Heart & Soul, part IX

In and out. Up and down. The blade skated on the whetstone. In and out. Up and down. The stone felt rough to Mortuus' hands, but to the blade it was smooth as ice. In and out. Up and down. With each pass the blade grew sharper.

Mortuus was allowed to keep his ghoul soldiers. He was lashed for insubordination, but he was allowed to keep his ghoul soldiers. It was the first lashing Mortuus ever received, but it wouldn't be the last. It hurt more than he thought it would. It hurt more than anything in his life.

In and out. Up and down. As he sharpened the blade, so too was he tempered into a deadly weapon. The imperfections ground away. In and out, up and down. The weapon grew meaner. Killing became easier and easier, easier than it had ever been before. All the extraneous bits pulled away by force and friction, leaving only the strongest and deadliest.

He kept in contact with Sarah no matter where they went. With each battle and each victory, he made more connections in the Legion. He found slaves who could transcribe his messages, and he knew runners who would always let him know if they were heading to Kingman. Occasionally Sarah managed to get a message to him, and he would have a slave read it aloud.

Sarah had very few things to say to him. Until she received his first message, she assumed he would forget about her. After Caesar won Yuma, though, a runner from the south arrived with a message written on the inside of a box of Dandy Boy Apples. Mortuus told her of his dangerous trip through the badlands, of the ghouls, and of his victories at Kofa and Yuma.

She told him as little as she possibly could. She told him the fort was finished, and the Kingman cohort had moved in. She told him she missed him. She didn't tell him how poorly she'd been treated since he left. How even the other slaves were cruel to her because of the gentle way he had treated her. How Kingman had a surplus of slaves since they finished building the fort, and the legionaries, too scared to sell the slaves after what happened to the last legionaries of Kingman, had taken to pitting them against animals in the gladiator ring for amusement and to thin their numbers.

She didn't tell him about the rapes and the beatings. She didn't tell him she miscarried again. She didn't tell him that the baby she lost was probably his. She didn't tell him how little she'd eaten in the days before she received his message. So many things had happened to her since he left, and she told him none of it. She wondered how he'd react if he knew. He might be angry or upset, but that didn't matter. It wasn't as though he could do anything about it anyway.

She died when he was in the former state of New Mexico. As a slave she wasn't allowed access to clean drinking water, and so she developed several diseases, chiefly among them cholera. She died alone and among the dead, the last of a group of slaves isolated due to their illness. Her last, delirious thoughts were of her husband. She dreamed that he came for her, picked her up and held her. Her body and the bodies of all the others that had died from the unclean water were left out to be picked clean by wasteland scavengers. Mortuus didn't hear about her passing for six months.

In and out. Up and down. The blade grew sharper and the man grew colder. Since Yuma he hadn't been involved in any outright battles, but there had been plenty of skirmishes in New Mexico. He and his contubernia had been transferred between six different centuriae since Kofa. Typically, if a centurion pissed Caesar off they were assigned the dead souls, and each centurion had taken his anger out on Mortuus, personally. Each one of them had him lashed for insubordination. In and out. Up and down.

Mortuus hadn't sent a letter to Sarah in awhile, so he composed an extra long one. Although he couldn't openly complain about the way he was treated by his superiors, his frustration was palpable. He complained about New Mexico, about the food. He wished he could be back in Kingman with her. He wished he'd never been promoted. The slave recorded it all dutifully, not impressed with his complaints. Even with all the punishment he'd been subjected to, it paled in comparison to the punishment she had endured. She didn't even like ghouls, and felt that his punishment for bringing their filth into the Legion wasn't enough.

Sarah never received his letter. She was long dead by the time the runner made it to Kingman. The runner was relieved. Mortuus had saved his life, but he resented having to run Mortuus' stupid mash notes. He was embarrassed to have to ask to see Sarah every time he was in Kingman. When he told Mortuus what happened he acted more sympathetic than he felt, out of respect.

Mortuus didn't react. He grunted noncommittally and muttered, "Thanks." When the runner left him, he stayed where he was. He was sitting on a rock, sharpening the lawnmower blade he used as a machete. In and out. Up and down. In and up. Out and down. He continued for a few minutes, and then stopped. His hands were shaking too much. He stared into the middle distance and fought back tears. He rationalized. He remembered how long it had been since he'd seen her. How phony the relationship had always been. That didn't work. He felt the tears flow down his grimy cheeks. He dropped his machete and held his head in his hands. When he bent over the fresh lashes on his back radiated pain. It helped him focus on something else, and he calmed down.

He thought of her constantly for a week. He couldn't get her out of his head, he couldn't stop thinking about his loss. As he trained he thought of her. As he lead his men he thought of her. As he killed he thought of her. He couldn't stop thinking about her until the gift arrived.

What he didn't know, through all the lashings and punishment and scorn, was that Caesar admired him. His contubernia had drawn the attention of every legionary in cohorts the wasteland over, but it had also drawn the attention of their master. Caesar admired Mortuus' bravery even as he loathed it. When Thoros admitted how he had been outwitted by the young man, Caesar was forced to admit his

respect for such a brutal and effective tactic, although only to himself. He had personally overseen Mortuus' first punishment, watching closely as Mortuus endured the pain. He learned what he could about Mortuus Anima, and was surprised to realize he was the same young man who had held off the Devines of Kingman. He also knew, when the time came, that the newly-subjugated Twisted Hairs were the dead soul's former tribe.

He arranged through secret channels a gift for the legionary who defied him so brazenly. He did so in a way that made it unclear who the gift came from, but made sure it was delivered quickly and discreetly. He knew, in an unknowable way, that Mortuus would know what it meant.

It was delivered to the dead soul wrapped in a Legion standard, the thick red cloth made of better materials than anything Mortuus owned. It was given to him by a frumentariius who quickly disappeared before he could answer any questions. Mortuus Anima held the package in his hands for a moment, unsure what to think. Then he slowly, carefully unwrapped it, making sure the standard did not touch the ground. When he finished unfurling, he could only stare, all thoughts of Sarah vanished from his mind.

There, sitting upon Caesar's black bull, was an object he knew well. Its pearl handle and shinning steel, kept beautiful through generation after generation of his ancestors was an object of no small significance to him. When he was sold to the Legion, it had stayed with his grandfather. Now it was here. The message was obvious. Dry Wells had fallen. The Twisted Hairs were no more. His grandfather was dead. He picked the machete up, held it in his hand and let the badlands sun glint off it. In and out. Up and down.