Voren stood shivering, even as Essa cried out to him. He blinked. He had hit a man. Broke a man. What more could she—the pain took that note away. The elbow that ended him landed on his neck.
Then he was on his belly, head lolling, desperate to make his limbs do anything more than tremor. In the dust and the dirt, the dirt-dirty-dirt, he quavered, and the shade drew long over him. Something gripped his hair. Not now, he prayed. Not now, chanting it like a mantra. Not when he finally had something. He reached up, scrabbling at the hand in his hair, and just in time to see Essa blunder forward.
A blade lanced over her—he saw her flinch—but her feet were true, carrying her under its arc and into Voren, crashing into him, and he into his foe. There was blood in his teeth, and he squeezed his eyes shut despite himself. Someone cried out. Others shouted. Feet shuffled and the blood ran hot and hotter, burning as it dribbled against the skin. He shuddered.
Not like this.
“You.” The word dripped like venom off Essa’s tongue. Voren’s eyes flashed open and found the hand on him limp, and the body beside him still. Above him, a ghostly sort of play took shape as Essa grappled with another man, neither more than silhouettes. It was a macabre thing of jerking arms and quick feet, lit only by the sliver of the moon. How he longed to name it for a dream.
Yet the cry stirred him. The man had good armor, and a good arm besides, and his strikes were true. Essa coiled about him with a dagger in either hand, but he had the range, and he used it well. He feinted and she fell to it—took a step to close the gap, and took a slash across the calf for her trouble. The cry echoed across every vision of her. Time itself drew bloodied. She limped back, and the man followed her, prepared to dispatch her on his follow-through.
Then her cousin was there, as an avenging flame. It swept her aside and drew stiff under the sweep of the assailant’s blade, catching it. The man jabbed him in the gut all the same, and yet, the frail swordsman grunted but held firm, jamming a free hand into his attacker’s eyes. The brute howled, and Voren, aware suddenly of how close it all was, snapped out his good hand to catch the killer by his boot. Then he pulled.
It was enough. The man snarled as he stumbled, trying to use the momentum for a hard swing, but Rowan was quicker, and he drew his blade short to stab him under the armpit. The man fell forward, but he would have kept his feet—save for the knives that awaited him. As Rowan stepped around him, the man fell to Essa, and she caught him swift by both the neck and the cheek. Lines of liquid slicked black through the dance and stained the earth where they fell.
Voren scrabbled back. Some last defiance gargled out of the man, and the blade rose, flailing. But he was sinking as this happened, sinking down not merely to earth, but to death’s embrace, and he heaved at Essa’s feet, collapsed before Voren’s eyes, and reached one final hand for Essa’s boot before the life finally eased from his body.
Mere feet apart, Voren realized at last there was some sense to the face. Not a silhouette of a man, but surely a shadow of one—the grubby face of Gunther stared back, and with it, the other silhouettes took on falcon-like proportions. The Gorjes had spread their wings.
“Alviss!” Essa screamed herself hoarse.
He twisted in time to see the giant of a man go down, speared through the back. The offending lance snapped off as Alviss elbowed its bearer, but the giant took to a knee, and the spark of him seemed to shudder under the circling bites of the remaining hunters. Only the bardiche held him up, and its threat kept the others still at bay.
The Kuric staggered and swung, and like a candle’s last guttering flame, his eyes seemed to flare with a brilliant fury, before sinking into the dark. He was done. Voren knew it to be so.
Yet night had not disgorged its final miracle. There was a whooping cry the like of which Voren had never heard—too high to be human, too low to be anything but blood induced. It looked like a branch had sundered and taken flight. It whipped across the span of them, skidding a running Rowan to a halt, and pierced one of the twisting Gorjes through the shoulder. It let him twist still, but around the other side, and took him less than cleanly off his feet.
The other, horrified—Voren imagined—turned in time to meet what appeared, for all intents, no man, but the basest of beasts. It scurried across the earth on hands and feet alike, but sprang up onto those feet as its victim loomed, with all the grace of an eagle’s flight. There were swipes of iron, and the shadows melded in the dance. The demon seemed to stoop between blows, the blur of his footwork kicking leaves and needles between them. Something short but sharp flashed up, and with it, the demon began to thread the man to pieces.
They scrabbled, and scrapped, as Rowan limped to Alviss and bore him back, but the blur of them halted as the invading demon caught the mere man’s failing hand, and by fist and knee tore its bladed limb bloody from the Gorjes’ hand. There were shouts, until the demon brought the hilt of it down again and again. They died out in inches, until it was the ears—not the eyes—that bled at the scene.
The demon stepped furiously toward them, and there was not a one of them that did not put guard against it in such aftermath. In the cool light of the moon, however, and the reflected pools of blood that framed him, the demon melted into the visage of Chigenda, and a face that was not at all wicked. It seemed to pool into the very visage of distress, and all of it, Voren saw, fell to the old man being lowered to the ground.
“Alvo,” the stooping darkness whispered, “where bleed?”
The shift was sudden, and every bit as fierce as the bloody struggle. The others were over him, questioning, prodding, and in the eyes of cousins, tears, through some trick of light vibrant for all the darkness around them. The rest were silent. The dead, after all, have little to say.
Voren could not bring himself to move. For the first time since the opening pop of gunpowder, he came into awareness of himself again. Then he felt it, hot and slick against his skin. There, vivid against his pale skin, was the blood. The greatest stain. He felt his body shake, and he heard Essa’s questioning voice. He blinked at her. These things never went away.
“The blood,” he whispered. Then all went dark.
Slumber was not long, but in his mind’s eye, Voren saw them howling after him. Spirits of the dead. All of them wore masks of Gunther’s skin and rattled his own with his mother’s yellowed teeth. But the shout—it was always in the Zuti’s voice.
“I see! I see!”
What he saw first on waking was the emptiness of sky. Dawn lit it anew, and though the sun had yet to crest the trees, clouds formed long trails of its blood across the sky, dripping in thin, clear lines that made him think of the promised end of days. No shapes. No sound.
He slid up, wincing at the stiffness of his neck. Fear of solitude went unrealized. The others were near, huddled around the rise and fall of a heavy chest. Alviss. So he still breathed. Voren tried to catch the Kuric’s face, but it was in vain, for Rowan blocked it, crouched over him as he was, with a bowl of water clutched in his hands. There was life. Essa would surely be relieved.
Chigenda, too, kept quiet vigil, eyes flecked with devotion so fierce it changed the very nature of his face. Voren did not think it could be the same man.
Yet one was nowhere to be found, and it was she that mattered most in waking. As his eyes sought her out, though, something else became apparent: they no longer remained in the weeds of the old cabin. It was no longer even in sight. Long grass and rotted boards had been traded for the trampled, muddy contours of the forest floor, patches of snow still clinging to its deepest shadows.
“Where…” It was all he could muster before the coughing took him. His throat, he realized, was parched—it burned like the stench of sulfur itself. “Where is—”
“There,” the Zuti answered, nodding to the trees. Chigenda’s eyes did not soften to him, nor did Rowan bother to turn. “She watch. Waits. While others—dey sleep.”
Hostility was bare in the tone. Voren did not press it. He nodd
ed his assent, and the Zuti’s gaze slithered back to the stilled giant. Voren moved from them, though on unsteady feet. He hobbled, and the world spun such that he had to lean against a tree for support. The blow to his back suddenly surged to memory’s fore, and he felt sick.
Assassins. The Gorjes had sent assassins. Or the Bastard. He breathed a steadying breath, but sureness did not come. Their so-called savior, it would seem, had failed.
“Voren.”
The shape of her swung down through the lanes of the trees, flitting on light feet. She came to a stop before him, and there was something there—a fear bright as the rising sun. More assassins? He tried to rise, to appear strong before her, but she caught him and anchored him back down to the earth.
“Essa,” he murmured. “I was worried.”
“Hush, hush now,” she said, pressing a finger against his lips. Her gaze swiveled out, but softened as it struck the prone figure of her guardian. The others watched her now, though with none of the intensity. “Has he woken? Can he move?”
“I would not recommend it,” her cousin said. The Zuti shook his head in agreement.
There was a flicker of doubt in her, and she nodded away from them. “I see. But we—we need to go back.”
“Back?” Even Rowan twisted at that, a frown pulling his whole face down. “Are you mad, girl?”
“His blood is dark. That means they may not have pierced his lung, but he will die without treatment. We need their doctors. And we need to warn Rurik.”
Warn Rurik? Voren all but choked on it. He reached out for her, but his shaking hand fell without purpose. He stared, blank and dumb, trying to disbelieve what he had heard. Not after all this. That boy—this is his fault. What does she mean to “warn him”?
“If Rurik has half a brain, he should be three provinces to wind by now. Let him be.” Rowan turned away again, stirring at a rustle from the body beside him. But Alviss did not wake.
“Is strong, de boy. He know.” The Zuti nodded to himself, but he was rising to his feet. “They no will find him, me tink.”
A flicker of doubt took Essa’s face, and she let Voren go. He groped for her, but he only brushed against her hand. “It’s not Gorjes that worry me,” she said. “There are men in the woods. And coming down the river. Witold’s colors. It’s not some petty raid, neither.” She glanced back over her shoulder, as though the lurking ghouls might emerge at any moment. “If it’s the Gorjes that struck us, Tessel knows, and if Tessel bothered with us, Rurik remains. If he remains…”
Chigenda shook like an oak waving in the wind. “Fight?”
“Fight,” Essa said.
“Witold is not likely to spare a thought for someone he thinks a traitor, especially when his own brother thinks it.” Rowan’s voice was scarce above a whisper, but the forest was dead around them, and even this came as a roar. “I suppose we owe him that.” He looked up at Chigenda, and something profound passed between those warriors then. “Chigenda, will you wait with him? I must go with my cousin.”
I can go. But the words did not come.
The Zuti nodded and clasped the man’s hand. Together, they raised one another to equal ground, and Essa, tearing her eyes away, stooped over Voren. Please don’t leave me. He rose to meet her, the pain flooding away into a terrible sort of numbness. Every time. Every damned time. His hand reached out to her, and she caught it, to pull him up.
“My hero,” she whispered, but in its depths he heard the bitter seeds of mockery. Childhood resurged, and with all the petty vengeance of a child scorned he smiled his sweetest smile as he told her: “Let us go to him. Let us make this right.” If only she knew what that would entail.
Chapter 17
Fever made a crossroads of the flesh. Iron bound it down. Iron, after all, was the ages old remedy for witches’ magic. Or so the old wives claimed.
Sweat made a sheen of her olive skin, sun and stone her only companions. And the woman, hovering at the edge of it all. Charlotte could see it through her eyes, yet she had the prescience of her own sight as well. Abandonment. This was all that remained to her. Even the keep would not hold the witch now.
Clouds bled the horizon of its precious light. She sat among the rocks, watching as the distant sky lit with nature’s solemn trill.
She did not remain to listen to Usuri’s own tears fall.
Days before, the thought of such an image could have been no more than a whisper to her.
Truth be told, they took whatever whispers they could get. Thanks came only in one form: the mother had not been there, nor the hound that was her knight. Yet gossip claimed the halls like a thousand chattering birds. It would wait until she returned. None of it would fly south with the winter.
The witch was dangerous. Too dangerous. From the window of her room, Charlotte could look out on her still, but there was nothing left to the witch’s designs. Not even a prison of a room to call her own. They put her in the field like a criminal to the stocks, in a pasture on Walthere’s own land, where none might wander save on pain of death. Soldiers watched her, but only at a distance—fifteen feet, some arbitrary man decided, and it was done. All the rest was rock and dust and chain.
Neck, arms, and legs. All shackled. All tight. A rag, shoved into her heathen mouth, would keep them from its poisons.
No one believed it. But they had to do something. This was a creature they had stirred. Their weapon. It was out of control.
Sara came to see her, as Charlotte lay among the coddling sheets. She blinked up into the pale light, sweltering down to her very core. The woman cooed over her and touched her head, prescribing this and that to all of her physicians. As if she knew.
They might have talked, but father was always with her. He hung at her arm like a slavering dog. When he could not be spared, she knew it was a train of clever spies, flatterers and philanderers all—men who could hold a princess’s eyes and whisper their sights into Cullick’s waiting ears. Men like Martel and Kamps. It was a heavy blanket over the warming days.
So Charlotte buried herself under them and slept.
Weakness, her father had told her child-vision, lurked in the limp hand. Good or ill, choice made a man. Apathy—there was no fouler death. Yet she found it comforting.
Somewhere in the dead of it, a tiny hand snapped the murky threads and tugged at her skin. “Go away,” she tried to say, but the hand held her. Guided her. By the time she woke, the little boy was already retreating, but she could make out the bobbing gold of the crown. Longing eyes.
Her future husband. There was a hole in the pit of her with the thought. It drank of her, and drank deep, pulling her down hard into the darkness. Sleep could not return quick enough.
Yet when she slept, there were only nightmares. For some reason, Dartrek was there, no longer a hovering shadow. A man, tall and long-limbed, in a fashion some might call gangly. A ghoul, she thought at first. He paled before her, and his dark beard hung off him like grave moss. Flies made up his eyes and his hand, reaching, seemed to point into the core of her.
He never said a word, but she knew. It was a ghost, haunting its killer. Wronged men—they could not forgive and their specters consumed the living that wronged. Sometimes she tried to apologize, but the words always seemed to be sucked away, sometimes by a distant cry, and the thunder of a scream, and sometimes by the choking silence of her own swollen tongue.
There were only two things about him she could never figure out: why he was naked and why he had the Matair boy’s bedeviled eyes.
It was four days before her fever broke. When she could rise again, she made a grave attempt to put off her maid and to ask to see to Dartrek, but one could be certain her father’s sparrows waited for the word. A door opened on Sara within the hour, and at her heels, Walthere strode in with a boy on either arm.
One, a brother. One, a laughable entreaty of a lover.
“Highness,” she managed, with her most gracious curtsy, but she was the only one to stand on courtesy. And only just.
Even that made her light head swoon.
Sara, alone to see this, caught her by the hand and helped her up on a friendly guise. She shared with her a knowing smile, and took her on her arm, patting her hand against Charlotte’s own. “Ever the lioness, dear. But there are moments…” It was more a tease than a lecture. Charlotte even smiled, despite herself.
The boys rushed to her legs, and in moments, each was pulling at her skirts, vying for the attention only boys could crave. If it wasn’t questions on the “vile witch,” it was protestations of honor, and the churlish claims of youth that already thought themselves knights.
But there were moments. Moments when a child’s whisper drew her close, and asked, in all its quivering form: “Did she hurt you, my lady?” Absurdity, from one so young. But noble. And well-crafted. She might have suspected Sara. It was too sweet to ignore. She kissed her husband-to-be on the head—crouching to do so—and whispered, “No, no sweet prince, your lady lives.” When her jealous brother tried to shoulder in, she laughed and touched his head as well, ruffling the feathery strands of his hair.
Children.
“With knights like these, I think the world itself should not suffice to do me wrong.”
It was the moment her father sought. She could see it in the way he beamed. For once, there was no fiction to it. Save the actual act of the smile. Tenderly, he pressed a hand against her shoulder as she wobbled forward, the children swept around him like tiny waves. “I have been here every day, my dear. Every day. But you are a Cullick true, I see.” The smile widened to a lion’s mouth. For a moment, she could but wonder if it would consume her, too. She bobbed in gratitude all the same.
Little time did it take for him to draw her aside on some pretense of her health, entreating her to his study. Sara—Maker be praised—would not be pried from her for any reason, though. When Walthere suggested it, she brushed it off, claiming a walk would do her every bit as well at a friend’s side as it would in daylight’s care. Walthere was practiced enough not to let his distaste show as anything more than the slightest twitch of the cheek.
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