PULL ME UNDER - Gung-Ho - Thirty-Two

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Thirty-Two

It was far too unsettling for Ddun, the strange imitation of Tanner watching him as he walked through the tent, like the way a baby watches a stranger, judging them with inscrutable infant logic before they decided if they should laugh or cry. It made his skin crawl, the fact that Tanner hadn’t uttered any words since “Dol Daruk.”

It didn’t matter if Ddun left the tent, Tanner would follow. All his men would turn their heads curious at the sight of it. This Tanner didn’t seem affected by the cold, either—there was a sharp spell of freezing weather by evening, and he didn't so much as shiver.

Occasionally the shadow would whistle a short tune or smile, he took a cup of ale but didn’t drink, only watched the effervescence and gave the cup away.

“What do we do with him?” Rudda asked, once found. Slicing cuts down his legs had been stitched up, and he walked with a limp.

They leaned close together, not knowing if they might say something to make Tanner upset, like speaking within earshot of a nosy woman or a child. “Sky Father’s beard, but I have no idea. I have a fucking siege to worry about and now I have a Tanner-shaped boil on my arse.”

“Should we lance it?”

“Lauren won’t allow me to try.”

“Why not keep him with her?”

“He won’t. Follows me no matter what I try. He doesn’t eat or piss or shit, just follows me.” Ddun ran a hand down his face. “She thinks he’s trying to tell us something. So far all he’s said is ‘Dol Daruk’.”

“Why would he say that? He’s never even heard us speak of it.”

Ddun nodded, an unhumored chuckle. “That’s the thing, isn’t it?”

Rudda’s face dropped and paled. “The crown!”

They decided to seek out Borga, his one eye keeping him at the rear until it came time for close quarters, commanding men with flags and bleats on his horn, but just now there was a lull in the action, (sieges were, on the whole, quiet affairs, except for when they weren’t,) and he rested by one of the few cookfires that were maintained to save fuel. Another thing to worry about. I'll have to send men further south for the peat...

Borga squinted distastefuly at Tanner, up and down, turned back to Ddun who simply shook his head, and explained again this strangeness.

“It might behoove us to send scouts to Dol Daruk, see if there’s anything of note.”

“You mean other than big fucking rocks?” Borga said. “Don’t forget the spirits.”

Rudda bit a fingernail, shifting his weight on his foot. Ddun wouldn’t be able to send him. “Could be more of Grandfather’s allies gathering there, readying an attack. Who knows.”

“Could be more of the witch’s tricks waiting,” Rudda said. “I hope not to fight any demons again any time soon.”

“Borga, you’re leading the force to the gatehouse when we’re ready to press them.”

“Aye.”

Ddun nodded. “Let’s focus on getting this done with before we head to the Stone Thrones. The reason men gathered under our banner was to prevent Grandfather from declaring himself King. If there was one place he would go to fully commit, it would be there, but no one has been in or out of the castle and scouts have seen no evidence of horses through the snow in any direction.”

“He makes my skin fucking crawl,” Borga said, and Ddun agreed.

***

The elders examined the fresh liver with a grave shake of their heads. The attack on the gatehouse must wait. Disease ran through it, turning the liver a spotted mess. Ddun fumed. More encirclements and waiting for anything inside the walls. This could take weeks, and with the risk of Peiransi springing up their arseholes from the east. The Stenya in the west were being dealt with soundly, but here… It was like they were surrounding a castle of the dead, the only sign of life evidenced when anyone went too close and an arrow flew at them.

And Tanner was still shadowing.

During the evening before, Tanner broke from Ddun to sit with Lauren, who spoke with him calmly and patiently as one would with a person on their deathbed, not expecting a response but speaking for their pleasure to listen. She took his hand to her belly and smiled as he smiled, as if it were new to him to see her getting rounder. “You’re going to be an uncle,” she told him again, and he put his ear to her chest as if to hear for a heartbeat, and she pet his hair through her bandages and wept silently. It was all grotesque, and Ddun would prefer to storm the walls with arrows flying at him than watch. He left the tent and drank deeply to his temporary freedom from Tanner’s shadow, and now his head split, getting the reading from the elders and seeing Tanner watching him again made it split more.

The soldiers in Rudda’s first charge all had nightmares. If he had to hear one more man pleading not to charge he’d flay them, and was eager to say so—Rudda kept his cheek in his teeth to not speak up about his troubles, knowing Ddun was so cross.

Ddun went out with the men relieving the ones at the castle to take his mind off the mess at the camp, and Tanner didn’t follow.

Who hung at the gatehouse? He edged his horse closer, but couldn’t tell at a distance. He thought of that falconer, Haun, who had gone off with Tanner and Irynna. He might have an answer.

A drumming, or thudding came from the gatehouse. His men all alert with arrows in hand noticed the noise without prompting. There was screaming, women’s voices, children’s voices. But the gate didn’t budge. Just an ephemeral cry spread thin out to his ears, and it quieted soon enough. Made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.

Tanner was still with Lauren as he returned, she was reclined on cushions. Her maids had changed her bandages, and now they sat spinning. He had no patience for their company. “There are a little less than six thousand men out there. Tell them to find some young ones and give them a good time.”

“I will not.” She spoke to them softly, and they scurried out of the tent.

He didn’t care what she told them to do, so long as they were out of sight. “Has he said anything more?” Ddun asked as he placed his helmet on the stand.

“No. But he was pacing while you were gone. I think he was upset at something, but—”

“Why haven’t you tried to stop me?” Tanner speaking made them both snap to him—the sound of his voice sending shivers through Ddun as if he heard a water spirit cursing him from the reeds. The brief moment of lucidity was gone the second they looked at him, and Ddun asked him to repeat himself. Tanner just stood there with bright, stupid eyes.

Lauren went to her feet. “What do you mean? Tanner, what do you mean?” She took him by the face between her bandaged hands. “Please, Tanner, say it again, please!” Ddun pulled her arm, feeling her heat through the sleeve. “Goddamn it Tanner, stop you? Stop you from what?” Her face was flushed, and Ddun picked her up to take her back to the bed, letting her kick and shout for him to put her down, for Tanner to speak again. Ddun held her in the bedding, worried her cries would pull at her muscles again.

Motionless, like a husk, Tanner stood there, eyes reflecting the flames, alive and yet lifeless.

***

“I don’t care about any damned omens, I need to get in that castle, now, even if we burrow beneath it. I’ll have Lauren magic me and launch my own arse in like a stone if I have to.” He punctuated his words with a leap on the saddle, his armour singing with the hard thump. He took up a lance passed to him by a soldier tied with truce banners, eager to see them stained red when they went ignored, should any of theirs be stupid enough to meet him with ill intent.

Borga nodded, fitting his helmet over his head. “I’d love to see that plan unfold. Now there’s a song waiting to be writ. Ddun’s arse through the sky like a falling star.”

Half sneer, half grin, a wild howl out of Ddun as he urged his horse to run.

On the crest of a knoll he looked out over the pock-marked perimeter of the castle, the weaving rows of abatis to keep his horses from the walls. Drawing lines with his eyes he mapped out the best route to the gatehouse. Men pushing a ram would have a hell of a time contending with the downed trees facing their chests, and he decided then the best course for action was to scorch the place first. “Borga,” he addressed his friend without turning, hearing his armour. “I’m going to try and talk sense into those prickless fools, but I have doubts they’ll hear me. I need you to decide how best to torch the earth. What doesn’t burn we’ll need to salvage.” He sighed. “All the while dodging arrows and rocks.”

“Aye.”

“How bad has the trick-sight been amongst the men of late?”

“Not much that I’m aware of, so long as they aren’t too close.” He waved out to the men at the perimeter. “They see shadows at their feet at times.”

“Well, I’ll try not to get in a fight with any shadows.” Snow creaked beneath his horse as he descended the slope toward the edge of the line, his men nodding to him as he passed. They stopped their shooting, to fulfill their end of the truce. The heads they had been aiming at confidently popped back up behind the crenelations of the wall with a trill of horn blows. He bleated into his horn in return—despite the exchange he was still prepared for the whistles of arrows at his head, or a flung stone or two, any sort of betrayal of trust, after they had already refused his men their rightful approach under the banners.

Ditches and tree limbs forced his horse to weave through, his shin snagging a skinny errant branch. As he rode he examined beneath him. The trenches were chest-height. The spikes were tied with rope to keep his men from yanking them out. A dead forest, growing unnaturally sideways. Stumps buried in sections where men might hide to fire at his own. That is, if they ever left their sanctuary.

As he approached the walls there was an eerie tension that prickled his skin. Wind swayed the body hung. Approaching, he could see the long black hair. Men’s clothes had fooled him. With a catch in his throat he saw it was Irynna dangling lifeless, and Tanner would not have allowed her to be done so foul. A shadow over the gatehouse made Ddun look up, but the shadow was gone, only the heads of soldiers looking down at him, stretching their necks to watch his every move. If Tanner was hostage they would have sent word, if there were any negotiations that could take place. If he wasn’t prisoner…

“I come under a banner of truce to speak with anyone in command. My men would like to collect their dead, and I would like to know why this woman was executed without the chance for ransom.”

“You best get going from here. There’s nothing for you behind these walls.” The voice was stilted and a touch too level.

His arm wanted relief from the lance, he wanted it lost inside their guts. “I’ll be the judge of that. Bring Grandfather out to speak.”

“Grandfather has left, and we have vowed to keep the castle safe for his return. The only reason we haven’t shot you dead, is so you can collect this one body. A message for your witch.”

“Where has he gone?” He growled the question as a soldier untied the rope, plummeting the body to the earth with a wet thud. They didn’t answer. “Do you have any other prisoners?” Still nothing. When he refused to move from his spot, an arrow whistled into the dirt just next to him, and with grit teeth he went for the body. The thought of those screams he heard before, the stiffness in speech patterns from the gatemen, it was all adding up to something unnatural. Maybe the guard was right, maybe they didn’t want to see the other side of those walls.

***

Irynna’s body lay in a medicine tent, face purple and blood pooled at her feet and hands, her skin a morbid rainbow, though the cold did her a favour by reducing the rot. He found her brothers, who all stood with darkened faces and tight jaws, clenched fists and wet cheeks. They clearly loved their sister very much, the baby of the family, and the brother named Haun was especially distraught. Ddun had told Lauren of the body, but she was too upset to see it just yet. She would wait until after the brothers were finished with their grieving.

The Grandmother that was washing the corpse said prayers over the body and painted her with care. Tanner’s fingerbone necklace had been tied to her hands, Ddun figured that was the message for Lauren, though he didn’t tell her about that, not yet. Tanner’s shell had been kept away. Made Ddun shiver to think what might happen if he laid his absent eyes on her, or the necklace.

Ddun wore his mask to make appearing stone-faced easier. His men couldn’t see him shaken by the sight of those six brothers looming there, all with death-glares firing from their eyes, eldest to youngest, ready to march and brutalize the person responsible. A blood feud was in the air—which, to them, may supersede the rules of war. Ddun was tempted to allow it. Nothing quite like the desire for vengeance over ill-done kin to motivate. Then again, that was what got her in this mess, if the brothers were right in their assumption as to why she went to the castle.

He bitterly remembered her mocking words to him. How in the world could he compensate the loss of their sister, aside from the promise of vengeance? She was more right than he cared to admit. For a moment Ddun truly hated her, doubly so to get Tanner entangled in her family’s business. But Meired was Tanner’s business too... And being dead, there was no point in keeping hatred for Irynna in his heart.

Maybe I ought to bring in Tanner’s shell. Just to see.

He proposed it to Lauren, allowing the brothers their space.

She sniffed, having finished a spell of crying before he entered the tent. “I don’t even care anymore. Let him see. I want this over. I want to go home. I want to have the baby and forget all of this.”

“Well, lets take him then.”

Lauren went to the body first, to pay her respects. Once finished, red-eyed and sullen, she came out to fetch Tanner. Ddun flexed his hand, fingers tapping his palm in his attempt to conceal his hesitation, and Tanner followed them both.

Once inside, Ddun and Lauren stood back, allowing Tanner to approach the body. Ddun watched Tanner’s face, nervous to see the reaction. The necklace had been placed in a coil on her chest, and Tanner’s hand went to that first. He held one of the bones up to the light, eyes not seeming to focus on it, and dropped the necklace with a clatter to the floor of the tent. Ddun’s mouth went dry to watch the expression change, for the first time seeing genuine sadness. Tanner traced a finger over the scar above her breast, then up her bruised neck, to the dimple on her chin where he rested his thumb. His eyes shone such an eerie blue, tears threatening to fall, Ddun debated whether or not they should leave him to his strange grief. Lauren hooked her arm around Ddun’s as they watched. Tanner’s hand began to tremble as he combed Irynna’s hair with his fingers, tucking strands behind her ear.

“You didn’t really hate me, did you? Did you? Did you mean what you said? I bet you hate me now though, huh?” He let out a sharp, jagged laugh, and it became moan, a shuddered sob, burying his face in her hair, clutching her head to his, the lucid words and sorrow made Ddun’s eyes blur wet. Lauren twisted herself to hide her face in Ddun’s armour, and he held her there, his spirit lower than it had been for a long while. If this wasn’t Tanner, it shared something with him. Ddun would have to use it to find the real one. The six brothers, Tanner’s shell, Lauren, and himself. That’s all he needed, to head to Dol Daruk, to kill the witch. His hand clenched shut against Lauren’s back at the thought, the sound of Tanner’s lament strengthening his resolution. “Please look at me, please. Goddamn it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Irynna.”

Tanner didn’t speak again. They took him from the tent, his face like glass, seeing nothing before him.