Justice

by Ian Irvine

  Her attacker let out a sharp cry, either pain or shock. Glynnie stumbled forward, caught her foot on a stone and fell. She struck her breastbone on another stone, knocking the wind out of her. The knife slipped from her hand. She groped around frantically for it before remembering that she had four more. She crawled a few yards, drew her second knife and rose to a crouch. Where was he? From the cry she could tell it was a man.

  She could not hear anything save the faint sigh of wind across dry grass. Had she injured him? She could not tell. That gurgling sound might have been water flooding from a punctured leather water bottle.

  Glynnie rubbed her skull and felt a long oval bruise there. The blow must have been intended to knock her unconscious, but perhaps he’d misjudged her height in the darkness. Though how could he see her at all when she could see nothing?

  She took a careful step sideways, feeling that prickling sensation on the back of her neck again. Did he know who she was? Had Holm been right? Had Grandys sent the dreams about Benn to entice her out?

  Still there was no sound, though she had heard nothing before he struck. He knew how to move silently in the dark and could be anywhere. He could be one step behind her—

  Panic surged and she whirled, striking out wildly in all directions, though the knife touched only air. From several yards away she made out a low, chuckling sound. Was he laughing at her panic and her feeble attempts to protect herself?

  There it was again. She turned slowly, straining into the blackness, trying to pinpoint the sound. It came from low down, as if he was creeping towards her. Dare she use her lantern to check? She didn’t have a choice. Without light, her disadvantage was fatal.

  With exquisite care she untied the lantern from the bottom of her pack, slid the shutter across until it was almost closed, clicked the striker and moved sideways in the same movement. It did not light. She clicked again and moved again, sure he’d use the sound to attack.

  Nothing happened, though again she heard that faint chuckle. On the fifth click the wick caught. Glynnie put her hand across the top of the slit, tilted the lantern downwards so it could not be seen from a distance and swept the narrow beam around her.

  And froze. The lantern beam showed a lean, bald-headed gnome of a man lying on the ground four yards away, head tilted back and arms outspread. A red gash jagged across his lower belly, just above the groin, to his left hipbone. Her instinctive backwards stab had done terrible damage. Blood and dark fluids, pooled inside, were ebbing out of the gash with faint chuckling sounds.

  He wasn’t dead, but Glynnie had treated enough war wounds to know he had little time left. She went closer and bent over, watching his hands, though she did not think he posed any threat now.

  “You’re going to die,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes.” He spoke faintly, as though it was a struggle to draw enough breath. “Fair exchange… I suppose.”

  “Did Grandys send you?”

  “Mmm…”

  “For me?”

  “Not… specifically.”

  “How did you find me?”

  He tried to raise his left hand to his eye, but his fingers opened and a stubby crystal the size of her thumb slipped free, clacking against a pebble.

  “What’s that?” said Glynnie.

  His arm struck the ground. He would never answer. He was dead.

  She prodded the crystal with her knife. The ends were flat, as if the crystal had been cut and polished, and the cross-section was shaped like a hexagon. She picked it up gingerly and looked at it side-on, thinking that it might be cursed in some way. She waved it in front of her right eye and a round patch of the ground became visible, as if picked out by a dull grey light, though when she lowered the crystal all she saw was darkness.

  She looked down at the corpse. How easily he had died; almost as easily as the sentry she had murdered. It reminded her that Benn was just a little, timid boy, alone in a violent city. How could he have survived all this time with no one to look after him?

  She imagined his small body lying in some stinking alley, or thrown onto a heap with so many other dead. Abandoned to be eaten by vermin, as this unknown man would be—

  Glynnie shuddered and extinguished the lantern. She had to crush all such thoughts or despair would freeze her and she would not be able to go on.

  Holding the crystal to her eye, she hurried south-west through the marshes and mires towards the fishing village of Tinker’s Cleft, on the cliffed bay she had seen last night. When the army had passed the bay yesterday there had been dozens of fishing boats on the water. Tinker’s Cleft could not be more than five miles away.

  Her plan was to steal a fishing skiff and sail to Caulderon while it was still dark. Though she had never sailed a boat, and could not swim more than twenty yards, it seemed a safer course than trying to make her way south through the war-scorched countryside. If she went that way she would have to pass Grandys’ camp at Flume, and she wasn’t going anywhere near him.

  Sailing a skiff couldn’t be that hard, could it? Back in the days when Glynnie had worked in the palace, she had sometimes sat on the lake wall on her half day off, watching Rix racing his little boat. It only had one sail and he had made it look easy… though of course Rix had been sailing since he was a little boy.

  It reminded her of that small, red-headed boy they had found floating face down in the lake on the terrible day of their escape; the day she had lost Benn. At first she’d thought the drowned boy had been Benn, and she had felt guilty about it afterwards. Guilty about feeling relieved that it had been another dead boy…

  She stopped in mid-step; she wasn’t going to allow that line of thought either. Benn was alive! She conjured up the clearest image of him she could find, remembering the courage he had shown that morning as they fled down the tunnels. Benn was brave and clever. He would have survived, somehow…

  Glynnie reached Tinker’s Cleft without incident. There was just enough light to make out the shapes of the nearest cottages of the village. She judged it to be a little after three in the morning. She put the crystal to her eye but it did not help—it was only useful for seeing objects within ten yards or so.

  She skirted the village, afraid of dogs, and crept along a muddy shore towards the boats. Half a dozen fishing skiffs were drawn up along the shore and others were anchored in the shallow water. She heaved on the stern of the nearest skiff on the shore but could not budge it. She would have to take one of the craft in the water.

  Glynnie picked out the smallest, hauled it in by its rope, climbed in and pushed it out with an oar, suppressing her guilt at stealing a poor family’s livelihood. She sat in the darkness for a moment, expecting to be discovered, but all was still. No dogs barked, no light appeared in any cottage. There was no sound save the gentle lapping of ripples on the shore. Could it be this easy?

  With an effort, she heaved the anchor out of the mud and stowed it at the bow. Now her hands were covered in smelly mud, and so were her clothes. She held a finger up to identify the wind direction—from the west—and used the crystal to study the layout of mast and sail. The sail was a simple, triangular piece of canvas tied to the mast and to a horizontal, swinging arm which she thought was called a boom. How hard could it be?

  A wooden bucket under the bow was a quarter full of small, smelly fish. Bait, she assumed. A net was stowed neatly beside the bucket, and half a dozen hand lines, wound around short lengths of wood.

  The bay, she knew, was shaped roughly like a triangle four or five miles on a side. The mouth, at Glimmering, was only a mile wide but if she headed for the distant glow of Caulderon she should find the mouth without too much trouble. Once outside, it was only a few miles across the lake to the city. There her real problems would begin.

  She put that worry out of mind—first she had to learn how to sail. Glynnie unfastened the lashings, the skiff rocking beneath her, and pulled the sail out along the boom, but before she could tie it down the sail filled and the boom slamme
d into her chest, driving her against the side. The skiff rocked wildly and for a dreadful moment she thought she was going overboard, but the sail slid back along the boom and the pressure eased.

  Glynnie drew the sail out again and tied it down as best she could in the darkness. She held the boom lightly, trying to sense the wind. It swung hard, the boat lurched, but this time she managed to hold it and the skiff began to move.

  But the wind was driving her east, toward the cliff-bound shore, and it wasn’t far away. She swung the boom and managed to turn the skiff a little more southerly, though not enough; she was still heading for the cliffs. To reach the mouth of the bay she would have to sail to the south-west though, with the wind coming from the west, how could she?

  Glynnie had heard stories about ships tacking into the wind but had no idea how to do it. Could a skiff be tacked? She did not know, and no matter how she moved the sail the little boat kept heading east. Already she could hear waves breaking against the rocks, and if the skiff was driven against them it was bound to sink, and she would drown. She would have to row, though she had not done that before either.

  She furled the sail and tied it to the mast, then got out the oars and inserted them in the rowlocks. Remembering the way Rix had rowed that dinghy on the night of their escape from Caulderon three months ago, Glynnie heaved on the oars. The blades skittered across the water but the craft did not move. She had to dig deeper, which meant holding the oar handles higher. This made it hard to exert enough force on them, especially with the mast in the way, but she dared not take it down. There wasn’t time, and if she did she would probably never get it up again.

  After several attempts with the oars she succeeded in moving the skiff a few feet, and looked over her shoulder. The cliffs were a dark mass looming above her, at least fifty feet high, and she could see the churning whiteness of waves breaking against the broken rocks at their base. She had to get away, now!

  Glynnie dug deep with the left oar and to her joy the craft turned a little. She dug again and again, until she had turned the bow into the wind, then began to crab her way away from the rocks towards the centre of the bay.

  Rowing was exhausting, and within minutes she had blisters on both hands. She had to ignore the pain, and the burning strain in her arms, back, neck and shoulders, and keep going… and going, as the sky cleared and the stars slowly wheeled, until a glow in the southern sky crept into view and she was looking out through the headlands of the bay. Was that Caulderon? No, it was too high up. It must be the top of one of the gently erupting Vomits.

  She kept on for another ten minutes, clawing her way south-west, then the bay entrance opened up before her and she realised that the wind was behind her; she could use the sail at last. She looked south, then south-east and saw a thousand pinpoints of light on the hills of Caulderon, her destination. She shipped the oars, carefully unfurled the sail and tied it in place then, under a steady breeze, set sail for the city.

  The greatest challenge lay ahead. Getting into Caulderon should not be that difficult, for its walls ran for five miles and much of that length had been broken in the war, or the great tsunami after the first eruption. The shattering earthquake a week and a half ago was bound to have brought more wall down, and Lyf’s army could hardly guard it all.

  After she got inside the city, Glynnie did not think she would attract much attention. Dressed in her drab, mud-covered clothes she would look like every other miserable citizen. As long as she kept her head down, why would anyone take notice of her?

  The big danger would come as soon as she started to ask questions about Benn.

  CHAPTER 29

  Holm burst into the command tent. “Rix, she’s gone!’

  ‘Who’s gone?” said Rix, without looking up. “Gone where?”

  “Glynnie’s gone to Caulderon. To look for Benn.”

  The acid in Rix’s belly boiled. He dropped the map. “How do you know?”

  “I happened upon her on the crag, last night. She was really upset and I got her to talk about things. Talk them through.”

  “And you didn’t bother to tell me?” Rix said with soft menace. “Didn’t think I’d want to know?”

  “I told her that she had to tell you, otherwise I would. She promised she’d tell you when… if she came to a decision to leave.”

  “But she was lying.”

  “Evidently.”

  “When did she go?”

  “Sometime after I went to bed, apparently. Around midnight, it appears. On foot.”

  “Six hours ago.” Rix swore fluently. He looked around and realised that Jackery was staring at him. “Could you leave us for five minutes?”

  Jackery nodded and went out.

  “Grandys wants revenge on her, because she made him a laughing stock,” said Rix. “He probably sent Glynnie’s nightmares to lure her out of the camp.”

  “I told her as much,” said Holm.

  “But it didn’t sway her.”

  “Would it have swayed you, if you were in her position?”

  “Probably not,” Rix said grudgingly. He knew damn well it would not have made any difference. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “The key question is—is she safer here, or gone?”

  “How can she be safe outside the camp, when Grandys is hunting her? Or in Caulderon, an enemy-held city?”

  “I think—”

  “I can’t let her go,” Rix burst out. “If you could have seen the way she took Grandys on that night at Bastion Cowly, great brute that he is. She was fearless, Holm. No, Glynnie was terrified, yet she took Grandys on, even though if he’d caught her he could have killed her with a single blow. She’s the best woman there is, and I love her. She’s everything to me.”

  “If you’d said all that to Glynnie last night, instead of me now, she might still be here.”

  “Well, I’m a bloody fool.”

  “That goes without saying,” Holm said drily.

  It was the kind of remark Tobry had often made. Rix felt his eyes prickle but he blinked the moisture away. There was no time for it.

  “If Grandys gets her—If he’s got her…”

  “How would you find her, anyway? Besides, you’ve got—”

  “Don’t tell me—I’ve got this stinking army to command!”

  Holm closed his mouth without speaking.

  “Ten days ago I chose my army over Tali,” Rix went on. “If I’d ridden after her straight away I might have got her back from Rufuss, but I didn’t, and it’s eating me alive; I can’t do it again.”

  “You took on the command. You swore to put your country’s army first.”

  “What the hell do you want me to do?”

  “What matters most to you?”

  “Don’t do this to me, Holm. How can I be expected to choose between the fate of my country and the life of the woman I love?”

  “You created the situation by ignoring her desperate need to find Benn. In a way, you forced her to act the way she has. Now you do have to choose.”

  “She went on foot,” said Rix. “And it was a dark night; she might not have got far. On a fast horse, I might catch her in a couple of hours—assuming I can discover where she went.”

  “She was going to Caulderon.”

  “But which way?”

  “The fastest, safest way, I’d imagine.”

  “She can’t sail and she can barely swim. She’d have to go overland. Via Gordion it’s only twenty miles.”

  “But that way she’d have to go past Grandys, at Flume… unless she swung way out to the east. Which would make the trip closer to thirty miles.”

  “I can’t guess which way she’d go,” said Rix. “I’ll have to track her.” He went to the door. “Jackery?”

  He appeared at once.

  “Call Captain Hork in,” said Rix. “You and I are going riding. Get the horses ready, and a couple of days’ supplies, just in case.”

  Jackery went out. Shortly Hork came through the flap of the te
nt, rubbing his eyes. Even half asleep he looked extraordinarily handsome, and Rix held it against him. As Holm had pointed out previously, Hork wasn’t much of a leader, but he was the most experienced officer Rix had.

  “I’m going scouting,” said Rix. “I may be a few hours. In my absence, you’re acting commander, but don’t do anything foolish. Hold this position, and don’t engage the enemy unless they attack up the hill. Got that?”

  “Yes,” said Hork.

  “If you need advice, Holm will be close by.”

  Holm started to protest, saw the look on Rix’s face and closed his mouth without speaking.

  Rix went out. Holm and Jackery followed.

  “Try to keep the lid on where I’ve gone,” said Rix. “Though I dare say half the army knows that Glynnie has bolted by now.”

  “Probably not half,” said Holm, “but everyone will know by breakfast.”

  Rix cursed. Jackery came up, leading two horses with bulging saddlebags. Rix nodded to Holm. He and Jackery mounted, rode through the camp and down the hill as the sun was rising.

  “You know anything about tracking, soldier?” said Rix.

  “She went that way,” said Jackery, pointing south-west.

  They followed Glynnie’s light tracks through the dry grass, down off the ramp of the hill and south towards the mires. The knot in Rix’s stomach was growing.

  “She’s just a girl,” he said. “And a city girl at that. How can she hope to survive out here?”

  “Something lying in the grass up ahead,” said Jackery.

  Rix raced past him and swung down, but it wasn’t her. The dead man was on his back, eyes and mouth open, and the scavengers had already begun their work. In this hungry land, by tomorrow there would be nothing left of him save bones.

  “How do you read it?” he said after a minute.

  “The same way as you do, I expect. He jumped Glynnie and she managed to knife him… a lucky stroke, in the dark.”

  Fear tightened his windpipe. “Was he alone? Do you think they’ve got her?”