Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

Seeing that foolish boy cradling his wrist, in shock that it no longer ended in his hand, which was now dissolving in a ripper’s gullet, all I could think of was how Lloi had been mutilated and reduced herself. I wondered how her family had done it, and if she had looked at the small bloody nubs after, in shock that she no longer had real fingers, even though she probably knew the punishment was coming. Can you ever be prepared to have some part of you lopped off forever? Had she accepted her fate, or had she fought and had to be restrained by those she once considered kin? Given what I’d known of her, I suspected she fought hard and bloodied some folks of her own before the deed was done.

I wondered what she would have made about this captive ripper and the Anjurian and his boys who saw fit to wheel it from city to city, a dangerous attraction for those seeking cheap thrills. Would she have hated him, wished him harm? Probably not-she didn’t even hate her own people who’d mistreated her so.

But that didn’t stop me. The whole scene made me angry, and I had the impulse to shout at the keeper that he was a fraud and a villain, that it was him who deserved to lose a limb. He hadn’t mutilated the boy himself, but he might as well have, and he certainly profited. For a mad moment, I wondered-if I could somehow open the cage, would the beast attack him, its captor and tormentor? Or would it simply run, or rip open some other innocent nearby?

It struck me then how stupid that impulse to yell at the keeper was, not only because it would accomplish nothing, because there was so much commotion no one could have even heard me, but even if they could over the roar, it would only draw attention to myself. And this realization was followed by just how stupid I was being in general.

Begging Braylar to spare the young Hornman in the grass? Stupid. Not returning to the Grieving Dog immediately once I recognized him at the Fair? Compounded stupidity. And maybe leaving Rivermost with the Syldoon was the most exceptionally stupid thing I’d ever done. But I’d done it. There it was. It might have been impossible to undo. So there was nothing left to do but head to the Dog and try to make the best of things.

I left the plaza, heart heavy, stomach fluttering, not looking back at the bloody scene behind me, and made my way back to the inn. My feet were moving slowly, even if I was finally headed in the right direction.

Finally standing before the front entrance to the Grieving Dog, I couldn’t quite make myself take the final steps inside. I thought about circling the building once or twice to build up courage, but that seemed ridiculous. Still, I stood there, berating myself for not moving. It wasn’t simply fear of reprisal-I doubted my mercy (misguided as it was turning out to be) would cause the captain to do more than give me a verbal lashing, and given his peculiar condition, I might even escape that. Temporarily, at least. After all, he’d been the one holding the crossbow in the Green Sea, not me. It was his decision to spare the Hornman, even if I’d been the one who somehow convinced him. He had to recognize some culpability. Well, maybe not. But either way, it wasn’t even imagined wrath that gave me pause. It was the thought that my admission would likely cost me whatever small measure of esteem I’d attained by saving his life at the temple.

The fact that I was overwrought about potentially losing the limited respect of a man who was a scheming manipulator actually irked and emboldened me. I knocked the shit and muck off my boots as best I could, stepped through the front door, and walked up the stairs. I’d made my choice to alert Braylar-however it played out after that was how it played out. There was nothing to be gained by perseverating.

Heading down the hall, I saw Mulldoos and Vendurro standing outside the door to the common quarters. They were close together, foreheads almost touching, and Mulldoos’s huge paw was wrapped around the back of Vendurro’s neck, holding him there as he spoke quietly to the younger man. I couldn’t make out the words, which was all for the best, as the scene was clearly intimate, and a display of affection that I would never have suspected from Mulldoos. I was about to turn around and leave them to it when Vendurro nodded twice, and Mulldoos gave the smaller Syldoon a hard clap on the back, then turned and noticed me there. Whatever tenderness was on display was immediately replaced by a scowl.

Mulldoos looked at Vendurro and said, “Tell Cap I’m on it.” He started down the narrow hall, limping noticeably, clearly expecting me to make way, which I did without a word. He stopped next to me as I pressed up against a wall, and he moved in closer, and I couldn’t help but remember Vendurro doing the same thing when we first met, only he was on horse, and yet Mulldoos on foot was somehow twice as terrifying. “Got a real talent for being where you ought not to, and not being where you should. This a scribbler thing, or is being a burning arrow in the ass just something particular to you?”

The words flew out of my mouth before I had a chance to consider them, “Well, I can’t presume to speak for the entire chronicling profession, so I suppose it’s just me. Or just you who thinks so.” A wrinkle bridged his pale brows as some surprise crossed his face, and then an instant later Mulldoos elbowed me hard just below the sternum. I doubled over, grabbing onto his elbow to hold myself up, which also proved to be a mistake, as be backed up and I fell onto my hands and knees, gasping for breath that was nowhere to be found.

He leaned over and said, “Gless, dead. Lloi, deader. Hew, me, and Cap, injured plenty good. What you got going on right now, that thing filling you with a queer panic, making your eyes water, making you feel like whatever garlicky business you got in your stomach is about to come rushing back up, that ain’t nothing at all.” He patted the pommel of the big falchion on his hip. “Count yourself lucky, scribbler. Real lucky.”

Mulldoos headed down the stairs as I knelt there holding my stomach, hugging myself. Clearly, he knew how to hit a man in just the right spot, because he was right about all of the symptoms, only he neglected to mention the vision going blurry as I nearly passed out before sputtering as I finally felt my lungs start working again.

I coughed a few times, and suddenly saw a hand in front of my face. For a moment, I feared Mulldoos had returned to deliver some more good luck, but I looked up and saw Vendurro there. He offered his hand again, which I gladly accepted, and he helped me to my feet.

“Seen him do that a time or ten. Been on the receiving end more than twice. No man takes you down harder than Mulldoos. Sharp elbows, he’s got. Sharp.”

I tried to straighten, felt my stomach muscles spasm, nearly retched, waited until it passed, then tried again. My ribs were on fire from one tip to the next, but Mulldoos had been right about that, too-no lasting damage. “Why…” I waited for some more breath to come back into my lungs, and Vendurro waited with me until I could breathe without sputtering. “What did I do… why is he so angry with me?”

Vendurro had a small smile, not nearly as big and toothy as I’d come to expect, but a smile nonetheless. “Oh, wouldn’t say it’s specific to you none. Well, no more than most things and people. The lieutenant, if he’s not angry at one thing, he’s angrier at something else. But just now, I’d say it wasn’t so much what you done, but what you didn’t do. You had no armor, you got no training, and yet you come out of that scrape in the skinny trees without much of a scratch to speak of. Now, I heard Hew-spear say you handled yourself better than you had any right to in there, and stood when most would have pissed themselves and run like rabbits.