The pain filled him. Eraeth hadn’t had time to be gentle. What had been isolated to Colin’s chest now pummeled his entire body. He gagged as fresh blood filled his mouth again, spat to one side, the yellowed blackness of his vision closing in entirely. He hung on to consciousness long enough to feel the breeze as they exited the tent, long enough to hear the horns being sounded, the drums pounding, calling the dwarren to battle. He hung on long enough to feel Eraeth’s dash away from the tent toward the safety of the Alvritshai army juddering through his body, his free arm flailing, the other trapped between his body and Eraeth’s chest. He hung on long enough to listen to Eraeth’s blistering curses.
And then all sensation faded—all sight and sound, the smell of Eraeth’s sweat, the silky texture of his bloodstained shirt where it pressed against his face.
All of that died, and the darkness closed in.
Eraeth didn’t stop running after leaving the tent. He didn’t pause to throw Colin’s sagging body over the back of a horse, didn’t even halt when Thaedoren shouted, “The Tamaell is dead! Sound the horns! Sound them for battle!” the Tamaell Presumptive— the Tamaell now—swinging up into his saddle. Appalled gasps ran through the Phalanx who had waited outside the tents as the Tamaell’s body was dragged into view, but Eraeth ignored it all, ignored the mournful blare of the horns as the entire group mounted, horses whickering and dancing as they picked up on the escalating tension. He locked his gaze on the line of the Alvritshai army in the distance and ran.
Drums began to pound to his right, ragged at first, then slipping into a steady, inexorable rhythm. He heard the thunder of gaezels charging across the grassland and ground his teeth together. To his left, a battle cry erupted from the waiting Legion, and he risked a glance to the side, saw the King’s entourage galloping toward the human lines, flags already flashing, the men there mobilizing.
And then Thaedoren’s escort charged past him, dirt thrown by their passage pattering against his legs. The Tamaell’s body bounced on the back of an unmanned horse being led by the Phalanx, and Lord Khalaek had been lashed to his own horse, the Tamaell’s men surrounding him. Khalaek rode with an arrogant pride, back rigid, shoulders set, but with a wild look in his eyes.
“Moiran!” Aeren shouted as he passed, motioning toward Colin. “Take him to Moiran!”
Eraeth nodded and slowed, Colin’s weight beginning to wear him down, the adrenaline rush fading, the pounding of his heart lessening. Thaedoren reached the Alvritshai army, and an instant later the White Phalanx roared in outrage, the sound spreading outward in a wave as word of what had happened in the tent spread to the other House Phalanx, a gasp of shock at the Tamaell’s death, followed by a roar of escalating rage. The Tamaell Presumptive was surrounded by the Lords of the Evant. At a sharp, dismissive gesture from Thaedoren the escort surrounding Khalaek jerked the lord’s horse toward the camp, Khalaek rocking in the saddle. The horse carrying Fedorem’s body followed, both heading back toward the camp beyond the ridge.
And then Thaedoren turned to face the field. He took a moment to survey the two other armies, his gaze flickering left and right . . . and then he began issuing orders.
Eraeth entered the edge of the army as the first horns began to blow, each a different tenor, each with a different pattern as the orders were spread. He fought through the ranks as the men of the Phalanx began to move, Colin’s legs catching on one guardsman until Eraeth turned sideways. He stumbled down the back of the ridge as the army broke away into the flat beyond and nearly collapsed, but he caught himself, hitching Colin’s body into a higher position in his arms. His muscles ached, but he staggered forward, passing through the tents, past servants and Phalanx warriors scrambling to prepare, the reserve already assembling near the front of the camp.
And then he was there, at the Tamaea’s tents.
He shoved through the interior tent flap and stood, breath coming in gasps, to find the Tamaea leaning over the Tamaell’s body. Tears streaked her face, although she was not sobbing. Her hands were adjusting the Tamaell’s shirt, tugging it back into place, unmindful of the blood that stained her fingers, but the motions were abstract, fumbling, her hands shaking slightly. The Phalanx who had brought the body stood to either side, backs to the tent walls, shifting uncomfortably.
Moiran finally seemed to realize that her ministrations were useless. Her hands paused, hovering over Fedorem’s body . . . and then they dropped into her lap. Blood from her fingers smudged her dress in brushlike patterns, but Moiran didn’t notice.
“Oh, Fedorem,” she murmured, her voice hoarse, thick with phlegm.
She sensed Eraeth’s presence and glanced to the side.
Eraeth flinched at the stricken look in her eyes. But even as he did so, the blankness faded as Moiran focused on what Eraeth carried. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pressed into a thin line.
“Lord Aeren told me to bring him to you, Tamaea,” Eraeth said.
Moiran hesitated, her body trembling. Then her stooped shoulders straightened. She glanced down at Fedorem and smiled bitterly, painfully. “There’s nothing I can do for you.” She leaned forward and kissed Fedorem’s forehead. As she straightened, she wiped fresh tears from her face, leaving a smear of Fedorem’s blood behind.
Then she stood, her eyes hardening. “Not here. The next room. We’ll leave my husband to Aielan’s Light in peace.”
Eraeth didn’t argue, even though his arms were straining to hold Colin’s body aloft. He followed Moiran into the next room, where she began moving chairs and blankets and a platter of fruit aside to clear room around a low table. “Set him here.”
As Eraeth laid Colin down on the table, the Tamaea snapped to the two guardsmen who’d followed them, “Get me fresh linen and a bowl of warm water, and fetch one of the healers.”
One of the guards dashed out of the tent, but Moiran didn’t wait for him to return. She knelt down beside Colin, checked his eyes, felt for his pulse. “What happened?”
“He saved Lord Aeren,” Eraeth said, but he hesitated. “Or that’s how it appeared. It was hard to tell. It happened too fast to follow.”
Moiran nodded, her hands moving over Colin’s body, searching for more wounds, for bruising, for broken bones. She frowned as she came across a cut along his upper arm, at another, deeper slash along his side, but in the end, her gaze returned to the handle of the knife protruding from the right side of Colin’s chest.
They both looked up as horns sounded in the distance, followed by the clash of weapons.
Moiran winced but turned back to face Eraeth. “And Fedorem?” Eraeth shifted uncomfortably. “One of the Wraiths.”
“And Khalaek? Why was Khalaek brought back under guard?” Eraeth thought back to the tent, to when Colin had reached out and grabbed both Aeren and Thaedoren, had told them not to move, not to speak . . . and then all three had vanished.
He didn’t know where they’d gone, had barely had time to react before they’d returned, Thaedoren already leaping over Colin’s prone figure, face contorted in rage, heading toward Khalaek, the Lord of the Evant inexplicably stumbling backward, as if he’d been thrust away by someone, although no one was there.
He’d been facing away from the fight with the Legion, when a second before he’d been fighting alongside his own Phalanx.
“I’m not certain,” Eraeth said. “But I think Lord Khalaek helped the Wraith kill the Tamaell.” He looked down at Colin, the human barely breathing. “I think Colin stopped the Wraith from killing the Tamaell Presumptive and showed Thaedoren that Khalaek and the Wraith were allied in some way.”
Moiran’s face lightened at the mention of Thaedoren. “Then Thaedoren is safe?”
When Eraeth nodded, she sighed in relief. But within moments, her eyes darkened again, with hatred. “Khalaek will be dealt with,” she said flatly, and Eraeth found himself stiffening at her tone.
The healer arrived, carrying bandages. “Tamaea, the White Phalanx said—”
He halted, suck
ing in a deep breath as he caught sight of Colin, of the blood, the knife jutting from his chest. “Aielan’s merciful Light,” he whispered.
Then he shook himself, face turning serious. He shoved Eraeth aside, moving into position on the opposite side of the table from the Tamaea, motioning the guardsman who’d returned with him to bring the bowl of water he carried closer. After a quick survey of Colin’s body, similar to what Moiran had done, he sat back.
“I don’t think he’ll survive. The knife wound . . .” he shook his head. “If he were Alvritshai, it would be a mortal wound. The damage on impact was extensive, but he appears to have been jostled around. The blade has moved, causing more extensive damage to the surrounding areas. He should be dead already.”
Moiran sat back. “He’s still breathing.”
“And he shouldn’t be. I don’t understand it.”
Eraeth edged forward, caught their attention. “He’s not Alvritshai.”
“Even for a human—” the healer began, but Eraeth cut him off.
“He’s not human either.” At the perplexed look on the healer’s face, Eraeth turned toward Moiran. “In the tent, after being struck, he kept repeating, ‘I can’t die, I can’t die.’ He didn’t pass out until after we’d left the tent. He’s been touched by the sarenavriell.”
They sat in silence a long moment, Colin between them, his chest rising and falling, slower than normal, but still moving.
“Take it out,” Moiran said. When the healer began to protest, she insisted, “Take it out! And if you have any of the water of the ruanavriell, use it on him. I don’t care how rare it is, or that he’s human.”
The healer shot her a black look, but he set about arranging his bandages, removing needle and gut and a small vial of the precious pink-tinged water of the ruanavriell. He wet a cloth in the bowl and passed it to Moiran, then ripped Colin’s shirt down the middle, exposing his chest. Moiran began wiping the blood clear, the cloth instantly stained a dark red. The skin beneath was a pasty white, bruised in a few places, and more blood seeped from the wound around the knife, sluggish and thick. She frowned but continued her work as the healer prepared.
The healer, gut threaded and in hand, hesitated, looking at the handle of the knife.
“What’s wrong?” Moiran asked. “Taking the knife out may kill him.”
“I thought you said he should already be dead,” Eraeth muttered.
The healer replied. “Twice over if you dragged him all the way here from the tent.”
Moiran snorted in disgust. But before she could say anything, Eraeth crouched down, grabbed the handle of the knife, and jerked it out of Colin’s body.
Colin spasmed, chest heaving upward, his eyes flying wide as he coughed up more blood while rocking over onto his side. His eyes caught Eraeth’s, held them for a moment. Eraeth couldn’t tell if the human was conscious, if he knew what Eraeth had done.
But the healer did. Cursing, he pushed Eraeth out of the way, rolled Colin onto his back once he stopped coughing, tilting his head to the side so the blood could drain, then turned back to the chest wound.
When he leaned forward, vial ready and needle poised, Moiran glaring as she fought the dark flow of heart’s blood, Eraeth nodded to the two Phalanx and stepped out into the tent’s corridor.
He stood for a long moment, hand clutching the bloody knife in one hand, trying to control the tremors caused by the thought of Colin’s death, the nausea that burned like acid in the back of his throat. He swallowed, steadied himself, then let his hand fall back to his side.
Moving to the front of the tent, he stepped out into the afternoon sunlight and stared up at the cloudless sky. Distantly, he heard the low rumble of fighting and he turned, his ear automatically picking out the direction of the disturbance.
The urge to ride into battle made his hands twitch. He crossed his arms over his chest to control them, forced himself to wait, even though he knew Aeren had ridden into battle with the Rhyssal House Phalanx.
Aeren had ordered him to take care of Colin. Not in so many words, but he knew his lord.
And Colin was Rhyssal-aein.
A short time later, Moiran emerged from the tent, wiping her hands free of blood with a wet cloth. She squinted into the sunlight and turned toward the sounds of battle.
After a long moment of silence, she said, “He’s still alive, although barely. The water of the ruanavriell—the Blood of Aielan— it helped to stanch the flow of blood, but the healer says Colin is still bleeding inside, that the damage there is . . . extensive. He’s sealed the wound, but he does not expect him to survive. The ruanavriell is not enough.”
“Colin was given into my care by Lord Aeren himself.”
She faced him, hands on her hips, her eyes intent. “I owe him a debt myself,” she said. “For Thaedoren’s life, if you are correct, as well as my own. There’s nothing more to be done here.”
Eraeth hesitated. The knife he’d drawn from Colin’s chest weighed heavily in his hand, the blood already drying.
“Go,” Moiran said, her voice gentle. “I will take care of him. You need to protect your lord.”
Eraeth handed Moiran Colin’s knife, pressing it into the soiled cloth she still held, even though she still wore the bloodstained dress and had a smear of dried blood on her cheek. “Return this,” he said, and then he dug into the pocket hidden in the folds of cloth of his shirt beneath the hardened leather of his armor and removed the cloth-wrapped vial Colin had given him on the plains, the vial that contained the Lifeblood.
He held it before him a long moment, staring at the clear liquid through the glass. He could see Colin’s pained expression, heated with anger, as he handed it over, still hunched in the grass from the seizure. Those seizures had decreased after that, until he’d begun returning to the forest to converse with the Faelehgre about the Wraiths and the sukrael.
The Lifeblood hurt him, but Eraeth knew it could save him as well.
“Take this,” he said gruffly, handing the vial to Moiran, catching her confused gaze and holding it. “If he asks for me, give this to him. But only if he asks.”
Moiran nodded.
And then Eraeth stepped away, letting his concern over Colin fall behind, resting it on Moiran’s shoulders. He motioned to one of the nearest Phalanx. “A horse! Now!”
Ten minutes later, he dug in his heels, the horse leaping forward, charging out of the camp and over the ridge, toward the battlefield below.
Aeren’s cattan met the Legionnaire’s blade with a clash, metal scraping against metal as it slid down toward the hilt. The grizzled, bearded man howled and jerked his blade away, thrusting Aeren’s cattan to the side, swinging wide. Sweat drenched the man’s face, droplets flung from his hair as he twisted, bringing his sword around for another strike—
But Aeren was quicker. His cattan sank into the break in the man’s armor beneath the armpit, in and out in the space of a breath.
The man’s roar choked off and he staggered backward, the momentum he’d built up for the swing faltering and dragging him off-balance. He tripped over the body of a fellow Legionnaire and went down, but Aeren barely saw him, spinning where he stood, searching for Thaedoren.
The Tamaell Presumptive was still astride his horse, surrounded by at least twenty members of the Phalanx, all from House Resue, and as Aeren’s gaze picked him out of the mass of men and Alvritshai fighting on the open battlefield before the Escarpment, the leader of House Resue and the Evant bellowed a challenge and charged toward the thickest group of Legionnaires, his mount plowing into the morass without hesitation. His Phalanx roared after him, cattans already bloody.
Aeren moved toward the group, his own escort—slightly scattered and dealing with the last of the men who’d hit them hard an hour before, as the three armies collided on the plains—falling in around him with a sharp order.
“What now?” Dharel asked, trotting alongside him. His face was dark, a trail of blood down one side of his neck from a cut near hi
s ear.
“Back to the Tamaell Presumptive’s side,” Aeren said. “That last wave spread us out too far. We need to regroup.” He didn’t mention the loss of his horse, cut from beneath him when the humans had first struck, their front line so overwhelming it had split their forces nearly in two. Thaedoren had divided the army into two fronts, had struck the field at the head of a vee, each side ready to face the two opposing forces, the left—consisting of Houses Nuant, Licaeta, and Baene—confronting the dwarren, the right—Houses Redlien, Ionaen, and Duvoraen—facing the Legion. After careful consideration, he’d ordered Lord Khalaek’s men to follow Khalaek’s caitan, not trusting Khalaek’s men to follow any other lord’s directions on the field. House loyalty was fierce, and most of Khalaek’s men were already grumbling over the seizure of their lord. Thaedoren then ordered Aeren to stay close, leaving Lords Jydell and Peloroun in charge of the southern flank.
The strongest Houses were facing the Legion. They were the greatest threat. The Legion were better trained, had better armor and longer reaches, and there were more of them. And the Legion had the greater conviction, the most hatred. Aeren could sense it on the field, had seen it in each of the men’s eyes as they attacked him. A good portion of the Legion here on the field were older. Old enough to remember the previous battle on this land, when the Alvritshai had turned on their allies and assassinated their King.
The memories of that battle crowded forward. Not the fighting, but the final stages of the attack, when they’d pressed the dwarren to the lip of the Escarpment . . . and then over.
The screams as they’d fallen—both dwarren and the higher, more piercing shrieks of the gaezels—haunted his dreams still.
“Look!”
Aeren slowed and spun, caught sight of Auvant, then turned to look in the direction his House guardsman had pointed.
The northern edge of the line, near where Lord Peloroun stood, had begun to crumble. Legion poured through the breaks.
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