by Anne Logston
“I can’t see a thing,” Cyril complained, squinting into the growth. “Why couldn’t you have picked a night when the moon was brighter, at least?”
“If you could see, we could easily enough be seen on that open plain between the city and the forest when your spell wore off,” Ria said patiently, pulling Cyril into the cover of the trees. She towed him resolutely into the thicker growth as quickly as she could. “And if I’d waited much longer, there wouldn’t have been much use in running off at all, would there? Anyway, I can see. Just follow me and we’ll find—”
Ria’s words were interrupted as something whistled by her cheek, leaving a stinging scratch behind. Jenji screeched a warning and clawed violently at Ria, trying to scramble out of her tunic. Stunned, Ria put up her hand, amazed to touch the shallow furrow that trickled blood down her face.
“Wha—” she began amazedly.
“Elven arrows!” Cyril hissed, leaping to drag Ria with him to the ground even as another arrow whistled by. “Get back to the—”
“I can’t!” Ria cried as another arrow thunked into the ground almost at her hand. “They’re between us and the edge of the forest.” Ria grabbed frantically for Jenji, but the chirrit wriggled free, darting into a thicket nearby and chittering imperiously at them.
“Here!” Cyril pulled Ria into the thicket after Jenji, sheltering her with his own body. Jenji crawled back into Ria’s pocket, and she could feel him shivering there. “Can they see us in—uh!” He jolted forward, and Ria screamed as she saw the arrow protruding from his back. To her amazement, however, Cyril sat up again.
“I’m all right,” he gasped. “Come on—let’s find some way back out of the forest.”
Ria’s mind whirled. There were elves all around them— my people, her mind insisted—but they were shooting arrows at them, trying to kill them! Why? Why? She crawled blindly after Cyril, crying out again but not slowing as pain speared up her leg from her left calf. Looking back, she saw a wooden shaft thrust completely through her leg a handspan below the knee.
Suddenly Ria saw a flash of bright light somewhere to the north, then another, and a tremendous outcry was echoed from nearby. Fire! But where had it come from?
Light flared again, a flaming arrow sprouting like a blossom from a nearby tree, and suddenly Ria could see dark silhouettes against the light of the fire, scurrying to smother the dancing flames. Gratitude flared even brighter in Ria’s heart, and with it a sudden inexplicable sense of a familiar presence nearby. Suddenly she was certain, utterly certain who her benefactor was.
“Valann!” she cried, even as Cyril dragged her out of the forest into clear land. Ria resisted feebly, but a sudden wave of sick weakness turned her limbs to water, and she could do nothing but slump limply against Cyril as he half-lifted her, pulling her away from the forest as fast as he could stagger in the darkness. She could hear arrows thunking into the ground behind them.
“We’ve got to go back,” she panted weakly, trying to pull free of Cyril’s grip. “Valann—my brother—he’s there, he made the fire—”
“Whoever bought us time to get away, I’m grateful,”
Cyril panted. “And I’m not going to waste that by walking back into their arrows. They only let us get that far into the forest so they could trap us there. And you need a healer. You’ve got an arrow in your leg.”
“But you,” Ria protested, despite her weakness still astounded. “Your back—the arrow—”
“I didn’t trust your elven friends as firmly as you did,” Cyril said grimly, shifting Ria so that her arm looped over his shoulders and he could bear a greater share of her weight. Now Ria could feel the reason the arrow had not harmed him—under his tunic she could feel the unmistakable hardness of Cyril’s hard practice armor, and under that the thickness of his padding.
Ria heard the whistle of the arrows, but they were out of range now; for a moment Ria wondered if the elves would come out of the forest to pursue them and finish them off, but apparently they did not consider their quarry worthy of that effort, and finally the sounds of arrows faded behind them as they stumbled onward.
“Can we stop a moment?” Ria gasped. Little lights, like fireflies, were dancing before her eyes. “Just a moment?”
Cyril glanced back at the forest, then nodded, gently easing Ria to the ground. “All right. Just a moment. I’ll light the lantern and have a look at your leg. Didn’t the history say something about poi—”
The world went gray for a moment; when vision returned, Cyril had already lit the lantern and was bent over Ria’s lower leg. Ria risked a glance herself and sighed with relief; there was no arrow protruding from her calf, only bloody wounds on both sides.
“I cut off the point and pulled both pieces out while you were unconscious,” Cyril said, his own voice a little unsteady as he tied a strip of cloth tightly around the wounds. “I don’t know if that was the right thing to do or not. The bleeding seems to have gotten worse. Can you pull the arrow out of my armor? I can feel the point through the padding, and I’d hate for it to push on through, especially if it’s poisoned.”
“I’ll try,” Ria said humbly, but tug as she might at the wooden shaft, she could not budge the barbed point.
“All right, nothing else to do but leave it,” Cyril said at last. “I can’t take the time to take my tunic and the armor off here, and I can’t carry it and the packs and you, too. Come on, I’ll help you as much as I can.”
Cyril pulled Ria’s arm over his shoulder once more and pushed himself to his feet; Ria tried to stand herself and gasped as the world faded again. This time she barely noticed when Cyril lifted her and stumbled onward toward the city; at some point she was dimly aware of some shouting, the light of torches and shocked faces all around her, Lady Rivkah’s among them. She was safe—at the cost of losing her brother just when she’d finally found him, and at the cost of the freedom she’d sought so desperately.
Valann, Ria thought hopelessly, and let darkness and despair take her.
“That was an incredibly foolish thing to do,” Lady Rivkah said, her face white with anger, her lips a tight white line. “I can’t begin to tell you how foolish. If I hadn’t had experience with the poison the Blue-eyes use on their arrows, or if they’d changed that poison in the last sixteen years, you might well have died. If you weren’t so ill, I’d— well, I don’t know what I’d do.”
Ria rolled her head up to face the ceiling so that she didn’t have to look at Lady Rivkah, the only act of defiance she could muster the strength for. Jenji was crouched on the pillow at her other side; he chittered softly and nuzzled her cheek, but Ria was not comforted. Her leg, massively swollen, throbbed so hotly that Ria thought she would vomit, and the scrape on her cheek, smeared with ointment, burned furiously.
Lady Rivkah laid her hand on Ria’s forehead, and her fingers were comfortingly cool.
“None of us who were wounded before were affected so quickly or so strongly,” Lady Rivkah said quietly. “It must be your mixture of human and elven blood. I know so little about elven healing, too. Many of the journals I kept before the invasion were destroyed in the battle, but at least this was a very simple antidote. And I know it was the same poison; Cyril brought me the arrow point, and the one from his armor was poisoned with it, too. For a while we were afraid—well, never mind. You’re healing, but it’s very slow. You may be sick for some days, but you will mend, in time.”
Ria did not smile, but she felt a tiny flash of satisfaction. At least the wedding would be postponed; at least she’d gained that much for all her trouble and pain.
Lady Rivkah sighed again, and Ria was surprised to feel her hand trembling against Ria’s forehead.
“I’ll let you rest for now,” she said softly. “I’ll send you a sleeping potion and see if you can swallow some broth.” She withdrew her hand, and a moment later Ria heard the chamber door close softly. Jenji curled up beside her cheek and settled there, giving the thrumming sound he made when contente
d.
Ria herself was far from contented; the turmoil in her mind was almost greater than the pain in her leg. Why had the elves tried to kill her? She was one of them! How could they have meant her harm, even death?
Ah, but had they? She’d fired arrows aplenty in practice, and even with her small strength, a sharp arrow fired from a good bow could penetrate leather armor far stouter than the old practice cuirass Cyril had worn. And if the Blue-eyes’ night vision was as good as her own—and surely it was, if they were out in force with bows in the middle of the night—why had they missed so many times? And why hadn’t they gone even a little bit beyond the edge of the forest to finish what they’d started? It would be plain to their night vision that no one else was there to fight them.
There was only one possible answer; they were not intending to kill the intruders, only to frighten and drive them away, out of the forest. Had they meant no more harm than that to the humans who had approached the forest, too? Why, then, the poison on the arrows? No; more likely the presence of an elf had confused them, because Lord Sharl had made it plain that they killed, or at least tried to kill, any human who came too near the forest.
Ah, that was it! Ria could have groaned with frustration. Of course; they’d only attacked her at all because there was a human with her! No wonder they’d been confused. Perhaps their arrows had all been aimed at Cyril; perhaps she’d only been hit because she was so close to him. Ah, gods, how could she not have foreseen that? In their eyes, the enemy had followed her right into the forest!
But why, then, had her brother—if indeed it was he, as Ria felt almost certain—intervened? Perhaps—ah, of course, he didn’t want Ria driven from the forest at all! If Cyril hadn’t dragged her away, he’d have come for her! Why else would he have been there at the edge of the forest, when Lord Sharl and Lady Rivkah said his clan lived near the center of the forest, so far away? No, he’d come all that distance deliberately, looking for her, and now he’d be fleeing back into the forest ahead of Blue-eyes’ arrows. Now Ria did groan, and a few bitter tears trickled down her face. How close she’d come to success, and how violently it had been torn away from her!
And now what would she do? She’d be weak and sick for some time, if Lady Rivkah was right, and probably lame for even longer. Illness might postpone the wedding for a time, but Ria doubted if the High Lord and Lady would care if Ria limped under her wedding gown. The injury would keep her from another attempt at flight, and in any event, Ria had no doubt at all that she’d be guarded like treasure before the ceremony. Anyway, how could she get away without Cyril’s help? And she was very, very sure she could expect no more help from her foster brother.
There was a gentle tap at the door. Ria thought about answering, telling whoever it was to go away, then just sighed. It wasn’t worth the strength it would take to call out. Let them come, whoever it was. Nothing could make her more miserable than she felt already, anyway.
Cyril peeped in the door, a tray in his hands.
“Mother said I could bring this in to you,” he said.
“Some broth and a potion for the pain in your leg. Want to try to swallow some of it?”
“Why not?” Ria croaked weakly. Neither the broth nor the potion appealed to her, but her throat was achingly dry, and anything that could stop her leg throbbing so wretchedly could only be an improvement.
Cyril laid the tray on the small table beside the bed. He had to stuff cushions behind Ria’s back before she could sit up, Jenji chittering indignantly all the while at losing his position on the pillow. Cyril gave Ria the broth sip by sip, carefully.
“How does your leg feel?” Cyril asked, eyeing the swollen lump in the covers dubiously.
“It hurts,” Ria admitted, trying to sound as if she didn’t care. “Lady Rivkah said it would take a long time to heal.”
“Some adventure,” Cyril said ruefully. “All that trouble and we didn’t even see an elf—not really.”
Ria didn’t answer. That was a complicated issue, and she didn’t really want to think about it all again. She certainly didn’t want to have to try to explain it to Cyril, not when she didn’t understand it herself.
“I’m sorry you got hurt,” Cyril said after a moment. “And for your sake, I suppose I’m sorry it didn’t work out with the elves. But it may be for the best, anyway. At least you know that somebody in the forest means you well— your brother, if you think that’s who it was. Father took troops out to the edge of the forest almost as soon as we got back. I went with them. There were a few arrows fired from the forest, but nobody came out. I called out, too. I thought maybe if it was really your brother—” He shrugged. “Nobody answered. I’m sorry. I tried for a long time.”
“Thank you.” She was surprised and gratified by the effort; it was a kindly thought on Cyril’s part. But of course her brother wouldn’t come out of the forest, even if he was still there to hear Cyril calling, after he’d seen Cyril dragging her away.
“I’d like to have met your brother.” Cyril chuckled.
“However much trouble we’re both in now because of trying to find him.”
Ria closed her eyes. A tear slipped down her cheek before she could stop it.
Cyril put the bowl down and reached over to wipe the tear away gently.
“You know, I wish Mother and Father had just left us to ourselves,” he said with a sigh. “If we’d had the chance to choose, we might’ve decided we wanted to marry each other without all this fuss.”
Ria half-smiled. She doubted it—she wasn’t much interested in marrying anybody, much less Cyril—but anything was possible.
“You know,” Cyril said slowly, “betrothal or no, I don’t think they can marry us if we both refuse, can they?”
Ria rolled her head over to look at him warily. Cyril met her eyes directly.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“What I mean,” Cyril said, a faint twinkle returning to his eyes, “is, let’s make believe we never were betrothed at all.” He took Ria’s hand. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“Oh, Cyril—” Ria began disgustedly.
“No, don’t answer me right now.” Cyril patted her hand. “Think of it as a kind of bargain if you want. Just listen for a moment. If you decide to marry me, I won’t try to make you be someone you’re not. I won’t make you wear fancy gowns and sit in boring council meetings—unless you decide to do it yourself. I will need an heir, though.” He grinned ruefully. “But that can wait a while, too. And if you can get any of the elves to welcome you, you can go see them whenever you want.” He patted her hand again, and now Ria could see a strange expression, maybe envy, in his eyes. “Just as long as you come back. Who knows, maybe that’s what we need to bring the elves and humans together, a kind of go-between.”
Ria didn’t know what to say. She bit her lip, feeling new tears welling up in her eyes.
“And if you decide you still don’t want to marry me, I’ll refuse, too, no matter how much trouble it makes for both of us,” Cyril said, straightening resolutely. “But give it some thought, a few days, maybe. And if you need to try to talk to the elves again before you decide, I’ll help you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ria said, too stunned and confused to say anything else.
“For a few days, you probably won’t have much else to do,” Cyril said, grinning again. “But in the meantime, try to finish this potion. It might make you sleep for a while, at least.”
“All right.” Ria let Cyril give her the potion as he had the broth, sip by sip, and then some deliciously cold water to ease her parched throat. When Cyril started to take the cup away, however, Ria managed to squeeze his fingers a little and smile at him.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re a good friend. And a good foster brother.”
“I’d make a good husband, too,” Cyril said, his eyes twinkling. “Sleep well.”
The potion was already making Ria drowsy, but she was able to watch Cyril leave.
She hadn’t expected such generosity from him, or that he would come up with so remarkable a suggestion. Both of them refuse, indeed! Would Cyril really take such an unthinkable stand against his parents—against everything he’d been raised to believe was his duty—or was it just a ploy to get her to agree to marry him? And would Lord Sharl and Lady Rivkah listen if he did defy them? Following that thought came a somewhat amusing vision of them both before the priest, bound in chains and gagged.
Ria chuckled weakly, letting the potion carry her away on a wave of sleep. How delightful that after she had known him for sixteen years, Cyril could still surprise her. He’d make Allanmere a fine High Lord, except that he could never look a proper noble with that mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and he looked so ridiculous in finery...
The room had faded from around her, and once again her brother’s face was before her. His dark eyes were fixed on hers, and his lips moved as if he was speaking, but Ria could hear no words. Slowly his face faded, too, as if growing more distant, but somehow Ria could still feel him, some faint knowledge of his presence. Ria smiled and slept.
Chapter Six—Valann
“Little fool!” Valann gasped, ducking behind a tree with Lahti. “What could she have been thinking?”
“You are certain it was her?” Lahti was panting too, her brown hair limp and stringy with grime and sweat, her eyes darkly ringed with exhaustion. She nocked another arrow, peered around the tree, and loosed the arrow. A cry testified to the accuracy of her shot.
“Have the arrows stopped burning?” Val asked anxiously.
“Almost.” Lahti turned, and he saw the worry in her eyes, too. “You shouldn’t have done that, even for your sister. You shouldn’t have shot fire at the forest. It’s forbidden to put fire to living wood and outside a fire pit.”
“I knew they’d stop to put it out, giving her time enough to get away,” Val said grimly. He pulled Lahti to the next clump of trees. “There’s been enough rain. It wouldn’t have burned long in any wise.”
