At the bottom of the never-ending stair, Aneurin stood beside Ys, checking the saddlebags. My leather satchel was full and at the bottom of the stair, and next to it were a sword, an ornate oak bow, and a quiver full of arrows. I looked through the bag; it was full of herbs and ointments that were carefully labeled. After I closed the satchel, I realized something was off.
“This wasn’t something I intended to do,” Aneurin said, as I stood and looked around.
“Well…fuck.” I hissed under my breath as I realized the entire city was no longer a burned-out ruin. The buildings and pathways had almost been totally reclaimed by the forest. The only things untouched were the tower and a few pieces of granite sticking out of the foliage here and there.
Caoilfionn trotted up then in his horse form. There was even a saddle on his back, and part of me wondered where it came from, and then I remembered he was a creature I had thought only a myth yesterday. He probably turned his clothes into the saddle. I strapped the sword across my back and pulled on my satchel. Oh, I certainly didn’t trust him anymore after he dropped that little bomb on me by the altar.
The others had mounted their horses, and I was still staring at Caoilfionn with my lips pursed. I didn’t want to ride the stranger, and a thought crossed my mind that made me cackle. Every time you rode a horse you were riding a stranger. And just like that, I ruined horseback riding for myself forever.
“I think your Dy’ne has finally snapped, Aneurin.” Yorwrath sighed. Caoilfionn stamped his hoof at me, and I shut my eyes tight and pulled myself into the saddle. If he were just any horse I’d have my hands in that thick shining white mane. But I’d essentially be pulling Caoilfionn’s hair, those long thick tresses I had seen tossed over his shoulder an hour before.
“This is just weird. I’m sorry, but this is just fucking weird,” I said between peals of laughter. Maybe I had lost it. Caoilfionn stamped a bit, jumped, and bucked a little. The sudden movement forced me to grab out for his mane to stop myself from falling.
He took off without any urging, but as he dashed through the forest and my thighs pressed tight to his sides all I could think of was that I was riding on Caoilfionn’s fucking back. If I used a crop, I’d be smacking Caoilfionn’s bottom with it. When I tugged his mane, I was pulling his hair. If I stroked his neck in appreciation…I was stroking a virtual stranger’s neck. In short, I would never ride a horse again.
In no time at all, we reached the entrance to a cave, and Caoilfionn stopped. I jumped from his back as fast as I could. As the others reached us, he changed form in a flash of white light that left spots in my vision. Suddenly he was standing before me as that all-white elflike creature. He had a stave in his hand made of white wood with a gleaming diamond atop it.
“Treat me like any other horse,” he said with a soft chuckle. I was still laughing.
“Sure, right, sure.” I stretched.
“When I’m in my other form, I greet horses like a horse, and they accept me as one of their own. You should too.”
“No promises.” I beamed at him as at the edge of my vision Aneurin dismounted. He walked over to me and stopped short, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. He wanted to pull me into his arms. instead, he blew me a kiss, and I returned it with a weak smile. When Islwyn arrived, I glared at him. Yorwrath and Grwn came up last. The second he dismounted his eyes narrowed.
“Fuc—” Yorwrath started.
“Coblyn,” Aneurin said, his eyes sweeping the area outside the cave. “I can see the carcasses.”
“Goblins?” I asked, raising a brow.
“More or less, only three times more likely to eat us raw,” Yorwrath commented with a grin.
“Stop being dramatic,” Aneurin grunted.
“Fine, equally as likely to eat us alive.” He spat on the ground at his brother’s feet and walked toward the cave entrance. “And exactly how do you expect us to see in there?”
“Caoilfionn will illuminate the cave with his magic,” Islwyn stated plainly.
“And draw all of the plowing coblyn right to us… Fantastic. If I get eaten alive during this ritual, I am going to make sure the next Swynwr feeds all of you to coblyn…except for Valentina,” Aneurin grumbled, sounding dangerously like Yorwrath. “Well, let’s get this over with.” He exhaled audibly as he walked into the mouth of the cave. Caoilfionn followed close behind. He whispered to the crystal on his stave and it blazed to life like a small sun. Yorwrath, Grwn, and I drew our swords before entering the cave. Yorwrath glanced back at me with a small look of reassurance.
The cave reeked. It smelled like all the worst kinds of rot covered in shit and topped with vomit. My stomach was uneasy before the entrance was out of sight. The deeper we went into the cave, the worse the smell got. After a few moments, it was clear that the cave used to be more than a cave. There wasn’t a door, but in some places rough wooden supports remained, and in corners there were cracked and discarded earthenware jars. By the time my eyes were watering from the smell we stopped. We stood in the middle of a massive chamber. The walls had ornate forest scenes carved onto them all the way up to the ceiling, which was domed. At the center of the dome was a large jewel of some sort. It glinted oddly from the light of Caoilfionn’s stave. Directly below the jewel was a granite altar.
“Take off your tunic and lie on the altar,” the unicorn instructed.
With a heavy sigh, Aneurin stripped off his tunic and shirt with a nervous glance to me. Islwyn pulled a jar of ointment out of a pouch on his belt and rubbed it over Aneurin’s chest. Then he took Aneurin’s clothes before taking salt out of another pouch, sprinkling it while walking a circle around the altar, speaking elven speech the entire time. With Islwyn’s voice came a knocking on the walls of the cave, and the stench thickened. Caoilfionn raised his arms, and braziers throughout the room that had been hidden in the dark sprang to life. He walked into the circle of salt and spread his arms wide over Aneurin’s form. Those mismatched eyes focused on me, and we stared at each other… Something deep inside me said this was a bad idea.
“Salt is protection. Nothing that means him harm can cross the salt,” I chanted almost inaudibly as I stared at Aneurin. Five crystals on the walls instantly lit up: the main jewel of a king’s crown, the crystal at the top of a druid’s stave, the hilt of a warrior’s sword, a keystone above a tower’s entrance, and a purple jewel at the throat of a lady with a circlet. The large crystal in the center of the ceiling flashed with light, temporarily blinding us, and that ominous knocking grew louder and louder.
“Valentina!” Yorwrath screamed my name. I didn’t see why until it was too late; I was too preoccupied with the fact that Aneurin wasn’t staring at me anymore. His eyes were focusless, and his chest had stopped moving. I didn’t have the luxury of time to react to that, as a squat, small, brown creature with a crude loincloth, long vicious claws, and sharp snapping teeth sailed through the air and attacked me. The horde of coblyn clicked as they moved, and that deep, ominous, echoing, clicking noise made me shiver as I kicked the tiny creature across the cave. A moment later there was another as a sea of coblyn swarmed around us. The salt held, and Aneurin with his unseeing eyes and still chest was safe—but we weren’t. Yorwrath darted between me and the wall of coblyn, slashing at the tiny hide-clad creatures. “Gwaedlyd gwirion, Dy’ne!” Yorwrath spat at me as he grabbed me by the hair and threw me behind Grwn. They kept me safe in a corner, as a mountain of foul-smelling tiny corpses started to grow before us.
“We have to get out of here!” Grwn yelled over the chatter of tiny, hungry coblyn.
“I’m not leaving my brother!” Yorwrath growled as he pulled a small dirty body from his arm with one hand and used his other to swipe at the swarming mass.
“He has magic protecting him, Yorwrath. We don’t.”
“Fuck, fine!” Yorwrath grunted. “C’mon, Dy’ne, we’re leaving.”
We cut our way through that churning, stinking sea of tiny bodies. I say “we” because even I was
able to kill a few with my sword. I would have been proud of myself too, if I wasn’t too busy trying not to get eaten alive by hundreds of ugly little monsters. We were right at the entrance to the cave when one brave beastie lunged into the light and bit into Yorwrath’s arm. He screamed, truly screamed, and I was there before I comprehended what my feet had done. I sliced the small creature in two. Its legs fell to the ground trailing entrails. It lost its hold on Yorwrath as it opened its mouth wide to squeal, and he drove his sword through its skull in the dirt. For a moment Yorwrath stared at the creature. Grwn walked up behind me and patted my back hard enough that I staggered. We stood still panting for a few moments, and then it finally sank in what I had seen on that altar, and I darted back to the mouth of the cave. Yorwrath dropped his sword and grabbed my waist.
“Aneurin!” I yowled his name as I beat on Yorwrath’s chest. I screamed and sobbed and clawed at Yorwrath. He let me rage at him for a few moments before he had enough and slapped me across the mouth. I glared at him.
“I know!” He shoved me to the forest floor. “We all bloody saw, but there’s no going back in there.” He looked up at the sky. Dusk was threatening. I knew goblins came out at night, and I was pretty sure the coblyn were the same.
“We…we have to go,” I managed to sob out slipping my sword into its sheath.
“Yes, we do. This place will be fucking crawling within the hour. Take Ys, he’d—”
“Don’t you fucking say it!” I growled. My face was tight and hot, and the tears wouldn’t stop. “Come here and let me tie a quick tourniquet, you stupid fucking piece of shit, so you don’t bleed out,” I screamed at Yorwrath, who simply nodded and walked over. I ripped apart one of those carefully labeled linen wraps and tied it around his bicep as tight as I could. “You need stitches and that needs to be cleaned as soon as we get back.” My voice was tight and emotionless as I turned from him and walked over to Ys. I wanted to break down and scream but I couldn’t. The long and short of it was I had a lot of rage inside of me and nowhere to direct it. “I’m going to kill them both,” I said as I mounted the large white stallion with its silver mane.
“What? I didn’t catch that.” Yorwrath asked.
“I said I’m going to fucking kill both of those useless fetid sheepfuckers!” I twitched, practically vibrating with rage.
“Mi hefyd.” Yorwrath sighed as he heeled on his massive black steed. I clicked my teeth at Ys, and he followed Yorwrath through the thick darkening forest with Grwn trailing behind us.
Chapter Thirteen
My heart felt like it had been ripped out. Yorwrath led us back to the temple, but when he reached the base of it, he slipped from his horse. The sound of him hitting the ground seemed surreal to me. I stared at him for a moment without fully comprehending what had happened. Nothing made sense anymore. I wanted to scream and cry and rail at the world, but I couldn’t. My feet took me to his side before I even knew what was happening. His eyes were shut tight, and the bandanna had fallen from his head. His skin was hot to the touch, and his mouth hung open, his lips twitching as though he were trying to say something. I lowered my ear to his lips.
“Leave…me,” he breathed on the softest, weakest breath.
“Sorry,” I sniffed, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “But I refuse to do that.” I pulled my hair behind my ears and looked up at Grwn. “We need to take him into the little room and stoke the fire high.” I barked the order. “Careful with him.” Grwn nodded and bent down, gathering Yorwrath’s long prone body in his arms. He was cursing under his breath, his bottom lip trembling.
“Was it the bite?” Grwn asked. His broad face looked so sad I swear the points of his ears drooped.
“More than likely. You smelled that thing,” I grumbled as we crossed the threshold into the rooms we slept in. “Lay him on the bed back here and take off his tunic and shirt. I am going to need you to bring me a lot of water.” Grwn set Yorwrath on the bed and stripped him like I asked. I winced when the arm came into view. The bleeding had stopped, but the flesh was red and inflamed. The veins surrounding the torn flesh were almost black with bile. Grwn left with surprising speed for an elf of his stature. I upended the bag on the bed and searched through the pouches of herbs. There were several bundles of dried sage. I tossed one on the fire and stoked it with a few more logs so it burned hot and high—far too hot for the summer heat. Sweat dripped from my forehead as I turned a cup and my dagger’s hilt into a makeshift mortar and pestle.
I didn’t get any sleep that night. I cleaned the wound, brewed a crude potion so he could sleep, and made a basic version of my healing ointment, which I massaged into the hot flesh after I sewed up the wound. Nothing I did or gave him seemed to quiet the fever. I sat beside him with the herbal in my lap, as heavy sage smoke filled the room and coated my lungs. His breathing was labored, a soft, slow wheeze.
After pulling my hair in frustration, I lay beside him on the bed. His body was so warm it was like lying next to the fire.
“Grwn, bring in the bathing tub and fetch water, milk, and bread,” I called as I sat back up, ready for round two. My bones ached, but I’d be damned if both of them would die. I could probably stop Yorwrath from breathing his last… And I would do everything in my power to avoid taking the arm. It was an option: severing the fetid flesh would take out a good part of the infection. But he was a warrior. If I took his arm, I might as well slit his throat.
Grwn brought me what I asked for and then started filling the tub, as I poured the milk into a small metal bowl and set it on the fire. Once the milk was boiling, I added the bread and mixed it with my dagger until it was a paste.
“Is there an alchemist’s workshop here? Would there be one?” I looked up at Grwn for a moment. He was pouring bucket after bucket of water into the tub.
“There might be something similar. Druids use ointments and herbs in rituals… There might even be something left from the last Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe. I don’t know if the elixir will be good after almost eighty years, but it’s better than nothing.” Grwn sniffed. While he spoke, I prepared a poultice from the hot milk and bread mixture, which I wrapped around Yorwrath’s infected bite. “I thought you were going to eat that.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not, you haven’t eaten in two days. If you pass out, you’re no good to him.”
“Maybe the whole point of this is to work myself until I die of exhaustion?” I beamed up at Grwn, and he furrowed his brows.
“I’ll go see what I can find.” He reached into his belt and produced a small apple. “Eat something.” He tossed the apple at me, and I caught it. Again he left, leaving me alone to stare down at Yorwrath and sigh.
After a bit of a struggle, I got him into the tub of cool water, keeping the poultice on the side of the white enamel. Preventing a much larger person from sinking into a bath while lifeless had become an art form to me. Bracing my arm against the side of the tub, I kept it flush with his chest. Eventually, Grwn returned, grinning ear to ear.
“Near the entrance, there is a huge storehouse of herbs! The unicorn has clearly been tending to it for a while. There is everything you can imagine in there. I already filled a tub with water and stoked the fire. C’mon, follow me.” He walked over and picked up Yorwrath like he weighed nothing and practically ran through the temple with me trailing behind them.
The room was any Cunning Woman’s, alchemist’s, or apothecary’s dream. Every sort of apparatus imaginable filled the first room, and further back were row after row of dried herbs on shelves. The tub in the room even had a leather strap to hold the patient in place. Grwn arranged Yorwrath like I had him upstairs and tightened the strap across his chest.
“I’ll come back in a few hours with some food.” And suddenly Grwn was gone again, the heavy wooden door rattling in his wake. I threw more sage on the fire and built it up high like it was in the other room and then I stripped out of my trousers, bodice, and boots, leaving on the short shift which stuck to
my skin with sweat. I grabbed a square of linen from a tattered pile nearby and soaked it in cool water before setting it on Yorwrath’s sweat-drenched forehead.
* * * *
Days passed. I didn’t leave Yorwrath’s side, even as it neared a week. Grwn did, however, finally get me to eat something. He spent time with me in the sweatbox of sage. We broke bread together, and he went out hunting to keep himself busy. Yorwrath’s condition did eventually start improving. The fever broke on the third day, and I moved him to a cot by the fire. And by the seventh he was starting to wake. His sleep was fitful that last day, and he twitched and growled, whispering frantic things in the elven tongue. Keeping him alive had distracted me for a whole week for the most part. Admittedly I had fits of crying and screaming, and it was during one of my tantrums that he awoke.
“Did they return with the body?” Yorwrath’s voice was almost unrecognizable. I shook my head no. “You look like shit, Dy’ne.” He coughed, and I poured a cup of water for him. He reached for it with a trembling hand. That dark wooden cup proved too much for his weakened arm, and it slipped between his fingers to the floor with a hollow sound. We both stared at it for a time.
“Squeeze my hands.” I held my hands out to him, and he took them. He was weak as a kitten. I couldn’t tell if it was from fighting the sickness, or if the fever had gotten to him. The wounded arm was significantly weaker, which said a great deal that I chose to ignore. “You just need your rest.” I offered him a small smile.
“You should have left me to die, you stupid fucking whore!” he yelled at me, splitting his chapped lips. Tears were in the corners of his eyes. I sighed and got another cup, leaving the fallen one on the ground. “Is this your revenge? Seeing me turned into a plowing cripple?” He turned from me, and I rolled my eyes.
“No.” I grabbed a scrap of clean linen and dipped it in the water and dabbed at his lips. He bit at my fingers, but I was quick enough that he only caught the cloth. “You’re not a cripple.”
Heart of the Forest (Arwn's Gift Book 1) Page 18