The Silent Army by James A. Moore

was a pattern there. A thick line ran through the melted lump.
    Bram spoke up. “I have felt pain, but it’s gone now. I am not injured.” He sounded surprised. Several of the city dwellers came closer and looked at his face, frowning.
    He said softly, “This is how we survive the day. This is how we learn to know a god. We must do this. As we discussed.”
    The next to come forward was a portly woman. Her hands held on to the hands of two children.
    “Must we all do this thing?” She did not ask Bram. She asked Tuskandru.
    “Pain, or death. All must choose.”
    Tears glistened at her eyes, but she did not move away. “We will be healed? Like Bram?”
    “Yes. Durhallem demands a sacrifice, but he does not demand a life of misery. You must be tested. This is the test.”
    She looked to her children and spoke solemnly. “I will go first, but if we are to be together you must do this thing. It will hurt, but I will be here for you.”
    They were young. The oldest perhaps five years.
    They watched and screamed as their mother was marked.
    She watched and held them as each of her children endured the same.
    Each person in the town was marked by Tusk, save a few that foolishly tried to escape.
    They were struck down quickly and their bodies were laid out beside the forge for all to see.
    As he made his mark upon the town, the fire in the forge glowed brighter and brighter.
    The processing of every member of the town took most of the day and the following night.
    Through it all Tusk spoke to the new disciples of Durhallem. He remained a calm, strong voice in a nearly endless series of screams.
    After they were touched by Durhallem’s gift the people of the town were allowed to rest. Most gathered together in the area around the forge. Some wandered back to their homes, as once they had been tested they were free to do.
    When the next morning finally came around, the people who had been marked by Durhallem were gathered together again.
    They had been tested. Afterward, they were given the blessing of Durhallem and allowed to speak to a god.
    None of them were unchanged by the meeting. Each of them was made to reach into the blazing coals of the forge to receive Durhallem’s blessing.

FIVE
    Captain Callan woke up in the small cell and groaned. Every part of him hurt, but especially the wound where they’d pulled the arrow from his leg.
    There had been a brief moment when he thought he and his crew would escape the gray-skins. That moment was crushed when the great black ship cut his little vessel in half. Each of the black ships, in addition to being nearly impossibly large, also had sharpened metal along the keel. That metal destroyed wood with ease and his little ship was no exception.
    Wounded as he was, he thought he was a certain candidate for death, but the Sa’ba Taalor came down and grabbed him.
    The woman who came for him was lean and hard and heavily scarred. She pulled the arrow from his leg and lifted him like he was a child. When he tried to struggle she put him down and beat him until he thought his seams would split.
    When he came to, he was in the cell, three sides wood and one iron bars.
    “You are alive and awake. This is good.” The voice was heavily accented.
    It was not the same woman who’d bested him so easily. This one was scarier. She wore cloth pants and a leather vest over a white shirt. The fabric was made to breathe and hung loosely except where she had pulled the fabric tight with leather straps to hold the sheaths for her knives. She sported several knives along her arms. Her mouth was scarred in several spots, and her skin was dark gray and seemed almost corpselike. Her eyes glowed in the semi-darkness of the ship’s hold. On the top of her head a deep blue scarf ran around her hair, binding it, and then dropped along her back. The scarf was tied to her waistline loosely allowing her to move her head easily.
    It seemed an elaborate effort, but he decided not to focus on that. Instead