A Trial of Sparks & Kindling (Fall of the Mantle Book 2) Page 19

  A candle lit in the darkest place of his soul, where hope used to live. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  A different kind of high, more sustainable. Wholesome. What he wouldn’t give to have Cara in his arms instead of Nita. He choked on a breath. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s get to work.”

  Ghedi and Greg arrived, and Nita instructed them to dispose of the corpse.

  Nathan cleaned wounds and replaced dressings, while Nita examined her rot patient.

  She frowned. “Nathan, check this out, would you?”

  He crossed to her side. “Hmm?”

  “Is it just me, or…”

  Nathan examined the boy. His colour was better, fever under control. No sweat, no swelling, no necrosis. True, he hadn’t exhibited signs of swelling or necrosis the day prior, but still. As the rot cycle progressed, the symptoms should have manifested by now. “He looks much better.”

  Nita’s eyes twinkled. “I want to go back to the infected area. Maybe some of the others look better, too.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Nita gave Greg instructions for the patients they left behind, before they boarded the caravan with their escort of guards and left the outpost. They drove past the trenches to the west, to where the area was without protection.

  The caravan’s wheels dug deep into the ground, squelched mud. Bumps under wheels weren’t caused by rocks—here the earth feasted on corpses. Surgical masks did nothing to combat the reek of decaying flesh. From the trenches, the sounds of war followed them, tugging like children unwilling to be forgotten. Shells whistled as they flew in arcs, boomed as they exploded, then debris drummed where it fell, a strange, disjointed melody, for an eerie, frightening landscape.

  Here, the colours of both armies mashed into brown and grey.

  One of the soldiers from the outpost, a man with a nose too long for his face, took a packet of slim cigarettes from his pocket. He looked Ghedi up and down as he slipped one out and lit it. “So, tribesman, whatcha think about the emperor’s brat taking over the family business? Rumour is you were the salamander’s second.”

  Ghedi stared out the front of the caravan. “I don’t have an opinion.”

  “But you was his friend, right? Best friend.”

  Ghedi turned to look at the soldier with a statue-smooth expression. “I was.”

  Interesting. One day, Nathan would ask Ghedi about that.

  The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “Now here’s a titbit for you.” He blew smoke into Ghedi’s face. “The watchers saw you yesterday, walking into no-man’s all by your lonesome.”

  “So?” Ghedi’s tone darkened.

  “So, he says you met up with one of them. A bloody Desolator. And that you looked all cosy-like, talking about who knows what, while the rest of us are dying. And by all looks you’re s’posed to be curled up in the king’s arse.” He took a drag of the cigarette. “What you gotta say about that?”

  “I say”—Ghedi grabbed the packet and patted out a cigarette—“take it up with the king. See what he has to say. Light me up.” He stuck the cigarette under his lip.

  The soldier chuckled, then struck a match. “No harm in asking, eh? So maybe the king sentcha to gather some information, doesn’t change the fact that you owe me one.”

  Ghedi met Nathan’s gaze, raised his eyebrows, then looked away.

  Maybe Nathan had been right, and there had been more to that note. Maybe all the time spent among spies had gifted him a sense about these things.

  The wall around the village of Artagnon was no more than a collection of sharpened and strung-together poles, but it served its purpose. Healthy people inside the village; everyone else outside. Rot patients were scattered around the wall, without shelter or anything to keep them warm.

  The smell hit Nathan first, worse than the trenches, but so like that slum-reek, it almost transported him back to Aelland. The insistent drone of the Mantle didn’t exist out here, though clouds of flies buzzed a close simulation.

  Crows and magpies circled above and uttered their stretched-out caaaws to a tempo only they could hear, while rats and scavengers skittered about, over the bodies, under them, inside them, and back into the shrubbery a few metres away. Here and there, furry grey or black bodies lay among the people, split open by sharp beaks.

  Ghedi raised a pistol and shot two rounds straight up. The carrion animals scattered away from the vicinity. Not too far; they remained just on the perimeter.

  Nathan followed Nita between the patients. The ground sucked at their feet, unwilling to let them go forward. Each step was a small battle. The mud was heavy, frigid, and pushed halfway up his calves. Thank the Creator for his knee-high boots, otherwise the mud would be inside his shoes. No wonder the soldiers had trench foot, with the frosty, sodden sludge in their socks for days on end.

  The earth quivered and sent tingling vibrations up his legs. The whistle and booms of shells at impact grew louder, too close, and the faint scent of smoke mingled with the foetid stench of sickness and bloating corpses to create a new odour, sinister and toxic.

  Many of the patients were ice-cold and still, frozen to death during the night. The physicians worked fast, attending only those patients who still moved. There was no time to linger. Of those who’d survived, only one seemed to have improved, a woman in the early stages of infection.

  Could it be? Had Nita finally crafted a cure for rot?

  Nathan glanced at her. “Same thing you gave the kid at the outpost?”

  “Yes, but I also gave it to those two.” She pointed at a man and a child to the right. The child was dead, and the man moaned in pain, lymph glands straining under his jaw. “I think time’s a factor. That the medicine will only work if administered in the early stages.”

  “It would make sense. The tissue only starts dying around about the third day or so.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “We have to test—”

  A loud bang sounded to their left, and mud and debris pelted down on them. Everything reeked of sulphur, and the edges of Nathan’s vision pulsed in red. A hum filled his ears.

  Nita’s mouth moved, but the hum drowned her voice. She grabbed Nathan’s arm, and they ran towards the caravan. The sludge sucked them in deeper now, broke their speed, but need drove them.

  Ghedi sprinted ahead of them motioning wildly for the caravan driver to start the engine. The wheels rolled a moment later, slow enough that they could catch up.

  The ground shook, and more mud rained on them. Nathan blinked and blinked, but granules of dust scratched his eyes, and a film of dirt blinded him. His shirt stuck to his skin in icy patches, unaffected by his body heat. Salamander’s spit, how close was the enemy? He cleared the mud out of his eyes with his palms, and almost stumbled over a rock. Or something else, but best not think of that.

  Nita kept him mobile, half-dragging him to the moving caravan. She shoved him through the door, then jumped in behind him and shut the door with a yank of the handle.

  Behind, another shell fell, and the floor of the caravan shuddered. The sound came to Nathan; dull, thick, as though heard underwater. Debris and body parts landed on the canvas roof, then slid down the side in slow motion, trailing blood.

  His gorge rose, but he swallowed it. How many of those rot patients would be blasted to shreds where they lay? Some of them would have died, but he and Nita could have saved a few of them. Could have made their last few days comfortable. Relatively so, anyway, in the open and cold.

  The caravan sped away.

  Nita leaned close. “Can you hear again?”

  Nathan nodded.

  “Don’t say anything about the cure.” Her voice was a breath. “Frank doesn’t need to know.”

  He nodded again. It would be foolish to tell Frank. A cure in his hands wouldn’t be a way to save thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people. No, he’d exploit the cure, as he exploited the people in his life. Another weapon in his war. A way to secure funds from his allies,
while forcing those who opposed him into submission. Besides, how long would Nita live if she gave Frank the recipe to craft the cure? But what if Ghedi had seen? Would he tell Frank?

  The cannon fire dimmed then stopped.

  They reached the outpost, where Greg and Faible shouted at each other by the firepit.

  Nita strode over and stopped between them, placing a hand on each of their chests. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Your apprentice thinks he can order me around.” Faible spat as he spoke.

  Greg drew a breath then rolled his neck and shoulders like Pointy always did. “I didn’t bloody order him. I asked him to help me refill the container of water. It’s too heavy to do alone.”

  “A decent request, I think,” Ghedi said as he approached.

  Faible groaned. “We don’t refill the water, we put it out when it bloody rains and catch what falls. We don’t have any water to refill the boiling thing with!”

  “So why didn’t you just say so?” Greg puffed out his chest and stepped around Nita to glare down at Faible, who turned a brighter shade of red.

  “If you’re too stupid to know you’re supposed to put out the damn container, how am I supposed to help you?”

  Greg laughed, then punched Faible on the jaw.

  Faible replied in kind.

  “Shit!” One of the soldiers on the wall aimed and fired her crossbow west, in the direction of Artagnon.

  A high-pitched whistling sound gained volume with every passing second. Some of the other archers joined her.

  Nathan’s lungs deflated. “You have to stop! The enemy is outside.”

  Nita tried to pull the two apart, but to no avail.

  Boom. The ground quivered, and a plume of dark grey smoke grew outside the wall. The second whistle called for attention.

  Everyone stopped.

  A shell landed with a bang in the corner of the closest tower, and shards of wood and metal scattered through the air. A third whistle ripped through the sky, and boom, another shell smashed through the tower. This shell took a soldier with it, limp, arms and legs flailing. He landed between them, filled with shrapnel, already dead.

  For a heartbeat, nobody moved.

  A rush of activity spread between the soldiers.

  Crossbows twanged from the walkways on the walls, and shouts echoed outside. Arches of flames trailed smoke through the dreary sky, but not all the crossbowmen set their bolts alight. Faible and some of the other soldiers scattered in different directions to arm themselves. Ghedi shoved Greg out of the way as another shell raced over the wall. Whistle, boom, whistle, boom, drumming of debris.

  Nita ran to the infirmary, and Nathan followed. What else could he do?

  He hovered just above his body. This was not happening. Not again. His breath was too loud, too quick, and everything around him was bright, so defined he could almost feel the particles split and make way for shells. Everything itched, his skin, his innards, even his teeth.

  Ashes, would he die without even having said goodbye to Cara?

  The next two shells bashed through the wall as though it were made of paper, exploded, then flung shrapnel at the nearby soldiers. Another shell flew higher and faster over the wall, to land between a group of soldiers running towards the hole in the wall. Two soldiers soared on impact, and many others clutched at body parts newly infused with metal. Bone cracked as one body landed near Nathan.

  He went to help the man, but Nita grabbed Nathan’s arm and yanked him along for the second time.

  “Caravan!” Her eyes were wild, her palm sweaty.

  They reached the caravan just as enemy soldiers poured through the gap in the wall, shooting everyone in range with pistols or crossbows like the ones Frank used. The one Ghedi was training Nathan to use.

  Some of them carried torches and tried to set the towers alight, but with the constant rain, the wood was too wet, and just smoked.

  Ghedi careened closer, dragging Greg and one of the soldiers who had come with them from Collinefort.

  Nathan helped Greg and the other soldier into the caravan, then followed Nita in.

  Many of the outpost soldiers were already dead. Faible dropped mid-roar as a Desolator woman shot him in the head.

  Everything reeked of smoke and gunpowder and blood. The fields and sky turned red, brown, and grey. Thunder cracked overhead, or maybe it was another cannon barrage, while one of the towers finally caught flame.

  The caravan raced away at full speed. A bolt ripped through its side and exited through the roof. A heartbeat later, another bolt lodged in the back of the skull of the soldier Nathan had helped board. Blood trickled down his spine, and he fell backwards. The bolt snapped on impact.

  Nathan doubled over and cradled his head in his crossed arms. All this death, all this destruction. Did life mean nothing to them? No. All they saw was their side versus the other side. Not the people caught in the destruction. Not the families torn apart.

  Pistols continued to pop, the world a mess of fire and uprooted earth. Soldiers fell as they fled. What a waste. Faible had been right—they would all die.

  Nita closed her eyes, shoulders slumped. “The king isn’t going to be happy.”

  “Leave him to me,” Ghedi said.

  Nathan slammed back into his own body with such force his mouth filled with vomit. He swallowed it back but couldn’t stop the tears that dripped down his chin. He clenched his jaw. Just one damn shot, but that opportunity was lost. Forgotten back at the outpost, to be decimated or used by the enemy. He should have used it when he’d had the chance.

  Chapter 24

  Pointy gestured at the tweezers and small scissors on the table between him and Marcell. “You want to tug on the suture, so it lifts away from the skin, then snip the thread, and pull out the remains of the thread with the tweezer. Simple.”

  Marcell clutched the tools, then lowered his trembling hands to the wound on Pointy’s thigh. His brow furrowed, and the tip of his tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth as he picked up the first suture and pinched a bit of skin.

  Pointy winced. “Gently, if you don’t mind too much.”

  “Sorry.” Marcell pulled back his hand, then reached forwards again, sweat beading on his upper lip with his second attempt.

  “Better. Now cut it.”

  “All right.” Marcell’s hand shook so much that he dropped the scissors on the floor.

  “Where is your concentration today, boy?”

  “You try being calm when half the bloody resistance is looking for you.” Marcell’s voice shrilled, and his nostrils quivered. “And I’ve never bloody done this before, all right?”

  So melodramatic, but then, most teenagers his age came with a good supply of melodrama. “Half the resistance, is it?” Pointy said.

  “Fine, I’ll admit more of them are after you than after me.”

  They’d probably already forgotten about one boy with all the commotion around Collinefort. Not only had Pointy’s duo of corpses been pulled out of their dank grave, but a third corpse Pointy knew nothing about had been discovered in the castle. Shortly after the uncovering of the mystery body, a dagger had been found engraved with the letters DP, and of course, Pointy was the prime suspect in yet another murder investigation. Goodie.

  Additionally, Carabelle had been out of her suite for the first time since her arrival.

  Marcell sighed and shook his head.

  People always commented on how much Marcell looked like Pointy, but that was only because Marcell’s mother, Angeline, was the sibling who resembled Pointy most. Louis didn’t look like any of them, while Pointy and Eugene shared many traits, but Pointy and Angeline could have been twins. In moments like these, when Marcell was most anxious, he was the spitting image of his mother.

  She’d box Pointy’s ears if he didn’t do something to raise the boy’s morale. And as the family psychologist, Angeline knew all Pointy’s secrets, and thus how to make him feel gut-wrenchingly guilty. Sisters got away with
that kind of thing.

  “We all have to start somewhere, Marcell,” Pointy said. “This isn’t that difficult, as you’ll see in a moment. First, I’ll help you calm down. Take a breath, hold it, roll your neck.”

  Marcell did as instructed.

  “Good. Shoulders. That’s it. Arms. Now, go on.”

  The redness drained from Marcell’s cheeks. “Sorry.”

  Pointy grinned. “It’s not that big a problem. So, they think you were in the passages. It wasn’t you, and they won’t find you here. Sure, I would very much like to know who they almost caught in those passages, but we’ll find out eventually.”

  Marcell clamped his lips together and retrieved the scissors from the floor.

  Pointy demonstrated how to remove the first suture, then Marcell continued with the rest.

  He leaned back on his elbows on the bed.

  The tent was comfortable, quite a bit warmer than his room in the castle. The small coal oven in the corner didn’t look like much, but certainly did its part to ward off the spring chill. The bed didn’t creak as the one in the castle had, and Dvaran food had grown on him. Their daily stews were hearty, and the ale was all right, but he couldn’t fathom why these people drank coffee when tea was so much better.

  Varda still had no idea that Pointy, and now Marcell, lived among her people. Vendla had elected to keep their presence from her daughter. The relationship between Vendla and Varda was strained, likely because the two were equally obstinate. Besides the gothi, Olaf—strange, smoke-reeking fellow—and Sven, who had become Pointy’s drinking partner, few Dvarans knew where Pointy had been hiding for more than a week.

  Marcell sighed twice more, the second time long and loud enough to mimic a groan. With his changing voice, he could either squeak or vibrate in baritone.

  Pointy cocked his head. “What’s the matter, boy?”

  “I miss Aelland,” Marcell said. “I miss having a network that works. I miss family dinner, Madeleine’s jokes, Mom’s embarrassing hugs, and Grandmama’s pudding. Hell, I even miss those glares Tatienne gives me when I’m not doing what she wants me to be doing.”

  Pointy swallowed laughter. “And you miss the queen.”