Energizer Magister.
More of Of Reconstruction.
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[back to part IV]
V: Command
They are refitting the Odin with the same stuff as under Bergan’s skin. Ghis spoke true; the power of the stone will aid the ships in spiting Jagd, in bearing greater mass. He was already a terror, Odin, a distant impending calamity that blocked out the Estersand sun. He is to be Judge Magister Hardin’s, so that Judge Magister Hardin may do as he does best, and prowl the skies.
Vossler, who has infantry in his blood, is terrified.
To think. The sky.
It will be another month. Vossler knows that the key is more appointment than knack, subcommanders and captains. He has been there. The fleet already keeps itself aloft. His is a name to strike terror into the ranks, his own as much as the enemy’s, and at this point it’s starting to blur, whose are his, whose are the enemy’s.
-
Bergan is dead as well. This time, Vossler is certain who killed him. He’s been there. A greatsword; an axe; a gun, or a bow, or whatever the others are wielding now; half-misdirected anger, desperation, the guards fall first, and eventually death. He wonders if the Viera went crazy this time. He wonders why he can’t recall her name. He wonders who else has crossed the sands to Raithwall’s tomb, whether any treasure remains to it. What the price of such treasure is. Whether anyone else deserves to pay it.
He is still unsure whether to celebrate or not when the summons arrives.
Not Larsa.
-
“You have distinguished yourself, Hardin,” Vayne states, the obvious, and this is not a man who states the obvious lightly.
“If survival brooks distinction then I surpass only the dead in honor,” Vossler scoffs through the teeth of his helm, and his own. Vayne wears no black to mar his mail, no sigil of mourning. Vossler knows not if there can be such a custom in Archadia, where the dead become signatures and coin instead of snowflies.
That smirk is nothing new, save the glint of the mail underneath it, all the same. Vossler still hates it. “A truth,” Vayne says, “for those dead gain nothing-though those quick may lose all,” and Vossler remembers, shivers, thanks fate for the armor and damns himself for thanking fate.
“I would see your losses,” Vayne goes on, jaw stilled, eyes halved.
It strikes Vossler later, much later, his own self-restraint. That in removing his gauntlet and glove, in proffering his stumps-for-fingers, palm down, in thinking to himself that you have seen my losses, from the spire of them, he did not once think of Ashe or think of mercy.
Vayne considers the gesture with a faint breath, short through his nose, without fire, without smoke. “A fair due, for the honor now done you.” It is not an assessment. It is not a question.
“Honor cannot be bought,” Vossler contests.
“Of course not,” Vayne drawls, gloating with his hand, dismissing Vossler’s. “She can only be appeased.” He extends his own hand, now. Vossler knows to take it, to supine. Again, he thanks fate for the armor, for shielding his lips from those rings, from the base taste of regicide.
There is complicity in this, in the acridity of Vayne’s hand. It is without mockery. And truth, Vayne did what Vossler could have done, given the chance-
“And she is ravenous,” says Vayne, over Vossler’s bowed head, through the ears of the helm like a shot. “A mistress, not a whore.”
-
It occurs to Vossler on Odin’s bridge that he has never seen the Hardin holdings.
It occurs to Vossler that he likely never will.
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[on to part VI]
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