Liam jolted awake like he was brought back from the dead, gasping for air, arms flailing at his sides as his mind processed everything it could, without much success. He tried to sit, but his whole body screamed out no! and kept him there, on the ice.
His face was numb, but the morning sun caused a stinging sensation, like someone dragging knife tips across his cheeks and nose. He tried to focus, tried to see where he was…but his eyes just refused to cooperate. He felt like he was drifting, gently, somewhere far away. And he realized, to his surprise, that suited him just fine.
He closed his eyes and saw Rían there, smiling at him in the imprecise beyond. He was reaching out his hand, urging him on. Come with me! he was calling. It’ll be OK!
The more Liam thought about following, the less he felt the knives on his face, the agony in his ribs and legs and arms and everything else. The more he thought about following Rían, the less the rest of the world mattered at all. So he let himself drift a little further, off toward that nondescript nothingness, where Rían was waiting for him, arm wrapped around—
“Maggie!” Liam gasped, and sat up on the ice.
It was daylight, and frigid, and silent, but he was alive. He looked to his side, saw the Canadien who’d chased him, tried to kill him. Dead. Neck snapped by the fall, eyes staring off into nothingness. Liam reached over and closed his eyes, saying a silent prayer. The dead deserved that much, at least.
Then, faintly, he heard a deep ker-chunk sound, rumbling through his bones in a way he couldn’t quite fathom. He knew exactly what it was, though: ice breaking.
The ice shuddered beneath him, and he scrambled for the shore, and—discovering his legs were in too much pain to rely on—caught a tree hanging off the shoreline. He made it, barely, and turned ‘round to see the spot he’d been lying on come apart, swallowing the Canadien whole as the water underneath whisked him away toward some crueler conclusion.
Liam gasped for air, panic setting in. He’d been trying to find a way out when he’d been attacked, but now, in the light of day, he had no idea which way that was.
His left leg was in agony. He re-gripped the tree, barely keeping his balance, and started to crawl back up the way he’d come. It wouldn’t be easy. It might even be impossible. But he had to try.
He reached for the next-closest tree, letting his leg drag behind him. He caught it, face thrashed by pine needles as he made himself stable again. It took him a minute to get his nerve back, dare to carry on. He was a tenth of the way to his goal, but it was all uphill—steeply—and as his blood pumped faster, he became more and more aware of how broken he really was.
“You can do this,” he said to himself. “You can make it. Just focus, and do it. Only a little further…”
“Hell no, it’s not,” said a voice behind him, and he turned to see Adam, face covered in blood, but alive. Liam nearly fell over in shock. Adam pointed up the incline. “I don’t mean to tell you how to live your life, Kelly,” he said. “But how’s about you skip the hill and follow the river back to town?”
Liam looked down at the partially frozen stream, twisting his neck until he saw that it did indeed curve off into the distance, probably in the direction of Bytown. He turned his attention back to Adam. “I broke my leg,” he said.
“I broke my skull,” said Adam, touching the side of his head gingerly. “Though since I don’t need to walk on m’skull, I’d say you have the worst of it.”
Liam laughed, and almost fell straight back into the stream. Adam raced forward, catching him, and set him back on his feet. Or foot.
“You look like a bear got you,” he said, bracing Liam a little better.
“Feel like it, too,” said Liam, letting himself be guided along the narrow, snowy edge beside their icy marker. “Thought I was dead for a while there.”
“You see heaven?” Adam asked, grinning.
“Maybe,” said Liam, frowning at the memory. “I nearly let myself go.”
“What held you back?”
Liam opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t say the words. He smiled, slightly, and brushed it off. “Nothing.” Liam rolled the thought of it around in his mind in a way he hadn’t for some time: Maggie. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie… The one thing that brought him back from the dead, and the thing that made all the suffering he’d yet to endure possible. Maggie, the one whose smile, even now—even in this cold—numbed him from the pain. The curve of her mouth as she held back her opinion. The glint in her eye as she held nothing back at all.
Rían’s girl. The one he couldn’t live without. The one he’d talked about, non-stop, from the moment he’d met her. The one he’d die to protect.
The one he’d left behind.
It was an awful feeling, this feeling of opportunity, but Liam couldn’t deny it was there. That his stepping in for his brother to protect her, that that might somehow turn into something more. Maybe not soon, but some day…like someone had taken the lid off the sky so he could do the impossible, and all he wanted…
All he wanted was to know she was safe. For her to know he was safe.
“Fine, then. Be that way.”
Liam shook his head. “I’m sorry, my mind’s just a bit muddled.” He looked around them, squinting at the brightness. “How far do you think it is, back home?”
“The rate we’re going? A thousand years.”
“I don’t even remember how we got here. There was a road, at the start. But then…”
“That’s a ways off, I reckon,” said Adam. “But if we keep on it, we’ll find a landmark we can go by, I’m sure.”
“Or ask for directions.”
Adam seemed unsure of that. “Depends who’s offering. God help us if we run into les Gens out here. Though I s’pose I could use you as a distraction as I make my getaway.”
Liam laughed, tried to do his part to pick up the pace. “I’m not used to being the slow one.”
“I could tell, the way you shot straight out of there like a bolt of lightning,” Adam said. “I was lookin’ around, thinking ‘Where’s Kelly at?’ and then bam! off ye go, straight into the woods, like the devil was nippin’ at your ass.”
There it was. The memory of last night, rolling back over Liam like a storm cloud. He shivered. “What happened, back there?” he asked.
“Ambush, I’d say,” said Adam. “They knew we’d come. Thought they’d catch us off-guard.”
Liam remembered the other men in their party, ready with weapons, watching the periphery like they knew something was coming. “How many survived?” he asked.
“Of ours? Can’t say. I thought it was just me, ‘til I found you.” He scanned the horizon, cautiously. “Of theirs? God, I hope none.”
They moved along in silence for a minute more before Liam finally got up the nerve to ask: “Did they really steal that equipment? The axes had markings on them…I think they were French, not Irish.”
Adam shrugged like it didn’t bother him at all. “Half our stuff is bought from Canadien traders,” he said. “Not much else on offer, I’d wager.”
“But—”
“Listen, Kelly,” said Adam. “Does it seem off to me? Hell yeah. Did the French steal that gear? No idea. Were we in the right to take it back? Don’t care. But did those bastards come at us looking to kill? Yes, sir, they did. And I don’t care about nothing else but that.”
He hoisted Liam a little more upright, got a better grip. “Let them all figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. We’ve just gotta survive.”
Liam opened his mouth to say…something, but before he could get a sound out, they heard the crack of branches breaking up the slope to their right. They turned to see a wild-eyed Canadien, thick coat soaked with blood, holding an axe in each hand and looking for trouble. He’d survived the night’s calamities and was clearly looking for more.
He saw them then, and without hesitation, threw himself down the incline. As he ran he hurtled an axe straight at them!
Adam dropped Liam just in time—the blade whooshed past them, embedding in the ice, handle vibrating from the impact. Liam scrambled to turn, to see—but Adam was already moving. He pulled a knife from his pocket, and charged.
The Canadien was moving too fast to control his descent; he saw Adam coming and swung his axe, but a little too soon, and it threw him off-balance. He tripped, tumbling downward… straight into Adam.
The two of them crashed and smashed their way to the base, landing not far from Liam. Adam had lost his knife in the fall but saw one of the axes nearby. He reached for it—until the Canadien kneed him in the stomach. The wild-eyed man lurched straight over Adam and snatched up his weapon. He got to his knees, arms over his head, grinning mercilessly as he lined up the perfect blow to Adam’s skull, and—
CRACK! The sound startled Liam more than anything. The Canadien tumbled backward, blood spraying from the hole in his head. Adam scrambled free, looking in shock, past Liam, at something in the distance.
Liam turned, squinting, and saw them: a group of men, down-river, approaching on foot. The leader stowed his musket, pulled his gloves back on and waved.
“You lads look like you could use a ride!” he called, his Irish accent warming them more than the hottest fire ever could.
Adam got to his feet, helping Liam up, too, and waited for the newcomers to arrive. When they made it, two of the other men helped Liam, bracing him so he didn’t even need to touch the ground. The leader tipped his cap to them both.
“Mr Aylen sent us to see where you’d all gone to. After what we found back yonder, didn’t think there’d be survivors to find. Good thing Charlie here needed to piss, or you’d probably be dead by now.”
Liam gave Charlie a weak smile. “Thanks.”
Charlie looked nonplussed. “Still need to piss.”
The leader waved them on, back down the stream. “We’ve a wagon that’ll get you back into town faster than walking,” he called as he went. “We’ll double back for the bodies after.” He paused, scratched his cheek, thinking hard. “And when you see Mr Aylen,” he said, considering his words carefully, “you might want to keep a distance when you break him the news.”