Memoirs of a Fallen God

Chapter 23

A wordless Tore followed, shaking his head as he passed.

"You're a cruel man," he signed.

I grinned. He wasn't wrong.

Galore led the blood-mad soldier by a rope. To my surprise, the man didn't look threatening at all in the light day. Just thin, and pale. And sad. And despite the memory of his blood-caked face snarling as he leapt to attack me, still, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man.

Galore caught me staring, and flashed a wicked smile as he passed the rope to me. "Your friend requires a handler. Since you two got along so well earlier..." He shrugged. "See he doesn't slow us down too much."

A few moments beyond that and our squad was headed out of the village. Smoke rose behind us as the villagers put the remnants of the raid—bleeder corpses and anything tainted with so much as a drop of blood—to flame.

The journey back to the fort was a far different beast than the journey to the village. The jungle was still the jungle—still too hot, too tangled, too bug infested--but for us four recruits, the tension was gone. There was no battle awaiting us on the other side of this leg of the journey.

My charge, whose name had been Bindol, according to Cage, proved a stoic, if pitiful, companion. It became abundantly clear that whatever madness was affecting him had taken firm root. He would eat if food were put before him, and walk when led. And though he seemed altogether aware of the world around him—his words, such as he offered, were nonsense. Not the violent, threatening sort of nonsense he’d offered back in the hut, either, but pure gibberish. He refused to make eye contact with anyone. Whoever he had been, whatever kind of soldier he’d been before the blood ritual, was gone.

Once, when I stumbled and the lead rope slipped from my hands, he began walking off into the jungle, away from me and the rest of the squad. Back toward the village. He didn’t run, and he offered no resistance when I hopped after him and regained possession of the rope…it merely seemed as though he’d rather be going the other way.

Indeed, as the day wore on, his burst of violence in the village seemed almost a bad dream. The man seemed altogether good natured. He smiled often, though it was easy enough to tell there was nothing behind it. Just the feckless grin of a simpleton.

And, for all that I was his assigned gaoler, he certainly seemed to like me best. He’d coo happily when I drew near, and tended to look worried when I strayed too far. The only time he displayed anything resembling a sore temper at all, in fact, was when Cage drew near. He’d jerked away from the man as though from a hot iron whenever he so much as passed by. I didn’t quite know what to make of that, though I took some solace in observing the way Jeer eyed Cage appraisingly whenever it happened. Jeer would know what to do, if anything needed doing.

The first night out from the village, still drained from the battle and barely coherent after a long day’s march, we set up camp and ate a quick meal, hardly speaking at all. Then we retired to our bedrolls.

The light from the fire had grown low. Bindol had been moaning in his sleep, so, at Jeer's barked request, I'd drawn him a ways off from the camp proper and tied him firmly—if as comfortably as I could manage. Him and I were just out of easy earshot. There'd been no relapse of his violent blood-lust; today, he'd just been pitiful. But pitiful or not, we'd all spent the day marching, and his whining was an unwelcome distraction.

I’d finally managed the first few nods of sleep, when a rustling in the brush nearby jerked me back awake. I stared toward the sound, holding my breath, not moving. Moonlight glinted on the metal of a naked blade. I reached for my belt knife, wondering, as I did so, if a shout would raise the camp in time. I bit my lip. No, I decided. Help wouldn't get there quick enough, and I’d just let the intruder know the jig was up.