The Serpentwar Saga. Raymond E. Feist

Captain’s choice.’

      Zila said, ‘I’d be a liar if I told you. We’re regulars, and until then every man had a contract with Bilbari. We voted on it, like regulars do.’

      ‘How did you vote?’ demanded de Loungville.

      ‘Does it matter?’

      ‘You’re damn right it matters,’ he answered, his face set in an angry mask. ‘Turning coat is the lowest thing a man can do.’

      Zila said, ‘Every man voted to leave.’

      Calis said, ‘You have the peace of the camp until sunrise the day after tomorrow. See that you’re gone by then.’

      He rose, and as he left the pavilion, Erik hurried after him. ‘Captain!’

      Calis halted, and Erik was shocked at the anger he read in the half-elf’s face. ‘What?’

      ‘Some of their horses need to lie up. If they don’t, give them another couple of days and they’re useless.’

      ‘That’s Zila and his companions’ problem.’

      ‘Captain, I don’t give a nail’s head for Zila and his men. I’m thinking of the horses.’

      Calis looked at Erik, then said, ‘Tend the horses as best you can, but do nothing special for them. Hay and water, that’s all we’ll give them. What they buy from the villagers is their own business.’

      ‘There’s a man named Rian who wants to know if we’ll take him. Says he doesn’t want to lie around Maharta.’

      Calis was silent for a moment. Finally he said, ‘If one of those turncoats is in sight when the sun reaches the sky the day after tomorrow, he will be killed.’

      Erik nodded and returned to the remounts. There he found Rian and said, ‘My Captain says we have no room.’

      The man’s expression shifted, and for an instant Erik thought he’d appeal, but at last he said, ‘Very well. Will you sell horses?’

      Erik said, ‘I don’t think it would earn me my Captain’s thanks to keep you here.’ Lowering his voice, he said, ‘Keep what little gold you have. Take that buckskin gelding over there.’ He motioned toward the horse. ‘He’s just come sound from a stocked-up leg – he got it kicking out for no damn reason at all – and he’s got rocks for brains. But he’s fit enough to get you out of here in two days.’

      The man named Rian said, ‘I don’t think I’ll wait that long. My Captain’s dead, and so are Bilbari’s Regulars with him. I’m heading south to find a billet before word gets down there. Once a man’s labeled turncoat, no one will ever trust him.’

      Erik nodded. ‘Zila said you had no choice.’

      Rian spat. ‘A man always has a choice. Sometimes it’s to die with honor or live without, but there’s always a choice. That pretty Raj was a man. He might never have fought a day in his life, but when it came time to surrender he spit over the wall. He cried like a baby when they hoisted him up onto the stake, and he howled like a broken-backed dog when he felt it coming up his gut. But even while he hung there with his own shit and blood running down the pole, he never asked for mercy, and if Khali-shi’ – he used the local name for the Goddess of Death, who judges the lives of men – ‘has any goodness in her, she’ll give him another chance on the Wheel.’

      Erik said, ‘Zila said you were never offered the chance of surrender.’

      ‘Zila’s a lying sack of pig guts. He was our corporal, and with the Captain and sergeant dead he thinks he’s our Captain. No one’s killed him yet because we’re all too damn tired.’

      ‘Come with me,’ said Erik.

      He led Rian to the hut Calis used as his office and quarters and asked to see the Captain. When Calis appeared, he looked at Rian, then at Erik. ‘What?’

      ‘I think you should hear this man out,’ said Erik. Turning to Rian, he said, ‘What about the offer to surrender?’

      Rian shrugged. ‘The Raj told the lizards he would burn in hell before he’d open the gates of his city to them. But he offered any captain who wanted to quit the city the chance to leave – without pay, of course.’ Rian sighed. ‘If you knew Bilbari, you’d know he was one greedy son of a mule. He took a bonus for staying, then made a deal with the lizards to betray the city and join in the looting.’ He shook his head. ‘But that was the joke. It was the worst betrayal of all: as soon as the fires started and the looting began, they hunted down the mercenary companies one at a time. Those that stood died, and those that surrendered were given the choice of swearing service or taking the stake. No day’s grace, no laying down of weapons and walking away, nothing. Serve or die. A few of us managed to get free.’

      Calis shook his head. ‘How could you betray your vow?’

      ‘I never did,’ said Rian, with what was the closest to a show of emotion Erik had seen so far. He stared Calis in the eyes and repeated, ‘I never did. We were a regular company, soldiers for life, sworn in oath as brothers. We voted, and those who voted to stay and fight were on the losing side. But we swore an oath to each other long before we took the Raj’s gold, and damn me if I’d leave a brother for being wrong-headed.’

      ‘Then why did you seek service with us?’

      ‘Because Bilbari’s dead and our brotherhood is broken.’ He looked genuinely sad. ‘If you knew Bilbari, you also knew he had his own way of taking care of his men. Some of us were with him ten, fifteen years, Captain. He was nobody’s father, but he was everyone’s eldest brother. And he’d kill the first man who harmed one of his own. I’ve been selling my sword since I was fifteen years old, and it’s the only family I’ve known. But it’s a dead family now. After Khaipur, no man will have us to service, and that means being a bandit or starving.’

      ‘What will you do?’ said Calis.

      ‘I’d like to head out tonight and get a march on this news heading south. Maybe catch a boat out of Maharta if I can’t find a billet there, head up coast to the City of the Serpent River or down to Chatisthan, someplace nobody knows me. I’ll find another company who’ll hire me, or a merchant needing a bodyguard.’ He looked to the north for a moment with a thoughtful expression. ‘But with what’s up there, I don’t know that any of us can find a peaceful life anywhere. I’ve never seen war like this before. You saw the smoke, Captain?’

      Calis nodded.

      ‘They fired the city when they were through. I don’t mean a fire here or there, but the entire city. We saw from a ridge to the south before we ran for our lives, but we saw.’ His voice lowered as if he was afraid someone might overhear. ‘From one end to the other the fire burned, and the smoke rose so high it flattened and spread through the clouds like a big tent. Soot rained from the sky for days. Twenty, thirty thousand soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder before the gates, shouting and laughing, chanting and singing as they killed those who wouldn’t serve their cause. And I saw her.’

      ‘Who?’ said Calis with sudden interest.

      ‘The Emerald Queen, some call her. In the distance. Couldn’t see her face, but I saw a company of lizards on those damn big horses of theirs, and a big wagon, bigger’n anything I’ve ever seen before, and on the wagon was this big golden throne, and this woman sat there, in a long robe. You could see the green flicker of the emeralds at her throat and wrists, and she had a crown with emeralds. And the lizards all went wild, hissing and chanting, and even some of the men, those who’d been with them long enough, they all bowed when she came by.’

      ‘You’ve been helpful,’ said Calis. ‘Take a fresh horse and whatever food you need and slip out at the guard change at sundown.’ Rian saluted and left.

      Erik turned to leave and Calis said, ‘Keep what you heard to yourself.’

      Erik nodded. Then he said, ‘Captain, the horses?’

      Calis