Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  “Douglas,” he said throatily, “I can’t.”

  With no carillon and no rhythmic tide of students, the silence of the cloister was eerie. “Walk with me,” Douglas said, and took Stevens’s elbow, heading for the far exit. “I need this from you,” he said quietly, keeping touch on Stevens’s arm. “You’re the only officer who knows the ground well enough.”

  “Digging wounded out of the mud? Sir—”

  “It’s just as well if you delegate that part.” Douglas knew what was distressing him. “Do one stage at a time. Take the unit to the farm. Help P Company reconnoiter back—”

  “I’ll still hear—” Stevens broke off; his steps grew heavy, and after a moment he resumed in a whisper. “I’m up against it, Douglas. I can barely hold it together here. To go out there…you think you’re not asking much, but it’s a bare impossibility.”

  “Just because it’s impossible doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Douglas said, and Stevens stopped abruptly to stare at him. In the silence Douglas realized how nonsensical that had to have sounded.

  “Fuck you, sir,” Stevens said finally.

  Douglas felt a smile crack his face for the first time in days. “I am much obliged for your counsel, Captain.”

  Stevens scowled hard, trying to ward off a smile in return. Douglas took him by the shoulders and looked up into his face. There was no putting Stevens up against a wall like he’d done to Corda, and fortunately it wasn’t what was called for.

  “It has to be done, brother. Count yourself out half an hour to get the unit to the farm. Make sure they know the ground. Leave the unit there and bring back one of theirs to serve as a post. Count yourself another half hour to get back to me. I’ll put you on comms when you get back here, and you can direct the operation from here.”

  Stevens blinked at him silently, eyes wet.

  “One half hour at a time,” Douglas repeated. “Can you throw yourself to that?”

  As he watched, Stevens drew a deep breath and nodded.

  “Good.” Stevens would only pay for it later if they made it to later.

  Douglas slapped his shoulder, and they parted without another word.

  ~*~

  Beaton was already shouting as he scrambled up over the slippery rock. “No joy, Captain. I’m not small enough to get into the cleft.”

  “Damn,” said Ansett. “Could you see the detonator port?”

  “Aye, ma’am. It’s all intact, more’s the pity.” He helped them unclip his harness and stepped out of the rig.

  “We have to get that mine out of there,” Speir said. “A scudder could strafe it any moment and set it off. Give me the rig.”

  “They’re banking for another run,” Ansett said, calmly.

  “And call over to Deadheight Rock and have them cover me.”

  “You’re not going down there by yourself, Captain—it’ll take at least two to drag it out. I’m coming with you.”

  In the end they added two heavier men to the line for ballast, and one by one they tugged their rigs tight and rappelled down the cliff face. On the bare rock, they were unprotected from the wind; Speir’s hood tore back and the cold rain soaked her hair in an instant. She turned her face close to the runnelling-wet stone and blinked her lashes clear. “Deadheight has the message,” came the call as they started down. “They’ll cov—” The shout was lost in a roar from above as the scudder flight came round. One faltered, flipped, and wheeled down the cliff face; Speir glanced down once as the report from the Deadheight gun rolled belatedly toward them. Down and down the Berenian craft tumbled: Speir turned her head upward again, before it could hit the rocks below. There was nothing but a slippery black cord and a team of soldiers between her and that fall. She shook off the thoughts; her wet hair threw drops in all directions.

  She felt it when Field-Commander Ansett found purchase below her and secured the line; Speir and the soldiers above paid out more line to join her. Her boots touched rock, felt the familiar throb of the gun at the top—by the pattern, they were covering Deadheight in their turn, but there was no time to glance across, no time to look for scudders. Either they would be safe or they wouldn’t.

  Still secured to the line, Speir wedged herself forward into the cleft foothold by handhold. There was the mine as Beaton had said, the reinforced chain that linked it to its mate taut with the dud mate dangling below them. “Don’t step on the chain,” Speir shouted back. “It might trigger the sensor.” She paid out more line to get closer in: her shoulders brushed the rock. She could reach the detonator port; she could reach the release switch for the metal barbs that kept the mine anchored in the rock. “Disable the detonator first,” she said to herself, as if this were a weapons systems lesson. “Then retract the barbs. —Field-Commander!”

  Ansett pressed carefully forward. “I’m going to disable the detonator,” Speir told her, “and you be ready to retract the barbs. With any luck, the weight of the other mine will pull this out of the rock and we can help it over the edge.”

  “Aye, Captain.” They shared a dirt-streaked half-grin.

  Which was interrupted immediately by a shout behind them: “‘Ware scudders!” In the same instant, they were shaken by roaring light as they huddled into the cleft. Not a direct hit, she thought, but crumbles of wet rock showered over them and when she looked up, one of her men was gone from view. The other was straining to hold the dead weight of his rig.

  “Get him up!” Speir shouted above the heavy ringing in her ears. “Ansett, help him.”

  “Captain—” Field-Commander Ansett touched her shoulder, and then Speir saw: the detonator’s lights had come up in concentric rings, and were clicking out slowly, rank by rank.

  ~*~

  The edge of the storm was moving in when Stevens returned, one of his own cadets and a lieutenant from P Company in tow. He gave them each a precious com handset and orders to reach and hold their prearranged post between the farm and Ryswyck campus. Then he shook the rain out of his hair and sat down at one of the comm desks in Barklay’s outer office. Douglas could see that he had locked himself into his task, so it would not do to distract him. “Thank you, Captain,” was all he said. “What’s to report?”

  “Mine parties have been out, sir,” Stevens said. “They’ve got two stretches cleared. Amity must have the enemy’s scudders fully occupied, because they haven’t been interrupted. Captain’s sending out rescue parties now in their wake.”

  Almost at once, Stevens’s com chimed. “We’re trying to give priority to our own,” came the report, “but we’re finding a fair few enemy infantry still alive with toxic shrapnel wounds. And a lot more dead and soon to be so.”

  “What do Berenians do with their dead?” Stevens said to Douglas, in an undertone. He had gone white again, but was still steady.

  “They bury them,” Douglas answered.

  “We can’t do that here.” The water table was too high, except where it was rock.

  “No. Tell the captain to pull the dead to higher ground before the storm comes in. Have someone take down their IDs and send the record to Central, and then, if the storm permits, burn them properly. Bring the ashes here and we’ll put them in Ryswyck garden.”

  Stevens relayed the order. The silence between the relay and the reply was fraught.

  “And the injured?” came the query.

  “Bring them here,” Douglas said. “Bring them all.”

  ~*~

  “Unclip me,” Speir ordered Ansett. And when she hesitated, “Do it!”

  Ansett hit the release on Speir’s line; and then the release on her own. “Barbs,” Speir said, and they reached as one to snap the toggles on the barb retractors on either side. The detonator’s lights wound down steadily; they had seconds to pull it free. “Heave!” With an almighty tug, their combined strength got the mine halfway out, but the weight of its dud mate, they saw, would do nothing more than pull it into another crevice. Without slowing her momentum, Speir wrenched at the mine to lift it—Anse
tt added her weight—and it was over the side and clear.

  And so were they. “Captain!” shouted the soldier behind, letting go of his fallen comrade to lunge for her. Her wet hood slipped through his grasp, scarcely slowing her plunge downward.

  She was falling, falling with the rain into the depths. Below her Field-Commander Ansett’s silhouette darkened to black as white fire bloomed beneath. The concussion shook the air, and heat rushed upward. And with the heat a roar so loud it became a silence that overtook her.

  ~*~

  “Let me see them,” du Rau said.

  “There’s not much to see,” Barklay answered, still frowning through the vertical louvres. “No markings on the hovers or the ground-treaders. No patches on anyone’s shoulders. The guns are pointed at the entrance.”

  Du Rau started to make an impatient retort, but was forestalled by the appearance of one of Barklay’s men in the doorway. “Sir.”

  “Lieutenant, report,” Barklay said calmly, without turning around.

  “They want us to lay down arms, sir. And get facedown on the ground so they can occupy the building.”

  “Has anyone answered them?”

  A single rifle shot struck somewhere in the near distance, followed by silence. “Never mind,” Barklay said, “I can see that we have. Very good. Don’t say anything. Everyone to the ground floor and hold position. Those are your standing orders till further notice.”

  “Aye, sir,” the lieutenant said, and ducked out.

  Du Rau abandoned his previous argument. “What about Ingrid?” he demanded.

  Barklay didn’t answer at first; he drew a pair of field glasses from his breast pocket and tilted his head to squint through them together. “They are quite deliberately anonymous,” he said finally. “I think we will need your interpretation after all, Lord Bernhelm.”

  He set the field glasses on the window’s narrow ledge, between two louvres, and turned back to du Rau. He approached circumspectly, drawing his combat knife, and after making half a circle around du Rau’s chair, reached in carefully and cut the bonds on his wrists one by one. At once Barklay backed neatly out of range, but du Rau did not stir. “Answer my question, Barklay. Where is she?”

  Followed by du Rau’s eyes, Barklay sheathed the combat knife and moved round behind his chair. He felt Barklay grip the back of it. “If you would be so good as to stand,” he said, “I can draw the chair up out of the restraints.” After a second of silence, he added, “I’ll answer you when you’re on your feet.”

  Du Rau breathed in and then out. He rose, slowly to be sure that his knees wouldn’t give, and felt the chair’s legs slide up and away from him. The ankle bonds drooped stiffly around his sock feet; catwise, he flicked them off, and then turned around. In response to his raised eyebrow, Barklay pointed at the field glasses. A prolonged glare, du Rau knew, would not be effective, so he gathered up his fraying patience and peered through the louvres with the field glasses.

  Barklay was right, the forces arrayed against the building were unmarked. But they didn’t need to be marked; he knew whose they were. “They’re palace security,” he told Barklay, “supplemented, I suspect, with some equipment from the Estuary Guard.”

  “And are they for you or against you?” Barklay said, shrewdly, at his shoulder just out of reach.

  “I don’t know,” du Rau said. Barklay answered only with a grunt.

  One man stepped out from the anonymous row of soldiers in protective gear, cocked back his helmet, and scanned the façade of the building with narrowed eyes. His gaze did not catch at their window or anywhere else, but that didn’t mean anything: Reynard Travers never gave anything away by looks. “Who has you, Reynard?” du Rau murmured.

  Barklay was paying attention. “Not us,” he said comfortably. “We had to dose him. Lost two agents over him; he wouldn’t turn.”

  “But he is here and the army isn’t,” du Rau said. “Whoever called off the army is the one in control here.”

  Barklay said: “Perhaps Lady Ingrid sent them.”

  Slowly, du Rau put down the field glasses and turned to Barklay with a hard stare. “What?”

  “Lady Ingrid,” Barklay repeated. “I took the liberty of returning her to Bernhelm ahead of this little rendezvous.”

  The sheer stupidity of it stole his breath. “You did what?”

  “Returned her to Bernhelm Palace, three days ago. Captain Ahrens was to drive her back and then make for the escape point, but that will have been a long shot.”

  You are a fool. Instead of saying it, du Rau lurched toward Barklay, with deadly intent. But days lashed to a chair had sapped his strength, and Barklay was ready for him. Du Rau found himself yanked forward neatly and pinned against the wall, cheek mashed against the cold concrete, with his left arm bent back and his wrist urged up toward his shoulder blades. There was a silence while du Rau caught his breath. “I am going to kill you,” he said calmly.

  “You needn’t promise twice,” Barklay said. “And as for Lady Ingrid, I preferred to avoid exactly this sort of hostage situation with her.”

  “So instead you took her back to Bernhelm Palace and dropped her off to deal with a nest of court vipers by herself. How commendable.”

  “I didn’t have many good options,” Barklay admitted.

  “Not if you’re committed to pretending you’re doing the right thing.”

  “A point to you, du Rau,” said Barklay. “Now tell me: what’s the percentage that your death is an acceptable outcome to those people out there?”

  “You can work that out on your own. And what does it matter? You’ve as good as killed me; you’ve as good as killed Ingrid. Thanks to you, the region will destabilize, we’ll lose our sovereignty, and thousands will die.”

  “As opposed to just thousands of Ilonians dying. I take you. Giving up so easily, my comrade?”

  Barklay’d said it just to bait him, but “I am not your comrade,” du Rau said anyway.

  “You are for the next ten minutes.” In sudden decision, Barklay dragged him back, arm still pinned, to the window, where the distant figure that was Reynard Travers was shouting at the entrance. So far he was getting only defiant silence in reply. “What happens if I send you out there by yourself?”

  It took all du Rau’s discipline not to stiffen in resistance. The percentage was in his favor, but like hell was he going to pad out there half-bearded and barefoot with his hands in the air. “I don’t recommend it,” he said flatly.

  “Why not? I see no heavy ordnance out there. I suppose there could be some on the other side of the building, but I think not. They’re not going to send us all up in a fireball. This is a delicate operation. They want you back, du Rau.”

  Yes, but to what purpose? Du Rau ground his teeth.

  “The question is whether they know I want you alive. If they don’t, this is going to take longer. But I’ll bet they do. Lady Ingrid is clever; she’ll have worked it out. And the longer this takes, the more impatient your army will get at being kept out of it.”

  Du Rau felt himself relax, even before the situation opened itself out to his mind. Barklay knew the percentage was not good enough for his team to make a show of threat to du Rau and win passage to their escape point. He wanted them to go out shooting, to avoid captivity at all costs. He’d have a freer hand for that if du Rau was not in the building. Du Rau’s arm was twisted behind him, but it was he who held the advantage. And Barklay knew it.

  “Mm,” Barklay breathed in his ear, “you haven’t given up. Good. Very well, I won’t send you out so the grownups can play their adult games. At least not yet.”

  So Barklay was going to watch for signs that the percentage was better than their estimate. And if it was, he would probably pretend to threaten du Rau in hopes of getting his team out of harm’s way.

  Du Rau could play along with that and take them hostage in turn. But he knew that despite the exit strategy, Barklay expected neither rescue nor survival. They had come here to put Bern
helm in disarray; they had done that, so all that remained was to get du Rau home in one piece.

  “No one’s coming to fetch you,” he said to Barklay, watching the palace guardsmen prepare to raise their rifles. “Once I establish my authority over these men, I can do whatever I like to you. And Central Command won’t raise a breath of protest. Will they.”

  “Indeed,” Barklay said softly; “and neither will I. Only let my soldiers go, and you can have me at once.”

  The room was still and quiet. There was no need to speak above a murmur. “You know me better than that, Thaddeys.”

  “Yes. I know you. Let them go, or trade them, or kill them clean—”

  “You yourself have made that impossible,” du Rau said, biting back his anger. “Have you any idea how much ground I’ve lost?”

  “Well, it can’t be that much, if you’ve got Reynard Travers elbowing the army out of the way to come and get you. If I have your word, I’ll let you walk me out of here at knifepoint. That’d help you with your ground, wouldn’t it?”

  “You don’t care about that,” said du Rau. “You just want me clear of this building.”

  “Well, yes, I do want that,” Barklay said, with the serious amusement that always put du Rau’s teeth on edge. “But I want a lot of things. I want that summer back, at Corva Crewe. I want the sun on my glass of wine again, when we talked of honor and maistrie, of having brothers across the strait.”

  “You never did grow up, did you?” Du Rau was having trouble keeping his breath even; Barklay’s soft words were filling him with a helpless rage.

  “I myself have made that impossible,” Barklay said. “But you can keep clear of the pit. Let my soldiers go.”

  “Do you think I care anything about your—” Somewhere below there was a sudden sound like falling masonry, and the palace guardsmen outside put their helmets down and began to fire. The Verlakers returned fire at once, and the quiet exploded.