Chapter 180: What Rael Saw

They carried Ulrich Vance up to his rooms above the eastern stair.

It was not far. But the men who carried him walked slowly, and the soldiers they passed on the stairs and the parapets stood aside and took off their helmets.

Nobody gave the order.

Nobody had to.

They laid him on his own bed, in the small plain room where he had lived for nineteen years. Someone brought candles. Someone else brought a clean coat.

Then they left him there, and the door was closed.

Encrid did not go into the room.

He sat on the stairs outside it instead, with Rael beside him.

The healers had cleaned Rael’s wounds and rebound his ribs. Two more were cracked. His left hand had been burned badly across the palm, and it was wrapped in white linen. Someone had given him a cup of wine, and he was holding it without drinking.

Ysolde stood on the landing below them, leaning against the wall with her arms folded. Coris Danel stood beside her.

"Tell us," Danel said quietly.

Rael looked at the wine for a long time.

"The creek bed was empty," he said at last. "Like I said it would be. We walked it for two miles. Nothing came near us. Then we went up the ridge and through the dead cedars."

"Did anything follow you?" Encrid asked.

"No. Nothing ever follows you into the cedars." Rael shook his head. "The Lord Commander asked me why. I told him I didn’t know."

He was silent for a moment.

"We saw it from the top of the ridge. It was lying in a clearing it had made. It had pushed the trees over when it lay down, like grass."

"What does it look like?" Danel asked.

Rael thought about it.

"Like a hill," he said. "A hill that breathes. It’s grey-green. Its hide is so old that there’s moss growing on it. There were young trees growing out of its back. Real trees. Taller than a man." He swallowed. "Its head was lying on the ground between the tusks. The tusks came out of its jaw and curved up and over. You could have driven a wagon through the gap between them."

Nobody said anything.

"Its eyes were closed," Rael continued. "Each one was bigger than a door. When it breathed out, the ground shook. We could feel it from the ridge."

"And then?"

"And then the Lord Commander told us what to do."

✧ ✧ ✧

Rael told it slowly.

Encrid listened to every word. He had a feeling that he would need to remember all of it.

Ulrich had divided them. Kass would stay on the ridge and watch the horde, so that they would know if anything came to wake the Elder. Dane would go for the front leg, the one folded under its body near the head. Rael would go for the eyes.

And Ulrich would go for the tusk.

"Why the tusk?" Encrid asked.

"I asked him that too." Rael turned the cup in his hands. "He said the tusks were how it would break the Wall. It would put its head down and push, and the tusks would go into the stone like wedges. He said, ’Take away the wedge, and it’s only pushing with its face.’"

It made sense. It made terrible, simple sense, the way everything Ulrich Vance said made sense. Maybe Ulrich has realized before they even started fighting that-killing that old monster would be impossible.

No one would really know his thoughts, not anymore.

"Dane went first," Rael said.

He described it.

Garrick Dane had walked up to the Elder’s folded foreleg, unwrapped the cloth from the head of his poleaxe, and struck the joint with the full weight of his Golden Star. The light had been so bright that it lit up the whole clearing.

The joint had cracked.

And the Elder had woken.

"It didn’t wake up like an animal," Rael said. "It didn’t jump. It didn’t roar. It just opened its eyes." He stopped. "It looked at us. All of us. Like it had known we were there the whole time."

Then it had moved.

It had not stood. It had rolled. It had simply shifted its enormous weight to one side, the side where Dane was standing, the way a man rolls over in his sleep.

"Dane didn’t run," Rael said quietly. "He could have. I think he could have. He hit the leg again instead. Harder. I saw the gold go all the way up his arms."

He did not finish.

He did not need to.

Ysolde turned her face toward the wall.

"I went for the eye," Rael said. "I got close enough. I put everything I had into my sword and I put it into the eye up to the hilt."

He looked at his burned hand.

"The eye burst. But it didn’t die. It swung its head, and the sword went with it. I couldn’t let go fast enough."

That explained the hand. And the missing greatsword.

"And the Lord Commander?" Danel asked.

Rael was quiet for a long time.

"He waited," he said. "Through all of it. Dane. Me. He stood in front of it, between the tusks, and he waited. I didn’t understand why. Then it swung its head at me, and its left tusk came down low. Almost to the ground."

He stopped again.

"And the Lord Commander cut it."

Encrid remembered the thin white line he had seen above the forest. Perfectly straight. Standing in the darkness for the length of a breath.

"One stroke," Rael said. "I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t think anyone has. The tusk just fell off. It fell off at the root and hit the ground so hard it knocked me off my feet."

"And the scream." Rael closed his eyes. "It screamed, and it thrashed. The other tusk came around. The Lord Commander was standing too close. He couldn’t get out of the way."

He opened his eyes again.

"It didn’t kill him right away. He was still alive when it ran. It turned around and crashed back into the forest, and the whole horde behind it scattered to get out of its way. I got to him. So did Kass."

"Did he say anything?" Ysolde asked.

It was the first thing she had said.

Rael nodded.

"He said, ’Go home.’" Rael’s voice cracked on the last word. "Then he said, ’Tell them I bought a day. Tell them to use it.’"

✧ ✧ ✧

For a long time, no one on the stairs spoke.

Then Coris Danel straightened.

He looked older than he had an hour ago. He looked like a man who had just picked up something very heavy and had not yet worked out how to carry it.

"The Council meets at dawn," he said. "In the chamber."

The dawn was just in an hour, so what he actually meant for is the council to happen as soon as possible.

He looked at Encrid.

"You’ll be there, Strategist."

"I’ll be there."

Danel nodded. Then he went down the stairs.

Ysolde stayed where she was for a while longer. Then she pushed herself away from the wall and walked up past Encrid and Rael, to the closed door of the Lord Commander’s room.

She put her hand flat against the wood.

She stood there for a long moment.

Then she went down the stairs without looking back.

Encrid sat beside Rael in silence.

After a while, he opened Appraisal. He did not know why. Perhaps because it was the only thing he could do.

[ Name: Rael ]

[ Realm: Master ]

[ Condition: Severe exhaustion. Burns (left hand). Four fractured ribs. Grief. ]

Encrid closed the window.

"He bought a day," he said quietly.

Rael finally drank the wine.

"Then we’d better not waste it," he said.

✦ ✦ ✦