Chapter 11.1: A Soldier's Shame

The morning after their arrival at the Vigil Keep, Minkus rose much later than usual, groaning as he came to consciousness. He shuffled under the scratchy, wool blanket and opened his eyes to the glow of morning sunlight diffused through canvas. He rubbed at his eyes and lay there a moment before slowly sitting up, putting one hand to his stiff back and the other to his temple. He often forgot just how much the light magic coursing through him was constantly revitalizing his mind and body, how much he’d come to depend on it. It really had been taxing to travel all the previous day while simultaneously channeling his own light into Skixx. Even with the extra sleep Minkus had gotten, it would take some intentional healing to recover from it.

To his right, Penny was still asleep. A small puddle of drool had amassed on the mat beside her face. On the other side of the tent, he saw nothing but bags and blankets, one set neatly folded and piled and the other twisted and strewn about. Just after their arrival, Skixx had been visited by a healer who took him to the keep’s infirmary for immediate attention, so Minkus didn’t expect to see any sign of him there. He wondered how the other asura was doing.

He pushed off his blankets and slid his feet out onto the ground beside his sleeping mat. Even through the thick, canvas flooring of the tent, the stonework of the keep was cold to his bare feet. He jumped a little. Not wanting to feel that cold stone without the canvas to buffer it, Minkus quickly stuffed his feet into his boots before sneaking across the tent, lifting the flap, and slipping silently out into the morning light.

The sun was far above the horizon now, coming just up over the rear and highest wall of the keep and casting a westward shadow across much of the courtyard their tent stood on. As Minkus turned, shivering a little at both the still chilly air and the pleasure of the sun on his chalky arms, he remembered where he was. This was the Vigil Keep, a renowned fortress that he’d only seen in small, dim part the night before. He ran to the edge of the courtyard to take it in.

Seeming to stand watch over the sweeping valley set before it, as well as Lake Gendarr off in the distance, the keep spanned the better part of a mile in a gigantic L-shape nestled in the crook of the mountains that sealed off the northeastern corner of Gendarran Fields. It stood hundreds of feet high, broken into at least two levels protected by crenellated walls standing between the countryside and several looming towers built into the very mountains themselves. Ventyr had said this fortress was formidable, but that was an understatement.

Wide-eyed and scanning the scene once more, Minkus noticed Jindel some fifty feet to his right. A few locks of her blonde hair caught up in the breeze as she leaned against a rampart and stared out across the valley.

“Morning,” he greeted, still rubbing sleep from his eyes as he stepped up beside her. She nodded a silent acknowledgement before returning her attention to the valley below. Minkus frowned.

From where he stood, he was unable to see much beyond the lower level below them. He took hold of the iron bars and leapt a few times to see what it was that held her attention. The beautiful view aside, there was nothing noteworthy down there. He quietly walked around to her other side and looked up at her.

Her hair was half damp, presumably with the same sweat that still ran in glistening lines down her face and neck, pooling darkly in the collar of her shirt. Between that and the redness in her cheeks, it seemed she’d already found time for an exercise session, probably a rather long one. But it was everything else about her that really stood out to the asura: from her glazed eyes locked motionlessly on the grassy vale to the unusual slump in her shoulders. At once there was both a weight and an emptiness about her.

Minkus leaned against the iron fence between the parapets. “Already done some training?” he asked.

She was slow to respond but did finally look at him, as if seeing him for the first time. “Yeah,” she said.

“Where’s Ventyr?”

“In with the warmaster,” she replied. Her words were dead. She looked away from him, returning her gaze to the distance.

“How long have you been up?” he asked, unable to hold back a yawn.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Hours?”

Minkus’ lips unconsciously dipped into a frown. “Didn’t sleep well?”

She turned to eye him again. The smallest glint of annoyance sparked in her reddened eyes. “No.”

Minkus leaned forward against the iron bars and joined her in staring off at the distance—which for him was still just the deck below. For a couple of lengthy minutes, the two of them, a human and an asura, stood silently, nothing between them but the clacking feet of nearby guards on patrol.

Jindel was finally the one to break the silence. “Did you know this was my first real mission?”

“No, I didn’t,” Minkus replied. He smiled at her. “Could have fooled me.”

She didn’t seem to notice his expression. “Me too,” she sighed. Her head fell forward onto her arm resting on the cold iron. “I’m a soldier of the Vigil, the best the world has to offer—” Minkus began to open his mouth, but she continued before his tongue could form a word. “You know, Braxus was one of my instructors. The hand-to-hand skills he used in that cave, he taught those skills to me, to hundreds, maybe thousands of recruits. Around the world, Vigil crusaders trained by his hand are using those skills daily to protect people. And I—” She growled, raising her head stiffly. “I didn’t even fight. What did I do? I got us captured. I was their plaything. I had to be rescued. And Braxus.” The words rasped out of her. “Gods, Braxus.”

In surprise, Minkus turned to face the young woman again. There was a tear in her eye, but her face was tight with fury. He hadn’t heard either of those things in her voice up to that point. It was a chilling realization to him. “You aren’t to blame,” Minkus said. “The bandits, they—”

She suddenly went erect and cut him off, glaring intently at him, though she wasn’t really looking at him at all. “Don’t start with me. They were bandits, untrained rabble trying to make a few gold off unwary travelers. They should have been no match for Vigil crusaders.” She squared her shoulders and leaned over him. Her muscles tensed. “If I hadn’t acted before my superior— If I hadn’t been so weak that I was used as leverage— If I had been contributing at any point of our escape, Crusader Braxus would be standing here with us now. But I wasn’t, and he isn’t, and he didn’t deserve to die. Not like that.” Jindel jammed her forefinger hard into her own chest. “It’s my fault. You hear me? Mine!”

For a moment, the two of them stood there, staring at each other. Jindel was tight-lipped now, breathing hard through flaring nostrils, and the finger never left her chest as she glared down into Minkus’ wide eyes. Her own darted back and forth between them. He wouldn’t have had the words to express it, but he felt it: she was imploring him to agree.

His lilac eyes were tender as he reached up to gently pull the young soldier’s hand from her chest. “It’s not your fault,” he said, barely above a whisper. For a moment, it looked like he was calming her. “Braxus wouldn’t have said so, and neither does anyone else.”

“I do,” Jindel growled, yanking her hand out of his.

As Jindel turned to stare out in another direction, Minkus gazed stupidly at the floor. Surprised and dejected, he thought hard for the right thing to say, but his process was cut short by a woman’s voice. “Hey!”

Jindel made no move, but Minkus looked back to see Penny peering around the edge of the tent. “What’s all the drama about out here? Some of us are still trying to sleep!”

Raising hands in apology, Minkus was about to respond when the sound of footsteps coming up the ramp beyond the tent turned both their heads. Ventyr came into view.

All eyes went to the sylvari as he silently approached the tent. The only sounds he made were the soft taps of his leather boots on the smoothed granite. “Good morning,” he said plainly. “I’ve been told they’ll have a place set for us in the interior barracks in a few hours.”

Jindel turned. “Did you—“ she began, stumbling over her words a little as she stepped toward, “did you learn anything, sir? About the objects, I mean. Have we fulfilled the mission?”

Ventyr blinked long as he pursed his fibrous lips. “No, Crusader, I did not.” Everyone paused, waiting for more. “But our mission was to see the package here, which we have accomplished.”

Penny now stood entirely outside the tent, her arms crossed. She waited a few second, though her tense posture made it clear she already had words the whole time. “So, that’s it? All this mess, and there’s just nothing?”

Silence lay heavy for another moment before Ventyr raised his eyes to her and subtly shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “The warmaster is having some tacticians search the deployment reports for anything helpful.”

“Warmaster Korgal, sir?” Jindel asked.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Efut. She oversees activity in the Tarnished Coast.”

Penny took a few steps closer, her arms still crossed. “And they’re giving us a room inside?”

“Yes,” Ventyr replied stiffly. “Someone will come for us in a few hours.” Between him and the staff he held upright, he was all vertical lines and right angles. “Until then,” he continued, “I recommend we all rest. We’ve had a long journey, and there’s little we can do now.”

“Little we can do?” Penny repeated questioningly. “There’s plenty I can do. There’s still a huge, pissy norn awaiting a delivery I don’t have. I’m glad your little adventure is on a break—” Her words were interrupted by a yawn before she shook her head and continued, “But I still have a ways to go. I’m not waiting around.”

“Penny, I recommend staying here today,” the sylvari said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because,” Ventyr reasoned, “your destination is a complete day’s journey from here. You’d need to leave much earlier than this to make it by nightfall.”

She began to rebut, but quickly stopped. “Shit. You’re right.” With a slip of the tongue, she took a few strands of hair into her mouth and sucked on them as she considered her options. She spat the hair back out. “Fine,” she said, “I guess I’m staying here today, but tomorrow, Minkus and I are—”

“Actually,” Minkus broke in, fidgeting with his ear and looking back and forth between the woman and the sylvari. He hadn’t planned to say anything, but it just came bursting out, and now here he was. His gaze settled on Penny. “I’d like to stay,” he said. Then he quivered a little. “At least— I mean, at least until Ventyr has answers.” He shrugged. “It would be nice to see this through.”

Ventyr nodded, looking almost grateful for a moment. Penny on the other hand gawked at him, more than she’d done before. She blinked once or twice, seemingly unsure what to say. Finally words formed on her lips: “Biggie?” Minkus shrugged again, also unsure what else to say. “Well,” she went on, “I suppose I have until the end of the season—not that I’m planning to take that long.” She turned distinctly to Ventyr. “How long do you think this is going to take? It seems someone has taken an interest in your little quest.”

Ventyr pulled his staff in closer, almost embracing it. “If they don’t come to me today, I plan to learn what I can tomorrow. This can not be drawn out.”

Penny’s sour gaze moved from Ventyr to Minkus, but she continued speaking to the sylvari. “Fine. If it makes Biggie happy, we’ll be here today and tomorrow. I still owe him.”

Minkus tilted his head at that. He still felt uncomfortable with Penny’s entirely foreign sense of indebtedness. “Thank you for agreeing, Penny, but I— you don’t owe anything. I would have—”

“Look, we’re staying, Biggie,” she interjected. “Don’t make me go over my position again, too. I keep even books with people. End of story.”

He nodded sullenly, with his ears drooped forward. He would have admitted it was nice to be heard and influence their journey, but for all his usual joy, Minkus couldn’t escape the disquiet he saw and heard in everyone around him. But who was he, and how could he help any of them with this? He was, after all, just Minkus. The Large.