A premonition of peril hammered Colbey suddenly and without warning. He grasped Arduwyn’s belt, jerking the hunter backward into a clumsy dodge. An arrow whizzed past Arduwyn’s shoulder, its tip plowing through leaves. Momentum sent it tumbling end over end.
Colbey jerked his attention to the direction from which the missile had come. He saw no movement, and his eyes failed him. He crouched, sacrificing defense for the moment it took to sweep the area with his mind. A quick and superficial search revealed two strangers, separated by a significant distance. Such tactics did not fit the Cardinal Wizards.
Arduwyn went low, too, keeping thick trunks and tangled copses between himself and the archer. He slipped his own bow free, clamping an arrow to its rest. Soundlessly, moving with a slow steady motion, he slunk to a better position. A sudden, horrified intake of breath revealed his location to Colbey, if not to their attacker. Apparently, the hunter had found something as unnerving as an unseen enemy shooting to kill.
The forest went still, aside from the music of the insects and a light breeze still twining between the branches. The patience of the enemy archer made Colbey cautious. He hoped it stemmed from limited ammunition rather than competence. He freed Harval from its sheath. Confident of his ability to cut and dodge, he attempted to divert the archer or archers while Arduwyn found the best place from which to return fire. “Hold your attack. We’re here in peace.”
Another arrow sliced through the brush. Colbey sprang aside, sword slashing the shaft with a brisk motion that snapped the thin wood. The crude arrowhead spun in one direction, the feathered end in the opposite. A second arrow followed instantly, cut from the air by Colbey’s sword. The third clipped skin from his forearm as he severed it. The loss of timing irritated him. He considered charging the archer, but he knew the other could shoot him dead before he came within sword range. To die in a blind rush of anger would foul his honor and prove pointless as well.
Colbey dropped to his belly, knowing he needed to elicit the position of the second presence his mind had touched. Unseen, it proved far more dangerous than the archer. He could not afford to concentrate for too long; the price in fatigue and lost defense would prove too great. Quickly, he channeled power to his thoughts, extending them to touch the second stranger. His probe met pain and a conscious attempt to feign death. Most likely, he had located a victim rather than a companion of the archer. The enemy, it seemed, worked alone.
Colbey withdrew at once to tend to his own defense, believing he had found the thing that had shocked Arduwyn moments before. Again, he tried to draw the enemy archer’s attention, leaving Arduwyn free to attack. Colbey rose. “I can break as many arrows as you can shoot. If you insist on testing that, I’ll kill you when you empty your quiver. If you stop now, we can talk. Neither of us has to die.”
Silence followed, but at least no arrows came. Abruptly, something bumped Colbey’s elbow. He spun, recognizing Arduwyn in time to pull the strike, then whirled back to keep the other archer from catching him off-guard. He spoke in a hushed growl. “Never startle an old Renshai. You may find your head beside your feet.”
“I found Kayt.” Arduwyn waved toward the direction in which he had disappeared. “She’s hurt. Needs your help.”
“I know,” Colbey whispered in reply, though he had not yet made the obvious connection between the injured party his mind had located and Khitajrah. “Parlay first. We can’t help her if we’re dead.”
The voice of a young woman floated eerily through the darkened forest in song:
“I am the queen
Queen I am
Queen of the forest am I.
The night wind blows
The wolf howls drift
On wings of a bird I will fly . . .”
Arduwyn stiffened, limbs rigid nearly to the point of seizure. “Firfan.”
Colbey caught his arm.
“That’s Sylva.” Arduwyn stood suddenly. “Sylva!”
Colbey tightened his grip, jerking the hunter safely back behind the copse. A rattle behind them revealed that the archer had shot another arrow.
“That’s Sylva.” Arduwyn struggled, cuffing Colbey with a wild sweep of his arm. “Let me go, damn it!”
“Are you sure that’s her?”
“I know that voice. I wrote that song.”
Queen of all
All that I see
Queen of the sky and the trees
With the deer I shall walk
With the sly foxes stalk.
As a hawk I shall glide on the breeze.
“Be still. There’s something wrong.”
“It’s you, holding me down when my daughter needs me.” Arduwyn shouted, “Sylva! Don’t shoot. It’s your father.”
An arrow carved through the foliage between the two men, plowing beneath a layer of leaf mold. A second followed an instant later, the tip gouging Arduwyn’s thigh.
Arduwyn gasped in pain, hands falling naturally to the pink and green feathered shaft jutting from his leg. A curl of blood welled around the wound, a small sample of what he would find when he removed the arrow and its wood no longer pinched the damaged flesh in place. Arduwyn shifted, spoiling Sylva’s targeting, gritting his teeth against an agony he could blame on no one but himself. “She’s running low on arrows.”
“How can you tell?” Colbey rose to a crouch. His honor would not let him lie still behind a coward’s shield of brush. He would fare better, mentally and physically, avoiding and parrying the attacks.
“She’s using the better ones now. Colbey, what’s going on? Why would my daughter try to kill me?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” Colbey began shifting energy from body to mind. “Give me some covering fire, or talk to her, or something. I’m going in.”
“In? In where?”
“Her mind.” Colbey did not wait for the natural string of questions to follow. He concentrated his thoughts and nudged them toward Sylva, oblivious to Arduwyn’s voice or movements.
The destruction became obvious at once. Sylva’s thoughts formed no logical sequence Colbey could decipher. Unlike Episte and Frost Reaver, where the chaos had charged Colbey like a she-bear protecting cubs, nothing remained here to bother him. The magics had come and gone, hammering thought and reason into a tangled, incoherent jumble. He withdrew, catching part of Sylva’s response to whatever Arduwyn might have said to goad her.
“. . . not belong must die. I am the forest, and the forest is me. I am the queen.”
Arduwyn remained low, protecting Colbey’s still form with his body. The Renshai stood, prepared to dodge arrows again, though his mind felt fuzzy and his movements slow and thick.
“What did you find?” Arduwyn pressed at once, his hands clenched and his tone desperate.
Colbey shook his head. “It’s not good.”
Arduwyn’s features faded to a chalky white.
“Always before, I’ve had a battle to fight. This time, the enemy did its damage and left.” Colbey took his attention from Sylva momentarily to glance at Arduwyn. He looked back in time to slash another arrow from the air with a single, deft stroke. The routine need for defense did not break his chain of thought. “I’d guess the magic hit her hard and fast. No specific tampering to fix.” Colbey grasped for a concept a person who had never entered another’s mind could understand. “It’s like a tempest ripped through, then moved on. Just wreckage.”
“Wreckage?” Arduwyn kept his eye open so long, Colbey could see it drying. “Wreckage can be fixed.”
“Rebuilt. I don’t know how to do that.” A movement overhead seized Colbey’s attention. He studied the object from peripheral vision. The aristiri circled. Damn, we don’t need Sterrane brought into this. Colbey hoped, but doubted, the hawk had gotten his instructions wrong.
“What can we do?”
“First, we have to stop her from shooting at us.”
“I’m not killing my daughter.”
“I didn’t ask you to kill her.”
Arduwyn dove for the loophole. “You’re not killing her either.”
Colbey addressed the staff. *Can you do anything?*
*I’m the device—*
Colbey cut it off. *I know. I’m the Wizard.* He broke contact before the next thought. Useless. Without taking his eyes from Sylva, he addressed Arduwyn again. “What do you want me to do?”
Still on the ground, Arduwyn seized the fabric of Colbey’s britches. “Get back in her mind. Do whatever you do. She’s my daughter, damn it. You have to try.”
Colbey knelt, freeing himself from Arduwyn’s grip to keep it from inhibiting his lightning dodges. Fatigue and the staff hampered him more than enough. Visions of Episte came to mind, and he knew his best try might not prove enough. Exerting effort on a lost cause seemed madness now, leaving him to face the Wizards with mind clouded, body exhausted, and so much at stake. “Talk to her.”
“What?”
“Talk to her. Distract her. While I’m working, I leave myself defenseless.” The idea rankled nearly as much as the one before. To die at the hands of a superior enemy would please him. To let a young archer turn him into a pincushion while he lay helpless in the dirt would, deservedly, damn his soul to Hel. He let the concept go. For now, he had work to do.
Colbey gathered the energy of body, mind, and soul, probing delicately for the details of Sylva’s magic-wracked brain. He found her easily as he glided into a cavern of instincts and basic emotions. A red glow filled most of the space, a warm and discomforting prickle against his searching consciousness. It seemed to consist of equal parts of desperate rage and fear, spurred by a strangely unmotivated certainly that if she did not kill first, she would become the victim.
The idea strengthened abruptly. Colbey caught an image of threat. Then he felt Sylva lurch, fitting arrow to string and drawing.
For an instant, Colbey hesitated, caught between returning to self to shout a warning, thereby wasting the energy he had spent so far, and letting Arduwyn handle the danger alone. He chose the latter course. The hunter understood the situation; Colbey had little choice but to trust Arduwyn’s ability. Instead, the Renshai set to work, stepping away from Sylva’s current abstraction to take in a full picture of the damage. He discovered more squashing than tearing. The magic had flayed some thoughts, but most remained intact, only their patterns lost, not necessarily their content. Pain had caused her consciousness to retreat to the distant past: to childhood then beyond into animal suspicion and basic instinct.
Now that he had taken in the whole picture, Colbey dared to steal a moment peeking at the world through Sylva’s eyes. Arduwyn stood before her, fully unprotected. He had tossed aside sword, bow, and quiver to speak with her in innocent defenselessness. Sylva had nocked an arrow and drawn, the point flickering toward Arduwyn’s throat as she aimed.
Without time for strategy, Colbey scrambled to communicate with the staff in concepts rather than wasting precious moments for words. He managed to make clear the importance of holding her rage and her elemental need to destroy at bay in the same way the staff had frozen Shadimar’s spell in Frost Reaver’s mind.
For once, the staff obeyed without question. It drew a circle around the prominent killing concept, driving it to the center of the bank of instinct in which Sylva’s inner being had become trapped. The bow remained aimed and drawn in threat, but she showed no sign of releasing at the moment. He could catch little of Arduwyn’s words, but he could tell the skinny hunter was talking. He only hoped Sylva would listen.
Even as the staff drew borders, it made its limitations known. *Work fast and carefully. It’s not chaos or magic I’m holding, but human thought. My power is scant here.*
Colbey dove for the area the staff had cleared, swimming through a natural tangle of normal, but primal, function: thirst, hunger, survival, and cravings. The Wizard’s magic had ripped past this area, severing the pathways to the next higher portion of Sylva’s mind, the area that, apparently, held her memories of childhood. A flicker of Sylva’s consciousness danced around the confines, occasionally thudding against the staff’s conjured boundary as it quested for the rage that had driven her actions until that moment.
Colbey tried to bridge the gap between instinct and memory, but his probe proved useless when it came to creation. He could look, but he could not build. His own ability to skip unhindered from place to place frustrated him. Somehow, he had to get Sylva from instinct to function, from emotion to thought; but the spell seemed to have slashed the ties between them. He dropped back, touching the staff’s rage-confining ring. It thrummed against his probe, weakening. The instant it fell, Colbey knew, Arduwyn would die.
The thought goaded him, lending him a second wind that he needed. His own energy dwindled; the need to plot, to stretch his mind to Sylva, and to work within her was draining stamina faster than the most grueling sword practice. Once again, he tried to fashion a temporary route across the gap, and once again he failed. His own consciousness became faded, a winking gray spot in the shadow of the spark that revealed Sylva’s vibrant presence. He noticed that she had ceased to hammer at the staff’s barrier, though it continued steadily to wane. Instead, she seemed to spend more time at the frayed edges of her prison, as if to help Colbey with his bridge.
Catching his breath, Colbey watched as Sylva repeatedly soared up passageways that started wide, then narrowed into nothingness. He could see the jagged edges the magic had left after tearing the connections, and the glimpse showed him one thing more. One pathway remained intact, back-lit in the splash of white Sylva’s presence revealed to him. It seemed thread-thin and friable, but it fully bridged the gap. Somehow, he had to guide her to it.
Yet the method evaded him. In order to guide, he would need to understand the bridging thought; but to touch a thought that appeared no thicker than a hair seemed folly. If he broke it, he damned her to eternity as an unthinking animal, driven only by the understanding of kill or be killed. Better she found the way on her own, yet that seemed nearly as impossible. She had not discovered it so far. If she did not soon, the staff’s barrier would fail; and her slaying frenzy would come back in a wild wave that would cost Arduwyn, Khitajrah, and himself their lives.
Colbey fell back, oblivion pounding at him. Exhaustion had stolen his dexterity for finer technique, and he felt certain he could do nothing to escort Sylva down the last remnant of ascent from madness. For a moment, he let all thought slip from his own mind, the nothingness a comfortable and restful reprieve. Then, he noticed Sylva’s presence dancing about near the bridge, missing it by a hair’s breath.
Colbey lurched to Sylva’s senses, trying to find the incident that had sparked the change in direction of her thoughts. She continued to stare at Arduwyn, the arrow still nocked but the bow lowered; and the words that seeped through her hearing gave Colbey enough information, he hoped, to cue Arduwyn.
Colbey pulled out of Sylva’s mind, ignoring the buzzing in his head and the desperate need for sleep that pinned his limbs in place. “Deer,” he whispered. “Remember something about deer. Hurry!”
With Colbey’s departure, the staff had no choice but to leave as well. Sylva’s bow jerked upward, targeting Arduwyn’s throat.
Arduwyn slipped naturally from shared memories of crafting arrows to deer. “. . . green and pink. Pink, not white. Because I realized that white, from a distance, looked like the warning flash of a deer’s tail.”
Colbey winced, trying to gather strength to rescue Arduwyn, but he scarcely managed to straggle awkwardly to his hands and knees.
Sylva jerked as she released the string. The arrow flew in a harmless arc, missing Arduwyn by a full arm’s length. “Papa?” Her voice sounded infantile. She dropped the bow, expression twisted into a hideous mask of confusion. “Papa?”
“Sylva.” Arduwyn rushed forward, clasping her in a desperate embrace. “Firfan’s eternal charity. Sylva.”
Colbey’s head sank to his chest, but he forced himself to crawl onward. There
was still Khitajrah to tend.
* * *
By the time Colbey awakened, sunlight streamed through the branches, turning the skeletal foreboding of the ancient trees a welcoming brown and emerald. He had managed to remain alert long enough to tend Khitajrah’s and Arduwyn’s wounds, both significant yet neither fatal so long as infection did not take hold. Colbey hoped his ministrations with herb and salve would see to that. While he worked, he had heard the arrival of Sterrane and Mar Lon, paying them no heed. To split his concentration then, while fatigue had crushed his vision to a tunnel, would have spiraled him into unconsciousness. Better to choose sleep on purpose than to allow the darkness to overtake him.
Colbey sat up, and Mar Lon spun at the motion. He crouched between Sterrane and Khitajrah, attentive to the edge of paranoia. Nevertheless, he managed a smile for the Renshai.
Colbey glanced at each of his companions in turn. Sylva slept, her red hair sweeping around her like a cape, snarled with nettles and burrs. Arduwyn kept one arm looped protectively about her shoulders, his injured thigh twisted at an awkward angle that would leave it as stiff as the wound itself did. Khitajrah’s V-necked dress revealed the bandage wrapping her chest. No blood had seeped through as she slept, attesting to Colbey’s timing of the pressure needed to clot. At first, the arrow had appeared to be lodged in her chest cavity, a guaranteed death. Fortuitously, however, a rib had diverted the arrow beneath lung and heart; and Khitajrah had escaped with nothing worse than a pain that Colbey’s herbs had dulled. Sterrane lay in his usual placid pose, his snores more gentle than usual. “I told you to stay behind.”
The corners of Mar Lon’s mouth slid downward. “And I did. For as long as I could keep the king waiting. When my duty to guard clashes with my duty to obey . . .” He shrugged, not bothering to finish the thought.
Colbey grinned cruelly. “Personal honor has its place. Servitude is grim.”
“Oh? And how would you know, Sir Colbey Calistinsson, Knight of the Béarnian and Erythanian kings . . .” Mar Lon returned a gibe equally malicious. “. . . in name only. With all of the benefits but no real obligations or ties to either king.”
Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy) Page 58