The Forgotten War (92 page)

There were two bodies in close proximity to each other. Both were smoking and charred from head to toe and were barely recognisable as human. The crows scattered and flew as she approached them.
They had been busy. In several places on both bodies the blackened skin had been opened, revealing the pulpy red flesh underneath; strings of it had been pulled out and decorated the corpses like
some ghastly spring festival rosette.

The noise had definitely not come from these two.

She scanned the road ahead. It was all water and mud; she felt it squelch underfoot. Then the noise came again and this time she homed in on it.

There was a prone figure less than a hundred yards ahead sheltering against the verge on the eastern edge of the road. With her feet and staff sinking into the morass she made as good progress
as she could until she was just a few feet from the figure. Then she caught her breath.

She realised dully that of the dozens of men she must have killed at Grest she had seen none of them close to hand. She had heard screams and cries of pain but they could have been caused by
anything. She had had an almost antiseptic detachment from the misery and suffering she must have caused. Not this time, though. This time the evidence was there before her.

It was the boy, of course. It had to be. The fireball could not have caught him properly. His back was to her and he seemed unaware of her presence as he whimpered again. His legs, and even his
trousers, were barely scored by flame and he was using these to push himself slowly along the muddy ground. His back, though, was scorched black; she could see where his shirt had melted and fused
with his flesh along his shoulders. His hair had partially burned away and the exposed skin on his scalp was viscous, almost liquid. The one ear she could see had all but gone, leaving a gaping
hole in the side of his head. The acrid smell of his partially cooked body stuck at the back of her throat. He must have heard her for slowly he rolled on to his back screaming hoarsely at his
torture.

His hands were little more than fused stumps of flesh and bone; his face, however, was almost intact, although one eye was white and blind. His torso, though ... just the sight brought a
croaking gasp to her throat.

The fire had burned through his clothes and crackled and shrivelled the skin on his right-hand side. She counted four mud-covered ribs, all blackened and exposed by the hole where his diaphragm
had once been. Under the ribs were the pinkish tinge of his organs; they seemed intact and healthy, though, if truth be told, she looked away from them as soon as she possibly could.

‘How is it you are not dead?’ she said aloud, as much to herself as to him.

His mouth opened. His face was covered in mud and soot, but the expression in his one good eye spoke more eloquently than a thousand words could.

‘Please,’ he said, his voice cracked and thin. ‘Please.’

Cheris fought to regain control. ‘I, I cannot do anything for you. I am not a healer and, even if I were, I doubt, I doubt you could be saved. All I can do is ease your passing, end it
quickly. Is this what you wish?’

The boy gave the tiniest of nods; he whimpered one more time.

Cheris’s eyes were stinging. This boy had raped her – why was she feeling so ashamed?

‘Very well. May Xhenafa bring you to the Gods for judgement. What you did ... what you did... I know you were forced... Maybe they will show you mercy, I do not know.’

Her magic was draining her already exhausted body, but she forced herself, just one more time. She had to. Pointing at the boy she spoke again, a thin bolt of cerulean leapt from her finger
straight at him. There it became as dozens of small charged snakes covering and encasing his spasming, writhing form, crackling as the smell of ozone filled the air. In a few seconds it was over.
The boy lay still, his scarred face revealing a semblance of peace. Turning slowly away from him, Cheris doubled over and emptied the scant contents of her stomach into the mud.

It took an eternity for her to get back to the caravan; her pain had become omnipresent. She could barely remember a time before she had had it. It controlled her. It was who she was. The blood
coating her thighs, buttocks and hands had congealed; she could still taste it in her mouth where she had bitten herself in her torment.

With her remaining strength she pulled open the rear door, clambered inside and slammed the bolt home. She staggered to her couch. Sitting on it hurt her so she attempted to lie full length on
it. Eventually she found a tolerable position. Quietly she tried to let sleep take her.

It couldn’t. The second her eyes closed there he was, pressing on her, crushing her, hurting her, his eyes burning through into her soul. He smelled clean, cleaner than the other men; he
even sweated less but his breath was toxic. At one point he dribbled, his spittle dropping on to her forehead. She lay stock still, not daring to blanch. And then he licked her face, just to see
her be repulsed. She sat upright on the couch and screamed her hurt and frustration.

For a second she wondered what she looked like. Her mirror was in her trunk; she was always using it. Perhaps she should get it out and see. See what, though? An ugly violated creature? A dirty
cheapened thing? She remembered the way he had described her, ridden more times than Felmere’s charger. There it was again, Cheris the slut. That was how they saw her here; perhaps that was
what she was. Perhaps they thought they weren’t even hurting her. Perhaps they thought it was the way she liked it, the way she wanted it. Maybe they thought they were doing her a favour. She
was obviously asking for it, a woman alone in an army of men with her eye make-up and her hair just so; she was practically leaving the bedroom door open for them.

No, she did not want her mirror. She eased herself off the couch and dug around the storage compartments for food. She found a small flask of water, which she drank greedily – anything to
take away the taste of that last man, and some small hard flatbreads which she bit into, risking her teeth. She seated herself on the other couch to finish her meal and remembered the last time she
had sat there, whom she had been talking to.

Marcus. She had almost forgotten. Her face reddened with grief and tears finally came. For five minutes or so she sat there silently weeping for her mentor ... her friend. The man who had saved
her life. Again she thought of Gilda and how she would speak to her and what exactly she would say.

The light was beginning to fade in the windows. She shuttered them both up; she wanted no reminders of the world outside. And at last she confronted it. The thought that had been floating around
her head from the moment she first saw Trask gazing balefully at her next to the body of Sir Norton.

The men that had done this to her, that wanted her, the other mages and the knights all dead were her allies. She may well even have fought with them at Grest. What had turned them so? What did
they want to achieve? It all begged many serious questions.

It also meant she could not stay here. Something was afoot and people needed to know. And only she, barely able to walk herself, could tell them. She did not know how far she had to go or whom
to speak to; all she knew was that she had to follow the broad southern road until she got to ... somewhere. Then again were these men her only enemies? She could not tell just anyone. She had to
be careful; treachery could be widespread here after all. She sighed. She still knew so little of the situation, the politics in this country.

Outside in the far distance a lone wolf howled. Cheris shivered. She felt her shock start to return and she just sat there, knees drawn up to her chin, trembling and shaking, small and very much
alone. She had always seen herself as a strong woman, opinionated and as well capable of reason and well-constructed arguments as any man. She had always felt a little sorry for the gentler girls
at the college. Girls like Elsa, all sweet smiles and artlessness. Yet here she now was herself, all tears and helplessness, hating her own vulnerability. She was all front, all façade.
Underneath it all, when it all really mattered she was as quivering, spineless and terrified as the meekest, mildest wallflower.

And so it continued as night drew on – her mind did not stop. It circled and circled endlessly around itself, loathing and disgust still going hand in hand with the throbbing pains in her
body. Eventually, she exhausted herself beyond any further emotion. She returned to her own couch, lay full length on it, threw a blanket over herself and slept instantly, in a place too dark even
for dreams.

She woke only once. A noise outside the normal night sounds of the forest caused her to snap out of her sleep immediately. It sounded like hands or claws scrabbling or digging into the earth and
was accompanied by another sound, a low growling noise made by two or three voices. Was it wolves? She raised her aching body on to her knees on the couch and as quietly as possible slid back the
shutter on the window. Little could be seen by the light of the pale moon; it was a still cold night with nary a cloud under the expanse of shimmering stars. Her breath was starting to frost the
window and she was about to pull the shutter to when she saw movement. It was over by the tree where she had flung that man, near to where his body lay. She couldn’t quite make it out. It
didn’t look like they were wolves; the shapes seemed too small and almost humanoid. Then she remembered Roland and his tale of ghouls feasting on the flesh of the dead. She had given it
little credence at the time but at that time she had not been alone, and afraid, and in the middle of a forest. She closed the shutter, checked the bolt on the door, resolved to blast anything that
tried to get through it, and was asleep again in seconds. She never found out exactly what it was she saw but in the morning, when she stepped outside, all of the bodies were gone.

It was a chill morning. Frost lay heavy on the ground, coating the dead leaves and freezing the tiny puddles of standing water. She emerged wearing Marcus’s cloak, which she pulled tightly
over her rags and shivered. The intensity of the pain had receded to be replaced with a persistent throbbing ache. Her torso was sore with many tender spots where her bruises had come into their
own overnight. She had her staff with her but no longer needed it to help her walk. She still shuffled slowly, though, lest the pain started to flare inside her again.

She cast around the knights’ tents looking for food that hadn’t been nibbled by rats, voles and other small furry forest creatures. Eventually she found some bread and fruit that had
been wrapped securely enough to foil any would-be raider and three flasks of water, one of which was stained with dark blood. Two of the flasks were half full and, without knowing why exactly, she
emptied both of these over her head. It gave her a couple of seconds of feeling cleansed and refreshed, followed by many minutes of feeling absolutely bitterly cold. Idiot, she thought to
herself.

Back in the caravan she had an idea. She opened the trunk and pulled out the simple serving girl’s dress she had purchased through Sir Dylan. Tossing away her rapidly disintegrating robes,
she changed into it. She had taken an empty pack from the knights’ camp and proceeded to fill it with the food, her personal knick-knacks including her mirror (though she did not look into
it) and her book. Then she had another thought. Stepping outside the caravan, she scanned the frozen leaf litter till she saw it. Gingerly bending over, she picked up Anaya’s book. She did
not really want to keep it but it was too dangerous to leave lying around. After deliberating for a few seconds, she hastily stuffed it into her ever-heavier pack.

She kept getting flashbacks, mainly of Trask, but at some point or other all of the ordeals of the previous two days popped into her mind. She kept thinking that for quite a while it had driven
her into a sort of tacit acceptance of her fate, almost as though she was happy to die. This had never been her way before; nothing had ever crushed her spirit like that – ever. She was
angry. Angry at herself and angry at those who had defiled her, and of them only one remained. It also occurred to her that, if Anaya had not lost her sanity that night, then she would be lying in
the cottage with her throat cut and Trask and his cronies would be drinking to a successful enterprise, Anaya’s crazed delusions had indirectly saved her life.

So finally it was time to move. She left the clearing and started down the road. She was drained, still tired and hurting. Now and then she would see Trask on top of her and stop, brushing her
hand over her face as she tried to fight the waves of nausea and disgust that kept washing over her. When she regained herself, she continued to walk the road south, wondering how her composure
would fare when she finally had to talk to somebody. She had to keep alert as well. If she heard horses on the road, she would have to hide until she knew that the travellers were not Trask’s
men. She felt too weary to use magic today and did not know how much fight she had left in her.

She had walked a couple of miles when she espied something close by through the trees. Entering the dense woodland, she walked towards it knowing already what it was – a small but deep
pond. It had been dammed by a beaver lodge and was still and wide; a couple of ducks swam along its further reaches, arrowing away from her. Setting down her pack, she undressed and, oblivious to
any risk or harm she might do to herself, she jumped right in.

It had warmed up a little since the frosty dawn but the shock on her naked bruised skin was still enough to take the breath from her. She bobbed to the surface like a cork, but that was not what
she wanted. Filling her empty lungs she submerged herself completely, washing away the dirt, the remaining flakes of blood, the scent of the men who had abused her. She popped up again and repeated
the procedure. After the fifth submergence she felt cleansed enough; she knew in her heart that she would never feel wholly clean again, but at least now she was physically purified, if not
spiritually. She clambered out of the pond and the chill air felt invigorating on her open pores. She stopped, raising her arms to the weak sun until she was as dry as she was ever going to get
here. She dressed slowly and rejoined the path.