After the Fall(26)

Gigi roared her fury, and thrust her blade into his right side, then wrenched up as hard as she could, opening a deep gash. The man simply stared at her in astonishment.

“Bastard!” she spat at him, but his eyes were already blank, and he crumpled to the ground.

Gigi took the woman in her arms. “Laita? Can you talk? You take care of Verica’s children, don’t you?”

The woman was weeping and incoherent, but there was no time for that.

Desperate, Gigi shook her. “Laita! Where are they? Does the queen have them with her?”

“She … I think she has the twins, but Berga and Theodoric are with me,” she replied, sobbing.

Gigi frantically looked around. “Where? Where are they?”

“Th — there,” Laita pointed to a pile of blankets in the corner.

Gigi raced over and started pulling the covers away. Soon, Theodoric stared up at Gigi, and then Berga’s head popped out beside her brother’s.

“I could have fought!” Theo told Gigi, his eyes brimming with angry tears.

“No!” Laita hissed. “The Roman would have murdered all of us if we had fought. This way … it was my job to protect you — this was the only way you could hope to survive.”

“We can talk about it later,” Gigi insisted. “We have to get out of here. The soldiers are everywhere, and everything is burning. Grab a blanket — one for each and — hold on.” Gigi looked outside and saw little through the roiling black smoke, except a vinegar barrel, a mandatory fire-fighting tool kept within reach of every communal cluster.

Gigi took Laita by the shoulders. “Can I count on you?”

The woman nodded, grim resolve replacing her tears.

“All right,” Gigi said. “There’s nobody out there right now. Dunk the blankets in the vinegar. Don’t ring them out too much, then we’ll put them over our heads.”

Laita rushed out.

“Okay,” Gigi said in English, then caught herself. She turned to the children. “It’s getting very hard to see and breathe, so we’ll go single-file and stay low. Hold on to the person in front of you and cover your mouths. I don’t care if the blankets stink, just cover up.”

Laita came back with the sodden blankets, and together they draped them over the children and themselves.

“Good. Berga, you hold onto my skirt — tight! Theo, you hold on to Berga’s, and Laita, you bring up the rear.” Eyes wide with fright, their heads bobbed dutifully. “Nobody let go, not for a moment. Follow me.”

Looking outside once more, Gigi listened. The fighting had moved to a different part of camp, but the fires surrounded them. Which was the best way to go? Holding a corner of the soaked blanket over her mouth with one hand, and her knife in the other, Gigi made a decision and started forward.

They crossed the open area and reached the tents on the far side, but the choking blackness made progress almost impossible, except by touch. The wind gusted, and Gigi knew it was the hunger of the flames, sucking in the air around them.

They were all coughing hard, and Berga seemed especially bothered, but her grip was still strong. Good girl! Gigi realized they had to move faster, because her skin was feeling scorched, the fire close, too close. She spun around, dropped to her knees, and screamed over the roar of the inferno. “Berga, get on my back and hold on, tight as you can. Laita, Theo, get down and keep your heads as low as possible.”

Scrambling on hands and knees through the caustic, oily, evil darkness, Gigi felt like the smoke was alive, purposefully malevolent, seeking her out, and wanting her dead. Soon, her world was reduced to simply putting one hand in front of the other and moving forward, always forward.

“Jolie!”

It was Theodoric. Gigi looked sideways, and the boy’s blackened face loomed close.

“We are past the camp — we should run now!”

Gigi looked around. Indeed, they were in weeds, and the ground had started to rise. She nodded and grabbed his hand, then turned, and looked behind him. “Laita?”

“I don’t know where she is,” Theodoric said. “We had to let go when we started to crawl, and then, and then she just stopped being there.”

Lowering her head in sadness, Gigi knew she couldn’t go back for her. She had to get the children to safety. “Come on, run, Theo! Berga, hold on tightly!”

They stood and stumbled up the hill together, and soon the thick, impenetrable dark turned to gray, then suddenly cleared, almost as abruptly as leaving one room and going into another.