Steven Erikson - Fall of Light

Seltin’s expression of disgust was unchanged. ‘Timing? You waited too long to intervene.’

Ignoring the Legion’s quartermaster, Galar Baras glanced skyward. The chill winter blue was unbroken by cloud, making the vault seem all the more remote. As we see the heavens constrained, by all that we do here. No matter – these are smaller dramas than they feel. He turned to the pit’s overseer. ‘Sir, tell me about those three.’

The elderly man shook his head. ‘If you sought to single them out in the name of decency, your desire was misplaced. No, it was doomed from the start, as I could have told you, captain. Not one down there is worthy of Lord Henarald’s largesse. They ended up here for a reason, every one of them.’

Galar Baras sighed. He had weathered the same complaints, the same bleak observations, from the overseers of the last two prison mines. ‘Indulge me then, and speak of the three men who chose to defend the women.’

The overseer was long in replying, warring with something like reluctance, as if in the details he would offer, hope would die many deaths. Galar felt a moment of sympathy for the man, but insufficient to dissuade him from his task here. He was about to set iron in the command when the overseer finally spoke. ‘The lanky one, who showed the wit to break open the shed and so give leave to the women to arm themselves, he is named Rebble.’

‘Go on.’

‘Brave enough, I suppose. But captain, Rebble is slave to a mad rage. He skirts a pit, and is known to leap into it at the slightest hint of disrespect.’

Dishonour, again. It is the only language left us, it seems, here in Kurald Galain. ‘Rebble, then. The next man?’

‘Listar, upon the other side, was a bully to the weak, and down there the weak are all long dead. His stand surprised me, I admit. He was accused following charges laid by the family of his murdered wife. Accused, tried, and then sentenced. None refuted the evidence, least of all Listar.’

‘He confessed his guilt?’

‘He said nothing at all, and upon that matter remains silent to this day.’ The overseer hesitated, and then added, ‘Guilt binds his tongue, I should think. Captain, do not imagine some secret virtue in Listar’s silence. Do not look for anything worthy of redemption – not here, not among those men and women below.’

‘Now, the big-shouldered one.’

‘The worst of the lot,’ the overseer said, frowning at Galar. He paused, and then added, ‘A Legion soldier, but witnessed to be a coward in battle.’

‘Legion?’ Galar Baras asked. ‘Which legion?’

The overseer scowled. ‘You do not recognize him? I thought you but played with me. That is Wareth, once of the Hust.’

Galar Baras looked back down in the pit. For a moment, he could not see Wareth. Then he caught sight of him, sitting on the side of an ox-trough, forearms resting on his thighs as he looked out on the compound, where the guards were forcing the men to one side and the women to the other. For all the comfort of picks and shovels in the hands of the prisoners, none was foolish enough to face armoured guards wielding spears. ‘He has changed,’ the captain said.

‘No,’ the overseer replied. ‘He hasn’t.’

Redemption – ah, but overseer, what else can I offer? What other currency, beyond vile freedom, for these fools who so ruined their lives? That word should not taste so bitter. That desire should not make such grisly paths, bridging what was and what is to come.

The notion hovered in his mind, as if a standard raised high, to face an enemy upon the other side of the valley. Yet dishonour has its own banner, its stained flag of recrimination. Are they even enemies? But look at any civil war, and see two foes marching in parallel, stubborn on their chosen tracks to their chosen future. To clash upon battle’s field, they must first clash in their respective minds. Arguments of righteousness will lead us all, in the end, to the anguished need for redemption.

All for day’s end. And yet, for these prisoners, these criminals, I can only offer them a walk back along the path they each left behind, an uncurling of deeds, an unravelling of fates.

This purpose, here, made for solitary thoughts. But not a single doubt could be exercised, he knew. The time was not now. The company was all wrong. ‘Sergeant Bavras, take two with you and go down and collect Listar, Rebble and Wareth.’

‘Wareth, sir?’

‘Wareth,’ Galar Baras said. ‘Overseer, if you’d be so kind, I would make use of your office in the gatehouse.’

The man shrugged. ‘My office. Both title and place are dead to me now. Or so I now understand. At my age, captain, the future narrows to a single road, fading into the unseen. One walks, eyeing the closing mists, but no mortal power of will, or desire, can halt these plodding steps.’

‘Lord Henarald will not abandon you, sir.’

‘Shall I, too, don a dead soldier’s weeping armour? Take up a howling sword? Not my road, captain.’

‘I’m sure that you will be free to choose from a number of appointments, overseer.’

‘They would kill me, you know,’ the man said, nodding down at the prisoners. ‘A thousand times over. For so long, I have been the face of their guilt, which they will despise until death takes them.’

‘I imagine so. I am not so foolish as to think otherwise. But sir, there is more to being a soldier of the Hust than just the weapons and armour.’

‘They’ll not fight for the realm.’

‘To that, I must agree,’ said Seltin Ryggandas, crossing his arms.

‘If you two are correct,’ Galar said, ‘then, overseer, you will soon be back here. And so will those men and women below. And you, quartermaster, can return to your storerooms of materiel, with none to claim it.’

Seltin’s laugh was low and only mildly harsh. ‘You describe a clerk’s paradise, captain.’

After a moment, the overseer snorted. ‘There is such joy in this appointment.’

Galar Baras managed a smile, and he settled a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘For what is to come, which would you prefer, your task or mine?’

The overseer shook his head. ‘Captain, I yield my office.’

* * *

Wareth stood as the three Hust soldiers approached. He saw that they had already rounded up Listar and Rebble, and neither man looked pleased. Proof to the rumours, the Hust soldiers now wore banded armour of the same black-smeared iron as the weapons in their scabbards, and as they drew nearer the moaning sounds shifted into a kind of chatter, as if a crowd was gathering. Wareth thought he heard laughter.

‘Come with us,’ the sergeant said.

‘I prefer the shafts below,’ Wareth said. ‘Ask your captain to make this day like any other. For me. There is still ore to be won from the rock.’

The sergeant was working hard at keeping the disgust from his expression. He was young, but not too young for contempt. ‘This pit is now closed. Save your words for the captain.’ He gestured and then set off. The two soldiers moved to push Wareth forward. He fell in alongside Rebble and Listar.

‘What manner of game is this?’ Rebble asked. ‘If they were coming for you, that I can see. It’s a wonder they didn’t execute you in the field. But what do they want with us?’

Wareth had his ideas about that. If those ideas circled the truth, he surely did not belong in the company of these two prisoners. ‘My sword defied them,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘On the field,’ Wareth said. ‘When they sought to disarm me, before executing me. My sword tried to kill them all.’

‘Then it’s true,’ said Listar. ‘The weapons live.’

‘In the end,’ Wareth said, ‘I agreed to surrender it. By then, the commander had arrived, and I was sent to her tent in chains. She was drunk … with victory,’ he added.