The Sword of Morrow - Ch. 04

T’mys awoke to the sound off birds chirping. Blinking his eyes open he saw light illuminating the tent. He rose and dressed in the driest uniform he had. Exiting the tent, he squinted his eyes as daylight assaulted him for the first time in days. Close by he saw Torga sitting on a log next to a campfire. The wet logs giving off an obscene amount of smoke, but Torga sat on the up wind side of the fire. The camp had been put together quickly the night before. Only three tents had been assembled before everyone turned in for the evening. This morning five tents were now erected and Vasquez and Lynks were hanging clothes out to dry on lines they had obviously put up this morning. On the hill top Holtz could be seen patrolling. Lt. Willis sat on a log next to the fire, the wind pushing to his left in front of him. Torga grabbed a metal kettle that was over the fire. Picking up a metal travelers cup beside him he pour a brownish liquid into the cup. He then handed the cup to T’mys and placed the kettle back on its roost above the fire. T’mys sniffed the contents of his cup, winced, and took a drink.

“I hate this stuff” He commented, taking another drink.

“It’ll do ya good,” Torga contested “warm your bones up.” With that he picked up his own cup and took another swallow. The drink was called Charka. It was a cross between coffee and tea, and to T’mys it tasted as it always had, awful. He took another drink, for Torga was correct in the fact that the hot liquid did shake off the chill.

“I see the troops have been busy.” T’mys nodded over towards Lynks and Vasquez, who were now building a fourth line to hang clothes to dry.

Torga nodded without looking “If you have anything you want dried, I’d get it over to ‘em.”

“I think I will.” T’mys stated, before he up-ended the cup and drank the last of his foul charka. He outstretched his hands towards the flames. “Where is Rymus?”
The two gobbers could be seen hard at work again trying to excavate the Defender. The Dwarf however was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s on the other side of the hill trying to get the two Menoth ‘jacks over here. He means to ‘recover’ them.” Torga said this last bit with his hands in the air making quotation signs with his fingers. “He and the gobbers repaired the arm as best they could this morning. Honestly I was surprised you slept though it.”

“So am I” he said in earnest. Construction of that sort should have woken T’mys up immediately. He looked at Torga in disbelief, “Why didn’t you wake me up.”

“Rymus suggested I let you sleep. Especially with the magic that whip lashed on you yesterday. I though it was a good idea. Besides, I think if it had been real trouble you would had woken up.”

T’mys wasn’t so sure, but he liked that his friend at least had faith in him. His head was pounding by the time everyone bedded down last night. Controlling the warjack had gotten easier over the two hours after the fight, but his head was still filled with a constant throbbing for that duration.

Torga picked up a stick and poked at the fire. The look on his face said his friend had something on his mind, but didn’t know how to broach the subject. T’mys found this unusual for Torga. The trollkin had never had any problems in the past expressing his concerns. Only yesterday he’d once again proclaimed to T’mys what he wanted to tear Captain Eaton’s head off. The fact that the two didn’t get along wasn’t surprising, as he hadn’t actually cared for the captain himself. But everyday it seemed he was disarming his friend’s explosive personality when it came to the chain of command. Torga was a good leader, he however didn’t deal with other leaders well. When first sergeant Torga and lieutenant Willis had begun working together their first week had ended in an all night screaming match. However that had ended up being the best thing for the two friends, because after that they had been able to understand each other. This patrol was supposed to be T’mys last mission with the 92nd. Torga would be the 92nd gun mages new lieutenant and Lt. Willis would be promoted to Captain Willis upon the completion of this mission. He had completed the trials to earn the status of an adept, and would be promoted in following. Adept gun mages were seen as advisors on the battlefield. Their experience was valued, and rightly so in T’mys’s opinion.

But still Torga had that look upon his face. “What’s eating you old friend.”
Torga continued to poke at the fire, and for a time there was nothing but silence between the two men. T’mys was about to attempt to break the silence when Torga cleared his throat and began.

“I’ve put Singleton’s magelock aside for you. It’s in our tent.” The trollkin continued to stir the fire.

“No.” T’mys said softly “I think he had a little brother who he'd want to have it. I believe Kerr would know for sure. No, it was his weapon. He died honorably enough, he doesn’t deserve to be cast off so…”

“He won’t be cast aside in our thoughts and you know it” Torga said a little defensively, “I just thought since yours was destroyed that until we can requisition you a new one that…” Torga shrugged “well, you know.”

“I appreciate the thought but no. I think for now at least, I’ll do without.” T’mys finished. Torga nodded, and again there was silence.

“I think we got lucky yesterday.” T’mys stated quietly after some time, once again trying to kill the silence.

“We did.” Torga agreed. “Lynks found a spyglass on the barge when she was on patrol last night. Ways I sees it, they saw us from down river. Used a bit of magic down river on the fog to conceal their travel. Probably saw us as an easy kill. All praise Menoth, that sort of thing.” When Torga finished he once again began poking at the fire.

“Damn it Torga, what’s on your mind?” T’mys wanted to clear the air, and he wanted to clear it now. He’d learned to well over time the things that can bother you like to infest the mind if not cleaned out right away. Torga again remained silent for a time. He tried to start twice but not quite finding the correct words.

Finally he asked quite bluntly, “How? How’d you do it?”

“How’d I do what?” T’mys answered his question with a question but believed he knew where this was going.

“How’d you get the ‘jack to work.” Torga looked directly at him. This time it was T’mys’s turn to be silent. “Have you always known how to do that? I mean we’ve all heard about the great Alistair Caine,” Torga said that name like it was venom stuck in his throat, “have you been hiding this, or...”

“No!” T’mys answer defensively stopping him short. Vasquez and Lynks stopped what they were doing momentarily to see what the shouting was about. A pause, and then quieter, “No. I… I reached out yesterday. I didn’t know what I was doing, just the fact that we need that warjack. I saw Eaton’s magic and I stole it.”

“Stole it?”

“No, not stole it… well kind of. I don’t know. I saw the magic, ok.” T’mys got up and started to pace around the far side of the fire. “I saw it, and felt it, and before I knew exactly what I was doing I took it. Is that what was bothering you?”

“Yeah it’s bothering me. I mean if you could do that then we wouldn’t have had to put up with his crap!” Torga pointed over to the rough canvas bags containing the bodies of Eaton, Singleton, and the mechaniks crew, “We could have done this job without everything we’ve had to endure these last couple weeks.”

“Torga I swear to you, I didn’t know. Hell, I still don’t know.”

“What about the other one?” Torga asked, calming down but only slightly.

T’mys shrugged “I don’t know. I saw the lines; I saw the magic again like I did with Eaton. And I felt him aiming that cannon at you, so I just tried to do what I did with the Sentinel. Only thing was, that time the bastard was fighting me. I won. But the magic whipped me so hard I blacked out. By the time I came around, you already had the situation under control.”

“I think you broke his control. The damn machine turned around. Just like that.” Torga snapped his fingers. “He turned around just when we shot. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw.”

“I don’t know how I did that,” T’mys said in disbelief shaking his own head. Calming down a bit he sat back down where he’d originally started. Vasquez and Lynks seeing that whatever was happening was contained, went back to hanging out everything.

Torga shrugged and then finished his own cup of charka. He reached for the kettle again. “You want some more?” He offered.

“Gods no!” T’mys said, chuckling a bit. The mood had been successfully lightened. “I could go for some eggs though. And Bacon! Where is the cooking gear?” He looked around. “Lets get breakfast started.”

“ I suppose.” Torga shrugged acting cool “I could eat.” The two men; one trollkin, the other half elf got up and began to assemble everything for breakfast. Lynks had come over at one point to take over and the two men had waved her back to her original duties. Talk over cooking was brief yet jovial. Their friendship had endured worse.

When the cooking was finished they waved Lynks, Vasquez, and the gobbers over.

“I’ll go get our wayward dwarf.”

“Nah.” T’mys countered,” I slept in this morning, I’ll make the trek over yonder hill.”

Torga laughed and nodded his head in acknowledgement. T’mys got up and made up a plate. When he was finish loading the food he filled one of the metal cup with hot charka. He then scanned the horizon for his patrolman. Holtz stood about where he and Eaton had stood the afternoon before debating the finer points of warfare. With food in hand, he headed towards his soldier. Holtz saw his Lieutenant coming from the campfire and waited in his position. It was a good spot. The highest rise in the area, with a view for miles over the hilly terrain.

“Morning sir.” Holtz greeted, as lieutenant got closer.

“Good morning Mr. Holtz. Hungry?

“Yes sir.” Holtz responded. Having not eaten anything since the noon meal the day before accepted the food eagerly. After a long drink of charka Holtz stated. “Good day to be alive sir” and the forked a big mouthful of eggs into his mouth.

T’mys paused for a moment at this statement. It wasn’t meant to be an in depth statement by any means, but it definitely had more connotation this morning then it would have normally. Lt. Willis looked back down at the camp, and to the homemade canvas body bags made the previous evening. Each one containing a Cygnaran had a stripe of blue paint across it. Where the gobbers had gotten the paint from he didn’t know. T’mys looked back at Private Holtz, “Yes,” he said with a soft smile, “yes it is.”

Holtz looked up from his morning meal, with a smile on his overstuffed mouth and nodded emphatically in agreement. Lt. Willis tapped the young man on the shoulder and told him, “Just bring your dishes to the fire when you’ve finished”

Holtz nodded his head again and mumbled something T’mys couldn’t quite understand. T’mys however got the picture. He saw Rymus in the distance and headed down in the dwarf’s direction.