The Light of Burning Shadows

TWELVE

A regiment smells.

It’s supposed to. It marches through mud and flame, washed as much by blood and filth as it is by rain. It churns the earth and rends the air as it grinds itself to a keen edge, growing thinner as it grows sharper.

It smells of sweat and urine and beer. It wears with honor the musk of old leather and the pungent sting of boot polish and the must of brick dust. The rotten-egg stink of black powder mixes with the cool tang of steel. Waves of odors steam from it in the heat, creating a distinctive blend of hewn wood, fresh manure, and maggoty bread, all filtered through the constant haze of harsh tobacco smoke.

At times, it also smells of fear, and courage-the two so inextricably entwined they are as one.

Above all, a regiment smells of life: foul, heady, and intense. The Iron Elves, however, smelled of one more thing; the oath. It permeated everything, and though no one could describe it, it was distinct and unmistakable.

Alwyn had come to think of it as a pool of spreading blood; dark, thick, and permanent. It was a subject few of the soldiers wanted to talk about, and even when he spoke with Miss Red Owl and Miss Tekoy and even Rallie, he couldn’t really explain it, and they could never fully understand.

Think staining wood, he told himself, trying to blot the image of blood from his mind. Wood could be sanded, varnished even, and painted over. Wood was malleable, natural, and retained elements of its spirit even after its death, or at least that’s what Miss Red Owl and Miss Tekoy told him.

Alwyn shifted his weight from his good leg to his wooden leg and then back again as they waited for the order to march. The Prince was still talking, but Alwyn made no effort to hear what he was saying. The sun pressed its heat down on Alwyn like a thick, flat paving stone. His head was dizzy and it felt like an oven inside his shako. He ran an already sweat-stained cuff across his forehead and tried to focus on something else.

The pack on his back was digging into the fleshy bit right above his waist. He adjusted the straps and shrugged a couple of times, but failed to find a more comfortable position. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. Soldiers carried their lives on their backs like two-legged pack mules, though Alwyn thought mules were probably treated better. He tried to think of what he could throw away the first chance he got. The obvious choice was the greatcoat and blanket wrapped into a roll and strapped to the top of his pack. The bundle forced his head forward at an uncomfortable angle, and in this kind of heat he couldn’t see why he’d need either of them.

“Sergeant,” he said as Yimt walked past checking the rows. Yimt turned and walked over, making a show of looking Alwyn up and down. “Any chance we could lose the coat and blanket?”

“Yeah, how ’bout it, Sarge?” Zwitty added, already reaching up and undoing the straps to take his off.

Yimt grabbed the hem of his caerna and began flapping it to create a breeze. “I’d be the first to admit that this heat is frying my giblets, but it won’t always be this hot. You keep that gear stowed.” A few soldiers began flapping their caernas, though not with quite the dwarf’s vigor.

Zwitty clicked his tongue. “Those sergeant’s stripes are going to your head.”

“My fist will be going upside yours if you give me any more lip, Private,” Yimt said, a cheery smile on his face that suggested there would be nothing he’d like more. “Bloody babes in the woods the lot of you. Mark my words, any soldier who somehow manages to lose his coat or bedroll will be begging to buy one for twenty gold coins. This ain’t like Elfkyna. This heat is quick. It fires up fast and cools off even faster.”

Grumbling greeted this assessment, but they’d all learned by now that if Yimt said something was worth holding on to, you guarded it with your life. The dwarf leaned in toward Alwyn and motioned for him to bend over so they couldn’t be overheard. “An enterprising young lad might just try to pick up an extra blanket if he can. You never know what the nights will bring…”

Alwyn pondered that as Yimt walked away, but the heat quickly pushed it out of his mind. Surely there was something he could get rid of.

On leaving the ship for the last time, a fact that had raised morale among the regiment despite the daunting prospect of fighting in an unknown desert land, they’d all been issued with four days’ worth of salted beef and ship’s biscuits. When Alwyn compared that with the even more daunting prospect of Yimt’s cooking, he decided the food was worth holding on to. He’d never part with his housewife with its essential needles and thread, a gift from Mr. Yuimi, the little elf tailor, when Alwyn had joined up. The extra shirt, stockings, polishing kit, and coin purse were equally crucial and not to be left behind.

Alwyn looked down his front and patted the canteen filled with water and the gourd filled with rok har, the tree sap elixir the elves of the Long Watch drank for energy on long journeys. He wouldn’t be giving those up, or the pouch carrying sixty-five rounds of musket balls and powder charges or his musket or bayonet.

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders again. Pain and suffering seemed to be the constant state of being of a soldier in the Iron Elves. He tried to remember a time when that wasn’t the case, but such memories proved elusive.

Alwyn shifted his weight again and winced.

“Looks like you’re due for a watering,” Hrem said, pointing down toward Alwyn’s wooden leg.

The twisted branches that made up the false leg did indeed look dry. Alwyn unslung his musket from his shoulder and handed it to Hrem, then grabbed the wooden gourd given to him by Miss Red Owl. He poured out a small amount of the rok har into his hand then bent over to rub it into the wood. It was a challenge to keep his balance, but Hrem helpfully moved closer to allow Alwyn to lean against him.

“Why don’t you just take it off to do that?” Scolly asked, forever fascinated and slightly afraid of the appendage.

“It doesn’t like to go back on,” Alwyn said. The magic imbued in the crafted leg made for him by Miss Red Owl and Miss Tekoy was a true marvel, the woven branches flexing where the ankle and the knee would be. He had tried wearing a boot over the roots that acted as his foot, but found he had more stability without the boot and left it off except for ceremonial occasions like this one.

Alwyn lifted the hem of his caerna to show Scolly where the branches thinned and became green vines, which wrapped around the stump of his leg. Parts of the vines were blackened while the flesh of his leg was bright red and raw in a couple of places. For the moment, no frost fire sparkled along the areas where vine and skin touched.

“The magic of the oath doesn’t seem to like the magic in the wood too much,” Alwyn said, rubbing the area around the stump gently before lowering his caerna.

“You’re a fool, you know that?” Zwitty said, staring at the leg. “Losing that leg was your ticket out of this nightmare. Why didn’t you get yourself shipped back to Calahr when you had the chance, or at least stay back in Elfkyna?”

“There is no out,” Teeter said. “We’re all in this to the end, and maybe even beyond the end. I don’t care what Sergeant Arkhorn said, I don’t see how we survive this.”

A sharp, disapproving snort indicated Inkermon’s thoughts on the subject. “We must find a way. We just need faith.”

“Or something else,” Alwyn said. “We all saw what happened to Kester.”

“Yeah, he burned alive with his shadow and now he’s dead,” Zwitty said.

“But he didn’t join the others, at least, not yet,” Alwyn said.

Zwitty’s eyes widened. “Not yet? He’s still dead, and he screamed as if the flames burning his shadow were burning him from the inside. Hrem felt it. You felt it. Are you telling us that’s a pleasant way to go? And go where? There might just be worse things than serving in the afterlife, you know.”

“I can’t imagine them,” Alwyn said. Images of ghostly hands reaching out to him remained a constant companion during his waking hours.

“Aye, I felt it,” Hrem said, “and it was like being pulled apart a little bit at a time, all while burning.” His voice was so soft that all the soldiers shuddered to hear him say it.

Alwyn had felt that, too, but he didn’t share their reaction. “But what if we could learn to control it? What if we could use it to burn away the oath and then stop?”

“And what if you couldn’t stop it and your shadow keeps burning until you’re dead? Then what?” Zwitty asked for all of them.

Alwyn never got the chance to reply as bellowing broke out along the formation of troops. It was time to march.

“Right, lads, look sharp!” Yimt shouted as he strode up to them. “This is the citizenry of Nazalla’s first time getting a peek at you and you’d better look aces. You’re Iron Elves now and that means something to folks. We’re the ones that took on the Shadow Monarch and Her beasties at Luuguth Jor and handed them their keesters in a basket.”

A roar went up from the Iron Elves. Backs straightened and eyes brightened.

“We’re the bloody bastards what took island after island and cleared ’em safe.”

The roar was louder now. The heat suddenly didn’t seem so oppressive.

“Sure, you’re probably doomed for all eternity to a life of misery and woe, but oh, what woe you’ll sow!”

Creases were brushed flat, spit smoothed down stray hairs, and shakos were adjusted to the perfect jaunty angle. The snap of cloth drew nods of approval as the Colors, the pair of flags that served as every regiment’s badge of honor, were unfurled in the blazing sun. The Queen’s Colors rose first, the royal cipher surrounded by a leafy garland on a background of silver-green offering a stark contrast to their dusty white surroundings.

The tops of boots were given a final buff on the backs of stockinged legs as the Regimental Colors were hoisted. A murmur of grudging acceptance greeted the black flag. Battle honors for Luuguth Jor and the island chain now adorned the mountain outlined in silver along with the Elvish script?ri Mekah; Into the Fire. What other regiment took that into battle?

“I’d wager my weight in gold every creepy-crawly-nasty-ugly the world over is hunting for you,” Yimt said, thumping his chest with vigor. “They probably think, seeing as you ain’t really elves, your poor excuse for a hide would make a nice throw rug in their cave!”

Caernas were twirled, then hitched up or down so that the hem rode right at the kneecap. Muskets were pressed just that much tighter against shoulders and jaws jutted out until they ached.

“But if anyone ever tells you lads you don’t got pointy ears, by the deuce boyos, you look ’em in the eye and tell ’em you got iron balls!”

Birds startled into the air and camels bucked as the Iron Elves roared their approval. They might be doomed, damned, and buggered for all eternity, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t sparkle like a diamond in the sun and grin like a skull in moonlight on their way to oblivion.

A regiment smells. It’s supposed to. Among all the things the Iron Elves smelled of, something new asserted itself; pride.