"Please, sir, just lock me up."
So this was Joseph's idea of penance, his way of coping. Dane would have given in to him, but there was no way in hell he was going to give in to Them.
"Joseph," he said, "I can't do that for you. I can't spare you. This is what they want to happen, but we're not going to play by their rules. Not anymore. If you feel like you need to atone for something, than this is what I'd have you do. First, go get some sleep. In the morning, help me find their temple again. And tomorrow night I need you back up on that wall." He was trying to give Joseph something manly and difficult to do, to give him a chance to conquer his fear instead of give in to it. But if he'd known what would come of it he might have done things much differently.
Joseph nodded, his hand still rubbing his eyes. "I'm sorry, sir."
"There is nothing to apologize for. If the other sentries had been as vigilant as you, Kenzie might still be alive. But we can't blame ourselves for that and we can't blame ourselves for Edric. You only did what any of us would have done."
Joseph nodded and turned away, tears still falling down his smooth face. Dane watched him start back across the courtyard towards the barracks before he shut the door. What he did not see was the dark figure coming out of the storage cellar. The dark figure coming for Joseph.
***
Joseph's eyes were still bleary and his vision still blurry from crying as he walked across the courtyard. He felt a little better, though. Dane did not hold it against him. He did not want him to suffer, only to soldier on. Joseph was not sure which was worse. But, if Dane didn't condemn him, no one else could really say anything to him. Getting up on the wall tomorrow night was something he could not let himself think about, but it was still a day away. And Dane had asked him to go to the temple with him tomorrow. Who knew, they might surprise some of their enemies there and avenge Rem and Markis and Frankie and Kenzie and Edric. They might at least smash their idols and burn the place. At the very least, the hike would take his mind off of all this.
At that moment, he looked up and saw a dark shape stumbling out of the cellar. It held two shining object in its hands but Joseph's vision was still to blurry to see them clearly. Joseph stopped walking. What he could see clearly made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The walker was walking funny; stumbling, shuffling sideways. It reminded him of a dog he had seen once, its mind wiped out by rabies. The tripping gait. The aimlessness.
He watched the figure. He had not been entirely right. Its movements were clumsy but not aimless. It was headed for him. All at once he recognized the figure and the objects it held in its hands. It was Edric's cousin, Aaron. In one hand he held a bottle; in the other, a naked knife.
Joseph knew what Aaron wanted and that it was senseless to walk away. He waited.
"Why’d you do it?" Aaron asked. He was close enough now for Joseph to smell the alcohol on him.
"I didn't know it was him. The way he was acting, I thought they'd turned him into one of those things."
"Why did you do it?" Aaron stumbled forward a pace.
Joseph took a step back. "I just told you."
"But you didn't," Aaron said.
"What do you mean?"
"If you thought he was a deathwalker, you should have known shooting him wouldn't have done any good."
Joseph had already thought of this. He hated himself for the panic that had caused him to act so hastily.
"So, I want to know. Why’d you shoot him?"
Joseph took another step back. His back was to the wall.
"I want to know." Aaron said, coming on.
Joseph brought up his crossbow against his body as a shield.
"You going to shoot me like you shot him?"
"It's not even loaded, Aaron. Take it easy."
"Why didn't you take it easy?"
"I don't want to fight you," Joseph said.
"Oh, no, I bet you don't. You're scared, aren't you? Just like you were scared with Eddie. Is that why you did it? Or did you have some other reason?"
“Put the knife down, Aaron,” said a voice from behind him.
Both men looked over Aaron’s shoulder to see Bailus standing there. Bailus held no weapon and his hands hung at his sides. “Put the knife down,” he repeated.
Aaron lunged for Joseph. Bailus grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. For a moment, both men stood grappling. Aaron jabbed with the knife; Bailus stepped back and swung his forearm like a club into the side of Aaron’s head. Aaron dropped like a sack of flour.
Dane came running up with several soldiers behind him.
“Lock him up,” Bailus said.
As squadmates Smith Darinson and Gundar Holt pulled Aaron to his feet, Bailus added, “And make sure you give him a blanket. I don’t want him freezing before we can deal with him.”
“This was my fault, sir,” Joseph said, his back still pressed against the wall.
“Nonsense,” Bailus said. “Imagine having all this fuss over a fool like Edric Embries.” Bailus nodded to Dane and moved to step past him. He staggered.
“You’re hurt,” said Dane. There was a dark, spreading patch on Bailus’s shirt above his left hip.
Bailus put his hand over the wound. “My own stupid fault,” Bailus said. “I think I should be able to handle a drunk with a knife. What a misery it is growing old.”
“Come on,” Dane said.
Dane tried to support him, but Bailus held out his other hand. He walked beside him to Leech’s room.
While Leech went to work on the wound, Dane said, “This was my fault. Joseph asked me to place him in the cell. If I had, none of this could have happened.”
“When are you people going to stop talking like that?” Bailus said. He slapped Leech’s hand away and turned to Dane. “You think every damned thing that happens on this damned island is your own damned fault?”
“I’m sorry,” Dane said.
“Enough of that,” Bailus said. “You think it gives you some kind of control over what happens here if you try to take responsibility for it? If you blame yourself for it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sir,” Bailus said, “You don’t have any control here. None of us do. The only way any of us are going to survive is if we dig in like ticks on a dog and hang on. We have to be ready for whatever comes at us, but we can’t expect to control any of it.”
Leech put his hands out tentatively. Bailus ignored him. He gingerly began to dress the wound. As soon as he was finished Bailus got up and walked out.
“You think he’ll be OK?” Dane asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Leech said. “He’s too mean to die.” Leech began to put his things away. “Actually, I think it’s good for him to get little cuts like this once in a while. Lets him vent. Otherwise he’d just boil over.”
XIV
The Hall of the Pale Princes
At first light they buried Kenzie, Franklin, Markis, and Edric. Aaron was in the cell the whole time, sleeping off his liquor. Elias gave a eulogy. A few others spoke. Dane listened to it all without hearing. He stared at the graves. First Rem and now these four. Five of our men buried in less than a day. A sixth of our fighting force. And we haven’t even seen the enemy. He wondered if any of them would before they all ended up like these five. He glanced once at Joseph and immediately wished he hadn’t.
As they moved away from the graveyard and Dane’s men assembled around him, Mirela approached him. “I want to go with you,” she said.
“Absolutely not,” he said. He turned to lead his men away.
“You wanted to help me,” she said. “Why should it surprise you if I want to help you?”
“You’ve helped enough,” he said. “Stay here where it’s safe.”
“Nowhere is safe,” she said. “At least let me go where I can do some good.”
“We need to get moving,” he said as much to his men as to her. He led them away, leaving her standing there staring after them as they disappeared into
the forest.
Right away Dane hated himself for refusing her request. The Johnson twins had volunteered to go as well, and he had refused, but that was different. They were young and inexperienced and he had already conferred with Bailus on a better way to use them today. But Mirela had been a great help in all the dangers they’d yet passed through. She’d done more on this trip than Dane had. Hell, she was worth ten of him. So why not accept her help now?
It was partly just that, because she had already been so helpful. One, because he felt she deserved to rest after doing so much for others. Two, because she was such a help and likely would be needed again; he felt he was more expendable to this enterprise than she was.
But he knew those weren’t the only reasons. He worried what would happen to her. He worried more about her than he did any other member of the company. He rebelled against these feelings. He knew they were not healthy. He should care about the people under him, but as an objective whole; he should do all he could to make sure as many of them got home as possible – regardless of who those many were. He rebelled against these feelings, but he was powerless to change them.
And what had his concern won her? A prison. She had not known freedom since Bax’s botched raid on Alistar more than a year ago. And now she had made one request, probably the only request she had made in all her long days away from her homeland, and she had made it of him, and he had refused her. Why? Because he, he, was sick with the thought of losing her. Losing her? She was not his to hold onto. Never was. Never would be. He had one chance to let her choose something for herself and he slammed the door in her face. When it came down to it, he was the same as Bax. Whether the reason was lust or something like love, control or concern, if the end result was to crush her freedom and annihilate her personhood, did the motivation really make one damn bit of difference?
Only Elias seemed to enjoy the hike. He talked about the trees, the flowers, even the breeze. Dane heard him without listening. He walked along in his own misery. All he could think of was what it would be like to share these sights with Mirela. To walk beneath these trees with her. Not as a slave but as a chooser of her own paths, the master of her own destiny. He wondered if he was even man enough to face her in such a state.
The only thing Dane paid any real attention to was their path. He made sure they crossed the stream in the same two places they had two days ago. He saw the two boulders at the next hilltop sitting like crumbling towers in a ruined gateway. They passed between them and he looked at the tree on his right. The trunk was bare. He walked all the way around it, looking up and down its length, but there was nothing there. He checked the other trees on the hilltop. The bird skull totem was not there.
“Lose something, your highness?” Bax said.
Dane said nothing. He had wanted to show the thing to Elias. Its absence troubled him more than the mere fact he would not be able to get Elias’s opinion on it. He started moving uphill again.
They climbed up the stair-like stones alongside the face of the waterfall. Elias was sweating and his face was drawn when he reached the top, but he did not complain. When the others stopped to rest he was the first to suggest they get on.
They passed the caves. Dane hardly looked at them. He did not fear them, but he felt they beckoned to the darkness he carried inside him, a darkness deeper than the shade of any of those holes.
Elias was the first to spot the temple. Perhaps his gaze was drawn toward it by some sense sharper than the sight of his eyes. “Is that it?” he asked, pointing.
The men halted and Dane nodded. Owen got out his tinder box and with Joseph’s help struck a fire. They made torches from rags they had brought with them and with branches they found lying around.
While the others made the fire, Dane crouched, watching the temple. No sound came from it or the surrounding woods. Nothing stirred. Nothing leapt from the dark doorways. The temple just sat there, waiting, as though it had been waiting for them all their lives.
Dane set his crossbow against a tree. He held his torch in one hand and drew his knife with the other. If there was danger in there, the space would be too small to allow good use of the bow. He picked up a spare branch and gripped it in his knife hand. He led them forward. With every step, he struck the ground in front of him with his stick, testing for traps. The men passed under one of the rectangular stone arches and over the threshold of the temple.
***
Bailus spent his morning making preparations for the role Paul and Rawl were to play that day. He had two burlap sacks filled with straw from the stables and hung against a windowless part of the wall near the north gate. He had his workers mark off lines 10, 20, and 30 paces from the sacks. He had tables set up on one side and had them laden with food and drink.
The atmosphere inside the compound was tense. The gates remained shut. The sentries kept their ceaseless vigil on the walls. No one talked more than was absolutely necessary. Bailus nodded to himself; Dane had known what he was doing when he described to him what he wanted the Johnson twins to do. Bailus felt better already. Only rarely did he wince and put his hand over his wound or feel the need to lean against something.
When all was ready, he called the men together. Only the sentries were absent, and the ones who could watched from the walls. Not even Bailus had the heart to correct them. “Alright, Roly-Poly,” he said, “Do your thing.”
Paul stepped forward. “Excuse me, sir, but as today’s entertainment I feel we deserve a little more respect.”
“Very well,” Bailus said. He turned to the spectators. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Piss and Vinegar.” He turned back to Paul and Rawl. “Please, proceed.”
“I’m serious, sir,” Paul said.
“Oh, grow up, Paul,” Rawl said.
“Grow up? I’m older than you, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“That’s right,” said Rawl. “A whole hour. All it means is you’ve been embarrassing me since before I was born.”
Bailus cleared his throat.
The two young men bit their lips and nodded to him. The laughter from the spectators fell to a hush as they stepped up side by side on the line closest to the straw sacks. Each of them held a repeating crossbow. The weapons were relatively new to Hallander territory. Being smaller and less powerful than the standard bows, many of the veterans rejected them out of hand. But they seemed the right size for the smooth-faced youths stepping up to the target range. The bows had a boxy magazine on top which fed bolts into the slot. A lever that moved back and forth like the handle of a pump strung the bow and dropped a bolt out of the magazine.
“Go,” Bailus shouted.
It was the contest of two worldviews. Paul, precise and meticulous, form and poise like a statue, sighted down every bolt like he was trying to split a hair. Rawl, hair unkempt, could have been shooting with his eyes closed for all the care he took in aiming. He squeezed the trigger each time almost before completing the pumping action. Not a single bolt from either bow missed the target.
That’s when the argument began.
Paul’s bolts had all struck in an area hardly bigger than the circle a man could make by placing his fingertips together. Rawl’s bolts were all over the target.
“Looks like that’s an obvious call,” Paul said.
“I should say so,” Rawl said. “I finished in half the time you did.”
“Time? Since when was a shooting match ever judged by time?”
“Well, no one ever said it was a beauty contest either,” Rawl said. “I hit the target just as much as you.”
“Gentlemen,” Bailus said, “If we can’t agree on a winner, why don’t we try a different contest? Square off at 50 paces and open up. The last one standing wins.”
“No contest,” Rawl said. “I’m the faster shot.”
“You couldn’t hit our milk cow at 50 paces,” Paul said.
“Maybe not, but I shouldn’t have any problem with your fat ass.”
The men were getting into it now
. Some for Rawl, some for Paul, and others for Bailus.
“I want a rematch,” Paul said. “With better defined rules.”
“Fair enough,” Bailus said.
The archers were moved back to the 20-pace line. Half the straw was removed from the bags and the hang cord was tied around the middle of the sacks, reducing the target area by half. “You each have ten bolts in your magazines,” Bailus said. “Shoot till you’re dry. The man who hits the target the most is the winner.”
Rawl sunk four bolts in the target and dry fired twice before he realized he was out of bolts. Paul had sunk three bolts by that time but had three left. He placed the remaining three in the target, sparing time to glance at his brother after each shot.
Paul’s supporters cheered. Paul gave an exaggerated bow.
“Put them farther back,” Fish shouted.
The boys retrieved their bolts and walked to the 30-pace line.
Paul knew why his brother was so hasty. He’d been born an hour late and was still trying to catch up.
Rawl knew why Paul was so picky. He’d skipped out of the womb too early, before they’d handed out the common sense, or the senses of humor.
The two men faced off silently and then turned towards the targets. “Wait,” Bailus said. “This time we’ll try something different. The first one to hit the target wins.”
The men brought their bows to their shoulders.
“Go.”
Rawl’s first shot was so wild the men standing along the shooting range jumped back with a curse. His second shot was in the air almost before the first shot hit the wall and was less ridiculous. Paul was still working on relaxing his breathing and drawing a bead when Rawl’s third bolt nailed the target to the wall.
The crowd exploded. They demanded a tie-breaker.
Right then they were interrupted by a shout. They turned in the direction from which it had come. They all knew what it was. It had been a cry of pain.
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