"Maude: " he croaked, unbelieving.
Her face had been clenched against the scream that would distract him from the life-and-death focus of combat. Now it relaxed, and the hand against her side did too. He clamped the wound with his own, but the blood tide was ebbing even as he did. Her eyes moved from his face to Alleyne's; she tried to say something, then shuddered and went still.
"Maude: "
Time ceased to move. Words went by, without meaning until a voice shouted in his ear: "Sir! Colonel, there's no time. We have to move now."
That seemed to start his mind working again, after a fashion. Men have died to free you. Your son's here – Maude's son. You have to move now. He reached out and shook the younger man across from him by the side of his helmet until the armor rattled on him.
"Alleyne!" he snapped. "Pull yourself together, man!"
His son obeyed with an effort that made him shudder, but his eyes slid down towards Maude's harsh features again, now relaxed and somehow younger.
"Put her here," Sir Nigel said gently, standing beside a couch.
The body had the boneless flaccidity of the newly dead. Nigel closed her eyes and held them for a second, then stood and scrubbed his left hand across his face, forcing a deep breath into his lungs. Hordle and Badding were throwing the wrecked furniture into the doorway again; then the big NCO smashed a lamp on it. Flame splashed up from it as the glass oil reservoir shattered. It roared higher as several others joined it.
"Sir," Badding said. "Out."
"You first-"
"Sir, don't play silly buggers with us now. Your lady's dead and beyond help. You're what we came here for!"
The man's dark-bearded pug features were twisted with concern; Badding, Nigel remembered, had a wife and three children and a farm near Tilford, and a young sister he'd brought through the Change. He nodded, picked up the shield and sword, went to the window and swung himself out. The impulse simply to let fall was strong. Instead he made himself put hands and feet to the ladder. Too many were depending on him.