Page 4 of The Malevolent Seven

Those who wage war for a living see the world around them as territory. The most breath-taking landscape, the most heart-rending scene of devastation, both are merely lines on a map to be erased and redrawn with pen and ink when diplomacy served, or with swords and blood when it did not. It should be no surprise, then, that Ascendant Lucien’s camp was a moveable nation, with tented cantons and districts arranged according to his own design. Just as in any city, location was a marker of status easily understood by those who lived nearby.

‘Your tent is like a palace!’ the boy– Fidick, he’d said his name was– declared.

‘Have you ever been inside a palace?’ I asked.

He gave a light, nervous laugh. ‘No, Silord. Never.’

‘Then what the hell do you know?’

The girl, who’d told me her name was Galass, gave the boy a quieting glare and me something more akin to a snarl. She so obviously saw herself as his protector that I almost pitied her the heartbreak for which she was surely destined.

Galass was on the cusp of womanhood, dark-haired and pretty in that way that waxed and waned depending on her expression, but Fidick was something else entirely. He was possessed of a luminous beauty that would make great artists want to lock him away so that no one but they could capture his golden curls and cherubic features. Others would want to lock him away for far worse reasons.

Someday soon Galass would be cradling Fidick’s trembling body, wiping away the blood and filth emanating from every orifice, whispering to him that it was all right now and he should just put the recent atrocities done to him out of his mind. And when Fidick finally slept, she would contemplate the ways in which she might, with sublime kindness, cause him such permanent disfigurement that he would for evermore be an object of pity and disgust rather than desire.

The worst part of it all? That nonsense about spiritual bliss they’d been filled with at whichever monastery Lucien had acquired them from would be the only retreat from the misery of life available to them. Sometimes a lie really is more comforting than the truth. I should know.

There was a small stool outside my monstrously spacious tent of dyed blue canvas featuring front flaps painted with golden esoteric sigils (which did nothing, but whoever Lucien had in charge of our accommodation had taken some artistic license with the design). I sat down and wiped the muck and grime from my trousers and boots with the towel left there for that purpose, then handed it to the boy. ‘Clean your feet, both of you. I don’t want you tracking mud into my “palace”.’

They did as they were told while I undid the spell knots from the cords fastening the tent flaps, trying not to breathe in the stink of putrefied flesh emanating from the recently charred canvas. Some curious individual was now walking around camp with a couple of missing fingers.

‘Where are the tents of the other wonderists?’ Fidick asked, glancing around. ‘Aren’t you friends with them?’

‘Fidick!’ Galass hissed.

‘It’s fine,’ I said, only because I didn’t want her thinking she could decide what was or wasn’t discussed under my roof. ‘His Ascendancy prefers that his wonderists be spread out in case one of us is urgently needed to fend off an unexpected magical attack.’

A more truthful answer would have been that Lucien didn’t like the idea of a coven of wonderists nestled together in the bosom of his encampment where they might be tempted to talk late into the night, drinking, imbibing various pleasure drugs and wondering aloud why those whose magic was crucial to winning the war shouldn’t be the ones to rule over what was left when said war was over.

Was that why he’d ordered us to slaughter Archon Belleda’s troops in the morning? Did Lucien want to make such monstrous villains of his wonderists that no one else would ever trust us? Why would the Lords Celestine, those beneficent guardians of morality, sanction such a massacre in the first place?

‘Your domain is magnificent, Silord,’ Galass said as she stepped inside.

The tent was indeed glorious, the rough canvas barely visible from inside, hidden as it was by long lengths of gleaming azure silk hanging from hooks attached to the very top and draping over the ten-foot-long mahogany poles holding the shape. The light of half a dozen bronze oil lanterns twinkled off the precious threads woven into the thick carpets covering the ground, each one depicting some of Lucien’smanyvictories– most of which hadn’t actually taken place yet, but it’s never too early to be thinking about commemorating one’s glorious legacy.

Walk into the average soldier’s tent and you’ll be hit with the odours of musk, sweat and stale beer. Mine was scented with fresh flowers and baskets of pine needles, which Lucien’s overworked retainers would refresh each morning before battle. Every evening they would deliver a cask of wine from the Ascendant’s own vineyards three hundred miles away, as well as a variety of delicacies utterly unlike the swill afforded his hard-fighting troops.

War is hell, just not for everybody.

The ostentatious accommodations were more for Lucien’s benefit than mine; he wanted those among his officers who might be contemplating their own advancement to be aware thathewas the one who commanded the deadliest wonderists in the country. As petty acts of self-aggrandisement went, this was one I didn’t actually mind.

I removed the preposterous golden cape Lucien insisted we wear in battle and hung it inside the polished oak armoire next to my silk-sheeted bed. Fidick and Galass were still standing at the entrance, waiting for my commands.

‘Get in here. Make yourselves. . .’

I was about to sayat home, but that would have been dishonest. They wouldn’t be here more than a single night. My hesitation confused Galass and Fidick in the worst way possible: they began disrobing.

‘Stop—’ I said, too loudly and forcefully for anyone’s good.

The pair of them froze, hands on the hems of their silvery-white gowns. Fidick’s glance flitted around the tent, clearly worried I’d changed my mind and was about to banish them from this temporary but welcome opulence.

‘Have we displeased you, Silord?’ Galass inquired, using pretty much the same inflections I use when asking,‘What the fuck is your problem, arsehole?’

I began unclasping the bronze bindings of my leather cuirass. ‘Forgive my outburst,’ I said. ‘The two of you are welcome to stay here for the night– as long as we come to certain agreements about what you will and won’t see here. Either way, I give you my word I won’t lay hands on either of you.’

Fidick’s breath came out in a whoosh and he looked so relieved I thought he might faint with joy. Then his eyes caught something to my right and his face lit up. I followed his gaze to a bowl of red and purple plums on the far side of the bed. You don’t generally find much in the way of fresh fruit in army camps.

‘Help yourself,’ I said, then thought better of it. ‘You may have one now, and another in the morning.’ Those unaccustomed to such luxuries invariably overindulge, and I don’t know any spells for getting diarrhoea out of my carpet.

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