The Unforgiven

by A. Katie Rose

  “I’m not much hungry, Buck-Eye,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Have the lads saddle the horses, eh? Find a blanket or some such for the princess. Royalty should ride in some comfort, even if it’s for a short while.”

  “Got just the thing,” he answered cheerfully. “Old blanket. Got a decent strap to tie it on, too.”

  “Good man. Once we’re ready, I’ll send us straight to Salagh’s gates. We’ll be home by lunch.”

  Buck-Eye’s happy grin surfaced and fell within the span of mere seconds.

  “I seriously doubt that.”

  This time, I didn’t quell the irritation Iyumi’s smarmy words brought forth. Controlling my ever-ready anger with a strong effort, I swung toward her. It buckled, much as a soufflé collapsed upon feeling the cool draft, as I witnessed her literally wring the last of the beastie’s blood into the troll’s greedy mouth. My skin icy cold, and my belly outraged by the wanton display, I quelled the shudder that raced across my skin. Though I averted my eyes, I saw Dra’agor waiting beside her with jaws wide and tongue lolling. The troll belched and waved chubby brown arms, chuckling happily. I imagined its moist lips stained red and my shudder refused to subside.

  No doubt, that girl had my number. With an ill-concealed smirk and rapid there-and-gone glance from those huge blue eyes, Iyumi stripped the hide from the corpse with practiced cuts of my knife and graciously handed the meat to Dra’agor. “Your breakfast, dear boy.”

  As Dra’agor crunched happily, Iyumi held out her bloody hands toward me, manacles clanking with a dull sound. “If you will.”

  Picking up the waterskin she drank from earlier, I positioned it over her gore-covered fists. I turned my face away from the happy, contented infant in her lap, but still heard the gurgles and sharp squeals of a healthy newborn. Damn it! Why did it have to be a nasty, evil, god-forsaken troll? I poured the water as Iyumi washed. She splashed her face, and dampened the hem of her mantle to wipe the baby’s mouth. I kept my face averted the entire time.

  “Thank you.”

  Iyumi rose with the rag-clad infant in her arms. “I’m ready, my lord,” she said brightly. “It’s what, a four, perhaps five day journey from here to Salagh’s gates? We’d best get on the road.”

  I coughed. “The jewel, the, er –”

  “Scrying crystal,” she offered helpfully, her blue eyes wide and bland.

  “Yes, I know what it is.”

  “Oh, sorry. I thought for a moment you forgot its name.”

  “– will take us there in minutes.”

  “Oh, it’ll take us there,” Iyumi replied, smiling sweetly. Why did I suddenly want to smack her across her pale cheek?

  Because you excel at harming the helpless.

  As Dra’agor licked his whiskers and gazed up at Iyumi with clear adoration in his amber eyes, she giggled. Cradling the now-sleepy baby in the crooks of her elbows, she bent down, her face on level with his. His tail wagged faster, his expression bright, happy, reveling in the attention she gave him. Acting more like a puppy than a feral wolf, Dra’agor wiggled his way closer to her, his powerful jaws wide in lupine laughter.

  “You are such a dear,” she gushed. “Give me a kiss.”

  Dra’agor eagerly washed her cheek with his tongue, growling and dancing, his feet unable to keep him still. Iyumi managed a swift smooch to his brow before straightening. “Trolls are immune to magic.”

  “So?”

  I caught her rapid amused glance before she cooed and clucked over Dra’agor, teasing him with pursed lips as he jumped upward to wash her cheeks with his busy tongue. “Trolls are among many of the world’s creatures impervious to our human powers. Elves, unicorns, dragons – and trolls – just to name a few, are unaffected by our arcane spells. Not even the ancient magics of old wield influence over them.”

  “The crystal can –” I began, speaking in a didactic, lecturing tone until her words, and obnoxious I-know-more-than-you-do expression, sank in. Damn it, but I hated being caught with my figurative britches down about my ankles. For that’s exactly what she intended me to feel.

  I knew she witnessed the complete and utter collapse of my senses. My jaws opened, but no coherent words spilled forth. My thoughts arrived at a jangling halt as I caught the sheer importance of what she’d said. I might order the amber crystal under my shirt to take us anywhere on earth, Castle Salagh included, but the oh so very important divine messenger would remain in the dust beside a dead campfire.

  “Gods –” I choked.

  “Made them that way, yes. Just as they drink blood as you sip fine wine, your stolen power can’t touch her. If you want her on your father’s lap, you’ll have to carry us all those long lonely leagues across the mountains on these poor beasts. Oh, and by the way, those mountain passes into Raithin Mawr, well, I hate to bear bad news, but they are too often rendered impassable around, er, now.”

  I wheezed a single word. “Shit –”

  “Oh, no.” Her evil giggle rose high in the early morning sunshine. “Not shit, dear boy. Snow. Lots of it. This time of year – oh, well, we might get through. Have hope, Flynn. We might get down the other side without freezing to death.”

  “I am sooo much trouble, this can’t be happening to me.”

  “I strongly suspect you were born to trouble, my lord prince.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, desperate to deny her heinous words. “You’re wrong, of course. You’re just trying to scare me.”

  Iyumi cocked her head to her right, wide blue eyes rolled up and past me, her teeth biting her lower lip. “Come to think of it, I remember something. A fact, maybe, or a tale anyway. It’s important to you, so I’ll recite it as best I can. I learned, or read about, I scarcely know now, about a small group who braved the passes. Remember, this was a long time ago. About this time of year, if I do remember correctly – anyway, the travelers found themselves trapped by early snows. Thought they could make it, so they did. A blizzard hit, a bad one. Lasted five days – or was it six?”

  Iyumi paused to gather a breath – or was it malice? – before continuing. “No matter, the strong ones hated to do it, I know they did. Cannibalism is forbidden by the gods, you know? Of course you know, my bad. They knew, but still they ate the weaker ones. Only those who wouldn’t have survived the bitter dangers, of course. The strong preyed upon the weak, but isn’t that the nature of things? Right, Flynn? Just as you do?

  “Everything was in the open and above ground, naturally. All right and proper, of course, those weak adults and small children weren’t murdered for the tender meat of their arms and legs, even their buttocks – who’d have dared that? Of course they’d have died from the killing cold and icy wind from the north. It’s not just forgivable to dine on one’s best friend – not when one’s own life is at stake – it’s perfectly acceptable. Eat while you can. No god will hold hunger against you, am I right, Flynn? Am I right? Flynn?”

  “We absolutely have to be there in –”

  “Yes, of course. You’d certainly know what’s right, silly me. Those folks with the long knives were well within their rights! Unfortunately for those who came down from the Shin’Eah come spring were arrested and executed immediately. Shamefully so. It appeared, obviously, that the law enforcement fellows held a dim view of men eating their companions. Those short-sighted bastards – we should string them all up, I say, instead of the other way ‘round. I tell you! Life just isn’t fair.”

  “Prove it.”

  “What dear? Please don’t mumble yours words, laddie. I listen to ten thousand voices per day. Yours tend to get lost amid the confusion.”

  Wild hope thrummed through the despair her words intended to inflict. She lied. She wanted us to ride across the mountain, give her folk time to catch up. Rescue her the way they did before. This was yet another delaying tactic, of course it was. Trolls weren’t immune to magic any more than she was.

  “Prove it,” I said, my tone triumphant. “Show me that – that – thing –
is impervious to magic.”

  Iyumi raised her manacled wrists, her expression tight with annoyance. Her fine brows met over the bridge of her nose at the same time her delicious lips thinned. “Can’t, stupid. Not with these on.”

  “There has to be –”

  “There is. I’ll speak slowly so you can understand me. I do so hate repeating myself, especially to one as thick as you obviously are. Try-using-the-crystal-to-move-her-from-here-to-there.”

  Iyumi’s head jerked toward a smooth boulder halfway toward the river. She set the now sleeping infant gently on the ground beside her, and stood up. Walking away a few paces, she smiled a rather nasty, perhaps-you-should-think-twice-about-breeding amused expression crossing her fair mouth. Her bruised wrists bumped against her thighs. “I’m over here, so you can’t suspect me of manipulating anything.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Taking the amber jewel from under my tunic, I held it tightly within my lightly sweaty palm. This has to work, I told myself grimly. I must transport us all to Castle Salagh today. Lords above, I know you hate me, but I need your help. Please let this work.

  Setting my will upon the crystal, I shut my eyes and pictured the tiny troll lying atop the huge stone. I will it shall be so. I felt the power leave me, expand outward, seize something and send it to the rock. It worked! Iyumi is wrong, I almost crowed. She can’t make a fool out of Flynn, not this time –

  “Thanks, bucket-brain,” Iyumi yelped, her voice no longer a few rods to my left.

  I snapped my eyes open. Iyumi stood, balanced precariously atop the boulder. Her arms rose as she fought to keep from falling, her bound wrists unable to help keep her upright by pin-wheeling. While the rock was clearly large enough for a baby, it wasn’t wide nor flat enough for an adult, even one as small as the princess.

  Before I could offer her aid, Dra’agor bolted across the clearing, growling and whining. At the same moment, her equilibrium deserted her. Rather than tumble off, she leaped down. Using her legs as pistons, she took three or four running steps and arrived a neat halt, upright and with royal dignity intact. Dra’agor reached her, anxious and worried, his whines loud in the mountain morning. His eyes and questing muzzle searched her up and down for any injury.

  And the troll?

  Still asleep within her rag nest, right where Iyumi put her. I sighed, biting my lower lip. I really hate that damn thing.

  “I’d suggest you try again,” Iyumi said, her hands tickling Dra’agor’s muzzle as best she could as she walked toward me. “But who knows where you’d put me next. I do so like keeping my feet planted.”

  “This isn’t happening,” I muttered, running my hands through my hair. Finding an amber oak leaf caught in it, I stared at the spread, hand-like and death-stiffened sprig in my palm. I crushed it. “This just can’t be happening!”

  She snorted. “Put your big boy pants on, Flynn. It is happening and there’s not a bloody thing you can do about it.”

  “M’lord?”

  I turned around. Buck-Eye led Bayonne and the mule toward us, Torass, Boden and Lyall already mounted on their horses behind him. “We’re ready whenever you are, m’lord. Your Highness.”

  He bobbed his head respectfully toward Iyumi. “You’ll be using your magic then? Get us the castle and this here babe to its destiny?”

  “There’s a slight change in plans, Buck-Eye,” I said, grimacing. “We’re taking the long way around.”

  “Long way, m’lord? There is no long way save –”

  His eyes widened. His jaw slackened as he glanced toward the north and the high, threatening peaks. The Shin’Eah Mountains bordered our Raithin Mawr from Bryn’Cairdha: an imposing and effective barrier between two warring countries. We’d skirted the high and daunting passes on our chase for the Princess Iyumi and the babe by utilizing the scrying crystal. Literally, I jumped us over them. From where we stood right now, the most direct route to my father’s castle, and Fainche, lay northeast – give or take a mountain or two. Straight up. Into the hellish teeth of the Shin-Eah upon the onset of winter, across the forbidding peaks and eastward down the other side into the lesser mountains and hills to Castle Salagh.

  “Didn’t you say we had to be there by –”

  “I did,” I answered, my tone grim. “But we haven’t a choice, Buck-Eye. The infant my sire so desperately wants is immune to my magic. Unless we have her….”

  “There’s no point. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Cheer up, boys.”

  Iyumi’s amused voice spun me around. She sauntered toward me, the baby in her arms and Dra’agor trotting happily at her side. A faint, haughty smile hovered on her lips. My hand itched to smack that smile off her face, but I stilled the urge with an effort. The old Flynn would hit her, of that I had no doubt. But the new Flynn swore an oath to seek atonement for the evil he’s done. I can’t start a new life by striking a helpless woman.

  “Look at it this way,” she said, her hair spilling from its half-hearted braid and cascading down her small bosom. “We’ll have lots of time to get to know one another better. Am I right or am I right?”

  She strolled past us toward the mule as though walking across her throne room. I clenched my fists.

  “I’ll see her onto her, er, mount, m’lord,” Buck-Eye said, his eyes sympathetic.

  Before he finished his sentence, I was nodding and walking toward Bayonne. “Do it, I’d be ever so grateful.”

  When the sun and the moon are joined in the sky ….

  If Enya’s calculations were correct, we had six days until that moment when the darkness fell at dawn. If we rode hard, and luck rode with us, we’d arrive at my father’s gates within five. Plenty of time to kill my father and the red witch who has turned my life upside down. Once I free Fainche and my mother from her evil –

  Thoughts of Iyumi in my bed with that silver-gilt hair spread across the pillows danced through my imagination. I did indeed love Sofia, but compared with Iyumi – well, if there were contests for beauty, then Iyumi won hands down. Happily, I daydreamed as a rode. Iyumi willingly giving herself to me; her belly rounded with our child; standing at my side as Queen of Raithin Mawr. Most of all, my thoughts ranged across her heavenly body and her ripe, luscious breasts. I fetched a deep sigh, my britches tight.

  I suddenly caught her staring hard at me, those twin blue sapphires as hard as agates. Her mouth had thinned into a fine white line, and though she held no weapon in her fist, I knew Iyumi’s thoughts as clearly as she read mine: she planned to gut me like a sacrificial goat. Those manacles wouldn’t last forever, I knew, and she had access to powers far greater than mine.

  I gulped and harrumphed, and kept my thoughts on the trail from then on.

  Through the warm morning we cantered and jogged, following what appeared to be an old road, an ancient path that clearly wound its way into the heart of the mountains. Idle speculation among us suggested it was the remains of a highway, a trade route that brought goods back and forth between the two sections of what was then one single nation. None of us, not even Iyumi, remembered its name.

  The weather cooperated, granting us warmth and sunshine as we trekked higher and higher. Though steep, the road curved back upon itself and made good use of the natural curves of the pass. It steepened sharply as we entered a narrow canyon with a ridge high above and a steeply canted drop into thickly growing pine forests on our near side. We’d made decent time, thus far, the horses not requiring as many halts to rest as I first suspected they might.

  The warm afternoon and lack of sleep took its toll on me. Lulled by Bayonne’s smooth gaits, I half-dozed in my saddle. When my chin struck my chest, I’d start awake, and yawn mightily. Finding only Buck-Eye’s back in my sight, as he rode several paces in front, my eyes slid shut of their own accord. I nodded off again. Though my mind and body rested, my ears still listened. As from a vague distance, as though hidden behind a screen, Buck-Eye’s voice muttered.

  “
I’m not liking this, not one bit. Boden, do you see anything?”

  From high above on the tall ridge, Boden’s young tenor called down. “Nothing moving except what’s supposed to move. But I don’t like it, either. My gut’s telling me something ain’t right.”

  “Ride ahead, and keep your bow up.”

  “Jolly good.”

  I tried to wake up, gather sense around me. Yet, for the life of me, I couldn’t. The need for sleep dragged at me, as though dead weights strapped to my ankles dragged me under the surface of a lake. To drown me. Deeper it pulled me, darkness gathering, sweet sleep calling to me, endlessly calling my name. I let it sweep across my mind, craving the rest my body needed. I didn’t sleep last night, I muttered to myself. I need sleep. Sleep. Deep sleep.

  Something hard and sharp smacked me in the back of my skull. I woke with a jerk, acute pain coursing through my head. The somnolent fog vanished, and I cursed. I rubbed the back of my head, finding fresh blood on my fingers. I swung hard around –

  – and found Iyumi off her mule, another rock ready in her hands. Her blue eyes wide, not with fury but loaded with fear, met mine. Though still bound together by the manacles, she readied the stone for another throw. The troll infant slept on the quiet mule’s blanket. Torass and Lyall sat their horses behind her, their hands on their sword hilts. Despite the obvious danger to my person, they gazed not at her, but at the surrounding area. Dra’agor stood at her side, his hackles raised. His dark eyes on me, he raised his head to sniff the wind.

  “A spell,” Iyumi all but shrieked. “It almost had you. Wake up, dammit, we’re in danger. It’s an ambush.”

  My throat dry, I tried to scoff. “Who the hell is up here – no one knows where we are.”

  “Someone does, m’lord,” Buck-Eye said, his sword still sheathed but his power clenched in his raised fists. “She’s right. We rode straight into a trap.”

  My instincts awake for the first time, the hackles on my neck rose, agreeing with their assessment: someone watched us with deadly intent. I jumped from Bayonne’s saddle. Seizing Iyumi around her tiny waist, I thrust her aboard the mule. “Grab its mane,” I ordered, shoving the baby into her lap. It woke with a cry, but I ignored it and gazed up into Iyumi’s fierce blue eyes. “No matter what, you stay on this beast. Understand? Ride like hell if you have to, but stay on it no matter what happens.”