Chapter Five: A Machine of Death (Part One)

-Six Weeks Later-

The sausages gave a gentle hiss as their raw edges rolled to face the sizzling oils. Any still needing a turn against the steel were quickly flipped. Not a single side could be left unattended if one wanted the very best from their breakfast. In minutes, the meat’s surface transformed from a solid lighter shade to a lovely array of darks. There was no need for spice here; these already had plenty on the inside. Once the heat had browned them to perfection, they were speared through with a fork and laid to rest in the open air. They sat beside a heaping helping of chopped potatoes the Green Galley had whipped up earlier. Both steamed invitingly, their aromas overwhelming. Most sausages took restraint not to sink your teeth into right away, but these truly went above and beyond. They were bratwurst. Hearty sausages traditionally crafted with pork or beef as their center, though if he had to guess, these were probably an artful blend of pork and veal. The coloring was excellent. Almost white. His sense of smell told him the blend of meats had been heightened with minced onions. A bit of caraway tossed in, with perhaps, he detected, some ginger and nutmeg as well? All cleverly tied together with a custom sauce he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The young chef could only take credit for cooking them to readiness, as he had not been the one to make the sausages from scratch. Whoever you might have been, you knew well what you were doing.

Now for one more touch of his own. A large nearby bowl held a hodgepodge of ingredients he’d mixed the evening prior before leaving them to rest: salt and allspice, small round mustard seeds, ground peppercorns, minced shallots, and his acids, white vinegar and wine. He stirred them furiously now, straining to get as close to a smooth whole as possible. It was harder on his arms than he’d been expecting, but after a time his creation took on the consistency he was looking for. The color was a bright yellow dotted with oranges and browns.

A quick taste to check seasoning. He smiled. Sharp and biting.

It was done. A thick, bold mustard sauce. Prepped to be served on the side. Hopefully, it would accentuate the bratwurst instead of overwhelming it. Charles gave his dish a dash of salt and clapped his hands before sampling a mustard-dipped sausage. The spices made the meat twice as savory, but the sauce kept his pallet from getting overwhelmed. He wasn’t even done with the first bite before he already wanted another. The heat began to die down, and for a moment the chill that always lingered just beyond the tent’s opening moved to seep in.

The saving grace of working in the kitchen, aside from sneaking a quick taste of a finished meal, was that, at the very least, Charles did not have to freeze his ass off laboring outside. His brush with autumn’s wrath had been enough wet shivering for one lifetime. But he never shivered here. No matter how much the gods raged outside the thin canvas walls, it was always warm where the camp’s food was prepared. The glowing stoves, cookfires, and the gentle rays of the sunroot saw to that.

They were in the depths of winter now. Fierce winds had become their norm. Bitter morning chills, a clinging companion. It no longer rained, and there had been far less snow than expected, but the cold flurry that came in their stead had a way of cutting straight through to your bones.

Unfortunately, it was not only the weather that had soured. Were he to step outside, the lands he would see were nothing like those he had wandered in after leaving Lutz. The Spears of Mercy had traveled far from where they captured Charles in the forest oasis. Long gone were the fertile green valleys of the Lowlands, where the young chef had been born and, until now, had never left. Rolling hills had turned to jagged cliffs and harsh peaks, and where there once was mild skies and clear horizons, layers of dense fog rolled in from the distant front. The flow of creeks was never far from earshot. Water fell in shimmering sheets from the rocks above, meandering into beds that winded and weaved before inevitably falling to an even lower area, often dropping hundreds of feet before they pooled once more. Sometimes he was tempted to look over the edge, to try to get a peek at where the water might end up, but he always pulled himself back. The risk wasn’t even close to worth it. One slip from some of these sheer walls, and no human would ever see you again. Some bugs or beasts far below, maybe. But no human.

These were the Dreyan Highlands. A wild place, sparsely populated, where it was said the only crime to be committed was weakness. Beautiful to look at. Enduring it was another matter. To say men and horses struggled to navigate here was like saying it was a struggle to draw flavor from a cucumber. The going was slow, even for the Spears, and every step took rigorous planning. All the uneven ground pained Charles’ leg greatly, and it wasn’t helped by the constant barrage of Magnus’ profanity or Luet’s grumbling. Nobody was enjoying the change of scenery, with one notable exception. Whenever and wherever they rode, the cardinal’s crimson drake soared above their party, a distant speck perching on high crags and lonely treetops. It alone seemed to have no trouble getting around. If anything, it seemed to like having so many high vantage points to stare down from. It was always watching. Always waiting. Always ready to sound the alarm.

The spot where they had established camp three days’ prior was the closest thing to open, flat land any among them had seen for weeks: a raised plateau spotted with massive burial mounds housing Dreya’s ancient dead, each thirty men across. Charles had been surprised by how much the mounds resembled perfectly normal looking hills or knolls. How perfectly shaped they were. They were smooth half-spheres jutting from the earth, grown over with grass and shrubs or occasionally a small tree. They were the sort of simple hills a child might want to play or nap on. If one did not know better, they might never suspect what lay beneath the tranquil surface. In the early hours when the cooks prepped for the day ahead, fog rolled in and crept low between the cairns. Between the mist and the lights of the Spears’ many fires dotting the night, it set an eerie scene should one need to leave the tent. Everything about this place made him uneasy. Those hills housed the remains of his countrymen. They might be the oldest graves in the nation. No men should be disturbing them, and especially not men like the Spears.

The last of the sausages lay steaming in the morning air. He was lucky to have cooked with such high quality meat. It was unlikely anything as good as the bratwursts would show up again. Not soon, at any rate. Charles eyed the Galley's shelves and stockpiles, but no matter how long he stared it did not make the sight any less bleak.

Their supplies were dwindling. That fact became more grimly apparent with each sunrise. There was no spinning it in a positive light. Yesterday’s delivery, which had included the sausage, was the best they had received for some time, and even that was less than they needed. Every day for the past fortnight they had made do with fewer and fewer ingredients.

Only Magnus’ cautious foresight had shielded them from running out of food so far. As it turned out, the red-haired chef was an avid canner who knew more than his fair share about food preservation. Charles had been deeply impressed at the cache of jarred poultry, vegetables, and seafood the uminara had prepped in advance before leaving the imperial capital. Canning, or the act of sealing foods in airtight jars to dramatically extend their shelf life, had been the savior of many facing the threat of starvation, ever since the Carnigans had discovered the process half a century prior.

Yet it could only do so much.

The cache, too, was beginning to dry up. Charles and the other cooks canned where they could, but they were always taking out more than went in. How long would it be before someone had to face Thorne with the news that the next meal was not coming? Some days they just barely scraped by.

But then, what right did he have to hope for more ingredients and supplies, when he knew full well where they came from? Robbed over the bodies of sons and daughters of Dreya.

What am I supposed to do?

If the food problem did not improve, and soon, their state of affairs would grow dire indeed. What would happen then, no one was certain. Would Thorne order them to go foraging? Was foraging even possible here in the barren Highlands? If it was possible, would it be safe? Charles did not want to end up like Truan and Mark, the old chefs that had left camp seeking provisions only to end up a meal for wolves.

Boulier...

No matter how he framed it, the future stood on fragile ground.

Boulier…

“Boulier!”

Charles jolted. Magnus’ green eyes bore into his.

“Deliver these to the conscripts and prisoners,” Magnus said gruffly, gesturing to a set of servings placed aside. He shoved the first plate into the eleve’s open hands. “The cardinal has our blues spread thin on other tasks. Those here have their hands full. Pull your head from your ass and get moving.”

His tone stung, though Charles tried not let it show.

Things had been starkly different between the apprentice and the sea chef ever since their talk of empress puffer fish six weeks ago. Magnus didn’t speak casually with him the way he had before. Not about cooking or restaurants or anything, really. It was only orders, direction and, should Charles make a mistake, anger. The man had never been overly friendly, but after their confrontation with the Spears, where he had stood between him and that raider’s wrath, for just a brief window it had actually felt like…

Like what? his doubts said mockingly. Like the two of you were getting to be on good terms? That he might view you as a friend? You?

It was shameful. And it was true. He had felt that. Felt that Magnus might be a noble soul beneath his harsh exterior. Felt that he was starting to know a little of who this stranger from the empire truly was, and that the grey line between friend and foe might actually be leaning towards the former. Now it was though an impassable rift had broken the ground, cutting off anything except the strict dynamic between a Lead Chef and his lessers. Martus hardly said a word to him, and what he did have to say was cutting and harsh. Perhaps, Charles thought, that huge rift had always been there, and he had simply preferred to believe otherwise. They came from very different worlds, after all. Could people who are so different ever truly understand one another? Such a thing seemed unlikely. It was typical of him to imagine some kind of connection where there was none. That was a habit he needed to rid himself of. The disappointment in his gut was no less than he deserved for being so naive.

He dutifully took the first serving from Magnus and entered the sea of tents. He was used to running small errands for his kitchen, and this was not the first time the Shattered had been too busy to help. He had never had much talent for getting close to others, but obeying a chef’s orders...that he knew well. He tried to let go of his thoughts and walked with the natural flow of the camp.

Per usual, his interactions with the other conscripted imperials were curt and concise. There was no smalltalk. There had never been so much as an exchanging of names. He knew them by nothing more than their titles, and they did not want to know anything of him. Most were too engrossed in their duties to spare more than a grunt or gesture. The Spears’ groom, a salt-and-pepper bearded codger with sharp blue veins in his nose and bitter eyes, merely waved his hand to show where he would like his rations placed. The black war horse he was tending to gave a whinny and a stomp that could have crushed a man’s head like a ripe melon. It was an impressive beast, Charles had to admit. Very impressive. A testament to what many generations of pairing the right stallions and mares could accomplish. All the Spear’s horses burst with muscle and raw power. Any less wouldn’t be enough, considering the size of their riders and cargo. They were built to carry a great deal, carry it for a long while, and carry it over rough terrain. How few nations could realistically breed their equal?

They play no small role in the raider’s sheer mobility. For something that seemed so sprawling at first glance, the Spear’s sea of tents could be cleared away with shocking speed and efficiency. One hour it was there, and by the next it might as well never existed. Only ash from abandoned fires remained. It was not something he would have believed without witnessing firsthand. After meeting Magnus, Charles had wondered why no one was trying to profit from the Spear’s need for supplies and provisions. Where were the followers? Citizens from the empire, staying on their soldiers’ heels to vulture some share of the stolen wealth in exchange for plying their trade? Or, even worse, collaborators from Dreya willing to throw their countrymen to the wolves? Launderers, nurses, and yes, even cooks. Providers of ordinary services traditional militaries could not perform themselves. From his—admittedly very limited—understanding, they were an expected part of any traveling army. But the only civilians here were a handful of conscripted imperials like Magnus, or Dreya prisoners who were restrained and bound to the back of a horse during travel.

When Charles saw the camp move, he understood. Followers would not be able to keep up. It became gruesomely clear how all those towns had been caught so unaware. This was the Spear’s true strength. Not raw military power; for all their prowess, they were still a small battalion of cavalry lacking the numbers to clash with a full army. Not durability or defense. They were lightly armored. Ill-suited to hold a position against advancing forces. No, their true advantage was speed. Speed that could be carried out with subtlety even in the unknown haze of foriegn lands. Speed that could strike again and again before their enemies were even aware of the danger. By the time news of the last attack arrived, the red cloaks were already leaving your bloodied doorstep. Like a serpent from beneath a log. Your first cue is the fangs in your flesh. He set the plate of bratwurst and potatoes down and took his leave.

Since he could only confidently carry so many servings at a time without risking a spill, he picked up a fresh batch just outside the Galley's entrance...only to feel an all-too-familiar buckle as he turned around. He tried to compensate with his good leg. It failed. He plowed headlong into a line of waiting Spears. This damned leg! Could he not go five minutes without it getting in his way?

The serving fell to the waiting grass. To his own surprise, Charles nimbly caught the food before it could hit the ground, letting the potatoes fall into place while the sausage caught the edge, rolled over, and slid toward the center, gently dabbing itself with a dollop of mustard sauce.

He gawked at the plate in stunned silence. Huh. That was certainly something he hadn’t known about himself. In another life, he might have made a decent mirenne.

The Spears were unimpressed. They glared and glowered down at him through their helms. Charles found himself glaring right back. He excused himself before he could say anything he might regret. As much as he’d like to tell every one of them to choke to death on those sausages, the grim, simple truth was that he was not strong enough to keep them from tearing him to pieces afterwards. He was a chef. He was not a warrior, a soldier, or a brave hero. And even if I was one of those things, he admitted to himself, there’s only so much a single man can do. There are many of them, and only one of me.

Charles had taken up a new habit. Every day, he kept careful count of the reds’ numbers. A count when a group left camp, and another when that group returned. His hope was that it might make him just a little more aware of what he was up against. Knowledge was perhaps his only weapon, and any detail might make the difference. But in six weeks of campaigning, he had yet to see a single one fail to return from a raid. Not one. As far as he could tell, they were never killed in battle.

It was not to say they were invincible. All mortal men are susceptible to the Old Enemies: the illnesses, famines, and wrathful forces of weather that might claim one’s life at any time. Even the Spears of Mercy couldn’t impale their way through that. Of those few who had died at one time or another—seven, by his best judgment—three fell to severe frostbite when an ice storm struck the camp without warning. Another three succumb to a strange sickness that clogged the lungs and stopped the soldiers from breathing. Thorne had ordered any ill Spears quarantined and snuffed out the spread in its infancy. The final loss, the only violent death, had come from Thorne’s own sword. A red killing a red. But it was never a wound from a foreigner that took them down. Nature was giving them more of a fight than any Dreyan.

He stood no chance of combating his way out of this mess.

The Charles from six weeks ago might have had trouble admitting that, but he had to be realistic if he was going to make it through this. To that Charles, the Spears had been a bizarre and terrifying enigma. As if they came from another planet, let alone another nation. The way they so rarely spoke or expressed emotion. Their casual relationship with violence. Everything about them had felt beyond his understanding. It’s not easy to look objectively at something that used to haunt your nightmares. But at some point that had started to change. As winter deepened, the bits and pieces he’d gathered of them began to paint a vivid picture. That picture was one of uncompromising duty and discipline, with little room for what most would consider basic human comforts. The redcloaks ran their camp with cold efficiency. Just as Magnus had said, if a thing was not needed, it was quickly discarded. If a thing was needed, it should be light and take up as little room as possible. And if it could not be those things, there must be a means to disassemble and reassemble it as needed. Most of the tents were one-to-a-man and wedged low to the ground, just tall enough for a single body to slip under to escape the elements.

He noticed the raiders often sought out quiet places to kneel in prayer, one of the few actions they seemed to choose of their own volition. They tended to their weapons with the same care he might give his chef knives or Ricenne di Boulier, taking whatever steps necessary to ensure the killing end never touched the ground. At some point in their conditioning they had sworn vows of chastity, and they did not partake in alcohol or other frivolities. Charles suspected the former vows might be enforced with castration, but he was not about to walk up to one of them and ask. They ate and drank, rose and rested, departed and arrived all precisely when such things were dictated. The waste of a single minute was unthinkable. Following the One Mercy as they did meant regarding everything outside their mission as worthless and honing themselves to a single purpose. To cast all irrelevance away, that they might become more powerful blades. Those ways of thinking were expected from prisoners, too, of course. Those who were caught failing to rise to them were chaff, and chaff had no purpose here.

Lately, the young chef had not had any nightmares of red riders. He wasn’t having dreams at all these days. Part of him thought he might be growing numb to the Spears. Numb to this way of life. For the short term, it made things easier to bear. What the long term consequences might be, he had no idea.

The next delivery went to the imperial doctor, but he proved even more frigid than the groom. After a few seconds, he merely glared at Charles because the teen had not left yet. The message was clear: leave the food and make yourself scarce. It was more of less the standard he had gotten used to. Apathy or simmering resentment. That was all he received from the conscripts.

But it was worse when he ran out of imperials and had to start delivering to other prisoners from Dreya instead.

Joen and Jori, the tailor and washer, were twins. They were tall, strong, and fair of face. Each had common hair: blonde and full, like Charles. The sort of hair that ran smoothly between one’s hands. They, too, did not greet him. Not once had they ever greeted him. They accepted their rations with matching suspicious glances and went back to their work. Please don’t look at me that way, he thought. Don’t you know I’m only doing what I must, no different than you? Charles lowered his head. The shame crept in again. What other reaction could be expected, when one of their own was delivering food from the enemy kitchen? They did not know him. They had no reason to be warm towards him. In this place, the safest way to view strangers was to view them as unsafe. It was perfectly reasonable, he acknowledged, that they regarded him with skepticism.

He left without a word.

He did not deliver the next serving right away. He balanced the steaming plate atop a log and stooped to wash his face in a shallow creek. Layers of dirt and debris came free. When he finished the first washing, he dipped his hands and started again. But no matter how hard he rubbed or wiped he could not rid himself of the brothers’ looks. They stuck to him, stubborn as tree sap. Glares from the Spears were one thing. They had practically been bred to hate him from birth. Indoctrinated in a way that could likely never be undone. Beneath their red hoods and iron helms, those men were killers to the core; that was still true even if they did show the Shattered subtle acts of kindness. Similarly, it did not bother him when the groom or doctor treated him like an eyesore. It was not as though he expected better. This was different. This wounded him in a way that was slow to fade. The logical side of him knew it was not the twins’ fault. It was this place. This camp. These circumstances. The whole thing corrupted the part of people that should be trusting and good. He peered at his reflection in the clear waters, and the reflection peered right back.

It’s corrupting me as well. Just look at that face. The work of the Green Galley kept him from ever getting a full night’s sleep, and it showed. Dark circles and carved lines nearly as deep as Magnus’ ran round his eyes. Four to five hours was a good night. The norm was fewer. On those rare occasions when there was an opening in their workload, he often found himself staring restlessly at the canvas overhead. It was a paradoxical cycle; he could not sleep because he could not stop fixating on how miserable the next day would be if he wasn’t well-rested. It was maddening. This back-and-forth was, he suspected, the source of all the fierce headaches he had been having recently. His blonde locks sat disheveled as a bird’s nest, and a thin, wiry beard had sprouted from his chin. He was thinner now; his cheekbones stood out more blatantly than before. The face that gazed at him from the water was halfway between him and some stranger he did not know. How long, he thought, before he changed to the point that Mother or Nina would no longer recognize him? Wouldn’t that be something, having to explain who he was before they welcomed him home? How would he even begin to go about it? ‘Sorry I didn’t show up when I was meant to. I know you were probably scared to death wondering what became of me, but you have to understand. I was busy sauteing sausages for the deranged zealots who burned down our home. Really making something of myself.’ He spat, sending tiny ripples across his image in the water. Spitting was something the old him would never have done. It was ungentlemanly, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to care. He stared at the warped reflection. What would the Charles that emerged from this winter still have in common with the one who entered?

Assuming, of course, that he emerged at all.

He rose. A twitch stabbed his leg. He was able to walk more or less normally now, with only a slight limp, but his injury still prevented him from sprinting more than a few steps. He would not be matching the speeds of the hooded runner anytime soon.

“I’ll make it through today,” he told himself. “Today, certainly. Tomorrow, probably. After that…”

Who could say, really?

He sampled a bit of sauteed potato, only to grimace. It needed a deal more seasoning, but their breakfast deadline had come quicker than expected. He’d been told to serve them as-is.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. He was clicking his tongue without thinking again. That bite of potato had irked him. The taste was amateurish. Almost lazy. In his eyes, changes to his face and even his demeanor could be forgiven far easier than those that had crept into his cooking. This kitchen forced Charles into habits that, frankly, would have earned him a bout of screaming under the Boulier roof. Habits like slicing blemishes off beets and onions instead of tossing the whole thing out. On the road, there was no helping it. Waste was unaffordable. They had to use the most of every scrap they had, and the result was that quality always came second to quantity.

Father would be beyond mortified. His views on matters like this were simple. Tainted vegetables had no place in customer’s dishes. To even suggest such a thing...after all, there was always the chance that a bit of mold or rot might go unnoticed. From there it could pass between the various masters, into the mirenne’s waiting hands, through the double-doors, and make it all the way to the dining table. “What would people say?” his father would scold. “Just imagine the rumors.” Their family name would be tarnished. It was a matter of pride and principle. Either an ingredient was acceptable, or it was not. There was no room for compromise. With Magnus as chef, almost nothing was above compromise. That man did whatever it took to ensure the next meal was ready on schedule. If all convention and class had to be stomped on, so be it.

Charles sighed. Truthfully, the uminara did have a few tricks up his sleeve. Unorthodox methods to optimize prep time and run a kitchen that little touch more efficiently. But did his teaching style have to be so...whatever it was? Aggressive? Eccentric?

There had been an incident where they were pinched for time with a deadline coming in fast. The way Charles stripped garlic (by crushing the cloves one at a time with the flat of his knife, as was traditional) had been deemed too slow. Rather than any verbal instruction, Magnus had casually smashed the entire pile of cloves with the bottom of a stockpot, tossed the flattened remains inside, then shaken it like mad. Low and behold, when he wordlessly shoved the pot Charles’ way, most of the skins had already come loose, and those that still clung could be torn off effortlessly. Blunt was the tattooed chef’s only style of guidance. Lessons like this were the Green Galley's typical fare.

Charles accepted it passively, as he had come to accept everything else. He felt a little less every time he saw the smoke of some town’s end on the distant horizon. Once, while setting away a fresh delivery of ingredients, he had dropped a jar of pickled cabbage because there was still someone’s blood on it. Magnus had raged and raged over the shattered glass. He had barely heard any of the rant about wasting food. He just stared at the splatter on the floor until the feeling faded.

All of his inhibitions were fading. Though blood appeared on a sack of shallots three nights later, he’d found himself cold to it. He absently placed it with the rest. The wheels of the red machine turned and turned. That would still be the case even if he was not here cooking the food that fueled it. It would make no difference either way. That was how he chose to see it.

When his thoughts weighed heavy on him, Charles found solace in two places. The first was cooking—the one area he felt true confidence and control—where he would try to sneak creativity into his dishes here and there to keep his mind occupied. The second was the sole person in camp who treated him with genuine friendliness. A relatively new face, and a bright spot in days with precious little brightness to go around.

“Charles!” The young chef glanced around. Cade Calwell was beckoning him from up the creek. He smiled and waved back. It was always a welcome treat to have a customer come to him for a change. All this chasing people down made his leg ache. The two of them stole a brief moment so they could speak discreetly.