Chapter Thirteen
The recce parties were reaching the ground floor now. Serena and Gadeth were investigating a long room which seemed to be entirely full of filing cabinets. Someone had been through here, yanking out some drawers, scattering papers and folders around, but it had been some time ago to judge by the depth of the dust on the debris. Gadeth crouched down and picked up a few sheets, while Serena held the lamp over him, looking over his shoulder.
'They're people's dossiers,' she said. 'Files of medical records, scholastic records, employment just the details of their lives.'
'Why did they want all that information?'
'You never know what detail is going to be important,' Serena said. 'There were a lot of aptitude tests all the way through school. Dilandau was a special case, being tailor-made so to speak, but that was how most of the Dragonslayers were selected.' He glanced up at her; it was hard to see her face clearly, above the lamp, but she sounded sad. 'Picked out of school, taken away from their families, trained up from childhood. It was supposed to be a big honour. I really hate it when children are made to serve the purposes of adults. I keep wanting to protect Cid from that.'
'I don't think he'd let anyone do that to him,' Gadeth said. 'You really love him, don't you?'
'He's easy to love,' she said. 'And I like how I am when I'm with him. It's nice to feel like I can be motherly.'
'I think you're going to be a great mother,' he said. 'Remember, you've got to expect at least three babies. I'll do my best to deliver.'
'Hopefully not too soon. If I can have you all to myself for a couple of years before we turn into parents, I'll be happy.'
'But you do want to have children, right? You've said before that you do.'
'Course I do,' she said, and smiled down at him. 'Scruffy little Finn children - though of course ours will be too well-trained to hide under sofas.'
He straightened up, smiling too. 'We really shouldn't get into conversations like this when we're At Work.'
'I know, it's such a bind. If you kiss me that's not showing the proper respect for your commanding officer.'
'If you kiss me you're taking advantage of a junior officer. Of course, no-one has to know. We could have a conspiracy of silence.'
'We really don't take anything seriously enough, do we?' She put her arms round his neck.
'I think we're still covered by the Newlyweds Excuse. I think we get to keep that for at least six months after the wedding, as long as we're not actively nauseating anyone else. So'
'Wait a moment.'
'What?'
'I just had a thought.' She was stepping away from him, to his disappointment.
'Oh good, one of them.'
She turned and went to the far end of the long room, to the door out. 'If we're in the part of the building where I think we are, then I know what's near here.'
'Don't just dash off, remember you've got the light.' He caught up with her as she opened the door and went through into the corridor beyond.
'We are where I think we are,' she said. 'So from here it would be first right second left oh my left again and straight on to the to the door there.'
'What is it? What's wrong?' She was doing her fast-walking thing and he was having to hurry to keep up, even though his legs were longer.
'It's not exactly that anything's wrong,' she said. 'It's just that this part of the building, out the back here, was used for Dragonslayer training. In here,' she opened the door, 'was the dormitory.'
'I didn't know they were based here,' Gadeth said, as Serena raised the lamp to illuminate the room.
'Not really based. There were several facilities around the country. We - no, I'm going to say they now. They were moved around, for different phases of training, and also because they weren't supposed to get settled down in one place. Their sense of place, sense of identity, had to come simply from belonging to the group, being chosen.' She looked around. Probably because it was at the back of the building, and on the ground floor, there had been some looting here, but it was only the removal of useful items, not the destruction or defacement of anything. Pretty disciplined looting. Some of the bedsteads had been liberated, and the ones that remained had lost their mattresses. There had not been a lot else to take. The place still had an air of military austerity.
'It's so weird to see the place without them,' she said thoughtfully. 'Without the smell of that gunk Dalet used to put on his hair, without being able to hear Gatti whistling somewhere he was a really terrible whistler, got on everyone's nerves, but he kept doing it absent-mindedly Dilandau whacked it out of him eventually. Ugh.' She set the lamp on the end of a bed.
'If you don't like being here'
'I'm just having a look round. Through there's the changing room, and the showers. So here you have it. A temple of not-boyhood. And some of them were such nice kids. I just keep remembering that. And Dilandau was such a little shit to them.'
Rafel had been listening long enough. She knew too much about it. She was probably the torturer. These two must be pretty stupid, going off alone together. They'd never noticed him following, keeping to the shadows. He wasn't scared of them anyway. He had a crowbar he'd found a few weeks ago. Even if he couldn't stop them all taking over here, or whatever they were trying to do, he could at least try to take these two out. They were facing away from him, never saw him coming, didn't hear his soft ragged steps. He lifted the crowbar and swung it at Tall-Man's head and the idiot moved, stepped to the side, so the swing was wrong and the bar connected heavily with his shoulder. Still, it knocked him to his knees. Girl-Knight swung round, drawing her sword, and glared at Rafel. He gripped the bar tighter.
'Shit!' Gadeth exclaimed, trying to get back up in time. Whoever it was rushed past him, a sort of leaping, hooded heap of rags, swinging a crowbar, striking at Serena. She blocked it easily, and with the next stroke slammed the bar to the floor. The attacker made a high noise of fear in his throat and turned to run, straight into Gadeth, who twisted his arms behind him and held him like a trap. The next second Serena was in his face, pressing the edge of the sword to his throat.
'If you hurt Gadeth,' she said, 'you make me very, very angry. I may have to mess you up a little.' Her eyes were blazing.
'He's a kid,' Gadeth said, surprised. 'He's skin and bones under this coat.'
'What?' said Serena, and yanked back the boy's hood. A round-eyed young face stared back at her, framed by straggly light-brown hair. He was very dirty. She could smell him now and that was enough to make her wish she couldn't.
'Oh my God,' said Rafel. 'D-don't kill me, sir.' He didn't even dare swallow with the steel against his skin.
She stepped back. 'I'm not going to kill you.' She took a deep breath and let it out. 'No, definitely not going to. Are you all right, Gadeth?'
'Nothing's broken,' Gadeth said. 'I'm just going to have a really good bruise.' He rolled his shoulder round and winced.
'Good,' she said. 'Not good a bruise, good nothing's broken. Make him sit on that bed there.' Gadeth manoeuvred Rafel to the nearest bedstead and made him sit on the slats where the mattress should be. Serena followed, and stood over the boy. She had still not put her sword away. She was tapping the side of the blade against her leg. His eyes kept shooting nervously to the blade, then back to her face.
'Nice to meet you,' she said. Her manner was stern, but not savage. 'Obviously, you don't like formal introductions, but please bear with us. My name is Serena Scherazade Schezar Finn and I am a Knight of Heaven from Asturia. I don't care if you call me sir, I just want to hear it in your voice. The gentleman holding you is Sergeant Gadeth Finn. Do you want to be called sir, Gadeth?'
'It'd be good,' said Gadeth.
'Okay. So,' she said, and bent over, closer to Rafel's face, 'what do we call you?'
'Rafel Labariel.' That seemed to mean something to her. She raised her eyebrows.
'Are you related to Migel Labariel?'
'He's my brother.'
She stood back., and sheathed her sword. Rafel was confused. There was something like pity in her eyes now, and her tone had lost its sarcasm. 'I guess they didn't tell you. I'm sorry to be the bearer of this news, but Migel Labariel died several months ago in Freid.'
'Migel died?'
'He was killed by a covert operative of Strategos Folken's while trying to escape from the Duke's castle. Migel had been taken prisoner in a battle and was being held there. His escape threatened the other guy's cover, so he killed Migel, even though they were on the same side. It was a really low thing to do.'
'Migel died?'
'I'm sorry, Rafel,' she said. She crouched down in front of him; now she was looking up at him. He couldn't think what to make of that. 'He was a very brave soldier. He was betrayed.'
'You're, you're just telling me this to demoralise me. You made Dilandau-sama tell you people's names. You're making it up.'
'I'm not,' she said, and she sounded as though she wished she were. 'Dilandau avenged Migel's death, if it makes you feel any better. He killed the spy, in turn.'
'He did that for my brother?'
'Migel was a Dragonslayer. Dilandau may have been tough on them, but he didn't let anyone else get away with hurting them.'
Rafel was starting to tremble. Serena could see his face working as he strove not to cry in front of her.
'But,' he managed to say, 'you've killed Dilandau-sama. Or worse. I'm not going to listen to anything you say. You won't get anything out of me.'
Serena sighed. 'Dilandau Albatou is dead as well. He killed himself just recently, near Pallas, Asturia. I was there, but I didn't choose for it to happen. There are no Dragonslayers left. The Dragon won. It's no good to fight us, Rafel, but we're not going to hurt you. We've really come to help.' She put her hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it away.
'Yeah, right.'
Serena paused, looking for the right words. 'I knew Dilandau. I knew him very well. I understand what he must mean to you, the idea of him that was sold to you. And I have a brother myself, and there was a time when I was afraid he would be killed. I understand how you feel. I'm not a bad person. You can trust me. How old are you?'
'Thir - thirteen. Nearly fourteen.'
'Are you here all by yourself?'
'Piss off. I'm not a baby.'
'Are you by yourself?'
'Yes. I live here by myself. Get out of my house.' Grief was making him recklessly rude. He hated her, and everyone.
'Where are your parents?'
'They died months ago. My father was mugged coming back from the shops with food for us. They hit him on the head and he died a few days later. My mother got a chest infection and died after that. It's your fault, you and the Fanelians and those bastards from Basram. We should have won. Fate was on our side.'
'Fate isn't on anyone's side,' Gadeth said. 'You shouldn't count on it.' Over Rafel's head, he said to Serena 'He shouldn't be here alone. I say we take him up and give him a feed and see what we can do with him.'
'Good idea,' said Serena. 'Come on, Rafel. Whether you like it or not, your life begins anew today. You'll get used to it. And that's the voice of experience talking.'
They'd put him in the brig on the little ship from Freid. He was locked in. They weren't guarding him though. Just locking him in. If he hadn't tried to break free and run away on the roof they might not have, and he could have gotten away later, but he'd just panicked at the thought of being pushed on board one of those ships, where they'd do who-knew-what to him. He didn't believe for a second that they didn't want to hurt him. That was exactly what they would say. He was glad he didn't really know anything important.
It had done no good to try to run. The tall man, Gadeth, was just too strong. Rafel was wiry but he didn't get enough to eat and he certainly wasn't strong enough to force a grown man to let go of him. He couldn't think why the girl knight was higher ranking than him, because she was clearly younger as well as a girl, but it seemed she was, although the way they talked to each other was very familiar. He had been confused by their names, especially Serena's, full of sch's and z's, but he thought they had the same last name. Relatives, maybe. It would explain why she went ballistic about him whacking Gadeth. So she wasn't inhuman. The pity might not have been all an act. He had to try to think what he could do. The brig was just one cabin, leftover space, with a bench on chains that could be folded up against the wall. He sat there and tried to think hard, but he was scared and tired and hungry. They had left him a couple of bread rolls, some cold meat and a glass of juice, but he was afraid of poison or drugs so he wasn't touching that.
The smell of the food was not strong but it was really getting to him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten fresh bread, or even day-olds. He decided to watch the door opposite the bench. There was a barred window about halfway up. After a few minutes, a face appeared at it. A copper-furred catgirl with blue eyes. She stared at him seriously for some time without speaking. He wasn't going to talk to her.
'I'm Meruru,' she said after a while. 'Serena told me you're called Rafel.'
Meruru waited for an answer. He just stared at her. She tried again.
'She asked me to come by and say hello to you. They've all gone to find something called the public address system and the generator and try to announce that they're here. I'm still not allowed to get out of the ship so she thought I could keep you company.'
'I don't need the company of a beast.'
'You're the one in a cage,' she retorted huffily. 'And I happen to be the official secretary of the King of Fanelia, so watch how you talk to me.'
'Fanelia? We wasted Fanelia.'
'You're really out of date, aren't you? Fanelia's nearly rebuilt. A lot of people died, but new ones are being born. And because we're allies with Asturia and Freid Fanelia is more important in the world now than Zaibach ever will be again.'
'Poor world.'
'Poor you.'
'People aren't going to put up with this,' he said. 'They've got some pride left. We're not going to be ruled by a bunch of prettyboys and peasants and priests just because they come in with a big bloody ship and make announcements.'
'Well, I don't know how far pride is going to get them,' Meruru said. 'If they fight, Van-sama will beat them. He beat all the Dragonslayers.'
'Shut up,' Rafel said. 'You're lying.'
'No, he did. It wasn't good for him, and weird things happened, but he's still alive and they're not, so you work it out.'
'The Dragonslayers,' Rafel said, in measured tones, 'are the flower of Zaibach and its flame. They are our first and finest fifteen. Even to be chosen for pre-selection training is an honour.' He was reciting. It had been in the papers so many times. The papers had never said anything about the Dragonslayers being defeated. But he'd heard someone say, down in the city alleys a while ago, 'Of course, you mustn't believe everything you read. And sometimes you can't rely on what you don't read, either.'
'Well, where are they now? What did you think, they were just hiding somewhere till it was safe and then they'd come back and rescue you?'
'M-my big brother's in the Dragonslayers,' Rafel said, and started to cry. He couldn't stop. He'd been praying for that all along.
Since Migel was selected they didn't get to see him any more, but his picture was in the papers, in the magazines, and they always went to see him in the parades and show-day exhibitions. He didn't always see them but they were pretty sure he usually waved just to them. Rafel sat on his dad's shoulders and watched them go by, shining blue and black, and Dilandau-sama in the front like a red ember. Rafel just knew he'd look more like that when he got older and his hair stopped sticking up at the back, and he'd learn to fight like that somehow, and one day someone would notice and they'd say well, why not sixteen Slayers? Or they might even drop someone else so he could be in.
He had so many dreams, and day-dreams, where the Dragonslayers flew back over the city again, the cloaks streaming round their Alseides, and where they passed over the lights came back on and people came out of the houses and cheered. And they hovered over his roof, and he came out of his shelter, and one guymelef landed on the roof and he felt the tiles quake. The cockpit opened and there was Migel, and he smiled just like he did in the pictures, and said 'Come on - let's get out of here.'
And when that happened, Rafel would run and jump up onto the Alseides' shoulder, and he'd just hang on tight and they'd fly away, and then the magnificent adventures would begin. Dilandau-sama would say he didn't know what they'd do without Rafel. They'd win all their fights and live like kings. He held onto that dream so tightly at night, when it got really cold and he could hear the rats sniffing around him and he knew no-one knew where he was, and it always made him a little bit warm.
'Please don't cry,' said Meruru. 'I'm sorry. I didn't know you were upset. Serena didn't mention - look, I'm sorry about what happened to your brother. Please don't cry. It's really going to be all right now.'
Rafel tried hard to stop, but he just couldn't. It was the most he'd cried in years; there were tears, there was snot, it was uncontrollable.
'What if I get the key?' Meruru said. 'I could get the key and I could come in and we could talk properly. You should eat that dinner, it'll make you feel better. And then you could have a wash and I'll find you some clean clothes. Would that be good?' Rafel couldn't answer but he managed a nod. 'Okay. I'll go and ask them. Just wait there. Well, of course' Her face disappeared from the window and he could hear her dash away.
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