Free Healer's Ruin by Chris O'Mara

back along the column, past squads of Krune stripping out of their Baldaw Mesh, stowing their weapons and preparing their bedrolls, crooning harsh songs that the healer did not comprehend. Their language baffled him, every syllable sounding like a knife sliding through meat or a jaw chomping on muscle. Thankfully, all the Krune he had met talked Regentine, the official language of the Ten Plains, though admittedly with thick accents. But as he walked past line after line of soldiery, hearing those rough melodies and brutal refrains, the healer was glad that he couldn't understand the meaning. Sometimes, ignorance was a blessing.
    How I wish I had not seen much of what has offended my eyes since arriving here. How I wish I was as ignorant as I had been before this assignment.
    They were now moving beyond the last line of the column and most of the noise was behind them. Chalos became nervous, drawing his robes around his slender frame and shivering. He stumbled on a rock hidden under a sheet of sodden leaves and cursed. The corporal glanced back at him.
    'Watch your footing,' he said. 'I forget you Rovann are blind in the darkness.'
    'Where are we going?'
    With another grunt, the corporal pointed into the trees ahead. Now, Chalos could see lights. Squinting, he could make out a series of huddled forms. Curved surfaces, glistening links. The edges of weapons. More Black Talon Krune. As they got closer, he realised that there were about twenty of the warriors here, their shadamar in a silent mass beside them. The warriors were looking shiftily about, appearing anxious and irritated.
    'They're exposed back here, aren't they?' asked Chalos. 'What if we're attacked from the rear of the column?'
    The corporal shrugged.
    'They are vullok . Half-castes. Tarukadul.' He gestured into the darkness beyond. 'Besides, somewhere to the south is Agryce and her miserable host of Tarukaveri. The Riln know better than to stick their balls between two open jaws.'
    'You can trust these men, even though they are not from your tribe?'
    'The vullok are spineless whelps. They look tough, but underneath they are cowards. They do as they are told, having no real will of their own.' He grinned evilly. 'Will is the first thing we beat out of them. Pride, the next. After that, there is only obedience.'
    The Tarukadul were sitting around a fire, rubbing their big hands and pressing their palms to the flickering light. Chalos could see now that their armour was different. The glyphs and sigils were crudely marked, not carven with care as they were with the other Krune he had seen, and their hair was completely shaved clean, eyebrows too. It made them look like a different people entirely, which he assumed was the point.
    Now he heard a fresh sound. A murmuring, sobbing noise. He stopped.
    'What's that?'
    The corporal turned to face him, reaching around to plant a big hand in the small of his back to urge him on.
    'The lieutenant wants use of your skills, slinger.' The Krune's dull green eyes gleamed.
    'We have wounded?'
    'Of sorts.'
    They approached a caravan, a wide-wheeled vehicle covered with ragged tarpaulin. A couple of Krune shuffled furtively from boot to boot at the rear of the vehicle, glancing up at the corporal beneath their brows. He's Tarukataru, they're half-castes, Chalos realised. They're afraid of him, wills broken, turned into serfs by a lifetime of abuse and rejection. Not for the first time, he thanked the gods that he had been born a Rovann.
    The corporal barked something at the two Tarukadul and they parted,boots shuffling in the mulch of leaves. Then the corporal turned to Chalos and raised a thick finger.
    'You must keep secret what you see,' he said. 'There are codes of conduct in the army of the Ten Plains King. Codes that he likes to see followed by all who ride under his banner. But sometimes fate places us in peril, and all the laws of men must be bent, lest doom befall.' The huge purple face leaned close, the voice dropping to a