Dreamlander

by K.M. Weiland

  Chapter Fourteen

  As the horse tripped and its hind end went down, Chris kicked free of the stirrups and reached out with his bad arm to catch himself. Red pain burst in his vision, but even before his head cleared, he was scrambling to his feet.

  Soldiers in green tabards charged past, swords lofted to the fading sun. Horses surrounded him and pounded the ground to pieces beneath his feet. He ran. His arms pumped madly, and the long grass tangled and tore against his legs.

  And then the Searcher was upon him. She ground her horse to a jouncing canter. “Get on!”

  Without slowing, without even thinking—because if he thought about it once, he would have to think twice—he caught her extended hand and used their opposing momentum to swing himself up behind the saddle. She turned her horse around and urged him back into a run.

  Behind them, Mactalde still held back his horse. His newly reloaded shot gushed from the barrel in a cloud of white, and Chris ducked as the bullet tore past. Then Rotoss was grasping his leader’s sleeve, urging him on, and they were galloping away.

  At the edge of the field, Orias slowed. He looked at Chris, and his hand lifted in what might be either a warning or a farewell. Then he turned his horse’s head to the river and left.

  Chris stared after him. So that was it then? Orias betrayed him and then left him. To go where? If he continued in the direction he was headed, he would meet up with what was left of the Koraudians sooner or later. Maybe that had been his plan from the start.

  The black stallion lurched, and Chris grabbed the back of the saddle to keep his balance. They descended a gully and slowed to a stop.

  “Get off.” The Searcher swung her leg over her mount’s neck and dropped to the ground. “Get off my horse right now.”

  He braced against the saddle with his good arm and slid off to face her. Gone were the flowing white dress and the flower-studded crown of hair. She wore breeches and knee boots and a brown tunic stitched with gold filigree. A long braid, strands of dark hair coming loose from it, hung over her shoulder. Her breath came fast, and her face whitened until her eyes were dark flames.

  “You brought Mactalde across.” It was an accusation, not a question.

  Déjà vu swarmed him. So this was what it was like to meet someone from your dreams. He leaned a hand against the horse’s haunch.

  “Listen here, laddies.”

  Behind her, an old fighter called the green-clad soldiers to him. Coarse gray hair surrounded his craggy face, and one eye leered, white and blind, from within the crevice of its socket. The crest of a golden stag reared against his flowing green tabard.

  “Form up and head back out. Seems we ran into more than we bartered for today. We’ve reason to think that was Faolan Mactalde.”

  A rumble of surprise and dismay passed through the men.

  “If we find him now, we can kill him before he crosses the border into Koraud.” The old soldier barked an exhale. “If we find him now, we can end this hash-up before it even begins.”

  The Searcher turned to him. “Quinnon, you should go with the men.”

  He gnawed at his lip. But he shook his head. “My responsibility is you. Not Mactalde.”

  A blond man dressed in a glaringly blue shirt rode up. “I’ll go.” One of his puffy sleeves was torn from the shoulder down.

  “No.” The Searcher’s word came out too fast.

  “Allara. Don’t be stubborn.” Beneath his mustache, his mouth slanted in half a grin.

  She shook her head once, hard to the side. “No. You’re not dressed for battle. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  “She’s right.” Quinnon gestured to a brawny soldier. “Farth, take everyone but Rill with you. Rill can ride to warn the king, and Lord Eroll can come with us.” He looked at the tattered nobleman. “When we get back to Thyra, you get your retainers together and take an expedition out from there.”

  Lord Eroll shrugged. The half smile was still in place, almost as if he’d forgotten it. His gaze flicked to Chris and lingered. Wondering what kind of blind idiot this new Gifted was?

  At a signal from Farth, all but one of the Guardsmen urged their horses out of the gully. The one called Rill followed a moment later, and his hoofbeats pounded off in the other direction.

  Quinnon shook his head. “They’ll never catch ’em. Those Koraudian horses are fresh compared to ours.”

  Allara rubbed savagely at a crook in her forefinger. “We have to try.”

  The sun had finished setting minutes ago, and twilight had fallen so quickly Chris hadn’t even noticed its arrival. A cold breeze chilled the sweat in his shirt and his hair. He shivered, and, suddenly, from just that tiny movement, exhaustion flooded his body.

  His mind hadn’t shut off for hours. His bodies apparently rested whenever he fell asleep in one world or another. But what about his mind? From now on, was his mental existence just going to go on and on forever?

  He turned back to the Searcher.

  In the falling shadows, her features were half hidden, but she looked creased and dirty. She yanked back her shoulders and turned to him. “Did the Koraudians take you with them, or did you go willingly?”

  “A little of both.”

  “And did you know you were bringing back Mactalde? Did you know who he was?” Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. “Did you know that was the one thing it mattered you not do!”

  “Steady on, Alla.” Eroll stared at his saddle horn, as if embarrassed.

  Chris backed off a step. He needed her to calm down enough to tell him exactly what he’d done in bringing Mactalde back—and what he was supposed to do to fix it. “What do you want from me?”

  She turned away and leaned one hand against her saddle. “It’s too late. You can’t give me what I want. I wanted peace for my country. I wanted a man of honor and courage. What I wanted was a Gifted who wouldn’t cave to Glelarn Rotoss just to save his own skin!”

  “I thought it was all a dream.”

  “Well, it’s not.” She was so angry she was shaking. She stood with her shoulders back, impossibly straight, as if shouting she would break before she would bend. Her movements—the twist of her hand as she pushed back her hair, the tilt of her head, the precision of her fingers against her sword hilt—exuded strength and elegance. One glance was enough to tell him what he needed to know about her. She was beautiful, she was smart, and she was dangerous.

  Eroll cleared his throat. “Not to take sides or anything, but in all fairness, he couldn’t have known all this. He just landed, you know?” His mouth was set in a serious line now, but he offered Chris a wink. “Can’t expect him to see the big picture right off, what?” He dipped his head in a bow to Chris. “I’d be Eroll Leighton, Duke of Thyra. This is my lady’s personal guardian, Captain Crea Quinnon. And this, of course, is the Princess Allara.”

  “The Searcher.” Chris found himself saying it just because he didn’t know what else there was to say.

  She gathered herself up and turned around. “And you are?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know? You invade my dreams, my privacy, every night. You follow my scent like a dog after a criminal. But you don’t know my name?”

  Quinnon raised his head from tightening his girth. “Watch your mouth, bucko. Don’t be growing antlers too big for your head.” His good eye shone ominously; his milky eye twitched.

  Allara stepped forward. “If I invade your dreams, it’s because I have no choice. If I follow your scent, it’s to save your life.”

  He bit his tongue and swallowed back his exhaustion and frustration. She had saved his life, twice—once when she shot the Koraudian in the back and again when Mactalde killed his horse out from under him. If this was a dream, then maybe—but, no, somehow he couldn’t make himself believe that anymore. This was no dream.

  So why not admit she was right about the rest of it as well? Nausea gripped the back of his throat. He had done exactly what she accused him of. He’d taken the cowar
d’s way out. If Mactalde’s return did indeed mean war—or worse—then he was the one to blame. Bile rose, and he swallowed it back.

  Perhaps he’d saved a few Cherazii. Perhaps he’d saved a lot of Cherazii. But what he’d done, he’d done more to save himself. He’d turned his back on what he knew, deep down in his heart, was the right choice. He’d walked away.

  He faced the Searcher. “I’m sorry.”

  For a second, her mask cracked and revealed not just anger, but terror. She looked aside, and when she turned back the mask was firmly in place again. “It’s too late for apologies.”

  “Then what can I do to make it right?”

  Her laugh sounded as if it were backed by tears. “Kill Mactalde.”

  “Kill him? Just like that? I’ve never killed anybody in my life.” Surely, there had to be something else. He looked around. “What if I took him back? What if I used the Orimere to take him back to my world?”

  “It doesn’t work that way. You can be sure you tore the fabric between the worlds by bringing him across once. Who knows what would happen if you tried again.”

  “It’s worth a try though? Better than killing someone.”

  A bitter smile wrenched her mouth. “You should have considered that before you brought a war to our doorstep. Before this is over, Mactalde won’t be the only one to die.”

  And every single death would be on his head. Sweat sprang up on his forehead. He had made this mistake. What else could he do but put it right? No matter what it took.

  A thought struck him. “One of those Rievers back there told me I was a Guardsman. Found a little leather triangle thing in my pouch.”

  Quinnon cocked a glance at him. “Did he now? That might make things considerably easier.”

  Chris turned to face him. “What sort of things?”

  “Things like keeping you alive. Your troubles are far from over, laddie. I doubt the good people of Lael will take it too kindly should they ever hear about this. Even those who haven’t fallen under the sway of Nateros’s radical ideas about the Gifted are liable to take a poke at you if they ever figure out what’s happened here today.”

  Allara licked her lips. When she spoke, she was obviously trying to keep her voice level and calm. “I don’t know what you’ve seen of me in your dreams, but, contrary to what you seem to think, I’ve seen very little of you. Only enough to know you existed. And you were coming. I tried to warn you away.” She turned to her horse and shoved her sword into its sheath on top of the rifle scabbard. “That was the best I could do.”

  “You could have just left me back there. Mactalde would have killed me sooner or later.”

  “It’s not about what I want.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s about duty. You and I both have a duty to this world, and we have no choice but to do it.”

  “All right.” He looked her in the eye. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do, and I will do it. Whatever it takes to make it right. I swear that to you.”

  Something almost seemed to soften in her face. Or maybe it was a trick of the rising moon. Then she shook her head. She didn’t believe him.“What’s your name?”

  “Chris Redston.”

  “Well, Chris Redston, I admit I have less faith in you now than even before. But if you’ll come with me, I will show you how to fight, how to survive, and perhaps even, if the God of all is with us, how to kill Mactalde and wipe this day from the memory of history.”

  “That’s all I ask.” He breathed out.

  His left arm throbbed. The adrenaline had worn off, and he was starting to hurt. He craned his neck to peer at the tear in his T-shirt. A cut about three inches long darkened his skin. It was hard to tell its depth without washing away the gelled blood, but, at the very least, it probably needed a handful of stitches.

  “You’re hurt.” She sounded surprisingly concerned, maybe even a shade panicked. Did they need a Gifted, even one like him, around here that badly?

  “I’ll live.”

  “Let’s see it.” Quinnon stalked over, hooked his fingers into the torn sleeve, and ripped it open. “Just a nick.”

  Eroll dismounted, saddlebags in hand. “Here we are. A little oronborne will get you fixed up right as a rainy day.” He dug into the saddlebags and came out with a brass syringe.

  Quinnon took the syringe and squirted a thick line of glaucous paste into the wound. The paste hit Chris’s raw flesh and burned cold, like the touch of dry ice.

  He jerked away. “Ow! What is that stuff?”

  “Stops the bleeding.” Quinnon grabbed his arm again. “Just shut your gob and try to take it like the Guardsman you say you are.”

  Glaring, he gritted his teeth and submitted himself to the rest of the dose. “Could have warned me.”

  Eroll laughed. “It hurts, but it stops the bleeding almost instantly. When it was created forty or so years ago, it revolutionized battle medicine.”

  Chris tilted his head back toward the rim of the gully and the field beyond. “Maybe we should share it with a few of the Cherazii.”

  “Doesn’t work.” Quinnon wrapped a bandage around the wound. “The wondrous properties of oronborne don’t combine with Cherazii blood in the same way as ours.” He knotted off the bandage and turned back to his mount. “Let’s go. The horses are too done in to make good time tonight, but, if we’re lucky, we can get back to Thyra Junction in six or seven hours.”

  Allara mounted and stopped her horse at Chris’s side. “A word of advice. Until we’re safe within the privacy of the palace at Réon Couteau, keep quiet when we’re among others. It’s best for your own sake if no one knows what you are just yet.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m not what they expect a Gifted to be?” The words tasted acrid.

  Her voice softened until he could hardly hear her. “You’re not what I expected the Gifted to be.”