AFTER THE KNIGHTS had gone with both the youngsters, first Jevaithi and then Isandor, Milleus slumped against the side of the truck. He felt sore and tired, and incredibly old.
The refugees stood huddled around the truck. A man leaned on another’s shoulders. A woman cried. What were the Knights going to do with the youngsters?
He could sit down and cry himself. He might have been half-decent at running a wartime army, but ever since, he had failed everyone he cared about. Suri, Kalius and Andrean, Sady and now the youngsters.
He stuck his hand through the bars of the trailer and scratched a hairy flank. His goats were all he had left.
The Knights had retreated to a position from where they could watch the truck. He could see six of them, watching like silent statues, silhouetted against the threatening sky. The southern horizon was a broiling mass of black clouds. If he had been at home he would have said there was a snowstorm coming.
But first things first. The goats needed milking, or they would dry up or their udders would become infected. He had run out of hay and he would have to set up the pen so that they could graze whatever grass had not yet been trampled into the mud. But it would have to wait until the situation calmed a bit. Milking couldn’t wait.
So he climbed in the trailer. The animals bumped and jolted him. There was barely enough room for him to sit. The goats pushed him. They nibbled his clothes. The bucket fell over twice. A couple of animals dunked their heads in the bucket and drank their own milk.
When he finished, he had only half a bucket left. He poured some in a container for himself, and was just distributing the rest to the refugees when the ground shook with a roar. Several of the refugees ran for the cover of the truck. A young girl squealed.
But Milleus would recognise that sound in his sleep: the sound of a burner. And indeed, there were the dark shapes of balloons in the northern sky. The Chevakian army had turned up. There was hope yet. Destran wasn’t half-stupid after all.
Milleus put away the bucket and climbed over the trailer railing. The goats bleated and pushed him.
“I’m sorry, ladies, but l don’t have anything for you.” He would have to do something soon because the poor things were going crazy.
The Knights had gathered in a group, and looked uncertain as to what to do.
Milleus wanted to be ready to move, as soon as he had the opportunity. Join the Chevakian troops; tell them what was going on here. Get them to free the youngsters.
He checked the furnace and threw in a couple of logs. The boiler was still full of steaming water.
The first of the balloons had come down on the downhill side of the camp, to sounds of shouting. Groups of Knights were running down the hill. The refugees around him were getting restless. Milleus closed the escape valves, allowing steam to build up in the boiler.
A Knight came up to him and said something.
“You can say whatever you want, but I’m going to join my countrymen.”
The Knight didn’t move. He flapped his hands and gestured. Milleus had no idea what he meant.
“Look, I am Chevakian, and it is my right—”
The man gestured again, more angrily now.
One of the goats in the trailer behind Milleus stuck its nose between the bars of the railing and managed to get hold of his shirt. It pulled, hard. “I need grass for the goats. They’re hungry.”
He was sore, tired and hungry, too. And angry.
The man yelled. A couple of refugees argued back. Over their heads, Milleus could see smoke rise into the air. A number of Knights came running back up the hill, took positions behind tents and aimed crossbows.
“Come on, Mister. I’m Chevakian. I don’t understand. I don’t want to get out.” He pointed uphill.
The Knight repeated the same command and pointed to his right, where there was a dark and empty field. Go there? No, not likely.
Burners roared. Gunshots rang out. Tents went up in flames.
The goats were jumping and pushing in the trailer.
The Knight raised his crossbow . . .
And Milleus pulled the pin out of the trailer’s tailgate. It fell down with a clang and an avalanche of goats burst out. The Knight was caught in the middle of the stream of hairy bodies, waving his arms to stay on his feet. They jumped against him, pulled his clothes. He screamed, pushing the animals away.
The refugees cheered.
At the same time, a number of Chevakian soldiers surged onto the hillside and took possession of the terrain like a well-oiled machine. Most of them were wearing sonorics suits. There were a few warning shots, but they outnumbered the Knights on the side of the camp by at least ten to one, and guns were more effective than crossbows. Some Knights whistled—presumably for birds—but none came and the Chevakians rounded them up.
Strangely, the goats had settled to graze peacefully amongst all these goings-on. Well, at least someone was going to get a good meal today.
A group of five suited people came up the hill towards Milleus, four khaki-suited men surrounding one man in a civilian suit. Their khaki suits sported the insignia of the proctorial guard. The man in the middle was too short to be Destran . . . Besides, he couldn’t imagine Destran coming into battle.
“Milleus!” The voice sounded muffled inside the suit, but it sounded like . . .
“Sady?” What in mercy’s name was he doing here, with the proctorial guard no less?
“Milleus, you’re safe!” Sady ran, and took Milleus into a hug.
Milleus hugged him back. “Mercy, Sady. I am glad to see you.” And he was.
“I was so scared for you. I should never have left without you.”
“And I should have come with you.”
“I should have realised that you were one of the people trapped in the camp when we didn’t find you with the Ensar road refugees.”
“Don’t blame yourself. I’m here now, ready for whatever you want me to do. You know I still have that damn letter. We’ll show Destran, huh?”
Sady didn’t respond to that and an uneasy silence followed.
The four guards had positioned themselves in a rectangle around them. There was something eerily familiar about the way they watched Sady.
“Sady, what is going on?”
“Well . . .” Unease crept into Sady’s voice. “I wanted you to challenge, but you weren’t there and . . .”
All of a sudden, it became plainly obvious. Sady, his little brother, was doing the job he had asked Milleus to do. The job Milleus had come back to do.
Then the second shock. Sady had allowed the traffic to build up on the Ensar road? Sady had understaffed the camp? Sady had made this mess?
“Milleus?”
“I’m . . . happy for you.” He couldn’t possibly challenge his brother.
He would never have expected Sady to consider himself for the job. His brother always had his nose in maps. Sady, run the country?
“It has nothing to do with happy, Milleus. We’re in a major crisis. I need your help. I need help from every person I can still trust. Are you with me?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Well then, listen. The only reason I am here is because there is a huge front of sonorics coming this way, none of us can do anything about it, we don’t have enough shelters, Alius was supposed to have given us a medicine against sonorics, but it never worked, and Alius has killed himself, and all there is left for us to do is hide and hope we survive. We have until midday, and I’m not going to spend that time doing nothing. You’ve lived with the southern people. If there is anything or anyone who can make a difference to our survival, no matter how small—”
“Did you know I was here?”
“No.”
“Surely you haven’t come here just because of some vague hunch. I know you better than that, Sady.”
“Well—um—no.” Sady hesitated. “This is going to sound like I’ve gone crazy, but, it’s like this: I’m trying to find a giant winged creature called a dacon.”
Milleus’ first thought was that his brother had gone crazy. Then he remembered the book Isandor had shown him, and he remembered the screech in the night, and the warm air.
He said, “Larger than a southern eagle?”
“Yes.” Sady’s gaze was intense. “Please, can we leave the mockery until this is over?”
“I’m not mocking you. I’ve seen that thing. When it flies over, the air that follows it is warm.”
“Where did you see it?”
“Exactly where I’m standing now. It came from the direction of the city and went over there, to the forest.”
Then he told Sady of Isandor’s book, and the spark on Isandor’s hand, and when he finished, Sady swore loudly.
“What?” It chilled Milleus. Sady never used such language.
But Sady turned to one of his guards. “Can you contact the prison urgently, and tell them to release the prisoner.”
The man bowed and left.
The battlefield had quietened.
By the weak dawn light, Chevakians marched Eagle Knights off to repossessed trucks, which Sady said the Knights had stolen from farms. Their birds were harder to control, because none of the Chevakians knew how to control them.
A group of soldiers approached. Their suits hid their faces, but they stopped and the first man saluted.
“Proctor, the situation is under control. We defeated the Knights, and more than half of them switched sides.”
Milleus recognised that stiff voice: General Finnisius.
Sady said, “Good. Sweep the camp and ask anyone who has ideas about our safety to come forward. Make it clear that they will be rewarded.”
Finnisius gave a small bow. “Certainly, sir.” And he was off again.
Milleus stared after his retreating back. Finnisius was a self-important, arrogant piece of work. If Sady had him acting like this, his brother must be doing something right.