The Bonemender's Choice

by Holly Bennett

  HIS PAPA SHOT first and hit his mark square. Matthieu had to bite his lips to hold back a yell of triumph. But his excitement was short-lived, drowned by the cry of the shot man. This was not like the confused battle Matthieu had seen before, the air full of shouts and battle screams and vague dark figures. This scream pierced the silence, filling his ears, and he saw the grimacing face as it fell, lips drawn back like a dog’s.

  A heartbeat later, Féolan’s bow sang out. His shot was not so clear, and his target’s horse, rearing in alarm at just that moment, saved its rider from a lethal hit. The arrow sank into his thigh, painful but not disabling.

  The bowstring twanged again. His father? No, Dominic was already running in with his sword drawn. Féolan then, impossibly fast. But his opponent was fast too and quick-witted despite his wound. Anticipating the second shot, perhaps, or reacting with catlike speed to the sound, he threw himself down and sideways in the saddle. The arrow meant for his heart drove into his shoulder.

  It was enough. Féolan darted in, pulled the wounded man to the ground and vaulted into the saddle.

  Where was Derkh? And his father? Matthieu’s eyes scanned frantically—and his legs went weak with alarm.

  They were in trouble. Derkh had rushed forward as planned, only to find himself facing not swords but spears, a seeming thicket of them. Dominic was at his side, having somehow made his way across the road. With the height of the mounted Tarzines and the long reach of their weapons, there was no effective way to attack. Instead, Derkh and Dominic were pinned behind the cover of the caravan, unable to break free without being skewered by a spear hurled at close range.

  Féolan yanked the lance free from its clip on the saddle. Three men hedging in Derkh and Dominic and only one left against him—but that one had already kicked his horse to a canter with his arm cocked back for the throw. Féolan dropped the reins, drew his sword left-handed. It seemed to Matthieu he became a statue, frozen in all that turbulent clamor. His opponent grinned, avid, sure of his prey. But just as he loosed the spear, Féolan’s horse sidestepped left and his sword swung in an arc, deflecting the spearhead past his right shoulder. The Tarzine came on, caught in his own momentum, and Féolan’s spear flashed. A final brutal sword stroke and it was done.

  It was three on three now. The Tarzines, Matthieu saw, were no longer grinning. He guessed they hadn’t expected any real danger, only a bunch of scared runaways. But they still had the advantage in horses and weapons.

  If Féolan had his bow...But it was on the other side of the road from Matthieu—no way to get to it unnoticed. Was there nothing he could do but watch helplessly?

  In a chiggers game, this is where you would need your hidden token, he thought. Too bad we don’t have one. But the idea stayed with him. In a way, this was like a chiggers game, wasn’t it? Looking at it that way helped to quiet the scared feelings that scrabbled around in his mind, making it so hard to think.

  Matthieu’s eyes narrowed. He looked again at the scene below him. It was a chiggers board...a very large, very unusual chiggers board.

  THREE MEN DOWN! Cavran’s hope of reward for his daring action had fallen into the shit pit. Even assuming the boy was still healthy, he would hardly compensate for their losses. He would do better to snatch the boy and take off, sell him and keep the profit for himself. Of course his colleagues might have something to say to that.

  First they had to finish off this lot. They had them now, he was sure, but he had underestimated them badly before and was not about to make the same mistake twice. The two trapped behind the wagon were hardly cowering in fear. And the other, the skinny musician—he was fast as a snake and just as deadly.

  Cavran edged his horse toward the back end of the caravan and motioned to his fellow to go around the front. They would squeeze the two on foot between them, finish them off first while the musician was kept at bay.

  A sudden noise in the wooded hill above them caught his attention.

  “It’s the boy!” shouted his mate. “Will I go for him?”

  “Hold your ground,” Cavran roared. “He’s got nowhere to run to—we’ll pick him up after this work is done.” Sure, run off with the prize and leave me outnumbered, he thought. Not likely.

  “DOMINIC, THEY’RE COMING around to make their move.” Derkh shifted position, keeping his face square to the horseman, but he didn’t harbor much hope of dodging the spear when it finally flew. The Tarzines would have to ride into the brush at the side of the road and search around a bit for a clear flight path, but it wouldn’t take them long. “I don’t relish a headlong flight into the bush with horses on my tail.”

  “Got your knife, Derkh?” Dominic had already switched his sword to his left hand and eased the Elvish blade, now at his waist, from its sheath. It might be his last hope now.

  “Yeah, right here. I guess it’s the only thing left to do, but, dark gods, it’s a bugger of a throw.” To hit a man at such a height, while trying to avoid a flying spear? Even when he was in peak training form that would have been beyond Derkh’s skill.

  “I was thinking the horses,” Dominic muttered. “I know we need them, but we can lose a couple.”

  Derkh nodded agreement. Of course. Horses made an easier target, and if they could manage to make the horses stumble or rear that might just gain them an opening.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  MATTHIEU SCRAMBLED THROUGH the scrubby brush. He ran at an angle, away from the road and back toward Turga’s. There it was—the big outcropping of rock.

  “Gabrielle!” She was sitting with Madeleine’s head in her lap, but thank the gods not in her spooky trance.

  “Matthieu, what on—”

  “I need the mule. There’s no time to explain. They’re in trouble down there, and I have an idea. Gabrielle, just trust me—it’s not that dangerous, and it might help. But it has to be now.”

  Uncertain green eyes rested on him while Matthieu squirmed with impatience. Then they cleared, and Gabrielle nodded.

  “Go then. But for pity’s sake, Matthieu, be careful.”

  He untied the mule and began urging her through the woods. She was happy to follow—she didn’t like this rough country and sensed the road ahead. Matthieu aimed to reach it just ahead of the hairpin turn. He should be able to walk right onto it and still be out of sight.

  He gave a quick glance up and down as they reached the roadside, but there was no time for real caution. If there were more men in wait there, they were scuppered anyway. He led the mule into the road, faced her toward the caravan and skirted around to her back end.

  “Sorry, girl,” he murmured. And quickly, before he could get cold feet, he drew his sword and stabbed her in the flank.

  Searing pain branded his thigh. He sprawled in the dust, clutching his leg to his chest, while behind his eyes the great black shape of a hoofprint flared and throbbed.

  “Serves me right,” he croaked.

  But his plan, such as it was, had worked. The mule had bolted down the road in a lather. Maybe she would actually crash into them. Matthieu hoped so. He hoped it wasn’t too late to matter.

  He hoped his leg still worked.

  DOMINIC KEPT HIS EYES trained on the approaching horseman while he hefted the weight of the knife in his hand. It was years since he had practiced knife-throwing and never with a blade like this. It was slim, beautifully balanced, but longer than he was used to. That would mean slower rotations—so he would need a little more distance to get a stick. And he needed to get his throw in ahead of the spear cast. His fingers closed down into the hammer grip that General Fortin had taught him. He would aim at the broadest part of the horse’s neck. Harder to miss.

  The Tarzine coming at him hefted the spear back in preparation for his throw. Dominic’s arm swung up. A screaming bray shattered the air, a large brown shape shot clattering and skidding around the bend, and the Tarzine’s taut features dissolved into slack-mouthed surprise. A mule—their mule—streaming blood and already out of control from
the sharp turn, screamed again in panic as it saw the obstacles before it, tried to swerve, slewed its back end into the Tarzine’s horse and lashed out with a frightened kick. The Tarzine yelled in pain and clutched at his calf—and Dominic had his chance.

  He eyeballed the distance, took two quick steps back and snapped his arm in a smooth arc. The knife sailed away, made two lazy turns and sank into the horse’s broad neck.

  The horse collapsed at the knee and pitched forward. Dominic’s sword was at the Tarzine’s throat before the poor beast came to rest. He hauled the man off the saddle and shoved him up against the wagon with the long blade pressed across his neck.

  Over his own heavy breathing, he heard the scuffle and grunt of fighting. Derkh and Féolan had followed his lead, but they had not had so good an opening as he.

  This time there was no avoiding it; he would have to kill the man in cold blood. He couldn’t stand here waiting while his friends were hard pressed.

  Gritting his teeth, he took a firm, two-handed grip on his sword.

  “Wait! I call them off.”

  Dominic stared, his brain not quite believing his ears.

  “You speak Krylaise?”

  The man gave a tiny careful nod around the sword. “I stop them.”

  Easing back just slightly on the pressure, Dominic said, “Do it.”

  A BRIGHT BLAZING sun popped over the eastern tree line and washed the world in lavish pink as Dominic hoisted Matthieu onto Gabrielle’s horse and settled him in front of his aunt. There were enough horses that the boy could have ridden alone, but the swollen livid lump on his thigh argued against it. Dominic wanted badly to have Matthieu on his own horse, but Derkh had pointed out that would leave only one trained fighter unencumbered. Madeleine rode with Féolan though Gabrielle was loath to give her up. The girl was not much smaller than her aunt, too heavy for Gabrielle to support securely at a gallop.

  Dominic sent the Tarzines down the road on foot, their wounded man slung over the mule.

  The only debate was about what to do with the extra horse. Dom was not anxious to bring it along—a tether would be nothing but a hindrance in case of attack—nor did he want to provide the Tarzines with swift transportation back to Turga. It would certainly overtake them if he set it free.

  In the end, they waited until the Tarzines were well away, hobbled the horse and left it to make its slow way home.

  PUSHING THE HORSES, but not exhausting them, they were able to make the journey from Rath Turga to Niz Hana in one long hard day. It was not fast enough for Gabrielle’s liking; she could feel Madeleine weakening with each slow mile and fretted against the lazy dogleg road that looped inland before angling back to the coast. Once, at a nameless crossroads settlement, Dominic called a halt to buy bread and ale at the tiny market. Gabrielle spent every minute of their brief stop sitting with Madeleine, struggling to check the advances the disease had made through the morning. Féolan’s efforts to lend Madeleine strength were helping, but they were no substitute for Gabrielle’s powers.

  She had no appetite for the rough round of bread Féolan pressed on her, but she chewed it dutifully as they traveled. “Stoke your fire,” she remembered her father urging. “No heat without fuel.”

  They all quickened with hope as their road branched left, back toward the coast. Surely if they had not been overtaken by now, they would reach Niz Hana safely. The road sloped downhill, gradually taking them out of the dry uplands and into the green low pocket of lusher country that surrounded the harbor town.

  Matthieu whooped in triumph as they passed through the town gates, the sound so infectious that everyone but Derkh had to laugh. Derkh was somber, his dark brows creased. Gabrielle caught a trace, like a scent carried on the wind, of the stew of feelings behind his frown: fear, loss, anger, determination. Love. He was deeply, irrevocably in love with Yolenka, she realized, and she felt her own gust of anger against the Tarzine woman. What was she playing at? If she wanted to stay in her own homeland there was no blame to it, but to disappear without a word of explanation...

  They were at the harbor now, and there was the ship at the end of the pier, waiting as promised. Had anything ever looked so lovely as that ship? She would settle Madeleine into the captain’s room and get to work undisturbed and heal her niece, and the ship would carry them home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE CAPTAIN PLANTED HIMSELF in front of them, barring the way, and folded his arms across his chest. “I will not have the Veil on my ship.”

  Féolan tried to gather his thoughts and words. He was tired from the long ride, distracted by Gabrielle’s worry. He would normally enjoy the challenge of a new language, but not when lives hung on his eloquence. Not with this dull fog in his head.

  “Dominic, would you take Madeleine?” He passed the sick girl carefully to her father. It put him at another disadvantage with the captain, trying to argue with his arms full.

  Dominic and Gabrielle stood behind him, alarmed and frustrated. Not Derkh. Derkh had left them shipside. “You’re safe now,” he had said. “I’m staying. Yolenka might make it here after all. If need be, I’ll go back for her.” Féolan didn’t know how Derkh would fare, returning to Turga’s stronghold with hardly a word of Tarzine—or how Yolenka would respond if he arrived there. But he missed Derkh’s steady quiet presence.

  Féolan turned back to the captain. “You agreed to sail us,” he insisted. “We paid. You know we came for the children.”

  “I didn’t agree to carry the damn plague!” The man’s eyebrows drew down in a glowering line. “I won’t put my men at risk.”

  “Féolan.” It was Gabrielle. “Tell him I will stay with Madeleine in the cabin and not come out. We will stay away from his men.”

  Féolan stumbled through the proposal. The captain seemed, for a moment, to soften. Then the eyebrows jutted down again, and he widened his stance.

  “What about Turga? Did you kill the pirate?”

  “No.” Féolan didn’t hide his surprise. “That was not our...not why we came here.”

  “Bleeding eyes of mighty Milor.” The captain hawked onto his own deck in disgust. “What you bring me here is trouble. Disease on my ship. Turga alive and on your tail. When I return here, what do you think will be waiting for me? He won’t rest until he puts me out of business or under the waves!”

  “He will rest.” The voice was commanding as a clarion. “He will rest until the end of days.”

  Féolan turned to see Yolenka, her gauzy costume sweat-stained and dusty, hair a windblown fury, stalk past him and stop just short of the captain’s face. She jabbed a finger into his chest, and he took an alarmed half-step backward before catching himself. Féolan found himself feeling a little sorry for the man.

  “Turga is dead.” Yolenka bowed and swept her hands open in an ironic exaggerated gesture of bounty. “A gift for you.” She straightened and her voice grew hard. “We have paid you gold to grow fat on and swept the seas clean of your worst predator. Now it is for you to hold up your end and carry these children home.”

  She swept her eyes over him with frank scorn. “I did not think to see such cowardice in a Tarzine captain.”

  All eyes, crew and passenger, were on the captain. He blustered and bridled, stung by the insult, groping after a reply that would salvage his pride and his men’s respect.

  Yolenka let him stew in his own anger. Then her features softened, became almost pleading, and she touched his arm hesitantly.

  “Your pardon,” she said. “I spoke wrongly. There is no cowardice in protecting your crew.”

  The captain, on the verge of smacking her arm away, stopped in confusion. The poor lout, thought Féolan. She’s playing him like a bag of reneñas. Yolenka continued, all humble supplication.

  “They are children. They have suffered great evil, and it is due to them that Turga is killed. Now their fate rests in your hands. Will you not save them?”

  Agonizing moments ticked by. The captain shifted his weight, scratc
hed at the stubble under his chin. Met Yolenka’s liquid golden gaze. Straightened briskly.

  “I’ll clean out my things,” he announced. “But...” He pointed a finger and swept it stiffly across the little group. “You lot will eat and sleep on deck. And any one of you has the least complaint, even a bloody hangnail, you’re confined to the cabin.”

  YOLENKA PERCHED ON a coil of rope, her ruined finery tucked around her legs, and systematically worked a comb through her tangles. Derkh sat beside her, feeling the movement of the ship underneath him—a familiar motion this time, cheering even. The seas were calm as sunset approached, the breeze billowing the sails playfully. They had just lost sight of land. Derkh watched Yolenka’s fingers move briskly through the strands of hair, let his eyes travel over her golden features. What if she had not returned? He still felt weak from the fear of it, and from the relief that had washed through him when he first caught sight of her galloping breakneck down the narrow street on a lathered horse, people scattering in her wake. His lips curled into a private grin at the memory.

  “What? You are smiling because dinner arrives, I hope.” Yolenka scowled. “Will this captain never feed us? I am near to falling down starved.”

  “When did you eat last?” Derkh was hungry too—their quick midday meal had been a small chink in a yawning gap.

  “Not anytime this day.”

  “Yolenka...” Where to start? Maybe not the beginning—he wasn’t sure he was ready for the story of Turga’s death. “How did you get out of there?”

  Yolenka glinted up at him. “There is guard I know. I make a deal.”

  Eternal night. Did she have to joke about it like that? Heat rose in his face, and Derkh was glad for the sunburn that hid his angry flush. I’m too jealous, he thought bleakly. I will never survive her.