The guards had reached the pebbly sand at the edge of the lake. Guy watched them from the corner of his eye as they came down the long trail with their staffs and their gear, their tempers slowly rising as they stumbled down ages and ages of rock, all of it slick, wet, and awkwardly spaced. Guy was also watching the wide spread of the lake, and the few prisoners and soldiers that still washed themselves in the shallower ends, but with a flinching, scant gaze, that wandered away at anything less than iron-willed attention keeping it in place
As soon as he reached the bottom, not ten feet away from Guy, Heary threw his staff to the ground and spat. “That is fuckin' it. We're down the mountain, we've got nothing to guard, we're off duty for the remainder of the evening.”
“It's really more of a hill,” Lo said, as he swiped his helmet from his head, running a hand through sweaty hair. As Heary sat, spitting curse after curse at pebbles, rocks in general, water, wetness in general, officers, and generals in general, Lo tugged on his shoulder guard, pointing at Guy's back.
Heary's helmet fell over his eyes, and then he cursed helmets, and armor in general.
Keeping up a steady mantra of 'shutthefuckup, shutthefuckup', Lo kept tugging, making the whole scene rather musical. Especially if you counted all the 'fuck's as the downbeats of each measure. Set to a nice marching rhythm, a little unsteady in places depending on whatever noun Heary was raining abuse onto at the time.
Guy put out his shortpipe, knocking the still burning ash from it with two sharp taps against the rock. They resounded like gong beats over the beating of the water and the cursing and the distant shout of washing, playing soldiers. Heary finally shut the fuck up, though, which made Lo shut the fuck up, which was nice.
“I don't think you've the rank to call yourself off duty, Heary,” Guy said, staring off over the lake and sticking his empty pipe back into his mouth. He only smoked when it was absolutely necessary – too expensive a thing to do habitually on the march – and right now, a little peace was absolutely necessary.
Up in a flash, Heary had his staff back in his hand, Lo standing dazed at his side. After a few long seconds of silence, the two guards looked at one another. Guy was still sitting, quietly watching the light dim over the lake. They both risked standing at ease. After a while, and another conference of glances, they relaxed.
Lo, helmet still in hand, walked up to Guy. “Um... Sir? We need to register complaint.”
Guy took the pipe from his mouth, eyes steady on the horizon. “General Cole kicked you out again, eh?”
Lo nodded, then realizing Guy wasn't looking at him – and that nodding wasn't the proper address – amended himself. “Yes, sir.”
Heary came up to his partner's side. “We're just trying to do our jobs...”
Bringing the pipe down again, Guy put it under examination a moment, blinking sun-spotted eyes. “He'll be fine. Do you really want to register official complaint?”
“No.” Lo shook his head. “Not really. But if anything happens, you know, you should remember...”
“Nothing will happen,” Guy said.
“Who knows what these Comids will do?” Lo said, pleadingly, as Heary nodded along.
“Nothing will happen,” Guy said.
“It's always when you say 'nothing's going to happen' that something does,” Heary said. “It's complacency.”
“Nothing will happen,” Guy said.
“I'm not going to just let it rest on luck,” Heary grunted, and Lo nodded his head furiously. Lo encouraged him. “Midraeics aren't exactly trustworthy, and with the weird festival thing going on...”
To both their surprise, Guy snorted in derision. “Do you know how we captured General Galen?”
Both guards shook their heads, but Lo spoke. “The Provost units were back with camp officers.”
Guy stuck his pipe back into his mouth, and spoke around it. “With two units of Elites.”
Both guards looked back up the long, indefensible trail climbing up to where they had left their charge and their general.
Guy took a soothing breath through his pipe. “You know what he doing?”
The guards shook their heads.
Guy let out his breath, wishing he was profligate enough for another bowl (this one hadn’t been his first, anyway). “Covering the retreat of the Comid High Command. By his shit-you-not self. That's why we don't have hands on anyone of equal or greater rank. Told me how he did it while we were marching today. Said he fucked it up because we were supposed to get a bait report of a specific dignitary we were going to save to make us arrive a bit faster, so he wouldn't run out of Elites to beat up before we could accept his surrender. As it was, he very nearly did, but General Cole’s advance guard arrived in time to throw a few more in the fight.”
Both guards began strapping their equipment back on, but Guy interrupted them. “Don't you fucking dare think of it. You're off fucking duty. I'm off fucking duty. Everyone's off duty; it's a fucking festival.”
Lo shrugged as if to ask, 'what festival? Not our festival.'
Heary made an exaggerated confused face, as if to query in return, 'I know, what the fuck is wrong with him?'
Lo, with wide eyes and a slowly shaking head replied, 'I think he's finally gone off his nut.'
Heary smiled, and gestured to indicate he would expect payment from the pot going around, and that said payment would be large enough to excuse many impolitic actions, gestures, and words set to occur in the near future.
Guy missed all this. Or he saw it, and didn't care. “You know what I've been doing all afternoon?”
The guards interrupted their signal exchange to indicate that did not.
“Suicide watch.”
This brought them to seriousness quickly enough that Lo choked on his own spit.
Since Lo was coughing, Heary spoke. “Balls, sir, what's going on?”
Guy took another slow breath through his pipe. “Apparently, there's a chunk of the fellows here among the prisoners, who would rather kill themselves than face punishment in the Capitol.”
This seemed reasonable to all.
“There's a chunk that believe their shame, having lost, demands they kill themselves,” Guy went on. “And there's a sizable chunk that's doing it to spite us. Those are the ones that bother me.”
“Because,” Guy didn't wait for the guards dubious glances and inevitable question, “those guys that want to spite us, are the ones telling the other two types to go fling themselves on the mercy of the lake. It'll make us look bad for not following Conventions – y'know encourage resistance.”
“Wait, so they're not killing themselves too?” Heary asked.
“No,” said Guy, squinting into the falling sun. “They're just assholes.”
“Shit,” Lo said, with great depth of tone.
“But here's the other thing...” The guards had to wait for Guy to take another calming breath through his pipe. “There's another group. A good half of the guys here – prisoners, I mean – about half of them think that's right bullshit. Apparently, what's happened is, remember that speech General Galen made?”
Both guards nodded.
“Apparently...” said Guy, “apparently, he said that it was cowardice to let the scared ones stayed scared. That if you were one of the guys that had his head on straight, it was your job to help keep everyone else's head on straight.
“So, what happened is, this afternoon, when some fifty men kept trying to throw themselves into the lake, cheered on by some other fifty assholes, the rest of the prisoners dragged the first fifty out of the lake. Then, just when we thought things were calming down, turned around and beat the assholes half to death. We thought it was a fucking riot. I thought we were all gonna die, except nobody seemed to be killing us. It was weird. I almost crapped myself. Then they throw out the troublemakers – hand them to the guards peaceful as can be – and say they've got the problem handled, 'have a good day'. 'Bonny Dolorosa' whatever the fuck that is. So I've been sitting on this rock all afternoon, watching, and these guys keep coming down and throwing absolute shit-fits – crying and shouting and generally sounding crazy like they're going to kill themselves – but there’s a whole Midraeic guard core, and if anyone looks like they’re going to top it, they step in – but we can’t just let them guard themselves like that! But our guards have things to do, and it gets shitty after this, and it’s about the last time we’re supposed to get any peace, and the whole fucking war is supposed to be over. So I’m on guard duty, and everyone else can fuck off to their laundry and their festivals, just so long as they fuck off, because I don’t understand a fate-cursed thing about any of this.”
“That is the craziest bullshit I have heard in a while, Captain Guy,” said Lo, scratching his head.
“Yeah,” Heary agreed, “That's fucked up.”
“I guess they figure,” Guy said, as if they hadn't spoken, “that the man who single-handedly covered the retreat of the entire rest of the Comid High Command, whose actions would have covered their retreat, if they'd been fast enough – because you know and I know that there’s Comids still out there, other than High Command – I guess they figured that guy knew what the fuck he was saying.
“General Cole stops that guy dead in his tracks,” Guy said, eye cocked back to watch the guards reactions.
Like the sudden striking of a bell, or rather, the realization that the last sliver of sunlight has slipped over the treetops unwatched, both guards absorbed this message.
Though Guy wasn't really into messages at the moment. He didn't give two shits if the guards got what he was saying or didn't; he was only speaking to them because they were there. In truth, he had simply told himself a story. Guy took another long, slow, breath, seeming satisfied the sun would go down with his eyes on it or not.
“I've personally seen General Cole outrun Elites. I've seen him take the colors, and be the first man to meet enemy lines. I've seen him risk the strongest tactician and strategist of the Ainjir military, in order to save a couple of guys who couldn't quite keep up, because there isn't much in the whole fucking country he's afraid of, or needs to be. You know, at Merrywood, they tried to surround him, caught him at camp, and his guard corps blocked them off. They kept telling him to retreat. He sent the non-combat officers out, grabbed the insignia from his tent, broke through the lines, and led the unit sent to catch him on a chase half-way across the battlefield because fighting by the officer's camp would demoralize his soldiers. Ran them straight back to their own vanguard, turned around, and backed by some infantry led a front-line charge that broke the enemy in half.”
The guards didn't need to hear that, though they ended up dazed and scuffing their feet, staring at the horizon, as overtaken by memories of the war as Guy. Maybe that was good; maybe sometimes a body just needed time to stop and think things over in a way that made sense of them. Guy knew he didn't need any more yelling. He didn't need any more hassle. He didn't need any fucking guards freaking out about nothing when he was brain-fried, emotionally over-worked, and about to go through three days of the most strenuous marching available in the wide country of Ainjir. This afternoon had been a learning experience.
“Faith is a bloody weird thing,” Guy said, and both guards nodded numbly in agreement.
“God save us from it,” Guy muttered, looking down into his pipe.
But that one only he understood.