“I have no desire to commit suicide, Major. Right now none of theirs are dead, even if two of ours are. I’d like to keep the numbers as they stand. If I kill one of them, the others will slaughter us both.”
It looked like they were going to get slaughtered anyway as the two uninjured blood-hunters raced past their comrades, shrieking war cries and new-found courage. Crys let go of Bedras and the man immediately sank to the grass again. Crys stepped between him and the boy and girl howling toward them.
They came at him together and Crys had lost the arrow somewhere. Just a sword and no shield against two of them. No horses, no retreat, and while the hunters certainly weren’t Rank-trained, they weren’t farmers swinging hoes at foxes, either.
There was no way out unless he left Bedras. “Fuck,” he roared, knowing he wasn’t going to leave Bedras.
He cut low and defended high, spun out of the way of an axe, grabbed the boy by the shoulder and threw him at the girl. They went down in a tangle of limbs and Crys managed to club the boy over the head with the hilt of his sword. He collapsed, pinning the girl. It’d have to do. He turned for Bedras as the girl swiped at his boot with her knife, scoring the leather. Crys kicked her wrist and the knife spun away.
“Come on.” He held out his hand, but Bedras was pale with shock now, his foot at a funny angle. “Trickster’s cock,” Crys swore and shoved his sword into the major’s slack hand. Bedras tightened his fingers around it instinctively, and Crys hauled him up again, flung Bedras’s sword arm over his neck and hoisted the man onto his back.
His spine crunched and his knees wobbled, and then Crys was staggering through the rain and the wet-slick grass, using Bedras as a human shield and hoping the poor fuck didn’t stab him in the arse with his own sword.
“They’re coming,” Bedras gasped, much too soon for Crys’s liking.
“Then hold them off,” Crys managed. “You’ve got the . . . bloody sword.”
“Wha—?” Bedras began, and then, “Down!” he screeched, and Crys threw himself onto his face, Bedras’s pelvis cracking into the back of his head. Bedras thrashed on top of him and Crys eeled out from beneath, flipped over and caught the girl’s knee smack in the face.
Lightning went off in his head and blood flooded his nose and mouth, but her knee and his face were the least of his worries, because she’d retrieved her long knife and she was trying to fillet him with it. “Get . . . off,” he grunted, grappling with her, but his hands were muddy and her arms were wet with rain and the knife was skittering all over the place and getting closer as they struggled.
Crys got a knee up between him and her, sacrificing a good amount of shin to the edge of the blade, roared at the pain, and managed to shove her gracelessly away. His leg was hot and sticky and he could see a flap of skin through the tear in his trousers as he scrambled onto his hands and feet, the cool of the wet grass pressing briefly into the heat of the wound.
Bedras was biting the boy’s hand, so Crys left him to it and threw himself at the girl, twisting the knife out of her grip. Her other hand came around and it, too, was holding a knife and this one scored across the top of his chainmail and over his exposed collarbone, hot, streaking pain and Crys was reminded that a neck wound made you panic and he knew this because he was fucking panicking.
He clamped one hand to his throat and punched her so hard his knuckles split. Her cheek opened and she tumbled into a puddle, sending up a sheet of dirty water. Crys exhaled carefully, but there was no aspirating spray of blood and air; his windpipe was intact and so were the big veins. Eyes narrow, he took a step forward and rolled the unconscious blood-hunter onto her side so she wouldn’t drown, then hauled the boy off Bedras and put him in a sleeper choke.
The other three, the ones injured at the start, were still out of action, two invisible in the storm. The girl with the spear was hobbling for them, but even Bedras could move faster than her. Crys pulled bog moss from the medical kit on his belt and pressed it to his neck, then got the major’s arm over his shoulder and together they limped for the sound of the river.
There’d be a way over, somewhere. The Dead crossed the river all the time, so of course there’d be a way over.
Gods, let there be a way over . . .
Crys dropped the blood-soaked moss and snatched the sword back from Bedras just in case and they staggered on, the river a roaring of white foam on their left, the intermittent flickering of lightning bleaching the world for brief instants and, no doubt, outlining them against the terrain.
There was no way over the river.
“All right, Major, can you swim?” Crys asked, when he’d gone as far as he dared and the blood-hunters were once more gaining on them, the ringleader girl with the bloody, damged leg being supported by the two Crys had rendered unconscious. Couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision to leave them alive. Though there was still plenty of time to do so.
“Swim?” Bedras whined.
Crys slapped him. There was a moment of absolute stillness and dawning horror as they stared at each other, and Crys was horribly, minutely aware that his career had just gone the way of Orril’s guts and Alba’s head.
“You are a major in His Majesty’s North Rank, sir,” Crys barked, going all in on the most desperate gamble of his life. “You will conduct yourself with the appropriate rigour and endeavour.” General Tariq’s words, when he’d visited Crys in the infirmary before demoting him on account of the brawl.
But Bedras blinked and made an effort to stand unsupported. His hand flickered up and then dropped before it became a salute.
“I can’t get you over the river, Major,” Crys said in a softer tone, “and the Dead are gaining on us. We have to swim. It’ll be cold and it’s running high and fast, so don’t fight it. Angle toward the other bank. Yes?”
“Yes,” Bedras said weakly, but at least he wasn’t protesting anymore. Crys helped him down the slippery bank, feeling an unexpected flicker of pity as the man put his weight on his broken ankle and let out an agonized howl. Only a flicker, though. The proximity of edged weapons drives sentiment from all but the most stupid.
He heard Bedras’s gasp as he entered the freezing water, and then another howl, this one from behind and full of hate and triumph. Crys whirled to face the threat, lost his footing and went to his knees on the slope, slashing blindly with the sword.
He’d done his best not to kill any of them before, because they were children, even if they were shitting little bastards, but he was out of patience and out of mercy. He came back up onto his feet and lurched up the bank, right into the middle of them, kicked the spear the girl was using as a crutch so she collapsed sideways, then stomped on the joint he’d cut into.
Her scream was full of such white-hot agony it stopped the others in their tracks.
“You can take the two you’ve already killed, or you can join them in death,” Crys growled, barely recognizing his own voice and vaguely aware it didn’t have anything to do with the neck wound. He knew he was threatening children, but the animal part of him was eyeing their weapons and the bloodlust shining in their faces and coming to a very different conclusion. Young, yes. Children, not exactly. A threat? Absolutely.
The ringleader was still screeching as she flailed for her spear and made a feeble effort to trip Crys. Gods, but she’s brave. And stupid.
He stamped on the spear, scooped it up and lunged for the boy creeping up on his left. The boy yelled and threw himself backward, and like that, it was done. They knew they weren’t killing him, not today. Not fucking ever, I have anything to do with it.
“Weapons down,” Crys ordered and they complied. “Take her and go. Right now, before I change my mind and kill you all.” He widened his eyes and lunged at them again, and again they yelped and pulled back.
The girl on the ground hissed, pointing. “His eyes,” she breathed. “The Son. Son of the Mother!”
Crys nodded solemnly. “One blue, one brown. Eyes of the Fox God, the Son. You realiz
e who you’ve been fighting now? Realize why you can’t win against me?” The others pulled the girl to her feet, more terrified than at any other time, almost shaking. “And do you know why I left you alive?” Crys demanded, slightly shocked at his own play-acting and no idea what he was going to say next.
They shook their heads, hands clutching at amulets of bone and rock.
“So you could carry a message back to your people. Rilpor is out of bounds. Rilpor is off-limits to you and your kind. Its people, its livestock, its crops, its border. I name you full-fledged members of the Dead Legion,” he added and their eyes widened even more, “on condition you tell everyone what I have told you.”
“But, but Holy Son, we kill in your name, yours and the Mother’s,” a boy ventured. “As the Mother created you from the dead, so we must bring back a kill to be able to marry and have children of our own. We kill in your honour. How else do we prove ourselves?”
The storm saved him from having to answer such twisted logic. Lightning rent the air, so bright it burned after-images into their eyes, and lit up the landscape as it struck a giant elm not far from where they stood. The trunk exploded into flame and the trio shrieked and ran, dragging their leader between them and heading, presumably, for the last of their number, the two who lay bleeding somewhere in the darkness, veins open to the sky.
Crys stood for a few seconds, making sure they were really going, and then turned to the river. “Fuck me,” he breathed, “I think I’ve just rewritten their entire bloody religion.”
He sheathed his sword and waded into the river, mouth open in increasing pain at the biting cold. He kept hold of the spear and struck out into the current, gasping and swearing at the temperature, aiming for the far bank and doing his best to fend off the rocks.
He heard shouting and realized Bedras was just ahead, half out of the river on the Rilporian side. “Here,” Crys called, shoving the end of the spear at him. Bedras caught it and Crys hung on, dragged himself up its length until his feet found the riverbed. Together they clambered up the bank and into the teeth of the north wind, cutting through sodden clothes, biting exposed flesh.
“Can still die out here,” Crys stuttered. “Come on, we need to find shelter.”
There was the stink of horse on the wind and Crys headed for it, seeing as Bedras had no other ideas. Pain and cold had done for him and he was reeling along, barely conscious. But horses meant men and men meant fire, and with luck, it’d be their Fifty camping out and waiting for dawn to continue searching for them.
Bedras used the spear as a crutch much as the Dead girl had, Crys on his other side lending support, hugging himself with his free arm, head hunched as they pushed into rain that was almost solid.
They were slowing, shuddering with cold and exhaustion, when they reached the herd beneath the trees of a small spinney and threaded their way into its midst. Steam and warmth greeted them as the wind dropped. Crys draped Bedras’s free arm over a horse’s withers.
“Stay here, there’ll be someone nearby. I’ll come back,” he added when he saw the panic Bedras was trying to conceal. The major jerked his chin in dismissal, striving for a semblance of self-possession, and Crys left him to try and find it.
He was hurting now, the sharp burn of opened flesh leaking blood, and he was aching from the fight, from the cold, from the rocks in the river that had kissed his ribs and elbows and the back of his skull.
He threw caution to the storm. “Hello?” he called. A couple of horses startled and stamped, but nothing else answered him. Crys stroked the nose of the nearest. “Where’s your herder, eh?” he asked.
“Right here,” said a voice so close behind him that Crys felt the breath on his wet neck.
Crys leapt to his right, twisting as he did to face the man behind him. “Motherfucking godsdamn bastard!” he gasped when he recognized the herder from earlier that day. “I swear I nearly died on the spot.”
The herder put his head on one side. “You would’ve, I thought you were trying to steal my horses.”
“I’m not. We’re not, I mean. Look, my commanding officer and I got separated from our patrol a few hours ago in the storm. He’s broken his ankle, I think. There was a fight, and we’re wet and very cold. Would you mind if we shared your fire?”
“Fighting each other, were you?”
Crys grimaced. “Not exactly.”
The herder snorted. “Why don’t that surprise me? You boys just can’t leave them alone, can you? The Dead, I mean.” He peered at Crys. “You the one I saw here this morning?”
“That’s me,” Crys said and waved a hand at his face. “Not that you can tell, probably, but yes. Captain, I mean, Lieutenant Crys Tailorson, Fourth Thousand, North Rank.”
“And this officer you mentioned. He that fish-eyed idiot spoke to me like I was a simpleton?”
Crys winced. “Yes, sir, I’m afraid that’s him.”
The herder sighed. “Name’s Tully. Bring him in, then.” Tully gestured to the dim glow of flames. “She’s only a little fire, mind. Don’t want to attract no attention.” Crys nodded and began to head for Bedras when Tully grabbed his arm. “They follow you? ‘Cause you’ll be fighting alongside me to save this herd if they did.”
“I don’t know,” Crys said truthfully, “but if they have, it’s not the herd they’ll be after. They were blood-hunting.”
Tully sucked his teeth and then spat between Crys’s boots, wiping the trail of saliva from his chin. “I got no problems with the Dead, and they never had problems with me, no matter which side of the river any of us have been on. You change that by being here and I’ll kill you myself.”
“You have my word, Tully,” Crys said and noted the little bird-skull-and-feather ornament hanging in the shadow of the man’s hood. It almost looked like part of a headdress. It almost looked like Tully was a member of the Dead Legion himself. Tully saw him note it and stared him out.
Crys licked his lips. “I’ll fetch the major.”
General Tariq of the North Rank sat at his desk, one forefinger stroking the thin moustache that sat above his lip like an angry caterpillar. His eyes were as colourless as water and harder to read.
Crys stood at parade rest and stared above and to the left of Tariq’s head. To his right, Major Bedras stood in immaculate uniform, leg splinted and crutch prominently positioned for the greatest possible sympathy. Crys contemplated kicking it out from under the lying, snivelling fucking wretch.
Crys didn’t have an immaculate uniform. Crys was wearing the rain-soiled mess he’d worn for his night watch and then left drying three days before when Bedras dragged him out on his fool patrol. Three days. Three fucking days in his company, two of them listening to him whine and bitch about his bastard leg while I practically carry him all the way here because the rest of the Fifty gave us up for dead and left us, and then what does he do?
Crys should’ve expected what he’d done, but it appeared that even after a lifetime of bitter disappointment, he still hadn’t learned his lesson.
“Major Bedras, your account is nothing short of remarkable,” Tariq said, breaking in on Crys’s seething. “To fight on in defense of your junior officer, on a broken leg no less . . .” Tariq spread hands as thin and wiry as his moustache. “Well, it beggars belief.”
Bedras’s chest swelled with so much air and pride Crys thought he might explode like an over-filled pig’s bladder. I’ve probably got a pin somewhere, he thought, keeping his face blank as only a soldier could, though from Tariq’s swift glance, he suspected his eyes were telling the general more than they should.
Tariq leaned forward and fixed pale eyes on the major. “Dismissed,” he said, and Bedras deflated a little. “I must discuss matters with the lieutenant in private. Though wait outside. I’ll have need of you again.”
“Sir,” Bedras said, saluting so hard he nearly concussed himself.
Crys opened his mouth as soon as Bedras closed the door behind him, but Tariq held up a finger. A voice fro
m outside politely requested the major take a seat in the anteroom, followed by departing footsteps and the ostentatious clicking of a crutch on the stone floor.
“Lieutenant Tailorson, I’d like your report now,” Tariq said and Crys felt a wash of relief flood his guts. He was going to get to tell the truth. He wasn’t going to have to swallow that horseshit Bedras was peddling and take the blame for the deaths of two good men and the invasion of a foreign fucking country.
It took longer than he expected, and he had to fight to keep his voice down more than once, but he told Tariq everything, including that Bedras had ordered Orril to stand a night watch while ill. He stuck to the facts, but even without embellishment it sounded like he was trying to get Bedras kicked out of the damn army. No, Bedras is doing that himself. I’m just the messenger.
By the time he stopped talking, his throat sore and his fists clenched, Tariq was leaning forward with his elbows on the desk. Crys hoped that was a good sign.
“And you’ll swear to this testimony in a court-martial, will you?” Tariq said when he was sure Crys had finished.
Shit shit shit.
Crys cleared his throat, knowing there was no backing out of it now. “Yes, sir, if needs be. The major’s command is a mess, sir. He lacks the respect of the men and he lacks the ability to lead them, to make quick decisions, or the . . . Sir, if the men find out he surrendered to a group of children, well, his career will be over, sir.”
Tariq’s eyes narrowed. “But they won’t find out, will they?” he said quietly. “Because the only people who know that happened are him, me, and you. And we’re not spreading rumours among the Rank, are we, Lieutenant?”
Crys stood a little straighter. “Absolutely not, sir.”
“Good.” Tariq stared at him for so long, Crys began to sweat. “And the Dead Legion?”
Tully’s face floated in Crys’s inner vision for a moment. “As far as we know, they didn’t enter Rilpor, sir.”
Tariq nodded. “For your efforts to save Alba and Ned, and your quick thinking and bravery in getting your superior officer to safety while mostly avoiding a diplomatic incident, you are hereby reinstated to the rank of captain, with all rights and responsibilities that entails. Move your kit into the captains’ quarters.”
Unfettered III Page 31