Steelflower

by Lilith Saintcrow

  I held my dotanii in the third-guard, followed the hissing with my ears. I could have turned to follow the sound, but that would have sloshed my feet in the stream and generally deadened my direction-sense. Best merely to wait, silent as an adder.

  They do not name me Adderstrike, like that assassin in Pesh, or Swordsong like that redheaded mercenary. No, I am saddled with Iron Flower. Gods preserve me.

  The hissing came again, and I felt a brush against the new walls separating me from the outside world. If not for the taih’adai, I might have felt the danger long before it approached me. Then again, I had been all but blind with rage, not usual for me.

  I felt aught else then, a silence descending over me very much like the silence that had come over the world when my mother died. But this was subtly different, the silence of a s’tarei, and I felt Darik’s presence.

  I had ordered him to stay by the fire. But all his attention was on me. He did not communicate with me with taran’adai, which was probably discreet of him given my temper.

  In any case, I needed my concentration for battle.

  I took a deep soundless breath, gaping my mouth to make it quiet. How could a wyvern hide in the scrub brush, even a small one? Twould be too large to remain unseen, and the smoke would give it away.

  It streaked out of cover, low and furious, a long fluid shape scored with ropes of white-hot glow, bubbling saliva frothing between needle-sharp teeth. It looked like a low quick running dog crossed with a serpent, tasseled ears lying flat against its narrow head. I had just enough time to reverse my largest knife along my forearm and let out a short, sharp sound of rage before the thing was on me.

  I went over backward, into the water, and steam boiled up. I thrashed in the knee-high water, fruitlessly, the dead charcoal husk of the wyvern impaled on my dotanii, when a line of fire slashed up the outside of my left leg from ankle to up over the knee, biting in and eating all the way down to bone.

  I knew, even as water filled my mouth and nose and I struggled to heave the steaming body up off me, that it was Darik’s pain, not mine.

  I could find no purchase on the bottom of the stream. The water forced its way down my nose, burning through my throat. For a moment I was in the caverns again, bleeding and alone, bones shifting underneath me as the sorcerer laughed, taunting me. You cannot win against me, girl. I am far more than you will ever be.

  And my reply, delivered from the depths of sheer stubborn refusal? Merely a curse, before I spitted him and freed the mud and wattle huts of Sharmin from his depradations.

  I lunged for air, desperate to fill my lungs and break through the wall of the past threatening to drown me. One last heaving effort and the wyvern husk moved slightly, enough for me to gain a little space, even with the current forcing me down and the wyvern’s body weighting me. I surged up into the free air of the present, coughing and choking, and scrambled for the stream’s edge.

  Something whizzed past me, and I dropped. My ears strained and my fightbrain catalogued the sound, trying to decipher it. Not arrow, not bolt, not knife…what in the name of Beleriaa was that?

  “Come out, weirdling.” Twas a male voice, speaking in—of all things—lightly accented High Shainakh. “Come out, Kaia Steelflower, come out, cease your damnable elvish witchery and face me like the true abomination you are—”

  Elvish? Gods, how I hate that word. “What the—” I began, and something else streaked toward me. It was a bolt of something that clipped the edges of my newfound mental walls and threw me to my knees again.

  “In the name of the new God-Empe—” the voice started; I was hurriedly cataloguing my options and seeking to struggle to my feet.

  “Kadai a’adai allai!” Screaming. It sounded like Janaire, her soft Gavridar accent blurring the crisp consonants. The battle-cry of an adai.

  Silence, then, too. Probably Atyarik. Twas a fierce silence, not like Darik’s cool, utterly impregnable quiet. There was a low, sliding grunt, and I heard Janaire’s voice again, chanting low and furiously, one of the Lays. A particular phrase from the Lay of Destruction, about the Darkness—the words were laden with Power. She was fighting him on his own ground, this sorcerer, whoever he was.

  Oh, thank the gods, I will never think of you as helpless again. A fully-trained adai is far from the worst help one could have against a sorcerer. There was another soft, chuffing grunt. My lungs burned, both from effort and near-drowning.

  I threw my knife, steel cleaving air with a low deadly whistle.

  It flew true, and the darkness resounded with a choked-off scream of rage and pain. Atyarik cursed, steadily and fiercely. I made my way with more luck than grace through chedgrass and blinked in surprise when Janaire flicked a small sphere of silvery light into being. The zaradai—witchlight—cast a soft silver glow onto the scene.

  A thin, brown-haired man in the shifting gray robe of a sorcerer curled on the ground. No wonder I had not seen the wyverns.

  A sorcerer. Gods above and below, I wish to go the rest of my life without facing another. I shook water from my dotanii. My leg throbbed. Darik. He’s wounded.

  “A witch,” Janaire said. “And well-trained, at that.”

  “Sorcerer.” My voice was harsh. “A witch would not enslave wyverns.” My knife was buried in the man’s throat, I had thrown true. His eyes glittered with death-fever. He was Shainakh, I judged, and saw his gaze fixed itself on me. A deathstare.

  Why would he seek to kill me?

  “Why would you seek to kill me?” I approached him cautiously. How did he know my name? Was it by chance, or had I made an enemy I did not know of?

  “’Ware, Kaialitaa,” Janaire said. “He is still alive.”

  I shrugged. “No knowledge without danger, so the Yada’Adais always said.”

  I lowered myself gingerly next to him and wrenched the knife from his throat. Blood gouted, black in the soft silvery light.

  I noticed aught under the blood on his chest, through a rent in his robe. If Janaire’s warcry had not tattered the cloth, I would not have. As twas, I almost missed it.

  There was a mark on the man, with a shimmer of Power over it quickly fading. Twas on his torn and bleeding chest, right over his left nipple. The glyph meant “hand” in Shainakh, done in faint blue ink. The tattoo and the small sorcery covering it made my mouth fill with copper.

  A Blue Hand. Here, in sorcerer’s robes, with three wyverns, and two destroyed caravans?

  “He is dying.” Janaire’s hand was at her mouth again.

  My leg burned again, and I looked up at Atyarik. His long face was grave and distasteful.

  “Ease his passing.” I gained my feet in one stumbling rush. Darik. He was concentrating fiercely, shutting me out perhaps without realizing it.

  Water dripped from my clothes and dotanii. I was soaked to the bone and would start shivering soon, and by the time I reached the waystation I would have two raging wyverns to deal with, if they had not fled at the sorcerer’s death.

  It did not matter.

  Darik.

  My leg threatened to buckle underneath me.

  I ran.

  Chapter 34

  A World Without You

  I skidded into the enclosure just in time to see the last wyvern scuttle up the barred wooden door. Wood smoked, charring, the wyvern’s claws made solid chuck-chuck sounds. It scurried over the top of the door and leapt from the wall, freed by the sorcerer's demise.

  Redfist, his beard singed and a murderous gleam in his green eyes, hefted his axe. The boy crouched behind him, two thin stilette glittering in his hands. The minstrel—I could not see the minstrel.

  I did not care.

  Darik stumbled and I caught his shoulder, holding him up as best I could. The left leg of his breeches was smoking, and I lowered him to the ground. “A blanket!” I yelled. “Fetch a blanket!”

  Diyan scuttled over to me, one of Janaire’s blankets in his hands. “Cha—” he started.

  I did not give him lee to speak.
“Waterskin! Where is the minstrel?”

  “Hit on th’ head,” Diyan tossed over his shoulder, before pelting over to a scatter of gear. He came back with a waterskin as I wrapped the blanket around Darik’s leg. D'ri hissed out through his teeth in G’mai, an oath I had rarely heard except on the practice ground. “Th’ barbarian tends him.”

  “Good.” I tore the waterskin from the boy’s hands. My leg throbbed, especially down near the ankle. I flipped the blanket cautiously up and doused his boot and ankle, seeking to abate the burning of wyvern venom and heat-violated skin. “More water! Redfist, the minstrel?” I pitched my voice to carry through the enclosure.

  “Clean out,” the barbarian called back. “Hit wi’ a stray knee, I think. Saved the wee lad from untimely death. What of D’rik?”

  “I shall live,” Darik said. “Merely a burn.” But he spoke in G’mai, and there was a dazed quality to his voice I did not like.

  I slapped him, sharply, and sense returned to his eyes. The crack of the blow echoed against the walls of the enclosure, and I let out a sound closer to a sob than I believed myself capable of. “Do not dare to leave me, D’ri!” I told him, in singsong, furious G’mai. “Do not! Stay here!”

  His head swiveled back to face me, his eyes finding mine through an ocean of pain. His black gaze focused. “Kaia’li? The wyverns?”

  “Two dead, one fled. Your leg—Janaire should return soon. A sorcerer.” A Blue Hand, I added silently, and poured more water over the burn. It went all the way up his leg to above the knee, along the outside, as if a fiery whip had been pressed against the skin. “A sorcerer was there.” I babbled in G’mai. My hands were impossibly hot, and I shivered so hard my teeth clamped shut. My leg gave an amazing flare of pain, echoing Darik’s injury. The burn was deep but narrow. A wyvern’s claw, perhaps, or tail.

  Even wounded, he tried to calm me. “K’li, gentle. Ease yourself.”

  My fingers loosened from the empty waterskin, and I clamped them around his leg halfway up the calf. My hands burned, burned, and I shivered so hard my teeth threatened to splinter. Water dripped from my hair, from my soaked clothing. Darik said something else but I did not hear, I was too occupied seeking to yank my hands free.

  They would not unloose. My hands were bound to him. The fire inside me rose, like a fever, like the twinsickness, a cresting tide of heat and weakness.

  “Kaia—” Darik said, but the heat passed through me in one furious wave. The pain in my leg spiked, a tearing agony. I spat a shipboard curse that made even the barbarian blink.

  Darik grabbed my wrists, forced my hands away. He looked better. The color returned to his face, and his eyes were no longer distant. “Kaia. Cease.”

  How could I? I did not even know what I did. My hands were burning, burning, and so was my leg.

  Hands came down hard on my shoulders, fingers digging in. A great cool weight washed through me, filtered by Janaire’s touch. “I think she sought to heal you, Adarikaan.”

  “I think so too, Gavridar. And she did a fair job of it.” He let out a sigh. “Pity, another pair of breeches ruined.”

  “Atyarik will give you another.” She sounded calm, at least. Then she said something low and fast in G’mai, something about Power-sickness and sorcery.

  “Kaia.” Darik came up to his knees; his arms were around me. “Are you wounded? You are soaked.”

  “I am well enough.” The pain roaring down my leg gave one last crunching flare, extinguished itself while Janaire said something else. I had trouble understanding, her Gavridar mouth turning the words into liquid song. Or was it that I was in shock, staring down at my glowing hands? A blurring line of silver outlined my fingers.

  I tried to shake it away. It would not go.

  Come out, weirdling. Come out, Kaia Steelflower, come out, drop your damnable elvish witchery and face me like the true abomination you are—

  What had he meant? Why would a Blue Hand want me dead? Why?

  “K’li,” Darik said, quietly. “Stay with me.”

  “What did he mean?” My entire body seemed to break out in shivering gooseflesh. Elvish. I hate that word, they use that word and have no idea what they mean. “The door—the back door. Is it burning?”

  “No, merely charred.” Darik spoke calmly, but his eyes were dark and wounded. “Ease yourself, adai'mi.”

  “Carry her. Set her down here. She killed a wyvern and faced down the sorcerer—he almost netted her like a fish.” Janaire’s voice caught, but she did a fair job of giving orders. I had not thought she had the sense to do so.

  Atyarik appeared, moving into the enclosure with a swift stride, his face full of thunder. Of course—I had told him to kill the man. Ease his passing.

  Had he done so? Of course he had. He was a s’tarei. He would not falter to do what must be done.

  I shook like a windblown leaf. Gulped down breath and forced control.

  I am Kaia. I am sellsword, thief, and assassin, the Iron Flower, I need no one. I am strong, and I stand alone. My body shook, slipping, something hot and barbed rising under my skin.

  “You will lose control and fall ill,” Janaire said. “I could help you, if you would but let me.”

  I shook my head, gasping, and tried to free myself of Darik's hands. The smell of burning hung heavy in the air.

  The others gathered. I finally succeeded in pushing Darik away. He gave in after a short struggle, and I made it to my feet. Then I offered him my hand. He gained his feet too, a little less gracefully than usual. The blanket fell aside. The smell of charred flesh was gone. His leg was healed and whole.

  “You were wounded.” The words tore my throat. I gazed up at him, the unsteady tremor returning to my bones.

  His face was thoughtful. “You healed me, Kaia’li. My thanks.”

  I took in another shuddering breath. “Redfist, find something to close the front door. Janaire, tend the minstrel. Atyarik, check the back door, and if tis safe, help Redfist.”

  Atyarik actually looked to Darik first, and the Dragaemir nodded. His hand held mine. A clean, calm warmth slid up from his hand into mine, up my wrist. “Do as she says. I will care for her.”

  The Tyaanismir gave his assent and stalked away. Janaire stood for a moment, watching me, before she shook her pretty head and attended the minstrel. Diyan stood frozen, thin and quiet, his eyes owlishly large. Redfist examined the front opening, his massive back turned to us.

  “I crave your pardon.” I spoke quietly, in G’mai. “It matters little, less than nothing. Forgive me, D’ri.”

  He shrugged. “No matter. Tis enough that you—” He examined my face. “Thank you, K’li.”

  It was not what I wanted. I wanted to lean into him, rest my head on his shoulder, and convince myself he was hale. “Do as I ask, D’ri. Twill make everything easier.”

  “I should not leave your side, K’li.” He brushed one sodden braid out of my face, tucking it aside. My heart leapt. “Do not ask me to do so.”

  I shook my head. “D’ri—”

  “Please. Do you know what it is, knowing your adai is under attack and being unable to aid her?”

  I opened my mouth to say aught, stopped. He was, again, correct. It was the nightmare of every s’tarei, to be unable to help an adai in peril. I bit my lip, feeling like a small girl in Anjalismir again. Instead of arguing, I closed my mouth tight enough to lock back any word.

  What could I say?

  “Come to the fire. You need dry clothes, and a blanket. And chai, I do not know how to make that awful kafi of yours.” He pushed his hair back. One of his knives was missing.

  Two tears spilled out of my eyes and tracked hot down my cheeks.

  Kaia? He sounded alarmed.

  I waved it away. “I am well enough.” I swallowed against the lump in my throat. Darkness pressed against the borders of the waystation. I knew two wyverns were dead and one was fled, and the Blue Hand sorcerer was dead too. But still, my body shivered and leapt at the slightest sound. />
  Combat-sickness. I had been too close to death. My body did not still realize I was alive.

  I dropped down in a sodden heap next to the fire, staring into the flames. Wyverns and a Blue Hand sorcerer. The Emperor, wanting me dead? Why? I was too small a fish for an Emperor to cook. A religious fanatic? Some races hated G’mai for their bred Power, considered us abomination. But what would a fanatic have to do with me? Had I made an enemy? How had he recognized me, had he been watching the waystation? But nobody knew I came this way, except Kesa and Jett.

  A Blue Hand. The God-Emperor was an absolute ruler, of course, but true power resided in the bureaucracies and the priesthood. Azkillian was cannier than most Shainakh Emperors in that he had tamed the priests and pursued his war against the Danhai with little resistance, grasping control with an iron fist. I was only a sellsword and a thief, with some little fame. Why would a Blue Hand wish to kill me? His duty to the Emperor should have kept him from indulging in bloodsport on the side, even if he was a priest’s dog or had a personal duel with me.

  Darik brought me fresh clothes, and held a blanket while I struggled out of my sopping-wet gear next to the stone wall. I was grateful for that. He disappeared behind a stack of firewood and returned with a fresh pair of breeches on, borrowed from Atyarik.

  We gathered at the fire. I still trembled, wringing my hair out, my sword-harness too damp to buckle on properly. We divvied up the stew, and I ate with shaking hands. We did not speak overmuch, but Darik’s eyes met mine several times, and I was grateful for his company.

  I need the taih’adai, I thought, blankly, staring into the flames. I must learn to control this or twill eat me alive. Perhaps it was Janaire that healed him. I do not know. No, I know. It was me. I have Power. I am G’mai.

  But the thought beating under my mental thrashing was stark in its simplicity.

  Darik. He could have died. He faced two wyvern alone. The idea of a world without him frightened me. Me, Kaia Steelflower, who was said to have no fear; I who hid my fear so well.