A. Hartley - Will Power

“What did you do?” he demanded, storming in without knocking.

“Last night?” I asked, alarmed by the look on his face.

“No,” he said. “Since then. Something worse.”

“Nothing!” I said.

“Don’t lie to me, Will,” he shouted suddenly. “You did something. The entire garrison is looking for you. I do not think. .”

He paused as if uncertain what to say, but then I realized he was uncertain what to think .

“You don’t think what?” I pressed him.

“I don’t think you will talk your way out of this.”

There was none of his usual righteous glee in the statement. There was, if anything, a glimmer of anxiety, even fear. Garnet knew I was capable of all kinds of appalling actions in word and deed, and he would happily watch me flogged with something spiky if it taught me the error of my ways and, more importantly, proved the rightness of his. But this was different. His face was paler than ever and his eyes were downcast. There was a studied blankness to his features and a rigidity to his posture that suggested a tremendous effort of will. He was being strong, and while this usually came naturally to him, the effort was nearly killing him. And as I thought this, it came to me. “They’re coming to kill me, aren’t they?” I mouthed.

He look at the floor and said nothing.

“Aren’t they?” I demanded.

He looked up very slowly and there was doubt in his eyes. “They are coming to apprehend you for trial,” he began, but his voice failed him and he paused. His eyes met mine and the doubt was gone as he answered me without knowing how he could be so sure: “I think so,” he said. “Yes.”

“Tell Renthrette I’m sorry about her dress,” I said.

I was already grabbing my things and running for the door. He stood where he was, asking quietly, desperately, as if this would make everything clear, “What did you do?”

You may have noticed that running away is not a frequent feature in the lives led by the heroes of literature. You may also have noted that running is something I do rather a lot of. The fact of the matter is that dying, which is rather more popular in heroic tales, has never especially appealed to me, particularly when it involves pain and humiliation. I wasn’t sure which method of slow torture the so-called “fair folk” preferred, but I was pretty sure that I would rather be otherwise engaged. I’m not particularly stoic when it comes to pain and, since I’m far from sure what may or may not lurk in the hereafter, I have learned to spot danger before it spots me and move away from it very, very quickly. Not particularly honorable or even dignified, I admit, but I can live with that. At least I’ll live with something.

So I ran from Phasdreille, from its handsome book-burning soldiers, from that poisonous Aliana bitch and the valiantly murderous Sorrail, like a rabbit from a greyhound. The bridge sentries were still searching the palace, so I clambered into the back of a wagon of empty soap boxes packed in straw, and tried to still the hammering of my heart as we moved out over the bridge, through the barbican and out of the city at last. Garnet’s warning had, it occurred to me, saved my life. I suddenly wished I had told him that his beloved Lisha was alive and only a few miles away.

Well, too late for that now.

I waited a few minutes and then slipped down from the wagon, rolling into the ditch by the road and lying still till I could hear no sign of life. I moved quickly into the woods to rest. I was not in the best shape, and my exertions, augmented by a stifling panic, had left me breathless and just about incapable of action. I was lying on my stomach and staring back toward the city while I tried to figure out what to do next when a company of horsemen came charging over the bridge and out of the barbican. There they clattered to a halt, divided into two, and set off in opposite directions on the road. This was not encouraging. I didn’t actually hear them distributing my portrait, but their mission seemed clear: Find Hawthorne and put one of those carefully polished lances through his gizzard.

I wasn’t sure what my gizzard was, but I was fairly confident that I had other plans for it, so I lay in the bracken and did my best to stop breathing for about ten minutes. Then another group of soldiers, this time on foot, came out of the city and my blood ran colder than Renthrette’s eyes on a frosty day. At the head of the company, yelping and lunging forward with disturbing eagerness, was a pack of hounds.

It seemed about that time again. So I ran, straight into where the forest seemed deepest, diving through bracken and bounding over fallen trees like. . well, like someone with a company of soldiers and a pack of dogs at his heels. I figured it would take the dogs a moment to pick up my scent, but once they had it, my days, and-for that matter-my seconds, were numbered. I knew that I should be thinking up some brilliant ruse, but my legs had taken over and my brain was trying to keep up. I knew that even if I climbed a tree (presuming I could do that without killing myself) or hid in some conveniently positioned hollow, the hounds would track me down and I would gain nothing more than another minute or two to reflect upon those teeth and lance tips. So I kept moving with nothing more in my mind than getting as much distance between me and my pursuers as possible. Far behind me, the barking swelled and became unified: They were coming. And suddenly, as I blundered through a screen of hemlock, the stench hit me.

It had probably been growing with each footstep, but I had been too preoccupied with my footing to reflect upon the sweet and fragrant aromas of the forest. These aromas had now become a good deal less sweet and fragrant as a sour note overpowered the resin scent of the pines and brought me to a nose-wrinkling halt. The dogs answered, right on cue, with a bloodthirsty baying, so I silenced my offended nostrils (if you know what I mean), and pressed on. A huge spruce barred my path and I had to press blindly through its pale extremities. I shielded my eyes from the needles as I did so, and then, as I broke free, found myself gaping at my feet. One of my boots had sunk into the earth up to the cuff at the knee. I plucked it out with a long, sucking draw and the smell broke upon me like a cloud. Looking up, I found that the trees here had fallen away. Across a few yards of dark and stinking mud was the river, black, oily, and still as death.

I remembered the winding river instantly, of course, how it divided the fair woods and Phasdreille from the foul realm of darkness on the south bank, and as I stared across, it was all perfectly self-evident. The trees which sprouted from the stagnant water or stuck up at wild angles from its surface were blackened poles stripped of leaves, with branches like ragged claws, and on the far side of the river the woods were reduced to a thicket of the same dead pikes stabbing at the sky from dank and swampy beds. The air was chill and heavily silent for a second, and I could smell the evil through the decay. But then the silence was broken by the voices of the hounds and their handlers, and my dilemma hit me between the eyes like a pickaxe. Should I stay on the bank and wait for the soldiers to drag my bleeding remains from their dogs for formal torture and execution in Phasdreille, or should I brave the horrors of the water and whatever lay beyond it? Put like that, I seemed to have only one option. The stinking waters might even throw the dogs off my scent.

I took three more gurgling strides through the struggling reeds and mud and then felt the chill of icy water rushing over the tops of my boots. It was an inconceivably unpleasant sensation. Another step, and the bottom, which was treacherously slick with what I took to be rotting leaves and branches, shelved sharply. The water rose up to my chest, driving the breath from my body as the surprising cold overcame me. I stood there gasping the noxious air and gazing, stricken, at the far bank, which looked about a mile away. I had just remembered that I couldn’t swim.