by Lynn Kurland
“What is that well full of?”
He looked up, his face ashen. “Power.”
She would have fallen over, but Ruith’s hand shot out and kept her balanced. She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him.
“He wants to have it.”
Ruith nodded.
“Is it evil?”
“It was, once. What it is now, I can’t say.” He took a deep, unsteady breath. “What is your brother doing?”
“Trying to open it, I think. First he tried a few spells. Now he’s just hacking at the stone with his sword.”
Ruith’s expression lightened just the slightest bit. “He isn’t.”
“He is. Shall I go see what else he’s combining?”
“I’ll come—”
She put her hand on his shoulder and forced him to remain where he was. “There’s no need. I’ll go have a look, then return.”
He began to struggle to his feet. “You shouldn’t—”
“And neither should you.” She pushed him toward a tree and propped him up against it. “Stay there. I’ll go have another look, then tell you what I found—”
“Nay,” he said sharply, “I must come.” He took another breath, deeper this time. “If you would hand me my sword and bow, that would help.”
She supposed there was no point in arguing with him about it. She fetched his sword, but slung his arrows over her shoulder and kept his bow herself. She put her arm around his waist and walked slowly with him until they were within sight of the glade. Ruith’s breathing was a painful-sounding rasp in the stillness. He put one hand out on a tree and leaned heavily on it, but he kept his other arm around her shoulders.
“What should I do?” she murmured.
“Stay here whilst I see to him,” Ruith said without hesitation. “But I must catch my breath for a bit longer before I do.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what ails you?”
He squeezed her shoulders slightly. “Aye. When you cut it from me with a dull knife.”
She didn’t release him. “He’s now trying to set the stone on fire. What do you think?”
“I think he underestimates the peculiar properties of this forest,” Ruith said grimly. “If he’s not careful, he’ll set himself on fire.”
Daniel chose that moment to do just that. He flapped his arms frantically and attempted to beat out the sparks that had leapt up and attached themselves to his tunic.
Before she could stop him, certainly before she thought better of trying to stop him, Ruith had walked unsteadily out into the glade. Daniel turned around in time to have Ruith catch him under the chin with his fist and send him sprawling. Sarah would have complimented Ruith on his technique, but she didn’t have the time.
She was too busy trying to find her breath to shout that they were not alone.
Twenty
Ruith heard the twang of his great bow and turned about in surprise.
Sarah stood there, killing things from nightmares as they lumbered into the glade. The bow was too big for her, but she was managing it with admirable skill. He shook his head briefly and wondered if there would come a time when he wouldn’t be surprised by something she was able to do. He left her to it and turned back to his most pressing problem.
Just as a precaution and because he was beginning to stir, Ruith pulled Daniel of Doìre to his feet by the front of his tunic, elbowed him firmly in the face, then let him slump down to the ground, groaning. One less useless thing to worry about. He stumbled across the glade, unsheathed his sword, and put himself between Sarah and a trio of trolls. The arrows wouldn’t last forever and it was taking Sarah at least four to bring down each of the creatures coming toward her. Once those were exhausted, she would have nothing standing between her and death but him and his sword.
And he knew instantly that that wouldn’t be enough.
Not even the fact that the trolls were coming for him would be enough to save her if he didn’t call upon more aid than his sword and bow could provide. He put himself at her back, feeling her elbow bumping into his arm each time she loosed an arrow, and made a decision.
He took a deep breath, then released all his magic.
It should have sent him to his knees, but he kept himself upright through sheer willpower alone and began to kill things with a spell of death that came all too easily to his tongue. He had never used that spell—a spell his father had perfected, as it happened—though he had often imagined how it might be to try it out on his father, the arrogant bastard—
“I have no more arrows!”
Ruith put his left hand behind him and yanked her against his back. He turned in a circle and fought with sword and spell, keeping evil at bay with the first and killing with a spell of Olc that was augmented far beyond what it should have been by an anger he hadn’t realized he had burning in him like a raging fire.
A quarter hour later, he dropped to his knees, stars swimming in front of his eyes. He had never in his life been so exhausted, not even twenty years ago after he’d managed to drag himself up to the door of his house, crawl inside, then collapse in front of the fire.
“Ruith, you’re burning up,” Sarah said, her hand on his back. “Are you ill?”
“Nay,” he gasped. “Are they all dead?”
“They are,” she said, sounding completely unsettled. “I’m not sure what killed them, though. There are more here than we could have seen to.”
He couldn’t answer. He had to simply breathe until he thought he could see straight. He supposed it was going to take more time than he had to manage that. He squinted at the glade, full as it was of the bodies of his enemies, and saw it as he’d seen it a score of years earlier, with his mother lying there—
“Daniel isn’t here.”
He wrenched himself away from that memory. He supposed Sarah had it aright, but he honestly couldn’t tell for certain. He continued to simply suck in air for another precious moment or two, then reached for her hand.
“Can you fetch my arrows?” he rasped. “I’m sorry to ask it—”
“Don’t be daft,” she said briskly, walking away from him. “I’ll hurry.”
He supposed she was wise to. He had no sense of time passing, but he imagined Sarah had worked very quickly. She returned with two score arrows in her hand.
“I didn’t clean them,” she said apologetically.
“We’ll do it later,” he said. He used his sword as a means of getting himself to his feet, then incinerated the bodies almost without thought. Sarah gasped, but he said nothing. He merely buried his magic again, carelessly and incompletely, but it would have to do. He resheathed his sword and wished he had the strength to strap it to his back.
Sarah did it for him, pulled his bow over her head, then drew his arm around her shoulders.
“We have to hurry.”
He knew she was right. He only hoped they would manage to hurry quickly enough.
He ran with her, a stumbling, ungainly run that he was sure wouldn’t end any other way but with him flat on his face in some location where he wouldn’t want to be. He continued to run, though, because he knew that if he didn’t get out of the forest, if he didn’t get them both out of the forest, they wouldn’t simply die.
Nay, their fate would be far worse.
Because whoever was sending those trolls had obviously had enough forethought to have them seek out those with particular characteristics. Magic, perhaps, or something else desirable in their blood. Ruith couldn’t have said and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the truth of it.
He just knew he couldn’t stop running.
He woke to the smell of hay in his nose and the crunch of it under what felt like his own cloak. That he had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there was profoundly alarming. He let his eyes adjust to the gloom and realized that it was perhaps closer to day than he’d first suspected. He was still for a moment or two, then he carefully turned his head and looked at the soul breathing very softly beside him.
There were dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in far too long. A pity it did nothing to diminish her beauty. He turned carefully so he might have an unobstructed view of her face.
He wondered how it was that a woman of her mettle and courage—and loveliness—had ever found herself as the daughter of Seleg of Doire, a woman of uncommon ugliness inside and out. He wondered how it was she’d survived all those years with her brother picking at her, no doubt belittling her for her lack of magic, likely never appreciating her for all the things she could do.
He speculated for a while longer about how the hell she’d managed to get him from his last memory, which had been ducking under one of the final, putrid spells of illusion and disorder that had hung from the boughs of those accursed trees, to his current place, watching her dream. How he’d come from there to where they were was perhaps one of the more miraculous things that had happened to him ...
Well, since he’d first seen Sarah on his doorstep.
He reached out and carefully brushed a few stray hairs from her forehead. She smiled faintly and he thought he just might weep.
If he hadn’t been such a hard-hearted bastard, that was.
He had to clear his throat roughly just the same. “You aren’t asleep,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse to his own ears.
She opened her eyes and looked at him with another faint smile. “It wasn’t for a lack of trying, believe me. Unfortunately, you think too loudly.”
He continued to tuck strands of hair behind her ear, one by one, until he simply couldn’t lift his arm any longer. He covered her hands curled under her chin with his and sighed deeply.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I’m alive, and I no longer feel like death. I suspect you might be responsible for both.”
“Might be.”
He smiled, partly because of her modesty and partly because he actually didn’t feel as destroyed as he should have. Killing magic was, he had heard, quite exhausting. He had used magic in his youth constantly for a thousand things he hadn’t thought twice about, but he had never made a piece of magic as large or as deadly as the one he had in the glade.
Then again, he was no longer a lad of ten summers. He had fury to spare. He supposed it should have worried him a bit, that anger, but he decided he would think on that later, when he’d forced himself to come to terms with the ruthless actions he’d taken. After all, he hadn’t destroyed those creatures for pleasure, he’d done it to save Sarah’s life and his own skin. It wasn’t as if he’d walked casually up to a nearby mage, taken tea with him, then stripped him of every particle of his magic just for the sport of it—
He felt Sarah’s fingers intertwine with his.
“Don’t,” she said, looking at him seriously. “Whatever you’re thinking on, don’t. Not today.”
“Have you been eavesdropping on my dreams?” he asked, trying to achieve a light tone. He failed miserably. If she had any inkling of the darkness of his dreams, or of how he’d failed where he should have succeeded—
“Ruith.”
He dragged himself back to her with an effort. “Aye?”
“Leave it. Whatever it is, leave it.”
He stared at her in silence for a moment, then cleared his throat again. “What did I dream?”
“You didn’t, for the most part,” she said. “When you did, it was all darkness.” She squeezed his fingers. “You didn’t cry out, if that eases you any. But you seemed to sleep better if I slept next to you, so I did. I will admit,” she added lightly, “that I am rather bruised because of it.”
He felt his mouth fall open. “Did I hurt you?”
“You held me rather tightly now and again,” she said dismissively, “but I expected nothing less from a man with an unhealthy respect for the fairness of his own face.”
He couldn’t smile. “Forgive me,” he said without hesitation. “I didn’t know—”
“Of course you didn‘t,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said anything about it.” She kissed the back of his hand as casually as if she’d been doing it for years, then untangled her hands from his. She sat up and brushed the hay out of her hair, then shivered. “ ’Tis cold here. I thought we were finished with winter.”
“Not in the mountains,” he said, suppressing the urge to pull her back down next to him and wonder how it was he’d been so weary that he hadn’t known he’d had her in his arms. He pushed himself gingerly into a sitting position and looked about himself. The stall wasn’t overly large, but it was enough for the two of them and his entire collection of wood and steel, most of which lay on the other side of Sarah within easy reach. He looked at her gravely. “You brave gel.”
She shrugged, though it wasn’t perhaps as convincing as she might have wanted it to be. “I fear I gave the farmer a goodly bit of your gold for the stabling of our horses and yet more for his secrecy. I thought it worth the trouble to pay richly for both.”
“I would have done the same thing,” he said. He rubbed his hands over his face, shook his head to clear it, then looked at her. “How did you manage to get us both here?”
“I’m stronger than I look,” she said with a smile. “And we were fortunate that our horses came when I whistled. You weren’t altogether coherent at the time, but you managed to get yourself up on your horse when I shouted that you had to and you stayed there without my having to tie you on. I was prepared to ride with you, but you wrapped your arms around Osag’s neck and didn’t let go until we reached this farm. We’re three days east and a bit north of that ... that place.”
She related the events as if they’d been nothing, but he wasn’t fool enough to believe she hadn’t paid a substantial price for what she’d done. He looked at his hands for a moment or two, then slid her a sideways look.
“And how do I begin to repay you for this? Shall I rebraid your hair for you or let you sleep?”
“Both,” she said with a smile, “but the last first. I will admit I’m tired. You’re damned heavy.”
He laughed a little in spite of himself. “I daresay I am.” He rolled off his cloak and patted the spot he’d just relinquished. He waited until she had argued with him for a bit, then given up and taken his place. He covered her with her own cloak, then smoothed the hair back from her face. “I’ll go chop wood or find something to trade for another meal or two and a bit more secrecy.”
She looked up at him seriously. “The farmer has magic.”
“Does he?” Ruith asked in surprise. “How do you know?”
“He hid us.”
“From prying eyes wanting a look at the lovely daughter of the witchwoman Seleg?” he asked with a smile.
“From my brother.”
Ruith felt a little winded. He trailed his fingers through the hair at her temple a time or two, but his hand trembled as he did so, so he stopped. “Indeed.”
“He’s on his way to the keep at Ceangail,” she said, looking at him seriously. “I only know because I heard him ask the farmer for directions. I’m assuming he didn’t find what he needed at that well.”
Ruith shook his head. “I imagine we would likely know of it otherwise.”
She put her hand over her mouth and yawned suddenly. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure I can stay awake much longer.”
“How long has it been from the well?” he asked.
“Six days. Three to get here, then three secluded here in luxury.”
“I owe you a fortnight at a palace,” he said, with feeling.
She smiled and turned toward him, her eyes already closed. “Where you can see to the garrison and I can join the weaver’s guild. At least there we might have a decent place to sleep, though, so I accept. Though this is a very ... comfortable ...”
He didn’t imagine she would finish that thought anytime soon. He waited until she was well and truly asleep, then he collected the knives that went down his boots. There was no sense in terrifying the farmer with anything else, thou
gh if the man had magic, perhaps he was less disposed to being intimidated than others of his ilk.
Ruith didn’t think he wanted to know what sort of magic the man possessed.
Six hours later, he had chopped a month’s worth of wood and rid himself of his lingering malaise. He happily accepted a basket with things that gave off steam and smelled quite edible, then walked back to the stall, ducked under the spell of un-noticing the man had used, an eminently functional and sturdy spell of Wexham, and set his burdens down. He spelled the lamp in the corner into lighting without thinking about it, only then realizing that he hadn’t managed to rebury all his magic. Again.
He was beginning to think that hadn’t been an accident.
He stood there, wrestling with himself for quite some time. He knew what needed to be done. It should have been a burden to him, that magic in his veins, and getting rid of it a blessing.
He shook his head sharply. He couldn’t go any further down that path. If nothing else, his actions in the glade had proven that to him. He was a man in full control of his passions, but he was also Gair of Ceangail’s son. Whatever magic he might have inherited from his mother was also tainted with his father’s. He leaned back against the stall as again the vision of that river of Fadaire he’d stood in washed over him. Beautiful, almost too beautiful, but running through banks that were corrupted with Olc and Lugham and a half dozen other ugly things his father had been master of.
Perhaps he could have ignored all of that and hoped that he could have overcome his father’s legacy, but the absolute rage that had rushed through him in the glade proved that even thinking about it was foolhardy. Better to leave the possibility as something merely to be speculated on when he was in front of his fire with his feet up.
But one more thing first.
He knelt down next to Sarah, sleeping so peacefully, and took her right hand lightly in both his own. He held his breath until he was certain she was still sleeping deeply, then with great care worked on her arm. There were many spells for healing, but the most efficacious were those of Camanaë. He had not only the right to use them, because of his grandmother, but the power to constrain them to work where others might not. Even with only a fraction of his power to hand, they came easily to his tongue and did his bidding without hesitation. He took away the swelling, repaired the damaged tissues, then removed the source of the pain.