Fall From the Moon (A Bánalfar Novel Book 1)

by CS Hale

  “What do you think he’s doing?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

  Erris shook his head. “No idea. If it was food he wanted, he’d go to the kitchen. If it was men, he’d have no need to see a farmer.”

  “Can we head back to the trees and see if he comes back this way?”

  “Sure.”

  Erris stayed low to the ground, keeping an eye to the farmhouse, and backed slowly toward the trees. Knowing he was watching our flank, I turned and crept toward the trees, scanning for signs of movement.

  We found a good-sized tree and crouched beside it. We didn’t have long to wait. A few minutes later, Heymond returned carrying something that resembled a cross between a watermelon and a pumpkin.

  “Oh,” Erris said. The blade of grass he’d been playing with snapped in two.

  “What?”

  Erris winced. He attempted to give me a smile but his pained expression merely twisted. “It looks like you’re moving on to stabbing.”

  Erris and I snuck back to the High, through the kitchens to snag him some of the sticky pilva-filled buns the cook had cooling, and then into the shadows of the lowest level. His heart wasn’t really in the game, and neither was mine, but at least Erris had an easier time seeing in the dark than I did.

  “You really can’t see that?” he asked me after I’d tripped over a barrel.

  “No.” I rubbed my aching knee, which I’d apparently skinned. Moisture of some kind clotted on my hand. “My moon is white, so it’s easier to see at night,” I groused as the throbbing pain spread.

  “The moon has a moon? Why can’t we see it?”

  My heart dropped into the depths of my stomach. Before I could formulate any kind of answer, decide to tell the truth or weave an elaborate lie, Heymond appeared at the head of the passageway with a torch. His face held no expression. I couldn’t tell if he’d heard our exchange.

  “I have a new task set up for you, my queen.” He nodded to Erris. “Back to your post.”

  I limped over to Heymond, shaking my leg to keep it from stiffening up. He glanced at the damp patch on my leggings. In the torchlight, I could see it was wet with clear lymph fluid and not blood.

  “You were easy to follow from the sounds,” Heymond said.

  “Well, apparently your eyes work better in the dark than mine,” I grumbled.

  A smile flickered on Heymond’s face. “Good to know. We should work on that handicap. But not today. I have a new project set up for you in the yard.”

  “And why would I work on stabbing?”

  There was no trace of surprise on Heymond’s face as I asked about a task I shouldn’t have known about. “Because that is the purpose of a blade.”

  The melon had been erected on a stool in the side yard where the knights usually practiced their swordplay. The yard was empty except for the melon, Heymond, and me. “We will begin to work off the surprise that comes from actually using a blade,” Heymond said.

  “I’ve used a blade. I’ve cooked. I can chop a mean salad.”

  Heymond’s eyebrows wrinkled, but he didn’t comment. He held a honed jaldun knife out to me, hilt first, his fingers wrapped around the blade. “The kinwah is somewhat like a body — squishy outside, hard surprise at the core.”

  “Squishy? That outside doesn’t look squishy.” Any more than the rind of a pumpkin looked squishy.

  Heymond rolled his eyes. “Imagine it’s a leather-clad person.

  “Oh. I get it. Leather then flesh then …” I broke off, imagining hitting —

  “Bone. Yes. And your blade can stick to bone.” I swallowed heavily as my task suddenly became real. “One blow generally won’t save your life. The hesitation that results from surprise can be your death. We’d like to keep you alive.”

  “There must be some threat,” I said. “All this training. You — Valemar — must have received some news of a threat.”

  Heymond was as impassive as always. “You’ll need to ask him about that.” He nodded toward the stool. “Take your place in front of the kinwah.”

  I gripped my knife and walked over, my right knee protesting with every step. “It’s not going to fight back,” I said as I took my place. The kinwah sat there like a large, dark green watermelon. Hi-yah! Yeah, right. This was going to be stupid.

  “Who says it’s not going to fight back?” There was laughter in Heymond’s voice, and I heard his footsteps behind me. He moved behind the kinwah with a blunted blade in his hand.

  “You’re going to be the melon?’ An expert, sword-wielding melon that was sure to leave me bruised.

  “Melon? If you mean ‘opponent,’ then yes.” There was a satisfied smile on Heymond’s face.

  “Great,” I muttered.

  “Your opponent will most likely be armed with a sword. Your job is to get underneath and stab him.”

  I heard a barking laugh and then realized it was me. “Get underneath your sword. Me?”

  “Will the Cordair send a less qualified man?”

  “Aha!” I pointed my knife at him. “So you have received threats from the Cordair.”

  Heymond twirled his sword. “You have known that they want you since that first day. It’s why you agreed to marry Valemar. That information is nothing new.”

  “Then why act like it is?”

  Heymond kept his eyes on my knife and continued to twirl his sword. “Are you willing to save your life, my queen?”

  I sighed. “Yes.” But I didn’t know how much bruising it would take.

  Quite a lot, it turned out. Even though I could feel Heymond pull back at the last second and even though he was hampered by the stool and the kinwah target it held, I still felt the sting of Heymond’s blade a lot. Out of sheer frustration, I began to whack at anything I could reach — Heymond’s arms, the legs of the stool.

  “Better, my queen. Work your way to the flesh,” Heymond told me after I’d dived under his arm and swung at the legs of the stool. “A leg injury will slow down an opponent, but you need to follow it up with a mortal wound.”

  “Right,” I grumbled, and shook out my stiffening limbs. If Heymond wanted follow up, I was going to give it to him this time.

  I shifted the blade to my left hand. Heymond’s eyebrows rose. I sank down into my stance and watched him.

  “What do you think you’re going to do?” he said, taunting me. “Use your left hand? You’re just making it easier for me.”

  “Try me,” I said, my voice barely even a whisper.

  Heymond smirked. “Come and get me, little girl.”

  I darted toward him. Heymond’s blade came down toward me, but I turned, narrowing my profile, and put all my force into my shoulder. Had I a steel glove, I would have grabbed his blade. I rolled, smacking into the legs of the stool, then launched myself upward. Heymond uttered an “oof” as the stool, the kinwah, and I landed on top of him. My right arm came up under his, blocking his sword. With the left, I plunged the knife deep into the kinwah. Firm then squish then jarring halt as the blade sank into the stone at the center of the massive fruit. The knife hilt slammed into the bones of my hand, sending rivers of shooting pain through it.

  “Don’t let go,” Heymond wheezed from underneath me as I made incoherent noises of pain. “Whatever you do, don’t let go. Pull it out and ready for another strike.”

  I did as I was told though very inch of me now ached. “Are you okay?” I asked. “You didn’t break a rib or anything?”

  Heymond gave me a lopsided smile. “No. I’m sure to feel it tomorrow, but I did ask for it.”

  I scrambled to my feet. Heymond pushed the stool and the melon aside. “Now you know the knife is going to stick, especially if you hit bone. Don’t trust a single thrust. Yank it out and stab again.” He got to his feet, his sword ringing as it slid against the cobblestones of the yard. “And don’t forget to listen. An assassin often works alone, but not always.”

  “Assassin?” My knees sagged.

  “Assassin. Invading army. Should you
be confronted by someone wishing to do you harm, you need to be prepared to fight and flee. Not necessarily in that order.”

  Heymond nodded toward the castle. “That’s enough for today. You did well, my queen. You’re sure to be sore, but you did well.”

  I held my knife out to Heymond, hilt first. “Thank you.” It was an automatic response, for my mind was stuck in a loop, playing Heymond’s words over and over. An assassin often works alone. I swallowed heavily. They must have received news of a credible threat to my life.

  Heymond certainly wasn’t going to tell me. I was going to have to ask the one person who possibly would.

  DARIA HAD A bath waiting when I returned to my room. I moaned when she had me raise my arms so she could pull the tunic over my head. Her eyes widened as it came off. Red patches that were already turning black and blue colored my arms like spots on a Dalmatian. Even my ribs had blossoming patches of blue. She gently pulled at the crusted patch on my knee, but I still hissed as the thick leggings came away, taking the start of the scab with them.

  “We’ll get you into the water, and I’ll go for some salve,” Daria said. “The massage and ointment will help the bruises heal faster.”

  I nodded and held onto the rim of the tub as Daria helped guide me in. I sank down into the warm water and rested my head against the back, only moving to allow her to undo the braid against my scalp. She let the ends of my hair drop into the water and massaged the back of my head.

  “Just rest. I’ll be back soon.”

  Daria swirled a cupful of bath salts into the water and then left me. I closed my eyes and drifted. A few minutes later, the door opened. But the footfall was heavier than Daria’s.

  With Heymond’s warning still fresh in my mind, I sat up, splashing water over the rim as I prepared to flee. But it was only Valemar. In his hands was a jar of salve.

  “I thought I’d come inspect the damage.”

  I eased my grip on the edge of the tub and sank back again. “Well, it was done on your instructions,” I said, and closed my eyes. I placed my arms along the rim, the better for Valemar to see the bruises.

  He sat down on the stool next to the tub and placed the jar at his feet. Gently, he lifted one arm, raised it high, slowly turned it, fingered a spot here then there, then placed it back on the rim before repeating the process with the other arm. I kept my eyes closed while Valemar worked at his task, shutting out, at least for a little while, the marks and the reason they were there. Once he was done, Valemar held my hand, running his thumb along the back of it.

  “You would have lost your arms.”

  I snorted. “That would have been the least of my worries. Or rather, the last of them. I would have bled out and then there’d have been nothing to worry about.” I cracked an eye open. “So why the training? All that time in Aedenfal, just hours away from Rock Dorach, and nothing. Yet now that I’m days beyond the reach of the Cordair, you decide that I need to know how to defend myself.”

  “Let’s get you out,” Valemar said. “I’ll dress your bruises.”

  Valemar took the towel from its place by the tub and held it open for me. I stood up, waited for the water to stop cascading from my body, then used Valemar’s arm to steady myself as I stepped out. Valemar came around behind me and wrapped the towel around me. He lingered a moment, then bent and picked up the salve and drew me over to the bed.

  Valemar took the lid off the pot. A flowery, herbal smell drifted up from the creamy white ointment. I sat down on the edge of the bed and held out an arm. Valemar smeared a dollop on the first bruise and began massaging it in.

  “Why now?” I repeated.

  Valemar briefly met my eyes. “They think there’s something you can do — the Cordair and the strangers.” Valemar looked up again. “She has power she knows not, Shale has told me.”

  I mentally cursed the Mödatal. “So the Cordair believe the prophecy?”

  Valemar shook his head. “No, it’s more that you make the strangers nervous.”

  “Well, they’re not supposed to be here.”

  It could be that the Cordair had told them about the prophecy. Stupid Mödatal. She really would be the death of me.

  “And they fear you,” Valemar said.

  “It doesn’t help that everyone thinks I’m the answer to driving them away.”

  Valemar dipped his finger into the pot again and started work on another bruise. “And you still believe you can’t?”

  His fingers were gentle but the spots still smarted under his ministrations. “No,” I whispered.

  “And you don’t trust the Mödatal?”

  “I don’t believe in prophecies.”

  “Even though we found you exactly where she said you’d be?”

  I shivered. That was the piece that bothered me the most. How had she known? “I don’t know how it could be true.”

  Valemar’s fingers ran up and down my arm. A trail of goosebumps rose in their wake. “You do not know what you can do.” He stared at my bruises. Valemar turned my arm over. His gaze traveled up the inside of my arm, almost as if he were counting the number of times I’d blocked the blows.

  “Would you have thought you could wield a knife?” His eyes met mine.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Yet you defended yourself today.”

  I gave a small laugh. “You said I would have lost my arms.”

  “At first.” Valemar paused. “And then you nearly took out Heymond.” Pride shone in his eyes. Valemar dipped into the pot again and started on a new bruise. “You do not yet know what you are capable of.”

  He meant it as a compliment, but instead of filling me with hope, Valemar’s words filled me with dread.

  The next day, Valemar appeared in our room just as Daria finished braiding my hair. He, too, was dressed in the leather tunic and thick hose used for training.

  “You’re joining me?” I asked.

  “You might say that,” he said. “I thought I’d supervise today.”

  My mouth went dry. “Supervise or take me on?” I had no desire to fight for my life with Valemar. I had the feeling Heymond would go easier on me.

  “Supervise.”

  But there was something about the way he held himself, something in the tone of his voice, that told me today would be different.

  I wiped my now sweaty palms against my legs. “Thank you, Daria.” I tried to lift a smile but it kept sliding from my face. Daria’s eyes were as wide as my own.

  “I’ll have the water waiting for a bath when you return,” she said. Then she dipped her head and slipped from the room.

  I followed Valemar through the castle and out the back gate into the fields beyond. No one joined us. In a small clearing screened by a row of trees stood a pen that had to measure no more than six feet by six feet. An anapali traversed the small confines, anxiously peering through the rails.

  My feet became too heavy to move. “No.” Surely he couldn’t mean me to do what I feared he intended.

  Valemar took a blade from his belt. “There’s a natural reluctance to killing. Unless something or someone is twisted. Or a natural predator. You are neither of those things.”

  My weight shifted back, moving me away from the pen. Valemar took my arm.

  “Astrid, look at me.” But I couldn’t. My eyes wouldn’t leave the anapali pacing the pen, its ears flickering, knowing something was wrong. “It’s one thing to stab a kinwah, or even a carcass, but taking the life of a living thing … it’s hard at first.”

  I knew Valemar was right. My father had often taken me fishing as a girl. Not one time had I been able to take the fishhook out, let alone beat its head against a stone or the dock.

  The anapali bleated.

  “You need to do this,” Valemar said. “I can’t risk you hesitating.”

  My feet took two steps back. Valemar’s hand increased its grip on my arm.

  “Astrid.” Valemar drew me toward him. “Astrid.” Still I wouldn’t look at him.

/>   Valemar re-sheathed the knife and took my other arm. “Astrid.” He took my face in his hands and held it, waited until I finally met his eyes. “I would die if something happened to you. Do you hear me?” His face was filled with a fear I’d never seen before. “I can’t have you hesitate. I can’t have you wait. You need to do this.”

  “Fine.” I looked away, not wanting to see the relief that would fill him. “Fine.”

  Valemar drew the knife again and placed it in my hand. Somehow, I managed to make it to the pen. As I touched the rails, the anapali’s eyes widened in fear. It began to dance about, desperately seeking a way to escape.

  I climbed up and dropped inside. “You’ll need to chase it down,” Valemar said.

  I whirled around. “What?”

  “Chase it down.”

  My jaw dropped. “I thought you just wanted me to defend myself.”

  “I do. But if you’re running from Raislos or someone else, you’ll be tired. You need to be able to do this no matter how you shake, no matter how your heart hammers or your lungs won’t fill. You need to be able to take a life with your last bit of strength.”

  The back of my mind registered the logic behind his words, but it only added to my anger.

  “Fine!”

  I turned and faced the anapali. Built more like an alpaca though the size of a sheep, I knew I could take it down. If I could catch it.

  Around and around we went. It darted here. It darted there. It scrambled off the rails and kicked me in the chest. My breath came short and fast, just as Valemar said it would.

  He leaned against the rails and didn’t say a word. But I could hear him in my head. Take it down, Astrid. Finish him off, Astrid.

  I lunged at the animal and slashed at it with my knife. It screamed as the blade connected. The anapali darted away, blood flowing from the wound. Again, I danced toward it, arms wide, and attempted to crowd it into a corner. Terrified, it leapt back, hit the rails, and tried to jump over me.

  I threw my arms around it, and we both fell to the ground. Its screaming bleats filled the air as I stabbed at it again and again. “Cut its throat,” Valemar shouted. “It can get away, it can hurt you, until you cut its throat. Heymond injured you yesterday and your rage allowed you to take him down. Don’t give that advantage to an opponent.”