TALLOS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nekasr does not fear death, Tallos reminded himself, and around him the world burns.

The town Tallos and his group had been escorted to reeked of contagious despair. The only grins of the many people milling around belonged to the few men in armor. It reminded Tallos of a leper town he’d once visited for trade. The men who ran the lucrative business of housing the afflicted relatives of those with means laughed and joked among themselves while the infirm sat in despondency, awaiting death.

Even so, it did not do for him to be so troubled. It was foolish to have scarred myself, thought Tallos. The gods must have laughed to see it done, knowing the complications it would cause.

It seemed a reasonable enough thing to blame his worry upon. Had he looked like any other man, being conscripted into an army might even serve his purposes. His intention, after all, was to wreak havoc—a task he had yet to begin—and a war seemed as good a place to start as any.

“Mighty Three be damned,” cried the man at the dais. “I have not smelled a stench so foul since praying at your sister’s bush!” The many papers piled in front of him and his authoritative demeanor made him out to be the one in charge. “I am a master provisioner, yet you must think me an alchemist to have brought me this lot. Am I to turn shit to steel and find a place for them in an army?”

The man to whom he spoke was the quietest of the four horsemen, relegated to see Tallos and his five companions to the town after their supplies and mounts had been reappropriated. He just shrugged and turned his horse around, leaving Tallos and the rest with the boisterous provisioner.

Surrounding him and his dais was what remained of a village. It had not been destroyed, but it certainly was no longer what it once must have been. Every home and building had some combination of piles of clothing, chests, and metal cookware just outside the front door, which Tallos guessed had previously belonged inside. Hundreds of men were arranged in a queue that extended down the full length of the main road, filing slowly into a large central building. The women were in clusters outside various houses. What must they do with the children? Tallos wondered if new parents were exempt from this treatment and how such an army would eat if they did this to every farming village. But it was the castoffs that awakened his fire, reminding him of how he had found his own home similarly ravaged.

“I’ll take a look at the girl first,” said the provisioner. “Over here, you little tart.”

Lily looked first to Kelgun who refused to meet her glance, then she reluctantly walked to the dais.

“Nope, don’t look at him. I’m your master now. Turn around, would ya? There ya go. Hmmm…” The man appeared to be truly considering his options. “Well, you and your old lover or father or both are in luck. You’re too ugly for entertainment. You’re a washwoman if I’ve ever seen one. Head that way.” He pointed to a home with the largest cluster of women at it.

“Do something,” Dusan demanded of Kelgun, and too loudly.

“What’s he going to do, boy?” asked the amused provisioner.

Lily limped off, keeping her head down, and made no backward glances. Tallos purposefully avoided looking toward Dusan. And around him the world burns, he said again to himself.

The provisioner turned his attention to John. “I bet it’s you that stinks. You big ones always turn ripe before the rest of them.” Tallos found it a bit hypocritical considering the source, who easily bested John in girth. “I should know,” cried the man, with a laugh and slap of his belly. Perhaps not. “What is it you do, big boy?”

John did not appear to wish to meet eyes with the man, not that any should want to. The provisioner’s patchy beard did little to hide his saggy jowls, and his left eye was either lazy or trained to look elsewhere.

“I am a tinker’s apprentice, m’lord.”

“Haha! Wrong on both counts I’d wager. I’m no lord and you’re certainly no tinker’s apprentice. You know how many times I’ve heard that one? You damn fools think you can just say tinker and avoid service to the kingdom?”

“He is my apprentice.” It was Wilkin’s old weakened voice. Not even he had been spared from this process. The men-at-arms had forced him to leave his donkeys and supplies at the entrance to the village, and without them he looked little different from any other decrepit man.

“Oh is he now? And I assume you are a master tinker, traveled ’round the realm six by seven times by now, eh? Oddly enough, when I look at the two of you, I see an overgrown boy and his grandfather who both think they’ve got half again as many brains as they actually do. No, I don’t believe my recruiters would be foolish enough to bring me a real tinker, do you? But even if you can tinker, you can surely read and write, no?”

Wilkin stared at the man a moment and then nodded, resigned to accept his ignorance.

“Okay, old man. You are assigned to notes and queries. I warn you though, if you get there and they find out you lied about writing in order to get out of harder duties, they’ll chop off your fingers. And if you can’t read, they’ll gouge out your eyes. You still remember how to read and write knowing all that?”

Again Wilkin stared at him, then nodded.

“Ha! Well don’t you come crying to me when they do, not that you could manage without any eyes, I suppose. That way.” He pointed toward a lonely home with one guard at the door about a hundred paces away. Wilkin shook his head in disbelief and began to shuffle to where he had been directed.

“Okay, big boy. You look like you can lift a shield. Infantry division is that way.”

John just stood there, dumbfounded.

“Go on now, no need to play stupid—that won’t help either. You can be dim or simple and still raise a shield.”

“You are a fool,” blurted John. “You have just sent the realm’s best tinker to copy letters. Do you know the fate to which one is condemned who harms a tinker?”

The provisioner glared at John with more contempt than anger. “Guards,” he called while keeping his eyes firmly fixed upon his challenger. “I think we’ve got a malcontent. Find a home for him.”

Two mailed men with differing tabards, one showing a keep before a river and the other a series of branching rivers that Tallos had previously mistaken for lightning, seized John by the arms and dragged him to a metal cage in plain sight from where Tallos and the rest stood. John did not struggle as the men hoisted him up and sealed him inside the birdcage-like contraption. Tallos wondered how long it would be before John’s look of defiance changed to diffidence as the thirst set in.

“Gepner.” The deep, angry voice came from behind, and all turned to see what sort of man may have made such a sound.

“What is it, Otis?” The provisioner did not appear to be pleased by the interruption.

“They said there was a girl.” The man that approached was a brute. He dwarfed the guards and the mounted men who had captured Tallos’s party, weighing easily half again that of the largest, and he wore a type of armor not shared by any of his fellow conscription officers. A cascade of spade-shaped pieces of water-hardened leather overlapped each other to form a hard yet pliant suit that shifted with his motion as he strode forward. His face was also well armored, albeit by overlapping scars. He had a sword of the finest steel in hand and was flipping it around as if it were weightless, not threateningly, but rather like a boy who’d acquired a new trinket. Tallos knew that sword—the one whose blade always shone with brilliance no matter how it was abused. A glance toward Kelgun revealed he’d recognized it as well. His face spoke his sour contempt.

Otis stopped a few paces before the provisioner and sheathed the sword. “Where is she?”

If Gepner was afraid of this giant, he did not show it. “You would not care for her. She’s ugly. Ugly and too old for your tastes.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Now where is she?”

Gepner flicked his head at a young assistant who took off with haste. “You are making my job as provisioner very difficult,” complained Gepner. “You ruined the last two. They won’t so much as speak now, let alone do any washing.”

Otis let loose a gravelly laugh with his hands clasped over his enormous gut. “Battles are won with armies, not washwomen. And I was promised the flesh of war.”

“The war has not even begun.”

“For me it has,” insisted Otis.

Lily had a look of hope in her eyes as Gepner’s assistant brought her back. That hope died, though, when she saw Otis staring at her.

Otis made a vile noise in the back of his throat and shot a blob of phlegm toward Lily’s knees. Clearly appalled, she tried to avoid it, but it struck the side of her roughspun trousers.

“I told you she—”

“She’ll do,” Otis interrupted. “The recruits are busy eating. Come, girl. Let us speak in private.” He walked forward with a hungry smirk and grabbed Lily by the back of the neck, his fingers nearly touching at the front of her throat.

“No!” Dusan had managed to sound even younger than he was in his desperate objection.

Otis turned to face him with mirth. “What’s this? This your little sweetheart, boy? Or do you merely wish to take her place?”

“She’s my sister! Let her go!” Dusan rushed forward but stopped prior to getting too close to his enormous foe.

Otis chuckled and rubbed his bald head with a meaty hand. “Tell you what.” With that same hand he took hold of Lily again by the waist and hoisted her above his head. Her struggle came to an abrupt stop as if he’d threatened to break her neck with his other hand. “Get me to drop her, and you can do with her as you like.”

Dusan looked to Otis as if to question his sincerity and was met with a raised brow of enticement.

“We don’t have time for this.” Gepner’s protest was made irrelevant as Dusan bolted forward. No doubt expecting to be met with a kick, he then dodged to the side. Otis nearly dropped Lily as he laughed so heartily, watching Dusan jump into the muddy slush to avoid a blow that never came.

Dusan was quick to his feet, however, and leapt forward, landing a kick to Otis’s stomach. Their difference in weight was so extreme that the force sent Dusan backward. Otis already looked to be boring of the game, but Dusan resumed his attack. Risking a potentially fatal kick from the giant, Dusan stood in front of him and punched Otis square in the jaw, difficult as it was for him to reach. Otis merely shook his head, prompting Dusan to hit him again, this time with a windmilled shot to the nose. The strike caught Otis’s attention, and he shoved the boy backward violently with a foot. Dusan landed on his back, his head slamming onto the only hard patch of ground in sight.

“Do I now have your permission to skewer your ugly sister, boy?”

Otis’s taunt seemed to crush the already defeated Dusan. He staggered to his feet with sulking shoulders, looking downward. Otis snorted amusedly and turned his attention to Gepner. It was the opening Dusan must have been hoping for, as he sprinted forward, flinging mud at Otis’s face and grabbing the hilt of the giant’s sword with both hands. The ring of steel sounded as the blade was pulled upward, to the tip, then rung out again as Otis grabbed Dusan’s hands and shoved the blade back into its sheath.

Dusan backed away, the apprehension on his face shared by all those in attendance. Lily had fallen to the mucky ground.

Gepner laughed openly. “You dropped her. The boy bested you.”

Otis’s angry stare gave place to a solemn look. “I am a man of my word. You can do with your sister as you like.” Dusan just stared dumbly, not believing the words. “Tomorrow, after I’ve split her in half.”

This time when Dusan screamed and charged, Otis put a boot in his belly. Dusan spun and fell to his stomach. With his foot, Otis shoved Dusan’s face deep into the mud. He then wiped the mud off his own face.

“If there is one thing I hate,” said Otis, “it’s a man who doesn’t respect fair play.”

Gepner shook his head, but looked as though he’d expected no less from Otis. “Hurry it up, Otis. The line grows, and I have work to do.”

Dusan’s arms flailed, alternating between trying to push himself upward and grabbing at Otis’s boot. It would not be long before he suffocated, provided Otis wasn’t already crushing his skull with his weight.

“Release him.” The voice came from behind, and Tallos knew the speaker, though he did not know him to be the valiant type.

Otis did not even look at Kelgun. Instead, he spoke to Gepner. “Where did you find this lot?”

Gepner ignored the question. “Kill the boy if you want, but I need the men,” he reminded Otis.

“You need numbers. I need men. Men who will follow orders, not those who think they’re the ones who ought to be giving them. But I have a way of teaching even the most dimwitted their place.” With that Otis turned to Kelgun. “This your little runt?”

“No,” said Kelgun. “But that’s my sword.”

Otis lifted his foot from Dusan who rolled to his back and fought for breath. Then he unsheathed the blade. “This? It’s a little light.”

“I can show you how to use it, if you like.” Somehow Kelgun, the same man who was fearful of the now silent war drums, did not look intimidated. Tallos could tell he was still rather intoxicated, but he hid it better than usual.

“You think a sword makes a man?” Otis flung the weapon toward Kelgun where it jabbed to the hilt into the brown slush. “Have your toothpick.”

Otis pulled a plank of wood from the base of the provisioner’s dais, eliciting some curses of protest.

Otis came at Kelgun with his wooden plank, swinging it over his head. Kelgun, his sword in hand, blocked the blow, but only just. Otis repeated the attack, and each time Kelgun blocked, it came that much closer to slamming into Kelgun’s head as splinters flew in all directions. Kelgun had circled while moving rearward, and was near the dais once again.

“Fight, you coward,” taunted Otis, and Kelgun obliged with some downward slashes of his own. They were blindingly fast, but Otis managed to block each one, none of which seemed to have much power behind them. Then came Kelgun’s true attack, a strike that appeared no different than those before it, but was artfully redirected to swing wide and hit from the side. The tactic worked, striking Otis on the ribs, but the slashing cut was no match for the thick hardened leather and left little more than a scratch on the surface.

Spear him with the point, thought Tallos, and as if by command, Kelgun thrust his blade at what looked to be a weak point in Otis’s armor, where the shoulder met the breast. Otis turned away from the attack, allowing the blade to scratch along his armored chest. Kelgun flicked his wrist as he withdrew, catching Otis’s cheek and opening a small wound.

Otis retaliated with fury. With both hands he swung the wooden plank sideways at Kelgun’s head, a move Kelgun looked happy enough to block with his blade, close to the hilt. The wood broke on impact, and the top half continued its motion to connect with Kelgun’s head.

Otis was on top of him in an instant, striking the dazed knight with repeated blows with the half of the plank that remained. One such strike hit Kelgun’s wrist, causing him to drop his sword, and Otis kicked him in the gut so hard Tallos could feel the impact. Otis followed up, putting a foot on Kelgun’s chest as he lay on his back.

“Do you yield?” Otis demanded response by pushing the sharp splintered plank into his throat.

Kelgun made no sound.

“You yield,” Otis answered for him, then hocked another impressive glob of phlegm on Kelgun’s face. Otis turned to Gepner. “Infantry for this one, right?”

“I would think so.”

Otis retrieved Kelgun’s sword from the ground, flung it free of dirt, and sheathed it. “Your job is easier than you claim it to be,” he said to Gepner as he returned to the dais and threw the broken plank near where it had come from. He then went to Lily, who sat speechless in the mud, grabbed her by the hair and proceeded to drag her behind him. Neither Kelgun nor Dusan moved to protest this time.

“All right,” said Gepner as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “What’s next here?” His eyes went to Tallos, who had managed to forget about his own quandary amidst the chaos. “I suppose you’ll tell me you’re a monk and that—Mountain’s tits! I was wrong.”

Tallos had moved up to the front of the dais obediently, and by the way Gepner had begun to contort his face, he knew it was his stench that had hit the man.

“What sort of monk are you? You must pay homage to the gods of rotting flesh.”

Tallos had not come up with a plan that would allow him to remain in his robes, if even such a possibility existed. But in any case, he knew that he must rid himself of the stench.

“Please, allow me to jump in the river and bathe myself with stationed guard. It would be a kindness to the others in the camp.” There were plenty of fires going inside warm-looking buildings that would allow him to dry without disrobing. “I am not a fighting man, but I can read and write.” It was the only station he thought may allow him to retain his robes during service.

“Step back, you. Farther.”

Tallos complied, as did the small group of people behind him.

“You don’t think I know what you are? We’ve had men like you rot an entire legion of infantry before. Remove your robe, plague bearer.”

It was exactly what he had sought to avoid, but if this man thought him pestilent, perhaps that would explain the appearance of his skin, and he would be cast out completely. He stopped himself before praying to the gods for assistance—he’d gotten better at that, at least.

Tallos was not moving quickly enough for the provisioner, however. “Guards, force his fecking robe off,” he commanded.

Tallos raised his hands to show it would not be necessary and untied the cords at the neck and waist. Then, looking as feeble as he could to assist in their presumption, he pushed off his garment at the hood and shoulders, allowing it to fall to the ground and reveal him in stark nakedness.

A wave of gasps and muffled shrieks passed through all those near. Tallos thought he recognized the gasp of Dusan. Why does it hurt to be judged by one I sought to see dead? He had no time to contemplate such things, however, as the situation continued to worsen.

“Kill him,” shouted one of the guards to his side. “He’s no monk nor plague bearer. He is a necromancer, a practicer of dark arts.”

“Do not kill him,” shouted Gepner as the guards began closing in on Tallos, swords raised. “Cut down a demon and he will only return that much stronger, you fools! Seize him, and put him in chains. …He must be burned alive.”