Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

“Then how?” he screamed. He saw his soldiers slowing as the last of the minor priests fell, beginning to look around, and beginning to perceive the center of the holocaust they were now in. Most of the surrounding smoke now limned with flame, darting and dancing like things alive, as they licked and drew on the bodies of the fallen. A soldier dropped his sword in despair and fell to his knees. The weight of the voice, calling on them to despair, built now that blood cooled and panic built.

“Break the key, and break the binding that draws the thing here. Break the stave. That is the center.”

Tregaran looked around wildly, seeing the first of his troops fall as the Fires, strengthened by the bodies of the fallen, lashed out at the living. A soldier frantically defended himself, using his blade to block the fist-shaped tounge of flame that grew out of the bonfire, punched through his armor, and immolated him. He had bare seconds to scream before writhing on the scorched paving stones, his body alight in sickly red flames. Tregaran heard a second scream to his right a moment later, and saw a third soldier fall across the square.

Tregaran knew then what he had to do.

He threw his shield away and gripped his sword tightly in both hands. He shook off the last feelings of despair and gathered his will into a single dart of purpose.

He lifted the blade over his head and charged the swirling pillar of flame.

Cogern with the First Battle just crested the hill and started the running slide down into the fight when the detonation blew him backward onto the scree. The entire center of the village, totally shrouded by flames and rising smoke, blew outward, the pressure wave tossing the smoke aside as it would a curtain. The lurid red glow that marked the horizon faded then, to something more normal.

An under-officer, his armor scorched and one arm hanging free, staggered into him. “Warmaster! Thank V’kandis! The colonel’s down.”

Cogern followed at a run, the bulk of First Battle behind. They passed into the center square, where the bonfires had been snuffed by the blast. A distant part of Cogern’s mind registered there was no wood in those fires, only bones. Second Battle lay scattered around the square, some dead, more hurt, most stunned from the detonation.

In the center lay Tregaran, held by an openly weeping soldier. Nearby lay the blasted body of something with too many arms, and a broken stave lay nearby.

Cogern fell to his knees next to what was left of Tregaran. Shiny skull showed at Tregaran’s forehead and his fingers and armor appeared burned away. Strips of flesh hung from the colonel’s ruined body, and sightless eyes stared up. Cogern wept freely.

The chirurgeon appeared from behind the men, falling to his knees besides them. He took a silvered mirror and held it to where Tregaran’s lips had been.

“By all that’s Holy, he’s alive!”

Cogern looked up, tears pouring down his sooty face.

“Will he live?”

The chirurgeon looked down, then up. “No. He’s too badly hurt. There’s nothing we can do. He’s probably not even aware of us.”

The firecat, unnoticed, sat to one side. It had done what it could to take as much of the man’s pain as he could. He opened the door to the man’s mind and began to ease him away. Better to end this now.

Tregaran slipped into something like a dream. He walked on a wide plain, marked only by the dead Herald and the horse’s head on the pike.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

She sat on a rock nearby, her squarish jaw not a feature he liked. She stood, her acolyte’s chiton flaring around her and settling back. Her long, lithe legs flashed as she jumped down from the rock and walked toward the Herald.

“You see this as what you fight for,” she said. It was not a question. “You march your regiment from border to border, defending those who pervert the Way.” She gently took his hand between hers. He could feel his scarred fingers rough against her smooth palm, feel the scribe’s callus on the index finger against the back of his hand. “You lead your regiment to battle after battle. You execute traitors condemned by Laskaris’ word, with not a peep in their defense. You start wars you know are wrong, execute orders you know are wrong, and sent many a brave soldier to their deaths for a Son of the Sun you don’t believe in.”

Each sentence, softly spoken, struck him like a physical blow. “Yes,” he could but nod. “Yes.”

Her cool hand brushed his face. “You saved those you could from the Fires, spared the wounded from pointless burning. You did as you were sworn to do, leading your regiment to battle to defend your country, and enforcing those laws placed in your hands to enforce. Your doubt of your orders came often afterward, in the full light of day, and in growing realization of error . . . when duty compelled and honor failed.”