“The soldier’s heart is never still; it aches and cries for the hands it has moved, even unto evil.”

-Secretary-General Rudolfus Collier, quoted by Ofer Shvets

in “Words we heard in the Desert”.

2050 CE.

243 YT: Somewhere in the Wanderer’s Vale

Even with their vehicle stashed in the foothills, Cigdem’s unit made a good pace across the wetlands and over the hills. The terrain, familiar and at once unfamiliar, made the trek miserable but didn’t slow them much. They’d trained for this – remove the greaves so dirty water doesn’t slosh around and make it impossible to walk. Keep your boots laced tight, tight until your can feel the pins and needles in your feet, and keep the butts of your rifle-spears extended into the ground. Keep yourself as far out of the thick of the mud as you can. Above all else, don’t stop moving forward. Longer you let your foot stay, the more likely that you’ll get stuck, slowing down your pace and potentially ruining your boot for days afterward.

Of course, the terrain became far easier as Cigdem drew closer to the nearby settlement. The worst of it was in the vast stretches between villages in the Wanderer’s Vale. When Cigdem and the unit had trained for this in Carakhte’s military academy, it was this they’d been simulating. Those intermittent stretches of miserably tromping around the practice field, made muddy with buckets of water, didn’t truly replicate the feeling out there. Days at a time through cold and humid land, when you can’t step off the field and clean the mud out, when it’s not just the ground but the muggy air, has a miserable effect on the psyche. No wonder the Valies built their villages so far apart from each other – there was just so much awful in the space between. These people were accustomed to the climate compared to the Gaurl, but even they wouldn’t be building much out here unless they lived their lives walking on stilts.

Compared to Cigdem, Fatih hardly seemed bothered by the terrain, and was still in high spirits when they arrived at the hill over Etyslund. The unit’s minelayer had always had a cheerful disposition and wasn’t easily bothered by the travails of their war-path. Plato and Zoe were a different story – they weren’t soldiers, not in their bones. Yeah, sure, they were trained well. And they were good at what they did. Sol, Zoe was the best scout Cigdem’d ever had the pleasure of working with. And Plato was a pretty good shot, for a priest. But they’d both grown up as civilians. If Cigdem remembered right, Zoe had been forced into soldiering, not the conscription but some kind of political deal. Other option was probably imprisonment or execution. Cigdem didn’t ask for details. As for Plato, he’d given up his parish for a position on the frontier. He had some grand reason for it.

Cigdem didn’t ask for details. But it was hard not to draw conclusions when Plato’s excitement was higher than ever before at the prospect of taking an Abrist village. The Abrists and their dead god’s lessons weren’t well represented in Guarlante – no big surprise. Why tolerate a heretical cult preaching disloyal talk? But Plato’s zeal for turning these people Solist was on another level.

Anyway, since those two weren’t born soldiers like himself, Cigdem let them have the ATV most of the way here. After they parked it, it was only an hour’s walk back to the overlook by Etyslund. They came to a halt with a view of the village. Fatih laughing at everyone while they cleaned the mud out of their boots and polished their service weapons. Zoe surveying the buildings and observing the movements of people in the early morning. There were few people out this time of day, but a trio of what looked like they could be guards stood together near the easiest pass into town. Plato standing aside quietly, whispering to himself.

“Well, what do you think, Zoe?”

***

Cigdem’s voice shook her out of her light reverie. She turned on her heel and looked over at the captain. “I think the scouts and I can infiltrate this place no problem. What do you want to do?”

“I think if it were just a question of taking the place,” Cigdem replied, “we’d walk through the front door and declare ourselves the new bosses. No fuss. It’s child’s play – no way these people could resist.”

“They got weapons!” Fatih called back. “Can’t just forget about that.”

“I’m not forgetting, Fatih.” Cigdem scoffed. “What I’m asking you, Zoe, is can you get in there and figure out if they’ve got any Mirshal operatives in the village?”

Plato gave a shallow nod and intoned: “Where there are Abrists, Mirshal is not far. I’m sure we will find their agents here.”

Zoe started and glanced over at Plato, head cocked, one eyebrow raised. “Whatever you need done, captain,” she said, eyes darting over to Cigdem.

“Right. Official story is, you’re travelers from the South – let’s say Oxdal. The Fourth Expeditionary Force recently took that outpost, so it’s plausible there’d be refugees fleeing north from it.”

“Escapees, you mean?” Fatih scoffed. “Nobody’s coming up here without some purpose. If you just wanted to get away from the fighting you’d go west.”

Cigdem sighed. “I doubt these people see it that way.”

“I’ll see what my scouts and I can do.” Zoe handed her rifle-spear over to Cigdem, who took it with the same hand that held his own. She checked her sidearm and knife – they were present and looked unaffected by the terrain. “When you send the signal, you’ll see if I’ve found anyone.”

Zoe snapped off a quick salute – index finger pushing against her forehead, hand snapping down over her chest and stomach and then to the right as her arm stretched out its full length. Cigdem returned the gesture, waving the fingers of his extended hand to signal Zoe away. She turned, walked back down the hill, and surveyed the gathered soldiers at its base.

“Scouts,” she called out, and three turned toward her. “We’re going in. Hand your arms over to the others and join me.” Arshay grumbled, of course, loathe to part with his hidden bolt-thrower, but ultimately unwrapped the device from his arm and handed it over to the nearest laughing soldier. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back among friends before you know it. Now if anybody asks, we’re here from Oxdal – former farm-hands looking for a safe place to stay now that we’ve been made to wander again.”

“You say that like poetry,” Arshay laughed. “Have the Valies learned verse now?” Several of the other soldiers around him laughed. The other scouts, flanking him, did not – only raising their hoods and nodding at Zoe’s command.

“Take your job seriously, scout,” Zoe replied, staring Arshay down. She put enough bite in her words to, hopefully, cow him for the time being. Of course, there is no repressing the ego of a hotshot for long, not without humiliation the likes of which Zoe could not inflict. She didn’t resist an effort, though: “And for your reference, it’s common amongst traveling Valers to say something along the lines of ‘The wandering life chose us’ or ‘we’ve been made to wander’. You want to blend in with people you’ve got to learn to talk like them.”

Arshay rolled his eyes. “We don’t need to blend in – aren’t we just supposed to find the Mirshalites and bring them back to the captain?”

“Yeah.” Zoe turned and started to walk around the hill, waving over her shoulder for the scouts to follow. “And do you expect them to be standing out in the middle of town wearing big badges that say ‘Hi, I’m a Reaper waiting to kill you, come gank me before I get the chance’?”

Arshay didn’t respond to the rhetorical question – he just scoffed. “You joke like a Valie, scholar.” Zoe flashed him a glare. But he did fall in line with the other scouts.

“Thank you,” Zoe said, letting her voice go calm and cool again. “When we get to the gate, we might have to talk our way past the guards. That’s where our story comes in, and you all are going to let me do the talking.”

The scouts chatted quietly among themselves on the trip down to the village, but Zoe tuned it all out of her mind. Her heart began to pound in her chest as they drew closer to the entrance. The voices of people drifted up faintly from below and Zoe felt the tightness in her throat. She and her scouts turned around the hill’s corner, and she struggled to keep her head up, her eyes from darting around for an escape. Near the edge of the village, flanked by buildings of mixed stone and clay, three guards stood. Immediately upon seeing the newcomers, they straightened up, their patchwork armor gleaming in the afternoon sun, clean despite the ambient filth. They carried repeating crossbows in their hands – Zoe had heard tell from veterans of how deceptively dangerous those Valer weapons were. And on the neck of one of the guards, Zoe spied a green-brown tattoo depicting a great bear salient. The body-paint shone slightly, but not reflection – it shone from within. Zoe cringed at the sight.

She gathered herself, motioned for the others to draw close to her, and approached, reaching up and lowering the hood from her head. Thankfully for Zoe her face was obscured enough by a mop of hair (dark with sweat) that no one could hope to clock her as Gaurl right now. Even if they did, what would that prove of her allegiance? She approached.

“Hey, who’s there?” Two of the guards raised their crossbows. One – the one with the bear tattoo – graced Zoe with a wide smile and stepped forward. “Please, I hope you’ll forgive my jumpy friends? This is hardly the way to treat a stranger, is it?” The tattooed guard approached, reaching out a hand toward Zoe. “I’m Kalai. Who are you and what is it you seek here?”

Zoe took a step forward until she was face-to-face with Kalai. Face-to-chest, as it happened. He towered above her, and not just because of the thick boots he wore. She took his offered hand, clasping his elbow so their forearms fell parallel. She could feel the relaxation in Kalai’s posture at that. That’s right. I’m one of you.

“I am Zoe, of Oxdal, now of the road. And I seek shelter. My friends and I would like a place to stay for a few nights, if you would have us.”

Behind Kalai, the other two guards relaxed, lowering their weapons. “Of course, Zoe of Oxdal,” Kalai said, his smile dropping. “I am sorry for your troubles. But three nights’ guest right is yours without obligation, and should you wish to stay longer than that, what better way to acquire a few new helping hands?” He turned and pointed toward the opposite end of the town, where one building larger than most of the others – the second-largest in town, by what Zoe had seen on the hilltop – exuded smoke from a chimney. “See Etyslund’s gathering hall? There you can stay. No one may turn you away from here before your days have passed.” He said that with the casual formality of years’ practice and ritual. The other two guards, Zoe noted, were watching her with suspicion, but Kalai projected perfect comfort and friendliness.

Zoe gave a nod and let go of Kalai’s other arm, stepping past him. “Your hospitality will not be forgotten,” she said, and turned her head to look over her shoulder. The others quickly followed behind.