Soldier Scarred Read online

  “Maybe the storm won’t last very long,” Endric said, even as the sheeting rain dumping over the rock in front of them made him know that was unlikely.

  6

  The rain lasted for hours, long enough for Endric to lose track of time. When it finally passed, fading into little more than a drizzle, the sky was dark and the moon shone overhead. It was a night much like the one before, only this time he was soaking wet and miserable.

  He crawled out of the narrow cave and stood looking out toward the fading remnants of the storm. The air carried the heady scent of the rain, mixed with a bitterness, that of teralin. He breathed it in, instinctively reaching for his sword and feeling the power of the teralin flowing through it.

  “The ship is probably gone, isn’t it?” Senda asked.

  Endric sighed. “Probably.”

  “How are we supposed to return to Vasha?”

  He glanced over at her. She squeezed water from her hair. They would have to do the same with their clothes or they would never dry completely. There had been a time when he looked forward to seeing Senda without her clothes, when she felt the same about him, but for her, that time seemed to have passed long ago.

  “You’ll get there. It will take longer, but you’ll get there.” He was less concerned about the return to Vasha than she was. If anything, his time away from the city had taught him that there was value in being away.

  “Just me?” Senda asked.

  Endric shook his head. “You know that I’ll go too. It’s just…”

  “You aren’t committed to the Denraen, are you?”

  How could he answer? He knew what he needed to say, and he knew what Senda wanted him to say, but the truth was not either of those answers. “I’m committed to what the Denraen stand for, and I’m committed to the peace that I know is necessary, but I think the Denraen—at least as my father have them comprised—is somewhat shortsighted.”

  “Now you think you know better than Dendril again?”

  “Not better than Dendril, but I’ve seen things, Senda. It’s hard to view the world as I once did.”

  “So view it with your new insight as you serve the Denraen.”

  Endric studied her a moment, then began peeling his clothing off. She frowned, and a part of him waited for her to attack him for being so brazen, but she quickly realized what he was doing. As he wrung the water out of his clothing, he contemplated how he could serve the Denraen. That had always been his intent after returning from the Antrilii, and yet, when he had returned, everything had been different. Then again, he had been different.

  Maybe that was why he understood what Urik had gone through. He had experienced so much change and had found a way to continue finding a place for himself. Endric didn’t agree with how he’d gone about it, but he couldn’t deny the fact that Urik had managed to transition from father to historian to soldier to traitor so easily. Such skill with transitions was something Endric had yet to master.

  “You said my father intended for me to return to Vasha so that I could take over his place,” Endric said, pulling his pants back on. They were still uncomfortably damp, but better than they were. He preferred to leave them to dry, but the continued thunder that rumbled made him question whether that was even a possibility.

  “Your father is preparing for a time when he can no longer lead the Denraen,” Senda said. “He intends for you to take over for him. That’s always been his intent.”

  “Not always.”

  “Fine. Ever since Andril’s death, it’s been his intent. Is that what you need for me to say?”

  “I don’t need for you to say anything. I don’t know that I can be the Denraen general.”

  “I don’t know that you can’t be the Denraen general.”

  Endric sighed, waiting for Senda to get dressed again. He’d averted his gaze as she had worked the water out of her clothing. “We should see if we can’t find the boat.”

  “I doubt the captain waited,” she said.

  “There are supplies in the dinghy. If nothing else, we can at least find food. We can even use the dinghy to make our way along the shoreline.” It might be faster than trying to travel across land, and at least by taking the dinghy, they could use the current and might reach one of the coastal cities faster.

  “What if Urik returned to the dinghy?” Senda asked.

  Endric hadn’t considered that. Leave it to Senda to recognize a flaw in his plan. It was possible—might be probable—that Urik had taken the dinghy. He could’ve rode back to the ship before the storm came in, claiming that Endric told them to go on without him.

  “If the dinghy is gone, then we go by land.”

  They made their way into the fading night, daylight gradually creeping up. As it did, Endric felt reassured that they seemed to be heading in the right direction. He hadn’t been sure, not until they saw the sun rising.

  It was near midday when they reached the shore. “Which way do you think we need to go?” Senda asked.

  Endric looked along the shoreline, no longer as confident as he had been. “There was a cove. If we can find that, then we can figure out which way we need to go.”

  “That’s assuming that the boat is still where we left it. Even if Urik didn’t take it, it’s possible that the storm washed it out to sea.”

  Endric gritted his teeth. It would have been easier if there was something for him to fight. That was always the easiest answer. Having patience and finding a way to think through their strategy was much more difficult. “We’ll take it one step at a time,” he said.

  “We should make a marker. That way, if something happens, we’ll know where we’ve already been.”

  “Too bad we didn’t think of that before.”

  “I wouldn’t have imagined the island to be this bleak. I thought there would have been something for us to follow, but there’s been no sign of anything other than rock.”

  “You didn’t know what Salvat looks like?”

  Endric found that difficult to believe considering her studies with Listain and the travels she’d made prior to coming to Vasha. Could Senda be manipulating him, even now?

  He studied her. It was not something he ever would have considered before, but Senda was no longer only his friend. She was something more, and she had served Listain—and now his father—long enough that he thought it was possible for her to be manipulating him. To what end? She had proven her distrust of Urik. Why would she bother to try and hide anything else from him? Why would she willingly strand herself on Salvat?

  Endric thought back to his travels with Tresten and Urik, and one of the lessons that Urik had taught him about planning and strategy. If nothing else, Urik had been a source of insight. He was a master strategist, possibly rivaling even Listain, and Endric had known that he needed to listen when Urik spoke.

  What would Urik have said?

  “I knew that sections of Salvat were like this, but I hadn’t realized that so much of the island was this… desolate. Do you think this is what the Unknown Lands are like?”

  Endric smiled. “You want to compare Salvat to the Unknown Lands?”

  She shrugged. “No one really knows what the Unknown Lands are like. I like to think that they are a place lush with life all around, and that there are people there who struggle to reach us as much as we have struggled to reach them.”

  Endric chuckled. The Unknown Lands were impossible to reach, and unknown for that very reason. The Great Valley separated most of the land from the Unknown Lands, and the mountains in the north made it impossible to pass in that direction. Men had tried sailing along the south, but had been unsuccessful. As far as Endric knew, none had ever reached the Unknown Lands. That didn’t mean that no one had. Maybe Tresten would have known. If any could have reached the Unknown Lands, he would have expected it to be the Conclave.

  “Maybe there’s nothing there. Maybe it’s as bleak and unlivable as this place.”

  “If it’s like this, you would think that we’d have s
een some sign of a volcano. At least here, the smoke rising from Oluantiin Mountain makes it clear that the volcano remains active.”

  “Unless the wind blows the smoke away from our side.”

  “That’s possible,” Senda said.

  They made their way along the coast and had walked for nearly an hour when he saw what looked to be a cove much like what he remembered seeing as they’d rowed into shore. He pointed, and Senda nodded.

  “If the gods are kind and just, the dinghy will still be here,” she said.

  “What makes you think the gods are kind and just?”

  “You don’t think they are?”

  “I think they’ve Ascended. Since then, they haven’t had much contact with the world, which tells me that they aren’t interested in what we might do. The gods don’t have any influence over us.”

  “The gods have every influence over us,” Senda said. “Everything we do, the reason that we serve, is because of the gods.”

  Endric forced a smile. He gone through his own struggles with the purpose of the Denraen and how to rationalize their need for fighting with the demands from the gods that they maintain peace. Meeting with the Antrilii had helped and had showed him that there were others who had found some measure of balance, a way that they could still serve the gods while dealing with the necessities of the violence of their world.

  “Is that the way you view the Denraen?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I think the gods required us to find a measure of peace, but I don’t think that they watch over us to ensure that we do. How could they? How could they allow such violence to take place in their name?”

  “The Deshmahne don’t serve on their behalf.”

  Endric tipped his head, studying Senda. “Are you so sure? The Deshmahne believe they serve the gods no differently than we believe that we serve the gods. What if they have the right of it?”

  “You have to have faith that your convictions are correct.”

  “And if I don’t?” Endric asked.

  “Is that why you don't want to return to the Denraen?”

  “I’ve never said that I don’t want to return to the Denraen,” Endric said. “I’ve only said that I want to continue to do what I need to help understand what the Conclave would ask of me.”

  “Then why do you view the needs of the Conclave as greater than the needs of the Denraen—or of the Urmahne?”

  “Because I’ve seen what the Conclave serves. It’s something like the Denraen, but it seems that they serve even more of a sense of peace. They are scholars, but there is more to it than that.”

  “I don’t understand you anymore. There was a time when all you wanted to do was to fight, and now it seems as if you’re trying to turn into a scholar.”

  “And if I am?”

  “That would be fine. I just want you to know who you are and what you intend to do.”

  Endric shook his head. “That’s just it. I think that I know what I intend to do and who I am, but I don’t think that pleases you.”

  They reached a point along the shore that Endric recognized as the spot they had used for their arrival. Some of the rocks jutting out of the water were the same though, as the captain had suggested, some of the rocks were new. He stared out toward the sea, looking for signs of the ship, praying that they might find signs of the bright white sails, but there was nothing.

  “The boat is gone,” Senda said.

  “And the ship, too.”

  “Which means that we are going across land.”

  Endric sighed and started to turn when he saw something bobbing on the sea. At first, he thought it was a bird. There were plenty of massive gulls that swept in from the sea, diving toward the water and soaring back into the sky with a fish clutched in their talons. Some floated on the surface of the water, bobbing in place. What he saw was much too large to be one of the birds.

  He pointed. “What do you think that is?”

  Senda frowned, cupping her hand over her eyes to stare out at the water. “I can’t tell.”

  He started pulling off his clothes, and she arched a brow at him. “I’m not going to get them soaked again, not after they finally dried.”

  “I didn’t think you cared for swimming.”

  “One of us has to go. It might as well be me, especially as you outrank me and generally the lower-ranking officer has to take on the jobs no one else wants.”

  She started to smile. “At least now you’re starting to talk sense.”

  When Endric had stripped, he waded out into the water. It was cold—much colder than it had been only a few days before. Had the rain caused the temperature to drop that much? The rocks were sharp beneath his feet, and quickly dropped off. He swam toward what he saw out on the water until it became clear that it was their dinghy.

  Seeing that, he swam with more urgency, each stroke bringing him closer. And then he reached it.

  If the gods were kind, they would’ve left the supplies within the boat. He was pleased to find the bundle of bread and meat where they’d left it. Water filled the bottom of the boat, but not so much that all of their supplies were soaked.

  Where were the oars?

  Endric grabbed the bow and started swimming it toward the shore. He ignored the sense of something swimming beneath him, an unpleasant sensation that made him think that there was some massive sea creature attempting to grab him. They’d seen no sharks, but he’d heard stories of them grabbing people off the coast and dragging them out to sea. There were other creatures—much worse—that he didn’t want to think about.

  When he reached the shore, he found Senda standing with a single oar, waving it at him.

  “That would have been helpful out there.”

  “You seemed to swim it in just fine,” she said.

  “I would’ve preferred not to have had to. The gods only know what’s in that water.”

  Endric quickly dried off with his shirt and began dressing. He noted the way Senda watched, not bothering to avert her gaze. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have flushed as he did now, and a time when he would have hoped that something more might have come of it, but he didn’t think Senda was in that place. For that matter, Endric wasn’t really in that place.

  “Now what?” Senda asked. “We have only one oar. Do you intend to row us along the shore by yourself?”

  “Either that or we walk.”

  “If there is much current…”

  “That was my thought as well. If the current can carry us, we won’t have to expend quite as much energy, and we might make better time.” There was another advantage, but it seemed too much to hope that they might come across the captain again. He’d likely abandoned them, turning away at sign of the storm when they hadn’t returned. They would be left behind, struggling to find a way off the island, at least from here.

  7

  Endric had been rowing for what seemed an eternity. His arms ached but he didn’t stop, as Senda slept next to him in the boat. And he wasn’t going to wake her to row just because he was tired. It would be his penance for bringing them here, the price he was willing to pay for wanting to come to Salvat.

  The sky remained clear and there was no sign of storms, nothing but hazy clouds that drifted overhead. There wasn’t even the threat of thunder as there had been during their first day on the island. The current carried them steadily toward the south and west. It helped, and Endric knew they made better time because of it than they would have had they attempted to travel overland, but there were other things to be concerned about. Traveling by land allowed them to rest and not fear what might attack. Traveling on the ocean left him wondering when—and if—some strange sea monster might come leaping out of the water at them. Senda didn’t seem to think that was anything to be concerned about, but Endric was not convinced.

  Every so often, he would drift off, no longer fighting sleep as it tried to claim him, allowing himself a few moments of quiet. He would drift off and then jerk awake once m
ore, fearful that he might have missed something. Every time he came around, his heart hammered, and he remained alert for an hour, sometimes two, before starting to drift off once more.

  When he did drift off, he dreamed.

  They were vivid dreams and seemed to carry with them memories he didn’t have. Most seemed far too real. In one of them, he had a conversation with Tresten, and Endric awoke thinking that the Mage was sitting right there with him, only to find that he was still in the dinghy and Senda still slept.

  Other times, his mind seemed to play tricks on him, making him think that he saw ships in the distance. The first time that happened, Endric rowed toward one, thinking that if there were ships, he could try to find one that could sail them back to Gomald. As he went deeper into the sea, he found no sign of any passing ship and he hurriedly rowed them back toward the shore, fearful of letting it get too far out of view.

  The hull scraped across unseen rock, and each time it did, Endric jerked awake even more, no differently than he did when coming around after one of his vivid dreams or when realizing he was sleeping. He went from relaxed to terrified in moments, and was exhausted from it.

  His other fear was losing the oar. If they lost it, there would be no way to row back to shore. He didn’t think his sword, nor Senda’s staff, would be of much use, so he gripped it tightly until his hands began to ache.

  Sometime late in the evening, Senda came around and rubbed her eyes as she sat up. “Why did you let me sleep?”

  “You might as well sleep for now. You’ll have to take over in a little while so that I can sleep.”

  He no longer rowed with any vigor, letting the current carry them. Every so often, he had to dip his oar into the water so that he could redirect the little boat, keeping them moving toward the shore. At least the current carried them along the shoreline. The waves were nothing like they had been, no longer crashing along the shore so that he was careful to stay in the deeper water. Likely if they came too close, the water would tumble them into the rock, crushing both he and Senda as well as the dinghy.