And then he slumped to the ground, blackness taking him over.
At least he hadn’t killed Marielle. At least it hadn’t been his hands that wrung the life out of her like a fowl for the dinner table. It was cold comfort as he sank into unconsciousness. Cold comfort as he felt the flames rising. They would all die in that inferno now.
10: Arise Vagrant Lord
Etienne
He moaned, clutching his belly. Too many feet had kicked him and too many hands ripped at him. He was a mass of bruises. The last two fingers on his left hand stomped almost to a pulp. But he was still alive. He tried to mask his cough. His only hope now was silence.
Someone was battling above. He could hear the clash of steel and a wet sound like something made of steel hitting flesh. This silence in these Smudgers was a horrifying thing. He’d always thought the religion was mostly harmless. He’d been wrong. When he remade this society, he would remake it without the Smudgers.
He clenched his teeth and stumbled to his feet, wiping blood out of his eyes. His head was bleeding profusely, but head wounds did that. No point in getting caught up in it. He’d tend it when he could. He swallowed down tendrils of anxiety. No use getting wound up, either. Cold logic was a man’s best friend in a time of conflict.
First order of business – Marielle and Jhinn. Where were they? He stood on tiptoe to see over the heads around him. Shockingly, the Smudgers hardly seemed to care or even notice that their victim of moments before was rising.
Ah. Pyres. A horrific way to die.
Whoever this leader of the Smudgers was must be a sadist. Marielle had linked the Smudgers to a new Maid Chaos. He felt his eyes narrowing as the pieces clicked together. This was her work. Perhaps she sensed the aberration in Tamerlan or perhaps they were killing everyone who came through the village. But then why had there been citizens in sight moments before? Besides, it was a short-sighted way to behave.
But then again, people were stupid. That was a given.
So, he’d have to quell her before moving on. He eyed the ground surreptitiously and then reached down to scoop his sword up as inconspicuously as he could. The Smudgers ignored him. Their eyes were on their leader and a figure fighting her. Tamerlan.
Well, at least he was good for something – for now.
Etienne eased himself through the ranks of Smudgers carefully, trying not to draw attention. As long as he moved slowly and silently, they hardly seemed to notice him. A magic perhaps. A geas put on them by Maid Chaos? Or some result of the spices they burned? Either way, he did not like it. No society could thrive while its people walked in darkness.
He wove through their ranks. He could see the pyre and the flames set at the base. He estimated five more minutes before the heat of the smoke began to burn Marielle and Jhinn. Jhinn looked unconscious and though Marielle struggled, the hope for getting free was marginal. He didn’t know how long they could survive once the flames hit them, but even devastating burns should be avoided.
He tried not to hurry as he slipped through the crowd. He’d do this without stirring them. He’d be a shadow among shadows. He controlled his breathing carefully.
Almost there.
He was at the base of the pyre when Maid Chaos fell.
Tamerlan was certainly a brutal killer, despite all his denials. Etienne never thought he was as innocent as he pretended, but it was interesting how loyal Jhinn and Marielle were to him. Interesting that he had tangled them in his web of trouble and yet they still wanted more. If Etienne could learn to be like that, he could use it to reign the Dragonblood Plains more effectively. Perhaps he should –
His thoughts cut off as Tamerlan’s hands wrapped around Marielle’s neck. No!
He scrambled up the platform through the bodies of the Smudgers. Some of them turned vaguely toward him, taking a swing at him or an almost absent-minded kick. But they were uncoordinated and mindless in their efforts. Whatever hold was on them still had them in its grip. He dodged the blows, but it cost him. His left hand was barely working with his fingers broken. His middle ached as he walked and he wheezed against the pain in his lungs. He was more injured than he would like. He made a knot of that in his mind and set it aside. He could do that if he had to – a little trick he’d learned in his youth.
First priority – getting to Tamerlan before he killed Marielle. Etienne needed her. He’d agreed to her plan – agreed so much that it was his plan now, too, and he couldn’t succeed in it on his own.
His heart was beating too quickly as he fought his way forward and he tried not to frown with frustration at its limitations. Tried not to grow angry at his gasping lungs. A body was only so strong. And all men were limited. He must accept that and overcome.
He was almost there. He readied his sword for a killing blow as he carefully stepped between the licking flames.
The fire was hot. Sweat broke out across his skin and his fur cloak was aflame before he could prevent it. He snatched at the cloak pin with his broken hand. It was a tense moment before the fur loosened and fell to the wood beneath his feet. He let out a breath and looked up to see Marielle gasping for breath, her face pale as she lolled against the ropes holding her. Tamerlan was on the wood below her, flames licking at his boots and breeches. Jhinn was still unconscious in his bindings.
Priorities. He would cut Marielle free first. She was most important.
He slid his sword into the scabbard and drew his knife, hurrying to slice her bonds. His mind was racing. Would she be able to stand on her own?
The moment the ropes were cut she fell to her knees.
“Up!” he roared. The flames were already licking at the soles of her boots. Dragon’s spit!
He rushed to Jhinn, sawing at the ropes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marielle rubbing at her good eye and trying to lift Tamerlan.
“Leave him! Go! Before you burn for your weakness.” His words were harsh, but harsh was what she needed. She was worth ten of Tamerlan. Her death would be a terrible waste.
He caught Jhinn as he fell, slapping the boy hard across the face. “Wake up!”
His eyes fluttered open and Etienne picked him up and flung him from the pyre. That would hurt. He might even break a bone, but he wouldn’t die. He saw the boy land on a pile of corpses Etienne had cut down only minutes before. Good. They couldn’t hurt him.
Now, Marielle. He rushed to her and tried to snatch her up, but she fought at him.
“No! I have to help him.” Her voice was thick with emotion.
“Don’t be a fool.”
Ignoring her battering hands, he lifted her.
“Please, Etienne! Please don’t leave him to burn!”
He threw her after Jhinn. He wasn’t sure if he could get himself off the pyre. He’d hurt whatever was wrong internally with those foolhardy throws. Deep, visceral pain lashed at him, ripping through his middle. He bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood, trying to pull in a breath in the smoke and heat. He choked on it, scalding his lungs.
Dragon’s blood. He was going to die here.
Tamerlan’s eye opened like something from a nightmare and he stood up like a shot, scooped Etienne up and threw him over his shoulder.
A groan escaped with the shuddering pain that rippled through him at the feeling of a shoulder to his belly. They were moving, but he didn’t have the strength to lift his head and find out where. He tried to speak, but his words came out as groans.
Dragon’s spit! His body was failing.
He could see the appeal of becoming a Legend. Of transcending the binding weakness of a human body and all its limitations. He could understand that completely. If he hadn’t been possessed by the Grandfather for that brief time, he might even desire it.
He flinched at every agonizing blow to his belly when Tamerlan took a step. His shoulder was too hard – like a log being driven into Etienne’s belly again and again by an angry warrior. There was a pause and then something knocked against his head. He blinked back stars and made
out Jhinn’s face – his eyes closed. Tamerlan was carrying them both.
Etienne tasted blood when Tamerlan finally sunk down and let him fall to one side, Jhinn to the other. Tamerlan was on all fours wheezing and choking. One side of his face as bright red with patches of white. Badly burned.
They were in the gondola. He could feel the movement of air around him and the whir of the pedals.
“Hurry!” Marielle’s words were breathless. “We lost the weapons. We have no way ... No! Not that way!”
He wanted to see what she was talking about, but he couldn’t lift his head.
He collapsed into the hull and his mind drifted away.
11: Crushed and Broken
Marielle
“It’s true. It’s all been true!” Jhinn was whispering, his head close to the woman’s on the family boat. Her face was shining with rapture – just like all the others had been.
They were three days down the Cerulean River and just outside the locks into Xin City. In those three days, Jhinn had spoken to every boat they could find and every time he did, Marielle felt more and more impatient. They were already headed to the wrong city. They’d passed right by the canals to Choan and since they’d done that, Marielle had felt like she was itching under her skin. She should be in Choan finding the crown and destroying Lila.
Instead, they were on their way to Xin to find Allegra. But what choice did she have? With both Tamerlan and Etienne grievously injured, they needed a good healer. And the last time they’d seen Choan it was in complete chaos. Worse, they would need money to pay a healer and they didn’t have money – except for this bearer note of Etienne’s. Everything Jhinn owned had been stolen and burned by the followers of Maid Chaos – the Smudgers.
Marielle paused in pedaling the boat to shiver at the memory. The Smudgers had just stood there, wandering around in circles and looking off into the distance mindlessly as they’d fled in the gondola. In the panic of the moment, she’d barely noticed them as she worked to batter their boats to the side so that Jhinn could pedal them back out into the Cerulean river. She’d had to throw water over him to get him conscious enough to do that.
Even then, Jhinn had wheezed and coughed for hours afterward, muttering, “My feet never touched the land. Not once. They never touched.”
Then she’d tried to tend to Etienne and Tamerlan, binding visible wounds and making them as comfortable as possible in the bottom of a boat.
But the eyes of the Smudgers haunted her now – as did the memory of Tamerlan’s beautiful eyes so cruel and distant as he choked the life out of her.
She swallowed, her throat aching and painful.
Despite her best efforts, Etienne and Tamerlan were in bad shape. They both drifted in and out of scant consciousness and it was all she and Jhinn had been able to do to get water or weak broth into their delirious mouths. Etienne’s torso was a mass of purple bruises, his face and hands also battered. He’d been nearly trampled to death. That he’d been able to cut them free at all was a miracle. No, it was the result of his enormous determination. She would get him to Allegra and repay him for his efforts. She would find a way to get him healed.
And Tamerlan – half the flesh of his face was wet with deep burns. His already blind eye was burned so badly that it made her stomach turn and heave just to look at it. She’d tried to apply wet cloths to the burns to keep them moist – that was what you did, right? But it wasn’t helping, and his moans of pain were heartrending.
Her own throat was healing, though her voice was still hoarse, and her neck bruised. She tried not to think too deeply about that. Tried not to remember those moments when she thought the man she loved most dearly might drain the life from her. But the memories still surfaced every time she closed her eyes.
If it hadn’t been for Jhinn, they wouldn’t have made it to Xin. Each family boat he spoke to, gave him a gift – fresh water, a blanket, food. One even gave him a brazier for a fire. It had been just enough to keep them alive these last three days. Just enough to reach Xin.
And each of those family boats had immediately headed upriver. Jhinn hadn’t been wrong. The Waverunners saw his news as the culmination of their beliefs and none of them wanted to be left behind.
“We’ll find a way,” they always said as they left. “We’ll get there somehow.”
She wished she could be so confident. Her own task was looking more impossible by the moment.
The family boat headed off and Jhinn smiled at her from the bow. He was holding an oar – a gift from the boat for his news. She smiled back, her exhaustion plain on her face. They’d both been working hard with little sleep – moving the boat, tending the injured, and just trying to keep everyone alive.
And now that they were at Xin, what were they going to do? She was sure that Allegra would help – for a price – but could Marielle get to her?
Marielle sighed tiredly as they reached the city gates. The guards there were stopping each boat and checking it. There weren’t many at this time of day. Fishermen went out and came in at dawn and dusk and trading boats were often on the same schedule. Mid-afternoon was much sleepier.
Marielle looked up at the city that rose in the stone island. The last time she’d been here a dragon had just attacked. But that was months ago, and now the city was well on its way to being fully rebuilt. She could see the gleaming fresh stone and wood rising above her. She felt her cheeks heat as she realized that she was going to ask these people to do that all over again.
What was it like to rebuild your life from ashes?
Could she live long enough to find out?
It was their turn to be searched. The guard’s tabard was a different color than the last time she had been here. It was pure white with no crest sewn on it.
“Stand and be questioned by the guard of Xin City,” he said.
Marielle stood up and he rolled his eyes. Apparently, ‘stand’ had been figurative. Jhinn held them in place beside the jutting pier with his brand new oar. Only boats allowed past this point would be let up into the city via the lock system.
“Names?” the guard asked. Beside him, another guard in the same white tabard sat at a small wood desk with a pen dipped and ready to write.
“Marielle Valenspear,” Marielle said. “I am here with Jhinn of the Waverunners, Tamerlan Zi’fen,” that led to a shared look between the guards, “and Etienne Velendark.”
The look of shock on their face was so sudden that Marielle didn’t have time to flinch before the closest guard had leapt into her boat.
“By order of Allegra Spellspinner, Lady Saga of Xin, Etienne Velendark is to be brought to her immediately.” He looked down at Tamerlan and Etienne where they lay with fever sweat on their brows. “And alive.”
“That’s the plan,” Marielle said drily.
“We have strict orders to escort him and any other with him to the palace immediately upon his arrival.”
She knew Allegra was fond of Etienne, but she had no idea that the woman was this in love with him. She could feel her eyebrows rising as the guard continued.
“The quickest way will be via this gondola. Is it fit to float as far as the palace?”
Jhinn’s snort was insult mixed with fury but Marielle held up a calming hand. “Of course, honored guardian. Please let us float there immediately.”
That seemed to mollify him, but it didn’t keep Marielle’s heart from racing every time he stole a glance at her sleeping husband and friend. He looked at them often – whenever he wasn’t ordering the locks to close or open immediately. And his frown deepened as the minutes dragged on.
“Which one is the Lord Mythos?” he asked eventually and when Marielle pointed to Etienne the man nodded grimly.
Jhinn switched places with Marielle at the pedals. He was fresher than she was anyway, his face less lined with worry. And no wonder. His people would be free soon. But she bore the weight of Tamerlan’s future and the destruction of her world to save it. And whatever she did, she didn�
�t dare admit any of that to Allegra.
When they reached the palace, her hands were trembling. She still hadn’t worked out what to say. How did you say, “I’ve brought you the lover who chose my fate over your ambitions and incidentally, can you move your entire population so I can destroy your city?”
Maybe you just said it.
She steeled herself for trouble.
The guard spoke to the palace guards and before she could blink, they were floating inside the palace walls to a private landing.
“I’ll stay with the boat,” Jhinn said.
Marielle offered him a grimace – the closest she could get to a smile.
The guard with them was already speaking to more palace staff and within minutes servants were running in every direction. Whatever happened next was going to determine whether she succeeded or failed. It was hard not to be worried about that.
Instead, she turned her attention to Etienne and Tamerlan, checking their breathing. They were still alive. Still feverish. Still in a lot of pain. Worry tangled in her belly, weighing as heavily as a stone would.
“Marielle.” The voice that greeted her was cold but Allegra’s lingering scent of traces of vanilla magic and various herbs filled the air.
She straightened so fast that she knew she looked guilty of something and Allegra’s eyebrow rose. She was flanked by a ring of guards and even more servants. But, surprisingly, she was dressed nearly identically to the last time Marielle had seen her. She had not donned the elaborate dresses and hairstyles of the Landholds or rulers of the cities and while she wasn’t wearing an apron, she was wearing a high-necked charcoal grey dress with tiny grey pinstripes in the fabric. It was serviceable enough to run a shop and cut to compliment her figure, but certainly not what you would expect the ruler of a city to wear.
Marielle tried a curtsy and Allegra frowned, waving it off with a chopping motion of her hand.
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 85