The god-touched soldiers charged past Bueralan and the Innocent, but the saboteur remained where he was and stared at Xrie’s body.
‘I told that boy not to come here,’ Samuel Orlan said beside him. There was a sadness in his voice, one ringed by defeat. ‘I told him the Keepers were dead. I told him that Ren and his soldiers had killed them. I said that he should turn around, that he should take – that he should. . .’ His voice trailed off as the god-touched soldiers crashed into the combined forces of Mireea, Yeflam and the Saan. The line broke apart, smashed like a child’s toy. Voices could be heard, some of them raised an attempt to establish order, while others gave in to panic. ‘He should save his soldiers,’ Orlan finished. ‘That’s what I told him.’
The Innocent stepped over Xrie. As he did, he revealed the deep wound that had killed him. The wound delivered by a blow so swift that Bueralan had not seen it. With a slow, ominous walk, Aela Ren made his way towards the battle.
‘Get away, Orlan,’ Bueralan said. ‘Find a place to be safe until this is done.’
‘There is no place to be safe,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you realized that yet?’
He had.
‘You haven’t. You’re going to go into that.’ The cartographer laughed harshly. ‘They can’t help us.’
‘I told you my plan was bad.’
Orlan called out, but Bueralan ignored him.
He ran off the road, into the green-lit world of Leera’s trees, skirting to his left in an attempt to beat around the main body of fighting to reach the back of Xrie’s force. There would be someone there – a mercenary captain, someone – whom he could convince to organize a retreat. Someone whom he could convince to find Heast.
Bueralan had planned on the Captain of the Spine being with Xrie. His plan, his only plan since leaving Ranan, was to find the old mercenary and give him what he knew about Se’Saera, about her city, and what Ren had said about Onaedo. Heast would have the contacts to reach out to Leviathan’s End, to hear what Onaedo had begun to do if, indeed, she was doing something. He was not convinced that Ren was right – stories about the ruler of Leviathan’s End reaching beyond her dead domain were rare – but Bueralan had little else in the way of options.
To his right, he heard the sharp clash of swords. It broke through the shouts that he heard, the screams that were coming from the road. It sounded again, drawing closer, and Bueralan paused on the back of a fallen log. The clashes of swords sounded again, and suddenly, like rabbits bursting out of the undergrowth, soldiers spilled out in front of him. They did not rush towards him, but rather stumbled and turned and headed deeper into the green-tinted world, towards the marshes and empty towns. Their flight scattered swamp crows into the air, their caws of protest piercing the screams, the shouts, the sound of swords, but fell silent when a tall figure burst out in pursuit: Ai Sela.
Bueralan shadowed her run. He told himself not to. He told himself that he would not fight her, that he would be no more successful than Xrie, but still he moved through the trees silently, his eyes on her until the trees around him suddenly thickened, and he lost sight of her.
It took but a handful of heartbeats to turn, to backtrack, to find her path, but even as he did, he heard the clash of blades and the shouts of soldiers, and when he reached Ai Sela, he found her standing over four bodies. At the sound of him, she spun around, her bloodied sword in her hand, but Bueralan had stopped before she could reach him.
It was her face that stopped him. In it was a quality he had not seen before, a quality that was awful in its coldness. It was not the bestial quality that overcame the Innocent at times, the rage that showed how the worst of the stories about him could be true. Rather, it was as if all that made her human, all her compassion and intelligence, all her hard despair, was gone, and in its place was a cold absence, a will so without compassion that Bueralan expected her to attack him.
Instead, she lowered her sword and walked past him.
She left him with the dead, a dead that, Bueralan realized, included Captain Mills. She lay against one of the trees, her bloody hands gripping her sword, her empty gaze on him.
Her last sight had been of him and Ai Sela, he knew.
‘Don’t touch her!’ The sword that pierced his stomach arrived with the voice, the two bursting out of the trees. ‘Traitor,’ the soldier spat, putting his weight behind the thrust.
The sword ran deep into him, but it did so in such a strange fashion that Bueralan was not sure if it was real or not. He had been stabbed before: he could not have lived the life he had without accepting that someone, somewhere, would beat his defences. But this time, as the blade ran up to the hilt, it was different. It was as if the weapon had been expected, as if the length of steel was always going to slide through his stomach, and his body was prepared. He did not feel the strength within him leave, did not feel his bodily functions fail, did not feel anything beside the throat of the soldier in his hand.
‘Don’t shout,’ he said, forcing himself not to crush his throat. ‘They will hear if you shout, and you don’t want them to hear.’
The young soldier did not let go of his sword. He held tightly to it as fear grew in his eyes.
‘What’s your name, boy?’ When he didn’t respond, Bueralan showed him his free hands. ‘Your name?’ he repeated. ‘I know you’re from the Spine. You’re the baker’s apprentice. Now, what’s your name?’
‘Jaerc.’ It was a whisper, given as he tried to step back, as he tried to release the hilt of the blade in the saboteur’s stomach.
But Bueralan’s hands had clamped around the boy’s hands. ‘Who is in charge?’ The young soldier tried to take another step back. ‘Jaerc.’ He tightened his grip. ‘Jaerc, I know what you are thinking, but you have to put it aside. I am no traitor. If I was, you would be dead. You can see that. But I am not a traitor and if you want to save some of the people here, if you want to help me do that, you need to tell me who was left at the back, who had the job of defending the rear.’
‘Essa,’ he whispered and tried to break his bloodstained hands free. ‘Captain Essa was given it.’
Bueralan released him. ‘Show me where he is.’