Book of Water

Chapter 7

7

Rogero’s men supped on wild boar and roasted quail. They drank ale from a barrel none of them remembered carrying.

Rogero had lost fifteen of his one hundred soldiers. Men he had known well and valued. As far as his other soldiers were concerned, those fallen men still sat among them now, drinking and laughing, reaching for the same foods, but never depleting the amounts. In time Rogero would remove any trace of their memories, but for now he wanted all of them to enjoy each other’s company.

The men sat at long wooden tables inside a comfortable pavilion. Rain and wind lashed at the canvas walls, but inside they were dry and warm.

In truth, there was no pavilion. Nor tables, nor benches, nor any of the comforts the men believed they now enjoyed. Instead they sat on logs or on their cloaks spread out over the mud underneath a canopy Rogero had created out of the rain.

They didn’t eat boar and quail, but turnip mash and stale bread and the other unappetizing provisions Rogero had managed to steal from the enemy that afternoon.

His own provisions were gone. Lost to a troop of enterprising rodents who had discovered their stores while the men were distracted in battle. Rogero returned to find his sacks of grain and dried meats chewed through to the center and left open to the drenching rain. None of it was salvageable.

Rogero’s sorcery could create many things, but food had never been among them. Nor could he raise the dead, a limitation that he deeply regretted every time he lost one of his men. And today, so many…

He had to admit to himself that he had been wrong. Wrong to believe that King Carleman’s army would be as ill-prepared and easily beaten as the foes they had conquered so far.

Wrong to underestimate the enemy soldiers he had seen lounging and drinking and quarrelling in their encampment the day before. Wrong to assume they would be so overwhelmed by the numbers in his army, both real and imagined, that they would lose heart and surrender like so many already had.

At least one of the surprises had been pleasant: a woman in King Carleman’s army.

More than that, a young woman who seemed so familiar, from her stature to her swordsmanship to the grim set of her lips. Rogero felt certain they had met before—but how? When? And why couldn’t he remember?

He could never willingly forget a face like hers, still beautiful beneath splatters of mud and blood. He couldn’t forget the fluid way she fought, both on horseback and on the ground, nor her strength and skill with a sword. He admired her courage and ferocity as she protected her fellow soldier who lay pinned beneath his horse. With every movement of hers that he had watched, Rogero felt more and more certain that he knew her, and knew her well.

And yet the harder he tried to remember, the more elusive the memory was. His mind felt clouded and thick, as though he were just waking after a hard blow to the head.

“You men rest,” he had told his warriors as they set about making camp after the battle. “When I return we’ll have our feast.” The weary men cheered as he mounted Vinderon, then the windhorse sped him over Monarch Pass.

Once again Rogero stole secretly into the enemy encampment and strode unseen through their midst. He could have slain a dozen men easily before anyone knew he was there, but where was the sport in that?

Besides, he didn’t want to do anything that might draw attention to himself. Not when he had a more important purpose there than simply finding food for his men.

There—is that her? He paused and stared at a young woman in the distance who had just emerged from a tent. Her hair was the right color, dark brown, but it was too short to have been in the long braid that he saw. And she seemed stouter than the warrior he had watched. He continued his quiet search.

He took his time meandering through the enemy’s encampment, always careful not to come close to any of the horses. They always seemed to be able to sense him. He had left Vinderon some distance away for the same reason.

Finally, as the afternoon lengthened, he reluctantly abandoned his quest. His men deserved the meal that he had promised, and he knew he could come back to the enemy encampment the next day. He would not attack again, not yet. He couldn’t risk any of his men killing the young woman in battle before he had settled this mystery in his mind.

Until then, he would leave King Carleman’s army waiting anxiously and on edge, wondering when he would strike next. Meanwhile his own men could rest and enjoy eating from their enemy’s provisions.

There was no question that Rogero and his warriors would win. It was only a matter of when. The young woman added an intriguing element to the entire enterprise, but in the end, Rogero would still have to defeat them all.

Now, sitting back in his own camp alongside his own men, Rogero held his cup aloft to salute the next in his list of fallen warriors.

“To our man Tait,” he said, and the rest of the men joined him. They drank to the smiling soldier Rogero had seen cut down in battle by the girl. She was clearly the superior fighter. Tait had been outmatched.

The illusion of the dead soldier raised his cup with the others and drank to his own continuing health. Rogero looked away. A strange movement had caught his eye.

He looked across the table to where one of his living soldiers, Stefan, swayed slightly in his seat. The young warrior laughed at some joke, then suddenly grew grave. He pushed back from the table and rushed out of the pavilion. Rogero left an image of himself still drinking, then followed Stefan outside.

The young man knelt vomiting in the mud.

“Stefan?”

Rain obscured the youth’s face as he lifted it to look at his leader.

In the next moment, Stefan collapsed onto his side, knees curled up, arms clutching at his belly.

The enemy’s food, Rogero thought instantly. He should have left it. Fed his men on berries and wild greens instead.

Stefan cried out. He clutched harder at his belly and bellowed with the pain. Then suddenly he began to convulse. Rogero lifted the young man’s head out of the mud and helped him brace against the seizure.

When it finally passed, Stefan lay senseless and panting. Rogero knew it would be too difficult to move him. Instead he swept his arm in an arc over his head and created another shelter made from the rain. It crested over them like an ocean wave caught in suspension. He grabbed a handful of moonlight to illuminate it, then drew the sides of the shelter together to enclose them in a warm and silent cave.

Stefan continued panting. He gazed up at Rogero with watery, panicked eyes. The rims of his eyes looked red and seemed to swell even as Rogero watched.

Stefan’s body convulsed again. His back arched and his mouth opened wide, his tongue straining to get out of the way. But it was swollen, too. And soon all that Rogero could do was hold the young warrior tightly as Stefan stiffened and shook and grasped at what was left of his life.

Then came the release. Bloody fluids poured from his mouth and from below. Rogero held on as the stench and the liquid pooled around them. He felt the last few spasms before Stefan lost his grip on the world. The soldier lay limp in Rogero’s arms. It had all been a matter of minutes.

Rogero left Stefan in the mud and quickly strode back to the pavilion.

Nine of them now, that he could see. The watery eyes, the subtle sway in their seats.

He didn’t have much time.

He herded those nine out into the rain and to another shelter he quickly erected. The men were confused, but he couldn’t help that. He could only save the others. He sent healers with red stars on their sleeves to speak soothingly to the men and stay with them while they died.

Meanwhile Rogero returned to the feast.

And discovered three more men that he had to lead out into the rain.