Crown of Renewal(57)

Then he heard someone coming up the roof behind him. They couldn’t have gotten around him in that brief time he was tumbling, could they? And why would they bother? They would have seen the bolt hit; they’d have known he was disabled.

“Gird’s COW!” came the cry, along with the sound of more feet on the slates.

“They’ve got crossbows!,” Arvid yelled. “Beware!”

“So do we! Yeomen! Volley!”

That had to be a Marshal. Which Marshal? Arvid tried to think whose voice that was. Cedfer? Machlin? Dimod? One of his pursuers showed a head; bolts from behind him whizzed toward it. He saved his last bolt, thinking this could not possibly end well.

Then three yeomen with crossbows rolled over the ridge behind him and down into the valley between the roofs. “You’re hurt,” one said. Arvid recognized him as from his own grange but another drill group. He could not think of the man’s name.

“Yes,” Arvid said. “I can’t pull the bolt out.”

“And you’re pale as new cheese.”

“Probably.” Arvid refrained from suggesting that telling a wounded person he looked bled out was no help. His vision was blurring now; he blinked hard twice and told himself to wake up and stay alert.

“We’ll get this sorted,” the man said. More supporters now rolled or slid gracelessly down the near slope of the roof and into the valley; a Marshal came over to Arvid.

“How bad?”

“Bolt in the thigh,” Arvid said. “The children—?”

“All safe.” The Marshal’s expression was grim. “How many of them?”

“I’m not sure,” Arvid said. “I killed four—no, more than that, but I never saw them all together.”

“Perrin—go back and fetch us blankets and ropes. We’ll need that to move Arvid.” To Arvid he said, “I’ll be back. Don’t die yet.”

The Marshal and the others scrambled up the roof, crouching low near the top, and then rolled over the ridge again and down to the next valley. After a short while, Arvid heard shouts, thuds, more shouts, and finally the sound of men coming back.

“Now let’s see,” the Marshal said.

Arvid passed out before the Marshal had done more than cut open his trousers to expose the wound. He roused briefly to hear someone say, “Not that way, you idiot!” and realized he was being carried down something—roof slope? stairs?—bundled up in a blanket like a corpse. On that thought he passed out again.





Chapter Eleven

He woke slowly, first aware of dull pain and lassitude, then light beyond his closed eyelids, and finally—when he opened his eyes—he realized he was in bed in a room full of people, one of whom was his son, white-faced and tense with worry, at the foot of the bed.

“The children?” he asked. He thought he’d asked that before, but he couldn’t remember the answer.

“Well, and with their parents, but for the three who’d been killed,” Marshal Cedlin said. “The child-thieves are all dead—there’s still some unrest, as some of them were locals and their families are upset.” He cleared his throat. “Arvid … are you able to tell us how you got the children out? And did you hear anything more while you were in there to help us prevent more such?”

They could have waited until morning, surely. Arvid blinked and realized that the light in the room came from the window and most resembled afternoon light. He had a vague memory of waking once before.

He nodded, tried to clear his throat, and coughed instead. Pia put a mug to his lips, cool water with mint in it. When she took the mug away, he began, giving as clear a report as he could.

“You’re sure the one killing the childer was Goram?” Marshal Cedlin asked.

“That’s what one of the others said. There were two—one named Bin. I think he’s the one who said Goram enjoyed killing them. It bothered him. The other—um … I think someone mentioned Bin and … Fenis, it was … later. If that was the same man, he’s the one said it didn’t matter if Goram enjoyed it or not, mages were evil. “

“Bin—that’d be the journeyman woodwright in Emon’s shop,” one of the other Marshals said. “A local … Fenis I don’t know. The other might have been Donag—”

“No, because they mentioned Donag.” Arvid could not stop looking at his son; the boy’s eyes were glittering now with unshed tears. He lifted his hand. “Come sit with me, lad.” Instead, the boy hurled himself on the bed, burying his face in Arvid’s shirt.

“Da! Don’t die!”