Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (107 page)

“Of course,” Colbey mumbled, and since Farr
undoubtedly expected a quote, “To be a village scout is to put the village’s
well being before your own.  All skills and privileges of the scout must follow
approved practices as set down by those before him.”

“And that goes double, no
triple
, for the Guardians!  To break approved
practices goes

“Against all teachings.”  His head hurt horribly. 
Straight through his scalp, all the way to the innermost regions of his brain. 
It felt bruised, felt burned…felt raw.  White lightning lanced from one side of
his head to the other and he cried from the agony.  Gods, deliver him!  Why did
his head feel like a melon dropped so the rind spit open?  Please, make it
stop!  Give him release, give him

A high-pitched
whish
split the air.  One Nolier archer fell, feebly pawing at his chest.  His
partner turned and, too late, understood their foe had armed himself with one
of their bows.  He jumped the rail to the next wagon, but a second arrow
pierced his unprotected back before he landed.

Colbey dropped the bow onto its former owner’s corpse
and checked the last two he had shot.  A clean shot had killed the first.  The
second still shuddered.  His weak struggles made it plain he would die soon
enough but it went against all teachings he had received as a Guardian to leave
an animal, or an enemy, in such pain when mercy could be quickly granted with a
swift stroke of his knife.

Those who delighted in the suffering of their enemies
were no better than the enemy they slew.

“Against all…against all…”  Colbey stared blankly
across the cold battleground.  His cheek lay against the frozen dirt.  He
mumbled words that were beyond his ability to quell.

“Against…all…teachings…”

To delight in pain and suffering, for any reason, was
not accepted by the Guardians.  No matter the reasons for needing to kill a
person or creature, it must be done quickly and painlessly as possible.  To
relish the killing went

“Against…all teachings…”

To hunt down an enemy of the village using Higher
Skills was perfectly acceptable.  Using those skills to kill men whose only
crime had been to cross a Guardian, or held a different opinion than his, went

“Against all…teachings…”

To take a man as an acquaintance, if not an outright
friend, hardly entitled him to the same unwavering loyalties as taking a man as
a heartbrother.  But it
did
make him a part of one’s personal community,
no matter the distance between homes or the time between visits.  Betraying a
member of one’s community meant betraying oneself.  And such a betrayal went

“Against all teachings,” Colbey whispered, his voice
empty.  “Against all…gods, what is happening to me?”

He rose to a kneel, staring at the ground between his
knees.  Pain shot through his head behind his eyes. 
Liam?  Sylvia?  What is
happening to me?  Answer me!  What is happening?

No answer came.  Why did they ignore him?  Why did
they leave him struggling for an answer?

If they were unable to reach the correct conclusion on
their own, then it would be necessary to reevaluate that person’s aptitude for
serving as a scout.

That truth slapped him, the stunning simplicity a
physical blow.  He had always been the best at seeing straight to the heart of
those self-taught truths.  Cold consideration and an open mind had always
allowed the obvious answer to fill him without equivocation.

An opened mind.  Cold consideration.  Cast away the
clouding emotions that blind others and let the answer fill you.

It had been long since he sought an inner truth as he
had while a scout trainee.  Lessons learned, teachings to cast away a misshapen
belief or world view.  Never easy to accept a truth that conflicts with one’s
convictions, but the way of the scout had always been about overcoming
difficulties, including your personal nature.

Colbey cast away his confusion and distracting
emotions and yearned for the answer to surface.  He left his mind open and
clear…and came there the horrible truth.

Obsession.  Hatred.  Outright
dementia
.  A
burning rage so profound it would drive a man to create voices of the dead who
assured him that violating everything they stood for would be acceptable, as
long as it delivered what he most wanted.  To shove all he was into a third
personality, a sacrificial martyr to suffer in his place for the sins he
waged.  Sins he would have hunted down a brother Guardian for committing.

His hands clutched at his ears and his head threatened
to split apart.  Sweat ran into his eyes from his brow, his hair plastered to
his head.  He stared wide-eyed at the scraggly grass made dormant by the winter
months.

No!  I…I have always been a master of self-control! 
Always had the quicker mind than any of the others!  They all were in awe of me
because I was the best trainee in over a hundred years!  No one was as cool and
calculated as I!

The rage was returning, the emotion he felt most
comfortable with after the long, long months.  A stupid trainee’s trick, with
no applicable value in the real world!  As trustworthy as…as predicting your
future by the stars!  Stupid, stupid!  This confusion must be a mage playing
tricks on him!  A soiled, untrustworthy mage bent on destroying him!

He snarled at the ground between his knees, the black
fog roiling in from the sides to obscure all but the stunted grass.  The fog
that helped him concentrate on nothing except his targets.  Fog which—

Fog? 
His
snarl froze. 
Black fog?  What fog would…

What would make a black fog appear?  Why would it
appear at all, unless…  What could it be?  A kind of…madness?  A fog produced
by nothing but the madness of an unbalanced mind?

A madness in…
his
mind?

Colbey began to scream.

*        *        *        *        *

“Not bloody gods-damned to every hell again,” Marik
muttered less than ten heartbeats after awakening.  It was a place other than
the chirurgeons’ wing in Kingshome, but the cot was the same, and the private
tent would never do for anyone but a man on the recovery roster.

Dietrik shifted on the squat stool from where he had
been peering out through the narrow entrance flap.  “Only two days this time,”
he observed with very little humor.  “You are getting much quicker at waking up
after taking a solid thrashing.”

“Too much cursed experience at it.”  Marik tried to
sit up.  Most of his muscles seized.  Skin all across his body tightened enough
to put a drum to shame.  “Oh, gods!  Don’t tell me I got burned alive all
over!”

“Not so bad as that, though your worst misadventure
since that particular scrape.”

He could talk this time.  That alone backed up
Dietrik’s claim.  “What’s news then?  What did I miss.”

Dietrik leaned back, then fell from the stool since he
had forgotten it sported no back.  He kicked the short stool away with a grunt
and propped his back against a chest that could have contained enough armor to
outfit five knights.  “What haven’t you bloody missed?  Where did you leave
off?”

Marik considered.  “I beat down that mage. 
Or…actually, I think I did.  Didn’t I?  No.  He popped back out and did a
number on my—”  He halted after the memory returned.

When he had nearly died from the fireball in northern
Galemar, he’d awakened with no recollection of the actual incident.  To this
day he still could recall none of what happened after leaving to search the
upper slopes and catching a quick glimpse of the gaunt magician.

He remembered this pain.  The searing pain of molten
metal eating into his flesh.  And the horrible, eager reaching for death to
grant him release.

“Do you…have a mirror, Dietrik?”

“Only the one Celerity sent.  It’s in my pack, which
is buried in a wagon with everyone else’s.  We haven’t had the chance to dig
them out yet.”

Marik raised a hand, his right arm which was free of
the bandages, to his face.  Half his head had been cocooned under thick wraps
that were all too familiar.  Herbal salve aroma wafted thickly to his
nostrils.  The knowledge of what must lay beneath nearly made him weep.

“Don’t go buying troubles you haven’t got, mate. 
You’ll have a few healthy reminders of that battle for the rest of your life,
but not so many as you think.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can see you.  You’re thinking about Ilona, and how
she might take to your pretty face after this.”

He hadn’t been thinking of her, but
that
thought made him want to not only weep, by do so for the next year.  “Ilona…”

“She doesn’t have much to cluck over.  Once the salves
are done, the right side of your face will be a shade lighter than your left,
or so they tell me.  You’ll hardly be an Evesham Night horror.”

“Damn it Dietrik, I know what I felt!  And that…”  His
throat choked on the words.

“I bet you didn’t feel Glynn putting your hide back
together.”

“Gl…Glynn?”  His unbandaged eye narrowed.

“That is part of all the fun you missed.  Fraser and
Atcheron and one or two others were driving south.  Atcheron mostly wanted to
collect his townspeople before the monsters ate them, and Fraser had it figured
that we’d sceedaddled on south, so he was looking for us.  If Celerity had
known, she might have put back the initial attack a half-day so the forces
could join.”

“An extra half-day and the enemy reinforcements would
have joined with the first five-hundred and all the beasts besides.”

Dietrik shrugged.  “They were following that trail
too.  Apparently the reinforcements came through the pass and made a straight
shot south.”

“Fraser must have cleaned up the remaining black
soldiers then.”

“Not as such.  We’ve all been wondering at this.”

“At this?”

“Were there any other mage types floating around out
there?”

“Not that I know of.  Henodd was the one fighting
them, so you’ll need to ask him.”

“That mage who came with the Arm’s forces, right? 
Well, he’s a grease spot on a pile of melted boulders.”

“Ah.  I see.  That’s why that bastard suddenly started
focusing on me.”  Marik rubbed his covered face, damning Henodd for not being
the battle mage he’d claimed to be during their brief, tense conversation while
waiting for Celerity.

“Don’t pick at that.  Glynn spent sixteen straight
marks patching you together, and re-growing the parts that went missing, so you
better believe you will be hearing from him if you undo all that work.”

Marik forced his hand to the sheets.  “Parts…missing? 
I, uh…I don’t like the way you said that.”

“Maybe not missing,” Dietrik allowed, “That was a joke
in poor taste.  Sorry.  But I saw you laying there on the ground after it
happened.  I could see your bloody cheek bones, mate.  And I did not care for
the sight, let me tell you.”

“I didn’t care to be the sight,” he replied with a
shudder running through him.  “I thought you could only repair so much with a
Healing.”

“Ask Glynn when he comes in next time.  The army
chirurgeons wrapped you up under his instructions.  I watched, and he gave you
all your face back.  I doubt any random Healer could have done that.”

“I’ll have to thank him.”  He scowled.  “And Celerity
too, I suppose.  I know she’ll call
that
debt in one day.”

“Start calling him Glynn Allegra Eyollandish the Third
every time you see him, and he will be happy as a pig in slops.”

Marik decided that would be small enough repayment, as
annoying as it would be.  He cast his mind back over Dietrik’s last question. 
“If you want to know about other mages, something must have happened after I,
uh, I fell.  And ‘other mages’ must mean the mage I fought wasn’t around to
cause the mischief.”

“No, Colbey took care of your playmate.”  Dietrik gave
an odd pause before continuing.  “But the biggest bloody cloud you can build in
that fine imagination of yours came crashing down over the northern field. 
That might not have been a problem if it hadn’t been made of fire and
lightning.”

“Oh that,” Marik said.

“Oh that? 
Oh that
?  What do you bloody well
mean, ‘oh that’?  That better not have been a trick of yours!”

“Calm down.  It wasn’t me.  The mage started building
it before his mount tossed him.  If he was killed, then the working must have
gone out of control.”

Dietrik stopped leaning forward to slouch back against
the chest.  “In that case, it might have fallen anywhere would be my guess. 
Cursed lucky the thing landed mostly on their men instead of ours.”

He continued describing the events, how every man on
the field had been lifted and tossed like kittens in a sack before being thrown
to the ground.  Half of the remaining black soldiers had been incinerated.  The
remaining had been collected as captives and would be escorted by the Arm to
Thoenar for extensive questioning.