The boy climbed down and looked up into his father's eyes.
'What will we do?'
'Give me a moment, son,' said Avesh.
The crowd was rippling again. No, not a ripple, a wave heading outwards away from the gates.
'Gods falling,' he breathed. He gripped Atyo and Ellin, turning them both to him. 'They're trying to clear the camp, the bastards. If we get separated, we'll meet back at the crossing of the River Dord to the north. Can you both find that?'
'Why would we be separated?' asked Ellin.
He didn't have to answer her. The wave hit them instead. He grabbed them each by a hand.
'Come on, we've got to go.'
The press was thickening but Ellin hesitated.
'Our things.'
'Leave them. Come on.'
Avesh could feel the surge through the ground now. A drumming like a thousand hoof beats. But this stampede was human. He swung them both around, stumbling against somebody who rushed past. He caught the briefest glimpse of an ashen face before it was lost in the throng.
They began to run. There was only one direction. To try and cross the path of the crowd would be suicide. Avesh held them firm, taking care to move at the same pace as his boy, but when the youngster tripped anyway, Avesh scooped him into one arm and ran on, his wife right beside him.
He could see nothing but flailing limbs, hair streaming and the backs of countless desperate people driven to run though they barely had the strength. It was a chase that would exhaust itself quickly, and already the weakest were falling, their legs powerless to keep them upright, their spirits unable to take them a single pace further. And those that fell were left. There was nothing anyone could do, not even family, as the packed horde fled on, dragging the crying survivors with it.
Avesh ignored the ache in his wasted left arm muscles where he clutched Atyo and dared a look down at his wife. Ellin's face was determined as she ploughed on, transmitting her fear through the painfully tight grip on his hand.
Through the screams, the shouts and the thrumming of feet across the ground, Avesh could hear horses and the rhythmic heavy thud of men running in unison, closing fast. The crowd gathered sudden extra impetus. Worse, it split. Avesh pulled left, Ellin went right. Their hands slipped agonisingly apart. Avesh tried to change direction and reached out his hand. Their fingers brushed but that was all and he caught only a glimpse of her gaunt face and despairing hand as the crowd swept her away from him.
Riders galloped through the gap, voices hoarse, shouting orders to move.
'Ellin!' Avesh yelled. 'The Dord. Remember the Dord!'
'Mummy!' screamed Atyo, wriggling around, straining to see her.
Avesh saw her just once more, bobbing like a bottle in a stormy sea, helpless, unable even to struggle as she vanished from sight.
'Mummy!'
'It's all right, Atyo,' said Avesh, head down and running again, breath heaving painfully into his lungs. 'We'll find her. We'll see her soon.'
Right in front of him, a man tripped and fell. Reacting fast, Avesh hurdled the sprawling figure. His left foot came down on slimy wet mud and slipped sideways. Hopelessly unbalanced, he pitched right, holding hard on to his son as he went down.
The sound of horses was very close again. He rolled over, people scrambling past him cursing, shouts chasing them, that rhythmic thump of feet mingling with hoof beats reverberating through the ground.
Avesh clambered to his feet, presenting his back to the streaming mob threatening to knock him back down again. His muddied and terrified son was screaming, out of control, clutching handfuls of his clothing.
'We'll be all right,' said Avesh. 'We'll-'
He was standing in a space that suddenly contained too much horseflesh to dodge. He turned left and right, his vision filled with black and brown flanks, greaved legs and riding boots. He felt a heavy impact as a stallion reared near him, its rider yelling at him to move, but he could do nothing more than fall flat on his back.
He lay still, hooves coming down close to his head and body on their way past, driving the wailing refugees further and further from Xetesk. The relative silence flooded him. He gasped a breath.
'We'll be safe now, boy, safe now,' he said, stroking Atyo's head. His hand came away wet. Blood. He froze.
'Atyo?' The boy was limp in his arms. 'Atyo?'
He scrabbled frantically into a sitting position and held the boy in his lap. Atyo's head lolled to one side, blood matting his face. And, just below the hairline, his skull was stove in, caught by a horse's hoof. He had never stood a chance.
'No.' The word was barely audible. 'No.'
Avesh rose to his feet, holding his dead child to his chest. After all they'd been through, huddling in the intense cold, saving scraps of food from the ground and going days without. The boy had survived it all, only to be murdered by those he'd begged for succour.
The tears began rolling down his face, smearing the dirt as they came. Avesh fought back the nausea that swept through him, the blackening of his vision and the clouding of his mind.
His boy. Dead.
His vision cleared and he took in the litter of the camp, the scattering stragglers missed by the soldiers and the dozens, maybe hundreds, of prone forms lying where they'd fallen, clothes ruffling in the breeze. Some moved, most did not. And he saw the line of cavalry backed by the masked abominations that were the Protectors, their pace unremitting. Thump, thump, thump.
He looked down. He was standing on a tattered blanket. He laid Atyo on it and wrapped it around the boy's body. At least he wouldn't get cold. With a last look at that face so casually ruined, he kissed Atyo's forehead and closed the blanket. He stood.
The blank walls of Xetesk faced him. They could not be allowed to escape justice but he would not toss his life away in a futile attempt at vengeance. That would mock Atyo's death.
His body shaking. Avesh turned and walked away towards the north and the crossing of the River Dord, there to find his wife so they could bury their son together.
Then he'd be back. And he wouldn't be alone.
Chapter 12
By the time they reached the canopy rope crossing of the huge sluggish brown force of the River Ix, Rebraal wasn't sure who was supposed to be rescuing who.
A night where they'd both slept long through sheer exhaustion had given way to two days where it seemed the rain was Gyal's tears, sweeping across the forest and drenching it almost incessantly. Sometimes it abated to a fine mist, but more often it fell in torrents with angry thunder cracking above the canopy.
Rebraal's shoulder was agony, his multiple cuts and scratches from being dragged to the pile of bodies by the strangers and away again by Meru itched in unison. They'd done what they could – legumia root paste for the deep crossbow wound, poultices of rubiac fruits for his scratches and long drinks of menispere to ward off the effects of fever – but he knew he was getting sick. He should be resting, not running home, wading rivers and climbing high into the canopy to use the hidden walkways and ropes to pass the great rivers and waterfalls.
His muscles were tortured, his back aflame with searing pain and his mind often muddied and confused. He'd mistaken bird and monkey calls more than once, had blundered into a swarm of ants and escaped a crocodile by a mere heartbeat.
But for all his many woes, his greater concern was Mercuun. His was a sickness that defied understanding or remedy and attacked him apparently at random, leaving him gasping for breath one moment and driven with manic energy the next, though the latter was becoming increasingly infrequent. Meru had assumed it was something in his stomach and they'd searched and found a good supply of simarou bark with which they made strong infusions, but it did no recognisable good.