Traitor to the Blood

by J. C.

  Leesil's narrow features were blank and dull as he dipped his hands into a water pail between his feet and rubbed away blood. Magiere sat on the last lower bunk to the room's far side, studying him with wary eyes.

  A cold stab ran through Chane's throat at the sight of her, and the robin shook itself in response. Once he'd found her black hair and porcelain skin enticing. He'd enjoyed fantasies of doing battle with her. Now the pain in Chane's throat was not born of anger or desire. His pure hatred and hunger were poisoned with fear. He no longer cared to make her suffer—only to rip her throat out before she could gasp.

  A small figure huddled on one of the bunks. The robin's eyes were not as night-sharp as Chane's, and he pushed the bird forward until its beak touched the window's glass.

  Wynn sat with her back against the wall—as far back in the bunk as she could hide. Her boots lay on the floor in puddles, and her pants and coat bottom were soaked through. She shivered with her knees pulled up against her chest.

  Chane stared long at Wynn's round olive face and brown eyes beneath the hood of her sheepskin coat. She was watching her companions.

  "Take off your hauberk," Magiere said to Leesil.

  Chane grudgingly turned his attention from Wynn as Magiere rose to her feet.

  * * * *

  Magiere had already heaped her cloak, hauberk, and falchion in the corner. She stepped around in front of Leesil, rolling up her shirtsleeves. It would've been bad enough if she'd seen pain or anger—or even a hint of madness—that had driven him out into the field this day. At least she might have some notion of what overcame him. But Leesil's expression didn't change as he glanced down at himself. His eyes were empty as he unbuckled the sides of his blemished hauberk and pulled it over his head. The sleeves of his russet shirt were stained, but before Magiere could say anything, he stripped it off as well.

  He sat before her, bare and dark-toned to the waist. For an instant she remembered his closeness at night and the warmth of his skin and breath. A strange loneliness filled her at the sight of blood dried in his hair.

  Magiere said nothing as she knelt, picked up his fallen shirt, and sank its sleeves in the bucket to wring the blood from them. She took the muslin rag beside the pail and dipped it in the water. When she reached for his face to clean it, he shoved her hand away. A long, narrow bruise ran down the outside of his bare forearm. Magiere grabbed his wrist to inspect it, and Leesil pulled away again.

  "You going to tell me what happened out there?" she asked, though she expected little of an answer. "You dragged us into something that wasn't our concern. And you did it in the worst way."

  Leesil took the rag from her and wiped his own face, but he didn't meet her eyes.

  Thumping footfalls filled the room, and Magiere let out a sigh. Whatever Leesil withheld would be hard enough to drag from him if they were alone. Here in the military barrack, there was no privacy. As she came up to one knee and looked down the room's center path, Wynn crawled from hiding to the foot of her bunk.

  The little sage looked haggard, but Magiere couldn't find much sympathy. The girl should've never come with them. There'd been plenty of whispered night arguments with Leesil about sending her back to the Guild of Sagecraft in Bela.

  A tall, lanky man in padded armor with muddied vambraces and matted long blond hair came down the path between the stacked bunks. It was the young captain who'd pulled his own men out of Magiere's way at the city gate. He carried an iron vessel shaped like a large cook pot with three legs beneath it, and he gripped its arched handle with both hands. He had a blanket tucked under each of his arms. A dull glow emanated from the pot's top and lit up the captain's long features. Within the vessel, hot coals rested in a bed of gravel. Instead of hauling it to the open space by the table, the captain stopped and placed it between the bunks nearest Wynn.

  Magiere scowled. Why did this foolish girl, who'd betrayed them, inspire so much sympathy from every posturing man they ran across?

  "Wynn?" the captain said, and held out a blanket.

  The young sage shook it out and quickly wrapped it around herself. "Thank you."

  Wynn struggled beneath the blanket and then stopped to look about with an embarrassed frown at everyone present. The captain cleared his throat. He turned first to the soldier bunked above her and then the other across the way.

  "Boska, Stevan," he said. "A little privacy, please."

  The soldiers nodded and left.

  "Thank you, Stasi," Wynn said, and scurried back into hiding, fumbling beneath the blanket to remove her wet clothing.

  The captain tossed the extra blanket on Magiere's bunk, and she gave him a curt nod of thanks. He then folded his arms, turned his back to Wynn's bunk, and stood there like a sentry protecting her modesty. Magiere choked back a hiss of disgust.

  Captain Stasi's gaze drifted toward Leesil. His long, horselike face wrinkled with suspicion.

  "And what fresh misery puts one of you among us?" he growled.

  Leesil rose so quickly that Magiere had to scoot out of his way. Trickles of water ran down his forearms to drip from fingers crooked in anger. His blunt ear tips peeked out through white-blond hair hanging in clotted tangles about his face, and his amber eyes locked on the captain with intensity. He was still eager for a fight, not caring who came at him or why.

  Magiere stood up as she realized what had set off the captain. Without his cloak and hood, Leesil's heritage was plain to see. This wasn't the first time he'd been mistaken for one of his mother's people.

  She started to grab for Leesil, but stopped short, not wishing to aggravate him further. As she stepped in his way, she turned her own vicious attention on the captain. Wynn scrambled from hiding before Magiere could speak, struggling with the blanket to keep covered.

  "Leesil is only half-elven," she said to the captain.

  "A half-breed… with elven blood?" The captain frowned in disbelief, but his tense posture eased. "The very notion! As much cold spite as their kind shows us, I can't picture one intimate with a human."

  Magiere heard Leesil shift behind her. She retreated into him, wrapping her arm back around to hold him in place. Before she could spit a retort at the captain, Wynn cut in once again.

  "None of us chooses his heritage, Stasi." She cast Magiere a glance, but then dropped her gaze. "And none of us is to blame for it. Leesil's mother lived among humans. He knows nothing of her people."

  "Fair enough," Stasi replied, and cleared his throat as he looked away. "I've certainly never heard of one throwing himself in harm's way for a human, let alone a pack of defenseless peasants."

  "What do you know of elves?" Magiere demanded. The only one she'd encountered since leaving Müska had been sent to take Leesil's life.

  "Not much to tell, so few are seen here," Stasi replied. "Though more have been noted in recent times than are remembered in my father's whole life. Ill fortune sprouts in their passing." He scrutinized Leesil and sighed. "But more refugees made the crossing this day than ever before. I have all of you to thank for that… as well as the chance to finally spill Warlander blood in payment."

  Wynn's olive features twisted in a grimace at the captain's last words.

  "And what was that about?" Magiere asked once again. "Why did those soldiers slaughter women and children but take the men captive?"

  "Collecting conscripts to fill the ranks," answered Stasi. "They've no need for any but the men. It's been getting worse since autumn's end. Darmouth's province is directly across the border, so it's usually his men in pursuit as opposed to the other province rulers. Still, I don't know why he now builds up his forces in this desperate fashion."

  "Not new conscripts," Leesil said. "Deserters."

  His sudden comment startled Magiere. She pivoted, her shoulder brushing across his chest. Leesil took a hurried step back, turning away, and his white-blond hair hid his face.

  "How do you know this?" she asked. It had been many years since Leesil fled his homeland.

  "Th
ey want the men back," Leesil answered. "But there's a price for disobedience."

  His quiet but sharp tone implied she was being dull-witted—and it hurt. Magiere had never heard him speak to her in quite this way. She was too stunned to lash back at him.

  "It fits what we know of…" Stasi started; then his suspicion of Leesil returned. "You've been there—inside that warlord's province! That's where your mother… where an elf lived among humans?"

  Magiere wanted the captain gone. Whatever fed Leesil's harsh words and tone, it had nothing to do with his mother. Or did it? Nein'a had been… was one of the Anmaglâhk. She'd served Darmouth with her skills—and taught them to her son.

  "Wynn, get us some fresh clothes," she said, still watching Leesil.

  "In a moment," Wynn answered. "Leesil, what do you mean—"

  "Now!" Magiere ordered, turning a meaningful glare toward the young sage.

  Wynn met her gaze without moving. She turned slowly away at her leisure, heading down the center path.

  "Stasi, I cannot go for our wagon dressed as I am," Wynn said. "Could you please help?"

  Openly perplexed, the captain followed her, but not without a wary glance back over his shoulder. When Wynn and the captain slipped out the room's far archway, Magiere turned on Leesil.

  "What is this?" she hissed at him. "What price for disobedience?"

  Leesil looked at her, and strange emotions played across his face. First astonishment, as if her question were one more bit of foolishness. Then he half closed his eyes in frustration. The edge in his voice remained.

  "Have you forgotten what I am… was?" he said. "And even so, do you think you know enough to understand any of this? Those two men tried to desert, and for that their own families were forfeit. That's the way of things beyond the border stream."

  Magiere's confusion fed her anger. The answer was too simple and explained nothing she hadn't already guessed.

  "Those riders with their ragged clothes and misfit armor… they're the same as those who fled? Conscripts? But they hunt down their own and slaughter them?"

  "Yes," Leesil answered, so quietly that Magiere barely heard it. "And if they fail, their own kin pay the price."

  "But they're the same," Magiere insisted. "And they're killing each other for it? And you… you slaughtered those soldiers at the trees."

  "Yes."

  Magiere's lips parted but not a word came out. He was right about one thing: She didn't understand, and he was unwilling to explain it.

  Leesil sank down upon the stool. Elbows on knees, he leaned his head into his hands, exposing the long bruise down one forearm.

  Magiere knelt down to take his wrist.

  "My own blade," Leesil muttered. "Its wing hit my arm when the mace struck and didn't slide off. Something I hadn't thought of when I designed them."

  "It's not bad," she said, though she wasn't certain. She grabbed the rag and wrung it out to stretch it along Leesil's arm as a compress. "It'll take a while to reach the mountains, and you're not leaving my side again. You try throwing yourself into anything, and I'll club you down before the second step!"

  "We're not heading for the mountains," Leesil replied. "I'm going to Venjetz."

  Magiere stiffened. "Darmouth's city… in the heart of his province?"

  "They both had to flee when I came up missing long ago. Any clues to what happened to them will be in Venjetz."

  "Both?" Magiere's confusion grew. "Them?"

  "My parents." Leesil paused, and it seemed to take great effort tor him to continue. "If my mother survived to be captured by her people, then my father may have escaped as well. I have to start at the beginning. And that's in Venjetz."

  Magiere bit down a shout of denial. She'd dragged him into Droevinka looking for her own past. What she'd found had cost them both, and something old and dark was looking for her. Leesil put aside guilt for his mother—and father—to stay with her every step. It was supposed to be her turn to watch over him.

  But this was all insane, and fear drove her to selfishness. How could she keep him alive if he walked into the reach of a warlord who'd kill him whether his parents still lived or not?

  "You swore more than once that you wouldn't die on me."

  "I won't," he said tiredly. "I'm not that easy to kill."

  "Liar!" Magiere's voice cracked. "You'll just get yourself killed. We go find your mother, and that is the surest way to learn what happened to Gavril."

  "What if she doesn't know?" Leesil returned. "Do you really think her people would let a human go with her in the elven territory? What if he's still here, somewhere across the border stream? And even if he is dead, I have to know."

  "What of the artifact that Welstiel seeks?" Magiere argued, trying any argument to turn him aside. "Once we find out what happened to your mother, we still need to look for whatever so concerns the sages."

  "Welstiel can't get it without you," Leesil answered coldly. "And I agreed with your reasons for first going into Droevinka—before we came looking for my mother."

  Guilt stifled Magiere long enough for Leesil to cut her off.

  "We need to find out who we are," he went on. "Why the Fay chose to bring together a dhampir and a half-elven assassin. That artifact is safe until we're ready to go after it, and we won't be until we have all our own answers… or at least more than we have now. That leaves my father, and there is only one place to learn what happened to him."

  Magiere rose up, backing away until her shoulder hit the post of two stacked bunks. Fear for Leesil smothered whatever sense was in his words.

  "I shouldn't have brought you here," Leesil said, as if talking only to himself. "I didn't think this through. Perhaps we should've sent Wynn home—and you as well. If I'd done this on my own, you might have been safe for a while until I returned."

  Magiere's hand closed tight upon the bunk's post, until its corner edge bit into her palm.

  "You think I'd let you?" she snapped. "And sit halfway across the continent waiting to hear how you died? I was right about Wynn. She let that monster Chane follow us. Without telling either of us! We can deal with your mother's people without that little sage's language skills."

  "Enough." Leesil sighed. "I won't argue this anymore. Wynn is here, and she's suffered enough for her mistake."

  "You've played nursemaid to her once too often."

  The edge returned to Leesil's voice. "You don't have to remind me how wrong she was. But you saw her collapse over Chane's body. She was broken inside. Can you imagine what that feels like?"

  Yes, she could. Magiere saw Leesil alone in the Warlands, dead at the hands of Darmouth. She shook her head slowly as she backed down the path between the bunks.

  "I promised to help you seek your answers, as you did for me. That's our way… you and I. But how much harder are you going to make it for me keep you safe?"

  She turned away, heading for the wooden archway at the room's far end.

  Leesil's voice rose behind her.

  "Make some kind of peace with Wynn," he called. "She's been through enough, no matter what her mistakes. And neither of us is pure enough to sit judgment on her… as you have."

  Magiere's pace increased as she grew desperate to be out and away. She hurried through the adjoining room of stacked bunks, ignoring soldiers settled there or talking among themselves. Before anyone spoke to her, Magiere rushed out the next archway and into the barrack's common room.

  The two men whom Stasi had asked to leave were there, but most of the few small tables and stools were taken up by refugees and the priests tending to them. The room was so packed that Magiere had to slow to keep from making contact with anyone. The girl she'd saved huddled on the floor before the back wall hearth. Her companion crouched behind her with his arms wrapped about her shoulders as both stared into the fire.

  Wynn sat at the hearth's far side. She faced into the room, not seeming to notice the adolescent couple nearby. Instead, she looked toward a shimmer of silver blue-gray beneath a
table where a woman priest cradled an infant in a blanket. Magiere was desperate to be alone, but for an instant she wondered why Wynn sat such a distance from Chap.

  The dog lay silently out of everyone's way, likely not wishing to be stepped on with so many people stuffed into the small room. He didn't notice Wynn's peculiar study of him and looked up at Magiere with perked ears.

  It seemed odd to Magiere that Chap was still filthy. His muzzle was stained from the fight. The young sage always fussed over the dog, grooming him with a scolding at every stop they made on the journey north. Not that it mattered to Chap. He would be no better for it after his next day of wandering the underbrush along their way.

  But Wynn now sat before the hearth, far from Chap.

  Magiere couldn't face any more puzzles this night. She jerked the barrack's door open too hard, and it slammed into one rickety table. Gasps and exclamations arose, but she was outside and heading blindly up the road without noticing whom she'd startled.

  "Magiere?"

  The soft, high voice made her stop. Wynn stood in the open doorway, clinging to her blanket against the cold.

  "The captain should be back with our things soon," Wynn said. "Where are you going?"

  "None of your—" Magiere started in a threatening tone.

  She caught herself as Leesil's words ate into her. In the half-light spilling through the open door, Wynn's expression clouded with resentment. Magiere began again, forcing herself to speak calmly.

  "Please ask one of the priests to look at Leesil's arm when they're done with the others. I'll return in a while."

  She whirled about with a shuddering breath.

  "But… you are without even a cloak," Wynn called after her.

  Magiere traveled half the barrack's length before she heard the door close.