Fic: Beneath These Skies - 4/7 (BBC Sherlock + Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance)
Title: Beneath These Skies
Rating: R
Wordcount: 5.7 this part, 37k overall
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars, hiddenlacuna
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: An ex-soldier-turned-healer, a priest, and an unhorsed knight flee for their lives after the invasion of their homeland. John didn't expect the road to safety to be easy, but the addition of a petite mage and a scowling former prisoner to their small band opens his eyes to horrors beyond imagining.
Warnings: blood, violence, references to torture, references to mutilation, references to past rape and threats of rape (no rape occurring during the course of the story), fantasy racism (racism toward magical creatures), war, suicide contemplation.
Prologue: Flight to the Border
Chapter One: A Fight in the Dark
Chapter Two: Behind Enemy Lines
Chapter Three: A Friend Lost
A soldier puts a fresh staff in his hands. The soldier tells him where to stand. A wall of heavy lancers stands ready, lances lowered, tall shields facing southward. Archers and mages stand behind them, ready to fire into the clearing. Their armour is older, better quality, and suddenly John can understand why the fierce Daein army gave in to disorder in the first charge: they were bait.
John, Sherlock, Brian, their entire unit and more. Nearly everyone John’s met. They were bait.
Roars shake the trees, and the thundering paws of the beasts shake down water from above, a false rain.
“I love this part,” says the soldier beside John, the man who came running in from the supply line. The man’s grin is audible in his voice, hidden behind his helmet.
John stares at him. “What.”
“Have you never seen this before?”
“Seen what?” John asks.
“Oh, Ashera, you’ll want to get a view! C’mere.” He beckons John northward, toward the nearest tree.
“We’re in the middle of a battle!”
Everyone around John laughs. From some, it’s nervous laughter. From others, it’s outright amusement.
John stares at all of them, and the soldier swings his axe into the side of the tree at chest height. It goes in at a slight downward slant and holds fast. The soldier offers John both hands, cupping them for a boost.
“You’ll want to see this,” the soldier promises. He sounds like a parent telling his child of a meteor shower.
“But we’re in the middle of a battle,” John says.
“No,” the soldier says. “We’re at the start of the hunt.”
John frowns. He looks back over his shoulder toward the roars, toward the tight, steady line of steel and magic, and decides to climb up. He threads his staff through the back of his sash. The soldier boosts him onto the improvised step and John holds tight to the tree, the soles of his boots sliding slightly on the flat of the axe.
He turns his face southward in time to see the beasts break into the clearing. Bill’s descriptions shrivel into mumbled words, dwarfed by the reality. The beasts charge, huge yellow cats the size of wolf hounds, the black-blue tigers yet larger. They flood the clearing in an instant, a tidal wave of savage rage.
The call sounds. “Archers ready! Mages ready!”
Too late, that call is much too late. “What the hell are they doing?” John demands down at the soldier, but the man only points toward the clearing. John keeps looking.
When the lights begin to shine, John thinks the mages have acted without orders, but for all the lights glow red and green and yellow, there are inexplicable flashes of blue as well. It starts in front, then passes over the herd of beasts, an unfurling of multicoloured light that does them no harm. Instead of being struck down by fire or wind or thunder, the beasts rise to their hind legs, still running, and become nearly human.
Humans with tails, humans with claws, humans with rage twisting their marked faces. The crush of their charging fellows slams them onto the lances, impales them. Howls and screams, but no longer the cries of animals.
“Archers, release!”
The whistling volley flies high, arching above the clearing, then falls to stab the earth and all those upon it.
“Mages, cast!”
Charred flesh and ash, and, holding tight to the rough bark of the tree, John coughs hard. He turns his face away from the heat. The haze of smoke disguises nothing. Not the writhing bodies, not the burning fur, not the tiger who, mid-leap, becomes a startled woman before falling upon a raised lance.
John climbs down from his perch. The soldier helps him.
“Why are they doing that?” John asks. “Why are they... Why are they doing that?”
“The beast form only lasts so long,” the soldier says, tugging his axe out of the tree with ease. His arms are approximately as thick as John’s legs. “Gorgeous sight, though, seeing them transform. The only bit of the Goddess in those things.”
“No, why, why are they still coming? They’re changing forms, they’re practically throwing down their weapons, why are they doing that?”
The soldier’s body language shifts, cheerful battle lust to concern. “Are you all right, mate?”
“They’re still coming,” John says, pointing. “They’re unarmed and running straight into the lances, why are they doing that?”
“Because they’re stupid beasts,” the soldier says. “That’s all. Get them angry, pull back, and they’ll kill themselves trying to get you. They’ll follow your scent right into any trap. It’s business as usual. First time’s a bit rough. The smell never gets any better. Burnt fur is nasty stuff.”
“They’re screaming.” John’s going to be sick.
The soldier puts one large hand on John’s shoulder. “They only sound like people. Sub-humans aren’t real humans. All right?”
John closes his eyes, fighting down bile.
“All right?” the soldier asks.
John shakes his head.
“Ah well. You’ll get used to it.”
The slaughter continues, a massacre of fire and steel.
John leans hard on his staff, dizzy with the noise, with everything.
“Are you new to battle?” the soldier asks. “You sound Crimean.”
“This isn’t battle,” John whispers.
“What was that?”
“I said, my friend is out there,” John says a bit louder.
“Oh,” says the soldier. “You were in the advanced unit, weren’t you? That explains it. You’ll lose the shakes soon enough.”
A trumpet blows.
“Excuse me,” the soldier says, a grin back in his voice. “Some of the beasties are about to start changing back. Hunting time!”
John stays there behind the line, waiting for someone to speak to him, for someone to push him or press him or ask to be healed from wounds inflicted by the defenceless. No one does.
When there is no one left to kill, the soldier comes back. “Oi,” the soldier says, helmet in one hand. John recognizes him by voice and stature, not by the brown hair or eyes. “Oi, you. Crimea. It’s me, it’s Talbert. Come here.”
“I’m going back to camp,” John says, walking away.
“Wait,” Talbert says. “You should see this.”
“I don’t want to see anything else,” John says. “I’ve seen enough, thanks.”
Talbert catches John’s arm. His hand fits around John’s forearm with ease. “Come look. You’ll sleep better for it.”
John already knows he won’t. He follows all the same, wishing for a sword.
They go toward the west edge of the battleground. The field of slaughter. Yes, that suits it better. Field of slaughter, place of massacre. The ground is scorched, bodies burnt black. Disfigured by flame, the corpses are indistinguishable from normal humans.
Around the edge of the clearing, Daein soldiers have set to work looting corpses. What of, John can’t tell until he’s close.
“Why are they cutting the tails off?” John asks.
“Sending a message,” Talbert says. “If you want to keep a sub-human from turning beast, you cut the tail off.”
“But they’re dead.”
“Mm, and imagine what a dead and tailless army looks like to a beast king.”
John closes his eyes and clenches his fists. He doesn’t shout or punch or try to run. He opens his eyes. “Why did you want me to see this?”
“Well, look at them,” Talbert says.
John looks.
They’re clothed, which is a surprise. Their beast forms had been nude. Beast magic, must be. The clothing is light, meant for movement rather than protection, and the bloody rents in the fabric only underscore how unprepared a laguz is for battle when shaped like a human.
They look to have some sort of face paint, but when John kneels down in the soggy grass, he can see it’s part of their faces. Triangle sort of shapes, always pointing toward the mouth or nose, always a symmetrical pair of them. The patterns are closer to birthmarks than whiskers, but they remind him of whiskers all the same. The colour of each set of markings matches the laguz’s hair colour, the colour shared by their tails. Their ears are high and pointed, furred and soft-looking, like velvet.
There are women as well as men, and in about equal number. Some are big, bigger than Talbert, and those must be the tigers. They aren’t frightening, dead. They aren’t anything other than piteous.
John looks, and John looks, and he sees a laguz woman on top of a laguz man, can see how the fire hit her and not him. He was stabbed under her arm, skewered. They’re smaller laguz, cats, their hair a deep mossy green. Their faces lie turned the same way, and their markings are much alike. Their colouring, their features, their everything. Even the patches on their tunics were cut from the same cloth.
John looks at them, and he thinks Harry.
He begins to pray.
Aloud. He begins to pray aloud.
He glares down any soldier who stares. He prays and he closes staring eyes, starting with the siblings. He moves corpse to corpse until Talbert wraps strong fingers around John’s wrist and squeezes.
“Stop that,” Talbert tells him. “They would have killed us. I don’t care what rubbish your king fed you, Crimea. These are wild animals. If you don’t breed them in captivity, they can’t be tamed. It has to be done.”
“No,” John says. “It really doesn’t.”
Talbert backhands him.
John blocks with his staff and staggers back from the force all the same. “Hitting a priest sends you to hell,” he threatens. “Don’t you know that?”
“Walk away, Crimea.”
John takes five steps away, bends down, and closes the eyes of another laguz.
Abruptly on his back and very much in pain, John blinks up at a bloody yet familiar face. It’s not the one he was expecting. Everything spins. “That wasn’t very smart, was it?”
“Nope,” Brian says. “But I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Sherlock?” John asks immediately.
Brian returns the staff into John’s hands, a solid pressure across his chest. The red light flares on its own accord, John’s magic determined to heal its wielder.
“Has anyone seen him?” John asks.
Brian says, very quietly, “I’m glad you’re alive.”
While John is still woozy, Father Jason summons him.
Brian takes John to the bishop’s tent, supporting him much the way John ought to be supporting Sherlock. Brian stays outside the tent. John ventures in. He stops in the entryway, his way barred by a pair of guards.
Father Jason takes his time in looking up from papers at his desk. It’s a travelling desk, but still a sizeable piece of furniture to take on campaign. “You were the cause of a disruption today,” Father Jason says, folding both hands upon the glossy wooden surface.
“It’s all a bit of a blur, Father,” John says. “A man named Talbert struck me very hard, you see.”
“I am aware.”
John waits.
“We do not pray for the beasts, John,” Father Jason says. “Humans are worthy of the blessings of Ashera. Sub-humans, however, are beneath them. That is why they are called sub-humans.”
John says nothing.
“How do you explain your actions?”
“Have any stragglers come in?” John asks. “After the... After the battle. The people we lost track of in the retreat, are they coming in?”
Father Jason’s face remains impassive. “You explain yourself with questions.”
“Sherlock is missing,” John says. “He can’t see, and the laguz track by scent.”
“Sub-humans,” Father Jason states. “The clergy has discarded that outdated term. It was decreed from the foot of the Tower of Guidance itself. You will speak as befits your station, or you will lose it.”
John does not fist his hands. Instead, he flexes them outward. There are guards here. He cannot strike this man.
“Sherlock is missing,” he says, “and I thought... When Crimea and Daein skirmished in the past, we would exchange our dead. So they could be buried at home.” An implication is better than a lie. John’s a shit liar.
Father Jason shakes his head slowly, sombrely. “Sub-humans are not as civilised as we are, John. They will not follow your example. Your friend is lost.”
“I see,” John says.
“You return to regular duty this evening. We still have our share of the wounded.”
“Yes, sir,” John says.
“And send your cassock in for cleaning. A priest should be seen free of blood.”
John looks down at himself, at the dried red splotch over his knee where he’d knelt in blood-soaked grass. His back must be much the same way. “Yes, sir,” he says.
“You are dismissed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He exits the bishop’s tent. Brian helps him back to their own small shelter of canvas. John lies down. Brian returns to doing whatever it is that Brian is meant to be doing.
The call for evening duty comes much too soon, but John rises all the same.
Two days later, they pack up camp and resume marching. John isn’t sure what direction until the tree trunks begin to grow thicker. They’re returning north.
“What was the point of that?” John demands after the first day of marching. Quietly, of course, when they don’t have the tent set up, but he still demands it.
Brian shushes him. “Just go to sleep.”
“No,” John says. “Really. What was the point of that?”
“Someone else must have caught the princess,” Brian says. “Or maybe they’ve heard the princess already left Gallia. I don’t know. I don’t expect anyone to tell me, either, ‘cause they’re not going to.”
“So we marched into Gallia, slaughtered more laguz than anyone’s bothered to count, and now we’re marching back into Crimea. Was it to make a point?” The thought has been trapped in his head, turning over and over, always in Sherlock’s voice. “What point? Is Daein trying to secure her new borders, is that the point?”
“Sorry, you lost me. What’s a laguz?”
“It’s the proper name for beastmen. And birdmen, and dragonmen.”
“Oh, like sub-human,” Brian says.
“Not quite,” John says. He rolls over. “Never mind.”
They pack. They march. They stop. They unpack. They rest.
They do it all again in the morning.
The stink grows day by day as mould takes hold in their cloth, as rust stains their metal, as maggots wriggle in their supplies. They abandon their waste with each camp, so much shit and piss set off to the side in freshly dug latrines. Eventually, they camp in the same location the army has stopped before, and the latrines are full and reeking. John thinks of Sherlock and the sandals the Daeins made him discard, and he can more than understand why. The only sanitation Daein is good at centres around shit.
John learns his old cassock was torn into bandages, and his new one is a faded grey. He nearly argues that bloodstained cloth shouldn’t be put anywhere near another person’s wound, but then he remembers he wants these men dead. He’s not sure what to do with the guilt of inaction, simply knows he hates it less than he would the regret of acting. When soldiers begin to die of infection faster than Father Jason can order men to heal them, John is sure to remind himself of this.
The scouts range north and south, searching ahead and scouring their trail for signs of pursuit. The southward teams are the only ones John ever need see to. They return bloody and shaken time and time again, and the army’s rear guard swells in numbers as a result.
“Beasts still chasing us,” Brian grumbles. “Damn persistent things.”
“Well,” John says, “we did kill their families.”
“Huh,” Brian says. “That’s a lot of loyalty for animals. No, I think it’s a territorial instinct.”
John and Brian speak less to each other by the day.
An army is a slow, plodding creature, sprawling and uncoordinated after growth spurts or injuries. It takes well over two weeks, nearly three, to cover the same ground it had taken John a week to cross in the opposite direction.
John thinks as he walks, as he packs, as he unpacks, as he heals. Bill and Mike should be fine in Gallia, though Molly is probably panicking at every laguz she happens across. He hopes Bill kept the horse. Bill isn’t himself without a horse.
When his mind isn’t in Gallia, it’s on Crimea’s border with Begnion. Harry might be there. He hopes Harry is there. Harry and Clara both, running into Begnion. Surely Begnion will accept refugees. Especially women. Harry might be a better hand with a sword than John is, but Clara’s life is one spent behind a counter, measuring out pounds of corn and flour. Her life was that, he means. Maybe Clara will find a new shop. Maybe Clara will set up business and Harry will stand guard over the till. It’s a nice thought, if not a realistic one.
Some days, he wonders about the princess. Who she is, if she’s authentic. If she’s even a real woman, let alone a real princess: she seems more mist and rumour than fact. He smiles a bit at the thought. A lie from the conquered countryside whispered into the right ear, and the Daein army runs about in circles after a woman who doesn’t exist. She would be a grown woman by now, wouldn’t she? It was the thirtieth year of King Ramon’s reign, for all he took the throne young.
He thinks of everyone he’s ever loved, more or less. It’s a detached sort of wondering, a question with an unknowable answer: are they still alive? There are so many John will never see again, would have never seen again anyway. Are they dead? Are they fled, or captured, or forced into service?
He tries not to think of the women. He’s courted more than a few girls who have grown into swordswomen, not to mention one extremely memorable sniper, but fighting isn’t always the service an army wants from its women. Crimea was all right with its own, Daein might even be all right with its own, but certainly not with citizens of its conquered foe.
He tries not to think of Sherlock as well, but his habits remind him. He holds out his arm. He grips his staff below the orb and waits for someone to take hold behind him. He keeps waiting, and waiting, for a tug on the hood of his robe.
His body will move and wait, and then his mind will remember. He’ll see Sherlock running into the shadows on John’s order, and he’ll see the way Sherlock’s arms cover his head as the panicked horses side-blind him.
One night, he dreams of a normal day, just a normal day in the uneasy trudge that is the Daein army. Except this time, he knows Sherlock is safe, knows Bill was on one of those horses and Bill swept Sherlock up and rode away with him. Bill couldn’t come back for John, but that’s no matter. John can survive. John will survive, and Sherlock is alive in Gallia, safe.
In the morning, he wakes disoriented for no reason he can name. It’s not until his tired legs ache with marching that he remembers. Bill wasn’t there. Sherlock was lost, one man who could barely see. A man in Daein uniform, a man who never stripped in a tent with friends, let alone in a forest full of enraged laguz.
Heat jabs behind John’s eyes, and John marches on with them shut.
The day the army reaches the northern edge of the Sea of Trees, John follows routine and waits in position to heal the rear scouts upon their return. He waits a bit longer than usual, and then a lot longer. The soldiers around him grow restless. It’s nearly time to stop for the night, and the scouts have never had trouble returning before the forest reaches true dark.
Then in the distance: the pounding of hooves.
John sees them between the trees, the four men he expects, the four horses he knows by sight. The man in the lead, Richard, shouts to him.
John shakes his head and cups his ear, unable to hear the man over the horses’ strides.
“Beasts to the west!” Richard shouts. “They’re going for the supply train! Make way, let us through!”
The soldiers beside John part way immediately, and John steps to the side with them. Four horses thunder past, four horses and five riders, one in torn red and clinging to a cavalier’s back.
John chases after, a hopeless task on foot and in robes. He hikes them up and runs regardless, following in the wake of the riders. A shout goes up, and goes up, and goes up, and men fall into position, weapons in hand, armour still upon their shoulders from the day’s march. They head west, following three of the riders, but not the fourth and fifth.
The overburdened horse turns right, not left, making for the commander’s tent with trotting haste. The guards greet them, and the fourth rider dismounts. The fifth simply falls to the ground and lies there.
John is at his side in an instant, staff at the ready.
“Don’t-! Don’t touch me!”
“It’s me,” John says, catching the man’s wrist as he tries to push John away. “Sherlock, it’s me. It’s John.”
Sherlock stops struggling. “John.” He gapes up at him through his personal darkness, chest heaving. His eyes roam across John’s face, around it, above his head, and John puts a careful hand on his shoulder to show Sherlock where he is. Sherlock sits up, gripping John by the arms.
John marvels at him. More wasted than ever before, his cassock missing and under robe half-ruined, but the man is no illusion. The patches of skin left unhidden by dirt or the beginnings of a beard are paler than remembered. “You’re alive.”
Sherlock coughs with the rasp of a parched throat. “Obviously.”
“How are you alive?”
“By not being dead, one would assume. Simple process of--” He coughs hard. “Process of elimination.”
Behind Sherlock and the horse, Father Jason exits the commander’s tent, the fourth rider at his side. The cavalier still wears his helmet, but the dappled gelding means he must be Edmund.
“You,” Father Jason says in surprise, looking down at them. At Sherlock, at the two-man unit that is John and Sherlock together.
“Is that Father Jason?” Sherlock rasps. Sitting on the ground with his back to the bishop, Sherlock doesn’t so much as turn his head.
“Yes,” John says. “Now stop talking, you sound terrible.”
“I’d much rather you start talking,” Father Jason disagrees.
Sherlock tilts his head. “Sir?”
“Sir Edmund tells me the baggage train is in danger. The advance warning will of course make repelling the beasts a simple feat. Sir Edmund tells me the warning came from you.”
“I heard the horses and screamed early,” Sherlock says. “They were bringing me east. A distraction in the east means an attack from the west, doesn’t it?”
A pause, Father Jason looking down at the top of Sherlock’s head, at the way Sherlock sags toward John. “Pick him up,” Father Jason commands Edmund. “Bring him inside.”
Sherlock reaches for John, an arm slipping easily around John’s shoulders. “I can lean, sir,” Sherlock reports.
John staggers up under Sherlock’s weight but stabilises. Sherlock’s legs shake with every step, but when Edmund moves forward to share the burden of Sherlock’s unsteady frame, Sherlock flinches away into John’s side.
There are two chairs in the tent, one of which folds, and the folding chair is the one John deposits Sherlock in. He stands at Sherlock’s side, staff set into the floor of the tent, and Sherlock grips the smooth length of metal in one trembling hand. Edmund follows inside and the guards shut the tent flaps. The small lamp on the desk is little enough light that Sherlock will not have to feign blindness.
“‘They’,” Father Jason says. “‘They’ were bringing you east.”
Sherlock nods. “Yes. The beasts.”
John frowns, then immediately schools his expression smooth.
“But I told you, I screamed early. They were, um. They were arguing. About how far humans could hear. They wanted to be close enough to the main camp that... Well, that I could be heard. And we’d set off northeast, our path perpendicular to that of the main beast force. Northwest. They wanted to draw your eyes to the east, attack in the west.”
“I understand basic strategy,” Father Jason remarks, voice bland. “The beasts typically don’t.”
“They understand hunting,” Sherlock answers. “That’s enough to lay a trap.”
Father Jason nods slowly. “They caught you after the battle,” he prompts, then signals to one of his guards to fetch Sherlock something to drink. The guard goes where indicated, and John is pleased to see it’s wine, not beer. Sherlock can never stomach beer.
“I was lost,” Sherlock says. His voice breaks with exhaustion, not emotion. “John and I were running from the rout, but the cavalry nearly trampled us. I fell and crawled to a tree. I don’t know how long I stayed there. I didn’t dare move.”
The guard returns, cup in hand, and John takes it from him before pressing it into Sherlock’s hand. “Thank you,” Sherlock murmurs. He drinks before continuing:
“When I heard voices, I called out to them. It seemed the obvious thing to do. They came. I remember they went quiet when they saw me.” Sherlock frowns. “When they asked if I was blind, I thought they were a part of the army I hadn’t met. Again, it seemed the obvious answer. They talked amongst themselves, and then one offered his arm. We walked south. I thought Daein had pushed forward and assumed we would be rejoining the main force. I didn’t realise what they were and where they had taken me until we were near their camp.
“The beastmen there were in reserve. Scouts to report to their king, I believe. They kept talking about tails. Lost tails. I’m not sure what that was about. I never tried to check if they still had their own: I didn’t want to be killed.
“They wanted to kill me anyway, of course, but the beastman who had guided me in wouldn’t let them. He said...” Sherlock clears his throat. “He said humans might not have tails, but they can still be carved up.”
John’s hands move of their own volition on the staff, and Sherlock catches them. “I’m fine,” Sherlock says. “It’s all right.”
Unembarrassed, John pulls away.
“They put me in a cage,” Sherlock continues. “For the irony, I think. I stayed there for what I believe was two weeks. They never pressed for information, and I never volunteered any.
“The wait was for their reinforcements. I don’t know the size of their army, only that it was extremely loud. Even when silent. There isn’t a precise noise when a tiger stares at you, but I don’t know what else to call it. That was very loud.”
“More about their numbers later,” Father Jason instructs. “Tell me of their movements.”
“Northward,” Sherlock answers. “They were very rushed. They’re after revenge and know they’ll never have it if Daein shelters in a stone fort. Some of them couldn’t seem to understand the idea of a foe who wouldn’t take the field against them.”
A general chuckle arises in the room. Neither John nor Sherlock laugh. John covers his lack of amusement by setting his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. It’s concern, nothing more.
“They want to slow the Daein army,” Sherlock continues. “They’ll break themselves on stone walls if we can reach them. Whatever beast is in charge does know that. This morning, he sent out three beasts to take me eastward. From what they discussed around me, the original plan was to use me if they couldn’t stop you from holding up in a fort. They underestimated your speed.”
“They revealed their plans to you?” Father Jason asks, eyebrow arched.
“They--” Sherlock swallows. “They taunted me, actually.”
Father Jason nods. “How did they plan to use you?”
“They would challenge you to face them. If you refused, they would bring me into sight, well out of range of your archers, and then kill me slowly.” Sherlock closes his eyes, his head turned slightly down and toward John. “They were convinced it would enrage you enough to take the field.”
“They grow more savage by the year,” Father Jason murmurs.
A tap comes at the heavy canvas door flaps, and the outer guard pulls back the fabric to announce, “Sir, the attack on the supply train was successfully turned away. They were after the wagons, not the men. They ran off when the mages arrived.”
“Our losses?”
“Three men, two wagons. About seventeen wounded, nine requiring magic,” comes the report from behind the outer guard. John recognises Richard’s voice. The southward patrol has a number of extra duties tonight, it would seem.
“Very well.” Father Jason’s eyes flick to John. “Go with him.”
Hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, John hesitates.
“Do I need to repeat myself?”
“No, sir.”
Staff in hand, eyes set determinedly ahead, John exits the tent.
“It was three cats,” Richard says as they walk. The cavalier brings Edmund’s horse with them on a lead. “A brown, a black, and a blue. All standing upright when we found them. And they weren’t hurting him. Not yet anyway - it was obvious they were about to, though.”
“But they weren’t transformed, you said.” John isn’t questioning the truth of the statement, merely the specifics, and the cavalier takes no offence.
“Even when they look like people, they still have those claws,” Richard says. “They had him tied, hands bound. He was on a lead. They were making him run behind them when transformed.”
“Ashera.”
“Ghastly thing to do to anyone, let alone a man who can’t see,” Richard agrees.
John nods, stomach twisting.
“I’m glad we could get him back for you.”
“What?”
“Your friend,” Richard says.
“Yes,” John says. “I mean, yes, Goddess, yes. I-I mean. Yes. Thank you. All of you. Are Brandon and Thom all right?”
“The idiots are fine. The louts and I charged in with lances ready and sent them running. Edmund’s ribs might be a bit bruised, though, the way your mate held on.”
John laughs, a breathless, shaky sound.
“Brother John?”
“I’m fine,” John says. “No, I am, I’m fine.”
Richard eyes him, then nods. “Right then. Let’s patch the boys up. The Father might be done with your friend by the time we’re through. And by we, I naturally mean you. I need to get this beastie rubbed down before he catches cold.” Richard pats the horse’s neck.
“His name’s Sherlock,” John says.
“No, this is Prancer. Oh, you mean your mate?”
“Yeah. Sherlock. He’s from Begnion, but he’s really cynical about it. Disillusioned with the Senate, I think. And the people burnt down a holy forest about twenty years ago. He didn’t like that either.” The words spill out in a rush, falling over each other like the pages of a tome, flipped through too quickly. “Authority problems everywhere and he gets into trouble, but he’s a good man, and I just. I. I can’t stop talking, I’m not sure why.”
Richard shakes his hand. “If someone took Edmund...”
“We’re not,” John says. “He and me, we’re not like you two.”
“Brothers in prayer, brothers by the sword,” Richard says. “I don’t see much difference.”
“Oh,” John says, and thinks of Mike. Except John has had Mike by prayer and Bill by sword, and Sherlock is something else entirely. “I suppose, that way,” he agrees anyway. “Nine needing me, you said?” That shouldn’t take too long. Maybe Father Jason will be finished with Sherlock by the time John heals the last.
“Nine,” Richard confirms, leading Edmund’s gelding away. “And it’s a bit urgent, so you might want to hurry!”
“Right, sorry!”
Today, for the first day in weeks, John does hurry. Today, there’s reason to.
previous | next
Rating: R
Wordcount: 5.7 this part, 37k overall
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars, hiddenlacuna
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: An ex-soldier-turned-healer, a priest, and an unhorsed knight flee for their lives after the invasion of their homeland. John didn't expect the road to safety to be easy, but the addition of a petite mage and a scowling former prisoner to their small band opens his eyes to horrors beyond imagining.
Warnings: blood, violence, references to torture, references to mutilation, references to past rape and threats of rape (no rape occurring during the course of the story), fantasy racism (racism toward magical creatures), war, suicide contemplation.
Prologue: Flight to the Border
Chapter One: A Fight in the Dark
Chapter Two: Behind Enemy Lines
Chapter Three: A Friend Lost
A soldier puts a fresh staff in his hands. The soldier tells him where to stand. A wall of heavy lancers stands ready, lances lowered, tall shields facing southward. Archers and mages stand behind them, ready to fire into the clearing. Their armour is older, better quality, and suddenly John can understand why the fierce Daein army gave in to disorder in the first charge: they were bait.
John, Sherlock, Brian, their entire unit and more. Nearly everyone John’s met. They were bait.
Roars shake the trees, and the thundering paws of the beasts shake down water from above, a false rain.
“I love this part,” says the soldier beside John, the man who came running in from the supply line. The man’s grin is audible in his voice, hidden behind his helmet.
John stares at him. “What.”
“Have you never seen this before?”
“Seen what?” John asks.
“Oh, Ashera, you’ll want to get a view! C’mere.” He beckons John northward, toward the nearest tree.
“We’re in the middle of a battle!”
Everyone around John laughs. From some, it’s nervous laughter. From others, it’s outright amusement.
John stares at all of them, and the soldier swings his axe into the side of the tree at chest height. It goes in at a slight downward slant and holds fast. The soldier offers John both hands, cupping them for a boost.
“You’ll want to see this,” the soldier promises. He sounds like a parent telling his child of a meteor shower.
“But we’re in the middle of a battle,” John says.
“No,” the soldier says. “We’re at the start of the hunt.”
John frowns. He looks back over his shoulder toward the roars, toward the tight, steady line of steel and magic, and decides to climb up. He threads his staff through the back of his sash. The soldier boosts him onto the improvised step and John holds tight to the tree, the soles of his boots sliding slightly on the flat of the axe.
He turns his face southward in time to see the beasts break into the clearing. Bill’s descriptions shrivel into mumbled words, dwarfed by the reality. The beasts charge, huge yellow cats the size of wolf hounds, the black-blue tigers yet larger. They flood the clearing in an instant, a tidal wave of savage rage.
The call sounds. “Archers ready! Mages ready!”
Too late, that call is much too late. “What the hell are they doing?” John demands down at the soldier, but the man only points toward the clearing. John keeps looking.
When the lights begin to shine, John thinks the mages have acted without orders, but for all the lights glow red and green and yellow, there are inexplicable flashes of blue as well. It starts in front, then passes over the herd of beasts, an unfurling of multicoloured light that does them no harm. Instead of being struck down by fire or wind or thunder, the beasts rise to their hind legs, still running, and become nearly human.
Humans with tails, humans with claws, humans with rage twisting their marked faces. The crush of their charging fellows slams them onto the lances, impales them. Howls and screams, but no longer the cries of animals.
“Archers, release!”
The whistling volley flies high, arching above the clearing, then falls to stab the earth and all those upon it.
“Mages, cast!”
Charred flesh and ash, and, holding tight to the rough bark of the tree, John coughs hard. He turns his face away from the heat. The haze of smoke disguises nothing. Not the writhing bodies, not the burning fur, not the tiger who, mid-leap, becomes a startled woman before falling upon a raised lance.
John climbs down from his perch. The soldier helps him.
“Why are they doing that?” John asks. “Why are they... Why are they doing that?”
“The beast form only lasts so long,” the soldier says, tugging his axe out of the tree with ease. His arms are approximately as thick as John’s legs. “Gorgeous sight, though, seeing them transform. The only bit of the Goddess in those things.”
“No, why, why are they still coming? They’re changing forms, they’re practically throwing down their weapons, why are they doing that?”
The soldier’s body language shifts, cheerful battle lust to concern. “Are you all right, mate?”
“They’re still coming,” John says, pointing. “They’re unarmed and running straight into the lances, why are they doing that?”
“Because they’re stupid beasts,” the soldier says. “That’s all. Get them angry, pull back, and they’ll kill themselves trying to get you. They’ll follow your scent right into any trap. It’s business as usual. First time’s a bit rough. The smell never gets any better. Burnt fur is nasty stuff.”
“They’re screaming.” John’s going to be sick.
The soldier puts one large hand on John’s shoulder. “They only sound like people. Sub-humans aren’t real humans. All right?”
John closes his eyes, fighting down bile.
“All right?” the soldier asks.
John shakes his head.
“Ah well. You’ll get used to it.”
The slaughter continues, a massacre of fire and steel.
John leans hard on his staff, dizzy with the noise, with everything.
“Are you new to battle?” the soldier asks. “You sound Crimean.”
“This isn’t battle,” John whispers.
“What was that?”
“I said, my friend is out there,” John says a bit louder.
“Oh,” says the soldier. “You were in the advanced unit, weren’t you? That explains it. You’ll lose the shakes soon enough.”
A trumpet blows.
“Excuse me,” the soldier says, a grin back in his voice. “Some of the beasties are about to start changing back. Hunting time!”
John stays there behind the line, waiting for someone to speak to him, for someone to push him or press him or ask to be healed from wounds inflicted by the defenceless. No one does.
When there is no one left to kill, the soldier comes back. “Oi,” the soldier says, helmet in one hand. John recognizes him by voice and stature, not by the brown hair or eyes. “Oi, you. Crimea. It’s me, it’s Talbert. Come here.”
“I’m going back to camp,” John says, walking away.
“Wait,” Talbert says. “You should see this.”
“I don’t want to see anything else,” John says. “I’ve seen enough, thanks.”
Talbert catches John’s arm. His hand fits around John’s forearm with ease. “Come look. You’ll sleep better for it.”
John already knows he won’t. He follows all the same, wishing for a sword.
They go toward the west edge of the battleground. The field of slaughter. Yes, that suits it better. Field of slaughter, place of massacre. The ground is scorched, bodies burnt black. Disfigured by flame, the corpses are indistinguishable from normal humans.
Around the edge of the clearing, Daein soldiers have set to work looting corpses. What of, John can’t tell until he’s close.
“Why are they cutting the tails off?” John asks.
“Sending a message,” Talbert says. “If you want to keep a sub-human from turning beast, you cut the tail off.”
“But they’re dead.”
“Mm, and imagine what a dead and tailless army looks like to a beast king.”
John closes his eyes and clenches his fists. He doesn’t shout or punch or try to run. He opens his eyes. “Why did you want me to see this?”
“Well, look at them,” Talbert says.
John looks.
They’re clothed, which is a surprise. Their beast forms had been nude. Beast magic, must be. The clothing is light, meant for movement rather than protection, and the bloody rents in the fabric only underscore how unprepared a laguz is for battle when shaped like a human.
They look to have some sort of face paint, but when John kneels down in the soggy grass, he can see it’s part of their faces. Triangle sort of shapes, always pointing toward the mouth or nose, always a symmetrical pair of them. The patterns are closer to birthmarks than whiskers, but they remind him of whiskers all the same. The colour of each set of markings matches the laguz’s hair colour, the colour shared by their tails. Their ears are high and pointed, furred and soft-looking, like velvet.
There are women as well as men, and in about equal number. Some are big, bigger than Talbert, and those must be the tigers. They aren’t frightening, dead. They aren’t anything other than piteous.
John looks, and John looks, and he sees a laguz woman on top of a laguz man, can see how the fire hit her and not him. He was stabbed under her arm, skewered. They’re smaller laguz, cats, their hair a deep mossy green. Their faces lie turned the same way, and their markings are much alike. Their colouring, their features, their everything. Even the patches on their tunics were cut from the same cloth.
John looks at them, and he thinks Harry.
He begins to pray.
Aloud. He begins to pray aloud.
He glares down any soldier who stares. He prays and he closes staring eyes, starting with the siblings. He moves corpse to corpse until Talbert wraps strong fingers around John’s wrist and squeezes.
“Stop that,” Talbert tells him. “They would have killed us. I don’t care what rubbish your king fed you, Crimea. These are wild animals. If you don’t breed them in captivity, they can’t be tamed. It has to be done.”
“No,” John says. “It really doesn’t.”
Talbert backhands him.
John blocks with his staff and staggers back from the force all the same. “Hitting a priest sends you to hell,” he threatens. “Don’t you know that?”
“Walk away, Crimea.”
John takes five steps away, bends down, and closes the eyes of another laguz.
Abruptly on his back and very much in pain, John blinks up at a bloody yet familiar face. It’s not the one he was expecting. Everything spins. “That wasn’t very smart, was it?”
“Nope,” Brian says. “But I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Sherlock?” John asks immediately.
Brian returns the staff into John’s hands, a solid pressure across his chest. The red light flares on its own accord, John’s magic determined to heal its wielder.
“Has anyone seen him?” John asks.
Brian says, very quietly, “I’m glad you’re alive.”
While John is still woozy, Father Jason summons him.
Brian takes John to the bishop’s tent, supporting him much the way John ought to be supporting Sherlock. Brian stays outside the tent. John ventures in. He stops in the entryway, his way barred by a pair of guards.
Father Jason takes his time in looking up from papers at his desk. It’s a travelling desk, but still a sizeable piece of furniture to take on campaign. “You were the cause of a disruption today,” Father Jason says, folding both hands upon the glossy wooden surface.
“It’s all a bit of a blur, Father,” John says. “A man named Talbert struck me very hard, you see.”
“I am aware.”
John waits.
“We do not pray for the beasts, John,” Father Jason says. “Humans are worthy of the blessings of Ashera. Sub-humans, however, are beneath them. That is why they are called sub-humans.”
John says nothing.
“How do you explain your actions?”
“Have any stragglers come in?” John asks. “After the... After the battle. The people we lost track of in the retreat, are they coming in?”
Father Jason’s face remains impassive. “You explain yourself with questions.”
“Sherlock is missing,” John says. “He can’t see, and the laguz track by scent.”
“Sub-humans,” Father Jason states. “The clergy has discarded that outdated term. It was decreed from the foot of the Tower of Guidance itself. You will speak as befits your station, or you will lose it.”
John does not fist his hands. Instead, he flexes them outward. There are guards here. He cannot strike this man.
“Sherlock is missing,” he says, “and I thought... When Crimea and Daein skirmished in the past, we would exchange our dead. So they could be buried at home.” An implication is better than a lie. John’s a shit liar.
Father Jason shakes his head slowly, sombrely. “Sub-humans are not as civilised as we are, John. They will not follow your example. Your friend is lost.”
“I see,” John says.
“You return to regular duty this evening. We still have our share of the wounded.”
“Yes, sir,” John says.
“And send your cassock in for cleaning. A priest should be seen free of blood.”
John looks down at himself, at the dried red splotch over his knee where he’d knelt in blood-soaked grass. His back must be much the same way. “Yes, sir,” he says.
“You are dismissed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He exits the bishop’s tent. Brian helps him back to their own small shelter of canvas. John lies down. Brian returns to doing whatever it is that Brian is meant to be doing.
The call for evening duty comes much too soon, but John rises all the same.
Two days later, they pack up camp and resume marching. John isn’t sure what direction until the tree trunks begin to grow thicker. They’re returning north.
“What was the point of that?” John demands after the first day of marching. Quietly, of course, when they don’t have the tent set up, but he still demands it.
Brian shushes him. “Just go to sleep.”
“No,” John says. “Really. What was the point of that?”
“Someone else must have caught the princess,” Brian says. “Or maybe they’ve heard the princess already left Gallia. I don’t know. I don’t expect anyone to tell me, either, ‘cause they’re not going to.”
“So we marched into Gallia, slaughtered more laguz than anyone’s bothered to count, and now we’re marching back into Crimea. Was it to make a point?” The thought has been trapped in his head, turning over and over, always in Sherlock’s voice. “What point? Is Daein trying to secure her new borders, is that the point?”
“Sorry, you lost me. What’s a laguz?”
“It’s the proper name for beastmen. And birdmen, and dragonmen.”
“Oh, like sub-human,” Brian says.
“Not quite,” John says. He rolls over. “Never mind.”
They pack. They march. They stop. They unpack. They rest.
They do it all again in the morning.
The stink grows day by day as mould takes hold in their cloth, as rust stains their metal, as maggots wriggle in their supplies. They abandon their waste with each camp, so much shit and piss set off to the side in freshly dug latrines. Eventually, they camp in the same location the army has stopped before, and the latrines are full and reeking. John thinks of Sherlock and the sandals the Daeins made him discard, and he can more than understand why. The only sanitation Daein is good at centres around shit.
John learns his old cassock was torn into bandages, and his new one is a faded grey. He nearly argues that bloodstained cloth shouldn’t be put anywhere near another person’s wound, but then he remembers he wants these men dead. He’s not sure what to do with the guilt of inaction, simply knows he hates it less than he would the regret of acting. When soldiers begin to die of infection faster than Father Jason can order men to heal them, John is sure to remind himself of this.
The scouts range north and south, searching ahead and scouring their trail for signs of pursuit. The southward teams are the only ones John ever need see to. They return bloody and shaken time and time again, and the army’s rear guard swells in numbers as a result.
“Beasts still chasing us,” Brian grumbles. “Damn persistent things.”
“Well,” John says, “we did kill their families.”
“Huh,” Brian says. “That’s a lot of loyalty for animals. No, I think it’s a territorial instinct.”
John and Brian speak less to each other by the day.
An army is a slow, plodding creature, sprawling and uncoordinated after growth spurts or injuries. It takes well over two weeks, nearly three, to cover the same ground it had taken John a week to cross in the opposite direction.
John thinks as he walks, as he packs, as he unpacks, as he heals. Bill and Mike should be fine in Gallia, though Molly is probably panicking at every laguz she happens across. He hopes Bill kept the horse. Bill isn’t himself without a horse.
When his mind isn’t in Gallia, it’s on Crimea’s border with Begnion. Harry might be there. He hopes Harry is there. Harry and Clara both, running into Begnion. Surely Begnion will accept refugees. Especially women. Harry might be a better hand with a sword than John is, but Clara’s life is one spent behind a counter, measuring out pounds of corn and flour. Her life was that, he means. Maybe Clara will find a new shop. Maybe Clara will set up business and Harry will stand guard over the till. It’s a nice thought, if not a realistic one.
Some days, he wonders about the princess. Who she is, if she’s authentic. If she’s even a real woman, let alone a real princess: she seems more mist and rumour than fact. He smiles a bit at the thought. A lie from the conquered countryside whispered into the right ear, and the Daein army runs about in circles after a woman who doesn’t exist. She would be a grown woman by now, wouldn’t she? It was the thirtieth year of King Ramon’s reign, for all he took the throne young.
He thinks of everyone he’s ever loved, more or less. It’s a detached sort of wondering, a question with an unknowable answer: are they still alive? There are so many John will never see again, would have never seen again anyway. Are they dead? Are they fled, or captured, or forced into service?
He tries not to think of the women. He’s courted more than a few girls who have grown into swordswomen, not to mention one extremely memorable sniper, but fighting isn’t always the service an army wants from its women. Crimea was all right with its own, Daein might even be all right with its own, but certainly not with citizens of its conquered foe.
He tries not to think of Sherlock as well, but his habits remind him. He holds out his arm. He grips his staff below the orb and waits for someone to take hold behind him. He keeps waiting, and waiting, for a tug on the hood of his robe.
His body will move and wait, and then his mind will remember. He’ll see Sherlock running into the shadows on John’s order, and he’ll see the way Sherlock’s arms cover his head as the panicked horses side-blind him.
One night, he dreams of a normal day, just a normal day in the uneasy trudge that is the Daein army. Except this time, he knows Sherlock is safe, knows Bill was on one of those horses and Bill swept Sherlock up and rode away with him. Bill couldn’t come back for John, but that’s no matter. John can survive. John will survive, and Sherlock is alive in Gallia, safe.
In the morning, he wakes disoriented for no reason he can name. It’s not until his tired legs ache with marching that he remembers. Bill wasn’t there. Sherlock was lost, one man who could barely see. A man in Daein uniform, a man who never stripped in a tent with friends, let alone in a forest full of enraged laguz.
Heat jabs behind John’s eyes, and John marches on with them shut.
The day the army reaches the northern edge of the Sea of Trees, John follows routine and waits in position to heal the rear scouts upon their return. He waits a bit longer than usual, and then a lot longer. The soldiers around him grow restless. It’s nearly time to stop for the night, and the scouts have never had trouble returning before the forest reaches true dark.
Then in the distance: the pounding of hooves.
John sees them between the trees, the four men he expects, the four horses he knows by sight. The man in the lead, Richard, shouts to him.
John shakes his head and cups his ear, unable to hear the man over the horses’ strides.
“Beasts to the west!” Richard shouts. “They’re going for the supply train! Make way, let us through!”
The soldiers beside John part way immediately, and John steps to the side with them. Four horses thunder past, four horses and five riders, one in torn red and clinging to a cavalier’s back.
John chases after, a hopeless task on foot and in robes. He hikes them up and runs regardless, following in the wake of the riders. A shout goes up, and goes up, and goes up, and men fall into position, weapons in hand, armour still upon their shoulders from the day’s march. They head west, following three of the riders, but not the fourth and fifth.
The overburdened horse turns right, not left, making for the commander’s tent with trotting haste. The guards greet them, and the fourth rider dismounts. The fifth simply falls to the ground and lies there.
John is at his side in an instant, staff at the ready.
“Don’t-! Don’t touch me!”
“It’s me,” John says, catching the man’s wrist as he tries to push John away. “Sherlock, it’s me. It’s John.”
Sherlock stops struggling. “John.” He gapes up at him through his personal darkness, chest heaving. His eyes roam across John’s face, around it, above his head, and John puts a careful hand on his shoulder to show Sherlock where he is. Sherlock sits up, gripping John by the arms.
John marvels at him. More wasted than ever before, his cassock missing and under robe half-ruined, but the man is no illusion. The patches of skin left unhidden by dirt or the beginnings of a beard are paler than remembered. “You’re alive.”
Sherlock coughs with the rasp of a parched throat. “Obviously.”
“How are you alive?”
“By not being dead, one would assume. Simple process of--” He coughs hard. “Process of elimination.”
Behind Sherlock and the horse, Father Jason exits the commander’s tent, the fourth rider at his side. The cavalier still wears his helmet, but the dappled gelding means he must be Edmund.
“You,” Father Jason says in surprise, looking down at them. At Sherlock, at the two-man unit that is John and Sherlock together.
“Is that Father Jason?” Sherlock rasps. Sitting on the ground with his back to the bishop, Sherlock doesn’t so much as turn his head.
“Yes,” John says. “Now stop talking, you sound terrible.”
“I’d much rather you start talking,” Father Jason disagrees.
Sherlock tilts his head. “Sir?”
“Sir Edmund tells me the baggage train is in danger. The advance warning will of course make repelling the beasts a simple feat. Sir Edmund tells me the warning came from you.”
“I heard the horses and screamed early,” Sherlock says. “They were bringing me east. A distraction in the east means an attack from the west, doesn’t it?”
A pause, Father Jason looking down at the top of Sherlock’s head, at the way Sherlock sags toward John. “Pick him up,” Father Jason commands Edmund. “Bring him inside.”
Sherlock reaches for John, an arm slipping easily around John’s shoulders. “I can lean, sir,” Sherlock reports.
John staggers up under Sherlock’s weight but stabilises. Sherlock’s legs shake with every step, but when Edmund moves forward to share the burden of Sherlock’s unsteady frame, Sherlock flinches away into John’s side.
There are two chairs in the tent, one of which folds, and the folding chair is the one John deposits Sherlock in. He stands at Sherlock’s side, staff set into the floor of the tent, and Sherlock grips the smooth length of metal in one trembling hand. Edmund follows inside and the guards shut the tent flaps. The small lamp on the desk is little enough light that Sherlock will not have to feign blindness.
“‘They’,” Father Jason says. “‘They’ were bringing you east.”
Sherlock nods. “Yes. The beasts.”
John frowns, then immediately schools his expression smooth.
“But I told you, I screamed early. They were, um. They were arguing. About how far humans could hear. They wanted to be close enough to the main camp that... Well, that I could be heard. And we’d set off northeast, our path perpendicular to that of the main beast force. Northwest. They wanted to draw your eyes to the east, attack in the west.”
“I understand basic strategy,” Father Jason remarks, voice bland. “The beasts typically don’t.”
“They understand hunting,” Sherlock answers. “That’s enough to lay a trap.”
Father Jason nods slowly. “They caught you after the battle,” he prompts, then signals to one of his guards to fetch Sherlock something to drink. The guard goes where indicated, and John is pleased to see it’s wine, not beer. Sherlock can never stomach beer.
“I was lost,” Sherlock says. His voice breaks with exhaustion, not emotion. “John and I were running from the rout, but the cavalry nearly trampled us. I fell and crawled to a tree. I don’t know how long I stayed there. I didn’t dare move.”
The guard returns, cup in hand, and John takes it from him before pressing it into Sherlock’s hand. “Thank you,” Sherlock murmurs. He drinks before continuing:
“When I heard voices, I called out to them. It seemed the obvious thing to do. They came. I remember they went quiet when they saw me.” Sherlock frowns. “When they asked if I was blind, I thought they were a part of the army I hadn’t met. Again, it seemed the obvious answer. They talked amongst themselves, and then one offered his arm. We walked south. I thought Daein had pushed forward and assumed we would be rejoining the main force. I didn’t realise what they were and where they had taken me until we were near their camp.
“The beastmen there were in reserve. Scouts to report to their king, I believe. They kept talking about tails. Lost tails. I’m not sure what that was about. I never tried to check if they still had their own: I didn’t want to be killed.
“They wanted to kill me anyway, of course, but the beastman who had guided me in wouldn’t let them. He said...” Sherlock clears his throat. “He said humans might not have tails, but they can still be carved up.”
John’s hands move of their own volition on the staff, and Sherlock catches them. “I’m fine,” Sherlock says. “It’s all right.”
Unembarrassed, John pulls away.
“They put me in a cage,” Sherlock continues. “For the irony, I think. I stayed there for what I believe was two weeks. They never pressed for information, and I never volunteered any.
“The wait was for their reinforcements. I don’t know the size of their army, only that it was extremely loud. Even when silent. There isn’t a precise noise when a tiger stares at you, but I don’t know what else to call it. That was very loud.”
“More about their numbers later,” Father Jason instructs. “Tell me of their movements.”
“Northward,” Sherlock answers. “They were very rushed. They’re after revenge and know they’ll never have it if Daein shelters in a stone fort. Some of them couldn’t seem to understand the idea of a foe who wouldn’t take the field against them.”
A general chuckle arises in the room. Neither John nor Sherlock laugh. John covers his lack of amusement by setting his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. It’s concern, nothing more.
“They want to slow the Daein army,” Sherlock continues. “They’ll break themselves on stone walls if we can reach them. Whatever beast is in charge does know that. This morning, he sent out three beasts to take me eastward. From what they discussed around me, the original plan was to use me if they couldn’t stop you from holding up in a fort. They underestimated your speed.”
“They revealed their plans to you?” Father Jason asks, eyebrow arched.
“They--” Sherlock swallows. “They taunted me, actually.”
Father Jason nods. “How did they plan to use you?”
“They would challenge you to face them. If you refused, they would bring me into sight, well out of range of your archers, and then kill me slowly.” Sherlock closes his eyes, his head turned slightly down and toward John. “They were convinced it would enrage you enough to take the field.”
“They grow more savage by the year,” Father Jason murmurs.
A tap comes at the heavy canvas door flaps, and the outer guard pulls back the fabric to announce, “Sir, the attack on the supply train was successfully turned away. They were after the wagons, not the men. They ran off when the mages arrived.”
“Our losses?”
“Three men, two wagons. About seventeen wounded, nine requiring magic,” comes the report from behind the outer guard. John recognises Richard’s voice. The southward patrol has a number of extra duties tonight, it would seem.
“Very well.” Father Jason’s eyes flick to John. “Go with him.”
Hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, John hesitates.
“Do I need to repeat myself?”
“No, sir.”
Staff in hand, eyes set determinedly ahead, John exits the tent.
“It was three cats,” Richard says as they walk. The cavalier brings Edmund’s horse with them on a lead. “A brown, a black, and a blue. All standing upright when we found them. And they weren’t hurting him. Not yet anyway - it was obvious they were about to, though.”
“But they weren’t transformed, you said.” John isn’t questioning the truth of the statement, merely the specifics, and the cavalier takes no offence.
“Even when they look like people, they still have those claws,” Richard says. “They had him tied, hands bound. He was on a lead. They were making him run behind them when transformed.”
“Ashera.”
“Ghastly thing to do to anyone, let alone a man who can’t see,” Richard agrees.
John nods, stomach twisting.
“I’m glad we could get him back for you.”
“What?”
“Your friend,” Richard says.
“Yes,” John says. “I mean, yes, Goddess, yes. I-I mean. Yes. Thank you. All of you. Are Brandon and Thom all right?”
“The idiots are fine. The louts and I charged in with lances ready and sent them running. Edmund’s ribs might be a bit bruised, though, the way your mate held on.”
John laughs, a breathless, shaky sound.
“Brother John?”
“I’m fine,” John says. “No, I am, I’m fine.”
Richard eyes him, then nods. “Right then. Let’s patch the boys up. The Father might be done with your friend by the time we’re through. And by we, I naturally mean you. I need to get this beastie rubbed down before he catches cold.” Richard pats the horse’s neck.
“His name’s Sherlock,” John says.
“No, this is Prancer. Oh, you mean your mate?”
“Yeah. Sherlock. He’s from Begnion, but he’s really cynical about it. Disillusioned with the Senate, I think. And the people burnt down a holy forest about twenty years ago. He didn’t like that either.” The words spill out in a rush, falling over each other like the pages of a tome, flipped through too quickly. “Authority problems everywhere and he gets into trouble, but he’s a good man, and I just. I. I can’t stop talking, I’m not sure why.”
Richard shakes his hand. “If someone took Edmund...”
“We’re not,” John says. “He and me, we’re not like you two.”
“Brothers in prayer, brothers by the sword,” Richard says. “I don’t see much difference.”
“Oh,” John says, and thinks of Mike. Except John has had Mike by prayer and Bill by sword, and Sherlock is something else entirely. “I suppose, that way,” he agrees anyway. “Nine needing me, you said?” That shouldn’t take too long. Maybe Father Jason will be finished with Sherlock by the time John heals the last.
“Nine,” Richard confirms, leading Edmund’s gelding away. “And it’s a bit urgent, so you might want to hurry!”
“Right, sorry!”
Today, for the first day in weeks, John does hurry. Today, there’s reason to.
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