Fire - Kristin Cashore [144]
THE KING’S ARMY’S numbers at the northern front were now practically doubled. Their plan was to launch a massive attack against Mydogg in the morning. Everyone knew that it would be the battle to determine the war. That evening, an anxious pall settled over the camp.
Fire took a break from the healing rooms and walked among the tents, through clammy patches of fog that rose from the melting water, her guard making a loose circle around her. The soldiers were untalkative, their eyes latching on to her, wide and tired, wherever she went. ‘No,’ she said, when her guard made a move to stop a man who reached for her arm. ‘He doesn’t want to hurt me.’ She looked around and said with conviction, ‘No one here wants to hurt me.’ They only wanted a bit of reassurance on the night before a battle. Perhaps it was a thing she could give.
It was fully dark by the time she came upon Nash sitting alone in a chair outside the command tents. The stars were pricking into place in the sky, one at a time, but his head was bent into his hands, where he could not see them. Fire came to stand with him. She put her good hand on the back of his chair to steady her balance as she turned her face to the universe.
He heard her, or felt her, beside him. He reached rather absently for her other hand, stared into it, tracing the living skin at the base of her dead fingers. ‘You have a reputation among the soldiers,’ he said. ‘Not just the injured soldiers - you’ve developed a reputation that’s spread through the entire army. Did you know? They’re saying the beauty of you is so powerful, and the mind of you so warm and insistent and strong, that you can call people back from death.’
Fire spoke quietly. ‘There are many people who’ve died. I’ve tried to hold on, but still they let go.’
Nash sighed and gave her back her hand. He tilted his face up to the stars. ‘We’re going to win this war, you know,’ he said, ‘now that our army’s together. But the world doesn’t care who wins. It’ll go on spinning, no matter how many people are slaughtered tomorrow. No matter if you and I are slaughtered.’ After a moment, he added, ‘I almost wish it wouldn’t, if we aren’t allowed to go on spinning with it.’
MOST SOLDIERS IN the camp were sleeping by the time Fire and her guard left the healing rooms and crossed again to the command tents. She stepped through the flap of Brigan’s office to find him standing at a table covered with diagrams, rubbing his head while five men and three women argued a point about archers and arrows and wind patterns on Marble Rise.
If Brigan’s captains did not notice her unobtrusive entry at first, they came to notice, for the tent, though large, was not so mammoth that seven newcomers could hang back in the corners. The argument dissipated and turned to stares.
‘Captains,’ Brigan said with obvious fatigue. ‘Let this be the only time I ever have to remind you of your manners.’
Eight sets of eyes spun back to the table.
‘Lady Fire,’ Brigan said. He sent her a question. How are you?
Exhausted.
Enough for sleep?
I think so.
I’ll be at this for a while yet. Perhaps you should sleep while you can.
No, I’ll wait for you.
You could sleep here.
Would you wake me when you’re through?
Yes.
Promise?
Yes.
Fire paused. I don’t suppose there’s any way for me to walk into your sleeping quarters without everyone watching?
A quick smile came and went across Brigan’s face. ‘Captains,’ he said, cutting his attention back to his officers, who had been trying their hardest to bore their eyes into the diagrams on the table despite their suspicions that the commander and the monster were engaged in some outlandish manner of silent conversation. ‘Kindly step outside for three minutes.’
First Brigan dismissed the majority of Fire’s guard. Then he escorted Musa, Margo, and Fire through the flap that led to his sleeping tent, and lit the braziers so they wouldn’t be cold.
SHE WOKE TO the light of a candle and the feel of Brigan near. Musa and Margo