It was somewhat disappointing. But it was also two more than they had now.
IT WAS shocking to Ellis how quickly life in the trenches stopped shocking him. He’d thought he’d been thoroughly jaded when he’d first reported to Everleigh. It wasn’t as though he’d been lounging on an estate somewhere all this time. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen a fair share of horrors in the past two years. Even inflicted a few.
This was different. This was becoming nothing more than the hand that fired the gun, the eye that sighted a target. There were no people in the trenches, only soldiers. And if the soldier next to you got their head blown off, all it meant was more targets for you, an immediate swarm of corpse flies, and maybe a decent pair of boots if they were your size and you didn’t mind prying them off the feet of the person who’d handed you a cup of tea six hours ago.
Three days on the line, one day at camp, and then the cycle started all over again. Ellis didn’t even know what day it was, what month, only that it seemed there really was such a thing as being too tired to sleep.
War’s took my cariad far from me
Bones resting ’neath cairn stones ’crost the sea
It was lovely. A pleasing tenor, smooth and sonorous.
Still.
Ellis slitted open one eye, mouth pressed tight, and made himself as comfortable as he could against the tree, back pressed into rough bark, and roots poking into his tailbone and thigh. He only had a few hours until it was M Company’s turn in the trenches on the western edge of Torcalon. And he really needed some sleep. He shut his eye again, trying not to huff out loud, and strove to catch hold of at least that blurry state of waking sleep he’d got so good at lately, but he couldn’t seem to grab hold of it.
Eyes ne’r more rest upon Preidyn’s green shores
Held safe in cool shadow ’neath
Dragons’ wings the soul of my cariad soars
It was that bloody song. Ellis gritted his teeth, shut his eyes tighter.
He was no stranger to camp life. The 133rd’s encampment was quite a lot bigger than what he was used to, more orderly and well regulated, but fundamentally the same. Separate tents were set up for things Ellis had at one time in his former life as a Warden on patrol assigned to individuals—food preparation, medical care, communications. But with the exception of having to get used to having a lot more people around, and not being in charge, it was really no different from any other camp Ellis had been part of since he’d been old enough to venture out with a gun in his hand.
Right down to the camp songs.
Rowdy ones to brighten moods. Dirty ones to lighten them. Old songs Ellis had been hearing all his life. New ones brought in by soldiers from all across Preidyn. Mingled now into Wellech’s character the same way bonds morphed and melded among men and women who gathered face-to-face around a campfire at night then stood back-to-back when sunrise brought another battle.
Song was just inherent to campfire.
Rest in shadow
Cariad, sweet
Except this one was… irritating.
Beautiful, no doubt about that. Known and loved throughout Wellech, and apparently the rest of Preidyn, because the man—boy—singing it now was from Werrdig. Private Logan Malloch, Ellis thought, though he couldn’t be entirely sure. There were three young men about the place that all had the same look to them—too young, too fair, too wide-eyed—and Ellis had a hard time remembering who was who. But the song emerged on a northern lilt so clear and pristine it was difficult to maintain annoyance for the one who was singing it.
Rest in shadow
’Neath their harbor we’ll meet
Teeth clamped, Ellis adjusted himself against the tree’s trunk again. Tried to stop hearing it. Tried even harder to stop letting his mind conjure a picture of Milo, alone on the field of a foreign country in the middle of the night, his violin tucked beneath his chin, and that same tune skirling from it as dragons blotted the sky all around him.
Green fields of Preidyn, succor me
Call my cariad home from—
The explosion came with no warning shriek, no distant sounds of propellers, no flash of light from the enemy lines. A violent burst of light and fire flared like the sun in the middle of the camp, only yards away from where Ellis slouched. The pull then push of it sucked his breath right out of his lungs, yanked him in then hurled him back, slamming into him with a brutal wall of fractured air that threw him away from the tree and onto his back in the dirt. It was so fast, so concussive, so world-filling, he didn’t actually hear it.
Everything had gone abruptly white, utterly soundless, body-brain-heart wrought blank and numb. Ellis had an eternity that was probably less than a second to wonder if he’d just died before the pain hit him. His sight stuttered back, fuzzed and too bright, but none of it made sense, all of it gone to ruined disarray. Perception narrowed down to a ringing in his ears so high-pitched it crowded out everything else as his body reflexively scrambled and clawed and dragged him away.
Everyone was running. Where there’d been ordered yet mundane camp life two seconds ago, now it had all snarled into a knot of frantic confusion. The ground was a ragged crater. Fires burned. Everything was shaking.
There was gunfire in the trees now. Ellis could see the strobing flashes of it. Which meant the enemy had somehow got past the trenchlines. They hadn’t been able to gain even a yard for months. And certainly not without the whole camp hearing it.
It made no sense.
Magic, he thought, trying to drag himself up but he couldn’t gain his feet so only push-push-pushed back and back on heels and hands, dirt raining down, fire everywhere. Silence had arrived with whatever that bomb had been, and he didn’t think it was just the concussion. They hadn’t heard it coming. Not a whistle. Had to be magic.
Blinded for too long. Deaf except for the ringing until muffled rumbles and reports dug their way in then ruptured into reality like a train plowing through a snowdrift.
Everything came back. The camp was chaos. Names called. Orders shouted. People running. People dead.
Private Malloch with his sweet tenor and too-youthful face lay beside the fissure that used to be a campfire, the right half of him just gone, torn away but for the gory mess of what was left, glistening dark in the dirt. His face, untouched, was turned up to the sky, expression caught in surprise, eyes wide and shimmering gold with reflected fire.
Someone needed to close them.
Eyes ne’r more rest upon Preidyn’s green shores
Someone needed to—
Ellis shook his head. Got to his feet. His throat burned. Everything felt like it was rocking, queering his balance. His gun’s strap had been around his shoulder while he’d been dozing. It had been thrown with him, or at least he assumed the one by his feet was his. Disoriented, muzzy, he picked it up, hands moving automatically to check it over, found it working fine. Someone slammed into him, sent him reeling to the side. He almost tripped over Private Malloch. What was left of him.
Rest in shadow
A wave of nausea washed over him, but he couldn’t think why. Everything felt distant. Nothing was making sense. Someone—Lieutenant Mason—was shouting something Ellis couldn’t hear, but the body language was clear. Arms waving, hands beckoning then pointing. Urgent.
Go!
Ellis looked around. Spotted Tilli making her way toward him, skirting the edge of the crater where the bomb had hit. Andras was right behind her, one hand gripping Undeg’s arm and the other his rifle. The rest of M Company came in a disheveled clump, pushing through the soldiers scrambling for their own companies in all directions and shouting commands.
There was still that surreality clinging to Ellis’s edges. That sense of dream-walking that clouded his mind and made his body feel like it didn’t belong to him. He moved anyway. Collected his company by eye, jerked his chin toward the frontline that had abruptly arrived at the camp’s threshold, and started toward the sound of shooting.
So
it was funny, he thought later, that he didn’t hear the bullets that came for him.
A punch to the chest. That was what it felt like at first. It took his wind, heaved him back. Another. This one threw him down. He thought there were more. He felt the impact as he went down—one, two, three… Couldn’t be sure.
The pain bloomed high and bright as he hit the ground again. Saw Private Malloch only yards away, still staring up into a sky going pastel with approaching dawn. Ellis could swear he saw Malloch’s lips move, could swear he heard the fading resonance of that stupid song beneath the shouts and the booms and the bootsteps—
Rest in shadow
Cariad, sweet
—as his vision started to tunnel, black seeping in with the pain that was taking over everything.
Once Upon a Time there was a man who… something.
Rest in shadow, Private Malloch crooned.
Yes, Ellis thought, all right, and let his eyes fall shut.
IT WASN’T a Dream. Couldn’t be, because Milo was looking at him, touching him, long fingers callus-rough and skimming Ellis’s cheek, blue eyes overbright and desolate.
Ellis tried to say something—
How could you leave me like that?
You’re not really here, are you?
Are you all right?
Tell me you’re all right.
—couldn’t.
“Don’t.” Milo’s mouth turned up, not quite a smile, but trying. “It’s all right. I know.”
I don’t think you do, Ellis thought, peevish and hurting and sad and angry and still so bloody in love he thought he might choke on it. But he only nodded, curled his fingers tighter around the dragonstone.
“I need you to be all right, Elly.” Milo was so close now, leaning in, clutching with both hands, except it was wrong, fingers so crooked he couldn’t get a proper hold. What was wrong with his fingers? “Please. Please, Elly. I don’t know…” He bowed his head, eyes shut, jaw tight beneath his dark beard gone to unruly scruff.
He looked so gaunt. So ill. Pale to the point of near-translucence, full lips cracked and dry. His touch was like fire to Ellis’s brow, then his hand, but… no, that was the dragonstone snugged in Ellis’s fist, pulsing hot like a little coal that didn’t burn.
“Cariad,” Milo whispered, soft and distant, and, “Always,” and then everything went gray and gauzy before Ellis could even gather the wind to protest.
HE KNEW it for a field hospital the second he opened his eyes. Dim light through tent canvas. Neat lines of cots, and moans in the dark, and white sheets, and the smell of ether. And he knew Milo wasn’t really there. A dream. Not even a Dream, just a plain, old run-of-the-mill sleeping fantasy Ellis’s brain had decided to have while he’d been busy dying.
Almost dying, apparently. He seemed to still be here, after all.
Still. The disappointment was crushing. “Milo,” he said, soft and secret, trying to catch the dream again.
“Thank every goddess,” someone breathed in the near-dark, and the hand that wasn’t Milo’s squeezed around Ellis’s fist tighter. “Ellis, you soft-headed minger. What d’you think you’re doing, getting shot? Your mam’s going to proper murder you. Milo’s going to have your stones, and not in a fun way, you absolute bloody arse!”
The corner of Ellis’s mouth was turning up before he could help it. “Well, damn. I’ve gone to the nether, and here’s one of its imps to greet me.” He blinked hard, trying to bring Dilys into focus through the gloom.
She wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t even smiling. She was scowling. Fierce. She looked like she wanted to hit him but didn’t dare.
“Don’t joke about that,” she snapped, quiet but plainly tamping. “You nearly—” She cut herself off, lips pressed tight, and took a long breath. Calmer, she said, “They took two bullets out of your chest, one from your thigh, and another two from your arm. You’ve been down for nearly a week.”
Ellis frowned, shifting his glance down, but he couldn’t tell the difference between the sheets and the bandages that must be there in the dim light of the tent. Musing, still fuzzy and very confused, he said, “I don’t feel a thing.”
“Well, I should hope not!” Dilys’s sudden grin was a white scimitar-slash through the dark. “Not once Petra got through with Lieutenant Everleigh and then the colonel who runs the hospital.” She snorted. “I don’t know what kind of connections that woman has, but I’m told your Tomos showed up with a mule the next day, loaded down with catgut and gauze, among other things, and a crate of morphine pride of place.”
Ellis grinned. No wonder he felt like he’d been at the bottom of an ale barrel for days. “I’ve always thought Petra would make a great Pennaeth.”
Dilys’s smile dimmed. “Well, let’s not find out, yeah?”
“Eh, it’s not as though… Wait.” Ellis’s thoughts were running slow as syrup. “Did you say I’ve been here a week?”
He hadn’t moved—couldn’t, really—but Dilys pressed gently on his shoulder anyway like she was trying to stop him from getting up. Ellis tried to bat her off, but he couldn’t make his body cooperate.
“When did you get here?”
“I’m not officially here at all. Not yet. But the 2nd Tirryderch arrived outside Granstaf two days ago to provide magical aid to the 133rd.” Dilys’s mouth crimped tight. “Imagine my annoyance when I asked after you and heard you’d let yourself get shot. Lots.”
“Let myself.” Ellis rolled his eyes, since it seemed they were two of the few body parts willing to do what he wanted just now, but otherwise dismissed it. “Yes, fine, but why are you here? Why now? I thought—”
“I haven’t the time to fill you in properly.” She squeezed his hand, still holding the dragonstone. “But I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. For now, just know that we’ve won the lost ground back. The 142nd is already advancing. The 133rd is following within the hour with the 2nd Tirryderch as outriders. And I’m taking M Company with me.”
Ellis’s stomach dropped. “To where?”
“Damn it.” Dilys’s hands went away. “My bloody mouth.” She stood. “I’m sorry, Ellis. Truly. I shouldn’t’ve… I just haven’t the time.” She took a step back.
“Dillie, I swear, if you don’t—”
“I honestly can’t, Ellis, I’m sorry, I really am.” Still edging away. “This has been months in coming, and I swear you’ll get the story straight from me as soon as I get back.”
“Back from where?” It hurt—it hurt a lot, and oh, there was the pain he hadn’t felt before—but Ellis managed to prop himself up on the elbow that wasn’t a mess of bandages. “Is there a new offensive? Where’s the front now? If we gained back all the lost ground, what are you—?”
“Ellis, I’m telling you, I can’t—”
“Yes, fine, keep your bloody secrets if it makes you feel better. I’m only…” Ellis forced his brain into motion, because there was something… something… His fingers were nearly cramping around the stone. It was somehow wriggling through the larger pain flaring in sharp spikes and barbs all over him. “Are those dragons still out there?”
And yes. That was it. Because Ellis wasn’t going to fool himself that he wasn’t done, and fairly useless. At least for now. There was no effect he was going to be able to have on what came next, whatever it was that Dilys was here for, was leaving for, wouldn’t tell him about. But it was big, Ellis could tell. Things were about to happen. And he was supposed to have been here for a reason.
Lilibet was his mam, she loved him, and she’d have done anything to keep him safe. But she wouldn’t have lied about Dreams to do it. Dreams were sacred to someone like her. It wouldn’t even have occurred to her. She’d convinced Milo that Ellis needed to be here, in Wellech, that his presence would somehow be necessary. She’d stood behind it firmly when Ellis had found out and shouted her down. Ellis needed to be in Wellech. Wellech needed Ellis in Wellech. And here Ellis was now, taken out of the equation entirely. There was nothing he cou
ld do from here.
Except maybe this one thing.
“The dragons. They’re down to the two bellwings. Are they still in it?”
Dilys frowned, bemused. “Yeah? But Wellech have got the two stones now, and Tirryderch know our shields. Mine are almost as good as Milo’s. So you mustn’t worry about—”
“Oh, don’t insult me, Dillie. Of course I’m going to bloody worry about you, I don’t care how good you are at what you do. I only—” The hand Ellis needed was currently helping to prop him up. He let himself drop back to the thin mattress with a huff, then a wince because bloody ow, and uncurled his fist. “Here. Take this.”
And this… this was going to hurt. Because Ellis had grown more and more sure as this war dragged on that it was the stone that somehow connected him to Milo and gave him the Dreams. Thing was, that connection had been… perhaps not lost entirely, but hampered at least, and made nearly useless. He couldn’t even tell if Milo was still alive. But if it might keep Dilys alive…
Dilys came in slowly, gaze nailed to the stone atop Ellis’s palm, mouth slightly open in what looked like awe. “He gave it to you.”
“And if—” Ellis swallowed. His throat was all of a sudden bone-dry. “If it’ll keep you safe, he’d flay me for not handing it over.”
“But…” Dilys bit her lip. “I’m not clan. We don’t even know if the other two will work.”
“Maybe they won’t.” Everything was starting to drag for Ellis. The whole world was abruptly turning heavy. And painful. And damn it, he’d only been awake for barely five minutes! “But you’re my clan. So maybe this one will.”
Make sure whoever uses it actually loves them, Ellis had told Walsh, urgent. They’re smart, they can tell. Milo says they can See.
No one had spotted the ravager from Tair Afon in Wellech again. And it hadn’t shown up in any battle anywhere else since. It had to mean something.
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