Gutter Rats: Origins Chapter 9

In the morning, Captain Lepold summoned them to meet him in his tent. He was seated on a camp chair, a map spread out on his knees. He looked up as they entered. He looked tired. “Congratulations. You’re the only ones who survived.”

“None of the others returned?” Rome asked.

“None of them.” He rubbed his eyes wearily. “We tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. Now good men are dead for no reason. Did you learn anything?”

“Not really,” Rome said. “We saw six of them.”

“Did you engage?”

“No, sir.”

“Smart. How did you do it? How did you survive?”

Rome jerked a thumb at Quyloc. “Because of Quyloc. He heard them before they heard us. We got to cover just in time.”

The captain looked at Quyloc in surprise. “That’s impressive. You have some kind of hearing, I guess.”

“Something like that.” Quyloc was hoping the captain would drop it. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He willed Rome to say nothing.

“We grew up in the gutters, Captain,” Rome said. “You don’t survive without learning a few tricks.”

The captain looked at them for a while longer, like he was trying to figure them out. “You have my appreciation for keeping my men alive. Dismissed. Get some rest.”

“He’s the one who should be in charge here. Not that damned noble,” Rome grumbled as they left the tent.

Quyloc shook his head. “You really shouldn’t say things like that out loud.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true. If someone reports you to the general, you’ll be in the stockade.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But it rankles, you know? They told him the patrols were suicide, but he had to impress his woman or some damn thing. It’s not right. You don’t throw people’s lives away like that.”

“Maybe you don’t, but they do. You know how the nobility is.”

Rome clenched his fists. “I’d give anything to make the general go out on a night patrol. See how he likes it.”

“Just don’t let anyone hear you say that, okay?”

They got back to their camp. Quyloc shook out his blanket, surprised at how much sand had already piled up on it. There was also a scorpion. He stomped it before it could hide.

Rome was pulling off his boots when the signal to muster came.

“That was a short day off.” Rome pulled his boots back on.

The soldiers gathered on the open ground in front of headquarters and stood at attention under the watchful eyes of their sergeants. The building had a balcony to allow the fort commander to address the troops. The general and several aides walked out onto the balcony.

“I have been told,” General Stanley said, “that last night’s patrols yielded nothing. Most of them didn’t even return. Those that did came with their tails between their legs like frightened dogs.”

Quyloc felt Rome tense next to him and silently willed the big man to be quiet. He had a bad habit of opening his mouth at the wrong time.

Stanley banged his fist on the railing. “I will not stand for this! I will not!” He glared at them, holding each of them responsible. “We are Qarathian soldiers.”

Quyloc heard a snicker from behind him, quickly silenced.

Stanley pointed out into the canyons. “They are savages. Brutes. One of our fighting men is worth ten of them. A hundred even.”

Quyloc heard several men scoff loudly. It seemed to be coming from the veterans who’d been here for a while. The general scowled in their direction.

“Too long have the soldiers posted here huddled fearfully inside the walls of the fort.”

Now Quyloc was sure it was the veterans who were making noise. Some spit openly. One yelled.

The general turned purple. “Arrest that man at once!” He pointed at the one who’d yelled. “Arrest him!”

The soldier yelled something more before following his sergeant away.

The general took a moment to try and compose himself, but Quyloc could see him shaking.

“Things have changed. I am in charge now. Under my command, the Crodin savages will be brought to heel. Do you understand me?”

Silence from the gathered soldiers. Someone coughed. A few shuffled their feet. Other than that, nothing.

“Very well.” The general straightened, trying his best to look regal. Though his uniform was perfectly tailored to him, he looked more like a kid who’d stolen his father’s uniform than a real general, and Quyloc thought, on some level, he recognized this. That was why he was so angry.

“The patrols will continue. Every soldier will take his turn. There will be no exceptions.”

“What about night patrols?” someone yelled.

“The night patrols will continue.”

This brought an angry mutter from the soldiers.

“It’s suicide!” the same man yelled. A sergeant had his hand on the man’s shoulder, but he wasn’t doing anything to hustle him away.

“If you are weak it is. But the true Qarathian soldier won’t lie down for the enemy.”

More angry muttering. Quyloc was frankly surprised Rome hadn’t shouted anything yet. It probably wouldn’t be much longer before he did.

“If you don’t like the patrols,” Stanley snarled, “then find me the Crodin. Let’s wipe them out and go home. It’s as easy as that.”

The men were dismissed. All around Quyloc heard angry voices. He heard one soldier openly say the general needed to catch a stray arrow.

Shortly afterwards, the gates opened, and three squads headed out to patrol. The mood in the fort was sour. Some men were filled with gloom, sure the general would get them all killed. Others were angry. The curses rained down on Lord Stanley and all his ilk.

Quyloc slept for a time. He woke up in the afternoon sweating badly. While he was asleep the sun had moved enough that he was no longer in the shade. The sun was brutal. Rome was still snoring nearby, apparently oblivious to the heat.

Quyloc drank some water and went for a walk around the fort to get a look at it. It wasn’t much. Weapons were stacked haphazardly or leaned up against the defensive wall. Crates stood in untidy stacks. Soldiers, veterans by the look of them, played dice or cards. He passed a small group that was huddled in a circle, watching something intently and betting. They had two scorpions in a ring of rocks and were egging them on to fight.

He climbed up on the wall to get a look around. There wasn’t much to see. The plain around the fort was empty. He didn’t see so much as a lizard moving. Not surprising, considering how hot it was. How did people live here?

He couldn’t see anyone up on the butte that stood just to the south of the fort, but that didn’t mean there weren’t Crodin up there. Unless there was a better way up the far side, he couldn’t even figure out how they got up there. At least they were too far for arrow range.

He didn’t see any plants that looked alive, except for a large clump growing up near the base of the wall on the outside. Many of these were already dead, but a few were still green. Even more interesting, he could see the wilted remains of long, white flowers that must have been actually pretty when they were in full bloom.

A soldier on watch on top of the wall approached him. He recognized Grimald.

“What’s that plant called?” Quyloc asked, pointing.

“That’s devil weed. It goes crazy out here every spring. The smallest bit of rain and the whole plain comes alive with them.” He gestured, and Quyloc realized that they were very common. All of the others were dead, yellow skeletons.

“Stay away from it. It’s bad stuff. The whole plant is poisonous. If you eat a piece of one, or drink water that some has got into—if you so much as stand in the smoke while some is burning—you’ll be wishing you hadn’t. It causes madness and fever. Most people die in a few days. It’s ugly.”

Quyloc stayed to talk with him for a while longer, asking questions about the area and the Crodin. Grimald was happy to talk.

“The Crodin are led by a man name of Trakar Cornash. I think Trakar means chief or something in their language. I haven’t seen him. Word is he’s united all the clans. That’s probably why you’re here. If the Crodin sweep this fort, they can raid a long ways into Qarathian lands. There won’t be naught to stop ‘em.”

“What else do you know about the Crodin?”

“They’re slippery bastards, I know that. Like chasing smoke. But when they come at you, they come hard. They’re fast and deadly.”

“I heard something about sklath.”

Grimald nodded. “Demons. There was a fellow stationed here last year that said it’s the only thing they’re afraid of. Them and the god they serve, Gomen nai. The sklath live in the Gur al Krin. They’re the ones who raise the firestorms. The Crodin won’t go near the Gur al Krin. That’s where Gomen nai lives.”

“Have you seen the Gur al Krin?” Even as an orphan on the streets, Quyloc had heard of the legendary desert. Everyone had. People told wild stories about the place.

“Nope. Don’t expect to neither. There’s way too many Crodin between here and there. You’d never get close.”

 

As the day neared its end, the patrols returned one by one. None of them had anything to report. Not so much as a single Crodin was spotted. Furthermore, they’d found no bodies of the dead patrols, only blood stains.

Each squad leader duly reported to the general, who was to be found in his pavilion. He’d been there all day. Word was that his lady refused to so much as set foot in the headquarters again.

Each squad leader endured threats and shouting from the general. The last told others that the general threw a chair at him.

“We didn’t see a one,” Quyloc heard one of the returning soldiers say. “But I knew they was there. I could feel them, watching us from the rocks.” He shivered. “Glad I don’t have to go again for a spell.”

Rome and Quyloc walked into the site claimed by Bronze Squad. They had their own small firepit for cooking and light and a pile of dried dung for fuel. Rather than set up the tents, which would be hot and stale inside, they’d rigged a rough shade with them, using spears for the corners. All of the other squads had done something similar.

Most of the squad was there, squatting in a circle around the fire pit. Telin called them over.

“Dravit and Kerv got tabbed for night patrol.”

The two men looked pale. “How’d you do it?” Kerv wanted to know. He was sweating more than the temperature called for. “How did you make it out alive?”

“We hid,” Quyloc said. Rome’s lip turned down when he said that. Rome still didn’t like that.

“Where?”

“I’m trying to tell them, but I got no real idea where it is,” Telin admitted.

“It’s a mystery to me,” Glane added. “You should know, Quyloc. You found it.”

They all looked at him then. “I think I can find it again, but I don’t think I can tell you where it is.”

“Then what use are you?” Dravit asked roughly. From the way his hands were moving, it was clear he was agitated.

“It’s too far anyway,” Quyloc said.

“You made it,” Dravit shot back.

Rome cut in then. “We got lucky. If we’d been just a little bit slower, they’d have caught us out in the open. We’d be dead like the others.”

“You need to find someplace closer,” Quyloc said. “Before the canyon. Don’t go in there. You’re too boxed in.”

“That’s your plan, then?” Rome asked. “Just to hide?”

“Don’t come at me like that. I ain’t getting killed because of some pissant nobleman,” Dravit swore.

“I’m not,” Rome said. “I was only asking. It’s foolish to die for nothing. Have you talked to the other two who are going with you? Do they want to hide too?”

Kerv drew a shaky hand across his brow. “Yeah, they do too.”

“From what I’m hearing,” Telin said, “all the patrols are going to do the same.”

“Does the captain know? What about Sarge?”

“Not officially, we don’t.”

They looked up guiltily to see Sergeant Tairus standing there. They looked at him worriedly.

“Neither the captain, nor any of his sergeants know about this plan,” Tairus continued. “Nor do any of the sergeants or officers of the other companies. They would never allow such a complete disregard of the general’s orders.” He spread his hands. “Unofficially? You men do what you need to do.”

“How does this end, Sarge?” Kerv asked.

Tairus looked grim. “It ends in death.”

“His or ours?”

“Maybe both.” Tairus walked away, ending the discussion.

Go to next chapter.