Chapter 8

“Eighteenth!” yelled the trooper into the radio as they went on galloping through the veldt. “Eighteenth! Please copy! Eighteenth!”

Atop another low rise, Taran reined in the horse to check their items. Their pockets were empty, there were only a handful of now useless rounds that have been meant for the lost rifle. None for the pistol. There was a single tin of beans. No good. They can’t afford to be left behind.

“Hey kid, we can’t stay up here, we stick out. We’re a prime target.”

“You see anybody coming for us?”

Well…

“You keep radioing. I’ll scan the land.”

He reluctantly turned back to the walkie-talkie and adjusted the reception. “Eighteenth! Please copy! Eighteenth!”

“Eighteenth! Please copy!

“Eighteenth!”

“…”

“…”

“Eighteenth! Please copy! Eighteenth!”

“…”

“Eighteenth! Please copy! Eighteenth!”

“Eighteenth, where are you dimwits!?”

A garbled noise finally came through the line. Soon enough, “This is Eighteenth. Copy.”

He released a loud puff of relief. “This is Private Krum riding with Mr. Axton from the census. We are… We are following a low ridge to the south and flanked by a river about two miles to the northwest.”

“Please search for conical hill. Conical hill, blue flag. XVIII and XXIX shall rendezvous at the foot of the hill. Over.”

After relaying the details to Taran, she decided to ride up a high point and survey the environs. Sure enough, at a distance further downstream was a faint point of blue on what appeared to be a lone hillock.

“We can follow the river to that fork over there,” she said, “then go cross-country. Even if we miss the hill, we should see our comrades flocking. It will take under two hours from here.”

There were no more attacks for the time being. Considering that the XVIII still contacted them and were able to arrange for a rendezvous, the army must have won this round.

As expected, men in camo and in beige showed up almost as soon as they left the river fork behind, and in great numbers even. But the mood was not victorious.

Eh…?

“…”

What happened?

There were stretchers everywhere. She did not realize until now that the army brought so many… Quite a few were completely covered. She could only close her eyes. But she could not drown out the moans of the suffering. She felt her throat shrink. Oh, Athos…

They just stood there in their horse for a good long while as the mass of the soldiery streamed onward and forlorn to the foot of the conical hill.

They were among the last to ride into camp. Realizing who was arriving, troopers here and there turned at stared at them; she did not quite mind, they were late, after all. They kept staring at them as they dismounted and tied the horse, and also as they went ahead, through the distant cries of pain in a tent somewhere near, to report at the platoon commander’s tent, where they saluted as they entered.

Taran was surprised to find the commander in a somber mood with his dinner untouched, and the sergeant next to him… with a large bruise on his cheek. “Sir,” said Taran with another salute. “Glad to see you safe here.”

The man only made a small face. “At least you are glad.” He pushed the food on the table to them. “Are you hungry? You can have that.”

What is going on, seriously? “I probably can’t eat if I don’t have a clue why you are all so glum.”

The trooper was not keen on hearing the commander’s explanation; he already had an idea, so he saluted and asked to leave. As soon as the bruised sergeant was sure they were by themselves in the tent, he spoke up. “There was almost a mutiny.”

“What—?”

“As you can see, I took their anger. Don’t worry, it was just one blow, the others shielded me… but they did not hand over the culprit for punishment.”

“…”

“One of our platoons, the XIV… have been nearly wiped out by that amazon.”

“Amazon…?”

“The savages have a monster. There is this warrior woman who grows her body in an instant, becomes taller, stronger, quicker, you name it. We do not yet know how. I… I advise you not to go over to the tent where the injured of the XIV are. Well… over half of them are dead by now. It really adds to the general mood.”

Her head could not quite absorb all of this surreal news, so she asked another question. “Where is Mr. Hoen, sir?”

The commander sighed. “And then there is him. The two of you.”

Huh?

“I think you have already seen it. The casualties. Our XVIII and their XXIX managed to kill quite a bit of the savages at a high cost, but many others have slipped through. Ahem…. A handful of our men were killed or injured, ‘coz I ordered them to protect Mr. Vanzyck.”

Taran’s eyes widened as she began to understand.

“Well,” he continued. “That shouldn’t have been a bad decision, is it now? The President himself had charged the army to keep the man safe so he can produce an authoritative map of territory we can then probably claim and…” His words trailed off. His eyes were blank. The fight had evaporated out of him. “Mr. Axton, just take this meal, please. I’m serious.” He motioned to the sergeant to get the tray, and the man complied and placed the dinner in Taran’s hesitant hands.

“Commander,” she finally said. “Where is Hoen? Please, I gotta see him. I gotta know he’s alright.”

“He is,” said the sergeant. “He’s at the back, sleeping. You should stay here tonight, as well.”

Taran could not touch the food, either. She only sat at the bedside gazing at Hoen’s sleeping face. He looked so calm, as though he was someone else, it was so not like him. All she could think of at the moment is hope that he will awake so she can feed the meal to him. Only when he failed to rouse from the deep slumber did she begin to poke at the food and then scoop up a bite.

“The curry is good,” she mused. “Officers eat well.”

“…”

“…”

Taran puffed softly in her light sleep. She had been used to sleeping in rough places as an adventurer, but even in a proper tent her breathing was somewhat labored. So much had been heaped on her head so fast lately.

And there was one concern. Something that was so far buried by the ire of fellows and foes.

“…”

“…”

In the distance was something that sounded like growling. Did a wild dog sneak into camp and was after scraps? But somehow this one sounded different. As if it was larger. A panther…?

“…”

“…”

“…”

Is something wrong with my ears?

“…”

“…”

And that shadow on the felt of the tent, rocking in the wind. It must be a tall bush. It was certainly taller than herself. Like that thing… what was it? An amazon? They said it beat down an entire company alone.

“…”

“…”

It can’t be true.

The following morning, she got out of bed while it was dark and left the commander’s tent. Many of the soldiers were still asleep. She looked up and saw that the moon was already low in the west. There were perhaps two hours at most.

She found a shovel lying on the damp ground right next to a freshly-dug grave. Yes, this will do. She walked out to an open field and began to strike the earth with it, looking for a place where the ground was soft enough. The earth was soft everywhere. She started to dig. Her pace was good. By sunrise, her six-foot-deep excavation could hold five bodies side-by-side.

Somebody threw a fistful of dirt behind her head. Who was that? She turned and saw that men were standing over her along the edge of the pit. They don’t look too happy seeing her there. “Are you looking forward to more of us dying, lad?”

“You should have just left enough room for yourself.”

“Who are you digging that hole for, exactly?”

Taran heard herself retort. “You don’t seriously think this is for you guys, do you? There are many bodies left.” She did not want to be in a fight, but they were ganging up on her.

“Your puny little grave won’t hold all of the dead from that Amazon alone. Maybe you should try going up against the beast next time, it should be fun for you.”

“If this is too puny for you, I can make it bigger, I can dig all day!” She meant it.

“We don’t want you to do the favor! You and that city boy of yours killed our buddies. Insult to injury is what you are doing!”

“Insult to injury!” seconded one. And then more of them.

“Insult to injury!”

“Insult to injury!”

They threw more dirt at her. She could not answer back anymore, there were too many of those fistfuls hitting her. They would have buried her alive with those if they could. To her surprise, however, somebody jumped into the pit and shielded her with his back. It was that trooper from yesterday who had hauled her to the bike.

“Soldier!” yelled one of the men. “Stand down!”

“Stand down? Are you from the Eighteenth?”

“We are in the same army, soldier. The same army those two intruders are wrecking!”

“I don’t have a clue how you managed to shoehorn Axton into the killings. He was with me, we were left behind when our platoon broke camp before the savages catched up to us. They nearly got us! We were as close to death as any one of you!”

“If you stand with a murderer, then you are a murderer, too!”

“I’m only telling the truth! The only chap he murdered was that one masked cannibal who tried to skewer us! You hear that? He gave us a kill! How many of you guys looted those horsey blokes you captured? He deserves a share of the spoils as much as any of you!”

None of the men could speak for a while, only hissing and staring, until one of them dragged a body of an enemy and flung it at the pit, flung it at them. “There’s your spoils, bro!” And they all laughed at the two before turning to go.

“The three of you belong together!”

“We’re never gonna put our comrades in that hole of yours!”

The trooper seethed and fumed where he stood. Taran dusted herself; when she tried to do the same with him, he threw her hands off of him. “I-I’m sorry about that,” she told him. “What’s your name?”

“Krum,” he huffed, refusing to say any more. He got down to stripping the corpse of whatever halfway valuable items he could find: beads, coins, a tiny necklace, jewelry of bone and jade and silver, silvered teeth. Twenty pieces in all, all of which were tiny. He gathered them up and shoved them in her hands. “There.” He clambered out of the pit in a hurry and ran off.

Taran could only puff and sigh. Nobody was really backing her and Hoen up. She even doubted the platoon’s brass were actually fine with keeping them in their tent, most certainly after the sergeant went down with that bruise. An enormous sense of being completely unwelcome weighted her down.

Welp. There was little else to do but see what “loot” Krum had got her…

“…”

Hold on.

“…”

The necklace. She carefully picked it out of the rest and let it hang at eye level.

“…”

Where have I seen this before…?

“We should only take what we absolutely need,” Athos had told her back in Aquileia, packing up shortly before they sailed for the citadel in Ozhakoland.

“What if I told ‘ya I absolutely needed these?” said Taran of the trinkets in the small jewelry box.

“Are you even serious?”

“I am! This has been with me since I was little. I can’t just leave it behind.”

Athos only sighed.

“You think such a teeny little box will weigh us down?”

“Yes… in some way. For example, if you somehow lost it out there in that country, you will be terribly upset, and we need our clarity and focus when in a fight.”

“You overthink stuff.”

“Overthinking is better than recklessness. Our life is on the line here.”

“We’ll pull through, you know that. We got out of that Cascadia brawl pretty well. Let us not put ourselves down.”

Athos sighed again, obviously unconvinced. “Who gave you that, anyway? It must be really important to you, but you never told me anything about it.”

“I showed it to you already. And, I don’t really remember who this came from. All I know is my auntie sent me to live in that school. It was just there with the things she sent me. I am sure she does not have a thing for bling, so she’s ruled out, I guess.”

“You didn’t really show me. Come on, open the box. I wanna see.”

“You’re one tough cookie, ar’nt ‘ya?”

But she complied. Inside were just some bracelets, necklaces, mini-pendants… all with that same weird and intricate design which she had no clue what it even meant. What she was sure of, this is the same design on the necklace she is holding up to the light right now as she lay on her bed in the commander’s tent. Athos had insisted that she leave the box to her old home at the boarding school for safekeeping, as “it is better to lose it and still know you can get it back, and know where to get it.” Therefore, it was something of a shock to see out here in the land of death something she was sure she had left behind over leagues and leagues of ocean in Aquileia.

“Taran,” said Hoen parting the curtain to her room. “you still up, huh? Have you told the sergeant what those thugs did to you today?”

“I told you, officer was hit, can’t you see for yourself? We’re not going to drag him into another spat.”

“We? Drag? Heh. That sergeant is too soft, he shoulda be wielding that power of his to discipline his boys. He is no one fit to lead in a war if he can’t. Come on, let’s tell him together, now.”

Loud sigh. “Do what you want, but do it yourself, I tell you, I’m not interested.”

Hoen only huffed back at this. No, there is no point coming to Taran’s defense by himself. “What about that guy who tried to stop them?”

“I have no clue where he is. I never asked him to rescue me.”

Hoen raised an eyebrow. “You seem pretty chill. What if this keeps up?”

“I don’t know! And I don’t actually like it, just to be sure. Any bright ideas? To make them stop hating us?”

“Why must we bother about them!? You’re growing soft. Like that puny sergeant.”

She was in no mood for a fight, so she got up and turned to go. “You gotta rest, Hoen. I was about to nod off when you came in nagging me like a clingy leman. Leave me be and let me try to get my shut-eye back.” And she left.

She did not recover an ounce of sleep out in the dark, windswept veldt. She sat on a rock just outside camp, shrinking into her oversized jacket from the cold. But her eyes saw well enough in the darkness, she could clearly make out the strange necklace she was once again inspecting, as if trying to pry an explanation out of it. There was nothing more to extract from the trinket, really… save for that one gnawing realization.

“Was I born here…?”

It seemed reasonable. That weird box have been with her and her aunt since birth, but she never told her where it came from. No one did. And now that same design shows up right here, of all places.

Deciding her little night jaunt was futile, she trod her way back to camp.

The soft noise of scuffling caught her ear as she passed near one of the tents where the grunts were quartered. In the low light of a torch, she saw a lone man sitting in the dirt, burying his face in his hands, kicking the dust with his feet as he whimpered bitterly at himself. It was… It was Krum. The man saw her gazing at him; he eyed her with rage, wailing though gritted teeth, and then scrambled to his feet and ran off. She could only imagine what had happened to him. So that’s how it is to be shunned by your mates. She heaved a deep sigh and continued to the commander’s tent in pained silence.

There was so much to deal with today. Too much even.

How many people did she hurt in some way? Athos. The Bensons. The army. And now… what if there turned out to be kin amongst the enemy…?

Not to even mention that Krum person.

“…”

“I wish I could join you soon. Athos.”

Only the wind answered, Athos will never hear anything she said. But it only addled her head even more.

Perhaps she should have just picked up that pistol and joined him right then and there. But she never even thought of it. She… who had lived on whilst her own bosom buddy lay dead… She could not bring herself to do that to herself. I’m such a coward. But soon, she hoped, justice will catch up to her. Here on the battlefield, a more appropriate way to go awaited her. She will finally be covered in the same earth as him.