From darkness, Death’s embrace is found

The battle’s echoes still resound.

She breathes her solace all around:

“Fear not. You lived. You have been crowned.”

“Survivors” by a retired veteran

I’m not sure how long we kneel. One second. Three hours. Forty-five days. The sun disappears behind the mountains, and the valley plunges into darkness. It’s a cloudy night. No moon, no stars, no sky.

We sit in a huddled circle on the grass. A boy—one of the ones Fox put up front—sits beside me. He wipes some blood off my trousers then rests his head on my thigh. He shakes. I think he’s crying.

“It’s okay.” I run my left hand through his hair. “It’s all right, kid.”

The irony that he’s probably older than I am isn’t lost on me.

Torches appear near Crête’s summit. I shake my head—the tightness of the leather makes my temples ache.

“We’ve got company.” My voice is hoarse.

Someone sobs.

Paadrick squints into the darkness. “Those are guardsmen, sir.”

“Are you sure?” I hear myself asking.

“Chain armor would reflect more torchlight.”

“Let’s wait for them to come to us,” I say. “I don’t want our horses to make the trek in the dark.”

I close my eyes. I open them. The first of the torches draws near. Most of the light stayed on the summit, but eight or nine approach…

I don’t move. My head throbs, but the ache isn’t as acute as the pain shooting down my right arm. I can’t wiggle my fingers. I can’t bend my elbow.

“Paadrick.” My voice is raspy. “Debrief with them.”

He stands. Walks toward the torches. Voices murmur in the darkness, and I catch snippets of the conversation.

“Are you…highest ranking…survivor?”

“No…Pridemaster Ko.”

“Ko?”

“Made the call to stave off reinforcing calvary… penetration movement…eastern flank and rear…three hundred killed. Eighty-four of our own dead.”

“Muck Hill?”

“Contained…forced retreat…one thousand casualties and counting.”

“Ko,” someone says.

I nudge the boy off my lap. I stand. My right arm swings limply at my side. I stumble forward—

General Killián puts a hand on my shoulder. Steadies me.

He hands his torch to someone. Linden. The glimmering light makes his face look angelic and pale. I can feel their gazes bearing down on me, but I can’t look at them. I rest my head against Killián’s chest and take a wet, raspy breath.

“Ko,” Killián repeats. “I’ll be damned.”

“I named my horse after your moniker,” I choke out. “He’s dead now.”

My knees hit the ground.

###

My troops are led to the summit between Muck Hill and the Crête Déchiquetée. We’re taken to a sprawling, wall-less canvas covering—the medi-tent. I wait until my survivors have been checked over before I let the medic examine me. She approaches with a kit and surveys me with solemn eyes.

“Where do you want me to start?” she asks.

I glance down at my red sweater. “It’s not my blood.”

“I didn’t think so,” she says. “You’d be dead.”

She pulls the helm from my head. The sudden lightness makes the hammock sway beneath me. I eye the torches set into the dirt ground and try to breathe through my nose. She sponges the blood from my forehead and puts two stitches in my temple. She feels her way down my body—I flinch at her touch—and sets my arm. The jolt makes me spasm. She straps the limb until canvas renders me immobile from the shoulder down.

“Take off your clothes,” she says.

I eye the isles of hammocks. To my right, a fighter screams into a cotton gag while his hand is cauterized. To my left, a woman’s entire face is covered in bandages. Crimson stains the cloth around her right eye.

“I don’t want to undress.” My voice is quiet. “Don’t make me. Please.”

She presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “Just your top?”

Fine. I can do that.

She cuts off what’s left of the Ivo Lorsan sweater—sorry, Dune—and leaves the cashmere in a heap on the floor. With nimble, reverent fingers, she unpins the laurels from the ruined fabric and hands them to me. I tuck them in the pocket of my trousers.

“A couple of superficial cuts.” She rubs a hand over my chest. I wish she’d stop touching me. “Your ribs are bruised.”

“It hurts to breathe.”

“You’ll be okay,” she says soothingly. “Give it a few weeks. Is there anything wrong with your legs?”

“No.” I think for a second. “Yes. Lower calf.”

She cuts my pants at the knee and wipes away the blood. I barely notice the sting as she stitches the gash. My head, arm, and chest hurt infinitely worse.

“Clean it twice a day,” she says. “If it gets infected, see a medic. None of that I’m-too-tough-to-die crap you soldiers pull. You’re human, you can die, and festering wounds are a gruesome way to go. Got it, sweetheart?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Got it.”

“You can sleep here if you want.”

“Don’t you need the hammock for other fighters?”

She hesitates.

“I’ll go.” I rise onto unsteady legs. “Is there…”

I break myself off before I ask is there anything to eat. It feels stupid to think about something as trivial as food when there’re fighters who’ll be dead by dawn. Then again, I haven’t eaten since before the night hunt, and I’m starting to feel it. My head is light—maybe that’s from the blood loss—and my vision is blurry.

The medic has already turned to her next patient.

I stumble away from the medi-tent, shirtless and exposed. The frigid wind chills my chest and my bare leg. I shiver. There’s nothing to strap my sword to, so I keep it clenched in my left fist. I lost my kit bag somewhere between the Third Terminal and here. On second thought, I left it in the hostel. It doesn’t matter. I don’t have my papers. I have no supplies, no armor, and nothing to eat. Moreover, I don’t have a plan, and that scares me more than anything else. I was supposed to be in Cahuela by this time tomorrow, and I definitely missed my train.

What now?

I stumble to a shallow, dirty pond and rest my back against a willow tree. I’m obscured from the bustling collection of tents strewn over the valley. I could sleep, but that doesn’t solve my other problems.

Knowing I’m about to get colder, I slide into the water. It’s icy in a way that steals my breath and seizes my joints. I don’t care. All I want is to get the blood off my body. The rough straps that bind my right arm grow damp. I scrub my left hand through my hair. Taylen’s fillet snaps.

I sob—just once—and then I float on my back, kicking my legs in the water to get the grit off my trousers.

Footsteps approach. There’s a slight limp to the amble.

I duck under the water and stay there until my lungs burn. The breath-stealing coldness is enough to numb the pain coursing through my body, but it also makes me long for Lady Death. Darkness descends upon me.

Maybe if I stay down here long enough, everything will stop hurting.

I grit my teeth, break through the glassy surface of the water, stumble to the shore, and grab my sword from the sandy bank.

Linden leans against the willow. His hair has been washed and braided, and a few blond strands drift across his face. The scythe of his bistaff curls above his head, and I catch a hint of fruity málé oil on the breeze. He jerks his head up in greeting, and I copy the gesture. I stand before him—shirtless, soaking wet, shivering in the breeze.

“Hi,” I say. “What’s up?”

He throws his head back and laughs deeply.

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” he asks. “What the damn Hel, Ko?”

“Sorry,” I say. “When I woke up at 0400 for my first night hunt, this isn’t how I thought the day would go.”

“You were in the First Circuit this morning?” He shakes his head. “No. Nuh-uh. I can’t deal with you right now. Tell it to Killián. He’s waiting for us.”

“Don’t make me talk to Killián,” I say. “Please. I’m so tired.”

“Our camp is fifteen minutes north,” he says sweetly. “Let’s go, brother.”

###

The elites’ camp is much nicer than the mile-long wall of canvas tents that defines the soldiers’ makeshift quarters. It’s on the east bank of the Rivière Rugueuse, set into a flat surface near the trickling stream. The horizon is lined by steep hills, and the encampment is surrounded by a nest of lancers. Seven yurts encircle a massive four-post cantonment. It’s almost as big as my dormitory in Bathune.

Linden unbuckles the flap and pulls it aside to let me through.

I hesitate. He raises an eyebrow.

“I’m soaking wet, and I’m not wearing a shirt,” I remind him.

He adjusts his sheath and pulls his armored jacket over his head. Clad in only an undershirt, he holds it out to me.

I stare at him, mouth agape.

“It’s black,” I say.

“Congratulations,” he says. “You aren’t blind.”

“I can’t wear Yosif’s sacred color, Linden,” I say, mortified. “Especially not when I’m meeting with people who have earned it.”

“You just got off the frontline.” There’s laughter in his voice. “No one cares what you’re wearing.”

“But—”

“Put on the jacket, Ko.”

I try to pull the leather over my head. It’s difficult with my dominant arm strapped up. Linden moves forward to help me, and I yank away from his touch. He stares at me, and I relent.

“Can you raise your arm?” he asks.

I hold the strapped limb in front of me like a frozen corpse. He slides the jacket over the appendage, holding my fingers steady with a gentle grip. Somehow, he gets the jacket over my shoulders. It’s loose in the chest and waist, but it fits. It smells like him—musty with sweat, and a little fruity from the leather oil. He slides a fillet off his wrist and pins up my hair with a delicate touch.

“Have you still got your laurels?” he asks.

The shudder that racks me is involuntary, but I pat my pocket anyway. He helps me pin them to my chest.

I study the ground. “Are you sure they won’t mind if I show up wearing—”

“Get your ass in there, Ko,” he says cheerfully.

I duck inside. There’s no sheet covering the ground. A small, contained campfire burns by the open backflap. Four oil lamps are positioned at the cardinal directions. The elites lounge in the center of the tent, sheets of grasspaper strewn around them. There are five of them. Killián sits at one head of the oval. To his right is Bardic, and to his left is an empty space.

I look around the pack to make sure I can name them all—they don’t look much different from their portraits in The Leaders of Yesterday and Tomorrow. I recognize Staffmaster Péri—Billi’s father. My stomach squirms at the sight of him. Less than a day ago, I was holding hands with his effing daughter. He has her dark, silky hair. How am I supposed to feel about that? I avert my gaze as quickly as I can. Staffmaster Lefe sits beside him, and Belén’s across from Killián. They’re all clad in their signature black leathers.

Egad.

“Found him.” Linden sits between Lefe and Belén. “Sorry it took so long. He was hiding in the river.”

The elites look at me, every one of them. If there was anything in my stomach, I’d vomit again.

“Sit.” Killián inclines his head toward the empty space on his left side. “We’ll be done in a moment.”

I ease myself into a seated position, lean back on my working elbow, and kick my legs in front of me. The elites turn back to their work, examining the grasspaper and scrawling notes in the margins. As far as I can tell, the papers are a mixture of battle maps, terrain atlases, and soldier accounts, probably written by those who didn’t seek immediate medical attention after the battle. When they’re finished, the elites will pass them on to analysts for review.

Péri shoves grasspaper and a feathered pen toward me. I understand the unspoken order. Write what you remember.

With my nondominant hand, I write, Given a field promotion by Denmaster Rio. Given a pride. Took pride to Muck Hill. Hussar reported army over Crête Déchiquetée. Disobeyed orders; took my troops to head them off. Battle ensued. Casualties: Xobrites – 300ish. Guard – 84.

I hand the sheet back to Péri.

“That’s all?” he asks.

With the inflection and the hint of sarcasm, he even sounds like Billi.

“That’s all I remember, sir.”

“Your handwriting is atrocious.”

“Not to give excuses, but I broke my dominant arm,” I say. “I was barely literate until a month ago, and I haven’t eaten in 24 hours.”

Once again, the elites turn to look at me. I stare at the oil lamp by the northern flap.

“Sorry,” I say again.

“Those are pretty good excuses,” Bardic says.

“Torrense is fetching rations from basecamp,” Killián adds.

I let my eyes flutter shut and bury my face in my legs. The scratching of feathered pens slowly ceases, and after a couple of minutes, Killián nudges me awake. He presses a lump of bread into my good hand, and he sets a flask and a tin of boiled oats in front of me.

My eyes water.

Staffmaster Torrense—a tall, willowy man with long, graying hair and a sharp brow—settles himself by Linden.

“So—” he begins, looking at me.

Killián throws him a sharp look. “First, we eat.”