Chapter Text
“That was quick,” Mike says from against the barricaded door. He sits with his tome open across his knees and keeps looking behind himself as if Daein soldiers will burst through at any moment. John can hardly blame him.
“We’re not the first looters through here,” John needlessly reports. He sets down the bundle. “The meat’s gone or rotten, most of the barrels are broken open-”
“We get the idea,” Bill interrupts. “Just tell me there’s food.”
“There’s food.” Barely. “Oi, no. Sit.”
Bill shakes his head, forcing himself up, leaning heavily on the butt of his lance. Blunted from use, the iron tip gleams in the light of the fireplace. “Been sitting too long.”
“Bill, no,” Mike insists, standing up as well. He doesn’t put the tome down—he never puts it down—but he does rush forward to Bill’s side and help John ease him back down onto the cushioned bench. All the while, he keeps the thick book pinned between his elbow and his side. The new tome of offensive magic is as much a comfort to him as John’s sword or Bill’s lance. “Rest that leg. There’s only so much we can do without magic.”
“We need you stable if it comes to hand-to-hand,” John reminds him. The sword at John’s hip is light, two-handed but slim. For all John can step in for the final blow, they all know Bill has to bear the brunt of any combat. After two days of staggering toward shelter, they know it very well. Bill may have survived, but his horse hasn’t. With all of them on foot and one of them limping, it’s been slow going.
Bill grits his teeth and does as told. John divides up the pilfered fare between the three of them, then goes to sit at the third door, the one without a barricade or a bar across it. It’s the sort of posh manse John hasn’t stepped in since his days in the Crimean army, and only ever then for award ceremonies. This is a country villa, a far cry removed from the capital homes, but posh nonetheless.
The light from the fireplace spills out into the hall and would do so even if they closed the door. John feels better keeping watch than closing it, and Bill clearly feels the same. They’ll sleep in shifts regardless of the seeming safety of the manse. John takes first, because John always takes first. Mike startles awake halfway through the night without fail, and Bill’s an absurdly early riser. It works out best this way, with John at the door.
Which is why John sees the shadows move.
He keeps watching until he’s certain, then stands up and meanders over to Mike by the fireplace. He puts his arm around Mike’s shoulders, familiar as can be and very casual at that. John can practically feel Bill perking up behind them, recognizing the signal for what it is. “Mage at the door,” John whispers. “Dark.” Dark means Daein. The country guards her magic secrets jealously.
The only reason Mike doesn’t tense is because his body is already as tense as physically possible. John can feel it through his shoulders.
“Blind him,” John whispers.
He releases Mike and returns to the door, walking calmly, hand careful not to touch the hilt of his sword. Behind him, he hears Mike begin to mutter. John counts out the phrases of the spell, then ducks and shields his eyes.
Piercing white light shines forward in a rush above his head. There’s a cry from the hall, higher than expected, and John finds the source of it lying stunned against the wall. Rather than run her through, John wrests the leather-bound tome from her arms. He steps back a good three paces in case of knives.
“What happened?” Bill shouts. “Did you get him?”
“It’s a girl!” John calls back. And a rather pathetic looking one at that. It’s not until she lowers her hand from her eyes that he realises his mistake. “Woman,” he corrects. A short one.
She squints up at him, curling in on herself, and John feels a right bastard.
“Crimean?” he asks.
She nods.
“Let us hear your accent,” Bill calls from the room.
“I’m Crimean!” she shouts. “And I wasn’t attacking!”
“You were a shape in the dark, and we’re all a bit jumpy,” John says. “I’m sorry.” He hesitates, then hands her the tome. “Aren’t dark mages from Daein?”
“My teacher was,” she says, clutching the book to her chest. “Looters killed her after the invasion. They thought she was a traitor. Her accent.”
“I’m sorry,” Mike says. He steps around John and offers her the hand not holding his own tome. Unlike John, he’s kept his cassock and still looks reasonably trustworthy in the white fabric. “We’re sorry and we’re not going to hurt you. Bill’s a Crimean soldier, and John and I are priests.”
The woman chews on her lip, and her fingers touch her long brown hair before accepting Mike’s hand. Mike pulls her up. Standing, she isn’t quite so small, but she’s still considerably shorter than the pair of them.
“If he’s a priest, why does he have a sword?” she asks, eying John. Without the cassock over them, his brown trousers and black shirt do little to mark him as a member of the clergy.
“Ex-army,” John says, the explanation well worn. “Invalided out while serving in the east.” It’s far from his first time fighting Daein, but never this deep into home soil. They’re west of the capital, for Ashera’s sake.
“What’s happening?” Bill calls.
“Civilian!” John calls back.
The woman frowns, trying and failing to peer around John and Mike. “Is he injured?”
“A bit,” John says. “There’s only so much a vulnerary can do.”
“Two priests and not a staff between them,” Mike says. “It’s something of a bad joke.”
“I, um,” the woman says.
Mike and John look at her.
“I have a staff,” she says. “I can’t use it myself. I’ve- I’ve been trying, but I can’t.”
“If we could borrow it for Bill,” Mike begins.
“Hold on,” John says, looking her up and down. “You’re not hurt.”
“No, his spell hit the ceiling,” she says.
Mike’s crap aim aside, that wasn’t what John meant. “If you’re not hurt, why have you been trying to use a staff?”
She chews on her lip a bit more.
“I’ll heal your friend first,” Mike promises.
“You can keep the staff if you do,” she answers immediately. “And there’s still a few things left in the armoury, if you need them.”
John thinks of the wear on Bill’s lance, the insubstantial heft of his own blade. “We’ll look through in the morning. Where’s your friend?”
“Ambush,” Bill calls.
“It’s not!” the woman protests. “Using the dark element doesn’t make me evil! It’s arcane, not sinister.”
“I’ll come with you,” John says. “Mike stays here.” Both of them can heal, but only John can hit a target with any reliability. Mike’s skill with tomes is an extremely new development.
The woman hesitates.
“What’s your name?” Mike asks.
“Molly,” she says.
“What’s your friend’s name, Molly?” Mike asks.
“I, I don’t know,” she admits. “He won’t tell me. He just lies there and he shouts when I try to get near, but you can see where the blood’s soaked through. I think he’s dying. I’m sure he’s dying, and he won’t let me help. He screams if you touch him. So I thought, you don’t have to touch if you use a staff. I think he’s been tortured. Flogged, I think. The problem is his back. He can’t lie down on it, but if I come into the room while he’s sleeping, he gets off his stomach right away. And his, um. His rear. He won’t sit. And he’s not eating either.”
“All right,” John says. He’s not seen the results of a flogging himself—Duke Renning had reformed the Crimean army enough by John’s time that he’d never had to fear for his life from his own officers—but he knows the stories. “Let’s get that staff.”
Molly nods and turns to go into the dark.
“Wait, hold on.” John fetches a torch, one of their few. Bill looks at him as he would at a complete idiot as John lights the brand in the fire. John shifts the torch into his left hand, freeing his sword hand, and Bill nods.
When they exit into the hall, Mike shuts the door behind them. It’s not a long walk, not in terms of distance, but they glance at each other much too often for the journey to be an easy one.
“How long have you been here?” John asks.
“About a week,” Molly says. “I think... Mm. My teacher was killed the night we heard King Ramon was assassinated. Then I was here three days after.”
“That’s about six or eight days here, depending on how fast news spread to your town.”
Molly nods. “I think eight? Anyway, the Daein soldiers had already been through when I got here. Bit of a rush job, I think, them leaving anything. I think they were pursuing someone, but I don’t know who.”
“Probably off to kill more nobles,” John says. “Get rid of all the heirs to the throne and take the country for good.”
“Wouldn’t Begnion stop it?” Molly asks.
“I don’t know. Begnion was willing to let go of Crimea and Daein in the first place. Honestly, do you think we’d be a country if they had cared enough to keep us as colonies?”
Molly shakes her head. “I just...”
“Sorry. No, you’re right. Have hope.”
They walk a bit longer. “He’s down this way.”
John stops. “Molly, that’s a dungeon.” Buildings like this might have once served as prisons, local lords taking the law quite seriously indeed while they lived in more humbly furnished conditions, but no one keeps thieves in the basement of a rich country home.
“I told you,” she says. “He won’t let me near him.” She keeps walking into the dark, unaffected by the lack of light.
After a long pause, John follows. It’s that, or lose her. Iron bars gleam in the torchlight. Distantly, above the sound of their footsteps on stone, John hears a low groan. He smells decay and damp and piss. As they draw closer, the unmistakable reek of shit and infection becomes clear.
“I’m back,” Molly calls softly, standing before a wall of bars. “I brought a healer.”
John lifts the torch higher, shedding light into the recesses of the cell. There’s a man inside, half-dead as promised. He’s curled on his side, collapsed facing the bars. A pewter plate lies beside his head, a biscuit and a strip of jerky untouched. Next to this, a staff. The orb at the top is a blood red. Basic healing, then, not mending. This will take some doing.
Molly pushes at the door. It holds fast. She sighs, then pats down her pockets. John hears the soft thump of her hand against her tome, now concealed. The folds of her skirts conceal slits beneath her belt, and the slits lead to sizeable pockets. That’s probably a mage thing, he assumes.
“Sir, are you awake?” John calls.
There’s no answer, but the man’s attention centres on John with a palpable shift.
“My name’s John. I’m Crimean. I’m here to heal you.”
The man rasps something.
Molly finds a pair of keys and opens the door. “He keeps locking it,” she says. “I haven’t been able to work out how. He got out of the shackles on his own, so I know he could leave if he wanted. He just... doesn’t seem to want to.”
The man rasps something more.
John and Molly fall silent.
The man struggles to sit up, to crouch. His arms press against the floor, and he cries out.
“No,” John says. “No, you hold still.”
“Stay away,” the man commands.
“I’ll put the sword down,” John promises. He draws it and sets it on the floor. He hands the torch to Molly. “I’m unarmed.”
“Stay. Back.”
John holds up his hands. “I’m unarmed,” he repeats.
The man lifts his head. His hair blends into the dark, but his eyes glint in the torchlight, flecks of steel in the marble of his face. John steps backward involuntarily. The hairs on the back of his neck rise.
“Touch me, and I will kill you,” the man promises.
“You don’t look in any state to kill me,” John says.
“I never said it would be immediate.”
That, John believes. “Then you’ll have to follow me to Gallia,” John warns. “You won’t be in any state to do that unless you let me help.”
“Gallia?” Molly repeats. The terror in her voice is abrupt, but no less real for it. “Why Gallia?”
“Our king had a treaty with theirs,” John says. “I was at a ceremony for it, and Bill was stationed there for a while. He knows the way back.”
“But they’re animals,” Molly says. “It’s an entire country of sub-human beasts.”
“Who might not want to kill us,” John says. “As opposed to a whole lot of humans who definitely do.”
A pained grunt pulls their attention back to the man in the cell. He’s sitting up now, breathing hard.
“Let me help,” John says.
“Take me to Gallia.”
John cocks his head. “Sorry?”
“You claim to want to help,” the man says. His breathing is heavy. “Take me to Gallia.”
John stares at him, thinking of rations and the drag of the wounded. “Only if you can walk. I’m sorry, but I won’t have my friends killed for your sake.”
“Hardly something to be sorry for,” the man remarks wryly.
“It’s really not, is it,” John agrees.
“You’re going to leave me here?” Molly asks, stricken.
The man scoffs. “When did I ask you to stay?”
“You can come too,” John says. “Provided Bill and Mike agree.” Two people for the price of one staff. To be fair, Molly’s ranged magic could readily prove to their benefit, especially with Daein’s fire mages relegated to Crimea’s western border with Gallia. Fire against the beasts, but fire is weak against dark magic. More to the point, light magic is weak to fire magic, and that’s Mike rendered useless. “You, can you fight?” John asks the man.
The man doesn’t immediately answer. After a long pause filled by the crackling and popping of the torch, he replies, “We’ll see.”
“I can’t go to Gallia,” Molly insists. “That’s, that’s too dangerous.”
“Fine,” the man snaps. “Stay.”
“Come with us until we find a town,” John offers. “How about that?”
Molly hesitates, then nods.
“I’m coming in now,” John says. He edges through the door, part of him unable to ignore the sense that Molly is about to lock him inside. War and paranoia: two things he’d thought he’d missed as a civilian.
Down on one knee, he picks up the staff and holds the orb over the man’s lap. He closes his eyes and mouths the words and pulls. The red glow shines against his eyelids, and the man gasps as the power enters him. When John opens his eyes, the man’s face is wet. Relief from pain, John knows, can be more moving than pain itself.
“That isn’t all of it,” John half-asks.
The man shakes his head.
“I only need to hold this near the general area,” John promises. “I won’t touch or look, but I’ll need to lift any fabric off the wounded area. It’s going to hurt and it will reopen the wound if the scabs stick, but this way, it will heal properly.” He waits for the man to answer. Listening to Molly shift behind him at the door, he waits for some time.
The man’s head twitches up and down in a nod, and John shifts to kneel at his side. He holds the staff out, the orb behind the man’s shoulder blades and ruined shirt. He pinches a bit of the shirt by the small of the man’s back and begins to pull it back, not up. It peels away, setting the man hissing between clenched teeth. A second spell, and the man is breathing steadily. A third, and John find nothing left to repair. It does nothing for his clothing, of course, or his state of cleanliness.
“Better?” John asks.
“As much as I can be,” the man replies.
“Any damaged areas still need to be washed,” John reminds him. “There’s a pump in the kitchen.” Bill used a folded saddle blanket: they’ll wrap him in that. In the morning, they can search the manse for a fresh shirt.
“No,” the man says.
“No, they do need to be washed, and no, there really is a pump. I’m hardly offering to wash you.”
“Good.” He pulls his legs up to his chest and drops his head on his knees. One eye remains open and his body fails utterly to relax, unable to have John near and unwatched.
John pulls away rather than disturb him further. “We’ll gather supplies in the morning and set out by noon. You can come sleep upstairs with my lot, or you can stay down here.”
The man doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll stay.”
“In a cell.”
“Yes.”
“In a cell in the dark.”
“Yes.”
“He’s always like this,” Molly says.
“What about you?” John asks.
“Somewhere else,” Molly says. She folds her arms across her chest, pulling back slightly. “I’ve been fine so far.”
Not for the first time, John wishes there was a way to say “We’re not about to rape you” without causing further alarm. “Just thought I’d ask,” he says. “Mike can’t sleep without me or Bill near these days. Safety in numbers and all that. I know mages get jumpy.”
Molly doesn’t reply, eyes steady on him in the dim light.
“Should we, um. Leave you a bit of fire?” John asks the man, stepping out of the cell with staff in hand.
“I can’t sleep with light,” the man replies. “Close the door.”
John closes it.
“Lock it.”
Molly locks it.
“Good,” the man says. “Now leave.”
“Wait,” John says. “Who are you?” Posh tones, wants to go to Gallia: it’s curious if John’s ever heard of anything.
The man doesn’t so much as lift his head from his knees.
“Just your name,” John insists. “We can’t go around calling you ‘the bloke in the dungeon.’”
“Why not?” the man counters. “It’s what everyone else calls me, more or less.”
“You’ve been in there since before the invasion.” A criminal?
“Obviously.”
“Er. Why?”
“Leave it,” Molly whispers, pushing at John’s arm. “Just leave it.”
The man is already laughing, a low rolling chuckle that gains in intensity without ever rising in volume. The hairs on John’s arms stand up, his skin prickling.
“‘Why’?” the man repeats. “There isn’t a why. Are you afraid I’ll steal your things and kill you in your sleep?”
“Are you planning on it?”
“No,” the man snaps, his entire body jerking with the word.
“Then I’m not afraid,” John answers evenly. “Get some sleep. Lots of walking tomorrow.”
He turns away immediately after, letting Molly pull him in the proper direction. Down the passage and up the stairs, round the corner and down the second hall. When the flicker of light from Mike and Bill’s fire can be seen spilling into the hall, Molly stops and hands John the torch.
“We could drop you off at a border town,” John says. “Be better than staying here alone. Be better than staying here with him, come to think of it.
Her hand drops to her skirt, likely to the tome beneath. “It’s fine,” she says. “I’m fine. He’s harsh because he’s hurt.”
John disagrees but nods. “I’ll see you in the morning. And thanks. For this.” He lifts the staff.
Molly’s mouth twitches in what might be meant as a smile, and then she waits for John to go.
John does, and only once he has his back turned does he hear her footsteps receding into the dark. He shakes his head, calls out his return to his mates, and finally fixes up Bill’s leg properly.
In the morning, John’s back is stiffer from the floor than it usually is from the ground. They gather up what they can from the kitchens and pantries, Bill taking a greater load than before and entirely without complaint. For once, the man’s in a good humour.
Molly joins them in the small armoury, a bundle in her arms and a second staff tied onto her back with twine. “Food and tomes,” she says. “I can’t use some of them yet, but.” She leaves the thought unspoken: but enough combat experience may change that. Mike takes the second staff off her with a soft thank you.
“Where’s your friend?” John asks.
“He’s coming,” Molly says. “I gave him fresh clothes and some water. He wanted privacy.”
“Is he a criminal?” Bill asks. “If he can pick locks, he’s a thief, isn’t he?”
“Bill,” Mike chastises.
Bill keeps on looking through the drawers and cabinets for anything worth looting, apparently failing to see the irony. “It’s an honest question. We could use a man who can open doors.”
“He can open doors,” John says. “Whether he’s a thief or not, it’s not as if we have anything worth stealing.”
“Food,” Bill says immediately. “That’s always worth stealing, and you know it.”
“We’ll be feeding him anyway,” Mike says.
“If he can’t pull his weight,” Bill begins.
“He’s a civilian,” John interrupts. “And he’s been locked up for a while now. If he can manage a day of walking without falling over, that’ll be good enough.”
Bill doesn’t say anything, which is as good as compliance.
Close to noon, the man appears. He’s taller than expected, long and with an uncertain stride. He keeps a hand on the door, not quite entering the armoury. Framed by sunlight, drained by the relative brightness, his sickly pallor is more evident. The clothing Molly gave to him is ill-fitting, a loose shirt that hangs wide. It’s the same kind of faded black shirt that Bill wears under his red armour, thick and meant to take a beating in as many ways as possible. It’s belted in place about his waist by a blue sash of cloth and continues down his undyed trousers to mid-thigh.
“Ah,” says Mike. “You must be, um. Molly’s friend.”
“We’re not friends,” the man replies without hesitation.
Molly makes a sound, and the three civil men in the room do her the courtesy of not looking at her.
“Are you really about to walk to Gallia in a pair of sandals?” Bill asks.
John blinks and looks.
“Yes,” the man says.
“Fine,” Bill says. “How much do you think you can carry?”
“Bill, his back was torn open,” John interrupts. “Give him a few days.”
“Even movement of the arm could tear the skin open, to say nothing of the muscle,” Mike agrees.
“I can carry whatever I need to,” the man says. “If that’s your only concern, we should be off.”
Bill’s expression flicks through irritated and settles on focused. Everyone gathers up their things, Molly included, and when the man struggles to thread his arms through the loops of his pack, no one says anything.
They walk.
Bill takes point, Mike behind him. Molly and the man from the dungeon follow. John takes up the rear, sword sheathed but at the ready, staff fastened across the top of his pack.
The man’s pace is poor, which is the best John expected. He lags farther behind Molly each time John looks. The man fidgets, jumpy in the extreme, and he stumbles over more obstacles than actually exist. When John reaches to help him, he gets his hand slapped for his trouble.
“Do not touch me,” the man hisses. “Never touch me.”
“Fine,” John says. “You can fall on your face.”
The next time, the man does. He utterly fails to catch himself, arms thrown back, spine arched. His stomach slaps down hard on roots and soil. His chin is raised off the ground, but only just, and his gasp of air nearly goes unheard under the percussive sound of his body and the frantic cries of startled birds taking flight.
“Graceful,” John says, reaching for his staff. “Might want to keep it down. Daein is only killing Crimean soldiers and healers first. It’s a bit of a concern.”
The man mutters something into the dirt. It sounds a great deal like “I don’t care if you die.”
John kneels down next to him and pulls on the staff’s power.
The man’s breathing hitches.
John stands up. He waits.
Slowly, painfully, the man climbs to his feet. He tries and fails to use his arms, then works out how to use his legs.
“We’re falling behind,” John prompts.
“I noticed.” The man brushes dirt from his clothes, then adjusts his pack. His face is tight with the strain of remaining impassive.
John resumes walking and doesn’t look back. Soon enough, the man walks at his side. His breathing is laboured, his strides faltering, and when John looks to see why the man keeps falling, it’s because he walks with his eyes fixed on the sky.
They camp outside. Bill’s spotted traces of Daein activity in the area, and they don’t risk a fire. Instead, they huddle in the relative shelter of three closely set trees, sitting in the cup of their roots. The night isn’t so cold, though John does envy Mike his layered priest’s robes. They’re rubbish for a swordfight, but they’re warm.
Bill removes his armour for the night while there’s still light, and Molly helps him cover the metal against the damp of morning dew to come. The food they don’t eat is set in a bag up a tree. The man from the dungeon sits at the edge of their shelter without leaning. He sits as poorly as he walks, as if uncertain of the basic concept. Once the sun begins to set, he stops talking as well.
“What was Gallia like?” Molly asks Bill as the five of them fail to sleep.
“Big,” Bill answers after a thoughtful pause. “You’ve your cats, your tigers, and your lions. These aren’t kitty cats, Moll. The cats are bigger than dogs when shifted, and the tigers bigger than ponies. Lions, oh, I’ve only ever seen the one, just a glimpse, but he was huge even unshifted. Great big and red, with a tail that could knock over a horse. While unshifted, mind you. The important buildings are all built for the lions. Because they pick their rulers based on strength. The lions have ruled for, oh, centuries I’d say. As long as there’s been a Gallia.
The man from the dungeon scoffs.
“Something to say?” Bill asks.
The man says nothing.
“So are there towns?” Molly prompts after a lengthy pause. “Villages?”
“Tribes and dens,” Bill corrects. “Some houses, too. The architecture is surprisingly Begnion.”
Again, the man from the dungeon scoffs.
“What?” Bill asks.
“‘Surprisingly Begnion’,” the man mocks.
“It is,” Bill states evenly.
“Of course it is,” the man dismisses. It’s not sarcasm. It’s definitely dismissal, and John frowns to hear it.
“You’ve been to Gallia before.” John doesn’t ask it.
“I’ve passed through,” the man says.
“Tell me where we’re going, then,” Bill challenges.
“Through the sea of trees. Dense, humid. They go on for miles and give way to shorter foliage. We’ll find old forts crumbling on the other side.”
“...Right,” Bill says, surprise clear in his voice.
“You made it through without the beastmen attacking you?” Molly asks.
“Molly, your Daein tutorage is showing,” the man says.
“Sorry?” she asks.
“They call themselves laguz,” Bill explains.
“That means Children of Strength, doesn’t it?” Mike chimes in.
“Don’t know,” Bill says, but John trusts Mike’s expertise. Magic and language are as close a fit as medicine and bandages.
“It does,” says the man. “And its counterpart is frankly idiotic.”
“Counterpart?” Molly asks.
“Beorc,” Bill says. “What they call humans.”
“Children of Wisdom,” Mike translates from the ancient tongue.
“Why’s that idiotic?” Molly asks the man. “It’s nice.”
“Humans are morons.”
“Yes, thank you,” John says briskly. “You can be quiet now. I’m sure it won’t hurt you.”
The man settles down into an obvious sulk. John can see his outline in the faint starlight.
The conversation effectively dies, and they take turns attempting to sleep through the night.
After two days, they find what was once a village. Mike lingers at the burnt remains of the town wall while John and Bill rush ahead, rooting through the burnt rubble that lies in rectangular slumps. Their hands turn sooty, their boots coat with ash, and the lingering scent of charred wood and flesh has them fighting down bile.
Keeping close to Mike’s side, Molly hugs herself, shoulders hunched, head bowed. Her not-friend keeps his distance, otherwise impassive.
“I found one!” Bill cries, and John rushes to him only to discover Bill means a corpse. The next search is for a shovel. Ultimately, they bury the man—they think he was a man—in a stripped vegetable patch, the soil soft there. Bill and Molly bow their heads, and John grabs the man from the dungeon by his pack to haul him into line. John has never felt more hated by anyone than he does by that man at that moment, but he holds firm, and when Mike conducts the funeral, there are four witnesses.
“Thanks,” John murmurs to the man after Mike’s finished, but the man simply walks away.
“Where’s everyone else?” Molly asks aloud, the thought John’s been wondering since they arrived.
“Taken to a prison,” Mike says. “Or thrown in the river. We need to be careful about what we drink for a few miles.”
They all turn to look at him.
“There’s a sign.” Mike points back to the remains of the town wall John and Bill had hurried past. “Daein warning all Crimeans not to lend aid or shelter to the false heir.”
Bill and John look at each other in confusion.
“What false heir?” Bill asks.
“There’s a description of a girl claiming to be the king’s daughter,” Mike says.
“The king didn’t have a daughter,” Molly says.
“I know, but that’s what the sign says,” Mike replies.
“Does it matter?” the man snaps.
“Does it matter why a village was slaughtered?” John demands, turning on him. His hands are fists and cannot be anything else. “Does it matter why families were burnt to death in their houses?” He storms forward with every word until they’re toe-to-toe. “A bunch of lunatics hated them so much for no good reason and now they’re dead, and you’re asking does it matter.”
John does not punch and he does not shove, but he wants to. He wants to so damn much. Instead, he bites his lip and shakes.
The man’s eyes are wide. Shocked, for the first time. “That’s not what I asked,” he says quietly. No longer lacquered in scorn, his voice is entirely different. Softer and rougher at once, a sound like the calloused hand of a professional soldier as he presses a palm to his son’s fevered brow.
John looks away, but he doesn’t step back.
“Does it matter if there is an heir,” the man clarifies. “Or if it’s an opportunist. Does that change anything?”
“Not unless she’s about to overthrow Daein on her lonesome,” Bill says, and John nearly jumps.
“I’m coming to Gallia,” Molly announces, loud about it.
Everyone turns to look at her.
“Sorry,” she says. “I just. I don’t know if now’s the time to say it. But. I’m not staying in Crimea if this is...” She looks around. “This is inhuman.”
“It’s not,” the man says.
“Sorry?” Molly asks.
The man gestures wide, then winces. Back and shoulders must still be problematic. “This,” the man says. “How is this not human? Is there any other animal that sets fire to another?”
Molly hugs her arms tight about herself. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” the man asks. “What’s wrong with saying what’s true? The only species to craft weapons and institute slavery, but burning down a few houses is inhuman?”
“Stop it,” Molly says. “Just stop.”
“Leave her alone,” Bill says, stepping in between.
“I’m only speaking.”
“Leave her alone,” Bill repeats. He takes a step forward, armour shining dully below the stain of ash.
John steps forward as well, catching the man by his pack and tugging him towards the far side of the former village. “We can talk,” John says. “Come talk with me.”
For once, the man lets himself be pulled. Looking over his shoulder, John sees Mike pull Molly into a hug. She leans on him a bit.
“It’s hardly my fault she can’t cope with the truth,” the man states the moment John releases his pack.
“You don’t have to go shoving it in our faces,” John says, his tone as even as he can manage. “I don’t need to know what they did to you to know it was terrible--”
The man laughs. The hair on John’s neck rises.
“But that doesn’t mean you can take it out on Molly,” John continues. “She’s just lost someone.”
“And you’ve lost your sister,” the man replies. “Misplaced, more like. The same for Mike and his wife. Everyone is displaced and fleeing.”
John stares at him. “How...?
“Insight,” the man says. “It’s a simple matter of seeing.”
A magic skill, more likely. John knows his fair share about innate powers. “Then leave her be.”
The man looks at him oddly before turning, slowly, taking in the ruins. “You didn’t know anyone who lived here.”
“I don’t think so, no,” John says.
His eyes snap back to John’s face. “Then why are you grieving?”
John frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
The man frowns back. Again, he scans the village. “What if they weren’t Crimean? What then.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were a soldier,” the man says. “You served alongside Bill until you were invalided on the eastern border with Daein. You returned to the west, training alongside Mike. You’d trained before together, the basics at least, but he chose the priesthood and you chose the sword. You don’t regret it.”
After a startled moment of staring, John manages to ask, “I still don’t understand the question.”
“Does a soldier care about anyone who isn’t one of his own?” It’s not a question, but an accusation.
“This one does,” John says. “And Bill. Lots of people.”
“Soldiers kill.”
“Sometimes they kill to stop the fighting.” John stops, shakes his head. “Look, I just. When someone kills the unarmed, you take up arms against them. However you can. If that means undoing their work by healing the victims or preventing their work by killing them, I’ll take whichever option I can. Both, if I can manage it.”
The man says nothing, eyes heavy on John’s face.
“Does that answer your question?” John asks.
The man nods.
John sighs and looks away, back to his friends. Molly’s recovered, and packs are being put back on. “Looks like we’re moving out. You just... Just stick with me in the back, all right?” The first step is always the hardest, breaking inertia, but John takes it all the same.
“Sherlock.”
John looks over his shoulder into eyes like coal. “Sorry?”
“My name,” the man says.
“Oh.”
The man shifts the straps of his pack, and John pretends not to see his wince.
“All right,” John says and walks on. “Keep up.”