Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

The big corporal made the sign of the double circle over his heart. “Sorcery.”

“I’ve heard it said,” Winter said. “Or some trick with powders and potions. Someone once told me the fin-katar eat only poison pear and drink only scorpion venom.” Her brain felt like it was slowly starting to work again. “What the hell was he doing here , though?”

“Plenty of priests with this army, looked like,” Bobby said.

“The Redeemers hate the old priesthood,” Winter said. “They blame them for leading the people astray in the first place.”

Folsom shook his head. “Infidels.”

Winter hadn’t known the big man was particularly pious, but then she knew little enough about him. Or any of them, for that matter.

“You can’t tell me that was what we heard moaning,” Bobby said, eyeing the enormous corpse.

“No.” As her heart calmed, weariness seeped back into Winter’s limbs. She found that she’d suddenly lost her taste for her mission of mercy. “But maybe we ought to go back. God only knows who else is hiding somewhere around here.”

Folsom nodded fervently. His cheek was already purpling into what promised to be a hideous bruise. Bobby looked less certain, though.

“It sounded like it came from somewhere close,” the boy said. “Maybe-”

Another voice, thin and papery, like the whisper of a ghost. “Please. I’m here.”

Bobby looked around, startled, and Folsom grabbed for one of the muskets. The words, Winter realized after a moment, had been in Khandarai. Neither of the corporals understood the plea as such. She waved them hurriedly to silence and spoke aloud in the same language.

“Where? Where are you?”

“Wagon. .” The voice was faint. “Please. .”

Winter looked at the overturned wagon. It was big and solidly constructed, really too much for a single horse. There was a space under it, where the walls held the bed off the ground. The front was blocked by the driver’s box, but the back was open where the tailgate had been knocked away.

“Are you underneath?” Winter said, still in Khandarai. “You can come out. We won’t hurt you, I swear.” The voice sounded young, and probably female.

“Can’t,” it said. “Stuck.” There was a long pause, and then a muffled scream. When it came again, the voice was thick. “I can’t. .”

“Hold on.”

Winter went to the wagon, intending to circle to the open tailgate and peer underneath. Halfway there, though, she saw the pale shape of a hand, palm up. Whoever was under the wagon had been caught when it overturned, one arm pinned to the dirt by one of the wooden walls. No wonder she can’t move. The flesh of the forearm was angry red and purple where the board pressed against it.

“Folsom!” Winter said. “Can you shift this?”

The big corporal approached, looking speculative, and circled around to the rear, where he could get a grip on the bed. He gave it a tentative pull and grimaced.

“Not much,” he said. “We’d need a couple more men to flip it.”

“Just lift it a little,” Winter said. “Only for a minute.”

By now he’d seen the hand, and he nodded grimly. He squatted, put both hands under the bed, and straightened up with a grunt. The wagon came up with him, wheels spinning slowly.

The girl screamed, high and piercing. Winter took one look at her outflung arm, which had an extra bend above the elbow where the wagon had been resting, and knelt down to grab her by the legs instead. She scrabbled for a moment in the semidarkness under the wagon, uncomfortably aware of the weight that would crash down on her back if Folsom’s strength failed him, until she managed to get a grip and pull. The girl slid free, but her broken arm shifted, and she gave another shriek right in Winter’s ear. Bobby grabbed her shoulders as they emerged and pulled her away from the wagon, and Folsom let the weight fall back to earth with a crash.

“Are you all right?” Winter asked in Khandarai. She got no response, and when she leaned closer she could see that the girl’s eyes showed only the whites. Her gray skin seemed unnaturally pale.

“Dead?” Bobby asked.

Winter shook her head. The girl’s chest moved, breath coming shallow and fast.

“Passed out, I think. Her arm’s broken.” At first glance, there didn’t seem to be any other wounds. “We’ll have to carry her.”

“Carry her where?” Bobby said.

“Back to camp,” Winter said. “And-”

“To a regimental surgeon?” Bobby said.

That brought Winter up short. If the officers were turning a blind eye to rape and murder, she doubted the surgeons would have much time for an injured grayskin.

“Back to my tent, then,” Winter said. She wondered if someone had set up their tents, or if they’d all been written off for dead.

“Someone will see,” Bobby said. “What are you going to tell them?”

There was a long pause while Winter chewed her lip.

“Wrap her in a blanket,” Folsom said, dusting off his hands. “Another wounded man carried into camp. Nobody’ll notice.”

Winter looked down at the unconscious girl. She had a heart-shaped face, gray skin dusted with soot, and long, dark hair that was a mass of dirt and tangles. She wore only a simple gray robe, cinched at the waist with a wispy cord belt. Winter guessed she was younger than Bobby.

“We’ll try it,” she said. “And then I’ll think of something.”

• • •

Getting the girl into camp was easier than Winter had dared hope. The Colonials had raised their tents upwind of the burning Redeemer camp, within easy distance of the little brook as it emerged from the valley and ran into the sea. The city of blue canvas was the same shape and size as ever, as though nothing had happened, and the sentries only looked them over briefly and then waved them through.

The Seventh Company’s tents had indeed been erected along with the rest. Winter saw no one as she and the two corporals threaded their way to her own dwelling. It was after full dark, and if the rest of the men were as exhausted as she was, they were no doubt sound asleep. The need to collapse was almost overwhelming, but she held it off for the moment.

Folsom let the girl down on Winter’s pallet. Her eyes were tightly closed now, and Winter couldn’t tell if she was awake or not. A soft moan escaped her lips as her broken arm touched the ground.

“That needs tending,” Folsom said.

Winter, finally sitting, was wondering if her legs would actually drop off. She gave a weak nod.

“Fetch. .” She paused. Someone in the company had set broken arms before, surely, but inquiring openly would give the game away. “Bobby, fetch Graff. You’ll probably have to wake him.” The gruff corporal was a veteran. Doubtless he’d dealt with this sort of thing before.

“Right,” Bobby said. The boy’s eyes were bright with exhaustion, but he went nonetheless.

Folsom grunted and left the tent as well, returning a few moments later with a cracker of hardtack and a block of Khandarai cheese in one hand and a canteen in the other. These he offered to Winter, who took them gratefully. She’d had nothing to eat since morning but a few crumbs gobbled in haste in the ravine, and even dry the hardtack was welcome. The cheese was a touch overripe, but she sliced and devoured it anyway, and washed it down with the lukewarm water.

Graff pushed his way in, rubbing sleepy eyes, with Bobby behind him.

“Glad to see you made it, Sergeant,” he said, “but I don’t see-” He stopped when he saw the girl on the pallet. “Who’s this, then?”

“We picked her up in the camp,” Winter said quietly. “Her arm’s broken. Can you do anything for her?”