The False Martyr (28 page)

The sun was in its final
descent, was just beginning to paint the few remaining clouds along
the western horizon when the riders came. Emerging from the city,
they rode slowly off the road and into the field. There were only a
dozen. Watching them come, Ipid counted three officials and nine
guards. The guards wore armor but not the polished plate of the
knights. These were members of the Wildern City Watch, not the
Chancellor’s Own who were waiting in a clump behind them. As the
officials drew closer, Arin and the te-ashute returned to the tent.
Many of the middle-aged men were covered in mud, dripping with
sweat, bleeding from gashes or limping. Their lips were split,
clothes were torn, cheeks and eyes were bruised, but their smiles
were universal. They jostled one another like boys as they formed
around Arin in the tent and tried to replace their giggles with
scowls.

Finally, the riders
dismounted, and three men entered the tent without bothering to
follow their guards. Ipid saw that the Chancellor was not one of
them. In fact, it was Ipid’s own replacement that led the group,
and he looked like he’d been through the Maelstrom. What had been a
coif of perfect brown hair that morning was now a disheveled,
ash-strewn mess. His fine clothes were streaked with soot, torn,
and burned. He walked with a limp and had bandages wrapped around
his hands. His face was red and blistered.

Di Valati Rylan was the
only other hold-over from that morning, and he looked like he was
on the verge of death. His face was framed by black where he had
been unable to remove the soot that had marked it. He wore the robe
of a simple counselor, and it fit him poorly. His hands too were
wrapped, but blood had seeped through in places to give the white
bandages a tinge of pink. He held a hand to his mouth as he walked
and coughed, a deep, rattling cough that nearly took him to his
knees.

The last of the men seemed
the least affected by what had happened in the city. Burle Tyne,
the captain of the Wildern City Watch seemed barely to have seen
the fires that had afflicted his fellows.
His blue tunic was unstained.
The
chain armor below held its polish. He showed no sign of injury, but
his eyes showed his wounds. They were distant, skittish, and lost.
Maybe worse than having been caught in the destruction wrought by
the te-am ‘eiruh and their creatures had been seeing it and knowing
that it was only a matter of time before it came for
you.

“
Where is your leader?”
Arin asked these battered men. “Is he too much a coward to face
what his pride has wrought?”

Ipid began to translate,
but before he could finish
, First
Advisor
Bellon interrupted, “He’s dead!”
His voice was ragged, barely rose above a rasp but held defiance
still. “They’re all dead. We are all that is left. I am the most
senior advisor remaining.”

Ipid felt his heart sink.
He clasped the table before him to keep himself from falling. The
Chancellor, every member of his Bureau, dead. He could not fathom
it. They had been some of his best friends, closest associates,
fiercest enemies, most bitter and revered rivals, and now they were
gone. He could not even accept it as real.

And Arin smiled. He beamed
like a wolf finding the shepherd asleep on a moonless night. “So
you have come to accept our terms?”

“
Yes, by the Order,”
Hector Bellon cursed then doubled as coughs took him. The Di Valati
placed a hand on his back but withdrew it at his own coughs
resumed. When the fit ended, Lord Bellon returned his attention to
Arin. “You’ve won. Tell me where to sign, take whatever you want,
give our nation to this traitor. We have no ability to fight you.
You have made that abundantly clear, so just take what you want and
go.”

Ipid translated to murmurs
of approval from the te-ashute. When he was finished, Arin brought
his fists to the table and leaned forward into the face of Hector
Bellon. “Your name on a paper has no meaning to me. In the morning,
K’amach-
tur Ipid
and fifty warriors will enter your city.
K’amach-
tur Ipid
will be given anything and everything he needs. He, and he
alone, will ensure that our terms are met. You will not question
him. You will not resist him. You will not impede him, or not a
brick will remain of this city. Do you understand?”

The last remaining bureau
member looked at Ipid, hatred burning in his eyes, as he
translated, stumbling over the words as he forced his tongue to say
them. “I understand,” he responded through grating teeth when he
finished.

“
Then it is done.” Arin
smiled, speaking the Imperial tongue. “Remember, you brought this
upon yourself. You knew what we could do. You knew what would
happen, but your pride was worth more to you than the lives of your
people. Remember this lesson or it will be repeated until you
cannot ever forget.” Arin paused and stared at each of the men
before him. Finally, in Darthur, he finished, “Be prepared to
receive K’amach-tur Ipid and our men in the morning. We will be
watching.”

And with that, Arin turned and strode from
the tent. Ipid completed his translation and followed in a fog.
What has Arin done to me?
was all he could think.

Chapter 17

The
21
^st
Day of Summer

Dasen woke propped against
the stairs, sitting where he had landed. He rubbed his gummy eyes
and came stiffly forward. His stomach rumbled, head throbbed,
muscles ached. His back and neck were a line of knots from sleeping
against the steps. His legs and arms felt stiff and weak. His
clothes were cold and damp. It was all far too reminiscent of every
morning since he’d been joined.

At his side, he heard
Teth’s soft breaths. She was asleep, curled into a ball as if
diminished even in sleep. She seemed so small and frail there, so
fragile. He still could not imagine what could have happened to so
defeat her. She had done so much, had faced all the horrors a
horrible world could create, had stared death in the face time and
again. So what could have happened that could bring her to this?
And why did his presence seem to make it worse? Why couldn’t she
tell him, find comfort in him? He searched for answers, mind
returning again and again to the same one, but he could not, would
not, believe it. The creatures, he thought, certainly their
presence seemed to have started it all, but she had recovered, had
been herself long enough to escape. No, it was him. Somehow, he had
started it. And the way she had looked at him. Did she blame him?
Had he done something? Was it all his fault?

He felt his own eyes turn
misty, his chest tighten, and breath quicken. “I love you, Teth,”
he said to the sleeping shape. Teth shivered. Her clothes and hair
were still matted with water. Dasen found a blanket at the foot of
the bed and pulled it over her. He wanted to touch her, to brush
her hair back and ease himself onto the bed next to her, but then
he remembered that look, remembered how she’d screamed when he
touched her. He pulled his hand back and turned to the
stairs.

A moment later, he had
pushed the hatch aside and was climbing into the light of the early
morn. He looked up, blinking against the sun, and watched the sky
for shapes. He found them, but they were birds, their dark bodies
outlined against the puffy clouds drifting through the pale-blue
sky. With no threats in sight, Dasen pushed the hatch back and
tottered around the deck on stiff legs.

The boat was stuck. Even
from the hatch he could see the sandbar that held them. The front
of the boat was consumed by a stretch of tall grass standing in the
center of the wide river. To the sides was prairie. A few sparse
trees appeared near some bluffs on the western horizon, but the
view was otherwise of grass. Staring back up the river, he found no
signs of the Weavers’ commune or the fire that had ended it. There
was no smoke rising, no sign of charred grass, no creatures or
carnage. Dasen supposed the rain had taken care of the fire and the
creatures, that they were safe, for now.

Striding to the front of
the boat, he looked down at the sandbar. The curve of the bow was
dug into the mud, stuck tight, with the water flowing around on
either side. They could not stay there, but he had no idea how to
get them loose. There was a long pole lying across the deck. Could
he use it to push them off?
Then
what?
At the back of the boat, there was a
slight platform with a canopy stretched above it to block the sun.
The long handle of a great rudder waved back and forth with the
flow of the river. Beside the rudder was a sleeping pallet, a
stool, and a bucket.

“
Suppose I’ll have to
steer,” he told himself out loud. He had taken a few trips down
various rivers, in boats far larger and finer than this utilitarian
longboat, but they all had pilots to steer. He had a basic
understanding of how it worked but had certainly never done
it.
Time can either feed you are kill
you
, Dasen heard his father’s words, felt
a pang, then pushed it away.

His stomach rumbled,
reminding him that he had not eaten real food since before the
battle outside Thoren. His entire body felt weak and empty. He
needed to eat before he tried to do anything else, so he returned
the depths of the hold.

After confirming that Teth
was still sleeping, he explored the hold. The food that Teth had
stored on the shelves next to the stove was his first discovery.
Half of a loaf of dark bread eased the rumbling in his stomach and
restored some of his strength. He washed it down with several long
swigs from a gallon jug of cider and felt it coursing through him.
The rest seemed to consist of beans, vegetables, and nuts. He ate a
handful of the last and wished that there were meat, cheese,
butter, honey, or eggs, but if there were, he could not find them.
Finally, his eyes came to rest on the bag of hard red beans and a
single large pot sitting on the stout, little stove. With a sigh,
he grabbed the pot and went back up the stairs to the
deck.

When he returned the pot
was filled with water, and Teth was crying. The sound of her
whimpers filled the hold. She had pulled herself into a ball
beneath the blanket, face buried in her hands, hidden behind her
shoulders. Dasen thought about turning back around and leaving.
Certainly, he felt sorry for her, wanted to help and comfort her,
but he had no idea how to do that. And that only made him feel
miserable all the more.

“
Are you alright?” he
whispered. He held his breath, but the only answer was a sputtered
moan. “Can you tell me what’s wrong? Can I help?” Another moan
answered. Sobs and snuffles followed. Dasen gave up and started on
a fire.

With the help of some of
the oil in a lamp hanging from the ceiling, the charcoal in the
stove caught the sparks he threw. Dasen spent a moment relishing
the heat of the fire despite the fact that the morning was already
warm. He dumped half the water from the pot into a nearby bucket
and placed what remained on the stove’s flat top. The beans felt
good to his fingers as he scooped them from the bag, firm and
smooth and sure. He dropped them into the water, watching them
gather at the bottom. There was no salt or pepper that he could
find, and he did not have the ambition to peel or chop vegetables,
so he left it to the beans.

Teth’s sobs had eased to
ragged breaths and snuffles by the time he finished. He opened his
mouth to say something but found no words and closed it. He reached
his hand out to touch her then reconsidered. Finally, with a sigh,
he climbed the stairs.

It would be some time
before the beans were cooked, but he could not stay in the hold and
listen to Teth cry. Wondering what to do, he looked around the boat
and river. His first thought was to free them from the sandbar, but
they’d probably just end up on another when he went down to get the
beans. He rolled his stiff shoulders and felt the salt caked to his
shirt and skin. His hand ran through his matted hair. He suddenly
remembered that he had spent days lying in a bed, had likely been
in these same clothes the entire time.

Dasen took his time
bathing. He scrubbed his body and his clothes, using the sand from
the river to rub away the salt, soot, and stink that the rain had
not managed to purge. Reduced to his small clothes, he enjoyed the
cool water, swimming around the boat in the gentle current then
floating and staring at the sky. Finally, he tried to assess their
position on the sandbar. As an experiment, he dug at the mud with
his fingers. More rushed in to fill the gap as quickly as he pushed
it away. Looking a last time at the boat and the bank, he climbed
aboard. The sun was well over the horizon now and it quickly dried
his skin. He pulled on the course woolen pants that he had been
wearing when he woke in the Weaver compound. They were still
dripping, as was his shirt. He left the shirt to dry and returned
to the hold.

The beans were boiling out
of the pot. The broth, sizzling and bubbling, covered the top of
the stove. The smell was terrible. Smoke rose from the stovetop in
a column, making the air almost unbreathable. And Teth just laid on
the bed in exactly the same position.

“
To the Maelstrom, Teth!”
He ran to the pot and had the wherewithal to use a clump of nearby
rags to lift it. “You couldn’t get up to save our lunch? Shit! It’s
burning all over.” He found a long knife and used it to push the
burnt mess from the stovetop into the bucket of water, one hand
clenching his nose against the smell. “I mean,
damn it all
! You couldn’t get up
long enough to take the pot off the stove? What if it had started a
fire?” Dasen turned to look at his wife. He was as angry as he ever
remembered being at her. And she had no response. She had not even
moved that Dasen could see unless it was to curl into an even
tighter ball. She did not even have the curtesy to cry out or yell
or defend herself.