But he was very dead. His throat had been slashed. A wide pool of blood was leaking outwards slowly from his hunched form.
'Do you see now, Crezia? Do you?' I yelled up at her.
Tarl was loose. He knew who I was and where I was. We had to leave.
Fast.
TWELVE
Into the night, into the mountains.
The Trans-Atenate Express.
A prompt from the dead.
'No,' said Crezia. 'No. No way. No/
This isn't up for debate, Crezia. It's not a suggestion, it's a… an instruction/
'How dare you order me around like one of your staff lackeys, Eisen-horn. I am not leaving!'
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. The brutal murder of her man Phabes was causing her great distress. Getting through to her would be hard.
I turned to Aemos and Eleena. 'Get dressed. Collect up everything and stow it in the flier. I want to be away from here in under half an hour/ They both hurried away.
It was difficult to know how long the janissary had been gone. Phabes, whose body Aemos had covered with a sheet, was still quite warm, so I reckoned Tarl only had an hour's head start, ninety minutes worst case. Given his Vessorine pragmatism, I figured he had headed straight for a vox-station to report our location to his brethren. That's what I'd have done in his position. He could have tried to kill me himself, but by then he knew not to underestimate my abilities. There was a decent chance I'd have taken him down, in which case the secret of my location would never have got out.
No, he'd gone to find means of sending the message. It was impossible to know how close elements of his party were, but if we were still here in sixty minutes' time, I didn't much rate our chances.
It also occurred to me that once he'd got his message off safely, he'd be clear to come back and have a try at me himself.
I took Crezia by the hand and led her back upstairs. Her eyes were puffy and red, and she was a little vacant with shock. She sat on the end of my bed as 1 got dressed.
'If I could just go, Crezia, 1 would,' I said softly, finding a fresh shirt. 'If it was just a matter of walking away and removing all my crap from your life, that's what I'd do. But that's not what's going to happen. Mercenaries will be heading this way. They will be arriving soon, probably before dawn. They will question and kill anyone they find. You won't be able to tell them you don't know where I've gone. They will… well, they're Ves-sorine janissaries and they're being paid well. I can't leave you here.'
'I don't want to go. This is my home, Gregor. My damn home, and look what you've done.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Look what you've damn well done to my life!'
'I'm sorry. I'll make amends.'
She got up, the anger coming back and eclipsing her sorrow. 'How? How the hell can you make up for this? How the hell can you make up for all the pain you've ever caused me?'
'I have no idea. But I will. And you have to stay alive so I can. I've got the ruination of your nice comfortable existence on my conscience, Crezia. I will not add your death to that.'
'Fine words. I'm not coming. I'm going back to bed.'
I grabbed her by the arm and stopped her. I had to find a different tack. As a medic, she was almost professionally selfless. Appealing to her sense of self preservation was futile.
'I need you to come. That's the truth of it. I've got to take Medea with me. I can't leave her here, and I don't think she's in a position to travel.'
'Of course she isn't!'
'So she'll die?'
'If you move her now? In her state?'
'Better she travelled with a doctor then, don't you think?'
She shook off my hand. 'I will not allow you to jeopardise the health of my patient, Eisenhorn/ she warned.
Then consider the prognosis, doctor. If she stays here, she'll be dead by morning. They will kill her when they find her. If she comes with me without you, she'll likely die too. I think what's really in question here is your medicae oath to preserve life.'
I hated being so manipulative… well, with her anyway. She regarded me with venom, knowing that I'd cornered her.
'You bastard. You clever, clever bastard. I don't know why I ever loved you.'
'I don't know why either. But I know why I loved you. You always cared. You always did the right thing.'
She turned and walked out of my room.
I finished dressing, and tucked spare clothes and Barbarisater into a leather grip I found on top of the wardrobe. Then I picked up the rune staff and-
-stopped in the doorway.
The
The first answer that occurred to me was strange and unnerving. Perhaps it wanted to be forgotten.
The flier's interior lights illuminated a patch of the little courtyard. Aemos and Eleena had stowed everything – clothes for each of them, and the manuscripts and books we had rescued from Spaeton House. I put my own stuff aboard and ran a pre-flight. The flier was charged to optimum.
'Help me, damn you all!' Crezia said.
She was dressed in a dark green utility suit and a quilted coat, and had two travel bags with her. Medea lay on a grav-gurney, strapped in place with a resuscitrex unit and a narthecium full of supplies magnetically anchored to the underside of the gurney. Crezia had slaved two med-skulls to our patient, and they hovered in the air behind the stretcher.
We got Medea aboard and then clambered in ourselves. Crezia sat beside Medea, saying nothing. She didn't even look back at the house as we rose into the night and powered away.
We flew south, towards the main Atenate range, a massif of gigantic peaks that split the centre of the continent for three and a half thousand kilometres. The Itervalle and its neighbours were just foothills compared to this great geological structure.
I didn't want to stay in the air for too long. Tarl knew we had a flier and would have informed his comrades. This was just a short hop to get us going. I studied a chart-slate and began to compose a route.
By dawn, we were about ninety kilometres to the south-west and several hundred metres higher, in the base valleys of the ragged-edged Esembo. It was a soaring black shape in the early light, with a glinting wig of ice. Its mighty neighbours lurked behind it.
We set down at a town called Tiroyere, a small place that thrived as a logging centre and a waystation for travellers heading to the resorts at the top of the Esembo Pass. I parked the flier on the edge of the town under a brake of firs that would shield it from aerial observers.
No one had said much. The air was briskly cold and I turned the cabin heater to maximum for Medea's benefit.
'We should eat/ Eleena said. 'I'd go and get something… but…'
None of us had any money.
Crezia pulled off her gloves and produced a wallet from her coat. Am I the only person who thinks practically?' she commented sourly.
