The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (47 page)

The warrior led, not looking back. He did not walk too fast, but the women were just too scared, and they seemed lost. The familiar turns and twists of their prison suddenly looked alien, dark, and menacing, as if they hid death at every corner. Sonya was too annoyed, especially since she had to stare at Richelle’s rump and that ugly girl bobbing her pasty-white head over the baroness’s shoulder.

Wait…

This panicked retreat is an opportunity
, she realized. The queen must be prepared to step in and defend her realm at all times. Every moment was a ripe chance for her to prove herself, to show her subjects that she cared for them. It was her duty. Now, as ever.

It did not matter that some armed soldier was leading them from one peril to another, taking them into more captivity, more pain, hunger, and suffering, and looming above all the others, a pointless, shameful death. Sonya had to transcend past her fear. She had to act, in the name of her people, for her people.

The gap between the front of the column and the rear was widening. Good. A deep stairwell to her right, leading toward the servants’ area, a handsome flight of big, rough steps, more than a score of them fading into the murk of the unlit floor below. Good.

Sonya stumbled. “Oh, my foot,” she wailed.

Richelle turned around. She flicked a quick glance toward the rest of the group, and the last woman was a good dozen paces away. The sound of a baby’s crying drifted down the corridor, getting weaker and less annoying. “What is it?”

Sonya glanced up at the baroness. The woman had every right to be concerned. Unlike the other women, she stood to gain quite a lot once the war ended with the Eracian victory. But that would only happen if Sonya survived. So she had to show sympathy and care. Farther down the hallway, the other women just kept walking, not looking back, too selfish or just too terrified to pay attention. Good.

“My toe. Pacmad broke my toe, and it hurts now,” Sonya whispered.

Richelle bent lower to inspect her leg. That stupid baby swiveled its giant head and stabbed a cold blue stare at Sonya.

“We need to go,” the baroness said, sounding anxious, glancing toward the receding silhouettes of the other others.

Sonya put her foot down, straightened. Richelle was standing right in front of her, facing the other way, toward the
deep stairwell. “Yes, we do,” Sonya said and shoved with all her might, no longer faking her pain.

Wordlessly, the baroness tumbled. Just as Sonya had expected, her motherly instinct took over, and she cradled her child rather than tried to break her fall. She slammed into the edge of a step with a spectacular crunch, her head bouncing. Then her arse rose and tried to overtake the upper body, and soon, she was tumbling, all limbs flying, scraping against the rough wall mortar, thudding wetly as she rolled lower and lower, utterly without control.

Soon, she reached the bottom of the stairwell, and all was still. No one cried, not the mother, nor the baby. Sonya glanced into the murk. It was a little hard to tell, but she had seen enough dead bodies to know a wrong angle for a human neck. Baroness Richelle was dead. The baby, a lump of soft meat lying next to its mother, was also very still, but it did not really matter.

Sonya waited another moment. Then she screamed at the top of her lungs.

CHAPTER 33

J
avor’s death still haunted him.

Ewan had not recovered from the massacre, even though he knew it had saved countless lives. Without him, the combined force of Parus, Athesia, Borei, and the pilgrims would have had to fight the enemy hand to hand, with sword and spear. But the logic could not sweeten the bitter feeling in his throat.

Tanid tried to convince him that his use of the bloodstaff had checked the entire Naum army. The enemy camp was in panic and disarray, confused, frightened, too stunned to move. And every day they earned was a blessing. It gave them more time to prepare, to dig fresh trenches and hammer fresh stakes in front of them, train more recruits, stockpile their winter reserves.

Calemore’s troops had it worse. The army was just too huge to support itself, so their food levels must be running low. With the rain and cold coming in, the Naum forces would find resupply all the more difficult. They did not have horses, and their movement would be excruciatingly slow. Winter would favor them, though. Naum was a cold place, and snow was the natural habitat for these soldiers. While Amalia’s and Sasha’s men would curse chilblains and black toes and numb ears
and noses, the Naum warriors would wade merrily through the drift, impervious to the harsh bite of winter.

Which meant they had to somehow win the war before the blizzards.

Tanid also claimed Ewan’s attack would ferret Calemore out of his hiding, make him rash and prone to mistakes. He might expose himself and get himself killed. The god was confident Ewan would destroy him with the bloodstaff just as he had slaughtered all those men. A simple task with only a tiny amount of emotional scarring.

Several days back, Ewan had really gotten irritated by being treated like an expensive tool. He found a moment when Gavril was without his followers and confronted him. “When do your divine powers come into play?”

“I am saving my strength for when it matters. When the White Witch finally moves against us, I will tamper with the weather to foil his troops’ movement. I will use fog and rain to cause confusion and slow their progress. And I will shield the rest of you from Calemore’s own magic.”

Somehow, Ewan did not believe him. He did not doubt the god would use his powers to weaken the enemy, but he did not really believe Tanid would risk his own life too much. He would hurl his pilgrims forth, and he would cower behind Ludevit and Pasha—and Ewan. His own sacrifice would be the very last.

Ewan understood the importance of leaders. Generals ordered men to their deaths and held back, watching the toll rise from a safe distance. That was how it worked, and it should not be any different for gods leading their own armies, he figured. Still, there was something about Tanid that rang beyond pure selfishness and calculated cowardice. It was a skewed sense of personal worth that clashed with all that was human.

The two Sirtai also seemed quite eager to stake their claim in the war. They did not relish fighting, but Ewan could see the subtle, egomaniacal desire to be the ones who defeated the son of a god, a legendary relic from an ancient time. He could not guess the reasons, but the need for glory was there. The bloodstaff did not just leech blood from its victims. It leeched humanity, too.

And he was still lonely. The massive human company around him did not lessen his feeling of being all alone. He longed for friendship and intimacy, but no one in the camp had enough to share. Everyone was preoccupied with their thoughts of war and personal loss.

Amalia was the only one to pay him any special heed, but her attention was quite the opposite. She haunted him.

She was obsessed with the weapon, he knew. She burned to touch it, to hold it, and he knew he must not surrender it to anyone. The bloodstaff was his, and he alone would use it when needed, at the expense of his own guilt.

Tanid was standing a short distance away from him, in front of a fresh ditch, staring north. His two odd henchmen were lurking nearby; Ludevit looked focused, Pasha bored and timid, like he always was. Those two must be Special Children. There was no other reason why the god would keep them around otherwise.

Their presence made him feel that much less of a monster, but it was a tiny spark against the overwhelming void of his loneliness.

“What?” Ludevit barked suddenly, startling him. Then, Ewan heard a sound, like a giant rock shattering. Then, another. Another. A quick cascade of them, getting closer. It was—

Pain.

Sharp, blinding, beautiful pain.

After so long, physical pain, white-hot, searing.

He saw the earth in front of the axman explode, large wet chunks of upturned earth and old tree roots flying in all directions. Then, Ludevit exploded. Unceremoniously, he burst open into a pale red flower.

Ewan stood, paralyzed by the treacly agony of burning pain in his left arm, staring stupidly. He had not even blinked. Pasha looked sideways, and then his left arm detached, ripped off like a bit of cloth from an old doll. More earth ruptured.

Ewan realized what was happening.

Someone was firing bloodstaff pellets at them.

Silent, deathly destruction, like the one he had rained on the enemy just weeks back.

Still standing like an idiot, he glanced at his left hand and saw a couple of his fingers missing. The small one and the one next to it were gone, sliced off. Blood dripped onto the ground below. More wet earth showered him.

He jumped into the ditch behind him. Wet, muddy rain sprayed on his shoulders and hair. The pain was debilitating. It pulsed through his body, almost blinding him with its intensity, but he had to focus. He had to fight back.

“Gavril!” he shouted.

“Save me,” Tanid whimpered, huddling in the trench not far away. Lumps of meat covered the back of his tunic, but he did not seem to notice.

Ewan realized he was still clutching the bloodstaff in his right hand. He lumbered up, shaking, and looked up over the mound. People were running everywhere, ordinary soldiers trying to figure out what was happening. But they milled mindlessly, unaware of the threat that had just shredded several of their comrades.

One of the wagons had been punched through. A Red Caps soldier was lying against one of its shattered wheels, eyes wide open in shock. Ewan saw that both her legs were missing. Another body lay in the wet grass not far away, the signs of its mutilation hidden.

Pain. He cherished its return. But the sensation threatened to choke his mind.

“Mom…Mom…” someone moaned.

Ewan saw it was the boy Pasha. He was lying on his back, weeping. “Don’t move.” Oh, he was getting nauseated from the throbbing sizzle in his left arm.

“Forget him! Fight back!” Tanid rasped. “Fire that thing! Destroy Calemore!”

“Use your magic,” Ewan snapped. “Heal my hand!” He showed the ruined fist to the god.

Tanid stared at the bleeding limb with a dazed look, then shook his head. “No, no. It is no good.”

Ewan sagged against the trench wall. He was dizzy. He had to take care of his wound. Those sounds again, rocks shattering.

He cowered inside the ditch, hoping the pile of dugout earth was thick enough to stop the pellets. A flurry of screams rippled through the camp above. Several soldiers jumped into the trench by his side, looking terrified. Some were bleeding from small scratches caused by flying splinters and shards of stone, but they looked immensely relieved to lurk there.

“Use the bloodstaff!” Gavril foamed.

A nearby hit blasted a massive chunk of land away. For a moment, Ewan was blinded by the debris. Behind him, soldiers wailed, trying to wipe their eyes. Another blast, and Pasha’s body slid down the mound and into the narrow furrow. The boy was still alive.

“Mom…” he wept.

Ewan lowered the bloodstaff by his feet. He tore a strip from his shirt and gingerly pressed the cloth to his left hand. He gasped breathlessly, almost fainting. The surprise was just as sharp as the real physical sensation. He had thought himself invincible, immune to damage.

Apparently not.

His whole body shaking, he wrapped the cloth round the wound. But it was so hard doing it with one hand. “You,” he called to the nearby soldier. “Bind my hand. Now. And you, take a look at this boy. See if you can stop his bleeding.”

Glad to be given commands, the Athesians moved quickly. The second one slid past Ewan, his thigh accidentally rubbing against his fist. Tarry blackness stabbed at Ewan’s eyes, and he bit off a curse and tasted blood in his mouth.

“Fight him!” Tanid was shrieking.

“He’s dead, sir,” the soldier mumbled. “The boy’s gone.”

“My hand,” Ewan whimpered.

Tanid was crawling on all fours, pushing past Ewan and his shivering medic. He laid his divine hands on the bloodstaff. With a last drop of consciousness, Ewan noticed and pushed his foot hard against the crystal rod, burying it in the wet ground. He would not let the god use the rod.

He almost fainted again as the soldier tied a clumsy knot against his palm. It was a ridiculous tourniquet, but it would have to do. The cloth was turning red quickly. The pain was like a hot furnace, but Ewan was almost getting used to it. Swallowing back vomit, he shoved his right shoulder against the trench and slid up again.

Calemore was still firing the weapon against the camp. But it was not an incessant torrent of pellets, more of a calculated destruction, probably aimed at crippling Tanid’s most valuable assets. Pasha. Ludevit. Himself. Special Children.

A cart burst, slivers flying with an ululating, whirring noise. Pieces of wood landed all around Ewan. Soldiers of the realm were running away now, leaving the injured and dead behind. They still did not understand what was happening, but they knew they had to get away as quickly as they could.

I am vulnerable to this thing, like anyone else
, Ewan thought, feeling human again. It was such a strange, perverse elation. He tried to see a pattern in the mayhem, to try to figure out where the witch might be firing from. But it was so hard to tell. Those pellets could be coming from a mile away.