by Tara Grayce
While she had seen Farrendel leave for war, she had never seen him fully battle ready. Every time she had seen him fight, it had been during ambushes when he was not wearing his full armor. He must be an impressive sight when going into battle.
She did her best to try to send an image of what she was thinking to him. All she got was a puzzled feeling. Guess her imagination didn’t exactly translate across the heart bond.
When the last elven warrior stepped from the train, Averett and Weylind strode forward so that they stood between the two armies facing each other.
Averett gestured. “I know this is an unusual sight. Our two kingdoms were enemies not that long ago. Yet today, we are allies. From this day forward, we will fight alongside each other, and we will claim victory together.”
Weylind waved back and forth and repeated the speech in elvish. He must have added to the speech because after several minutes, he switched to Escarlish. “When my brother married an Escarlish princess, I was doubtful such a union would promote anything besides more bitterness. Instead, their union has drawn our two kingdoms together. They proved that we do not have to be enemies. Through this war, our alliance will be tested. But it is my hope that it will prove as strong and enduring as the love my brother has formed with his princess.”
Essie smiled and gave a little wave as some of the Escarlish soldiers gave a cheer. The elven warriors didn’t so much as twitch.
It was a good sign the Escarlish soldiers were cheering the elven king. Surely his own soldiers were cheering internally, even if they didn’t show any outward emotion.
Seeing the two armies together gave Essie hope. Not just that they would get Farrendel back, but that they would get him back as quickly as possible.
FARRENDEL CLOSED his eyes, the better to block out his pounding head, his aching body.
Essie was chattering again.
He could not tell what she was saying, but he knew that, somewhere far away, she was talking to him. If he held still and closed his eyes, he could almost imagine they were back in their rooms in Estyra, the moonlight streaming through the windows as they sat on the cushions on the floor. Her head resting on his shoulder, her hand in his, as she sleepily chattered about nothing and everything until the words silenced into deep breathing.
And yet, even as she chattered and he strained to remember the feel of her at his side, her presence became more distant, more dreamlike, by the day.
Five days. That was how long he had been captured, as near as he could figure. Time lost all meaning, with no sunlight, no way to track its passing besides the daily visits of the troll prince bringing food and water and the troll king bringing torture.
Five days. That was how long he had been captured last time. Five days, with rescue on the sixth night.
A part of him almost believed he had never been rescued. That the last fifteen years of his life had been nothing but the fevered dream of a mind long tortured.
Yet, his father’s death had been all too real. The blood on Farrendel’s hands could not be dreamed away.
And Essie was real. Even without the heart bond existing, warm and taunting him with the life now out of his reach, he would know she was real. Because he never would have dreamed a talkative human princess with her flaming red hair and freckles. He did not have enough of an imagination to have conjured her.
She was real. But so very far away. A wisp slipping from his grasp with each passing day.
But, perhaps, he never had truly escaped. He had returned again and again in his nightmares. The nightmare had just become reality.
Five days. And so many more to go before he could even begin to hope for rescue.
Would there be a rescue? Even if Weylind and Essie’s brothers rallied the armies of Tarenhiel and Escarland and the armies cooperated together enough to fight a war, would the trolls let him live long enough for rescue a second time?
No matter. Essie was out of their reach. Even if that meant she was out of his reach as well. Not that she would recognize him now.
“Farrendel? Are you awake? Are you all right?” Melantha’s voice echoed down the passageway. “Farrendel?”
She had taken to calling out to him every hour or so. Occasionally he would respond. Most of the time he did not.
Farrendel clenched his fists and ground his teeth. “I am alive, if that is what you are asking.”
The longer he was here, the more torture he endured, he began to understand how it was possible to hate a sibling.
Melantha had to be working with the trolls. Even though they had used her to recapture him, they had not used her since. They had not threatened to torture her and had not tortured him with her screams. If she had been spared, it could only mean that she was working with them or had somehow bargained for her safety at his expense.
Something rattled, then clanked down the hall. Two sets of boots tromped closer across the stone.
His eyes snapped open, even as he let a hard, savage strength flow into his muscles. With a swift thought, he slammed an iron door on the heart bond, locking away Essie’s chatter and cutting her off from what was to come.
The door to Farrendel’s cell opened, and King Charvod marched inside, his carved, antler crown resting on his forehead. His short-cropped white hair gleamed in the torchlight while his gray skin was the same color as the stones behind him. His dark blue eyes burned.
Prince Rharreth shut the door behind him and leaned against the wall. Ever the observer. He never participated in the torture himself, but he never stopped it either.
The troll king halted next to Farrendel, his boots inches from Farrendel’s ribs as he loomed over him as if trying to make him feel small and vulnerable.
It would not work. Such feelings had died days ago.
Farrendel bared his teeth and glared. What he would not give for a sword in his hand and magic crackling over his fingertips.
King Charvod slammed his boot into Farrendel’s ribs. “It has been five whole days. Why has your brother not attacked yet? What is he waiting for?”
Pain flared along Farrendel’s ribs, but not enough to even draw a moan from him. A kick was hardly considered pain at this point.
Of course, King Charvod would expect Weylind to have attacked by now. A quick rally of the army. An attempt at a swift rescue. A repeat of last time, down to its deadly end and a fallen elven king.
But King Charvod had revealed his hand too soon, and now he no longer had spies in either Escarland or Tarenhiel to tell him what was happening. As Jalissa, and not Melantha, had been the sister sent to Escarland, King Charvod had no way to know how much Essie’s family had embraced Farrendel, nor how willing Essie’s brother Averett was to go to war to help Tarenhiel.
Farrendel might have worried about the delay, but he had the heart bond. He had felt the way Essie had gone from grief to determination to chattering hope. Surely she would not seem so lively, so hopeful, if the alliance between their brothers was not going well.
No, this delay was not something for him to fret over. It meant Weylind was wisely waiting for Averett to gather Escarland’s army so that together they could assault Kostaria. Would the combined forces be enough to carry them all the way to Gror Grar itself?
“Answer me!” King Charvod knelt and rested a hand on the stone floor, though he did not yet unleash his magic. “If you don’t, I will break you.”
Farrendel stared back. Then, of all things, he laughed.
Not a laugh of happiness or joy. He had forgotten how to do that kind of laugh decades ago. No, this was a laugh of hatred and wry contempt, filled with knowing what the troll king did not.
He could not break what was already broken.
That was something no one truly understood. Not even Essie had realized the truth.
Farrendel had not broken from the torture the last time he had been captured. Back then, just as he did now, he had the hope of rescue. He had clung to it with all the innocence of a boy whose father had never failed him.
He had broken the night he had killed the troll king in this very fortress. How many others besides Weylind realized the troll king had been his first? Blood spilled not on a battlefield, not protecting his family or his kingdom, though he had given that excuse to himself even as he made the decision to so coldly kill for the first time.
And under that shame, with blood on his hands and the last of his innocence gone, he had shattered.
“You laugh?” King Charvod gripped Farrendel’s jaw, yanked his head to face him. “You know the pain I can inflict.”
Farrendel had to choke back another laugh. Physical pain was the least of all forms of torture. It could be endured and, eventually, ignored. King Charvod could inflict all the agony, mental torment, degrading humiliation, and mutilation he wished, but he could not truly touch Farrendel.
Because, the truth was, King Charvod had lost the only weapon that could truly harm Farrendel the moment Essie had successfully escaped. Farrendel could endure anything as long as Essie remained out of King Charvod’s reach.
King Charvod still had Melantha. But even then, he had miscalculated in revealing her treachery too soon. It had been a blow. One that sent Farrendel reeling on top of the initial bewilderment of his capture.
But King Charvod could have used Farrendel’s trust in her to make him freely talk. Or bond him further by having her tend him, only to turn on him.
No, this could have been much worse in the hands of a more experienced and calculating torturer. Instead, King Charvod wielded physical pain with all the clumsiness of a man who would himself break under such torment and could not conceive of someone who would not.
Farrendel glanced past King Charvod to where Prince Rharreth still leaned against the wall by the door, his face impassive and hard as the stone behind him. If Prince Rharreth ever stopped observing and started helping King Charvod, the torture would be worse. Much worse. Prince Rharreth was, after all, the one who figured out how to use Melantha to recapture Farrendel at the border.
Farrendel dragged his gaze back to King Charvod’s burning, dark eyes. “You really are inept at torture.”
It probably was not smart to goad him, but goading King Charvod into causing pain felt like the little bit of control Farrendel could grasp.
King Charvod made a growling sound and his fingers dug into Farrendel’s jaw. “Inept? I will fill this fortress with your screams.”
Farrendel yanked his chin free of King Charvod’s grip and lashed out with his teeth, the only weapon left to him. He managed to bite King Charvod’s thumb and clamped down as hard as he could.
King Charvod shouted and yanked his hand free, ripping his skin on Farrendel’s teeth.
Farrendel spat out the taste of blood. A small wound to inflict. But it was far too satisfying to have drawn blood.
King Charvod gripped his thumb, blood welling. When he turned to Farrendel, his eyes burned. “You will pay for that.”
Farrendel braced himself and drew in a deep breath. The last decent breath he would get for the next while.
King Charvod pressed his hand to the stone floor. The temperature of the room dropped, and magic flared.
Spikes of stone drove into Farrendel’s body. Deep. Far too deep. Pain tore through him, even as he tried to hold back his screams.
Perhaps, this time, he had goaded King Charvod too far.
ESSIE STROLLED through the encampment, gazing about at all the activity. In one of the cleared spaces beneath the spreading branches of a humongous tree, a group of Escarlish soldiers and elven warriors drilled together. Other groups practiced in other sections of the camp.
It looked like everyone was getting along...on the surface. But Averett and Weylind had both been called away to different parts of the camp to settle disputes while Leyleira and Julien had rushed off to one of the other encampments. It had been nearly a full-time job to keep everyone peacefully training together instead of fighting.
“Princess!”
Essie turned at the call, finding a young soldier skidding to a halt before her, panting. She smiled at him to put him at ease. “Yes, soldier?”
“The chief surgeon sent me to find you or one of your brothers. He needs you to settle a...discussion he has been having with the elf healers.” The soldier pointed back the way he had come.
Even the healers were at odds? Essie huffed out a breath. At this rate, they were going to be so busy arguing, they were never going to get around to attacking the trolls. “Very well. Lead the way.”
She hurried after him as he trotted past training soldiers and past her inventory friend Lance Marion as he fiddled with one of the Escarlish guns. She waved as she walked by, but she wasn’t sure Lance even noticed. Finally, they reached a long white tent. Inside, rows of cots were set up. A few were even occupied, thanks to accidents while training and a few scuffles between humans and elves.
In the center, the elves’ healer, a tall, brown-haired elf, faced the chief surgeon, a short, stumpy man with bulging arms. Behind each of them, their various helpers, nurses, other healers, and surgeons, lined up as if preparing to battle.
Time to calm this situation. The last thing they needed was for their entire medical staff to wipe each other out. Essie strolled into the tent and pasted on her best princess smile. “What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?”
“I refuse to—”
“He won’t—”
“Human medical practices—”
“Pointy-eared, stubborn elves won’t—”
Essie held up a hand for silence. With both of them talking at once—very nearly shouting at once—she couldn’t make out exactly what was going on. “Please. One at a time. Healer Nylian, please go first.”
It was probably best to start with the elf healer. If she started with the Escarlish surgeon, the elf would feel like she was giving preferential treatment to her own people by letting the surgeon tell his side first. While the surgeon was more likely to be patient and wait to tell his story second since he would believe she would listen to him.
The elf healer, Nylian, crossed his arms and glared at the surgeon. “I refuse to work with the human healers. Your medical practices are antiquated. My people’s knowledge and skills are far superior.”
“Because you have magic. That’s basically cheating.” The surgeon crossed his bulky arms and didn’t budge an inch under the elf’s stare, which had grown even colder after that comment.
“Far, far superior.” Nylian turned away, as if dismissing the surgeon and all the human medical staff.
“It isn’t like I want to work with you either. Pointy-eared...” Maxwell, the surgeon, glanced at Essie and cut off the last word. Probably some kind of swear word or a demeaning word about elves.
Essie suppressed her grimace. With these kinds of attitudes, working together wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“Then you can tend your people with your primitive methods, and I will tend my people.” Nylian waved a hand in the air, further dismissing all the humans in the room.
That could be a possible compromise, but not one Essie wanted to employ. That was the kind of ignoring each other that their peoples had been doing for the past decade and a half. If good was to come out of this war, then it had to bring their peoples together. And that started with the little things, like forcing a bunch of healers to work together...and like it.
Essie plastered on a bright smile. Time to do what she did best. “That would be one way to do it, but that would not be the best use of the unique talents of both sides.”
“Both sides? It is not as if the humans have anything to offer.”
Elves and their annoying superiority complex.
Before Nylian could object, Essie took a step forward. “On the contrary, we humans do have much to offer. No, we don’t have healing magic. But that has pushed us to develop
our surgical techniques. We have come a long way from the leeches and bloodletting of past centuries. We have scalpels designed to do as little damage as possible during surgery.” Essie met Nylian’s gaze. “Why should you or your healers waste time digging out musket balls and performing those kinds of surgeries when that is exactly what the human surgeons have trained for?”
“I see.” Nylian turned back to Maxwell and the other human surgeons. His gaze now had a gleam of something that might have been grudging consideration. “I could see how that would be...beneficial.”
“Exactly.” Essie’s smile became more genuine, though no less bright. She couldn’t believe this was actually working. “And, Maxwell, the elven healing magic is really amazing. I have seen them heal near fatal wounds in mere seconds. Working alongside the elves, you will learn much from their knowledge of the body. It could lead to medical breakthroughs we can’t even dream about now.”
Maxwell still had his arms crossed, but his posture relaxed. “So, we turn the medical care into a factory assembly line.”
She wouldn’t have put it that way, but that was the idea. “Kind of. But it would be most efficient to work in teams where the elven healers use their magic while the human surgeons take care of whatever manual surgical procedures need to be done. It might also be best if the human surgeons took care of minor cuts and injuries while the elven healers conserve their magic for the most dire wounds. That will save the most lives.”
When the battles came, there would be a lot of wounded. The healers and surgeons would need to become an efficient team otherwise it would cost lives.
She stayed in the healers’ tent a while longer, working with Nylian and Maxwell for some of the particulars on what each group would handle and the size of the teams and stuff like that. She took notes so that she could arrange messages to the other two encampments so that this policy could be implemented there too.
After finishing with the healers and surgeons, Essie made her way to the far corner of the healers’ tent. There, Illyna and several other elves mixed salves, which the healing elves would infuse with their magic. It would allow minor wounds to be treated in the field without expending magic at the time, saving the magic for more critical wounds.