Eragos Feareborne (proscribed) wrote in caeleste, @ 2010-07-18 22:21:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | a ruined way, eithne savastian, eragos feareborne, nieve beit sad'r, sleeping tiger, vera of beit-orane |
wither (eithne, vera, nieve, sleeping tiger)
He didn't know where he was. He knew. Yes, he knew. The hard paved stone beneath the arches could not be mistaken for anything else. If Inalen had been here to see smoke pouring out behind them - what would she have said? And what would she have done? Something was happening down below. No one was getting out of there who was not already out. So it was relief which found him first when Eithne revealed herself to be sitting atop one of the medical wagons, sullen in her insistence on smoking even as they were trying to assess her wounds. The healers received more than one barking instruction from her. I can walk, she had shouted. Wordlessly she yelled in another man's face as the fellow tried to get at the wound in her side. Somehow she'd made it out. But there were two masks beside her, where there should have been one. Tirad was dead. That was what it must mean. Eragos realized with a sinking sort of sadness that Grees' mask had burned with him in that hellhole.
If they could recover it, they would.
Two orbs of light hovered above them, each as large as a man was tall, unblinking baleful illumination. They were red. He did not know why they were red. Yet the glow was unearthly. An extension of the fire below. Even with a cool evening wind upon his suddenly naked face Eragos felt as though he were still trapped in that unending blaze. The heat of the fire recalled Hatharida recalled the black skies above his home. Screaming as the fire devoured all life. He did not make it to Eithne. Though his legs had intended him to arrive at her side the weakness in his limbs had other plans. It was Sleeping Tiger who kept him on his feet despite his exhaustion. Without a word, only an arm beneath his shoulders.
Collapse should not have been a real possibility. There were white uniforms in multitude. Knights in heavy armor. They were the temple knights who guarded the books and all of their secrets. What few had managed to make it above. One of them was maimed. Four pairs of sturdy arms held him down as a healer inspected him. Eragos realized there were wagons all about. Some held casks, and others bottles, and still others stacks upon stacks of blankets and sheets. It was obscene that these should be white. All it accomplished was a general visibility of blood and carnage. The Grey Riders must have done work above, as well. He could see more than one corpse of grey. And more than one injured Grey Rider, being attended with the same care as anyone else.
It enraged him, that it should be so. Not enough to do anything about it.
Could he have done something about it?
These were priests and priestesses from the temple of Bahamut. There was kindness in their eyes, and a fire in their stomachs to do what good they could. None of them would have stopped for him. With his tunic destroyed much of the cursed writing that trailed over his shoulders and down his back was readily apparent. Some of them must have thought him a prisoner. Others gave him the special sort of baleful look that said they knew who he was. One would have shouted at him until another restrained her. None among them approached him, or offered aid. He should have expected it. With their wide leather belts and coarse brown robes they were the picture of faith in the god whose wings sheltered all of this world. All, save those whom he'd abandoned here tonight.
"Here," Eragos finally gasped.
It was the wheel of an emptied wagon. Felt as a cushion might. Eragos let himself slump against the thing with a sharp hiss of breath at the pain in his shoulder. All of his limbs afire in a way wholly separate from the burning down below. Stone felt hot. He was imagining it. Eragos worked the clasp on his belt, let it drop to the ground behind him. Two tugs on the armor, and then a slow pull, all with his injured shoulder. The process was excruciating. Yet the armor which drenched one of his limbs from fingertip to shoulder, complete with angry pauldron, fell to the ground in a puddle of cloth-like metal. More like mail than the plate it became when he wore it. Another gasp of air when a pair of hands touched his shoulder. Bleary-eyed as he was, Bahn still managed a weak smile.
"The women first, man," Eragos seized Bahn's shoulder with his good arm.
"The priests don't pretend that the women are already dead," Bahn replied coolly. "I will not be manhandled, Rider Feareborne."
Eragos made a rude sound in his throat. Bahn's chuckle was sudden and restrained. It died a fitful death as his hands probed the wound. Clearly this was not the first work he'd done tonight. Clean as a wound could be, but the blood which fell down his chest and back told the story well enough. Eragos couldn't recall if he'd been wounded anywhere else. That red light was driving rational thoughts out of his mind. Eragos wanted nothing so much as he wanted a pipe and a tankard of ale just then. Sleeping Tiger sat on his heels nearby, naginata balanced across his knees.
That was about all that Eragos was aware of. Until the pain, sharp and hobbling, forced him to double over. Bahn's prying hands were not enough then to keep searching for the wound. In amazement Eragos realized that the water mage had used himself up. That was the reason for his less-than-stellar bedside manner. Exhaustion was not just an infection of those who had survived the events below. Bookcases toppling out of the heavens, out of nowhere. Drenched in sweat. All of them urging the others to keep running, keep going up. Up. As though the thing was without a celing, without a defined entrance. All the while feeling as though the next sheet of fire they saw would be the one that engulfed them all.
"Lean back," Bahn ordered sternly.
"Grees is dead," Eragos managed to grind out, even as he did what the healer asked.
"I heard," Bahn replied tersely. "You're as white as your uniform. Sit still. I'll do what I can, but the wound I'll need to stitch."
Eragos laughed. Even that hurt. He didn't tell Bahn that he was used to it. Sudden as the flash of red light over them all was the sound of the thing. Wagon wheels creaking. Boots slapping as more priests and soldiers arrived, ran across stone to try and ensure they had the situation contained. There were a pair of fires even aboveground. White Riders were arriving by whatever means they could and establishing a perimeter. There were more pouring into the entrance. Smoke was billowing up, through the red light and disappearing into the night sky. A solid column of it that shifted and moved as a living thing when the wind assailed it. The Lady Vera was near, seated on the rear of a wagon. Hasna had appeared as if from nowhere with Nieve at her side.
The incident had attracted its fair share of attention.
"What in the name of the gods happened to you lot?" Hasna asked, half-angry and half-shocked.
"This is treatment, not one of your menageries," Bahn snapped unkindly, and without looking over his shoulder. "Keep a civil tongue or find something to stab, Teacher, but do it quickly."
"Apologies," was all the red-faced Teacher had to say.
He almost wished that someone would lose their temper. Another night ended in ruin. The libraries, burned. A bare handful of evidence saved. And worst of all their sins was by far the death that followed them. Eithne had Tirad's mask, didn't she? And Grees' mask was lost. That was two White Riders for whatever dubious evidence had been collected. What did she have in that sack? Something to break free of the malaise that had seized every inch of this city? Something that would make the courts decide once and for all that they could undo what had been done by all the madness spreading in this city? That somehow, Gola could be stopped... that was his fondest wish. His greatest dream. That somehow, Gola could be stopped.
It would happen.