The Girl With Red Hair (The Last War Saga Book 1)

by Michael J Sanford

Dawn light filtered in through the hole that served as a window, boring through the trunk of the great tree. He didn’t see the Vartaw Seer, but Sachihiro and Jaydan were both snoring from the opposite side of the room.

  Alexander tried to slow his breathing and make sense of his agitated sleep. Perhaps it had been a nightmare, but he had slept too soundly to dream. In fact, it had been the most restful night of sleep he remembered having since leaving Stoneshold. It seemed a lifetime ago and, in a way, he supposed it was. But there was still something haunting him from the back of his mind.

  You’re just worried, he told himself. He had felt better after talking more with Opis the night before, and the food he had provided was unbelievable. He couldn’t identify a single thing he ate, but neither could he point to anything that wasn’t delicious. Of course, it had taken a bit to get Adelaide to try the strange food, but—

  Alexander leapt to his feet. The strange feeling at the recesses of his mind… it was Adelaide. Whatever strange bond they now shared was still foreign to him, and he hadn’t recognized it at first. He still couldn’t quite grasp the fullness of the presence in his own thoughts, but he was certain of one thing.

  Adelaide was gone.

  She had chosen to sleep in a small storage cupboard and had taken the time to carefully clear out all of the books so that she would have space to curl up. Opis made quite a fuss over her handling them, but ultimately relented after she had tickled him to tears. Alexander crossed the room in a few deft bounds, clearing stacks of books and kicking others aside. The door to the cupboard was still closed. Two neat stacks of books flanked the door, just as she had left them. He threw open the door, but knew what he’d find. Emptiness.

  He slammed a fist on the nearby desk and kicked the nearest stack of old tomes. Sachihiro and Jaydan continued to snore peacefully in the background, oblivious to the terror that had Alexander by the throat. He knelt, knowing there was nothing more to see of the small space, but hoping nonetheless. Just a small fur blanket remained inside, bunched in such a way as to leave a void the size of a small girl.

  Alexander reached in and withdrew the blanket. He tossed it aside, his body coursing with a mix of emotions. He slowly stood, but stumbled and slipped on a loose page. He landed roughly on the floor, but ignored the pulse of pain that jolted up his spine. His eyes and mind were locked on the single word scrawled into the bottom of the cupboard.

  Family.

  Alexander spun up to his feet and charged for the entry door, yelling for Sachihiro and Jaydan as he went, but not looking to see if they woke. He couldn’t wait for them. His mind spun in a million different directions, but all told him that he had to find her. He had to protect her. Perhaps she hadn’t left until dawn. She could still be close. If he just—

  The door opened just as Alexander was reaching for the handle. His eyes saw the movement, but his mind was too preoccupied to react. A fire lit in his gut and burned up his chest. You’re just worried, he told himself again, but then he looked down and saw the length of wood protruding from his stomach. Some sort of handle, he thought, but as he struck the ground, his mind caught up again. Not a handle exactly, but a spear. He lay on his side, staring at the weapon buried in his gut. He stared also at the blood seeping out onto the floor. It was black. No, he thought, that’s not right. Blood is red. He tried to look at his friends. He tried to call out. But they too were growing black, as were the books and everything else around him. Oh, he finally thought as his world faded. Now it makes sense. I’m dying. Again.

  It took Adelaide a long time to figure out the lift. There were no levers to push or ropes to pull. And there was no one around to ask for help. Not that she would have asked for help anyway. She was determined to figure it out herself. She didn’t need anyone watching over her or telling her what to do. Least of all Alexander.

  After jumping up and down in the middle of the wooden platform until she could no longer get her feet to leave the ground, she puzzled it out. She merely had to think about the lift moving and it did. It was no more difficult than dancing with Gaia had been. She clapped and danced about, revitalized. You can do this, Addy, she thought. Moving the lift proved it.

  The lift didn’t just move down. It also moved out, away from the impossibly large tree the Fae called Vylarra. Their city without people. Adelaide watched it slowly shrink and wrinkled her face. It was supposed to be a big city or something, but what sort of city didn’t have people in it? It had only been her family and Opis. She felt herself smiling as she thought about the large cat. He wasn’t truly a cat, she knew, but he was just so… fluffy. She squealed at the thought of pressing her face into his thick chest fur. He had proven a wonderful storyteller as well.

  She looked down and felt a twinge of guilt as she saw the book clutched in her arms. She knew she shouldn’t have taken it. It wasn’t hers and wouldn’t make her journey any quicker, but she couldn’t resist. She also couldn’t resist taking Sachihiro’s little sword either, but that had more practical applications and she felt less guilty over it. She felt worse about taking the belt and scabbard that went with the sword. She worried Sachihiro wouldn’t be able to hold up his pants without it, but she couldn’t carry the book and the sword at the same time. She shrugged, reassured by the weight of the belt slung across her shoulder. Sachihiro would rather she was safe than he be properly clothed, she decided.

  She stepped off the platform, arms wrapped tightly around the book. Even with the belt tossed over a shoulder and tightened as much as possible, the tip of the scabbard dragged in the dirt as she walked. The soil was soft and cool between her toes. She knew when Alexander woke and found she hadn’t taken her boots with her, he’d be furious, but she felt better without them and she didn’t need the extra weight. Besides, it was pleasantly warm in the strange forest. It was, however, far darker than she had imagined. The canopy only allowed small slivers of light in.

  Adelaide closed her eyes and slowly spun in place. She kept her desire clear and central in her mind. Sufficiently dizzy, she stopped spinning and opened her eyes. She could see better now, at least a few dozen feet ahead of her. Not that it mattered. She knew where she was going. The spinning had seen to that.

  She nodded sharply to herself, reaffirming her decision, and began walking.

  Tannyl couldn’t remember sleeping, but when he opened his eyes it was morning. Somehow, he was still atop the elk, though it had slowed to a beleaguered walk. He massaged the coarse hair of the great beast and gave it permission to stop. He slid off its back and cradled the beast as it fell. He wiggled his body so that its massive head was in his lap, and stroked its thickly muscled neck. Frothy spit ran from the corner of its mouth and its eyes were glazed over.

  “Sorry, girl,” he said. “I was an elf possessed by the moon.”

  Once the elk’s breathing had slowed and its eyes were clearer, Tannyl wriggled out from under it and set to finding sustenance for both of them. Neither would survive long if he continued in the way he had begun the journey. And it would do him no good to die before he reached the Garden.

  He quickly located some underripe horse melons for himself and a hearty bunch of nightstalk for his four-legged friend. Water was even easier to find in the Fae forest. Nearly every one of the towering trees that surrounded him would offer a steady drip if he punched through the tough bark.

  He found a suitable mark and punctured the wooded flesh with an arrow-head. It took a bit to fill his empty waterskin, but he knew it would be worth it. It was one of the things he missed the most about the Forest realm. Something so simple, and yet he had dreamed of it for nights after fleeing.

  “Never thought I’d be here again,” he said to the elk when he returned to her.

  She was still on the ground, but was lying on her chest and belly, legs folded underneath. Dark brown eyes followed Tannyl’s every move, but the beast made no effort to flee. He knelt near her head and offered the roots. Then he held her head up and slowly poured water into her mouth until th
e creature shook free from his touch and shakily stood.

  “Ah, you’ll be just fine,” he said, standing beside the beast. “Go on, eat your fill and rest up. We won’t press on until your legs are firm and your back strong.” He smiled at the beast, but got nothing but a snort in return.

  Tannyl sat at the base of a tree, leaned his head against the rough bark, and closed his eyes. When he did, he heard her. The words were distant, hardly more than an indecipherable whisper. He tried to focus on them, to hear the actual words, but they only faded deeper into his mind. It was likely for the best, he thought. Nothing good came from dwelling on past memories. It was a hard lesson, and one he was still learning.

  “Help me, Tannyl,” said a soft voice, much clearer this time.

  He still wasn’t sure if his ears had heard it or his mind had, but when he opened his eyes, a shadowy figure was on the ground before him. It was faded and translucent. Its essence curled upward into the air like wisps of fog running before the dawn. A terrified face looked back at him and bruised hands raked at the ground, clawing for him, but not disturbing a single leaf.

  “Help me,” she said again.

  Tannyl pushed back against the tree and looked in every other direction. The elk plodded nearby, scrounging for food, but there was nothing else. Nothing, save the apparition of Maira, sprawled in the dirt before him. She looked battered and broken, a far cry from the terrible creature he knew.

  “You’re in my head,” he said, closing his eyes again, hoping to banish the specter.

  Something cold wrapped itself around his shoulders and pressed against his cheek. He recoiled and fell to his side. The ghostly image sat where he had. She looked at him with eyes of bottomless black. He worried if he stared long enough he’d fall in.

  “Please, Tannyl,” she said. “I don’t want to remember.”

  His fingers found a small stone and he hurled it at her. It passed through without disturbing a single wisp of her ethereal image. She wasn’t truly there. She wasn’t real. He curled into a ball, clutching his head and squeezing his eyes shut. He tried to ignore her sobbing nearby. He tried to conjure Fae’Na’s image in his mind, but failed. He could only see and hear Maira. Was this the cost of avoiding sleep for so long?

  “Go away,” he yelled. “Leave me.”

  Cold hands clawed at his legs. They ran over his arms and shoulders. He felt his hair move as cold fingers ran through it. Her breath was on his neck. Her lips brushed against his ear and his whole body quivered.

  “No!” he shouted, flailing blindly at the reproachful ghost.

  He rolled aside and stumbled to his feet. He wanted to run, he needed to hide, but when he opened his eyes, she was standing before him. Tears ran down her ghostly cheeks and her perfect black dress was in tatters. Her hair was tangled and matted.

  Torn between fleeing and running into her arms, he took a single step backward, but couldn’t will his other foot to follow. He stood rooted in place, staring back at her. Beyond even her ethereal nature, the woman standing before him was not the Maira that had attacked him in Paladrix. It wasn’t the woman that had slain Fae’Na. The woman hunched before him was not a powerful creature of nightmares. A small thread of pity snaked into his mind and he found it difficult to dismiss.

  He still wanted to flee, but he felt himself take a step forward. “Maira?” he said.

  She smiled weakly and reached for him, stumbling forward as she did. Reflexively, he stepped into her to prevent her from falling. She slumped against his chest. She felt solid. She felt cold. He pulled her close, something in his mind telling him he had to warm her. She twisted her head against his upper chest and looked up at him. He brushed her long black hair from her face. He hadn’t realized her skin could be so soft. Soft and cold. Vulnerable.

  “I need you, Tannyl,” she said, grasping at his cheek.

  He covered her hand with his and pressed it against his face. He shivered again. He tried to speak, but found he could not. Terror seized him and he tried to push her away, but she held tightly to him and the feeling melted away. He shook his head. Suddenly, everything was covered in a haze, like he was looking at a world wrapped in fog.

  You need to run, he heard part of his mind say. But another part said, you must save her. Was her Maira, or Fae’Na? No, Fae’Na is dead, he thought. And Maira was not a woman but a foul demon of some sort sent to torture him. He resisted her embrace again, but didn’t know why. The cold was refreshing. It felt right.

  He looked down and saw a different face staring up at him. Had it been her all along? How had he not seen it? He couldn’t remember it any other way. Tears still ran down her cheeks and soaked into his shirt. He wanted to take all of her hurt and sorrow. He held the side of her face in his hand and brushed away a tear with his thumb. She was beautiful, like nothing he had seen before. And he wanted more than anything in that moment to take her someplace safe.

  “Father…” she whispered.

  “Fae’Na, my flower…” he whispered back.

  And then she was gone, burned away by the dawn light like the shadow she was. He looked at his empty arms for a long time, trying to sort his dizzying emotions and thoughts. He had seen her. Fae’Na. She had come to him, broken and battered. Had he helped her? Could she still be saved?

  He whistled loudly. The elk appeared at his side in what seemed like an instant. He mounted and kicked the great beast into a gallop. His senses told him he could make it before the next dawn. His heart told him he had to.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  SACHIHIRO COULDN’T OPEN his eyes. The pain was too great. His mouth felt like it was full of stones, but a coughing fit loosened his jaw and brought a measure of clarity.

  “Jaydan,” he called out, squinting against the throbbing at his temples. “Sachihiro needs his special potion.”

  “Dammit, Sach.”

  Sachihiro tried to laugh, but couldn’t force enough air into his lungs. “I’d apologize, but frankly I don’t even remember drinking. Which means I had a bit more than too much. So, sorry, I guess. Now, where’s that tonic? I can barely move.”

  “Open your damned eyes, Sach. We’re in a bit of shit, and I don’t think a tonic will cure it.”

  He tried again and found the pain faded. But now he felt it in his shoulders. And his wrists. He couldn’t move his arms and he couldn’t feel his legs. Slowly, his vision centered and he saw Jaydan’s sour face staring back at him. He looked strange, both arms extended above his head, pressed against the sides of his face. It looked painful…

  Sachihiro’s senses returned at once and pain erupted all over his body, like he’d been thrown into a pyre. He tried to move, but only swayed slightly. Something was holding him in place…

  “Dammit, Sach, stop squirming. It won’t help.”

  He did. Not because of what Jaydan said, but because he saw how Jaydan was. Rough rope was tied so tightly around the man’s wrists that his hands were purple. He followed the rope upward until it disappeared into green foliage. He frowned and looked below his friend.

  “Oh shit,” he said, seeing both their feet dangling in the open air.

  He twisted and managed to slowly spin to his left. Twenty feet away was a wall of bark. It stretched in every direction as far as he could see. Vylarra. Someone else swung lazily from a third rope a few feet farther to his left.

  “Alexander,” he cried out.

  The lanky farmer’s torso was wrapped in a crude bandage, likely white at some point, but soaked through with blood. Alexander’s head hung to one side. Sachihiro wasn’t close enough to know if the man was breathing.

  “Is he…”

  “Don’t know,” Jaydan said. “But he’s in a bad spot either way. We all are.”

  Sachihiro twisted back around to face Jaydan. “What happened? Where are we?”

  Jaydan looked up at the ropes. “Seems we’re hanging from a tree,” he said, not bothering to mask the sarcasm, or in too much pain to do so.

  “But how
…”

  “Don’t know. Woke up here, just before you did.”

  Sachihiro tried to smile, but couldn’t tell if he had. His face was numb. “I guess that Fae wine was stronger than I thought.”

  Jaydan rolled his eyes. “This is not a time for jokes, Sach. But there must have been something in the wine or the food. I should have noticed it last night…”

  “Wait, so Opis…”

  “Guess he wasn’t so trustworthy. Alexander and Adelaide were wrong.”

  Panic seized Sachihiro’s heart and gave it a single forceful squeeze. He kicked his legs, trying to spin in a full revolution.

  “She’s not here,” Jaydan said.

  Sachihiro stopped fighting the air. “But where? What? How?”

  “I. Don’t. Know,” Jaydan said forcefully.

  “All right, all right. So what do we do? Can you get free?”

  Jaydan shook his head and winced. “Well, maybe, but I don’t think the result would be much better. It’s a long way down.”

  “Well… shit.”

  Jaydan gestured with his head past Sachihiro. He couldn’t move his head much, but he managed to spin about again by flailing his legs. A doorway opened up in the side of the giant tree, above where he and Jaydan swung. Two elves looked down at them.

  “Well, two of them are awake now,” one said.

  The other shrugged. “Good enough.” His eyes flicked to Alexander. “That one may not be waking up again, anyway. All right, get ‘em in.”

  Sachihiro slowly spun out of eyesight of the pair and tried to fight his way back so he could properly address his captors. He had a few things that needed to be said. They spun back into view in time for Sachihiro to see an arrow loosed from the doorway. It sprouted from his thigh a moment later behind a wash of hot pain. The rope tied to the end of the arrow snapped taut and Sachihiro began moving toward the elves. Pain radiated up from his leg, making it hard to see straight.

  The elves pulled him roughly into Vylarra and held him down. The pain of being shot with an arrow was immense, but the pain that exploded when the elves tore it back out was mind-numbing. His hands were still bound, and he couldn’t seem to manage to bring his legs under him to stand. Somewhere in the distance, he heard Jaydan shout a string of curses.