The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) (44 page)

He left. They heard him exchange words with Isay and Corrary at the door before it closed behind him.

The afternoon wore on, and a tiredness crept over the company. At last, noting their nodding heads, Phrynius led them upstairs. His house was surprisingly spacious, and there was a room there that would serve to sleep them all. The company spread their bedrolls on the dusty floor and lay listening to the mice scuttling inside the walls as evening drew in and the sounds from the city outside lessened. They lit a brazier and sat dozing around it.

‘An old house, this,’ said Bicker quietly to the gathering dusk and the scratching mice. ‘It is an old city. There was a tower on the height by the curve of the river before ever a Rorim was raised up in the Dales of the south, and the people lived by travelling on the Great River before the forests that once covered the whole land had been cleared.’

‘There was magic in the forests, then,’ Phrynius said, startling them, for they had not heard him enter the room. ‘There were marvels in the deep woods, people who lived by leaf and tree and never saw a sky that was not covered by branches. But now only remnants of the Great Woods remain, and what was once hidden there has fled.’

‘Scarall Wood is one remnant,’ Bicker murmured, but Phrynius seemed not to hear.

‘There are those who say that the magic began there, in the trees, running up from their roots, coursing out of the earth itself. And there are those who say the Dwarves discovered it in the ground, and mined it as one would a vein of silver. But whatever tale is true, it is from the land itself—from the earth and the stones and the trees of Minginish—that magic comes. Folk have chosen to forget that, and to persecute those who remember it. But I do not forget.’ His pipe billowed blue smoke that spun around the ruddy light of the brazier, and his face was as lined as a walnut in the dimness. Riven wondered how old he was.

‘I remember a time when the whole of the world was afloat with wizards and witches, as they are named now. They were, and are, ordinary folk with a gift, no more, and they were as much a part of the land as the Myrcans, and as necessary. The Dwarves lived lower down the mountains then, in their mansions, and they held fairs to which all and sundry came to trade and gawk. But with the clearances, that passed away. People ceased believing, or were afraid to, and the Dwarves withdrew to the high ranges and the deepest of their mines. And so the world became a poorer place.’

There was the sound of the laughter of revellers somewhere off in the streets. A dog barked, then became involved in a running battle with another. They snarled away into the night, leaving it peaceful.

‘The city is very quiet tonight,’ Phrynius said, and his head was cocked like a fox sniffing the air.

Riven threw aside his bedroll and stood up. He ignored the inquiring glances and shuffled out of the room, stirring dust in his wake. He felt it tickle his throat, but stifled the cough that threatened. Somehow he felt an unspoken need to make no noise, as if this were the last moment of peace he would know for a long time. He seemed heavy with mortality as he opened the other door on the landing and entered the room where Madra and Mereth were sleeping.

Two forms lying on the two narrow beds, a leaded window throwing faint starlight on to their faces. He sat on the creaking bed next to Madra and watched the slow rise and fall of her breasts under the blanket. An arm, white as ivory, lay folded across her stomach. Her hair was a dark hood that had fallen back from her face.

She breathed softly, the bandage collaring her, the tiny scar pale at one cheekbone where a Myrcan stave had knocked her down as she fought for Riven’s life. He touched it, then brushed the velvet of her lips, her eyelids, one earlobe where the hair revealed it. And he knew that he had come to love that heart-shaped face, the stubborn brows, the level eyes, and the smile that was so grave and rare.

How many miles to Babylon?

Ah, Riven, be not bitter. You have loved and been loved. That’s enough for anyone.

Enough for most lifetimes.

The tears broke his sight so that he was blind, the girl on the bed a blur in the darkened room.

Beggars would ride, if wishes were horses.

He stood up, leaving her behind, and made his way through the dust to the others.

T
HE NIGHT PASSED
slowly and the company lay awake after a while, wondering what was delaying Finnan.

‘He has probably found himself a girl and is even now trying to extricate himself from her clutches,’ Phrynius said, but by the vast volumes of smoke he was pumping out, they could see even he was worried.

They took turns at the front door, and Corrary had just relieved Ratagan when the sounds on the street reached them, and they tensed in the dim red light of the coals, their low talk frozen in midair.

Scuffling in the street, and the murmur of voices, the chink of metal. They did not move. Hands halted halfway to weapons. A slow riband of smoke curled up unnoticed from Phrynius’s pipe.

Then there was a crash from downstairs and a sudden bedlam of men shouting. Wood splintered under heavy blows, giving way to the clash of steel. Corrary’s voice carried up the stairs, shouting Bicker’s name.

The company leapt to their feet, weapons hissing free of scabbards. Phrynius hopped about like a goblin in the gloom. ‘Follow me! Follow me! We must go downstairs. There is a way out there, from the cellar!’ But they hardly heard him.

Ratagan and Riven dived out of the door on to the landing, meaning to fetch Madra and Mereth, but a tumult engulfed them as they piled through it. The landing was alive with men in armour, Hearthwares and Sellswords both, their feet skidding in the thick dust. Ratagan roared with rage and smashed into them like a battering ram, sending them thundering to the floorboards. One remained on his feet and his sword whistled down on the big man’s back, but Riven twisted out his own blade in time to deflect it. The shock ran up his arm, and the enemy sword careered off in a flurry of sparks to bury itself in the plaster of the wall.

Bicker and Isay tumbled out of the room behind them. The landing was a mess of bodies, prone and upright, with weapons flashing and men shouting, trying to tell friend from foe.

‘Alive!’ someone shrieked. ‘Take them alive!’

Ratagan was struggling to his feet, with armoured figures pounding him. Riven saw a sword pommel strike him in the temple and lay it open. More figures were running up the narrow stairs, with swords glinting in their hands. Some kicked down the other door on the landing and launched themselves inside. A girl screamed.

Something in Riven snapped. He bellowed and launched himself over Ratagan’s body, with Bicker and Isay in his wake. His sword swept in a short arc to cleave a man’s skull, then snicked back to clang off a breastplate. A mailed fist struck him on the ear and a high hissing filled his head, deafening him. He caught a glimpse of burly figures retreating down the stairs with struggling bodies thrown over their shoulders, saw Madra’s long hair cloaking a Sellsword’s back, and charged forward again with the taste of blood in his mouth and a mad anger fuelling his muscles.

An armoured torso brought him up short, and another shattering blow to the jaw felled him. The Hearthware reared over him with elation in his face for a moment, and then Isay’s staff had licked out like a snake, pounding him between the eyes, and he fell back into the arms of the others behind him. Isay propelled himself forward and landed bodily on the scrum of armoured men. They recoiled. One tumbled head over heels down the stairs, his armour digging chunks out of the frail walls. The Myrcan shortened his grip on the staff and punched it into faces. Bodies lay on the floor, but more of the enemy were powering on. They piled on to Isay and grasped his limbs, heedless of the savage blows he dealt out. He staggered as they weighed him down, a scream of pure frustration and rage coming from his throat, and then fell with half a dozen men clinging to him and sword hilts coming down in flurries upon his head. A last effort sent one Hearthware flying free of the tangle to smash into Riven. The man’s metal-clad weight crushed him to the floor, constricting his ribs. His heartbeat was a red yammer in his head. He saw Bicker lunging forward, his blade like a glittering needle, and old Luib battling away indomitably. But then there was a splintering of glass, and more Hearthwares were dropping on to the landing through the window behind. Riven tried to cry out; but he could not muster the breath in his chest to make a sound, and he watched helplessly as Luib was struck from behind and went down like a felled tree. Bicker spun and sent a fountain of blood flying from one of the new attackers, but he was alone and from two sides the enemy rushed him, standing on their comrades’ bodies as they came. A foot stamped Riven’s head, mashing his face into the wooden floor and for a while he could not see or hear, but could only feel the vibrations and blows of the fight in the wood underneath him. But eventually that, too, faded. The last thing he saw clearly was the face of the Sellsword who came last up the stairs. He was grinning widely, showing the gap between his front teeth, and his black hair fell in a curly mass over his forehead. He began kicking Ratagan’s unconscious face with glee.

FIFTEEN

T
HE BLOOD WAS
pounding in his head, hot as lava, heavy as lead. He could feel it trying to throb its way out of his temples. It washed across his shut eyes in waves of light and dark. A dry groan scraped out of his parched throat.

Slowly he became aware of other things. The painful stretching of his arms and constriction of his chest. The bright, bone-grating agony in his wrists. The nerveless weight of his legs pulling him floorwards.

Dull curiosity grew in him. He tried to open his eyes, but they seemed gummed shut. There was light beyond his eyelids, flickering torchlight—so they had not blinded him, at least. His fingers twitched, and there was the chink of metal. The manacles at his wrists shifted slightly, digging deep into lacerated flesh, and he almost cried out.

But the pain helped. It pushed the throbbing of his head away, poured light into his darkening mind. He concentrated on moving his legs. The tingle of returning circulation pricked at him and he gritted his teeth, but that sent agony shooting through his jaw. For a moment, as his mind swam, he was at Beechfield again, and there were iron rods holding his face together. But he had beaten that pain, also. A hard school he had been to, but a good one.

He found his feet. Immediately his arms came down and the tearing pressure of the manacles eased. Air poured into his chest, and he leaned against the wall at his back, sucking it in, eating it up.

Not done yet, by God.

He had sufficient slack in his wrist chains to bring a hand to his face. He felt his eyes, the stickiness there, and then in one swift flick tore open the stuck eyelid.

When the pain had eased, he did the same for the other blood-glued eye.

He was in a dim stone room, ten feet square. Opposite him was an iron door, shiny with moisture. There was straw at his feet and water ran down the walls. The light came from a single clear-burning torch set in a wall hook to his right. The room was entirely silent.

A dungeon. A real-life dungeon. Terrific.

He was alone.

Not a sound. No jangling of keys, no piteous cries, no cackling jailers.

And a terrifying thought struck him.

They’ve left me to die here.

Ratagan, Bicker: where were they? He saw Isay go down again, saw Madra carried off on a Sellsword’s shoulder. Where were they?

Panic fluttered at the edge of his mind, but he put it down ruthlessly.

Christ, I’m thirsty.

His dry tongue circled his split lips. He hadn’t been in such bad shape since—

He cursed aloud, his voice startling in the silence.

A rat scrabbled through the straw of the floor, chittering to itself. It sat up on its hind legs, looked at him for a moment and chittered some more.

‘Fuck off,’ he said moodily.

The rat darted away, and then disappeared in the corner. He saw there was the grating of a drain there, eighteen inches square, and if he quelled the shifting of his feet in the straw he could hear the faint sound of running water echoing; the only sound in or out of his cell. He began to wish the rat had stayed to chitter at him.