Before Kebonsat could reply, an unworldly cry broke the calm night. Kebonsat leaped to his feet, the hair on his arms and legs standing on end. Before he could speak, bells began to clamor an alarm.
“What is happening?” Emelovi whispered, standing beside him and clutching his arm. “It’s not . . . Aare?”
“No. Juhrnus said your brother is nowhere near Mysane Kosk.”
“Then what?”
Kebonsat shook his head. “I must go. Stay here.”
Emelovi nodded. Her voice trembled. “Of course.”
There was no time to say anything else. The door burst open and the assiduous little lady’s maid bustled in, her cheeks brilliant, her eyes snapping as if somehow Kebonsat were the cause of the danger.
She curtsied perfunctorily to Kebonsat, and then more deeply to Emelovi, wrapping the Vertina in a warm cloak and guiding her to a chair with determined hands.
“It will be all right, Dazien. You just rest and all will be well.”
Kebonsat hesitated. He should tell her. He licked his lips. The bells clanged louder.
“I will send word as soon as I know something,” Kebonsat said. Without another word, he snatched up his cloak and strode out the door. You are a coward, he told himself bitterly as he broke into a jog. And you will surely pay the price for not telling her when you had the chance.
Chapter 7
Yohuac whirled his sword. It felt as unwieldy as a stone club. His arm jarred and his teeth rattled with every thrust he made at the nokulas snapping and driving at him like rabid wolves. He fought hard against the drag of his wasted body. He moved sluggishly, two beats behind what his mind said to do. He couldn’t find the rhythm that used to come so effortlessly. Instead he jerked himself from side to side, chopping and swinging with all the grace of a drunk donkey.
Fire cut across his thigh and raked down his calf. Yohuac hardly noticed. He was a warrior of the Cemanahuatl. He’d been inured to pain since boyhood. His horse shuddered, struck by a heavy blow. The gelding staggered and skidded, dropping to one knee. Yohuac’s legs clamped down and he lunged backwards, driving his sword into the eye of a slavering nokula. His horse wrenched upright, rearing.
Then suddenly something exploded behind them with a rainbow light. The ground shook. A stinging wind rushed across the battlefield. As abruptly as it began, it dropped, heavy as lead. The air went still as death. Silence filled the valley from edge to edge.
It was shattered by a chorus of furious cries from the mass of nokulas. Their voices twined together, becoming a single sound that swelled and filled the night. It was unbearable, like teeth on metal. Every hair on Yohuac’s body rose. Chills cascaded over his skin. It took several seconds to realize that he was no longer under attack, that the beasts’ attention was fixed elsewhere.
He took hold of himself in the momentary lull. He twisted, seeking Reisil. He found her thirty paces away. The sound broke off abruptly. The nokulas surrounding Reisil heaved up. She lifted her sword. Magic blossomed around her hands. Too little, too late.
Yohuac didn’t think. Instinct took hold of him. He dropped the dam on the magic that seemed always to fill him with torrential pressure. It rushed out with the force of an avalanche. He spun it in a whirlwind, shoving it outward with all his might. Magic-driven wind snatched nokula bodies up from the ground and flung them into the air. The funnel cloud expanded, eating greedily through their ranks.
The torrent roared through him, pulled up from the ground, from the air and the water. Yohuac flung his arms out, grinning madly at the destruction of his enemies.
A fist of pure power closed around him. It enveloped his funnel, crushing it in a grip that seemed careless in its extraordinary strength. It closed harder. Yohuac drove his magic furiously at the strangling hand. It ricocheted away and bounced back at him. Pain erupted inside him, fracturing through his flesh. He sobbed, faltering. The fist closed tighter. He felt his ribs crack. The whirlwind ceased. All around him pattered rocks and mud. Nokula bodies crashed down as if heaved from catapults. The pressure didn’t relent. Yohuac gasped, his eyes bulging.
Suddenly he heard a shriek of elemental fury. It tore through across the blackness filling his mind.
~Baku?
The only answer was another shriek. And then the coal-drake was there. Baku tore at the invisible spell with talons and teeth, red fire crackling down his hide and flaming from his claws and maw.
The pressure released with a crack like thunder that shook the night. A flash of white light lit the valley for the blink of an eye. Yohuac slumped in his saddle, catching at the gelding’s mane as he listed to the side. The gelding trembled and remained still, waiting for a command. Yohuac thanked Ilhuicatl and the Teotl that he rode a wizard’s mount. None other would have stood so patiently as the world turned inside out.
Baku landed beside them, talons raking furrows into the dirt. His hide glittered as if he’d swallowed a sky full of stars. He lashed his head from side to side, snapped at the warily circling nokulas.
Yohuac mindsent inarticulate gratitude, feeling a hot rush of pleasure from Baku.
“Reisil!” Yohuac shouted suddenly, remembering the smothering attack of nokulas. He straightened, searching frantically in the darkness.
“Here!”
She hadn’t moved, but between them now was the barest line of nokulas. Saljane perched on her shoulder. The goshawk hissed, gripping Reisil’s shoulder tightly. The ivy on Reisil’s face blazed gold, mirroring that on Saljane’s beak. Both of their eyes had turned ruby red.
Reisil urged her horse toward Yohuac. The dun snorted and reared, and then canted forward in reluctant hops. As he did, long tendrils of magic flowed from Reisil’s fingers. The sticky brown-colored strands coiled around the remaining beasts keeping her from Yohuac and Baku. She jerked her fingers, sweeping the nokulas aside into a piled jumble. Indigo leaped forward to the uncertain safety of the company of friends.
But even as she drew up next to Yohuac, the beasts sorted themselves out. They would attack again soon.
“Good to see you both,” she said. “And thank you,” she said with a weak smile.
Yohuac scanned her greedily from head to foot. There were scrapes on her face and hands, and her cloak had disappeared. A rent in her sleeve on her left forearm seeped blood, but she didn’t seem to notice. Despite the unearthly red of her eyes and the brilliant stream of ivy on her face, she was herself, the woman he—He didn’t even dare complete the thought. He was just glad, very glad, to see her alive.
“Lucky something stopped me before I killed you,” he said.
“Lucky.” She sounded more worried than pleased. “Can you do it again?”
She wasn’t really asking if he could, but if he would. Yohuac nodded. “What do you have in mind?”
Reisil flexed her fingers, wincing. “Hit them with everything we’ve got. And run like the demon hordes were after us.”
“Aren’t they?”
Reisil’s mouth was tense. She looked at Baku. “Good to see you.” She glanced up at Saljane, and Yohuac wondered what she said.
~I thought it wiser to wait and help, Baku said with a challenging snort.
Yohuac repeated the message.
“You just might be right,” she said to the coal-drake.
“They’re coming,” Yohuac warned softly. During their exchange, the nokulas had regained their composure. Yohuac was appalled at how fast the beasts had reorganized. As far as he could see in the murky darkness, misty shapes flowed toward their position. Already the small bubble of open space around them was narrowing.
“We’d better not wait any longer.” She turned her head to look at him. The ivy on her face burned bright enough to make his eyes hurt. Yohuac recoiled and barely kept himself from leaping to the ground in obeisance. “Don’t worry about hurting me. Throw whatever you have at them.” She paused. “And use Baku. That’s what he’s for.”
Yohuac heard Baku’s snarl in his mind and hesitated. For a second, w
hen Baku had first touched his mind months ago, Yohuac had felt an exquisite connection, an endless wonder and delight in Baku that shook him to his core. And an instant later, he shattered the moment. He had a destiny and there was no room in it for Baku. Only he couldn’t meet that destiny without the coal-drake’s help. And so he’d let Baku guide him to Reisil. Even then, when he should have weaned himself from Baku’s prickly companionship, he’d continued to lean on the coal-drake. Yohuac had been the reason Baku was trapped by the wizards.
It was time he drew a line. Time he stopped taking advantage. Time he stopped torturing this poor beast.
The pain that tore through his mind was a blade of pure rage. Yohuac’s head snapped back and blood ran from his nose. Baku was nearly inarticulate in his fury.
~I am no poor beast. I am ahalad-kaaslane. And my choice is not to be pitied. My choice is to stay with you, to defend Reisil, to save Kodu Riik.
Baku didn’t wait for a reply, but leaped after Reisil, who was pushing slowly into the ranks of the nokulas, her magic sweeping them aside. But she hardly went five steps before they pushed back, hardening themselves into an unmovable, unscaleable wall.
Reisil fell back a pace. The nokulas pushed forward. Another pace. They were being herded again.
Yohuac drew a deep breath. His power swirled inside like a raging nest of hornets. It was ever so. Releasing it . . . But the other choice was to fail, to allow the nokulas to drive them into the blighted city of Mysane Kosk. And then Kodu Riik and Cemanahuatl and all he held dear would be lost forever.
~Baku. Help me.
There was no hesitation. Baku was there, a bracing force, a half of himself Yohuac didn’t know he was missing.
Yohuac released his power. Baku snatched at the torrent, spinning it into a fine ribbon, weaving it with his own elemental power. It was thread-fine, sparkling like diamonds and gold. And then he sent it snaking into Reisil’s hand.
Reisil started as the thread wrapped her hand and spun up her arm. The ivy on her face burned incandescent, and Yohuac turned his head, tears running from his eyes. He clung to his horse, helpless as the power drained from him. He gasped, instinctively pulling more from the natural world around him. His hands and feet went numb, and he felt himself sliding from his saddle. He hardly felt himself hit the ground or Baku clutch him in his claws and drag him slowly forward.
Power buffetted them in sheets of fire. Yohuac screamed. He thought he screamed.
He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear anything. His body felt wrapped in a shroud of moss and mud. He did not know if he had legs or arms or if his guts spilled out onto the ground. All he knew was the magic spiraling through him, grappling his soul and ripping it from his body. And he let it go. It was his sacrifice to Reisil.
Then he felt Baku’s clutch on his mind loosen, as if the coal-drake mentally staggered. The tug on his soul lessened and icy screws began drilling through his insensate limbs. He heard explosions, though they seemed far away, and then a shock wave rolled through the air. The ground heaved and buckled, and the sinews between his joints stretched.
He thought he’d known pain. He was wrong.
He woke to jolting blackness. He was lying across Reisil’s thighs as they trotted over muddy ground. He heard the rasping of Indigo’s breathing, smelled the stench of horse sweat, blood, leather, and death.
“Come on, come on. Keep going. Not far now. Not far now.” Reisil repeated the words in a broken chant.
Yohuac shifted, unable to get a breath with the pommel pressed against his cracked ribs and her knee digging into his stomach.
“Stop that,” she said in a voice of marble and then went back to encouraging Indigo.
~Baku?
The coal-drake did not answer. Fear made Yohuac struggle against Reisil’s hold. She slapped his head in the darkness.
“Do you want to fall off?”
“Baku . . .”
“Has got wings.”
“What happened?”
“The wizards. They’re busy arguing over us. Now be quiet and stay still. We’re far from free, yet.”
The ride seemed endless. Yohuac coughed and gasped, trying to be quiet. The rain that had stopped sometime during the melee resumed. It trickled down his neck and into his ears and nose. His dangling arms burned and ached and his teeth clacked together. He held his tongue to the roof of his mouth, trying not to bite it in half. His knees banged into Indigo’s side, and one boot slid slowly from his foot.
The memory of pain haunted him, chewing and gnawing at the wounds the nokulas and wizards had made. But it was vague. Troublesome in its endlessness, but his mind had grown too fragmented to hold on to the pain, to hold on to anything more than Reisil’s voice, repeating the endless chant of encouragement, as if the sound alone carried all three of them to safety.
Reisil’s voice cracked and her throat burned. Indigo’s ears twitched in time to her constant flow of words as he stumbled along under the burden of two riders. He faltered only when she did. “. . . only a little way . . . only a little way farther . . . keep it up . . . keep going . . . steady now . . .”
Her hand was fisted in Yohuac’s cloak, balancing him across her lap. Her arm ached from the drag of his weight. If it hadn’t been for Baku’s help, she never would have grappled Yohuac up on Indigo. And thank the Lady for the timely arrival of Tapit and his brethren. If Reisil had been capable of laughing, she would have. As the wizards and the nokulas fought, their prey was escaping. Reisil resisted the urge to look back at the battle. Instead she focused on the narrowing distance to the nearest stockade. She clenched at the stream of strength flowing from Saljane.
A nearby explosion made her body jerk, and Indigo shimmied to the side, snorting. “Easy, boy, easy. Nothing to worry about. Let’s go . . .” She nudged him with her heels.
Suddenly the temperature behind dropped, and a rime of frost spread under Indigo and out to the stockades like wind over tall grass. In a moment the valley turned white. A crust of ice crunched beneath Indigo’s hooves. His breath plumed in the air and steam rose from his back. The rain turned to sleet, pattering Reisil’s face with stinging blows. She hunched her shoulders, tucking her chin against her neck, her heart pounding.
“. . . easy now . . . steady . . . not far and then it will be warm and you’ll have a hot mash and hay and a blanket . . .” The words were as much to settle her own nerves as Indigo’s.
A roar echoed through the valley. The ground shuddered. Reisil scrabbled for her magic, but she couldn’t hold it. The pain was too much. She moaned. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Holding her breath, she tried again. Her body convulsed and she listed to the side. Yohuac started to slide off. She caught him with a jerk, and heaved him back up. Her muscles screamed. She swallowed the bile that rose bitter in the back of her throat.
As they drew closer to the stockade, Reisil’s strength faded like a stone sinking in the ocean. She grappled harder to Saljane, wordless in her need. Strength flowed into her, and her stuttering voice firmed. “Just a little farther . . . the gates . . . go to the gates . . .”
The walls of the stockades loomed high above them. Reisil could hear voices calling to her, but couldn’t make out the words. Her head whirled and her hands and legs began to tremble. She smelled sawdust, woodsmoke, and manure. She blinked bleerily, but a gauzy gray haze blurred her vision. She tried to shake her head, but instead found herself sliding off Indigo. She reached out to grab the saddle, but her arms were leaden.
She thudded to the ground, Yohuac sprawling across her. Her breath exploded in a rush. The frozen mud was blessedly cold against her cheek and forehead. She sighed and told herself to get up. But her body did not answer. Slowly night closed around her senses, swallowing her in a soft embrace. Unable to cobble up any strength to fight it, Reisil gave in, sinking into oblivion.
“Open the gates!” Juhrnus shouted as he leaped down the ladder and flung himself toward the barred gates. He slipped and skidded, sliding to his knees. He swor
e, springing back up. The guards heaved aside the two great beams. Juhrnus shoved between them and out the narrow opening.
Reisil sprawled two dozen feet outside the gates, Yohuac on top of her. Both were bruised and bleeding and filthy. Saljane dropped out of the sky to perch on Indigo’s saddle, her piercing cry imperious.
Kek-kek-kek-kek!
Beneath the anxious bird, the gelding stood splay-legged. His head dangled to the ground. His ribs bellowed with effort. Juhrnus dashed past the exhausted animal and dropped to his knees. He checked Reisil. Relief made his hands shake. She was still breathing.
Yohuac mumbled something unintelligible and grabbed wildly at Juhrnus’s cloak.
“It’s all right now,” Juhrnus said as other hands grasped Yohuac. They lifted him, carrying him inside Raven’s walls. Juhrnus scooped up Reisil and followed, scowling at her slenderness and pallor.
Back in the walls, Nurema met him, her narrow, dark face sharp with worry. “Take her t’ your rooms and put her in bed.” She glanced at Yohuac, who was being held up by two men. “Take ’em both. I’ll send a tark and some food.”
Juhrnus strode away. He paused when shouting erupted and wagon-sized black shape drifted down into the commons area before the gates. Baku snapped his wings shut, his wedge-shaped head darting back and forth. He made a feint toward the men holding Yohuac, his teeth shining in the torchlight.
“Baku!” Juhrnus’s voice cut through the babble, halting Baku in his tracks. Juhrnus said nothing more. He hitched Reisil closer and strode past, inside the main hall and up the narrow corridors to his room, the men carrying Yohuac following silently behind.
He laid Reisil on the bed, motioning the men to deposit Yohuac beside her.
“Fetch some water. And wood,” Juhrnus ordered, flinging off his cloak and settling Esper onto the table. He paced back and forth, waiting for the tark.
~Saljane will tear out the entrails of those in the courtyard if you do not do something, Esper warned quietly.
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