Dark Lady_s Chosen cotn-4

by Gail Z. Martin

  Carina looked at Taru. "Yes, I do. The Flow has been reaching out to me to heal it. The way the magic is failing, it's got to be affecting Tris and the war in Margolan. If he can't win against Jared's loyalists, Kiara and their baby will never be safe. Isencroft won't be safe- and neither will Cam and Donelan. I've lost Jonmarc. I won't lose the rest of them-not when I might be able to do something about it." "You don't know that Jonmarc is lost." "He's not coming back."

  Taru came to sit beside her. "I know you saw men swear Istra's Bargain when you were with the mercs. And a vow to the Goddess is always binding. But did you ever consider this-it's up to the Goddess when she claims his soul?" "What do you mean?"

  "Time doesn't work the same way for immortals the way it does for humans. A day, a year, a decade--a lifetime-when you don't have a lifespan, they stop holding any meaning." Taru met her eyes. "If the Goddess accepts Jonmarc's vow, all it means is that he's sworn his soul to Her. She's not obligated to take it until She pleases. You said that Gabriel called Jonmarc the Lady's

  Chosen. What if he was right? Does the Goddess really need a champion to swat down a vayash moru who's barely a century old?" Taru shook her head. "He's sworn fealty to Her, much like he made a vow to Staden when he received the title to Dark Haven. I wouldn't count Jonmarc out of the game, Carina. Not yet."

  Carina looked at Taru and felt the first stirring of hope she'd felt since she found the ink and stylus in the chapel. "I hope you're right."

  Lisette came into the room to draw the draperies. Dawn was only minutes away. "You should eat before you rest," Lisette said, sounding motherly. "You'll need your strength for tomorrow night."

  Carina sighed. "I know. Raen came to remind me, just before Taru and I started talking." The ghost girl glimmered in the shadows, and Carina knew that the ghost had probably heard everything. Raen's spirit might be over two hundred years old, but in other ways, she was still a teenager.

  Carina steeled herself and took the glass of milk and blood Lisette offered her. Whenever her nerve began to fail her about stepping into the Flow, Carina just had to think about feeding like this and her determination returned. Lisette and Taru pretended not to see her grimace as she forced herself to swallow the awful mixture. Carina knew she would have to fight with herself for several minutes to keep from bringing it up-and having to drink another glass.

  The sounds of shouting in the distance nearly made Carina drop the empty glass. Out of reflex, she moved toward the window, but Taru stopped her. Making sure the others were far enough away to avoid being burned by the daylight, Taru slipped between the heavy draperies, letting them close over her to leave the room in shadow. "Sweet Chenne. I don't believe it." Taru moved carefully from behind the drapes to rejoin them. "Dark Haven is under attack."

  The rap at the door startled all of them. Lisette opened it, to find Neirin in the doorway. The grounds manager's worry was clear in his face. "Neirin, what's going on?" Carina asked. Neirin motioned for them to follow him. "Come quickly, m'lady. I want to get you and the others into the inner rooms where you'll be safest. I've already sent for Royster to be brought. Please hurry."

  "Who's out there? What's going on?" Carina didn't budge. "I'm not moving until you tell me who's attacking us. It can't be Malesh's brood. The sun's up."

  Neirin shook his head. "It's not. They're mortal. They want the vayash moru who've been given sanctuary here."

  Carina gasped. "Does Riqua know?"

  "I know." They turned to see Riqua in the hall. "It's because of Malesh they're here. Neirin and I have been seeing to the refugees all night."

  "Refugees?"

  Neirin winced. "I didn't want to bother you, m'lady. I know what a burden you're already carrying. The people you healed who held the vigil for you were afraid to return home. Since Kolin was attacked, we've had a steady stream of refugees coming to the back gate. We haven't had very many vayash moru-they seem to have taken sides and gone to fight. But their mortal kin are afraid. They've always been safe in Dark Haven. Now, they fear that their neighbors might come after them to draw out the vayash moru." Carina could hear the pain in Neirin's voice. "Vyrkin are coming, too. The females with young and those too old to fight." "Why?"

  Neirin's eyes were sad. "Because the same people who are attacking the vyrkin and burning out day crypts are going after the mortals who defend them. The night guard found five bodies, with the nooses still around their necks, dumped near the front gates. Someone had carved 'rethirnis' into their skin across their chests."

  "What does that mean?" Lisette said, and Carina could hear fear in her voice.

  Carina shivered. "I haven't heard that word in a long time." She looked up defiantly. "It means to betray your blood. Not just kingdom or family, but everything, your essence."

  Carina met Neirin's eyes. "Take me to the refugees."

  "M'lady, you need to save your strength," Neirin protested.

  "He's right Carina. If they need a healer, I can go. Rest." Taru stepped forward.

  A bitter smile twitched at Carina's lip. "As Jonmarc is fond of saying, I'll rest when I'm dead.

  I may not be able to heal, but I can serve. I'm part of the reason all this has happened. I can't rest, knowing that, without trying to help."

  "I'll keep working with Royster to make sure everything is ready for tomorrow night," Riqua said. "I need only a few candlemarks' rest."

  Carina and Taru followed Neirin downstairs. All the way down the stairs, the two healers listed off items they would need. Carina was expecting there to be a crowd like the ones that had come for healing before the attack at Westormere. She caught her breath as they reached the inner rooms that were protected from the daylight. The large, windowless common rooms were filled to capacity with people who had barely enough space to sit. In the torchlight, Carina saw that the majority of the crowd were women, children and elders. Most of them were wounded; how badly, she couldn't tell without a closer look. They sat quietly, as if they were too exhausted or too much in shock to do more than whisper. "It's like this in the courtyard and in the rooms where daylight reaches, m'lady," Neirin said quietly. "I don't know what we'll do if they keep coming. There's only so much room-and so much food."

  Carina nodded. "Inventory what we've got. Tell the cook to make the food stretch as far as she can. If it means we all eat gruel, then at least we all eat." She managed a lopsided grin. "Cam and I survived many a winter on gruel when the mercs were between jobs. Builds character."

  Neirin smiled. "You have a most colorful background for the lady of the manor." Carina chuckled. "Not nearly so much as the lord."

  Taru recruited two of the mortal chambermaids to help her in the outer rooms, while Carina and Lisette began to make the rounds of the inner rooms. The silence unnerved her. With so many people pressed together, Carina would have expected noise. Instead, the crowd was eerily quiet, as if so stunned to find themselves in hiding as to be beyond conversation. "Let's sort out the ones who'll need Taru's help from those we can fix up with some potions and bandages," Carina said, grateful that Lisette's experience in all the weeks of tending to the holding's sick and injured would make this task a little easier. "I know it's been dangerous and difficult for you to come here," Carina said, raising her voice. The people in the torch lit room looked up, and she looked out over their fearful faces. "We'll do our best to get you what you need. Right now, I want to find out who's injured. If you don't need a healer, come to the left side of the room." She waited while the people shuffled past each other in the crowded room to comply. Most of the room's occupants stayed where they were, making the uninjured the clear minority. "Lisette and I will take care of minor injuries. Sister Taru will handle the deep healing. Then we'll see about getting everyone fed."

  Carina knelt next to the first patient. A young man cradled a woman in her mid twenties. Her arm was wrapped with a strip of rags, and Carina could see the blood seeping through the cloth. "Please hurry," the young man said. "She's lost a lot of blood." Carina l
ooked up, and realized that the young man was vayash moru, and guessed that decades, not months, separated him in age from the woman in his arms. "She's my granddaughter," the vayash moru said, and as Carina looked at him more closely, she saw that the skin on his back was charred.

  "What's your name?" "Gwill."

  Carina and Lisette busied themselves tending to the deep gash on the woman's arm. Carina cleaned the wound and treated it with an herbal tincture that elicited a groan from the woman. "What happened?" Carina asked as she worked to close the wound and bind it to stop the bleeding.

  "My family's lived for generations in a small farming community," Gwill said. "Several of us who were vayash moru remained to help work the land. We've kept to ourselves and never bothered the neighboring farms. We feed from our own goats and mind our business. But yesterday, the raiders came before sunset, while I and the others were at rest. They came to burn our day crypts, and when our families tried to defend us, the raiders killed them." Gwill's grief was clear in his face, denied tears by the Dark Gift.

  Carina looked at the woman's arm. She guessed the deep slice had been made by a scythe or a harvesting knife. Farmers' weapons, but no less lethal than a sword or war axe. "They hoped to lure us out into the daylight, and when we heard the screams of our families, we came." Gwill shook his head. "There were only a few of us left. The rest went to fight for Lord Vahanian and Lord Gabriel. But we were afraid to leave the farms unguarded. We never meant to be their undoing."

  "How did you get away?" Carina had finished binding up the woman's arm, and she spooned a little of a bright green elixir into the woman's mouth.

  "They set a trap for us. As soon as we came out of our day crypts, the raiders set our village ablaze and waited for us with torches and flaming arrows. My brother and I are both vayash moru. He tried to hold back the raiders while I took the others into the caves for safety. As we reached the forest, I heard him scream. I saw him catch fire, as we ran into the forest." "How many did you take to the caves?"

  From Gwill's tortured expression, she knew that he believed his efforts to be a failure. "Six. But there had been thirty of us." "What happened to your back?"

  He grimaced. "Even the raiders don't dare pursue us by night. Down in the caves, there were a few others of our kind, also trying to help their families escape. And some of the vyrkin women with their pups. We moved through the caves to travel as safely as we could, knowing that one entrance comes up in the forest not far from the gates of Dark Haven." He gave a bitter laugh. "'Not far' depends on whether you can outrun the rising sun. There were raiders posted in the forest's edge, watching for us to seek sanctuary. They began to fire on us as we ran across the field toward the gates. The guards of Dark Haven tried to protect us, but even they couldn't hold back the sun." A flash of pain crossed his face. "We nearly made it before the first light. I'm lucky that the full rays didn't strike me, or I'd be cindered. I'm young in the Dark Gift. As it is, the early dawn burns." Carina looked to Lisette. "What can I do to help him?"

  Lisette shook her head. "He'll heal-in time. We heal more slowly when we're younger." "Is there something that will ease the pain?"

  "We don't heal the way mortals do. Herbs and poultices don't work the same." Lisette paused. "I've seen Laisren come back badly wounded, and he's never let me doctor him. But he's older in the Dark Gift."

  Carina made a mental note to see what Royster knew of vayash moru medicine. "I'll see what I can find," she said to Gwill. "And I'll make sure Taru checks on your granddaughter." Carina looked out across the room. Women and small children huddled together. An elderly man held an equally elderly woman in his arms, and Carina could see that they were both bleeding. Malesh doesn't need the vayash moru to do his killing for him. All he had to do was set us on each other.

  Midday, Lisette finally got Carina to stop and rest. They went into Dark Haven's pantry, one of the few rooms not overrun with refugees. Lisette gave Carina another glass of the noxious milk and blood mixture and watched as Carina choked it down. Carina was grateful for a few moments to sit down. "You're deep in thought, m'lady."

  Carina nodded. "Just thinking about Gwill." She looked at Lisette. "The vayash moru can survive injuries that would kill a mortal. I knew you healed quickly, but I didn't realize that there was still pain."

  Lisette looked away. "Aye."

  "Is it different from what you felt as a mortal?"

  Lisette did not meet her eyes. "No. All that differs is that we endure it. And that very little can be done about it, since neither potions nor whiskey blunt it."

  Carina remembered the charred skin on Gabriel's back the night Tris won back the throne from Jared, and the way Gabriel had taken the brunt of the glass shards that exploded across the room when the Orb shattered. He'd fetched her to heal Tris, never giving a hint that his own injuries were agonizing. Lisette seemed to guess her thoughts. "It's a matter of opinion whether ours is a gift or a curse," Lisette said. "The pain lessens as you grow more accustomed to bearing it."

  Carina thought of the scars that covered Jonmarc's body. Wounds heal, but not memory, she thought. She'd hoped to change that by becoming a mind healer, but now, time was rapidly running out. "We're only halfway through the room," she said, drawing a deep breath and rising. "And Neirin says there are more rooms full of refugees. Let's go." Two of the mortal servants came to offer them the opportunity to rest for a few candlemarks, but Carina declined. Neirin came to lead Carina into another of the inner rooms. Carina looked around with a combination of wonder and horror. The room's occupants appeared to be all vyrkin. Some were too badly injured to change back to human form without assistance, with blood matting their fur. Others appeared fully human, with only the violet eyes to give them away. As Neirin had warned her, most were females with suckling pups, or with children too young to fight.

  "I need more herbs, and some hot water for potions. Vyrkin are more like mortals-most of my poultices should work," Carina told Neirin. "And bandages. I need whatever Taru isn't going to use." "Understood, m'lady."

  Carina knelt next to a woman who had two small children in her lap. From what little Carina had learned about the vyrkin from Yestin and Eiria, she guessed the children were just barely old enough to shapeshift, but not old enough to hunt for themselves. "How long has it been since you've eaten?" Carina asked the woman.

  "Not since yesterday." The young mother's face was drawn. "There were five sets of mothers and pups hiding in the caves. Our mates left us there for safety when they went to

  Wolvenskorn, to answer Lord Gabriel's call. We had been taking turns hunting so that someone was always left to watch the pups-children. But yesterday, Cadi didn't return. Nia went to look for her, and she didn't come back, either." The woman swallowed hard. "A few candlemarks later, I ventured out. I was one of the best trackers of our group. Almost from the time I left the cave, I could smell blood. Vyrkin blood." She glanced down at her two small children. "Do you speak Margolense?" she asked abruptly. Carina nodded.

  The woman switched into Margolense from Common. "I found their bodies in the woods, m'lady. They had been butchered like animals, slaughtered and skinned and their heads taken for trophies. I know it was them. I could tell by their scent." She began to shake with grief. "Nia was my sister. Cadi was my brother's wife. We birthed our pups together. I swear, m'lady, neither we nor our mates ever harmed a mortal." Carina took her in her arms and held her as the woman began to sob. Her children pulled at her sleeves, too young to understand but aware that something was wrong. "I also recognized the scent of her hunters," the woman sobbed. "They were neighbors of ours. We lived beside them in peace for years. Never once did we steal any of their chickens or sheep. Never." She pulled back from Carina and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

  "We didn't know where else to come for shelter," she said raggedly, fighting for control. "My mate is cousin to Yestin. Yestin had told us of his trust in Lord Vahanian. We heard that Lord Vahanian went with Lord Gabriel to stop Uri's brood from
killing mortals. But I swear to you, m'lady, no vyrkin ever helped Uri or Malesh. So why do the mortals kill us?" Carina's heart ached as she reached out to comfort the little girl who clung fiercely to the woman's arm. "It's not all of the mortals," she said quietly. "Please believe me. Just like it's only a few of the vayash moru who've followed Malesh." Her words sounded hollow. Wars have started over less, between enemies equally mortal. First Jared burned the vayash moru. Now this. How much can anyone take, before they strike back? Carina met the woman's eyes. "I give you my word as Lady of the Manor. So long as the walls of Dark Haven stand, you and your children will be safe here." She managed a tired smile as she looked down at the two children. "Let me talk with the kitchen. We need to see about some meat and milk for all of you."

  Carina stood and stumbled. Elen, one of the servants, caught her, and Carina managed to steady herself. She could feel her knees buckle and Elen helped her out of the room and into a

  chair. Before Carina could stop her, Elen ran to bring Taru. "You've pushed yourself too far, Carina," Taru chided gently.

  "But there are so many of them. They're hungry and they're hurt and I can't even heal them the way I used to." Carina's voice showed her exhaustion and frustration. "I've already spoken to Neirin about special food for the vyrkin," Taru said. "And thanks to the healing you and Lisette did before you were injured, there are several of the servants who are handy with the basics of cleaning and binding up injuries. But there's no one who can step into the Flow except you."

  Reluctantly, Carina nodded. "Point taken." She looked up at Taru. "I'm running out of time. I know it. I want what's left to count." She thought she saw tears start in Taru's eyes. "Rest assured, Carina. What you're doing counts. For all of us."