Beloved Son

by Carole Cummings

  Just the meat, not the bone. Dallin’s mind automatically assessed the wound, almost not feeling the searing heat and quick-sliding pain of the bullet hammering through flesh, but it knocked his aim wild as he returned fire. His shot this time went harmlessly over Calder’s head as the gray finally threw Dallin to the ground and took off through the small patch of surrounding forest that wasn’t on fire.

  Winded, Dallin rolled, anticipating more shots as he reached for the gun at his hip and tried to aim himself for nonexistent cover at the side of the rocky path. No shots followed him. Dallin lifted his head, found Calder reloading, so he hauled himself up and made a sprint toward Wil. It was farther than he’d thought. Damned horse must’ve thrown Dallin at least twenty paces.

  He could hear shouts now from farther down the path and could feel the steady rumble of hoofbeats beneath his feet. He almost laughed. In truth, he’d forgotten about the rest of the party, hadn’t thought of them once since he’d closed his eyes and opened himself up to magic.

  You’re not alone, Corliss, he warned. Watch your back.

  Wil was grinning—Dallin could see the flash of teeth as he got closer, horribly savage and empty. Wil was sitting on the ground, eyes locked on to Calder as he planted his feet to the staves of the crossbow, yanked the whipcord with both hands, and seated it in its notch. He nocked a bolt like he’d been doing it all his life, pulled it up to his shoulder in the same way he aimed the rifle, and sighted down.

  Good man, Dallin cheered silently, not terribly confident Wil could actually hit anything on his first go, but at the very least, it might be a distraction. Calder had finished reloading his own gun, eyes following as Dallin continued to run in a low crouch toward Wil. Calder raised the gun—

  Dropped it in the dirt, eyes wide as he stared, amazed, at the fletching of the bolt sticking at an angle from one side of his wrist, the tip protruding from the other. Delayed reaction hit, and Calder screamed, something thwarted and enraged. He dove to the side as Dallin complemented Wil’s shot with one of his own, aiming this time for the artery in the thigh that had caused so many problems back when Dallin had first stumbled into the chaos of Wil’s life back in Dudley. There was no telling from here if the aim had been true, but Calder went down quickly and heavily, giving Dallin time to cover the remaining distance between himself and Wil.

  Wil was still grinning, and chuckling quietly now, Dallin saw with both fury and unease. The soles of Wil’s boots were once again planted to the crossbow staves, his hands loading another bolt. His face was filthy, scraped raw at the left temple and down his cheek from his fall, mud and leaves covering the left side of his coat and trousers and clinging to his hair. His green eyes were murky and somewhat crazed, a strange reflection of the euphoric savagery that had glinted from them when Wil had taken the butt of Locke’s gun to a man’s head.

  Dallin reached out—tentatively, as he had that day—and laid his hand to Wil’s arm, the light of the fire making Wil look feral and macabrely beautiful.

  A blooming stain was spreading right between Wil’s collarbone and right shoulder—Dallin could see it widening beneath Wil’s coat. One of Calder’s last shots, had to be. The fabric around the ragged hole in the coat was still smoking. Dallin bit back his alarm and unlaced Wil’s shirt, slipping his hand inside to cover the wound with his palm. Not immediately fatal, but it could be if Dallin didn’t do something, and Wil would definitely feel it when the leaf wore off.

  “All right?” Dallin asked, afraid for a moment as those wild eyes fixed on him, narrowed, that Wil wouldn’t remember him. Afraid that whatever the leaf did to Wil’s fiery core—damped beneath those terrible, cheery smiles, unreachable—would also keep Dallin from reaching Wil at all.

  But Wil sobered, though the smile never left. He shook his head, tears Dallin hadn’t noticed before tracking thick down Wil’s dirty cheeks and glinting like stars in the firelight. With a low growl, Wil jerked out of Dallin’s grip, dropped the bow, and turned on hands and knees. He jammed his fingers down his throat and retched everything he had in him into the leaves and spiny bracken.

  Eventually Wil warbled “No,” hoarse and heavy.

  With a low curse, he spat, wiped his mouth on his dirty sleeve, then crawled away from the mess and toward Dallin. Dallin didn’t know what to expect, but Wil only clutched hold of Dallin’s coat, almost scaled his chest as if it were a particularly steep hill, and managed to drag himself up into a wobbly crouch. Somber and serious, Wil leaned in, said Dallin’s name—slowly, like he was reacquainting himself with the shape of it—and took hold of Dallin’s arms like he meant to say something terribly important. Dallin flinched when Wil’s fingers closed over his right arm. He couldn’t help it.

  Wil pulled his hands back, movements slow and jerky. He blinked down at his fingers, red with the blood seeping through Dallin’s coat.

  “Oh.” Soft and far away. Wil’s eyes drifted shut, his head tilted. He lifted his hand and drew his fingertips along his right cheekbone. A trail of Dallin’s blood streaked unevenly and mixed with the tears on Wil’s cheek.

  “Blood to blood.” Wil snorted, then opened his eyes slowly and tilted in. Dallin thought for a moment Wil was going to kiss him, but instead Wil dipped his mouth to Dallin’s ear. “It isn’t finished yet.”

  He quavered something like a tortured little giggle that made the hairs at Dallin’s nape stand up and chills skitter up his spine.

  No, not finished, not by any stretch of the imagination.

  “No,” Dallin agreed. “There are more coming.”

  Eyes closed, Dallin let the land gather at him, let it push its power through him and seep into Wil, let it swamp his body and directed it back out through his hand, asking. Confident for the first time in forever, Dallin reached for the Mother’s blessings to the Shaman and accepted them all, then altered the balance. Joyful, the land sang its songs of healing. Dallin silently added his own voice until he heard Wil hum a happy little sigh and felt him go boneless against Dallin’s chest.

  Not healed completely—they’d need more time for that—but not life-threatening, and not bleeding now, at least.

  The leaf was another matter altogether. The stuff worked incredibly quickly, and whatever Calder had managed to get down Wil had set to its purpose before Wil had managed to purge the rest. Dallin couldn’t get past it. Its tendrils were wound too inextricably with Wil’s core, incipient and clinging, and if Dallin tried to unwind it, he might end up unwinding Wil. Instinct wouldn’t take Dallin through this one, and he certainly hadn’t practiced enough to know what he was doing with something this apparently intricate. He clenched his teeth and did as much as he dared, which wasn’t much. It wasn’t fair. What good was healing if Dallin couldn’t touch the one thing that might prove more lethal to Wil than a bullet to the brain?

  Mother—a low interior growl—if this is some kind of test, I’m going to be really fucking pissed.

  Shots were ringing down the path. Dallin could almost see the configurations of the crude battle line by the echoes of the reports and the shouts that rose above the steady chuckle of the fires. Perhaps six or eight of the enemy versus the twelve in the party following after Dallin. Corliss and the others would take care of them, but they wouldn’t be the only ones, and they wouldn’t stop coming, not ’til they got what they’d come for.

  Dallin pushed Wil back gently, told him “Stay here,” and got to his feet. He wiped his sticky hand on his coat and waved it vaguely at the fire and the sky still grumbling threats. “Can you defend yourself if you have to? I mean….” Dallin ran a hand through his hair. “Are you still coming down, or did he…?”

  Wil smiled, sly and wicked, almost enough to make Dallin take a quick step back and away. Until Wil spoiled the effect by whiffing out another deranged little giggle. He flicked a hand up over his shoulder, grinning as the fire leaped, spat, and climbed its way too quickly up a sagging pine.

  “Aim’s a little off.” Wil snickered. “Meant to get C
alder with the lightning, but—” He rolled his eyes with a lopsided grin. “Missed.”

  Dallin merely nodded, watching the fire for a moment, then turned back to Wil. “Only if you have to, all right? There are others closing in, and we’re rather stuck here with no horses for the moment.” He raised his eyebrows, not terribly hopefully. “Unless you know where Miri got off to?”

  Wil drew his knees up to his chest, and laid his head atop them. “Told her to run.” It was sticky and slurred with exhaustion. “Pretty sure she listened.”

  Dallin said, “Stay here,” again, then walked slowly and cautiously toward Calder.

  Calder was on his back, wrenching in slowing breaths, grasping weakly for the gun just out of reach. By the looks of it, Dallin’s shot to Calder’s shoulder had splintered the bone—it slanted down at an odd angle, and it was lumpier than it should have been. Calder’s other hand twitched uselessly below the wrist shattered by the crossbow bolt; he gasped when the bolt’s tip hitched against the ground every time he so much as breathed. And still, he kept reaching for the gun. Bleeding out into the Mother’s Heart, the land he professed to love and serve drinking up his life as he poured it out.

  Dallin kicked the gun out of Calder’s reach with the toe of his boot. There were so many things he wanted to ask Calder, so many things he wanted to say. In the end all Dallin managed was “How could you?” through a snarl that would do no one any good now.

  Calder grimaced, somehow still defiant. “Your love weighs more profoundly than your calling. It is not meant and does the Aisling no good.” He swallowed thickly. “I die now knowing I have done the Mother’s will.”

  He looked… satisfied. Almost exalted. Wrong, too wrong, and it twisted in Dallin’s gut, then clenched.

  Eyes narrow, heart cold and quiet, Dallin crouched down next to Calder. Calmly he reached out and laid his hand to the small, neat wound on Calder’s thigh.

  “Since Wil called to me when you took him”—Dallin’s voice was cool and even, and he tightened his fingers until Calder let slip a weak yelp—“I have been wondering what punishment would suit you best for your crimes against the Aisling, the Mother, the Father, Lind. Up until thirty seconds ago, wrapping my hands around your throat and tearing it open was topping the list.” Dallin leaned in, voice low, Calder’s faded blue eyes going wild and fearful in the dying wash of flame. “Now I’ve decided that the best sentence one could hand a would-be martyr would be life, so you can watch with your own eyes as the Mother’s voice whispers to her Shaman, guiding my hand in Her true will.” Again Dallin reached for the power. “You stole my calling once.” He watched with icy satisfaction as Calder’s eyes squeezed shut. “You tried to steal it twice.” He spoke silently to the land and listened as it answered him back. He smiled, cold and cruel. “How very painful it will be for you to have your miserable life saved by that calling—false prophet.”

  Power rushed to his call, and Dallin let it slide up from the ground beneath his feet, shard through him—

  Nearly fell back as it ricocheted back into him, and slammed into his chest with a heavy fist, shock-blunt and solid.

  Dallin reeled to his feet, staggering, reaching blind, until his hand latched on to the first solid object it found. Disoriented, ears ringing, he blinked.

  Calder’s blue eyes were wide, staring sightlessly up into the still-blazing treetops. A thin trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his open mouth, the white fletching of a quivering arrow jutting from his throat.

  Dallin realized he was propping himself on Andette and let go abruptly.

  Andette was staring down at her uncle, her mouth set hard, eyes bright and glistening in the uncertain light. She lowered her longbow and turned slowly to Dallin. She dipped her head.

  “It was my right.”

  It was, Dallin couldn’t deny it, though so much for his “suitable punishment.”

  Dallin decided not to comment, just turned and watched as Wil shambled up behind them. Dallin reached out to steady him, but Wil shook him off. Eyes too obviously unfocused, Wil goggled closely at Andette as though he was trying to decide if he’d seen her before. Apparently satisfied that yes, he had, he nodded to himself and walked a bit unsteadily over to Calder. Dallin wanted to reach again when Wil listed, but he didn’t, only watched as Wil righted himself, then bent to retrieve Andette’s arrow, grinding it through cartilage and bone as he pulled it loose. He stared for a long moment, drew in a deep breath, and… spat.

  Muttering lightly to himself, Wil paced slowly and carefully back over to them. “H’llo, Andette.” He handed her the arrow. He didn’t wait for her to respond, merely shifted his murky gaze back to Dallin. “We’ve company.”

  Obviously, Dallin didn’t say. He shot a quick look at Andette, wondering what she was making of her Aisling now, but she was staring at the gory arrow in her hands and didn’t even seem to register their existence at the moment, so he decided to leave her to herself.

  Thunder still muttered above, like it was just sitting there waiting, and Dallin supposed that wasn’t too far off the mark.

  “Look at me.” He took hold of Wil and turned him to face him, peering intently into eyes that were faraway and hazed. Wil’s gaze kept wanting to wander further, but Dallin could tell Wil was willfully holding to the present, trying with everything in him to concentrate. Filthy and tear-streaked and wearing Dallin’s blood on his cheek like a Mark. “How much, d’you think?” he asked bluntly. And how much was the last dose still working on him?

  A helpless, watery snort knocked loose from Wil. He shut his eyes tight, collapsed forward, and laid his head on Dallin’s shoulder.

  “I’m so fucked.” He took hold of Dallin’s coat, holding himself up. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Dallin’s fingers were once again itching, wanting to throttle a dead man—and anyone else who’d ever forced a cup to Wil’s lips, while he was at it. He wrapped his good arm about Wil instead. “How much?”

  “Dunno.” Wil’s legs kept loosening, his body leaning more heavily into Dallin with each passing second. “Too much, even a little is far too much, but it’s so nice, I’ve missed it, ’m sorry, and ’m so tired.”

  Thick and slurred, but Dallin couldn’t tell how much of it was the drug and how much of it was the circumstances. And it mattered.

  “Brayden!”

  Corliss. Good. Dallin looked over Wil’s shoulder, freed a hand, and waved her back. He pushed Wil carefully upright and waited ’til the fuzzy gaze latched on to his.

  “Listen to me. Are you listening?” Dallin waited for Wil to nod. “We’re going to finish this. Right now. Everyone wants so badly for us to go to Fæðme, so that’s where we go. We can’t do this by ourselves—we need the Mother.”

  Wil stiffened. He tried to draw back but couldn’t quite make it by himself, so Dallin helped him. He pushed Wil back until Dallin could see the expected agitation flaring in Wil’s eyes. Wil’s mouth was twitching, fighting the vacant smile that kept trying to stretch across his dirty, bloody face.

  “Not like this, I… not…. Please.” Helpless pleading that nearly broke Dallin’s heart.

  Dallin held Wil’s panicked gaze steadily. “Do you think for one minute She hasn’t seen you in worse shape?” Wil’s eyes squeezed shut. Dallin shook Wil’s shoulders lightly ’til Wil looked at him again. “We go to Her, you take what She has to give you, and no one can ever do this to you again.”

  “The Brethren—”

  “Are surrounding us as we speak. They think they’re herding us toward Fæðme, and we’re going to let them keep thinking that. I’ve got squads of Weardas flanking them—none of them will get out of Lind alive—but they can’t know that until we’ve done what we came here to do.” Dallin took a long breath. He wasn’t sure how much sense Wil was making of all this, but he seemed to be following, feeble little chuckles leaking from him now and then that Dallin was finding it harder and harder to ignore. “The Cleric. He’s here. He’s down
in the tunnels.”

  Wil stared. Then… laughed. He backed away, stumbling until he hit a tree. It looked like he had no choice but to lean against it, until he just slithered halfway down the trunk, propped precariously.

  “So fucked.” Wil’s snorts were harsh and wild as he bowed his head and closed his eyes. “So fucked, so fucked, so fucked!”

  “Maybe so.” Dallin was surer now that he was trying to have a life-and-death discussion with someone who was only very tentatively hanging on to reality. “But if we go out, we do it our way.”

  They could still get out. They could still run. It wouldn’t be too terribly hard. Call to the Weardas shadowing the Brethren, tell them to ambush, and Dallin could grab Wil and flee across the Bounds, hole up somewhere, and hide, rebuild strength and sense. Perhaps they could even find a way to assassinate Wheeler, put off the inevitable for a while.

  Except that would be all they’d be doing—putting it off—and it wouldn’t take long for Æledfýres to build up a new cabal, find a new conduit for himself. Only this time they wouldn’t know ahead of time. They’d both be living as Wil had done for the past three years, constantly looking over their shoulders—not sitting by a river all night long just to hear its songs change when the stars gave way to the dawn. Dallin wanted to give Wil something better than a life of running away, or at least make it so Wil could get those things for himself.

  All that, and the Father weakening steadily, holding Æledfýres back with all the strength He still had left. And what would happen to Wil when that strength finally gave? Perhaps Æledfýres wouldn’t even need a false Guardian anymore to blaze his trail for him. Perhaps he could simply find Wil and… take him.

  Dallin shook his head. No. Now. If there was such a thing as fate, if anything was truly meant, events and circumstances were converging right now to force them on the path toward Fæðme. And considering what waited there for Wil, Dallin had to believe Her hand was guiding them at least a little. Perhaps even Calder had served Her purpose in that respect, because Dallin couldn’t deny that the trip down to the Bounds had been more than a bit of stalling, and if things hadn’t happened the way they did, he might have even come up with a few more excuses to delay. And he couldn’t imagine another, gentler circumstance that would have caused him to reach for his past, his Self, Lind, the way he’d done, and come to understand the power of it all, his own ability to use it.