“Get them,” another soldier yelled as half a dozen ran at Mykel.
In the next few moments, the ivory staff whirled, impacting legs and chests as Mykel delivered destruction. Nara had hardly advanced when the staff hit one man squarely in the temple. She sensed his life end as his skull collapsed under the blow.
“Stop!” she screamed, running forward and flaring protection in the event a sword came her way. “Mykel, stop it, now. Don’t kill them!”
But he didn’t stop. Three more fell in the seconds she had delayed. Others pulled swords and axes to engage with the warrior who waded through their ranks with his ancient weapon. Mykel wasn’t listening to her–he was killing them all.
Anger rose at the senselessness of the destruction. There had to be a better way to save these children.
Nara flared the earth rune in her mind, holding it side by side in her vision with protection. The soil rose at her command, engulfing Mykel in dirt and rocks that solidified about his legs. Trapping him in place would prevent him from advancing on the others, at least for a moment.
His face whirled toward her, angry, streaked with the pain of betrayal. A sword flashed. Nara winced as Mykel took a cut across the midsection. The pain didn’t seem to bother him, but he closed his eyes and flared protection and health, his wound closing. A fraction of a second later, he swung the staff to strike the sword-wielding soldier across his face, sending him to the ground in agony.
Half a dozen armed men lunged at Mykel, but he was immobilized and the fight would now be hers. She flared speed to confront the approaching attackers. Two were in the lead, carrying small axes and shields. She intercepted them, their movements slowing to a crawl as she accelerated. In an instant, she had grabbed the haft of the first soldier’s axe, pried his thumb back, and seized the weapon. She then tossed it as far as she could over the side of the road. She whirled as she readjusted her path toward the second one, removed his axe, but kept this one for herself.
The soldiers continued toward Mykel in slow motion, surprise blooming on their faces as they realized that she had disarmed them. She positioned herself between them, flaring the motion rune and gesturing, focusing her thoughts, pushing them away from her. The soldiers flew into the air, landing thirty feet away, one on each side of the road. A sudden weakness came upon her, so much strength spent in using multiple runes at once.
“Gifted!” The voice carried fear, and the remaining soldiers slowed. She dropped the runes from her thoughts and stood in front of Mykel, axe still in hand, surveying the remaining combatants. One of the figures in the back of the entourage came forward, removing her robe to reveal herself as a young woman in a leather cuirass and breeches, a dagger in each hand and an angry expression on her face.
“We’re on the queen’s business,” the woman said. Her short-cropped brown hair was tangled and her face dirty. “You have attacked soldiers on a royal mission. You are under arrest.” Her voice sounded strained.
Nara heard a sound from behind her and looked to see Mykel step free of the earth and stone that had bound him, his strength rune still flaring hot in her vision.
“Leave the children and you’ll be unharmed,” Nara said.
The attack came so fast that neither Nara nor Mykel could react as the figure dashed toward them like a bolt of lightning. Nara lifted her right arm, still wielding the soldier’s axe, just in time to feel a hot pain dance from her wrist to her elbow, forcing the weapon from her grip. Mykel touched his neck where a wound had appeared and blood now flowed.
A racer!
Nara flared speed just in time to brace for a second approach by the racer. The pain in her forearm distracted her focus, but she avoided many strikes from a second flurry exploding upon her. The racer retreated a dozen paces, slowly now that speed was again Nara’s ally. Blood spilled from Nara’s gut and left shoulder now. New wounds–and so fast!
She flared health and the wounds lessened, even as Mykel advanced on the deadly woman. He would be much slower than his opponent, but with the sight rune, he would know where she planned to strike. Nara searched with her vision for the woman’s cepp, but the glow of energy from Mykel’s staff made it difficult, as if searching for a candle in a room that held a blazing fire. Then she saw them–tiny bone rings, one on each hand, like those Gwyn carried. If she could siphon their magic, the racer would be powerless, but the young woman moved so fast that Nara’s thoughts couldn’t track them well enough. A fight was unavoidable.
Flaring protection and speed at once, she grabbed the fallen axe and stepped toward the racer, teeth gritted, and resolved to return the blinding attacks in kind. Maybe only violence would work with these people after all.
The woman’s eyes widened with surprise at Nara, then she adjusted the grip on her daggers, both dripping with blood. The woman was faster than Nara and far more practiced with her gift.
But she was only a gifted, and Nara was more than that.
She flared sight for just a moment and knew what would happen next.
As the two women clashed, Nara’s axe swung wide, missing the woman’s shoulder by several inches as it whistled through the air. The racer’s dagger, however, impacted Nara in her side, and the pain announced itself in outrageous fashion, causing her to buckle over. Nara let go of the axe and flared strength and speed with all her passion, forcing herself upright and grabbing the woman’s arms with a rapidity and fierceness that took the racer by surprise.
Then Nara squeezed.
The bones in the woman’s forearms snapped, an audible crack preceding her cry. A moment later, an agonizing sympathetic pain raced across Nara’s own forearms, and she shuddered. She stopped flaring all her runes as an ivory staff came out of nowhere to crush the woman’s skull, sending her the ground.
“No!” Nara screamed. “Mykel, no! She was beaten!”
Pain in Nara’s side sapped her strength, forcing her to her knees. She stumbled to the racer’s side, the crumpled form now devoid of movement, broken forearms askew, and blood spilling from the side of her skull.
“I told you no killing!” Nara screamed.
Silence fell. The remaining soldiers stood in place, clearly not knowing what to do.
“They deserve to die,” Mykel said.
“Following orders. That’s all they are doing!” Nara flared health to close her own wounds, then put a hand on the head of the fallen racer. She felt the softness in the woman’s shattered skull, a sick, squishy feeling where there should have been hard bone. She recalled the knitting and sight runes that Anne had shown her, flaring them with what remained of her own strength, the designs popping alive in her vision. Images flooded her thoughts of the broken pieces of skull beneath her fingers. As she fed the knitting rune, the pieces of bone coalesced and fused but there was damage to the brain beneath, and Nara had run out of time. She had almost no practice in the repair of complex injuries and quickly lost hope. A final, raspy breath announced the woman’s end.
She looked at Mykel, anger and frustration rising. “She was young, like us. Someone stabbed her hand with a ceppit, and her life changed.” Nara stood, then took a step closer to him. “Maybe she wanted to be an artist or a baker. Or was in love and wanted to marry. Instead, she was drafted after an announcement ceremony. Forced to work with soldiers, kidnap children and kill their parents. She’s a victim, Mykel. Like so many others. And you killed her!”
“You moved so fast,” he replied. “Like lightning. I’ve never seen anything like it. Both of you. I couldn’t see what was happening, so I trusted the staff. With it, I knew where to strike. Where to move, to protect you. It’s my job, Nara.”
“Don’t trust the staff. Trust me!”
Blood on her hands, Nara turned toward the remaining soldiers who stood watching, awaiting their fate. The nervous movements of one of them betrayed his fear, an eagerness to run or perhaps to hide.
Standing among the soldiers was a figure in black robes; another gifted. He was in his mid-twenties, she
guessed. A bone cepp dangled from a chain belt around his midsection, and fear hung in his eyes. He hadn’t engaged in the fight and probably didn’t know how. Perhaps he was a harvester, a mover of magic, not a warrior.
She understood Mykel’s anger at these people; she had felt it herself. A moment ago, in the middle of the fight with the racer, she had tasted that fury. If she had kept her wits about her, she may have found a way to control the engagement better, but violence had seized her and she had embraced it, much like Mykel had.
“Open the cage,” Nara said. A moment later, two soldiers complied, and half a dozen children spilled free onto the roadway. They were dirty, and their faces were haggard. She turned to the soldiers.
“Now go. To Fairmont. To your mistress.” She needed to say something else, to convince them to end this craziness. Kidnapping children? Killing their parents? But what could she say? They knew the horror of their orders but followed them, anyway. “And be ashamed. To save yourselves punishment, you inflict it upon the innocent. There is little mercy in our hearts for you. If I see you again, I’ll kill you!”
It wasn’t true, but she wanted urgency in her words, to deter them from future wrongs. They didn’t respond, heads hanging low and glancing occasionally in Nara’s direction as they gathered their wounded and dead. They then mounted and spurred their horses on, leaving the six stolen children standing in the middle of the road.
Without turning to face him, she spoke to Mykel. “She was like one of these children once. Now she’s dead.”
Mykel came closer, putting a hand on Nara’s shoulder. “She tried to kill you. It was her job. It’s not fair, I agree, but if someone tries to kill you, I will put them down.”
Nara didn’t look at him, and Mykel dropped his hand.
“You’re not like Kayna,” he said. “Defending yourself won’t make you any more so. Failing to defend yourself will end it all. Want to defeat her? Fight. You can’t be everyone’s friend and believing such nonsense will bring horrible things to this land. You’re the only one who can stop her. If you won’t make it happen, we’re all in trouble. Be angry if you must. Yell at me. Cry. I don’t care. But I’ll protect you from these people until you get your head on straight. Get used to it.”
Nara said nothing.
“And never use your magic on me again.”
There was anger in his voice. And pain. She’d hurt him. It was a betrayal, and she knew it. She yearned to look into his eyes, to make him understand that she didn’t want to be like her sister, and she didn’t want him to, either. Killing was wrong. She wanted to heal. To protect, not destroy. Perhaps these battles would require sacrifices, but she couldn’t bear to think of how she could deliver such destruction.
He was right, in so many ways. The mess of emotions running about her head made it hard to find the right words. By Dei, she didn’t even know what she was feeling, so it was probably better not to say anything at all.
She approached the children. “Where are you from?”
“My house was burned,” said a boy no more than twelve years old.
“They killed my mommy,” this from a small girl, tears in her bright blue eyes. Nara moved to give her a hug, then realized she still had blood on her own hands and clothes. She knelt instead.
“What is the name of your village?” Nara asked. The little one didn’t respond, hiding behind the leg of a taller girl.
“Keetna,” the taller one said. She was about fourteen, with long black hair that needed care. “Through the pass, over there.” She pointed to the southwest.
It would require a slight detour, after which they could continue to Dimmitt. A small inconvenience in order to return these children safely to their village, although there was no guarantee there would be anyone left alive to receive them.
“Keetna. Okay. Let’s get you home.”
5
Evil Things
Ennis shuffled into the wet stone chamber, his tongue clicking as he held his freshly charged ceppit on the top of his palms. It was the same way that priests carried the relics during announcement ceremonies, so it was fitting. He enjoyed those ceremonies. The orderly ritual was comforting. With his recent experiments, he had been present at many recent announcements, with directions from the Queen to find out what they’ve been doing wrong all these years. To know everything about the gifted, and how to discover them. He took the job very seriously.
The young lady strapped onto the chamber’s steel table was no more than twelve, and Ennis hadn’t asked for a name. It was better not to know such things. He’d had many children on his table lately, and they had taught him much. It still seemed odd, however, to be using such young subjects, far younger than those he’d welcomed on his table before. But the Queen insisted, and it was her right. She was strong. He had learned long ago that strength determines authority, and he would not cross her.
Small ones cried more than the grown men he had worked on. They asked for their mothers or fathers, and they begged. He wasn’t trying to break them, however. He was not eager for some secret missive they held in their hearts, or a reluctant confession. Finding magic was more difficult, however, and success often eluded him.
The process he currently used derived from a theory arisen from discussions with the Queen. Based on her own experiments, she envisioned human beings as containers. Containers with magic inside. Break them and the magic spills out. But if you can just stretch it, crack it, or maybe poke little holes, it comes out slowly, bit by bit, producing a gifted. Or a cursed, which was quite similar, actually, but far more valuable. There was merit in her theory, and there had been evidence to support it thus far, albeit in meager amounts.
"Don’t worry, young thing," he said as he tested the tip of the ceppit with his finger. "It’s sharp and has a very small blade. Smaller than most." He clicked his tongue several times. "This one is especially narrow. Works the same as others but doesn’t do much damage. It will hurt, but only for a bit. Just like yesterday."
The girl started crying, then escalated to wracking sobs that shook her small frame. Ennis gripped her left hand, placing the tip of the ceppit over the soft flesh between thumb and forefinger. A quick thrust, the blade was through and she was howling, but strong straps held her in place.
“Let the magic sink in,” he said. “Let it do its work.”
Less than a minute later he removed the blade and set it on a nearby shelf, reaching for some bandages to staunch the bleeding before he began repairs. The girl no longer wriggled in place and Ennis checked her pulse at the carotid. Not dead. Fainted. All the better.
He grabbed her left hand in his own and reached to his belt with his other, finding the cool cepp that dangled under his loose smock. Tapping the power in the cepp, he worked his craft, knitting the tissues together, first the muscle, then the lower layers of skin, and finally the epidermis. Perfect.
With one hand healed, he moved to the other, dabbing it with the bandage. Soft footsteps in the hallway disturbed him, leather boots on the stone tiles differing greatly from the clanking and clunking that the soldiers usually made. A pleasant sound. Soft. Gentle. From a woman who was anything but. A knock preceded an opening door.
“Your majesty,” he said, bowing his head.
“How goes the work, Ennis?” Her dark hair was back in a ponytail and she wore a simple, red silk shirt and dark trousers. And her smell. Sweet. Nothing like the damp, malodorous stone rooms that made up the nether regions of this dark dungeon.
"I was just finishing with this one, but she has no visible flaws and I didn’t have much hope for her. The broken ones seem to be the easiest to work with and this method, although promising in theory, hasn’t shown good results. Perhaps as a catalyst for my other plan? The revisions I proposed could be revolutionary. I was still hoping…"
“Hope no longer. I’ve considered your idea, and it has merit. We move forward.”
He widened his eyes in surprise. Such an opportunity! He had expected she would refuse.
They tried in recent months with little success. Some projects even escaped, and it would take so much effort from her to try again. But the search for a cursed had brought nothing but disaster, the experiments had been catastrophic, and the recent revisions were the best he could come up with.
“I will not disappoint, your majesty.”
“More subjects will be here in a few days. Pick four. Then we begin.”
She offered a smile, then looked to the unconscious child on the table.
“What will you do with this one, now that we’re moving on?”
“I hadn’t decided.”
“Send her this afternoon.”
“Of course.”
Soft footsteps carried her from the room.
He shuffled about the chamber, clicking his tongue eagerly as he put away bandages and tools. The plan would go forward, and he still hadn’t written out the script. Much to think on. There would be the science. Yes, he could test his theories much better now. And the protections must be in place. So dangerous. Much to plan. But manipulating the subject, oh that would be the hardest part. He had confidence in his own role, but could she pull it off? It wouldn’t be useful to have their creation hate her as much as the last one did. Not useful at all.
Much to do! And he must not disappoint his Queen.
6
Keetna
Fatigue from the previous battle weighed on Nara as she walked at the back of the group. Mykel led as they ascended the mountains around Keetna, avoiding boulders, loose rocks, and snowfields where they might be in danger of an avalanche. Keetna was not far out of the way of their original path, but slowing their pace to that of small children was a huge delay, and Nara bit her lip in frustration. The vision of Dimmitt in trouble could have been one from the future, warranting a rush to save the town. But it could have been from the past, and there was no way to know until they arrived.
Finding Kai Page 4