Remin was trying very, very hard not to think of this.
“Once I let Tounot in, we’ll go back for him,” he said, though his hands shook as they picked through the piles of rope, woolens, furs, and the other things scattered on his cot. He had forgotten what he needed to pack.
“Don’t lie,” Huber whispered. “You’re sending him to die. You know he’s going to die, he’s ourfriend,Duke Ereguil’sson.How can you…dothat?”
What had Huber wanted to hear? Would it have made any difference if Remin had acknowledged it? OfcourseVictorin was his friend, Victorin was Remin’sbrotherin every way but blood, and had been since both boys were five years old. But what was he supposed to do? They were caught between the hammer of Valleth and the anvil of the Emperor, and Remin knew the Imperial Code. A defeated general could still be charged with treason.
He could not lose. Not once. Not ever.
Everyone expected miracles from him. No matter what they faced, everyone turned to Remin, sure that he would find a way, that he would lead them to another smashing victory. Well,this was all he had. This was the only way he knew how to do it. Victories were bought with blood. His blood, and the blood of the men that marched with him, and sometimes with the blood of a brother.
“Should I send someone else?” Remin asked coldly. “Will that make it better, if it’s someone else’s friend? Someone else’s son?”
There could be no answer to that. Huber’s mouth shut, but the look in his eyes seared Remin’s heart, like watching something die before him, a light forever extinguished. A fracture that could never be mended.
Remin’s hands stopped.
“If I do this, we’ll win,” he said. It was as close to a plea as he could get.
“Never for nothing, right?” Huber’s voice was hard.
That was what Remin had said, after the killing field of Sanghin.Many have died,he had told his men.But I will never ask you to die for nothing.
In the end, Victorin had gone. And before he left, Clement had volunteered to go with him, to buy a little more time, though Clement had known it was a death sentence. Both of them knew. When Victorin came to say good-bye, he had tried to smile and laugh, and he had promised to see Remin on the far side of the mountain. But Remin had known that he would never see his best friend again.
Had Huber been right?
Remin didn’t know. He would never know.Someonehad to intercept the Vallethi reinforcements and hold them back long enough for Remin to get into the fort and take down the men on the gate. And if that someone wasnotVictorin—Victorin, a lancer whose fame nearly rivaled Remin’s own—then perhaps the Eagle Knights would have ridden right over them.
If victory could justify any measure…well, Remin had taken the fort. And he had rolled up the Vallethi line like a carpet.
And Huber had never forgiven him.
“I’m sorry,” Remin whispered. In the stillness of the small room behind the infirmary in Tresingale, Huber lay on a cot, too vulnerable to be placed in the common ward. Remin hadn’t hesitated to kick Brother Oleare out of his shrine.
The fever had all but melted the flesh from Huber’s bones. There was a bronze cast to his brown hair in most light, a glittering remnant of some Noreveni ancestor, but it was dull now, soaked with sweat. Even under the heaped blankets and furs, Remin could see the place where his left arm was not, his shield arm torn away by a wolf demon. It had been gangrenous when he was brought in, and there were still red streaks crawling up over his bare shoulder from the amputated limb. He was insensible, with great beads of sweat rolled down his face, but Genon was sure he would live.
Maybe it was cowardly to come and apologize when he couldn’t respond.
“Miche brought them all back,” Remin said into the quiet, covering Huber’s remaining hand with his own. “A hundred and seventy-four people. You brought back a hundred and seventy-four people in winter. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it, but everyone else was so sure…”
Gen said that even if someone was unconscious, they could hear. Their eyes moved beneath their eyelids, their hands might twitch, proof that they lived and felt and were trying to come back. Gen said to call them back, to let them hear the voices they knew, to give them the will to fight.
“They’re in the cookhouse now, and we’re looking after them,” he went on, trying to think of good things to say. “They’ll have homes, and work, even if they have to learn a new trade.Ophele has some scheme to teach them to weave, they can do that even…even if they’ve lost their feet…”
He was clinging to these plans like a lifeline. There had been plenty of things to distract him from the reality of what he had done to his people over the last year, and though it was cowardly, he was secretly relieved that the people of Meinhem had arrived while he was gone. By the time he came back, they were already settled and healing and he had never had to see the full extent of their agony.
But now, he had no choice but to face it, and he didn’t know if he could bear it.
“You saved so many people,” he told Huber. “I can never…thank you. I can’t repay you. I can’t…”
But for once, the usual promises would not come.I am sorry. You’re safe now. I will make you whole again.He did not have that power. No power would undo what had been done. No apology would ever make it right.
Huber’s hand twitched under his, and Remin looked up to find Huber was awake, his chest rising and falling in long, slow breaths.
“Rem,” he whispered. His lips were blistered with cold. “Rollon?”
“Dead,” Remin managed. Rollon. Huber’s page. Huber’s squire. Huber’sson.“He brought back two children. They are all that is left of Nandre. He saved them, there was a devil hunting them. He…led it away.”
