Chapter Six

  1.

  The year’s first shower had come unobserved. The sky loomed over Orshaa village like a muddy playground. Noshed hardly flinched from the stinging drops. After a long career in the army — long for a merhuman, of course — standing under the weather was something he hardly noticed. For the moment, his attention was held fast by something completely different, as he watched a bizarre game develop under the archmage’s orders. Noshed had seen some archmages in his time, and whatever else was wrong about him, this boy, too, exhibited the overarching mark of someone so disruptively powerful. Just because he had power, he thought the world would act as he wished.

  Five pirates chased as many villagers in front of Noshed. They had been given thick sticks. They were forbidden from permanently harming the villagers, but that left quite a vast territory to operate from, and the villagers now displayed multiple welts, bruises, and twisted ankles. As he watched, a potter from Leva shoved a boy from Riverside and cut right. The boy stumbled and fell over in a heap, being immediately beset upon by two pirates. Instead of chasing the other three, the rest of the pirates hooted and changed course, singling out the potter. One of them streaked right, and the other one went left. The middle one threw his stick in a spinning motion, taking the potter at the back of his knees. The first two were done with the boy now, and ran at the distant three, while the middle one also collected his stick and joined the chase.

  “Run” — that had been the archmage’s instruction. Everyone for their own. Avoid the pain for as long as possible. Was this a test? Or simply a whim of the strong? It made no sense to beat down their own fugitive group. Noshed was ready to throw away his life and take down some overbearing humans on the way out, but their group was made of common villagers, not stoic soldiers. They could hunt a bit, put down a camp, and some knew their way around with a stick. They couldn’t track, had no idea how to handle a proper weapon, magical or otherwise, and most importantly, had no idea what true threat was. They were running for a crime they hadn’t committed. But they wouldn’t be running for long if they didn’t learn how to fight soon.

  Noshed had no idea how the archmage had managed to capture not only the infamous Shark of Suva, but his whole crew unharmed, and so thoroughly intimidated. And now he was letting that crew have unbridled fun with his villagers, as if he didn’t even need them anymore. There were only thirty of the pirates, and one hundred and thirty villagers, including the volunteers from Orshaa, but there were always pirates willing enough to put the hurt on the next round of villagers. It was a fun game for them, and they couldn’t seem to get enough of it. As he watched, the next group of villagers took the field, the earlier one shuffling out on wobbly legs before collapsing down.

  “Look at this flower!” one of the pirates bellowed. “Makes me think of another use for my stick,” another commented. They were talking about Lela, his niece and the tall girl in the group. Noshed clenched his fists and took a step forward before the pirates visibly stiffened. The archmage was looking at them. A stare like a stone knife. One subtly adjusted his grip on his stick. Then the archmage smiled as if nothing had happened.

  The pirates rushed like stones from a slingshot as Noshed clapped. Four villagers ran away even faster, but one stood her ground. One came at her with a stick poised over his head while four ran past unbothered. He made for a solid blow at her shoulder and Lela took it fully on her arm. Just like Noshed had taught her. It was useless when sharp objects entered the play, but could be very useful to counter while blocking the opponent’s strike, as Lela demonstrated. It was a short, sharp punch from her right hand and the pirate was lying on the ground faster than one could blink. The remaining four froze, mouths open, and two broke away from their chase to come at Lela. She picked up the fallen pirate’s stick and deftly blocked the first arrival’s swing. The other hit at her side, and this one she couldn’t block. Her body bent from the impact. She threw a kick at the first pirate’s knee while falling, making him stagger back. The second aimed a hit at her face, and Lela blocked with her hand instinctively. There was a loud thud, and Lela’s hand swung back from the impact to hit her own face. A hit at the soft part of her stomach followed, and then a merciless bang on her head. There was a standoff on the other side of the field as two uncertain pirates faced off against four uncertain villagers — all moving but no one making a move.

  Noshed stormed off into the field, deterring the pirates who were undoubtedly considering further punishments on their downed opponent. Lela was sitting up in a daze now, holding her head and breathing unevenly. She stood up to salute Noshed just as he had taught her, and he slapped her with all his strength on the unhurt side of her face. She became white and blinked a few times.

  “You idiot!” Noshed yelled. “What. Part. Did. You. Not. Understand?”

  She shook her head sideways, confused.

  “Run! You were asked to run! Was that so hard to understand? Should I say it in Volcanu next time? Every. Single. Person. Here. Understood. Not you. Do you think you’re so special, huh?”

  “But uncle,” a tear came out of her eye. “I was trying to fight.”

  “Don’t call me that! You can’t follow a one-word order! You think you’re making me happy?”

  “You taught me to fight!” she accused. “What am I supposed to do? You’re never happy, no matter what I do!”

  As if making him happy would keep her alive. He half-raised a hand, then pulled it back. “In the future, listen to the damn order. That’s all you have to do.”

  “And stay alive. That’s the top priority,” quipped the archmage, who had clearly appeared behind them at some point.

  “With all due respect, Archmage, following the order is what keeps people alive in most cases,” Noshed whirled on him. “War isn’t a game of tag where everyone runs over everyone else.”

  “It is. Only, it’s one where regiments run over each other.”

  That was it. That was something a general would say, or someone who’d read a lot of books. From the soldier’s point of view, facing hellfire from the front and feeling the press of the sea on the back, trust was the only lifeline. There was a chance to live only if the system worked, and for it to work, one must not think of the fact at all. And that was something even seasoned soldiers failed at when the gunfire became a bit too one-sided. Noshed’s villagers would become riddled with holes even before they could come out of their shock and muster the courage to run away. Clearly, this boy had never been to a battlefield.

  “I want you to lead half of the villagers,” the archmage said to Lela, making her go slightly redder.

  “She doesn’t deserve it,” interrupted Noshed.

  “Why not? She has the spirit. She’ll grow fast.”

  “Archmage,” Noshed said, making the boy look at him. “With all due respect, I know how wars are fought. Outside the field, we do as you say. Within the field, you do as I say. These are my people. This is my war. I hope that is understood.”

  The boy who killed three garrisons with just a thought regarded Noshed as he weighed the proposal. “Fair enough,” he said mildly at last, and walked away.

  2.

  Noshed knew he had been rude to an archmage, and depending on one’s view, even stood up to him, but it didn’t feel like that. For one, he was right. The die was cast. They had all become part of something unprecedented without even realizing what was happening. The Empire had no space for people who didn’t know their place, much less so merhumans. If disaster was guaranteed, why fear the archmage? On the other hand, the boy carried on as if nothing was amiss, running around with the shackled pirate and his three trainees.

  All three of them had really taken to magic — especially Shishi, the Orshaa boy. His mother had needed to be kept far away from the brutal training sessions for her interruptions. The archmage taught them the theory — pushes, pulls, and channels — and they had to learn to apply it on the fly against the sadistic pirate. Not exactly appropriate observation for a mother recovering from hopelessness.

  Shishi could for some reason already pull and channel water well, and he was the first one to break through into pushes as well, sending a feeble ball of water to break against the pirate’s water pillar. Children that age needed to eat well, and they could, for the moment.

  It was a luxury, because their life in Orshaa would soon come to an end.

  The Empire was a many-headed monster. It moved slower and more chaotically than many of its neighbours. When it moved, however, it came at one from all directions and went further than many others would. Noshed had seen it himself, how Galos was broken from the inside out, and when Emre had come to consolidate its gains thinking it would be welcomed, it had found an island irrecoverably splintered over what it wanted. Imperial cannons had made the decision for them, and the Emretes could not even find the boats to sail back to their home. Emre, the fiddler of the continent and the most advanced of nations had been humiliated because the diseased and ponderous Empire had already bought all the boats. They had to withstand the humiliation of being judged in front of an imperial gallery, making an emotional appeal about the sovereign interests of Galos, only to be handed over to their compatriots in chains — the imperial judges cheekily decreeing the Galovians could speak for themselves.

  For the Empire, Noshed and his friends were not even gnats right now. It was asleep, and it didn’t want to wake up and notice them despite hearing the buzzing when the wind slacked. Eventually, it would wake up and send a slap their way. If they could survive that somehow, hiding would be possible. But for now, the archmage had bitten the Empire, and Noshed was supposed to create an army to take the fall. Gollum, why did you do something like that?

  All Noshed knew was how to make soldiers out of roughage. The army had found it convenient to have a merhuman drill sergeant scream unreasonably at human recruits — it sped up the process of discipline from sheer outrage. He didn’t have that advantage here, and yes, the roughage was confused and beaten up, but they had all been strangely fired up since Lela’s spectacle. Many of them taunted the pirates now instead of running away. A fun, juvenile game, but one could hardly call it tactics.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  They probably thought a new kind of exercise was on the way when Noshed finally waded into the field, a rifle in his hands. Then, he handed it over to the first pirate he could see, instructing him to shoot at his targets’ feet as soon as they came into range. Range in this case was one-fifty metres. The field itself was about two-fifty.

  The juvenile fun had switched sides again, and the drill sergeant in Noshed wasn’t even remotely sorry. He didn’t want the magelings to miss out either, so he threw the three of them in under Lela’s guidance. When the pirate in question returned without his rifle and with the back of his clothes torn off, Noshed couldn’t help but arch an eyebrow and smirk.

  Three days had passed since Noshed gave them the first taste of their future. He made them line up under the midday sun, one hand gap between two persons, and took position about forty metres away. Clink, bullet loaded. Sclitch, safety off. Shclick — faces paled when they realized where the projectile had flown — right by their ears. Next bullet went through the gap between Simo’s knees. The one after that flew by Lela’s shoulder and thwacked into a tree behind. Some of them dropped their stance now and backed away, the others simply being too scared to move. “Back into the line!” Noshed yelled at the top of his voice.

  “Next one will come closer,” He targeted a couple of the deserters.

  “Three steps back, all of you! Don’t break the line!” He waved his rifle. “I said three, you morons.”

  “Eyes open!” His victim’s eyes shot open as the bullet sped by, close enough to heat his cheek. “Grit your teeth. One step at a time! Back away!”

  Unfortunately, soldiers were not made in a day — dramatic exercises or not. To be honest, Noshed didn’t know how they were made — he could only tell whether one had become one. An imperial soldier usually had the knowledge of basic arithmetic, signage, tactics, and sundry other topics. He had also usually seen a great variety of cities and peoples, gaining a perspective on the complexity of civilization.

  This bunch mostly had never been to Suva, let alone anywhere truly different, and thought magic was beyond the capacity of merhumans. On the positive side, they didn’t ask many questions, and neither did they complain about the lack of choice in their own fate. For villagers who’d never tasted anything else, they still didn’t know what they could stand to gain. Or lose.

  Noshed had divided them into four groups of about thirty, designated a leader for each, and set them on a new exercise, repurposed from the archmage’s earlier farce. Thirty sticks were left on a pile at a spot equidistant from two competing groups, and they were allowed to race for the sticks. Noshed had also taught them about holding a line, and although the lines were a bit patchy, they were generally holding. Armed hordes often fell onto unarmed lines, and victory was invariably a function of discipline, as sticks could still be snatched away if you were unarmed, whereas it was difficult to maintain a line when attacking. Nothing like a live example to demonstrate the necessity of battlefield order.

  Noshed gave them all he had. Lectures on tactics, personalized advice, stories of famous battles — but what he was really doing was going through the familiar motions without knowing why. When young Nolly asked him what their army was going to be named, he had no answer.

  “What do you think it should be named?” the archmage asked Nolly.

  “We caught the Shark of Suva, so maybe The Fishermen?”

  “No way!” “Boo,” the crowd rejected in unison, even as the archmage smirked in consideration.

  “What should we do? Will the government give us medals?” Nolly pressed on.

  “Idiot,” someone remarked. “Unug was the government.”

  “Oh.” Nolly realized. “If we caught Unug and we caught the Shark... we are the new Unug?”

  “Truly an idiot,” came the return.

  “What’s so idiotic about it?” Nolly was indignant. “Surely we don’t want to be like the sharks? It’s better to be dogs, in my opinion.”

  “Nolly,” someone warned.

  “What? He has a leash around his neck.” Nolly pointed at Sorar. “Surely it’s better to be Unug than to —”

  “Perhaps,” said the archmage, toying with the leash. “But Nolly, perhaps it’s best to be Nolly.”

  “How? I don’t know how to read, and I don’t know how to throw a cutlass.”

  “Because you didn’t use that knowledge to smash an old man’s boat to bits,” the archmage said softly, “and you didn’t use the cutlass to cut families apart. Because you would feel bad had you done those things.”

  It was wishful nonsense again. An army did exactly those things. So did brigands, and bureaucrats, and anyone besides illiterate villagers who’d never had the chance. Thankfully, Noshed didn’t have to say any of that; the next day was to be of bitter revelation.

  3.

  It all started on the exercise field, when Nolly, Lela, Tan, and two other villagers faced ten pirates the previous day. Many of Orshaa’s youth were now turning up to watch the bouts, some of them asking to join in at times.

  Among the pirates was a heavy man with only one arm — Sefun the Python, Shishi had told Noshed that night. The Python’s brawn had proved completely ineffective as Tan, remarkably, had pulled some water into Lela’s body. It made Lela’s skin lightly shimmer, and the first time she punched the Python, the man staggered three steps back. It was the turn of his buddies then, as one after the other they all threw themselves at Lela. Two broke their noses, one broke an arm, and the rest got clocked so bad they fainted. The Python was slower next time, circling with care and waiting for Lela to strike. Lela threw a kick, completely missed, and met the full force of Sefun’s forearm on her neck. Wonder of wonders, she didn’t move an inch back! Instead, there was a great sound, like a sack of sand smashing into another, and then the Python toppled over, as if lifeless.

  Lela was grinning brighter than the moon, and she didn’t leave Tan’s side for the entire evening. Noshed had an idea, and he asked Lela fight the rest of the villagers the rest of the sessions, pulls of water from Tan replenishing her whenever fatigue started to show up. Both girls were done within two hours, completely running out of stamina. Noshed clucked.

  The pirates were having it harder. The villagers rarely saw them with fright now, and their usefulness in training having diminished, they were tasked to help with repairs and miscellaneous works in the village. The grumpy headman’s teeth shone in happy dissonance now, something he had great difficulty hiding, and even Gollum had a personal pirate carry around his mulch, whenever he was not trying to bicker with the village widows in a mulched state. The archmage turned Sorar loose on Tan, Se, and Shishi more often than before, and they were able to hold their own for longer now, but only marginally so before Sorar’s destructive power blew them away.

  In hindsight, any of them could have, and should have, seen it coming. But life has a way to lull one right when it shouldn’t, no matter how many alerts are maintained.

  What they heard first was a heart-wrenching call. It sounded like one of those strange birds from the forest’s depth, but the direction was all wrong, and it had something forlorn about it. Haste though he made, Noshed was only the second one to reach the damp cottage smack in the middle of small Orshaa’s congested belly, where the alley was so narrow it almost seemed private. The archmage had already been present there, watching from the shadowed doorstep for who knew how long. Inside, a mother clutched a bundled mat, from which poked two feet and one blue face. She screamed without a breath.

  There was blood on the mat. There was blood on the feet, and bits of dye, almost like dust, lay spattered on the floor. There were claw marks on it, too. Spots on the girl’s scalp were pink, almost red, and there was a blue furrow on the sliver of her neck that could be seen, almost as if a python, not a human hand, had crushed the life out of her. Noshed had seen a lot in his career. Blood and entrails were nothing new to him, but there was a story here, and he couldn’t unsee it. He couldn’t not think of Lela when he looked at the girl’s face. For a moment, he wondered where she was, and felt cold down to his spine.

  “I know her,” Mer whispered. “She’s Mijan. Mijan made jokes. Her mother laughed. Mijan cooked. Her mother cooked for others. Mijan didn’t differentiate between people. She was not kind; she simply didn’t have enough experience. Now, she never will.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Noshed. “I should’ve known.”

  The archmage closed his eyes, but said nothing, not even in self-incrimination.

  Everyone had lined up, even without being asked to, once the girl’s body had been torched and given up to the winds. Everyone had attended, even though the mother stood apart from Orshaa and the outsiders alike.

  “It’s enough now,” Lorez said, looking Mer straight in the eye. “You can have your money back if you want. Whatever remains. Leave us alone.”

  “Don’t be like that, my friend —” Gollum cut in.

  “And Gollum. I don’t ever want to see you again. Here at Orshaa, we shelter travelers on the river and live on the harvest of barley. We don’t want pirates on our streets, and certainly no army.”

  The archmage didn’t respond to Lorez, instead looking at Sorar. The pirate leader grew two inches shorter and mewled “I don’t know anything about it!”

  “But you know who would do it, wouldn’t you?”

  Sorar looked away.

  “Let me help you, Sorar. You harbour men of peculiar tastes. I know all about it. And so do you, of course. Shishi, you want to help me?”

  “It’s the Python, Sir Archmage,” Shishi spoke from somewhere within the throng. “That’s why he’s the Python. I once saw a woman in his room. She had that mark in the neck.”

  “I know. She had a red dress on.”

  “Yes, Archmage.”

  “Kill the man,” the mother spoke for the first time. “No. Don’t kill him. Give him over to me.”

  “I can’t,” Mer closed his eyes. “Tan. Se. You’ll find the Python in the hay pile behind the headman’s house. Bring him to me. He’s asleep, but may start when awakened. Be careful.”

  Silent minutes ticked by before Tan and Se dragged Sefun in by his hair, doubtless emboldened by a pull from Tan. The big man stared at the gathering with blinking eyes, confused alarm slowly replacing blankness. “Hey, what’d ya think?” he blurted.

  “Nolly,” Mer said, making the boy stand straighter. “You were talking about an army yesterday. An army, when appropriate, lets the enemy speak.”

  “Boss — boss, they dragged me by the hair! Boss,” Sefun pled Sorar.

  “Speak,” Mer commanded the Python.

  “I — I — Boss, say something!”

  “Speak!”

  Darkness shot out of the archmage’s arms and burrowed into the pirate’s skin, holding him up like a mannequin. His lips turned black, then wrenched open violently. “I, no, I,” he grated out, “did that woman. Girl. Whatever she was. I prefer girls. So soft. So warm. So much fear. She was already dead. It was... too late. So I left the marks. She looked so lonely.”

  “Nolly,” the archmage repeated, and the boy shivered. “What should an army do?”

  “I don’t know, Archmage. Uh, let me think. I don’t think I could know. Uh...”

  “Nolly!”

  “Death, on admission of own guilt for murder and rape,” Noshed’s mouth recounted the words. “An army is bound to a higher standard of responsibility, and a higher price to pay on breach. This is not only the law of the Empire, but all civilized nations.”

  “Thank you, my commander,” the archmage said, before gesturing for Lela’s cutlass. She handed it to him, woodenly.

  The archmage closed his eyes as he took step after step towards the Python. Sefun’s veins stood out on his neck as he tried to look around and speak. Foiled by his invisible chains, he could only move his eyeballs and slightly clench his jaws. Standing before him, the archmage pointed the blunt cutlass on the pirate’s broad chest. Everyone saw his hands tremble, and then grip and regrip the hilt over his sweat. The pirate’s breathing grew faster and shallower, and in one swift thrust, the weapon was embedded in his chest. Then the archmage whirled around as if nothing had happened, even as warm blood and spittle pooled at the silently heaving pirate’s feet.

  “You,” he pointed at Lorez, “What have you done?”

  “Nothing!” the headman’s courage all but disappeared now.

  “Who did you tell?”

  “Nobody! I swear!”

  “Who?”

  “Only — only my friends! We have some telemorphs here in a few villages. Old machines. We all gossip. I wanted to show off the new money! I also heard that Riverside is gone, along with Leva and Ova. Villages were burnt down. We don’t know what happened to the villagers, but there were corpses. How else would I have known that?”

  “Well, of course you gossiped. There is an imperial battalion headed this way. Just a few minutes out. How else would they have known?”

  Noshed’s heart froze. It was not the army, but his village. He looked around, and everyone had heard it. They weren’t soldiers. Noshed had to be one.

  “Archmage, I recommend —”

  “Yes, we have little time left. We leave like this. Take nothing. There’s a hill to the north.”

  “The incline will slow us down, sir. We could be taken from the behind.”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “Alright,” Noshed said. “Lela! Tan! You head two fifty-man squads each. The remaining seventy will follow me. Anyone who doesn’t want to follow, this is your chance to disappear into the river, although I wouldn’t be absolutely sure of escape.”

  “One last thing,” he said, and looked the archmage in the eye — the way an elder brother would.

  “I know,” said the archmage, and turned back to the bereaved mother standing dozens of metres away. “I am sorry. I am really sorry,” he whispered, and then they were on their way.

  Shishi’s mother didn’t even get to know.