Sunset of Lantonne

by Jim Galford

“I did listen,” Raeln answered, tightening his grip. “You called me a filthy mongrel and said you would kill me with your bare hands if you could. I swore an oath to listen and not speak so as to better watch over you, but I choose to speak now. For once, you will listen to me when I tell you this is not how your father would want you to act.”

  “You’re my brother, Raeln. You know I wouldn’t…”

  “I don’t know what you would do now. You were getting distant and angry when I left. It looks like you haven’t gotten better, Ilarra. I don’t know who you are anymore. Perhaps we should not have come. Greth caught your scent and I had hoped you would be happy to have us find you, but this is not what I expected of you.”

  Ilarra hung her head and tried not to cry. Her whole life, the only person who had ever been true to her had been Raeln. The idea of hurting him, even with words, was horrifying. That he was willing to break his oath to lecture her spoke volumes about how worried he was.

  “I can’t keep it held inside my head all the time,” she explained, no longer able to look Raeln in the eyes. “Every day, it gets worse. When I see orcs and wildlings, it’s the worst. I want to kill them, to see them die in terrible ways, and I don’t even know why. Raeln, you know that’s not me. I’ve loved you and your family as my own. I just can’t not hate now…”

  “What is happening to you, Ilarra?” he demanded, his grip on her wrists tightening painfully. “Where is this coming from? You tell me it’s not you, but I don’t see anyone else here.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Not a chance,” interjected Greth. “If he does, I’ll knock him out and pin you down myself.”

  Ilarra rubbed her tired eyes against her shoulder and tried to find some more comfortable way to lay, but with her wrists planted against the floor, she could not do anything to make it less awkward.

  “Raeln,” she began, trying to find the words she needed to say, “I…I’m not who I was.”

  “I can see that,” he answered sharply.

  “The sickness, you remember how strangely it acted and how worried my father was? That was magical. The man that did it was a Turessian, one of the ones working to raise the army of the dead. The infection…it killed me. I’ve had to learn how to be me all over again, but it brought with it all kinds of feelings I don’t understand.”

  “You look very much alive. Last I checked, I’m still alive, too.”

  “I don’t know when it happened, but I am one of them now, Raeln,” she admitted, wishing she could lie to him. As tired as she was, she doubted she could manage anything that he would not see through. “I’m a Turessian of sorts. I can hear them in my head sometimes, and they really hate your kind. I love you like my own parents, but I can hear all the anger and awful things they want me to do to you. I lost control when you got here, but I’m fine now. I know who you are again. So long as I don’t lose myself completely, you’ll be fine. Until Nenophar comes back, I have to fight it every moment.”

  “Who or what is a Nenophar?”

  Ilarra groaned, remembering Raeln and Greth had not seen the man when they were in Lantonne. If anything, it made her look even more crazy and did not help her claims at all. In hindsight, she dearly wished she had explained everything before letting the two men leave.

  “He’s a friend, and he is helping keep the armies away from Lantonne until I can do something,” Ilarra explained, twisting her hands in an effort to pry them out from under Raeln. As she remembered from their childhood, Raeln was entirely immovable until he wanted to move of his own volition. “We can trust him.”

  “And you couldn’t trust us?” Raeln asked grimly. He lowered his face until his muzzle was just above her face, making Ilarra fear for the first time in her life that Raeln might actually bite her. Wildlings might do that sort of thing. “After we caught your scent, we followed you from that scene in the carpenter’s shop, and I watched you through the cracks in your door. You are half out of your mind, Ilarra. I should never have left you alone. I see that now.”

  Ilarra finally managed to look over the two men. When they had left, they were strong and well groomed, Raeln more so than Greth. Now, they both were lean and their fur unkempt, and they both wore rags under deer hides that looked a little fresher than Ilarra felt comfortable with. They carried battered weapons that gave the impression they had been scavenged from somewhere after being discarded by someone else. The only thing either of them wore or carried that looked even remotely new was a polished silver bracelet Raeln wore on his left wrist.

  “Raeln, I’m trying to keep this from dominating me, but I need help,” she told him at last. “Without anyone else, I know I wasn’t doing well. You’re back. I’ll listen to you, and you can keep me from slipping. It’s like when we were kids and it was your job to stop me if I was being stupid. Only this time it might get a lot of people killed if I’m stupid.”

  Raeln stared into her eyes until she wanted to curl up under something to hide from his gaze. Finally, he released her wrists and held his other hand toward Greth to stop him from interfering. “You look as though you haven’t slept since we left Lantonne,” he told her, taking several pelts off his back and throwing them onto the floor nearby. “Sleep while we figure out what is to be done.”

  Ilarra shook her head, despite how comfortable the furry hides looked. “I can’t sleep anymore,” Ilarra told Raeln, pulling her knees up under her chin. “When I do, I can feel my control slipping even more. Besides, the two of you look as tired as I feel. How long have you been traveling?”

  Greth leaned against the door. “Aside from a few nights when we weren’t being hunted by one thing or another, most of the summer. The undead have all the roads and direct routes blocked. I think we explored most of the plains trying to get from the mountains to here without going through an army.”

  “Then you should rest…”

  “He said sleep,” Greth snapped at her, his ears tilting forward challengingly. “Keep arguing and we’ll put you to sleep forcibly until we can figure out what’s happening to you.”

  Ilarra crawled onto the fur pelts and flopped onto her side miserably while the two wildlings watched her. Both Raeln and Greth watched her like a disappointed parent, making her wonder what had happened to make them agree so completely in how they treated her. She had been happier when they were at each other’s throats. At least then she had been able to avoid too much scrutiny.

  Closing her eyes, Ilarra tried desperately to sleep. Each time she felt her body falling across the edge of sleep, she also felt the fingers of Dorralt brushing at her thoughts, trying to get in. She shuddered and clamped her eyes shut, struggling to keep her breathing even and remind herself that Raeln could protect her if Dorralt managed to do anything. If nothing else, he could overpower her and prevent her from killing.

  Ilarra fought with herself for what felt like hours, long after Greth had used broken boards from the room and a few of his hides to block up the openings in the walls where light streamed in to darken the room. That allowed Ilarra to open her eyes a little, helping her relax as she watched Raeln sitting guard at the door. He had always sat like that when she had nightmares as a child, back straight and eyes closed in meditation, protecting her from whatever monster she had imagined. Now, she knew the monsters were real, but his cross-legged post at the door somehow made everything a little better.

  Ilarra began to close her eyes again, feeling like she might actually be able to sleep, when Greth came back into view. He walked around Ilarra, looking down at her with worry very similar to Raeln’s, despite how hostile he had been when he thought she was awake. He studied her, clearly unaware she watched him right back with her eyelids only open a sliver.

  Greth knelt beside her and pulled one of the thin pelts over her like a blanket, then smoothed her tangled hair, pushing it off of her face. Smiling, he touched her cheek with the back of his hand, checking her for a fever she knew was not there. Once he was satisfied, he went over to Raeln and sat down with
his back to Raeln so he could watch Ilarra.

  Ilarra watched Greth relax as he sat near Raeln, his eyes drifting closed repeatedly and his head sinking. Each time, he would snap awake and blink hard. Finally, he slid closer to Raeln and leaned against the larger man, smiling to himself as he did, though Ilarra could see the smirk in the dark. Raeln, in turn, scowled at Greth briefly before returning to his meditation.

  Thinking back over the years, Ilarra realized she had never given much thought to the way Raeln had ignored the wildling girls, even as she had begun chasing boys. She had long thought wildlings had their own pace for such things and Raeln had never been quite ready, though so many wildlings younger than him had sought out companions. Seeing the way Greth relaxed when in contact with Raeln—and getting no real objection from Raeln—she finally understood.

  As Greth fell asleep, Ilarra saw his head tip until he leaned back against the edge of Raeln’s shoulder, his expression relaxing far more readily. Once he did, Raeln looked up from his meditation and turned just enough that Greth could fully rest his cheek against Raeln’s shoulder. Raeln nuzzled against Greth’s cheek, then quickly went back to his mock-meditation when Greth looked up. The two of them were watching one another for signs the other might be looking too, avoiding confronting what each was thinking by doing so.

  Boys are idiots, Ilarra thought as she closed her eyes and drifted more easily toward sleep. Those two were made for each other and they would never figure it out unless someone prodded them. She would have to look into doing that once things were less strained between her and Raeln. Until then, she intended to amuse herself with the awkward shyness of the men.

  That, and sleep.

  *

  Ilarra woke from her first good night’s sleep in what felt like a lifetime of bleary-eyed days to find Raeln pinning someone to the wall with his feet dangling off the floor, and Greth standing outside the room’s open door looking for other threats.

  “Raeln, what are you doing?” she demanded, rubbing at her eyes and getting up from the pelts. Almost immediately, Ilarra recognized the man being held by his throat as Nenophar, who was glowering at Raeln with a bored expression. Raeln’s snarling near the man’s face did nothing to concern him, and the large hand clamped over his neck Ilarra guessed to be no real threat, even if Raeln did not understand that.

  “Drop him, Raeln,” Ilarra ordered, marching over to him. “That is Nenophar.”

  Raeln eyed Ilarra, then growled again at Nenophar. “He tried to walk in here like he belonged. Ally or not, a man should not be allowed to come into your room without permission,” Raeln told her over his shoulder, still not easing his grip on Nenophar.

  “He can come and go as he wishes,” she insisted. “Do I need to remind you that you kicked in my door and attacked me, most certainly without my permission?”

  Nenophar’s eyes glittered angrily for a second and he placed a hand atop Raeln’s wrist, ready to free himself if required. He looked to Ilarra, waiting for her agreement before he hurt Raeln.

  Raeln was still not backing down, though he glanced over at Greth as the other man came back into the room and closed the door. Ilarra was less than pleased to see that he was putting more weight in Greth’s opinion than hers, though she was not entirely surprised.

  “I will release you,” Raeln finally told Nenophar, bringing his nose almost to the point of touching Nenophar’s face. “If you give me a reason, you leave by the window. Do we understand one another?”

  A smile crept over Nenophar’s face, making Ilarra’s skin crawl. It was anything but friendly, and Raeln seemed to see that as well, tightening his grip on Nenophar until the wall he pushed Nenophar against began to creak dangerously. For a moment, Ilarra thought Raeln might well shove Nenophar straight back through and into the hall.

  “Boys, enough!” Ilarra told them, walking over and shoving Raeln to make him back away from Nenophar. “Both of you are being childish. If there is any bloodshed between you, I will incinerate you both. Given the way my thoughts have been twisted by the Turessians, do not test me, I may not be bluffing.”

  Slowly, Raeln lowered Nenophar to his feet. The two stared at one another a while, challenging each other to make the first move. Then they finally both turned to face Ilarra. Greth sat down in a corner shaking his head at the whole scene. He seemed caught between amusement and the same disgust Ilarra felt.

  “Where do you stand on finding the purpose of the Turessians in this city?” Nenophar asked her, occasionally glancing at Raeln as though he expected to be attacked again.

  “Someone took it before I arrived, but Dorralt doesn’t have it. He’s still marching on the city, probably hoping he can find it when he arrives.”

  That caused Raeln’s ears to perk and his attention went entirely to Ilarra. “The Turessian in Altis said they were looking for a staff here,” he noted, cocking his head. “I was going to tell you about it, but it sounds like you already know. That and letting the city know about the army were why we tried to hurry back to the city.”

  “Try finding one specific piece of carved wood in a city. Knowing what it is helps less than you would think,” groused Ilarra, putting her head in her hands. “According to the staff-makers, carved staves are exceedingly popular this year.”

  Coming over to stand beside Raeln, Greth added, “Therec was awfully proud of his new staff before we left. He kept it in his lap when he ate and got pretty antsy when anyone got close to him. I even heard one of the serving girls say he slept with the damned thing. It might not be the one you want, but I would’ve started there.”

  “And you were going to mention any of that when?” asked Raeln, glaring at Greth.

  “Humans always do crazy things. He’s Turessian of one sort or another, so I give him extra leeway for crazy. I didn’t really think it any stranger than most things humans do until she mentioned the staff. Two furless worrying about a stick makes me want to find the stick and beat answers out of someone.”

  Greth then seemed to remember that Nenophar was with them. “Not that I have anything against you if Ilarra says you’re safe, but until you grow a tail, I’m going to always wonder how you manage to walk without falling over.”

  Ilarra’s mind jumped to Nenophar’s true form and felt herself blushing at the secret she needed to keep. Quickly, she put a hand to her face and hoped Greth and Raeln would think she was merely embarrassed by Greth’s rudeness. Luckily, Nenophar seemed entirely amused by the remark, smiling slightly back at the man.

  “If Therec has it, this is even more complicated,” Ilarra reminded them, deflecting the conversation from Nenophar. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I doubt I can get back into the keep without drawing far too much attention. We could sneak in, but I’m betting he’s got half of the tower searching for us after we all got away.”

  “Before we left,” Greth added, “he wouldn’t leave the royal ward of the keep. It’s more than getting inside. We need to get a half dozen floors up without being seen. Getting out is a lot easier than back in.”

  Ilarra looked to Nenophar, whose eyes glittered with humor, apparently anticipating her question. “No, I cannot get you there with my magic,” he answered before she asked, though she had been trying to find some way to ask him without mentioning transforming into a dragon. “The whole reason I needed you to leave the keep when we left was due to protections the original builders put on the place to shield against unwanted entry. Unless one of you can fly up to a window without being seen by a thousand people in the city, we will need to go through the doors.”

  Greth snorted. “A flying wolf. That’d be the day. I’ll keep my paws on the ground, thanks.”

  “We will need more than wings,” Nenophar added. “The two of you are filthy and will draw attention. I could smell those dead animals you wear as clothing before I had gotten halfway down the hallway. Even your weapons look as though you stole them from a corpse.”

  Wincing a little, Raeln looked down at the ru
sted sword at his hip. “We actually did. Some from a dead dwarf and some from zombies along the way as we traveled.”

  “Then you both need new attire and gear, or they will arrest you before they even know Therec is looking for you. Ilarra and I will be fine with our magic…”

  “About that,” Ilarra interjected nervously, shrinking back as Nenophar gave her a penetrating stare. “I have no magic. I lost it, but it’s coming back slowly.”

  “Lost?” demanded Nenophar, pushing past Raeln to march right up to Ilarra. “How could you lose your magic? Magic is not simply left in a cupboard by accident.”

  “Remember how I used too much and couldn’t do anything for a few days?”

  “I do. I also remember telling you never to do that again.”

  “Dorralt attacked me. I had to cut myself off to keep him out before he made me kill anyone.”

  All three men’s eyes went wide.

  “I’m fine,” she hurriedly added. “I couldn’t find any way to get out of his control, so I severed all of my ties to magic. It’s temporary, but until it comes back, I have nothing.”

  Nenophar grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand up. He took one glance at her broken nails and dirty fingers with their scabbed cuts from living in squalor for weeks and let her hand drop. “When you say all of your magic…” he started to ask, letting the question trail off. He clearly was unsure whether Raeln and Greth were allowed to know the specifics of her condition.

  “I mean all of it,” Ilarra repeated. “It’s been a couple weeks, and I’m just starting to be able to feel magic again. If I’d been any more thorough cutting off my magic, I’d be dead. I’d be lucky to fumble my way through the card tricks my father called magic when I was a child.”

  “I can still do those, if it helps,” Raeln joked, but closed his mouth when Greth punched him in the arm.

  “This complicates things,” Nenophar told the group, rubbing at his jaw nervously. “I feel we should wait until Ilarra recovers before we do anything further. If we don’t, we’re depending on these two louts against an army of Therec’s men, all of whom have at least some degree of skill with weapons. Magic was our only advantage.”