Martin Hengst - The Darkest Hour

Chrin thought about that for a moment and then nodded slowly. He turned and began trudging through the predawn light, the warriors falling into formation behind him. They’d find somewhere safe to sleep the day away and start mending their wounds. Then they would return to the Warrens and plan their next attack. The Swordmage would fall. Zarfensis would see to that personally.

* * *

The infirmary, normally ample space for the sick or wounded of Ethergate, was crammed full to bursting. Normally there were beds for half a dozen patients, spread out from each other so that the healers and clerics could do their work. The surprise attack on the city had left them with five times that many injured and so many dead that the city guard had moved some of the bodies into an unused storeroom across from the brokerage. Someone had proposed a mass grave, but was met with such vocal resistance that the idea had been summarily dismissed.

Dawn had brought with it the full reality of the night’s horrors. In the cold light of day, there were many reminders of how narrowly they had survived. Buildings were damaged or in some cases, burned out hulks. Crimson stained the streets and in many places the heavy stench of blood and offal still hung on the air. The guards had gone from door to door, as much to catalog any wounded or dead as to assure themselves that no Xarundi, living or dead, remained in the city. The four monsters they had killed had been dragged outside the city walls and set to burn. Many had gathered to witness the disposal, looking on in grim silence.

Wynn looked out the window near Tia’s bed. A pair of healers carrying a litter dashed by. Curls of lazy smoke climbed into the sky from within the city and without. He wondered how long it would take them all to recover. He looked down at Tiadaria. She might have been sleeping, except that the healers had said she took a nasty blow to the head. That had happened after he had been knocked out. There was hushed talk that she might never wake, but he refused to believe such nonsense. She was strong, a fierce warrior. Unlike the coward he was. Tia had to wake, he thought savagely. They needed her. He needed her.

The air in the infirmary was thick with the smell of antiseptic spirits. It reminded him of the hall in Blackbeach where they had taken the bodies of the boys he had killed. Wynn had vowed never to enter such a place again. Yet here he was, keeping an uneasy vigil over the woman who had saved his life. It seemed the least he could do. After all, it was his fault that she was in the bed in the first place.

No matter how many times he revisited the previous night’s events in his head, he couldn’t come up with a single way in which he had done anything but get her hurt. To be fair, Tia hadn’t fully conveyed the mind-numbing horror of being face-to-face with a real, live Xarundi. To hear about the beasts was one thing. To watch in helpless terror as it tore apart every living thing in its path was another matter altogether.

Still, she had asked him to fight, and instead, he had frozen in place, too terrified to do more than huddle against the wall and hope that the entire ordeal would be over soon. If only he had fought, maybe his face wouldn’t hurt so much, maybe he’d still have his eye, and maybe the girl laying in the bed next to him could not have only saved herself, but others in the city who had needed her help as well.

The side of his face throbbed like a distant drumbeat. He tentatively touched the bandages there. His fingers came away sticky, stained with blood that had seeped through the gauze. The healers had offered him medicine for the pain, but he had politely, if firmly, refused. The pain was a good reminder that the next time Tia asked him to fight, maybe he should do it.

There was a commotion at the end of the long hall and Wynn turned his body so he could see clearly with his remaining eye. The clerics had just drawn a bloodstained sheet over the face of someone laying on the table. A woman, a commoner judging by her plain linen dress, threw herself over the body, her wails echoing across the infirmary. How many more would die, Wynn wondered bitterly.

Even as small as he felt, there was something inside him that was even worse. It was the insistent little voice that asked what if? What if Tiadaria had never come to Ethergate? What if the Xarundi hadn’t come looking for her? It wasn’t as if the city hadn’t fought off its fair share of attacks in the past, but never had the cost been so high. The rational part of him knew she wasn’t really to blame, but the rational side of him hadn’t done him much good lately.

Tiadaria shifted and Wynn’s attention was instantly focused back on the bed. He watched her eyes. They fluttered a bit under the lids, but she didn’t wake. He wanted to grab her, shake her, and do anything that might bring her back. He wasn’t sure what to do. So rather than make things worse, he settled on doing nothing. Brooding, he slumped back in his chair and watched her.

The steady throbbing in his head had almost lulled him to sleep when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head, then followed a moment later with his full body. He was still struggling to adapt to his newly acquired handicap. The man who stood behind him was of medium build and height, with a head of thick, curly brown hair. The look of compassion he turned on Wynn was enough to make the apprentice look away in embarrassment.

“Apprentice Wynn?” The stranger’s voice was a mellow baritone, far more soothing than Wynn wanted or felt he deserved.

“Yes?”

“I’ve brought a message for Lady Tiadaria. The cleric at the door said you’d been with her all night.”

“And will be until she wakes,” he said harshly, as if somehow the stranger’s statement implied that Wynn should be elsewhere.

“That’s good,” the man said, snaking his foot around the leg of a nearby stool and drawing it next to the apprentice’s chair. “Tia would like that.”

The familiarity of his tone caught Wynn off guard. “You know her?”

Offering a slow, sad smile the man nodded. “Yes. We fought together against the Xarundi at Dragonfell. My name is Cabot. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

Wynn grunted and offered no other reply. Cabot didn’t seem overly inclined to continue the conversation, which suited the apprentice just fine. In fact, Wynn had almost forgotten about Cabot’s presence when he spoke again.

“I feel like I can trust you to deliver this in my absence.” Cabot produced a sealed letter from inside his doublet. He offered it to Wynn, who took it with numb fingers.

“This is from Faxon?” Wynn asked, recognizing the seal and the extravagant blue wax.

“Yes,” Cabot replied with a smile. “For Lady Tiadaria.” He tapped the scrawled name over the seal.

“I’m not in the habit of reading other people’s mail,” Wynn retorted hotly.

“I am,” Cabot said, slowly getting to his feet. “I work for Imperium Intelligence. Please see that Tiadaria gets that letter as soon as she wakes.” Cabot turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at Wynn over his shoulder. “The Xarundi would have come to Ethergate sooner or later, Wynn. Tiadaria wasn’t the only thing of interest to them here, it would seem.”

Wynn jerked upright in surprise. “The gargoyle?” He had only just found out about the theft himself. A knot of quintessentialists had passed through the infirmary discussing the gargoyle. He wondered how Cabot could know of its disappearance already.

Cabot nodded. “We live in interesting times.” He walked off, leaving Wynn to contemplate exactly how interesting they were. Cabot seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He was still trying to puzzle out the connection when Tia spoke.