This was what he and Carrasco had theorised about. Starting a heart that had stopped beating—bringing someone back from death. They’d decided it would only work on an undamaged heart, and would take an initial jolt larger than any Bone Mage had ever managed before.
Gabe had further postulated that a damaged heart could be replaced and the same process performed. Carrasco had been horrified, refusing to see how it was exactly the same principle they used when transfusing blood from one person to another. Her vehement objections had forced Gabe to put their discussions aside.
Then Evellia had died. His beautiful, precious Evellia. And there was her brother, compatible and dead beyond any help Gabe could offer him—a knife through the eye, damaging his brain.
Gabe had dared to try it because he would rather die than go on living if she wasn’t with him. Now, he did it because he knew he could.
He held his breath, watching the heart.
Thump.
Gabe waited.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
“Holy shit,” the Alarian managed to whisper.
Gabe laughed at his astonishment. Then he got back to work. With blood coursing through du Serres’s body again, he could work. Tentatively at first, then with more confidence, he threaded his magic through the body, repairing and rebuilding. The burst of magic that had started the heart had all but drained him. Sealing the heart in place, reconnecting all the tissues, mending the lungs and bones, took everything that was left.
By the time he was replacing the skin over the repaired sternum, he was fading. His magic went in a final spurt, leaving a raw, but shallow, wound. The soldier had also recovered enough to sit up and reach the rifle Gabe didn’t have the strength to move away.
“Don’t worry,” Gabe said as his vision went blurry. “I think I’m going to pass out anyway.”
Still, the last thing he saw was the rifle stock, rammed toward his head.
#
“Wake up.”
Gabe jerked, the voice hissing right in his ear.
“Saints damn you, Castillo. Wake up now!”
He knew the low, angry tone bordering on rebellion against something, anything. Ofelia was in a mood. Working to scrounge up a skerrick of saliva to un-stick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, Gabe forced his mind to work. The first thing it registered was the dampness of his clothes, the steady drum against the top of his head.
Excellent. It was raining again, not hard but definitely there, and he was out in it. His hair was a heavy weight on his skull, plastered down across his forehead and eyes. Tilting his head back, he opened his mouth and caught the fresh, cool rain, swallowing convulsively. He was thirsty.
The second thing was a gentle tapping, an inconsistent rhythm, sometimes hard, sometimes soft. It was familiar. A slightly hollow sound with an occasional creak of a strained rope.
Something held him tight around his shoulders, waist and legs.
“Gabriel? Are you awake?”
“Mm,” he managed.
“Good. I would hate to have to die alone.”
Die? The word broke through the last of his exhausted fog. Gabe blinked several times and the central yard of the camp came into slow focus. It was dim, the sun down but night had yet to fall completely. Directly in front of him was the corral of restless Alarian horses. Turning, he saw the white command tent. From the corner of his eye he caught sight of Ofelia. Her back was to him but very close, her head turned as his was, looking at him from the corner of her own eye. Over his head, the tapping continued and he looked up to see the dangling feet of the mesquala skeleton.
He was tied to the pole in the middle of the camp. The same pole where the Alarians had executed Delaluzian prisoners. Ofelia was tied there as well, her hands straining against the ropes to touch his. He tried to hold on to her fingers but it was impossible.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The colonel, that’s what happened,” Ofelia snapped. “After I closed the earth over you and the general, more soldiers arrived and chased the shooter off. No one saw who it was, but they’re working on the theory it was Dina.”
Stifling the automatic need to defend Dina, Gabe just grunted. She’d been hiding so much, what was a little marksmanship now?
“When I let the earth down, we found you unconscious, the general barely alive and a soldier claiming you’re a demon. He said you took the heart from a dead man and put it in the general and brought him back to life. Is it true?”
Gabe let his head rest against the pole. “It is. I had to. Without him I knew we didn’t have a chance. Roulier’s a fanatic. Without du Serres to command him otherwise, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill us mages and I don’t think he’s willing to leave any of the others alive, either.”
Ofelia was quiet for a long time. Gabe took the time to look around. They were alone in the yard but he could see shadows moving in the command tent. Opposite the tent was a smouldering pyre.
“You brought a man back to life,” Ofelia finally said, her tone somewhere between awe and fear.
“It’s not that hard a thing. Du Serres was the second.”
Ofelia swallowed audibly. “The first?”
“It’s why I’m here. Abbess Morales wasn’t too happy with me about it. I really should be thankful to Duke Ibarra for sending me here. It might be a shithole, but at least it’s not the Room of Mirrors, right?”
“Dear Luz, Gabe. You don’t do things by halves, do you.”
“Not very military of me, is it.”
She barked a short, hard laugh. “Not at all. Was it... I mean, did you...” She sighed. “Was Morales right? Did you use demonic powers to do it?”
“By Delaluzian standards, no. Though I’m guessing Colonel Roulier thinks otherwise.”
“All of the Alarians think otherwise.”
“What’s the pyre for?” he asked.
Ofelia swallowed audibly. “Gabe, he killed Ruben and Jacinta.”
Cold stabbed through Gabe’s stomach. “What?”
“Roulier. He was furious with you, with all of us. He had them brought out and... and he burned them alive.” She held back a disgusted sob. “At least they slept through it.”
Feeling his sanity continue its slide down the slope away from him, Gabe stared at the pyre. Not Ruben. First Ismael, then the Sacerdios and Dina, now his one friend in this stinking, horrible place.
“What about du Serres?” he asked numbly. “Is he dead? Is that why Roulier’s in charge?”
Ofelia shifted, ropes scratching against the wet wood. “He’s alive, as far as I can tell. He was taken to the command tent and every single Alarian medic is in there with him, trying to decide if he really is alive. They have enough doubts about our magic as it is, but what you did... I think they’re more shocked by the idea of their general having someone else’s heart beating inside him than by the fact you healed his wounds with magic. Even if he’s still alive now, he’s not fit enough to command.”
Something Gabe should have realised, but he’d just been so desperate to not have Roulier deciding his fate.
“If he killed Ruben and Jacinta,” Gabe said, “why are we alive?”
“I don’t know.” There was a soft hitch in her breathing. “I didn’t think I’d live through his lesson.”
“Ofelia?” Gabe strained to touch her. His fingertips skimmed hers. “Did he hurt you?”
She didn’t answer, instead moving so they could touch a little more. Her pain seeped into him.
Gabe gasped, partly from the pain, mostly because of the sheer cruelty in the calm, methodical way Roulier had punished Ofelia. Thanks to Gabe’s comments that first night, the colonel had decided pain was a good detriment to a mage using their abilities. He’d shot both of Ofelia’s knees out, had them bandaged so she wouldn’t bleed to death, then strung her up. Gabe couldn’t understand how she was even conscious.
“Ofelia, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” Her fingers struggled for more
contact. “Can you help me?”
Gabe strained against his bonds. “I can take some of the pain, but that’s all. To heal you, I’d need to use my whole hand.” And to have not expended all but two drops of his magic in healing du Serres. For nothing.
“Anything you could do,” she whispered and it was almost like they were back in the earth together, so intimately entwined. He felt not only her physical pain but her emotional anguish as well. She just wanted to go home and be with her boy again. She missed him so much it was a constant twist in her guts, slowly getting tighter. Pio helped but he wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. Until she paid off her debt to the church for funding her years at the Academy, she would have to work wherever, however, they directed. The only relief she got was in the small concessions she managed to wrangle from her son’s father. At least she wasn’t on the frontline, at least she wasn’t in as much danger. Except that wasn’t true now.
“Ofelia,” Gabe said against the sudden pain in his chest as he tried to discern between his emotions and hers. “You’ll get out of here, I promise. You will see your son again.”
She sobbed. Gabe closed his eyes and siphoned off the pain. It stabbed into his own legs like white-hot rods. Ofelia instantly relaxed, her hand pulling away from his.
“Thank you,” she said, the strain lessening.
Teeth gritted, he managed a soft grunt. “What about the others? How are they?”
“I don’t know. Pio and Demetrio were taken away. I think the prince is still in the command tent.”
“And Roulier’s not following du Serres’s plan to leave, obviously.”
“No. I think I heard him mention something about unfinished business. I think he means Dina.”
“Excellent. He’s using me as bait for her.”
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t right. Dina might want to kill Gabe, perhaps even Rafe and Ofelia now her original plan—whatever it had been—was ruined, but Roulier wouldn’t care so much about that. No, Roulier was more upset by the Alarian deaths. He wanted revenge for the lives lost to David’s raids. Gabe wasn’t bait for Dina.
Saint Sevastian’s balls. If David took the bait, he would probably survive whatever ambush Roulier had set up, but immortal or not, the man could still be incapacitated. All Roulier needed to do was set up another rifle barrage and David would go down. So would Gabe and Ofelia, but that was probably just an added benefit to Roulier.
Gabe had to warn David, find some way to let him know not to come into the camp tonight. It would have been nice to not be tied to a pole because it severely limited his options. He glared up through the rain at the tinkling skeleton. Damn Kimotak and his primitive superstitions. All he’d done was give the Alarians a convenient execution point. If only Captain Meraz had taken the stupid thing down.
Rain pinged against his eyes and he blinked it out. Damn the rain too. Did it never stop? He almost wished for the arid, hot days of the dry season.
Dry season. Wet season. Breeding time for the mesquala. The vicious midgets would be migrating to the east to breed, avoiding Tejon Company thanks to the skeleton hanging right in the middle of the camp...
“Ofelia?”
“Yes?”
“Are you able to use your magic now?”
There was a short pause and he felt a tingle down his spine.
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m thinking we need to do something other than die.”
“Like what?”
“Can you get a message to the next battalion?”
“I should be able to. We surveyed a stable route when we were first encamped.”
“Do it. Tell them everything. No! Not everything. Only that Prince Ramiero is here and that we’ve been taken over by the Alarians. Let them know it’s a hostage situation. They can’t just come roaring into the valley, guns a-blazing. Roulier would probably take exception to that and do something stupid.”
“It’ll take eight hours for the message to get through. I don’t think it’ll help us personally.”
“I know, but if we don’t succeed tonight, then at least we’ll have a backup.”
Ofelia twisted to look at him. They met gazes as much as they could. She understood what he was asking and he could see her fear. She wanted to return to her son, but this was bigger than her, vital to all of Delaluz. Ofelia had argued with Meraz and he half expected her to argue with him now, but she didn’t. She nodded and turned away. Within moments, she was working, the tingle of her magic growing until it was an ache in Gabe’s teeth. Such a big message, going so far, would take a lot of her energy but Botello was right. Ofelia should have been on the frontline with the strength she had.
While the Earth Mage worked, Gabe listed his assets. One Earth Mage, already tired and crippled. One mesquala skeleton. A wet season. An immortal man bent on ripping through the enemy numbers to find a single boy. A camp of Delaluzian prisoners, outnumbered. About a hundred peaceful natives. He listed what he had to do. Stop David walking into a trap. Keep Rafe safe. Force Roulier to follow his general’s plan.
Easy. Surely. If he’d ever been trained by the military, maybe.
“It’s away,” Ofelia said, panting a little.
“Thank you.”
“Now what?”
Of all the people qualified to be in charge, Gabe was on the bottom of a long list. He would probably have even put Botello above himself. No, maybe not Botello, but surely Ofelia was more logical. Shouldn’t he be the one looking to her for guidance? And yet he knew she wouldn’t take command, not even under the most strenuous protest. If he didn’t do it, no one would.
A horn sounded outside the walls. Shouts went up, soldiers clattered from here to there. Another horn, from the opposite side of the camp.
David was early. They were officially out of time.
Damn it all. He should have just stayed in Roque.
Chapter 33
“Again?” Ofelia sighed. “What is it that attacks the camp every night?”
“Not what, who,” Gabe said. “Can you break our ropes?”
“It would take a lot of time.”
“Let’s not try that then. I need two things from you, both of them right now.
“I just sent a long message a very long distance. I can’t—”
“You can and you know it, Ofelia,” he snapped, understanding why Meraz had nearly lost her calm with the Earth Mage. “We’re not bait for Dina. Roulier’s hunting bigger game and we need that person if we’re going to get out of this alive. I would guess Roulier has us surrounded with riflemen, probably Carufel as well. He’s a crack-shot and I reckon he could take both of us down even in these conditions. Do you understand the danger we’re in?”
“Of course I do. What the fuck do you need me to do?”
“Right. You need to bury the pole and the skeleton as well as shielding us from the riflemen.”
“We’re attached to the pole,” she reminded him.
“Slide it down between us, then. Our ropes will come off over the top. And Ofelia, you need to do it fast.”
“How fast?”
“As fast as you can. Faster, even.”
“Why? What will it—”
“Don’t argue! Just do it.”
“Fine! Watch where you put your feet.”
He was shifting his feet even before she’d finished speaking, the ground beneath them starting to soften. The rain had turned the top layer to mud but Ofelia’s magic worked deeper, opening up a hollow under the pole. The unstable earth around it began to slough inwards and Gabe scrambled to stay above it, even as the pole that supported him began to sink. Within moments, the skeleton was knocking on the top of his head. It jangled and clattered as the pole picked up speed. The wood rubbed against Gabe’s back with increasing friction, making the ropes burn against his body.
“The shield, Ofelia,” he reminded her tersely.
“Getting to it,” she ground out between clenched teeth.
The shifted earth rippled
outward, building up a mound of mud before it. A shout went up somewhere close by.
“Hurry,” Gabe encouraged her.
She growled and the earth burst upward around them just as several rifles fired. The bullets ploughed through the wet mud wall, their forward momentum stolen by the sudden barrier. Harmless slugs of lead plopped to the ground at Gabe’s feet. The shell closed in over the top and hardened.
Then all support was gone. The pole disappeared into the earth, the skeleton lying on the ground as the rope attaching it to the pole slithered into the mud. Gabe crashed down, Ofelia landing on top of him. The drop interrupted her concentration and the skeleton stopped jiggling, no longer being drawn downward.
“Ofelia, bury it,” Gabe gasped, shoving her off him before their combined weight buried him.
She was tangled in the now loose ropes that had bound them to the pole. Her legs, painless though her injuries might be, were useless and she struggled in the cold mud.
“We have to get out of the ropes first,” she said. “We’re all tangled up with the skeleton. I can’t bury it until we’re free.”
Gabe scrambled up, trying to find an end to the impossible mess of rope and bones. “Luz damn it.”
By dint of simply wriggling until he was completely covered in mud, Gabe managed to get free. He rolled over and helped Ofelia. In the distance, there were more horns, gunfire, shouting. David’s assault seemed more intense tonight, more wide ranging. Gabe didn’t doubt the man would be within the walls very shortly. Closer, there was more shouting, more bullets pinging against Ofelia’s shell and lots of boots slapping through the mud toward them.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered and finally Ofelia was free.
She put a hand on the ground and the mud opened up and swallowed the skeleton. The ground closed up just as the first soldiers reached them. They pounded on the hardened mud and cracks began to appear.
“I didn’t have enough to time to make it very thick,” Ofelia said as if Gabe had accused her of shoddy work.
“That’s all right. Just keep them out for a bit longer.”
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