Valor of the Healer

by Angela Highland

  She accepted what stops they had to make without complaint, much as she’d done everything else he’d seen her called upon to bear. Yet with that new sharp stare of hers, Faanshi had come to him the first night they’d camped and asked him to teach her to defend herself. He could find no reason to refuse the request, and neither had Kirinil or Alarrah. In fact, the elves had joined their efforts to his, and begun instructing the girl in the basics of bow and dagger. More than once, they did it while simultaneously drilling her on concentration exercises to strengthen her magical control.

  Tonight, though, Kirinil and Alarrah had left their charge entirely to him.

  After two days of strenuous riding they’d camped once more. The elves cooked the night’s meal over the tiny firepit they’d dug, sending the scents of roasting apples and mushrooms wafting across the clearing. Faanshi stood before him, feet planted wide in the stance he’d shown her, knees bent slightly to take her weight. Sweat gleamed across her brow and her features were worn, but she looked up at him with determination.

  Julian had to admit that he was impressed.

  “Not yet,” he agreed, circling her. “Do you know why?”

  “I’m not getting out of your way quickly enough,” she panted. “I’m not using your weight against you as I should be.”

  She didn’t turn to track his motions, but her head cocked just enough for her to listen for the sound of his footfalls. Good. If her elven blood had given her keener senses, she’d do well to use them.

  “Then give it another try.” Julian came at her again, fast and silent, straight on from behind to evade her line of sight. Faanshi tried to pivot but couldn’t avoid him as his arms snaked out around her. “You want to keep from wounding an opponent,” he growled into her ear, “you have to get away from him. Break out of my hold. Now!”

  She gasped and struggled against him, fear she hadn’t yet conquered shuddering through her frame. That he expected—but the reaction that swept through him, an unthinking, immediate need to soothe that fear, took him off guard. He grimaced and hung on to her. Faanshi had asked him to teach her, and he would, by gods—

  Recollection flared.

  Seizing Dulcinea and pushing her against the study wall—

  Julian flinched, his grip loosening, freeing Faanshi to writhe away from him. He barely noticed. Stumbling back a step, rubbing his hand against his eye, he hauled in a breath and fought to control his runaway pulse.

  In that same moment, without warning, Kirinil’s voice rapped out Faanshi’s name. With a wild look, she snapped her attention round to the mage. He’d risen to his feet by the fire and held both hands outstretched, one with his drawn dagger, the other now sliced and bleeding at the palm. “Shield, child,” he commanded.

  His timing and tone alike were ruthless, and Julian almost admired that—after all, the girl would have to learn how to control her power when she least expected it. The thought crossed his mind that he should seize Faanshi again to help the elf press the point of his lesson. Yet he held back, and instead grimaced off into the trees rather than risk touching her again.

  That was all he needed to do to let the moment pass, for slender fingers then grasped his shoulder. “Julian? Are you all right?”

  How was it, he wondered, that she was most likely to look at him unafraid when she was worried for him? “It’s...nothing,” he grunted, glancing away. The elves too were studying him, looking up at him from their places at the fire even as Alarrah took Kirinil’s wounded hand and bathed it in her magic. Their unreadable expressions were easier to bear than Faanshi’s unvarnished concern. “That’ll do for tonight. We’re both tired.”

  She began to speak, then caught herself and lowered her hand. “All right.”

  Julian risked a look back at her and wished he hadn’t. Far too much understanding for his comfort shimmered in her eyes, and rather than face them an instant longer he whirled and stalked to the saddlebag he’d taken from Morrigh’s back. Rummaging through its contents quickly yielded a currycomb. He needed something to occupy himself, anything except getting back within arm’s reach of the girl. Grooming his weary horse would have to do.

  Their campsite was small enough that even out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t miss the thoughtful look Alarrah gave him. “We’re all tired,” she said, “and you should come have one of the apples.”

  “It’ll wait.”

  No one said anything more to forestall him, and with relief he put his back to the others as he reached his stallion’s side. Recognizing the pull of the currycomb along his coat, Morrigh let out a drowsy snuffle of approval and swiveled his neck toward his rider, bringing his mane within Julian’s reach. It was a vain little move, and it almost made him grin. But it didn’t quite help.

  After a few moments he heard Faanshi settle down at the fire. Her words were no louder than either of the elves’, but when Alarrah offered to teach her Elvish, a glad cry pealed out of her. Then Alarrah’s voice lilted into the opening measures of what sounded to Julian like a simple, sweet children’s song. A few moments after, Faanshi joined her. So did Kirinil, with a warm chuckle in his voice as he slid into a line of harmony.

  Grateful to have his back turned, Julian drew the comb along Morrigh’s neck. Yet he couldn’t block out the singing, or the memory of holding Faanshi as she’d wept on his shoulder. His fingers shook, and he scowled at them, refraining from throwing the comb away only because he refused to betray his agitation to the others. Instead he slipped the comb into his belt, propped his false hand against the horse’s flank, and then twined his fingers into the long strands of Morrigh’s mane.

  The quivering in his hand subsided after a few moments. Less swift to ebb were the echoes of old guilt, like wounds not yet healed in his flesh—and the sting of the absence of Rab.

  * * *

  Faanshi had already warned them that she lacked the geography to tell them where they were going, other than that they were to head eastward through the hills that lined the northern coast. “Kestar will be toward the dawn,” was all that she offered when pressed. How they’d get there, what route to follow and how they’d conceal themselves along the way were left to Julian and the elves to discern. Scouting and backtracking, when they weren’t stopped to rest or to teach the girl, stretched the trek out to three days.

  For the life of him Julian couldn’t tell when, or if, Faanshi slept. She went to her bedroll when it was time but was awake before him each morning, and he slept little himself. Shadows began to ring her eyes, though she showed no other sign of physical exhaustion. If anything, she moved with increasing fluid grace both in and out of the saddle. Which wouldn’t have worried him—if he hadn’t seen how her Hawk had overwhelmed her when they’d crossed the Wards, or heard how the cadences of his voice kept stealing into hers.

  But he had no time for worry. All their waking moments were occupied until they reached their destination at last.

  The valley was pretty enough, though he had little taste for such things as hawthorn trees in summer bloom. Far more vital to his interest were the abbey’s humble buildings of whitewashed wood and rough-hewn stone, ornamented only by the Star of the Four Gods atop the highest roof. A low wall encircled the place, though more to demarcate where the abbey’s grounds ended and the fields around it began than to provide any kind of defense against intrusion. That suited him. Such a wall would be no obstacle to them.

  Faanshi slipped off Alarrah’s horse and stared down at the compound, her face set in thoughtful lines. “The symbol of the Church is on that place. It’s holy ground?”

  “Yes,” Julian told her. “It’s an abbey. Priests and priestesses live there in seclusion to worship the gods.”

  “Your Hawk’s there, then?” Kirinil’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, as if he expected armed men to erupt from among the hawthorn trees.

  “I feel him. His wound still speaks to me.” Faanshi nodded in satisfaction. “It’s fitting he sought refuge there.”

  She began
to bolt forward, but Julian seized her, drawing her startled gaze. “Don’t be hasty,” he warned. “We’ll take this slow and stealthily. Remember what I told you by the river.”

  “Keep quiet. Move when you tell me. Run when you tell me.”

  Her words came out suspiciously close to a prayer. Julian never felt prayerful under the most peaceful of circumstances; this close to breaking into a holy sanctuary, it seemed ridiculous. Yet he couldn’t begrudge the girl a sign of his approval, and so he offered her a small crooked smile.

  To his relief, despite her otherworldly stare, Faanshi smiled back.

  Thus they set to the plan they’d agreed upon at their last camp. Kirinil and Alarrah ranged ahead, for the sun was going down and he had to allow that they’d both move with far greater speed and silence than he through the gathering dusk. For his own part, he set Faanshi to keep watch while he secured the horses in the safest place they could find in the hills around the abbey—though he paid sharp heed to every sound he heard, to seek out what the girl might not catch herself. From some distance off shouts and hurried footsteps sounded, but none of the calls were of warning. Instead, the ringing of a solemn bell told him why stragglers out in the fields might be hurrying into the compound.

  “Vespers,” he murmured when Faanshi drew close enough to catch his whisper, and she nodded once.

  They waited. Julian hadn’t set foot in a church for any reasons save mercenary ones since his boyhood, but he hadn’t forgotten the length of the evening service. Neither had the elves. Only when that span of time had passed did they return, bringing word that none of the abbey’s inhabitants were stirring on the wall or out on the grounds. Nor had they spotted anyone who might be Faanshi’s Hawk. Which meant nothing. If the man had become a fugitive, he wasn’t likely to leave a safe haven, assuming that the abbey had given him sanctuary instead of taking him prisoner on the spot. Assuming he was even within. But Faanshi had said he was, and he wouldn’t doubt her now.

  “There’s a postern gate,” Kirinil reported. “It’s locked. Alarrah and I could scale the wall, but you two—” His tone remained polite, but the look he cast them relayed the doubt his words did not.

  “I don’t think I could climb a wall,” Faanshi admitted.

  “If there’s a lock, there won’t be a problem,” Julian said, his mouth curling. “Get us there.”

  They made their way then, down out of the tree-blanketed hills, toward the abbey’s western wall. Alarrah took the lead while Kirinil brought up the rear, protecting Faanshi and Julian before and behind, until they reached the niche in the wall that hid the postern gate from the view of most of the valley. No voices called alarms and no warning shots rang out to deter them from their goal, though Julian had no faith that the quiet would last.

  At the gate the elves took up posts on either side of him while he dropped to one knee before the heavy iron grillwork. As he ran his fingertips over the thick casing of the lock, flakes of rust fell away, betraying its age and condition. He ignored them, along with Kirinil asking, “Human, how exactly do you intend to do this?”

  Julian shot him a look but spared no time for an answer. Instead he held out his hand to Faanshi. His senses always sharpened into a peculiar alertness so close to an infiltration. Tonight, for the sake of the girl, they sought danger in the slightest smell or sound. A task to focus on was exactly what he needed, and at this task, he’d excel. “Take my glove off. I need my fingers unencumbered.”

  She crouched beside him, taking his hand in both of hers with only fleeting trepidation as she tugged the snug-fitting black glove free. Unwilling to let her hesitate, he shook the bared hand vigorously and then dipped it into a pocket to fetch his pouch of lock picks. “Hold this,” he said, thrusting the pouch at her, and as soon as she accepted it, he flipped it open to pull the pick he wanted forth.

  “Julian, what are you doing? Isn’t the gate locked?”

  She sounded like a curious child, and Julian grinned. Of course she’d never seen someone pick a lock before. It’d behoove her to learn, if she was throwing in her lot with the elves of Dolmerrath; it’d be a survival skill. “Watch this,” he said, sliding the pick into the lock.

  Tykhe was fickle with Her fortune, for the lock was simple of design, but old and rusted. Julian had no trouble finding the tumblers, yet they shifted only with too-audible reluctance against his pick. He didn’t flinch at the mechanism’s creaking, or Faanshi’s start of dismay at the noise. But as the last tumbler moved, he paused, listening hard.

  No sounds came through the gate, neither running footsteps nor cries of alarm at their disturbance. They might just make it into the abbey undetected—if, just as she’d sensed him, the Hawk didn’t already sense that Faanshi was near and was about to call armed attackers down upon their heads—

  For that, though, there was nothing they could do but remain alert.

  “Pouch,” he whispered to Faanshi. She held it out, waited while he slipped the pick back into it and the pouch back into place in his pocket, and then gave him back his glove as well. “Now stand aside,” he added as he tugged the glove back on with his teeth.

  She moved. Julian rose and drew a knife while Alarrah raised her bow, covering Kirinil as he reached to open the gate.

  Its hinges creaked more audibly than the tumblers in the lock, and as soon as he had it open wide enough for one of them to slip through, Kirinil halted his efforts. They waited, one minute, two, three, until the elf murmured, “No one’s coming.”

  “We’re clear,” Alarrah confirmed.

  “Then we do this. Faanshi...” Julian stopped. He could not, would not allow himself to dwell on concern for her, but nor could he keep from asking, “Do you know your task?”

  “I must guide us to Kestar,” she replied, grave and clear.

  Satisfied, he gestured Alarrah in to take the lead with her scout’s eyes and bow. Then he nodded for Faanshi to follow her. “Guide us.”

  One by one they slipped through the gate, and with painstaking caution made their way along the empty tunnel to a wooden door at the other end, also locked. Barely any light reached it, and in the gloom Julian couldn’t tell by sight whether the door was as old as the gate they’d just breached. But its age was immaterial, as long as he could conquer its lock. Once more he whispered for Faanshi, who once more helped him with his glove and picks. More sheltered from the elements, this lock was in better shape, and it yielded quickly to Julian’s efforts.

  From there the way grew easier. A storeroom lay beyond that next door, and beyond that, a kitchen, presenting no obstacles but darkness and the indistinct shapes of myriad shelves and bins, two hulking and dormant stoves, and the darker shadow of a hearth along a far wall. For this, too, they’d planned. They could risk neither torch nor magic to make light that might betray their presence, especially not magic, so close to a Hawk. Though it scraped uncomfortably against his pride to let a slip of a girl lead him through the dark, Julian gave his right wrist to Faanshi while he kept one dagger drawn in his hand.

  Her touch, light as it was, shot like a jolt of whiskey along his nerves. It was maddening, inching along with her fingers against his skin, while the air changed shape around him and the darkness wreathed them all. But the storeroom was mercifully small, and he had barely enough time to inhale the scents of burlap, grain and dust before they reached the kitchen. An archway to one side led into a much larger refectory, filled with rows of tables that made pale squares against the surrounding gloom. High, narrow windows along one wall yielded enough light that he no longer needed Faanshi’s unobtrusive pull at his wrist. She didn’t yet break the contact, though, for which he was strangely thankful.

  One last door, Alarrah relayed, led out into the abbey’s central courtyard. There they paused and, there, Faanshi breathed, “Out and forward. He isn’t very far away now.”

  The courtyard beyond the door was wide and airy, marked with little ornamentation save for a statue of one of the Four Gods in its center, set
into the middle of a circular fountain. From his vantage point Julian couldn’t see which god it might be. Nor could he see the flow of the water, for the stone figure was in the way, though he heard it gurgling—a quiet enough noise on its own, loud in an otherwise silent night. Julian ignored it, along with the open stretch of space in which it sat. He was far more interested in the shadows around the courtyard’s fringes, particularly as Faanshi pointed toward a pair of wide doors.

  “He’s there,” she whispered.

  “The chapel,” Kirinil muttered. His fine, lean face grew hard, his tone brittle with frost.

  Julian didn’t ask how the elf knew to make that guess. Most of the surviving elvenkind had all too many reasons to know far more than they would have otherwise wished about the layout of human holy places. “You and Alarrah should look for an alternate way in,” he said, while Faanshi started and looked at him with fear-widened eyes. “He may know Faanshi is coming, but there’s no sense in showing him all of us at once.”

  “Either of us could guard her,” Alarrah pointed out.

  “He’s seen me,” Julian replied, “and I won’t set off his little charm.”

  Kirinil and Alarrah exchanged swift glances. Julian gleaned nothing from their faces, but something unspoken must have passed between them, for the healer then nodded. “Count to two hundred to give us time to place ourselves,” she said.

  “And before I leave you,” Kirinil added, taking Faanshi’s free hand, “let me check your shields.” She clasped his fingers readily by way of reply. For Julian, there was nothing to see. But a moment later, the mage stepped back from her, seemingly satisfied. “That will do. Don’t let them drop for an instant, valannè. You can’t risk it here.”

  Then the elves moved, each in opposite directions along the courtyard’s edge. Freed of the constraint of keeping to the pace of their slower companions, they vanished into the shadows so quickly that Julian half suspected they’d relocated themselves by magic. He glanced down at Faanshi and wondered dourly whether she’d soon learn that talent as well. But the hand she’d kept round his wrist had tightened its grip, and with a rough little shock, he realized it was trembling. That she’d inched closer to him, and that she stared across the courtyard as if death awaited her beyond the chapel doors.