been marching forever, who could possibly need to stretch their legs?
The bayonet retreated as the elf pulled his musket in closer to his body, but kept the weapon pointed at her. He stepped forward until he was three feet away. “He said to watch out for you, that you couldn’t be trusted,” the elf said.
Visyna offered the elf a sad smile. Kritton would distrust her, and with good reason. Still, in the dim light, this elf looked more like a beggar who needed help than a killer disciple of a traitor. The soldier’s cheeks were gaunt and his eyes blinked slowly, as if he was just waking up. His uniform was a patchwork of inexpert repairs. Several buttons had been replaced by bits of wood, and most shockingly, his bayonet had rust on it. She had been around the Iron Elves long enough to know a soldier’s first duty was to keep his weapon in perfect working order.
“He told me you were the best soldiers in the Empire,” Visyna said, giving her voice a soft, maternal lilt. “He told me that when we found you, everything would be right again.”
The elf blinked and took a hand off his musket. “Corporal Kritton said that?”
“Major Swift Dragon said that.”
At the mention of Konowa’s name, the elf stood up straight and he brought his free hand back down to grip his musket. “Do not mention his name,” the elf hissed between clenched teeth. His eyes were now wide open. “He destroyed us.”
Visyna stepped back a pace, shocked at the vehemence in the elf. “He feels terrible about what happened, but surely you know he did it with the best of intentions. The Viceroy was in league with-”
The bayonet shot forward and came to rest directly under her chin.
“If you mention his name again, I will gut you,” the elf said. Spittle frothed at the corners of his mouth and his hands shook. Visyna could only stare into his unblinking eyes. She was face-to-face with an elf every bit as lost as the
After what seemed like an eternity, the elf lowered his bayonet and turned and walked further up the tunnel, leaving Visyna alone and shaken. She wanted to feel sympathy for the elf, but her overwhelming reaction was one of concern for Konowa.
She turned and trudged back toward the group and found an empty section of wall to sit down against. A shadow loomed over Visyna and she brought up her hands, prepared to try to weave, but instead of a bayonet there was a goat-hide water skin being held out to her. She blinked and brushed the hair from her face.
“Water?”
She reached out and took the water skin, smiling her thanks at the soldier holding it. Private Hrem Vulhber rubbed his wet hands on his caerna then sat down opposite her, careful to keep the cloth wrap tucked. He rested his back against the wall and eased his legs out in front of him at an angle away from her so that his boots almost touched the far wall. Like all the Iron Elves his kneecaps were now a deep bronze from their exposure to the sun. Visyna glanced at the back of her hand and saw the color wasn’t that different from her own.
“Another few weeks and I’ll pass for an Elfkynan,” Hrem said as if reading her thoughts.
Visyna’s cheeks grew hot and she hid her embarrassment by lifting the water skin up to her mouth and pouring a long drink. The water had a sharp tang to it from whatever wine had been in the water skin before, but for all of that it was the best drink she’d had in some time. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve, then leaned forward and gave the skin back to Hrem, careful not to touch his hand. He took it just as carefully and put a small cork stopper in the funnel.
“I saw you try to talk to one of them, not smart,” he said. He didn’t sound angry, more concerned.
“They were Konowa’s brothers. I just can’t believe they could turn so bad.”
Hrem looked up and down the tunnel before responding. “War is like that. I’ve seen bad men become angels, and good ones devils. These elves were good. We all heard the stories about the Iron Elves. Their reputation in battle was legendary. Made them sound inhuman, er, inelfen I guess,” Hrem said.
“Then how could they be so. . so lost now?” Visyna asked, trying and failing to understand the rage she’d seen in the elf’s eyes.
“Every man, and elf, has his limit. No telling where or when you’ll reach it, but you shoot and get shot at long enough, and parts of you just stop working. You see things you can’t unsee.” Hrem’s voice grew quiet as his words slowed. “You feel too much, or maybe, you stop feeling altogether. You do things you never thought you’d ever do, or even could do. Every soldier is different, but in the end, you might win the battles, but you’ll never lose the memories of them. It’s the kind of thing that can eat you up inside until good and bad are just words with no meaning.”
“Are you saying there’s no hope for them?” Visyna asked.
Hrem shrugged his huge shoulders, the leather cross-belts over his jacket scraping against the rock as he did so. “Maybe, but I doubt it. If they were going to change, the time was back in the library when Kritton was pointing his musket at Sergeant Arkhorn. When they didn’t stop Kritton, they sealed their fate.”
The rock behind Visyna’s back vibrated as Scolly let out a shuddering snore a few feet away. Yimt’s squad were arrayed around her like rag dolls dropped from a great height and left in whatever position they fell. Teeter, the former sailor, had fallen asleep with his chin resting on his chest and his unlit pipe dangling from his mouth. Beside him, the religious farmer, Inkermon, slumped forward with his head between his knees, his hands palm up on the tunnel floor. Curled up in a ball directly across from them, Zwitty moaned and twitched as if caught in the throes of a nightmare. Visyna debated, then decided against coughing loudly to wake him up. He was less annoying when asleep.
A few yards up the tunnel she could just make out the shapes of Chayii and Jir in the dim light. The bengar’s head still rested on the elf’s lap like a big dog. Visyna tried to reconcile that image with what she knew of the animal’s predatory nature and found it difficult. Jir, like everyone else, was a very contradictory creature.
She tried to see past Chayii and Jir, but there wasn’t enough light. The elves were not in sight, but she knew they were close by.
