He reached through the smoke and the heat and the tears that filmed and dulled his eyes for a slanting beam to haul himself round. And almost missed the hold, his fingers slipping for a moment over flat wood. He swayed. His other arm came up to balance him, and the end of the crossbow it carried jarred against another timber. Jarred free. The crossbow fell, plunging down into the world of light and noise and anger below.
He could see the narrow black void that marked his escape route, and darted towards it. He could smell the cold, fresh night air beyond, could imagine the freedom of the open black sky above his head. And crossbow bolts were flying up, like a flurry of answers to the challenge he had dispatched downwards. They smacked splinters from the wooden lattice through which he moved. They would not find him, he was sure. Already he was consumed by the sour sense of failure, but still he did not doubt he would live to serve the creed another day.
Until one bolt out of the flock that swarmed up towards him impaled his trailing hand, nailing it to a beam. Through the very centre of the back of his hand it went, and buried itself deep in the wood. He gasped, not in pain but in surprise. And in frustration, for he needed that hand as he swung forward. He stared through bleary eyes at the very place he would be reaching for with it. He could see, indistinctly, the saw marks in the flat face of the timber. He blinked, and overbalanced, and fell.
His arm wrenched at his shoulder joint as his entire weight was abruptly hung from that single impaled hand. It held only for an instant, then the bolt tore out from his flesh, ripping itself free between two fingers. He tipped backwards as he fell, gazing up into the darkness of the roof. An outstretched antler of one the trophies on the wall stabbed into his thigh, and gouged down the back of his leg to his knee, tumbling him in the air. He plummeted head down, a host of snarling faces rushing up to greet him from below.
“What were you thinking?”
Theor had his hands half-raised, poised as if arrested in the midst of some violent movement. He could not tear his gaze away from them. His eyes took in the aged, slack hide that his skin had become, the terrible impotence of these limbs that once, surely, must have felt capable and powerful. The fury that was in him was in them too, seething and burning in the palms and the fingers. And it was such a pathetic thing, that fury. It was empty, powerless to change anything. Powerless even, he felt, to express itself honestly.
“What were you thinking?” he cried again at Avenn.
The First of the Hunt glared at him. He suddenly imagined himself seizing her by the throat, crushing and crushing the contemptuous, arrogant life out of her with these same trembling hands. He imagined her slumping to her knees, gasping for breath that would not come.
Slowly he lowered his hands. It would not happen like that, of course. He was a feeble old man, a boat drifting broken-ruddered amidst rocks and storms. She was of the Hunt. Fierce, strong. And certain of her purpose. Her faith.
“I did what the times, the circumstances, the creed, seemed to called for,” Avenn said.
Not even a semblance of deference in her any more. She would not deign to make the most passing pretence at submission to the Lore’s authority. Theor could only shake his head.
“He was feasting,” Avenn snarled. “Feasting? In times such as these? Celebrating what? The fact that we’ve made ourselves his subjects. The fact that he can steal a hundred orphans from the Battle merely by demanding it. The fact that he can kill Hunt Inkallim without fear of redress, without us raising a hand or a blade to prevent him. The fact that we lack the will to pursue this grand, this glorious enterprise that has been begun through to its utmost conclusion. The fact that we falter.”
Oh, the fire that burned in her was bright. Theor could remember when such sacred fervour raised him up just as it now did Avenn. It had not been so very long ago, yet it felt an age. It felt as if those righteous sentiments and certainties had dwelt in the heart of an entirely different person. Someone else. Someone who had not been prey to the doubts and the sickening fears that now ate away at him.
“This sudden caution that cripples you is unwarranted, First,” snarled Avenn. She was striding up and down on the reed matting that covered the floor. This was a chamber meant for peaceful contemplation. Theor had brought her here for the sake of privacy and discretion.
“But you goad the High Thane into striking out against us,” he muttered, that rage that had briefly so animated him leaching away. It was unsustainable. “Ragnor’s temper already runs hot as a fever. He’s been walking upon the brink of unreason for days. Now…”
He hung his head.
“I regret nothing,” Avenn said. “Fate will dispose things as it sees fit. I came to tell you of this only out of courtesy.”
“But you came too late. You come to me in the morning to tell me of something done the night before. That is not courtesy but contempt.”
“You know how things stand now,” Avenn muttered unapologetically. “I have given fate the chance to make its choice. To move forward.”
Theor could have wept, and he did not know why, beyond the certainty that there was a terrible wrongness in all of this. And that the awful, crippling guilt he now felt was somehow deserved. He had come to mistrust so many of his feelings, his instincts, and to fear their turbulence, tossed about by gales that seemed to come from outside him, but that… that guilt felt true and clear, even if he did not understand whence it sprang.
“You’ve done nothing but give Ragnor the excuse to tear the Inkalls apart,” he said leadenly, recognising the futility of anything other than silence.
“It had to come, sooner or later,” Avenn shouted. “This is the time when all matters will be resolved. This is the time when the world must come apart, when all hopes and intents shall fail, save that of fate itself. This is the end of this world, old man, and if your wits and your courage had not failed you, you would see that as clearly as the rest of us. You betray the Lore, and the faith, with your craven reticence.”
“No…” Theor could find no words, no armour against either her accusations or the world’s collapse.
“The First of the Battle will stand by the Hunt in this, even if the Lore will not,” Avenn said.
“Did Nyve know?” Theor asked, dreading the answer.
“No. But he will not contest fate’s course. He will welcome it.”
That was true, of course. The flood that seemed to be bearing all of them along in its destructive embrace had taken hold of Nyve. It was more than a lifetime’s friendship could hope to resist.
“And Ragnor will leave him no choice now,” Avenn continued. She spoke almost casually, as to some servant or follower. “He will surely come against us. Good. The people will rise up in our defence if he makes war upon the Inkalls.”
“You think that will deter him?” Theor said. “You think he cares any more about what is wise or considered? He doesn’t care. He is as blind as… as all of us.”
“Fate will show us the way. And if that way is to ruin and rue, so be it. How could the end of all things and the birthing of new be attended by anything but ruin?”
“You’re mad,” murmured Theor, turning away, walking towards the door. “As are we all now.”
He left her there, not even glancing back to see whether the First of the Hunt followed him out of the meditatory chamber. There was nothing more to be said. The world had become inimical to words, and to reason. The madness that had so many others in its grip would brook no resistance from those-like Theor-who found themselves beyond its grasp; and so he was to be forgotten, ignored. He could no longer find the strength within himself to resent or oppose that.