Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1), Aaron Schneider [most important books to read .txt] 📗

back into the bag and looked at the uniform with a giddiness he would have been embarrassed to express. He began to untuck his shirt, eager to be rid of the sweat-soured memento, when he remembered what lay in the interior pocket. It was something he could no more cast off than his own skin.

In the small receptacle that rested over his tattooed chest was a folded tarot card, scorched along one side and frayed on the other edges. Its back was a series of strange, silvery constellations on a pitch-black sky. The face of the card, or should he say faces, were better known to him than every scar that marked his frame, but he could not bring himself to look at it.

There had been few happy moments in his young life, and he was determined to not sully this one with aching visions and melancholy.

Palming the card, Milo began to yank his clothes off to try his new uniform. His months as a conscript had expunged any shyness about being naked long ago. The first time he had been forced to stand bare and shivering with those who would be his platoon for inspection and delousing, he’d come to accept it as one more necessity of his grueling existence. Now naked from the waist up and with his trousers unbuttoned, he didn’t have the wherewithal to be thankful that no modesty impinged on his eagerness.

The quartermaster didn’t quite see it that way, though.

“What the Devil are you doing?” the man barked as he emerged from the stacks again, dumping an assortment of sundries onto his table.

Suddenly and keenly aware of his exposure, Milo grabbed at his pants before they fell below his knees and tugged upward.

“Y-you said to try these on,” Milo stammered, gesturing with his free hand to the new clothes.

A stream of profanity curdled the air, and the quartermaster jabbed a finger toward a narrow door set in the wall left of the entrance.

“Use the room for such things,” he snarled, mustache quivering.

Blushing from forehead to the tops of his shoulders, Milo scooped everything up and darted toward the door. It swung open on squealing hinges, and though there was no electric light inside, a long, smeared window let in blurry sunlight. The pale illumination of the morning shone on a room that was little bigger than a closet. A washbasin stood opposite the window, sharing the wall with rust-spotted milk can that must have served as a chamber pot. He could smell a strong odor, sort of industrial soap and ammonia.

“And don’t come out until you’re in a respectable state. Blasted colonial savages!”

Milo closed the door behind him, blunting another salvo of polyglot abuse.

As quickly as he could, Milo finished undressing and began putting on his uniform. As he did so, he heard the rumble of a diesel engine that sidled up next to the depot. Idle curiosity had Milo peering through the begrimed window, but he only had a vague impression of a truck through the streaked glass as he buttoned his shirt. As voices filtered from outside, he supposed that it was just some men to pick up last-minute supplies. Maybe the lambasted soldier had gone and gotten the right piece of paper.

Milo had just fitted his cap on his head, noting its pips were pentacles instead of crenelated circles, and was slipping into his greatcoat. Outside the room, there was a bellow and a heavy crash loud enough that he jumped as the coat settled over his shoulders.

Typically Milo would have been too careful to rush into the situation, but the oddness of his day combined with the empowerment of his new uniform kept him from thinking clearly. Drawing himself up straight, he threw the door open and swept into the room.

“Don’t make me ask where he is again…” a chillingly familiar voice was saying as all eyes in the room turned on Milo.

The quartermaster’s table was upended, its contents strewn across the floor, and the quartermaster was currently being roughly handled by three men in the greasy, mud-colored uniforms of penal conscripts. The quartermaster’s profane tirade had been forestalled by the trench knife one conscript held in front of the man’s face.

Three more conscripts whirled, pick handles in their hard hands. Milo’s stomach sank when he saw the man at the center of the bludgeon-wielding trio.

“Should’ve spent more time wipin’ Fritzy—” Jules began to chuckle, but the laugh died as recognition flashed in his piggish eyes. “Well, well, well.”

“Told you I seen ‘im,” called a voice from the door, and Milo recognized the verbally berated soldier from earlier.

“Shut up, Kasper,” Jules spat, his eyes roving up and down Milo’s new uniform as his lips curled. “How did a little crow like you fetch a Federal commission, eh? What song did you have to sing to get that costume, Volkohne?”

“I didn’t sing on anyone,” Milo spat, the old refrain of him being a treacherous informant sparking his anger to burn through the fear. “I never have and never will. I leave that sort of stuff to you.”

“If I’d known you knew something that valuable,” the petty thug continued as though Milo hadn’t spoken, “I might’ve taken my time in carrying out Roland’s wishes. Who knows, you might’ve lasted all the way to Metz if you sang that pretty for me.”

The mention of Milo’s one-time criminal mentor found its way deep into old wounds, but at the moment, he had to focus on more immediate threats. He felt as much as saw the two men flanking Jules edge forward, cutting off his hope of escape.

“I always knew you were stupid, Jules, but I never thought you were crazy,” Milo snapped, relying on his well-practiced skill at sounding tough when he was terrified. “You really think you’re going to kill two Blackcoats a stone’s throw from a command post and get away with it?”

Jules shrugged, his expression nonchalant even as his eyes shone with hateful triumph.

“Regiment’s moving out,” he said with a jerk of