by Rachel Lee
Suddenly, in the distance, a sputtering fire arced into the air, lighting the valley in an eerie red hue. Three more flares burst upward, trailing a graceful tail of sparks, before bursting into flame high overhead. Cries of horror told the rest of the tale.
“It’s an ambush,” Archer hissed.
“Yes,” Ratha replied. “We have been led into a trap.”
Dozens of Bozandari seemed to materialize beyond the mouth of the defile, falling upon the Anari with the same sudden savagery that only recently had engulfed the members of their patrol.
Off to Ratha’s right, Jenah screamed commands above the din of battle, trying to reorient his men to the new threat, but too many were still engaged with the Bozandari in the patrol. Blood flowed all but invisible in the red light of the flares, evident only as glistening geysers erupting from throats, bellies and the stumps of freshly hewn limbs. Screams of pain and rage mixed with the clang of metal upon metal, drowning out any attempt to restore order to the shattered Anari.
“Massacre,” Ratha muttered, still hacking his way forward with his companions. “They will all die.”
“We must echelon right,” Archer said. “We will move toward Jenah. He must know that Giri has kept his oath.”
“Aye,” Ratha said. He glanced over to Giri. “Echelon right, on Lord Archer’s command.”
Giri nodded and, at a single word from Archer, the three men pivoted an eighth-turn in perfect unison. Step by step, slain foe by slain foe, they angled across the melee toward the Anari leader. Ratha stepped into the belly of a still-thrashing Bozandari soldier, noticing the dying man only to the extent necessary to keep his own balance and stay with his companions.
Soon they could see Jenah’s back, almost within reach, as the tall, broad man tried in vain to protect two of his wounded brothers from another wave of Bozandari soldiers. The Bozandari fought with patient intensity, shoulder to shoulder, shields nearly overlapped, save only for enough space to deliver a scything thrust with each step. Anari courage and honor stood no chance against such training and discipline. It was only a matter of time.
Ratha and his companions reached Jenah at the same instant as the Bozandari wave.
“Jenah!” Archer cried. “Fall in behind us!”
Jenah shook his head. “I must die with my Tel.”
“Then you are a fool!” Ratha said, breathing heavily as his sword whirled against the Bozandari ranks. “What profit is your death except to our enslavers? You are betrayed, and to find the betrayer is now your honor.”
“My honor is my Tel!” Jenah cried, thrusting at an enemy at the very moment that his foot slid across a blood-slicked rock.
Jenah slipped to his knees, his sword lowered for just long enough to allow a Bozandari blade to slash across his back. The blade would have cleaved his spine, had he not risen up to thrust his own sword through the attacker’s throat. But Ratha knew the wound was crippling.
“Blood have you shed for your brothers,” Ratha said. “Your honor is fulfilled. Now fulfill its greater burden and fall in behind us. Revenge for Gewindi-Tel you will have, but not on this treacherous night.”
Fury warred with sorrow in Jenah’s eyes, but after a moment he nodded and circled behind them. Archer gave the command to withdraw, and the three began to step backward over the bodies of Bozandari and Anari, their feet and legs sticky with blood, arms and swords still swirling, keeping their opponents at bay.
Finally they reached the confines of the defile, where the greater Bozandari numbers could not be brought to bear. Recognizing this, and satisfied with the carnage they had wrought, the Bozandari withdrew into the darkness, leaving Ratha and his companions drawing huge gulps of dry air as they finally lowered their swords.
Ratha heard a cry behind him and turned as Jenah slumped to the ground on hands and knees, his head hanging limply, blood dripping from his chin.
“Come,” Archer said. “Let us take him to Lady Tess. Perhaps she can give him aid.”
Ratha nodded, bile rising in his throat as he looked out at the carnage in the dying light of the setting moon. “But she cannot aid them all, Lord Archer. By the gods, she cannot aid them all.”
2
Surrounded by armed men, the small group at the fire could do and say little. Tess felt Sara’s hand steal within hers, grasping warmly. She looked at the young woman and saw not fear, but determination to weather this somehow. Tom, too, looked determined, but he was staring into the fire as if he saw something there other than the leaping flames.
“Tom?” she called quietly.
For long moments he neither moved nor answered. Finally he said, “Patience. Evil will betray itself.”
The counsel to patience was their only option. It wasn’t as if the three of them were in any position to fight five armed warriors. But Tess felt there was more in Tom’s statement. He did that every so often, making a remark that sounded more like formal prayer than mere speech. At such moments, Tess expected to look over into the face of a wizened old man and not one who had barely reached adulthood.
“It is a gift,” Sara whispered, as if reading Tess’s thoughts. “He is a prophet. A seer.”
Tess was startled. True, she remembered little enough of this world. But she couldn’t forebear asking, “Do such exist?”
“Aye,” Sara answered. “Few they are, rarer than glazengold. One of the greatest is in Bozandar. Tales told at my father’s inn say that when foreknowledge overtakes him, he cannot even see the present, speaking only of the future. Oft his words cannot be understood except in hindsight.”
“Hmm,” Tess said, feeling an inexplicable skepticism. “Very useful. So easy to predict the past.”
Sara’s eyebrow arched, and then she shrugged. “’Tis like our powers, Tess. They terrify me. I know not what I do, or how I do it. Do you?”
Tess shook her head. “It feels like riding an untamed horse. It goes where it wills, and I but follow.”
Sara nodded. “But for all that, we cannot deny that it is real. At times, I think it is our curse.”
They both fell silent as they remembered the mage Lantav Glassidor, burning alive as each drop of Sara’s blood touched him as Tess ordered him cleansed. As evil as the hive-master was, neither of them was comfortable with the way in which he had died…even if he had kidnapped and tortured Sara’s mother these past six years.
Tess was troubled, too, by the scar on her palm. Somehow she had stopped Tom’s sword in midair as he went to kill Lantav, but she had not touched the instrument. Yet afterward this reddened scar had appeared on her palm, as if she had reached out and grasped the blade. It was beginning to fade, but it raised questions about what she had done and how. And why her action had affected her physically.
Tess turned her hand over and showed it to Sara. “I did not touch Tom’s blade.”
Sara nodded and turned over her hand. It bore an identical scar. From her palm had dripped the blood that had burned Lantav. “Maybe we Ilduin share each other’s ills.”
Tess stared at Sara’s scar, and a chill crept down her spine. What was going on here? How tightly were the Ilduin bound? And in what ways? She closed her fist. “I do not know what to think.”
“Nor I. Perhaps we share the scar because we shared the experience.”
“Perhaps.” After all, Tess thought, it had been she who had told Sara to cleanse Glassidor.
And little enough they had accomplished in the end, for as they had traveled south to the Anari lands, they had heard rumors of other hive-masters like Lantav, mages who melded the minds of many into one mind.
And worse, they had glimpsed the dark power behind Lantav. Something not of this world, Tess thought. Something greater than any power in this world. Something she doubted she and Sara were strong enough to face.
Tom seemed to draw his attention back from the fire. “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I was daydreaming.”
“We’re all exhausted,” Sara said reassuringly. “I wish I could lie d
own and sleep.”
Tom smiled faintly. “Not with all those swords pointed at us.”
Tess returned his smile, then twisted to look at the encircling Anari. Giri and Ratha had predisposed her to like their kind, but someone or something among these men filled her with a dark sense of cold, oily evil. One among them belonged to the enemy. One among them was a traitor to his kind.
She wished she could tell which one, but that sight was denied her. Instead she was gifted only with the amorphous ugly feeling.
Suddenly the night sky filled with a red flare to the south of them. All of them gaped, never having seen such before.
Then Tess felt something else. Her head bowed, and her heart ached. “Many are dying,” she said. “Too many.”
Sara gripped her hand and squeezed it. “I feel it, too,” she said in a hushed voice. “The battle has begun.”
Two hours felt like two days as they waited for the return of their companions. Tess’s thoughts kept returning to Acher, leader and friend, a man with strength to lean on. A man who still distrusted her, yet protected her. She closed her eyes, willing his safe return along with Giri and Ratha.
Eventually the sound of heavy, uneven footfalls could be heard approaching across the rocky terrain. The three immediately rose to their feet, and their captors turned their attention and their swords to the sounds.
Moments later, as if born of the very darkness itself, Archer appeared. Giri and Ratha followed, between them holding yet another Anari, who appeared to have trouble keeping his feet. Farther yet behind them came another handful of dark men. Then no more.
“We were the ones ambushed,” Archer announced. “Most of Gewindi-Tel were slaughtered.”
The man being steadied by Ratha and Giri lifted his head suddenly, and the heat of anger blazed from him, almost palpable in the night. “We were betrayed!” Jenah spat. “Betrayed by one of our own.”
Tess hurried toward him. “You are injured!”
“Aye, Lady,” Giri said. “A sword gashed his back as he fought to defend his brothers. Let no one question his valor on this night.”
“Let me see.”
But Jenah straightened himself and shook off the support of Ratha and Giri. “I need no white healer. I need a sword. I want to know who betrayed us!” Then, his last dregs of strength used up, he crumpled to his knees.
“Lady,” said Giri urgently, as he, Ratha and Archer formed a protective triangle around the fallen leader, swords drawn. Tom and Sara drew their weapons, as well, and stood back to back.
Tess needed no further encouragement. She ran forward to the fallen Anari, hoping against hope that she could find in herself whatever it was that had saved a young lad in Derda who had been all but dead from cold and starvation. She had no idea what she had done then, but everyone had been sure she had been the cure.
Now she knelt and laid her hands on the fallen man’s back, against the hot, wet blood, feeling the slash beneath her palms. She closed her eyes, imagining as vividly as she could that the wound beneath her hands was knitting together, muscle to muscle, skin to skin. Her palms grew hot, as if they were aflame, and she nearly cried out.
Moments later, the world faded into blackness.
* * * *
A healer such as the world hadn’t seen since the White Lady, Theriel, Archer thought, as he watched over the unconscious Tess and the steadily improving Jenah. With his own eyes he had seen flesh heal beneath her hands. Now there was nothing but a scar left across Jenah’s back.
But the cost to Tess had been great. As the sun began to rise, painting the red desert in a myriad of fiery colors, he cradled her head in his lap and waited for her to awaken.
All the other Anari, both those who had been in battle and those who had stood guard here, had put away their swords and sat, waiting. Tom and Sara watched Tess with worried eyes. Ratha and Giri alone remained on guard, ready to protect their company and Jenah.
Tess stirred, a murmur escaping her. At once Archer stroked her golden tresses. “Be still,” he said. “You are safe.”
For a fleeting instant a smile fluttered over her lips, then vanished. He had seen her smile so rarely, he realized. But none of them smiled nearly enough these days. The savagery of their time in Lorense, and the horrors of the deaths of thousands of refugees in Derda, had left a deep mark on all of them.
Tess’s eyes fluttered open and met his, blue meeting gray for an electric instant. Her mouth formed a surprised O; then she abruptly sat up. At once she raised a hand to her head.
“Who hit me with the hammer?” she asked.
“’Twas the healing,” Archer reminded her.
Recalled to what had passed, she looked toward Jenah and appeared as stunned as any of them by what she saw. “Oh!”
At that moment, Jenah rolled over onto his back with a groan. His eyes opened suddenly, taking in the dawning day, and Giri and Ratha standing guard. “What happened?” he demanded.
“Sit up and see,” Giri said. “The Lady Tess healed you.”
Jenah pushed himself up gingerly, as if he did not believe what he was told. But upon discovering he no longer hurt, he leapt to his feet and looked around.
“Thank you,” he said, bowing to Tess. “And please forgive my words, Lady. My people are not used to such kindnesses from yours.”
“You were in pain,” Tess said, smiling. “People oft say things they do not mean. Think nothing more of it.”
But then his gaze returned to his fellows.
“So this is all that remains of Gewindi-Tel, the proudest of the northern clans.” His voice was already sparking with anger again. “A handful of stalwarts and a traitor.”
The men who had fought beside Jenah last night stirred not at all. Their faces were as impassive as if they had been carved from the stone the Anari worked with such unparalleled skill. The five who had remained to guard the campsite were not quite as impassive, however. Though they betrayed little except by the flicker of their eyes, it was obvious that they knew suspicion fell upon them.
“You have nothing to say?” Jenah asked.
“I wish only that I had died in my brother’s place,” one of the men said. “First came he from my mother’s womb, but only by the moments it took for me slip out after him. I spent my life chasing him. If now I must follow him into death, then so be it.”
Jenah seemed to weigh the man’s words for a long moment, then nodded. “Be at peace, Jahar Gewindi. Your brother died at my side, valiant to the last. Let not your mother lose two sons on this day. Already too many mothers will bear that burden.”
Archer watched as Jenah interrogated each of the men, one by one. As long as he had spent in the company of Ratha and Giri, he could not yet read the faces of Anari except in the most obvious of moments. What Jenah sought, and whether he was seeing it, Archer had no idea.
“It is not safe to remain here,” Tom said, quietly. “Master Jenah, I know you are angry, and that one thought alone burns in your mind. But we are not far removed from the Bozandari who killed your kinsmen last night. There will be time enough to sort this out once we have found a suitable resting place.”
“And what of a resting place for my brothers?” Jenah asked. “Am I to leave them in the sand, to be picked over by the vultures, their bleached bones to be swallowed up into the vast, empty memory of the desert?”
“We cannot bear them with us,” Archer said. “And the lad is right. It is too dangerous for us to remain here. The gods will embrace the spirits of your fallen, whatever may befall their bodies.”
“Anari never leave their dead behind,” Jenah said.
“There is much that Anari have never done,” Archer said. “But I fear you will need to learn to do most of it before this war is over. Come, let us away, for the safety of those who remain in your Tel, lest all your mothers weep in vain.”
Tom walked beside Sara, occasionally reaching over to grasp her hand. The sun was nearing its zenith, and even in the middle of winter, faint shim
mers of heat rose from the red sands. Their horses walked beside them, pausing from time to time to graze from the occasional bunches of pale green grass or the leaves of the bushes that dotted the landscape.
“This is a beautiful land,” Tom said. “But a hard land, as well.”
“Yes,” Sara said. “It is a land to make one’s heart weep—with beauty and with pain.”
“That feeling I know well,” Tom said, giving her hand another squeeze. “I feel it every time I look at you.”
“Now, now,” Sara said, suppressing a smile. “Speak not every word that is in your heart, Tom Downey, lest I come to long for the days when you spoke none at all.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly looking away.
“No!” Sara replied. “Tom, you really must learn to recognize when I jest. I like your words. So many nights I lay in bed, wishing that you would voice your thoughts, afraid I was mistaken when I read your eyes. Now I have no such doubts, and that lightens the burden of my heart.”
“Then let me lighten it more,” Tom said. “For in all the world, there is no soul with such sparkle, no other face that I would wake to, no other voice that I would carry into my dreams. Please do not ache for the past, Sara Deepwell. Whatever you have done, you have done for the love of all that is good and right in this world.”
“I would that your words were enough, Tom. But I bear the stain of my blood, the stain of my heritage, it seems. When I heard tales of the Ilduin in my father’s inn, they were tales of lightness and beauty, hope and joy. Never did I imagine that I would be one of them. And never did I imagine that Ilduin blood would be so dark.”
He could hear the aching loss in her words, and he knew she was once again seeing the dead and dying forms of her mother and the dark mage Glassidor. If only Lady Tess had not stilled his blade, he would have spared Sara this burden. Instead he had stood mutely by as the final act was played out in soul-chilling screams.