Corambis (2 page)

“Big fucking mountains,” he’d said about the Perblanches. “You can’t miss ’em.”
And, well, he was right about that. It’d taken me a couple days even to understand how big they were. I mean, you got to understand, I’d never
seen
mountains before, although I knew stories about them, bunches of ’em. But I’d always just sort of thought, okay, big hills. And that was wrong. That was completely fucking wrong. The Perblanches were
not
big hills. They were big fucking mountains, and if I ever met that mercenary again, I was buying him a beer. So we’d got to ’em,and then we’d got over ’em, and now we were coming down the other side, and that was how we’d ended up here with this river and no way across it except the hard way. It wasn’t as wide as the Sim, but it was deep, and the rocks that stuck up and made it look like maybe we could get across were all uneven and not nearly big enough for comfort and even from here you could see they were slippery as fuck. Back in Maugery, the last decent- sized town before the mountains smacked you down on your ass and laughed at you, I’d traded both our horses for a mule. I’d been glad of it more than once, and I was glad of it now. She’d already shown as how she was part cat, and I figured I could trust her to get across without breaking a leg if there was any way in the world it could be done at all. Which was more than I was sure I could say about me.
I glanced at Felix again, pushing my luck, but he was staring at the river like he’d never seen one before. He had a thing about deep water, most especially the Sim, and I couldn’t tell if the St. Grainne was flipping him out or if he was even seeing it.
Powers and saints, I hated the fuck out of this.
My heart was going too fast, and my mouth was dry. It took me two tries to get my voice working: “Felix?”
Wherever he was, it was a long ways off. I stood there and watched how much it hurt him to come back. “What is it
now
?” he said, kind of snarling, like this wasn’t the first time I’d said a word to him all fucking day. And, you know, all at once I’d had enough. I mean, I was sorry Gideon was dead and I was sorry Felix had gotten exiled and his life had gone to shit, but none of it was my fault. I was doing my best here, even if it wasn’t good enough, and my life was also pretty lousy right at the moment, not that he cared or had even fucking noticed.
“Nothing,” I said, snarling back. “Absolutely fucking
nothing
. You go on and be as nasty as you like, but I ain’t putting up with it no more. Come on, Rosamund.” And me and the mule started across the river. I didn’t look at Felix because I didn’t want to know. I was
done
.
About like I’d figured, the mule didn’t have no trouble at all, aside from a couple of rocks that tilted and splashed her, which she didn’t care for. Me,
I didn’t have it nearly so good. I’d been doing a lot better with my leg. I was using Jashuki, the cane Rinaldo’d given me, doing like he’d said and remembering I was lame. And okay, maybe I wasn’t going to win no races except against a bunch of other crips, but my leg was stronger. On the other hand, it wasn’t what you might call reliable, and this was exactly the sort of thing
I shouldn’t be trying to do with it. There was a point about two- thirds of the way across where I thought I was going to stick fast and that was going to be it.
“Mildmay!”
Well glory to the powers, he actually remembered my fucking name.
“What?”

Pause. “Nothing. Just . . . be careful.” Which was probably the nicest thing he’d said to me in three months.
“You got it,” I said, and powers and saints, I was pathetic. Because it helped. All at once, I saw what to do so I wasn’t stuck after all. When I finally made it to the bank and could turn around, Felix had started across. He looked pretty sick about it. I wondered about asking if he needed some help, but then I imagined how he’d say,
And just what do you think
you
can do?
and I kept my mouth shut. I may be slow, but I ain’t a martyr going around asking to be kicked.
Felix got stuck at the same place I’d got stuck, and he was looking sicker and sicker. And maybe I was more a martyr than I wanted to think, because I opened my fool mouth and said, “You doing okay?”
I braced myself for him to take my head off, but he didn’t. He was quiet a moment and then he said, “Not really. I think the stone under my left foot is working loose.”
“And you ain’t moved off it because . . .”
“Because I don’t see any place to move
to
,” he said through his teeth.
“Okay. Just hang on. I’m coming out—”
“Don’t be an idiot. There’s no point in having both of us drown.”
“Yeah, but I can swim,” I said, edging back out onto the rocks. “So maybe neither of us has to drown. Which I’d be okay with.”
He made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You’re damnably pigheaded.”
“And you ain’t?”
“Point,” he said. “Mildmay, please don’t come any closer. I don’t want to . . . that is, I don’t think I can . . .” And then it was too late. I was close enough that I
saw
the rock tilt out from under him, and I saw a couple of ways I could maybe’ve saved myself if it’d been me, but it wasn’t me, it was Felix, and he didn’t have a chance. He went into the river with a splash that soaked me clear to the bone.
Which was just as well, because the next second I went in after him, same way I’d done under Klepsydra. Because I knew just exactly how much Felix couldn’t swim.
And may Kethe preserve me from ever doing anything so fucking stupid ever again. Because
fuck
the water was cold, and my clothes were pulling me down and my hair was in my eyes and my bad leg was fixing to cramp just based on how
fucking cold
the water was. I thrashed after Felix and got a handful of his shirt collar just in time to drag him off smashing his skull open on a rock the size of a pumpkin. We both went under, and another rock got me hard across the back, hard enough I got a lungful of river water I really didn’t want. So it was maybe half a minute before I could get myself sorted out, and that was when I realized Felix wasn’t fighting— not me, not the river— and that was so fucking wrong, I thought for a second he had to be dead. I got myself braced somehow, anyhow, I didn’t care, and hauled him up, a handful of hair and a handful of shirt. His eyes were closed, but I could see he was breathing, so that was okay, and then he said, not opening his eyes or nothing, “You should let me drown,” and I just completely lost my shit.
I don’t even know what I said— well, okay, what I yelled, top of my lungs, coughing and getting another breath and yelling some more, too fucking mad to stop, because it was either get the words out— all them horrible ugly words that I didn’t even mean— or beat the shit out of him. Which I could do, but it wouldn’t fucking help. Not with anything. But powers and saints, I wanted to, wanted to so bad it wasn’t just the cold making me shake.
And then he was saying, “Mildmay, stop. Please.” And instead of me holding him up, it was the other way around. “Please. I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you fucking did,” I said, but I finally calmed down enough to get a real breath. Which hurt like swallowing knives, and after that I just kind of leaned on Felix for a minute, even though I was still pissed at him. Then he sighed, a deep sigh almost like a shudder, and said, “Let’s not take root here.”
We dragged each other up onto the bank, and then we just lay there awhile until Rosamund the mule found us and came to chew on my hair. “Back off, lady,” I said, but I got up to dig through our stuff for dry clothes.
Felix, sitting and watching me, said, “Do you know the legend of St. Grainne?”
“Nope. You?”
“I feel certain she drowned saving the life of something stupid— a small child or possibly a sheep.”
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer that. I tried, “I don’t think they make you a saint for saving a sheep.”
And for the first time in forever, it wasn’t the wrong thing to say. He kind of grinned and said, “They do if it’s stupid enough,” and I knew it was his way of saying thanks.
So we changed clothes and got going again, and we didn’t say nothing about the fit I’d pitched, and we didn’t say nothing about why I’d pitched it, neither. But I thought Felix seemed more
there
, like maybe, ugly as it was, it was something he’d needed to know. That I cared enough to pitch a fit.

I had fallen into darkness, and into darkness I awoke. I sat up slowly, raised my hand to my face; my fingers were shaking. Although I felt the crusted stickiness of dried blood in my hair and on my face, none of it seemed to be mine; was nothing obstructing my eyes. The lanterns had gone out, then. I was bitterly cold, and the reek of fresh blood was clogging my throat. I shoved my knuckles against my teeth, bit down hard.

I knew not which way I faced, could not remember where the door was. Even if I had, what point was there in moving? The hope of the descent of Hume was dead. We had already lost the war, save for this desperate chance. This desperate failure. Benallery was dead, and Robert Easton. Gerrard had slaughtered all our best generals along with himself.

Except, it seemed, for me. The thought was a bitter mockery. Was I now to raise Gerrard’s banner and fight on for the honor of his infant son? Lead Caloxa into more death, more destruction? Would be for naught an I did, except that I could bring more men down with me, and surely that of all things was the one I did not need. An I wished to die, were quicker ways. Quicker and less cruel. I almost reached for my sword in that moment, but another thought stayed me, and I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. Blessed Lady, give me strength— someone had to inform the margraves and soldiers waiting in Howrack that Prince Gerrard Hume was dead, that the war was over and we had lost.

And was no one for that task save I.
I groped for my coraline. Did not require light to say the five stations of the meditation for the Lady, and I needed the clarity, the strength, the bulwark against the darkness and the blood.
I had reached the third station—
Lady of the gentle hands, of the patient weaving
— when I heard noises.
My first nightmare was that the engine was waking again, but a moment’s breath- held tension reassured me on that head. Were living noises, footsteps and voices; the chink and clatter of metal came from swords and armor, not the engine’s deathly arms.
Some of the margraves must have chosen not to wait.
They would have lanterns; although I had no desire to see the chamber of the engine, I could not help straining for the first hint of light. But was nothing and nothing, although the noises got louder, and I remembered the way the light had swelled and flowered with the approach of each of my friends. And then in the darkness, were voices— clear and plain and Corambin.
“Strewth, the smell!”“What did they do, butcher an entire flock?”“Oh.” “Oh blessed Lady . . .” Someone was vomiting. And still was no light. I got to my feet, desperately, madly hoping for some change, some lessening of the blackness, some glimmer of light, a flash, a crack.
Nothing. Was nothing.
“Holy fuck! Someone’s alive in there!”
Soldiers. Common Corambin soldiers. And I was blind. I remembered the searing light from the heart of the engine. Maybe was but temporary then, a light- dazzlement such as men suffered in a snowfield on bright days. Even as I tried to comfort myself, I knew I lied.
“You! Who are you?” A commander’s voice, high- pitched, a little nasal, but unmistakably upper class. I could not tell where he stood; the echoes of the engine’s chamber bewildered me. “Do not draw your sword! Tell me who you are and what in the Lady’s blessed name has happened here!”
An I drew my sword, would but be to fall on it. “I am the Margrave of Rothmarlin,” said I, my voice harsh, grating almost to nothing on the last word. “And what has happened here is a catastrophe.”
“Rothmarlin.” Was a muttering among the soldiers that I could not hear clearly and did not try to. “Where is the Recusant?”
“Prince Gerrard is here. He is dead.” Appalled, I heard myself continue: “They are all dead.”
“All?”
“All save me.”
“And how did you survive?” He sounded suspicious, and I could not blame him.
“Ill fortune.”
More muttering. Would they kill me now, cut me down where I stood? Certainly was what I deserved.
The commander said, “My lord of Rothmarlin, I must ask you to surrender.”
“You think you cannot defeat me?” Perhaps he had not yet realized that I was blind, but was only one exit from this room, and he had at least six men with him. The stories told about me were varied and wild— Gerrard had delighted in them— but not even the most gullible Corambin could possibly believe I was capable of fighting my way out of this killing pen.
“To end the Insurgence,” said the commander. “If the Recusant is dead, and you alone of his commanders remain alive, then you must surrender your army.”
Lady, blessed Lady, do you see me still? “They must be granted amnesty,” I said.
“Amnesty for traitors?”
“They did but follow their margraves. We may be traitors to your Convocation, but they are not. Grant them amnesty and let them go. They will not rise again. I swear it.”
“You will surrender your person,” the commander said flatly.
I clenched my hands until my nails bit into my palms. “You will grant the pardon?”
“The margraves must present themselves for judgment.”
Exculpating the common soldiers indicted the margraves. But we at least deserved it. We had chosen rebellion and commanded our liegemen to serve us. They had been caught between betrayal and betrayal and had chosen as best they could in their loyalty to their margraves and their love of Prince Gerrard.
Who was dead.
“Yes,” said I. “We must be judged. I grant this. But the common soldiers will be pardoned?”
“Yes.”
“Then I surrender my person to you— I regret I do not know who you are.”
“No, since you will not face me. Are we northermen so far beneath your regard, my lord of Rothmarlin?”
“I cry your mercy. I cannot . . . I do not . . .” I heard my own rasping inhale, as a breath wanting to be a scream. “I am blind.”
The Corambins were perfectly silent for a moment; I tried not to imagine them staring at me. Then their commander said, “I am the Duke of Glimmering, and I accept your surrender.” Curtly, to his men, “Take him.”
They came at me from just behind my right shoulder. I held still as best I could, but they were not satisfied until they had borne me to the cold stones of the floor and bound my hands behind me. My sword was wrenched from its scabbard, and hard fingers wrested my signet from my unresisting hand.
I bit a cry back to a grunt as a hand fisted in my hair and dragged my head to the side. Heat near my face, too near, and I tried to pull back but could not.
“He’s blind right enough, Your Grace.”
“Good,” said the Duke of Glimmering. “Then bring him. We have a war to end.”