Allies & Enemies

by Cheryl S Mackey

  “Don’t trust him, Ivo.”

  “What is going on, Jadeth?”

  “Tell them, Jadeth. Are they not your friends?” Dehil sneered up at her. With a hiss she spun and leaped aside, her scarlet braids flying as she crossed the room. She burst through the empty doorway and vanished into the hazy sunshine, leaving Dehil chuckling bitterly on the carpeted tent floor.

  “Okay, what the hell is going on?” Jaeger groaned, but turned and slammed his iron boot atop Dehil as he struggled to sit up. “Don’t even think about it, Elf.”

  “I’m going after Jadeth,” Ivo sighed. “Find a tent, and keep an eye on our new friend.” Ivo slammed his sword into the sheath at his side and glared at the unmoving Elf sprawled on the floor beneath Jaeger’s heavy boot. He spun on his heel and exited the tent.

  “Get up.” Jaeger resisted the urge to jab the Elf with his boot as he backed away. “I won’t hesitate to kill you if you even look like you’re thinking about trying anything.”

  “All tents are free right now, Immortals. Please choose any that you wish.” Jaran bowed slightly, his dark gaze unfazed beneath the blue scarf and scruffy eyebrows. He gestured toward the tent entrance before backing away to rejoin the others around the fire. None of them had bothered to glance over at the scuffle.

  “Let’s go, friend,” Jaeger gestured toward the entryway with his axe, and the Elf’s gaze flicked between Emaranthe and Jaeger for a moment, as if judging their abilities. Finally, he shrugged and moved toward the entrance with Jaeger’s axe close behind.

  Emaranthe followed them into the hot sunlight toward a nearby tent. At the entrance, the Elf hesitated.

  “Go in, Elf,” Jaeger’s axe prodded his left shoulder, earning him a stony glare. He flung the flap aside and entered the tent without word, Jaeger hot on his heels. Emaranthe followed, letting the flap drop behind her. She stopped to let her vision adjust to the shadowed interior. The tent was much like the main tent, sparse with a few rugs and cushions, and a small fire ring.

  “You know this isn’t the way to get me to cooperate right?” Dehil asked. He scowled at the pair as Jaeger jabbed him again, indicating for the Elf to sit by the hearth. He sat with a hiss of anger, his gaze roving between the two.

  “All I know is your interest in our affairs seems suspicious. And if Jadeth doesn’t like you, then I don’t like you,” Jaeger snapped. He jerked the helm off and dragged a gauntleted arm over his forehead. Sweat stuck his pale hair up in damp, grimy spikes. Frosty blue eyes narrowed on their unwanted visitor and his fingers twitched on the handle of the axe. Ice crept from beneath his fingers and a distinct chill settled in the air.

  “Jadeth acts without considering reason. She doesn’t stop to ask the right questions or listen to answers,” Dehil replied, his gaze dropping to the meager pile of twigs in the fire pit. “She always has.”

  “I don’t care,” Jaeger snorted. “What I do care about is an Immortal bent on intrigue.” He glared at the lean, dark-skinned Elf, noting the wary weariness settling over his sharp features. Dehil’s jaw flexed and for a split second, the edges of the Elf blurred.

  “Care or not, what I have to say is important for you to hear,” Dehil inhaled and shifted on the thin rug. The ground was rockier here. Emaranthe slipped out of the shadows at his words and crossed the room to sink to the ground across from him. She lifted her hands as if to warm them over the unlit fire, her features schooled into careful blankness. Her unusual eyes studied him frankly. Dehil squirmed beneath her bold stare and instead, focused on the unlit wood her gloved hands hovered over.

  “You know that only works if there is a fire, right?” Dehil snickered and raised an arched eyebrow at her. Gold eyes flared in amusement.

  “I know.”

  The twigs burst into flame.

  Dehil jumped back as the blast sent heat waves and tiny sparks high into the air. His form wavered, going partially transparent. “By the light of The Four! You’re a Pyromancer?”

  Jaeger snorted and hid a smirk, but Emaranthe watched the newcomer. His control of his gift had slipped and vanishing seemed to be a gut reaction when startled or attacked. For some reason, it troubled her. Her gaze fell, affording the Elf a moment to calm his tangled nerves.

  “Does it bother you?” she asked. She withdrew her gloved hands and the fire tamed and settled; the twisting flames and sparks muted into a warm glow within the rocks that formed the hearth.

  “Not really met any others with your gift. It’s powerful, dangerous,” Dehil replied. He studied her petite frame with more respect. The fire moved with her, flared and flickered, as she breathed. It was a part of her. Unlike other Immortals who possessed the gifts, she didn’t possess it; she was a part of it and it a part of her. Her eyes glowed in the gloom, something else rare in a world of oddities. He wisely kept his mouth shut when Jaeger shifted threateningly.

  “Yes, it is,” Emaranthe exhaled. She was too tired for wit and word games. Her narrow shoulders sagged. “I’m going to rest.”

  Jaeger watched her vanish into a shadowed corner, his frown darkening his face into a mask as his gaze moved back to the Elf. He didn’t like the look of dawning understanding on the male’s face.

  “So she’s the one then,” Dehil muttered. His gaze sharpened. “The Youngest, right? We’ve heard of a Warrior who should never have been called. One with a power too strong to control. She’s known far and wide.”

  Jaeger’s face tightened with anger. Eerie blue frosted his gaze and the temperature of the room fell. Puffs of fog clouded the air with each exhale.

  “Yes,” he said. He watched the Elf’s reaction, but nothing resembling a threat showed on his thoughtful face. “It’s hard on her, harder than anyone thinks; but that isn’t your concern.”

  “What isn’t his concern?” Ivo flung the flap aside in time to hear Jaeger’s comment and stopped still, his gaze holding the intruder’s. Dehil met the cold green glare unflinchingly.

  “He recognized Emaranthe as the Youngest,” Jaeger replied. He scowled as his brother let the flap fall behind him and crossed the room to the hearth in two long strides. Ivo stood before the small fire and studied the Elf, his enigmatic gaze shadowed within the helm.

  “Hmm,” Ivo tugged his helm off and set it aside before searching out Emaranthe's still form in the far shadows of the tent. “She asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Ivo sat with a weary sigh. “I couldn’t find Jadeth.”

  “What?” Jaeger frowned at his brother. “Where could she have gone?”

  The Elf snorted, but held his tongue.

  “You know her, from when and where?” Ivo dragged a gauntlet off, then the second, and tossed them beside the helm. The twin clanks made the Elf wince.

  “We were childhood tribe mates. I had the unfortunate role of being the tribe lookout the day we were attacked by fallen Windwalkers,” Dehil sighed. His ears flattened against his inky hair, his eyes closing at the memory. “Jadeth knew I was on lookout the day they attacked, and she knew it was I who had never forewarned them.”

  “And why was that?” Ivo crossed his arms and Dehil swallowed at the dark fury shadowing his face.

  “I had left my post to talk to her,” Dehil shrugged. “I was on my way to find her when the attack happened. She assumed I had purposely not warned the tribe, had put harmless flirtation above the safety of our people.”

  “Had you?” Ivo asked. The Elf twitched and something akin to pain edged his voice.

  “No, I had left my post much earlier in the day than she had assumed, but that was just as bad.” He grimaced. “I was and still am a coward. I fled, so I didn’t know what had become of my people until much later.”

  “Yet you were still chosen to be Immortal,” Ivo said and flashed Jaeger a warning scowl as his brother’s hand drifted to the hilt of his axe. “Patience, brother, The Four have their reasons.”

  “What was this message from Rodon, Dehil?” Ivo studied the Elf’s face in the dim firelig
ht.

  “The message is tempered with a story. I was sent to find a specific item that a warlord of the south, Lureg, was rumored to have in his possession. I found the item, but was never in a position to take it. I found something else, a map,” Dehil said. He sat up straight and leaned forward, his voice hushed.

  “Now, I did not know this map was important to Rodon, but when I recounted my tale in detail he was very, very intrigued. He seemed startled by what was on the map that I could remember and recount for him.”

  “Your memory must be impeccable,” Jaeger snorted. “Go on.” He shot the tent flap a look. A faint shadow paced frenetically outside in the suspicious shape of an Elf female. His attention jerked back to the conversation when Dehil spoke again.

  “On the map was a penciled-in location in such small lettering I doubt Lureg ever saw it. It said Orin-Iad,” Dehil said. “And it was a land I have no recollection of, had never seen it before on any other map, nor heard of it. That said, I did not understand this addition’s value to the map, and being unable to obtain it, I reported to Rodon. He was startled and triumphant. That was two days ago.”

  It was hard to imagine the stern and unyielding Rodon being…well, anything but stern and unyielding, so both Ivo and Jaeger traded looks.

  Dehil continued. “He then instructed me to locate you, his Elite, and tell you of this information. He said to ‘find the city by finding the map’ and I was instructed to guide you to the map at Lureg’s camp. You are to get the map and use it on your quest for his artifact. He believes it to be there.”

  “Hmm,” Ivo grunted. He digested the startling information. A quick look at Jaeger’s shadowed face told him that he too was sifting through the story in search of a lie. None could be found and the Elf’s gaze remained clear of deceit in the flickering firelight. “We do seek such a map. And you say Rodon has sent you to give us these further instructions?”

  Dehil shifted, studying the towering Earthlander. “Yes.”

  “Jadeth is not going to like this,” Jaeger sighed. His scowl shifted into a smirk, but sagged again as he looked beyond the fire to the figure lying still in the shadows. “We need rest and to think on this. The threat of danger has multiplied.”

  “You speak wisely, brother,” Ivo’s gaze shifted to the barely visible woman in the far corner. Wordlessly, he stood and made his way across the tent to the corner where she lay huddled on a rug.

  They watched in silence as Ivo sat beside her in the darkness. Jaeger’s worried frown mirrored Ivo’s.

  “Was she injured? I am surprised that Jadeth could not heal her. What happened?” Dehil’s whisper broke the pained silence.

  “No.” Jaeger’s worried frown turned angry as he stared at the Elf. “It is the stubbornness my brother wields like a knife.”

  “Ah, unrequited love.”

  “Of a fashion. My losses have given him little hope for love. He fears it. The years have done nothing to sway his hardened heart from its solitary course, but one day he will realize loss without love first is lonelier still. Her heart is much the same I fear. Their heads are harder than their hearts,” Jaeger said. He scowled and prodded a stone that encircled the fire pit with the tip of his weapon.

  Dehil shrugged, as if at a loss, before adding, “I know my heart; it is others’ that baffle me.”

  “Liar!” Jadeth cried out. She flung aside the tent flap, spilling late afternoon sunlight into the darkness. Three of the four occupants jumped and spun to face her.

  “Jadeth, calm down!” Jaeger snapped. He shifted to his feet. Dehil remained sitting, head bowed.

  “No! I won’t listen to his lies, Jaeger,” Jadeth snapped as she stopped before Dehil. Reddened eyes pierced the gloom. Her entire body vibrated with anger. “I am tired of them. I am tired of remembering him running away into the woods, leaving us to die!”

  “I am sorry, Jadeth.” Dehil couldn’t look up at her. “I have lived an eternity regretting my foolish actions already, and have an eternity longer still. I hate myself for letting you down.”

  “I trusted you. My mother trusted you,” Jadeth whispered. Her ears sagged back as her knees gave out and she sank to the floor, shaking. Tears spilled over and trailed down her pale face, turning everything in the fire lit tent into a blur. “Why? Why did you run?”

  “I do not know,” Dehil shifted on the lumpy carpet. His ears flicked back as he watched Jadeth’s tear-streaked face tighten. Their shadows danced on the cloth walls around them. An errant gust of wind shook the tent and the shadows seemed to quail in fear as the fire popped and hissed in the draft.

  “You don’t know? That is all you have to say?” Jadeth blinked, and swiped at her tears with trembling fingers. “After all this time, you ‘don’t know’?”

  “I’m a coward,” Dehil watched the moving shadows with little interest. “I was young and did not understand honour. That is no excuse.”

  Jadeth’s lips tightened. “The man I knew wouldn’t have abandoned his people, his friends!”

  “Maybe you didn’t know me!” Dehil sneered. He didn’t meet her accusing gaze in the dim light.

  “I guess not,” Jadeth stood and stared down at him, taken aback. She noted the dark clothing, the thin, but muscular frame, the haunted, hungry look in his gaze. “And I don’t want to. Good night.”

  Jadeth spun and stalked into a dark corner of the tent, leaving Jaeger and Ivo to glare at the interloper openly.

  “That’s enough. Get some rest. We head out at dawn,” Ivo spoke from the darkness, his voice a steely rumble. “The map we seek is farther south according to the Elf.”

  “I have a name, Warrior. I am Dehil.”

  Ivo pinned him with a gaze gone nearly black in the dim light, before turning away. “I haven’t forgotten, Elf, but I have yet to see a worthy man to fit with that name.”

  “I will guard the door. Don’t try anything,” Jaeger said. He scowled at the sneering spy and resisted the urge to smack the blunt edge of his axe on the Elf’s head.

  The tent shuddered. The wind howled around the sun-bleached bones and tower. The tent flap lifted and fluttered, but beyond only a purple twilight could be seen. The suns set rapidly over the southern desert.

  With one last glare at the Elf, Jaeger propped himself against the tent pole and crossed his long legs across the doorway, blocking it. His gaze darted to the far corner where Jadeth had vanished, but saw only a stiff, angry silence and a brief glitter of eye shine.

  ***

  Ivo watched Emaranthe's thin shoulders lift and fall as she breathed in her sleep. Her long, pale hair, unbraided, blanketed her. Even in the far reaches of the shadowed corner, the golden locks gleamed with an inner fire.

  Mesmerized, Ivo studied her small, womanly figure as the flickering firelight played over her. His callused hand sifted a silky strand between his fingers without thinking, amazed at how such thick hair could be so pale. She sighed, her shoulder twitched, and Ivo dropped the golden strand with a start.

  He shouldn’t be touching her. Ivo inhaled shakily and closed his eyes. His head dropped back to crack on the bleached bone tent pole. The Four be damned; he couldn’t help it. The tent shuddered and the wind howled, but he didn’t take notice. He could feel the slender warmth of her body against his side. She had huddled closer to him for warmth, and a gouging ache built in his chest.

  As he faded into a restless sleep, his fingers trailed through her hair.

  Chapter Two

  Jadeth glared at the snoring Elf beside the fire. She inhaled and rolled her back to him. She had often thought of what she would say to him and those words roiled through her mind.

  Liar.

  Betrayer.

  Murderer.

  A harsh laugh tore free, hollow and bitter. The one word she hated spun through her thoughts more often than any other. The word that burned with guilt.

  Lover.

  Damp eyelashes brushed her cheeks, trapping the tears within. They never fell.

  ***<
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  “That son of a bitch!” Jaeger’s furious snarl shattered the chorus of breathing and snores.

  Ivo jerked. He flung himself upright, his sword gripped and yanked from the shadows as he moved with uncanny speed. “What is it, Jaeger?”

  “That cowardly Elf took off!” Jaeger snapped. He flung aside the tent flap and peered out into the hazy daylight. Ivo blinked as the morning light flared into the darkened tent. Jadeth shoved herself up on her elbows and blinked at the brothers. “A sound woke me, but I was too late.”

  “What?” Ivo growled. He sheathed his sword with a snarl. He noted the absence of their new friend and his jaw tightened. Jaeger pointed to the rear of the tent. A long rip ran vertical through the back wall; and at its peak, an arrow bristled with the movements of the canvas in the wind. Pinned to the beast’s rib bone supporting the canvas, the arrow speared a small scrap of parchment.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Ivo hushed his voice at the last second, but the bundle of indigo cloth stirred at his feet. Emaranthe sat up, a puzzled frown pinching her lips as her gaze danced between them.

  “What happened last night?” she asked. She stood, but bent and retrieved her cloak and Ivo’s helm, before straightening and waiting for an answer. Jadeth hissed, and no one offered any details, so Emaranthe dropped it. Still eyeing her redheaded friend, Emaranthe passed Ivo the helm and tugged her cloak over her rumpled tunic and trousers.

  Jadeth ignored the pointedly questioning look from her friend and stood. She glared at the arrow and note, but didn’t move to inspect it. She braided her red hair, her jaw clenched tight with the effort it took to restrain her colorful vocabulary.

  Ivo crossed the tent and jerked the note free. Jaeger moved to read it over his shoulder and both male’s eyes grew stormy… and confused.

  “What does it say?” Emaranthe couldn’t read the note; she was too short.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Jadeth hissed. She turned and stalked out into the morning light. “I’ll be out here.”