by Court Ellyn
“M’ lord, I’m sor—”
“Shut up.” Laral pinched Tarsyn’s jaw and turned his face to the moonlight. With all the cuts and swelling flesh, he hardly looked like himself. Tomorrow he’d look worse. “Crazy kid, you shoulda stayed down.”
“No, sir.” Shame kept him from meeting Laral’s gaze.
“Look at me, damn it.”
Tarsyn’s eyes snapped around. After a moment, he raised his chin and straightened his shoulders. Laral approved with a nod, then returned to his blanket, where he stretched out contentedly.
He couldn’t have been asleep for long when soft voices roused him. “… tarantula for a pet when I was seven. Believe that?”
Kalla murmured something too soft to make out, but it sounded like, “Hold still.”
Laral cracked an eyelid and found them sitting in the brightest patch of moonlight the trees had to offer. The saddlebag with the medical supplies lay beside Kalla’s knee. An assortment of bottles reflected Forath’s dull glower. Kalla dabbed a cut over Tarsyn’s eyebrow.
“…not always a pansy when it comes to the damn things.”
“I believe you. Now stop squirming. This needs a stitch or two.”
“No stitches. I’d rather have a scar than that needle in me.”
“Don’t be a baby. I need the practice, in case one of us gets really hurt.” Kalla started to thread a needle.
Tarsyn pushed her hands apart. “It’s too dark. You’ll make it worse.”
A turn of Laral’s head showed him Drys sagging against a tree trunk, either dead or asleep. The trees moved, shadows shifted, and moonlight played across the wine bottle drooping in his lax fingers. Wonderful. The only one who could see ogres coming, passed out drunk. Laral dragged himself to his feet. He’d have to keep watch instead. Who needed sleep?
Kalla turned at his rustling. “Did we wake you? Sorry.” Her tone didn’t carry much sincerity.
Laral scrubbed a hand over his face, snatched the bottle from Drys’s hand, took a swig, then set it down beside Tarsyn. He would need it once the ointments wore off. One of his eyes had nearly swelled shut. Kalla dabbed something that smelled of herbs over the bruise.
“Did you know, in Ixaka there are spiders big as house cats?” he asked. Kalla muttered something that sounded sarcastic. “It’s true!” Tarsyn declared. “I seen ‘em myself.”
Laral drifted into the shadow of a nearby tree where he had a clear view of the highway in both directions. The trees across the road blocked his view of the surrounding hills, but he suspected ogres weren’t light-footed enough for stealth in wooded areas.
“When were you in Ixaka?” asked Kalla.
“Last few months of service. We were part of the escort for one of the king’s emissaries to Zimra. The ship was the Lusty Bride.” He sucked air through his teeth. Kalla apologized, then scolded him for whining.
He rambled on, perhaps to distract himself from the pain, perhaps desperate to justify his phobia, or perhaps to prove he had grand stories of his own: “The natives kill them as soon as they see one. The spiders, I mean. Takes an arrow to pierce their bodies or a hammer to smash them. But you don’t want to get too close because they jump.”
“They must have potent poison.”
“Not as potent as you’d think. It’s not the kind that kills you. It just numbs the flesh. And they have tiny fangs for such a big body. Barely leave a hole at all. Anyway, on our voyage home, we put in at a backwater port for repairs, and in camp one morning, one of my mates didn’t show up for roll call. We found him in his tent with his belly gnawed open and his face gone. Bitch of a spider was camping out on his tent pole waiting to finish the rest later.”
“Goddess’ mercy,” Kalla said. She remembered the wad of cotton in her fingers and dabbed at Tarsyn’s cheek again.
“That was only a couple years ago. I still have nightmares. But don’t tell Drys.”
“I think you made your point, as far as he’s concerned.”
Tarsyn shrugged. “He’s nothing new, but I am tired of fighting his kind. It never ends.”
~~~~
The next morning as horses were saddled, there was a cool tension between Drys and Tarsyn. Their heavy silence was almost tangible enough to prickle the skin. Both moved slowly as bruises protested sudden movement, and both sported a vast collection of cuts and purple swellings. Drys groaned about too much wine. “You got another bottle, kid?”
Tarsyn tugged his pony’s cinch tighter, hissed through his teeth, rolled a sore shoulder. “Maybe.”
“Is it too early to break it open?” The sun had barely crested the tops of the mountains. “My skull is cracked. Can’t tell if it’s your fault or the wine last night.”
After a moment’s deliberation, Tarsyn reached into one of his packs, fished out a bottle and tossed it to Drys.
“I need you sober,” Laral warned him.
“Sober, hell, I can’t see straight with this pain in my eyes.”
“You can’t see straight because Tarsyn nearly knocked your block off.”
Drys surprised everyone by bursting into laughter. “He sure as hell did. Damn kid.”
Half hidden behind his pony, Tarsyn grinned despite a busted lip.
When they left camp, Drys rode beside the bastard from Cayndale, and though he was supposed to be keeping an eye out for ogres, he spent most of his time regaling the youth with war stories. Drys must have decided the boy had earned them.
~~~~
28
Ai, Mother’s milk, I thought a dozen bogles smelled foul. Alyster laid eye-deep in dew-soaked grass, trying to think flat as a snake. The scent of the summer grass ought to have been sweet, but the reek wafting across the plain was enough to sour his stomach. He tucked his nose inside his shirt, hoping to retreat into the smell of his own sweat, but the bogle stink invaded that, too.
The fairy pendant bumped against his chin. Odd, carrying something that belonged to a fine lady. Even if she was his sister. Which he still had trouble accepting. Her hands were too soft; he’d discovered that as she clasped the necklace on him. Her words too fine, her step too graceful, her innocence too glaring bright for her age. Yet she was determined to own him. Why?
“At least the wind favors us,” whispered Azhien. They lay close enough to brush shoulders. “Naenion have noses good as bears.”
Alyster took a deep breath, then bared his face to the stinking wind. “My nose will never be the same, that’s the Mother’s honest law.” But smelling the bogles was better than the bogles sniffing them out, Azhien was right about that.
During the long run, Alyster had decided he liked this Elari. In bedtime tales, Mother had called Azhien’s kind Elrie. She said they lived in the clouds, but the clouds were underground. She said the Elrie didn’t visit men anymore. They had been frightened away by bogles and evil men and had taken all their magic away with them. Clearly, Azhien wasn’t from the clouds, nor was he afraid of bogles, nor did he even seem all that magical. Alyster had to admit, he was almost disappointed when he learned the truth. On the other hand, Azhien proved to be a tireless runner; his long stride made it challenging to keep up, and anyone who could outrun Alyster earned his respect.
The Elrie squinted through the spyglass. “Have you ever seen so many of them?”
“Bogles? I never saw a one till a few weeks ago, man.”
“There must be … four … five thousand of them. The Sheannach won’t be happy about that. Ana sahvilë yora.”
The bogles swarmed around Tírandon’s west wall like angry black ants fighting over a crumb. There, as the War Commander said, the main gatehouse jutted out like twin drums, massive twin drums. Between them reared a door tall and wide enough for a giant to stride through. Mattresses padded it from endless assault. Black soot splashed the towers; the bogles must’ve set bonfires to try to weaken the stone, or perhaps burn through the door.
Tírandon was monstrous huge. Alyster had never imagined a fortress so grand. On the War Commander
’s map, the place had been a dot barely bigger than a fly speck, but the real thing dominated the plain. Plop Alyster’s own village down inside those walls, and likely no one would stumble across it for days.
Most of the fortress was built from pale stone, yellow and gray. But for some reason, the tops of the towers were rust-red. In the light of the early morning sun, they looked like blood-stained fingertips clawing at the sky. Blue banners with angled black and silver stripes flew from several of them.
Azhien was harder to impress. He claimed that the walls of his own city, hidden deep in some wood to the north, spread out two or three times as wide. Likely a town huddled inside Tírandon’s walls as well, he’d said, but nothing like a proper city. And here Alyster thought Ilswythe Village had sprawled on forever.
“I found their commander,” the Elrie said, the spyglass trained on the camp. “Aye, I know him. One of the Lady’s own. Ach, what’s his name? He left Linndun twenty years ago, but I remember him.”
Twenty years ago? Alyster eyed the Elrie’s face, unmarred by scar, wrinkle, or time. “You can’t be but two-and-twenty yourself.”
“More like two-and-fifty,” he muttered absently. His mind was elsewhere. “Yandir … Lanthir … Alendir … Elyandir! That’s it, yes. Myol, he was a … how you say? … snob—even for the Dardra. How can he do this?”
Stand the proximity of bogles? Lead them against his own people? Alyster didn’t ask. “Why do the bogles want to take this fortress, in particular?”
Azhien passed him the spyglass. “Because Tírandon once belongs to us. Duinóvion take it from us in Damoth Duínovan. Lothiar wants it back.”
Through the spyglass, Alyster saw that portions of the inner and outer moats had been filled in with wide bridges of earth. “And you don’t agree he should win it back?”
“Lothiar is lost. His head is upside down.”
Aye, it took someone with an upside-down head to accomplish so much slaughter and turmoil. It was this Elrie with the upside-down head who was responsible for his mother’s death. This Elrie who took Alyster from his herds, who forced him to face his father, something he swore he would never do. All of it, unforgivable.
The fairy pendant tapped his chest. But, then, there was Carah.
“You going to look or think?” Azhien said. He tried to take the spyglass. Alyster scooted a hand-span away and pressed the spyglass to his eye. Deep divots had been gouged into the outer wall; likely those machines with the long arms were responsible. The trebuchets stood abandoned amid the bogle camps. Ravens roosted atop the devices now. After a closer look, Alyster saw why. Bodies, human bodies, hung from the beams and arms. A taunt. A boast. A threat.
“Is that a battering ram?” asked Azhien.
Alyster panned the spyglass. A knot of bogles pushed an iron-shod tree trunk toward the moats. The thing rolled on spiked wheels as tall as a bogle’s shoulders.
“I think we tell the Sheannach he is crazy. We cannot fight this many!”
Lowering the spyglass, Alyster saw panic etched on the Elrie’s face. Maybe the bogles had frightened away Azhien’s people after all. With a firm nudge of his elbow Alyster said, “They only outnumber us three to one. I can take three mysel’ and more besides before they take me. What’s to fear?”
“I’m not—!” Azhien shouted but stopped himself and whispered, “I’m not afraid. But I still think the Sheannach is crazy.”
“Just keep moving. The bogles are slow. They can’t catch you.”
“Yes, Laniel.”
“Eh?”
“Never mind. Let’s start back—” Azhien began slinking backward through the grass but stopped suddenly, as if a vast finger had lowered from the sky and pinned him to the ground. Grass rustled, and in the corner of his eye, Alyster saw two bogles trying to creep up on them. No, three. One crawled on his belly, elbows and knees sticking out at odd angles, like a lizard scuttling on a rock.
Alyster locked eyes with the Elrie. Fear swept over Azhien’s face like a landslide during the snowmelt. His breath came short and fast. “Wish I had my bow,” he whispered.
“They’re too close for that. Just keep moving.” Alyster’s hand slid slowly, slowly toward the dirk on his belt. Time to put his boast to the test.
~~~~
Carah grit her teeth and swung the mallet. It struck the side of the tent stake, knocking it askew. She righted the stake and tried again. Dead on center. She struck it again, again, a fury building inside her. The stitches in her forearm pulled sharply. She gasped air through her teeth, then brought down the mallet again.
“M’ lady,” said the queen’s guard standing over her shoulder, “you don’t have to do that.” His shadow stretched heavily across her.
“Yes, I do,” she retorted. “And don’t loom over me!” He had loomed, towering tall, whispering hate in her ear, and reached for the shiny chain.
Finally the guard went away and took his heavy shadow with him. Carah buried the stake deep in the soft soil, then moved on to the next. The tent was stretched out in a rumpled square on the grass. The hayfield lay on the outskirts of a village called Upton Mill, even though it had no mill. All around her, rows of other tents were going up faster than hers. The tent was of ordinary gray canvas, only slightly larger than those used by infantrymen. She and the queen would be cramped, but at least there was no reason for the avedra hunter to suspect she slept in this tent instead of any of the others. How could he?
She barely remembered calling fire. Until last night, she had only lit candles and summoned a small tongue of violet flame over her palm; at any other time, she would’ve felt immensely proud of herself for the inferno that had burst from her hand, but she remembered only terror.
The final day of the march had been the most unbearable of all. Rumors had spread that the host had been discovered by one of Lothiar’s scouts. No one had to enforce Da’s order for silence. For many miles, Carah heard no idle chatter, only the rumble of wagon wheels and the hollow cadence of hundreds of hooves. Taut faces turned toward the horizon, searching for enemy banners as fear mounted and faith in the veil waned.
The morning had been full of jolting wagons and Queen Briéllyn making a fuss. “Are you comfortable? Have another pillow under you. Do you need more salve for the pain? Let me check your stitches one more time.” The manacle that had clamped onto Carah’s arm had left a deep bruise; its teeth had cut twin rows of puncture marks. She’d have a fine scar. Still, she had no intention of wasting their precious salves on herself.
Da had fussed too. “You won’t be a minute without a guard nearby. Several, if I can spare them.” He hadn’t been referring to Briéllyn’s queensguard, those brave, vigilant blind men. “I want Rhian riding alongside you—”
Uncle Thorn sleekly interrupted, “I have other tasks for Rhian. Laniel or myself will stay with her.”
Laniel made for better company. He walked alongside the surgeon’s wagon, distracting Carah with fine tales told in a soft bedside voice, a voice that traveled no farther than the mules’ rumps. His tales were new to Carah; they came straight from ancient Elaran lore. ‘Ancient.’ That was laughable. Laniel started half the stories with “In my father’s time…”
Uncle Thorn maintained the order of silence, but Carah suspected his reasons weren’t born of fear of the War Commander’s wrath. He wasn’t himself. An energy rippled outward from him like waves of heat rising off sunbaked stone. The shiny chain dangled from his saddle, clinking softly.
“Why do you keep it?” Carah asked.
He’d offered a smile, but it was strained and unfriendly. “I hope to find Ruvion and strangle him with it. You’re right, of course. I should throw it away.” But he didn’t.
Now, as the camp bloomed around her, Carah fought waves of panic. She didn’t want the dark to come. She didn’t want to sleep without the safety of stone walls at her back. When she learned the village had an inn, she had hoped Da would buy her a room for the night, a room with a lock on the door, but officers
, he’d said, came first. Tonight of all nights, they needed decent sleep.
The mallet struck the stake with a vengeance. How could he? How could that Elari brazenly waltz into a camp of a thousand soldiers, fearing neither men nor consequences? With Da and Uncle Thorn only feet away. And Rhian. Off chasing shadows. They hadn’t been there when she needed them. Who had saved her? Not those two guards. Those two poor, blind guards, cut open as if they were nothing but sacks of grain. Nor the queen with her packet of powder. No, only Carah herself. Carah and her hands of flame.
Are you all right? The voice was a tickle in her mind, the barest caress.
Carah lowered the mallet and sat back on her knees. You’re supposed to avoid me, she replied. Her anger sloughed off like skin too big and too awkward to fit properly.
Ah, fuck that, are you all right, woman?
Trying to remain discrete, Carah peered over her left shoulder and found Rhian fifteen feet away, boldly and unashamedly looking at her. Soldiers shifted and bustled all around him, but he was the unmoved pillar. How long had he been standing there watching her? She wanted nothing more than to run to him and sob inside the circle of his arms, and breathe for the first time in hours, but she stayed on her knees, even made a show of examining a blister on her palm.
No, I’m not all right. But I will be.
Rhian stomped a foot and paced in a tight circle while a flow of obscenities raced from his brain. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’ll kill him. I catch him, I’ll kill him.
Carah sighed wearily. Yes, yes, you’ll have to fight Uncle Thorn for the privilege. And me too.
His rant stopped at that, and Carah peered back at him grinning a predator’s grin, a grin she’d learned from her uncle. I told you, I’ll be fine.
Rhian’s posture relaxed a bit. He looked at his feet and nodded, uncertain.
A clatter of iron stakes landed at Carah’s knees. She jumped half out of her skin. “Here’s the rest,” Eliad said. “Some idiot packed them underneath—”