Silver Eve (12 page)

“
Wait
—they've not left.” Why had I not thought of it before? “They're coming back for the stew!”

“Feed them, then be killed.” She swallowed. “I serve my use. Nothing left, ye see. If any village still stands, if anyone comes lookin', it'll be a sign to them—they be next. Maybe they'll know, then, not to fight, an' the soldiers might na burn it all.”

I hardly heard her. “ 'Tis almost dark. Where are the soldiers?”

“Can only be south, in the gully at the river. Not much of a river now, been so dry. But there's water deep enough, an' a cliff high enough ta keep a crowd from escaping.”

“How many?” I asked. “How many soldiers?”

“Thirteen. Three came first, then ten more.” She'd been averting her head, but now she turned to me as if she wanted to study my expression as she said this. “I heard of the slave soldiers before but never did they come fer us like this. A kidnapping here or there—wantin' a strapping boy or girl fer their mines, but now they took all that weren't killed. So greedy! An'
still
they left me!” She smacked her cane against the bubbling pot.

The pot sloshed, making the fire spit. I glanced at the window. “How soon before they return for the stew?”

“It canna be long. See, I told ye ta hurry off!”

“Never mind that,” I said. “We're going to help you; we're going to free your neighbors.”

The old woman snorted. “Ye an' who else? Ye've a sweet face—earnest. I dinna know where yer chased from, but ye best run now or you'll be another prize fer Tyre. Ye canna fight the metal men.” And then she started and gasped, “La!,” her eyes on the doorway where Laurent had slipped in.

“Mistress.” Laurent acknowledged her with a nod and said softly to me, “The boy is at the well. Feet to the water, head to where the moon will rise.”

The old woman could not tear her eyes from him. “Ye know our customs, but 'tis wasted kindness. There be no one to bury poor Ben.”

“We
will
free your neighbors,” I repeated. I knew Laurent looked at me.

“Can ye?” The woman turned to the door, waiting, then back to me. “Is there no one else?” And when I said no, she shook her head. “Even wi' him!” she said. “Him 'n that sword. It's not enough.”

“No,” Laurent agreed. “It is not enough.”

“ 'Tisn't the sword,” I said quickly, looking over at Laurent. He raised a brow but I only smiled. “Hide him,” I told the old woman quickly. “Add the honey and a handful of salt to the stew. Don't let the soldiers take it yet. I'll be right back.” And I was out the door before the Rider had any opportunity to say not to go.

I'd seen some of it growing in one of the wrecked gardens: valerian. And jimson weed I was sure I could find in among the rows of corn. I stayed low, skimming from garden to garden, then into the cornfield, stuffing my skirts with what I could rip from the ground. Valerian, jimson weed, and certainly chamomile, which was an easy find among the trampled grass. Easier, of course, would have been the heliotrope that I'd brought from Merith, but that was a wasted wish. I wondered if Harker had used it. I wondered if he'd found an easy sleep.

The smoke was lifting, but so was night falling. Either way, I was nothing more than a shadow among the ruins, gray and quick. But as I pushed out of the corn, I froze. A steel-clad figure stood at the dim-lit doorway of the old woman's cottage. Did she know? Was the Rider safely stowed?

The old woman came limping out, followed by another soldier. She said something, which I could not hear, and they walked off, silhouettes against the red haze, two of them immense in their thick armor, one stooped over a crutch. Despite the heaved shoulder, the old woman kept her head high. And, crippled or not, it seemed she took extra long in walking—'twas to give me time, I was sure. I watched, touched by her small act of defiance, that maybe she hadn't given up, and yet I could not stop the doubt: to
what
end, this defiance? It was rubble, all of it, and she was alone.

I shook myself, then raced to the cottage, practically falling into Laurent, who met me at the door with drawn sword. He was frowning, ready to lecture, but I pushed him back from the entrance. “What are you doing? They'll be back in a moment.”

He allowed my shove, it barely moved him anyway, but murmured with a none-too-sweet smile, “You expected me to hide while you flit among the ruins?”

I swatted away his concern. “Here, then. Help shred this into the pot.” I shook my skirts so the greens fell to the floor. “Tiny bits. The taste is bitter.”

Our humor was grim. Laurent's hand was close to his sword. This business of waiting went against him. He wanted action, bloody justice against the soldiers. And I was ordering a puny task where broad strokes of the blade would have been more to satisfaction. Still, he bent willingly enough for the weeds, ripping them into small bits, tossing them into the bubbling stew. We worked quickly. The dried blood and dirt on our hands worked off on the greens and so they were black even before I stirred them into the heat. They looked like savory bits of herb.
Choke on this,
I thought, brutal.

“They're coming,” Laurent said, low and sudden. He grabbed my waist and half dragged me up a tiny ladder in the shadow of the cottage as the door banged open. Voices—three soldiers with the old woman now. I was panting, tucking my skirts, scrabbling to fit on the ledge of the loft, an empty shelf for the storage of grain and dried fruits barely wide enough for one person. Then Laurent wrapped his arms around me, forcing me still against him, my face in his chest. Behind the dirt of a day's turmoil, I could smell his skin like warm oak and that faint dusting of sandalwood. I swallowed and tried to turn my head away, for it made no sense in this moment to be enticed.

“Don't move,” he mouthed in my ear. I felt his fingers in my hair.

We waited, still as stone, hearing the armored figures clunk across the floor. Two supported something between them, which was dropped heavily by the hearth—I could smell it: a wine cask. The old woman said loud, daring, “Is it enough? Ye got the last of everything. The stew, the wine. Is it
enough
yet? Or will yer shadows return to take the very sun from our fields?”

Her hostility was ignored, though she gnashed at them, taunted. Other noises—of metal, of thick crockery—a jug most likely—thunked on the floor, then the thunk, too, of an axe in wood, and slops of wine spilling everywhere. And then the old woman's voice was stopped. There were retches and whimpers as if she was being forced to drink the remnants of wine, and guttural laughs as if it amused the soldiers to watch. I tensed, thinking to shout, leap down—

The whimpers ended abruptly on a sigh. There was the scraping of a stool being pushed away, and then the clatter of the old woman's crutch. And, after all the harsh clanks and crashing, the following thud was quite soft.

The old woman was dead. Killed below us as we hid silent and still, and did nothing to prevent.

I jerked in reflex.
“Wait”
was the breath against my ear, a command like I'd never heard. I couldn't have moved anyway; Laurent's hold was like iron. I could feel the heat of his blood, the fury. I wanted to hate him for his caution, but he was forcing himself to stay still as much as he forced me, maybe more so. As if he'd had to swallow cruelty before. I pictured his scar.

The jug was collected, the pot from the fire lifted on its long brace. I was so strained against Laurent's grip that I thought my bones would break, but he held me hard, waiting until the soldiers clanked out of the cottage. The last one kicked the burning logs off the hearth with his metal-shod foot, for we heard them scatter over the floor, and smelled the smoke rising.

Still, Laurent held me for a count of fifty before deeming the soldiers far enough gone, and then we were both scrambling down the ladder. I ran to the old woman; Laurent pushed the logs back into the fireplace, then beat out flames with the hook rug and stuffed it into the wide fireplace as well.

“She's dead!” I hissed at him. “Stabbed straight through while we lay there!” I whirled in disbelief. “We just
lay
there!”

Laurent said grimly, “We'll carry her to the well.” He stamped on an errant flame.

“The
well
? So we can lay her out the same as the boy, as if that is some honor? We let her
die,
Rider!”

“More would die if we'd intervened—”

“More
already
died! We waited in the woods while the soldiers tripped past and slaughtered those men and boys! We did nothing to stop that either!”

Laurent rounded on me, gritting, “And you think my sword and your little spear would have stopped it, any of this? You don't even
have
your spear!”

“I wasn't—”

“
Thirteen
soldiers, my lady! Ten of them took twenty-three villagers with barely a struggle and rounded up the rest.” The Rider leaned too close. “You might be a Healer, the Guardian of Death, but you are just as easily and softly killed as she was, never mind how grotesque the weapon.” He reached a finger and touched the hollow below my collarbone, making me shiver. “There, my lady.” His voice dropped to a bare whisper. “The tip of an arrow, a spear, a sword—just there. And then where would we be? We need
you.
That is my duty above all else.” Laurent dropped his hand and moved so the old woman lay tumbled between us. “Take her feet,” he said. I swallowed and bent to lift her.

We placed her next to the boy at the well in the market square. Laurent left immediately to get Arro. I stayed for a moment longer, wanting to be alone. I looked at young Ben, whom Laurent had carefully laid feet to the water. I reached out and smoothed his hair, a final tidying. The glowing embers of the burned cottages gave light to the ruined village square, to his shuttered face; I wished it had been completely dark. “I'm sorry,” I whispered.

My hand rested on his forehead, warm against cold. For a moment it was Raif lying there, lifeless. And I was helpless once more. I'd saved no one.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered again miserably before running on.

Laurent stood with Arro, strong figures against the brittle corn. He was watching my approach, so I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “The river's south,” I said, striding past him. “That's where they've taken all their captives.”

Laurent let me walk ahead for a while, but then without difficulty he caught up with me, saying: “You know it's all right to be angry.”

“I am not angry,” I lied.

“You've seen little violence, tucked away in Merith. There is much you've endured just in two days. It cannot be easy to take it all at once.”

“I am
fine.
” I bit the word, adding, “You've endured just as much.”

He ignored that. “What was it that you put in the stew?”

“Sleeping herbs. They should put down the soldiers fast enough.”

“Sleep?” It burst from him. “
Only
sleep?”

I turned on him hard. “What—did you think 'twas poison? That I'd killed them? I can
not.
”

“I didn't mean—”

“Do you not understand my wretched duty, Rider?
No harm.
'Twas born into me; I cannot reject it! I would not have killed those soldiers in the cottage; I'd have tried to stop
them
from killing and, yes, probably died for it! And do you think it makes me glad? You can wield your sword, slay for good, for evil, for whatever you wish! But I cannot. No matter what I
feel,
I must respect life.” I caught my breath, tried to lower my voice, but it hurt too much to sweep emotion back inside when I was already so stuffed with it. “Do you know what it's like to let someone die when you could have saved him, and not even be able to avenge his death?”

“I know it.”

“Then do
not
say I should kill!”

“I do not say,” Laurent murmured softly. “I trust you.”

No one had ever said that to me before. No one had ever needed to. It unnerved me. I'd called being a Healer wretched, which unnerved me too. I slumped, put my hands on my thighs, and tried to breathe.

“But I would ask,” Laurent added, “if you have thought what to do after they have gone to sleep?”

“We'll tie the soldiers, take their armor, weapons….” My voice faded then, for the plan seemed childish against such vicious things. Laurent looked at me, waiting politely. “Anyway,” I insisted, “I have an idea.”

We approached the top of the gully as silently as we could. Laurent had his sword out; my heart was in my throat. Had all the soldiers eaten? Were they all passed out as they should be? The glow from a campfire was visible at the edge. Laurent motioned Arro to stay where he was, and then he and I crept to the overhang.

A river, reduced by half, glittered by firelight. Below us, bound and lassoed together, huddled the villagers. They were chattering, struggling, and trying to break from their bonds, unafraid of their captors now, for stretched out by the bank of the river lay thirteen soldiers. Their armor gleamed darkly.

I gripped Laurent's arm. He turned to look at them, at me, and I gave him a triumphant smile. We went over the edge, sliding down the sandy sides to a tremendous shout from the prisoners. Laurent took his sword and sliced the ropes and vines used to bind them—old men, women, young children, three babies. I ran to the soldiers and began unbuckling the armor, clamping my mouth against the foul stench beneath it.
They must live in this armor,
I thought. Their skin was pasty pale, overly soft and molded by the hard plates.

Others joined me. We removed the metal and the weapons, piling them at the edge of the river. No one asked yet why we didn't slice the throats of the soldiers, but I heard one woman quietly gasp at one, “He still breathes!” and fear was palpable after that. I called out, “They will not wake! Do not worry,” worrying myself how I could find some way of ending this fear without murder.