by Kim Wedlock
There were grunts and thuds as the stones found their marks, but the disturbance of magic this time set a new panic in his chest. He couldn't afford to shout a warning. But the attack was skewed, distracted, and the ditchling scrambled several boughs up and out of the way of the flames. There came another flash of movement to his left and another volley of stones, but this one was not so lucky. With a short bark of surprise, it toppled and fell, hitting the snow with a limp thud where it smoked black against the still, pallid landscape. It didn't move again.
A piercing surge of guilt tightened Rathen's jaw. His fingers moved before he could think, weaving themselves into another spell.
The footsteps stopped short with another abrupt thud. The snow had grasped Salus's feet and frozen him in place, his momentum threw him to the ground, and his fingers too were encased within the air's hardened chill.
Rathen saw this only vaguely as he staggered against a tree, fighting back the spinning behind his eyes. But it took an age to dull.
He couldn't afford to wait. He steeled himself against the fire in his veins, already deadened by adrenaline, and pushed off from the tree. Within moments, Salus was giving chase, the ice encasing his fingers shattered against another trunk, his feet wrenched free by force and magic.
And so the game began anew.
Until the trill of a chaffinch changed the cards.
The others were close behind him.
Another wave of adrenaline fired through his blood, and he deviated again, dragging Salus through another pressure trap. His fury had blinded him to the tell-tale marks. A curse and a foul-smelling odour quickly pervaded the air, a burst of fluid from another hidden waterskin rather than a puff of snow, and Rathen changed direction again, the last of many acute adjustments to lead them back towards the road.
A sudden weight struck him from behind, knocking his breath free, and the snow rushed up towards him.
He braced and twisted as he landed, throwing himself onto his back to grapple madly with his attacker. How Salus had moved so fast, he didn't have time to work out. Or perhaps he'd slowed down himself. He was exhausted, his veins burned, yet his skin and bones were succumbing to the cold, and the clinging, sour smell of what odorous concoction Eyila had planted choked him. But he could see the same kind of delirium in Salus's dead eyes, too. However much elven blood he had, he hadn't learned to pace himself. Fatigue was getting the better of him.
Rathen tried to force the man off of him, who in turn kept him pinned down, but the fight descended into a tired and frantic race to catch the other's fingers as they tried to cast between physical strikes. Every movement was agonisingly slow, and Rathen was sure every time that he wouldn't get there before he finished his signs.
The spinning inside his skull began again and desperation intensified, and so he wasn't sure just what his fingers had done to blast Salus off of him, nor why it had succeeded. But the villain continued to rise long after he should have fallen, with giant talons grasped about his shoulders. Only then did the ring of the harpy's squall register to his senses.
But the victory lasted just seconds. A glinting sliver appeared almost immediately in Salus's hand, from thin air or his sleeve, and even as his terrible, black eyes remained pinned upon him, he drove the blade up into the scaled leg. With a shriek of pain, the harpy released him.
Rathen's heart sank in the pit of his chest.
Then lurched when he was hauled suddenly to his feet, and as Salus made a near-perfect landing several paces away, a second pair of arms moved in to restrain him.
Black gloves. Garon.
The scent of spice and flowers receded as Rathen was released, and Petra quickly jumped back for distance, loosing her bolas from her cinch. Anthis was suddenly there, too, guarding Eyila who was moving up to cast the binding as quickly as her frozen fingers could manage. Relief set in like a tidal wave.
As unbounded time began to slow, his eyes returned to Salus. The stare he was burning into him would have made his skin itch if he wasn't already numb. His eyes were black, his face gaunt and deathly pale, and his teeth as he roared and cursed and swore their downfall were as sharp as a wolf's fangs. Rathen had seen it before, and there was a streak of personal familiarity to it which turned his chilled blood to ice. And though he thrashed like a man possessed, Garon's hold didn't slip. His inflamed savagery was only wearing himself down further.
"Garon--"
"I know." He didn't need reminding. They were all aware. Even once Eyila's spell was complete, he would still be capable of casting without signs, especially in a state like this. That it hadn't happened yet meant nothing at all. And he may still have had a plan.
But Salus was exhausted, beaten and desperate, though his eyes and muscles screamed against it; shivering, bloodied, raw with the cold, and just beginning to realise that he was alone. And yet each of them knew if they let him go now, he was liable to kill them, and none of them were capable of holding him off as things stood. But if they tried to stretch their luck any further, he may well succeed.
Whether they had what they needed or not didn't matter; their plan had run its course. All that remained was to get out of it alive so they could put whatever they'd gathered to use.
They had to make him run. It was the only way they would get out of it. And if he thought Rathen was working with elves, then he had no idea just exactly what Rathen was capable of. He wouldn't risk sticking around if it looked like he was going to kill him on the spot.
While Eyila's fingers continued to twist, Rathen drew himself up and stepped slowly towards him. He put away as much of his fatigue as he could and assumed an air of power, his eyes menacing, lips grim, and raised his fingers where Salus could clearly see them. Then his, too, began to twist, slowly and deliberately. Salus watched with wide eyes, and for a moment his struggle faltered.
The tension was deafening. Their hearts hammered in their ears. All eyes flicked between Rathen's fingers and Salus's black, murderous eyes, waiting for him to free himself when Garon's grip slackened at just the right moment, prepared to fight if they had to. Their focus was such that when a call rose to the right, neither of bird nor beast, only Petra caught it. She turned quickly and spotted the black-haired figure running towards them through the trees.
His fingers were contorting rapidly. And his eyes were fixed on Anthis.
Rathen spun around the moment he noticed the stirring of magic, but he was already too late. Eyila stumbled as the historian staggered into her, her concentration broken and spell lost to surprise.
Rathen's own masquerade collapsed in panic. But he had no time to bend to it. Magic rose again in an instant, but this time he was ready, and perfectly deflected this second incorporeal projectile, sending it into a tree instead. It entered the bark tidily, like a surgical incision, until a moment later the sides of the trunk exploded outwards. He chanced no time to stare in horror, and Anthis was already back on his feet, no worse for wear, if as white as a sheet. The first attack had been a distraction to break their spells; the second had not. Whatever came next would be worse.
A grunt snatched his attention back towards Salus just as he wrenched himself free with a blunt and powerful kick into Garon's leg. It shouldn't have worked, but the inquisitor's iron grip had already faltered. Only Rathen stood his ground while the rest staggered back in alarm.
Salus's face, weary and pink with the cold, creased into a wolfish grin, and while his eyes were blue again, their malice made them far from human. His fingers rose quickly and Rathen's hastened to follow, but they didn't shape; he whistled sharply instead, then turned and fled through the trees. The black-haired mage dashed away in the opposite direction.
Time slowed. After a moment of bated breath, bones shaken by the hammering of his heart, Rathen loosed a long, deep sigh and felt his adrenaline begin at last to ease. It was done.
He turned back to the others. "Anthis, are you all right?"
But his voice stalled in his throat at the spread of ashen face
s.
Anthis stood in horror, staring back towards the trees where the mage had fled, while Garon was fixated upon the ground where Eyila knelt. His heart clawed up into his throat as he followed his gaze.
The snow, once brilliant white, was stained red where Petra lay. Her body was contracted, and her trembling hands hovered about the smallest rip in the weave of her crimson blouse, no larger than the smallest coin. The wound beneath it couldn't have been any bigger.
But the blouse, Rathen realised, had been white.
A metallic taste seeped onto his tongue at the sound of her short, ragged breaths. A dreadful kind of gravity rolled out through the trees, smothering the world into silence.
Eyila was already kneeling over her, her young face gripped by professionalism, her heart bricked up. Her hands began busily tracing the wound. Rathen felt the stir of her magic as she delved deeper. And for the first time, he saw her bronze skin pale.
But whatever she'd found didn't discourage her. He felt her magic engage again and watched her fingers twist, and he hurried down beside her to help. She was quick to put him to work, and he followed her instructions meticulously.
Small, slight whimpers slipped out between Petra's gasps, shattering the forbidding silence. Despite her pain, she turned her head, and set her misty eyes upon Anthis. He stood motionless, right where he had been when she had slammed into him. He was staring back at her without a trace of colour in his face. "You..." she winced and gritted her teeth, "stupid...fool..."
"Hush," Eyila commanded, "keep still."
She nodded and tightly closed her eyes, but jolted suddenly a moment later with a cry and a hiss as agony racked her body. The blood trickling from her abdomen swelled and darkened. Rathen held her as still as he could on Eyila's order, but her own hands were shaking. Her teeth were gritted, a tear rolled from her hair-shadowed eyes, and he heard her muttering something beneath her breath in her own musical tongue. He caught a few desperate words. His grip recovered on her immediate chide.
Finally, Petra eased a pained and ragged breath as the torment passed. Her eyes were hazy when they opened, and they scanned across their faces for a long while before registering that Garon was not among them.
Her head turned slowly to the other side, where she found him standing further back, deathly still, his grey eyes a fraction wider than usual beneath the perpetual furrow in his brow. She grunted, trying to find her voice. Her breath had thinned, and each had become a labour. "Ga...Garon..." She saw his chest heave with a brief shudder, and her lips curved into a reassuring smile, beautiful, exhausted, and filled with heart. "I..."
A deep, gentle sigh eased through them. Her head wilted slowly against the snow.
Eyila's fingers continued to work, twisting faster and faster, her voice rising in desperation against the crushing, leaden silence.
Rathen didn't try to stop her. He was paralysed. He barely stirred when Garon turned and sprinted away.
The inquisitor's feet pounded silently through the forest. The tracks were clear. He ran with no care of traps, but expertly avoided them; he ran with no care of roots, but every footfall was certain; he ran with no care of fatigue, but didn't tire. He didn't feel the thump of his heart, he didn't feel the burn in his legs, he didn't feel the whip of branches or the chill of the snow. He didn't feel anything.
He closed in on the sound of feet ahead. They were urgent, but not alarmed. And Garon's own were barely a whisper. For, this time, he was the hunter.
The black-haired mage was visible through the trees, standing out like a beacon against the pure white of the snow. Once in Garon's sight, he never escaped it.
He drew his blade silently, missing even the rasp over the scabbard's locket, and set his soundless feet to speed.
The mage turned too late.
His blade ran straight through.
The forest seemed trapped in a daze. Rathen stood, though he couldn't recall rising, and stared down at Petra's small, still form. Eyila sat just as still beside her, though tears rolled freely down her wooden face, and Anthis hadn't yet moved from the spot at which the tragedy had happened. The shock and confusion in his face hadn't faded.
No one moved, as though they found some sense in reasoning that if they stayed still for long enough, time might just reverse. But it hadn't yet happened, and the stricken silence reached in all directions and lay so thick that not even Aria's desperate wailing in Kienza's arms could touch it.
The sorceress wore a mask as thick as the rest of them, but Rathen had seen the regret in her eyes. He hadn't asked. For all her powers, not even she could bring back the dead.
His mind had stopped. No solution nor remedy presented itself, and he stared down mindlessly, watching the colour slowly leave her face. Her hazel gaze bore dull and vacant through the trees. Her eyes hadn't closed. They'd been locked on Garon when she'd died, and no one had dared to break that line of sight. But as a gentle snowfall drifted through the trees and soft white flakes settled within them, a furious compulsion drove him forward to close them himself.
The snow crunched behind them as Garon returned, but no one said a word. His face appeared no different to usual - grim, purposeful - but his eyes were flat and empty. There was blood on his clothes. He came to a stop nearby and stood stone-still, staring at her again.
Rathen turned away. The words came out as though spoken through someone else's lips, and he resented hearing them himself. "She should be buried." No one responded. He had no energy to push for it, but the slow relent of his shock was building a lump in his throat and he looked around at the surrounding forest for anything that might make the situation more bearable before it could choke him. Only then did he spot the two harpies perched in a tree a respectful distance away, their heads bowed gravely and one's foot held curled in injury. He doubted their sentimentality, but they understood the atmosphere. That angered him. They should have felt the loss, and keenly.
He turned at the sound of smaller footsteps, and three ditchlings approached carrying their own fatality, the girl Salus had incinerated to a husk. The smell of burned wood rather than flesh muddied that of Petra's blood. Unlike the harpies, these three looked upon Petra with tears in their huge eyes. This angered him, too. They didn't even know her - how could they dare claim such grief?
While one of them broke away to hug Aria, another turned those big eyes up to Rathen. He noticed, by chance, that a closed walnut shell was strung about each of their necks. "We know a good place," he said with surprising compassion. "'S quiet and pretty, and none too far. Ain't nowhere her dreams'll be disturbed. By us nor no one else."
"I can see to the excavation," Kienza added softly.
Rathen tightly nodded his thanks, then lurched out of Garon's way.
Without a word, the inquisitor spread a sheet out over the ground beside her, a blanket he must have fetched from the horses, and lifted Petra's body from the crimson snow. He lay her upon it with profound tenderness. Everyone watched as he stroked her red hair back from her face and closed her pale lips, his thumb lingering for only a moment before reaching gently behind her neck. He removed her locket and placed it in her left palm, clasping her fingers about it, and lay it over her heart. In her right, he placed her sword hilt, covering her wound while its blade pointed down her body with nobility.
Without a sound, Eyila rose and stood over them. Anthis managed to move forwards, and Kienza led Aria closer.
Delicately, Garon wrapped the blanket about her, secured it with his own belt, and lifted her up into his arms stained red with her blood. His dead eyes fell onto the ditchlings. "Lead us."
Kienza fell in beside Rathen, her voice the softest whisper. But whatever she began to say, she didn't finish. His jaw was clenched hard enough to crack his teeth, and his voice was ice as he spoke through them. "We lured Salus out here because the ruins were too dangerous... The charade...was meant to..."
"You couldn't have known what would happen."
"This was my fault."
> "No, my love, it wasn't."
He didn't argue. He didn't appear to have heard her, if he'd noticed she was beside him at all. Kienza didn't attempt again to soothe him, and his eyes didn't leave the blanket Garon carried ahead of them.
The ditchling hadn't lied.
At the head of a small, declined glen hidden among the thickening beeches stood a single, dignified ancient. An iron tree, four feet across and rising even above the heights of its neighbours. Its thick boughs, softened and rounded by snow, all pointed skyward, and plentiful red, six-point leaves coated in a silver lace of frost hung like silk from tapered branches. A tree that had earned its place in the oldest stories as a symbol of hardiness and resolve. It was a fitting spot.
A deep hollow formed in the snow at its foot, where Garon lay Petra's wrapped body with as much care as had she been sleeping. But his step back wavered, and his shoulders heaved with a single broken shudder before he fell chillingly still. The others gathered in an equal daze.
Slowly, Aria stepped forwards. Petra's dagger lay in her shaking hands, and her knuckles were bone-white as she clutched it. But as she bent down to lay it upon the blanket, Kienza quickly stopped her. "I think she may have wanted you to have that."
Tears exhausted, Aria's dry, bloodshot eyes turned emptily up at her, then drifted slowly back to the sheathed blade. Her fingers tightened possessively around it again. But she lingered reluctantly.
Suddenly, she set the knife on the ground and took out her wooden sword, but she hesitated as she looked over the aged notches and dents along its blunt edge, and shame fell over her. She looked around at her father, but he didn't seem to notice. Kienza, however, gave her the small, encouraging smile she needed.
Her heart-shaped lips tightened in grim purpose, and she lay the wooden sword carefully upon the blanket instead. Retrieving Petra's precious blade, she stepped back with a dry sniff.