Captain Barrett returned to the tent reeking of ale and neither spoke to me, nor lit a candle. I heard the clatter of his armor being removed, followed shortly by the wheeze of weight settling on an old mattress.
“Wouldn’t you like a story before bed?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you. I think Captain Harmon loves stories.” I heard him roll over.
“Do you need to be killed again?”
“Does anyone ever need to be killed?”
“Normally, I would say no. But your master does. I've never seen the work of such evil.”
“Oh, good,” I said. “Because that’s the theme of tonight’s story. You see, the last time my side found spies among us, we didn't just pop them into cages like market canaries.” I took a deep breath and shifted into a more comfortable roost before continuing. “Before this dusty headache of a war started, I sat comfortably in my lord’s court of wonders. One day, spies were discovered in our ranks, assassins sent to cut down the Magician when he least suspected. We identified them, watched them...and invited them to dinner.”
“That's enough.”
“Half of them,” I continued, “accepted the invitation without question. Optimists, I suppose, for no one could be so stupid. The feast was a lavish affair, a parade of wine, and cheese, and candied fruit...” I drifted for a moment in the warm remembrance. “Crowned at last with the presentation of the roast beast.”
Harmon shifted on the mattress, but did not interrupt.
“You should have seen the looks on their faces when the trays came in. Each spy who'd been smart enough to run was in attendance then, apples in mouths, skin crackling and golden as a suckling pig's. They were still alive, too,” I added. “The Magician had seen to it that they would die only at his choosing, and he made their fellows eat until they were sick.”
Harmon was silent, and I feared he might have drifted off, until at last he said, “And then what?”
“And then the Magician grew bored and had them all killed. Which is how most of my stories end, come to think of it.”
“Wonderful. Shut up now, I need my rest. We're advancing the attack tomorrow.” He was quiet for a moment, then the mattress rustled as he shifted. “Shouldn't have told you that.”
“Perhaps not, but I appreciate it. A tale for a tale.”
He grunted something and said no more, leaving me alone in the dark with the heavy rhythm of his slumber.
I did not sleep that night.
Instead, I pulled my wings in tight and sidled, inch by inch, until my back was to the captain's bed, then I scraped my fingernails along the wooden floor of my cage, hunting for seams, for flaws, for any weakness that could be pried apart. The boards were old and weak, ripping up in thick splinters that had to be chewed out from beneath my nails.
I spent half the night scratching a fist sized hole in the wood, growing ever more excited as my exit widened. I tore two nails deep enough to bleed, but I kept digging. Nothing was going to stop me. I was going to break out of this rat's nest and fly back to my shining lord.
I did not sense the iron bars until my fingers brushed them, their quiet danger hid beneath the constant alarm from the cage all around me. My fingertips singed with cold and I drew back, stung. My fingers flew instinctively to my mouth, like a burned child's.
Over my shoulder, Harmon spoke, his voice thick with sleep. “Cella,” he moaned. “Wait. Why won't you...?” Waves of anguish hit me, rolling off the bed like storm clouds. “Cella...”
I inched back around until I could see the dark mound of the sleeping captain. He said no more for the rest of the night, but I watched him all the same.
Captain Barrett rose and began putting on his armor well before dawn. He seemed to be moving slowly, carefully, as if trying not to make noise.
“I'm already awake, Captain.”
He went silent, frozen in the dark. “I don't give a damn if you're standing on your head,”he proclaimed and continued dressing, much louder now.
I could hear a similar clamor from outside the tent. “Early morning skirmish, is it?”
“You know it is.” I heard him tightening buckles on a leather belt. “I already told you that last night.”
“Raising many questions. I heard you warn the men about being alone near me, and yet here I am, uncomfortably, almost intimately close to you. Why?”
“Couldn't leave you caged out there. Another spy could spot you. They could mount a rescue.”
“Perhaps, but why in here? You told them it was dangerous-”
“There are many things I will subject myself to, to spare my men. Your company included.” He finished dressing and his second in command came to fetch him. I heard them move out shortly after, their feet pounding the dirt, armor clanging.
How I yearned to be among them, dropping stones on their skulls from on high, as easy as killing rats. My legs were so cramped they screamed at any movement, and my crowded wings ached. I could stretch them through the bars, carefully, one at a time, but my legs wouldn't fit, and the cage was too short for me to stand. I massaged my thighs as best I could before tucking my head under my left wing and closing myself into a feathered cocoon. I slipped fitfully into uneasy sleep and dreamed of the battle outside, the blood, the screaming, the glory...
I awoke, hours later, to the sound of that same screaming, and peeled my wings apart to see that Captain Barrett had returned.
He stood around his table with the second in command and two others whose faces I did not know. They paid me no mind, hunched and muttering over a map.
The screams came from somewhere outside, but nearby. A medic's tent?
“How did it go?” I asked, lazily folding my wings back.
Harmon did not look up, but his second did, his eyes filled with hate. The men were all bloody, dirt-streaked, and beaten. Harmon's right shoulder was bandaged, and three claw marks raked his temple, disappearing into the tan bristle of hair.
“You'll need your medics to clean those cuts,” I told him. “Otherwise they'll fester, and in two days your head will swell up like a rotting melon.”
“The medic has more on his mind than my little scrapes.”
“Yes, so I hear.” I grimaced. “Don't they have anything to shut the poor bastard up?”
One of Barrett's men mumbled something that sounded like an epithet.
“Had I a way of inducing silence, angel, you would be the first to know.” Harmon kept his gaze on the map, but between me and the squalling soldier, he had no hope of focus.
“Let me see him,” I said.
“No.”
“Let me sing to him. I can ease his pain.”
“Why would you?” He snapped, looking up at last. “From the tenderness of your heart?”
“To stop the piglet's squealing.”
Harmon shook his head and ignored me, pointing forcibly to something on the map, but the men were only half listening. The screams continued for another minute before Harmon's shoulders slumped and he sighed. He said something to his men, and they all trooped out.
I craned my neck to see the map, but could make no sense of their squiggles and charcoal smudges.
One of his men reappeared, holding open the tent flap.
I gulped in lungfuls of the cold, smoky air, feeling it chase away the tent's smothering stillness.
The wailing grew louder as three men bore the wounded soldier inside on a stretcher. The medic had washed him, but his midsection was mottled black and purple from nipple to hip.
“He was trampled,” one of them shouted over the soldier's din. “Run down by a-”
“Yes, I know what did this.” I shifted so that I could see his face, pale and drawn, his eyes squeezed tight. Every breath must have been agony. It was a wonder he still lived.
“Listen to me,” I called above his howls. “Listen to my song.”
He could not hear me above his
own wail.
“Listen!” I bellowed, my wings flaring out, my voice growing resonant.
The soldier did not quiet much, but he opened his welling eyes and looked at me. It would serve.
I sang him a soothing song about a woman who grew poppies on a hillside, whose hair was brighter than gold. It was a silly song, empty and vain, but it took his mind off the anguish.
He quieted to feeble sobs.
I told him how the medic would fix him, how he'd numb the pain with herbs, and set the bones so they could heal properly. All he had to do, I told him, was sleep. Just sleep, and rest, and regain his strength, because once his bones were healed, great feats still awaited.
The soldier drifted into heavy, silent slumber with the faint hint of a smile on his lips.
The others stared at me.
“Take him out of here,” Harmon said softly. “Keep him somewhere warm. I want a status report in the morning.”
The men carried him back out, glancing over their shoulders at me as if I were made of gold.
When they were gone, Harmon sank onto his bed. “What was that? What you just did...it was a miracle.”
“It was a song and a lie,” I said. “It's what I do.”
“But you...healed him-”
“I showed him peace. I cannot heal him any more than your medic can. If he's lucky, he'll die in his sleep. Otherwise, the pain will return, and it's much harder for a mind to accept the same lie twice.”
He sat on his bed like an ugly child, hands clasped between his knees, staring at me. “Thank you, angel.”
“Z'el,” I said. “And don't thank me, let me out. My legs are screaming to be stretched.”
He shook his head. “I'd never survive such an act of mercy. Can I get you something else? Another bone? Some meat?” His gaze passed over the tent's meager interior. “Some wine?”
“Yes, fine. I'll have a cup of your swill.”
He poured a dubious red into a dented tin cup and held it out to me.
I reached carefully through the bars, and realized that he was within my grasp. I could dig my claws into his forearm and haul him closer, maybe even close enough to throttle him...my fingers closed around the tin cup, and I brought it back inside my cage.
A wave of realization poured off him as he grasped how close he had just come to disaster. Harmon took a step back.
“Thank you,” I said as I took a sip of the thin, sharp wine.
He retreated to his bed again. “I don't understand you,” he admitted. “Each time I think I have you pegged, you defy my expectations.”
I shrugged, swirling the wine back and forth in my mouth before swallowing. It had none of the electric charge of blood, but it brought a pleasant, buzzing light into my head. “I am not a simple creature.”
“No,” he agreed.
“My service to the boy must be worth more than a cup of wine. Not enough to earn my freedom perhaps, but enough to earn some answers?”
Harmon inclined his head. “More than fair. Z'el.”
My name sounded heavy and wrong in his mouth, but I did my best not to wince. “Who is Cella?” I asked, enjoying the way Harmon's whole posture stiffened, as if he'd been pricked in the ribs with a dagger. “And why wouldn't she wait?”
His face turned a deep pink. “How do you know about that?”
I shook my head. “It's my turn for questions. You agreed. Tell me about Cella.”
He hissed an ugly breath, then lowered his head. “We were betrothed, before your demon army advanced and started all this.”
“And she wouldn't wait for you to return. So what happened? Did she choose another?” He shook his head. “She thought she was pregnant, and didn't think she could raise a child on her own, while I was away, or if I never made it back. Her own father had died when she was young, and she didn't want her child to suffer as she had. So, she went to a local woods witch for herbs to shed the child. I told her to wait, that maybe her mother could help her raise it, or that perhaps she was mistaken, and there was no child to begin with. I think...she panicked.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Even the witch told her to wait, but she didn't. Cella took the herbs, and died, bleeding, the day before our army marched out.”
“Was there a child?”
Harmon shook his head again. “They never told me.”
“That's a heavy burden to carry into war.” I emptied the tin cup.
“Is there any other kind?” Harmon stood from the bed and walked over to study his map. I couldn't tell if he really stared at the charcoal lines, or if he looked through them. I clinked the little cup against the bars to draw his attention, then stuck my arm through, offering him the empty vessel.
He approached without concern, and again, lingered with my reach.
The urge to grab him was much weaker this time, more afterthought than instinct. I frowned, but he did not seem to see.
Harmon refilled the cup from his wine flagon and took a sip, then began to pace from his map table to the bed, to my cage, and back.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking,” he said, chewing a thumbnail.
“Does it require that much pacing? You're making me dizzy.”
He sat on the bed but did not look at me. His unfocused gaze stayed on the ground. “What would you do for your freedom?” He asked.
I narrowed my eyes, but did not answer. This had all the makings of a trap.
After a long silence, he drained the cup and set it aside. “Think on it, Z'el. I have to join the men for supper. I'll bring you something.”
I stared at the tent-flap after he left and puzzled over the question. What would I do? What did he mean?