Nightlord: Sunset (73 page)

“Likewise,” she replied, eyeing it cautiously.

“Now, can I go out without raising a ruckus? Or do they all think I’m dying?”

Tamara smiled.  She did that a lot.  I liked it.  “They doubt you’ll die.  The fire-witch has been tending you.  I also warned them you were much better.  Besides, you are the wizard knight, the hero that rides a steed of bronze, wields a sword of flame, vanquished the viksagi, killed their wizards, and slew a dragon.”

I nodded.  Great.  Well, at least Linnaeus would have more grist for his musical mills.  Right now, I just wanted the hell out of that room for a while.  It felt tiny and enclosing.  I wanted to stretch my wings and fly, but since I didn’t have wings…

“Shall we go for a walk?” I asked, and offered my arm.  She put her hand in the crook of my elbow, firmly.

“Yes.”

I opened the door and
Hellas fell backward into the room; she’d been sitting with her back to it, sleeping with her boy in her lap.  Tamara looked surprised.  I bet I did, too.

Hellas
opened her eyes, groggy, and the child stirred.

“Didn’t I say you should be in a bed?” I asked,
trying
to sound stern.  I don’t think I did it well.  I was touched, and deeply so.  I will lay long odds she was helping Tamara tend me—whenever Tamara would let her—and sleeping at the door between times.

“My lord!” she cried, and set the boy aside on a blanket; he curled up on it and went back to sleep.  I suppose he was tired. 
Hellas rolled over to kneel in front of me.

“I’m not your lord,” I said, feeling both moved and now a trifle testy.  “I’m your employer.  Get off your knees and get that boy out of the hall and into a room.  A warm one.  You go with him and you both get into a bed.  Sleep in it.  And if I see you outside that room before sunrise, I’ll beat you with wet noodles.”

She stared at me, altogether taken aback.  Then she bowed—a neat trick while kneeling—and then scooped up the blanket, boy and all, before hurrying away.

Tamara looked at me, amused.  “Are you always so brutal?”

“Yes,” I replied.  “She’ll just have to endure some comfort, damn it.”

She laughed and squeezed my arm as we continued down the hall.  She had to lead; I was turned around.  It turns out we were on an upper floor, in the back; the rooms were larger there.  I don’t know why the upper rooms were larger.  Maybe to be more attractive to people after climbing several flights of stairs.  Maybe because they didn’t need to have as many structural walls to hold up higher floors.

The great hall was empty.  The keep was quiet at that hour.  We didn’t mind; we were out for a stroll after a long period of convalescence.  She led me out into the courtyard and then up on top of the wall.  We passed a sentry; he drew his weapon and gave me the closed-fist-to-chest salute, grimly serious, keeping eyes rigidly front.  I returned the salute, empty-handed, and we walked on.

“I’m going to get a lot of that, aren’t I?” I murmured.

She didn’t say anything, but she squeezed my arm.

From the rampart atop the wall, over the main gate, I could see the battlefield.  It had already been looted of anything useful by the townsfolk.  What was left of the dragon was still there.  There was a large charred area surrounding it—blackened and seared by the ichor.  I knew, without knowing how, that the place would never be able to grow another living thing again.  There were no bodies on the battlefield, but there was another charred place, full of bones and ashes, where the dead had been burned.

I wondered about the viksagi.  I’d never met any socially.  What were they like?  Did they have families to go back to, or was this just the way they got rid of excess bachelors?  Did they even
want
to go to war?  Did their wizards charm the lot of them and drive them like pieces on a board?  Why would they even bother to try and invade Rethven?  Loot and slaughter?  Women?  Cattle?  Clothes?  What?

Something within me seemed to feel that all these questions, to some degree, had an answer of “yes.”  Winter in their land is a bitter thing, and Rethven was much more appealing.  They also bred rapidly, often having twins, and needed space to grow—or fewer numbers of their own to feed.  I didn’t understand the details; I just had a sort of general feeling.

Well, I’d certainly consumed enough of them to make up a statistical universe.

But it galled me.  Maybe because I’d consumed so many of them, it galled me even more.  They hadn’t done anything, not the average guy.  Sure, they were trying to breach the keep I was in, but they weren’t after
me
.  If I’d had the good sense to just stay out of the way, they would have left me alone.  It wasn’t anything personal.

I think that’s what bothers me the most.  Killing someone is
very
personal, or at least it should be.  It always is, for me.  If I’m going to kill a man, it’s either because he wants to die or because he’s pushed me to it.

I wish I hadn’t had to kill them.  If I have to kill—and I do, no argument—then I’d rather do it retail.  Wholesale slaughter… I don’t know.  I don’t like it.  It feels wrong, like it’s not what I’m
meant
to do.  It bothers me and I don’t like being bothered.

The breeze brought me the scent of scorched earth.

“I’m going to have to dispose of that corpse, aren’t I?” I murmured, eyeing the dragon remains.

“If you wish,” she answered, looking at it with me.  “But it is rotting with a vengeance.”

“It is?”

“Yes.  Almost as though… well…”

“Yes?”

“…the life had been sucked out of it,” she finished, softly.

I patted her hand.  “It was.  Yes.  I know.  It isn’t something… if I’d had a choice, it isn’t something I would choose to do.” 

Pay no mind to the fact that you were drunk on your own power, boss.

Hush, you,
I thought back.  Firebrand heard me and chuckled.

“You frighten me,” she whispered.  “Yet I must be with you.”

I glanced around.  Nobody was within fifty yards of us; there were only two sentries on the wall, walking beats.  We were private.

“Why?” I asked, softly.

“I am not…” she paused to take a deep breath.  I kept her hand in mine.  “I am not used to things that have so much of darkness within them.  Yet you…” she trailed off, squeezing my arm.  “You make me feel even more alive.  No, that’s not right.  I feel… whole around you. 
Completed
,” she finished.

“I’m glad of it,” I noted.  “I really am.  I don’t want to make you nervous or upset.  I’d really rather try and be your friend.”  As for whether or not I felt completed… well, I don’t know.  I’m not as in touch with my feelings as I could be, I guess.  But I like her.  I like her a lot.  I’m glad she’s around.

“I am glad of that,” she replied, softly, and I put my arm around her shoulders, wrapping my cloak around her.

“What would you like to do?” I asked.  “If you could go anywhere and do anything, what would you want to do?”

She considered it, one hand resting low on her belly.

“I don’t know.  It is all so strange, now.  I… I still have difficulty understanding what the Lady of Fire wishes of me.  We speak often, but I cannot understand Her; She is a Goddess, and I am only a woman.  She would not have chosen you for the rite and brought us together again now if I was not meant to be with you.  But I do not understand why.”

“I don’t, either.  But I asked what
you
want,” I reiterated, touching the tip of her nose with one finger.

She smiled.  “I would like to go away from here and be with you.  I like you.  And, as Mother wills, I will know more of you.”

I thought about it.  “I can do that.  I think.  We can try.”

She turned her head toward me more fully, to look me in the eyes.  “What do you feel?”

Funny; I’d just been thinking about that.  It was a simple question, but the answer was profoundly difficult.

“I have trouble sorting that out,” I answered.  “I can give you a partial one.  I know I like you, too.  I know I don’t understand what the hell the gods are playing at.  I know I want you to be safe, along with whoever it is you’re growing in there.  I’m not sure if I really want the responsibility, but I’ll do my best at it.  And I want to know you better, too.”

She squeezed my hand and nodded.  “You have had little time to think on this.”

“That’s right.  But I hope I do the right thing.”

“I have faith in you.”

“Oh, thanks.  Like I didn’t have enough pressure.”

She laughed, a delightful sound, then kissed my cheek.

“Shall we finish our tour of the battlements?  Or are you ready to go inside?”

“Up to you.  I don’t get cold.”

“Oh yes, you do.  You just don’t feel it.”

“How about you?”

“A fire-witch is
never
cold,” she replied, primly.

“Fair enough.  Let’s walk.”

We continued our walk and I traded salutes with the other sentry.

“Good morning, lord.”

“Good morning,” I answered.  “How stands the keep?”

He drew himself to attention and held a fresh salute, grinning from ear to ear.  “Secure, lord.  There has been
no
sign of the viksagi.”

“Very good.  Carry on.”  He dropped his salute and marched away.  I almost growled after him.  I didn’t like the look of admiration in his eyes.

“Get used to it, hero,” Tamara whispered, answering my unspoken thought.  I did growl at her, a little.

After a brief stop by the stable to reassure Bronze—she managed to express her displeasure at being kept out of the loop regarding my condition; Tamara tried to brush the soot from her dress afterward—we spent the rest of the nighttime hours in my sickroom.  I encouraged her to tell me more about herself.  I learned more about what it was like to grow up with red hair in this world:  it involved a lot of running, hiding, and the occasional incineration of people.  Not pretty.  I told her a more complete version of my own tale, complete with cars and airplanes and telephones… the university, Terri, Travis, Hutch, and Sasha.  I didn’t have time to tell her everything, no, but it was a good start.

I’m thinking of a spell to let her come in to my mental study and read this journal.  It might be the easy way to let her find out about me for herself.  I’ll have to think about it.

She found my explanation of my relationship with Shada to be enormously interesting.

“You mean she is
not
your wife?”

I should have seen that coming.  I had to explain about that in more detail while she fixed me with a burning gaze.  I’d always thought that was just an expression.

“You mean to say that you made a bargain with her.  That I can understand and accept.  But your behavior!  How could you be so callous?  No, cruel.  So unfeeling!”  She shook her head.  “She was right to say such things to you.”

There was more on that subject, but I really don’t want to think about it anymore.  Suffice to say that I have been chewed out about it twice now, and have no wish to relive either.

When dawn rolled around, it stung.  I’d already gotten out of my new finery in anticipation; it doesn’t do to sweat nastiness into your brand-new clothes first thing in the morning.  It was a bad morning.  Apparently, the evening’s adjustments were fairly extensive.  I took it, toughed it out, and it finally settled into a feeling approximating normality.

Tamara had a bowl of hot water and some cloths already at hand.  My sponge bath went a lot faster with her helping, despite her playfulness and giggling.  Then I dressed again and checked myself as I did.  I felt fine again.  Good balance, decent coordination, and strong.  Still unreasonably thin, though.  And
hungry.

I didn’t notice my skin color had darkened appreciably; Tamara pointed it out and I let my coloration spell lapse.  As far as we could tell, I looked normal.

We went down to breakfast.

Word had spread I was up and about; everyone came to breakfast.  There were few enough infantry to fit in the main hall along with the knights, but the place was still overcrowded.  But everyone was there, talking and jostling and sucking up the soup.

Like ripples on a smooth pond, silence spread from the pebble of our entry.

Tamara and I stood in the open arch of the main doors and looked at the assembled men.  You could have heard a pin drop.  A small one.

Then the cheering started.

And got louder.

And kept
getting
louder.

Voices rose, hands clapped, mugs thumped on the tables, people whistled, feet stomped, the works.  I haven’t seen anything like it since the final closeout of a rock concert.  And it kept going on and on and
on
.

I couldn’t stand it.  I raised my arms for silence, smiling because I couldn’t help it.  If they kept on cheering me, I’d have burst.  They didn’t want to stop.