Vengeance

by Gail Z. Martin

  The piyanin shrieked, loud and piercing enough that Corran felt amazed that his ears were not bleeding. The leathery, stubbed wings shook free, and both Corran and Trent threw themselves at the monster, hacking at the bony joints that fastened the bat-like appendages to its back.

  With a sharp twist, the piyanin turned back and forth, throwing Corran and Trent clear before they could finish their task. The damaged wings hung from broken frames, unable to furl, slashed and bleeding. Before Corran got to his feet to try again, the piyanin leaped into the air once more with the strength of its powerful legs and hurtled toward Rigan. Rigan raised his hand to send fire once again, but the piyanin moved faster, slamming him down to the ground and pinning him with its long, powerful talons.

  “Rigan!” Corran shouted, panic for his brother’s safety clear in his voice. He ran at the piyanin, tucking his head and lowering his shoulder, and hit the creature with his full weight and the momentum of a dead run. Rigan bent his knees and kicked, and the combined force toppled the piyanin. Trent leaped onto the monster’s back, sawing with all his might on its tattered wings as Corran stabbed into its flesh again and again; side, belly, and back.

  The piyanin shrieked again, but this time, the cry lacked strength. It grabbed at the air with its front talons and dug up the ground with its hind claws, but Trent held it down with his legs, and Corran grappled to keep it turned so that Trent could complete his task.

  With a cry of victory, Trent hacked through the last of the bone and sinew holding the ragged wings in place. As soon as the wings dropped away, the piyanin collapsed. Trent ran it through the heart with his iron sword, for good measure, and then he and Corran began the grisly work of cutting it to pieces.

  “Hey Rigan, how about some help?” Corran called to his brother as his steel knife cut through the monster’s shoulder, severing an arm. Trent wasted no time bringing his blade down to cut off the creature’s head. “Rigan?”

  A groan answered him, but Rigan did not get up. “Rigan!” Corran left the piyanin’s corpse and ran to where Rigan lay where the monster had left him. Blood covered his torn shirt, soaking through one sleeve and plastering the cloth to his shoulder.

  “I’m all right,” Rigan said, though the timbre of his voice suggested otherwise. “Got the wind knocked out of me.”

  “It’s dead,” Corran said, kneeling beside his brother and checking for injuries as well as he could by moonlight. “Just have to cut up and burn the son of a bitch. Did it get you deep with those claws?”

  Rigan shook his head. “I don’t think so. Still hurts.”

  Corran helped Rigan sit enough to ease him out of the tatters of his shirt, which Corran ripped into strips that would suffice for bandages until they could get back to the monastery. He looked relieved when he found no puncture wounds, although the gashes were deep and would require Aiden’s help to heal. Even then, they might scar.

  “Can you walk?”

  Rigan set his jaw but nodded. “Yeah. Just don’t ask me to swing a sword.” Corran helped him to his feet, then went back to where Trent had already cut off the piyanin’s remaining limbs.

  “I’ve got the salt.” Corran dug through the bag Rigan had dropped at the edge of the clearing. He came back a moment later carrying a bag of the salt-aconite-amanita mixture and a bottle of oil. He drenched the piyanin’s corpse with oil and poured the salt over it as Trent reclaimed the lantern he had left shuttered on the other side of the open space. Corran returned with sticks for kindling, and they watched with grim satisfaction as the flames took hold, forming a pyre.

  “Come on,” Corran said to Rigan, who swayed on his feet and looked like he might drop at any moment. Blood soaked through the make-shift bandages, and Corran frowned in concern at Rigan’s pallor. “Let’s get you back to the healer.”

  Rigan let Corran get a shoulder under his arm, helping him make the walk back to where they left the horses. “It might not be enough,” Rigan mumbled.

  “What?”

  “What Aiden can do. Might not stop it.”

  “Are you hurt somewhere else? Did it bite you?”

  Rigan shook his head. “You don’t… understand. I saw it, Corran.”

  “We all saw it. What do you—”

  “In my dreams.” Rigan met Corran’s gaze. “I saw the piyanin in my dreams, Corran.”

  Corran blanched, and Rigan could tell his brother understood. It’s a death omen.

  Corran swallowed hard and straightened his shoulders. “Yeah, well, that piyanin isn’t going to be hurting anyone. We handled it. The stuff about omens is a bunch of superstitious nonsense, Rigan. Aiden’s going to get you fixed up just fine.” He gave Rigan a boost into his saddle and kept a hand on his side until he felt certain Rigan would not topple off.

  “You think so?”

  “Positive. Aiden and Elinor will find some amulets if that’s what it takes. But not before they keep more blood from leaking out of you.”

  Rigan gave a barely audible chuckle in response. Corran let Trent take the lead on the ride back to their base, putting Rigan in the middle where Corran could keep an eye on him, even as he hung back to assure no other predators came up on them from behind.

  Rigan’s memories of the ride back jumbled together. Corran and Trent helped ease him down from his horse, and he stumbled, barely able to keep his feet under him. He woke in his bed, wounds bandaged, and a cool compress on his forehead.

  “There you are,” Aiden said with a tired smile. “Been waiting for you to rejoin us.”

  Rigan considered trying to sit up, then thought better of it. “How long was I out?”

  Aiden shrugged. “Not counting you fading in and out on the ride back? A couple of candlemarks. You lost a lot of blood. I’ve healed the wounds and done what I could to help you replenish, but some things can’t be rushed.”

  “The others?”

  “Corran and Trent got some bruises and cuts, but nothing like yours. Elinor took care of them. Corran’s been poking his nose in now and again to see how you are.”

  “Then I imagine he’s been bored because I don’t remember a thing.” Rigan hesitated. “Aiden—are omens real?”

  Aiden gave him an inquisitive look. “It depends. Sometimes they are. And sometimes, it’s a person’s imagination making things mean more than they really do. You have something specific in mind?”

  “I’ve had bad dreams lately,” Rigan confessed. “And I’ve seen the piyanin in them.”

  Aiden frowned. “Maybe you’re mistaken?”

  Rigan shook his head. “I didn’t know what it was before we fought one, but now that I’ve seen it, that’s what was in my dreams.”

  Aiden had drawn a chair up beside Rigan’s bed. He leaned back, frowning. “I was hoping you were thinking more along having seen a black cat. Piyanin are trouble, and because they’re supernatural, there’s some truth to them being a harbinger of bad fortune. But beyond that is just superstition, Rigan,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Aiden sighed. “It’s not the type of thing anyone can be sure of. But I do know that people tend to make things happen if they believe hard enough that those things will happen—good or bad. So if you feel lucky enough—really certain you’re having a good day—good things seem to come your way. Go into a fight thinking you’re going to lose, and you will. It’s not magic; it’s belief. And I’m certain that some—maybe most—of the things people blame on omens happen because they’ve talked themselves into it.”

  Rigan wanted to accept Aiden’s reassurance, but he remained unconvinced. “That’s good to know,” he said and closed his eyes to end the conversation. He’d see what the lore books had to say about warding off bad omens and take it upon himself to remain safe. Corran’s already lost Kell; I won’t leave him, too.

  A week passed after the fight with the piyanin. Rigan hunched over manuscripts in the room they had set aside as a library to store the books they had scavenged. His wounds were almost fully healed; Corra
n and Trent already chafed to find another hunt.

  He scoured the old tomes looking for protection symbols, anything he could find to ward off the bad luck of having seen the piyanin in his dreams. With Elinor’s help, he had fashioned a wristlet and an amulet, and he had slipped away to work more than one ritual the books promised afforded safety. The dreams had not come again, but Rigan remained unconvinced that he was entirely safe.

  “Find something interesting?” he asked Aiden when the healer looked up from the book he studied.

  Aiden shrugged. “Always looking for new wardings, rituals we can use. And anything I can find about the Rifts. Some of the old lore is… strange. Like stories people might tell around a campfire to scare children, full of monsters from the Realms Beyond. Except these aren’t children’s tales. I think some of the old practitioners actually believed them—and if what I’ve read is true, worshipped them.”

  “Worshipped monsters?” Rigan echoed. “How crazy do you have to be to do that?”

  “Crazy is relative,” Aiden replied, rubbing a hand across his temples. “If you want a champion to defeat a bigger, stronger enemy, a pet monster you think you can tame with spells and worship doesn’t look so bad when you’re out of other options.”

  “I thought we had enough gods to keep straight, between the Elder Gods and the Guild gods,” Rigan replied, pushing away the manuscript he had been reading as his tired eyes burned and his vision blurred.

  “These are really old gods. He Who Watches. She Who Waits. First Creatures made by Colduraan. Chaos personified.”

  “Did the rest of the Elder Gods have their own First Creatures?” Rigan asked. “What about Eshtamon?”

  Aiden shook his head. “I haven’t found anything about that if they did. Then again, most of what I’m reading has to do with countering blood magic and twisting healing magic for battle. Gods, I’m tired of this.”

  Rigan regarded his friend in silence. “Surely defending others is a permitted use of your magic.”

  The pain of his internal conflict showed in Aiden’s gaze. “Is it? I guess it depends on who you listen to. The witches who taught me to be a healer made me swear an oath never to use my power to maim or kill. Keeping that oath was supposed to be worth more than my life, or the lives of people around me. For the principle of the thing. But in the thick of the fight, I broke my vow—and I’ve kept on breaking it.”

  “We’d all be dead if you hadn’t,” Rigan pointed out quietly. “And so would the people we’ve saved, if we hadn’t been there to protect them. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  Aiden turned away, but Rigan could see the strain in his shoulders and the tight cords of the healer’s neck. “It does for me. I don’t know how the gods reckon things. I wonder sometimes whether the stain on my soul is too much to let me pass to the Golden Shores, because of what I’ve done.”

  “If it is, then you’ll have plenty of company,” Rigan joked bitterly. “Because we’ll all be there with you.” He sighed. “Amazing how things can go to shit so quickly, isn’t it? Not half a year ago, we had our old lives, and never dreamed anything would change. And now, look at us. Walking wounded, torn up inside and out like the old men who came home from the wars and were never right again.”

  “We’re still here,” Aiden said. “That’s got to count for something. Still fighting. That’s what keeps me going, having a purpose. Be useful. Stop the slaughter. And maybe someday, we can rest.”

  Footsteps in the corridor made them look up. Rigan expected to see his brother, but instead, Mir loomed in the opening, holding a jug of the rough whiskey the local farmers distilled. From the glazed look in his eyes, Mir was well into the jug’s contents.

  “Have you tried any of this?” he asked, holding the jug aloft. “It’s not too bad.”

  Rigan wrinkled his nose at the smell, even though he sat several feet away from the door. “Gods, Mir that smells like rotten fruit left in the sun.”

  Mir uncorked the jug and sniffed deeply, then stoppered it once more. “Yep. Probably what it’s made of. But it works—better than your potions,” he said with a nod toward Aiden. “They never stopped me from dreaming. This,” he said, patting the jug with his other hand, “I can sleep right through the night and not remember. That’s the thing that gets you,” he added. “Remembering. Need to stop doing that.”

  “Right now, I think you need to go to bed,” Aiden said, starting to rise in case Mir needed help, but Mir waved off his assistance.

  “I don’t need your pity or your help,” he snapped, with more clarity in his eyes than Rigan had expected. “Gods, I wish I were as drunk as you think I am. Maybe then, I wouldn’t feel anything at all.”

  “Only the dead don’t feel,” Aiden said, worry clear in his voice.

  Mir raised the jug in a sardonic toast and took a slug. “Then here’s to the dead. Lucky bastards.” He headed down the hallway toward his room. Rigan moved silently to look out the door after him, making sure he reached his destination without passing out in the corridor.

  “He’ll have a shitty headache when he wakes up,” Rigan said when he returned to the table.

  “There’s a price for everything,” Aiden replied. “He’s sober on the hunts, and he’s not picking fights. Not like any of the rest of us look likely to reach old age by abstaining. If it gets him through the night, well, it’s the oldest medicine there is.”

  Still, Rigan thought he saw a twinge of guilt in Aiden’s expression and wondered whether the healer could stop feeling personally responsible for wounds too deep for him to fix. “I’ll look in on him later,” Rigan promised. “Try to roll him on his side, so he doesn’t drown in his own puke.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Rigan put a marker in the manuscript he had been reading and closed the cover, setting it aside. “I’m going to get some sleep. Damned underground tunnels—can’t tell whether it’s day or night.”

  Aiden nodded. “I’m heading to the kitchen for some tea. Thought I might help Polly with dinner. It’s a nice change, and I feel useful—when she isn’t threatening to wallop me with that spoon of hers.”

  Rigan chuckled. “Beware the spoon. She’s wicked with that thing. I thought I’d take a cup of tea to Elinor. She’s pushing herself too hard.”

  Aiden quirked an eyebrow. “And the rest of us aren’t? She misses Parah and worries about how the old lady’s getting on without her. I don’t doubt that Elinor’s intent on finding new ways to use her magic, but I suspect hiding in the library is her way of shutting out the world for a little while.”

  Rigan thought about Aiden’s comment as he fixed the tea, and walked to the room where they stored the books and manuscripts they had found or stolen. The “library” held crates of books, a rickety table with two chairs and an oil lamp. Elinor leaned over a parchment scroll that kept trying to roll back up every time she moved.

  “Brought you something,” Rigan said, holding out the tea enticingly. “Thought you might want a little company.”

  Elinor favored him with a tired smile and pushed her dark hair back behind one ear. “So many reasons why I love you, Rigan Valmonde.”

  Rigan brought her the tea as she pushed the precious scroll to one side, and dipped down to kiss her lightly on the lips. “I missed you.”

  She returned the kiss with a playful nip, but her eyes suggested exhaustion might preempt the promise of anything more. “I missed you, too. Just trying to do my part.”

  “You do plenty,” Rigan said, settling into the second chair and taking her left hand in his. “You’ve learned a lot from Aiden about healing, and he swears by the poultices and powders you mix with the plants. Not to mention that you’ve saved our asses more than once in a fight.”

  Back in Ravenwood City, when Elinor worked for Parah, the dyer, she had always been slender, with high cheekbones and a sharp nose in a heart-shaped face. Now, Rigan worried that shadows darkened her blue eyes and the hollows of her cheeks made her appear ill-fed. T
hey did not have food to spare, but from what they could steal, hunt, scavenge, or barter, they rarely went hungry. Even so, the bones in Elinor’s slim wrists seemed too prominent, and the loose dress she wore hung on her thin frame.

  “I wish I could do more. I feel so… useless.” Elinor ducked her head to avoid his gaze, suddenly finding her tea worthy of focus.

  “You’re not, for all the reasons I just gave. And more. You and Aiden and Polly can hold your own in a fight—and you have, plenty of times. But you can do things besides fighting that no one else can, and that’s not useless, that’s important.”

  She sipped the hot drink and shrugged. “I tell myself that. But there is always more I wish I could do.”

  Rigan stood and drew her up into an embrace. “I can think of more things to do,” he said with a grin, kissing her again. She returned the kiss, with a sleepy passion.

  “I like the way you think,” she replied, reaching up to run a hand through his dark, silky hair, tangling her fingers in the long strands.

  “I wish you’d reconsider taking a room with me,” Rigan murmured, resting his cheek against the top of her head. “We wouldn’t have to worry about Polly or Corran walking in on us.”

  “I’d prefer that, but we’ve been over this before,” Elinor said, leaning against him and bringing her arms up around him, holding him close. “It’s too soon. Polly wakes in the night screaming, and I need to be there for her. No one else was, for far too many years. Of all of us, she’s been fighting monsters the longest. She’d cut off her hand before she’d admit to needing me, and she’d push me out the door if I brought up the idea of moving into a room with you, but it wouldn’t be good for her.” Elinor pushed up onto her toes to kiss him again. “It’s only for a little while. I promise.”

  Rigan sighed. “I understand. Well, some parts of me understand better than others,” he added, rocking his hips against her as if she might mistake his meaning.

  “Besides,” she said, as a blush tinged her cheeks, “I don’t think Corran’s ready to let you out of his sight. He watches you like a mother hen. Or maybe a street cur that won’t let anyone near her pups.”