Ember

by Anna Holmes

  From the doorway, I hear a rumble. "Where did they go? The wench from the tavern says they arrived last night."

  The big bandit from the tunnel. Why would he subject himself to Hole on our account? I weigh my chances and pray that Alain is not readily visible from the stable. I doubt my ability to push past the large man if he is, as he sounds, taking up the whole hallway.

  The second floor is not terribly high, by my estimation from a glance through the window. It has not been opened in some time, so it takes some tugging, but in the end I open it wide enough for me to edge through. Sitting on the sill, I take stock of my options. There is a trellis one window over. Had I not changed out of my boots, I would have been relatively sure of it, but these worn-out slippers are just a touch too big for me. I can hear loud bangs from the hall. Doors being kicked open. Mine will not be far behind. Slippers be damned, I'll have to make the jump.

  I am not fond of heights. My fingers go damp as I grasp the trim on the outside and test my weight in the flower box. It creaks, but gives me enough of a foothold to spring to the next. I stretch out my hand, grasping for the trellis. In my mind, I'd envisioned climbing down it like a ladder. In reality, however, it groans and begins to bend, pulling the nails from the wall and bowing toward the ground. I scramble lower so that the fall will not be from as great a height, and manage to land solidly. The trellis wobbles, and I take a second to push it back against the wall before I begin running.

  A second was too long. The greasy man that Alain had fooled into thinking he'd captured us stands right in front of me, brandishing a knife. I throw an elbow into his nose and take off to the stable.

  Navigator and Maribelle are still in their stalls. A hand yanks me to the floor of Maribelle's, and another clamps over my mouth. I can tell by the roughness and coolness of the hand that it's Alain's even though I cannot see him. As quickly as I hit the floor, he drops my hand and a pile of hay flies up and settles over me so that I am hidden, too.

  The man and the women start searching the stable, kicking over barrels and peering over the walls. The woman who tried to take Navigator last night smirks when she sees him and shoulders her bow. "Hello, love. Shall we try this again?"

  His answer, as always, is no. He rears up again, snorting violently. She is undeterred this time, and I squint to size her up. Her lean, small build suggests a past full of riding. Probably cavalry. She's familiar with temperamental horses, but none quite this large, and none quite this willful. I don't delude myself that I am the only one who could tame Navigator, but the number of people he likes having in proximity to him is small indeed. He tolerates Riley, but only because he feeds him, and their interaction goes no further. Navigator has a terrific sense of who wants to do things to him that are counter to his wants, and he does not want to go with this woman even a little bit. She flings her blonde braid over her shoulder and tries again.

  "Will you forget the damned horse?" The greasy man snaps, blood dripping from his nose. "They're not here. They've taken off."

  "Without these?" she says. "I think not."

  I feel Alain's chest heaving next to me. Does he recognize her?

  His arm moves next to mine, and something clatters across the stable. Instantly, the woman backs away from Navigator and rejoins the other two, who soundlessly begin to move, weapons drawn, to the back door. There is no doubt in my mind now that these were soldiers, and well trained ones.

  When they are all at the door, Alain slams it shut and we are visible again. "Help me," he says simply, and I hoist him to Maribelle's saddle. Without another word, I jump the next stall and up to Navigator, his saddle pack still slung over my shoulder. There's no time to saddle him. That's all right; we've done this before. Alain flings open the latches on the stalls and we ride.

  The bleeding man, the woman with the bow, and the knife woman have run back around to the open front door, but not even they will face down Navigator at full tilt. Maribelle keeps up handily, and soon the inn and all of Hole are well behind us.

  It's just as well that we're headed down the mountain—the horses move all the faster. I am about to turn to Alain to remark as much, but his face, completely drained of color, stares back. I have just about enough time to jam Navigator to a halt and cut off Maribelle before he falls from her saddle, face first into the brush.

  I throw myself from Navigator's back and gather Alain's body, turning him over. He is conscious, but barely. "What's wrong?" I demand. He makes no answer. I look him over. The scrapes from the fall are distracting, but it doesn't take long to find the river of blood rushing from his left leg into his boot. "Damn."

  The woman with the knife must have found him earlier. It's a clean slice, but to an already injured leg…I tug his arm up over my shoulder. "Come on, you," I tell him, gritting my teeth. "You're thin, but not that thin. Help me out here."

  He sags in response.

  "Not helpful," I say, stumbling.

  As I drag him the best I can toward Navigator, I calculate in my head how far we got. If the Legion bandits took the other horses, they could well be on us by now. The sun has disappeared behind thick, dark clouds, and a fat raindrop hits me in the head. What a way to celebrate my engagement. At least Kelvin's feasts in this area will be cancelled.

  Navigator seems to know what I have in mind, and he shies. "Not now, you," I tell him in my sternest voice.

  He has absolutely no intention of letting me drape Alain over him, but I have to. I don't think Maribelle will take both of our weight, and I need to hold him on while I ride. "Stay here," I command, and he isn't happy about it. He snorts and stamps while I try to pull Alain over his back, and in the end, the best I can manage is sort of dangling him by the back of his shirt while I mount. Maribelle shies, too, and it kills me, but I can't manage one very testy horse, one unconscious boy, riding bareback, and her too. I give her flank a pat. "Go home," I shout, and it's as much a prayer as anything else. She gallops away full bore, and I turn Navigator back to face down the mountain. I wrap my arm around Alain's underarms and my other around Navigator and dig in with my heel just as I hear hoofbeats thundering behind me. Navigator runs, and runs, and runs, and it's all I can do to keep us both on.

  The hoofbeats draw closer and closer, and I begin to think. What can I do? I'll have to drop Alain in order to fight them off, and I don't know that I can take them all. Maybe three or four, and not all at once. Navigator will probably kick the blonde woman, but that still leaves the massive redhaired man. And then it gets worse.

  Alain must be unconscious, because his spell on me has lifted. In the rain, my arm glows gold again, my own reddish hair plastered to my forehead. I look like a princess again despite my rags, and Gavroth was angry enough at a Resurgent to pursue us this far. What would he do with a princess?

  Navigator has nearly reached his breaking point, and so have I. I want so badly to crumple like Alain did, but I keep perfectly stiff, holding us both on. And still the drumming grows louder.

  It's nearly beside me now, and I risk a glance back. I can only glimpse the very edge of their dust cloud over the rise of the hill. They are much further behind than I thought. Then whose hoofbeats do I hear?

  "This way," a female voice calls just off our left side.

  Soaked, exhausted, and stupid with the cold, I follow.

  Chapter Ten

  Alain

  My body feels primarily composed of the one leg, and it hurts.

  I am vaguely aware of a dull ache everywhere else, and a hideous cold pervading my skin, but mostly it's just the leg. It bumps up and down, the pinching, burning, stinging cresting and falling with it.

  Then everything is dark, darker than the depths of the ocean at night with no land in sight. It's dark and cold, and I don't think it'll ever be warm again. I almost even miss the burn in my leg.

  I'd best get used to it, I think, when something flickers in front of me.

  Caelin.

  My leg sets afire again.

  Chapter El
even

  Caelin

  I've about had it to here with caverns, but it keeps the rain off, and the bandits thundered past us a while ago. I peel Alain from Navigator's sopping wet hide and set him as gently as I'm able onto the ground. My rescuer moves to help, and I nearly drop him once I get a real look at her.

  The hoofbeats didn't belong to a horse—they were hers. A centaur, tall and broad and brown. She sets her hands where her hips would be and blows out a breath. "Whew. That horse of yours is something. What about you? You all right?"

  And…talking? I search my memory. Everything I'd ever been taught about the creatures suggested a complete lack of intelligence. They’re scarce these days. Afraid of humans, the scouts said. I had never even seen one out in the wilds during the early days of the war. But here was one, clad from the waist up in leather armor, her dark brown hair braided elegantly over one shoulder, and rescuing us. She smiles at me, all too familiar with my thought process. "Yes, I talk. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only one who does. Don't ask me why."

  "Ah," is all I can manage. My etiquette tutor would be horrified.

  She pushes a stray strand of wet brown hair from her wide eyes and bends over as far as she is able to peer at Alain. "He looks like death."

  "That's what he looks like most of the time. It just happens that someone actually tried to kill him today." I sink to my knees and begin to peel back his boot.

  He thrashes violently, picking his head up and yelling as though I am the one trying to kill him now. I reel back. "Hello to you too!"

  He breathes hard, propping himself up on an elbow. "For gods' sakes, don't touch it," he ekes out.

  "I'm going to have to. You're bleeding."

  "Believe me, I know," he groans.

  The centaur presses her lips together primly, folds her hands together in front of herself and refolds them, and then swings her arms. "Well, if you're all right now…"

  "Yes, thank you," I tell her, turning to face her. "Thank you for everything."

  She smiles a little and walks to the mouth of the cavern, peering out. A curtain of water falls between her and the freedom of the outdoors. She tucks her head down, about to brave it, when a flash of light cuts through the dark all the way to the back of the cavern and thunder shakes the ground. "Er," she starts.

  She’s much too tall to be running about a mountaintop in a storm like that. "Please, stay," I tell her. Sensitivity of our position aside, I’m not about to send her out there.

  "Sorry," she says, wincing.

  "We owe you our lives. Please, don't apologize." I want to continue to assuage her, but Alain looks about ready to fall back into the land of the unconscious, and I must keep my focus on him. "I'm going to take your boot off," I inform him perfunctorily. This is not a negotiation.

  He frowns, opens his mouth to protest, can't seem to find the strength to form words, and finally looks at me, his eyes begging, desperate. They seem more blue today than gray, even in the dim of the cavern. I steel myself and reach for the top buckle. He draws back, but I hold firm until the straps are loosened. I let him rest for a moment, then yank the boot down in one swift motion. Alain's face somehow goes even grayer, and his head lolls back. He struggles back up this time, his breathing rough. The leg of his pants is still plastered to his skin. Once his breaths steady I peel it away. This doesn't seem to be as bad, though his eyes still squeeze shut.

  I can't see the leg for all the red. I reach into the saddlebag, still slung over my shoulder, and grab the little bundle Alain made of the healing kit. There's a nice clean cloth and a roll of bandage. I know he meant them for his wrists, but this will have to do. I press the cloth to his wound, and we wait.

  The centaur paces the opening of the cave, and after a time, circles back and paces behind me as I staunch. At last, cautiously, slowly, she ventures, "If…I may ask, why were you running?"

  I don't exactly know what to tell her. This sort of question dodging is better suited to Alain, but he appears to be spending all of his energy not to faint again. "Er…those bandits came across us in Hole and tried to steal some things."

  "They're not bandits," she says, frowning deeply. "They're Legion, and they don't chase just anyone."

  Ordinarily, I’m fond of being right, but not today. "I think they mistook us for Resurgents."

  She lifts an eyebrow. "Mistook?"

  In Alain's case, certainly. I sigh. I have never been a good liar. I settle for fragments of truth. "I may have been given some things by the Resurgents, but all we want is safe passage."

  Our rescuer's arms are folded across her chest and her eyes are fixed to the ground, but she nods. "How does it look?" she asks, gesturing to Alain.

  I pull the cloth away. "It may be a long night," I say.

  He drifts in and out, as does the rain. The centaur finally settles, tucking her legs underneath her, still looking our direction. I can feel her suspicion. At last, I sigh. Alain is unconscious again, and as such is unavailable to prevent my stupidity. "You know who I am, don't you."

  "I wasn't going to say anything," she answers, lifting her eyes. "But I figured it out when I saw your appearance shift."

  I wipe my hair out of my eyes with the back of my wrist. "He can't sustain it when he's asleep. We hadn't figured on…"

  I should stop talking, but it's nice to have someone listen. Riley does his best, but I test his patience, and Alain resists every word out of my mouth.

  "I won't say anything," the centaur assures me with a bit of a laugh "No one believes me anyway. Talking horse and all that."

  "I've been trying not to ask."

  "It's a fair question." She laughs slightly. "Tressa is my name, or what my guardians called me. Raised by a Plain and an Earthfolk in the farmlands. Never met another centaur who likes to talk, and not too many humanfolk who are interested in what I have to say."

  "How did you know about the Legion?"

  She shrugs. "Who doesn't?"

  That one hurts. "Do you go around saving us ignorant folks often?"

  "Sometimes. When it seems important." She pats the bow slung over her back. "Bounty hunter by trade. I bring in Legion stragglers."

  In any other situation in any other time, I might have nodded appreciatively, but the leg I hold belongs to a Legion straggler. This complicates things. "Well, you know my name," I begin tentatively. "This is Alain."

  "I thought this might be Lieutenant Bannon," she says, head tilted.

  Ah. She suspects me of running away. "No," I say through my clenched jaw, wincing as I peel back the cloth to get a look at the wound. Improvement, but still no sign of stopping. "Lieutenant Bannon has been assigned very far away from me, and I'm sure he'll be as surprised as I am to hear we are engaged, as neither of us was there for that."

  Tressa stifles a smile, and I don't blame her. If it were not me, it would be amusing. I am not yet quite at the point where I can find it so. Casually, I ask, "Which stragglers do you bring in?"

  "Classified war criminals." The worst of the worst. Those who caused the most deaths. Alain falls outside that range, I think. I hope. "They hide in the mountains in bands like the one you saw. None of your friends are on my list, but I know how they act. That's why I helped you."

  "Thank you."

  She nods, distracted, as though her mind is not in this cave. Outside, the sun sinks somewhere behind the blanket of clouds and the jagged mountains, and it goes darker. A light flares, and I see a spark of flame in Alain's palm. His eyes are open again. I wonder how much he heard. I wonder if any of his friends are on Tressa's list. I wonder who she turns them over to, and if they go where Alain was held. I wonder if they make it that far.

  With no sun to mark the time and the constant thrum of the rain at the mouth of the cavern, it's hard to know how long we've spent here. Alain shivers violently from time to time. I throw my cloak over him, wishing I'd had time to grab Navigator's saddle and blanket. He only passes out once, but that takes our light from us. My skin only provides
enough to see the edges of each other.

  "I'll find us some wood," Tressa offers, tugging up the hood of her own cloak. "It doesn't sound like it's about to stop out there."

  "Thank you."

  "Don't thank me yet," she cautions. "Let's see if I can find any dry enough to light." With that, she begins to trot away, and I'm left alone in the dark.

  I try to occupy myself with counting the number of drops dripping from the cavern entrance. Around four hundred, they begin to blur together and I have to start over as I renew my grip on his calf, bearing down with the cloth. By the time I've lost count twice, the flame flares back into existence and I have a companion again. "Come here," he says, extending his hand, his voice gravelly. "Your hands are as cold as mine."

  "Sorry."

  He gives me a halfhearted shrug. "I can’t feel them. You’ll stop feeling them in a bit if you don't warm up."

  I don't want to tell him I'm at that point already. I set my compress down—the bleeding’s mostly done, anyhow—and edge closer to his head. He squints slightly, and the flame grows. I hold out my hands and rub them together, making a show of it for him. He rolls his eyes and lets the flame die. "Here." He grabs my hands within his, the warmth still radiating from his skin. "So now you're a medic, too?"

  "I learned a few things. Now you're a furnace?"

  He laughs, a short burst that surprises me and makes me feel much warmer. It's a stronger voice than he's had the last few times he's come around. His expression hardens almost instantly, and he lets my hands drop. "I think it's closing," he remarks, trying to draw his knee in to get a grasp on his leg.

  "Don't move," I order. "I spent a long time closing that wound, and I'll be damned if you're going to reopen it."

  He settles back, laying his open hands across his stomach, palms to the ceiling, and summons the fire again. "Yes, your majesty," he drawls.