He Was a Good Soldier (Pt 4)

by Jay Squires

BOOK III
Chapter Twenty
(Part 4)

FROM PREVIOUS CHAPTER:

          I nodded, broke the gaze and said, “Yes. That’s what happened, Jed. He swallowed it.”
          His eye closed. He took a breath, and seemed to hold it. A tear squeezed out from the corner of his eye and followed the contour of his nose, over his lip and into the corner of his mouth.
          I let my hand slide from his shoulder to his bicep, very nearly able to encircle it with my hand. I gave it a gentle squeeze. “Jed ...”
          “I k—k—killed him.” He kept his eye tightly closed. Another tear leaked out.
          “No, Jed—listen to me ... You didn’t kill him. Karule’s guilt killed him.”
          His eye opened. “He con—fessed?” The last syllable became part of an eruption of coughing, so violent his free arm reflexively reached for the source of the pain beneath the bandages.

“Easy, Jed, easy!” I restrained his arm just as I saw Garvin racing through the door and across the room. His face was scrunched to a mask of concentration as he bent to check the bandages.

Jed’s coughing stopped as quickly as it had begun, but it left him momentarily gasping for breath. I retrieved the canteen from the floor and opened it. “Slow and easy. Take a deep breath, Jed. That’s good.” I put the canteen to his lips. “Just a little, though.”

As he wrapped his lips around the opening, I tilted the canteen back just until I could feel the water weight shift in that direction, then pulled it back. He swallowed, and relaxed back into the pillow. His eye drifted just enough toward Garvin to convey its intent to me without that intent being intercepted by its target.

I followed it with my own. “Bandages okay?”

Garvin raised his shoulders, then let them sag. “Bandages I can change, sir. We just can’t have any wounds reopen.”

“How about if I do the talking?”

Garvin shot me a puzzled smile, the meaning of which didn’t elude me. Then he addressed a different smile to Jed.

Jed returned it, but it was a weary smile.

I wondered if Garvin noticed.

“I’ll just leave then and be outside the door if you need me.”

I thanked him and he turned.

I waited for him to go through the door before speaking again. “We need to be sure and do it that way, Jed; I’m pretty sure I know what it’s about, so I’ll ask the questions and you gesture your answers.”

His frustration was etched in his face.

"I understand ... so why not just wait? Can it be that important right now? How about if we wait until you’re better—just until your wounds are more healed?”

As I began my entreaty, he’d already started shaking his head slowly, but by the time I finished it was shaking so vehemently, I opened my palm in the universal gesture of submission.

“Okay, that’s fine.” To blunt his energy just a little, I held up the canteen. “Are you finished with this?”

He indicated with his thumb and forefinger he wanted a little more.

I gave him another drink, and put the canteen on the floor, and then I laid my hand on his forearm. “Now, I have a feeling this has to do with Karule Barsach. So let me just tell you what didn’t happen. He didn’t confess anything. Okay?”

This seemed to puzzle him. He slowly moved his head from side-to-side on the pillow.

“You don’t understand? All right ... let’s just say I caught him lying. He kept trying, but the moment he could no longer justify his story, I saw him bring his hand to his mouth ...”

Jed’s head was bobbing, but his eye was closed and I knew he was struggling mightily not to lose his composure again. His breathing was rapid and jerky.

I gave his forearm a little squeeze and his eye opened. “What you did—listen to me, Jed—what you did took a lot of courage. I want you to know that. Karule’s choice of when to use the poison capsule was his own act of cowardice. You didn’t kill him. He killed himself rather than face complete humiliation.

I thought I noticed some relief. His breathing had slowed and his face was more relaxed.

“I do need to know, though, just to get the picture clear in my mind ... did you sneak Karule the capsule when you saw how he was reacting to the torture they were subjecting—” I stopped, realizing I didn’t know the name of the torchbearer.

Apparently my confusion was transmitted to him, since his mouth opened before I could say anything and “Erel—Fo—Fozzen,” tumbled out. He couldn’t conceal the grimace that pinched the corners of his mouth and spazmed his eye.

“Jed?”

He opened his eye and looked at me as though nothing had happened.

“No more words, Jed ... really. Just shake your head or raise your hand if you need something clarified.”

“Anyway, they forced you to watch them torturing Erel Fozzen ... and noticing the effect on Karule of watching it, you sneaked him the capsule, and told him how to use it—nod if I’m right.”

He did.

“And this was before Erel even started breaking down, right? And telling them what they wanted to know?”

Jed started shaking his head, his eye opened so wide his blue iris was rimmed in white. For an instant I thought he was going to be sick.

“No, Jed!” I held up a cautionary hand. “We can’t have that. You’ve got to relax. Take your time. As soon as you’re relaxed, I’m going to start again until we find the part that’s wrong.

For about a minute he lay perfectly still, his eye closed. Then he opened it and motioned me closer.

“No, now Jed, I said no more talking!”

His lips formed the word “whisper”.

I frowned, but then leaned over the bed toward his face.

His breath was hot against my ear. “Erel ... didn’t ... crack ... ever.”

I pulled back and stared at him. “What!” I took a moment and then a breath. “So, not at all?”

He shook his head.

“I see ... but while you watched Erel being tortured, and realized for the first time he probably wasn’t going to crack you knew you or Karule would be next—don’t talk, just raise your hand or something if I am wrong—so you got the capsule to Karule. Am I right so far?”

He sighed audibly and nodded.

“And there was only the one capsule.”

He again affirmed it.

“By then was Fozzen dead?”

He closed his eye as if to block the vision of it. Leaving it closed he raised his head and then lowered his chin to his chest, almost in a gesture of prayer.

“Fozzen was dead. And they removed him. Then they came back. Which—which one did they take?”

I realized my question required his response, but before I could offer a nod-able choice, he dredged out of his throat, “Me ...”

I was so sure his answer was going to be “Karule” that when instead I heard “Me” what followed was the sound of my own breath huffing out of my lungs an extended, “Ohhhhh.”

Karule had done precisely what he had accused Fozzen of doing. He took the easy way out. Told them everything after they gave him a whack on the knee, and the moment I found holes in his story he wasn’t able to plug up with more lies, he settled for the capsule.

What could be gained now by allowing Jed to offer the details of his agony?

“I think I’d better—yes, we’re going to call an end to this for now, Jed. We need to give you some more broth. Keep that strength up.” I ventured a smile, then continued: “Garvin will want to change those bandages again. You want some water? I’ve got it right down here. Here we go.”

I bent over to get it, but when I straightened up again, he was staring at me with an unblinking eye.

“Please ...” he said.

I put the canteen back. His was not a request. It was a soul-dredged plea, and my deepest instincts told me I couldn’t deny him that.

“Same rules, Jed. I do the guessing; you let me know where I’m wrong.” I took in some air and let it out noisily.

“They came and took the body away. Then they came back and—well, I guess they started torturing you.” This was not going to be easy. “In front of Karule, right?”

He shook his head.

“Not in front of Karule? So they took you to a private place to start ... on you?”

I got an affirmative movement.

“I see ... so you didn’t—that was the last time you saw Karule?”

He mouthed the word “Yes”.

“Well, that’s it then. There’s no use subjecting yourself to any more.”

His lips formed the word “Please”.

“But son, what’s the point? They separated you from Karule, took you into another room. We know they—” I swallowed. “They removed your eye, and then they started beating you. It’s obvious how badly they beat you, so we don’t need to go into it any more. Finished!”

Jed just stared at me as I rattled on.

“It’s easy enough to figure out what they did to Karule. Probably at the same time they were removing your eye and readying the whips, someone in another room decided to give him a taste of what was to come to him if he didn’t cooperate. So they whacked him on the knee. Oh, he had the capsule you gave him, all right; the capsule you probably would have taken yourself, given the agony you’d already been put through. Son, don’t put yourself through any more of it. It’s over. Yours was an act of courage. Karule’s was an act of cowardice.”

I had exhausted myself. “Just leave it alone, Jed.”

“Fozzen,” he whispered, nodding. “Hero.”

“You don’t need to talk any more. Yes ... Fozzen was a hero. Through it all he didn’t break down. You and Karule saw just how brutally they treated him. But he didn’t crack.”

I shook my head, remembering. “Karule had me convinced Fozzen was a coward.”

“Fozzen,” he whispered. “Letter?”

“Letter, yes ... please don’t talk, Jed. I’ll send a letter to his parents and tell them how proud they should be of their son. I—”

“Karule?”

I closed my eyes. How could he ask me that? “A letter? You’re asking if I’ll send a letter to his parents? Well yes, I’ll—and no, no, I won’t tell them the circumstances of his death. I won’t be doing it for him, but his parents deserve better.”

“Weak,” he said in full voice, “not bad.”

“Please, Jed, no more. You need to get well.”

“Not bad,” he whispered. With that, he smiled, settled back on his pillow and closed his eye. I was about to warn him about sleeping when his entire body was seized with a shudder so violent the bed shook.

“Garvin!” I screamed. He came through the door in a full run. Two other soldiers peered in at us.

Garvin bent over from the other side of the bed and got up in Jed’s face. “Are you in pain, Jed?” To me he mouthed, “He’s hot.”

Jed shook his head, but then kept its movement over a wider arc, his cheeks touching the pillow on either side of his head.

“What are you trying to say, Jed?” I asked him. I stopped its movement, but saw his eye was rolled back, exposing only the bottom half of his iris. “I think he’s delirious, Garvin.”

“He’s burning up, sir,” he told me, and then shouted over his shoulder, “Need a pan of water and some rags.”

Soon a soldier raced over to the bed, bearing a pan, water sloshing out as he ran. Another came behind him with an armload of rags.

Garvin threw off the blankets, exposing a frail Jed, naked to the waist. Heat radiated off his body. Garvin placed the pan on a vacant section of the bed, nearer to me. We both began the process of saturating the rags, wringing them out, and laying them out on Jed’s body. Steam immediately rose like a fog, and the rag was so hot I had to remove it and apply another that had been soaking in the cool water. I repeated the procedure a second and then a third time, while, Garvin was equally as rigorous in applying the wet rags to his forehead and cheeks.

At some point in the process, Garvin’s eyes met mine. I saw the despair in them. I sensed he was giving up. I couldn’t let him. I shook my head in an effort to remind him we were not giving up, but the moment I did I could see he interpreted mine as a capitulation.

“The infection, sir. It’s invaded his entire—”

“No!” I shouted. “Garvin, no, he’s done it once—he’ll come through again. We just have to keep doing this.” I submerged the rag. The water was now warm to the touch. “Another pan of cold water,” I shouted as I wrung out the rag and started fanning it as I remembered doing before.

I glanced over. Garvin was staring at me. “Do like I’m doing, Garvin. Get it wet and fan it.” I shouted again to the door, “Hurry with the cold water!”

“Sir ...”

His head was bowed.

“Listen, if you’re not going to—here ...” I whipped a rag through the air until it felt cold, then applied it to Jed’s forehead and down to his cheeks and then his neck.

“Doctrex ... Sir ...”

“Where is that pan? Soldier!”

“Sir, Jed's—gone.”

"Gone?"

"He fought to the end, sir."

I laid my palm on Jed's cheek. "He was a good soldier, Garvin."

"He loved you, sir."

I pressed my lips together tightly to keep them from trembling. A sob seemed to come from nowhere and forced them open again.

Garvin turned, abruptly, as out of a realized breach of propriety. "I'll leave you now, sir."

"Yes. A few minutes. Please." I followed him with my eyes until he was gone, and then I bent forward and put my brow on the damp pillow next to Jed's head. I thought of our brief time together and I wept my goodbye without reservation or shame.

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CHARACTERS AND TERMINOLOGY

GENERAL DOCTREX: Protagonist, General and Leader of Kabeezan Army.
MEDIC BRAIMS GLASSEM: Doctrex's Chief Medic. Headstrong.
SPECIAL COLONEL EELE JESSIP: He and his men are reason for Doctrex's mission to rescue them.
CAMP JERRI FIBE: The Last Kabeezan outpost. Center for training & weapons.
CROSSAN: Equivalent of a horse
RAIN SPIRIT II: Doctrex's crossan
PLAIN OF DJUR: Where All Kabeezan Armies were to reconnoiter before final attack on Glnot Rhuether.
GLNOT RHUETHER: Master Magician who intends to conquer Kabeez
PALACE OF QARNOLT: Where Glnot Rhuether lives with his aleged bride-to-be Axtilla, Doctrex's love.
PROFUE BROTHERS: Knew Doctrex before he was General. His closest "brothers" in army.
GILN PROFUE: The oldest Profue Brother (Lieutenant)
SHELECK PROFUE: The youngest Profue Brother (adjutant Lieutenant)
ZURN PROFUE: Adopted brother to Profues. Mentally challenged.
POMNOT: A huge beast (Rhuether's expendable Killing machine)
POMNOT (2ND MEANING): To Kabeezans the equivalent of the bogeyman, threats of whom parents used to use to discipline children
AXTILLA: Doctrex's love, who is Rhuether's prisoner, and alegedly his bride-to-be.
GOTZEL: One of the soldiers who, along with medic Braims, heard voices (Rhuether possessed.)
ENGLE: Doctrex's courier after his first courier became an AIM: Advanced Intelligence Men, who were trained to do surveillance and espionage work for the Kabeezan army.
LESN: One of the officers of the Kabeezan Army who, when possessed by Rhuether, performed impossible feats of strength. Committed suicide when lover, Morz, died.
MORZ: former officer, Lesn's lover, died when he exploded.
PHANTOM BIRDS: Gigantic "Magical" Birds that dropped fire eggs on the troops.
ARZ MAKEL:An AIM (Advance Intelligence Man) who died while spying and whose head was "magically" in the talons of one of the phantom birds.
STAND CAPTAIN ARVAL BREENZ: The first of the Kabeezan Army to lead his troops to the Plain of Dzur.
JED: Doctrex's original courier, who later got permission from him to become an AIM.
KARULE BARSACH: Expert and co-inventor of the automatic crossbow, is allowed in front ranks with Doctrex.
EREL FOZZEN: The torchbearer of the ambushed troops, later tortured died a hero.
SUPREME COLONEL ARKLYN ZARBS: Commander of one of Glnot Rhuether's outposts, and Doctrex's captor.
GARVIN: Medic under Supreme Colonel Arklyn Zarbs. Tries with Doctrex to minister to Jed.
PAPPERING: An automatic translation system occurring in this dimension. Only some words resist being translated.

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A Goodbye

A chapter in the book THE TRINING Book Three

He Was a Good Soldier (Pt 4)

by Jay Squires

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