All at once, Giles began to thrash about, nearly unbalancing him. Exhausted, Mathew sunk to his knees, set the litter down as gently as he could, and staggered back. Giles's forehead felt hot to the touch, and he was shivering at the same time. He pulled Giles's cloak tighter around him and put snow on his face to cool him. Giles's lips were moving and he was mumbling something. Mathew bent close to listen but couldn't make any sense out of it.
It's just the fever talking, he told himself.
Slowly, Mathew pushed himself to his feet, steadied himself, and blinked to clear his vision. He knew this section of the woods. They were still at least two miles from the village. Maybe somebody'll come along to have a picnic and see us. The thought struck him as so funny, he started to laughing again.
A journey starts one foot at a time. That's what Bran had always told him, but his legs felt so heavy now. It would be nice just to sit down for a while and maybe sleep for a bit, but a part of his mind screamed that it would be fatal to them both. Mathew rubbed his eyes with the knuckles on the back of his hand and shook himself out of his reverie. He refocused on the road once more. When he bent down to pick up the litter, he gave a quick glance over his shoulder to check on Giles and noticed something shiny lying in the snow.
Frowning, Mathew went back to see what it was. He recognized the rose gold ring that Giles had won in the tournament, and bent down to pick it up. It was heavier than it looked.
Must have fallen while he was tossing about.
His own breeches had no pockets, and Giles was lying on his cloak, so he slipped the ring onto his finger for safekeeping. Almost immediately after he put it on he felt a tingling in his hand that ran all the way up his arm and then quickly disappeared. He blinked in surprise and shook his head.
I'll give it to him when he wakes up.
With a deep breath, he hoisted the litter again, leaned forward sharply, and took a step.
Push off with the right foot; now push off with the left.
Fencing and youth had given him strong legs, but each yard was a fight. His next target was a big oak tree about a hundred yards away. He drove his legs backward and started to close ground on his objective.
Only thirty yards to go now, he told himself. At least Giles is quiet. . . nice dress Lara was wearing at the dance . . . the others are probably worried by now . . .
A half hour later, using the last reserves of his strength, Mathew tugged the litter to the side of the road and sat down heavily beside it, leaning back against a tree. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, letting the sun warm his face.
"Just need to rest for a bit," he told Giles. Despite the morning chill, the sun felt wonderful. Perhaps a little sleep would be just what he needed.
Fifteen minutes later Mathew awoke with a start and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. They had to
keep moving. He felt light-headed, and it was difficult to keep his thoughts focused.
"We're not far from the village now," he said patting Giles's hand. "Westrey Bridge is just around the—"
His words froze in mid-sentence as Giles's arm swung to the ground. It took only a glance to tell him his friend was dead. Mathew stared at Giles's face for a moment, then sat down again, leaning wearily against the tree. He looked up through the branches at the sky. The clouds were no longer gray. They were broken and white, with promises of blue between them. Feelings of sadness, grief, and loss began to build so slowly, he was hardly aware of them at first, nor could he have separated one from another as the tears welled up in his eyes.
A short distance away, the stream bubbled noisily over rocks and forest birds called to each other, but he sat there, not hearing or seeing anything or knowing what to do—just letting the tears slowly roll down his face.
He had no idea how long he sat there. And in the days that followed, he could only dimly recall hearing the sounds of horses and of people shouting.
9
Alor Satar
Karas Duren sat back in his chair, listening to his son Armand go over the final plans for their invasion of Elgaria. Even with the Sibuyan forces hitting them from the north and Nyngary and Cincar attacking the center, Duren knew the south was still vulnerable. That was why he had contacted King Seth and agreed to employ fifteen thousand Vargoth mercenaries to help him. Armand had objected bitterly, claiming the Vargothans were loyal only to the highest bidder.
It was something that couldn't be helped.
King Seth sent him Abenard Danus, a seasoned soldier who possessed all the warmth of a cobra but whom he knew would get the job done.
Duren had met the man several times, and rather liked
him.
Danus was shrewd, intelligent, and utterly ruthless. At the moment, he lounged against the wall, sipping a glass of wine, nodding occasionally as Armand pointed out key passes and routes to him on a map spread across a large table in the middle of the room. The Sibuyan general, Oman Shek, and his Cincar counterpart, Naydim Kyat, stood on the other side of the table. After they took the city of Tyraine, Armand explained, Vargoth's soldiers would secure those passes in order to prevent reinforcements from getting in or out. Tyraine was the most important commercial shipping center in the West, and by closing it down, Elgaria's already shaky economy would
collapse in a matter of months. It was a good plan, meticulously thought out, down to the last detail.
Danus and Duren briefly made eye contact with one another, and Danus inclined his head respectfully in acknowledgment.
"Is there something on your mind, Commander?" Duren asked, interrupting his son.
Danus stuck his lower lip out and he slowly shook his head.
"But I sense there is," Duren said.
There was a pause before Danus answered. "We'll do the job we're paid for," he said. "But why do you want us to rename the city Octavium?"
"My wife's name. I thought she might enjoy having a city named after her."
Danus considered that for a moment and shrugged. "You've also told us to destroy anything that bears the name Elgaria on it, correct?"
"Correct."
"I can understand renaming cities. That sort of thing happens in a war. The winner's prerogative, you might say, but why go to all the trouble erasing the name Elgaria? It's a needless waste of time."
Oman Shek and Naydim Kyat looked up from the map to hear the answer.
"Because, my dear commander, when the war is over, I intend to eliminate all trace that Elgaria ever existed from the face of the world. No names ... no references... no whispers in the dark. Nothing."
Karas Duren and Abenard Danus held each other's gaze for a moment before a smile slowly spread across Danus's face and he lifted his glass in salute.
10
Devondale
When Mathew opened his eyes, he was lying in a bed in a room he didn't recognize. To his surprise, his friend Daniel was seated in a chair by a window tinkering with something, his slender features screwed up in concentration. The spectacles he wore were partway down his nose, and his hair was, as always, almost covering his eyes. Over the years, Mathew had come to associate that expression with Daniel's trying to think about four things at the same time. It took him a minute to look up from the glass lens he was carefully turning back and forth between his finger and thumb, and then he blinked in surprise.
"Mat?"
"I think so."
A grin creased his friend's face. "Welcome back."
"Where am I?"
"You're at Helen Stiles's house," Daniel replied, setting the lens down on the table next to him.
"What? How? I don't—"
Before he could answer, the door swung open and Helen walked in. When she saw him awake, her face lit up in a smile, just as Daniel's had. She was a pretty woman, in her late forties, with a plump figure and a pleasant round face.
"Well, there you are at last. I thought I heard talking in here," she said. "How are you feeling, Mathew?"
Mathew sat up on his elbow, looked down and noticed
he was wearing a white bed shirt. "How long have I been here?"
"Three days," Daniel answered, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
"Three days! How on earth did I get here?"
"We found you, just outside of town. You must have walked the whole way from Thad Layton's farm."
"We?" Mathew asked.
"One of the search parties, Mat," Daniel said. "I was in the second one with Lara on the South Road
when we heard the signal."
"Oh," Mathew said, as the memories began flooding back.
"I'm very sorry about your friend, dear. His family came for him from Gravenhage yesterday," Helen said softly.
"I. . . tried to—"
"Never mind that now—I'm sure you did everything you could. There'll be time enough to talk about all that later. Right now I'm going downstairs and fix you a bowl of soup and some warm bread. I expect your father will be here soon. He's been nearly beside himself with worry. The poor man's been walking back and forth from your farm twice a day."
Mathew looked at Daniel, who nodded in confirmation.
"I guess I'd better get dressed." Mathew said.
Helen became nearly apoplectic as Mathew started to rise, and immediately pushed him back down. "What you'd better do, young man, is stay right where you are," she said, waving an admonitory finger at him.
Helen wasn't a big woman, and he was surprised how little trouble she had restraining him.
"She's right, Mat. You've been pretty sick," Daniel said seriously.
Mathew gave him a sour look and eased back down into the bed. He did feel surprisingly weak.
"Hmph," Helen said with a nod of satisfaction, straightening a stray strand of blond hair that had fallen across her face. "You just stay where you are, Mathew Lewin. And don't even think about getting out of that bed. I'll be back in a few minutes with something to eat. And you," she said turning to Daniel. "Don't tire him out with a lot of your questions."
"Yes, ma'am," Daniel said.
"Oh, I'm glad to see you opened the window a bit," she said with an approving nod. "It was getting very stuffy in here."
"I didn't open the window," Daniel said. "It was open when I got here."
"It was?" She frowned and tilted her head, trying to recall whether she had actually opened it and then forgotten about it. From somewhere in the back of his mind, Mathew could vaguely remember having a dream about wanting to open a window because he was hot.
"Oh, well," Helen finally said with a small shrug. "By the way, that nightshirt you're wearing used to be Ben-den's favorite. I hope you like it. I'm afraid it may be a little short."
Mathew opened his mouth to answer, but she swept out of the door before he had the chance.
Daniel watched her go, shook his head, and turned back to Mathew. "How do you feel?" he asked.
"Tired."
Mathew rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow.
"It's no wonder. You've been out for three days. You were pretty sick too—with a fever and all—and you were talking out of your head."
Mathew rubbed his hands across his face and was surprised to find a thick stubble there.
"You need a shave too," Daniel added.
"Thank you," he said flatly. "Did anything happen in the village? Was anyone hurt?"
"Nothing really happened here at all. We lost five people, though, and Lieutenant Herne lost three of his soldiers. Most everyone got back the following morning.
You and Giles were still out, so a second search party went after you. Like Helen said, they found you not too far from the bridge. Thad Layton's dead, but I guess you know that; so's his wife and Ben Fenton—Garon and Lee too."
Daniel's face turned somber at the last part. "Helen said my father's all right? Before we got separated, I saw him fighting an Orlock."
"Your father's fine," Daniel answered. "He can take care of himself, except he's been worried to death over you. He only goes back to the farm to feed the cows, and then he comes right back here again. Something else happened that was odd, you probably don't know."
"What?"
"We didn't find any Orlock bodies."
"That's impossible," Mathew said. "I killed two myself, and I saw at least three of them go down. Lieutenant Herne's soldiers beheaded two of them not ten feet from where I was standing. I'm pretty sure they didn't just get up and walk away."
"I know," Daniel said, holding up his hand. "Your father told us that's the way Orlocks are. They don't bury their dead—they carry off the bodies and eat them."
The image sent a shudder up Mathew's back. He nodded slowly and looked out of the window. It was light outside, and he guessed it was probably late morning. He'd been in Helen's house before but never in this particular room. It was neat and small, but not objectionably so. Apart from the bed, there was a small dresser and a long rectangular table on the other side stacked with different colored sheets of leather piled on it.
"Mat?"
"Hmm?"
"Collin told us what happened. About how you went to warn Jerrel Rozon's group and the fire arrows and all."
"Right," Mathew said.
"Do you want to talk about what happened after?"
There was something odd about Daniel's tone that caused Mathew to look at him closely. He searched his friend's gray eyes for a clue but found nothing.
"After I got to the bottom of the hill, I used as many arrows as I could. I think I killed two of them and probably a third. I was trying to set another arrow when about twenty Orlocks came rushing out of the trees. One of them grabbed me, and we went over the embankment together. He landed on my sword and was dead when we hit. I spent the next hour following the stream back toward Devondale, to where I could finally climb out."
"Is that when you met Giles?"
Mathew nodded. "I walked right into the middle of three Orlocks, like a damn fool. If it wasn't for him, I'd have been their breakfast."
"What exactly happened?" Daniel leaned forward, his face suddenly intense.
Mathew frowned, but retold the rest of the story as faithfully as he could. When he finished, he said softly, "He saved my life, and I let him down. He's dead because of me."
Unable to go on, Mathew turned and looked out the window. Once again the feelings of guilt and his belief in his own failure surfaced in his mind.
Daniel leaned back in his chair and blew out a breath in exasperation. "Mathew, sometimes, I swear—"
"It was my fault," Mathew whispered, partly to himself.
Abruptly, Daniel was on his feet, looming over him, his face red. "If you weren't lying there, I swear I'd thump you myself. You have got to be the dumbest—"
"What?"
"You build a litter out of nothing, drag someone bigger than you almost five miles through a snowstorm, nearly die of a fever, and you think you 're responsible for Giles's death!"
"I should have gotten him back. I failed," Mathew repeated, shaking his head.
"Oh, for the love of heaven," Daniel said, flopping back into the chair again. "Do you have any idea what you were raving about when they found you?"
Mathew didn't reply.
"When they found you, you were saying 'I killed him' over and over again. That idiot Berke Ramsey was there with the search party. He went around telling everybody you murdered Giles. Don't you get it?"
"Murdered? I didn't murder him. What I meant was—"
"Oh, nobody believes you murdered anybody," Daniel said, waving his hand. "But I'm telling you you're going to have trouble with him. You mark me."
"But I thought Jerrel Rozon went back to Gravenhage with their team."
"He did," Daniel said, "but when they couldn't locate Giles or you, Berke and Evert Sindri and Giles's brother stayed behind to help with the search. They were in the first party with your father when they found you."
The point of Daniel's quest
ions suddenly became apparent. "And you weren't sure what happened. Is that why you asked me about it?"
He didn't know whether to be hurt, offended, or angry, but it was just like Daniel—always a skeptic. If you told him it got dark at night, he'd probably ask for proof.
"Look, Mat, we've known each other since we were children. I guess I know you just about as well as anybody, but... I don't know. I just wanted to hear you say it. I mean, you're wearing the ring he won at the tournament, and ... oh, heck, I'm sorry."
Mathew looked down at the gold ring on his finger. Until that moment, he hadn't given it a thought. "It fell out of his cloak," he explained. "I didn't have any pockets and didn't want to lose it, so I put it on to keep for him."
He was about to pull the odd-looking ring off his finger when a small knock at the door interrupted him.
"Mathew?" Lara called. "Is it okay to come in?"
"Sure," he answered, pulling the covers up higher.
The door opened a crack and Lara poked her head in. "Are you decent?"
"I am, but Daniel's not."
Lara opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again and gave him a sour look. "Well, I see you're feeling better," she said, entering the room. "Helen had me bring up this bowl of soup for you. Did I interrupt anything?"
"No. Daniel was just about to tell me what he was doing with that piece of glass he was polishing."
"What? Oh, sure," Daniel said. "I have this idea that if I can shape the glass just right, and put two pieces together in this tube here, a person could use it to see things far away, the same, as if they were up close." Daniel held up a thin brass tube about two feet in length to show them. "I had Lucas make it for me."
"Why would you want to see something far away, when you could just go and see it?" Lara asked.
"I mean really far away, like miles away. It would look like it's right in front of you. I think if you made the tube long enough, you could even look at the moon or the stars."
Mitchell Graham - [Fifth Ring 01] - The Fifth Ring (v1.0) Page 11
