by Court Ellyn
Static pops, whistling screeches announced Saffron’s attack. The fairy buzzed about the ogre’s head, diving, swooping. He roared in pain and snapped his tusks at her. She tried breathing a sleeping spell into his face, but his massive fist batted her away.
Carah drove the dagger through his foot. He bellowed and flung her. She tumbled, wild as a leaf in the wind. A stone stopped her, cracked her over the eye. She couldn’t draw breath. Her hands were empty. In a daze, she watched Laniel run up an ogre’s back, kick himself free. The short sword painted a red trail on the air. He called to his cousin. Azhien seemed to stand sideways on a tree, with shadows closing in around him. But, no, it was Carah who lay on her side. Get up, she told herself. Azhien’s arrow flew at a snail’s pace, and for a moment Carah thought it was meant for her. Only inches behind her, yet miles away, the ogre grunted. Muddy water surged over her face. She rolled onto her belly to spit it out. The forest reeled. She pried herself onto an elbow and saw the ogre lying two feet away, an arrow rising from his neck.
Shouts rushed closer. Hands raised her up, patted her cheek. Slowly, the haze cleared. Terrified gray eyes came into focus. Laniel was soaked in river water, sweat, and blood. His fingers brushed a tender spot on her forehead. “Anything broken? Ribs? Can you breathe?”
She nodded, coughed out the river.
“Your uncle is going to murder me.”
“For someone called Falconeye, you have damned poor eyesight. They haven’t found the tunnel yet? Son of a—”
He pulled her close, held her tight, and laughed. “I knew you could play our game. Let’s get you inside.”
~~~~
8
In Uncle Thorn’s stories, there were never insects or tangles of roots, the stink of stagnant water or the pain of injury for princesses to contend with. The tunnel was full of them. Carah’s head pounded as she followed Laniel through the dark. She’d have a black egg on her forehead when she met Lady Aerdria, she was sure of it. And she would smell of sweat and river water, too. Their only light was Saffron’s soft golden glow leading the way. Tree roots wove a web that only blades could penetrate. Laniel hacked through them with the short sword. The blade sang a sweet note before contact with the roots cut it short.
Though the tunnel climbed at a gradual incline to keep the stream from flooding it, it was still a wet horror. Water trickled down the walls and dripped from clumps of roots. Wet clay clung to Carah’s boots, making them slick and heavy. Her fingers clutched Laniel’s belt to keep her from slipping in the muck. “How long since this tunnel’s been used?”
“Don’t know,” he admitted. “Never used it before, myself. But, then, the naenion have never attacked in so great a number, and you’re the first princess I’ve had to bring this way.”
Carah made a sound of disgust. At present, fairytales sounded ridiculous.
A root snagged her hair like the ogre’s fingers. She gasped and tried to pull free, but struggling only tightened the knots. Coming along behind, Azhien paused to untangle her. Amyrith offered him a dagger. Carah squeaked in protest. They argued in Elaran, and at last Amyrith rolled his eyes and put away the blade.
Azhien’s fingers worked meticulously to unwind her hair.
After a while, Carah groused, “Maybe I should shave it off.”
He shook his head. “Is color of earth.” His glance lingered on her face, and her cheeks heated. “There, all free.” He backed away, then lightning quick, his hand snatched at her shoulder. A hairy spider crawled through his fingers. He tossed it away and grinned with boyish innocence. Carah stifled a squeal. She’d had all she could stand. She caught up to Laniel, gave him a shove in the ribs. “Faster.”
“I see the ladder. Not far now.”
“You’ve been saying that all day. I need out of here. I need a bath.”
“A blade cuts only so fast, rëa.”
At the bottom of the rusting iron ladder, Laniel called up through a grate. Someone lifted the bars aside, and up they climbed. Carah found herself in a circular stone room. The bottom floor of a tower, most likely. Ale barrels and food stores cluttered the walking space. An Elari dropped a bag of flour she was carrying, pointed at Carah, and began shouting, frantic, in Elaran. Laniel raised placating hands, spoke softly, and mentioned her uncle. The Elari huffed, hoisted her bag off the floor, and stalked out without a word of apology.
“I thought avedra were welcome here,” Carah said.
“ ‘Tolerated’ may be closer to the truth,” Laniel explained.
Why would Uncle Thorn choose to live in a place where he was merely tolerated?
Laniel handed out orders. “Cousin, you’re tour guide. Take Carah to the keep where she can get cleaned up. Find her something to eat and see if there are dry clothes anywhere. I’m sure you’ll find plenty to talk about, complaining about your elders. But, I swear upon the Goddess’s sweet bosom, if I see either of you near the fighting, I’ll have you chained up. Dathiel can argue all he likes, but out here, we captains call the tune. Understood?”
Azhien saluted. Carah nodded.
Satisfied, Laniel added, “Amyrith, to the wall. Stop by the armory. Your quiver’s empty.” They hurried from the tower.
Azhien turned to Carah and shrugged. Social graces, it seemed, weren’t a part of an Elaran schoolboy’s repertoire. Or perhaps he was embarrassed to suddenly be alone with her.
“I’d like to start by getting dry,” Carah suggested. She must be a drooping, muddy mess, and she was starting to shiver.
“Oh. Yes. The keep. This way.”
They emerged from the tower facing a fat round keep that reared up in the middle of a broad green lawn. Polished brown jasper ornamented its walls in curves and streaks, echoing the patterns of tree bark. The roof was capped with green malachite agates like plates of stained glass, and slender bridges spread out from the upper floors like branches, connecting the keep to the towers that studded the outer wall. Elarion rushed past, cutting Carah’s admiration short. They poured out of armories, ran up and down steps set into the wall, shouting, bleeding. Some carried crates of arrows. Others carried the wounded. Thunder shook the trees. It was so close, so sharp that Carah jumped. The acidic tang of electric burning touched her tongue.
“Please, Azhien, I must see to my uncle first.”
“Brannië will lock us up, you hear what he say.”
“We’re not killing anybody. I just have to see that he’s all right. And Rhian.”
He glanced up the wall, looking for his cousin.
“Tell Laniel I ran off on my own. He’ll believe you.”
Azhien nodded. “Go. I follow.”
Carah ran up the nearest stair. From higher up, she could see that the wall was laid out, not in a square or a circle, but a long, narrow lozenge. The main gate was turned perpendicular to the south wall, with towers on either side of the portcullis. The arrangement forced enemies to approach the gate beneath a long stretch of archers, and as long as they bashed at the portcullis, their backs were exposed to a fall of arrows. Carah found a gap in the line of archers and filled it. Blood splashed the stone. A rock the size of a skull hurled past, a clue to how the blood had ended up on the crenels. Risking a broken face, Carah peered through the merlon. Piles of dead ogres were heaped before the gate. A battering ram lay among the bodies, silent. The awning the ogres had built to protect themselves from the arrows smoldered with flame. Most of the ogres had taken to launching rocks over the wall, their tree-sized arms as effective as catapults. Others used their axes against the trees. Carah thought they meant to build more siege equipment until she noticed arrows hissing down from the branches.
Close behind her, Azhien pointed into a nearby andyr. “There is Brannië.” How Laniel had squirreled his way from the wall to the tree, Carah could only guess. Her escort pointed out others, too. Nyria and Amyrith, and more names she didn’t recognize. The ogres chipped away at their perches, determined to bring them down. A tree cracked under its own weight, leaned sideways.
The sound brought the help of more ogres. They charged the tree trunk, rammed it with their shoulders. The andyr groaned and gave. An archer leapt free, landed on the flimsy limb of a neighboring pine tree. From higher up, an Elari plummeted, struck the ground, and ogres swarmed.
A blast of fire hurled some of them aside, lighting the underside of the canopy.
Carah found Rhian and her uncle standing back to back amid a knot of ogres. They rotated around some invisible pivot, hands tossing lightning and fire and screaming globes of energy. Ogres were thrown back. Some burst into flames. Others flopped across the ground, bones crushed to pulp. Any creature with sense would turn and flee. But more kept coming, driven by a terrifying, single-minded hunger. It would take only one lag in reflex, only one lucky swipe with an axe.
Their circle-dance brought them closer and closer to the gate. A bolt of fire sizzled past the ramparts, so close that Carah felt the heat on her face.
“We should go,” Azhien said.
I can’t, Carah replied, not caring whether he heard or not.
“You cannot help them. What good does it do?”
One ball of flame, one bolt of lightning. That’s all she needed. Carah gripped the stone wall with useless hands.
Whips of lightning sliced through afternoon shadows, and though she saw a man wearing her uncle’s blue robe, she didn’t recognized his face. His expression was one of sheer madness. His fury exploded from his palms, hewing down a row of ogres all at once. A chill caught at Carah’s nape. Was this the same uncle who curled up with her and told her stories of faraway places and times long ago? The madman below was dangerous, terrifying. How could two men live inside the same skin?
In the library, she had accused him of fearing his gift, and he’d slapped her for it. She saw now that she’d been wrong. “He hates it,” she muttered. “He wants something else for me.” Thunder cracked over her words, shredding them before they struck her own ears.
If he had a choice, he would give away his gift. The very thing she idolized in him. He would be content to seclude himself in his library and write his histories and embark on untold journeys. Azhdyria. His dream. But war and destruction were his lot.
At his back, Rhian stifled any expression at all. As cool as ice, he took the ogres two at a time, one with each palm. He seemed to fight because that was the order he’d been given. He could walk away from the task as happily as Thorn, then take it up again with a shrug.
No wonder they had told Carah that her motives were all wrong. If I whisper, I can destroy the world. If I whisper, I could kill the ogres. All of them, right now. One word, but she didn’t know that word. I envy you your gift, Thorn had told her. Healing King Arryk had brought her joy, exhilaration, purpose. To give a man a second chance, rather than take away the only chance he’d ever have. Yes, she understood now.
Backing away from the crenels, she turned to her shadow. “Azhien, where are your wounded?”
The ground floor of the keep was divided into two different rooms by carved wooden screens. On one side, several long tables surrounded a firepit. Young Elarion tended to the contents of a giant soup pot and venison haunches roasting on spits; others poured ale into goblets for a few warriors who dropped, weary, onto the benches. They had been fighting all night, all day, and by the look of it, they hadn’t taken many shifts to rest.
On the other side of the screens lay the wounded, mercifully few in number. Azhien called to an orderly. The Elari was just a boy with woolen blankets stacked up to his chin. His cerulean eyes gawked at his guest. Carah smiled, reminded of her brother. How similar Kethlyn had looked at that age.
“You are Nashín, yes?” asked Azhien.
The boy nodded.
“This is Carah, Dathiel’ad ínuin. His … nephew.”
“Niece,” she amended.
“Yes, niece.” Azhien took the pile of blankets from the boy. “I give these. You take Carah to worse wounded. Understand me, yno?”
Nashín finally found his tongue. “Come, rëa. This way.” He guided her past a stove where kettles of water simmered. At the end of the line of cots lay an Elari who shivered with fever. He was barely conscious. Green stripes curled along his cheekbones. Claw marks crossed his belly. Though ointments had been applied, the lacerations had yet to be stitched up. One was perhaps deep enough to open the bowels. If that was the case…
Across the aisle, an Elari pushed himself to an elbow and said, “Your face reveals all, avedra.” A bandage swaddled his head. Perhaps one of the stones had dealt him a glancing blow.
Carah smoothed the horror from her expression. “I’ve treated worse. This soldier’s azeth is still attached to his body. He’s not ready to die.” She wouldn’t let him. Closing her eyes, she ignored the muffled roar of thunder, the weight of scrutinizing eyes, and laid her hands gently over the wound.
Yellow and black shards if infection swirled around her, a maelstrom that threatened to engulf her. They tore at the broken tissue, ravaging, devouring, turning it to rot. Take one shard at a time, her uncle had instructed, but while treating the White Falcon over several days she had learned to extricate hundreds at once. Still, she seemed to make little headway inside this Elari’s wounds. Patience, she warned herself. Breathe. She let the shards sweep her along, to the place where the worst of the infection was coming from. Yes, here it was, as she feared. The ogre’s claw had cut through muscle into organ. The Elari’s body was poisoning itself. It’s no different than Mum’s cut finger, she reminded herself and began nudging the tissues back into place. Miniscule work. Tuck and stitch, tuck and stitch, she who had always loathed needlework. But this was no worthless tapestry to prove she was a lady.
When the intestine held together, she spread her awareness through vein and artery. Like digging her feet into soft soil, she rooted herself, shaping her own clean, healthy energy into a wedge and aimed it against the flow of infection. The black and yellow shards splintered, scattering like water falling on stones. Rather than gathering them up bit by bit, Carah surged after them, pushing them from veins and tissue and out through the Elari’s pores. He shuddered under her fingers. The Elari’s pulse quickened. But she didn’t relent. Break them, push them. Fingers gripped Carah’s wrist. Ignore it, she told herself. Once more. Round and round she coursed, until only remnants of infection remained.
She sat back, opened her eyes, and found a soft white glow fading from the Elari’s skin, and from her own. Not his azeth, then, but a sign of her furious assault. Torrents of sweat ran in rivulets down his face, throat, and chest. He blinked groggily at her; his fingers released her arm.
“Aethihat vilat devor mathon oän,” he said, but Carah heard his meaning clearly in her mind: I thought you were trying to kill me.
She smiled, reached for a cloth in a basin, and squeezed it out. How steady her hands were. Though a delicious weariness swept through her body, her hands remained steady. Cleaning the sweat from his face, she said, “You’ll be back in the trees in no time.”
“How you do this, rëa?” asked young Nashín.
Azhien flung out a blanket and laid it over the wounded dranithi, then glanced at Carah with his mouth ajar.
“Get him water. Lots of water,” she requested. Nashín ran to the stove.
“I’d prefer wine,” the wounded dranithi said.
“In time, friend.”
The skeptic across the aisle tried not to look impressed. He searched the nearby cots for a hopeless cause, pointed at the one next to him. “Can you give him a new hand?”
The dranithi’s arm was shorn off at an angle below the elbow. Carah closed her eyes and gulped hard to keep her stomach down. “No,” she admitted. “Of course not.” The bandages were soaked, and the Elari himself appeared to be dead. His face was gray, lusterless, his eyes open and dilated. She looked a question at Azhien.
“Is mind-sleep,” he said, searching for the right words. “Mmm … trance.”
“Shock?”
“No, is … on purpos
e. To stop pain.”
“Ah. Astonishing.” Carah washed her hands, then knelt beside the Elari to examine the sodden linen wrapped about the stump. “Nashín, these need a change.”
The boy rummaged through the contents of a cabinet.
She couldn’t smell any disease, and laying a hand near the wound, she found little infection. The tissue was ripe for it, however, open and exposed as it was. His body seemed to be trying to heal that which was no longer there. She needed to convince the veins and nerves to close off.
Don’t bother, his mind cried. Contact through their skin allowed Carah to glimpse what he longed for. A great light engulfed him, freeing him of agony and overwhelming shame. But inside the light, a beautiful face flitted, stopping him.
Carah touched his cheek, looked for a response in those dilated eyes. You have a girl?
A half-formed thought carried a name like a torch in the dark. Vyrielle … she won’t want me.
You are not your wounds, Carah insisted. Ask her. Don’t give up.
Nashín brought the clean linen. The soldier didn’t fuss as the boy applied them, nor did he argue as Carah closed the seeking veins. When she sat back, she found a host of curious eyes pinning her. Some were wounded warriors, some were orderlies, but others were the dranithion and Regulars from the other side of the screen.
She tried to stand, but swayed. Azhien grabbed her by the elbow. “You rest now, avedra,” he said. “Bath, clothes, upstairs.”
“And food,” she pleaded.
“We bring it,” Nashín said.
She did not linger in the tub, though her body ached. Patients waited. Leggings and a sleeveless jerkin, like those the dranithion wore, had been scrounged up for her. The suede was dark blue-gray, like shadows at twilight, and luxuriantly soft. Never had she worn clothes that exposed her arms above the elbows. She felt quite indecent, but reminded herself that the Elarion wouldn’t think twice about it. All she needed were a few green stripes to adorn her own arms and she would fit right in. After braiding her hair over a shoulder and tugging on her riding boots, she hurried downstairs.