The Boys of Fire and Ash (26 page)

“You know how to use that, little boys?” she whispered, amusement oozing through every syllable.

Av growled and pulled back, preparing to thrust the blade straight through her, but with a swift move from her feet, so fast my eyes could barely register it as movement, she grabbed the blade between her feet and wrenched it from Av's grip, throwing it into the air and catching it in her left hand.

It was all so easy to see now, her flourish of skilled movement lit by the soft glow of flames all around us.

“Enough!” shouted Serin.

“Spies, Serin!” screeched Farka.

Serin, Tanuk, and the Potentials, plus a host of other faces, surrounded us, all of them angry and stern.

“I told you they were spies!”

Serin stepped in beside Farka and stared at me, Fiver, and Av long and hard. Not even the squash wine could make her smile now.

“Krepin sent them to kill you!” Farka went on. “I heard them, every word! They are assassins for the Beginning!”

There was a chorus of gasps and murmurs from the crowd of onlookers.

“She's lying!” I yelled, but Serin's tight jaw showed who she believed. She'd had a hard time trusting us since the start—she was smart.

She took the blade that Farka was keeping threateningly close to our hearts, and raised it to my throat. “What have you come for, Ikkuma boy?”

“My Mother,” I said through gritted teeth.

Her eyes searched mine for a long silent moment until finally she dropped the sword and I let out a breath.

“Tie them up, take them to the top of Sammerson Peak.”

In an instant, the crowd moved in, seizing me, Av, and poor Fiver, who was still coughing, sputtering, and rubbing his neck as he tried to get his breath back.

We were in trouble.

“Tomorrow,” Serin announced, staring at the three of us with that cold detachment I had seen right after the ambush. “They die in the morning.”

They tied us together, hands behind our backs, on one long wooden stake driven into the rocks. They left Elome, Farka's friend from Fendar Sticks, standing guard a few yards away. The hike had been long to get to the top of Sammerson Peak, and even longer thanks to the assortment of angry jeers and wads of spit hurled in our direction. Younger girls had run from their hearths to join the mob that took us up the hill, running up occasionally to kick our shins, then cackle and disappear into the crowds. My shins were still throbbing as I sat there, in the freezing cold, my back against the stake, my head hung low, and not a sound but the wind through the mountains and the breath of my Brothers.

Fiver was grunting, pulling and tugging at the ropes, but it was no use. They'd tied them tight and we weren't going anywhere. This was it. I wasn't mad. I wasn't sad. I was out of feelings. And I think, deep down, some quiet, hopeless part of me knew it would end up like this—Cubby lost to the Beginners forever, me dead in the wilderness somewhere.

That's what everyone must have thought. Useless. I'd proved that time and time again, and finally, just before I died, I'd make absolutely sure that “useless” was the legacy I left behind.

“Just stop it, Fiver,” I told him. “It's over.”

“What?”

“Just stop squirming!” I was shouting, there was no controlling it. “It's over! I failed! Just stop trying to escape, 'cause it's over!”

Fiver stared at me, a little stunned, and I couldn't look at him anymore. I couldn't look at Av either. I just wanted to be alone.

Suddenly Fiver slammed his head into my face, and my eyes welled with tears when his forehead connected with my nose.

The pain was like an explosion, radiating from my nose and out to my entire body as I felt a hot river of blood flood down into my mouth.

“Mother seeker!” I yelled.

“Feel better?” Fiver growled.

“What in the name of Rawley was that for?”

“For sounding like an idiot,” he spat. “You're just feeling sorry for yourself, so I thought I'd give you something else to feel for a little while. Just feel your nose now, don't you?”

I said nothing, wrinkling my nose to try and stop the bleeding.

“I didn't come all this way, following your useless face through all this trouble,” he went on, “just to wind up skewered by a bunch of she-monsters.”

“What do you want me to do, Fiver?” I shouted.

“I want you to remember what you are.”

What I was. A failure. The reason Cubby was lost.

“Useless, I know.” My head hung so low the words were said more to my chest than anybody.

“You're Ikkuma,” Fiver growled. “A Big Brother.”

I tasted the salty metallic sting of my blood and spat. I wished he'd stop talking, stop reaching for hope where there was none. I wanted him to give up, like I'd given up. I wanted to shut down my brain, to stop the images of Cubby that kept pushing their way to the front of my mind. I just wanted everything to stop.

“Yeah,” I muttered, “Big Brother to a scroungee.”

Before I knew where it came from, pain jolted my shin and I cried out, realizing Fiver had slammed his heel into my leg.

“Don't call him that,” he growled.

“Me?” I shouted. “You're the one who calls him that! You've always called him that! I know what you think of me, Fiver, and Cubby!”

“
You
don't call him that.”

I turned my head away to keep from screaming at him. I didn't want to waste my breath. All my life, Fiver thought I was a bad Big Brother, and now I knew he was right. What was left to fight about?

He let out a sigh. “Do you remember Bones?”

I did. But I couldn't remember Fiver ever talking about him. I kept my face turned away, but I was listening. Fiver never talked about his Big Brother.

“What about Boo? You remember him?”

I'd never heard that name before. I looked at him, confused, and saw that Av was just as unfamiliar with the name.

“No? What about Chance? Know him?”

No. I didn't.

“Keeper? Newbie?”

I stared at him blankly. What were these names? Where were they coming from?

“No,” he said, nodding. “You know Fiver, though. Lucky number five.” He looked away, away from me, from Av. His eyes were on his lap. “I'm number five. And that's no thanks to Bones.”

“What are you saying, Fiver?” asked Av.

“They're dead,” he said. “Boo, Chance. Keeper and Newbie, one after the other. He just didn't care, Bones. He never cared about anyone but himself. He lost one Little Brother, he got a new one, lost another, got a new one. Like trading in throwing daggers, he just didn't give a flying Cavy fart, and you know why?”

I shook my head, too surprised to say anything.

“Because he was selfish. Then he got me. Number five. I took care of myself, though. I'm alive because of me.”

I barely remembered Bones; he was older, so much older than Cheeks was. I only remembered I was scared of him. He was so big and loud, and if you got too close he'd launch you into the air by your wrists and call it a baby bomb.

And I remembered Fiver. Alone. He was always alone in those days, our Little Brother days.

“You think Bones would lift a finger for me if I had been taken?” He shook his head, answering his own question. “Cubby's alive because of you, Urgs. You're not like Bones.”

I swallowed a lump that was rising in my throat, the memory of that lonely, curly-haired little boy teaching himself how to use a sling suddenly making sense to me.

“You're a good Brother, Useless,” he said. “A bit lousy with a spear, sure, but good…and not just to Cubby.”

I looked up, surprised.

“You're the one who never stopped moving,” he told me. “Remember? Anyone else would have given up, called it quits right there in the Baublenotts. I wanted to. You wouldn't let us. You kept going.”

I didn't believe him, wouldn't let myself. I couldn't have got this far without him, without Av. It was them carrying
me
. But as I looked at Fiver's stern face, his dark eyes ordering me not to argue, I couldn't help but wonder how far they'd get, how far any of us would have got, on our own.

“Someone's coming,” whispered Av.

Fiver shut up and we both listened to the night air. Just a cold midnight breeze rustled in my ear, nothing more.

“I don't hear anything,” said Fiver.

“She's there.”

There was a crunching in the distance, the distinct sound of foot on earth. Someone was coming.

Elome stood up from where she'd been sharpening a knife as a figure came into view. There was mumbling as they spoke, and then finally Elome made her way back down the slope.

“Lussit?” Av said.

My stomach did a cartwheel that it might be her, and I thanked Rawley for letting me see her one last time.

Sure enough, it was Lussit, hurrying over to us with her head turning back to make sure Elome had gone. Her body was wrapped in a thick knitted blanket. She looked around warily, making sure there was no one else nearby, then crouched down to hug Av.

“My Brother!” she whispered. “My friends! When they told me what had happened I tried my best to hurry to you, but they wouldn't leave me alone. The camp's on full alert.
They are terrified there could be more of you nearby. How could this happen?”

“Never mind,” said Av. “What did you say to Elome?”

With slender fingers she undid the knot binding Av's feet. “I told her I had come to use my gifts to uncover secrets from the prisoners. I asked her to go and bring my ladies to assist me.”

“What will happen when they find out we're gone?”

She smirked, a devilish grin, and I felt a flutter in my stomach. “They'll assume the Ikkuma boys got the better of the defenseless Holy Child, don't you think?”

Her eyes flashed to me and her mouth opened in horror when she noticed the blood pouring from my nose. “Urgle! What did they do to you?”

“I'm fine,” I assured her. She held my face in her freezing hands; they were like ice from her long climb.

“He's fine,” said Fiver. “He deserved it.”

Lussit, confused, accepted what Fiver had said and left me alone to fiddle with the ropes that bound us together.

“Give me one moment,” she said, sliding a knife out from under her blanket.

Av started to squirm, his face lined with worry. “If they find out you helped us?”

“It doesn't matter,” she said. “I've been without my Brother for too long. Let them be angry.” She made a cut and the ropes around my wrists loosened.

Within seconds the three of us were free.

“All right,” laughed Fiver, jumping to his feet and wiping the dirt from his arse, “we make one quick stop, surprise Serin while she's sleeping, and boom! We're off to the Baublenotts!”

“I can't let you do that,” said Lussit. My heart sank. Of
course she couldn't. Serin was her leader, and she was a good one. I didn't want to kill her. But Cubby.

“Sorry, girly,” said Fiver. “But what else did you think we were going to do if you let us go?”

“Go back to the Beginners,” she said. “I know why they want Serin; they've been hunting her since this war began. But they'll be just as happy to accept me.”

My voice caught in my throat. “What?”

“What better prize for Aju Krepin than the Sacred Innocent of the Belphebans? I am just another Belpheban but I am their spiritual leader. Although I cannot command the same control as Serin, Krepin would be overjoyed to have me as his own.”

“No,” said Av. “We aren't getting you involved in this, you're in enough trouble just for helping us.”

“Exactly, and what's a little more?” She was grinning ear to ear. She was excited, and small wonder. I suspected she'd spent her whole life praying and contorting, meditating and advising. But we couldn't let her sacrifice herself like that for us…could we?

“I appreciate your concern for my safety, Brother, but you really don't have another choice.” She placed her hands on Av's shoulders and spoke in a voice with such maturity and authority that I couldn't imagine anyone telling her no. “They'll notice I'm gone sooner rather than later, and the longer we stand here arguing, the closer they come to finding out you're free.”

“We can't just hand you over to that maniac!” Av protested.

She smiled. “My Sisters will come for me. Besides, I'm not afraid of Krepin.”

“Then you're foolish,” he snapped.

She did sound foolish. “What if we…” I trailed off, not sure if the poorly thought-out plan that had just sprung into my head would be enough to end the debate. “What if we just say we're handing her over, and then don't?”

“Urgle, what?” Av was giving me an impatient glare. He knew I'd given this about as much thought as a tree.

“If I show up to the doors of the Temple with Lussit, they are bound to let me in, right?”

Fiver nodded, eager to get a plan under way, while Av just kept watching me skeptically and Lussit smiled with a grin that was all for me and my jumbled, stuttered words.

“And I promise Krepin Lussit in exchange for Cubby. Meanwhile, you and Fiver are waiting on the river with the boat. Remember the bridge we had to walk on? With the rushing water? Wait beside there. Then, once Krepin releases Cubby, all the three of us have to do is run for the bridge and take off in the boat.”

“All you have to do, eh?” said Av.

“Works for me!” said Fiver, ready to take off running.

“Me too!” Lussit grinned and linked her arm in mine.

“Wait!” growled Av as Fiver and Lussit led the way down the mountain, Lussit's frozen hands firmly pulling me along by the wrist and making my head rush with a fog of excitement. “This isn't even a plan!”

“It's all we've got!” laughed Fiver.