Varten's whole body hurt. A battlefield of flesh and blood. The ruddy white scalp of his bald head was baked red from time on the road, skin cracking and peeling. His arse was raw from months bouncing in the saddle, knees and elbows scraped from day after day of tightly strapped armour. He let go of his reins to rub at his neck again, trying to massage the painful ache seeded there from a whole year wearing the godforsaken metal. The straps were too tight, the heavy plate shirt pulled down eternally on his shoulders, his neck, his head. The armour itself was battered and dented so much it looked like the Orcs had gone at him with a battering ram.
Which they all but had done, of course.
The column of soldiers continued on. No sound but the clop of hooves. The occasional sniff or sneeze. No one seemed to be focused, no one really aware, just existing. Varten himself knew he barely felt like he was present at all, just riding along in his body. Waiting until he saw the buildings of Tinangels crest the horizon, and see the faces of his wife and daughter, and knew that his life could begin again.
Varten was dimly aware of the men around him, the last tired remnants of his shattered platoon. One face missing out of every three. Those that remained not the same. Doc Bartlett was riding immediately to Varten's left. The medic's maimed left hand held tight against his chest in a crusty makeshift sling. The broad frame of Moore was to Varten's right. Varten's closest friend, his tight frizzy hair was filthy. Big calloused hands gripped his reins tentatively, wrapped as they were to protect the wounds of a massive rope burn.
The black stallion at the head of their troupe was just as tired as his rider. The long and lean frame of Sergeant Volsh was slightly stooped in the saddle. Varten couldn't see from this angle, but he knew that Volsh's cold eyes would be staring ahead. Probably the only one among them paying attention.
They had every reason to be happy. The war was over. Apparently they had won, but Varten wasn't sure at what point that had actually happened.
His unit had moved from conflict to conflict across the country from the capitol. Endless days of marching and fighting. Stopping for a few hours to recover, and then marching again. Last night had been the first night they'd slept not under a state of war in eight months. The first night he wasn't meant to expect to be woken any moment with the screaming horde upon them. Every man in the unit had still slept twitchy and disturbed, fully dressed in their stinking road clothes, blades gripped in their hands.
They'd been waiting to move on the latest in a seemingly endless series of small occupied country villages when the riders had come.
The war was over, they were heroes.
Apparently.
Varten wasn't exactly sure what a hero was meant to feel like, but it wasn't much like he expected it to feel.
The remains of a wooden sign stood on the wayside, sticking out of the dirt of the road they clopped slowly down. The sign itself was broken, half knocked from the pole and face down in the dirt. The name of the little town that was partially appearing through the trees up ahead was probably on it.
Varten had noticed an ugly silence in the air the entire journey back towards home. He used to think of silence as peaceful. The absence of conflict.
The war had changed Varten's perception of silence. Riding into a town where there was screaming, crashing, blazing fires, meant there was still time. Noise meant there was something left. There was something to be done. Something left to save. Varten now knew that when there was silence, that there would be nothing left to save.
He wasn't wrong.
Whatever the village had been called didn't matter to anyone in it anymore. As the heroes approached the little village, they saw it was a husk.
Hadn't been big in the first place, a stopover between larger towns. Didn't even look like there was a building large enough to have been an inn. Impossible to tell though, with the black state of most of the remaining constructions.
The corpse of a horse lay in the street, twisted body slouched across an overturned cart. Black lumps that had maybe once been fruit lay nearby.
The skeletal remains of most buildings yawned out at the street, fallen rafters and partial supports bent out like broken teeth. Ashes spread out of every doorway, belched from every shattered window, spilling out into the dirt of the street. The heavy afternoon sun, while at the right angle to enter one side of the street, seemed just not to bother. The golden light barely penetrated the burned out buildings, leaving most of the interiors in shadow.
Doc Bartlett was staring straight ahead, ignorant of the horrors, and Varten was used to that. Bull of a man that Moore was, however, looked like he'd taken a blow to his great frame. Shoulder slumped, he stared into the empty scar of a nearby house as they passed. Smashed pottery spilled out the broken front door, and a thin arm, scorched black, protruded from just within.
"How did we miss this?" Moore asked. For a man of his size, his voice was barely above a whisper. Varten tilted his reins and moved in closer to his friend.
"You what?" Varten asked. His voice was hoarse, sharp, and cut through the empty town like a knife. He repeated himself more quietly, and immediately felt foolish. No one in this town cared anymore.
"We would've come this way. We had to," Moore said softly.
Varten thought. Moore was right, they would logically have come down this road on the way west.
Doc Bartlett piped up, without looking over at the pair.
"Nah, we went the forest route. Remember?" Bartlett said.
Bartlett's voice was unpleasant on Varten's ears. It was a sneering voice that matched the medic's wide, lizardlike mouth, but it wasn't that. Every time Bartlett spoke it put Varten straight back to one of any of a dozen times that he'd been lying on a battlefield, bleeding from a cut or a smash or a lance in the gut, with Barlett staring down at him telling him to stop fidgeting so he could work.
"This was when we done the fast ride through the forest. Bournecam was getting razed. We made double time through the forest and bit 'em in the arse. Remember?"
Varten nodded, Moore didn't move.
"If we'd come this way we might have been able to stop this," Moore said.
Bartlett snorted, and gestured with his good hand.
"Yeah, but if they'd taken Bournecam that fucks the whole west front dunnit? Take this place, and what? Middle of nowhere, no value."
"Then what're we fighting for? Hold the bridge and the people on the other side of it die? Why?" Moore asked.
Bartlett gave a shrug.
"You know as well as I do these little towns are a shit place to get caught in a fight. Too much in the way. Everything made of wood, no cover. You want to take on a horde in a place like this don't you come crying to me to put your big arse back together again."
"Look at the damage. This wasn't no horde. Small force did this. We could've stopped this if we were here."
There was a rising tension before the men lost their temper, and the Sergeant sensed it.
"We moved ahead to Bournecam because orders told us to," Volsh said. His sharp voice, though low, carried clearly, "We moved to fortify an important military foothold in a campaign that was, at that point, uncertain of success. If we'd not been there, the horde might have broken the bridge resistance, and swept into the westcountry weeks earlier. The bridge breaks, that opens up Zenance, Polperrus, and the Foul Mouth to land attack. The horde would have gained unstoppable momentum."
Volsh turned in his saddle. He was a fine looking man, lean and angular, with sharp blue eyes. He regarded his men.
"They call us heroes because we were there, and we fortified Bournecam, and the bridge held, and the Horde broke in half to try and flank. Their entire strength broke apart. You ask me, that was the lynch-pin of the entire war. Moore, I am sorry we weren't here for these people, but we were instead there when the country needed us. Thanks to you, this will not happen again."
Volsh turned back, and with that the conversation was over.
Moore continued to look at the buildings as they slowly passed. One after the other, empty and broken. Varten fought for something to say, but he had never been good with words.
Moore's horse slowed, and Varten turned to look at his friend. The dark-skinned warrior was staring up at the smashed front of a small house, set back from the main thoroughfare a dozen yards. Two stories, with tiny little farmhouse windows. The little house seemed to have dodged the fire that consumed the rest of the town, but hadn't avoided whatever attack had swept through. The front door was cracked in and broken, lying flat in its own frame, and most of its windows had been smashed in.
"Stop," Moore said. Varten's horse came to a stop, and he shrugged.
"I know, mate. I wasn't going to say anything. You take as much..." Varten started, but Moore waved a hand at him.
"No,
stop. Shut up. Listen." His arm hovered in the air, demanding stillness. Varten patted his horse's head calmly, and listened.
"You hear that?" Moore whispered.
Varten heard nothing, and was about to say so, when he heard a distinct sound deep within the little building.
Moore turned to look at him, and he stared back. The sound found it's way deep inside Varten.
A few years ago, Varten had returned from work in the old Tinangels smithy to find his wife mad with fear that their daughter was missing. He'd searched high and low, in and around the house, and eventually followed a path into the nearby woods, where he'd located his five year old daughter sobbing within a large hollow tree stump, scared that her father would be angry that she had broken one of his farming tools while playing with it. The strangely muted sounds of her sadness had carried through the woods.
Varten could have sworn he heard the same sound now.
The unit was moving on, and no one seemed to care that the two soldiers had stopped at the roadside. Varten hopped from his horse and strode towards the house.
Varten's blade was in his hand already, the motions to unsheathe and ready it were so casual to him now it hadn't even registered.
The windows above were barely wide enough to get an arm through, let alone climb through, and Varten stared into them for any sign of life. The north-facing building entirely blocked the light, and nothing could be seen within.
Varten stopped for a moment before the little house. He felt a weight on his shoulders that was deeper within him than the tug of his breastplate. Crossing the boundary of the house felt like choosing to go back into war. Within the dim room beyond he could see an overturned stool. Smashed plates. Spilled liquids stained the floors.
Varten took a deep breath, and stepped in.
The house had once been a simple home. The whole first floor mostly kitchen, a large stone oven, some small stools. The stools were shattered, and the floor was littered with the contents of a shelving cabinet awkwardly leaning against the far wall. A tiny wooden staircase was in the far corner, leading up to whatever lay in the floor above.
Varten tentatively moved further in, and looked to the ground. A large table lay on the ground, one of its legs broken, and the whole thing overturned. From beneath, a twist of limbs protruded. Varten gripped a table leg with his hand, and pulled it aside.
Two bodies lay beneath, embraced.
The man and the woman had both been lean people. Their clothes, before they had been stained with blood, were simple. They wore no jewelry. Varten leaned in, curious.
You'd sometimes see non-humans out in the rural areas, but it was rare. Little towns tended to xenophobia, in his experience. Neither of them were big enough for orcs, and their skin was the wrong colour. He wasn't sure what they had been.
There were blade wounds on both of them. The ground below them stained. Varten knew they'd both bled out here, together.
"Worse ways to go," he muttered.
There was a clear intake of breath. Varten jerked up, his blade in his hand. Silence resumed, the little house stood still. His eyes swept the room for any motion, and found none.
He looked up at the little staircase, warily taking a step towards it, and nudged a kettle out of the way with his foot.
The rattling drew his attention to the floor, to a series of scrapes in the wooden floorboards.
His gaze followed the scrapes, along the floor, inch by inch. His eyes came to rest on the heavy old cabinet against the wall, and he saw what had been done.
The cabinet was empty of its contents, spilled over the floor though it was, but still the thing was a heavy piece of work. Varten tugged it aside with a grunt, and eyed the little door revealed behind it warily. There were no locks on it, and a simple latch held it closed. He pulled at it, and it swung open. The smell that greeted him was foul.
The pantry was small, barely larger than the outhouse it smelled of. Sacks lay open on the ground, empty bags were up against the door. Around were moldy vegetable ends, carrot greens, mushroom stalks.
Varten stared, putting away his blade, and opened the door as wide as he could.
In the far corner, among sacks of dry grain, huddled a child. She had two hands clamped over her mouth, desperately choking back sobs, and on the floor immediately beside her was the brown layers of a half eaten raw onion.
She was a scrawny little thing. Small and shaking with fear. Her hair was choppy and messy, a natural chalky white. Her skin was green.
Going from his experience with his own little girl, Varten thought the child might be four summers old at most.
He took a step into the pantry, and the girl scrabbled away, further into the corner. Her eyes wide.
"Hey...hey I'm not gonna hurt you, I..." Varten mumbled, panicked. He could barely talk to his own daughter when she was upset, let alone a child of a foreign species who'd been huddled in a pantry for weeks, jammed in by the last act of murdered parents.
He tugged at the little pack on his belt. Within it were an assortment of items he'd picked up on the road, but also some assorted rations. Varten pulled out a pack of dried salt meat, and offered it to the child.
"Here, look," He said, offering the little dried snack at arms length.
She stared at him, her body still shivering, but after a moment, she reached out with skinny little arms to take it. She bit into it, sharp little teeth tearing.
Varten turned at a sound, and saw Moore peering in through the door. He raised an eyebrow at Varten.
"There's a little girl in here," Varten said, Moore's jaw dropped.
"Survivor? She been in there the whole time?"
"I... think so." Varten looked back at the filthy little child, who looked at him over the meat, her big eyes were wide, gleaming blue through the grime on her face, though puffy and bloodshot with tears.
"We passed the well, just back there. Get water," Varten said, Moore turned immediately to do so.
Varten took off one of his gloves, sticking it under his armpit and extended an open hand out to the girl.
"I'm Varten. Varten," he said, "What's your name?"
The little girl didn't talk, just stared. She gulped down the rest of the meat, coughing. After another moment, she suddenly stretched out with both arms, reaching for Varten.
The girl felt like she weighed nothing. Huddled against Varten's broad body, he stood with her.
He covered her eyes from the sight of the house as he carefully stepped across the room. He sensed the girl knew already, but she didn't need to see.
When they got outside, Moore was approaching with a bucket and one of his horse blankets.
The girl gave a low murmur as Varten placed her down on the ground. Her little knees knocking, and her arms coiled around her body.
Moore knelt, and smiled at her. Moore had a warm, wide, winning smile when the mood took him, and the child seemed to take to him.
They washed the girl clean of the filth of her internment in the broken little house. She was so small, it didn't take long. He was reminded of a time when his own child had slipped and fell directly in horse manure out in the fields, and it had taken Varten and his wife some time to stop laughing before they could clean her off.
The child still had not yet spoken, and Varten surmised that she either could not, or, like him, simply didn't know what to say.
When she was sufficiently cleaner, certainly cleaner than Varten was under his layers of filthy travel gear and dented armour, Moore wrapped his blanket around her bare body, and Varten hoisted the girl up into his arms. She coiled her little hands around the straps of his breastplate as he walked back to the thoroughfare.
Having noticed the conspicuous absence of two of his longest serving men, sergeant Volsh had doubled back, with Doc Bartlett trotting along beside. The two horses came to a stop, and Bartlett gave an incredulous laugh.
"What have you gone and done now Shrikes?" the medic barked at Varten, his mustached face lit with glee, "what in the hell is that?"
Varten looked to Moore, then up at his commanding officer.
"She was hiding in one of the buildings, Sarge," Varten said, and Volsh looked at the girl with an air of suspicion.
"Orc?" Volsh asked, Bartlett interjected again, immediately.
"She's Nadyr, Sergeant. Snakefolk."
Volsh glanced at Bartlett, and the medic nodded.
"Any others?" Volsh asked. Varten shook his head. The girl rested her head in the crook of his neck, her hands gripping tightly to the straps around his shoulders.
"Hm. Can't very well leave her, I suppose." Volsh looked at the girl with a disinterested stare. "Take her back to Truronia. There's homes for war orphans there. Some of them are supposed to take in non-humans."
Volsh abruptly turned his horse, and proceeded back towards the front of the line. Bartlett sat atop his mount a moment longer, shaking his head in amusement.
"The other lads find a buried bag of coins, or loot some art off a wall somewhere, but what do you do? You find someone's kid. You're awful at this, Shrikes."
"Toddle on, Doc. They'll need your skilled hands back in Truronia," said Moore.
Bartlett scowled at him, and turned his horse around. The difficulty he had maneuvering the beast with one hand wasn't lost on the soldiers.
"You can't take her to one of those places, Varten," said Moore, looking down at the girl, "no place for a little one. Especially..."
"Yeah, yeah I know. Moore, I can't... I mean, what the hell is Moira going to say?" Varten asked. The thought of his wife's incredulous face filled him with warmth. He hadn't set eyes on her in months.
Not much longer now.
With a sleeping blanket rolled up on the saddle before him, the girl could be seated unobtrusively on Varten's horse. Her little hands gripping the reigns, or reaching out for the animals black mane as it swayed in stride.
He watched the little girl as they rode on, through the forest surrounding the town, and out onto the lonely moors that swept up from the coast, mile after mile. The girl slept, rocked to slumber by the slow motion of the horse.
Varten watched her with a smile on his face.
There was a fierce strength to be found in the scene, deep in Varten's chest. It had been so long since he'd been on the road, since he'd seen children just exist, that he'd forgotten what moments of true calm looked like.
He pitied the girl. He knew she'd probably not rest easy for years, but then neither would he.
But if she could doze off on a horse heading to a uncertain future with battered old soldiers she didn't know, then he supposed he had no excuse not to brush off the dirt and allow his life to continue once more as well.
He became aware that Moore was watching him, and turned to the big man.
"She's beautiful," Moore said, nodding to the little girl, "Been a long time since my one was so small. He's almost as big as me now."
Varten nodded, brushing the girls scruffy hair out of her face.
"Only a couple years short of mine, I think. You reckon they'll get on?"
Moore snorted and shrugged his great shoulders.
Varten laughed, and looked ahead. The sun was heavy in the sky, sending their shadows far into the future. If things could grow, things could rebuild.
They rode like that for some time. The afternoon grew warm. The moors ended, and eventually gave way to the long rolling green fields that made up the final stretch to Truronia.
There had been a time, long ago, when Varten had remembered being impressed by the capitol city, but now he was eager for the military pomp to be over, and the short journey south, towards home, to begin.
Varten and Moore had fallen far behind in the unit, the rows of horses and sleepy soldiers stretching out into the distance. The long shadows of clouds moved dreamily across the fields all around. Varten became aware of a rider approaching the front of the line across the grass. They were galloping through the gold light, seemingly made of silhouette alone.
There was a muttering down the line, exchanged words, a sudden severity in what brief conversation there was. Varten heard a few weary curses. He leaned slightly in his saddle, the child cuddling up to him for warmth as he moved.
Moore nodded up ahead.
"What is it?"
Varten began to shake his head, but stopped. The figure seemed not to ride out of the shadow that concealed her, but instead to part from it, draped entirely in black as she was. She had come to the front of the column, and as soon as her black mare drew level with Volsh, she came to a halt.
Her cowled head did not move to acknowledge the sergeant.
"Shit, Crier up ahead." Varten murmured, he seated himself upright. He saw men in front of him sobering, stiffening. A few muttered holy words, signs passed over chests, or offered to the skies.
Moore shook his head, knowing.
"Don't let you enjoy ignorance for long do they?"
Varten shook his head once, slowly and firmly. He watched as the Kyni Crier stood sentinel as the rows of men passed her. Every so often her hand would rise to an approaching soldier, and she would make her delivery.
Varten could see the satchel hanging from her horse. For once, it looked blissfully light.
The minutes seemed to stretch, the steady thud of Varten's horses hooves slowed along with his heartbeat, as the black rider drew nearer, and nearer.
The girl nestled in his lap was looking up at him, her blue eyes gleaming, the colour of the azure sky above. He ruffled her hair, and put his arm tighter around her.
The rider's cowl twitched as Varten's horse neared. He wanted to speak aloud, to scream in denial. That maybe if he stopped her before she moved it wouldn't be true.
Time came to an end. The rider's hand was extended, her black glove pointing at Varten's chest.
Varten's eyes tried to focus on the little silver letter he was being handed, but they wouldn't. It blurred before him. The letter, the figure who gripped it, then the ground beneath him entirely fell from focus.
He heard Moore's voice, but didn't understand the words. Somewhere up ahead a soldier was wailing in despair, having seen the names on his own letter.
It faded out, the sound of human voice drizzling away like rain. Varten felt the pressure of Moore's hand grip his shoulder, but not the touch.
Varten took a deep breath to steady himself, and it came in ragged and sudden, the breath of a man who was choking.
The girl stirred, her tiny body against his. He looked to her. His pain stared back at him, mirrored in her eyes.
Varten held her close to him.
There was silence.
