Chapter Eleven
Taran
We were alive, but I could hardly believe it.
When we had been on the bridge and it had started to collapse literally under our feet, I’d thought that we were dead for sure.
I knew one thing—we wouldn’t have made it back to safety without the general, because I couldn’t have carried Janos the way he had and still managed to run across that bridge fast enough.
There were people gathered all around me, asking if I was all right, but I still wanted to just cling to the general and never let go, because I knew he was my safety.
I had taken one frantic glance down at the chasm that had looked as if it were a mile beneath us, and I had seen the muddy river raging below, and the greedy, jagged rocks reaching up for us, just waiting for the chance to kill us. I had almost passed out.
And now I could feel the cold rain starting to fall down on my head, and the wind starting to pick up ominously—the storm was coming back with a vengeance.
Having missed one good chance to kill us, it seemed that the elements were conspiring to make another attempt.
So much for the pilot having a window between storms for the shuttle to leave this place. He’d never be able to land now.
People were running out of the palace toward us, and all around us, people were shouting in alarm.
I saw Janos a few feet away, still trying to stagger away from the muddy edge of the cliff with, of all things, a huge Tygerian Imperial, who had his arm around him, helping him walk.
He must have been the soldier who had caught him when General Vargarra had hurled him toward safety as the bridge was collapsing.
I couldn’t seem to move but just kept sitting in the grass in the arms of the general, holding onto him for dear life.
I wondered vaguely if I were in shock because I was trembling so hard and I couldn’t seem to let go of him.
A part of me knew that we had only seconds before someone came to separate us, and that thought made me clutch him even tighter to me, unable to stand not being able to keep holding onto him.
He started getting to his feet, pulling me along with him, and still I clung to him, wrapping both arms around his waist. Off to the side of us, I could see Prince Larz running toward Majesty and sweeping him up into his arms, as he looked around frantically for me.
I waved a hand at him weakly, trying to tell him I was okay, and then I closed my eyes.
The closeness of the call we’d just had was sinking in, and I sagged against the general, determined to hang onto him.
His arms tightened around me, which was a comfort as I thought I could still feel the ground moving and shaking beneath my feet like the bridge had done.
At that moment, he and he alone represented safety to me, and he also smelled wonderful, like something spicy and musky and sweet all at the same time.
I couldn’t help glancing back over at Majesty, though.
I’d thought for a few seconds there that we were going to die together on that bridge, with no time to say goodbye to him or tell him what a difference he’d made in my life—all the slightly embarrassing, sentimental things we never think about saying until it’s too late.
He was hugging Larz, who had him wrapped up in his arms, like he was never letting him go.
There was a large group around them, consisting of King Davos and his consort, and even his brothers, Mikos and Vannos and their mates.
As a matter of fact, the entire small courtyard between the steps and the bridge was crowded with people, some of them peering down into the chasm and exclaiming loudly at the wreckage of the bridge far below.
I closed my eyes again and snaggled down into the general’s warm embrace.
The exhaustion I felt was bone deep, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to move for a while.
After all, I’d just gotten out of the infirmary and had lost a lot of blood during the attack, so my resources must have been running low.
The general noticed, because he noticed everything, and he held me away from him and peered down at me. “What’s wrong, Taran? Can you speak to me?”
“Too tired,” I said, or tried to say, but the words came out sounding slurry and then he was standing up and carrying me somewhere again. It seemed like he was always hauling me around some place, and it probably needed to stop. One of these days…but probably not today.
****
General Kirstos Vargarra
When Taran sagged against me, slurring his words, I had an idea that I’d take him back to the infirmary. I was on my feet but struggling, as I was stopped after walking only a few steps by Prince Mikos.
“Wait, General, and let someone help you. Is the boy badly injured?”
“I-I don’t know, Your Highness; I don’t think so. He just passed out, but he was only released from the infirmary this morning. He was barely recovered from the stabbing.”
“Yes, Kirstos, I know. But you need to sit down and let someone else take him. You’re looking pale and shaky yourself—that was a really close call you all survived, and the adrenalin is probably leaving your body too quickly. Please, sit down before you fall.”
“I’m all right, Your Highness.”
“I know,” he replied, in a soothing voice I’d rarely heard from him.
I needed to tell him I was fine, but still he had his arm around me and was guiding me to the broad steps at the front of the palace and urging me to sit down.
Several of my guards began to surround me and one of them took Taran out of my arms, telling me when I objected that they would take him straight to the infirmary for me.
Another one was offering me water and urging me to slow down my breathing.
That one sat beside me and took my pulse.
I realized after a moment that it was Lt.
Worron, the medic who had treated Taran during the attack.
I did as he asked, since the prince was watching me carefully, but I felt impatient to go inside and check on Taran.
And Janos too—I wanted to make sure that Consort Janos hadn’t been hurt by the way I’d thrown him so desperately to my soldiers.
I must have said it out loud, because Mikos said, “Janos is fine. You saved his life and his son’s life.
The family is grateful for your service and strength, General.
Now rest here a moment and I’ll leave you in Lt.
Worron’s hands while I go investigate this collapse of the bridge.
The timing is too coincidental for my liking.
” He glanced up at the sky and then back over at Worron.
“Better get him back inside soon, Lieutenant. The storm seems to be starting up again.”
I choked back the automatic protest that came to my lips, because I realized that I did feel shaky and exhausted.
It was a display of weakness I didn’t like.
But the sky was growing darker and darker, as the wind picked up, and the rain was flying into my face with each gust. The wind was so strong it tore the words right out of our mouths.
I drank the water Worron gave me and swallowed down the pills he forced on me too, and I began to feel stronger.
Worron insisted on helping me to my feet and walking me inside, though I tried to shake him off.
It wasn’t a second too soon, either, because as we closed the door behind us, the storm hit in earnest, flinging wind and hail at the windows and door and howling around the palace walls, as if trying to entice us to come outside and fight it.
‘I’d like to go check on Taran.”
“Give it a few minutes, sir. He’s in good hands downstairs in the infirmary, and I believe his parents just went down to be with him.”
I nodded. “Do they know yet what caused the bridge to collapse?”
Worron shook his head. “Not yet, sir. King Stefan wants a closer look at the wreckage from what I heard, and he’s sent some of his men down to see what they can find out.
Though in this storm, and the way that river in the valley below is flooding…
Anyway, we should know more soon, unless all the evidence gets washed away.
The river is pretty turbulent, and it will be hard for King Stefan’s people to retrieve anything valuable to an investigation, I’m afraid. ”
“Yes, I think so too. It all happened so suddenly. There was a loud cracking sound and then the far side of the bridge began to pull away from its moorings. I really thought we’d all die on that bridge.”
A loud rumbling of thunder shook the walls, and I must have been more badly shaken than I thought, because I felt a tremor run all through me. When I was a child and trembled that way, my human omak used to say the strangest thing—“someone must be walking over your grave.”
I’d always thought it was such an odd thing to say, but then he’d said a lot of weird human expressions, and he’d left us when my brothers and I were living off planet at our training school.
My father never even told us he was gone until we returned home for a holiday and found him gone.
He hadn’t even left us a note. We’d noticed all the arguing they did, but we never thought he would leave us.
Especially without even saying goodbye. When my younger brother cried, my father had shouted at him to never show weakness.
He had been nine years old at the time, and I’d been eleven.
Later that night, when I heard him whimpering softly again in his bed, I went over and crawled in next to him and held him until he went to sleep.
Strange, but I hadn’t thought about that period of my life in years. I never found out if Omak left us of his own free will or not. I had eventually shaken off the sadness, though it took a long time. Our father had told us such feelings were unsuitable for the warriors we wanted to become.
When my father had died only a few years later, after being grievously wounded in a skirmish with Alliance rebels on one of the moons of Lycanus, he had been lost in fever dreams, racked with pain and infection, and the only person he kept calling out for, over and over again, had been my omak.
“I’d like to go down and check on the Consort Janos and Taran now. Are they both in the infirmary?”
“I believe so, sir,” Worron said.
“You can go back to your duties now, Lieutenant. Thank you for your concern, but I’m feeling much better now.”
He snapped off a salute and went back outside.
I watched him have to force the door open against the strong wind trying to strong-arm its way inside.
I had to wonder about the shuttle that had been coming to meet us, and whether or not it had been caught in some of these winds on the way down to the surface of the planet.
If it had, it would have been disastrous.
I wondered too, who had told King Stefan that it was safe for us to leave and try to make it back up to our ship in the first place.
I made my way to the infirmary, only to be informed that Prince Larz had been by with his consort and his son, but after a brief exam and consultation with the doctors, they had decided to go to their own rooms to rest and recover.
Neither Janos nor Taran had sustained any real injuries, other than a few bruises, though both were suffering from mild shock symptoms. They wanted to check me over too, since I was there, but I refused and assured them I’d rest in my room for a while as well.
That seemed to satisfy them, and though I thought about going back outside to see if I could help, I thought of the look that was likely to appear on Prince Mikos’s face if I did and quickly changed my mind.
I decided to take everyone’s advice for a change and went up to my room instead.