Wing & Nien Page 16

  Reaching out, he touched Wing’s bare shoulders. They were cold, wet with sweat, and his breathing was rattled and disjointed. It pained Nien to hear it.

  “Brother,” Wing muttered.

  “Bleekla,” Nien swore. “Are you all right?”

  Wing gulped. “No.”

  “You were having a nightmare or something,” Nien said.

  Wing coughed again. “Or something.”

  “Want some water?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 17

  River Omen

  T he special unit of ten men from Quieness, led by Netalf of the Empress’s personal Guard, moved steadily along a rocky incline at the edge of a large canyon that dropped down to the Tu’Lon River and the great bay that flanked the Valley of Tou on the other side. The lead ship that had been sent out from Jada Post — a well-armed galley by the name of Tregal — still moved steadily up the river far below them.

  Netalf glanced up at the sky, then scanned the trail ahead. They never traveled beyond the length they had scouted beforehand, avoiding open areas and meadows as often as possible. Soon, Netalf knew, they would be able to see Tou Bay. He also knew that they would be able to see the bay before the galleys could.

  Breathing heavily, the members of the unit neared the summit of a sloping ridge at the top of the canyon.

  Netalf ordered the men to halt and wait — he would ascend alone and take the first look at the bay.

  Moving carefully, Netalf dropped to his belly and spider-crawled to the crest.

  The sight that met his eyes locked the breath in his body.

  More than twenty Ka’ull warships were berthed in the bay. All were active, some docked, most waiting for entrance into or exit out of the bay. Netalf glanced down at the river. The three ships from Jada Post were making headway with the Tregal a few furlongs in the lead.

  Turning, Netalf scrambled off the crest of the ridge before pushing himself to his feet and running back to the waiting unit of men.

  “The bay is full of Ka’ull war vessels,” Netalf announced. The men froze, some of their mouths gaping. Netalf began throwing off his travel gear. “I’m going to try and warn our ships on the river.”

  “We were not to engage!” — this from one of the Jada Post men.

  “I know,” Netalf said. “That’s why only I will go. The rest of you continue to observe until you are sure of…” Netalf paused. “The outcome. Word must reach SiQQiy.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Jerra, one of the men from the Quienan Seventh Granj.

  Netalf met his eyes. “I do not know if we will be able to reach the Tregal in time.”

  “We will try.”

  With Jerra just behind, Netalf turned and headed over the ridge. Time was against them. The canyon was the most direct route, but the descent would be treacherous. Only the urgency of their endeavor made the feat possible. Netalf knew that if he’d given it any thought his sense of self-preservation would have talked him out of it. But he had his duty. And he had his devotion to SiQQiy. He would not let her down.

  Legs trembling, body bruised beneath his clothing, his exposed arms cut and bleeding, he checked on Jerra and found his fellow guard in no better shape. Still, the river was close now. They’d descended the worst of it. And then the canyon rocked with the explosion of cannon fire. Netalf felt the concussion in his chest. He stopped cold. Over the tops of the trees he saw splinters of wood and ordnance soar, shooting high into the sky before pausing, surreally, and then tumbling back toward the tree and river. The explosion was followed by the sound of a huge rush of water like giant waves landing on a beach.

  Netalf began to run. He and Jerra arrived at a small cove where streams from the canyon fed into the bay just in time to see their ship, the Tregal, retaliate, engaging a heavy Ka’ull galleon. The ships exchanged fire and, in an explosive wave, water bled back up over the deck of the Tregal, causing it to shudder and quake like a stone on the surface of a seaside volcano.

  Hidden inside the trees, Netalf, Jerra beside him, watched helplessly as the other two ships from Jada Post were arriving within reach, but the Tregal and the galleon were already too heavily engaged.

  The trees beside the cove shook as the Tregal fired. The Ka’ull galleon took two short bursts to port. The great ship heaved, stalling in its course.

  Netalf could hear men aboard the Tregal shouting orders at one another. Slowly, the Tregal began to turn about in the river — a precarious operation even were they not under fire.

  The Tregal’s flanking ships began maneuvers as well, coming about and bringing their gun ports at stern to bear.

  Netalf looked out into the bay. Other Ka’ull warships were starting to move, slowly helming their bows toward the southing inlet of the bay where the Tregal and its flanking ships from Jada Post were attempting retreat.

  In terrible silence, Netalf watched the behemoths in their laborious revolutions. Cannons screamed, and wood and iron buckled. Netalf’s eyes flicked from the bay to the Tregal and back again, wondering: Upon whose back would the wind blow? Beneath whose feet would the current prove swiftest?

  And then hope sprung in Netalf’s heart. The Tregal’s flanking ships had come about and by staggering themselves along the river’s edge had enabled the wounded Tregal to move between them. With stern cannons having beaten the Ka’ull galleon from bow to port, the helm of the Ka’ull vessel was ruined. The ship sat at the mouth of the inlet, like a great beached whale, blocking the path into the river from all the other Ka’ull warships — effectively trapping any pursuers behind it inside the bay.

  With the Tregal safely limping its way home with its flanking ships on course behind, Netalf took a huge breath and looked at Jerra. The two men shook their heads at one another with relief.

  “Well, let’s make our way out of here,” Netalf said, but as he went to turn, stopped again. “What is that,” — Netalf pointed — “there in the water?”

  Jerra shrugged. “The cove is filled with debris…”

  “No, that — ” And after a careful surveillance of the opposite shore and the men aboard the capsizing Ka’ull vessel, Netalf moved down to the water’s edge and, wading in, removed the item that had caught his attention. Slipping quickly back into the trees, he pushed the item into his pants’ pocket and he and Jerra began to make a new way out, one they hoped would lead them back to Jada Port where they could procure fresh horses for their return to the palace city and their Empress.

  Chapter 18

  Imaginary Friend

  H e sat up in the darkness of the camp. The whites of his eyes gleamed in the pale moonlight. Trees lay thick and heavy across the river to his left, and to his right the smoking ruin of what used to be a thriving port town of Tou.

  Their incursion forces had sufficiently subdued the local population turns before. His regiment had arrived only a couple of days ago, and he knew they were not meant to stay any longer than it took to resupply the battalions that would be remaining in the valley.

  Glancing around at the night-encased shadows of sleeping men, he rose quietly and, stepping around the blanketed figures, crept down to the river’s edge. Upon the liquid blackness of the water, moonlight rippled, its mirrored edges glistening like a mirror breaking with each wave upon the bank.

  For some inexplicable reason the river’s glassy face reflected an image of his childhood bedroom back in his land, the land of the Ka’ull, the city of Tech Kon. His room had been small, square, adorned only with straw on the floor and a simple bed packed with old fish netting. The only notable item in the room had been the bed’s four spindly wooden legs — something of a boon to his family as wood was a rarity, the majority of it in his homeland coming from the occasional washed-up shipwreck. What wood could be found was saved for constructing Ka’ull shipping and warring vessels, and stiff penalties would fall upon anyone found with anything more of a tree than a rotting bit of wreckage.

  The bed had been a gift his mother insisted he take. “I
t’s all there is, Tem’a,” she’d said. He’d refused. She’d persisted.

  Closing his eyes against the memory of his mother’s sad face (he could not envision it otherwise), the watery black mirage vanished. And so Tem’a reconstructed the final details of the room in his mind. The thin grey blanket. The holes in it that he’d stuck his fingers through, making shapes upon the far wall at night when the moonlight was big enough to make shadow. And the tiny window with the shabby curtain, the one by which he’d stood, his elbows upon its edge, invisible friend by his side, staring out into the night, night after night, dreaming, imagining, wondering, hoping.

  My invisible friend, Tem’a thought. Tchs’ya. That’s been a long time ago.

  As it had been only he and his mother at the end, and as his mother had never talked much, in his sorry little room it had been with his invisible friend that Tem’a had found kinship. He’d poured his heart out to that invisible friend, asked all his questions, divulged his fears. And often his friend had answered in a voice Tem’a could even now recall, a voice as instantly recognizable as those belonging to the corporeal friends of his adulthood.

  Tem’a poked his finger into the water. Reminiscing, even of a childhood of such abject poverty, somehow helped. It was possible no one else might find comfort in the memories of a fishnet-filled-mattress, a depressed mother, worn blanket, four splintery wooden legs, and a friend no one else could see, but to Tem’a it had been a space he’d had all to himself, one he didn’t have to share with a thousand other tired, sweaty, armour-clad men.

  For the first time since he’d left his childhood home in Tech Kon, Tem’a spoke to his long-lost friend —

  We were invincible together, remember? I might have been bound by flesh and bone to my room but you could fly, you could go anywhere on a thought. A bit too sweet, maybe, but it felt like we could really fly together...

  Something caught his eye and Tem’a looked up, his gaze coming to rest on the ghostly behemoth choking the throat into the bay. The galleon had been sunk by a ship from Quieness just before Tem’a’s supply regiment had arrived. Its shredded sails moved freakishly in the stiff night air. As he watched, the moonlight caught the grey-white sails and caused them to shine as if lit by the glowing spirits of the dead. Tem’a shivered a little, entranced by its beauty and chilled by the tricks it played upon his imagination.

  I believed you, you know, he thought to his invisible friend, when you said there were possibilities for the future I’d not yet dreamed of.

  The memory suddenly made Tem’a feel sick.

  I hope this is not what you meant. Because I never could have imagined such things as I’ve seen since leaving our land.

  Tem’a squeezed his eyes shut. Imagining what revenants and elementals might be playing upon the land and waters after such devastation struck terror inside him.

  Don’t ask me, he thought to his friend, what I’m thinking right now. Better wait ‘till morning.

  Morning.

  Though he was with supply, he was pretty sure his regiment would be part of the cleanup detail come sunrise since they couldn’t move their ships on down the Tu’Lon to their final destination until the wreck was cleared away.

  There would be the rowing out and tearing down of the dead ship, and pulling bodies from the rubble and the water, too.

  Taking a weary breath, he glanced back over the rows of men to his empty bedroll.

  Guess I should get some sleep, he thought, knowing just as well he would not.

  Chapter 19

  He’s Leaving

  N ien bounded in through the family door, the exhilaration in his face lighting the room.

  Reean looked over. “Why so happy?” she asked.

  “I’ve made a decision.”

  “What?”

  Throwing his cloak across a chair with something of a flourish, he stepped into the center of the room. “I’m going to Quieness.”

  Rather than the bright, excited reception Nien had hoped for, silence, instead, fell like a hammer. Reean nearly dropped the plate of food in her hand. Jake’s eyes went wide. Joash was sitting on a stool beside the door, the knife he’d been sharpening now resting absently on his knee.

  Eagerly searching the faces of his family, Nien found only their stunned expressions. Wing would not even look at him.

  “Father?” Nien asked hopefully.

  Joash swallowed and, after a moment, set the sharpening stone aside. Upon his gentle face a look of sadness and deep concern had settled.

  “Only two, maybe three people in our history have done what you just said you’re going to do.”

  “Exactly! And one of them is alive right now — Lant. And what about Wing? Though not personally, Wing is proof that someone in our own family’s past left Rieeve or, at least, came in from outside of it.” Wing continued to stare steadfastly at the floor. “And there’s me,” Nien continued. “I’m Preak. Just because the people choose to ignore it doesn’t change the colour of my skin.”

  In his mother’s eyes he could see regret stirring, felt a tension he’d felt before, the same feeling he got when she questioned she and Joash’s choice to live apart from their people.

  Getting to his feet, Joash stepped toward Nien. “Changes are coming — it’s obvious you will be a part of them. I am concerned, however, about the people accepting you upon your return.” Joash paused. “You do plan on coming back?”

  “Of course!” Nien said with more urgency than he’d intended. “I’m not going to Quieness to get away from Rieeve, I’m going to bring something back to Rieeve.” His fists clenched in frustration. “There are no books, no information, no reference materials here.” He looked over the family. They still seemed unconvinced. “Quieness is full of buildings filled with books. Libraries the size of Viyer!”

  Reean swiped a tear from her cheek. Wing had still not lifted his head.

  Why is my good news always bad news for my family? Nien thought.

  “Mother, I didn’t mean to...I hoped — ” You all might understand, he thought, but could not say.

  Reean looked at him.

  Nien watched her expression as it shifted from the initial shock of his announcement to regret and now to something worse: grief.

  “I’ve known for a long time that we could not hold you. That Rieeve could not.”

  Nien raised his eyebrows, as if to confirm the permission in her words. Reean nodded. Nien laughed with relief and grabbed her, swinging her feet off the floor. But as he swung her about he knew that the shake in her shoulders was not of laughter but of tears.

  Nien set her down carefully. She shoved at the tears on her face, and Nien felt sick in his heart as she forced herself to smile at him.

  Slowly, three more pairs of feet crossed the hardwood floor as Jake, Fey, and Joash joined Reean, each wrapping their arms about him.

  At the center of the circle Nien stood, awash in a torrent of feeling — elation and sadness, excitement and apprehension.

  And then he heard feet pass behind him and his eyes strayed to the door through which Wing disappeared.

  Chapter 20

  Fracture

  W ing had not come back before Nien and the family had gone to bed and by the time Nien got up in the morning Wing’s bed was already empty.

  Nien assumed Wing had had the dream again, the vision. No one had seen him in days, his movements like a ghost. Nien felt a sinking in his chest, sorrow like a bottle of spilt ink, filling up his gut.

  Dressing and gathering his gear for the trip into the Village, Nien thought to talk with Wing first and glanced out toward the fields. They were empty. With a heavy heart, Nien saddled up and headed into the Village for the day.

  It was well after supper by the time Nien found himself returning home. This time, however, he saw Wing in the fields. Tired, he wanted to go inside the house, clean up, and see if there were any left overs to eat but, as elusive as Wing had been of late, reined his horse straight ahead. Best catch his quarry while it
was in sight.

  “E’te!” he called from a short distance.

  Wing looked up. Nien could not quite tell what Wing’s expression meant, but it felt like rain on a sunny day.

  “What are you doing clear out here?” Wing asked, continuing to gather stocks of challak as Nien walked up. The harvest had been a large one and villagers and Cant members had been out the better part of the turn to help Wing take down a load meant for the Village.

  “Where’s fa?” Nien replied, glancing around.

  “He went into the Village first light with the last of the challak. He’ll probably be back in the southing fields later.”

  “Well?” Nien said.

  “Well what?”

  “You haven’t said anything yet — what you think about my going to Quieness.”

  Wing made a couple more strokes with the scythe. “I think it’s something that’s important to you.”

  “You disagree.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  There was a beat of silence before Nien replied, “Guess you really don’t have to.”

  “You’re breaking the mold, like you always do.”

  “You used to find that endearing.”

  Wing was quiet, scything out two more chunks.

  Nien ground his teeth. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t?”

  “Don’t go Mesko on me. Talk to me.”

  ‘Going Mesko’ was an old saying, primarily of Nien’s. As the Mesko grew in only one small section of the Ti mountain range on the entire continent and required such great care to preserve because of its fragile inability to adapt, ‘Going Mesko’ was Nien’s way of referring to something as reluctant, narrow, confined to the point of strangling itself on inexperience. It was also applicable in the sense that though the trees seemed to speak all the time, like Wing, rarely so that anyone could hear the words.

  “Don’t ‘Go Mesko’?” Wing said, an uncharacteristic snarl in his tone. “Because I don’t want to travel? Because I want to live and die right here, in Rieeve?”