Kingdom's Fall

Chapter 22, Part 2

They set off west the next morning, to the indistinct sounds of tools striking on stone. Gray wondered how much dismay there had been amongst the rest of the Engineers when they heard Farran's plan, but put it out of his mind at once. They were earning their passage, as far as he was concerned. Twenty of the ex-prisoners had volunteered to come on the raiding party, too many for Gray's tastes, but he had winnowed them down by testing how well they could handle a gun. Almost half of them ended up going back to the dam on the basis of inexperience. The surprise addition to their group was Bronya. No amount of argument would sway her, even though he had been counting on her leadership to keep morale high at the dam. Farran was clever but distant, and the rest of the Engineers seemed wary of how energetically he fell to the task of managing the would-be sappers.

The path wore thin as they got further from the dam, until it disappeared all together. They were walking along a scree slope that curved round the base of one mountain. Walking with one foot higher than the other was a business that demanded more luck than skill, and Gray looked forward to getting past it and out onto the flat land beyond. With luck, they would be returning with carts of powder, and the dogleg route they'd have to take returning - north-east to the riverbed then turning back south - would be easier going. His hand ached something fierce, and it was hard to keep it safe and keep his balance at the same time.

"I hope you're not thinking of doing anything stupid," Gray said to Bronya. He had fallen in step with her and the others in the group, sensing they were not part of the conversation, had sped up to out pace both of them. Cuan had tried to hang back, but the rest of the team had urged him on. I'll have to find a way to thank them for that, Gray thought.

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"Whoever it is you're trying to save, it's not Cuan."

"I'm not trying to save him."

"Of course you're not. If you were, you would have been in the palace at Alyn when we almost got ourselves hung as traitors. Or in the border town where we barely dodged your army. That boy can look after himself."

"I get it, Gray," she said, bristling with anger. "I understand."

"Right," Gray said. "Just so we're clear, then."

They walked on in silence for a while.

"So what was he like," Gray said, "your son?"

"You think you're clever, don't you?"

"Just a question." One I asked myself, once. Gray tried to remember what his son had looked like, before he left on the campaign south. All he could remember was laughter - his own at the boy's -  and the way his mouth turned down just before a bawling session started. Sickness had taken him, and Gray's wife. She passed it to him, they'd said, but not been spared the pain. He died first, and she had lain in bed for a day and a night afterwards. Still as a stone and her skin too hot to touch, she'd refused all food and water. He needs me, she'd said, and those had been her final words. No-one had thought to spare Gray the pain of knowing.