His lips had peeled back from his teeth in a horrific smile of death. A ‘rotting man’s sneer’, Gharland called it.
The man’s abdomen had burst, with liquefying entrails hanging out for the carrion. He was the most wounded of them all, probably went down fighting to save his family.
A handwritten sign was nailed to a tree, written in a foreign language that Tomas could not read. He guessed it was Avarwythian, the native tongue of the Akurai Imperials.
Tomas had to avert his eyes at the sight after a moment. Rilan had nearly thrown up his breakfast.
The smell was horrifying yet oddly sweet, reminding him of the shallow graves his father used to dig when throwing away the unusable remains of the lambs he would slaughter. It made his stomach twist.
“Should we cut them down?” Landry had asked Gharland.
“We don’t have the time,” the Captain replied coldly, riding past them as if they weren’t even there. “This is war. Expect to see a lot more of this. Keep moving.”
Tomas remembered that the group had stopped for the night, under Gharland’s orders. They were sleeping rough in a wooded grove, surrounded by the looming silhouettes of trees.
Groups of rainbow flowers were blooming within the green grass. Tomas had spotted some golden Lion lilies, shaped with petals like a lion’s mane. Pink and blue king’s nestle bushels sprouted between patches of vegetation, and even some glowing moonlight mushrooms helped illuminate the serene grove. Some creeping vines were growing up a boulder outcrop like spindly snakes.
In the distance, a pine owl was cooing. An ever-watchful sentinel.
Tomas gazed up, breathing in the fresh air.
The stars appeared brighter overhead than normal. The two moons, Rea and Ixo, weren’t out tonight. One of the stars looked strange- a red light, brighter than all the others.
Tomas had never quite noticed it before, but as he thought about it, he realised he’d spotted it over the past several nights as well.
A cool breeze blew leaves gently around the grassy grove and made the campfire dance.
Rilan, Tomas, Landry, and most of the soldiers had their bedrolls around the campfire. Gharland was the only one with a tent, which was set up a few feet away and shut. Britus slept on a bedroll beside the Captain’s tent, like a loyal guard dog.
Ref and Styna sat on a log at their own little fire on the edge of the grove, hidden by shadow.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Rilan asked, pulling him back into the moment.
“Same dream as always,” Tomas said, sipping his tea.
Rilan nodded. He knew what that meant, and he knew not to push it any further. Rilan sat back down on his bedroll next to Landry.
Landry was picking at some dry jerky and offered some pieces to Tomas and Rilan. Rilan took up the offer eagerly, but Tomas politely refused.
“Thanks, but I don’t eat meat,” Tomas explained.
Landry looked confused. “You don’t eat meat?”
“Long story, but I just can’t stomach it. Haven’t eaten it since I was young.”
“Really?” Landry was stunned. He had not heard of such a thing. “I don’t understand?”
Tomas decided to explain; Landry seemed nice enough to have an answer. “My father was a butcher, you see. So, I was forced to… watch what he did for a living. Eventually he also taught me how to slaughter animals. That was enough to turn me off meat for good.”
Landry nodded. “Fair enough. But that’s a shame. I could not live without jerky… or bacon, come to think of it.” He was nearly salivating at the thought.
Tomas instead took out some bread from his satchel bag and smeared some red jam onto it with his finger from a small pot he had picked up back in Barrowtown.
He could hear Ref and Styna chuckling and snorting to themselves, probably at the comments he had just made. Whatever it was, they were laughing at Tomas’s expense by the sound of it.
Nearby sat another group of soldiers from the company. Tomas had learned some of their names on the journey, though they did not seem to talk much. It was tough to get to know the men. Most did not want to be there and would make an effort to avoid the younger men.
One soldier the others called ‘Smiling John’, on account of the scars across his mouth. Smiling John claimed he had received them while fighting off a group of highwaymen and was stabbed in the mouth, but Tomas had overheard some of the others whispering that he had been tortured as a child by his parents.
He was not game enough to ask John for the truth.
There was an older, balding soldier too, who Tomas had had a single conversation with named Hemish. He was a man-at-arms in the king’s army, rather than a conscript, and had spent the last several years training fresh recruits in Shadowshore.
Hemish did not want to be there anymore than Tomas or Rilan.
Tomas had noticed how stiff the man’s body was, every time he got on and off his horse. He was too old for this sort of work anymore, but the looming threat of foreign invasion seemed to make his old age void.
After chowing down the salty yet firm jerky, Rilan looked at his bandaged hand, stained with red and black dried liquids from his injured stump. He grimaced at the pain but attempted not to vocalise it.
Tomas, however, noticed. “Want me to have another look at it?”
“What, and suffer another burn at your hands? No, thank you!” Rilan said.
“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?” Landry said.
“Lost a finger in the battle at Barrowtown.”
“A… a finger?” Landry went pale.
