Bloodstone

by Johannes, Helen C.

  With a snarl, Durren flung the captured sword into the ground. He’d wanted to kill—damn him!—and once he’d snatched the woman from the earth, his body and his blood had indeed roared that she was his prize, his possession.

  By Kiros, he could still smell the heated lilac of her skin! His groin ached, remembering the tantalizing friction of her bucking and writhing hips. It had taken all his willpower to hang onto the lance when her struggles bared her leg to the knee. It would have been so easy to catch that sleek, alabaster flesh and pull her astride Ghost. So easy, then, to follow the line of her thigh upward to the cradle of her femininity. So sweetly easy to lift her hips and let his fingers lay claim to the hot, satiny recesses he knew in his dreams existed there.

  Sweat popped out on Durren’s face, gluing the soft, inner fold of cloth to it. He dragged air into his lungs, forced a swallow, and inhaled again. A vision of her tumble from Ghost stabbed at him. He hoped he hadn’t hurt her, but if she’d moved against him once more, he was certain, instead of merely dropping her like a hot coal, he would have hauled her to the ground and thrown himself between her legs. By Koronolan, the last thing he wanted was to frighten her, or to issue threats, but he’d clearly done both. And all because of this damned body!

  He slid off Ghost, draped an arm over the stallion’s withers and leaned against the big animal. His muscles trembled, a sign—at last—of his blood cooling. He peeled the tunic away from his skin, allowing a faint breeze to slip between fabric and flesh, speeding the process. Ghost lowered his head and nuzzled Durren’s leg, lipping the cloth over his knee. Dropping the lance, Durren pushed the gray head away, but his hand lingered on the horse’s throat. He stroked upward, found an ear and massaged it gently.

  I am everything you fear, both shadow and substance.

  Durren winced. Why in Beggeth had he told her that?

  Perhaps, said the Voice in his head, because it’s true.

  “It’s not—” But it was. In a moment of shattering clarity, Durren realized he’d grown weary of denying the Shadow’s influence. They were not one, could never be one, but he understood, now, his substance somehow was inextricably conjoined to it. His fingers twisted in Ghost’s forelock, mimicking the pain twisting his heart, his soul.

  Better that she knows now, don’t you think?

  Durren inhaled deeply. Perhaps it was better this way. Now that the beads were cast, she knew which were hers to play. And he knew his next casts would have to prove what he sought from her was no more than he’d asked: her presence, her companionship. Considering how he’d frightened her, that task would be difficult enough, but if she touched him again...

  Scowling, he shook himself out of his reverie and drew in another long breath. They were not safe here. The Krad could return at any moment. Afternoon shadows already pooled on the forest floor, thickening the shade. It would be well past midnight when they made Drakkonwehr, if nothing else delayed their progress.

  And that progress would be possible only if he could find all of the missing horses. Snatching up his lance and the fat man’s sword, Durren swung aboard Ghost. Soon, he would be at Drakkonwehr, and for once, he would not be alone there. The realization sent a little frisson of anticipation along his nerves.

  Finally, he thought as he heeled the stallion, he might be able to exorcise at least one of his demons.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Within minutes, Durren had found the pack mare and the woman’s gelding, but the boy’s mount seemed to have vanished. He could have tracked the animal, but that required time.

  Durren snorted at the paradox. Time was something Syryk had given him far too much of, yet he wasn’t prepared to waste it on a fruitless search in Krad territory. Especially not now, not when he had two time-bound creatures under his care.

  Glancing back at them, Durren noted how the starlight silvered the hood and shoulders of the woman’s cloak. She rode with her arms around the boy, who slumped forward with the solidity of one dead asleep.

  For the ninth time since the mist had begun to curl wraith-like under the horses’ bellies, the thought stabbed Durren that he should’ve taken the boy instead of burdening her. After all, it was his own desire to reach Drakkonwehr that had driven the boy to this state. But, for the ninth time, he reminded himself he’d burdened the woman precisely to limit her means of escape.

  Besides, even he felt the fist of exhaustion grinding into the small of his back. The Krad rock, no more than a flying nuisance hours ago, had left an impact site on his rib cage. Sometime after nightfall, the injury had begun to ache. Now every thud of Ghost’s right foreleg sent pinpricks through his side. Durren slipped a hand inside his cloak and pressed it to the tender spot, soothing it with chilled fingers.

  He looked back at the woman again, but the shelf of her hood hid her face except for her mouth and the tip of her nose. The compressed line of her lips, however, told him she clung as grimly to wakefulness as she did to the boy.

  He wondered for perhaps the thirtieth time what she was thinking. Not in general, although he did wonder what a woman in her situation would think about. Rather, Durren very specifically wondered whether, while in his arms, she’d noticed the ardent response of his body to her nearness.

  The sudden darkening of her pupils when he’d raised his head from her throat told him her body had understood the cues. But did the simultaneous widening of her eyes signify a conscious terror of the Shadow Man? Or did it indicate a more general fear induced by turmoil and confusion?

  He looked back again, wishing he could scrutinize her hidden face. Did she truly loathe the bargain she’d made, or was she simply afraid of the unknown? All his hopes depended on the second possibility. He couldn’t afford to consider the first.

  The trail they’d been riding crossed the talus beneath a granite face. The traverse afforded a wide view of their back trail, but it also exposed them like foxes caught in an early snow. So far, nothing stirred below. Even so, he nudged Ghost with a heel.

  The pack mare, feeling the tug on the line that connected her halter and the bridle of the woman’s horse to Ghost’s saddle, neighed a complaint. Durren winced. If he’d wanted to announce their presence, he couldn’t have chosen a better medium than the amplifying backdrop of granite. He heeled Ghost into a trot, forcing the gelding and the pack mare to match the gait.

  “What’s the matter?” the woman said as the boy stirred with the jostling. “Why are we running?”

  Durren kept his gaze fixed on the end of the rock cut. “We’re not running. We’re just getting out of the open.” A few more strides and they would disappear into the shadow between the rock face and a massive, towering boulder. Once they did so, they would be within the boundaries of Drakkonwehr.

  Ages ago, after Koronolan had imprisoned the Last Dragon, the hero had established a guard post on the rock. All the heirs to Drakkonwehr had kept it manned. Or they had, Durren amended, until the great Stone Dam at Herrok-Eneth split on his watch, unleashing a flood of Krad. He glanced up, noting where a spill of rock marked the remains of a wall. When he’d made his way home after the disaster, he’d found his guardsmen near the breach, their flesh eaten and their bones scattered among the stones. Even now, the memory made his skin crawl.

  He turned Ghost into the ink pocket between rock face and guardian stone, letting the horse pick its way. The narrow passage was studded with boulders, some as big as horses. A wagon or war engine could pass, but only if the driver knew the way through the maze.

  The Krad had rampaged through it once. The full force unleashed from Beggeth had rushed straight to Drakkonwehr, smashed through the walls and destroyed everything within them, massacring every living thing. Even the rats!

  Durren steeled himself against the memory of torn human limbs rotting among half-devoured horse heads, ox quarters, rat feet, and bits of chicken, feathers still fluttering in the least breeze, but it was too late. The scene came to him as if it were only yesterday. Still spell-shocked himself, he’d s
tumbled through the broken gate, and everywhere scenes of horror confronted him. A profound stillness enveloped the fortress, broken only by his ragged breathing. Not even the crows spoke, so thoroughly had the onrushing Krad scourged the land. His warrior’s nostrils recognized the heavy, sweet scent of spilled blood and the pungent odor of decomposing flesh. They were battle smells, and he’d often reveled in them. But this was not battle; this was raw, brute savagery.

  When he’d retched himself to the gall, he’d done the only logical thing for a man confronted with the shredded remains of friends, servants, pets. He’d taken a torch and burned it all.

  The Sword of Drakkonwehr drew his hand to its presence at his belt. He fingered the scrolled hand guard, the crosspiece, the bloodstone as he rode out of the boulder’s shadow into the starlight. Today, for the first time since the weapon had broken, he’d felt like a warrior again. He’d killed Krad, and he’d done it well. In some small measure, Durren, the Master of Drakkonwehr, had finally truly returned. And he’d begun to pay his debts.

  ****

  Mirianna’s arms had long ago gone numb. Her shoulders and back vied for the honor of paining her more, but she’d ceased to care. She’d made a deal with a creature of darkness, and she was following him higher and higher into the Wehrland, probably to the very walls of Beggeth itself, but even that didn’t inspire a reaction.

  Every aspect of her being concentrated on the belief each plodding step brought them closer to a point at which they would finally stop. If she could just hang on—to wakefulness, the boy, her perch behind the saddle—she would be rewarded with the knowledge she’d survived the longest night of her life.

  On the traverse she’d noticed a sudden quickening of their pace. The jostling had wrung protests from both her body and the boy. It had spoiled her concentration, awakening her mind to the scream of her muscles. Deciding she would rather die than be tortured further, she’d opened her mouth to plead for a rest when the horses stopped.

  For several heartbeats, she sat in stupefaction, too fatigued to summon a response. The Shadow Man’s silhouette was an ink blot on the night sky, showing his position by the absence of stars. The trail curved down from the ledge on which they stood, and it overlooked a valley bounded on the far side by cliffs so high and sheer, they gleamed even in the starlight.

  “Where are we?” Mirianna said through lips that seemed inordinately slow to pronounce her thought.

  “Drakkonwehr.”

  “Drakkonwehr?” The name sounded significant, but her exhausted mind refused to dredge up the meaning.

  “Dragon Keep. My home.”

  She followed the direction of the Shadow Man’s nod and found, clinging to the near side of the mountain, a massive dark shape that, even at this distance, dwarfed the Master of Nolar’s fortress. In the dimness, she could discern the outlines of an array of towers, turrets, and walls.

  “Dragon Keep?” A frisson of awareness, of comprehension skimmed the back of her neck. “You mean, this is—?”

  “Sur-Drakkoneth, the Valley of the Dragon.”

  Mirianna’s memory clicked, supplying from its depths the story she’d been taught to recite as a child:

  “When dawn returned, Koronolan hurled the Last Dragon deep into the earth, and the land heaved over it, and the Wehrland was formed beside the walls of Beggeth. Dragon’s blood, raining from the sky, became stone, and Dragontime became Dragon’s End. The people rejoiced while Koronolan mounted a bloodstone on the Sword of Drakkonwehr and passed it to his sons and their sons ever after who...”

  Her voice trailed off as her mind absorbed the import of the broken sword, the sheer cliffs, and the human-shaped tower of darkness who sat only feet away astride a ghost of a horse and watched her.

  “—his sons and their sons ever after,” the Shadow Man continued the litany, enunciating each word, “who would watch forever the resting place of the Last Dragon.”

  Mirianna stared, mind reeling, but he turned his horse back to the trail, forcing her gelding to follow. If what he said were true, she’d indeed found herself at the walls of Beggeth. And the mist that gleamed yellow as it crept across the trail ahead of them had to be the very breath of the entombed Dragon. It even smelled faintly sulfurous.

  She gave herself a mental shake. This whole train of thought was absurd, and she would prove it. She shifted the sleeping boy to her left shoulder and clucked to the gelding, urging the horse alongside the gray stallion.

  The black hood turned in her direction and she sensed his regard. She cleared her throat. “Are you—are you telling me that you’re a Drakkonwehr?”

  “I am the Dragonkeeper, yes.”

  “You can’t be. Ulerroth said the last Drakkonwehr died when Herrok-Eneth fell.”

  The horses stopped, but she wasn’t sure if the decision to rein in had been hers or the Shadow Man’s. Either way, his scrutiny made her stomach clench.

  “I believe,” he said softly, “that the story’s proper wording suggests none of the participants were ever seen again. And so I have not been...seen.”

  Mirianna’s nerves hummed a warning. He had only to show himself to her and she would die. But her questions seemed unfazed by the danger her body sensed. “You’re Durren of Drakkonwehr, and you’re the Shadow Man?”

  The hood dipped in a gracious nod.

  She rubbed her temple. “Then the Shadow Man is Durren of Drakkonwehr.”

  “No.”

  “What?” Her head pounded and she closed her eyes against the pain. “That doesn’t—”

  “That needn’t concern you now. We need to get inside the fortress.” He clucked to the horses, and Mirianna gritted her teeth and hung on to the boy.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mirianna threw her arm over her eyes. The sun had no business waking her this early. Her head had barely touched the bedding, and now it was already day? Nearly noon by the height of the sun bouncing off rocks and stone walls and penetrating the sleeve she’d thrown over her face. Groaning, she uncovered one eye and realized she’d slept for hours on no more than a blanket thrown down upon paving stones. Every joint in her body ached as she sat up and took in soaring granite walls, pitted and broken in places as though something huge had swung a club through them. What seemed in starlight like intact towers and turrets were in the clarity of day the shattered remains of a once great fortress.

  Drakkonwehr.

  Had the Shadow Man really told her that, or had she dreamed it? In full daylight, the idea he should claim kinship with—much less the identity of—the presumed dead Durren of Drakkonwehr seemed something her exhausted mind had created, but there was yet the undeniable reality of this fortress. The incongruity made Mirianna’s head ache. She lay down and covered her eyes, seeking to return to the sweet oblivion of sleep.

  The smell of roasting meat teased her nostrils and, stomach rumbling, she turned to look for the source. A fire with a spitted rabbit suspended over it smoked within a circle of stones. Nearby, she saw a well with a bucket sitting on its rim and a trough beside it. Realizing she’d eaten and drunk nothing for the better part of a day, Mirianna rallied stiff muscles and tottered to her feet.

  The chill water she splashed on her face shocked her mind and body into full wakefulness. She drank deeply, then undid her hair and refastened it, shoving loose curls away from her face with hands that shook. Don’t think about Papa. He’s safe with Rees and Pumble. That’s all that matters.

  Inhaling a steadying breath, she surveyed the courtyard. In the shade of one wall, the horses lounged, nose to tail. They’d been hobbled and their tack removed but not organized. She suspected she’d helped pile the gear against the wall, but she could remember nothing beyond lowering the boy into the Shadow Man’s arms and sliding off the gelding herself.

  Of the Shadow Man she could see no sign, but clearly he’d set the rabbit to roasting. The boy still slept, tangled in his blankets, frowning against the sun. His cheeks looked flushed, so Mirianna knelt to lay her hand on
his forehead. During the night, the bandage around his head had come askew and she pulled it off, revealing a puckered, reddened gash. She bit her lip, not liking the look of the wound or the dry heat of his skin.

  He stirred, mumbling something like “Right away, sir.”

  “Good morning, Gareth,” she said, remembering what the Shadow Man had called him, and remembering he couldn’t see her. “How do you feel?”

  He yawned, stretched—and winced. “Sore, miss.” He sat up and she put his staff into his hand.

  “I’ll take you to the well so you can wash.”

  “Where are we?”

  “At Drakkonwehr. Your master’s home.” Or so he says. Recalling the boy’s self-sufficiency during the Krad battle, Mirianna resisted the urge to help him while he rose stiffly and tapped the paving stones with his staff. “Do you remember anything of last night?”

  “Rotten eggs.” He wrinkled his nose as he followed her to the well. “Something smelled of rotten eggs.” Setting aside his stick, he splashed water on his face, then drained the cup she placed in his hands. “Ugh. The water tastes of it, too.”

  Now that he mentioned it, she recognized the sulfurous taste lingering on her tongue. “Get used to it.” She refilled his cup. “You’ll be drinking a lot of it until your fever is gone.”

  Later, Mirianna rooted in the pile of baggage and found a pot, some dry-cake and an assortment of dried herbs. She cut a haunch of rabbit and gave it to the boy with a piece of dry-cake and a cup of warm water steeped with willow bark and chamomile. If she could just remember all the ingredients, she could make a paste to spread on his gashes, but although she’d watched the Nolar herbalist prepare the recipe many times while collecting her father’s teas, her thoughts refused to settle. Instead, she paced, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, and watched the boy eat. At least he had an appetite. When Gareth, despite yawning, suggested they unpack, she refused and made him lie on a blanket in the shade where he promptly fell asleep.