Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

He looked around and then found a solution.

“Hey, Jir, come here, boy,” Alwyn said, beckoning to the bengar.

Jir looked out from underneath the wagon, his head tilting one way, then the other.

Alwyn clicked his tongue and motioned for the animal to come to him. “It’s all right, I just need you to mark a little territory.”

Teeter marched past, his chin resting on his chest as he limped through the sand. “That’s genius, and disgusting,” he said.

Jir came out and padded over to Alwyn, who pointed at the wooden leg and smiled hopefully. “You know you want to,” Alwyn said.

Jir sniffed at Alwyn’s wooden leg, then walked around him a couple of times. He stopped, sniffed again, then took care of business. Magic sparked briefly throughout the leg. The limbs became supple once again. Alwyn had to quickly shake his leg to keep it from trying to take root in the sand. Without earth to delve into, the magic channeled its power up the leg, reviving the wood as it went. Alwyn felt new shoots wrap around his stump and knew the leg would be good to walk on again for some time to come.

“Remind me,” Yimt said, trudging up to stand a few feet away, “to never borrow a toothpick from your leg again.”

“Great that your leg’s watered, but what about us?” Zwitty complained. “Shouldn’t we be coming up to that oh-way-seas place you were talking about, Sergeant?”

Yimt glared at Zwitty, then pointed forward. They continued walking. “We’ll get there when we get there, and no, Scolly,” he said, looking over his shoulder as the soldier came near, “we are not there yet.”

Scolly’s opened mouth closed into a pout.

They walked on in silence, each coping with the heat and the sun as best he could. Yimt flapped his caerna a few times to create a breeze before moving back to take his place walking beside the wagon and chatting with Miss Synjyn.

“You had to go and talk to the girl at the Blue Scorpion instead of just getting on with business,” Zwitty said, breaking the silence. He came close to Alwyn and poked a finger in his back. “Why couldn’t you have left well enough alone? We would have lived like kings in Nazalla. Now look at us. We’re right back out in the middle of bloody nowhere looking for more monsters. Who gives a damn if this Kaman Rhal character is out here? He can have his desert. There’s nothing here any sane person would want.”

“This is important, Zwitty,” Alwyn said. “We couldn’t just sit and wait in Nazalla hoping things would work out. And those people wanted to kill us. For all we know the Iron Elves and the other regiments are fighting them now,” he said, though he suspected that if that were really the case he would have sensed it. “We don’t have a choice.”

“We don’t have a choice?” Zwitty asked, holding his hands up in disbelief. “Ever since we took that damned oath we’ve had nothing but eternity staring us in the face. I figure we might as well enjoy the time we got here and now while we can.”

“What are you saying?” Alwyn asked, looking behind him.

“Yeah,” Hrem said, moving in closer as they marched, “what are you getting at?”

Zwitty looked around at them, then shrugged. “If we only got a short amount of time as men, and forever as shadows, why waste our time here plodding around deserts and jungles and the like? Why not go off on our own?”

“You’re talking about desertion,” Alwyn said. “They’d have you shot for that.” The rest of the soldiers bunched up around them to listen.

Zwitty snorted. “Don’t be a fool. What do you think’s going to happen to us if we stay here? Eventually we’ll be shot anyway, or cut down by a sword, torn in half by a cannonball, or something worse. I think I’d rather take my chances out there,” he said, waving his arm at the desert.

Yimt suddenly appeared beside them, the wings of his shako flapping as he stomped along to keep pace. He stuffed a pinch of crute between his gums and cheek, then stuffed a pipe into the corner of his mouth and lit it. “There’s more noise from you lot than a bag full of dragons and one virgin. I’d say you lads was gettin’ sun-crazy if I didn’t already know you. What are you jawing about anyway?”

“Zwitty was talking about having dessert,” Scolly said.

Zwitty snarled something under his breath.

Yimt puffed on his pipe, sending clouds of acrid smoke skyward. “Is that so, Zwitty?”

“The halfwit is talking through his shako. I didn’t say nothing about dessert.”

Yimt looked Zwitty up and down. “No, I’m sure you didn’t. But you know, seeing as we’re on the subject, I thought I’d relate a little story to you all. The sun and the heat out here can fry a man’s brain pan quicker than an egg on a skillet if he ain’t careful. Scrambles his thinking, it does. Before he knows it, he’s thinking the army life ain’t for him, and maybe he’d be better off out on his own.”

“Kritton got away with it,” Zwitty remarked.

The bowl of Yimt’s pipe sparked violently for a moment then subsided. “Aye, he did, but that was in Elfkyna. No shortage of water and food in that place if you know how to get by in a forest-and whatever else Kritton was, that elf knew how to take care of himself. But in case you haven’t noticed, this ain’t Elfkyna. Have a look around.” He took a few more puffs on his pipe as that sank in.

Alwyn did. Everywhere was shades of beige. Heat shimmered above the sand like sheets of glass wherever he turned his gaze. Rocks and great curving sand dunes provided the only change in an otherwise flat vastness of desolation. How anyone could live out here was beyond him.

“Not exactly paradise, is it?” Yimt continued. “Now if we was in Calahr or some other civilized place, a man might make a run for it, but then you have to ask yourself why? If you’re in a good place with food and drink and things is relatively calm, what’s the point of doin’ a runner? On the other hand, in a place like this there’s even less point. Where would a fellow go to out here? There’s nothing but sand, sun, and dying of thirst if something worse don’t get you first. You’re safer off with the army than not.”

Alwyn wasn’t so sure. It was being in the army that had brought them all to this point-oath-bound by the Shadow Monarch’s magic and doomed to eternal hell if they couldn’t find a way to break the oath. He looked around. Eyes betrayed fear and uncertainty.

“Now, it’s not for me to judge a man, elf, or dwarf who’s reached his breaking point,” Yimt continued. “The army will do that, and with a rope or a musket ball. Thing is, we all got ’em. Every sigger that ever put on the uniform has a breaking point. The major does. The Prince does. Even I do.”

“So what’s your point?” Zwitty asked. “We’re all going to snap like twigs in this heat and go stark raving mad?”

Yimt pulled his pipe out of his mouth and pointed it at them. “My point is that when a fellow reaches that breaking point, if he’s got buddies around who don’t entirely hate his guts, they’ll probably help him keep his head until he gets back to himself again. It’s the only way armies work. Going off to war and killing will crack anyone’s crystal ball. That’s why they keep soldiers together in regiments. You get to know the other fellow and maybe even become friends.” Yimt turned to look directly at Zwitty. “A friend, Zwitty, is a person who will do something for you without expecting anything in return.”

Zwitty only sneered and said nothing.

“I hate to interrupt your little chat, gentlemen, but I believe the oasis in question is just ahead,” Rallie said from the front seat of the wagon.

Alwyn and the others turned and climbed up the gentle slope to where she was pointing. At first, all Alwyn saw was shimmering sand and sky. Blurred images swam in and out of focus. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes and immediately regretted it, then put them back on and tried again.