Iliff lowered his head and lumbered over the pulling mud, arms and legs churning. Though the lead men were several meters ahead, he felt the entire wedge shudder as they collided into the enemy’s position. Iliff’s line condensed, then pulled apart. Metal sang out. Iliff slashed at the dark forms to his left. His sword clanged and cut. All the while, he continued to surge forward, following the guards just before him. Soon the ground firmed and the dark forms fell away. They were through.
“Fan out!” came Horatio’s voice. “Form a line!”
Iliff checked to make sure a Fythe guard stood to either side of him before looking out. The darkness of the green was interrupted by the confused line of Garott and, beyond them, the fallen figures of wounded and dead. He looked up at the wall where shadows scrambled along its length, ink-black against the clouds. Iliff could make out the dark lines of ladders. They fell against the towers and along the inside of the wall, where the Garott began trickling down.
“Tighten the line! Begin drawing back!”
Iliff heeded Horatio’s command. The Fythe guards from the other towers had also broken through and were joining the line on both sides. Though the archers kept the enemy line at bay, more Garott were arriving all the time. Iliff called to the nearest guards.
“Tighten in! I’m going to check the hospital!”
He turned and raced onto the town’s west lane. It was not long before the oblong cottage housing the main hospital came up on his right. The hospital where Skye would be. Lantern light glimmered from the wet cobblestones beneath the windows. There was still hope. He was nearly to the doorstep when a Fythe guard emerged.
“It’s empty,” he said. “They’ve all gone.”
Iliff pushed past him.
“There’s no time, Iliff! The line is closing!”
Iliff shut the door against the battle and faced the long room where beds of white linen lined the walls. The ones nearest the door were mussed and bloodstained. Boots and torn armor sagged in piles beside tables of bandaging, salve, and wood basins of water. Iliff walked the length of the room, relieved to find no signs of struggle.
He sat on one of the far beds, its linen clean and neatly tucked. He remembered the sheet Skye had been carrying the night they had met on the lane. Whether for the memory of her nearness or for the quiet of the room and the warmth of the lantern beside him, a great weariness overtook him. He wanted only to remove his armor, to peel away his mud-soaked garments and slip inside the fragrant sheets, to draw them over himself. He wanted to shut out this chaotic world and rest.
“Fall back! Fall back!”
The urgent cries outside the window roused Iliff. The calls receded toward the Keep, followed soon by thudding footfalls.
Iliff rose and checked his armor and shield. He paused before the door to unsheathe his sword. Though the desire to look back into the room was strong and aching, for he knew that this place would soon cease to be, he did not turn. Instead, he eased the door open and emerged into the dark lane amid the clamorous mass of guards. He allowed them to press around him and carry him forward. He looked up at the bluff that ascended before them. The town would fall, he thought, but there was still the Keep. They still had that.
In the welter of motion, Iliff had little idea where he was in relation to the line, though it had to be somewhere behind him. He listened for the enemy. It was only when a soldier barked out to his right that he realized they were all around him. He had emerged into the middle of their charge. His gut clenched and he fell into a stoop. From the safety of his helmet, he tried to peer to either side of him. Fortunately, the Garott were too preoccupied with their advance to notice him. And inside his filthy armor and attire, he blended well.
Soon the lane straightened and the ramp climbed ahead. The Fythe had pulled their line onto the causeway and were retreating up it and through the gate in threes and fours. Lines of archers fired on the Garott from the outer wall and ascending towers of the Keep. From Iliff’s vantage the stronghold had never looked more imposing. He was cheered to hear curses ring out around him. But when arrows began slamming into the front of their charge, he was forced to join the Garott as they darted behind the workshops.
Iliff found cover at the side of the weaving workshop. He crouched with his face beside one of the wall’s wooden beams. Garott soldiers crowded around him, breathing hard and smelling of earth. Soon Iliff heard deliberate footfalls. A commanding voice called from behind him.
“Attention,” it said. “They have just closed the gates. They are shut in. We pull back now and wait for the others.”
The commander moved off, repeating the order. The Garott began to lift from around Iliff and trample toward the cottages. Iliff peered under the crook of his arm and waited for the mass to recede. Remaining in a crouch, he slipped from the side of the workshop around to where the lane ran up to the ramp. All along the high walls stood Fythe archers, a few of them still firing, though the Garott were beyond their reach now. Iliff moved slowly. Whereas being mistaken for a Garott had just saved him, it now placed him in perhaps greater peril. He continued to edge between the lane and workshop, taking care to stay in the shadows.
He was puzzling over how to warn the Keep of his coming without alerting the Garott when a high groan sounded from inside the workshop. Iliff crawled to the door and pushed it open.
At first Iliff could see nothing. But when the groan sounded again, he was able to make out two outstretched legs among the long shadows of the looms. He crept closer. The boy was propped against a wall, one hand to his chest. The thin line of a shaft emerged between his fingers. For an instant Iliff was certain the boy was Newt, but his features were too dark.
The boy looked up, his eyes white with fright. “Don’t leave,” he said.
“No, I won’t.”
Iliff moved the boy’s hand. He felt along the shaft of the arrow to where it pierced the dark leather at his heart. If he pulled the arrow free, the boy would surely bleed to death. Iliff stayed there looking at it.
“What’s going to happen?” the boy asked.
Iliff shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I’m afraid.”
“I know.”
The boy lowered his head and drew a sobbing breath. Tendrils of black hair shook around his narrow face. “I… I thought they’d accept the truce,” he said. “I thought they’d receive us.”
Iliff removed his helmet and scooted until he was next to the boy. He put his arm around him. Lucious may have fired the arrow that killed Grier, he thought, but I helped fuel his intolerance these past years. I helped stoke his zealotry. And in denying the Garott for as long as I did, I denied the Fythe the chance to meet with them, to acknowledge their common origin and perhaps reconcile their violent division. And now so many are dead.
He gripped the boy’s shoulder and went to lift him. “Come on,” Iliff said into his ear. But the boy was no longer breathing.
Iliff lay the boy flat and broke the shaft from his chest. He found a clean length of fabric and spread it over him, then tucked the edges beneath his damp body. He stayed kneeling beside him for a long time. At last he went to the door, where he removed his breastplate. Beside it, he set his sword and shield. Clad only in cloth garments, he stepped outside and into the lane.
Chapter 25
Iliff faced the Keep and raised his arms. From the walls came sudden shouting and the creaks of hundreds of bows. Standing to his full height, Iliff tilted his face so that what little light fell from the high gatehouse could illuminate his features. He closed his eyes and braced himself.
At last there came a voice that Iliff recognized as Stype’s.
“Hold your fire!” he called. “It is Iliff!”
Iliff exhaled and sprinted toward the ramp just as the first arrows began landing behind him. He took some comfort in knowing that the Garott fired from a distance and would not get a clean shot unless they were willing to be shot at themselves. He was nearly to the gate when an arrow seared h
is lower leg and skittered over the flagstones. He hobbled the final distance, where guards helped him beneath the half-raised portcullis, then rushed to close it. As Iliff passed between the towering gatehouses and through the gate’s second door, he could feel blood welling above the lip of his boot. But he could not think of that now. He had to see that Skye was here, that she and the others were safe.
Holding his leg rigid, Iliff made for the inner wall. Guards and militia scrambled to and from the towers. Captains shouted orders.
Iliff pressed through them, past the inner gate and into the Great Hall of the Keep. Though it was nearly morning, the men and women being housed there remained awake. They stood before their cells and beseeched passing guards for updates on the battle and assurances that their loved ones were safe.
“Has Gregg been seen?” one called.
“Please, any word on Jos?” cried another.
But Iliff noticed that the people did not address themselves to him. Their white, harrowed faces looked past him—and through him, it seemed—as though he were not there.
“The hospital,” Iliff called. “Where have they moved the field hospital?”
No one answered. At his passage, some of the men pulled women closer to the stone cells where clothes hung from short, sagging lines and children wailed their fear and exhaustion. Iliff took hold of a young woman before she could turn from him.
“Please,” he said. “I need to know where they have moved the field hospital.”
“Unhand her.” An aging man appeared at the woman’s side as she shrugged from Iliff’s grasp. Iliff recognized the man. He had once served in the militia. He looked over Iliff’s stained tunic and breeches.
“Traitor,” he muttered.
Iliff stiffened as though he had been struck. “Traitor?”
The man squinted his baleful eyes. “Oh yes, we have heard, we have heard. The militia say the enemy poured right through your defenses. They say you were seen running among them. We’ll settle this,” he warned. “No matter how this ends, we’ll settle this.”
Iliff looked around at the Fythe who had withdrawn to the cells he had built for them. Though some peered out, most kept their heads turned. The man spat at Iliff’s feet. He looked like he was about to say something more when his face lit up in embarrassment.
“They also say that he fought bravely this night though he was never asked to bear arms.” The voice was Skye’s. “They say he risked himself to see that those in the field hospital were safely gotten out. That is how he ended up behind the Garotts’ charge.” She came and stood beside Iliff.
“Yes, but how did they get inside?” the man asked, though with fading assertion.
“It was for no weakness in his walls. The Garott are movers of earth. They tunneled from beyond their own walls and came up through the empty cottages.” She turned to Iliff. “It was why Grier was interested in the lay of the town. The Garott needed to know where they could surface unseen.”
Of course, thought Iliff.
“One of our healers heard movement in a cottage she knew to be empty,” Skye said. “A quick feeling revealed to me their presence. We were able to move everyone from the hospitals to the Keep before they emerged.”
The man’s gaze shifted from Skye to Iliff. He ran his hand once through his stiff hair, then held it out. “Forgive me, sir,” he mumbled. “I still have memories of… of the last time. I am upset. I’ve always held you in high regard.”
“I understand,” Iliff said, accepting his hand. “Think no more of it.”
The man nodded and retreated, his head bowed.
Iliff turned to Skye. The intensity of the moment was already fading from around her to reveal her pale weariness. She led him into the corridor, where they embraced. Iliff pressed his lips to the side of her covered head.
“You are well?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she said. “Though many are wounded. And you? You are bleeding.”
“I’m all right.” He breathed in the warmth of her. “Gilpin is gone.”
“As is Horatio.”
“Horatio?” He held her shoulders.
“When father suggested he retire years ago, he said he would rather die commanding his men than reclined in a chair before the hearth. Stype and the guard were like his sons. He got all of them inside before he was felled outside the gatehouse.”
Gilpin had felt the same way about the members of the wall crew, Iliff thought. Even though he had never approved of the stone.
“I should go back to the wall,” Iliff said.
“Yes, and I to the hospital. I will tell Gilpin’s wife.”
Iliff held Skye a moment longer, inhaling as much of her as he could, before letting go.
* * *
The rain had stopped by the time Iliff emerged. The outer wall of the bluff was strangely quiet. He moved along the row of guards until he found an open crenel. It was as he feared. Beneath the graying sky, the town was swamped with Garott. They flowed in and out of buildings and cottages. More dropped down from the outer wall. Iliff watched groups of Garott putting up wooden screens, while others pulled sacks of grain from the far towers. Still others loaded stone blocks onto carts.
“Many hundreds of them were slain, but you wouldn’t know it to look on them,” Stype said. He had come up quietly and now stood beside Iliff. “This does not bode well for us.”
“They will not be able to burrow under here,” Iliff said. “The bluff is mostly stone and the defensive walls and towers are higher. Even if they got past the outer wall somehow, they would be hard pressed to scale the inner before being shot down.” His own words exhausted him. “We’re not yet defeated.”
“You are injured,” Stype said, looking at Iliff’s leg. “You should have a healer tend to you, then find somewhere to rest. I don’t foresee any more fighting, at least not this morning. They are preparing a siege.”
When Iliff looked over the township, he saw that Stype was right. The structures the Garott labored to get up now were defensive. Iliff began to turn back toward the gatehouse, then stopped.
“Your sister told me about Horatio,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”
Stype dimmed as he nodded. It dawned on Iliff that with Horatio’s passing, Stype would now command the guard. The old generation of leaders was gone. It was just them now.
“I’m sorry too,” Stype said.
* * *
Iliff lay on a pallet in a stone cell no larger than his former cell in the prison. Bandages bound his upper arm and lower leg, and his stomach was still warm from the drink the healers had given him to restore his blood. Though battle-weary and further fatigued by grief, Iliff could not sleep. He rolled to his side and stared at the wall before him. He traced the stone interstices with his finger and listened into the Great Hall. The weeping of the bereaved had diminished to irregular sobs some hours before. Now all he heard were the tossings of troubled sleep. Iliff rose stiffly and went to his door. He looked at the two levels of cells that ringed the Hall, at the fair Fythe pressed together inside the hard spaces.
They were not made to live like this, he thought. They will not survive a siege.
But what choice did they have? The Garott were too numerous to fight. And if the Fythe were able to flee somehow, where would they go? The Garott held the lands to the east. To the north was the sea. The swamp lay south with the burnt ruin of the forest beyond. They would have to go west, into lands wild and unknown. The thought made Iliff cold and queasy. He pulled the blanket from the pallet and drew it over his shoulders.
He thought of Lucious, who was being held in the lowest level of the Keep. And all at once, Iliff wanted to see him. He stood for a moment, trying to reason with himself, to fight down the impulse, but his mind only grew more agitated and insistent. At last he cast away the blanket.
He left his cell and stole from the Great Hall. On his way to the stairwell, he lifted a lantern from the corridor. His secretive steps recalled his journey to the bottom of the
prison so long ago. But he was not seeking the world beyond the walls this time. No, if anything he was seeking some assurance, however faint, that he and the Fythe would not be forced out into that world again, that this place inside the walls might still be preserved. It was a remote hope. A fanatic’s hope. Perhaps that was why he sought Lucious.
Iliff stepped from the final flight of stairs and into the dusty smells of oats and grains. Large storage rooms comprised the lowest level of the Keep, and all were filled to their ceilings now, save one, which had been converted into a block of cells, each one secured by a heavy wooden door and drawbar. Like the cells of the Great Hall, these had been built in the weeks prior to the Garotts’ arrival. These basement cells had been intended for Garott prisoners, however, not their own people. Iliff grimaced. Little of the war had turned out as intended.
He went around the block, peering inside the dark slots in all of the doors. But the cells beyond were quiet. He was stooping toward the final slot, his lantern held before him, when he heard movement, a low shuffling.
“Who’s there?” Lucious called from inside.
Iliff drew back, afraid suddenly. Lucious’ eyes appeared in the slot.
“Iliff!” he called.
“Yes,” Iliff said. “It’s me.”
“Tell me, are they destroyed?” Lucious tried to reach his blackened hand through the slot. “Are we rid of them?”
Iliff shook his head but could not tell whether Lucious saw him. Beyond Lucious’ hand, Iliff could make out the white bandage where the flat of his sword had struck.
“I wanted to be there,” Lucious cried. “Oh, how I wished to join the fight.” He jerked his hand from the slot and disappeared. Iliff could hear his feet scuffing the stone floor. “There!” he grunted, engaged in some make-believe battle. “There! There!” When he returned to the door he was breathing hard. “Tell me, Iliff, how many did you strike down?”
“I… I can’t say.”
Laughter spewed into the corridor. “The wretched dogs! I would give anything to see the rotting pile of them.” His eyes shone suddenly through the slot. “Could you take me out to see them?”
Lights and Shadows (The Prisoner and the Sun #2) Page 16