1 Day Left
The sun hid below the horizon, dawn on its way but not yet arrived. Bowe sat up inside the rickshaw, the seats not nearly cushioned enough. On the journey up, he had collapsed into a stupor several times. He didn’t think it could be called sleep, since sleep was impossible when every jolt left Bowe feeling that the placid-faced marshal had resumed his torture.
The rickshaw’s left wheel hopped. Bowe swallowed down the roar that wanted to explode up his gullet. Thrace was helping pull Bowe’s rickshaw and his friend felt Bowe’s pain almost as much as Bowe did. If he knew about it. After the initial part of the journey, though the streets of Arcandis, Thrace had wanted to stop and let Bowe rest before trying again in a day’s time. But Bowe knew his place was at the Refuge, with Iyra, and insisted they continue, biting down on his screams as much as he could.
Bowe was glad that the seat cushions were a reddish-brown to begin with. That made it easy to pretend there weren’t any bloodstains. He was alone in the rickshaw and sat rather than lay down because it hurt less. Though perhaps that was mainly because he could look outside and distract himself.
They weren’t far from the Refuge. The closer they got, the slower their progress. This made the bumps less severe, but Bowe just wanted the journey to be over. He needed to make sure that Iyra was okay. He hadn’t seen her since Stenesso had kneed her in the face.
Pinpricks of dust hung in the air—no breeze to blow them away—kicked up by thousands of feet as a wide line of people, both ahead and behind, trudged up the slope. The yellow dust glistened in the ever-growing sunlight, perhaps a preview of what Arcandis would look like during the peak of the Infernam when it was said that the air itself could catch fire.
Would everyone fit in the Refuge? What would happen at the end if there wasn’t room? Seeing the amount of people around him made Bowe fear the worst, for the crowds would multiply still more over the next day and night. In a way, though, Bowe felt it was out of his hands. He had made people believe in the idea, and put smart and capable people in charge of making it happen. It was now up to them.
Hess was still Bowe’s problem, however. Everything that had been achieved could be for nothing when he arrived. Hess would ensure that his supporters got sufficient space and supplies, which would have to be at the expense of others. Instead of the ascor and the marshals deciding who lived and who died, it would be Hess. Just as Bowe hadn’t wanted to have the rule of the ascor replaced by another harsh rule under the Jarindors, Bowe couldn’t let Hess take over. From what he knew of Hess, life on Arcandis could get worse rather than better in the coming Infernams.
“Bowe.” A shape shimmered in the sunlight then materialized into a beautiful sight. She was alive and unharmed.
“Iyra.” Bowe reached an arm out of the rickshaw. She ran over and grabbed his fingers. Pain flared but he didn’t mind. It felt so good to be able to touch her once again. When he’d been captured, the chance of being reunited with Iyra ever again had seemed nonexistent.
“Not so hard,” he protested. It turned out he minded a little.
Iyra released him. “Helion! You look terrible.”
“Thanks.” Bowe touched a bruise at Iyra’s temple. “Don’t charge at an armed man like a crazy woman next time. Okay?”
“I’d do the same again. I just wouldn’t let you be taken next time. What did they do to you?”
“I’m still alive, that’s the important thing.”
Thrace put down the handle of the rickshaw. “Climb in there with him, girl, if you want. We are barely moving at the moment.”
Iyra nodded, then went around to the other side and slid in beside him. She reached for him, then broke into tears.
“Stop, stop, you’re supposed to be comforting me.”
“I sorry. It’s just—what have they done to you, my darling?” She guided Bowe’s head into the crook of his arm and she gently laced her fingers across his chest.
“I don’t want to think about what they did. All I know is that I suddenly feel much better.”
Iyra’s tears landed on Bowe’s right cheek and rolled down his neck. “After everything you’ve done, this is the reward you get?”
“No, you are my reward, and I couldn’t imagine a greater.”
They held each other in silence for a while, and Iyra’s tears gradually dried up.
“Are we winning?” Bowe asked.
“Are we winning? What kind of mush-for-brains question is that? This isn’t some Harmony game.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Everyone in that committee curses your name for putting them on it, and none of them have slept for days. But they are just about managing to deal with the new arrivals while putting systems in place for dealing with an over-saturated Refuge. Platforms have been installed in the bigger caves. Though the thought of spending the Infernam either above or below the platform is equally hellish.”
“Sounds like we are winning.”
“Mush-for-brains! If you weren’t already tenderized, I’d hit you,” she said. “Tell me about you. Word reached us that Hess has taken Raine Mansion. Jeniano and many other ascor died in the battle. Sorani is now the only Guardian unaccounted for.”
“I was helped to escape from Raine Mansion before Hess’s men overran it. And I’ve a feeling I know where Sorani is, and we won’t be seeing him again.” If Bowe wasn’t mistaken, Eolnar and Sorani had gone to that single-windowed room where Frodan had died so they could join their brother.
“I saw some of the those traveling with you outside.” Iyra’s voice lost some of its softness. “A thin woman is wearing rags and pulling a rickshaw, yet still managing to look like she’s the queen of a ball.”
Adapt and survive or resist and die, Bowe thought. Freyya had made her choice. “She helped me.”
“They, too, are forgiven and allowed into the Refuge?” she asked.
“It’s mainly women and children, Iyra.”
“That’s one way to see it,” she said. “Another way is to see them as a strong seed for a new generation of oppressors.
“The environment they grew up in made them what they are. The new generation will be different. New day, new way.”
“I guess that’s the way it has to be. I hope we don’t regret being too forgiving in years to come. What about Hess?”
“Every plan has a flaw. I fear he’ll be in charge soon.”
“Helion help us.”
“Helion isn’t in the habit of helping. Rather the opposite. But maybe she has made us hard and smart enough that we can help ourselves.”
Chapter 20
Infernam
Swish, swish. Bowe’s knife belt was on his lap and he used the knife sharpener Thrace had given him. He leaned against the rock wall of the Refuge between the Bellanger and Lessard entrances—though he should have no longer thought of them by those names. The house symbols had already been sanded off the doors.
Bowe shaded his eyes as he looked up into the shy. Helion had bloated out almost to her maximum size, swallowing the night sky. It was bright enough to be daytime, just an eerie daytime where the colors were all wrong. The dust on the ground was orange rather than yellow, and the sea was a deep violet. Everything had a deeper hue than normal. Perhaps it could be called beautiful, but not by Bowe. Corpses went gray, but that was not the color of death. Everything went black when one went unconscious, but that was not the color of death. Deep purple was the color of death.
Bowe felt the weight of many expectant gazes on him. After days of frantic activity, an unusual stillness had fallen upon Left Post and Right Post. No one knew what would happen next. Swish, swish. His stump wedged the knife hilt against his thigh, and Bowe brushed the knife sharpener back and forth.
Sindar approached. “He is nearly here.”
Bowe nodded. Swish, swish.
“Is meeting him with a sharp knife the way you want to do this? You may be outmatched this time, brother.”
“That’s happened a lot in my life.”
“You do have a plan, right?”
Bowe shrugged. “Make sure you stay out of sight. Hess doesn’t like ascor.”
“You are ascor.”
“He wants to kill me last.”
“That’s not comforting. For either of us.”
“Hess isn’t a comforting kind of guy.” Twice more for luck: swish, swish. Bowe placed the knife sharpener on the ground beside him.
“What are you doing?” Sindar asked. “If you are trying to sharpen your knife, you are doing it wrong.”
Bowe stood and buckled the knife belt around his waist. It was awkward with just one hand, but Bowe had become practiced. He then wiped the dust from the back of his trousers. “Keep everyone back until it’s over. Make sure that Iyra doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Sindar nodded and backed away.
Bowe walked between Right Post and Left Post without looking to either side. He didn’t want to catch Iyra’s eye—it had taken long enough to persuade her to stay back. Beyond the Posts, thousands, no, tens of thousands filled the slope, all following one man. Bowe wasn’t sure how they’d get into the Refuge in time, or at all. But that was a problem for others.
Bowe was managing to walk without limping, though he knew he still looked terrible. Despite the ointments that the healers had used, his face was bruised and scarring into something that no longer resembled skin. He had convinced Iyra that his remaining injuries were superficial. But blood came out where it shouldn’t and parts of him—parts of him inside—felt broken. But he could move normally and with enough energy to sustain a walking pace. That was all that mattered for the moment.
The only noise that broke the still air was the tramp of thousands of footsteps, crumbling the dust beneath their feet.
Hess carried his spiked mace by his side and when he stopped five paces from Bowe he displayed his spiked grin. “What happened to you?” Behind him, his many followers rolled to a stop.
“I trusted the wrong person.”
“Bad mistake to make.”
Bowe nodded.
“You forgotten our last meeting?”
“I haven’t. And I’m sure that it’s on the mind of every person watching us.”
“So why are you standing instead of on your knees?”
“I’m too tired. If I fell on my knees I might never be able to get up again.”
“So you come before me armed. You wanted a duel, perhaps?” Hess raised his mace and laughed. Behind him, other laughs joined his. But they were nervous laughs, uncertain laughs. No one expected Bowe to beat Hess in a duel, but the encounter clearly hadn’t gone the way Hess’s supporters expected thus far.
“No duel. I’m no warrior. Everyone knows I fight my battles with words.”
Hess slammed his mace into the ground in front of him. Dirt splashed up, showering Bowe. “I trust my mace over words. Why should I listen to you?”
“Because the Infernam is coming and a smooth passage into the Refuge is easier than a violent one. What do you have to lose by hearing me out?”
“You don’t mean to attack me with that knife?”
“No.” Bowe took the knife from its scabbard and took five steps forward before presenting it to Hess, hilt-first.
Hess reached for it, hesitantly at first, then whipping his hand forward to grab the hilt and twisting the knife as he yanked it back. The blade cut into Bowe’s hand as it turned. There was no pain—what was one more cut? Bowe held his hand up before his face and watched the blood, black under Helion’s light, drip into the dirt.
Hess’s grin died half-formed. That wasn’t the reaction he had expected.
Bowe let his hand fall to his side “We need to talk about the new rules for the Refuge. No weapons are allowed in.”
“Who sets these rules?” Hess’s voice rumbled like distant thunder. “We didn’t rise up and destroy the old Guardians to bow down before new ones.” Shouts of agreement tumbled in from Hess’s followers; they crowded closer.
“It’s what the people want.” This was an assumption on Bowe’s part. He’d never exactly asked.
“The people.” Hess spat on the ground. “Those who bent their backs to the ascor whip without protest sexennium after sexennium? And they now want to set rules for me?” He raised his mace in the air and turned to face those who had followed him. “The sheep think to set the rules for us. What do you say to that?”
“Noooo!” The roar of a thousand voices as one. They raised their swords in the air and stamped their feet on the ground.
“We are the ones who fought. We are the ones who spilled our blood. We are the ones who died free, and now that we won, we shall live free.”
“We live free!” Hess’s supporters shouted.
“I didn’t hear that,” Hess said. “What do we say to those who have orders for us?”
“We live free!” The chorused shout blew over Bowe in a wave of noise.
Hess turned back around and lowered the spiked mace to his side. “That’s the answer to your rules.” He gestured with Bowe’s knife. “Now, tell me why I shouldn’t kill you? I said that I’d kill you last. Well, all the rest of them are dead, pretty much.”
“You should,” Bowe muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
Bowe edged closer to Hess. “You should have killed me.” Bowe’s left hand unbuckled his knife belt and in the same movement grabbed hold of the metal scabbard. He drove the recently sharpened scabbard into Hess’s stomach.
Hess’s mouth opened wide in shock, then his face contorted in anger and pain, and he plunged downward with Bowe’s knife, stabbing it into Bowe’s back. A shock of pain exploded in Bowe’s chest; he could almost feel the chill of iron inside him. Hess pulled out the knife and stabbed into Bowe’s back again. And again.
Bowe body spasmed but he ignored the pain, twisting the scabbard inside Hess’s guts. “You die free,” Bowe told the Eye fighter.
Hands grabbed at him, pulling him away but Bowe resisted, continuing to twist. When he was finally wrenched from Hess, the scabbard emerged from Hess’s stomach in a gush of black blood.
Bowe sailed through the air, landing on the ground several paces away. Hess’s followers crowded around the Eye fighter, trying to help him.
Sindar was the first to reach Bowe. Before he had a chance to say anything, Bowe grabbed the collar of Sindar’s tunic. “Now, Sindar. Don’t let this be for nothing. Now, while they are disorientated and confused. Disarm them and let them into the Refuge.”
“But, you, are you—”
“Now.”
Sindar nodded and disappeared.
An instant later, Iyra leaned over Bowe, cupping his face with one hand. “Bowe, are you okay? Will I get the healer?”
A dampness spread underneath Bowe. His life was pouring out his back. “No healer. Just hold me.”
“We have to save you. You can’t die.”
Bowe raised his hand and his fingers brushed Iyra’s cheek. “The time of the ascor has come to an end. This is the way it has to be.”
“No, Bowe, don’t give up. Fight.”
“I have fought against the impossible my whole life. But even I won’t survive five stab wounds in my back. Just lie with me. If I’m with you at the end, I will die happy.”
Bowe held out his arm and Iyra lay down against him, resting her head against his chest. He cupped the back of her head and twirled a lock of her hair with his forefinger.
“This way to the Refuge!” Sindar shouted, gesturing between Left Post and Right Post. “No one is left behind. This way. Leave your weapons on the ground. You can collect them after the Infernam.”
The group who had clustered around Hess’s body was still frantically trying to save him. Others, though, looked at each other uncertainly. Several shuffled up toward the Refuge. They didn’t disarm though. A large sword swung from the belt of one of those near the front. Sindar stepped in close, grabbed the man’s sword by the hilt, drew it out, and threw it to the side.
“Straight ahead. Remember, no weapons allowed.”
Several others from the committee joined Sindar. “Make haste!” Leti shouted. “The sun will be up before long and you all want to be safely in the Refuge by then. Remember, there’s no place for weapons inside. It’s either disarm or stay outside.”
A voice from among the escay on the slope echoed Sindar and Leti’s order to drop all weapons. Xarcon’s voice. It felt good to be on the same side as him once more.
Iyra cupped Bowe’s chin and directed his gaze toward her. “You can’t be smiling.” Tears streamed down Iyra’s face.
“I am. Because it just might have worked.” He touched her cheek. “Smile for me.”
“I can’t.”
“This is a happy ending. Put away those tears.”
A sob escaped Iyra’s lips. “It doesn’t feel happy.”
“We weren’t supposed to have any time together. The ascor-escay chasm. Yet love found a way for us to be with each other, to find happiness.”
“It was so short.”
“Short, yet powerful. You gave me more than I deserved. Think of how my life was meant to go. I was supposed to die as a Green. And, upon surviving that, the soulless life of an ascor awaited me. A life of cold calculation where I would strategically marry and throw off my wives when they bored me. I would barely acknowledge my children, sending my sons out to die on the Green Path each sexennium. Better a short and good life. A life with love and friendship.”
“Those are just words.” Iyra released another sob. “Words mean nothing. Your face is scarred and brutalized and your life seeps into the dirt. My heart has a hole in it that will never heal. What are words compared to that?”
“Then forget words. Just lie with me and feel. Feel and remember. Remember what we shared. And look forward into a new Arcandis. Celebrate what we achieved.”
Bowe thought back to his first meeting with Iyra, the feisty rebel who wanted to hate him. He had been such an idiot back then, a true mush-for-brains. Bowe stared into Iyra’s smoky-gray eyes and he knew she was also remembering. She curled her fingers around his shoulder and squeezed. And so, together, they remembered their time together. Their rocky early meetings, the kisses with abrupt endings. Then, three years ago, they had enjoyed some closeness, also cut short. And finally, they had truly found each other in these last days.
The Collapsing Path (The Narrowing Path Series Book 3) Page 22