Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

Every head nodded at this.

“That pales in comparison to the larger issue,” Inkermon said. “As vile a temptress as She is, the oath must be broken or our souls will never be free to depart to the great reward beyond. We’ll be trapped.”

The Prince’s voice could be heard clearly in the background, but no one was paying attention now.

“So what do we do?” Alwyn asked. “How do we break the oath and free ourselves from the Shadow Monarch?”

Yimt spat another wad of crute and looked around him. He held up a hand and for the briefest moment black flames danced across his upturned palm.

“My poor, sweet, thick-as-two-fat-arsed-orcs-pressed-together. I thought it would be perfectly obvious to you by now, especially in this heat.” He looked around at them with a wicked twinkle in his eye. “We make toast.”

A regiment smells.

It’s supposed to. It marches through mud and flame, washed as much by blood and filth as it is by rain. It churns the earth and rends the air as it grinds itself to a keen edge, growing thinner as it grows sharper.

It smells of sweat and urine and beer. It wears with honor the musk of old leather and the pungent sting of boot polish and the must of brick dust. The rotten-egg stink of black powder mixes with the cool tang of steel. Waves of odors steam from it in the heat, creating a distinctive blend of hewn wood, fresh manure, and maggoty bread, all filtered through the constant haze of harsh tobacco smoke.

At times, it also smells of fear, and courage-the two so inextricably entwined they are as one.

Above all, a regiment smells of life: foul, heady, and intense. The Iron Elves, however, smelled of one more thing; the oath. It permeated everything, and though no one could describe it, it was distinct and unmistakable.

Alwyn had come to think of it as a pool of spreading blood; dark, thick, and permanent. It was a subject few of the soldiers wanted to talk about, and even when he spoke with Miss Red Owl and Miss Tekoy and even Rallie, he couldn’t really explain it, and they could never fully understand.

Think staining wood, he told himself, trying to blot the image of blood from his mind. Wood could be sanded, varnished even, and painted over. Wood was malleable, natural, and retained elements of its spirit even after its death, or at least that’s what Miss Red Owl and Miss Tekoy told him.

Alwyn shifted his weight from his good leg to his wooden leg and then back again as they waited for the order to march. The Prince was still talking, but Alwyn made no effort to hear what he was saying. The sun pressed its heat down on Alwyn like a thick, flat paving stone. His head was dizzy and it felt like an oven inside his shako. He ran an already sweat-stained cuff across his forehead and tried to focus on something else.

The pack on his back was digging into the fleshy bit right above his waist. He adjusted the straps and shrugged a couple of times, but failed to find a more comfortable position. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. Soldiers carried their lives on their backs like two-legged pack mules, though Alwyn thought mules were probably treated better. He tried to think of what he could throw away the first chance he got. The obvious choice was the greatcoat and blanket wrapped into a roll and strapped to the top of his pack. The bundle forced his head forward at an uncomfortable angle, and in this kind of heat he couldn’t see why he’d need either of them.

“Sergeant,” he said as Yimt walked past checking the rows. Yimt turned and walked over, making a show of looking Alwyn up and down. “Any chance we could lose the coat and blanket?”

“Yeah, how ’bout it, Sarge?” Zwitty added, already reaching up and undoing the straps to take his off.

Yimt grabbed the hem of his caerna and began flapping it to create a breeze. “I’d be the first to admit that this heat is frying my giblets, but it won’t always be this hot. You keep that gear stowed.” A few soldiers began flapping their caernas, though not with quite the dwarf’s vigor.

Zwitty clicked his tongue. “Those sergeant’s stripes are going to your head.”

“My fist will be going upside yours if you give me any more lip, Private,” Yimt said, a cheery smile on his face that suggested there would be nothing he’d like more. “Bloody babes in the woods the lot of you. Mark my words, any soldier who somehow manages to lose his coat or bedroll will be begging to buy one for twenty gold coins. This ain’t like Elfkyna. This heat is quick. It fires up fast and cools off even faster.”

Grumbling greeted this assessment, but they’d all learned by now that if Yimt said something was worth holding on to, you guarded it with your life. The dwarf leaned in toward Alwyn and motioned for him to bend over so they couldn’t be overheard. “An enterprising young lad might just try to pick up an extra blanket if he can. You never know what the nights will bring…”

Alwyn pondered that as Yimt walked away, but the heat quickly pushed it out of his mind. Surely there was something he could get rid of.

On leaving the ship for the last time, a fact that had raised morale among the regiment despite the daunting prospect of fighting in an unknown desert land, they’d all been issued with four days’ worth of salted beef and ship’s biscuits. When Alwyn compared that with the even more daunting prospect of Yimt’s cooking, he decided the food was worth holding on to. He’d never part with his housewife with its essential needles and thread, a gift from Mr. Yuimi, the little elf tailor, when Alwyn had joined up. The extra shirt, stockings, polishing kit, and coin purse were equally crucial and not to be left behind.

Alwyn looked down his front and patted the canteen filled with water and the gourd filled with rok har, the tree sap elixir the elves of the Long Watch drank for energy on long journeys. He wouldn’t be giving those up, or the pouch carrying sixty-five rounds of musket balls and powder charges or his musket or bayonet.

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders again. Pain and suffering seemed to be the constant state of being of a soldier in the Iron Elves. He tried to remember a time when that wasn’t the case, but such memories proved elusive.

Alwyn shifted his weight again and winced.

“Looks like you’re due for a watering,” Hrem said, pointing down toward Alwyn’s wooden leg.

The twisted branches that made up the false leg did indeed look dry. Alwyn unslung his musket from his shoulder and handed it to Hrem, then grabbed the wooden gourd given to him by Miss Red Owl. He poured out a small amount of the rok har into his hand then bent over to rub it into the wood. It was a challenge to keep his balance, but Hrem helpfully moved closer to allow Alwyn to lean against him.

“Why don’t you just take it off to do that?” Scolly asked, forever fascinated and slightly afraid of the appendage.

“It doesn’t like to go back on,” Alwyn said. The magic imbued in the crafted leg made for him by Miss Red Owl and Miss Tekoy was a true marvel, the woven branches flexing where the ankle and the knee would be. He had tried wearing a boot over the roots that acted as his foot, but found he had more stability without the boot and left it off except for ceremonial occasions like this one.

Alwyn lifted the hem of his caerna to show Scolly where the branches thinned and became green vines, which wrapped around the stump of his leg. Parts of the vines were blackened while the flesh of his leg was bright red and raw in a couple of places. For the moment, no frost fire sparkled along the areas where vine and skin touched.

“The magic of the oath doesn’t seem to like the magic in the wood too much,” Alwyn said, rubbing the area around the stump gently before lowering his caerna.