Rojan Dizon 03 - Last to Rise by Knight Francis

Author:Knight, Francis [Knight, Francis]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780316217743
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2013-11-25T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Sound came back first, little overheard snatches that made no sense. Dendal’s papery voice reading scripture. Pasha’s worried murmur. Perak shouting, “I absolutely forbid it!” in a voice so strained it almost wasn’t his. I kept my eyes shut and let myself drift for a while, not really knowing where, or even who, I was.

All that came back slowly to start with. I was in a bed, and it smelled nice so I could be sure I wasn’t in my office, squidged on the sofa that smelled of mouldy stuffed tigers. Not just nice – I could smell proper food cooking, which was beyond nice and into downright heavenly. I turned over, relishing the sudden space, the clean sheets and the promise that smell seemed to give, and discovered an arm draped across me. A feminine one with a delicate hand. Better and better, though it appeared the lady it was attached to was clothed, which was a disappointment.

I was heroically prepared to make the most of it though, until everything else came back with a rush that felt like a mountain in the face and an anvil of weight across my shoulders. Dench – Storad – machines – Halina watching me with eyes like dinner plates in a face pale as winter, all her delicious hatred of the world and everything in it drained away before she snapped back and threw rocks around with an abandon that had scared me. The men I’d seen, whom Pasha had tried to stop me seeing. Half burned, some of them, or with faces ripped and bleeding as they went for each other in a mindless, mechanical way. I sat bolt upright in the bed and leaned over the side to be sick, but nothing came up except pink-tinged bile.

A soft voice, a softer hand on my shoulder that normally I’d have been all over like a rash but I couldn’t muster the energy or enthusiasm right then.

“Lie down, you shouldn’t be up yet.”

I shrugged Erlat off more brusquely than I meant to and tried to stand up. On the third try I managed, and with a shadowy tiger stalking the corner of the room, I found a shirt to put on. “I can’t. Not – I can’t. Where the hell is my allover?”

“Kersan’s still trying to get the blood out.”

“Blood? But —”

“Your blood, Rojan.” Erlat slid out of bed and came to stand in front of me. I’d never seen her like this before. Maybe it was the hair that threw me, a glossy snake of it that draped her shoulders instead of being kept in its tight coil at the nape of her neck, before it slid on down over the silky nightgown that made me come over all funny. Or perhaps that there wasn’t even a hint of either her smooth professional persona or any teasing. I began to wonder how many different women she was. Too many for me to keep track of, especially the way my mind had seemingly turned to mush.

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