“Forgive me,” Féolan muttered. “It was not my place to speak so.” But the tall, ancient Elf who had spoken rose to his feet.
“You speak true,” he said. “And I speak from my own loss rather than from the wisdom that befits one of my years. Many of my people died in the last war. But that is, in the end, a poor reason to stand aside so others may die as well.”
Féolan, who had never known the untimely death of kin or friend, was humbled by this Elf’s honesty. But before anyone could speak a messenger was admitted.
“I apologize for interrupting the Council’s business,” he began. “But an envoy has arrived from the Verdeau army, and I thought his news might have bearing on your deliberations. It is addressed to Féolan of Stonewater.”
Heart pounding, Féolan took the crumpled scrap of parchment. His eyes flew to the signature at the bottom of the brief note. At Tilumar’s prompting, he forced himself to raise his voice and read aloud:
Féolan,
We face battle at the Skyway Pass. Desperately out-numbered. If there is help to be had from your people, I beg it now. If not, yet do I send my love.
Gabrielle.
Desperate now to be on his way, Féolan crossed swiftly to Tilumar and sank to his knees. Ignoring the mild shock in the room, he spoke quietly to his Elder, without pride or defiance. “Tilumar. I have told you how this woman saved Danaïs from the brink of death and how her family welcomed us as royal guests. That alone puts on me at least a bond of obligation. I have not told how Gabrielle and I came to love one another. I am bound to aid her if I can.”
Tilumar studied him. “Well, Féolan,” he said, “you astonish me. Yet ever you have followed your own path. Ride to battle if you must, with my blessing.”
But Féolan was not finished. “I will ride alone, if needs be. But little will one warrior avail anything. Tilumar, I know there is no time for a concerted effort. Probably anything we send will be too late. But since there is at least some agreement in the room that this war concerns the Elves as well, I beg leave to take a force from Stonewater now, in hope the defense may yet be bolstered.”
Tilumar frowned. “Stonewater is close to the invasion’s path. Our own home must remain strongly defended.” Féolan kept silence as Tilumar thought. “You may take ten units. It is not enough to turn the tide of battle. Aim for a strategic target, as we discussed. I do not want our people engaging in direct warfare until the Council has made its decision.”
Ten dozen men. Springing to his feet, Féolan thanked Tilumar and, hand on breast, bowed to the Council. As he headed for the door, Tilumar stopped him.
“Féolan. You are not to waste Elvish lives in futile heroics. Not even for your Lady.”
“I understand, my Lord.”
CHAPTER 19
THE armies met in the first clash of battle, and once again General Col was surprised by the turn of events. As he drove his conscripts down to meet the enemy, a number of them bolted into the woodlands bordering the battlefield. Enemy troops made no attempt to pursue them, and soon conscripts at each edge of his formation were streaming into the woods. Col lost a couple of hundred before he sent his own soldiers hurrying down to cut them off. Later, in the midst of heated fighting—and few though they were, he had to acknowledge that he faced trained, tough-minded men—empty corridors would mysteriously appear in the defense, allowing the conscripts to penetrate unhindered deep into enemy lines. But the untrained and unmotivated conscripts did not take advantage of their position. They simply pushed right through and ran away. In this way at least five hundred conscripts were wasted.
The second surprise involved the archers, who were hidden in the very woods into which the conscripts had escaped. They held their fire through the first advance, saving their arrows for the trained soldiers who came in the second wave. Even the elite, heavily armored soldiers, if they were close to the archers’ ranks, were often pierced by the heavy shafts, which were deadly to the less protected soldiers throughout the field. When Col tried to charge these archers, they melted back into the woods faster than his men, in their heavy suits, could follow.
As the afternoon wore on, hand-to-hand fighting raged over the field. Col’s regular army was fully engaged now, and while the enemy was showing fatigue from dealing with the first wave of conscripts, his own men were unsettled by the rain of arrows through which they had been forced to advance. Then too the Basin men’s style of fighting was so very different from their own that it was difficult to tell who had the advantage. Col’s men were far better protected (though many of the enemy did wear light chain mail), but they could not match the speed and agility of their foes. So while the enemy was hard-pressed to injure the Greffaires, so were the Greffaires, especially once they became tired themselves, hard-pressed to strike the Basin soldiers.
Dark came early and with it a violent storm that turned the battlefield into a black chaos. The horns to retreat sounded almost simultaneously from the two sides, and both armies made camp, to take some uneasy rest and await the dawn.
Col ate his cold supper stonily. This day had displeased him. On the morrow his force of numbers must prevail, but there had been too many losses. Too many surprises. These men of the Basin—they had known of his coming. Would such armies await him all the way to the sea? He sighed, and then, tired though he was, rose to tally losses and review the next day’s plans with his regiment commanders. His only son, Derkh, was in Fourth Regiment, and Col’s last act of the night was to check that he was unharmed. Finally, the feared commander returned to his tent, stripped off his wet clothes and slept.
GABRIELLE DID NOT sleep; nor did her bonemenders, save in short, exhausted snatches. All that long afternoon the dying and wounded had filled the clinic tents; then as the fighting stopped and rescue efforts began in earnest, the river of patients became a flood. The bonemenders worked at fever pitch as the air filled with the groans and cries of injured men, all now soaked and chilled from the flash storm. Gabrielle could use her healing power only for the most desperate of cases; while she bent in her trance over one man, three more might die waiting. As for her precious mandragora mixture, it was used mostly to ease the pain of those doomed to die and for surgery; its safe use required such careful monitoring that they simply couldn’t spare the time.
Tristan’s sudden appearance was the only bright spot in that terrible night. He was muddy, visibly tired and nearly as bloodstained as Gabrielle herself, but his irrepressible spirits seemed untouched. She had never been so relieved to see anyone.
“Did you see any of the battle, Gabi?” he asked.
“No, Tristan.” Gabrielle tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. “I wasn’t able to get away.”
“I didn’t mean it would be fun to watch,” he protested. “I just meant that you would have been so proud of our men. It’s one thing to practice fighting, you know, and another when it’s the real thing. Our men proved their worth today.”
“I hear your men would face the Dark One himself for you, Tris,” said Gabrielle.
“Well,” he said modestly. “It wasn’t just us. But we did devise a way to get past those tin suits. You have to do it with two men. One engages the enemy head-on and keeps him busy, while the other circles around and darts in, slicing at the straps and stabbing through the little joint-openings. A whole bunch of other units picked up that little trick from us.”
A horn sounded, two long notes and two short. “I have to go,” said Tristan. “Be careful tomorrow, Gabi. There’s talk of a retreat. Be ready to get out of here fast.”
Late that night word came that the injured were to be moved out. Despite the brave day’s battle, Fortin knew that the Greffaire force was too large to be defeated without help. Unless reinforcements arrived, he would call a retreat on the morrow. All who could walk or be moved on a cart were to head south now toward Gaudette, accompanied by some of the bonemenders. With any luck, they would get far enough away to avoid a Greffaire pursuit.
Wearily, Gabrielle assigned f
ive bonemenders to make the journey and helped move the patients to the crude carts. The trip would be exhausting and painful for all of them but preferable no doubt to being overrun by the enemy. She wondered grimly how many would die on the road.
“Why don’t you go along with them, Lady Gabrielle?” It was Manon, a bonemender from Ratigouche. “You’ve done so much already, and you might keep some of these poor souls alive.”
How she would love to. She had seen enough suffering and death this day to last her a lifetime: she could barely force herself to return to the clinic tent with its thick stench of blood and fear and pain.
But she had to. Whatever she had come here for, it hadn’t happened yet.
THE HORNS SOUNDED at dawn, and by mid-morning General Fortin had made his decision. The tide was turning against them. The men were becoming exhausted and exhaustion benefited the armored Greffaires. It was time for a retreat. Somewhere to the south, they would join up with the Maronnais army and find a new place to make a stand.
Cook tents and supply wagons had been sent down the road early that morning. Now horns all over the field sent the troops after them—all but a mounted rear guard who would try to hold the Greffaires at bay while the bulk of the army made as much distance as possible.
It was an orderly process, as retreats go, but to the bonemenders it looked like utter confusion, with men streaming by from all directions. A commander pounded by on horseback. “Get going!” he shouted at them. “It’s a retreat! Grab your gear and get out of here!”
Shaken out of her bemusement, Gabrielle shoved precious medical supplies into packs. She shouted at the bonemenders to get the bigger crates and the remaining patients into the last carts lumbering by. One young man was dying, but she could not bring herself to leave him behind. She and the bonemenders grabbed their cloaks and hurried toward the road.
Swept into the anxious mass of men fleeing south, Gabrielle stiffened. Panic froze her features. She turned and began struggling back against the relentless tide of men. She had to get to the battlefield. She had to. Someone she loved was hurt.
CHAPTER 20
ALL her fear had been for Tristan, but it was her father she found. He lay on the ground behind a knot of Verdeau soldiers. Though they fought ferociously to protect their king, they fought with little hope. As the rear guard fell back, too beset even to notice that Jerome had fallen, the king’s guard was stranded on the field. Soon they would be overrun.
Ignoring the roar of battle and the litter of corpses around her, Gabrielle dodged through the screen of soldiers, dropped to her knees and cradled Jerome in her lap. She could not, at first, see where he was injured. The ground was stained red about him, and his breath came in rasping gasps. She laid her hand along his neck. At her touch, his eyelids fluttered open.
“My Gabrielle,” he whispered. “Do I dream?”
“Shhhh,” she soothed, stroking his brow. She could not have managed words, so close were her tears.
“You must go,” Jerome said, each word a painful effort. “Go.”
Gabrielle rested her hand on Jerome’s forehead, closed her eyes and sank into him. As her vision shifted, she could find nothing at first. Heart, lungs, limbs—all were fine. Wait. Something funny about his legs. What was it? They seemed ... whole, but dead. No, that made no sense. She continued on ... and then she saw it, and her heart sank. Jerome had been struck in the back—by a battle-ax, she guessed. The powerful blow had all but severed his spine.
Despair welled up in her. Gabrielle saw all too clearly her father’s fate if he were taken off the field now. The move would be almost bound to kill him. If by some chance he lived, it would be to face paralysis, organ failure, an early wasting death. It was unthinkable. Now, before the fragile nerves of the spinal cord began to deteriorate, she must reattach them. She could do it. Was it not for this she had been sent here? She would do it, and if any of his men still lived, they would carry him to safety.
Never had her concentration been so fierce. The fury around her vanished; her own body vanished; even Jerome himself was only vaguely in her consciousness. Nothing existed for her but the intricate repair of the delicate hair-thin shafts, the healing light that shone through and over the tissues, the power pulsing through her hands. An hour crawled by, and miraculously the king’s guard held, and she worked undisturbed. The repairs were fragile yet, but they were true—she could feel the energy pulsing through the newly joined fibers. If she could just finish all the initial joins and then firm up the cracked spine, she would risk moving him.
She did not hear the final call to retreat. The soldiers did, but by then their avenue of escape had long been cut off. One of Jerome’s men shook her shoulder and yelled for her to make haste and run. Gabrielle’s eyes snapped open, blazing with such fire that he flinched from their heat. “I cannot leave him!” she snarled, shaking off the soldier’s hand, and sank back into her work. So motionless was Gabrielle, so deeply bent over her father’s body, that while one by one the king’s guards were slaughtered, the swarming Greffaire soldiers took no more notice of her than of the corpses under their feet.
One noticed Jerome, though. Having joined in the pursuit of the retreating rear guard, and then been recalled by the horns cutting short the chase, a Greffaire soldier trudged across the field with his company. He was more than glad to disengage; his armor was damnably hot and his arse ached from a horse kick. He swung his sword as he walked, looking forward to a long drink and a well-heaped plate. A shock of reddish hair and a gleam of white throat caught his eye. As casually as a boy kicking a stone, he swung the sword high and brought it down through the exposed neck. Stepping over the head that rolled at his feet, he continued his stolid walk.
CHAPTER 21
GABRIELLE’S body went rigid. Where was he? She groped with her mind. Where was he? Jerome had been present with her, his spine healing under her hand, his heart beating in concert with her own, and then there was just ... silence.
Gabrielle jerked out of her trance with a violence that left her gasping and dazed. She felt pain and saw with dull indifference that her own thigh was bleeding from a shallow slice just above the knee. The terrible body in her arms was beyond her; her mind simply refused to see it. First came a growing sense of dread so dark she felt it would smother her. She ground her teeth and whimpered from the effort not to know. That head, that gray face and staring eye, that was not, could not be, her father.
Then her eye caught a glint of copper—an earring, small and wide, chased with engraving, and she could pretend no longer. The memory rose within her, tearing at her heart: her father young and brawny, opening Solange’s birthday gift and protesting, “But I don’t have a pierced ear!”
“I have always thought you would look very handsome with one,” Solange had replied, and they had laughed and kissed, while little Tristan tried to climb up their legs. Now Jerome was beyond the skill of any healer from earth or sky. He was dead.
A terrible groan clawed its way out of her. You didn’t save him, a cold voice accused. She could not answer it. She could only hold on to what was left of him and cry out in anguish for the man who had made her his daughter.
GABRIELLE BARELY FELT the hard grip of the soldier who hauled her off her father’s body and set her on her feet, though he left a set of deep bruises in the flesh of her arm. Dazed with grief, she peered at the man through swollen eyelids. Only slowly did she understand her situation: she was an unprotected woman on an enemy field. She was booty. With a jolt of fear, Gabrielle looked more closely at the ring of men surrounding her. Her fate was as clear as the wolfish hunger on their faces. There was nowhere to run.
Better to have fallen under a sword than this. They were tight around her now, more falling in behind and jostling those in front. She heard a voice raised in blustery threat—the man who first found her. Defending his claim, she thought bitterly.
Gabrielle was shoved hard from behind and stumbled forward into the soldiers. Hands grabbed and pulled a
t her, then she was pushed again. Someone tripped her as she staggered off balance, and she fell to a burst of rough laughter. It was a sound so predatory it turned her belly to ice. Her mouth filled with the taste of brass. The taste of fear.
A harsh shout and the crack of a whip rang through the air. Gabrielle flinched, but the whip was not for her. A soldier on horseback harangued the men angrily. Gabrielle thought she caught the word “commander,” but in her terror she understood little else of the thick dialect. Muttering sullenly, the soldiers backed away. Tossing his horse’s reins to a nearby soldier, the officer dismounted, dragged Gabrielle up by the arm and strode across the field.
Gabrielle struggled to keep up. She knew only one thing: It was better to be at the mercy of one man than ten. They stopped at last before a tent with a posted guard. Gabrielle guessed she was to be presented to the commander.
He was powerfully built, nearly bald, forceful in his manner. He did not seem pleased at the interruption.
“What do I want with this?” he snapped. “Do you suppose I am in the mood for a woman now?”
It took all Gabrielle’s concentration to follow their conversation, but the language was similar enough to her own to catch the meaning.
“I’m sorry, Commander Col,” her rescuer said. “I thought it best to enforce the rule, nevertheless.”
There was a silence. “You’re right,” Col replied. He ran a hand over his smooth head. “Leave her here.” His eyes swept her up and down. She forced herself to stand straight, defiant. “She’s a bloody mess. Can’t even tell if she’s worth the bother.”
Col dismissed the soldier and pointed to the far corner of the tent. “Sit down there. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir. I understand some,” said Gabrielle, hating the quaver in her voice. She slumped to the ground.
“Tired?” Col said, his manner indifferent. “It’s a tiring business.” He lowered himself onto a low stool, crossed his arms and studied her more closely. “You look like you’ve been swimming in blood,” he said. “Take those dirty clothes off; it would be a big improvement.”
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