by Tara Maya
On the other hand, he was loath to travel by foot across the Boglands. There were two other routes. North, around the marsh, or south, toward the Corn Hills. Each had advantages and disadvantages.
“I need some time to think,” he told Dindi. “We’ll cross the river, to be safely out of Green Woods tribelands, and camp on the other side for the night.”
They crossed the ford, both riding Shadow to avoid the icy water. Dindi paled to ashen by the time they crossed.
Because of me. Umbral felt his stomach twist.
He had never been in contact with ordinary people long enough to make them sick. Obsidian Mountain’s prohibition of relationships between Deathsworn and non-Deathsworn made grim sense to him now. Deathsworn had no light of their own. They lived by stealing light from others. As long as he was close to her, his Penumbra would siphon power from the Chromas in her aura. If he concentrated, he could force himself to take light from everything but her—he usually leached power from the magic permeating the land and air—but her light glowed so much more brilliantly than anything else around him, the block was hard to maintain. The minute his focus slipped, his Penumbra began to leach from her Chromas again.
He had kept two fish from the morning catch for their dinner. Dindi offered to cook and he accepted gratefully, since there was something else he wanted to do.
While she roasted the fish, Umbral gathered smooth river stones from the bank. He sat down on a big, flat rock, with his back to Dindi, and began to place the small stones in piles.
Though absorbed in the abstraction of growing piles, he still heard feet crunching on the rocky beach behind him. He paused without looking at her.
“The fish is ready,” Dindi said.
“I imagine you’d digest better without my company. Go ahead and eat.”
To his annoyance, she ignored his order. Umbral resisted the urge to scatter his piles when she leaned over to examine his neat pyramids of river stones.
Wasn’t threatening to kill her, and physically making her sick, for mercy’s sake, enough to keep her from pestering him?
Apparently not.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She picked up one of the stones.
He snatched it back. “Don’t let the fish get cold.”
“Are you… using thinking stones?”
A cold current of dread washed over him.
“How did you know that?” He jumped down off the rock and grabbed her by both shoulders. “Are you using magic on me? Did you eat my thoughts?”
Her face was white. She stared at him with the oddest expression.
“Answer me!” he demanded. “No one else does this. No one else calls it that. So how did you know?”
“Kavio did. Kavio used thinking stones,” she whispered.
He released her abruptly.
“Oh.” He felt like an idiot. “So that’s where I got it.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he teach you…?”
“He didn’t teach me,” Umbral spat. “Sometimes when I swallow a victim’s aura, some of their memories nest inside me, a tangle of their personal quirks. Usually it’s not a big egg to hatch. The threads dissolve quickly enough, and the memories are inconsequential. But the stronger the magic, the longer the…aftertaste….lingers. I absorbed Kavio’s powers when I…”
“Killed him,” she filled in.
“Killed him.” Umbral repeated it flatly. “I must have picked up a few threads of his Pattern at the same time.”
“Something of Kavio remains alive…in you?”
“Don’t look at me like that!” He shouted the words, not enflamed, but icy with rage. She cringed, afraid of him again. Good. “Nothing of Kavio remains alive! There is just me.”
Umbral lifted his dagger and smashed all the river stones off the big rock. They clattered onto the beach with a sound like hail.
Finnadro
Finnadro knew he ought not to, but he needed to see her.
She always sensed his need. Emerald sparkles filled the air and coalesced into the svelte form, pale green skin, jade hair, jewel eyes. The sight of her was like the sun after a month of night. She was his song, she was his music. I love you, I love you, I love you.
He fell to one knee.
“I have failed you, my Lady. They have left our tribelands by wing. There is no chance to catch them before they reach the Orange Canyon tribehold.”
“Then my Orange sister has won.”
“My Lady, I am sorry. There is still vengeance.”
“Vengeance?” she scoffed. “A human frivolity. What use is vengeance to a faery? My sister has won, and now I must support her plan, though I dread what powers she has unleashed.”
“My Lady?”
The Green Lady paced before him. “The situation is more dire than you know, Finnadro. I told you, the True Enemy, Lady Death’s Henchman, started the war between the human tribes to distract us all. Now he is also hunting my Aelfae sister. Whatever dissimilarities my Orange sister and I have, we are agreed on one thing. The Deathsworn must not have the Last Aelfae. You must stop him before he can reach the White Lady.”
“I will kill him.”
“Excellent. Then we will join forces with the Vyfae and Orange Canyon…”
Finnadro could not believe he had heard right. “Join forces with them?”
“Yes. You must…”
“No.”
The Green Lady was not used to hearing him refuse her anything.
Anger boiled inside him, however, and he could not keep the heat from his words.
“They massacred my people—and yours! They burned the Sylfae! Razed our tribehold to the ground! Set fire to the forests and drove the wildings into the frozen North where many will die of cold and starvation! They are beasts, Lady! They have wronged us! We cannot let injustice fly free. We must make them pay! We must have vengeance!”
“Some compromises are necessary, Finnadro.”
“And some rivers cannot be crossed. I am not a man who makes compromises. I love you without compromise. That is why you chose me as your Henchman.”
“If you love me, you will obey me.”
“I love justice too.”
“You cannot love me and also justice. You must choose. Obey me without question, blindly and faithfully, or abjure me and I will choose another.”
He drew a jagged breath. The air still tasted like ash. The trees were black and dead bones of themselves, miserable corpses supplicating him not to forget their agony.
“Give me a chance to prove I can do it my way,” said Finnadro. “I can serve you and kill the Deathsworn and save the White Lady.”
“You cannot do it alone. It’s too much.”
“I won’t be alone.”
“Your wolves will not be enough, Finnadro. Sooner or later, you will need wings.”
“All I ask is the chance to try, my Lady. I swear I will hunt nothing else until I either pierce the Deathsworn’s heart with my arrow or I drop dead.”
“Or you agree to do things my way,” she added. She caressed his cheek. “I do not want to see you dead, you sweet, stubborn fool.”
“As you wish, my Lady.”
The air shimmered and she was gone.
Vessia (Present)
Vessia held her breath. She was bound hand and foot, as before, but now she sat in front of Vumo on Amdra’s feathered neck. As soon as Amdra, still a raptor, lifted Hawk into her talons, Vessia wrenched her self to the left. Vumo lost his grip on her and she sailed over the side of the bird.
She plunged through the air. She had use of neither her hands nor her feet, but she didn’t need them.
Not when she had wings.
Her wings sprouted behind her and she caught a breeze. No matter how long it was between flights, it was always effortless for her. Amdra emitted a raptor shriek of dismay, and banked her own trajectory to chase Vessia. But Amdra could not raze Vessia with her claws without dropping Hawk.
Vessia flew toward Green Woods t
ribelands. It was not far. This was her only chance…
Unfortunately Amdra’s powerful airstrokes, on the wings of a predator, carried her swiftly over the wind. Sharp curves snapped around Vessia’s neck. Pain shot through her. Amdra could not use her talons, so she had grabbed Vessia with her beak, even though the wound inflicted would be fatal.
Warm blood flowed over Vessia’s back and chest.
She was dizzy… damaged… dying.
Good. Better to eat one’s fill of death than starve for freedom.
Hadi
Night was falling. Hadi knew he should return to the tribehold before dark. Instead, he scoured the yard around the Deathsworn menhir, gathering every bit of cut and torn clothing he could find. Dindi had been here, but what had happened to her? Had she been brought here dead or alive? Had she left here whole or in pieces?
A shuffle behind him frightened him so much he almost pissed his legwals. He tried to whirl around and leap and raise his spear at the same time, and somehow he tripped and fell on his belly, sliding on the snow a good arm’s length before he came to rest in front of two boots.
Muck and mercy, let it not be the Deathsworn returned, he thought as he followed those boots up a long, lanky body to an angry face.
“Uh, hello Finnadro.” Hadi grinned with relief.
“This area is taboo,” Finnadro said sternly. He noticed the cloth bunched in Hadi’s hands. “Were you robbing the dead?”
“No, uncle!” Hadi scrambled to his feet. “I was looking for my clan sister. I found pieces of her garments, but no sign of her.”
“Is she dead?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. She was not among the dead or wounded on the battlefield. Neither I nor any of my kin prepared her body for the Deathsworn. I didn’t even know about this place. We took all the other bodies to a different black stone. So why were her clothes here?”
Finnadro squatted and traced something on the ground with one finger. He moved to and fro around the menhirs.
“I wish you had not disturbed the ground.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I can still read the prints. Whoever made them took no trouble to hide his actions. There was a man and a woman and one horse. I think he carried her to the rock, but she walked away from it. See the heel mark? She was barefoot but still alive. Then she put on boots. See this scuffle where the bare prints mingle with the boot marks? There was another group as well. A woman and two men. They came from this side. Then both groups left together.”
Finnadro stood up slowly.
He looked frightened.
Anything bad enough to frighten a fellow like Finnadro was enough to make Hadi want to hibernate.
“I know who was here,” said Finnadro. “I have met this man once before.”
“Who was it?”
“I thought he was a Rogue Deathsworn. But he is something much worse. He is Lady Death’s Henchman.” Finnadro closed his eyes a moment. “What was your clan sister’s name?”
“Dindi of Lost Swan.”
“I know her.”
“Yes, Uncle. She gave you and the White Lady shelter that night and got us all attacked. Typical of Dindi, I’m afraid.”
“She was also the first to change colors during the War Dance,” Finnadro said. “I thought the White Lady did that, but….” His frown deepened. “None of this is a coincidence. There is a Pattern here, but I have too few threads to weave the Vision. Dindi is alive, but I fear she is in terrible danger.”
“Oh, please, please don’t tell me that.”
“I’m sorry, nephew.”
“Why? What would Lady Death’s Henchman want with poor Dindi?”
“The Deathsworn have no power of their own. But they do have the ability to leach the power from others. They must renew their strength by stealing the aura from other people. Most of them do this during their work with the dying, as part of their permitted tasks. But a few go rogue. They use their dark powers for their own pleasure.
“This man… I do not know if he works for his own or for his Lady’s pleasure. All I know is that he gathers his strength through murder and torture. He has killed…many.”
“Then why didn’t he kill her?”
Finnadro looked at Hadi with pity. “Do you really want to know?”
“No. Yes.” Hadi gulped. “I have to.”
“About five moons ago, shortly before I traveled to the Corn Hills, I was on my way to the Rainbow Labyrinth tribehold to liberate the White Lady from her kinsman. I came across a body. It had been…mutilated. While still alive. I won’t disgust you with the details. I followed the track and found more bodies. The last victim I found was still alive—a woman. She had been raped and burned and tied…. I tried to rescue her but….” Finnadro rubbed the back of his neck. “I was left for dead. I actually don’t know why I survived.”
“You think he took Dindi to torture her to death?” Hadi’s voice squeaked.
“We can hope not. He does not torture all his victims. I found others he had merely killed.”
“Wonderful! That’s mucking wonderful! Maybe she won’t be tortured to death, maybe she’ll just be killed!”
Hadi’s throat closed and he panted too fast. The whole forest seemed to bend in on him, and he couldn’t breathe. Finnadro patted his back.
“Nephew, breathe deep. Take courage.”
“Courage.” Hadi tried to laugh but it came out more like a sob. His nets came up empty in River Courage. “How can I save her? I can’t even hunt one boy in the Chase to pay a single deathdebt. How can I stop the Henchman of Lady Death herself?”
“You can’t,” said Finnadro. “This is not your task. It is mine. Go back to the tribehold. Join the revenge raid against Orange Canyon. I will be traveling in that direction as well, but on my own mission: to hunt down the Henchman of the Black Lady, and to save your kinswoman before he murders her. If I do save her, I will find you and return her to you.”
Hadi pressed his lips together. He was ashamed at how relieved he felt that this burden, too, would not be placed on his shoulders. He knelt before Finnadro.
“Wolf Hunter, if you can save my clan sister, I will find some way to repay you the lifedebt. So I swear.”
Finnadro put his hand on Hadi’s shoulder. “I will save her or avenge her. So I swear.”
Tamio
Tamio waited at the burnt out site of the kraal. The others, some two septs of Green Woods warriors matched by an equal number of Rainbow Labyrinth, were already there, though only a few of the latter readied horses. Lacking horses, most would walk.
Kemla was the last to show up and as Tamio expected, she was loaded down with bags. He rolled his eyes. Tamio had two horses, his own Clipiclop, and another. Without a word, he grabbed Kemla’s bags from her and slung them over the riding blanket on the second horse.
“How many horses are you taking?” asked Kemla.
“The second one is for you.” He grinned at her.
“Are you insane? I had enough riding to last three generations. I never want to sit on a horse again.”
“You don’t want to travel with the slowpokes, do you?”
“I prefer to walk,” she declared haughtily.
“Suit yourself, Kemla.” With a laugh, he leaped on Clipiclop’s back and kicked the horse into a canter. The second horse, on a lead rope tied to the hoop around its neck, followed. The mud they kicked up splattered her legwals.
Tamio reined in the horses and waited for Kemla to catch up with him.
She did. And kept on walking, right past him, pointedly ignoring him. He gave his mount a kick.
“Mount the horse, Kemla.”
“I will when I feel like it.”
“Feel like it soon.”
“I do not roster my day by your whims, Tamio,” she sniffed.
“Mount the horse.”
“Let me alone.”
“Just mount the horse.”
“Leave me alone, Tamio!”
Heads swi
veled to watch them. If she thought she could embarrass him by raising her voice, she didn’t know him.
“How can I leave you alone when we are traveling together?” Tamio shouted back. “Get on the stupid horse!”
“Never!”
Tamio dismounted and grappled with Kemla, as if in a dance move, except that he ended his steps by tossing her bodily over the second horse. Her arms and legs dangled over either side as if she were a rolled blanket.
A very wiggly rolled blanket. She kicked and squealed and cursed Tamio.
The horses had had enough. They spooked. Kemla’s horse reared. Both equines dashed off, out of sight around a bend in the dirt path through the trees.
Tamio broke her fall. The pair of them ended up in the dirt, Tamio sprawled on his bum, with Kemla on top of him, her breasts pressed against his chest.
She sat up and began to pound him with her fists. Hard. “You oaf! You almost got me killed!”
“Ow!” Tamio grabbed her wrists and pinned them together. Fortunately, he was bigger than she was. “Don’t do that.”
“Let me go!”
“Make me,” he challenged, grinning.
Fiery henna patterns cross-hashed her hands, snaked up her arms. Arms. She had dyed her hair flame red. Exotic. It suited her warm skin, and spicy scent, although he preferred her hair night black, full of secrets. He imagined sinking into her heat. It excited him. Everyone else had already left, so she couldn’t complain about the audience. He rolled over her, pressed her against her own rucksack. He needed to slide into her, right here, right now…
“No more games,” he said. “No bets, no deals, none of that pit muck this time. I’ve decided to make you mine.”
“You’ve decided? You’ve decided?”
“You want me. Why hide it?”
“You are the most arrogant, bloat-headed—”
Tamio shut her up with kisses. He kissed her until she kissed him back, until she buckled and moaned for him, until he had to inhale or pop like corn in her heat.
“Told you so,” he said.