Two days already on the road, and there was only a minor scuffle the day before. A small band of pirates mistook them for a weaker caravan. By the time Con found out about the altercation, the mercenaries had already buried their bodies.
Rough work, and Con hadn’t even lifted a finger. By the time they entered the Swamplands, the windows outside showed skinny trees and the mushy terrain. Lily pads and frogs in the many algae-green ponds, vines dangling from the scrawny branches.
Con was a little nervous. He remembered pillaging and intercepting enemy supplies, targeting traveling caravans such as this one. Feels weird being on the other side. The prey and not the predator. Back in those days, caravans were just colonies of ants walking in a straight line, not much more than gunk for Con to scrape off his boots. It was easy work when caravans were only guarded by the common blooded.
Fortunately for Flake, he had two mages riding with him. There were very few Wrathblooded crooks out there, so there wasn’t much to be concerned about. Flake mentioned the swampmen were as primitive as a tribe could be, using spears and arrows rather than the traditional sword and occasional musket. Frogeaters, Flake had called them. Sounded a bit racist the way he said it, but Con didn’t make it an issue.
The heavy breathing of Scruff reminded Con of Pringle’s overbearing snoring at night. A little less grating, but sitting shoulder to shoulder with the man, Con could hear the nose hairs blow away. Flake had invited the magicians and Belle to join him in his wagon for the entire trip. At first he wanted to decline, but the conditions the others were traveling in were harsher, cramped in carriages stuffed with spice bags. And while Scruff’s breathing was unpleasant, Flake’s carriage seated five, where the others forced eight at the least.
“I ever tell you how I made my empire?” Flake looked towards Con as if they were close friends who’d talked for years rather than two days.
Why is it always me these kinds of people have to talk to? “No, you did not.” Please don’t.
“I was dishwasher as this seafood restaurant, where I kept getting into quarrels with my know-it-all manager who studied business in Kregel. I saw things one way, the right way, and he saw them another, the wrong way. He fired me for my advice, though I will admit to some pestering on my part. But he fired me all the same. I was pissed! Actually, I was an inch away from using my severance to hire a hitman to strangle him,” Flake chuckled fondly at the memory. “Instead, I purchased a horse and some oil and traveled from Kregel to Westerland, only turning a gold chip in profit. With that gold chip, I made two on my next trip.
“And so began my trade empire, as it grew and grew. Soon I hired my first employee, then so on and so on. I traveled the world and learned its deepest secrets. I know money like the back of my hand, and I can even put a value to a human life.”
“Hm,” Con said, feigning interest. “What value do you put to yourself?”
“Fifteen thousand gold chips,” Flake said easily. An exorbitant amount beyond a figure Con’s ever heard of.
“Is that your empire factored into it?”
“Yes, most of that number is my business,” Flake laughed. “A part of it is that seafood restaurant I mentioned. You should have seen his face when I fired him. Heh. I can put prices to anything, but that moment is priceless. Without my business, I’m probably worth five thousand, around where I value you two.”
“You regard yourself highly,” Belle said. “Perhaps a bit unreasonably.”
“You can’t be realistic and reasonable at the same time, m’lady.”
A gentle knock came from the window connected to the front.
“Seems like we’ve arrived,” Flake said. The clicking of his lighter and flickering fire wiggled softly around the metal head of the lighter. The merchant sucked in, letting out the smoke. The motion of the wagon turned sharply left. “Eastern North-South Road, one hardly used, and for good reason.”
“Any idea when you’ll need us?” Con asked.
Flake fingered his red beard, cleaning it of all the collected ash built up. “Eventually. When the time comes, you’ll hear the horns. I’ll lead the men and shout orders, Scruff will be out there making art out of insides, and you two can do cleanup.” He looked at Con. “There will be archers, many who will set up in the trees. The tree line is pretty close to the road, so the distance shouldn’t be an issue for you. If you can handle them, your partner can carve them up one at a time.”
“What do I do?” Belle asked.
Flake frowned. “You stay here, guard my cigars, and look pretty.”
She grimaced, and Flake laughed, mocking her boldness. It was clear she wanted to help, but there wasn’t much for her to do in a conflict. Belle seemed to recognize it herself before too long. If she joined them, she’d only get in the way.
***
The day fell close into the night, and Con grew more anxious by every passing minute when nothing happened. They were walking ducks. They had an hour before they would consider camping for the night, but an ambush could come at any moment. One day in the Blood Swamps and Con shivered. A coldness he rarely felt before.
What if everyone around him died but him? He’d be here, in the middle marshy terrain, a walking feast for the mosquitoes to devour him. Being alone would be worse than death.
That wasn’t a world he’d be too keen on living in. He wasn’t scared of the threat itself, but the idea that he would be helpless to anybody but himself.
“Have you ever killed a man, Mage Con?” Flake asked.
“Huh, me?” Con almost laughed. “Killing may just be my best skill.”
“Is it now? I wouldn’t have guessed. You look sick. Like you’re afraid of what’s to come.”
“Killing, I don’t know if there’s anyone better than me. But my fault is I’m terrible at saving lives.”
“Everyone can handle themselves here,” Flake said. His voice was a whisper. Belle was asleep beside Pringle, head rubbing against the door. Con wished he could fall asleep so easily. “Everybody needs only to protect themselves, and we’ll be fine.”
“If you say so—” he stopped speaking as he felt a vibration along his back. The air stilled, and charging through came the reverberating horn outside. “The horn!”
“TO STATIONS!” Flake bellowed. Belle woke with terror shaking across her body. Pringle stood up first, kicking the door open. The giant, Scruff, followed. Con and Flake fast behind him. “TO STATIONS EVERYONE!”
“I’m going on the roof,” Con shouted after Pringle.
His partner nodded, dagger drawn, stepping backwards into the shadows of the trees.
Con climbed onto the white and gold roof of the carriage and looked around. Men rose from the swamps, covered in mud, water rushing down their heads as they rose like pillars out of the ponds. There were dozens on the ground alone. And then the trees, Con saw glimmers of iron arrowheads pull back. An arrow launched toward the road, a mercenary stuck through the chest, falling helplessly to the floor.
Groups of them approached the scrambling mercenaries on each side of the road. Perhaps two dozen swampmen on each side, attacking two dozen mercenaries in total. The drivers cowered into their driver benches, making themselves small. The roaring took the air, the shrieking of the swampmen so shrill and coarse, Con had never heard such a grating noise in his life.
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Con stood in shock for a moment, imagining himself back in Kregel. His men were like pawns fighting under him, clashing against enemy pawns, with him from above watching over and making more important moves. His side was better equipped than theirs, making Con’s part all the more crucial. You didn’t aim for a victory at any cost, not when you had the means of total domination. The ground was wetter here, but it would fill with blood all the same.
“Watch out!” Flake shouted from behind. “Bowman right!”
He’s talking to me, Con started back, barely dodging an arrow as it whizzed past his chest. He conjured his deck of cards but was a second too late. The bowman’s string pulled back and loosed another arrow.
Con flipped the card’s face to the arrow as it flew toward him, his fingers willing at his mana to condense and compress. When the card only pushed back gently, Con knew he successfully Stored the arrow and the momentum behind it. Not again, he hissed, catching the archer quick in drawing back his string. Con threw his card carefully. It wasn’t level, but it also wasn’t aimed at the bowman. The card made an arc as it twisted and turned under the branch the archer stood, the face of the card rising just behind the bowman as his fingers ripped at his string.
The archer’s bow-holding hand aimed, arrow ready. Con snapped his fingers, and an arrow shot him through the back. The archer loosened his bow and shot it deep into the air. He checked his stomach, wondering where from and how he had been shot in the back. He eyed up at Con, who nodded back.
Even when killing and destroying, Con just had to show off. A magician’s touch, he supposed. If the Watcher was still up there, looking down, he would think Con was a cocky bastard. And he’d be right.
The ground was hectic. Mercenaries clashed blades against the swampmen’s spears, some of their weapons splintering and snapping into pieces. Archers fired from above. Con ran from the roof of his wagon and jumped forward, landing on another, rolling his way to stand again. The adrenaline flooded his veins; he launched a card right, piercing an archer through the chest. He shot one left, which stabbed another in the head.
Quick work, but he winced as he made movements his body had long forgotten how to make reliably. His body ached every time he leaped from wagon to wagon, trying to do so without rolling, saving his back from the tumbling pain. The archers tried for him, but Con was quicker, more accurate, and a trained killer. It was clear these men were amateurs when it came to violence. Probably something culturally drove them to their raids, but that was no excuse for Con not to kill everyone he saw. Man or woman, some young enough to be in their teens. All faced equal judgment.
Con continuously handled the archers as quickly as possible, keeping their arrows directed away from the mercenaries and toward him. A roar came below Con, a sound he mistook as a monster. But it was Scruff, swinging with his tall blade, cleaving three swampmen at once.
“GOOD!” roared Flake from behind on the ground. “TAKE THEM ALL TO HELL!”
The faintest sound of a stretched string came from Con’s left. An archer, but not in the trees? He looked down, startled to find an archer grounded, looking up at him with a pulled string. Shit, Con strafed right, but the bow followed.
“GUGH!” a knife was in the archer’s back. Pringle was quick to retreat in the shadows before his presence was further noted. Con noticed an almost inexplicable line of corpses down the road, several feet away from the conflict.
Con realized he was in a vulnerable spot, standing on the roofs like an idiot. But he was most useful up here dodging arrows than down there, fighting against spears. He drew more attention this way, and archers were often trained to go after the easy targets first. Compared to the men below, who were engaged with their comrades, there was less risk going for Con.
But as the arrows seemingly stopped, Con turned his attention to the spearmen. He sprayed cards into the infantry, plucking them one by one. Their numbers had increased since when Con estimated last. Two dozen on each side turned closer to three, maybe three and a half. Mud and blood splattered with every hit, the shrinking light making it hard to differentiate between the two.
Scruff stabbed through two swampmen in a single thrust, then when another charged him from the right, he swung with the bodies, tearing down his pursuer mightily, splattering the ground in red. Damn. Magic can’t teach that.
“GO! GO! GO!” Flake shouted. He was like an officer barking orders. The tide of the battle seemed to fair heavily toward his side, and he pressed and pressed. “DROWN THEM IN THE MUD!”
The horses whined. Con checked down to see the driver impaled by an arrow, breathing slowly. Con looked around, but figured by the dwindling numbers that the shooter was long taken care of. He dropped down, checking on the driver.
I need to be helping the infantry! Con thought angrily towards himself but couldn’t bring himself to ignore the man clearly in agony.
“Am I… going to be alright?” the man looked desperately toward Con, putting a limp hand on his shoulder.
Con looked at the shaft sticking an inch left from the center of his chest, possibly pierced through a lung. Con didn’t know anatomy all that well; the only organ he could be sure of was the heart. There was a chance it slipped between anywhere vital, and there might be a chance. “Hold still,” Con said. He gripped the hold of a card and stabbed the glass the man was pinned to. It cracked, solid. He punched again and again until… pop, glass shattered into the wagon. The driver gasped. The arrowhead dislodged from the front of the shaft, leaving only a blocky tip.
“Makes it easier,” Con said. He grabbed a tight hold of the fletching and took a breath.
“What—”
Con jerked the arrow out of the man’s chest. A scream louder than death would allow. A promising sign, past Con’s hurting eardrums. The driver settled into a whimper. “Stay calm!” Con insisted. He laid him down on the bench of the driver’s seat. He held out his hands in the air and summoned a thin layer of manathread half a foot wide, stretching down a couple feet. He pulled it from the air, lifted the driver’s body, and held an end firm to his back over the hole, then wrapped around his torso under his arms, blood soaking through. Con winced, not knowing if he did enough.
“When the chaos settles, we can do more for you. Just wait, alright? Can you do that for me?” The driver nodded softly, stomach heavy in breathing, mouth releasing a slight, grating squeal. Con dragged himself back into the commotion, which seemed to calm down a lot. Flake had ordered some men to chase down some others. An unwise idea, Con figured, but he wasn’t in charge.
He turned away from the driver and jumped down to the road. It was the sturdiest ground of the terrain by far as he ran along the edge. He pulled open the wagon door and found Belle cowering in the back. “You okay?” Con asked.
She nodded. “Is it over?”
Is it over? No. Never can be. “For now. You can relax. Stay in here for a bit longer, alright?”
“What are you doing now?” Belle asked after him.
“What we always do at the end of a battle,” Con gave a reassuring smile, though he knew it was weak, saying more than if he had frowned. “We bury the dead.”
***
“How many dead,” Con asked. Goosebumps were all over his crossed arms, trying to keep warm.
“A shit ton,” Flake said. He had a cigar tucked into his lips, exhaling the smoke in the night sky. He stood with Con above the carriage roof, looking down at the sea of mercenaries, digging holes.
“Really?”
“Yeah, of the frogeaters,” Flake snorted. “We lost only two. Mercenary and a driver. A shame.”
Con nodded. Among the piled dead, Con noticed the blue manathread wrap around the torso of a corpse. Sad, but as Con said earlier, he was great at killing, terrible at saving. All he could do was be grateful there wasn’t more.
They spent most of the night burying the dead. Con didn’t lift a finger, but not by choice. Flake asked for him to stand up here with him for reasons unexplained. He didn’t complain. It saved his conscience the trouble of touching the deceased.
Pringle was also down there, silently digging. Flake asked for him too, but Pringle didn’t want to be found. And when an illusionist wished to hide, you would be wise to give up searching before you start.
Belle was below them, sleeping probably. She had offered her help with the dead, but Con insisted she took no part in it. Only those who made the dead deserved to bury them. Perhaps Con was being a little too protective of her, and it would be good to get her involved in this kind of grueling work. After all, she was the one who signed them up for this. Maybe she should be down there after all.
She looked like a scared kitten, hiding in the carriage. All eager to help but scared shitless when the actual fighting was happening, Con sighed. Why did we agree to have her as a manager again? Oh right. We’re supposed to be magicians, not mercenaries…
“Cigar?” Flake offered.
Never was Con a smoker of any sort, but in moods like these, you can convince a moody killer to be anything, given the right words. It seemed to only take one to get Con to take the cigar offered, and he didn’t look back. He took the flame from Flake’s lighter and inhaled. “I’m cold,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Flake agreed. “A cold-blooded killer.” He bent his head back and cackled roughly.
“Hard to be warm, I suppose, in the middle of a night like tonight.” The air settled and chilled Con’s skin. His stomach twisted in knots of disgust at some of the bodies, much of them Scruff’s work. Con and Flake waited a long while, trading exhales of smoke and coughing grunts. “How long until we’re out of the Blood Swamps?”
“Tomorrow night, we’ll be out in time to set up a proper camp on good soil,” Flake said.
“And then that’s it? Soothe sailing to Oasia?”
“Not so much. We still have to go through the Slaughter Bridge.”
Con winced at the name. “Do I have to ask what that means?”
“I think you can take an estimated guess. But worry about that later. You did good work today. Get some rest. We have a few resting days between here and the bridge, so I advise you to take the hours you can.” He coughed as Con walked away.
Sleep? No. There was a reason why you buried the dead, Con learned after all these years. Can’t sleep with all the souls screaming from the corpses. You gotta stuff them six feet deep just to get some rest, and even that is disturbed. Con went and claimed a shovel.
Digging was repentance. Burying was self-forgiveness. Each lost its value over many years of the process, becoming little more than a chore. Burying bodies after a while was like making a bed. It served no purpose other than to look good to outside eyes. Oh look, that guy made his bed, he’s really clean. Oh look, that guy buried the men he killed, he must have a good conscience. Nope. In the end, Con was as messy as they came. A made bed didn’t function any different than a sloppy one.
Graves, at the end of the day, were just holes to pack some of your guilt in. Forgiveness, on the other hand, there can be none.