“Yer can’ sleep,” Sherwin said. “I wish we could too, but the Naztwai might overtake us.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rafen said in a scarcely audible voice.
Sherwin’s eyes met his.
“Why?” he said defiantly. He showed none of the astonishment Rafen had expected.
“There is no point,” Rafen said. “It’s over.”
“No, it’s not,” Sherwin said. “Not till the fat lady sings. And as far I’ve ’eard, there isn’t one, so we keep goin’ ’til we drop.”
“The Lashki discovered the Hideout,” Rafen said through clenched teeth. “He’s probably killed the Selsons. Sherwin, it’s over.”
Etana was staring at Rafen, panting slightly, and Rafen discovered that he wished her mother were dead too, even though the thought that the rest of her family might have been murdered almost finished him.
“Yer don’ know any of that,” Sherwin whispered forcefully. “Look ’ere, Raf, I came to this ’ere world to find a life of meanin’, and I got one. As long as there’s blood in me, I’m goin’ to fight the Lashki. If yer don’ want to, yer can stay behind. But seein’ as yer the Fledgling, yer probably should keep fightin’.”
A million retorts leapt to Rafen’s lips, and momentarily, he sat there with his mouth hanging open, trying to pick one. If he told Sherwin that King Robert’s old supporters couldn’t help a dead king, Sherwin would say obstinately that they didn’t know if King Robert were dead. In fact, Sherwin would probably insist they could still have a decent war without the king, and worry about who was getting the throne afterward. Most of the other excuses were pathetic, and Rafen pushed them aside. He knew what he had to do, and the responsibility was like an anvil weighing on his chest.
“I can’t,” Rafen choked. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to continue his line of thought, one that was becoming increasingly disjointed in his disintegrating mind. “I can’t do kesmal, Sherwin; she’s gone. She knew who I was. I have to find her. I loved her—”
He broke off, sobbing soundlessly, his dirty shoulders hunched. Sherwin shifted. He laid his hand on Rafen’s shoulder.
“’ey,” he said, “kesmal doesn’ jus’ evaporate. It was Zion that put it there, not yer mother. And I’m sorry, Raf, I really am. But once yer didn’ know who the ’eck yer mother was, and yer didn’ care. Then yer had this wonderful half year where yer knew who yer mother was, and yeah, yer did love her. Raf, yer at least had her for that time. Tha’s a blessin, that is, a real gift. I never knew mine. If yer worried about not knowin’ who yer are, I know. And I’ll tell yer any time yer need remindin’.”
Rafen looked up. Sherwin’s eyes were a brilliant blue with unshed tears, and Rafen realized with an odd twinge that his friend did care.
“So, let’s go,” Sherwin said. “Because, yer know, yer mother would want yer to do this too. She believed in yer. An’ I think she’s watchin’ yer from somewhere.”
“How do you know?” Rafen said bitterly, brushing away tears. “Where do the dead go, Sherwin? Where?”
“All them tha’ thanked Zion for givin’ ’em life go back to where they came from,” Sherwin said with conviction. “She’s with ’im, Raf. Now they’re both watchin’ yer together.”
Propped up with his hands, Francisco gazed into Sherwin’s face, his eyes filled with immense longing.
“How do you know so much?” Rafen murmured.
Sherwin smiled wryly.
Rafen stood up, swallowing. “I’m ready.”
Faint warmth pervaded him and he raised his hand to his phoenix feather.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Climbing
the Wall
Rafen was leading once more, and he felt like he was walking to his own execution. He kept gripping his feather, memorizing the mental image of his mother’s face. There were times when he was terrified, because he had forgotten a wrinkle, a freckle, something, something… When there was a hole in his picture, Rafen felt like it was sucking him up. He would fill it with something – olive skin, a wrinkle like a bird’s claw – but none of his innovations worked, and he would panic, trying everything he could to remember.
This frightened him most, that he would forget her all together, that someday he would not remember the sound of her voice, the expression of her face, the gestures she would make with her hands, the color of her fingernails, the length of her hair. That someday, he would not care.
They had been journeying day and night for a week since they had seen the Naztwai camp, only stopping for forty minute sleeps now and then. At first, Rafen had found it impossible to sleep, but eventually he was so tired that forty minutes felt like forty seconds, before the person on watch would shake him awake.
He had apologized to everyone not long after resuming the lead.
“I promised Alexander I’d take care of all of us,” he had said, meeting each of their gazes in turn. “And I let Francisco get caught by a changeling, all but gave us away at the Lashki’s Naztwai camp, and totally failed us after rescuing Francisco.” He swallowed hard. “It was inexcusable, and it won’t happen again.”
“Naw, look Raf,” Sherwin had begun. Rafen had silenced him with a movement of his hand.
“It won’t happen again.”
The plan should have worried Rafen most. Yet he hurried through the red cedars and laurel oaks that thinned as they reached the Woods’ edge, past worrying. He had to do this, for his mother’s sake.
They had all decided there was no inconspicuous way of getting two thousand people out of the New Isles’ gates and to some safe hiding place. Sherwin had confessed that one nighttime in the Hideout, he had done some exploring and discovered a tunnel that ran all the way New Isles, to the cellar of an inn. Though he hadn’t taken the whole trip, grids and maps on the walls showed him all he needed to know. Etana had surmised it was the old message route King Fritz’s men had used when they had inhabited the Hideout. It led to the inn called the Sianian Arrow.
It seemed ludicrous to take the people into the same Hideout the Lashki had recently discovered, but there was no reason the Lashki should still be there. Besides which, it was the only way to rescue the people. They could try fighting the Naztwai once they reached New Isles, yet Rafen knew he, Etana, Sherwin, and Francisco would not arrive early enough to warn the people to prepare for battle. Without preparing, they would certainly die or be overwhelmed by Tarhians afterwards.
However, there were no assurances the Naztwai wouldn’t follow the people down their escape route. Rafen hoped that if Etana cast enough barriers to render the entryway invisible, the Naztwai would be too stupid to hunt for it. Still, Fritz’s Hideout was the first place of refuge the Lashki would suspect. In the end, even after the people were rescued, the Lashki would know exactly where to find them. No one had thought beyond this. Francisco had suggested a distraction, but no one had built on the idea. Thwarting the Lashki for even a day was an achievement at the moment.
When Rafen thought of the Lashki, he discovered his usual fear had been replaced with a wild, venomous anger. His hands balled into tight fists. He had to regain his full kesmalic ability, because the next time he saw that fiend, he was going to do some damage.
He glanced behind himself now, and through the shimmering afternoon rain and shifting leaves, Etana wended her way across the roots, white-faced and tight-lipped. Francisco had now fully explained the circumstances of Elizabeth’s death, and Etana could not stop thinking about her family. Rafen often heard her crying herself to sleep when they rested, though he couldn’t bring himself to comfort her. He kept hearing her voice snapping in his head: Is that all?
Elizabeth was dead, and she had said that. She didn’t care about his filthy-blooded family, or him, even though he cared about her relatives, so deeply that it was a constant fever and faintness to him. Like Sherwin, he had chosen to believe the Selsons were alive until they were proven dead. Thinking otherwise rendered him completely useless to everyone.
&n
bsp; Etana was a cold-hearted little beast. Rafen comforted himself as he stepped past a wild turkey, trying not to startle it. She was a princess, a Secra, the Sianian heir, much too high up in the world for him. Now it was over, Rafen had to admit to himself that he had been thinking of much more than brotherly affection. Never again.
It had taken Francisco two days to get back on his feet, and Rafen had carried him on his back. Now Francisco was at his heels, his face still unnaturally pale after his encounter with the changeling. Rafen took care to always keep him in sight.
“Close yet?” Sherwin whispered to Rafen.
Sherwin was accepting that they could die. Rafen had seen his friend burying his dragon egg earlier that day, and when Rafen had asked why, Sherwin had said that it was so that if they ever passed that way again he could dig it up. He said he would be happy to dig it up – astonished to be alive.
Rafen paused, his head raised as he tried to catch the various scents the winds carried. It took him so much longer to access his kesmal now. He knew why: he was abominably tired, and everything seemed beyond him.
Just try, he told himself roughly. Just do it… you’ll need it when you fight the Lashki.
After what felt like an age, the Wolf came back to him, and he caught the smells on the air. There were many people nearby, a long train of them outside the Woods. The census was taking place.
The smell of filth and waste also tickled Rafen’s nostrils, and his Wolf senses picked up the faint tramping in the distant East.
“We are close,” Rafen said. “Another half day’s travel. The Naztwai are behind us.”
“Yer can smell them then?” Sherwin’s eyes widened. It was the first time Rafen had been able to sense their pursuit.
“Yes,” Rafen said. “They are half a day from us.”
Francisco’s march behind Rafen intensified, and Rafen was forced to move faster. Etana continued toiling along at the back.
“Come on, Etana,” Sherwin said, at Francisco’s heels.
Etana looked up through rain-sodden red hair. “I am coming,” she said in a tight voice.
Inexplicably infuriated, Rafen opened his mouth to say something and thought better of it. He looked straight ahead, Etana’s eyes drilling holes in the back of his head.
*
This fringe of the Woods was familiar. A slope from the line of red cedars and laurel oaks led down to the wheel-rutted road that wound to the New Isles gate. The city stood as daunting as before, a large oaken pentagon with double gateways and watch towers at its every corner. The clock tower reared higher than the wooden walls, its arms looking like silver spears in the moonlight. It was seven thirty, and already the sky was a deep, watercolor blue.
The road was empty, but clearly marked by recent traffic. The grass around it was trampled, and rubbish littered it: a piece of stained fabric, a thrown horseshoe, the front cover of a book, part of a rabbit’s pelt, and much more.
At the arching wooden gates of New Isles, forty Tarhians on foot formed a square before the city. At their head, three mounted philosophers were clearly distinguishable from the rest by their unusual garb – robes, elaborate cloaks, or coats. Many weapons glittered in the light of the Pilamùr’s three moons.
Listening to the hissing possums, Rafen stood between two laurel oaks. Cold sweat broke out over his skin. The smell of the Naztwai was strong now, and he and the others had had to start running earlier in the day to keep ahead. Rafen estimated the beasts were an hour away, possibly less. The summer heat and their oncoming stench were overpowering him.
Sherwin gazed over their group: Rafen, his eyes red-rimmed with fatigue, and his clothes stained and torn; Francisco, his face still garish with the greens, yellows, and blacks of bruises; and Etana, her countenance dirt-streaked and set with anxiety. Lastly, he glanced down at his frayed pants and muddy boots, his forehead furrowed as if he were solving an equation.
“Well,” he said at last, “it’s funny. If anyone looked at us now, they wouldn’ think we’re about to save a city.”
“Oh, it’s hilarious,” Etana snapped.
“Well, there aren’t any wagons to go in by,” Sherwin said.
“Disguises might work,” Etana said flatly.
“They’re not letting anyone in,” Rafen said.
“Perhaps there are other gates along the walls,” Francisco murmured. He leaned against a tree and stared at the city.
“They’ll be jus’ as well guarded, I’m thinkin’,” Sherwin said. “They’re tryin’ to keep people in now.”
“We’ll have to dig under the walls or climb over them,” Rafen told them. “Let’s make a decision quickly.”
“Don’t you think digging is a little slow?” Etana said witheringly.
“Yer plannin’ to climb then?” Sherwin asked.
“I think so,” Etana said, her fingers pulling nervously at her dress. “Though I don’t think any of us really wants to climb right now.”
Rafen stared at Etana. “Just remember to let Sherwin and I help you,” he said sharply.
Etana flushed. “I actually know how to climb a wall.”
Sherwin and Rafen looked at each other. Sherwin’s raised eyebrows indicated his opinion. Francisco was gazing at the smooth, oaken walls of the city.
“You will find it hard to climb that wall.” He turned a bruised face to Etana.
Etana opened her mouth indignantly. However, Rafen put a hand to his phoenix feather and said, “We have nothing better to try. Let’s go.”
He inhaled the pungent odor of the approaching Naztwai. They were wasting time.
Etana met his gaze and smiled. Her bluer than blue eyes showed her gratitude, even though Rafen didn’t remotely believe she could do this.
Five minutes later, they had descended the grassy slope, and crawled to a portion of the wall that was out of sight of the gates’ guards. Rafen had been terrified the whole time that the many Tarhians would see them, and fortunately the darkness and the thick, lush grass hid them. Clouds scudded the sky, and occasionally, one or two of the moons were obscured.
They rose to stand at the foot of the milky brown wall. Rafen stared upward. It was five stories high. The occasional slit-shaped window in it did nothing to reassure him. The rampart on the battlements above was likely swarming with Tarhians as well.
The scent of the Naztwai was in Rafen’s blood, dragging him down. He could hear their heavy tramping distantly.
He and the others had to get in. Yet he hadn’t realized how little there was to hold onto on the wall until he had gotten close.
“Sherwin, we’re going to have to steal some rope off a Tarhian,” he told his friend.
“Rafen,” Etana said, touching his arm.
Rafen recoiled violently.
“Look,” Sherwin said, “now’s not really the time, Etana.”
“I’m sorry,” Etana said to Rafen. “I really am.” Tears had sprung to her bright eyes.
“I said some awful things after… after we heard, and I acted like I didn’t care, and that was horrible of me. Please forgive me!”
She gripped his arm tighter, gazing at him imploringly. “If you are worried, if you have fears, just remember, I will never turn against you again. I will always be on your side, with you.”
Rafen nodded, a lump in his throat. “Thanks, Etana.” He gently took her arm from his. “But…”
“We need to climb; I know, I know.” She dug her foot into the lower part of the wall and started.
It was impossible, but real. Rafen envied her skill unashamedly. Etana’s personal kesmalic touch gave her a unique grip. She could squeeze the solid wood and make it ripple like water; she was able to plow into it and grasp it like bread dough, and each handhold and foothold she made lasted for about fifty seconds after she passed on. Rafen’s plan about the rope vanished.
Sherwin’s jaw dropped.
“Are you coming?” Etana said impatiently, glancing down. She was already eight feet up. “The handholds won’
t last forever, you know.”
Rafen hurriedly shoved Francisco forward. “You go next,” he said.
Bewildered, Francisco fitted his feet and hands into the grips Etana had provided earlier. He started climbing slowly, his bruises and weak muscles obviously protesting.
“I’ll go last,” Rafen said.
“So yeh’ll catch me once yer brother’s fallen on me,” Sherwin said with a grim smile. He quickly followed behind Francisco.
Rafen dug his hands and feet into the wall and began climbing too. He couldn’t help feeling slightly panicked, even though no Tarhians were in sight. He could feel the wood fighting to return to its original state beneath his fingers, and even as he used the handholds, they became perceptibly smoother. He tried to hurry, but Sherwin was often only two handholds ahead of him, because Francisco was going so slowly.
“Yer should ’ave put ’im down below,” Sherwin muttered to Rafen.
“No,” Rafen said vehemently. “He would have fallen.”
“An’ what are yer goin’ to do if he falls now?” Sherwin grunted.
Etana was some ten feet ahead of them. Spider-like, she skittered down again to make the handholds and footholds near Francisco fresh.
“I discovered I could do this a while ago,” she said, “in hiding. I got so bored, you see. One day, when no one was around, I started climbing the walls. I can do it on stone too, though it’s harder. Hurry up, Franny.”
“I’m trying,” Francisco said with a dry sob.
Rafen had the idea his brother didn’t like heights.
Halfway up the wall, Francisco slipped. Sherwin gave a bloodcurdling yell when Francisco’s boot hit his eye.
“Shh!” Etana hissed as Sherwin shoved the boot back up into its foothold.
“I am going to fall,” Francisco choked. “I am going to fall.”
“Yeh’d better not,” Sherwin said through gritted teeth.
Francisco had halted, and Rafen’s handholds were rapidly becoming hard wood beneath his fingers. Frantically, he glanced down. He was three stories up. In his mind, he could already see the Naztwai licking up his remains below.
Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3) Page 24