Exile

XXII

She could feel her own ending in her chest like a fluttering bird. Faltering wings. The daylight had retreated from her, or she herself was sinking away from it. She felt herself dwindling. She did not know where she was or where she was going. Nor how long she had been travelling.

‘Don’t let her die,’ she heard someone saying very far away.

South, her fading mind whispered. Yulan.

‘You want me to trade my life for hers?’

Kerig.

‘A little of it, yes. Not all, by preference. She saved us, and I cannot thank a corpse. Nor can you.’

Then hands, gentle on her cheeks. Cupping her face. Holding her. And through them, through the palms, the warmth of life and of mending. A voice, murmuring so softly that she could not make out any words or meaning. Could not even be entirely certain if it was within or without her.

There were immeasurable moments in which she could no longer tell where she began or ended. What was her, what was Kerig, what was the Vernal entelech that he flooded her with. The entelech of mending, of healing.

And in those long moments, death turned away from her. Its time was not yet. As it went, and the promise of it went into abeyance, she was left for a short time with just Kerig. Not only the sense of him there beside her, touching her skin. Perhaps because she was a Clever too, everything that he was seemed to inhabit her just as it did him. She knew him briefly, and it was like nothing she had ever known before. Hot and harsh and guarded. Wounded and selfless and loving life, not death. All at once, all together.

After, she gladly slept.

She woke and smelled acrid smoke. She was lying in the wagon beside Ena Marr. The smoke was drifting above them. She stared up at it. For a time, she did not feel able to move.

When she did, she had to clutch the side of the wagon to haul herself up into a sitting position. She blinked. The smoke stung her eyes, and so did the light.

‘Go slow.’

She looked round. Kerig was sitting on the end of the wagon, twisted around to watch her. He looked wan and drained. There were dark patches beneath his eyes, a livid bruise and unhealed cut at his temple.

Beyond him, Wren saw the source of the smoke. The King’s men were burning their dead. A pyre was set where the shieldline had once been. It was much smaller than Wren would have expected. There were more men by far gathered around it than she would have expected. The reason for that lay out in the mire and on the further slopes. The bodies of the Huluk Kur had been left where they fell. There were too many to burn.

Hundreds of them. A drift of them where their charge had met spear and shield. A great scattering everywhere else. They lay in the pools and the mud. As far as the eye could see. Wren did not want to know how much of the death was her doing. Much of it, of course. Most of it.

Kerig set finger and thumb to his lips and gave out a shrill whistle. Yulan, standing by the corpse-fire, turned at the sound. He walked over to the wagon.

‘The Huluk Kur?’ Wren asked as he drew near, the words rasping out from her dry throat.

‘Gone away to the north to choose themselves new chieftains and find themselves new lands. They found the price of trying to cross the Hervent too high in the end. My killing of their champion did not concern them too much. You… you they do not want to meet again.’

Wren hung her head. She did not know what to feel at that.

‘I have not been Captain of the Free for long, and my first months have not been without failings,’ Yulan said.

Kerig stirred, perhaps to protest, but Yulan silenced him with a glance.

‘Without you, today might have been another for that list,’ he continued as he returned his attention to Wren. ‘I mean to do better in the years to come and for that, I need the strength and courage of others. You have both in abundance. Kerig tells me you’re as strong as any Clever he’s ever seen. Rash and untutored, but strong. Surprises and wonders, as I said. Not all Clevers are willing to give as much of themselves as you have. Not all of them are willing to fight.’

‘I am,’ Wren said faintly. ‘To live. To be free.’

Yulan smiled.

‘That is what they call us. Sometimes, people who are lost can find a home under that name.’

‘Is it always like this?’

Yulan shook his head.

‘No. It’s never easy, but this… this was bad.’

‘And can you keep the School from me?’ Wren asked. ‘Can you be the armies and the allies that will do that?’

Something in Yulan’s face hardened. Not against her, Wren thought. Against the School, or against some memory or knowledge he carried within him.

‘The School will not touch you if you ride with us. By law, under the rights of our charter, they cannot.’

‘Good. Then I ride with you. Tomorrow though. Is that all right? Now, I need more sleep.’

‘As you wish.’

She was already yielding to the deep exhaustion within. She blinked at the Captain of the Free.

‘Give me another blanket.’

Yulan looked puzzled.

‘I’ve been cold for days. I want to be warm.’

She heard Kerig laughing. It was a surprisingly gentle, honest sound.

‘She can have mine,’ the Clever said. ‘She can have mine.’