Ionais leaned against the sharp bark of a pine, forcing air in and out. Maybe he'd gotten away.
He looked at his feet, aslant on the pine's gnarled, twisting roots. A small stream flowed down the hill, over his boots, winding around the bushes and grass of the forest he fled through. He risked a glance over his shoulder, then hurried forward, through the new mud. He swept branches out of the way with tired arms.
It shouldn't be like this. He should be relaxing next to a fire with a hound by the hearth and his grandchildren spreading laughter through the home. His medals and commendations should be hanging on the wall. Instead of comfort and small blessings, his twilight years were fear and flight. He'd just been doing what he'd been told.
Taking refuge in a thick bush, he held himself still. It wasn't the first time he'd hidden from someone out for his blood, and hopefully it wouldn't be the last. He felt his feet getting wet.
He shot up and charged down the hill, clothes and exposed skin tearing on the forest's sharp claws. His foot hit a stone and he couldn't stop himself from falling; his roll stopped at the bottom of the hill. He spat out part of the stream flowing past his face, and forced himself to rise.
Soon it was too dark to see. The forest closed in around him. Everywhere he turned, there was another thick trunk in his way, or a hill too steep to climb, or a small stream he didn't have the courage to cross. He shouldn't have been so afraid. The one chasing him wasn't a creature with supernatural powers. He wasn't a true force of nature. He wasn't a monster.
He was just a man. It should have been simple to escape from him.
Ionais squeezed himself between two trees, slowing down and watching his steps to stay silent. There were plenty of natural beasts taking advantage of the dark, a few extra rustles wouldn't draw his pursuer's attention much; he just had to keep from making himself obvious. Even if he does catch up, he thought, laying a hand on his sword's hilt, it isn't the end of the story.
Drawing his cloak around him, keeping his ears open for the sound of a heavily-armored person behind him, he forged ahead. After a few hours his heart rate slowed. It had gotten easier as time went on thanks to his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He had escaped the river nipping at his heels.
He stumbled into a tiny clearing—a few feet in diameter—and realized he should get rest when he could. The one chasing him was encased in heavy armor, carrying an immense weapon; there was no way he would catch Ionais unaware. No fire, of course. Finding a soft patch of grass, he lumped his cloak under his head. The summer heat persisted through the night; he had certainly slept in worse conditions. Compared to some of the campaigns he had led, this was heaven. With one last glance around, his eyes closed.
They snapped open, stinging with firelight. Panic flooded him as he swept to his feet, hand to his sword-hilt, a river running over his boots.
"Sit."
The immense man on the other side of the small campfire hadn't raised his eyes from the flames. The river wound around both sides of the pile of flickering sticks. "If you try to flee, I will cut your head from your body." The man's giant axe, taller than Ionais, leaned against the tree behind the man. Keeping his hand on his sword, Ionais knelt on one knee.
The man had his fingers laced together, and he rested on his armored knees. Ionais could see eyes peering through the helmet. They hadn't blinked, or shifted. "Let me see the face of my judge, jury, and executioner." Ionais spat. "Let me look upon Lord Surf."
After a moment, Lord Surf lifted one gauntlet and grasped the top of the blue-gray helmet. It revealed a man of about fifty, though his gray hair made him appear much older, despite its length. It flowed down the back of his breastplate. Lord Surf breathed in slowly and let it out at the same speed.
"I guess I should be delighted the empress sent one of her legendary warriors after me. Am I so important to silence? It was only by her word I did as I did."
Lord Surf's eyes slipped shut; the river rushed past Ionais' feet, growing larger for a split-second. "The empress is unaware," Surf said. "She believes I am taking a brief period of relaxation."
Ionais sneered. "You get your first vacation in thirty years and you spend it chasing me through a forest? I always thought you warriors were crazy, I just didn't-"
"Be silent."
The whisper struck Ionais like an axe splitting him in two. His hand squeezed around his sword tighter, but it gave him no freedom from the fear the two quiet words had created.
Surf raised his head, finally looking Ionais in the eyes. "Do you know my real name, Colonel Ionais?"
"No. But clearly you've done your homework on me."
Surf blinked. "Colonel Ionais Daderre, born seventy-five years ago. Your seventy-sixth birthday is in two months, eight days. You have four children from two wives. Your first wife fell ill when you were forty, and died when you were forty-two. You married your second wife a year later. She divorced you a year ago, when you went on the run. You have eleven grandchildren. I could list their names, their ages, their homes, but it isn't necessary. From the empress you have received numerous military commendations, including valor in combat, honor befitting a decorated colonel, and a special commendation for active interpretation of orders. You were in the army for fifty-two years."
Blood surged into his legs. His body shook. Swallowing was a sudden and painful chore. "Do you want to know my real name, Colonel Ionais?"
Summoning up enough moisture in his mouth, Ionais nodded. "Go ahead then."
Surf lowered his head to look at the small fire again. "Dedai Be'shega."
Ionais' heart pounded. "Harua."
"Not everyone can tell. I knew you would. You've spent quite a lot of time with the Harua."
"I was only following orders."
"That must be why you ran."
Ionais leaned back, pressing himself against a tree. He glanced at the huge weapon lying next to Lord Surf. Water dripped from it constantly. "That's the court of the public for you. One day you're a hero, the next you're a villain and a killer. There was a mob headed for me, and so I found a safer spot."
"Until the people you settled with realized who you were."
"I was only following orders."
"A story."
Surf paused after he spoke, and Ionais frowned. "What?"
"I am in my fifth decade," Surf said. "My third as a member of the empress' four warriors. There is not much I have not done. I have worked all my life to rid this empire of monsters, for I know all too well what a monster can do.
"Childhood is a long thing during, a painfully short thing after. My childhood was shorter than most. It was six years long." He flicked his eyes up to look at the Colonel again. "Forty-four years ago."
"I was only following orders!"
"I lived with my mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. I was too young to understand everything happening around me, but I remember when the soldiers came. How wonderful to a child they were. How glittering in silver armor, helmeted heads held high--weapons sheathed and clanking against their legs. I watched with a smile, and I didn't realize the rest of my family was frowning."
"You have it wrong!"
"'They're here to keep the peace,' my mother told me. 'They're here to help us,' she said. At first they did. For a few weeks, we could go in the street without rocks whistling through the air at our heads, or fists darting out from alleys. My family was happier, so I was happier. My father and mother went to the fishnets each morning, happy to work unmolested. My siblings and I fished, and played, and smiled."
Shadows flickered across Lord Surf's motionless form. "Blessed times are blessed because they do not last. They end. They give way to despair and fear and hatred. They give way to open wounds in the soul you cannot forget. They drip pain forever.
"The people got used to the soldiers. At first it was small. Whispered words in the bar, sharp glances, cruel sneers. A beating in an alley. A young woman who didn't find her way home. A family losing their home. The hatred grew."
"We did everything we could!"
"Broken mirrors, shattered skulls, bodies tangled in fishing nets until they floated toward the Tollo islands, bloated and stinking."
"I didn't do those things!"
"Eventually they started to fight back. Brothers and uncles to avenge a rape, arson, murder. Looking both ways before crossing the street, never going out alone, walking the streets with weapons, just like before the soldiers came. And, simply because they thought their lives and homes were worth defending, they were punished. Lost their meager jobs because the other workers felt unsafe, their money was no good, their rights forfeit. Then the soldiers stepped in."
Ionais watched Surf's head drop. The warrior gazed at his clasped hands, across the small fire. "There at the empress' urging. To keep the peace. To support those who were weakest. To soak the fires of uprising with water from the sea. They would not be denied their work; they would not let this chance to prove themselves slip past. They would not let anyone...keep them from carrying out the empress' orders. All they had to do was keep the peace."
Surf looked through the crown of the fire at Ionais. "Just following orders. That's what you say. I imagine that is why you had your soldiers gather Harua in the open spaces, where anyone could harass them without fear." Ionais tried to hold his breath, but his body wasn't obeying. "And that is why you treated them with hanging courts until they decided they would fight back against the soldiers, because they were just more people pushing and shoving them, shouting and berating them, butchering them.
"Just following orders. That's why, one night, you figured out a solution to the Harua problem. A way to make them so cowed they could not but submit to your orders and edicts. If there's no way for someone to fight back, there will be no strife. You can return to your empress and tell her of your good success helping the Harua. One night, your soldiers kicked down doors, rousing them from the small sliver of peace they can find in their sleep, dragging them from their beds. You ordered them toward the sea.
"But you were no monster. You gave the parents a choice. Them, or the children."
The small stream was faster, bigger. It threatened the campfire. Ionais felt it soak into his trousers, but he didn't dare look away from Surf. The water was cold, and in the darkness he started to shiver.
"The parents, with a unanimous decision, chose themselves. You were glad; it made things much simpler. Your soldiers forced them at sword-point into the sea, and as a child I remember asking my older sister, who kept my hand in an tight, trembling grip, when our parents were going to come back up."
"I was just-"
"Be quiet."
A brief moment of panic overcame Ionais when the stream surged, hard enough to splash into his face. It died just as suddenly, trickling over his boots again, and he gasped, coughing out muddy water.
"Then you gave an order, and I felt a hard hand push me forward. The older children struggled, but there was no chance of success. The sea was colder than I had ever felt it, and I didn't want to go in. I remember my sister's face was wet before the sea was even up to her waist. My brother was knocked unconscious by a soldier, and thrown face first into the sea. The moon revealed spreading blood, and the pale hands of those who had tried to sacrifice themselves to save their children. I tried to slip out of my sister's grasp; she wouldn't let me go. She told me it would be all right soon. I asked her if we were going to our parents."
Ionais wiped water out of his eyes. Surf gazed at him. "She said yes."
This time, Ionais kept quiet.
"I didn't want to go swimming. It was too cold. I was scared. I was worried about my parents, and my brother, who hadn't lifted his head out of the water yet. My sister tried to keep my head above the water, but soon she went too far to stand; she tried to swim but my weight pulled her down. She whispered to me, told me to try and keep breathing. She told me she loved me. I don't remember her name. I don't even remember her face. I remember her hands, because their flagging strength kept my face above the waves. Small fingers, chipped nails, wrinkled from the cold and water. My first taste of the sea was salt and pain, but I got used to it before long. My arms and legs flailed, trying to keep myself up. The sea was a churn of young swimmers crying out in exhaustion. Feet and hands struck me. I drank down gallons of water, my eyes stung with salt, I begged for help."
Ionais waited.
"My sister had tried to push me off to the side of the crowd, away from the rest of the children, to give me a chance to swim unhindered. I lost sight of the stars as the sea collapsed over me. My lungs were filling with cold fire, and my hand brushed something. In my desperation I grasped at it, and realized it was the edge of a fishing net. Hand over hand, I went up, until the chill air freed me from death. I watched soldiers swarm the distant shore, making sure none of the children survived. Keeping my head down, holding my breath for minutes at a time, I waited hours until your soldiers went home. Their orders carried out."
The huge man across from Ionais hadn't blinked, hadn't shifted except to speak. Again Ionais looked at the warrior's huge weapon, how far away it was, how heavy it was, how fast Surf could swing it. The crackle of the fire was an ersatz clock ticking down the seconds.
"Eventually I climbed out, using the net's support rods. I would never be warm again. The cold had clutched around my heart, and lungs, and throat. I would never be dry again. I wept seawater. I would never see my family again. Because you were only following orders."
A moment later Surf held his axe; Ionais' heart froze. Surf hefted it in both hands, eyes brushing over it. The long, flat blade dripped. "Fourteen years later I took this weapon and claimed the title of Lord Surf. So, now, I trail a river wherever I go, a real one, instead of just leaving damp footprints, or coughing out seaweed, or feeling my fingers wrinkle and freeze.
"Not many know of my heritage. Some do. I choose not to reveal it. Too many questions to ask."
The fire sputtered as the river grew over it.
"Have you ever thought you were drowning, Colonel? Agony. Like nothing you have ever experienced. Regh'am'ba's bloody darkness is a blessing after drowning. I have been drowning for almost fifty years."
Lord Surf stood with only embers left to illuminate him. In one hand he held a weapon as heavy as Ionais' entire body, apparently as easily as one might carry a gasping fish. Even if he were standing, Ionais would have had to crane his neck up to see Surf's face, now invisible.
"I may die before I breathe; I may stay below the waters until there is no more air to escape me. Until I join my parents and siblings."
Ionais felt water rise up to his waist, and he let out a gasp of surprise. "I may never get to breathe, but perhaps you will!"
A torrent of freezing water buried Ionais, firing past his head and down his throat. It tore the scream out of his mouth. His hands were pointless defenses against the deluge, and his mind flared red lights into his closed eyes. It went on, pining him against the tree and turning his limbs into dead weights. They dragged him down under the sea, and with every bubble escaping from his mouth to pop at the surface his spasms became weaker and weaker.
It ended. The rush disappeared, and Ionais fell facedown, soaked through to his soul. He vomited gallons. Colors spun in his vision. The ground under him was damp; the air was cold. His arms wouldn't move.
After he took a few frightened breaths, he coughed and said, "I was just following orders."
"I know," was the eventual reply. It was a whisper compared to the rushing water. "But now, perhaps, you know what you have done."
"Yes." Ionais used frozen fingers to wipe his face. "I...killed...hundreds. Women. Children."
"People."
"I thought I was doing what I should have done." Ionais was too tired to lift his head from the ground. "I thought I was doing what the empress wanted. Is it really like that?"
"And so much worse."
Ionais wept. The wet weight of a thousand lives poured over him, and again he was drowning. He heard Lord Surf exit, but he didn't have the strength to watch him go.
A day later Lord Surf exited the forest, finding his horse nibbling on the grass, where he'd left it. It was raining; over the Veriama mountains to the west he could see lightning.
He looked at his feet, aslant on the pine's gnarled, twisting roots. A small stream flowed down the hill, over his boots, winding around the bushes and grass of the forest he fled through. He risked a glance over his shoulder, then hurried forward, through the new mud. He swept branches out of the way with tired arms.
It shouldn't be like this. He should be relaxing next to a fire with a hound by the hearth and his grandchildren spreading laughter through the home. His medals and commendations should be hanging on the wall. Instead of comfort and small blessings, his twilight years were fear and flight. He'd just been doing what he'd been told.
Taking refuge in a thick bush, he held himself still. It wasn't the first time he'd hidden from someone out for his blood, and hopefully it wouldn't be the last. He felt his feet getting wet.
He shot up and charged down the hill, clothes and exposed skin tearing on the forest's sharp claws. His foot hit a stone and he couldn't stop himself from falling; his roll stopped at the bottom of the hill. He spat out part of the stream flowing past his face, and forced himself to rise.
Soon it was too dark to see. The forest closed in around him. Everywhere he turned, there was another thick trunk in his way, or a hill too steep to climb, or a small stream he didn't have the courage to cross. He shouldn't have been so afraid. The one chasing him wasn't a creature with supernatural powers. He wasn't a true force of nature. He wasn't a monster.
He was just a man. It should have been simple to escape from him.
Ionais squeezed himself between two trees, slowing down and watching his steps to stay silent. There were plenty of natural beasts taking advantage of the dark, a few extra rustles wouldn't draw his pursuer's attention much; he just had to keep from making himself obvious. Even if he does catch up, he thought, laying a hand on his sword's hilt, it isn't the end of the story.
Drawing his cloak around him, keeping his ears open for the sound of a heavily-armored person behind him, he forged ahead. After a few hours his heart rate slowed. It had gotten easier as time went on thanks to his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He had escaped the river nipping at his heels.
He stumbled into a tiny clearing—a few feet in diameter—and realized he should get rest when he could. The one chasing him was encased in heavy armor, carrying an immense weapon; there was no way he would catch Ionais unaware. No fire, of course. Finding a soft patch of grass, he lumped his cloak under his head. The summer heat persisted through the night; he had certainly slept in worse conditions. Compared to some of the campaigns he had led, this was heaven. With one last glance around, his eyes closed.
They snapped open, stinging with firelight. Panic flooded him as he swept to his feet, hand to his sword-hilt, a river running over his boots.
"Sit."
The immense man on the other side of the small campfire hadn't raised his eyes from the flames. The river wound around both sides of the pile of flickering sticks. "If you try to flee, I will cut your head from your body." The man's giant axe, taller than Ionais, leaned against the tree behind the man. Keeping his hand on his sword, Ionais knelt on one knee.
The man had his fingers laced together, and he rested on his armored knees. Ionais could see eyes peering through the helmet. They hadn't blinked, or shifted. "Let me see the face of my judge, jury, and executioner." Ionais spat. "Let me look upon Lord Surf."
After a moment, Lord Surf lifted one gauntlet and grasped the top of the blue-gray helmet. It revealed a man of about fifty, though his gray hair made him appear much older, despite its length. It flowed down the back of his breastplate. Lord Surf breathed in slowly and let it out at the same speed.
"I guess I should be delighted the empress sent one of her legendary warriors after me. Am I so important to silence? It was only by her word I did as I did."
Lord Surf's eyes slipped shut; the river rushed past Ionais' feet, growing larger for a split-second. "The empress is unaware," Surf said. "She believes I am taking a brief period of relaxation."
Ionais sneered. "You get your first vacation in thirty years and you spend it chasing me through a forest? I always thought you warriors were crazy, I just didn't-"
"Be silent."
The whisper struck Ionais like an axe splitting him in two. His hand squeezed around his sword tighter, but it gave him no freedom from the fear the two quiet words had created.
Surf raised his head, finally looking Ionais in the eyes. "Do you know my real name, Colonel Ionais?"
"No. But clearly you've done your homework on me."
Surf blinked. "Colonel Ionais Daderre, born seventy-five years ago. Your seventy-sixth birthday is in two months, eight days. You have four children from two wives. Your first wife fell ill when you were forty, and died when you were forty-two. You married your second wife a year later. She divorced you a year ago, when you went on the run. You have eleven grandchildren. I could list their names, their ages, their homes, but it isn't necessary. From the empress you have received numerous military commendations, including valor in combat, honor befitting a decorated colonel, and a special commendation for active interpretation of orders. You were in the army for fifty-two years."
Blood surged into his legs. His body shook. Swallowing was a sudden and painful chore. "Do you want to know my real name, Colonel Ionais?"
Summoning up enough moisture in his mouth, Ionais nodded. "Go ahead then."
Surf lowered his head to look at the small fire again. "Dedai Be'shega."
Ionais' heart pounded. "Harua."
"Not everyone can tell. I knew you would. You've spent quite a lot of time with the Harua."
"I was only following orders."
"That must be why you ran."
Ionais leaned back, pressing himself against a tree. He glanced at the huge weapon lying next to Lord Surf. Water dripped from it constantly. "That's the court of the public for you. One day you're a hero, the next you're a villain and a killer. There was a mob headed for me, and so I found a safer spot."
"Until the people you settled with realized who you were."
"I was only following orders."
"A story."
Surf paused after he spoke, and Ionais frowned. "What?"
"I am in my fifth decade," Surf said. "My third as a member of the empress' four warriors. There is not much I have not done. I have worked all my life to rid this empire of monsters, for I know all too well what a monster can do.
"Childhood is a long thing during, a painfully short thing after. My childhood was shorter than most. It was six years long." He flicked his eyes up to look at the Colonel again. "Forty-four years ago."
"I was only following orders!"
"I lived with my mother, my father, my brothers and sisters. I was too young to understand everything happening around me, but I remember when the soldiers came. How wonderful to a child they were. How glittering in silver armor, helmeted heads held high--weapons sheathed and clanking against their legs. I watched with a smile, and I didn't realize the rest of my family was frowning."
"You have it wrong!"
"'They're here to keep the peace,' my mother told me. 'They're here to help us,' she said. At first they did. For a few weeks, we could go in the street without rocks whistling through the air at our heads, or fists darting out from alleys. My family was happier, so I was happier. My father and mother went to the fishnets each morning, happy to work unmolested. My siblings and I fished, and played, and smiled."
Shadows flickered across Lord Surf's motionless form. "Blessed times are blessed because they do not last. They end. They give way to despair and fear and hatred. They give way to open wounds in the soul you cannot forget. They drip pain forever.
"The people got used to the soldiers. At first it was small. Whispered words in the bar, sharp glances, cruel sneers. A beating in an alley. A young woman who didn't find her way home. A family losing their home. The hatred grew."
"We did everything we could!"
"Broken mirrors, shattered skulls, bodies tangled in fishing nets until they floated toward the Tollo islands, bloated and stinking."
"I didn't do those things!"
"Eventually they started to fight back. Brothers and uncles to avenge a rape, arson, murder. Looking both ways before crossing the street, never going out alone, walking the streets with weapons, just like before the soldiers came. And, simply because they thought their lives and homes were worth defending, they were punished. Lost their meager jobs because the other workers felt unsafe, their money was no good, their rights forfeit. Then the soldiers stepped in."
Ionais watched Surf's head drop. The warrior gazed at his clasped hands, across the small fire. "There at the empress' urging. To keep the peace. To support those who were weakest. To soak the fires of uprising with water from the sea. They would not be denied their work; they would not let this chance to prove themselves slip past. They would not let anyone...keep them from carrying out the empress' orders. All they had to do was keep the peace."
Surf looked through the crown of the fire at Ionais. "Just following orders. That's what you say. I imagine that is why you had your soldiers gather Harua in the open spaces, where anyone could harass them without fear." Ionais tried to hold his breath, but his body wasn't obeying. "And that is why you treated them with hanging courts until they decided they would fight back against the soldiers, because they were just more people pushing and shoving them, shouting and berating them, butchering them.
"Just following orders. That's why, one night, you figured out a solution to the Harua problem. A way to make them so cowed they could not but submit to your orders and edicts. If there's no way for someone to fight back, there will be no strife. You can return to your empress and tell her of your good success helping the Harua. One night, your soldiers kicked down doors, rousing them from the small sliver of peace they can find in their sleep, dragging them from their beds. You ordered them toward the sea.
"But you were no monster. You gave the parents a choice. Them, or the children."
The small stream was faster, bigger. It threatened the campfire. Ionais felt it soak into his trousers, but he didn't dare look away from Surf. The water was cold, and in the darkness he started to shiver.
"The parents, with a unanimous decision, chose themselves. You were glad; it made things much simpler. Your soldiers forced them at sword-point into the sea, and as a child I remember asking my older sister, who kept my hand in an tight, trembling grip, when our parents were going to come back up."
"I was just-"
"Be quiet."
A brief moment of panic overcame Ionais when the stream surged, hard enough to splash into his face. It died just as suddenly, trickling over his boots again, and he gasped, coughing out muddy water.
"Then you gave an order, and I felt a hard hand push me forward. The older children struggled, but there was no chance of success. The sea was colder than I had ever felt it, and I didn't want to go in. I remember my sister's face was wet before the sea was even up to her waist. My brother was knocked unconscious by a soldier, and thrown face first into the sea. The moon revealed spreading blood, and the pale hands of those who had tried to sacrifice themselves to save their children. I tried to slip out of my sister's grasp; she wouldn't let me go. She told me it would be all right soon. I asked her if we were going to our parents."
Ionais wiped water out of his eyes. Surf gazed at him. "She said yes."
This time, Ionais kept quiet.
"I didn't want to go swimming. It was too cold. I was scared. I was worried about my parents, and my brother, who hadn't lifted his head out of the water yet. My sister tried to keep my head above the water, but soon she went too far to stand; she tried to swim but my weight pulled her down. She whispered to me, told me to try and keep breathing. She told me she loved me. I don't remember her name. I don't even remember her face. I remember her hands, because their flagging strength kept my face above the waves. Small fingers, chipped nails, wrinkled from the cold and water. My first taste of the sea was salt and pain, but I got used to it before long. My arms and legs flailed, trying to keep myself up. The sea was a churn of young swimmers crying out in exhaustion. Feet and hands struck me. I drank down gallons of water, my eyes stung with salt, I begged for help."
Ionais waited.
"My sister had tried to push me off to the side of the crowd, away from the rest of the children, to give me a chance to swim unhindered. I lost sight of the stars as the sea collapsed over me. My lungs were filling with cold fire, and my hand brushed something. In my desperation I grasped at it, and realized it was the edge of a fishing net. Hand over hand, I went up, until the chill air freed me from death. I watched soldiers swarm the distant shore, making sure none of the children survived. Keeping my head down, holding my breath for minutes at a time, I waited hours until your soldiers went home. Their orders carried out."
The huge man across from Ionais hadn't blinked, hadn't shifted except to speak. Again Ionais looked at the warrior's huge weapon, how far away it was, how heavy it was, how fast Surf could swing it. The crackle of the fire was an ersatz clock ticking down the seconds.
"Eventually I climbed out, using the net's support rods. I would never be warm again. The cold had clutched around my heart, and lungs, and throat. I would never be dry again. I wept seawater. I would never see my family again. Because you were only following orders."
A moment later Surf held his axe; Ionais' heart froze. Surf hefted it in both hands, eyes brushing over it. The long, flat blade dripped. "Fourteen years later I took this weapon and claimed the title of Lord Surf. So, now, I trail a river wherever I go, a real one, instead of just leaving damp footprints, or coughing out seaweed, or feeling my fingers wrinkle and freeze.
"Not many know of my heritage. Some do. I choose not to reveal it. Too many questions to ask."
The fire sputtered as the river grew over it.
"Have you ever thought you were drowning, Colonel? Agony. Like nothing you have ever experienced. Regh'am'ba's bloody darkness is a blessing after drowning. I have been drowning for almost fifty years."
Lord Surf stood with only embers left to illuminate him. In one hand he held a weapon as heavy as Ionais' entire body, apparently as easily as one might carry a gasping fish. Even if he were standing, Ionais would have had to crane his neck up to see Surf's face, now invisible.
"I may die before I breathe; I may stay below the waters until there is no more air to escape me. Until I join my parents and siblings."
Ionais felt water rise up to his waist, and he let out a gasp of surprise. "I may never get to breathe, but perhaps you will!"
A torrent of freezing water buried Ionais, firing past his head and down his throat. It tore the scream out of his mouth. His hands were pointless defenses against the deluge, and his mind flared red lights into his closed eyes. It went on, pining him against the tree and turning his limbs into dead weights. They dragged him down under the sea, and with every bubble escaping from his mouth to pop at the surface his spasms became weaker and weaker.
It ended. The rush disappeared, and Ionais fell facedown, soaked through to his soul. He vomited gallons. Colors spun in his vision. The ground under him was damp; the air was cold. His arms wouldn't move.
After he took a few frightened breaths, he coughed and said, "I was just following orders."
"I know," was the eventual reply. It was a whisper compared to the rushing water. "But now, perhaps, you know what you have done."
"Yes." Ionais used frozen fingers to wipe his face. "I...killed...hundreds. Women. Children."
"People."
"I thought I was doing what I should have done." Ionais was too tired to lift his head from the ground. "I thought I was doing what the empress wanted. Is it really like that?"
"And so much worse."
Ionais wept. The wet weight of a thousand lives poured over him, and again he was drowning. He heard Lord Surf exit, but he didn't have the strength to watch him go.
A day later Lord Surf exited the forest, finding his horse nibbling on the grass, where he'd left it. It was raining; over the Veriama mountains to the west he could see lightning.