Imperius Ch. 06

She nodded again, more readily this time, and said, "Yes, sir."

He and his Lieutenant moved away, leaving her to linger at the mouth of the cave a moment longer.

She breathed in deeply, savoring the fresh clean air and the feeling of being thickly clothed.

"Porridge is nearly ready," said a voice from behind her. Lilah turned to see that Elspeth had returned, her arms crossed. Lilah nodded and thanked her, expecting her to leave as soon as she could.

Lilah was only slightly surprised when the other woman did no such thing, and changed tacks, They're ignoring us," she said. "Looking over us, around us."

Lilah tilted her head at Elspeth, tempted not to respond for a short, vengeful moment. "Not ignoring us," she said, after a pause, "Not exactly." Her voice was gentler than she had expected when it was Elspeth she was compelled to respond to, "They're nervous," she said, looking at Elspeth's profile. "You know how rarely Imperial slaves are rescued, and how affected those we do rescue tend to be. They don't know what we've been through, or whether it changed us. They're careful."

"Careful," said Elspeth, her mouth twisting, "Like you were being on the dais with all of the imperial officials."

Lilah's frustration was too shrouded in weariness to hold any sting, "We all bent to their will in one way or another, Elspeth. They were as delighted with your display in their arena as they would have been to see you meek and yielding."

Elspeth looked as though she were struggling with a response, but whether it was to formulate one or resist the urge to spit the first one she thought of back at her, Lilah couldn't tell. "I'm not trying to pick a fight," she said, her voice rough, her northern accent thicker than usual. She was staring determinedly into the distance.

For once, thought Lilah, but kept silent. Elspeth couldn't repress her prickliness entirely, but there was sincerity in her now that Lilah rarely saw rise to her surface.

She thought of Mairi.

Mairi, who was still likely enslaved in the Imperial encampment.

Mairi, whom Lilah had left behind.

Which of us is worse, I wonder? Thought Lilah as she continued to consider Elspeth.

Why couldn't anything ever be simple?

Lilah looked back over toward Saphir inside of the cave, to see his head still lowered, his eyes on the floor, a slender outline in the darkness. She suspected he'd been looking at her a moment before.

But then her skin prickled and she searched the small group to find the imperial defector watching her, nursing his bowl of rationed porridge with a detachment that came by rote to all who became used to military fare.

She met his eyes, and he lowered his head to her in a gallant little gesture, the corners of his lips hinting at a smile, before he looked away.

Elspeth turned, "Listen," she said, falteringly. "I was furious that day, when I saw you on that dais, standing beside the enemy in all that finery, but..." She paused, and looked away, down over the forest. "You escaped, the moment you had the chance." Lilah felt as though the air around them softened, mellowed, the tension she was used to between her body and Elspeth's dissipating. "I want you to know that I give you credit for that," Elspeth said.

It was not entirely easy between them, not entirely warm. Lilah didn't think it ever would be, really. Even before their capture, she and Elspeth had always seen things so differently.

But it was something. She met the other woman's eyes with a sad smile.

She and Elspeth stayed long enough to watch twilight fall like a violet blanket, darkening the forest to black, and the rain turned heavier before they re-joined the others.

At least her clothing kept her warm. Let the Imperius keep its luxurious sky-ships and its vast palaces, Illythiel had its own advancements. The fabric she wore imitated the texture of a water plant, effectively resisting the rain. In their wet climate, she would take that advantage any day.

All the same, she thought as she turned and re-entered the cave to eat, she wouldn't have said no to some of the Imperial food. The porridge that Hilde handed her when Lilah came to join the older woman by the fire looked singularly unappealing. It was no different than the rations they'd had earlier, but it was harder to stomach without the same degree of hunger she had felt then.

Lilah thanked the older woman, and ate.

It was familiar and filling, and she was grateful for it, she told herself. The food she had been treated to in the imperial camp may have been sumptuous, but she had only received it in portions that pleased her master—

The Praetor, Lilah thought, catching herself. She lowered her spoon, struck by the thought, but when she noticed Hilde watching her carefully, she returned the look with a tiny, reassuring smile and swallowed another spoonful of porridge.

"Did Eris go back out to scout?" she asked. It was more a means of conversation than a real query. Eris did whatever was necessary. Everyone knew that, and it was the commander who weighed the value of it.

"Yes," Hilde said, "And we should take the chance to rest. The commander will want us ready to leave early."

~ * ~

Lilah dreamt. Fleeting, hazy images through veils of fog danced across her path. People fled from an unseen danger, their faces contorted in terror.

Saphir appeared in the dream, twining a length of scarlet silk through his fingers and then around his own wrists. He didn't look at her—simply stared at the cloth, and the patterns he made with it. The sound was like the sea, and the dream shifted until she stood on a shore and ran and ran but never found a familiar sight. It seemed, in the dream, that she was alone in an empty world until she heard the distant sounds of combat, and stood unable to decide whether to run toward or away from the sound. And the water turned red.

Lilah woke to the sound of Hilde's voice calling to her quietly.

She murmured, turning, "Mm—..." Her eyes opened, and the military call to alertness was enough to shake the haze of sleep in a moment. Hilde's face filled her vision, the older woman's brows pinched.

"What is it?" Lilah asked, sitting up quickly. Outside of the cave, rain had begun to fall heavily. The clouds grumbled.

"Something's happened," Hilde said quietly, "Come quickly."

She knew it was bad by the looks on their faces when she approached MacCrannach and his officers, standing in a cluster where they had bound Saphir for the night. The younger officer Boyne lay unceremoniously sprawled on the ground beside them. MacCrannach stood a head taller than most of them, lending potency to his grave expression.

Lilah lowered beside him, touching her fingertips to the pulse in his throat. Still beating.

"Drugged," said Lieutenant Raighan, coming to stand near her.

Lilah asked the thing she was most afraid of asking. "And Saphir?"

"Gone," said Raighan, looking down at Saphir's cut bindings, abandoned on the cave floor. "Apparently, freed." He lifted his eyes to his commander's. "And Boyne's weapons, gone with him."

Eris lifted her head and actually sniffed the air, then scrutinized the ground. "There are drag marks," she said, the words leaving her reluctantly, as though she didn't want to say them.

"She can't have," said Callow, his jaw tense, "She wouldn't have. She only wanted to question him. She wouldn't have let him get out."

Lilah thought back to the look on Elspeth's face when she had spoken to her. She hadn't given her plans away, but that was unsurprising when Elspeth treated everything as a personal challenge—there was no variation to notice.

Commander MacCrannach, meanwhile, was staring hard at Callow.

"You knew she planned this?" MacCrannach asked, his posture stiff. It wasn't a question as much as it was an opportunity for Callow to choose honesty over brazen deceit.

He straightened his shoulders and met the hard judgment in MacCrannach's eyes directly, though his complexion took on a greenish tinge as he did so, "I did, sir."

MacCrannach's eyes turned frigid. "Did you know she intended to drug Boyne?"

Callow's response was stiff. "She put a mild sedative in his porridge when she helped serve dinner. I helped distract Hilde."

MacCrannach nodded, acknowledging his forthrightness before he dismissed him. "Guard the front," he said, his voice biting. Callow's throat worked before he obeyed. Everyone held very still—the awareness that this would change Callow's status as an officer thick in the air.

MacCrannach looked back at the group, focused in the thought. Lilah knew he was deciding what to do, and continued to look around at the scene in front of them. Even beyond the sight of Boyne's still form, something did not sit well with her.

This felt strange...wrong, and she felt the commander's eyes land on her, the same warning instinct in his expression.

"Commander," said Eris, "These marks, they don't lead out, but further into the cave."

The group stilled, and several of them glanced into the darkness. This time Lilah could see everyone else shuddering.

"We leave now." MacCrannach said, his eyes only leaving hers after he had completed the command. He addressed the group as a whole, "Gather the essential supplies, leave the tents behind."

Lieutenant Raighan looked at his Commander, and voiced the next question Lilah dreaded the answer to.

"Boyne?" he asked.

MacCrannach paused for only a moment, "If he wakes by the time we leave, he'll have a chance to follow."

There was a grasping, scrambling sound, and then a soft thump at the mouth of the cave.

The fire went out, dousing the cave in darkness.

"How practical, Commander," came a voice from somewhere above them. Lilah could hear the sound of a dozen rifles lifting toward the source, but the shadows were too absolute to make out the speaker. It was unmistakably Saphir's voice, but colder than Lilah had ever heard it, the sound of silk against a steel blade.

There was a choking noise coming from the same direction, barely audible above the muted rain outside, and Lilah felt certain that it was Callow.

"Drop your weapons and surrender," said Saphir, "And I won't need to snap your sergeant's neck."

No one moved. As Lilah's eyes adjusted, she could just make out a brooding indecision on the commander's face.

"There are eleven of us," called Lieutenant Raighan into the darkness, his voice forcedly steady. "How can you imagine fighting us?"

"He's like me," said Eris, staring in the direction of Saphir's voice with predatory focus.

Callow made a sound again, a small cry and the now so recognizable sound of a futile struggle.

"Saphir, please let him go," Lilah said, her eyes searching the shadows. Her vision was beginning to adjust, but just barely.

"I will, Lilah," he said, his voice so smooth and implacable that it sent awful chills down her spine. "-As soon as your commander promises me his surrender."

"I will not surrender my entire regiment for one man," said MacCrannach.

"Won't you, Commander?" asked Saphir, his voice silkier than ever. "Even if that man were your son?"

Lilah could just make out one of the soldiers beside her—the one with the woad tattoos—shift, his eyes narrowing on a point in the direction of Saphir's voice. Lilah looked toward the same spot, but couldn't make more than the vaguest of shapes.

Beside Lilah, Maeve also shifted, her eyes searching MacCrannach's face.

The soldier with the woad tattoos took a shot into the darkness. There was a clenched teeth hiss of pain, and then whirl of silver. The next Lilah saw, a knife hilt jutted from the soldier's throat.

"No!" Lilah cried, moving to catch the man as he fell forward, But Eris took hold of her and pushed her down an instant before the soldiers opened fire.

Lilah turned her head, and saw that beside her Marley, the burly officer who had been on guard at the cave entrance earlier, had done the same to Hilde and Maeve.

Above them, the shooting continued for several moments before there was the sound of an impact and several cries of pain and surprise. Lilah craned her neck and saw Callow's crumpled form atop several of the soldiers. Saphir had thrown him. The next she knew, one of the other soldiers was screaming, his body yanked away from them into the darkness. There was a loud sickening crunch, and he went silent.

The soldiers were scrambling now, trying to regain their footing and their hold on their weapons, but three shots sounded off and three soldiers fell.

Eris swore, and rose.

"Marley, get them out of here!" she called, and with weaving movements, she dove into the darkness.

Lilah wanted to call after her. She knew she couldn't stop her, but fear stuttered in her heart. It was too inconceivable, the idea that Saphir alone could be a threat to all of them, that Eris might die in such a moment.

Her eyes had fully adjusted, and she could see Eris wrestling away the gun from Saphir's hands, but the weapon cracked apart in the process, and Saphir only switched footing and drew a knife from his waistband, pointing it toward Eris before she could stop him.

The knife turned into a silvery blur when he lunged, and though Eris dodged repeatedly, it was always by the barest margin. His speed was dazzling, and Lilah realized all at once a fact that would have been unthinkable to her only moments before: Eris was outclassed. While Eris moved with decisive, potent grace, Saphir outmatched her for speed. Lilah could only guess the contrast of their strength.

"Run," Marley urged the medics, but as Lilah moved to obey, Hilde resisted Marley's herding.

"I'm not giving up," she said, her northern accent thick. She pulled away from him and picked up one of the guns. "Get them out!"

This time, Lilah did call out, and tried to catch the older woman back, straining against Marley, "Hilde!" she called.

"You heard her, Lilah," MacCrannach said, surprising Lilah at her shoulder when she thought he had already run. His hand on her arm, he pulled her away with him, and she let herself be guided with a heartbroken gasp. She couldn't let herself be the reason the commander was caught, not with all the guilt already on her head.

Before she turned away from the fight however, she saw Hilde close the distance between her and Saphir, shooting her gun with every step—Eris once had to dodge aside from the blasts, but one of the shots caught Saphir in the hip. He staggered, but somehow stayed upright, his eyes bright with a kind of cold fire. He took the gun from Hilde before Lilah would have thought she was even in his range, and turned it on the older woman. Either before or after firing—Later, Lilah was never able to remember which—his eyes met Lilah's, an instant that lasted much longer in her mind, and she felt some certainty that he was going to fire a shot in their direction. She couldn't tell whether the shot would be to hobble her, or the commander, but she was certain his own hesitation to kill either of them outright was the reason for his split second delay in doing so—before he was seized from behind by a desperate Eris, and he lost his chance to do it.

She allowed herself to be pulled away before Hilde's corpse could finish falling.

They had to climb up slightly to exit the cave, but Maeve was used to the accent, and Marley helped Lilah maneuver the space smoothly.

Outside, the ground was treacherous. They flew into the trees with the desperate cunning of their Illythian training. It was nightmarishly thrilling, feeling herself skid against damp roots, and grassy mud.

But it was nothing to the terror she felt when a figure stepped into a clearing before them. He wore black ballistic armor and a full helmet, but as he crossed his arms behind him she knew him, knew who he was. She could feel the weight of his stare on her, even without seeing it.

"Commander," he said, his voice muffled through his helmet, "Surrender now, and no harm will come to your people. Or to your son."

MacCrannach raised his hands up, prompting Marley and the other two to do the same.

Something inside of Lilah's chest growled, and she pulled Marley's gun from his hands before she had even decided to do so.

MacCrannach's voice was tight. "I said no heroics, Claremont."

Magnus tilted his head.

"If you shoot me, Lilah," he said, "It will leave no damage at all through this armor, and I will make sure every one of your people pay for it."

"It's not for you," she said, and she felt a furious satisfaction when her own voice took on a conviction she'd never heard in it before.

She turned the gun on MacCrannach, who stiffened instinctively as the sight.

"No heroics, sir," Lilah said, turning off the safety mechanism, "But at your command—I'll shoot."

The commander managed to straighten with more dignity, more majesty than ever before, and understanding beyond words passed between them. The iron depths of his eyes held gratitude, regret, and hundred emotions that made Lilah yearn for a world in which they were not standing there, where she was not pointing a gun at a man she respected, a beloved of her people.

"If you speak to my son," he said, "Tell him I'm sorry, and-," his voice, his deep commanding voice, caught in his throat, "-that there's no man I respect more than him."

"Commander--," Lilah began, hardly knowing what she meant to say, but the commander interrupted.

"Shoot, Claremont," he said, and Lilah felt movement from her left—Magnus had taken a chance at running for her—and fired.

In the instant of jolting kickback from the gun, Lilah was seized from behind, and at the same time she dropped the gun she felt her body turn electric. Blistering pain overtook her, before the white flaring light faded and she was enveloped in darkness.

~*~

She woke to the familiar sounds of a military encampment, though her eyes were covered and the sound was muffled. She could hear the rain too, and the soft hum of an engine in her ear, through a layer of thick cloth—a bag over her head, she realized. The sounds of metal and groaning wood and men's voices grew louder, steadily. They were moving. It was a floating feeling, smooth and disorienting and it filled her chest with foreboding. She was back in the Imperial camp. Magnus couldn't be far. He might be with her even now.

The sense of movement slowed and stopped and moments later the world opened to her. The air turned cooler, wetter, and louder than she thought it could. The voices were all around her.

The air was fresher, even through the cloth, but it was difficult to breathe normally.

She felt hands on her, lifting her, moving her swiftly and fluidly. She was in someone's arms, and she wondered if they were Saphir's. It felt effortless, but then he was stronger than he looked. So much more powerful. She knew that now.

Steady breaths, in and out, in and out.

There was the brush of cloth against her arm, and the sounds turned dull again, masked. A war tent then. Magnus' war tent.

She was shaking, and trying to stop. It almost helped when she was put upright and her hands lifted above her head, bound there.

Some small, craven part of her, as dim and flickering as candlelight, dreaded the removal of the hood. She knew enough about what that would mean to dread it, and little enough to wonder if she dreaded it as much as she should.

He would be there, she knew, as certain as an ocean tide.

She was unsure whether to brace for white hot fury or deceptive amiability. She wasn't even sure which she preferred.

You'd prefer to be free, a voice very like Eris' said inside her head.

Lilah heard the sound of whipping then, and cries of pain not far away. She shivered, a crumpled feeling in her chest, like a broken animal.

How can I help it? She asked the voice, but knew better than to hope for an answer.