House of the Rain King, page 38
Brywna looked down her line and nodded to the archers—Welkin, Peregrine, Vitack, Thule, all with arrows nocked and ready to fly. If the Princess tried to escape as a bird, they had orders to shoot her down.
Anyone could have spoken then. Could have called out across the gap, threatened or cajoled or begged the other side to stand down. But what would be the point? Everybody knew their positions. The decisions had all already been made.
Brywna went forward into the no-man’s-land. Fitchin came out to meet her, the gorget around his neck.
She did not feel angry at him, not any more. All she felt now was the cold vice of destiny pressing down on her. The inevitability of it, the passing of each second through a narrow sluice.
“We’re under contract,” she said, “to bring the girl back to the Rain House. Are you going to hand her over?”
Fitchin said: “No.”
“You have a contract to protect her?”
“We do not.”
“Then why?”
“Our reasons are as they appear. She is a free being, and she does not wish to die.”
Brywna paused. She had never heard such a thing from Fitchin before. He must have really changed after all. Some narrow beam of light slipping in through a crack in his stone heart. It was something she would have smiled at, under other circumstances. But it did not matter here.
She said: “If you were in my place, with my commission, would you let her go?”
“No,” Fitchin replied. “You are a Sparrow. You have signed a contract and you must honour it.”
Brywna nodded. “Yeah,” she said.
Because she was a Sparrow. Because she carried the Commander’s memory with her always, closer than breath. Because she had signed the paper. But it was brutally unfair: that she had set out to save people’s lives, to bring food to the hungry, only to end up here, fighting to drag a helpless girl to an awful death; while he, Fitchin, had gone off looking to plunder a tomb and had also arrived here, but on the other side, doing what was right.
“The Charter isn’t clear on this,” she said, “but I’m asking you to settle it with a duel.”
“I accept,” said Fitchin. “We will abide by the standard rules. One champion from each side, with any weapons available. The combat continues until one yields, dies, or can fight no more. The losing side must quit the field.”
“Done,” said Brywna. “Who will be your champion?”
“I will stand for the Princess,” said Fitchin, unhesitating.
Brywna had not doubted it.
“I’ll stand against her,” she said.
Because how else could it be?
They went back to their respective sides. Brywna handed her cloak to Luscarl. She drew her sword and put her buckler in her other hand. The rain had soaked into the wood of the shield, but it was still very light and manoeuvrable. With the buckler, what she lost in size she gained in flexibility; she could place the shield anywhere between herself and the enemy, deflect blows, or thrust with the iron boss.
Across the gap, Fitchin was making his own preparations. On the bandolier across his chest were five knives, ranging in length from a forearm’s to a thumb’s. He removed each one, held it to feel the weight, and returned it to its sheath. When he was done, he took up his sword in his dominant left hand, leaving his right empty.
Fitchin was faster than Brywna and probably stronger. He could throw those knives with inhuman accuracy. He was without mercy; that she was his comrade would mean nothing to him now, if it ever had.
Against these advantages, Brywna held only one of her own. She knew Fitchin. She had seen him fight countless times. And for several years now, she had been watching and thinking about how she would beat him when this day came.
They approached each other. The rest of the Sparrows on both sides fell back, forming a wide circle. At the same time the bellbirds went silent. Some kind of accord must have been reached, for the foreign birds in the sky were now descending and settling in the trees to watch.
Knocks stepped forward. “Ready,” he said.
Brywna settled into her stance, the buckler high and thrust forward.
“Fight,” said Knocks.
Fitchin drew his first knife and let it fly.
Brywna had not been as ready as she’d thought. He was just that fast. She lifted her buckler but too late. The knife sank deep into her left shoulder and bit the bone. She groaned, reeled; Fitchin was already surging toward her. His sword flashed out and she barely knocked it away with her own. Already he had another knife in his off-hand, darting around her guard like a silver fish. She backed up: two, three steps across the coarse ground.
Were she a younger fighter, she would have thought then that it would all be over in a few more seconds. But she was a veteran now, and in her thoughts there was no room for anything but the next blow, and the next, and the next.
Fitchin’s blade clanged off her shield and went wide a fraction of an instant. In that space she regained her tempo. He was fast, but she knew his forms. Straining memory and sinew she parried him again and again in a steady rhythm. Her shoulder rang with pain, but she’d fought through far worse.
He circled. She watched him. She was waiting for a particular thrust.
And here it came: a feint with the off-hand, and then the sword lancing in from overhead. Brywna lifted her buckler to defend. At the last moment she tilted the shield horizontal, matching the angle of Fitchin’s blade.
Half an hour ago, among the dripping trees, she had sat down and worked on this buckler. She had pried out half the nails that held the boss to the board, leaving a narrow gap between iron and wood. Now, Fitchin’s sword slid into that gap, as into a sheath.
Brywna wrenched the shield downward. The sword twisted out of Fitchin’s grip. It remained pinned, flat against the shield, as Brywna backed away.
She looked into Fitchin’s eyes; she was searching for some flicker of surprise or dismay. But of course there was nothing. He filled his empty hand with another knife and began to circle again.
Brywna had reach over him now. She pressed forward. He fell back. She circled, cornered him, drove him toward the muddy channel that ran across the centre of the clearing. Now she would bite and bite, wearing him down. Now she would punish every mistake.
When she thrust, Fitchin hopped back, and with that distance he threw the dagger in his left hand. Brywna caught it with her buckler; it bit deep into the wood. Now her shield resembled some strange artefact, with the knife and the sword both stuck inside.
The weight dragged on her arm—
Too late she saw it. He’d been aiming for the buckler. He’d hit just the spot to put her off balance, and now he threw the knife in his other hand and she couldn’t move the shield fast enough. The flying knife went into her sword hand, right at the base of her palm. She tried to clench her fist, but no good. Her fingers wouldn’t respond. Her own sword slipped from her grasp and hit the ground.
Fitchin was upon her before she could even begin to feel the pain. Weaponless, all she could do was put the buckler between their bodies, but he was reaching around it again with another knife, fucking endless knives, and she twisted wildly to keep out of his reach. He stabbed down from above; she crouched, then thrust up with the buckler and hit him on the jaw. In close now, she reached under with her free hand. There was one more knife on his belt. She snatched it—turned it—and thrust it into his gut.
Her fingers were weak with pain. The knife didn’t go as deep as it should have. The next second they were wrestling again, the buckler pressed between them, their feet digging deep gouges in the earth. Fitchin lost his balance and they both went over, landing heavily. The buckler tumbled away somewhere. Brywna rolled over and sucked air. Fitchin was up on his knees already. He crawled toward Brywna’s sword. No time to breathe—she leapt up and tackled him across his midsection, they flew, slipped, fell into the channel with the mud and the roots.
No room to move. She’d lost the dagger. Pain in her hand and her shoulder and her thigh. She thought Fitchin had stabbed her there. She was on him. No, he was on her. Pinning her arms, he lifted up one hand and brought it down on the first dagger that was still embedded in her shoulder. Brywna screamed; the whole left side of her body rang like a bell. He did it again.
Wild with pain, she got one hand free. Swung and hit him hard on the jaw. He reeled back from her, slipping and crashing against the walls of the channel, and stumbled away.
Brywna got up. She took hold of the dagger in her shoulder and tried to pull it out. No luck. It was buried deep in the bone. Where were all the fucking daggers? There had been so many and now none in sight. No time. She went after Fitchin with her bare hands.
He had been hobbling away, but when she rushed, he turned and flung something from his pocket into her eyes. It stung like fire—some poison he’d been saving for just such a moment as this. Her vision filled with uninvited tears. She had been calm so far; now the old primordial rage rose up in her, the fury of the animal against the wounding world. She roared and ran at him. By memory rather than sight she found the place where she had stabbed him and she kicked him there with all her might. He groaned and coughed and doubled over in pain.
He was on the ground now. The burning was spreading across her eyes; wiping it with her hand only made it worse. She kicked Fitchin again in the same spot, but he caught her leg and pulled her down with him. Scrabbling. Trying to see where he was. He came with mud in his hand and tried to push it in her good eye, blind her completely. She roared and punched his head. Got on top of him again. All she could see was watery light but that was enough when she felt his body under her and hit his face with all her might, left and right and left again, beating her knuckles raw against his skull.
“Yield!” she said.
Fitchin gave no reply. She blinked grit and water from her eyes. His right hand was slithering out, trying to reach a dagger that had fallen nearby. She snatched it up before he could get it and stabbed down into the back of his hand.
“Yield!”
Still there was no reply. She hit him and hit him. His face was a slurry of mud and blood. Her thigh, pressed against his flank, could feel warm blood pouring out there and soaking her clothes.
She could have done more, would have done more, but her eyes were burning too bad. No discipline held against that root of pain. She had to get up. When she did, Fitchin rolled onto his chest and tried to crawl. He spat and little white teeth fell from his mouth. Brywna stomped once on his back and he lay still.
No more delay said her eyes. She scurried to the channel and splashed filthy water all over her face, rubbed and rubbed until the worst of it was gone. She could see again, shittily. The rest of the world appeared like the return of a mirage: the trees, the birds, the Sparrows friend and foe all staring at her. Fitchin was starting to crawl again. She went back toward him.
“Fitchin, for gods’ sakes, yield!” shouted Warlock.
Fitchin drew in a rattling breath, but did not speak.
Brywna took another step. Then Warlock ran out. In her blood-mind she was ready to fight him too, sizing up how he would attack. But he was only going to Fitchin’s side. He knelt down and spoke magic words, new ones Brywna didn’t recognise. Fitchin gave a gruesome gasp as though air had been thrust forcefully into his lungs.
“Alright, Brywna,” Warlock said. “You’ve won. You’ve won, damn you, are you happy now?”
“Not in the slightest,” she said.
She went and got her sword. Then she turned toward the big old tree where the Princess was waiting.
Fitchin’s Sparrows still stood protectively in front of her. As Brywna advanced, she waved a limp hand: move aside. With drawn faces, they obeyed. The bodies parted and the Princess was revealed.
Somewhere Tarwin was shouting. “So you’ll just stand there and let her by? What’s wrong with you? Cowards! You’re all cowards!”
Mulefire growled: “Shut up, Tarwin!”
“I won’t!”
The kid rushed at her from behind. He had a workman’s knife in his hand. Brywna caught his wrist as he thrust, pulled him in, and slammed her forehead against his nose. He went down and didn’t get up.
And then there was the girl herself. Brywna knew she would put up a fight. Back on the Barge, a hundred years ago, Warlock and Spinney had boasted about how good their Remiya was with a blade. She did indeed have good form, but her will was already broken. The sword trembled in her hand, and tears crowded at her eyes.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “Please, don’t—”
Brywna struck the blade from her hand.
The Princess turned and tried to run. Brywna grabbed, trying to get a hold of her wrist, but somehow instead she caught the girl’s hair. The Princess sank to her knees.
“Please! I don’t want to go! I don’t want it!” Shrieking insensible she writhed in Brywna’s grasp but could not escape.
Brywna looked across the clearing at her Sparrows. Almost all of them had turned their faces away.
Like a bowl overflowing, or a canal bursting its banks, she gave way. Her hand fell loose from the Princess’s hair. Her knees sagged and she fell to the ground. Misery and miracle, she could not do it after all.
The words rose up from deep inside her:
“I yield!”
All the Sparrows stared. Brywna was gasping for breath.
“I yield to Fitchin. He’s the winner of the duel.”
Fitchin, a bloody ruin in the dirt, croaked out: “Can’t… dereliction…”
“I’ve failed as a Sparrow and betrayed my commission,” Brywna went on. “By Article XI of the Charter, this is grounds for expulsion from the Company. I forgo my right to a trial, and resign immediately.”
Cool water flowed from her lips, her neck. The pain of her wounds sang out clear as diamonds.
Her side of the Sparrows were still staring silently. “Didn’t you hear me?” Brywna yelled. “I lost. You need to quit the field.”
“No!” Fitchin, incredibly, pushed himself up on one arm. “This is… gross perversion… of the Charter. You are the victor.”
A grim yet awkward silence came over the Sparrows. It was punctuated only by the Princess’s low sobs, and Tarwin’s groans as he struggled back from unconsciousness. Luscarl beckoned the other Rain House Sparrows to circle around him. They spoke in low voices for two or three minutes. Then Luscarl stepped forward.
“We accept the outcome of the duel. Fitchin is the victor—”
“No!” Fitchin said again, but Luscarl kept speaking: “Brywna Madon has betrayed her duty as a Sparrow. She’s abandoned her commission with extreme dereliction of duty. She is banished from the Company. No Sparrow may offer her succour, or share her fire, so long as she lives.”
That was from the Charter too, of course. They’d only pronounced banishment twice before in the Company’s whole history; both times it had been the Commander who did the honours. Brywna thought Luscarl did a good job of it, though.
The defeated side of the Company sheathed their weapons. Then they marched on, past their fellows, through the forest, to the narrow track that led up out of the valley.
The birds, who were perched all around, did not seem to understand what had happened at first. Then a great wind spread through their wings and they took to the sky, uttering harsh cries. Brywna ducked her head, afraid of what might happen next. But the Swan Princess stood up and cried something into the centre of the maelstrom. It was no tongue Brywna knew. But whatever she said, it caused the birds to rise and disperse into the endless sky.
Spinney and the Cutter were loading Fitchin onto a makeshift stretcher. He looked in a bad way. They set the rainbird nest at his head, and perhaps he craned his neck a little toward the sound of chicks’ helpless cries.
The rest of the Sparrows gathered up their packs. Warlock threw a dry cloak over the Princess. Fingers and Yevinbow picked stray coins from the mud. A couple of them glanced at Brywna, but none spoke. The rules still held; had to still hold, or else the Company would be over, and everything she had done would be for nothing.
They headed out, back down the valley the way they had come. Brywna was left alone.
PART IV
46
CRESCENT GAP
Ginger woke first among her siblings. They were all in the back of the cart together, limbs tangled like they were kids again. She slipped out through the curtain into a strange new silence. It was the sound of no rain.
The camp at Crescent Gap was awake already. No doubt many had never slept. The air was full with cocks’ crowing, goats’ bleating, murmured voices around cookfires. There were people weeping, too—now and then the high inconsolable shriek of an old woman or a child—but far less than there had been. The people had exhausted their grief. In the night they had wept, screamed, torn their hair. They had fought one another. They had prayed. Now it was all gone out of them, for a little while at least. The stuff of mere life intruded again. There was work to be done: latrines dug, meals cooked, babies swaddled. The sun was out, and women were stringing up clotheslines from every available tree.
The camp spread out half a mile along the shore of the new lake. Perhaps five hundred tents, carts and tarpaulins were crowded on the narrow verge between water and stone. The rescued supplies took half as much room again: big piles of crates, cloth sacks, and vegetables loose on the ground. Then there were the goats and sheep staked out, the horses and cattle in their pens. All crushed together on earth long churned to mud.
Ginger rekindled the fire and put on water to boil. Her mind only had room for practical thoughts: tea, breakfast, a wash. She had always been that way, even as a child. On the day her mother died she could remember thinking: I must open the sluices tonight. Father will forget.
The others came out of the cart one by one: first Eve, then Margareta and Amberlin. Pelomeda and Emwort slept on. No-one saw a need to wake them.
Twice before breakfast someone came and asked if they needed help with anything, if they were injured or lacking food. That was going on all over. Had been going on, in fact, even at the height of the weeping, the darkest hour of the night. In sorrow the people cleaved together. Now landowners and tenant farmers squatted around the same fires, and the grey robes of indentures flapped from the same washing lines as Rain House surplices.
