Memoirs of a Fallen God

Chapter 16

And so, at the tender age of fifteen, I took to the road, on the way to Kemu and the life of a soldier. Fifteen may seem young for it, and, indeed, I proved to be the youngest among the men gathered at Delokay, but at that time the Empire had need of every willing hand. Few men were turned down and few questions were asked.

The march itself proved no great trial. Compared to the dirt roads and dusty trails connecting most areas in those days, the Imperial Highway was an impressive thing. But then it had to be—the Empire spanned an entire continent, over a dozen nations, and, by imperial decree and rigid enforcement, all roads lead to Kemu. Every nation was responsible connecting their own capital to the Imperial Seat at Kemu, and for keeping the road itself up to the rigorous standards imposed by the Emperor.

My experience in travel was very limited—the only trip I could remember had left little time for sightseeing—but travelling the Highway was still a bit of a treat. Straight as a treetrunk, easy to tread and liberally sprinkled with tiny inns along the way, ever eager to offer travelers a cozy resting place for a nominal fee.

As imperial levies, though, we did not rank such comforts. We camped under the stars—which, for me at least, was something of a novelty. There were no walls penning me in, no locked doors, no man with a whip or a club waiting to keep me in my place. I was a freeman, now. I could get up and walk off into the night, were I so inclined. Of course, I had nowhere to go.

My thoughts were of Briar, and of Scratch. I had few reminders, but those I did have were all the more precious to me for it. Briar had imposed a few coins on me, which I was sure would prove useful, as well as the silver handled knife. From Scratch I had my glove. His glove, too, though of course I would never wear it. I’d buried his hand that first evening on the road, but I kept the glove. Scrubbed clean it looked like any other glove, yet the memory was a hard one. But I kept it anyway. For Scratch, for the memory of the best friend I’d ever had, it was the very least I could do.

And I had one other item, too, and this one every bit as grim: a small, burnished copper medallion the Overseer had worn around his neck. It depicted wickedly curved dagger dripping blood. It seemed a cheap thing, and ugly, but it had caught my eye. A grisly trophy, but then I’ve always been a bit bloody minded. It now dangled on a piece of twine around my neck.

As we sat around the fire after a full day’s march, the usual grumbles of aching feet and sore backs gradually gave way to a more pointed sort of complaint: what we might be facing once we reached Kemu.

I sat just beyond the glow of the fire, my thin coat doing little to ward off the evening chill. There was room nearer the fire but, despite the cold, I preferred to stay out of the light. I worried someone might recognize me so close to home. Instead I contented myself with shivering and listening, while most of the other men huddled near the flames and passed around a skin of watered wine and a slew of watered tales.

“I hear the bleeders slice themselves up a bit before a fight, so they don’t go into battle fearing that first cut,” a particularly big man said as he stared absently into the flames. I’d heard the same before, from other mouths.

“Pah,” said an older, wrinkled man named Cage. Everyone turned to look at him. I didn’t like Cage, and I don’t think anyone else did, either. He was a nasty sort, all sharp edges, ever eager to pounce on the shortcomings of others.Ugly, too. A jagged scar ran up one of his cheeks, and the way the shadows played across his hard, weathered face did him no favors, adding a fiendish cast to an already unfortunate array of features. But it was far more than his face that made him ugly. Bitterness covered the man like a second layer of skin.

He spat a long trail of redgum juice into the fire, setting the flames twitching and hissing, then reached up and scratched his nose. With a sharp intake of breath I noticed the two ugly stubs at the end of his last two fingers--which just so happened to be the price of a thievery conviction in Caldor. I hadn’t realized convicts were being drafted right along with everyone else.

“A bleeder ain’t scared a nothin’,” he began, once he was sure he had everyone’s attention. “Why should they be? They’re too dumb to be scared. Average bleeder’s so stupid he’d make you lot look like a bunch of Sorin scholars. Their shamans, now, that’s a different story...you don’t want nothing to do with those shamans, and that’s the god’s truth.” He looked up and threw a scornful look at the big man who’d made the comment. “But I can tell you this, even as dumb as they are, a bleeder doesn’t go around cutting himself before a fight. Blood’s precious to them, sacred even, and those ugly blades of theirs lap it up like a litter of kittens at a bowl of milk, but you can be damn sure it’s his enemy’s blood that he’s after, not his own. Your blood. And every drop they can gather goes back to those shamans, to work all that dark magic. If their own blood did the trick, well, I figure they would’a just stayed home.” He shook his head. “Go back to your forge, Brary, if you’re gonna talk nonsense like that.”

“Wish I could,” the big man said wistfully, still staring into the flames.

Another man chirped in from the far side of the fire, “Yeah? And how you know all that, Cage? Sit down and have a nice talk with a few bleeders when you were rotting in that cell for stealing pigs?”

Cage glared at the speaker until the other man dropped his eyes. Then Cage continued as if he’d never been interrupted. “Bleeders ain’t like us. They don’t think like us, don’t feel pain like us. They’re savages, is what they are. And cut them all you want, they ain’t callin’ quits until they’re dead or you are.” He shot a hard glance around the fire. “And looking at the lot of you, well, smart money’s on the bleeders.”

Everyone was quiet for a time after that.

Soon enough, though, another boy only a couple years older than me raised his voice.

“Shouldn’t we be…learning something? How to soldier, and all that? Seems like kind of a waste, all this time spent walking without really doing nothing.”

Captain Bant, the only man with any real soldiering experience present, raised his head a fraction and opened an eye from where he lay near the fire. “Nothing? This here is transit, boy. As important a skill for a soldier to master as any other you can name. When it comes down to it, you’ll spend more time on the march than you will doing anything else, other than sitting on your ass, and from the look of you, you’ve already got a firm grasp on that.

“Besides,” the man finished, almost under his breath, “I’m not much of a teacher…”

I’d long since realized the truth of that; Bant had been a member of the household guard for as long as I could remember. If he’d been much of a teacher, Briar wouldn’t have needed a fencing instructor.

“My job is to get you to Kemu as quick as your lazy backsides can move, nothing more than that. Once you’re there you’ll be drafted into whatever squads are desperate enough to take you. Then you’re their problem.”

“You mean we’re gonna be split up? I thought we were gonna stay with our own folk. Least they’re Caldorians.”

The captain laughed. “What, you think you were all gonna stick together? A bunch of know-nothings like you? You expecting the bleeders to keel over and die from laughter when they see you coming, is that it? ‘Course you’re gonna be split up. Soon as we reach the front, you’re no longer house Delokay, or even Caldorians. You’re Imperials. And every other Imperial is your countryman and brother. You’ll all serve for the greater glory of the Empire, or some such rubbish. The imperial recruiters have a nice long speech they’ll give you. Makes a man all teary eyed.”

“What if I get stuck with a bunch of shifty-eyed Ingaris? Am I supposed to keep one eye on my purse the whole time I’m fighting off the Bleeders?”

“You’ll find, lad, that when things turn ugly you’ll be happy to have anybody at your side who isn’t trying to stick a blade in you directly. Where he’s from isn’t so important, then.” The captain smiled. “But it never hurts to keep on an eye on your purse just the same.”

The captain brought his helmet down to cover his eyes. “Now, if you ladies don’t mind, we’ve a long day to practice our marching tomorrow. Bank that fire, shut your traps and close your eyes.”

And so we did.