by Jocelyn Fox
When he awoke next, Elias was gone. The cave was so dark that it was difficult to see anything at all. Rye told him quietly that he’d slept for two more days. Then he thought he saw the flicker of firelight glowing on the wall of the cave farther down the winding passage that must lead to the entrance. The echo of firelight gave them a bit of light by which to see. Rye fed him bits of stale bread soaked in gritty water. She had somehow smuggled a few small pouches of healing herbs in with her – or perhaps their captors had given them to her, Finn didn’t know anymore and he was too exhausted to puzzle over it. But she used a bit of their precious stash to ease the pain in his head, and she gently sponged away the grime and gore from his face with a bit of cloth torn from her own shirt.
“I tried to help you as best I could while you were unconscious,” she murmured, “but sometimes you would jerk and thrash at my touch, and I didn’t want to hurt you further.”
His shoulders ached from the forced position of his bonds, and his hands had long ago gone numb. As he leaned against the cave wall, Rye tried to loosen the rope binding his wrists, growling curses under her breath as the iron woven into the rope burned her fingers. Finn clenched his jaw as she succeeded and the blood rushed back into his hands; tears pricked his eyes as she rubbed his hands between her own and quietly but firmly instructed him to move each finger in turn.
“Why?” he asked her as she attempted to alleviate some of the pressure on his shoulders. She looked at him sharply. The swelling on the left side of her face had receded, leaving the ugly bruise, fading to green and yellow at the edges.
“I don’t know what you’re asking,” she said quietly.
They heard the echoes of voices. Rye went very still as though she knew what to expect next. Elias’ screams took Finn by surprise, and he listened in helpless horror, knowing the amount of agony it would take to wring such a sound from the Guard.
“Why are you tending to me,” said Finn hoarsely, “when it is my failure that landed us here.”
Rye winced as Elias’ voice broke and faded into sobs. She took a breath and then grasped Finn firmly by the shoulders. “That is absolute nonsense, Finn. You fought harder than any of us. They took Andraste after nearly killing you.”
He closed his eyes. “I should have recognized the warning of the first attack.”
“And done what? Turned back? We would have been tracked regardless.” Rye shook her head. “If it’s anyone’s failure, it’s the Queen’s. Her Knights and Guards have been hunting strange creatures on her lands, and she thinks nothing of it. The ulfdrengr warned her of a darkness rising in the North, and she chose to ignore them.”
“If she chose to ignore them, then so did I,” said Finn wearily. The memory of the ulfdrengr’s insult seemed a lifetime ago. He hadn’t attended the feast because he’d still been recovering from the gauntlet. Had he already awoken and been told that Kieran was dead? Perhaps he’d join Kieran soon.
“None of that now,” said Rye sharply.
He looked at her, startled. Had she read his mind?
“Don’t need to read minds to see the despair on your face,” she replied. Elias’ screams echoed through the cave again. They heard Andraste’s voice raised in protest, and just hearing such evidence of the Princess’s survival made Finn straighten against the cave wall.
“That’s it,” said Rye with a nod. She shifted, her shackles clinking against one another. “Don’t give in. Set your mind to healing your body.”
Finn took a deep breath and settled calmly against the cave wall. Rye was right – enough self-flagellation and despair. They had no weapons and they were held by a force overwhelmingly stronger than them, but they would formulate a plan. And for him to be a part of any plan, he had to focus on regaining his strength. All pages and squires were taught techniques to minimize pain, ways to bend their body to their mind’s will. He had studied such methods on his own as a squire, and he had used them to his benefit during both training and the gauntlet. Now, he drew on all his knowledge to settle his mind into that peculiar space between wakefulness and sleep, focusing on the feel of his breath being drawn into his lungs and exhaled from his lips. His ribs ached. He would start there.
He jolted out of his trance when two shadowy forms dragged Elias into the cave. Rye held carefully still, her pale eyes observing the two large figures. In the dim light, Finn couldn’t make out much beyond their imposing size and the fact that they needed no torch to see in the gloom. Elias moaned as they dumped him roughly on the ground and left without a word.
“Stars above,” he whispered as he saw the gleam of blood and bare bone.
Rye moved over to Elias and bent over him. When she straightened, Finn glimpsed the gleam of tears on her cheeks. He knew with a sinking heart that the Guard was dying, and he painfully moved across the small chamber toward them, reduced to pushing himself along the wall with his shoulders and bound feet, falling on his face more than once. When he reached them, Rye had pulled Elias’ head onto her lap, her hands wet with his blood.
Finn tried not to look at the terrible disfigurement of the Guard’s body. He wanted to remember the Guard as the steadfast and loyal warrior he had been in life, not the broken and mangled body he had been reduced to by whatever terrible evil had captured them.
Elias’ lips moved, and Rye bent her head closer to hear his barely-whispered words.
“Six,” the Guard said. “And…dark mage.”
Rye smoothed back the Guard’s hair, tears glistening in her eyes. “Thank you, Elias.”
The dying man smiled, the pain slowly draining from his bruised face. Finn saw the empty herb pouch discarded by Rye’s leg; he glanced at her in sudden clarity, but she was focused solely on Elias. She began to sing softly, an ulfdrengr song in the Northern tongue, the melody plaintive and wild.
“May the stars welcome you, brother,” said Finn, wishing he could reach out and grasp Elias’ shoulder. The Guard died without a sound. Rye’s song changed from lamenting to a different tone, one that Finn could only recognize as joyful and celebratory, though she wept without any attempt to hold back her tears. He understood that the Northern song started by mourning the loss of a warrior, and then transitioned into a celebration of the lost one’s strength and valor. He found tears in his own eyes and he made no move to brush them away. Rye finished her song and sat silently for a moment.
“They will be angry when they discover he is dead,” she said thickly. “He took his death into his own hands.”
“Did he ask you?” Finn said. Whatever herb Rye had used, the pouch was now empty. There would be no easy passing for them.
“Yes. We planned it. He thought that if he died in their hands, the sorcerer might be able to use him.” Rye swallowed as she eased Elias’ still form onto the ground. “He held out for as long as he could.”
“He faced it with courage,” said Finn quietly.
They sat with Elias’ body, mostly silent. At one point, Rye laid her head gently on Finn’s shoulder. He leaned his forehead against hers in wordless support, grateful for her warmth and the sound of her breath in the crushing silence of their captivity.
When they heard footsteps in the passageway, Rye straightened. “They’ll take me,” she said calmly. She looked at him, her pale eyes still piercing even in the gloom. “Andraste loves you best, so they will save you for last.” She considered. “Though it is possible they will use both of us at once.”
“Whatever happens, we will not lose hope,” said Finn, though the words sounded frail against the monstrosity they faced.
Rye nodded and turned to face their captors. She made no sound as they struck her and then dragged her away. Finn closed his eyes and swallowed his impotent rage as he leaned back against the wall, sliding into that space between waking and sleeping, willing his body to heal itself.
Chapter 31
It was late in the afternoon by the time Ramel summoned enough energy to cut the ropes of his harness and climb slowly down out of the tree
. His head pounded with unrelenting intensity. He realized with a little groan that he felt worse than the time that he’d drank a whole pitcher of vinaess on a dare as a page. The cuts on his chest added a sharp, dissonant pain to the ache of his head. When he finally dropped to the ground, he fell to his hands and knees and retched miserably until he felt empty and wrung out. His hair stuck to his forehead, a cold sweat dampening his body and making him shiver. He tried to stand and failed, only succeeding in jabbing himself in the side with Finnead’s bow, still slung over his shoulder. Then, with a rustle of leaves and a huff of warm breath, the black faehal stood next to him, lowering its great head to peer at him questioningly.
Ramel smiled and pressed one hand to the charger’s muzzle. He pushed himself to his feet and had grabbed a handful of mane when dizziness overwhelmed him again. The black steed stood patiently as Ramel walked his way unsteadily toward the saddlebags. With an arm draped over the saddle for balance, he took a few gulps of water and forced himself to eat a few pieces of dried fruit, though the sweetness seemed cloying to him. A few moments later, he felt steady enough to stand on his own, though he kept a hand resting on the faehal’s flank as insurance.
He pulled out a packet of food and shoved it into his belt pouch. Part of him wanted to simply lie down and sleep. If the creatures found him, they found him; he’d delivered the mission as Knight Finnead had commanded him. But that went against all he’d been taught as a page and a squire. He would be enduring the gauntlet, and he would be given his Knight’s sword. Knights did not meekly surrender to their circumstances.
With a heave and a groan, he pulled himself onto the charger’s back. Now astride his mount, he wondered suddenly where he should go. Perhaps he should turn back and try to find Knight Finnead and the Princess. But no, he quickly realized, the best way to help them would be to bring reinforcements from Darkhill. He’d delivered the news of the attack to Knight Balaron, but only he had been there. Only he could relay the details of the first attack and the exact location of the band of travelers when they’d been overwhelmed. He didn’t have the strength to Walk such a distance again, but stars willing, he’d travel it.
“Back to Darkhill,” he told the black charger. The faehal flicked one ear back toward Ramel and turned, pointing his head toward the east. Ramel quickly checked their direction, glancing at the moss on the trees and the shadows produced by the afternoon sun. He grinned at the faehal’s accuracy and let him have his head. They set off at a brisk trot, which the faehal soon changed to a smooth canter, as though he sensed Ramel’s discomfort at the jarring motion of the trot. Ramel touched the smooth wood of Knight Finnead’s bow and wondered if his master had survived the night. He told himself that the tears that slid down his cheeks were from the wind.
The charger wove through the trees with a grace and speed that astonished Ramel, inspiring a new appreciation for the importance of a good war steed. He forced himself to eat throughout the afternoon, though the food tasted like sand in his mouth and it was difficult to swallow. His thoughts became more and more nebulous. The pounding headache receded slightly, but in its wake came a cloudy confusion that made it difficult for him to think clearly.
Perhaps this is what Knight Balaron meant when he spoke of the strange dreaminess after a battle, he thought disjointedly. Even the thought of another garrelnost attack couldn’t jolt him out of the odd haze. He experienced occasional clips of sharp precision, where he felt as though he could see every edge of every leaf on the trees as they rushed by, but the greatest part of the afternoon passed in a dreamlike suspension. He wrapped his hands in the faehal’s dark mane and let his steed choose their path.
Finally, the charger deemed it time for a rest, slowing to a walk. Ramel blinked and straightened, feeling as though he was awakening from sleep. The cuts on his chest burned insistently, and he knew he couldn’t put off tending to his wounds any longer. The chatter of a stream reached his ears, and for a piercing moment he thought that he’d arrived at the same stream where he and Rye had hunted the deer, watching the game trail for hours until he’d sent an arrow into the young buck. He glanced about as the faehal walked toward the stream, expecting to see the familiar tree where he’d crouched and then, embarrassingly, fallen when he’d loosed his arrow. But the rush of emotion faded as he slowly realized that this was a different stream.
He dismounted and stretched his stiff legs as his mount drank from the stream, flicking its tail in pleasure. After refilling his empty water skin, Ramel unpacked the little healing kit and steeled himself for the unpleasant business of peeling away the tattered layers of gore-encrusted cloth and leather. He splashed water from the stream onto his chest and worked his vest and shirt loose, gritting his teeth as fresh blood trickled down his ribs. He didn’t have a mirror, but just looking down at himself, he saw that the cuts were a bit deeper than he’d thought. The garrelnost’s claws had caught him at his left shoulder and dragged diagonally across his chest, ending at his right side. The first and second claws had pierced his skin the deepest.
He tried to think as though he were treating someone else when he selected his herbs and ground them into powder, adding a bit of the stream water to produce a paste. But it was difficult to keep that distance when he pressed the paste into his wounds with shaking fingers. The pain changed from the deep ache of a burgeoning infection to the sharp burn of medicinal herbs doing their work. He dismissed the idea of using anything that would dull his senses – most pain-relieving herbs had some side effect of sleepiness. He used the cleanest remnants of his shirt as a bandage and then pulled one of Finnead’s shirts over his head. After a moment of hesitation, he washed his vest in the stream, shook it dry as best he could, and pulled it back over his shoulders.
He fed the faehal another two handfuls of grain, though he thought the charger had been grazing while he’d been tied in the tree. Nevertheless, the faehal ate the offered food with enthusiasm.
“I don’t know what Knight Finnead called you,” Ramel told the steed in apology. “And we’ve a while to go together. I feel like giving you a name is more for my benefit than yours.” He patted its neck with his free hand. “Something simple. Probably not half as noble as your given name, so perhaps think of it as a nickname.” It looked at him as it chewed its last mouthful of grain. Ramel thought for a moment. “How about Midnight? That seems appropriate, given your color.”
The faehal snorted. Ramel took that as approval.
“All right then, Midnight, let’s continue on, shall we?” Ramel winced as he mounted. “We’ve at least a week more ahead of us, I think, and that’s with pressing into the night to travel.”
Midnight shook his head.
“Well, if you think you can cover it in less time, by all means,” the squire said. He had to grab onto the steed’s mane as Midnight surged forward. “That’s what I get for talking to a faehal,” he muttered to himself, but it felt good to speak, even if it was only to a faehal.
Midnight carried him on the path toward Darkhill well into the night. Ramel found himself watching each shadow as dusk fell over the forest, but he trusted that Midnight would sense any garrelnost before he would. Nevertheless, he kept a sharp eye out and occasionally touched the hilt of his short sword at his hip. He ate a few bites of dried meat, and when his mount slowed for a few moments’ rest, he drank from his water skin. Although he tried not to think of the battle, that was difficult, especially in his now-solitary journey. Instead he tried to guess what the Queen would do at the news of the attack. He envisioned a phalanx of Knights riding out of the main gate at Darkhill, the sun gleaming on their armor. He pictured them hunting down the garrelnost that had attacked them in the clearing, killing them with vicious efficiency using long spears crafted especially for this hunt.
He imagined Knight Finnead, Lady Rye and Princess Andraste freed from their imprisonment, pale and dirty but unharmed…even as a small voice in the back of his mind whispered nastily that he knew very well what their evil captor
s would do to them. There was no question in his mind that the garrelnost had been controlled by some evil power. They had not been the dumb beasts about which the Knights had spoken in the Knight’s Hall after they returned from the hunt.
Finally, well after darkness had fallen, Midnight drifted to a halt. Ramel slid from his back and wearily began to unbuckle the saddle, but then thought better of it. It wouldn’t be comfortable for the faehal, but at least until they put more distance between them and the site of the attack, he wanted to be able to escape from an attack quickly. He murmured an apology to Midnight, who seemed not to notice, flicking his tail in annoyance. Ramel applied more antiseptic paste to his wounds, grimacing at the sting of the medicine, and then settled against a tree, laying Finnead’s bow across his knees. He thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but his exhaustion proved greater than his fear of being caught unawares. He awoke with a start a few hours later, feeling cold and stiff. The grayness of dawn cast weak light over the forest; he saw Midnight dozing nearby. The faehal awoke when Ramel shifted.
His muscles ached as if he’d just been put through a training session harder than he’d ever endured, but the wounds on his chest had begun to scab over, as they announced with a sharp twinge when he stood. He felt the cuts gingerly through the bandage, satisfied that they were beginning to heal. After he poured water into a bowl for the charger, he took a few long swallows himself. His stomach growled. That was a good sign, he thought to himself as he dug out some food from the saddlebags.
“All right,” he said to Midnight. “Another day, another chance to prove to me that you’re really going to get me back to Darkhill in record time.”
Midnight snorted and barely waited for him to settle into the saddle before he plunged through the forest, unerringly finding his way through the trees with an alacrity that continued to impress Ramel. He wondered suddenly if Knight Finnead had purposefully given him his own steed rather than one of the other faehal. Knowing Finnead, he probably knew that he’d increase his squire’s chances of survival by giving him the intelligent and trained charger. Ramel felt a sharp pang of loss as he realized anew that he might never see Knight Finnead again.
