The Way Into Chaos (9 page)

Treygar clutched at his injured shoulder. “Doctor Warpoole, please help them inside.” Bittler climbed over the rail to help.
 

“What is this place?” the princess asked. Her accent made her sound as though she was talking with her mouth full.
 

“An old storm house,” Ciriam answered. “Once the grasslands were dotted with storm houses, but people don’t drive okshim herds through the mud any more. At least, not on this side of the Barrier.”
 

Lar and Bittler carried Timush into the cart, then laid him in the front. Just behind them came Doctor Warpoole and Col.
 

Timush looked like a waxen doll. The sight of him shocked Cazia so deeply, it felt like pain. Had tragedy managed to strike after all?
 

“Make room at the front!” she shouted, using her voice to relieve her tension while she elbowed Ciriam out of the way. “Squeeze in.” She helped Timush settle painfully on the rough wooden floor.
 

“We must raise his feet,” Vilavivianna said, “to get the blood back to his face.”
 

Of course. Cazia gave the girl a grateful look, then ordered Bittler to sit at the front of the cart and allow Timush’s legs to rest in his lap. He did it.
 

Col settled against the rail. “By your command, o Caz,” he said, not unkindly. Cazia felt herself flush anyway and clamped her mouth shut. There were tingles all over her back and arms as she watched her brother, injured but alive, smile at her. Then she moved toward the back of the cart where the driver stood. Col and Timush, resting on the floor, took up a quarter of the available space.

“We are overburdened,” the princess declared. “This one is not highborn or necessary, is she?”

Vilavivianna pointed at Ciriam, and she had a point. Not only was the clerk an Enemy, she had taken Cazia’s quiver. Still, the thought of pitching her over the rail into the unprotected grassland made Cazia a little sick.
 

Lar said, “Betrothed, we are saving everyone we can. Everyone. Sit up close to Jagia and the doctors. We’ll be uncomfortable, but—”

The sound of distant screaming came through the grasses. Everyone in the cart was silent as they heard the voices of men and women raised in terror and pain. The little princess turned to look up at the clerk’s face, then looked down at the floor.
 

“My tyr?” Wimnel said.
 

Old Stoneface stared into the grasses as though he could see the dying soldiers through them. “Take us away from here.”

Chapter 7

Something moved through the tall grasses as they slowly rose into the air. Everyone was panicky for a few moments--the Freewell girl held her hands in the first position to cast a spout of flame, and both the Witt boy and the clerk squeezed their eyes shut and muttered prayers for Great Way to clear their path--but nothing happened. Tejohn slid the spike he was holding into his waistcoat pocket, wishing it was reinforced with canvas instead of just a decorative touch to please the Evening People, and took hold of the rail with his good left hand. They’d gotten away. He had done his duty.

Leaning over the rail, he looked back toward the line of spears and the fleet squad. The soldiers they’d passed was Third Splashtown, the unit he’d served in when he’d broken the guard at Pinch Hall. His unit. They’d lost so many people they’d almost been disbanded, but Tejohn himself had entreated the king to preserve their name and banner; they’d been stationed at Beddalin Hole--guard duty for Peradain, essentially--because they had earned a place of safety and prestige.
 

Tejohn couldn’t see the black field with the blurry red smear that could only be the Splashtown waterfall banner against the yellow-green of the surrounding grasses.
 
In fact, he couldn’t see any sign of black and red. Had they already moved out? “Mister Farrabell, start toward the northeast.”

“We’re not going to Fort Samsit,” Lar said. “Not yet.”
 

“My prince,” Tejohn said, “there’s no room for anyone else.”

“That isn’t my plan,” Lar said. “I can cast the Sixth Gift, and so can Caz.” The Freewell girl jumped as if startled, then nodded. “And so can Doctor Warpoole and Doctor...”

“Eelhook, my prince,” Ciriam said.
 

“You can cast that spell, can’t you?”
 

Doctor Warpoole wore a icy expression. “It’s been a while, but I’m sure we can manage.”

Below, a spear of the fleet squad broke through a stand of tall grass and sprinted in their direction. Moments later, one of the beasts raced into the open and ran him down as easily as a parent catching a disobedient toddler. Tejohn could do nothing but watch the way one smear of color overtook the other and listen to the sounds they made. The Freewell girl fumbled at her pocket for one of her darts, but Doctor Warpoole stopped her with a gentle hand on the girl’s wrist.
 

It was already too late. The beast dragged the man out of sight into the grasses. The screams made Tejohn’s blood run cold.

The cart picked up speed as they headed back toward the city wall. “Higher,” Tejohn said.
 

“Yes, my tyr,” the driver said gratefully.

There were more screams as they approached the city. “My prince,” Tejohn said, “what is your plan?”

Lar seemed reluctant to look away from the city ahead. “We get high, very high above the palace. We four cast the Sixth Gift in the air above the portal, dropping stone blocks onto the dais beside it. We heap the stone until no more of these things can get through!”

The Freewell girl gasped. “Yes,” Doctor Warpoole said. “Yes, of course! We can do that.”

Tejohn noticed a flash of red fabric on the ground below and leaned over the side.
 

Third Splashtown had been destroyed. He couldn’t see them clearly, not from this distance, but he could see smudges of colors motionless in the yellow grasses. Six... no, seven of them were the purple color of the beast men, but everywhere he looked he could see black and red, motionless. The shock line had been smashed.
 

Even the screams were fading. Tejohn felt a familiar companion reappear within him. It had been a long time since he’d felt the rage, despair, and grief that came in the wake of an invading army, but there it was again. The queen’s remarks about revisiting his pain had piqued them, but now they piled up within him like a thunderhead. Third Splashtown had been his. He wore their colors in the gym every day, and he was proud to be part of their history. Now they had been Fire-taken.
 

Bittler cried out, “Look!”

He wasn’t pointing at the carnage below. Instead, he pointed toward the city.
 

Tejohn squinted into the distance, but he had no idea what he was supposed to be seeing.
 

“I can’t see that far,” Doctor Warpoole said. “What’s happening?”

“There’s another, larger flying cart hovered over the palace,” Bittler said. “They’re dropping pink granite blocks down into the courtyard below. It has to be onto the portal, don’t you think?”

“What a clever plan,” Lar said.
 

“Oh!” Bittler sounded suddenly alarmed. “The cart just rocked to the side, like a boat on a rough river. A piece of the black disk above them just flew upward like...like blown dandelion fluff.”

“They’re throwing stones,” the Freewell girl said. “The beasts are throwing broken pieces of granite at the cart, breaking it apart.”

“The cart is spinning now, faster and faster, as it comes apart,” Bittler said. “People are falling out. They’re still so high up--Fire and Fury, the cart is tumbling--they’re all falling out.”
 

“Grateful am I,” the Freewell girl prayed, “to be permitted to travel The Way.”

“Turn us around, Farrabell,” Tejohn said quietly. “Right now.”

Lar did not argue. No one did. They didn’t even talk to each other. They just hunched low in the cart, gripping tightly to the rails if they were near enough, and let Tejohn be the one to order a retreat.

There was no space for Tejohn to sit, and he wouldn’t have asked for it if there was. He stood near the driver and leaned against the high back of the cart, the knots of the driver’s safety harness digging into his back. Tejohn had no idea why the benches and railing didn’t come with harnesses themselves; if they had, those scholars might have...but never mind. He’d never ridden in a cart before, so he didn’t know a lot about it.
 

The Bendertuk boy had color in his face again, but he was obviously in great pain. If Tejohn had to guess, he would have said the boy’s collarbone was broken, but there was nothing to do for him but get him to a sleepstone or, if he was lucky, a medical scholar.

The Freewell boy was holding up better, but maybe that was because his injury was easier to manage. His sister had torn scraps from the hem of her dress to bandage him, but she’d done an amateur job of it and the blood was still flowing. Tejohn wished he had both hands so he could redo the job himself.
 

As for himself, Tejohn wasn’t holding up well and he knew it. His old knee injury ached painfully, but that was dwarfed by the agony of his shoulder. The ball and socket felt as though they were swelling to the size of a human head. His spear arm. He didn’t like to think about it, but that was his spear arm. The longer he waited for treatment, the worse it would heal; his knee had taught him that, if nothing else could.
 

“Lost,” Doctor Warpoole suddenly said. Her voice was full of sorrow but her expression was blank and deadly. “Peradain, the Morning City, and everything we were trying to build there. Music, theater, culture, empire...Great Way, the
writing
. All Fire-taken now. All lost.”

“Monument sustain me,” Lar said. “Just when I thought dirges were going out of style.”
 

No one laughed, but the Freewell boy managed a smile and his younger sister gave Doctor Warpoole a nasty look. The scholar-administrator turned her gaze outward toward the passing scenery and kept her silence.
 

But Tejohn could not ignore the effect her words had on him.
All lost.
If he could no longer raise a sword or hold a spear, what use was he?
 

He had a lot of time to consider it. Flying carts weren’t quick, but they could build speed over a long flight, and soon the wind and drizzle whipped their faces as though they were standing in a gale. The prince and the Freewell boy made an effort to hide their discomfort, but Tejohn could tell they were all cold, wet, and miserable.
 

But no one asked to slow their retreat. They passed over farm houses and tiny villages, sometimes clustered around high, dry paths and sometimes narrow canals, but no one suggested they stop to warn the commoners there. Tejohn had been one of them once. He knew villager folk didn’t matter. Only the prince did.
 

After a short while, Jagia began to cry. Then the Witt boy did the same, then the Freewell girl, the Bendertuk boy, and finally the driver. The Freewell boy laid a comforting hand on his sister’s shoulder, but she seemed to take no comfort in it.

He glanced sharply at Doctor Warpoole and her clerk. Both of their cheeks were wet, of course, because of the rain, but the scholar administrator maintained her composure, while the younger woman could not conceal her quivering lip. It was nothing, he told himself. Anyone would weep in this situation.

The truth was becoming clear for all of them. Their siblings, friends, spouses, even their children, assuming Farrabell and the scholars had them, were lost. Not just “music.” Not “writing.” Families, friends... People.

The queen herself had asked Tejohn for a favor just that morning and he’d refused her. King Ellifer, the man Tejohn had nearly thrown away his life to save, had been pulled down right before his eyes, and his wife with them. Kellin Pendell, the commander of the palace guard, was also gone, along with the friends who had diced and drank with them every half moon. His valet. The girl who made the stuffed buns he ate for breakfast. Sincl the performance master. Kolbi Arriya, the king’s shield bearer. Doctor Twofin. The scrawny boy who collected the bowls and dishes in dining hall. The priests who swept the palace temple. The tailor who sewed the sopping wet coat he was wearing...

It was too much. Too many faces raced through his memory. There were too many obligations of shared kindness and duty, too many screams from the palace and the city fresh in his memory. He didn’t have enough grief inside him to give them all their due. Rage, yes. He had a reservoir of that so deep it would never run dry, but not grief.

And it wasn’t just the people. The Peradaini Empire had just been hollowed out the way you scrape seeds from a melon. The greatest empire the continent of Kal-Maddum had ever seen had been decapitated. As long as they held on to little Vilavivianna, the Indregai Alliance and their pet serpents would be kept at bay, but what would discourage the Durdric tribes in the western mountains? And Song only knew what Tyr Freewell and his allies would do when they heard the news.