Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

We reached the first gate, the portcullis up, the guards walking out of the gatehouse to see why a large group was departing so early in the day. There were two of them in soiled gambesons and boiled leather, neither looking especially anxious or on edge, both holding their spears as if they would rather lean on them than use them. Until they realized who they had in front of them.

When the younger guard saw Syldoon soldiers, armed, armored, with nooses on full display, he stopped, stood up straighter, tightened the grip on his spear, and immediately looked at the older guard for the lead. That man also seemed to have tensed up, but then some recognition flashed across his face, and it took me a second to place him. He was one of the guards who had allowed us to leave the city before curfew when the group had headed for the temple ruins with Captain Gurdinn and the Brunesmen.

He had large tufts of hair sticking out of his ears and below the rim of his iron helm, and gray stubble on his face, which marked him as a seasoned soldier, but probably more accustomed to breaking up the odd scuffle or running down a thief like the one in the stocks than any kind of real combat. Or facing a potential threat like the Syldoon or deciding what to do with them.

I didn’t envy him.

He recovered quickly enough though, eyes narrowing. “Saw you leaving the city the other day. Less of you, leastwise. And I recollect you were dressed a mite differently then.”

Braylar moved his helm from the crook of his right arm to the other, casually, the mail draping over his vambraces, but I had the sense that he was just freeing up his good hand to pull Bloodsounder off his belt, or the crossbow off the saddle if need be. Still, he blew on his right hand and answered nonchalantly, as if the Syldoon always trafficked in and out of an Anjurian city just after dawn. “That’s a fine memory you have. You must be quite good with faces.”

“Aye.” The older guard gave the younger a stern look, his wiry eyebrows drawn down, eyes nearly slits. The younger guard nodded as if spoken to and hurried back into the squat guard tower. It occurred to me that they surely weren’t the only two housed there, just the only two assigned to the damp and chill of inspection.

The older guard nodded. “Also recollect you were riding with the baron’s men.” Several wooden shutters above us opened simultaneously with a loud creak and I just about jumped out of the saddle. They were propped open and a fair number of archers looked down on us. Arrows were knocked, but no strings pulled back that I could tell. Still, as one of only two not wearing armor, I immediately began to sweat, chill be damned. Skeelana didn’t look any more at ease alongside me.

Continuing as if he hadn’t heard those shutters at all, the older guard said, “The baron got use for your kind here, he must have his reasons. Can’t fathom what they’d be, but that ain’t my place. So, guessing he wouldn’t be too pleased about a gate guard waking him up to ask about your kind skulking about. So there’ll be none of that.”

Braylar responded as if he, too, were oblivious to the arrows above. “Sounds as if you have a fine appreciation for your liege lord’s temperament. Restraint and good at placing faces. It’s no wonder you were given this prestigious post.”

The guard took a step forward and patted Braylar’s horse on the muzzle, as if the men were just having the friendliest exchange in the world. “No need to involve the baron none. But I’ll tell you this, Black Noose, with peace on for a while, some men in Anjuria might not have lost any to your kind, but I ain’t one of them. You and yours took my brother, just north of Brassfield. Border raid. By you cunts.”

Braylar replied, “Hmmm, I don’t recall having been to Brassfield.” He called over to Hewspear, “Did we ever raid a Brassfield, Lieutenant?”

“No, Captain. I can’t say that we ever did.”

“I thought not.” He turned back to the guard. “So I can’t take any credit or blame for that particular engagement. Did your brother fight heroically? Some men do, some men don’t. In fact, some simply shit themselves, trip over their spears, and get trampled in the mud by their own side. I do hope he died more nobly than that. Those who die gloriously are often remembered in song, but they tend not to compose too many tunes for the ones who shit themselves.”

The gate guard grabbed the reins tight, knuckles white, and looked up at Braylar. I heard bows straining as arrows were drawn back and it took all my willpower not to look up or kick my heels into my mount and run for cover. “Weren’t but two and twenty at the time, he was. Married a year. Just had a daughter. So I’m working real hard here to come up with a reason not to let my boys fill you full of arrows, Brune be damned. Figure out cause later.”

With the distinct possibility of an arrow plunging into my chest depending on the next words out of Braylar’s mouth, I was more than terrified. The captain leaned down and said, “You carry out your duty as you see fit. I can never fault a military man for acting decisively. Even if it turns out such a decision is rash in the extreme. You see, I expect the baron would not react so kindly to news of us being cut down at his gates, particularly since he summoned us to Alespell in the first place. I had the pleasure of attending the baron just the other day, in fact, as he interrogated one of his men who’d made the unfortunate mistake of acting rashly and disobeying orders. Have you been to Baron Brune’s dungeons or met his interrogator? Lovely man, though not especially chatty, with a delightful purple birthmark on his face?”

The guard didn’t respond but slowly loosened his grip on the reins. If he didn’t know the man personally, he obviously knew him by reputation. Braylar continued. “No, I expect not. Only traitors and malcontents are brought before him. With the only occasional audience being evil bastards like myself, summoned here to root out and deliver those working against your good baron. So, by all means, if you’d like to experience those cells and the delightful methods of passing the time therein, give the sign to you men, loose your bows. Cut us down to a man. Be decisive.

“Or be prudent and don’t condemn your men to torture and death. Entirely your call, gatekeeper.”

Braylar slowly straightened back up, and the older guard stood where he was, rigid. Unlike a crossbow that did the work for you, you couldn’t draw a bow for long-they would need to shoot or release the tension. I held my breath, waiting for the twang of the bowstrings and the horrible pain to follow.

But the guard released the reins, took two reluctant steps back toward the guard tower, and then slammed the end of his spear on the cobblestones, the crack reverberating, echoing off the walls of the gate and making me nearly piss myself. But when I glanced up a few seconds later, the archers had withdrawn, and the shutters were closing again. Without another word, the guard turned and headed back in the tower, no doubt choking on rage at the inability to unleash some personal vengeance on the men he held responsible for his young brother’s death. I hadn’t envied him before, but I definitely didn’t envy the next man or woman who did the slightest thing to irk him later that day. They would pay a hefty penalty.

Skeelana looked at me, face pale but forcing a smile. “Well. What an exciting morning. And still so early.”

“If nearly soiling yourself is exciting, then yes. All kinds of excitement.”

I wondered if either Memoridon had been readying to do something to help us escape the potential disaster Braylar seemed inclined to invite. But I imagined there was very little they could have done to stop the first volley of arrows.