Gen’s Other Life

Chapter 1:

The soldier and the disciple looked over the battlements, watching the dusk gather while they waited for death. It was cold this far up in the Devil’s Teeth, the last tolerably cool nights of autumn falling well below lofty Fort Ouster. Though the sky was still blue, the great peaks to the west left them in deep shadows.

“It’s almost like an eclipse,” the soldier remarked.

“It is, at that,” said the disciple, squinting skyward as he pulled his red robes close about himself.

The soldier smiled, watching the man tug his skullcap as far down over the pointed tips of his ears as he could manage, then said, “It’s hard to get used to, this high up. The air’s so thin. I go up some stairs and I feel like I ran a race.”

“Does it make it hard to fight?” asked the disciple, turning to face him. Both had the protruding canines, porcine noses, and fine covering of hair that signaled their orcish ancestry. Captain Bihgs, with his bulkier, powerfully muscled frame, was decidedly more orc than human.

“Sometimes,” Bihgs admitted, “but it won’t matter. Not with her.”

“You really think the dream walker is coming?” asked the disciple, his voice mild, his smile slight.

“Well, why wouldn’t she?” said the captain, “It’s not as if Gilead can just ignore it when they stop hearing from Fort Elion. They need to eat, same as us, and they don’t have many trading options left. That port is a spoon we’ve taken from the mouths of their children.”

“You pity them?” asked the disciple, fiddling absently with a turquoise pin at his collar, eyes flicking repeatedly toward the south.

Bihgs chuffed out a laugh and fished a packet of jerky from a pouch at his waist, opposite his sword. The soldier wore the imperial military standard; plated chain mail with a long sword, and a circular wooden shield over his back. Beneath that, his repeater was slung with its barrel hanging nearly to his knee. A lime green glow eked out faintly into the gathering gloom, telltale of the aurikalt that powered the weapon. His gear was uniformly dark gray, picked out with red accents. The seal of the Empire of Shail marked his nasal helmet and shield; a sable ruler and drafting compass crossed over a red field.

“Not at all,” said the soldier, “I just know what I would do if I was her and that’s come looking. She’s no stranger to war, not anymore. It’s nothing for her to scout here at Fort Ouster before she heads that way. From there, it’s no great stretch to guess that we’re the port’s only source of reinforcement. When she finds out we’re operating under little more than a skeleton crew, then that’s it for us. It would be stupid for her to leave us at her back. After she’s cleared the bay, we’d still be left blocking one of the major passes to reach it. Gilead’s Queen will want boots on the ground both here and there after their devil is done with us to ensure her people are nourished.”

He offered the packet to the disciple before taking a piece for himself. As much like a piece of salty leather as it was, the disciple rolled his eyes in delight as the flavor of it gradually leached into his mouth. As last meals go, he thought, there’s much to be desired. Still, it’s something from home.

Following the disciple’s thoughts, Bihgs said, “The beef out here doesn’t taste right. I don’t know what they feed their cattle, but it’s not from a proper prairie.”

The other man nodded. In his mind’s eye, he could see the endless plains that comprised the heartland of Shail. Even here, at the last, his heart ached for it. Swallowing a softened lump of meaty salt, he said, “It’s mutton, mostly. They eat sheep out here, and goats.”

The soldier grunted thoughtfully in acknowledgement and the disciple added, “And you shouldn’t call her that.”

The captain asked, “What? Devil?”

Tucking away the packet, Bihgs swept his hand across the mountainscape, “Aren’t these the Devil’s Teeth, Nged? Where else would we find one?”

“She’s not a devil,” Nged insisted gently, “She’s…”

“What?” Bihgs interrupted, “You’re going to say she’s just a person? That’s a bunch of shit and you know it. In the last ten years, she’s been killed on plenty of engagements. I know your people keep track of that kind of thing. Humanizing the dream walker is just propaganda to keep the troops from shitting themselves and running when they see her. Makes more of them think they have a chance.”

Nged spread his hands, “The Path of Andomeclese favors its disciples with the knowledge of creation. It is up to us to walk the Path ourselves, and to do that we must keep our eyes open.”

Bihgs swallowed his jerky and spat over the wall, “So, you mean to tell me you really think the Path can tell us how to kill a god?”

“There are no gods,” said the disciple, tsking, his faith affronted, ”Not in the way you mean. The Path has shown us long ago the truth of that.”

“And what is it I mean?” asked the soldier, retrieving his packet to offer again. Nged still had half of his first piece, but wasn’t about to turn down a second. He plucked out a chunk of jerky and unobtrusively tucked it into a pocket hidden within his robes.

“You think that because of her power, that she is immortal,” said the disciple, “But the truth is there is nothing permanent. All things are changing. That is the way of it. All things begin and then they end, leaving only time behind them.”

“And little before us,” Bihgs said stoically, “If the dream walker can be killed, as you say, it won’t be here and we won’t be the ones to do it.”

“How do you mean?” asked the disciple, his hand unconsciously returning to his collar to roll the smooth stone pinned there between his fingers.

“It’s not just that we’re undermanned,” said the captain, “We just don’t have any weapons that will make a difference, not in the long run. If I didn’t know better, I would think the Empire has left us here like this on purpose.”

The disciple looked at the other man pointedly, but said nothing in a way that begged the soldier to say more. Dropping to a low, conspiratorial tone, Bihgs said, “Look, it’s not too far-fetched if you think about it. This battalion occupying Ouster now took the worst of it at Fort Elion. Once the bleeding was done, the Empire saw fit to reinforce them with everything they needed, yet we were left on our own with little more than a promise for aid that’s weeks old now.”

Nged shrugged and swallowed the last of his first bit of jerky, “What good is it to the Empire to lose fortresses and good men with them?”

The captain shook his head, “I just feel like a worm on a hook. She’s going to come for us and everything she finds here is going to spur her on to Fort Elion.”

The disciple tsked again, “We still have the Count of Elion as our hostage. If Gilead moves on us, dream walker or not, his life will be forfeit.”

The soldier shrugged, unconvinced. The disciple didn’t pursue the point further. Both knew no message had been sent to Gilead for the ransom of Count Mahsy Byrhon.

“Besides,” said the disciple, “To what end? To accomplish what? What is the advantage to deliberately losing two major targets to the dream walker?”

Bihgs smiled knowingly, “I think you disciples have figured something out about the dream walker. I think Elion is a trap.”

Nged beamed at that, “You think we’ve solved the dream walker!? Bihgs, I am glad to see your faith gives you confidence that the Path will lead us where we need to be. So it has been since the time of Andomeclese himself, has it not?”

“Yes, well…” said the soldier, standing awkwardly as the other man heartily clapped him on the back. Then, alarm bells sounded in the distance and he put all else aside. Following the other’s gaze, Nged peered into the darkness. Quiet at first, the screams of dying men soon threatened to drown out the brassy sound of the watchtower’s alert.

“Shit!” said the captain, “You know…”

“I know exactly where I need to be,” interrupted Nged, “I was charged with the responsibility of our hostage by the Holy Father himself. I will see myself there. Good luck to you, captain.”

Putting the disciple behind him, Bihgs rushed across the wall toward the shouts of anger and pain. As he neared, he heard the sounds of steel on steel and the crack of breaking shields. He soon joined up with a hastily assembled contingent of his infantry, but before they could enter the corner tower to make their way around, the dream walker was among them.

The first of them died instantly, the man’s armor and flesh crushed into a gory mass as she landed on top of him in a kneeling crouch. Bihgs glanced up, trying to figure out where she’d come from before it dawned on him. Shit! She really can fly?!

Like most, he’d never actually seen the dream walker before. The reality of her being actually in front of him was breathtaking. His mind struggled to make sense of her; the best approximation it had was an old memory of falling into a stream during one of his first campaigns.

It was winter, bitterly cold, and he could remember how he fought against the pull of the current and the icy drag of the water on his body as it saturated his gear. He had been certain then that he was going to die and was astonished when he hadn’t. Now, death had come again and as uncertain as that was, he knew he’d have to fight this force of nature to live.

The dream walker was decidedly female, tall and hardy, with wide hips and thick, powerful looking legs. She was covered from head to toe in scaled chainmail, the workmanship of it somehow more than perfect. She carried a rapier and buckler, the rim of the little shield buried in the helmet and skull of the dead soldier where she’d landed. Drawing it back with a wet, sucking sound, the blood and brains dripped in a steady patter as she rose smoothly. Bihgs was struck by her face as it came into view, the brown skin smooth and unlined. She’s so young! he thought, Hardly older than my own daughter.

“’Sup, bitches?!” the dream walker exclaimed, and then kicked the man closest to her in the groin. The movement was unbelievably fast. No one could have reacted quickly enough. Unable to do anything but stare in astonishment, Bihgs watched as the blow threw the soldier high into the air, blood gushing from his crotch in arterial spurts.

“Guys,” called the dream walker, extending her first two fingers from the hilt of her sword to point at her own eyes, “I’m down here.”

At that, some of the men met her gaze. She smiled cheerily at them, then drove the tip of her narrow blade into the throat of a gawking soldier, thrusting until it pierced out the back of his skull and helm and into the eye of the man behind him. With a sound like metal scraping on metal scraping on bone, she drew back her arm and casually beheaded another soldier standing behind her.

Gathering his wits, Captain Bihgs shouted, “Charge her, you fools! Charge!”

Her stance wide, rapier and buckler at her waist, the dream walker leaned forward and bellowed, “Suck my ass, motherfuckers!”

The imperial soldiers charged bravely, shouting as one as they bore down on Gilead’s champion. She cut through the nearest of them effortlessly, turning seasoned warriors into dismembered corpses with flicks of her sword too fast for the eye to follow. Ignoring his longsword, Bihgs unslung his repeater.

“Repeaters up!” he shouted, “Fire at will!”

Some of the men hesitated and Bihgs didn’t blame them. With their positioning, they were as likely to hit one of their own as the dream walker. It didn’t take long for the dullest of them to realize it didn’t matter. A lucky shot was the most likely way for any of them to come out alive, and the more shots there were, the luckier. The captain shouted in wordless rage layered over boundless terror as he pulled his trigger, filling the air with metal slugs and the green sparks of discharging aurikalt from his weapon’s battery pack.