The Last Larnaeradee

by Shelley Cass

  He studied me for just a moment more, taking in the unthreatening expression on my face. Then he took a deep breath. “I trust you. For some reason I trusted you from the start.”

  There was something within me that was also relieved. For a minute I had been worried that my solitary, violent life had done something irreparable to me.

  He became sheepish. “I’m not sure why I trust you,” he admitted. “Or how I know you’re not bad. I just know it. But,” he fidgeted a little. “Why are you helping us?”

  I relaxed now too. “I hate Krall’s King, Darziates,” I responded openly. “Helping his enemies or victims is my way of standing against him.”

  “But you’re a lady,” Noal stated.

  “I suppose it is fortunate I managed to rescue you, despite that shortcoming,” I was a little wry this time, and Noal was abashed.

  “I meant no offence, it’s just that … why? Why were you even there to help us?”

  The underlying question was again why I was alone and living a life like this at all.

  “Where do you come from Noal?” I asked.

  “The Awyalknian Capital City,” he fidgeted with a spoon on the bench.

  “Have any hunting groups been sent out after the bizarre creatures roaming Awyalkna?” I questioned.

  “Of course,” he glanced up again. “They’re threats from Krall. But, all of the hunters sent out are male, and they don’t often come back.”

  “My goal is also to hunt down those beasts and make sure they can do no more harm. I have so far always managed to survive, but these beings are getting smarter.”

  “King Glaidin is doing his best,” Noal said hesitantly.

  “Yes, and I’m getting rid of as many unnatural threats as I can, to do my best and help in the only way I know as well.”

  “Was that how you found us? Were you hunting those things?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you live alone?”

  I shrugged. “I just do.”

  “But, don’t you worry for your safety?”

  I appealed to him to open his mind. “You must understand that, if I can defeat those beasts, I can take care of myself against most threats.”

  “Oh,” he weakened. “Of course.” He peered back at the ingredients I had scattered everywhere. “And why do you have them?”

  I rested my hip against the bench. “Those are plants that I’ve found on my travels. I often need to mix medicines to help patch people up. That’s why I think I can help your friend.”

  “You’re a healer? At your age?” His face lit up. “That’s incredible!”

  “Shall I help your friend now?” I asked him pointedly with a slight smile.

  “Oh!” He straightened in alarm. “Yes! Please.”

  Taking the little wooden cup I returned to my bedroom, where the flames of the candles were struggling to stay alight, and where the room temperature had dropped dramatically.

  Unceremoniously, I leant over the boy to grip his jaw and tilt his head, and gradually poured the entire mixture between his parted purple lips. I massaged his throat and waited, but for now there was no reaction.

  “Is that bad?” came a whisper from behind me. I started, thinking it was the unconscious boy who had spoken. But, instead I turned to find Noal in the doorway again.

  “Just different,” I answered, grimly remembering other healings I’d performed that had involved cauterising, packing or bandaging grizzly wounds. “The tonic may take time and multiple doses to work its way throughout his freezing anatomy. I’ll stay with him while he needs it, just in case.”

  Noal nodded grimly. “You are the kindest stranger I have ever met, and I will do anything to help.”

  He seemed such a good-natured sort, and I wondered why Darziates seemed to have used his first intelligent beasts to target such a harmless pair.

  Still thinking on it, I resolutely set up my station beside the bed, deciding that the Sorcerer would not snatch the life of the dying – no, healing, boy if I could help it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kiana

  The second night of my vigil was nearly over. The stars were just distant glittery specks in the sky, the moon a pale faraway globe hovering over the earth.

  I had managed to keep strong the thread that the boy’s life clung to, but he had still not stirred. He was continuing to make the very air inside the room frosty, and I sat with my cloak about my shoulders.

  At one point during my watch I had been unable to endure the chill, and had taken one sip of the potion I was regularly medicating him with. For two hours my eyes had watered and wept and my throat had burned horribly, reaffirming my belief that, sooner or later, my patient would respond to this treatment.

  When the pale pink light of another morning began to kiss the sky and the sun crept up to peek over the land, I was still quietly confident despite his lack of response.

  Cringing at the loss of my solitude, I had warned a crestfallen Noal to avoid the village in case he and his friend were still in danger. But I had found that he was a surprisingly good companion, and I’d regularly caught myself smiling when I’d heard him puffing and grunting under the weight of the water pails, before he proudly brought the water he’d fetched or scraps of food he’d found into the bedroom for me.

  Noal and I were both relieved as another afternoon melted into twilight, and at last Dalin’s breathing and heartbeat began to strengthen. His chest and fingers were thawing as they lost their blue tinge.

  Heartened as the evening wore on, I left the room briefly to see how Noal was planning to scratch dinner together. I found him collapsed at the table, two rabbits waiting to be skinned in front of him.

  “Good catch,” I congratulated his slumped form.

  “I’m just so hungry,” he groaned into the table top.

  “Oh, I see,” I teased with a half smile. “You wealthy young lords must be used to things appearing on your plates fully cooked.”

  He sat up. “What makes you believe Dalin and I are wealthy?”

  “Your travelling clothes are tailored to fit,” I started listing, raising an eyebrow. “And they’re more fashionable than travel worn. Your mounts are very well bred. And you balk at the idea of food preparation.” I leaned on the table. “But no fear, status means little in my world,” I reassured him, and he smiled.

  “You’re right though.” He became glum again, eyeing the rabbits. “I’m dying at the thought of food that can’t be eaten instantaneously. It’s got to be cooked.”

  “Not to mention you still have to skin and wash each rabbit,” I agreed supportively. “Big task.”

  His expression managed to draw a laugh from me before I returned to Dalin, and my spirits remained higher than usual as Dalin began to breathe heavily, as if he were simply in a deep slumber.

  I only became restless in the middle of the next night, my body brimming with energy despite not having slept since the strange incident with Gloria. It was as if she had settled me into an uncommonly restful sleep to prepare me for the challenges that had then been ahead. But now I felt listless and frustrated, as nights were for hunting, and I craved physically demanding action.

  Dalin seemed peaceful enough, and finally, sick of idleness, I stretched my body in the early, dark hours of morning and pulled on a crisp set of hunting clothes and cloak, belting my sheathed sword at the hip.

  I glanced at the sleeping boy and left the room quietly, walking across the hall to the kitchen to scoop up my quiver of arrows and bow, slinging them over my shoulders as I went back down the hall to the dark sitting room that had become Noal’s domain.

  I found Noal, a crumpled ball of blankets on the floor, and shook him gently.

  “Noal,” I whispered. “Noal, wake up for a moment.”

  “I don’t like the apple!” he groaned. “I’m hungry.” His eyes were closed and he rolled over grumbling onto his side, his back to me.

  I smiled to myself and shook him harder. “Wake up!” I whispe
red more loudly, and he opened his eyes to look at me in confusion.

  “It’s still dark,” he mumbled. “What’s wrong?” then he suddenly became startled and rolled back to face me, sitting up. “Is it Dalin?”

  “He’s doing well. So well that I’m going out to hunt, and to get us food.”

  He blinked blearily. “Would it be better for me to go?”

  I stood. “Noal, I’m a hunter. I can catch us something more than pheasants and rabbits,” I said with emphasis.

  “Yes. Right ... Sorry.” He yawned himself back to sleep as I quietly left the cottage.

  And the fresh, early air invigorated me at once as I set off for a little freedom.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Noal

  I sighed, prodding the spoon around in the tonic filled pot dejectedly, knowing its contents would not be the solution for my rumbling stomach.

  I was in Kiana’s sunny kitchen, on the prowl for a snack.

  I rummaged through some cupboards, in case I’d missed anything good, and when I got to the very last cupboard I sent an imploring look up to the Gods and knelt down to pull at the door slowly, looking hopefully inside.

  Right in front of my nose there stood a round little jar with a lid, one of the kinds you’d find a biscuit in.

  “Thank you!” I cried and swiped the jar, prying the lid off to peer inside, at something round, shiny and red.

  I groaned at the apple, but sprawled out at the table to demolish it anyway, just in case Kiana didn’t come home with food. But over my resentful crunching, I didn’t hear footsteps on the gravel outside, or the front door opening, or steps coming down the hall. I only looked up when I saw her walk sideways through the kitchen door, just as I was nibbling the last chunk of apple off the core.

  I was surprised that I hadn’t heard her come in, because she was bent under the weight of a healthy sized doe slung across her shoulders.

  “Wow!” I yelped at the sight. “How far did you carry that thing?” I’d caught rabbits and found two injured birds when I’d decided to provide for us, and both those times I’d been out slinking around for half the day.

  I sprang up and took it from her shoulders, and when I’d shuffled it across to mine I immediately slumped under the weight.

  She regarded me with a trace of humour. “I’ll let you do the gutting, skinning and cooking. You’ve grown so competent at that.”

  “Sure,” I answered in a queasy puff, struggling to appear indifferent to the weight as I carried it outside and edged it down. But when I returned to fetch a knife and pail, I found Kiana asleep in a cushioned chair she’d brought into the kitchen to set by the fire.

  She looked to be already deeply dreaming, the sun falling across her in the chair like a blanket, and I quietly left her to rest.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kiana

  His gaze pierced my own like a red-hot dagger. Angra Mainyu was drinking in my helplessness. His sabre rose to deliver the final, fatal blow and my heart was cracking inside my chest.

  If only I could shake free and show him what I had become. That I could defeat all of them, and not leave my family unavenged. I had become the saviour of villages in all of the lands. I had grown strong.

  But this dream was a nightmarish memory of the person I had been then. A girl who had powerlessly watched Bwintam village square and all of the villagers’ homes and fields being consumed whole by the appetite of flame. A girl who had stayed hidden in her Willow tree while others had their throats slit, and who had been too frozen to escape when the Krall invaders had seized her at last.

  The girl I was in this memory had nothing left and now felt sure she would die too.

  Will it hurt? I had wondered, as the sabre had begun to arc down.

  I had pictured the cruel blade’s tip entering my flesh, pushing and cutting through muscle, bone and life. I had pictured the gallons of hot blood gushing from my body. Draining from me to join the blood of my people absorbing into the scorched dirt at my knees. But at that time I had not pictured a way to stop any of it.

  I had expected that my life would end in terrible, blinding pain. My heart would be sure to pump all of my blood through the hole of the wound until I was empty.

  He’d been standing over me, ready to kill me. As they had all been killed.

  His sabre had been coming, coming, coming and how I wished I could break free of the dream to beat him this time.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dalin

  I was tingling all over. Tingling with warmth. My scalp prickled, my fingertips smarted, the tips of my toes felt near to bursting with pins and needles.

  My eyes drank in the sight of a sun bathed ceiling, and I tried to remember what had happened.

  Was Noal alright?

  My tongue slid out of my mouth to lick dry lips, but I almost gagged with pain. It at once felt as though I had been swallowing boiling pitch and my tongue throbbed and ached terribly as I tried to groan.

  The rasping sound that scratched from my throat sent a fire raging down my oesophagus that spread itself to the outside and throbbed around my neck.

  What was going on?

  My eyes travelled down to search my surroundings. A small, neat room. A chair sat empty next to the bed.

  I groggily tried to prop up on my elbows but my arms trembled.

  Slowly I pushed myself to sit up and to unsteadily use the bed to get into a standing position on limbs that felt like hollow cylinders. My knees were almost knocking together, struggling to lock into a standing position and I searched for a way to protect myself in this vulnerable state.

  My eyes settled on a dagger on a shelf and I silently thanked the Gods that it had been that easy.

  Like a newborn lamb, wobbly and weak on new legs, I tripped and stumbled weakly across the room and clasped the hilt in shaking fingers. Then I made my way toward the closest door, and quietly leaned out to see that it opened onto a hallway. I saw an entrance to this place at one end of the hall, and a room smelling of herbs and spices at the other. It would be so easy to wobble my way down to that front door and leave, but I had to find Noal.

  Shuffling and sliding along the wall of the hallway for support, I managed to reach a kitchen. No sound came from inside, so I slowly levered myself into the room, clutching the blade out in front of myself with one hand.

  That was when I saw her.

  The sun poured in from the window and danced in golden rays about her sleeping form.

  A guardian of the Gods? A resting angel?

  I felt overwhelmingly drawn, and wanted to be closer to her.

  Dark hair spilled down slender shoulders, and her cheeks held a tinge of pink. Her features were sharp and defined, and her chest rose and fell as she breathed deeply and dreamed.

  I didn’t even notice that I was moving toward her, my weakness forgotten. I haltingly, stumblingly approached until I was standing over the angel obliviously.

  Gods she looked like the girl I had once seen sing in the fateful village of …

  But in an instant my rapture became surprise as brilliant blue eyes flashed open, and her lips parted with a quick intake of air. I realised those eyes were staring at my hand with rage.

  Oblivious, I glanced at my hands, one of which was clutching that cursed dagger.

  In a blur that I would’ve missed if I’d blinked, she whisked a long blade, much like the one I held, from her boot, pounced from her chair and lunged herself into me so that I fell pinned to the floor, collapsing easily.

  I was winded and my brain realised in shock that my wrists were pinned under her knees, the knife now useless in my hand as she held her own blade to my throat.

  I squirmed and croaked in panic, seeing her hard eyes stare at me with incredible intensity, but without really seeming to take me in. Then she started to raise the dagger.

  “Kiana!”

  Her gaze blazed up toward a dumbfounded voice coming from a back doorway at the end of the kitchen.

  �
�Kiana! Don’t! It’s Dalin!”

  I could see Noal now as I squirmed manically to look at him.

  My gaze darted back to the girl, with her dagger so dangerously poised at my throat, and her eyes met mine. Their intensity faded as they focused on my face properly, but the hardness in her stare didn’t fade before she pulled both blades away, and stood.

  In a few silent steps she reached the door and left without looking back while Noal ran quickly to my side.

  “Gods Dalin, what in the Other Realm happened?”

  My face had started to radiate with heat and I tried to sit up, but fell groaning back to the floor.

  “Here,” he clasped my hand in his and pulled me up and into the same chair that the girl had slept so peacefully in.

  “Are you alright Dalin?” he asked with worry.

  “Fine,” I grimaced.

  “What happened? What did you do?” he asked in a stunned voice, and I spluttered in disbelief.

  “What did I do? I was the one with the dagger to my throat!” I declared incredulously. “Who in the God’s names was that, anyway? And why did you tell her our real names?”

  He shuffled uncomfortably. “Don’t you remember what happened, Dalin?” he asked uncertainly.

  “We were in the woods, but somehow now we’re here, and it feels like somebody’s been having a grand time strangling me –” I paused. “Oh.”

  “Somebody – something, was strangling you,” Noal answered quietly.

  “Ambushed,” I sank back with wide eyes. The memories came seeping back of those awful eyes, that shadowy figure, and that crippling chill again. “Surely that beast could not have been real?” I breathed, searching Noal’s face.

  He shifted and shrugged sickly.

  “Real then,” I gasped. “Darziates knows, and has taken our Quest seriously.”

  Noal appeared just as flummoxed and horrified by the idea as I was.

  “And we only escaped because of …” I remembered the brave stranger who had freed me from the beast.

  “Kiana,” Noal supplied. “The Gods had to have brought her to us,” he rushed on. “She owns this place – the cottage we were going to hide in. And she happened to be a healer and hunter in the right place to save us at the right time.” He seemed somewhat awestruck. “It can’t have been all accident.”