Mordraud, Book One (83 page)

“
I heard you, the other day... you vile bastard...
She’s
taken him, hasn’t she?!”

Deanna
threw the door wide and rushed downstairs. The house was still in slumber, swathed in silence. Dawn filtered through the closed windows. She reached the servants’ quarters, eyes blind with rage, and opened the door to Adrina’s room. The serving woman was dozing peacefully in her place of rest. With Mordraud in her arms.

She
’d fallen asleep with him, after taking him away. Adraman had asked her to do so – she was sure of it.

N
obody would take her son away from her.

Deanna
crept up to the bed, disentangled Mordraud from Adrina’s embrace, and covered his mouth before he could whimper.

“
You won’t take my son from me ever again. He’s mine alone. Nobody else’s!”

Adrina
blinked awake, without understanding what was going on. “Madam... I took Mordraud to change him, and I must have nodded off... You were already asleep, and he was crying... I’m sorry...” she uttered in a faltering voice.

Deanna
did not reply.

She yank
ed the pillow out from under the woman’s head, and pressed it down on her face.

Mordraud
writhed in fright, but Deanna held him tightly to her body so he wouldn’t wriggle free. Adrina thrashed about, but the mother’s strength was murderous. She tamped the pillow down onto the servant’s face with all her weight, until the old woman’s legs stopped kicking.

“
Don’t worry, my little one... She was already dead, like all the others... Nothing’s happened... I didn’t do anything...”

Deanna
returned to her room with stealthy paces, set the cot right and placed Mordraud in it, among the blankets. What she’d done had already evaporated from her memory. She felt as if in a dream, light and remorse-free. In any case, what had she done wrong? Adraman was leading all Eld’s men to die, to be crushed against the walls of Cambria. Once they perished, who remained at home would be condemned to their end. There would be nobody to defend the front, protect the homes, fight off the foe. The women, the children and the elderly were already doomed. Whether sooner or later, it made no difference.

She attempted to doze off, but couldn
’t. The morning’s light glowed stronger, and a blade of brightness swathed through the curtains, bathing her bed exactly where her head was. Annoyed, she got up and took Mordraud in her arms. He began to whine, bothered by all that bustle. She tried to lull him, singing to him, but her movements were too brittle and strained, and her voice was off-key and out of control. Deanna felt calm, but her body was racked with panic. She was quivering like a leaf, without even understanding the reason.

“
Be good... shh... Go to sleep, go on!”

She could do nothing – the little one seemed inconsolable.
Deanna took a book from her table and sat on the bed. It was her favourite book, the one Mordraud had read to her so many times she’d lost count. She loved the stories about the Aelians. She began reading one out loud, dabbling her fingers around the baby’s mouth, who however struggled with his tiny hands to keep her away. Deanna shut her eyes, swallowing a resurgence of wrath, grabbed a candle, and held it near the book so she could read more clearly. She went on even if Mordraud was crying, and he cried on and on, never ceasing.

“
They were better before. I don’t understand them now...” she muttered in surprise. However hard she might try to grasp what she was reading, she didn’t succeed. The words slipped away without lodging in her mind. Her child’s bawling was smashing up her brain.

She had to get him to stop. Immediately
.

“
That’s enough now, Mordraud... shh... shh...” she hummed, rocking with him.

“
Shut up, Mordraud!”

Her head was on the verge of bursting. She
released the candle and clamped her forehead, to hold out against the jabbing at her temples – a scalpel scraping against her poor bones. She let out a sudden piercing scream. A long harrowing note, that broke off abruptly. Deanna smiled, and yelled again. She liked the way her voice bounced off the walls. As if she were no longer alone. Finally, Mordraud stopped wailing.

Deanna
drew a sigh of relief, then glanced at the book. A page had caught fire, and Mordraud was staring at her with an amused beam.

“
Hey, you like fire, do you?! It really is lovely, isn’t it?”

Deanna
tossed the candle to the floor, seized the burning page and tore it from the volume. It didn’t matter – she no longer liked that story. She held the charred sheet between her fingers until the fire had nearly consumed it all, then let it fall to her feet. Mordraud clapped and grinned happily.

“
It looks like a little golden bird, doesn’t it, Mordraud? A flame-fairy dancing, just for you... Look! Look!”

Deanna
ripped out another page, brought it to the candle and set light to it. She held it above Mordraud’s head, enjoying the way his hands reached up to catch the little fairy. When the sheet finished, she found another, and then another. Mordraud laughed and kicked, stretched out on her lap.

“
You’re looking more and more like your daddy... your real one... But anyway, what does that matter?! They’re all dead, my little one... And we’re alone, you and I... We’ve been left alone...”

On the floor,
littered all about, the firebirds had ceased to fly.

But something else
had taken their place. Its breath rose from the bed, from the table-legs, from the woollen blankets. “Look, my love...” Deanna remarked, toying with her son’s cheek.

“
The
dragon
has come... all for you!”

Mordraud
was no longer laughing. He gazed about, confused by the smoke and the reddish glow, crying desperately. His wailing merged with the cracking of the wood, torturing Deanna’s ears yet further.

“
Shh, it’s nothing... shh...” she murmured sweetly. “Dragons don’t exist, my darling... It was just a game... just a game...”

But
the flames devouring the room were terribly real.

***

The army had set off before dawn broke, under the eyes of the few Eld inhabitants left at home: just women, children and decrepit old men. Adraman had accepted anyone who wished to join them, even veterans no longer in service or disabled ex-soldiers, and he’d given similar orders to his messengers sent off to scour the villages in the entire region. The commands at the northern and southern fronts were already on the move, with the intent of assembling all their men and then converging at the Rampart. Every other stronghold, all the old defence lines had to be dismantled and emptied of weapons and forces. If Cambria were to opt to attack at that precise moment, it would be the end for the Alliance. Yet by now Adraman knew all too well the Empire’s muddled mechanisms. The Rinns had become the main problem for Cambria, and the sole reason for concern for Loralon and Asaeld.

‘
They just have to hold out a few weeks more... I’m not asking much...’

Mordraud
rode at his side, together with Berg. The roads were clean and the air was fresh with spring and the night’s rain. The battalion was somewhat disheartening: just a few units of foot-soldiers and a handful of cavalrymen with a rather threadbare appearance. But their numbers would swell along the way. Then, at the Rampart, the bulk of the troops waited. However steeped in excited tension the atmosphere might be, he couldn’t be part of it. His fellow fighters laughed and joked, some were praying, others still were muttering who knew what oaths to the Gods. Instead, Mordraud could do nothing other than think of home, Deanna and his son. He would so very much have liked to say goodbye to them before setting out, but he hadn’t dredged up the courage to do so. Not after the last time he’d met her, and certainly not after glimpsing Adraman’s expression outside the entrance to the house, at sundown before departure.

On reaching a first village, a few hours later,
Adraman gave orders to load up water and set off again straight away. Mordraud was waiting astride his horse, looking around nervously, while Berg ensured orders were briskly carried out.

“
Everything alright?”

“
Yes, well... fine...” he replied, instinctively tightening the reins. Adraman put a hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “You sure? You seem a bit distant.”

“
No, you’re wrong. I was thinking about... what we’ll do when we reach the Rampart.”

“
That’s not true. Your mind’s not on the battle. I know you rather well.”

“
I tell you it is!” Mordraud returned hotly. But Adraman shook his head and moved in closer.

“
Make a quick trip home, Mordraud.”

“
I don’t see what...”

“
You don’t need to pretend, my boy. Say goodbye to Deanna before leaving, and then catch up with us at the next camp. You can’t go into battle in this state. You’ll get yourself killed at the first charge.”

Mordraud
was about to reply, but Adraman’s gaze drained his forces. He assented bleakly and turned his horse round on the road just covered.

“
Thanks, Adraman.”

“
There’s nothing wrong in saying farewell to a friend. Now off you go! Don’t take too long.”

“
I’ll be back by tomorrow!” Mordraud assured, as he galloped off. Adraman was right. If he found himself face to face with the enemy in that state, he’d definitely end up dead. He could do nothing but think about her, wondering if he’d ever see her again. What they were undertaking was a journey that, for many, would be with no return. Perhaps for him too.

The road to
Eld had never seemed so long.

He reached the fiefdom
’s gates when the sun was high in the sky. As he darted beneath the entrance arch, he heard a guard call out loudly after him, but he didn’t want to waste any time. He had so very little that he couldn’t afford to spend it badly.

The streets were unusually deserted.
As he climbed toward the centre of town, all his thoughts were on what he would say to Deanna.

‘
I’ll miss you... No, she won’t want to speak to me. I have to tell her something more important... I have to tell her how much I love her, even if I will never be able to show it to anyone... And that I’ll always be there for our son, and that I’m glad Adraman will be bringing him up...’

Mordraud
turned into the road leading to the house, coming up against a wall of people crowding between the homes. They were all gazing into the distance, and pointing above the rooftops. Mordraud got off his horse, approached with a strange sensation of unease in the pit of his stomach, and looked with them.

It was smoke, a pillar of dark smoke rising to th
e sky, blacking out the sun.

And
it was coming from Deanna’s home.

Mordraud
ran, pushing people out the way, knocking here and there with arms and elbows to make his way through. A human chain was supplying buckets brimming with water. Someone wept quietly in a corner.

“
MOVE ASIDE! GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

He struggled to the
gates of the villa, which were wide open and pouring with people busy with buckets and pans of water.

Adraman
’s mansion was engulfed in flames. The ground was strewn with rubble, blackened beams and charred shreds of fabric. Beneath the entrance arch, crushed by a broken architrave, lay two servants: a stable-hand and a scullery boy. The heat was so intense Mordraud had to shield his face with an arm, as he coughed from the acrid smoke.

“
HAVE YOU SEEN DEANNA?! SHE MANAGED TO GET OUT, DIDN’T SHE?!” he bellowed to one of the guards panting under the weight of a large bucketful of water. The man shook his head and pressed on with his work. Mordraud stopped all those who passed, but nobody knew anything. He also tried to venture towards the flames, but the heat was too great. Mordraud felt as if his eyes were about to burst.

“
DEANNA! DEANNA!” he yelled in despair. “DEANNA!”

A hand grabbed his shoulder.
Mordraud span round, blinded by the extreme glare of the blaze. But it was not Deanna. It was just one of the lads who occasionally ran market errands for Adrina. His face was dark with soot and he had nasty burns on his arms. His fingers looked like sticks of braised meat.

“
I tried to get her out of there...” he stammered through tears. “I was outside the front door – the others didn’t manage to escape... And I watched her as... as...”

T
he serving boy’s voice faded. He lifted the bush of stumps he had in place of his hand and motioned towards a wall where scorching debris was being piled.

Mordraud
saw her.

“
She jumped out the window. She was cradling the young Mordraud in her arms, sir... For love of the Gods, I can’t banish the picture from my mind...”