The Righteous by David Wragg

Author:David Wragg [Wragg, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-04-08T17:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

They fled through rain and darkness. Chel was hardly aware of the rest of the company’s arrival, of their hurried exit into the pouring night beyond. His legs were used up, his body beaten and aching, his gut weighed with leaden despair. He faded in and out of wakefulness, finding Foss first supporting him, then carrying him as they jogged, slung over the bigger man’s shoulder in an unwelcome echo of their first flight from Denirnas.

Denirnas. He’d forgotten it in the flashing horror of Whisper’s loss, but the thought bubbled uncontrollably back. Had Nadej been truthful? Denirnas Port destroyed, the Nort fleet sunk, after months of blockade? What did that mean for their grand plan? Had the chance for victory dropped beneath the waves along with the black ships of the Norts? Could the church armies be so fierce? She’d said they were coming, coming for Tarfel, an echo of Rennic’s words on the terrace. The confessors were hunting them, and at least some of the free companies had flocked to their pennant. And over and over he replayed his final images of Whisper, her soft kiss, her sad smile, her halting walk toward the wagon. It had all been so fast. It shouldn’t have happened at all. He should have stopped it, done something different. Done something right.

His innards roiled with hot spikes of hopelessness, his fractured mind dropping in and out of coherence, and eventually, head bobbing from Foss’s broad back, he slept.

He awoke soon after dawn, silvery light creeping north-east beneath a slate wall of cloud. Chel found himself laid on a grubby verge beside what would have been called a road before spring rain and heavy traffic had churned it into a rolling mire, thick with gloopy ridges of red river-mud, the deepest ruts maroon canals. Behind him on the matted grass, Tarfel lay huddled beneath what must have been Lemon’s cloak. His eyes were open, hollow and staring, and for a moment Chel thought the prince too was dead, but then he whimpered and shuddered. It did not look like sleep had come easily to him.

The slow squelch of footsteps drew Chel’s attention to the road. Rennic stood a few paces away, clear of the tree canopy and soaked to the skin, his long coat draped sodden against his frame. He was staring out into the grey distance, back toward the foaming waters of the river. They had made it to the north bank then. Chel tried to sit up, and his gasp at the attempt made Rennic turn. He just stared, saying nothing, his black eyes boring into Chel where he lay. He clearly hadn’t slept, and his stance and loose movement suggested that he might still be drunk from the night before. The pain in Chel’s own head was merely one voice in a chorus. Needless to say, his shoulder ached.

‘Where’s everyone else?’ Chel said, pushing himself up a second time, teeth gritted against the throbbing across his body. Every muscle felt tenderized. Even his hips ached.

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