“Don’t tell him that, Uk. You don’t have to tell him — ”
“Hey, Uk? That’s not what’s going to happen, is it, Uk? That’s not what’s gonna happen? Oh, no, don’t tell me that!”
“The boy don’t need to know that kind of thing.”
“Then why’d he ask, if he didn’t want to know? They pulled their damned blades when they had us under that net, hacking at us. They didn’t cut to kill — you can’t fight a war like that! You can’t do it like that! That’s not the way to do it!”
“They’re not going to let that happen to us, are they? You don’t think that’s what they’re going to do? Oh, don’t tell me that!”
“You can’t pull back when you’re fighting like that. If I had my blade, boy, I’d kill you now. Put you out of your misery — and if you don’t shut up in here, I may just try it anyway with my bare hands. Only I’m too weak — too bad for you. But keep quiet, I say!”
On the council building’s cellar floor, at first making figures like red feathers, blood leaked out to mix with the urine still there from the village prisoners released that morning.
“Oh, don’t say that — I’m bleeding, Uk. I’m bleeding so bad!”
“Will you shut up, boy? Are you a man or are you a howling dog? There’re men dying in here. And there’re going to be more men dying. So will you have some respect and shut up?”
But after minutes, all form to the red shapes spreading the wet floor was gone.
Chapter Seven
From high in the mountains a stream drops in feathery falls to bubble along beside the grassy fold through the quarry at Çiron.
When Rahm threw a last handful of sand and grit back to pock the water and, elbows high and winging, waded up the bank, his hair was a black sheet bright on his back and his dripping skin was raw — but both were free of blood.
Vortcir perched on a log jutting above the rocks, wings waving like a great moth’s.
A leg still in the foamy rush, Rahm looked down to finger the chain around his neck.
“They were planning to come through the mountains to Hi-Vator. Hi-Vator was right in their line.” Vortcir cocked his head to the side, above his own Handsman’s chain. “We heard what they’d done to you and your village. Certainly we couldn’t let that happen to us. No sense of weapons, god, or money — you’re not far enough along toward civilization for anyone to take you seriously. Still, I did not like these Myetrans — and my aunt said attack. Then, my friend, I heard your name through their accursed speakers — and after that, your own call. Well, these are all things to put out of your mind. You are free. Your village is free. A third of the Myetran soldiers run wildly even now, away in the woods. My scouts say most are heading southeast, in the direction of Myetra Himself. More than a third are dead, and the few captured are penned in the basement of your council building. It could be a lot worse.”
Along the path to the bank, dappled light spilling bits of even brighter copper down his braids, Abrid ran half a dozen steps, stopped; and, copper spilling hers even faster, Rimgia overtook him. Behind, wings waving in their own rose dapple, the female Winged One who’d once told Rahm about money came after them. “These are the ones you wanted, the two with the red hair — yes, Handsman Rahm? These are the ones, no? Certainly they must be!” Her voice was between a piping and a whine.
“Rahm!” Rimgia declared, Abrid right behind. “The Winged Ones — they drove off the soldiers!” and she excitedly began to tell him many things he already knew; and while Abrid looked excited and kept silent, they started back to the village.
The path crossed the bristle of a burnt field. Halfway over, Rahm halted. “I’ll see thee back in town in a little, Rimgia, at the common,” and he turned across the stubble toward the remains of the shack.
As he came around where half a wall still stood, he stopped.
On her knees, Naä looked up from where she had been pulling earth from under a charred log. “Rahm?” She smiled up at him, then dug some more.
Three double handfuls of black, cinder-filled dirt, and she leaned to reach in under with one arm. Sitting back, she lifted free the harp and unwrapped the charred cloth. Two dead leaves were caught in its strings. Fingering them loose, she pulled the base back into her lap, laid her hand against the strings, but did not pluck.
Rather, she reached down to her hip and loosed the knife from her sash. “This is…this was Ienbar’s.” Clearly unsure what to do with it, she held it out to him. “Rahm?”
He didn’t take it; so she put it on the log.
“The children.” Rahm nodded across the field. “Rimgia and Abrid. They’re all right. A Winged One found them.”
“Oh!” Suddenly she stood. “They found them!” She smiled at him, looked across the field, at Rahm again — then called: “Rimgia, Abrid!” Pushing her arm through the strap, shrugging the instrument to her back, with Rahm following, Naä began to run across the charred grass.
Elbows forward on his knees and gazing at nothing, Lieutenant Kire sat on the blackened block, where he’d been sitting, silent on the common, forty minutes now. The villagers moving about sometimes glanced at him, then — a few and a few more — moved about him without looking at all.
On foot or in air, passing Winged Ones ignored him.
Mantice was chattering away at Rahm as they came across the grass: “Four of them we bandaged up and sent south on their way — though, phew! — they’d only been down there six hours, and already it was halfway between a cesspit and a shambles. One of them, a young fellow, was cut bad in the leg and already down with a fever. But Hara took him into her hut and says she can nurse him back to his feet — although, I allow, he’ll limp the rest of his life. But that woman’s as wise with medicinal weeds as she is at weaving. If anyone can save him, it’ll be she. Three, now, I’m sorry to say it, were too far gone. Two of those were already dead when we went in there. And one died even as we were carrying him up the steps and out into the clear air. Thou wouldst have thought the ones alive and turned loose would have had some gratitude — or at least a smile for the favor. But all of them were sullen fellows. Well, they’d been through it too, I suppose. I had them put the dead ones back over in my water wagon.”
Here the lieutenant looked around, got to his feet heavily, and turned. “Rahm, he says there are more dead about. Myetran dead. In his wagon. May I see them? I…” His rough voice snagged on itself. “I’ve been trying to get an idea whom we lost — among the men I knew, I mean.”
“Of course,” Rahm said, though, from report, the lieutenant had not done much of anything in the past hour. “Mantice, canst thou take me and friend Kire to see?”
“But only come thou along,” said the stocky water-cart driver. “My cart is this way.”
Five minutes later, off on a side street, with one hand on the wagon’s edge, the lieutenant peered within. The puma’s head beside his, save for its sealed eyes, might have been peering too. Standing at Kire’s shoulder, Rahm looked in. The lieutenant’s next breath was a little louder than the one before it. But the one after was quiet again.
On his back at the cart’s far side by three other bodies, the big soldier had a gaping slash along his flank, through which, beneath a carapace of flies, you could see both meat and bone. Rahm recognized him more from his size. The full features, unshaven, held a slight grimace in death.