by Jocelyn Fox
The charred skeleton of the dark rider lay at my feet, indistinguishable from the crown of bones he had worn. The other creatures’ corpses lay in smoking heaps, the stench of death filling the air. I fell to my knees and retched, bitter bile filling my mouth. When I’d finished, I spat disgustedly, and thought that at least I’d had the presence of mind to hold the Sword to one side. I had a feeling the ancient weapon wouldn’t have taken kindly to the mess.
“For your first battle, that was well done,” said a familiar voice behind me. I looked up and saw Ramel standing over me, a hasty bandage wrapped tightly around his arm. The smudge of blue fire on his brow was fading slowly. I looked down at the Sword and found it absorbing the last of the blue fire. Shakily, I slid it into its sheath. It settled into the sheath with a contented hum, an exhausted and somewhat smug triumph in its tone.
“No need to get cocky,” I told it as I let go of the pommel. A little ripple of energy very much like a chuckle shivered through me.
Once the Sword was sheathed, Ramel stepped closer and helped me stand. He embraced me in a fierce, brotherly hug, then held me at arm’s length, inspecting me. “Easy now,” he said, taking my chin in his hand and turning my face to examine the long stripe of stitches running down my cheek.
“Courtesy of a cadengriff,” I told him. The edges of my vision frayed with exhaustion and I swayed. I felt another warm form at my other side. A strange singing filled my ears, faint and beautiful.
“So you are the true Bearer,” Finnead said softly. He still held the Brighbranr, and I realized that it was his blade singing, and the Iron Sword thrummed in response. Finnead looked at his sword, then at me, and went down on one knee, holding the Brighbranr before him like an offering, bowing his dark head. I stared at him for a moment in shock, then lurched forward, pulling at his arm.
“Please don’t,” I said. “I don’t care if it’s courtesy, I just…”
He gazed at me with those enigmatic blue eyes as he stood, still holding the Brighbranr on his palms. The Brighbranr’s song swelled. It was achingly beautiful. I heard Ramel let out a breath beside me. “I have never heard her sing like this before,” Finnead told me softly.
Then the Iron Sword hummed a note of acknowledgment, satisfied with the Brighbranr’s greeting. Finnead’s blade fell silent, and he sheathed it, running a hand through his hair. After he slid the blade into its sheath, exhaustion settled over his face, as though the Brighbranr had been supplying him with the energy to keep fighting. “Tess…you saved my company,” he started, hesitating.
“You brought back the Iron Sword,” added Ramel, awe still coloring his voice.
I shrugged. “I did what had to be done.” I paused, feeling the weight of the Sword on my back. “I claimed what was mine.” Shifting uncomfortably, I finished, “I’ll tell you the whole story later, I promise. But for now…we should focus on other things. Are all the creatures…are they dead?” A prickle of reproach from the Sword needled me; it was a bit offended, that I would even question the efficacy of its sweeping power. I sent it a silent apology, adding that it was more for Ramel and Finnead’s benefit than my own that I asked.
“Resoundingly,” Finnead replied with a smile.
“You’re bleeding,” I told him, touching his side. Then I turned my head. “Where’s Beryk?”
At the sound of his name, Beryk, now noticeably smaller than during the battle, loped over and thrust his head into my hand. I bent down and pressed my face into his fur for a brief moment. Then he shot like an arrow across the clearing as Vell emerged from the woods at a run, her sword drawn and ready.
“What the hell?” she said, looking at the charred corpses of the enemy. She kicked one with her boot-toe vengefully. Then she sighted me and strode across the clearing. “You couldn’t have waited ten more minutes? So I could kill just one?” she asked me. Beryk snorted.
I grinned lopsidedly. “Sorry.”
After shaking her head and nudging the bones of the dark rider with the tip of her sword, Vell grinned back at me and sheathed her blade. “Well, Tess, I will say you’re a handy girl to have around in a fight.”
I chuckled. Finnead touched my arm.
“I must go see to my company,” he said, blue eyes heavy. I nodded, and he left me with Ramel. I didn’t envy him the task of counting the dead.
“I should help,” I said.
“You can barely stand,” Ramel told me gently.
Vell fished something out of her belt-pouch and held it out to me.
“That stuff tastes horrible,” I protested. A hollow feeling had replaced hunger, and my stomach had stopped growling at some point during the battle.
“Eat it anyway,” Vell told me, pressing the dense Northern bread into my hand.
The bread was heavy and cloying against my tongue, but I choked it down, and immediately felt better. Some of the shakiness left my limbs and Ramel relaxed his grip on my elbow. I hadn’t even realized he’d been supporting some of my weight until I was able to stand up properly again. Then Ramel went very still beside me, and I looked up to find Molly standing in front of me, her dark hair shining in the moonlight. A low growl vibrated in Beryk’s chest until Vell put a hand on his head, her own gaze tensely riveted on me.
“I apologize,” Molly said softly, “for letting my uncle treat you so roughly.” Her beautiful face remained ethereal, still glowing with that Fae light. My heart twisted, and I had to clear my throat before I spoke.
“Do you remember any more of your family?” I asked, searching her face.
She shook her head, her gray eyes inscrutable. “I have no other living relative. My father was his brother.”
I looked over her shoulder, searching for the Vaelanmavar.
“He is not with me, if you must know,” she said.
Ramel tensed beside me, and I knew that he felt the same dark tendril of foreboding that crawled up my spine.
“I came to tell you,” Molly continued smoothly, “that one of your friends, Emery I think is his name, is dying.” She turned and pointed. “He is lying over there. I did what I could to help him.”
Before Molly finished her sentence, I pushed past her, her ice-cold voice weighing on my heart as much as the words she had spoken. I ran toward where she had pointed, Ramel close behind me. Jumping over a charred pile of bones, I slid to a stop in the grass, almost colliding with Emery’s prone form.
“Emery,” I said desperately, touching his shoulder.
“We need a light,” Ramel said, casting about for anything that would serve as a torch. Without looking up from Emery’s still body, I sent up a small glowing ball of taebramh, casting a bright blue light over the scene. Ramel moved to Emery’s other side and rolled him over so that the wounded man lay on his back. Under the blue light, his face looked ghostly, his dark hair standing out starkly against his pale forehead. I pressed two fingers to his neck and breathed a sigh of relief when I found a pulse. His skin was alarmingly cold. Ramel took out his dagger and slit the front of Emery’s shirt open, ripping away the fabric.
The wound stretched from Emery’s right shoulder to the left side of his rib-cage. It was deep, bleeding sluggishly, but that was no comfort since the ground below him shone wetly with dark blood.
“Emery,” I said, laying my hand along the side of his face. I knew that Emery would have never tolerated such an open display of emotion if he’d been conscious, and I would have given anything to hear one of his cool, acerbic remarks, to see the dry humor in his eyes as he delivered a witty comment. “Come on, open your eyes. You have to…you have to keep me humble, now that I’m Bearer and all.”
Ramel looked on grimly, and stopped one of the Sidhe running past. He requisitioned a satchel, and promptly found a flask of dark liquid. “This will rouse him, if anything will,” he said. “It will turn white if there’s iro
n in the wound.”
We both breathed a sigh of relief when the liquid retained its dark hue, frothing over Emery’s chest. Ramel shook his head when Emery didn’t stir.
“We’re going to lose him,” he said quietly, voice laden with sadness.
“Don’t say that,” I snapped. I pressed my free hand to Emery’s chest, just above the wound, feeling the faltering beat of his heart. I closed my eyes, and took a spark of taebramh, telling my power to sting him out of unconsciousness, and then soothe his pain. The sliver of blue light flowed down my arm and through my palm. Emery jerked beneath my hand, I opened my eyes, and he cried out in pain. But his eyes were open. Ramel said something under his breath—a curse or a prayer, I couldn’t tell which—and leaned over his comrade, speaking softly and quickly into his ear.
Finally Emery nodded, his breath coming harsh and fast. “Do what…you must,” he panted, and then he looked up at me. “Tess…may I…could you…hold…” He closed his eyes briefly, and I couldn’t decide whether it was from the pain of his wound or the difficulty of asking for comfort. I silently took his hand, leaning across him to block his view of Ramel. His hand gripped mine with a desperate strength.
“Move the light a little, please,” Ramel muttered, threading a long needle. The ball of light zipped over to his side, and he reached out with his free hand, positioning it precisely over Emery.
Emery gazed up at me, fighting not to show the pain as Ramel began working. “You…brought me back,” he said wonderingly. “Your power…I had to obey…”
“Of course you had to obey,” I said thickly. “I wasn’t going to let you leave us, not when all the fun’s just starting.” My attempt at a smile wobbled, but he seemed to accept it.
“Please,” he gritted out, a groan escaping his clenched teeth as Ramel continued stitching, “don’t…tell Guinna…or Bren. They’ll never…stop worrying…”
I brushed his dark hair back from his forehead as he bit his lip. “I’ll let you come up with a story for the scar then.”
“They…don’t need to know…how close…” He had to stop, the pain overwhelming him as Ramel poured another dose of the dark liquid into the wound. My hand ached from his strong grip. He arched his back and Ramel grimly held him down. I put my other hand on his uninjured shoulder, my thumb rubbing soothing circles on his skin. After a few moments, the wave of agony passed and his body went limp again. I tapped his cheek gently.
“Stay awake for me, Emery,” I told him.
“Almost done,” Ramel said encouragingly.
“Tell me...was it really you, with the green fire?” Emery asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “I should have let the Sword free sooner,” I added apologetically.
He shook his head weakly. “Not your fault. I…let a troll…surprise me…your friend, the fendhionne…she saved me.”
I looked down at him in shock. “Molly saved you?”
“I was about to lose my head,” Emery said, a trace of his old acerbic wit in his words. “And she stepped over me…took off the troll’s head instead.”
“I’ll have to thank her, then.” I tried to keep the wonder from my voice. “Or rather, you can thank her yourself.”
Emery clenched his jaw as he tried to smile. I glanced over my shoulder. “Last few stitches,” I told Emery. He nodded and I squeezed his hand.
“Don’t tell anyone…that I held your hand…either,” he wheezed, a real smile glimmering in his eyes.
“Your secret is safe with me. I mean, I can’t have every handsome wounded soldier wanting to hold my hand, in any case,” I pointed out with a grin.
Ramel took out a jar from the satchel and carefully applied a greenish salve to the long ugly line of stitches running like a sash across Emery’s chest. Emery almost broke my fingers when we eased him into a sitting position so that Ramel could bandage his chest, clenching my hand in his own.
The gentle touch of dawn’s first light washed over the clearing as Ramel finished binding Emery’s wound. The cool gray illumination pushed away the shadows, throwing into stark relief the ugly corpses scattered around the battlefield, the still-smoking piles of charred bone and ash. Here and there, I glimpsed shrouded prone figures, covered respectfully with gray cloaks, weapons laid neatly by their sides, and my chest ached. I didn’t have the heart to count the dead. Ramel saw the direction of my gaze as he packed up the healing-satchel. Emery leaned against me, his back resting against my shoulder.
“You did more than any of us could do,” he told me. He smiled a little wryly. “One day the student surpasses the teacher.” He finished placing the healing supplies back in the satchel and caught my gaze with his. “You did that, this night. You made me proud to have been your teacher.”
I smiled lopsidedly. “Thanks, Ramel.”
“Am I interrupting a sentimental moment?”
My head snapped up at the voice, an intense wave of disgust and dislike roiling up within me. The Iron Sword vibrated in its sheath. Ramel slid his arm around Emery’s shoulders, taking the wounded man’s weight. I moved carefully, letting Ramel replace me, and then I stood to face the Vaelanmavar. I drew my shoulders back and forced myself to meet his one-eyed gaze. “Is there a matter which we need to discuss?”
“I would say so,” he said.
I saw Beryk slipping around the edge of the clearing, slinking up in the long grass behind the Vaelanmavar, watching him with the eyes of a hunter.
“You have found the Iron Sword, and for that we owe you our…gratitude,” he continued, leering on the last word.
I heard Ramel draw in a breath and I made a slight cutting motion with my hand behind my back, pretending to check the straps of the sheath. Tilting my head to the side, I watched the Vaelanmavar coolly, waiting for him to go on.
“And now, the time has come for you to give the Sword to its rightful bearer,” he finished. Molly glided up behind him, not noticing or ignoring the crouched shadowy form of the wolf. The Iron Sword pulsed in fury at the Vaelanmavar’s words, and it was all I could do to convince it not to lash out at the knight.
“Who exactly might that be?” I asked, though I knew the answer perfectly well.
The Vaelanmavar motioned to Molly. “The Prophesied One.”
I heard the Mavarbranr droning from within its sheath, a heavy dark tone that sounded nothing like the high, sweet song of Finnead’s blade. It sounded like a drugged man trying to hum a tune he half-remembered. I frowned as the Sword stilled, listening to the drone of the Mavarbranr, trying to understand.
Vell walked up behind me. I glanced at her and she gave me a tight nod, her golden eyes hard and her hand resting lightly on her sword-hilt.
“Slippery things, prophesies,” I told the Vaelanmavar. His one eye narrowed in fury. “I’ve been bound by blood to the Sword.” I saw his hand move toward the hilt of the Mavarbranr, and I drew the Iron Sword from its sheath, blazing with blue fire and pulsing with fury. I leveled the blade, pointing its deadly tip at the Vaelanmavar’s chest. Beryk coiled himself, ready to spring. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” I said softly. “If you draw a sword against me, you will not survive.” The cold deadliness in my voice surprised me, but I knew that there were parts of me now that would scare me a little, being bound to the most powerful weapon in the Sidhe world.
“She speaks the truth, Uncle,” Molly said in her clear, beautiful voice.
I glanced at her in surprise.
“Well,” the Vaelanmavar said, his voice low and venomous as he took a step away from me, “if the mortal bitch speaks truth, then you are of no use to me.” He drew the Mavarbranr in one smooth motion and swung it in a deadly arc, straight toward Molly’s neck. I leapt forward, but before I touched him with the blazing Sword, the clash of another blade meeting the Mavarbranr rang out. Molly knocked the Mavarbranr aside, the se
cond of her twin blades glimmering in her hand, her stroke stopping just short of the Vaelanmavar’s neck. I rested the Iron Sword against the other side of his neck.
“Drop your sword,” I told him softly.
The knight snarled in helpless fury. He started forward half a pace and Molly cut a thin line along the side of his throat. Dark blood slid down his neck, and he froze. I slowly circled him until I stood next to Molly.
“Believe me, they are serious,” Ramel told the Vaelanmavar.
The Vaelanmavar’s one eye glared at me spitefully. “You’ve threatened to kill me twice now, mortal, and yet here I am.” His mouth twisted in a sneer.
“Don’t push your luck,” I replied grimly, and the Iron Sword blazed, energy crackling down its length and hitting the Vaelanmavar like a sledgehammer. He staggered backward and went to his knees. Ramel seized the back of the knight’s shirt and hauled him up.
“I do believe that the attempted murder of a guest of the Queen, not to mention your own blood, is quite enough to arrest you,” Ramel told the knight. Molly sheathed one of her long blades and stepped forward, wresting the Mavarbranr from her uncle’s hand with surprising force, her beauty laced with deadly rage. Ramel bound the knight’s hands behind him. Beryk growled in satisfaction.
“Take care of Emery,” Ramel told me. I nodded, and he shoved the Vaelanmavar forward roughly, marching him back toward the barracks. I saw Donovan walk over to Ramel, sword drawn, joining the escort.
“Good riddance,” Vell said. She spat to the side, glaring at the Vaelanmavar’s diminishing form.
“He was going to kill me,” Molly said, a tremor in her voice. I slid the Iron Sword into its sheath. “He was my only family, and he was going to kill me.” I stepped forward hesitantly.
