The Multitude, стр. 31

CHAPTER 14

Across the portal, in Virtus

Quintus Laskaris eased his horse around a clump of scrub brush baked brown by the sun. He’d likely be skirting these patches of thirsty vegetation for a few more days, until he reached the somewhat wetter capital city of Dubris. Then, should he continue into the woods, he’d cross the Sanctimonia border. Thoughts of fiery Mystic women and the hard-drinking, story-telling men of that territory tempted him sorely. He enjoyed their company far more than that of his own brutish lot. But border saloons were rife with the king’s spies. Albus wouldn’t be amused to hear about any side trips to consort with the “enemy.”

Meanwhile, well outside his ruling brother’s reach, a trinity of more immediate scourges shaped Quintus’s day—drought, dust, and danger. A little ahead, Bertramus and his band of six soldiers had already pulled up short. “I smell trouble,” the lieutenant said. He pointed east.

Quintus squinted toward the horizon. Anything greater than a mile out faded into the same dusty haze that had turned everyone’s blue uniforms gray—capes, shirts, trousers, and boots all gone to chalk.

Winds gusting across the scorched earth stirred up an earthy powder he could taste. He longed to rinse the bitter flavor from his mouth, but he’d stolen too many swigs from his canteen already. Rationing would be the word until they came upon the next creek.

“I don’t smell a thing.” Quintus hoped Bertramus hadn’t jinxed them by bringing up the possibility of trouble. Although the region was notorious for its dangers, the first day and a half of their journey had proven blessedly uneventful. They hadn’t skirmished with any of the hostile gangs of fugitives, bandits, or indigenous savages who favored the area for its general lack of soldiers. Despite their side trip to fetch Quintus from his border patrol, Bertramus’s principal orders were to root out these scoundrels. Thus far, though, they’d come across only a few dry-land farmers—peaceful folk for the most part, if somewhat crazy. No sane man could expect hardy crops to spring out of the cracked earth. Quintus admired their pluck.

“One o’clock.” Bertramus continued pointing east.

Quintus could barely make out a distant hint of smoke at a slight angle from the path they’d been following. The time had come to say his good-byes and move on. These other soldiers had been assigned peacekeeping duties, whereas he’d been summoned to see the king. But he couldn’t abandon this small troop to face an unknown danger, could he? In a skirmish, one extra gun might make all the difference. Besides, why hurry to visit a brother he despised, whether he’d been summoned or not?

He stayed with the men.

They advanced with caution, using undulations in the land as cover. When they rounded the last hill, they had their weapons at the ready, the soldiers with rifles in their hands and Quintus with a pistol. As a scout and occasional spy, he traveled lightly armed. Now, approaching the unknown with only six bullets in his chamber and a relatively short range of fire, he prayed he could count on the soldiers as good marksmen.

But the time for shooting had already come and gone. They rode up to the smoldering ruins of a cabin where the bodies of a homesteading couple lay outside, riddled with arrows. The man had been scalped.

“They were unarmed, by the looks of it.” Bertramus shaded his eyes and gazed toward a fenced area south of the cabin. “Bound to happen sooner or later. I’m surprised these fools survived long enough to plant their crops.”

Quintus longed for the ability to stave off emotion and make such a callous comment. He’d seen plenty of death in his thirty years, more than enough to harden the hearts of most men, but his remained too soft. As usual, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from straying down a path littered with pointless empathy. Had the couple been happy? Had they been living their dream? What of their parents who’d eventually hear the sorry news from the soldiers? And what of those others whose lives might have been touched by these two? Homesteading was the best means for taming a forbidding land, but this couple had found death doing it.

He escaped the heart-wrenching carnage and wandered to a brook some hundred yards away. An irrigation canal had been scooped out, and he followed it to the fenced plantings—a row of corn waist high, a small field of wheat, another of soy. The wind triggered rippling waves across the unburned plots. The region’s warring indigenous tribes never touched crops, focusing their wrath solely on settlers and their dwellings. Perhaps the savages considered the isolated pockets of splendor in a fallow land akin to hallowed ground.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a world where one might carve out a homestead in peace. But he saw only two bloodied corpses.

Bertramus came up, stooping to fill his canteen in the clear canal water. “The northern tribe hates settlers.”

“They see these plains as their land,” Quintus said.

The bearded man stood, took a swig from his canteen, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You and I share a history. How many battles have we fought side by side?”

“Counting saloon brawls?”

Bertramus split the dust at his mouth with a wide grin. “Whatever they were, you fought with conviction. Don’t go soft on me now. You’ll be traveling alone, across their land, the rest of the way.”

“And you’ll be traveling?”

The lieutenant jerked his chin to the north.

The possibility of action tugged Quintus like a magnet. “I can lend a hand in a fight.”

“I doubt we’ll catch them.”

“If you do, you and your soldiers could use the help. I’ve never known the northerners to travel fewer than two dozen strong.”

Bertramus took another pull at his canteen, then squinted at the sky as if looking to God for an answer. “I have my orders, and you