Martin Hengst - The Last Swordmage

The Captain lay there for a moment, his breathing finally slowing and some color returning to his cheeks. It seemed like a long time to Tiadaria before he opened his eyes again. Those eyes, normally full of fire, were dull and listless.

“Captain?” Tiadaria was embarrassed that her voice broke the way it did, but she had never seen a man reduced so quickly.

“I’ll be fine, little one,” he replied. His voice was low and tired. To Tia, it sounded as if he was reassuring himself as much as her. “I think we’re done training for today.”

She nodded, settling back on her heels. He struggled to sit up, resting his blade across his thighs as he gave her a measuring look.

“This is only going to get worse, little one. Are you up to it?”

She wasn’t sure if he meant his illness, or the care that came afterward. She decided that it really didn’t matter what he meant. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. Her training was the only thing that had ever made her feel as if she was good at something, as if she had a purpose. If caring for him after his episodes was a part of that training, then so be it.

“Of course, Sir,” she smiled. A tentative thing that danced on quivering lips. “Just tell me what you need of me?”

“Allow me to lean on you until we get back to the cottage…and let’s do so quickly. It wouldn’t do at all for the people of the village to see me in this state. Can you imagine the damage it would do my reputation?”

Tiadaria had to laugh. That sounded more like the Captain she knew. He seemed to rally the nearer they got to the cottage. By the end of the evening, Tiadaria had forgotten about the incident. That was just as well, it would be repeated more often than she would have liked during their time together.

It was barely dawn when a rapping on the door of the guardhouse roused Lieutenant Torus from a fitful sleep. His back and shoulders were sore and he groaned as he straightened up, the chair creaking underneath him. He had fallen asleep at the table again, poring over troop movements and casualty reports from Aldstock. The elves were riled up about something again. They were usually fanatical about keeping their borders, but they’d never been outwardly hostile before. He’s lost two good men to arrow wounds in the last week and a half. Something was definitely changing. The rapping returned, increasing in both speed and intensity.

“Alright! Alright!” He muttered several colorful oaths under his breath as he hefted his massive frame, pushing off on the table to steady legs gone numb from sleeping in armor. His feet felt as if they had become extensions of his heavy plate boots. It was as if his joints had rusted during his impromptu nap.

Torus yanked open the guardhouse door and peered down at the little man who stood on the threshold. He might as well have been a city rat, Torus thought. The black eyes set a little too close together, a nose a little too long and pointed to be attractive, even for a man. He wore simple dyed linen, much patched and still fraying in many locations.

“Yes?” the lieutenant demanded peremptorily.

The little man’s hands worried at the wide brim of the floppy hat he clutched between dirt-stained fingers. He looked back over his shoulder, and then back at the lieutenant, clearing his throat incessantly.

“Um, sir, the villagers, they, uh…”

Torus ground his teeth. Getting angry wasn’t going to help matters. He knew that as soon as he raised his voice to this quivering creature in front of him, that it would be completely useless trying to get any worthwhile information out of him altogether. He stood aside and swept his arm in a wide gesture.

“Please, come inside.”

He was unaccustomed to any type of civility, Torus realized as the man stepped sideways past him into the guardhouse common room. The lieutenant pulled out a chair and gestured, a bit firmly, for the man to take a seat. He poured a cup of spiced wine from the skin warming by the hearth and passed the tin cup to his guest. The man’s thin fingers grasped it as if he had been handed a holy golden chalice. He took a sip of the wine and visibly relaxed.

“How can I help you?” Torus asked, deciding to try a soft touch.

“Well, sir, the villagers asked me to come to you. They…we…know that you have men down by the tree line. We, uh, we think something may have happened to them.”

“Why do you think that?”

The man swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down in a nervous tick that threatened to drive Torus past the edge of his patience.

“Sir, we was doing a bit of trading with your boys. You know, sweets and ale and the like, and we goes down there to play at dice sometimes. We ain’t looking to get them into trouble…”

“Whatever trouble they get in, isn’t your concern, now tell me why you think something’s happened.”

“Yes, Sir. We was going to take some bacon down to your boys this morning, but there’s no fires and then tents is all pulled down and grass is all torn up around the camp. We didn’t get close, on account of them being any wood-dwellers still around. They shoot arrows at us if we is gettin too close to the trees.”

Torus swore under his breath and the man reddened, the wine in his cup threatening to splash over the rim, his hands were shaking so violently. The lieutenant reached across and plucked the cup from the man’s grasp, setting it firmly on the table.

“You’ll take me there, immediately.”

Torus grabbed his helm from the shelf above the table and picked up his long sword from the rack beside the door. It was a well weathered weapon, with many dings and scratches. It had been his since he had been sworn into the guard as a youngster and had served him through his entire service. The feel of it sliding into the scabbard slung over his shoulder was comforting and brought a sense of peace to him that few things did.

He reached up and pulled the rope that lead to the bell in the barracks. The loud pealing echoed through the room and the mousy man clasped his hands over his ears.

“Get up, you lazy bastards!” Torus roared down the hallway. “There’s trouble and we need to see what kind.”

To their credit, his soldiers appeared through the doorway momentarily, pulling on plates of thick leather armor and buckling on scabbard and quiver. They presented themselves to the officer with a crisp salute, which he returned before he looked them over. Not bad for an emergency muster, he thought. He pulled a strap here, untwisted a buckle there, but the three kids in his charge were as ready as they were going to be.

It was fortunate that the path down to the tree line wasn’t too far from the guardhouse. The nearer they got to the forward camp, the more nervous the villager became. Before long, reached the split rail fence that separated the village proper from the wide swathe of land that marked the border between the Imperium and Aldstock, the ancestral home of the elves. The villager refused to go any further, showing a surprising amount of backbone that Torus wouldn’t have believed he possessed had he not seen it.

Torus wondered for a moment if the man or the villagers hadn’t had something to do with the attack, but that didn’t add up. Why would the man have come to tell them that something was amiss? Certainly they’d have tried to avoid the confrontation altogether. Besides, the man was genuinely afraid of going any further toward the camp. They had been there before, playing dice, so there was no reason that he should not want to return unless he really felt there was something wrong.

From the gentle slope above the camp, it was obvious that there was something amiss. The tents, normally pulled taut against their supporting poles, sagged limply toward the dew-covered ground. The fire rings had been scattered and no whisper of smoke scented the morning breeze. Clothing and cookery items were scattered about. Most disturbing, however, were the weapons that lay, abandoned, around the camp.