Path of Honor

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Agony snapped him in its jaws as he thudded against the frozen ground, and then everything went black.

  Ice and fire. Metyein tried to open his eyes, but they were too heavy. Frigid water trickled down his neck, and he shook his head feebly. His legs flared white hot at the movement. Metyein groaned.

  “Well, it’s a change from faking dead, though I don’t think you want to be so loud,” came Soka’s strained whisper. “No, don’t go passing out again.”

  The cold came again and more water trickling. Metyein forced his eyes open and glared at Soka, who was pressing a handful of snow against his cheek. His face was scraped, and his eyepatch had been pushed askew.

  Metyein batted weakly at Soka’s hand. “Stop that.”

  “Ah, so you’re done with your nap? We can move along now? Brilliant tactics, by the way. Cover under a footbridge, and not so far from the horses, unless I’m turned around, which is entirely possible.” Soka tossed aside the snow and helped Metyein sit up. At Metyein’s clipped-off whine, Soka frowned, his eyes traveling down to Metyein’s ugly thigh wound. “Got the arrow out, but the fall stirred it about in your muscle. I’ve tied it off best I can with one wing, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Soka had made a makeshift tourniquet using a strip of cloth from his cloak and a stick, twisting the fabric tight around Metyein’s thigh. Blood continued to seep from the ragged hole. Metyein tore a strip from his own cloak and wrapped it around the wound, sweat beading on his brow, his breath coming in wheezing gasps as he knotted the bandage in place.

  When he was through, he looked around. They had fallen down a hill and onto a frozen stream. The hillside was bare of snow, and the dried grasses showed little evidence of their precipitous passing. Above his head arced a stone footbridge. Soka had managed to drag him along the ice into hiding beneath it. Cold seeped through his cloak. His head swam, and he eyed Soka blearily. “The horses?”

  “Downstream and over a hill. The bushes on the banks give fair cover. We might make it.”

  “Care to lay odds on who they are?”

  Soka shook his head. “Too many possibilities to count, what with our fathers’ politics and your duels. Of course Kaselm or Nedek could have been the primary targets and we’re just the sweeping up.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “No, but can we discuss it later when we’ve stopped bleeding?”

  Metyein’s smile was little more than a grimace, but he levered himself up, clutching the span of the footbridge until the shadows clouding his vision receded. This time Soka aided him to walk, grasping him around the waist. Metyein’s hand brushed Soka’s empty scabbard. “Where’s your sword?”

  “On top of the hill.”

  “Silly place to leave it.” Metyein swung about as if to fetch it. His leg buckled, and the two men hugged one another for balance on the ice.

  “I’ll get it later,” Soka gritted. “Hostage compact says I shouldn’t have one anyway, and besides, don’t know what I’d do with it just at the moment.”

  “Let’s hope we get to the horses before they do, then.”

  “Hag willing.”

  They shuffled along the ice, making little sound. They heard the calls of the searching men and the crackle of their passing. The sounds of the attackers seemed to come from every direction; there was no way to tell where they might be.

  Finally Soka turned up the bank and up over a low hill. There were a few scattered trees and bushes on the slope, but mostly they were exposed as they staggered upward. Metyein couldn’t find his equilibrium. He would have fallen more than once without Soka to hold him steady. As they crested the hill, shouts erupted behind them, and two arrows whizzed by in quick succession. A third buried itself in Metyein’s gut beneath his ribs as he swung to the side. He grunted and jerked back against Soka, whose footing gave way. Once again they tumbled forward down the hill, pain netting Metyein in an unceasing, fiery tangle.

  Blessedly, he kept his wits this time.

  A burly groom wearing the navy and yellow colors of the House of Vare ran to Metyein and helped him up. “Milord! What has happened? Oh, my Lady,” he said as his hand came away sticky with blood.

  “Help Kaj Raakin. Get him on his horse. Quickly. Where’s Pelodra?”

  “Here, sir,” the other groom answered, leading Soka’s and Metyein’s mounts from the trees.

  “Go with Kaj Raakin. See that he gets to safety,” Metyein ordered in a pinched voice.

  “But sir, your father commanded me to stay with you always.” The stocky groom scowled and slapped the hilt of his sword. He wasn’t so much a groom as a bodyguard. Which was why Metyein wanted him with Soka.

  “Go. He’s unarmed. I want him protected. Stop arguing and . . . go!” he said, hissing as Urviik, the other groom, bound the wound in his stomach, leaving the arrow in place. Without looking at it, Metyein knew that the arrow had bit deep.

  Pelodra hesitated. Shouts from the other side of the hill spurred him to action. He spun to hoist Soka into the saddle. Soka clutched the pommel, listing sideways, his face ashen beneath the crimson slash of his eye patch. Pelodra helped Urviik shove Metyein into his saddle, grappling him, as he would have tumbled over the other side.

  “Ride with him,” Pelodra said to Urviik. “He’s going to pass out.”

  Urviik nodded and swung up behind Metyein. Metyein moaned when the groom brushed the arrow.

  “Get him to the residence as fast as you can,” Pelodra ordered, then slapped the blue-roan gelding on the haunches. The gelding lunged into the trees with a startled neigh. Urviik guided him onto a winding footpath. The bare tree branches whipped across Metyein’s face, raising welts and opening cuts.

  “Almost to the gate, sir,” Urviik said against his ear. The groom guided them onto the South Walk between the orchestra pavilion and the west supper boxes. The gelding’s hooves hit the cobbles with sharp, staccato sounds that echoed in the frigid air.

  The gate loomed before them, a square opening at the center of the palazzo’s first floor. The blocky structure housed an extensive conservatory, elaborate ballrooms, cavernous banquet rooms, museum galleries, guest accomodations, kitchens, and servants’ quarters. Its windows glittered in the frosty light, and the gates hung open as they had when Metyein and Soka had arrived, their locks picked daily by thieves.

  Urviik urged the gelding through the square opening without slowing. Metyein felt the impacts of the arrows as they shuddered through Urviik. One. Two. Three. Four in all.

  Urviik exhaled wetly against his ear, gurgled, and then canted sideways. The horse neighed shrilly and crow-hopped. Metyein clung to the pommel as Urviik’s weight pulled like an anchor. Then the groom’s body thudded to the ground, and the horse bolted. Metyein doubled over, clinging desperately to the saddle. The panicked gelding turned and turned again, clattering down a long, winding avenue seaming between blocky warehouses and tall, cramped houses.

  A jump, a jolting landing, another turn.

  The animal skidded on the cobbles and fell heavily, sliding on his haunches into a midden cart. Metyein tumbled out of the saddle, instinctively rolling away from the animal’s deadly hooves.

  Chapter 9

  Tillen led Reisil between tents piled together like mounds of dirty rags and decrepit shacks that sighed and swayed with the wind. The soft ground squelched and sucked at her boots, and there was a stink of decay and human waste. It was barely past noon, but the temperature was already dropping. Wind whistled around the wall towers with a forlorn sound.

  Cookfires guttered and steamed from damp wood. Children huddled close by, feet tucked beneath them to keep warm, faces ruddy. Nearby a toddler whimpered, bending and clutching his stomach. Reisil halted, seeing at once that he was very ill. She went to kneel beside the boy, Tillen trailing after.

  “Hello,” Reisil said. The boy flinched and scuttled backwards, tripping and falling hard on his bottom. Reisil made no move to follow, but pushed her hood back and gave a reassuring smile
. “I’m a tark,” she said. “Does your stomach hurt?”

  He nodded and peered over her shoulder. Reisil followed his gaze and saw a gaunt young woman glance up from where she was sewing a few tents away.

  She leaped to her feet and hurried toward them. “Who are you? What do you want?” she demanded in a shrill voice as she snatched up her son and hugged him to her chest. He whimpered. “We don’t have anything. They already took it all. So go on. Go!”

  Now Reisil noticed that indeed the unlucky little family had not even a tent. Only a few soiled blankets, a pot and a bucket and a sackful of odds and ends.

  “Where’s your husband?” Tillen asked. “The rest of your family?”

  The woman’s lips pinched together, and she straightened, staring down her nose at her two visitors.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Reisil stood. “Your son is ailing. I’m a tark. I’d like to help.”

  The woman hesitated, and her arms clutched tighter around her son, her eyes fastening on the ivy adorning Reisil’s left cheek. The boy moaned and struggled against the pain of her grasp. The look she gave Reisil was full of fear tinged with skeptical hope.

  “Stomach’s been bothering him for days,” she yielded, her voice tight. Then it turned hard, defensive. “He’s hungry is all. We been hungry since—” She broke off and pressed her cheek to her son’s head.

  “Can I have a look at him?” Reisil asked gently.

  The mother hesitated again and then nodded. She sat on the ground, holding her son in her lap. He watched Reisil fearfully as she knelt and looked him over. He was gaunt from lack of food, and his skin and eyes were tinted yellow. Jaundice, she thought, and for a moment her muscles seized in fear. Jaundice was an early sign of the plague. But no. He had no rash, no bleeding in his mouth. The jaundice came from hunger and his resulting inability to rid himself of his body’s poisons. Relief made Reisil giddy for a moment. The plague would come to Koduteel, but not yet. Please the Lady, not yet.

  She focused back on the boy, setting her hands against his stomach, pressing here and there. His belly was soft and gave beneath her fingers. As she moved lower, he whimpered again and squirmed, tears rolling down his cheeks. He pulled away and pressed his cheek against his mother’s shoulder. Her arms curled around him as she glared at Reisil over the top of his head.

  Reisil sat back on her heels. The boy’s face was flushed beneath the grime. He had a fever and stomach pain, and he was yellow. She chewed the inside of her lower lip. Something inside him had gone wrong. Maybe the liver. Maybe the kidneys. Elutark had taught her how to cut into a body and remove infections and diseased flesh, but doing so was tricky in the best of conditions. Here . . . Reisil blew out a tight breath. She couldn’t just leave the boy to die, and she knew he would, slowly and painfully. Which left only her last resort. She would have to try her power, and that might kill him anyway. She licked her lips, drawing a whistling breath between them.

  “I need to hold him.” Reisil held out her hands. The woman darted a fearful look at Tillen, who nodded reassuringly; then she whispered in the boy’s ear, kissed his forehead and passed him to Reisil.

  Reisil sat cross-legged on the ground and nestled the boy between her legs. He stared at her, wide eyes like polished wood. He scrubbed a fist at his tears and clenched his hands together, holding himself away from Reisil.

  She smiled. “This won’t hurt,” she said. She hoped.

  She put her hands around him, touching her fingertips lightly to his back. She thought of the drifting ash that had been the assassins and bit the insides of her cheeks, tasting blood.

  Closing her eyes, Reisil felt tentatively for her power. For so long it had been elusive, like a constantly shifting stream, like cockroaches scuttling from the light. Now, since she’d obliterated the assassins, it coursed through her like a fast, deep river.

  Too fast, too deep.

  Would the magic take her again? Would it make her want to stop the boy’s heart? Feel his life drain through her fingers?

  Reisil’s fingernails cut half-moons into her palms. The boy was dying. He was going to die whether she tried and failed or whether she did nothing. “Lady guide me,” she murmured. But the words were hollow. The Lady was gone.

  The boy remained rigid and unmoving. Taking a steadying breath, she reached for her power. It leaped up, gushing through her on a wave of heat and light. She heard Tillen and the boy’s mother gasp, and Reisil knew that the ivy pattern on her face had begun to glow as it always did when she used magic. Power coiled around her hands, ready. But now that it had come so willingly to her hand, what to do?

  The memories of Veneston haunted her: so many bodies, and nothing she could do.

  But this wasn’t Veneston. And it wasn’t the plague. In Patverseme she’d given an armless man a new arm. In Kallas she’d healed bones, sprains and disease. She could heal this boy. She could.

  She held her breath, concentrating, imagining a slow river current. Her magic responded, flowing readily down through her fingers, filling the boy with gentle heat, like sunlight and stars. With a fleeting smile, Reisil followed it, letting her consciousness flow through his body, seeking the damage that was killing him.

  With nearly thoughtless ease she repaired scrapes and bruises as she searched. Under her ministrations, she felt the boy relax and lean into her. She sought her goal from the outside in, moving from his hands and arms to his legs and then into his torso. Finally she came to it. Deep inside him festered a place of feverish heat, of swelling and throbbing. Reisil’s nose wrinkled. She could almost smell the stink of infection.

  She hesitated a bare moment, then thrust herself forward. Working in a spiral, she mended the lesser-damaged outer tissues first, moving slowly inward over the pulpy flesh. Beneath her touch, it grew whole and pink. At first, the sickness resisted her, like thickly thatched weeds in a neglected garden. But her touch was insistent. She prodded open clogged bloodpaths, eliminated infection, and dammed seeping blood. As she proceeded, she felt the boy squirm.

  “Easy now, not much longer.”

  She pushed harder. The boy made a keening sound and jerked in her hands. Reisil closed her arms, maintaining the channel between them.

  “Almost there,” she chanted. “Almost there.”

  The core of the disease was soft and dense, like a peat bog. It squashed aside when she pushed on it, then restored itself. Reisil knew instantly that it could not be repaired. But it could be contained. Gripping the boy firmly, she reached out and grasped the seed of the disease in a magical fist. The boy shrieked and spasmed. Reisil held tight. She cocooned the last remnants of the disease inside a hard shell of magic, isolating the corrosion so that it would not contaminate his body again.

  When she was through, she tried to withdraw slowly, not wanting to shock the boy’s system. But her magic bucked beneath her restraint. Panic shrilled along Reisil’s nerves. She yanked back. The power resisted and then gave way, snapping back inside her with scalding force. As it did, the boy moaned and went limp, his tunic damp with sweat. Reisil clutched him, feeling for life as she fought to bring her magic to heel.

  It burned through her, fierce and white. It wormed through her muscles like lava and lifted her hair with crackling sparks. The pain of it was excruciating; the pleasure of it shook her to the roots of her soul. She wanted—oh, how she wanted—to loose it, to feel it rushing from her, to feel it incinerate and annihilate.

  For an exquisite moment, Reisil let herself relax into the shuddering pleasure and pain. Her hands began to uncurl as she succumbed to that primitive want.

  Then she caught herself, reining back with a panicked gasp. The confounded magic sizzled through her. She could do little more than bear it as it circled wildly, searching every avenue against escape. Her muscles knotted and her body heated until the sweat drenching her skin dried.

  At last the power settled reluctantly back into its former channels. But now it ran higher, faster, like a fl
ood-lattice of melt-swollen rivers. In the calm, as she realized what had happened. Reisil’s joy rang through her like silver bells—she’d summoned her power and used it to heal!

  But the boy still lay slack, his head dangling heavily over her forearm, mouth gaping. A chill drove to the marrow of her bones. Had she killed him after all?

  Then the boy quivered and struggled feebly. She loosened her arms. His face was flushed, but the fever was gone. His eyes were no longer dull, though his lids hung heavy with exhaustion.

  Reisil raised her head, grinning wearily at the mother. But surprise froze her tongue and her smile faded as she encountered the wheel of expressionless faces ringing her. The gathered denizens of the Fringes stared down at her. Their silence seemed condemning.

  The woman inched forward, eyes flicking from Reisil to her son, lips trembling. She clasped her arms around her stomach, grasping her elbows with red rough hands, as if to prevent them from snatching her son away.

  “Is he—? Fretiin? Come to mama, sweetling.”

  She reached out, and the boy struggled up. He stumbled to his mother and wrapped his legs around her waist as she lifted him up, pressing his head against her shoulder.

  “Hungry, Mama.”

  The mother gave a choked laugh and stroked his back. “I’ll find something. Do you hurt? Do you want to rest?”

  He shook his head against her shoulder and hugged her tighter. “Fretiin wants carried, Mama. Hungry.”

  Tears rolled down the woman’s face. She looked down at Reisil.

  “He’ll be fine,” Reisil said.

  “Praise the Lady,” she sobbed, and clutched her son tighter.

  “Praise the Lady,” Reisil echoed. She’d done it! Her power didn’t just come to kill. Was this it? The turning point? Had she broken through the barriers that kept her from healing? She had to try again. Her mind lit on Nitsun and Liisek. They were still waiting for her.

  Stiff from sitting so long on the cold, damp ground, she struggled to stand. A half dozen hands reached out to help her. The faces surrounding her continued to remain mask-like, but now one man stood resolutely forward. “My girl’s ailing too. Both of ’em.” There were nods around the circle, and beyond Reisil saw other people beginning to drift closer as news spread and hope took root.