The Vile

‘So what’s next?’

‘We’re to get to Ballaston.’ The Captain stated. ‘Quickly.’

‘So that’s it. The contract is to just get to this city. Quickly?’ questioned Buckle. Knuckles shook his head, Faint standing behind Buckle and to his right rolled her eyes dramatically. Operation orders were dispersed at a need to know basis and as far as they were from Ballaston almost no one needed to know yet. They had a task ahead of them just in getting there.

‘Don’t we have someone from around here?’ Knuckles asked. Everyone paused to run through their rosters, half the members of the troop would never have come forward with where they were from, the other half never shut up about it.

Tapper spoke up, ‘Isn’t Bets from around here Sickles?’ She grunted, ‘Maybe’ and turned then stomped off towards the tents to gather Bets. Not one to waste time doing nothing when he could be complaining Buckle’s mouth opened but before he could get a intelligible word out Faint had jabbed two of her meaty finger into his back, the poke had startled him and what came out was a sad sort of squawk. The Captain fixed him with her best ‘grind bones to dust’ look and Buckle used the remainder of his time to kick dirt around while staring at his shoes.

They heard Bets approaching before they could see her, the clattering of a small horde of loose coin preceded her.  Sickle followed, hands on her pommels.

‘Think you make enough noise soldier,’ The Captain asked in her flat disapproval voice.

Bets was one of those soldiers that Knuckles had always admired, with not enough sense to be afraid of the officers, Knuckles did not think he could have found the courage to do what Bets did with ease. She just smiled at the Captain and responded, ‘Not, all of us are the stealthy type Cap.’ And then she winked. Knuckles mouth would have fallen open if he had not been grinning so hard. Faint hid hers behind a hand.

‘Soldier. You’re from around here. How would you get to Ballaston. Quickly.’

‘The quickest way to tell you Cap would be to go up the Dominion highway.’

‘No solider, what’s the way you would take to the city if you wanted to get there quickly.’ There was a hard edge to the Captain’s quickly.

‘Oh, well I would tell you to go up the Dominion highway, Cap.’ Bets answered. A laugh escaped form several of the sergeants. The Captain looked to Sickles, Sickles shrugged. Knuckles thought that Frosty was not good enough with people to understand she was being toyed with, Bets was just a having a little foot soldiers fun. The Captain moved to start again and Knuckles through up his hand, she looked relieved that he was willing to take over the interrogation.

‘Bets. Lets presume that officers are all intelligent enough to deduce that a well marked and traveled highway is likely to be the fastest way to get from one place to another.’ Knuckles began.

‘Soldiers know better than to presume the officers to be intelligent, Sir.’ Bets interjected, with another wink. Knuckles laughed, though most the other staff scowled. If you spent enough time amongst the staff you often forgot the irreverence that the soldiers held for their leadership. It was not specific, individually each of the solders tended to like their officers. It was most of a general disdain for leadership that was not real or authentic but still very omni present amongst the troops. Knuckles thought perhaps it was a necessary barrier built to protect them the seemingly un-ignorable danger of placing their lives in the decision making skills of others.

‘Fair enough, but we have considered it and to put it plainly we can’t take the highway. Could we cut our way across the plains?’

‘No sir, impossible.’ Bets answered

‘Impossible?’ the Captain echoed implying that she was going to need a bit more convincing that the whole half a second Bets took to consider the option. There was something in her voice that rattled Bets a little and she stammered when she began again.

‘Ye-yes, Captain. Impossible,’ She turned to face the plains. ‘Sure, it looks inviting enough. All pretty and all with the green everywhere but Captain let me assure you for all intents and purposes that sea of green you’re looking at is basically the largest desert you’ve ever seen. Oh, there are water holes scattered all over it. But if you don’t know where they are we could all die of thirst trying to make it from one to the other.’ She turned back to face the officers and could tell that everyone of them had begun the process of furrowing their brows to the problem.

‘But that’s not all. Scattered through the plains are the plains tribes. As vicious and territorial a people as you’ll ever come across. They only in the last fifty years or so agreed to terms with the Dominion in regards to the highway, and even still people have been known to disappear between the stations’

‘I wonder what the terms were?’ Some voice asked from the huddle of sergeants.

‘I suspect it was something along the lines of: if you step off the highway we kill you and leave your bones for the crows’ Bets answered. She turned to the Captain directly now and said, ‘Now, Captain I am gonna presume that when you said quickly you meant also without being noticed.’ Frosty nodded ‘Well, we're a mean group of sons-of-bitches so I am sure we could take the plains people. But not without loses and surely not quietly.’ To this Frosty, still completely in her Captain’s posture, nodded again.

‘Thank you soldier.’ Knuckles offered and Bets turned to go, then stopped.

‘Actually serge I just thought of something,’ everyone’s head popped up. ‘We could cut the length of the river and march up the Vile. Won’t be any troops or plainsmen that way. I don’t know maps so I don’t know how close it runs to Balleston but I remember as a kid, when the winds were good and strong that we could smell it from Balleston so it can’t be too far. Still would have a water issue but I’ll leave that for the officers to figure out. Being that you all are the intelligent ones.’ Another wink and she turned to leave, jingling as she went without even waiting for a formal dismissal.

             

*                          *                           *                           *

Ferin was caught off guard by Knuckles, ‘Alright lads’ his voice booming to rouse their collective attentions. Each of them was doing their mindless waiting activity that kept them sane while the officers tried to decide what was next. For most the soldiers it was either a simple housekeeping sort of activity or it was sleeping. Valon had been sleeping and being awoken by the Sergeants voice was a sure fire way to wake up grumpy, he wore it on his face as he blinked hard.

‘What’s the plan Sarge?’

‘We’re going to make our way to Balleston by following the Vile, and then cutting across to the city proper.’ He answered

‘What the hell is ‘the Vile’?’ Valon asked.

‘A river.’

The answer caught Ferin off guard. She would have expected just about any other response than the one she had heard. ‘Why would they call a river ‘the Vile’?’

Before Knuckles could respond, Tapper did ‘Because it’s poisoned.’

‘Its poisoned?’ Echoed Valon.

‘Poisoned’ Tapper repeated.

‘How does one poison a river?’ Valon asked incredulously.

‘Wrong question my friend.’ Tapper responded, ‘The Vile has been poisoned long enough for it to get a name based on being poisoned and while it is perhaps seemingly most pertinent to ask how one poisons a river there is an even more interesting question that ought to be asked’ his voice tailed off

‘How does one poison a river for that long of a time’ Ferin put out Tapper’s obvious question. He nodded his head in confirmation.

‘How long has it been?’ Valon asked. Tapper shrugged. Knuckles answered, ‘Bets says its been poisonous, death to anyone who drinks it for at least a thousand years.’

Valon shook his head in disbelief. ‘A thousand years?’

‘Magic then,’ Ferin offered up. Tapper nodded again to this, and added to her statement, ‘Old magic. Terrifying old magic. I can not imagine a magic user who could do such a thing, he must have been incredibly powerful.’

‘She was.’ Ghost spoke so rarely, his voice strong and melodic that when he did the entire world seemed to pause. As it was all eleven of them turned to give him their attention, Ferin imagined that all their faces were mirrors of her own- stunned surprise. Ghost must have realized then that a barrage of questions were coming and so before anyone could get one out started in again. ‘She was powerful. Her name was Rahulasheen and she ruled these plains were the authority of a god. She was called Blackwind, Dark Whisper, the Hidden One. But she was not a god, but a skareen, maybe the last of them. The people of the open sky. Still after ten thousand years the power she amassed was more than most gods could ever hope to have at their disposal.’

Ferin had so many questions should could not order them in a way that would let her get one out. Valon, who never seemed to be able to think of more than one thing at a time, did not have that problem.

‘Why did she poison the river.’

There was something in Ghost’s voice Ferin could hear, that confused her. She could not tell if he were speaking or singing and the sound of it drew her in. ‘She cursed the river, to curse the river god Vashun who had seduced her only son, Olarasheen. Olasaheen who had broken a thousand spears on his shield, Olarasheen who wore his wild red hair unbraided and counted coup a countless number of times. Olar, the fire, the laughing one, who was beloved by all and not least of all by his mother Rahulasheen. Vashun seduced Olar and took Olar with him to the place of his power, deep in the river where he could feed on the thanks and adoration of every living thing that drew from the river of which he was god. The skareen like all of the first people were stronger, faster, and more powerful and any of the people of this world today but he was not immortal and in the cold dark depths of Vashun’s realm he drowned.’

‘Surely, Olin, would have known that would happen.’ Valon said.

‘Olar, would have. But Gods are not without their own powers. Vashun’s power was rooted in the power of rivers themselves and just as a river’s will can not be resisted forever so too was Vashun’s will. All he had to do was turn that will to something and eventually he would have it. Still, there were others even in the sadness of Olar’s passing that professed that his love for Vashun was true and that he was not persuaded. That he went to the depths of his own accord, unwilling to spend the rest of his days so far from the man he loved.’ Ghost’s eyes narrowed and his voice lowered, ‘When a being becomes as powerful as Rahulasheen had become they were always a danger, what is the slightest emotion in a normal person in a being of that strength becomes an avalanche. She demanded Vashun return her son to her, and Vashun in the hubris that gods only seem to be able to have, laughed at her. How unaware he was of the danger. But how could he know? After all Rahulasheen was just a mortal, a powerful and long lived one, but a mortal just the same. And he was Vashun, god of the Golden River, a river who had supported and nourished life for a hundred thousand years. When Rahulasheen waded out into the river she brought with her magic large flat black stone on which for her to stand and from that stone she unleashed all her rage and grief on the river. She deposited her emotion supported with the incomprehensible magnitude of her power. into the river. The letting out of that power destroyed her but it was not that great power the poisoned the river and killed the river god.  Grief is a natural thing, every living thing feels it. The river is poisoned with her grief, and any who drink of it die for the grief in it is too much for any living thing to bear. If you would marvel at how any being could poison a river then marvel at the grief Rahulasheen felt from losing her son. And if you would marvel at how any being could sustain such a poisoning then you should marvel at the rage at which Rahulasheen felt, it is after these tens of thousands of years, what sustains the curse.’