Death Stops Waiting

We really should be singing. Soldiers always sing when they march. It helps us to keep the spirits up. And we need it. The cold is sharp enough to make a man's fingers fall off. But four people are just not enough to sing a proper war-song. You need hundreds.

Instead, we march to the sound of our boots crunching on the frost-caked leaves. Where the ground is soft, the rain has turned it into mud, and it sucks us down, pulls us back, clings to the heels of our boots, the fur of our trousers. Marching isn't much of a rhythm when you're mired every ten steps.

Aside from us, nothing else moves except a solitary hawk circling overhead, a stiff shape against the hard silver sky. The ground is only a little more lively. The leafless trees look like great mangled hands, their fingers twitching in the wind. A few tough shrubs have survived the frost, but everything else is dirt, ice and cold, dead wood.

We four warriors are servants of the Duke of Valgemaa, sent to quell the barbarians at the northwestern border. As last we heard, there was an outpost with provisions to last all winter, waiting for us to shore up their manpower. By now, the gods only know what we'll find.

I'm not exactly well equipped. My clothes, bless them, will keep me warm, but none of what I'm wearing will stop a blade except for the circular wood and leather shield slung on my back. I have a spear, which is a great weapon for a cluster of men who know what they're doing, and a terrible weapon if there are only four of you. But I'm in no position to choose. Someday, I will be. Someday, I'll master all the weapons, then I'll open a battle-school so other conscripted boys don't have to go to war unprepared like I did. But for now, a spear.

Beside me, Gen is equipped the same as I am, but with a machete instead of my spear, and with the damning difference of a deep blue half-circle emblazoned on his shield. It's a symbol of his faith as a moon worshipper. In more civilized lands, the queen's inquisition would bury him alive for carrying it; because of her, Gen is safer here on the frontier than back home.

To my other side, Hrag marches in the swaying, bow-legged gait of the mountain people. An ax, built for war rather than tree-cutting, hangs from a belt around his waist, slapping at his hip with each step. In his left hand, he carries a small shield with a nub in the middle. It is an invention from the far west, where his mother is from, and is meant to make parrying easier. Here in the north, where clubs and arrows are more common than swords, it's a fool's hope that he'll get the chance to try it.

In front of our group marches our leader, the reason we are here. Shod in black iron, with a kite shield boldly showing the Valgemite colors, is Molga Bruzhenjov, known to the rest of the world as the Black Knightess. Born to a half-orc mother, or so they say, she slew the wicked captain of the Fall River Bridge guard when she was barely more than a girl. Since then, the bones of the king's enemies have only piled up at her feet.

She is not hideous, as the rumors say she is. She has no twisted lip, no missing eye and no mangled teeth. She is not beautiful either, whatever the chroniclers say. Her dry, wrinkled skin hides under graying hair, with smears of sweat and grime that she no longer bothers to wash off. Her gait is steady, her mouth a pursed line, and her eyes are like the sky, blank and hard. I want to ask her what those eyes have seen, but she's not the sort of woman it's easy to ask things of. I'll get my chance sooner or later.

As we near a thicket of bushes piled with snow, Gen speaks up for the first time all day. "When we come back from this," he says, "How soon do you all think you'll marry?"

"Not right away," I say. "I'll be a father someday, of course, but only when I have a life. A real one, not like this."

If the Black Knightess is offended by that, she doesn't show it.

"I will," said Hrag. "And then I'll go back to cutting trees, just like my father, and my grandfather bef- augh!"

Hrag's head snaps back, and he collapses in a twisted pile with an arrow lodged in his neck. Blood-red fletching, the mark of the River Raft tribe, sticks up like a standard from his body.

"Ambush!" barks the Knightess.

I see two options. I can make a dash for the bushes a dozen sword-lengths ahead or hide in the great white trees within reach. I didn't survive this long by being bold; I slide behind a tree.

Gen settles next to me. A dry thump jolts my nerves, and a few frozen chips of bark fall from an arrow that was seeking my head and found the tree trunk instead.

"Now! Get them!" yells the Black Knightess. She charges, her shield covering her ducked head down to her waist, her sword aimed forward, thirsty for blood.

Gen needs no encouragement. He follows her, but soon passes her, waving his machete in the air and howling with moon-madness. As I go after him, he catches an arrow in the chest and tumbles to the ground.

By the mercy of the gods, I reach the thicket before another arrow flies, and seven cloaked figures flush out. One of them stops and strings a red-fletched arrow on his composite bow, thinking he is safe two sword-lengths away from me. I square my stance and thrust my spear, a movement I have practiced so many times I no longer think about it, and I am rewarded with a scream. I leap back as a wooden pole whooshes through the air where my forehead had been. The owner of the pole steps in front of me, a tall, pale man wearing Valgemite armor but crisscrossed with River Raft war-belts. He must be one of the Two Hundred Traitors, people I was hoping were just a myth. For a weapon, he has not a spear or a halberd, but a long, wooden walking stick, a mark of dishonor. As a Valgemite, I do indeed consider him fallen, but why are the Rafters making him carry it?

As I back away from him, I glance to my sides, worried that I'll be killed from behind. But all the other Rafters are ignoring me. They swarm around the Black Knightess, trying to attack from all angles at once. It's the right tactic, but they're not fast enough. First, one of them hits her shield, or is parried by her sword, then her edge slices into him, and he falls. Each fight lasts only two hits, and they die as fast as they can run to her.

In front of me, the traitor strikes for my shoulder, then reverses the weapon and goes for my opposing knee, and I leap backwards. He keeps up the strikes, filling the air with flying wood, and I feel the dreaded sensation of my spear being knocked aside. I step to the right, regaining control of my weapon, and move my shield just in time to block an underhanded strike, then another aimed at the crown of my head. I poke back at him, hitting air.

I give more ground as he batters my shield, trying to make me lower it or do something reckless. Then his boot comes up, smashes against my center, and my arms fling out as I stumble back.

The traitor prepares to finish me, but freezes, eyes going wide. He collapses, then falls onto his face as the Black Knightess pulls her sword from his back.

I regain my stance, and for a moment my feet paw at the ground as I look frantically for more danger. There's a head of dark hair behind the Black Knightess, belonging to a Rafter with his dagger raised. I lunge for him, but I'm too late. His steel slips under the Black Knightess' helmet, and her neck cuts open. She turns around and smashes him with her kite shield. But before she can follow up, she staggers. She does not fall, but crumples onto her hands and knees, then into a stiff coil on the ground. She dies not with a scream, but only a long, descending grunt, as though letting down a heavy load.

I watch, petrified. I have seen warriors die before, but the Black Knightess was no ordinary warrior. She was a legend, a living goddess of war.

The Rafter, too, seems to realize what he's just done. He looks at me, slack-jawed amazement mirroring my own. I put up my shield, but I don't want to fight him. The look in his eyes is fear, not rage. He looks lost, as if killing the Black Knightess made him forget where he was. Or maybe he never knew what he was doing, and only realized it now. I know how that feels.

He turns and runs.

I fall to my knees. I realize that I'm panting, and I try to stop. The cold air stings the inside of my chest, and I hold my hands over my mouth, trying to keep the heat in, but it only makes me gasp harder for fresh air.

I hear what sounds like a whisper, and I go to the traitor who almost killed me. His eyes stare at nothing, but his lips are still moving, mouthing the words, "I'm sorry." I know he's not apologizing to me, but I pretend he is so it can mean something. I don't want him to die talking to no one.

Soon, he's not talking at all. I'm the only one left. Gen, Hrag, the Knightess and all our enemies are mere corpses now, stories that ended in the middle because the cosmic dice fell the wrong way.

Gen's body will be easy enough to dispose of, as his custom is to be laid on a dry hilltop so his spirit can rise without getting tangled in branches. Hrag will be easy too, as he wanted to be burned, like his father and grandfather before him.

But what about the Black Knightess? How do you bury a woman who was supposed to be invincible? If nothing else, a death like this calls for a royal ceremony, an old master swordsman to lay the body to rest, and a blessing from the High Priestess. It calls for thousands of mourning souls to watch the burial of another martyred hero. But here, I'm all that's left. It almost seems best to leave her, rather than disgrace her with a plebian burial.

"No," I say aloud. Whatever else she is, the Black Knightess saved my life, and I owe her the best burial I can give her. With an apology to Grúin, the God of the Sanctimonious Dead, I steal the shovel from Hrag's remains and start digging in front of a rock that looks like a tombstone. Maybe it was one, ages ago.

Eventually, the grave is ready. I hook my arms under the Black Knightess' ironclad shoulders, then, with great effort, I drag her to the grave. She tumbles in, an avalanche of black metal, and I use the butt of my spear to arrange her into a dignified pose.

Before I fill in the grave, I see the Black Knightess' shield and, more problematically, her sword. I'm sorely tempted to steal the weapon, but I think of its owner. The Black Knightess deserved to marry a lord and live out the remainder of her days resting by the fireplace, not to be slain in some frozen wasteland. Her fighting days were nearly over anyway. She must have thought one last battle couldn't possibly do her in. The least I can do is let her keep the sword.

I give her the weapon, lay the shield on top and bury her. She's safe from looters and rats. She must have had bigger dreams than that, but it's the best I can do.

As I set to making a fire for Hrag, I know I should be shedding tears for my two fallen brothers-in-arms. But I'm only bewildered. Each of us knew what our chances were, but somehow we had assumed that death wouldn't come out of nowhere, that the Grim Reaper would at least announce himself and give us time to exchange "If this is goodbye" speeches.

I think of my own life. I think of the battle school I want to open, of the untested boys to whom I could give a better chance if only I can live to teach them. I promised myself I would do it, but I have always put it off, first because I didn't want to desert my natural lord, then because I wanted to prove I wasn't a coward, then because I could not bring myself to abandon my fellow warriors. Even now, without them, I feel the temptation to make up another excuse; part of me wants to wait for the duke to send us home just so I can say I saw it through. But when will he do that?

We're not entitled to live our whole lives out. To live to a ripe old age is not a birthright, but good luck, a gift from on high. And if I gamble on receiving that gift, I may lose everything.

The fire finally starts, and Hrag begins turning to ash and bones. I pick up my spear and say, half to him and half to myself, "After this, I'm going home."

The Rafters need to be stopped, and I'll reach the outpost and help if I can. But if I live through that, then I'm not waiting for the duke to give me permission to go back to the world. I'm not putting it off and trusting Death to ignore me.

One last gamble. And after that, I choose to live.