Twin Soul Series Omnibus 2: Books 6-10

by McCaffrey-Winner

  “I’m not alone,” Lissy said easily, her anger rising. “I’ll give you one more chance.”

  “Even if you had a hundred of your best soldiers with you —”

  “No,” Lissy said. “I don’t have soldiers.”

  “No soldiers, eh?” General Filbert said, glancing around the chamber. “So what do you have, little princess? What could you possibly possess that would protect you from the might of Kingsland and my army?”

  Lissy saw the general wave to the archers, saw them draw their bows back and jumped down, to the side. The arrows flew up toward where she’d been and fell harmlessly somewhere in the back of the treasury. The archers immediately reached back over their shoulders for more arrows.

  “Dodging won’t save you!” Filbert shouted. “Surrender, princess!”

  “No!” Lissy shouted back. “You surrender!”

  “Or what?” Filbert scoffed. “You’re alone. You’re helpless. Nothing can save you.”

  “I’m not alone,” Lissy said, raising her voice and nudging the coins beside her. They started to cascade away. Filbert’s brows furrowed when the trickle grew into a torrent. Lissy said to the rising figure beside her, “These are bad people. Please deal with them.”

  Filbert’s eyes widened as quickly as his jaw gaped. Slowly he raised his arm and managed to jibber, “What’s that?”

  “That is a dragon,” Lissy said. “He’s my friend.”

  #

  Major Morris turned his head as he caught a brilliant sight out of the corner of his eye. He gasped as he saw a flaming cart rushing toward him only to collapse in a ball of flame that emerged from the same corridor.

  “Dragon!” a man shouted, rushing from the ruins of the cart. “There’s a —” another ball of flame silenced him.

  “Retreat!” Morris shouted, pushing his men back from the zwerg. “Retreat!”

  In a moment the retreat became a rout and Morris found himself carried along in a wave of panicked men even as the zwerg cheered and rushed forward to cut them down.

  Somehow the major managed to push his way through the doors and out into the night —

  — where he was met by two brilliant flashes of light that left him night-blinded.

  “Surrender or die!” a woman’s voice called from the night.

  Morris was the first to throw his sword to the ground.

  Epilog

  “Halt! Who goes there?” Captain Welless called out in the dim light of dawn. He’d expected to hear from one of General Filbert’s scouts hours ago but there’d been no report. Doubtless Colonel Marchant would soon be waking and wondering where his superior was. Captain Welless had mixed emotions about his report on the matter. The colonel was many things but he was loyal to the king — and would not take kindly to being abandoned by his general.

  “Help!” came the reply. “By all the gods, help!”

  “Major Morris?” Captain Welless cried in surprise as figures resolved themselves in the morning mist to a cart and some lame soldiers walking beside it. The major was slumped in the front seat of the cart, propping up an injured soldier whose eyes were bandaged. The major looked no better, his arm in a sling.

  “Get the healers,” Morris ordered. “I’ve got many injured men.”

  Welless issued the order and moved up to the cart. He glanced to the back and saw a huddled mass of troops — not more than a dozen.

  “Are there others?” Welless asked. Morris shook his head. “And the general?”

  “The general is with the Ferryman,” Morris said bitterly. He waved a hand. “Let us pass, the men need rest.”

  #

  Ellen rushed to the treasury, looking for Lissy and Jarin while Rabel and the others tended to the injured and helped repair the ruin at the south entrance to the Silver Earth kingdom.

  A gruff zwerg guard halted her at the entrance. “No one’s to enter, miss,” the man told her. He was wounded, a fresh scar on his face and one arm in a sling.

  “But I’ve got to see Lissy!” Ellen cried.

  From behind the doors, Ellen heard, “Ellen?”

  “Lissy, let me in!”

  “Let her in, Dermon, her and no other,” Lissy’s voice carried wearily through the door.

  “Princess, are you certain?” Dermon asked uncertainly.

  “Let her in!”

  Dermon fumbled for the keys, grumbling to Ellen, “I’m going to have to lock you in.”

  “Lock me in?” Ellen repeated in surprise. “Why?”

  “The princess’ orders,” Dermon told her bluntly. He jerked a nod toward the door. “You’ll see.” He paused for a moment, then blurted, “Are you sure?”

  Ellen frowned. “Of course I’m sure!”

  “Very well,” Dermon let her enter and closed the door quickly behind her, the keys rattling as the lock was set.

  Ellen turned from glancing back at the door to the dimly lit room. She found Lissy at the top of a mound, resting her head on a pile of gold coins. Ellen sniffed — the air was hot and dry. Well, she’d been told that Jarin —

  “Where’s Jarin?”

  “Not a word to anyone!” Lissy called back, gesturing for Ellen to join her.

  “What?”

  “Promise, you must promise or leave!” Lissy declared imperiously. Ellen had never heard the zwerg princess so determined.

  “Lissy —”

  “Promise! Not a word!” The princess sounded like she was ready to cry.

  “I promise,” Ellen said heavily, climbing up the mound of coins slowly. She kept looking around, looking for a familiar shape, expecting to be pounced and pranked at any moment.

  When she reached Lissy, she grabbed the princess in a quick hug and then looked around. “Jarin? Where are you? Everyone says that you saved them, that you’re a hero!” She glanced around, her brows furrowed. “Where are you?”

  Beside her a pile of gold coins shuddered and slid away.

  “There you are!” Ellen said, crouching down beside a single glowing red eye. “Jarin?” She looked over nervously to princess Lissy who knelt down beside her, tears streaming from her face.

  “He’s not there, is he?” Lissy said in a small voice. Ellen’s eyes widened and she glanced from the burning dragon’s eye to the princess and back. As Ellen’s eyes grew wider and wider in fright, Lissy whispered, “Ellen, what do you know about dragons? They’re twin souls, right?”

  Ellen nodded, afraid to look at the dragon breathing harshly beside them.

  “Do you know,” Lissy whispered right against Ellen’s ear, “what happens when the human part dies?”

  Healing Fire

  Book 10

  Twin Soul series

  Chapter One

  The healer was an old zwerg and looked up at her queen with sorrow in her eyes. “He is too human to take the healing,” she said.

  Diam turned to Rabel. “What do you know of healing?”

  Rabel shrugged. “Not much,” he said, moving forward to kneel beside the low bed in which Hamo Beck had been placed. “But let me see what I can learn.”

  Diam turned to Imay. “Find Lissy and Ellen.” Imay glanced once at the injured and dipped her head in acceptance, turning lithely and moving away swiftly.

  Rabel murmured into Hamo’s ear, “It’s me, Rabel. I’m a friend of Ibb’s. I’d like to check you for broken bones and injuries.”

  A small, faint noise came back from the injured man which Rabel took for assent. He gave a small nod of his own.

  He glanced warningly to Diam, then the healer but neither dropped their gaze, so he returned to his examination. With help from the healer, whose name was Molle, Rabel removed the remainder of the rags that had once been Hamo’s clothes. He winced as the man groaned in pain and at the sight of the huge purpling bruises over much of his body.

&n
bsp; “Hamo,” Rabel said as he leaned back so that he could look at the man’s face, “I’m going to do some magic I know, to see if I can find any broken bones. Please don’t be startled, it might feel hot or tingle even.”

  “What are you planning to do?” Molle asked critically, glancing up to her queen in alarm.

  “It’s something I learned from Ibb many years ago,” Rabel said.

  The healer, Molle, sniffed. “You hardly have that many years yet.”

  “I’ve more than appears,” Rabel assured her. He glanced toward Diam whose eyes darted from the healer to him and back thoughtfully before she nodded her assent.

  Rabel drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes, rubbing his hands together as if to warm them and then spreading them out to hover over Hamo’s body. A thin glow spread from his hands, a purplish yellow, like some strange flame. It lingered over the body, hovering where he’d left it but some of the glow darkened and seemed to coalesce into knots.

  Molle gasped in amazement. Diam glanced at her. The healer pointed to one dark knot and whispered, “That’s a broken bone, I know it!” With renewed respect and interest, she followed the glow that Rabel spread over Hamo’s body and made noises of surprise and interest whenever a new knot formed.

  Finally, Rabel leaned back, opening his eyes and grunting in surprise as he counted the knots. There were no less than twelve.

  “Is this just for the front or does your magic see wounds on his back as well?” Molle asked.

  “Both,” Rabel said, taking a deep breath to restore his powers. “The darkness of the knots indicates both degree and depth of injury if you know how to read them.”

  “And do you —?”

  Rabel shook his head quickly. “Not as well as Ibb.”

  “Well enough,” Molle said, gesturing for her apprentices to approach. She gave Rabel a worried look. “You are exhausted. Not just from these efforts but from those prior.”

  Rabel shook her concern away with a wave of his hand. “I need to check on the others.”

  “I shall accompany you,” Molle said, issuing quick orders to her apprentices who began, carefully, to deal with the illuminated wounds on the half-human. She turned to Diam and nodded deferentially. “If it pleases your majesty, I think this man and I can see to the injured.”

  Diam jerked her head in a quick but worried agreement.

  “It’s too early to tell, your majesty,” Molle said, guessing the queen’s fears. “If none are more injured than this, I think we can heal them, in time.”

  “Thank you,” Diam said. “But there are many others, from the fight.”

  Molle allowed herself a small smile. “I am not your only healer, your majesty,” she waved a hand to the large hall beyond. “But breaks and bruises are my specialty. Hallo, Nenden, and Verek are here already and we’ve the rest of our healers alerted and on their way to help us.”

  “You have burn injuries?” Rabel asked sharply, turning his head toward Diam. Healer Molle nodded before the queen could respond. “Send for Jarin and Ellen, they know how to pull the burn out.”

  “Pull the burn out?” Molle squeaked in amazement. When she saw that Rabel was deadly serious, she added, “Can you teach us, please?”

  “I can try,” Rabel said. “But the three of us have given oaths to Ophidian and that may be the source of our power.”

  Granno came through a doorway, looking grim and bending his knee to his queen. Diam gestured for him to rise with one wave of her hand, asking wearily, “How bad is it?”

  “Kavim did an excellent job, your majesty,” Granno began.

  “I know,” Diam said, “but tell me — how bad?”

  Granno’s lips thinned into a tight line. “Forty dead, eighty injured. Twenty of them seriously.”

  Diam pressed a hand to her eyes and closed them tightly. When she opened them again, there was no sign of the sorrow she felt. She was a ruler: she knew her duty.

  “We will close the entrances, collapse the caves, and move west, as planned,” Diam declared. She nodded to Granno. “Get that started at once and get back when you have news.”

  Granno drew himself up to attention and gave her a crisp salute before turning and trotting out of the healer hall, his face full of grim determination. “Minto! Kavim! To me!”

  Molle hissed in surprise but, glancing toward Rabel, gestured for him to precede her to the next patient.

  “The father first,” Rabel said, “then the boy.”

  Molle agreed. “The father has the greater injuries.”

  “And I’d like his permission to examine the boy,” Rabel told her. She accepted that with a firm nod.

  #

  “Lissy!” Imay shouted in growing frustration. “Lissy, open the door!” She glared at the wounded guard outside the treasury, gesturing for him to add his voice and authority.

  Dermon shook his head. “She said no one was to enter,” he told her firmly, “on pain of death.”

  “Yet she let the human, Ellen, enter,” Imay said curtly. She pounded on the door again. “Lissy! Lissy, Rabel needs Ellen and Jarin to help him! He said they can heal burns! Open the door!”

  “I can’t!” Lissy called back miserably. “By my word, Imay, I can’t!” In the distance, Imay could hear Ellen sobbing.

  Worriedly, Imay put her face to the small opening in the door. She could see nothing but gold and that only faintly in the dim light.

  “Please don’t scold me,” Lissy begged her older sister.

  “Lissy, there isn’t time,” Imay said. She continued with a heartfelt plea, “There isn’t time for this. People are dying. Jarin and Ellen could help Rabel save them.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ellen’s voice came to her, sobbing. “We can’t. You have to believe me. We can’t.”

  “If that’s so,” Imay said slowly, “I pity you. People will die that you could have saved.”

  “More would die,” Ellen murmured so quietly that Imay wasn’t certain she’d heard — and she was convinced that Ellen didn’t expect to be heard.

  “I must report this to our mother, the queen,” Imay said in a resigned voice.

  “We would come if we could, Imay, I swear!” Lissy called back tearfully.

  #

  “We have to do something,” Ellen said, still sobbing miserably as Imay’s footsteps faded in the hallway outside. She turned to Lissy. “We can’t let people die.”

  “We may have no choice,” Lissy said in a hard voice. She gestured to the mound of gold. “You did not see what he did.”

  “He won’t hurt me,” Ellen swore, pulling a pile of coins away until it exposed a dark dragon hide. She patted it affectionately. “I know you’re scared, Jarin, but we’re here. We’re here for you.”

  From the dragon’s nose came a snort of despair.

  Ellen wiped her dripping nose on her sleeve and patted around in her shirt. “We must send for help,” she said.

  “How?” Lissy squeaked.

  Ellen pulled forth a blue-white light. She showed it to Issy. “I’ll send this off to get help,” Ellen said bravely.

  “How many do you have?” Lissy asked. “You lent one to me and one to Imay.”

  “I have three,” Ellen said, throwing the blue-white demon up into the air.

  In a flash, the small thing started toward the door but before it got more than an arm’s length from the two humans, a dark shape lunged out of the gold, red eyes flaring, and snapped in the air — taking the blue demon in one quick gulp.

  Ellen and Lissy stared at each other in horror.

  #

  “And you’re certain that General Filbert is dead?” Colonel Marchant repeated as he eyed the swaying form of Major Morris in the healer’s tent. There were only nine others there with him — two had died of their wounds in the past hour — nine out of nearly two hundred!


  “I did not see the body, sir,” Major Morris said carefully. “And none of the men who went with him returned. But there was a dragon, sir. I saw its flames consume one of the carts — and the carter — who’d gone with the general. I can only assume he met the same fate.”

  Colonel Marchant fumed as he considered the major’s statement. Finally he said, “General Tashigg and the rest of the division should de-train tomorrow. I’ll leave the final decision to him.”

  Morris nodded wearily at the colonel’s words. Really, he didn’t care what the colonel did.

  “Who’s next in command of your battalion, Major?” Colonel Marchant said.

  “Captain Baker, sir,” Morris told him wearily. Baker was a steady sort, he’d neither shine nor dim in his new position. “The men like him.”

  Colonel Marchant grunted in acknowledgement, patted Morris feebly on the shoulder and turned to the healer. “How soon until he recovers?”

  “Weeks, at least, sir,” the healer said, frowning down at Morris. “He’ll probably need some leave to rest and recuperate.”

  “Very well,” Marchant said, turning toward the door, “we’ll proceed without him.”

  Once the colonel was out of earshot, the healer turned to the major and muttered, “Did what I could for you, sir.” He eyed the major a moment longer, nodded to himself and turned away. “I’ll see to the others, now, if you don’t mind.”

  Chapter Two

  “Form up by battalions, and have them move off to join Filbert’s camp,” General Tashigg said to his aide. The aide nodded, saluted, and marched off to carry out the general’s orders. General Tashigg nodded to himself: things were proceeding nicely. Second and Third brigade would be fully formed by nightfall and then the First Division would move through Korin’s Pass and take up positions on the far side, waiting to hear from the cavalry.

  The air was cold and brisk and general Tashigg waved his arms about him to keep warm. The troops nudged each other and smiled at his antics. Tashigg saw them and waved them on, shouting, “Good show! Forward to victory!”