She stepped back and surveyed her work. ‘I can feel him pulling on t’ Circle. This could’ve killed any other Eszai bu’ Wrenn. He’s such a figh’er. Wha’ are you doing here? Have you brough’ a message?’
‘No. I’m passing through. Do you have anything to tell Frost or San?’
She shook her head. She was untying the tourniquet from Wrenn’s thigh. ‘You’re no’ encouraging, Jant. Saying “leave him”! How dare you!’
‘But how can he swordfight now?’ I protested. ‘Even if he survives, he’ll lose his place in the Circle to the first Challenger who comes along.’
‘I’ve deal’ with maimed Eszai hundreds of times. I know I’m righ’.’
‘I’d hate to be forced back to obscurity,’ I said. ‘Wrenn is the same. Do you expect him to win duels on a wooden leg?’
Rayne said, ‘Stranger things have happened.’
I huffed. ‘A Swordsman with one leg? How likely is that?’
Rayne said, ‘Look. There are all kinds of freakish abilities in t’ Circle. We even have a man who can fly. Tha’s pret’y damn weird.’
I took her point. She continued, ‘He migh’ go on for a year or even more before get’ing bea’en. He may well have t’ come t’ terms wi’ being mortal again. Bu’ a’ least he’ll have more life. He can change his outlook. He can change from being t’ Swordsman t’ someone else. I am giving him time t’ think. Once he thinks abou’ i’, he’ll thank me for no’ let’ing him die. They always do. As long as they can continue t’ live wi’ digni’y, and have the chance t’ die peacefully in bed surrounded by grandchildren, i’s bet’er than dying on the field. Isn’ i’? Dying in shi’ and confusion means nothing. You gain nothing. He’ll prefer living and growing old t’ dying in bat’le. If he wan’s to die in bat’le he can do i’ later. He needs time t’ clear his mind. No ex-Eszai has ever told me any differen’.’
‘He’s gashed here as well.’ I pointed to a deep, narrow cut above the knee of his severed leg. The black tip of a broken Insect mandible stuck out.
‘T’ poleyne plate mus’ have come off his knee. Tell Sleat those clips don’ work. A shard is still in there. I’m going t’ take i’ ou’. T‘ soldiers tried t’ pull i’ ou’ and i’ broke.’
Insect mandible shards are much worse than their leg spines. I know many people living with Insect spines embedded in their bodies. If Rayne can’t extract them without causing further damage, she leaves them in. But jaws are highly septic, considering what Insects eat, and broken pieces will rankle in wounds and cause fatal septicaemia. I helped Rayne as she began to operate to extract the shard.
She eased the blood-hardened cloth away from his skin. Then she took a scalpel from the steamed-clean tray and made a cross-shaped incision at the point where the mandible had gone in, widening the cut. She squirted spirits of wine into the wound with a syringe, and grasped the end of the triangular shard with forceps. It had one very sharp edge, and to prevent it cutting Wrenn’s flesh when she drew it out, she took a little hollow steel cylinder like a straw with an open slot along its length. She slid the tube onto the shard’s sharp edge. Then she drew it out firmly and smoothly along its path of entry. In time with his heartbeat, blood welled up, overran the camp bed and pattered on the floor. Rayne rinsed out the wound and put a dressing on it.
Then she detached the tube from the arm of the soldier who was giving Wrenn his blood. He looked very pale and weak by this stage. She nodded to him. ‘You can go. Take a sip of juice, over there … Then go and ea’ mea’ and drink a lo’ of water, and have a res’.’
The dazed soldier wandered off. Rayne crooked her thumb at Wrenn. ‘Even if their blood is incompa’ible you can risk i’ once, but a second time would be fatal.’
She felt his pulse with a couple of twiggy fingers on his neck. ‘No’ a’ home.’
‘When will he wake up?’
‘Could be any time. Migh’ not. But if I know Wrenn, he’ll wake as soon as he can. Tha’ one never gives up.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘And i’ makes a difference from having t’ cure him of VD.’ She smiled without any trace of humour. Invisible flies were buzzing around my head. I hunched my shoulders and an avid pain ran between my wings; I stretched them against the stiffness.
Rayne wiped her hands on a cloth. ‘I have Tornado in here as well, you know.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He lost an eye.’ She pointed across the room to where Tornado was sitting on another stretcher bed, with his head in his hands. Bandages covered his eye. He was stripped to the waist – you could reconstruct the battles of eight centuries from the scars on his body.
‘What! By a larva?’ If they could wound even Tornado, the Vermiform was right; we were finished.
‘No. In the crush someone’s spear went into his eye. Don’ talk t’ him. He’s very pissed off about i’ – he’s embarrassed, too.’
‘I told him not to advance.’
‘If you remind him of tha’, he’ll punch you. Fescue’s jus’ lef’ here, dead. And Vir Ghallain has been mauled. From wha’ I’ve seen, they’ve los’ him too.’
‘I’ll speak to his Select.’
Rayne beckoned a doctor. ‘Watch over Serein and remove his armour.’ Then she turned to her next patient. She wouldn’t be diverted until all that could be done had been done.
I set off towards the water pumps where containers were stacked. I filled as many as I could carry and slung them around my body on two crossed leather straps. As I left, the last of Tanager’s lancers raced in. They didn’t seem to be bringing many survivors – some injured men rode pillion, but others were little more than chewed parcels, slung over saddlebows.
I flew bottles of water, packets of food and enough coffee to keep Frost going out to the dam for the next two hours. I even managed a couple of spades for which Frost was even more grateful than the coffee. Each time, the spoil heap by the portcullis had grown. By the fifth or sixth time I climbed through the window of the winch tower, it had completely blocked the portcullis and was slumping through to the walkway. Inside, a chain of men were passing buckets along and the one at the end threw the dirt onto the mound.
I sat on the ledge and hooked the supplies on a winch that Frost had rigged up. One of the soldiers lowered them, hand-over-hand, while I climbed down the wall.
Soldiers stood around the machinery, leaning on it to eat the latest packet of bread. They had all kept their helmets on for protection underground, and they were filthy; their faces black with dirt and glossy with sweat. They were surprisingly cheerful, though; I took their measure as I approached Frost.
She was sitting on a pile of burlap sacks, intent on her writing. Her jaw was clenched so tightly she had dimples in her cheeks. Tears ran down both sides of her nose.
She had a climbing rope wrapped around her waist, through a metal loop and coiled on the floor. She had obviously found it easier to abseil down the shaft, and the soldiers looked as if they would be happy to belay her anywhere.
I touched her shoulder and she jumped. ‘Jant? Wait, I’m finishing this letter. For the … will of god … and the … pro-tect-ion of the Circle,’ she pronounced as she wrote, and signed it. ‘Arch-it-ect for the Sovereign … Emperor San … and Chief Eng-in-eer of River-works Com-pa-ny.’ She blew on the paper, then folded it and dripped candle wax along the fold.
I said, ‘I brought more bread. It’s all I can carry.’
She nodded, and bellowed down the maintenance shaft, ‘Change of shift! Come up, the kettle’s boiled!’
She tittered hysterically, hyperventilated a few breaths, and checked herself. Her teeth were edge-on-edge, her forehead furrowed.
I offered her a muddy loaf. She wiped the tears away with her brigandine cuff and shook her head contemptuously. ‘No! No more time off!’ She sat down on the sacks. ‘Will you take the note to San?’
‘Yes. Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. There’s no problem. I don’t know
why you think there’s a problem, because there isn’t.’ I could hear the steel in her voice. She was showing both her personalities at once. Her extreme stress had laid them bare in front of me and it was like talking to two different people. I didn’t know whether to speak to the tearful, emotional woman or the single-minded engineer; whether to give her a comforting hug or a quadratic equation.
She took her bandanna off – her hair flowed loose, matted with mud. She blew her nose on the bandanna and stuffed it in her pocket. ‘Right! Comet, we have broken through into the downstream passageway. We’ve made a big hole in the maintenance chamber floor that the water will drain through. Now we are digging on the other side of the gate where the tunnel’s full of water. If we can keep up this rate, I expect to make a breakthrough sometime in the early hours of the morning … and the lake will start to drain …’ She turned to the men preparing to take the place of the even grimier diggers climbing out of the shaft. ‘Do ye hear that? The faster you shovel, boys, the more lives you will save! People out there are being savaged! Your fellow fyrdsmen are dying in whole battalions! Insect spawn are crawling all over the town and more of the … horrible things … are coming out of the lake every minute. Accept victory, and we will win. We will do what we set out to do!’
The men cheered.
She gave them a smile, then drew me aside to the spoil heap. Her eyes were bloodshot and brimming. ‘My last p-project. Riverworks’s final contract will be successful. The Emperor must then c-complete our plan and advance the t-troops over the lakebed …’ She caught a breath. ‘… And kill all the larvae we leave stranded in the mire. You must give him this –’ She handed me the letter.
‘Of course.’
She looked at me levelly, she seemed to have swung round to a calm phase. ‘Describe to the Sapper exactly what I am doing. Tell him the Glean Road will be passable but the Lowespass Road will not. The waters will take two days to subside. Will you tell him that?’
‘Of course.’
‘I never – ah – oh, Jant, I never built the basin for a hydraulic jump this huge … It’s …’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. You must also send a semaphore to Summerday … Tell them to evacuate.’
‘Most of the Summerday people are here,’ I said. ‘The governor has been fighting.’
‘I know. But some are left in the town, and you must evacuate them.’
‘Why?’
She glanced over to the wall, on the other side of which was the lake. She breathed out the breath she had been holding for a few seconds, and tittered. Then she panted another breath. ‘When the lake drains, their … streets might flood.’
‘Might?’ I had never known her to be so unspecific.
‘Mm. Tell them to get out, immediately. And tell Mist to move the ships he has in the river mouth. I don’t remember who Mist is at the moment; I mean, what his real name is … So many come and go. But if he’s the Sailor, he’ll be able to do it.’
‘I’ll tell them.’
She nodded slowly. ‘Then goodbye, Jant.’
‘See you, Frost.’
I turned to go, but she clenched my hand. ‘Goodbye. Goodbye, Comet.’
Tears rolled unnoticed down her cheeks. She bit on her bottom lip, then smiled at her workers gathered around the hearth. ‘Oi! Shift B! Did I give you five minutes or five hours? Go back down there and dig faster!’
I climbed up the wall. As I slipped through the window, one leg in, one leg out, I looked down to see her sitting on the sandbags. She had taken the brown velvet rabbit from her lapel and was holding in both hands, looking at it as if in silent conversation.
Dusk was obscuring the gruesome remains. Larvae were crawling everywhere, covering the uneven ground sickeningly swiftly, and gathering in hordes around any flesh they could find.
I only saw adult Insects in the distance towards Plow – they were already moving on. I wondered why and then I saw larger larvae among the rest – the second moults. They moved nearly as fast as adults, eating their smaller brethren. Maybe the adults were leaving because they feared their own growing spawn turning on them.
I noticed one about to shed its skin and circled low, watching. It suddenly raised its head and froze. I could see through its shell; a slimy bulk was moving inside, pressing uneasily against the surface as if struggling to get out.
Its thorax split down the midline. A pale bulge pushed out through the crack and arched up: the new thorax. The nymph pulled back and withdrew its head from inside the head of the empty carapace. Its chitin was almost white; its legs looked soft as it clasped its empty shell, standing on top. It had a dented, unfilled look but it arched its back and pulled its abdomen free of the casing. As I watched, it began to harden, turning darker brown. The hollows in its abdomen filled out and rounded; its short antennae began to move.
I hastened to the town. The Emperor was sitting in the hall, surrounded by a crowd of people, giving out commands to Eszai and Zascai alike. I pushed through them and gave Frost’s letter to him. He read it, then nodded gravely. ‘Thank you for bringing this, Comet. There is no need for you to visit the dam again. You should have your wounds seen to now.’
I repeated Frost’s words to the Sapper, who received them with his usual glum acceptance. I gave her message to the semaphore operator and watched him begin to pull the levers to move the semaphore arms that would send the order to evacuate, hundreds of kilometres down the valley to the governor’s steward.
I returned to the hospital, where a doctor cleaned and bandaged my bitten foot, though it was so swollen he had to cut the boot off. He checked my wrenched limbs and said I would be all right if I looked after myself. Not a chance. I am growing experienced enough to realise that if you wait, the pain will go. Long life gives you an ability to weather anything.
I told the journalists that no news was to be given out in any form. Then for hours I did the rounds to see if anyone needed the Messenger. Rayne just shooed me away.
Tornado was too humiliated to speak to anyone. Lightning had been the last to leave the field and he was organising archers on the ramparts. That reminded me – what about his daughter? Nobody had taken Cyan any news. From her confinement in the peel tower she would have seen the whole battle taking place.
I missed a gust and had to wait for the next. Go! Now! I took off from the gatehouse and looked back once I had gained height. It was one a.m. and, through the pitch dark, hails of incendiary missiles poured from the towers. Larvae covered the walls. Men on the walkways were tussling with them. The lamps on the curtain wall only illuminated a few metres of churned mud, the moat and the innermost fallen tents.
Cyan had put a light in her window to guide me in. I landed on the plank and stepped down into the room. Cyan bolted towards me and threw her arms around me, sobbing into my chest. ‘Oh! Terrible … it was terrible.’
‘It still is,’ I said, trying to disentangle myself.
‘I saw everything.’ She pointed out to the sea of mud. ‘I watched it happen. I felt so powerless. I saw all those people dying – I tried to look away but I just kept watching!’
She thumped my chest. I caught her wrists gently. She looked up at me as if seeing me for the first time. She began to cry in earnest. ‘The Insects … they … They would have killed me, too!’
‘Yes. Hey, shush! Sh-sh, little sister. Crying doesn’t suit you.’
She stepped back, wiped her eyes and glared at me. ‘I’m Lady Peregrine. I can cope with it.’
‘Remains to be seen.’
‘Is Daddy all right?’
‘I think so.’
‘Not that I care, of course.’
‘Oh no. Course not.’
‘What’s happening down there now?’
‘Well, the larvae are growing. The Eszai are picking mandible shards out of each other. The mortals are shrieking and dying.’ I told her what had happened to Wrenn, Tornado and Hurricane, and Frost trapped inside her dam, digging
into its rubble core. Cyan grew more and more alarmed. I said, ‘But this is the safest place to be. We’ve lost the canvas city already; the larvae are scaling the town walls. I don’t know if they will crawl all the way up this tower but if they do, look – here’s my axe – you can cut them off the walls as they come up to the window. Don’t let them get close because their jaws pincer out.’
Cyan sat down, on the bedspread smudged with old sleep. ‘Oh, god, Jant … if I had been down there, I …’
I sat beside her and spread my wing around her. ‘You shouldn’t have watched.’
She turned and hugged me, her face pressed to my throat. ‘I don’t need protecting,’ she whispered, and I felt her lips move against my skin. She looked down at my trousers, ripped and scratched and plastered with mud, Insect and human blood.
‘Oh god. What happened to your foot?’
‘It’s nothing. Don’t worry.’
She kissed my neck and I smelt the hot, comforting scent of her little body. Her hair was so silky it was like putting my hand into a cool stream of water. She began to stroke my feathers. ‘Is it all right now?’
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘Can’t you regroup and …?’
‘There are too many. We’re totally fucked; I don’t know what the Emperor can do.’
I knew I smelt overpoweringly of fresh sweat. That, or something else, was having a strange effect on her. The ache of my muscles and the stinging of all my little scratches began to feel triumphant. I was so tired I felt light; she started caressing me and her touch loosened the tired muscles in my back. The world closed down to this room; this bed and Cyan. Nothing else existed.
‘Mmm … mmm … I need to do this …’
The Modern World Page 36