Chapter Seventeen
Christian saw the City in the Desert long before they reached it.
It didn't look like a city. It looked like a graveyard for giants.
Tall, stone spikes, the size of mountains, poked from the earth. They were pierced with thousands of holes, and they were worn and crumbled by time, but still they stood tall against the dark sky. They made him feel small, and as fragile as a glass .
They'd have a hard journey ahead of them. The ground was cracked and carved with chasms from the earthquake.
Christian tugged his borrowed headdress tighter around his head shouldered his pack. It felt much lighter than it had at the start of their journey. Miriet dozed atop it, but even she didn't add much to the weight. He wasn't sure if that was because he'd grown stronger, or because they'd used up their supplies.
He followed the rest of the caravan towards the City, though his heart shrank within him.
It took longer than he'd thought. The chasms were deep and hard to cross. Heat haze made the city look, first closer, and then farther away. He followed the rest of the group, ignoring the heat and the sand that burrowed into his clothes and his shoes and every crevice of his flesh.
They were getting nearer to their goal. That was all he could ask for.
"Ashai," the caravan leader called.
“This way,” that meant. Christian had picked up a few words of Dhareg-enough to follow the caravan without trouble but not enough to carry on a conversation. He followed the caravan south, towards the spires in the distance.
Hours later, as the sun sank in the sky, he was standing in the shadows of the ruined city.
This close, he could see tiny shards of glass that littered the ground. They'd once been part of windows, he realized, blue and green and gold, but now they were like the stones beneath his feet. Some of the buildings had toppled, leaving broken pieces behind them. Others stood like teeth in a half-rotted mouth. An eerie wind whistled through holes in the walls.
This is a place of death, he thought. They shouldn't have come here.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, he repeated, in his mind. It took the edge off his fear, but did no more.
He made himself remember that he was a sinner. God would not protect him, not here.
"Keep up, Christian..." Daniel said. He called to the others in Dhareg.
"What did he..." Christian began.
Miriet stirred.
"He said to keep an eye out for survivors," she mumbled.
"How did you understand that?" he asked.
"I speak everything, all right?" she said, voice filled with drowsy annoyance. "It's the babelfish."
"What in Saint Gottschalk's name is a babelfish?”
"Translator program. Let me sleep..." she groaned.
Christian shrugged and continued through the City.
He began to see signs of the devastation the earthquake had wrought, around them. Broken tentpoles, ruined garlands, and smaller, undecipherable things littered the ground. Huge piles of rubble from the tombstone-like buildings made it hard to walk-you had to climb on all fours, like an animal.
Christian thought he heard a low voice, coming from the rubble.
"Shaih!"
"Hello?" he called back.
The voice cried out again, though he didn't understand. He hurried towards it, pack bouncing on his back.
"Shaih! Alsuta mnembi?"It was the voice of a young girl, and she sounded like she was in pain.
"I'm coming!" Christian shouted. He gripped the hilt of his sword as he ran.
"Xe says xe's hurt." Miriet sat up, gripping Christian's hair for support. Her claws felt like knives. "This way-"
She leaped from his shoulder and scurried towards one of the huge, ruined buildings. It was dark inside. The building beside it had crumbled, leaving huge piles of rubble over the windows and the door. Christian no more wanted to go inside than he wanted to jump from its tallest spire.
Miriet slipped through a fist-sized gap in the ruins, and into the building. Christian heard a brief conversation in a language he couldn't understand. He cursed his ignorance, once again.
"Christian!" Miriet shouted. "This girl's hurt."
"Tell her that I'll save her!"
He rushed to shove the pile of broken stone away. There were tiny pieces of rock and dust that he could brush aside easily, but many pieces were larger, and one piece was the size of a strong man's torso.
Christian struggled to push it aside.
"Miriet!" he shouted. "Go get Daniel or Sara."
"Okay-" She crawled through another gap, and bolted off.
Christian strained at the boulder and managed to move it aside a few inches. His muscles ached. The other rocks looked like a burden he couldn't bear.
He heard the girl crying. Dammit... He'd promised to protect women and children. At the price of his own life, even. And this girl, she needed help...
Christian stopped to breathe, leaning against the wall. He could hear her crying through the gap, still, but she sounded weak.
He bent and shoveled the rocks aside. Finally, he managed to get a gap big enough that he could fit his head through.
He saw her before she saw him. She was a scared little waif, maybe six or seven years old, with sand-colored skin and hair.
"You!" he called. He knew she wouldn't understand him, but he wanted to get her attention.
Her head turned towards him.
"I'm here to help," he said. He shoved more of the dirt aside. "Come here."
She didn't seem to understand. He motioned towards her, but she shook her head. Her eyes were wide, and she seemed frightened.
"Come here, girl!" Christian realized he was snapping at her, and softened his voice. "Please?"
The girl shook her head again, and whimpered. Her leg was pinned beneath a pillar from the fallen building.
"All right." He pushed more stone out of the way, and stretched out his arm, but he couldn't reach her. His muscles burned.
"I'll come to you, then." He'd made a hole big enough to crawl through. Every movement he made was slow; his entire body was aching. He crawled towards the girl, reaching towards her.
She curled in on herself. This close to her, he could see that her leg was bleeding badly, and a shard of white bone pierced her skin. She was trapped.
Christian couldn't lift the pillar on his own... could he?... but he had to get it off of her. He strained at it, every muscle burning in protest.
The girl screamed. Damn, he was only hurting her more. Christian looked for something, anything, he could use to help her.
A long, wooden beam stuck out of the ruins. He wrenched it out, and hurried back to her.
She was slumped over the pillar, now, curled in on herself. The blood was dry on her leg. Her hair hid her face.
Christian prayed she wasn't unconscious, or worse....
Don't.
He concentrated on getting the board beneath the pillar, without hurting her.
He heard it creak, and then snap. The board had broken.
“God damn it-”
He ran back, grabbing another board. This time, he managed to get it back under the pillar, safely. He sighed with relief.
He used the beam as a lever, pushing the pillar up, and off of the girl. It was still a strain, but he managed, with God's grace, to do it. She was no longer trapped.
Christian, ignoring the protestations of his tired body, picked her up.
"It's all right," he said, in the most soothing tone he could manage. He knew she wouldn't understand his words, but he hoped to comfort her. "You're all right."
Her face was chalk-white, and her eyes were glazed. She was breathing, but she didn't seem to hear him.
Christian's grip around her tightened. Dammit... she was hurt badly. He'd have to get her to a healer, soon. In the meantime, he'd have to trust to God's protection.
"Hold on, girl," he murmured. "I'll keep you safe
."
He began to walk, carrying her.
Christian heard Sara's voice, coming from a little ways away. "Is that all of them?"
"Almost." Daniel sounded tired, and shaken. "Most of my clan's alive... they weren't in the City when the quake hit... but a few of the children are still missing."
There was a brief pause, and when Sara spoke again, her voice was gentle.
"Was your cousin..." she began, and then stopped.
"No. She's still..." Daniel's voice shook. "Christian's gone too."
Christian saw them and limped towards them. Daniel turned at the slight noise, and his face lit up.
"Sorha!" he called, and ran towards them.
A quick conversation followed. Christian couldn't follow the thread of their words, since they were speaking Dhareg. He stood to the side, by Sara, feeling out of place.
Daniel looked up at him.
"....Sir Knight, thank you. You've saved my cousin."
The words were like a knife in Christian's gut, though he did his best to hide it. He'd saved Daniel's cousin, true, but he couldn't save Linna.
Yet, he reminded himself. He couldn't save her yet. They'd find the Solari, wherever their ship had sailed to, and he'd rescue everyone.
"It was my duty," he said. His arms felt as though they'd buckle at any moment.
Daniel took his sister from Christian's arms, and started, carefully, walking. He began to head south, towards where the caravan had stopped.
Christian sank onto a long piece of stone, taking a deep breath. He ached to the very bone. His arms were covered in long, thin scratches, probably from moving the stone, and a gash across the back of the arm dripped blood to his knees. He was worn in body and spirit.
He cradled his arm and tried to stop his head spinning. He almost didn't notice Sara sitting beside him.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
He tried to hide his injured arm. He wasn't going to show weakness, not in front of her.
"...No."
Sara snorted. "Christian, you're bleeding."
She opened a small pouch on her belt, and began to pull things from it-a handkerchief, a long strip of linen that looked like it had been torn for rags, a needle and thread, and a brown bottle, about the size of Christian's thumb.
"Hold still," she told him.
There was something about her voice that made him want to do as he was told. Her expression reminded him of his old governess, a tight-lipped, stern lady whose word, in the nursery, was law.
She threaded the needle deftly-of course she would, that was women's work-and dipped it into the brown bottle.
"This will hurt," she said, coolly.
Christian gritted his teeth. The needle pierced his skin, and it seemed to burn. Of course she'd put alcohol on it, to clean the wound, but...
He was not going to show weakness. He wasn't.
"Why wouldn't you let me help you, Christian?" Sara said, as she sewed his flesh together. It hurt like the devil. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to look at it. Somehow that would just make it worse.
"Honor demands it," he ground out through clenched teeth.
"Honor." She laughed, though it had a bitter edge to it. "Christian, this isn't honor, this is foolishness."
"I can care for myself." His muscles twitched as she jabbed the needle into his flesh.
Sara knotted the thread, drawing the wound closed tightly. Christian's arm stiffened, and relaxed, as the pain faded.
"It's fine that I'm helping you. After all, I'm your betrothed." Her voice was cold. Christian wondered what he'd said to make her so upset.
"It's not that." He tried to soothe her.
"Then what is it?" she asked. She poured some of the alcohol onto the handkerchief. Her jaw was set into a hard line.
"...You're too much like a man." Christian couldn't look her in the eyes as he said it. He felt foolish.
He wasn't expecting Sara to laugh, even if it was cold, bitter laughter.
"I'm flattered," she said. It was obviously sarcasm.
"...What did I say?" Christian frowned, gritting his teeth as she pressed the cloth to his arm. He knew why she did it-he'd seen a soldier once with gangrene, whose skin had turned green and black and rotten-and he didn't want to share his fate. It still felt like she was putting liquid fire to his wounds.
"You see me as a man, don't you." She scrubbed at his skin, much more roughly, he thought, than she needed to.
"Well... you're Samuel, aren't you?" he asked, sheepishly.
"I'm Sara." He felt her nails dig into his skin. "Captain Sara Verdenlace."
"But-" he began.
"Christian..." Sara's eyes bored into him. "I'm a woman. Stop being a fool."
"You don't act like a woman..." he mumbled.
"What the hell is a woman supposed to act like?!" She crumpled the cloth in a clenched fist.
"Like... like my sister." Christian pulled his arm away from her, hooking his thumb in his sword belt. His face burned almost as much as his arm did.
Sara laughed that barking laughter again, and threw the cloth at his face. He ducked, but it still hit him head-on.
"Have you ever talked to a woman?" she said.
"My sister..." Christian began.
"I don't mean ordering her around. I mean talking to her. There's a difference, Arundel."
She stalked away, leaving Christian alone and bemused.
Daniel approached, a while later, and called his name.
Christian looked up. "What?"
"They asked me to lead you back to the camp," he said. "And I came to thank you again."
"Thank me?" Christian stood. He'd regained some of his strength, but he still felt as weak as a fly.
"You saved Sorha." Daniel smiled at him, and offered him an arm, to help him up. "She's going to be fine, praise the gods."
Christian didn't take it. He managed to walk on his own, though the world seemed to pitch and roll around him like the deck of a ship.
"Well, I'm glad to help," he said, carefully. It was a knight's duty to help women in distress. That had been what he was trying to do, and nothing more.
"Of course. Which is why...”
Daniel picked at the rope around his staff.
“I'm going with you."
"What?" Christian froze.
“You told me about your quest. ...It's noble. And I want to repay you for what you've done.”
Christian let his hand rest on his swordbelt.
“I can't let you do that,” he said.
“Why not?”
"It's going to be extremely dangerous. Worse than Jihrat," he said.
“...And that's a reason to go alone?” Daniel frowned. “I can take care of myself, Christian.”
“It's not that.” He took a deep breath. “I have a duty to my family. But you have a duty to yours, as well.”
“...I don't.” Daniel looked at him for a long, long moment. Christian thought his gaze was as cold as a spear's point.
“You don't have a duty to your family?”
“...It's not that. I mean. I do have a duty.” Daniel adjusted his headscarf. “...But that's not why I do the things I do for them.”
“Then why do you?” Christian felt a sick lump brewing in his gut.
“Because I care about them.”
Daniel fidgeted with his cuffs.
“And... I care about what you're doing. Saving people, that's... important.”
“It's important to me. Why do you care?”
Christian's guard was up. He couldn't deny, there was something suspicious about this boy, almost demanding that Christian accept his help with nothing in return. What kind of favors would he want in exchange?
“Because... I care about you.”
Christian frowned, at this, but said nothing.
“...There's a reason I asked you to meet my parents, Christian. I'd like to get to know you better.”
It dawned on Christian what he meant. His eyes widened with horr
or.
“Are you trying to... to court me?”
“Well... yes. I thought you knew.” Daniel picked at his cuffs again. “...Not to marry you or anything like that. I'd just like to get to know you and spend time with you.”
He sounded nervous. Christian's mouth opened, and closed, and opened again. What could you say to something so … so...
So wrong, and yet, so...
His breath caught in his throat.
“Daniel, I'm... going to have to think about this,” he said, slowly. “I didn't realize what you were asking before when I agreed, and, well.”
“...It's fine.” Daniel gave him a weak smile. “...Just tell me before you leave, all right?”
“All right.” Christian left, his heart in his mouth. What was he going to do?
It was a sin. He tried to remind himself of that. It was a sin to accept his offer, it was a sin to do any of the things his mind kept conjuring up like colored pictures on a screen. His face felt as hot as the depths of hell.
But he wanted to accept Daniel's offer. A friend, he thought, would be a nice thing to have. He supposed one could count Miriet and Mercadier both, but Miriet was confusing at the best of times, and Mercadier was, well, Mercadier. Someone who he could talk with, man-to-man, that would be...
He was so occupied with his own thoughts that he nearly tripped over Miriet.
“Christian! Watch where you're going.” She tsked.
“I'm sorry, I was... lost in thought.”
“You're covered in stitches. What happened?” Miriet climbed up his leg, trying to reach his shoulder.
“...I tried to save a girl from the ruins.” Christian frowned. “I mean. I did save her. I just.”
“Oh.” Miriet tilted her head to one side. “You got yourself scratched up?”
Christian nodded.
“I'm fine. Sara helped me.”
Miriet snorted again. “By sewing you? Your planet really has regressed.”
Christian had nothing to say to that. He continued to walk, lost in thought.
“What's eating you, Chris?” Miriet asked.
“What's...?”
“You look like you've got something on your mind. Care to tell?”
Christian swallowed, hard, and tried to sum up the situation for her. He told her about what Daniel had asked him to do, he told her why he was scared to do it, and he even told her that he was scared it was going to get in the way of their mission.
The Court Of Stars (The Commonwealth Quartet Book 1) Page 16
