16. No Shame, All Honour
16
NO SHAME, ALL HONOUR
The guys were helping each other upright, exchanging low questions and exclamations, wrenching arrows free of robot corpses and returning them to quivers. Jazarl seemed okay, grimacing as he leaned on Naithor but moving with relative ease.
Which was great, but Ari’s entire body turned leaden, unresponsive. The shakes were back, spreading from her bones. Her teeth chattered, then stopped as if they knew it was useless to protest.
Whatever was going to happen was beyond her control. As usual.
The chained man paid no attention to the men or the dead robots. He slowed, then stopped in front of her, also ignoring the intensifying downpour. He spared a single glance at the branch clutched in her hands.
Ari’s fingers sprang open; she dropped the wooden bar. Its heavier end almost landed on her feet.
Looming, blotting out the wreckage and the rest of this baffling, violent world, the chained man stared down at her. Lightning painted every metal edge, running off his gauntlets, flashing on the sword held carefully down and away once more. Just as he had in the Keep.
Oh, God . Ari shrank against the tree. Please. If you’re going to, just do it. Get it over with.
The big horselike thing tossed its strangely formed head, pawing the road again with a faint chiming sound. Ari’s heart triphammered, roaring mounting in her ears.
He said nothing, just looked at her. Finally, she felt ridiculous. Her lips parted; his gaze fastened on her mouth.
As usual, all she could produce was an utter banality. “H-hello,” she managed, faintly. For last words, it was embarrassing, but what else was new?
At least it gained a response. “My lady.” Grave and quiet, but effortlessly heard through the storm-noise. “Are you hurt?”
A prosaic question, but she almost couldn’t absorb the syllables even with the aid of an invisible translator. “I…” Ari couldn’t look past him, and she didn’t precisely want to.
But she should, shouldn’t she? Figure out if anyone was wounded, though her rudimentary first-aid skills were probably worse than useless. She didn’t have so much as a Band-Aid in her pocket.
“Tell me.” The chained man took another deliberate step, a vast shadow swelling before her. “Are you harmed? At all?”
How should I know? Still, it was downright polite of him to ask. “I don’t…” Maybe getting him loose had been a rare smart move on Ari’s part. “I don’t think so.”
“Good.” His left gauntlet rose, slowly, and Ari realized he was moving very carefully, as if trying not to frighten a wild animal. “Can you ride? We should not linger here.” Each word very soft and distinct.
She would never have believed a tall man wrapped up in armor and whatnot, having just finished killing a bunch of armored robots, could sound so… well, almost tentative.
I don’t see a bicycle, my friend . “Ride?” Her brain struggled to process this new outlandishness, the invisible translator working overtime. Fat leaf-collected drops tapped the top of her head; waves of smaller driplets swept over the road, made tiny hollow noises on the chained man’s armored shoulders.
“I would not have you walk, my lady.” The chained man paused, still offering his left hand. The gauntlet looked very big, the short curved spikes on its back wicked sharp; the palm was a dark hollow, and he held it cupped as if asking for change. “Come. You need fear nothing.”
I don’t think I quite believe that. Once again, she had no choice. Her only other option was taking off into the trees, and that was a highly questionable tactic at best. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she heard herself say, slowly, in the breathless high voice of a woman embarrassed at a dinner party. “But… who are you?”
Bad idea, Ari. Don’t piss this guy off. You saw what he did to these robots, and he may have killed an entire castle full of them not too long ago as well, if you’re understanding what the other guys said. You might want to play along for a little bit, until you can figure something else out .
But she had to, needed to know.
His mouth curved slightly, the expression too bitter to be a true smile. He left his hand out, hanging in midair as if it were perfectly normal to stand in pouring rain after killing a bunch of robots. Soft black flowers of hyperventilation-fueled oxygen deprivation bloomed around the edges of Ari’s vision, and her knees decided there was a limit to the bullshit they could be asked to handle even if bolstered by magical appetite-suppressing pondwater and the relief of possibly, maybe not dying at the hands of giant armor suits full of red oil.
Wet grass and moss rushed up to meet her. The roaring in her ears swallowed her whole. Whatever answer he would have made was lost as she fled gratefully into a semidarkness spangled with silver dots and a strange, unwilling sense of comfort.
It didn’t last nearly long enough, of course. Muffled thunder echoed, and a faint edge of woodsmoke intruded on the soft, restful blackness. Dry warmth enfolded her; the sensation was so luxurious Ari considered staying in the gentle numb fog of shock, leaving her body behind. A breathing doll, it could absorb whatever punishment Mike was dishing out, and she could creep back in later, bit by bit, assessing the damage slowly.
Sometimes he was repentant after an Incident, and would even protect her from Wanda Lee for a little while.
Orange and yellow light, a faint sap-bubbling hiss. Low murmurs of conversation. There was something springy under her, and her cheek rested on her bent arm. For a moment Ari thought she was about to open her eyes, sit up, and find Jazarl standing in the woods studying her intently again. There were movies about timeloops; being caught in one required solving a mystery and keeping your eyes open, learning bit by bit until you could do things right.
Except she was a very tired groundhog; she had no desire to repeat any single day in the past five years or so. Even the good ones like graduating college were tinted with the sorrow of Mom gone in that awful car accident, and the joy of her wedding had turned into breathless anxiety soon afterward.
“My lord prince?” A soft, cautious tone. She thought it was probably Darjeth, and he sounded utterly respectful. “We have a few flasks’ worth, by our lady Moon’s grace.”
“I need nothing.” A pause, a soft sound of metal sliding against itself. “Though I thank you for the offer. How fares Jazarl? And Naithor?”
“Both hale, and ready to serve.” It was definitely the blue-eyed blond guy, though now not a single tinge of sarcasm tinted his tone. Ari liked him better when he was talking shit, but he probably—and very wisely—didn’t want to mess with someone who could cut a giant horned robot in half. “Jazarl did all he could, my lord. ’Twas judged best to attempt reaching Gesthel with every possible speed, and each choice held more danger than the last. He?—”
“And you entered the Keep to look for me, not once but twice.” The chained man said it like he might remark it was raining, or a Tuesday. Thunder crashed, thankfully outside ; Ari had rarely been so grateful for the bare concept of walls and a roof. “Brave almost to foolhardiness, the lot of you. And loyal.”
“To the Moon, my lord—unto death, or worse. The faithless one and his Law find no friend among us.” The words marched out like a catechism, or an allusion to some text Ari wasn’t familiar with. “How fares our lady?”
“When she has regained some strength we shall strike for Gesthel; gentler care than ours is required.” The chained man sounded thoughtful instead of angry, thankfully. “Though ’tis far better than I feared. You are to be commended, knights of the Keep.”
“Will we return, then?”
“Once the filth is cleansed. Now go and rest. You may reassure your fellow knights that no shame is theirs, and all honour. Especially Jazarl of Atalan.” The dismissal was plain, and there was the sound of cloth shifting, soft footsteps retreating.
Which left Ari with a choice—take a peek out at the world, risking some new terror, or stay tightly curled up inside her own head, safe but also leaving her body vulnerable? Either way, something was bound to go wrong. Even the effort of silently, internally brooding on her list of questions, terms, and implications was too much.
The silence was almost a living thing, the sensation of being watched undeniable. It could be felt on a crowded street or in a quiet college library, an atavistic tingle at one’s nape, the lizard brain perking up through layers of evolution with a soft preverbal warning.
But she was so goddamn tired. All the shocks, strangeness, delirious detail—someone else could deal with things for a while.
Please. Just let me have a minute, even fifteen stupid seconds without anything else .
As if he had heard the thought, the chained man spoke again. “You do not remember,” he said softly, conversationally. “It is a mercy, and my penance. Sleep, and fear nothing.”
Ari sank into darkness, and did not dream.