Hammerfall

“I’m aware of their opinion,” the Ila said. “But you take Luz’s orders. Is that better? You can take his orders, now… or you can decide not to. Luz may have other intentions. What will those be?”

Prudence told him to lie, but the business between him and his father said his father would never believe a soft answer. “Common sense says he’s a dead man. And he knows it. He won’t say a word to me, will he? Will he?”

There was, in fact, only a stony stare, a stony, unpleasant stare; and he knew what his father had come to do, and what his father had hadto accept, and the conditions he had had to take… the Ila’s outrageous offer: life, and the unlikeliest, most fragile alliance.

“He’s ashamed. He’s disgraced himself with Kais Tain, he’s alienated the tribes, he’s sold out his own village, and he’s sold himself to you to seal the bargain because he has nowhere else to go. Like me, like me, father, just the same. Don’t tell me otherwise.”

The curtains at either hand stirred. He was not surprised. He assailed Tain and four more of Tain’s men showed up, men whose names he knew, every one: killers, men with machaiin their hands—able to kill the Ila, but bent instead on silencing an unpleasant, unwelcome voice.

And was Tain stronger for their backing? Marak looked his father in the eyes, and they both knew the truth.

“Give up,” Marak said. “The Haga won’t trust you. And I won’t. There isno bargaining.”

Tain drew his pistol, wanting to make him flinch: Marak knew the moment, knew the gesture, knew when his father had done that to other men, knew his father wanted, neededthat moment of fear before he pulled the trigger.

Marak jumped for the wind-stretched side of the tent and the shot burned through his side and through the tent wall as he moved, letting loose a shriek of wind—and off that wall, he lunged not at the men who drew knives, but beyond them, through them, at Tain himself, and his gun.

A machaicaught in his coat and raked his ribs. Another sliced across his back as he seized hold of his father’s left sleeve and wrestled for a grip on the trigger hand.

The gun went off. Went off twice and three times as they struggled for grip and balance: a man swung a machaiat his back and he swung his father into the glancing blade as a fourth shot creased his shoulder. He grasped the gun in Tain’s hand and tried to force his finger into the trigger guard. Fifth shot: it hit something metal and fragile, and he would not turn his back to his father’s men, would not give up, no matter his father had one hand on his face, trying to get a thumb into his eye or a grip on his ear, trying to swing his back to his allies. They had fought a thousand mock fights; they had fought mock fights that turned real, fights he had to lose or have his father’s spite; but not this fight, not this one, not now.

They staggered together into an obstacle, a tent pole, and Tain tried to bash his hand off the gun, tried to break his finger in the process, and kneed him and brought a foot down on his instep, all of which he gave back with a blow to Tain’s head—where his father’s men were in this, what they waited for, he had no idea: he turned, jerked Tain around, looking for enemies in the process.

Tain fell and dragged him down, leaving Marak’s back exposed. Marak rolled, put himself underneath and in the process gave Tain the heel of his hand under his chin with everything he had in his arm. He saw Tain dazed for a moment. Men hacked at the rolling knot of their bodies, and in one moment a machaihacked down into his back, but he had a deathlock on the gun and meant to batter Tain loose from the one weapon that equalized the odds.

“Marak!” someone shouted, a shot exploded near his ear, two shots that had not come from the pistol. In the same moment Tain butted him in the face, but he regarded neither—got his best grip on the gun and twisted, and rolled, turning Tain’s arm under him, seeing in his blurred vision that Tain could notlet go the gun, but had no command of it either. He had a leverage: he had a hand free: he seized Tain’s wrist and rolled loose.

He gained his feet, soaked in blood. He faced his father, half-winded, with the contested gun in hand.

Then he saw Memnanan with a rifle, and three of his father’s men down, and the fourth wounded. The Ila sat on her chair amid all of it, in the most incredible attitude of calm.

The fourth man broke and ran. Marak stared dead-on at Tain and Tain at him. The truth he tried not to betray was that his trigger finger was too mangled to function: maintaining that stare, he changed to a two-handed grip, and Tain returned him that hell with youglare that he turned on any infraction against his authority… that old, old implication of threat and disdain for the odds.

Not beaten, not Tain. Not until he was dead. And it was on him to do it.

“Get out of here!” he yelled at Tain, last chance, last try. “ Get out of here!”

He knew he was a fool when he gave Tain the chance. Tain’s expression changed to that cocksure confidence his enemies dreaded. Tain backed a step and turned.

Memnanan fired, and took Tain dead in the middle, and twice more to be sure. Tain died at his feet, and he stood there, numb.

And after that it was themselves, and the au’it, and the red-robed Ila, who sat on her throne with her hand pressed to her side and dark blood leaking over her fingers.

The Ila looked over the corpses of Tain and three of his men, and then at him and Memnanan. “I still rule this camp,” she said.

A shot had hit her in the stomach. She was still sitting upright. She was still on her throne. The au’it clustered around her as if they foresaw and dreaded her fall.

What was there for them to say? That the Ila was the one name that tribes and villages alike knew as authority?

That no one outside these canvas walls knew what had transpired in this tent?

His own blood was leaking fast from a dozen wounds. The fever was coming on him, the healing fever. He wanted to go lie down. He wanted Hati, and to lie still under a friendly roof and let the makers work, if they could heal so many wounds, with such scant resources left.

Marak, Marak, Marak, his voices said: and they wantedthe Ila, they wantedher life as they wanted the east.

Memnanan had made his own choice, and stood now with the rifle aimed at the floor, deaf to voices, not knowing now what to do.

“Go to your wife,” Marak said. “ Sheneeds you. You have an obligation.”

Memnanan hesitated, perhaps weighing his choices, and asking himself where right was, or what he intended. Memnanan to this hour had not left the Ila, had not left the authority he had served, and defended, and obeyed all his life. And the storm still raged beyond the walls.

“Tell him to go,” Marak said to the Ila. ”His wife is in labor. She needs him. There’s a guide rope still at the door.“ Came a crash in the heavens, and a battering blast beat against the tent. ”Ila, tell him that. The sky’s getting worse. Send him! You owe him that!“

The Ila lifted her hand, red glove stained dark with blood, signaled Memnanan’s dismissal. That was all. The hand fell.

A breath more Memnanan hesitated, then turned and, hesitating for a last look, went back to the outer door.

Marak, the voices said. Marak.

And Marak reached down and drew the Ila to her feet and into his embrace, close, closer, body against body, blood into blood. He knew what the voices wanted. He knew what he had done with Lelie, and why Lelie had lived.

The Ila, no fool, must know. They stood that way for a long time, they stood there while the fever came, and the blood beat in Marak’s ears.

“This is war,” the Ila said in their long standing there, so that only he could hear. “This is war, Trin Tain.” Her lips met his and opened, and her mouth was moist, water-rich as his was dry. Blood mixed. Incredibly, there was passion in the kiss.