This Is Going To Hurt (II)

When he awoke, Massod discovered someone had dragged him under a canopy. All his men were there. The dead were laid out to his left as he sat up, in rows of neatly wrapped human forms. The priests must have used preservation prayers because there weren't any corpse flies on them. The injured were on his right, and a lot less tidy. Some slept. Others clutched their missing limbs. Groups of hunters mingled over rations, either on their feet or while sitting on the ground, talking quietly.

"I have two shares of Emerald Pool," said one, weighing leaf-wrapped packages in his hands. "Who wants to trade for a Dagono?"

"I'll take that!" The other hunter traded a green square of Dagono-made rations for one made by Emerald Pool. "I thought you liked the spicy ones."

"I do, but they're too hard to eat dry when half your teeth are missing. Gimme some soft Dagono, please!" The men laughed, and more trades followed. Every garden had a special recipe for field rations, which they made in bulk and packed into same-sized lumps for easy transport and handling. They could be identified by the type of leaf wrapping and how the string was knotted. Trading rations was a tradition as old as the Calique. When hunters from one garden met those of another in the wild, practically the first thing they asked each other was, "What food are you carrying," and, "Do you want to trade?"

Masood took care in standing up, unsure if his leg would support him, but Ma'Tocha had done a thorough job. He could feel the aches left behind by the wounds, especially where bone was mended, but he could stand. Upright, he had a good view of the dead: eighty-eight hunters of Broken Ode, the fiercest fighters Calique had to offer. Some were young men, born and bred by Broken Ode and yet to find wives and move away. The rest had come from other gardens to take up lives with the tempestuous women native Broken Ode. He would have to answer for those lives.

Masood slipped out from under the canopy to scan the lake shore, where some of his more able-bodied men were keeping watch next to the bulwarks. The sound of a gurantor train reached him from somewhere above, one of the off-road types with massive wheels and suspension springs made of layered monster bone. It was another Nexus invention; another sign of changing times.

"They're taking us to the east hospice." One of Masood's spears, a tusked hunter named Jorah, approached him with an armful of rations. "We'll take over guard duty from Lustrous Voice."

The maul waved away the food, but Spear Jorah pressed two packages to his chest. "Eat, or you'll collapse. Don't be stupid." Jorah could talk to Masood like that because he was old. Soon, he'd be teaching spearwork to young boys instead of venturing into combat against men and beasts. "Healing prayers feel like miracles, but they burn your body up if you don't eat. It's okay when you're just losing fat, but then it starts in on your muscles. I've seen men end up," he shivered, "skinny."

Masood unwrapped a billet of pressed foodstuffs from Saphir, green and chewy with dried red berries that sparked his appetite. "Again," he said through a mouthful. "You mean, don't be stupid again."

Jorah sighed and wobbled his head uncertainly. "Most of us would have done the same thing. We were all caught up in it, just like you were. It's what we're made for."

Masood had never thought of it that way, but it rang true. Broken Ode women liked their men a certain way: large, lively, and a little dim. He couldn't think of any he'd describe as smart except Gohar, and even he admitted he was thick-headed in his manliest years. Aside from the retired maul, they didn't have anyone who could command like Ma'Tocha, but perhaps the disciple's advantage came from being a pretender who straddled both worlds. Then there was Maul Iraj. He might be a notorious animal thief, but he was also wily. Masood always lost to him in the desert training games, usually by chasing Iraj's men around instead of paying attention to the mission goal.

Just like today.

Then there was Phillip. Nobody had a Phillip the Younger in their garden except Red Tower. Anyone could see he was smart, but wasn't he too smart? He sat on the chair meant for Calique mauls, barely old enough to grow fuzz over his judgemental lips, and presumed to teach them. Where did all his strange knowledge come from? Was he borrowing from the ancients, dabbling in the taboo? There was something aberrant about his mind, something not quite right. His power wasn't even his own: It came from prayers. His power was borrowed, and his knowledge was suspect.

All that aside, the youthful Pasha was going to win. In every direction from Bitter Spring, the desert was prepared for battle and Calique hunters knew every meter of it. If the Pasha could do all he said he could, this was the last war in Masood's lifetime. After this, there were no more Kashmari princes to kill.

"I have to get back into the fight," he told Jorah. "Where is Ma'Tocha?"

"He left. Took his cadre with him." Men came down to the lake on foot with stretchers for the dead and wounded. As soon as everyone was aboard, they would drive straight to the hospital and stay there for the remainder of the war. Masood had no intention of boarding that train.

"What do we have to ride?"

"That can carry you? Not much." Jorah scanned the picketed appalons with a critical eye. "This is a bad idea, Maul Masood. Listen to your spear: We need you with us."

But Masood wasn't listening. In his mind, he was already hunting the next prince.

Twice, Masood had to dismount and walk to let his captured mount rest. It panted in the balmy weather and grumbled at Masood's weight. They didn't follow his trail backward but chose a nearly straight line to the wadi beyond Laggard's Shaft. The final leg of their journey followed a trail of dead spearmen, and he noticed someone had pulled arrows from the ground and bodies, then looted them of all their bronze. What was left was covered in a cloud of corpse flies. Hundreds of birds swooped through the dense clouds, snatching up easy meals. Aggressive black scorpions fought flies and each other. Hopping mice, so tiny they were hard to see through the feeding frenzy, perched on bloated corpses to feast on hatching maggots.

Masood's dead hunters would be returned to their garden, thanks to Nexus prayers, while these poor wretches were food for anything that wanted them. Why did they fight so hard for a Tyrant who showed them no respect in return? But then, how much better was Masood? Wasn't he abandoning his hunters so he could face off against Kashmari?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"No," he said aloud, "I want their deaths to mean something."

The sun was low when Masood arrived at the command center. The camouflage netting was still stretched over the wadi, but much of the camp had been broken down. They were expecting to move tonight. Balwarks made him wait outside the Pasha's tent for quite some time before waving him in. When he entered, the Pasha was alone, listening to a woman on the sounding board.

"There wasn't anything to find, but something was missing. We used to have a source in Drumura, a merchant who said they were about to visit Sessimbra. But we never heard back from them."

"So something could have happened to them. There's a lot of possible bad outcomes."

"The link might have been lost or stolen. We'd like your permission to engage the link, just to listen. If someone is wearing it thinking it's just jewelry, they might reveal something."

"It's a shot in the dark," Phillip said doubtfully, "but why not? Make sure they can't hear anything from our end. The world still doesn't know about the links, and I'd like to hang on to that advantage for as long as possible." Phillip waved a hand over the instrument to turn it off.

"Why do we care about what's happening in Drumura? And where is it?"

"Moldonia. But it's Sessimbra we're interested in. Drumura is their nearest trading town." Phillip gestured at the low table, inviting him to sit. Rations and jugs of water were stacked in the center, inviting anyone to partake. The boy's ease upset Masood, though he couldn't say why. "A sickness is running through the place, and we've been training healers there how to treat it. But there's more to it: the situation could kill a few hundred thousand people if it's handled badly."

"Maybe you should focus on the war in front of you."

"Let's. Why are you here? I didn't summon you."

A growl came from Masood's chest, unbidden. "I can still fight."

"You and what army?" The boy's arrogance was infuriating, but Masood knew he couldn't beat the brat in a fight. Lashing out now would be pointless. "You barely have any fighting men left. What am I supposed to do with a handful of men, led by a maul who disregards orders and falls into obvious traps? That's the biggest problem, right there. If you died all on your own, it wouldn't matter. But those men follow you, only Olyon knows why, and they end up in your unwinnable situation."

"You little shit!" Masood gripped the table's edge so hard it splintered. "You prance around with your prayers like you're so special, but you're not Calique. You're not even from around here! You dish out power to your little favorites, and then act like the rest of us aren't worth your time. If I had Parsa's speed, I could have crushed the Chargers."

"You couldn't handle Parsa's speed."

"Try me!"

The veteran fighter Phillip always kept nearby entered the tent, weapon in hand. "Is everything okay in here?"

"Sure. We were about to have a lesson in enhancements."

"Don't presume to teach me, tiny outsider! Give me his speed, and find out what I can really do."

"Outside," said Phillip. He rose and exited the tent, then climbed out of the wadi without looking behind him. Three bulwarks followed him, trailed by Masood.

"See that rock?" Phillip indicated a strange rock formation they called the Cupped Palm. "When I say go, run there and back again."

"I see it."

Phillip didn't say anything, but Masood was suddenly filled to bursting with twitchy, anxious energy. His body wanted to move, desperately, and every little twitch made his bones ache. He knew then he had ventured deep into an experience he hadn't prepared for. Parsa called himself the fastest living thing, and other mauls said he might be right. Was this the way he felt, all the time, aching to run until far horizons gave way to ever farther ones? Maybe he wasn't ready for this. But he couldn't let himself be shamed by this fake Pasha.

"Go!"

Masood took one running step, and only one, before several bones fractured under the strain. The pain sent him into awkward attempts to compensate, which fractured more bones. Then he tried to relax, with only partial success, and the imbalance between one side of his body and the other damaged him even more. He took a second step, to try and get both feed under him, but his leg kicked forward and nearly tore itself out of his hip joint. Mercifully, Phillip removed the enhancement before Masood was ripped in half.

Maul Masood lay in the dirt, too injured to help himself, for the second time in one day. He was chest down this time, with his head turned awkwardly to one side. The pain wasn't too bad, as long as he didn't move, but Phillip, the smug bastard, lay down next to him so they could see each other's faces.

"Did you think Parsa was simply running on borrowed power all this time? No. He has talent, practice, and conditioning. He works at it. Nobody else can do what he does, no matter how much spirit you spend on them. He also never forgets his mission. That's why he's one of my favorites.

"But enough about him. While I have you here, I'd like to go over a few things. All right? All right."

Masood tried to respond but could only mumble through his cracked jaw.

"First, your two hundred versus the Charger's five hundred: that's a matchup you could have won. They've been marching on rationed water for days, and Zaid used up the last of his water attacking Laggard's Shaft. Three days from now they'll be dragging their weapons behind them. In five they'll be half-dead. If Broken Ode's two hundred rested, provisioned, motivated hunters attacked with terrain advantage and just a little bit of disciple support … well, under those conditions you could wipe them out with minimal losses. You might be thinking right now, 'that's an entirely different battle than the one I fought today,' to which I say, that's the whole point. Nobody could have won the battle you fought today. You should not have been there.

"There are many consequences to your epic fuck-up. One of them is, I'm missing the two hundred fighters I planned to throw at the Chargers. I'll have to assign them to someone else, and give them more disciple support because, let's face it, whoever I choose won't be as large or as fearsome as Broken Ode used to be."

Masood tried to complain about the phrase used to be, but Phillip swatted him on the top of his head like he was a child talking out of turn.

"Pay attention! I want you to see this." He placed a cloth sack on the ground between them and opened it to show Masood a pile of red and orange stones, polished to a satin finish. "These are spirit stones, where we store extra disciple power. It takes days for most disciples to fill one. These are empty. Each one represents enhancements not given, healing not available, water not purified, and so on. I took a big risk when I ordered your men to be saved. I'm betting I can get these refilled before they're needed again. I hope others don't pay the price.

"But here's the thing that pisses me off." The sack of gems went away to be replaced by something else, a tangle of spun silver with a chip of orange gemstone embedded. It looked like it had been trampled, but it was Masood's link. The one he'd thrown aside.

"Our biggest advantage, even more important than disciples, is our ability to talk over distances and coordinate our movements. Can you imagine what would happen if the enemy got ahold of this and learned what it was? If they could listen to us planning, if they knew what we know and could move accordingly? Thousands more would die. We could actually lose this war because one thick-headed maul acted like a petulant child and tossed aside the most important strategic advantage we possess. If you cared about anything other than yourself, if you had one gram of regard for your fellow Calique, your garden, or anything at all, then the first words out of your mouth when you met Ma'Tocha should have been, 'I lost my fucking link'. But somehow, it never occurred to you to think of anyone but yourself."

The link melted in Phillip's hand until it was a tiny sphere of silver.

"I can't remove you from your position. But I decide who fights and who doesn't." Phillip stood up and spoke to someone Masood couldn't see. "Set everything, and heal his spine and organs. Then give him the absolute minimum amount of accelerated healing. Stash him with his men, and keep him on his back for at least a week. If he moves on his own, I want him to break."