“I’ll cut out your eyes for this, Damasco,” he mumbled.
“No you won’t. But if you’re seriously considering it, perhaps I should leave you tied there a while longer.”
Malekrin went silent for a while. Finally he said, a fraction more calmly, “Will you untie me?”
I was tempted to ask for a please, but the faint note of humility in his voice would have to do. I dismounted, stopped the ass in its tracks and with one of my knives severed a couple of the ropes that held Malekrin in place. When I was confident he wasn’t about to tumble into the dirt, I cut another, so that he could sit up and massage his wrists; that done, I hacked away the cords holding his legs and ankles in place.
“Will you help me off?” he said. “I don’t think I can stand.”
I still wasn’t quite convinced he wouldn’t go for me at the first opportunity, but I lent him my shoulder, and with some difficulty Malekrin managed to half climb, half tumble down onto the road. I let him support himself against me for a minute, until he could stand alone.
“Do you have water?” he asked.
I’d picked up a skin of water, along with some food, before I left Midendo. I brought it over to him and he took a long swig, and then spat into the dust. “My mouth tastes like a dog threw up in it,” he explained.
“That will be the knockout draught,” I said. Then, feeling something more was called for, I added, “Look, Mal, perhaps I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. Before I drugged you, I mean.”
Malekrin shrugged, handed back the water skin. “I didn’t give you much reason to.”
“No,” I agreed. “Still…”
“I think I can ride now,” he said. “We should get moving.”
We rode in silence after that. I didn’t know what to make of Malekrin’s mood, which seemed for once more introspective than hostile; nor was I interested enough to pay him much attention. It was a drizzly day, with a bite of autumn cold in the air, and as good as my new clothes were, they didn’t quite keep me warm. Had the decrepit ass not been setting our pace then perhaps I could have ridden faster and warmed myself that way. As it was, trailing beside the miserable beast and its miserable rider only served to further spoil my humour.
I stopped around lunchtime and shared with Malekrin the food I’d bought: some stringy meat, corn bread and too-hard cheese. I sensed he’d have liked to refuse the meagre fare, but I could hear his stomach rumbling from where I was, and he was quick enough to wolf it down. Still, he said nothing beyond a curt thank you, and I felt no inclination to push for more.
When Altapasaeda came into view in the middle of the afternoon, it was exasperating to realise that my journey was still far from done. But I was certain the southern gates would be sealed and barricaded in case the King should move his attack, so rather than waste time in trying them I took the side road that wound off to the west, and Malekrin fell in behind me without comment or question.
I turned off again before I arrived back at the barracks, and we cut across to the half-derelict northern road, which threaded along the western flank of Altapasaeda. I thought about what might have been happening on the other side of those high walls while I’d been away, and the question was enough to make me wish I was heading anywhere but where I was.
By the time the western gate came into view, my worry had passed its peak and turned into a kind of numbed acceptance. A glance at Malekrin’s pinched, vacant face made me wonder if he wasn’t bearing his fate in similar fashion. Then again, maybe he was simply bored senseless from riding all day on the back of a slowly expiring ass.
I dismounted, looked up at the battlements. There was no one visible. I hammered on the gate and shouted, “Open up, it’s Easie Damasco.” Then, because that sounded less impressive than I’d hoped, I added, “I’m here with Prince Malekrin of Shoan.”
I’d anticipated an interrogation, or perhaps nothing at all. For all I knew, the city had fallen and there was no one on the other side to care. But a mere few seconds had passed before the gate eased open. I recognised the guard on the other side from when I’d left that way. “Mounteban’s expecting you,” was all he said.
Expecting? A touch disappointed that I wouldn’t be surprising anyone with my improbable success, I hauled myself back into the saddle and rode through the gap. I’d imagined the guard might accompany us, if our presence was so very important to Mounteban; however, he and his companion only ignored us in favour of forcing the gate shut in our wake.
I led the way up one street and then another, and five full minutes had passed before Malekrin said to me, “What now? Do you hand me over to this Mounteban? Do we find my grandmother, so I can explain I won’t be going with her?”
I’d been asking myself a similar question — and I’d quickly realised that for me there was only one answer. Right then, for all I cared, Mounteban, Kalyxis and the whole damned city could go hang. “You can come along or not,” I told Malekrin, “but before we do anything, I’m finding out if my friend’s alive.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The hospital was noticeably fuller than when I’d last seen it.
Straw cots had been dragged in to fill the gaps between the existing beds, and all of those were occupied as well, so that the surgeons and priests had to tread carefully around and over the bodies of the wounded just to navigate the room. Their own numbers, however, hadn’t increased; perhaps there were even fewer tending to the fallen than on my previous visit. I supposed that the influx of wounded hadn’t been organised to take their endurance into account; certainly every one of those that remained looked ready to drop.
The air was noisome, a bitter-sweet odour of rot and sickness struggling to get out from beneath cloying layers of incense. A chorus of groans and sighs and the occasional, muted scream was undercut by the whine of the wind from outside, as it whipped the torch flames hovering around the walls. I hurried to push shut the door, and as I did so noticed the expression on Malekrin’s face, the mingling of pity and disgust.
“So many?” he asked.
“Are you joking, boy?” grunted a red-robed surgeon as he brushed past. “They’ve filled two more warehouses since this one.”
Looking round for Saltlick, I realised how much more varied the constituency of the injured had grown. Most, of course, were from Mounteban’s improvised army, suspicious-eyed faces of hardened criminals beside professional soldiers staring stoically at the rafters, not to mention the occasional darker-skinned visage of a Shoanan far from his home. More surprising were the many in civilian garb, looking bewildered to have found themselves in such company; and most unexpected were the small group in what I recognised as Ans Pasaedan uniforms. These last were gathered in one corner, watched over by a couple of city guardsmen — though from what I could see of their wounds, the precaution was unlikely to prove necessary.
Finally I picked out Saltlick’s bulk in the gloom. I hurried towards him whilst taking care not to accidentally plant my boot in a crumpled rib cage or stomp upon a shattered arm. The air was close and smoky, and it was only as I drew near that I realised he was sitting up. I couldn’t resist the rush of hope that poured like bile up from my stomach into my throat — but it only took me a moment to understand that sitting was far from healed. Saltlick had been propped against the wall, his back supported by packed bundles of straw; however he was still bandaged from head to toe, his uncovered skin still latticed with cuts and gashes.
If my brief hope had been unjustified, though, perhaps so was the despair that had followed it. For the bandages were clean and mostly white, rather than reddened with seeping blood, just as most of his visible injuries were less shockingly raw than when I’d last seen him. Saltlick was alive, he was healing, and together that was more than I’d dared expect.