Hard Frost- Depths of Winter
Page 7
“Take a drink, soldier-girl. You’ve been out more than a day, and you’re still feverish. Mom wants you to hydrate.”
His arm under my shoulders lifted me, and a glass touched my lips. Without further prompting, I sipped. The first swallow caused a coughing fit, but the water tasted delicious. Half a glass was all I could manage, and he lowered my head back to the pillow. Staring up at him, a name jogged loose from my memory.
“Rankar.”
The drakyn moved from the pillow to his shoulder in the blink of an eye. He rubbed his tiny head against Rankar’s chin, begging for attention or reassurance. “Yes. Mom needed a break, so I volunteered to sleep here in case you woke up. She’ll be back to check on you shortly.”
I had been right that first night, I realized. His eyes were brown. Wonderfully expressive, incredibly concerned, solid-dark brown. “Your eyes,”—I swallowed, grateful for the drink—“are beautiful.”
If he was handsome with his leanly muscled, soldier’s body, he was heart-stoppingly sexy when he grinned. Unable to resist, I smiled back. His hand touched mine, and I let my eyes drift shut. Something rustled the pillow near my head, and a soft hum vibrated my ear as I drifted back to sleep.
Chapter 8
“The survivor’s horse is in the barn,” a man dressed in leather armor murmured from the dark, causing a second intruder to glance his way. Until the small movement, he had been invisible to the naked eye.
Damn good wards, I thought, watching the scene unfold.
“Two guards were sleeping in there, too, but they won’t be waking up.”
A third mercenary emerged from beside the house. “The wards on the house are too strong. We’ll never make it in without triggering an alarm, maybe a trap. And no telling how many people are inside. Could be an army of soldiers in a place that size.”
The silent man stared hard at the house. “We make enough noise to draw them out. If they leave the house by the doors, we’ll kill them as they exit. Burn the bodies in a barn fire. No mess, not like we have now.” The underlings nodded, moving swiftly across the open ground as two more demons joined the group.
I realized suddenly these images were a vision. The men from the party of raiders who had attacked the caravan I had guarded were hunting down the witnesses. They had followed my blood trail and traced my energy, and Romtal’s presence in the barn had caused the deaths of two innocents. For all I knew, the two dead could be Karyn Sirach’s children. It could even be Mycal and Rankar. And it was my fault.
Upon opening my eyes, stars were visible through the windows. Goddess, I was still losing time. The murderers could already be in place; the guards in the stables could be dead. Brushing the covers back, I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed in one movement. The pain was present but bearable. At some point, the catheter had been removed; a bedpan and a hospital toilet were both nearby. I’d been dressed in clean panties and a long scrub top. On a table in the corner waited a pair of sweatpants and my weapons.
No one—nor blue, winged spies—was in the room, and I easily crushed the disappointment I felt as I pulled on a pair of Go Army sweats only a smidge too long and a hair too tight. Yep. My injury didn’t much like the stretching and pulling, and it made me aware of its dislike by the heightening pain level. Ignoring my leg, I finished settling my shoulder holster over the top and instinctively checked the 9mm’s magazine. Full, though I had left it at least half empty. Popping the magazine back into place, I pulled the lever back and jacked a bullet into the chamber. Safety on, the gun returned to the holster.
The sword belt was still connected to the sheath. I briefly pulled it out, checked the edge, and slid it back in. Karyn’s son had obviously spent some of his watch caring for my things. The gun was recently oiled, the knife sharpened, and someone had brought my saddlebags in. The last made me grimace. I either had to leave the bags with my personal items or my bow. Since I had no idea if the demons had arrived yet, I couldn’t sacrifice my armaments. Yes to the bow; no to the rest.
Slipping the quiver of arrows over my shoulder, I pulled one free and nocked it without drawing back. Then I shuffled my way to the door leading outside. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three. I unlocked the bolts, opened the door, and edged out. Shutting it quietly behind me, I took a moment and leaned against the wall. No alarms sounded, and no one came running.
Closing my eyes, I pushed all the pain, worries, and thoughts from my mind. Instead, I counted while I breathed. From long practice, the exercise allowed me to search for the dark, wintry place at my center. Only seconds passed before the entrance to the lightless room inside me made of cold and nothingness appeared.
I mentally reached for the numbness of the room, throwing the door to my center wide. A windstorm hit me, and I fought the terror that came with it. What if it rips me apart? Then the gale surrounded me. Energy expanded within me, filling me with power and emptying the emotions and pain. Despite the darkness inside the inky, chilled room, I could see tiny snowflakes falling around me, leaving me rejuvenated.
Automatically, I continued the steady breathing that would hold me in the Void. The lack of throbbing and discomfort covered the damage my movement was causing, but I knew it would only make things twice as bad when I came out. Thus, I kept my back to the wall, used the stars to orient myself, and headed in the direction my vision had intimated would hold the barn.
Time was an uncertain measure while centered as deeply as I was, so I had no way to judge how often I tripped over loose soil or how many minutes had passed from my exiting the sick room until I stopped at the corner of the house with the barn in view. My eyes focused on the barn door where the raider had exited, allowing my periphery to search for movement that would give away a position. The night was oddly quiet.
In the far distance, desert animals called out—some in warning of nighttime predators, some from loneliness. Nothing else interrupted the evening. Using the energy swirling within me, I built a skintight shield around me, layering it with different elements. Secure behind my wards, I traversed the distance to the barn. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two. Inhale.
The door opened silently at my touch, and I limped inside. Romtal was visible immediately, housed in a stall separate from the other horses. I whispered a command for him to be quiet, and his ears perked as the Latin reached him. Obediently, he didn’t greet me as he normally would have. Good boy.
He was wearing a nondescript halter, but his tack was nowhere to be seen. The urge to talk to him nearly overwhelmed me, especially as my fingers brushed his velvety nose. I rested my cheek against his. Goddess. We were going to die. Either we died here with this family, taking at least five people with us, or we died alone somewhere else.
Could I get far enough away if I left him?
“The survivor’s horse is in the barn,” the demon had said. Godsdamn. Romtal would be a beacon to them that the Sirachs had taken me in, and the raiders might think I had implicated them in the attack during my stay. He had to go with me, at least far enough away that they couldn’t connect us to this place. Then—then I could send him to Bretinoc and continue on foot. The bandits would think I had lost him, and they wouldn’t associate us with this family.
With an eye open for the two guards or the raiders, I released the lock on the stall and gripped the halter beside Romtal’s cheek. A five-gallon bucket gave me a foot up as I mounted bareback. Sitting still, I evaluated the situation. Centering held the pain back to a distant hum of background noise. Only the other horses moved around us. Oh, and I hadn’t fallen on my face yet.
Channeling more energy, I extended the shield’s layers to Romtal, using the points where our bodies touched to meld the protection. With my heels, I urged him toward the door. My knees balanced me as we ducked beneath the frame, the hum of pain growing louder every moment my injured leg dangled or moved. Ignoring it, I used pressure to direct Romtal to the place where we had Gated in a few days ago.
I needed to l
ure the demons away. If a blood trail brought them to here, it could take them away, right? Exhaling, I concentrated on incorporating the arrow beneath the shield. Accomplishing that, I pulled up the jogging pants leg and drug the sharp point against my leg. Barely more than skin deep, I watched until blood dripped onto the ground from my heel. With a nod, I prodded Romtal forward.
As he headed away from the house, I removed the shield from the arrow and nocked it. To release, I would only have to pull back and let go. My eyes constantly scanned our surroundings, watching for movement while evaluating how much farther we would have to go before we could Gate—Romtal to Bretinoc and me to the city of Mystor. I might be able to lose them in the crowded streets there or even ambush and kill them myself.
Twenty minutes—or three hours—passed quickly. Time flowed so oddly around us. Finally, I stopped Romtal and dismounted. Unsurprisingly, my right leg collapsed under me. Just because I had ignored the pain didn’t eliminate the damage from walking and riding with an unhealed injury. I fell forward, catching myself with my left knee and two hands on the ground. Romtal stood sentinel above me, unmoving as he sensed my presence beneath his hooves.
Using my left leg, I tried to push myself up. The distant twang of a bowstring caused my head to jerk toward the sound. Too late. Romtal screamed. Beneath the horse’s cry of fear, anger, and agony, the sound of tearing flesh assaulted my ears. He was collapsing, and I was too close. Rolling away, the bow and the arrow slipped my grip. Neither was visible because I couldn’t look away from Romtal. He had fallen on his side but fought to stand. Goddess, oh Goddess!
Using my elbows and uninjured leg, I pulled and pushed my way to his back. With his cries rending the air and the bells clanging in my ears, our attackers could be screaming strategy to one another and I would never hear. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. If I had stopped a few minutes earlier, if I had used more time and energy to shield him alone, if I hadn’t dismounted and broken contact, if… My hand reached over his barrel to his stomach, and steamy wetness immediately covered my fingers. Slowly, I smelled my fingers. Even the peacefulness of the Void couldn’t prevent tears from flooding my eyes.
Somewhere not far away, someone hunted us. But as I rested my face against the familiar prick of horse hair with the scent of copper and sewage, they didn’t matter. All that mattered was the weight of the gun in my hand as the safety switched off.
“Romtal, m’love,” I whispered, pressing the barrel directly over his spine, angled toward his skull. I’m sorry I failed you.
By the Goddess, before I went down, I would take them with me. Every fucking one of them.
The shot wasn’t as loud as the echo of my scream. With the discharge so close to my ear, it would be at least a few minutes before I could hear anything. That my companion was no longer struggling was quite enough motivation, and I didn’t need my hearing for what came next.
Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two. Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. Mentally, my hands grabbed the energy swirling around me in the Void. Fist over fist, I pulled every last gleaming speck into the shield. A distant voice warned that nothing would be left inside me if my shield was breached, but I tuned it out as I placed a bloody palm on Romtal’s side and pushed myself up.
The bow was in my other hand, though I didn’t remember retrieving it. A second later, an arrow from the quiver on my back was ready to be fired. The thick shield around my injured leg functioned as a physical brace, unbending as I used it for balance when I stepped with the other. Five steps left me too far from the corpse to use it as cover but not close enough to the rocky outcropping where the murderers had to be hiding to kill them.
I moved two more steps before one of them peeked his head over to check my position. The little I could see of him left me guessing Eiran demon. Eirans were metal workers, mostly leaning towards the elements of earth or fire. Air would only negate earth, feeding a fire shield. Water could do damage to both, and water was my favorite element—though I never shielded with it.
The bastard fired off two rounds, neither making contact. He was too far out of range yet for a handgun to be effective. Someone didn’t know their guns.
I released the tension from the bow, keeping hold on the arrow while grabbing a second from the quiver. With just a bit of energy siphoned from my shield and repurposed as a water ward, I coated the two arrows’ tips generously. Then I held one in the fingers of my right hand and loaded the other.
Two steps later, another demon fired from my left. He or she used a crossbow. The bolt flew past me, only missing because the energy I had stolen from my shield weakened the bracing power of my right leg enough to cause an extra hitch in my step.
Nearly on cue, the gun-toting bastard lifted his head. Before the bullet hit me center mass, I had released the first arrow and loaded the second. The impact pushed me back a half-step, but the ball of metal and gunpowder was nearly spent. The second arrow flew an identical path to the first, one after another hitting him. The first only weakened his defenses; the next one penetrated to his brain. Demon down. Two more steps, another arrow nocked, and the crossbow bandit released his second missile. Someone else, directly in front of me but hidden in the boulders, fired a rifle round.
Pressure buckled on my chest, and I flew backwards. For once, I was thankful for the sand as my head bounced against the ground. Gasping for air, I used one hand to unholster the gun beneath my armpit and the other to assess the damage to my chest. The dampness I expected wasn’t there, and I looked down. To my surprise, I could clearly see… well, everything.
The night blazed, quite literally. My hearing had returned, because the sounds of people screaming and flames crackling were loud in the desert silence. Rolling onto my side, I aimed at the nearest human torch and fired. Instantly, he collapsed. Concentrating, I sighted and fired again. Three shots dropped a trio of burning corpses. Two demons had died by other means.
On the sand beside me, something moved. The angle was too awkward for me to shoot from my stomach, so I began the roll to my back.
“Kinan, do not shoot Thanatos.” The words were measured, possibly angry, and the creature must have sensed the danger. The drakyn launched himself into the air and disappeared. Before my eyes refocused, Rankar knelt at my side. “Where are you injured?”
My mouth opened, but the denial didn’t slip free. Instead, I collapsed flat on the ground, staring up at the sky. “They didn’t hit me,” I whispered as his hands briskly searched for wounds. If his expression was an indication of how he felt, Rankar was tempted to beat me himself. “Just Romtal.”
His grimace didn’t ease the pain in my chest. “We think they were aiming for you. If they’d aimed an inch lower, the arrow that sliced his stomach open would have killed you.” His face wasn’t visible when he looked toward the rocky outcropping. “You did the right thing. No one could have healed him.”
My eyes burned, but the tears stayed hidden. “I was sending him away, back to the man who raised and trained him. It’s why I dismounted; I was going to lead them away from your family, from him.”
Rankar exhaled through his teeth, physically restraining himself from berating me. Suddenly, the expression he had worn earlier made sense. The man dearly wanted to say something, but instead, he swallowed the words and stood. “I’m going to give my men their orders for cleanup; then I’ll be back.”
My hand grasped his ankle, causing him to glance down at me. “What about Rom?”
Someone a short distance away cleared his throat. He was out of my line of vision, but Rankar nodded to him. “If the Capt’n’ll use his Gift ‘n’ cremate him, I’ll send him off on the winds for you. Unless you were hopin’ for something else…”
Rankar waited for me to think it over, and I nodded. After eight years traveling the Planes, Romtal would never rest peacefully buried. Eternally running the earth would suit him.
“Thank you,” I murmured to them both, releasing my grip and pushing to a sitting position.
My eyes turned to the ground. Between where I sat and Rankar stood, one of the blue drakyn watched me. Unbidden, I stretched my fingers toward his foot and rested them against his skin. He blinked slowly, his multicolored eyes whirling in what might have been sympathy. He shuffled a little closer to me, laying his head on my knuckles for a second before looking up at his bonded.
Finally, the air began to move. A few short, hard gusts were followed rapidly by a steady stream of movement. Sand, dust, ash, and embers created a morose cloud that rose into the sky and trailed away from us. Rankar walked away to speak with a couple demons waiting a few feet away before returning.
“C’mon, soldier-girl. Mom is fit to be tied that her patient disappeared, especially when the wards on the property were going insane. Half of my siblings have probably shown up at the house by now.”
Standing, Rankar offered me a hand up. The sight of his palm stretched toward me pushed out a semi-hysterical laugh. “I can’t walk. Not even with you holding most of my weight. Too much stupid and not enough energy left. However, if you let me sit here until all these people finish whatever they are doing,”—I waved aimlessly at the dozen or so men and women searching the area with fine-tooth combs and zipping crispy-cooked demons into body bags,—“I will probably be able to walk then.”
The flash of white teeth in the near darkness was startling, though not as much as Rankar scooping me up and carrying me back the direction we had come. He crouched—still holding me—twice. My sidearm and bow were unceremoniously dumped into my lap.