by Sandra Elsa
With Bella safe, Angel stood back and watched. "It's finished,” he thought to her. "It cannot recover from the wound you have given it."
Even as he ended the thought, the monster folded its legs and sank to the ground. The final spasm of its uncontrolled muscles brought the spike perilously close to her hiding spot. Conall joined her. He was bleeding badly from his wound and without thinking she reached out to Heal him. The pain caused her to gasp, and curl into a fetal position. Angel rushed to her side and the three of them, mended but weary, watched in consternation as the creature breathed its last and crumbled apart into the separate bodies which had been used to construct it.
Central to the construct had been a Unicorn. Unlike Lorn, this Unicorn was a black mare. In death, its horn shone brilliant silver. A huge snake lay where the nose had been. Other victims of this foul magic were a wolf, whose teeth still seemed abnormally large, an owl, with a missing eye, nearly fifteen of a peculiar looking rodent with a hide that looked as though it were indeed armored. Other creatures lay in the mass, large and small, they seemed to have been used for no purpose other than to shore up the gargantuan size of the construct.
Most amazing to those present, was the human form sitting astride the Unicorn. In death it had returned to the state it had been in when it had been incorporated in the spell, and it was liveried in the ancient uniform of Ronan.
In a hushed thought, Conall said, "I knew him. I cannot tell you his name, but I knew him. The man wears the rank of First Sergeant he should be identifiable in the book.” Conall shook his head as memory flooded back. “I remember when this man disappeared. The rest of our unit took to the hills to find him. We found instead, Dorang’s brother, Torant. Conall walked closer and inspected the First Sergeant.
“Torant laughed when we asked him if he'd seen the First Sergeant and he showed us what had become of him.” Conall trembled. Two hundred years was insufficient to erase that horror. “There were fifty of us, and in his strength, Torant did not fear us. Indeed, nearly half were dead before we managed to kill him. But kill him we did, that is when Dorang arrived home.” Conall was lost in his pain. “This is infuriating I can remember bits and pieces but nothing of myself. We must tend the dead. They have suffered long enough. We cannot leave them here to rot. They must burn. Even the lowest life form did not deserve this fate."
Angel agreed with him, and they began gathering up the bodies into a pile on top of the largest figures. Bella collected her weapons as they sifted through the pile. Trace arrived, riding Buck. Fury reddened his features, but relief softened his anger when he found them alive. She told him of the battle and explained what he was looking at.
"They wouldn't let me come," he said. "They came into my head and said it was not my fight."
She knew he spoke of the caretakers. She knew nothing of the mysterious beings that had created and maintained the Lodges, but it seemed they were more powerful and omnipresent than she had ever imagined.
Trace continued, "I knew it was over, one way or another, when my horse came out of the stable already tacked up. I guess I get to help with the funeral pyre.” When the bodies were all stacked they covered them with wood and started the fire. When it burned down low, the four companions returned to the Lodge to get cleaned up.
Walking through the cliff face, they found water in the pot already warming and towels set out beside it. How could the caretakers so thoroughly know the needs of the occupants? Bella found it disturbing. But tired, and covered in gore up to her armpit, she was glad of the courtesy. Bella cleaned herself first, then refilled the pot from the spring at the back of the stable. She heated it magically, stealing from the caretaker’s warmth spell. When it was hot she took the towels and scrubbed down Conall.
Anticipating the need, Trace made up a large pile of straw and covered it with all the blankets. When she was done with Conall, she tended to Angel. Then she and Conall collapsed gratefully on the bed Trace had made. She awoke hours later to a heavenly aroma and found that Trace had cooked a couple of rabbits, and scrambled up a mixture of mushrooms and onions.
It was late afternoon. They ate and then Trace brought out the book that had been left for Conall. He turned to the rolls of the dead and missing and showed them one of the last entries listed as missing, “First Sergeant Horaud.”
"Yes,” Conall thought, “that was his name. A very good man, an excellent strategist, leader of troops, and my friend."
Bella thanked Trace for having found this, and relayed what Conall had just told her. Trace smiled, thankful to have been able to do something useful. "Before dark I'd like to check the funeral pyre, make sure there's nothing left to be dishonored.”
Bella and Conall were well rested. They agreed with the sentiment. Angel came out of the stable and walked with them to the pyre. There was little left but ashes when they arrived. In the middle of the pile of ash and glowing coals a glint caught their eye. Angel danced over the coals to kick this treasure from the pile. Sliding to a stop in front of Bella’s feet was the silver horn of an adult Unicorn. It was eighteen inches of the purest silver found in the Four Lands.
Tentatively, she bent to pick it up and found it cool. When her flesh touched it she heard words in her mind, "Bless you for our freedom, ‘Daughter of the Wind’. The human sends thanks to his Captain." Bella’s jaw hung open, she was incapable of doing anything more than gape at the horn that now lay still and quiescent in her hands.
Bella's nerveless hands clenched the silver horn. Her knuckles whitened, she refused to loosen her grip for fear somebody else would hear the message.
For a second time a unicorn had called her a “Daughter of the Wind”. She thought nervously of Dalanor’s words, insisting King Thale was desperate to capture just such a person.
The scent of burned flesh hung heavy over the embers. The fire had blazed hot and Bella suspected the magic of the unicorn was responsible for the complete immolation. With the removal of the horn, there was no way to tell which ashes had been human and which, unicorn, or any of the multitude of other creatures that had perished two hundred years ago, yet only died today.
With his dying thought, First Sergeant Horaud, had unknowingly unraveled the biggest part of Conall's curse. Bella knew who he was...and she was afraid that knowledge would tear him from her.
