The War, page 22
And the steady, calculated certitude in his voice, his terrible, accurate knowledge, were too much. Mordred’s hope died painfully. He shut his eyes in blind endurance, waiting for the worst of the nightmare to end.
Another light kick nudged into his side. “You had best set yourself to enjoy a long and well-earned stay here; all your wit and your tongue will avail you nothing with that leg wound. I think I shall relish wringing your secrets from you, young spy.”
Mordred would have told him not to bother with such a useless attempt, but he could not find the words; everything was losing itself in a swimming, dissolving mess of fever and pain.
“Try to recover yourself over the next day,” came Cern Dersturi’s dry tone. “I shall be occupied elsewhere, and I will appreciate it vastly if I can question a prisoner not on the verge of delirium when I return.”
His footsteps whisked away and faded. Mordred sank into sleep, deep sleep, but it was hot and airless and full of foul, twisted dreams.
~
Mordred’s eyelids fluttered and he stared up at the woven ceiling of a tent, wondering why his leg pained him so intolerably. The memories sorted themselves out one by one: riding, thrown, shot, waking, Leader; and he shut his eyes with a sigh, feeling drained and oddly, grimly resigned.
His head was much clearer than it had been last night, and he evaluated his situation in a calm, thorough manner.
The aforesaid situation held little comfort. He was injured, captive, facing torture and death. “It is always death for spies . . . ” The only point of consolation was that the leader thought of him as Richardson, plainly did not connect him to the Rehirnish pedlar Damachrus who had led his army to disaster in the pass of Mirech.
Of course, Jedediah Crayes was still spying in the camp, thought Mordred. If he heard of his capture, he would certainly rescue him. But would he hear? At any rate Mordred did not feel disposed to put faith in maybes.
“You are awake.” The gruff remark with the accent of Runnicor drew his attention to a soldier who stood nearby him, leaning on a spear.
“What an observation,” said Mordred scornfully. His voice scratched in his throat, hoarse from thirst.
“You need water?” The man was young, about Ahearn’s age.
Mordred told himself he would not say yes. Let the stupid boy see for himself whether Mordred might need water or not. But he knew he was wrong, that his resentment was wrong, and he was ashamed of himself. “Yes,” he said, and shut his eyes again, hiding his face in the crook of his arm, hating his pride and stupidity. Scalding tears slid out and wet his sleeve.
He heard the rustle and the faint slosh of liquid as the soldier set a cup down by him, then the grunt of resuming his stance.
It was a long time before Mordred lifted his head and drank.
CHAPTER 21
“WAKE UP, YOUNG FOOL. OPEN your eyes and look at me.”
The boot poking into his side and the cold voice roused him. Mordred let his lips tighten visibly but did not obey.
“Open them, I said, you brat.” The boot came again, this time a painful jab, and Mordred bit his lip against an involuntary gasp.
“I am no brat,” he said aloud, coolly, distantly, “nor a fool, and I will not answer to it, Cern Dersturi.”
“That is no way to speak to your captor,” returned the leader grimly, and Mordred struggled to choke back a cry as the boot ground down heavily on his wounded leg.
I am not going to give in to him, he thought fiercely as he clenched his teeth. He is stubborn, but I am more stubborn. He shall see that he can never get the better of me.
Suddenly the weight left. “So be it,” said the leader dismissively. “I can speak to you as well with your eyes shut. Now, do you remember this—guardian of yours, Mog Dremmag?”
“He was not my guardian,” said Mordred, suddenly afraid. His eyes flew open and he looked up at the leader.
“You arrived with him, ate with him, slept in the same tent. Close enough.”
“What of him?” Mordred struggled to keep his tone indifferent. “I thought that he must be in a different camp by now.”
“He was under high suspicion after you escaped. However, in the report the lieutenant and captain acquitted him, repeating to me a most far-fetched tale—but I questioned him myself, and let it go. He has a very wily tongue.” He paused, staring into the distance.
“Unfortunately for him, he was discovered some weeks later to have been in consort with one traitorous Rehirnish pedlar, even following him through the pass of Mirech when I had bidden another to take that place. When I learned of this, and recalled his connections with you, I realized his game.” His lip lifted, his eyes filling with a frightening hate as he mentioned Damachrus. “He was too clever a threat to chance detaining him; I dispatched of him at once.”
Mordred stared at him, suddenly no longer hot and uncomfortable but cold and faint.
“I thought you might prefer to know, lest you entertain unmerited hopes that he rush boldly in to rescue you a second time.”
He looked steadily down at Mordred, waiting for the answer. But Mordred could not answer.
He would not look down. He would not weep. He would not let the leader gloat upon his weakness—
His eyes burned as he stared adamantly into Cern Dersturi’s dark gaze, until at last the Runnicoran turned away.
~
The low rumbling of thunder ripped along the base of a leaden sky. The rider, cutting across the flayed, barren swathes of the Great Waste, saw the second rider and drew rein. It was his third day out from Orden; the lone man could hardly be a Runnicoran soldier. Nor one of the other two couriers, for he did not ride toward the northwest but away from it. So the courier let his horse proceed at a slow walk, curiosity welling beneath his dark, piercing eyes, until he drew abreast of the other.
“Fearn-lith keos iya rôn?” he asked.
The other looked at him in surprise. “I am Ordenian,” he answered in the common tongue. “Who are you?”
“I am Grant Eagle. I ride to Fearnland to seek the king’s aid.”
“Then you are too late,” returned the first. “I it was whom they sent, and I bore the word to King Earel, and his answer was this: the Wild Men have heavily oppressed their borders, and their attacks grow fierce. ‘My own men are needed,’ he said. Fearnland cannot come.”
“So be it,” said Grant somberly. “Then we return alone and succorless.”
“But Orden has not yet fallen? For you are not far out from the mountains.”
“She still holds,” said Grant. “For how long, no man knows.”
He reined Lady and trotted back southward, and the other man rode beside him. Their pace was slow now with the heaviness between them.
“I wonder what shall become of the other two messengers who were sent with me,” Grant mused aloud at last.
A shrug was his answer, and then, “They will ride to Fearnland, and hear the truth that we already know. If you know not their whereabouts, Grant Eagle, there is no way to tell them.”
“Yet maybe the arrival of another will prove our urgency and persuade the king to spare what little he can,” Grant said.
“Perhaps,” said the other. But his face was that of a man who has set himself not to hope.
They rode on.
~
Cern Dersturi had implied that he would see to torturing Mordred when he returned, but other than his excursion to inform Mordred of Jedediah Crayes’ death, he did not appear in the tent at all that day. Mordred did not know why; he only knew that he was left alone with a slowly spreading sense of grief, like a cut that widened along the stem of a tree, shearing off life little by little.
He knew that when the grief cut through the last splinter, he would not want to live any more. The memories of horror and pain, that impended over him with crushing agony, were futile to run from. He had tried, and it had sapped so much of his strength, and if he could not run from the memories they would destroy him. The general’s presence was like the hand of a surgeon, lancing poison from the wound, yet only creating more pain because he could not heal the source. The faces of the people he loved—even Fenris—reminded him despairingly of the void inside him, sucking his thoughts irrevocably back into the memories. And there were other things, little things—the twisted, nagging guilt of the deaths; the grating throb in his leg; Cern Dersturi’s cruelty, and the fear that he would find out about Damachrus. Soon his loss would crash down on him fully, and then there would be nowhere left to run.
“You are not like a spy.” It was his guard, the same as yesterday’s, who spoke in his slow, careful common tongue. Mordred knew now that his name was Ebrun, for the night guard had called him that when he came in.
“What did you expect?” he asked flatly, turning his head from where it had lain buried on his arms.
Ebrun deliberated, maybe searching for the words he wanted. “You are not like a spy is supposed to be.” He grinned at Mordred.
Mordred could not smile back, even though a part of him wanted to. Listlessness swamped him.
“You are young. Eighteen, maybe?”
“Nineteen.” Somewhere in the siege of Mianu, his birthday had passed him by.
“So—a little one. A boy.” He was regarding Mordred with a look like wonder, as if he truly could not credit the notorious feat of spying to the face before him.
Mordred’s pride was pricked, but only a little. He felt, if anything, amusement. “Boy? You can’t be much better.”
Ebrun continued on. “And you are not evil.”
“Evil?” Now Mordred wanted to laugh, and almost did; but the lingering dullness cast itself back over him, and the sound never made it out.
“You are very ordinary,” Ebrun concluded.
“Most people are,” said Mordred. And then, because he could not bear the kindness when there was so much shattering and dying within him, he flung his head back into the safety of his arms, and refused to speak again the rest of the day.
~
The tent flap opened on darkness, and then a tall figure. Mordred thought it would be the night guard, come to relieve Ebrun, but it was another soldier, then two more, who spoke in quiet, rapid Runnicoran to Ebrun. They looked at Mordred twice, and seemed dubious.
Then Ebrun shook his head authoritatively, and spoke louder, and Mordred heard something about a horse. After that they argued, and Ebrun’s cheeks got very red, but he must have won his argument, for he slammed down his spear with an air of satisfaction as the other two departed, and when they came back they were leading a horse.
Ebrun turned to Mordred. “Get on.”
Mordred stared at him, half in bewilderment over the situation and half in disbelief at the thought of trying to mount. He did not move.
“Get on the horse,” repeated Ebrun, urgency and impatience seething in his voice.
Mordred caught his breath, and then blindly leaped up and lunged for the animal. One step and his right leg buckled; another and he crashed to the ground. He lay there, hot, sick anger and humiliation burning in his throat.
Someone laughed loudly. Mordred buried his face against the matted grass, his shoulders shaking. He was not going to get up, not ever again, and they could not make him.
Hands settled on him, tugging underneath his shoulders. He resisted stiffly.
“Come,” said Ebrun. “Please, get up.”
He was sorry for what had happened. Mordred could hear the apology in his stumbling words, and he knew it was not Ebrun who had laughed. He could defy no longer, but let Ebrun raise him to his feet and help him to the horse.
What happened after that, he did not notice or care. He sat the horse for what seemed hours, dizzy with the fever that was rising in him again, and he was cold with the night air and his head ached and burned. He fell against the horse’s neck after awhile and clung to its mane, because it was the only way to keep himself from tumbling off. The rub of his right leg against the horse’s flank and the struggle of gripping with his knees became a torment, and the fiery stabs seemed to squeeze all up his thigh.
At last someone’s hand gripped his arm, drawing him down, and he lurched willingly from the saddle, sinking to the ground in a limp huddle. “Sleep now; it is nearly dawn,” said Ebrun, and Mordred slept.
He woke hours later and to his relief the searing, inflamed pain in his leg had abated. Ebrun was tending to a fire nearby.
“Where’s the tent?” It was an odd question to ask, but Ebrun did not seem surprised as he looked up.
“They stopped only for some hours so that the soldiers can rest. We will move soon.”
Mordred shrank from the thought of riding again. “Why did we leave?” he asked. “Is it the whole camp, then?”
“The Paraki is moving two parts of the camp to the north,” said Ebrun, stirring the fire. “The other part stays behind.”
“Why?” It did not make sense to Mordred. How far north? Were there not Runnicorans already assailing the borders there?
Ebrun shrugged. “The Ordeni are supposed to think that there is no more army in the south.”
“Oh.” Mordred shut his eyes, understanding quite well now. The leader, frustrated yet again in his attempted penetration of Orden’s defense, now made a great show of marching away to the north, all the while leaving a third of the real army behind so that they could strike at some point when the guard was down. It was clever, a chancy gamble, but very clever, and of course he had marched past the West Gate at night, when no man could definitively count the numbers.
When word was brought to the general, he could launch a strike on the southern camp—why, it was the ideal time to attack, when the army had split into a much, much smaller size—
But there was no one to bring the word to the general anymore.
Mordred’s shoulders heaved, and he rolled over, trembling, trying to shut out the truth, but the barricades slipped away like water through fingers, and the last fringe was severed, and the truth fell on him, naked and cold.
He was alone.
He was alone, and so tired of holding on.
If only the pain would stop, if only everything would stop, if only he could—
“Do you have family?”
Not now. He could not bear questions right now. Not now, please. “Aye,” he said, the word shuddering out of him. Fenris—Fenris—
Something snapped.
He broke into racking sobs that tore out no matter how hard he tried to muffle them. “Fenris,” he gasped. “Ebrun—I can’t die—I cannot die—”
The grief and desperation shook him. He had not thought of Fenris, really thought of Fenris, in so long, and now that he did, the revelation was fierce as the purging touch of a furnace iron. It did not matter whether the pain inside destroyed him, whether ten thousand men had died by his act, whether he never saw his brother again, for Fenris’ sake he must not die.
“I do not understand.” Ebrun’s voice faded through to him.
Mordred lifted his tear-wet face and locked burning, reckless eyes with Ebrun’s. “I cannot die.”
He drew a great, shivering breath. The storm had passed. His head was a little clearer, a little steadier. “But die or no,” he murmured, “I’ll hold on. I’ll hold on, Fenris.”
~
The army made slower progress than Cern Dersturi wished. Another nightfall came and still they had not reached the distance he desired. As he stood in his tent, eyes darting grimly over the walls, a thought came to him and he called for Dovurti Atta.
“The prisoner, the spy—Richardson. Who is his daytime guard?”
“His name is Ebrun, Paraki.”
“Has he been relieved yet?”
“’Tis not likely, Paraki.”
“Summon his relief, and send Ebrun here to me.”
Ebrun arrived, and waited in rigidly upright posture, his eyelid twitching nervously.
“You are Ebrun; you serve as the Kenhelm prisoner’s guard in daylight.”
“Aye, Paraki, but I was not relieved last night.”
The leader dismissed it with an irritated flick of the hand. “Has he caused you any trouble?” he demanded coolly.
“No, Paraki.”
A faint smile edged the leader’s mouth. “Yes. It seems that you get along well with your charge, do you not?”
“I—I—yes, Paraki.”
“Do not fear.” Cern Dersturi watched him with that faint, sarcastic smile. “I have not rebuked you, boy, nor am I going to. Now, tell me, what has he said to you in your speech together? He is cunning, that brash lad, but not without his weaknesses. Has he let anything slip to you?”
He could see Ebrun collecting his wits slowly, attempting to remember. “Do not keep me all night, boy. We do not have it. What comes to your mind?”
“He—he said he is nineteen.”
The leader snorted. “Aught better than that?”
“We discussed the moving of the camp.” Ebrun spread his hands helplessly. “Some days ago he mentioned he was from Rehirne. He said he has family . . . ”
The leader uttered a grunt of disgust. Yet even as he did so, his mind was following one of the boy’s remarks, one that had caught his attention, though he did not yet know why.
He is from Rehirne.
Private Richardson’s wide-set, grey eyes pierced his mind, matched with another keen pair—those of a Rehirnish merchant called Damachrus.
His breath drew in, his eyes flickered for an instant in astonishment and disbelief.
Could it be—the one who had tricked him once, tricked him twice?
The warning that he had not heeded returned to him. Damachrus’ husky, accented voice spoke in his mind, but the familiar ring in it was that of the young, proud-faced man whom he had employed as spy. The baffled, boiling rage surged up in him, yearning for an outlet.
He shall pay.
“Out,” he snapped to Ebrun, and the young soldier stared at him for an instant, turned, and bolted from the tent.
Cern Dersturi wheeled, his lips curling back from his teeth in a wolfish snarl of anger. He ripped open the rear flap and stormed to the tent of the Kenhelm spy.
