The Mark of Gold

by A. S. Etaski

“Yes. His mother died birthing him. His mother’s sister… the, um, noble ruler would not allow him or anyone to forget this. She held him responsible for keeping her memory.”

  Gavin grunted on a nod.

  The mercenary lifted a nostril. “It is less gratifying that you grasp the nuance of this slave name and not my true one, Baenar.”

  “I… apologize,” I said, having no strength to contest it. “I am where I was born. I have only left home once.”

  A pause, then the half-blood reluctantly offered a slow nod in peace if not acceptance. I glimpsed the bump in his throat move as he swallowed, then his tongue slithered out as if to scan the forest with this sense as well.

  Eventually, the Dragon’s son said, “If this is easier to grasp, Sirana, then you may call me Mourn. I will bear it in the Trade tongue only. Better I do this than you.”

  I showed my bafflement. “What? Me?”

  “Yes. I ask no price for my assistance and protection only until you are recovered and your unborn is out of danger. I do not want to watch young mata grieve without need, especially when I do not know why she walks the Surface at all. Do understand, I will not entertain another bargain with you until you are of stronger mind and body again.”

  My stomach gurgled audibly as if in response; I cursed under my breath. The half-blood chuckled, crossing his arms to wait with a mature patience while I forced my mouth to work.

  “Very well… Mourn. Um. Thank you, I accept your aid. No bargains for now.”

  Both males took it as a signal to refocus on our journey; my mare began walking again with Gavin guiding in front and Mourn to my left, ready to steady me as necessary.

  I sniffed. The mount was becoming smelly in the Sun, every mark obtained since she’d stood up in the barn unchanged or worsened. For whatever odd reason, it was while I stared at the horse’s unhealing wounds that I remembered my Sister: the whole reason I’d fled North at all.

  I sucked in breath of alarm.

  “What is it?” Mourn asked.

  I glanced with guilt his way. “You said no bargains, but—”

  “No,” he said sternly. “All I have seen and heard thus far, Sirana, you have endured much abuse recently, and there is a conflict within you which concerns me. I do not expect you would remember or keep a bargain if I were to place you under that pressure now. My time is better spent not enforcing ill-made agreements with blurry boundaries, which only breeds resentment on both sides.”

  This consideration made sense, yet I gained no relief from it. “What if I told you another Davrin may be in this forest? What if she was sent to purge the warp rot, and we know she failed but may still be alive?”

  Mourn frowned skeptically.

  “The Witch Hunters saw her!” I insisted, my head beginning to pound. “That is why we rode North when we escaped Troshin Bend!”

  He shook his head. “If she was on a mission and did not complete it, she is either dead or fled far away to escape punishment for failing. She would not be hiding here alive. It is a waste of time to search, and you must focus on your own recovery.”

  “You cannot know it’s a waste to look!”

  “Perhaps not but tell me this. How does your Valsharess assure young fighters like you do not walk any direction you will if there are no elders to watch you?”

  An abrupt, high pitch assaulted my ears. Rising sickness hurled up from my middle. I turned away and promptly vomited up my last meal and most of my water on the far side of the horse. It splattered on the ground, but the hooves never broke stride. Slumped over her withers, my hood blessedly protecting me from the Sun, I moaned.

  Stupid, stupid waste… At least, if the Dragonblood was right, what I lost might feed trees as fragile as me.

  Mourn exhaled slowly. “Save your strength, Red Sister. If the Witch Hunters saw your squadmate several days ago, and the warp rot only grew worse since, then take comfort that she is cleansed as well by what you accomplished in her stead.”

  But she never said farewell!

  I bit my lip hard enough to water my eyes, pulling my hood over my face. Unfortunately, once begun, the pain did not stop. Nor did the tears.

  The Sun slowly descended as I sobbed on and off through the afternoon, as quietly as I could in between fumbled eating or drinking. I was unable to speak anymore, but neither male required me to. They pretended to give me privacy to grieve the loss I hadn’t wanted to accept. They did so for longer than I pretended they wasted their effort doing so.

  Weakened beyond hope, I wept at the memory of her face, and seeing the grief for her own Daughter when last we spoke in the flesh.

  Although I ate everything in the saddlebag over the next day and ran out of water in the two skins long before that, I remained ill, lacking any strength. Now and then, Gavin would walk beside me and request that I speak, prove that I was “congnizant.”

  My reply was always, “Can you see my baby’s life aura.”

  “I can see it.”

  His responses thus far had weighed in favor of both of us, his tone as close to objective and without apparent sympathy.

  “The aura has diminished some, as has yours. You are both weakened and closer to death than you were days ago.”

  I stifled a flinch. “S-still have the dagger?”

  “I do.”

  Good.

  I thought about the Desert Queen I’d spoken to so briefly, “communing” with the dagger the first time. Was there any truth to her, or had that been a demon’s trick?

  In his office, Cris-ri-phon held the dagger laid flat in both palms. “It began here. Tell me how you know this blade. Was it spoken of by your Queen?”

  No. I had seen it first not one span after I’d attacked Auslan on that small farm. The dream had seemed connected to nothing in the Void except for him.

  But he doesn’t have golden eyes. Mourn does. All gold.

  That was not all. Shyntre and his sire, Phaelous, both possessed the color as well, subtle flecks of metallic gold in dark red eyes.

  I always admired the beauty of Shyntre’s eyes…

  “Careful.”

  Strong hands on my shoulders. I’d almost slipped off the horse again. The sky grew dark.

  The Dragonchild breathed out with the subtle hiss of his serpentine tongue. “I will carry her the rest of the way. We are nearly there.”

  “Indeed,” Gavin said, “I was about to suggest you aim for a predetermined location.”

  “I have a cache nearby. There is food and clean water.”

  The large male removed my tool belt, and I couldn’t protest as he secured it around the night mare’s neck. My limp body was dragged off my mount and resettled against the broad chest. Three black spiders exited my hood and settled on my chest where I could at least reassure them I still breathed.

  “I can’t see in the dark as you can,” the death mage said simply.

  Mourn grunted. “Follow the ridge and keep the moon on your left. I will return to lead you there.”

  Gavin made no protest I could hear, not a mutter under his breath, then my carrier was moving quickly through the dusky forest. I attempted to hold his shoulders for stability but had too weak a grip for his pace. His response was only to squeeze me tighter.

  I hate this…!

  The last time I was this weak and defenseless, teetering on an edge of a terror and consequence I could not yet face, Gaelan was hovering above me beside a hidden altar in an outbuilding, speaking a spell after draining a healing potion down my throat. Behind her attempt to aid me was my eternally hungry eldest sister, threatening the potion maker.

  Behind this half-blood’s aid was the relic which had done much to harm me in such a short time. The dagger had not simply numbed my sense of hunger and thirst to delay it but had taken more than I had to give.

  Damned Abyss. I knew this dance.

  Never again.

  I would get on my feet. I will.

  I smelled t
he water, heard the gentle gurgling before the half-blood set me down on soft ground, surrounded by the lush, healthy plants of late spring. I breathed deeply; not since first emerging from the underground were their interwoven multitudes so sharp and overwhelming, touching my skin, sliding into my nose and mouth. These plants didn’t struggle against warp rot.

  We made it out.

  Mourn kneeled beside me and put a metal cup to my lips. I wondered less about where it had come from, but rather how he’d found the perfect, chilled spring in all the wilderness.

  “Slower,” he said. “Do not shock your body. It is cold.”

  I agreed. Deliciously so. The purity and the sheer will to live woke me from my stupor, and I lifted my hands to take the cup after he refilled it. I settled like a suckling child, sipping, swallowing tiny amounts one after another, never taking my lips from the edge.

  The gold-eyed bua watched me for a while and nodded in satisfaction. “Wait here.”

  I watched his tail trail away to one side and felt the urge to giggle.

  As if I can do anything else?

  When he returned, gently tugging my empty cup out of my hands, he replaced it with a large leaf serving as the plate for something impossible. I sniffed the scent rising off six white chunks of meat with char marks at the ends.

  Bites of roasted fowl?

  “Grubs,” he admitted, reading my face. “Cooked. Safe.”

  Huh. Looking at his Dragon’s teeth, I’d imagined he preferred everything raw and bleeding. In truth, I wouldn’t have complained about raw; I’d eaten it before.

  At the same time, he can summon fire on command…

  I managed a nod and put one in my mouth without hesitation though not without a tremor in my hand. The warm and fat larvae was as delicious as the water, and I received a third cup to wash it down.

  “Will you wait here while I return to guide the death mage?”

  More alert now, I agreed. I wanted Gavin here. If he was writing in his book by dawn, things might feel somewhat normal for the Surface again.

  The Dragon’s son left while I stayed hidden in the brush, finishing my meager meal with silent gratitude.

  Although I did not slide into full Reverie while I was alone, I drifted quite far. My thoughts began as a hazy blend of studying the empty metal cup in my gloved hands and Gavin’s soul shard ritual in the shed. Then I thought, maybe, while I was unconscious or sobbing for Gaelan, the two males had made that one exchange I’d wanted to hear.

  What drew you out of Troshin Bend the night of the fires?

  What are your intentions toward Manalar this year?

  Perhaps they spoke it on their way here. Maybe they negotiated another bargain, while Mourn had said he would not bargain with me until I was of sounder mind and body.

  Damnit.

  Gavin may have been reticent with a creature like this if he were mortal, as he had been with me at Sarilis’s Tower. Now, he’d died—something I still sought to avoid—and had “walked” elsewhere. Walked in a place I could not imagine and no longer hid his clear motive for knowledge. The Ma’ab-Manalari man possessed a longer view of his future but hadn’t learned subtlety, and I had been in no condition at all to teach him in this first instance.

  Bluntness seems to work with the Dragonblood, anyway.

  For now.

  Gavin had been cryptic when speaking with Brom, though. In hindsight, I might guess that his “Lady” had warned him about what we faced in that inn.

  The Deathless sorcerer, whom Queen Innathi told me was “many.”

  “My Sorcerer-General from V’Gedra is but one face of the Deathless… and you will come to know them all if you do not escape and take me with you. The world eater wants to bring me back to life… You will give birth to his new Queen if you stay.”

  Had it been the ancient, trapped soul of my Valsharess’s sister, or only a demon’s trick?

  “He wants you to draw Soul Drinker… He will try everything to hold on to you now.”

  I jolted alert, my ears pricking up at the first rustle of leaves. My heart was racing, and sweat sprang up on my brow as my guardians rushed to my shoulders, preparing to leap at the first threat.

  “It is us, Sirana,” said Gavin from a good distance away.

  I couldn’t see them yet but relaxed so that my spiders calmed down. I realized that Gavin could not have seen or heard me and had been prompted so they could get closer without a spider bite. Did that mean Mourn was vulnerable but an excellent bluff?

  Gavin and the mare appeared, the latter with my belt of weapons around her neck. Next came the beast-Elf carrying a rabbit and a pair of ground rodents in his fist. My eyes lingered on the catches.

  “I’ve not yet scouted the area,” Mourn said, “to know whether a cookfire is a good idea.”

  I pointed. My voice was lethargic and slurring, “If those are for me, I’ll take them as they are.”

  Although I didn’t ask it, he withdrew a small knife to swiftly skin and dress the animals, handing me only the meat on bone.

  I smirked and started chewing on the rabbit. “Gavin might want the organs and skins. If not, save them for me.”

  Amused, Mourn refilled my cup from the spring without remark before offering the death mage three hides wrapped around tiny organs. Enough moonlight came through the trees that Gavin noticed the outreach.

  “Yes, I can use them.”

  He sounded like he had an idea. With deliberate, inquisitive chewing, I watched him accept the blood-stained bundle from the mercenary, unwrap, and inspect it.

  “Hm,” he grunted.

  Out came his scalpel from a makeshift sheath on his belt, made of scrap leather. Whenever I saw this tool now, I expected the pale man to cut his skin and prepare his magic, as he had needed to do so several times to keep his mare walking in one piece.

  Sure enough, Gavin cut his forearm deeply and dripped black fluid over the fresh bits of flesh, whispering in the dead tongue. My spiders reacted in a brief skitter, though I did not in truth see or feel any change.

  Still, I watched him place the pieces beneath his mount’s muzzle and touch her nose. Stiff horse’s lips quivered moments before she gobbled the pieces as she used to consume chunks of sugar roots we’d find. With a hollow echo of that same eagerness, she ground and swallowed the glazed organs under Gavin’s touch. Next, she went for the hides, chewing and consuming those like they were hay.

  The Deathwalker was nodding to himself, checking her teeth by feel after she’d finished without concern that she might bite him. She still had my belt of weapons and pouches around her neck. I dared to imagine Mourn speechless and hid my smile behind the generous cup of water.

  “So, we camp here for tonight?” Gavin asked.

  “For longer,” Mourn replied. “As needed.”

  “We’ve arrived at your ‘cache’?”

  “We have.”

  “Hm.” The pale man peered around at yet another hillside within another stretch of forest then up at the stars through the branches. “What of when the weather turns?”

  “A moment, I will show you.”

  Mourn took, refilled, and handed a full cup to me as I switched to the fattier ground rat—the rabbit was a little lean—then paced along the sharp rise in the earth to my left. With the spring water I drank, I was not surprised that the hill had complexity.

  The mercenary whispered to himself, and I felt something. Familiar.

  A ward?

  I leaned forward to see and hear better, careful not to spill my water, though drowsiness crept up to join my exhaustion. Determinedly, I watched as Gavin did, while this long-time shadow of ours crouched by a moss-covered boulder, tucking his large hands beneath it, and lifting. His arms bulged as his tail stiffened to brace against the ground.

  Stone ground against itself as Mourn stood up, revealing what I’d anticipated: the mouth of a cave tall enough for the half-blood. If it were deep enough, the ma
re could enter as well.

  “I see,” Gavin said.

  The boulder rolled to one side was one round piece, and so large that I couldn’t imagine many physically capable of disturbing this “cache.”

  Not even Kurn could have lifted that.

  It would take a stronger mage of the right talent to move it with magic, especially if there was a ward in place.

  I breathed pure relief. A secure cave to hide underground against the daylight.

  How long since I’d had this protection to rest in truth? Not since training with Elder Rausery. In retrospect, those had been the easy days. My eyes ached and head throbbed merely from the memory of every day since the tower, where I’d had the branches of thick trees for shade at best. Upon the Midway, for many sunrises in a row, I’d had not even that bit of relief.

  The Human-built shelters—the inn and the barn—had too many windows and cracks where light leaked through to pretend it was a cave. While the buildings themselves had been better than being exposed, I’d been in one of the most dangerous places in my life because of who was inside, and there was no true rest to be had.

  I was grinning while gazing at the cave but didn’t realize it until the mercenary chuckled.

  “There is a roll of cured hide inside,” he said. “We can use it to cover the entrance without moving the stone. Block wind, rain, and light. It also faces North and East, so this entrance is in shade most of the time but curbs the colder winds. It rarely warms up as a result, but I stashed blankets wrapped in oiled hide a few years ago. They should still be good.”

  Bliss.

  “Remarkable,” Gavin said with a hint of suspicion.

  He was right to wonder, but I was clear to me the merc knew how to survive wilderness in a state less than misery, rather like Rausery. I wanted to crawl inside, spin a cocoon from those blankets, and sleep until tomorrow night.

  I want to be safe for just a little while.

  To do this, I had to assume this large male’s stocked den was somehow safer than Cris-ri-phon’s bedchamber. I would start by not sleeping naked. I didn’t have to remove any clothing, not even my cloak.

  I looked at my empty cup. Oh, shit. Then sighed. Make that piss.