But then they heard a shout from the southern edge of the village. A single word. Over and over again.
“Shaylighters. Shaylighters. Shaylighters.”
Her shirt tore. His nails dug against skin. She struck him with the heel of her palm and he swung his fist at her. She dodged the blow and pushed him back across the cramped cottage. He stumbled against Kaya’s body but didn’t lose his footing. As Quinn lunged at him he thrust his boot against her knee and her legs buckled. He was all over her, throwing her around, hitting her with the gun, no longer threatening to shoot her. He pushed her toward the bed. He wanted her alive. She knew it. He knew it. He wasn’t prepared to lose his virginity with a dead body.
She clawed at him, tried to tear his eyes out, but he slapped her hands away and punched her. She went limp. He pinned her to the bed with his weight and ripped open her shirt, mesmerised by the sight of her chest. Her head lay to one side. Eagerly, he reached for her ample breasts but her head flicked round and he realised she had tricked him and her fist drove into his stiffened groin and now it was his turn to howl in pain.
Quinn rolled him off the bed and struck her boot across his face. Blood erupted from his nose. She grabbed the nearest thing to hand - an empty soup bowl - and tried to bash his head in with it but he slammed a punch into her throat and she staggered back, gasping.
He was on his feet, half-bent, wincing, one hand between his legs. He aimed with the pistol and fired in anger and the bullet whistled past her arm. She twisted and her arm stung and she saw blood. He was breathing heavily as he took a step forward. Quinn dropped the soup bowl and covered her naked chest. She glanced down at Kaya’s body. He took another step. His tongue darted over his lips. She couldn’t keep backing away.
Her pistol was on the other side of the room, where he’d left it. She frantically looked around and saw utensils and furniture, useless against his weapon. The blood trickled down her arm. She clamped a hand round it.
“I didn’t mean to do that.”
His words were meaningless. She saw the strain in his trousers once more.
“Please don’t hurt me, Jeremy.”
“Are you tricking me again?”
“What if I die from this?”
He glanced at her arm.
“I’m sorry.”
She whispered. “I know you are. I know.” She lowered her arm, exposing herself to him.
It was going to happen. It was really going to happen.
“I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
He was lost for words.
“You can … you can do it … but … my arm stings … please don’t hurt me anymore.”
“I won’t.” His voice was hoarse. He gulped. “I love you, Quinn.”
“I know.”
He moved closer. She could smell him.
“It was always you, Quinn.”
“I know.”
“Never Clarissa. Always you.”
Then came the warning from the raw recruit. That piercing shout into the rain choked night.
“Shaylighters.”
Jeremy’s eyes flicked to his left and Quinn lunged at him, knowing this was her last chance to put him down. She head butted him. He yelled. She roared as she swung at him and her fists were relentless and the pistol was gone and flying across the room and she rained her bunched knuckles into his ribcage and twisted his arm and the crunch was sickening as she broke it.
He sobbed. She kicked him in the groin, twice. This time he didn’t get up. She took his left hand and snapped one of his finger and then another. A dark patch spread at the front of his trousers.
She spat at him.
Then hunted for the pistol.
His eyes looked up at her. He was unable to muster any words. Blood ran down her shaking arm and seeped onto her hand.
It didn’t stop her pulling the trigger.
TWENTY FOUR
Stone listened to the mournful drip of rainwater.
The storm had passed. It was dawn and the sun was scrambling into the sky. A chill breeze rifled through the half-open wooden shutters. Nuria’s breathing was steady. She had come round a few times, delirious. He’d tried to calm her but it seemed unlikely she’d even recognised him. He still held his revolver, leaning forward in a large chair, boots and clothes and hands caked with mud and blood. The girl had healed the stab wound in his leg and the slash wounds along his arms and chest from Essamon’s axe. He hadn’t needed to threaten her with the gun. She had healed them both without hesitation. She had wanted to help.
He squeezed the bridge of his nose. He glanced once more at Nuria, blankets around her shoulders, her blonde hair clotted with dirt. The sight of her burnt and bleeding turned his soul black and he lowered his head, holding back the tears. He had come so close to losing her and the thought of that caused his breath to shorten and his heart to cramp. Without the healer, Nuria would be dead. He heard movement and quickly raised his eyes. He looked at the girl, curled on a blanket, in the corner of the room. Her right eye was closed. Her left eye was patched. Her skin was badly scarred. She had come into the world marked. She should be dead right now, a bullet in her skull, that was what they had agreed, but then he had seen her and it had changed everything.
“Stone?”
He moved to the bed, handed her a canteen of water. She blinked, rapidly, began to sit up, suddenly realising her shirt was missing.
Stone looked away, tucked his revolver into his belt and reached for a bundle of clothes beside the bed.
“I found these in a bedroom.”
He kept his back to her and listened. She drank and shrugged into a loose fitting cotton shirt, baggy and frayed at the elbows. She picked up a fleece and thrust her arms into the sleeves.
“I’m dressed.”
Her face was pale, even in the sunlight blinking through the shutters. He sat on the edge of the bed.
“How bad was it?”
He nodded, saying nothing.
They stared at each other.
Slowly held hands.
“Did we get him?”
He told her. Soirese was dead. Essamon was dead. The Predator had escaped.
“But we know who he is.”
He’d carried her inside, running through the pouring rain, her face and arms and chest blackened.
“Triplets,” he said.
Nuria frowned.
“What?”
“Not twins.”
She climbed from the bed, pulled on her boots. “What are you talking about?”
He got up, prodded the sleeping girl with his boot.
“Wake up.”
Her eye flicked open and she jumped to her feet, startled, staring up at the tall man with the horrible face. Nuria looked down the bed; the girl must have been about eight years old. Her hair was long and fair. She was familiar but Nuria couldn’t understand why.
“Jeremy’s mother died giving birth to triplets, not twins. Jeremy’s father, Pretan, knew what she was. He knew how valuable she would become.”
The girl looked between the two adults, lips pressed together.
“Do you remember Quinn telling us last night about a dispute over land?”
Nuria shook her head.
“This land belongs to Jeremy’s father. He got rid of the family living here and hid the girl. He knew one day she could help him cover his tracks. He hired a woman to raise her. Since the age of five she’s healed all the children brought here so no one would ever believe they were being abused.”
“Jeremy’s father abused Kaya and Clarissa.”
Stone nodded.
“Pretan must sympathise with the Shaylighters. That explains why Essamon appeared immortal to the Ennpithians. He would just run back here and get his wounds patched up and no one would ever know the truth.”
Nuria swept from the bed. She saw her pistol, cleaned, reloaded. She curled her hand around it.
“Why did you help him?” she said.
The girl looked into the gun muzzl
e. Tears popped into her eyes.
“Why? He beat children, abused them. Why would you help him hide that? Why?”
The girl sniffed.
“Daddy told me to help or he would hurt my sisters.”
Stone reached out, slowly took the pistol from her.
“She’s not much of a witch.”
Nuria glared at him, stamped from the room. He heard the farmhouse door slam.
“We’re leaving now,” said Stone. “And you’re coming with us.”
“I don’t want to go with her.”
“You don’t get a choice.”
“She wants to shoot me.”
“No,” said Stone. “She’s angry. And scared. But that’s all. She doesn’t want to hurt you.”
“I want to stay here. Daddy will be back for me. He’ll be worried if I’m not here.”
Stone growled, “He’s never coming back here.”
The girl’s eye glistened with fresh tears. “Where are we going?”
“We’re taking you home to your sisters.”
The field was waterlogged. Nuria could see the body of the woman she had killed, sprawled in the mud. The trees swayed behind her. The undergrowth rustled. Arms folded, she closed her eyes, the sun and the wind rivalling for her attention; her skin delighting in the sharpness of one, embracing the tender caress of the other. She took deep breaths, filling her lungs with fresh air. She shivered, suddenly. She had been scarily close to her light blinking out once and for all.
Her eyes flicked open. She sensed it and dived as the gunshot pinged against the doorway. The shooter was clumsy. She heard Stone cry out her name and bullets whipped from the open window. She wrestled with the farmhouse door as he kept the unknown gunman pinned down. His revolver clicked empty as she threw herself inside, kicking shut the door with her boot. A volley of bullets splintered the wood. She crawled along the cold floor. Stone shoved the girl beneath the bed. He grabbed Nuria’s pistol and skated it along the floor at her.
“I’ll cover you,” he said, reloading.
Keeping low, he poked his gun above the windowsill and cracked off a few shots. Then he rose, still firing across the muddy field, the sun blinking in his eyes. He heard the creak of the farmhouse door and Nuria’s pistol cracked loudly as she sprinted toward the stable. She easily flanked the shooter and spotted him hunkered down in the trees; light coloured cropped hair, long black clothing. He was an amateur. She aimed, executed the shot. He let out a strangled cry. Stone looped around the field, revolver in hand, and they crashed through the undergrowth, immediately recognising Deacon Rush.
“Another one,” said Nuria. “How many more of them are involved in this?”
Stone crouched, searched the body. “Nothing.” He got to his feet. Nuria saw the look on his face.
“What is it?”
“I almost forgot.” He took something from his pocket. “This came out of your fleece last night. It must have got broken in the fight.”
Nuria realised what it was. It was the item she’d purchased in Great Onglee from a stall selling unique carvings. She took it from him silently, biting her lip. She glanced back at the farmhouse, waves of guilt crashing over her for raising a gun to the child. She turned to Stone with tears in her eyes.
“It’s not broken,” she said. “It’s meant to be like that.”
He frowned as she removed two small pieces of wood, curved and brightly painted with colourful slashes and swirls. The right hand edge of one and the left hand edge of the other was jagged.
“Look.”
She placed the two pieces together. They were a perfect fit.
“A heart?”
“I bought it on impulse. It was supposed to be a surprise.”
He held it gingerly.
“We each keep a piece. One part of the same thing. The woman who sold it to me said she’d made it for people who … people who like being around each other.”
“People who like being around each other?”
“Seems a bit silly now.”
“It’s not silly. It’s …” He wrapped it, carefully pocketed it. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything. Let’s go and get the girl.”
They left the bodies to rot.
Brisk winds drove away the leaden clouds, exposing strips of blue and rippled lines of red. The child healer looked up at the sun, shielding her eyes with her hand. She rode with Nuria. Her brother and sisters had names. She did not. The trail south was sticky and the horses grew filthier as they splashed through muddy puddles. Last night, the land had been black and grey but now it revealed itself as a vista of gorges and woodland and meadows filled with stubby purple flowers. They could hear the rush of streams gurgling over rock and in the distance, on sloping hillsides, puffs of smoke lingered about the roofs of scattered stone farm buildings. White sheep grazed behind rambling wooden fences, resembling baby clouds that had tumbled from the sky.
Nuria felt the girl shiver and wrapped the blanket tighter around her slight frame. Her scarred face was pale. Her single eye was wide open. Her father had horded her in Winshead, a thing to exploit, manipulating the child’s unique gift into a monstrous and heinous weapon. She thought back to her days in Chett, when her mentor, Gozan, had attempted the same thing. Healers were the rarest of rare people across the lands. The girl could have saved hundreds of lives by now, including that of Quinn’s daughter.
Nuria still felt ashamed that she’d pointed her pistol at the girl but she’d rode to Winshead intent on killing a child abuser and the healer who’d allowed his crimes to remain hidden. She had sought only blood soaked revenge; for Kaya, for Clarissa, for all the innocents, and for herself, for the depravity she had suffered inside Tamnica. Her abusers were dead, brutally slain at her own hands, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted more blood. She wanted more death. Only it was much harder to squeeze the trigger when the co-conspirator was a frightened eight year old child, a victim herself.
Her grimy hair blew across her nose. She tossed her head and glanced across at Stone. He offered her a tight but reassuring smile and patted the pocket where he’d placed his half of the wooden heart. A rush went through her and she couldn’t help but smile. She had woken to his brooding face and would never forget the expression he bore; one of relief that she had survived.
As they reached the outskirts of Brix her gut spiked and she knew something was wrong. Stone must have felt it too because he was already urging his horse from the rutted trail. Without question, she followed and he stopped in a clearing, surrounded by tall trees, branches dripping rainwater. He dropped from his saddle and scrambled onto the nearest ridge, boots sinking into the mud.
“Bastards.”
He handed her the binoculars. Two Churchmen were on the trail ahead. They had passed sentries last night, there was nothing unusual in that, but now she could see another clutch of men, further back, the ones Stone had spotted, attempting to remain concealed behind a wagon. They were accompanied by a tall man with a lined face and white hair. She had seen him only once, on their first day in Brix. It was Pretan, Jeremy’s father, the Predator. She nodded to herself. He had no doubt spun them a story and they had obviously swallowed it. He was a respected villager and they were outsiders. She swept her gaze across the village and saw wagons and horses. The convoy must have returned from Touron. Which meant Duggan was around and that would make things even worse.
“No one is going to believe us, Stone. Even with the girl. And Duggan’s back. He really isn’t going to believe us. He hates you and ignores me.”
She spotted Boyd and Quinn marching toward the barracks. She couldn’t be certain but her arm appeared bandaged. There was no sign of Kaya. She wondered if the girl was hiding in the cottage.
“There are more villagers around. A lot more. Do you think they could have come from Great Onglee?”
“The Shaylighters took the estate,” said Stone, grimly. “They would have found the caves and killed them a
ll.”
“I can see the Map Maker. Well, he has a woman with him; young, slim, brown hair. What is it with him and women half his age? Is it just those maps?”
Stone shrugged.
“What are we going to do about him?” she asked.
“He’s on his own.”
“We can’t abandon him.”
“You don’t even like him, Nuria.”
“I never said that.”
“Besides, he’s here to mend everything, remember? He doesn’t need us.”
Nuria snorted. “He’s wearing a cross. I don’t believe it. He’s actually wearing a bloody cross.”
She lowered the binoculars, handed them back. She climbed down from her horse, taking the child with her. The three of them stood in the mud. The child healer stared up at them both, turning her head one way and then the other.
“I hate it here,” said Stone.
She listened.
“They’ve wanted to arrest us from the moment we arrived.”
Still she listened.
“We should make our way back to the coast. Find a boat. Head for Gallen.”
“And go where?”
“Follow the shoreline east. See what we find. Maybe a place we can stop. What do you think?”
“Is that what you really want to do?”
He scratched at his bearded jaw and wandered away, revolver dangling in his right hand.
She saw his left fist clench, unclench.
“We’d better get going then,” said Nuria. “If that’s what you want.”
He turned around.
“What do you want to do?”
She placed her hand on the girl’s head. “Put things right.”
“I’m sorry,” said Father Devon. “The Archbishop has fallen ill. He stayed behind in Touron. We must pray for his recovery.”
“But you were going to present me to him,” said the Map Maker. “You said he could verify my identity and confirm that I’m who we think I am. Do you think I should ride to Touron?”
“I need you here. Our people are frightened, Map Maker. It doesn’t matter whether the Archbishop believes in you. I believe in you. And Ennpithia will believe in you once they hear you speak. I have known, all my life, that one day you would return and now in our darkest of hours you are here.”
The Wasteland Soldier, Book 3, Drums Of War (TWS) Page 30