The War, page 40
“You heard rightly,” said Inspector Dickson wearily, and wondered why he had admitted it. He waited for whatever retaliation Mordred had. Having been rescued by his worst enemy, he would be mortified. Repulsed. Incensed. But Mordred did not answer.
At last, he did speak. But though quiet, his words were clear this time.
“I thank you.”
And Inspector Dickson was undone at the gentleness in his tone, the more so when he thought of how Mordred must have unbent his fierce, unyielding pride to say that. And he turned his head away, lest he should see him weep.
But he did not know that Mordred had turned his face again to the stones, and pressed his eyes hard against his arm, his shoulders convulsing in long, silent heaves while Fenris sought in vain to comfort him.
CHAPTER 37
THE AIR WAS RANK WITH agitation and dread. Not a man in the small barracks was free from it. Yet they had learned discipline under Sergeant Garin; they were not the same rabble of untrained farmers they had been three months ago. They did not cave to panic, but waited silently as they had been bidden, and their sergeant too waited—face hard and masking his own fear and uncertainty, leaning his arm on the sill of the shuttered window, drumming his fingers in a quick, tense rattle.
An hour went by, and the fighting had come no nearer to them than that first slew of arrows. The sound of horse hooves drubbing the earth wildly near at hand—fading out—coming nearer—slowing—dragged them all upright as one man, eyes darting anxiously in pale faces for answers that no-one had.
“It is only one,” said Sergeant Garin. His tone snapped like the crack of a bowstring. “Unbar the door.”
Seconds later the freed door slammed open and Captain Finley Rhodes sprang in, his dark eyes burning with urgency. “Out, men. Sergeant, lead them in a patrol of the city streets.”
“How goes it?” asked Sergeant Garin in an undertone.
“It looks ill. Our only asset is that they are acting as a riot, without organization or direction. Yet that is their strength as well, for they are so many and all over that we cannot meet them on any definite front and drive them back. We have dispatched as many patrols as we can into the city in an effort to check their progress—if even that can be done.”
“Where is the general?” asked a voice out of the men.
Captain Rhodes turned saddened eyes upon the speaker. “The captains and the king have begged the general not to go out into the city. He has heeded us—for now.” He glanced back to Sergeant Garin. “Go you now with your men, as I bade you.” He sped out, and the clamor of hooves rose up and faded away again even as the soldiers formed ranks and marched toward the city.
The horror that sprawled across Orden City was worse than Braegon had anticipated. Buildings were awash with flame, rumbling and tottering on their foundations, and the cinders fell glowing in the darkness. Men, women and children fled all around them, weeping or calling for loved ones, stumbling, wounded, alone or in tight desperate knots of families. Braegon thought of Therelane, and wondered if his rash flight had been for anything, or if he had perished in these streets while trying to reach the hospice.
He had other things, though, to occupy his attention besides Therelane: the most pressing one that his leg was not obeying him at all like it ought. He set his teeth and kept up with the others by sheer discipline, but deep within, the truth that he had known, and that Sergeant Garin had known, set its cold claws upon his heart.
“It might be a very long time, Sergeant.”
Maybe it did not matter. After tonight, they might well all be dead. And if not . . . what would happen to the soldiers of a conquered land? If they let him go, a man could still manage farming with a crippled leg; better than he could soldiering.
Braegon’s breath sucked in as he stumbled painfully. He would be no good by the time it came to fighting and he knew it. He should not have come; the sergeant would not have let him. He was a liability now, but it was too late to go back.
~
Laufeia dashed under an archway and skidded to a halt. “Fenris!” she cried. “And Mordred! There you are.” Her gaze flew to Inspector Dickson, to the two dead Runnicoran soldiers on the ground, and back to her brothers, the elder prostrate, his hands clenched and his shoulders hitching spasmodically, the younger with a hand on him, his despairing look fading to relief as she appeared. “What happened here?”
Then she caught herself and shook her head. “Never mind it. We need to go.”
“Where?” asked Fenris, getting his feet under him and slipping his hand under Mordred’s arm.
Laufeia could not answer for a moment. The import of the message stopped the words in her throat. “Irene says—that there is no more staying in the hospice. We have to run.”
Fenris’ eyes were wide with horror. “What about all—all the other patients?”
She shook her head again, catching him in a fierce hug while her eyes stung with tears. “They’ll help as many out as they can, but we have to go now. The soldiers are all over.”
“Where do we go?” Fenris asked again, and she wept and hugged him again because the young man emerging out of the shy, terrified boy was so strong and able.
“I don’t know—I don’t know.”
She gathered hold of herself, knowing that there must be some right answer. “Mitheren, Fenris. We’ll try to get to Mitheren. I don’t think we’ll be able to leave the city.”
Fenris nodded once, and bent to Mordred again. “Mordred,” he whispered. “Can you walk?”
Mordred, in a mute, miserable movement, shook his head.
Laufeia’s mind was riven with shock. Mordred never made such admissions—never. At the least he would have said, “I can manage.”
What had happened to her brother?
“Can you walk if I help you on this side?” Fenris asked in the same quiet, worried way, as though nothing had happened out of the ordinary, raising Mordred up with light, sensitive hands.
Mordred’s head hung down. “Yes,” he said faintly.
Laufeia turned away, forcing back the comforting words and the questions that they had no time for. “Sir?” she said to Inspector Dickson. It looked as though he had been hurt.
Inspector Dickson would not look up either. “Aye,” he muttered thickly.
“Do you need help? If Fenris can support Mordred on his own, I’ll take you.”
Inspector Dickson pressed his hands against his eyes and withdrew them roughly. “Yes, my lady; thank you.”
The four of them made their way out of the hospice, hurrying and yet painfully, perilously slow. Laufeia thought they would never reach the doors in safety.
Reach them they did. They limped down the steps, and through the ravaged streets towards Mitheren.
~
Mordred staggered, nearly losing his hold on Fenris. He clung to him instinctively, like a drowner, yet he was scarcely aware of anything, even the road beneath.
There was such a battle rending him that he felt like a rag wrung out and torn apart. His pride, humiliated and crushed, raged against the man who had saved his life. Shame lay athwart it, with guilt close behind, shame that that hated man had saved it at all, despite all Mordred had called him and thought him. All the safe, viciously pleasant lies he had forged for himself, building up a false character around his most abhorred enemy, crumbled, and he was left with the stark truth that they had been lies all along. Inspector Dickson was not a monster without humanity or feelings; his highest purpose in life not to make Mordred miserable; and the Claw business was not all his fault. He foundered amid the crashing waves of sharp, sure realization, while his anger frantically strove to keep its footing, vying for the place it had kept so long.
“I thank you,” he had said—words that he had said in one clear moment of deep, bitter conviction, words that had been like soot and ash in his mouth; yet he had said them, knowing that he owed Inspector Dickson that much.
And what else did he owe him?
The upheaval seethed endlessly, battering and devouring him with the violence of his clashing desires and will, till he writhed inwardly under its torment and could only beg for an end of it. But no release came.
A sharp tap of pain raced through his head. “Mordred,” said Fenris’ voice softly, and the voice and pain brought him back to the world for a moment. Buildings towered grey above him, sky and shadows a black emptiness. Smoke stung his nostrils and Fenris’ tireless hands were helping him up from the ground.
“What—” he stumbled, floundering for words.
“You tripped, Mordred.”
His sound leg quivered under him. “How—much—further?”
“Two miles, I think.” Fenris braced him more firmly and settled Mordred’s arm around his shoulders.
Mordred met Inspector Dickson’s eyes, unexpectedly and by accident, and their gazes locked for one dark, unguarded moment. Then Mordred ripped away.
He heard Laufeia’s small, short gasp of alarm, and it awoke instinct inside him. He lunged up to his full height, his fingers biting frantically into Fenris’ shoulder to keep his balance, as his eyes flew about in search of the danger.
Then he found it—the little band of soldiers striding out of the alleyway, the moon and faint fire-glow reflecting off their Runnicoran sigil.
The man in the lead was Captain Alétun.
Mordred felt a heavy wave of despairing exhaustion that darkened everything about him, and the ground seemed to teeter very far away. But one thing kept him on his feet, and cleared his head a little—he must keep them safe . . .
~
Laufeia watched in horrified bewilderment as Mordred pushed away from Fenris and crashed against the nearest wall for support, dragging himself towards the enemy soldiers. It happened so quickly that she was still trying to understand when he halted and cried out in a cracked, panting voice, “Captain Alétun—”
The men pulled up abruptly and the foremost looked at him.
“Captain Alétun—” Mordred seemed to struggle past the words. “If I—if I let you take me, will you let them alone?”
Fenris, as though loosed suddenly from paralysis, rushed forward and sprang in front of his older brother. “No,” he gasped, pushing Mordred back to the ground. “No, Mordred, no.”
“Fenris,” Mordred choked, not resisting against his brother, yet his eyes were bright and desperate and the tears began to slip down his cheeks. “If they hurt you—I can’t—Let it be me, Fenris—”
“No, Mordred.” Fenris flung himself across him in a tight, pleading hug. “Please, no. Not this.”
Laufeia, riveted where she was, her eyes darting over the nightmare in front of her, saw the man that Mordred had called Captain Alétun signal in some way to his men; and while they remained behind, he advanced until he was less than six feet from Mordred and Fenris.
Her mouth opened, a scream of warning about to burst out.
But the Runnicoran stopped right there. “Richardson,” he said, the r’s rolling clipped off his tongue. “This is your brother?”
Mordred lifted his head, dread in his eyes.
“How do you live?” There was true perplexity in his tone. “I gave orders for them to kill you not an hour since.”
Mordred’s mouth opened. “A man saved my life,” he said hoarsely. “My brother—and another man.”
Silence hung over them, thick and tense. Laufeia saw strange things flash across the Runnicoran’s face—uncertainty, pity, and fear.
“Some power wills to deliver you from my hand, Richardson,” he said at last. “It is a better thing to pit myself against the will of the Paraki than fate.”
A light of astonished hope entered Mordred’s eyes, and just as quickly gave place to another, stranger thing: earnest compassion. “If that is so,” he said gently, reaching out a hand to the man who stood motionless there, “call it not fate.”
Captain Alétun shrugged, made as if to turn, and checked.
“Please,” said Mordred very softly. “You have done so much already. Let there this once be nothing between us. Will you not take my hand, as a friend?”
Captain Alétun slowly crossed the distance between them and closed his broad-knuckled hand around the thin, long-fingered one Mordred held out to him. “You were as a son to me in my mind,” he said quickly, in his brusque accent. “If it had been different—I would have looked upon you as a son indeed, Ett-Kéva.”
He wheeled away and roared an order to his men, and their marching footsteps rose and rattled away into the darkness.
Laufeia let Inspector Dickson go and leapt to Mordred’s side. “Mordred,” she cried, holding him fast and kissing his forehead, so tremblingly aware of how close she had come to loss.
The tears were brimming in his eyes again, and he held her in return.
“What did he call you, Mordred?” she asked as the terror of the moment died away and the salty tears running into her mouth began to slow.
A shiver of emotion jolted his shoulders against her. “Peace-maker.”
~
Fiona shifted her sweat-slippery grip on the taut cloths that bound together one end of the hastily made stretcher. Fred swayed between her and Therelane, a dead weight that had quickly grown a strain on the two of them.
“Thank you,” she murmured to Therelane, knowing he would understand her gratitude, for she had already expressed it.
He nodded, but was panting too hard to answer.
They made up half of a small vanguard, the last of the nurses to flee the hospice. Irene and Mirda bore another wounded man between them close behind.
Fiona thought back with shuddering heart to those last terrible moments, listening to the pound of feet all through the halls around and lying athwart Fred, both shielding him from anything that should come their way and shutting her eyes against the sight of it.
Then Therelane had come, and told her that it was time to run.
“And Fred?” she had cried, springing to her feet, tingling with the anger of desperation. “Am I to flee without him? I will not. He shall not be taken from me again!”
And Therelane had cast about, and in bare moments, it seemed, lashed together a sling of cloths for them to slip Fred into, and suddenly they were hurrying down the steps of the hospice.
“Mitheren,” came Irene’s curt, steady direction from behind them. “It’s like as not we’ll be slaughtered trying to get there, but we may as well try. ’Tis the last stronghold we have now.”
So Therelane swung eastwards.
It happened before any of them knew it. One moment they were alone in a small square of crossroads; the next, seven or eight men were running towards them, spreading out in a half-circle to cut them off.
“Oh, dear,” muttered Irene, motioning to Mirda to set down the burden.
Therelane let his end of Fred’s sling fall and stepped forward with a firm stance. “We don’t mean any harm,” he said in a carefully reasonable tone. “But if—”
“Therelane!” snapped Irene and smacked his hand away from the hilt of the sword. “You be quiet. That won’t help.” She turned coolly to face the soldiers, spreading her arms wide as though to hide all of them behind her. “I am a descendant of Ridith, of the house of Ithera. Werevulture blood flows in my veins! These are under my protection, and do you think to touch them?”
The men drew together in a knot, eyeing her with alarm and half-disbelief. Fiona, for her part, was astounded and filled with awe at Irene’s audacious, valiant declaration. Irene knew and Fiona knew that there was no power in her that could harm these men; yet they did not know it, and the true, or half-true, assertion of werevulture blood struck fear into them.
But one man stormed out of their midst, sneering, a short throwing-spear in his hand. “If witch you be,” he said, “you can turn this aside!” And he cast it, so that it struck straight into her ribs and protruded out the other side.
Her body seemed very small and slight as it folded and crumpled.
Therelane’s face grew white and dreadful. With a wrathful cry that broke in the middle he plunged past her and smote the spear-man to the ground.
In the flurry that followed Fiona could understand nothing, but seconds later two more men lay dead on the ground, and Therelane was driving his blade into the throat of a third. With the terrible speed and strength of controlled rage he swung again, but there was no-one in his path. The rest had fled.
Therelane stood as though rooted to the ground, head lowered. His sword slipped away and clattered free. Like a man dazed by dreaming he turned and looked at them. “Irene,” he said huskily, almost a question, but not quite.
Mirda rose from the broken, still figure with a shake of the head. “She’s dead, Therelane.” She laid her head on his chest and put her arms around him as he sank sobbing to his knees.
~
“I love you, Mirda.” He said it through the anguish that poured out of his heart, over and over. “I love you.”
“I know.” She was warm and quiet against him, a well for all the tears he had to fill.
“She told me to tell you. I love you, Mirda.”
“I know.” She rubbed his back. “Shh, I know.”
And he let her hush him, like a little child.
He stood up, still holding her fast. Fire streaked up into the sky from Mount Thiranu, masked by the aura of smoke that hung over them. “Will you marry me when this is over, Mirda?”
Her head turned, and he knew that she, too, was gazing up at the flames of war on the slopes of Ceristen. Her voice was soft, matter-of-fact, and sad. “It is over.”
Therelane tightened his arms and looked into the east. The sky was paling to a bluish-silver, with a rosy haze on the very horizon. Against it, the dark spire of the last stronghold had just grown visible, reminding him of their errand. “Dawn is coming. We had best be moving on.”
~
The window in the chamber faced east. As the first ribbons of sun crept over the city walls and spilled into golden light and veering trails of shadow, a second presence entered the room and the man before the window stirred.
