The Year of Our War (27 page)

“In this weather? A coach would take forty-eight hours; I could ride there in twenty-six hours if there are no floods. But I’m not going to Peregrine. None of us are.” I drew the knife that I carry, Hacilith-style, in my boot, shaking with cat-comedown. “We should leave Mist and Ata to fight their battle. The Emperor’s word. You have to stop the Insects in Awia.”

“Insects! What about Cyan?”

“San’s word!”

“I don’t care…” He was intent on rescuing the girl, a casualty of Ata’s Challenge and not really our business at all.

“Oh, for god’s sake, leave her. How can we help the kid now?”

Lightning eyed me brandishing the knife. “I am going to the coast,” he said coolly. “You cannot stop me.”

“I can’t stop you,” I agreed, “but I could slow you down a bit.” I flattened myself against the door, the paneling pressing between my shoulder blades. We gazed at each other, animals of different species in the same cage. “It’s for your own good! What will San say?”

Lightning shrugged, retreated to the bedroom for a few minutes, leaving me alone with Harrier. The woodsman was too exhausted to stand, but too respectful to touch any of the furniture without permission. He drew strength from the fact that Lightning was satisfied with him, and maintained his sagging poise with gritted teeth.

“The moon had a golden ring last night; tonight there’s no moon at all,” I said. “A tremendous storm is coming. I’ve lived and flown in Darkling so I know.”

“Worse than this?”

“Yes.”

Lightning returned with the shirt laced and tucked in, his red embroidered riding coat, boots, a shield slung over his left shoulder and an arrow at string on a longbow.

“Jant, put the knife down. Thank you. Please write a letter to the Emperor, tell him that we have gone to find Shearwater—”

“Spare me the bullshit, Your Majesty. He’ll dismiss you from the Circle.”

“And ready my carriage? I know you don’t understand…You probably
can’t
understand…But this is something I should do.”

I
went to the servants’ quarters and woke them all up, half past two
A.M
. I chose the best of them to be the driver for the first leg of the journey, and sent riders ahead. I left a letter for San explaining everything, and then went out to the courtyard.

The rain fell through lines of torchlight. Six horses struck sparks from wet cobbles with their hooves as they stirred uneasily, water running in streams down their broad necks. The coach had gleaming trim and the Castle’s sun yellow and red on the back. Micawater’s crest was on both doors, and in miniature on the horse brasses and the hubs of the wheels.

We drove throughout the rest of the night, and the following day, changing horses at Eske, the Cygnet Inn in the dense forest, Laburnum House on the escarpment. There were no lights in Shivel; the town had fallen to the Insects. Altergate town was empty, and the people of Sheldrake had long gone. We pressed on through torrential rain, that at least would slow the Insects down. We changed horses at Salter’s Stable, forded the flood-land at dusk where Dace River had broken its banks, and then we were on the coast road.

Before the first stop our coachman got hypothermia, so guess who had to drive the rest of the way? After nightfall we arrived at Awndyn-on-the-Strand; the sandy track pulled at the wheels. I halted the coach in front of a little stable, a thatched outhouse with half-timber and brickwork.

The manor looked as if its buildings had clustered together for comfort. Wet ivy scaled the pairs of tall chimneys, which were dark red, slick with rain blowing between them. A yellow glow backlit the lead-glazed windows; they were grouped in fours and eights, and beaded with rain. Awndyn’s small archway opened under a coat of arms in deep relief, and an iron-caged lamp shone there, invitingly.

C
reased and aching, Harrier, Lightning and I hurried through the archway as if pushed by the storm. They were damp from their dash from coach to porch, and I was drenched to the skin. Swallow’s aged servant kept us waiting in an oak-paneled corridor. Lightning sent me a worried glance. He was still seething with fury, he was as powerful as I felt sickly.

I had no time to dwell on my sickness, couldn’t think of an explanation or excuse.

“Why the delay?” he inquired petulantly.

“I imagine she wasn’t expecting company.”

“Swallow has never been known to dress for visitors.”

Eventually the servant returned and we were shown through to the little hall. Swallow was there.

Swallow wore a green silk skirt. She was playing the violin. Her head was tilted away from us and a shadow hid under her jaw; she was thinner than last time I had seen her. She lowered the instrument and smiled. “It is you! At last! I thought Pipit had been at the brandy. Did you get my letter? Have you come to hold the Insects off?”

Lightning simply stared, but fortunately I had more presence of mind. I bowed. “Governor Awndyn, I’m sorry, but no—at least, not yet. We need a change of horses on the way to Peregrine.” I explained all, while Lightning’s clenched fists dug fingernails into his palms in fury, and Harrier just stood behind him and looked peaky.

“Have you seen my town?” she asked.

“We came in along the coast.”

“That was inadvisable, Jant. The waves will be over the sea-wall tonight and up on the main road. I closed the road because of Insects. Did you see the lights of the town? No? That’s because I’ve had to evacuate it! The
disgusting
Insects have eaten everything in the warehouses and in all the shops on the quay. I have the harbor-men crowded in their friends’ houses at the top of the cliff. Thank god for the cliff houses—that’s all I have left! Those men put their lives on the line defending the canal basin against Ata. She’s a traitor, Jant; I hope her daughter drowns.”

“No, Swallow…”

Swallow picked up her stick from where it was leaning against a slender music stand, and leaning on it, limped toward me, her skirt flowing. “I’ll help you, Eszai,” she said, “because I owe you a thousand favors, and because of this fool here.” She stretched up on tiptoe and gave Lightning a light kiss on the cheek.

Lightning asked for permission, seized her agile hands and covered them in kisses.

“You can have my ships,” she said. “I can’t spare any Awndyn men. I’ll cooperate on one condition, that you make your plans here in this hall. Awndyn is the most powerful manor on the coast, if we can hold out, because now only Awndyn and Moren have harbors intact.”

“Yes,” Lightning said quietly.

Harrier gave a great sigh. She looked at him shrewdly. “You need food. Pipit! Fetch brandy! Bring bread and salmon, and stoke up the fire here.”

Once into the refuge Lightning forgot the storm completely. Our coats were left on the hot tiles surrounding the central fire where they slowly steamed dry. We ate at a trestle in the warm dim hall, Harrier and Pipit at the same table, dipping into the same platters of roast chestnuts and baked potatoes. I couldn’t be soothed; I was overwhelmed by sea-terror. I did my best to hide it, but I hated the salt wind howling down the vent, under the manor annex thatch. Thunder pounded with the waves on the long beach.

The cozy hall muted most of the noise; outside we would be deafened by the tremendous waves slamming into the harbor wall and hissing back, rain pelting into the ocean, blurring the sea’s surface with the sky. I flinched with the impact of every wave, thinking that the ocean was eating its way closer over the dunes to the manor house. Waves will rear up and crash down on the roof like a wall of black water. How could the house keep standing against that weight of water? Any minute now we would be washed away!

“It’s good brandy,” said Lightning.

“Jant?” said Swallow. “Jant, are you all right? I’ve been offering you some for ten minutes and—”

“He’s—”

“I don’t like the sea,” I explained.

Swallow experimented with a version of the first smile. “If you want to go upstairs please feel free. You need rest as well as repast; the storm will make it a hard ride to Peregrine tomorrow.”

Swallow didn’t know half the problem. I needed rest and I craved cat. I had to know more about Dunlin.

And Swallow was confusing me as well. What was she doing? From where had she suddenly found femininity? Why was she acting like a beautiful woman instead of a spoiled brat? Clearly Lightning loved it; he couldn’t relate to the wounded girl, but Swallow in calm command of her manor was more to his taste and she seemed to reciprocate. Was she simply recovering her spirit, or had she realized how wrong she had been to turn him down? “Will you repeat your claim to the Circle?” I asked.

“I may,” she said. “Now every morning I ride to town and we clear out the Insect carcasses, and we break down their walls, and we spend all the daylight hours killing as many as we can. And still we’re losing ground! I’m not leaving my town to them!”

Lightning readily agreed, and I left them. Harrier took his cue from me and also left, treading lightly up the stairs to one of the linenfold-paneled rooms above the hall, hung with Awian tapestries and antler trophies.

I dawdled at the foot of the drafty stairs, where a little window with leaded diamond panes looked out over the strand. I could see only blackness, but sensed turmoil and movement, the roar of surf and flicker of lightning on flat cloud bases far out to sea. Violet flashes displayed the beach. In an instant I saw Insect carcasses jumbled above the tide line, spiny and angular.

By the stairs, a door led to the manor’s church, which I knew was a calm, safe place to think and compose myself. Inside, the room was less than three meters square, and unadorned. Churches were more or less the same throughout the Fourlands.

An arrow of lightning illuminated a table set against the far wall, the only furniture. It was covered with a cloth embroidered with script that read:
Why are we waiting?

These rooms are set aside to remind us of the absence of god. They call to mind the fact that the Castle was founded to protect the Fourlands while god is away from its creation, and that at some point in the future, god will return. Eszai and Zascai alike look forward to that happening, and the prolonged wait is another reason to want to join the Circle. People find it comfortable to have such a reminder, even if they can ill-afford the space. It’s because they feel they have fulfilled their obligation to our departed god, and can forget about it.

I sat on the table and thought about Dunlin Rachiswater. Insects were coming to the Fourlands from the Shift—the world I could reach by drugs, the world that only I knew, no one but me believed.

How could I prove it? Head in hands and in deep despair I racked my brains trying to think of a way to explain it to the Emperor—“My lord, Staniel’s dead brother is chasing hordes of Insects into Awia from a land where blue monsters worship entrails.” I would be locked up permanently.

Maybe I
am
mad. Pressure from the Emperor’s insistent commands and so much scolopendium has cracked my mind and I haven’t even noticed. Or perhaps the Emperor has planned the whole situation so he can dismiss me as insane.

The only Fourlanders I have met in the Shift are Dunlin and Felicitia, people I already knew from the real world, so there is no way even to prove to myself that the Shift exists. The first time I visited the Shift, I excitedly recounted my experiences to Lightning, and his solemn countenance told me I had gone too far. He said, “It’s just a junkie hallucination. Don’t waste my time.” It’s just a hallucination. Are Insects coming out of my hallucinations and poisoning the world?

A Messenger should be pragmatic. With no way to prove the existence of the Shift, all I could do was trust my intuition. Was I too scared to take a chance to save the Fourlands? No! I would go back to the Shift…even if it kills me.

Death from overdose was too dishonorable. What would stories tell of me five hundred years from now?

A shaft of light appeared, increased across my face as the door opened, and Swallow came into the little room. “Jant? I followed you from the hall. I have to ask you something.”

Not now, please, Swallow. “What?”

“Where did you find my ring, and can I have it back please?”

“What ring? Oh. This?” I wriggled Cyan’s copper ring from my finger and Swallow held out a hand for it. “Yes,” she said. “It’s mine.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“The dolphin is my standard, as you know. Where did you find it?”

“I…”

“I gave that ring to the Archer last year because he insisted on having some token.”

“Oh,” I said. “That explains it. Well, yes, I found this in the Castle stables; it was lying on the floor and I thought it was pretty.”

“Lightning must have lost it. Excellent way to treat a token.”

Lightning? No. There is
no chance
Lightning could be Cyan’s father…He
couldn’t
…“Mmm. Yes. I was thinking of giving it to Cyan.” I passed her the ring.

“Who’s Cyan?”

“Ata’s daughter, remember?”

Thank you, Cyan. Now I know. Why did I feel so sick? I didn’t understand. The world had turned to dirt, heavy with disappointment. Anticipating the anger that would come later, I felt the warmth of gathering dread. “I swear I’ll never trust anyone from now on!”

“Jant?”

Why was Swallow changing yet again, becoming ladylike and persuasive? It might be the result of her trauma—I once knew a lord who was wounded by Insects and spent the rest of his life thinking that he was turning into one, that black spines kept growing out of his legs.

I thought, Swallow may look reasonably healthy, but the body heals faster than the mind, and sometimes mind can’t heal at all. We all have our private echo of the battlefield.

Mortals change immensely over their lifetimes, but rarely in the space of a few months. Women change incomprehensibly from day to day, but they keep the same themes. Neither mortality nor womanhood would explain what had happened to Swallow. “What’s your game, Awndyn? What the fuck are you playing at?” She backed off. I suppose she had a different opinion of me too. How could she view me in the same light when she knows I’ve seen every bit of her, inside and out, stitches and all?

I followed her out of the gloomy church. “First you’re a restless ambitious bitch, then you decide to be content as a Zascai, and now you’re acting sly as Tern with frocks and kisses. I’m sorry, but this is confusing the
fuck
out of me.”

Swallow tapped her stick on the floorboards. “I’ll explain later.”

“Explain
now
.”

“Now Awndyn is attacked! My home, where I grew up! I need a place in the Circle! I’m so scared, I can’t save Awndyn. With immortality and Lightning’s help I might reclaim it. I have recuperated, I’ve had time to think. Something inside me pushes me on, but since the battle I feel worn out. I have no energy to try like I used to for a place. Now I have to fight and I can’t; I’m lame. I know the Circle won’t give me any more strength than I already have, and my lameness will never be cured, but Lightning will help me. I received a letter from Mist. In fact, you delivered it yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Mist explained why Lightning loves me. I never considered it before. Mist said the reason was because I look like Lightning’s cousin, whom he loved so many centuries ago when his family ruled Awia. He has never forgotten her image—and I happen to look the same! She was called Martyn Micawater; apparently she was a hunter, and a daring warrior. And she had auburn hair. He thought she was perfect.” Swallow glanced down to the folds of her green skirt pooling on the floor. “And she wore silk,” she added.

“Having rejected Saker, you’re trying to snare him again.”

“Well, yes, I suppose I am.”

“Damn it, Swallow, hasn’t it occurred to you we have more important things to worry about? Vireo and Tawny are marooned in Lowespass! Staniel is making no impact! Eske is at arms! You’re holding Insects at bay every day yourself! Has it crossed your mind that Awndyn is the last manor before Hacilith, and if Insects reach the city what the fuck will happen? And what are you doing? Chasing feather. You selfish tart—”

“Don’t speak to her like that,” Lightning interrupted, lounging in the hall doorway, one arrogant hand on his sword hilt.

I was betrayed, like a kicked dog. None of the Eszai were worthy; my confidant, teacher, creditor, was as flawed as I am. How do we manage to maintain the sublime image of the Circle to which Zascai aspire? I felt more estranged than ever before, even in the bleak mountains.

I pointed at him. “I just found out this is all your doing! How could you sleep with Ata?”

“Oh. No! I—”

“No excuses!” I ran up the stairs and locked the guest-room door.

I sat down on a plain bed and stripped off my shirt, looked at my track-marked skin. When the world around me is falling to pieces and I am powerless in the wake of catastrophes there is still one thing over which I have firm control, my body. Here is a solution for all my troubles: I began to prepare a shot of cat.

C
almly looking at my arms I thought, there isn’t any point trying to hook there. Once, probing deeply, I hit an artery, which was an experience I had no desire to repeat.

Swallow tapped on the door and called my name softly, but I told her to go bugger off. I opened a wing, resting it on the white sheets, feeling the sinewy muscles relax. The base where it connects to the hollow of my back is as broad as a thigh.

Lightning has let me down.

I felt between the black tetrice feathers on the inside, bristle-hard and thumbnail-sized. Parting them, I saw the delicate, pale skin beneath, showing the pleats of powerful muscle, hollow bone and healthy veins. I thought, Jant, if you do this you stand a very high chance of never flying again and then you will be nothing but a fated mortal. If the overdose itself doesn’t kill me, that is.