Читать книгу Bloodchild - Anna Stephens - Страница 15

Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

Fort Four, South Rank forts, Western Plain, Krike border

Rillirin squinted into the approaching night and jabbed her spear at the pell, pulling back, stepping and then striking upwards with the butt. It skittered off the wood and past, but if it’d been a person, it would have broken their knee, she was sure. She spun to the imaginary enemy behind her and lunged; Dalli’s spear parried and then the shorter woman had her weapon at Rillirin’s throat.

Rillirin froze in shock – she hadn’t even known the Wolf chief was there – and then sidestepped, batting Dalli’s spear down.

‘You’re dead,’ Dalli said. ‘Never hesitate in battle because you’re surprised; train until defence is as instinctive as breathing.’ She flipped her spear around her head and drove it for Rillirin’s temple; Rillirin staggered back, her parry clumsy and weak.

‘You’re dead,’ Dalli said again. ‘Don’t get distracted by your opponent’s words.’

Rillirin gritted her teeth and lunged, then feinted left and snapped the head of her spear towards herself, driving the butt in a flat arc. Dalli knocked it up and countered with a strike that finished a hand’s width from Rillirin’s eye.

‘You’re dead. You need to commit to a feint, otherwise your opponent knows what you’re doing and will ignore it to prepare for your true strike.’

Growling now, Rillirin lunged hard for the centre of Dalli’s chest; the Wolf sidestepped and snatched Rillirin’s spear, jerking her forward and finishing with a short jab towards Rillirin’s gut. She shrank back, dropping the spear to protect her belly and the child nestled within.

‘You’re dead. Don’t let anger make you clumsy. If you over-extend, you’re off balance and your enemy will take advantage.’

Rillirin snatched up her spear by the end and flailed it for Dalli’s knee, then backed away, trying to set her hands. Dalli slammed the shaft of her own spear down and ricocheted Rillirin’s spear tip off the flagstones. As it bounced back up in Rillirin’s stinging hands, Dalli skipped past it and put a knife against her cheek.

‘You’re dead. If you lose your weapon too close to the enemy, draw another. Don’t step into their range to pick it back up.’

Panting, Rillirin eased away from the knife and then raised her spear and lifted the fingers of both hands from where they wrapped the wood to signal she wasn’t going to attack. Dalli sheathed her knife and stepped clear anyway.

Rillirin grounded the butt and let it take some of her weight. ‘Is that what I am then?’ she asked as sweat trickled down her back. ‘Your enemy?’

Dalli shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Are you?’

Rillirin wiped her free hand across her face. ‘We were friends not too long ago, or I thought we were.’

‘People change. Loyalties change. Yours is quite clear.’

‘And Gilda made it quite clear that my baby is innocent. Even if you won’t believe me, you should believe her. Everything Gilda’s been through and you think she’d lie about something like this?’

Dalli spat. ‘Everything she’s been through, aye. Like Dom trying to kill her. Like him betraying Rilporin and everyone inside it. Like him being a Darksoul.’

‘He didn’t choose any of those things!’

‘How do you know?’ Dalli flared. ‘You haven’t seen him in months. You’ve just got a memory of him you’ve put up on a pedestal and you can’t see past it to the truth.’

‘Neither have you. All you’ve got is rumour and hearsay and things glimpsed during battle that have been distorted or misremembered.’

Dalli shook her head in disgust. ‘Gods, but you’re naive. Will you damn us all, that child included, by believing he can be saved?’

Rillirin slammed the butt of her spear into the stone, the flat crack echoing across the drill yard. ‘Yes! Because he taught me that anyone can be saved, including me.’ Dalli flinched but Rillirin held up her hand. ‘No, you’ve said enough. Just, just fuck off, will you? I don’t need your poison poured in my ear. Dom’s the only one of your precious Wolves who saw past my accent and the things I was forced to do and loved me despite it all. Who understood not everything that happens to us is a choice. If you can’t see that, then just leave me alone. There’s talk of sending the civilians away somewhere safe – if there is such a place. I’m sure you know more about it, being chief, as well as the lover of someone respectable. You’ve made it clear I’m no warrior, and I’m pregnant too, so I’ll stay out of your way until it’s time and then I’ll leave with the other civilians, go wherever Mace thinks I won’t be able to infect anyone with my treason.’

Her face twisted with bitterness. She turned on her heel and stalked across the drill yard. When Dalli called after her, tentative and too quiet, it was easy to pretend she hadn’t heard, to pretend there were no tears clogging her throat. She wouldn’t cry for Dalli’s spite. Rillirin stalked up the southern watchtower’s steps and out on to the allure, staring into the night. Krike was out there somewhere and for a mad, intoxicating moment, she thought about slipping out of the fort and crossing the border, losing herself in a foreign land and never coming back.

There was a fluttering in her stomach, a weird shifting. Rillirin leant her spear against the wall and put her palms on the small mound. Is that you in there, little warrior? Is that you? Do you want to go to Krike? Nothing. Or do you want to stay in Rilpor? Another flutter.

Rillirin huffed. ‘All right then,’ she muttered to the first stars and the stirring life within her, ‘that’ll do. Rilpor it is. But if we’re staying, I really hope we win.’

‘Colonel Thatcher?’ Rillirin hurried to catch up as the officer crossed towards the mess. He paused and waited, giving her a distracted smile. ‘Colonel, I’d like to volunteer.’

He glanced sidelong at her spear. Despite general Rilporian attitudes to women fighting, her status as a sort-of-Wolf had guaranteed her a weapon when she and Gilda made it to the forts. ‘Volunteer for what?’ he asked.

‘Anything, really,’ she said. ‘Anything that gets me out of the forts. Or a transfer to one of the others.’

He paused by the mess hall door. ‘Transfer? I know we’re tightly packed in here, but the other forts are just as crowded.’

‘Away from the Wolves,’ she said in a rush. ‘I’ll go when the civilians go, so it won’t be for long, but I’d like to help out. Riding patrols, perhaps?’

He gestured her into the mess and followed and they joined a line of people waiting for breakfast. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but I can still ride and fight and scout,’ Rillirin said, annoyed at how everyone assumed she was incapable. ‘I’m barely even showing,’ she added.

Thatcher frowned. ‘Pregnant women get extra rations,’ he said and pointed at the soldier doling out bread and porridge. Rillirin blushed, stammered an apology. ‘As for volunteering or moving barracks, let me see what I can do. Ride and scout and hunt, you say?’

‘Well, I’ve done it before a few times,’ she admitted and took the bowl offered, added a spoonful of honey. ‘I want – I need – to be useful. I can’t just sit here doing nothing.’

‘I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I need experienced people performing those tasks – the security and provision of the forts isn’t something I can trust to a novice. But I’ll sign you up to train with the militia, and we might get you out on a foraging party or something. There are lists of things that need doing, if you don’t mind hard work.’

‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I just need to be busy.’ He nodded, already distracted by another soldier waving a sheaf of papers, and slipped away into the press. Rillirin examined the long trestle tables packed with soldiers and civilians. A knot of Wolves eyed her from a corner; Isbet beckoned with a wave.

Rillirin took her bowl outside and ate in the early sunlight. Two hours later, she joined three hundred civilians in the drill yard and began to learn to fight like a Ranker. In the afternoon she rode out with a firewood party, and by nightfall she’d been transferred to Fort Three.

It was exactly what she wanted, so it had to be the pregnancy that made her cry herself to sleep.