“What did you do?” I asked. He was making me nervous, dancing around the point like that.
His eyes widened. “I thought you saw it all.”
“I only saw flickers. Movements. Faces.”
“But you said them, too!” Horror filled his face.
“Said what?” Now I was really worried. What had I said? What had I done?
“The vows. Tylira, they made me promise to give them an heir for Kjexx. You know, to take his place and his name. And then they performed our wedding.”
My jaw dropped.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Landers
SO NOW I’D BEEN married twice in a week and I’d been out of my mind for the second wedding. Was it just me, or was my life passing at just a bit of a quick pace? Alarmingly quick? Who could live so fast?
“And you just let them?”
“I thought you were agreeing. You said the vows.” He looked away, his mouth twisting and then opening and shutting like he was going to speak but couldn’t. “We weren’t going to leave here alive if we didn’t do what they asked. Until we were married and the vows to provide an heir for Kjexx were given, you had no official position. You should have seen them, they were sharpening their knives. I…” His voice broke. “I love you too much to let you die. Even if it meant you hated me for marrying you that way.”
I felt torn. It wasn’t that I was upset about being married to Rusk. Didn’t I love him just as much as he said he loved me? Wasn’t I pleased to be his forever, even if I didn’t get an actual say in the matter? It just rubbed on my raw spots to have the actual decision taken away. Like I was property. Like I was common. I swallowed. So, it turned out I was angry out of arrogance, not out of any real frustration at my current situation. Grief was mixed in there, too. Kjexx’s death was too fresh. As much as I loved Rusk, it felt wrong to marry again so soon.
“I thought you would understand. After all, you married Kjexx to save me.” His words were laced with bitterness.
“I married someone I didn’t love to save the one I did. What, are you going to get all huffy because I wanted you alive?”
His eyes were bright and his expression trembled as he fought it under control. “You still loved me when you married him?”
“You’re such an idiot, Rusk Hawkwing! Of course I loved you. You’re the one who said we couldn’t be together because I wasn’t good enough —”
“I didn’t say that!”
I spoke over him, “— I loved you the whole time, but how else was I supposed to save you from Catane? I didn’t want you to die. Are you going to hold that against me?”
“You’re holding it against me!”
I froze, mouth dropping open. I shut it quickly and sniffed.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset. We love each other, and now we’re married. That’s all there is to it.”
He clenched his jaw, closed his eyes and turned his face away. Seriously? He was frustrated with me right now? I reached up and took his face in my hands. I’d never get over the way his presence made me feel hot and stupid all at once. It was a terrible thing to want another person so much. But was it really when I owned him, now?
“If you’re my husband now, then you’d better kiss me.”
He laughed, shook his head and then leaned in, lingering just a hair’s width from my lips so that I could feel his breath and almost taste his nearness. My lips parted and trembled slightly, but then his were on mine. His arms encircled me, protective and strong. Wouldn’t I have given everything I had to get to keep him forever? Then why would I ever complain?
“So you aren’t angry?” he asked. “We can both be happy now?
“I’m feeling hot inside, but not with anger.”
His chuckle only made that feeling grow.
“Later, Wild Girl. For now, you have a people to claim. I think they’re waiting for you.”
Reluctantly, I let go of him and walked out of the pavilion to where the Landers had gathered on the hillside, Astrex at their head. They looked wilder than Rusk’s pet name for me. I would have thought them barbarians if I hadn’t known Kjexx so well. How in the word would I bring them what they needed? Salvation. Safety. Anyone would feel intimidated by their need, anyone but Kjexx. He seemed to bear it lightly, as though it caused him no concern. Perhaps I could learn from him.
“Landers,” I said, addressing them loudly so all could hear.
They were organized in groups, each behind a clear leader, and each leader with clothing and tattoos that was repeated throughout the group fanning behind him or her. They wore feathers on their backs just as Kjexx did, and brandished huge, arcing swords that could have sprung from the same forge. Would there ever come a time that I didn’t feel a stab of pain at the sight of his people?
“Windbearer Tylira a’Kjexx son of Axrun,” they replied in ragged unison. It didn’t have the ring of ‘Tazminera’ but it would do for now. How had I failed to notice that there were so many of them? They spread across this hill like grass, their mounts puffing and steaming at the outskirts of the camp.
“As Windbearer, I shall lead you to safety and find for you a land and peace.” It wasn’t like there was a script for these things, but it seemed like what they needed to hear from me. A cheer broke out amongst the warriors, and it was echoed in the groups of children and elderly behind them.
“Windbearer Tylira a’Kjexx,” Astrex said, striding forward with a silver pitcher. They weren’t planning more water ceremonies, were they? “We accept your place as our leader and your authority as Windbearer. Lead us from this place to a place of safety.”
Oh, yes, here came the water. She gestured for me to kneel, and I did, grimacing as I felt the stream of water pour over my head. I was going to catch my death if they kept doing that. The very first thing I was going to do when I got them away from here was going to be putting an end to all this freezing cold water-pouring nonsense.
I stood up and waved a hand to them all. “Your welcome is generous.” I turned to Astrex and the people congregated behind her. “I’ll speak to Astrex about what comes next.”
Her eyes widened. Had I done something wrong? Was this against their protocol? Well, they’d roped me into a marriage and the promise to bear a child while I hadn’t been in my right mind, so they’d just have to live with broken protocol. Looks of frustration and anger passed over the faces at the front of the line. There were seven people who stood at the front of the groups, five men and two women. Each of them had the three Eaglekin feathers on their backs that Kjexx wore. They must be chieftains of some kind and important enough to be angry at my dismissal.
“And these leaders, of course,” I said, striding to the center of the pavilion and sitting down. Rusk took up a protective stance behind me, legs wide, arms crossed over his chest. I smiled slightly. Even without the tether, we found it hard to be apart for long.
Around me, Astrex and the group leaders gathered in a rough circle while two women brought a hot brazier and set it in the center of the pavilion.
“Sit,” I ordered. Again Astrex’s eyes widened, and this time her mouth formed a firm line, but she sat, and those with her sat as well.
“I’m going to take you back through the door I came through. How soon can we move all these people there?”
“These are the leaders of the Clans of Landers — the Black Talon. Each represents his or her people and leads them in battle,” she began. “You will need to know them well in order to lead us.”
“How soon?” I didn’t have time for introductions, and neither did they.
Astrex looked at a burly man beside her before turning to me. “Four days of travel, but we must go carefully. We have the old and sick with us and everything we could carry. After that, we’d need a few weeks before we could depart.”
“Weeks?” I asked. She flinched. What had driven her to become so nervous around me?
“We need time to gather in our things. Treasures. Livestock. Belongings.”
“T
here isn’t time for that. We’ll leave in an hour and push as hard as we can so we can be there in three days.”
“An hour!?” Astrex sounded like she might swallow her tongue.
“Three days?!” someone else exclaimed.
“Even that might not be soon enough. Expect Catane to pursue us. And expect him to be angry.” I gestured to Rusk. “General Rusk Hawkwing will organize the defense. I’ll leave it to him to arrange what that will look like.”
With that, I stood and turned my back to them. I’d need a plan to deal with the next part. Perhaps An’alepp could help. She should be proud. After all, I had learned this harsh way of leading from her.
“You need to be careful, Tylira,” Rusk whispered in my ear. “These clan leaders are your only choice in allies.”
“I need to manage them carefully, Rusk, or they will be the ones leading me.”
“Just remember, we have plenty of enemies and very few friends. I’ll be back soon. I need to go organize their defense.”
I swallowed, my fingers toying with the tether in my pocket. I was bound now to these people. Their safety was more important than their favor.
Chapter Thirty: No Answer
“An’alepp?” I burst into Ra’shara.
“Did it work? Did you find a way to communicate?”
I searched my memory, thoughts and memories I didn’t know I had popping up like soap bubbles.
“There’s no way left.” My face fell as the memories from the scintellex surfaced in my mind. “They lost their communications before they arrived here. They lost all means of contact. Their quantum transporters couldn’t get a fix on Earth. It’s just us and Everturn. There is nowhere else we can reach.”
What were we going to do? How were we going to fix the cataclysm? We’d been relying on finding an answer here.
“Lost,” An’alepp said, her eyes flicking from one spot to the next. I’d never seen her so rattled. They fixed on me in the end. “Then you are our only hope.”
“Me?!”
“You can unweave. You are the only one who can match Catane in this world, toe for toe. And Catane will destroy Everturn if he goes there. You must destroy him first.”
“I can’t. And even if I could, what about the cataclysm on Everturn? I make it worse when I’m there and we haven’t found a solution!”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Now, panic seized me. I tried to think. Had there been some other way in the scintellex? I felt bubbles of inspiration rise to the surface. Ideas of how to stop an unweaving, ideas of how to keep from unweaving accidentally, and over all of it a sense that I must accept self-sacrifice. But none of that meant anything to me. What I needed was a solution right now. “I have a whole people here relying on me to save them, and a whole world back home that needs me, and I have no answers!”
“It’s in your mind somewhere,” An’alepp said. “I’m sure of it. You’ll just have to find it.”
“I can’t! I can’t figure it out! It’s just vague ideas of self-sacrifice and duty.”
“Maybe you just need time,” she said, but she didn’t seem hopeful, and I felt like a pit had widened at my feet.
“I don’t have time, ancestor! Catane is in pursuit. There are children out there expecting me to protect them. I have no time to sit and stew on things.”
“Then bring them to Everturn and figure it out then!”
I took a deep breath. After all, that was my plan all along, to take them to Everturn and deal with everything there. But what then? Why hadn’t there been any answers in the scintellex? My vision flashed aqua and then gold. Something was happening in my brain. Something was brewing, but would it be fast enough to save us all, or would I just be leading them from one decaying world into the next?
“Maybe I should just leave them here,” I said. “Maybe it would be better.”
“It wouldn’t be.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s what I was investigating while I hid from Catane. Does this place feel strange to you, Tylira? The way the color and shadows just aren’t right? The way you move too slow one moment and too fast the next? The cataclysm broke this world. It’s dying. Not just Ra’shara, but the whole thing. It’s wobbling away from its sun. At most it has a year or two left. This winter isn’t going to end, and it will only get colder and worse. No crops will grow. No livestock will survive it. This place is in its death throes.”
I shivered. “All those people. The ones I met. The innkeepers and shopkeepers and servants…”
“You can’t save them all. Not with Catane on your heels. But maybe you can save the ones depending on you. At least for now.”
I looked through Ra’shara at the bustling camp below me. Shouts rang out as people scrambled to pull down tents, kick out fires and gather up their things. Long lines of Eaglekin were already forming up to carry those too weak to walk. I couldn’t stop trembling. They needed me, and all I could promise was momentary salvation.
“Save them from death right now. Worry about saving Everturn when you get back. I’m convinced that the answer is in that scintellex. It has to be in your mind somewhere. It will come out when it’s ready.”
“I thought you were convinced that the answer was in communicating with another world and another time.”
She smiled smugly. “What do you think you’ve been doing? It’s just buried so deep that you can’t access it. It will come out when you need it.”
She was wrong about that. There were no answers. I couldn’t find even a shred of hope as I looked out over the people who so desperately needed me to save them. But what other option did I have than to press on? They needed me. I couldn’t abandon them after what Kjexx had done for me.
I clenched my jaw and forced my hands to stop trembling. I would find a way, somehow. I just had to hope that I would. A shout pulled me out of Ra’shara. This one wasn’t frustration or hurry, it sounded alarmed. I followed the commotion and looked out across the plains. On the horizon a black mass spread like water poured out on dry ground. Catane was coming.
Chapter Thirty-One: Flight
WE’D BEEN FLEEING FOR two days. Our advantage, of course, was the Eaglekin who were fast as horses over any terrain, but able to carry six people plus baggage. The problem was that burdened down like that they would not be able to fight, and we didn’t dare tire them to the point where they couldn’t defend us.
I chewed my lip and watched the enemy behind us.
“At this rate we will reach the door by nightfall,” Rusk said.
“Catane will be upon us before then. He’s been gaining ground all along the way.”
He nodded stiffly.
“We can’t afford to let him take us on the flat ground.”
He nodded again. I wasn’t saying anything that he didn’t know as an experienced general.
“This isn’t the first time you have fled with civilians to guard, is it?”
His eyes darkened with pain, and his head bowed. I hoped he wasn’t reliving his last doomed flight.
“What should we do, Rusk?”
He pursed his lips, looked out at the enemy like he was calculating distance and speed in his mind. He looked ahead, and then back to Catane’s Black Brigade one more time.
“There’s a set of foothills ahead. When we reach it, we should send the innocents and elderly ahead, protected by one clan of warriors. Our Eaglekin can carry them to safety. While you wait for us at the door, we will defend against Catane’s troops and slowly retreat to your position.”
“A fighting withdrawal? That sounds very dangerous.”
“No more so than fighting them in the field with a group to protect. We’ll lose more warriors that way.”
“And if they flank our position and drive towards the door?”
“They don’t have the speed of unencumbered Eaglekin. They won’t flank me. You will be with the civilians at the door.”
“No, I will be here.” I let my expression
grow stony. “I don’t see anyone else here who can go head-to-head with Catane.”
His expression was resigned, but unhappy. He’d have to learn that I wouldn’t stop taking risks and doing what had to be done even if I was married to him. I had a lot of people depending on me now. I didn’t dare let them down, even if it meant losing myself in the process. I blinked. That was a new line of thought for me. How much had that scintellex rewritten me? As I looked out over the Eaglekin, a tiny face popped up over the side of a pannier, a tiny waving hand followed the face and I smiled. If it had rewritten me, then it had made me a greater Tylira, not a lesser one.
“Set your plan in motion, Rusk. We need to get these children to safety as quickly as possible.”
He nodded and scrambled over Graxx’s pack from our pannier into the one on his other side. One of the Clan Leaders, Jalexx son of Doran, was there to consult with him. I bit my lip and turned my attention inward.
“An’alepp?” I called. “How will we open that door when we get there? If Catane is changing the codes every twenty four hours, how will we get through?”
“I’m going to stake out the door and see if he comes there. Maybe I will get lucky and spy the code he enters when he comes.”
“Be safe.”
“Be quick,” she countered. “I don’t want to see the blood of children spilled.”
She disappeared, but I still answered. “Neither do I.”
...
By noon it was obvious that our plan had failed.
“They’ll reach us before we can send the children and elderly off on their own,” Rusk said as he scrambled into my pannier. We had stopped at a creek and chopped holes through the ice so that everyone could drink and rest. His voice was pitched low, so that only I would hear. “The Eaglekin are growing tired, and those foothills won’t offer enough protection. There’s no way that we can make the door. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.”
Lightning Strikes Twice (Unweaving Chronicles Book 2) Page 18
