by Shannon Hale
“What in the seven rivers is going on?” The attack stopped at Ledel’s shout.
Razo held very still while Ledel yelled at his men, letting the rope burn behind his back, biting his lips to blood to keep from yelping. When the pain became unbearable, he sat back, smothering the fire against the dirt. He pulled the rope between his wrists, groaning as it rubbed his blistered skin, and felt the rope fray and then fall away.
“Let me kill him, Captain,” said Tumas. “He might be the only Bayern that can stop their fire.”
Ledel cursed and heaved over the table, scattering his papers and books to the ground. “Fine, we’ll burn the girl’s body later. Just kill them both.”
“Uh,” said Razo.
“Wait,” said Dasha.
Tumas charged, clouted Razo twice on the head, seized his tunic, and shoved, sending him flying. Razo slammed into a stack of crates with an explosion of wood. The blows had set his vision crooked in his head, and the whole room leaned and rolled as though he were underwater.
He was wincing in anticipation of Tumas’s next strike when he heard a slosh and a thud like a large body falling in mud. Tumas grunted. Dasha emitted a little note of delight, no doubt pleased her sudden mud had worked to trip him, but then the others were yelling, grabbing her. When Tumas gained his feet, he went for Dasha.
Razo leaped up, and the broken crates crumbled around him, spilled jars of spices. He ripped the long sling from his waist, fastened it around his hand, and seized a small glass jar for shot. His head felt far away, as though still being pummeled by Tumas’s fists, and his eyes refused to clear, but he was fairly certain the orange smudge was Dasha, the bulky figure was Tumas, and that he was strangling her perfect neck.
If you ever made one shot in your life, Forest boy . . .
Razo wobbled on his bound legs, spun the sling, and let the shot fly. It cracked as it struck Tumas’s skull. Razo heard glass shards tinkle to the ground before the thump of the big man’s body. A dusty sweet odor invaded the air—cinnamon.
Ledel had crossed the room before Razo’s unsteady vision could detect his movement. “The boy burned his hands free.”
There was a blurry swipe of Ledel’s sword, and Razo thought he was skewered for sure, but instead the blade nicked the sling from Razo’s hand and cut it in two. Razo felt a stitch in his gut. He’d made those slings with his own two hands. He dropped to the ground and started to roll away, but Ledel grabbed a fistful of his hair and hauled him to his feet, holding him forward for the soldiers to see, like a roasted duck on display in the meat market.
“Who checked the boy for weapons? He had a sling, you imbeciles!”
“Tumath ith alive.”The large soldier crouched over Tumas. “No, wait, he’th dead.”
Ledel’s scar turned a livid red, and he shoved Razo into the center of the room. The throbbing in his head, the danger, the ridiculousness of being almost killed again and again, was making Razo feel giddy.
“You are pathetic!” Ledel shouted. “You fail to burn two trussed prisoners while this rodent breaks his bonds on your own fire and kills Tumas.”
“You know, you’re right, they are pathetic,” said Razo.
Ledel backhanded Razo’s face. He stared at the floor and shut his eyes against the dizzying splurges of light.
“Captain, he was doing something sneaky, or maybe it was her.” The secondman nudged Dasha with his foot.
“You can’t let them. There will always be someone doing something to stop you.” Ledel’s voice climbed to a pleading range. “The point is, you must be quicker and deadlier. I know you want to see Bayern burn, but wanting isn’t enough. You know, I’ll just do it myself.”
Ledel reached for his sword.
Razo’s body seemed to be drowning in the river again, his ears full of its song, and the whole world slowed. His last breath lasted a lifetime, allowing him a moment to say farewell.
“I like roasted pork,” he said quickly. “And vinegar cucumbers, and those barbaric red olives.” If he was going to die, he’d better say something worthwhile first. “And Dasha. I like you.”
“I like you, too, Razo.” Her voice crunched on the words.
Ledel hefted his sword, angled to slice through Razo’s neck, but before he could thrust, smoke began to drape from the hilt. Ledel bawled and dropped the weapon, examining his red palm.
“What are you fools—”
“Not them,” someone said.
And Razo laughed. He laughed because two figures had just entered through the warehouse’s riverside doors, and even though his vision was still a little slurred, the shape and move of them was as familiar to him as the taste of cheese.
“We’re bunnies in a box, my lady,” Razo whispered.
Enna was walking toward Ledel, scrunching the parchment with the map into a ball, and Finn was beside her, his sword drawn. She tossed the paper ball into the air, where it burst into flame, raining soft ash. Ledel cursed himself.
“Not them,” Enna said again. “Me.”
And then, wind.
27
Rainstorm
The wind pushed between Razo and Ledel, forcing the warrior back and giving Razo an inch to roll away, grab Dasha, and crawl from under their feet. He saw Ledel dive for his cooling sword and fling himself at Enna, but Finn caught the attack against his own sword, and metal clanged.
“This is your moment!” Ledel hollered at his men as he attacked Finn. “Prove yourselves. Burn the fire-witch!”
Razo freed Dasha’s wrists and then attacked the rope at his ankles, his eyes on the fracas. While Finn kept Ledel busy in combat, Enna was facing the three burners. Razo thought grimly that Ledel must be proud of his men now, who seemed to need no greater motivation than a Bayern fire-witch facing them down.
All Razo could see of the fight was a trembling in the air, but he knew Enna was using wind to battle the volleys of heat before they could become fire. Wind zipped and zoomed around them, breaking heat like bread, shoving the warriors into one another. Her eyes were hot, but her face was rigid with fear.
The secondman shouted in frustration and drew his sword, then screamed as the red-hot hilt burned his hand. The large soldier advanced on Enna with his fists, but before he could swing, he stumbled back, his sandals flaming.
“Enna can’t . . .” Razo fumbled for his sling and remembered it was gone. “Dasha, if she can’t stop them with wind, if she has to burn, if she kills again . . .”
“We’ll help her,” said Dasha, tugging the rope off her legs. “I need more water, for this I can’t use just what’s in the air.” She stood and ran toward the landside door.
Razo was going to go after her when he saw that a crate near Enna had started to crackle and the hem of her tunic was smoking. Enna was not able to hold back the fire on her own. Razo scrounged the ground for anything to throw. He hurled a wooden slat, and it slapped the lisping soldier in the face. His eyes turned to Razo.
Razo dove for the ground as a stack of crates behind him erupted with fire. Slapping flames out of his clothes, he found himself surrounded by burning rubble. He dropped lower, trying to get under the smoke.
Thunder sounded again, clashing with the ache in his head. The sky dimmed as though someone had blown out a candle; the day became gray wool, and then, rain. Through the landside doors, he could see Dasha standing in the rain, her face up, her palms open.
She’s done it, she’s called the rain down, Razo thought.
He glimpsed water oozing down the faces of the soldiers who battled Enna, into their eyes, soaking their clothes. They swiped at it madly.
“What the . . .We’ve been discovered!” Someone cried from the landside doors.
Razo shouted warning to Dasha as another of Ledel’s men arrived. He tried to kick his way clear of the blazing debris, smoke choking the air, and watched helpless as the soldier ran at Dasha, swinging his sword.
Suddenly, the rain clotted before Dasha’s body, slowing the sword, pushing it away.
The soldier stumbled but spun around and attacked again. Once more the raindrops thickened, twisted, and slowed the blow. Dasha cried out as the sword’s flat side struck her shoulder. The soldier tossed his sword aside and reached through the rain for Dasha’s neck. Water rolled from her hair and face, over his hands, up his arms, and into his mouth and nose. Razo could see him gurgling, spitting water, drowning where he stood.
Razo finally cleared his burning barrier and bolted for Dasha. Another errant wave of heat rushed over his head. He dove for the ground and felt the heat singe his hair. Without Dasha’s help, Enna was struggling against the three burners.
When Razo looked back toward Dasha, he saw the soldier spring forward, knocking Dasha under the roof of the warehouse. Razo gained his feet and sprinted, aiming to ram the man into the wall.
Dasha held out her palms. The soldier twisted back to punch Dasha but paused, his face contorting. Razo faltered.
“What’re you . . . ?” Razo saw now that sweat was beading on the man’s face, on his hands, dripping, huge globs of water streaming from his skin. A gurgling noise bubbled out of his throat. She was pulling water right out of the man’s body.
“Dasha . . .” Razo put a hand on her arm, trying to still her. “Careful, Dasha. Easy.”
The look on her face was too close to how Enna had looked there at the end of the war—eyes pained, but face void of expression. He took her hand.
“He’s subdued, Dasha. You can stop.”
Dasha’s hands lowered. The soldier slumped over his feet, coughing, face white, lips blue. Razo found rope and tied him. Dasha’s limbs trembled, her steps wobbling as she walked back into the rain.
“Sit down. Rest,” he said.
She shook her head. “We’re not done.” She crumpled, and Razo caught her under her arms and stood behind her, his arms around her waist to hold her up.
Dasha was right—it was not over yet. Through the rain, he could see the terror tight in Enna’s face and how her hands trembled, and he knew she was not as strong with wind as she was with fire. It would be so much easier for her to just burn those men. A cord of heat escaped the wind and scorched Finn’s pantleg as he battled Ledel.
“Hold on, Enna-girl,” Razo called out.
Water massed again on the brows of the three burners, poured down their faces, over their hands, soaking up the heat, taking the bitterness from their attacks. Still they fought. Enna’s wind speech seemed spent, and she was using her fire-speaking to stop them now. Instead of brushing away their attacks of heat, Razo guessed that she was pulling the heat into herself and setting the fire loose elsewhere. Soon spurts of flames were rupturing the air around her and breaking the hard dirt floor. Broken crates crackled until water doused them into gusts of black smoke.
At last, the young soldier was slackening and looking eager to be defeated. Ledel’s secondman knelt on the ground, still fighting but groaning in pain. The lisping soldier collapsed onto the now muddy floor, gasping for breath.
Razo felt a shudder ripple through Dasha like lightning through the sky.
“That’s probably good now,” he whispered. “I think Enna can handle the rest.”
The rain faltered, then drizzled away. Dasha turned to put her head on Razo’s shoulder, tucked her hands on his chest, her body trembling like a candle flame. He pulled her close and rubbed her arms. Her skin was ice.
He brought her back under the roof just as the young soldier fell to the ground, his head in his hands. The second-man was lying face-first, his back shaking as though he either wept or laughed. The lisping soldier slumped down, and Enna put her foot on his back and called to Razo to bring rope.
But Finn and Ledel’s sword fight still thundered on. Neither lagged or swayed with fatigue. They seemed to be trapped in a contest of perfect balance.
“Finn, let me,” said Enna, her fingers dancing with impatience on her skirt.
Finn’s expression supplied no response, his eyes never leaving his opponent.
He can win, Razo thought. He’s the best sword I ever saw. And he wanted Finn to win, on his own, to show Ledel, to show Enna, too. But he knew all it would take was one delayed block, one slip in the mud, and Ledel’s blade could find its mark. It seemed not such a bad thing to let Enna do what she did best.
“Let her, Finn,” said Razo. “Please.”
The two warriors locked swords up to the hilts, their faces close together. Finn shoved Ledel and stumbled backward. They paused, looking at each other from across the room, their swords ready. Neither charged.
Ledel’s eyes left Finn for the first time. He took in the sight of the big soldier, cussing and spitting, trussed like a hog. Dasha was binding the young man’s wrists with half of Razo’s distance sling. The secondman had stopped trembling, but he did not bother to lift his face from the mud. The last soldier, still pale and blue lipped, lay tied by the door.
In a movement quick as a wasp, Ledel flung his sword at Enna, but a wind shoved the sword off course and into the pile of broken crates. Then everything about Ledel’s face that Razo thought of as his captainness pulled down. His scar changed from impressive to ugly, his jaw did not seem so fine and square, his shoulders narrowed, his chest caved. He howled and fell to his knees, covered his face in his hands, and sobbed.
The former captain did not fight back when Finn secured him with his own lummas. Once he was immobile, Ledel’s crying subdued into shaking breath, and that eerie silence tickled Razo from his scalp to his bum. He scratched.
The four of them stood together, turning around, looking at the bound soldiers lying all over the room. The strange after-rain sunlight, sharp as needles, shot through the doors, glaring brilliant on the Tiran white clothing.
“I think I figured out who the murderer is,” said Razo.
Enna was wide-eyeing the situation, her fingers on her lips. She whispered something.
“What was that?” asked Razo.
“I didn’t kill any.” She turned around again, memorizing the scene, her face solemn. “I had to keep them fighting, you know. Until their fire was used up. So that they couldn’t burn, not until we got them back to the palace and safe. In a stone dungeon. And I think it worked. My skin got numb to the wind after a while. I had to burn to keep them from striking me, but just . . . just a little. Not kill. We didn’t have to kill anybody. Except that one—is that lump there Tumas?—but he was dead when we got here.” She walked over to Finn, her face just a handsbreadth from his. She put her hands on his chest and exhaled. “I did it. I kept my promise.”
“I love you so much,” said Finn, his eyes full of Enna.
She squealed in joy, and he hugged her and spun her around as she declared that she did it, she’d done it. And when they stopped spinning, they started kissing. Razo realized he had never seen them kiss before. He tried not to watch, but the sight of people kissing drew his eyes like a fistfight in a marketplace or a gurgling baby smiling right at him. When he tore his gaze away, he felt even more awkward when it fell on Dasha.
She was smiling at Enna and Finn, her nose crinkled.
“Let’s leave them to, uh, guard,” said Razo, “and we can fetch Lord Belvan.”
Lord Belvan, Razo had said, but he was mostly thinking about Talone. I did it, he would say to Talone. We did. It’s done. He might even hop up and down as Enna had, but without the kissing Finn part.
Razo and Dasha left the warehouse and walked along the riverbank, all panic drained from their feet. The rain had stopped. Sun and bright dashes of blue sky melted through the clouds, and the warmth dried their clothes. Purple bruises encircled Dasha’s neck, one bulged on her cheek, and her sleeve was torn at the shoulder. Razo knew he looked no better. Funny that he felt like crowing.
Dasha took his hand, careful not to touch the burns on his wrists, and swung their arms back and forth. The motion made Razo realize how alive he still was. He felt like saying something obvious.
“I’m glad we didn’t die.”
She adj
usted her fingers around his hand to get a firmer grip. Though she held only his hand, somehow he felt her touch in his chest, in his gut, in his head.
“We almost did, though, didn’t we?” she said. “That would not have been fun.”
“No, not really. Would you prefer to be killed or maimed?”
“Killed . . . no, wait. Maimed how?”
“Lose an arm but still live.”
“Maimed. Would you prefer to lose an arm or your face?”
“If I lost my face, could I still eat?”
This discussion lasted them their journey home. They crossed two rivers before finding a penny wagon still running on a feast day. The heart was subdued, empty of both business and celebrants, the festivities cut short by rain. The uncannily sweet fragrance of apples stained the air, a lingering scent that emanated from everywhere, as though the white stones themselves were the fruit’s opened flesh. It seemed a small miracle that the rain had not washed the smell away, the kind of wonder that filled Razo’s chest with ahh. Like the curiosity of rain laced with sunshine. Like the marvel of picking ripe fruit right from a tree. He liked being with Dasha and having these thoughts at the same time. It felt natural, in the way that dancing goes with music.
His mouth was full of other questions for her. Would you really marry the prince? Do you think a person can decide to love only one girl his whole life, then lose her, then find someone else he loves more and change his mind? Do you think that’s possible?
Instead he asked, “Would you prefer being baked to death under the sun or eaten alive by ants?”
Dasha did not have a chance to answer. They were passing through the gates of Thousand Years, Lord Belvan found them, and the bedlam of a crisis solved sucked them into meetings and testimonials until they were spat out again just in time to sup and sleep.