9
TOM TORE THROUGH THE BRANCHES of the line of trees
over the river, his heart thundering in his chest, his breath
harsh, his lungs aching. Something raked across his face, slicing
open his cheek, the pain stinging; but he didn’t stop, didn’t even
stumble. All he could think about was Ana.
And the corpses of
the previous expedition, lying discarded on the plains,
forgotten.
He leaped over a bent
sapling, heard Arten and the rest plowing through the trees on
either side. As soon as they’d heard the scream, Arten and Tom had
bolted for the tree line, Aeren and the Alvritshai spinning in that
direction, their arrows suddenly nocked and raised. Colin and Karen
had stood stunned, Walter and Jackson as well, but then both the
Proprietor and the Company man had kicked their horses into motion,
surging toward the trees, outdistancing Tom and Arten in a
heartbeat. Tom had heard Colin shout, knew that he and Karen were
charging after them and silently willed Colin to stay with the
burned out wagons. But he knew Colin wouldn’t, knew Karen wouldn’t
stay behind either. Part of him cursed them for their youth, but
another part surged with pride.
He crashed through
the edge of the trees and stumbled out into the brush and grass at
its edge, his breath tearing at his lungs. Arten spilled from the
trees to the right, his sword already drawn, the Alvritshai
emerging smoothly farther away. Clutching the sudden sharp pain in
his side, Tom swallowed and spun to the left.
Walter and Jackson
were galloping toward their wagons, their horses’ hooves throwing
up clods of dirt in their wake. And beyond them—
Tom’s heart faltered
in his chest. From fear, but also from startled shock.
The wagon train was
under attack. A group of the short, vicious-looking men that Aeren
had called the dwarren launched a rain of arrows and spears toward
where the wagons had tried to circle for protection, maybe twenty
of the dwarren in all. But it took a moment for Tom to grasp what
was actually happening, for him to sort out the chaos.
Because the dwarren
weren’t attacking on foot. They were riding the gaezels. As if they
were horses.
He turned to see
Arten gazing toward the scene with wild eyes. Before either of them
shook themselves out of it, Colin and Karen burst from the tree
line.
“What’s happening?”
Colin shouted. “What’s going on?”
“The dwarren are
attacking the wagon train,” Arten said, Colin’s appearance snapping
him out of his shock. He strode toward Tom, reached down and drew a
knife from a sheath in his boot and handed it to him. “Here. I
don’t have another one for you, Colin.”
Colin—breath rasping
in his chest, eyes fixed on the group of dwarren astride their
gaezels—fumbled in a pocket, drawing out the tightly wound sling
Tom had given him what seemed like an eternity ago. “That’s all
right,” he said. “I have this.”
“And I have this,”
Karen said, opening her hand to reveal a small but sharp knife used
for eating.
Behind them all, the
Alvritshai had halted, were hesitating, Aeren watching Tom, Arten,
and Colin, waiting to see what they would do. Aeren’s escort kept
their eyes on the fight at the wagons, faces taut. Their bodies
strained forward, but they held themselves in check.
A man cried out, and
Tom spun back, saw someone fall to the ground, a spear jutting from
his chest.
He took Arten’s knife
grimly. “Karen, stay close to Colin. And Colin, for Diermani’s
sake, and your mother’s, stay as far back from the fighting as you
can.”
Without waiting for a
response, he and Arten ran forward, toward the front of the
fighting. The dwarren had made another pass and were now circling
back, pulling their gaezels sharply to the left, using the beasts’
horns as reins, the deer snorting. They were fast, turned tight,
tighter than horses. Tom saw Walter and Jackson lunging after them
with the much larger horses, swords gleaming in the sunlight. They
were joined by three other men on horseback, Armory it looked like.
Two women had rushed out to the grass in front of the haphazardly
circled wagons as soon as the dwarren banked away, were dragging
the man Tom had seen fall back behind the wagons, one on each arm,
the spear jutting from his chest rocking back and forth as they
moved the body. He could see Lyda gazing out of the back of one of
the wagons, eyes wide in terror, hand on her swollen stomach, her
other arm around one of the children, three more terrified faces
cowering behind her—
And then he saw Paul,
the bulky smith roaring something unintelligible after the
dwarren’s backs, a heavy ax thrust into the air.
“Paul!” Tom shouted,
veering toward the smith.
Three more men took
up the roar on either side of him, one of them bellowing, “Come
back, you bloody bastards!”
“Paul!”
The smith turned, his
face red with rage. “Tom! We thought—”
“What happened?” Tom
gasped, coming to a halt.
“They came out of
nowhere, as if they just popped up out of the grass, like fucking
prairie dogs. We didn’t have any warning at all. Thank Diermani
we’d already begun to draw the wagons into a circle to make camp.
Sam saw them just before they hit us with the first pass. They’re
riding those fucking deer!”
“I saw.” Tom
swallowed, trying to catch his breath. He scanned the men nearest,
the rest of the Armory, others from Lean-to with swords or pikes or
knives. A few were brandishing hoes and spades, one an ax like
Paul’s.
“They’re fast,” one
of the men said. “Those deer can outrun our horses.”
He motioned to the
plains, where Tom could see that the dwarren had outdistanced
Walter and his cavalry.
He frowned. Walter
had led the horses too far out.
Even as he thought
it, the dwarren suddenly turned, swinging around, heading back
toward the wagons, leaving Walter and his men behind as their
gaezels picked up speed.
Someone swore, the
words bitter.
“They’re coming
back,” Arten barked. He spun. “Get as many of the horses behind the
wagons as possible! Find cover! We can’t fight them with swords,
not when they’re using spears and arrows.”
Men scrambled, a few
breaking away to unhitch the exposed horses, not bothering to undo
the harness, simply cutting it free, trying to calm the horses as
they worked. One of the horses panicked and bolted as it was freed,
men yelling and cursing, one of the younger men racing after it.
Tom shoved the nearest men toward the wagons, including the priest
Domonic, yelled at those inside who were leaning out to see to get
back. He saw Colin and Karen duck behind the closest wagon, Colin
scooping something up from the ground, and felt a surge of relief,
but he had yet to see Ana. Heart in his throat, the sound of the
gaezels’ hooves growing louder, he waved the rest of the men behind
the wagons as well, then turned.
In time to see the
horse that had bolted and the man who’d raced after it fall, both
riddled with dwarren arrows. The ground shook as the dwarren
converged. Tom watched the lead dwarren as he brought the gaezel in
for a sweep across the length of the wagons, parallel to the trees
above the river, saw the man’s face contorted with rage, the
braided locks of his black and gray beard bouncing against his
chest as he raised his spear. His eyes were gray in color but black
with hate. Three chains fell across his cheek from pierced nose to
ear, gold in the light, and he wore armor, a leather vest across
his thick chest, scored with marks from previous
battles.
The dwarren saw Tom.
He kicked the gaezel he rode hard, driving it forward. Tom stepped
back, felt the shadow of the wagon at his side fall across him. The
dwarren warrior’s face twisted into a sneer and he leaned back,
spear arm extended, the muscles in his arm flexing—
Then he
threw.
Tom felt hands grab
his shirt and haul him behind the wagon, the spear whistling as it
cut through the air and sank into the ground just inside the
makeshift camp, near where a group of men who’d rescued the horses
were trying to tether them to one of the wagons closest to the
trees. And then the dwarren were thundering past. A rough shout
rang out, the voice deep, almost a growl, in a language that was
not Andovan nor Alvritshai, but more guttural and harsh, and Tom
heard the gaezels being pulled to a halt.
“They’re
dismounting!” Domonic barked, pointing beneath the
wagon.
Tom crouched down,
saw the lithe legs of the gaezels milling about thirty paces from
the wagons. “Wait!” Tom barked to the men who were already readying
to charge out onto the grass. “They aren’t all dismounting, only a
few of them.”
Low murmurs arose,
tight with fear.
Tom glanced over
toward the next wagon and saw Arten huddled with another group of
men, looked over his shoulder and saw Colin and Karen with a few
others on the other side. He didn’t see the Alvritshai anywhere,
wasn’t even certain they’d followed them in their mad dash for the
wagons.
“What are they
doing?” Domonic whispered.
Tom ducked back down
to peer under the wagon. The few dwarren who’d dismounted were
walking around near the edge of the rest of the gaezels. He
couldn’t see above the men’s waists, but occasionally a box on a
chain swung into view, sort of like a lantern, then was raised, as
if those still astride the gaezels were taking something from
it.
Tom frowned. A breeze
gusted beneath the wagon, and he caught the faint scent of
smoke.
He thought suddenly
of the wagons that Aeren had shown them, and he sucked in a sharp
breath.
Before he could turn,
he heard a crack as something struck the side of a wagon and
shattered. Liquid splattered down from the bottom of the
wagon—
Followed by the
unmistakable whomph of flames catching in oil.
“They’re firing the
wagons!” he shouted, stepping back from the edge of the wagon he
huddled against, thinking of Lyda’s face and all of the children
huddled around her as he’d charged toward the wagons earlier. “Get
out of the wagons! Get everyone out now!”
He began working
frantically at the ties that held the hides to the strakes, using
the knife Arten had given him. He could hear those inside begin to
move around restlessly, crying out. The scent of smoke became
suddenly sharper, a thin trail marring the blue sky
overhead.
More cracks and thuds
as more arrows struck, and Tom swore, cursing the leather thongs
that held the hides tight, so tight his blade couldn’t get up
underneath them. His fingers cramped and he licked his lips, tasted
blood from the slash across his cheek. Sweat broke out across his
chest, his back.
Inside the wagon,
someone screamed, and the suddenly restless sounds became a panic.
The wagon shook. Someone cried out, trying to keep the children
calm, a woman’s voice.
“Don’t come out the
back!” Tom barked. “They’re waiting—”
But someone leaned
out of the back of the wagon. Tom felt the wagon shift as they
moved, heard the sickening chunk of an arrow hitting flesh. A
body—a woman’s body, Clara, her face stark, eyes dead, facing Tom
almost accusingly—hit the ground with a horrifying rustling sound,
and the wagon shifted back.
Fresh screams escaped
from the wagon, and everyone inside rushed away from the back
entrance. Tom’s dagger slid beneath the first set of ties, cut
through them with a jerk, and he cried out as wisps of smoke
escaped through the opening.
“Arten!” he bellowed,
his voice cracking. He gasped in desperation as he moved
frantically to the next set of ties. All around, understanding
dawned and men leaped forward with their own knives, began sawing
at the hide, not bothering with the ties. “Arten! Sam!
Anyone!”
“Those of you with
weapons,” Arten bellowed, “come with me! We’ll have to charge them,
give those inside the wagons a chance to get out.”
Tom didn’t turn,
heard feet gathering behind him, heard Arten barking orders,
dividing the men up, and then he heard all of them roar, saw them
charging out from behind the wagons out of the corner of his eyes,
an acrid taste filling his mouth as he heard the sudden twang of
more than a few bowstrings, the screams that followed, breaking the
roar of the charge—
Followed instantly by
another roar coming from the other direction and the thundering of
horses’ hooves.
Walter, he thought, grinning in spite of himself,
in spite of all the pain that Walter had put him and his family
through.
The hide was tough.
As he sliced through it, a small hand suddenly emerged through the
hole and grabbed his wrist. He cried out, startled, then gasped,
“We’re coming!” and shook the hand free. He continued to whisper,
“We’re coming, we’re coming,” under his breath as he worked. To his
right, men shouted in triumph, and he risked a quick glance, saw
children spilling out of a hole in the nearest wagon along with
white-gray smoke. The women inside practically threw them out,
motions controlled but still frantic.
And then the last of
the hide succumbed to his knife and he ripped the flap aside, a
small boy already half outside, his face streaked with tears, eyes
wide open in terror. His shirt rucked up to his arm as it caught on
the edge of the wagon, tore as he slid free and fell to the ground,
and then a girl’s face appeared, coughing harshly. Domonic was
suddenly at Tom’s side, reaching forward to haul the girl out and
the next, more openings appearing on either side, the smoke coming
out thicker and blacker as they worked. Tom shot a glance under the
wagon, saw a scramble of feet—men, dwarren, horses, and
gaezels—heard shouts and commands, roars of pain. Someone fell,
hand clutching an arrow embedded in his shoulder, and then Tom
grabbed the nearest man and hauled him close. “Take the hide! Hold
it!”
As soon as the man
took the flap, Tom darted to the edge of the wagon and looked out
onto the fight before the wagons.
As he watched, Walter
swung his sword in a loose arc, more brute force than skill, and
cut into the spear the dwarren used to block the blow. Both
maneuvered their animals around, the gaezel dancing out of the much
larger horse’s way. Walter pressed his horse’s advantage, swinging
again and again, the haft of the dwarren’s spear shattering on the
last blow, Walter’s sword cutting down into the dwarren’s forearm.
The man roared, blood flowing down his arm to his elbow, and kicked
his gaezel away from the battle.
Walter wheeled his
mount toward where Arten and a group of the expedition’s men were
surrounded, the dwarren circling their gaezels around the group,
continuously moving. Arten watched warily for an opening, while the
others tried to cut into the dwarren’s flanks. Walter charged the
dwarren line, Jackson and the three other Armory men on horses
already engaged with the outskirts of the group.
As soon as Walter
struck, the dwarren turning to meet his charge, Arten ducked in
behind them and cut two of the dwarren down from behind. One of the
animals screamed—the same haunting, grating scream they’d made when
Tom’s group had hunted them before—as Arten’s sword cut a gash in
its side. It bolted for the plains, a few of its brethren following
suit with snorts. The rest of the men with Arten closed
in.
But they were
outnumbered, even with the dwarren they’d already killed, even with
Walter and the others on horseback. Only those from the Armory were
true fighters. The rest were farmers or tradesmen, unskilled with
weapons, even Walter and Jackson.
Tom shot a glance to
either side behind the wagons, but everyone was occupied trying to
get the last of the women out of the burning wagons, even Colin,
Karen still sawing at the hides on her side with her thin eating
knife. Black smoke gusted into Tom’s face and he coughed, covered
his mouth with one hand, and turned back—
To see a dwarren
raise his spear at Arten’s back. The commander’s attention was on
the dwarren before him, fending off that man’s thrusts. He couldn’t
see the dwarren behind him.
Tom drew breath to
shout a warning—
And three arrows
sprouted in the dwarren’s chest with three distinct hissing
thunks.
The dwarren fell back
off of his gaezel with a stunned look on his face. Arten stabbed
his sword forward and pierced the dwarren he fought through the
chest, the blade sliding out freely as he stepped back, and then he
turned, glanced down at the dead dwarren who’d been ready to spear
him from behind, then up.
Tom followed his
gaze.
On the far side of
the burning wagons, Aeren and the rest of the Alvritshai stood,
firing into the fight, their targets the dwarren, their faces calm
and intent. Aeren nodded toward Arten, the gesture somehow formal,
and then turned, drawing an arrow from his quiver and sighting
along it into the melee, releasing it with no change at all in his
expression. Dwarren fell right and left, and with a roaring
command, the gray-eyed dwarren that Tom had watched lead the
charge, who had thrown his spear at Tom as he came, broke away from
the fighting, the rest of the dwarren following suit. They streamed
out onto the plains on their gaezels, half of their number left
behind either dead or dying. Walter and the others on horseback
charged after them for a moment, before finally slowing and turning
back.
Tom watched long
enough to be certain that the dwarren weren’t returning, then spun
back toward the wagons. Pillars of smoke rose into the air, one of
the wagons already a total loss, but the other two—
“Sam! Paul! Get some
blankets or buckets of water! We need to get these fires put out.”
He suddenly remembered the sound of liquid splashing. “Wait! Not
water. They used some type of oil to help the fire catch and
spread. Use sand or dirt instead!”
He heard Sam
shouting, and everyone began scrambling, beating at the flames.
Some of the women rushed to help. As soon as he felt the situation
was under control, Tom turned back toward the plains.
The area in front of
the wagons was littered with bodies—dwarren, gaezels, one horse,
and a few men from the wagon train. He found Arten kneeling at the
side of one of the fallen men, the one that had taken an arrow to
his shoulder, now propped up against one of the dead gaezels. The
man’s breath came in short, hot, huffing gasps, punctuated by moans
as Arten prodded the area around the wound. His shirt was soaked
with blood, from the wound down across his chest to beneath his
arm. His face was pale. He turned pleading eyes on Tom as he
approached.
Arten sat back. “The
arrow’s in deep, Brant, but it missed the lung. I’m afraid that if
we try to pull it out, it will catch on your ribs, or
worse.”
“So what should we
do?” Tom asked, crouching down beside the commander.
“Here.” Arten placed
his hand up under Brant’s armpit, below where the arrow had pierced
his chest. “Feel right here, where my hand is.”
He withdrew his hand,
and Tom slid his in where it had been. Blood coated his fingers,
but he ignored it as he felt where Arten had indicated, frowning.
“What am I—”
But then he
halted.
He could feel
something hard beneath his fingers, beneath Brant’s skin. He pushed
it, barely even moved it, but Brant hissed and jerked away, the end
of the arrow wobbling. His hiss became a harsh cough that he tried
to control, the arrow shaking with every movement.
“That’s the tip of
the arrow,” Arten explained, and Tom shuddered, his stomach
turning. He could still feel it beneath his fingers. “Brant must
have twisted away when the arrow was fired. It hit him in the
chest, at an angle, missing anything vital, but lodging there
beneath his armpit.”
“How do we get it
out?”
“We’ll have to push
it all the way through.”
Tom’s breath caught.
Brant’s did the same.
“You can’t just pull
it out?” Brant gasped weakly. “Or cut it out?”
“The dwarren
arrowheads are shaped with points on the back, like barbs, so that
they’ll do almost as much damage on the way out as on the way in,
especially if they’re jerked free. We could try to withdraw it, but
we’d have to go slow, and we might hit something more vital on the
way out. A good chunk of the shaft is still inside you as well. We
might not cut in the right place for us to pull the shaft out
without angling it and doing more damage. It needs to come straight
out. The best option is to push it through.”
Brant sagged back,
looked up into the blue sky. He muttered a prayer under his breath,
winced in pain, then glanced toward Tom, pleading.
Tom shook his head.
“It’s up to you, Brant. We can do it either way.”
He struggled with
himself a moment, then sighed. “Do it. Push it
through.”
Arten didn’t give him
a chance to change his mind. “Get some clean rags, some wine, a
stick for him to bite on, and some water.”
Tom lurched to his
feet, trotted toward the wagons, noting that the fires had been put
out on two of them, that the third had burned out of control.
Someone had shifted the rest of the wagons away from the one that
still burned.
Aeren and the
Alvritshai were standing off to one side, three of them surveying
the plains, watching, bows ready, the others talking to Aeren in
animated voices, arguing with him. Tom wondered what they were
arguing about—
Then he spotted Ana.
She was climbing out of one of the wagons in the back, the one that
held Tobin. “Ana!” he said, turning to head toward
her.
“Tom! Thank Holy
Diermani!” She crossed herself, hand clutching the pendant beneath
the shirt on her chest, and then Tom was there, kissing her. It was
a brief kiss, fierce and not perfunctory.
“Arten needs some
rags, water, wine, and a stick,” Tom said as soon as it broke. “He
needs to remove an arrow from Brant’s shoulder.”
“Where’s Colin? And
Karen?” she asked, rummaging in the back of the wagon.
“They’re fine. What
about Tobin?”
“He was in one of the
wagons in the back. He’s still feverish, and he tried to get up to
help, but he’s too weak to do more than exhaust himself. Did you
see Miriam?” When Tom shook his head, she continued, while handing
him rags, a thin dowel, and a skin of wine. “She heaved the kids
out of the burning wagon—the one we lost—then started throwing out
whatever supplies from inside she could get her hands on. She
stayed inside a little too long and got burned.”
“How
bad?”
“Not bad enough to
fret over. She’s more concerned about the hair she singed off.” She
rolled her eyes. “Now go. I’ll send someone with a bucket of
water.”
Tom hesitated, the
shock of everything that had happened starting to seep in. He felt
his body trembling, tasted bile at the back of his throat because
he knew that there were more than a few people dead. He’d seen
their bodies on the grass.
Ana gripped his arm,
her face stern. “Tom. We don’t have time. Brant doesn’t have
time.”
Tom sucked in a large
breath, noisily, swallowed the acrid taste in his mouth, and turned
without a word. As he jogged across the remains of the camp between
the wagons, horses whinnying and snorting, people dashing to and
fro, or sitting stunned on the grass, he saw Walter on horseback,
grouped together with six other men—three Armory men and three
others—also mounted.
And
armed.
Walter saw Tom
coming, said something, his face black with hatred, with purpose.
The rest nodded.
Then they spun their
horses and charged out across the plains, toward where the dwarren
had fled.
“Walter!” Tom roared,
lurching forward, but Walter ignored him. “Walter, goddamn
it!”
He halted, juggled
the rags and wine in his hand, then spat another curse under his
breath. Walter and the others were nothing but figures in the
distance.
“Tom!”
He turned toward
Arten, dashed forward and spilled the supplies near Brant’s
side.
“Where are Walter and
the others going?” Arten asked.
“I don’t know,” Tom
spat, furious. “They didn’t confer with me before they
left.”
Arten grunted. “Give
me the dowel.” He took the rounded chunk of wood and placed it
between Brant’s teeth. “Bite down on this. It will keep you from
biting your tongue off.”
Brant nodded. Arten
had already ripped the wounded man’s shirt free, exposing the
wound, the shaft of the arrow still protruding from
it.
“What do you want me
to do?” Tom asked.
“Hold him. I’m going
to have to break the fletching off the arrow in order to push it
through, and it’s impossible to do that without moving the arrow.
He’s going to struggle.”
Tom placed his hands
on Brant’s chest. As he did, one of the older children rushed
forward with a bucket of water, the contents sloshing over the side
as he dropped it to the ground near Arten, then stepped back and
crouched down so he could watch.
Arten took the arrow
in both hands, Brant hissing through the stick in his mouth. “On
three,” he said, catching Tom’s gaze in warning. And then, without
counting, he snapped the shaft of the arrow.
Brant screamed and
bucked, throwing Tom off his body and into the grass. Tom heard
Arten curse as he scrambled back to Brant’s side, grabbing hold of
the younger man again. Brant twisted beneath Tom’s and Arten’s
grip, body arched as he tried to roll away from the pain in his
shoulder, but then he collapsed back, his scream dying down into
harsh pants. Sweat and tears streaked his face, and his skin had
turned a ghastly white. He’d bitten so hard into the dowel there
were indentations in the wood. Fresh blood welled from his wound,
thick and viscous. His skin felt hot and feverish beneath Tom’s
hands.
“Now,” Arten said,
his voice unnaturally calm to Tom’s ears, “we need to push it
through. Ron, hold down Brant’s legs.” The commander didn’t even
look as Ron slid in beside Tom and gripped Brant’s legs. Instead,
he looked directly at Brant himself. “I’ll push it through as fast
as I can, but you need to hold still. Once it’s out, I’ll have to
clean the wound and dress it.”
Brant nodded, his
breath harsh as he drew it in and out through his nostrils. Tears
still welled from his eyes, and sweat plastered his hair to his
scalp.
Arten nodded in
return, and both Tom and Ron leaned into Brant’s shoulder and
legs.
“Here we go,” Arten
said.
He took hold of the
shaft of the arrow and pushed.
Brant growled,
whimpered, bit down hard on the dowel, and caught Tom with wide,
haunted, pleading eyes. Tom stared into them, into their warm hazel
depths, and grimly held on as Brant began to shudder. The
whimpering growl grew, escalating toward a scream, and Tom saw
Brant’s eyes begin to dart around in desperation, saw them squeeze
shut, then flare open as Arten did something that interrupted
Brant’s growl with a moaning bark of pure pain—
Then he saw
consciousness flicker in Brant’s eyes, saw it struggle to remain
and then die.
Brant’s body slumped
to the ground, and as it did, Arten slid the splintered end of the
arrow free of the fresh wound beneath Brant’s armpit. Blood gushed
from both cuts, but Arten had already set the arrowhead aside, the
wood stained black. He began cleaning the wounds with the wine and
water, using the rags to stanch the flow. He held the rags tight,
pushing with his weight, and after a long moment withdrew
them.
When new blood welled
up through the cuts, he cursed.
“I’m not a doctor,”
Arten said, pressing the rags down hard again. “But if we can’t get
the blood flow to stop—”
He didn’t need to
finish.
Ron suddenly gasped
and lurched back, tripping over his own feet and falling to the
ground. Tom spun, half standing, then halted.
Aeren stood a few
paces away, Eraeth and another of the Alvritshai flanking him. He
stared down at Brant, then held something toward Tom, murmuring in
his own language. Tom hesitated, then stood and accepted what Aeren
offered.
A small, clear, glass
vial filled with what looked like pinkish water.
Tom looked at Aeren
in consternation, but the Alvritshai motioned toward Brant,
mimicked pouring the water over Brant’s wounds.
Tom returned to
Arten’s side. “He wants us to pour this over the wound,” he said,
as he began to remove the cork from the top of the bottle. It was
sealed with wax, so he used the knife Arten had given him earlier
to break it.
“And you’re going to
use it?”
“We don’t have a
choice. The blood isn’t stopping, and they haven’t given us any
reason to distrust them so far.”
Arten didn’t respond,
but he did pull the rags back from the wound and let Tom dribble
some of the liquid onto the cuts.
Nothing happened at
first, the pinkish water mixing with the blood, diluting it. Arten
shifted, ready to start pressing the already saturated rags against
the wounds again, but Tom halted him. “Look. It’s
stopping.”
The flow of blood had
grown sluggish. Tom poured a little more of the fluid onto the
wounds, held his breath, then exhaled as the bleeding stopped
completely. Both wounds were still there, on the chest and beneath
Brant’s armpit, but they had clotted, and no new blood flowed from
them.
Arten dipped his hand
in the water from the bucket so he could wash the excess blood away
from Brant’s wounds, but Aeren said something, clearly a warning,
and he stopped.
“Maybe the water will
wash away whatever this pink stuff is,” Tom said. He sat back,
stared down at Brant’s slack face. “Bind it. And take him to
Ana.”
Then he stood, noted
with a troubled turn of his stomach that the rest of the Alvritshai
were gone, then stepped toward Aeren and his two guards. “Thank you
for this.” He motioned with the small bottle, tried to hand it
back. There was still liquid in the bottom of it.
Eraeth frowned, said
something with scorn in it, as if he’d been insulted, but Aeren
shook his head. He pushed Tom’s hand back, closing Tom’s fingers
around the bottle. “Keep.”
Tom nodded, and Aeren
turned to survey the surrounding grass.
Where the dead
lay.
Tom swallowed, gaze
flicking from body to body. Flies were already gathering, buzzing
in small clumps around the drying blood, the gaping wounds. He felt
sick, skin flushed, as he counted nine men dead. Ten, counting the
young man who’d foolishly raced after the escaping
horse.
No. Eleven. The man
he’d seen impaled by the spear before he’d even arrived at the
wagons had been dragged into their circle by two of the
women.
And then there was
Clara.
He closed his eyes,
bowed his head a moment to steady himself, then turned his face to
the sky so he could feel the sunlight on his face. He breathed in
the scent of smoke, of blood, of death, but also the grass, the
earth, the trees.
He opened his eyes
when he heard horses pounding toward them, and he saw Walter and
the rest returning, driving their mounts hard. The anger that rose
when he heard them stilled when he saw the panic on Walter’s
face.
“Get everyone on the
wagons,” Walter barked, his mount skidding to a halt before Tom and
Aeren, the other riders not stopping, heading toward the wagons,
shouting for everyone to move. “We have to get out of here. Now. As
fast as possible.”
“What is it? What did
you find?”
“The dwarren.” He
flicked the reins in his hands, his horse skittish. Walter’s gaze
darted across the open plains, searching, not resting on any one
location. “That was only a scouting party,” he said. “They have an
army, headed this way. And from what we saw, they could come at us
from anywhere.”
“How?” Tom asked, his
anger touching his voice. Behind him, he could hear the others
driving the rest of the wagon train into panicked
motion.
Walter held his gaze,
his face as serious as Tom had ever seen it. “Because they live
underground.”
Tom frowned. “Show
me.”
“We must leave them.
You have done enough. They can fend for themselves.”
“As the others did?”
Aeren glared at Eraeth. His Protector’s flat but forceful
statements infuriated him. “No. You saw what happened to the other
wagons, what the dwarren did to them.”
“You approached this
group against my advice. You tried to warn them back, to get them
to return to the lands below the Escarpment, where there is
relative safety from the dwarren and the plains. And when they
would not listen, you led them to the burned wagons and the dead in
hopes that they would return then.”
“The warning came too
late!” Aeren spat. He stepped away from Eraeth and his other
guardsman, ignored the look that passed between the two. He watched
the settlers instead, the group of men racing about, gathering
together a small scouting group while the rest prepared the wagons
for travel. Women were salvaging what they could from the burned
wagon and gathering up the wounded, loading the man that had taken
an arrow in his shoulder into the back of one, some of the smaller
children in the others. He had never seen so many children at once.
Alvritshai children were rare and precious. They certainly would
not have been allowed onto the plains at such a young age. The
robed one, who appeared to be an acolyte of some kind, moved among
them all, parents and children alike, comforting them, leading some
in short prayers while they clutched the strange pendant he wore. A
few were gathering up the dead, laying them together to one
side.
Aeren felt something
dig into his chest at the sight of the bodies. “It came too late,”
he repeated.
Eraeth moved to his
side. “Yes, and you ordered us to help defend them against the
dwarren scouts. But if there are scouts, then the army will not be
far behind. You know they cannot defend themselves against the
dwarren armies, even with our help. And it is doubtful they will be
able to outrun them.”
“Except that the
dwarren army isn’t interested in them.” Aeren turned to Eraeth, saw
his Protector scowl. “The dwarren scouts weren’t looking for these
people, they were looking for their own kind. We’ve stumbled into
one of their tribal wars. If we can determine where the other
dwarren tribes are coming from, perhaps we can elude
them.”
Eraeth’s eyes
narrowed. “You are correct. The dwarren are not interested in the
human wagons. That does not mean we should risk our
lives—Alvritshai lives—for these . . . these savages!”
Aeren’s brow creased
at the venom in Eraeth’s words. He held his Protector’s gaze, then
asked, “When will the other Phalanx members return with news of the
other dwarren’s whereabouts?”
Eraeth hesitated.
“Not for some time.”
“Then we have time to
help them further.”
Anger flared in
Eraeth’s eyes. “No. You have risked yourself and the rest of your
Phalanx already by simply contacting these people, let alone aiding
them against the dwarren. And now you have given them the Blood of
Aielan, the proof of the success of your Trial, all to save one
man’s life? A man you did not even know! You have more than
satisfied your obligation to these people. I refuse to allow you to
continue. You will rejoin the House contingent waiting to the north
and return to Alvritshai lands with us. Immediately.”
Shock coursed through
Aeren at the tone in his Protector’s voice, even as Eraeth turned
away, toward the other Phalanx guardsman. He’d spoken to him as if
he were a child. No, as if he were a student.
But he was no longer
Eraeth’s student.
“Protector!”
His voice cracked
across the grass, loud enough and forceful enough that even the
group of humans paused in their activity. Eraeth stilled, back
stiff, then turned.
Aeren closed the
distance between them in two short steps, stared hard into Eraeth’s
eyes. “I have passed the Trial. I am now a full member of the
House, with all of the rank and privileges and responsibilities
that such entails. And whether you like it or not, these people are
our responsibility. It began when we shared our food and wine with
them. Or had you forgotten? We entered a bond with them then, and I
intend to see that bond fulfilled, for the honor of my
House.”
Eraeth held his gaze,
unflinching, although the anger and defiance in his stance had
abated. Something else flickered there instead—pride,
regret.
Resignation.
He let out a low
breath, then nodded. “Very well.”
The tension in
Aeren’s shoulders relaxed, and he found himself trembling. He
caught the other Phalanx guardsman’s gaze, then turned toward the
group of humans. Tom had stepped forward, concern on his face, but
Aeren motioned him away. Tom hesitated, then returned to the group
of men ready to mount their horses.
“We will help them,”
Aeren said, “for as long as we possibly can.”
Like fucking prairie dogs.
Paul’s words came
back to Tom as he lay on a ridge of ground, Walter, Arten, and
another Armory guardsman to the side. Eraeth had crawled up to the
ridge with them, but Aeren and the other Alvritshai were behind,
hidden from sight in the depression behind the ridge, along with
the horses. Tom hadn’t thought the Alvritshai would be able to keep
up with the horses on foot—and they hadn’t, but they hadn’t been
that far behind them either.
Below, in a large,
flattened portion of the prairie, a hole gaped in the ground, a
cavernous opening that slid into the ground in a gentle incline so
wide it could hold at least three wagons side by side. The opening
was shaded by a huge multicolored tent, the material bent and
twisted around thick poles driven into the ground, the entire
edifice practical but at the same time strangely artistic. The
curves of the tent, which billowed out in the wind from the plains
like sails, flowed from one stretch of cloth to another, the colors
blending into one another, shades of tawny gold and muted blues and
greens. They all seemed to flow to a vivid red center.
The large tent was
surrounded by hundreds of smaller tents. They spread out from the
central tent in a haphazard fashion, as if they weren’t permanent
structures, although none of them were set up before the entrance
to the burrow.
The entire tent city
teemed with dwarren and gaezels. Men charged back and forth from
the entrance to where nearly a thousand others had gathered on the
plains before the burrow, divided into ranks of twenty. Most of
these divisions were on foot, but a few were mounted on gaezels or
held the fleet animals in check to one side.
As Tom watched, a
sickening pit opening up in his stomach, a few more divisions
emerged from the burrow and formed up near the back of the
group.
“Diermani’s balls,”
the Armory guardsman said to one side, his voice low. “There’s more
than a thousand of them now.” At Arten’s glance, he added, “There
were only a few hundred when we were here before.”
“Did they see you?”
Arten asked.
“I don’t know. We
charged up the ridge, following their trail in the grass, but as
soon as we saw them we turned and headed back.”
“Saw,” Eraeth said,
succinctly and with conviction.
Tom and Arten turned
toward him.
Arten grunted. “It
doesn’t matter. Their scouts know we’re there. And it looks like
they’re headed in our direction. Let’s hope Paul and Sam managed to
get the wagons loaded and headed out, although I’m not sure where
we can run.” He frowned. “I don’t see any wagons. Or
women.”
Eraeth grunted and
motioned to the gathered force, the air, the tents, and the ground.
“Dwarren above, wagons below.”
“They supply the army
from belowground?” When Eraeth nodded, Arten said, “Then they must
have more entrances like this.”
“So what do we
do?”
Arten turned to look
at Tom, his face grim. “We run, and hope that they don’t find
us.”
Eraeth slid back from
the ridge, moving to Aeren’s side. Aeren listened to what he had to
say, then instantly turned to the other Alvritshai guard and gave
him orders. The other guard tore out across the plains, heading in
a straight line, but not toward the Andovan wagons. Instead, he
angled slightly away from them, east and north.
“Where’s he going?”
Arten asked.
Tom wondered the same
thing. He began slipping down off the ridge, the rest following.
That hollow pit in his stomach had expanded, and he found he
couldn’t focus on anything. He kept thinking about Ana, about
Colin. He’d dragged them to Portstown, had forced them to stay,
then drafted them into this expedition onto the godforsaken
plains.
“Where are you
going?” Arten asked, as Tom slid into the saddle of his
horse.
“Back to the wagons,”
he said, and heard the roughness in his voice, the rawness. “Back
to my family. It’s the only chance we’ve got.”
He spun the mount and
kicked him toward the east, toward the heat-blurred horizon, not
waiting for the others.