by R. K. Hart
There was a snuffle by her ear, and she opened her eyes a crack to see Sacred staring at her. ‘It’s all right, beauty,’ she whispered, stroking Sacred’s nose with shaking hands. As if to contradict her words, a change in the river current pushed one edge of the raft up, making her sway. She planted her arms beside her and closed her eyes again, forming a quick, silent prayer to any god that happened to be listening.
It took less than ten minutes to cross, but that was long enough for Lida. As soon as the ferryman had tied the ropes to the southern jetty, she put a hand over her eyes and all but ran off the raft, leaving the horses to Jakob once more.
He politely called his thanks to the ferryman and pulled the horses up beside her. ‘Are you all right?’
Lida rubbed her temples and didn’t answer.
‘A Myrae woman with seasickness. I thought your veins ran with saltwater instead of blood.’
‘My mother was Myrae. Not me.’
Jakob cleared his throat. ‘I am not sure it works that way.’ He gestured to the tavern. ‘Do you think you can eat?’
Just the thought of roasting meat was enough to bring the bile back up her throat, and she shook her head. Jakob handed her Sacred’s reins.
‘Start down the road,’ he said. ‘The air will be fresher. I will buy some food and join you.’
She stopped to fill up her flask and let Sacred drink, but did as he asked, walking next to Sacred and shielding her eyes from the midday sun with one hand. Her legs and shoulders were painfully sore, but it helped distract her from the growing headache and roiling stomach.
She’d walked for about ten minutes before Jakob caught up with her. Mercifully for Lida, he’d foregone the meat for bread, cheese, and fruit. Though the day was hot, he lit a tiny fire by the side of the road to brew some tea, and they sat to rest. Lida stretched her legs out and rubbed her thighs, and when Jakob handed her a mug of tea she put it straight to her temple, hoping the warmth would ease the throbbing pain. He’d brewed the tea with sugar, and it was strong and sweet. Lida picked at the food and waited for her stomach to settle.
Jakob watched her half-heartedly nibble at an apple before setting it quickly back down. Her face had lost its colour and her hair was caked in dust; she clearly needed to rest properly, and he shifted his weight in frustration. He had wasted so much time already.
‘Lida, can I ask you something?’
‘Mmm?’
‘You know that I am in a hurry to get back.’
It wasn’t a question, but Lida nodded anyway.
‘I wondered if we might try to travel faster.’
‘Faster than a canter?’
He put his mug down. ‘Yes.’
‘Jakob ...’ She closed her eyes. ‘I’m going to be hard-pressed to get back on Sacred at all, let alone to gallop for more than a few minutes. I’ve never ridden so hard for any longer than that. I don’t know if I can manage it.’
He studied her, and took a chance. ‘I meant even faster than that.’
She frowned and opened her eyes once more, staring at his long fingers as he stretched his hands out before him. After a long moment, she realised what he meant. ‘You want to use illae.’
‘Yes.’
She shivered, and for a moment, the gold in her glowed brighter. ‘How?’
‘I have this trick. I have never tried it with two people before, though. We would need to do some practicing.’ He gave a slight smile. ‘And I would need to sleep first. I feel about as well as you look.’
She narrowed her eyes, and Jakob almost laughed out loud. He could hear her heart begin to beat faster; he thought it was with excitement as much as fear.
Eventually she nodded, curiosity evidently winning out over caution. ‘All right,’ she said softly, wondering even as she said the words whether she had lost her mind.
Jakob grinned. It was the grin his brother had named the stom-ruith smile, though Jakob was no storm-chaser; there was something more than a little wild in it.
‘You are in good company, if you have,’ he said.
Chapter Three: Pull
Sunset found the pair back on the road. Jakob had spent the entire afternoon in the frighteningly still sleep of the truly exhausted, his long legs stretched out on the bed of browning grass. Lida wondered how long he had been awake before he came to Kingstown; his rest barely touched the shadows under his eyes. She had tried to sleep but managed nothing but a light doze, waking at every sound, imagining that she sensed someone nearby. No one was, to her knowledge; it was oddly quiet, and all she heard was the birds.
Sacred stood abreast with the grey gelding. Lida was atop her, holding the saddle pommel with her right hand, and Jakob’s outstretched hand with her left, her fingers laced tightly through his. She imagined that to any passer-by they must have looked more than a little odd, and repressed the urge to laugh.
Jakob ignored it. ‘Whatever happens,’ he said for the fifth or sixth time, ‘you must not let go.’
This meant, of course, that Lida’s hands were slick with sweat and she found it difficult to keep her grasp on anything. She locked her thighs around Sacred as best she could, wincing as the sore muscles protested.
‘We need the horses to stay together,’ Jakob said. ‘We will practice a walk first.’
It sounded easy. In reality, the horses were competitive, jostling one another continually as they tried to lead. Lida lost her grip on Jakob’s hand multiple times as Sacred pushed too far forward.
‘We will keep trying,’ Jakob murmured.
‘Come on, beauty,’ Lida whispered to Sacred. ‘It’s not a race.’
Half an hour or so later of silent wrestling, both horses accepted this, and they matched their pace in a methodical plod. When they had managed to maintain it for a few minutes, Jakob and Lida’s hands tightly locked together, Jakob spoke again.
‘Now we try a trot.’
This added a layer of difficulty which was not the fault of the horses. Jakob was more than a foot taller than Lida, and so keeping their hands together as they both tried to sit a trot proved frustrating. They worked it out eventually, with Lida’s arm held upwards at an uncomfortably painful angle. She did not complain.
‘A canter.’
If anything, it was easier to keep their hands locked in the canter: the horses needed more room to move and so they both held their arms out straight. Sacred and the grey gelding moved in unison, their powerful chests level as their stride ate up the road beneath them.
‘Good!’ Jakob shouted over the drumming of hooves. ‘Keep going!’
Lida did as he asked, exhilarated at riding at speed once more; the muscles in her legs warmed and the pain began to dissipate. Sacred’s mane streamed into her face and she shook her head to clear her eyes, suddenly shivering.
She was so preoccupied with keeping Sacred next to the gelding, and with keeping her own grip on Jakob’s hand, that she didn’t notice what was happening at first. A tree to her right flashed past in a blur of darkling browns and greens; she blinked hard, certain that she was just tired. Slowly, she began to feel every hair on her body stand on end, one by excruciating one, and she felt the air pull around her. Her skin tingled and warmed and she felt her chest turn towards Jakob without her telling it to. She dragged it back.
Trees and houses rushed past at an alarming speed, barely discernible; the road beneath them was nothing more than a pale smudge of sand catching the last of the day’s light. The world narrowed to a rush of sensation that made Lida dizzy. She cried out in alarm; Jakob gripped her hand tighter.
Do not break the connection!
Instead of frightening her, his fierce, echoing command had the opposite effect, and Lida strove to obey. Her fingers were so tight on the pommel that she was sure there would be grooves left in the leather, and she wondered how she had not yet broken Jakob’s knuckles in her crushing grip.
The resistance against her face and chest was savage; it was as if they were riding headlong into a gale. Her s
calp felt itchy, tingling like the skin on her arms and legs and torso, and she could feel that her hair had been pulled from its braid; absurdly, she lamented for a fleeting moment the loss of her ribbon, which had been a favourite. It was difficult to draw breath with so much pressure on her chest and so she started to gasp, tears streaming from her eyes. She ducked her head, trying to lessen the force on her face, her chin almost touching her chest, her eyes on Sacred’s red neck. It felt as if her hooves were not touching the ground; it felt as if they were flying. Normally, this would have filled Lida with excitement, but she realised with a jerk of her shoulders that she was getting steadily more tired; her arms and legs were leaden.
A gallop, Lida! I cannot hold this much longer!
They pushed the horses into a gallop as one. Lida’s eyes hurt abominably and so she simply closed them, hoping fervently that she would not die. As they shut, an odd golden light seemed to shine through her eyelids, as if she was staring at the sun. It reminded her of Delia’s hands, and she wondered if she was seeing illae again. Something whipped across her cheek and was gone in a moment, the pain barely registering in her numb face. With her eyes closed, all she knew was the feeling of Sacred underneath her, and her outstretched hand to Jakob. His skin felt unnaturally warm, and so Lida concentrated fiercely on that, telling herself over and over that she would not let go.
Her shoulders slumped and her head lolled to the side. With difficulty, she straightened once more, lifting her knees to wind the stirrup leathers around her feet, trying to anchor herself to Sacred in any way possible. Something solid hit her shoulder with a sickening crack and she cried out wordlessly in pain, desperately scrabbling to keep her seat. Her pack pulled at her and the force was agony on her shoulder; shooting pains ran from her arm into her chest and she almost let go of the saddle. A shriek of defiance tore from her throat as she forced her cramping fingers to keep hold of the pommel.
Sacred dropped back into a canter, and Lida opened her eyes.
The twilight world was still flashing past, but no longer at a dizzying speed. She could almost focus on the things around her: a farmhouse in the distance with the glow of candlelight brightening its windows, a tree standing lonely in the middle of a wheat field, a cow watching them curiously by the side of the road.
Sacred slowed again, but Lida reacted slowly, bouncing around in the saddle, retching to the side as pain laced through her body. She could see the border fence clearly, edged with grass so lush it glowed green even in the low light. As the horses slowed to a walk, she looked forward.
The very last fingers of sunlight smeared across the horizon; the sky was clear and sprinkled with brightening stars. Beneath them stretched grassy meadows peppered with trees, carpeted in the growing dark.
In the middle of it all sat a looming mess of a white stone building with three stories and many windows. It looked to have one main wing, but that neat central rectangle had been added onto so many times with no coherence nor thought to order, destroying any semblance of symmetry; the result was something that looked more like a massive animal at rest than any human construction. It was handsome, for all that, slightly luminescent in the evening dark and bounded by matching stone walls and a wrought iron gate. Lida swayed in the saddle as she caught sight of the glimmering dark sea that stretched behind the building to the horizon.
‘The Illarum,’ Jakob croaked.
Lida blinked. ‘No,’ she said flatly, dropping his hand. ‘No.’
Jakob gave no answer. Lida looked across at him and had just enough time to cry out before the whites of his eyes flashed and he fell from his horse to lie in a crumpled heap on the sandy road.
***
Lida didn’t know what to do at first. She was so tired that when her mind screamed at her to dismount and help, her arms and legs just sat there instead. She took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly, willing herself to move. When her muscles eventually responded, she caught her right foot in the stirrup and almost fell from the saddle. She righted herself shakily, biting her lip so hard it bled when her pack dragged at her injured shoulder. She slid to the ground and staggered across to Jakob, pulling the pack from her back and dumping it carelessly behind her.
To his credit, the grey gelding was snuffling worriedly at his fallen rider. Jakob lay still; Lida fell to her knees beside him and pressed her fingers to his neck, just below his jaw. There was a moment of terror when she truly believed he had died, before his pulse beat weakly against her fingertips.
Breathing unsteadily, she checked his face, sending a silent prayer of thanks for the clear sky and bright stars, though Phobis was black and Galis a mere sliver of silver. Jakob’s eyes were closed and there was a cut running from his left temple almost to his chin, black blood sluggishly trickling towards his ear. Lida knew the wound would need to be cleaned and bound, but she moved her examination downwards, trying to find the injury that had made him fall.
She pressed tentatively along his arms and shoulders, but everything seemed to be in place. Apologising silently, she lifted his shirt to check his torso; she could see a huge splodge darkening his skin on the right side of his ribcage. There was no way to tell whether it was simply a bruise or whether it was from an internal injury, but there was nothing she could do in either case.
His legs had fared worse. His left leg lay at an odd angle from his body; Lida guessed he must have landed on his hip when he fell.
She took another deep breath, trying to ignore the pain in her shoulder and wiping away the blood trickling down her cheek. She took the hem of her shirt in both hands and tore a strip of fabric away. Pulling the flask from Jakob’s belt, she trickled water over the cut to his cheek, gently swabbing away the dust and dirt from the road. She tore more strips from her shirt and bound them around his face as best she could. Blood stained the fabric immediately, but she could see that the bleeding was slowing. She was satisfied that the cut was clean enough for the moment, though it was deep and needed to be properly examined and stitched. She did not have the skill to deal with the injury to his hip, not to mention the possibility of internal bleeding. Jakob needed a healer, and swiftly. She sat back on her heels, blotting at the blood on her cheek again.
‘Jakob Merchant,’ she whispered. ‘What do I do?’
She looked across at the Illarum. Light glowed from some of its windows. She judged it to be just under half a mile away, too far for her to drag him, especially in her current state. She briefly considered trying to push him onto one of the horses, but quickly ruled it out; she was sure it would make his injuries worse, and he looked too heavy for her anyway. Shouting might work, if there was someone outside to hear; she could see no dim figures moving in the shadows of the building, no silhouettes in the windows. She held up a finger, but the breeze was shifting, capricious, as likely to throw a shout away from the building as it was to carry sound towards it.
Jakob stirred and groaned, but did not open his eyes, and after a moment he fell back into stillness. Panic ran icy fingers up Lida’s spine.
She gathered herself, inhaling deeply, drawing her terror up into her chest. ‘Help me!’ she screamed as loudly as she could, her shriek fuelled by fear. She waited a moment, and then added more sedately: ‘I don’t know what to do.’
The sound cut through the night, and she watched the Illarum, desperately searching for movement.
There was only stillness and silence. Lida slumped, exhausted, biting the inside of her cheek as she looked down on Jakob’s bloody face.
‘I’ll walk to the gates,’ she whispered to him. ‘I’ll bring help. As fast as I can.’
She closed her eyes and tried to rally, her shoulder sending shooting pains up her neck and down her back; she didn’t think she could climb back onto Sacred. The mare snorted as Lida took her reins.
‘You can help me, beauty.’ Lida leaned against Sacred’s flank and took a deep breath.
Where are you?
The question came as Jakob’s voice had, like an echo, le
aving behind a tickle in Lida’s mind. She held her breath.
What do you need? How can I help?
Lida started sobbing in relief. More voices joined in.
Where are you? What can I do? What do you need? Where are you? How can I help?
The whispers spun around and around, more and more voices adding their questions, until it was a quiet cacophony. Lida rubbed at her temples in an attempt to ease the discomfort; it did nothing.
Where is it? What are you? How do you need? Where can I be?
There were so many voices that the questions began to merge nonsensically, echoing in tense, soft sighs. She covered her ears with her hands but it didn’t help; the voices kept coming, and it felt to Lida as if her mind was quivering against her skull. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed.
What can I do? How can I help? Where are you? What do you need?
Lida cried out wordlessly, half in desperation and half in fear, trying to isolate one voice, to connect.
STOP.
The voice rumbled across her mind like thunder, and abruptly the world was silent again. She was left with an uncomfortable tickling; she shook her head and coughed to try to clear it.
They are coming, cila.
The second voice was gentle, different to the rolling growl. Lida didn’t have to wait long to find out what it meant.
At the drumming of hooves she turned her face towards the white stone building, wiping tears from her eyes with her filthy sleeve. The iron gates slowly opened, glinting in the starlight, and the shadows of four horses raced through, two abreast. They galloped towards Lida and Jakob, slowing at the last moment. Lida stepped away from Sacred, away from Jakob, unconsciously opening her hands before her.
The first man to jump from his horse was tall, crowned in thick hair that shone red even in the night. He glanced at Lida before spotting Jakob lying on the road. He rushed to his side, briefly examining the makeshift bandage on Jakob’s face before his hands moved to check his chest and stomach. When he probed Jakob’s leg, he called out in distress. ‘James!’