Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (25 page)

Chapter 19

He woke to being carried, slung like a sack of grain, between the boys. He could not hear and his sight was gummy, blurred, the boys' faces passing in and out of his limited vision ... or perhaps it was he who passed in and out. They'd swaddled him in their shirts and when he came to again, they were still carrying him and he could not get a hand free to tell them he was all right. Trout's pursed mouth worked open and shut, soundlessly, like a fish on a hook.

His body ached all over and his ears rang loudly and furiously within his head, though the rest of his hearing was stone silent. He tried to speak and found his throat, incredibly dry and stubborn. He choked instead, and the crowd of boys stumbled to a halt.

They looked down at him, ensnared between them. In the half-light of the tunnel, he could see their pale faces. Trout immediately went to his knees. He spoke to Thomas, but Thomas could not hear him.

Trout pointed to his ears. Thomas shook his head. The healer's expression became even more worried, if that was possible. The healer put a hand up and mimicked something trailing from his ears and throat. Then he put a gentle finger to Thomas' neck and withdrew it, stained almost black in the rosy light.

Thomas blinked. He focused on what Trout was attempting to show him. Blood. He was bleeding from the ears and from his neck gills. What that meant, he was uncertain, except that the blast had injured him. He tried to swallow again, felt the trickle of dampness down the back of his throat. Trout dampened his mouth with a wet cloth that someone—Bottom he thought—thrust at the healer.

He tried to say, "What happened?" He did not know if he got the words croaked out, but Trout smiled feebly and pointed to Thomas' ears and shrugged, meaning Trout could not tell him.

Blade smiled back with irony. "Find a spot to hole up. Meet up with Drakkar in a room we've already cleared." Or that's what he thought he'd said. Trout nodded emphatically and got back to his feet.

Slung between the boys—he tried to count how many bore his weight and gave up—he could at least feel no broken bones grinding against one another as they moved him. The ringing in his ears grew louder and he could feel himself drifting again. They hadn't far to go. He let himself drift.

He dreamed of swimming with the dolphin who'd marked his wrist. The ocean was gray and deep, and he was using his gills and holding onto her to keep pace with her, her wise eye large and gleaming in the dark water. A silvery gleam of bubbles trailed about them as she pulled him deeper, until he feared that gilled or not, she would drown him. She twirled to the surface, curving and looping, he within the embrace of her movement and the water, holding tight until he could see the sun shining through the water, spiking downward, searching for his face. They burst out of the water, leaping together.

"I think he's conscious again." A muffled voice, much distorted. The torchlight moved from his eye level.

He blinked. No dream, that sun. Trout had been checking his pupils. His eyes watered briefly. Trout leaned close. "Can you hear me?"

The boy sounded far away and dim, the ringing in his ears strident and almost overriding it. But he heard him.

"How long?" His own voice, a dried out croak.

Trout looked baffled.

A handsome boy squatted down beside the healer. His feathered headdress lay calm and unruffled upon his shoulders. Thomas blinking, remembering Drakkar. The young man's lips curved a little. "He means, how long has he been out? In other words, what's happening?" He looked to Thomas. "Not long, old man. Minutes, probably. We've got everyone holed up in what must have been the dean's study. I found some of the DWP's papers. We're just cooling our heels and taking a lunch break, waiting for you to come around."

"Good. Water."

Trout pressed a skin into his hand. He wedged himself upward to drink. Trout looked at Drakkar. "How'd you know what he meant?"

"My father's the same way. Got knocked ass over appetite in a raid and the first thing he'd wanted to know when he woke up was what he'd missed."

Thomas would have laughed, but he was in too much pain. Trout took the skin away. "No broken bones," he said. "But you were hit pretty hard. You were bleeding from the ears and gills. I think ... I think if you hadn't had gills, you'd have lost your hearing for good. But they let go as well, maybe relieving some of the pressure. I think so, anyway. But you've burst both eardrums."

"You can't carry a tune now, except in a bucket," Drakkar said.

Or swim so deep.
A poignant loss swept over Thomas. "Trip wire," he got out. "Never saw it. Set anything else off?"

The two boys traded looks.

Drakkar stretched his hands out. "Funny you should mention that. But I think I'll let Stefan tell you. He's out on patrol. He should be back any minute."

Trout added, "Think you could eat? Bottom's made soup."

His stomach clenched in apprehension, but Thomas forced a nod. Trout helped him sit up. He did so with a groan that made every boy in the room stop what they were doing to look at him.

And it had been quite a room to take their attention away from. The bookshelves had been toppled, but there were still books here, leaking all over the floor in a ruin of bindings and torn pages. There was still a painting or two left on the wall, though Thomas could tell quickly that most of the paintings had been removed. The immense wooden, polished desk that the dean had sat behind had been rifled, and was now perched upon by two boys playing with gadgets of some sort that had been left behind. As Blade surveyed the damaged throneroom, Trout brought him a battered tin cup full of steaming liquid.

His sense of taste seemed to have been blasted along with his sense of smell and hearing. He could tell it was hot and that was about it. There were chewy pieces floating around in it that might have been pemmican, but he could not tell. His stomach appreciated the soup far more than his mouth did.

Stefan came in with Machander. They both grabbed a cupful of soup. Machander stayed with those gleaned pages from the spilled bookcases. Stefan came to Thomas. His white-blond hair was combed with dirt. The dust spilled down his face in lightning-like markings. He looked tired.

"There was probably more than one trigger," he said, "and one of us would have tripped it sooner or later anyway—"

"Cut the crap," Blade said. "What did I set off?"

"A truly massive interior slide. We aren't getting out the way we came in." He sat down nester-style and blew across the top of his cup to cool the soup.

Stefan's feeble attempt to make him feel better for leading them into disaster didn't work. Thomas bolted down the last of his soup. His ears fuzzed out a bit, then began ringing as strongly as ever. "Air?"

"Good, so far." Stefan gulped down his soup. He examined his battered mess cup. "Sir Thomas, I can't believe the dean would sacrifice his only entrance just to trap us."

Thomas felt himself smiling. It turned into a grimace of pain, then faded. "Nor can I, and I don't think he did. What about the shoring?"

"Probably gone."

With Ngo and Bugsy as well. Blade rubbed a hand over his face. He could not depend on outside help to dig out, unless he could reach the three he'd sent back to camp,

Alma, Bill, and Jenkies. He'd not done his job. The dean had hurt him and hurt him badly.

Machander came over hesitantly. In the rose-colored half-light, the birthmark that stained his face looked as though he'd taken a mortal wound. He stood uncertainly.

"What is it?"

' 'I—I know we were supposed to stay together, sir, but I—I found a tunnel that doesn't make any sense."

"Doesn't make sense?" Drakkar had gotten to his feet. The Mojavan's plumage flared a little.

"No, sir. That is ..." and Machander flushed slightly. "It's off cant to the rest of the building, sir."

Blade studied him a minute. Machander's apprenticeship had been in architecture, though the boy had made it clear he wanted a taste of adventuring before designing buildings. He might have a feel for the structure of the Vaults. "Wait a minute. He might have something."

Drakkar snorted. "Too convenient."

Stefan stood up as well. "Where did you find it?" he said to Machander.

"It's right off this room."

The buzzing in his ears grew louder as he turned rapidly to Stefan. Thomas froze in place a moment, then the ringing subsided enough so that he could hear conversation again. "This could be genuine. The dean would have an escape tunnel as close to his offices as he could manage. The old fox would be likely to have more than one bolt hole."

Machander ducked his head. "It's filled, sir," he mumbled.

"Filled?"

"Soft dirt. We could dig, but. . . ." his voice trailed

off.

They only had so much time and so much manpower. Which tunnel to dig—and which would be a deathtrap? Both? Likely, if the dean could have rigged it so. Thomas strained to get up. Trout put a firm hand to his chest.

"Stay down, sir," he said quietly.

The soup was busy making a pleasant, hot, and drowsy knot in the middle of his stomach. Stefan scratched his chin where a fine beard was beginning to come in.

"I think we could all use a break. Most of the boys are tired. We should sleep if we can, then decide on which tunnel to attempt. You should be able to scope it out, then." His gaze rested on Thomas' face.

Drakkar looked as if he wished to argue, but the dark handsomeness of the young man's face closed tight instead.

Thomas could feel himself start to drift. "All right," he agreed. He lay back on the makeshift pillow they'd made for him. He closed his eyes and listened to the others shuffle away.

He contemplated the inside of his eyelids. The dean was a vengeful man. He would not leave much latitude for them to live . . . but Thomas felt that he'd seen too much of the Vaults. The salvage in them was too vast to scuttle them just for revenge. No. The dean would take them down however he could and still leave the remnants of his past life intact.

No more explosions, then, in all probability. Thomas felt his dreamself flicker at the edges of his thoughts. The dean had already shipped him out of here once, for dead. He could still hear the hissing of the gas through the pipes, flooding the chamber in which he and Lady had been trapped. . . .

Thomas jerked to awareness. Bad air. This portion of the Vaults had been all but sealed off. There were labs honeycombed all through here.

Bad air would finish what the dean had begun. All it would leave in its wake were corpses. Blade struggled to sit up again. Without help, his battered body refused to obey. He thought of calling for Stefan or Drakkar and stayed silent. He would not send either down a tunnel he had not inspected himself. He needed assistance, and from the outside. There was no way to reach Alma or the boys.

He slipped a hand inside his jacket. The finger bones came eagerly to his hand as if they'd known his conscious decision to take them up.

All right, Gill,
he thought bitterly.
I've no choice but the road this time.
He could only hope it would take him where he needed to go.

* * *

Alma woke, retching down the side ol the horse's nn k. its dank and sour smell in her face and mingled with the animal's sweat. She gritted her teeth and stopped herself by sheer force, willing her stomach to quiet, and pulled herself upright in the saddle. She looked at the strip of starlight through the sparse evergreens. She was headed east, more than that she could not tell.

She shuddered. She would miss the reservoir and the Vaults by miles. Would they be out looking for her yet? Would Sir Thomas light bonfires? Would Stefan care at all that she'd been taken?

The gorge rose in her throat again. She swallowed heavily. The horse stumbled in the brush and came to a reluctant stop, as if responding to her own uncertainty. He stood, flanks heaving. She felt pity for him. Nester horses were not as well bred or cared for as she was used to. This one looked as if he'd never been well pastured or wormed. Lather and the wet strings of her vomit plastered his mane to his thin neck.

She rubbed a hand over his withers. "At least I'm lighter than the rider you're used to," she murmured. The horse shook his head. Foam spun out from his teeth.

She ached all over. She felt dirty and crusty and
sore.
"God," she said. "How am I going to get back?"

A branch snapped. Alma started, twisted in the saddle. Something was out there, in the shadowy night behind her, something big enough to break branches. Her heart began to pound. Had the dean followed them?

The horse threw his head up. He made a moaning sound deep in his throat, a noise of exhaustion. Then he began to stumble into motion again. Alma clung to the saddle and listened as something moved in the brush behind them, driving the horse.

Coyotes ran in packs, she told herself. And wolfrats haunted the ruins. The only predator she could think of was the one she'd just left for dead. Her breath caught in her throat, and she pounded her heels into the tired horse's flanks, pushing him into a laboring trot.

Behind her, in the night, a great beast came to a stop. It had been lumbering easily on fours and now reared upward. Its shaggy flanks heaved in what must have been a satisfied noise. Its cupped ears flicked forward and back, catching the direction of its quarry. It was not a hunter, but it drove them all the same when it dropped back to all fours. Its bulk bent saplings and crushed dry brush as it passed. A soundless calling had sent it on its task and it rushed to complete it. The foreclaws on its paws did not hamper its speed. And, if the claws had been measured, spread, the pattern of their striking would match the chevron mark on Thomas Blade's brow.