Impossible Things (15 page)

She was back in the cell, lined with ice and drifts of snow, her belly cramping with hunger, too weak to move. Soon the guards would come, poke at her with their boots or their spears, check if she was dead yet, and leave. She was meant to die here, a slow race between freezing and starving to death.

The warmth began in her heart, spreading out through her body. She was made of lead, of ice, immovable and cold. Blood too cold to move couldn’t push through her veins, and yet, and yet …

Heat fluttered through her. Arms held her. Warmth cocooned her. Ishtaer struggled feebly.

‘Shh, love. I’m helping you. You’re in crystal-debt. I’m helping you.’

The Warlord’s voice. Kael. He smelled of blood and sweat and old wounds, but under that he smelled of Kael, and his skin was warm against her face.

She stirred, and he held her against his body, murmuring to her if she were a sick child, stroking her back, cradling her head on his shoulder. Pain thrummed through him.

‘You’re hurt,’ she croaked.

‘Nothing that won’t heal. Go back to sleep. You need rest.’

She wasn’t afraid of him. A man held her close in his bed and she wasn’t afraid.

He took nothing from her. He asked for nothing but for her to rest. He gave nothing but warmth and comfort.

Ishtaer fell into sleep, and dreamed of nothing.

The sun was falling in the sky and the air began to cool to a manageable temperature. Kael still needed to shade his eyes from the light.

Once, when he was a boy, he’d fallen through some thin ice and nearly drowned trying to break his way back out. The heavy, numb sense of defeat that had weighed him down, right before the final punch that broke the ice, was exactly how he felt now.

He stumbled only once on his way through the camp. If anyone noticed, they pretended not to. The number of men sitting around outside their tents, drinking and cooking and talking, seemed a lot smaller than he was used to.

‘Those bastards and their darts,’ Verak had groaned when Kael mentioned this yesterday. ‘Half the horde overboard, a damned feast for those scaly lizards in the water.’

Kael shuddered at the very thought of said lizards. Alligator, crocodile, dragon – he didn’t know what they were and didn’t want to. His foot still throbbed. He’d been lucky to be recognised by the enemy and pulled out of the water.

Well, lucky was a relative term.

He found Eirenn sitting at a cookfire, stirring a pot and telling tales.

‘… and I thought she was completely mad, right? I mean, all right, she’s a Seer, but her powers are mostly untested and I’ve absolutely no idea whether this vision she’s had is just a dream or not, but you know, what can I do? Can’t let her go off on her own with her dog.’

‘Dog?’ said one of the men at the fire. He was about twice Eirenn’s size, bearded and scarred and battle-hardy. In this, he was typical of most of Kael’s horde. He made Eirenn look like a little boy. ‘That swiving thing’s a wolf if ever I saw one.’

‘But what would a wolf be doing in the middle of a city?’ asked Eirenn with wide-eyed innocence. The men laughed. ‘So anyway. She waits until we’re actually in the boat, on that filthy pestilence of a river, before she tells me the plan. Calm as you like. “You just row past the settlement and find where they’ve got His Lordship, and when you see me fire two arrows.” ’

‘Just fire them? At anything?’

‘Oh no. One at the rope above yer man’s head, and mind it goes clean through because she hasn’t the time to cut him down, and the other she wants me to set alight and fire at what she’s going to throw at the deck.’

‘What did she throw?’

‘Devil fire,’ Kael said, emerging from the gloom and enjoying the startled looks on their faces. Eirenn just rolled his eyes. ‘At a guess,’ he added. ‘The whole camp burned. You don’t get that from just ordinary fire arrows. Where the hell did she get it?’

‘Oh, you can buy anything at the docks,’ Eirenn said, stirring his pot, ‘especially if you’re Thrice-Marked, accompanied by a wolf and have recently knocked Krull the Warlord on his arse.’

The assembled men went very still.

‘I’m glad to see she’s learning,’ Kael said, and his men relaxed. He limped towards the nearest empty seat, which had all the comfort of a log. Mostly because it was a log.

‘How’s she doing?’ Eirenn asked, his voice entirely different.

‘Resting. Another day and she’ll be out of the woods.’

Eirenn’s gaze flew to him. ‘But – she was in debt. It takes weeks, doesn’t it?’

‘Not this time.’ Kael met the younger man’s gaze and held it. Eirenn opened his mouth, then shook his head and looked back at his stew.

‘Lads,’ Kael said, ‘bugger off, would you?’

The half-dozen or so men glanced at each other, then got up and went without a word.

‘You’ve got them trained like dogs,’ Eirenn said.

‘I take that as a compliment. What’re you cooking?’

‘It’s a stew of these shellfish things and some pork and—’

‘Is it ready?’

Eirenn glanced down at him, and Kael stopped trying to hide his fatigue. He slid to the ground and leaned back against the log, wondering if he’d ever been this tired.

‘Here,’ Eirenn pressed a clay bowl into his hand and set down a piece of wood with some bread on it. ‘I’m exhausted myself, and I didn’t get strung up to be eaten by crocogators.’

Kael tore off a hunk of bread as Eirenn sat down beside him with his own bowl. ‘That’s not what they’re really called, is it?’

‘No clue,’ the boy said cheerfully. ‘Didn’t feel like sticking around to ask. How’s the foot?’

‘It hurts,’ Kael said, ‘exactly as much as you’d imagine a foot which has been chewed by a crocogator would hurt.’

Eirenn made a face.

‘She got most of the skin to grow back, though. Impressive, I thought. Never seen that before. Then again, I’ve never seen a flayed foot before—’

‘Eirenn, shut up.’

‘Shutting up now.’

They ate in silence for a while, and when Eirenn finished his bowl he refilled Kael’s without asking.

‘What’s your name, kid?’ Kael asked when Eirenn sat back down again.

Eirenn gave him a sidelong glance that questioned whether Ishtaer had indeed got all the snake venom out of Kael’s body.

‘I’m asking you, Eirenn Fillian, to give me your name.’

Clearly wondering what the hell Kael was getting at, the boy said, ‘Eirenn Fillian Militis.’

‘Tyro—’

‘Tyro Eirenn Fillian Militis.’

‘Ex – where’re you from?’

‘Glengower. Tyro Eirenn Fillian ex Glengower Militis.’ Eirenn paused. ‘Am I in trouble?’

‘No. Do you know my name? All of it?’

Eirenn cleared his throat. ‘Lord Kaelnar Vapensigsson ex Krullus Militis Viscus Saraneus Drax.’

‘Right. The name tells you something, lad. Yours tells me you ain’t left the Academy yet, that you come from the arse end of nowhere, that your parents were nobodies—’

‘Thanks,’ Eirenn said.

‘—but you’re still Chosen. And mine? Bit by bit.’

‘Lord means you’re Twice-Marked. Or twice-graduated, I mean,’ he amended before Kael could correct him. ‘Vapensigsson is your father’s name, I think. He wasn’t Chosen, or that name would be in the Book of Names. Neither was your mother since you don’t have her name.’

‘Very good. Next?’

‘Right, ex Krullus is fairly obvious, and Militis, and … well, to be honest I’ve never been sure what the Viscus bit means. The last two I know, they’re victory titles. You led battles in the Saranos and Draxos.’

‘Spot on. See what I mean about it telling you a lot? Except for the Viscus bit.’ Kael set down his bowl and carefully, painfully, pulled off his shirt. Eirenn’s face carefully gave nothing away, which was clever of him since Kael knew he was still covered with nasty red insect bites, many of which had swollen to blisters, and with the marks of a whip Ishtaer hadn’t fully healed.

He ignored them. ‘Here,’ he said, gesturing to the bold black lines covering his left arm and chest. ‘How far up does your mark go?’

Eirenn motioned to his upper arm.

‘You probably see a lot of these marks. Ever seen one cover the chest?’

Eirenn shook his head.

‘That’s because it’s not just Militis. Took endless hours of examinations and conversations with Truthtellers and book after book of history, but they eventually found what it means. Viscus, also sometimes called Animus.’

He saw Eirenn working it out. ‘Something to do with life? Life force?’

‘Exactly that.’ Kael pulled his shirt back on, just in case those little bastards came back for another nibble. It hurt, everything hurt, his shoulders a bit worse than the rest of him. He’d been strung up by his wrists for several days. According to Verak, both his shoulders had been dislocated, painful enough without the snake venom and the crocogator bites and the dehydration and the insects … No wonder Ishtaer had put herself into crystal-debt. She’d pretty much brought him back from the dead.

‘They told me what it could do, but I’ve never used it before. Never had to. Never met anyone foolish enough to put themselves into debt. But that’s what it does, lad. Restores life force to a Chosen who’s pushed too far. Not useful on a daily basis, but the sole reason Ishtaer isn’t spending the rest of her life in an invalid bed.’

Eirenn swallowed. ‘Was it that bad?’

Kael took in a deep breath and let it out. ‘It was worse.’

She was cold, and she was tired. But Ishtaer had been those things before, and survived. She lay in a bed that was about as comfortable as a bed in a military camp was ever going to get, swaddled in blankets, her dog snuggled up by her side. Someone held her hand. She thought it was probably Kael.

He was talking quietly to someone, and the more she concentrated the more she could make out their conversation.

‘… burn the swiving lot of them as far as I’m concerned.’

‘That’ll foster goodwill.’ Verak’s voice, dry and warm.

‘They hung me up to be eaten by crocoga – to be eaten alive. I don’t give a rat’s arse for goodwill.’

‘We’re supposed to be gaining the trust of the populace.’

‘Fuck the populace.’

A pause, then Verak said quietly, ‘Is this because of Karnos?’

Karnos, the Healer? Ishtaer listened hard.

‘Find me one of their bodies,’ Kael said, and she was astonished to hear – no. It couldn’t be. There weren’t … tears in his voice?

‘We are not doing the same.’

‘Find me one of their bodies and carve a swiving ransom demand on it, see how they like it. Nobody does that to my men.’

‘Kael—’

‘Burn them. Feed them to the gators. I don’t care. Get the bastard lot of them out of my sight. And pack up camp. We’re leaving tomorrow. If there’s anyone else between here and Terafin who wants to fight they can swiving well fight.’

‘We’re down on men—’

‘But high on captives. Give ’em a sword or a noose. Their choice. And get the ringleader of the Carvelli. Whoever’s highest up. Bring me his head. I want it for a banner.’

Verak let out a harsh breath, but he didn’t argue. He just left, the tent flap swishing shut behind him.

‘And you,’ Kael said, squeezing her hand, emotion high in his voice, ‘don’t you pretend you didn’t hear that.’

Ishtaer turned her head towards him, which was an effort. ‘How many were left alive?’

‘Not many. You burned a lot. River hemmed them in on two sides. Some of them came north—’

‘I know. They kept shooting at us.’

‘Good job your friend Eirenn is a good archer. Verak says there were dozens of half eaten corpses on the riverbank, all with Academy arrows sticking out of them.’

‘They had those little darts. By the time they realised they wouldn’t work on us, Eirenn had usually shot back. One of them got you, though. I should have brought some mail for you.’

Kael sighed. ‘None of us wore it after the first day, not with all those bastard insect bites. I don’t know what’s worse, being eaten alive one itchy red bump at a time, or being eaten alive by whatever crocogator manages to jump high enough.’

‘Well, you kept bleeding on them. It was like hanging sausages above Brutus’s head.’

Brutus thumped his tail at that.

Kael said, ‘Ishtaer, was that a joke?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think I have a sense of humour.’

‘Trust me, you do.’

His hand was warm where it wrapped around hers. When she’d first woken Verak had explained, briefly, about Kael’s Viscus powers, and she could feel his strength flowing quietly, steadily, into her.

She tried to pull her hand away. ‘You’re still recovering.’

‘It’s fine. It doesn’t make any difference.’

‘You still need more healing.’

‘It’s nothing that won’t sort itself out. The Healers I brought with me are run off their feet, and I don’t want more crystal-debt to fix.’ He sighed. ‘Remember when I told you I’d never take more from you than you wanted to give?’

She nodded shakily, the memory indistinct.

‘I meant it. Just trust me, all right?’

Ishtaer licked her dry lips. ‘What happened to Sir Karnos?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘I do. It’s thanks to him I can walk normally.’

Kael cleared his throat and said in a voice that was nearly normal, ‘He was right behind us, waiting for casualties. Too close as it turns out. Those rotten scurvy bastards didn’t care he was a Healer, they killed him anyway. Used him to send a message back to my camp.’

‘Your ransom?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did they want?’

‘For the Empire to leave and never come back.’

‘I don’t suppose they’ll be getting that.’

‘No.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘We’ve done well uniting most of the people here. Empire’ll probably send in a governor after this to oversee the running of the place. Opposite of what they wanted, but an attack like that can’t go unanswered.’

‘Will you stay here? In Palavio? Will they need a military presence?’

‘Aye, but not mine. We’ll march south, meet the Imperial army. They can do the peacekeeping. I’ve had enough here. I’m going home.’

It was a much slower journey back to Ilanium than it had been on the way out. Ishtaer discovered that while two people could travel pretty fast by mail boat and horseback, an army convoy travelled at the pace of its slowest member. A man could march three miles in an hour, but the oxen pulling the heavy wagons carrying tents, armour and provisions barely managed ten miles in a day. Even once they’d reached the Imperial River and loaded up several huge barges, the journey was slow-going. High summer arrived in Ilanium before they did.