He had tried to transcend his exhaustion, summoning what strength he could behind the blow that he landed on the back of her head. She fell, and he was free.
His legs were like jelly from walking all night over uneven ground, and now, only minutes after he struck her, he was only able to stagger from tree to tree, following no path but only trying to get away.
Suddenly his legs went out from under him and he was face down in the leaves. "Huff!" Lady May squatted on his back, and twisted his right arm painfully behind him.
She spat some word in a language he didn't recognize, then said "Nice try," in her slow measured way. Her voice was full of menace.
"Let me go, you witch!" he shouted into the dirt. "Either kill me or let me up, because I'm not going with you! Let me find Emmy! You took me away from her!"
He heard her muttering angrily in that strange language. She said, "You damn near broke my head, boy."
"Too bad I didn't!" He tried to struggle, but she had him completely pinned.
She sighed. "Okay, I guess I had it coming." Without loosing her hold, she left his back in a crouch and rolled him over. Her free hand rubbed the grit away from his face; his wrist was still pinned at an awkward angle. If he moved to much, he was sure it would break.
She let go of Jordan's wrist. A trickle of blood down the center of her forehead lent her a fearsome aspect, as it seemed to point at her eyes, which were narrowed accusingly at Jordan.
"I have done you a great disservice, Jordan. I know that. But you must understand, it is a matter of life and death, for everyone we know, your family included. Your friends will call you a hero when we're through. And I should only need you for a few days. Please trust me about your sister. Will you please wait a day or so, until I can give you proof that she is safe? All this running is doing neither of us any good."
He thought about it. "I will wait for a day."
She nodded wearily, rubbing her forehead, and winced. "Then get up. We only need to walk a little more today, I'm tired too.
A rest will do us both good."
The countryside they passed through was deeply forested by black oaks that trailed moss, muffling the birdsong. The forest floor was bathed in a secretive green twilight, broken by dust motes sparkling in infrequent shafts of sunlight. The air was warm, but held the expectant fullness of late summer, as if Life were resting. They were far from the habitations of men.
When darkness fell Lady May decided to camp again. Jordan was worn out, and grateful for the respite. She made a quick fire and roasted some more rabbit, and he ate his and fell asleep immediately. His mind had been going all day, running up against walls of fact and memory, and it was mental exhaustion more than physical that put him under.
The last thing he was aware of was Lady May watching him with something like sympathy in her eyes as she languidly fed the fire.
The two men who were preparing his body were elderly, their long grey hair tied back with strands of hair from the corpses they'd worked on. They wore black velvet robes sewn with many pockets, and from these they produced a variety of vials filled with noisome chemicals. These they dripped on and into his body, and painted over his skin with brushes.
The ceiling was aplay with shadows of underworld spirits, from statues placed around the perimeter of the tent. The shadows elongated and bent, shortened and faded, as if the spirits were waging a war with some unseen enemy across the amber heaven of the canvas.
A metal handle clanked; the bucket containing his blood was taken out of the tent, to be burnt. One of the attendants bent over him, holding a mallet and a long spike with a T-shaped head. Placing the spike under his chin, the man hammered it up, nailing his tongue against his palate, piercing the palate and the nasal palate and imbedding the iron deep into his brain. The T held his slack jaw shut.
"Speak no more," said the attendant, and putting down the hammer he nodded to someone at the door of the tent.
Six men entered, looking solemn. Some stared at him; some looked everywhere else. They lifted the pallet he lay on and he passed out from under the sky of canvas, to the sky of night.
Diadem, the only moon of Ventus, was up and glittering like a tear. The rest of the sky was clear and splashed with stars, rank on rank, gauze on gauze of finest points of white. The river of the galaxy ran across the zenith. The human mourners fell silent, leaving only cricket sounds that seemed to come from the stars themselves.
The night air lessened the smell of burnt meat that had pervaded the tent.
Torches to the left, right, ahead and behind. Spirals of grey moved up to dissolve among the stars. Murmuring voices and the sound of shuffling footsteps, as he was carried out across the plain toward a dark hill.
The hillside rose steeply, blocking the stars. The torches lit a deep cut in its side, where a bare rock face had been smoothed, maybe centuries ago. Deep letters were carved over a slotted doorway uncovered by a huge stone slab. The slab had been tilted to the side, and now leaned heavily on a scaffold made from catapult parts. Rough soldiers sat on the scaffold, passing bottles back and forth. They watched impassively as he passed under them.