This time Dallin let the growl out, kicked his heels into his horse’s barrel, and jogged her farther ahead—just enough that he could no longer hear the conversation or Wil’s barbed responses to it that had very little to do with the subject matter and everything to do with scoring points on Dallin. Bloody hell, it had been a dream, for pity’s sake. Dallin’s dream, to be precise, and he had every right to keep the details to himself if he so chose. And with this one, he so chose.
He knows your purpose. And yet he gives you his trust. He was weaned on betrayal—would you cage him now?
Even if he wanted to, how was Dallin supposed to tell Wil something like that? It would only lead to more questions Dallin couldn’t answer, which would no doubt lead to more arguments he couldn’t win, so it was best to ignore it and hope Wil’s anger dulled with whatever distance they could manage between them. Hopefully temporary distance.
I think I’d like to have you by the river.
Right. That really didn’t help.
Though, considering the chill in Wil’s voice and eyes….
Dallin sighed.
Perhaps it was too much to hope that a “temporary distance” would be enough to make the promise feel a bit more realistic. He’d be lucky to get Wil to look him in the eye again, let alone—
This time, the sigh was somewhat gloomy and pathetic.
Perhaps it was because it had to do with dreams. They were important to Wil—what they meant, how often they came, what the seeming-chaos of them might imply. Wil had lived in them for most of his life, after all. It probably shouldn’t come as any sort of revelation that he took them seriously. Later, when Dallin was feeling more generous about it, he’d likely find some guilt with which to whack himself.
Perhaps Wil was regretting his pledge of trust, changing his mind. It wouldn’t really surprise Dallin. Wil changed his mind like a fickle mink changed mates. Which, all right, generally worked out in Dallin’s favor, since Wil usually ended up agreeing to do things Dallin’s way—after making Dallin walk through bloody fire first, and then roll around in it for a while if Wil was being particularly difficult to convince—but this time was apparently different, and it wasn’t even Dallin’s bloody fault. And while trust was nice, Dallin could work around distrust if he had to.
Who was he fooling? Trust was more than nice—it was essential, and Dallin didn’t want to work around anything. He just wished like hell he could depend on it when the time came. Because the time was fast approaching.
Shaking it off, Dallin peered over his shoulder, slowed his mare to allow the others to almost catch up, and tried to think about something else.
The curved stave of the crossbow, wedged between the saddle and the bedroll one of the Weardas had dredged up from somewhere unspecified, dug into Dallin’s hip a bit, and he allowed a small smile. Just the image of Wil charging through the stables, lunging for the thing and snatching it from out that lad’s hands…. It caused a reaction that wasn’t conducive to a comfortable seat in the saddle, so Dallin tried to push that thought away too.
Except now that his mind was on weapons, it willfully wandered back to Wil’s pleased expression when Dallin had handed him back the rifle. In the midst of giving Dallin the cold shoulder or no, Wil hadn’t quite been able to conceal the brightness in his eyes when Dallin had handed the gun over, though Wil had tried very hard not to let Dallin see it. Dallin still wasn’t completely certain there wouldn’t be cause to regret it later, handing over explosives to a man who sometimes couldn’t help setting things on fire, but he had to admit it felt damned good to have carbon and powder within reach now, instead of just the sword and knife he’d been carrying since they’d reached the caves. Of course, he’d have to continue to restrain himself from aiming one of the guns at a Calder—the uncle more than the nephew, but still—but at least they’d been relatively pleasant on the ride thus far.
He knew why he’d asked Shaw along. He wasn’t so sure why he’d allowed Calder to insert himself. Hedging all his bets, Dallin supposed. If he was going to drag Wil to the Bounds with him—and Dallin couldn’t seem to let Wil out of his sight just now—and without the protection of the Old Ones, having Calder there was likely the safest alternative, if not the best. At least Calder used to be an Old One. Dallin had pushed another draft on Wil before they’d mounted up and left camp—had taken another himself, in fact, which Dallin suspected was the only thing that had kept Wil from throwing it at him—but the balance wouldn’t hold forever. Balancing and channeling and keeping things at bay would only last for so long, and the drafts were going to be rather useless all too soon. Another few days, if they were lucky. Sooner, if Dallin was overestimating his own contributions.
Hunter was another story altogether, but Dallin hadn’t decided which sort yet. Honest and forthright, surely, and he’d taken to Wil quickly, and Wil had taken to him. Still, Hunter was so very much of Lind that Dallin had decided to keep his reservations. And Hunter was a Calder, after all. In his defense, it didn’t seem to take away from his determination to do right by the Aisling, so Dallin decided to keep an open mind. For now.
Anyway, with what Dallin knew to be skulking…. Well. It was best to have a few more guns about. And Shaw ought to prove somewhat useful once Wheeler showed up. Since Dallin had twigged to Shaw’s little secret just outside of Chester, he’d been hoping Shaw would see fit to spill it himself eventually, though “eventually” didn’t seem to be coming quickly enough.
Dallin eyed his little group, noting Shaw’s posture in the saddle—the straightness of his spine, the jut of his chin—and how he was as attentive to his surroundings as Hunter was, eyes narrow and watchful. Certainly not the carriage of a man who’d spent his life praying in temples and hunched over sacred writ.
There was a touch of regret in Dallin’s sigh. At least Shaw wouldn’t be able to say Dallin hadn’t tried for tact.
“…all along the border,” Calder was telling Wil, sweeping his arm expansively along the river’s southeasterly course. “It defines our Bounds. Lind sits between the Flównysse and Ríocht, but once you cross the Bounds to the east, the river is all that stands between Cynewísan and the Dominion. Besides the mountains to the west, of course. Some places, it’s only a matter of stretching one’s legs and hopping across. Others, you’d need a boat or a raft and a damned skilled river driver.”
Wil had been swiveling his gaze continuously, taking in the riverscape and everything surrounding it while listening to Calder with avid interest, that curiosity Dallin had noted on the first day of their journey resurfacing and shining out from Wil like a torch in the darkness. Now Wil frowned, a touch of worry.
“But I see no guards. Shouldn’t—?”
“And you will not,” Calder answered. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Since—” He shot a glance at Dallin, then back again to Wil. “The Weardas were increased just after your Guardian was lost. Men and women too old then and now too young, but they are ever-vigilant. You need not worry about its like again.”
At least not for another day or two, Dallin thought, but he kept his mouth clamped.
Calder had said the entirety of it without ever once mentioning the words “raid” or “attack,” implying but not saying that the sentries should be those of Dallin’s generation but weren’t because there were none. Nonetheless, by the way Wil dipped his head and went silent, Dallin assumed he’d heard it. Shaw saw it too, cutting his glance between the three of them, likely bracing for an argument Dallin didn’t feel like pursuing. Dallin didn’t suppose he could blame Calder for the sudden subdued quiet—it wasn’t as though Dallin could expect anyone here to never mention the raid, since it was an historical fact, and one that had a damned significant impact on this place—but he’d like to.
“It’s quite lovely in the spring,” Dallin put in to the silence. He pulled up a small smile when Wil dragged his eyes from the reins twisting fretfully through his fingers. A peace offering. I don’t want to fight with you,
not now. “It’s very subdued now”—Dallin gestured at the lazy flow of the water, burbling quietly now they’d left the falls and rapids behind them—“even with the recent rains, but when the thaw comes down from the mountains, it… it comes alive.”
That wasn’t quite right, but Wil seemed to understand what Dallin meant, because he smiled. A small concession.
“All of this,” Dallin went on, heartened, indicating with a wave of his hand the soft, sloping swath of strand they were following along the river’s edge, “it’s all under water in the spring and most of the summer.” He motioned past the trees that separated them from the rich farmland to the north. “Now and then it floods the valley, which is why you’ll see lots of farm and grazing land but not very many permanent dwellings. Most who farm this land build only huts and the like, and only live here during season, so if the river breaks her bonds, they’ve not lost much more than some farming equipment and the few days it takes to build a dwelling. Not to mention the harvest, of course, but that’s a different problem. Anyway, they move back to their homes on higher ground in the colder months.”
Dallin looked away before frowning, abruptly uncomfortable. There he went again, remembering things he hadn’t known he’d forgotten. Still, it did the job—Calder picked up the thread and turned the conversation toward agriculture and trade, and away from the violence of twenty-some years ago. Wil went agreeably along, asking questions and peering around himself with real interest.
Dallin figured it was safe to allow himself to disregard the buzz of conversation once more. A semiwelcome distraction from where his thoughts mainly dwelt these days, but a distraction nonetheless, and he couldn’t really afford too many of them anymore. Wil saw too much, knew too much, things he really shouldn’t know, and there were some things Dallin didn’t want Wil to see. What was coming, where it had to go. Unfair, certainly—perhaps even treacherous, if looked at from a certain perspective, and perhaps that was what the damned dreams were about—but Wil couldn’t be allowed to see it, not yet, not until they were knee-deep inside it and there was no other choice.
The problem, Dallin thought, the real problem, the problem that superseded all problems in the scope of what was to come, was that Wil had stopped choosing himself. Somehow—sometime around when Dallin had got a knife in the back, he thought—Wil’s razor edge had dulled, lost its bite. The badger was still there, teeth sharp and eyes wary, but not quite as vicious as it had been.
…that the Father had taught him too well in the ways of dreams, but not enough in the ways of men’s hearts.
It had been bothering Dallin for some time now. Distrust was something Wil had learned, not something that was a part of him, and so trust came perhaps too easily when his back wasn’t to the wall. What had it taken for Wil to trust Dallin, after all? Nothing but for the treatment Dallin would have given to any prisoner, with the exception of the fact that he hadn’t shackled Wil. Dallin had merely fed him, sheltered him, spoken to him like he was an actual person—something he rather thought Wil hadn’t got a lot of in the years previous—and protected him because, at least then, when it had all started, it had been Dallin’s job as a constable.
I think you’re the only person in the world I do trust.
And what had Dallin really done to earn that trust? And was the claim of exclusivity even true anymore? Wil trusted Shaw, albeit marginally. He was suspicious of Calder but accepted his presence a lot more readily than Dallin did or could. He’d spent the morning with Hunter, in the middle of a crowd armed and wielding knives, and he’d turned his back without thought on every one of them. And while watching Wil laugh and smile and have some actual fun had just about burst Dallin’s chest with warmth, a cold tendril of unease had slithered beneath it.
Any one of them could just walk up behind him and cut his throat, Dallin had thought as he’d watched, and he’d never see it coming. He’s not even watching for it.
The badger had been asleep on the job, and it worried Dallin. He wondered with no small amount of apprehension what might have happened if the Old Ones had sat there this morning and informed Wil that yes, he was on trial and had been found lacking. Would the teeth have come out then? Would he have fought for himself? Or would he have agreed with them, turned to Dallin and asked him what he thought, and then accepted his judgment?
What if they told Wil it was either him or Dallin? Wil had failed to run when Calder showed up in that alley. He’d failed again to run when Síofra’s voice had echoed outside Chester’s stables, and he’d failed to stay gone, to keep himself out of danger, when Dallin had finally forced him away. Three times now, Wil had chosen Dallin—perhaps not in a conscious way, perhaps not deliberately putting another before himself, but three times Wil had risked everything because he somehow trusted Dallin, cared about him, cared what happened to him—and while it almost made Dallin’s knees weak, it also scared the shit out of him.
He chooses you, the Father had told him. I would have you see to it that he continues to choose himself as well.
A sentiment Dallin shared. Except how was he supposed to do it?
You have more than one calling. Guardian.
Unfortunately, Dallin was rather terrified that he knew what the other was.
You’ll do what’s right, Wil had told him, even if it means I don’t live through it. I know that.
Would I?
Dallin honestly didn’t know. And that, more than anything else, was a terrifying bit of reality he didn’t want to see.
Where are You? Either of You? And why have You left me to figure this by myself? I couldn’t get away from You before if I’d tried, and now—
Not true. Easier to believe, perhaps, but not true. She was here, at least, whispering to Dallin through the land itself—he could hear it, he could feel it—telling him things he didn’t want to know, showing him things he didn’t want to see, and he wondered how much of it Wil had let himself hear or know. Not much, judging by the easy way Wil had spoken to Dallin, touched him, looked at him. Real caring. Real affection. Real worry.
Fuck me, what have I done?
And the dreams… surely that was His handiwork. If Dallin ever saw Him again, he’d have to fill Him in on the fact that lack of sleep was not conducive to a sharp mind or an ability to cull strategy from chaos.
Fuck, he was tired.
He’d almost hoped Wil would hear it all in the songs of the falls. Almost hoped Wil would reach out, test his strength against the rush of the water, but he’d been content to merely look and enjoy and listen as Dallin had spun a tale about two little boys he hadn’t even remembered before it had come out his mouth and hardly remembered now.
Do you put everything away like that? Do you bury everything that hurts?
Dallin rubbed at his eyes.
No. I live it until I can’t anymore, let it gnaw at me until it hasn’t got any teeth left, and by then it doesn’t matter because I’ve bled everything I had anyway. But this….
This, Dallin would bury. This… he had no choice. Wheeler and his regiment weren’t all that was coming. The Brethren skulked all around them, Dallin could feel every last one of them, out there and biding their time, waiting for it too. Something bigger was on its way, something that held the keys to Wil’s cage and would close him inside it, so that all either of them would be able to do was wait for it to come, helplessly watch it send Wil outside himself, take everything he was, and make it… not his anymore.
Caught and caged.
Wil seemed to think there could be nothing worse. Dallin now knew otherwise.
Not on Dallin’s watch. Not even if Wil ended up hating him for it and cursed his name forever after because of what Dallin was pretty sure he was going to have to do to prevent it.
Have you ever loved? She’d asked, knowing the answer before Dallin did. Knowing even then what She was going to ask of him, demand of him. Had Dallin even faced the truth of it before Marden had opened his big mouth and spilled Dallin’s heart all over th
e cave’s floor to be picked over and examined by three old men who probably didn’t even remember what the word meant?
It was a sorry thing that the mere remembrance of it could color Dallin’s cheeks. Fucking sentiment. It really was going to be the end of him one day. Damn them all.
It was the defeat—that was it.
None of it matters now.
…I’m beginning to think all of this has been a waste of time.
Anger crowded in Dallin’s chest at Wil’s remembered words, and he clenched his teeth.
I don’t even think I care anymore, but you… I’ll ask you not to make it… hurt.
They’d been heartfelt and sincere, and worse—recurring. The idea of facing down a monster frightened Wil, surely, but he’d accepted it without any real question, as though he’d been expecting it and expecting not to live through it. Surrendering himself to it all, when Dallin had never seen Wil surrender to anything—not shackles, not a cell, not even reality. The man fought everything, so why wasn’t he fighting this?
You have heard the call. Now you must heed it.
I would have you see to it that he continues to choose himself as well.
So would Dallin. Even if it meant—
“…said we’d camp by it tonight, right?”
Dallin blinked, startled, and turned to Wil, who’d pulled Miri even and had been riding beside Dallin for… who the hell knew how long.
“Um?”
“Did you hear a word I said?” Wil’s tone was impatient, but his eyes were touched by uncertainty, suspicion buried but not very deeply. “You haven’t been listening at all, have you?” He tilted his head. “Is there something I should know?”
And if that wasn’t a loaded question.
What are you keeping from me?
Doubt. A precursor to more anger, perhaps. Not that Dallin could consider the argument of this morning closed, he supposed. There’d been a silent truce a few moments ago but not a declaration of the end of hostilities by any means.
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