Nor
tracks as a scream rent the night. It hung in the air, wavering, a sound to freeze the breath.
It came from Hulgar, a private in Emberly’s company. Stumbling into their midst, he screamed himself breathless and fell to his hands and knees, hacking and panting.
He was a giant man, nearly as large as any two others combined. His muscles trembled and shone with sweat. As his coughing subsided, he began to sob, loudly and unreservedly.
For a moment, no one around the fire said anything. Among the tents, voices called out, and heads emerged from openings.
Orund knelt next to Hulgar, the fight apparently forgotten. He spoke gently. “What is it, friend?”
Hulgar’s grief continued as if no one else was there. Orund placed a hand on his back. Others tensed as if expecting an outburst, but Hulgar smothered Orund’s hand with his own then held it to his face, wetting it with tears.
Orund gulped and put his other hand on the private’s head. “You’re here with us.”
In the firelight, Hulgar’s eyes were beads, and his tears ran gold down to his beard. He sniffed and shook his head. “No, and I won’t be ever again.”
Squatting, Orund laid his arm across the man’s back. His fingertips did not reach Hulgar’s far shoulder. “Can you feel this? Hold on.”
The private nodded. His face distorted with his inner struggle.
“What’s happened, man? What have you taken?”
Hulgar snorted and shook his head again. Strands of saliva hung in his beard as he looked at the ground. “Nothing, sir. I just… Something happened to me, sir. I don’t know what to say. It was like a dream, but it was real. Dreams are confusing. This felt as real as you do.”
The soldiers who had come from the tents and the nearby barracks were drifting away. The scene was painful to watch. The man must be unhinged if he unabashedly admitted being troubled by nightmares, which Ronians saw as the products of a poorly disciplined mind.
The gap that separated Nor from the Ronians, his adopted people, never stopped growing. He had learned as a boy that denying one’s feelings separated one from the group. Dreams were echoes of the soul, and keeping them secret deprived one’s family and clan of their lessons.
Hulgar rose to his knees and stretched his arms toward Nor. The monk remembered the suffering faces of those whom he had given the last rites before death—a teenage boy’s, an old woman’s, many at once.
The big soldier collapsed awkwardly and groveled at Nor’s feet. “Brother, speak for me. I’ll keep my vow. Let me prove it.”
Nor’s skin crawled at the man’s worshipful pose. He knelt and spoke with the calm assurance expected of a holy man. Here was a problem he could confront without fighting. “Your vow is intact, Private, and you’ll surely prove yourself. Your sins are forgiven unless you abandon the crusade.”
“But what I saw…” Hulgar looked sick. “We aren’t worthy.” His voice grew louder, carrying across the yard. “We’ve been judged, and Huire has abandoned us. There was a man there, watching, a man made of diamonds—”
“What is this?” shouted an officer emerging from a tent. He advanced on the men with barely restrained force, his tied-back gray hair stretching the corners of his face, which was not yet old. His eyes bounced from Orund to Hulgar.
Orund replied, “Lieutenant Roark, the private here is ill. His suffering got the better of him, but he’s recovering.”
Roark shifted his barbed gaze to Hulgar, still on his knees. “What do you say, Private?”
Unaffected by the officer’s menace, Hulgar answered mildly. “Our sins have returned to us.”
Roark glared. “You had better start making sense, now.”
Hulgar straightened and spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “Our fate is sealed. It was decided there.” He pointed out into the lightless gulf of the jungle.
Roark absorbed this and knelt by the private. He spoke with great reserve.
“I hear that once in a while, soldiers vanish from this fort at night. Something takes sentries during their watch. It happened in the old days, too, at the prison camp. Ask the bishop or the captain; they’ll tell you. Private Hulgar, are you listening?”
Hulgar turned his head partway to Roark, keeping one eye on his private visions.
“We probably don’t know half of what lives out there. Some even think the jungle itself takes them. It sneaks into your mind first, grows inside you. Then one night, you climb over the wall and vanish.”
Hulgar shook. Roark said, “I don’t know if it’s true. But if you keep crying, I’ll hang you by your arms from the wall, and we’ll find out.”
Bishop Arumin had come out of his wagon and was watching from a distance, out of earshot. The captain had also appeared. Scarcely dressed, he looked around as if unsure where he was. Lucky for him, few noticed his confusion.
Hulgar’s lip trembled, a surreal expression on his powerful features. “I did it again. I was there, and I did it all over again.” A whine escaped his lips, and he wept loudly.
Roark stood with a sneer. He gazed down on the private, but he spoke to Orund. “Is this how you lead men, Sergeant?”
Dazed, Orund murmured, “He’s a good man. Fearless. He’s just confused. He must be ill.”
“He’s cracked, and he’s not the only one.” Roark looked at the others. “Did those bombs this morning really frighten you all so much? Let me tell you, worse is coming. Pull yourselves together, or you’ll end up like Hulgar here. A sad mess.” He pointed to Borna and Elisar, whose eyes were wide. “Get him on his feet.”
“Sir,” Borna muttered. He and Elisar did not move.
Roark caught a whiff of disobedience. “This man has blasphemed, ignored orders, and sacrificed his honor. He will—”
“Wait!” cried Nor.
This lieutenant hid his annoyance poorly. “Brother Norhim?”
“The private may have had a vision,” Nor said. “His dream may be a message from the Goddess.” He had no reason to believe this, but it could be true.
Roark stared at Nor as if he had sprouted wings. He pointed to Hulgar. “You think the Goddess spoke to this?”
“She speaks in strange voices,” Nor said agreeably. “The dreams she sends can be overpowering.” He wanted to save Hulgar, though he did not know why. He pitied the man, but there was more.
“But what he said… It was sacrilegious. He said Huire abandoned our company. That can’t be true.” Alarm rippled through the others.
Nor improvised. “It’s likely Hulgar saw what awaits if our mission fails. It was surely terrible for him, but it was necessary. Now he can remind us what we stand to lose. We face a world without our Goddess, for all time.”
His words released tension. Someone sighed. Arumin would probably have approved of Nor’s handling of the situation. But he wondered what Cadmon would think of him manipulating these people like puppets. Or what the Lady would think of him lying in her name for unidentifiable reasons. For the moment, it was fortunate that she only spoke to Shada, who was not here.
Hulgar’s face was a spasm of emotion. “I felt it all. My hands…” He clenched a fist and opened it.
“You’ve survived,” Nor said, offering his hand to the private. “You’ll be stronger for it. You must show your strength to your friends. Can you control your tears for them?”
A few seconds passed, and Hulgar nodded. He took Nor’s hand and stood, towering over him. A few onlookers whispered that the monk had miraculously lifted the giant. Nor let them talk. He could not tamp down every rumor.
Reaching up, Nor put his hand on Hulgar’s shoulder and guided him toward the tents. On the way, he locked eyes first with Lieutenant Roark, who glared, then with Sergeant Orund, who turned his head away.
He wondered what his own expression was telling others. He thought the bombing that morning sufficiently explained Hulgar’s outburst, and he feared his face would show his lie.
Hulgar’s face held no deception, only fear and a desperate need to trust. Nor did not think himself capable of surrender like that. He remembered the blind beggar at the temple doors in Ronia, whose empty eye sockets had fixed Nor as surely as living eyes.
When Hulgar had begged for his help, Nor would have stepped in front of a rifle to save the man’s faith from Roark’s brutal discipline.
There were worse ways to die. It might even be cowardly, a quick escape from the terrifying future. At least it would have freed Nor from the staggering weight of the envelope in his pocket, the mystery that he could not penetrate. He asked himself again, what were the gods made of?