by Sandra Waugh
I joined him, as did Taran and Wilh. There were many stones—shapes, sizes, and colors. I probed the bottom, fingers digging among the rubble. Mottled whites and blacks and browns were plentiful. I finally pulled one up that fit the description: a smooth, round, gray pebble. The gnome was appalled that I held it out to him.
“That? That’s a cinder stone! That would start a fire, not quench one!”
Meekly, I put it back.
Wilh held out another stone from a distance. The gnome, with his keen eyes, exclaimed, “Yes! Bring it here.” He himself fished a white stone from the stream and went back to Arnon. Standing over the Rider’s poisoned arm, the gnome chafed the white stone against the silver-gray.
“A mal stone is the best choice for grinding,” he explained of the white stone as he walked up and down the length of the arm briskly rubbing the two pebbles together. “It is neutral; its residue will not change the properties of any potion.” Tiny grains were filtering onto the sap-smeared arm as he moved busily back and forth, and he made small mutterings of approval at his own efforts. Then, suddenly, he finished. “There! ’Tis enough.”
I, who, like all the Riders, skeptically watched this odd little service, asked, “But what have you done?”
The gnome’s pride in his task was only slightly deflated at my ignorance. “The barren stone draws fire and poison,” he said, shaking the pebble at me. Then, with an enormous sigh of exasperation, he exclaimed, “For a Guardian, you are woefully unlearned!”
I bridled. “If I am one, then it is something I’ve only known for three days.”
“Hmph. Most likely you refused to know it. Are you not seventeen?”
“Not yet. Soon.”
“Well, then. That explains your immaturity. Though his stupidity”—and the gnome tossed his head toward Gharain—“is inexcusable.”
We heard Gharain’s remark at the insult, but the gnome ignored this and simply called out to him, “You, sir, are capable of much. But you have let your passions guide your spirit. If you do not have control of them, you will do more harm than the good you were meant for.”
“How would you know anything about me?” snapped Gharain.
“It is ignorant to assume that because you do not know me, then I should not know you,” the gnome snapped back. Tiny or not, the gnome held no fear of Gharain’s outbursts.
But then the gnome turned to me, catching my small smile. “And you, Lady Lark, you would do as well to watch your emotions. They will confuse you sorely. If they don’t save you, they will be your end.”
Laurent intervened after a speechless moment. “What about Arnon?”
“Watch his arm, and you will see,” replied the gnome, and released my shocked gaze.
He explained to us the properties of the wicks and the sap and the stone grindings, none of which I fully heard, but, as we watched, we indeed saw the sap begin to mottle and bubble—lifting the red from Arnon’s skin.
“Now,” said the gnome, “a tourniquet!”
Ian was closest. He handed the gnome the cloth from his belt, and the gnome draped it over the top of Arnon’s arm, by his shoulder.
“Here, my lady, fashion a knot for me. As tightly as you can.”
I did so, and the gnome nodded in approval. “No finger space between the cloth and skin. There. Now, are you ready?”
I nodded, already a little sick from the poison steaming from the arm. He said, “Now tug with me! Pull the material straight down to his elbow.”
We tugged the cloth down the arm, scraping up the sap. Arnon gritted his teeth against the pain, his face paling while the skin we slowly exposed returned to its normal color.
“Stop!” the gnome commanded when we reached Arnon’s elbow. “Retie the knot here at the forearm. The cloth must stay tight.” I retied, shakily, and Arnon caught his breath.
“Ready?” the gnome asked. I swallowed back the bile, gripped the cloth.
But Gharain stepped in, ignoring the gnome’s little sniff. “Let me,” he said quietly. “Let me.” He took over, his hand brushing mine as I pulled back.
“Hurry,” barked the gnome. “We must scrape those bubbles from his arm.”
And they dragged the fabric down, stopping once more to tie it tighter just above his wrist. And finally, at the base of his palm, the gnome called a halt. Gharain unknotted the cloth. The gnome told Ian to wash it in the stream.
“ ’Tis ruined, is it not?” Ian asked, catching the filthy cloth that Gharain tossed to him.
“Running water will not hold poison. The sap will rinse away, as will the stone dust. The wicks you can toss back on the earth. They will regrow.”
“Look at his arm,” said Evaen.
We looked to Arnon, who flexed his arm gingerly. Blessedly, it looked quite normal—no longer bloated red and reeking.
“Was it hukon?” I whispered, still hoarse.
The gnome shook his head. “If they’d used hukon, he’d be dead.” He leaned toward Arnon. “ ’Twill feel like jelly for a day or so, but you were lucky.”
Arnon shook his limb. “Useless for now,” he said. “But I thank you.”
“You should not work it much until the strength returns—in particular, do not take up your sword. In its weakened state, your arm might draw the bad energy your sword defends against.”
Laurent stepped forward, saying, “You have our thanks, little man.” And he bowed, head to chest, hand to breast. All of us followed suit.
The gnome nodded, and stayed standing stiffly poised. We looked at him. He looked at all of us. I wondered if he expected some sort of payment.
“Your task is complete,” said Laurent gently. “You may go at your leisure.”
“Complete? Leisure? What nonsense do you speak?” the gnome asked, drawing up as tall as he could.
“We would not keep you longer from your business,” Laurent said.
The little man turned to me. “You are my business.”
I looked at him blankly. “But you’ve helped Arnon! That is what I asked.”
The gnome sighed. “It is not my concern that you so poorly stated your request. You would do well to be more specific next time.”
“But I don’t know what else you can do to help!”
The little man stamped both feet at me. “How is it a Guardian may be so dense? Tell me: Are you simply on your way home? Are you returning to your business?”
“We go to defend my village, the village of Merith—”
“Then you go wrong. That is not your battle,” the gnome interrupted.
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly as I said. That is not your battle.”
“But the Troths attack!”
“And that is not your battle, Lady Lark. This is your fight, but that is not your battle. The Riders will protect Merith.”
“I don’t understand.” I was purposely contrary. I didn’t like that he implied I was not meant to fight for Merith. It was the same as being told I could not use a sword.
“Yes, you do,” the gnome returned bluntly. Then he sighed again, as if he would have to remember to be very patient with me, and announced to all, “I ride with Lark.” He turned back to me and asked, “Have you something that I can be supported in, on your back? For I will not be carried in your arm again like an infant.”
I shook my head. But then Gharain said, “Wait,” and went to retrieve something from his horse. “Here,” he said, returning and holding out a familiar, small crumple of sturdy cloth. “This remained with my things.”
Silly, but there was great comfort in seeing my pack again. I shook it open, knowing it was empty, but stuck my hand in anyway. And I brought up Quin’s fern sprig, which had wedged itself somewhere in the seam. It was dried but intact, and I was happy and strangely relieved to find it. I looked up to thank Gharain and blushed to find him grinning at the pleasure he’d brought me.
“That is an excellent travel container,” the gnome announced. “Just right.” He walk
ed over to where I still sat on the ground and took the fern from my fingers, sniffing it. “This is a good friend,” he announced, and tucked it inside his own waistpack. “For safekeeping.” Then he climbed into the center of my pack and pulled it up around him. “I am ready,” he announced, as if we were waiting on him.
The Riders and I exchanged glances. I looked down at the gnome. “When do I say my farewells?”
“We will know when we know,” the gnome answered. “For now we ride with the Riders.”
“We should start,” said Laurent. “The morning is full on.”
There was a flurry of motion as the Riders made ready, but it was done quickly; they were expert at departing at a moment’s notice. I slung the pack on my back carefully, and Marc, being closest, lifted me onto Rune. But it was Gharain who trotted his horse near to give me some of the Tarnec hardbread. I’d included him when I called the Riders my friends. And we behaved now as friends might, not speaking of last night. If Gharain was upset, he did not show it, nor would he have seen I was sadly grateful that he bore no grudge at my rejection. Gharain held out some hardbread then for the gnome, but the gnome turned up his nose at the offer.
“I have my own sustenance,” the little man said to Gharain, who glared in equal disdain.
“Gnome!” I said loudly to prevent further quarrel. “We do not know your name.”
“That,” he answered, “is because I have not told it to you.”
“Well, then?” asked Gharain.
“Nay.” The gnome shook his head. “You would not understand it, for it is not of your language.”
“Try us,” Gharain said dryly.
The gnome eyed him for a brief moment. And then, with a little gleam in his eye, he opened his mouth and emitted a series of terrible, rasping, unintelligible shrieks.
“That,” I interrupted, wincing, “is rather long!”
“Yes, well, we add to our names as we age. And I have reached a substantial age,” he said proudly. Then he shrugged. “But you may choose a name to suit your weaker ears.”
“We should call you Runt,” Gharain muttered.
“Twig.” I intervened quickly. “We’ll call you Twig.”
I felt the gnome shrug again behind me. “A true name matters only if one has earned it,” he said. “But this alias makes some sense and is easy for you, and so I do not mind.”
Gharain spurred his horse and moved ahead. I patted Rune, who’d accepted the odd little passenger with only mild curiosity, and followed the Riders out of the clearing.
“You are to stay with me?” I asked Twig again. “You’ll go with me to find the crystal orb?”
His jaw was level to my shoulder, and he said in my ear, “I am your help. You were wise to ask for it.”
“But how long—?”
He answered as I should have expected: “We will know when we know.”
RIDERS TRAVEL IN single file. I’d seen this earlier; I suppose it is habit from traversing the hills of Tarnec with their narrow and treacherous paths. We were strung along the Cullan foothills like beads adorning a garment, a green garment that stretched on in all directions. Sitting higher now than when I first walked this route, I was even more aware of the vast expanse of rolling land punctuated here and there with the bits of jutting boulders and stone slabs.
It was still as bleak.
Twig had been quizzing me incessantly since we began our ride. He’d asked of Merith, of my family, of my friends. He’d asked about the village elders and the fox and Ruber Minwl’s hand. He’d insisted on knowing the herbs Grandmama grew and how many ghisane I’d ripped in the early days of summer; when I’d sewn the pack he sat in, what we ate for supper, and whether I combed my hair with wood or shell. All these things in no particular order, all in annoying, exhausting, and overly specific detail; Twig ate up the information as if it were food and he were starved. His questions grated, since it seemed he already knew the answers and yet could not be more curious at how I would respond.
And then there were questions on the Sight and my recent visions and what did I see and how did I feel and what did I learn.…
Finally I’d said, “Enough.” He’d given me a headache. With a not-so-discreet sniff, Twig fell silent and I could at last try to turn my mind to pleasanter things.
Yet I couldn’t think of anything pleasant. Whether from the burden of questions, the lack of sleep, the threat of Breeders and Troths and vulnerable Merith, or all of it, I was short-tempered and impatient. The sky itself lowered with a similar mood, darkening with the hint of rain—unusual, for it had barely rained this midsummer. I watched Gharain’s back. I stared at the landscape; I stroked my fingers through Rune’s mane and felt, overall, melancholy at the prospect of being home so soon.
It was the imminent introduction of Gharain to Evie that upset me. We’d shared the past days. Now the inevitable was soon upon us, and it made me ache that this short time together would be forever gone.
E’en so quick may one fall.… A phrase of song rolled around and around in my head. Gharain had fallen quickly for Erema; he’d briefly thought to fall for me. With Evie it would be even more rapid—with her temperament and beauty, how could it not? And Evie’s feelings? That too was something I could not criticize, for with the very first dream of Gharain I’d lost my heart.
I felt sorry for Raif.
A hawk was circling in the distance ahead. We were nearing the edges of Dark Wood and the Niler marshes. I saw the stone where I’d stopped, exhausted and scared—how small it stood against the landscape! Insignificant now, when once it provided a place of support.
I sighed. Nothing changing and yet nothing the same.
The hawk drew a lazy arc in the sky, gray against gray. Twig had fallen asleep, or was sulking. We plodded, one horse behind the other, the Riders always upright and alert, while I sagged into Rune with unpleasant lethargy.
And then Twig said suddenly in my ear, “Have care, Lady Lark!”
I think I answered, “What?” But then the hair on the back of my neck pricked, and I gasped. I saw a wall of flames shoot up before me, was raw to the blistering heat and acrid smell. I heard shouts, and then—
And then I was seated on Rune, panting for air, looking around wildly even as the Riders had halted and Ian was calling and Gharain was turning Petral to reach me.
“It’s—I—” Then I went rigid, for the hair on the back of my neck jumped, and I was no longer on Rune but watching Troths running, scrabbling, and slithering out of Dark Wood toward Merith. Through Krem Poss’s field they streamed, through the lavender, and straight through the cottage belonging to Daen Hurn. The village bell was clanging wildly, discordantly, and I heard voices screaming, but they were not human voices. I could see no villager—only the Troths. They were headed toward the village square.
I tried to yell for the Riders, to call out to Evie and Grandmama, but I had no voice—I was not there. I could only follow madly as if I too were charging through Merith, as if I were a Troth. And then the earth was shuddering from the violence of battle. I saw a chimney topple—I thought it was Thom Maker’s cottage, but I no longer recognized what I saw. Thatch was flying in the hot wind that sprang up. There was the smell of stone dust and stinging bits of grit in the air; I turned a corner and saw in the market square that wall of flame. The screaming wouldn’t stop—frantic, vicious, and terrifying. From out of the fire a sword came arcing down, and then another, and then shadows were running in the haze of smoke and heat—the Riders swooping in with savage fury, answering shrieks of sheer horror. My eyes were unfocused; I was tumbling, rolling over the ground between wall and stone and leg. The smoke was less dense near the ground, but the dust choked and clung, and I could smell the stench of the Troths all around me. I smelled blood.
And then, as I righted, I saw through the fire the tall shape of Rune, wheeling, rearing, mane flying as he turned and pawed the air. His hooves slashed down, and his beautiful white forelegs were red with blood.
&n
bsp; I was not on his back.
And I screamed and screamed and could not stop screaming, even as Gharain’s hands closed around my arms, cutting off the awful images.
“No, don’t! Stop!” I struggled to break his grip. “Let me be!” I had to finish witnessing this horror, had to know what would become of my beautiful horse. “Rune!” I screamed once more, “Rune!”
But I was here, by the marshes, and the returning whinny came, not from the vision but from the horse, standing now above me, looking down at my ungainly sprawl beneath him in the grass. I opened my eyes to see his pristine coat, and the leg that pawed gently at the ground near my head, and I burst into tears.
“Lark!” The Riders must have all said it at once. The noise in my ears was unbearable; sobs convulsed my whole body.
“Do something!” It was Gharain, frantic. “Do something, gnome!”
And Twig’s smaller but deep voice was replying, “This I cannot fix.”
Gharain swore, whether at Twig or his own helplessness, I didn’t know, didn’t care. Rune …
I rolled over to one side, retching up an empty stomach, as if it could spill out the gruesome images. I wrenched from the ground, clawing at my hair, my tunic, anything to wipe away the brutality. I caught Gharain’s side hard with my wrist, felt his sword. And I dragged it from him even as I shrieked at its burning cold, unbearable weight. If he’d not twisted it from my grasp, I would have sliced it across my belly to tear out the vision.
“Lark! Lark! Stop!”
“Get it out! Get it out!” I sobbed, trying to grab back the sword. “Get it out!”
“Lark! It’s all right! It will be all right!”
“Merith! They are taking Merith!” Hands held me down, forced me back on the ground. And then, “Rune! Rune!”
The horse was there, leaning down to nudge me with his soft nose, blowing grass-scented breath over my cheek.
“Let him breathe on you, Lady Lark!” Twig’s voice was harsh. “Draw it in!”
