Sailkeeper's Bride

by Annie Windsor

  He has yellow eyes. Tiger eyes. Georgia held Ilya like a silver-swathed Ming vase between Elise’s pale legs and gaped at the man in the room.

  Why hadn’t she sensed his thoughts when he entered? Was he shielding that well? Her swords…could she reach them and somehow keep hold of the baby?

  “Look, whoever you are. I’ve got trouble here.” Georgia held up Ilya. “I think something’s wrong.”

  The intruder stood taller than Fari or even Ki, dressed in what looked like deerskin breeches and a leather-laced deerskin shirt. His onyx hair was pulled back severely and smoothly, clasped behind his head. The sharp angles of his face and his deep, deep brown skin reminded Georgia of Native Americans. Only she was on Arda, not Earth. And this stranger had his hand on the hilt of what looked like a holstered double-bladed axe.

  His eyes drifted around the room, taking in Georgia’s paintings. These clearly fascinated him.

  “Tu?” he asked, pointing at an unfinished image of Fari, one that captured the warrior’s light and dark sides.

  “Yes. I painted those. And, damn! I don’t have time for this!” Georgia turned her attention back to Ilya. “Help me or get fucked. I don’t care.”

  The tiny girl moved, but the sac seemed to be constricting her. Was it suffocating her, too? Georgia plucked at it, trying to rip it open.

  From the corner of her eye, she watched the man. As he stared at them, his expression shifted from cruel hunger to grim resignation, and finally to outright annoyance. Or anger. Georgia couldn’t tell.

  She glanced at Elise. Her cousin had turned the color of day-old dough. The damn sac around the baby wouldn’t give, either. Georgia considered using her teeth.

  Ilya stopped moving.

  “Baska,” Tiger-Eyes spat.

  “Baska off, asshole!” Georgia was so confused and upset she wanted to throw up. There had to be a way to get Ilya out of the friggin’ silver bag!

  The stranger looked slightly surprised, and then his lips quirked into a smile. Or it might have been a snarl. He rolled his freaky eyes, and his hand left his weapon. He gestured to Elise.

  “Da domna, el et sang maldro.” He stared at Georgia, as if waiting for some response.

  Georgia tried to ignore him, biting at the birth sac. The jerk’s language sounded like Ardani, but neither the archaic or newer version she had come to know. She tried to communicate mind to mind to see if she could gain a quick understanding of his dialect, but when she reached for the man’s thoughts, she felt like she was trying to link with a flat rock.

  Shivering, Georgia realized that the only other time she felt a similar sensation was in the forest, the day two of Darkyn Weil’s personal guards had attacked her.

  “Da Domna, el et sang. Maldro! Maldro!” This time, Tiger-Eyes looked at her like she was stupid. “Vit. Vit!” He made a flicking motion with his fingers.

  This is the Twilight Zone, Georgia thought, now desperate. In absolute panic. She was sure Ilya was dying. Maybe the swords in the corner. Yes. One of them might rip the silver shit away from the baby.

  She started toward them, but just then, the man heaved a great sigh, strode forward, and got onto the bed beside Georgia and Elise.

  “Oh, now, wait one minute,” Georgia began, but before she could figure out how to react, the man snatched Ilya from her hands.

  “No you don’t!” Georgia rocked back on her knees and drew back her fist to whop his head, but the man ignored her. His intense yellow eyes fixed only on Ilya, and his huge brown fingers tore open the spidery silver sac as if it were paper. Georgia saw a flash of brighter silver, the baby’s pa mark, she realized. Whorls covered Ilya’s chest, tummy, and neck, forming what looked like the swirls of a tornado.

  After discarding the sac he ripped away, Tiger-Eyes worked at the baby’s nose and mouth, clearing birth’s debris.

  Georgia held back on hitting him.

  “Are you a priest?”

  Still, the man ignored her. He raised the baby, covered her tiny mouth and nose with his own mouth, and blew hard. Once. Twice.

  As Georgia watched, stunned, the infant’s feet kicked. Her teeny hands curled. The weird man drew back, and Ilya turned a fine shade of strawberry. She opened her little lips, and she wailed at the top of her impressive baby lungs.

  “You—I—thank you!” Georgia clapped her hands together just as Tiger-Eyes thrust the baby toward her. Off guard, all Georgia could do was catch Ilya in a basket hold, like a running back accepting a handoff.

  The baby stopped crying almost immediately, snuggled into the crook of Georgia’s arm, and seemed content.

  The intruder gestured for Georgia to get off the bed. The moment she complied, he focused his attentions on Elise. He examined the bleeding with his eyes, then held his hands inches above her belly, muttering to himself. His expression shifted again, and this time, Georgia thought he looked nervous. Maybe afraid. She stood between the big bed and the door, wishing Akad would come running in to save the day.

  This is not good.

  At her tense thought, Ilya reacted with whimpers and whining.

  Tiger-Eyes shook his head and sighed. “Baska.”

  “You are a priest, right?” Georgia asked more to convince herself than to get a response from the stranger. “Can you help her?”

  True to form, the man ignored Georgia.

  He gently removed the pillows from beneath Elise and threw them on the floor. Georgia cradled Ilya and watched, too stunned to move, as Tiger-Eyes straddled Elise at the knees and unlaced his leather tunic to his midsection. He had a pa mark, yes, in a shape similar to the double axe he wore at his hip—but in the center, where imaginary blades met imaginary hilt, a black stone glistened.

  Georgia chilled to her marrow. Just like my attackers in the woods. They had those stones, but theirs were dull and lifeless compared to this.

  She realized the stone was not some artifice or piercing—no. This stone grew where it lay, a part of the man’s flesh and pa.

  As if hearing Georgia, the man ran his fingers across his stone as he stared at Elise. The stone glimmered like a dark diamond.

  “Anno,” he intoned, keeping one hand over his body-stone and one hand over Elise’s stomach. “Anno san dranon. Anno. Anno san sanguo. Anno…”

  The hypnotic timbre and rhythm quickly made Georgia’s eyelids droop. Even Ilya fell asleep in seconds, listening to the strange priest work his spell.

  “Anno san dranon. Anno. Anno san anguo. Anno. Anno san dranon…”

  Tiger-Eyes rocked back and forth, chanting, while Georgia fought to stay awake. After a while, she heard nothing but the drumming of the man’s voice.

  Then, without warning, the man clapped his hands together. “Dora, Elise Tul’Mar. Dora!”

  Georgia snapped awake. Dora. She knew that word. It was archaic Ardani for “hold,” as in “hold on,” only it came from the lesser-known high speech, now considered extinct. A few words, like dora, had survived through ceremonial use. With sufficient strength behind the speaker, it would constitute an irresistible psi-command.

  Had this man been speaking the old high speech of Arda all along?

  If so, why wouldn’t he communicate with her mind-to-mind, so she could understand him?

  He obviously knew who Elise was—but then most citizens did. And yet, that stone in his abdomen.

  Are all people with the stones Outlanders?

  Elise’s skin began to regain some of its natural luster and pinkness. She stirred beneath the man, eyelids fluttering, then grew still. Georgia heard the welcome, easy sound of sleep-breathing, and her extra senses told her Elise’s crisis had passed.

  Thank the universe.

  Tiger-Eyes stopped his ministrations, climbed off Elise, and slid from the bed to face Georgia. Instinctively, she pulled Ilya closer, even though she believed the man had saved the baby’s life—and Elise’s.

  Once more, the stranger’s features hardened. His hand drifted to the hilt of his axe, and his eyes narrowed.
Inside those odd yellow orbs, warmth seemed to war with a bleak coldness, and Georgia didn’t like the looks of the battle.

  She held her ground, though. There was nowhere to run, with him standing between her and the door. In the corner, on the other side of the bed, Georgia’s own swords waited. She could never get to them in time, if this guy decided to get rough.

  But why would he spill blood after spending so much time and energy saving lives?

  Ilya fidgeted and started to cry.

  Georgia told herself she should put the infant down, out of the fray, if there was to be a fray. Her eyes darted around the room.

  Where? On the bed next to Elise? On the floor beneath the bed? Was there any safe place?

  Maybe the best defense is a good offense.

  “What do you want?” Georgia demanded, giving Tiger-Eyes the toughest scowl she could muster with a wailing newborn in her arms.

  The man’s face darkened—and two more giants lumbered into the bedroom.

  Georgia’s chest tightened. She knew them immediately. The thugs who attacked her in the forest, before she went to Ammon Island with Fari. Fari! Ki! Krysta! She fought a sheer black terror as she backed away, bumping into the bed. Help. Help us, please!

  Deafening mental silence answered Georgia’s psi-call. She had a vague sense of star battles blazing overhead, of Ardani speeders falling out of the sky, of the Fleet rushing toward home at impossible speeds. The images dizzied her. She blocked them out, becoming all too aware of the terrible two who had just entered the room.

  They leered at her and drew menacing swords with polished black blades. Frick and Frack, Georgia’s numbed mind christened them. Frick winked at the yellow-eyed titan, who stood no more than a foot from Georgia and the howling Ilya.

  Tiger-Eyes’s inscrutable face turned stony. “Nado,” he growled.

  Frick and Frack gaped at him. “Da Domna!” Frack shouted. He pointed at Georgia. “El et Tul’Mar.”

  “Nado,” the yellow-eyed man said again, this time slowly, louder, over-enunciating as if his listeners had some mental impairment.

  Frick seemed about to explode. He gestured to Elise and the baby in Georgia’s arms. “El ets assi Tul’Mar!”

  Acting on instinct, Georgia snuggled Ilya and inched back. The three men kept arguing in their strange almost-Ardani, paying her little mind.

  Emboldened, Georgia walked around the bed, making a show of returning Ilya to Elise. The baby struggled and cried as Georgia nestled her against her sleeping mother.

  Just as Georgia eased back from the bed, Tiger-Eyes leaped in front of Frick and Frack, blocking their access to Elise and the newborn. He drew his axe, and Georgia gasped.

  The brutal-toothed, double-headed murder weapon was the same startling yellow as the man’s eyes. It seemed radiant, like starlight enslaved in metal. Just looking at it made her squint, and she felt nauseated.

  On the bed, Elise moaned, and Ilya began a new round of loud crying.

  “Nado!” Tiger-Eyes bellowed.

  Frick and Frack began to back toward the door. Reluctantly.

  Tiger-Eyes brandished his terrifying axe, swiping the air to force them out of the room. “Alle. Alle!”

  Georgia wasted no time. No matter her urge to puke, this was her only chance. She lunged for the corner, grabbed her ruby blades, and let the scabbards clatter to the floor.

  As soon as the two goons left, Tiger-Eyes wheeled on Georgia.

  Biting back surges of bile, she burst around the end of the bed, a red sword in each fist. Beneath her tunic, along her neck, across her cheeks, her pa crackled, and the ruby blades flickered like fire.

  “Get out of here!” she yelled, rushing at the man with the starlight weapon.

  Clearly surprised, he stumbled back, slamming into the door facing. He kept his grip on his axe, but barely.

  Georgia stopped her charge a few feet away. Her stomach churned from the sight of that freaky yellow blade. She didn’t want to fight this guy. She’d lose. But…maybe he’d think she was crazy. Maybe he didn’t know what she could or couldn’t do with her ruby swords.

  Sometimes bluff was everything.

  Tiger-Eyes studied her with a curious, then appreciative gaze.

  “Come on.” Georgia stomped her foot and shook the swords. “You want a piece of me? What are you waiting for?”

  The man actually chuckled. “Ne discute. Nado. Nado.”

  Keeping his free hand raised in a gesture of surrender, he sheathed his bizarre axe.

  On the bed, Elise and Ilya quieted. Georgia felt a measure of relief, and her nausea eased.

  She did not lower her swords.

  Tiger-Eyes now had both hands in the air. He snapped his feet together and offered Georgia a small bow.

  Then, without further gesture or comment, he backed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  Georgia dropped her blades, ran forward, and slid the locking bolt into place.

  Behind her, Ilya whimpered.

  Elise’s sleepy voice asked, “What’s happening?”

  The door rattled. Someone hammered on it, and to Georgia’s horror, she felt the wood bow with the force of the blows.

  Shouts and curses filled the halls outside.

  Georgia put her face in her shaking hands and sobbed.

  Chapter 18

  Fari Tul’Mar piloted Lorelei like a man possessed, easing her around tight turns, through narrow mountain passes, keeping her too low for primitive mechanical detection.

  The Outlanders had thus far put up a terrific fight. With a surprising show of force, they broke through the protective net of speeders over Camford, driving ship after ship out of the sky. Oddly, few Ardani craft had been destroyed. The bastards seemed to want to cripple the Home Guard. Keep them at bay.

  For what reason?

  Fari had no time to ponder the intricacies of Darkyn Weil’s insane machinations. He had picked up stranded speeder crews, and Lorelei was near at full complement.

  Krysta had gathered two more speeders to her hidden location—minor damage to outer rudders, quickly repaired.

  The perimeter defenses around Camford, the focus of the Outlander assault, were failing. They had to act now, or soon Weil’s ships could land en masse on the castle’s front lawn.

  Fari gripped the hilt of his sword. Sister.

  I am here, Brother. At the ready.

  Any word from the rear Guard?

  No. I called them back to help us here. The Fleet has not been sighted, though Ki’s psi-assistance grows stronger by the moment.

  Fari’s gut twisted. And then Krysta’s words twisted it more.

  Fari, did you…did it seem to you that Georgia called to us a few stellar minutes back? It was faint, but—

  We cannot think of that now. Fari’s teeth ground together. His gut burned like he’d been stabbed. Mating fervor was no longer an issue. Now he fought a bigger battle. The safety of his world, his people, versus the needs of his shanna. His sweet, sweet beloved.

  If something happened to her, he would cut out his own heart.

  And yet he could not abandon his post, surrender his planet to an invading force to defend one woman.

  By the universe, but he wanted to.

  Brother….

  Krysta’s centering voice brought him back to the moment.

  The rear Guard is moving into position. Engage the pincer maneuver. The moment the tide turns, I will drop to ground and go to Georgia and Elise.

  Fari nodded as if Krysta stood next to him.

  And I will be just behind you—or perhaps leading the way. Pick me up at the building yard as soon as we secure Camford’s air space.

  He moved to the foredeck, where his crew could see him. Snarling, he grabbed the nearest rigging, leaned near to the ship’s edge, and drew his barbed blade.

  “For Arda!” the Sailkeeper of Arda shouted, in his mind and aloud.

  “For Arda!” roared his fellow warriors.

  Lorelei abruptly chan
ged course, driving up, up, up from the trenches where she hid. She burst north over Camford’s forest, and Fari knew any Outlander in the range of sight spotted only a long blur of silver.

  At the same moment, Krysta’s speeders sailed out of cover and moved toward the Outlanders from the west.

  The rear Guard, only a handful of speeders but heavily armed and more than battleworthy, dropped out of the eastern stars.

  The contingent of surviving Outlander vessels, perhaps twelve in all, scattered in confusion and apparently without a plan.

  Fari knew if their captains had been psi-gifted, he would have heard their abject frustration. So close to victory. Now so close to defeat.

  Lorelei came scathingly close to a fleeing Outlander ship, a lumbering thing that probably started life as a cargo runner.

  With great power of will, Fari held his ship steady, matching the other vessel’s speed. Extending the inertial bubble of Lorelei around his quarry, he roared boarding instructions to his men.

  In his hand, his sword hummed.

  Fari bared his teeth.

  Damn the Outlanders.

  It was time to clear the skies.

  Less than one stellar hour later, the Outlanders were in complete disarray. Rogue ships that hadn’t been destroyed were forced to ground. A few fled into space, some unfortunate enough to go south, into the waiting arms of Ki Tul’Mar and the unforgiving might of Arda’s returning Royal Fleet.

  Fari could hear Ki’s unkind, hungry laughter through the psi-link.

  His brother was taking orbit now, “kicking ass,” as Georgia would say.

  Georgia. Shanna.

  Fari’s heart felt squeezed, as if some cruel hand choked away its beat.

  Shouting orders and appointing crew members to manage prisoners, see to clean ups, and run patrols for further treachery, Fari took Lorelei back to dock and turned her over to his first mate.

  There was no sign of Krysta.

  Fari cursed. He didn’t want to wait. He couldn’t wait. He had to get to Georgia. Now.

  Still cursing, he set out for Camford on foot. A nearby speeder quickly picked him up, and he rode the few stellar minutes home in a brooding, anxious silence.

  Even as he disembarked at the castle’s main gates, Fari combed through different psi-chatter, reaching for Georgia’s essence. He could find no indication of her presence. Dread filled him like poisoned water, eating away his insides as he ran up the steps, sword drawn.