Blood & Tears

Chapter 2-3

More and more trucks from the front of the column were now driving back towards the hole in the fence, many with people hanging off the back. Chevakians tried to pull the hitchhikers off. They didn’t get all of them. The Chevakian soldiers were too few in number to stop the fights that broke out. Isandor could do nothing but watch, clutching the edge of his seat, while Milleus waited for boiler pressure to build.

“Are we going back?” he asked.

“No way. We’ll be sleeping at Sady’s house tonight.”

Now that the truck in front had gone, Isandor had an uninterrupted view of the camp, where more and more people were streaming out, up the hill, many carrying burning torches.

A soldier came to the window. “Move please, sir.” He flapped his hand in a general uphill direction and said a few words Isandor didn’t catch.

Milleus grumbled, “Old man? I’ll show you who’s an old man.” With a sharp clink, he dropped the truck into gear. “Hold on, youngsters.”

The engine roared, blowing a cloud of steam by way of a threat. The soldier didn’t move.

“Get out of the way!” Milleus shouted out the window.

“Sorry, sir, you can’t pass. Proctor’s orders.”

“And do you know what you can do with that dishrag of a proctor?”

He cranked the truck into reverse, shot back as far as they could without hitting either of the two trucks that were still following, and made a sharp turn to the right, over the edge of the road, ploughing through the grass and past the soldiers. The goats in the trailer protested with the jerky movements.

“Hey, hey! Stop!” The soldier ran beside the truck, but he couldn’t keep up. There was a loud bang.

Milleus gunned the truck as fast as it would go. “Did you hear that? They fired at us! They shot at honest Chevakian citizens. Hang on, this will be a rough trip.”

Isandor grabbed the handholds on the side of the door. Jevaithi clung into him. Milleus steered the truck around bumps and gullies. He seemed to enjoy himself. They rolled down the hill faster and faster and soon Isandor couldn’t see the running soldier anymore. He glanced over his shoulder.

Jevaithi’s eyes were wide.

Isandor held her. He was scared, too.

The truck bumped and creaked and clanged. They kept going downhill, getting closer to the first line of tents. There were no longer other trucks in front. The sky showed faint blue at the horizon, and the glow lit Milleus’ determined face. He muttered obscenities to himself.

The truck clunked back onto the paved road with a sound that Isandor hadn’t heard before. The engine roared, but they were not going as fast as Isandor would have expected.

Milleus swore. “They shot the tyres.”

A few loud bangs echoed over the field, these ones further away, presumably aimed at the trucks trying to follow. The truck laboured down the road. They were now coming up to the first of the tents. Refugees thronged at tent entrances to watch the spectacle. People of all ages, all southerners in fur cloaks. Skinny, filthy refugees. Many of them were wounded. There were hundreds, thousands.

While they progressed slowly, some of the refugees cheered. Children ran with the truck, barefooted.

“I wish all these people would get out of the way,” Milleus muttered. He glanced over his shoulder, where a group of Chevakian soldiers fast caught up. “The old lady can’t pull much with a couple of flat tyres. We’ll probably have to stop soon, when they catch up with us. You’re ready?”

“Ready for what?” Isandor couldn’t run with his wooden leg.

“We’re likely to get arrested by the soldiers, and they’ll take us into the city. You’ll have to come up with a story that will convince them that you’re no southern spies.”

Isandor met Jevaithi’s wide eyes.

“Whatever your reason for being in my shed, it can’t be political or have anything to do with the government of the City of Glass.”

By the skylights, were the Chevakians that scared of the south?

Jevaithi’s breath was coming fast. Her face glistened with sweat. Isandor held her tightly, and could feel his heart racing in her chest.

If there were any Knights in the camp, this wouldn’t end well. If they were caught by Chevakians, this wouldn’t end well.

A Chevakian soldier caught up with the truck, jumped on the outer step, yanked the driver’s door open and half-pulled Milleus from his seat. The truck stopped abruptly when Milleus’ foot left the accelerator.

Jevaithi let out a squeak and buried in Isandor’s arms.

Milleus struggled to free himself of the soldier’s grip, cursing, but the soldier was stronger and dragged Milleus from the cabin.

Champion, champion, champion, the southern people were chanting.

Some of them climbed onto the front of the truck. Soon, they would come inside, and then . . .

“What do we do now?” Jevaithi cried. “It’s over. We’re lost.”

“No, it’s not,” Isandor said.

Something clicked in Isandor’s mind. The people he’d talked to briefly were Outer City people, because people from the City of Glass proper would never have recognised him. It made sense that if something had caused an explosion of icefire, most of the refugees would be from the Outer City. Knights would have eagles, and he’d seen none. Maybe there were no Knights here. He had to take the risk.

The Outer City people he knew well, and those people loved the Queen. Jevaithi had another protection: her name.

“Wait.” He released Jevaithi and turned to the door.

“What are you doing?” Her voice sounded like a squeak.

“Wait. Come out when I ask you.”

“No, Isandor.”

“Yes. I have an idea.”

He pushed the door open. The scene outside was utter chaos. People were fighting the Chevakian guards, or each other. Three people were on the trailer, trying to get it open. The goats were bleating and jumping about. Milleus had vanished in the seething mass of people.

Still in the door opening, Isandor pulled himself up onto the truck’s roof, his trembling hands slipping in the layer of soot and dust that covered it.

He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled as hard as he could.

“Stop. Fighting!”

Not that it made much of a difference. The wind carried his voice and the words were lost in the chaos.

But then a man yelled, “There is the Champion! See? I told you so.”

A woman replied, “Our Champion!”

“That can’t be. The Knights killed him.”

Isandor yelled, as loudly as he could, “I’m not dead, as you can see.”

Fights stopped. A few people laughed.

Cheers went up all around, and all the southerners in the vicinity of the truck gathered to watch. Isandor spotted Milleus with the Chevakians at the back, also watching.

He asked. “Are you all from the Outer City?”

A woman replied, “Most of us, yeah.”

“Are there any Knights here?”

“If there are, they’re keeping their cowardly heads down.” The man who had spoken was dressed in black, and when he spoke, voices quietened.

By the skylights, since when had the Brothers of the Light been so visible? There must be truly no Knights here. “Are you the leader of these people?”

“I’m Simo,” the man said. He was perhaps in his thirties. He had a thin beard and a balding patch at the top of his head. “Leader is probably not the right word, but we are leaders, of some kind, for the freedom of the people of the City of Glass. I’m glad to hear that you survived. The last we saw you was when you were being taken away by Knights.”

That time seemed like years ago. The man must have been in the audience at the arena for the ritual killing, like most of these people here.

Isandor bent down and stuck his hand into the window. “Come out.”

Jevaithi stared at him, looking into the window upside-down.

“Come. These are good people, from the Outer City. They won’t harm you. They’ll protect you.”

He could see the whole world go through that frightened expression in her eyes. Did she want to go back to being their queen? She had said she didn’t, but she’d been very quiet the last few days whenever the subject came up. She was scared, and lost, and too groomed for the position to do anything else.

She came out of the truck, took his hand and let him haul her on top of the roof, where the grey pre-dawn light silvered her face and her no-longer-white bear skin cloak.

There were gasps, and a stunned silence.

Then someone cried out, “It’s the Queen!”

Several voices repeated the cry. “It’s the Queen, it’s the Queen. The Queen lives.”

Isandor met Milleus’ eyes over the heads of the crowd; his mouth was open. Isandor mouthed, I’m sorry.

Men climbed up on the truck and lifted both Isandor and Jevaithi onto their shoulders.

From his position, Isandor glimpsed a whole convoy of Chevakian trucks still coming into the camp through the broken fence, and soldiers trying to turn them around. Fights were again breaking out on the edge of the camp, and the Chevakian soldiers, too few in number, retreated. The southerners were throwing up barricades. Fires burned in some places, sending clouds of smoke through the camp.

But there was nothing Isandor could do about any of that. The people carried him and Jevaithi into a large tent, where many people sat on the ground. Mothers and children, older people, all huddled under cloaks. In here, it smelled of bodies and damp earth.

The young Brother Simo yelled, “Listen to me, people. There is good news! We have the Queen. The Queen is back!”