“Say no more, Warden. They will be safe and awaiting your return.”
If I ever do return, Tharadis thought, releasing the man’s arm. He knew he shouldn’t expect special favors, but he couldn’t just leave them vulnerable either. “Thank you, lieutenant. I hope Rannald comes back, but if he doesn’t, I’ll know the Sentinels are in good hands.” He turned and threaded his way between the wagons and the soldiers standing guard, who only stared as he left the protection of the caravan for the dangers of the night.
Chapter 77: The Caravan
The sheggam bounded up the hill with breathtaking speed, leaping over the broken branches and shattered stump with ease. Rannald hadn’t heard it coming, only caught a glimpse of it a moment ago as he briefly lost his footing in the loose soil. Sherin, struggling in his arms, finally broke free. She half-ran, half-stumbled away from him into the brush, her panting interspersed with panicked cries.
The sheggam, sensing weaker prey, veered in her direction.
Rannald cursed as he got to his feet. He ran after her as quickly as he could, but the sheggam was just so damn fast. It held no weapons—and clothes that were more like rotted strips of cloth—but its teeth and claws were enough to tear her to pieces.
Her sleeve caught on something in the darkness, throwing her to her knees. Eyes wide with terror, she yanked on her sleeve. It ripped, but held her fast.
The sheggam sped forward, jaws gaping with lips pulled back.
A pit formed in Rannald’s stomach as he realized he couldn’t get to her in time. The beast would have her.
Let others fear. Rannald roared, swinging his sword, yet knowing it was too late. He might get the kill, but not fast enough to save Sherin.
Then the beast turned, as if it heard a sound. But it wasn’t looking at Rannald, didn’t hear his battle cry.
It looked south.
The sheggam didn’t even have the time to register surprise. The blade crunched into its snout, ripping through flesh, cartilage, bones, and brain, exploding out the eye socket with a spray of red. A third of the sheggam’s face went spinning off into the trees as the beast collapsed and slid down the slope, wispy tendrils of that strange smoke rising from the bloody remains of the head.
Rannald glanced around briefly and, satisfied there were no other pursuers, rushed to Sherin’s side. “Shhh, it’s okay now. It’s just me. Rannald.”
She was on her back, breath coming heavy and fast, staring at him with no recognition. Ever since he had found her, it was as if she had no idea who he was, or even who she herself was. Her sleeve was still caught, pinched between a couple of roots poking up out of the ground.
With a quick chop of his blade, he cut the fabric free. Sherin yelped at the sudden motion and began scrambling away from him again on her hands and knees.
He jogged around her and crouched down. “Sherin, it’s me.” He held out his hand.
She paused, still breathing quickly, but stared at his other hand. The one holding his sword. She was terrified, not of the sheggam that had nearly killed her, but of him.
He considered dropping it, but only for a moment. It didn’t matter if she feared him or hated him. She would live; he would make sure of it. But he couldn’t do it empty-handed.
He needed his sword. She needed his sword. Whether she saw that or not.
“Come on. Let’s go.” He took her tightly by the hand. She no longer resisted, but he had to drag her as often as not over the hill.
Rannald glanced over his shoulder. They were far enough away from Garoshmir that he could no longer hear the hundred fires roaring, or the screams. The sounds of nature—the rustle of leaves, the chirping of crickets, the crunch of leaves underfoot—seemed like a lie, a betrayal of all those he had left behind in the city.
But his wife was alive. He did it for her, and he would do it a hundred times more. He would leave everything and everyone behind if it could buy her but one more day of life.
Rannald just hoped he had bought her at least that much.
They burst through a line of shrubs and stopped. A hundred or so wagons were clustered not far ahead of them in apparent disarray, silhouetted by a series of controlled fires. Forms ran toward the caravan—human, by the look of them, some limping, others crying out for help. Soldiers stood in wary groups, holding torches in front of every face before admitting any of the refugees. Checking to see if they were human.
It looked safe. At least as safe as he could hope for.
As he approached, he called out, “I have a Councilor of the Wall.” It was all they needed to hear; he guessed his voice was known to even these men. They moved aside quickly. “And bring me whoever’s in charge.”
Most of the people in the caravan were wounded; the rest ran around frantically, administering aid, barking orders, moving wooden planks, crates, or whatever else they could find to build up the makeshift barricade at the caravan’s edge. Rannald guided Sherin over the deep wagon ruts crisscrossing the soft ground to a crate to sit, then quickly wiped his blade on his leg before sheathing it. Sherin’s breathing had calmed. Now she gripped his hand tightly. Firelight reflected in the tears on her cheeks.
“Rannald,” she whispered. “Rannald.”
He pulled her close and squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that threatened.
“Captain,” came a man’s voice from behind.
Reluctantly Rannald let go of her and turned. Four Sentinels stood at attention next to an overweight man in a leather jerkin tightly gripping a blood-spattered mace. “Major Metsfurth,” Rannald said, nodding to Arrion, at the Sentinels’ lead.
“Glad to see you’re alive, Captain.” No hint of gladness could be seen on the major’s face. Rannald couldn’t blame him.
“Likewise. All of you.” Rannald turned to the other man, the one he didn’t know. “You’re in charge here?”
The man shrugged. “I’m the caravan chief, so I suppose so.”
“What have you heard?”
“Just got word that a bunch of the buggers just turned south of a sudden. All at once, like a flock of birds.”
South. “How long ago?”
He shrugged again. “Couldn’t have been a quarter hour, half hour.”
“How many? All of them?”
A haunted glaze came over the caravan chief’s eyes. “Most. But not enough.”
“Captain.” Major Metsfurth’s left eye was swollen and he had suffered a shallow gash on his arm, but otherwise looked unharmed. His uniform, however, looked and smelled like it had been dragged through a sewer. The other Sentinels fared little better. “Tharadis was here. He brought his daughter with him.”
“Daughter? I thought he was …” Looking for his sister-in-law’s daughter.
Ah.
Metsfurth nodded as he followed Rannald’s thought process, apparently written on his face. “He left her here. The girl’s aunt is here too, but … she’s not well.”
“She’s hurt?”
“Not physically, but …” He didn’t need to explain further. “Tharadis said he had to go south immediately. You just missed him. He left right after all the sheggam headed off. I think he thought something worse was going to happen, but he didn’t say what.”
Rannald chuckled wryly. “Worse than a sheggam invasion, eh?”
“He said the most important job the Sentinels could do now is help make the caravan safe. So that’s what we’ve been doing.”
Rannald nodded his approval. For now, the Sentinels would do what they could here. Whatever the Naruvian was doing, it was beyond the likes of Rannald Firnaleos. Tharadis was on his own. “Light some arrows and loose them towards the city. It will signal to anyone who gets free of the city that we’re here. And it will make it a little easier to see if anything approaches.”
The chief frowned. “But that will also signal the sheggam that we’re here.”
“If there’s a lesson in any of this,” Rannald said, “it’s that the sheggam are always coming.” He turned to his m
en. “See it done.”
The Sentinels saluted and left. Rannald helped Sherin up and turned back to the caravan chief. “Take us to the Naruvian’s daughter.”
Chapter 78: Bones
Hundreds of bodies were laid out on the ground. Some of them moved; many did not. Clouds of flies and bloodsuckers circled the barely-living and the dead. Few moved in attempt to disperse them; most were too weak to do so. The scent of death flooded the air, forcing Rannald to cover his nose and mouth with his forearm as he followed the caravan chief along the narrow, winding path between the bodies packed together tightly. Sherin clung to Rannald’s arm like a frightened child. Soldiers, nurses, and anyone else able enough to help wove between those on the ground, administering what aid they could. Those needing help greatly outnumbered those giving it.
“The smoke or fog, whatever it is,” the chief said. “Some of the wounded got infected. Started changing, right before our very eyes, in ways a man can’t unsee. Brothers turning to beasts.” His pace slowed as he stared at the bodies. He shook his head. “Killing a man you know to save yourself …”
Rannald guessed by his tone that the chief had done the deed himself at least once. He had seen it back in the city—the wall of fog rolling over those crying for help, those same cries changing to something altogether alien, frightening. The stories all told of such things, the shegasti power infecting open cuts and sores, but many dismissed them as mere fables used to frighten children into avoiding dangerous play. Today, thought Rannald, myth becomes indisputable fact.
He followed the chief’s gaze to a particular soldier making his way through the wounded. That man had no poultices, no needles or gut. Only a well-used dagger. The man’s motions were mechanical as he checked for signs of infection and turning, pulling back eyelids and prodding wounds with the hilt. Rannald turned away before he had to see the man find someone infected and use that dagger of his.
They put the wounded behind them, making their way through several spear racks, most empty, scattered about as haphazardly as everything else in the caravan. Beyond this, a large ring of soldiers surrounded an open area filled with cook fires and tents, with women and children gathered around the fires in frightened clumps. The soldiers were of different loyalties—some Sentinels, some city guards, others the personal guards of various Councilors—but all of them stood armed and at attention, vigilant in their charge. Rannald realized the caravan chief must have been a far better leader than he seemed at first glance.
The sight stirred a shred of hope in Rannald’s heart, but he knew that if but two sheggam made their way to this line of soldiers, it would falter and buckle. Then the slaughter would begin. Mere vigilance would not be enough to save them.
The chief led them to a group of three women and a small black-haired girl, sitting around a fire. All of them looked like they were just waking up. He was surprised to see Chad there as well, curled up and sleeping fitfully near the fire. One of women Rannald recognized from the library; her dark red ringlets and spectacles were hard to mistake, as was the fist-sized green orb hanging from a heavy chain around her neck, marking her as the library’s archivist. She clutched it tight against her chest. Everyone seems to be clutching something, Rannald noted, loosening the grip on his sword as Sherin tightened her grip on him.
The girl sat on the lap of a young woman who couldn’t be much older than twenty, lounging against a broken wagon wheel propped up against a crate, staring off at nothing. Her yellow dress was soaked in blood, but her skin appeared to have been mostly wiped free of it, revealing the same deep tan as Tharadis. The sister.
The third woman crouched by the fire Rannald didn’t recognize immediately, because she wore different clothing now—or rather more clothing, likely scrounged from the dead, judging by the fact that she wore men’s trousers with a bloody hole in the thigh, and the gambeson and mail she wore were far too large. She stared directly into Rannald’s eyes, unbowed and unrepentant.
Erianna Vondallor.
Rannald shoved Sherin behind him as he drew his sword.
No one moved, though they weren’t frozen by fear. They were simply numb to danger.
Erianna spoke. “I understand you think me an enemy, Rannald Firnaleos. But I am Shad’s slave no longer. Her will no longer defines mine.”
Rannald gritted his teeth, lowered the point of his blade so that it was inches from her chest. “You … helped her bring these things here.”
Erianna stood, Rannald’s blade following her up. “I am no more to blame than your wife. Less, since I was a slave with no choice in the matter. If you’re going to seek your vengeance, take it up with the Council of the Wall.” Erianna looked down at the fire, closed her eyes, and sighed. “No, even they aren’t to blame. They didn’t know what sort of threat they faced. Only Shad did.”
“You could have stopped her.”
Erianna faced him, firelight reflecting in her eyes. “You’re a fool if you think this could’ve been avoided. If there was a way for the sheggam to come here, they would have, no matter what any one of us did, no matter who among us died along the way.” She squatted back down and began to idly stir the coals with a stick.
Rannald felt the sting of painful truth in her words. He sheathed his sword and turned to the little girl. She was watching him, wide-eyed. “Your fath … You must be Tharadis’s …”
“I’m Nina. Tharadis is my daddy.” She seemed very proud of this fact.
“Nina.” Rannald tried to smile but doubted himself successful. “Your father is a very important man, and he loves you very much.”
The girl nodded and stared down at her hands resting in her lap.
Erianna stood and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “This place isn’t safe. These men are doing what they can, but they aren’t organized enough. We’re too close to the treeline. The sheggam could come at us with barely a minute’s notice.”
Rannald sighed. “I was thinking the same thing.” He turned to the chief. “Has any word come from the other cities?” It was a stretch to hope for; it would take a few hours for a man on horseback to reach them from even the nearest town.
The chief shook his head. “Sheggam’ve been spotted running every which way since the beginning. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve run down that Runeway and knocked on a few doors by now. Hordes of them. Thousands.”
“It couldn’t be much worse than here,” Erianna said. “Garoshmir is done. We have to go somewhere fortified. Ahlin, perhaps.”
Sherin stepped around Rannald and spoke, her voice hoarse and low. Her eyes never lifted from the ground. “Ahlin will never take us in, even if they aren’t yet overrun. They won’t take any chances with the sheggam about. They won’t trust anyone.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “And who could blame them? If they had any sense, they’d put arrows in anyone who ventures close. Especially if they learn that the Council of the Wall invited this disaster upon them.”
Rannald seized her by the shoulders. “Don’t you dare believe that you are responsible for what happened here. Like she said, you had no idea.”
“No,” Sherin’s voice lowered further. “I really didn’t.”
Rannald released her. He felt the gazes of Erianna and the caravan chief fixed upon him. “Tharadis went south to stop something worse from happening. I don’t know what could be worse than this, but that’s why I’m not the man for the job. Like he believed, my place is here. Making everyone here safe is something I can help with.”
“Orthkalu came up through the vents in Twelve Towers,” Erianna said. “It’s likely that the rest of them came from there, too. As far as I know there’s nothing stopping more of them from coming. What happens if they do?”
Rannald looked north. He could see the white line of Andrin’s Wall softly reflecting the moonlight, stretching from horizon to horizon where not obscured by trees and hills. Andrin’s Wall can no longer protect us, he realized. The wall may as well have been torn down, turned to rubble, for all the good it would do th
em now.
They could no longer rely on it. There was only one thing left to protect them.
The strength of their steel.
“If more sheggam come,” he said between gritted teeth as he freed his sword and raised it high in Andrin’s Salute, “we will build a new wall. From their bones.”
Chapter 79: The Red Moon
It was a ridiculous plan. Tharadis was only half-convinced it would work. But he had to try something.
With Shoreseeker gripped tightly in one hand, he pressed himself against the outer wall surrounding Garoshmir and crept forward. The southern gate leading into the city lay ahead. Though it had only been a few days, it seemed like an age since he had first passed through that gate.
Although the stone was cold against his back, smoke and heat rose into the night sky. It seemed like the whole city was burning. Right now, that was something that Tharadis could use to his advantage.
His breath caught in his throat and he froze as a hulking, pale form loped out of the gate on all fours, not ten feet from where Tharadis stood. It passed through the knee-high grass before its claws clacked against the surface of the Runeway. Once there, the sheggam broke into a full sprint. Heading south.
Tharadis released the breath. It ignored him—if it had even noticed him at all. It had seemed totally focused on heading south. Which meant that the call throbbing in Tharadis’s left hand wasn’t his imagination at all.
What kind of sheggam could call him like that? Except a sheggam who was also a Patterner?
The thought chilled him. Still, it changed nothing. That only made it all the more important for him to stop whatever was going on down at the Rift.
Tharadis crept forward and peered around the corner of the gate. The guards, of course, were nowhere to be seen. The outer portcullis was still raised. The inner one was down but smashed to pieces. Beyond it, bodies littered the street curving away. The only movement came from the low flames lapping up the wall of a small shed next to the inn. It would do.
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