by Janice Hardy
The yelling started. Jeatar slammed both palms on the table. “The fight is out there, not in here.”
“It has to be me,” I said, wishing it could be anyone else.
Aylin grabbed my hand. “Nya, no.”
“You’d need a Healer to survive long enough to do any good, and we need every Healer out of battle, healing. Besides, I’ll be able to flash and thin the ranks, giving our side an even bigger advantage.”
Jeatar frowned, but he had to know I was right. “They’ll be waiting for you.”
“I know.”
“You’ll need protection.”
I smiled. I guess Vyand got to earn her pay after all. “I have that covered.”
Jeatar frowned. “You’ll need more than Danello.”
“I’ll have a whole team at my disposal.” One that I didn’t mind risking one bit.
The pynvium armor still didn’t fit. The chest plate hung on my shoulders, heavy and awkward, thumping my ribs when I moved. Even padding it with extra shirts didn’t help much, though it did keep it from digging into my flesh. The bracers sat against the tops of my hands at the wrists, but at least they stayed on. The greaves were okay.
“Here.” Jeatar lifted a helmet that looked suspiciously like a reforged pot and shoved it over my head. He pulled a visor down across the top half of my face, covering my eyes. A thin slit let me see, but not well.
“I’ll trip over my own feet in this thing.”
“It’ll protect your eyes.”
A lucky shot could end this fight fast. I had to draw it out, scare the blue-boys badly enough that they called in everyone they had to stop me.
We had to succeed. Capture the League and we stood a chance of beating the Duke. Of healing Tali. Fail here and he’d burn us all to ash.
Dozens of people surrounded me, hundreds more behind me. Our army numbered in the thousands now, but nowhere near the numbers the Duke commanded. All these people around me and I still felt alone. Danello was with his father, part of the farmers’ attack. He hadn’t been too happy about that, and my guts said he suspected I was keeping him out of danger again.
“Nya, are you sure about this?” Jeatar said. I wasn’t sure where he’d be fighting, but Riendin had been pretty vocal about him staying off the front lines. Some of the resistance frowned on that, but others reminded them about what had happened to Ipstan. They needed to keep the people who knew what they were doing back where they could do it. “We can still use a decoy.”
“I’m sure. I don’t want to risk anyone else.”
“Except me and my team,” Vyand said. She’d arrived with the giant and silent Stewwig and a dozen men and women who looked like they could take on the blue-boys all on their own. Jeatar wasn’t pleased when he found out about her, but he agreed that there was a certain justice in her trying to keep me alive. I’d rather he hadn’t used trying though.
“You’re well armored and well trained. You’ll be fine,” Jeatar said, barely looking her way. She and the others all wore chain mail, their faces already sweaty though the sun hadn’t risen yet.
“This wasn’t what I had in mind when I accepted your offer.”
“You can always change your mind.”
She sneaked a glanced at Jeatar. “No, I’m up for the challenge.”
Ellis motioned me over. They were ready to go.
“Good luck,” Jeatar said.
“You too.” I turned to Vyand and her team. “Try not to get too close, unless you want to get caught in the flash.”
“Hard to protect you that way.”
“Harder to do it if you’re unconscious.”
“Very true.”
I started across the bridge, walking, not running. I’d lose my balance if I ran. Vyand came in behind me. The blue-boys watched us come, their swords glinting in the sun that had finally peeked over the horizon. One girl against an army.
They’d go after my arms if they were smart. Hold me down, keep me from touching the pynvium chest plate. They wouldn’t be fast enough, but they could reach me before I reached them, forcing me to flash before the bulk of the soldiers were in range.
A squad tried. They left the protection of the bridge barricade and stalked toward me, swords out, eyes hard. One small flash would take them out, but I couldn’t do one small flash. It would trigger the rest, waste the pain in the armor on four when I needed to take out four hundred.
Steps away, coming closer. Chain on their bodies, smirks on their faces.
Almost in range.
Shadows flickered across the stone, like birds flying overhead. Several of our spears whizzed past and sank into the blue-boys’ chests. More whizzed past, hitting two others and sending the last few running for the far side of the bridge.
Shouts from the blue-boys, some in pain as the poison flowed through their bodies, others in fear when they realized what had happened.
I wasn’t the only thing to fear today.
The blue-boys fidgeted, as if eager to race out and tackle me, but the threat of the poisoned spears kept them back. Unsteady feet or not, it was time to hurry. Close the distance and flash them all. Scare them, force them to call for reinforcements and make the other bridges easier to capture.
I hugged myself, holding down the chest plate and keeping my hands against the pynvium.
“Now!”
I charged into the battle, shoulders braced, head tucked. Swords clanged off my armor but didn’t get through. Bodies slammed against me, knocking me off-balance, but hands steadied me. A body jumped between me and the blue-boys like a wall.
Stewwig.
He moved forward, sword swinging, silent as ever. But he cut through the soldiers like he was harvesting grain, clearing a path deeper into the blue-boys’ defense. I stayed in his wake, my hands twitching to flash the armor and get it over with.
Something heavy smacked against my helmet and my head spun. I grabbed Stewwig’s back and stopped my swaying, looked for the threat, but it was impossible to see much through the visor’s small slit. Soldiers in blue battled soldiers in brown leather. Blue-boys twitched on the ground, victims of the poison. Vyand’s team fought all around me, holding back the tide of pain.
They were good. They were very good.
I was deep enough. “Get back!”
“Do it now,” Vyand yelled.
“You’re too close.”
“Do it anyway!”
I pictured dandelions.
WHOOMP whoomp WHOOMP whoomp whoomp
Pain flashed against my skin. Soldiers screamed, Vyand and Stewwig fell. For several breaths the street quieted, a lull in the storm. Then horns blared and men shouted, but farther away. Calling for reinforcements.
It was what we wanted, but I trembled anyway.
I knelt and grabbed Vyand’s cheek, one of the few spots of exposed skin. Drew.
“It worked,” I said after she snorted awake. “They called for help.”
“Good. Nya, move!”
She shoved me, but something hit me and dragged me down. Not a body—a net! I slammed into the street, crushing my fingers between stone and pynvium. Vyand grabbed the net, but a man in blue tackled her, knocking her away.
I tried to get up, but the net tangled in the armor, caught on the straps and buckles. The armor’s weight made it hard to move and the net even harder.
Another horn blew and the ground shook.
I curled into a ball, bracing myself for the stabs and strikes that couldn’t be far away. The reinforcements were coming. No one saw me lying on the street, or no one cared, and soldiers trampled me. The straps of the armor broke and the protection skittered away, kicked by running feet. My bones cracked. Broke. Pain flared, and the soldiers kept coming.
Just like we’d planned.
Protect me, Saint Saea, please.
There was nothing else I could do.
TWENTY-TWO
The river of feet eventually subsided. I’d have sighed in relief, but my ribs hurt too much to take more
than a shallow breath. I still wore the helmet and chest piece, but the bracers and greaves were gone. The net bunched around my visor, and all I could see were bodies and blood on the warm brick street.
“Nya!”
Danello, but he sounded far away. And scared.
“Here,” I rasped, but it couldn’t have been loud enough to reach him. I rolled and fresh pain shot through me. I cried out, louder than my call for help.
“It’s her!”
Not someone scared—or friendly. My mind screamed at me to move, but my body couldn’t listen. Feet stomped closer, then metal against metal.
I squeezed my eyes shut, braced for more pain. None came. Fighting above me, near me, the quick swish of rapiers cutting through the air.
Someone tugged on my hands, my legs. I whimpered, suddenly alert. Had I blacked out? I couldn’t focus, couldn’t stay awake.
“Hold on, Nya,” Danello said. “Help’s coming.”
“Nya needs a Healer over here,” Ellis shouted. “Don’t move her. Don’t do anything until the Healer gets here.”
The world swam past me, shadows moving, people talking. The helmet slid off my head. An older man stopped and knelt beside me and put his hands on my forehead. The pain in my chest eased, though my limbs still hurt.
“That’ll hold her until you get her back to base.”
“Thank you,” Danello said.
“I gotta get moving. They’ve broken through the League’s front lines. Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Good luck!”
Scraps of information came to me as Danello and someone I couldn’t see carried me through the streets to the resistance’s small infirmary. The soldiers had fallen for the ruse. The battle was still going on, but not here. They’d taken both Upper and Lower Grand Isles and were closing on the League.
Jeatar did it.
The sunshine on my face vanished, and a door thunked closed. My stretcher was lowered to the floor. I gritted my teeth while Danello and the other person lifted me onto a cot.
“Saints, what happened to her?” Lanelle sounded worried.
“She was trampled. Help me get the chest piece off her.”
“No, leave it until I get those bones healed. It’ll hurt her too much.”
Lanelle pulled over a stool and sat beside me. I tried not to think about the last time she’d stood over me while I was in pain. Telling me to sleep, doing nothing to ease my suffering, same as she had to the others.
She’s here to help this time; give her a chance.
Tingling fire surged through my bones, part from the healing, part from the pain as Lanelle set my broken legs and arms. I screamed my throat raw and she healed that too. The heat and pain faded and I sank onto the cot, weak as a duckling.
I opened my eyes.
Danello and Aylin stood by the bed, dirty and worn, but alive. Framed paintings hung on the wall behind them. Wherever I was, it wasn’t the infirmary. A nice room, even without windows. Light glowed in elegant glass lamps. Soft mattress. Thick pillows. Familiar, even.
“Did we win?”
“We won,” Danello said softly. Yellow bruises covered half his face. “You’re in the League and safe. The distraction worked even better than we’d hoped. We got past the bridges and took the League itself with minimal resistance. There’s still patches of fighting, but the League is secure.”
“Thank the Saints.” I took a tentative breath, but the pain was gone. Lanelle really did know what she was doing. “You look awful.”
He chuckled. “You look beautiful.”
“Liar.”
“You’re alive. That’s enough for me.”
“Where’s Tali?”
Aylin stepped aside. Tali sat on a chair, playing with the braided silver cords that marked a League apprentice. The last of the tightness in my chest loosened.
“Ellis found Ginkev and a bunch of other Healers upstairs,” Danello said, taking my hand. “They were hiding in one of the classrooms. Barricaded the door and everything.”
“Took her twenty minutes to convince him to let her in.” Aylin chuckled. “She was about to knock the door down.”
I swung my legs over the end of the bed. “Where is he? Does he know about Tali? Has anyone spoken to him yet?”
“He’s in the ward, and you need to stay here.” Danello put both hands on my shoulders and pushed me back. “Want me to go see if he’s free?”
“Would you? But only if no one else needs healing.”
“Of course.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead before leaving. People were hurrying past the door, most of them still in armor.
“You know,” Aylin began, “he was running all over the place looking for you. There were reports you’d gotten hurt, but with all the bodies out there, they couldn’t find you. He fought off four soldiers to protect you.”
“He did?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah.”
“But he could have gotten hurt—or killed.”
“Let him be the hero once in a while, huh? You’re not an easy girl to live up to.”
I grinned. He wasn’t going to let me keep him in the back after this. But maybe he’d stay close to the League. Surely we’d need lots of soldiers to protect it.
A soft knock at the door, and Aylin rose and answered it. She stepped aside and Jeatar walked in, still wearing his armor. Dirt and blood smeared his face, and I spotted several gashes he really should have had healed.
“I hear we won.”
“We did, but it cost us.”
I was afraid to ask how much. “Is Ellis okay? And Kione?”
“They’re fine. You didn’t lose any more friends. Not even Vyand, though it was close there. She might cancel her arrangement with you.”
“You can have her then.” She’d be happier protecting him anyway.
“I have enough people watching my back.” Jeatar ran a hand through his hair, scratching at the back. “We received some bad news. One of the scouts I left upriver sent me a message that the Duke is two days out.”
The tightness in my chest came back. “Two days? Do we have enough time to prepare?”
“We’ll do what we can. Onderaan’s already got the forge stoked. We’ll need healing bricks for sure, pynvium weapons.”
“Did he find anything valuable in the forge?” Doubtful, but something could have been left behind.
“Nothing but barrels of blue sand. We were lucky they didn’t think to break apart the forge.”
“Can we still win?” Aylin asked.
“I don’t know yet. We lost a lot getting this far, but morale is good. I’ve called a strategy meeting in an hour, and you’re welcome to attend. I understand if you need to rest.”
“No, I’ll be there. Where is it?”
“Danello knows.” He paused, his gaze traveling over the scars on my arms. For a moment, I thought he might say more, but the contemplative look vanished and he nodded. “See you in an hour.”
Ginkev arrived not long after Jeatar left. He’d been Tali’s Heal Master, in charge of teaching the apprentices at the League. He was just as short and bald as he was the day he’d taught me how to spot bleeds. Back then he’d had no idea I wasn’t a real apprentice, or that I was at the League to sneak upstairs and rescue Tali. He’d been tough but nice. Even tried to keep me out of the spire room and away from Vinnot’s experiments.
“Can you help her?” I asked after telling him everything that had been done to Tali. I’d tried to explain what Onderaan had said about the damage to the brain, but I wasn’t sure I’d gotten it right.
“Won’t know until I look.” He walked over to Tali, a smile on his face. She tensed, but there was recognition in her eyes. My heart soared.
Ginkev reached out a hand. She flinched away.
“It’s okay, Tali,” I said, going to her. I took his hand and placed it on my forehead. “See? It won’t hurt.”
He reached out again and she held still. “Saea’s mercy, who did this to her?”
“The Duke. Vinnot. Zertanik. Maybe all of them together.”
He tsked and shook his head.
“Can you fix her?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen such brutality before, not to a brain. Bones, muscles—seen those shredded many a time. But this?” He shook his head again. “Just criminal.”
“I wonder if she’s the only one,” Aylin said softly. “There have to be more, right? Not everyone wanted to join the Undying.”
I hadn’t thought of that, but there probably were more. Trapped in the armor and in their own minds. Forced to become something so awful, they closed out the rest of the world.
“I know she’s still in there, Master Ginkev,” I said. “Please find her and bring her back.”
Ginkev sighed and put his hand on her forehead again. “I’ll do everything I can.”
An hour later, I left Tali with Ginkev and headed to Jeatar’s meeting. Danello led us to one of the classrooms on the second floor. The same officer group as before sat around a table with maps again, but this time Balju was there.
“The Duke will be here in two days,” Jeatar said after we took our seats. People gasped. I guess he hadn’t told anyone else about his message. “He’s been marching his troops along the river, but he’ll have to load them all onto the transport ships once he arrives at the delta. The fireboats will most likely reach us first, and we can expect the transport ships to start ferrying troops over not long after.”
“How many are there?”
Jeatar looked grim. “Fifteen thousand men. Five transport ships, plus smaller skiffs, scouts, and of course fireboats. Where are we with the fire crews?”
“Ready to go where needed,” said a woman I didn’t know. “We found seven water pumps, and we’ll have them placed around the city by midday. We’ll start soaking buildings so the wood’s good and wet. Won’t protect them if they get a direct hit, but it should help keep the flames contained until the fire crews can get there to douse them again.”
Seven water pumps wouldn’t be able to cover all the isles. But hopefully our boats would be able to stop the fireboats before they could launch too many attacks.
“We need to keep the fireboats out of range,” Ellis said.