by Jenna Rhodes
Brista entered and skidded to a halt, her green-gold eyes sweeping the room and taking in the situation. She grabbed Auntie Corrie by the shoulder and threw her outside the room, clearing it, but she could not reach the children, for they huddled on the far side of the attack, with only a wall and open window at their back. When the dog finished with Gryton, it would turn on them or Brista, and she made a determined noise, already in the process of attracting the beast away from the children.
With the blunt end of her spear, Brista tried to engage the snapping dog, to fill its jaws with wood, to turn it from Gryton who sank lower and lower to the floor in weakness, his movements growing more feeble by the heartbeat. The dog paused in its attack long enough to swing its sight to her.
“Evarton. Get your stool. Climb out the window. Help your sister, too.”
The dog left off worrying at Gryton and dropped into a crouch, preparing for a leap in her direction.
“He’ll follow.” Evarton reached out a shaky hand and began to drag his little stool toward them and the window. Blocks scattered every which way as he did, and the dog’s ears flicked, hearing.
“Outside?” Merri added, as if the guard might not be right.
“Outside,” Brista said firmly. “Get outside and climb the fire ladder.”
The ladder affixed to the side of the house had been installed after the last fire when the ild Fallyn attacked, its purpose to aid bucket carriers in getting to the vulnerable roof. She knew the children climbed it sometimes, when they thought their mischief wasn’t being noted. She and Gryton had noted, but not stopped, their explorations. Climbing a ladder seemed a good survival skill, and what would be the harm in learning it? Maybe a sprained wrist or scraped knee if they fell?
“Now,” Brista ordered and could say no more as the war dog launched itself at her. It hit her spear point, heavy as a barrel full of mud bricks and her spear did as little damage as it could, the point snapping off in the dog’s chest and then falling out, to the ground. She had a second in which to feel astonishment before having to swap ends of her spear yet again, this time aiming the blunt end at open jaws snapping at her. She tried to gouge an eye, but the wood merely slipped off the dog’s thick skull and in the end, she let the spear be pulled from her hands as the dog caught it in its jaws and worried at it.
She pulled her sword and moved to her right, drawing the dog away from Gryton’s now inert form. His body spread out limply, blood slowly pooling under him, bleeding out. She could not save him, and he was not her ward. Her duty rested with the children. Brista’s glance flickered to the movements at the window. Merri had gained the sill, stretching out her hand to Evar.
“Move!” she cried to the little heir. “Leave him if you have to!” Lara’s heir ranked most important, but the son of a wet nurse could hardly matter. She had no more time for words as the war dog came after her in earnest, its dark eyes gleaming with malice. She backed up toward the doorway, determined to keep it at bay yet keep it occupied. Behind her she could hear sounds, Nutmeg hurrying in and shaking Corrie to get a coherent word out of the hysterical auntie and behind them, Verdayne. His calm words put them both in the background and out of range.
Verdayne could be counted on for backup. Brista smiled grimly. She slashed out at the dog’s forepaws before it could charge her again, jaws agape, and it danced back, its growls filling the room. The dog seemed impervious when she did land a hit, blood barely welling up from the slice, the contact only making him growl louder and snap at her quicker. She sized up her opponent, with the looks of a war dog but perhaps less than half the size of one, and certainly none of the training. At the same time, it was built like a brick guardhouse. She would exhaust herself trying to hit at it, hoping to make a dent in it. It couldn’t be hacked apart, built of squat and heavy muscles, and yet fast enough to dodge her strokes again and again. She parried against his attacks, but she had to brace herself again and again and found the dog hit like a barrel of stone. She could not hold it back much longer and had no idea of what it would take to drop it. No ordinary beast this, not any war dog like she’d ever seen on the battlefield, or even a mongrel trotting down a country lane or street. Witchery? Perhaps. With a grunt, she parried against another lunge.
She spared a glance at the children, only to catch Evarton standing atop the stool to watch the fight. “Get out!” Brista ordered. “Now.”
He gave her a look before turning to obey.
At her back, Verdayne Vantane said, “I have a crossbow. Soon as the lad is through the window, I dare shoot.”
“Single or double bolt?”
“Double.”
“That might bring him down. I fear Gryton is dead.”
“You look to be right.” Dayne spoke evenly behind her, his voice an echo of both his brother Bistane and the older, mourned, and gone Bistel. It always took her aback to see him barely head and shoulders above Dweller height, but that was mixed blood, always surprising.
The dog went for her ankle and caught her around the boot shaft, teeth sinking into and through the leather, piercing skin sharply and not letting go. She sliced off an ear and the beast seemed not even to notice it.
Dayne’s dry observation. “You’ve anchored him. See if you can broadside him my way.”
Lip caught between her teeth, Brista tried to swing her weight and bring the determined dog about, jaws clamped to chew her foot off. Pain thrust through her, but she did not scream, afraid to distract Evar and Merri; both would come back to the window to see what was happening.
The dog rolled his underbelly toward her. She took it, ramming her sword in all the way to the hilt. If the dog felt it, if it hit any vital organs, if it slowed the beast in his mauling at all, there came no sign. His teeth ground down harder on her ankle, and she thought he’d hit bone as agony lanced her.
“Lean back.” Quiet, but urgent from Verdayne.
“Aye.” She sliced off the other ear, doing no real damage that the creature took note of, but a slow, curling curtain of blood began to make its way into the dog’s eyes and it blinked rapidly, growls muffled by her agonized flesh filling its jaws. Brista pulled the dog about another half a hand and then leaned back sharply.
“Now.” Bolts whistled past her so near she could smell the oil on them from the windlass of the crossbow. He hit his target dead center and hard enough that the animal let go of her with a surprised yelp and fell to its flank, pawing at the floorboards, and turning its snapping jaws to the feathers sticking from its side.
Painfully, Brista got to her feet and raised her sword again. She cleaved a shot to its neck, cutting deeply, but not beheading the dog—which ought to have happened. Dayne cranked his bow for a second shot, saying, “Get out of my way.”
She did. He advanced into the room and shot again, one of the bolts piercing so far through the dog’s upper leg that it sank solidly into the floor, and the other headed to where a heart or lung ought to have been. He kept coming, pulling his long, thin dagger from a wrist sheath and sinking it into the nearest eye savagely. Yelps grew faint. The thrashing slowed.
Finally, the dog stopped moving.
“What, from the cold pit of hell, was that?” Brista collapsed to the floor, her hands wrapped about her ankle, trying to slow the bleeding.
“I’ve no idea. It was in here with the children when you came in?”
“Yes, hanging onto Gryton’s throat. The auntie got out, but the children were cornered.”
“I saw them go out the window.” He looked up, frowning, and there the two stood, faces pale, watching him, little hands braced on the window frame.
Nutmeg ducked in. She bent to help Brista to her feet. “Let’s get that tended to.” She paused at the doorway.
“I’ll get them,” he told her, seeing her look the children over carefully. Meg nodded before hurrying the much taller guard out, her arm over her shoulders.
“I don’t want you to see this.”
They looked at Dayne and shook their heads. “Too late,” Evarton said.
“How did the dog get in? Who brought him in?”
Evarton’s eyes grew moist. “I made him.”
“What do you mean?”
Merri’s ungraceful tumble behind him, nearly knocking both of them off the stool and onto the ground, took Dayne’s attention. He reached out and steadied them, and set them both down on the wooden perch.
“What do you mean, you made him?”
Evar brushed his sleeve against his nose. “Wanna puppy. I made him.”
Merri shook her curly head. “No good. No insides. Told you!” and she elbowed her brother. “Like apple.”
Evar sniffled. “Was dog.”
“Was not. No insides.”
Evarton gave her a little nudge, but she held her ground, mouth stiff.
Dayne looked to the carcass of the dog. It bled very little from any of its wounds. It had already stiffened into a rock-hard pose. He reached his hand out and poked it. What warmth it might have had, as the living did, had already fled. Disbelief rippled through him, leaving behind an icy track. Made him? He saw traces now and then, of things Evarton could and did alter. Nutmeg’s ears. Her height, though barely perceptibly, although that had been a gradual thing over the seasons. Her eyes, too. Certain toys Evar liked but wanted a little different, like a coat of paint. Dayne was never sure if anyone noticed but himself and perhaps their mother. He had never heard of a Talent that created life out of . . . nothing. No being could. He looked Evarton over. Never in old Sinok’s bloodline had there been a hint of this ability. Not Lara and certainly not Jeredon, although . . . he had heard stories that Jeredon could sense and recognize new life. He knew when favorite hounds or horses had conceived. Dayne shook his thoughts to clear them. He could not make the leap from recognizing the conception of life to forcing such a conception.
Evar stared at him, face pale and wide-eyed. Little Merri trembled behind him.
Whatever Dayne thought, the dog had to have come from somewhere. “What did you make it from?”
“My stone dog.”
He looked into Evar’s eyes. “My stone dog, you mean.”
Evar’s face flushed. He looked down at his knees. “Yeah.”
He had had a stone dog, a parody of a war dog, sent to him by his brother, as a jest. It was to “hold down” his place in Bistane’s heart and estates. The statue had disappeared. He flicked a glance at the beast lying pinned to the floor. Yes, it was about the same height and bulky weight as his stone-cast mascot. Evar had brought that to life?
But not a proper life nor even an Undead. Merri knew. It was her piercing scream that had sent him to the weapons’ rack and brought him running to her. It was empty, unfinished, a construct without true life. Without soul. How had she known?
How had Evar done what he did?
Dayne took a deep breath. He did not know what to do with the knowledge he’d just been given, only that it put these two in even greater jeopardy. He put his hand out. “I won’t tell that you took my stone dog if you promise not to tell that you tried to make it live.” He waited. Two heads nodded. “All right, then. Let me get the two of you safe. Perhaps a trip to Lily’s shop.”
“Cake shop there. Grandma’s friend,” Merri informed him.
“Oh, is there?” He smiled down on her. Of course he knew it well. He and Nutmeg often had their hands full marching the two past it.
She squeezed his hand with her little warm one. “Yes, right there.”
“Then if you and Evarton are good, we might go visit the cake shop.”
“Mum?”
“I imagine she’s the one who will walk you down.” Dayne looked at them sternly. “You cannot go by yourself!”
“Oh, no. Never.” And Merri squeezed his hand reassuringly as they walked by the bodies, seemingly not even noticing.
Evar’s head, however, swiveled and he did not take his eyes off the two until Dayne led him through the playroom door. He whispered as he walked out of range.
Sadly. “Not alive.”
• • •
Corrie watched the small family pass her by, without a word for her frayed nerves or thumping heart and head. She scratched at her right brow as the door closed, shutting them away from her. She hoisted her bag onto her lap. It seemed filled with inconsequential things: a boy’s shirt, homespun but with intricate embroidery on the collar and cuffs; a man’s ring, crude but stamped with a seal not unlike one a noble might use; a woman’s handkerchief, also embroidered, fancier than the boy’s shirt but possibly done by the same hand.
Her son. Her husband. Her sister.
She knotted her fingers into the shirt. She never should have left the farm, but she needed to, they hadn’t been doing well, and Tolby had bought spices from them for cider mulling and had made a generous offer. It had been generous, too, just as it had been generous for Tolby and Lily to take in the orphaned child of their wet nurse and raise it alongside their own granddaughter as if he were one of their own, and he a half-breed. It should be said in Merri’s defense, Corrie thought, that the sweet little girl was a half-breed, too, although her Dweller nature far outweighed that of her Vaelinar blood. Still, as Corrie’s father had said before her and her husband said now, blood will tell. It always did. It reared its ugly head in animals, proving traits both good and bad, and it showed in mortals, too. Still, the offer had been generous. Enough for them to think about buying new equipment, new seed, perhaps even hiring a man to work alongside her husband as they increased their holdings, and she herself had a grander home in the meantime. Tolby had offered her a five-year contract and paid for the first year in full, and that nearly gone now, but the money would be steady. He was a man of his word. She would be given a few weeks off, to go home, to love her own loved ones instead of making do with the children here.
Corrie sighed. She didn’t know how the ild Fallyn had found her family. In the long year, she hadn’t talked. Not once. She had done her duty as an auntie and done it well. Someone back at the village must have gossiped, and that spread to the wind, and the wind eventually came to rest on the rugged cliffs where the ild Fallyn stronghold perched and now she was left with this. This! She knotted her hands tighter into her son’s shirt.
Tressandre ild Fallyn had taken her family hostage. Terms would be known later, as soon as she acknowledged the contact. Corrie could disavow her family. Ignore the demands being made upon her, but to do so would be to sentence her family to torture and then death. Lady ild Fallyn had said so.
That meant Corrie had no choice but to spy, didn’t it? If she wanted her own family safe and free someday? To watch and report on the children. And such a report she would be writing as soon as she had the spare time to find paper, ink, and a messenger bird. Merri and Evarton had made a stone dog come to life. Nutmeg and Dayne were very careful not to mention it in front of her, nor even ask any questions about the incident, but Corrie had fallen asleep, hadn’t she, her drooping gaze fastened on that self-same stone dog sitting in the shadows under the lad’s bed.
Now missing. Or smashed to gravel, however it had been dispatched. It had come to a vicious half-life, growling and leaping at the same children who’d given it life.
No one acted as if they knew Corrie had seen a thing, but she had. A fistful of things that could not be explained away easily, and no one had asked her about the incident or inquired of her health.
It seemed to her that she had been paid well, but not well enough for this. The little girl had witch powers in her, the like of which hadn’t been seen since the days of the Mageborn wizards. It hadn’t come from her Vaelinar blood, for no one spoke of any such abilities among the High elven. No. Buried deep in her Kerith heritage lay a Dweller wit
ch of incredible power, and it had leaped generations, as it was wont to do, and landed in little Merri. Corrie shuddered. She would have to watch the child like a hawk, and then decide what grains of knowledge to pass along to the Vaelinar mistress.
Gods help her, but she was walking a narrow line between the cold pits of hell and the sunbeams of the saved.
Corrie put her head down and sobbed, quietly, into the shirt crumpled in her hands.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Trevalka
“WINTER IS ON OUR HEELS.”
“It feels even closer.” Rivergrace could not help but hug herself, the banked fire at her toes doing little to warm anything upward of her ankles. Her jaw ached from the chill and her nose had gone numb the moment she slipped out from under their meager blanket.
Sevryn dropped that poor ragged thing over her shoulders even as she thought of it. “I think I’ve found our haven.”
Holed up deep in what she called wilderness, Grace couldn’t think of anyone he’d been watching except for a small band of trappers. She said as much.
“They’re the ones. Relatively isolated.”
“And suspicious.”
“To our advantage.”
She peered up at him. “They’d be just as wary of us as they would anyone else.”
“Not . . . exactly.”
“The waters in these mountains are clean. I can’t make friends by cleansing them.”