Realms of War

Dev didn't answer. The pain was swirling in his head. He wondered if the sensation was blood, filling up his skull. If he were truly lucky, he would die before the bastard had a chance to be done with him.

'Suddenly you're not all mouth,' the priest murmured. 'But I hope you can still appreciate a good jest.'

Dev heard the clink of steel as Gerond drew a knife from his belt. Still holding Dev's hands, the priest peeled one of his thumbs back. Dev felt the blade against his skin.

'What is between you and Morla?' Gerond repeated the question calmly. When Dev still didn't answer, he pressed the blade into Dev's thumb, neatly severing it below the nail.

Dev howled, curling automatically into a fetal position. The priest held onto his hands, slick now with blood. He thrashed and screamed over and over, the cries turning finally to frenzied laughter. He couldn't seem to stop, even when the Cyricist's dark prayers sealed over his wound, leaving an empty stump that was cleaner than any magician's trick.

The watching gods are going to slay me with irony. Dev beat his head against the hard-packed earth until his vision swam. Darkness cheerfully claimed him, but he knew that when he awoke he would still be maimed, and he would have to tell the priest everything.

When you're a soldier, there's nothing more valuable than the trust of the man- or woman-fighting next to you. If that trust is broken, the whole army suffers. To be a good soldier, or a good commander, you have to understand this. Even if it ruins a life.

— From the memoirs of Devlen Torthil

'I was in the militia, Esmeltaran,' Dev said. 'This was years before your friends came to drive us out.'

Dev was dimly aware of the priest, standing somewhere behind him, probably watching for more patrols. He could hear Resch farther away, in the last throes of the poison. If sound was any indication, the man was throwing up blood and gods knew what else.

The animated horse trudged the field in slow circles, a spell-locked trance from which it couldn't escape. Dev remembered a time in his home village, when he'd seen a lame foal shuffling around its paddock, just before a farmer put a knife across its throat.

'Step and drag… step and drag you here to me… hush you little pony… hush you goodnight,' the farmer sang.

'Go on,' the priest said. 'Did you know Morla then?'

'We were on the wall together,' Dev said. 'Morla and I had the best eyes. Esmeltaran's militia is small. We all knew each other.'

'You were friends,' Gerond said, surprised. 'I hear it in your voice. What happened?'

'One night, I saw something from the wall, something Morla didn't see.' Dev stopped speaking, but he knew it wouldn't be enough to satisfy the priest.

'What did you see?' Gerond asked.

'Nothing, as it turned out,' Dev said, 'a trick of my eyes, a shadow. If I could have bitten my tongue, my life might have turned out a little differently than it has.'

'I don't understand,' the priest said. Dev could hear the impatience in his voice. He shifted, and managed to roll onto his back so he could look the priest in the eyes.

'I was scared, see? I was young, and I didn't trust my instincts-that what was out there wasn't a threat to me or Morla. My heart was thumping like to leap out of my chest, and then my whole body started to shake. It had to be sure. It needed to see that there was nothing out there. They say that's what happens with sorcery, and those that can juggle it. The need overwhelms any common sense. Suddenly, a person can do things, things that no soldier of Amn has a right to do. Like send a shaft of light-bright as sunshine-across a city wall to pierce shadows that hold… nothing.'

Dev's head had started up a pounding again. He closed his eyes until the pain became bearable.

'So you touched the Weave, completely unaware, and the city-Morla-expelled you from the militia,' Gerond said. He almost sounded sympathetic. It made Dev's skin crawl. 'Was it then you became the charlatan?' the priest wanted to know. 'Or have you always been the deceiver, Torthil, and just didn't know it?'

'You've had enough of my stories,' Dev snapped. His eyes offered a challenge. 'Time for sleep.'

'As you wish,' Gerond said. 'No more deceptions, no more decoys.'

He moved forward, and Dev braced himself. Thank the gods the story of my life is a short tale, Dev thought, or poor Resch might have died in the middle.

'The problem is distraction, see?' Dev said, and gasping, sobbing, the dying warrior that had once been Resch the Silent, heaved his body up from the ground, using muscles, bones, and bowels that had ceased to obey him. But some shy;how, he got to his feet and slammed his body into the priest's back.

They hit the dirt hard, but Resch was already dead. His weight pinned the priest long enough for Dev to lunge onto his back.

Wrapping his bound hands around the priest's neck, Dev thrust back, clumsily, using his heels. The rope bit into fleshy folds and lodged somewhere beneath Gerond's chin. There it would stay, or Dev knew he would be as dead as Resch.

'No prayers, no thoughts.' Dev pushed down, grinding the priest's hands into the ground when he would have reached for his holy symbol. 'Hush, little pony, hush.'

Convulsions wracked the priest's body, but Dev kept his grip. He waited until the bloated body flopped once then lay still on the field. Only then did Dev roll away.

A dull thud sounded nearby. Dev snapped around, tense at the thought of more enemies, but it was only the horse. Freed from the Cyricist's hold, the beast crumpled in a heap of ungainly legs next to Resch's body.

Dev closed the scarred man's eyes, then went to find the priest's knife for his bonds. He tried to ignore the blood staining the blade.

Not quite the hero's grand tale. Me on my belly with an insane priest lopping off all my precious appendages. I was too damn scared to do anything, and all the while there's Resch, thrashing and bleeding out poison, trying to hold onto what was left of his body long enough to help me. I wouldn't have blamed him for rolling over and calling it done, but I didn't understand. I didn't realize how long he'd been waiting to get back at someone for the way he'd been violated. Death wasn't going to take precedence over revenge, not for Resch. Never underestimate the power of trauma to bring on clarity.

— From the memoirs of Devlen Torthil

'I read your account of what happened. You did well. More than well.'

Morla stood at the opening of the tent. She'd sent her guard away. They were alone. When she turned, finally, to look at Dev, her face was the color of brittle bone.

'By Lady Selыne, I swear I didn't know about Gerond.' Morla looked sick. 'How could I have known?'

'How could you?' Dev echoed. He thought she seemed small, somehow, without her guard and armor. An old warrior woman. Tired. 'You know I forgive you, Morla my light.' The words came out hollow, with none of the usual bluster.

'Do you?' Morla was watching him, with her keen vision that missed nothing. 'Do you know why I acted as I did?'

'You always do what you think is best for your people.'

'For Amn. Your home.'

Dev inclined his head. 'Your people, as I said.'

'Without stability, without trust, Devlen, everything falls apart. Amn will not-'

'Amn doesn't need to think of me as being more than a charlatan, Morla,' Dev interrupted. 'I see that now. Comes to it, I'd rather be the decoy.'

'You have the potential to be so much more.'

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. 'That was a long time ago. What do you want from me now, Morla? Absolution? I gave it. Your army? I carried out your mission. I'm finished now.'

'You can still serve Amn. You wanted to die a hero,' Morla said. 'I want you to live as one. My penance, if