Brute (35 page)

It was with considerable dismay that he saw flames licking at the beams overhead. Evidently the night winds and morning breezes had destabilized the building and dried some of the timbers.
Flames overhead
. He realized that Lord Maudit was on the second floor. “Sir?” he called. “Your Excellency?”

He was answered with an urgent groan.

Even before the wind and the fire, Brute would not have chanced going upstairs. He hadn’t been at all sure the floor would support his weight. Now, of course, he was fairly certain it wouldn’t. But he didn’t see any other options, apart from endangering the prince and soldiers or allowing a man to burn to death. Swearing out loud at his own stupidity, Brute backtracked until he found the stairs.

The staircase had certainly been sturdy and well made originally, but time and weather and insects had warped and cracked the wood, splitting the treads and risers and sending the frame out of true. Brute felt them wobble alarmingly with every step he took, yet he rushed upward anyway. The stairway didn’t collapse until he was nearly at the top, and he was just barely able to swing his arms forward—yelping at the fresh pain—and haul himself up onto the floor above. Assuming he survived, he’d need to find another way down.

“Lord Maudit?” he yelled.

The answering sound was weaker than the first, and it came from somewhere down the hallway to his left. Taking care to avoid the holes in the floor, and keeping as much as possible to the edges of the hallway where he hoped the structure was strongest, Brute ran. The smoke became so thick that it blinded him almost completely, and every breath became a choking cough. He could feel the heat of the fire even before he turned the corner; the flames roared like a living beast.

Brute climbed over a giant beam and crawled under another one, and that’s when he saw a man’s head and torso sticking out from beneath a pile of timber and plaster. The man was trying to scream but couldn’t seem to fill his lungs properly, and his hands scrabbled uselessly at the floor.

Brute dove forward. He couldn’t lift the debris one-handed, so he was forced to put his shoulders underneath and push upward. He dimly felt the arrow wound reopen but didn’t register the pain. He was too busy putting all his strength into his task—a strength that had carried boulders and heaved logs, that had pulled wagons and carts, that had rescued a prince and freed a prisoner. It was a giant’s strength.

The wreckage shifted. Not much, mere inches. But it was enough to loosen Lord Maudit, and Brute used his foot to shove the man out of the way. As soon as Maudit was free, Brute allowed the load to slip from his back, which made the entire building shudder warningly.

He couldn’t tell how badly Lord Maudit was hurt, but the man wasn’t making any effort to move. Brute scooped him up and threw him over his wounded shoulder, very glad that Maudit was a small man.

Getting back down the hallway was no small task, with the smoke roiling and fire burning, and his lungs and his left arm protesting every movement. Brute had to avoid the obstacles without causing further damage to himself, Lord Maudit, or the building, and he had to sidestep the holes in the floor, praying everything would hold under their combined weight. He passed the collapsed stairway, which was now nothing more than a hole, and moved as quickly as possible down the opposite hall. He was disappointed but not surprised when he found no additional stairs. But he did stumble into a mostly intact room with a large window, and that was going to have to be enough.

Looking out the window, he discovered the room was at the front of the building. Prince Aldfrid was not far away, pacing frantically, while the soldiers tried to hold the horses, which were whinnying and trying to back away from the fire.

A huge
boom!
shook the building as another piece collapsed. Even over the thundering of the fire, Brute could hear the building creaking ominously. “Hey!” he yelled, and then coughed. “Hey!”

Aldfrid came sprinting closer.

“I’m going to have to hand him down to you. Can you catch him?”

“Yes! But hurry!” A resounding crash punctuated his words.

It was a hell of an awkward thing, and Brute wished more than ever that he still possessed two hands. He had to grip both of Lord Maudit’s thin ankles in one fist and—hoping that the lord’s legs weren’t too badly injured already—dangle him upside down out the window. In the process, Brute leaned so far out and down that he was in danger of falling out himself. Fortunately, the window wasn’t too high, and one of the soldiers, perhaps the brightest of the bunch, ran forward to help. The two men were able to catch Maudit and bear him to the ground in a sort of controlled fall. Then the prince took the lord’s shoulders and the soldier his feet, and they carried him quickly away, out of range of the fire and the building itself.

Brute was just wondering whether he was ready to risk jumping to the ground when the fire gave a huge, triumphant bellow. The sound was so loud that Brute was deafened by it, and he didn’t even hear the deep, sustained rumble as the entire inn collapsed around him.

T
HUMP
thump thump
. His heart felt like a hammer in his chest. He was dimly aware that there was pain—a lot of it—but it didn’t seem to belong to him. It was very far away. He didn’t feel frightened, not even of the fire that was tickling at his boots or of the blood that was pooling around him. Mostly, he was sad, and his tears tickled as they ran down his face. His life was a fair price, one he’d offered to the gods himself, so he couldn’t complain. He just wished he could be certain that Gray would stay safe. “Gray,” he sighed.

He imagined he felt hands knocking against his shoulders and then slipping under his armpits. He imagined he heard a familiar voice made thick with smoke: “Idiot.”

He tried to find the breath to laugh. “You were wrong,” he whispered weakly. “It’s fire, not water.”

“I lied,” answered the imaginary voice, just before something gave Brute’s body a tremendous tug, and then everything went black.

H
E
RECOGNIZED
the tingling warmth of a healer’s touch, so he knew he must be alive, but there wasn’t much solace in the realization. Assuredly, the entire past year must have been the product of a brain addled by a fall from a cliff. Everything—the adventure, the friends, the love—had been a wishful hallucination, and soon he would open his eyes and look up at Hilma Gedding’s ceiling. And then he’d be nothing but an ugly, mutilated freak with nowhere to go.

So he kept his eyes closed for a very long time.

But then the healer began to sing, and the awareness slowly filtered into his mind that the song wasn’t what he expected. “That’s not a healing chant,” he said, all rusty-voiced.

The response was full of good humor. “The lullaby’s been working better. So has the Ballad of the Silver-Tongued Rogue. Want me to switch to that instead?”

“You’re not Hilma Gedding.”

“I most certainly hope not.”

Brute finally pried his eyelids open. Gray Leynham was hunched over him, warm palms pressing lightly against Brute’s bare chest and a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Brute blinked a few times, but Gray didn’t disappear. Bright relief rushed through him like the sun cutting through clouds—until he realized what must have happened and gloom settled back in. “Oh gods, they took you anyway!” He was suddenly furious—had Kashta lied about sanctuary, or had Prince Aldfrid violated it?

“I’m not taken, and you need to stay still,” Gray answered calmly. His hands made little soothing motions, and Brute didn’t know whether that was part of the healing or if Gray was just trying to calm him down.

“But you’re— I don’t….”

“I told you to stay still! You’ve used up every bit of my healing skill as it is, Aric. I don’t want you to reinjure yourself.”

With considerable effort, Brute relaxed. “I don’t understand,” he said, and he sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

“You ended up with a burning inn collapsed on your head, love. Even a giant can’t walk away from that unscathed.”

Nothing that Gray said after “love” registered. Brute felt a little loopy and a lot confused, and he was beginning to suspect that he really was delusional after all. But when he reached up to grab one of Gray’s wrists, that certainly felt real. He could even feel the little ridge of scarring from the manacles Gray had worn for so long. He tried to focus his eyes on his surroundings. “Where is this?”

“The Vale of course. It’s fortunate that the Vale is mostly downhill from the inn—I think the horse would have given up if he’d had to drag you uphill.”

“Drag?”

“They made a litter for you. And one for Maud too. I wish I could have seen it. We must have looked like quite a parade.”

Before Brute could formulate his next question—and really, he had so many he didn’t know where to begin—Gray gently pulled his hand away and reached for a small pottery cup. He wormed an arm under Brute’s head and raised it a little so he could drink. The tea was lukewarm but tasted bright and tangy, like berries, and it slaked the thirst Brute hadn’t realized he had.

When the cup was empty, Gray set Brute’s head gently back down on something soft. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Are you in much pain?”

Brute did a quick self-inventory. He ached from head to toe—with his hips giving a particular twinge. His lungs felt scratchy, and he was weak. But there was nothing that he would call pain. “I’m all right. Did… you fix me up?”

“Turns out I’m a better healer than I thought, at least when someone I love is dying.”

There was that word again, the word that made everything else fade in comparison. But then something else that Gray had said finally registered. “You said
we
. When you were talking about the parade from the inn to the Vale, you said
we
. You were at the inn?”

“He’s the one who rescued you.”

Brute startled to hear another voice—he hadn’t noticed that anyone else was in the hut. But Kashta was standing off to one side in his old purple robes, gnawing on a green apple. He gave Brute a little wave. “I am very happy that you have survived,” the priest said.

“Um, me too. But what did you mean about Gray rescuing me?” Even as he asked the question, Brute remembered hands seizing him and tugging him away. He turned to glare at Gray, who of course couldn’t see, and said, “You lied about your dream!”

Gray didn’t look the least bit repentant. “I thought I could keep you away from the pond in the Vale if I told you it was water. I should have known you’d be too big of an idiot to keep clear of your death.” Now it was his turn to frown. “I underestimated your idiocy, though. You left me here! What in all hells did you think you were doing?”

“Paying the price,” Brute mumbled, then sighed. “I thought that maybe if the king had
me
to punish they’d let you be.”

“That was stupid, Aric.”

“So was lying to me!” And as Brute’s brain continued to slowly roll along, he seized on something else. “Why did you leave the Vale? You were safe here.”

“But you weren’t safe!” Gray snapped. “I woke up and you were gone and… and at first I thought you’d just abandoned me. But you wouldn’t, would you? But there was the fucking dream so I knew where you’d gone. I made Kashta take me.”

Kashta added, “We arrived just in time. The building had fallen, and Prince Aldfrid was shouting that you were inside. He and one of the soldiers had tried to find you, but there was too much smoke.” He smiled slightly. “It took a man who is accustomed to navigating in darkness to find you.”

Brute inhaled sharply and looked at Gray. “You went into the burning ruins?”

“You’re not the only one who can be a damned hero!” Gray said angrily before jumping to his feet. “Dammit, Aric! Even Lorad and Lokad had their limits, and I don’t want a lover who’s a charred corpse or a damn statue. I may be a blind fool who’s never done anything worthwhile, but can’t you at least understand that I’d risk anything to save you? You’re all I fucking want!” With an inarticulate growl, he stomped out of the hut. The fabric at the opening fell closed behind him.

The priest appeared unruffled by the interchange. He took another crunching bite of his apple, chewed, and swallowed. “He was terrified he would lose you. Do you know the story of how the Vale came to be?”

“Ismundo and Ebra.”

“Very good,” Kashta said, like a pleased schoolmaster. “They are gods who favor men and women who would sacrifice all for those whom they love. They led Gray to you, they gave him the strength to pull you out of that building, and they helped him to heal you.” He nodded as if to himself. “Yes. I believe you two are very much favored.”

“But why would Gray love me like that? I’m….” Brute flopped his arms a little, at a loss for words. “I’m just….”

“You are the man Gray loves, and you love him, and that is all that is important.”

The priest bit his apple again and, still chewing, he left the hut.

W
HEN
Gray returned an hour or so later, he didn’t say anything. He gave Brute a cup of water—Brute was able to drink by himself this time—and then lay next to him on the mat, their bodies resting gently against one another. “Idiot,” Gray said quietly, fondly.