Read Online The Margrave by Catherine Fisher - Free Book Online Page A

something to eat.”
    Raffi turned desperately. “Listen. Carys saw us. She saw me fall, but she didn’t stop, didn’t make any sign. She just galloped away. I could have fallen and she . . .” He shook his head. He couldn’t finish.
    The creature stretched and scratched through the long fur at the back of its neck. “Small keeper,” it said carefully, “something is going on that we know nothing of.”
    The door slammed open. Galen grabbed some sheets and pulled the blankets off the Sekoi. “Come on! I need you both.” He was gone almost at once. Raffi raced out after him, the Sekoi hopping far behind, hastily pulling its boots on.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Wounded.”
    “But Alberic’s got a whole squadron of surgeons and—”
    “Not Alberic’s men. The Watch. Their wretched leaders have abandoned them and left them to die. They’re worth nothing to Alberic.”
    “Galen!” Raffi caught up to him and grabbed his arm. The keeper glared at him.
    “Don’t say it, Raffi.”
    “I have to! We need to be careful! If we help these men and they live, they’ll remember us. They’ll file reports. Our names. What we look like.” A shiver of terror crossed his mind.
    Galen may have felt it. He pulled away and looked darkly at Raffi, a look of contempt. “So we should leave them to rot?”
    “No! I just think . . .”
    “You don’t think, boy.” He glanced at the Sekoi. “I suppose you feel the same?”
    The creature shrugged. “To the Watch one striped Sekoi looks very like another. But for you . . .”
    “I . . . We . . . have a duty to anyone who needs help.” Galen turned and strode down some steps to a locked door. One of Alberic’s men was posted outside. He scrambled up, then scowled when he saw who it was.
    “Listen, keeper. You’ve looked in here once.”
    “Open it.”
    “The chief won’t like this.”
    Galen’s eyes were black with anger. “I said, open it!”
    The man spat. Then he turned and unbolted the door. The smell was the first thing that struck them. A stench of sickness, of blood, that sent Raffi’s stomach heaving. For once he was glad to have eaten nothing.
    The cellar was dark, but as their eyes adjusted, they saw it was crammed with men, dozens of them, sprawled or lying huddled, the remnants of the defeated Watch garrison. They were in a terrible state, exhausted and in pain. Most had been wounded. Some slept, others were so miserable, they could only rock themselves from side to side moaning softly, barely glancing at the opened door. One man, lying crooked at Raffi’s feet, was obviously dead.
    The Sekoi snarled something bitter in the Tongue. Galen pushed past, down the steps; after a moment, hot with shame and anger, Raffi followed. They had brought water, and Galen tore up the sheets for bandages, sending Raffi racing back for more, and any food he could find. The Watchmen seemed too deep in shock to care, though one or two crawled up to help, and the Sekoi bent to comfort an older man, sobbing helplessly over his ruined leg.
    When Raffi brought water they snatched it and drank thirstily, barely looking at him, and he tried not to look too closely at their wounds, black with dried blood, wrapped in rags and hasty field-dressings, already filthy. Galen and the Sekoi picked their way among them, rebinding an arm or a leg, making a few men comfortable, yelling at the guard to carry out the bodies of the dead.
    “You’ll have to see the chief about that,” he said, sullen.
    Galen straightened. He was hot with rage; Raffi could feel it, simmering out from him.
    “Some of these men,” the Sekoi said quietly, “need urgent help. Some must lose limbs, before infection sets in.”
    “We can’t do that!” Raffi was aghast.
    “Not without killing them.” Galen bent and wrapped the last blanket around a Watchman’s shoulder; the man stared up with dull eyes. Then the keeper turned. “I think,” he said sourly, “that it’s time we spoiled Alberic’s little