Chapter 14: Retreat

“Research Log, Year 4, Month 6, Day 5 (Day 1,625)

“Explaining death to Mada was difficult and took far longer than I wanted, but when he finally understood he started to cry. He said he understood why I didn’t want him to leave the house without me, and that he was sorry. I told him it was a alright, and that he didn’t need to feel bad about it. He said he wasn’t crying about yesterday, he was crying because he thought that every time I left the house I might die too, and he didn’t want me to.

“That’s when I realized that he didn’t understand the difference between us.”

Nevets had made a mistake.

One of the trainings every diordna experienced when learning to fight was meditation. The theory, supported by the words of Dytie, was that the body could be strengthened or prepared through a kind of cognitive manipulation. Nevets had never been very good at it, but he’d seen how the mind could overcome the limitation of the body.

His mistake was meditating too long.

He’d been so caught up in it that he hadn’t started the journey downstairs until many of the soldiers had already left. Nevets had insisted that Ekivia and Mada go on ahead instead of waiting around for him. Now he regretted that. He tried to move quickly but wasn’t really able to do so.

The stab wound in his leg ached and oil was beginning to seep through the bandage. The shrapnel wounds along his side and arm burned with every movement, and he was certain they’d pulled open as well with his efforts. He should have started much sooner, but he’d been overconfident after climbing all those stairs yesterday without nearly as much pain. He realized now that was because of the support of Mada and Treblig.

A couple soldiers squeezed past him on the stairs, careful not to push him, but also obviously in a hurry. Once they were past Nevets heard another set of steps coming down the stairs above him, so he stepped out of the stairwell and onto the fifth floor. He leaned against the wall, slumping a little and grunting in pain as he took weight off his wounded leg.

A moment later Nagemai appeared in the stairwell.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

Nevets hadn’t realized she’d come back up. She must have come up a different stairwell.

“I will be,” Nevets said, though he wasn’t actually sure.

"I’ve put your parrot with my mount so there’s no need to worry about that,” The general said. “And the stairs on the other side of the building should have less traffic.”

"If you wish you may stay behind," Nagemai said. “We can find a place to leave you once we’re out of the city. I could give you one of the mounts we’ve taken and you could ride back here to have your wounds treated.”

"No," Nevets said, shaking his head. “If Ekivia is going with you then so am I.”

“We’ll be moving at a difficult pace until we cross the river," Nagemai said. “With your wounds that will be painful.”

"I understand," Nevets said. “But if I stay behind who will write a convincing paper about Mada’s diordnality?”

"So you believe he is?” Nagemai asked with an odd, almost pleading, tone. “Diordna I mean. You believe he is one of us despite knowing how he was made?"

"I do," Nevets said. “And I’d like to collect enough evidence to prove that to everyone else.”

Nagemai nodded. "Do you think what you write will be enough?"

Nevets laughed. “Of course not, but it is an essential first step.”

A pained smile wrinkled Nagemai’s cheeks. “I hope that should you need help in your endeavor I will be able to provide it.”

Nevets blinked, suddenly feeling a sense of how surreal all of this was. He was having an almost casual conversation with the white general, an enemy to his kind and yet a protector of him and his friends.

“Thank you,” Nevets said. “For all you’ve done for us. I don’t think I could do half as much for an enemy.”

Nagemai smiled one of her genuine, friendly smiles. “Who says we’re enemies?”

“Everyone,” Nevets said. “Look out the window. You’re at war with my kind.”

“Aren’t we all diordna?” Nagemai asked. “Aren’t I as much drolian as I am redaeli?”

“You know what I mean,” Nevets said, a little frustrated at all the questions. She had a way of making him take a new perspective on his own thoughts. It was like she enjoyed creating cognitive dissonance in those around her.

“I wish I weren’t at war with anyone,” Nagemai said, quietly thoughtful as more soldiers rushed down the stairs behind her.

“So we are enemies,” Nevets said, feeling a sense of victory that manifested in his eyes as pleasuresight.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

As quickly as the blue had entered his eyes it faded. “It’s not a feeling, it’s a fact. We are at war. That makes us enemies.”

“I suppose it might,” Nagemai said, nodding. “But I wish it didn’t have to. I wish I had a way to stop all the fighting, a way to make it so no mother or father or child would have to die or kill. In all my years, and they are many, I’ve never been able to figure a way out of the killing. That is my greatest failure. But You three give me hope. Mada gives me hope. He is something I thought I’d never see, and seeing him gives me hope that I will see peace, something else I thought I’d never see. Even if that doesn’t happen, I hope you will be able to see me as a friend eventually.”

“I hope the same,” Nevets said, and a sense of relief washed over him as he did. He looked down in shame that he didn’t yet trust her despite all she’d done to prove her trustworthiness, and his eyes darkened with sorrow that matched hers.

"You should probably keep moving,” Nagemai said. She placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him another smile, though a sadder one this time. “When I get back downstairs I’ll send Treblig and Ekivia up to help you."

"Thank you," Nevets said and began his slow limp down the hall toward the opposite staircase.

It took half as long to cross the building as it had to climb down one floor, and the pain throughout his body was also greatly reduced, but still present with each step. He used his uninjured arm to support himself against the wall as he walked, taking frequent short breaks to breathe and stop the pain even for a moment.

During one of his breaks, he heard shouts from the floors below coming through an open window in a nearby room and up the stairwell. He strained to try and understand something of what they said, but he couldn’t decipher anything in the dim noises that reached his ears. The only thing he could tell was that they were urgent. Taking a deep breath he heaved himself away from the wall and continued toward the stairs.

He heard a THUNK from a room as he passed, but when he looked through the door he didn’t see what could have made the noise. A moment later he heard another one. Then another, and another. It started to sound like hail pounding against the side of the building. Then as abruptly as it began, it stopped. When he passed the doorway to the last room before the stairs he looked in and saw what had made the noise.

Arrows burned where they’d thumped into the floor, and flames danced in the window that they’d passed through as the outside of the building began to catch fire.

“Oh, Dytie,” Nevets cursed.

He increased his limping speed, taking larger, more pained steps. The terrifying crackle and roar of flames burning live plants soon drown out the shouts coming from below. Then as he reached the stairs, leg bandage soaked through with oil, he heard something even more terrible.

The distant, low thump of someone exploding in a nearby building.

**********

Ekivia took the stairs two at a time with Treblig by her side. They’d only barely entered the building when the rain of fire came from across the debris and lit the entire side of the building, and every other building the Redaeli soldiers were using, almost instantly. Mada wanted to come help bring Nevets down, but Ekivia wouldn’t have it. He’d be safer with Nagemai, which was a strange thought considering who Nagemai was.

She took Mada’s water pouch to possibly help with the fires and ran into the building with Treblig.

Nagemai had told them which stairwell he was going to use to come down and what floor he’d started on. Ekivia had hoped he’d be partway down already, but with each successive floor her eyes turned paler. Her breath came in great gulps the further upward they climbed but she refused to slow down. Finally, they found him just as he entered the stairwell. He’d barely made it down the hall in the time it took them to climb six floors, and they had to get him all the way down the stairs.

A relieved smile washed over Nevets’s expression as he saw them coming up to meet him. He looked bad. His eyes swirled black and white with the fear and pain of his situation, and his bandages were dark with oil. Looking at him she knew that his pain would only increase if they were going to get him out of the building safely.

“Catch your breath a moment,” Treblig said, and he stooped beside Nevets.

Ekivia leaned against the wall, chest heaving. “We can’t… wait long.”

“I know,” Treblig said. “But we have to do something about his leg at the very least.”

Ekivia nodded and decided she could afford to sit momentarily while he worked.

Treblig untied the bandage and unwound it partway, then rewrapped it tighter. Nevets flinched as Treblig tugged the two sides of the bandage in his hand and tied them off.

“It’s a little tight,” Nevets said. “It might be hard for me to use like that.”

“Sorry, but you won’t need to use it,” Treblig said. “I’ll be your leg on that side and you can put as much weight on me as you need. We’ll get you out of here.”

Nevets nodded and Ekivia stood, breath still not fully caught. Treblig tucked himself under Nevets arm on the side with all the wounds and Nevets flinched with the contact. But there was nothing for it. They’d have to hurt him to get him down fast enough. Better alive and in pain than dead and painless.

Treblig and Ekivia were both quite a bit taller than Nevets, so he had to reach up to support himself on them, wrapping his elbow around the back of their necks while they reached around his back with one arm and grabbed his hand with the other.

Ekivia tucked herself under his other arm, took a deep breath, and they started down the stairs.

They moved as quickly as they could, though not quickly enough for Ekivia’s liking. Linked as they were the turns in the stairwell were difficult and slow, but they tried to make up time when they were on the straight stairs. With each step, Nevets groaned or grunted in pain from the not-so-slight bounce. She wanted to slow down even a little for his sake, but with each step downward the low growl of flames grew louder and Ekivia thought it was getting warmer already too.

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Two floors down, smoke began rising through the stairwell to meet them. It came slowly at first, but before they could reach the third floor down Ekivia was coughing and struggling to breathe from the smoke as well as the exertion.

“Step out here,” Treblig shouted between coughs, and Ekivia gratefully turned with him out of the stairwell.

The hallway was still smokey, but much less than the stairwell. Ekivia and Treblig ducked out from under Nevets’s arms and the three of them leaned against the wall facing away from the stairs so they weren’t breathing the smoke directly.

An explosion rumbled from somewhere nearby, making Ekivia more nervous than she already was. It wasn’t just direct fire that would cause a diordna to explode. If their temperature rose too much they could too, though it had to get very hot for that to happen.

Ekivia looked back at the stairs, dreading going back into the smoke. The smoke was lit from below by an orange light.

“Should we try a different staircase?” Ekivia asked, almost shouting over the sound of the fire.

Treblig shook his head as he ducked back under Nevets’s arm. “No time. We have to his it here.”

Ekivia started tucking herself under Nevets’s other arm, but he pulled his arm away.

“You get out of here,” Nevets said. “I’ll—“

“Don’t you dare!” Ekivia shouted at him, grabbing his arm forcefully and putting it around her neck. “I am not leaving you behind.”

Nevets didn’t resist further, but when Ekivia tried to start walking Treblig stopped them.

“Give me the water,” he said, ducking from under Nevets’s arm and removing his green military coat.

Ekivia had forgotten they had water, but she quickly untied the string at her waist and handed the pouch to Treblig. He took only a moment to dump the contents on Nevets’s bandages, then he draped the coat over Nevets and Ekivia, and tucked himself back under Nevets’s arm.

“Hopefully that keeps the flames from his wounds,” Trebig said. “When we get to the fire we’ll have to carry him.”

Ekivia nodded her understanding, and they re-entered the stairwell. She and Treblig covered their mouth and nose with their free arm sleeve, but Nevets was unable to do so and began coughing almost immediately.

They made it to the first turn when they heard a crash below them and the stairs shook and shifted beneath them.

“Go back, go back!” Treblig shouted and they clumsily turned around Nevets in the stairwell.

Ekivia and Treblig stooped and tucked themselves under Nevets’s armpits then stood up, lifting him off his feet. Nevets shouted in pain and then began coughing violently, but Ekivia couldn’t spare a thought for his pain right now.

As they reached the landing Ekivia felt several of the floor branches crunch under her heels. Looking back she saw the flames climbing the stairs behind them, far faster than she’d anticipated before. It was weakening the landing beneath their feet. They had to get away from the stairs before…

Nevets jolted with a grunt as he stepped down on the landing and it cracked beneath his foot. Ekivia felt him try to catch himself with his bad leg, but as he tried to put weight on it his foot punched through the landing. Smoke gushed from the hole as he sank up to his knee, his arm around Ekivia’s neck pulling her down violently. She coughed violently, pulling her head out from under Nevets’s arm to get her face out of the smoke.

He sunk deeper without her support.

She grabbed his arm, still coughing. Treblig pulled from the other side, trying to keep him from sinking further while Ekivia got a good grip. Nevets gripped her hand with more strength than she expected, and she grabbed his arm with her other hand and heaved upward. The landing cracked beneath her feet under the pressure, and she immediately let go of Nevets arm to avoid forcing herself down onto the floor with him. But she was too slow.

The floor branches completely gave way beneath her and she plummeted into the smoke and flames beneath.

**********

Treblig watched in horror as Ekivia vanished into the smoke and flames beneath them.

“KIV!” Nevets shouted, reaching to catch her far too slowly. She was already gone.

Treblig pulled, and Nevets came free. Ekivia’s actions had weakened the landing, allowing his leg to pull free easily. Treblig helped the scientist stumble to his feet.

“We have to get down to her,” Nevets said.

Treblig nodded. They’d have to get down, period. Once they managed that it would be a miracle if they could get to her before she exploded. “We climb down the outside of the building.”

Nevets’s eyes paled, but he nodded agreement and followed Treblig to the nearest apartment along the outside edge of the building. Several arrows burned where they’d landed in the kitchen after coming through the open window earlier, but luckily the floors were plastered and painted here, so the wood beneath wasn’t directly exposed. The apartment was the same layout as the ones above, with two bedrooms to one side, and a combination kitchen, dining, and living room that they’d entered into.

Treblig went directly to the balcony door and tugged the trigger and the vines loosened around the frame, allowing it to swing open. The door and balcony bristled with still burning arrows, their smoke rising to obscure their vision of the outside. Treblig rushed to one of the bedrooms and retrieved a blanket. It was thin, as it was summer and the region was never very cool, but it would have to do. Threw it over the flaming arrows on the balcony and stomped the fire out.

“The vines on the outside of the building will be weak,” Treblig siad. “If you fall try and grab one below, but most importantly, keep your feet beneath you. It’s better to break a leg than to fall on your back and break it instead.”

“Got it,” Nevets said, eyes still pale.

Treblig’s own eyes were a little pale as well, though he wasn’t as worried about himself as about Nevets. Treblig would be fine climbing down the outside of a building, but the scientist was struggling to stand. Still, they didn’t have many other options at the moment.

“Try and follow my lead,” Treblig said. “Though not directly. We don’t want both of our weights on the same vines. I’ll shout if I notice any particularly weakened holds, but other than that just try to be quick. Let’s go.”

With that Treblig climbed over the side railing of the balcony and grabbed the now charred vines. They were bald, their leaves having been burned off. Above them the flames still burned, dropping ashen bits of plant down on them as they climbed downward, but the fires on the outside of the buildings bottom few floors were mostly out, and Treblig saw several crews throwing water around the still burning sections.

He looked to the side, hopeful that they were working on the area where Ekvia had fallen, but it didn’t look like they were. The fires were particularly violent and hot in that corner, a mere thirty or forty feet from where they were climbing down. The army didn’t have enough water to spare for a section like that, where their efforts would be met with failure. So they focused on the sections they could save in the hopes that they could keep the building from collapsing on top of the army long enough for them to escape.

Treblig reached the second floor and climbed onto the balcony so he would have better footing to try and help Nevets climb down. The na was doing surprisingly well, though now that he was watching Treblig saw Nevets nearly fall several times in his haste.

Treblig reached up toward the na as he drew closer. “Careful, I got you. Just keep coming the way you are and you’ll be fine.”

Nevets didn’t look down, but Treblig saw him nod in acknowledgement.

Treblig touched his leg, not putting any pressure or grabbing, just petting Nevets know he was there as support if needed. The na’s entire body was shaking, either with nerves or exertion Treblig couldn’t tell. Nevets shifted, trembling hand seeking a new handhold. He grabbed a vine, then moved the foot Treblig was prepared to support, then the opposite hand.

And the branching vine Nevets had his foot pressed into broke.

His lower half dropped, but he held tightly with his hand, body bouncing slightly as it thumped against the side of the building.

Treblig pressed his hand into Nevets’s back to support him and be ready to catch him if his hands lose their hold. “Hang on, I got you.”

Almost before the words left his mouth the vines in Nevets’s hands broke. Immediately Trebligs hand closed on Nevets’s shirt and his other hand shot out, grabbing the front of the shirt. The weight of the scientist nearly pulled Treblig over the twisted vine balcony railing, but he bent his knees, lowering his center of gravity and catching his waist on the top of the railing.

Nevets dangled helplessly below, Treblig’s grip forcing his arms into an awkward upward position as the shirt began slowly sliding off his body.

“I’m going to let go with one hand so I can get you closer to the ground,” Treblig called down to Nevets.

The na looked up at him, eyes still pale, but he nodded and Treblig saw in his expression something other than terror. Determination. Perhaps this na wasn’t so mild as he usually seemed.

“Just make sure you land on your feet,” Treblig said.

Then he released the front of Nevets’s shirt and grabbed the railing with his now free hand. Slowly, carefully, he lifted one leg over the railing and stepped on the balcony lip, then he did the same with the other. Then taking a deep breath he began lowering Nevets, transferring the na’s weight entirely to his arms. The strain tugged at his joints and chest, and he grunted with the effort. If he lowered Nevets too quickly the shirt could tear and he’d fall, so he endured the stretching pain until he was reaching as far downward as he could, and he let go.

**********

Nevets fell six feet to the street below, his legs buckling beneath him as he hit the ground. He grunted in pain, but immediately pushed himself back to his feet. He had to get to Kiv. She could be hurt, unable to escape the fire on her own.

He ran. Despite the pain, despite the stiffness, despite the severe limp, he ran. Treblig called after him, but he ignored the shouts. Smoke poured from the side of the building where part of the wall had collapsed from the fire, and Nevets hesitated only a moment before he all but leaped through the opening.

Smoke immediately assaulted his senses and he stumbled backward a little, not managing to get more than a foot inside at first. The pale smoky fear in his eyes and grey smoke in front of him and left him nearly blind, but between billows of smoke and flame, he saw her. She was crouched in the corner of the stairway furthest from the hole in the wall, back to the hottest of the flames, her shirt just starting to catch fire. It was the safest place in the stairwell, the collapsing landing from above having smothered some of the flames temporarily. But it wouldn’t stay safe for long. She seemed to be tying something on her arm, using her teeth and one hand to pull it tight. the collapsing landing above having smothered the fire directly beneath her.

The central support of the stairs, a foot thick wall of bamboo bisecting the stairwell from which stair branches reached out and intertwined with others that grew from the outer walls of the well, was charred and frail at the bottom, and it looked ready to collapse at any moment. When the bottom gave out the entire thing would collapse under its own weight, as the stairs above were probably weakened enough that they wouldn’t be able to hold it up. Nevets pushed forward, stepping carefully to avoid debris as branches from the stairs rained down from above. Despite his best efforts, he was struck several times by the debris but refused to let that stop him.

Then the bottom of the stairwell core finally gave out.

The entire thing dropped three feet with a loud crunch, sending even more debris tumbling down from above as the stairs were torn in half by the sudden shift. Again Nevets found himself stumbling back, further away from Ekivia. A flash of heat washed over him, and his entire body prickled with burns. It was dangerously hot in here, and his entire body hurt in a new way. He’d only ever heard of people getting burned like this, never experienced it himself. But he didn’t have time to worry about that now, he…

The core slumped and twisted, blocking his path to her, so he turned to go around it.

He was grateful that she’d found a relatively safe place to stand for the time being, but the flames weren’t the only danger. Sure the most obvious danger was their clothes or bandages catching fire and then their wounds igniting, but there was another danger. They would also explode if their internal body temperature got too high. They had to get out safely before that could happen.

Thankfully, as he pushed forward, limbs feeling stiff around the joints, the pain from the burns began to subside. He knew what was happening. The skin was hardening and dying from the heat, burned to numbness, becoming inflexible and tightening around his limbs as it happened. He knew this was something he could never fully recover from, but he didn’t care at the moment. He cared about one thing.

And they didn’t have much time if they were going to get out alive.

Nevets moved to the center of the stairwell where the core had stood moments before.

“Ekivia!” He shouted over the roaring of the flames.

She turned from her corner, eyes black and white with pain and fear, the back of her shirt now being consumed by flames. She saw him, their eyes meeting only briefly before her glance shot down to his wounded leg. He knew what he would see, but looked anyway.

His bandages burned, the oil that had soaked through was far too volatile to be in this environment. He hadn’t even felt it because the heat had burned the senses from his skin. He should have thought about that before coming in here. He’d endangered them both by coming to get her, he…

He looked up, expecting Ekivia to be tucking herself deeper into her corner for protection from the explosion they both knew was coming. But she wasn’t.

She was trying to climb over debris through the flames to reach him. They met each other’s eyes for what he was certain would be the last time.

Then his leg exploded.

The force of the explosion threw him from the building, spinning him end over end even after he hit the ground. He bounced several times then skidded through the dirt of the street before coming to a stop.

He blinked, trying to clear his spinning vision. He turned his head, screaming in pain as he did, but he had to see. When he finally found the building he saw a silhouette stand up in the smoke. Ekivia had been blown against the wall by the explosion, but she’d survived. She’d…

The entire corner collapsed on top of her as he watched.

His screams ripped and tore at his throat as he tried to pull himself toward the building, pushing with the only leg he had. The movements caused his skin to crack around his joints where it had hardened. But she could still be alive under the rubble. She had to be.

Soldiers rushed forward around him with buckets of water, throwing them on the pile. They could still save her. They…

The pile exploded.

Nevets scream turned from one of pain to one of sorrow, his eyes turning a deep black and overflowing with sorrow-sight tears. He shouted Ekivia’s name as the sobs came, and his voice cracked as though something in his throat had broken. He tasted oil in his mouth and the deep sobbing breath that followed hurt.

A figure approached him, but he couldn’t tell who through the darkness of his sorrow. They held a large water-soaked saddle blanket and tossed it over him. A loud hiss filled Nevets ears as the soaked blanket settled on him. He could feel his skin twisting and warping where the blanket made contact, and he tried to scream in pain once more but no sound escaped his throat.

The pain jolted through him for only a moment, and then finally he fell unconscious.