The Year of Our War (17 page)

But behind me, left and right, were Insects, scissoring mandibles, raking spines. It was impossible. Every time I raised my arm one would grab it. They were pulling at my back plate and belt.

I fought my way between close mounds of dead looking for Swallow. The hooves of riderless horses pounded down around me. Swallow. Where’s Swallow? Where the fuck is she?

I saw her and called, lost concentration for a second and was knocked flat by an Insect the size of a pony. Its antennae swept my face. I shielded my face with one arm and its mandibles scratched my armor. Inside the serrated jaws another set of mouthparts churned in thick slime. I brought the ax down heavily. It crunched into the thing’s top shoulder and embedded in the shell—I couldn’t free it.

The Insect’s integument was dotted with spiracle holes. I reached down and shoved my fingers in one, tearing the membrane. The Insect kept biting. I was pinned down. I choked. I struggled to hold its face away from mine. Its jointed antennae were swept back out of my reach. Black palps hanging below its jaws slopped across my mouth and neck, tasting my skin. Its hard thorax pressed against my chest, its bulbous abdomen held high.

My face reflected over and over in compound eyes and in three ocelli like buttons on its forehead. Its triangular face pushed into mine, suture lines between the brown plates.

Stiff fringes on sharp forelegs, tarsus feet clawed my neck. A centimeter closer, its mandibles opened to cut my throat. I looked straight into the cogwheel maxillae. My arms shook, screaming pain. This is how it ends, I thought. I braced myself for agony. I let go.

The Insect collapsed onto me, its heavy head smacked into the mud. I yelled, no longer trapped, and slithered from underneath. The Insect lay still. Was it dead? I kicked it, and saw an arrow shaft projecting from the back of its head. The steel point emerged from between its eyes.

Lightning was a hundred meters away, nocking another arrow to string. I cheered him and he frowned. Two deep breaths, then he held his breath. The bodkin point came up from earth to target with precision. He loosed the string and an Insect fell some distance behind me.

It thrilled me to watch the greatest archer ever. As I watched, my confidence returned. I was Eszai, I was powerful, I would fight.

Lightning’s horse stood still while he aimed and loosed again, sniping the Insects down in one tight area. Where a ragged shape lay—a red and green shape. Then I realized he was stopping Insects from eating Swallow. I drew my dagger and ran to her. I sliced between sclerites, stabbed through the pedicel waist of an Insect on top of her, kicked it aside and picked her up. Her mail was wet with a shocking amount of blood. Swallow’s face was very, very pale.

“Damn you, Jant!” Lightning arrived. “Don’t do that again!”

“This is the mother of all routs—” I stopped because Harrier appeared. He was on a different horse and had a ripped shirt wrapped around his bleeding leg.

Swallow began to wail, her eyes tightly shut and her teeth stained red. “Harrier?” Lightning asked.

His servant took the hint. “Pass her up to me.”

I lifted her carefully onto the saddle in front of him; she lolled back against his chest and nearly slid off but I showed him how to hold her.

Lightning put arrows neatly through two more approaching Insects. “Is she badly hurt?” he asked. “Will she live? Can she stand a long ride?”

“Yes. Perhaps. To where?”

“My house.”

“We can’t ride all the way to Micawater!”

Swallow kicked feebly. I saw a deep wound in her hip, its walls glistening. “Follow me to the town.”

“Micawater is better…” Lightning stared.

“I don’t want to ride into any more Insects,” said Harrier, who had his hands full.

I said, “Staniel has fortified Rachis. If they let us in it should be safe.”

Too bruised and exhausted to run, I took charge of a riderless Carniss roan and cantered with them until we reached the main road. Then I urged my horse on and galloped faster. The forest flew by on either side. I tied the reins back. I stood up on the saddle, balancing, and the distressed horse ran even faster. I tilted my wings to get the correct airflow under them, and spread. Three beats and I was up, looking down on Lightning’s white and Harrier’s sorrel mare.

We traveled without pause and arrived just before daybreak. The half-finished walls were thick, rugged stone not yet faced. The sight was worrying, I thought—Zascai don’t trust us anymore. The wooden gates stood ajar and a stream of men poured through. I looked down to the disheveled, silent soldiers already crowding the marketplace to capacity. The town had an air of unreality, so many people here at dawn. I knew I must find residence for all of them or the situation would become volatile, but I had to help Swallow first.

I flew along the streets at first-floor height with Lightning and Harrier following. I got lost twice; the roads had changed since my last visit, only thirty years ago. With a plan view I found the Grand Place, and led them to the magnificent Spread Eagle Hotel. I settled on the stuccoed balcony and watched Lightning and Harrier dismount.

A cold, chalk-blue quiet, an expectation of the sunrise, made Lightning and his servant talk with muted voices. They took care, as if a sound could cause Swallow to slip away. I glided down as Harrier carried her up elegant steps into the entrance hall.

T
he hotelier was a short, vigorous man with a paunch, and a duster in his back pocket. He recognized Lightning and me, fixed on the sunburst insignia. We marched into his hotel. Behind us he saw a battle-stained warrior with an injured girl in his arms, dripping blood on the pale pink marble. He was speechless.

It’ll be something to tell the children, I thought. “Give us a room.”

He put a hand over his open mouth.

“You’ll be paid,” added Lightning.

The hotelier saw our urgency, and found his tongue. “Immediately, my lord.” He ran up a New Art staircase—a confection of metalwork swirls and glass petals. Lightning followed grimly as he threw the door open onto a sumptuous cream suite.

“I’ll clear the guests from this floor,” said the hotelier. “The whole building is at my lords’ disposal.”

“That’s not necessary.” I smiled at him.

“Thank you,” said Lightning. “We’ll call you when we need—”

I looked back but the hotelier had vanished.

I tipped the cream sheets onto the floor so that Harrier could lay Swallow down. I tore the curtains open on their brass rails to let a little of the bruise-blue light into the room.

Lightning threw himself on his knees at the bedside. “You would tear my heart out,” he murmured. “It looks bad, doesn’t it?” he asked, voice catching. I nodded, checking her over the way Rayne had taught me.

“You can help her?”

“I’m not a surgeon.”

“Please…”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“No…Another one. Not again. I hope you can do more for my love than Rayne could with Dunlin!”

“Mm, yes. Swallow? Swallow, can you hear me?” She made no response. There were deep gashes in her thighs and belly. They were covered in blood clots, and it took a long time to peel off the torn cloth so I could see how deep they were. One foot was a chewed mess, bones splayed out. I had often seen wounds like that caused by Insects slashing cavalrymen’s legs. Harrier was limping from a shallower cut over his knee.

I touched Swallow’s forehead and wondered if she had a fever coming on. “I’m going to need all sorts of things.”

Lightning beckoned to Harrier. “Anything you want, don’t count the cost.”

“I don’t think bandages will be enough; I need some clean sheets to tear up. Need gauze, boiling water, liniment from powdered oak bark, tormentil, comfrey—that’ll stop the bleeding. For internal bleeding—shepherd’s purse and horsetails. Tincture of yarrow and arnica to clean the skin. For painkillers I’ll need aconite, to calm her I need papaver and if she gets a fever I’ll need elder in decoction. I also need thread and a knife…”

Harrier bowed with quick assertion.

“And some scolopendium.”

“Messenger, I won’t be able to find that. It’s been illegal in this country for years.”

“I know where to find it,” I said.

Rayne’s thesis advocates careful observation when treating patients. Over centuries of observation she has discovered that illnesses and infections are caused by dust. I studied her treatise every day when I was an apprentice in Hacilith, and it impressed upon me the fact that even a tiny amount of dirt can induce sickness. Dust is present over everything and very often is invisible, so it is important to be rigorous. To clean instruments, Rayne urged the use of hot water, salt water, alcohol and flame.

Lightning lingered until he realized I was stripping Swallow and when I got down to skin level he made a hasty excuse and left me to it. I made sure the room was dust-free and emptied of antiques, and that Swallow’s wounds were sewn and dressed before I called him back. There was another problem to deal with.

“Will she live?” he implored.

“This must be our headquarters for a few days until her condition stabilizes,” I said.

“Needs must, if we have to rough it,” he replied stoically, kneeling beside the cream satin four-poster.

“During that time, Lightning, we have to gather any surviving Awndyn fyrd, reward them and send them home. You realize they will hate the Rachiswater pikemen now, and the longer they stay, the more chance they have for retaliation.”

“Leave it to me,” he murmured, peering at Swallow’s closed eyes. “She looks like she’s sleeping.”

“She is sleeping. I want a reliable courier to carry my report to the Emperor, another to go to the Governor of Hacilith; and I want fifty horsemen to scout the north of the manorship to see how much damage the Insects caused last night, and where they are now.”

“The Insects trounced us. It is a disaster for her,” said the Archer, venturing to stroke Swallow’s hand on the coagulating sheets.

“I’ll face the Emperor on her behalf. And I want the tags of all the men who died in Staniel’s Palace grounds because I’m going to present him with a list of names.”

“You will look after her, please?” He glanced up.

“I won’t move from her side.”

“Then I will do the rest.” He kissed her hand and stalked out, calling for Harrier.

I
wrote to Rayne, who sent me instructions that I followed to the letter, but I sighed six times an hour with despair. What the fuck is a metatarsal and where has it gone? The responsibility was overwhelming, the job was gory. But I kept my doubts to myself, for Lightning’s sake.

The hotelier brought my meals to the suite. Nothing could induce him to exchange more than a few words each time. My shape and the musician’s blood under my fingernails awed him, and he only told me what he thought I wanted to hear. Harrier kept us informed of the events in the town.

Swallow had not regained consciousness after two weeks at the Spread Eagle. I reluctantly allowed a day’s journey to move her to Lightning’s Palace in the neighboring manorship. A white coach with two chestnut horses appeared one morning. God knows what day it was—I was hollowed out and hyper from nights awake watching over her.

Harrier and the hotelier maneuvered Swallow on a stretcher down wide rose-marble stairs and installed her in the carriage. I knelt beside her to prevent her from moving as the horses walked.

A
s we entered the portico of Micawater Palace, Lightning visibly began to recover his shattered optimism. Old Eszai are not accustomed to losing, and I could tell it would take him time to recover from the outrage. We placed Swallow on the bed in a dark blue room which overlooked the lake. Checking that the room was clean, I noticed constellations of gold stars painted on the ceiling.

Lightning held the musician’s warm, limp hand for hours, kissing each finger individually. I found him still there in the evening; he had not moved at all.

“What will we do about your King?” I asked.

“First Dunlin, now this…Oh, beloved. Did you think you were immortal already?”

“Hello? Lightning?”

“Is she going to wake up soon?” He was definitely happier with the bold and adventurous Swallow than with the girl who lay prostrate and had to be nursed.

“Saker,” I tried again with a sympathetic tone. “We must gain control of the capital. Go and visit Staniel; don’t take a large retinue, but make sure you bring him a gift.”

“That waste of time should be apologizing to me for the ruin he’s caused!”

I bit my tongue on “I told you so.” “Praise Staniel highly. Tell him he chose the correct course of action.”

“But—”

“Saker, just imagine how terrified he must be by now, although he may not admit it. I want you to give him all the reassurance you can—as sincerely as you can. If he is convinced of our good will it may be easier to influence his next moves.”

“Or stop him making any.”

“No!” I checked that Swallow was still asleep. “The war has come to Rachiswater. I want Staniel’s fyrd to hold the front and stop Insects moving any farther south. Offer to join him. Be a loyal subject rather than an immortal adviser, understand? Offer a division of your fyrd for his direct control. Keeping his host together requires money, which I know he lacks. You must seem so satisfied of his claim to the throne that you will offer to lend him funds.”

“Never,” Lightning said, clasping Swallow’s hand.

“It’s only temporary. I’ll put Wrought at his disposal as well.”

“Now I know you’re joking. Wrought has no money, and that which you do have is pledged to feed the refugees.”

“We’ll supply arms. Your troops might need arrows too? If we give Staniel sound and kind advice now he might be more willing to take it in the future.”

“Never.”

I had had a wholesome meal, a hot relaxing shower, and was free from my leathers that I had worn so long they were practically welded to me. I had taken a welcome injection of quite high quality cat and felt wonderful. I was comfortable telling Saker to be the legate for once. “I’d do it myself but I have to treat her.”

“I don’t want to leave her.”

“Harrier will find you if there’s any news.”

“Jant, I wish you had been more harmless.”

“Huh?”

“San is now wary of ambitious youth. I knew you came from East Bank Hacilith but your malfeasance became more obvious with time. Your ambition was as strong as Swallow’s although it’s long since grown decadent. San realized that such zeal could agitate the Circle. He needs no more felons nor makebates, idealists or drug dealers. He can’t take the chance that she will turn out the same way—if it wasn’t for your misdemeanors San would have made Swallow immortal by now.”

“Hardly fair!”

“Look after her well. And if you take drugs in my Palace again I’ll have you locked in this room.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“I can’t risk the servants finding out.
Please
act like an Eszai.”

If you are an Eszai, then to act like you do is to act like an Eszai. I thought this loudly, but didn’t dare say it.

“I shall talk to His Majesty. I didn’t spend fifteen centuries preserving Micawater to have it destroyed by Insects now.” He kissed Swallow’s hand and replaced it on the sheet.

A
t the end of the third week Swallow’s fever turned to shivering and I knew the crisis was over. I altered her medicine from vulnerary plants to rubifacients and kept the healing stitches clean. Harrier was a great help, as he was far from squeamish and very willing to learn. I had to treat his wounds as well, which he had not bothered to look after.

Harrier was a likable man, far more relaxed whenever his lord wasn’t around. He was private but not secretive, polite but not obsequious, a servant who stood with shoulders squared. He had a house in Donaise, but he lived with his family as wardens in the Palace, and he was clearly proud that Lightning had so favored them.

King Staniel offered no apology, and kept his guards close at hand. Lightning worked with him to plan trenches and bastions in Rachis Park. The soldiers’ imposition caused riots in the town; we had to send them food and wine in order to ease the pressure. The villages of Slake Cross and Tambrine were destroyed in an Insect attack. A new prohibited zone was created, east to west, from the coast to the foothills of Darkling, which followed Rachis River and the manor estate boundary. The Insects responded by building their own wall, which terrified the civilians. It took a month of fighting for us to slow the Insect advance.

Swallow slept on, unconscious, all that time. At the end of the second month she woke.

W
ill she ever walk again?” Lightning pestered me, as we walked through the water gardens to the impromptu infirmary. The gardens were dim and vacant, cut back for the winter; only a few red maples around the lake still gripped leaves.

I said, “Insects stripped the muscles from her leg. I don’t think she’ll walk unaided. But she’s intent on trying—determined as a human. I don’t know if she can bear offspring now; it’s unlikely. I haven’t told her yet—”

The Archer stopped and stared. “Swallow can’t have children?”

“She was sliced from rib to hip, Lightning, I
haven’t
Rayne’s expertise. Come on!” Usually unhurried, now Lightning found it hard to walk and be dramatic at the same time.

“Swallow can’t have children. Are you sure?”

“I can’t tell for certain. But it’s far too great a risk.”

“That’s terrible! I…She was. We were…The way I see it, she still hasn’t got long to live. No Zascai has. What will happen to Awndyn manor?”

I shrugged. “Swallow’s lucky to be alive. She’s in a lot of pain, and I’m amazed at her progress. She’s happy to still have eight fingers, two thumbs, and a guitar. She can sort out the succession of Awndyn later.”

S
wallow was propped up on plump white cushions; she gave us a brilliant smile as we entered the golden and sapphirine suite. I loved her courage, and it wasn’t lost on Lightning. Dunes of manuscript paper covered the four-poster; slipping off onto the floor, scribble of semi-quavers marching like Insects. She held a jotter, full of torn pages and crossing-out.

Lightning eagerly gathered some of the papers and examined them. He began to laugh sincerely. It’s impossible to begrudge or be jealous of genius; you must wish such extreme talent well. Genius sees past the separate circles of darkness in which we live, to the light beyond. Even without words Swallow’s music can make the listener laugh; it’s because she sees through to the great hilarity on the other side of everything. After her concerts people feel they have been touched by an almighty truth which they yearn to keep forever.

The composer was smiling too. “Wait till you hear the darkness, the basso continuo power of the battle. You won’t laugh then.”

“You must stay here and write it,” Lightning said.

“I kept my vow. Fought the Insects, didn’t I? Although it didn’t turn out exactly like I’d hoped.”

“Don’t fret about Lowespass. Don’t dwell on it.” Lightning and I knew that Insects were nightmarish creatures and, after an encounter, they find their way into nightmares permanently. Neither of us wished the terror of Insect dreams on innocent Awndyn. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want, until your strength returns. See how lovely the Palace is in spring. When you are ready, I’ll ask the Emperor to grant another audience and we can pursue your claim to the Circle again.”