The warbeasts were faltering, all except one. One was well out in front of the others. That one would arrive before any of his followers, without support. There might be hope yet, if that one could be stopped. A fight? Could even Werists fight in this cold and without air? Black waves surged past Orlad’s eyes. A noise of mammoths roared in his ears.
“My turn!” Waels said.
He did not so much lift Dantio off Orlad as slide under him when Orlad fell to his hands and knees. Orlad did not quite pass out, but he kept his head down, hauling air in and out of his lungs. When he could look again, Fabia had safely passed through the flames and was reeling across the bridge, pack and all. Hermesk had fallen to his knees on the trail, but seemed conscious.
Wrestling himself upright like a sack of rocks, Orlad went after Waels. Family begins at home, he thought fuzzily. No, that wasn’t right, it was charity began at home, but he left Hermesk for later anyway.
Dantio was wasting air yelling, “I can walk! I can walk!”
Orlad said, “Let him!’
Waels let Dantio down. The Heroes laid his arms over their shoulders and the three of them staggered up the trail in a bizarre five-legged race. The leading warbeast was closer to the bridge than they were, but had collapsed in the dust. Perhaps it had killed itself. Yellow flames streaming from the near end of the bridge were starting to spread along the cables.
Waels plunged into the flames, hauling Dantio behind him. Orlad pushed them both ahead of him. The bridge creaked and rocked, but they went through safely. Almost safely-one of Orlad’s mitts was on fire. He beat it frantically against his leg until the flames went out. Dantio and Waels were safe now, almost across. Fabia was watching from the far bank.
That left Hermesk, who was still on his hands and knees on the trail. One of the cables snapped; the bridge shuddered and tilted sideways. Orlad eyed the fire and decided he should have just enough time to rescue the Pathfinder, but not in oily mitts. He hauled them off and dropped them on the deck.
He took two steps and was sent hurtling backwards by the golden warbeast as it came bursting through the fire. Flat on his back, he looked up in horror at ivory fangs and drooling jaws. Claws pinned him to the deck, cutting into all his layers of fur. To battleform inside all these clothes would be suicide. He would never fight his way out of them. His face must be invisible inside his hood.
“Heth!” he screamed. He did not know how he knew, but he had no doubt. “Heth, it’s me, Orlad!” Clothes or not, he could never fight Heth, who had helped him so much, trained him, saved his life from the satrap.
The warbeast hesitated, glaring at him with terrible, bestial blue eyes. Ropes of saliva hung from its teeth and tongue.
“Heth, it’s Orlad. Don’t kill me!” He was a Hero and he was begging for his life? And why was Heth hesitating?
A roaring black warbeast struck the gold one head-on as Waels came to the rescue. The bridge sagged under the impact, cables snapping with cracks like thunder. Snarling and clawing at each other, the two monsters reared up on their hind paws above Orlad. He felt blood spattering his face. The deck sank and twisted as the failing ropes stretched. Heth fell backward, and Waels came down on Orlad with a sickening impact that half stunned him, because he had not expected it. Then Heth was back, and this time all three of them roiled and raged, with Orlad at the bottom of the heap expecting them all to roll off to their deaths.
The bridge sagged again, weakly supported by burning ropes that stretched out impossibly under the tension. The last cables snapped. It fell with a strange lethargy. Roaring and tearing, the two warbeasts somersaulted downhill together toward the fire. Feeling himself slide, Orlad yelled, “Hang on! We’re going!” He twisted over and grabbed the slats with fingers already numbed by the burning cold air. Still supported at the Florengian end, the deck folded downward to slam against the canyon wall and hang there like a ladder.
Jarred by the impact, Orlad almost let go. He saw his mitts fly past him, but if he had still been wearing those he would not have been able to squeeze his fingers between the bars. Waels had flashed out a paw and caught the tangle of burning ropes with his claws. Screeching in pain, he streaked up the net like a giant black cat. The pale warbeast that was Heth Hethson somersaulted down into shadow and was gone. There was no scream, no sound of impact. It was as if he had never been.
With the flames now directly below him and no purchase for his boots, Orlad hauled himself up the ladder by arm strength alone. At the top his wrists were seized by Fabia and a naked Waels. They pulled him to safety. For a moment the three of them coalesced in a great hug.
“Heth!” he said. “That was Heth! Get your clothes on, you maniac. Oh, Heth!” He tucked his hands under his arms and backed away from the smoke and fire. “Why did it have to be Heth?”
Dantio was helping Waels dress.
“I should have brought my seamstress,” Fabia said. “But if we cut a couple of slits in your parka, you ought to be able to keep your hands inside and save most of your fingers.”
Heth, Heth! I killed Heth!
“Can we salvage some of that wood?” Fabia said. “We could improvise a sled and pull Dantio.”
Waels said, “You’re pretty stupid not to have thought of that sooner.”
“Did you?” she snapped.
“Of course not. I’m a Werist.”
On the far side of the canyon, not as far as an athlete could jump in normal circumstances, Pathfinder Hermesk stared blankly across at his former fellow-travelers.
Not far behind him, four young Vigaelians wearing only brass collars stood in the dust field with their arms extended in some sort of impossible appeal, like children wanting to be lifted into their mothers’ arms. They wailed their dismay in a wordless lament; the wind snatched it away.
Other warbeasts, farther away yet, were loping back to their caravan to retrieve their clothes and report the disaster. Waels Borkson and three Celebres were safely across. The Pathfinder was marooned. Saltaja Hragsdor was trapped, done for. Doomed.
All Orlad could say was, “Heth Hethson! Why was he here? Why did it have to be Heth?” Tears froze on his cheeks.
Part V
OLIVA ASSICHIE-CELEBRE
walked alone in the Hall of Pillars. Expecting company, she had donned a simple, sober gown of forest green silk, the one her dresser tactfully insisted made her look “more slender” than any other she owned. She had never been a small woman. Grief and worry made other people fade away, but she only grew more massive. Not fat, just massive. It was her shoulders. Her one adornment was a double string of pearls, because the effect she was striving for was competence and authority. She must at all costs avoid arrogance or presumption.
Likewise, her choice of the Hall of Pillars. It was without question the largest chamber in Celebre, its huge colonnade rising giddily high to a frescoed ceiling. Beyond the great pillars lay the ducal gardens, sweeping down to the river, while the Bright Ones presided in a great mural on the opposing wall, above the doge’s throne and his consort’s ivory chair. For Oliva to receive the delegates while sitting on that chair would be rank provocation. Doing so in the throne room was-she hoped-a gentle reminder of who ruled and who was suppliant. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps she should greet them in the palace kitchen with flour on her nose. Or go to the other extreme and awe them with swordsmen and heralds and trumpets? She still wore Piero’s seal on her wrist as well as her own. She still ruled in his name.
No, she ruled in his memory. She was not expecting company, she was dreading it. The charade was about to end.
Was she so evil, that the gods never answered her prayers? For years she had prayed for her children’s safe return. By the time she realized that they must have made lives for themselves in Vigaelia and might no longer want to return, she had been praying instead for Piero’s swift recovery. A year ago, she had begun to pray for his quick release. Now, she supposed, the limit of her supplication would be that he be allowed to die in dignity, as doge, not as a discarded husk. Was even that small boon to be refused her?