“One more day,” Daniel insisted. “It’s already late in the afternoon. We won’t get far and we know you’re safe here. By resting now, you can move faster later and make up the time.”
“I don’t know if I buy that logic.”
“I don’t know if you have a choice.” Daniel clapped him on the shoulder and stood, starting for the exit.
“Who’s the lieutenant here?” Craig murmured.
“You are.” He didn’t need to see Daniel’s face to hear the amusement at his sudden insistence on recognizing rank. In a weird way, Craig felt like he had just lost an unspoken game they’d been playing. Daniel paused near the tunnel entry, and Craig fought for something to retort with, but came up empty. “With your leave, then?” Daniel asked.
“Very well, solider.” Craig twisted stubbornly, propping himself against the wall. “Though I expect the best walking stick you can find.”
Daniel gave a stiff and overly formal salute. “Yes, sir!”
Craig waited until he could no longer hear Daniel’s footsteps shuffling against the stone. Straightening his good leg, he eased himself back onto the ground. Laughter overtook him unexpectedly. He was wounded and one of only two men who knew of an attack launching on the Imperial army’s forces. Somehow, amid it all, he had found an ally he hadn’t been seeking but was now immensely relived to have.
So perhaps everything else was slightly less impossible.
14. Daniel
They moved forward steadily through the forest. Not fast, but not painfully slow either. Craig was determined to make progress—just as Daniel was determined to keep the lieutenant’s wound clean and secure.
When they stopped the first night, Craig was hissing in pain.
“Stay still or it’ll hurt more,” Daniel scolded. His hand wrapped around Craig’s knee, trying to keep his leg in one spot so he could unravel the bandage.
“Maybe if you were a bit more gentle I wouldn’t be moving so much,” Craig shot back.
Daniel wanted to feel sympathy. The man had just spent the day walking on a wound that would lay up most for a week or two, at least, without proper clerical care. Unfortunately for Craig, sympathy could rarely be afforded in war.
“I’m sure it’s fine. It doesn’t need to be re-bandaged every day.”
“In this heat? It most certainly does.” Daniel continued to unwind the remnants of his shirt that he’d cut when Craig had first fallen into the pit. He made the mental decision that today he’d sacrifice the other arm. “The springroot needs to keep being applied. Last thing you want is infection getting in there from sweat or grime.”
“Have you looked at us? We’re grime incarnate.” Craig grinned through gritted teeth.
“You’re not wrong.” It was past obscene how long it had been since they last properly bathed.
“When we get to the main host and deliver this letter, and word of the impending attack… I’ll put in a good word for you with the prince.”
“You don’t need to do that.” Daniel hoped his assistance would be obvious enough to merit some kind of increase in pay—a lump sum gift, at the very least.
“I most certainly do. Friends don’t ignore the opportunity to lift up their friends when given the chance.”
Daniel pretended to focus on the wound. The worst was almost completely healed; all that remained was the beginnings of an angry scar. Friends. The thought echoed in his mind. Daniel had never acquired many friends throughout the years. There was another farmhand in the neighboring field whom he would sometimes break for lunch with, a young man only a few years older than him, and one or two drinking buddies in the town center of Paca.
And, of course, Willow.
He’d never felt lonely, but he’d always been so focused on everything else that needed to be done that he didn’t spend a lot of time sowing seeds of a social circle.
“Well, I suppose I’ll repay the favor in some way.”
“You already are.” Craig leaned back. Daniel could see the tension in his shoulders unraveling as the springroot seeped into his muscle. “After all, we’re brothers now.”
“Are we?”
“You saved my life.” The man nodded down at his leg.
“I suppose you did the same.” Daniel leaned back onto the ball of his right foot, taking a knee to start slicing down the arm of his shirt.
“And how is that? Certainly not leaving you for a noru cat.”
“Which I still haven’t forgiven you for.” Daniel stopped the ripping of fabric long enough to make sure his words, and look, weren’t lost.
They only served to make Craig laugh. “Sure have an odd way of showing it. Is this that infamous Eastern hospitality I keep hearing of?”
Daniel only snorted, returning to the task at hand.
“You still haven’t answered the question, soldier.”
“Well…” Daniel began wrapping the wound anew. “I’d certainly be lost without you here to navigate.” It felt like a needed confession, and he hoped Craig would also hear the apology for getting them off track in the first place.
“Just so.” Craig said simply.
With that, Daniel knew that his remorse was heard, all was forgiven, and he hadn’t lost his standing in the army in the process.
The next day, Craig led as needed, taking them deeper into the forest. Daniel didn’t question how he knew the direction without map or way-finding tools. The man simply seemed to have a knack for knowing the way.
The day after that, Daniel finally questioned the matter, out of curiosity more than anything else. Craig’s explanation made little sense and sounded like its own form of magic. Something about having an internal pull toward places, his mind being able to reconstruct distances based on turns.
In the end, Daniel was left with no other option than to simply trust the man who claimed to know the right path ahead. He kept his hand on his blade and eyes at the ready. The foliage hung around them, concealing enemy movements they knew weren’t too far off. Two men, in a race against the mechanizations of an entire army.
Things remained quiet until they were about a day from the capital. Then, their quiet progression ended abruptly.
15. Craig
Daniel held his arm across Craig’s chest, stopping him mid-stride. Craig watched the other man’s eyes dart around nervously, a low curse uttered under his breath. He couldn’t identify any reason to be so alarmed, but that made Daniel’s sudden change in pace all the more alarming.
“What is it?” Craig whispered, finally.
“Do you hear that?” Daniel breathed in reply.
“What?”
“Movement.” Daniel’s head tilted left, his eyes narrowing as he peered through the foliage.
Craig tried to be still, tried to hold his breath, even, but he couldn’t hear anything other than the normal sounds of the forest. Had Daniel acted so strangely a few days ago, Craig might have scolded him, or brushed off his concerns. But the Easterner had since proved himself an opportunist, keenly aware of his surroundings at all times.
At least, keenly aware when they weren’t bickering.
Daniel’s head snapped to attention, forward and just to the left of their projected path. Craig squinted, as if that would somehow make him hear better. Yet again nothing came to him. Just when he was about to write off the oddity as his companion’s paranoia, he heard the snapping and rustling just barely at the edge of his awareness.
“I hear it too.” Craig tried to keep his voice down and his ears trained on the sound, lest he loose it.
Daniel looked between Craig and the sound. Craig knew instantly what the other man was thinking.
“Scout ahead, I’ll wait here, hidden.” This was not the time to be proud. “But by the Mother, do not get caught and wind up dead.”
“Yes, sir.” Daniel pushed the messy shag of his
hair away from his eyes. It almost stayed in place due to sweat and grime and the copious moisture in the air.
Craig hobbled to a nearby tree. There wasn’t much shelter to be found here and the best he could do was wedge himself tightly between the large gnarls of two roots, sword at the ready. Daniel gave him one long look and proceeded to resurrect a large fern from the forest floor. He wedged one end up by Craig’s head, letting it arc over him, casting him in shade.
“Be careful.”
“You as well.”
As Craig watched Daniel leave, the soldier suddenly looked far less green. He was certainly still rough around some edges… but those could only be buffed down with time and experience. If he kept living, kept fighting, Craig saw the makings of an exceptional swordsman. Maybe even a passable lieutenant.
Waiting was torment. By the time Daniel slunk back to his location, Craig’s left hand had gone numb from where he had twisted it to keep his sword at the ready. He needn’t have bothered; Daniel’s expression told him everything he needed to know before the younger soldier spoke.
“It’s a host, a good size, at least a full Imperial legion,” Daniel reported.
“Headed in that direction?” Craig spun the world in his mind. Green blurred against green until the top suddenly lost all momentum, coming to a halt before him. He held up a finger to the east.
“Yes, it seems so,” Daniel affirmed. “I didn’t want to risk getting too close.”
“As you shouldn’t have.” Craig rested his chin in his palm, struggling with their current situation. “They’re marching to the Imperial Army.”
“How far are we from Soricium?”
“A day and a half, perhaps,” Craig murmured, thinking aloud. He mentally traversed the rugged landscape several times over. “Were any on noru cats? Or mounted on any other beast these jungles can conjure up?”
“Didn’t appear so. Most were on foot.” Daniel answered Craig’s next question—if they were moving by treetops as Groundbreakers could do—before he could even ask it.
“At least we’re well-matched there.”
“How do you figure?” Daniel gave a pointed look at Craig’s leg.
“We have a shot.” Craig stood. “They think they have the element of surprise. They’ll rest this night, traverse the rest tomorrow, strike in the dead of night the day after.”
“Seems likely…”
“Then if we push, we should be able to make it to Soricium to give warning.” And deliver this Father-damned letter, Craig added privately. But even in his moment of greatest frustration, Craig didn’t give in to the idea of giving up on his mission—not after he’d come so far.
Daniel paused, looking out across the foliage. Craig wondered what insights his mind saw. He knew for certain they weren’t geographical. “We still won’t make it in time to give sufficient warning.”
“We have to try.” Craig was surprised by his friend’s defeatist stance.
“I don’t disagree.” Daniel’s voice had a somewhat faraway quality to it. “But we have to deliver the message without being there to deliver the message.”
“What?” Craig wasn’t a fan of riddles.
“We need to alert them to the presence of an incoming force without actually telling them the horde is on its way.”
“A signal, of sorts.” Craig sussed out.
“Exactly, and I think I know just the thing.” Daniel stood and held out a hand to Craig. They were on the move again as Daniel spoke in a rush. “Did you ever see the ruins of old Soricium?”
Craig thought about it a long moment, recalling towering structures of stone and earth still standing stubbornly against the trees that surrounded them. They were decaying relics of bygone days, representative of something Craig had never understood—or rather, had never bothered to think about.
“I think so?”
“The crumbling towers and walls? You had to see them, they stick out.”
“Yes, yes, I know.” It was true. Such construction was more Southern in style and seeing it here, in the North, was jarring. It seemed contraindicated to the tree cities curled against the trunks of the mammoth leafy guardians of the jungles.
“There should be some on the outer edge of Soricium. I remember seeing the markers of one on the way out. Can you get us to the southeast corner?”
“Maybe if we hadn’t had someone directing us northward.”
Daniel had the decency to look apologetic for his past stubbornness. But he also didn’t dissolve into platitudes. They’d moved on from such things; the man didn’t linger, and Craig respected him all the more for it.
“If we can make it down there in a day, even a day and change… We could beat the army there, get to the top of one of those towers, and light a signal.”
“This relies on a lot…” Craig tried to focus on the idiocy of Daniel’s plan rather than the increasing ache in his calf. “Someone seeing the signal, knowing what it means, then them being able to react, to take action—”
“It’s all we have,” Daniel interrupted. Craig watched the moment Daniel realized he’d interrupted a superior overcome his face before the Easterner added, “Unless you can think of something better.”
Craig made an attempt. But the facts were simple and damning. There wasn’t a faster way they could make it to Soricium, not with his leg as it was. They certainly couldn’t take on the army on their own.
“I cannot.” Craig cast his lot in with the Easterner. The man had saved his life, had proven resourceful and determined. He’d done everything he could, despite Craig being willing to sacrifice him as a casualty of war, to thwart the noru cat. And his efforts had been successful so far. Craig could trust him a little bit longer. “I’ll lead the way to the southeast of Soricium… and let’s pray someone sees our signal, and interpret it correctly.”
“Good thing Prince Baldair himself studied military signaling in his basic training.”
“Pardon?”
“You didn’t honestly think you were the only soldier who’d done some research on the Golden Guard, did you?” Daniel gave the smallest of smirks. He looked more like a boy playing coy than a man wielding the power of secret knowledge.
“Well, aren’t you just full of surprises, Easterner?”
“Don’t underestimate us farmers.”
Craig agreed mutely, gritting his teeth for a moment at the pulsing pain that shot through him when a low shrub raked across his calf. When he found his breath again, something compelled him to share in that borderline conspiratorial smile. Something he was unfamiliar with, that felt curiously like kinship.
“Never again, my friend,” he vowed. “Never again.”
16. Daniel
It was twilight when the terrain morphed into something that could be called “familiar territory.” They had trekked nearly non-stop through the blistering midday heat and chilling darkness of the forest at night. Their only pause was for a brief reprieve in the form of a restless, exhaustion-induced half-sleep.
Daniel’s eyelids felt heavy and his feet dragged. He hadn’t thought their trip to Soricium would be easy, but he certainly hadn’t expected the pitfalls they’d encountered along the way. What could’ve been a break from the bloodshed had in fact become motivation to return to the relative ease of the front.
At least then he’d have a tent, and a whole host of people around him.
But the Mother worked in mysterious ways. He’d heard Westerners talk of lines of fate, and praying to the crimson sky of dawn. Daniel didn’t know if he believed in all that, but life had a funny way of working itself out all too precisely to be perfect chance. Nothing about this journey had gone the way he’d expected. Yet he still felt like he’d found one of the most important allies of his life in the limping man next to him.
“Not much further now,” Daniel encouraged quietly. His low voice didn’t
come from fear of discovery as much as the inability to muster a more powerful sound.
“I’m fine.”
It had been their only discussion for the past few hours: Daniel promising that it wasn’t much further—even though he wasn’t the one leading, even though he’d only just begun to get a vague idea of where they were. Craig continued to hear between his words, to listen to the unspoken “hang in there” injected beneath them.
This time, they were both lying.
Daniel glanced warily at Craig’s leg. Blood soaked through the last of the fresh bandages. He’d need the sincere attention of a cleric, and soon. If all went well, he would have it. If all didn’t go well, Craig’s leg would be the least and last of their worries.
He raised his eyes to the ghostly silhouette of a long-abandoned structure. It stood against time, bleaching in the moonlight like the picked-clean bones of some unfortunate beast, corpse laying forgotten in the rocky stretch of land where the fertile Eastern plains meet the Waste. Daniel didn’t know what purpose this building had once served, but now, the tombstone-shaped ruin was to become their altar of salvation. Trees stretched up around the half-collapsed stone building—or perhaps it had been a wall, winding vines locking it into a forever embrace with the jungle.
“Okay, we’re here. Now what?”
Daniel didn’t blame Craig for being slightly snappish. After all, the man had just pushed himself to the limit on Daniel’s hope alone… and a little white lie about Prince Baldair. Not that he should ever find that out.
“I’ll scale to the top.” He began searching for a good way to get purchase upward. Hand and foot holds were plentiful, but the crumbling, weathered stone made every decision perilous. “And then I’ll light a big fire.”
“Using what?” Craig questioned.
“My flint.”
“What will you light?” He was relentless.
Daniel’s mind thought wildly. He needed something that would go up quickly. The vines that clung up the ruins were too green, too wet to catch. He needed a fire bright and hot, but more than just a flash—something that would sustain long enough to be seen.