Chapter 09

Gillen stumbled away, her face drenched in perspiration. She’d long ago removed her half-sallet; it lay in the dirt and mud somewhere. She fell to her knees and it was just in time; her stomach emptied onto the blood-filled road.

She’d sent four knights to go after the carriage and bring them back. She’d seen the princess and her ladies out, bandaging wounds, handing out food and water. She’d wanted to chastise the young woman, to send her back to her carriage for safety – but against her better judgement, she hadn’t. She simply didn’t have the strength for another argument.

Gillen wondered if the flighty young woman truly had any idea she was partially responsible for this; if she realized had she but come along quietly, as she’d been ordered, they might have avoided this mess entirely. She thought for a moment to tell her – but then decided it would do no good. Instead, she’d focused on their dead.

“Here, First,” a voice said softly from her right. Gillen looked but didn’t make it past the bread being offered to her. She grabbed the bread thankfully but barely had the strength necessary to tear off a bite.

Dry bread was best at times like these. Cheese tended to curdle in the stomach and for some reason meat usually just couldn’t be held down. She was destined for a ration of dry bread and water for a day or so; anything else would just make its way back up and make her feel even worse.

“Are there more?” Gillen asked before tearing off another bit of bread. She looked up as she chewed to find a woman with long, straight, red hair looking down at her. The knight was a bit taller than Gillen herself but was new to her knighthood; she had neither the training nor the internal fortitude to resurrect another. She’d learn in time; if there was time.

“No, First,” the redhead replied. She glanced around the road. “Syl resurrected Dern and healed him – but it almost cost her own life in the process. Myllyn brought back Veder while you were rezzing Idwa and Hya. Bouf is – there’s just too much damage. He can’t be revived. Lin either – but I’m afraid Myllyn is set on making the try.”

“Fool,” Gillen cursed. Lin had been Myllyn’s squire at one time; Gillen knew the man harbored deep feelings for his fellow knight – but feelings of a sibling rather than a lover. Myllyn’s past could put Uud’s stories to shame; he was a committed bachelor never having taken a wife or husband. He was also an intensely private person. The Third Platoon was as close to a family as the man had. “Help me to him.”

At five-feet, seven inches, Lady Elata Youn was not overly tall but she was impressively strong. Her strength was sorely needed as Gillen’s legs trembled and threatened to fail. Elata placed Gillen’s armor-covered left arm around her shoulders with a loud jangle of metal on metal and wrapped her own right arm around her superior’s back. Her gauntleted right hand tucked between Gillen’s arm and breastplate.

The redhead didn’t know from experience how debilitating resurrecting another could be – she still lacked the power or experience to pull another’s spirit back to its body. As a squire, she’d watched in abject awe as some knights performed the ritual, however, and had seen how exhausting it could be. She’d never seen someone do it twice, as Gillen had and Myllyn was attempting.

“Ease me down here,” Gillen whispered as Elata helped her to Myllyn’s side, across from Lin’s body. Gillen could barely stand and she knew that kneeling down to the ground would probably cause her to fall.

Resurrecting the dead was exhausting; it involved using your own spirit to guide another’s back to their body. The problem lay in the fact the living spirit didn’t want to leave the living body; it had to be coaxed and forced to not only leave but find the one who’d died. Depending on the dead, their spirit could become panicked and attack the live spirit or not want to return.

“There’s too much damage, Myllyn,” Gillen said softly. Resurrecting the body also had a component of healing attached to it – otherwise the body would simply die again – but the healing wasn’t absolute. If a body had taken enough damage, then the resurrection would fail and the attending knight would exhaust themselves for nothing. It was why those they fought often added additional wounds to dead bodies or simply cut off a knight’s head; either was enough to permanently kill a knight. She watched the haunted eyes of her best friend as they found hers.

“Help me,” he pleaded, tears in his eyes.

“I can’t,” Gillen replied. “There’s too much damage. Bringing her back to this body would be cruel. Let her pass on.”

“We can bring her back,” Myllyn swallowed. “I’ll bring her back and you hold her spirit in the body while I heal it.”

“Think what you’re saying,” Gillen replied firmly. “What you’re asking. The body is too damaged – holding the spirit in a dead body is torturing it. You can’t heal it quickly enough – no one can.”

“We’ll heal the body first,” Myllyn offered, tears streaming down his face.

“You know we can’t,” Gillen refuted. “We don’t have the ability to heal dead bodies. Only a priest or priestess can.”

“Then we’ll take her to one,” Myllyn resolved. “We’ll take her and have them heal her.”

“There’s not enough time,” Gillen said softly. “By the time we got the body to a temple, the hour will have passed.”

“Maybe they can bring her back outside the hour?” Myllyn tried.

“You know they can’t,” Gillen said quietly. “No one has the power to bring back the dead beyond an hour; not and have it still be Lin inhabiting the body.”

Myllyn nodded. For a while, he just sat there, tears streaming down his face. Gillen wanted to cry, too. Lin. Bouf. It was such a waste – and it was all her fault. She knew trouble was coming; she’d sensed it. If she had sent two scouts instead of one. If she’d been faster, come to Lin’s aid, she might have forestalled this death.

“She has an eight-year-old son,” Myllyn said softly, his hand holding Lin’s; he’d removed both of their gauntlets. “She was going to sponsor him as a squire; her husbands were both dead set against it. They said that they worried enough when she was off on crown business – they didn’t want to worry over their only son as well. I promised them I’d look after her.”

Myllyn’s use of year rather than season took Gillen’s weary mind down a tangent. She had forgotten Myllyn was the third son of a duke; his use of the word ‘year’ brought it back to her. The two words meant the same thing in context – the generic use of the word season meant a year – but it demonstrated a difference in classes; the higher classes used the word ‘year’ while the lower classes seemed to prefer ‘season’. She wasn’t sure why.

She shook her head slightly to re-focus her thoughts.

“You did,” Gillen assured her friend. “You kept your promise.”

“Did I?” Myllyn’s tear stained face looked at up at Gillen. “If I did such a good job looking after her, then why is she dead? Why her – and not me? She had so much to live for and I have – nothing. I’ve got nothing. I’ve no family, no heir. I’ve known it was my lot to die on campaign and I welcomed it – so why her and not me?”

He got up, ashamed, and turned to go but Gillen called him back. “Each of us has a final, permanent death waiting for us, my friend. It’s out there, amorphous, just waiting for the time to strike. We can’t stop it, no matter how we try. In the end, it will get us. What makes us matter is not that we are going to die – that is inevitable. What makes us matter is how we live; how we get from birth to grave.”

Myllyn turned back. “Do you believe that?”

Gillen nodded. “I do. I have to. At times, it’s the only thing which keeps me going.”

“They were the Red Guard,” Ree Houder said confidently to Gillen, who was riding her horse next to the carriage. He was a young knight of barely twenty seasons but he’d demonstrated uncommon valor during the Bornean Marsh offensive; he was the sole survivor of the twenty-fourth knight unit and had, on his own, made sure to bring back the bodies of his entire unit. He also had a way with knives that bordered on incredible; he carried a number of small knives and dirks about his person and was deadly accurate with them out to at least fifty yards.

Gillen ached and she knew if they had to fight again today, she would make a poor showing of herself. Syl was in even worse straights; the blonde knight with the expressive blue eyes was barely able to sit a horse. Gillen had moved her to the buckboard for the day. Myllyn was slightly better but seemed lost inside his own head. She’d have to keep an eye on him; she’d need to snap him out of it when the worst was over. Veder Byn, Hya Roloc and Dern Mublox could probably fight but it would be a challenge; being resurrected tends to scramble you a bit immediately after.

“I come from Midtown,” Ree continued, “it’s on the southern coast of the Grand Duchy of Dunber. We get traders and such from the Kortho Empire and I’ve heard horror stories about them since I was old enough to visit a tavern; the Tyln priestess down there would work them into her oratory every other week. There’re supposed to be thousands of them, trained to kill without armor, using only stealth and cunning to survive. I’ve heard them described – but I never thought I’d be unlucky enough to actually see them.”

“You asked me to tell you when we hit the thirteenth hour, First,” Idwa Konesh said quietly. That was Idwa, though – quiet. Even her horse tended to make no sound, explaining how she’d managed to get so close without Gillen being aware of it.

“Already?” Gillen asked, sweat pouring down her face. She was tired and weak and didn’t relish the thought of trying to dismount. “Time is getting away from me, I’m afraid.”

Idwa smiled wryly. “You’re exhausted, Honor. The scouts have returned and there’s a clearing up ahead. I’ll set up lunch detail.”

Gillen nodded weakly. She had ordered scouting pairs ahead and behind with strict orders not to engage the enemy but immediately return if they encountered any resistance. She’d also moved four knights to just inside the tree line – two on each side. She needed a better warning if they were attacked again.

The clearing wasn’t as large as the one in which they’d spent the night but it was a welcome sight. As usual when on campaign, they watered the horses at a nearby stream and then left them saddled but ground tied, able to feast on the lush grasses beneath their feet. They removed their various helmets but kept their swords at their waist, untied. Rounds of four took their turn scouting the trees while the others ate. Expecting trouble in enemy territory was no longer an axiom but the bitter truth.

They settled down to eat with Gillen, Myllyn and Syl chewing on dry bread with water to help it down. The other knights ate dried jerky, a bit of bread and cheese, washed down with a light, dry wine. Even the Princess ate the jerky and bread, sitting quietly on a hollowed log. Gillen had tried to get the three young women to eat in their carriage but the princess had insisted on stretching her legs and the First of the Third had finally relented.

The attack came without warning to devastating effect. A ball of fire flew from within the trees, engulfing Gorgia Leyin in terrible blue flames. It took but a moment, burning in intense heat that blistered the skin of all who were near, before it subsisted. It only needed a moment; all that was left of the young woman was charred flesh and melted armor.