Shadows in the Smoke - Chapter 36 - The Long Walk Home

  “Freedom of speech is fundamental to the Republic. Its Citizens welcome constructive criticism because that is what helps it to grow. Due to the protections granted by law, we can be sure that our journalists, writers and politicians tell only the truth.”

  The Struggle for Freedom by Bjarne Midthun

  =====

  By the time Ester reached him, Loga had managed to sit up and was looking around with bleary eyes. When his eyes settled on her, he stared for a moment before speaking.

  “That was incredibly dangerous of you, Mage Mazar. You could have killed me.”

  Ester stood, her mouth working silently, speechless in the face of her own incredulity until she found her voice.

  “Are you joking? I just… You were about to be and I… Why is everyone here such id- Argh!” She cut herself off with a small shriek of frustration.

  Loga winced and looked down. “It was… it actually was a joke, Mage Mazar. I apologise, soldiers have odd sense of humour at times. I forgot you weren’t one, if you had been one of us I expect you would have offered to find me some more undead to replace the ones you dealt with.” He sighed deeply and muttered something that Ester was glad she couldn’t quite make out before looking up to meet her eyes again. “That was a good trick. Fucking loud, I don’t think my ears will stop ringing for days, but it did the job. Thank you.”

  “Oh.” Ester stood there, frozen in utter bemusement. How was she even meant to react to this? Eventually, she offered him a tentative smile, although she suspected it might look more like a grimace. “You are welcome. Can you stand, Arcanist-Captain?”

  Loga tried to push himself off the ground. “Fuck.” He sank back down. “I seem to be a bit more injured than I thought.” He poked himself in the side and hissed at the pain. Ester’s eyes widened at that. His uniform was soaked there, its grey turned almost black from blood. “I think it would be best if you returned to the fort now, I’m sure the undead have reinforcements on the way. I’ll just have a rest and then follow.”

  Ester frowned. He looked worryingly young now that she was really focusing on him. He couldn’t be much past twenty, barely older than she was. This was absurd. He was meant to be the experienced soldier, not some idiot boy trying to be a hero.

  “You are being ridiculous, if it is too dangerous for me, then it certainly is for you.” She glanced away from him, towards where she could still feel Lindholm fighting the liche. They’d moved well out of sight and were steadily heading further away. Whether that was deliberate or not, she had no idea. However, while it wasn’t anything like as powerful as when Master Tabasi had Walked to Trevayn, there was still so much magic being used that she could point straight at the Arcanist-Colonel without looking. Should she be trying to help Lindholm too? The liche had been indescribably powerful. Could she even do anything to it?

  Loga’s eyes followed hers and he barked out a short, pained laugh. “Ha. Don’t worry about Sigrid, Arcanist-Colonel Lindholm, she’s unkillable. Whatever situation you leave her in, she’ll come striding out when you least expect it. Now, seriously, go! You can’t stay here. You’re not a soldier and this isn’t your war.”

  Ester tore her eyes away from Lindholm. The woman might not be as powerful as the liche, but she was still fighting and Ester doubted there was much she could do to help anyway. That left Loga.

  “Very well. I shall leave the Arcanist-Colonel to her battle, but I am not leaving you here. You will die if I do.”

  “For fuck’s sake!” Loga suddenly snarled. “I’m trying to save you, you idiot crown-licker, we’ll both die if you stay here.”

  “I do not need saving.” Ester stamped down on her anger at the insult and looked at him more closely. She really didn’t know much about healing, magical or otherwise, but she needed to do something about his bleeding. Pressure on a wound and wrapping it tight, she was sure she’d read that somewhere. “Take off your coat, I need to use it as a bandage.”

  Loga hesitated and then started to slowly unbutton the overcoat before trying to struggle out of it. It was slow. Too slow. Ester looked around nervously, would the fort even send reinforcements to help them? She had no doubt the undead were already running towards them.

  “This isn’t working, stop it.” She waved at his hands, barely noticing some of the accent of her birth bleeding through. “Stay very still. Basch.” She spoke the spell and guided the tiny thread of magic carefully through his coat.

  A few seconds later, it was in long strips, other than the blood soaked part.

  “Right.” Ester pursed her lips, this was going to be tricky. She glanced around them again. Still no hordes of undead. Just Lindholm and the liche’s magic drifting ever further away. “This might hurt a bit. Sorry.”

  She pulled the strips of coat straight, held them over his wound and bit her bottom lip. What would be the best way to do this? Tying probably wouldn’t be tight enough. As it came to her, she resisted the urge to sigh. This was going to be difficult.

  In a smooth movement, Ester pulled the strips as tight as she could onto the wound in Loga’s side before bringing the ends together around him so that they overlapped.

  She ignored his pained groan and held them there, utterly focused on the rough cloth. “Na’basch.” The single inverted word of power helped shape her spell. Runes danced over the cloth as magic merged into it. Her headache was getting worse and the spell was slow, but her will was inviolate. Slowly, but surely, the cloth came together, binding itself as if it had always been one piece.

  As soon as it was done, Ester released the spell with a gasp. “That should hold, Arcanist-Captain. Now, let’s get you up. Can you stand?”

  “I… You should-”

  Ester cut him off with an irritated huff. “Fine. I’ll help you stand, we need to get moving.” She squatted down, ignoring the way he recoiled slightly from her and slid her arm under his shoulders. At least he was a small man.

  “Can’t believe I’m being saved by a fucking Impe-” He cut off his mumbled curse and put his arm over her shoulders. The moment his hand brushed across the back of Ester’s head, she froze. He was there, a presence that she had to fight, to survive, to stop him from obliterating her. She had to take control!

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  Ester forced her panic down. He wasn’t forcing his will on her. She didn’t need to fight. An infinitesimal fraction of a second, or maybe an eternity, later he was gone. His clothed sleeve resting on her neck. Was that what it was like for Republicans whenever they greeted each other?

  “R-r-right,” she stammered. “Let’s get going. On three. One, two, three!”

  As she struggled to pull him up, she did her best not to think about how much of no-man’s land they needed to cross.

  The movement must have hurt the Arcanist-Captain, but he didn’t make a sound beyond a quiet grunt. Nor, to Ester’s relief, did he acknowledge their brief moment of contact.

  They started to pick their way back across the muddy, cold ground. Fortunately, Loga supported most of his own weight; she wasn’t sure she could have managed to go far otherwise.

  They staggered along in silence at first. Loga’s breathing was harsh and Ester was fairly sure he was trying to stifle groans of pain as they went. She was struggling with her breath too, not so much through pain, although her bruises and cuts were starting to hurt, but because it was simply hard work. Not for the first time, she mentally thanked Sergeant Etroan for his lessons. She’d hated the running and jumping around he’d made her do, but without those, she’d probably be lying on the ground gasping for breath now.

  As they trudged on, she could hear Loga’s breathing getting worse. She needed to distract him, keep him going.

  “How long have you been in the army, Arcanist-Captain?” Ester groped for the first topic she could, ridiculously banal as it was.

  She felt him glance at her before he answered. “About three years, Mage Mazar.”

  “I see.” It told her nothing, but if he was talking he wasn’t thinking about how much pain he was in. “So, how does it work for you in the Republic?” No doubt someone in the Empire knew how the Republic’s magical education worked, but she didn’t and maybe she’d find something useful out too. “Do all Arcanists go to your People’s College? How long for?”

  “No, not all. Every major city has its own institution for the arcane arts. I was there for-. One second, please.” He stopped moving and groaned before tugging at the improvised bandage with his free hand. “Alright, we can continue.” He took a breath as they staggered on. “I went to the People’s College of the Arcane for five years, until I was eighteen.”

  Ester carefully didn’t voice the quiet feeling of satisfaction that that gave her. No wonder the Republicans didn’t seem to be all that skilled at magic. “So you had five years of training and then joined the army?”

  “Yes, well no. I had eight years. Three of training at my local academy.” Ester’s eyes narrowed at the word. It couldn’t have been anything like the Academy. “Then I was chosen to attend the People’s College.”

  “Oh, you must have been very Talented.” Ester kept her voice polite, now wasn’t the time to express her doubts about Republican skill. “So, you found out you had the Talent when you were ten years old?”

  “Yes.” He grunted with effort as they crested a small rise. “Everyone is tested at that age.”

  “Everyone?” Ester’s eyes widened slightly at that, even as she did her best to sound casual.

  “Yes, everyone.” Pride shone through the pain in his voice. “We don’t discriminate in the Republic. If you have the Talent you will be found and trained.”

  “Oh.” For a couple of seconds Ester was speechless. “That is… very worthy.”

  Was this why the Republic had so many Arcanists at the Battle of Grathbridge, despite its smaller population? She’d suspected, but having a Republican say it out loud confirmed it. It seemed almost unbelievable, outside the nobleborn, children of Adepts and the very largest cities, few people were tested in the Empire. But that hardly mattered since the commonborn rarely had the Talent. Or so they said. Was the Empire missing out on a huge resource? Maybe that was why Arcanists seemed less competent on average though. It must take a huge amount of resources and time to test everyone and perhaps it meant they just ended up with a lot of people who could never have succeeded in the Academy. Numbers mattered too though. If the Republic had been doing this since before the Battle of Grathbridge, did that mean that they had even more Arcanists now?

  Ester gave herself a mental kick. Now wasn’t the time to be worrying about how the Republic found its Arcanists. She’d think about it when she was safely back in Nilrava, or even the Empire. If she managed to survive that long.

  The pause in their conversation stretched, punctuated only by their heavy breathing and the sound of their steps, until Loga broke it again.

  “So, your family would have put you forward for the Academy? It must have been strange leaving your house, House Mazar, to go an be an Apprentice.”

  “House Mazar?” She stifled a nervous giggle. “I…” She trailed off. This wasn’t the Empire. Loga wasn’t trying to make fun of her. Surely he couldn’t be. “There is no House Mazar.”

  “Oh. Yes. You cro-, uh, Imperials give up your titles don’t you. I didn’t realise you take new names too though.”

  “New names?” Ester frowned. She spent so much effort on avoiding talking about her heritage and now she was explaining it to a Republican to distract him from his wounds. “We don’t take on new names. I was born Ester Mazar. House Mazar would be a small apartment in the Mofar District. My father was a weaver, my mother helped him.” She couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of her voice. Why was he making her talk about this?

  Loga stumbled slightly before catching his balance again. “A weaver?” He sounded almost offended by it. “You mean he owned a factory?”

  “We don’t have factories, he just wove.” Ester snapped, despite her best efforts. Why was he pushing this? Didn’t he understand how things worked? She couldn’t help feeling a dark satisfaction when Loga winced.

  “You mean he wove as a hobby? I’m sure he was very good at it.”

  Ester knew Loga was trying to placate her now, but why did he have to keep on pushing the point? Didn’t he understand? Why was he so ignorant? It felt like an unbearable pressure was building inside her.

  “You think we’re all prancing nobleborn, desperate to oppress the poor innocent workers, don’t you? Well, you’re wrong. My parents lived, live, happy safe lives because of Her Eternal Majesty’s protection. I received my Charter because the Empire recognised my Talent.” Sleepless nights at the Academy raced through Ester’s head. Snub after snub. Mockery, laughter and tear-stained pillows. She barrelled on, unable to stop herself even if she wanted to. “The Empire gave me training, wealth and respect for my abilities. I speak to barons as an equal, counts listen to me. I’m trusted enough that I’ve been sent to your Republic to try to make peace with you, even after everything you people have done. What do I get though? Snide comments. Side-eyed looks. You keep wanting to call me a crown-licker even after I saved your life.” She clenched her fists together to stop the trembling in her hands. “You think I’m too stupid or oblivious to notice? Or maybe you just don’t care if I hear? Yes, the Republic and Empire have fought, but I was barely out of my mother’s arms when the Battle of Grathbridge happened. So, next time you want to call me a crown-licker, think about this. If it wasn’t for Her Eternal Majesty and the Empire not being what you think they are, I wouldn’t be here and you’d be food for a vampire. Maybe you should think about becoming a crown-licker too!”

  Ester forced her mouth shut. She was breathing heavily and her vision had gone fuzzy. She shouldn’t have said that. Just because the Republicans had no manners didn’t mean that she should lower herself to their level. It wasn’t going to make her situation here any better either.

  She took a deep breath and forced her hands to relax. She’d have to apologise to Loga. Even if she didn’t want to. She was meant to be a diplomat, not an angry adolescent who exploded at the drop of a hat.

  “Arcanist-Captain, I-”

  “I apologise, Mage Mazar.” Loga interrupted her. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m grateful to you for your help here and will try not to make unwarranted assumptions in the future.”

  Ester’s anger fled as quickly as it had come, to be replaced by bone-deep weariness. “Thank you, Arcanist-Captain. I apologise too, I should not have lost my temper.”

  After that, neither of them were inclined to continue talking after that and they staggered on in silence. Ester kept casting glances behind them. Sometimes towards the occasional flares of magic coming from where Lindholm was still fighting, others checking for pursuit from the undead.

  She wasn’t sure how much longer they went on for before the magic from Lindholm’s battle stopped. By that point she was too tired to even look back. What would she even see anyway? Either Lindholm had won and would be on her way back to the fort, or the liche had won and there was nothing at all she could do about it. All she could do was focus on putting one exhausted foot in front of the other.

  Thankfully, Ester didn’t have to stagger much further before, suddenly, there were voices calling out to her. She lifted her head, groping frantically for a spell, only to almost collapse as she was greeted by the sight of men in Republican uniforms jogging towards them.

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  Dramatis personae:

  Ester Mazar - Chartered Mage, stop reminding me that I'm commonborn!

  Edvin Loga - Arcanist-Captain, these nobleborn have odd hobbies! Living the life of a weaver for fun just further illustrates their decadence.