“We’ve got a long ride ahead of us,” Drem said. He gave her a cloak to wear from his pack.
Hopcyn tossed Bym the reins of the black palfrey she’d ridden to the village. It sneezed at her. “Well, excuse me for having been chained in a rat-infested dungeon.”
“Chained?” Iago asked. He rode closer, so she held up her wrist to him. Covering it with his hands, he closed his eyes. Heat radiated through her flesh and bone in the form of a red, healing light. When he took his hands away, her skin was whole and unbruised.
“Amazing,” she said reverently. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“I’m at your service.” He met her eyes and gave her an awkward bow from his saddle.
Drem and Gethim rode ahead. Eurig grabbed his things from the cave, returned her sword to her, and then looked ready to jog after them. “Come on. We can ride double,” she said to him.
He gave her a nod, half expecting to be attacked by Umbra warriors, took the reins from her, and mounted. Then, he held his hand down to her. Once she had mounted before him, he urged the horse forward.
The lower half of Guto’s face was hidden by his mask, but she could see his eyes, and they were pissed. “You can ride with me.”
“Okay, Guto. I’ll do that after my bath and change of clothes.” The cheery, fake tone she used only served to further confuse him.
Snorting from behind them, Hopcyn loudly explained Bym’s sarcasm to Iago.
What she could see of Guto turned red. She covered her head with her hood against the rain which was turning into sleet. “How did you find us so quickly?” she called out.
“Your Priestesses sent word. Then, using strands of your hair which we’d previously found, Drem cast a spell to send us through your gate,” Hopcyn answered. “Bound to you as we are, you pulled us to you like fish on the end of a line.”
She could hear the humor in his tone, but something he’d said puzzled her. “Bound to me?”
“Now is not the time to discuss such matters,” Drem called back to them.
“I say it is,” Bym retorted.
“We are your sworn guard. You claimed us,” Hopcyn stated.
From behind her, Eurig snaked an arm around her stomach. Guto noticed.
“When you drew upon the starshine, you bound us to you. I can feel where you are if you aren’t too far away. If you’re in your living space, I can feel it from my bunk when you walk to your bathroom.”
“I didn’t know. Guto, does the same thing happen to you?”
He inclined his head.
The admission gave her plenty about which to think, so she huddled in her cloak and travelled as the Umbra preferred, in silence.
Hours later when the horses began to tire, they decided to make camp. Bym immediately started gathering sticks. Approaching her, Gethim gently took her wrists and shook the sticks free. “We don’t need those. Sit and rest.”
“I’d like a fire. I don’t know about you, but I’m cold and wet.”
“Trust me.” He snapped his fingers at his hounds. Needing nothing more than the vague command, the well-trained dogs disappeared into the surrounding woods.
Too tired to argue, she sat on a log and watched. Hopcyn and Gethim unrolled a black, oiled cloth, screwed wooden poles together, and quickly erected a canopy under which Iago attached a rope between two trees. Then, he led the horses over and attached their leads to it. Eurig was directed to see to their feed bags. Drem and Guto erected a large black tent beside the canopy. Meanwhile, Hopcyn and Gethin set up a large brazier and filled it with rocks from around the campsite. Drem summoned a black mist to his palm and touched the stones, causing them to burn red. Bym and Eurig both watched in fascination.
Iago laid out a black tarp near the brazier. On it, he placed a bag containing some sort of sand. He said to Bym, “Take off your clothes and come here.”
“Pardon?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Relax, we’ve all seen you naked,” Hopcyn said. “Have you forgotten the bath we all shared? I haven’t.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
Eurig became enraged, seizing a surprised Hopcyn and tumbling out from under the canopy and into the sleet. For a second, she considered stopping them. Eurig had never seen her naked. She assumed he thought he was protecting her honor or some such nonsense. Wet, cold, and tired, she decided to humor Iago. After stripping out of her dirty, wet clothes, she sat shivering on the tarp. She held her hands out to the brazier and waited. Pouring some of the finely ground minerals onto his palms, Iago carefully scrubbed Bym from head to toe.
Outside the tent, Sausage and Potatoes returned to praise from Gethim. Aside from him, she could hear Eurig and Hopcyn still fighting. However, under Iago’s hands, her eyes began to drift closed. As he scrubbed, he used his healing upon the bruises which Bortag had given her. His fingers on her back were pure bliss. Guto kept watch over her while heating a kettle on the brazier.
“Up,” Iago commanded. After she stood, he dusted her off with a cloth. “Step over here to the clean edge.” He gave her his hand to keep her feet from leaving the tarp and stepping onto the cold ground.
Guto held out clean undergarments for her to step into. Then, he slipped a woolen gown over her head. Pushing her arms through the sleeves, she asked, “Where did you get this?”
From under the canopy, Drem answered, “I’ve never before known the ladies to pack so quickly.”
Once Guto had pulled thick socks over her cold feet, he carried her to a pallet at the center of another tarp, laid her there, and placed a hot cup of tea into her hands. She declared, “The Umbra way of camping is superior,” and lifted her cup.
Gethim entered the tent and arranged several skewers of meat on a rack over the smoldering stones in the brazier. Fat dripped and sizzled as they cooked. Bym drank her tea and laid down on her pallet, drowsily watching while the men, one by one, scrubbed themselves clean as Iago had done her. Then, Guto was nudging her awake to feed her bites of the cooked meat after which she fell asleep again but this time in his arms.
It was where she should have been sleeping each and every night. The sight of her in Guto’s arms caused Eurig enormous frustration. Iago hadn’t offered to heal his face. After all, he had been the one who had picked the fight with Hopcyn. Of course, he’d lost. No one who’d ever seen Hopcyn fight would dare engage him. Eurig’s busted lip and swollen eye gave Guto intense satisfaction. Smiling, he slept with his goddess in his arms.
When Bym woke, she knew whose arms held her and placed a soft kiss on his lips.
“So, I take it you’re glad I’m not dead?” he mumbled as he nibbled at her neck.
Squirming, she tried not to laugh at the feeling of soft lips and scratchy face which were sending tingles to her nipples and making her center ache. “I thought I might die from the pain it caused me and questioned whether I wanted to go on without you.”
He took his lips from her soft, sweet neck. “You mustn’t ever have such thoughts again. Promise me,” he whispered. His eyes had filled with pain.
“I know we joke around most of the time, but do you know how much you mean to me? When I’ve used all of my strength and I can do no more, I know you’ll be there, strong and loyal. I need you, and when I thought death had taken you from me, I realized that I love you.”
He caught a stray tear from her cheek with his lips. “I love you and will love you during this life and the next.” He made his promise with his lips slowly moving against hers, forming each word into a caress.
Then, they heard eager whispering. Together, they turned their heads toward it.
“I bet a gold piece he slides his prick under her gown,” Hopcyn whispered.
“I bet two gold pieces she makes him wait until they have a proper bed,” Drem whispered back.
“I bet you’re both paying me two gold pieces not to kick your hairy asses,” Guto declared. Sadly, leaving Bym’s arms, he did his best to hide his rigid cock from the laughing pair.
The night before,
Drem had used a spell to dry their clothing. However, Bym wasn’t given what she’d previously worn. She was dressed in what her priestesses had provided. “This isn’t practical,” she complained.
“You can tell Yeva so once you are home,” Drem suggested.
Over a black, split skirt, or what she considered to be overly exaggerated culottes, she wore a thick, sapphire-blue, woolen tunic, and a black, fur-lined hooded cloak. Long, black leather gloves lined with soft rabbit fur protected her fingers. “Where is my sword?”
“At home,” Guto answered.
“Why didn’t you bring it? This one is too heavy for me.”
Coming to her side, Drem took it from her. She took it back. “Mother said that you would not be forced to lift a finger in your own defense, or else,” he said of Perri.
“Or else what?” she asked.
Hopcyn shivered and shook his head.
“Seriously? All I have to do to keep you hairy-assed fuckers in line is threaten to tell Drem’s mommy on you?”
Gethim slowly nodded, and he had fear in his eyes.
What was this power, and how did she go about acquiring it for herself?
Guto helped her mount his warhorse. He arranged her cloak around her as if she were a queen. Then, he mounted behind her. Bym smiled inside of her hood at his act of possessiveness. He wasn’t the only one making a point to Eurig. Earlier, the others had taken his red pants and cloak from him, tossed them into the air, and grimly watched as Drem had burned them to ashes. Then, they had outfitted him in their spare clothing. Iago had started to paint Eurig’s eyes but had decided against it. Hopcyn had already made them black with his fists and had taught the farm boy how little he actually knew about fighting.
Unsympathetic, Iago had told him, “We’re warrior monks. Those of us who have been raised amongst the Umbra have been learning the various means of combat and war since we’ve been out of diapers.”
Guto chuckled and guided his horse to follow Drem.
“At least, he doesn’t look like a pretty red bird flitting from tree limb to tree limb against a winter backdrop,” Gethim said.
With one of his eyes swollen shut, Eurig mounted Bym’s palfrey and rode at Gethim’s side.
Even though Bym’s heart was filled with joy because of Guto, and she felt safe, day became night and night became day a few times during the course of what should have been one. Her smile faded, and she apologized profusely each time. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know why it keeps happening. Maybe, you should toss me back through the gate and hope for a new Temporal Locum. One who isn’t defective.” She frowned down at the horse’s mane and started running the fingers of her gloved hand through it. “Ow!” Her hand went to her forehead. “Stop it!” She swiped at the acorns which Hopcyn had started throwing at her.
“You stop it. I’m enjoying the constant shifting from day to night. It’s hilarious, and I for one intend to tease you about your goddess infancy for many years to come.”
“Goddess infancy?”
“Yes,” he answered as if speaking to a dimwit. “You’ve just been born into our world. For example,” he pulled something from his saddlebag and held it up. “Do you know what this is?”
“No.”
“It’s a cookie, Bym.” Then, he ate it.
“I knew it was a cookie! I didn’t know what kind it was or if you were asking a metaphorical question.”
“It was a good one. My point is that you overthink things.” Drem held out his hand, so Hopcyn gave him a cookie.
“I want one, please,” Bym begged.
After shoving another cookie into his mouth, he said, “Sorry. All gone.”
“You’re mean. Why didn’t you give me the last one? Why didn’t you give me one last night?”
Guto answered for him. “You were sleeping when we passed out the cookies. I’ll buy you whatever you want in town.”
“Town?”
“Yes, in town.” He had no intentions of saying more. None of them did.
She knew she’d have to drag it out of them. “What town? Where are we? Is it the village? Will Solis be there? What’s there? How far are we from home?” She glanced around at whomever she could see from within her fur-lined hood.
Gethim drawled, “The nearest one. About three days from home barring any incidents. No. Maybe. Normal town stuff. Three more days from there barring any incidents.”
Cheerfully, Hopcyn said, “I like what you did there.”
“If only I could form individual clouds to rain upon individuals,” she muttered under her breath to Guto’s amusement.
After several miles, Drem and Hopcyn led them from the woods and out onto a road of hard-packed dirt and brown pine needles. Mounds of them, littered with pinecones, had formed around the bases of towering trees. Their scent reminded her of something important. Christmas. She’d had to struggle to remember. All of it was fading. The golden, tail-biting snakes began to slither within her. Clutching at her chest, she moaned. They were no longer corporeal. She knew the entity or whatever it was had melted into her on some sort of molecular level. Mentally, she chastised herself. There wasn’t a scientific explanation for it. It was magic.
Concerned, Guto asked, “Are you alright?”
Unable to answer, all she could do was breathe.
Iago insisted, “She needs to rest.”
“It’s only another two miles. Hold onto her,” Gethim said.
Drem nodded his agreement, and they closed their ranks. Bym hunched over herself and squeezed her eyes shut. Guto kept a thick, strong arm around her, holding her to his chest and keeping her in the saddle. The slithering magic within her intensified, making her see black around the edges of her sight. Then, a vision came to her of a golden city, shrouded in darkness. Torches and firepits turned the people into shadows. They cried out to Aurora. They prayed for the sun.
Bym whispered, “Aurora is gone.”
A force hurled her back against Guto’s chest and then sent them tumbling off the back of the horse to land on the road. Gethim’s horse reared, but he controlled the beast, pulling it and its terrifying hooves to the side and away from their heads. Bym’s head already felt as though it had been bashed in. She clutched at her skull and held her chin to her chest.
“Goblin wankers! What happened?” Guto groaned from beneath her.
She heard movement all around them, creaking saddles as they dismounted, Guto’s horse being caught and soothed, cloaks rustling, and boots and hooves on the dirt road. She felt something running from her nose to her lips, but before she could lift a hand to wipe it away, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she was surrounded by blissful darkness.
“Open the gates!” a man shouted.
The command woke Bym, who found herself sitting across Guto’s legs, with his arm behind her back, and her head on his shoulder. The back of her head throbbed, so she kept her eyes closed. The unmistakable sounds of village life came to her ears. Worry that it might be the golden city from her vision, she risked cracking open an eye and flinched when she saw Iago’s face a few inches away.
“Good. You’re awake. I was starting to worry.” He leaned back over to sit upright in his saddle.
The horse’s movements stopped, and seconds later, Guto was handing her down to Drem. Hopcyn wore a serious expression, devoid of humor, and no witty comments left his lips as he held a door open for them.
“Rise,” Drem ordered. They were in the common room of an unfamiliar inn.
Unlike the other one in which she’d stayed, this one had been constructed of stone and pine logs. “Big log cabin. Smells nice,” she mumbled.
Drem said, “Goddess Bym and her honor guard require food and lodging.”
Nearby, she heard a loud thud.
“Iago!” Drem shouted.
Bym hissed as his yell reverberated in her aching skull.
“Sorry,” Drem whispered.
Once Iago had used his healing powers on the innkeeper
who had fainted, the bushy-mustached and wild-eyed man led them to his best rooms.
Guto said, “Bym will have her meal brought to her here.”
The innkeeper bobbed his head and ran down the stairs.
“How are you feeling? Can you tell us what happened?” Drem asked.
Staring at him, she said, “Take the mask off first. It’s like you’re a giant, airbreathing fucking piranha about to eat my face.”
The sorcerer asked, “What’s a piranha?” He removed his mask and draped it over his knee.
“It’s a sharp-toothed, flesh-eating fish,” she explained with a shiver.
Guto was at the end of the bed pulling off her boots.
“What can you remember?” Drem asked.
Struggling with the memory, she said, “It was a dark, golden city, and people prayed to Aurora. I tried to explain to them that Aurora was gone. Then, it was like a wall slammed into me, and we were on the ground.”
“May I?” Drem asked. He held his hands near her temples.
“Sure.” She was expecting for him to heal the ache in her head, rub her temples or something. She hadn’t expected his whispered spell or for him to enter her thoughts and make her relive it.
Releasing her, he sat back and contemplated her. “Well, that’s one way to strike fear into half of our world’s population.”
“Huh?”
“Bym, Solis prayers, those of the entire population of their capital city no less, summoned you to beg for your love and mercy.”
“No, they were calling Aurora. I’m not her. She passed the Temporal Locum onto me.”
Patiently, Drem explained, “They were calling to the Goddess of the Temporal Locum. You are she. They do not know your name.”
“Okay. So?”
“The answer they received to their prayers was you declaring their goddess dead.”
Seeing his stricken expression and imagining a bunch of people making a group call only for a stranger to answer and cryptically announce that the person who they were calling was dead struck Bym the wrong way. Looking into Drem’s horrified eyes, she started laughing.
Temporal Locum Page 18