Chapter 32 ~ Tender Loving Care

“Why is it so dark?  Aren’t there any lights here?”

“Ricalli knocked them out. He thought it would give the Ricallyn an advantage.”  Russ paused to nudge a mangled body with his foot.  “I guess it didn’t work,” he observed.  Liseli wondered how he could be so nonchalant.  She shivered just thinking of what lay in the corridor around them.

“C’mon.”  He tugged her along.  “Follow me, I can see okay.”

They picked their way down the hallway, Russ holding the sword up in one hand and leading Liseli along through the dark with the other.  He paused again in a few moments and made a little noise of discovery.  Liseli heard the sound of steel dragging against steel, and saw the glint of metal as Russ moved something with the tip of the sword.

“This one was a guard,” he said, letting go of her hand.  He reached down and grabbed the dead man’s sword, then pushed it into Liseli’s hand.

“Russ,” she said as he took her other hand again and started walking, “if . . . you said the dogs couldn’t hurt Ricalli, what exactly are we going to do with these swords if we meet him?”

Russ shrugged.  “I dunno.”

“What?”

“The idea is to not meet him.  But wouldn’t you rather have the swords?”

“Well, yeah.”  It made her feel a little better to have a long, sharp blade to wave at the shadows than not, but only a little.  If the dogs could still get them, and Ricalli could still get them, they might as well be holding potato peelers for all the good it would do.  But even potato peelers were better than nothing.

Suddenly, lights flickered on around them.  Liseli winced in the brightness and lifted a wrist in front of her eyes.

“Hmm . . . .” Russ squinted as well, but peered up at the narrow band of light running along the wall as if trying to decide whether it was a good sign or not.

Liseli didn’t like feeling so exposed, and wished suddenly for the darkness which had seemed so ominous to her before.  The light also revealed the mangled corpses of the Ricallyn in sharp detail, and she averted her gaze, looking up even though the band of light on the wall was painful to her squinting eyes.  “Russ,” she whispered nervously, as if the light might amplify her voice, “we should keep going.”

“Alright.”

They went on, ready to jump at any noise.  For a short while they seemed truly and desolately alone, unable to hear any sounds of life even distantly.  Unwillingly, Liseli was reminded of her dream that first night in Elharan, when she had walked along a gray road strewn with body parts, climbed the hill that became one with the bodies, and found a familiar face among the dead.  She shivered despite herself as she glanced at the floor.

Russ felt the shiver, and squeezed her hand.  “We’ll be out of here in a moment.”

She smiled faintly — as with that night, when she’d woken from the dream and found that Russ was alive and well, he was here to comfort her.

The next hallway they traversed finally brought them to the main entrance hall, and they weren’t alone.  It was still eerily quiet, but there were dogs there, pacing, their giant shoulders swaying back and forth and their hairless tails switching restlessly.  Russ stiffened beside Liseli, and she whispered in what she hoped was a reassuring tone, “I don’t think they’ll hurt us, they didn’t attack me when they were on the rampage.”

The dogs turned to eye them both, sniffing the air and sticking their tongues out as if they could taste Russ’s fear.  He knew rationally that these were not the same dogs who had been given orders to hunt him down, but it was hard to convince his instincts of that.

Leeton was in the hall, and had been the whole time; their preoccupation with watching the dogs had caused them not to notice at first.  He came walking toward them, carrying Alisiya’s limp body in his arms.  The front doors hung wide open, letting a bright, amber afternoon light shine in, illuminating him from behind.  He paused, and turned pale, lifeless eyes on the disheveled couple.

Liseli opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, because she had no idea what to say.

Leeton said nothing, either, and turned away from them.  They watched him walk slowly into the chamber at the far end of the room.

“What is he doing?” Liseli wondered.  “Shouldn’t we leave?”

Russ looked toward the entrance, frowning.  “There’s more Ricallyn out there,” he said, slowly.  “And they’ve got to know what happened here; they’ll be out for blood.  The Gate is a long ways away.”

Liseli felt sick when she realized what he was saying.  They’d probably never make it through the city.  They were vastly outnumbered in this alien world — the dogs may have marched through the city and destroyed the temple, taking it by surprise, but there were thousands, maybe millions more Adayzjians out there and a relatively pitiful few of them.  Surprise was gone, now, and who knew what kind of weapons the Adayzjians possessed.  Liseli felt tired beyond imagination just at the very idea of their isolation.  There was no one outside these walls to help them, and so many who would be coming after them.

“We have to stay here?” she sighed, half questioning, half stating a fact.

Russ nodded.  “If Leeton’s going to stay here, I don’t think we have a choice.  The only hope we have of getting across the city is his dogs.”

“We’d better shut the doors.”

Russ nodded again in agreement, and together they dragged the doors closed.  They saw in dismay that the beams that barred the doors were splintered and shattered into uselessness.  They slid their swords in place, but the heavy doors strained and bent the steel, and it wouldn’t take much effort to snap them.  “We’ll have to look around for something else,” Russ said, wiggling the doors to confirm the feebleness of their hold.

“I guess,” nodded Liseli, even though she was privately thinking that it was pointless.  The Adayzjians would get in eventually . . . or they would be stuck here, besieged, until they starved or surrendered.  If only the Gate was not so far away.

Instead of starting their search, though, Russ paused and turned Liseli toward him so he could look her full in the face.  “Leeton did that,” he said, referring to the shattered beams.  There was a touch of awe in his voice, and his hazel eyes shone with a wonder that made him seem more happy than Liseli had ever seen him, despite the carnage around them.  She didn’t know what to say.  Several conflicting feelings washed over her in that moment, but she was left with dismay.  That dismay heightened as he went on, “And not just these doors . . . all the doors, everywhere in the building.  And more than that; cabinets, drawers . . . lids . . . ” he waved an arm to elaborate, “everything.  Everything that could open, he opened.  Can you imagine being able to do that?”

He didn’t say, I wish I could do that, but he didn’t have to.  The sentiment practically radiated from him, and Liseli felt alone.  The very idea that Russ could do what Leeton had done made him feel like a stranger to her.

“No,” she said, simply, trying not to betray any of what she was thinking.  “No, I can’t imagine it.”

“It must be awesome,” he said, dreamily, and Liseli looked away.

“We should bar the doors.”

“Right.”  Russ snapped out of whatever magical Key fantasy he had been dreaming up for himself, and they turned away from the doors.

Finding something to bar the doors with proved easier said than done.  There were no spare beams just lying about, and furniture was sparse in the main hall.  They’d have to turn back down the narrow corridors and search individual rooms to find anything.

“That’ll take too long,” Russ shook his head when Liseli voiced her thought.  “I know what we can use that’s nearby.”

“What?”

He said nothing, but looked down at the bodies.

“You want to pile the bodies up as a barricade?” Liseli understood, horrified.

Russ shrugged.  “There’s a lot of them.  We can start with the ones close to the door and gather outward.”  He spread his arms toward the hall openings.

Liseli shuddered, then looked around.  “Okay.”

Together, they carried, dragged, pushed, and pulled the dead Ricallyn toward the door, packing them together like sacks of sand reinforcing a dam.  The dogs gathered to watch them impassively, and Liseli could tell that their presence made Russ uncomfortable, but she didn’t think it could be helped.  The dogs obviously meant them no harm at the moment, but it was hard to overcome the memory of Russ’s earlier attack, or block out the fact that the bodies they were handling had been mauled by the same dogs.

They worked quietly, not speaking to each other or making eye contact when not necessary.  It was the only way to avoid acknowledging or thinking too much about how gruesome their task was.

Liseli’s thoughts returned to Russ’s wonder and wistfulness when speaking of Leeton’s feat.  She told herself it shouldn’t bother her, but it did.  It was slowly eating away at the back of her mind, telling her things she didn’t want to hear.  Russ was different.  The experiences of the last week had changed him, and she was afraid of where the changing might end.  He and Leeton, different as they seemed on the surface, shared some talent, some ability, some magical power that she couldn’t even begin to understand.  She was cut off from this business with Gates and Keys, and the fact that Alisiya had mistaken her for an adept only ground in the dark fact that she had no control over any of this.  Russ had brought her to Alisiya, and Leeton had brought her to Adayzjia, and she had the barest memory of the transitions.  She knew, from the torture of Alisiya forcing her in and out of the cave opening, demanding she do something magical, that she could not make the Gate open, and it was not an ability she could ever learn or acquire.  She was completely out of her element — helpless and useless as long as she was away from her own homeworld.

Their stack was growing higher, and they had to move the bodies further as they gathered them from farther away, and it was no easy task for Liseli.  Even if she could steel her mind against the gruesomeness of what they were doing, the bare fact remained that the bodies were heavy.  She clamped her teeth together and tried to ignore the weariness she felt . . . after all, she couldn’t remember now the last time she had felt strong and rested.  Perhaps she never had.  Certainly she had never been strong, 90-pound-weakling that she was, and even when she slept her dreams were tiring.  So, what was weariness and overexertion to her?  Nothing.

“Are you alright?”  Russ was peering at her face concernedly, as if her strain were showing, and she gave him a curt nod in reply.  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” he felt the need to admit.

Liseli took the moment to straighten her aching back.  “What do you mean?  It was your idea.”

“I know.  But . . . ” he looked at the human barricade appraisingly, “I’m not sure if there’s gonna be enough here to really make a difference.”

“Well, unfortunately there aren’t any more people around to kill, Russell, so we’ll just have to make due.”

He caught the edge in her voice, and turned to look her more fully in the eye.  “Are you sure you’re alright?”

She couldn’t help but utter a grim, incredulous laugh.  “I’m as alright as I can be under the circumstances.  But that doesn’t matter right now.  What matters is that we’re surrounded by a world full of enemies that we need to keep out.  Do you want to keep stacking the . . . the . . . or are you saying we should try something else?”

Russ looked around with an uncertain grimace, reaching unconsciously to scratch his head.  “What we really need is some big, heavy furniture to shove up against it.  There was a big desk and a cabinet in the room I was in . . . and probably other stuff like that in other rooms . . . but . . . ” he smiled weakly, “it’d be really hard to move it.”

“Then let’s just keep doing this till we get a better idea,” Liseli said, in what she hoped was a purposeful, determined voice.  She didn’t want to resume hauling bodies, but there wasn’t much choice.

“I just wonder . . . .”

“What?”

Russ shrugged with reluctance, but didn’t move.

“What?”

“How many doors there are,” he smiled at her apologetically, as if merely saying so created more doors to the outside.  “It’s a big building.  And there might be, y’know, secret entrances too.”

Liseli closed her eyes.  Of course.  Of course there would be more doors to worry about.  Leeton had blown everything open, not just the main doors.  And of course there would be hidden entryways where the Adayzjians could enter and take them by surprise.  That was just their luck.

“I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have brought that up.  Let’s get these doors blocked best we can before we worry about others,” Russ said, putting his hands on her shoulders.  She opened her eyes.  He was giving her that appraising stare again, as if he were trying to decide if she was fit for action.

“Right.”  She nodded, hoping she came across as alright.  Strong, capable, in control.

“You look tired,” said Russ.  “I should see if Leeton will help with the bo . . . the barrier.”

“No.”  She backed up, brushing his hands away.  “I can do it.  His daughter just died.”

So did yours, a tiny voice in her mind whispered, but she shoved it away viciously.  It wasn’t the time to think about that.  Not the time, not the place.

“So what.  A lot of people just died, and I don’t want to be the next,” Russ said, surprising her with his callous reaction.  “We’re gonna need his help blocking the door if we expect to keep the Ricallyn out.”

“Fine.  But if he won’t leave Alisiya, don’t waste your time arguing with him,” Liseli said.  Russ just nodded as he walked past her back toward the dark room where Leeton was still holed up.

Liseli didn’t follow, instead gritted her teeth and walked over to a prone Ricallyn woman.  No sense in wasting time standing around waiting.  She couldn’t carry the corpse herself but she could at least work at pushing and pulling it closer to the door.  She glanced over at a watchful dog and shuddered, shaking her head as she bent to touch what had once been a woman.  If only the dogs would just go away, fade into the shadows, now that they weren’t needed.  Instead they seemed to grin as they watched her tend to their kill.  She supposed she should be thankful they weren’t trying to feast on the bodies.  That, she didn’t think she could take.

Even the thought of it made her want to retch, and she paused, her eyes widening as she reached toward the bloodied woman.

She couldn’t vomit, she didn’t have anything to come out, but her stomach twisted and lurched into a dry heave anyway.  Then she relaxed, her vision clouding, and she felt the dizzying sensation of falling . . . .